Planescape - Blood War XV. The Endless Maze

I just put out the second adventure in my Litany of Arrows path, Warpath of Gruumsh. I put in a whole section of “downtime adventures” at the end that I think does a good job of simulating what I do in this campaign every week. For the adventure, I made a bunch of mini-charts for specific carousing scenarios. It’s very joke-y, but I figured it was bonus content, so DMs can just throw it in the garbage if it’s not their style.

DM Burnout: While I was preparing this one, I was thinking about writer’s block. I think most of us DMs have, at one time or another, hit a wall, creatively.

Back in middle school, I ran my first campaign, which was well-received. In high school, I ran my second. Also well-received! 10th grade hit, and I hit a wall. I had some ideas for the third campaign, but everything felt very stale and I just couldn’t come up with anything worth running.

I actually stopped running games for the group, and other players filled the void. I still ran a few long term side campaigns (Al Qadim and 2e Ravenloft), but I just couldn’t get my own homemade setting straight.

The First Campaign: I think everybody has that big storyline they want to run. Usually it’s a variation of the "big bad guy out to take over the kingdom, the world, the multiverse, etc" story. Once you run your first campaign to completion, some DMs can pull off a follow-up campaign that builds off of the events of the first one.

The Second Campaign: Usually, this second one pales in comparison and the DM starts to feel a bit of pressure. You can’t compete with the memories of the “golden time”, the first 7 or 8 sessions of D&D that people ever play.

As a DM, the pressure can build and you start to press yourself to match what you did before. It can become stressful, almost like a grind.

The Third Campaign: When that third campaign hits, you might find yourself in a weird spot. You’ve told the story you wanted to tell. Twice! All your life, you had these ideas. You used them. What now?

The Cure: That’s the spot I was in. It took me a long time, but by the end of high school I figured out the solution. For me, it was a combination of 3 things:

1. Use published adventures and campaign settings.
2. Use your players. Most players have a vision of their character and the cool things they want to do. Do those things!
3. Build off of each previous session. The things the group did last time determine what happens this time. That story never ends, and it’s exciting because nobody knows where it’s going.

I haven't been burned out since that time. In fact, I have a backlog of stuff I want to run.

Pathfinder Trouble: Preparing for this one was not what I thought it would be. I was set to run a simplified version of Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth, an adventure in the maze of Baphomet, demon lord of minotaurs! This will be awesome!

But I read it, and it wasn’t what I expected. Most of the adventure takes place in a prison. There are very few encounters set in the actual maze. I dug up the 4e Baphomet article and read about the maze. Nothing too useful!

So I sat there and asked myself if I could make a maze in the time I had before the session. I tried to jot down some cool ideas, but I drew a blank. I turned to google. I found the one page dungeon site, which was a huge help. I looked at their encounters, which got the wheels turning.

What really helped the most was the 3e Book of Challenges. That is an absolutely fantastic book full of encounters for you to pull out and use.

I got rolling and ended up with too many ideas! I combined some and eliminated others, and I was excited.

Detour: Then, as I was polishing this up, I started having awesome ideas for stuff that could happen two sessions from now. It would take forever to explain. By the end of my preparation, I was dying to run that and was almost bummed I had to run this maze instead.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Elf Wizard

Baphomet, Demon Lord of Minotaurs

Last time, the group had obtained a divine shard that contained godly power inside of it. The heroes decided to go home and rest before heading into Baphomet’s maze to see about shutting down the portal that connected to Thanatos.

Employees: We did a bunch of joke-stuff with the group’s employees. Their talking cat is in love with a tabaxi and the group hired a new worker – she is an ooze para-elemental (a lady made of lime jell-o, basically) named Doot Fluidia. I couldn’t wait to say that name out loud.

The Greatest Thief in Sigil: The group ran into Ash Vodiran, a thief who stole a huge pile of money from them way back when. He was hitting on Theran’s baby mama! I just wanted to see if the group still hated him. They do!

Theran quietly handed Bidam his arrow of demon slaying. Bidam crept up on him and tried to stab him with it, but his stealth roll was not good. Ash immediately turned into a shadowy wisp and fled.

The group has ghost-grinding dust that can force Ash to remain substantial, but they keep forgetting that they have it. I’m in a weird spot here where I have this NPC that the group absolutely despises and I can’t figure out how to fit him in to all of these stories. He is one of the many children of
Graz’zt and Iggwilv, so I should definitely get on the ball.

Four Balls: I’m guessing you don’t want to hear to much about this, so I’ll keep it brief and vague. Bidam attached a demon scrotum to his undercarriage, so now he’s got four balls. The demon balls are BALOR BALLS that pulse with energy. He went to take a leak and his stream was so powerful that it shattered the thing he was peeing into.

Graz'zt, Demon Lord of Azzagrat

Skyshrine: At Theran’s floating castle, they walked in on Graz’zt threatening the group’s succubus nurse friend. Graz’zt was flipping out on her, because he was telling her to charm the group and she was refusing.

She got turned to stone last session, and the group paid to have her restored to normal. They saved her! She is loyal to the heroes, now.

Graz’zt drew his blade, wave of sorrow. Acid dripped from the blade to the floor.

The heroes sprung into action. Graz’zt glared at them and demanded that the group convince the devils help Graz'zt's army get into the layer that Verin (a demon who betrayed Graz’zt) is hiding in.

The group refused. Graz’zt made an ominous threat - “There will be consequences.”

This sets up what I want to do in two sessions. Graz’zt is going to do a bunch of crazy crap that will lead to a chain reaction of epic madness.

Demon-Breeding Farm: The group is in a moral quandary. They’ve been making demon crustaceans known as nephrotics. It turns out that the nephrotics are delicious, and there’s a lot of money to be made in selling them to restaurants as if they were lobsters. The group firmly decided against it. I honestly wasn’t sure what they’d do with this, that’s why I threw that out there.

The group found out that Graz’zt had been here, too. He actually stabbed Areelu, the NPC that runs this place. Graz’zt is in a bad mood because Iggwilv found out that he’s been messing around with Lamashtu (Iggwilv chanced upon the Graz’zt/Lamashtu baby in the nursery last session).

Divine Shard: The heroes studied the divine shard that fell out of the Charnel God last session. I based this off of the Nahyndrian crystals from Wrath of the Righteous. Basically, they can make it into an elixir and keep it in an iron flask. Once opened, it must be consumed within one minute or it EXPLODES for 15d6 in a 30 foot radius. When you drink it, you must make a Con save:

• Fail: In Pathfinder terms, you take 4d6 points of Constitution damage – if you drop to 0 Con or less, you die. I haven’t exactly figured out how to handle this in 5e rules, I might just leave it like that.
• Success: You gain MYTHIC POWER. That’s a pathfinder thing. For this game, I’m saying that it takes you on the road to becoming a god. The group’s friend, Bovina, wants to become the god of minotaurs. Now they have a thing to do it. The problem is that if she drinks it, she might die.

Soul Larvae, Pathfinder-style

Soul Larvae: The group went to the Gray Waste to rustle up a herd of soul larvae. They did so, having an encounter with a mega-popular NPC from previous campaigns: Burba Larga, the not-so-smart stepdaughter of Baba Yaga.

The group got a huge pile of larvae (keeping them in a herd by using chromatic orb spells and other magic). They split half with their hag friend, Virinis (who lives in the screaming tower from “Umbra”, which I ran way back when).

They had to decide who to give it to. Whichever demon lord got the larvae could use them to gain power. The choices:

• Pazuzu: Demon Lord of the 1st layer of the Abyss. Nope.
• Graz’zt: Get on his good side? Nope.
• Xanthopsia, Queen of Obscenity: Was it finally her time to shine? Nope!
• Uralinda, Queen of the Harpies: She’s the one who asked them to get the larvae in the first place. The group decided not to give it to her, because they were afraid she’d break up with Pazuzu and then Pazuzu would be angry at the heroes.
• Bazuuma: Yes, they gave more soul larvae to Bazuuma, demon lord of positive energy. With her new power, she created a massive floating complex in the plane of positive energy that is safe for demons to inhabit. This is a sort of emergency lair to flee too in case things get dire.

