Viewer discretion: Far realm warlock shenanigans, I may mention gross dark things ahead, cosmic horror stuff.

A NPC warlock of Hadar called Margareth following the group on their endgame mission to a dungeon in the astral plane to stop a mage trying reboot the world by becoming the god of time. We'll call him the damp mage, for reasons. While there, they found out that that the damp mage tapped into powers from the far realm in the process of gathering power and resources, and he left open an evergrowing rift to the far realm.

Margareth knew this all along. She's been very mysterious and secretive about her intentions, always refering to Hadar as "my patron". She also has already brooded about how she is tired and regretful of the life she's lived, she wanted to be a mother but due to her pact, she feared doing that, as she feels like she did too bad in her life to be a mother.

My secret twist is that Margareth was actually sent there by Hadar as a mole to use the rift as a way for its influence to grow forth and fester, turning the rift to a full portal and invading full force. When they get to this part, Margareth will reveal her goal, but she'll betray Hadar, sacrificing herself so that the rift is closed and the cosmos is saved from the far realm in a dramatic scene and closing her arc in the campaign.

Don't worry, I don't think this will steal any spotlight, for the party still has the BBEG to defeat after that, and they would probably be fighting some remixed death knights in the meantime. Margareth would be just dealing with some of the fallout of the BBEG's plan, not the BBEG himself.

The problem is: I didn't actually decide on how exactly was she going to help Hadar or close the rift. Like, the mechanics of it. While writing this, it came to me the idea of her being magically "pregnant" of some sort of "hadar uber-aberration" that would be born like a xenomorph when they get to the rift, killing her in the process. This thing would serve as a marshall for Hadar, taking control of the rift, actually stopping the damp mage's plan, but replacing it with a full blown aberration conquest. She doesn't want to do it, tho, so what could she do?

I'm still picturing her getting to the rift, but she'll try to control Hadar dominance and do something else instead. I'm picturing like Eleven from Stranger Things when she uses her ESP mojo to close the rift to the upside-down, but I don't want it to be just "she gets there, makes funny faces and hand gestures, dies and the thing closes". What I thought initially for her was she entering the rift and closing it from within somehow. PCs would never know why and nothing would be left of either her or the rift, but I feel like I'm kinda bailing on an actual solution. Considering she was sent there as a far realm "mole", her getting to the far realm would probably be a bad idea? You can see I'm kinda everywhere on this.

She has the statblock of the warlock of the great old one, from Xanathar's, the group has found a magical item that was used as a catalyst for the damp mages treks to the far realm, but it's not with her right now. Maybe she can ask to keep it if it might be useful. She also wears a choker with a red crystal she uses as an arcane focus, if that's of any help. if Can you guys help me brainstorm this?

Background: the seven sins have taken over cities and in the one sloth controls there is a tavern where the players start and this is the start: session one: "as Narin stares into a mirror he sees a" player describes his character "Narin remembers that this tavern only a few years ago was bright and full of life but now its a dark and sad place to drown your sorrows." "suddenly as you are thinking you see your reflection in the mirror move and as you reach to touch it you are sucked into it and feel yourself fall. Narin awakens mid air floating as though a balloon in water you watch as four figures (one of which you realised is youself) kneel before a light and as it breaks off and each of the people absorbs a piece. as you see the last of the light vanish you hear one word. AWAKEN!"

I just wanted to share that after 6 years almost to the exact date my campaign finally ended. I can't believe it's been that long and even crazier it survived a pandemic and welcoming 2 kids to the group (currently 3 and 4 years old). I have so many feelings; I'm happy, sad and everywhere in-between it's final done but mostly I'm just ready for a long over due break as DM. This has been the best and most consistent group I've ever played with. I'm looking forward to the next chapter. Currently some of the players have 1 shots we plan on doing before we try something new.

Hoping all of you have the same luck I did and enjoy the game as much as I do.

