#pathfinder is one of my favorite games and to see it go up in flames because of a fucking money-hungry corporation makes my blood boil

[quinndae]

this probably doesn’t need to be said but fuck Wizards of the Coast and fuck Hasbro

Rot and burn you capitalist cunts <3 

[infinitemachine]

Minis Gazeteer: Fungi

Being an overview of  various fungus minis available for your 28mm RPG.  

I was actually surprised at the lack of weird fungus creatures. For D&D, aside from Myconids, you usually get Violet Fungus and Shriekers, and that’s….that’s about all there is. Let’s cover those first, anyway. And let’s be honest — there’s nothing spectacularly different about anyone’s violet fungus or shrieker minis that set them apart from anyone else. Here is Reaper’s Bones Black version of the violet fungus:

And their Shrieker: 

Here’s the Pathfinder version, the “Purple Fungus” (links to an ebay listing).

Any particular reason to prefer one over the other? Not really. You could even make your own pretty easily by following DM Scotty’s directions.

With that out of the way, let’s talk Mushroom Folk. They come by a variety of names. The unfortunate thing is that mushroom-folk tend to be really cartoonish. Indeed, you may as well use the nearest Nintendo Toad or Toadette or even Goomba minifig as use most available minis. I’m going to save myself and you a lot of time and only mention the ones that stand out to me. The official D&D version are the Myconids, and honestly the WizKids Myconids are some of the better mushroom folk minis around. They avoid most of the cartoony pitfalls, they have lots of little details that make them fun to paint. They are inexpensive (like most WizKids minis). Solid.

After the WizKids version, things start to turn Toadish rather quickly. However, I would recommend checking out a couple others as well, including:

Otherworld Miniatures’ myconids,

Krakon Games’ Mykelings

Mirliton SG’s Fungoid

Song of Blades’ Fightin’ Fungi line, which is a mixed bag but has some winners.

You can find a few others on this thread over at randomplatypus, but a few of the links don’t work at the above are mostly the best I’ve been able to find.

One last stop for our Mushroom Folk category, is the Fungus Queen, Zuggtmoy. The official Gale Force 9 mini is really all you’d ever want for it:

Reaper also has a Fungus Queen, which takes it in a different direction. I suppose they could both be aspects of Zuggtmoy?

If you want your bard to seduce a mushroom demon, I guess.

Moving on from mushroom folk, we come to Mushroom Beasts. Here we have some more variation and creativity. Let’s start with this 54mm “Myconid” by A Villain’s Lair, available as a 3d Printed mini from Shapeways. (I have tried to stay away from 3d Printable minis for this guide, since i don’t have access to a 3d Printer, but apparently Shapeways prints the items for you? I’m not sure.) I know this is called a myconid, but it’s going to be too big to use as a standard mushroom guy, and looks-wise, it’s not going to be something you parlay with in a darkened alleyway.

Pathfinder has a couple good fungal creatures, including this Ghost Fungus:

See also this undead-ish “Fungal Guardian“:

(The Song of Blades line that I linked to above also has some fungal zombies if you want to go this route.) WizKids has another take on a fungal zombie as well, this time from their DND Ravnica line, the Fungus Drudge. I have not seen one in person, but all the pictures I’ve see make me very iffy on the paint job of this one:

Another MtG: Ravnica mini, which I like a bit better, is the Saproling. It’s not my favorite version of the saproling from the card game (I like the more recent tokens with bright colors) but it serves as a smaller fungal beasty:

(I actually bought a couple of the saproling minis, and I think they go very well with the WizKids shambling mound mini -- they look like very small mounds themselves, or perhaps the mound looks like a giant saproling. Either way.)

 Moving on,  Epic Salvatore Creations has this Phantom Fungus:

I’m sure there must be some other fungal monsters out there, but these were the few I was able to come up with so far. I have a couple other left-field non-standard suggestions before we’re quite through, though. The first is, the Mi-Go. These are monsters from the Cthulhu Mythos, and are from the planet Yuggoth, and are fungal creatures. They’d fit in perfectly but be a surprising addition.   

Reaper has a great Mi-Go:

Pathfinder has a Mi-Go as well:

The Dust minis game has Mi-Go with ray guns!

The board game Mansions of Madness includes two Mi-Go minis which are pulling brains out of human heads!

Other Mi-Go minis you might want to check out:

Fenris Games

Black Cat Bases

EM4 Miniatures

The Ancient Evil miniatures

RAFM

Modiphius’ Achtung! Cthulhu

All right, that’s all the “official” fungus minis I have to talk about. Here’s one more item, though: a while back, I postulated that perhaps — just perhaps — unicorns were just horses that had been infected by a fungal parasite, much like the cordyceps fungus. And that their horns were just parasitic extrusions. This idea had been touched on previously, apparently, by Charles Stross in his short story “Equoid”. Given this idea, I think a few undead unicorn minis would fit in with this list. (Really, if you want to mess with your players, you could just a cordyceps extrusion onto virtually any other mini to make a fungal parasite variant of it. Take it to the extreme: have a dungeon where everything is infected, it’s all one fungal organism.)

So here is an undead unicorn mini:

“Flaming Undead Unicorn” by Stonehaven Miniatures

And here is one more (Chromatiz from Zombicide)

There we go. Have I missed anything important? 

[sopheronipepperoni]

Infatuation

[In which the Sara and Liam literally run away from a problem, eager to make the most of some shore leave.  Loosely inspired by the ‘kissing to hide from someone’ trope.]

Her omintool pinged, and Sara couldn’t help but groan.

“What is it?” Liam walked beside her, hands in his pockets as he turned his eyes to her.

She was jabbing at the device with more force than necessary, shutting off the alert function, practically glaring the thing into oblivion.  Liam raised an eyebrow, but decided not to comment.  He did, however, hear the words, “Insufferable,” “Tann,” and “ass,” grumbled under her breath.

Louder she said, “We’re here for some leave, doesn’t he have any concept of ‘shore leave’?  As in, ‘I ignore all of my responsibilities for 24-hours’ shore leave?”

He chuckled.  “Not sure that’s possible as the Pathfinder, but I’m game to help you try.”  His hand was warm as it enfolded hers, softening it from a tight fist.  She relaxed beside him, her annoyance simmering down as they continued to walk along one of the Nexus’s outer walkways, reminiscent of the Tempest’s docking bay.  Greenery had been added to areas like this, Hydroponics making use of the spaces to run soil tests, and try growing flora native to Andromeda.  The particular path they were on reminded Sara of some of the parks in the Citadel’s Presidium she had seen as a kid.

Life lately had consisted of scouting some of the farther clusters, searching for any information that could give them an edge over beating the Archon to Meridian.  And when they weren’t killing Kett or battling the other local hostile fauna, they were helping out the settlements.  It felt like it was always on to the next thing.

But amidst the business and the stress, Sara and Liam had still found energy to make time for kissing.  Lots and lots of kissing.  Yet somehow, still entirely not enough kissing.

She was exhausted —they all were— and so when Lexi had finally put her foot down and nearly threatened to induce mandatory sleep cycles for all of them, Sara had made the call to put in for shore leave the next time they hit the Nexus.  She had nearly cried when Liam, one night en route to the station, had suggested another date—one he’d plan, not a vid, he’d said, and Sara loved him for doing that, even though she knew he was just as tired as she was.

