Squares on Cubes Part 1: Behind the Screen

We made it to Acheron! Many months ago, I asked my players privately to tell me what planes they’d be interested in visiting, so that if a popular plane was missing from the adventure, I could include it. I did it privately so that players wouldn’t wonder what was shoehorned in and what was legit.

Most of my content here is taken from the Planes of Law box set, which has about 40 pages of Acheron lore, rough guidelines for several quests, and a few maps and monsters. Reading the campaign diary will help set the mood for descriptions. I found myself doing the bulk of the talking in this session, but when players get to a new plane or strange locale, it’s okay to set the scene and give a clear feel for the landscape and atmosphere. While Acheron could just be monotonous flat iron plains, it's an alien place, and should feel as such.

Swap the Minions of Set for some orcs. I used some of the fancy orcs from Volo’s Guide.

Swap Nekrotheptis Skorpios for Makrete Ironskull, an orog proxy of Gruumsh with a metal plate on the side of his skull that covers an open wound. Makrete is friendly and likes a drink, but pain from his suppurating injury sometimes overwhelms him. He’s a gifted strategist.

Swap Skorpios’s big tent thing for Istvarhan, a hassitorium with black walls. Hassitorium are mobile fortresses pushed by slaves. Their walls are made of metal and the body parts of dead slaves.

Swap Desert's Night for the Ice of Ocanthus. The ice from Ocanthus, the fourth layer of Acheron, is in fact thought to be the freezing endpoint of the River Styx. The shards of razor-sharp ice are said to contain the memories of every memory ever lost in it. Tenebrous seeks the memories lost by Kiaransalee's servants. There is a roving portal from the Battle Cube to Ocanthus in the local area, and scouts have had increased sightings of monsters thereabouts.

My plan is to run one of the Acheron adventures from the Planes of Law book. More on that next sesh.

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