Here at the guildhall we keep the books of who has done what, for who, and where it happened. You'll also find advice on how to stay alive, who to bring with you, and what to expect while you're on the job. There is a cork board in the back of the hall with a collection of pictures, stories, wanted posters, and job ads. You should check it out. Proud member of We are Adventurers collective.
This slingshot requires two hands to attack and is adorned with coin-like designs. You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. In addition, when you make a ranged attack with this weapon and use a coin as its ammunition, it deals extra damage on a hit based on the value of the coin you use:
Coin | Damage Bonus
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1cp | +1
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1sp | +1d4
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1ep | +1d6
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1gp | +1d8
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1pp | +1d12
Recovering coins fired in this way follows the normal rules for recovering ammunition. Depending on the nature of the battlefield, you may recover more or fewer coins than normal as determined by the GM.
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There is a world beyond our own, a world of souls. They say those who have passed on are never truly gone, and for no one is that more true than the spiritualist. Wielding the magic of the soul itself, these mysterious mystics pursue the innermost mysteries of life and death. Surely their knowledge and power would be a boon to any who accompany them.
If you are American, PLEASE SUPPORT THE SSI RESTORATION ACT OF 2021
This new bill has been introduced in both the house and the Senate.
Among other things, it will:
Raise the monthly disability income by just over 30 percent - bringing it to poverty level.
Remove penalties for recieving financial help from friends and family.
Increase the amount of assets a disabled person may have from $2,000 to $10,000 (this hasn't been updated since 1989)
Update outside income restrictions to allow disabled people to receive up to $399 a month without reducing their benefits.
REWARD, not penalize, people who want to receive additional income while on social security income.
REMOVE THE MARRIAGE BAN YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT THIS WILL REMOVE THE MARRIAGE BAN
For those unaware current regulations do a lot to oppress disabled people. In fact marriage equality doesn't even extend to disbled people who risk having their benefits reduced or outright taken away if they marry someone. This means that in common law states disabled people can't even live with their significant other or they risk losing their financial independence.
Current regulations mean that if you're disbled you can't have so much as one penny over $2,000 to your name. So buying a car and gaining more independence or freedom is largely out of the question for disabled people.
Current regulations penalize social security recipients who receive income from outside sources, even if those sources are reimbursement. Did you get paid to babysit for a few hours? That's income, and you get your benefits reduced. Did you loan a friend $10 and they pay you back? The government considers that $10 income, and you get your benefits reduced.
These aren't mere anecdotes - these are all examples of actual things that have happened to disbled people I know, and if you have any disabled friends in your life I'm sure they can tell you the same stories.
If you value marriage equality, if you value financial independence, if you value the rights of disbled people, please PLEASE support this bill! Contact your reps, vote, and make noise! This is a great thing!
Item: brass-handled Multi-Focus Wand with rotating wheel of effects; each use costs a spellcaster one of their daily spell slots. A skilled artificer or spellcaster could charge different effects into the crystals, but the standard is:
Because you needed this. These are only groups of deities; if a deity has multiple religions in the same setting, I only evaluate it once.
Greyhawk Pantheons:
Core 3.5: Short, sweet, relatable in a vaguely Olympian way. Bonus points for bucking the trend and having an Apollo (Corellon) and an Artemis (Ehlonna). Missing a mythos and several roles, done in favor of having deities for each class by alignment and each race. Mildly Lawful. Sausage fest. C+
Extended Greyhawk (Complete Divine, 5e): Look, some of these (Beory, Tharizdun) are good additions, but this is getting unwieldy now. Note the absence of a Zeus/Hera (rulership) or Aphrodite (love). D
Baklunish: Attested as incomplete, but interesting in what it prioritizes. Without Al'Asran (Pelor) and Al'Zarad (Boccob), has no male deities of greater than Demigod status. C+
Flan (aka The Old Faith): The Druidic faith of the Flannaess. Majority of its major deities are commonly worshipped. Why do they have the only god(dess) of love in the setting (and why is her name dumb)? C
Oeridian: Trying to be Greco-Roman without actually being Greco-Roman. Kinda boring, really. C-
Olman: Aztec/Mayan/Olmec (mainly Aztec) pantheon imported. Like you do.
