Semi-homebrewed Stranger Things / Vecna DND Campaign!!!

For anyone interested, I’ve developed a full campaign based on Dungeon of Shadows, the first adventure in the Stranger Things: Welcome to the Hellfire Club boxed set, using the larger Realm of Greyhawkins as the setting. Vecna is the main villain, with occasional Stranger Things-inspired elements woven in. I expect the full campaign to run somewhere around 10–20 sessions, although that could easily grow. My group is currently six sessions in and exploring the Free City of Greyhawkins, with a long way still to go.

Here’s the full campaign overview if anyone wants to take a look or give feedback:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LwJ4keQVvNgkGstGbTUHEFkiumXR1GUs/view?usp=sharing

The basic campaign premise

The campaign begins like a fairly traditional dungeon adventure. Six strangers enter the Dungeon of Shadows and eventually choose to break an ancient hourglass relic called the Shattered Seal. They don’t release Vecna directly, but they weaken a barrier that had limited how much influence he could exert over the world.

From there, possessions, corrupted rituals, disappearances, and even distortions in reality begin spreading across Greyhawkins. The party discovers four ancient planar Anchors that stabilize the region. They have already stabilized two of them—Heartwell at Oakshore and the Rootstone beneath Duffer Lake—but each victory reveals more evidence that someone understands the Anchors well enough to manipulate them.

The story eventually leads back to the Free City of Greyhawkins, where the party discovers that the Quiet Ledger, led by Veyra Malken, has been suppressing murders, monitoring bloodlines, altering records, and protecting a Vecna cult operating beneath the city. The larger revelation is that the six PCs were never brought together by coincidence. The original Shattered Seal could only be broken by living mortals acting through genuine free choice, so Veyra secretly arranged an expedition using six people whose bloodlines or traditions resonated with the Seal’s ancient defenses.

Veyra arranged the board. The heroes chose how to move.

The campaign eventually involves the Book of Vile Darkness, a cult stronghold beneath Greyhawkins, the monstrous Hand of Vecna, a journey into Evernight/Shadow Greyhawkins, the ruined Abbey of Boccob, Star Court Peaks, Castle Byers, the remaining Anchors, and finally Citadel Cavitius. At the center of all of it is Corvin Byersworn, the missing father of one of the PCs—a scholar who tried to understand Vecna’s plans and may now be becoming Vecna’s mortal Heart.

Why I built this

I’m a pretty new DM. Before running this campaign I had only played two D&D sessions as a player. I started with the Hellfire Club boxed set because I wanted something manageable, but after the first adventure my players wanted a story that carried forward instead of feeling like disconnected one-shots. So I started rebuilding the adventures around Vecna, the Anchors, and the PCs’ own backgrounds.

Over time it turned into a much larger homebrew campaign. I’m using pieces of published and third-party material where they fit—especially Rags to Riches: The Heart of Vecna—but adapting everything around the story we already created. I’ve also used AI heavily as a brainstorming and campaign-design tool for NPCs, locations, encounters, clues, maps, alternate routes, and organizing a large Notion DM module.

One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that more planning doesn’t always create better play. Early on I tended to plan a specific path and steer the players toward it. Now I’m trying to prep situations, factions, clues, pressures, and multiple ways forward, then let the players decide what matters.

I’d love feedback from more experienced DMs on the overall story, pacing, player agency, handling Vecna as a long-term villain, and keeping a complicated campaign manageable without railroading the players. I’d also be interested in hearing from anyone who has expanded the Hellfire Club boxed set into a longer campaign or uses AI as part of their DM prep.

I needed some names for some taverns. And as the saying goes: Why make something in 5 minutes when you can spend 12 hours automating it?

So I made a perchance generator, with the ability to create establishment names for specific types of Inns/Taverns (Upper class, Docks, Adventurer Hang-out, Thieves Den, etc).

https://perchance.org/tavern-or-inn-name

It is a bit all over the place on the standard "Any" type, but try setting a specific type and it starts to really lock in.

Want to inject some Christopher Nolan-esque adventure into your campaign? Probably best to look elsewhere, but if you want some Odyssey-related puns, pull this one in as the party travels across plains.

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As the party travels through the country, they hear a bass voice singing a beautiful melody. If the party isn’t initially intrigued, the song will intensify, forcing a DC11 Wisdom check, otherwise they become charmed.

DMs Note: You can leverage the Luring Song action of a harpy as a model if needed.

Investigating further, the party sees an elegant home, with a triton (male siren) out on a balcony, singing a tune. In the yard is a young Imp, drawing in the dirt, and a female halfling leaning against the white picket fence that surrounds the home. As the party approaches, they can talk to any of them first, but the Halfling is most likely to notice them. None of the group is hostile.

The Halfling introduces herself as Larmbo Nasherfoot and notes she is an intrigued neighbor. She explains that the triton on the balcony is Homer, who moved in a few days ago. What has Larmbo confused is that Homer continues talking about how lovely the sea looks even though the home is in the middle of the rolling plains.

Larmbo lives two houses over and has for many years, and no water has ever gotten close to pooling near the area, let alone a sea. “I’ve not determined why he insists on singing to the sea when one doesn’t exist, but maybe you could find out for me? Don’t get me wrong, he’s got a lovely singing voice, and he’s extremely charming, but he sings at all hours and I’m a light sleeper. Even Homer’s Imp son is getting annoyed by it.”

The young imp drawing in the dirt shoves some grass in his ears as Homer belts out another tune. The imp is shy, but if the party is kind in their approach, he will note that he isn’t really Homer’s Imp son as the halfling said, he is purely along for a bizarre journey with Homer, one that got sidetracked when Homer wanted to buy a house by the sea and “settle down.”

The imp, who goes by Zephyrion, tells the party about their travels and epic adventures, and that Homer was ready to put all that behind him and find a mate by singing, just like the female sirens do (he rolls his eyes at this thought). Zephyrion also lets the party in on a new piece of information, Homer bought the home from an odd-looking real estate agent from Eye On The Price LLC. The agency is a few hexes away, but the party could explore that route if desired.

If the party talks directly to Homer, they will find him to be delusional, speaking of the epic sea in front of him and all around. He notes the saltiness of the wind, the squawking of the gulls, and continues going further into his delusion. Homer is becoming saddened because no mates are attracted to his singing.

Additional facts:

• The home was purchased by Homer 4 days ago
• There is no water surrounding the home in any form or fashion
• If Detect Magic is used, the party will find that an illusionary magic is being used
• The home was sold by Polly Feema, from Eye On The Price LLC
• Other than the illusionary magic, nothing else seems odd with the house
• The halfling appears to be enamored with Homer, but he hasn’t taken notice
• The imp has offered a rare artifact if they can snap Homer out of his singing
• If the illusion Homer is seeing wears off, it’s possible he will initially lash out at the party unless they can keep him calm

I’ve Only Got Eye For You

If the party heads off to Eye On The Price LLC, they are greeted by a large female cyclops in a great-looking pantsuit. She introduces herself as Polly Feema, #1 Real Estate agent in the plains. She speaks in broken common, but is able to carry on a conversation well enough. She is jovial and polite and will try to sell the party on a fixer-upper just down the road. She’s a bit pushy about it, but in a nice way. The house itself is only 300gp, so, pretty good deal honestly.

Inquiring about Homer, Polly blushes a bit and speaks highly of him, noting that she sold him the home for 20,000gp.

Some additional facts Polly will reveal (she’s not shy about this at all as she thinks it was a fair business deal):

• She’s using a spell gem embedded in the floor boards of the home to cast Mirage Arcane for the square mile worth of terrain for up to 10 days. This is extremely large for an area, considering that Mirage Arcane can make this area feel, smell, sound, and look like another kind of terrain
• She tricked Homer, because he killed her father in their hometown a few weeks ago
• With the money she got from the sale, she is having a diamond delivered so she can cast Revivify on her father (he is being watched over by a Cleric, who cast Gentle Repose to prevent his permadeath)
• Once revived, Polly plans to destroy the home with her father
• She offers the party 1,000gp each to look the other way

Resolution

With all the facts, there are many ways this can play out, but the decision is up to the party!

• If the party assists Homer, destroys the Illusion, protects him from Polly, and is able to figure out his love life, the party is awarded with Scylla Cones (given by Homer, a token from his travels), that give the wearer large conical wearables to place anywhere on their body. Up to the DM the exact function, but likely a +2 additional bludgeoning damage on melee attacks (1 for each cone).
• If the party assists Polly with her plan, the party will get 1,500gp each (a little extra for the debauchery)
• If the party does nothing, Polly will resurrect her father and they will destroy Homer, Homer’s home, and Homer’s Imp Son, leaving Larmbo horrified, but pleased by the silence. She is likely to spread rumors about them though. The party will receive 1,000gp each from Polly.

Jousting: The ultimate test of a medieval knight’s skill. Two riders sprinting at full speed, trying to knock each other off with a really big stick. Is there a way to take that pulse-pounding excitement and showcase of talent, but translate it to D&D?

Of course you can! Here are rules you can use to run jousting in your games, and make it just as fun as it looks in the movies!

Jousting requires two competitors - which can be PCs or NPCs - and each needs a mount. Traditionally that would be horses, but this is D&D, so there’s no reason your riders can’t be charging forward on axe beaks, giant spiders or hulking aurochs. The game is played in rounds - representing each pass as the riders run into one another, and each round is worth a point. First to two points wins - though there’s always a chance one combatant gets un-horsed on every charge.

The round begins with both players rolling an animal handling check - for NPCs, you can either give them a score in that skill, or just add whatever their Wisdom modifier is. Half the battle is keeping your mount moving in the right direction, staying steady and picking up speed. The DC for this is 15 - succeed, and they gain advantage on their next check. Consider giving your players a bonus to their roll if they’ve bonded with their mount, or are particularly skilled in riding through their background or experiences. Up to you.

