SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

It’s a hard battle with inner demons, but I’ve nearly avoided being distracted from planning session 7. The current minor detour has been about how they handle planeswalking in D&D. Something that players and DMs will want to do once the new MtG/D&D Theros source book comes out. Between that, Ravnica and the Plane Shift pdf’s there are plenty of MtG planes to explore. But more about this in another post.

Yesterday I did share on Twitter what I thought was a handy tip for DMs that I stumbled upon (yes I’ve not got round to fully reading it yet) while looking at the Infernal Contracts section of the Descent into Avernus campaign book.

Why am I mentioning this here?

A copy of that page from the book will be going into my DM folder for D&D and will be used within the current campaign. The monster table that is rolled against for monsters round Baldur’s Gate is something easily updated to match the ecology round the town in your own campaign.

Although the original plan, or thought anyway was that the Infernal Contract for the player I mentioned in the previous prep post was not something that would or could be done soon.

After watching this D&D Beyond video and reading this encounter from the D&D Beyond encounter series they did leading into the Avernus campaign. I think I should have something prepared in case the appropriate opportunity presents itself.

The suggestion by Chris Perkins in the video of a devil appearing after two failed death saving throws making an offer to save the players life is a pretty cool idea. But the idea of an imp following the party around constantly trying to tempt the party and in-particular the character I had the idea for originally seems pretty fun too.

The encounter also has a pretty cool contracts table that can be customised to my needs for the campaign as well.

So you can see having this stuff prepared and readily to hand for the session and subsequent ones is pretty important now.

I do love how organic this homebrew campaign is. Being able to react to player decisions is pretty cool. It allows me to do stuff like the above.

Off to prep more.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

With just over a week to go before session 7 is a thing I need to be more focussed in my prep and not get distracted by the other stuff I’ve been writing about.

To be honest I have been feeling that a couple of the group haven’t had the spotlight shone on their characters yet during our sessions.

So last night I started to rectify that by messaging them and asking them about their characters and how we can spotlight them.

From our conversations I got extra background information on both characters that did indeed spark ideas and how to spotlight them within the campaign.

One of those ideas I can use straight away in this next session.

Previously I had seeded stuff to the player that has just left the group. That character the party will be finding out this session has been kidnapped and taken to the Whale Bone Islands by the Red Robes of Thay. Originally this was going to be a kidnapping tied in with the kidnapped characters backstory. However none of the rest of the group know about the stuff I had seeded. So it’s pretty seamless to appropriate this new plot line for my needs to spotlight this other character. It also presents a quandary for the group. The character I’m spotlighting now mustn’t be caught by these Red Robes because they have something the Red Robes want, however they need to rescue their friend. What do they do?

I nearly didn’t have any idea for the other player until their last sentence of the conversation. Their character wants information, wealth, power and to survive. Then it hit me diabolical deals! There are rules for these in the Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus campaign book. This is going to take a bit more planning, but that character is going to be making a deal with the devil in the near future. Or at least have temptation put in their way.

This session is feeling like it will be seeding lots of stuff and advancing ongoing plots. For instance the group will also be hearing that Angrath has been in Mintarn looking for them. It’s going to be interesting to see how the party handle that bit of news. After all Angrath is probably the last person they want to run into.

Now to think more about the dragon liar.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

First thing I needed to do was some house keeping. I updated how many campaign days had passed since the party left that jetty in Saltmarsh. We are currently Day 16.

Then I needed to update the mindmap of rumours/quests. I’ve also started to use some functionality of iThoughts app to mark which bits have been completed or finished with, and which ones are partially done.

I don’t think that the party will enter the liars of Hoondarrh. But I need to have something prepared. Just in case. I see the delivery of the tribute as a social encounter. There will be a surprise for the party when they discover the Tyrant sent a second boat to keep an eye on them. They will also get more information on the kidnapping of Valdor. But if there is one lesson you learn early on as a noob DM is to expect the unexpected.

The information I have on Skadaurak is limited, and I was reminded the other day there is a paragraph in the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide source book.

