#dm's beastiary

[dragonmiracles]

Alagajal

Species Name: Alagajal (Ah-rah-gah-jahl)

Planet: Jiaba

Height: 7ft/2.1m

Special Features:

-You can ride it with a saddle

-Very friendly and docile

-has no natural predators

-tastes like a combination of venison and lobster, very rich in taste.

[krismasarson]

Fuck it. I'm bored so I'm gonna share my Homebrew Dnd characters because Im a DM and player that has far too many characters and I feel like people should know about them! (I have art of them from like years ago but i need to completely revamp them so you will be getting picrews)

Picrew : Bright's Picrew Hell

Orchid WillowBrook

- a Kind little Satyr Genasi boi with an endless love and appreciation for animals

-He is a Wild Magic Barbarian who multiclassed with the College of Creation Bard who is extremly optimistic as well as naive. He is a Fire genasi who can only use her fire with heightened emotions as well as the fire appearing differently depending on said emotions. For example, when she rages her fire will be bright pink. When dealing with grief her fire will be a murky green. When sad the fire will be Sky blue, and so on.

- She grew up in the Fae realm with her mom and amy(his stepmom) who came into his life when he was around 2. Throughout his childhood he was heavily sheltered due to her mom's overprotective nature.

- His love for animals and nature stemmed from Amy taking him with her to her job as a caretaker at a Beastiary sanctuary in the school that he would later attend. During these trips he would learn about any and every animal he could

-And in the process of learning about the animals he so deeply loved, Orchid quickly learned how to speak to the animals without need for the spell "Talk to animals" and then soon after he had started to develop compression for any language he could possibly learn. And by the age of 10 he had learned all the languages he could aside from Druidic.

-Even with her extensive knowledge in languages and Beastiary, she is still somehow the densest and dumbest in her whole party. Common phrases she says/situations she gets into on the regular are "Why shouldn't I eat it? If it can fit in my mouth then whats the point of not eating it!" *she yells out in frustration as she tries to steal back the deadly magic item that her party member took from her* , "Here is the 100 gold for the bunny, sir!" *hands the pet store owner 125 gold*, "What? Well yeah i can read! I'm just... how do you say that word again? Oh right! Illiterate (Pronounced illy-iter-ate)and Have Profound Dyslexia (pronounced Dicks-lek-sa)" and (a favorite amongst the campaign) "What is Religion? AND WHY WONT ANYONE EXPLAIN IT TO ME!"

-She is vegetarian as she grew up with it and as her ability to speak to animals somehow got more powerful to the point that she hears screaming from raw and cooked meat.

-She grew up In the woods and was never really discouraged from letting herself run around with out any coverage. That's just how the fae was! And since she never bothered to cover up, now that she is required to it's very difficult to get used to

-She has a pet Blink dog named Bella. Bella is a bernese mountain dog that grows lilacs out of her back. She is a very burly dog that has on occasion bit someone's hand off but Orchid still pampers her none the less!

-She recently bought a Displacer beast kitten and named him Mars. He currently resides in Orchids backpack so he doesn't get lost

-his childhood friend is a pixie named Celbi who hides inside Orchids hair during quests. She has an affinity for knowing the in's and out's of the black market and drugs so she can be very helpful during missions

Might make more on these. Who knows! But I hope you like Orchid as much as I do! He was my 3rd ever dnd character and I still play as him for campaigns to this day. I have a lot of stories of dumb and outlandish things he has done so maybe I'll post about those!

[dragontamer22]

I'm a giant fucking nerd who DMs for a home brew Pokemon In Our World tabletop campaign. And I just have an absolute blast being able to worldbuild for this.

I'm slowly working on a beastiary of EVERY pokemon (grouped together by evolutionary family) and this is the BEST. This is ecology/Pokemon/fantasy/world-building (my four all time FAVORITE things ever, like these are my biggest autistic special interests) AND ITS SO MUCH FUN. Figuring out how a bunch of magical creatures fit into our pre existing world (with some alterations, to make it still a Pokemon world) and getting to put my geeky ass special interests together?

Amazing. So much serotonin and dopamine.

Currently I'm ~13% of the way through the nat dex. Not going in any particular order, just what inspires me or if my players request a beastiary of someone in particular.

And I've very recently (like last night) decided I want to give *every* evolutionary stage a scientific name (because Pokemon biological evolution is... Complicated. Helps keep things tidy in the scientific literature), with sexually dimorphic stages (ie: Nidoking and Nidoqueen, or Tauros and Miltank) bearing sub species modifiers. And regional variants also having sub species names. What will I do if a Pokemon ends up qualifying for both? Uh, suffer-- I mean just give them a sub-sub species name and call it good enough.

I'm quite proud of these three genus names I've come up:

-Electricanis (Yamper/Boltund, Electrike/Manectric) --- electric dog

-Serpiscis (Magikarp/Gyarados, Feebas/Milotic) --- serpent fish

-Fulgamus (Pichu/Pikachu/Raichu, Plusle, Minun) --- lightning mouse

Anyways yeah that's what I've been up to for awhile. Still got a looooong ways to go, but I've covered about 120 ish Pokemon by now. 49 evolutionary families.

[ladyrainb0w]

Alright, people of the realm, my children,

Being as we're all seeing this post on the mighty Tumblr, I'm sure we're all to some degree familiar and comfortable with the joy that is the phenomenon of social media, and all the doors it opens for us in terms of communication. Nowadays we have friends all over the world, only a screentap away from us - and it's awesome! It's great! The internet and social media have brought us a lot of great things, and allowed us to meet a lot of great people that we might never have met before, and that's cool.

