Dice, Camera, Action: Episode 2 - Curse of Strahd

Episode 2: Dance Card

You can watch this episode right here on youtube.

Check out the Dice Roll Analysis here. Nate rolled the first critical hit in combat in the entire campaign?!

Welcome to the recap of Episode 2 of Dice, Camera, Action! I'm going to give you a summary of what happened, provide timestamps for what I think are the most interesting parts, and then I'll give my general thoughts.

A Valuable DM Aid: I think that the best thing about this stream is the fact that when I watch it, I feel like I can run it for my group. I could definitely run the opening of this adventure without reading the book.

I think any DM who has the time can watch this and learn not only what happens in the adventure, but they also get to see how Chris presents it. The stuff with the mists and the wolves in particular is going to help me out when I run this.

Last Time: The heroes entered Ravenloft and went to a tavern. They learned that a vampire named Strahd is terrorizing the local populace. They just went to the home of Ireena, who has two puncture marks on her neck...

The Party

The Waffle Crew (aka Waffleloft)

(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer 
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard

New Look

Our viewing screen has been reconfigured. The background changes from one Curse of Strahd image to another. The NPC art shifts throughout the session and someone is writing jokes on them, which I get a kick out of. Looks like they accidentally tagged Paultin with Diath's name and class.

The Church

Ireena

We learn that Strahd has visited Ireena twice in the night. She is not a full vampire, but she's on her way.

Her father is in a coffin, surrounded by wilting flowers. He "died from fright." He needs to be buried in a consecrated area.

The heroes agree to take the coffin to the church and bury him. Ismark, Ireena's brother, warns the group that they avoid the church because they hear a lot of screams coming from it. The church is run by a priest named Donavich. Ireena puts on armor, grabs a sword and picks up the coffin.

The group carries the coffin to the church. Along the way, Paultin jumps on the coffin and plays a tune. This music attracts wolves in the mist. The mist begins to swirl around the heroes.

The doors to the church have claw marks on them and have been scarred by fire. Evelyn bravely enters.

Never Speak the Name of EssPants

Donavich the Priest

A young man under the floorboards of the church yells out, "Father! I'm starving!" It's Doru, Donavich's son. The priest is behind the altar, praying/weeping. Strix gives him a snack - a cracker possibly dotted with pocket lint.

Donavich explains that "the devil" turned his son into a monster. He tells the heroes not to say Strahd's name out loud. Strix refers to him as Mr. S-Pants or "The" S-Pants. It turns out that Strahd turned his son into a vampire. The priest can't bring himself to kill his son.

The group steels themselves and heads down into the basement. Doru is indeed a vampire spawn. Interestingly, Evelyn immediately moves to smite him. She is a paladin, after all.

Battle Against a Vampire Spawn

Doru, the vampire spawn

We get our first attack roll of the campaign. Evelyn charges the vampire spawn and rolls an 11 (+6 to hit, so 17 total). With divine smite she does a total of 26 points!

For the majority of this battle, Jared rolls extremely poorly. He keeps throwing his dagger, missing, picking it up and throwing it again. The DM's dice were on fire. He made almost every save, nullifying most of the spell attempts.

The vampire spawn tries to run up the stairs and out of the building to escape the onslaught. Paultin casts discordant whispers. Evelyn rolls a natural 1 and misses. Strix hits it with a ray of frost, slowing it down.

The spawn tears into Evelyn (critical hit, doing 13 damage!). She is bloodied from a single swipe.

Up the Stairs: Covered in ice, the vampire spawn tries to run up the stairs. Diath rolls, picks up his dagger and throws it in "one badass motion." The poor guy misses again.

Evelyn comes over and hits the vampire spawn with ensnaring strike. The vampire is wrapped in massive, thorny vines that strain to keep him in place, but the vampire spawn makes his save and plows through them.

Strix cast chromatic orb and injures it. The vampire spawn ascends the stairs. Paultin slices it, but his weapon does not affect it. Evelyn hacks into it with Lightfall.

Strix is dismayed to see that the vampire spawn's wounds are healing due to regeneration.

Jared rolls so poorly that he is sucked into a dark realm where shame reigns for all eternity:

Out of the Church: The spawn is upstairs and ends up impaled on Ireena's blade. With the blade still stuck in it, the spawn runs out of the church. Paultin hits him with more dissonant whispers. Diath chucks a flaming flask of oil at it, which hits and also dispels his shame cloud. 

Strix teleports using Misty Step and chases the vampire spawn, who is still on fire. A wolf bites her leg to try to trip her up. Paultin hits it with whispers and then Diath runs up and hacks into the wolf, rolling the first natural 20 in combat of the campaign. He kills it in one shot.

Into the Mists: The vampire gets away, with Ireena's sword still stuck in him.

The Burial

The group gets to burying the dead dad. Then they look around and see they are surrounded by about 24 wolves. The pack of beasts stares at the group with evil eyes.... and that's where we end.

Next Week: Chris is not sure how the heroes will get out of this one. He wants the players to come back next week with an iron clad plan.

Timestamps

• (9:51) Evelyn maybe, sort of has the ability to consecrate?
• (41:48) He's chained up, right?
• (49:43) The heroes approach Doru, the vampire spawn in the basement.
• (1:22:26) Diath throws flaming oil.
• (1:30:40) The group figures out exactly what the dissonant whispers are whispering to the wolf.

Thoughts

Anna's giant d20

Enhancements: I love the new screen and all the funny stuff they did with it. The changing images and the jokes gave the game an extra layer of fun.