Hence walking along the Nexus’s slowly-opening “parks”, such as they were.  Compared to the level of action they’d been seeing lately, she certainly wasn’t complaining about doing something more…leisurely.  So leisurely and relaxed, in fact, that both had foregone wearing their normal Initiative gear in favor of donning some clothes they’d brought from Earth: a dark —and incredibly soft— hoodie for Liam, and a favorite worn henley for her.  Something more in cognito as more people were being woken up from Cryo, and civilian clothes became more common as people had off-hours.  

They’d gotten a few looks, still, but less than usual.  Aware of the heat of his hand against her skin, Sara was content to spend the rest of the afternoon like this.  Going for a walk, debating the strengths and weaknesses of classic superheroes, flirting, maybe —hopefully— some kissing…all of the normal things other people did.  She thought she’d kill to have more normalcy in her life, and with a start, she realized that she actually had killed in order to feel normal—to make Andromeda a normal home for them, whatever that word meant now.

She had just opened her mouth to respond to Liam’s teasing remark when someone behind them said, “Hey, that’s the Pathfinder!”

The annoyance bubbled up again, hot and sudden, even as she stopped for half a second to flash the growing crowd a pasted-on smile and a wave.  Her grip on Liam’s hand tightened as she turned away before they could start asking for autographs or interviews or help—she was on shore leave, dammit, didn’t that mean anything to people?  Liam, for once, wasn’t laughing, and a glance at his face showed an uncharacteristic tension around his eyes and mouth.  She made a split decision, as much for him as it was for her, as the footsteps of the people continued to sound behind them, their voices clamoring as they talked to her and about her, less than twenty feet away.  

As soon as they reached the corner of another row of planters, Sara yanked Liam with her, before taking off at a run.  “C’mon, Liam!” she urged, a surge of giddiness swelling within her.  He stumbled a step, but recovered quickly, easily keeping pace with her.

“This is a new one, Sara—literally running away from people.”  

“C’mon, Kosta!”  She glanced behind them, before picking up the pace, nearly dragging Liam in her wake.  “Go faster!”

“Not when you normally say that, but I’ll run with it.”  He was smiling now; she could hear it in his voice, and a wide grin split her face even as she rolled her eyes.  They raced through rows of plants, and down walkways—anything to outpace the people still dedicated enough to follow them.  If she had to guess, she’d go with reporters—always too tenacious to know when to leave a story alone, even in a completely different galaxy.  At least some things were constant.  She let out a whoop of laughter at the absurdity of it all.

Spying a darkened corner, a bit off of the path, Sara abruptly beelined towards it; the alcove was shadowed by a few stacks of shipping containers, and a covered walkway.  Perfect to throw their pursuers off their trail, and buy them a moment to catch their breath.  They had just enough of a lead—

Pulling Liam in after her, Sara’s back slammed into the wall, a giggle escaping her lips.  Not missing a beat, Liam pulled his hood up over his head, before pressing a finger to her lips as he peered through a crack in the crates blocking them from view.  She fought to quiet her mirth, and was suddenly aware of how close they were, close enough for her chest to press against his as she fairly gasped for air.

Faintly she heard the crowd’s grumbling as they moved off in another direction, thankfully paying no heed to —at least what was in her mind— an incredibly obvious hiding place.  Some part of Sara’s brain asserted that they all must have been terrible at hide-and-seek as children, and evidently something to that effect made its way out of her mouth, because Liam turned back to her with a rumbling chuckle.  It came from his chest; she could feel the vibrations of it faintly against her ribs, and her face flushed.  

Shadowed though his face was, there was no hiding the light in his eyes as he murmured, “You’re something else, Sara Ryder.”  

For a second she forgot how to breathe, and then in the next moment the front of his hoodie was in her fist as she pulled him down to her, nearly knocking against his nose in her eagerness.  He chuckled again, his fingers coming up to brush against her jaw before settling in her hair; his arm was firm around her waist as she fought to get closer to him, always closer.

He broke away first, resting his forehead against hers, eyes closed.  She noted, with satisfaction, that he seemed just as out of breath as she was.  “I’m not complaining, but what’s this all about?”

She nearly shivered at the way his words ghosted across her lips, and her hand tightened where it fisted into the fabric against his shoulder.  “Not enough kissing on this shore leave.”  There went her mouth again.  Wow, she really had a one-track mind when it came to him. Her cheeks flamed anew.

But Liam didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. His hand was cupping her jaw again, his body a firm anchor against the smooth surface of the wall.  She did shiver when he murmured against her lips, “Couldn’t agree more.  Let me help fix that, yeah?”

His lips fastened over hers once more, in that way he knew she loved, and she promptly decided that they would be taking shore leave and running away from people more often, if it meant they got this time together.  Especially if it meant he’d kiss her like that.  She’d do almost anything to get him to do that again, she felt so weak—

A thought popped into her head—quite rudely—and she put a hand on his chest; his lips tried to follow hers, before he blinked at her.  “Sorry for derailing your plan for our date.”

Adorable confusion colored his face, before realization dawned on him.  “No need.  While snogging had firmly been on the itinerary, I’m seeing that I didn’t allot nearly enough time for it.”  His hand brushed her side, and she curled into him.  “Walking, talking, drinks at the Vortex, maybe some dancing, before rounding out the evening with a tumble on the Tempest.”  She swallowed, as he amended, “Multiple tumbles on the Tempest.  If that’s okay.”

“That sounds great,” she blurted. “Way better than ‘okay’.”  His eyes snapped onto hers with laser focus, his fingers stilling from where he’d idly been tracing patterns against her hip.  Her stomach flipped.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”  She was reaching for his hand again.  “Although maybe…”

“ ‘Maybe…?’  I’m all ears.”

“Maybe we take the drinks and dancing back to the Tempest.  Don’t want to give people an accidental show between the dancing and the tumbling.”

“You’re a genius, Sara Ryder.  Way better plan.  I’m all in.”

She pressed up for one last kiss before leading them from their momentary refuge.  She peered around the corner of the nearest planter, seeing the coast was clear.  Quirking an eyebrow, she turned back to Liam.  “Race you back to the Tempest?”

His teeth flashed in that smile that made her all wobbly.  “You’re on.”

As they took off, hair whipping around her face, Sara laughed again. This was quickly shaping up to be the best shore leave ever.  She’d really need to remember to thank Lexi tomorrow, and take leave more often, if this is what it got them.  Time to take a breather, step away from the desk for a day…

And kissing.  Lots and lots of kissing.

