Could I get d10 odd supernatural bans or limitations?
You know the power of your patron will only infuse you so long as you never cut your hair. It has been left to grow since you made your pact.
It hurts to use the fire magic. You knew it would. But you didn’t expect the near-constant pain, the tenderness of your palms, the blisters raised on your neck, the redness that no amount of lotion can soothe. You have only to stop and the pain will end. You know this.
You haven’t spoken in nearly ten years. It is a small price to pay in return for the magic that keeps you alive. Your heart beats only by the grace of the ethereal being who granted you more years in exchange for your ability to understand language.
Do not buy a new pair of shoes, the crone warns. Lest my gift be revoked. You’re not sure why this particular request is important, but you don’t want to lose the strength she has granted you. You spend the next years of your life repairing your shoes with whatever scraps of leather you can find.
Your talents for healing are unsurpassed by any who ever lived or will live, but the cost is high, for every wound which you heal appears on your own body, though it will not kill you.
The fey who inhabit your homeland play funny games. Your mother warned you away from them. You should be safe from their machinations so long as you wear a red ribbon in your hair, even when you sleep and bathe.
When you stole the tome, you never expected its magic would be guarded by more than walls, traps, and locks. But it is in your hands now, and you will pay any price to have its secrets. You promise to eat naught but green things for fear of losing the precious gift you now hold. You grow thin over the years, but your wisdom is unparalleled.
The price for magic is your love of painting and weaving. You cannot touch the tools of the arts that brought you such joy over the years, but it cannot be helped. You have a family to protect.
The blindfold is key to your musical prowess. You can only lay eyes upon that which is touched by moonlight, as per the terms of your magic.
One stone from the desert placed at the foot of the temple in the mountains allows you to cast one spell that claims a life. You make the journey when necessity demands.
If you're up for a challenge, I'd love a d10 list for a desert academic city.
guest written by @flying-like-a-ninja
Water is banned in most buildings, despite the dry heat; spilling liquid on scrolls or books is an offense punishable by death, depending on the subject matter.
Citizens are required to know at least two languages, though three is preferred.
The greenhouses are guarded at all times, and only those with clearance are allowed in. The plants are either necessary for survival, or extremely rare and potentially dangerous.
Their system for tracking and anticipating dust storms or monsoons is impeccable, and it is never wrong.
There is very nearly a shortage of bakers and innkeepers.
It’s called a city, yes, but it’s much quieter than any city you’ve ever been to.
Like many desert creatures, they’ve built tunnels underground for storing the most delicate scrolls and tomes. They’ve also formed a symbiotic relationship with the few insects that can survive down there.
Old proverb: A library without dust is a suspicious place.
All current research funds are being funneled into the development of bioluminescent light sources to phase out fire hazards, and to keep labs and libraries lit all night.
Many travellers pass through, whether academics themselves or not, but most aren’t allowed outside the tourist district. They have much knowledge to protect and aren’t ready to share it with the world yet.
Hi Dapper, This is more of a game mechanics advice question, if you have any thoughts... You’ve suggested a few naval themed, or at least travel themed adventures. How do you run Ship based campaigns (either naval ships or air ships)? I guess, focusing on combat or encounters, rather than just travelling.
I know there are various official and unofficial rule sets, but none of these feel “right” to me. I think because, in all other respects, 5e is so individual-character focused. Most ship rules tend to remove “the character” and focus on the ship or crew as a single mass. Players aren’t rolling for their character anymore, and in some rule sets, the “captain” is singularly rolling for everyone.
I understand ships are big, and historical naval combat involves hundreds of sailors spread over hours, but this runs counter to the general vibe of the game (most rpgs, actually) that focus on a handful of PC heroes as “stars of the show.” As a result, jumping over to these more anonymising rules always feels awkward to me.
How have you navigated this discrepancy, and what things have you found to work (or to avoid)?
Drafting the Adventure: Naval Combat & Encounter Design
SUCH a good question, so thanks for writing in!
I think the discrepancy you've pointed out actually underlies a lot of what's wrong with 5e combat, in that the simple mechanical systems we are given tend to be boring when they're left to their own devices. The thing that the developers really should impress on everyone learning to run 5e gams is that these systems AREN'T supposed to be left on their own, they're supposed to be a simple framework over which you place challenges of batshit bravery/ skill and epic setpieces, which is apparently a thing we need to all learn on our own through trial and error, sacrificing the fun of our sessions in the process.
