#hands you a pathfinder party hands you a pathfinder party hands you a-

[vartekki-draws]

A different strain of Zuko, Milo Thatch, a highlighter, and Peepaw walk into a bar-

[cavegirlpoems]

A story from back when I played D&D. It might have been 3.5 or pathfinder or fantasycraft or one of that ilk. Might even have been 4e. It was like a decade ago.

So. Standard D&D. A party of bold adventurers of diverse origins and skillsets gets together to explore a perilous dungeon and stop a cartoonish baddy. The usual.

I end up building a fairly typical character for me. A goblin Rogue/Assassin. A stealth/melee build designed to get the drop on an enemy, do a bunch of rapid damage, and then fuck off.

She was lawful evil, and firmly in the team-fortress-two-sniper school of "You know who has a lot of feelings? Men what bludgeon their wives to death with a golf trophy. Professionals have standards." school of being a mercenary. I think I even did an aussie accent.

Anyway her schtick was that she'd noticed 'Adventurers' got to do as much violence as they wanted without social consequences, and she loved violence! So she was gonna do a stint as an adventurer, so once she was done she could go home with a big sack of gold to spend on booze and cake and hot girls. But right now she was on the job, so she was an extremely professional team player with a strict code of conduct. Always be honest with the team, follow the plan, don't mess things up for the team, split the loot evenly. Standards.

Verna was a horrible efficient little murder gremlin who was also proudly guild-certified. * * *

Now, another PC was a chaotic neutral gnome bard who was leaning hard on the 'gnomes are amusingly racist to goblins and kobolds and think this is funny and endearing' thing. He teased Verna a bunch about being green and ugly, which she studiously ignored because - remember - she had Professional Standards.

Anyway, there was a human NPC we met that she didn't like, saying he was a bit stupid and very annoying. Our gnome bard decided it would be very funny to use one of his enchantment spells to make Verna suddenly horny for him and watch what happened.

Verna sees the gnome who keeps fucking with her walk up, wave his hands and babble some arcane nonsense, and now she has weird funny feelings she can't explain. She does some thinking and concludes that she'll pay the human for a snog later, because right now this guy's just obviously cast a spell to mess with her mind, which was Not Okay. Of course, she had Professional Standards, so...

She walks up to our gnome friend and basically informs him: "Hi! I know you just did some magical brainwashing on me, and I am not going to tolerate this! However, because we're in a team together, and I don't want this to become a problem, I am going to very generously allow you to settle the matter with me. We will have a bout of single combat to first blood, and then whoever wins I will consider the matter settled and my honour satisfied, and you won't do that again, and we won't mention it. This is a very kind offer of mine, because I have Standards; where I come from the normal response would be to say nothing and strangle you in your sleep tonight."

And our gnome, who is a spellcaster not a combatant, looks at this and decides he doesn't want to get shown up by her, and basically tells her that if she doesn't like getting messed with she can go back to the goblin village, and laughs at her.

So. Shrug. Quickdraw as a free action. I get a surprise round. You're flat footed, so it's easy to hit and I get sneak attack damage. 3/4 of his health is gone. Initiative. He says he wants to say sorry. I respond that he can say that when it gets to his initiative count, but right now it's my action and he's still flat-footed and here's my big pile of d6s for sneak attack and oh dear I think that's him on -10 hp, so he's not going to get the chance.

* * *

Anyway this kicked off a massive shitstorm ooc about how I just kicked off PvP and murdered a PC for no reason and the game fell apart because the gnome's player genuinely didn't seem to understand that 'mind control' is a hostile action. This was in the bad old days before safety tools and I was playing in a fairly neckbeardy group, so 'a man makes a woman horny against her will to humiliate her and laughs about it' was apparently not a deal-breaker while 'the woman stabs him for it' was.

I still think I wasn't the bad guy in this scenario.

There is no point to this story I just wanted to share it.

[yourplayersaidwhat]

Today’s pathfinder module ran for eight hours. Highlights include:

Aracanist: “Can I linguistics him?”

GM: “What?”

Arcanist: “Y’know, can I, like, say calm down in the soothingest languages I know?”

Orc Fighter: “I’m not sure that’s how it works.”

Arcanist: “I know 84 languages, that’s gotta count for something!”

GM: “Y’know what, sure, roll.”

Arcanist: “That’s an eight, so… thirty-two.”

GM: “… Yeah, he calms down, somehow it works.”

-

Orc Fighter, OOC (about an NPC who bites people): “Clearly, his name is Bitey McBiteface.”

-

Bitey McBiteface: “You must kill me!”

Arcanist: “Uh, quick question about the area, is there a National Suicide Prevention Line?”

-

Orc Fighter: *rolls a nat one on perception*

Orc Fighter, who is 89 years old: “Grandma’s developed cataracts.”

-

Orc Fighter, OOC: “Everyone knows General McGeneralface, formerly known as Bitey McBiteface.”

-

Bitey McBiteface: *snarling and growling as Orc Fighter pins him*

Orc Fighter: “Now that’s just rude, young man.”

-

Orc Fighter: “That’s a nat one but it is a 26 to hit.”

GM: *sigh* “You hit.”

-

Arcanist: “So is it a sword?”

GM, frantically looking through her notes: “It… is… something.”

Orc Fighter: “It’s three goblins in a trenchcoat pretending to be a sword.”

-

Monk: “What is the population of this town?”

GM, off-guard: “Uh…”

Orc Fighter: “Between one and a fuckton.”

-

GM, annoyed with the module: “Aaaaah, why can’t I find the instructions for how to do this peacefully!”

Orc Fighter: “They’re expecting us to be murderhobos.”

Stryx Fighter: “Well…”

Monk: “They’re punishing GM for our peace.”

Arcanist: “Peace in our time, peace in our time.”

-

Arcanist, having used Command Undead on an enemy, tied her up, and forced her to play Tic-Tac-Toe with him: “I command her to place her O in the bottom right so I win.”

GM: “She’s gonna fight that… ten.”

Arcanist: “Twenty-four.”

GM: “She writes it with a shaky, reluctant hand.”

Arcanist: “Rather than win immediately, I am not going to touch the board for the next nine days.”

Orc Fighter: “Civilian NPC is just thinking to himself, ‘Do I want to be indebted to these people?’”

-

On a rather important diplomacy roll, Arcanist spent about five minutes rolling different dice, as he is one of two members of our five-person party to have a positive charisma modifier, only to roll a three, a five, a two, a one, a four, and so on ten times until we got it. The first time, Orc Fighter tried to help him.

Orc Fighter: “I assist… oh my god. GM, look at the chat.”

Spiritualist, laughing: “Oh my god.”

Orc Fighter, laughing: “I have a -1 to diplomacy and I just rolled a nat one.”

[jinbugs]

VIVERE

“Do you think you deserve it? To be punished?” “I think so, yes.”

A Pathfinder 2e Campaign Introduction Post!

MEET THE PARTY:

REVUN (@dovelydraws)

26 years old

he/they/she

A duel-wielding tiefling fighter. Easy-going freelance mercenary from Alephia, looking for a job that pays well and a little company.

FERRA (@artpepkin)

87 years old

she/her

A beastkin elven rogue from Chiei Thya. Playful vagabond who finds herself wherever the wind takes her. She's maybe gotten herself in a little over her head.

POLITES (@mossy-garden)

17 years old

he/him

A tiefling champion. Proud kingdom guard of Crimyria under the goddess Vildeas, who is willing and anxious to prove himself.

KWAN (@jinbugs)

39 years old

he/they/she

A human investigator. Cunning Po Lian scholar-official informant who is in pursuit of a dangerous secret, the centurion pearl. At any cost.

Glitch (@eternalglitch), our game master, weaves all our loose threads into one coherent story.

One fun rule we’ve incorporated into this campaign: players CANNOT share their character backstories with each other outside of gameplay.

It gives more mystery fun! It’s also driving us insane. Pray for us.

(Map created by @dovelydraws, summary also written by Dove)

A lot has gone into the cultures and politics of each of the countries our characters come from. Enough so that it doesn't make sense to get into all of it on an introductory post! But perhaps later in a reblog.

THE STORY SO FAR…

As of the writing of this post, we have now played 5 sessions of the campaign.

Our party all met each other in the small seaside town of Plumeport, Crimyria. We were all brought together in pursuit of the same thing: a legendary man-eating boar, said to hold the power of immortality.

It is believed that consuming the flesh of this boar would grant eternal life, and even just a bit of its fur or blood can extend a person's life, for a time. The King of Crimyria himself has offered whoever can take down this boar a large sum of wealth and a small offering of its blood for personal consumption. He wants the job to be done in time for the Crimyrian Festival of Flight, in a couple months time.

The bounty on the boar's head has drawn adventurers from all over the continent, but none so far have been able to take it down. Many have lost their lives. While each of our party members have their own reasons for wanting to take on this job, Kwan has a very personal stake in their success.

He has, reluctantly, revealed that he once knew the boar before it obtained the power it has today. He has reason to believe it has swallowed something once known as a centurion pearl: a powerful artifact that caused the fall of a once great kingdom, and threw the continent into tumultuous conflict. Kwan is adamant that this power should not be handed over to any king. Once it is killed, they want to extract the pearl from its body to make sure it can never fall into the wrong hands.

So far, Kwan has only revealed this to Revun. Polites, meanwhile, works directly under the king and wants to succeed on this mission to make him proud. Ferra seems to only be interested in the money and adventure. Revun has also said they were in this for the money, but vaguely admitted to Kwan that they also had their own personal reasons to go after the boar, and if he truly believes its power is too dangerous, they will follow his lead.

Once faced with the boar, however, the party was unprepared and outmatched. It was massive, its eyes as large as their heads, emanating a golden glow. It moved unlike a normal animal, and seemingly bore a higher level of intelligence than it should.

