Dungeon 219: Blades of the Stygian Masque

The fiendish Contessa Volto, masterfully painted by Chris Seaman.

The Halloween issue of Dungeon features my latest adventure: a hellish dungeon crawl for 27th level characters entitled "Blades of the Stygian Masque". Originally conceived for Fourthcore fans, I decided to take a punt and pitch it to Wizards before writing. Given its lethality I was quite surprised they ran with it, and especially pleased that it sailed through without a great deal of mechanical change. In the twilight of the edition, it's great to see some experimentation occurring within the e-zines.  

For those who don't know, Fourthcore puts the deadly back into 4th Edition, featuring truly lethal traps, cunning puzzles, and combats poised to punish poor tactics. I wanted to create a Fourthcore adventure that focused on combat over puzzles: in a sense, a "Tomb of Horrors" with deadly monsters instead of traps. 4th Edition does combat so well, so I wanted this to be my tribute to that.

My core mechanic was the hundred howling daggers: a set of flying blades spread throughout the dungeon, with each devilish "boss" carrying ten to twenty daggers. The PCs claim the daggers by slaying the bosses, enabling them to turn them against the others. Mechanically, each bound dagger adds one point of damage to every successful attack (whether ranged or melee). If assigned to a single party member - a striker, say - he or she can end up dealing an additional 80 damage per turn by the final boss encounter. The risk comes from that character then dying or falling unconscious - as this causes their daggers to fly wild, automatically dealing damage to every creature nearby until they're rebound. This created some beautifully desperate moments during playtesting, as PCs and enemies alike scrambled to bind the daggers before they eviscerated everyone on the battlefield.

Ultimately I ended up removing some of the deadlier Fourthcore elements, but I kept the daggers at the adventure's heart. I also put a lot of work into designing the opposition: giving them traits that split the party and keep the battlefield in flux. In the end I came to look upon "Blades of the Stygian Masque" as being more akin to one of the "Lair Assault" Encounter seasons, rather than a pure Fourthcore adventure. Hopefully I found a happy balance - but I'll let you be the judge of that!

Aegis of Ages Artifact

Gom Vardae, the Aegis of Ages.

I've a lot of love for the 4th edition artifact rules. They're basically a streamlined version of 3rd edition's Weapons of Legacy, with a nod to the old Ego rules for intelligent items. There are two things about the new system I really like. Firstly, an artifact's magic is built around its "Concordance": meaning more powers unlock the more you appeal to its goals, and vice versa. Secondly, they're not built to last - they're supposed to hang around for a level or two and then move on to a new owner. While this means they don't permanently unbalance your game, it also gives them a more credible role in your story. (Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium features artifacts that abandon both of these rules, and I think the system as a whole suffers for it).

In my own HPE campaign I've started featuring two artifacts per adventure. So far we've had the Invulnerable Coat of Arnd, the Orb of Light (which we modified to fit into the pommel of the paladin's sword), the Head of Vyrellis, the Hand of Vecna, and two artifacts of my own devising: the Deck of Illusions and the Rhonic Saddle. Now we're cycling back to the beginning, which means a new artifact for Bravus Boulderborn - Stacey's dwarven warrior.

Stacey fell in love with Gom Vardae as soon as the party pried it from its previous owner's fingers, and she's carried it for well over a year in the hope it will become her next artifact. With its big carved face and telepathic interjections, it's her perfect fit. She's one of those player types who just loves NPCs, and goes out of her way to befriend them (one of her old 3E characters even adopted a whole team of sidekick characters, including a robot, a dog, a wind mephit, and a jungle boy who was essentially Mowgli). The Concordance system was basically built for her.

In our last session Gom finally awoke for real, and allied itself to her cause. This meant finalising its artifact rules, which I share here for your own use. The Aegis of Ages worked out pretty well in combat, but we've yet to trial its later powers. So - for my own players only - keep out! 

Walking With Drakes

A Goliath Drake (Argentinosaurus)

Oddly enough, I happen to know quite a lot about dinosaurs.

Roughly a year ago, the company I work for was approached to pitch a dinosaur-based game. I didn't know much about dinosaurs beyond what I'd learned in school; in fact, I was a little worried by how sparse my knowledge actually was. Still, we managed to get the contract, and for the past twelve months or so I've been cramming my head full of facts while trying to turn our game into a reality.

It's actually turned out to be remarkably interesting. Did you know, for example, that palaeontologists have learned more about dinosaurs in the past decade than the entire century preceding it? We've all heard about the discovery of feathered dinosaurs, but did you know that a feathered cousin of T.rex has been found in China (or that, due to the incomplete nature of fossils, some scientists now believe all theropods may have been feathered?). Did you know that T.rex had South American and African cousins that were equally big and mean, such as Carcharodontosaurus or Giganotosaurus, but who hunted in packs? Or that there were sauropods so huge - like Argentinosaurus - that smaller dinosaurs actually drowned in their footprints?

It's been a fantastically fun game to work on. With my head so full of prehistoric thoughts, it's only natural that some of it should spill over into my RPG campaigns. So here, for your gaming pleasure, I present "Walking with Drakes" - four new reptilian monsters for use in your D&D 4th Edition games. Some are hybrids of existing monsters, but I've tried to include a few original tweaks in each - and provide some factual details about the dinosaurs they're based on. Hopefully each can find its place in your own lost worlds.

Enjoy!

Dungeon 215: The Rolling Tomb

William O'Connor's depiction of  Sacrademus, a villain from my "Rolling Tomb" adventure.

Around this time last year my first adventure pitch was accepted for "Tears of the Crocodile God". The last twelve months have been amazing - I've written four adventures for Wizards of the Coast, and I'm currently wrapping up my fifth. My third adventure - "The Rolling Tomb" - has just now been published in Dungeon 215. It's a piece of writing I'm quite proud of, and I really hope you get the chance to read through and play it!

