#3E-Communications.

[dice-wizard]

The Exalted Essence Jumpstart is now available for purchase! If you're a 2e fan curious about it I strongly recommend checking it out. Essence is really more an Exalted "best of" than a conversion of 3e. It obviously incorporates 3e elements, because that's the current edition.

If you're the type who's always been curious but found Exalted too daunting, this is a perfect place to start. The adventure was designed with minimal to no ttrpg experience involved.

You can buy it right here. It's five whole dollars.

[impernious]

Hey! Do you like Exalted? What about Scion? Do you maybe like the Trinity Continuum? Do you ever wonder *how* we make the games you love?

Onyx Path Publishing has a Discord, and I'm gonna be doing a Q&A on it about our book making processes on Thursday, August 3 at 10am EST. If you want your questions answered, you can ask them here or in our special q-and-a channel.

https://discord.gg/6sR6zHv7

[mydnd]

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

Again, not an exhaustive list but for anyone else in the UK, these are where riots are expected today:

Aldershot - Immigration Advisors at 40 Victoria Road GU11 1TH, starting at 19:30.

Bedford - Immigration INN (Inn?) on Ford End Road MK40 4JT, at 20:00.

Birmingham - Refugee and Migrant Centre on Frederick Street B1 3HN, beginning at 20:00.

Bishop Auckland - outside the Town Hall on Market Place DL14 7NP.

Blackburn - Rafiq Immigration Services on Whalley Road BB5 1AA, at 20:00.

Blackpool - Immigration Solicitors at the Enterprise Centre on Lytham Road FY1 1EW, starting at 20:00.

Bolton - Deane & Bolton Immigration Lawyers on Chorley New Road BL1 4QR, at 20:00.

Brentford - UK Immigration Help in The Mile on 1000 Great West Road TW8 9DW, starting around 19:00.

Brighton - Raj Rayan Immigration in Queensberry House at 106 Queens Road BN1 3XF, starting either at 19:30 or 20:00.

Bristol - Gya Williams Immigration on West Street BS2 OBL, at 20:00.

Burnley - at Thompson Park on 111 Ormerod Rioad BB11 3QWat, starting at 13:00.

Canterbury - UK Immigration Clinic in the Canterbury Innovation Centre CT2 7FG, at 20:00.

Chatham - Immigration Status UK on Maidstone Road ME5 9FD, at 20:00.

Cheadle - Intime Immigration Services on Brooks Drive SK8 3TD, at 20:00.

Chelmsford - UK Immigration Information Centre on Violet Close CM1 6XG, at 20:00.

Derby - Immigration Advisory Service, Normanton Road DE23 6US, at 20:00.

Dover - Kent Immigration and Visa Advice at 5A Castle Hill Road CT16 1QG, reportedly around 20:00.

Durham - in Crook at Market Place, at 18:00. (Unsure as to whether this is the same one as in Bishop Auckland as I know Crook is near there?)

Finchley - Immigration and Nationality Services within Foundation House at 4 Percy Road N128BU, around 19:00.

Harrow - Yes UK Immigration and North Harrow Community Library within the Business Centre at 429-433 Pinner Road HA1 4HN, in North Harrow, at 19:00.

Hastings - Black Rock Immigration at 37 Cambridge Gardens TN34 1EN, at 20:00.

Hull - Conroy Baker Immigration Lawyer in Norwich House, 1 Savile Street HU1 3ES, at 20:00.

Lewisham - the Clock Tower, SE13 5JH, 19:00.

Lincoln - Immigration Lawyer Services on Carlton Mews LN2 4FJ, at 20:00.

Liverpool - Merseyside Refugee Centre in St Anne's Centre on 7 Overbury Street L7 3HJ, at 20:00.

Liverpool - Sandpiper Hotel (might be on Ormskirk Old Road? if any scousers can clarify where that is, that'd be great) at 13:00.

Middlesbrough - Immigration Advice Centre which is the Co-Operative Buildings at 251 Linthorpe Road TS1 4AT, at 20:00.

Newcastle - United Immigration Services in Artisan Unit 3, The Beacon on Westgate Road NE4 9PQ, at 20:00.

Northampton - Zenith Immigration Lawyers at 2 Talbot Road NN1 4JB, starting at 20:00.

Nottingham - East Midlands Immigration Services at 15 Stonesbury Vale NG2 7UR, at 20:00.