The Endless Maze

Odeenka the Marilith

Finally! Let’s do the maze! The group went through the portal and met Odeenka, a really cool-looking marilith from the ivory labyrinth adventure. In that book, she pretty much attacks the group.

In my game, Odeenka was very, very open to being bribed. She netted herself a javelin of lightning and other fabulous prizes.

The group ended up wandering the maze for about 10 days. This adventure was an opportunity to build up Bovina, the female minotaur. She helped the group navigate the maze, getting advantage on survival checks (every day you have to make a DC 15 survival check to make progress in the maze). She rolled ridiculously well, so it worked out perfectly.

They actually ran out of rations and were getting worried about food. The maze has all sorts of different sections, some of which I used from Pathfinder and some I just made up.

NPCs: In the pathfinder adventure, Baphomet periodically releases prisoners in the maze so that he and his minotaurs can hunt them. I had found this list of characters from Whose Line is it, Anyway? and I modeled some of these prisoners after them. As the group traveled, they added these people to their group:

• Old Man Glorm: Cowardly old bystander in a western.
• Dakra: Middle-aged woman who is proud of her body.
• Eo Kaplan: Michael Jackson turning into a werewolf (he’s a gnoll).

They met Eo Kaplan almost right away (“Captain Eo”) and I started doing the high-pitched Michael Jackson voice. This guy was an instant hit.

The Bone Maze

• Wall Trap: A wall panel smeared Bidam and Theran, crushing them against the opposite wall. They took 4d10 damage per round! Bidam smashed through it and pulled it back enough for Theran to slip out.
•  Ettin: A sleeping Ettin completely blocked their path. Stealth checks: everyone rolled extremely high!! Did not expect that!
•  Michael "Hee Hee" Jackson: Hi I’m Eo Kaplan. I’m not like other guys.

The Endless Towers

Oostarix, Eater of Men

A maze of towers connected by elevated walkways over a misty void.

• The Iron Door: This door had a mouth and bragged that nobody had ever solved its two riddles! You can’t go through the iron door until you do so. I googled two easy riddles and George was all over this thing! He nailed both in seconds.
• The Minotaur: Old Man Glorm was being chased by a minotaur. The idea was for the group to run down this hallway, while portcullis traps dropped. The heroes might have ended up trapped between two portcullises while the minotaur tore the bars open and came at them. Instead… Theran disintegrated the minotaur in one sizzle. He was Oostarix, Eater of Men! He has cool art, he deserved better.
• Rotating Bridge: Bovina and Eravamont Glask (Sean Connery) fell into the void. I had this whole thing where there’s gnomes and catapults down there. The NPCs catapulted back up, and the group barely caught Eravamont. He almost went over the bridge and back down.

The Silver Stairs

Stairs up and down, spiral stairs, etc. The walls were mirrors.

• The Reflections: Their reflections tried to get the group to touch the mirrors, but the heroes refused.
• Circular Room: Baphomet himself appeared in the mirrors. He questioned the group. He realized that they were working with the devils, and relished the idea of killing them. He told them that the device to shut down the portal was in his tower, the Lyktion! It, too, is a maze. Next session, the group will try to navigate that maze while Baphomet himself hunts them.
• Trap: The central part of the floor dropped out beneath them. All of the new NPCs except for Eo failed their saves and fell to their death. Way down there was a hedge maze full of labyrinth minotaurs… but the group avoided it. They continued on.
• Haagenti’s Bridge: They came upon a bridge outside lined with statues of minotaurs with glowing eyes. At the middle was an amber statue of Haagenti, other of minotaurs. Inside it was a black flame – the vestige of Haagenti. Like the vestiges in Curse of Strahd, you could make a pact with her and receive a boon.

Bovina decided to do so. Haagenti forced them to go through three tests to prove that Bovina was worthy of the honor! An ice maze formed around them.

Haagenti’s Ice Maze

• The Slide: The group ended up on a slide with three giants froze in massive blocks of ice sliding after them. Eo got squashed by the cubes, totally dead. The group immediately began brainstorming ways to bring him back to life. He rose up as an undead gnoll (now he’s even more Thriller-like) and we continued.
• The ice maze was melting and the un-frozen giants were chasing them! They came to a hallway with a series of sheets of ice blocking their path. The idea was that Bovina could try to minotaur-charge through them, but Theran immediately dropped a fireball. This melted the sheets, but also melted the dungeon!

The group freaked out and ran, making it to the final room.

The exit was a swirling portal on the other end of a frozen lake with thin ice. The group tried to daintily cross. Theran cast levitate on Eravamont and handed him a rope, pulling the floating dustman across as if he was a birthday balloon.

Theran failed his save and the ice gave way beneath his feet. He tried to hold onto the rope to dangle, but he was unable. He fell into the freezing water.

The three giants jumped into the pool and lunged at Theran. Bidam, Bovina, and Eo were at the portal, but didn’t want to leave without the other two. Theran ended up swimming over to the heroes, but Eravamont was still dangling by the ceiling.

The giants had passed by him and were adjacent to Theran. Bidam tried to pull him out but took three devastating opportunity attacks while doing so.

Theran tried a maneuver. He misty stepped to Eravamont. They both fell in the water. Then Theran cast thunderwave to create a sonic blast to propel them through the air and over the giants. Arcana check! His roll: A 20!

Boom, the group escaped and the test had been passed.

The portal too them right to the front doors of the Lyktion, Baphomet’s tower. They’ll go through that next time!

Planescape - Blood War XIV. The Charnel God of Orcus

We got a late start for this one, so I had to cram a lot into a short period of time. I know a lot of DMs run things at a different pace and I think that a lot of people would have just let the group go at their own speed, but I like to chop through it and honestly, I don’t think it hurts the game too much. Nobody seems to mind, anyway.

In D&D I feel like there’s a lot of wasted time at the table. If you watch people play, it tends to be pretty boring. I’ve developed this spastic style where a few phrases get uttered many times per session:

• “Anybody doing anything else special?”
• “Do you go do X or do you want to do something else?”

Waffling: When you let the players sit there and haggle over what to do next, a lot of weird things happen. Sometimes the players wait for someone else to decide. Sometimes one person wants to do something, but isn’t heard. Sometimes a faction of players get into shenanigans because they’re getting bored or annoyed that a decision hasn’t been made.

I want to run a full session in under two hours. To do so, I have to set fire to all that stuff. Let’s cut to the chase! Give them the chance to do whatever they want and then move on.

I went overboard with preparing again, so this one was crammed with material.

We started off with a bunch of downtime stuff.

Scorpion Tail: Theran had a demonic scorpion tail attached to his above-butt region. I gave him the tlincalli (from Volo’s Guide to Monsters) power. It paralyzes! He’s 13th level, what the hell.

High-Pitched Metal: In the neighborhood where the group lives, there’s a mad scientist-type who makes golems. He sewed the tail onto Theran.

His name is “Dr. Stein”, which is a reference to a song by a band called Helloween. When I was a kid, I found this song to be both utterly ridiculous/delightful. My friends used to ask me to sing the one part in a thick German accent: “Dr. Shteen grows funny creatures! Lets them run – (super-high 80’s metal voice) into the niiigghhtt!" I timestamped it for you.

I should mention that Bidam got a demon scrotum sewn on, so now he has two sacks and four balls  – 2 dragonborn, 2 demon. Personally I thought it would have been cooler if there were four balls in one sack, but it’s not my character! My campaign is stupid.

The group did a bunch of goofy stuff with the new employees at their main festhall. Jessie finds it hilarious that their talking cat (Jysson, from the very 1st session of the campaign) is attracted to the new tabaxi (cat-lady from Volo's) so I’m milking that for all it’s worth.

I made sure to show Eravamont Glask canoodling with ladies. He’s my Sean Connery NPC. I realized the group has a huge pile of female NPC allies and not-so-many males, so I’m using him to try to even things out a bit.

Red Shroud: The succubus known as Red Shroud, who is a fairly major NPC from earlier editions, lives in Sigil now and is running something of a spy/information-dealing business. I am thinking of building up a sort of secret war between her and Shemeshka the Marauder.

