Shadowrun 5th Edition - Queen Euphoria

We have just finished our tenth session of Shadowrun 5th edition. I ran my own home-brewed scenarios for a while, focusing on the stuff that I thought was fun in the game: Motorcycles, gangs and of course shootouts.

Once I got that out of my system, I scoured the internet to find out what the best published adventures for the game were. I ultimately decided to run these four: Queen Euphoria, Dreamchipper, Mercurial and Elven Fire. All of them are for earlier editions of the game. But I have never been shy about converting stuff for my own use. The conversion proved to be a bit harder in Shadowrun than I expected. We are heading into spoiler territory, here, people...

Queen Euphoria

We finished Queen Euphoria last night. From what I could tell, it is regarded as one of the very best Shadowrun adventures ever made. Now that I have run it, I will say that it is indeed very fun. You can buy the pdf here for $4.

The Plot

It's broken up into two parts. In the first, our heroes the shadowrunners are hired to abduct/kidnap a movie star named Euphoria for 3 days. She's supposed to be promoting a new snack food, and a rival company doesn't want it to happen. The runners presumably succeed and let her go at the end of part one.

In part two, someone else abducts Euphoria, and this time our heroes are hired to track her down. It turns out she's been taken by a shaman who is obsessed with her. The shaman has all of these insect monsters at his beck and call. He has put Euphoria in a cocoon to transform her into his ant queen.

The pdf

This adventure is available for $4! Four bucks! That is an awesome deal. The downside here is that the art didn't scan well.. it's sort of greyed-out in spots. Also, whoever did the pdf chapters went a little overboard, basically listing anything that was bold in the text as a clickable option. If you look at the image I have here, you will see that "debugging" appears over and over. Kind of useless.

At four bucks, though, who cares? It is a great deal.

90's Charm

One thing I love about this adventure is that it is an early 90's vision of the future. People in this adventure don't read the newspaper when they wake up - they read the morning fax. When it's time to make a phone call, you activate your wristphone.

Another thing that cracks me up is the flavor text. It tells the 

players what they feel and say. Boy does that not go over well, and it didn't back then, either. I read it to the players but I made sure that they understood I was reading it just to amuse them, and allowed them to veto any actions the flavor text had them taking.

I mean, there's a part where the flavor text has them get so drunk that they pass out in a bar and wake up the next day in the bar's stockroom!

The Structure

This is what I love the most about this adventure. It's not like a D&D adventure. It's more of an investigation. The characters find clues, and then decide which clue to follow up on. I flip to that section, and go from there.

There's a big section in the back on NPCs and places the heroes might try to find information on. I am glad I remembered to read up on social skills in 5th edition, as the "etiquette" skill is used a lot in this.

Converting the stats

Boy was this hard. In retrospect, I should have just re-skinned a ganger npc stat block. One thing that was confusing was that the true form ant spirits have immunity to normal weapons. At first glance this is quite alarming. My players are street samurai, they don't have magic! How can they kill this thing if it is immune to normal weapons?
 

It turns out that immunity to normal weapons applies only to ranged weapons (why, I don't know). And even then, if the player rolls high enough, they can penetrate it. For some reason, from what I understand, a katana can hurt them as normal.

One thing I love is how the ant spirits are vulnerable to insecticide. My players actually figured this out on their own! It was great - they ended up firing gas grenades full of insecticide from grenade launchers at the bad guys.

They Paid Attention The Whole Time

I knew this was a good adventure because the players were focused the whole time. A lot of times when you run a D&D adventure, the players are "on the rails" and don't really engage with the scenario too much. But because this adventure plops clues in your lap and makes you do the rest, the wheels were turning the whole time.

My Players Still Don't Know the Rules

My group is like me - they aren't too worried about rules. But wow, 10 sessions in and they literally don't know how many dice they roll to attack or defend! Their character sheets are like hieroglyphics to them. Thankfully I did a lot of studying before I started this campaign and I have handy sheets of rules notes so I can guide them through each session.

The Best Part of This Adventure

The whole scenario builds up to where the heroes need to go raid this warehouse where the crazy shaman has Euphoria trapped in a cocoon. The corporation that hired them decides to give the heroes any equipment they want, including:

- Grenade launchers

- Security Armor and Helmets

- Thermographics and electronic tracking devices

- Motorcycles

The lower level of the warehouse is basically like the movie Aliens with Ant-monsters in their place. My players fired off insecticide grenades all over the place and thoroughly enjoyed the slaughter.

There Was a Wrinkle

Before they went on the raid, my players decided to take care of some other business. They have this friend who does computer work for them. He is 40 years old and lives with his mom (she looks like Barbara Bush). In previous sessions, the heroes had promised to give the guy a truck worth 50,000 nuyen (dollars) as payment for all the times he'd helped them, but they just forgot all about it.
 

