Bleak Generation

Here it is. I've been working on this on and off for over a year, so I hope y'all enjoy it. I'm very proud of it. Between training for a new job, prepping D&D games, and making this, my posting has sadly fallen by the wayside. We finished Dead Gods over the summer, and it was probably the best D&D I've ever played. The final sessions were tearful ones. We skipped one chapter, which hopefully we will return to in the future. Hopefully I will find time to chronicle it - and who knows, maybe the earlier sessions too. As for the spell collection, it includes with: 31 spells new for 5E; Additional rules and guidance for the Dungeon Master looking to add interplanar portals into their game; Spells thematic to the Feywild and Shadowfell, Inner and Outer Planes, and Law and Chaos; Spells for damage, battlefield control, utility, and social encounters, as well as new options for interplanar travel; Printer-friendly and full-color editions. Enjoy! I also recently did an A...

Another two-session compilation, because the first was a levelling up and downtime session, and I made almost no effort to prepare Sigil after so long. Downtime mostly requires making NPCs. Make the names in advance. I used u/minotaur36191’s excellent rules for turning PCs into questgivers to expedite Ragados’ gaining of the required reagents.   I asked the party to make backup characters in event of their deaths, planning to use them as the adventuring party Jerryx hires. Only Ragados obliged, but it’s one fewer name. A Planar Adventuring Party for you to Steal Galina, F Gnome Cleric, NG, from Tradegate in the Outlands. The oldest party member, and the leader. She’s spent a lot of time defending settlements from fiendish Blood War incursions, and seen enough death to last a lifetime. Calm, honest, and philosophical. Indep. Kathne, F Gnome Barbarian, CN. From the Prime (Toril). She’s beautiful but short-tempered and gullible (WIS is her dump stat). Very, very fond of ha...

The drow had been clear, even as his vampiric form disintegrated. Kill Erehe. He’s in Menzoberranzan.   Don’t let him remember, and don’t let these guys get him first. Any questions, well, you’re free to ask the dust. And with that, our adventurers had fully looted Tcian Sumere. With considerable relief, the party returned to Ranais. Ragados administered a karate chop of Catnap to his colleagues, and then it was time for a blissfully undead-free march home. Back in Sigil, eating again at the Hellfire Bowl, the planewalkers began to worry about their find. The Demonomicon was an item that could change the balance of the multiverse. It could end the Blood War, M’narr mused, or even the great war of Law versus Evil. What if someone found out they had it? Someone powerful? The book needed to be hidden. As the party rested in their apartment, Jerryx appeared blushing at the door. The poor bariaur never learned the password for stopping M’narr’s magic mouth alarm, which blared out...

Well, I guess my players have the Demonomicon now. If anything bad happens, I have no one to blame but myself. For now, they’re already regretting taking it, and I’m going to enjoy that good feeling while it lasts. I don’t know what practical uses it’ll serve in the campaign. While Kiaransalee erased all knowledge of Orcus from the multiverse, an artefact of the Demonomicon's level should be able to retain the facts of what happened, and that’s why the Demon Prince wanted to keep it hidden. There are few other ways in-game to relay this adventure’s considerable backstory. The illusion of the corridor/forcefield to the void bamboozled the players very well – perhaps too well, because even with two hints from Vlaakith they nearly missed it. I gave 12-Bar inspiration for guessing the “opposite of belief”, and if I hadn’t done that, the party would probably have given up. The slog was not exactly fun. I'd probably just go for a neverending corridor next time, rather than somethi...

With 12-Bar and Ragados watching on, M’narr probed the huge tome with his pallid fingers, teasing out its secrets. The book – the Demonomicon – was easily the most powerful and terrible object they’d ever seen. Probably too powerful. But that wasn’t going to stop them from nicking it, so M’narr put it in the bag of holding. Only slightly worried by their success, their attention turned back to finding the missing prisoner. The throne room was the first port of call. The great black diamond in the throne held no answers, though it nearly held doom for M’narr as he removed and identified it. The Gith dropped the gem just in time to see it crackle and vanish into nothingness, returning to its anonymous creator. The scrying pool still showed a drow and a visage, but was similarly useless. After exploring and exhausting all other rooms, only one chamber remained: the “front door” of Tcian Sumere; the fortress’s gateway to the Endless Void. At the end of this corridor, the shimmering force...

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...

Back in the temple we were. Into the bag of holding went the dodgy gold band, best not touch it right now. The tunnel exiting the temple led to the last unexplored room of the fortress. Expecting deadly combat, the employees of Truetemper’s Solution braced themselves and hopped through. Inside, they found the next chamber was all but empty, with only a shaft of dark blue light illuminating the dark. M’narr inspected the odd faces carved into the stone of the walls, and Ragados searched for hidden doors and threw a bit of food (dried banana) at the light. Soon all that's left to do in the room was touch the light, so Ragados gives it just the tip. Of his finger. The light wanes and a monstrous withered figure appears: a balor, perhaps? But conspicuously weakened. It loomed over them with a wicked grin, and demanded they grovel. After briefly weighing up the situation, the party decided it best to grovel. Thus began a conversation with the withered demon. Quick to take offence, it ...

