Personally, I enjoy the archetype of the warrior who only pulls out the Serious Business weapon for the most dire circumstances.
Imagining a hexblade blade pact warlock that's a basic soldier with a longsword or something...and then they see the big bad, and the pull out their Raging Flaming Poison Sword of Doom.
Edit: Running a one-off this weekend while some players can't make it, and we've been playing an intrigue and investigation heavy Curse of Strahd game. To sate our bloodthirst I'm mixing the following flavors together in a smoothie: Frostgrave, Cultists, American Gladiators, Stupid Pointless Death Arena, Controllable Elementals, A Unicorn with a Deck of Many Things in its guts a la Fifth Element Opera Singer, and Highlander.
Halflings traditionally use slings, so maybe some kind of really complicated blade on a chain or those sleeves with a knife on the end - the kind of thing that uses the same throwing motions as a sling, but melee
Y’all ever wonder why death clerics/paladins are always played so dour?
They’re like active morticians and such, right? Wouldn’t they be relatively cheerful because they’re around death all the time so they get a positive outlook on life?
Just walkin’ around, giving a big howdy-do, talkin’ about how Kelemvor or whoever is just a big pal.
The best magic items for low level parties imho are ones that are either utilitarian on a basic level (A +1 knife will bypass resistance to normal damage and an alchemist jar will get you endless drinking water)
Who cares about drinking water? That thing can make mayonnaise!
I died for the first time. We are playing a campaign that has a lot of nautical themes, and my Triton Bard is the captain of our sailing vessel. While crossing the ocean we hit a still spot, surrounded by a dense fog. We dropped anchor, which caused...something...to basically yank the anchor off our ship. Ascaptain, and guy who can breathe underwater, I went down to check it out.
I never did find the anchor, but I did find some loot I wanted. Once I disturbed it, some kind of of evil snakes or something emerged from the shadows (because Tritons for some reason lack dark vision) and used Hold Person on me, then slowly wore me down across many failed wisdom saves. I was like 700 feet down, so I couldn't have dimension doored to the ship anyway.
It wasn't an especially dramatic death. Everyone was pretty nice about it. I don't think they liked how that really down. I didn't really mind? I mean, I was upset. Level 10 is a long time. But, I made my choices. I went down there alone and I choose to mess with stuff, and this time it didnt work out. That happens. My choices, my consequences.
Anyway, with a good bit of effort they did manage to retrieve me. And we do have a level 9 or something Cleric, so I live again. When I level again I'll get magical secrets, and maybe I'll use it to take some appropriately "I died" spells.
Question: Would subdual damage trigger a polymorphed character to revert back to his/her true form?
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
Now would probably be a bad time to recall that being Turned results in a shapeshifted creature to reveal its true form for the duration, wouldn't it? <_<
Now would probably be a bad time to recall that being Turned results in a shapeshifted creature to reveal its true form for the duration, wouldn't it? <_<
Probably, yes.
Considering I just called an audible after the most recent events in-game we'll let that slide
Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable.
Only works with melee attacks so it's pretty limited and it's pretty trivial to stabilize somebody if you have the time but it's there.
I wish I could publish a setting other than forgotten realms on DM's guild. I'd put way more work into my home setting, make it a lot more internally consistent, and put it up there for cheap.
I wish I could publish a setting other than forgotten realms on DM's guild. I'd put way more work into my home setting, make it a lot more internally consistent, and put it up there for cheap.
So for whatever reason I'm looking at brown mold and wondering what the applications of it are (for those who don't know, brown mold deals cold damage and rapidly grows by absorbing heat, be it body heat or fire; cold makes it go dormant or can kill it, and sunlight is also deadly).
Possible uses:
- Cause the surface of a magma pit to cool and harden.
- Use it to rapidly cool hot water.
- Food source?
- I assume the Plane of Fire is suffused with the equivalent of sunlight, otherwise it would be the Plane of Brown Mold. What about the Nine Hells, though?
Hexmage-PA on
0
AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
edited January 2018
I'm sure there's a layer or two of the Abyss completely taken over by Brown Mould.
Edit: That would actually be a neat idea for an Infernal campaign. Some strange type of mould is spreading throughout Abyssal layers, threatening the domains of various Archfiends to the point that an Infernal Conclave is called amongst the leading Princes to assemble a group to halt its spread or discover its source.