Delicious Shadowrun flavor text

The mom didn't forget. The next time the runners came over to have the guy do some hacking for them, the mom pulled a gun on them and demanded the money. There was an intense exchange, where my player Jessie was ready to blow the old lady away. She was talked out of it, and basically was dragged out of the house. The old lady got her money, but Jessie swore revenge.
 

So there Jessie is gearing up for this raid on the ant spirits grabbing any kind of weapon she wants. She asks the equipment guy (an elf armorer named Warden) for a Panther XXL missile launcher. He gives her one. Then she laughs, tosses it in a duffle bag and.. well... she drove to the old lady's house, blew it up, and drove away laughing.

I know next session we'll have to deal with the fallout of this. Her character is addicted to novacoke (basically future-cocaine) and becoming more of a loose cannon. I have cooked up a little scenario involving a dead man's switch (when the 40 year old guy dies, an automatic message is sent to his imprisoned girlfriend offering her all his money in exchange for revenge).

Upbeat Ending

Now that I am in my late 30's, I just don't like downers in my entertainment any more. This adventure says that Euphoria cannot be saved - the cocoon has altered her irrevocably. I decided I didn't like that. In my game, Euphoria hadn't changed yet. She was comatose, but would recover. So our heroes were in fact able to save her.

Cool twist

One other great thing is that the corporation hid recording gear in the heroes' security armor. 6 weeks after this mission, a simsense movie is released called "Against the Hive Masters" starring our heroes. They loved that so much.

Overall

This is a great adventure. It really "feels" like Shadowrun. Not only that, but it is a very easy read. If you ever run a Shadowrun game, this is definitely one to run. It might even make a great introductory adventure. Part one is very simple and straightforward. Part two is a bit more complex and really shines all the way through.

Knights of the Dinner Table - The Best Gaming Comic of All Time

Last Monday, I was frantically putting together a scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics and I needed stuff - magic items, NPC names, that kind of thing. I knew exactly where to go - Knights of the Dinner Table.

KODT is a long-running comic/magazine that contains piles of gaming material and what I think would have to be the greatest RPG-related comic of all time. It also gave me the best NPC name I have ever used: Barlton Stimble.

As I pilfered material in mere minutes (which was all well-received later that night) I got to thinking about how Knights of the Dinner Table isn't really as well-known or acclaimed as it should be. So I decided to let you know why it is good and make a case for it being part of your life. Here is the main reason:

It makes you want to play RPGs
 

In 2003, I thought I had put tabletop role playing games behind me. I had gotten burned out and the dynamics with my old group had changed. Then I sat down and read a bunch of issues of KODT that my brother had (he is a comic fanatic). Before I knew it, I was working on a new campaign and assembling a new group.

Knights of the Dinner Table is about a group who plays a D&D-type game called Hackmaster (which is a real game with really nice production values). It is about their campaign and kind of pokes fun at and celebrates gamer stereotypes. The DM, BA Felton, is always trying to keep his players from abusing the rules while the players just kind of run roughshod over the whole thing.

BA's campaign is so awesome that it really draws you in. It reminds you of all the cool and unpredictable stuff that can happen in a campaign: A hireling who decides not to put up with abuse any longer, what happens when you dump a whole lot of stuff in a bag of holding, and the long-reaching effects of wielding an evil, intelligent sword.

KODT single-handedly drew me back into D&D. Every time I read it, it makes me want to play. It is the perfect cure for when you are feeling down about your campaign.

Awesome Characters

There are a bunch of different RPG groups in KODT. Pretty much all of them are as strong and interesting as the knights. There's a group of.. well.. jerks called the Black Hands. There's a group run by a school teacher who treats her players like students (which is amusing because lately that is what my public play sessions feel like - an after-school club activity). The comic doesn't sugarcoat player stereotypes but it also doesn't denigrate them. Each character is fleshed out enough with good and bad qualities. Some of them might feel very recognizable to you.

My favorite character in the whole comic is this guy Gordo. He always plays pixies and is generally just really odd. He makes everyone a little uncomfortable, but he is a really nice guy. During a "cattlepunk" (Old West Cowboy) campaign, he was in charge of 1000 cows that the group was leading over many miles. He named each cow and gave them each a backstory. Whenever one died, he was devastated in real life. 

Gordo cracks me up because these are the kind of people you only meet in D&D. Since I run so many public games, I have a lot of experience with all kinds of eccentrics and have learned to treasure the ones who do not disrupt the game at all but simply march to the beat of their own drum. D&D is where they can find acceptance and a social outlet.