After a deceptively strong start, Polites went down in battle, and they were all forced to run to ensure everyone's survival. Before retreating though, Kwan shot the boar with a strange arrow, claiming they would be able to track it again later.

The party camped outside of the marsh, unable to sleep while waiting for Polites to wake up. They discussed next steps- going back to the city to regroup, get proper healing, and perhaps find a sponsor to help them in their next try. They still have a few weeks to get things figured out.

And that's all, so far! We're all pretty stoked and making tons of art and written works, so keep a look out, we might publish a zine when the sessions start wrapping up. Bye-bye, for now!

[lukedanger]

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Ask Game - Mechanics and Story

Knight-Commanders, what is the story told by those numbers on your character sheet? Here is an ask game list with some questions themed around that:

What led the future Knight-Commander to take their base class?

What led to the Knight-Commander picking their archetype, or staying the standard class?

If they chose to multiclass, what does it reflect about them? If they did not, why? Story or player reasons.

What prestige classes did they go for, and why? If not, would one fit them or did they qualify for one?

Which class features would particularly stand out with them - Rage, Channel Positive/Negative Energy, Animal Companions, etc.?

What about their skills and feats - what story is told by their skill selection, or was it pure gameplay?

Is there an alternative class or archetype that is in-game that may fit them better, and if so why did they not take that path?

Is a respec part of their story, and if so why? If not, if they had to respec into something else what would it be?

How does their Background choice reflect their character, and how does it play into their build?

How does their ancestry (race) play into their class and mythic path - do they overlap, or what dynamic is created from that combination?

How does their mythic path synergize with their build?

How does their mythic path synergize with their personality - does it augment it, or is it in contrast? Something in-between?

Which mythic abilities/spells would be iconic to them, and was it their preference or did they prefer something less iconic?

What about another mythic path that they did not take? Is there one that would fit them, build or personality wise, and what might that have looked like?

In your story, does the Knight-Commander consciously choose their mythic path at Drezen, or was it thrust upon them by their actions or some other outside force?

How well do they play mechanically with their romance, if any? If not, which party member do they synchronize best with?

Do they overlap with a party member in role or narrative presence, and if so how do they contrast from said party member?

Did any of their companions multiclass or take a PRC they do not start with, and if so what is the story behind this?

What is their favored weapon(s) or spell(s), and why?

Is there an item in-game that you felt became iconic to the Knight-Commander?

If the Knight-Commander could get a unique item, what would it be and what would it do?

What is the Commander’s opinion of their mythic patrons/advisors - the Hand of the Inheritor, Aivu or the Desnan Adepts, Zacharias, the Aeon in the mirror, Hal, Yozz and Noticula, etc.?

What units did they pick in the Military Council (Infantry, Archers, Cavalry, Spellcasters, Grand Tier), and why?

When the option to pick was available, which mythic units did they unlock and why?

[thydungeongal]

Hi, same anon obsessed with morality.

Okay, I admit that my ask was a bit too emotional because non-evil original roleplaying games exist even in sword and sorcery style (World of Dungeons and Oracle are some I would recommend), and existence of Gondal setting testifies that it's not a male thing in any way.

However, my probably naive concern goes a little further - I don't play D&D, but I use it for monsters and settings. It's hard to invent absolutely everything from a scratch, you know? But this leads to an ethical concern I have - doing this is still feeding into D&D hegemony and embracing Gygax's and Arneson's rotten legacy (though I am starting to think that Gygax was a lesser evil, holy fuck). And let's not fool ourselves here - derivative games like Pathfinder or Knave are still their legacy (though maybe Cairn isn't, I am not sure).

So like, what are options of games that are generic fantasy that have a lot of monsters and settings to steal and that are also both not "D&D but different" and aren't objectively evil?

I know literally a handful of candidates, so I am asking your followers to share. And no, Warhammer isn't such game.

What I remember is:

Fantasy Age is not without a sin, but it's presented as "you can depict these demi-humans as equal people or you can be a hitler, it's up to you", so progress I guess?

Jackals is built on OpenQuest and is pretty generic if you exclude it being about bronze age, but I remember some potentially creepy details of how it treats demi-humans

Blue Rose looks the most morally fine, but it's not exactly generic

Lightmaster is ugh, because it doesn't have inherently evil demi-humans, but it has inherently different demi-humans who are always savages, so it's a thin ice (though otherwise it's a blast)

D6 Fantasy doesn't really have monsters in core book, but there are probably third-party bestiaries that may even not be vile

GURPS does have bestiaries of fantasy creatures, but I don't know anything about their morality

IDK about rolemaster, but you said that it's not good.

So like, which extremely ethical non-OSR heartbreaker that was published ever am I missing? Should I look into Das Schwarze Auge, or does it suck the same way?

Ultimately I think you're thinking about this too much to your own detriment. It's good to be aware of the fact that lots of (especially older) fantasy stuff does carry some fucked up expectations and approach it with a critical eye so you don't end up replicating it, but if you become single-minded in your pursuit of the perfect, unproblematic fantasy RPG you're not only setting yourself up for disappointment but also denying yourself a lot of stuff that's good but flawed.

Anyway, not a game but a supplement for OSR games, but Skerples' Monster Overhaul is pretty good in this regard and does this via simply accepting the revolutionary paradigm of "orcs are just some guys."

Another game out of the left field, Chivalry & Sorcery is really surprising in this regard, because it's the sort of game that gives off vibes of being written by "the presence of women in a medieval setting is extremely inaccurate" types, but the authors actually make a point of saying that player enjoyment and comfort should always take precedence over adherence to historicity when it comes to issues like players wanting to play women or queer characters. But it's in its treatment of orcs and trolls (and as far as I've understood, dwarves and elves too, but I haven't read that supplement yet) where it gets really cooking. Chivalry & Sorcery is a game written by medieval history nerds and they wanted their game's worldbuilding to adhere to a medieval European paradigm. So when it came to adding orcs into the game the authors asked "how would orcs fit into the worldview of a medieval Christian?"

The answer is that just as medieval Christian philosophers mused that if cynocephali or those guys who only had one big foot were to exist then surely they must be just some guys, orcs would also have to be just some guys. This means that they would be human in terms of having been created by God and tracing descent to Adam and Eve and also could receive the eucharist and be saved.

Anyway, all of which is to say that the middle ages were woke,

[monstersdownthepath]

Herald of Besmara: Kelpie's Wrath

CR 15

Chaotic Neutral Colossal Outsider

Adventure Path: Skulls and Shackles: The Wormwood Mutiny, pg. 86-87

When one thinks of Besmara they likely think of "piracy," but her other two areas of concern are 'strife' and 'sea monsters.' One may thus believe that Besmara's Herald may be a powerful pirate captain, or perhaps an intelligent sea beast which either inhabits or commands a vessel. The most visionary may believe that Besmara's Herald could be nothing less than a whole crew of people running an enchanted ship! So when a mysterious fog rolls in and the lights of a ship that wasn't there alight from nowhere, the party may be tempted to look towards the helm, or the prow, or perhaps even the crow's nest to try and spot who's commanding the intimidating galleon... only for the skull at the front to tell you to quit eyein' its aft like some kind of pervert.

Indeed, Besmara has an elegant solution to the problem of what her Herald would look like. It's not a crew on a ship, or a sea monster, or a singular captain, it's a ship made of a sea monster which captains itself and utilizes a crew of zombie sailors when needed. Despite it's skeletal appearance and ghoulish powers, the Kelpie's Wrath is as alive as any demon or dragon, though it can passably imitate the feared ghost ships which haunt the seas at night, able to conjure ghostly lights (Dancing Lights), fearful sights (Major Image), and zombie fights (summoning a crew of up to 20 draugr) seemingly at a whim and wielding terrifying, spectral weapons and even whole ghostly creatures as though they were limbs. Many crews who've found themselves in its sights mistakenly believe its illusions and conjured zombies to be the real threats, unaware that the ship itself is their true enemy... and even if they did, it's unlikely to help.

Have you ever fought an enemy that was its own stage hazard? You don't want to, especially if that enemy can Plane Shift or Teleport with you in tow... or just immediately dive underwater. Though you have to fail a DC 18 Will save to be shanghai'd into another plane, having a ship suddenly teleport out from under you or dive a hundred feet underwater and drag you behind it is a real danger regardless of the situation, and it puts you at a huge disadvantage if you can't immediately clamber back aboard YOUR ship, fly, or walk on water. And if the phantom ship resurfaces right next to you...

Actually, what am I talking about? "If?" No, when. It's a pirate in service to the Queen of Pirates, and pirates are quite famous for never fighting fair. If you find yourselves prey to the Kelpie's Wrath, it's going to use every trick it has in the most underhanded ways it can. Let's take a look at what that entails...

We'll start with the obvious: It's an entire ship. Nearly a hundred feet long and hovering around 25 to 30 feet wide, the Wrath is a battlefield unto itself, but you absolutely do not want to stand on it to fight, because that's just asking for a terrible death. Engaging it from afar means you 'only' have to deal with its 40ft space and 30ft reach, denoting which part of itself it's focusing on defending, which is still a radius that covers most traditional battle maps entirely. Because you're only ever going to be encountering the Wrath on the high seas (regardless of what world or plane those seas are on), staying out of its reach is practically impossible unless you're using Pathfinder's rules for ship combat to engage it with a vessel of your own (WARNING: Do Not Do This), and you will inevitably be forced into melee with it... and then, unfortunately, forced onto it, which as previously mentioned is almost certain doom.

Everything within the Wrath's threat radius is subject to its trio of incorporeal touch attacks, which manifest as immense clawed hands, ghostly weapons, spectral sailors, and skeletal sea beasts of ages past, each one raking over the ship's target for 3d6 untyped damage plus 3d6 Electricity AND 3d6 Fire damage. The primary danger presented by these phantoms is that the party may not immediately know what's going on or recognize just how the attack works; the Wrath can conjure a crew of draugr to fight atop it AND it can use Major Image at any point within its reach, letting it clutter up the battlefield with obstacles which present no true danger to the party but which it can use as vectors for its incorporeal attacks, potentially making a party member out uselessly against illusions, insubstantial phantoms, and inconsequential minions.