Pets in D&D: It's funny, it seems to always happen. Pets always get forgotten in D&D. We see neither hide nor hair of Juniper or Stinky. I know it's only been one session, but it's almost like a tradition. I can't tell you how many times I was running a game and the group suddenly realizes that they have a goat with them.

Anna is Great: Anna is pleasant, she is a natural leader, and she roleplays her character extremely well. In fact, as far as roleplaying goes, I personally think she is right up there with the best players I've ever seen. It felt like she really carried the group to an extent this week. She doesn't seem to know her stats very well, but we got a glimpse of her Player's Handbook and it had a whole bunch of tabs in it. That means she probably takes time to do character work between sessions and will likely be up to speed on her paladin stuff shortly.

Dice Rolls: I can't think of anything that could be done about this, but it's too bad there isn't some way for us to see everyone's die rolls. I suppose they could put some kind of dice roller on the screen, but I prefer real dice to computer stuff.

Subdued: The Crew was noticeably more subdued this week. I'm not sure why that is, but it definitely felt different this time around. We got to know Jared a little better. He seemed to come alive during the combat. In general, he seems very level-headed and could be the guy who will keep the plot moving forward when necessary.

All in all, it was a decent session. The group did not get to the tarokka reading, which is a bummer. It will be very interesting to see how the cliffhanger is resolved.

Click here to proceed to the summary of episode 3. 

Nemesis - Shrine of Shaktari

We just finished Nemesis and it was a very good session. I changed a few things in the adventure. I junked a lot of the rooms in the yuan-ti dungeon because they felt unnecessary. I de-powered the marilith slightly, as I was worried she was too deadly. It turns out I probably should have left her alone.

I purposely had Raja Khan the rakshasa run away because.. well, I just don't like rakshasas. I don't know why, but they just don't appeal to me. I guess they feel too much like a Disney movie villain.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard
* NPCs - Fall From Grace (Succubus Paladin), Turia (Tiefling Fighter)

The Bloodsea

Shaktari, Queen of Mariliths

The heroes had come to the Abyss in search of four magic swords that had been stolen from people in the city of Sigil. They were sailing the River Styx to Kaliva's Island, one of many islands in the Bloodsea. The Bloodsea is ruled by Shaktari, Queen of the Mariliths. Each individual island has a marilith ruler of its own.

The heroes disembarked and headed onto the beach. To get to the jungle, they would have to climb up a slope.

Eyewing

As they did so, four eyewings swooped down and cried poison tears on them. The heroes made quick work of them.

The Taboolands

The group headed into the jungle. The insects there can give you the poisoned condition if you fail your save. The overall realm has this poisonous atmosphere - after 12 hours, you have to make saving throws or become poisoned.

The heroes ended up following the map that the dabuses gave them to The Taboolands. There they met a tribe of people who had been dragged into this realm by Kaliva's yuan-ti. They're sort of like the cast from Lost, but they wear loincloths and paint their bodies.

Once they found out that the heroes were here to kill Kaliva, they gave them a magic item - an arrow of demon slaying. Turia wanted it, but so did Theran. Crabby old Turia decided to have an archery competition with him to prove she deserved it. Theran won, and it wasn't even close (even though Turia is a fighter and Theran is a spellcaster!). For the rest of the adventure, Turia kept sarcastically calling Theran "Trick Shot." She was bitter that he had won.

The Halfling Traitor

Arjin the halfling, a cowardly member of the Alives, offered to take the group to get Shaktari's Ichor. When drank, the ichor could protect you from the poisonous atmosphere of the realm for one week.

What the heroes didn't know was that Arjin was actually Raja Khan the rakshasa in disguise. Over the course of the adventure, the group gave him a magic cloak and Theran's crossbow that shot flaming bolts, having no idea that they were actually arming their enemy.

Teleporter Chamber

"Arjin" led the group to a building in the base of one of the mountains where the ichor was. It was in a serpentine fountain. Theran used his wand of secrets to find a secret door. Beyond it was a hallway.

I had the group make a marching order, as they were about to hit a trap that I thought was cool. Bidam led the group down the hall, and a pit trap opened up beneath his feet. He made his save and hopped back. The pit was 20 feet deep and full of snakes! The group was able to go around it.

The group explored a side chamber and found a magic cloak that could protect against the poisonous atmosphere of this realm. They gave it to Arjin, who graciously accepted.

Then they made their way to a room with a giant statue of a 5-headed snake. Three yuan-ti attacked, and the group made quick work of them. They turned their attention to the statue.

Each snake head of the statue had a set of different-colored eyes. There was a lever below each head. Bidam began pulling levers:

• Purple Eyes: It teleported the group back to the area with Shaktari's Ichor.
• Red Eyes: A symbol of pain hovered in the air, injuring everyone.
• At this point, it was decided that everyone but Bidam would wait out in the hall so only Bidam would have to take damage.
• Blue Eyes: Bidam was hit with a lightning bolt.
• Black Eyes: In 2e terms this energy drained you! I changed it to: Weakened until a long rest. Bidam made his save so it wasn't an issue.
• Green Eyes: Teleport to Raja Khan's Lair. Poor Bidam picked the "correct" lever dead last.

The group headed in, pulled the lever and teleported to Raja's lair as well.

Raja Khan's Temple

Raja Khan lived in a small palace high up on one of the other mountains. The group had no idea that Raja was right there among them magically disguised as a halfling.

Outside the palace were dozens of poles, each holding a severed head. They realized that one was Llisian Slitterknife, the guy they'd been hired to find.