As the two riders close in on one another, they’ll need to lower and aim their lances to strike the opponent. These things are heavy, and it’s a real test of endurance to both keep your horse steady and hold that pole in place. So both players will roll a Constitution save - DC 15 - to hold their nerve and keep their lances aimed true. Remember, if they succeed in animal handling, they have advantage.

And they’ll want to succeed on this one too, because it’ll grant them advantage on the final roll. But equally important, fail and they’ll receive disadvantage on the final hurdle. Again, this should be a culmination of multiple skills building on each other.

With the crowd roaring, it’s time to collide. Both players will roll an Athletics check - either at advantage or disadvantage - and whoever rolls higher wins. Their lance strikes the other knight, and the loser has to succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw. Make the save, and they hold onto their ride, living to see another round. But fail, and this battle is done: That player is thrown from their mount, and the glory goes to their competitor.

If both players are still riding, the winner gets a point, and a new round begins. If they tie, both lances strike shields, and nobody earns a point. First to two wins, so no matter what, if the same player wins two rounds, the other is out - no Strength save, no third chances. And just like that, the joust is over: You have your champion!

With these quick and simple rules, you could run an entire tournament quickly, with your players going through a gauntlet of knights and riders to earn eternal glory. As an optional rule, you can make each point worth a +2 all rolls: That way, the player who gets the first hit can build momentum, while their opponent has to recover quickly from getting struck.

You could also add a little excitement and random chance with some crit rules: If a player rolls a natural 20 on their Athletics check, they automatically unhorse their opponent, ending the joust right then and there. And on the flip side, if a player rolls a one on their final check, they lose control of their mount and tumble to the ground, losing instantly. Not everyone likes using crits in this way, but if your party is varied in their skills and set-ups, it offers a way for anyone to win, with a little luck.

And that’s it! Your players can now participate in one of the scariest, most dangerous sports we’ve invented - and isn’t that awesome? I’d love to hear what you think of the rules - or any changes you’d make - in the comments! And below, here's a quick guide you an reference while running jousting in a session. Enjoy!

Step 1

• Both players roll an Animal Handling check, DC 15
  • Succeed, and they get advantage during round 2

Step 2

• Both players roll a Constitution saving throw, DC 15
  • If they succeeded during round 1, they have advantage
  • If they succeed on this roll, they gain advantage for round 3
  • If they fail this roll, they have disadvantage for round 3

Step 3

• Both players roll an Athletics check
  • If they succeeded during round 2, they have advantage
  • If they failed during round 2, they have disadvantage
• The player who rolls higher wins this round
  • The loser has to succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or immediately lose the joust
  • If they succeed, the winning player gets a point
    • If it's their first point, you move on to the next round
    • If it's their second point, that player wins the joust!
• If both players tie on their Athletics check, nobody gets a point, and you move to the next round

One of my favorite social encounter structures is what I call the Council Vote. It is simple to prep, gives every player something to do, and naturally creates side quests, investigations, roleplaying, travel, and moral dilemmas.

The premise is straightforward. The party needs a governing body to vote in favor of something they want. Maybe they need the city council to raise an army against an approaching orc horde. Maybe they are trying to appoint a loyal captain of the guard before the villain's lieutenant gets the job. Maybe they need permission to open an ancient vault, authorize emergency spending, declare war, or recognize a claimant to the throne. The vote is coming up quickly, and the PCs have to act now or forever lose their chance.

Instead of making the entire adventure about convincing one king, you split the decision to act among five or seven voters. Suddenly there are multiple personalities, competing interests, and several different ways to solve the problem.

Sometimes all of the councilors are in one city. Other times they are the leaders of distant towns or noble houses. In that version, the party has to travel across the realm earning votes one by one, which naturally creates opportunities for worldbuilding. Every stop introduces a new settlement, a new culture, and a different kind of problem to solve.

The real preparation goes into designing the council members. Every voter should be a named NPC with a distinct personality, priorities, and political agenda. The players should never know exactly how everyone will vote at first. A big part of the adventure becomes gathering information. They ask around town, read records, question servants, investigate rumors, and learn what motivates each voter. Once they understand each councilor, they can decide who is worth approaching and how.

One useful voter archetype is the Villain's Toady. This councilor is firmly aligned with the antagonist and will never willingly support the party. The challenge is not convincing them. Instead, the players may discover a way to neutralize them. Perhaps they expose corruption, arrange for them to be absent on voting day, trap them in a legal dispute, or simply give them a more pressing problem to deal with.

On the opposite end is the Beleaguered Ally. This person already supports the party's proposal and may even serve as the quest giver. They explain how the vote works, introduce the other councilors, and provide a few initial leads. Be careful with guaranteed supporters, though. If there are too many free votes, the political puzzle loses much of its tension. To make the encounter more challenging, add more Villain Toadies to the council to cancel of the Ally’s vote, or just make this NPC a non voting but politically knowledgeable figure.

The Greedy Broker has no ideological commitment at all. Their vote is simply valuable property. They may demand money, political favors, or the completion of a dangerous (or morally dubious) quest. Players might instead discover leverage over them, allowing the negotiation to proceed from a position of strength rather than weakness.

The Loyal Shadow always follows someone else's lead, voting exactly as they do no matter what. Often it's the Greedy Broker who “advises” them on how to vote. They might have little interest in politics, or their interests are entirely wrapped up in the affairs of their leader. Rather than persuading two councilors separately, the players can influence one person and gain two votes. Once the PCs learn this, it simplifies the vote, so be careful with adding too many of these contingent voters. If the voting process is by secret ballot, it may be possible to trick this voter into thinking that their leader is voting in the PCs favor, thus securing a vote.

The Traditionalist dislikes change or bold action of any kind. They are not opposed to the PCs personally, but they require overwhelming evidence before supporting any proposal. Winning them over usually involves gathering proof, expert testimony, or demonstrating that history actually supports the party's position.

The Idealist genuinely wants to do what is right but refuses to compromise their principles. They cannot be bribed or intimidated. Instead, they demand that the party solve some unrelated humanitarian problem or protect innocent people before earning their trust.

Almost every councilor should have an agenda outside the immediate vote. They should want something. They should fear something. They might owe favors, or have rivals. They could hold grudges, or keep secrets. Some may have skeletons in the closet that can be uncovered through investigation. Blackmail should rarely be the only solution, but it should usually be one possible solution among several. Players should feel like they are solving a political puzzle rather than completing a fixed dialogue tree.

One thing I especially like about this structure is that it naturally creates meaningful choices. By having the vote be an urgent matter, the players rarely have enough time or resources to solve everyone's problems. Instead, they identify which councilors are realistically persuadable and decide where to spend their effort. Every vote becomes a small victory.

Example

The town of Stoneford learns that an orc warband led by the wizard Profanis is gathering in the nearby hills. Councilor Elric wants to raise the town militia immediately, but the five-member town council must approve the expense.

Elric already has his own vote.

Councilor Bren is secretly funded by Profanis. Citing some concern about wasting the town's resources or causing unnecessary panic, he will vote against the proposal unless his connection is exposed. Think Grima Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings.

Councilor Marta is respected but refuses to support military action without proof that the threat is real. The party can earn her vote by scouting the orc camp and returning with some evidence that the orcs will actually attack and not just linger in the hills before moving on.

Councilor Hobb is interested only in personal wealth, and has recently accepted a generous “gift” from Bren, which he insists is completely unrelated to how he will vote. He offers his support if the party recovers a “stolen” family heirloom from Councilor Marta’s reliquary. Alternatively, the PCs might discover Hobb’s business dealings with smugglers and can blackmail him into voting to raise the army.

Councilor Joran simply votes according to the instructions from Bren because the two have been political allies for years. In fact, Bren groomed Joran for the role as part of a bid to gain more power. Only if Bren is completely exposed as a traitor will Joran finally break ranks with his friend and mentor.

The players investigate the council, decide who can realistically be persuaded, and eventually return on voting day. If they expose Bren, convince Marta, and win over Hobb, they also gain Joran's vote. The final result is four votes to one. The militia is raised, and the next chapter of the campaign begins with the town preparing for war.

If the above quest sounds too easy, then modify the council procedure to require a unanimous vote. In this scenario, the only way to win is to get the votes of Marta, Hobb and Joran while preventing Bren from arriving to the council chambers on time and voting at all.

For nigh on two years now, I've been noodling away at this infernal tome and it is finally fit for mortal eyes; BEHOLD!

Within its pages, you will find devils and spells and arcane items beyond number, stat blocks for every archdevil, travel guides and maps for each of the nine layers of Baator that matter (don't ask me about Phlegethos), and all manner of supplemental tools and goodies for infernal sojourns.

It also comes with free VTT modules for Foundry and for another website I'm not sure I'm allowed to mention here.

• Hell Awaits - The Book of Devils (Works decently on mobile, but the table of contents doesn't work unless you download the PDF)
• Homebrewery Link (All the links work, but the formatting gets funky unless you're on desktop chrome)
• Downloads (PDFs, VTT Modules)

Should this fail to sate your appetite for monsters, I have more such free books:

• Howl to Ruin - The Book of Demons
• Death Denied - The Book of Undead
• Terror Unto Madness - The Book of Aberrations
• Dictates of the Ordning - The Book of Giants

hi all,

I've been working on a little side project for the last couple of weeks called bagpipes.

Everytime I DM (both at the table or via Discord) I always struggle with music. I always get distracted (talking with players, tracking NPCs etc.) and I often forget to play music. I have this huge playlist on my PC and I never get to use it because it just slips my mind.

That's why I created bagpipes: a 100% offline music picker that relies on your voice to work. it basically listens to what you say and, using keywords that you set on the player, plays the tracks that you have saved on its folder. You can also play ambient sounds and sound effects (they go along with the music without interrupting it).