Muddying the waters further, Wrath can use Seeming 3/day to swath its draugr sailors in magical disguises to make them appear more important than they truly are. Able to communicate telepathically, the ship can give complex orders to its entire crew at once to run baffling distractions or attack in tandem with it to make them seem like true threats, a tactic especially useful if the party doesn't yet recognize the ship is alive (or foolishly believes that only the skeletal figurehead is alive). Kelpie's Wrath thrives on sowing confusion when it attacks, and a DM would do well to remember that, describing its attacks and abilities in terms which feel ambiguous, like they could be coming from anywhere, like that one fancy draugr at the ship's helm that's dressed up like the captain or the strange balls of light dancing along its sails.

Even if the party feels like something is wrong, they'll have to go with their gut on this one; magic is unreliable when fighting the vile ship. Not because of any aura or unique ability it has, but because its space/reach means it can make extremely good use of its Disruptive and Spellbreaker feats, the former making it more difficult to cast spells defensively while in its threat radius (which is everywhere), the latter provoking Attacks of Opportunity if you fail the check to cast defensively.

Its touch attacks aren't just bad because of the damage, either. Being hit with two or more of them in a round lets it Keelhaul the unfortunate victim, repositioning them as a free action. Now, a reposition is a Combat Maneuver, which means it has to roll a CMB check versus the target's CMD. The average CMD of a 10th level Human Fighter is hovering anywhere between 25 and 35 depending on if they dumped Dex (WARNING: Do Not Do This) or got ahold of Str boosting items, and let's see what the Kelpie's Wrath has for its CMB...

+41?!

ah, right, Colossal size. This thing can juggle most players. Hope your party cohesion didn't rely on people being in specific positions!

In case you're not sure how the maneuver works: if you're repositioned, the attacker can shunt you into another space so long as that space is A) Within their reach, and B) within 5ft of your previous space... but for every 5 points the attacker's CMB check beats your CMD, that's another 5ft of movement. Now, remember how gigantic the Wrath's threat radius is? That's a LOT of potential spaces you can be shuttled into, and every 5ft you're moved from its Keelhaul you take an additional 1d6 damage because it's literally using your face to scrape barnacles and algae off itself. Keelhaul is an especially potent ability if used on the high seas, because the ability specifically states that it can use its repositions to drag victims underwater, forcing them into the ever-dreaded underwater combat scenario. Even if you've got Water Walk or Fly on, it can still shove you right into the drink if it beats your CMD by enough, forcing you to waste precious time getting back into the fight... if only to push you back down again, because pirates don't fight fair.

Also, Keelhaul specifically states "a creature hit with two or more of its attacks in 1 round," meaning AoOs and other off-turn attacks count. If you take one hit during its turn and then get schmacked because you triggered Spellbreaker or its Combat Reflexes, you're going into the soup.

If it doesn't want a victim in the sea, it also has the option to shove creatures directly into the center of its space, at which point victims are automatically dragged into its cargo hold and battered by treasure and captured supplies. This is treated as the swallow whole ability, victims taking 1d10+7 damage until they can get out, but it's not especially obvious what's going on, meaning players might waste their time trying to find an exit door out of the cargo hold or try to clamber back out the unyielding door when the 'proper' solution is to make a new door.

If the party manages to find out that swinging at the phantom limbs and illusions is useless, attacking the ship below their feet isn't exactly easy. The Kelpie's Wrath is magically reinforced, having an AC of 30 (hint: target its measly 6 touch AC) and DR 10/Lawful. It's got 30 Resistance to Acid, Cold, and Electricity, as well as 10 Fire Resistance and, of course, if you find yourselves managing to get past its defenses to outpace its Fast Healing 10, it can still suddenly poof away to rebuild, and if you think you can just use Dimensional Anchor or similar, it can still pop its once-per-minute Rush to crank its swim speed from 60ft to 150ft for one round, diving to the sea floor in a single round to give itself breathing room... and potentially taking breathing room from whatever schmucks are trapped in its hold.

And you know what? I've typed down... 12 entire paragraphs without even touching the Wrath's ranged options. This was on purpose! Because the Wrath is meant to get right up next to the ship it's attacking, and has every tool it needs to do so, including the ability to turn itself and its crew invisible 3/day or shroud its entire space with magical fog. Compared to all the shenanigans it can pull to get into melee and then make everyone wish it didn't, its ranged attacks need a little more preparation and math on the part of the DM, something they may not want to do on top of everything else it's already got. This is because its only ranged attack is using Telekinesis to hurl a storm of whatever garbage it's amassed at targets within 180ft of itself.

The Wrath can catapult up to 375 pounds of objects or creatures in a single action, not only allowing it to throw actual ammunition (which deals a flat 1d6 damage per 25 lbs; max 15d6 for a full weight object), but whatever it may have on hand or in its hold that it doesn't especially value. Since it can use Telekinesis at will and the spell itself has a tremendous range, there's no reason for it to ever run out of ammo, as it can simply dredge stones and wreckage from the sea floor and ferry it into its stores for later... but of course, there's nothing stopping it from using its enemies own cargo against it, or even lifting its enemies directly and throwing them around with nothing more than a thought. Most Medium-sized Humanoids weigh between 150 and 200 pounds, letting the Wrath snatch up two people at a time to toss around like ragdolls, including straight into the air if it wants.

There's something to be said about it hurling things far more dangerous than bricks and cannonballs, though, like casks of oil and a lantern, or barrels of Green Slime, or its own zombie crewmates. The Long range of Telekinesis also means it can get up to some pretty dangerous shenanigans if an enemy ship gets just a little too close, as it can pilfer cargo from a range, loose sails, send weapons hurling into the seas, or even spin cannons around just as they're about to fire if it readies an action to do so. Much like its phantom weapons, its telekinetic power helps make its illusions and zombie sailors all the more realistically threatening, adding to the confounding puppet show it puts on to throw people off.

The Kelpie's Wrath is one of the most dangerous Heralds a party to encounter, because they're going to encounter it on the seas (one of the most dangerous environments to fight in), AND they're not likely to even know it's nearby until it's dragging their crew to a watery grave. Even if they do, a DM can play up the possibility of it being a ghost ship for a while before any of them wise up to what they're really fighting, by which point someone might already be neatly folded and packed away in Davey Jones' Locker. It's not only dangerous for what it can do, but why it does what it does; most Heralds are only encountered if a god is offended, or has sent them on an important mission, but the Kelpie's Wrath freely wanders all creation in its off hours, attacking vessels with wild and greedy abandon. It's one of the few Heralds that an unlucky party may just randomly encounter, and thus have no possible way to prepare for.

You can read more about it here.

[starlightcleric]

Teatime

Fandom: Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous

Relationship: Commander/Lann (pre-relationship)

Other: past child abuse mentioned

For day 1 of @owlcatober! Also on AO3.

-

Cassandra raised her hand to knock on Lann’s bedroom door, but hesitated, her stomach twisting into knots. He would think her foolish. And she was foolish, this was a petty thing to be afraid of after their months of hunting demons. But as much as her anxiety tried, she couldn’t imagine a judgmental look on Lann’s face. That’s why she was here. He was safe.

Steeling her nerve, she knocked.

“Door’s open,” came Lann’s muffled voice from inside.

Faced with the dilemma of entering a man’s bedroom or facing Lady Konomi and Daeran by herself, Cassandra stalled, and settled for opening the door and peering in from the threshold.

Lann had cleared a space in the middle of his floor, and he was currently down there doing pushups. While his normal shirt didn’t cover much, right now his torso was completely bare and Cassandra could feel her cheeks warming as her eyes traveled across his back muscles, rippling from flesh to scales. Hiding her face behind her long, red hair, she cleared her throat to get his attention.

He looked up, then nearly lost his balance as he recognized her. “Uh, hi.”

“I…” Cassandra swallowed, “need your help.”

In a second he was on his feet and to her in the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

Now she was definitely turning beet red from the intensity of his gaze. “It’s nothing serious, don’t worry.” She looked down from his eyes to give herself a moment to think, only to find her eyes resting on his bare chest. The warmth spread up to her ears. Closing her eyes entirely and pushing the untoward thoughts to the back of her mind, Cassandra took a deep breath in and out. “Lady Konomi and Daeran have decided I need etiquette lessons and I don’t want to be alone with them, they’ll eat me alive.”

“Huh, okay.” Cassandra peeked an eye open to see him running a hand through his short brown hair. “I’m no expert at these things at all, but I do know how to use a fork, so I guess I’m halfway there.”

“I just…” Cassandra played with the ends of her hair to avoid looking at Lann. “It would be helpful to have a friendly face.”

“Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for my ‘delightfully freakish’ face, but I can help drag down the class level of this little shindig.”

“Lann…” a million things to say flew across Cassandra’s mind. His face wasn’t freakish. She liked his face. She’d rather spend the time with him. Maybe he could make this tea party bearable. But all she could choke out was, “Thank you.”

-

Lady Konomi was less than thrilled by the addition to the party, but Daeran grabbed another chair out onto the balcony around the small table. Cassandra tried to ignore the constellation patterns dancing around his figure. The Aeon didn’t like him. Cassandra wasn’t sure.

Daeran pulled a chair out from the table and watched her expectantly. She stared blankly back at him. He sighed. “Sit down, Cassandra, I’m being polite.”

“Oh, I, uh, thought that was your chair.” She slid into the chair and let Daeran push her in.

Lady Konomi shook her head. “Try it again. Nod, curtsy, approach the whole thing with dignity instead of like a frightened animal.”

