The Fake Wizard of Portal Orendil

The (fake) wizard at portal Orendil is very convincing in his act. He is not really a wizard, but can make you believe so. He has some items, he has some quirks. Most of all, he has a very wizard-y name. He might be a rogue trying to threaten you, or he might be someone that truly believes he is a wizard. Or he might be both. The portal might also not be a portal, but only an old archway going into a cavern. Create as you please, here are some ideas:

Wizard names:

1. Stell the Searcher

2. Milo Raindancer

3. Ler the Green

4. Horodes the Dying

5. Djanom from the North

6. Zelida the Burning

7. Fjellair the Mad

8. Zeritex Dragon-Brother

9. Velor the Changer

10. Lamito the Tracker

11. Mordetzar the Young

12. Teride ‘the Hag’

Items:

The fake wizard always has the following:

A wizard robe in the colors of his school and a materials pouch made out of cheap leather.

Furthermore, he has (roll 1d8 and add everything til the # you roll). Add advantage of his deception roll if he has more than 5 of these items.

1. A book with unknown runes and glyphs.

2. A pair of dusty glasses.

3. A staff, gnarled and battered.

4. A depleted wand of mahogany with a golden top.

5. A history book about the life of Archmages.

6. A scroll case, empty but pretty.

7. A ‘transmutation’ stone

8. A skull with a candle within.

Quirk:

The wizard acts weird, sometimes a bit too much. Roll 1d6 and see what his quirk is.

1. ‘Forgetfulness’, he closes his eyes to try and remember things.

2. ‘Show-off’. He wants to trick you in believing him with his amazing manipulation skills.

3. ‘Weird’. He actually believes he is a wizard.

4. ‘Neutral’. He has done this for years, your presence doesn’t matter.

5. ‘Shy’. He wants to get away from you as fast as he can.

6. ‘Show-off’. He wants to show off his knowledge about wizards to you.

Tricks:

The wizard has some tricks up his sleeves, quite literally:

1. Nothing, he used to have some tricks, but he spent them all.

2. He can cast mage hand 1/encounter.

3. He has an hypnotic talisman that he can use to lure people into sleep.

4. He can sneak attack suddenly with 2 daggers out of his sleeves.

5. Dream dust blows in your eyes, you are ‘enchanted to see nothing’

6. He has some fireworks that he can light. 4/encounter

Portal

The portal is actually:

1. An actual magical portal

2. An elven gate into an old tree stump.

3. The gateway of a ruined city

4. A cave entrance of a Dwarven mine.

One-Shot: The Temple of Stone

I ran a one-shot called The Temple of Stone yesterday with a party of three clerics, a barbarian and a fighter. Here's my preparation and a short look at how it went. It was a very fun night, a bit on the easy side, but with different dice throws it could have been on the very hard side also. I've changed the names of the gods a bit, because of copyright I'm not sure about. But look it up if you need.

***

You all meet up in front of the Temple of the Dwarven mother within the town of Horn. The high priest of the Dwarven Mother has asked you to do something about the goblins that are defiling the Temple of Stone, the old temple of Dwarven Mother, that has seen disuse for 4 decades now. The temple in the forest is overrun and the goblins are setting up camp. It’s a crime against the Gods. An acolyte of the temple meets up with you and you follow him on the road, out of the city, into the forest.

After two or three hours of walking, the acolyte points at the bushes and trees, where the old path has been overgrown and is barely visible. He says:

“Good luck with your quest. The temple lies this way beyond the river. I must return to the town.”

You’re now on your own. You look at the others in the party and you see:
Let the party introduce and prepare of spells if needed.

**

One of you is leading you through the forest to the river. Who is this? Roll a survival check until made: DC 12. Every failed check will forward the time with 3 hours.

You arrive at the river and see the temple doors locked in the rocky hillside. Goblin tents are set in front of the temple and a bridge made of rafts that can lead you across the fast stream of the river. Some goblins are keeping watch over this bridge and a palisade of wooden sticks and javelins guard the bridge’s entrance.

