Month: Apr 2024

Top of the Tower

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The Black tower is an imposing place made from towering black stone but the top of the tower is where this weeks quest lies. Climbing the stairs and fighting the creatures that guard it is challenging enough but what lies at the top will truly test their bonds and their metal.

So let’s sit down, catch our breath and try to ascend these damn stairs!

Top of the Tower

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The last few steps were both a relief and filled with dread. The tower had taken most of their energy and sanity to climb between the broken steps, the creatures that swooped at them from the cavernous ceiling above and the very tower itself coming alive at points to impede or assault them.

But they had made it to the top with Samaeth and as they gazed upon what would be their final test they were puzzled. Ahead of them a resplendent throne bathed in radiant energy sat behind a barrier of golden light. The barrier seemed to buzz when Samaeth approached and shimmered with a blue light that matched the energy that she gave off herself.

As Samaeth approached the barrier the shadows stirred around them, avoiding the glow from the barrier and throne but they waited as if expecting something. The faint sound of winds could be heard from above as a figure descended on smoking wings.

“Ah a new Hero has arisen. We have been expecting you to arrive and to complete the task set before you. I see you have the companions as well, good we can begin.” The deva spoke huskily as if starved.

“What do I have to do?” Samaeth asked as she nervously looked at the beasts gathering around the throne.

“A simple task. Sit upon the throne and you shall be protected by the barrier as I empower you with Angelic might.” the deva responded.

“What about my companions?” Samaeth asked.

“The barrier will protect you, but you yourself are the hero – not the others. Make your choice as these creatures will only hold back so long.”

Thanks for joining back tonight for a glimpse into the final part of this weeks adventure. Don’t forget that we will continue to expand this weeks adventure each day. So don’t forget to come back each day and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Samaeth of Verone

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Tonight we get a glimpse at Samaeth of Verone, the unexpected hero being the first female to be born into the line of heroes that have guarded the city. However she is not alone this week as she travels with the party in an attempt at fulfilling the ancient ritual of challenging the Black Tower.

So let’s grab a coffee, sit back and roll into tonight’s adventure!

Samaeth of Verone

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Samaeth of Verone – Created in nightcafe.

“Heroes come in all shapes and sizes” Samaeth said as she polished her sword, the blue light within the blade making the sword look like it vibrated in the air. “That’s what my mother used to say after dad left on his last quest. I think she was trying to reassure me that even though I was the first daughter to be born into the line of the Heroes of Verone it wouldn’t matter.”

As she stared deeper into the blade, the blood from the creatures earlier that day having been wiped clean the a log rolled from the fire and spread burning embers around her. The dry tinder caught not even after a moment’s thought and a foul wind caught the fire and threw it up around her. But Samaeth’s eyes flashed blue, matching the same internal light as her sword and the fire began to bend and twist away from the trees and fuel that they had prepared for the fire. The flames licked at her clothes trying to catch her alight but the malicious blaze was bending to her will.

The fire danced upon itself again, travelling from burning logs and scorched ground across to the campfire. The sound of crackling wood and burning leaves retreated until it was contained within the burning pile. She looked up at the party and smiled. “I feel a runaway fire and some beasts attacking during the day are child play to you also, I don’t consider myself any different from you adventurers who have stories and mighty deeds already etched into your name. After I complete this test that the Order of Heroes has given me and I purge the black tower again I hope to start earning my title, like you have.”

After the fire had died down and the party fell into silence animals would be seen coming to the edge of the fire light and staring at Samaeth, inclining their heads and necks towards her as if bowing to the queen of the forest.

Despite initial reactions and assessments not all heroes are arrogant and believe themselves to be above all others. This week Samaeth reveals herself to the party and they get a view of who she is under the helmet, but this is just the beginning and a fouler adventure awaits. So don’t forget to come back tomorrow and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

The Protagonist

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This week we meet the protagonist of this weeks adventure, the Hero of Verone and the adventurers who rose to support him. But there is more this week than a simple escort mission as we will quickly see it divulges into something more more.