Min/maxing

Powergaming is a big part of KODT. One of the main conflicts in the book is between the DM and this guy, Brian. I hate Brian. The guy cons his friends out of money constantly. He exploits any rules loophole he can find. He whines like a baby when things don't go his way.

In the earlier issues, Brian's negative traits were made more tolerable by the fact that he was shown as having a truly pathetic life. He lives alone, he would lie about having a girlfriend (who he claimed was a model/spy), and he even went through this phase where he began roleplaying a sidekick with a hand puppet that kind of took on a life of its' own.

In recent years, Brian has been portrayed more of someone worthy of "respect". I recall a fairly nauseating soliloquy where Brian declared that he exploited rules loopholes only so he could then report them to the people who made Hackmaster and blah blah blah. It's all a bunch of crap that these kind of people spout to justify what is, in my opinion, really just them missing the point of the game.

That's my take. I know some of you may disagree. But I'd kick a guy like him out of my group in no time just for scamming friends out of money. This leads me to...

Player vs. GM

Jolly Blackburn, the creator of Knights of the Dinner Table, has stated a few times in the book that the way his real life games go are similar to how the game is portrayed in the book.

The players are constantly trying to put one over on BA. And BA is constantly scrambling to stay one step ahead. The players are frequently accusing the DM of screwing them over, and most of the time BA has done no such thing. It comes off as a pretty nasty, competitive exercise sometimes.

But what drives the game more is that everyone is really into it. While Brian might be annoying, he keeps meticulous logs of the story and pores over them for clues. The players get together during the week to plan out what they'll be doing for the next session.

The Quality of Writing

The stunning thing about this comic is that it has maintained an incredible standard of quality over more than 200 issues. The storylines are incredibly intricate. Plots are built on top of seemingly trivial events that happened 50 issues ago. Everything matters.

I would suggest if you want to try the comic, pick up the Bag Wars Saga. I don't want to spoil it for you, but it is fantastic. Just the stuff BA did with Rotgut the dragon changed my idea of how monster encounters should be run.

Spoony Started Here

Some of you may be familiar with Noah "Spoony" Antwiler. He got his start writing movie reviews for KODT. They are hilarious, and his geeky wordplay leaves me humbled.

It was also amusing because some readers could not handle it when Spoony would destroy a movie they liked (and I mean... destroy). Hate mail was printed regularly. It got to the point where each article was printed with a dotted line and instructions for those who hated his reviews to cut them out of the magazine.    

Here's Spoony's take on Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest:

"Once again, the script is strangely unfocused and fully a half-hour too long, following Orlando Bloom whose character, along with Keira Knightley's, have absolutely no reason to appear in this movie whatsoever. Bloom, who is again more wooden than the mizzenmast, is perhaps the most blatant third-wheel in movie history, something which would be funny if the director had intended his character to be that way. But Johnny Depp, even when he's half-assing it, steals scenes he's not even in because of Bloom's incredible screen absence."

In addition to all this, the comic is loaded with Hackmaster material that can easily be used with any system. Magic items, NPCs, maps, even adventures. I plunder this thing all the time. KODT is a legendary publication that DMs can use to fuel their creativity. It is inexpensive, it is fun, and it is worth it. Check it out here.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen - Perytons

I went into the session of D&D Encounters tonight in a lousy mood. But once I entered the store, I was bombarded with positivity. It was really crazy and reminded me of how lucky I am.

As soon as I entered, I was greeted by about a dozen people - men and women, children and adults, players from my youth and people I've just met. They all were genuinely happy to see me and they wanted to talk to me. I had one player come up to me and hand me these awesome printouts he got off of reddit of rules charts for 5th edition.
 

A player who had played in my game store Scales of War campaign showed up tonight. He had moved down south in around 2010 and is in town visiting. He jumped in on my table tonight. His at-the-time girlfriend had played in one session of Scales with us, and in that session her warforged ended up buried in rubble for all eternity. They got married, and on the back of their wedding invitations was her warforged's hand exploding from the rubble. Pretty awesome!

Attendance Up Again

We had a total of 18 people, which is more than last week. The other tables are really rocking and rolling... everyone seemed to have a great game going tonight. It was quite something to see.

The Meeting

Last week I went on at length about how the store owner wanted to talk to me about "getting on the same page". I was worried that he was going to want me to stop my game until the other groups caught up. It turns out my concerns were completely unfounded. He just wants to make sure there's always a low level game going. So basically, if more newbs show up, I will run a session for them either after my normal group is done or I'll run a newb game on a different day in the store.

Episode 4 Continues

NPCs: I had the PCs meet Green Imsa (the woman who is green from head to toe) but they didn't bite on her mystery. A noble was going to kill his horse, but our 4th grader playing Dark the Dragon Sorceress pushed him over and traded horses with him.

