Riding in style...
What's Inside the Dwarf Vault?
Quick chart I made for the Dragon School Adventure. Roll d8 for found Treasure ...
8 A
jaunty crown studded with inferior quality, but colourful gemstones 500gp
7 A
statue of a stern dwarven god. Before every d20 roll, you can roll a d6. if you
roll a 6 you get an Advantage. if you
roll a 1, you get a Disadvantage. 400gp
6 A
black velvet painting of a Fellen Presslever, the Dwarf elvis. worth 400gp
5
367 gp in mixed coins, small gems and jewelry.
4 A
potion of Fire Breath: Allows a 2d6 burst. if drunk and used by a red dragon,
does 4d6 damage 2x range. 100gp
3 Jar of Healing Potion (enough for two 2d6 heals, or one full heal) 50gp
2 A
child's dirty sock filled with pennies. Worth 152 coppers
1 A
large iron safe. massively heavy and almost impossible to carry (reduces
movement by half. disadvantage on all rolls while holding.) Inside are neat
piles of small slips of green paper. Worthless. AC 18 to Hit. HP 100 Resistant
to all physical and blunt magical damage attacks.
The Unexpected DM
A local gamestore runs small one-off games in local bars on Sundays. Last Thursday, I threw my name in after my wife showed me the ad asking for DMs on Facebook. I had no idea what to expect, but I figured that if nothing else it would at least be an experience.
Shortly after contacting the store, I was sent the module we were expected to run and I nearly called them back to say no thank you. The set up was: Kid dragons going to ‘Smaugwartz School’.
My first reaction was shock. On their own the elements were fine: A game with dragon hatchling PCs could be fun. I’m not a Potterhead by any means, but I’ve read the books and enjoyed them. I could fake enough for a Hogwarts game. But this mash-up just felt … juvenile. I kept picturing a preschool show like Paw Patrol about a group of colourful kiddy dragons going to a magic school. Oh, what fun and educational adventures they’d have.
If this is what modern kids want out of the new D&D, I want no part of it.
Luckily I persevered and read through the whole thing. It wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, the premise actually was that the hatchlings were ‘graduating’ and were given a final test by their teacher. They had to fly to a nearby valley and talk to some elves, visit some dwarves and terrorize some kobolds.
The reasons they had to do these things wasn’t very clear, but the one who returned with the most treasure, followers and princesses would be given a small starter horde by the school. You were supposed to give the dragons points for doing things like ‘lighting fires’, and ‘kidnapping princesses’. It didn’t hang together in a coherent way, but at least it wasn’t set in the actual school or require a lot of role-playing dragon versions of Potterverse characters.
I sat down and quickly rewrote it while sticking to general plot. Since the game had been advertised under that title, I had to keep that horrible "Smaugwarts" pun, but I tweaked that too. I placed the school inside a tall mountain dotted with caves, instead of an actual school. I also clarified the encounters and what the party had to do at each location.
The dwaves lived in a bronze city at the edge of the mountains. The city, and its vault, were protected by two giant cannons on the walls, regiments of archers and royal guards who rode flail snails into battle.
The kobolds lived in an ancient ruins in the middle of a swamp, and would gladly serve the dragons as followers, provided the dragons rid them of their current protectors … a family pack of Tyrannosaurus Rexes.
I kept the Harry Potter theme alive in the dragons visit to the (house) elves who happily negotiated with the beast as to how many elves would serve them, and at what prices.
When the game got underway I was immediately cheered when one of the players declared that he thought the Smaugwarts idea was a little silly, so his character was actually an exchange student in from the Forgotten Realms. After the game, another player said he’d also been worried when he saw the game was going to be Potterdragons, but that he’s enjoyed the actual session.
The game itself went smoothly, with the group causing merry havoc in the dwarf city, getting nearly eaten by T-Rexes and being surprised (and not a little nonplussed) at the congeniality and eagerness of the elves to sell themselves into servitude.
