A Sundered World: Acamar

Now that we have shown you various methods of travel and a fairly unconventional city, I think it is time for an adventuring locale. Next stop, Acamar!

Acamar is one of many corpse stars that float within the Deep Astral, where the silvery light fades into a gloomy, grey twilight. Those that wander too close feel it before they see it: paranoid fear grips the mind, flashes of things skulk at the edges of sight, alien voices whisper from the shadows, and nightmare-filled sleep prevents any meaningful respite.

Though dead, or at least in a state so similar as to be virtually indistinguishable, its mere presence can warp space and time, driving away only reason. Even vessels utilizing ley-line navigation to escape can find themselves somehow drawn back, though many a sanity-stripped crew has willingly flown into its dark embrace.

Those that do manage to flee with their minds intact–mostly, at any rate–describe it as a hollow, shattered sphere made of an oily black substance. A disc of debris, composed of stone and metal chunks of various shapes and sizes, ranging from flecks to horse-sized (or even larger), surrounds it for tens of thousands of feet. The metal is oddly enough, cold iron, which makes Acamar even more dangerous given how magic reacts to it.

See, it is very difficult to get arcane magic to “stick” to cold iron. It can be done, but is is a laborious task with often temporary results. This quality makes it ideal for forging weapons capable of slicing through magical barriers, and armor that repels it, which makes it unfortunate that cold iron only seems to be found within and around corpse stars.

The surrounding disk, combined with nodules that stud its surface, disrupts divination magic–so good luck avoiding it or plotting an escape course–and also makes it difficult to weave and sustain magic. This extends to the magic that operates and holds astral vessels together: get to close, and your ship could end up dead in the water, as it were. Of course iron is not the only, or even most severe, danger.

Mortal cultists, many mutated into barely recognizable shapes, pray and and offer sacrifices in hopes of reviving the dead and not-dead star (also power, which is where star pact warlocks come from). They venture forth in obelisk-like ships to abduct victims and acquire supplies, as Acamar is inhospitable to most forms of life. Aboleths and other tentacled horrors (like whatever I might end up having to rename mind flayers due to WotC’s licensing), pursue old and terrible agendas. They often utilize mortals as tools to further their goals, which sometimes conflict with each other.

Finally, Acamar is host to many more alien and/or chimeric entities. Some, like star worms, have only base instincts, while others, like astral kraken, are as ancient and cunning as all but the oldest of dragons.

So, why would anyone want to go there?

Well, there is plenty of cold iron to be had, just floating about for the taking. Though arcane magic is easily foiled, divine magic and psionics have been proven to be as reliable as the user. Properly shielded mining ships skirting the edges of the debris field can make a hefty profit in a fairly short period of time (especially considering that, again, it only seems to be found near corpse stars), compared to dredging it out of a shifting elemental zone…so long as they do not run afoul of monsters or obelisk.

Another reason is knowledge. Knowledge is power, and the denizens that call Acamar’s cavernous bowels home have it in abundance, including ancient magic, how to create magic items, the location of powerful artifacts, and more. Some, like the aboleths, retain an almost photographic memory ranging back thousands of years, but would need to be persuaded to both part with it, as well as adhere to any bargains made.

Others record what they discover–whether from visions that Acamar deigns to impart, intuited through the movement and patterns of stars, or even from the minds of consumed victims–into memory shards, organic archives, or, more crudely, etched into the walls.

It is also possible that you end up there whether or not you want to. Characters might run afoul of an astral storm and deposited in the Deep Astral. They could also be unwitting passengers on a vessel whose pilots end up going insane. They might even be abducted by an obelisk, or be paid by a border colony to rescue abducted villagers.

Side Trek: Death & Taxes

As a side trek, most of this is going to be spoilers.

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Ever since 5th Edition was announced I have not paid much attention to Dragon or Dungeon, largely because the sparse offerings really have not interested me until now. I’m a pretty big fan of Aeryn’s work, so figured I would give it a shout out.

Death and Taxes is basically an extended encounter–part social interaction and part combat challenge–in which the characters need to avoid being tricked by a treacherous knight, using the tried and true method of “pretend you need help with your wagon, and then ambush the shit out of would-be helpers”.