I've been trawling Wikipedia articles on Irish and Celtic mythology for name inspiration, and I'm pretty sure I've come upon the mythological inspiration for the behir.
The beithir is a large snakelike creature or dragon in Scottish folklore...The Scottish Gaelic word beithir has been defined variously as "serpent", "lightning", and "thunderbolt"...The beithir was said to be sighted on summer nights when lightning strikes occurred.
EDIT: Nevermind, apparently that group was having too many scheduling conflicts and disbanded, but the guy who invited me said he's playing in another group where he is the healer and said he would try to get me in that one. The party make-up right now without me is a Cleric, Bard, and Fighter, so I guess maybe I should choose an offensive spellcaster. Alternatively, I could be another close-range melee character since the party has two members capable of healing.
I'm leaning Barbarian, Druid, Oath of Ancients Paladin, or Warlock.
My daughter and her friend got done with the introductory Feywild arc I had for them to go through, a bit hurried and wrapped up as I finally convinced my my brothers to play again.
So now the roster is as follows;
My 14 year old daughter; Half-elf Gunslinger
My wife; Elven Dragon Blooded Sorcerer
My younger brother; Human Oath of Vengeance Paladin with an upcoming arc to convert to Oath of the Ancients (which will be very thematic with the campaign)
My younger brother's wife/my sister in law; Human cleric
My older brother via skype; Human Champion Fighter.
(2nd Sessions adds the following)
My daughter's 14 year old friend; elven evoker wizard
Cleric's IRL best friend; human buff wizard
So the group (not including my daughter) was hired to do a very cliché fetch quest. They were sent to a mage tower by a man who openly admitted her was a necromancer. On the fifth floor of the tower is a Scrying Orb he wishes back as it's special to him and unique in that it can scry across planes. The group takes the job but still believes he's hiding some things. He admits that an experiment went wrong within the tower and that he's no longer able to enter the tower at this time. He believes he's magically being watched and that if he's found going back, he's sure to meet an untimely end. He's forbidden entrance into the basement as there is something very personal below he wishes to keep preserved. The party agrees for the time as he seems sincere in genuinely showing concern for what's beneath the tower.
Upon entering the five story tower, the group finds that planar transport rune in the corner becomes activated and the gunslinger shows up from the Feywild (this will become important). The tower reacts to the planar teleportation with a groan. A trap is triggered and an Earth Elemental is summoned, it's form wreaking of decay with black overgrowth on it.
Upon the gunslinger helping to dispatch the threat, an alliance is made to bring her on as she remembers she's dangerously short on coin now and looking to blow off some steam from her time in the Feywild, with the caveat that if things turn ugly, she's leaving.
The second floor had a large dead tree at it's center with the floors covered in decayed roots spreading throughout, digging into the stone work with vines covering the walls. This turns out to be a Blight Tree (Curse of Strahd) and is dispatched next. At this point, the original hired team is having second thoughts on agreeing to this task as they were lead to believe that some stray undead may still be around, not of the necromancer's creation but in part due to the experiment gone wrong that he was sketchy about but that the party let pass after he upped the gold amount.
The third floor was filled with a holy blue and white fire that was caused by runes etched in a hurry onto the floors with piles of ashes that were once bodies discovered. Leaving the room, they found the stairs up that were missing some steps to (none of the stairs up went all the way, only to the next floor). Hearing a sound below, they saw a writhing mass of undead a few floors down, some thirty or so crammed together in a small cylinder hole, some on top of others as they try in vain to get anywhere. There are fungal growths on these zombies but they are dispatched with a fireball. It is theorized by the party that whoever created the holy fire had done so to keep out the undead and it's a point that they want to grill the necromancer on when they get back.
The fourth floor was the strangest. The sounds of crickets, the buzzing of mosquitos, the croaking of frogs, and the blinking lights of fireflies fill the room. Insects buzz around them but the frog noises are coming from the ceiling. They look up and the ceiling is actually a dark, murky swamp ... just upside down.
The Paladin and the Champion scale the vine covered walls to the ceiling and find that when close enough, gravity flips and the Champion falls in.
Below, the Gunslinger and the Cleric notice something strange about the insects. Upon closer inspection, a firefly has large chunks of its body missing. Same with mosquitos and the like. The Cleric detects undead and the room lights up. In disgust she turns undead and the entire room goes quiet as all insects are turned and destroyed, falling onto the floor in a gross raid, along with frogs in death spasms in the water jumping out of the water from being turned and raining onto the floor ...
