The invisible city of Mourningstar
Its not actually invisible, the city sits on the back of a giant turtle swimming the Astral Sea and rivals Sigil in the number of gates leading to other worlds.
Above all Mourningstar is a place of rival arcane guilds vying for power.
The population is mainly teiflings (50%) and humans (30%) with a sizable dragonborn (15%) quarter, the last 5% is a mix of races from the hundreds of worlds the city leads to.
A few of the more well known guilds...
S.L.A.V.E. - Sinister, Lethal Abominations from the Vile Earth
W.I.Z.A.R.D. - Workers Intended for Zealous Assassination and Rational Destruction - they specialize in constructs and automatons
S.A.P. - Society of Arcane Purity
S.P.A.R. - Society for Preservation of Arcane Research - bitter rivals of SAP
S.O.F.T. - Society of Forensics Thaumaturges - necromancers, undead, infernal pact warlocks
A.P.E.S. - Arcane Princes of the Elder Sign - nobles only, mainly tiefling descent
L.O.V.E.R. - Lethal Orphan Vampiric Enigmas of Rage
(or is it Lactating Ogre Vampires of the Enchanted Ruins?, no one is quite sure)
NO HALFLINGS
Halflings have been changed to no longer resemble tolkien's hobbits so much that I don't really feel the coolness from playing one. So instead, all the stats are the same just the physical descriptions are different, they are anthropomorphic animals.
I'm not an especially die hard furry freak, just wanted to change things up a little bit, roll 1d6 or choose.
1 Arctic Hare (tundra)
2 Raccoon (forest)
3 Monkey (jungle)
4 House Cat (city)
5 Opossum (swamp)
6 Red Fox (plains)
One such portal is in the dead eye of the giant swimming turtle and leads to the Necromancers Crown.
If adventurers step through it they appear on a small hill that has been burnt, surrounded by a nightmarish jungle of giant pustulent fungi-like trees. In the distance, above the noxious jungle vapors, they can see a black cyclopean tower on top of a forbidding plateau.
The twisted trees in the encroaching corrupted jungle resemble a cross of wet mottled purple fungus and wood, they grow unnaturally fast and when cut, slowly writhe for a few moments leaking sickly yellow sap and releasing spores with a high pitched squeal that leave irritating red whelps. Misshapen cachinnating monkeys burst into masses of slimy tentacles when attacked and at night bands of foulspawn, chuul, gibbering beasts and gricks roam the foetid jungle.
Another door leads to the land of EverWinter on the world of Forgotten GreyBerron, an arctic world cursed by Tiamat because of a hero that cut off her white dragon head.
The dying toad town of Coasser is cut off from other toads and although very proficient in warfare their vulnerability to cold and lack of natural resources means they are slowing dwindling while the penguins are still growing. It was once a great city of martial lore and might, the greatest warriors of the world made pilgrimages to hone their craft here. Their greatest hero once severed the white dragon head of Tiamat and placed it in the war college he founded.
But as the ages went by the curse of the dragon goddess slowly froze the plains into vast fields of ice, now only the undercity near the hot springs remain.
The holy penguin city of Šááƒáá was founded in the ruins of a toad war college, a few centuries ago when the land was finally completely frozen the great white wyrm IceFang led his concubines and followers on a crusade to recover the severed head of Tiamat. IceFang now only wakes every few decades to slate his vast hunger and mate with his concubines, using his gift of immortality to indulge in gluttony, lust and sloth. Penguins make pilgrimages here bringing offerings of food and captives and slaves mine diamonds, all for sacrifices to their frozen god.
Penguin Lore (Penguins are on pages 167-169 of the Monster Manual)
A character knows the following with a successful nature check
DC 15: Penguins dwell near white dragon lairs, maintaining a safe distance but bringing sacrifices to their god. Most white dragons ignore penguins but those that take an interest in its penguin cult can become more dangerous.
