#underground campaign

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Drow and Drider Adventure Kickstarter Went Live

The Kickstarter for "After the Fall", the sequel to "Rise of the Drow", went live today. It's a 5e evil campaign where you play drow or drider. For those who've followed me for my Throne of Night and Way of the Wicked entries, this might just be up your alley.

I was very lucky to get to be part of this project, and am proud of the work that I put into this. When it comes out, I'll be looking forward to finally seeing all the other chapters that other people worked on and seeing this campaign as a whole.

Depending on demand and stretch goals achieved, AAW Games is looking to convert this to Pathfinder 2e as well.

Rise of the Drow: After the Fall 🕷️ 5E Adventure & Setting

The drow city has fallen to the Coalition. Once rulers, now prisoners in chains. You are drow — rise again!

[ghlagatindotcom]

Mahama starts underground campaign at Legon, engages students in heated 'jama' at CommonWealth Hall

Former President John Mahama has begun his subtle campaign for the presidency, making a surprise visit to the University of Ghana’s Commonwealth Hall to connect with students. The enthusiastic reception he received suggests a strong grassroots support for his potential candidacy. As Mahama arrived at the hostel, students gathered around him, hailing him with chants and applause. The atmosphere…

Mahama starts underground campaign at Legon, engages students in heated 'jama' at CommonWealth Hall

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Monster Conversion - The Scorrow (3.5 to PF)

Back during the days of old 3.5 D&D, there were variants on the scorpionfolk monster. One of the more well known types were the scorrow. They were the male scorpion version of the drider female spider. Both were the embodiment of their own specific deity and were not fun to take on in a fight.

When Throne of Night was first teased for release, the scorrow and drider were two creatures on the drow side that I really wanted to see the PCs take up arms against, whether they themselves were drow or dwarf.

Much like the displacer beast and mindflayer, the scorrow is a trademarked and licensed creature that cannot be used by any parties outside of Wizards. So instead, this is a girtablilu from Pathfinder 1e (Bestiary 3), merged with the Simple Class ranger template and drowblood template. That said, for those wondering why certain feats were given or why the CR is what it is, I tried to keep it relatively close to the original build, minus the long knife weapon, and monster creation rules are very specific as to what is expected for a creature to have for hit points, average damage, attack bonuses, AC, special attack DC’s, and saves. I could have very easily increased the damage and hit ratio, but then it wouldn’t match the CR. That said, despite adding +1 CR and +2 CR template to a CR 8, it was not going to reach CR 11 without a fair bit of help so I adjusted it as needed.

Here’s my take on what a “scorrow” in Throne of Night could have looked like, without actually getting on the bad side of Wizards.

Note that the image shows pincers. For the scorrow, this is a rare form for them to take, and the scorpionfolk don’t appear to have this variant available, so I went with the basic for my write up.

SCORROW    CR 10 XP 9,600 Variant drowblood girtablilu ranger N Large monstrous humanoid (elf) Init +7; Senses darkvision 80 ft., tremorsense 30 ft.; Perception +16 DEFENSE AC 24, touch 13, flat-footed 20 (+2 armor, +3 Dex, +1 dodge, +9 natural, –1 size) hp 136 (13d10+65) Fort +9, Ref +13, Will +10; +1 vs. spells and spell-like abilities Defensive Abilities evasion; Immune sleep; SR 22 OFFENSE Speed 50 ft. Melee mwk short sword +18/+13/+8 (1d6+7/19–20), mwk short sword +18/+13 (1d6+3/19–20), 2 claws +17 (1d6+3 plus grab), sting +18 (1d6+3 plus poison) Ranged chakram +14 (1d6+7) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. Special Attacks constrict (1d6+7), favored enemy (choose one: animals, giants, or magical beasts +6) Spell-Like Abilities (CL 13th; concentration +13) 1/day—dancing lights, darkness, faerie fire, summon nature's ally VI (1d4+1 giant scorpions) STATISTICS Str 24, Dex 17, Con 20, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 11 Base Atk +13; CMB +21 (+25 grapple); CMD 35 (46 vs. trip) Feats Dodge, Improved Initiative, Improved Two-Weapon FightingB, Lightning Reflexes, Mobility, Multiattack, Quick DrawB, Two-Weapon FightingB, Vital Strike, Weapon Focus (sting) Skills Acrobatics +16, Climb +18, Intimidate +16, Knowledge (history) +6, Perception +16, Sense Motive +9, Stealth +13, Survival +15; Racial Modifiers +4 Climb, +4 Perception, +4 Stealth Languages Common, Girtablilu, Undercommon SQ drow blood, scorpion empathy +13, track +13, undersized weapons Gear 2 mwk short swords, 3 chakrams SPECIAL ABILITIES Drow Blood (Ex) Drowblood creatures are considered to be members of the base creature's race and the drow and elf races for the purpose of racially specific special abilities and effects. Poison (Ex) Sting—injury; save Fort DC 21; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d4 Dex; cure 2 consecutive saves. Scorpion Empathy (Ex) This ability functions as a druid's wild empathy ability, save that it works only on scorpions. A girtablilu gains a racial bonus on this check equal to its Hit Dice. Scorpions are normally mindless, but this empathic communication imparts upon them a modicum of implanted intelligence, allowing girtablilus to train scorpions and use them as guardians (though it does not grant them skills or feats).