The same pair finds the passage up to the final floor and quickly leave the disgusting room to find that the fifth floor isn't much better. They find two more rotted trees though thankfully these are completely decayed and destroyed husks of the blight trees from the second floor. Twelve robes figures lay dead and long decayed in a circle around the trees, sacrificial daggers in hand. A rune lays hidden beneath the dead trees which, with the help of the sorceress coming up, is discovered to be a mix of an arcane run mixed with a divine one though it's purpose couldn't be discerned. They find the orb hidden secretly where the necromancer had told them it would be and a few other items not cleaned out.
With the insane setting of the tower, the group breaks with their promise to leave the basement along and they go to investigate.
The basement, unlike the rest of the ruined tower, was clean with polished stone walls and flooring, no dust to be seen. Their entrance caused the skeletal guards to stir, cleanly polished bone skeletons with runs carve into their bodies that fortified them to be greater than the typical undead though they were still dispatched by the group.
This was where two other people joined the game as this was the start of our second session. Another person joined via skype (the cleric players RL BFF from back home) and my daughter's friend from the original game.
For my daughter's friend, they arrived the same way they had; in the rune but hearing the familiar gunshots from the basement. She arrived down first with the cleric's friend having been summoned by the cleric via messaging the previous moment of rest they had done back in the room of fire that was now safe as this friend was a studied wizard over a sorcerer and she believed he might know more about what was going on.
So now the party of 7 (woof, highest group I've DM'd for) made there way through the basement and cleaned up the rest of the skeleton creations in the hallway and the subsequent room. In said room was a sarcophagus with a knightly figure etched into it. The lid would not open but it was discovered that the whole thing itself could be moved which opened up to a set of stairs that lead to a under ground cathedral but with no pews in sight. Red velvet carpets decorated the floors, with stain-glass on the walls that could not be seen through (and were underground anyway). Candles were dimly and magically lit throughout with a coffin upon a pedastool at the end of the room.
Within was a dark haired man (vampire) who opened his eyes slowly. Well dressed and armored, he had a hideous wound in his body that was black and looked like tar bled from him. He was slow to move but the party didn't attack straight away. He revealed his name to be Marek but seemed perplexed why he was still here. He admitted to having a failsafe on his coffin that if opened by any, he would be planar shifted to the Shadowfell. The tower groaned once more and everyone felt a shift that made their bodies uneasy.
The gunslinger and her friend were the first to race to the top with the others eventually in tow (after the Paladin grilled the vampire and gave him no ground, ready to finish the wounded creature off the moment he was sure he could). They realized they were no longer in the snowy forest they had once been but rather a boggy swamp in a warmer environment.
There, an elven male with a mix of blue and green skin emerges from within a tree, hair covered in seaweeds and moss, looking on the intruders with surprise and contempt. That's basically where we stopped.
So the idea is that this elven blight druid, Dak, was involved in what happened to the tower (Marek's Tower). He had lied to the vampire and the necromancer (who worked alongside the vampire within the tower) with the promise that combining druid life magic alongside necromantic arts (the rune combining divine magic with arcane), that undeath could be cured through the complicated ritual.
With some study of the notes, the necromancer (Morris) confirmed that it looked possible, something he believed.
Why this is important: Marek's sister had fallen into Lichdom in a desperate attempt to save him but became corrupted by the process. Marek gave himself to vampirism at her behest to save him from a blood curse. She's fallen further into the Lich trope of becoming corrupted by the evil that is inherent with it, while Marek hasn't turned fully yet to that corruption (I'm not having my vampires as immediately evil in my campaign setting) but feels the pull. He knows it's his previous ailment that drove her down her path and he's trying to save her in return. The party may never find any of this out but in my mind, I have to humanize antagonists to enjoy playing them for the party. So even if they never learn this stuff, I have to know what drives them and it has to make sense to me.
Anyway Dak had lied to them, as mentioned, and the ritual in turn transformed life that was summoned into the tower from a different plane, into a Blighted Curse. This curse was focused and sent to a different place in the world which Dak fled to when the ritual was completed. The tower was corrupted in the process and was under strain from the magical planar ritual. The tower was further put into strain when it was used as a planar travel point from the Feywild by the gunslinger and later her friend. Finally with the attempted planar activity that was supposed to pull the vampire Marek to the Plane of Shadow, what instead happened was the entire tower ended up being pulled to where the Blight Curse was sent, basically becoming overloaded with magical transportation that was put into flux from the powerful planar ritual that pulled the Blight into the world as the Tower as the focus.
