Epiro: Season Finale

Cast

• Atticus (wood elf predator druid 6)
• Iola (wood elf centered breath monk 6)
• Perseus (demigod Chaladin 6)
• Nero (critically cursed evoker 6)

Outmaneuvering the hydra’s many jaws was easy enough, it was trying to punch through the stony plates that was giving Iola trouble. Still she at least proved to be a sufficient enough distraction that Atticus was able to drive a piece of ice into an opening.

There was a loud hissing as the ice melted, but the molten stone darkened as it cooled which he took to be a good sign. Seeing this Nero gathered up numerous fragments of ice in a magically conjured whirlwind, and proceeded to relentlessly shred the creature with high-velocity frozen shrapnel.

Slowed and disoriented thanks to the wind, debris, and curtains of steam it was easy for Perseus to blast one of the heads in the face with a lightning bolt. It whipped back as chunks of stone were flung away, exposing a layer of glowing, magma-like flesh which hopefully meant they were wearing it down. The fight continued for about a minute, with Iola and Atticus trying to smash and claw through stone, Nero blasting it with arcane ordinance, and Perseus using every ranged-lightning ability he had in his woefully short book.

One of the heads went down. As it crashed into the ground it exploded in a cloud of searing rock and ashes, blinding and burning everyone nearby (which happened to be most of the party). There were still three left, and unfortunately even without the deathsplosion Iola, Perseus, and Atticus were being worn down through a combination of intense heat, choking smoke, and just generally being knocked around; they had already had a full day of fighting elemental cultists and narrowly avoiding being crushed by a meteor.

By the time they had destroyed a second head Atticus went down, but with a helping, healing hand from Perseus he was back on his feet…until the next hit almost dropped him. As he limped to safety he chanced a glance skyward and saw a shape blotting out the opening far above. It was a crow. Not just any crow, but a really, really big crow. It dove, landing on one of the hydra’s heads and smashing it into the ground. It savagely pecked at it, but was forced to take back to the air in order to avoid getting a bite taken out by the other head.

His prayers to Gaia had been answered. Technically. I mean it was no stampede of animals or onslaught of floral overgrowth, but quality over quantity, right?

Quality in this case meaning size category.

Iola and Perseus hung back, using blasts of wind and the lightning-staff to attack from relative safety, while the crow darted in opportunistically to tear at the hydra with its beak and claws. Things seemed to be turning around when another head went down…until Nero saw the blood.

A small pool of golden-red blood was sliding towards the hydra. He did not know why or what would happen, just that whatever it was could not possibly be good. He tried animating small rocks to ward it away, which seemed to slow it down but not by much. Once it had almost closed the distance he turned the full brunt of his arcane whirlwind upon it. This proved much more effective, splattering it some thirty feet away, but once he saw it gathering itself up again for another go he decided that he should call for help.

Iola reacted the quickest. She was not sure what it might do if it touched her, but given that the hydra was proving too hot to handle decided to give it a shot. Or, more accurately, a kick.

She slipped.

The blood simply flowed around her and poured into the pit. Nero chased after it, but by the time he made it to the edge the blood had formed into the four-armed faceless demon that he saw when the summit was still a summit. It was extending all four of its arms through the ground, trying to pull something out. He slid into the pit, burying his axe in the creature’s back in hopes that the demon within the axe would, I dunno, drink it or something.

The axe bit in easy enough, but the demon’s face–and just the face–twisted around to stare at him, which would be unnerving enough if it had a normal face instead of a graven symbol of Tharizdun. The axe began to mentally scream in agony, and for the first time in weeks Nero was able to let go of the axe, and so he did. Then he crawled out of the pit, presumably because he expected the blood-demon to turn into some kind of super-blood-devouring demon, which by themselves are something he wanted no part of, anyway.

With the final head destroyed everyone headed into the pit, where they saw the demon slowly extracting a glowing crystal from the ground, and they knew what they had to do.

They attacked the crystal.

Iola got a few good cracks in, but it was Perseus’s lightning-staff that really did the trick, marking one of the few explosions that Nero was not only not the cause of, but was not even caught in. Fortunately even though Iola was at ground zero she still survived, albeit barely. Once they were certain that no one else was going to show up and make their day even worse, they had the crow carry them out of the pit and down the mountain to Copper Cairns, where they could rest up before dealing with the issue of the artificial winter, other elemental cults, and power vacuum left by a pantheon of dead gods.

All in a days work, right?

Behind the Scenes
This marks the only campaign that I can remember ending what I would call a satisfactory note; pretty much everything before this was a one-shot, module, or just ran until either I wrote myself into a corner, it petered out on its own, or life intervened.

Randy wanted to get in some words about our upcoming Numenera campaign, so the session was unfortunately a short one. I wanted to have the rock guy come back for a one-on-one with Perseus and maybe have Nero duke it out with the demon, but we did not have a lot of time and despite giving the characters back a daily power and some healing surges they were pretty badly beat up.

Oh well, it is still nice to wrap up a campaign on some sort of conclusive note. Maybe some day we will revisit it, or maybe I will flesh it out, polish it up, and throw it on Drivethrurpg. Maybe both? At any rate I have to say that I really do not think things would have gone smoothly as they did if I had kept going with 5th Edition, and that once we converted to 4th Edition I had an easier time planning and running the game, and the players had more fun (and more evocative characters).

Epiro: Episode 114

Pictured: Spoilers. Kind of. It is not as big.

Cast

• Perseus (level 6 demigod Chaladin)
• Iola (level 6 wood elf Centered Breath monk)
• Atticus (level 6 wood elf predator druid)
• Nero (level 6 human evoker)

One-hundred foot diameter rock hurtling towards your face? That would be time to leg it.

Atticus and Iola were the quickest, easily making it to the relative safety of the passage; being either an elf in cat-form or an elf capable of high-velocity wind-jumps has considerable benefits when the name of the game is speed.

Nero and the heavily-armored Perseus? Not so much.

Or rather, not at all.

The impact obliterated the temple, shattering the summit and sending pillars cartwheeling down the mountainside. Iola and Atticus were tossed about as the passage buckled and collapsed, but aside from some bruises and scrapes they were miraculously unharmed. The ground began to shudder again as a violent, deafening wind erupted from the broken summit. Then the sky darkened as the air quickly became freezing and it began to snow.

Brace yourself, magical volcanic winter is coming.

After about ten minutes the wind mostly subsided and the ground was carpeted in several feet of snow. Atticus was not affected much thanks to all the fur. Iola was used to living high up in the mountains, but not that used to it and ended up having to wrap herself in a blanket to ward off some of the cold. When they were mostly sure that nothing more disastrous would occur, they crept out and made their way back to where the summit used to be, hoping against all odds to find someone. Or at least part of them.

As they started up the stairs a scabrous, clawed arm shot out of the snow. Atticus reflexively darted over and worried it, causing the bloated demonic body it was attached to to bolt upright, bellowing in pain. It was certainly dressed like Nero but–for starters–the head had a crest of twisted horns, the skin was covered in thick, dark protrusions, and while the mouth had too many rows of teeth it was still less disconcerting than the one gaping from its distended gut.

Atticus let go, and both he and Iola just stared at the corpulent obsenity in a mixture of confusion and disgust.

Then the gut-mouth vomited up Perseus.

Then the creature slowly diminished in size until all that was left was a Medium-sized, human-looking Nero. He was feeling uncomfortable for a variety of reasons: physical trauma from all the explosions, transforming into a demon and back, spitting up the son of a god he recently killed, and standing knee deep in snow wearing tattered clothing in a region of the world where snow is not a naturally occurring thing. Could this last half-hour get any worse?

Of course it could.

Perseus stood up, covered in a sheen of demi-demon saliva, standing in the freezing cold, and struck Nero. Several times, until he teetered on the verge of consciousness. Once Nero was sufficiently battered and bloodied, he drew his sword and prepared to drive it through his skull. Nero just laid there in resignation, but after several seconds Perseus’s face turned from rage to horror. He slowly lowered the sword, the lightning flashing in his eyes faded. He then backed away before stumbling off to dry heave in the snow for a bit.