The social role-playing part, while not a skill challenge, gives the characters a chance to figure out that something is amiss and avoid being surprised (which also affects creature placement on the map). Characters with any emphasis on History, Insight, and Perception will really shine here, and while there is not any advice on using other skills I would highly recommend allowing players to creatively use skills to figure stuff out.

The rest of the encounter is a pretty tough fight, partially because its 2-3 levels higher than the recommended adventure level, but also because the enemies have the terrain advantage. On the bright side, if Sir Tyros is taken down then there is a chance that some of his allies will flee (though the non-minions try to leg it anyway when bloodied).

The haul at the end is pretty nice, totaling about half the total treasure that a level 5 party is expected to get, and as an added bonus there are three hooks for expanding the adventure.

Not bad for a “side trek”.

Heart of the Scar Review

Looks like whatever the Chaos Scar was supposed to be is finally wrapping up. At least with Blackdirge on the job it will go out with a bang.

Literally.

If you are going to play in this adventure, stop reading and go make your DM run it now. Bribe him or her if necessary. If you are a DM then you are probably already running it, or preparing to murder the characters in your current campaign to pave the way for this one.

SPOILERS

The adventure backstory reveals that the meteorite that carved out the Chaos Scar was actually the heart of a Far Realm entity known as Shoth-Gorag. After it landed a group of Banites ascertained that it was a gift from their god, and decided to built a fortress around it that would become known as Hallowgaunt. After construction was complete the heart began attracting monsters and influencing the Banites–who named themselves the Brotherhood of the Scar–forcing them to help build it a new body using the flesh of captured victims. Not all of the Banites were affected, but while transporting a weapon highly effective against denizens of the Far Realm most were captured.

Fortunately one managed to make it to the King’s Wall as the characters are passing by…

The adventure assumes that the characters help out the fleeing Banite, who is then more than happy to divulge the truth about the meteorite, as well as the hidden passage he used to escape. After that it is an action-packed killfest of taking on crazed Banites, foulspawn, mimics, and finally Shoth-Gorag.

This adventure was fucking awesome to read. In particular I loved the encounter with the mimic: when the characters find Farbane, it is on top of a mimic disguised as a basalt slab. When they approach it transforms and eats the hammer if they don’t remove it before hand. A mimic disguising itself right beneath a magic item is pretty rad, but the best part is that once it is dropped to 50 hit points it spits the hammer out and reverts to its slab form in the hopes that the characters just leave it alone (meaning that it could come back later).

The grand finale is the best part, though. Shoth-Gorag is a minion-spawning, triple attacking solo brute with threatening reach, an auto-damaging aura, and a very painful recharging blast. To make matters worse when he is bloodied he spawns minions for free, and can have more than usual active at once. If the characters manage to defeat him and shatter his heart with Farbane, they are rewarded with a collapsing base skill challenge worthy of any action flick.

Tile Trek: A Knight in Shadowghast Manor Review

For a dungeon delve designed to showcase the Shadowghast Manor tile set, this adventure sure tries to pack in backstory content.

The short of it is that the ironically named Shadowghast family used to be big-ass heroes. One of their sons suffering from Elric Syndrome makes a deal with the devil so that he too can be a hero, until they pull a Darth Vader and demand that he tries to turn his family to the dark side in order to keep his power. Possibly praying that they do not alter the deal further, he somehow succeeds and the family begins recruiting stock mid-Heroic tier fodder.  He then repents and the family fades into obscurity for awhile. Anyway fast-forward, someone named Arcturas is doing more bad stuff, and the characters have to go through the delve-standard in order to win.

Basically I found this delve to be pretty damned boring. It sucks if the author was instructed to work with what he got, but frankly I think I would have preferred some example tile layouts–both with just the one set and with others–to give people ideas on what they can do (given that the adventure uses just the two layouts out of the pack, I cannot even say that I get that). Instead it is a forgettable string of encounters against a forgettable villain. My advice is that if you just want to use the tiles to run a delve just whip up your own encounters, you would be hard-pressed to do worse.