“SKADAURAK

The Red Rage of Mintarn dwells in this mountain that rises from the sea north of Mintarn. I’ve never heard of any treasure hunters making it out alive, but those who give tribute to Hoondarrh say they sail into a sea cave and leave it on a sandy beach within. More caves are said to lead out from that bay, one even going straight up into the ceiling. Sometimes the tribute carriers can hear Hoondarrh’s breathing from one of the caves: great inhalations, exhalations, and deep rumbles of slumber. When they can’t hear such noises,you might think folk of Mintarn would be inclined to explore Skadaurak, but as it was explained to me, the lack of the dragon snoring might mean he is away hunting somewhere, but it could just as easily mean he is present, watching, and holding his breath.” Sword Coast Adventurers Guide

And the here is the bit from an old Dragon magazine (previously posted on here for those that think it looks familiar).

“… a vast complex of subterranean rooms — in fact, a recently-built “dungeon.” It has no less than three shafts where a large red dragon can fly in and out with wings spread; one of them turns back to angle almost straight up into a mountain peak, and there ends in the main treasure cavern.

The rest of the island is honeycombed with trap-filled false lairs. Some of these are even home to a few bold brigands, whom Hoondarrh suffers to live because they amuse him with their furtive diggings, and they have learned not to dare any open assault on his main caverns. From time to time he snatches one up and dumps the man in Baldur’s Gate or Waterdeep or Athkatla, to babble tales of the vast and rich lair that sprawls through the very heart of the isle of Skadaurak, and so lure more adventurers hence.

Though Hoondarrh is not known to possess any sentient servants, his lair seems alive with golems and gargoylelike automatons of various sorts — and even with captive monsters that are kept ravenously hungry.” Dragon Magazine

I’m only going to prepare something for the main larger of the two islands that make up Skadaurak. That is the one I think Hoondarrh would have used.

Based on the map for the Sword Coast below is how I imagine the profile of that main island.

Which means from the two descriptions those three entrances are basically caves with one being a sea cave.

As an aside to this what I consider a major bit of prep, I will need to revisit the Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign book and the tables it has for sea travel. Those tables will prove useful on the longer sea based journeys.

One thing I need to remember is how much food that the party have. If they set off without resupplying then they are going to get very hungry. Especially if they fail to catch anything. They will be fine for drinking water because of the magic item they have.

I think I’ve mentioned briefly in a previous post how much I like the Pathfinder Face Cards. I’ve added a second pack to my toolbox to give me more options. I’ve also added a Pathfinder campaign pack. This adds mission cards, a small handful of face cards, and some item cards. Although tied to a specific Pathfinder adventure these are pretty cool, and could easily be used within a campaign/adventure.

You’ll also notice in the photo I also now have a hard copy of The Lazy DM’s Workbook. Something I can browse while having a soak, have to hand while prepping, and have behind the screen during a session.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

This is a brief post with my final little bits of prep for the weekend.

I spent a little time preparing notes on two of the magic items that the group got at the end of the last session as reward for their participation and winning the gladiator spectacle, and taking on the delivery of the tribute. Basically this means I have a single page with the bits from the DMG for robe of useful items (I had to decide what the four extra patches were and their quantity) and the deck of illusions.

I’ve also knocked up some item cards for these magic items as well to hand to the players.

One thing I need to do Saturday when I go and print out my notes and handouts is get a cheap deck of cards. This deck will be given to the player with the deck of illusions. It’s a simple prop that allows the player to randomly draw a card to create the illusion. It’s physical, tactile, and theatre. Something I think in this situation rolling a die just would not be as effective.

I’ve also started planning my session notes. Which are becoming less detailed, and more aids to jot my memory.

This next session will be down one player. I’m not sure they will return. If you have read their comments on here it’s not a surprise. However it does present a great plot twist when it happens. Basically I will have that character kidnapped during the night. It will be revealed to the party that they have been taken by boat to the Whale Bone islands. The reason why is unclear. Hopefully after dropping off the tribute the party will give chase. This will then be the start of the island hopping adventures as they try and locate their companion.

I’m just excited not to see how things unfold now at the weekend.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

It’s now a tad less than a week until session 7 is upon me. So how have I been spending my time since the last planning post been spent on getting ready?

In reality very little has been done for the next session. So far. This week will be a flurry of activity.