Nero picked himself up. His wounds were rapidly healing, and the axe shot him a mental “you’re welcome”. After some awkward silence the group made their way up the stairs so that they could assess the damage. The meteor was lodged within a cylinder of what looked like black ice. It was around ninety feet across and extended thousands of feet into the depths of the mountain. Cold wind was weakly billowing from it, all that remained after whatever energies it contained had been expelled into the sky.

They began climbing down. Well, not Iola and Atticus. They again had the advantage of flight and simply glided to the bottom. The walls did not afford many handholds, so despite his understandable hatred of Nero Perseus was forced to accept his assistance or risk falling. Nero tied a rope around both of them and animated a grappling hook to slowly lower them down in yet more awkward silence. Even if they had something to talk about it was pretty easy to notice as they descended that the meteor was somehow still pushing its way down, grinding away at the shaft of ice.

Perseus tried his luck some more with the lightning staff. It blew off small chunks, but they continued to hang in a slow orbit, keeping pace with the meteor’s inexorable progress. It was simply too big to destroy, so they would have to think of something else. They reached the bottom a few minutes later. As soon as Perseus’s feet touched the ground he could feel a malevolence emanating from beneath him, and Atticus’s keen senses began to detect a very faint pulse, as if the ground were alive.

Nero opened up his arcane sight to give the area a scan. He saw that the pillar was tightly wrapped in strands of abjuration, conjuration, and evocation magic, and crackled just ever so slightly with necromantic energy. He could also see waves of evocation energy being channeled into the meteor from somewhere atop the mountain’s shattered crown, which he noticed were being disrupted periodically by the gusts of wind. The air was disrupting the earth magic, which was being used to grind away a pillar of ice…uh oh.

All of a sudden Nero realized what was going on. They were standing atop a primordial that had been imprisoned directly beneath the very thrones of Olympus. The pillar that impaled it kept it inert, and was made of ice because stone probably would have not done anything and been easy for a practitioner of earth-based magic to remove once they had found it. That was where the wind came in: currents both inside and outside would have made it virtually impossible for anyone to find it. Even if they did, the wind would oppose their magic and weaken them.

But they did find it, and the last step was to apparently destroy the pillar, which would allow the primordial to recover and awaken.

So, time to plan.

Perseus considered the idea of reconstructing the pillar, but quickly dismissed it as he lacked either the power or time to found a religion and accumulate enough power to perform whatever miracle was needed in order to create it in the first place. Destroying the pillar was likewise out of the question, as they had tried that plenty of times and it would take far too long before it achieved its goal. Nero lacked the time, resources, and knowledge to cobble together a ritual to halt its progress or reassemble the pillar.

But he might be able to knock it off.

Though he did not know much in the way of abjuration, he was pretty handy with forces. With enough time he could gather enough magical energy together and release it in one focused blast to hopefully dislodge it. The downside is that he did not have enough time; the meteor would grind its way through the pillar in a matter of minutes. He would need something to supercharge the ritual, giving him a lot of energy in a short amount of time. Something that had, on several occasions, demonstrably unleashed raw, destructive power.

Were you thinking of Zeus’s lightning bolt-staff thing? Because I was.

The party? Oh no, no no no: they went with Perseus’s blood.

I guess in their defense they were not trying to travel through time.

While Nero went to work Iola kept channeling torrents of wind upwards, which as predicted slowed the meteors descent. Once everything was ready Nero released the ritual. There was a loud thoom followed by an echoing crack as a neat, circular hole was punched through the ice. The meteor shifted, there was some more cracking, and then it finally slid off to the side. It did some damage to the pillar on the way down, but it was nowhere near complete destruction.

Using his sight to check the damage, Nero noticed that the magic holding the pillar together was fraying. Nowhere near as fast as it would have with the meteor on top, but it still likely only had a week or so before it would start to melt away on its own. After much discussion the party concluded that the best course of action was to have Nero remain here and try to halt the decay, while everyone else tried to find some means of rebuilding it before it was too late. Not a likely plan, but they did not have, well, any options.

Something dropped from the opening above. It crashed into the pillar, utterly destroying it while throwing Nero back because why not. Once everyone was finished dodging massive fragments of ice they saw the rock guy, black sword and all, crawling out of the hole that the pillar had previously filled. He stood up, and the glow of the lava that had begun to fill the pit cast a sinister silhouette as his gaze fell upon Nero.

NEEEEERO!

As he began to stalk towards Nero, everyone one else intercepted, punching, slashing, and clawing to little avail. Without so much as a flinch, everyone was flung away by a wave of force. Well, everyone but Nero.

Again, NEEEEERO!

Figuring he had nothing to lose, Nero swung his axe, burying it solidly and surprisingly in rock-man’s chest. He seemed to notice only insofar as he gripped Nero’s arm to keep him from fleeing, and raised his sword for a killing blow. Perseus rushed him from behind, cleanly impaling him with his blade in a burst of lightning and divine light. To Nero’s surprise and relief he did not explode, but simply crumbled apart. His relief was short-lived when the dust cleared and he realized that the lava had grown into a four-headed lava hydra.

Well, out of the frying pan and into the fire, I suppose.

Behind the Scenes
As with A Sundered World I had been making shit up as we went along, spending my time fleshing out the plot threads that they actually followed instead of investing a large amount of time on the setting and places that they would probably never see (which I would if I made this into an actual setting). In this case they ended up in a kind of race with one of the cults of Tharizdun that were seeking out Ogremoch.

I wanted to keep the game going, but my group is chomping at the bits for Numenera and this is another advantage of plan-as-you-go (for me, anyway): it is very, very easy to write in a satisfying stopping point. Sure, we might revisit this campaign down the road, but this way I can wrap things up in a much more satisfactory way so that even if we do not we can look back and feel like the story was “finished”.

At some point I settled on the idea that each of the “gods” were basically high-level genasi crafted by the primordials, empowered by mortal prayer. Due to their connection they could not kill the primordials (it would just kill them), so they decided imprisoned them instead. This way mortal races would be preserved and make them even more powerful.

Honestly I was not sure what the heck they would find up on the mountain. I originally was going to have it that all the gods had died a long time ago, which was part of the reason that the world was falling into decline. “Mount Olympus” was going to be a smaller temple guarded by air and lightning spirits that Perseus would have to defeat in order to start manifesting lightning powers, as that is what Beth had wanted.

5th Edition made this hard to do, or at least do interestingly. I guess I would have probably made an at-will lightning attack and then some daily stuff. Once we shifted over to 4th Edition, though, it was pretty easy for her to just reskin her radiant attacks as lightning and call it good. If we had been playing 4th Edition from the start I could have also written up a Storm Scion theme, too.

Anyway we probably have just one more session before Epiro is wrapped up good and proper. If this is a kind of setting you would want to see fleshed out, lemme know in the comments. I am going to start posting up some Numenera stuff as I start creating my own slice of the Ninth World, so that will be something new for the site.

Epiro: Episode 113

Cast

• Atticus (elf predator druid 6)
• Iola (wood elf centered breath monk 6)
• Nero (human evoker/pyromancer mage 6)
• Perseus (human Chaladin 6)
• Thoros (gnome artful dodger rogue 6)

Zeus was down and an elemental-flanked cultist was preparing to finish him off with a black sword, while another presumed cultist sat next to a pillar, grasping at and talking to things that were probably not there.

Nero prepared to drop a scorching burst on the whole lot, but Perseus ruined any chance of surprise by dramatically shouting while running towards his father. Before he could reach the halfway mark Atticus, as he is wont to do, sped past and leapt onto the cultist. Though he seemed to be made entirely from rock the speed and weight was still enough to bowl him over.