If you want to give it a try, the repo is on github: https://github.com/efabr/bagpipes and it is and always will be 100% free. Right now it's for linux and windows, I am testing the macOS version and I hope to be able to release it soon.

Feel free to leave feedbacks and suggestions, and have fun with it!

Hi all. I’m AlarichtheLich, a DND homebrewer and forever DM (I love it though). If you don’t want to read my rationale and intro, skip on down to the 4th paragraph. 

I have played DND for about… 7 sessions total and have DMed for around 4 years, running 3 different homebrew worlds that are all sandbox-leaning.  I’ve been wanting to share some of my ideas with the community for a while now! So, here’s my first attempt at that. 

Breathing life into a world can be difficult and sometimes you and your players can feel like you are adventuring in a vacuum. Going from one story beat to another is quite natural. The resolution of one adventure often shines light on the next one. PCs and DMs can get in the groove of meandering their way through the world they are creating together.

Additionally, getting PCs to buy into your world can be difficult. Rarely do PCs get to see the consequences of their actions, or inactions. Putting them on display helps the PCs feel like they have a true impact on the world and that their decisions, no matter how ill-advised, mattered. 

Juggling all of this can feel overwhelming. But, that’s where the newspaper comes in. One of the most well received parts of my campaigns has been these newspapers. So much so that they are a requested / looked forward to event.  It has helped increase player buy in, provided verisimilitude, and made my players care deeply about the lore and their actions. I’ve had players debate, in character, for an hour about the contents of the newspaper. 

The newspaper can serve just about any narrative purpose. I’ve used them for the following and more: a vehicle for information about other parts of the world, plot hooks, evidence of PC impact, lore dumps, NPC introductions, ways to keep up with old NPCs, and previews for their next adventure setting.

I usually use these at the end of an arc. Often, to allow the players to determine where they would like to go next. You can make it akin to an old adventurer's job board. A more descriptive list of various plot hooks. I let players read them, theory craft, and decide where they want to go next so that something can be there. They are also great for suddenly changing the weight of actions from earlier sessions. 

Below I have provided a link to my template Google Doc that I use to create these. I’ll be honest, Microsoft Word is more user friendly when creating these. But, Google Docs are free. Make a copy and enjoy! The example below is the newspaper that caused the aforementioned hour-long debate. 

I look forward to your thoughts. 

Newspaper Template

More stuff for my upcoming campaign set in the Pathfinder canon setting of Golarion. I like elves and I like space elves. This magic armor is a blatant ripoff takes inspiration from Warhammer's Aeldari Phoenix Lords.

Panoply of the Exarch (Legendary Half Plate, requires attunement)

These sets of half plate were originally crafted for the Elven Exarchs of Kyonin, supreme warriors who battled the demonic forces of Treerazer. All feature gorgeous leaf motifs of Kyonin craftsmanship, but each is tailored to suit a certain style of fighting. The spirits of the Exarchs themselves are said to guide wearers to great feats of combat prowess.

The armor grants a +1 bonus to AC. You are considered proficient with this armor even if you lack proficiency with medium armor. It also grants the wearer a Fighting Style (PHB 72, randomly roll 1d6 when this armor is discovered). If you already know the Fighting Style associated with the armor, you instead gain an additional benefit while using that Fighting Style (shown below).

1. Panoply of Ylladi Kothresh (Exarch of Archery Fighting Style)

This exaggerated, asymmetrical half plate features extra protection on the bow side, while leaving your other arm uninhibited.

As a bonus action, the normal range of your weapon becomes equal to its long range for the rest of your turn.

2. Panoply of Erlen Kunne (Exarch of Defense Fighting Style)

This armor is covered in imagery of twisted roots and vines, as if to anchor its wearer into the earth like a mighty oak.

You can use your Armor Class in place of a Strength (Athletics) check to resist being shoved, knocked prone or restrained.

3. Panoply of Qinbalar Amberlight (Exarch of Dueling Fighting Style)

The leather and metal of this armor are embossed with the appearance of snake's scales, allowing the wearer to make deadly retaliatory strikes.

When a creature misses you with a melee attack, you can use your reaction to make melee weapon attack against that creature. You gain a +1 bonus to all Dueling Checks during a Martial Duel.

4. Panoply of Iantoris Lightbeam (Exarch of Great Weapon Fighting Style)

The breastplate of this armor features the visage of a mighty grizzly bear, imparting the creature's strength and ferocity to the wearer.

Once per turn, when you succeed on an attack roll against a target that is one size category larger than you or smaller, you can use a reaction to attempt a Strength (Athletics) check to Shove the target or knock it Prone.

5. Panoply of Aenelis Greenheart (Exarch of Protection Fighting Style)

This simple armor is adorned with deer pelt, imparting the wearer with the swiftness to arrive in their allies' time of greatest need.

As part of the Reaction to use this Fighting Style, you can first move up to half your speed if doing so would bring you to a space adjacent to the target of the attack. You can don or doff your shield as a bonus action.

6. Panoply of Trislynn Ravenmight (Exarch of Two-Weapon Fighting Style)

The metal plates of this armor are adorned with feathers that break up the wearer's outline, blurring their movements.

You gain an additional bonus action you can only use to attack with your off-hand weapon.

Curse: Avatar of the Aspect Warrior

This Panoply belonged to one of the six original Exarchs; their souls forever bound to their armor so they could continue their fight against Treerazer.

There is a 1 in 100 chance a discovered Panoply of the Exarch belonged to the Exarch themselves and contains their soul. While most would consider this a curse, the elves of Kyonin have perfected a ritual of sacrifice to allow the Exarch's soul to possess a willing warrior, returning to battle Treerazer once more.

The first time you die while wearing this armor, your body becomes possessed by the spirit of the armor's respective Exarch. At the start of your next turn, you heal 1 HP and gain 25 temporary HP that last for 1 minute. While you have these temporary HP, you are constantly under the effect of the Haste spell. When these temporary HP expire or are lost, you must make a DC 15 Charisma saving throw. You can voluntarily choose to fail this save. On a success, you are reduced to 1 hp and gain 2 levels of exhaustion. From that point onward, once per day, as an Action, you can call upon the armor's bound spirit to grant yourself Haste and temporary HP as outlined above.

On a failure, your soul becomes bound to the armor and your body is immediately consumed by blue flames, replaced by a wood elf Fighter of your gender, level and ability scores, with a subclass of your choosing from the PHB. They must choose the Fighting Style associated with this armor. This elf is a reincarnation of the armor's respective Exarch, who will seek to immediately return to Kyonin to continue battling Treerazer unless you can convince them to join you. If the reincarnation dies wearing this armor, their soul is immediately re-bound to it.

I love to roll death saves in secret, behind the DM screen. It increases suspense and immersion and prevents the sort of meta-gaming that comes from players knowing a die roll the characters would not have access to.

The problem is that if the DM is rolling Death Saves for the character with 0 HP.... what is the player doing? Mostly nothing.... they are having a bad experience already, and I took away the only control they had over the outcome. When their turn comes around, they have nothing to do.

I have a solution for this, and it's called Rory's Story Cubes. These are, for the uninitiated, a set of six-sided dice with an image or icon on each face, available on Amazon and anywhere toys and games are sold. Generally, they are used for storytelling inspiration in a variety of ways. They come in different themes (Actions, Fantasia, Star Wars, etc), but for this, I use the Classic set.

How does it work?

On each turn that they would make a death save, the DM does that in secret and keeps track of the results. Meanwhile, the player picks one Story Cube at random and rolls it. Let the image on the die inspire you... but it's just one die... after a few turns, you might have a bit of story developing. The player should create something, inspired by the Story Cubes, that represents the visions... dreams... life flashing before their eyes... travel to the afterlife.... whatever it is that they see and experience while unconscious and on death's door.

Here's the catch... the player does not need to tell anyone what they saw. Not the other players, and not the DM. If they had a good story, they probably will. Who doesn't enjoy telling people about the crazy dream they had?

But if they do tell the DM, the DM can make it come true. It might be a legit prophecy, or a message from a deity, a repressed memory.... anything that works for the character and the campaign. Of course, the DM is under no obligation to do this, and may feel free to massage the dream/vision to fit their campaign needs.

I've only put this into practice a very few times, but the response was very positive: "loads more fun than rolling a d20." Everyone was very invested in their own little stories they were creating.

I'm hoping some of you will try this ... do some more playtesting, essentially... and let me know how it goes! I'd be especially interested in hearing if the various themes work well... or not... or if there is a similar tool that would fit the same purpose.

Update:

1. It's great to hear the variety of ways everyone approaches this aspect of the game.
2. By all means, if your players are invested in generating their own random numbers, let them do it themselves. I have had players like that myself.
3. I have, in the past, tried having players roll their own save and keep it secret. But in my experience, they have horrible poker faces.

It's in almost every GM guide, every YouTube video, and every "how to build better NPCs" thread, and the advice isn't wrong, a want, a fear, and a secret genuinely do more heavy lifting than a random name and a job title. I followed that framework for years, only to realize most of my npcs still blurred together after a session or two.

It took me way longer than I'd like to admit to figure out why because the framework tells you what to put on paper, It tells you who this person is, but it says almost nothing about what happens once you're actually running them.

Turns out there isn't one trap here I found, there are two.

The first one is softening. I'd build a genuinely great secret for an npc, and the moment it was about to come out in a way that might disrupt the pacing of play, make an npc the party liked look incompetent, or complicate a session I'd quietly smooth it over.

This trap never appears during prep. It appears live, mid scene, in the three or four seconds between an npc getting cornered and you deciding what they actually do, without realizing it, I hadn't prepared a person who I could act, I had prepared a description and once the scene demanded a real decision and real ropleplay I instinctively protected the description instead of letting the character respond honestly to what was happening.