DC 20: Penguins are skilled at trap making, which they use to capture fish and sacrifices for their god.
A standard long range penguin patrol is comprised of
2 Penguin Dragonshields (level 2 soldiers)
2 Penguin Slingers (level 1 artillery)
4 Penguin Minions (level 1 minions)
White Dragon Lore (pages 84-85 of the Monster Manual)
A character knows the following information about white dragons with a successful Nature check.
DC 15: White Dragons are highly adaptable but prefer to dwell in cold places, their breath weapon is a blast of frost.
DC 20: White Dragons are easy to bribe with gifts of diamonds, but they are even more responsive if the gift includes meat.
The young of White Dragons that embrace their penguin cult become fat bloated creatures that resemble toads more than lizards and lose their ability to fly more than a minute or two, some lose the ability completely.
Toad Lore (pages 135-141 of the Monster Manual)
The following information about toads can be obtained with a successful Nature check.
DC 15: Toads live to make war. A typical tribe includes a mixture of sizes, with the mightiest holding the title of warchief. A toad has little tolerance for talk and resorts to conversation only if the advantage of doing so is apparent.
DC 20: Toads once had an empire which fell to internal strife and interference from otherworldly forces. Meetings between toads from different tribes turn violent if members aren't restrained.
DC 25: Toads developed mundane and magical methods for taming and breeding toads as guards, laborers, and soldiers and they all carry on this tradition.
DC 30: Larger toads serve as elite warriors, and smaller ones work as scouts, infiltrators and slaves. The disintegration of toad power led to widespread and diverse sorts of tribes.
Lesser Toad Lore
A character knows the following information with a successful Nature check.
DC 15: Lesser Toads are cowardly and tend to retreat or surrender when outmatched. They are fond of taking slaves and often become slaves themselves.
DC 20: Lesser Toads sleep, eat, and spend leisure time in shared living areas. Only a leader has private chambers. A Lesser Toad lair is stinking and soiled, though easily defensible and often riddled with simple traps designed to snare or kill intruders.
Dire Toad Lore (page 264 of the Monster Manual)
A character knows the following information about Dire Toads with a successful Nature check.
DC 15: Dire Toads hunt in packs and croak and use body language to communicate
A standard Toad Patrol consists of
A Toad Commander
3 Toad Warriors
and a Dire Toad
And if you care to read the campaign chronicles of our gaming groups attempt at 4th edition
Although too young to remember it, the PCs were sold to the arcane guilds of the city as children by slavers. Currently the PCs have finished the apprenticeship with the various arcane masters of Mourningstar and have been set loose on their final test.
At this point I'll leave it to the players to describe which guilds they are from until I get tired of waiting for input and do it myself.
Ok, first meet the characters...
Melech the tiefling wizard (Donnie)
A nameless elven wizard (Oleg)
Amaril Hadari the eladrin, a star pact warlock (Wes)
Xanth the half-elf, an infernal pact warlock (Mat)
Ta the dwarf, a fey pact warlock (Jim)
The final test was a door standing in the center of a room, without any hesitation the party went through the door into a blinding white light.
When they could see again they were standing on a flat, snow covered tundra shivering in the arctic air and the door had vanished. Bewildered and clueless they set off in a random direction until a patrol of penguins spotted them, and being the loyal servants of IceFang, the local dragon god, the penguins attacked.
After a close battle the party wandered on and encountered a second long range penguin patrol strategically positioned around a patch of ice and after another close battle came out victorious. While looting the corpses they uncovered the ice to avoid slipping any more and noticed how reflective the ice was. As they looked deeper lumps of ice began to rise up and slowly shape into humanoids and then exact copies of each party member, except Amaril Hadari. Amaril's double had a goatee.
The party had no idea what to do and the doubles mimicked everything they did at the exact same time, in very short order it was hard to tell who was who except for Amaril's double who had the goatee and added the word 'bitches' to everything he said. Not feeling particularly threatened they journeyed on.