Thoros quickly scanned the area: two elementals, a cultist packing a black sword, and a…crazy person seemingly oblivious to anything going on. Assuming it to be an act and that he was actually preparing some kind of ritual magic, Thoros began making his way towards him using the pillars for cover in case rocks started to fall and people die. The fact that he also seemed to be the least threatening of the bunch was just an added bonus.

The elementals went after Atticus and Perseus solely due to proximity, seizing them in all too familiar and painful grips. Iola did her best to pummel them into so much rubble, Perseus ineffectually struggled, and Atticus escaped by shedding his skin as he shifted into a bird. He decided to take the fight to what he assumed was their leader, changing into a bear mid-flight in an attempt to crush him. It seemed to do some damage, but the cultist returned it with some hefty interest by telekinetially slamming him into the ceiling before casting him aside like a rag doll.

Thoros crept up on the gibbering man and stuck a dagger in his back. He did not seem to notice, which was…different. So was his blood, which was less blood and more of a golden-reddish fluid. As it seeped out it started to form crystals around the edge, which made the whole thing more unnerving than it already was (though not enough to stop him from stabbing).

One of the elementals went after Iola, who was easily able to dodge its attacks, while the second continued to put the squeeze on Perseus. Nero legged it past everyone, and with a quick bit of space-folding was able to get Zeus a very relatively safe distance of twenty or so feet away from where he was.

Iola helped pull Perseus free, but as he prepared to heal his father was surprisingly stopped by Nero who blurted out something about villains and plans. What was even more surprising was that despite a complete lack of any compelling evidence (or evidence at all, really) Perseus actually listened, heading back into the fray to confront the leader. The most surprising thing of all, though? Nero killed him.

No, not Perseus, Zeus.

Yes, Zeus.

He brought the cursed axe down, severing his head with one noisy, messy chop. This got a reaction from the leader, just not the one that Nero had been hoping for: he cackled, actually cackled, before triumphantly shouting a drawn out, “Yes!”

So to recap, Nero just killed a god, the only god they have ever encountered, and one that would have probably reciprocated their assistance with at the least divine lightning and thunder. Said god is, sorry was, the father of Perseus, who was probably going to take issue with that. And to add injury to insult the corpse exploded in a cacophony of light and thunder that hurled him against one of the pillars.

Judging from the bloody splorch, reaction of the bad guy and accompanying thunderous explosion, Perseus guessed what had happened, but he did not have time to react because the bad guy was busy trying to drive four feet of, well, he was not sure what it was: it not only slid through his shield easily enough, but it also seemed to draw bits of metal into it. He did not want to find out what would happen if it he actually landed a blow.

As his head cleared Nero could hear the axe’s demonic voice thanking him for quenching its thirst, on the blood of a god no less, which was just further confirmation that he had made a mistake. Not wanting to make another rash decision he opened up his arcane sight to try and gather some intelligence, but even that just ended up being yet another item on his list of regrets.

Crazy Cultist looked like an eight foot-tall, four-armed demonic entity. Crystalline growths jutted from its body in random locations, and crimson-gold fluid flowed beneath its translucent, glassy skin. There was not even a face, just a jagged spiral of Tharizdun scored into where you would have expected to see one. It was probably an improvement over what would have been there.

What might have been stranger was what it was doing: each arm seemed to be writing a sort of arcane formula in the air, intersecting them at various points. It seemed complex, which meant that it was probably powerful, which was almost certainly bad for them, so he decided that he had to stop it the only way he knew how: cursed axe. He rushed at the demon and began wildly hack at it, hoping for the best. Or at least something on the positive side of the spectrum for a change.

Meanwhile the elementals had begun tearing stones out from the center of the platform. Cold air began issuing from the slowly growing hole, identical to the one that they found in the wall during the hike up. While Iola moved to ineffectually stop them, Atticus changed into a stag to ineffectually help Perseus. Though Iola ended up getting sandwiched between both elementals, Atticus actually got it worse by getting both impaled by the black sword and thrown from the summit.

Fortunately Iola had a full suite of disciplines that allowed her to fly and jump really high: she was able to burst free of the elementals, swoop down to catch him, and make the leap back in the same round.

Monks doing monk-things? Take that 5th Edition.

The leader turned his attention back to Perseus, and with a single sword stroke sliced a third of his shield away before flinging him back into one of the thrones that ringed the edge of the summit temple. As Perseus struggled to stand his hand found a wooden staff laying against the throne. It looked unremarkable except that about half of it was cracked and scorched, but it resonated with a comforting power as he held it.

Not wanting to engage the cultist any closer than he had to and assuming it was magic, Perseus threw the staff…and missed. The cultist did not even break his stride: a chunk of the floor shot up, deflecting it towards the ceiling, which collapsed under the subsequent thunderous explosion. Luckily everyone was next to a pillar at the time, so they did not have to worry about getting crushed. Well, they did, just not from that.

Nero had just finished hacking apart the crazy cultist, whose “blood” oozed towards the center of the temple and formed a circle around the hole that the elementals had torn open. Thanks to his arcane sight he could see the magical formula extend tendrils of energy into the sky. As his gaze followed them he realized what the demon had been up to: a massive chunk of rock was plummeting towards them.

Unable to stop it, the next best option was running away. Unfortunately the leader was not about to let Perseus flee. Fortunately his attention was thoroughly occupied and he was vulnerable to an axe buried in his skull, which is what Nero did. He also exploded, but he was pretty used to everything he did backfiring by now. Still he was out of commission and Iola had managed to revive Atticus, so everyone was fit to leg it.

Except Perseus. He was not about to let a rock destroy his father’s home. The lightning-staff had returned to his hand shortly after using it the first time, so maybe he could use it to destroy the meteor, or at least deflect it. That would be a pretty incredible story, saving the ancestral home of the gods from meteoric destruction, right? Plus with his dad dead it was probably legally his home now, anyway. So, he exhaled slowly, took aim, and threw it.

And missed.

There was still time, so as soon as the staff reappeared in his hand he threw it again.

And missed.

Well, there were certainly quieter, more boring ways to die, right?

Behind the Scenes
Normally I try to get play reports out a couple days after the session, but a lot of crazy stuff happened in this session, and despite reading and re-reading it I am positive that I have some events out of order or even omitted.

Anyway this fight went really bad, really quick: the players rolled horribly, I rolled well, and Josh killed Zeus, who could have potentially turned the fight around (as well as give Perseus lightning powers). In his defense he did not do it to be a jerk, he honestly thought it was a good idea.

I was keeping both cultists from the previous session in reserve, hoping to bring them in at dramatic moments, but that would have been overkill. That is also why I kept the demon-cultist on the sidelines: anything extra would have almost certainly resulted in a TPK. Heck, the leader was intended to be an elite soldier, but I had to pare down his actions to one pretty much the entire time.

The entire time I was tracking something like victory points the entire time to determine if they could stop the meteor, and if not how bad the impact would be. The final tally was, well, pretty much as bad as it could have gotten. Thankfully we are not playing this week so it gives me some time to figure out what happens next.

Maybe roll up new characters for an elemental war campaign?

Epiro: Episode 112

Cast

• Atticus (level 5 predator druid)
• Iola (level 5 centered breath monk)
• Nero (level 5 human evoker)
• Perseua (level 5 human Chaladin)
• Thoros (level 5 gnome artful rogue)

After another hour or so of walking the characters found a light at the end of the tunnel. A strong wind was funneled into the passage, slowing their advance. They could see flashes of lightning, and thunder trembled through the ground and walls.

As they neared the exit they could see that it opened up onto a circular platform about one-hundred feet across that overlooked the land below. Near the edge there was a small temple with a statue that they assumed to be Zeus, what with the lightning bolt and all. Across from it a wide stairway was carved into the mountain, leading up toward the summit. Finally, and probably the most important detail, someone was waiting for them.