What will you do? (If sneaky, surprise attack) roll initiative.

Goblins will try to cut away the rope that binds the bridge together: DC 14.

Every 1d4 turns: 2 goblins come from tents with a maximum of 2 goblins per tent throughout the fight. The tents are destroyable.

Swimming: STR DC 14 to swim.

Rope: DEX DC 12 to walk across the middle rope.

Rope: DC10 attack to hit.

Pulling the rope and bridge towards you: STR 14

Goblins: 7 HP, 15 AC, STR -1, DEX +2, WIS, CHA -1

Scimitar: +1 to hit, 1d6-1 damage. Bow: +4 to hit, 1d6+2 damage.

**

As you enter the temple you see the goblin priest at the far end bashing his 10-feet staff unto the floor tiles. The braziers that are set up next to the basin of water start to glow more fiery. There are two sturdy looking goblins guarding the temple and the priest. Behind the priest are the two statues of Dwarven Mother and Forge Father, and beneath the Dwarven Mother’s statue is an entrance made.

The ceiling is high, about 20 ft up front and 30 ft in the back. There are two pillars holding up the construction.

Roll initiative.

Every 1d4 turns fire oozes spawn from the braziers. 

Goblins: 12 HP, 15 AC, STR -1, DEX +2, WIS, CHA -1

Scimitar: +1 to hit, 1d6-1 damage. Bow: +4 to hit, 1d6+2 damage.

Goblin Priest: 25 HP, 14 AC, STR -1, DEX +2, WIS +2

Staff: 3x touch 10ft Cure Wounds 1d8+2.

Scimitar: +1 to hit, 1d6-1 damage.

Fire Ooze: 10 HP, 12 AC, DEX +2

Fire breath attack: 5ft cone, 1d6+2, dex halves

**

There’s a secret compartment underneath the statue of the Forge Father and the button to open it is the toenail of the statue (Investigation DC 14). Underneath is a Smithing Hammer of the Forge Father with Elven wood handle and the symbol of the Forge Father and the Dwarven Mother engraved in the base. Also can be used has holy symbol.

The Goblin Priest has a 10ft staff with a small orb attached that can deliver touch attacks/heals.

The path to the summit starts within the pedestal underneath the statue of Dwarven Mother, where the stone has been cleared out by the goblins.

**

Guarding the summit are 4 goblins with vials in their hands. They rise about 16 feet above you, on the higher reaches of the hill. There’s some green liquid in the bottles. On the field are some standing stones/monoliths/runestones and on the platform you can see a blackened grey, almost statue-like 11 feet tall goblin with fiery eyes.

What will you do? Roll ini.

Goblins: 10 HP, 12 AC, DEX +2, STR -1, WIS +1.

Poison vial: does 1d6 damage +2 every turn.

Statue of a Goblin God: 90 HP, 16 AC, Str +2, Dex +1, INT -1, Wis -1, Cha -1.

Battle axe: +4 to hit, 1d10+2. Earthquake: 30 ft. ray on the ground. 1d6, Dex save half. SS +1d4 damage, dex negates. Fire bolt: -1 to hit, 1d10 damage-1. When under 20 health: Whirlwind: Battle axe everyone that is in melee range.

He prefers melee.

***

How did it go?

First of all it was a very fun game and I was happy to try this adventure out. Khoth the Barbarian ran towards the bridge, but immediately fell into a ditch when trying to hit the first goblin. The goblins missed a lot of attacks at range, but did make a lot of nice saving throws. The goblin that was critical to the encounter fell in the river with a natural 1 and couldn’t break the rope that tied the two parts together, after which the players pulled the bridge towards them and tied the rope for easier passage. The timer rolled quite high, but it was still a nice fight.

When they entered the temple the Priest summoned the oozes, but they would take 3 turns to spawn. The players got rid of the goblins easy and were already extinguishing the braziers before the timer ran out. The fire oozes never spawned.