The fun I got out of rewriting the adventure and its positive reaction were a good reminder of a lesson I relearn every time I roll some dice. It’s not the module that makes the session. It’s the dedication and commitment of the players and the dungeon master around the table that counts.
Shortly after contacting the store, I was sent the module we were expected to run and I nearly called them back to say no thank you. The set up was: Kid dragons going to ‘Smaugwartz School’.
My first reaction was shock. On their own the elements were fine: A game with dragon hatchling PCs could be fun. I’m not a Potterhead by any means, but I’ve read the books and enjoyed them. I could fake enough for a Hogwarts game. But this mash-up just felt … juvenile. I kept picturing a preschool show like Paw Patrol about a group of colourful kiddy dragons going to a magic school. Oh, what fun and educational adventures they’d have.
 |
| Pictured something like this.... |
Luckily I persevered and read through the whole thing. It wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, the premise actually was that the hatchlings were ‘graduating’ and were given a final test by their teacher. They had to fly to a nearby valley and talk to some elves, visit some dwarves and terrorize some kobolds.
The reasons they had to do these things wasn’t very clear, but the one who returned with the most treasure, followers and princesses would be given a small starter horde by the school. You were supposed to give the dragons points for doing things like ‘lighting fires’, and ‘kidnapping princesses’. It didn’t hang together in a coherent way, but at least it wasn’t set in the actual school or require a lot of role-playing dragon versions of Potterverse characters.
I sat down and quickly rewrote it while sticking to general plot. Since the game had been advertised under that title, I had to keep that horrible "Smaugwarts" pun, but I tweaked that too. I placed the school inside a tall mountain dotted with caves, instead of an actual school. I also clarified the encounters and what the party had to do at each location.
The dwaves lived in a bronze city at the edge of the mountains. The city, and its vault, were protected by two giant cannons on the walls, regiments of archers and royal guards who rode flail snails into battle.
The kobolds lived in an ancient ruins in the middle of a swamp, and would gladly serve the dragons as followers, provided the dragons rid them of their current protectors … a family pack of Tyrannosaurus Rexes.
I kept the Harry Potter theme alive in the dragons visit to the (house) elves who happily negotiated with the beast as to how many elves would serve them, and at what prices.
 |
| "Look! Elves, sir!." "Keep walking Sam. Don't make eye contact." |
The game itself went smoothly, with the group causing merry havoc in the dwarf city, getting nearly eaten by T-Rexes and being surprised (and not a little nonplussed) at the congeniality and eagerness of the elves to sell themselves into servitude.
The fun I got out of rewriting the adventure and its positive reaction were a good reminder of a lesson I relearn every time I roll some dice. It’s not the module that makes the session. It’s the dedication and commitment of the players and the dungeon master around the table that counts.
4th Edition Really was the Death of Fun
I've never been a D&D settings guy. I like some of the weird stuff, Planescape, Darksun, Spelljammer. Dragonlance is terrible and has always been terrible. I've got a soft spot for Mystara, but for me, growing up in the Dragon magazine era, the Forgotten Realms felt like the 'default' D&D setting. Default also meaning 'generic'. We never developed a full D&D campaign back in the day (for epic, long running stories we played WEG Star Wars, and you should too), but we did play occasionally and mostly we did what groups our age did: we used one guy's homebrew world that we tooled around in when we wanted to rob a dragon of her hard earned horde. I'm continuing this with my own players. I have a world/cosmos idea and one city fleshed out, but what lies beyond that is gonna depend a lot on what my players want to do we (hopefully) start up again in the fall. D&D 5 looks like its going back to FR as a default and some of the players might read ahead and I figured I'd refresh my memory a bit.
I never paid much attention to 4th ed, though I've since heard all the horror stories. Reading the introductory adventure in the FR book, I was completely flabbergasted at how fidgety and foolish 4th ed really is. In my day we had a room description and one line of stats for the monster - this thing has two pages on a simple goblin fight.