Suloise: There are good reasons why these gods aren't widely worshipped, but the best is that they have crappy names (like "Phaulkon" and "Osprem" and "Norebo"). D
Touv: Absolutely needs more use -- and not just because they're black in an otherwise mostly white setting. B
Pantheons of Toril
MainFaerûnian: There absolutely do not need to be this many gods of greater than Demigod status in a single pantheon. Doesn't follow its own rules: portfolio elements overlap (e.g., Akadi and Shaundakul), level of godhood does not correlate with prominence of worship (Akadi, Grumbar, and Istishia are all Greater deities despite barely having worship; Waukeen is Lesser while filling at least an Intermediate role). Too much deicide. At least it has gods of important concepts, like love. D
Celestial Bureaucracy (Kara-Tur): I know so little about various Chinese mythologies that I cannot compare these (the naming conventions alone scream Chinese even without obvious deities like you have Kwan Yin and "Mad Monkey" [Sun Wukong]).
Lords of Creation (Vedic Pantheon): I'm not surprised that there are basically no details here, as everyone skips Hinduism for some reason. (Don't want to offend because there are a billion+ living Hindus? Too similar to the Greek pantheon while being "exotic"?)
Maztican Gods: Aztec-ish gods with short, often Spanish names. Blargh? F
Mulhorandi (Faerûnian-Egyptian): Astonishingly close to the version presented in Deities & Demigods 3.0; drops Anubis, Apep, Imhotep, and Ptah, adds Anhur and Geb (wank gestures). Middling treatment of what in reality is an extensive pantheon. C+
Netherese Pantheon: Ah, a condensed pantheon of important Faerunian deities! Good. A few additions (e.g., Sune) would help. B+
Untheric (Mesopotamian) Pantheon: All but Hoar (Assuran) are dead, so who cares?
Zakharan Pantheon: I love that the main pantheon is about intellectual, emotional, social, and otherwise human qualities. (Too often, D&D pantheons end up making the only culture-y gods 1.) a paladin, 2.) maybe a bard, and 3.) maybe Hestia/a housewife.) That said, I know too little about this pantheon. A?
Golarion Pantheons
Inner Sea (Core):Mein Gott, these names are terrible. Very clearly an attempt at balancing genders in the 3.5 pantheon while importing Faerûnian gods (e.g., Mask, Selûne, Tempus). Points for having Aphrodite Urania and Pandemos, plus several other gods of love. No points for making Asmodeus (Satan) the Bane of the setting; he's been in every other main setting since 1e AD&D. D
Inner Sea (Lessers):These are interesting. Pirate Queen, Majora's Mask moon, Lady Liberty but without the blood washed away, an ascended construct, and Juliet. B
Osirian (Egyptian) Pantheon: A much more comprehensive approach to a pantheon which, if presented historically accurately, would be even more unwieldy than the Faerûnian one (because it's syncretic and covers several thousand years of cultural changes). Points for including Ma'at and not combining Horus and Ra. B
Tian Xia: Familiar deities abound, mostly Japanese with some Chinese names. Not terrible, but nothing profound. C
Vudran (~Hindu): Appropriately has a bajillion gods; consequently, I know next to nothing about it.
Other Official Human Pantheons
3.5 Splatbook Gods: Some of these names are okay; would have been nice if they'd been developed at all. D+
"Asgardian" (Norse) Pantheon (Deities & Demigods 3.0): The more I learn about Norse Mythology, the less I like this presentation. Why on Earth is Sif presented as a warrior goddess? Why do we have Odur treated as a separate god at all (and where's Sunna)? C
Birthright Gods: Erik and Sera? So lame! Eh. Just don't care. D
Dragonlance: HEAVILY Lawful -- the only sub-pantheon with more than one Chaotic deity is the evil pantheon, with two, and it still skews Lawful. Names are overly Biblical (to the point that some end up retrieving Bible materials when searched). Also a sausage fest (one good goddess, three neutral goddesses, and two evil ones). D-
Mystaran Immortals: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I know nothing about them.