She tipped the group off that the devil festhall had a new owner – Lilis, wife of Dispater (the lord of the second layer of hell). I think technically, she’s an archdevil and can’t enter Sigil, but for my campaign I’m saying technically she’s not an archdevil.

Honestly I am very confused in general about which devils can leave hell. Many supplements infer that none of them can, but then a whole bunch of other supplements have them coming and going all the time.

The group met with Lilis and I got to introduce her three male erinyes minions. One is her bodyguard, one is her messenger, and one is a super-handsome guy that Lilis adores name Sintelis. Jessie seemed very interested in this dude and I got the feeling she’s got something up her sleeve. I’ll keep dangling this guy out there and we’ll see what she does with it.

Lilis tried to get the group to give her information on the 1st layer of hell. The group knows one of Zariel’s secrets – she’s nuts and she talks to severed angel heads. I wanted to see if the group would spill it. They didn’t.

Demon-Making Farm: The group picked up more adult nephrotics (demon crustaceans). The heroes found out last session that the nephrotics taste delicious, and reluctantly sold four of them to Red Shroud so she could sell them to restaurants.

Iggwilv

Skyshrine: At Theran’s floating castle in the Abyss, there was a problem. They could hear the babies crying. These babies are all children of Graz’zt, and one of them is clearly a child of Graz’zt and Lamashtu.

They went into the nursery and found that the succubus nurse had been turned to stone, and Iggwilv was here glaring at the baby! Iggwilv is angry that Graz’zt made a baby with Lamashtu.

This was a tricky little thing, here. I wanted to show that Iggwilv was now on their side, sort of. She wants Iggwilv dead. I also reminded them that Iggwilv knows Lamashtu’s truename – Lamashtu is under her control, to a degree. Iggwilv might be able to summon and bind her! Lamashtu is the big villain of this whole thing, so it’s kind of a big deal.

I also wanted to show that Iggwilv is powerful. She had a sorcerous duel with Theran a few sessions back, and Theran was a bit cocky about it. She was using low level spells! I decided she wanted to show him how powerful she was and that he’d better do as she says. I looked up her 3e stats and just grabbed a few spells:

• Counterspell: I read up on it to make sure I ran it right. As a reaction, you can just shut down a spell. If you use a higher slot, you can auto-shut down almost any spell with no roll!
• Dispel Magic: I grabbed this in case Theran created some sort of effect
• Banishment: I thought it would be awesome to use this spell on the group and send them back to my homebrew setting for the 1 minute duration of the spell.

For the purposes of this encounter, her DC was a 16 and her spell attack bonus was a +10. I took these numbers right from a CR 22 mind-flayer alhoon from Volo’s. I have statistical wiggle-room because this Iggwilv is actually a simulacrum – a clone made of ice and snow.

The 3e stats give her a staff of power, so I pulled out the staff of power sheet I use for my Eberron character and I was good to go.

The group got nervous that she was going to hurt the baby. She ranted and raved, and I dropped all of that Lamashtu info. Then she cast fireball on the heroes, not hitting the babies, but setting the place on fire.

Bidam charged and she banished him.

Theran cast disintegrate. Counterspell. She cast cone of cold… he was hurt really bad. He cast something else. Counterspell. She dropped him with magic missile, I think.

Bidam appeared in my homebrew city of Olwynn. In my previous campaign, Bidam had a job taking care of a slow-witted goblin named Slurp, who lived in a tower owned by Pollidemia the Wicked, a reformed villain who’s been in my campaigns for many years.

This went over well, as I had hoped. The winged wolves barked and jumped around excitedly. Slurp yelled “Daddy!” and ran over. Pollidemia took a look at Bidam. Bidam originally was a dragonborn who picked through trash to eke out a living. Now here he was with gleaming golden armor and a massive sword of sharpness. She was most impressed. Then.. Bidam vanished. He was back at Skyshrine.

Iggwilv was gone. Bidam healed Theran and they put out the fire.

I had mixed feelings about this because I don’t like it when the heroes fight creatures that they are no match for. I justify this one by saying that it is all to build anticipation for the day when they do take her on and defeat her. It should make it feel rewarding and well-earned.

Sigil: The nurse had been turned to stone. The group brought her to Sigil and paid to have her restored. She was first enraged and began trashing the temple she’d been restored in. They politely asked her to leave.

Then she realized the group had saved her. Demons are not used to acts of kindness, so the group has earned her loyalty.

Burningwater: The 9th layer of the Abyss, home to Bidam’s wife, Bazuuma – demon lord of positive energy. The heroes had given her a pile of soul larvae. She consumed them, and gained greater power!

She used it to transform her kids – abyssal dragons named Pyranicus and Pyranica – into Young Adult Dragons. They were quite excited and asked Bidam if they could fly around and go on adventures with him. The kids were told in no uncertain terms that they were never to leave this plane without permission.

New Demon: Bazuuma gained the power to create a more powerful demon type! The chain of progression goes like this:

1. Jovocs
2. Red Unicorns with foul mouths
3. Oculus Demons!

Oculus demons are from Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, which is a pretty great adventure that, like many others, goes unheralded.

Oculus Demons

These demons look really cool and they have a bunch of eyes, including eyes on their fingertips. They can shoot three rays per round. The rays are of negative energy. They do damage and slowly paralyze you!

Negative energy! Bazuuma is a demon lord of positive energy, it feels like it fits so well to just flip their beams to positive energy. They fit this NPC like a glove! I should probably have an oculus demon NPC sidekick for a few sessions to get another male in the mix and to kind of reinforce that they exist and that Bazuuma’s power is growing.

New Abyssal Realm: Last session, the group pulled a layer of the Abyss into Hell. They saw a new abyssal layer forming in the void where the old one had been.

Theran bought a scroll of plane shift and cast it (casting off a scroll is a rule I can never remember!).

I should note that Theran had to buy this scroll in Sigil. He went to the Society of Luminiferous Aether. Bovina came along. She wanted to check out a book that Theran found there last session that had details about Haagenti, the mother of minotaurs.

Bovina is a member of a faction that believes anyone can become a god. She wants to become the god of minotaurs. This was a way of setting the table for that. I got plans!

They floated in the void and saw the heart/core of the new layer. Bazuuma stuck her hands into it and crystals grew out of it.

When I was preparing this, I kept asking myself where the heck I was going to get a cool new abyssal layer from. I had no ideas! I dug through a pile of D&D stuff, and was flipping through a 3e book by Bruce Cordell called When the Sky Falls, a whole sourcebook about meteors hitting your campaign world. This is one of a billion books I’ve only flipped through and never read.

Then I remembered a pdf I have from the same line: Beyond Countless Doorways. This is a 3e book, a “planescape reunion” where people who worked on the planescape setting made up 20 new planes for you to use! New planes!!

So I dug through it and chose one. Bazuuma grew her new realm in an instant…

The Crystal Road of Deluer: Crystalline roads 30 feet wide, 6 feet thick spanning a seemingly endless blue sky. The roads connect to giant circular rocks made of a certain mineral. For now, there’s copper, bronze and mithral, among others.

On the mithral “lode” is.. The Mithral City! A city of mithral. Pretty awesome, right?

I decided Bazuuma could create a few portals, since she was forming the whole realm.

• Plain of 1,000 Portals: Pretty much every abyssal layer has one of these, not Bazuuma’s choice.
• A crystal tower in the plane of positive energy.
• Deadbook Square: A secret portal hidden in a rarely-used building. The key to activate it is hair from Jysson, the talking cat.

With all that done, we finally got to the adventure.

The heroes needed to go to Thanatos, the abyssal realm that once belonged to Orcus but now is ruled by Lamashtu. Their devil army is invading.

The group made their way through the abyssal undersump. Devil guards are stationed here to hold the place, but that’s tenuous at best. They had to pay the toll to the Fulsome Queen again, which they did gleefully. She’s an official NPC from Pathfinder, a demon woman made of waste.

We got into a thing about wiping with slime which you probably don’t want to hear about.

They arrive in Thanatos. They had a mission to accomplish: Go shut down the portal to Baphomet’s Realm. If Baphomet, demon lord of minotaurs, popped through that portal and attacked the devils, the whole invasion would be ruined.