Demons & Devils

Hordelings
Hordelings were first featured in Book of Vile Darkness, presented as a Gargantuan swarm that could spawn 1-4 minion brutes once per round when it got hit. This article adds the greater hordeling, which is more in line with what I remember from Planescape–and possibly 3rd Edition, I honestly don’t remember–as you choose from any monster role except soldier, and then roll on a bunch of tables to generate the rest of its capabilities; size, speed, sight, special attacks, and even appearance  9which has 17 tables to go through). It is a nice throwback to their roots, and I highly endorse it.

Infernal Prince
It is really too bad that Blackdirge cannot be a full-time member of the staff as I really dig his stuff, and the infernal prince theme is no exception. A character with this theme is directly related to an infernal lord, most often Asmodeus and Mephistopheles, which sends a tutor to them to basically school them in the ways of horribleness.

The starting features give you a power bonus on fire attacks (I am sooo going to make another tiefling pyromancer), in addition to hellfire heart, an encounter kicker that can be used on any attack you make, dealing scaling fire damage and imposing an attack penalty for a turn. 5th-level gives you a bonus to Bluff and Diplomacy, in addition to a reroll against natural humanoids if you roll too low, and at level 10 you recharge hellfire heart when bloodied (and it does more damage if you use it against that target).

• Devil’s Due (level 2 daily): When you grant an ally a power bonus or let them burn a surge, you gain a defense bonus for the rest of the encounter and temp hps. On the downside your ally’s surge value is halved for the encounter. So, good for leaders?
• Liar’s Lure (level 6 encounter): A friendly-fire AoE that lets you make a Bluff check to gain combat advantage against each target for a turn.
• Infernal Inheritor (level 10 daily): A polymorph effect that imposes an automatic attack penalty for a turn, and then gives you darkvision, fire resistance, and a bonus on Fort and Will for the rest of the encounter. Unfortunately, the fire resistance doesn’t stack or boost existing resistances.

Steading of the Hill Giant Chieftain

Part one of a four-part re-imagining of Against the Giants is up, written by Chris Perkins no less. I have been a huge fan of Perkins ever since he started doing the Penny Arcade podcasts, and his Dungeon Master Experience column has been invaluable in writing my own loose, sandbox campaign.

I never read or even played Against the Giants (or for that matter, Revenge of the Giants), but I am guessing that the plot is basically the same: groups of various giant types have been ruining the shit of people on a fairly large scale, and it is up to the characters to deal with them (actually to be fair, in the adventure it mentions that your group isn’t the first to try and tackle the problem). Fortunately the giants follow general RPG logic and the nearest settlement also features the lowest level fare.

Since the adventure revolves around breaking into a hill giant’s steading, it is location based and features ten “combat encounters” (well, eleven but it is also intended to be able to dealt with via social role-playing), which is not a big deal when you take a step back and realize just how big the steading is. The monster load out is pretty diverse, yet still makes sense in context: of course there are giants, but they also have ogres, bugbears, umber hulks, and a couple other giants holing up with them for various reasons (diplomats from other clans and a fire giant that is making weapons for them).

Even so it is not a massive, drawn out slug-fest and there are quite a few things about this adventure that I really dig, such as being able to negotiate with the big-bad if you find the proper leverage, little details such as the random junk table and a specific mention of a giant’s crossbow breaking if it is used as a melee weapon too many times, being able to sneak past encounters using Bluff and/or Stealth checks, and barrel-, pot-, and cauldron-hurling hill giant cooks.

A good start so far. A much better reason to break out all the Large minis than Revenge of the Giants, and I am looking forward to seeing the rest (even if I never get to run them).

Ecology of the Banderhoob

Aside from the articles on hengeyokai and ninjas, Ecology of the Banderhobb (and its accompanying Design & Development article) is my favorite article of the month, and I do not even plan on using these things for quite some time. Not because they are “officially” pegged as paragon-tier threats mind you–I can just de-level them to make them work with the low-heroic range–but because I am running Dark Sun.

In addition to a bunch of new traits and powers to customize your own banderhobbs–incuding the ability to chase creatures that try and run out of turn, teleport through shadows, and even chase you at full speed in cramped quarters–it adds a lot of flavor content that helps set the tone and feel for how to use these guys, including some descriptive text, poems, and even a short story on an adventurer’s experience inside one’s stomach (which has a random loot table!).