So suit up, grab a drink and a seat and let’s hunt down tonight’s adventure!

The fair city of Verone has a long history of Tyranny, revolts and suffering for it’s people, that was until the Hero of Verone. The hero rose against the Tyranny and liberated the people of the city and fought for the lasting peace that the city has experienced for hundreds of years. However, not is all that it seems and as the descendent of the Hero of Verone comes of age a darkness is revealed.

A party of adventurers are thrown head first into the grinder this week as they are asked to escort the Hero of Verone on the quest to inherit the full powers of the old Hero of Verone. But there is more to the story than meets the eye and the final test for the young hero is more than the job description.

The Protagonist

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The Hero of Verone – created in Nightcafe.

Verone was once a city of tragedy and conflict where the old king ruled with an iron fist. But when the hero of Verone, a smith that was brought up in the city rose up to protect the people of the city there city has always had a hero of his line imbued with the same strength, power and conviction as the original. The latest in line has just come of age and the final quest has been given. Reach the black tower where the original hero and four of his allies ascended the tower to confront a great evil and as such the Hero was gifted with a great power.

The order has been given, the young descendent from the Hero of Verone is to ascend the same tower and that the original Hero had to. But instead of the four warriors being friends, family or chosen by the king this time four adventurers, heroes in their own right, have been selected and approached to accompany the hero.

The Streets swell with people as the Hero of Verone to be strides through in polished brass and golden armour, shining long sword in hand and cape flourishing in the breeze. As people cheered for the hero the party wait and watch from the gates. The Gold was paid upfront and in large supply but the details of the job were simple – too simple. Get the Hero to the tower, assist them in the trials and ensure that they are successful in their ordeal as Verone must always have a hero to watch over the people.

Thanks for joining me for another start of the night. This week the party are charged with minding a hero-to-be on their journey to empowerment. However I have a feeling that there is more to this than meets the eye. So don’t forget to come back daily to stay in the know of this adventure and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

The Dragonslayer Cult

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Tonight and I have created a new zine for the year. As I still continue to play catch-up on these zines you may find one or two of them pumped out in a weekend. But regardless of that I hope you are finding the current format of this Zine useful. So without any further waiting I present, The Dragonslayer Cult, in the same format, as a fun one-shot to assist GMs.

As always this adventure can be used system agnostic but focuses on D&D so please feel free to adjust to what ever system and the creatures you are using in your adventure! However as always Kobold fight club can be used to quickly balance an encounter for Dungeons and Dragons and Tetra-cube provides the stat-blocks for the creatures found in this adventure.

So I hope you enjoy this weeks adventure, The Dragonslayer Cult, and that your rolls are made with advantage.

The Dragonslayer Cult

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Yole City – Created in Nightcafe.

Garius had told them that the Cult of the Dragon slayer could be found near the Pickled Hog Inn and posing as beggars and gamblers. He also produced a card that had a mark defaced into the surface – a Dragon Slayer card from the three dragons Ante card game. “If you can sneak this card into your hand and play it, they will show you where you need to go. But be careful as that is all we could get out of the cultist.”

Street game in Yole – Made in nightcafe.

PDF adventure – The Dragonslayer Cult

the-dragonslayer-cultDownload

Thanks for joining me today for another Zine this year where this one is an interesting one which could be the hook for a future adventure. As usual there is a lot more in the Zine than there was in the daily updates on this blog – so make sure to grab a copy of the PDF.

Next time you get a party together consider running this adventure and I hope that you enjoy it.
I hope you don’t miss a thing so come back daily in the coming week and year. This is so you can experience the creation of the next adventure as it evolves and shapes out. And as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

A Mixed bag on Saturday

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Last week we had a look at different initiative systems and while I have additional content to add this week I decided to have both which has led to a mixed bag on Saturday. So first lets propose another creature to potentially take to the field this week opposite our ensnared party before we look at some results of mixing up initiative this week.