So the party is being brought halfway across the world to a place they don't know and will be falling head first into this plot to turn one of the oldest forests in the world (with strong connections to the Fey and the Feywild) into a Blighted Land that will serve another purpose further along.
The idea is for this to leave a few strings for the players to pull on. They can concern themselves over Marek if they wish and how they feel about a vampire aiding them and for how long. They can deal with his family issues in time with his sister. They can deal with the Blight further assuming they survive the fight with Dak. Or they can explore this new land that they are unfamiliar with that carries other options at the ready.
I have no idea how this will continue on. I've never DM'd for this many people before and I DO feel some slow down when allowing for Skyped people to play (I have a webcam setup so they see the gaming table and maps just fine). Anyone else familiar with this kind of environment?
As for the blighted druids that will show up, I'm basically just using the Circle of the Spores and MAYBE reflavoring some of the stuff as needed but it mostly works as is.
Sorry for the long winded post. Guess looking for feedback on the idea/premise so far as well as those familiar with DMing for larger groups and those skyping in?
+10
Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
sounds excellent bro
DMing for seven is real hard and the skype issues are real but it sounds like you're dealing with it okay to me
DMing for seven is real hard and the skype issues are real but it sounds like you're dealing with it okay to me
Thanks, man. Dealing with it the best I can, anyway but I wish I knew if there was a better option than Skype. I might experiment with Skype for video but discord for sound? Or is that too much, you think? I've never dealt with people skyping in before for play so it's definitely new.
A part of me wonders if I should just make EVERYONE hop into roll20 but I love the in person aspect of the game when I can do it and it's only 2 people that can't be there physically.
DMing for seven is real hard and the skype issues are real but it sounds like you're dealing with it okay to me
Thanks, man. Dealing with it the best I can, anyway but I wish I knew if there was a better option than Skype. I might experiment with Skype for video but discord for sound? Or is that too much, you think? I've never dealt with people skyping in before for play so it's definitely new.
A part of me wonders if I should just make EVERYONE hop into roll20 but I love the in person aspect of the game when I can do it and it's only 2 people that can't be there physically.
I just use G talk.
I know folks that put roll 20 up on their TV so everyone can see the map
The beauty of roll20 is that you can do as little or as much with it as you want. So you can just use it as a map for fights, or a spreadsheet to track initiative.
It was the addition of the Stropharia to the diet of early man that led to better eyesight (an advantage for hunters), sex, language, and ritual activity (religion among them), when eaten. One qualification that should be added here. These are not characteristics that were endowed to the mushroom eaters and then transferred to later generations, genetically. This cannot happen because of the mechanism by which evolution operates! However, that’s another story that we don’t have time to get into. Instead, the mushroom augmented the above traits by changing the behavior of individuals. These changes in behaviors favored increased usage of language, leading to an increase in vocabulary to communicate when hunting and gathering. Although evolution was occurring on the genetic level, due to increase in mutations from the change in diet that had occurred, according to McKenna, social evolution, due to the mushroom consumption was responsible for the above changes.
At the same time that language was developing, religion also began. When taken at levels that cause intoxication, a feeling of ecstasy occurs, with hallucination and access to what the user would perceive as the realm of the supernatural. This led to the origin of the shaman whose duty is to communicate with the unseen mind of nature (the gods?).
While the above theory is not one that is well received by many or even most ethnobotanist and biologist, the line of reasoning that was given in the above theory could be followed. However, an addition to the theory is that the psilocybin mushrooms are intelligent beings, extraterrestrial in origin, drifting in space, as spores, and finally landing on Earth where they have bestowed man with intelligence. Probably most of us will have a difficult time in accepting this part of the theory.
The article goes on to describe religious rites involving the ingestion of mushrooms, including a Central American belief that any spot of ground where magic mushrooms grow must be a place where the blood of Christ had fallen.
I had already planned to feature myconids, vegepygmies, the Carrion King, and Zuggtmoy in my setting, but now I'm considering making them much more important in the world's history.
Myconid circles are able to "meld" using their rapport spores, but what if they were originally created to include the early tribes of the now-civilized races in their melds? Through the shared dreams created by these melds the primitive humanoids may have learned how to communicate and share ideas, eventually developing language so that they no longer needed the myconids as their intermediaries. What if Zuggtmoy tried to influence these melds to spread evil desires? And what about the vegepygmies; where do they fit into this?
