Soulbound

Brung Ironsoul the Arkanaut Admiral

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Tonight I want to look at Kathes companion, the Soulbound, Brung Ironsoul the Arkanaut Admiral. I was hoping to provide a character sheet for him tonight as well but don’t have access to my normal setup so it will come later.

But tonight I want to give a bir of insight to Brung and his membership with the Soulbound.

Soulbound, Brung Ironsoul the Arkanaut Admiral

302SaSBBrung

As Brung strode across the battlefield he couldn’t help but agree with his ancestors who held grudges against the stormcast eternals. “Impossible creatures those stormcast. A flawed machine churning out warriors? Pah! You won’t see machines like that in my skyport” he grumbled as the positions on his aether rig kept him moving despite the heavy armour.

In the light of Hysh his bronze, gold and blue armour was a sight to behold. He carried himself like a captain would amongst his ship mates and this caused many to move out of the way of the grumbling duardin and his companions.

“She has been through so much, we must understand and give her space to be who she needs to be” Gwen said as she nearly bounced behind the Kharadon.

“What she needs is to treat us with more respect. We are the binding charged by the warden of Hammerhall themself to guard these dawners.” He said, the urge to voice his thoughts growing. He missed his ship and his Arkanaut company, they knew how to function as a well oiled machine. He looked back at Gwen, and saw the concern in her face. “All I’m saying is she should consider us her team and let us help her more.” He resigned to saying.

The Idonenth behind Gwen spoke deeply, very uncharacteristically which startled both Gwen and Brung. “Perhaps our first point of call would be to investigate the missing scouts. They could be cut off from a route back to camp”.

After thinking for a moment Brung nodded. “A great observation Ymran. We may be able to scout them from the sky. Chuni’s pride could use the test flight.

Both Ymran and Gwen collectively groaned. The little Kharadron ship was far from stable or suitable. But the Kharadon loved it like a child.

“Let’s talk to the Dawn crusade general. Perhaps there is another course of action?” Gwen spoke with a little too much hope. The idoneth nodded on agreement.

Arkanaut-Admiral-Achetype-1Download

Well that’s it for tonight content. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for more content and, as always don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Denizens of the Crypt

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Welcome to Friday night, also known as fight night, where we look at the encounters and meet the Denizens of the Crypt. There is a certain nostalgia that comes with fighting zombies and skeletons in a crypt. And what crypt isn’t complete without an unholy artefact that causes anything that dies in the crypt to come back as a zombie. Yep those bandits that died or are dying in those hallowed halls are about to join the fight once more.

Tonight’s stat-blocks were sourced from Tetra-cube and, as a bit of variety for content moving forward I have also include some Soulbound statblocks too as we may be seeing more souldbound content this year than originally planned.

Denizens of the Crypt

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D&D Stat blocks

The humble zombie and skeleton, no more iconic duo in crypts and tombs could there be found. Except for maybe gelatinous cubes and giant rats. The idea is to have between 2 and 3 per encounter block. The zombies will be where ever the bandits would fall in the halls or rooms of the crypt, skeletons behind locked doors or near chests, where they died defending or trying to fight over the cursed gold. For map reference we can look at yesterdays maps Dark Forest & Darker Crypts.

Sourced from tetra-cube.
Sourced from tetra-cube

Soulbound

The idea behind soulbound is you have 2-3 minions per player, 1 or 2 warriors per player and a single champion per encounter. If we want to set this up to be a more challenging encounter we may add in a Chosen but that increases the difficulty substantially.

For our Minions we have the Deadwalker Zombie – the fallen bandits. For those cursed souls once trapped here we have the death rattle skeletons and our warriors for this weekend are the Graveguard.

Minions

Warriors

Champions

Chosen

Environment

We have a few thigs here. Unstable walls, treasure chests, a secret door and traps.

Some doorways are blocked, as can be seen by rubble around the bottom of the door, which might need a moderate test of strength and some time to remove. Or another way can be found into the rooms on the other side.