So sit back and let’s explore how else we can roll initiative.

A Mixed bag on Saturday

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So before we look at some notes on last weeks update – A different Initiative I want to add another contender to the adventure. It’s not a strange occurrence of even for adventurers to have knowledge that black dragons spit acid and have a thick scaly hide. These adversaries are tough, smart and deadly let alone being trapped in an arena with one.

But as they are stronger than the average creature you wouldn’t want to fight these after a long day of fighting other creatures in the arena.

Young Black Dragon – Created in Tetra-cube.

Trying out Playing cards

Last weekend I had the opportunity to be able to try out the initiative system of using paying cards. By assigning everyone a playing card and then randomly drawing a card to determine order. For the party members who had a high modifier (feats or high dexterity) I gave an extra card and put it into the deck.

So for the four players I had 5 cards in total, 1 base card each (a suit card) and then an additional card that was for the higher dexterity of the character. For each creature I assigned a different colour suit and for minions I had just numbers (2-10) and for bosses I used a suit card. This meant that generally I had around 7 or 8 cards at play at any one time and every round I had a different initiative order that represented the chaos on the battlefield.

For lair actions or special actions from bosses I used the joker cards which meant something happened but it wasn’t the full suite of attacks that it could used. When a creature died, or when the lair action/special action could not be used any more then I removed the card.

The Pros.

The randomness was enjoyable for myself and the party. The concept was simple and there was no rolling of dice or punishing the strength based martial classes who may have a lower initiative than normal.

This flowed on into the lair actions which felt thematic in a chaotic battlefield and meant that the encounters felt more intense than when the party would just steam roll through the creatures. In this instance where the lair action was tremors in a slippery ice cavern and could (and did) result in half the party falling prone it meant that the party members who went last in the turn order weren’t getting prone-locked and would have chances to break out of being on the ground constantly.

Having a simple visual aid (and I know other initiative trackers like pegs and character portraits / names on the screen work too) helped people realise it was their turn – however not knowing what their turn would look like next round was one of the cons.

The Cons.

The Randomness made it hard to plan for and implement turn-to-turn strategy as the party couldn’t reliably work out if their next turn would appear early or late in the next turns order. This meant de-buffs could have less usefulness when they resulted in something ending on the start of the party members next turn. This could be mitigated by saying “for x number of cards” but this was discussed later.

The lack of guaranteed order also impacted what people decided to do during the round but it did have some great moments where the character got one or two turns off before the boss could retaliate.

The time between rounds shuffling the cards did also loose some of the time efficiencies that was gained by not rolling initiative and recording the order at the start of combat. So this would be seen as a Con in the long term.

Closing notes.

The party enjoyed the change up and spent the next day discussing other ways of tracking or managing initiative. This was overall healthy and led to some great discussions which all led to moving away from Dungeons and Dragons combat AND exploring what other RPGs did. OR, tantalisingly so, exploring the creation of a new RPG system.

Regardless of what system we use the party had fun and enjoyed the change of pace of initiative. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for more tabletop content and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Stone Eaters

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Tonight we have something a bit different when we look at Stone eaters. This week we look at some creature variants where there is additional arcane influence at work. But before we get too excited we need to factor in a few things such as party level variance.

So let’s grab a coffee and let’s monster tonight’s adventure!

Stone Eaters

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Ankheg- created in tetra-cube

The Ankheg, a great little creature to throw at party members with its ability to burrow under the sand at attack from any angle. But these creatures may not be the strongest creatures to fight for a high level party – but several of them could be a challenge.

Virulent Umberhulk – Created in tetra-cube.

The Virulent Umberhulk uses acid to burrow through stone quicker but weakening it before attacking with its claws. These heavily armoured creatures strike fear into all that encounter them. These are stronger, deadlier denizens of the stone tunnels and could be used as the finisher of an larger encounter.