Oldham - somewhere on Ellen Street 0L9 6QR, at 20:00

Oxford - Asylum Welcome in Unit 7 in Newtec Place on Magdelen Road OX4 1RE, around 19:00. [Updated as of 15:53]

Peterborough - Smart Immigration Services in Laxton House at 191 Lincoln Road PE1 2PN, at 20:00.

Plymouth - in a Morrisons car park, I don't know which but I saw Victory Parade associated with it? If anyone from Plymouth can clarify, please do. Not sure on time.

Portsmouth - UK Border Agency at Kettering Terrace PO2 8QN, at 20:00

Preston - Adriana Immigration Services at 109 Church Street PR1 3BS, at 19:00 or 20:00.

Rotherham - Parker Rhodes Hickmotts, The Point S60 1BP, at 20:00.

Sheffield - City Hall on Barker's Pool S1 2JA, at 13:00.

Sheffield - White Rose Visas at 101 Wilkinson Street S10 2GJ, at 20:00.

Southampton - Y-Axis Immigration Consultants, Cumberland Place on Grosvenor Square SO15 2BG, at 20:00.

Southend - MNS Immigration Solicitors on Ditton Court Road SS0 7HG, at 20:00.

Stoke-On-Trent - ZR Visas on Metcalfe Road ST6 7AZ, in Tunstall, at 20:00.

Sunderland - North of England Refugee Service which is in Suite 12 in the Eagle Building at 201 High Street East SR1 2AX, at 20:00.

Swindon - I have no details for this, just seen that something might be kicking off there.

Tamworth - Lawrencia & Co Immigration Solicitors within the Amber Business Village on Amber Close B77 4RP, no details on time unfortunately.

Walthamstow - Waltham Forest Immigration Bureau at 187 Hoe Street E17 3AP, at 20:00.

Wigan - Support for Wigan Arrivals Project, Penson Street WN1 2LP, at 20:00.

York - only detail I've got it is York Stay City Hotel.

[ahcoffeebeans2]

so... what is robins anyway?

robins is a tabletop-roleplaying game set in a post apocalyptic city rife with weird psychic magic and long decayed technology.

you play as robins – a nomadic band of psychics who follow the call of The Last Frequency, a reality outside the city that promises something more than the continuation of the dead God's dream.

the city, however, is not willing to die without a fight – and neither did Albion, the God of this realm who now rots in the tomb at the heart of the city. his dreams still litter the landscape in the form of "dungeons." within these cramped nightmares are dream logic monsters, bizarre traps, and strange rooms with stranger secrets...

however, this is a supplement to songbirds 3e – meaning that most of the rules are the same. however, a lot has been added to create a real sense of place.

for example, ten new classes! play as:

the wintersbloom, thief of Albion's tongue

the greenhorne, lover to decay

the holyholy, a hyper-polyamourous poet

the twistbone, a gender euphoric satyr

and more!

in addition, I've added an entire new bestiary, supplementary materials for combat, new summons, and new freelancers to fill out your party!

new game release!

my new #ttrpg supplement for songbirds 3e has just released! play as "robins" - psychic adventurers, dream wanderers, and fervent believers in the Last Frequency

kill the dungeons. kill the dream, little bird...

have fun!

[imsobadatnicknames2]

What's OSR? I've seen you mention it several times in your RPG posts. Is it like a genre of rpg or...?

Hey, sorry I took so long to reply to this lol you probably already just googled it by now.

But like. Anyway.

OSR (Old-School Revival, Old-School Renaissance, and more uncommonly Old-School Rules or Old-School Revolution, no one can really agree on what the R means) is less like a genre and more like a movement or a loosely connected community that seeks to capture the tone, feel and/or playstyle of 70's and 80's fantasy roleplaying games (with a particular emphasis on old-school editions of Dungeons and Dragons, particularly the Basic D&D line but pretty much anything before 3e falls under this umbrella), or at least an idealized version of what people remember those games felt like to play.

There isn't exactly a consensus on what makes a game OSR but here's my personal list of things that I find to be common motifs in OSR game design and GM philosophy. Not every game in the movement features all of these things, but must certainly feature a few of them.