At this point they needed to rest to regain their healing surges and daily powers and figure out what to do but it was too cold. They were starting to get discouraged when they came across a huge dragon sized lump in the snow and after much fearful poking they found out it was actually a frozen structure built in the shape of a dragon and entered it through the mouth.
Inside it was warm enough to rest and they noticed some writing on the wall and _____ cast a spell and translated it and read off the multiple praises of IceFang to the rest of the party. Xanth poked around the tail of the dragon shrine and saw a hole at the end of it going down into the ground and was pondering a way to get down into it before resting. While the party slept Amaril's double killed Amaril and when everyone woke up in the morning they starting thinking again about how to get down the hole.
Thus ended the first exciting chronicle of Mourningstar.
Mourningstar is a city built on the back of a giant sleeping turtle floating in the astral sea, in addition to being a port for astral ships it is second only to Sigil in the number of gates and doors leading to the World.
Guilds
SOFT - Society of Forensics Thaumaturges - necromancers, undead, infernal pact warlocks
SPAR (Society for Preservation of Arcane Research) always looking for books, items, lore, spells and such for more power and prestige
or SAP (Society for Arcane Purity) same goals, just more potential for humor and a long standing rival of SPAR
APES - Arcane Princes of the Elder Sign - nobles only, mainly tiefling descent
Ok, Oleg wants to make a fighter, he can't go along with everyone else and play the randomly rolled race and class because he is a princess.
So the only three races in the area are penguins, arctic hares and beneath the surface toads
Melech the tiefling wizard (Donnie) 2nd level
Goron the toad fighter (Oleg) 1st level
Xanth a star pact half-elf warlock (Wes) 1st level
Amaril Hadari an infernal pact eladrin warlock (Mat) 1st level
Ta the fey pact dwarf warlock (Charlie) 1st level
Tharadium the human cleric (Scott) 2nd level
Kutad the elf wizard (Oleg) now dead
The party lowered a rope down into the passage at the back of the dragon shrine and climbed down into a 100' circular chamber with a 10' diameter hole in the center of it. The stench of rotted meat wafted up from the central hole and they felt a breeze coming from it and then saw a large white claw reach out as a baby white dragon climbed out and attacked. The baby white dragon resembled a bloated toad with wings too small for flying.
The party beat the crap out the dragon and after the battle they discovered a passage leading from the chamber barred by a gate and two penguin guards. They slew the penguins and on the other side of the gate was a lever. Kutad used a ghost hand spell to pull the lever which opened up a pit, a few party members fell down in it and then Ta pulled the lever again which opened up a second pit which was a 100' chute launching some others into a waist high pool of fetid water and bones. Everyone but Ta jumped in the chute and Ta pulled the lever again and it opened up a third pit underneath him, he climbed out and jumped down the chute with the others.
The icy lake-filled cavern had bones piled up so high the water was waist deep in many places and the party slowly probed ahead to stay on higher ground exploring. Another young white dragon burst from the water and attacked, this time however victory cost the lives of Ta, Melech and Kutad's doubles.
Eventually realizing they were going to have to cross the water the two remaining wizards performed the ritual of tensers floating disc and made a raft of sorts out of the two discs and bones and the party skimmed across the water to the cavern walls. They followed the wall until they discovered a cavern leading out 20' above them. Amaril Hadari went up to explore and standing there were five toad creatures, one was big as a horse, 3 were 7' humanoids and the last was a 6' humanoid.
Xanth spoke to the toads in draconic and asked if they would throw down a rope, without waiting for a reply Kutad and Xanth began climbing, the toads threw down a rope and after the party climbed up Xanth offered the rest of the party in exchange for his and Melechs safe passage. The toads agreed and since no one knew draconic in the party Melech and Xanth walked by but the toads blocked the passage of everyone else. So the party attacked and when only the commander and a single warrior was left, the commander stood over Kutad's unconscious body, spear poised for a kill, and demanded the party throw down their weapons. The party continued to attack and the commander killed Kutad and the party then killed the commander. The last warrior lept into the lake-filled cavern of bones making good his escape at the risk of being eaten by a dragon.