What's a lot less cool is that there's also, as always, predators out on the prowl in chatboxes, message boards and whatnot (god, I sound like my mother). I don't need to tell you that, probably. All the same, I thought I'd share some of my own experiences with the internet's resident creepsters, and maybe give some of you a look into how they operate. Feel free to add any of your own that you have run into, and remember: "No." is a whole sentence, and the 'block' and 'report' buttons are there for a reason.

Without further adoo, heave-ho and off we go to

✨ Types of Creepy Randos in your DMs; A Beastiary ✨

1.  The Flasher

Y'know that old stereotype of the middle-aged dude in the trenchcoat loitering about on the street or in the park, waiting for some poor, hapless, unsuspecting victim to come ambling by to scar them for life with the ol' carrot and walnut salad? Yeah.

A fair amount of unfortunate drive-through workers could probably already tell you that this particular creature eagerly rides the wave of technological advancement, and this is proven once again by their adaptability to the medium of the internet. In my experience, this particular breed of creep likes to present itself as a hapless, innocent-if-prone-to-accidents friendly dork; sometimes they're middle-aged, 'just lonely and looking for someone to talk to', other times they pretend to be the stuttering awkward 'oh golly me, so sorry about that' school nerd. This is also how they try to get away with the crime: you'll be having a perfectly normal conversation, and then they'll be asking your opinion about something or wanting to show you something and oh, whoopsy, they accidentally send you a picture of their cocktail shrimp instead of the kittens they meant to send you! How silly of them!

As an added bonus, some of these dingleberries like to combine their MO with a hefty side of guilt tripping, whimpering and whining. Remember: it usually takes several button clicks to make and send a picture- that means there's been several conscious decisions made before this picture was 'accidentally' send to you, and not one of these decisions was to just...y'know...NOT be creepy and gross.

2. The Dial

This one likes to gradually dial things up as they go. It's an incredibly sneaky and insidious way of going about things - in fact, I would argue that between the slow-drip method and the quick defense method of 'I didn't mean anything weird by it!' it's just another type of gaslighting.

They start small; just a sincere question about a post you've made, maybe - a foot in the door.  You might end up having a lovely conversation, perhaps even a blooming friendship. But then.

But. Then.

The tone slowly starts to shift. The questions become increasingly...off. You can't really put your finger on it, but something feels wrong.

But this person has been so friendly, so normal, all this time! Surely they don't mean anything by it? This is probably just how they show affection to friends, right? You don't want to be oversensitive or a spoilsport, so you just kind of shake it off. Except it keeps happening, and the feeling of discomfort keeps growing, until one day you realize that your boundaries have been all but annihilated and you're not sure how, or when, or how to adress this now without looking unhinged.

The sad thing about these people is that this particular MO proves that they can be perfectly charming - they can hold a perfectly normal, fun, conversation about normal topics. They are often intelligent, fun to talk to and make a show of being invested and informed. And they know all this - they bank on you growing so comfortable that you'll barely known what's hitting you when they do start to get inappropriate, and might even use that to try and trap you in feelings of guilt or responsibility.

These are also tactics often deployed by predators who groom their victims, so guys, gals and nonbinary pals: be your own best friend. Stand up for yourself. 'No' is a whole sentence, and your discomfort is not an argument to be won or lost.

3. The Love Bomber

This person just loves you so much. They're pretty sure you're soulmates and they're not sure how to go about life without you- about five messages in. They like to interperse their wildly amorous exclamations with the occasional well-timed 'haha' or 'lol' - just to keep it appropriately casual, y'know. They seem drawn to picture-focused media, like instagram, and will often focus on complimenting your physical attributes - not unlike one of those wonderfully generic loveletter-songs churned out by boybands across the world (Bo Burnham's 'Repeat Stuff', anyone?). They're intensely complementary, and want you to know they just admire you so much, you're their idol! Their life wouldn't be complete without you in it! This person agressively pets your ego in the hopes of getting any range of nice-person-points in return. They're very remeniscent of obsessive, rabid fans - willing to die for you, goddamn it, but god forbid they find out their fervour and devotion isn't equally met (because seriously, you barely know this person and they're setting your teeth on edge).

This type has an even louder and more intense, might-be-hiding-a-crusty-collection-of-kink-magazines-in-their-bookbag-and-reading-them-at-family-gatherings cousin:

4. The Weawwy Weird Weeaboo

This person comes in swinging with ALL CAPS LETTERS and an entire arsenal of emojis, plus a whole colourwheel of heart emojis. Hell, they might even toss in some 'rawr XD' for the lulz. They're often found in the nerdier corners of the internet, which is how they'll try to make their way through the door - armed with memes of your favourite show and a lot of game references to make sure you know they're part of the same 'in' crowd as you. They're essentially waging war on your boundaries with a lot of noise and overt enthusiasm bordering on the psychotic, and like their brethren mentioned above make sure to loudly proclaim their undying love for you every couple minutes. Inappropriate messages or picture-sharing is often hidden behind a smokescreen of 'omg so RANDOM lmaoroflcopter' or 'I can't help it, I just get so EXCITED 😥😥😥😥'.

This is also another one that likes to use your feelings of guilt against you, and acts like a kicked puppy if confronted. They know what they're doing - don't force yourself to put up with their bullshit.

5. The 'Kid Just Like You'

This asshole tries to trick their way into your good graces/nudes/private information by lulling you into a false sense of security because you're the same age/gender/sex/(sub)culture/whatever so it's al fiiiiiine, relaaaaaaax, you can totally trust them! Boundaries don't exist when you're like siblings, amirite? How do you do, fellow humanoids? Wanna talk about some totally normal humanoid stuff??