Rulings over rules: most OSR games lack mechanically codified rules for a lot of the actions that in modern D&D (and games influenced by it) would be covered by a skill system. Rather that try to have rules applicable for every situation, these games often have somewhat barebones rules, with the expectation that when a player tries to do something not covered by them the GM will have to make a ruling about it or negotiate a dice roll that feels fair (a common resolution system for this type of situation is d20 roll-under vs a stat that feels relevant, a d6 roll with x-in-6 chance to succeed, or just adjudicating the outcome based on how the player describes their actions)

"The solution is not on your character sheet": Related to the point above, the lack of character skills means that very few problems can be solved by saying "I roll [skill]". E.g. Looking for traps in an OSR game will look less like "I rolled 18 on my perception check" and more like "I poke the flagstones ahead with a stick to check if they're pressure plates" with maybe the GM asking for a roll or a saving throw if you do end up triggering a trap.

High lethality: Characters are squishy, and generally die much more easily. But conversely, character creation is often very quick, so if your character dies you can usually be playing again in minutes as long as there's a decent chance to integrate your new PC into the game.

Lack of emphasis on encounter balance: It's not uncommon for the PCs to find themselves way out of their depth, with encounters where they're almost guaranteed to lose unless they run away or find a creative way to stack the deck in their favor.

Combat as a failure state: Due to the two points above, not every encounter is meant to be fought, as doing so is generally not worth the risk and likely to end up badly. Players a generally better off finding ways to circumvent encounters through sneaking around them, outsmarting them, or out-maneauvering them, fighting only when there's no other option or when they've taken steps to make sure the battle is fought on their terms (e.g. luring enemies into traps or environmental hazards, stuff like that)

Emphasis on inventory and items: As skills, class features and character builds are less significant than in modern D&D (or sometimes outright nonexistent), a large part of the way the players engage with the world instead revolves around what they carry and how they use it. A lot of these games have you randomly roll your starting inventory, and often this will become as much a significant part of your character as your class is, even with seemingly useless clutter items. E.g. a hand mirror can become an invaluable tool for peeping around corners and doorways. This kind of gameplay techncially possible on modern D&D but in OSR games it's often vital.

Gold for XP: somewhat related to the above, in many of these games your XP will be determined by how much treasure you gather, casting players in the role and mindset of trasure hutners, grave robbers, etc.

Situations, not plots: This is more of a GM culture thing than an intrinsic feature of the games, but OSR campaigns will often eschew the long-form GM-authored Epic narrative that has become the norm since the late AD&D 2e era, in favor of a more sandbox-y "here's an initial situation, it's up to you what you do with it" style. This means that you probably won't be getting elaborate scenes plotted out sessions in advance to tie into your backstory and character arc, but it also means increased player agency, casting the GM in the role of less of a plot writer or narrator and more of a referee.

Like I said, these are not universal, and a lot of games that fall under the OSR umbrella will eschew some or most of these (it's very common for a lot of games to drop the gold-for-xp thing in favor of a different reawrd structure), but IMO they're a good baseline for understanding common features of the movement as a whole.

Of course, the OSR movement covers A LOT of different games, which I'd classify in the following categories by how much they deviate from their source of inspiration:

Retroclones are basically recreations of the ruleset of older D&D editions but without the D&D trademark, sometimes with a new coat of paint. E.g. OSRIC and For Gold and Glory are clones of AD&D (1e and 2e respectively); Whitebox and Fantastic Medieval Campaigns are recreations of the original 1974 white box D&D release; Old School Essentials, Basic Fantasy and Labyrinth Lord are clones of the 1981 B/X D&D set. Some of these recreate the original rules as-is, editing the text or reorganizing the information to be clearer but otherwise leaving the meachnics unchanged, while others will make slight rules changes to remove quirks that have come to be considered annoying in hindsight, some of them might mix and match features from different editions, but otherwise they're mostly straight up recreations of old-school D&D releases.

There are games that I would call "old-school compatible", that feature significant enough mechanical changes from old-school D&D to be considered a different game, but try to maintain mechanical compatibility with materials made for it. Games like The Black Hack, Knave, Macchiato Monsters, Dungeon Reavers, Whitehack, etc. play very differently from old-school D&D, and from each other, but you generally can grab any module made for any pre-3e D&D edition and run it with any of them with very little to no effort needed in conversion.