The group passed through the entrance, which were golden doors. Inside was a vast open area with two statues and a few side chambers. The statues:

1. A cambion (I don't really understand who this is or why it is here)
2. A giant two-headed tiger. This thing was actually alive - It was Raja Khan's pet, covered in a stoneskin.

So the adventurers checked out a bunch of mundane side areas and were stumped. How could the place be so empty?

Weirdly, the heroes asked Arjin to take a look around. This played right into Raja's hands. He hammed it up big time, walking around rubbing his chin and going "Hmmmm..." Then he walked over to the statue of the tiger, leaned on it with one hand and pretended to be deep in thought.

Suddenly, the statue came alive. It blew by Arjin and attacked the heroes! They groaned at Arjin, still thinking he was just some idiot.

To their surprise Arjin turned into Raja Khan and laughed at them. While the NPCs fought the tiger, Bidam ran over and sliced into Raja Khan. Raja magically dominated the dragonborn and made Bidam attack Theran! Poor Theran got hurt really bad.

Raja ran through a back wall. The group killed the tiger and cursed.

The Tiger-Ladies

They decided to try and follow Raja. They too ran through the wall - an illusory wall, it turned out. They ran downstairs and came to a hallway that had a floor completely covered in centipedes. They caught a glimpse of Raja going around the corner and through a door.

The group walked through the centipedes (if you walk carefully, they leave you alone) and listened at the door Raja had entered. They heard muffled arguing, and then saw a flash of light through the cracks.

It turned out that Raja Khan had argued with his two concubines and then cast Plane Shift to escape. I decided that Raja ended up warning Kaliva, handing her the magic sword Starzad, and running away to parts unknown.

The group burst into the room only to find Raja's two concubines, Selinza and Thoebe, staring at them in fear. In the adventure these women are yuan-ti, but I decided to change them into tiger-ladies (who look like Tigra from the Avengers) from some far flung plane. Selinza was actually a white tiger-lady.

The group questioned them and eventually learned of a teleport circle in a secret room nearby that could take them to Khaliva's lair. They also found Llisian's magic amulet. They took it with the grim knowledge that they would have to give it to his sister and explain that he was dead.

The group needed to heal, so they took a long rest in the palace. They locked the poor tiger-ladies in a hanging cage just to be on the safe side. Fall From Grace was not pleased with this, and watched over them.

Once healed, the group teleported to Kaliva's lair.

The Four Swords

 

Kaliva lived in a cavern on the third mountain, in a building surrounded by a moat of sentient ooze. The moat could and did attack with pseudopods.

The group explored side caves. They found a long-dead wizard and looted both his spellbook and his wand of lightning bolts (!). Theran loves that wand and I think it has replaced the wand of magic missiles as his go-to weapon. I mean.. it does 8d6 and it has 7 charges!

In a fungus chamber they found a massive pile of gold. Sticking out of it was a magic horn of blasting! Bidam claimed the horn.

Stocked up on damage-dealing magic items, the group made their way into the shrine.

The Shrine of Shaktari

Kaliva knows the group is coming, so she has set up a trap. She has an illusion of herself prepared to go. The hope is that the group will waste their big attacks on the illusion (including the arrow of demon slaying). Then, the real Kaliva pops out from behind a huge statue and surprises them!

So.. the heroes go in. The illusion rushes them. Theran fires off a lightning bolt and is shocked when it passes right through her. Fall From Grace and Turia race forward, and their attacks pass through as well.

Interestingly, Bidam cast mirror image on himself (he's an eldritch knight). He'd never used this spell before. Bidam moved to the statue and used a bonus action to hack at the statue, thinking maybe the statue was the real threat.

Theran suddenly realized what was going on. He disbelieved - and indeed, it was an illusion.

Bidam hacked away at the statue. First of all, I had Bidam roll a perception check to see if he noticed the real Kaliva hiding right there behind the statue. He didn't.

Second, in the adventure, the statue comes to life if it is "deliberately defiled." It is 12 feet tall, has six attacks and breathes a cloud of poison that KILLS YOU if you fail your save ("after 1d4 rounds of helplessness").

I had previously decided to not use the statue as a threat because I feared that Kaliva alone was going to be tough enough. With the statue in play, the group would have been slaughtered. In retrospect I should have had the statue do something minor, like breathe a cone of poison each round or something.

So Bidam hacks into the statue, sparks fly, and suddenly Kaliva slides out from behind the statue in slow motion and closes in on Bidam. Kaliva had all four magic swords in her hands:

• Starzad: Vorpal scimitar
• Ffazablur: Sword of sharpness
• Midnight: Sword of life stealing
• Wizardbane: A magic, spell-casting sword

Kaliva kicked off her attacks with a critical hit from the vorpal sword! That means... it cuts off Bidam's head! Or, it would have, if it hadn't hit a mirror image instead.

Kaliva was a whirlwind of blades, but all she did was take out all of Bidam's mirror images.

Theran hit her with a lightning bolt (doing half damage because of the marilith's resistance). Fall From Grace ran forward and hacked into Kaliva.

Turia snatched the arrow of demon slaying from Theran, fired it... and missed. On her next turn, she ran over, did a forward roll, snatched the arrow off the ground and fired it from a kneeling position... and missed again. On the turn after that, she rolled, snatched the arrow and uttered a catchphrase: "Let's see you slither out of this one!" She fired... and missed again.

The marilith mauled Fall from Grace in a single round, nearly killing her. Fall From Grace used lay on hands to heal herself. Kaliva tore into her again.

Bidam sliced into Kaliva and then Fall from Grace landed the killing blow by charging her sword with radiant energy (divine smite).