Once again, this is a popular tactic employed by predators out to groom people, so be mindful of what you share, with whom, and why - it's okay to be friendly or even friends with people on the internet, but at the end of the day there's still an anonymity out here that's easily abused by people that are so inclined. You do not owe anybody your trust, especially if something feels off and you're uncomfortable. In fact, I've often seen the book 'The Gift of Fear' by Gavin de Becker mentioned as a great treatise on why there's a very good reason for that weird feeling in your underbelly, and why you should listen to it.

6. The Martyr/The Vampire

The Martyr, or 'the Vampire' for this exact reason, twists themselves into all kinds of knots and pretzels to try and get you to invite them in on your own volition while trying at the same time to look as 'casual' as possible.

Their favourite way is to make sure that you know how much pain they've suffered before coming to your door - somehow they just seem to be perpetually inviting scorn from others, completely unprompted of course! Won't anybody show them just a little bit of kindness in this dark, unforgiving world???

It's once they've been let in, however, that the truth starts coming out and suddenly you find yourself understanding why this person has so much trouble finding - and keeping - friends, and it has very little to do with the world at large and everything to do with this specific person and their behaviour. Common denominators and all that.

This beastie might try to strong-arm you into whatever they want with thinly veiled threats of making you another mark on their growing tally of 'terrible people they have been victimised by' - which, frankly, why would you give a shit? They usually end up shooting themselves in the foot anyway as they work themselves down the line of people to cozy up to.

7. The V E R Y Studious Student

This person has a *lot* of questions for you, and they seem weirdly...intimate. Some of them might even skip right by that step and go for the all-out sexual questions, all the while staunchly mainting that it's all in the pursuit of science/their project/a questionnaire/their own TOTALLY CLINICAL curiousity. In one hilarious example I was presented with an actual, honest-to-god *questionnaire* about my (ahem) bedroom habits, supposedly for a forum about statistics.

Best way to handle: don't answer questions you don't feel comfortable answering, especially if it's to a stranger who doesn't really have any business knowing this information. They're not your doctor.

[night-dragon937]

hey yo a bunch of updates have been done and the Witch Hat Cult discord server is ready for more members-

if you’re a follower/mutual of us or @genesiscaveat, dm/send an ask to us if you want to join!!

current things: pokemon bot, beastiary bot, dank memer, pk and tupper bot, counting bot, leveled roles (working on these, but they’re there), specific channels for different topics, four times as many bots as members, colored roles, a server dnd group (we haven’t started yet, we’re working on this), and much more! :D

[shapercreater]

Maybe a weird question, but does anyone know how best to transfer Pathfinder monsters and playable monster races to D&D 5e? Like... There's 5+ beastiaries from Pathfinder, but I personally play 5e D&D and kind of want to shive primal dragons at my players? But there challenge ratings alone seem weird and abilities and stats look a little wonky (a single stat block takes up one to two pages)

Any help for a curious DM/Player?

[we-are-trickster]

MORDENKAINEN’S TOME OF FOES!

- A Very YellyTM Trickster Review-

Today’s the day, people! Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes has been released to Wizards Premiere Stores, which luckily Trickster lives very close to one so I was able to get my hands on one of the Limited Edition covers, which this one is my favorite!

It just looks so epic! And soft-touch coating is a weakness of mine, it just feels so nice and smooth. >w<

So! Onto the coooontent!

Did I ever mention to you guys how much I love Cultural Notes on Fantasy races? The Tome of Foes is chock full of them! It has information on pretty much every D&D 5e playable race and adds a ton of worldbuilding! It also expands and talks a little more about the various deities, which is great because it adds in more Gods of the Arcana, Forge, and Grave domains! Thank you!

Also.... CHAOTIC NEUTRAL TRICKSTER DOMAIN GODS!

I literally cannot tell you how much it bothered me that in the Original Player’s Handbook, almost every Trickster Domain God or Godess was Chaotic Evil. The Tome of Foes expands the Diety Lists and adds in so many Chaotic Neutral Trickster Domain Deities that I may have made noises that disturbed the cats.

They also added back my personal favorite Drow Goddess Zinzerena! -dances-

The Beastiary is also very drool-worthy, with so many new monsters to play with, but especially high-powered monsters! I can’t wait to really dig into it and find some new creatures to throw at my players. The expanded Drow enemies will definitely come in handy for my Underdark Drow Intrigue Campaign. OwO

I’m also excited that we got the stats for the Nine Lords of Hell! The Demon Lords of the Abyss were also included again, reprinted from the (Straight) Out of the Abyss campaign. The centerfold of Zuggtmoy was a lovely surprise.

As far as player options go, this one is light but does offer rules for new Tiefling Variants, Elven Sub-Races (ELADRIN!), and a new player race - Gith & Githyanki. It’s not a surprise because we did just get Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, so having another good DM supplement is awesome.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to adjust a character of mine to be an Eladrin instead of a High Elf......

[zippdementia]

Part 42 Alignment May Vary: Skull Gorge Bridge

This is the ongoing adventure in the 5e conversion of classic 3.5 adventure The Red Hand of Doom! Not only does this detail the adventures of my three players but it also give detailed suggestions on how to run a 5e conversion of this campaign.

Tools I reference a lot: The 3.5 Red Handbook of Doom, The beastiary Revenge of the Horde, secondary beastiary Tome of Beasts.

This session opens with two of the characters hungover and experiencing exhaustion from a night of drinking...

If there was one time he was happy to not have use of his eyes, it was now, so he didn’t have to see the sun.

His head was splitting open.