Hopefully at least one player knows of these things and the level that they should be expected at. I think that, coupled with some of the new stuff, will go a long way in freaking them the fuck out. Yeah, it is focused, but this really should be a monthly article, and done well you can get a lot of great ideas on how to use, describe, and customize a monster.

The Five Deadly Shadows Review

The Deadly Shadows gang have recently assassinated the magistrate of Kudoku, and only the characters can be bothered to do anything about it! The Five Deadly Shadows is the adventure for this month’s “asian” theme, and I gotta say I was expecting something a lot better to showcase the whole thing. The fact that the adventure is intended for late heroic does not mesh well with the fact that the content we have seen so far plays best with low heroic, not that much about the rest of the adventure was particularly compelling for me.

For starters, the backstory does not make a lot of sense. From what I gather a gang called the Deadly Shadows shows up in a town called Kudoku and goes about corrupting the place in stock fashion; the monks leave, the merchants take their trade elsewhere, and so the government responds logically by dispatching one person to handle it. To his credit he manages to parse their numbers down to five and convinces one to join his cause (despite not being Liam Neeson or Chuck Norris), but ultimately loses and has his soul bound to this world. Oddly it’s not the people leaving, murder, or extortion, but the soul-binding that caused the townsfolk to think, “Oh shit, we are fucked.”

Not only does the plot confuse the hell out of me, but the adventure hooks are pretty weak. It starts out by recommending that you tie character involvement with character backgrounds or themes, which while good advice is also the bare minimum that I expect from a DM. From there the suggests are having a governor ask the characters for help, a merchant sending them over to figure out why shipments of “fine silk” are no longer coming in, and…sigh…one of the characters has a dream. Out of all of these having a government official is the most solid by technicality. I mean, the plight of the village should be well known once you learn how it got the way it did, so a merchant wondering what the hell going on just makes no sense. And the dream? At best it is a cliche, and at worst it is passive-aggressive railroading.

It is not just the background and hooks that bug the hell out of me, but the rest of the adventure. The characters start out in Kudoku and after earning the trust of the villagers, learn that the last magistrate tried to stop the Deadly Shadows and was killed, and that the Deadly Shadows haven’t made a move to consolidate their power (despite having nothing stopping them from doing so). Presumably the characters go visit the new magistrate, who despite readily admitting that he sucks will not relinquish his position of power, and basically serves to direct the players to the tea house to fight the first boss.

On the way to the tea house the characters run across a monk trying to carry some wood. I guess they are supposed to help him as part of the virtue of honor (?), but they basically need to in order to get some orange robes that are important later (special characters appear on them as they progress through the adventure).

The only difference is that a laser-shooting sword has some obvious applications.

Aside from the robes he also provides some very basic story information about being unable to fulfill the tasks given to him by his master, that his master (who I call Second Boss) is cruel, and so is the First Boss at the tea house. It is at this point that the characters can choose to hit up the tea house or go to the monastery (I guess do deal with the douche of a master).

At the tea house the characters have the option of going through a tea ceremony skill challenge in order to gain a very minor benefit during the following battle. Basically they have to strip down, put on white kimonos, and succeed on some skill checks in order to succeed. If they botch it then they are attacked by First Boss,  and if they succeed then the boss’s cronies literally just leave with some parting words to the effect that “they have shown courtesy so fuck you“. Oh yeah, if the characters stripped down their gear just teleports back on whether or not they beat the challenge (though they have to burn a healing surge in the latter case).

As little sense as that whole scenario makes, the monastery is not any better. In fact, I think it is worse. The monastery is in a bad state, you see, and as part of the benevolence virtue they can opt to repair it while they climb (not that anything really hints at the fact that repairing the monastery is in keeping with the virtue). If the characters pick up on trying to fix up the place, they are constantly taunted by Second Boss. If they manage to go through enough repair-montages, then they gain a flight ability during the combat challenge. Otherwise they do not get it, and the water deals poison damage when they enter it.