Perytons: One of the weirder D&D monsters. I wasn't going to use this encounter, but I like every session to have a combat pretty early on to get the players in gear and on the same page. These monsters have the nasty ability to dive bomb and pull out without provoking attacks of opportunity. I played up the weirdness of these creatures as best I could.

Days 6-12: Sparky the baby dragon barfed up some acid. It was the first time it ever "breathed" acid. It rained for a few days in a row to set up...

The Mushrooms: What a cool encounter. The PCs awake to find that the rain has somehow spawned the growth of little mushrooms everywhere. The mushrooms are growing fast, and when one is cut open, it releases spores that cause a sort of depression and nightmares for a few days (as well as a lifelong aversion to eating mushrooms). The PCs were able to hack through the shrooms (takes 6 hours of work!) and moved on. Very cool.

Days 14-18: The caravan swung back into Elturel (this adventure is odd in that the caravan takes such a long route to get to its' destination). They bought piles of stuff from the list in the PH. Then the nosy NPC Losvius Longnose tried to steal a PC's bagpipes. The PCs ultimately recruited him to be their eyes and ears, to scope out the cult.

Frulam Mondath: Since Frulam had gotten away in Episode 3, I thought it would be cool to have her on the caravan. I decided that she had been punished for her failures. Rezmir the half-dragon had breathed acid on her and burned her badly. She was part of the caravan, but hidden in a cart, all bandaged up and semi-comatose. Our heroes' spy caught on to this. It lead to a whole thing where the PCs snuck into the cart, questioned her, and ultimately tried to recruit her. Dark got to use her favorite spell: Friends.

The Rematch: Because of the ways the rolls worked out, Dark was working for the same wagon boss as her dad. Worse, her dad was technically in charge of her! Dark decided to prove to the wagon boss that she should be in charge by arm wrestling her dad! Her dad cast a spell on himself to get 
advantage on the roll. SHE STILL WON. I mean, of course she did, right? She's Dark the Dragon Sorceress! Her first act as boss of her dad was to declare that she would give him one gold every Friday "...for the rest of your life".

Day 23: Ettercaps and Giant Spiders tried to snatch some horses, but they were no match for our heroes. These ettercaps with their 44 hit points are pretty scary, but the paladin ability to give enemies disadvantage helped in a major way.

Overall

I don't know how or why all of these elements converged on the store to make it so pleasant, but I insist on appreciating it. This was just a perfect night of D&D all around. An easy 10 out of 10.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen - On the Road

Another session of Hoard of the Dragon Queen is in the books. We are deep into episode 4 now. There is quite a bit to say on a variety of topics...

We Are Going Too Fast....?

So get a load of this. There are three tables going in this store. My group is in Episode 4. The other two are in Episode 1. The store owner had someone inform me that he wants to meet with me and the other DM next week to discuss "getting on the same page".

Basically, he wants us all to keep the same pace. This way, players can jump between groups.

I don't really understand that. This isn't like the 4e Encounters sessions where it was just one encounter. In those, it was easy to start and stop in the same place as the other groups. In 5e, it is wild and loose.
 

Aside from that, these things are built so that a 1st level PC can jump in on the later chapters. They'll level pretty quick. Heck, the hobgoblins the PCs fought tonight only had 11 hit points!

So what I am guessing is going to happen is that I am going to have to stop running Hoard of the Dragon Queen until the other two groups catch up. This seems insane to me, but that looks like where we're headed. This is in spite of the fact that none of the players jump between groups.

Here is another amusing point. These other tables might take so long to catch up to episode 4 that our table will run through all of the Expeditions adventures. Then what do we do?!

If this is the way things work out, then I guess I will have my players make level one PCs and I will run them through the Expeditions adventures.

One cool thing here is that the 4th grader who plays Dark the Dragon Sorceress made Dark's sister and now she has a chance to play her. That should be fun. I am kind of wondering how my players will take this. I guess we'll see what happens next week.

All of this smacks of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" but I'll wait and see how this meeting goes.

Rumors of 5th Edition's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Last week we had low attendance - a total of 11 players. I took this to mean that our store's boom had subsided and was on the decline. I was wrong! We had 16 people this week, some of which were brand new. It is nice to see.

The Manticore
 

As I mentioned last week, I added in my own encounter to kind of spice up the dry opening of Episode 4. In the book, the PCs travel for 6 days to Elturel, meet with this quest-giving guy, take a boat for 3 days, and then begin the meat of the episode. That's quite a bit of time wih very little in the way of encounters.