Trakki sluggishly followed the soldiers through the Dawn Way, focusing mostly on putting one foot in front of the other. Drinking with the Dragonborn the night before battle had seemed an excellent idea at the time. Necessry, even, to keep up morale and inspire his companions. He stole a glance at Nysyries, then remembered he couldn’t see. He imagined though that her black scales maybe had a touch of green to them today, but other than that you wouldn’t have known that she was polishing off her three bottle of Mystica wine barely four hours prior.

And I thought the elves could drink.

Tyrion hadn’t joined them, he had disappeared into his room early with Serah. Trakki would have assumed this meant the two were spending the night getting refamiliarized, but the mage had left shortly after and Tyrion had not emerged again (though whatever they had spoken of had made him quiet today, as well).

In any case, Trakki had had to provide the song for their drinking. He had tried to capture the bard’s flailing movements and jaunty rythyms, his questionable rhymes spoken with extreme boldness, as if he could force the words to fit the song. He remembered little of it now, but snatches kept returning to him and he would hum them softly as they walked, to take his mind off his, well... his mind.

The island, I was trapped My strength all but sapped The lizardmen came and I hate them And so I had to ate them

His stomache turned but Trakki forced himself to breath normal. The sweat he was pouring he could write off as just a long day’s march. But he couldn’t let the troops see him throw up halfway through it. That would be decidedly bad for morale.

For weeks, Skull Gorge Bridge has occupied my thoughts. How to get players there, how to challenge them but make that challenge manageable, what minions to run with during the battle, how it will convert smoothly to 5e. Last post, I talked about how I handled the set up for Skull Gorge Bridge by changing the goal of the battle from defeating its defenders to blowing it up. This was always something allowed by the original module, but not something made explicit by it. By bringing this goal to the forefront, I change the purpose of this fight from “kill a dragon” to “blow up a bridge.”

One of those goals is a lot more manageable, right? And more interesting.

This ends up being one of our most exciting, nail biting, and epic sessions of our entire campaign. To understand why, you have to get into the logistics of the fight, so I’m going to lead with that data rather than with description.

Encounter: Skull Gorge Bridge

Battle difficulty meant to be: deadly

Players are supposed to walk away feeling: if they walk away, players should feel like they’ve accomplished something big, but also that they are fighting forces beyond their abilities alone. “We are gonna need a bigger boat” should be the overall sentiment.

Rebuild:  The conversion happens less in the actual restating of enemies and more in the shifting of the scenario and its goals. But that shift makes all the difference. I do the following:

Set up the bridge as the major encounter for the day

Set up a pre-battle ambush (see below) that takes place 300 ft from the bridge

Set up a different goal for the bridge fight. In this case, the goal is to destroy the bridge at all costs and I give them Serah’s bomb to give them a way to do this.

Move the main horde’s forces from Cinder Hill to having advanced just before the bridge, so that the players get to see the horde and realize their danger regardless of what happens here at the bridge

As far as actual stats, I use Hellhounds and the Dragon as written (I use a young adult Green Dragon). You could update the Dragon to have a bull rush feature: once a turn, after a successful melee attack from the Dragon, a player must make a DC 15 Str save or be shoved ten feet and knocked prone. I didn’t for this combat, because this is my first Dragon in DnD 5 and I wanted to see how it plays unchanged, but it could make the fight more dynamic in terms of the dragon’s tactics (knocking people off the chasm) and is specifically mentioned in the original campaign.

The only changes I make are to the Hobgoblins, which I turn into archers from Revenge of the Horde. If you don’t have access to this, then boost archer to-hit and damage values and give them a 1d4 additional to attack value if they don’t move on their turn. I recommend either boosting the Dragon’s health or adding more hellhounds if your party size is greater than four adventurers.

Together the group of about 20 marched down the Dawn’s Way towards their destination: the Skull Gorge Bridge. Soranna had sent eighteen of her warriors with them to guard them and to help in the assault on the bridge. Now their swords and spears glinted in the late day light, the same light which turned the trees around them into a reddish brown color like that of blood.

Tyrion heard the voice before the others, or maybe they never heard it at all. “Come,” it called. “Leave this group behind. The bridge is not more than a quarter mile ahead. You need not have their help to claim it. Charge it: destroy it: this is something you and you alone can do.”

Tyrion actually found himself stepping forward before he broke free of the spell. He halted suddenly and pulled free his axe. “Show yourself fiend!” he called. “I will not be fooled by your tricks!”

His challenge actually met with a response: a small goblin emerged onto the path, hands held up in placation.

“I am a friend,” the creature said in a small voice. “Or at least an enemy of your enemies.” The creature began to explain. He was the king of a forest goblin tribe that had been forced to do the bidding of the hobgoblins. The king was chafing under their rule and now saw a way out. By destroying the bridge, the King would gain time to hide his people throughout the woods and prepare to harry the hobgoblins as they made the more difficult, longer trip around the Skull Gorge.

The goblin’s story is a good one. Tyrion is nearly convinced. If the group did not spend an inspiration point, he would have fallen under the Goblin’s spell and become a non-participant in the upcoming ambush. As it is, he rolls again, fights off the spell, and the real battle begins!

Pre-Battle Ambush: Because I know the party is headed for the bridge at full power, with a team of NPC warriors with them, and because they didn’t kill Wyrmlord Koth who by now has warned the horde of their involvement, I decide to set up a pre-bridge encounter to (a) demonstrate the horde is taking them seriously and stepping up their game accordingly; and (b) to spend some of their resources before they face the Dragon.

This encounter is based off another in the campaign and includes one Ogre, four veteran Hobgoblin Warriors, and one Barghest who ambush the party from the woods as they make their way towards the bridge. To make the combat more interesting, I have the Barghest approach the group in its goblin form first and try two spells.