I'm not certain if I'll present this idea as the truth or just supposition by sages, but I am planning to feature a humanoid culture that cooperates with a nearby myconid colony so that they may meld with one another.
EDIT: There's an interesting series of articles on ENWorld called Monster ENcyclopedia which go over the historical depiction of monsters in D&D. The myconid article points out that the 4E incarnation of the myconids are more territorial and expansionist, they have a new breed of myconid called a rotpriest, and they are not mentioned to be capable of melding. The author postulates that myconid colonies that do not practice the meld develop this alternative way of life. The traditional myconid god, Psilofyr, was also mentioned in 4E but was de-emphasized in favor of a more expansionist fungal archfey called the Carrion King. The King has mycelium spread throughout the Underdark which it uses to create bodies for interacting with others, though some of these bodies go rogue and oppose him.
As for me, I'm going to use Psilofyr as the ultimate authority of "meld myconids" while the Carrion King rules over "non-melding myconids".
Hexmage-PA on
+2
Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
we met another group of adventurers and sort of traveled together and found the evil witch we were looking for, who convinced the other group of adventurers to attack us, then cast invisibility on herself
We cast web first, though, and stood around her stabbing as fast as we could. She never failed a concentration check, but never passed her check to break free of the webs, and as the other party of adventurers ruined our shit we burned her down in ~3 rounds. Her dead body popped back in place exactly where we last saw it.
So did the other group stop wrecking your shit or did you all just die horribly, then? I can't help but imagine they were charmed.
there's some ridiculous turn not-undead channel divinity for conquest paladins
DM ruled that with the witch dead, they reacted to being magically frightened of the paladin by leaving the scene. The witch convinced them with the promise of resurrecting (bullshit, that was some sort of necromancy) their fallen comrade, and they had their friend's body and it was moving around, so they had everything they came for. They didn't quite run away but it was a very speedy parley.
I wanted to run after them and burn the body but my party was dead set against it
edit: I was okay with the notion that we were going to die horribly, as long as the witch died and we burned the mummy they thought was their resurrected friend.
DM ruled that with the witch dead, they reacted to being magically frightened of the paladin by leaving the scene. The witch convinced them with the promise of resurrecting (bullshit, that was some sort of necromancy) their fallen comrade,
To be fair, regular Resurrection and Raise Dead are filed as necromancy in 5e
:-P
Posts
Imagining a hexblade blade pact warlock that's a basic soldier with a longsword or something...and then they see the big bad, and the pull out their Raging Flaming Poison Sword of Doom.
Edit: Running a one-off this weekend while some players can't make it, and we've been playing an intrigue and investigation heavy Curse of Strahd game. To sate our bloodthirst I'm mixing the following flavors together in a smoothie: Frostgrave, Cultists, American Gladiators, Stupid Pointless Death Arena, Controllable Elementals, A Unicorn with a Deck of Many Things in its guts a la Fifth Element Opera Singer, and Highlander.
I'm picturing Woody from Psyche.
Who cares about drinking water? That thing can make mayonnaise!
I never did find the anchor, but I did find some loot I wanted. Once I disturbed it, some kind of of evil snakes or something emerged from the shadows (because Tritons for some reason lack dark vision) and used Hold Person on me, then slowly wore me down across many failed wisdom saves. I was like 700 feet down, so I couldn't have dimension doored to the ship anyway.
It wasn't an especially dramatic death. Everyone was pretty nice about it. I don't think they liked how that really down. I didn't really mind? I mean, I was upset. Level 10 is a long time. But, I made my choices. I went down there alone and I choose to mess with stuff, and this time it didnt work out. That happens. My choices, my consequences.
Anyway, with a good bit of effort they did manage to retrieve me. And we do have a level 9 or something Cleric, so I live again. When I level again I'll get magical secrets, and maybe I'll use it to take some appropriately "I died" spells.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Probably, yes.
Considering I just called an audible after the most recent events in-game we'll let that slide
Yes, as 0 hp is 0 hp. Maybe not have any excess damage not roll over, but that's just pulling something from my ass there.
Only works with melee attacks so it's pretty limited and it's pretty trivial to stabilize somebody if you have the time but it's there.
i figured out how to play dnd right
Why can't you?