Without some heavy maintenance I can just see my group plodding through this adventure, brows furrowed in confusion as to what they are doing, why they are doing it, and why NPCs are making them do things. Ever watch an anime and ever get confused when a character says and/or does something? It is like that, but stretched out into an entire adventure.

Temple of the Weeping Goddess Review

Temple of the Weeping Goddess is a short, 0-level adventure intended to give you both an example and opportunity to use the 0-level character optional rules from this month’s Unearthed Arcana article. The characters play orphaned teenagers that are sent into the Elemental Chaos to free a trapped aspect of Avandra.

Yes, that is right, kids are being send into the Elemental Chaos. At first I was both surprised and excited to see that most of this adventure takes place in the traditional extraplanar paragon-to-epic tier stomping ground, not only in the heroic tier, but without a level (or class) to your name, but both feelings quickly faded as I continued to read the adventure.

SPOILERS

Basically, the adventure opens up with the characters stealing some loot from actual adventurers off camera, utilizing a skill challenge to ideally escape without getting the hit points beat out of you (keeping the treasure even if you do). Once that gets wrapped up everyone heads back to the orphanage, where your caretaker does a big reveal in which he explains the true purpose of founding the orphanage in the first place; round up a bunch of kids to toss into the Elemental Chaos to do a job for him because he is “too physically weak”. In the very likely instance that the players ask why the hell wouldn’t he hire people with encounter and/or daily powers, he dismisses this with the idea that kids might have a better chance of talking to Avandra’s aspect.

Okay…so the hook is pretty damned weak but hey, Elemental Chaos bitches, let’s do this!


Weeell…the temple is a partially collapsed structure on a perfectly serviceable chunk of earth. So…the caretaker cannot travel here on his own because he is too old, despite the fact that it is all level terrain? If he can get up stairs, then he can walk around whatever puddles or collapsed statues that amount to difficult terrain, here. The lack of an Elemental Chaos feel could be covered up by the use of native fauna, but the only monsters to be found here are goblin pirates that got sucked into a vortex and survived, a handful of elementals, and some undead that are for some reason hanging out with Avandra’s aspect. Basically a 1st-level, stock-standard bestiary that can be found in most adventures (and a mid-level cleric could potentially solo given a few days).

Really, this entire thing could take place in the natural world and you would not have to change much except for how the characters get there. Hell, drop it on an earthmote in Forgotten Realms and see if anyone notices. The actual dungeon has a lot of little things for the characters to find that can help them out later, such as an alternative exit when they have to flee, and inscriptions that give them bonuses when dealing with the aspect. I also liked that the NPCs had their own sections for their goals, motivations, fears, weaknesses, and more. These will go a long way to giving DMs a solid foundation for how to work with the NPC.

This adventure reminds me of Keep on the Shadowfell in that while you could run it as written, it both lacks the feel that I was expecting and there is just enough there to make it work if you are willing to put in the time and effort to re-work almost all of it.

For example, why not have the characters figure out that Denek is seeking the goddess themselves? Instead of running from a bunch of adventurers that they somehow conned out of a lot of money (yet do not retrieve it if they get caught), have them discover a secret room or underground archive and stumble upon the ritual necessary to open the portal to the Elemental Chaos themselves. There could have been some extensive social roleplaying going on here, and the players could have taken their own initiative to help out someone who for years had been like a father to them. Hell, have him go into the portal and have the rest of the characters follow him to see what he is up to.

I understand that there could be a time crunch on this whole thing, but he could still have divulged his desires to a character trained in Arcana or Religion under the assumption that such a skill character (or characters) could help him out from time to time. If none of that panned out, then I guess you could still stick with the original hook of an orphan caretaker looking for “exceptional people” to send into the Elemental-fucking-Chaos for a stroll. Even if you have to stick with the original hook, that still does not excuse…

Goblins.

Why did it have to be goblins? If I sent my players to the Elemental Chaos or Astral Sea and threw goblins, orcs, gnolls, hobgoblins, or really anything short of elementals, angels, or demons they would paddle my ass with all of my Monster Manuals while forcing me to walk on four-siders. It would be like the nerdiest pledge initiation in history. The author could have de-leveled some elementals or demons and thrown those at the zeroes, but since these are supposed to be teenagers it is not like you would have to have them fight and kill a threat in one encounter; it could be a recurring thing like Nemesis from Resident Evil or handled with an ongoing skill challenge. Of course sticking to critters that you would expect to find in the Elemental Chaos is a good start, but having everything take place on level terrain seems like half-assing it. This is why…

The “dungeon” should not be a two-story temple on a level island that has weathered the Elemental Chaos for decades. 

