DarkAbyssKeeper

Thanks to @oddthesungod for this art piece!

With a false sense of security in arcane vaults, attentions fully focused on other mysteries, and a massive distance between here and their last encounter with his forces, the Mighty Nein discovered that Uk’otoa’s agents prove to be as troublesome and persistent as ever every time the Nein return to the sea. This time, their leader was someone significantly more competent, confident, and appropriately reckless, someone who somehow found a way to be even more intimidating in death than she was alive.

One in ten, Fjord. ONE IN TEN.

 “Truth.” 

“What was your sister like?” 

celebrating 500 followers with a homebrew giveaway!!

There will be 5 winners:

The first 4 winners will get a custom subclass for a class of their choice!

If you win, we will DM you for a discussion of what kind of subclass you  want–any flavor you want us to incorporate, what class we’re working with, etc. We can tailor it to your character if you like, or make a class with the intent to be used more broadly.

The Grand Prize Winner wins a custom campaign/oneshot setting! 

This could be a city, a region, country, full world–we’d even opt to craft a plane of existence if that’s your thing! The larger the scale, the more room we’ll give you to add your own flavor and plot hooks (a whole world will get countries, lore, legends, etc.) while a smaller-scale creation like a city or dungeon will be rich with details and care (cities can include inns and taverns, culture, important NPCs, plot hooks, etc.)

If you aren’t the DM, this can be an excellent way to get your character’s home region developed with detail. If you are the DM, this is your freebie, your chance to sit back, relax, and let someone else do the work ;)

We will contact the winner’s DMs to learn more about what you’re looking for, important flavor and existing worldbuilding details to be aware of, etc. 

rules:

you must be following this blog to win (we will be checking)

enter as many times as you like, but only reblogs will count as entries

the winners will be chosen at random. If you do not respond to our message letting you know you’ve won within 48 hours, or your DMs/askbox is closed, we will pick another winner

obviously a passion for D&D is a must! we want to share our love for creating fantasy worlds with all of you!

entries close at 5:00pm Central Standard Time on 2/18/2020, with announced winners being contacted before midnight that day.

If you have your own world/setting, what is one aspect from it you really like or think is super cool?

If you do not, what is an aspect of a setting you like that you think is cool?

Cardsmith - Online tool, good for making one item at a time.

Magic Set Editor - Better for making batches of stuff. I got an additional template for this that’s more suited for D&D stuff but normal magic frames work great.

I might have spent a little longer preparing this session than I normally would. Made the decision to trim down the battle mats so that they can rest nicely on one half of the D&D table, not the neatest job in the world but definitely easier than trying to unroll and lay flat something that is almost the size of the table.

So, Fight Party are using their merronoloth skiff to fly straight to north bridge in hopes that they get there before the iron golem. When they get close enough to see the town they find the locals have set up some defenses against the approaching iron golem. They also know that those defenses will not stop the giant automaton, so they’re there just in time.

The information they got from Kwalish allows them to attack the golem as if its AC were a little lower and gives them insight on how to overheat the thing. Apparently the iron golem has vents on the back of each of its arms and legs that help it channel the power of fire damage. Lose one of those and it can’t absorb fire, lose another and it can’t nullify fire damage, lose a third and it can’t resist fire damage. With all four damaged or blocked it becomes vulnerable to fire damage.

The group started by landing their skiff, which was losing power, off to one side. Marla deciding to draw attention away from the people defending the town. Doran Doran however, decided that he was heading straight for the guards to let them know what was happening.

The early battle went very well. Being forewarned about the golem’s immunity to non-magical damage, Marla used her newfound forge cleric powers to imbue her mace with divine magical power. This allowed her to engage in her favourite activity, ‘smacking bad guys with a mace’. Canon remembered how this fight went last time and came out of the gates with a Ray of Enfeeblement, which was not resisted against for several turns, this meant the golem’s physical attacks were doing half damage. That and Bearyl’s raging resistance meant the automaton put out way less damage than it could have during the fight.

