A common argument I see is along the lines of "Well, the vampires sleep in very secure locations, and have loyal guards." That, to me, rings hollow; unless the security is overwhelmingly ironclad, and vastly greater than the vampire's entourage while out and about in the night, I am sure that a vampire hunter would prefer to tackle said home security rather than whatever superpowers a vampire can actively dish out.

I find the Scroll of Glorious Deeds from 13th Age 1e's Book of Loot (2014) to be very interesting. Its effects are purely narrative, but can have a significant impact. How would you use it in your own games? How would you rule it for criminal, malicious, or outright vile actions?

Scroll of Glorious Deeds: This item works in a similar fashion to the scroll of unspoken deeds on page 15. When you write the description of an event on the blank scroll, that event becomes famous and is seen as impressive or inspiring, no matter what actually happened. Stories of the deed are on everyone’s lips no matter where you go; bards compose epic sagas immortalizing the deed, and rich merchants try to buy respect by building statues commemorating it.

If the deed was shameful or trivial, then people will still try to find something memorable about it. The magic might cause people to misinterpret what happened, or read unintended meanings into it, or connect it to some unrelated story. So, if Bognor the Barbarian mistakes the chamber pot in the inn for a hat, and you make that deed a glorious one, then perhaps:

• Bognor becomes a fashion icon, and wearing chamber pots as hats is the thing to do at court

• It’s said that a rich merchant left a fabulous jewel in the chamber pot, and Bognor is now famed for his good luck and sudden wealth

• Bognor and the chamber pot? Everyone knows that ‘Bognor’ is just a metaphor for the Orc Lord, and the chamber pot is the nickname of a fortress on the border that held off an attack by the orc armies. That chamber pot story is an allegory for heroism and the defense of the realm!

In effect, whatever you write on the scroll becomes a famous feel-good tale. You may scrape the scroll clean and inscribe a new event on it, but that lifts the enchantment from the previous glorious incident.

You may inscribe an event that you weren’t involved in, but you need to be able to describe it in detail and note down everyone who was there.

Hi everyone!

I'm a DM wrapping up a three-year Curse of Strahd campaign which at this point is mostly sidebrew (huge thanks to Lunch Break Heroes!) and homebrew. From this I was inspired to create a homebrewed urban setting for our next game, my players wanted to help but they are more keen on talking about a world more than doing the documentation.

To make things fun, and to get rid of the tedious bits, I developed an AI tool that interviews you while you play as a character, helping extract and organize your ideas. The AI doesn't generate content—it guides you to develop and structure your own concepts through in-character conversations, dynamically updating a wiki along the way. In Barovia AI prompts you!

We had great success with my group, and I believe other DMs, players, and worldbuilders might find it useful too. So I have been working on scaling it up and looking for testers. All you need is a Discord account.

Interested in trying it out on Discord? Join here: Discord Invite Link

The first of many test sessions starts tomorrow! These will be 1-3 day periods where the bot is active and folks will be able to just have fun playing with (and probably breaking) it. Your feedback would be incredibly valuable!

TL;DR: Made an AI tool that interviews you in character to help build your world. It worked well with my group—looking for testers on Discord. Join if interested!

Hey y'all, longtime DM here. I've been thinking about compiling some of my copious worldbuilding notes into system-agnostic setting guides to release on my patreon, the idea is to essentially take individual countries that can be neatly cut out of their original context to create a kind of drag-and-drop addition to ongoing campaigns for less worldbuilding inclined DMs. I've noticed a lot of DMs seem to start with a single region based on what module they want to play like Barovia or Waterdeep, then when the module is done continue on with the players into a wider world. My goal is to provide setting guides for folks like this that help them lay out new pieces of the puzzle as they go.

My question for YOU r/loremasters is if you were to pick up a system agnostic setting guide, what sort of things would you expect to or want to find inside?

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• Rules and 10 statblocks for ships, plus many unique upgrade options and guidelines to help you running sea encounters.
• 60 statblocks for pirate crews and sea creatures of every kind. Each of the five pirate crews represented in the manual (a generic humanoid pirate crew, along with ratfolk, sea dwarves, viking, and spectral pirate crews) comes with several statblocks to cover each possible role and a premade, named crew each for use within any setting, presenting details on their notable members, ships, goals, allies, and enemies.
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AD&D 2e Planescape is most known for its portals, but I find conduits to be much more evocative. They are naturally occurring wormholes between different points in different planes, often in completely remote regions: deep in the earth or the sea, high in the sky, perhaps even beyond the atmosphere. (For example, one conduit might connect an unremarkable spot in the air above a mortal ocean to a tarn in Shurrock, the second layer of the Twin Paradises of Bytopia.) It takes specialized training or magic to locate them. Some conduits gradually move around or change one or both endpoints.

Conduits serve three primary functions. Firstly, they convey souls across the planes, whether of the newborn or of the dead. Secondly, they carry faith, belief, and prayers from worshipers to their gods. Thirdly, they transport divine power, whether the spells bestowed to a magical priest or the raw might of miracles.

Conduits were never meant to transport corporeal beings, but they can. Journeying through a conduit is akin to swimming through a river, or perhaps a pair of entwined, helical rivers running in opposite directions. A traveler surges amidst the souls of infants, curious and blissfully ignorant. Amidst the spirits of the departed, whether contented or regretful, saintly or iniquitous, elven or draconic. Amidst fears and worries, hopes and dreams, wildest wishes and humble aspirations, spoken from the heart to a deity. Amidst the awesome energy of the very gods, whether the blinding refulgence of the heavenly or the chilling penumbras of the profane. Enough to rouse the heart of a canny blood, as one might say.

Is it worth the trouble of depicting conduits over more conventional portals?