When I think of a ruined template drifting through the Elemental Chaos, I think of a weathered chunk of rock with a shattered ruin that barely perches on it. Chunks of the building and debris orbit around the whole thing, and perhaps a geyser of flame constantly shoots a spiral of slowly flowing lava out into the plane (could be a terrain feature during a fight, could be just for looks). Rocks could collide with the temple during an encounter or during a skill challenge, or be part of the terrain during a fight (like mobile, floating platforms). It is the Elemental Chaos; fuck physics and go wild with the scenery. At this level it should be the dungeon equivalent of being able to witnessing a supernova, except that you get to explore it.

And when the players finally got to Avandra? Instead of undead, why not have a bunch of angels guarding her, weakened from years of being disconnected from the Astral Sea (explaining their level 1-ness)? There could also be a demon in the mix somewhere, perhaps trying to destroy Avandra’s aspect or trapped, and something the characters do frees it or allows it to get to her (and they get a chance to help defeat it).

The adventure I was hoping for is nowhere close to the one I got, and the one I got both feels like that the Elemental Chaos was tacked on for an entirely unnecessary reason (ie, because), and does almost nothing to showcase it. I really cannot recommend this adventure except as a training exercise to give the 0-level character rules a routine try.

Shards of Selune Review

Fetch quests are not new to Dungeons & Dragons (or games in general). In many cases they require you to go to point A to get something that lets you go to point B, and so on and so forth until the writer gets bored or runs out of points. Other models adopt a more free-form “sandbox” approach, giving you all the points and leaving it up to you to tackle them in whichever order you prefer. Shards of Selune opts for the latter, and requires that the characters go about the dark places of Neverwinter on a treasure hunt to locate three of Selune’s tears ’cause the bitch couldn’t cry in one spot.

Eh, could have been worse.

The adventure hook is basically this: the players see some falling stars one night–or don’t–and are petitioned by an eladrin priest named Lady Jasmine to go get them. She gives you the vague locations of all three, but it is up to the party to determine which ones to after in what order. Things get complicated because other factions saw them and want them for various reasons, but character themes can also further complicate things, which is fucking awesome. This part of the adventure design is what draws my interest to what would have otherwise been another ho-hum “go get that thing I want ’cause I want it and oh here is some magic shit”.

Though it seems to work for 99% of World of Warcraft…

Almost every event either requires one or more themes to trigger, or has additional stuff that can occur if a character has one of the indicated themes. None of the events with required themes are mandatory, and either provide extra background information, potential hooks into other adventures, and/or give you a benefit to help you out. It is really nice to see player decisions like this integrated into the overall larger picture, and hopefully it is something we will see in future adventures.


Another thing that sets this adventure apart from others is the almost even mix of skill, social role-playing, and combat challenges (though most of the role-playing ones have required themes). Of the seven combat encounters, only three have tactical maps; the rest give you guidelines of the layout, such as “any city map featuring an alley/road”. While I expect people to complain about cutting costs or whatever, there are plenty of stock city maps, and if nothing else it would give me an excuse to actually use my Dungeon Tiles.

The encounters with maps are well done, with interesting terrain features and potentially dynamic monster rosters depending on the party’s previous actions. For example one encounter involves dealing with a gang that found one of the shards on their flooded-building pissing ground. If you dealt with other factions previously, then the DM swaps out some of the gang members for imps, zombies, dwarves, etc. It is a small thing that helps reinforce that the actions of the players can have consequences, and I fully endorse this move.

Yet another good adventure for the Neverwinter crowd. I am liking a lot of the adventures coming out of Dungeon, and I would like to see WotC round up some of the more talented authors and get a nice adventure path rolled out. Hell, I would settle for an adventure arc that at least runs through the heroic tier. I had heard that they were wrapping up Chaos Scar (yay), so here’s hoping.