Bit of background: I have been running a campaign for almost a year now and we had recently switched over to using a version of Safe Haven Resting - and it has produced a few changes in how my players make choices that we have enjoyed. One of those changes is that Long Rests include at least 24 hours of downtime spent in a safe and secure location. So they need to sleep while out in the wilderness to not be exhausted, but won’t get long rests from it.

Winter is setting in and The party had just returned from adventuring in the ruins of a town now infested with oozes. They were down to 1 first level spell slot on the sorcerer, cleric was tapped out completely, and the paladin may have had a spell slot left but I’m not sure, they were all down on hit points, and to top it off they had spent the last 7 days trudging through 8 inches or more of snow in the forest while trying to dodge some bandits they knew to be on the main road.

So when they finally saw the sign for The Empty Gullet, a shady tavern they had been to before on the outskirts of civilization that is known to cater to seedier elements like mercenaries and thieves, they were ecstatic. The way we are running resting a Long Rest takes at least 24 hours of downtime and since they arrived after dark that meant they needed to stay two full nights to really get the benefit they were looking for. So at session start they walked into the tavern and bought rooms and food for two nights.

I had prepped a decent amount of content for the Long Rest but I guessed it was 60/40 chance on if the players would interact with any of it - or just take the quick/easy route and stay in their rooms to skip the downtime in order to rush back to adventuring. To my delight they fully engaged with it and treated it like they really were adventurers who had just come in from the cold and danger and were looking to blow off some steam and get some food and drink in them. They drank, they gambled (I made up handouts with rules for four different tavern mini-games: arm wrestling, five finger fillet, Liars Dice, and a game I made up called Splitting the Take I said was made up by thieves guild members), and gossiped, and tried to make connections. I think the only person or thing they didn’t do or talk to was the Five Finger Fillet mini game.

The Bard/Sorcerer (an ex city watch member) was on a hot streak at Splitting the Take and just took it in stride when she found some of her winnings had been lifted from her pouch while she wasn’t looking. She also took a bunch of notes for her next book (she writes detective novels as a backstory element).

The cleric of tymora won several rounds of liars dice and then bought rounds of drinks for the bar with the winnings, and spent a lot of time chatting to the dwarf twins who were there with a mercenary company.

And the groups leader, a very naive Paladin who believes himself to be a talented musician because early in the campaign the he and the bard won a prestigious award for musical talent (and he wears it everywhere) once again tried to grace the Gullets stage with his song playing but he likes to roll 1s on performance checks and has yet to roll above a 10 after modifiers even once at this specific tavern (the tavern owner is fully convinced he is a conman pretending to be a musician of talent).

Before entering the tavern the group all decided that there was certain information they weren’t going to talk about or share while inside, because they don’t trust the proprietor. They pumped NPCs for rumors and information and instead of remaining tight lipped, they all gossiped back. They shared a bunch of general details about where they had been and seen. They even asked to make rolls to see if they could properly judge how much they were drinking to not get too drunk. Some of the information they kept to themselves, and other bits of it they let slip because in the moment of roleplay it seemed right, or because the drink had made them forget temporarily (The Cleric player said he forgot that he was pretending to be dead, in order to avoid a backstory enemy, and started introducing himself by his real name to everyone inside the known thieves guild hangout).

The Cleric even at one point argued the Paladin around to potentially seeing them working for the thieves guild as a positive thing that would end up putting more good into the world than bad. It was something straight out of a Terry Pratchett novel. If I closed my eyes I could have believed I was hearing Commander Vimes explaining to Carrot why the thieves guild is allowed to operate in the open and even hands out receipts to victims of muggings - because regulated crime is on the whole less bad than unregulated crime. It was beautiful and entertaining to sit back and watch.

They spent 3 hours of our 4 hour session just roleplaying and gambling like adventures without letting “optimal play” get in the way and ruin it, and it was so much fun. I couldn’t be more proud of my players for so fully embracing the idea of tavern downtime like they did. The whole session could have fallen flat and been a disappointment if they hadn’t dove into it like they did. But they showed up to play!