The players took a short rest and investigated the temple. Beforehand I had promised myself to interrupt a short rest with bottles of poison, but in the end I decided to hand it to them for the last battle against the statue of the Goblin God.

They ran past the poison throwers, which was expected and began fighting the Goblin God. I rolled low on damage and low on to hit, but I managed to get the earthquake to hit and the whirlwind. The fight was a bit easy though and could maybe have used legendary actions or two attacks to make a bit better.

They defeated the statue and looted treasure. It was a fun night.

***

Things that are not in my write-up:

·         The statue of the Goblin God is the warchief that got blessed into being a statue for his god.

·         The High priest of the Dwarven Mother will give you a reward of golden coins for clearing the temple.

·         As DM, think of physics when toying with the Goblin Bridge. The river stream is quite fast and it will pull on the bridge.

·         If the poison throwers are not defeated, you can let them climb down and flank the players.

edit: I forgot the pictures.

The Celestial Forest of Zum-Zakar

The Celestial Forest of Zum-Zakar is a place touched by the Gods and lies high upon the mountains, or grows on a cloud. The forest can exist out of many things, some elements are listed below in the table. Choose, or let chance happen, and see what kind of forest you wander through.

Ground

1.      Clouds. They are thick and misty, strong enough to walk on.

2.      Pure light. Looking down will blind you, but it holds you good enough.

3.      Cold flames. You feel the fire licking around your legs, but it doesn’t hurt you.

4.      Glass. Stomping too hard might shatter it.

5.      Massive emeralds. No pickaxe can damage it. It looks beautiful.

6.      Roots with air in-between. Try to not step between the roots.

Trees

1.      Petrified Cloud Giants. They were turned to stone in a giant battle.

2.      Infra-red light. You can’t see it, but there are trees.

3.      Ice pillars. Freezing cold. Don’t touch them or you will grow unto it.

4.      Bursts of flame. They have a short life and then they die out.

5.      Geyser-like bursts of water. You can see where the water will rise.

6.      Licorice with golden bark. If you cut away the gold, you can eat the tree.

7.      Crumbling stone pillars. Don’t hit them too hard, or they will fall.

8.      Bean stalks. You could climb them to have a better view.

9.      Gusts of air. They keep on moving around and you don’t want to stand in them.

10.  Maple. Plain maple, but the leafs are different.

11.  Eye stalks. Creepy, why do they grow here?

12.  Sun rays. You will sunburn by getting close to them.

Leafs

1.      Emeralds. Gemstone leafs hang high above the ground.

2.      Eye balls. Close to the stalk, they follow you around with the iris.

3.      Syrup. It flows down from the top like a fountain.

4.      Glass shards. Try not to step into any that have fallen down.

5.      Aquarelle colors. They blend nicely with the weather.

6.      Snow. Cold crystals that leave a layer on the ground.

7.      Breeze leafs. They whisper you words you don’t understand.

8.      Six-sided dice. Pick them and throw to see your faith.

9.      Sparkling stars. They burn when you touch them, it’s like firework.

10.  Swords and staffs. Some are small, some are giant, but they all can hurt.

Cold flame ground, an ice tree with star leafs

Creatures

1.      Tiny Pegasus Ponies. They fly and race around the forest, caring only for games.

2.      Sparkling Toucans. They sit on the branches and look at you.

3.      Glass-eating Centelogopedes. They always talk with too many words, they bore you.

4.      Golden Dragon Whelps. Offspring of a good-natured dragon.

5.      A herd of celestial creatures. They came from the stars and settled here until the forest started to grow around them.