But what really killed it for me (and prompted this unnecessary rant) was a story choice. In the first town of the adventure there is a store that is selling a black horn dagger with a small magical boost at a reasonable price. The adventure really wants the players to have it and offers it up cheap ... but makes no allowance for what to do if the players choose to steal it instead. And trust me, someone is always gonna want to steal it. And if in case, if the story wants a player to have the dagger so much, why not let them steal it? (WotC castrating the Thief to turn it into the Rogue was a big reason I never played much 3rd ed).
The horn dagger comes back later in a barrow dungeon when the party encounters a hobgoblin shaman who is attempting to resurrect the corpse of an ancient Ogre King. The dagger was once a horn on the Ogre's skull. Okay, not a bad scenario set up... except that is isn't. The text implicitly says that the shaman's ritual won't work. YOU DON'T GET TO FIGHT THE UNDEAD OGRE KING!Why, why, WHY would you write it like this??!! Giving the party a chance to stop the resurrection, sure. But hinting at pretty good monster, and then cutting it off before it even becomes a possibility is .... just not Dungeons and Dragons!
I've notice some of thing in a lot of the 5th edition adventures as well. I think its a symptom of the corporatization of WotC under Hasbro, which to be fair, has made D&D more popular that it has ever been. But I also think cleaning up the game has also removed a lot of the grit and gore that made the game so tantalizing to us as kids of the 70s and 80s.
Luckily, the BEST part of D&D as a game is that you don't have to play in their worlds, you don't have to follow the text, you don't even have to follow the rules if you don't want to. Building your own game is where the real magic lies. That and the friends you'll make along the way.
Dark Souls D&D that Doesn't Suck
I've noticed with getting back into D&D that there are new players who's first and primary experience with RPGs is through video games. In most cases this isn't such a bad thing, I was able to explain several of the concepts in a table-top rpg using Skyrim examples as a sort of bridge.
Skyrim and Fallout players are common, then you've got Dragon Age fans, even a few Final Fantasy classicists, but the hardest guys to handle are always the Dark Souls lone-brooders. Thankfully, some kind and twisted soul has based his entire D&D campaign in the Dark Souls universe, and has put some of his materials up on Reddit. That ought to be enough to make any in-game brooder soil his pantaloons.
Skyrim and Fallout players are common, then you've got Dragon Age fans, even a few Final Fantasy classicists, but the hardest guys to handle are always the Dark Souls lone-brooders. Thankfully, some kind and twisted soul has based his entire D&D campaign in the Dark Souls universe, and has put some of his materials up on Reddit. That ought to be enough to make any in-game brooder soil his pantaloons.
Marvel FASERIP: Elsa Bloodstone - Agent of H.A.T.E
STATISTICS
Durability: The Bloodstone gem worn by her father left traces of itself even in his DNA, which was passed down to his children. Elsa processes increased physical strength, durability, speed, stamina, agility, reflexes, and senses, all boosted to superhuman levels.
Reneration: Elsa regains 5 Hit Points per hour. If wearing her Bloodstone choker, she can even regenerate limbs or recover from seemingly mortal wounds (at the rate of 2 Hit Points per day).
Elsa is one of two known children of the he
formally immortal Ulysses Bloodstone, a prehistoric warrior who had discovered
an alien entity called the Hellfire Helix trapped inside a meteorite. The
Hellfire Helix summoned an alien being known as Ulluxy’l Kwan Tae Syn to help
it find a host but Ulysses battled Syn, and during the fight the Hellfire Helix
was smashed. A piece of it, known to history as the Bloodstone Gem, became
embedded in Ulysses’s chest granting him superhuman strength, durability and
immortality. Over the millennia, he used his powers to become the world’s most
renowned monster hunter and mercenary the world had ever seen.