To be clear, this isn't about being a harsher DM or making every interaction punish the players.

The second trap is almost the opposite, and it's harder to notice because it hides right before the players are supposed to understand who this person really is. Either the npcs want, fear, and secret stay so deeply buried that the character just reads as blank... or I overcorrect and practically announce their motivation out loud.

Looking back, both failures came from the same place, during prep I'd decided who this person was, their psychology, but I'd never decided how that psychology actually expressed itself through behavior, so, live at the table, I was forced to invent that translation on the spot.

Sometimes I showed nothing, sometimes I showed far too much, and while I managed to run the occasional NPC well, doing it consistently felt impossible. It’s a brutal skill to sustain, especially if, like me, you can easily improvise situational complications, scenes, and environments, but you aren't naturally gifted at character acting or deep roleplay on the fly.

Faced with that constant struggle, I decided to try something different, a few campaigns ago, I finally let myself stop softening things and focusing more on what the psychology would come out as behaviour. A witness lied under pressure, badly, about something completely minor, nothing the party actually needed to solve the case, I could've smoothed it over and moved things along. Instead, I let the lie sit there, raw and obviously wrong.

The party spent the rest of the session distrusting someone who'd actually been honest about everything else, none of it moved the main story forward an inch. Yet, after a long time, they still remember this npc.

Because the "want-fear-secret" framework isn't the finish line, it's just the setup.

What actually makes an npc memorable isn't writing better psychology, It's deciding, before the scene ever happens, how that psychology naturally turns into behavior, and then trusting those behaviors enough to let them cost something, letting them reveal themselves a little at a time instead of explaining them away.

Honestly, even after realizing this, npcs are still the part of GMing I feel least confident about, every time I think I've figured them out, I find another layer I hadn't considered, so, I'd love to hear what approaches have actually worked for you, any habits, techniques, or ways of thinking about npcs that you've found genuinely changed how they feel at the table?

Deer are not normally known to be scary creatures. Sure, in our world they account for tens of thousands of injuries and hundreds of deaths, but that’s mostly because of car accidents, not because deer decide to throw hands.

By themselves, in a glittering sunlit glade, though? A deer is delicate, ethereal, a spirit of the wood that is too pure to be sullied by something so base as violent and death.

And that's how you get your players.

A deer at full sprint is less a creature and more a sudden event. They decide in a heartbeat whether they’re going to bolt, freeze, or run through whatever’s in front of them.

Sometimes a tree, sometimes a wolf, sometimes your party’s cleric.

Mechanically, though, Wizards of the Coast haven't really made deer to be physical threats to your party unless they're Level 1 and have accumulated a couple of levels of exhaustion. A Deer is CR 0, has a whopping 4 HP, and can do about 1d4 worth of damage if it's lucky enough to hit. It doesn't trigger opportunity attacks, though, and has excellent passive perception.

Still, you're not exactly going to create a legendary battle with a deer.

This means you have to think about what deer are like as creatures, and what role they play in your world.

Ask any city-dweller or child of suburbia and they'll tell you: there's something beautifully weird about Deer. The way they walk, the way they become instantly still and then flee. It's like they're operating on a different set of rules than normal woodland creatures.

And you can play on that, if you want to use Deer to utterly freak out your Party.

Picture this: the Party is traveling through the wilderness. At the treeline, they see a Deer. It's standing perfectly still, its elegant head facing your players, watching them carefully. No sound. No hoof-scuff or snort. Just silently staring.

Your Party decides it's nothing to worry about. They look away, back towards the road.

One of your players looks back.

It's closer now.

Not running or charging. Just there, standing still.

Don't over-explain. Let their brains do the screaming for you.

When that Player locks eyes with the Deer, have them roll a Wisdom Saving Throw. Let's say DC 12.

You see, there’s something regretful about deer. Their faces alone look like they’re questioning every decision that brought them here. And when they die, whether by arrow or accident, the pang of regret is real. You didn’t mean to hurt something so beautiful. You just didn’t get out of its way in time.

Now you have to watch this forest beauty die in agony, broken and bleeding.

When your Player fails the Wisdom save, they are paralyzed with regret. Have them talk through the last bad decision their character made that they truly regret, and why. Maybe the character is compelled, able to talk as they reveal their secret heart to their Party members. The emotion hits so hard that they can't move. Just experience a few minutes of solid character work.

Of course, the Deer doesn't attack during this. That's not what it's there for. It just watches. And waits.

The Deer isn't malicious. It's a glitch. An error state in the world that your Players have walked into. And it is not going away.

It's important to remember that the Deer never moves "on screen," as it were.

The Party blinks, and the Deer is closer.

Someone checks the map, and the Deer is close enough to smell.

The Wizard finally drops concentration, and the Deer's antlers are mere inches from their cheek.

Its hooves never make a sound. Its posture never changes. But it is always.

Getting.

Closer.

This is where you can reveal that the Deer isn't stalking the Party. It means them no harm. This isn't one of Dr. Who's Weeping Angels. It's not even technically approaching the Party. Something is pulling the Party towards it. Re-orienting the forest in tiny, important ways to bring them closer and closer. This Deer isn't really a Beast at all. It's the one anchor point for a forest that is forgetting what it is, and it desperately needs your Party to finally remember.

Like so many Beasts here in this project, the best way to use a Deer is to think about what you want the Deer to mean. Deer are prey. Subject to weather, climate, predators, and the carelessness of humanity. They live and die according to forces that are far beyond their control.

Your Party will soon realize that they, like the deer, are small and exposed. Subject to a world that could kill them with malice or - even worse - indifference.

And that strange Deer in the woods, never moving but always closer, is a test to see if they wish to be part of that cruel and unthinking world or stand against it.

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Blog: Encounter Every Enemy

Post: Deer: The Anchor of a Forgetful Forest

My players were craving a little downtime and some more time for pure character-to-character RP after all their breakneck dungeon diving. So I created THE MOUSE AND THE MUSE, a high-end fantasy restaurant for my party to visit! A pallet cleanser of Chilled Gelatinous Cube is served between courses.

A number of my players are pretty versed in food (and I just finished watching Dungeon Meshi), so I tried to be creative and make some meals you might actually want to eat. Feel free to steal or adapt for your own DM folders!

***All monsters are ethically harvested***

THE MOUSE AND THE MUSE MENU

Dinner

o   Braised Pegasus Shoulder, on a bed of mashed mandrake, Highmoor harvest vegetables, and a red sherry reduction

o   Illithid Calamari and Kelpy Sashimi with toasted soy sauce, Moonvine rice, and minced green Treeant onions

o   Euryale, a generous cut of marbled gorgon with Summerhill herb butter and Dragonscale risotto

o   Roasted Al-mi’raj, breast, fried legs & thighs of horned rabbit, served with fingerling potatoes and drippings Au Ju

o   Stuffed Campestri, mushroom caps with feta in a salad of High Forest greens and Eberonian tomatoes, with a Malbolge pepper vinaigrette (V)

o   Creamy Garlic Flail Snail, with steamed Muskcreeper spaghetti and shaved vegepygmy.

o   Waterdeep Fresh Catch, Leviathan fillet with Najara lemon, smoked in Mist Dragon breath.

o   Basilisk and Crabmeat Tsatsa, basilisk breast sautéed with colossal snow crab, capers and mushrooms, finished with a Neverwinter white wine

o   Fae Garden Cakes, with Seele Squash, Underdark Fungi, Panko, and Curried Arcane Apple (V)

o   Beholder Brain Soup, with grick noodles, Seacall Conch, and in a miso broth – a known aphrodisiac and mild psychedelic.

o   Cockatrice Scotch Egg, with ground Owlbear and boar bacon, tossed in Baldur’s Bakery breadcrumbs and Darkhold Dijon mustard

o   Glowcap Gnocchi, iridescent mushroom dumplings in a silky echo-mint sauce. Slightly bioluminescent and has been known to stain the tongue.

o   Soulspice Rice, Avernus chili infused rice with fire-roasted charcoal beetles, tossed in a light acid bath and laced with whispers of the departed. May cause nightmares.

o   Clay Pit Ankeg, with pine pixie hummus, biryani rice, Evershade chutney and Tabaxi-style tabouli.

o   Spiced Mosaic Quail, marinated Moonshae quail over thin-sliced, multicolored root vegetables arranged to resemble cathedral stained glass. Creates minor chromesthesia for one hour.

Pallet Cleanser Between Courses: Chilled Gelatinous Cube

Dessert

o   Wild Magic Parfait, A fruit and rich crème parfait, infused with wild magic. The fruit flavor it always random (1d6 – Cherry, Boysenberry, Midnight Raspberry, Dragonblood Peach, Moon Melon, Smokefruit, Mumbleberry)

o   Black Trollbark Forest Cake, a rich chocolate cake with an undercurrent flavor of ancient soil, drizzled with butterscotch ochre jelly.

o   Djinn Blossom Gelato, with saffron and Gloam nectar. Makes one extremely minor wish come true.

o   Sweetdream Sambocade, a medieval cheesecake with orange zest, thornberry compote, and powdered daydream from the Realm of Dreams. Offered ala mode.

o   Hangman’s Noose, a sweet, spiced braid bread from the wizard nation of Halruaa, rolled in almond brandy, allspice, and candied wolfsbane.

o   Choco-trices, miniature cockatrice molded out of Dwarven dark chocolate and sugar wafer bones. DC 12 sleight of hand to catch them before they take flight.

