The Smoke Clears: Campaign Diary

With the battle over, the heroes are relieved to finally explain their findings to someone in authority. Veridis apologises for snubbing them earlier after they saved the Woodworkers’ Guild, and asks as much as he can about the visages. He gives them more information about Ranais, and the chant on the portal key for Sigil. The party immediately snitches on Flederoth, without a trace of loyalty of regret. Law is law. Veridis promises the heroes a more fitting reward, and meets them later in the King’s Table, where Flederoth is getting edgy. Veridis drops off their cash. When Flederoth asks them why they were talking to Veridis, the trio are nothing but honest (except for M’narr, who is honest but also a bit racist). Flederoth flees in a fit of nerves. The kitchen cook, now running the bar, is more than happy to give the heroes a few bones for portal keys, and the party leaves for Ranais.

The portal to Ranais is silver and flecked with black blemishes, deep in a scar within a branch of Yggdrasil. Stepping through, the party finds a freezing and desolate city, long since deserted. The party embarks on a brisk march. They’re inevitably ambushed by one of the undead denizens of Ranais, and Ragados happens to be at the front of the marching order. He takes two very serious blows before the party manages to scare the thing off.

After a few more hours, the dead buildings of Ranais start to thin out again, and the party spies the building Veridis had told them to look out for: a leaning, partially collapsed wall from an even bigger building. This wall could easily have been part of a cathedral, or great temple or palace. It has a circular gap in it – probably an old broken window – and a small ramp of mud and stone has been built up to it. From within his pack, Ragados fishes out a chunk of scapula from a goat, breaks it (the portal key is a 'broken bone', apparently), and the circular portal opens in a wave of golden light. M’narr doesn’t even stop walking, barrelling straight through. Ragados and 12-Bar follow. The trio find themselves in… a cowshed???

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Outlands: Planar Rules and Encounter Table

Encounters Check for encounters three times a day by rolling a d100. For the first roll each day, there is a 35% chance of an encounter. If no encounter occurs, the chances of an encounter on the next roll increase by 30%. If an encounter does occur, the chance of an encounter on the next roll that day decreases by 30%, to a minimum of 35%. Check for encounters once a night, again with a 35% chance. More information about the Planescape-specific monsters on these tables can be found in the AD&D book Monstrous Compendium: Planescape Appendix II. The below table is a modified version of an Outlands encounter table found on reddit . Roll 2d10: 2. Earth-berg. Floating chunks of earth and a scarred landscape remain after a chunk of land from the Outlands recently slid into another plane. Echoes of the other plane may remain. 3. Lost Blood War Patrol. A ragtag group of demons (MM), devils (MM), or yugoloths (MM) that fought in the Blood War and was cut off from the rest of the...
Read more

DM Resources for Planescape and Dead Gods

Looking to unpick how to run Dead Gods in 5e D&D, but don't know where to start? Start here. First things first. Realistically, I wouldn't recommend Planescape or Dead Gods for a first-time DM. Trying to stay on top of the adventure and the world is enough work without having to learn the rules of the game as you go. If you and your group all played Planescape: Torment and loved the world and know it well, then that's a bit different. Otherwise, run a simpler adventure or two first, and get to the stage where you're confident with the rules. Done that? Okay. So, obviously you have the adventure itself . I have a ringbound Print on Demand copy, which is fantastic, although 9 pages out of the 170+ have scanned badly, and some are illegible. Some copies of the pdf have this problem and some don't, so check before you buy. Either way, the illegible pages are all detailed in this useful free 5e conversion by Jarred Caldwell. It seems as if this pdf was formally a pa...
Read more

The Bottom of the Bottom? Behind the Screen

The visages’ defence holds. Still no one suspected their illusion last session. I used the Madness of Orcus d100 table from Out of the Abyss/Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes for the church bell insanity effects. Top Tip: Glyphimhor Decide in advance what Glyphimhor will talk about, and what he wants from the players, otherwise things will get comically awkward. I decided Glyphimhor mostly wanted to watch PCs grovel and beg for mercy, remind 'em of the good old days. I didn’t bother to stat him in full, but if a fight breaks out, use the same mental stats as a balor, give him about 65HP, remove all his attacks, give him the 3 spells in the adventure, i.e. fear, suggestion, ray of enfeeblement. Orcus or Tenebrous? I am going to call a spade a spade, and the Demon Prince of Undeath the Demon Prince of Undeath. Why not Tenebrous? Reasoning as follows: 1. Orcus is an exciting villain 2. The party’s played this game for ages, there’s nothing wrong with throwing them a frickin bone...
Read more