A dungeons and dragons homebrew blog

Season of one-shots Where anything is possible Last week we visited a prison under Dust as DM, the basis of which was to get out, but are we going to do that? Oh no. See we have a new member among our midst, we'll call him Kyle, and Kyle is a more mechanically focused D&D player who employs out of the box thinking to traditional situations. Case in point; we have a lot of freedom in this one-shot setting, so he decides to be an effective plant in the prison. One who poses as a prisoner who uses his abilities to "hack" the magic surveillance system and wreak havoc, unlocking prison cells, threatening the warden, his family, etc all for the better of his country. Beyond those shenanigans, the DM applied various tropes for us to use, including violent prison guards, slave labor, solitary confinement, so on and so forth. His prison was far from user friendly, this was exacerbated by encouraging suicide. You see his prison was a tower, maybe 10 stories tall and you are assigned higher based on the nature of your offense. The center of the tower is hollow over a deep pit, and there's no railing on the cells, so it's a small matter to just fall over the edge. Overall these various factors contributed to a largely successful session on the part of DM, and while I personally did not participate much I still enjoyed the experience.

With Jon's Campaign at an end we're in a sort of transitionary period where we're doing primarily one-shots, dungeons, raid encounters, etc. What that means for here is I'll likely talk about one shots as well as encounters in general. A few ideas I have include the Descending platform encounter, tournaments, epic campaigns and more. For now it's a time of reflection, looking back on Jon's campaign, as his first real stint as DM he did well. He created an effective setting and immersed us in it while telling a story in the background that we weren't necessarily a part of. He managed to compensate for the unpredictability of PCs and effectively created engaging encounters that varied in size, scope, and difficulty. Memorable quotes include: "Roll heal check-" "-stop. To be Frank, I'd rather die than be healed by you" "Hey remember that time we killed an emperor?" High five " I swear every encounter with you people is the search for booze" We may not have been the best of people but damn was it fun.

Roll for initiative. A rare conundrum in D&D where players enter combat against each other, can they control themselves or is someone going to have to reroll a character? As a proper GM, one must look at the situation and for the most part, take a step back. Let the players role play it out. If their stats are lopsided, do some adjusting, or let them kill each other. Maybe they exchange blows in a bar brawl or they're dueling over precious loot. All areas worth considering when you let your players have at it. If you want to discourage PvP, there are ways you can do it, such as an overbearing paladin who wants keep his party members under control or simply ask your players their motivation and determine whether it's worth the effort when it might hurt a greater goal. I think the next time I DM, I might encourage such situations. Maybe death matches, maybe something more sporting. I recommend you try the same.

Something was recently brought up to me by another of our DnD group: the campaign is getting boring. While there may be a variety of contributing factors to this, I find stagnancy and droning to be the factors. Our current setting involves time traveling through various historical events in the history of a country; we're seeing and really being active members in a variety of scenarios, being thrust into natural disasters, government upheavals, and even wars. The issue, because writing about that actually sounds like it's a blast, is that while informative and initially engaging, it's not contributing to the story in a meaningful and impacting way. Don't get me wrong, it's a blast, and the circumstances of the situation are derivative of complications involving scheduling within our player group, but when you've been doing a lot of the same stuff for a few weeks and the timetable (that is when the schedule gets back to normal) is another 7 weeks, you begin to see a problem. Some change is necessary. The novelty has more or less worn off and to keep the players interested and invested, some critical thinking should be applied. Personally I think this can be done in a couple of ways. First is a campaign resolution. We actually accomplished our initial goal, a side affect of this was hurling us through time. Resolving the story here while the group is just starting to lose interest would be fine, we shift campaigns, tone, atmosphere and we move on. Sometimes it's OK to stop while you're ahead. Second is the campaign continues but it changes focus, reinvigorating our interest and engaging our desire to learn more about our environment. This can be done in a few ways, he can cement us in a single time period and have us live out a complex event of sorts, rather than the sort of detached random jumping we have been doing. Another way is to return us to the present and have us resolve the story and character arcs. Having us adapt to the new present could be an effective change in pace. To sum up this lengthy post, if you find yourself in a campaign that has been going on for an extended length and you recognize the signs of stagnancy, don't let it spoil. Finish up. It's a good story, it has fun encounters, let your DM know your concerns.