Throughout the halls there may be traps and other hazards with darts being shot from the wall or spikes dropping from the ceiling if a pressure plate is triggered.

There is a little notch on the wall to the right of the secret room, this is a button that looks like a wide mouthed grinning skull. If they reach into its mouth there is a button there that releases the door and it opens – a bit of a test of faith than something terrifying here.

The breakable wall here will have a little crack in the stone that if people deliberately (and successfully) examine the damaged wall they can see through to the other side. This should hint to another room here.

The cursed altar is an easy one. Light the flames and the undead will stop rising in the crypts. If you use holy magic or something creative enough that would look at purifying it (prayers, spells, holy water, incense etc.) then that will keep the fires lit indefinitely rather than just a period of time.

Thoughts

Both the D&D and soulbound adventure for this map will be a lot of fun. You may notice I didn’t include anything for the forest map as I want to keep this more as a random encounter zone or if the party bring the fight out of the crypts and into the forest itself.

The same wild creatures as what would be from last weeks adventure – The trouble with birds can work here but you can also add other larger creatures like bears and such. Goblins (Gitz for soulbound) also can work treat in this zone as its already got a lot of juicy mushrooms.

This week has been a bit of a weird one. With the D&D OGL1.0a changing this week there is a bit of a large departure from the D&D 3rd party content creator community. Personally I will continue with what I am doing, so far its not resulting in any extra paperwork that I have to continue but you may find that I will reduce the D&D specific content (stat blocks) and move to a more system agnostic approach.

And with the closure of the week that see’s tonight’s content finish. I am looking forward to bringing more soulbound into the content here on the blog and into the local community where I live. I think its a great system and if you want to feel like a bad-ass hero then it may be right for you. There is also my old favourite, Openlegends.rpg that is a great system for versatility and customisation where which may sneak its way back into here. We will see.

As always with the weekend here don’t forget to plan some tabletop time and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Soulbound – Kathe the Knight Azyros

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Tonight being a bit of a free night for content I wanted to look at the RPG I promised would get a bit more attention this year. And tonight we have Soulbound – Kathe the Knight Azyros having flown onto pen and paper and digitally attached for everyone’s perusal. Now I originally looked at Soulbound’s character creation mechanics March last year (Soulbound – Warhammer Age of Sigmar TTRPG) and it was relatively easy to get back into the wing of it. I found myself wanting one or two more XP so I could add another skill and focus for Talent variety but it wouldn’t fit the roleplay I had in mind for Kathe.

So sit back, sip a coffee and let’s roll into some soulbound!

Soulbound – Kathe the Knight Azyros

301SaSBKathe

Her golden wings armour gleamed in the light brought upon by Hysh as she stared across the plains before her. It felt like it had been an age since she had been deployed and she was glad to be away from Azyr. But, that is the lie she told herself. Truthfully she could not remember when the last time she was deployed or the outcome of her sacred mission from the god-king Sigmar. She believed she had meet it with success but the reoccurring nightmares of hundreds of grabbing hands and terrible teeth couldn’t be stopped.

She unconsciously itched the ten scars that were on the right side of her head, visible through her golden hair. She had been told by other stormcast that they were her tell, the evidence of her being re-forged over and over by Sigmars’ faulty machine. However she believed that it was a test of her faith and devotion to the god-king And this one she would not fail.

As her allies slowly rose from their tents they gazed over the gathered humans, aelves and duardin as they condensed on the plain in front of them. A dawnbringer crusade they called themselves. Kathe just knew them as her ward, one that needed to be shown the beacon of light that Sigmar had entrusted to her and her alone.

The scouts had come back early in the morning announcing that a mass of green skinned orruks and Gits had been seen in the area. She had not woken the party as they had endured a long day the one before and the soulbound would need their strength, and hers, over the course of the next day.

“What’s news our stoic stormcast?” a gruff voice of Brung Ironsoul, a Kharadron Admiral who was too long from his ship spoke from behind her.