Olympian Pantheon (Deities & Demigods 3.0): I feel like this could be better, but as far as interpretations go, it isn't horrible. B
"Pharaohnic" (Egyptian) Pantheon (Deities & Demigods 3.0): Not a terrible take on a ginormous pantheon, but too rooted in the Isis-Osiris-Horus mythos to present other important deities (like Amun or Ma'at). Points for Apep, though, who's kinda worse than Set. B-
Sovereign Host and Dark Six: Very clearly based on the Greek Gods without being too Greek (i.e., having much personality). Sovereign Host skews Lawful slightly (only one Chaotic deity -- the Barbarian deity/Kord-Hercules replacement/canonically Gruumsh). Dark Six is NE with the exception of the other two Chaotic deities (CN and CE); no LE god, implying Law = Good. May as well not exist. Just...bleh. D
Theros Gods: FOUR MILLION POINTS LOST FOR NOT HAVING AN APOLLO, GREEKEST OF GODS. Heliod is not Apollo; he is not a god of knowledge, truth, philosophy, art, and such. Apollo's important not for being a god of light, protection, and healing (there are zillions of gods like that), but for being a god of the Humanities. (Kruphix is the closest to this, but missed it.) Further points off for missing Aphrodite, Hera, and Hestia. Dear fuck, if you're doing a Greek setting, FUCKING DO GREECE!F-
Hullo, Gentle Readers. As we enter the warmer months, I’ve started getting bitten by those little blood-sucking bastards - the mosquitoes. Reflect, however, on how much better we have it than the folks who live in the Realms of D&D, as they have to deal with the mosquito’s steroid-ridden cousin, the Stirge. Thanks, as always, to Scott Fabianek for his wonderful origional artwork of this awful parasite.
Stirges have a special place in my heart as a monster I *hate* as a player. There’s also the phrase “I’ll hit the third stirge” at my gaming tables, which means “You caught me not paying attention. Please repeat?” Long story, which maybe I’ll tell for another freestyle article down the road.
The stirge has been around for ages in D&D lore, having been part of the game almost from the beginning. At their core, they’re a pretty straightforward monster. They want to attach themselves and start draining blood. They’re CR 1/8, so you can throw them at your level 1 party, but they might be better for a slightly higher level. Assuming a group of 5 PCs, 4 stirges are an easy encounter, 6 are medium, 7 are hard, and 8 are deadly. So why is this?
Looking at the stirge’s stats, it has a decent armor class, negligible hit points, no particular saves or skills to speak of…so what makes this critter such a pain in the neck? Well, its attack is +5, which is pretty high for its CR. When it hits, it does an average of 5 hp of damage. If it isn’t killed or detached (which takes an action), it then drains 5 hit points of blood a round. Let’s assume a group of 6 stirges attacking 5 PCs. Odds are good most of them will hit the ACs of first level characters. That means most PCs will take 5 hp, and someone’s probably taking 10. That 10 damage is going to put most 1st level PCs down. If anyone fails to remove or kill their stirge, then there’s a round of blood drain, which will likely put down even the group’s barbarian, if they were attacked by two stirges on the first round. 8 strirges would be a truly deadly encounter for a group of 5 1st level PCs. And if your PCs are higher level? You can always add to the stirges.
Still don’t think stirges are that bad? Let’s think on this. Suppose, through sheer luck, two stirges latch onto the party’s wizard or rogue. That’s 10 damage from the initial attack. But, to make matters worse, it’s two sources of damage on the next round, because the stirges don’t detach until they’ve drained 10 hp of blood or killed the victim. That means 2 failed death saves (thankfully not 4…the blood drain isn’t an attack, so it won’t be a crit to the Unconscious creature) per round. If other PCs don’t get those stirges detached from their fallen friend, that PC is almost certain to die. And that means ignoring stirges that might be attached to them!
I am also delighted by this tidbit at the end of the creature’s description:
Yes, friends, stirges can be found anywhere, including urban environments. And if that doesn’t terrify you, it should. Imagine neighborhoods of a village suddenly waking up to find whole households dead, corpses shrunken and shrivelled, the only clues round holes in the victims and a complete lack of blood in the body. You could take this in a horrible direction worthy of a Ravenloft evening.
Two ideas come to mind when dealing with stirges. One, it might be interesting to treat stirges like a common insect and give them insect-like properties. A Queen Stirge might be a…really awful thing to have to deal with. A swarm of stirges would likewise be something I would personally really rather not have to ever deal with.
