I think we need to start documenting the various insane fanatsy torture methods that Brennan comes up with for his D&D campaigns. An elven mage locked in a spherical cage that is always rotating vertically so that she can never regain spell slots and remains in a state of indefinite exhaustion. A druid stuck in falcon wild shape manacled around the neck in a cage with nothing to land on except a spiked floor so that she has to constantly stay aloft or be speared to death. Vlad the Impaler could never.
i started making a little zine for my dm (and the other player who already knows all the backstory stuff) about my dnd character and his relationship with his longtime partner bc we're approaching the point when the dm may have to play said partner and i want to give him a good sense of their dynamic. well. i have spent genuinely 12+ hours on it and at a certain point decided that it would be fun to include two scenes written like early modern plays (the character is heavily inspired by some early modern poets and playwrights), so i'm doing them in iambic pentameter and the appropriate linguistic style. but of course it would be ridiculous to reference gods that are from our world in a scene set in the dm's world, so i'm digging through the lore document to make new oaths and allusions that make sense in-game. and honestly? the project has been so fun and creatively fulfilling. i get to warm up my writing muscles again, i get to flex my graphic design skills, and i get to really engage with my pc and the world the dm built. i cannot recommend highly enough doing this sort of silly thing for your characters.
💎 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺! Pyromancer’s Grimoire Wondrous item, very rare (requires attunement by a wizard) �___ This scorch-marked tome reeks of ash and brimstone. Though warm to the touch, it never burns the hand that opens it. When found, the book contains the following spells, which are wizard spells for you while you are attuned to the book: “fireball”, “fire shield”, “fire storm”, “hellish rebuke”, “scorching ray”, and “wall of fire”. It functions as a spellbook for you, and you can use it as a spellcasting focus for your wizard spells. While attuned to the book, you know the “produce flame” cantrip, which is considered to be a wizard cantrip for you. The grimoire has 7 charges for the following properties. It regains 1d6 + 1 expended charges daily at dawn. If you expend the last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the book crumbles into hot ash and smoke. � 𝘽𝙡𝙖𝙯𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙏𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙢𝙪𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣. While the grimoire is on your person, you can expend 1 charge to change the damage type of a spell you cast to fire. A flammable object hit by a transmuted spell ignites if it isn’t being worn or carried. The spell’s visual and sensory effects are transformed accordingly, taking on the form of embers, flame, or searing heat. � 𝙁𝙡𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝘾𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜. While the book is on your person, you can expend 1 or more of its charges when you cast one of the spells listed above. For each charge you expend, the level of spell slot needed for that casting of the spell is reduced by 1. If you reduce a spell’s slot level to 0 in this way, you can cast the spell from the book even if you don’t have it prepared. � 𝙄𝙜𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙚. When you deal fire damage to a creature, you can expend up to 2 charges to attempt to set the creature ablaze. The creature must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC or catch fire. While burning, the creature takes 1d10 fire damage per charge spent at the start of each of its turns. A creature can extinguish the flames by using its action to smother them. The fire also goes out if it is doused, submerged, or suffocated.
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Don't think too hard about how a chisel can bring down a wall of fire. Magic isn't constrained by your feeble imagination! Why, this chisel contains the concentrated essence of the very concept of wall-breaking!
Camp Follower: Hanna Brightbushel, Survivalist Medic
“Every day life’s going to take something from you: time, important supplies, a hand, a friend, and the job’s all about learning to work around that and still come out functional enough to be of use to someone tomorrow. I used to think there was more to this work than that but…These days I don’t know “
Adventure Hooks:
The party encounters Hanna in the aftermath of a disastrous dragonhunt carried out by the mercenary company she was attending. Employed by the local drawven king to drive the wyrm out of its mountain lair where it could threaten his realm, the mercenaries suffered heavy losses in the tracking and slaying of the beast. With the creature dead and a fortuine in scales and horns to be stripped from its corpse, the party could earn a portion of that wealth by setting up their camp with the mercs and acting as guards against scavengers while the dwarves lick their wounds.
Hanna’s contract with the mercs ended after this most recent job, and she’s glad to get out of the mountains and away from the warriors who’s frostbitten extremities she’d been amputating for the past month or so. nothing breeds a poor work environment faster than preventative surgery after all. If the players are willing to escort her back as far as her hometown ( a bit of a journey, but in the direction they were going anyway) she’d be glad to show them around.
While traveling, the party is given opportunities to stick their noses in where they don’t belong and do some good in the world. Watching this courageous and foolheardy altruism reawakens a spark of hope in Hanna’s soul, and by the time they get her home, she’ll already have decided that she wishes to join them for the rest of their journey.