There's a third category that I wouldn't know how to call. Some people call then Nu-OSR or NSR (short for New School revolution) while a small minority of people argue that they aren't really part of the OSR movement but instead their own thing. I've personally taken to calling them "Old School Baroque". These are games that try to replicate different aspects of the tone and feel of old-school fantasy roleplaying games while borrowing few to none mechanics from them and not making any particular attempts to be mechanically compatible. Games like Into the Odd, Mörk Borg, Troika!, a dungeon game, FLEE, DURF, Songbirds, Mausritter, bastards, Cairn, Sledgehammer, and too many more to name. In my opinion this subsection of the OSR space is where it gets interesting, as there's so many different ways people try to recreate that old-school flavor with different mechanics.

(Of course, not everything fits neatly into these, e.g. I would consider stuff like Dungeon Crawl Classics to be somewhere inbetween category 1 and 2, and stuff like GloG or RELIC to be somewhere imbetween categories 2 and 3)

The OSR movement does have its ugly side, as it's to be expected by the fact that a huge part of the driving force behind it is nostalgia. Some people might be in it because it harkens back to a spirit of DIY and player agency that has been lost in traditional fantasy roleplaying games, but it's udneniable that some people are also in it because for them it harkens back to a time before "D&D went woke" when tabletop roleplaying was considered a hobby primarily for and by white men. That being said... generally those types of guys keep to themselves in their own little circlejerk, and it's pretty easy to find OSR spaces that are progressive and have a sinificant number of queer, POC, and marginalized creators.

[thydungeongal]

have you ever posted anything about what you dislike in pathfinder 1e? i’m quite fond of both editions (although i will say i’m biased towards 2e for a number of reasons), and i’m curious what your critiques of 1e are.

My biggest issues with Pathfinder 1e are the proliferation of archetypes to the point where class pretty much ceased to mean anything, as well as it having some pretty bad design, a lot of which was simply grandfathered in from D&D 3e, but they developed their own unique ways of turning the already messy system into even more of a mess.

My favorite example is the overly specific feats that actually ended up prescribing certain actions (that were already possible under the rules previously) so that they now required a specific feat. Like the feat for gnomes that allowed them to pretend that their manacles were chafing them to get their jailors to take pity on them and loosen them. That sucks, imo!

There's also the whole thing with Paizo being very bad at communicating the intent of their rules, which led to a bunch of very questionable rulings becoming accepted as the intent of the rules through their FAQs.

And like even though I'm very fond of D&D 3e it was kind of a mess, so Pathfinder 1e was kind of built on very shaky foundations to begin with. But idk, even so I think there are better ways to build a game on the foundations of D&D 3e (Fantasy Craft comes to mind).

But yeah, not significantly different from D&D 3e to see it as an improvement, and accidentally replicating some of the worst design trends of 3e, as well as otherwise sloppy design.

[jareckiworld]

Eduard Ovčáček (1933-2022) — Communication 3E, Black [mixed media on masonite panel, 1964]

[buglovingbutch]

Everyone stay safe and protect your local communities if you're able to. Below is leaked targets of planned attacks on our migrant advisory services.

This is being spread by the fascists:

This is what they've posted as next list of targets.🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

WEDNESDAY NIGHT LADS

THEY WONT STOP COMING UNTIL YOU TELL THEM...