He had olive-skin and a shaven head that was heavily tattooed with runes. He was clad in a suit of plate armor and wore a dark cloak, because if you could say one thing about the Elemental cult–besides their proclivity for manipulating stone and hanging out with thematically appropriate denizens–is that they are not above color coordination. When they reached the exit he simply held up both hands in a gesture of peace and, shouting over the wind, asked them to leave.

Perseus said that they might leave, but wanted to first know who he was and what his plans were. To his surprise he was given straightforward answers: the man was a scion of Tharizdun that was, along with some other like-minded individuals, in the process of liberating him from Pandora’s box. Nero did not know much about Tharizdun, except that he was the thing that the rest of the evils in the box fled from when it was opened.

What was also surprising was that, after openly revealing that he was not only a servant of the bad guy, but that he was trying to free said bad guy from a god-forged prison, Perseus did turn to leave.

Maybe he thought that Tharizdun would just…scare off all the other bad things?

Confused as to why a self-proclaimed hero that had at least claimed to have fought a medusa was just walking away, Atticus stopped him and asked him why. Perseus explained that if this guy was somehow related to an ancient evil that was so ancient and so evil that the gods themselves could not kill, but merely imprison him, at least on a relative scale he was probably out of their league. Of course after a brief pep talk about courage, responsibilities, and suffering of innocents they decided to roll initiative, anyway.

Though the winds impeded their movement Atticus was still able to close the distance. He grabbed the scion and flung him towards the rest of the group. As the scion picked himself up the ground seemed to, well, flow over him. Sheathed in a thick layer of stone, he took a few swings at Atticus, clipping him. While his back was turned Perseus charged, but his sword was easily deflected. With the scion’s attention turned towards Perseus, it gave Nero enough time to slam a sphere of force square in his chest, shattering much of the stone barrier.

And then it was Iola’s turn. The winds not only did not hinder her, but seemed to empower her as she drew upon the fury of the storm around them. She channeled it into a lance of hurricane force that launched the scion some thirty feet away. It was pretty impressive, though her friends might have appreciated it more if the force of the blast had not also sent them sprawling. At least it momentarily reduced the winds to a nice breeze.

A wave of stone surged from the ground, crashing into Perseus and engulfing him in a crushing embrace. In its wake stood a female gnome, with long, braided hair and eyes that looked like citrines. She did not move, but stood her ground and surveyed the battlefield, her eyes scanning independently of each other. Thoros, wanting to pick on someone his own Size category, flung a dagger at her, but it barely scratched her skin.

Hoping to free Perseus, Atticus leapt at the elemental, but all he was able to do was pry a few stones loose. It was still better than when he went after the gnome: his claws and fangs could not even make a mark, and she did not even seem to acknowledge being gnawed on. The stone “armor” from the scion peeled up over his legs and body, and down his arms, compacting into a pair of small spheres that he launched at Atticus. Though only one hit it was enough to knock him to the ground, writhing in agony.

Perseus struggled against the elemental’s grip but was unable to wrench himself free. Or breathe. He eventually resigned himself to praying to his father for aid, and just as he was about to black out a bolt of lightning lanced out of the sky. It struck the elemental, blasting him free without harming him in the slightest.

Iola reveled in her new found power. She darted about, easily dodging the elemental to go after the gnome. The gnome still did not move, and it felt like she was striking a stone wall. Nero decided to take a crack at her next, channeling a wave of thunderous energy through his fist as he swung. She shifted every so slightly, deflecting his blow and striking him in the arm.

Having learned their lesson by proxy Atticus and Perseus decided to keep their distance from the gnome, focusing instead on the elemental, while Iola tried her odds with the scion. She conjured up a cyclone of wind that focused the entirety of the surrounding storm into one point. It tore the platform to shreds, flinging stone about and the scion over the cliff.

The battle finally turning in their favor, the platform violently shook as it began to pull away from the mountain. The elemental seemed to “dive” underground, while the gnome continued to stand there. Iola pushed the cyclone into Thoros, launching him to the safety of the stairs, while Nero managed to catapult himself with a downward-aimed thunderwave. Everyone else just used good old-fashioned legwork to leap to safety.

They hunkered down on the steps to rest for a bit before finishing their trek up the summit. It was surrounded by a ring of fluted pillars topped with an elaborately decorated entablature. Similarly decorated stone thrones formed a ring inside the pillars. A dark-robed figure stood at the center, flanked by a pair of elementals. He was holding a black sword that he pointing it at a someone lying on the ground: his skin was cloudy white, and vibrant gold patterns lightly pulsed over his skin.

It was Perseus’s father.

Behind the Scenes
Another fun session with evocative, dynamic combat. I was happy that I was able to leave it on a cliffhanger, especially since Beth had been waiting to see if/how her character’s father would feature into the game. I had planned on ending the game in another handful of sessions, but…who knows, I am starting to think of more stuff. I might be able to keep it going longer than I thought.

One thing I love about 4th Edition is that it is really, really easy to make mechanics that evoke a concept.

The scion was normally a melee beater. He could use a Minor action to give himself temporary hit points (stone armor), but could expend it to make a powerful ranged attack. This gave players a choice: tough it out in melee, or risk getting hit with a nasty ranged attack. They could also try using daze/stun effects to force him to choose between attacking or replenishing his stone shield.

The gnome was also pretty powerful in melee: she had an Immediate Interrupt attack when struck in melee, and when she did not move gained weapon resistance. This made ranged attacks, especially magic ones, useful against her…which was why I also made it so that if a magic ranged attack missed her by a wide enough margin that she could redirect it into someone else.

Epiro: Episode 111

CAST

• Atticus (elf druid 5)
• Ben’s gnome (gnome artful dodger rogue 5)
• Iola (wood elf centered breath monk 5)
• Josh’s new wizard (human evocation mage 5)
• Perseus (human Chaladin 5)

Now that they had a chance to breathe, they could see that the first room was a wide marble hall, with a ceiling supported by fluted pillars, and the center featured a very much vibrant tree with golden leaves and apples. There were two exits to the north and east flanked by statues, with another pair of statues along the west wall (some of which Perseus recognized as distant relatives).

The pair of statues without an entrance seemed suspect, so Josh’s wizard examined the wall for lingering earth-magics. He did not find any, but when Atticus gave it a mundane once over he noticed some faint imperfections that indicated this wall might have been magically sealed up a long time ago, more recently via mundane means, or maybe with magic that just did not register to Josh. In any case they could not find a secret door, so resulted to a good old bashing.

Unfortunately as he and Perseus tried to force their way through, it split into a pair of earth elementals.

If the Elemental Eye had a book of tricks, this would be one of the older ones.

They figured that there would be a trap: Perseus acted first, delivering a literally earth-shattering blow that split the elemental open, causing rocks and a person to come tumbling out. They could not tell the race or gender because it was wearing dark robes with a hood, and since it was not moving they decided to ignore it for now. The elemental did not seem deterred, and gripped Perseus with a crushing, stony tendril. Atticus tried clawing the other one apart, but was barely able to make a scratch.

Iola leapt into action next, also literally. She launched herself across the room and came down with both feet on what she assumed was the head of one of the elementals, stomping it into the ground like Mario on a goomba. She then leapt off of it and knocked the other one away from Perseus with a spinning kick, freeing him from its grasp. Josh’s wizard followed up by lobbing an explosive sphere of force that further scattered both them and pieces of them across the room.

The figure shakily stood up, glancing about in confusion. Despite my frequent mentions no one paid it any heed and kept hacking, blasting, and punching at the elementals until they were reduced to rubble (and uncut gems).

Precious, precious elemental guts.

It was only after the fight was over that they remembered that there was someone else there. Unfortunately at that point she had pulled back her hood to reveal a scaly face, with a head covered in writhing, hissing snakes.

Why did it have to be snakes?