I started this morning by creating a new category ‘session planning’ for this post, and then trawling through my previous posts and adding it to all the session planning posts. I also at the same time added the ‘post mortem’ category to the relevant session write ups. It may seem a little thing, but it’s going to allow me to get to my notes a lot easier.

In a way my creative process has been kicking in whilst I have been doing ‘nothing’. As I wait for inspiration, I expose myself to new ideas. Sometimes watching or reading some of the campaign inspirations I’ve talked about previously.

During this period of contemplation I have made one or two decisions.

The first is that the sahuagin will attack the party whilst they are transporting the tribute. It fits nicely in with the story so far. The Sahuagin have already tried to steal part of it whilst the party were escorting the contribution from the town of Queens Cove. It makes sense they would make another attempt to get their hands on it.

The sahuagin this time will consist of ‘regular’ sahuagin, sahuagin baron and possibly a sahuagin priestess. Apart from the Sahuagin having their manta ship they will also be accompanied by sharks.

As an encounter this will most likely be border line hard/deadly, leaning towards deadly. The important thing is this will need to be sign posted to the party somehow.

Using the following table from the Lazy DM workbook I can get away with a priestess and baron plus a handful of regular sahuagin.

My gut feeling is for a party of 5 regular sahuagin boarding the parties boat. With a couple of sharks in the water between the boat and the manta. Then on the manta itself the baron and priestess plus 3 regular bodies. This will not be a big manta.

In my head this scene plays out a bit like the trench scene from the Aquaman movie. Where Aquaman and Mera fight the trench. I like the idea of having my encounter at night as well.

The other decision I’ve made is to use the connectors for the boat tiles to pre-make the boats before the session. This will speed things up a little, and allow me to make the manta from left over tiles. Which hopefully gives it that salvaged feel.

The final encounter of the session will be a social one. How that pans out depends on the outcome of the sahuagin encounter. When the party get to the island, the brigands will be waiting to take the tribute.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

Technically not a post specifically about the next session.

Yesterday the third series of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was released on Netflix. I’m probably not the main audience that the series is aimed at. But I’m enjoying this reimagining of the character/tv show a lot. I think they have done a good job of producing something that appeals to a wide audience.

However this isn’t meant to be a review of the show.

Whilst watching episode three it struck me that I can borrow a story idea for my campaign.

A long running plot thread for my campaign is this mystical weapon that belonged to The King of the Seas. A weapon that was broken up and it’s pieces scattered to the wind. The players have heard rumours that a piece of this weapon has been discovered.

In this latest series of Sabrina as part of a contest to retain the throne of hell. Sabrina and a demon lord upstart called Caliban are competing to find three “McGuffins”, sorry magical items. The person that finds all three first becomes ruler of hell.

So far one piece was found. A crown that had a guardian who was awoken when the crown was taken.

It was this that got me thinking. I could use this in my campaign. Naturally there will be challenges to overcome and minor guardians involved with the remaining pieces. But once they are all assembled to make the mystical weapon this will awaken the decayed remains of The King of the Seas. Who will come to claim his weapon. Naturally there will be an epic battle over who has this mystical weapon.

So that’s the idea. It’s long term. But these are my notes as well as a short distraction for others.

I’ve also decided how the Tyrant of Mintarn should be played. I think she should be like Lord Vetinari, Lord Patrician of Ankh-Morpork (from the Discworld books). These two quotes from the Wikipedia page sum up how the Tyrant will be played “…include his mastery of diplomacy and manipulation, his distant and menacing air, his everpresent calmness and composure (which, ironically, make other people ill at ease), and his skills as an Assassin; in The Truth, another character relates that “Vetinari moved like a snake”.”

“…general acknowledgement that very little goes on in the city that Vetinari does not know about. Thus, when a visitor stands in audience with the Patrician, they can be assured that Vetinari knows exactly why they’re there, even if the visitor does not.”

I’ll use this last snippet about Vetinari/Tyrant in the next session when the party are escorted to “their” ship and waiting in a neat bundle in the cabin on a bed is all the wizard needs to cast the find familiar spell. This should raise many unnerving questions in the party. For starters the party thought they got away with the stealing of the ship.