Anyway. They end up trashing our humble little rock and we fall out of the sky. We make up our minds to hunt down the Aohebi since they’ve captured some of our relatives (along with our magic fix-everything amulet) we travel for a bit and arrive at the capital city of Ikorra, a beautiful pristine city with one hell of a facade. The Ikorrans care about you contributing to the civilization as a whole, and if you don’t contribute, that is you don’t work or join the military, you’re trash. You’re not people, you have no rights. This is conveyed by a homeless girl getting trampled by a passing horse and carriage, no one bats an eye. This led to our little clan’s quick anger, with our sense of morality. We get taken in by the local homeless community, and I discover the sweet sweet joy of larceny, but the government attacks our newfound home with impunity (While I’m conveniently out robbing the town, hehe) I end up buying a ride out of the city with nice clean clothes while the rest of the clan wanders in filth by foot. In hindsight, that paints me in a pretty negative light. Oh well. We move along and eventually come across our goal, the Aohebi, whom are being mind controlled by a greater demon. Through some complicated tomfoolery we manage to break the mind control and get all cozy with the Aohebi. Well, some of us. Mostly me, who is taking a liking to the criminal lifestyle. Anyway, you’re all caught up.

Overall, that’s what the child setup is for - you don’t begin with character archetypes such as mage or rogue but you can push a player in that direction. This also works as a way for players to build their character from scratch when they don’t know what they want (like myself, whom can be rather indecisive when it comes to character building). This is a functional campaign setup that can help a DM who needs something more than normal classes, since a variety of situations can’t be managed by them. A DM can tailor-make a campaign for this situation, and push the players in whatever direction you want them to go. This setup has its uses, but is best uses if you want to build characters who have room to grow from scratch and/or want to start a longer campaign with significant room for character growth.

A bit disappointing to be sure, I was interested to see how Hugh Mann would unfold as a character. Sometimes a DM in our group may come across life problems or might lack content or pre-planning, so the DM may end the campaign early - which leads to cliff notes. This is possible because our typical campaigns tend to use plot as a main focus and we as players like to see how the plot plays out as well as how our characters develop as people given how they take in situations. (The following is plot related) Hugh Mann was intended to be a cold blooded killer who didn't empathize with his victims. This is because he grew up in a Colosseum setting where killing was commonplace, and I wanted to see how he would change to adapt to the world around him. Since the campaign was cut short, however, he was cliff noted to succeed in his stated goal to make enough money to buy and dismantle the Colosseum he grew up in. I believe it was Thomas Foster who said, and this is paraphrased, that every quest has 5 things - a quester, someplace to go, trials and tribulations that the quester must face, the stated goal, and the true goal. I did not feel like Hugh Mann accomplished 2 of those 5 things, but it's time to move on.

Nodes: (replacing feats) 1 Spirit (will save modifier) 1 Skill (die modifier) Nodes were given for background and upbringing in a harsh, Colosseum environment

Tragically. Most of my PCs died and one had a sort of happy ever after kind of deal. I decided to end it out my oglf own volition as I re-enter college and want to reorient my priorities. (When I DM I put a lot of my focus on my campaigns). What does that mean for hatsandcritfails? Well, I'm certainly going to remain active on this blog, but the focus of my posts may change from a design perspective to a more commentative focus where I discuss the other DMs as they play out their stories. A little preview of what's to come; The next DM is Scurvy, our token chaotic player who wants to set his campaign in his world. Expect science and shenanigans. Meanwhile I'm playing a neutral mercenary by the name of Hugh Mann, the name is a bit of a joke as he's intended to be cold and heartless like a machine, simply fighting for whomever pays the most coin. I'll focus more on that area next week after Scurvy's first session as he brings us onto his islands. In the interim, I'll probably discuss what I do know about his islands.