Someone clearly lived in this forsaken place. Someone powerful. But whatever, our planewalkers were determined to rob ‘em of everything that wasn’t nailed to the floor. Laden down with gold, swords, and some undeniably cursed wands, the adventurers floated straight over to the neighbouring room to see what they could nick next. There was no treasure here, though: just a huge machine that filled half the chamber, levers of bone sticking out from control panels of some pale, almost fleshy material. They pondered its purpose for some time. What to do with the helmet attached to it? What might be in the large opaque egg at its centre? M’narr’s curiosity got the better of him again, but he channelled it to less reckless purposes, casting identify on the machine. Discovering the thing’s purpose – to permanently transfer a creature’s consciousness and soul into the construct held within the egg – was enough to satisfy M’narr’s curiosity this time. He quickly set the machine to overheat wha...

Random encounters make dungeons a more tense place, discourage dawdling, and can force players to make tough decisions. The rules below also mean that the dungeon gets more dangerous the longer the party lingers! When to Check for an Encounter I roll a d10 to check for an encounter every time the party stops for 10 minutes or longer, eg to cast a ritual spell (they get to cast their first ritual for free, no roll required). I check for encounters twice during a short rest; consider halving this if you have short rest classes (eg warlocks) in the party. I don't let my party take a long rest inside the dungeon. There is a 10% chance that an encounter occurs. If no encounter occurs, the chance of an encounter occuring on subsequent checks increases by 10%, to a maximum of 50%. This probability is cumulative, i.e. 10% on your first roll, 20% on your second, and so on). Keep track of the encounter probability as the game progresses - I just have a 10 in one corner of the page that coun...

This session would’ve been way more difficult if one player had not digitised his home-made map of the dungeon (I gave him an inspiration point for doing it). Much of the dungeon was run as-is. I simplified the soul-transferring machine by ruling it would permanently transfer a PC’s soul if they used it, fixable with a casting of soul jar perhaps. Gave the construct 20 STR, and planned to take the victim PC’s stats and alter them thus: +3 CON, -4 DEX, -4 CHA. The Temple/Skeleton Circlet Most Important Advice: Don’t make your players roll a skill check to notice the circlet of skeleton control! If they look at the statue just tell them it’s there. It was 12-Bar that had the vision from Anarchocles when the party broke into the Old Church. I've not 100% decided the facts, but I’m making the dead god in Sigil’s Old Church the same berk whose skull makes the Wand of Orcus. I think it was 12-Bar who had the vision, I see now there’s no record of it in past notes. The vision had...

Tri-Flower Frond Beautiful and deadly in equal measure, countless unsuspecting adventurers have fallen victim to the tri-flower frond's captivating yellow blooms, which subdue and slowly digest their prey. Medium plant, unaligned AC 13 HP 25 Speed 0 ft STR 3 (-4) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 1 (-5) WIS 9 (-1) CHA 1 (-5) Damage Immunities: poison Condition Immunities: blinded, deafened, frightened, poisoned Senses: blindsight 10 ft (blind beyond this radius), passive Perception 9 Challenge: 2 (450XP) Bottom-Heavy. The tri-flower frond has advantage on saving throws against being knocked prone. False Appearance. While the tri-flower frond remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an ordinary plant. Multiattack. The tri-flower frond makes three Tendril attacks, if available. Tendril. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5ft, one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 16) and the tri-flower frond can't use the same tendril on another tar...

Xeg-Yi Incredibly rare creatures thought to be sentient balls of pure necrotic energy, residing on the Negative Energy Plane. It is thought that if a Xeg-Yi were ever to see its Positive Energy counterpart, the Xag-Ya, both creatures would be overwhelmingly compelled to collide and annihilate each other. Deeply alien creatures. Some are curious, some are murderous.   Medium aberration, unaligned AC 18 HP 66 Speed Fly 20ft Saving Throw Proficiencies: All (+3 prof. bonus) STR 3 (-4) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 16 (+3) Damage Immunities: Acid, cold, lightning, necrotic, poison, psychic, thunder; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical weapons Condition Immunities: charmed, frightened, grappled, petrified, prone, restrained, stunned Senses: darkvision 120 ft, passive Perception 11 Languages: Deep Speech Challenge: 2 (450XP) Explosion. If it is reduced to 0 hit points, the Xeg-Yi explodes. Creatures within 10ft of the Xeg-Yi must make a DEX sav...

This was an in-person megasession spread over 2 days. A dream come true. Planar Rules, Zero Gravity Combat, and Other Basics Spells do maximum damage. Healing spells heal minimum HP. Air, Fire, and Wild Magic spells are diminished, dealing one fewer damage die. Maximum spell level or such spells is 4th. Spells that access the Astral and Outer Planes fail. Matter created here crumbles to nothingness in 1 round. This is basically a space station. Space horror ambient music worked well. Random encounter rules/table for the dungeon.   For zero-gravity combat in the guardrooms, I simplified a 30ft spherical room to 3 circles: lower and upper parts of the sphere, both 20ft in diameter; and a central area 30ft in diameter. 3 simple circular maps, with an X marking the centre line. Squares above/below each other are counted as 5ft apart. It worked well enough for the players. I also appropriated Newton’s Third Law, ruling that shoving things also moved the shover backwards. Could a cr...

