One-Shot Magic Items Are Good

Stray thought: to each treasure horde your players uncover and each boss monster your players defeat, roll up the treasure normally, and then add an additional random scroll. If you party has no arcane spellcaster, make it a potion instead. 

These are cheap ways to give the players a feeling of being in a magical realm, and may function as a silver bullet in their time of need. 

Also remind them that giving gifts to your followers will encourage loyalty. 

Cyfandil Session 5

GAME DATE: March 27 2023
CAMPAIGN DATE: March 27 998 PY

This update talks about Session 5 which happened on Monday, March 27, 2023 at the library. Alyson and I were there early so she bent my ear about what Bob wants to know: the identity of that weird priest she heard about from Hoogan he Peddler.

Bob got all up in the mug of Sgt Shanks over beating on some drunkards. Then Bob went into the Church of Aluvia and spoke with Father Gobault. Gobault sent him to the Church of Aubereon.

The several characters were astonished by the literal poofing in of a new man, a Cleric whose name I forget. That cleric did us a solid by scanning Grimm the pet ogre for evilness, and finding none.

I think the most likely outcome for the townsfolk is to shun the powerful Athena, but we will let the dice tell me and I'll roll with it as it comes up on a NPC-by-NPC basis. 

Grimm's luxurious back hair

There's a lot more lore coming. We learned a lot. 

Then they all

•        went into the dungeon,
•        fought a slime,
•        lit some stuff on fire,
•        learned that Grimm sneaks out of the dungeon at night and eats children,
•        got hit by a spell of weakness so-called, and
•        found a golden key.

Next week they say they want to explore the cave section, but also check the room where they torched the slime.

Some other things they want:

•        Orc Hand wants to learn about orcs
•        Athena wants to learn about her magic mirror
•        Bob wants to learn about the pirates and this mysterious priest and wants a lot of other     things
•       Nathan wants to buy rations and a house (he should have played a hobbit)
•       This new guy wants to fit in and be good.

PROPS: Don for managing Emmy and keeping track of all the lore

PROPS: Don again for the amazing map

SLOPS: Scott for leaving his dice at home, that dingus

ADDITIONAL PROPS: The library for letting us act like goofballs

Hollow Weapons and Bloodhunter Weapons

A hollow dagger.

Hollow Weapons

Hollow weapons are special weapons which ignore magical wards and banes. Missile weapons impart the hollow quality to their ammunition. There are three known keyworded types.

·  Lifehollow weapons ignore magic spells as well as inborn properties which require a weapon to be magic in order to damage the target.

·  Banehollow weapons ignore magical plusses from armor and similar artificial defenses.

·  Truehollow weapons ignore both types of protection.

Hollow weapons are partially translucent, appearing as if made from smoked glass instead of their normal material. No hollow weapon may have any magic spell cast on it, nor can it have a magical plus to hit or damage. If a character wields such a weapon it is impossible to hide in the dark because it emits a dim pink and blue nimbus at all times, clearly visible in the dark.

Chorizite

Hollow weapons take advantage of the antimagic properties of the mineral Chorizite. Chorizite ore is quite valuable, trading at 100:1 with gold by weight (1,000 GP per pound.)

An alchemist, hedge wizard, magic-user or elf can imbue a potion with the pink, chalky ore and then a blacksmith or weaponsmith can imbue a weapon with hollow qualities. One weapon can be so imbued with 10cn worth of Chorizite valued at 1,000 GP plus 50 GP for the alchemist’s labor and expertise. Each time a weapon is imbued it will gain one property, based on the kind of Chorizite potion the alchemist makes.

Each Chorizite potion takes one day and 50 GP in materials; a finished potion sells for 1,100 GP.

A blacksmith takes one day to imbue a weapon with the potion at a cost of 100 GP.

The entire process takes locating some Chorizite, two days, and 1,200.

Other uses for Chorizite

Chorizite potions can be used to attempt to strip the magic from a magic item. This takes one hour and can be performed by anyone.

Chorizite can be applied to other permanent items such as shields, armor, equipment, etc.; this makes the items immune from enchantments of any kind, including magical enhancement.

Can chorizite be applied to a container or even a room? Perhaps...

 

A vial of bloodhunter oil.

Bloodhunting Weapons

Bloodhunting weapons are infused with Bloodhunter Oil. When a Bloodhunter weapon hits and damage is rolled, reroll all die rolls of 1 or less.

Making Bloodhunter Oil

This special infusion is made from the bodies of magical predators such as Bulettes or Hell Hounds, or the bodies of demons, and is therefore both rare and expensive. An alchemist, Hedge Wizard, Elf or Magic-User can make up to six doses at a time, which takes a week. One application of Bloodhunter Oil costs 2,000 GP. An alchemist can make it from seven pounds of appropriate flesh. This oil can be applied by a blacksmith or weaponsmith. A bow so enchanted confers this property to its arrows but a sling cannot be so enchanted.

Creatures without blood or some analog are not affected by this quality. Thing such as golems, zombies and gargoyles, for instance, are immune.

Bloodhunter Oil can be applied to hollow weapons and vice-versa.

 

 

Constructing the Big Book of Stuff

The last campaign I ran ended in early 2020 because half my table were pandemic enthusiasts. I had assembled an amazing binder of stuff to use to run a game - any game that goes in any direction - completely on the fly. No thinking, no flipping through six million books. 

Then I lost that binder. 

So I’m putting together a team. Or in this case, a new binder. It looks like this right now but of course it’ll change as I get gooder at this. 

10 Dividers

1. Handouts: Bullpens, character sheets, roll up guides, spell sheets, calendars, time trackers, graph paper, unusual storeboughts sheet
2. Seasonal events and calendar - wars, omens, winter upkeep
3. Town adventures, NPCs, henchmen for hire, procedures for hiring them, rumors and hooks sheets 
4. Dungeon: the current thing (remove from binder for play?)
5. Monsters: monster manual, dungeon wandering monsters
6. Treasure including unique materials 
7. Wilderness and overland, with procedures, weather, wonders and wanderers by biome, and a supply countdown sheet. Also disease rules. 
8. One-page dungeons and modules not being played. 
9. Full spell list; spell handout sheet 
10. One-off handouts such as paladin rules, spell research procedures, and unique swords 

HENCH FOR NO MAN!

When your PC is unable to join in the adventure, send his henchmen instead. Make one the captain of the troupe and play that one as if he was a PC proper. 

Allow him to earn XP at the PC rate rather than at the henchman’s customary half-rate. The other henchmen gain XP as normal ,and each of them gain treasure at the henchman rate, captain included. 

This option should not be available for any hirelings your character may employ, no matter how skilled.