While the battle raged an outcast toad who had been offered for sacrifice watched the battle and decided to throw in with the outsiders rather than continue and try and evade the hungry young white dragons of the lake. So after the fight Goron the toad warrior offered up his services as a guide and to show the party a secret passage to the surface in exchange for not being killed by the party. They agreed and went through a secret door up a winding stair to a empty room that leads to the surface and...
Thus ended the third exciting chronicle of Mourningstar...
in the land of EverWinter on the world of Forgotten GreyBerron.
Ok, so for those who read this the room next to the surface has a secret door leading to an ancient human crypt.
The dying toad town of Coasser is cut off from other toads and although very proficient in warfare their vulnerability to cold and lack of natural resources means they are slowing dwindling while the penguins are still growing. It was once a great city of martial lore and might, the greatest warriors of the world made pilgrimages to hone their craft here. Their greatest hero once severed the white dragon head of Tiamat and placed it in the war college he founded.
But as the ages went by the curse of the dragon goddess slowly froze the plains into vast fields of ice, now only the undercity near the hot springs remain.
The holy penguin city of Šááƒáá was founded in the ruins of a toad war college, a few centuries ago when the land was finally completely frozen the great white wyrm IceFang led his concubines and followers on a crusade to recover the severed head of Tiamat. IceFang now only wakes every few decades to slate his vast hunger and mate with his concubines, using his gift of immortality to indulge in gluttony, lust and sloth. Penguins make pilgrimages here bringing offerings of food and captives and slaves mine diamonds, all for sacrifices to their frozen god.
The party explored the ruins of a human cemetery above the Toad and Penguin towns, after looting and desecrating the place the party has made some new enemies back home. They did however make friends with a dire toad and the slackers without backgrounds finally made it to 2nd level.
Some guilds of Mourningstar bury their dead here, especially
W.I.Z.A.R.D.: Workers Intended for Zealous Assassination and Rational Destruction
they specialize in constructs and automatons, two high ranking members were buried here and clockwork vengeance has been set into motion.
S.L.A.V.E.: Sinister, Lethal Abominations from the Vile Earth
also has a tomb here but the party has yet to open the door.
--- iknowset wrote:
August 31st 2008
"We picked up where we had left off, discussing where to go since we had failed to breach the door with the illusion on it. We had a new addition to the party, a dwarf named Arik who happens to be a Warlock. Amaril knew him from a shared encounter in Mourningstar and was able to alleviate any concerns the party may have had about him being some naer-do-well intent on harm to the party (I made that up but it does explain our acceptance of a stranger into the party without blinking and eye).
There were a few voices raised in favor of crossing the large chamber full of gluttonous white dragon larvae until the voice of reason, Melech, spoke up and pointed everyone in the direction of the Toads. Melech reasoned that the previous patrol had not initiated the attack and so the toads may not be immediately hostile, thereby providing the party with a possible safe haven in an otherwise inhospitable environment and maybe even with some tasks to provide us with direction.
Upon exiting via the secret door we had discovered previously under the guidance of Goron, we were greeted by another patrol of toads. Making no immediate hostile actions we indicated we wished to speak to their leader about possible helping them with whatever troubles they may be having at this time. The patrol was content to let us leave in the direction of their home village (the trouble with the previous patrol was initiated by Xanth, the lone evil member of our party and the only one at the time capable of speaking to the toads).
We arrived at Toad Town, without Hell, and were escorted to meet with the captain of the watch (I feel I may have misremembered his title) who told us we needed to talk with the elders when we asked if there was any problems they could use our assistance to resolve. So off to see the elders we went, none of having the good sense to ask the native in the party about the elders.