Fall from Grace had just a couple hit points left. Her chastity bodice was sliced to shreds, but the magic kicked in and it repaired itself in moments - good as new. Unfortunately, blood poured out from the underside of the bodice, pooling on the floor. She was hurt very badly.

The place began to rumble. The heroes ran out of the shrine as it collapsed. They made their way to the massive treasure pile and dumped it in their bag of holding.

Escape

They used the teleport circle to return to Raja Khan's palace. No sign of Raja.

The heroes asked the tiger ladies to return with them to Sigil to work in their festhall. I decided that Selinza, the white tiger lady, is going to ask Theran to become his apprentice.

They decided to loot those golden doors from Raja's palace. Next time they'll have to work out the logistics of getting those doors through the jungle and onto that little ferry full of snakes.

I also decided that Fall From Grace is going to stay with the Alives, and escort them onto the ferry in groups. She'll take each group down the River Styx, journey with them through the Plain of 1,000 portals, and take them through the portal to Sigil. Then she's going to give them her share of the huge treasure pile so they can survive in the city. That's what a paladin would do, right?

We are going to play one more session of this. I want to see what the group does with Ash Vodiran, the thief who stole all their money last session.

I also want the group to go through a short adventure from Well of Worlds, where they actually break in to one of the Lady of Pain's Mazes.

When I read this adventure, I really didn't like the second half of it. I generally am not a fan of jungles in D&D. I also don't like yuan-ti or rakshasas. But this adventure was really good, pretty much awesome from start to finish. I actually liked this as much if not more than Umbra.

Click here to read the next chapter of the Planescape campaign.

Dice, Camera, Action: Episode 1 - Curse of Strahd

Episode 1: Velcome.

Check out the die roll stat breakdowns here.

I decided to write a summary of the first episode of Dice, Camera, Action! It is a new weekly stream on twitch and youtube where mighty Chris Perkins runs Curse of Strahd for a group of players.

This is not going to be a critique or anything like that. I'm going to summarize the events and provide timestamps for the parts that I think are the best. At the end I'll offer my general thoughts.

You can watch this right here on youtube.

The Party

The Waffle Crew

(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer 
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard

The Beginning

The characters are 3rd level and they've been adventuring together for a while.

It all begins with our heroes cooking wieners over a campfire. We learn a bit about each character:

• Strix: She wears crusty clothing that she always picks at and she has... a cranium rat! Awesome. Its' name is Stinky. She scratches its' brain. Apparently Stinky is a little slow.
• Diath: He's a tomb raiding type who is cleaning his trusty lockpicks. He has a mysterious ring of keys that he carefully protects.
• Evelyn: She wears white and gold armor. Her face is described as "cherubic." She has a pet mouse, named Juniper.
• Paultin: He plays the lute and the bagpipe. He can be a little mouthy. He has a rival who may or may not be a voice in his head.

So the mists suck the group into Ravenloft. Their campfire becomes a bonfire. A dark figure appears in the flames and glowers at Evelyn. Strix soils herself.

Entering Barovia

The group comes upon a rusty gate and passes through. The gate swings shut behind them. I should point out that the heroes sent Evelyn through the gates alone as trap bait.

The adventurers come upon the corpse of a commoner who has been clawed to death. He is clutching an envelope. In it is a letter from Kolyan Indirovich, the Burgomaster of Barovia. The group learns that there is a vampire causing problems here, to put it mildly.

Evelyn casts Detect Evil and she realizes the entire realm is tainted with evil. She drops to one knee, overwhelmed. Strix splashes her with filthy puddle water to snap her out of it.

Lathander

There is some discussion of Evelyn's god, Lathander, and whether his connection with Evelyn is severed (she still has her spells and powers). Strix thinks Lathander is busy picking his butt.

The group follows wagon tracks and comes upon a village. They spot the Blood of the Vine Inn and they hear sobbing coming from a boarded up building.

Evelyn shimmies through the window to look for the crying woman. She draws her axe, Lightfall. It is double bladed and has the symbol of Lathander on it. Holly sketches the symbol of Lathander real quick:

Evelyn finds the crying lady. The lady is holding what appears to be... a dead baby! Evelyn looks closer and sees it is actually a doll missing an eye. She says "the devil Strahd" took her baby, Gertruda. Evelyn promises to get the baby back.

The woman explains that Strahd hunts the people of Barovia, aided by wolves and bats.

She gives Evelyn the doll. It has a tag on it that says: "Is no fun, is no Blinsky." No idea what that means!

The Blood of the Vine

They go into the Blood of the Vine tavern. Paultin fires up his bard ability to perform in exchange for free food and drinks. His bagpipe-playing impresses 3 women wearing colorful clothes (it turns out that they are owners of the bar and are vistani - gypsies).

One woman says she didn't think Paultin's performance was that great, so Paultin busts out his magic eyes of charming to change her mind.

Diath meets an NPC named Ismarck who is related to Ireena, daughter of the Burgomaster. He wants the group to meet her.

Paultin ends up dancing with one of the vistani. The group gets weirded out by shadows on the wall moving strangely and they decide to leave. Strix uses magic to leave a foul odor in her wake. I don't think she cared too much for the vistani, who had assumed Strix was a servant.

They go with Ismarck to his dilapidated "mansion." They meet Ireena, who is wearing armor and a red tunic. She has two puncture marks on her neck!

That's where we stop.

Next Week: We'll learn more about Strahd and meet a Vistani who can divine the future.

Chris says he's been taking notes during the game and he has a lot of ideas for things to do with the characters. I am really interested to see what he has come up with.