Crypt Thing

The group got on their abyssal griffons (Theran is reluctant to ride on his flying throne, for whatever reason) and they flew to the Valley of the Crypt Things.

They came upon a circle of thrones facing each other. Seated in each was a skeleton in robes. When Bidam stepped in the circle, they all stood and pointed at him. They whispered in his mind that the charnel god was loose in the Valley, and that they’d be rewarded if they dealt with it.

The charnel god is a pathfinder thing. When orcus died, shards of his divinity rocketed through the cosmos and landed in places connected to him. A shard entered into a fifteen foot tall statue of Orcus and came to life – a charnel god. Charnel gods hate their former followers, because they think it is the fault of the followers that they died.

So this charnel god of orcus is rampaging through this maze of mausoleums, causing the crypt things endless headaches. The group had to go in and find the portal to Baphomet’s maze (flying is no good due to a deadly hovering cloud of necrotic mist), so they were on their toes.

The group was going to go through three planned events, and there were three optional locations they could visit. Each location had piles of treasure. I decided that the group needed more money – cash money – so I thought this was a nice way to dump it on them.

For the optional areas, I used modified traps from the unearthed arcana traps thing. It worked fine!

Crypt of the Demon Lords: This crypt had some orcus faces on the wall, fire-breathing traps. The group did a great job of figuring it out and avoiding them. They found some stuff made of gems worth 10,000 gp, I’ll leave it to your imagination. They also found a ring with a stylized “CU” on it.

Temple of Orcus: The group had to traverse a huge temple of orcus with ornate, lode-bearing pillars. Suddenly, the charnel god exploded into the temple. It roared and charged Bidam. Bidam has the orcusword, a powerful relic of Orcus. It’s like a magnet to the charnel god.

It ran through a bunch of lode-bearing pillars and the whole ceiling collapsed. Bidam got out, but Theran was buried. He was able to misty-step out of the rubble. The charnel god was gone! Would it be back? Yes.

Crypt of The Angels: The classic Indiana Jones rolling boulder trap! The heroes made some epic die rolls and dove out of the way Treasure: Crystal chimes and a golden hourglass worth a total of 10,000 gp. A ring with a stylized “S”.

Temple of Doresain: The group needed to go through this place to keep going. They were cautious, and listened at the door. This huge temple was full of zombies! The ceiling was too low for flight, dangit. No problem, Eravamont Glask has turn undead. He was turning like crazy, creating a circle that was safe for the group to stand in.

Suddenly, the far wall exploded. Like the kool-aid man, charnel god had returned. The group smartly exploited a hole in the floor. The charnel god fell in and the group got the heck out of there. Would the charnel god be back? Yup.

Crypt of the Devils: This had a complicated trap from unearthed arcana, with slashing blades and crushing pillars. The heroes tried to ride on Theran’s flying throne to get to the treasure at the far end, but got hit by a pillar and they went hurtling in all directions. They scrambled and got the treasure: A huge pile of platinum and an emerald marital aid worth a total of 10,000 gp. Also, a ring with a stylized “OR”.

They sat there for a minute, thinking about the rings. “CU”, “S”, and “OR”. Jessie yelled “Orcus!”
Yup!

Portal to the Ivory Labyrinth: Finally! The group arrived at a weird clearing – a circle of statues of orcus. All of them looked exactly like the charnel god. The portal was an archway with engravings of minotaurs and a maze design on it and appeared to be inactive. The entire area was carpeted with bodies of slain minotaurs. Apparently the charnel god was killing anyone who came through the portal.

The group scanned the area, nervous. They rolled perception checks and rolled incredibly low. I rolled for the NPCs (Eravamont and Bovina the cow lady). They rolled low, too. Dammit!

One statue came to life. The charnel god! It pounded on Bidam with a stone wand of orcus. Theran fired off a disintegrate spell, cracking it open. The group saw a swirling shard inside of it.

Somehow the group finally made a perception and they saw glowing runs on three of the statues that matched the statues of orcus. They put on the rings and took control of them!

Their statues beat the crap out of the charnel god and then Bidam reduced it to ash with two swings of the sword of sharpness.

The shimmering crystal plopped to the ground. Theran realized that it was a divine shard. With no prompting, Jessie said.. “Bovina could use that to be a god!” Yep! Sort of!

I asked them who touches the shard. I did that on purpose to give them a meta-game heads-up that maybe touching it would have consequences. They very, very carefully mage-handed it into their bag of holding.

Bad guys will want that shard! Acererak will want it! Graz’zt will want it! I’m going to base the shard’s properties on Nahyndrian crystals from Wrath of the Righteous, which I’ll talk about next time.

Next session, the group goes into Baphomet’s Maze.

Adventures in Eberron – Return to Kobold Hall

I busted out my 9th level sorcerer for some more 5th Edition Eberron stuff on Saturday. I love the staff of power that I have, but in the back of my head I worry that it’s making things difficult for the DM.

We’ve been collecting gems. We needed one more, and then we would be able to go to another world (the campaign world of our 4th edition campaign!).

I opened up my well of worlds and once again we rolled for a random Eberron plane. It was Shavarath the Battleground, a realm that was an endless battlefield. Devils, demons and angels all at war, taking and re-taking fortresses that littered the realm.

I thought that was pretty cool (I don’t know anything about Eberron) and I asked the DM if there were demon lords and archdevils here. He said that in Eberron, most entities like that are distant, if they even exist at all.

It seems like a great place for the Blood War. You could probably come up with a lot of cool stuff for this place.

We spotted the tower that we needed to get to. There was a trench between us and it. Our fighter tried to jump the trench, but barbed devils lurking in it grabbed him and pulled him in. We had a quick battle where I levitated a dude and we blasted the others with spells. Our fighter got hurt very badly.

We entered the tower and found a golem guarding the gem we needed. I’m kind of torn about what to do in these situations. I know that I can just use telekinesis to pull the gem to my hand and then cast dimension door to get back to the portal. But as a fellow DM, I feel a bit weird about it.

Powerful Characters: I feel like the DM might have to scramble, and a lot of time in the past when I ran into situations like this, I’d sort of block the player’s actions in a way that felt a bit unrealistic or heavy-handed. I think that when you’re a DM, you need to know the capabilities of your players and take them into account when you make an adventure.

In this case, though, I have so many tools at my disposal that it’s hard to design around it. It’s almost like you can’t run “item snatch” scenarios because I can pull them off so easily.

It turns out I was worried for nothing, as I realized I couldn’t dimension door, because that would leave one party member – our injured fighter, in harm’s way and he would die. So I telekinetically snatched the gem and then got stabbed! I turned our fighter invisible so he wouldn’t be a target.

We ran, and the golem caught up to me and breathed poison gas that dropped me to 4 hit points. Then I dimension doored to the portal and climbed in.

Once the gem was off the plane, the golem was confused and kind of malfunctioned. The others got through and we were successful.

We had a lot of options a far as what to do next – this campaign has a lot of storylines that we get to kind of pick through and decide what we want to do.

There’s one I am quite keen on handling. We let a succubus NPC draw from our deck of many things and she drew the donjon card – she’s trapped in a prison somewhere.

That takes a backseat for now. We wanted to use these gems and see what happened. 

Return to 4e

The next day, we used them in conjunction with my well of worlds and went through. We appeared in the Nentir Vale! The 4th edition setting! I found it very amusing. We were in 4th edition! Do we get minor actions? Don’t burn your dailies!

We were in the village of Fallcrest. In our 4e campaign, things happened and it ended up where during the day, the world crossed with the Feywild and at night it crossed with the Shadowfell.

It was daytime, so it was fey-time. We explored Fallcrest and were trolled by a number of pixie-type things that we did our best to ignore. Eventually we met the rulers, who were centaurs. They were linked to someone called the first warden.

The Transaction of Doom: Eventually we figured out that it was possible that this warden was something of our own creation. In 4th, we ended up with an extremely powerful, evil item. I think it was the headless horseman’s scythe.

We had one player fully-immersed in 4e optimization-think. He was very statistics-oriented. He decided on his own to sell the scythe for whatever he could get for it, since it didn’t fit his “build”. He did not consult us on this.