[obsoletesystem]

D&D Ask Meme

@wisdom-fangs​ asked me to do all the questions of this D&D ask post. So I did. 1. A favorite character you have played. I really like playing monstrous characters. Currently in Adventurers League, I play Frattek Venvaris, bugbear rogue/barbarian, who is a delightfully goofy character. But I also miss playing Bajur Mashoir, a very charismatic lizardfolk "voodoo" shaman, whose catchphrase was: "As you can see, I am an alligator, sir..." spoken in a thick southern brawl. 2. Your favorite character that someone else has played. During a one shot the guy that played an evil halfling warlock sacrificed himself to blow up the big bad with a block of dynamite. The true MVP. 3. Your favorite side quest. Idk. 4. Your current campaign. I DM a homebrew campaign, in which the party is stuck between sides in a war between the local Jarl and a fey duchess who has taken over a part of the woods. I also participate as a player in a slight homebrewed Salt Marsh campaign, in which I play a tiefling cleric of Pelor. She's got a Sad Backstory. 5. Favorite NPC. The Loathesome Gribble, an NPC in the game I DM, who is a very small tiefling sorcerer with an immense knife collection and a four-armed aasimar monk girlfriend. He is found in the most of unlikely places and his signature spell is "Gribble's Hand of Sand", which may or may be not magical, as it blinds a creature with sand, but the material component is just a handfull of coarse sand. 6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc). The druid in our home game charged into giant stag form at a huge burning construct (The Burning Man from Burning Man, but moving), missed his attack, upon which the Burning Man rolled nat 20's on BOTH ITS ATTACKS. No advantage, no nothing, just two straight 20's. He grabbed the stag by its antlers, turned its head 360 degrees, and dropped a flaming, mutilated dwarf to the ground. 7. Your favorite downtime activity. I always like to do something that tells a little bit about the culture of the creature I play. When I was on haitus because of school, I described how Frattek had spend some time with his little bugbear niece, and had just returned from a fun little war (seeing as bugbears love to fight). 8. Your favorite fight/encounter. We had to fight a vampire spawn in a dank, dark basement, but it was light outside, and Frattek is incredibly good at grappling creatures, so we dragged the vampire out from his basement into the sunlit street, and then made a run for it as we had broken into a house. 9. Your favorite thing about D&D. Coming together with friends and not drinking (a lot) or smoking weed. I like doing those things too, but it is also fun to just hang out and play games where heavy drinking is not really handy. 10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most. Dragons are the best, spellcasters are the worst. Spellcasting Dragons are the bees knees. My players, however, are going to hate a certain spellcaster very much. Once they find out... 11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play? Usually once a week, but I'd love to be able to balance twice a week. One day as player, one day as DM. 12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from. "Name and occupation, please" comes from when we played Pathfinder, and one of the characters died, but I didn't want to get rid of him yet or he was set up to be reincarnated or some shit idk. Anyway, his soul arrives in purgatory, which turns out to be this bureaucratic office, where he has to stand in line for a long, long time, before arriving at a booth/desk type situation, in which an Ophanim angel (one of them burning wheels full of eyes) floats that asks with a bored sigh "Name and occupation, please". The player answered, and was set up for reincarnation, which involved shooting his soul from a cannon/drop tube into the unborn baby of a local woman. The child grows up unnaturally quickly, and because it has the soul of a mature orc barbarian, it is more than a little trouble. Nephertheless, the "Name and occupation, please" gag remained forever. 13. Introduce your current party. My Homeboys, the Lords of Okab Volal, are Nazreen, a wood elf ranger who missed her wolf, played by @tabula-wasa​, Tophr Thanestone, the previously mentioned dwarf druid who was murdered by a giant flaming effigy and subsequently reincarnated/put into the body of a frost elf woman (something he hasn't come to terms with) played by our bearded friend Glenn, and Adelon Vrena, half-elf bard/cleric/divine soul sorcerer a.k.a. Healer Supreme, who is really righteous but not above torturing a captive githyanki, and played by Arnaud. The Schadestenen (meaning "Damage Stones", as in dice), which is the OG Adventurers League group in the Spellenhoorn in Hoorn, consist of Aiden Rainbowscale (Albino orphan wood-elf monk/barbarian), Fjorgyn (dwarven cleric of Moradin, who died last week and still suffered from the Death Curse. RIP.), Frattek Venvaris (Bugbear barbarian/arcane trickster and gladiator/luchador, played by me), Gideon Thornton (cowardly Half-Orc Hexblade), Grommash Hellscream (Stereotypical Half-Orc Barbarian. Great guy.), Ruldra (disgraced Hobgoblin undead-hunting Ranger), Cadence (Powerful but stupid Half-elf Grave Cleric/Divine Soul Sorcerer who never learned how to read), Ullr (Arnaud's Gloom Stalker and Human Machine Gun), and Darin (half-elf ranger and Master Of Backflip). The Peeps from Salt Marsh, DMed by the guy that plays Darin, in which Arnaud plays William Wisenose, The Awfully Lucky Halfling Build (halfling wizard/bard/whatever), Cadence's player plays Sylver Ravenstar (half-elf bard/hexblade/run away princess), her friend plays Samm Enoch (Aasimar Bard and Very Handsome Man), Aiden's player plays Ankis (Aasimar Celestial Warlock and very secretive about both these facts because Back Story), and his friend plays Vena Malum (Human Bloodhunter, who is really buff and does that swirly thing with her falchions, and oh my...), Grommash's player plays Morgain of Astora (human paladin of Pelor, and companion/boyfriend/substitute son to my character), and I play Paytsarra Avèry (winged tiefling cleric of Pelor). Praise the sun. 14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed. We had one party consisting of a drider, a very evil dwarf, a fire genasi, a gnome psychic, and a kenku ninja at one point. When the evil dwarf died, and I introduced the guy's new drow "medic", I knew I lost all cohesion of the group. 15. Do you have snacks during game times? My players do. I don't like snacks that much. 16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer? In person. I tried playing online, and I think I would do again, but only if I'd have a really good headset. 17. What are some house rules that your group has? In the Salt Marsh campaign you double the value of the dice on a crit, which I think is disappointing. I just wanna roll a lot of dice :( 18. Does your party keep any pets? @tabula-wasa​'s ranger has a dire wolf...somewhere...