Despite being slowly turning to stone, Iola managed to bridge the distance and give her a one-two combo. Perseus brandished his shield, which he had polished to a mirror-shine just for this occasion (however improbable). His tactic worked, causing her to avert her gaze, giving the rest of the party time to attack without being subjected to it. Ironically the greatest danger was when Josh’s wizard conjured up a whirlwind that sucked Atticus away while he was crushing her in a bear hug (he refused to let go, even with her save-penalizing poison).

Iola ended up getting turned to stone, while Perseus called on some divine aid to cure himself before rushing back into the fray. Since Josh’s wizard was still sustaining the whirlwind, Atticus simply let her go, causing her to fly across the room and crash into a wall. Finally free (for the second time if you count the elemental), the medusa tried to make a break for the temple’s entrance, only to catch a dagger in the head from Ben’s gnome (who might not have had a name since he made it just before, and kind of while we were playing).

He strode in, yanked his dagger free, and in one smooth motion wiped it off before sheathing it. He had been watching them for most of the battle, safely waiting outside to see how things went.

Why? It is not like we are playing 3rd Edition.

He introduced himself, and after some pre-party Mandatory Awkward Conversation decided to team up with them to hunt cultists.

(NOTE: Defeating a monster is worth some serious brownie points, especially when it has the added effect of restoring a petrified party member. It is also one of the few instances where kill-stealing is both acceptable and encouraged.)

With that out of the way, Perseus and Atticus decided to scout ahead while the rest of the party continued to check out the hall and scoop up gems. Initially there was nothing particularly interesting about the passage, but the further they went the colder it got: frost began to coat the walls, and they could see their breath in the air.

Eventually they found the source of the cold. Kind of. Something had…torn a hole in the wall, and freezing wind was pouring out of it. They went back to fetch Josh’s wizard, hoping that he could discern the nature of the phenomenon. When he could not detect any magical auras, he just poked his head through. His light spell had very limited range, and all he could see was that there was a black wall about ten feet beyond the hole that likely extended well beyond the range of his magic.

Unwilling to try climbing out to interact with it (the pit seemed to be bottomless and there was nothing to hold on to), they just kept going, and that is where we called it.

Behind the Scenes
So after some back and forth, we decided to switch Epiro from D&D Next to 4th Edition. On one hand the public playtest is petering out in September anyway, and on the other hand there is virtually nothing about Next that interests us: the only reason we dealt with it this long was to pitch in our two cents to try and shape the game. Without that factor at this point all we can do is wait and hope that things change or get added that will appeal to us.

Or not. We still enjoy 4th Edition, and have about three, maybe four other games—not counting board games—that we can still play.

Given how I tend to run 4th Edition—flexible powers, approximate distances instead of a map, making up and changing monster stats on the fly (including adjusting hit points and powers), Dungeon Master intrusion, probably over-powered magic items, etc—we had considered 13th Age (and even Numenera despite the major shift in style and tone), but with the lack of a druid class and the monk still in beta, I felt that things would go smoothest if we just stuck with 4th Edition.

How did it go?

It was great. In my past reports I kept stating that yeah, we had fun, but not because of anything to do with the system. Actually, if anything it made it more difficult to have fun: characters within a class are too similar (and melee classes feel largely the same with their “roll to attack, roll damage if you hit” routine), monsters died too fast and/or did not do enough, per-day spells and magical healing wreaked havoc with pacing (especially since characters have virtually no capability to heal otherwise), the recent removal of skills, etc.

4th Edition’s system adds to the fun. I can focus on running the game and making things up without worrying that I am going to accidentally kill the party. The math makes it very easy to peg a monster so that it is challenging as I want it to be, and the monsters last long enough and do enough damage so that they can actually cause tension and excitement. Characters have a variety of things to do, and they are not reliant on magical healing in order to keep going.

I am pretty sure this is the first time I have ever used a medusa, and you know what? I’m was happy with the reveal, especially since anyone who started their turn within ten feet automatically got hit with its gaze attack. What I also liked about it is that instead of making a single save to see who just immediately died, that they had a chance to react to it, be affected by it, and try to deal with it: Melissa tried making an Endurance check to give herself a bonus on her next save, while Perseus used one of his prayers to get a save bonus.

Of course after the fight was over I just ruled that she turned back to normal: forcing the party to walk all the way back to town just to fix her would be one of those pace-wreaking issues I mentioned above.

Epiro: Episode 110

Cast

• Atticus (wood elf druid 5)
• Josh’s Wizard (human wizard 5)
• Iola (wood elf monk 5)
• Perseus (human paladin 5)

We spent a good chunk of the session mulling over the new packet and, well, “transitioning” the characters by filing off skills, feats, and some class features.

The characters finally arrived at Copper Cairns, got paid (a small fortune of 5 gp each), and without missing a beat headed directly into the mountains. A storm picked up that filled Perseus with one part sense of longing, one part anger. He used detect magic, which I declared only allowed him to detect divine-ish magic, which was fine because it was divine-ish in origin. Rather than recognize spell schools, which to me is a silly thing for a paladin to be able to do, it instead registered domains.

Just…no.

He sensed the power of the Stormcaller stirring the skies into a tempest, but they continued their trek into the mountains with little supplies and even less direction. After several thankfully in-game hours and a flock of harpies later, they made camp as best they could on a ledge buffeted by high-speed winds, and when dawn came most had gotten some measure of sleep. The winds had not let down, but at least they could see, and after a few more hours of climbing they found a temple carved into a cliff.

Moving between eroded statues and collapsed columns were a pair of humanoid figures, followed closely by a shuffling pile of rock. It was getting late so they tried shouting and charging, but since they were pretty far away it gave the two figures a chance to dash through a doorway and use presumably some kind of off-the-books earth magic to close it, leaving the party to square off against the earth elemental.

Josh’s wizard pelted it with a few magic missiles, Atticus turned into a ram (reflavored steed), while Perseus rode him into combat. I was surprised that the elemental was able to hit Perseus, and I ruled that it knocked him away, allowing it to flee underground. Unsure how exactly to get passed the door, Iola used the earthstompers to kick the door while triggering its quake ability.

This was an interesting idea, so I rewarded it by allowing her to make a Strength check with advantage. She rolled really high and opened it, but the elemental was waiting and smacked her in the face. It tried to close the door, but Batticus headbutted the door in an effort to try and keep it open. They both rolled really high, so I ruled that neither was gaining ground until Josh’s wizard slammed it with a sound burst.

This knocked it away, and as it tried to reconstitute itself Perseus skewered it with the Boar King’s Tusk, killing it. The session ended it with them in the Stormcaller’s temple, and since I have two weeks to plan I figure I might as well draw out an actual dungeon to give this exploration and random encounter rules a shot.

Behind the Scenes
The harpies were incredibly easy to kill, even though half the party was climbing a cliff as they attacked. I had to flavor in the elemental’s knock back and resistance to being knocked back, because otherwise it is just a pile of hit points that takes half damage from most attacks (which would mean something if anyone used non-magical attacks).

I am really glad that I have some experience playing Dungeon World and FATE: I called for a Strength check to climb, and used their results to determine who was on a cliff ledge, and who was in the middle of climbing when the harpies attacked. The worse the roll, the further away from safety you were (making a fall that much more dangerous).

Beth did not care too much about the paladin changes, probably because she did not actually change anything (we wanted to get in a good hour of play), but partially because she was already the “lawful good” brand did not need much change. Everyone else was unhappy with the loss of some key features that they loved (druid and bear form), skills, and feats. Josh had been playing up his wizard to be a street thug, but now had no mechanical way to convey that. Melissa was happy to get flurry of blows back, even though it cost ki because it is a per-encounter thing instead of per day. On the downside she can no longer fly for short distances.

So, yeah, it is nice and all that classes have more stuff going on, but I do not think that they had to sacrifice conceptual freedom to do so. It does not mean much to me that all the spaces are filled in if you have little to no say as to what is filling them.

Epiro: Episode 109

Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. Its terrible, scarred, vicious cover.