I I was even fairly proud of myself. I put a lot of thought and time into the prep for the NPCs and mini games, made sure there were threads connecting plot elements to their past and recent adventures and to future plots. I allowed several player predictions they made beforehand to come true, and let them gain small advantages because of it. I even remembered to use most of the prep I had made, which is unusual because I forget to use a lot of the small details I come up with.

It’s the first time I’ve tried to run a session like this, and it was an entirely positive experience thanks to my players, and I just wanted to brag about it.

Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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So, my party is a mismatch group of adventurers who all have their own stake. I helped them out customising their backstory to fit the world and the campaign.

Two are students of a magic school set out to investigate a disruption in the magic that affects the other planes as well. It's their internship basically.

Two others were brother and sister. One a dwarf who's city got taken by the BBE when he was little and who's people set out as travelers until they could regain their homeland. The other a elven female who got adopted as a founding.

Now at first I didn't want the lost elven mother to be the BBEG, but when the player quit (he didn't feel his character or the game in general as a first time player) I decided it would be cool to make her the BBEG who is corruption a magic nexus. I hope it will give the dwarf player a sense of conflict when they finally meet and the BBEG mentions this fact.

I'm curious what you guys think!

If you are playing Turmeric Tales - move along!

!One of my players is a cleric Female Human Aasimar Variant. I've been slowly trying to build the voice in her head to convince her to become a Warlock. She has an unusual build and has really strong charisma stats so she might actually be more effective as a Warlock.!<

!I've already swapped out an annoying voice in her head for one who's a little more forthcoming and less abrasive, and now I'm starting to drop hints that she could be more powerful and help more people. I think narratively it might be interesting to see the struggle of losing faith and gaining perspective that I think could be really fun.!<

All in all, I think it can be a really fun plot twist to mess with the core character beliefs and lean into the seeds of doubt that are planted.

Two years into the campaign so I'll give you the abridged version. One of my players characters was killed during the first encounter with the boss of act 1. Instead of killing him off for good the player and I had a session where he spoke with a spirit inhabiting the blade that stabbed him through the chest. The spirit made a deal with him and the PC came back to life in the guilds temple before the guilds clerics could do anything. Now with a level in hexblade he continues on his journey. Eventually, some of the party gets involved with some of the gods seeking blessing before the coming battle through some guided meditation but the only gods my PC meets is Vecna. The PC of course finding out he was working for Vecna rejected him and promptly died again only to be visited by the Raven Queen. He struck a deal with the Raven Queen and came back to life again, this time as a oath of vengeance paladin.

But unknown to my player it wasnt the Raven Queen. It was Vecna, and my PC is now for all intents and purposes a revenant on his way to becoming a death knight.

I created an avatar world for my dnd characters. It has none of the real characters from the show just takes place during the same time period and has different villains. However, I’ve kept a secret from them this entire time.

   I wanted to spice it up. So I wrote it to where they are not in a real world. It is a simulator; a test. The reality is that my players and everyone else was sent to a fake world to see if the avatar can really save the world or would he just cause more harm. Once they find the avatar and save the world or if the world dies, the spirit shows up and will send them back to their past lives with no memories of this world. The real world takes place in 2000s, the avatar after Korra (now the characters are introduced.) and they have to balance their past life with thier new one (some have different elements than the simulator.) and they have to save the real world.

I have a player who’s decided that she wanted to play as essentially a Super Soldier for the Empire, sort of a Winter Soldier situation where she managed to run away after realizing what she was being genetically altered to do.

I’ve held onto a twist where she is actually the primary copy for a group of new genetically modified Death Troopers as an attempt from the Empire to clone soldiers without the help of the Kaminoans, and to see if they can find a way to make the Order 66 chip work on genetically modified clones, unlike the Bad Batch. It’s been two years since she pitched this character to me and I’ve been holding onto this secret for so long, waiting until the perfect time to drop the bombshell.