“Green skins, orruks and gitz supposedly. They are en masse in the area. I would expect a long day ahead with the promise of combat” she replied. The binding behind her sighed collectively. They could never understand the burden she carried. A vision of a previous battle flashed before her eyes, towering orruks with weapons the size of men were cleaving aelves in two. A bolt of lightning and she descended into the fray, sword and lantern glowing. Her presence bolstered the mortals and they fought harder with her and her fellow stormcast by their side but even the glow from her wings could not shine as the sun was blotted out by the tide of arrows that descended shortly.

Her wings unfurled and the crackle of lightning across them caused the binding to stand backwards. “Are you alright Lady Kate?” the human wizard softly asked, using the short name that many of her kind did for her. She was too kind and caring for this type of work but her voice did bring her out of her trance and silenced the vision of steel blades cutting into her plate.

“I am fine. Thanks Gwen. We best prepare ourselves for battle. I will go speak with the crusade and ensure they are also ready” Kathe said as she moved off, leaving the binding behind her to organise their breakfast.

Character Sheet

Kathe-Stormcast-Knight-AzyrosDownload

Although it’s something different than usual tonight was a lot of fun looking at what is possible in Soulbound. I may make Saturday night Soulbound a thing for a little while so let me know what you think of it. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow when we look at this weeks adventure write-up and, as always don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Warhammer map – The hilly clearing

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As I was creating the Cherpa Hill map today I also created a larger Warhammer sized map to be used in tabletop games.

Created in Inkarnate and then scaled to be 60″ x 44″ this gives a few options for the battleplan being symmetrical with the hills being about an even distance away from the centre. The other great thing about this map is that it could easily be used for RPGs as well if a large open space is what the adventure called for. So I will leave the image below.

Created in Inkarnate

Happy wargaming and don’t forget to roll more dice,
The Brazen Wolfe

Soulbound Zones

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Welcome to the first post of 2023 and I wanted to start off with some Soulbound content, exploring the concept of Zones. The concept of a Zone is in its simplest terms the different phases of range for movement, sight and ranged combat. So for tonight I created a desert style map with a little oasis in it to try and get down pat two things. 1, the zones in a typical map and 2, me creating them in Inkarnate.

Soulbound Zones

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Desert Map

The slope downhill towards the oasis is a welcome sight for sore eyes, however the step gaps in the craggy hills makes it difficult to move down to the refreshing water below. However as the Soulbound approach their destination the bestial cry of war sounds from down below and the screech of large birds fills the air. It looks like the party will have to fight for their right to fill their canteens today.

Desert with zones

Zones in Soulbound are generally areas that are broken up by natural formations in the land (as per this example), barricades, bar tables, walls, buildings and so on. This makes it quite easy with a transparent tool on Inkarnate to map out your zones to highlight where movement is possible quickly or when it takes longer.

This also can help stress the lay of the land a bit more. Perhaps its not distance as such and maybe to shoot from 3 zones away (blue to red) it is harder to be more accurate due to trees or weather. Maybe the steep descent and unstable footing makes it hard to move down to engage the Beastmen who have made this oasis’s their camp. What ever the reason the concept of zones helps control the flow and pace of the battle – two important things for us Game Masters.

As we move into the new year and a new set of challenges and adventures I wanted to start off with something simply just fun before we get back into the weekly adventures. Helping myself re-look at some of the basics of a RPG system that I will start to get more involved with this year is just the icing on this cake. If you are interested in trying a TTRPG this year I can recommend D&D (yes there is some changes going on this year), Openlegends RPG and, of course, Soulbound. Each one uses a different system for their mechanics and each is refreshing and rewarding to get involved with.

So come back to check in on this coming weeks content and lets roll into this year with a solid foundation. And with the start of a new year why don’t you look at rolling a luck check and don’t forget to roll it with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Beaten to the punchline

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Tonight I wanted to follow on with the theme from last night where I had a random set of folk heroes that could work in any adventure. Tonight I want to throw out there a random twist that can work in nearly any adventure – the party is beaten to the punchline. Now the inspiration for this twist came about from me exploring what my first Soulbound adventure would be for the new year. But it definitely isn’t anything new or anything super special its just something that could be useful to drive a sudden change in the plot.