NO MORE IMMIGRATION

8PM

MASK UP

SPREAD THIS AS FAR AND WIDE AS YOU CAN

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

ALDERSHOT

- Immigration Advisors Ltd, Victoria Road, GU11 1TH

CANTERBURY

- UK Immigration Clinic, Canterbury Innovation Centre, CT2 7FG

CHATHAM

- Immigration Status UK, Maidstone Road, ME5 9FD

CHELMSFORD

- UK Immigration Information Centre, Violet Close, CM1 6XG

BEDFORD

- Immigration INN, Ford End Road, MK40 4JT

BIRMINGHAM

- Refugee and migrant centre, Frederick Street, B1 3HN

BLACKBURN

- Rafiq Immigration Services, Whalley Road, BB5 1AA

BLACKPOOL

- Immigration Solicitors, Enterprise Centre, Lytham Road, FY1 1EW

BOLTON

- Deane & Bolton Immigration lawyers, Chorley new road, BL1 4QR

BRENTFORD

- UK Immigration Help, Great West End, TW8 9HH

BRIGHTON

- Raj Rayan Immigration, Queens Road, BN1 3XF

BRISTOL

- Gya Williams Immigration, West Street, BS2 0BL

CHEADLE

- Intime Immigration Services, Brooks Drive, SK8 3TD

DERBY

- Immigration advisory Service, Normanton Road, DE23 6US

HARROW

- Yes UK Immigration, Pinner Road, HA1 4HN

HASTINGS

- Black Rock Immigration, Cambridge Gardens, TN34 1EN

HULL

- Conroy Baker Immigration Lawyer, Norwich House, Savile Street, HU1 3ES

KENT

- Kent Immigration and advice, Castle Hill Road, CT16 1QG

LINCOLN

- Immigration Lawyer Services, Carlton Mews, LN2 4FJ

LIVERPOOL

- Merseyside Refugee Centre, Overbury Street, L7 3HJ

MIDDLESBOROUGH

- Immigration advice centre, Linthorpe Road, TS1 4AT

NEWCASTLE

United Immigration Services - Westgate Road, NE4 9PQ

NORTH FINCHLEY

- Immigration and Nationality Services, Percy Road, N128BU

NORTHAMPTON

- Zenith Immigration Lawyers, Talbot Road, NN1 4JB

NOTTINGHAM

East Midlands Immigration Services - Stonesbury Vale NG2 7UR

OLDHAM

- Expert Immigration - Ellen Street 0L9 6QR

OXFORD

- Asylum Welcome, Magdelen Road, OX4 1RE

PETERBOROUGH

- Smart Immigration Services, Lincoln Road, PE1 2PN

PORTSMOUTH

- UK Border Agency, Kettering Terrace, PO2 8QN

PRESTON

- Adriana Immigration Services, Church Street PR1 3BS

ROTHERHAM

- Parker Rhodes Immigration Lawyer, The Point S60 1BP

SHEFFIELD

- White Rose Visas, Wilkinson Street, S10 2GJ

STOKE

- ZR Visas, Metcalfe Road, ST6 7AZ

SOUTHAMPTON

- Y-Axis Immigration Consultants, Grosvenor Square, SO15 2BG

SOUTHEND

- MNS Immigration Solicitors, Ditton Court Road, SS0 7HG

SUNDERLAND

- North of England Refugee Service, High Street East, SR1 2AX

TAMWORTH

- Lawrencia & Co immigration solicitors, Amber Business Village, B77 4RP

WALTHAMSTOW

- Waltham Forest Immigration Bureau, Hoe Street, E17 3AP

WIGAN

- Support for Wigan Arrivals Project, Penson Street WN1 2LP

[thecreaturecodex]

Mind Flayer, Illithid

"Mindflayer" © Steven Bellshaw, accessed at his ArtStation here

[In designing a mind flayer, I wanted to avoid some of the pitfalls of the past. The 3.x mind flayer was very fragile, and the mind blast very disruptive, so that fights with them either resulted in the mind flayer getting pulped before it could do anything, or the entire party stunned long enough for the mind flayer to get halfway to a TPK. So I wanted to give them a bit more bulk. 5e gives them full on breastplate, but I wanted to keep the slick leather look from the 3e era. I did take the save every turn and limited uses for the mind blast from 5e. Although I'm not using the psychic magic ability for my mind flayer (because it sacrifices uses/day for versatility), I did use a couple of occult spells so they have some way to deal damage.]

Mind Flayer, Illithid CR 7 LE Aberration This lean humanoid has slick lilac skin and a head like that of an octopus. Multiple tentacles surround a lamprey-like maw. It wears leather robes decorated with skulls and other macabre accessories.

Illithids are the most common and most widespread of the mind flayers. Although some of them live in colonies close to an elder brain, the better to both share its knowledge and fertilize its eggs, many of them live solitary lives or in small communities more similar to a monastic cell. Every illithid desires power and knowledge, and they all go about obtaining these in different ways. Illithids with the same creed may come together in a circle, or illithids of several creeds may travel together in what is called an inquisition, similar to an adventuring party of humanoids. Many illithids keep multiple charmed or dominated slaves to serve them as physical labor and emergency rations.

Most illithids avoid direct physical confrontation if they can help it, instead sending their slaves to the front lines and fighting with their magical abilities. Illithids are masters of mind-influencing magic, and are capable of turning allies against each other or forcing their enemies into hazardous situations. Their most feared ability is the mind blast, which can incapacitate an entire party long enough for the illithid to close in and bore its tentacles into the brains of a victim or two. Illithids usually flee if combat turns against them, as they value their lives above all else.