She made Cassandra sit down four times before she was happy, or at least gave up.

Daeran sat to her right, Lann to her left, and Lady Konomi across the table. Cassandra wasn’t sure why she needed more than one fork, but she did recognize that the place had been set for a right handed person. Quietly, she attempted to mirror the place setting on the other side of her plate.

“What in the world are you doing?” Lady Konomi glared at her while Daeran poured the tea into delicate cups.

“I’m left handed,” Cassandra protested.

“It’s not fashionable to be left handed,” Lady Konomi sniffed.

Cassandra clenched her teeth. “That doesn’t change reality.”

“Well, you never know,” said Daeran, passing Cassandra a tea cup and saucer, “if it becomes widely known that the Knight Commander of the Crusade is left handed, it could become fashionable.”

This made Lady Konomi pause, and finally accepted her own cup of tea, apparently resigned to the situation. “Don’t slouch, sit up straight.”

Both Cassandra and Lann tried to sit up straighter.

“Not like that, stomach in, feel the line from the top of your skull through your spine.” Lady Konomi ran an appraising eye over her and Cassandra felt a pit in the bottom of her stomach. No, she was safe here. For all Lady Konomi’s bluster, she didn’t actually mean her harm. “Not the worst. Did your governess never have you practice with a book on your head?”

Cassandra looked at her like she had grown an extra head. “In what world is that normal?”

“I know Lann was raised in a cave, so he has an excuse,” said Daeran dryly, “but what’s yours? Raised by wolves? Wild barbarians?”

“Nothing so exciting,” Cassandra deadpanned back, “I’m from Chesed.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Numeria? I was joking about the barbarians.”

“It’s a real town,” she protested, “but we were nowhere near well-off enough to have a governess. Before… never mind.”

“So if we can’t even sit properly, I’ll bet we’re not holding these things right, either,” Lann jumped in, smoothing over her trailed off thought.

“Yes.” Lady Konomi demonstrated. “Hold it delicately, it’s not a beer mug. Pinkies out.” Cassandra’s left elbow bumped into Lann’s right as they both lifted their cups. “Keep your elbow close to your body.”

Trying to hold her back straight, pinky out, keeping in mind everything thrown at her, Cassandra raised a trembling hand to quickly take a sip from the teacup. And then, confronted with the bitter taste, immediately spat it back out.

Lady Konomi gasped, but Daeran just smoothly took the cup from her hands, dumped the contents over the edge of the balcony, then poured her a new cup. “Try adding cream and sugar. It’s a bit of an acquired taste.”

Cassandra, warmly flushed to her ears again, began adding cream and several helpings of sugar to her cup under everyone’s scrutiny.

She relaxed slightly as Lann began to speak and Lady Konomi’s attention turned towards him. “Tastes kind of like when dead leaves start to get into the water supply.” Lann made a funny face and Cassandra resisted the urge to laugh at Lady Konomi’s scandalized expression.

“That’s because, my subterranean comrade,” drawled Daeran, “when it all comes down to it, it is leaf water. Just very specific leaves grown in very specific places.”

Lann flicked a passing fly off the edge of his saucer at Daeran. “Ah, yes, we can only have the finest of leaf water in high society.”

“But of course.” Daeran took a sip of his own tea, more slowly than Cassandra had tried. “After this, I should very much like to get your expert opinion on coffee.”

“What’s that?”

“Bean water. Ah, Cassandra,” Daeran’s eyes flicked back toward her and her teacup. “Don’t add lemon to that mix, it will curdle the milk.”

Cassandra set the lemon wedge back on the plate and tried another sip of the tea, more slowly like Daeran had. She desperately tried not to make a face. The milk and sugar had improved the drink, but she still couldn’t claim to enjoy it.

The small table fell into silence.

“This is where we would make small talk about the weather, politics, or other dreadfully boring topics,” said Daeran, “but I claim we all know too much about each other for such benign pleasantries, and seek to discuss something interesting.”

“I’m not quite sure I would enjoy whatever it is you find ‘interesting,’ Count Arendae,” Lady Konomi bit back icily. “And this is supposed to be a crash course in polite society. Let’s keep it polite.”

Daeran carefully took a sip of tea. “You wound me, dear lady. I was simply going to grill our Knight Commander on what it was like growing up in Numeria.”

“Awful,” Cassandra spit out before she could stop herself. Everyone turned to look at her. “That is… I can’t remember most of it. Which is awful enough in itself, I suppose.” Her hand started to shake, so she set down her teacup and gripped the arm of her chair, her knuckles turning white.

“Hey,” Lann said gently, “you don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Cassandra swallowed. “I don’t… but I do. I think you all should know by now.” Steeling her nerve as much as she could, she looked Lady Konomi straight in the eye. “You want to know how I was raised, Lady Konomi? My mother sold me to the Technic League to be a human test subject when I was ten. They had never seen a Kineticist who could manipulate blood before.” Her fingernails dug into the wooden chair arm. “So no, I wasn’t raised properly. I wasn’t raised. I wasn’t educated. I don’t know how to drink tea, or greet a lord; I just know how to hurt people.”

She felt pressure on top of her hand, and she realized Lann had taken her hand in his. She transferred her death grip from the chair arm to his hand. “How did you get here?” he asked softly.

Cassandra shook her head, not minding the long red hair falling in her face, she wasn’t really seeing it anymore. “I don’t really remember, but I do remember trying to escape multiple times. They always got me back. I must have succeeded, though, made it into Mendev, just in time to be attacked by demons…”

Lady Konomi sighed, rubbing her temples. “I don’t know that I can work with this, this is a much more severe case than anticipated. Perhaps if we spin it as—”

Cassandra tuned her out, beset by images, interchanging of scientists with needles and… demons with test tubes? That couldn’t be right. And a woman… a woman with horns and wings and a long, red dress…

“Eat this,” Daeran shoved one of the little sweets at her.

Cassandra blinked at him, jolted out of her spiral.

“It’s a chocolate macaron,” he said. “With raspberry filling.” At her non-action, he sighed. “It’s a sweet, it’s tasty, try it.”

Coming back to the awareness of her limbs, she guiltily withdrew her hand from Lann’s and accepted the macaron. It was tasty, and the chocolate and raspberry on her tongue helped ground her. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Lann said forcefully, “none of this is your fault, okay? Look at me.”

It was the hardest thing in the world, but she met Lann’s eyes.

“Your parents might have been lower than dirt, and all the adults in your life that should have kept you safe, but you’re free of them now. You’re—I can’t say you’re safe, because you’re leading an assault against armies of demons, but you’re surrounded by people who care about you, now, and we will never let that happen again. I will never let that happen again.”

Cassandra couldn’t keep the tears back anymore and she sobbed, still holding on to her half eaten macaron. The tears fell for a bit before she could compose herself, before she was able to choke back the sobs and dry her eyes. “I’m sorry—no, thank you.” She sniffled, then looked at Daeran. “This was just a disaster, wasn’t it? I don’t even like tea.”

“As an etiquette lesson this may have been a disaster,” said Daeran, “but I see no reason to let these delightful little sandwiches go to waste.”

Cassandra blotted her eyes, aware enough to do so with her napkin instead of her sleeve. “As long as you don’t keep subjecting me to whatever horrible things people have decided to boil in water.”

“Now that you’ve said that, that is exactly what I must do. Even if your childhood was… lacking, there’s no excuse to not have an education now. What should be next, I wonder? Coffee? Fruit tisanes?”

As collectedly as she could, Cassandra stood up from the small table, took her unfinished cup of tea, and dumped it over Daeran’s head. As he stared at her in shock, she dropped into her best imitation of a curtsy. “Thank you, my lord, but I’m afraid I will have to decline.”

Lann let out a bark of laughter at Daeran’s dumbfounded expression. And Cassandra walked away.

[theresattrpgforthat]

do you know of any ttrpgs where you play as a dragon rider? ideally that would be the main premise that the game is built around, but i'm open to anything that involves riding dragons.

THEME: Dragon Riders

Hello friend. For standalone games regarding Dragon Riders, I was only able to rustle up one. So to make up for it, I have some supplements for other games as suggestions, as well as a way of hacking a different genre to make it work for you.

Dragon Riding is Easy, Isn’t It? By Hans.

You are a Dragon Rider. With your companion dragon and your friends, you will face danger, see the world, and make new friends. Along the way you will take turns playing the Rival, driving the story forward and confronting the Dragon Riders with their foes.

This is a game with a lot of room for decisions about what exactly you’re riding dragons for. Collaboratively, your group will decide what makes Dragon Riders stand out, and what kinds of differences exist between the dragons of your world. The dice system uses d6s, with staggered levels of success. What’s interesting about your dice results is that each one must be assigned to an aspect of the task at hand (Goals, Risks, Traits and Complications), which means that your results well tell you more than whether or not you simply succeeded or failed. The meat of the story will surround the efforts of the group to foil the plot of the Rival, a character played by members of the party who sit in the GM’s chair - and everyone might get a chance to take a turn at this! The system itself feels pretty rules light, and the game its pay-what-you-want, so it’s worth checking out!

Dragon Riding, (for 13th Age) by Pelgrane Press.

The lethal combination of dragon and rider helped create the Dragon Empire. Now unleash the fury on your foes! Full rules for player character dragon riders appear alongside story advice for campaigns looking to add dragon-riding options.

13th Age is a fantasy game built similarly to games like D&D 3.5 and D&D 4e, but containing mechanics that address the narrative side of play. Rather than focusing on a consistently “realistically” coherent setting, 13th Age focuses on what is dramatically important instead. Character creation will look similar in that it has races and classes, but you also decide on a relationship between your character and an Icon of the setting - the Icon being a major player in the world. This relationship makes your character immediately relevant to whatever story is about to happen, putting them front-and-centre of the action.