Setup: A capable physician and tough as nails traveler, Hanna began her life as a wayfairing bonesetter with a spirit of optimistic altruism, setting out to do what she could to make the world a better place with what skills she had. Years of traveling between plague stricken villages, military camps, and frontier settlements have taken a toll on her upbeat attitude and for the past few years she’s been moving in a bit of a trance, never growing close enough to anyone to morn them when they might die.
Getting caught up in the party’s quest will flush this emotional anesthesia from Hanna’s system, little by little opening up to them as friends and comrades, and putting her whole heart into ensuring that they’re patched up and ready to face the challenges ahead.
My take on fantasy RPG dungeons is that if I pick two rooms at random on your map and there is only one path to get from the one to the other you shouldn't be allowed to call that thang a "dungeon".
I love the concepts of sentient magic weapons/ items. And not even necessarily speaking ones but ones that silently hinder/ support their wielders based on if they're acting with or against the personality's wishes. Do you have any ideas for a small setting/ short adventure with sentient magical items as the focus?
Treasure: Hillsplitter, The Guiltbound Blade
As the old chains fall away and you lift the weapon into the air, you feel a great weight settle upon you, a sorrow so old that your arms threaten to buckle under the strain. Why me? it seems to ask, what errand is so great that you would deny me the decay I so rightly deserve? The feeling lasts but a moment, and passes from you with a resignation that feels like an outdrawn sigh.
Setup: Once the renowned weapon of a mighty hero, the greataxe known as Hillsplitter was ripped from its owner's hands in the midst of a fight with a brutal warlord and used to end her life. This violation of bond between weapon and warrior awoke something in Hillsplitter, and marked the beginning of a the warlord's long and bloody rein.
Growing heavier and heavier with each awful deed it was forced to enact, the warlord was only able to continue wielding Hillsplitter through inhuman gifts of strength granted by the warlord's otherworldly benefactors. For years the ax's sorrow and density mounted until it could splinter fortifications like a siege weapon and crush a defending warrior with a single swing, along with the rocks they stood upon.
Years of petty cruelty amassed and eventually a tipping point was reached: when Hillsplitter grew so heavy that it collapsed the warlord's fortress under their feet as it was forced to execute a servant who'd stood up against one of the tyrant's whims. Buried in the rubble filled fissure it made for itself, the weapon was finally able to sleep, Hoping it would never be needed again.
Adventure Hooks:
Sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and in the face of a great danger the party are sent to retrieve Hillsplitter from its long abandoned resting place. Such a task will be no easy challenge, as they must first prove worthy of the fallen hero's legacy by those who know of Hillsplitter's location, then must delve the ruin fighting through the wretched remnants of the warlord's forces.
Only sentient enough to communicate in vague moods, Hillsplitter has a particular talent for dredging up feelings of guilt and regret, often attempting to force a wielder to come clean about their past actions and admit their faults. One who is open about their misdeeds (or somehow doesn't even have them) may use the weapons' ability to compel others to speak the truth about past misdeeds. Great at parties.
despite all it's been through, Hillsplitter is still the weapon of a hero, and feels drawn to do acts of good. The weapon is likely to react with both fear and rage in the presence of would be warlords, and slaying such a figure may be the party's means of easing a little of Hillsplitter's woe.
Wielders of this famed weapon cannot escape its legacy as the instrument of a tyrant, as it will become a recurring event where the party is offered a means of amassing power and control if only they decisively and brutally. This is the spirit of the warlord reaching out to them from beyond, seeking to reclaim what is rightfully his.
Dormant state: Requires attunement, +1 bonus to hit. Roll an extra 1d4 force damage per hit.
Force of impact: wielder may transfer any amount of bonus damage ( such as from strength, rage bonus, or superiority die) to force damage. When using this effect, the wielder's speed is reduced by half until the start of their next turn.
Crushing Guilt: Attacks with hillsplitter do double damage to objects and structures.
Awakened: Hillsplitter's bonus to attack rolls increases to +2, and the extra force damage dealt on a hit increases to a d6
Impact tremor: The attuned creature may cast thunderwave using their hit die as spell slots and their constitution as their spellcasting ability. When Hillsplitter lands a critical hit, thunderwave is cast automatically with the targeted creature's square as the point of origin, affecting the wielder, but requiring no hitdice to be spent.
Exalted: Hillsplitter's bonus to attack rolls increases to +3, and it's extra force damage increases to 1d8
Atonement: Once per day the weilder of Hillsplitter may make a dc 30 athletic check to cast Earthquake. If they succeed on the check, they may target the spell as normal, if they fail, the spell is cast centered on themselves.