First, suggestion on the member of the party who has used the most bash-and-brawl tactics in prior battles with the horde. He lays the suggestion that this one should run ahead alone to the bridge and take it out! If successful, this splits the party, as the Barghest and his allies hidden in the woods close in after the one member has dashed ahead.

Second, if this fails, he tries to use Friend on the same party member before combat starts so that once combat begins, the charmed party member will be an ally. Sure, Friend isn’t the most powerful charm spell—Tyrion would not have attacked his own party—but it is one the DM can have some fun with. For instance, Tyrion would not have seen the Barghest as a threat either and he would have wasted turns and actions trying to either get his “companions” to stop fighting each other or would have purely focused on the veterans and ogre, while healing the Barghest.

Lastly, the Ogre is under a berserk potion, giving him advantage on all hits, though advantage to be hit as well. His AC is already so low that he’s not really giving anything up by being at advantage to be struck while he gains a lot from his own advantage. Even so, if your party has more people or very strong fighters, I suggest giving him resistance to normal damage as well, and maybe even throwing in a second attack. Buff him up a bit to draw out the fight.

The point of this pre-ambush is to slow the party down and waste some of their resources (including their NPC companions) before the bridge. In this case, it causes an even more interesting scenario, as Nysyries grabs the C4 and transforms into a Quetzalcoatl, then takes off flying for the bridge, leaving her companions to fight these monsters, and preparing to take on the suicide mission alone.

Enemy Tactics: There are four combatant groups at the bridge, and each has slightly different tactics. The Hellhounds are the most mindless, just rushing and attacking, even pursuing fleeing characters into the woods. The Hobgoblin archers take full advantage of their position to gain cover while aiming down at the players (+1d4 to all attack rolls). The Hobgoblins across the bridge take a while to prep for combat. They are there to replace the archers in case the heroes crush the enemy forces in the first few turns, or to add their forces to the situation in case the heroes are slow to whittle down the archers.

The dragon, of course, is this combat’s big contender. His main goal is to protect the bridge and drive off attackers. He is very aggressive, liking to stay airborne for the most part, even willing to take attacks of opportunity to get back in the air. He will use his breath from up there whenever he recharges it, hoping to catch a big group, but fine piling on damage to one character. Similarly, he will focus his multi-attack on the weakest AC party member, seeking to take them down one at a time. He won’t focus on unconscious party members (another dragon has that as his specialty), giving the party a chance to heal. 

At first, the Dragon is more arrogant and taunting. He wants the players to get onto the bridge so he can fly under it, protecting himself when it isn’t their turn, and (if you’ve used the updated dragon bull rush feature) try to shove them off. He’ll essentially lure them onto the bridge for this purpose and then let the archers do their work. If they hang back, he’ll fly behind them and drive them towards the bridge.

If the bridge goes down, he’ll become enraged and rush into combat, forgetting his tricks in favor of killing the players as quickly as possible. Of course, if this happens while they are between the chasm and him, he may very well drive them into the chasm still!

How does it go: Nysyries makes a huge gamble by heading for the bridge herself. She spots the dragon, but keeps to her mission. Of course, the Dragon intercepts her midair and tears her to shred in a single brutal attack. Nysyries turns back into her humanoid form and begins to fall from 120 feet up. I think this is the end... but then I’ve forgotten that she has multiple uses of her beast transform each day!

In a sudden gust of wind and magic, Nysyeries transforms back into her flying form, lets the fall give her momentum, and glides down towards the bridge, still clutching the bomb. The Dragon realizes what is happening too late. Nysyeries lets go of her package and swoops up into the air again.

We roll a d100 to see if the bomb explodes. It is a 78% chance, based on the force of impact. Nysyries rolls well within that and the bridge goes up in a vast explosion of stone and fire. It is a suicide mission, however. Nysyries, in  Quetzalcoatl form, lets out a triumphant screech and tries to fly away, but the Dragon is on her. It rends at her, landing a critical hit and absolutely wrecking her. In a single blow, it tears through her beast form, digs into her normal hit points, but leaves her conscious. However, this time when she transforms there is no going back.

Nysyries falls. Nearly 200 feet she falls, into stone and fire and destruction. She has time for a single action, which she uses to down an invulnerability potion. Then we roll damage on this (halving it for her potion). We rule that if she strikes the water unconscious, she is dead by drowning. And with 19d6, we are pretty sure this is it.

Except, no. She survives by 2 hit points.

It is a glorious moment for all of us. Against all odds, Nysyries lives in what is probably the most epic moment of my GMing career. Dodge a dragon, blow up a bridge, fly out of an explosion only to be mauled by the dragon, and fall out of the sky into seeming death. Even the dragon thinks she is gone. But fate reaches down and saves her! Regardless, she is out of the game for a moment, we’ll come back to her in a future post.

Meanwhile, when Tyrion and Trakki arrive they find a very pissed off dragon! It takes them on in a rush of claw and fang and poison breath. But a lot of things go wrong here for the dragon. First, it never successfully recharges its breath weapon, so it only gets to use it once. Then, too, it fails a large majority of its rolls, rolling under 10 on the dice more than half the time. This bad luck carries into the rest of the combat: the dragon fails two of its easy saves against Tyrion’s hypnotic pattern, which stuns it. On one of these stuns, the Dragon is airborne and crashes to the ground, taking some damage and coming to. But on the second one, it is on land and so the party has the chance to run back into the woods and escape.

It is still an incredibly tense fight, though, in large part because of Tyrion’s cursed axe. Oh that curse... it forces Tyrion to stay in battle and to stay close to his opponents, so while Traki is desperately trying to flee the rampaging Dragon, Tyrion is goddamn rushing at it. Meanwhile, archers and the hellhounds are surrounding them, chipping away at their life. Ultimately, Traki has to grapple Tyrion (a fun feat to watch, as I think both have 20 Strength and Traki’s hangover leaves him at disadvantage to this roll) and literally carry him from the fight.