This week is about acid – but we have a few other creatures to introduce in the Zine. So make sure to come back this weekend for additional content updates and for more adventure and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Arkensol Arena

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Welcome back to another Map night but this week we have an actual map with the Arkensol Arena! This thing is probably the largest map I have tried in a while and for good reason. 40 squares (200feet) in diameter makes it a very large map and even the longest ranged weapons will struggle. But that’s something that we can investigate later.

So sit back, grab a coffee and let’s roll into tonight’s map.

Arkensol Arena

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Arkensol Arena – Created in Inkarnate

Various walls, barricades, crates and platforms make up this magically sealed arena. Towering walls sink into the ground where a sandy battlefield with battlements, trees and other obstacles make it easy to hide, but harder to stay hidden as the hunters become the prey.

A lot easier this week as there isn’t soo many overlapping layers and only a few asset packs involved. This means that is quick to get out and created without spending hours working on the map.

Not much of a description tonight as we have one more night left in which to explore. So don’t forget to come back tomorrow as we wrap up this adventure and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

The Monster is Revealed

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This week we have the party searching through the corridors and passageways under the arena until, at last the monster is revealed. But its not what they think it is. A frantic chase, a dark room and then darkness. A voice gloats from nearby as all is laid bare.

So let’s sit down, grab a coffee and try and catch a monster.

The Monster is Revealed

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The passageways looked the same. Chutes heading towards the arena above them and people moving about completing their business. The crates, boxes, weapon and armour racks as well as a few areas that looked reserved for the warriors were stationed near some of the chutes. As they moved through trying to find the same tracks that they saw near the cage they struggled to identify anything other than the occasional damage to the stonework on the edges of the corners.

Suddenly there was a cluster of people around the chutes “It’s no use. We will have to tell Seb that this entrance is not operational for now until we can work out why the platform won’t rise.” a man said from near as a female dwarf tinkered with a large metal cog that appeared pitted and deformed.

“If I get my hands on the idiot that dropped acid on the mechanism I will have Seb put them in the ring” she said as she threw her tools behind her. As the people around the chute moved backwards the same damage from the creature they were following could be seen at the edge of the stone work below the jammed chute’s platform.

As the party descended down the chute the grunt of the other members of the group could be heard from above as well as the discussions from the arena workers. When the party reached the bottom of the chute they could tell it was a small storage area where discarded sets of armour, boxes, crates and the like were set up against the walls. Several crates and boxes lay broken, splintered and smashed as their quarry had pushed past them in a hurry. The same scrape marks could be seen along some of the walls and a trail of pox marks could be seen on the ground as they followed deeper.

The passageway led for a few hundred feet until the sound of rushing water could be heard beyond an archway. As they stepped through the droning of the water rushing against steps, the bump of a boat and the hum of activity nearby assailed them. As they looked around the room dockhands moved to boats before both boat and worker disappeared in a spray of water. No one panicked or noticed the sudden disappearance but they moved past and around the party in their ongoing efforts to move stones, chunks of wood and discarded armour and gear into the boats.

The overwhelming sense of disorientation, of people disappearing, reappearing and the droning noise caused the party to fall down, barely aware of their surroundings until a pair of very real creatures stepped in front of their vision.

“So the famous adventuring party made it all the way here, how lucky am I.” a smooth yet oily voice spoke. “I am terribly sorry how we are meeting but you see I can’t have you interfering with my plans. For too long the people of this forsaken city have allowed the atrocities for too long. But no longer. It’s time for nature to win, for the animals to defeat the oppressive warriors and system.” the man said, bending down next to the party as a large, armoured creature crawled up next to him.

“You will be the ones to die. Sorry it had to be you but the warriors that Seb picks are the best. No creature could survive that party. But you lot? Not a chance.” he said before chanting an incantation before the world went black.