So I decided that a manticore would harry our heroes during their 6 day journey to Elturel. It wants to eat their horses! Each day, it would fly overhead, fire spikes at the horses, then fly off when one died. Once the PCs left the horse behind, it would fly down and eat it.

This went pretty well. Our heroes were on their toes. In one instance where the Manticore was flying above them, Rules Guy used a Command spell on the Manticore, ordering it "Down". I had it come down, but at an angle away from the party. This ruffled his feathers a bit, but the spell description clearly states it is open to DM interpretation.

It all built up to a scene where the manticore was chasing a griffon that it had wounded. Rules Guy used Command to make the manticore "grovel", and then the adventurers pounced on the manticore and killed it.

The griffon landed and looked at our heroes, wounded. I wanted them to see that it appreciated what they had done. One of the party thieves approached it. He was wearing a griffon talon on a necklace - he'd taken it off a griffon that the manticore had killed the day prior.

The griffon was furious, screeched and flew off. The players didn't understand why the griffon was angry. Then they decided that it was because the thief didn't bow. Apparently this is something from Harry Potter (I've only seen the first two movies). I didn't tip my hand. Maybe this will come up in the future.

We Have a Dragon Baby
 

Sparky!

I may have broken more rules as I let the heroes keet one of the dragon eggs from the hatchery. According to the text on page 26, the egg hatches in a week if it's in a "suitable incubator". Dark as been all over this egg with blankets, sleeping on it, hiding it... sounds suitable to me! And thus it hatched!

This dragon will be useless for a long time as I don't want to unbalance the adventure. But I am thinking at some pivotal moment when the heroes need it, the dragon will breathe it's first acid breath.

Dark named it... Sparky.

Factions and Stuff

Ontharr Frume

Our heroes go to Elturel and meet this burly character named Ontharr Frume. Ontharr drinks with the PCs and then arm wrestles. Ontharr has the GALL to defeat Dark in arm wrestling. Then, to Dark's horror, her dad beats Ontharr.

There's only one thing to do here. Dark has to arm wrestle her dad. And of course she rolls a NATURAL 20! Dark breaks the table with the back of her dad's hand as her allies laugh and cheer.

Leosin the monk is a Harper and Ontharr is a member of the Order of the Gauntlet. Wizards of the Coast made a big deal about factions when this season started. Each player got a "faction folder". But factions seem to mean almost nothing at all in this adventure. I played it up as best I could. I had Leosin tell a PC Harper to keep their eyes peeled for another agent named Carlon to foreshadow an encounter later on in this episode.

The Caravan
 

This episode is about the heroes going on a 60 day wagon train. There's a bunch of encounters along the way. The adventure encourages us DMs to roll on a chart each day to see which encounter happens. That is crazy talk (particularly because there are some errors on the chart, including a reference to an encounter that is not in the book at all). I mapped it out in advance.

Most of the PCs are hired by a wagon master as guards. I ran a couple of the encounters. One is with a nosy halfling. Rules Guy shooed him away. I had Dark describe how she was hiding her baby dragon in the cart owned by the moon elf shipping wood from the Jungle of Chult.

Dark calmly explained to the moon elf that the thing wrapped in the blanket was a "shiny dazzling diamond". This amused me to no end. The moon elf loves animals, so I figure she'll assume it's some special pet and leave it be.

I wrapped up the session with a battle with hobgoblins near the Fields of the Dead. Make sure to use that one within the first 9 days of the journey, though I guess it doesn't matter all that much. The fight was a piece of cake.

A player's mom brought brownies, which was awesome. She watched us play and seemed quite amused by the game. She tried to give her kid some good advice (which he ignored). I may try to lure her into playing.

All in all, it was a very good session. I guess we will see next week as to whether we will "pause" the campaign for a while.

The Teratic Tome - Old School Dungeons & Dragons Monsters

I've been eyeballing this thing for a long time. Fresh off my devouring of the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Monster Manual, I am still in the mood for more monsters. Particularly monsters that I can use in the weird 70's version of D&D, Dungeon Crawl Classics.

The Teratic Tome is a "pay what you want" pdf. That's always a conundrum. I could pay one cent, right? But then I think about this poor person who slaved over this thing. The suggested price is $6.66. Is even that enough? Should I pay more? After much struggling, I just paid $6.66 and downloaded the thing.

You can look at it and buy it right here.

I am going to go through this book and pick out the stuff that I find the most interesting. I won't discuss every monster, just the highlights.

The first thing to notice is that this book is made in the style of the old AD&D Monster Manuals, right down to the font. It is very cool. The cover is fantastic, too, and I'd say it is as-good if not better than most of the 5e covers so far. My only complaint is that I think the tiny heroes on the cover should be a bit bigger so they are more easily noticed.