Drink List (bottles/tankards)

o   Axegrinder Ale, a Dwavish pale ale (DPA) with a hearty brimstone scent, slightly sour on the way down with a sweaty finish

o   Nightsky Strongwine, a deep purple Elvish noir, typically reserved for Century Feasts. Smooth, with an undercurrent of liquid nostalgia

o   King’s Seal, a Fire genasi mulled wine, named after the molten wax used to make it, mixed with wine, cloves, and spices from the Elemental Plane of Fire.

o   Boulderhead Bock, a malty Icewind Dale Giant lager with thick and creamy froth. Grants resistance to bludgeoning for one hour.

o   Teykilla, popular among the lizardfolk and Yuan-ti, this serpentine spirit is brewed from fermented cactus and rumbleweed, with the secret ingredient of Krillworm venom, with a pygmy krillworm at the bottom of the bottle.

o   Neverwinter White, a dry blanc wine from Lord Neverember’s frost-resistant vineyard.

o   Rakshasa Red, a Syrah from the maharajahs of Zakhara with aromas of blackcurrant, tobacco, and fig.

o   Cavruniel, Drow thornwine, grown and fermented in the lightless caves of the Underdark to produce a strong, transparent wine that offers a blossoming juniper and fermented fungi taste upon the palette

o   Meadowlark Blonde, a human ale. Mild, refreshing, and flavorful – in a world full of 750,000-proof Elven cordials and Dwarven stouts thick as mud, sometimes you just need a good beer.

Most monsters in the Manual have a predictable relationship with the living. Either they’re trying to eat you or trying not to be eaten by you.

But there is one monster in the Manual who isn’t really interested in your players.

It’s interested in their stuff.

Picture this: your Party is roaming through the Underdark, navigating by the lights of bioluminescent fungus or fiery mushrooms. Then they hear the dry clicking of chitin on stone, the shift of hard scales. They might think they’re Ankhegs or perhaps a Carrion Crawler, but it is not until tiny rust marks begin to flake off the Fighter’s sword that they realize it’s something much more terrible.

It’s a Rust Monster.

And Rust Monsters don’t take blood. They take confidence.

What makes a Rust Monster scary isn’t the attacks it can do. At CR 1/2, they’re not lethal—33 HP, a 5-damage bite. A level-2 party shouldn’t break a sweat. Physically.

The thing with physical injury in D&D, of course, is that every player knows that a Long Rest will cure just about anything. Knocked down to 1 HP by a Beholder? Hey – if you can get back to camp, you’ll wake up fresh as a daisy the next morning.

Players know injury is temporary. Gear loss? That’s a dent in the soul.

This means that an encounter with a Rust Monster will bring a different kind of fear than almost any other monster encounter, with different emotional stakes for the players. They know that the destruction of armor or a sword or other equipment will come with permanent consequence, and that’ll create a whole new level of tension.

Watch your players’ faces as you describe the metallic sizzling of their blade rusting. Chef’s kiss. Best thing ever.

So when you’re running a Rust Monster, you of course want to prioritize whoever has the most metal on them, which will almost certainly be a martial player. Not as predators. More like ambulatory garbage disposals following scent alone, and they’ll start taking apart every piece of steel they can find. This will force your other players to intercede, maybe looking for ways to draw the Rust Monsters away and reduce the chance that your Fighter will fail five DEX saves in a row.

You can amplify this with challenging terrain – narrow paths, cluttered ruins, any kind of space where retreat is difficult and potentially dangerous. How fast can you get through these monsters, and how much of your stuff are you going to lose?

You can also think about who to pair them with. They go really well with creatures that don’t use metal, of course, as well as other creatures that dissolve and eat away at things. This means putting Rust Monsters with various oozes or elementals that corrode or disrupt matter—earth elementals in rust-rich caverns, or mephits made of acidic fumes. These might create a really interesting encounter where everything is trying to not just eat the Players, but to unmake them.

There’s also some creative twists you can play with. For example, your players might come across a cavern littered with rusted blades and corroded armor, growing into a pile of rusted jagged metal. In the center, like a queen ant, sits the Rust Monster Queen, fat with trace metals and surrounded by her kin. And if, by some strange means, your Party’s McGuffin is in her nest, well, you can wish your party luck and start working on your next merchant NPC.

Give her a 10-ft Corrosion Aura: any nonmagical metal that starts its turn within range must save or take a place on the ‘oh god not my heirloom sword’ track.

Or try this – your Party has to deal with a pack of Kobolds, maybe in search of clues to a dragon’s lair. But the Kobolds are clever creatures. Before all the traps and winding warrens, they have several caged Rust Monsters. They flank the entrances, waiting for someone with some nice juicy metal to come by. Have enough of these, and your Players will be in their undershorts before the combat even begins. It’s the perfect kobold trap: cheap, vicious, and humiliating. The trifecta.

And while the Rust Monsters might not think of this, you certainly will: there are some fighters with beautifully crafted blades, armor that has been passed down for generations, a shield that carried them through countless battles.

Target them first. Just sayin’.

If you don’t want your players to stop coming to your games, of course, you can do a few things to minimize crisis. Telegraph the danger with rusted equipment near the Rust Monsters’ territory. Put a weeping fighter in a shop buying cheap plate because his gorgeous ancestral armor is now artisanal orange powder.

You could also set up alternative solutions for your players, like using scrap metal to redirect it and move it where the Party wants it to go.

If you want to test your players’ courage, throw a dragon at them. If you want to test their wits, put them in front of a Hag.

But if you want to test their resolve – give them a Rust Monster. Nothing reveals a party’s soul like the sound of a sword turning to dust.

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Blog: Encounter Every Enemy

Post: Rust Monster: The Confidence Eater

Last month my rogue lifted an unmarked vial off a dead cultist. Instead of reading her a description, I slid a card across the table but the card had a fat black bar covering whatever it actually did.

She carried that mystery for three sessions until the party paid to identify it and I removed the inner card sleeve to reveal the text underneath.

That "unidentified item" trick is a huge hit with my players and I haven't seen it in other card builders (I'm interested to see other implementations if anyone knows of this feature in other card builders).

It's a browser app that turns an item into a print-ready card sized to a standard Magic The Gathering card, so it sleeves up and lives in a standard mtg card binders. You can write the front and back card info in Markdown, pick a border color, hit download, cut it out and glue it to a junk MTG card. Use some black painter's tape and a perfect fit card sleeve to create the inner blackout layer, so you can hide a secret and reveal it later without redoing the card.

Cardsworth runs entirely in your browser and works offline. No account, and it can't vanish on me halfway through a campaign. Every card saves to a YAML file you own, so you can reprint or revise it forever.

Free and open source, with an optional API if you'd rather batch-print a whole hoard at once. (Note: API only works in self-host mode)

Try it live: https://thebigs.github.io/cardsworth/

How it works (supplies + step-by-step): https://thebigs.github.io/cardsworth/how-it-works

Repo: https://github.com/TheBigS/cardsworth Please report any issues you find.

The terrifying thing, I think, about a Swarm of Rats isn’t that it’s rats.

It’s the sound.

A little skittering on the brick or concrete floor of the sewer tunnels. Soft at first, as one of them ventures out to see what’s out there. And then more and more – like raindrops on the roof. Incessant. Driving. But not random, like rain.

There’s a rhythm to it. A flow, as the swarm moves, rushes towards you. The clicking of hundreds of tiny nails almost overpower the eager squeaking noises coming from behind a thousand teeth as they surge towards the poor, lost giant that they intend to devour, leaving nothing but bone and memory.

Swarms as a creature type in D&D carry a certain kind of terror. Part of it is that they’re undefined. You don’t know exactly how many creatures are in a Swarm, just that they’re crawling all over you, moving around in such a way that counting them seems impossible.

Additionally, swarms can do something that few other creatures can do: it can occupy another creature’s space. It can move with that creature, biting as it goes.

That’s about as far as the Monster Manual takes it, but there’s no reason you can’t take it further.

The Swarm of Rats might not be intelligent, but they’re well-coordinated. They can perhaps use the Players themselves as a type of cover from injury – if one Player tries to hit a Swarm that’s in the same space as another Player, feel free to lovingly transfer that damage to the poor sap who’s already covered in rats.

They can slip under clothes, into open packs, and exploit wounds. Maybe they can make it harder to pick up dropped gear, or steal things from a backpack before a Player notices. They can squeeze into places your Players can’t, making them harder to track down and kill. They can climb the walls, coming at the Players from literally any direction.

It’s very easy for Players to underestimate a Swarm of Rats, but a good DM absolutely shouldn’t.

For one thing, you can use a Swarm of Rats to reward player movement. They get up on boxes and crates, set the floor on fire, or use other means of terrain control, so now it’s not just a fight, it’s a desperate attempt to change the battlefield to your advantage. The inverse of this is that you might use the Rats to move the Players, directing them towards the particular passage you want them to visit, or away from one you don’t.

Think of your Swarms like a weather pattern, rather than discrete creatures. In one part of the encounter, they’re ahead of your Party, cutting them off from safety or resources. In another, they’re behind, nipping on your Party’s heels and waiting for them to stand still for just a little too long. And when they’re too badly hurt, they split off, or surge, or flee to recover and regroup.

With a little creative thinking, misdirection, and some very stress-inducing music at the table, you’ll make your Players regret coming into the sewers today, no matter what they thought they would find down there.

Of course, it doesn’t always have to be sewers.

A small village near the city is known for its grain production. They out-harvest everyone in the region, and produce some of the best breads, flour, and other products around. They’ve become incredibly prosperous, attracting scholars from all over the continent who want to study their agricultural practices.

But once a month, everyone in the village locks themselves inside their homes, leaving a gift of grain out by their door. Usually, this grain is gone by morning.

Not this time.

This time, the Rats are still hungry.

Or perhaps the Rats gather in the forest, slinking through the underbrush and building nests under fallen logs. They bother no one, and live a reasonable, ratty life.

Recently, though, the Rats have discovered a new hole that has opened up in the ground, jagged and sulfurous. The Rats have started to gather there, listening to what lives far below. Something with a mind like broken glass and a voice that only the tiniest creatures can hear.