The cold black metal of the sphere was the only thing standing between them and the Endless Void. And no known way back, until M’narr divined the portal key. The party passed through the unsettling vacuum of the building’s connecting tunnels, finding a room with huge windows that offered views of the nothingness outside, and some gravity to boot. Trying their best to ignore the scratching noises from the other side of the window, the party continued upwards, past a table covered in weird papers (yoink), arriving at the top floor where a small cloud of vivid blackness eyed them inscrutably. What did it want? What was it doing here? Even with magic, its motives were as alien as its form. M’narr spread some of his newly acquired papers on the ground to show it; the thing lashed a corrosive arm to indicate a particular piece, the paper turning to dust at its touch. Best leave it to an uneasy truce. Back to the lifeless spheres. Progress abruptly halted when a horde of ghouls, hungry for ...

(Note: this is a record of two sessions) Top tip for running the visage battle: plan in advance how you will keep track of the visages’ concentration, as well as their dominate person usage. I didn't do this, and combat slowed to a crawl at some points. You cannot run this encounter optimally for the monsters. The most tactically optimal first action for the visages would be to all cast dominate person on their first turn: statistically, the whole party will likely fail their saves, and the fight’s over. I decided that out of 8 visages, a maximum of 2 would cast dominate in a given round. I justified it on the basis that 1) the visages, being surprised, were unable to coordinate attacks efficiently, and 2) arrogant monsters like these bastards could save their most powerful abilities until they’re really in trouble. Split the visages into groups, with their own initiative counts. Instead of giant eagles saving endangered PCs, if your players successfully saved Glittereye ba...

The battle began in earnest. The visages were startled and confused, but very quickly managed to set illusions in the minds of their foes: the Salience’s eagle statues animated and attacked the planewalkers; illusory fire filled their throats and eyes; and armies of monsters assailed the heroes. Ragados fought to maintain his superhuman speed, while 12-Bar fought for his life. M’narr tried to draw away attackers, but ultimately was forced to battle his way back to his friends. After a lot of hacking and attempting to push the visages into the wall of fire, the tide turned when 12-Bar turned invisible and M’narr used steel wind strike to inflict heavy damage on the fiends. Chasing down the final visage, our heroes took time to rest and explore the area before returning to Crux. Conversations about the steam mephit filled the journey. Who in Thanatos was behind all this? How might the party get to the Negative Energy Plane, or the Bottom of the Multiverse? Back in Crux, the party arri...

Main tip from this session: If your players are travelling to the action, go ahead and adapt the time of the event so that the characters arrive without too much time to spare. If they arrive at the ambush point a day in advance, the table (DM included) can get caught having fruitless, circular conversations about schemes to fill the dead time. If the PCs have dead time, give your players an RP prompt if you like, then just fast forward. There was a risk of cancellation for this game due to a player being ill, so I didn’t pressure myself to prepare a great amount. The session went a little slowly, and I felt it took a lot of game time to just get to the fight. The players enjoyed planning the ambush, but the narrative of the journey regularly devolved into planning conversations. It might have been pacier if I had skipped through the journey and instead given the players one dedicated block of planning time ahead of the action? But my attention span was inconsistent on the day, and...

After a few final words with Veridis, the party set off towards the Salience. Navigating the shifting gravity of Yggdrasil’s mighty branches was second nature to the trio by now, and the first half of the journey was filled with leisurely discussions over how best to tackle the visages. Having camped the night inside one of Yggdrasil’s hollow branches, the party were awoken by a knocking. Outside stood a gaggle of ratatosk. Squirrel folk. Recognising them as the group that helped Glittereye, the ratatosk offered to escort “Ball Man” and “Fire Boys” to the “evil bird place”. While they were perfectly capable of finding their way themselves, it would be rude to decline help. So the groups banded together. The party arrived with a day to spare: ahead lay the Salience, an ancient crack within the bark of Yggdrasil, long, deep, and narrow. An abandoned meeting point. Surely a day was enough time for a master plan to crystallise? Aided by the ratatosk, they made their way up to an incons...

I was keen to get back to the main campaign. It’s been ages. That said, the first thing I did was ditch the Queen of Sigil/Vlrc diversion. If like me you made the original khaasta chase across the Outlands an epic one, the party is guaranteed to ask everyone around them for a shortcut back to Sigil, and there’s no plausible reason for the entirety of Crux to withhold that knowledge. The entire reason for visiting the Queen then becomes moot. Plus the whole visit thing shines a massive spotlight on an NPC that never appears again. It’s the opposite of Chekhov’s Gun. I don't know about you, but my players create enough fun-but-irrelevant narrative cul-de-sacs without me adding any to the mix. If I had time to find ways to reuse her, or if my party had gone a long time without any roleplaying, I might reconsider. For the portal key from Ranais to Sigil, “The memory of a dead loved one” seemed a better roleplaying opportunity than plain white leather, encouraging players to delve i...