He sold an artifact of evil so he could get the next item on his magic item wishlist, a thing that gave him an extra +1 in certain conditions. Remember.. he was going to get that item soon, anyway. We were basically allowed to get one item off of our wishlist per session.

Back then, the DM found this very funny and we soon learned that the merchant that bought the scythe sold it for an incredible profit.

So now, in 5e, we all started laughing when we realized that this entire region is probably ruled by the person who bought the headless horseman’s scythe. It’s sort of like buying the Wand of Orcus for $20 and an olive garden gift card.

We ended up realizing the centaurs were not our allies. We hid out with some drow.

The Raven Queen: Long story. Basically, we learned we needed to get these feathers of the raven queen (one lesson I learned long ago - everyone loves the Raven Queen). In 4e, our characters used the feathers to kill Lolth. The feathers have the power to make sure that when somebody dies – they’re dead. That’s what we thought, anyway.

These feathers will allow us to kill the rakshasas who have been messing with us for the whole campaign. Normally, rakshasas re-form in Hell when they slain and can come back. With the feathers, we can obliterate them for good.

Where are the feathers? Kobold Hall! The introductory dungeon from the 4e DMG. I died laughing. I ran that thing a bunch of times.

What was cool was the DM re-designed it. There’s a feywild version and shadowfell version. We had to go through both! Immediately, we were all wondering about the white dragon at the end of it.

This Kobold Hall had no combat – it was all puzzles, many of them relating to our old characters. We had to obtain 6 keys – 3 silver and 3 gold. We had to figure a bunch of stuff, like giving tea to effigies of our old characters and putting roses on coffins.

One of the big rooms in Kobold Hall is this place where a boulder endlessly rolls around the room. We went through two versions of it – one with a huge singing skull rolling around (it sang a song about 4e that the DM actually made up, was very funny) and a rolling seashell in the feywild version. There was a key inside each.

Our fighter got inside the skull, but had no luck with the shell. We eventually shattered it.

Then we went below to the icy lake. White dragon? Nope. A portal.

We passed through the portal and appeared in a dark forest. Nearby was a path lined with tombstones. We followed the path and came upon a statue of the raven queen holding two feathers. The feathers we were looking for!

Then, something flew above us. It was the white dragon – in undead form. It was a dracolich!
That’s where we stopped!

Very fun session, hilarious stuff. I love 4e (though I don’t want to play it again) and I really enjoy poking around in it through a 5e lens. Really cool, this DM always has good ideas!

Dice, Camera, Action: Episode 52 - Storm King's Thunder

Episode 52: Can't Hurt Sunshine

• Watch this episode on Youtube here
• Buy Storm King’s Thunder here
• Season Two Dice, Camera, Action Episode Guide
• Dice, Camera, Action on Reddit
• The Reddit Dice, Camera, Action Index
• The Dice, Camera, Action Youtube Playlist

This last weekend was the Stream of Annihilation. It was awesome. I wrote a billion words about it already. The whole event kicked off with Dice, Camera, Action episode 51, where the group learned that Diath and Strix are dying.

Chris is starting to work in the story of the new adventure, Tomb of Annihilation. In it, every person who had been raised from the dead are no rotting away and will be gone forever in a matter of weeks. To stop it, the heroes need to seek out an artifact known as the Soulmonger.

I've never seen a D&D session like today's! Pretty amazing.

The Party

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

We pick up where we left off. Strix and Diath are dying, and Van Richten has just told Evelyn that in order to save Strix and Diath, she has to die. Only Evelyn can save them, because she carries the blessing of Saint Markovia.

The group has a suite in an underground inn in Citadel Adbar. In this suite, the group discusses what to do. Evelyn is very up for it. The other two really don't want it to happen.

Van Richten intends to cast a vistani pagan ritual. He needs components! He'll try to take care of that himself. He needs three rings of pure gold.

Paultin will need to dress up as a raven. They'll need to make a raven costume. Van Richten notes that the ritual might not end the curse, it might just stave it off.

The max hp of Diath and Strix drops by 1 hp. That's going to keep happening until they are dead.

Paultin is in the other room, hung over. He wakes up and hears Van Richten. Paultin is none too please (Van Richten killed his parents)and he casts animate object the chair Van Richten is sitting on. Paultin screws with him a lot and once he gets up to speed, he feels like Van Richten is not telling them everything.

Paultin notices that Van Richten's shadow isn't acting normal. Hmmmm.

Van Richten's off to get the ingredients for the ritual. The group goes to meet the king to report to him on what happened at Ironslag. Standing next to the throne is his main adviser, Azon Bronzefire.

The king thanks the group for saving Jasper and he asks about the other dwarves. Diath says they didn't make it.

Azon demands to know where Krak is. Diath declares that Azon is a schemer - "Krak" (the earth genie in disguise) was an agent of the Bronzefires and he was up to no good. The court of dwarves are in an uproar.

As proof, the group releases the genie from the flask. The genie admits that he is bound to the Bronzefires and that they sent him to steal the golem.

Azon is taken into custody.

Doppleganger

The king kicks everyone out of the throne room except the heroes. The King explains that he's not really the king - he's a doppleganger (shapechanger). The original king was dying and put him on the throne so that the dwarves wouldn't panic.

This subplot is right out of Storm King's Thunder.

The doppleganger thinks someone is trying to kill him. He wants Strix to pretend to be king for three days, so he can go into hiding. That sounds incredibly amusing. Evelyn loves it, and points out that she did a great Strahd impression.

There are people from Yartar coming here soon and he thinks it's some kind of set-up or hit.
Ritual time?

Somewhere in here, Evelyn checks on the toymaker who is fixing Murderbot, the evil puppet. The toymaker goes on and on about Evelyn and how beautiful she is, and how it inspired him to create.

Evelyn is getting ready to die. This is not jokey at all, she's dead serious.

Evelyn hands out stuff:

• Diath gets most of her weapons.
• Strix gets juniper (Evelyn's mouse) and a book about manners.
• Paultin gets Treebane. She tells him to pick up Simon once Tyril Flamebane finishes making him. Her signet ring of her family crest.

She wrote them each a letter. She hands it to them. Anna wrote a bit about what was in these letters on the DCA subreddit right here. She clearly put a lot of time and thought into this, which is amazing because it's only been 4 days since the last game and she worked all weekend!

Evelyn gets sadder and sadder. She goes off to be alone. Paultin joins her. They talk a bit and she kisses him. Anna starts crying and the whole thing gets very emotional. Apparently most of the people who watched this live were crying, too.

We're doing this ritual. Right now! Paultin's in the raven costume. Van Richten is Evelyn is hit with radiant energy....

Suddenly, she's flying through the aether on the back of Mourning Glory. Three entities are waiting for her:

• St. Andral: Old white man with a staff. He's a cleric, a saint
• St. Markovia: She's a paladin with a hammer, missing a leg (her thighbone is a magic item in Curse of Strahd).
• The Morninglord: He is holding a baby.

Yeah, that's right! Her GOD is there. Why is he holding a baby?

Saint Markovia

OK.. going to go on a huge tangent here. I forgot about this stuff until I looked it up.

These saints are from Curse of Strahd and other old Ravenloft products. I wrote about all of the saints in an old article I wrote about the "prequel" adventures of Curse of Strahd.

Saint Andral is mentioned in Curse of Strahd on page 97. His bones are stolen.

Saint Markovia followed her heart and became a priest of the Morninglord shortly after her 18th birthday. On Curse of Strahd page 146, it says that Saint Markovia was a priest who took a stand against Strahd, but she ended up being destroyed along with most of her followers. Saint Markovia is buried in crypt 6 (Curse of Strahd page 86). I believe Evelyn actually found this crypt

• Saint Markovia's Thighbone: (Curse of Strahd page 222) is the equivalent of a mace of disruption.
• Saint Markovia's Abbey: This is where The Abbot and his creepy bride are in Krezk. It has all of those mongrelfolk in it.

Evelyn meeting those three matches up perfectly with Curse of Strahd. Here's a note I made in that old article:

"There is a stained glass window that depicts Saint Andral, the Morninglord and Saint Markovia on page 138 in Curse of Strahd."