Cast 

• Corvus (human ranger 4)
• Iola (wood elf monk 4)
• Perseus (human paladin 4)
• Yllian (high elf wizard 4)
• Josh’s Human Wizard (human wizard 4)

After an almost two-month long hiatus—mostly due to conflicting schedules—we finally managed to get back to Epiro, our D&D Next playtest campaign that admittedly does not always play by the playtest rules.

Picking up where we left off the characters were still heading towards Copper Cairns to get paid for guarding a supply caravan, as well as investigate the combination of an escaped criminal and cryptic message from a stone giant they met at Goathill Quarry. 

No one ever said being an adventurer was easy. Or simple.

They had finally hit the last stretch of the journey when they saw a plume of smoke in the distance. After dealing with wights and manticores they would probably have preferred to ignore it, but it was near the road anyway so what could it hurt? From a distance they could tell that it was a caravan not unlike their own, except for the part where it had been torched. This was bad enough, but when they got closer they could see that the charred elven remains had been partially eaten. Ominous enough, but no one could be sure if they had been cooked before or after whoever was responsible decided to chow down.

As Corvus busied himself peeling some valuables from the remains, he noticed tracks leading away from the wreckage. Gnoll tracks, to be specific, which explained the chew marks. There were quite a few of them, so he would have little trouble finding them…assuming they wanted to. Normally they would not, because gnolls are pretty horrible creatures that like to eat you, but figured that there might be survivors. The rest of the caravan did not want to stop, because on one hand they had already been delayed a couple of times, and on the other hand gnolls, so told them to be careful and catch up later.

“Unless you get eaten. Then please stay dead, or at least  do not come back as a super-powered zombie that  somehow gets powers based on being partially eaten.”

Their destination was a tower in a field a couple miles away. Pretty idyllic, really, except for the numerous corpses mounted on crosses scattered about. From a distance they could see shapes moving about the rooftop, and figured that sneaking would net them better chances. Thanks to the tall grass and my allowing Corvus to make a group Stealth check they were able to sneak up to the keep undetected. At the tower’s base Corvus could hear muffled screams coming from within; hopefully when they found whoever was being tortured there would be enough left to make this rescue worthwhile.

Crovus took point trying to scale the wall, using his climbing kit to make it easier on everyone else, but dislodged some stones about halfway up. A gnoll peeked over, getting an eye-full of arrow, and was dead without the 2d10 + 1d6 damage the combination fall and spikes would have dealt. As Corvus tried to orient himself another leaned over the ledge and took a shot at him. Given that he was dangling from a rope he was a pretty easy target, but at least it missed his eye (and failed to drop him 20 feet onto a cluster of spikes). Iola flew up the side of the tower, and with a well-placed spinning kick pitched him over the edge as well.

By the time more gnolls arrived the party had made it to the top. One of them grazed Yllian with an arrow, and he responded with a salvo of magic missiles. It did not kill them, but came pretty close, and allowed the rest of the party to polish them off with minimal effort. While Corvus stopped to pick up his ball bearings—because Kamon not only purchased but remembered to use them at some point—and the rest of the party fished about for loot, Yllian did not miss a beat, casting light on his sword and charging down the stairs.

The first room he found was a bedroom judging by the piles of furs and the wet-dog stench. The smell was bad enough on its own, but there were also a pair of surprised-yet-armed gnolls waiting for him. As before one landed a hit with a spear, but before he could respond with some more magic missiling Corvus rolled a bunch of bearings down after him. Fortunately they were more effective this time, but unfortunately this increase to efficacy swung both ways, sending everyone toppling to the floor. Yllian got back to his feet first, and with a souped up pair of missiles took them out in a method that Xykon would have approved of (more so because they did not teleport away).

This routine of gnoll-icide continued for a couple more rooms: Yllian would find a room, kick open the door, get hit, and magic missile whatever was inside. The last room was a, uh, room where live captives were “prepared” and stored for later, and Yllian barged in just as a gnoll had finished giving a human the good old Kalima. He took a cleaver to the chest (in retrospect I really should roll for disease), and to add insult to injury (literally) everyone else in the party bum-rushed them before he could decide with spell slot he wanted to use next.

The only survivor was the as-yet-unnamed freshly generated wizard. Elves were pretty rare despite the party composition, but he also recognized Yllian’s family signet and mentioned that he was traveling back to Delos with them as part of a failed diplomatic mission. With no one else to relay the news, Yllian realized that he needed to find his people and explain to them that they would not be getting any help from Epiro against the hobgoblins. With that he said his goodbyes, gathered some supplies, and started making his way back to Sidon so he could catch a caravan to Delos. The new wizard was more than happy to tag along, what with the recent wizard vacancy and all.

As they gave the place a once over before leaving the new wizard on the roster noticed an axe on the ground. It looked like it was made from bone, blackened metal, and a pale, leathery material. Probably human skin, because that is how fiends roll. He cast detect magic on it, revealing a dark, sinister aura, and then picked it up so that he could better examine it, which is generally not a smart move when it comes to things bearing sinister auras. Nothing really seemed out of place to him—even the stuff that should have—and he decided to keep it, because who knows when a hellish axe might come in handy?

Behind The Scenes 

Josh wanted to switch up his wizard from illusions to evocations, which meant that we had to find a way to get his new character in the game. Given that I had planned almost nothing for today’s session this worked out fine, because it gave me something to work towards. Initially I figured that I would kill him in some spectacular/anti-climactic fashion, like falling off of the tower onto the spikes below, but since everyone was expecting something like that I decided to buck the trend and have him survive to maybe come back another day.

This session went really fast and loose, with nary a mini or grid in sight. Iola got to fly, which was nice, but otherwise really just punched things, which was boring. I let Corvus make a group Stealth check so that they would at least have a chance to sneak up on the tower. It took a lot longer, was a bit harder, and probably not too “balanced”, but I had long since gotten tired of the heavy armor guy ruining everyone’s fun the second or third time running my homebrewed version of Keep on the Shadowfell.

As with the last session I let Josh use a combination of detect magic and Recall Lore (magical lore) to try and figure out what a magic item did. I like that Recall Lore gets a shout out in the Magic Items pdf, but think that there should be more reliable methods besides a specific spell. It would be pretty simple to build items so that some properties can be intuited using skill checks, especially if a character spends time examining them during a short or long rest. Specific spells could be useful for an immediate bypass or if the check fails, maybe for certain cases.

Here is an example of what I mean, using the cursed axe from the session (which I just made up on the spot):

The Pincer of Namtar 

This axe was given to a gnoll chieftain by a glabrezu named Namtar, but it was taken when he was betrayed by an up-and-coming member of his pack. It is powered by the blood of sentient creatures, become inert if it goes for more than a day without any. Namtar can communicate through the axe, offering anyone who wields it power, usually in a time of desperate need. He might want your soul, but could just as easily require that you kill someone or destroy something, because as a demon he is not so much about deception or long-term planning. At night the wielder dreams of using the axe to achieve greatness.

Divine Sense: The axe can be detected by divine sense as a fiendish presence.
Detect Magic: The axe is gripped by a dark, sinister aura. It seems to resonate with murderous intent. A Recall Lore (forbidden lore) check reveals that this aura is demonic in origin.
Examination (forbidden lore): Due to the construction of the axe—a combination of bone, flesh, and blackened metal—it is likely that this axe was forged on an infernal plane.
Short Rest (forbidden lore: This axe is definitely otherworldly, specifically wherever demons come from. Blood empowers the axe, especially that of angels and the devout. If it goes more than a day without quenching its thirst it grows dormant.
Extended Rest (forbidden lore): A glabrezu created this axe, which serves as a focus for it in the material world. Anyone who bears the axe can speak with Namtar…and vice versa.

(Particularly high checks might reveal more, such as the demon’s name.)