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions? Not that I know of. I do know some of my dice seem to roll better than others. 20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing? I found a d&d character creation app on the web ages ago, and that sparked my interest. Later I joined a warhammer fantasy role play group with a friend I had been rp-ing online with a lot, but this was the real deal, at Arnaud's house. He dmed number of campaigns for us, and later he joined my pathfinder group which turned into a D&D 5th edition group. 21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done? Yeah. Frattek decided to be a hero and tried to assassinate an ogre torturer. He failed his shot. We had to fucking run. 22. What color was your first dragon? The first dragon I fought as a character was a young Red Dragon. Even at 5th level, we whooped its ass. He found himself in a cave, surrounded by fools, and we beat him to pulp. The first dragon I put in front of my players was a young White Dragon. It kicked their asses. 23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns? I usually homebrew my own campaigns, but I have dmed some AL sessions. 24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game? Not an incredible amount, but for my home game I prepare ideas months, even years, in advance. For DMs 25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for? A lot. The most notable was casting Dispel Magic on the demiplane-item the cultists were in... and then opening the demiplane underwater. 26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters. I had these zombies that always repeated the last thing they said before they died, which was cool and creepy. But the thing I really wrote out was the description of how an Astral Ship warps space around itself, and what that looks like from the people on the deck of the ship. 27. Do you allow homebrew content? If it's well written, absolutely, but there is a lot of shit out there. 28. How often do you use NPCs in a party? When it makes sense, but I try not to do that too often. 29. Do you prefer RP heavy sessions or combat sessions? I prefer RP sessions, but I am leaning more toward combat. On the other hand, I don't think it completely excludes each other nor should it. I am of the opinion that 30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos? Rather diplomatic, but they can definitely kick ass. For Players 31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race? I like casters, and I will always have an affinity for wizards, but arcane tricksters and eldritch knights are cool too. I like elves, and I like monstrous races; goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears. I like things that are pretty and scary, or creepy and goofy. 32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?) I usually mix a bit of tank and dps. I don't like being very frail, but I do enjoy doing a lot of damage in one shot. 33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory? I tend to write a character from a concept, and then build out the backstory. How did this person become the person they are today? Even if you have something of a bugbear, or a hobgoblin, or a yuan-ti. They have had a childhood, they have role models, they have culture. But what is that? What defines a character? What makes them they way they are? I don't like playing monstrous races that have been adopted by a "better, nobler race" like humans and elves and dwarves. I get the appeal, but I also think it is a little trite, and a little condenscending, almost. I think a lot about what defines a monstrous identity, and being a Cultural Anthropologist, I think a lot about the way culture shapes the values and morality and thus also behaviour of a creature. Do hobgoblins tell their children bedtime stories? What are they about? How will a bugbear struggle in regular humanoid society, where his violent urges -natural to him- are equally, or even more excessively violently repressed and punished? Is this just for bugbears? Will they then look for each other, and find each other in their shared cultural/natural tendencies? Are there goblinoid lawyers or activist groups, that seek to protect other goblinoids from unjust treatment under laws that aren't theirs? How will your life be if you are a second or third or even fourth generation inhuman creature in a human society? Do they dream of returning to a society that is 'theirs'? And is there even such a thing? And if there is, will they actually fit in, or forever be an outcast, neither hob nor man? I tend to poke at such questions with my character backstories. 34. Do you tend pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor? Everything is useful, since everything is always situational. If you plan only for situations in which you are going to kill every living thing, then you shouldn't pick something like Rope Trick, or Magic Circle. But you do you. I very much dislike decoupling "flavour" from functionality. This is a game of make-belief, so everything you do is flavour. The mechanics are an abstraction of a fantastic reality, and though inherently important to the working of the game (without rules, it would merely be improvisation, which is also a kind of game, but schwa), it is all flavour. People that brag about how much average damage they can do with this or that specific build tire me. 35. How much roleplay do you like to do? All of the roleplay! But please let me punt goblins into the garbage sometimes!

[dailybestiary]

Patch Has Issues: Dungeon #1

Issue: Dungeon #1

Date: September/October 1986. (I was just entering 3rd grade—a dismal year for me—and hadn’t yet discovered D&D at this point. I had just watched Optimus Prime pass away on the operating table during The Transformers: The Movie, though.)

The Cover:

(Use of cover for review purposes only and should not be taken as a challenge to status. Credit and copyright remain with their respective holders.)

One of the notable things about Dungeon was that the covers were actually commissioned for the magazine, instead of just vaguely connected to the issue’s theme like Dragon’s were. The late Keith Parkinson’s “Into the Flame” shows off the star of the issue, the red dragon Flame. Its very humanoid posture recalls Parkinson’s time doing draconians for the Dragonlance line. I’m guessing he was very proud of being picked to launch the magazine—this image is the first that comes up on his website to this day. (If you’re curious, Parkinson’s work in general is great if you like knights in bad weather and big humanoids, but he definitely leans hard into the all-women-in-fantasy-are-bikini-wearing-sorceresses trope, a habit that—like many ex-TSR artists—only got more pronounced as his career progressed. It’s no wonder he moved into video games.)

The Adventures:

“The Dark Tower of Cabilar” by Michael Ashton & Lee Sperry, AD&D, Levels 4–7

Our very first Dungeon Adventure is...*drum roll*...a converted tournament module that is pretty rudimentary: Defeat the vampire in his stalagmite tower-and-dungeon combo (I’m already thinking a stalactite would have had more cinematic appeal), and retrieve the crown that can prove your employer’s godson’s noble lineage.

Right off the bat, this adventure features encounters with fire drakes and lava children! Yep, you read that right—lava children. (Pathfinder fans will remember them from Misfit Monsters Redeemed.) Clearly Dungeon is not afraid of Fiend Folio weirdness.

Beyond that, the module screams “I was written for a tournament” with the number of traps and cursed items and red herrings involved, and not in a good way. Once we get to to the dungeon levels, as a reader I’m just listlessly going room by room till we get to the Big Bad. Overall, a disappointing start.

“Assault on Eddistone Point” by Patricia Nead Elrod, AD&D, Levels 1–3

Our first adventure by a woman author is only our second adventure out of the gate! This bodes well for the rest of the series—wait. Hold on. Is that Patricia Nead as in P. N. Elrod? I’ve never read her work, but she’s helmed some anthologies that Jim Butcher’s short stories have appeared in. I’m guessing this is an early cut from her? And frankly the hand of an experienced author is all over these pages—a vast step up from the previous article (whose authors, to be fair, seem like they were still in college, according to their bios).

So first off, this is a tidy little adventure: Check out why the team sent to repair a signal tower hasn’t reported back. (Even Bryce likes it! We’ll talk about Bryce below.) The NPCs aren’t locked to one location (except the hostages), so once PCs get to the tower, it’s up to the GM to position them and assign reactions. But the cast is small enough this doesn’t seem daunting, even for new GMs, and you could run this thing in a single night.

But where it really shines, as I said, is the deft authorship. Elrod very quickly delivers a tight sketch of the location: two city-states vying for market advantage, dwarves under the mountain range in between minting the gold that moves said markets, some signal towers that exist as a compromise to keep the peace, and what the heck, also some elves in the valley between.

Now, this is basic stuff. And not even pumpkin-spice-latte basic...this is “I’ve only read The Hobbit” basic. Dwarves minting gold and elves in the woods and most of the villains are half-orcs? Even for 1986, this ought to be chucked in the bin as trite.

And yet...it’s not, because of Elrod’s deft pen. I suddenly want to find out more about these cities in the course of play—maybe one could be a good home base for the party? The interplay of politics and markets and signal fires and dwarf relations is just specific enough to feel real, while being sketchy enough it could be dropped into most game worlds. The clever chief antagonist is distinctive enough I don’t mind her stereotypical brute sidekicks, and trying to uncover her employer could lead to the next session’s adventure. It’s basic sure, but it’s Basic Rules-red-box basic. In other words, it feels classic. I wouldn’t put this in front of my grad school gaming group, necessarily, but if I got asked to run an afterschool session for some middle-schoolers wanting to learn the game? Hell yes!

At this point, I’ve probably oversold this adventure, so forgive me if you are underwhelmed by it. But I’m willing to risk a little overhyping to celebrate what can be constructed with such simple meat-and-potatoes ingredients.

And that’s not even counting the not-meat-and-potatoes elements, like the white raven who is already one of my favorite familiars ever, and the ticking clocking scenario the weather sets up (you need to beat the mercenaries before they can mess with the signals), and the names of the other watchtower peaks, each one slyly suggesting another adventure, and…yeah, I dig this.