First, a note on encounter design:
Think of a default "at sea" naval encounter like a fight in a generic 20x20ft dungeon room: yes the party gets to show off their abilities, but once you've gone through one of these sorts of combats, every other "vanilla" encounter is going to seem almost rote, an exercise in tedium. Likewise, if you throw your party's vessel against another vessel in a generic void of sea/sky/aetherspace, you're going to run into the same problem: relying on a less than stellar mechanical system until it breaks under the pressure of trying to maintain the fun at the table all on its own.
It all comes down to encounter design, you as the DM picturing what you think would be a fun/cool/exciting action sequence, and then setting up the narrative stakes, mechanics, and enemies to facilitate that. I'd say that there's a lost art to encounter design, but it's not so much lost as untaught: when the prevailing wisdom is that the party should be having 5-7 encounters PER DAY, then gives us little in the way of rules or ideas about making those encounters spicy, its no wonder we end up churning out a bunch of boring filler content.
Think of it like a movie production team, be it a writer, director, actor, or props department: anyone would struggle making 5-7 unique action scenes, when that energy could all be focused on making one scene 5-7 times as good. Translating that back into DM relevant information, focus on making fewer, more interesting encounters rather than trying to cram in as many as possible, you only have so much time and creative juice to utilize between sessions so make sure it goes where its most needed. These encounters don't need to be biggest, most epic things ever, they just need to be unique and push the story along regardless of whether your party wins or loses.
My thoughts on building those unique encounters and how to really Jazz up ship to ship combat under the cut.
How to choose the right encounters:
The first thing to do is throw out every notion given to you by the DMG about how many encounters an adventure needs to have, and anything regarding rolling for random encounters while traveling. Random encounters are an artifact of grindheavy JRPGs and the earlier editions where fights were simple, deadly, and over in a few dice throws. 5e breaks if played like that, so you shouldn't attempt to do so. Instead, have an encounter whenever it's right for there to be an encounter, when you think you've prepped a good one that fits with the rhythm of the story, something that feels like it will challenge them, and something that will have a bearing on the plot regardless of what the final outcome is.
Next, when plotting your encounters you need to consider the different goals involved in the narrative you’re spinning: what are your party attempting to do and how does this encounter impede them? Sure you can have a generic “pirates/seamonsters attack because we haven’t had a fight in a while” sort of encounter, but those are just as boring narratively as the fight in the 20x20ft room is mechanically. Such generic battle should only be the setup for other, more interesting mechanical scenarios, such as the pirates having a strange artifact in their hold, or the seamonster’s venom poisoning somebody and potentially forcing the party to divert course in favor of seeking aid.
Variety is your friend here so consider implementing chases, stealth runs, standoffs, and navigation challenges to frame your usual combats. These can be spaced out with social encounters to provide exposition and tension, or vignettes of how the crew is managing. I’ve actually been fond of using a “captian’s log” style framing device to breeze over repetitive maritime travel, highlighting scenes and detailing their aftermath without having to repeatedly describe the routine process of working on a ship.
Improving Naval Combat
You’re completely accurate in that most tabletop systems are very bad at portraying naval combat, but mostly because they tend to try to run ship-actions in the same way they’d run a multi-character skirmish. Instead, do away with your traditional initiative system and have both (or all) side stake their turns simultaneously in the following rhythm: Planning, execution, resolution. Which make the early rounds of naval combat work out sorta like a game of rock paper scissors, all chance and intuition
Planning: During the planning phase, have your party talk freely about what they should do, representing your crew feeding information back n forth and adapting to the situation at hand. At the end of the planning phase, they agree (or the captain decides) what to do, which is executed during the next phase. Simultaneously, you as the DM determine what the opposing vessels are going to do during their execution phase, without any foreknowledge of what the party might be about to attempt.
Execution: the ships move, and the actions chosen by their crew trigger. This prevents all the weirdness brought about by trying to run constantly moving vehicles in turn order.
Resolution: Damage is tallied, the results of skillchecks are meted out, and the party gets an ongoing report of what the hell is happening.
I call this system “ the Approach” and it represents the actions of the vessels involved in a more zoomed out time frame and scale that allows for actual positioning, or navigation around reefs, atolls, or inlets, as any good fight should have a proportionally interesting backdrop, if only for variety’s sake.