Beaten to the punchline

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The Basics

To implement this twist is very simple. You have something bad which the party oppose and before they can stop it, it is stopped by someone or something else. This works for any of the four basic adventure types that I explored over a year ago; Learn, Stop, Escort or Fetch.

Let’s explore that a bit.

D&D 5e – Fetch

“Are you sure this is the place?” Arien asked the halfling not for the first time.

“Yes yes, it’s the right place alright. Just hurry up and keep watch. The Wand of McGuffin is not to be guarded lightly…” Darrel responded as he went to pick the lock in the shadow of his ranger companion. “oh that’s odd.” he mumbled as the door swung inwards with the lightest of pressure on the door. The scratch marks and strange powder on the doorframe told the halfling master rogue all that he needed to know. “Quickly. Walk away. We were not the first people to search for the wand and its gone.” Darrel was already blending into a nearby troop of performers by time he finished his command.

“what do you…” Arien began before she managed to peer through the opened door… “good gods.” she managed to squeak as the frozen form of a dozen guards stood around a magical device that thrummed with power in the centre of the room. A large chest that would have been hidden under floorboards lay opened and empty near the guards. “D. What do we do now?” she asked as her long strides make short work to catch her companion.

“That’s easy Ari. We have to out burgle another master burglar” Darrel replied with a grin as his cloak, moustache and pants shimmered as a powerful illusion changed his appearance.

Soulbound – Stop

The rivet gun’s clattered echoed off the stonework of the tower as the magazine was emptied into the locking mechanism. “Primitive locks are nothing against Kharadron ingenuity” Hank Geldenhammer said through his aether helmet.

“Well if these mages didn’t foresee our arrival and prepare for combat they are well aware now. Good job duardin.” Eros Witchblade sighed as she took her hand of her hips and strode forward unsheathing a pair of wicked looking blades.

“Now Eros, there may be no need for that. These are men of learning. Surely we can reason with them. The Realm stone of Chaos is cursed and evil. These wise men and women would surely know this and will see that their attempts to harness this stone to retake Barak Zundabarg is folly and dangerous” Tinxao the Lumineth Scinari Cathallar said as she walked calmly through the doors to the hall beyond. The tower itself was made of dark stone that seemed to absorb all light from around it, all light except for the glow from the Warpriests warhammer.

“This place is cursed. I can see the tolling of a great bell. Lord Sigmar’s light does not pierce this blackened stone. We should be all aware of ratmen.” Torval Brighthammer said as he gripped his warhammer tighter and strode in behind the Cathallar.

“Ratmen!? Do you even hear yourself talk Torval? I thought you too old and wise to believe in the tales that are made up to scare children” Eros laughed at the expense of the warpriest. Torval just gritted his teeth and began the trek up stairs.

“Remember we are here to relieve these mages of the realm stones of chaos so they can be destroyed. Hank I know you have a fondness for powerful stones and metals but this is…” Tinxao began looking distrustfully towards the Duardin who she was soulbound to. Hank turned abruptly, the lenses flashing.

“Shh!. I have detected something. Now is not the time for your nonsense Aelf.” Tinxao remained as devoid from emotion as ever. The clatter of steel on stone quickly broke the party into a rush for the last few stairs. Bursting through a door they arrived at the main deck of the observatory where a gruesome sight greeted them. The mages lay dying or dead. Wicked looking throwing stars and knives riddled their bodies and large glass canisters lay smashed on the stones beneath them. Evidence of magic being flung around the room was everywhere. Scotch marks from lightning and fire lay across the meagre furniture and as they looked around the room a flash of lightning from outside drew their gaze to the open window. A large man-sized rat bundled in dark scraps of fabric squatted on the window sill. The lightning illuminated its silhouette but the candles and lanterns from the room where the party stood highlighted the sharp chiselled teeth and bandoleer of throwing blades. After a heartbeat it flung itself over the side of the window and into the darkness beyond.

