#Forge of Fury

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

The Forge of Fury Cover Art by Todd Lockwood

[warrior-queen-kaitlyn]

Barbarian is the best class. Change my mind

[silversteampunk]

Troglodyte artwork I did for Margomod's Forge of Fury Companion. I'm quite happy with how this little guy turned out! 😊

I did a bunch more art for it including custom maps, items and NPC's. If you're interested you can check it out on DMsGuild here!

[rubiksicosahedron]

Remixing the Speaker in Dreams - Introduction

The Speaker in Dreams is a 3.0 edition adventure made by James Wyat in 2001, intended to be the third installment in a series of adventures that would eventually be called the Ashardalon Saga. The adventure centers on a town called Brindinford besieged by a mindflayer named Ghaerleth Axom.

Overall, it has some neat enemies and a misdirect right in the middle before the city is besieged by fiends! However, the adventure structure is weak and prone to breaking--to be honest most non-dungeon-based adventures have this problem, regardless of edition. So, I have decided to remix (ala the Alexandrian blog) and put it up for anyone who might need it. Please, take what sounds interesting and leave what doesn't. My players are partway through my version of it, and I will update this blog as they go.

This is the first adventure in the Ashardalon Saga to not be a large dungeon crawl (see: The Sunless Citadel and the Forge of Fury, both of which were included in Tales from the Yawning Portal for 5e). Instead, it was pitched as a site-based encounter. Unfortunately, the adventure’s formatting makes this obtuse and hard to structure. It does include a nifty flowchart (I believe all good adventures have these) which helps the reader understand how the adventure is meant to go. However, there aren’t real connections for the players between these encounters, which puts a lot of work on the DM. I also believe that this gets way more interesting as a mystery, so we are going to remix this adventure using a node-based design, which will funnel to the false ending of the adventure.

The adventure uses 3rd editions Gather Information skill to give the players a few rumors, that are going to point them either to The Wererat Hideout (a Bell Tower, Encounter 12), a warehouse some Grimlocks are staying in (Grimlock Warehouse, Encounter 11), or to an encounter at a local Shrine(Cry in the Mist, Encounter 14). Each of these rumors are barely accurate and hidden behind an increasing DC.

What I don't like about this is how, from a surface level, the adventure looks non-linear. "Look! A branching flowchart!" However, nothing really comes of either of these branches. There isn't even anything to connect them to the actual threat, as far as the players can tell anyway. The Grimlock Warehouse isn't even involved in any conspiracy, they just know about the cult and want to trade magic items with them. How the players are supposed to know that is beyond me.

Ghaerleth Axom (referred to as Axom or ‘the mindflayer’ for the rest of this adventure because that name sucks) has been speaking in the minds of different sorcerers in the city and has created a small cult who call themselves “Those Who Hear” led by a woman they refer to as The Blessed. The reason the writers create this second group I think is to add some mystery and give the players lots of ups and downs before the final confrontation. This way, the PCs can feel like they accomplished something great (which they did!) and the villains can seem even more evil when they summon lots of fiends to enforce the city’s new martial law.

However, Axom’s motivation per the text doesn’t make any sense.

In the original adventure, Axom is a rogue mindflayer who wants to create a new empire with himself at the top. So he travels to the world above, mind controls the baron, and summons a ton of devils. I don’t understand how this connects here. He gets to control a city, I guess? This didn’t feel very real to me, so let’s change his backstory slightly:

While in the Underdark, Axom was just a normal mindflayer when demons began terrorizing and destroying the city these illithids had taken over. This separated Axom from his Elder Brain and shunted him into the caverns there. Axom does still have the ambition to become an emperor (I think all mind flayers do), but he doesn’t want to make it in the World Above (due to all the heroes and whatnot) and definitely can’t fight all these demons on his own. So instead he discovers an army of devils that he could summon and makes a deal with their leader. If he can supply them with a Gate and a city ripe for the taking, they will grant him a contingent of devil soldiers to go take back his city.

I like this story more for a couple of reasons. First, it humanizes the villain without making him a character the PCs will likely agree with or ally with. Second, it makes this city he takes over important. A big part of this adventure is the city, which becomes its own character. The web supplement goes into a truly staggering amount of detail about each district of the city. Brindinford has a large Temple of Pelor, which the adventure makes a point of burning down right before the big finale. I think this gets way more interesting if the Temple is important to Axom’s plan (more on this in a later post).