Once one vessel has closed with another in a step I call “The Engagement”, you can use the d&d naval rules, with characters either acting as their role on the crew or their player character. rolling initiative and carrying out the fight as normal. Here’re a few tricks I’ve learned for making these closing segments interesting:
Keeping things interesting during a naval fight is a matter of juggling the fight between the ships themselves and what’s happening on the party’s vessel. A LOT can go wrong on a ship, and its up to those characters without primary ship roles to deal with things like fires breaking out, holes punched in the hull, vital equipment like cannons malfunctioning, crew being injured and needing to be escorted to the infirmary. Throw at least one of these complications at the party each time they have a close engagement, and you’ll give ‘em more than enough to chew on every time they have a fight on the high seas.
Just about every ship battle outside of a seamonster attack or massive military engagement is going to involve a boarding action, which can transition the fight from one of positioning and potshots with cannons to an impromptu siege.
Again, its important to consider motivation: Loot hungry pirates may send a secondary looting force into the ship’s cargo hold while keeping the defenders busy on topdeck, forcing the party to divide their attention. Privateers or slavers may focus on attacks that prevent the enemy ships from escaping, encouraging the party to run around putting out (sometimes literal) fires. When enemies are working in groups, their initial goal may only be to slow the party down while waiting for reinforcements to arrive in a separate boarding ship, overwhelming them with numbers.
Just like with every other encounter, its important to consider what happens to your party when things go badly. Stress that Surrender is an option, but consider that happens to your party and their crew when that happens: are they imprisoned? marooned? left with no cargo and just enough supplies to get to the next port? What are their patron/creditors going to say when they come back with an empty hold and excuses? Perhaps the most dramatic thing you could do is have them shipwrecked, killing off the majority of their crew and leaving them stranded somewhere to figure it all out. This should be saved for the turning point of a campaign, as it kicks them back do zero and may sour them on ever venturing out onto the seas again.
Locals claim to have found treasure within a newly discovered dungeon. However, it is a complex trap intended to harvest souls, magical power, or life energy.
Something has cursed a local villager to live their entire life in a single day. Every morning they wake up a newborn and age a single year every 20 minutes.
A hag has cursed a small town due to a deal made with one of the residents. As time goes on, the residents discover they are unable to cast any sort of healing magics.
A young couple has gained immense fame from their macabre sculptures. They ask the players to be their new models. However, the eccentric couple turns out to be two Medusas in disguise.
A traveling circus has come to town and proceeds to put on a fantastic show. However, they disappear in the morning without a trace, taking several children with them.
A wizard NPC must be raised from the dead to act as a living key to open his tower, but a demon has kidnaped the only cleric powerful enough to do so.
An water elemental has taken residence in the sewers. The crazed creature has waged a personal war on the citizens above for polluting its domain.
Treasure hunters recently unearthed a powerful artifact that allows teleportation in and out of the Layers of Hell. Demons and devils have begun to raid the town in search of the item.
After returning from another kingdom, the nobleman’s wife begins acting strangely. The doppelgänger put in her place was meant to kill the nobleman, but has fallen for him instead.
A massive rift in reality appears in the skies above. Strange entities from alternate planes begin to emerge. It is up to the players to discover the intent of the invading individuals.
A blacksmith has asked the party to retrieve a recently fallen meteor. However, the players find were-beasts and lycanthropes worshipping the fallen star.
A local mage has mysteriously passed away, and all manner of creatures and magic has begun to creep from their tower into the surrounding cities.
When dressing the most important person in your kingdom, it is important that you take the time to choose exactly what they are saying by wearing that particular piece of clothing. When thinking of your monarch, it is best you imagine them as a mannequin in a shop window advertising something. There is a message in their clothing and it's up to you to choose the right one.
Materials and Cut
The monarch will usually have the very best of the best. Their silks will be the softest, their velvets will be the plushest and their lace will be the most intricate. Extra ruffles, drapes and pleats used more material than needed, which screams wealth. Doublets and jackets with slashings showed a range of materials and gowns were often made with overlapping fabrics. Your monarch has to choose whether to go the extremes of Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV or the austerity of Princess Elizabeth during WWII. They can either alienate their poorest subjects by dressing in millions of euros worth of cloth with ruffles or they can dress smartly and elegantly and humanize themselves.
During the post-war years, Christian Dior brought out his first designs (some which look bitchin' today btw) and when he showed his designs to the BRF's women, the future Queen Elizabeth did not take part. For years she only wore English designers for years. She was praised for keeping to austerity and supporting the British fashion designer.