The Dragon Riding Supplement adds rules to the base game and advice on how to incorporate dragon riding into a story. You don’t just get character options - you also get adventures and advice on how dragon riding might be incorporated into battle, how the healing system works with dragons, and more.

If you are familiar with games like D&D and Pathfinder, then 13th Age isn’t a very big step. However, if you ‘re new to tabletop roleplaying games, this is a pretty big learning curve, so be prepared for a significant amount of rules and lore.

Moth-Light by Justin Ford and RIDERS by Me!

If you’d like a game that can easily turn into a game about Dragon Riding, you can also check out my RIDERS supplement for Moth-Light. The creatures of Moth-Light are supposed to be giant insect-like creatures called Moths, but I wrote RIDERS while being deeply inspired by the Chronicles of Pern - which is a science-fiction setting that has dragon riders!

Metal Sword, by Mousewife Games.

Metal Sword is an "acoustic cover" of Austin Ramsay's Beam Saber.  It's a fully playable Forged in the Dark game, but with simpler rules, easy to read character sheets, and less overall math than is often seen in games of this genre.

The central mechanic for building both your pilot character and their vehicle are "Quirks", which you devise similar to how you would design your vehicle's Quirks in Beam Saber or a character's aspects in FATE.

Alright so you’re probably asking - why is there a mech game in this list of recommendations about dragon riders? I think there’s a lot of similarities between the kinds of stories told in mech games and the stories about dragon riders. You are a tiny, fragile human, responsible for a large, powerful creature or machine. Success in any mission requires a great level of knowledge and skill.

I chose Metal Sword because it’s a very stripped-down version of Beam Saber that is pretty easy to hack. The biggest change you’d have to make is the terminology. Your Vehicle becomes your Mount. Your Vehicle Actions become something like Heal, Maneuver, Sense and Blast. Because you are writing in the Quirks according to what makes you and your mount unique, you can incorporate details about your dragon’s powers and personality into character creation.

Not all Mech games will easily convert to Dragon Rider games. But I think there’s definitely potential!

[drakeanddice]

What Non-D&D Games Feel Like to Run

Pathfinder

D&D, but more. The systems generally hang together better, if thats a selling feature for you, and the if you like waiting for math to be done, boy is this one going to wow you. It's got more system mastery to demonstrate which is cool, but in general it works like D&D, so you're going to do a bunch of prep work, your players will sidestep it, and you'll scramble to keep laying down track until eventually the campaign fizzles out or you do. Key GM moves are: "PREP" "Study" and "Look stuff up."

OSR

Like D&D, but without all the pesky systems. Most of these run on trust and a steady stream of rulings rather than rules. If your favorite bit of D&D is, "don't worry about it, make something up," the OSR is probably going to be your happy place. Your go-to GM moves are, "say something cool," "refer to a random chart," and "say yes or roll." Less exhausting than D&D, but you're still doing most of the heavy lifting here.

Shadowrun

Watch your friends make complicated characters and then do hours of leg work in hopes of not having to engage overmuch with the combat system. If you've got a Decker, try and keep everyone who is not a Decker engaged as they pull off a solo mission in cyber space. Then do it again as the Mage goes Astral. If you're lucky the plan ends there. If you aren't, you'll probably get to check out the combat rules as the run goes sideways. It's like D&D, but you prep three times as much, roll three times as many dice, shopping trips take even longer, and your party will plan entire sessions to death. Your go to moves here are "wait," "forcibly shift the spotlight" and "look up a rule."

Call of Cthulhu

It's D&D, but you are constructing a mystery. The more they know about it the less able to disentangle it the characters become. There are combat stats and a bestiary despite combat being a fail state. Many such traps exist and you are going to need to tapdance to avoid them. Your go to move is "reveal something spooky; kill a character" and "footstomp a clue."

Savage Worlds

It's D&D, I guess. I mean in a pinch. It's genre-nonspecific and runs on dice pools, but don't let that put you off. The GM is still responsible for cooking up a scenario, awarding experience, and handing out Bennies when the players play their characters according to their Bonds/Ideals/Flaws (okay edges and hindrances, fine) or when they are performing roleplay to your liking. It's fine. It's D&D but you can wear a cool Indiana Jones hat or a jetpack if you want. Go to moves include, "roll, I guess" "make it pulp" and "your performance amuses Caesar"

Powered By the Apocalypse

Despite some early installment weirdness in which one of these is literally D&D, these are not D&D. Prep is minimal, narrative is player-directed, and there's a larger focus on genre and fictional positioning. Fewer rules to memorize, but the way those rules work do <i>not</i> like you fucking with them. Yield to the fiction, hang on loosely. If you play the mechanics, everything falls apart. You've been warned. Your moves are "lean on genre convention" "stir up drama" "feel like you're not calling for enough moves, drastically over-correct and ruin fucking everything."

Forged In the Dark

It's D&D but not remotely. You're a game master for about 30 minutes, and then you are another excited voice in the writer's room. Set up the initial position and then strap the fuck in. This is the only game I've played that will fight you, like full on bottle and chains fight you if you prep. Your go to moves are "build consensus" "ask a question that spurs half an hour of play" and "begin designing a hack."

[canonkiller]

Loving your D&D stuff.

thank you! however you are going to get a long answer because you have opened an opportunity for me to list things, which is my favorite

very few of the campaigns I'm in / have latched on to that my friends play are actually in D&D any more, for various reasons (primarily 1. WOTC sucks, 2. the system is not really designed for the kind of thing we like the most, which is "impactful character choices," and 3. "why play skyrim as a farming sim"). The games I've been a full player in are, aside from 5e:

Eberron / An Airship Is A Horse That Loves You is in Pathfinder 2e! We started in D&D 5e, which is why there are some semi-homebrewed imports, but it's a very similar system to 5e in gameplay PLUS Pathbuilder is a desktop and app program that will automatically put together character sheets for you, which is arguably the worst part of 5e. It's great, and I highly recommend considering it as an alternative to 5e if you're wanting something that still has the combat rolls and everything but also has more innate design for doing shit as a character. ALSO also there's a ton of included assistive devices, which range from normal stuff like wheelchairs and hearing aids to specifically magical stuff like my favorite: a wheelchair that has legs and can kill. Derien is my PC in this one, fresh out of the oven.

The only other actually active PC status I have had in this group was in an Eyes On The Prize oneshot! EOTP is a fake-marriage game (made by @iraprince !) with flexible setting / character guidelines that's played with a deck of cards, and I highly recommend it for shenanigans. My character was Moonlight Saidluck, a bug centaur fae who accidentally let a human into the fairy world and was pretending this newcomer was their partner and definitely not a human who had accidentally entered the fairy world. I played the one shot with two other couples, which did make it run overtime, but it was a delight. We also had very little trouble playing remotely, with one person in charge of cards and points tracking on an online draw-party style page.

The other games I'm more a spectator in, and then occasionally contribute ideas like fucked up boats or extended debates about magical darkness and the water cycle. That big list of alternative systems is ~

Persona: The Tabletop RPG (PersonaBS)

Quest (Luxknights)

Kids on Bikes (Streams of Consciousness)

Lancer

Beam Saber (AFI, but we haven't been calling it that)

Girl by Moonlight (MMM / Magical Girls)

Cyberpunk TTRPG

Numenera

Monster of the Week

aaand probably more that I'm forgetting because we're. Quite prolific about our play pretend time (and I've got a few concepts brewing that I still really want to nail down - Tanglethorn, the unnamed one about the sinkhole and Bad Hand may grace this list someday if I really buckle down to iron out the wrinkles)

I'm glad you're enjoying my little guys though! I just love a chance to get people into other TTRPG systems, especially when most of them are easier to learn and play than D&D and there's such a wide range of options.

Here's a little Moonlight png, as a reward for reading

[euphoniumpets]

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM | CHAPTER SIX

Prompt: ''As long as I can rememer, I've been protecting Alina, it's always Alina who I will protect,'' You told him, looking at Nikolai. ''But who will protect you?''

Warnings: Violence, blood and gore.

Please don’t plagiarize my work - I spend a lot of my time writing, copying and pasting destroys that. 

Pairing: Nikolai Lantsov x Starkov! Reader

Taglist: @lyria-skyfall@khaleesihavilliard@shine101 @waddlingwanderer @clqudias @ducks118 @xceafh@peakyispunk @wilmasvensson @parbatai-winchester @priincehoseok@riot-in-my-soulsoul @feyredarling92 @vendy021 @ssprayberrythings @goldenpoison @shine101@lili-of-the-dream @xushisuxi @pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy@jennylil@themermaidscales82

Tag list are closed!

A/N: the plot thickens y'all and this is a long chapter so be prepared! also, two chapters in a week who am i? i couldn't help myself but to publish this chapter lmao

old masterlist | navi | new masterlist

prologue - one - two - three - four - five - six - seven - eight - nine - ten - eleven - epilogue

‘’Alina!’’

You screamed at the top of your lungs while you tried to run after the carriage. You heard Mal’s voice next to you as both of you tried to get to her. ‘’Alina,’’ You whispered when you couldn’t run anymore. It was no use running anymore, and your hope was gone when you saw her being dragged away by the other Grisha. 

You couldn’t believe your own eyes when you saw that your sister was a Sun Summoner, from the moment you got into the Fold and then when one of the Volcra grabbed her, you saw a searing burst of light appear. You couldn’t believe it yourself when you saw the light from General Kirigian’s tent appear after you had woken up. 

You didn’t know where Mal went next after that. You walked around the camp to try and find him to explain that you both needed to get Alina. You weren’t going to let go of your sister that easily, and you know that Mal wasn’t either. 

The next days at the camp, all of you gathered as the captain delivered the letters to them from their loved ones. You hoped that Alina had the time to write letters to you and Mal after she got taken to Os Alta. However, you looked at your captain with disappointment when he didn’t call your name. ‘’You know, she’s probably busy,’’ You replied when you noticed Mal’s expression and tried to ignore Mikhael and Dubrov’s conversation next to you. 