“Grakhirt’s Lair” by John Nephew, AD&D, Levels 1–3

John Nephew wrote one of my favorite D&D supplements of all time, Tall Tales of the Wee Folk, which I won’t shut up about—I’ve even told him so on Twitter—so I don’t feel bad in saying that this entry is a total dud for me. Pretty much the only interesting thing about this adventure is that the humanoid antagonists are the Fiend Folio’s norkers, and they get the classic 1e AD&D humanoid treatment: that is, absolutely nothing sets them apart from any other humanoid out there aside from their stat blocks. You can skip this one without guilt.

(Admittedly, Nephew was also shockingly young when he did both this and TTotWF. Looking back, I really wish I’d made some different decisions re: my writing growing up—I was disengaging with the hobby just at the age when other people were hammering down the door to get published. Sigh. But hey, none of them held a Run-DMC concert or hung out with Rahzel at age 21, right? We all have our journeys.)

“The Elven Home,” by Anne Gray McReady, D&D, Levels 1–3

Our first D&D adventure! D&D, specifically BECMI D&D, was the neglected stepchild of the late ’80s and early ’90s, despite the earnest efforts of line champion Bruce Heard, Dungeon editors Roger Moore and Barbara Young, and a lot of talented freelancers. But I was a fierce D&D partisan, because it was what I was first introduced to and what I could afford, and because I loved the variety of classes and cultures the Known World allowed. For a line that often felt overlooked in terms of marketing and support, the love and talent put into the books that did exist were evident on almost every page.

So I wish I could find more to recommend “The Elven Home,” but it’s not even really an adventure or even a side trek—instead it’s a thoroughly fleshed-out NPC encounter that should lead to combat only if the PCs are particularly boorish. Like Bryce (again, see below) I could have used more whimsy and more weirdness to make these elves stand out just a bit more, though their twee personalities (more faerie than Tolkien) at least set them apart from most elves PCs run across these days. So your mileage may vary—some of you may be utterly charmed by this (I lean at least somewhat charmed), others of you very much not.

“Into the Fire,” by Grant & David Boucher, AD&D, Levels 6–10

I was expecting a lot out of this adventure—the cover dragon, Flame, was the closest thing Dungeon had to a mascot till the Adventure Path years under Paizo, and he wound up appearing in at least one or two more sequel adventures, if I recall correctly.

While I wasn’t blown away, I can see where the fondness comes from. The adventure isn’t particularly special at first. A necklace shows up that may hint at the fate of a lost prince, but following that lead means following the trail of a recently deceased knight, and—spoilers!—that trail leads back to a dragon. But then the combat with Flame is presented, and the brothers Boucher serve up a number of round-by-round tactics and dirty tricks for Flame to employ that wouldn’t feel out of place in 3.5...and I’m guessing were thrilling in 1986.

Remember, this is before dragons had varying power levels according to age—and were often asleep in their lairs to boot—so if DMs weren’t careful high-level characters would carve through them like butter. (Seriously, it was such an issue that every June Dragon Magazine would churn out articles about how to keep your dragons alive longer. They did this for decades.) It’s easy to ding the Bouchers—Bryce (see below) certainly does—for coming up with too many reasons why Flame is immune to PC powers and abilities throughout the adventure. But to me it just feels like an experienced red wyrm doing what an experienced red wyrm who wants to live would do. Flame is smart, more interested in survival than winning, and while he plans to ruin the PCs’ lives as thoroughly as possible, he’ll run if he has to. PCs who survive will be stoked to tell the tale, and that feeling will only be magnified by a massive treasure haul with a number of flavorful items and future adventure seeds of its own.

Other things to note: There’s a slanty tower that’s okay (I’m a sucker for slanty towers), but where it’s placed in the adventure, it will likely be an anticlimax. There are also some big wandering monster encounters—a score of ogres with an ogre magi, two dozen ghouls and ghasts, etc.—that I’d be interested to see how they rebalanced for Pathfinder/5e D&D. I think shows like Game of Thrones have put the fear back into random encounters with large groups of humanoids, so it would be fun to play that out even if the math says the PCs shouldn’t break a sweat.

Is this my favorite adventure? Not by a long shot. But I can see why readers were fond of it and why Flame’s legend persisted.

“Guardians of the Tomb,” by Carl Smith, AD&D, Levels 3–5

That...is some very boring architecture for a shrine. Also, why would a master thief even have a shrine? Especially in a swamp? And while I’m vague on the relative power levels of 3rd–5th-level characters in 1e AD&D, I feel like 2(x PCs+ y retainers) shadows+1d12 even more shadows = a whole damn lot of shadows to trap the PCs with behind an 18th-level wall of stone! Apparently Smith even worked for TSR at some point—did no one pull him aside and say, “Dude! Game balance!”?

I have questions.

Not only does this seem a bit extreme, at least for an unlucky 3rd-level party, it feels personal. This feels like Carl Smith had some players he wanted to teach a lesson. The bio says Carl Smith’s first love is Westerns; I’m guessing he likes the ones about the Alamo or Butch Cassidy or Unforgiven where pretty much everyone dies at the end.

Who hurt you, Carl Smith? Who hurt you?

Best Read: “Assault on Eddistone Point.”

Best Adventure I Could Actually Run with Minimal Prep: All but “Into the Fire” could probably be run after only a second read-through. But I actually want to run “Assault on Eddistone Point.”

Best Concept: As dungeon locations go, a leaning tower that’s leaning because a dragon decided the best way to kill the wizard inside was just to land on the dang thing and knock it over is a pretty good concept.

Best Monster: You always remember your first dragon. So of course, we have to give this accolade to the always-two-steps-ahead Flame.

Best NPC: I’m a fan of the crafty Vorona in “Assault on Eddistone Point,” but the tie goes to the titular elves of “The Elven Home,” who literally want to chat so badly that the party might get attacked by stirges for lingering too long. Don’t overlook the wolfwere in “Into the Flame” though— he sounds like a real a$$#ole.

Best Map: “Into the Flame”’s Lake Haven kinda-isometric hex map, though I also do like seeing the dragon’s volcano lair map with a boat right in the middle.

Best Thing Worth Stealing: A dragon’s volcano lair with a boat right in the middle.

Worst Aged: The magazine’s first adventure hadn’t even started yet and the text was reminding us to look up climbing rules and calculate the PCs’ weights. Yikes. I don’t miss 1e AD&D. Also, the term “magic-user.” Oy. So glad that’s gone. Oh, and alignment tongues! Ye gods, remember alignment tongues? No, you don’t, because they made no sense and no one over the age of 11 ever used one in their game.

What Bryce Thinks: “Wow. I had no idea that 1e adventures sucked ass so much.”

One of the only people who has done in-depth online reviews of old Dungeon issues is a dude named Bryce Lynch over at tenfootpole.org—which is hilarious, because Bryce hates old Dungeon adventures. An OSR (old-school renaissance) fan through and through, Bryce is super particular about what he considers an acceptable adventure. To his credit, he wants adventures able to be easily run at the table, but he also loathes boxed read-aloud text, long backstory, and pretty much anything he regards as fluff. Which means Dungeon, even at this primordial stage of the game, drives him around the twist (as our Brit readers might say)—and it’s only going to get worse. Even so, I’m going to check in on his reviews as we go along, because his laser focus on the GM’s experience at the table is a good yin to my all-about-the-fluff/inspiration yang.

But for what it’s worth...we pretty much line up on our faves for this issue. Go us! Ditto Adam Perdona, whose tastes also seem to line up with mine and who also liked “The Elven Home.”