Illithids are usually tall and imposing, averaging six feet tall but lean. Their skin is usually in shades of pinks and purples, although green and blue hues are not uncommon. They dress in a fashion suggestive of aristocracy—high collars, fancy robes and jewelry are typical. Their unique language, Qualith, is written only and similar to cuneiform; they speak in hissing, rasping tones when they use their mouths, but usually rely on telepathic communication. 

Illithid    CR 7 XP 3,200 LE Medium aberration (mind flayer) Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, Perception +12 Defense AC 19, touch 13, flat-footed 16 (+3 Dex, +2 armor, +4 shield) hp 68 (8d8+32) Fort +6, Ref +5, Will +9; +4 vs. emotion effects SR 22 Defensive Abilities affectless; Weakness light blindness, sunlight sickness Offense Speed 30 ft. Melee masterwork light mace +10/+5 (1d6+1), tentacles +4 (4d4 plus grab) or tentacles +9 (4d4+1 plus grab) Special Attacks mind blast, pith (tentacles) Spell-like Abilities CL 8th, concentration +12 (+16 casting defensively) Constant—mental barrier I At will—detect thoughts (DC 16), levitate, mind thrust II (DC 16), suggestion (DC 17) 3/day—charm monster (DC 18), dimension door, dominate person (DC 19) 1/day—fly, plane shift (DC 19) Statistics Str 12, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 19, Wis17, Cha 19 Base Atk +6; CMB +9 (+12 grappling); CMD 20 Feats Agile Maneuvers, Combat Casting, Magical Aptitude, Weapon Finesse Skills Bluff +10, Fly +10, Intimidate +13, Knowledge (arcana) +17, Knowledge (dungeoneering, planes) +14, Perception +12, Sense Motive +9, Spellcraft +15, Stealth +12, Use Magic Device +12; Racial Modifiers +4 Knowledge Languages Aklo, Qualith, Undercommon, telepathy 100 ft. Ecology Environment underground Organization solitary, inquisition (2-4), circle (5-12 plus 0-1 ulitharids) or colony (20-200 plus 1 ulitharid per 10 individuals and 1 elder brain) Treasure double standard (masterwork light mace, masterwork leather armor, other treasure) Special Abilities Mind Blast (Su) As a standard action, an illithid can create a 60 foot cone of mental energy. All creatures in the area must succeed a DC 18 Will save or be stunned for 3d4 rounds. A creature that is stunned may attempt to recover from this condition as a full-round action with an additional DC 18 Will save. Mind flayers are immune to the effects of a mind blast. An illithid can use a mind blast three times per day, and must wait 1d4 rounds between uses. This is a mind-influencing effect, and the save DC is Charisma based. Tentacles (Ex) An illithid attacks simultaneously with all its tentacles, treating them as a primary natural weapon.

[darklordazalin]

Azalin Reviews: Darklord Hazlik

Domain: Hazlan Domain Formation: 714 BC Power Level: 💀💀💀💀⚫ Sources: Ravenloft Gazetteer Vol 1 (3e), Ravenloft 3.0, Secrets of the Dread Realms (3e), Realm of Terror (2e), Domains and Denizens (2e) CW: Genocide, homophobic hate crimes

Disclaimer: I have been reviewing the Darklords in order of Domain Formation and Hazlik coming up during pride month feels wrong to me but then again hate crimes are real and those in the queer community face them far too often. The older material on Hazlik was questionable, at best, but who can blame the man for wanting revenge against those who hated him because he was talented and gay?

Hazlik, the aging chaotic little "Red Wizard” and Darklord of Hazlan, is a man of many contradictions ruling over a land riddled with ancient magics and straggled with oppression.

Hazlan is an arid land of cliffs and canyons with sparse vegetation where landslides and tornadoes are common hazards. The populace is severely divided with the Rashemani barely having enough to survive on, while the Mulan lavish themselves in luxury. Keeping the oppressed oppressed is the only way the Mulan maintain rule over the Rashemani as they are severely outnumbered.

It should come as little surprise, given his moniker, that Hazlik comes from the world of Toril and was once a Red Wizard of Thay. Typically having a malevolent nature, these “Red Wizards” devoted themselves to the mastery of a particular school of magic. Hazlik’s chosen school is evocation.