The Long Game:

We are over 1 year and about 42 sessions into a heavily modified Shadow of the Dragon Queen campaign. My first time DMing. After a long set-up and many many detours, the Party has just fought Caradoc/Sarlamir, and are about to come face to face with Lord Soth for the first time.

Instead of starting the campaign at level 3 they began at level 1 and did an introductory mission before Vogler. In short: The mission was to investigate a small Dwarven mountain home, as Kalaman was informed the entire population (3-5K) disappeared inexplicably. The Party discovered a portal to the Shadowfell deep within was created. The local BBEG was tasked by Takhisis with resurrecting a fallen Black Dragon turned Shadow Dragon named Voazovoveen. (Vho-azz-oh-voe-veen). He did so by throwing 100s of Shadows into the keep, silently killing them in their sleep and rising as more shadows, then dragging the bodies of themselves back through the portal to the Shadowfell. These bodies were fed to the extremely weak dragon. The Party discovered almost everything, but at the very end when standing above the pit that contained this barley living creature they (for some reason) decided they were finished, and left the unknown monster in its deep hole… “The Guild will send another Party to finish things, we did what we were contracted to.” Reminded me of "Isildur, destroy it!"

Now 1-year IRL later, this Dragon is very much back. And will be the Dragon used by Soth as his mount, being a Greater Black Shadow-Death Dragon. Below is the BBEG Soth monologue he’ll say to the Party. (Who are still very hurt after all their fighting.) I have it written here, but it will actually be a recorded TTS voiceover against ambiance, music, and sound effects later. Tough to replicate a female version of Smaug etc. with text.

Let me know if you’d like me to share. (OhGodIWantToShareIHaveNoOneToTell)

Soth – Thank you for culling the weak from my ranks. You've saved me the trouble. The Heroes of Vogler I presume? One of the many towns I have watched burn. It will not be the last. I am glad we have met. I wanted to thank you for your inaction, or, inability, to destroy a valuable asset of mine when you might have had the chance.

Would you like to meet her? She certainly wants to meet you. Again…

(Sound of wings against rain)

Soth – Who once was lost has risen. Thoazovoveen returns.

Narration – The air suddenly cold, you can see your breath before you. The noise on the streets silenced, a familiar rhythm on the wind, approaching.

From a black silhouette on the already darkened sky emerges the massive shape of a flying beast. Piercing the clouds it descends to Lord Soth, landing hard with sounds of shattering bone on rock.

The creature has sunken eyes gleaming violet. A skeletal body draped in tattered decaying flesh, held together by blackened gold framing its entire length of 100 feet end to end, wings stretching beyond that. Obsidian scales wreathed in shadow. Between the exposed flesh and bone, a violet fire burns within its body.

It glares towards you, black blood slowly dripping through serrated teeth the size of swords. A stare exuding a deep hatred.

Before you stands a Greater, Shadow-Death Dragon, with a familiar name from not so long ago…

Soth – 350 years in the making. And she wears Dwarven Gold so well…

Dragon – Now a face to the voices and smell of the insolent few… I remember you especially… Next we meet I will tear your soul from your bones. You will not see it coming. Live these last days in fear.

Side note: Sheogorath is watching from the hole in the catacomb wall… part of one of those detours I mentioned.

Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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Just got to have this reveal to my party in my 2E campaign —

They’re currently traveling the underdark trying to avoid a host of duegar that are under the control of an evil entity.

In the process they encountered a derrow enclave that had been mostly destroyed by a cave in. A small party of the derrow attacked the party and after they defeated the derrow, a high powered derrow gleefully greeted them and recruited them to help him recover his apprentice and maybe even some of his tribe from the influence of the evil entity.

Yes, the high powered derrow had been driven “sane” by the circumstances and has been helpful and even somewhat friendly to the party.

They’re currently somewhat confused by the whole scenario.

Long time lurker first time poster. I run my campaign arcs like seasons of a show. Sometimes some seasons are long others are shorter and I base them on the availability of my players. For example one of my players had a baby so I wrote him out of the story in a way which set up the second season.