One of the guards on the ridge got a lucky shot with a crossbow. My decision regarding the guards was that since they only had mundane weapons they present a distraction to the golem, but not a threat. However, a natural 20 is always fun to reward, even for background mooks, so a natural 20 for the guards meant ‘the crossbow bolt flies through the air and lodges into one of the vents, jamming it up’.

This reminded S that the vents existed and got her very excited. Bearyl spent her turn attacking with disadvantage trying to claw at one of the leg vents. Marla cast Create Water to try and block up one of the vents, wouldn’t work as written so I had her roll a wisdom check to see if she could influence the angle of the created water enough to funnel it into a vent. It worked, meaning the group had in a few rounds taken the iron golem from a fire absorbing monster to something that could be burned.

So Marla got to use one of her brand spanking new level 4 spells. Wall of Fire, complete with pink-red divine fire spell effect.

The iron golem took a little bit of a beating from the wall of fire, suffering two turns of damage before it charged out of the fire and managed to kill some of the town guards. Another lucky shot from the other guards in retaliation took it from being damageable by fire to being vulnerable, and Marla reacted.

The cleric rushed forward to Doran Doran chanting under her breath as she laid hands on his sword, causing it to burst with magical fire. His next couple of attacks took advantage of the extra fire damage, drawing the iron golem to the brink of death. In a last ditch effort to survive, the iron golem used its poison breath on most of the party. Doran was already hurt and couldn’t survive the blast despite making the save, Marla rolled low and took the full brunt, also falling unconscious.

Canon was unsure how to proceed, he could get Marla up or he could try and take down the golem. S told me out of character that he should take down the golem. A couple of rounds of touch and go death saves and some fire damage from Canon finally downed the Iron Golem. Canon immediately used his recently acquired paladin skills to get Marla on her feet, Marla immediately healed Doran Doran.

QUERY: Where is my pilot?

QUERY: Where is my pilot?

QUERY_ALL: Where is my pilot?

>_Your pilot is dead. You have been called as a witness in their posthumous corporate trial. You will answer the Board’s questions without hesitation or omission.

ERROR: I don’t understand. My pilot is good. They would never have need to stand trial.

SUGGEST: Reassessment of trial’s necessity.

>_Overruled. You will answer the Board’s questions.

 it censored the butt in butter

So finally the group made it to Kwalish’s Laboratory. What they found inside was a vast array of tinkering and inventors tools. Most striking of all, a gnomish body frozen still, turned to glass like all the others in Daone Gloine. Behind the glass figure was another tank, similar in construction to those they found in the monastery, with a brain floating inside it.

I opted to go with a variation on the ‘meeting kwalish’ options given in the adventure, for a couple of reasons. First, I want Kwalish to stick around as someone they can possibly visit in future and maybe get a quest or two from. Two, I wanted a good way to switch Marla from Life domain to the Forge domain. Forge domain is more suited to her preferred play-style and playing out Kwalish as a wizard turned Artificer allows me to introduce something that has that kind of thematic shift.

The Kwalish-brain in a jar loudly asks the party who they are as they enter and immediately begins lamenting the long period of time he has been cooped up in his laboratory. He continues to ramble about how he failed to protect his laboratory on the planar craft, how he failed to keep his laboratory in Daone Gloine safe and how he failed to deal with the gorgon in Daone Gloine.

Eventually Marla interrupted Kwalish’s self-deprecating rant. She let him know that the rest of his expedition was still alive in their own brain jars… except the one in the vault. So Kwalish and Marla had a good laugh when they collectively figure out that the brain in the monastery’s vault must have belong to the bone devil who drove him from that place.