The adventure splits into two parts, before and after the destruction of Those Who Hear, and that is a useful distinction for us, so we are going to keep it.

[plinchy]

My party backdoored a dungeon and proceeded to have the best fight i've ever ran.

The fellow getting coin dropped on him is an npc sidekick from the Clifftop Adventurer's Guild, and the guy that looks like him is our party's TORTLE druid using a hat of disguise. (The barrel was technically left behind, but was drawn to remind everyone he's been traveling with a barrel attacked to his back while disguising himself as the halfling npc sidekick's brother.)

The octopus were part of the druid's Conjure Animals. haha..

read more for Forge of Fury spoilers (from the Tales from the Yawning Portal module)

They swam through a lake and ended up in a young dragon's lair.

I had made modifications to the story and reasonings for the creatures inside Stonetooth to better fit the Eberron world setting, and obviously to my campaign needs.

The black dragon had two health bars using this Angry GM post as a guide. The only difference is that I gave it the two actions after the first health bar was depleted, to show that feeling of desperation and increased difficulty. The satyr bard was like "holy shit this is just like dark souls" and it made my week.

Another thing to note is that my party is level 5, with 5 player characters and 1 DM NPC sidekick. This campaign is usually 3 players, but I brought in 2 'guest' players to play temporarily for this dungeon. We're all still pretty new to DND and this was our first big dungeon crawl module.. and they swam through the lake, so now I need to prep backwards :D :thumbup:

[bad-decisions-club]

Forge of Fury Campaign Arc Recap

12 Sessions (+1 retrospective) 

( https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_wOqvAZAsjkA1fTLiZ1ZSndrKgeUK1uC )

PCs: Clarion, Lor, Calder, Charlotte (+swoops), Kreetha (+stinky)

NPCs: Barnabas, Meepo, Sven, The Patron, Nightscale, Aurindil, Durgedin, Kevin Bonewolf, Usif, Bevin and Bathew Bouldershoulder

Monsters: Orcs, Ghosts, Roper, Stirges, Ogres

Notable Items: Undead-controlling-whistle, Knife-Durgedin

Synopsis:

One year after the end of The Sunless Citadel-

The new group of PCs, Clarion, Lor, Calder, and Charlotte, plus Meepo are summoned to Adbar and hired by Barnabas to investigate rumors of a long lost forge of Durgedin. 

The group heads out, and run into twig blights as the make their way north towards the closest town. The group, once there, make connections in the town and hire Usif, a cartographer, and Kevin Bonewolf, a guard, to accompany them. The group leave Usif and Kevin at the base of the trail as they scout ahead. The Stone tooth mountain is crawling with Orcs, so they make their way to wear smoke is piping out of the mountain side. 

The group finds captives inside the camber of the mountain and kill the Orcs there as they free the captives, who are from the town. The group sends the captives back up the chimney and choose to continue deeper into the mountain.

The group battles their way deeper and deeper through orc controlled areas, eventually coming to a deeper part of the mountain covered in odd fungi- the Glitterheim.

Down in the Glitterheim, the team finds evidence of Durgedin, some old relics of the forge, and explore further. Unfortunately, the team falls down a fissure and stumbles across the lair of a Roper. In the ensuing battle, Clarion the Bard dies, after being crit to an instant death in the Roper’s jaws.

The team is distraught and shaken. Lor uses the Whistle to raise Clarion’s body as an Undead, and the group have varying responses to it. They make their way past the Roper’s lair and stumble upon another explorer, Kreetha the goblin and her Animal companion Stinky the frog. Kreetha’s team had run into the Roper previously, and she was the only survivor of the encounter. Kreetha joins the party as a means to escape the mountain.

Lor kills the undead Clarion and strips the corpse of it’s flesh, handing the bag of bones to Calder to carry. 

The team find their way back up to the Glitterheim and explore a new section of it, a burial chamber of the old Citadel of dwarves from Durgedin’s time. Out in the larger chamber of the Glitterheim, the Orcs have gathered and are working to batter down a large metal door to the far side past the fissure in the ground. The group spreads out, allowing the orcs to finish breaking down the door, and then kills the Orcs and their Ogre(Troll?) minion. 

With the door open and the enemies all dead around them for the moment, a drow reveals himself from the shadows, declares he was there to explore but wants to bounce now, and gives the group a rope-trick room to use for a short rest before departing.