Tome/MM comparison

Nudity and Gore: This book has lots of naked people. I will put dice on the naughty bits of the images that I use in this article.

A lot of the monsters in here are butt-naked and/or very violent and gory. There's a lot of "cut you up while your cousin watches" type stuff.

When I was younger, I was a bit more tolerant of over-the-top violent stuff. As I got older, I met more people who have been affected by real-life tragedy and now things like this aren't "fun". I play games to get away from depressing things like that.

This book uses the OSRIC rules, which I believe is very similar to the old AD&D rules. The book even talks about "Target Armor Zero" aka "TAZ", which seems to be exactly like AD&D 2nd edition's THAC0.

Acronical: We start off with an insect-type creature... that kills adulterers. They can smell a cheater from miles away! It nabs both of the adulterers and makes them fight to the death. The survivor has their limbs cut off. The Acronical sings love songs as the person bleeds to death.

Agonist

Uhhh. Well we are starting off with a bang here, aren't we? Pretty awesome. In case you are wondering, this monster leaves behind a watery orange stool.

Agonist: This is a sexy demon lady who does whatever she can to humble those too full of pride. She's OK. Cool art!

Baskra: This fellow is a nine foot tall fetus that feeds on the elderly. It "...feeds on their regrets and memories of missed opportunities". I believe the art of this guy is one of the only times I have seen a monster's scrotum. This can go in the hall of fame next to my "balrog with a wang" mini.

Chimaera Queen: She is a unique entity who creates manticore and chimera children that worship her. She lives on a range of snow-capped mountains where her children can roam free. She kind of looks cooler than she is. She brings victims to her dungeon, where she hunts them. I'd have liked a little more backstory. Who is she? Where did she come from? How does she make her kids?
 

Chimaera Queen

This book has new demon lords! That is always fun. Let's see what we've got...

Abyzou: She's another Succubus Queen like Malcanthet (D&D) and Nocticula (Pathfinder). She is a dark-haired 12 foot tall giant with claws and hooves. She has these undying victims, "the lustful damned" who are subjected to "acts of depravity and sadism". This book is so dark, I can barely see it.

Beleth: A giant bee-devil that loves to gamble. Sounds goofy but it is actually pretty awesome.

Gusion: She is a starved lady with an "Anguish Engine". So bleak...

Phenex: This guy likes to eat young clerics and virginal humans. He sends his ghouls to get him food all the time. He wields an intelligent cudgel that hates dwarves. You could do a lot with this guy.

Phenex

In the Devil section, there's some Lords and Ladies of Hell. Apparently in this cosmology, devils are trapped in a plane called Mictlan and are at war with a death-god named Mictlantecuhlti. Here's two of the main devils...

Ahriman: The ruler of devils. He lives in this floating crystal palace. Check out this flavor:

"The structure, devised by the legendary architect Mulciber, is particularly striking at dawn, when an enslaved phoenix is lashed to a great disc of copper and hauled into the sky. Agony fuels Cardiodynia, which sprays blood on the imps and lemures below as it floats above the feces-caked steppes of Mictlan."

Well damn, I can't even wrap my head around this. Feces-caked steppes?! An enslaved phoenix?! Crazy.

Verrine: He is a spider-guy who "stinks of urine". He leads the armies against the death god.

Dragon: The book details 10 Venerable Dragons who "regard themselves as a weary decadarchy". There's all sorts of cool ones, like a vermilion dragon and a porphyrous dragon. I guess my favorite is...

Uchorah-Thanaphor: A huge black dragon whose arrival is receded by weird weather. Random bolts of lightning strike buildings and structures. The earth rumbles. Classic! You could apply some 5e lair actions outwardly to help make this work.

Gelatinous Pyramid: Yup! It has several translucent eyes and it "maintains a latrine where it ejects any inorganic materials that it has absorbed."

Goblin Princess: This is a very cool idea. She has maroon skin and yellow eyes and she can cast spells. Goblin Princesses always try to expand goblin territory through spies and subterfuge.

Click here to proceed to part 2.

Dungeons & Dragons - Monster Manual (I through Z)

This is the second part of my look through the 5e Monster Manual. You can check out Part One here.

This will be more of me rambling about monsters and nitpicking art. Fairly warned be thee says I!

Invisible Stalker: Even when you can see invisible, you can only make out their vague outline.

Blibdoolpoolp

Kuo-Toa: I didn't know  that they had been enslaved by mind flayers at one point. It makes sense why they are so spaced-out. They even mention their god Blibdoolpoolp and their weapon-snatching sticky shields! I've mentioned it before, but one of my favorite dungeons of all time is Bhal-Hamatugn, the kuo-tuo temple from the "Zenith Trajectory" adventure in the Dungeon Magazine Shackled City adventure path.