Happy new years D&D fans, today I want to talk about an additional leveling system I'm using in my current campaign and will probably implement in all of my future DMing as it has generally been a success with my group. Talent Nodes are essentially a separate level-up system and apply an additional layer of experience gain that feels more natural than the system it's replacing; feats. Why move away from feats? I found them generally unsatisfactory in giving players skills, and the benefits for gaining them was typically not worth the effort. What are talent nodes? Talent Nodes are a set of 6 general assessments of a character's ability to do things in the world of D&D, they are as follows: Strength - a measure of a character's physical ability, pertaining to constitution and strength as a stat, it can affect fortitude and HP gain. Skill - a measure of a character's ability to perform specific actions, it directly affects skills, dexterity, crafting, etc., and has a direct correlation with skill points. Magic (variable) - a measure of a character's natural ability given the setting. This node is flexible in that it is interchangeable with any term unique to your world, which might not have a magic system. Example; you have a campaign set within the Star Wars universe, this node could be replaced with The Force. Talent - This node measures the natural, well, talent of a character. It directly affects experience gain and luck (luck modifies % rolls). Talent is highly applicable to protagonist characters. Intelligence - this is a measure of a character's ability to learn new things. While you can't manually make a character smarter, I elected to work this one differently, this node makes tasks easier, and lowers the DC (difficulty check) of just about everything when the character attempts it. It also affects the intelligence and wisdom stats. Spirit - this is a measure of a character's willpower and affects saving throws as well as charisma. It looks at your character's determination, their very will to resist and can be applicable in extradimensional campaigns where traveling to different planes of existence may threaten your ability to be. Talent nodes use a simple chart and are measured on a scale of 0-5, with a maximum of 5 in every state. (The maximum can be circumvented by DM, and typically does not apply to extremely powerful individuals, such as deities). A talent node is earned by performing impressive feats applicable to that category, with each subsequent node becoming increasingly difficult with each rank, 0 being a total lack of skill, and 5 being mastery. Gaining a talent node in any category has different effects by category, but does have a few constants - namely, gaining a node is worth 1 level. Beyond that is up to DM's discretion, for example, I may grant the first node in skill for something simple, like Wall Running, the ability to advance your movement speed on a vertical surface, the character would take the node, a level, that ability, and a small stat benefit in the area I specified - in this case, I would increase the amount of skill points gained per level by 1, or increase the amount of max ranks a character can put into any individual skill. Alternatively, achieving the 4th node of strength should considerably more difficult, and in the case of my campaign, required a traumatic event and pushing the natural limitations of a character's body, as a reward, they gained the node, a level, and the ability to perform a herculean feat as a daily (something like lift a building or punch a guy into paste) at DM's discretion. There are numerous possible ways to achieve these feats and no two DMs should do it the same way, and it can even differ by campaign or even session. In my case, I made them rare, attempting to only give them out every other session or so, and as they are powerful, they shouldn't be given liberally - they should be earned.

Today I want to talk about the most common classes I see in D&D campaigns overall, and how they have evolved in our world. Unfortunately that would take far too long for one sitting, so I'm just gonna talk about muscles. Bare in mind, our campaign world is homebrew, based out of our own creativity and it has evolved to fit the needs. Warrior: I look at this archetype as covering barbarian, knight, gladiator, soldier, etc.. It mostly involves high HP melee fighters who aren't afraid to trade blows. One inherent issue we've often had in our campaigns is the warrior archetype is almost always the first to fall in an encounter, this is mostly because they are often the first to charge - they take in a lot of damage and can be overwhelmed by numbers or consecutive strong attacks. In our world, this archetype has mostly been adopted by Dust's Khais kingdom, a European-esque medieval kingdom who train strong and reliable "meat sticks" who are renowned for their bravery. To combat the weaknesses of the archetype, that is, damage intake, Dust has been steadily giving them unique armor sets in mass produced quantities to protect them from a variety of threats - magic, elements, steel, etc and they've become a steadily more formidable military group with great strength and power. Magic in our world tends to be strong, conversely we buffed the warrior archetype to make it a more balanced playing field. This is done in a few ways, first we gave higher chance of passing reflex and fort saving throws to resist opposing magical powers; Dust likes to say "I'm safe behind my shield" this statement speaks volumes about how the archetype has evolved to fit in with a world full of the powerful who augment themselves with magic. However we soon realized that by making the warrior archetype stronger, we weakened other archetype options. The warrior could walk through a storm of chaotic magic and just punch the wizard to death. Being fans of combat heavy media we in turn buffed the physical aspects of Non-warriors, essentially through rigorous training they could learn to take and throw a punch when magic fails. Finally, our world has evolved to adapt itself to the feats of the strong. Occasionally when a player character goes above and beyond their means, a DM has the right to infer a misc. epic bonus for the sake of dramatic effect and could allow a character to do something he/she normally could not do. An example would be a warrior with sword and shield in an act of bravery attempts to stop the stomping foot of a colossal giant. The DM may give the character an epic bonus and may even allow the warrior to stop the stomp and maybe even overpower the giant.