There was a doh! moment about the next session. I had forgotten the date that we had agreed to try and make at the end of the previous session. I know, I should have written it down. I remembered we had agreed that the next session would be a Sunday and in February. So my mental faculties were not completely abandoning me.

But I was forced to ask on our Messenger group what date we had agreed. Luckily one or two others had remembered, and replied with the agreed date.

So disaster avoided.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

This post is going to be my to do list for the next session and some thinking aloud.

The magic items that were given to the party as payment in advance for escorting the tribute I took from the YouTube video Five Low-Level Magic Items for Creative Players by the Dungeon Dudes. To save you clicking a link, the items were Bag of Holding, Robe of Useful Items, Immovable Rod, Deck of Illusions, Decanter of Endless Water.

Which means before the next session I need to create item cards for those items. But I also need to work out what patches the robe has. And I’m tempted to use a deck of real cards for the deck of illusions.

The rod and decanter will be very useful for the party on their sea bound travels. But I’m looking forward to seeing how the party will use these items.

A big decision I need to make for the next session is what happens and how I handle the travelling at sea.

I’ve discussed in a previous post a while back the options for handling wilderness travel. Which this basically is. I think my deciding factor should be the duration/distance of the journey.

What makes this one a tough decision is that I’m looking at about a day and a half of travel each way. Which is borderline. At the moment I’m tempted to describe the journey. But it’s also a great opportunity to try out a version of the method described in the Tomb of Annihilation campaign book.

I’m so tempted to have sahuagin attack the party again. But this time they will be attacking with sharks, and one thing I picked up from the Rising Tide book was that they used a craft called a manta made up from the wrecks of other ships.

This is how it is described in the book when one is encountered:

‘The oblong barge used by the sahuagin to travel above or below water was much smaller than most of its kind that the young sailor had heard described… the manta had been cobbled together from ships wrecked at sea or scavenged from shorelines. The boards were stained green with undersea scud from being submerged for so long, but fitted neatly into a wedge shape that made it very maneuverable. It rode low in the water, but the finned shapes of the sahuagin could be seen hunkered down on the benches. They paddled furiously, moving in response to a measured cadence, totally focused on their prey.

Jherek had heard stories about mantas that crewed as many as six hundred sahuagin, but firsthand stories were few and far between. Most men who saw them perished in the sea devils’ attack. From his initial estimate, he guessed that there were forty or fifty sahuagin aboard, easily twice the number of crew aboard Butterfly.” Extract from Rising Tide by Mel Odom, Wizards of the Coast (18 Mar. 2013).

Story wise I could have the sahuagin attack while the party has the tribute. This would mean the party would potentially have to deal with the repercussions of losing the tribute.

If they manage to get the tribute to Hoondarrh’s lair on the isle of Skadaurak. There is some good info from WotC in an old Dragon magazine article (here) that covers Hoondarrh’s lair. In that article it describes this island lair as…

“… a vast complex of subterranean rooms — in fact, a recently-built “dungeon.” It has no less than three shafts where a large red dragon can fly in and out with wings spread; one of them turns back to angle almost straight up into a mountain peak, and there ends in the main treasure cavern.

The rest of the island is honeycombed with trap-filled false lairs. Some of these are even home to a few bold brigands, whom Hoondarrh suffers to live because they amuse him with their furtive diggings, and they have learned not to dare any open assault on his main caverns. From time to time he snatches one up and dumps the man in Baldur’s Gate or Waterdeep or Athkatla, to babble tales of the vast and rich lair that sprawls through the very heart of the isle of Skadaurak, and so lure more adventurers hence.

Though Hoondarrh is not known to possess any sentient servants, his lair seems alive with golems and gargoylelike automatons of various sorts — and even with captive monsters that are kept ravenously hungry.”

So far I’ve not found any maps online for Hoondarrh’s lair. Which means I’m going to have to come up with something map wise myself based on the above description. That’s assuming the party don’t just drop off the tribute at the most convenient spot and make their way back to Mintarn.

So that’s my things to do and thoughts for the next session so far.

The Chinese I believe have an old saying “may you live in interesting times.” And after last nights election results we can definitely say even after all the doubt and uncertainty, even chaos of the last year or so, things are set to get very very interesting indeed.