But I digress, I want to share the overarching arc. Our quest began in a defacto DMZ of the last Great War. Our party began humbly as Starskulfers, a rag tag bunch of meteorite ore hunters far out in the desert who essentially use sand catemerans to trawl the wastes for precious star metal which falls every year for a 3 month period during the celestial event known as The Tears Of Duthar (Duthar is a primordial dwarven deity which is the great celestial mole that digs throughout the universe uncovering stars and precious materials - a proto-dwarfaic myth which lends reason as to why dwarves dig)

Our party had a Plasmoid in it which really doesn’t have much guidance in the handbook so I basically helped the player craft a being which is part of a larger Eldritch being. The plasmojd is pure and innocent but based on its experience, it acts as a harbinger for the parent entity known as The Quiet That Creeps. Essentially a great old one which devours worlds. At the end of Season 1 the plasmoid had a choice to essentially end the campaign by allowing this parent entity to devour the world. However, he bought the rest of the party some time by having this entity focus on devouring the Gods of this realm first.

Which gets me to season 2. I run a very lore heavy game and have created an entire pantheon which I weave into every day conversations, loot, etc. My premise now is that during the last major war, all the gods have descended to this plane as they feed off of the belief and machinations of mortals. Think of this as mana for gods. The stronger the belief, the greater the choices they make in the name of their dirties, the more the gods are fed and sustained. Well, in my world, there was a ‘technological breakthrough’ by the dwarves. They built a series of stable portals known as the Valiar Paths. These were used to quickly move troops through a network of portals in order to fight their foes. An unintended consequence however was that this technology essentially caused a permanent rift in the weave thus trapping the gods in the mortal realm in their forms of avatars. Now the party is discovering that the more they engage with the gods of the universe the more they uncover the identity of said avatars. One of which is a companion of their party. Ultimately they will chose if they will protect the gods or align with them or not. And since these gods have vendettas against each other, they are using their influence to run cults, organizations and even empires.

If you are in possession of either Harmony, The Arachnostaff, The Heartwood Staff or Stormseeker, don't read further, this will spoil the game for you.

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Me and my players are running a homebrewed world and adventure, where the big bad is this Drow named Malari, who wishes to release an evil and ancient god from his prison in order to destroy all gods. At the end of Lost Mines of Phandelver, they found the first part of a key to his prison behind the Forge of Spells, kickstarting the rest of the campaign.

One of the earliest NPCs they encountered is Daphne, an elven spymaster who was the mentor of one of the PCs, who turned on her because he realized that she wanted the key to the evil gods prison. She established that she wanted to keep it safe from those who could hurt their homeland (both her and the PC is from a neighbouring country), and tried to take it from the party forcefully, but failed. A while after this, the PC was killed fighting a spectre of the evil god who had infested a shrine to the cleric's god, and so Daphne realized the errors of her ways and decided to join the party in fighting the evil god by offering her services to them. She is currently helping the court wizard of the country they are currently in in deciphering where the remaining parts of the key can be found. What the players don't know (but might suspect) is that Daphne is actually Malari in disguise.

Now, Glasstaff from LMoP was captured, sent to the capital, tried and sentenced to death. The execution was set to be at dusk, and before he could be executed, Malari and her drow army made an incursion into the capital city to free Glasstaff. FINALLY, about a year (real time) after this happened, the players have started asking themselves why the heck the execution was at dusk instead of noon (which is customary) as it allowed the Drow to attack without disadvantages.

The reason being that Malari has been manipulating people into doing things for her benefit, setting the execution at dusk, monitoring the party etc. The execution time was ordered by a noble of high regard, whose daugther Malari has kidnapped in order to force the noble to do as she says. Last session ended with the court wizard asking the party for help discovering who ordered the time of the execution, as nobody seems to "remember" this, but in reality, those involved are keeping their mouth shut in order to keep the nobles daughter safe. (this after one of the PCs sent a sending to the wizard, asking him to investigate who gave the order)

My plan was that at the end of this sidequest, hopefully saving the daughter, the noble would reveal that the one behind it was Malari, the drow, but what if he instead revealed that Daphne was behind it, revealing the ruse of Malari now instead of waiting until the endgame? The original plan was for Daphne to accompany them to find the final part of the key, and then revealing herself true identity there, but would this new opportunity be better?