As it turns out he elders were kept in a series of caverns at the bottom of a chasm and were all very large and very insane. The first group of toads we encountered were fighting amongst themselves and the victor decided to come and parlay with us. As it turns out no one in the party was able to communicate at a level he found acceptable so he resorted to the mindless violence that makes such a wonderful universal language.
The party managed to eek out a win in this particular debate and so we collected the heads of the three elders and went back the the elevator to let the toads know we had "spoken" with the elders. The toads informed us that we needed one head for everyone who wished to return to the top, leaving us with no option but to go and "debate" with more elders. The next set of elders worked together to present a much stronger argument than the previous lone elder was able to muster and as a result left some of the group incapacitated. In the end we were able to convince the of our rightness and even save those they had argued into unconsciousness.
Now with five giant toad heads we were allowed to return to the surface and present ourselves once again to the captain. His only question of our talk with the elders was, "What did you learn?" There were several vague answers that I did not hear clearly. In the end the captain at least pretended to be content with them ."
After meeting with the council of elders and returning to the watch commander with their heads, the party asked what they could do to help.
The watch commander informed them that they could go to the cesspit/fungus chamber and help there by working or rotting in it.
Or they could serve as gladiators to honor their gods of battle.
The party chose gladiators.
They were led to the second warmest chamber in the ruined undercity where tree sized mushrooms sprouted from the edges of a giant cesspit and miserable slave caste toads and unhealthy looking arctic hare captives labored in the eternal stench. High above the pit a wooden bowl like structure supported by the tallest mushroom trees and battleship chains a pair of scar faced toads peered down and a moment later lowered a rope ladder. Once they climbed up they were greeted by the arena master, a heavily scarred noble caste toad and his translator, a patch furred arctic hare who mimiced his every move. Looking around them they saw mainly warrior caste toads but also some fallen noble caste and a few arctic hares.
The arena master informed them that here they would be judged and then assigned a team for the upcoming gladiatorial event. Each member of the party had to fight a warrior caste toad one-on-one. The next day they were flown on the backs of giant beetles to the coliseum to fight for the glory of the toad battle gods and divided into two teams of four.
Melech, Goron, an arctic hare (Ben's unnamed character), and a warrior caste toad
versus
Tharadium, 2 arctic hares and Arik
The second team won the fight, the last one standing was a veteran arctic hare, all the rest died sating the blood lust of the glistening crowd of toads amidst their croaking cheers and screams.
Thus ends the first Book of MourningStar
Mourningstar Book II
The first Book ended with the lifeblood of the heroes soaking into the sand of the Toad Coliseum deep under the ice of a frozen world cursed by Tiamat.
Book II begins back in the invisible city of MourningStar, a place of rival arcane guilds vying for power.
The city sits on the back of a giant turtle swimming the Astral Sea and rivals Sigil in the number of gates leading to other worlds.
The population is mainly teiflings (50%) and humans (30%) with a sizable dragonborn (15%) quarter, the last 5% is a mix of races from the hundreds of worlds the city leads to.
Just to advance the game everyone is starting out at 5th level
Also if someone wants to write a character background AND a guild description they'll start at 6th level
We are using the assigned stat method: 16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10
roll 1d8 for race***
choose your class
so far the characters are
a dwarf paladin (Ben)
a raccoon fighter (Scott)
a half-elf warlock (Henry)
an eladrin ranger (Oleg)
an elf wizard (Donnie)
a half-elf rogue (DM extra for visitors)
***Note:
a roll of 6 on race which is a halfling means you pick an animal instead, halflings have been changed to no longer resemble tolkien's hobbits so much that I don't really feel the coolness from playing one. So instead all the stats are the same just the physical description is a bit different, they are the anthropomorphic animals now. I'm not an especially die hard furry freak just wanted to change things up a bit. So in the first part since it was a frozen world the local halflings were a race of humanoid arctic hares. I might make a chart you roll on but for now you can just pick.