“Still don’t believe in Ratmen Eros?” Torval asked as he ran towards the window summoning a beam of light to blast out the window. A second later a screech followed as conjured bolt of lightning struck a creature outside who fell from its perch. “They have the stones” Torval roared before he hurled himself towards the door to give chase down the stairs. But as he looked down the winding staircase he was greeted by dozens of pairs of glinting eyes, chittering teeth and rusted blades.

Tonight we had a look at an easy and fun twist to any adventure. The key with this one is to make it so that hope is not lost – to give a hint (blatant or obscure) to the party so they have a way forward. Once they have this then there its full steam ahead to either uncover or confront the rival group. Are they on the same side or something worse than what they were trying to stop or take? Don’t forget to come back the rest of the week where I have more content in store and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Hellbent on Soulbound

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Tonight I want to touch on something I want to explore more this coming year which is part of the driver for moving back to a series of oneshots rather than a yearly adventure format. I am hellbent on Soulbound getting more love. Not only does it bring two of my passions together but it feels nice to run as well. In fact there are no super complex rules to unpack middle of the game. Most of the maths and complexity is done at creation and periodically.

There is also, wait for it, an in game currency that forces cooperation towards a goal. Yup. Hate it or love it you’re stuck with these other characters of various races so you got to find a way around it. No more “its what my character would do” or “I hate that character” as it actually punishes you. Forced cooperation when done in a nice way is just refreshing to see.

So this year I want to create a single long adventure with a few mini adventures stretched out over the months. So I am excited to see how we go with more soulbound content and hopefully I can convince my local gaming group to give it a shot.

So stay tuned this week as I hope to have a teaser for it this week. I will also aim to have the final product of the Dice-ember adventure wrapped up and ready to go as well. If I can find a format I am happy with I will see how far my time and motivation goes to see what else I can do. Other than being hellbent on soulbound getting more love I also want to get more painting done. I have another two armies with of models either sitting in boxes or as grey plastic and its going to start driving me insane. So hopefully I can make it a reality.

Don’t forget to relax and be good to yourself and don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Railroading or Player-Centric plot?

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Good evening everyone and welcome to a bit of a discussion around Railroading or Player-Centric plot.

When it comes down to the definition of railroading it boils down to, basically the following. “The DM taking control of the outcomes of the adventure despite the actions of the players”.

The beginning

When I was a 5 year old boy learning D&D from my dad railroading wasn’t a concept. No really. It wasn’t. You would play an adventure, go from point A-B. You would track the bandits to their lair that had been overrun with stirge’s, find the mcguffin and bring it back to the nearby village. That was it. The adventure really became a single road leading to adventure, combat and loot. Even the adventure books that came out during that time also were of the same page. A single adventure, albeit longer, where you went from A-B and then to C after you had found out that NPC1 was really BBEG2. Or something like that.

This made it easy to DM. In fact all you needed was one adventure, the plot hook and all you had to do was run it using your prep sheet. You had to improvise around the decisions during the adventure of course but this wasn’t hard to do. As the DM you knew your NPCs, the map and the creatures. You didn’t have to worry about what was off the beaten track and your players knew it.

The players came in expecting adventure, they were trained mercenaries, henchmen or heroes and they had a job to do. They had to explore the hidden dungeon, find the mad alchemists lair and defeat the golems within. These heroes didn’t care for the nearby keep – that was another adventure and this alchemist was dangerous. And so the adventures went like that. Each session a new adventure, a new story and new things to see and explore – but all prepared for by a Dungeon Master who spent hours on it for the players, and their, enjoyment.