There's nothing stopping you publishing your own setting on DriveThruRPG however which is effectively the same site.
EDIT:
Hmmmm
Possible uses:
- Cause the surface of a magma pit to cool and harden.
- Use it to rapidly cool hot water.
- Food source?
- I assume the Plane of Fire is suffused with the equivalent of sunlight, otherwise it would be the Plane of Brown Mold. What about the Nine Hells, though?
Edit: That would actually be a neat idea for an Infernal campaign. Some strange type of mould is spreading throughout Abyssal layers, threatening the domains of various Archfiends to the point that an Infernal Conclave is called amongst the leading Princes to assemble a group to halt its spread or discover its source.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
I'm leaning Barbarian, Druid, Oath of Ancients Paladin, or Warlock.
My daughter and her friend got done with the introductory Feywild arc I had for them to go through, a bit hurried and wrapped up as I finally convinced my my brothers to play again.
So now the roster is as follows;
My 14 year old daughter; Half-elf Gunslinger
My wife; Elven Dragon Blooded Sorcerer
My younger brother; Human Oath of Vengeance Paladin with an upcoming arc to convert to Oath of the Ancients (which will be very thematic with the campaign)
My younger brother's wife/my sister in law; Human cleric
My older brother via skype; Human Champion Fighter.
(2nd Sessions adds the following)
My daughter's 14 year old friend; elven evoker wizard
Cleric's IRL best friend; human buff wizard
So the group (not including my daughter) was hired to do a very cliché fetch quest. They were sent to a mage tower by a man who openly admitted her was a necromancer. On the fifth floor of the tower is a Scrying Orb he wishes back as it's special to him and unique in that it can scry across planes. The group takes the job but still believes he's hiding some things. He admits that an experiment went wrong within the tower and that he's no longer able to enter the tower at this time. He believes he's magically being watched and that if he's found going back, he's sure to meet an untimely end. He's forbidden entrance into the basement as there is something very personal below he wishes to keep preserved. The party agrees for the time as he seems sincere in genuinely showing concern for what's beneath the tower.
Upon entering the five story tower, the group finds that planar transport rune in the corner becomes activated and the gunslinger shows up from the Feywild (this will become important). The tower reacts to the planar teleportation with a groan. A trap is triggered and an Earth Elemental is summoned, it's form wreaking of decay with black overgrowth on it.
Upon the gunslinger helping to dispatch the threat, an alliance is made to bring her on as she remembers she's dangerously short on coin now and looking to blow off some steam from her time in the Feywild, with the caveat that if things turn ugly, she's leaving.
The second floor had a large dead tree at it's center with the floors covered in decayed roots spreading throughout, digging into the stone work with vines covering the walls. This turns out to be a Blight Tree (Curse of Strahd) and is dispatched next. At this point, the original hired team is having second thoughts on agreeing to this task as they were lead to believe that some stray undead may still be around, not of the necromancer's creation but in part due to the experiment gone wrong that he was sketchy about but that the party let pass after he upped the gold amount.
The third floor was filled with a holy blue and white fire that was caused by runes etched in a hurry onto the floors with piles of ashes that were once bodies discovered. Leaving the room, they found the stairs up that were missing some steps to (none of the stairs up went all the way, only to the next floor). Hearing a sound below, they saw a writhing mass of undead a few floors down, some thirty or so crammed together in a small cylinder hole, some on top of others as they try in vain to get anywhere. There are fungal growths on these zombies but they are dispatched with a fireball. It is theorized by the party that whoever created the holy fire had done so to keep out the undead and it's a point that they want to grill the necromancer on when they get back.
The fourth floor was the strangest. The sounds of crickets, the buzzing of mosquitos, the croaking of frogs, and the blinking lights of fireflies fill the room. Insects buzz around them but the frog noises are coming from the ceiling. They look up and the ceiling is actually a dark, murky swamp ... just upside down.
The Paladin and the Champion scale the vine covered walls to the ceiling and find that when close enough, gravity flips and the Champion falls in.
Below, the Gunslinger and the Cleric notice something strange about the insects. Upon closer inspection, a firefly has large chunks of its body missing. Same with mosquitos and the like. The Cleric detects undead and the room lights up. In disgust she turns undead and the entire room goes quiet as all insects are turned and destroyed, falling onto the floor in a gross raid, along with frogs in death spasms in the water jumping out of the water from being turned and raining onto the floor ...