So, in the end, the rolls save everyone this scenario from what was very nearly a TPK, but that is part of the thrill of Dungeons and Dragons. The “game” is that even the DM doesn’t know where dice will fall, so seeing the players escape this encounter really does carry a lot of tension for all of us, because they were literally one or two bad/good rolls away from being TPK’d. It’s moments like this which make for epic camp fire stories years later. It’s why we play Dungeons and Dragons and if you don’t like crazy twists like this, it shouldn’t be your game.

Special Loot: None. This shouldn’t be a looting situation. Even if your players somehow manage to kill the dragon and drive off the bridge defenders, you have an entire horde just sitting beyond the bridge. They won’t give the players time to loot. Remember: they have FLYING MONSTERS. Seven Chimera should fly across the bridge and start attacking if your players are dilly-dallying.

Overall, I highly recommend this conversion. The major change is to set up the goal of the encounter to overtly be to destroy the bridge, rather than how the campaign sets this up as a side goal. My group chose to march an army down the dawn’s way, so I planned the ensuing encounter accordingly, with the pre-ambush and all of that. Another group might decide to sneak through the forest and try to quietly place the bomb on the bridge in the daytime when the Hobgoblins are sluggish. Truly enterprising groups might try to climb down the ravine and stealthily climb up the cavern or magic their way up to the bridge in the dead of night to place the bomb on its underside. The point is, by making the goal so overtly to destroy the bridge you actually give your players a lot more options in how to approach the scenario.

Next time, the party is split for an entire session, so I’ll have some advice on how to run that. Also, at this point, we’ve exhausted the campaign’s official material for Part 1, but I have some suggestions for how to take some hints in the book and turn them into side quests. Next time we’ll get into that!

[thegmsighs]

Do you have any advice for someone one who new to DMing? (Or links)

WELL where to begin, the DM nust fill many roles and i'm not just talking about NPCs

The GOD (inventor) a DM is the creator of a world nay a multiverse of worlds and so must create a rich variety of countries, cultures, cities, people, lives, tombs, monsters and stories. 

The storyteller: A DM must create a narrative for their players and be artistic, set the scene describe the surroundings, the people, the atmosphere, really bring the world to life for the players

The entertainer: a DM must keep his players interested and invested in the story and characrers and a good way to do that is humor. Good humor in a group is essential, and every now and then an adventure needs a little humor.

The adjuticator: A DM must be a font of knowledge of rules and stats (there are official books like the core rulebook, starter kit and beastiary as well as countless online fourms and resources) and often there can be disagreements over rules and among players, whatever the case, the DM is the final word in all things

The guide: a DM is an advisor and a guide to the players at and away from the table. They advise plyers in their choices of character creation and offer the occasional hint in the adventure but ultimatly a player's choices and mistakes are their own

The facilitator: players will have characters, characters have dreams, riches, glory, badassery, and as a DM you should help them achieve those dreams but again, DM is the final word because sometimes a half dragon demigod scorceror weilding a flaming katana is a little over the top

The enemy: A DM is every enemy the players will face, every danger, and so you can't go too easy on them, make a challenge, make a nemesis!

The friend: a DM is a friend to all players, you must help players when they need it, you need to keep players in good spirits and keep the adventure fun with great adventures and interesting NPC's

I hope all of this helps

Now go forth young master and Good luck

[friendshipadventurehour]

First of all there’s a song from VR Troopers literally called “Hear This Lion’s Roar” which is like.....basically perfect for tonight session since its about the Lions being reborn and rolling out for the big mission

So the gang strike at Crase during his ascension ceremony to the Head Archivist. Montauk fucking teleports onto the stage and polymorphs crase into stone, then gives a speech, and then aggie incites a panic, and then combat starts.

Montauk fucking turns aggie into a goddamn hydra which, fucking just stop for a second and go look up the hydra in the dnd beastiary or whatever because this creature is absurd.

There’s a lot of combat and then Montauk remembers he’s cursed (which, I don’t know if I mentioned this previously, but Montauk and Aggie lit some cursed ass candles and now Montauk takes half the damage his allies receive and Aggie can change any die roll to any side at the cost of 2 AC) and that this big ol’ tank of a hydra has been taking some massive hits and he’s actually unconscious, which in turn drops his polymorph, so the very frail aggie is suddenly surrounded by like 4 dudes. Things took a real sudden turn for the worse.

Mina manages to stabalize montauk, an npc kills crase, aggie goes down but mina fucking flies to her like an avenging angel, dropping from the sky to pummel a guard with 3 consecutive attacks dropping him from full health to 1 (mina has the spring heel boots which double her jump height and the aspect of the tiger which gives her the ability to knock people prone/and take a free extra attack if she moves 20 feet in a straight line first). the battle wraps up very quickly from there and the lions bring forth 14 prisoners. 2 defect, aggie compromises with mina and take 3 alive, and then fucking slaughters the other 9 to gain more tattoos in her quest to save her soul from the fucking juggalo devil.

/a dm aside note, this is the first “”boss”” combat type thing i’ve run that didn’t feel like a total drag for both me and the players, and the first time it’s actually felt like there’s been a real danger to them since the wildlands arc, so that felt good. now i gotta figure out what kind of side quest they’re doing to remove these curses because montauk finds this untenable

[socialjust-ish]

Man, I hope someone is developing a VR DND Game

Actually, I hope there’s two

One of them I’d want to be an Elder Scrolls game where the DM is playing something more similar to Sim City - they’re designing the map, placing markers and obstacles, and they can voice the characters. While the rest of the party gets to explore from a first person perspective. It could be a pre-fab map where the DM gets to pick the targets, or a more fleshed out design-based game - or both.