Timestamps

• (16:00) The heroes enter Ravenloft, Strix is grossed out by Evelyn's friendliness.
• (23:28) It turns out that the group was originally on a quest to get waffles.
• (43:40) Strix gets freaked out when she learns that vampires can turn to mist.
• (1:04) Evelyn wields Lightfall.
• (1:23) Paultin uses his eyes of charming, Evelyn is his wingman.

Thoughts

The Group So Far: Evelyn and Strix both feel like classic characters right off the bat. Evelyn immediately took on the role of party leader and it works really well. It's a good group. Everyone seems, at the very least, pleasant. 

Holly: Holly is hilarious. If I had to pick a favorite so far, it would definitely be her. Her character is actually using Planescape slang, so apparently she is from Sigil. She refers to the Lady of Pain's Mazes at one point. I hope we get some kind of flashback into her past.

Chris Does Great Voices: Chris does a bunch of really good voices in this. I almost want to cut out his reading of the letter and just play the recording of it when my players come across the letter in my game.

No Combat: Not one battle! It was fine. The session was going at a leisurely pace but it didn't drag much. If you're looking for combat and stats stuff, this is not the session for you.

Overall: It was a good first episode. There were a couple of slight audio hiccups but they were extremely minor. It was amusing to see someone come in the door behind Anna and grab a box or something and creep back out. Is she at a campus or something?

It will be fun to see how things develop.

Click here to proceed to the summary of episode 2.

Adventuring in Eberron: The Bag of Beans

Today I just want to write a little bit about a campaign that I'm playing in. We played last Saturday and it was really good.

My Sunday group wasn't able to meet, so we'll finish Nemesis next Sunday. I haven't gotten Curse of Strahd in the mail yet but it should come soon.

Ebberon

So for the past 18 months or so, I've been playing in a 5e Eberron campaign run by my friend. We play once a month. We're about to hit sixth level.

One nice thing about this campaign is that I know absolutely nothing about Eberron. It is all new to me. Honestly, I find the whole thing pretty confusing. I can't keep all the organizations and merchant houses straight.

The DM has basically planted a pile of mini-adventures in the city of Sharn (which I love), and our group kind of picks and chooses what we want to do.

The overall story involves the deck of many things. The cards are scattered throughout the city. Apparently two rakshasas who might be "Lords of Dust" are doing this for some reason.

Each session is better than the last, and the one we just did was really good.

The Bag of Beans

When we sat down, the DM said in advance that this session might be a little loose and we should feel free to do whatever. He has a little baby so the guy has his hands full.

My character is a big, hairy guy (like Indiana Jones' friend Salla). He drinks and carouses all the time to try to forget the events of the Last War. He piloted an elemental airship and it crashed. My character is jolly and he likes to make friends with everybody.

So we're in this dungeon area and we found some kind of demon corpse. Once we fully explored the room, I decided it was time to use my bag of beans.

A bag of beans is a magic item. I have 7 beans. I plant a bean in the ground and a minute later a random thing happens. I roll on a chart from the DMG that the DM has. I have purposely not looked at this chart because I love random charts and I want to be surprised.

So my bean sprouts a statue that looks like me and keeps insulting me. My allies decided to tip it over. It shattered, dust swirled and took off down the hall. I got the feeling this dust cloud was somehow related to the demon corpse thing.

We talked for a minute and realized that we should go get a hireling to help us handle these weird rooms and traps.

The Hireling

So up into the city we went. We selected three NPCs and each character came up with a different test. The NPCs had to:

• Go on a supply run and buy adventuring equipment
• Find a book in a library
• Have a drinking contest

We scored the NPCs and the winner was a goblin named Swack.

We gave him an official uniform: A big droopy hat, a one-piece jumpsuit/pajamas with buttflaps, gloves, goggles and a backpack loaded with all that weird dungeoneering stuff (ten foot pole, spikes, etc).

The DM rolled on the NPC charts in the DMG. Our little Swack had:

• A twitchy eye
• High INT
• Low WIS
• Hot-tempered
• A skilled dancer! 

He was an intense little dude.

So we go back down into a dungeon we were exploring. I found a secret compartment in an altar. I could see it was magically trapped.

The party fighter asked Swack to go handle it. I told him he didn't have to, but Swack's eye started twitching and I got out of the way.

Swack opened it, and poison gas hit him right in the face. He died.

The very first encounter! Poor guy.

We sent hams to his wives (he has two wives, it's a goblin cultural thing) and went to the cemetery and buried him.

Bean Number Two

After some discussion, the group decided it wasn't too disrespectful to plant a bean from the bag of beans on the fresh soil atop Swack's grave, so that's what I did.

Lo and behold, a GEYSER OF WINE exploded out of Swack's grave. I quickly filled my canteen with it. I've decided we will drink Swack's wine to celebrate once we've assembled the deck of many things.

At this point we were laughing quite a bit. We knew what we had to do - get another hireling!

Hireling Number Two

Three more NPCs were recruited and they too went through grueling tests of skill and wits.

The winner was Jenny, a human woman (with an Australian accent) who had braided hair. Some of her traits:

• High WIS
• Low CON
• Perfect Memory
• Low Voice
• Rude
• Afraid of water

We gave her her droopy cap and buttflap pajama/clothes.

We went to go talk to a priest at the Church of the Silver Flame for a quest. There were a lot of plants outside. I knew what I had to do.

After chatting with the priest, we stopped on the way out. I planted a bean. I had to know what happened!

Bean Number Three

Suddenly, 5 pink toads appeared. I got excited, because I am trying to build a mermaid aquarium in our base and the pink toads are a great addition.

I was wary, though. I wanted to use mage hand to move them into my handy haversack.