Inside the Forge Citadel proper, the group comes across a group of Grey dwarves. After a brief combat, they intimidate them into talking and receive a map of the forge proper. The Grey dwarves leave afterward, but warn of more of them further in the forge, as well as a dragon in the waters below.

The team splits for a bit, with Charlotte and Lor satisfied they have achieved their mission of scouting the Forge, and Calder, Meepo, and Kreetha determined to explore further. Charlotte and Lor attempt to leave, but once reaching the outside of the mountain, discover there is a thousands-strong Army of Orcs now outside. They return to the group.

While further exploring the Forge rooms, the group encounters a ghost of Durgedin’s left hand Dwarf, Arundil. He possesses Kreetha and they manage to establish a connection. Arundil helps them navigate the rest of the forge rooms. The team kills the other grey dwarves in various ways- (there was maybe a few that escaped after hiding, it’s unclear). 

The team help Arundil pass on with a ritual in the chamber of Durgedin’s last stand. 

In an attempt to find a way out of the mountain that’s not into the path of the orc army outside, the group heads down into the waterways under the Forge. The group successfully bargain their way past the young black dragon Nightscale. 

In passing through the underwater ways out to the lake to the south of the mountain, Charlotte’s foot catches on a strap of a sheathed knife from Nightscale’s horde. Upon reaching the shore of the lake, they find the knife is a weapon forged by and possessed by Durgedin himself.

Durgedin is excited to be out of the horde. That night, the team spends some time finally relaxing and drinking.

The next day the group returns to the town, to find it attacked and mostly destroyed. They explore the carnage and eventually find the survivors hiding further into the woods, along with two dwarven scouts sent from Adbar, Bevin and Bathew Bouldershoulder. They tell the group that Barnabas has gone to Waterdeep to find a way to help Clarion. The group finds that Kevin and the cartographer survived, as well as the captives they saved from the mountain. 

The group helps the survivors make their way to Mirabar and seek aid for the army of Orcs coming down from the North. 

[ameasureofseperation]

While out in the glitterheim, Echo sees the carnage of the past months of fighting over control of the forge in the Stone Tooth.

"While you are out there, you feel that there are things moving out there. Something about this place, you feel like there's something out there that's stalking you. While you are in this place that is covered in hundreds and hundreds of bodies, there is something evil in this place and you want to be gone as fast as possible."

[could-they-be-a-pro-wrestler]

How successful would The Fury…

Would you like to submit a character? Click this link if you do!

[madcat-world]

Nahiri: Forged in Fury (1 of 2) - Marta Nael

[comicwaren]

From Wolverine: Revenge #002

Art by Greg Capullo, Tim Townsend and Fco Plascencia

Written by Jonathan Hickman

[s10127470]

My Wolverine and the X-Men Rewrite (Part 2)

Hey guys! I'm back again with Part 2 of my "Wolverine and the X-Men" rewrite, which in that first part, I actually renamed the show "X-Men Destiny" for obvious reasons.

I don't really have of an intro, so we're just gonna get right into it.

Overflow (January 30th, 2009):

This episode is largely the same, but would have a few changes.

-Angel would be in this episode and join the X-Men on their rescue mission to save Storm from The Shadow King. As you probably guessed here, and if you read the first part, I wanted to actually flesh out the romance between these two a lot more. I thought it was pretty interesting in the original series, but could've been a lot better since we only saw it in the episode where Angel gets turned into Archangel.

-We would actually get to the see more of the relationships between each of the X-Men. And most importantly, how they felt about the loss of Jean. Like, we all know that seeing Xavier in a coma hit them hard, but apart from Cyclops, we're never given anything to show how they feel about Jean being gone. But here, we would. I think we would get a flashback scene that would go back to a funeral that was held for Xavier and Jean right after the explosion and right before the team disbanded. During this funeral, just about all of the X-Men would be visibly saddened, showing that they were devastated by the loss of their follow teammate and their longtime mentor. Beast, Angel, Nightcrawler and Shadowcat would all be shedding tears. Wolverine and Forge wouldn't be showing tears, but would still be saddened by all this. And Storm, Iceman, Colossus and especially Cyclops would actually having full-on breakdowns. Back in the present, right as they take off for the mission, it would be Beast and Iceman trying to let Cyclops know instead of Shadowcat, while Forge would be the one asking them why are they even bothering with him. I think this scene would really speak volumes since remember, they've known Cyclops the longest out of everyone here. They know how hard it was for him to lose Jean, since remember, they all made up the original X-Men team.