So, Is It Worth It?: Okay so let’s say you play Pathfinder, 5e D&D, or some other contemporary system. Should you run out and try to find a physical copy of Dungeon #1?

Well...aside from the collector’s value (it is a #1 after all)...probably not. There’s nothing here that screams “Pull me off the shelf”—what pleasures are inside will also be in the PDF.

What this issue does offer is a back-to-basics approach to adventure construction and worldbuilding that I think we sometimes need. Sometimes all you need is some dwarves, some elves, and a dragon. Sometimes we need to forget secret societies and trade disputes and just help a king who’s lost his prince. Think of Dungeon #1—specifically “Assault on Eddistone Point” and “Into the Flame”—like one of those articles you sometimes see in GQ or Esquire: “How to Grill a Steak. No, put down the pesto, put down the chutney, put down the coffee dry rub and remoulade. You’re going to grab some salt and pepper and maaaybe some butter and We Are Going to Grill a Goddamn STEAK.”

If you want fusion sushi, look elsewhere. Are you in the mood for steak? Look for these two adventures.

Random Thoughts:

Editor Roger Moore’s voice in the intro is so stiff—he would be way more assured and relaxed in the ’90s.

It’s a huge nostalgia trip seeing maps in “1 square = 10’” after years of 5’ squares in 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder.

Speaking of maps, they’re still pretty rudimentary here—it is 1986, after all. But I’m pleased that we are immediately getting side or isometric views of some of these locations (especially the towers) to give us a better sense of what these structures look like. I’m a big fan of that.

One of the weird things about published D&D, AD&D, and Pathfinder settings is that, for an ostensibly Middle Ages-inspired hobby, most show surprisingly little interest in the standard medieval trappings. Kings and princes are rare, city-states are the norm rather than feudal kingdoms, and even knights and castles have largely given way to mercenaries and manor houses. I think there are tons of reasons for this—questing knight tropes feeling stale or immature, the gradual shift of the hobby’s default assumptions to early Renaissance and the Mediterranean rather than medieval England, more opportunities for political conflict but with more manageable stakes... (And let’s face it: high-level PCs just love regicide. Oligarchs don’t have targets on their backs the way kings do.) Anyway, I bring all this up because early Dungeon is clearly not afraid of kings, queens, princes, or knights. If your tastes are more King Arthur & Prince Hal than Diplomats & Doges, you might want to check these early issues out.

Comfy rooms that make you sleepy are an overdone trope in this era.

Leaning/slanty towers also get a lot of love in Dungeon—perhaps too much—but I will never not love them.

If a description, even if just meant for the GM, is going to use a simile that takes me out of the game world such as “like Spanish bayonet,” I’d prefer it walled off in parentheses.

A lot of the art inside this issue (especially James Holloway’s) would be reused again and again in the pages of Dragon, including for subscription cards, the No-SASE Ogre, and even “The Voyage of the Princess Ark.”

Notable Ads: An ad for Lankhmar, City of Adventure, for you classic sword & sorcery fans, and the Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide for AD&D.

(Any fans of the DSG out there? I’ve always heard it, like, laid the groundwork for what we think of as the Underdark. But every time I’ve seen a used copy on the shelf I’ve opened to pages and pages of rules about mining and smelting and I’ve closed it in horror.)

This Month in Dragon: Dragon #113 offers a cardboard dragon (assuming you have a physical copy or can get creative with the PDF), a tour of Hades, fiction by Harry Turtledove, and some nasty Gamma World robots. Dragon #114 serves up the witch NPC, the elven cavalier class, and Marvel’s Inhumans.

[forthegothicheroine]

I don't know how much you know about/are interested in d&d but I'm playing the gothic horror module Curse of Strahd and I want to do a Gothic Horror heroine inspired character and I was wondering what classes you thought would lend themselves to that character trope?

I was so excited when I heard about Curse of Strahd!  Ravenloft is my favorite d&d setting, even if they won’t bring it back altogether.  For straight d&d, I would go with Cleric (the power of light and holiness!), rogue (surviving in a dangerous situation by your wits and courage!) or even Paladin if you wanted to be less Mina Harker and more Buffy Summers.  I’m not sure what the rules for psionics are in 5e, but that’ also an option if you want to play a maiden tormented by powers beyond her control.  3.5 had rules for archivists (for the plucky librarian heroine) and I could see spinning a bard as the author of gothic fiction.

If you venture out of d&d, Pathfinder has a whole host of Inquisitor classes, though that’s a bit more Van Helsing than traditional gothic heroine.  Going a little more niche, one of my favorite classes ever is the Alice from the Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure Red and Pleasant Land.  The Alice is, as her name suggests, an inquisitive person whom adventures just sort of happen to, and whose expressions of exasperation can cause all sorts of odd things to occur.  LotFP is part of the Old School Renaissance, games that model themselves on first edition d&d, so it’s not too hard to pick up.  Also in the Old School Renaissance is A Ghastly Affair, a game actually about playing gothic novels, with the class “True Innocent” which is literally gothic heroines.  Someday I will find someone to play it with me…

[invinciblerodent]

Ryder Twins Headcanons II.

Because my lovely partner in crime @mccreeapologist posted some of our joint little headcanons on the Wonder Twins of the Andromeda Initiative, I thought I should try to clean up my notes a little bit and follow her example <3 I tried to weed out some of the repetitions, but more or less, these are just my vaguely altered notes. :) So this is kind of a part two, and kind of an “Elliot Edition”.

(forewarning, while normally I try to stick to the canon as closely as humanly possible, this time we have elected to make some changes, which I will continue to consider the canon I work in, unless it contradicts something absolutely fundamental in-game plotpoint. :))

((and even then it’s debatable because lbr ¯\_(ツ)_/¯))

- Born in 2157, Elliot and her twin brother Brooks (who is precisely two minutes younger than she is) are 28 years of age at launch.

- While their intellect and talent for the field were largely equal, Brooks (after much pressure from their father) chose to enlist into the Alliance navy at 18, in 2175. Elliot, emboldened by that resolve (and slightly envious of the attention that got Brooks), decided to pursue their shared dream alone, and partake in the xenobotany program at the Dobzhansky Institute of Science and Technology in the Exodus Cluster.

- While Dobzhansky (colloquially referred to by students and alumni as “D.I.S.K.” or “The Disk”) is a human-built and -owned station, it is one of the first Alliance establishments advocating specifically for interspecies cooperation, and it functions almost as an informational trading post. Students of numerous different species are encouraged by scholarship programs, and the instructors come from almost every species in the student body- asari, salarian, turian, and even volus and elcor, making Dobzhansky a frontrunner of humanity’s seamless and peaceful integration into the Council species. In the remarkably few years of its existence, it has managed to establish more interspecies connections in the field of xenoscience than any other human civilian- or military initiative.

- Elliot was mentored by the asari professor, Leossa D’zedri, along with three other students from her year- two of them turian, and one salarian. D’zedri, while more conservative than several of her colleagues, encouraged a healthy competition between her mentees, which only stoked the competitive flame in Elliot, and she graduated magna cum laude in 2183.