But the group wanted our new hireling, Jenny, to touch them. So she did. She touched a pink toad and it immediately transformed into a grizzly bear! We did battle with it.

I realized that this might be my only chance to wrestle a bear into submission in Dungeons & Dragons. I had to try. You know what happened? That bear immediately pinned me to the ground and beat the bejeezus out of me. I was at -3 hit points within 2 rounds!

Thankfully the group killed it and healed me. The other toads vanished.

Let the Players Do Their Thing

It was an awesome session and it reminded me for the millionth time that the best sessions are when it feels like the players are in the driver's seat. We had freedom to do as we pleased, and it was very enjoyable.

It helps that his sessions are 6 hours long. Mine are only 2, maybe 3 hours. The thing about letting the players take the reigns is that it generally eats up a lot of time as the players discuss options.

In a "railroad", you can get a lot done because we're just going from encounter to encounter. There's not much exploring or dead ends or extraneous interaction with NPCs.

I'll definitely try to run my games more like this one, though, because I really enjoyed it.

Dungeons & Dragons - A Guide to the Ethereal Plane

In this guide I am going to take a crack at providing DMs with an overview of the Ethereal Plane.

First I'm going to give the essential information for those running 5th edition D&D games. Then I'm going to go back over the older editions and pull out useful information that can enhance a visit there.

There's one book that has pretty everything you will ever need to know about the ethereal plane:

Guide to the Ethereal Plane by Bruce Cordell

I have long found the ethereal plane to be extremely confusing. It seemed so similar to the Astral Plane. I would actually avoid using it because I just didn't know anything about it.

Let's go over the 5th edition information first, then we'll dig back and see what other cool stuff is out there.

The Essential Information

Here's the basic stuff you should know about the Ethereal Plane:

• Overlap: The Ethereal Plane overlaps the world. You can see and hear the world from the Ethereal.
• Safety: When you're in the ethereal, most people in the world can't see or affect you with a few exceptions.
• Walk Through Walls: If you have the ability to go ethereal, you can utilize it to walk through walls, spy on someone or escape a deadly battle.
• Two Halves: The Ethereal Plane is broken into two sections, The Border Ethereal and the Deep Ethereal.
• Portals: The Ethereal is full of floating "curtains" that are portals to other planes
• Demiplanes: The Ethereal is where demiplanes are made. You can even learn spells to create or destroy demiplanes.

D&D 5th Edition

Here's how the Ethereal Plane is described on page 301 of the Player's Handbook:

"The Ethereal Plane is a misty, fog-bound dimension that is sometimes described as a great ocean. Its shores, called the Border Ethereal, overlap the Material Plane and the Inner Planes, so that every location on those planes has a corresponding location on the Ethereal Plane. Certain creatures can see into the Border Ethereal, and the see invisibility and true seeing spell grant that ability. Some magical effects also extend from the Material Plane into the Border Ethereal, particularly effects that use force energy such as forcecage and wall of force. The depths of the plane, the Deep Ethereal, are a region of swirling mists and colorful fogs."

The Ethereal Plane is further described on page 48 of the Dungeon Master's Guide. We learn:

• Overlap: The Ethereal Plane overlaps both the material plane and the inner planes. Every location on those planes has a corresponding location on the Ethereal Plane.
• Flying: The laws of gravity don't apply. A creature can move any direction, even up or down.
• Being Ethereal: Creatures in the Ethereal can't attack creatures on the overlapping plane, nor affect objects or be heard.
• Ether Cyclone: Twisting vortexes in the Ethereal that can hurl travelers into a random plane.

There are two sections of the Ethereal Plane

1. The Border Ethereal: Visibility is limited to 60 feet. You can see 30 feet into whatever plane it overlaps.
2. The Deep Ethereal: Travel through the Deep Ethereal takes d10x10 hours no matter where one is headed. Visibility is 30 feet. There are portals scattered throughout this area leading to the Shadowfell, the plane of fire, and other places.

The Etherealness Spell: This 7th-level spell is on page 238 of the Player's Handbook. It allows the caster to travel into the Border Ethereal for up to 8 hours.

Other spells that interact with the Ethereal Plane:

• Plane Shift: Allows casters to go to the Border Ethereal or the Deep Ethereal.
• Blink: On a roll of 11 or higher, the caster appears in the Ethereal Plane.
• Forbiddance: It blocks out creatures from the Ethereal plane.
• Leomund's Secret Chest: The chest and its contents are actually floating in the ethereal!
• Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound: It can see into the Ethereal.
• See Invisibility: The caster can see into the Ethereal Plane. Ethereal creatures and objects appear ghostly and translucent.
• True Seeing: The caster can see into the ethereal plane up to 120 feet.
• Wall of Force: The wall extends into the Ethereal.

Truesight: Creatures with truesight can see into the Ethereal.

Magic Items: There are two items that deal with the ethereal:

• Oil of Etherealness (DMG page 183): You can use this to cover one medium-sized person with the oil, which causes them to gain the effects of the etherealness spell for one hour. 
• Plate Armor of Etherealness (DMG page 185): Once per day you can speak a command word and gain etherealness for 10 minutes. This armor is legendary - extraordinarily rare.

Monsters: Certain monsters can travel between the material plane and the ethereal.