But I’d also like one that’s more like VR Chat. it’s just a room where you’re at the table to play with friends who live far away. Maybe you look like your avatar, maybe you can pick a theme for the background - so it looks like you’re in a cave when you’re exploring a cave, you’re surrounded by trees in the forest, etc. Maybe there’s even a basic beastiary of monsters you can pull up on the virtual table, and the ability to design your own.

I dunno man I think these are probably a long way off from being technologically feasible but it seems cool as hell.

[zippdementia]

Part 41 Alignment May Vary: The Council at Drellin’s Ferry

This is the ongoing adventure in the 5e conversion of classic 3.5 adventure The Red Hand of Doom! Not only does this detail the adventures of my three players but it also give detailed suggestions on how to run a 5e conversion of this campaign.

Tools I reference a lot: The 3.5 Red Handbook of Doom, The beastiary Revenge of the Horde, secondary beastiary Tome of Beasts.

At this point in the campaign, the players should have cleared Vraath Keep or at least scouted it, they may have the map showing the Red Horde Plans, and they have a couple directions they could take. Some may wish to head back to Drellin’s Ferry, feeling their mission is accomplished. Others may want to push back into the woods and try to see the forces at Cinder Hill. As DM, it is your job to manage these two different paths and to keep the action moving. To this end, if the party does go back to Drellin’s Ferry, you need to put things in place to move them back into the action. The easiest way to do this is to set up Skull Bridge Point as a key factor in the approaching horde’s plans.

If the players got the map from Vraath Keep, then Skull Bridge Gorge should be pointed out on it as a choke point that, if destroyed, should buy the party enough time to evacuate Drellin’s Ferry or set up better defenses. Taking out the bridge should become the next goal of the party--or preparing for the consequences of failing to do this.

If the party did not receive the map, there are still plenty of ways to come to this information. Skull Gorge Bridge might be known by Jorr, or one of the hobgoblins might still be alive after the battle and will offer up the information in exchange for mercy. If all else fails and the players truly are treating the adventure like its over, then Drellin Ferry can come under attack by an advance scouting unit consisting of a chimera and a band of hobgoblins. After the raid, one of the hobgoblins who died has a letter on him dictating that “the main force will be crossing Skull’s Bridge in three days” or some such.

Point is, you have options.

Our group decides on a dual plan: they ask Jorr to continue into the woods to scout out the bridge while they return to Drellin’s Ferry to report on what they’ve seen. Jorr agrees, as long as Xaviee goes with him for protection in case they run into trouble. Jorr has been acting more ornery than usual since they cleared out the vaults of Vraath Keep and found the body of Lord Amory, the foolish lordling who got his people killed by instigating war with the giants. Jorr even kicks* the corpse of the long dead lordling before they leave the vaults, but it does nothing to improve his mood. Regardless, he agrees to meet back up with them in Drellin’s Ferry.

The heroes head back to town, unsure of how the town’s leader will react.

*edit: originally I mistyped "keeps" here, causing some confusion. Jorr did not keep the lordling's body. That would be weird. Although maybe weirdly in character for what will happen in a couple of sessions.

“Three to five days. That’s what we have, Wiston.” Delora Zann punctuated her statement by holding up five fingers, then three, and then closing her hands into fists. They were calloused hands, especially along the insides of the fingers, where they would wrap around the hilt of a blade or mace or spear. Zann’s name was unknown to Tyrion, but he had seen her sort before. He guessed she was a retired adventurer. Her face had the hard lines and her voice a certain stubborness that told him she was used to having to make quick decisions in bad situations and to stick by them, for better or worse. He knew the feeling well.

“Well now, Delora, let us not get ahead of ourselves.” This voice belonged to the other halfling in the room, Kellin Ferryman, owner of the Old Bridge Inn. His voice was silk and his manner sweet honey and Tyrion hated him on sight, despite him probably being a far far distant cousin (an old saying said that all Halflings were related, one way or another). “We have a map, yes, and we have the word of these adventurers, but that is all we have. To take this and use it as evidence to evacuate an entire city, well now... that seems overzealous to me.” He smiled sweetly at the companions. “I mean no offense, good travelers, but you must understand—we don’t know much about you. If a stranger came to you and told you you must leave your home as fast as possible and leave all your valuables behind unprotected, you would be a little cautious, too, I think.”

The implication caused Tyrion’s temper to flare. Nysyries, too, if the growl that came from the Dragonborn’s throat was any sign. Trakki was quicker to speak than either of them, however.

“My lords,” the wood elf began. “You yourselves hired us to investigate the disturbances around this town and in these woods. We are simply reporting what we found and giving our reccomendation for what path you should next pursue. If we had wanted to rob you, we could have hatched less complicated schemes.”

“What he means,” Tyrion broke in, “is that if we wanted your pitiful belongings, we would kill you all and take them.”

Pandemonium broke out at the council table. Kellin was smiling a knowing half smile that Tyrion longed to take his axe to. Delora was pounding her fist at the table and yelling at the uncaring halfling. Captain of the Guard, Soranna, was rubbing her forehead. And old man Iormel was shouting that outsiders could not be trusted and Tyrion’s threats were proof. Trakki glared at the halfling, which was impressive considering Trakki did not have eyes. Speaker Wiston stood finally and held up his hands, which has the slow effect of quieting the noise at the table.