-And finally, we have the characterization of Storm. While this episode was a great reintroduce for her. This was where she admittedly peaked. Another of the biggest flaws of the original show was how sidelined she was. Like for God's sake, she hardly talked! Here, Storm would be the Storm we all know in love. Confident, regal, and an actually great leader. This would really help Cyclops' character since she would reassure him that he does still have what it takes to be a leader.

Brothers All (February 6th, 2009):

This episode is a wholly originally one to this version of the series.

This would be Colossus's reintroduction episode.

As I mentioned in the first part, he moved back to his family's farm in Russia.

And essentially, Colossus has returned back to how his life was before he joined the X-Men.

One thing I want to show is his town being very appreciative of his powers, since he's been using them to help out around the community.

One thing I really liked about the original show is that they showed something you rarely see in most X-Men media.

The existence of humans who don't absolutely fucking hate mutants.

I figured Colossus' town would be a part of that group.

We also find out that he's been helping his younger sister Illyana hone her mutant powers, which manifested about a month ago.

Speaking of Illyana, she would look how she was planned to for the intended season 2.

(Sorry for the blurry image, this was the best I could find)

She would be about 16 years old and stand at 5'3.

She would be voiced by her recurring VA Tara Strong, as she was planned to for Season 2.

However, Colossus' peaceful life would be interrupted by a visit from The Brotherhood.

Essentially, a plotline I thought of for this version of the series would be having the X-Men recruiting young up-and-coming mutants and keeping them out of the hands of The Brotherhood, who, let's be real, wouldn't exactly have the most well-meaning plans for them.

But back to the plot of this episode, The Brotherhood are here for Illyana and they aren't taking no for an answer.

And just to make sure, they brought some back up.

And that back up is none other than Mikhail Rasputin!

For those who don't know, Mikhail is Colossus' and Illyana's older brother, making his debut in Uncanny X-Men #285 on December 3rd, 1991.

As for this appearances, he looks largely the same as he does in the comics.

Which is this...

As for his voice, he would voiced by Chris Cox.

As for his backstory, it's largely the same as in the comics, but with some notable differences.

Mikhail was once a member of the actual real-life state corporation Roscosmos.

But during a mission, which Mikhail was the pilot of, the shuttle got caught in a mysterious rift.

And when Mikhail woke up, he found himself back on Earth, with the shuttle being destroyed and just about everyone else dead (including his fiance).

As you would expect, this incident made international headlines.

Overcome with a tremendous amount of survivor's guilt, Mikhail left home (having done so not long before Colossus' powers emerged) and hadn't been seen since.

During his time as a lonesome nomad, Mikhail's powers would manifest.

Yep, Mikhail is a mutant like his younger siblings.

He has the ability to manipulate matter and energy on a subatomic level, allowing him to travel between different dimensions in the blink of an eye.

During his travels, Mikhail would often come across headlines about his little brother and his adventures with the X-Men.

And this would be where things take a turn for the worst.

Whenever he came across these headlines, Mikhail would often hear people bringing up how he's his brother and mentioning how embarrassing it must be to be related a failure like him.

As you would expect, this didn't have the best effect on Mikhail.

Which when combined with his survivor's guilt, pretty much drove Mikhail to insanity.

Sometime later, Mikhail would meet Magneto, who offered him a place in Genosha, along with some rehabilitation.

And while Mikhail did get a little better (keyword: a little), he continually carried on an immense hatred for his younger brother.

And when he heard that The Brotherhood were going to his hometown and hearing that Colossus moved back there, Mikhail was immediately onboard, jumping at the chance for revenge.

As you would expect, main conflict of this episode would be with Colossus, who doesn't want to fight his brother, who he still dearly loves and wants to help him instead.

Luckily, the X-Men would arrive to help Colossus after they received reports of a series of explosions occuring in his town.

However, a powerful scene I thought of would come near the end of the battle.

Essentially, Illyana would get badly hurt in the middle of scuffle.

And this would send Colossus over the edge!

He would beat the living shit of Mikhail and the rest of The Brotherhood!

Like everyone says: it's always the nice ones to be afraid of.

Luckily, the X-Men are able to stop him before the beating turns into a full-on massacre.

In the end, Colossus decides to return to the X-Men with Illyana, so she can be healed and so they can help her hone her powers.

During the last few minutes of the episode, we would get a few more character moments.