However you haven’t come here to read me bitching about politics. You are here to read about board games and role playing. Which technically I could argue are affected by the decision made by the British public. But that will be for a future post when we will have the impact of those decisions come to fruition.

However let’s get back on track and talk D&D and my prep for the next session. But first I have to cut and paste this warning in for my players.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

In my online searching for how to run a gladiatorial arena I came across some advice given on a reddit thread I think it was to look at an Adventure League adventure called Shackles of Blood (DDEX3-2). In this adventure it sees the party taking part in such a situation of gladiatorial combat Hillsfar Arena, recreating a famous battle.

The encounter itself takes part in a flooded arena against halflings.

I like the idea. I can tailor the opposition, and reskin this easily for my campaign.

Because this is an Adventure League adventure there is plenty of advice about running it. There is a colour battle map by one source. Some even made 3D versions of the map, along side giving some great advice.

Naturally access to a 3D printer allows you to do something a bit more impressive like the following:

(source here)

I’ve got to work out how I’m going to present this to the players. I love the 3D but realistically without a 3D printer, not achievable. So something like the first photo might be though. Although I do have foam core I could use.

Who knew being a DM meant being a craft type? It sure does utilise a lot of skills that you initially wouldn’t think of.

As usual I need to start this type of post with the usual default copy and paste warning to the players in my play group.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

This next session is going to be a “difficult” one to prepare for.

The reason being that no adventure hook was actually picked up at the end of the session. It’s a decision the whole group needs to make, and we were one adventurer down last session due to illness. So it was left with the party back at the tavern waiting for their companion to get better.

Now that leaves me a window to actually offer and try doing something with the party suggested by Matt Colville (yep hardly into the post and he gets mentioned) about downtime. I think I can make this work. Particularly for a couple of the party. I could for instance talk to the absent player and have him do a side quest by himself that happened whilst the others were off doing stuff on the main campaign. They faked being ill and went off and did X. Or the rogue of the group I think could go off and explore the city during the night whilst the others are sleeping. So I’ve messaged them to see if they are interested.

In the meantime I have an idea that the group may want to take part in the gladiator games in the next session. So I need to research how to run such a thing in D&D, and also make it so it’s not boring. There will be no death in this. If they reach zero hit points then they become unconscious and out of the tournament. Healers will be on hand to help them recover to full health. There will be magic items up for grabs as the prizes.

I also want to seed going back to the guard tower that the party found along the coastal road. I know how that’s going to work. For awhile I was unsure what creature or creatures would be the cause of the guards and workers not being heard from. I had toyed with the idea of goblins, dryads, knolls or even an ankheg. But hadn’t made a decision. Then after watching the Colville video on Action Oriented Monsters for another reason (see below), he covered the ankheg. That was it, I’ll use the ankheg as an action oriented monster for the encounter.

Another seed I’ll prepare is the Traitors’ Graves and the lost black dragon Lashonna lair. This will be the catacombs adventure from The Lazy DM’s Workbook. It’s going to be full of undead naturally. If only I’d been getting undead miniatures! I like the idea of using the undead lair from Jim Murphy with this dungeon. It’d mean changing one of the locations or adding it as a secret room to be discovered. However I’m pretty sure I’d like to use a Lich as the boss for the undead lair, and as the overall main baddy for the dungeon. But a level 22 creature for a level 2 and 3 party! So naturally I’d have to go through the process of adjusting the Lich stats. In the Murphy video there are some suggestions on how to run the Lich boss. But then I remembered the recent Colville video about action oriented monsters, and thought I’d give that a watch as well. That gave me food for thought also. So I think in the next post I’ll look at how I adjusted the Lich to be used with my party of adventurers.

I do now have a wish list of miniatures I’d like to add to my undead army. Such as a minotaur skeleton, or the t-rex skeleton. Plus some oozes like the gelatinous cube to use as well. But getting your hands on them is a real pain in the UK, they seem out of stock everywhere. Or if they are the third party has hiked the price up in that age old tradition of supply and demand and exploiting a situation by trying to scalp the unsuspecting or desperate. Which thankfully I am neither.