Fighting IN 40
Strength IN 40
Endurance AM 50
Reason TY 6
Intuition TY 6
Psyche TY 6
Health: 150
Karma: 18
BACKGROUND
Real Name:
Elsa Bloodstone
Occupation: Monster Slayer, Mercenary
Legal
Status: No criminal record
Identity:
Public
Place of
Birth: Bloodstone Island
Marital
Status: Single
Known
Relatives: Ulysses (father,
deceased), Cullen (brother)
Base of
Operations: Bloodstone Manor,
H.A.T.E. Aeromarine, north Atlantic,
Shockwave Rider, State 51,
Past Group
Affiliations: H.A.T.E., Nextwave,
Legion of Monsters
Present
Group Affiliations: Nextwave,
KNOWN
POWERS
Longevity:
Whenever Elsa wears her Bloodstone choker she ceases to age. When not wearing
the stone she ages at approximately a third of the rate of a normal human. She
uses the stone to slow her aging process down even further, but has no desire
to become truly immortal like her father. In practical terms, this mean she
biologically ages about one year per decade.
Durability: The Bloodstone gem worn by her father left traces of itself even in his DNA, which was passed down to his children. Elsa processes increased physical strength, durability, speed, stamina, agility, reflexes, and senses, all boosted to superhuman levels.
Reneration: Elsa regains 5 Hit Points per hour. If wearing her Bloodstone choker, she can even regenerate limbs or recover from seemingly mortal wounds (at the rate of 2 Hit Points per day).
Bloodstone:
Elsa owns a small fragment of the Hellfire Helix gemstone that was once
embedded in her father’s chest. However, unlike her father whose durability and
immortality derived solely from the gem, Elsa’s durability and longevity appear
to be natural and not dependent on the gem. However, when wearing the fragment (which
she has put in a choker that she wears around her neck) her healing powers are
increased and she temporarily ceases to age.
TALENTS
All forms of Combat, including
Marksmanship, Military and Business/Finance. Also extremely knowable on monster
lore and pertinent magical knowledge. She is fluent in many languages and can
read several languages considered dead, lost and/or occult.
BACKGROUND
It is not clear when Elsa or her brother were born, but it soon became apparent that she had inherited at least some of her father’s strength, agility and toughness without requiring that she wear the Bloodstone. Her father began her training literally in the cradle, where she learned how to strangle imps and slay small monsters with a broken plastic spoon. As she grew older,
her father’s training intensified and crossed the line many times into abuse,
though Elsa’s memories of this time are thought to be spotty with age and fragmented
by possible meddling by H.A.T.E.
After her father’s death, she retrieved a fragment
of the now destroyed Bloodstone Gem and placed it on a choker she sometimes
wears around her neck. Based out of Bloodstone manor, hidden somewhere in
England, she took over her father’s business, working as a mercenary
specializing in supernatural exterminations and monster attacks.
Elsa was the first the first one requited by
Monica Rambeau and Director Dick Anger into Nextwave.
Elsa Bloodstone was created by Dan Abnett and Andy
Lanning. Artwork by Stuart Immonen,
Wade Von Grawbadger, and Dave McCaig with Paul Mounts
|
Marvel FASERIP: Boom Boom - Agent of H.A.T.E.
STATISTICS
Fighting GD 10
Agility GD 10
Strength TY 6
Endurance 20 20
Reason PR 4
Intuition TY 6
Psyche TY 4 (see Known Powers)
Health: 46
Karma: 14
BACKGROUND
Real Name: Tabitha Smith
AKA: Time Bomb, Boomer, and Meltdown
Occupation:
None. Petty Thief
Legal
Status: Juvenile record (sealed).
Banned from numerous malls and retail outlets for shoplifting.
Identity:
Unknown to the public at large
Place of
Birth: Roanoke, Virginia
Marital
Status: Single
Known Relatives:
Lou, Father (deceased).
Base of
Operations: the Shockwave Rider, whatever
the NNNN X-Force is based out of
nowadays.
Past Group
Affiliations: Fallen Angles, New Mutants, X-Factor, X-terminators, X-Force,
H.A.T.E.
Present
Group Affiliations: Nextwave, X-Force.