Thanks for joining me for the next part of this adventure. As we look forward to what lies ahead of the party as they wake, presumably from this spell they have a creature to face with some hints behind what lies there and, sadly, they are at the disadvantage. But more on that tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back the last few days of this week and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Seb Bastenwort

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The Arena master Seb Bastenwort who is not just smart but insidiously clever. An entrepreneur and arena master responsible for setting up the stage, the story and the headline acts at the arena.

So let’s grab a coffee, or something stronger, sit back and let’s roll into tonight’s adventure!

Seb Bastenwort

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Seb Bastenwort – Created in nightcafe.

Heading through the tunnels beneath the arena Seb, as he was now known as, walked at a fast pace compared to the humans. “This whole place, the mechanisms, the cells, the arena itself is all designed to hold creatures and the heroes for the show. It’s a marvel, an absolute marvel.” Seb rattled on as he pointed at different mechanisms, cages and chains.

“Todays show was something that I didn’t even want to know about. So I had my chief handler organise a surprise asset for the main event.” He scratched his well maintained beard. “But that’s where it went wrong. I can find my handler and we’ve lost the creature. I wish I could tell you what it was but I wanted it to be a surprise for me as well.”

He stopped moving at one of the cages and stood there expectantly. “Well this is it. The cage where it’s meant to be but isn’t.” He pointed at the broken chain, the ajar door and the various bits of scrap, food and mess that lay around the cage.

One thing was clear. Something large was once in here and it was loose. The party would have their work cut out for them in tracking down this creature but also, finding out how it escaped.

Thanks for joining me tonight for this update to our adventure. Don’t forget to come back as we continue to ramp up this adventure and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

It’s Escaped

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There are few words that people fear more than it’s escaped, especially when its coming from the gladiatorial ring master. This week we investigate what that looks like and what the party are tasked to do in such a situation.

So order the arena special, grab a drink and a seat and let’s hunt down tonight’s adventure!

The Arena in Arkensol is famous for its magically enhanced ring, its warriors and the creatures that it brings to fight on the field. However when the party is approached by the beastmaster and offered a last minute job there is something more happening under the barriers and bulwarks of the arena. A creature has broken loose and this poses a risk to the arena’s business as it was the big ticket holder this week. However, that’s not all as the party discovered that it didn’t escape – it was freed.

Knowing what they were fighting would be easy but in this case nothing is what it seems. Will they be able to find the creature and make things right or will they find out that the rot in the arena runs deeper than the sand covered floor above them.

It’s Escaped

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The party watched from the sidelines of the arena keen to see what the fuss was about. It had been a few days since they were last adventuring and they had been told that the arena was a great place to see experienced fighters facing off against exotic creatures.

As they sat down and ordered wine, mead, beer and various food they kept an eye out for the creatures and warriors that would be performing today. These competitions hired only the best hunters and healers so that no one ended up too injured and the creatures were spared wherever possible so they could fight another day. As they watched the warriors be led out to the field they heard the ringmaster announce them all, their strengths and fighting style loudly for all to hear.

The crowd cheered for their favourites, booed for their least favourite and soon the excitement and rowdiness was nearly thick enough to be cut with a dagger. Sitting near one of the doors that led to the bowels of the arena they heard the door click open. A gnome was talking hurriedly with two assistants. “What do you mean it’s escaped? It’s one bloody cage each and they are due out any moment.” he snapped at the assistants that hurried alongside him. “How can you even lose those creatures? They are impossible to not notice”

After scanning the crowd the gnome locked eyes with the party and a flash of recognition lit up his face. “You there. I am looking for some adventurers of some renown in getting something done urgently. I have been given the description of you and your party and I was hoping that I could borrow you for a little excursion.” the gnome continued as he reached inside his jacket. “I pay very well…” he said as he produced a solid gold trade bar that was worth hundreds if not thousands of gold in the market.

Thanks for joining me tonight for the start to another week of adventuring. We will expand this adventure every day this week and unravel more of the mystery, the people and the creature each day. So don’t forget to come back daily and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe