Channel Divinity: Kord

Kordium? Really? They couldn’t have just gone with oh, say, Kordite?

Anyway, this Channel Divinity focuses on Kord, the god of strength, storms, and fighting. Most of the article is about how Kord is venerated by dwarves, his early interactions with Moradin, and a bit about potential relations with the Raven Queen. Like most gods, Kord didn’t get an article in Dragon‘s dead-tree incarnation, so any new information is helpful for planting adventure seeds, in particular his dead mother (a goddess of winter) and the aforementioned relationship with the Raven Queen.

Page 2 has several crunchy goodies in the form of a divine boon, magic weapon property, and consumable magic item.

Kord’s Relentlessness: This divine boon is really nice, giving you a bonus on death saves and a damage bonus after you use second wind. This would be exceedingly handy for dwarves, or anyone that takes that feat that lets you second wind as a minor. Also, once per encounter you can burn a healing surge to stand up for free, and once per day you can heal yourself after making a saving throw.
Kordium Weapon: Despite the silly name, the daily property lets you lump on extra damage based on the weapon’s enhancement bonus, and you can change it to thunder and fire, which means that it’ll have a better chance at bypassing resistances or exploit some rare vulnerability. While not terribly awesome, the crit die is scaled up, too.
Stormglass Shard: These could be really handy for a character that emphasizes lighting and/or thunder-based powers, but are kind of spendy with a starting price of 1,800 gp a pop: if you hit a target, you can push them or knock them prone if you can’t push them. Higher level variants increase the distance, but each one has a level cap (the level 6 version can only be used with level 5 or lower powers). These are the kind of things that I would seed an encounter with, without adding it to the party’s treasure tab.

Finally, page 3 introduces the Kord Clan for dwarves that no longer have a clan. Members are said to do shameful/rebellious things, such as shaving their beards, while at the same time vying for glory that can win them accolades from “normal” dwarf society. Seems kind of contradictory: you lose your clan, make it a point to do things to further ostracize yourself from society, and then get accepted back in if you do a good enough job? If nothing else, it provides an acceptable excuse to be a dwarf adventurer without responsibilities.

In closing, though I don’t play a lot of divine characters, this article is still useful to me, as divine elements can be pretty frequent in most D&D campaigns. Obviously, it’s very useful to players that worship Kord, or play dwarves.

Channel Divinity: Melora

A whopping two page article that details seven thematic magic items centric to Melora: two weapons, a consumable, one foot-slot, one symbol, and two wondrous items. Just…just ignore the stupid picture.

• The weapon properties basically let you use some ranged and all melee weapons underwater with a problem, and the activated powers let you either push a target or generate a swirling vortex that sucks creatures towards you.
• Flamebane bombs do quite a bit for level 3+ alchemy items. They dont deal damage but could be a fucking godsend (see what I did there?) against anything that uses fire, at all: save against ongoing fire damage, deactivates fire auras for a tick, and it can also disrupt fire zones. It does all of these things in a small area of effect. All of them.
• Surfsurge shoes are kinda goofy: you can opt to slide when you are subjected to forced movement, and can create a wave of rushing water to move you as a daily property. I guess its a new take on an old concept.
• The symbol of the deep is basically any other symbol, but the daily effect imposes a bucket-full of conditions with a save-ends clause.
• Battle standard of the tides constantly pushes non-aquatic enemies away, and all baddies treat it as difficult terrain. Its an automatic effect so could be quite handy in keeping monsters away from casters and ranged characters.
• Now, the jade sea snake is only level 10 and basically serves as a feasible and reasonable plot device to get characters under the sea. It can carry up to six Medium or smaller critters, allowing the party to bring along a guide or whatever in addition to letting you breathe and speak normally. If you have Mounted Combat you dont provoke opportunity attacks…even the snake. Ride the snake.

Its short and crunchy. Good for a casual read and some useful stuff whether or not you worship Melora.