6.      Cloud Cats. They can levitate and ambush you. Be careful.

Inhabitance

1.      There is No One around in this forest, it grows wild.

2.      Two Roads cross the forest and meet somewhere near a lake.

3.      There is a Village with one Road. A hunter stalks the forest.

4.      There is a Trading Post Village and two Roads.

5.      There is a fairly large Town with two Roads going to it.

6.      A large Abandoned Temple stands somewhere in this forest.

7.      There are the Ruins of a Great City.

8.      An Entrance to the Higher Planes. 

How would I use these tables?

When thinking of a celestial forest, you could go through these tables and pick whatever suits you best. You could also roll on the table and be inspired by the strange combinations that can come out of it.

One-Shot Review: Ultraviolet Grasslands

A few weeks ago, when I was on vacation with friends, we played a long one-shot. It took about 8 hours and when we finished the story was almost over, but not completely. It all took place in the Ultraviolet Grasslands, which is a pointcrawl and setting by Luka Rejec of WizardThiefFighter. I am backing his Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/wizardthieffighter/overview ) and it was nice to play the setting instead of only reading it. The system we used was made out of Luka’s blogposts put together (at http://wizardthieffighter.blogspot.com/p/wtf-house-rules.html ) and the three characters were a martial arts priest (fighter), a cowboy (thief) and a pictomancer (wizard).

We decided on going for an assassination of a Porcelain Prince in the Potsherd Crater. That would be doable, I thought, in the timeframe we had.

I will now list things with bullet-points:

Things the players liked:

·        The setting of Ultraviolet Grasslands

o   The cat theme of the Violet City

o   The drugs theme throughout

o   The idea of porcelain golem bodies to try and be immortal

·        The barber set the cowboy (Burt) got at the start. He used it to kill a shady NPC adventurer.

·        The inn where they killed the adventurer, hired another and got information out of a third.

Things the players didn’t like:

·         My combat was way too easy. Part because I had planned three combat encounters but we only finished one. Part because I didn’t used my own rule set for creating the encounter.

·         The wizard saw ghosts because of drugs and was clueless what to do. I should have given more information, or phrased it in a better way.

·         That the one-shot took so long. I wasn’t sure how long travelling would take, so I cut down on the last travel encounter and that was breaking immersion.

Things I, as DM, liked:

·         The whole setting of the game and the idea of travelling long, reaching steppes. Also the easy way I could adjust or improvise in it.

·         The pictomancer who could create his own spells by drawing.

·         I enjoyed an encounter with a shaman who gave them drugs to learn from spirits. They didn’t learn anything, but I liked the roleplay.

·         Using rolling tables, which I’m not used too, during the game.

Things I didn’t like:

·         Noting supplies is nice for a campaign, but was a bit much for this one-shot. It made them think, though.

·         That my combat was way too easy. I have to up my game and actually use the encounter rules that I love, especially with timers.

·         The hedge maze that blocked them from entering the mansion of the Prince, was not detailed enough and overcome quite easily. They said it felt the most game-y part of the game and I agree.

In the end I really did like the setting and I can only encourage you to buy it when it comes out. On the Patreon of WizardThiefFighter the writing on Ultraviolet Grassland has finished since yesterday. I hope Luka’s system rules will be published and edited somewhat later too, because there seemed to be interesting ideas in it.

I enjoyed the game. I improvised a lot actually and learned more about DMing and running such games. I’m also working on my voices (got a compliment about that), but I need to seriously get tougher in doing combat.

Here’s Luka’s current blog/site to end this post: https://www.wizardthieffighter.com/

The 9 copper/silver/gold merchants

The 9 Copper Shop/9 Silver Store/9 Gold Hawker is inspired by the 1 Dollar Store, where everything is cheap and around the same price. Most often it’s a merchant with a cart that goes through the streets. Or you meet him on the road eager to empty his cart. He won’t buy anything from you, but he might have some great items.

--

How does it work mechanically?

Roll 1d8, the merchant has this # of items. If you buy 5 or more of his items, he also offers item 9.

For example, if you roll a 2 on the Copper Shop, the merchant only has the toy wagon and ale available. Even if you both buy them he won’t offer you the book. If you roll a 7, he will have everything except the goggles. If you buy all 7, he will also offer you the book with a wink.