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The Drow-blooded Arach

Every now and again I see a monster and think “That’d be a cool additional to an underground campaign.” Today, that monster is the arach. It’s a six-armed monstrous humanoid that’s said to be the divine blessing by the spider god(dess) of a monstrous spider and a humanoid. So of course I had it be drow-blooded.

The original monster (link provided as always) comes from the Tome of Horrors Complete, and can be found on the d20pfsrd, including its sorcerer form. While the monster itself is pretty cool, it doesn’t conform to the later rules of the Bestiary monster creation provided by Paizo. As such, I adjusted it slightly to conform the new CR and boost it so that it has the proper numbers. Also, any form of two-weapon fight should drop the attack with weapons by 2, not leave it as-is, unless you’re a marilith demon (has a special ability to negate the penalties). Again, adjusted. Increased the Con by +1 (three stats must be odd), added an additional +1 Con at 12 HD, gave it the appropriate amount of HD for its new CR, off-hand weapon attacks now do half damage instead of full (need a special ability or Double Slice feat to do that), added +1 natural armor for increased CR and HD, gave it Terran as an extra language for its increased Int, added the fact that it has a +8 racial bonus to Climb due to its climb speed, and made sure the short swords each had their ″19–20″ threat range. How do you miss that? The SR might seem higher than usual (11 + CR), but that’s due to the template it uses from the Advanced Bestiary (ie. HD + 9). I know some people will look at the HD bonus feat I gave it, and wonder why I didn’t give it Double Slice, or Improved Natural Attack (slams). For the most part, it’s because it’s either unnecessary or unbalances the encounter as per the creation rules. CR 8 creatures should have +15 or +11 to attack and deal either 35 or 25 damage on average. This monster does that. That said, I personally think that it should have a couple of bonus racial feats, but that’s neither here nor there at this point.

If you decide to add the sorcerer version into the campaign and also give it drowblood (Advanced Bestiary), I would definitely suggest uses the changes I have here and go from there.

ARACH DROW  (CR 8; 3,200 XP) Variant advanced drowblood arach NE Medium monstrous humanoid (elf) Init +8; Senses darkvision 80 ft.; Perception +18 DEFENSE AC 21, touch 14, flat-footed 17 (+4 Dex, +7 natural) hp 102 (12d10+36) Fort +7; Ref +12; Will +11; +1 vs. spells and spell-like abilities Defensive Abilities spider passivism; Immune sleep; SR 21 OFFENSE Speed 30 ft., climb 10 ft. Melee bite +16 (1d6+2 plus poison), 6 slams +14 (1d4+1), or      short sword +14/+9/+4 (1d6+2/19–20) and 5 short swords +14 (1d6+1/19–20), bite +14 (1d6+1 plus poison) Special Attacks multispell Spell-like Abilities (CL 12th; concentration +13)   2/day—summon (level 4, 9 HD of monstrous spiders, 100%)   1/day—dancing lights, darkness, faerie fire TACTICS During Combat All arachs summon spiders in the first round of combat if possible to absorb larger numbers of enemies or quickly overwhelm smaller numbers of foes. STATISTICS Str 15, Dex 19, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 12 Base Atk +12; CMB +14; CMD 28 Feats Blind-Fight, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Multiattack, Multiweapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse Skills Climb +20, Craft (weaving) +7, Intimidate +11, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +12, Perception +21, Stealth +22, Survival +9; Racial Modifiers +8 Climb, +4 Perception, +4 Stealth Languages Common, Terran, Undercommon SQ drow blood SPECIAL ABILITIES Drow Blood (Ex) Drowblood creatures are considered to be members of the base creature's race and the drow and elf races for the purpose of racially specific special abilities and effects. Multispell (Ex) An arach spellcaster (one that has taken levels in a spellcasting class) can cast multiple spells in a given round. If each spell is 3rd-level or less, an arach can cast up to three spells per round; 4th- or 5th-level spells, two per round. An arach cannot multispell spells higher than 5th-level. Poison (Ex) Arach Venom: Bite—injury; save Fortitude DC 19; frequency 1/round for 4 rounds; effect 1d4 Str; cure 1 save. An arach can also coat a single weapon it wields with this poison as a move action. The save DC is Constitution-based. Spider Passivism (Ex) No spiders, monstrous spiders, phase spiders, temporal crawlers, sand stalkers, arachnid were-creatures (such as were-spiders) or other spider-like creatures with an Intelligence of 8 or less willingly attack an arach. They can be forced to do so through magical means however. If the arach or one of its allies attacks the creature first, this passivism is negated for that creature for 24 hours.