Mal didn’t answer, and you sighed knowing that he was sad that Alina didn’t even write back to you. ‘’Pathfinders, a new open assignment has come down from Os Alta,’’ Bohdan informed, and you snapped your head to him with a curious expression. ‘’Every unit north of Chernast is tasked with volunteering a tracking party, General Kirigian is offering a visit to the Little Palace for the one who can find Morozova’s stag,’’ 

You and Mal met each other’s gazes at the information. You two knew one thing, Alina. If you two volunteered you could be with Alina at the little palace. You went back for the drawing in Bohdan’s hands when you heard the people chuckle. You knew the stories and the tales about the stag being a myth, but if your sister is the sun summoner, you didn’t know what to believe anymore. 

You narrowed your eyes at the drawing and you knew the drawing was coming from Alina. She was a gifted drawing from what you’d seen. ‘’That’s right, the ancient, mythical creature,’’ Bodhan spoke. ‘’Except in the flesh, if you please,’’ He replied and scrolled up the roll. ‘’So, volunteers?’’ You looked at your team and heard they were all chuckling with disbelief. ‘’The black general has finally lost it,’’ You heard Dubrov speak with disbelief. 

‘’Wasting our soldiers on Second Army nonsense, now they have a sun summoner, all the old folk tales are back on the table,’’ Bodhan spoke and you felt some of the gazes on you. You and Mal gave each other a look before you two raised your hands. ‘’We’ll do it,’’ You spoke with confidence in your voice. ‘’We’ll go,’’ Mal added. 

-

Finding the stag was tricky in the cold as you four kept walking in the forest. ‘’What’s that in your hand?’’ You heard Mikhael ask from behind. You sighed and shook your head towards your friends. Sometimes, you found it hard to believe that the two of them was your friends. ‘’Nothing,’’ Dubrov answered. ‘’Did you pick up the stag shit, Dubrov?’’ Mikhael questioned. ‘’In case we don’t find the actual stag,’’ You saw Mal bent down on the ground. ‘’You found anything?’’ You asked him. ‘’We’re close,’’ You heard him reply and you nodded. ‘’This way,’’ Mal spoke as you followed after. 

Several days had gone and you slowly began to lose hope to find the stag but you tried to believe in Mal. You had a strange gut feeling that you were close than ever and that you couldn’t describe. You missed Alina, you couldn’t remember how long it was that you two had been keeping apart for so long. Sure, the two of you were separated before you’d been assigned to the first army but you still kept in touch. And now when she didn’t answer your letters or even returned them, it felt strange. 

The wind slapped against your face and you shivered but you kept walking forward. ‘’What’s worse? The frost or the Fold?’’ You heard Dubrov's question. ‘’The Fold,’’ You all answered. Mal stopped in his tracks for a moment before facing you as he wrapped another scarf. ‘’I’m fine,’’ You uttered as he gave you a look in response. ‘’You’re shivering, what would Alina say when she got to know that you died in the frost?’’ Mal questioned. 

‘’Well, she would kill me and then you and then me again,’’ You remarked as you heard him chuckle before you walked again. You sighed with exhaustion and stopped when you heard Mikhael’s voice. ‘’We’re crossing into Fjerdan territory,’’ He shouted through the stormy winds. You all turned back to him as you saw the mark on the tree. ‘’No,’’ You heard Dubrov reply and you looked at him with confusion. ‘’Ash trees are sacred, they won’t mark them,’’ Mikhael explained. ‘’Are you sure the herd went that way?’’ Dubrov asked Mal hesitantly. 

‘’Last chance to turn around,’’ Mal responded. ‘’And have you two split the prize? Keep up!’’ Mikhael said with a grin and walked before you. You and Mal gave each other a look before following after them. 

-

Night had fallen, and you kept shivering in the tent next to Mal. You couldn’t sleep, and Mal had drifted off when he told you that he was going on the first watch. You saw his eyelids fluttering shut, and you smiled softly at him. You twisted and turned, and with a frustrating sigh, you gave up trying to fall asleep in the cold. You pulled your blanket off your body and put on your clothes before walking out in the cold silence. 

You took a deep breath when you felt the cold on your face as you gripped your rifle tightly before looking at your surroundings. Suddenly, you felt a strange feeling on the tip of your stomach. You didn’t know why, but you heard a noise from deeper inside the woods, and you spared a final glance at the tent before following the sound. 

‘’Y/N? What is it?’’ You heard Mikhael whisper as he held the lamp in his hand. You snapped your head around and saw a Fjerdan choking Mikhael in the darkness. You pointed your rifle, and before you were about to shoot, you realized that your gun wasn’t loaded. ‘’Shit,’’ You cursed with panic and dropped the rifle before sprinting toward Mikhael and the Fjerdan. You threw a punch and saw him fall unconscious. You let out a yelp with surprise when another one came from nowhere and with your quick reflexes you dodged the bullet and grabbed his rifle before throwing him a punch. 

You dodged his punches and you heard a gunshot in the air firing at the Fjerdan as you saw Dubrov not far away with his rifle. You grunted when another Fjerdan tackled you down on the ground. ‘’Y/N!’’ You heard Mal exclaim before he tackled the Fjerdan away from you. You gasped and saw Fjerdan grab his knife while Mal tried to dodge his attacks. You looked around at your surroundings before grabbing a stick and swinging it against his head. 

The Fjerdan fell over to Mal’s side unconscious. ‘’Y/N, Mal, Help!’’ You heard Dubrov’s call. You grabbed the rifle that you knocked on one of the Fjerdans and began to run to Dubrov. However, you felt rope attaching to your feet, making you stumble and fall on the ground with a grunt. You looked around and saw Mal was on the ground as well as he tried to cut the rope off with his knife before tossing it to you. 

You grabbed the knife quickly before cutting the ropes off and you heard a gunshot coming off. You grabbed your rifle and saw Mikhael shoot the Fjerdan’s head off. ‘’Is that all of them?’’ You asked him as you all gathered together in a circle and looked at your surroundings. You gripped your rifle tightly and you saw Mal taking steps forward and the next thing you knew, you saw bullets, and Mal falling to the ground. 

-

You fell on the ground as you felt blood coming from your mouth as one of the Fjerdans punched you. You grunted and groaned in pain when you felt him knock you down to the ground. You whimpered in pain as your eyes were glossy when you saw Mal lying on the ground and he didn’t move at all. You begged the saints that he was alive and you tried to fight to keep yourself alive. You let out a sob when you saw one of the Fjerdans pierce a sword into Mikhael’s stomach and you closed your eyes in pain when you heard his scream. 

‘’She’s a stubborn one,’’ You heard one of them comment as he kicked you, making you grunt. ‘’Make sure the other one is dead and kill her quickly,’’ One of them spoke. You felt someone grab you and you tried to fight him off but you were too weak. You let out a scream and before you knew it you heard a gunshot. 

You gasped when you felt the Fjerdan release you and drop to the ground. You turned to your side and saw Mal moving. ‘’Mal,’’ You spoke, your voice weak as he walked towards you with wobbly steps. ‘’I got you, I got you,’’ He replied as he held you. ‘’They’re gone,’’ You sobbed. 

‘’They’re gone,’’ You cried in his arms as Mal looked at his dead friends on the ground. ‘’It’s okay, we’re okay,’’ Mal spoke, trying to keep it together but both of you knew the price of looking for the stag. You and Mal didn’t move for a while before Mal said your name. ‘’Y/N,’’ He spoke. ‘’Look,’’ Mal replied. You turned your head slowly and then you heard the faint noise approaching you. 

You and Mal didn’t get up from the ground and you didn’t let go of his embrace as you widened your eyes when you saw the stag approaching you closer. You gasped when you saw its beauty and when you met the stag’s eyes, you could see the look of understanding and when you looked into its eyes, you could see your reflection. 

-

You and Mal returned to the camp several days later and you still mourned for your friends. You explained to Bohdan that you found the stag and the next thing you knew, you were on your way to the little palace. Your heart began to fill with hope and you were excited to see Alina again. You and Mal waited in the room and you looked at your surroundings as soon as you arrived at the palace. You found it magnificent and you couldn’t help but look and touch everything. 

‘’Y/N, put it down,’’ Mal warned you and you rolled your eyes and put the thing down at the table. 

‘’These are the two who claim they found the stag?’’ The door opened and you turned around, meeting General Kirigian. ‘’Well, technically, he did,’’ You corrected him and ignored Mal’s expression on you. You met Kirigian’s eyes and you saw that he had an unreadable expression when he met your eyes. 

‘’And you are?’’ He asked and narrowed his eyes. ‘’Malyen Oretsev,’’ Mal spoke. ‘’Y/N Starkov,’’ You replied as General Kirigian looked at you with interest. ‘’Starkov? You’re Alina’s sister, aren’t you?’’ He questioned and you nodded. ‘’Yes,’’ You replied. ‘’You’ve heard of me?’’ You questioned hesitantly. ‘’Yes, she speaks highly of you,’’  

‘’And you must be Mal, then,’’ General Kirigian spoke and looked at Mal with a smile. ‘’What a surprise,’’ He spoke. ‘’Leave us,’’ General Kirigian spoke as the others in the room left. ‘’So, there is a lot of deer in the wild,’’ He said and you couldn’t help but roll your eyes. ‘’How do you know you found the right stag?’’ He asked. Mal pulled the drawing from his pocket and showed him the same drawing that Bohdan had and placed it on the table. ‘’It was this one,’’

‘’You’re certain?’’ He asked. ‘’Positive,’’ You remarked. ‘’Twice as big as any other, all white,’’ Mal responded. ‘’When it looked at me head on, its antlers, they…’’ You trailed off, trying to find the words. ‘’What?’’ He asked with curiosity. ‘’I think I saw that,’’ You said and pointed at the strange drawing on the book. ‘’Was it alone? With a herd?’’ 