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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A small village of survivors are on an alien planet (think james cameron avatar / fey wild). They set a couple rules in place as laws for their people.

A fey queen has taken a liking to them and charmed one of the leaders. She takes the document of laws and corrupts them by forcing the leader to write a few additional rules in blood. Writing them in blood will make the rules magically binding (whole document).

Im looking for help wording rules that would bind the villagers to the fey queen and basic rules for the original document

Basically:

“Never lie, steal or betray the survivor group”

“The court of law will consist of 5 members voted in by the people. Punishments are given out by the court for unjust behavior” (fey queen charms the 5 ppl)

“Basic rules of law here”

Queen adds:

“Desertion leads to death (plot related)”

“Some subset of rules to control the populace. Something like bow to the queen” (?)

Mainly looking for ideas and creative wording.

Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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Anna who plays in the she shed don’t read this 💜

Hi everyone! My girlfriend has always dmed for me and introduced me to dnd a few years ago but I want to run a one shot where she can enjoy and not have to plan everything out for once and I wanted to get advice on my idea and some encounters.

I want the one shot to have a Monty python loose theme and the main premise is to retrieve the kings holy chalice from a castle on a hill. At the beginning I want the king to bestow a gift where if they clench their asscheeks they can grow back limbs but each time they do this they get a liiiitttle shorter. He also has a pet snail that if you touch at all, you die forever.

Once they set off they’re going to face three obstacles and go through one town.

Obstacle 1- the classic troll giving a riddle at a bridge

Obstacle 1.5 the bridge leads to a town where in order to purchase anything you must beat the seller in a real life chugging contest. To do this I’ll roll a d20 and make a chart of how much time it takes the seller to drink it but I won’t tell them until they finish their beer if they won or not.

Obstacle 2- a knight that literally can’t die but can be restrained (Tis but a flesh wound!)

Obstacle 3- this one I think I need some help with. I wanna make an obstacle course where each of their attributes is tested. Here’s some examples below but I could use help on wisdom and charisma in particular.

Strength- move a boulder to sit on a button Dexterity- button releases ropes that go over lava Constitution- must take a hit from a barbarian (that’s why we call it a one shot!) Intelligence- design an actual puzzle for them that rewards a 1d4 healing potion each for the con hit Wisdom- ?? Charisma- must woo someone?

At the end I still need to pick a boss fight for the chalice but at the end I want it revealed that the king was there the whole time, the chalice is actually a keg, and after beating the boss they must do a final undertaking of a chugging contest with the drunk king. If they win, they each get a personalized reward. If they lose, they must touch the snail from the beginning and die.

My questions are: is this a good concept? I’m telling them to all make joke characters so they know it’s nothing serious. Are there any better ideas for my final obstacle? And is there any overall advice for running my first one shot?

Thanks everyone!

Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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After the battle with the swarm. There is to be a celebration back at the capital city. All soldiers will be present including an allied time dragon named Dinithir. All soldiers of the alliance will be present.

Dinithir’s flesh will be flaky as if a snake is molting and shedding its skin. His walk weak. His present. Soft. No one knows that this is Tharizduns shell. He had a mark placed on a princess.

A mark of cane if you can imagine it. The players however had gone back into the past during one of their adventures. In order to stop such mark from ever existing and in turn freeing the princess from the curse. This weakened Tharizdun’s plans. As he intended the party to fail and for him to funnel 500 years worth of magic into his own body in order to evolve into a great entity to chain the world.

That won’t happen now. Yet even then. With his power combined with that of a Great Wyvern like Dinithir. Who is capable of manipulating time and space.