"The Rolling Tomb" was based on one of Chris Perkins' ideas: a moving pyramid that crushes everything in its path. I'll admit taking on an epic-tier adventure was a bit of a challenge - I hadn't much experience running high-level games under 4E, so I had gravitate back to my longer-running 3E campaigns for inspiration. If you read through the encounters, you may notice nods to my favourite sourcebooks: "Sandstorm" and "Dungeonscape" in particular. For encounter construction I owe a lot to Sly Flourish's "Running Epic Tier D&D Games", whose advice inspired a number of villainous twists. Mike Shea is a top-notch designer, and I'd recommend his guide to DMs tackling high-level adventures in any system. "Running Epic Tier D&D Games" is currently being given away for free, so there's no excuse not to check it out!

Speaking of freebies, I'd advise any 4E fans here to check out fellow blogger frothsof's awesome fanzine "4E Forever": a mammoth 154 pages of houserules, monsters, traps, adventures and other crunchy goodness, dressed up in a pleasing OSR style. Frothsof really liked my Scalemail mass combat system, and asked me if he could include it in the fanzine - for which I'm very honoured. He even did a guest interview with me over on his blog, which you can check out here.  Scalemail has been reflavoured to fit the fanzine's own in-house world, and is now the chosen mass combat system for further submissions. Thanks frothsof! 

Maps of the Drowned Kingdoms 6: Bastion

A village in the Stonewold.

BASTION 

Bastion nestles in the pinewoods at the head of the Sob river. It is said the stone thanes have forgotten its existence - or shun it lest they awaken the horrors hidden in the mountains behind. 

Population: 93 (57 human, 23 dwarf, 13 halfling). Though the village is mostly inhabited by humans, dwarves have settled here too, drawn by the promise of mountain gold.  

Government: Bastion resides in the shire of Groal, yet its giant rulers claim no tribute, nor have they sent a governor to lead its people. Since the last giant left two hundred years ago, the villagers have elected their own headman to settle disputes and marshal supplies. Such responsibilities usually fall to the eldest resident, so the dwarf Bhaldur is the current headman, having lived here for over a hundred and fifty years. 

Inns and Taverns: The halfling-run "Weeping Giant" is the village's only inn. Years of harsh winters have driven the villagers closer together, and now the inn serves as a communal feasting hall, with residents pooling their produce and paying the halflings to cook stews. Visitors to Bastion are likely to find its entire population eating in here most evenings. 

Supplies: Bastion has no shops, but the villagers come together every month to hold a small market. Iron mined from the mountains is worked by the dwarves into simple farming tools, or when needed, weapons.  

Temples: Most villagers keep small shrines in their homes, but there is no central place of worship. An ancient menhir dedicated to the Wild Sisters stands in the market green, and offerings are sometimes laid before it if the weather is particularly bad.     

The Gate: Bastion's vast gate is said to lead under the mountains to the cities on the coast, but nobody has passed through it for hundreds of years. The portal was kept closed even under giant rule, leading some to suspect that something terrible is kept beyond. Sometime lights are spied in the darkness, causing the villagers to stay in their homes and lock their shutters.

Drowned Kingdoms Gazetteer 2: Familiars of the Sea

Meet Castavan, Murl, Gurgo and Wodlock! 

The wizards of Ebb are known to take their familiars from the sea: choosing crabs, turtles, lobsters, or seabirds such as penguins or gulls. Each wizard imbues a portion of his or her soul into their familiar, forming an arcane bond between them that can never be broken. In doing so, they also take on a measure of their familiar's own primal essence, mutating their mind and body in subtle - and sometimes not so subtle - ways.

Those who choose the gull sometimes grow sleek feathers on their forearms, or develop a gnawing hunger for raw fish. As their arcane bond grows, some even learn to project their own voices on the winds, calling out over many leagues.

The penguin grants their master unmatched underwater prowess. Such wizards may grow scaly webbing between their fingers, but this is purely cosmetic: their watery skills are entirely magical. These wizards also gain the ability to hold their breaths for longer, allowing them to dive below the surface for extended periods of time.

Those who take the crab as their familiar may find themselves inadvertently walking sideways rather than turning, or subconsciously developing a grumpy temperament around other wizards. Their most striking ability is their grasp, which is said to be as strong as the grip of an umber hulk. These wizards' hands are always flushed red with blood, and may even develop chitinous lumps and blisters.

Similarly, those of the turtle may find their skin becomes leathery and wrinkled in places. Such wizards typically have enhanced endurance, and sometimes develop a minor magical resistance to blows (offset somewhat by their unnaturally languid gait).    

L is for Linnorm

"Doesn't matter how many legs we've got, we'll still give you a kicking!"

Linnorms are powerful monsters closely related to dragons. Like dragons, they also come in different breeds: forest, frost, land, grey, and so on. While none have wings, there's an inconsistency about how many legs they have: with some having just two, and others having four. Again, this could have something to do with real myth, as the linnorm (or "lindworm" to us English) can represent a variety of mythological dragons: whether wingless, legless, or bipedal. 

My personal favourite is the Lambton Worm, a monster from County Durham that grew inside a well after being dumped there by a young fisherman. Eventually it started eating children and livestock, forcing the lord of the manor to appease it with vast offerings of milk. Numerous villagers died trying to slay the beast, until at last it fell to the young fisherman who caught it - now a knight back from the crusades. He fought it wearing a specialised suit of armour covered in sharpened spear heads, which cut the worm to ribbons as it coiled around him. Now that's a D&D plan if ever I've heard one!