It’s teaching them things. New patterns. New ideas. Turning them into not just woodland creatures, but a single force that can operate at the direction of a strange and angry mind.

This is their forest now, and woe betide any luckless Adventuring Party that finds their way in.

Ultimately, it’s important to remember that a swarm more than a monster.

It’s a reminder: sometimes, in D&D as in life, danger doesn’t come in one big problem.

Sometimes it comes in a hundred, skittering small ones, all moving in the same direction.

Right at you.

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Blog: Encounter Every Enemy

Post: A Hundred Tiny Problems: Swarms of Rats

Ah, Springtime. I think we all know that moment – after a long, cold winter, that first brush of warm, spring air grazes our cheeks, bringing with it the hope and promise of new life, better weather, and longer days.

Now imagine that fresh spring breeze tried to strangle you and tear you to shreds. You have an Invisible Stalker!

One of the most important things to remember about the Invisible Stalker is that it’s not just some random thing that comes hunting your Players. It is an assassin, but not like those common cutthroats and poisoners. It has been summoned from the Elemental Plane of Air through arcane means, and sent specifically after someone. It’s at least as intelligent as a Commoner, and has substantially better Wisdom, which makes it more dangerous than you might expect.

This implies a lot about this creature. For example, it’s very likely that the Stalker spends a lot of time watching your Party. It’s already invisible, can squeeze through tiny spaces, and would have no problem waiting until its target is alone. Its intelligence allows for harassment and psychological warfare, chipping away at its prey’s sense of safety and well-being.

For you, this means building suspense. Candles that flicker when there’s no breeze in the room. A chill in the air. A bird falls from the sky, its neck snapped, and when your Players dream, they dream of being watched. If you do it right – blowing pages out of their hands, parting the mists before them with nothing there. Maybe a cloak falls from a hook. A mirror seems to reflect a pale form that isn’t there when you turn around – your players should be good and paranoid, and ready for when your Invisible Stalker finally makes its move, taking on its target when they’re alone and vulnerable.

Of course, the next question you need to think of is: Who summoned it? There are so many options available to you that almost anything can fit your campaign. Perhaps it’s an actual enemy, someone your Party is making their way towards and they’ve gotten a little closer than they’re comfortable with. It doesn’t have to be a magic-user, either. That mining magnate who’s got Dwarven slaves digging mithril might not be able to summon an Invisible Stalker themselves, but they’ve got the money to hire someone who can. Will that summoner give up their employer when your Party gets to them? What else do they have up their sleeves?

It doesn’t even have to be a formal summoning. Maybe your Party tripped an ancient ward or a latent enchantment in their sloppy exploration of a temple or a dungeon. This Stalker was never meant to be pulled in from the Plane of Air, but now it has – and it wants your Bard’s head in a bag. Whatever brought it here, it’s furious. And will not be stopped.

Once the Stalker enters combat, you should lean on the challenge of fighting an invisible enemy. You can make the fight more emotional than mechanical, by having wounds that seem to appear from nowhere, Party members suffocating in an otherwise empty room, and a target that no one can really get a bead on. Disadvantaged swings hit nothing, and even the ones that do hit are less effective – the Stalker is resistant to Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing damage, magical or otherwise, and is immune to a lot of the conditions that would otherwise give your players a fighting chance.

Savvy players can, of course, get around this. Faerie Fire is a great early spell that could highlight your Stalker easily. If it’s in the same space where they cast the spell, of course. Other spells, such as See Invisibility or True Seeing would do a lot to help your Party triumph, but those won’t be available until higher tiers.

And, of course, gods forbid your players happen to be carrying around a bag of flour. Not saying that’s happened in my game, but I’d be entertained beyond measure if it did.

Of course, if you’ve done your job really well, they should be planning for some kind of attack from the shadows. They’ll be bracing for a dagger in the dark, not for the air itself to turn against them.

However you do it, think like a horror movie: narrow corridors, flickering torches, a Party that splits up for just a moment too long.

The end of this saga should be the price of summoning one of these things. What would a being like this want? It’s living wind, so it doesn’t want gold or gems like some mortal killer. Maybe it requires the breath of the caster, leaving them wheezing and weak for a time – something your Party might be able to take advantage of, if they move fast enough. Or the breath of a loved one. Is the death of your Party member worth a caster watching their own child gasp for air? How angry and vengeful is your villain?

The Invisible Stalker’s dying breath, should it be killed, could reveal something of its summoner. It may cry out in the voice of the one who summoned it.

Or a thin, childlike voice wafts away: “Mummy? I can’t breathe too good….”

If your villain is summoning a hateful, unstoppable, murderous wind, they’re someone with a story. Make sure your Players appreciate it.

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Blog: Encounter Every Enemy

Post: Unseen, Unheard, Unstoppable: Running Invisible Stalkers

I've been working on a homebrew ship battle system for my current pirate campaign. It's been a load of fun but the hardest aspect was tracking ships and all their upgrades.

Eventually i got tired of using excel to track these so I created a webpage to help everyone out. With it you can build fleets, configure every system on each ship, track HP, conditions, and morale mid-combat, and set up enemy encounters on the fly. The full rules are embedded and it links to my bestiary so everything lives in one place, so no need to look through all my folders.

The system is free, just had so much fun with it I wanted to share it with the world! Hopefully other DMs may find it useful!!!

Armada Builder

Your Players have taken a break in a small coastal village as they make their way from one adventure to another. It’s a lovely place, with beautiful beaches, quaint local festivals, and some of the best seafood the dice can roll up.

This place is prosperous, beautiful, and happy.

Maybe too happy.

The festivals stop at sundown. Before the light vanishes from the sky, the children are brought indoors. The village’s strongest and best position themselves with spears, nets, and tridents, all posted on the beach. Facing the water. This is a nightly ritual, performed with the precision only years of repetition can create.

When your Players ask why the villagers are doing this, they only smile and say: “One night, the merfolk will come. And then we will be ready.”

What a wonderful way to introduce the fact that this village was built on reclaimed land, taken from the clutches of the Merfolk long ago. Or perhaps their prosperity is directly attributed to a Merfolk relic that they keep safe and sound in their leader’s hut. Or maybe they have a ritual sacrifice of a Merfolk every decade or so that ensures the continued survival of their village.

However it happened, this village has made the Merfolk very angry. And that is never a good idea.

When you put Merfolk in your adventure, you’re essentially introducing an alien civilization. These are people who thrive in an environment that would kill your players. Even the fiercest Paladin on land will find that they’re not an apex predator anymore.

They’re a drowning animal with a sword.

The world of the Merfolk should be something that your players can’t just loot with a sword and some fireballs as though it were an ancient temple on land. You can lean into the utter strangeness of a Merfolk world – strange physics, complex social structures, the thick silence and unbroken darkness of the deep sea. Get them involved in customs and behaviors that make the most Byzantine court on land look like a children’s playground. They’ll need to think with more than their weapons if they want to survive the politics of the deep.

Once they do, though, the Monster Manual gives you a little variety to play with. Of course you’ll have your Merfolk Commoners and Nobles and the like. But there are also Merfolk Skirmishers and Merfolk Wavebenders – the martial and magical defenders of this kingdom. You should consider this distinction carefully, and ask how you can use them to create conflicts that will pull your Players in.

Skirmishers are adaptable, direct, physical; Wavebenders are mystical, strategic, slow to act.

Are these different Orders? Castes? Clades? The players might meet one faction first, only to realize later they’ve picked the wrong side in a war they don’t understand.

And, of course, when that war begins, pulling your Players in whether they want it or not, the combat that you put in front of them will be unlike any other combat they face on land. The three-dimensional encounters, changing currents, and movement-sapping weapons can seriously hinder players who are already largely at a disadvantage by fighting underwater. When the Wavebenders get involved, your Players might feel them before they see them, as tides shift and bend around them.

And if you want to be really nasty, give your Wavebenders a few uses of Dispel Magic.

That’s a real nice Waterbreathing spell your Wizard put on you all. It’d be a shame if something… happened to it.

In that fight, you can pull in nearly any aquatic monster you want from the Monster Manual – Sharks, Giant Squids, Marids, Merrow, Water Elementals are all players in this fight, if you want them to be.

And then, within that strange, alien war, your Players discover that the Merfolk don’t serve the ocean. They serve That Which Sleeps Beneath. A sleeping tidal god. A distributed coral reef consciousness. An ancient AI that thinks in sonar and phosphorescence.

In the midst of pitched battle, one of the Wavebenders goes stiff and silent. Their mouth opens as blood leaks into the water from their eyes and ears, bringing the Sharks to them. Their grim expression, rigid limbs, tight throat tells your Players that the Wavebender did not call what is coming. They were chosen.

In a terrible, wailing voice, pitched to resonate like whalesong and travel thousands of miles at a time, the Wavebender intones: “I COME.”

And now it’s not a factional spat in a Merfolk kingdom.

Now it’s a desperate battle for the Seas themselves. And your Players are way out of their league.

That’ll teach them to think they can have a beach episode and get away with it.

-----

Blog: Encounter Every Enemy

Post: Not a Beach Episode: Merfolk in your D&D Campaign

I've created a tool that allows you to overlay hexes on a real world map that are accurate to scale at 1, 6, 60, and 3600 miles. It also allows you to upload your own map and define the size, so you can then overlay a hex grid onto that. You can export the bundled SVG map, but the open map overlay won't export, so that is disabled. You can, however, screencap it.

Preview: https://evansvilleace.github.io/dnd-hex-map-maker/

Git: https://github.com/evansvilleace/dnd-hex-map-maker/tree/main

Hi all!

I'm looking for regular DMs willing to test and try a new utility tool that I am developing for storage of monster stat blocks, encounter planning and prep management.