• Ghost: Ghosts can see into the Ethereal, and they can shift to and from the plane.
• Kuo Toa: These fish-men can actually see 30 feet into the Ethereal.
• Night Hag: They can visit a sleeping person ethereally and intrude on their dreams. If the victim dies in their sleep, she can claim their corrupted soul in her soul bag. Hags can use their heartstones to travel to and from the Ethereal Plane.
• Nightmare: These evil horses can take three willing creatures within 5 feet to and from the Ethereal.
• Phase Spider: They can shift into the ethereal, using the ability to sort of "teleport" around the  battlefield.
• Succubus: They can travel to and from the Ethereal. They like to visit people in the ethereal, whispering forbidden pleasures. This makes the victim more susceptible to temptation in life.

Becoming a Spirit in the Border Ethereal

Check out page 116 in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. If a character dies in the Black Cabin, they become a spirit in the Border Ethereal.

"If a character dies in the cabin and its spirit manifests in the Border Ethereal, the player can choose the form the spirit takes. It might look like a spectral image of the dead character, or it might be something bizarre like a ghostly crow or a blob of ectoplasmic energy."

Spirit Traits:

• The spirit is not a creature.
• Can't be harmed or turned. 
• Can't make attack rolls/saving throws/have conditions applied to it. 
• Can't cast spells/attune to magic items.
• Creatures on the Material Plane can't see the spirit without an ability/magic that lets them see into the Border Ethereal.  

The spirit can do the following and nothing else: 

• Fly speed of 30 feet, can hover.
• Pass through solid surfaces visible on the Material Plane. 
• Can make ability checks based on DEX, INT, WIS, and CHA, 
• As an action, can make a CHA check DC 10 to attempt to exert up to 5 pounds of force on a creature or object no more than 5 feet away from it in the Material Plane.
• Can see other spirits in the Border Ethereal and speak to them. The spirit knows the languages it knew in life.
  

AD&D 1st Edition

A Waystation in the Ethereal Plane

There is an entire chapter devoted to the Ethereal Plane in the 1e Monster Manual. It is the cosmic "glue" that binds the Prime Material and inner planes together. It contains the "protomatter" that new demi-planes are made of.

There's a note that "an enterprising spell caster can utilize the Leomund's secret chest spell as a method of travel..." Other fun facts:

• Protection: Buildings can be treated with an alchemic mixture containing gorgon's blood that can be mixed into the mortar of a building. This prevents ethereal and astral creatures from passing through.
• You Can't Make People Explode: A traveler cannot materialize partially inside the body of an enemy! All living beings, including plants, have an aura that prevents ethereal travelers from passing through them.
• Time is Slower: Time passes ten times slower in the Ethereal Plane. A ghost's attack would drain only d4 years off of your life in the Ethereal.
• Eat Less: You still get hungry, but less so. You only need to eat every 10 days.

Stuff You Run Into: There's all sorts of weird stuff in the ethereal:

• Supply caches containing food and water for 100 days, meant for long trips through the ethereal.
• Waystations: Places like taverns or guardposts for nearby curtains
• Beings turned into ethereal stone (the most common item found in the border ethereal)

Demi-Planes in the Ethereal: The Ethereal contains planes still being formed, globs of proto-matter gathering other proto-matter. There are four named demiplanes:

• The Demi-Plane of Shadow
• The Demi-Plane of Time: Those who enter leave much older or younger.
• The Demi-Plane of ElectroMagnetism: A dying realm being devoured by the quasi-elemental plane of lightning.
• The Demi-Plane of Imprisonment: This is only a rumored location, a place where beings of great evil are trapped.

AD&D 2nd Edition

A Guide to the Ethereal Plane

The Ethereal is also known as "The Misty Shore" or "The Waveless Sea." Here's some fun facts:

• It connects most worlds, aka the Forgotten Realms, Oerth, etc. Krynn and Dark Sun aren't reachable.
• The Ethereal connects to the Inner Planes (the elemental planes). It doesn't connect to the outer planes or the astral plane.
• Nothing sits in relation to anything else. Relative distance lies only in your perception.

Ethersickness: The first time you spend 10 minutes in the Deep Ethereal, you make a saving throw. If you fail, you have a -2 to all rolls until you leave.

The Wall of Color: This is a shimmering wall of ethereal mist that is seemingly infinite. It contains portals to every elemental plane, the prime material plane and a pile of demiplanes.

Chronolily: These giant flowers let you see into the past, present or future. Its petals form a bowl that contains a golden nectar. Images shift in them at random every 30 seconds. Certain wizards have figured out how to control what it shows by plucking petals in a certain sequence.

Ether Gap: A rip in the ethereal plane that is like a black hole. If you get sucked inside, you are lost to the multiverse. Not even a wish can bring you back.

Protomatter: Blobs of stuff that make up demiplanes. There's 3 types:

• Ephemeral: 99% of the time it turns back into ethereal mist within a few seconds. It feels like a clump of fluffy snowflakes.
• Quintessential: This stuff feels like a cork. The blobs are up to 1,000 feet long. You can chip them up and make weapons or construction materials to make buildings but it only lasts for d100 hours before becoming mist.
• Stable: It feels like metal sheathed in a thin layer of leather. This eventually becomes a demiplane.

New Spells: All of these only work in the Ethereal Plane. Here's some of the more impressive ones:

• (lvl 5) Stabilize Ether: It stabilizes protomatter, allowing you to use it to make stuff.
• (lvl 6) Dissipate: The victim boils away and merges with the mist. Only a wish spell can bring them back to life. Yikes.
• (lvl 8) Demiplane Seed: This creates a demiplane in the Deep Ethereal. The demiplane grows one foot in radius every day to a max of 10 feet per level of the caster. The caster can create whatever environment they wish.
• (lvl 9) Demiplane Decay: This spell actually destroys demiplanes.

Demiplanes: There's descriptions of a pile of demiplanes. I talk about some of them further down - these demiplanes have been featured in a few other products.