General information, appearance, personality, etc.. Haraan is the lead enforcer for Krake Camp, and his combat style reflects that - he fights to intimidate and create a big show, but he abhors actual killing as that's bad for business, and in the criminal underworld, bad business is lethal in its own way. Visually, he's a short little sucker, no more than 4 ft tall, inspired by old mobsters he traditionally wears a clean sleeveless vest, black pants and fancy shoes with a bowler hat. He's incredibly muscular for his stature, toned for his countless battles. His endless dedication to the Krake is further purported by how fiercely he fights in their name. Abilities: Short Fuse: Quick to fight, quick to blow. Haraan always moves on the front lines and is an incredibly aggressive melee fighter. When in a group he will actively move to his Allie's aid, when by himself, he fights more passively. Did someone say Bomb?: Haraan is an enforcer and frequently resorts to flashy displays of power to intimidate his opponents to force them into submission. In combat, he will periodically throw a cluster of explosives(around 2d6) that explode violently, doing high damage at random locations in the arena within 3x3 squares. He is immune to damage from Did someone say Bomb? Enforcer's Strike: Haraan is incredibly powerful, his initial melee against any target strikes their very soul, but consecutive attacks have diminishing results. His first melee strike will always do 50% of the target's maximum HP and will leave the target bloodied. Consecutive strikes will halve the damage, so then 25%, 12%, 6%, 3%, 1% of the target's maximum HP with each melee attack. Enforcer's Strike cannot be reduced to below 1% of the target's maximum HP. Note: enforcer's strike sets its damage when he attacks, before it hits. If someone with overall less HP will take the hit instead, they take the damage intended for the original target, regardless of that character's HP. Wanna Blow Something Up?: At each interval of 10% of Haraan's maximum HP, he will trigger a large explosion at his location which will dispel any nearby magical effects or traps and for the next 1d4 rounds he will have an anti-magic field around him. The explosion will inflict massive damage to any nearby characters (it will deal 100% of their current HP) and does x4 damage to structures. Got no time for this: each round that Wanna Blow Something Up does not trigger, Haraan will conjure a projectile weapon with a 30% miss chance and fire it randomly 1d20 times. Each hit does 5% of his target's maximum HP and sets off an explosion at their location which deals an additional 1d6% damage on hit. Mutually Assured Destruction: At about 1% HP Haraan will realize he can lose and will begin casting Wanna Blow Something Up? That will wipe the party including himself that deals 2000% of his own Maximum HP to all characters in an attempt to protect his allies