‘’It had traveled with a small herd, but when I encountered it, it was alone,’’ Mal responded. ‘’Grazing,’’ You added as Mal nodded in agreement. ‘’Show me where,’’ General Kirigian spoke as he took a map and placed it on the table. ‘’North of Chernast,’’ Mal spoke.

‘’No, precisely, mark it for me,’’ General Kirigian spoke, making you and Mal look at each other before looking at him. ‘’Not until we see Alina,’’ You spoke. ‘’I beg your pardon?’’

‘’We know her, I am her sister and Mal’s her friend,’’ You told him sternly. ‘’You let us see her, we’ll tell you where the Stag is,’’ You said and tried to negotiate with him. ‘’Do you how many claims to know the Sun Summoner?’’ He asked. ‘’I am her sister,’’ You responded. ‘’And how many claims to be her sister?’’ General Kirigian asked. ‘’Try to get a meeting with her just to be in her presence?’’

‘’Ask her about us,’’ Mal told him. ‘’Tell me something that only a few about her would know,’’ General said. ‘’Something, personal,’’

‘’Like what?’’ You asked and narrowed your eyes in confusion. ‘’Like, what’s her favorite flower?’’ He asked. ‘’Or what kind of books-’’

‘’Iris,’’ Mal interrupted. ‘’The blue ones, not the white,’’ You added. ‘’Alright, I’ll have you two shown a room here,’’ Kirigian spoke. ‘’And, assuming that she proves you right, I’ll bring her to you two later,’’ 

‘’Fair?’’

-

Baghra was an odd woman. You’d had to take her that. From the moment you met her to see Alina’s powers and her training, she had spoken nonsense. Mal and Alina argued with each other after you received the news of the stag and he decided to leave instead of staying there with the two of you. You tried to get some sense in him, but he was too stubborn, and you wouldn’t leave her again. 

So, you stayed with her, watching her train with the other Grisha and exploring the palace. You couldn’t help but worry about Mal at the same time but you knew that he could take care of himself. While you explored the little palace, you and the General had become close friends too. You didn’t trust him at first, but after proving himself the two of you became friends. 

Alina had left you and Baghra alone after her training and you didn’t understand why at first after she began to tell you the tales of the amplifiers. ‘’What’s the point of this lesson?’’ You asked her as you felt her whack you with the stick. ‘’Ow!’’ You exclaimed and rubbed at your arm in comfort. 

‘’To know who exactly you are, and where you came from,’’ You looked at her. ‘’I’ve already told you, I’m nothing more than Alina’s sister and a fighter,’’ You responded. ‘’You told me by yourself, ever since you found the Stag, you felt something, didn’t you?’’ Baghra questioned and faced you. 

‘’You could’ve told Aleksander that, but you didn’t,’’ Baghra replied. ‘’I didn’t trust him,’’ You said. ‘’And do you trust him now?’’ Baghra asked and looked at you carefully and you didn’t say anything. Do you trust him? After he showed you kindness and the weakest point of him, just like he did with Alina. A part of you, perhaps always knew that you shouldn’t trust him.  ‘’There’s a reason why you felt the Stag, Y/N,’’ Baghra revealed. 

‘’You’re the Firebird,’’ 

‘’But I thought the Firebird was a creature? And not a human,’’ You replied with confusion. ‘’You are a descendant of the Firebird and there’s a reason why you’ve always felt why you need to protect Alina,’’ Baghra informed. ‘’You are her protector, Y/N, and this is why the reason I’m telling you because she’s in danger and you’re the only one who can protect her,’’ 

‘’Who else knows?’’ You asked. ‘’Only me, but listen closely, hide your secret, don’t tell anyone until when the time is right,’’

-

‘’Protect her, Y/N,’’ 

Those were the last words from Baghra after she helped you and Alina escape from Aleksander. You were terrified that day; heartbroken when Aleksander showed himself who he was. You kept your secret from Alina and Mal even though it hurt you and when they mentioned finding the Firebird, you knew that you needed to expose your secret. You knew the day was about to come and you didn’t think of your death that often. But you thought it was time since your time was running out. 

Your mind went back to Nikolai and you felt your heart crack at the thought of him. You knew that Nikolai deserved someone better than you. He deserved someone to love him and you wished that you could be that person.

After debating the proposal he had given you earlier, you found yourself walking through the corridors and to his door. You didn’t think before you found yourself standing in front of his door and knocked. As his door opened, you looked at him with a surprised expression since you didn’t expect to see him half-naked with his robes open. Your cheeks flushed with embarrassment when your eyes trailed slightly down at his stomach and you saw in the corner of your eyes that he smirked. 

‘’Are you here to consider the offer of going into my bed, Starkov?’’ Nikolai teased when he saw the flushed cheeks. You shook your head and tried to snap out of the thought of him naked in your mind. ‘’I’m here about the proposal,’’ You replied and looked at him seriously. 

‘’Yes?’’

‘’I agree, but only under one condition,’’ You suggested. You looked at him for approval as he nodded. ‘’Go on,’’ Nikolai replied and narrowed his eyes. ‘’I will accept the proposal, but whatever I do base on my actions, you, Mal, and Alina cannot interfere,’’ 

Nikolai stood there with a stunned expression. ‘’You know I can’t do that,’’ Nikolai replied before continuing. ‘’I know, but please promise me, whatever I do, you cannot interfere or stop me,’’ You begged him. 

‘’I promise,’’ 

‘’You do?’’ 

‘’I do,’’

-

please comment down below what you'd thought of this chapter and remember reblogging always helps!

[utilitycaster]

speaking of jasmine bhullar, she and brennan had a great convo about min-maxers and i was wondering what your own thoughts on min-maxing were? i'm new-ish to actually playing dnd and i still worry about making myself a problem to the dm as opposed to an asset.

First off as someone who enjoys Adventuring Academy but never has the time to watch the full episodes, thank you for bringing this up - I watched just the debate, and it was incredible and hilarious.

This is a good question. I am 100% in agreement with Jasmine here and she said it better than I could: min-maxing simply means that you read the rules to D&D and decided to use them to your advantage. Reading the rules to D&D is great and everyone should do it (in fact, this a reliable way to be an asset to the DM: know how your character's abilities work). There are a few cases where it sucks but most of those aren't actually due to min-maxing so much as shitty player behaviors that can occur in min-maxers.

I think one reason people dislike min-maxers is that the stereotypical min-maxer builds a character who truly can't do anything except for massive damage, and that does kind of suck, but I also think that that is really hard to build in 5e. You're going to have some other abilities. I think it was much easier to truly min-max in 3.5e, and perhaps in older editions you could really break things (in fact, having listened to some pathfinder 1e actual plays, I know you could).

There is also, as Jasmine points out, a false assumption that min-maxers aren't interested in RP or won't do it. This is very clearly untrue and a few examples off the top of my head from Actual Play that are debatably min-maxed are: Deadeye Cybin (played by Brennan, natch) in NADDPod (damage dealer); Laerryn Coramar-Seelie of EXU Calamity (optimized for survival, especially against non-magical foes); Caduceus Clay and Deanna Leimert of Critical Role (both optimized to be healers, incidentally); Orym and Vex, also of Critical Role (optimized to have a stupidly high perception score), Theo Gumbar of A Crown of Candy (optimized to tank and have a stupidly high AC). These are all fantastic characters with profound RP scenes who happen to also be really, really good at a narrow band of things, but they're also not just good at that. Many of them also can serve as the brains or the face of their party; many have utility spells far beyond their area of specialization.

Another reason people dislike min-maxers is they have a reputation for being ungenerous - for swooping in and stealing the spotlight. The above characters, played by some of the most generous people in actual play, show that's clearly not the case. Also, to be honest, a spotlight hog doesn't have to be min-maxed. It's just a shitty "hey, hey look at me" player. I think attention hogs might be a bit more inclined to try to build a character who is really really good at something (again, usually damage more than say, healing) but that doesn't mean that everyone who builds a gunslinger is here to steal all the glory.

Specialization also isn't bad! The reason D&D is a game where people are in a party is because not everyone can do everything! There are a small handful of characters who are a utility knife who can basically do a little bit of almost everything (Keyleth, Fjord, Moonshine) but they are the exception rather than the rule. Barbarians, for example, are a class that usually is structured around tanking and doing damage. This is fine! You probably don't want a party that's all barbarians because it is useful to have healers and ranged attackers and people who can sink all their high stat rolls into the mental side of things because they don't live and die quite so much by their physical stats, but it sure is nice to have a barbarian in the mix to balance out the glass cannon wizard, isn't it?

If you show up to a table where there is a clear gap in party composition (eg: healing) or there's a clear story the GM wants to tell (eg: very social, requires a lot of diplomacy) and you decide not to fill it because you are too busy building Guy With Stealth Bonus of +20, then that's a problem, but that's ultimately a failure to collaborate. Min-maxing for something that doesn't really help the party is simply the way in which you happened to fail that compromise.

I'm sure there are edge-case, dark corners of D&D Reddit builds that do suck, but honestly most of them suck in that they are actually not good (eg: coffeelock). Your typical case of dumping one stat to max out on another? totally normal, totally cool.

Anyway to get to the part of your question regarding not being a problem: you probably aren't! You're thinking about how to not be a problem to your DM, which people who are problems tend not to do. However, the big takeaways of the above are 1. read the rules of your character and 2. build a character who fits into the world. In the session zero, build a character who has a reason to be doing the things the DM outlines in broad strokes, and who complements the other PCs. If you do that, then it doesn't matter if you min-max or not.