The shift

You remember Skyrim? maybe it was your first RPG. For me Neverwinter nights was my first digital RPG and boy was it great. You could move through the towns, buildings, dungeons and sewers and learn and do anything. But there were doors that needed keys and those keys were kept by holders of the plot. You couldn’t continue to the next town until you had done the quest before hand. And you couldn’t do that quest until you completed the one currently assigned to you. Yes the bakers wife would ask you to kil lrats in her basement as a side quest – but you didn’t leave the city until much later.

With the rise of open world games and bigger RPGs, like Skyrim, we saw the humble style of fun weekender-one-shots step aside for long winded campaigns that were completely driven by players decisions. This makes it harder to plan and organise for the DM, which is 100% fine. But the counter argument is if the story is that an evil wizard is in a castle to the north you want the party to find that castle. You don’t want them exploring the swamp-islands to the south where the cannibalistic tribes of Kuthrapika hunt the marshy waterways. Though – that does sound fun now doesn’t it?

Railroading or Player-Centric plot?

The rise of “your decisions, your story” is putting the classic “Your decisions, my quest” in a negative light in some circles. This unrealistic expectation of the DM shifting, changing and maintaining multiple story lines and bending the game that they facilitate (yes.. the big F word..) makes it harder to convince players to come along with you on the journey through the adventure you have crafted.

The old saying of “it takes two to tango” is so true with D&D these days and the real quest is getting the players to care about your story enough and stick to it and not go looking for adventure but trust that you have it in spades, waiting for them to come along for the journey.

Well that’s it for me tonight. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow night where I will take you through the weekly write-up and look to finish up this month. If you have a different view on railroading let us know, let’s talk about it openly from players and dungeon masters alike as the game has changed heaps since I was a kid and the adventure needs to work for both DM and player.

Don’t forget to read up on the past week, look out for new stat-blocks and potential new items for our adventurers in the coming posts and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Inspiration points

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So I find myself at a crossroads tonight – having had to regretfully pause my games (of Soulbound or dungeons and dragons) for some time but that doesn’t stop my imagination running with the smallest inspiration. Hanging out clothes and having an Ant bite my foot this morning, looking at my ice-themed dice set on my typing desk, the dozens of miniature paints littered through my room or the two odd book shelves, different in so many ways but suiting the same purpose – inspiration can some from single word, a single spark and for me its a constant, distracting and enriching thing to experience.

So tonight I want to share a days, my day today, worth of inspiration with you all.

Animals can be a big inspiration for adventures, taking the smallest (and maybe least favourite – except for centipedes, those things are the worst!) of creatures and one that people are naturally fearful of we can create two adventures complete with hooks, sub hooks, NPCs and places to explore. Let’s look at two animal inspired adventure hooks.

Ants.

For a very long time ants have always bothered me, mainly for my dislike of socks and the enjoyment I get while walking bear footed across paddocks, roads, yards and so forth. For the town or Berokovia the ants have changed.

Ants the size of dogs have appeared in the villagers barns and houses and the farmer that killed a single ant was seen being dragged into the soil by an ant the size of an ogor. The crops are slowly dwindling but not as fast as the herds of animals which seem to be the preferred prey for the invertebrates. Regardless of aid coming in with the depletion of their livestock and land there isnt much hope for the town of Berokovia.

Bats

“Demons!” the first shrieks from a frightened city watch guard filled the tavern as the door slammed shut behind him. “There’s demons in the street, swooping down on large wings to grab at any they can find” behind the panicked shrieks chittering could be heart from the streets.

Giant bats, larger than their normal giant kind, have suddenly started to attack the the City of Milfords Rest, built up around mining in the nearby mines. A new rich gold deposit had been found and the miners, the merchants and prospective prospectors have flocked to the city to work and earn their fortune – however a few nights before the winged mammals appeared in the city people started to go missing in the mines, near the new tunnels opened and all but one were lost. The one that was found was a husk, dried, shrivelled and his face frozen in fear and pain.

Objects. Easily enough I have a set of dice on my table and the d100 is nearly perfectly clear with the sligtest tinge of blue which makes me think of ice. On the other side of my desk is my kids tea-set. A saucer, tea cup and a little wooden spook which was left there from a earlier tea party. Both can inspire adventures just as easily as ants or bats.