Appearance: A rogueish male, med size, with a trenchcoat and masterwork sword. He has generic chainmail beneath the cost and is subject to minor AC bonuses. Personality: Something something serial killer. He likes to play with his food, see how far he can push them before they snap, it's very likely that he'll put himself in damaging situations just to test his opponents. Abilities (good stuff) Greater dodge: As the feat, he gets a passive bonus to AC against those who he deems his enemy. This bonus scales with the difficulty of the encounter. Time Compression: (optional, but I use it) lore related ability, when set upon by multiple foes or actual danger, highly skilled or talented fighters can cast a basic slow time in their immediate vicinity, giving large negatives to anyone caught in it, he is perceived as moving normally while characters need to meet (typically) arbitrarily high DC to resist it. Treated as an epic feat with a prerequisite of passing a reflex saving throw of 65, it is an ineffective ability against higher level enemies. Vorpal slashes: Due to his trained swordsmanship and overall fighting ability, he has a 30% chance to dismember or maim a foe on hit. Hunterborn: At 60% HP, mandrake will take the fight seriously and begin to use a wider range of abilities by undergoing a transformation. This transformation creates an anti-magic barrier at his location that disguises it, his size category increases twice and he is no longer treated as humanoid, but rather as a dire beast. Fang and claw: Mandrake's melee abilities gain a significant increase to damage in Hunterborn. His claws are considered to have Vorpal Slashes, his bite is treated as a piercing attack that adds 10% of maximum HP as bleeding damage. Howl: Periodically throughout the fight after the activation of Hunterborn, Mandrake will howl, casting an aoe knockback. He will then set his gaze on a random character and pursue them relentlessly, regardless of previous aggro. Relentless pursuit: for one round after a Howl, Mandrake gains the benefit of doubled movement speed (about 60 ft or 12 squares) and his attacks cannot roll a natural 1. (Reroll his crit fails) Phantom's aid: At about 30% hp, Mandrake begins to worry for his life and will summon his Ancestor, a powerful character with variable abilities. The default is as follows: Ancestor Med. Humanoid (Spectral) Ethereal (50% miss chance on non-magical abilities directed at Ancestor) Soulbound (has about 25% of his summoner's HP) Undead Everything else is up to the creativity of the DM when it comes to the abilities of a summoned Ancestor. Spectral pack: At 25% HP, Mandrake will begin channeling (not interruptible) and for that round, each turn 1d4 spectral beasts will summon. (Note: this ability scales in effectiveness with the number of active characters in the encounter, if you have a 6 man party, expect 6d4 beasts, likewise with larger groups). Spectral beasts have 5% of Mandrake's maximum HP, and have Fang and Claw. Winds of Shia: As long as at least one Spectral beast is alive, Strong winds will buffet the party, at the beginning and end of each turn, the active character has a 60% chance of shifting one square and a 25% chance of being knocked prone (this only affects the player party) Cornered Beast: At 10% HP, Mandrake will begin rampaging and has a 50% chance of attacking the nearest character while gaining a 50% damage increase and a 20% AC increase as he is highly mobile. Upon defeat, Mandrake will revert to his humanoid shape, dispelling any nearby spectral beasts and his Ancestor, if undefeated.

Built out of the ruins of the site of a great battle, Cardinal's Fall camp is one of the strongest collection of criminals in the world. Here I am going to talk about their most prominent members without giving too much away any abilities as my D&D group will soon be facing off against this menacing group Master Gorb: The enigmatic leader of a growing cult, Bandit Lord (referring to one of ten strongest in the world) and all-around charismatic nut-job. He worships a fallen hero and has built up his world around how he perceives this long fallen hero. Besides that, not much is known about him. He hasn't ever been seen, preferring to send his emissaries or mind controlled slaves in his stead. A dangerous and influential man. Tepiscora: Another enigma behind the great Master Gorb, and the right hand man who keeps Gorb's dream alive. He has thus far demonstrated the ability to plant parasites in corpses and control said corpses, he has incredible faith in his Master's dream and will go to incredible lengths to make it happen, even if that involves killing an entire civilization and using their corpses as an efficient slave work force. Ula: Backbone of Gorb's military force, as the quartermaster she considers herself his lover and whom he relies upon the most. She provides the tools with which Gorb's forces act upon and will be his defiant shield for those who would oppose him. Raptor: Spymaster, the hidden, the Raven Idol. Shapeshifter. Raptor is the eyes of Gorb, but not many know exactly how he does his duty. His mind is fragmented as is his body which has grown to represent Gorb's growing influence on the world. He operates on Gorb's living slaves, piercing their mind, breaking their will. They say his watchful gaze never leaves once he sets his sights on you... Mistress Rose: Gorb's diplomat, a natural aristocrat who has long served in his employ. Who better to carry out assassinations than the very woman who is sent to speak kindly to you over a clothed table? Like so many of his underlings she accepts any task without question and carries it out flawlessly. She's probably the most open of his forces as she frequently travels for his spoken business, and probably the least powerful. That being said, you should never underestimate the silver tongue of Rose. To be continued...