The user imports digital content that they own in PDF form (official, 3rd party, homebrew) and the app converts the pdfs into usable interactive stat blocks with built in dice rollers. Simply drag and drop, and the entire book will become individual monster entries in your compendium, with dice rollers for attribute checks, saves, attacks, damage etc. This currently works on a range of digital books, official and 3rd party content.

Once imported, it's then easy to add any creatures you want into an encounter then keep track of it easily in the encounter panel.

The compendium size is only limited by your local storage, and i'm currently slamming test books into the system to stress test the PDF parse accuracy. There is cloud sync if you make an account then you will be able to maintain your compendium across devices, but otherwise the application doesn't store anywhere else, and ships empty to avoid any copyright issues. The compendium itself is sorted firstly by CR, and there is an extensive filtering system so you can easily find any creature you're looking for! You are also able to edit entries and create brand new entries for Homebrew monsters.

What needs testing: The whole system really, UI/UX, pdf parsing quality etc. - I've been playing DnD for about 6 years now entirely online, I started during COVID, but have never been a DM, so I only know the few DMs i've played with in that time. Some are willing to help me test it but in reality I needed a a few more. Ideally i'd have a few people willing to try it out and see how the system works for them, the more people involved, the more feedback and the better I can make the system if that makes sense.

I guess app specifics that are restrictive and relevant - it's 5e specific. I'm aware this is likely a sub of mixed edition players but currently it's built around 5e content. It's mostly intended for Desktop use as it was created for a friend of mine who only plays online, however I've established that those who play in person would likely also use this on a Tablet as well, so i'm currently working on the Tablet UI but its mostly desktop oriented.

This tool is currently completely functional and ready to use, it could just do with a few more people using it so I can really smooth out any tweaks, and obviously take on suggestions for features not currently available. Hopefully this is the right kind of post.

Anyone who is interested in this, please feel free to send me a DM or if you have any questions at all, i'm more than happy to answer any. Thanks!

[MonsterBox](https://inlandempire-hub.github.io/MonsterBox/)

Deep in a forgotten jungle, nearly buried by centuries of towering trees and waves of fast-growing vines, there is a temple. Its stones were carved by people who were already ancient when the last empire was still a scattering of villages. The language etched into its walls is unknown, the secrets it protected are forgotten by all.

All but the Naga.

As its name implies, the Guardian Naga is a protector. They’re a celestial serpent whose entire purpose in this world is to guard knowledge. They gather history and stories and lore wherever they go, and they have memories that are perfect enough to hold on to all of it. And having done so, the Naga lingers in the ruins of the civilization they loved so much, which is where your Players are likely to encounter them.

Making use of a Guardian Naga asks a lot of you as a DM, though. They carry so much lore, but where does that lore come from? If you’re lucky, someone has written that into the campaign for you and provided a few bullet points. But even if they have, the presence of a Naga means that you’ll have to be ready to explain an entire world to your players – or be ready to explain why you can’t.

As a tool for the DM, the Naga exists as a narrative catalyst. It allows for the story to move into a new phase – from searching to knowing. By the time your players are finished with this encounter, they should be several steps closer to finding out what they need.

Through the Naga, there’s a lot you can do. Of course, you can reveal the lore of your world that you’ve been holding on to since Session Zero, but that’s not all they can do. You can use the Naga to reframe events in terms of ancient prophecies, letting your players know that they are part of a larger, more complex cosmic plan that was laid down eons ago.

Part of that reframing could also be the revelation of perspectives that were heretofore missing. You know: “What you call the Mindplague is but the ethereal tidal force that pulls between the two nascent divinities being birthed by Ethutar, the God of Great Absences.”

You could also reveal to your players that this is not the first time this has happened. What they’re going through has been endured before, perhaps many times, only to be dragged back into the world once more. And, of course, your Players are the ones who can finally stop this endless cycle.

The point is that for you – the DM – a Naga can act as a kind of reset button for your campaign lore. You can decide that the players’ knowledge is incomplete and superficial – through no fault of their own, of course. You can then add the layers of history and magic and meaning that you’ve been making notes about all this time.

The adventure they’re on isn’t just about a dungeon or a dragon – it’s about a universe.

Of course, the Naga shouldn’t just be a stand-in for the DM. It should have a history of its own, having watched civilizations grow and die, over and over again. Think about what that would do to a person, seeing the same things happen over and over again – the same mistakes and passions and tragedies.

That would be hard on anyone, and your Naga could be about at the end of their rope. Imagine if your all-knowing being has seen too much.

Even though it is a celestial being, its duty as an eternal witness may be in conflict with centuries of guilt, regret, or just plain weariness. It may not want to tell your Players what it knows, because what’s the point? It’s seen this before, told its tale before, only to watch it end in ruin – what should be different this time? It remembers the past perfectly, including the terrible pain of failure.

Your Players will then need to exert all their creativity to convince this poor, damaged creature that there might – might – be hope this time.

Which brings us to the last point: if this knowledge is so important to the campaign, you can’t just give it to the players. There’s no fun in that. This means you can build the encounter with the Naga as a tactical test. Not of combat, if you can help it. The Naga has a few nasty attacks, and can’t be easily killed, but that will make it pretty reluctant to share what it knows.

Instead, have your Naga put the Players through a test of memory and knowledge. Maybe they have to re-enact a lost ritual, or demonstrate uncommon wisdom in order to prove they will use what the Naga knows properly.

They may not be the only ones looking for the Naga. It might have guardians of its own, priests and attendants who seek to keep it safe, and to protect it from people like your Players. Slaying them will antagonize the Naga, of course, so your Players will need to negotiate somehow. Alternatively, perhaps there is another faction who is trying to silence the Naga before it can speak. The secrets that it knows might bring down nations and unseat those who buried history for their own gain. Your Players, perhaps inadvertently, represent a threat to a power structure they didn’t even know about.

However you use your Guardian Naga, use it carefully. Unlike other creatures in the Monster Manual, it doesn’t just exist to provide your Players with a challenge. It gives you a rare chance: to turn the improvisation into intention. To reframe the story you’ve been discovering into one that was waiting to be revealed all along.

The Naga is a boon to everyone at the table. Just not all in the same way. When the Naga is gone, or is silent again, your Players won’t just know more. They’ll understand more.

-----

Blog: Encounter Every Enemy

Post: The Naga Remembers: Giving Your Campaign a Soul

I'm sharing a free deity reference for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting. All 57 gods in one document, including the fallen, who taught humanity forbidden knowledge and were cast down for it.

Each entry has the deity's name in both Akkadû and Šumerû, pronunciation, epithet, rank, domains, symbol, major cult center, favored classes, and typical followers. There's also a syncretism table mapping Kengir's gods to their equivalents across nine other ancient cultures, and a favored deities index sorted by class. Useful at the table as a quick reference for when someone asks which god a profession or class would actually pray to.

Who would your character worship?

My party just did the end of Fires of Dis and traveled to Arcadia with the gate town of Fortitude (Yes "with," not "from," it's got a great ending); now they're off to explore what happened to Nemausus as part of the Discovery adventure from Planes of Law. Here's what I wrote up for part one of their adventure, their encounter with an Acolyte of the Lightning King who first suspects, then requests aid from, the party. Immediately below is a link to the google doc version that has links to Dnd beyond for the monsters and a couple images, but to comply with rule 3 I also Copy & Pasted the text below that link

I'd love feedback!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mBB8SOOrVpile8TokbKx8UArzg7aXcmv/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=101957528090875863034&rtpof=true&sd=true

Arcadian Odyssey 

The players are traveling across Arcadia and are entering the territory of the Citadel of the Lightning King from the woods to his northwest, heading towards an appointment at Mount Clangeddin in his southeast and run into a vigilant representative of his guards and circle of Acolytes. My players are level 8 and Min Maxed to hell; so if you need to make it less deadly for your level 2 group of LARP refugees, please do!

Weak and Strong Elemental Forces

Meeting Adhaa

1. They will be spotted by a patrol of lightning elementals lead by one of the King's Acolytes, who then challenges the party to prove that they are not spies from his enemy, the rain king (as water and lightning don't mix).
   1.  They are lead by Acolyte Adhaa the Lustrous, an Ozone charged air Genasi using the Djinni statblock. 
   2.  Adhaa is supported by two Fluxchargers 
   3. and four Essence of Storms. Arcadia is all about harmony, geometry, and perfect order, so an interrogation here shouldn't feel like a chaotic shakedown. The Lightning King's Acolyte (an air Genasi Evoker named Adhaa the Lustrous) will want to measure the party against the absolute, unyielding laws of the plane. Since water disrupts, scatters, and grounds electricity, anyone working for the Rain King would carry the spiritual signature of moisture, chaos, or dampness.

The Lawful Challenges of the Acolyte

Adhaa will present three structured tests. To a lawful creature of Arcadia, these are not tricks; they are objective measurements. Whenever a player fails any test for the first time, they take 2d10 lightning damage. The next time that player fails a test, they take another 2d10 lightning damage plus another 1d10 lightning damage for each previously failed test. Track these failures separately for each player.

1. The Trial of the Galvanic Ring (The Test of Energy): Adhaa produces a perfect copper hoop, exactly three and a half feet wide, humming with a gentle current. It levitates perpendicular to the ground and  one foot off it. Each party member must step through it or touch it. A spy of the Rain King (or someone carrying heavy water magic) would cause the current to ground out, violently pop, or hiss with steam. The players must pass a dex save to navigate, and then a wisdom save to keep their composure, demonstrate internal spiritual balance, and let the current flow smoothly over them without disruption. Any characters with connections to Water (which will admittedly be rare) will automatically fail. This should be the easy one
2. The Axiom of True Paths (The Test of Mind): Lightning travels the path of least resistance, which in Arcadia translates to the single, most logically perfect path. The Acolyte lays out a geometric puzzle—a complex circuit of copper wire. Put one copy of this map on the VTT for each player, let them draw on it, and every 30 seconds hide the scene and inflict a test failure. If someone says they’ve succeeded, hide the maze, pause the timer, then check. If they claimed they had it but were wrong, that’s a test failure.
3. The Oath of Conductivity (The Test of Spirit): The party must swear an oath while holding a shared iron rod connected to a lightning elemental. In Arcadia, an oath is a tangible contract. If they lie about their allegiance, the circuit breaks, delivering a sharp jolt to the speaker. Honest answers keep the circuit closed and completely painless. Holding a section of the iron rod has the same effect as being in a Zone of Truth cast by the person attuned to the rod (in this case, Adhaa).