Lich: The art appears to be of a red wizard of thay turned into a lich. I'm just not comfortable with the Forgotten Realms being the base setting, it feels wrong to me.

There's a note about how liches must periodically feed souls to its' phylactery. The lich can trap one person's body and soul in their phylactery. After 24 hours, the person is destroyed utterly. Nothing can bring them back save divine intervention. Kind of cool, I've never heard of this kind of thing before. Definitely a useful adventure hook!

Lycanthrope: There's a big sidebar on what changes there are to a PC infected with lycanthropy.  If you become a werewolf, your strength immediately shoots up to a 15 if it's not there already. I like this.

Mind Flayer: They actually mention Qualith, the illithid braille-like language from the Illithiad! One mindflayer is a challenge for a 7th level party. Sounds about right! I really think they've done a great job with this monster manual. Each entry is full of information presented in as few words as possible.

A Modron

Modrons: I am so happy these are in here. I know they might be too goofy for some, but I always really like the Planescape adventure The Great Modron March by the great Monte Cook. I really feel like Lawful creatures are under-explored in D&D, and these guys are extremely different and interesting.

Orc: They get the deluxe treatment, with a couple of pages of lore. One quote: "When an orc produces young with an ogre, the child is a half-ogre of intimidating strength and brutish features known as an ogrillon." Produces young with an ogre... good gawd.

Pixies: They use their pixie dust as a spell component. Makes sense.

Rust Monster: Each time a weapon hits them, it has a cumulative -1 penalty. Once the penalty reaches -5, it is destroyed. It can also create this effect with its' antennae. Players really hate these guys, so use them sparingly!

Satyr: They are defined as "stout male human with the furry bellies and cloven hooves of goats". And then later it says that they might "...sneak into a well-defined garden to gaze upon a beautiful lad or lass...". I think we are at a point where this kind of thing isn't a big deal to people. I guess we'll see.

Scarecrow: These were always too goofy for me. I mean, come on, now. A Scarecrow?! It feels like a waste of an entry.

Slaadi: I always liked these guys. In this, they are described as the enemies of modrons. Basically, Primus (lawful god of modrons) sent a law-infused stone into Limbo, thinking he could create order out of chaos. It allowed him to create pockets where his modrons could exist safely. But the chaos energy reacted to the stone, spawning the race of the Slaads. They attack modrons on sight. Primus doesn't see them as a threat. I don't know if this lore existed prior to 5e, but I really like it. It kind of sets up a Law vs Chaos thing in a DCC RPG kind of way.

Incubus is male, Succubus is female

Succubus/Incubus: (An Incubus is a male Succubus... though there is a vague mention that they can switch genders) Their kiss drains 32 hit points which reduce your hit point maximum until you take a full rest! Ouch. And they're a CR4 monster.

In previous editions, these creatures have been either demons or devils. In this, they are both and neither. This is probably for the best!

I like the lore on these guys. They seduce mortals and try to turn them evil. Once a mortal has committed betrayals of thought, word and deed, they have been corrupted. The succubus then kills the mortal and their soul appears in the Lower planes. I guess if the person is lawful they appear in hell, and if they are chaotic they appear in The Abyss.

I wrote a big article about the Pathfinder and D&D Succubus Lore here.

Troglodyte: They have never been able to settle on a depiction of these guys. This new one looks like a Slaad. While I wasn't blown away by the grey 4e version of them, that was better than this.
 

Unicorn: Wow, their golden hair is goofy. These creatures actually have lair actions..! Open flames are extinguished in their lair. Healing spells are MAXED OUT. Curses are suppressed. Wow, this is really fun stuff.

Wight: This is one of my favorite pieces of art in the book. Those killed by a wight rise as a zombie under their control.

Yuan-Ti: I like the lore here. They were once humans who worshiped Snake Gods and used magic to become more snake-like. They no longer feel many strong emotions.

There is an appendix for monster that are animals or animal-variants, like axe-beaks and giant frogs.

There is a second appendix for NPCs like archmages, gladiators and priests.

Overall:

All in all it is a great book. They fit in piles of monsters and did a fantastic job of telling the reader all sorts of fun details without burying it in walls of text.

It is interesting that they tried to put every single iconic monster in this one book. It appears that they are not trying to spread material out in a series of sourcebooks. I mean, I'm sure there will be a Monster Manual 2 of some sort some day, but this thing will definitely be enough for you to run as many campaigns as you'd like with.
  

Yuan-Ti Pureblood

The art is serviceable, most of it pretty good. There's few pieces that really stand out, either good or bad. Aesthetically it doesn't even touch the old Planescape Monstrous Compendium, which to me is the pinnacle of D&D art integrated into a monster stat book.