Gen. Description: Large Warforged Humanoid, fem Approximately 24 ft tall Skin is a pale metal or Marble substance Wears golden armor that allows extra defense Overall notes: 4 phase non-complicated boss, low overall health because of her damage resistance, set by DM, she's got Decent damage, but most of it comes from her melee and % based Burning wrath. Flavor: She's the quartermaster of Cardinal's Fall camp and like most of Master Gorb's underlings has an intense adoration for the enigmatic man, this is represented by her passion and trust being personified in the fight. Who will prevail? Battlefield: circular Arena mostly empty of debris Abilities: Ula wields a mighty bronze hammer. As a natural blacksmith, Ula's swings are practiced and accurate. Consecutive Concussions: Each strike of Ula's hammer melds her target and bends it to her will. Each consecutive strike against a target will apply a stack of Concussive force, each stack increases damage dealt to the target by 5%. Stacks dissipate at a rate of 1 per 5 seconds or 3 per round, provided the target avoids Ula's strikes. This is referred to as the "cool off" buff. Characters under the "cool off" period have reduced movement speed. (About 1/2, if your default move speed is 6 squares or 30ft, you could only move 15ft) Ula can attack up to 4 times with her hammer a turn, and a cool off will occur if you take no melee attacks during that round. Aura of the Forge: Ula adapts to her foes as combat goes on. For each 1% of health lost (caps at 99%) she gains 1% damage resistance. Burning wrath: At 75% Ula will conjure a burning sphere and strike it with her hammer, creating an aoe fire field in one area of the battlefield, effectively closing off a quadrant of the battlefield. Characters (besides Ula) who remain within the aoe take 5% hp damage per second (up to 75% a round). This affect ignores damage resistance and 50% of fire resistance. She repeats this attack at 50%, 25% and 1% hp, respectively. The attack is directed at the quadrant with the most characters and it will consume a different quadrant each time it is used. Flaming love: Ula's passion for her master grants her a powerful shield at 50% health and at each consecutive interval of Burning wrath. The shield protects her from all damage and has a capacity equal to 10% of her maximum health, but doesn't have the defensive bonus of Aura of the Forge Embers of desperation: At 25% of her maximum HP, Ula will begin to fear death. After she casts Burning Wrath and Flaming love, her master will send aid summoning 2d4 corrupted constructs. They are not immune to Burning wrath and have 5% of her maximum HP. They will cast Master's Trust which will heal 5% of Ula's health over the period of 1 round, but the spell itself takes a full round action to cast and is interruptible. She will cast Embers of Desperation again at 1% hp alongside burning wrath and Flaming love Overall strategy is pretty simple, cycle characters to take damage from Ula while managing damage. You don't want your highest damage wasted on her early phases, because of her increasing damage resist. Conceptually when you get her to 1% you want to hit her with everything because the Corrupted Constructs need a full turn to cast the heal and with the entire Arena doing 75% of your entire party's health each round you likely won't last more than 2 rounds even with talented healers.

Role: Boss Add Lv 15-35 depending on encounter setting Hp 100-1000 2 phase common enemy, dangerous. in 1st phase, uses melee slashing attacks, body is Undead and lacks a constitution. Body blows against it have a 20% chance of rendering limbs useless. Useless limbs give the Acolyte of Tepiscora +3AC. If the head is rendered useless or the Acolyte of Tepiscora reaches half health, a parasite of Tepiscora will spawn, an outsider aberration with half of the Acolyte's max HP. The Parasite visually is the head of the Acolyte connected to about 2d6 tentacles, it gains +20 to AC, with a -3 debuff for each useless limb from the previous phase (maximum -18, each arm, each leg, torso, head) Body Snatcher: the parasite of Tepiscora can inhabit deceased vessels, if any character dies while combating the Acolyte or parasite, the parasite can inhabit the corpse, gaining a full heal as well as adjusted mods for the new vessel. A new vessel of Tepiscora can use any abilities that its living counterpart could use, including supernatural, spell-like, and spells of the original being. Note: All Acolytes, parasites, and vessels of Tepiscora will die if Tepiscora himself dies or loses consciousness