Permafrost Dice.

“Woah, hold your horses on that one.” the merchant said as my hand hovered over a nearly clear single dice. “That dice has story behind it and its not a good one” he said as he massaged his, actually quite terribly looking beard.

“They say that the dice belonged to a priest of Lathander who trekked into the far north, past where the sun sets and into the frozen waste lands beyond. There he found a keep which belonged to an ice witch who worshiped one of the devil-rulers from the coldest layer of hell – sworn to end the morning lord. When the two opposing powers finally clashed Lathander ultimately won but not before a blast of frigid hell-rime hit the priest high in his chest – where he kept his lucky dice pouch, they say the dice saved his life that day. He had a complete set too but they have been slowly pawned and distributed across the lands but the owners all die in some way and each time the dice move closer together. I had two of them until a day ago a street urchin ran up and snatched one. I dare say the other dice will be stolen soon and end up in the same horde as the first – but the thief” the man paused tsking. “he will be cold as death soon.”

Tea party

As the party enter the Birchwell woods they come across a curious scene, a man, a dwarf and a sprite sitting down around a felled log having tea. The man and the dwarf look up with fear and sadness in their eyes and start shouting towards the party but some trick of the thick birch trees catches their voices but it looks like they are asking for help.

When the party approach the two they burst into tears. “We told you to run, not to approach. Its too late now, he has seen …”

“why hello there, greetings and good salutations. I am Pix, the Pixie and I want you to join me for a tea and some games!” Pix the blue pixies exclaims excitedly as he flutters overhead an removes a piece of old fabric from a chair revealing the skeleton of what appears to be an elf from quite some time ago. Pushing the bones off the seat and to the forest floor he gestures for the party to come and take a seat. “come, once you start you never want to stop! I promise!” Turning and running as fast as they can the other way the party turn a corner out of the clearing and looking up they see the same scene – Pix grinning at them. “Take a seat, I implore you”

Cinema. It’s now new-age practice for people to borrow plot ideas from cinema. Rings of power, magical swords, wizards, vampires that sparkle instead of burning in the sunlight.. ok maybe not the last one – but movies and TV shows are an easy way to get inspired for adventures and I have two sources today – but they are a bit different to normal inspiration.

200 yards

As the boots met the ground the crowd of spectators cheered for their favourite team, one city against the other, a dozen warriors either side ready to fight – but with a difference. Today they put aside their regular armour and their weapons of choice and today they fight with spiked boots, padded armour with flowing tabards and balls made from leather and magic.

The two sides met in the middle and greeted each other, there was no hostility which was for such a clash as The Blue Wolves were fighting against the Golden Giants – two elite forces who had clashed before. An intense rivalry could be felt across the field into the stands as the two captains stood in front of each other but before the ball could be thrown between the two teams four players from the Blue Wolves fell over, their heads bouncing on the field as they lay motionless except for the steady rise and fall of their chest.

The team was short 4 players and, as it so happened the party had been gifted with front row tickets from a mysterious benefactor just that morning which gave them the chance of filling in for the team if there was need. The captain jogged over and looked worriedly over the party. “Well, you’re not my first pick but let me explain the rules pups. Apart from killing anything goes, we need to get past the other team and throw or kick the ball between the two obsidian pillars. That’s it. If we lose Clovia will take control over the fishing contracts of the northern lake which will cost the city a wagon full of gold. Without those contracts our city will starve. We are relying on you” the captain said as the field guard handed over blue and grey robes and padded armour for the party to don.

Puppets

As the man moved his troops into a steady line to ward off the right side of the battle board he grinned at his opponent who looked at the encroaching lines with worry. The cavalry, their horses restless for battle moved behind the line troops ready to counter charge, their warriors restless and eager for their blades to meet flesh.