--

The 9 Copper Shop has and sells the following items (for 9 Copper):

1. A wooden toy wagon and a wooden toy horse. For if you would like to bribe a kid.

2. Dragon’s Fury. An ale made spicy by including peppers. You get a one liter bottle.

3. The Cowl of Madness. A colorful cowl with small, jingling bells stuck to it.

4. Little Felicia’s Doll.  A warforged doll with toy wrist rockets. If you talk to the doll, the merchant can hear you magically and can reply once per conversation (you don’t know this).

5. The Sword of Many Thunders. If you carry this sword up in the air in a thunderstorm in an open field, lightning may strike twice.

6. A ‘Treasure Map’. Bound with a beautiful ribbon, this map leads to the heavily-guarded storage of a merchant within the city.

7. A Wooden Golem Figure. A crude, 3 feet tall golem figure of dead marsh wood.

8. Goggles of a Weird, Unknown Magic Origin. Protects eyes from attacks and accidents, indestructible. The Arcana check to figure them out is a DC18 and takes a week. If failed, try again next week.

9. A Book of Demonic Gibberish. Just unintelligible handwriting thrown on a page. Somewhere in between is the spell: Bone to stone. It might be illegal to carry this, or even cursed. It takes a week to find the spell with Arcana DC 20, roll after week has passed.

Bone to Stone:

^2nd level transmutation spell

Turn 4 bones into stone by touching the bone itself or the flesh around it. For every spell slot level higher you also turn 4 more bones into stone.

--

The 9 Silver Store has and sells the following items (for 9 Silver):

1. A Set of Stainless Steel Sporks. Enjoy your dinner carefree, because these sporks never rust.

2. A Depleted Wand of Cure Wounds. Looks fancy, but does nothing anymore.

3. A Wooden Dagger. It is Unsheatable with a poisoned needle between hilt and blade. Take off the blade to use it.

4. A Hooded Lantern. Rusted, creaks when opened.

5. A Patterned Quiver. The pattern is of diamond shapes that go all around the cloth that is attached to the quiver.

6. “The Man and the Goat”. A historical novel about a farmer that travels across the mountains.

7. An Unknown and Uncommon Holy Symbol. It is engraved with the words: “Time is the Shepherd”.

8.  A Comfortable Tent. It can hold two persons for a good night sleep in the wilderness.

9. A Potion of Cure Wounds that Went Over Date.  If you roll a 1 or 8 on the healing, gain +5 speed for 2 minutes instead of curing your wounds.

The merchant has 3 in stock.

--

The 9 Gold Hawker has and sells the following items (for 9 Gold):

1. A Set of Alchemical Vials. They are empty, but come with a cork.

2. A Pristine and Exclusive Set of Playing Cards.  No bends in the corners.

3. A Detailed Map of a Far-Away Town. You might never get there, but at least you know what the lay-out is.

4. A Wizard’s Glasses. They are not magical, but they used to belong to an Archmage.

5. A Metal Star. Hold it up in the air at night to have it predict a horoscope for you.

6. An Ivory Statue of a Woman. It holds an empty secret compartment the merchant doesn’t know about.

7. A Cart with a Broken Wheel. Mending will repair the damage.

8. An Invitation to a Fancy Party. Enough networking opportunities on this party, the date is one month from now.

9. The Testament of “Jorven Melin” from “Seranon”. You don’t know him at all, but he leaves a cabin with belongings to the owner of this testament.

--

How would I use these merchants?

These merchants don’t have a permanent space for their shop. They sell out of the carts they are pushing through the streets and across the road. If your players would be in a town or city, your merchant could be yelling that he is selling goods for a cheap price. Kids flock to see what the merchant has to offer. If your players encounter him on the road to a small village however, he could be pushing his cart through the mud towards the houses. He will briefly stop there, before continuing to the next place.