The same pair finds the passage up to the final floor and quickly leave the disgusting room to find that the fifth floor isn't much better. They find two more rotted trees though thankfully these are completely decayed and destroyed husks of the blight trees from the second floor. Twelve robes figures lay dead and long decayed in a circle around the trees, sacrificial daggers in hand. A rune lays hidden beneath the dead trees which, with the help of the sorceress coming up, is discovered to be a mix of an arcane run mixed with a divine one though it's purpose couldn't be discerned. They find the orb hidden secretly where the necromancer had told them it would be and a few other items not cleaned out.
With the insane setting of the tower, the group breaks with their promise to leave the basement along and they go to investigate.
The basement, unlike the rest of the ruined tower, was clean with polished stone walls and flooring, no dust to be seen. Their entrance caused the skeletal guards to stir, cleanly polished bone skeletons with runs carve into their bodies that fortified them to be greater than the typical undead though they were still dispatched by the group.
This was where two other people joined the game as this was the start of our second session. Another person joined via skype (the cleric players RL BFF from back home) and my daughter's friend from the original game.
For my daughter's friend, they arrived the same way they had; in the rune but hearing the familiar gunshots from the basement. She arrived down first with the cleric's friend having been summoned by the cleric via messaging the previous moment of rest they had done back in the room of fire that was now safe as this friend was a studied wizard over a sorcerer and she believed he might know more about what was going on.
So now the party of 7 (woof, highest group I've DM'd for) made there way through the basement and cleaned up the rest of the skeleton creations in the hallway and the subsequent room. In said room was a sarcophagus with a knightly figure etched into it. The lid would not open but it was discovered that the whole thing itself could be moved which opened up to a set of stairs that lead to a under ground cathedral but with no pews in sight. Red velvet carpets decorated the floors, with stain-glass on the walls that could not be seen through (and were underground anyway). Candles were dimly and magically lit throughout with a coffin upon a pedastool at the end of the room.
Within was a dark haired man (vampire) who opened his eyes slowly. Well dressed and armored, he had a hideous wound in his body that was black and looked like tar bled from him. He was slow to move but the party didn't attack straight away. He revealed his name to be Marek but seemed perplexed why he was still here. He admitted to having a failsafe on his coffin that if opened by any, he would be planar shifted to the Shadowfell. The tower groaned once more and everyone felt a shift that made their bodies uneasy.
The gunslinger and her friend were the first to race to the top with the others eventually in tow (after the Paladin grilled the vampire and gave him no ground, ready to finish the wounded creature off the moment he was sure he could). They realized they were no longer in the snowy forest they had once been but rather a boggy swamp in a warmer environment.
There, an elven male with a mix of blue and green skin emerges from within a tree, hair covered in seaweeds and moss, looking on the intruders with surprise and contempt. That's basically where we stopped.
So the idea is that this elven blight druid, Dak, was involved in what happened to the tower (Marek's Tower). He had lied to the vampire and the necromancer (who worked alongside the vampire within the tower) with the promise that combining druid life magic alongside necromantic arts (the rune combining divine magic with arcane), that undeath could be cured through the complicated ritual.
With some study of the notes, the necromancer (Morris) confirmed that it looked possible, something he believed.
Why this is important: Marek's sister had fallen into Lichdom in a desperate attempt to save him but became corrupted by the process. Marek gave himself to vampirism at her behest to save him from a blood curse. She's fallen further into the Lich trope of becoming corrupted by the evil that is inherent with it, while Marek hasn't turned fully yet to that corruption (I'm not having my vampires as immediately evil in my campaign setting) but feels the pull. He knows it's his previous ailment that drove her down her path and he's trying to save her in return. The party may never find any of this out but in my mind, I have to humanize antagonists to enjoy playing them for the party. So even if they never learn this stuff, I have to know what drives them and it has to make sense to me.
Anyway Dak had lied to them, as mentioned, and the ritual in turn transformed life that was summoned into the tower from a different plane, into a Blighted Curse. This curse was focused and sent to a different place in the world which Dak fled to when the ritual was completed. The tower was corrupted in the process and was under strain from the magical planar ritual. The tower was further put into strain when it was used as a planar travel point from the Feywild by the gunslinger and later her friend. Finally with the attempted planar activity that was supposed to pull the vampire Marek to the Plane of Shadow, what instead happened was the entire tower ended up being pulled to where the Blight Curse was sent, basically becoming overloaded with magical transportation that was put into flux from the powerful planar ritual that pulled the Blight into the world as the Tower as the focus.