Seeing an opportunity to counter play the opposition requested that his archers advance, peppering the horses with arrows as they did so, but the horses either didn’t feel the sting of barbed tips or didn’t care.

“I need a break, need to replenish the supplies.” the man controlling the cavalry said as he stood, the massive chair he stood on pushed back against the great stone blocks.

Sighing and resting his head on the table the young man looked at his warriors – who looked back.

“Why are you making us do this” they asked, their fear of the giant now not as great as they feared the zombies and undead cavalry who moved across from him. “We don’t want to be part of this sick game! Please let us go home. I have a family.” shouted another.

The giant wiped tears from his eyes. “I am sorry, truly, this is the only wan I can get my family back. He controls the slave market and he agreed that If I beat him in a game of his choosing then I will get my family back, but if I lose then I don’t.”

His elite troops, ones that he had paid a considerable lump of gold for stood near the other humans who were bound by magic in much the same was as the undead were bound to un life. Moving closer to them he spoke as lowly as he could.

“I am counting on you, my heroes, this is the last chance I have and I can’t lose my mother in the same year I lost my father. Please help and I will ensure you are set free with any riches that you want”

Both of these are simply taken from two videos I watched today. 1 – The Australian football Rules I walked in on whilst trying to get my son towards bed and 2, watching a video for a Warhammer reveal today – both can inspire adventures. One was relevant to the genre, one was not but inspiration can come at any moment.

Hopefully what inspired me today can inspire you on your next adventure. Take a moment and consider how the small things, the mundane to us could be magical or mystical – how things taken for granted in our every day lives could actually be something that adventures are made out of.

Thanks for dropping by, don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the end of week writeup and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

You don’t always need new..

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Welcome to a Saturday night pondering system where I out forward the ideas, methods and principles I have for my RPG systems.

Now tonight I wanted to touch on something that I break constantly but never need to, what already exists out there in the dnd 5e ruleset. What I mean by this is, taking last night’s post as an example, you dont need to create new spells to suit a characters play style, theme or otherwise. As an example the creation of an, albeit stronger, new spell that functions like mirror image was primarily to have a bit of flavour added to the spell and make the combat feel foreign and exotic. But just changing the mirror image spell to create bodies made from insects instead of being an illusion would have easily sufficed. The same can be said for, well the original 5e players handbooks list of spells having only a very small number of cold based spells. Changing fire bolt, burning hands, shocking grasp, melfs acid arrows or even fireball to look like frost based spells (ignoring the damage element shift for now) can give the thematic shift that we care about but avoid the balancing act of creating a new suite of spells for our cryomancer.

But if the cold damage replacing the fire damage is really important then the dm (us) can make the changes if it makes sense and doesn’t break the game. From fire to cold isnt that different but from fire to force or radiant/necrotic? Yeah thats something that could have ongoing issues.

We would’ve seen moments on our favourite live play adventure videos or podcasts where the spell is different to what we know it to be, the visuals are different and cool, exciting and fresh and thematically significant for the player. Having a water genasi summoning water bolts and throwing four of them to batter and pierce their enemies as a flavoursome magic missile spell is cool. A cleric of Gond, worshipping artifice and craft could have cogs, gears or divine engines powering their spells like guiding bolt or sacred flame. To take it further that same cleric may summon a mechanical golem or a steampunk piston driven axe as their spiritual weapon. The amount of flexibility and creativity is only stopped by us saying “thats cool, I dig it, what does that look like to you?”

Monsters also come under this. The oni from a few weeks back would have been ideal for a lift and rename from the hobgoblin, and they almost were. Adding or adjusting some flavoursome abilities to suite your campaign can be a great thing, or additional effort for very little value. Instead of making the Toad-kin I could have just given the goblin statblock amphibious trait and call it a day to fit my idea of these toad-like people.

Everytime we go to make a new item, spell, creature or whatever its a balancing act between effort, balance and value. Sometimes the simplest option of a re-skin is the best and can wow your party just as much.

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the end of week write-up and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,

The Brazen Wolfe