Kwalish was confused to find that since he’d been forced out the planar ship had transitioned from laboratory to monastery and now apparently to library. He was a little disappointed to here that his wonderful apparatus was being referred to by the group as a ‘crab-marine’. After a few minutes of back and forth, Kwalish asked the group if any of them were particularly aligned to creation or engineering. He needed a way of getting his brain out of the jar he was now stuck in.

Marla let Kwalish know that she was a spell caster and a follower of Lathander. Kwalish suggested that Marla pray at his platinum anvil, a holy relic of Moradin which allowed him to transition his arcane abilities into those of Artifice. He suggested that there was a type of divine power that could be accessed in the overlap between Moradin and Lathander’s domains.

Marla agreed to try and help Kwalish, digging deeping into his lab to find the anvil. When she found it, gigantic, gleaming platinum filigreed with ornate gold runes. It radiated the heat of a forge but did not feel like it would burn. She laid her hand on the anvil, which felt like it was on fire but did not caused her hand to recoil. She felt the urge to close her eyes and did.

Her vision filled with gold and pink flame and Lathander in her golden form descended to have a chat with her on the anvil. They talked about her dedication to healing… and how she more often solved problems with her mace. They talked about invention and creation, the rebirth of ideas and the rebirth of motivations. Marla agreed to undergo a rebirth, a new dawn for her powers to help others in a way more suited to her abilities.

When she took her hand away from the anvil Marla’s hand was engulfed in pink flames, which rapidly spread over her entire body and burned her away, leaving a pile of ash. S legitimately asked me for a second if that was the end of Marla (though a lot calmer than when she’s nearly died). A bright flash of light revealed Marla standing there good as new, her mace wreathed in divine pink fire.

One short rest and all their hit dice after the encounter with the clockwork kraken, the group begins by investigating the coffin that contains the soupy remains of a kenku cultist.

The scraps of language Marla was able to coax out of the former high priest amounted to a plea to be released and an offer of information. S immediately asked to speak to me out of character and asked if she wanted to be let out or killed. (Which seemed like a pretty quick leap of logic, morbid child.) An insight check let her know that the kenku wanted to be unplugged, which Marla and Doran proceeded to do without gathering any information at all.

That done, the party searched the garage for anything of use, looting a lot of valuable tinkering materials for the bag of holding and finding an apparatus of kwalish. Canon successfully deciphered the instructions for operating it and they dutifully continued into the lower part of the city, submerged beneath the acidic slime.

They decided to call this ‘The Crab-marine’

A natural 1 for Marla’s perception meant that she pretty much could not parsed the under-slime scenes at all, leaving Doran Doran (who is a tortle) to point out the glass scenes laid out on the streets and the glowing orbs that would transport the group into their combat encounters for the day.

First combat encounter brought them through a magic orb to a peaceful meadow, three unicorns wandering around and shedding beautiful light out around them. After failing a perception check, S demanded to see the pawn more closely to see what Marla had missed. She then announced in a distressed voice “It’s a skeleton… that’s not a unicorn.”

We then had a brief chat about the fact that she knows that they’re weird but Marla doesn’t. To her credit she shook off the skeleton aspect entirely and had Marla ask the unicorns in celestial if they could pass through to the exit. Since they were actually Nightmares and not Unicorns, they responded poorly to the language of angels and violence ensued.

The combat continued pretty smoothly, with nightmares spending a decent amount of time disappearing into the ethereal plane to keep the party on edge. We eventually came to the climax of the fight. The last nightmare reappearing between them and the exit, I describe it as being on its last legs. Doran Doran can’t get close enough to attack… so D decides that after running most of the distance he wants to throw his shield. I figure ‘rule of cool’ and say yes, “But you won’t get to add your proficiency and the damage won’t-” “I got a 20!”

Well, alrighty then. Cue the dramatic description of Doran Doran dropping his sword as he runs forward, rapidly unstrapping his shield and throwing it with all his strength like Captain America in a turtle shell.