So the party is being brought halfway across the world to a place they don't know and will be falling head first into this plot to turn one of the oldest forests in the world (with strong connections to the Fey and the Feywild) into a Blighted Land that will serve another purpose further along.
The idea is for this to leave a few strings for the players to pull on. They can concern themselves over Marek if they wish and how they feel about a vampire aiding them and for how long. They can deal with his family issues in time with his sister. They can deal with the Blight further assuming they survive the fight with Dak. Or they can explore this new land that they are unfamiliar with that carries other options at the ready.
I have no idea how this will continue on. I've never DM'd for this many people before and I DO feel some slow down when allowing for Skyped people to play (I have a webcam setup so they see the gaming table and maps just fine). Anyone else familiar with this kind of environment?
As for the blighted druids that will show up, I'm basically just using the Circle of the Spores and MAYBE reflavoring some of the stuff as needed but it mostly works as is.
Sorry for the long winded post. Guess looking for feedback on the idea/premise so far as well as those familiar with DMing for larger groups and those skyping in?
DMing for seven is real hard and the skype issues are real but it sounds like you're dealing with it okay to me
Thanks, man. Dealing with it the best I can, anyway but I wish I knew if there was a better option than Skype. I might experiment with Skype for video but discord for sound? Or is that too much, you think? I've never dealt with people skyping in before for play so it's definitely new.
A part of me wonders if I should just make EVERYONE hop into roll20 but I love the in person aspect of the game when I can do it and it's only 2 people that can't be there physically.
I just use G talk.
I know folks that put roll 20 up on their TV so everyone can see the map
Source
The article goes on to describe religious rites involving the ingestion of mushrooms, including a Central American belief that any spot of ground where magic mushrooms grow must be a place where the blood of Christ had fallen.
I had already planned to feature myconids, vegepygmies, the Carrion King, and Zuggtmoy in my setting, but now I'm considering making them much more important in the world's history.
Myconid circles are able to "meld" using their rapport spores, but what if they were originally created to include the early tribes of the now-civilized races in their melds? Through the shared dreams created by these melds the primitive humanoids may have learned how to communicate and share ideas, eventually developing language so that they no longer needed the myconids as their intermediaries. What if Zuggtmoy tried to influence these melds to spread evil desires? And what about the vegepygmies; where do they fit into this?
I'm not certain if I'll present this idea as the truth or just supposition by sages, but I am planning to feature a humanoid culture that cooperates with a nearby myconid colony so that they may meld with one another.
EDIT: There's an interesting series of articles on ENWorld called Monster ENcyclopedia which go over the historical depiction of monsters in D&D. The myconid article points out that the 4E incarnation of the myconids are more territorial and expansionist, they have a new breed of myconid called a rotpriest, and they are not mentioned to be capable of melding. The author postulates that myconid colonies that do not practice the meld develop this alternative way of life. The traditional myconid god, Psilofyr, was also mentioned in 4E but was de-emphasized in favor of a more expansionist fungal archfey called the Carrion King. The King has mycelium spread throughout the Underdark which it uses to create bodies for interacting with others, though some of these bodies go rogue and oppose him.
As for me, I'm going to use Psilofyr as the ultimate authority of "meld myconids" while the Carrion King rules over "non-melding myconids".
We cast web first, though, and stood around her stabbing as fast as we could. She never failed a concentration check, but never passed her check to break free of the webs, and as the other party of adventurers ruined our shit we burned her down in ~3 rounds. Her dead body popped back in place exactly where we last saw it.
there's some ridiculous turn not-undead channel divinity for conquest paladins
DM ruled that with the witch dead, they reacted to being magically frightened of the paladin by leaving the scene. The witch convinced them with the promise of resurrecting (bullshit, that was some sort of necromancy) their fallen comrade, and they had their friend's body and it was moving around, so they had everything they came for. They didn't quite run away but it was a very speedy parley.
I wanted to run after them and burn the body but my party was dead set against it
edit: I was okay with the notion that we were going to die horribly, as long as the witch died and we burned the mummy they thought was their resurrected friend.
New sourcebook announced, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Hmm.
Mordenkainen's Manual of Malignant Meglomaniacs!?
To be fair, regular Resurrection and Raise Dead are filed as necromancy in 5e
:-P
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
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