Curse: With the exception of uneasy memories and nightmares, viewing the axe is harmless. Once you touch it however, you will not willingly remove it, instead making any excuse possible to hang on to it. If you examine the axe with magic and determine that it is demonic or evil, you will not divulge this information, simply stating that it seems strange.

Property: The axe thirsts for blood. When the axe has been fed at least one drop of blood from a living creature, it gains a +1 bonus to the attack and damage rolls for the rest of the day. This bonus can increase depending on the bargains made and how well you serve Namtar.
Property: When you kill a living humanoid creature with this axe, it deals +1d6 damage for the rest of the encounter. If the creature was a good celestial, or otherwise the divine servant of a good deity (or otherwise notably devout), this bonus increases to +1d8. This bonus increases along with the enhancement bonus (so at +2 it deals +1d6 damage, +3 deals +3d6, and so on).

Property (Attuned): You can cast chaos hammer once per day per attuned property you have with the axe (including this one).
Property (Attuned): You can use the axe to carve through magical effects. This functions like a detect magic spell, except you must strike the object with the magical effect in question (so it may not be good to use in all situations). This ability works once per day per attuned property you have with the axe (including this one).
Property (Attuned): Once per day the axe can shout a word in Abyssal, which functions as a power word: stun, except that it does not work on fiends.
Property (Attuned): Once per day Namtar summons demons to assist you. You are representing Namtar in this instance, so if you embarrass him or treat them poorly then you will have to answer to him.

Epiro: Episode 108

Cast 

• Atticus (wood elf druid 3)
• Corvus (human ranger 3)
• Iola (wood elf monk 3)
• Perseus (human paladin 3)
• Yllian (high elf wizard 3)

If the dwarf was understandably unwilling to explain his reasons for freeing a specific prisoner, then the characters would have to try and figure it out on there own. Thankfully he left a room filled with seemingly deranged scrawlings, so they started out giving Intelligence a shot. Since it was established before the game even started that Perseus is a demigod, his 20+ result indicated that his mother had told him stories told to her by his father, namely that the world was formed in a cataclysmic battle between the primordials millenia ago.

He was also taught some old words, and between this and Yllian’s knowledge of primordials and forbidden lore, they were able to deduce that the prisoner knew of a method to harness the dormant power of at least two primordials in order to open a gate, or perhaps punch a hole in a barrier. The only problem was where the prisoner had gone. The guards said that he had been interred some thirty years ago by officials from Argos, but that he was irrevocably insane and so no one interacted with him beyond feeding him and cleaning his cell.

Despite this he was important enough for the dwarf to go through a bunch of trouble to rescue him, and he was not talking. They tried to hatch a convoluted plan in which a prisoner would stage an escape and tag along with the dwarf, who would hopefully go to wherever the prisoner had gone, giving them a trail to follow. This might have actually worked, but a stone giant named Skorres arrived, wanting to investigate the cause for the earthquakes he had felt hours ago.

The stone giant was apparently no stranger to the town, who readily offered to help them with repairs in exchange for some goats. He also helpfully pointed out the direction that the elemental had gone after leaving the quarry: the Green Hills. They asked him if anything was in the Green Hills that he knew of, but he said that he never went there because the stones were too noisy. At least they had a direction to go, and the session ended after they made the halfway mark and fended off a mated pair of manticores.

Behind The Scenes
Since Yllian does not have identify, I caved and allowed Josh to use detect magic with a magical lore check to deduce what the magical boots could do. I think it is stupid to require a wizard to both know and have one specific spell prepared. 4th Edition allowed a person trained in Arcana to both detect magic and identify magic items. Some people felt that this was too convenient, but I think it helped keep the game’s pace going and avoiding a bunch of tedium.

I would structure items so that they had capabilities that are revealed by a short rest and/or a magical lore check (or similar knowledge skill), as well as others that are revealed by a long rest. You could make it so that if you analyze a magic item quickly you get a roll, while if you spend a lot of time you get a bonus or advantage. Wizards could have bonuses to identify items with effects linked to schools they can use. This could also be a prolonged task build into the exploration rules, or a downtime task. You could also have capabilities that are not revealed by this, allowing you to conceal features if you want.

One of the manticores died in the second round, even though the first round was a surprise round that only Yllian got to act in, and on the second round Iola missed it and Perseus did not even get a chance to do anything. I decided that despite an Intelligence of 5, the second manticore determined that it would just be a Large flying lamb to a slaughter, and had it just fly away. I really wish that 5th Edition had an elite and solo system, so that maybe paired monsters or “bosses” had more staying power.

I have some in-depth stuff to say about the druid, but it ended up being so much that I am moving it to its own article.

Epiro: Episode 107

Cast

• Atticus, formerly known as the Randy (wood elf druid 3)
• Corvus (human ranger 3)
• Iola (wood elf monk 3)
• Perseus (human paladin 3)
• Yllian (high elf wizard 3)

After the earthquake subsided the characters that were not already outside got up to survey the damage, along with the rest of the town; the streets were filled with people trying to figure out what was going on, with theories ranging from magic, to monsters, to the return of vengeful gods.

It did not take long for word to reach the characters that part of the quarry had collapsed, damaging numerous homes near the top, burying others, and destroying much of the scaffolding and pulley systems used to haul stone. While Perseus was busy getting his armor on—hoping to avoid getting caught with his pants down in case a fight broke out again—Iola and Atticus helped the citizens excavate survivors and clean up the mess.

Yllian, not really one for labor, suspected that the stone boots were in some way responsible, something that he had not shared with his comrades. Though he had not yet been able to ready identify he figured that he could at least give detect magic a shot to see if he could figure anything out. What he saw was a lattice of red-orange energy threaded throughout them. In a few places the threads had snapped, indicating physical trauma, or possibly waning magic.

He also noticed something else.

Waves of evocation magic where flowing past him, through the ground. Due to the limited range of the divination he could not see where, but he theorized that it was somewhere within the quarry. Well, at the least he was able to eliminate the boots as the cause, though earthquake-causing boots would be pretty rad. Ah, well, he might as well try to figure out what was causing it, and started heading down there with Perseus.

That was when another earthquake hit, this time with Iola and Atticus at ground zero. Rocks fell, some people died, plenty were wounded. Another section of the quarry had collapsed, this time crushing about a quarter of the prison that had been constructed at the bottom. By the time they had picked themselves up and were able to take in what had happened, they could hear inmates whooping and hollering, along with a few voices screaming out before being abruptly silenced.

What guards remained at this point, some ten in all, ordered the citizens to retreat. As everyone fell back, Iola and Atticus decided to stick around and play hide and seek with a mob of criminals who, when they were not engaging in arduous, back-breaking labor, spent the time cooped up in sweltering rooms with other sweaty men. In terms of bad ideas, this easily topped their personal chart.

Iola circled around, using her speed and low-light vision to keep her distance and navigate. Atticus took the high road, transforming into a panther to help him scale the walls and slink above unnoticed. Through some bizarre twist of fate (ie, 1 in 400 odds) Atticus did run into one of the criminals, who apparently had the same idea he did by trying to climb his way out of the quarry. He frantically swiped at Atticus with a shiv, who anticlimactically just loped off.

I am not sure what Iola had expected to find, but I am sure that she was not expected to see a lone, cloaked figure slowly walking along the walls of the prison. It held its hand to the wall, pausing periodically to press its head against it, sometimes tapping with some sort of metal implement. She watched him from a distance, waiting for him to do something else to justify a surprise attack. After ten or so feet, he stopped and started etching something into the wall.

That probably would have been enough in her book, but Atticus had made it to the prison rooftop at about the same time. He peered over the edge, and saw that the figure was already staring up at him, as if expecting him to be there. His expression still changed to one of shock, because though expecting something, that something was not a very large, dangerous cat. He slowly backed away and tried to tantalize Atticat with some meat to no avail.