Tharizdun had worked long and quietly to hatch himself from this now husk of a dragon.

You see, in the past. Dinithir had a lover named Cassandra. These two dragons had a great bond, but due to being young, naive and rather feeling powerful with himself. Dinithir had challenged Tharizdun in the past. Instead of killing Dinithir however. Tharizdun choose a different path. He instead robbed Cassandra of her heart and in turn. Dinithir’s love.

Leaving Dinithir to live his long life. Alone. Years passed after that. Dinithir was hunted by a group of famous heroes of the past and they managed to slay Dinithir by stabbing through his heart.

In Dinithir’s dying breath. He wished to see Cassandra once more. Unfortunately it was Tharizdun who heard the call as he has had Cassandra’s heart for all that time.

With this. Tharizdun used Cassandra’s heart to creat an avatar to fool Dinithir into accepting Tharizdun as his savor. This pact sealed Dinithir’s fate.

The dragon’s heart is robbed, but Tharizdun is not completely cruel. Since with his chains. He bound both lovers hearts and used this as a seed for his next evolution.

Dinithir’s body is now an egg. Which went dormant for 500 years before being reawaken by a group of wandering miners.

Coming back to the present and the capital. Where everyone is celebrating victory over the bug army. Tharizdun’s shell finally sheds.

Out comes Tharizdunithir, the cyber-quantum chain dragon. With an already weaken army. Tharizdunithir unleash his awesome power among an already weakened force. Tearing forth and bringing onto the world a new army of metal and magic. Will the party survive this evolved Tharizdun?

Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

Just a quick reminder that the discord is up and running for this subreddit, come and join to have conversations about anything relating to TTRPGs :P

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

Just a quick reminder that the discord is up and running for this subreddit, come and join to have conversations about anything relating to TTRPGs :P

Link to the discord: https://discord.gg/SbHCmrZFCM

I'm pretty excited about this. But I know that when I get excited, I get blinders on, so I would like some feedback, too.

The plot is a godswar kind of thing. The gods fight wars for who controls what worlds. These gods operate on timelines of thousands of years, so on most worlds, the people are completely unaware of this. The world in this campaign is about to get invaded, and the population doesn't even know that their gods have celestial enemies. (except for a few loredrop NPCs).

In addition to all the usual stuff, I've asked the players to make up a reason their character is in the starting city. They can know each other or not. Most of them made characters who do not know each other. I'll start off with about 5-10 minutes with each player individually, roleplaying what their character did that day and where they spent the night.

When they all go to bed/meditate, they will have a vision of themselves, all together as tier 4 characters. I'll stress that they all know they have been through a lot together, and those trials have forged strong bonds between them. They all trust each other and each other's abilities. But for some reason, those memories are uncertain...did they do this, or that? did they kill that person, or ally with them? Did they find this artifact, or did they not? It seems like everything happened at once.

Through all of this, I'll have them describe what they look like at tier 4, then have them describe how they would prepare for battle. The vision will end as they are approaching the burned out city where the final battle would take place in the worst case scenario. They will wake up, and each will recall seeing a few of the people from the vision in different parts of the city. While searching for each other, they will find other hints from that vision that will lead them to the next stuff.

As the campaign goes on, they will have that vision again and again, but it will change based on choices they make through the campaign.

I know the main flaw here is that the group may not take the bait, but I've been playing with this group for 2 years. They'll take the bait.

Kickoff is in a week.

Any thoughts? Suggestions?

Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

Just a quick reminder that the discord is up and running for this subreddit, come and join to have conversations about anything relating to TTRPGs :P

Link to the discord: https://discord.gg/SbHCmrZFCM

Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

Just a quick reminder that the discord is up and running for this subreddit, come and join to have conversations about anything relating to TTRPGs :P

Link to the discord: https://discord.gg/SbHCmrZFCM

I’m about to start a pirate campaign with my NPC being the captain, a Goliath, Eldrich Knight with a Blood fury tattoo. I put the NPC to level 15.