“If we have taken offense at the bard’s words, it is only because we gave offense first. Kellin, the veracity of this group’s information is not in question. The matter laid before us is what to do about it. We must now assume a large host of hobgoblins, perhaps accompanied by Dragonborn warriors, is coming to our town, perhaps to sack it. What are we to do?”

“Evacuate,” Nysyries broke in. “The one advantage we have here is time and the more we sit here talking, the more of that we lose.”

“I do not question the group’s truthfullness,” Iormel said in response. He was an old man with a face like a dried plum, puckered and wrinkled. “I question their bravery. If all Dragonborn are as craven as this one, why then we should never fear a horde of them. All we need to do to defeat them is draw an ominious map.” He laughed, a mean little sound.

Nysyeries’ fists clenched. But Trakki kept calm. “Maybe there is something we can do,” he said. “If we can destroy that bridge, we can delay the army long enough to get everyone safely out of town.”

Iormel scoffed. “Back to evacuations and fleeing! I will not run, I will--”

“You will be silent,” speaker Wiston broke in. “We have all seen the evidence, even before these good adventurers arrived. We have seen the increase in the attacks outside the village. No one dares take the Dawn Way through the Wytchwood anymore. And the Druid tells me that dark things move in the woods. Why, wasn’t it Franco who swore he saw a goat carried off by a three headed beast just last month? Our village is not safe anymore. We must now turn our thoughts to how to protect ourselves.”

Soranna took over from here: “If you three find a way to destroy the bridge, then I will work on the evacuation.”

“And runners should be sent,” Trakki added. “Runners should be sent to the other villages and cities of the area to warn them: the horde is coming.”

Delora stood. “I’ll get a few good men and we will head out tonight.” She shook her head. “The horde is coming... what times we have lived to see.”

The next morning, the party headed up the hill to Sera’s mansion, to see how the halfling wizard was coming along with their special project. As they approached, a loud explosion suddenly boomed out across the town and black smoke began to pour from the open windows of the upstairs floor of the mansion, roiling out into the summer sky. The party increased their speed.

“Sera!” Tyrion called in alarm as they pushed open the mansion’s front doors.

The wizard came stumbling down her stairs, face black with soot, coughing and waving a hand in front of her face to ward off a cloud of smoke that followed her into the main receiving room.

“Did you all sleep last night? Because I did not sleep last night. Do I look like I slept last night? I’m probably a mess. Do you want any tea?” All of this was delivered by the halfling wizard in a breathless monologue and before they could answer, was followed up by: “I did it!”

What Sera had done, exactly, was to build them a device that held enough explosive fiery power to destroy the skull gorge bridge. It looked like a medium sized rectangular package (”I call it Contained Corrosive Catastrophic Compound, or C4 for short!”) wrapped in thick wet leaves (”They are soaked in a stabilizing compound, it’s not a very, um, safe device. I didn’t have time or the materials to make sure it doesn’t explode on impact, so, um, avoid getting hit real hard”).

The item wasn’t quite ready yet: it needed some finishing touches. In two days, they would return to take it and head off to their mission at the Skull Gorge Bridge. And hopefully by then, Xaviee and Jorr would have returned to report on what they could expect to face there.

Notes on Setting up for the Skull Gorge Bridge

When Dungeons and Dragons is at its best, it plays like a series of set pieces, each with different challenges. It needs to be more than just the stats on a page, otherwise it quickly becomes a game of dice rolling to see who got highest, the tactical equivalent of the card game WAR (aka the most boring card game in the world). I’m always looking for ways to make a scenario more interesting and in this case found the opportunity to add in several elements to make the attack on Skull Bridge an epic moment:

High stakes: the invasion is coming! Skull Gorge Bridge is the key point to slowing this invasion. If the players succeed or fail here, it will have an impact on our story. Letting the players know that through the council and all the set up has made this battle more important than just another battle hub in a campaign of battles.

A goal that’s different from “kill everything” and “survive”: this one is key. Almost always, the goal in DnD is to survive and kill most everything. Beat the boss monster and you win the session! Mixing up those goals are the number one key way to make a campaign more interesting. In this case, we’ve set up a great goal of “blow up the bridge.” Doing so may happen without killing all the monsters and it may happen without everyone surviving. It also forces players to use their skills and abilities for more than just monster slaying and forces them to think outside of the box in terms of “I’ll just rush everything.” It also allows me, as a DM, to come up with some pretty challenging monsters, since the goal isn’t to defeat them all.

A wild card item: Items that add excitement to a game are a huge help in keeping it interesting. The Cursed Axe Tyrion wields changed his entire character progression, for instance. Now I’ve thrown in the C4, which comes with both a risk and a possibility. The risk is that if I determine the situation is right (they’ve been dealt a critical blow, or have fallen prey to a fire effect spell, or a thunder spell) I’ll make them roll a d100 to see if the bomb explodes. The possibility is that this is the item that can in one shot destroy that bridge. Even then, there will be a small chance it doesn’t go off and (Sera makes an offhand joke about this, but I do intend to roll for it) a 2% chance that it magically goes awry and builds a new bridge. I make the item this way because it adds excitement, but also because it lets me use the magic crafting rules in an interesting way. By all indications in the official rules, building a bomb like this should take weeks and lots of gold. But my party doesn’t have that kind of time, and I’m not going to let the rules turn me away from an interesting scenario. So instead Sera charges 500gp and builds the bomb in a few days... but it has a ton of flaws. It’s a way to let the rules inform the world building while also not letting them dictate your scenario and story.

A time limit: The players will have one chance at the bridge. They don’t have time for a second run, nor will they have time to strike, then short rest, then strike again. This is going to be one glorious one-shot battle.

Next time we will see how it plays out.