- Throughout her education, with the weekly data bursts, she made sure to always send (the heavily annotated versions of) her study materials and as much of her notes as she could over to the Alliance station on which her baby brother served. It didn’t only give him the opportunity to also study along with her to a degree, it was a great source of emotional comfort for the both of them. (Not to mention that teaching him was a way for her to study and revise, and it also made him visibly happy to learn about stuff he couldn’t otherwise, which in turn helped her push on to be able to teach him more stuff, creating a mutually beneficial and entertaining feedback loop. :))

- She applied for the Andromeda Initiative (2185) on a fluke. She had worked on the project as part of her master’s and wrote her doctoral thesis on off-Earth agriculture and trans-galactic travel, but she had never expected to leave the galaxy herself. It was only after her graduation and after her father and brother were recruited into the Pathfinder program that she panicked, and submitted her own application mere days before the deadline.

- Elliot, while not exactly known for it, has worked as Professor D’zedri’s assistant on what was later dubbed as the Horae Project. The project’s goal was the invention of five distinct farm systems that then provide a primary food source for both the levo- and dextro-amino-based crew members. These farms were developed as a joint effort of asari, human, salarian, and quarian scientists working in tandem, basing their work off the designs of the Prothean-built cryopods found on Eden Prime and Ilos, the Atrium of the human-built Grissom Academy, and the Liveships of the Migrant Fleet. In the end, while the exact research didn’t end up being used in the final design, it did serve as a base for it.

- That being said, her plans are often too big for her hands. She is ambitious to a fault, known to bite off more than she can chew, but chewing it anyway, even if it nearly suffocates her. She often jokes that the only reason she went through with getting her doctorate was because she didn’t have the good sense to drop out before, although everyone who has known her for more than a second will confirm that if given a chance, she would have started work on her second doctorate right after submitting her final thesis.

- As all personnel affiliated with the Alliance Systems Military is required to go through basic training, Elliot embarked upon that journey right after having earned her doctorate. That was when it came to her attention that, while an outstanding intellect, she lacks not only biotic-, but also any sort of physical aptitude. Throughout her training, while her theoretical test scores were always excellent and she performed well in the tasks involving problem-solving and reconnaissance, in the physical challenges she hardly managed to scrape by. It was only by the skin of her teeth (and her dear brother’s blessedly patient tutoring) that she managed to reach the middle of the pack by the end of the basic training program. This, she considers a failure.

- The first time she ever shot a gun, an M-97 Viper sniper rifle, it immediately kicked one of her molars out. That experience has made her wary of any and all sniper rifles, and instead, she chose to train in the use of a weapon that doesn’t come anywhere near her face. Which works out well because her aim is shit anyway.

- As their father tended to place emphasis on his legacy which he saw in Brooks throughout their upbringing, Elliot grew up striving and working herself to the bone for attention- attention which her brother received seemingly without having had to work for it. But rather than blaming either of them for favoritism, she ended up internalizing a lot of that crap and ignorant neglect until it drove her to an almost paranoid need for success.

- Which sort of bequests that she is an incredibly sore loser. While her brother’s obvious love for the field was also important, one of the main reasons she became interested in xenobiology was simply that not understanding the world around her pissed her off to no end.

- A hell of a perfectionist with a whole lot of control issues. She doesn't only want to pour the world into neat little petri dishes, she also wants everything to go according to plan down to every minute detail, and she feels that the philosophy of doing it yourself is the best approach to everything… that results in her often struggling to overcome simple issues, only because she doesn’t even consider the possibility of asking for help. (The time she had to ask her brother for help with the weapons training, she could only do so in the middle of the night, with frustrated tears dried on her face, after having spent hours struggling on her own at the shooting range.)

- Has difficulties engaging emotionally. She is so focused on theoretical knowledge that she is known to get absorbed in thought experiments and forget to see the trees from the forest, which, while making her an excellent scientist and a great candidate for the Pathfinders, may make her appear clinical as well as cynical in her dealings. Not devoid of a moral compass, but her mind operates in leaps and bounds that do not exclude the consideration of options that might seem less than tasteful to most of her kind.

- Has had just about every hair color under the Sun. Naturally hers is the same, warm inky black as her brother's, but when she was about 14, she had it bleached to a white-blonde, and then dyed all sorts of colors all the way through high school and college. Only when she was about 22 and it was damaged beyond belief did she resort to cutting all of it off into a pixie, and going back to her natural hair color for about a year. About two months before the Andromeda Initiative would have launched she got bored and had it bleached again. By the time the plot of Andromeda ends, she'll have almost a bob with roots all the way to her ears.

- Her pet pyjack is named “Ampersand”, after the capuchin monkey from the (by then vintage) visual novel, Y: The Last Man, from 2002. In the limited number of personal belongings allowed to bring aboard, Elliot carries a digital copy of the comic book with herself into the new world. (Her first ever crush was on Dr. Allison Mann, after having read the comic at the tender age of 11.)

- Dumped by her high school sweetheart when they found out that she would participate in any way in the Andromeda Initiative. They had quite a thunderous relationship spanning multiple years of on-off romance, but just after Elliot had finished her undergraduate program in 2179, they broke it off for good. It would be a flagrant lie if someone were to imply that Ellie is not bitter and resentful over it, but she is a master of overcompensation.

- Loves old vids, especially old school sci-fi, mostly from the 20th and 21st century. They have a crafty, low-budget sort of charm to them, and it's bittersweet to know she isn't really living in that utopia- she finds that optimism and ambition admirable and somehow inspiring. To think about people have always fantasized about the future and what it might be like, it's almost a feeling of longing for something that never was and never will be. That retro vibe is something that is very close to her heart as well; it used to be a bonding activity between her and her and brother. At times of great emotional duress, they often just plopped down in each other’s rooms with a couple seasons of some tacky show, and kept each other company

- Her affection for the old-fashioned is something that is also reflected in her sense of style. Has a particular fondness for replica faux-leather clothing and colorful accessories. Her girlfriend used to say that Ellie is “just tacky enough to be chic”.

- Has short, bitten nails- not severely, but being a botanist, she spent a lot of time with her hands in the soil. It's a bad habit, but she grew used to cleaning the dirt out from underneath her nails with her teeth. She's desperately trying to stop, but it's a nervous mechanism rooted in that habit of making sure her hands look clean.

- She follows a mostly vegetarian diet: it still includes eggs, milk, and seafood, but she doesn’t eat any red- or white meat. Made the decision at 16, mostly because she simply doesn’t like the taste of meat.

- I would be lying if I said that the reason she gives her brother so many dumb nicknames (like Schnooksie and Scooter and Brookiebear) is because that way her calling him “Scott" in the game is not as awkward. Loopholes! ;)

- and let’s not forget,

- TL;DR she is a lovely problematic space lesbian whom I already really love with a brother too sweet for words who also has a lot of issues but they are both already my favorite

[d4bbl3zdnd]

Children of the Gods

((Sorry for the delay to the post. Personal life is creeping in and I didn’t have time to get this out earlier in the week. Things should be smoothing out soon.))

Now that we’ve tackled the daunting task of introducing a playable race that didn’t exist back when I was originally planning the world of Cambreon, we now get to indulge in adding some of my favorite playable races: the planetouched. For those of you not familiar, the term “planetouched” refers to races that have some touch of planar heritage in their blood. They aren’t fully extraplanar, or even halfway, but the planes to enhance their natural abilities in ways that make them distinct. The most well known, currently, are tieflings. These planetouched have fiendish blood, but not enough to make them half-fiends. Their opposites are the aasimar who are touched by celestial blood, but we’ll be focusing on them in a later installment. For this week, we’ll be focusing on the genasi, or elemental planetouched.