[adhsea]

You should give Pathfinder 2e a shot

Given the state of everything surrounding WOTC and OneD&D, I figured that now was a good time to make a post like this. I know how things like this sound, so I’m going to promise up front that I’m not here to shit on D&D. I played 5e for years and had a lot of fun with it. This is a message from someone who decided to try out PF2e and found a new favorite system, and thinks you might enjoy it too. So without further ado, here’s a few reasons to give Pathfinder 2e a shot:

Tactics and Teamwork: Combat is incredibly rewarding in 2e. Every character has 3 actions, and abilities are balanced with the idea of each action being just as valuable. Attacking multiple times a turn imposes a penalty, so it's important to figure out what you can do besides attack in order to help your party members do great on their turns as well. Attacks of Opportunity are rare, so moving into a flank position is easy to achieve. You can use skills to learn about your enemy, frighten them, knock them into the ground, it's a lot to put in one tiny snippet. If you've wanted more dynamic and tactical combat, why not give this a shot?

Balance part A: This game is incredibly well balanced on pretty much every level. The math in this game is built around the crit system, where every roll that's 10 or more above the DC is a critical success, and every roll that's 10 or more below the DC is a critical failure. This means that even as the numbers get higher and higher, they're still consistent. As a result, encounter building is simple and can be easily adjusted to fit the challenge the DM wants to give the players. It's trustworthy and reliable math that rewards tactics and good playing.

Balance part B: The martial vs caster disparity is much less of a problem in this game. Spellcasters can’t trivialize encounters with a single spell slot, and martials can feel like they have an impact on fights. For some people used to playing spellcasters, this can feel like a huge nerf. There are ways to play blaster casters and do it well, but for the most part casting is balanced around versatility and support. Martials on the other hand are stronger than in any other sword and sorcery system I've ever seen. Seriously if you've never played a martial character because you've felt they're too boring or don't have enough of an impact on the game, try one out in this system.

Character Building part Classes: As of writing this post, there are 24 unique classes to choose from in the game. 12 were released in the core rulebook, and 12 more were slowly released over the game's 4 year life span. They're not done either, there's another class coming in late summer. 2e is a game that tries to make as many character concepts possible as it can. Will you play an Investigator trying to solve crimes, an Oracle who struggles with a divine curse, and Inventor trying to create the perfect weapon, or maybe a Magus studying to deliver powerful spells through the might of your blade? The possibilities aren't endless, but they're not stopping until they might as well be.

Character Building part Ancestries: Also known as Races in D&D, your choice of Ancestry is a more impactful choice than you might expect. At various levels, you'll earn meaningful Ancestry feats that allow you to define how your character's origin shaped them. Your dwarf might've spent so much time around a forge that things like fire and smoke are easier to handle, while your goblin friend might have such a fascination with fire that they get a small bonus to doing damage with it. You can even get versatile Heritages to further define your character. Have you ever wanted to play an elven tiefling, or a gnomish aasimar? There's a lot that you can do to make your character feel truly yours.

Ease of Access: All of the rules are available for free online. Legally. This isn't a piracy statement Paizo literally makes the rules freely accessible without having to spend a cent. There's a ton of tools made by the community available online to help you play too. Pathbuilder is a great character builder that's available for free. The Archives of Nethys for 2e have the rules from every single published book available, even adventure paths. pf2easy is another great catalogue you can search through and filter. I could go on and on. The only time paizo ever really insists on payment are the prewritten adventures, which is completely understandable. And speaking of which.

The Adventure Paths: Paizo's prewritten Adventure Paths are great. They're available in physical copies or pdfs, always in sets of 3 or 6 books, with the 3 book sets being adventures spanning 10 levels and the 6 books spanning 1 to 20. They're written with making things as easy for the gm as possible in mind, and you can expect them to be mostly prepared for player approaches to problems. And hey, if the campaign goes off the rails before you finish the first book, you don't have to buy anymore and can just keep things going however you want. If you're just starting out, the Beginner's Box is a great way to get introduced to the system. It comes with simplified rules and prewritten sheets to teach you the basics if all the rules feel like too much to wrap your head around.

I'm cutting myself off because this post is long enough, and I'll just keep on writing run on sentences if I don't. If you've made it all this way, I hope I've convinced you to try out 2e. It's an incredible system that more people should know about. You can sometimes find people willing to run the beginner's box for free online, and there's no shortage of people willing to help answer questions about the system. And if you're willing to take the plunge right away, I'll leave you with the Rules Index on AON. Just click the tab that says Core Rulebook, and boom you have access to everything you need to get started. Good luck and have fun.

[prokopetz]

Thank you for the explanation! ❤️ now I’m intrigued, though: Where can I find information on why 4E was published under a more restrictive license?

(With reference to this post here.)

Before we can talk about that, it's necessary to understand what an incredible shitshow 4E's commercial launch was in general. I go over that in some depth here.

Understanding the sequence of events outlined there is important because it dispels one of the most widely accepted wrong answers to your question: that Hasbro and WotC cooked up the 4E Game System License (GSL) because they didn't want a repeat of Pathfinder.

In truth, the 4E GSL is what caused Pathfinder; Paizo was one of a handful of third-party publishers who'd taken advantage of the D&D System Trademark License (STL) to produce officially branded D&D products, and they'd likely have been perfectly happy to continue doing so if WotC hadn't come to them and said "hey, if you want to remain STL-compliant, you need to throw away all of your 3E material and re-develop it for 4E, under a more restrictive license, with zero notice – that's cool, right?"

(It was not, in fact, cool.)

As for why the 4E GSL really happened, there are a variety of opinions on that – a lot of it ultimately comes down to internal office politics, so there may never be a clear answer. As far as I've been able to gather, however, the problem is that the OGL had always served two masters. By all accounts, several of the OGL's principal architects genuinely believed in establishing a creative commons for D&D – but that's not how they sold the idea to the suits at the head office.

Internally, the pitch in favour of the OGL was that it would allow WotC to delegate the creation of D&D supplements and adventures to third parties, allowing WotC itself to focus on core book sales. (i.e., the PHB/DMG/MM trio and the main setting hardbacks.) Core books were always the more lucrative side of the coin, with supplements and adventures serving less as a profit-making enterprise in themselves, and more as long-tail support to drive further core book sales. The prospect of being able to get that long-tail support for free was very tempting, and is likely the main reason that corporate agreed to publish the Third Edition under the OGL in the first place.

The OGL accomplished that, to a degree, but it also resulted in a lot of publishers lifting D&D's rules text wholesale – remember, the OGL allows verbatim copying-and-pasting of rules text, which was its main draw from the perspective of third-party publishers – and stuffing it into their own standalone games. This sort of thing was fairly small-time prior to the Pathfinder debacle, but there was enough of it going on for WotC's new owner, Hasbro, to see it as a thorn in their side.

TL;DR version: in all likelihood, 4E's GSL was an effort by Hasbro to rein in the OGL and return it to the purpose for which it had initially been sold to WotC corporate: an instrument for outsourcing D&D's long-tail support to unpaid third parties while reaping the benefits of that support in core book sales.

(Of course, as outlined in the linked post, what was actually accomplished was to shrink D&D's third-party support practically to nothing while simultaneously creating its own largest competitor; it's a fair question how much of this was due to the GSL itself, and how much of it was due to all the other corporate incompetence and general fuckery attendant to 4E's rollout, but either way, the result was WotC and Hasbro pulling the plug on 4E early, and reverting to the OGL for 5E. It was a learning experience all around – though the present business with the OGL 1.1 leads one to suspect that they didn't learn the right lessons!)

[dailycharacteroption]

Book Review: Pathfinder AP #1, Rise of the Runelords Burnt Offerings

Yesterday, we looked at the very first hardback of the Pathfinder system, and today, we’re going back further to the very first Adventure Path under the Pathfinder name! That’s right, it’s Rise of the Runelords time!

By coincidence, I’ve actually started a playthrough of the revised compilation version of the AP in hardback, so it’s interesting to get to look at it through fresh eyes.

This was it, the beginning of an era, A new setting specifically made with D&D 3.5 in mind, and the start of what would become a full-fledged phenomenon.

For many people, this was the first look at the Lost Omens setting, with it’s own gods and lore and the promise of a rich ancient history that would rear it’s ugly head and give adventurers something or someone to fight to preserve the society of today.

So let’s talk about the actual adventure itself without spoiling anything! The adventure opens on a lovely festival consecrating a new temple when a goblin raid occurs! The party is tasked with fighting off the raiders as well as dealing with a few events in the aftermath, but soon after, it becomes clear that the goblins were actually working for someone, and the conspiracy runs surprisingly deep into the town’s past, as well as hinting at a sinister ancient power which will arise in the following adventures.

As one of the very first Pathfinder products, this book helped establish the look of the setting and the system, not to mention the lore! Everything from the schools of magic being tied to the seven deadly sins in the Ancient Thassalonian Empire, to the more relevant “10 facts about goblins” spiel that actually elevated goblins from being one of D&D’s personality-less generic evil humanoids to something so iconic and beloved that they’ve become one of the mascots of Paizo as a company.

Even though it was originally written as a 3.5 adventure, Burnt Offerings offered a rich setting with elements ranging from ancient magical empires to being a rumor-haunted region with at least 3 cryptids lurking nearby, to revitalizing the concept of goblins to being delightful little weirdos in addition to just “bad guys”.

On the other hand, I hope you like the new goblins because with the exception of a few monsters and the ringleaders of the conspiracy, goblins make up the majority of the fights in this adventure. Additionally, while it’s not super obvious in this particular adventure, but the Rise of the Runelords AP in general definitely draws upon the early Pathfinder themes of edgier, more adult lore with more blatant violence and dark themes than your average adventure, which isn’t for everyone.

That will do for today though, and I hope you enjoyed it! And if you enjoyed how Pathfinder revised goblins to be more interesting in this adventure, then you’ll love how they gave many more monsters a similar treatment with tomorrow’s subject!