If I got into a fight and decided for my turn to attack and I rolled a 18..20 (My character also has Superior Critical) and attacked with my Vicious Glaive but did the following for my actions could I hit a max of 144 damage in one round if I rolled perfectly? (I know the likelihood is impossible but I’m curious)

Attack:

1. Roll 18..20
2. 1d10+2 (x2), Use bloodthirsty strikes slot +4d6 necrotic (total possible 48 damage)
3. Action surge
4. Extra attack
5. 3x 1d10+2 (x2) use 3 blood thirsty slots +4d6 necrotic (total possible 144 damage)

Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

Just a quick reminder that the discord is up and running for this subreddit, come and join to have conversations about anything relating to TTRPGs :P

Link to the discord: https://discord.gg/SbHCmrZFCM

[Blaze of Glory] stay out guys! No peeking!

Ok so my party of 4 Level 7 PCs (Bladesinger, Rogue, Paladin, Cleric) had infiltrated a shadow necromancer's tower, having braved a valley full of roiling shadows that blocked out the sun and made navigation nearly impossible, except for the aid of the ghost (a banshee) of a woman murdered by the necromancer in an act of ritual betrayal a century before. (They had wisely talked rather than attack her).

She guided the party to the tower before sunset, and had helped them evade several of the ghosts, shadows, specters, shades, shadow demons, and shadow-infused undead werewolves (with a bone to pick about their deaths the previous game) that patrolled the darkness. They got into the tower and as agreed, destroyed the shrine marked with her heart's blood, freeing her of the power of the necromancer and allowing her to act against him directly.

This ghost did not fight alongside the party, but used her knowledge to help them get in and find the necromancer hiding in his panic room in the tower cellar, where he was working to activate a dimensional portal to escape to the Shadowfell. The party broke through his locked trapdoor and entered the area where the necromancer was chanting.

For flavor, I had the banshee float forward and confront her killer, opening with invectives and the banshee's Wail ability.

The players passed the save. The BBEG failed.

And fell to 0 HP immediately.

I said "Oh fuck" before I could stop myself.

Sure, that's poetically suitible that the aggreived ghost of his murdered apprentice would have her vengeance, but that wasn't the story here. I couldn't just let the NPC kill-steal the big boss.

Fortunately, I remembered he had three soul-coins on him. I handwaved a bit and let him reactively drain them all dry for temporary HP, describing his eyes rolling back and him starting to fall, but then being suffused with power from the soul coins and using shadow-step to try to run. The players had a great little fight where he ripped the party's shadows off and set them against the PCs before being brought down. (Reskinned Danse Macabre spell to make Shadows instead of zombies/skeletons. I made it lv 6 to accommodate the stronger monsters) He was at half-health and desperate instead of cocky, but it worked out in the end.

I realized later that it might also have been fun to let his death in that moment stick, but the banshee turn out to have been using the players to get to the necromancer to steal his power (or steal it back) and then turn on them with her power restored as a necromancer wizard-banshee, flipping my original script of her being the victim in the relationship,

But A) it didn't occur to me and B) I don't want my players suspecting every helpful NPC for the rest of the game of being duplicitous, and go down the road to murderhobodom. She gifted them her locket (An uncommon rarity amulet of the devout reskinned as a sad memento of lost love) and then vanished into her long-delayed afterlife.

So that's how I one shot killed my own BBEG during the adventure's final showdown.

I Just had to share this after my last session on Saturday. For the last 3 Sessions my Players investigated a series of murders. Each of the victims had a connection to a spa/Hospital run by a Divine Soul Sorc and a couatl. They never charge for their services, are open 24/7 and both are genuine good people who just want to use their powers for good. All of my players are convinced these two are the culprits and have spend the last 3 sessions searching for nonexistent proof.

And thou my newest lesson as a DM is: the greatest Challenge is a genuine good Person.

Please excuse my grammar. I‘m on mobile and my autocorrect tries to sabotage me.