Here's what I wrote about the time the waffle crew discovered St. Markovia's crypt in Castle Ravenloft: 

"Evelyn is magically drawn to the crypt of St. Markovia. This area is on Curse of Strahd page 86, Crypt 6. Chris changes this around quite a bit from what's in the book.

I always thought it would be cool if Evelyn became a saint. Maybe that will happen somehow. If she defeats Strahd, that's worthy of sainthood, right?

In the crypt, the group sees dust that might be the remains of St. Markovia. The group thinks that if Diath snorts it, he'll be cured. He declines. Strix quietly puts some of the ashes into a potion bottle and keeps it.

The spirit of Saint Markovia appears and blesses Evelyn's weapon, Lightfall. She calls Evelyn "Lady Marthane." Lightfall is imbued with the powers of a mace of disruption:

Lightfall:

• Sheds light.
• +2d6 radiant damage to undead and fiends.
• If the undead/fiend target has 25 hit points or less, it must make a saving throw or be destroyed."

Right after this, Diath actually drank the ashes of Saint Markovia. He was turning into a ghoul-thing thanks to his dark pact. Drinking the ashes actually did turn him to normal.

OK... back to the session.

Evelyn is about to greet her god and the saints. Suddenly, black tendrils snatch her. She's pulled into a green devil face! Wow... this is more Tomb of Annihilation stuff. The face looks like this:

Paultin's there in the ether, in the form of a giant raven! He sees Evelyn being stolen away by the tendrils. He flies after her. He is going to need to make a check to grab her. NATURAL 20!

That is just amazing. The crew rolls a lot of natural 1's and not too many 20's. People are crying and holding their mouths.

Suddenly... Paultin is in the crumbled ruins of a citadel in a winter valley. There are torches on the outside. It is a grey, colorless place. He's in a hallway with doors on one side and windows on the other. All the way at the end of the hallway are double doors.

A voice hisses at him: "Get out!" He hears cracking twigs.

Paultin does not leave. He heads down the hallway. He's still in his bird costume.

He enters the room and finds.. a nest that takes on a living form..? A living nest? There's darkness where its face should be.

Birds come flying at him. The nest-thing presses a severed, rotted hand to his lips.

A voice fills his head. "Let it clutch the chalice." He takes the hand and the nest-thing collapses into a heap.

OK. Severed hand? Is this the hand of Vecna?! I think Chris is a Vecna enthusiast and I believe the Amber Temple is actually a temple of Vecna.

Back in Citadel Adbar, Van Richten has collapsed and Paultin has vanished. Chris says they can't tell if Van Richten is unconscious or dead. Evelyn vanished, too. Strix is certain Evelyn has moved on.

Back in the aether, Chris says that Evelyn was pulled away from.. the Soulmonger...! She finds herself in light.

Evelyn wakes up. Paultin is lying next to her, holding the severed hand.

They're in a toy store. She looks at her hands. They're different. She's in a toy body.. a body that looks like Evelyn.

She's the same height that she was when alive. Mecha Evelyn! That's where we stop?!?!

As they wrap up, Anna says that she actually sent the players letters in real life (twitter DMs). Next episode, we will learn more about Diath's past.

Overall

Not sure even what to say about this one. It just ramped up and up and up. It got extremely emotional, more than I've ever seen in a D&D session.

As I have said many times before, Anna is an amazing player. For most of this session, Chris could just sit back as Anna played out what Evelyn would do in this situation. She puts so much thought and effort into her character, she's just top notch all the way around. She actually sat down and wrote out letters. Not many players do stuff like that.

A very remarkable session! If you've been watching this show for a length of time, it's a pretty big deal. It showcases why D&D is so awesome and utterly unique. It is much more involving than a TV show or a movie, because you're actually "in it." When you play D&D, you're an actor and the audience.

Planescape - Blood War XIII. The Bonds of Hell

One of the things I had to learn the hard way when it comes to running campaigns is that you need to know what works and to make sure to include that in almost every session.

For me, players like it best when I run downtime stuff and advance all of the mini-stories with the NPCs.

I am right now running a big war. In theory, the group should be camped with the devil army, marching across the dusty, bleak realm of Thanatos for weeks at a time.

In the past, I would have done that. The group wouldn’t have seen their NPC friends. In past campaigns, every single time I cut the group off from that stuff, the game turned into a slog. It was almost like the players were showing up, filling time until they got back to what they really wanted to do.

Now, even if it doesn’t make sense, I make sure to let them go back every single session.

What has worked for me when laying out a session is to do one big action scene/scenario, some little scenes, and then plenty of time for the group to go to the city of Sigil and check in on all of their friends, businesses and homes. That formula works!

Find Your Formula: I would think every DM will find a different formula. It all depends on what your strengths are. It’s hard, but when you think about your sessions, objectively decide what the group liked best. Not what you liked best, not what you want to do, but what got the best reaction. What were the things that the players talked about. When did they light up? That’s the stuff you should focus on. Throw everything else in the garbage!

It’s painful. When you come up with a campaign, you envision the big moments and the twists that will blow the group’s mind, but a lot of times they don’t grab onto the things you expect them to. If you try to fight that, forcing your vision and your tempo on them, it just doesn’t work.

Once you identify what the group responds to and what generates fun/hilarity/excitement for your group, build on that. Try to avoid making everything negative. For example, a bad guy army is rampaging across the land. Every development shouldn’t be: “They took this town”, “They enslaved these people”, etc. There should be a variety of things, good and bad. Last Session, I talked to the players about their characters for the new campaign.

I'm going to wait until Xanathar's Guide to Everything comes out, so they can use the options in that book if they want to.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Elf Wizard

Last time, assassin devils killed all of the groups employees at their main festhall. The group immediately went about bringing their dead NPC buddies to temples and paid to have them raised. The group spent almost all of their remaining money on this.

Some of the NPCs did not want to be raised – they’re ready to move on. This was a way for me to dump NPCs that had becoming boring.

The group hired some new employees, which allowed me to cook up some new goofballs to throw into the mix. A ninja, a librarian, a dude named Kyle Docker, and a mysterious sparkling women with a big pile of treasure. She drinks a lot. The group was quite suspicious of her but didn’t figure out her deal.

She’s a shape-shifted elysian dragon. They drink a lot. Seems like a fun thing to throw into the mix!

Devil Scam: The group learned that somebody admitted to hiring the assassin devils. He’s a bearded devil named Jimmy Neverlearner. The group’s ally, the succubus Red Shroud, dug up dirt on him. It tTurns out that Jimmy has made a career out of taking the blame for crimes he didn’t commit.

The group visited Jimmy in jail and I got to bust out my stupid line I couldn’t wait to use. A guard shook his head when he looked at Jimmy’s rap sheet, and he said: “You’re just never going to learn, are you, Jimmy Neverlearner?”

I should point that prior to this, I had the group make perception checks as they wandered the streets of Sigil. They kept failing. Over and over. Red Shroud was tailing them, having taken the form of a bauriar (a goat/centaur). Finally she just approached them and dumped the info on them, which the group found very funny.

The group figured that their enemy, Vordiklot Krapple, had paid off Jimmy to take the fall. The group decided to go get their friend, Drokkarn the pit fiend, to deal with this. Drokkarn outranks Vordiklot and can get him in big trouble. I was pleasantly surprised, as that’s what I had in mind and they came to that conclusion all on their own.

Fiend's Embrace: They went to hell and saw that Drokkarn was off in a cave by himself. He was talking. The group listened. Drokkarn was answering a sending spell to Iggwilv, pledging his loyalty. When the group found Drokkarn, he was a magic cloak named the Fiend’s Embrace. He pent a long time on Iggwilv’s shoulders, and he was in love with her.

So now the group has realized she’s trying to use that to her advantage. Drokkarn’s plan is to betray the devils and become a demon lord. Iggwilv obviously can help with that. The group isn’t sure if they can trust him or not.

The heroes brought Drokkarn to Sigil, and he beat up Vordiklot and let group beat on the corruption devil as well. He ordered Vordiklot to go back to hell and never to return. Vordiklot, trembling, agreed to do so. Vordiklot paid the group off to leave him alone. He gave them a big pile of soul larvae, and a bag of holding.