There's a chart that you can use to roll up a random demiplane. Let's make one:

To get to my demiplane, you must pass through an olive curtain. The demiplane is 3 miles in diameter and contains a marsh. It is inhabited by... beholders!

This book is loaded with encounters and weird places. It's probably the one thing you'll want if you're going to use the Ethereal.

Dragon Magazine 213 - The Demiplane of Shadow

I get the feeling that in 3e, this became the Plane of Shadow, and in 4e it became The Shadowfell. This article actually mentions that "scholars" believe that the demiplane will become a fully-fledged plane within a few centuries. Pretty cool.

This article is a little skimpy on details of the plane. Most of it talks about shades, including warrior shades, wizard shades, etc.

Vortexes: It is a gloomy land in perpetual twilight. In the sky above the demiplane is a vortex to the positive material plane, and a vortex to the negative material plane.

Gloomy: It is similar to a mortal world. There is weather, hills, forests, etc. It is always twilight here. Any food and water found here has no substance in which to nourish.

Creatures: We get a list of creatures that dwell here, including shadow dragons. We also get:

• Umbrimals: Natives of the plane, shadowy elemental types.
• Shades: Once-powerful mortals who tried to become immortal by infusing their bodies with shadowstuff.

D&D 3rd Edition

Ethereal Filcher

The Ethereal as described in the Manual of the Planes is basically the same as in older editions. It sums it up with this quote:

"The Ethereal Plane is a Transitive Plane, a plane of getting from one place to another."

There's a few monsters linked to the Ethereal.

Ethereal Filcher: These really, really weird creatures slip into the world, steal a trinket from a person, and then slip back into the ethereal. Wow, their lair must be 5e trinket heaven.

Ethereal Marauder

Ethereal Marauder: These guys live in the Ethereal and are about 4 feet tall. It hunts people in the material plane, popping in, biting them, and popping back out.

It would be cool if there was a monster who could drag people into the Ethereal.

Dragon Magazine 313 - Ghost Elves of the Ethereal Plane

Thousands of years ago when the elven civil war led to the fall of the drow, the ghost elves were elves who remained neutral in the conflict. The drow fled to the underdark, then came back and wiped out most of the ghost elves.

An "alien entity" called Thule appeared and offered to save the last of the ghost elves in exchange for their service. The ghost elves signed a contract with Thule, only to discover he was a pit fiend. He took them to Hell and did all sorts of terrible things to them.

He ultimately made the ghost elves into soldiers for the Blood War, which made them into great warriors. The ghost elves eventually killed the pit fiend and fled to the Ethereal Plane.

Now they live in the Ethereal plane and make war with devils.

• Ghost Elves are stern and cold. Earning their trust involves many subtle tests and trials.
• They are neutral.
• They have abandoned worship of any god.
• They despise drow.
• Ghost elves have gray hair, pale skin that glows in darkness (they can suppress this when they concentrate), and their eyes are like mirrors.
• They have hidden homes in forests on the material plane that hold secret portals to the Ethereal.

Cities: Ghost Elven cities in the ethereal are lit by silvery light, and are laid out without regard to gravity. They have domesticated phase spiders in their patrols.

Powers: As they gain levels, they gain powers. They start off able to travel to the ethereal. Eventually they can see invisible, blink (as per the spell), and eventually shift to the ethereal at will.

Dragon Magazine 353 - Multiple Dementia: A Guide to the Demiplanes

This article details some demiplanes that exist in the Ethereal Plane. Most of these are updates from the 2e Ethereal book.

The Black Abyss: This place is pleasant but empty and eerily silent. You drift through caverns of white stone, and you might find weird items like gems or magic items. There's a famous brass tablet with the words: "...we are safe now upon this furthest shore. The stolen gift of... Vaati...sealed and sustaining Lord Ygor..."

In the largest cavern there's a huge obelisk with the words "Time" and "Space" carved on it.

In the center of the demiplane is a swirling pool of darkness. Those who enter it vanish. Possibly to Limbo or the Negative Material Plane.

Judging from hints in this article, it seems that the obelisk is somehow related to the spawning stone in Limbo. "Ygor" might refer to Ygorl, Lord of Entropy, one of the slaad lords. The reference to the Vaati refers to the wind dukes, the blue-skinned people who try to guard pieces of the rod of seven parts.

So the slaad stole something from the wind dukes and hid it here in the ethereal plane..? Awesome.

The Demiplane of Imprisonment: This place is the prison of an incredibly powerful creature who wants to destroy everything. The prisoner can reach out to people in the world in their sleep.

Those who get within 500 feet of this demiplane have visions or dreams - they'll need to make saving throws or be compelled to touch the crystal. If they touch it, they are trapped inside the crystal.

The crystal moves 20 feet per round through the ethereal, under the control of the prisoner inside.

Time does not pass and magic does not function inside the crystal. The being inside can change the shape of its' prison, but not the size or mass.

A few prisoners have escaped the crystal with the aid of a wish spell from an outside party. They are completely insane.

There's a huge list of other demiplanes. Here's some of the ones I thought were cool:

• Demiplane of Haven: A city created by the mercane to compete with Sigil for the title "Hub of the Multiverse."
• Demiplane of Time: A place filled with storms and odd temporal effects.
• Neth, the Demiplane That Lives: A living, protoplasmic demiplane possessed of a childlike curiosity.

Further Reading

• There, Not There: A 3rd Edition Article on Etherealness by Skip Williams
• The Difference Between Incorporeal and Ethereal by Sean K. Reynolds
• Blog of Holding is Not a Fan of The Ethereal Plane