When Queen Victoria ordered her wedding dress, she stipulated that she wanted only English lace used which boosted the economy. Home businesses who made lace made thousands. And also Victoria is credited (though Mary Queen of Scots did it first) with the first white wedding dress, which screamed wealth because it was so white and she would only wear it once.
Louis XIV made all his courtiers dress a certain way using only French materials, which also boosted that trade. He was a fashion icon btw.
Colours
Colours speak louder than words. Many royal houses had an official colour of mourning when a relative or a close family friend died. France had white and the Plantagenets wore dark blue when mourning. By choosing the right colour, you can mirror what your monarch is feeling or what they want to say.
As we said before white could be mourning colour and a very ostentatious colour to wear because it takes so much effort to keep clean. White also speaks of purity, grief and innocence.
Red would be a common colour used for royal coronation cloaks and regalia. Red is the colour of nobility, luck, prosperity, long life, fertility, power, strength, courage and it is a colour of luxury.
Pink is the colour of femininity/masculinity, love, sweetness, innocence. It is a soft colour and doesn't exactly shout wealth.
Orange is a peculiar colour and a favourite of Elizabeth I. It stands for spirituality.
Yellow was the royal colour of mourning for Spain. Yellow could also be worn to hint gold but isn't. It look opulent but isn't exactly.
Green is the colour of spring and rebirth. Henry VIII often cosplayed Robin Hood. It is a relatable colour for all classes.
Blue is the colour of peace, loyalty, reliability, honor, trust. The Order of the Garter have deep blue regalia and embody all these traits.
Purple of course stands for Imperial might and royalty. A monarch would probably avoid constantly wearing purple as it would advertise their royal status. They might save it for special occasions.
Queen Elizabeth II is very conscious of colour as you can see. Her blinding and borderline neon suits are that way for a reason. She makes herself stand out in a crowd so even the subject the farthest from her can recognize her.
Elizabeth I was also very conscious of colour. She was the Virgin queen and often emphasized this by wearing white.
Victoria also knew the power of colour and like her great-great granddaughter chose colours that made her stand out. At a party in Scotland, Victoria had been wearing tartan the entire trip but on the last night, she wore pale pink to stand out.
Symbols
Symbols are often sewn on royal clothing as a blatant way of passing on the message.
Louis XIV or the Sun King, often kept stating his nickname through the use of golden material and sun emblems. Being the Sun King was his persona and for somebody who believed himself to be at the centre of the world, it was an important reminder to those who caught a glimpse of him. The great pad of fur on his robes so excess and wealth. The fleur de lys on his mantle stand for the French royal family.
Elizabeth I's famous Rainbow Portrait offers the best symbols. The snake on her sleeve symbolizes how wise and cunning she is. The rainbow in her hand stands for peace and prosperity. The suns stand for monarchy.
The portrait of Henry VIII here is a trove of symbols. The padded shoulders for power, the slippers to show his wealth and of course the bulging codpiece stands for the fertility that Henry thought he had.
Accessories
We all love a bit of bling and no royal is complete without some sparkle. Different accessories stand for different meanings.
Elizabeth I wore ropes and ropes of pearls which underlined her Virgin Queen statues. She also wore her coronation ring to prove that she was "married to England".
Queen Alexandra was given a tiara by the English people on her arrival. The Kokoshnik tiara was made to mirror her sister's the Russian Empress's. It was in order to remind the sister's of their bond but also show that the English Princess of Wales and future Queen was on par with the Russian Empress.
Around the time of the 18th Century, military dress uniforms became the fashion for men and especially younger princes. The military dress uniform is a very open symbol of service to the people. Which is why the male members of the BRF often wear them to state events.
What kind of DM are you? I feel like I'm in between these. I tend to set up more lore and names for sessions then bothering to set up the actual encounters lol. Been extremely busy, so I owe you guys 2 videos this week! First one will he on Thursday, 2nd on Saturday! Look forward to our creepy creations!
asena ferros, my grave cleric! 💜 she’s weird little tiefling who likes digging graves and making flower ornaments for your funeral… however, she will NOT be dressing in black!
I hope you didn't think we were done, cause here's more vampiric options. So sick your teeth into this new episode of #hombrewheist and let the blood, I mean love wash over you!
https://youtu.be/lJIG8I_xkzc
You're all my princesses bro! We won't have a new episode of #homebrewheist this week! Getting videos ready for a spooky #halloween themed episodes! Hope you're all ready for the bumps in the night, cause this Halloween is the most frightening I've been through, lol.