Groups love bags of holding! Always! Now, each hero in this game has one.

The soul larvae are planar currency. Demon lords can eat them to gain power. Eating enough soul larvae can bring a demon to demon lord status.

Basically, I was handing them the option to power up a demon lord if they wanted to. They have a lot of options. They didn’t decide what to do until the end of the session.

Downtime: We did a bunch of other stuff in town:

Haagenti

Society of Luminiferous Aether: Theran spent a few days adding every second level spell to his spell book. In one book, he learned the legend of Haagenti, the mother of minotaurs. This is from the 3e tome of magic. The group will be going into Baphomet’s maze soon and I want them to run into her vestige.

Skyshrine: A simulacrum of Iggwilv was waiting here for the group. She was done messing around. She wanted Theran’s Talisman of the sphere. Theran was extraordinarily cocky, telling her he would kick her ass again if she didn’t watch herself. The last time they fought, Iggwilv used low level spells against him. She held back! She is ridiculously powerful and I think she could kill him very easily. One Melf’s minute meteors spell from her took him down.

At that point, Theran’s loyal ally the succubus nurse burst into the room with a pile of Graz’zt’s babies. One baby lunged at Iggwilv, and Iggwilv got a look at it. It looked like Graz’zt and Lamashtu. Iggwilv realized that Graz’zt was having relations with Lamashtu and she had a temper tantrum.

Graz’zt and Iggwilv have a very dysfunctional relationship. Technically, she’s his prisoner. But she immediately became jealous and left to go get revenge. So Theran was spared a sorcerous duel.

Blibdoolpoolp

Allagash: At Bidam’s demon-making farm, he met a kuo-toa who worshiped Blibdoolpoolp – the god who is a naked lady with a lobster head. The kuo-toa was looking at the nephrotic demons that were being made at the farm. They are demon crustaceans! They look quite like Blibdoolpoolp!

The kuo-toa wanted to bring some nephrotics to his goddess. Jessie thought for a minute, and agreed to sell some. The kuo toa bought 6 and went on his merry way.

I think Blibdoolpoolp is funny and this seemed like an opportunity to work her in and see what happens.

Burningwater: The heroes went to the 9th layer of the abyss, hoe of heir buddy, Bazuuma, demon lord of positive energy. Their new friend, Korb, the three-headed demon spider, has been doing research on the wells of darkness. It’s an abyssal layer that many entities are imprisoned on. I’m building up plans to have the group go there down the line.

Destroying a Layer of the Abyss

With all that done, it was time to get down to business. The archdevil ruler of the 1st layer of hell was ready to pull off her scheme. She was going to try to pull a layer of Abyss into hell.

The plan:

1. Cast a planar breach spell to connect Avernus (1st layer of hell) to Onstrakkar’s Nest (The abyssal realm that Lamashtu once owned, but the devils had overtaken).
2. The heroes would bring massive hooked chains through the breach and hook them to the abyssal layer.
3. Thousands of devils would pull on the chains and try to drag the entire abyssal layer into hell.

"General Goreletch"

The group met a few high-ranking devils involved:

• Armaros, Resolver of Enchantments: He makes magic items. Normally Asmodeus doesn’t let people talk to him, but in this case it’s OK. He made these giant magic chains.
• Mordukhavar: The two-headed dragon, son of Tiamat and a pit fiend. He’s a general of hell.
• General Goreletch: I wanted to use the pathfinder version of Moloch, so I changed his name. The group thought he was awesome. That's because he is awesome! He can make a 90-foot tall tower rise out of the ground whenever he wants.

So each character had magical control of a hooked chain. It would follow them, hovering. When the character spoke a command word, it would plunge into the ground and the hook would extend deep into the abyssal layer.

Yaenit

The heroes went through. They made their way to the center of the layer. A few yaenits rose up from the ground. Yaenits are lamashtu’s devils, taken right from Pathfinder Bestiary 6.

They have a hallucinatory aura. The group had to make saving throws. Bidam failed. He saw Lamashtu herself rise up out of the ground and freaked out.

Theran realized it was an illusion and within a few rounds, the group was able to shake it off.
I ran this like a normal combat. For the first time EVER, Bidam got a critical with his sword of sharpness and rolled a 19 on the follow-up, meaning he beheaded the yaenit in one shot.

The heroes took down the demons and Bidam implanted his hook. One down, one to go.

The other spot they were told to go to was by the “placental river”. It just so happened to be right by the front door of a demon-part place that I’d been trying to get the group to go to for about 5 sessions. They started laughing. This place lets you sew demon parts onto your body.

I ran a second combat, but I did it in a 4e “skill challenge combat” way to save time. They roll initiative, they tell me what they do, we make a roll to see how it goes. So basically, every round,  A yaenit with a weird body part stitched on came out of the building and attacked. The parts:

• A demonic scorpion tail
• Huge, demonic muscle arms
• Other lewd things.

The group did pretty well. When it was over, Theran declared he wanted to keep one of the items. Demonic genitalia of considerable size had landed right at his feet. Jessie and I started laughing. What did he want? The scorpion tail. The scorpion tail! Did not expect that!

We’ll sew that on him next time. They know a guy who makes golems, this is right up his alley.

The group had implanted the hooks. The devils started to pull. The abyssal layer reacted violently, rippling. Tendrils and mouths opened up. One dragged Bidam inside the layer. Theran was able to grab Bidam and pull him out. They ran, dodging tendrils, and emerged through the breach into hell.

The layer came spilling in, merging with the ground under their feet. A massive section of the realm split open as it came through the portal. Out of it spilled hundreds of demons – nascent demon lords!

I had established a while back that some abyssal layers devour demons who try to take control of a layer and fail. They are trapped inside the interior organs of that layer and suffer.

Now, they were all free! Unique nascent demon lords tore into the devil army, who were completely unprepared for this.

I used a bunch of creatures from the Teratic Tome for this.

Ahriman

A nascent demon lord named Ahriman attacked the heroes. He has this trident that is linked to a good god, but is covered in this demonic crust that has corrupted it.

As the group fought him, other nascent demon lords would interject somehow for a round and then get into it with the other devils fighting all around the heroes. The other nascent demon lords:

• Eremite: A woman with golden tentacle arms
• Vomitorian: He has three mouths, barfs up yellow demons.
• Querist: A creature with rotting flesh that exudes fear.
• The Seamstress: A demon woman who wears patches of skin of other creatures. She has the weird ability to fit into tiny spaces.

Bidam got hurt bad and used his ability to pee positive energy (my campaign is stupid) to heal himself. The group defeat Ahriman and the devils were successful.

As the devils mopped up and the abyssal ground solidified and was tamed by law, the group looked through the planar breach. Theran saw something in the void. Mist was coalescing – ground was forming. A new layer was growing!

The devils didn’t notice. Armaros waved his hand and canceled the breach.

So.. I asked the group what the wanted to do, here. They had a pile of soul larvae and they knew of a new abyssal layer that absolutely nobody else was aware of. What’s more, because Theran had seen it, he could get there via magic.

They could hand this place over to a demon lord. They could also hand over their soul larvae and empower a demon lord. I listed their options for them:

• Queen Ulandine: The queen of harpies, consort of Pazuzu. She had asked the group to get her some soul larvae. The group could make her a demon lord AND give her her own layer.
• Xanthopsia, Queen of Obscenity: A while back the group met this nascent demon lord who is trapped inside of Graz'zt’s triple realm. Theran knows her truename. The group could summon her, make her a demon lord and give her her own realm. She’s make a tower in the shape of a middle figure. Jessie loves this NPC, so I knew this was a major possibility.
• Bazuuma, Demon Lord of Positive Energy: Bidam’s wife! With the soul larvae, she’d gain the power to age their dragon children into adults and she could create oculus demons, who are from the 3e demonweb pits adventure and fit her perfectly (Bazuuma has 20 eyes).
• Pazuzu: The heroes could suck up to this vulture demon lord, who has helped them recently.
• Graz’zt: Give him a 4th layer!

The heroes chose: Bazuuma. She now has two layers.