One interesting side note - stirges are Beasts in 5E. That means they’re naturally occurring critters in the D&D world. It also means that druids can interact with them using any power they have that can affect beasts. They can cast Animal Friendship on them. They can summon them with Conjure Animals. They can even wild shape into them starting at 8th level (because of their fly speed) if that’s their idea of a good time. And yes, a Beastmaster Ranger could have one as an animal companion, because it takes all kinds!
I hope this article helped you get attached to the stirge…better that than the stirge getting attached to you! Next month, we’ll be looking at that wonderful insect with the acidic spittle - the ankheg. Until then, may all your 20s be natural.
A great list! I hope you don’t mind my adding ten of my own…
Access to a library where PCs can find a book that will give them a +2 bonus on any one knowledge check should they spend a few hours searching and reading among its tomes (cannot be retried until player has put at least one more rank in that skill)
A painting/statue of a subject of their choice
Access to a restricted area or person (thieves guild fence, head alchemist, the prisons, etc)
10-25% discount on any items in a store
Permission to court/marry a family member without the family taking action against it
Approval to teleport to this (or the NPCs) location at any time, should they need a quick check in or a place to hide. If its a place, the NPC will ensure that the area is stocked with bed rolls, water and basic food, as well as a couple healing items, once a week.
A broken artifact and a rumor of where it can be reforged
A new, trained, animal companion
The friendship, loyalty, and trust of an NPC
A +2 bonus (diplomacy or the like) on any negotiations of rewards to be given from this NPC, or anyone in the NPC’s social network
I’ve got a few of these on my blog as well. I’ve started calling them Community Lists (and I will add that tag to the older lists someday, I promise).
1. The usage of a scrying well, although they’ll need to bring something from the place, or person, they wish to scry on. 2. Passage out of town before they find you. 3. A Community list of non-monetary rewards! 4. A way back into the towns good graces. 5. A hint of what’s happening in the town. What’s, /really/, happening. 6. A reluctant backstab, and a deeper understanding of just how deep the rabbit hole goes. 7. A better understanding of why the “Villain/s” does what they do. And an inkling, that there are other forces at work. 8. Information of rites you can perform at a place of worship for a boon. 9. Information of rites you can perform at a place of worship to prevent a boon. 10. Safe passage into a secure location, but you’re on your own from there friend.
and because 3 was a joke. 11. An answer to a question you didn’t know you wanted to ask.
A Stolen God. When Nicol Bolas first arrived on Amonkhet, his victory over the gods was swift and brutal. With Amonkhet claimed as his own, Bolas re-purposed the gods to do his bidding. While he kept 5 in Naktamun to run the society he had rebuilt, the other three were kept out of the city in preparation for his return. The Scarab God was one of these three stolen gods, which Nicol Bolas corrupted and reshaped into the builder of his army.
Eternal Arbiter. The Scarab God is the master of the Eternals. When a dead victor of the trials passes through the Gate to the Afterlife, their body ends its journey at the necropolis. It is here that the Scarab God embalms the bodies of the worthy dead with lazotep. Warriors without equal, these lazotep Eternals return from the dead with all the skills they used to earn their victory in the trials, but with a body far more powerful than the one they died with.
The Final Hours. “When all doubts have melted away, the worthy will meet the Hour of Eternity and earn a place at the God-Pharaoh’s side.” As the protection of Naktamun fell, gods were slain, and the deserts rushed into the city, the Hour of Eternity began. The Scarab God, last to emerge, led the Eternals towards Naktamun. The undead legion entered the crumbling city, and the slaughter began.
My main focus for statting-up the Scarab god was to give it an ability to produce the Eternals that it commands. The Eternalize action took base structure from spells like Animate Dead and Create Undead, with the core exception that the creature needed to retain its abilities it had in life, in the same manner that the Eternals keep the abilities that earned them their worthy deaths in the trials. To do so, I used the Wight stats as a template, the process of creating an eternal irons out weakness by raising ability scores,
And thus end the prophesied hours and the return of the stolen gods. You can find rules for The Scorpion God here, and The Locust God here. I hope you enjoyed this weekend’s bonus post, and that you get a great use out of these creatures in your own games, be they set on Amonkhet or otherwise!