(Lore, glance at characters within one of the strongest groups around) Situated within Sea God's Grotto, beneath the waves of the Krake Sea lies Krake Camp, more than just a den of thieves it if the focal point of all criminal underworld activities within the region, possibly the world. Led by the notorious Maestro, they handle all manner of activities between human trafficking, drug trade, arms dealing, assassination, and more. The Maestro: The penultimate patchwork "dapper gentleman" who leads fearlessly in a region dominated by the forces of law. A cruel man with the power to topple the world, lucky he's just taken to making coin and the occasional bout of roaming anarchy. (Medium humanoid, as the description suggests he dresses in upper class Victorian, but rather than the normal fine clothes it's actually a series of sewn together cloths and leathers, one garment removed from each of his victims. Easily recognizable by his larger-than-life personality, parading about with a top hat and cane sword. The patchwork continues onto his skin, possibly indicating something more than meets the eye) The World: Brother of Beyond, the famed giant of Hell's Arena. Bond Guardian of the Maestro and a feared beast, the World has never known failure and the Maestro has utmost faith in the giant. Less of a drinker than Beyond, the World is a much more focused fighter and employs a completely different strategy in combat, but that remains to be seen. He rests in Sea God's Grotto, always docile until the Maestro gives a command. (Large humanoid, at least 30 feet tall, quite muscular compared to his rotund brother, with a thick black beard and long messy hair, his armor is minimalist leaving his chest and legs exposed while covering his arms and legs) The Sea: Maybe the Sea was once a man, maybe even a thoughtful empath, but now - now the Sea is a monster, a soul tied to the remains of many drowned ships it functions as a construct guardian of the grotto. It's wrath is only abided by the blood of intruders. (Variable size construct, vaguely humanoid but composed of various wooden ships, dotted with barnacles and sealife, constantly dripping. Ghastly flames erupt from its various openings, it's said those flames hold the souls of drowned sailors) Haram: Accountant and muscle of Krake, he handles most of the Maestro's dirty work too complex for the grunts. Always present for the deals and exchanges in their name, he is feared and respected in the underworld. Anyone who knows the trade knows all business goes through Haram. His gruff personality never betrays his loyalty to the Krake, and his resolve is ever present there. (Small humanoid, like 4ft tall, possible descendant of gnomes, very muscular and serious all the time, dresses in a velvet vest with white undershirt, sleeveless to expose his arms, pants are in the same fashion with buckled shoes. He is usually sporting a cigar and bowler cap) Squard: Faithful Squard, loyal Squard. The old man of the Sea, caretaker of Sea God's Grotto. He'd give his life for his home and its residents, and as far as Krake is concerned, he handles recruiting for the camp and frequently goes out on just such an expedition. Definitely not one to be underestimated but at the same time past his prime. Genuinely a chill dude. (Med humanoid, looks like an ugly hobo freshly clean shaven leaving little splotches. He dresses in brown smelly rags, slowly balding and has long unkempt hair grey with age, he has a certain old butter face and always seems to wear a grimace regardless of actual mood, his combat sense is revealed by his hands, calloused heavily with a simple armor that resembles a thin exoskeleton worn beneath his rags) Cutter: Liason to the smaller camps under the domain of Krake, specializes in assassination and handles affairs in that area. Probably the most often seen of the Krake crew despite working in assassination, he is always on the road and frequently carrying out business for the camp. (Med humanoid, tall, like 9-10ft, usually dresses in climate-flexible clothing and always seen with a single-edge saw teeth greatsword befitting his height. He's middle-aged, scruffy but keeps his hair in a comb over, enjoys scarves, files his teeth for intimidation)