In some official books, it is said that only Graz’zt rules more than one layer, but other books contradict this. In my game, Graz’zt, Pazuzu and Lamashtu each rule more than one layer. I think Juiblex has two or three, also. Now we can add Bazuuma to the list.

So.. next time. Bazuuma will age her kids, form her layer, and Theran will get a scorpion tails stitched right on the tramp stamp region above his butt.

The group will also go back to Thanatos and visit the Valley of the crypt things, where they need to shut down the portal to Baphomet’s maze. They don’t know it, but lurking in that valley is a charnel god of Orcus – a statue containing a shard of the essence of the demon prince of undeath.
Should be awesome!!

Dungeons & Dragons - Tomb of Annihilation & Xanathar's Guide to Everything

I am going to try and use this page to list the new D&D products coming out soon and what we know about them.

You can pre-order Tomb of Annihilation right here. 

You can pre-order Xanathar's Guide to Everything right here.

Tomb of Annihilation

Official Information Page is right here.

Comes out on September 8th.
Retails for $50.

Theme: The feel of this adventure is "Indiana Jones vs. zombies." Tomb of Annihilation takes place in the jungle of Chult and builds on a few old adventures. On twitter, Chris Perkins mentions that this includes the feel/elements of the Tomb of Horrors, Dwellers of the Forbidden City, and the Isle of Dread.

Style: This adventures focuses more on the "exploration" style of D&D (from the triad of combat/roleplaying/exploration). This can be run as a free-wheeling sandbox or as a linear adventure path.

Sandboxy: They want groups to 'find' stories by exploring Chult and meeting NPCs.

The Main Thrust: "Can you survive?"

The Death Curse: A wasting disease afflicting everyone who has ever been raised from the dead.  When they die from this, they can't be raised again. Raise dead doesn't work at all.

Goal: You need to save the people who have been cursed.

The Soulmonger: A necromantic artifact  located somewhere in Chult.
 
Villain: The main villain is Acererak, from the tomb of horrors. The overall story is about how raise dead spells are failing, and those who were raised are decaying. A device known as the Soulmonger is somehow involved.

Contributor: Pendleton Ward, creator of Adventure Time, is the guest story coordinator.

Meatgrinder Mode: You can run this adventure on "hard mode." In this mode, you need to roll a 15 instead of a 10 for each death save.

Monsters: This adventure uses "weird" monsters that likely include: Su-monsters, zorbos (psychic koalas), froghemoths, dragon turtles, yuan-ti, goblin tribes that wear insect masks, grung, rust monsters, kenku, four-armed gargoyles winged monkeys, and zombie tyrannosaurus rexes that vomit zombies!

Tools: The DM is given tools to use as they like, including pterafolk, red wizards, and flying locations that you can explore.

NPC Guides: A unique aspect of this adventure is that you will need to hire the right guide or you may end up in a place that is too high level for you. Some of them might be shady, some are better than others.

Traps: The traps in the tomb are more puzzle-based. The new trap rules in Xanathar's Guide to Everything are meant to cover this.

Ring of Winter: It is believed that Artus Cimber is in this adventure. The heroes in Storm King's Thunder seek but don't find him. The original Ring of Winter novel is set in Chult, so it seems like we're gonna find ourselves an extremely powerful ring in this one.

Complete Details on Chult: The book will have a ton of information on Chult, like a gazeteer.

Ras Nsi: One featured NPC in the art is a mummy/yuan-ti named Ras Nsi. He has a moving fortress and an army of undead under his command. Piles of info about Ras right here.

You can read about Port Nyanzaru here.

You can read about Chult here.

You can pre-order Tomb of Annihilation right here.

Thoughts

Complicated: I am continually surprised at how they keep making adventures that are hard to prepare. I mean, it seems to be working fine, but I know there's a lot of DMs having a hard time running these things.

The fact that this one seems even more wide open than previous ones is interesting. They want groups to "stumble" onto plotlines by exploring? That means that the DM has to have a really good handle on a big section of the adventure, and to be prepared to run up to one of ten scenarios in a given session.

I guess that means I'll be spending a lot of time making a guide to the Tomb of Annihilation!

Realms Fatigue: I've never been a Realms guy and wow, do I wish this was set somewhere else. They sort of threw us a bone by working in Acererak, but this adventure is definitely not what I was looking for.

That said, I'm sure it will be worth playing. If nothing else, it screams "fun", and IMO that goes a really long way.

Meatgrinding: In my experience, players hate dying! Hate it! I ran D&D games 2-3 times a week for 6 years at the game store, and I'd say that 25% of the players in those games would have temper tantrums whenever they rolled bad or their character was in grave peril.

I had guys throw their dice, rant and rave, punch walls and go in the bathroom to count down from 10. And I run an extremely soft game!

I really wince when I think about unsuspecting DMs marching into a game store intent on running this on "meatgrinder mode," completely unaware of the headaches, moping, and whining they are likely to have to endure.

Geek & Sundry article

Xanathar's Guide to Everything

Main Details:

• Comes out on November 21st, 2017.
• Retail price is $50.
• Over twenty new subclasses, including the cavalier, the inquisitive, and the horizon walker.
• New ways to expand organized play and shared world campaigns.
• Two covers. One is a limited edition, art by Hydro74.
• Contains new subclasses that were playtested this year. The ones that tested the best are in the book.
• Every class has new options.
• New rules for downtime.
• New trap system that can handle complicated traps like stuff from Indiana Jones. Gives you tools to create your own traps.

Who is Xanathar? Xanathar is an old D&D NPC, a beholder crime lord who lives in Waterdeep. He has a pet goldfish. If it dies, the whole organization will be in upheaval. Tons of info right here.

A lot of the material in this book has already been released in playtest form. Here is some of it:

• New Trap Rules
• New Downtime Rules
• Feats for Races
• Feats for Skills
• New Spells
• Wizard Subclasses (apparently only one of these made the cut)
• Monk, Paladin, Ranger Subclasses
• Revised Options for the Druid, Fighter, Paladin and Warlock

D&D Adventure Grid

• Comes out on October 17th.
• Retails for $25.
• This is a double-sided grid to use with your minis.
• One side is a stone floor or city.
• The other side has grass/forest.
• You can use wet-erase and dry-erase markers on it.

$25 for one map! Seems a little pricey, especially when you can get the same thing from Paizo for much cheaper and in better variety. You can get two of them right now for $26.

Official product information is right here.

You can pre-order Xanathar's Guide to Everything right here

Tomb of Annihilation Dice

• Retail price is $20.
• It has a green tin container with the green devil face on it.
• Comes with a set of dice. Extra d6's and an extra d10.

I like the container. $20 for dice? I don't know. I'll buy it. I guess other people will too.

Official product information is right here.

Character Sheets

• Comes out on June 20th! You can pre-order it right here.
• Retails for $10
• Protective folder
• Double-sided character sheets with a few different configurations.
• Spell sheets to keep track of magic stuff.
• Introductory character sheet to help new players out.

I've always loved character sheets. This is just $10! I will definitely get these, might get some for my group, too.

Official product information is right here.

Tomb of Annihilation Miniatures

• 44 minis in the set.
• Minis include goblins wearing facemasks, a four-armed gargoyle, and Acererak! Two versions of Acererak -  A normal version and a clear version of him.
• They have set pieces: Traps! The tomb of horrors Green devil face, a portal, and tiny little potions. There's a stone juggernaut that can really roll.

Tomb of Annihilation Board Game

• This game is in the vein of the very popular Castle Ravenloft board game. 
• This can be linked to those previous games.
• This comes with unpainted minis.
• You can buy a premium version in which the minis are painted.
• This thing looks like it comes with rolling juggernaut and Acererak minis.

Betrayal at Baldur's Gate

This is available to be pre-ordered on amazon right here.

• This boardgame comes out on October 6th.
• There are 50 adventures in this, called "haunts." 10-20% of the adventures are cooperative.
• Monsters include: Minotaurs, vampires, dopplegangers
• Magic items include the sphere of annihilation.
• You can move between buildings and streets. The catacombs are a separate set of tiles.

Neverwinter MMO

• The dungeon is called the Tomb of the Nine Gods
• The Nine Gods are deities of Chult.
• There's more details here.