Hazlik’s downfall came from his own ambitious nature. He rose too fast amongst the ranks of his fellows and made too many enemies in doing so. One such rival and enemy, the necromancer Thantosya, became his undoing. Though Hazlik attempted to hide his desire for Thantosya’s lover (Ordiab), the two must have found him out.

Ordiab seduced Hazlik and when discovered amidst their passion, Hazlik’s enemies (lead by Thantosya) accused him of assaulting Ordiab. They captured the little evocator, tattooed his head and chest with arcane symbols of femininity (which Hazlik viewed as humiliating) and cast him out of their order then burnt down his estate. They were quite thorough and one wonders why they did not simply kill Hazlik and be done with it.

It’s always curious who our Tormentors single out as Darklords. Thantosya and Ordiab’s crimes were far greater than Hazlik’s, but I wager that having an obsessive nature has something to do with it and Hazlik’s obsession with revenge must have drawn them in.

He spent his forced seclusion on magical experimentation and research in hopes of finding a way to utterly destroy those who ostracized him. I’m not one to hold much weight on chance, but call it what you will, one day Hazlik came upon Thantosya and Ordiab in a small glade while he was gathering ingredients.

He ambushed the lovers, killed Ordiab and forced Thantosya to drink his blood before killing her as well. And with this act of vengeance, the Mists took Hazlik into the Nightmare Lands. There he found himself once more tormented and powerless by those that had tattooed him. He fled back into the Mists and Hazlan formed.

Before the Grand Conjunction, Hazlik was obsessed with escaping Hazlan so he could obtain revenge against those who humiliated him. The death of Thantosya and Ordiab were never enough, he wanted vengeance against them all. Because of his hatred of the wizards who humiliated him, he forbade the practice of the arcane arts in Hazlan, except for himself, of course. Blinded by his hatred for the necromancer that led to his downfall, he has a severe disdain for undead servants and necromancy in general. Well, there’s no accounting for taste…

After the Grand Conjunction and Hazlik's near escape of these misty realms, Hazlik’s views changed significantly. For one, he opened the Red Academy to teach the arcane arts. It is rumored that he saw a glimpse of Toril and his enemies thriving there before the Mists took him once more. Being taken a second time, Hazlik convinced himself that he would never escape the Mists. That’s all it took? Quitter.

Hazlik’s views of magic are in direct opposition to the Church of the Lawgiver which thrives amongst the Hazlani. This church’s doctrine views the practice of the arcane arts as blasphemous. Ridiculous. I will always put more faith in my own knowledge than some ‘greater’ and mysterious power these so called priests worship. Especially in these lands where the gods are clearly absent.

Mostly, Hazlik ignores the church. Perhaps for his own purposes in that their suppression of magical practices by all but Hazlik’s chosen apprentices allows him to study his art in peace and without fear of an ambitious mage attempting to overthrow him? Or perhaps I am giving him too much credit here…

Hazlik sees the Rashemani as being beneath his notice and believes the all Mulan deserve absolute suffering for what they did to him in Toril. Yet, he appoints Mulan leaders to rule settlements in his steed as he ignores the demands that rulership placed upon his shoulders.

Hazlik’s current plans revolve around his favored apprentice, Eleni. For without a new body and his refusal to use Necromancy, he will eventually die of old age and considering he is already in his 80s, well…He plans on taking control of Eleni’s body before that happens so he may carry out his rather elaborate plan for revenge. No longer is he satisfied by destroying those that humiliated him, but he seeks to slay every single Mulan in existence. He spends countless hours researching rituals that will allow him to do just that, targeting the Mulan in Hazlan and in any realm they exist. A bit extreme for a few tattoos and a broken heart…

Hazlik is still tormented by nightmares of his enemies. So frightened by these visions, he spends much of his energy attempting to find magical means of staying awake, but he never succeeds for long and the longer he stays awake he begins to experience waking nightmares, seeing enemies and rivals everywhere.

Despite his misguided disdain for Necromancy, Hazlik is one of the most powerful wizards in Ravenloft and through constant experimentation has created some unique items such as the vat of living clay that allows the creation of a monster sculped from clay every day. He can sense any spell cast within his borders and in most cases identify it. Additionally, our Tormentors were so kind to gift him with an amulet that, upon his destruction, will store his soul within so he is not easily defeated.