KNOWN
POWERS
Energy Bombs:
Boom Boom is a mutant who can create glowing spheres of plasma energy up to 2’
in diameter (or roughly the size of a beach ball) from her hands and throw,
shoot or plant them up to 3 spaces away. She can ‘time’ these bombs to go off
anywhere from 1-10 rounds after she has created them, or she can mentally
trigger them to explode anytime within ten rounds. Any bombs not detonated
after 10 rounds will explode on their own. She can adjust the bombs to do any
Damage up to Amazing without effort, and might be able to create larger ones
with sufficient time, concentration and Red Bull.
She can only create one bomb per round.
She has also demonstrated the ability to channel a
bomb through another item in order to reach areas that she cannot physically
see or reach.
Psychic-Resistance:
Boom Boom has Excellent resistance to mental attacks or spells that causing
hallucinations, fantasies, nightmares and disorientation. Some speculate this
may have something to do with her contact with the Beyonder, or it could be
that she’s simply not smart enough for her brain to process these kinds of
effects.
Talent: Boom Boom has the Throwing Weapon talent. She has also
received in-depth combat, hacking and espionage skills from Cable, though it’s
unclear how much of it she has actually retained.
Resources:
Boom Boom As a member of H.A.T.E., she has access to a flying harness that
allows her to move at Good speed.
BACKGROUND
Tabitha Smith was born in a trailer park in
Roanoke Virginia to inattentive parents who separated when she was still a
child. Education was never a priority for Tabitha and she
grew into a rebellious teen. When her powers first manifested during puberty
she used them for small pranks and petty thievery until one morning when she
detonated a bowl of her father’s Lucky Smacks. He attacked her and drover her
out of the double-wide once and for all.
Having heard of a school for mutants somewhere in
New England, she headed north only to encounter the being known as the Beyonder.
The alien being transported her the rest of the way, but the Beyonder’s sudden
appearance provoked an attack by the X-Men and Tabitha was mostly ignored.
After a series of adventures that would become known as the Secret Wars II, she
left the Beyonder and ended up living on the streets.
Befriending a young girl named Gina, the two soon
caught the eye of a pimp named ‘Tiger’ who made several attempts to recruit the
two young girls. One night Tiger beat Gina to death, only to be killed by
Tabitha in return. On the run, Tabitha met the mutant known as the Vanisher who
recruited her into his team of thieves known as the Fallen Angles. One of the
Angles known as Ariel, turned out to be an alien looking to collect mutants for
study back on her homeworld known only as ‘Coconut Grove.” Fortunately, Ariel
had a change of heart and returned the surviving Angles to earth where they
went their separate ways.
Having met several X-Men and New Mutants, Tabitha
was now able to join the School for Gifted Youngsters and the New Mutants. When
the school was closed she, along with several other mutants, were sent to the
Phillips Academy in New Hampshire. Not fitting in well with the other students,
she was expelled and rejoined the New Mutants, where she developed her feeling
for her fellow mutant, Cannonball.
Both Cannonball and Tabitha both joined Cable’s
new X-Force. Under Cable’s mentorship, she developed her powers, and in a fit
of nineties X-tremism, cut off her hair, added a lot of pouches to her costume
and insisted that she be called Meltdown. Her relationship with Cannonball
suffered a number of ups and downs during this time, including an affair with
fellow teammate Sunspot. The current state of their relationship remains a mystery.
After several years with X-Factor, she took a
break from the team. She spent some time fooling around the west coast, hitting
the clubs and growing out her hair, until she was approached by Monica Rambeau
and Dick Anger, director of H.A.T.E. who recruited her into the team known as
Nextwave.
Still a petty thief at heart, it is her sticky
fingers that found the marketing plan of the Beyond Corporation, H.A.T.E.'s
financial backers. It turned out that Beyond Corp evolved out of the former
terrorist cell known as S.I.L.E.N.T., and was planning to use H.A.T.E. and
Nextwave to further its own sinister agendas. Taking this information to
Monica, the group rebelled, only to be pursued by Dick Anger and all the
resources of H.A.T.E
|
Boom
Boom was created by
Jim
Shooter and Al Milgrom.
Artwork
by Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger, and Dave McCaig with Paul Mounts
|
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