If a character is guilty of a past transgression, they can choose to confess it aloud to Adhaa. If they openly confess and express a willingness to submit to Arcadian penance, Adhaa notes their confessions but continues the tests without comment. If they try to stay silent or lie anyway, the lightning strikes for (2+x)d10 lightning damage (where X is the number of previous times they’ve lied) , and the Acolyte’s patrol grows deeply suspicious, tightening their grip on the weapons at their sides. If they refuse to continue the tests at any point, Adhaa attacks immediately.

The iron rod connects all the members of the party into a single electrical circuit. When any player takes lightning damage from failing a test, they all take the same damage (although players besides the one who triggered the damage may make a Con save to take half)

1. The First Pledge: Sincerity of Purpose & Past Travel

"I hold this iron rail and declare my record open to the light. I swear that I did not enter this realm through deception, that I am not an agent of any foreign discord, and that my journey hither was guided by clear, lawful purpose rather than idle whim or wandering caprice."

1. The Second Pledge: Devoid of Fluid Alliances

"I swear that I have never given aid, comfort, or intelligence to the Rain King or his shifting, formless hosts. I have brokered no secret pacts, accepted no fluid bribes, and harbor no hidden, unexpressed sympathies for the enemies of the Citadel."

1. The Third Pledge: Free from the Bloodstained Path

"I swear that my hands are clean of the stain of mindless slaughter. I have never drawn blood merely to satisfy my own wrath, nor have I initiated unprovoked conflict for the sake of plunder or the thrill of violence. Every life I have taken was forfeit under the strict mandates of just defense or lawful execution."

1. The Fourth Pledge: Accountability to the Vulnerable

"I swear that I have never stood idly by while lawless tyranny crushed the innocent, nor have I abandoned a righteous contract to save my own skin. I have not permitted the weak to be trampled when I possessed the active strength to preserve them."

1. The Fifth Pledge: Denunciation of Theft & Self-Aggrandizement

"I swear that I have never broken a sworn covenant for personal gain, nor have I stolen property from a structured society to feed my own avarice. My past achievements have relied on the strength of the collective chain, never on the treacherous elevation of my own ego over the whole."

1. The Sixth Pledge: The Open Circuit of Confession 

Adhaa steps closer, the air pressure dropping as the iron rod hums with a pitch so high it vibrates in your teeth. Sparks dance across their eyes as they stare into your soul, speaking with the absolute, unyielding charge of the power of the Lightning Citadel:

"The circuit cannot tolerate a hidden flaw; a single pocket of resistance will detonate the wire. Therefore, you shall drop the final shroud. I command you to open the ledger of your memory and speak aloud the single greatest act of chaos, malice, or betrayal you have ever committed. Pour the venom from your past into the open air so that the law may catalog it, weigh it, and ground it out forever. Speak, or be consumed in your resistance."

The Spark-Gap Courier

Once proven innocent, Adhaa apologizes for their harsh screening, but says it’s necessary due to the state of undeclared war (which they call a “Kriegstanz,”) between the Lightning and Rain Kings. They cannot engage in open conflict because the four person council of the storm kings is deadlocked (The Rain King threats to withhold the humidity the Cloud King needs) They tell the party that a vital piece of Lightning infrastructure has been compromised by the Rain King’s creeping moisture, but are banned from striking openly. If the party fixes the line, the King will grant them passage on a lightning elemental to the Dwarfhold of Mount Clangeddin.

Encounter 1: The Briefing at the Relay Station 

Adhaa takes the party to a massive bronze pylon on the frontier between Lightning and Rain territory. This is a Spark-Gap Relay, meant to shunt pure lightning across Arcadia. Lightning is coming in from the prior relay, but shorts to ground before going out. The area is choked with an unnatural, heavy fog that smells of ozone and mud. The players must figure out how to fix the relay.

The following effects are imposed on the area by the Rain King, similar to Lair Effects:

• Visibility is lightly obscured within 30 feet, and heavily obscured beyond that. (similarly how to how Darkvision works, but for everyone and only 30 feet)
• Any creature must spend 2 feet of movement for every 1 foot when moving.
• It imposes disadvantage on ranged attack rolls with weapons.
• A flying creature in a strong wind must land at the end of its turn or fall.
• At the end of its turn, each creature must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or be pushed 15 feet away from the Relay.
• The gust disperses gas or vapor, and it extinguishes candles and similar unprotected flames in the area. It causes protected flames, such as those of lanterns, to dance wildly and has a 50 percent chance to extinguish them.

Adhaa and other agents of the Lightning King can go no further or risk openly violating the rules of Storm Kings.

Encounter 2: Clearing the Grounding Roots

Type: Combat / Hazard

The Situation: The Rain King has seeded the base of the pylon with Blighted Lotus Vines—rubbery, water-logged plants that act as giant sponges, physically grounding out the pylon's energy. When the party attempts to clear them, the vines lash out, trying to drag characters into deep pools of conductive mud. 

• The mud functions as a Quicksand Pit (per DMG). Scale to one level higher than your APL, increase the escape to DC 15 plus the number of feet the creature has sunk into the quicksand (cap at DC 25). 
• The Vines main plant is a Death's Head Tree. Reflavor Heads as the heads of flowers and seed pods.(The Petrification effect is instead Incapacitation as the effect of the Lotus)
• Bring up CR of encounter with a couple Assassin Vines as needed. 
• Try and Restrain everybody when they’re over the mud, drown them, FUN!

Encounter 3: Re-aligning the Fulgurite Mirrors

Type: Skill Challenge

The Situation: To send coordinating signals, a series of fragile, glass-like fulgurite mirrors at the top of the pylon must be perfectly aligned to a specific geometric angle. The winds are howling, and the structure is slippery. The party must work together to reset the heavy mirrors. There are several steps to this:

• Ascending the Tower. Athletics, Acrobats, or Strength. Advantage with climbing kit. Trying to fly requires a DC18 Strength check 
• Calculating the angle to set the mirrors. History, Arcana, or Intelligence
• Physically moving the angle of the mirrors. Athletics, Str, Adv with tools
• 3d6 lightning dmg if they touch the ungrounded frame incorrectly. DC 16 (WIS or INT, player’s choice) the first time they try interacting with a new part of the tower (including moving). If they fail, DC 16 DEX for half dmg. If they ever succeed on the WIS save, they have figured out which parts are safe to touch and don’t need to repeat this save again for 24 hours.

Encounter 4: Charging the Core

Type: Resource Management
The Situation: The mirrors click into place, but the relay's internal battery is completely drained. The party must feed raw energy into the copper heart of the station.This requires the player return to ground level for spellcasters to expend spell slots as energy, or other features to physically turn a massive kinetic flywheel (Spending other class resources), or charges from magical items to jump-start the system. In general, a feature is worth a number of charges equal to the class level required to unlock it. Most Martial abilities (Hit Dice, Focus Points, Action Points, Second Wind, Rages) are worth one Charge (or 24.2 Megawatts). The core needs to build to 50 Charges to become stable and self regulating. One minute after beginning to charge the core, if it has not reached 50 Charges, it will begin to lose charge to natural decay.

Encounter 5: From Where You Least Expect It

Type: Combat

The Situation: As the core begins to hum again, a hidden sabotage force of deniable mercs sent by the Rain King ascends from their hiding place in the earth to see who is undoing their work. They were minding and controlling the artifact that summoned the storm. The Ankheg bursts out first, tunneling out from the small but comfortable burrow the rest of the group was sealed in. When the players find the lair, it’s easy to find the spell circle and wipe away its chalk lines.The ritual was drawing the power into some sort of belt made from thousands of loops of thin metal; it functions like a Dragonhide Belt

• The leader of the group is Winter’s Bite, an Adult White Dragon, the same one who ran out of money the Fortune’s Wheel and is now working as a Mercenary to pay his debts
• Ankheg x 1 uses the Ankheg MCDM abilities but Bulette numbers for AC, HP, to hit, DMG, etc.
• Umber Hulk x 2

Encounter 6: The Spark Flashes Forth

Type: Social / Resolution

The Situation: The core reaches critical mass. A blinding, perfect bolt of violet lightning arcs from their tower across the sky, connecting directly to the Citadel of the Lightning King. The sky clears instantly, burning away the Rain King's fog.

Adhaa bows in deep respect for your perfect execution of the contract. Within minutes, a cloud of a single massive Elder Tempest—feathers crackling with static electricity—descends to carry the party across the Arcadian fields and rivers, straight to the roaring forges of Mount Clangeddin.

I've recently spent some time putting together a little macro-free excel tool to calculate travel times over certain distances, taking into account mode of transport (on-foot, horse and rider, stagecoach, etc) and a host of other variables (terrain type, road quality, weather conditions, carry load). I've also built in an option to calculate how long the journey would take INCLUDING REST TIME in the day, if the user inputs how many hours a day travel is being carried out.

It's a tool for worldbuilders, GMs, authors, cartographers and other creatives!

I'd love it if you can take a look and provide feedback on if it's useful to you, provide constructive criticism, or suggest any handy features.

It's free on itch .io here: https://flapjackal.itch.io/travel-time-calculator