Upon his return to the Mansion, Colossus looks somewhat saddened, as he would reveal that he's somewhat regretful about the ass-whooping he unleashed on The Brotherhood, specifically Rogue. Not only that, but also what he said to her.

Oh yeah, let's talk about that real quick.

This would be the first episode to show how much Rogue regrets joining The Brotherhood.

Essentially, she and Colossus were actually very close friends prior to the explosion.

In fact, he (along with Wolverine) was one of the few people who Rogue opened up to the most.

As would expect, this doesn't go well at all.

And when The Brotherhood retreated, Colossus yelled out to Rogue saying that if he ever saw her again, he WOULD KILL HER.

Which I know sounds incredibly heartless.

But remember, she was associated with the group who just terrorized his town, tried to take his sister against her will, and even threatened the lives of his parents.

If your best friend was part of a group who did all that, you would be fucking pissed too!

This episode would also the first showcase of Gambit's heroic side.

While The Brotherhood are taking pleasure in what they're doing, Gambit isn't.

He even tries to reason with Quicksilver that they could possibly accomplish their goal in a way that doesn't make them look like terrorists.

Near the end of the episode, we would also get a tender scene between Colossus and Iceman.

Yep! These two would have romantic feelings for each other.

As Colossus, in the words of Chang, is...

We would also get one between Shadowcat and a recovering Illyana, who would also both have romantic feelings towards each other.

X-Calibre (February 13th, 2009):

This episode is pretty much the same.

However, there would be major change, and that would be in the characterization of Nightcrawler.

Nightcrawler was honestly the MVP of the original show, largely because he was the only X-Men who didn't get majorly sidelined for the sake of Wolverine.

However, there would be a few changes in Nightcrawler's character.

He would be little more jovial like how he typically is. Like, it's almost weird to not see Nightcrawler being all that playful.

He would rocking the cutlasses for the entire series. The man should be allowed to show off his swordsmanship!

He would be very explicit in his faith. It's actually weird how up until X-Men '97, it's been over 20 years since Nightcrawler was last shown to be openly religious.

The X-Men vs. The Hulk (February 20th, 2009):

I know most of you would prefer this episode get removed entirely.

But in all honesty....I'm keeping it!

This is one of the best episodes in the entire series.

I think that's because of two reasons.

It's nice to see a Marvel cartoon (even if it's focused on a particularly character or characters), being allowed to actually pull in and explicitly reference that much bigger Marvel universe instead of just pretending that specific portions of it (if not all of it outside their specific circle) don't exist for the umpteenth fucking time.

2. This episode would officially establish The Yostverse, as it follows up on the events of the film: Hulk vs. Wolverine (which funnily enough, was released just four days after Wolverine and the X-Men premiered). Along with that, Nick Fury and Hulk/Bruce Banner have pretty similar designs to how they look in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (which although isn't explicitly said, is implied to take place after WAXTM). Plus, they have the same voice actors in both shows. Alex Désert as Nick Fury, Gabriel Mann as Bruce Banner, and of course, Fred Tatasciore as The Hulk.

But back on topic, this episode is largely the same, except that the whole team is involved instead of just Wolverine.

Plus, I think this episode would really highlight just how tough each of the X-Men are in their own way, since they're literally dealing with the most powerful being on the planet!

Anyway, the best part of the episode would definitely be the ending.

The original was already great.

But this would 10 times so.

You can't tell that me that having Wolverine punch Banner, prompting him to Hulk out, which would result in him sending all of the X-Men flying across the forest, eventually landing on the ground with a mighty thud, leaving a massive crater in the process, and having all of them, while clearly being in a lot of pain, weakly saying in unison, "Have fun, Fury....", wouldn't be the funniest shit ever.

In fact, I need someone to make an art piece of that right now!

Well that’s all I have for now.

Let me know what you guys think about this second part of the rewrite. And if you could, give me some ideas on how the rest of the series should play out!

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

The Forge of Fury Cover Art by Todd Lockwood

[avernusdamned]

he said a really funny joke <3 (@fatewoven)

[silversteampunk]

More Troglodyte artwork I did for Margomod's Forge of Fury Companion.

I did a bunch more art for it including custom maps, items and NPC's. If you're interested you can check it out on DMsGuild here!

[trevisos]

i’m holding xarrai in my hands like a baby bird. my weird angry little court jester. little fool who thirsts for blood and revenge. extremely normal little clown who desires only retribution.

[doublebattled]

they are judging you

(this is a tag dump)