It’s Elemental, Dear Watson

As I mentioned, genasi are individuals whose bloodlines have been touched by elemental outsiders. Since the elements in Cambreon are the gods themselves, these are individuals who are touched by those gods, much like the heroes of Greek mythology. While not direct children of Cambreon’s deities, they still somehow exhibit traces of godly power. Perhaps they were born during a strong storm, or their mother froze to death but they survived. Regardless of how they came into this world, they are treated as scions of their respective patron.

Genasi were a type of character race that I ran into way back in 2001 when I bought my first D&D book; the Monsters of Faerun Monster Compendium for the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. At the time I didn’t know what the Forgotten Realms was, nor did I own any of the core rulebooks, but I knew that I could borrow what books I needed and that this book had monsters none of my friends had ever encountered. The genasi in that book were strictly an NPC race, but mechanics for use as a PC race weren’t far behind.

As soon as I decided how much the elements had a hold on the world of Cambreon, I had to make genasi a playable race. Thankfully, the Princes of the Apocalypse player companion had them as playable races, so I was able to take what I liked from the Pathfinder version and make them work in 5e. My final race were very much a homebrewed hodgepodge of both Pathfinder and D&D5e genasi, but they fit the world that I wanted them to be a part of. I think I got them pretty right because one of my players even decided that he wanted to play an earth genasi over any of the other races. Now that the mechanics were set, I just needed to decide how the different genasi made their places in the world.

To Each Their Own

Air genasi, touched by Auris, are natural travelers. They are lithe of build and quick of wit, and usually revel in their connection to the Laughing Wind. When an air genasi child is born, the parents usually sigh knowing that their son or daughter will likely grow up to be quite a handful. Genasi, in general, are treated differently because the elemental touch often manifests itself physically in some way. In air genasi, this can appear as white or blue hair, skin that is pale or looks frostbitten, a soft wind that always moves around them, flesh that is always cool to the touch, or any number of other air-related anomalies that make it pretty obvious the person is touched by Auris. Air genasi combat this by embracing their nature; often becoming rogues or bards, wandering the land and living by their wits. Because of their planar influence, all genasi also have a predilection for sorcery, so a disproportionate amount of Arcane Tricksters are air genasi.

The influence of Auris also manifests itself in some less-than-obvious ways. Having been created in part by elemental air, all air genasi are breathless. After a while, breathing becomes more of a habit than anything; a courtesy to normal folks who expect to see the chest rise and fall when someone speaks. Air genasi can also use the air itself to cushion their falls like a feather fall spell, though it requires a lot of energy and can only be done every so often. The 5e air genasi cast levitate instead, but I liked the Pathfinder version better in this case.

Earth genasi, touched by Terris, are stern and stubborn. They have broad builds and are usually gruff and quiet loners. Parents of earth genasi are usually devout Terrans, and the arrival of such a child is an event to be celebrated. Rarer than the other genasi, they can be identified by their rough skin, coal-black or gem-colored eyes, gravelly voice, disproportionately large feet or hands, or even something as obvious as green or iron grey hair. Because of the nature of their birth, earth genasi are often apprenticed to the church of Terris at a young age, and many work as rangers or druids to protect the wild spaces that they feel akin to.

Terris’s influence gives earth genasi superhuman abilities, like all genasi. Because elemental earth is mixed in their veins, earth genasi are resilient against electrical damage. The earth inside of themselves just absorbs a good deal of the energy, harmlessly diffusing it into the ground at their feet. All of Terris’s creations also respect earth genasi, which allows them to act as though under the influence of a pass without trace spell once a day. I felt that the Earth Walk feature of the 5e earth genasi was redundant with the pass without trace, so I went with the Pathfinder resistance.

Fire genasi, touched by Friga, are hot-tempered and impulsive. Strong and stern, they command the respect of everyone around them. Due to Friga’s penchant for anger and destruction, fire genasi are probably the least welcome of any genasi child. Many parents stoically raise their fiery child hoping to lead it down a proper path, but more often than not fire genasi run away from home and strike out on their own as soon as possible. Fire genasi revel in the greed of their elemental influence, often wearing garish or expensive clothes and jewelry. Even if not decked out in such a way, you can always pick them out by a number of possible physical attributes such as charcoal grey skin, red or orange hair that moves like flames, eyes that glow when they get angry, unusually warm skin, or some other ignan trait. Easily upset and always itching for a fight, fire genasi make excellent mercenaries, often going down the fighter or barbarian path.

Being children of fire brings with it a few perks that can assist the ostentatious fire genasi on their paths to glory. Their elemental blood keeps them warm when it’s cold, but also means that they are completely comfortable with extreme heat as well. It’s not uncommon to see fire genasi in any climate wearing the most garish outfits without a care in the world. This fiery blood also means that they can produce fire from nothing much like the produce flame cantrip, and they can do so as much as they like. I actually liked this trait from the 5e version better than the Pathfinder, but I got rid of learning burning hands at level 3, as well as the darkvision, in exchange for the cold resistance from the Pathfinder version. It may actually have made them a bit OP, but I’ve yet to have a chance to playtest them.

Water genasi, touched by Aquos, are thoughtful and kind. They may be slow to anger, but their wrath is formidable. Most genasi are born to human parents, but water genasi are equally as likely to be born to elven parents, due to their connection with Aquos. Personable and kind, water genasi are a delight to be able to raise and often grow up to be very well-adjusted members of society. While often teased simply because they’re different, in elven communities this teasing comes more from the genasi being pampered and favored by all of the adults. The aquan nature of their heritage manifests in ways as obvious as the growth of gills, hair that always looks wet, or scaly skin, to more subtle things like webbing between the fingers and toes, large dark eyes, or blue/green hair. Because Aquos has such a devoted following (especially in elven communities), water genasi often become clerics of their patron. Even those that do not take to the faith still find themselves drawn to water and frequently become sailors of some ilk.

This affinity for water is built into the very fiber of every water genasi. They can breathe freely both in and out of the water, whether their gills are obvious or simply an adaptation of their lungs. Being so free in the water also means that most learn to swim at a very young age and move as well in the water as they do on land, if not better. Their sometimes clammy skin also makes them resistant to acids as they simply wash off without doing much damage at all. Like all genasi, there is some sorcerous nature about them. This manifests in their ability to shape water like the cantrip of the same name and eventually create or destroy water like the spell. The water genasi is the only one where I sided almost completely with the 5e rules. It actually added more to the subrace than what was done in Pathfinder, and still considered it balanced, so I wasn’t going to argue.

And that’s the way it goes; four genasi for the four elements. I absolutely love this playable race and would love to be able to find a game to play one in, but not every DM allows them as they have never been considered a “core” or “standard” race. It really is a shame because the genasi give a lot of cool RP opportunities to people who play them. Even in a world populated by half-orcs and dragonkind, you kinda stick out like a sore thumb. Don’t worry though, next entry we get back to some normal stuff with everyone’s favorite annoyance; the gnomes.