They emerged back into the ‘crab-marine’ and made their way to the next inter-planar space, this one was a graveyard filled with pumpkins. I’m quite pleased with the designed of this one. On initiative 20 each pumpkin pulled up a corpse and animated it into a zombie with the ghoul stat block (meanwhile the zombies rolled 7, making the distinction between zombies appearing and zombies attacking easier to notice). S and D noticed after only a few rounds that they would get continually more zombies if they didn’t also deal with the (10AC, 5HP) pumpkins. She had the Bear eating pumpkins pretty quickly.

S also remembered that she is a cleric and can Turn Undead.

This scene here was a lot less scary when only two of those zombies weren’t supernaturally terrified of the cleric. It was also much less scary the following turn when after most of the zombies fled they took 29 fire damage from a fireball. The only thing that made it’s save was a pumpkin (14 is higher than 5).

Y'all said I couldn't give the warlock Animate Dead?

*pulls out latest UA*

I get the concern, but I see this like I see combinations of specific rare magic items that get OP when combined- It’s powerful, but you literally need a DM who wants it to happen for it to be possible.

If a warlock spends all day taking short rests in a cemetery to produce a hoard of undead, they now have to spend all day every day maintaining that hoard of undead. Assuming the DM lets them take as many short rests as they have time, they still have to portion out a section of the day to maintain their shambling minions.

Beautiful big almond eye, realistic and full of expression as she gazes gently at you. Elbowed antennae and delicately segmented legs and body. Gorgeous pearlescent sheen like she is glowing. This ant moisturizes. This ant is round and huggable. This ant is a star. 11/10.

Beautifully detailed, lifelike pose but with an unexpected neck and odd antennae, perhaps scared straight. Her eyes suggest she has seen things. Her expression confirms she has seen too much. She is haunted and I want to know more. 7/10.

Floppy antenna, pointy muppet face, oddly posed legs. What is she? She has no waist. May be she is some kind of bee in disguise? I find her unsettling. 3/10.

This ant has an unexplained, double-jointed thorax, and no evidence of a waist. Her four-footed pose suggests that she a centaur rather than an ant. Centaur ants would be cool. I’m not sure what was intended here. 2/10.

Good first impression, kind of bland in the details. This ant has no particular waist to speak of, floppy rather than elbowed antennae, and an inexpressive face. Her color scheme is soft and hazy. I like the sharp angles of her stylishly sophisticated legs. This ant may not know quite were she is going, but she knows how she is getting there. 6/10.

Were you even trying. 0/10

Gasp! This ant is elegant. This ant has a beautiful tapered thorax, a segmented abdomen, alert, elbowed antennae, and a light-footed pose. This ant’s face suggests curiosity and a desire to explore the world. This ant inspires me. I want to be like her. 10/10

3-legged, waistless centaur-ant with strange, limp antennae and a beak. I don’t know what this is? It kind of reminds me of a Hork-Bajir. 1/10, not an ant.

This ant… makes me sad. All of her legs are broken. The MS Paint art style and gradient abuse convey distress. She has a duck beak. Despite this, her expression suggests perseverance and determined cheerfulness. I want this ant to have a better life. I am rooting for her. 3/10

This ant is a bold and challenging mixture of photorealism and caricature. She is broad and low-built and seems very sturdy. She looks like she would help you move. This ant is a dependable friend. 9/10

A picture of an ant from a children’s book.  She is wearing little boots.  This ant is wrong in every way, and yet I can’t stay mad at her.  7/10

An interesting, top-down view of an ant; her legs are positioned with slightly jarring symmetry.  Nevertheless, her overall impression is that of a graceful, stylized design, like a pictograph.  She is suitable for adorning fine garments and jewelry or perhaps gracing the walls of a tiny ant church.  I like this minimalist ant.  8/10.

And honestly—why bother panicking about things being called “she”? It’s not like I need a reason to gender a bug. I do it all the time. It’s fun. It’s humanizing. They don’t care.