If you're in the mood for more monsters, please check out my other articles that go in depth on all sorts of D&D creatures:

Hook Horror: The Average D&D Monster

Mind Flayers: Everything You Need To Know

Rainbow Dragons!

Spellweavers: The Coolest Monster Nobody Uses

The Tarrasque: The Most Powerful Monster in the Game

The Best Spelljammer Monsters Part 1

The Best Spelljammer Monsters Part 2

The Best Spelljammer Monsters Part 3

The Most Awesome D&D Monsters By Edition

Hoard of the Dragon Queen - Frulam Mondath

We had another good session at D&D Encounters. We finished Episode 3 and took a little nibble out of Episode 4.

Dwindling Attendance

Last week we had a couple less players show up. This week, we lost even more. The other two tables had 3 players each. I think, at least around here, 5e has peaked. The owner told me we might go with two tables from here on out.

I don't think this should be cause for alarm for the world at large. That's how it goes in this game store. The drop in attendance doesn't have much to do with 5e, but rather the way things are done in our store. We have some issues with noise, problem players and... well.. just think of some unpleasant gaming experiences you've had at a convention or public game and you get the picture.

The Dragon Eggs

The adventurers only had a few rooms left to explore. When preparing, I was worried we'd get through this really fast. Looking at Episode 4, I saw it needed some fleshing out. It is fairly involved. It turns out just a couple rooms filled an entire 2 hour session.

In room 10, the heroes had killed the drakes and the kobolds. I decided to use the roper, but since I was worried that it was too deadly (it's bite does 22 points of damage!) I set it up so the roper wants food. If the PCs attack it, then we'll have a fight. If they do something clever, like toss it a drake carcass, no fight necessary.

The adventurers ended up fighting it, but they backed out and fed it a drake.

There's dragon eggs in here. They are 3 feet tall and weigh 150 pounds! Our 4th grader plays Dark the Dragon Sorceress (who has the blood of black dragons coursing through her veins!) was very excited about this.

I should note that one of the three eggs is hidden in a dark corner. It just so happened that during the battle with a roper, a rogue hid right next to it and thus spotted it.
 

Yes, "squirms like a human baby"...

I was a little concerned with the possibility of the PCs cracking open these eggs and killing the babies inside. The adventure has a fairly gruesome description of the consequences of this, seemingly designed to make the heroes feel conflicted about what they'd done.

Killing a baby dragon might not be something appropriate for a 9 year old. I assumed her dad would know the best way to handle this and I'd play off of him.

Welp. Her dad wanted them dead. And this poor little kid yelled "No! They're innocent!" as our heroes took a crowbar to the eggs. I was definitely a little uncomfortable. She wasn't super-upset, but it didn't feel good.

They killed two and kept one. Dark, with her mighty 15 strength, hauled that egg around and guarded it carefully. I am determined to have this thing hatch and be her little buddy. I even have a wyrmling mini all ready.

After that, we had a cool fight in a tunnel. Long story. Basically, the leader Frulam Mondath was shooting spells down a shaft at the PCs while her guards assaulted them in a hallway. It was awesome. Frulam ended up getting away, which I did not expect.

Our heroes looted the place, found a map showing the bad guys plans, and rescued the monk. I don't really get what the point was of having the monk want to stay captured in Episode 2, it kind of throws a wrench into Episode 4. Nothing major, it's just a bit awkward.

We basically stopped there. Somehow all that took a full two hours.

Fleshing Out Episode 4

Episode 4 has this big dead spot in the beginning involving a lot of travel and no encounters. Seems like a good time to put my monster manual to use! The heroes have a 6 day trip on horseback to Elturel. I decided that a Manticore would harass them through the whole trip.

I wanted to show them that D&D is more than just fight-kill-loot. I wanted this monster to hit and run. I wanted them watching the skies, fearful as their horses reared up - smelling the creature on the wind.

I want the manticore to hunt their horses. This makes things more fun, as the PCs don't need to fear for their own lives. I want them to see that the creatures in the game have their own motivations - they are not just numbers on a piece of paper or monsters standing in a room waiting to be killed.

I wrote down the range of every ranged weapon in the game on a sheet. The manticore could fire spikes from 100 feet away without penalty. The heroes can fire back, but they'll likely have disadvantage and their ammunition will dwindle quickly. We'll get to it next week. I hope it works out. I'm pretty sure it will. Ultimately on day 5, they'll spot it chasing a griffon and they'll have the chance to take it down for good, and maybe even befriend a griffon.

Overall this was a good session. I wish I had done something else with the dragon eggs, though.