In all fairness he tried a few more times to deter Atticat, but when it was clear that this was going nowhere he knelt to the ground and whispered…something. Despite adding 1d6 + 5 to his listen checks, all Atticus could make out was some kind of grumbling. A pillar of stone erupted out of the prison’s ceiling a moment later, slamming into Atticus’s chest and throwing him back. So, magic words.

Atticus picked himself up, chest throbbing in pain, and reverted back to his elven form. This also surprised the stranger, who expressed his surprise with the statement, “Well, aren’t you full of surprises.” Atticus, using the element of surprise, conjured up a bunch of thick, dried roots to entangle him. This tore up his clothes and pulled his hook back; Atticus guessed that based on his height, stature, beard, and affinity for stone that he was a dwarf.

He strained against the roots, and when he was unable to break free a pair of arms erupted from the ground and effortlessly tore them apart (which, after reading the description of entangle I realized bought him all of one action). An ogre-sized, stony mass emerged after the arms, and began sliding towards Atticus. He picked himself up and began walking towards the prison, confident that the elemental would occupy Atticus long enough for him to complete his task. With his back to her and his attention clearly focused elsewhere, Iola took the opportunity to move in and take him out.

She had barely moved a few steps when the stranger, without even looking, pointed at her and commanded her to stop. He said that he did not want to hurt her, but that he would if she came any closer. She rushed him anyway, getting in a pretty good hit before his skin hardened into rock and another pillar knocked her away. He took this opportunity to make it towards the prison, creating an entrance and ducking inside, with Iola hot on his heels.

At some point Atticus had conjured a flaming sphere to use against the elemental, but when Iola chased the stranger inside the prison it turned its attention to her, attacking from within the walls to conceal its location. He hopped down and rolled the sphere after them, driving it into the dwarf while Iola pummeled him, easily dodging the elemental’s strikes, and the dwarf collapsed after a few rounds of punishment.

All the while that this was going on, Yllian and Perseus had been rallying the soldiers and town militia to handle the escaped prisoners. Though the guard captain had been killed, they did manage to rescue the nobleman, one Valan Ogre’tor, from a trio of thugs who were holding him at sword point (which was pretty easy given their high Charisma scores and training in Persuade). In the end they managed to capture just under half of the escaped criminals, locking them in a makeshift prison until they could rebuild the actual one.

Once everything had settled Yllian and Atticus tried to press the stranger for information, while Perseus went to “press” Valan. They tied him up so that he could not touch the ground, hoping that it would prevent him from using his magic. After giving it their bad cop/worse cop routine, all they found out was that he was indeed somehow connected to Tharizdun. When they went back to the scene of the crime, they found that the walls of one of the cells was covered in strange signs, and had a circular shaped hole in the ceiling.

Behind the Scenes
The stonecaller marked the first time in years that I have sat down to construct a non-4th Edition spellcaster, and was also my debut into using spellcaster types in 5th Edition. Since there are no guidelines for building your own monsters, and none of them have class levels, I stuck with a method somewhere in between 3rd and 4th Edition; ie, eyeballing many of the stats and just kind of giving him cleric spells that would let him do the spell-like effects I wanted him to.

The end result is that due to a combination of limited actions and hit points, he was only able to do like, three things before getting taken out. In 4th Edition he would have had one or two action points to let him do more, and probably lasted another round or two on top of it. Thankfully I planned on giving him an earth elemental flunky ahead of time so that his objective was able to be completed, but I wish monsters had more interesting things going on.

Epiro: Episode 106

Cast

• Iola (wood elf monk 3)
• Perseus (human paladin 3)
• Yllian (high elf wizard 3)
• Corvus (human ranger 3)
• Randy (wood elf druid 3)

The characters had been hiking across the Goathills for about an hour, searching for wherever it was the wights that had attacked them last night had come from–ideally an unguarded, treasure-laden burial ground–when they came across a gentle, grassy valley.

Given that Corvus was having no trouble following the trail left by the wights, they decided to cut across as the terrain would be easier on the wagon and it would save time. This worked out well enough until they got about halfway across, at which point they noticed that there were numerous bones scattered throughout the grass (which they were easily able to identify as horse bones thanks to the live specimen on hand).

Pegasus started acting nervously, not because of the bones (which would have been understandable), but because of the griffon doing a poor job of hiding in the grass a couple hundred feet away. It was, unfortunately, just a distraction, and as they tried to turn the wagon around another burst from cover and dived at them. Well, specifically Pegasus, because griffons love them some horse.

Perseus interposed himself between the two, but only managed to graze the griffon as it bolted past. Iola leapt into action, hitting it square in the beak with a kick that sent it spinning to the ground. It recovered quickly, raking Iola with one of its claws as it circled around her towards Pegasus. The other griffon sprung into action, but was anticlimactically chased off by one of Yllian’s color sprays. Thankfully I had a third griffin in reserve, which was able to temporarily take him out of the fight with a few good claw attacks.

The griffons were chased off after a few rounds, as I figured that even with the promise of delicious horse on the line they were not willing to die for it. Randy got to take his cat form for a spin, which is pretty brutal with a 2-3 attack routine, but despite going up against a pair of Large creatures Kamon was unable to try out his favored enemy features. Oh well, I still gave them full experience points for surviving the encounter and driving them off.

They found the burial place of the wights a few hours later, a chambered cairn dug into the side of a low hill. Perseus took point, his shield illuminated with Yllian’s magic. After a short flight of worn stairs they found themselves in a large, circular chamber. The center was dominated with a stone pillar carved with the likeness of a chimera, and three passages branched away.

Behind the totem was a dessicated corpse of a woman, either human or elf they could not tell, clutching a pair of stone boots. Yllian deduced that she was probably slain by one of the wights. When he went to move her arm to better examine the boots, a stone amulet clattered to the ground as she crumbled into dust: it was engraved with a jagged spiral that he vaguely recalled was indicative of some elemental entity.

The boots were carved entirely of stone. There were spaces that might have once been inlaid with precious metals or maybe gems, and dwarven runes mentioned something about The Lord That Shatters The Earth. Yllian had neglected to prepare any detect magic spells, so if they were magical (they were), it would have to wait until the next day to determine what they could do (something really cool).

Iola discovered the hard way that each of the passages were trapped, though she made her Dexterity save and was able to walk away with only minor burns. At the end of each passage was a burial alcove where it was assumed that the wights were originally laid to rest, and they managed to find a cache of art objects, which included a drinking horn and chimera-skin carpet.

With the place thoroughly looted they made their way to Goathill Quarry to meet up with the caravan. The four-hour walk was uneventful, though they did not make it back until well after nightfall. Given that much of the town’s “staff” were indentured criminals the place did not see many tourists; there was only one inn, and a small one at that. Even worse was that it was mostly filled up thanks to the caravan, so most of the characters ended up having to crash in their wagon (at least they had that chimera-skin carpet to keep them warm).

This ended up being just as well, as their respite was abruptly interrupted by a devastating, quarry-collapsing earthquake. Normally this would be bad enough, except for the aforementioned criminals accounting for the majority of the town’s population.

Behind the Scenes
The characters finally feel durable and competent enough that I can safely throw difficult challenges at them without it being a total-party wipe. Just a level ago a single griffon would have mopped the floor with them, what with their triple multiattack combo and 11-point per claw average.

Despite being able to fly for a short period of time all of twice per day, the monk still seems incredibly boring. I desperately want to see a monk that gives you something neat that you can reliably do at 1st-level, with a variety of thematic options to choose from as you level up. The traditions are nice, except that you can only do tradition-specific things once per day.

For example, I think that Path of Four Storms should give you a bonus on jump checks, and/or a speed boost, while Path of Stone’s Endurance could give you a bonus on Constitution saves, and maybe bonus damage or damage resistance if you do not move on your turn. Not sure what to do with Phoenix…maybe let you spend Hit Dice when dropped below 0 hit points (even as a once per day thing), possibly also fire resistance?

Basically do what 4th Edition did, but tone down the initial amount of options.