1 Arctic Hare (tundra)
2 Raccoon (forest)
3 Monkey (jungle)
4 House Cat (city)
5 Opossum (swamp)
6 Red Fox (plains)
Some guild examples so far
S.L.A.V.E. - Sinister, Lethal Abominations from the Vile Earth
W.I.Z.A.R.D. - Workers Intended for Zealous Assassination and Rational Destruction - they specialize in constructs and automatons
S.A.P. - Society of Arcane Purity
S.P.A.R. - Society for Preservation of Arcane Research - bitter rivals of SAP
S.O.F.T. - Society of Forensics Thaumaturges - necromancers, undead, infernal pact warlocks
A.P.E.S. - Arcane Princes of the Elder Sign - nobles only, mainly tiefling descent
L.O.V.E.R. - Lethal Orphan Vampiric Enigmas of Rage
(or is it Lactating Ogre Vampires of the Enchanted Ruins?, no one is quite sure)
For ideas you could try http://monster.namedecoder.com/
Mourningstar Campaign September 28, 2008
The party was pulling guard/serving duty at a guild function and made a few mistakes and were punished by not being allowed to eat after it was over. The raccoon snuck a few bites in anyway and in the morning awoke to the moans and groans of their fellow guild mates. After a heal check, anyone who had eaten was found to be poisoned, so they set off to the temple.
On the way there they noticed huge crowds of people in the same shape, heading the same way. The temple was packed with the sick and dying with no way to get in the party decided to try another temple in a different quarter of the city. The gates were all locked and so they decided to go to the top of a nearby tower and try to see what was on the other side. Inside the tower they found several dead bodies and when they got to the top they could see the gate guards attacking crowds of silent people on the other side of the gate.
Thats when they noticed one of the dead guys silently walking towards them with a huge gash in his neck, shirt covered in dried blood, with his head barely hanging on his neck.
15 more like him followed and battle ensued, after defeating the zombies they searched the tower finishing off a few stray zombies and barricaded the front door. They found one room still locked in the tower and after the sick and dying raccoon opened it they found an arcane library and a little dude made of clay.
The clay dude said he would help them if they agreed to find a way to raise his master from the dead. His master, unlike the others in the tower, had been killed by an opportunistic tiefling looter. The party agreed and was rewarded with two magic items and a few potions to cure the raccoon and their three tiefling guild mates who had been poisoned.
The party decided to return to the tower and see if any of their masters were still alive. On the way they saw a huge crowd of zombies on one of the side streets and heard screaming and fighting. So instead of just taking in the background scene and slipping past the distracted zombies the party attacked 100 zombies.
While fighting the horde of undead another smaller group of undead and poisoned humans came up from behind. Seeing that the party wasn't sick they began throwing rocks and demanding to know why they had been poisoned. So the party killed them too, except for the raccoon fighter who ran away. After destroying 50 or so zombies the party had the opportunity to flee and wisely decided to do just that.
Thus ended the first chapter of Mourningstar book II
So if you read this you get to know that at the moment its a three way power struggle between
shadar-kai and the Raven Queen
vs
a vampire and Orcus cultists
vs
tieflings and their devil allies
When the party steps through the gate in the turtles dead eye they appear on a small hill that has been burnt, surrounded by a nightmarish jungle of giant pustulent fungi-like trees.
In the distance, above the noxious jungle vapors, they can see a black cyclopean tower on top of a forbidding plateau.
The twisted trees in the encroaching corrupted jungle resemble a cross of wet mottled purple fungus and wood, they grow unnaturally fast and when cut, slowly writhe for a few moments leaking sickly yellow sap and releasing spores with a high pitched squeal that leave irritating red whelps.
Misshapen cachinnating monkeys burst into masses of slimy tentacles when attacked and at night bands of foulspawn, chuul, gibbering beasts and gricks roam the foetid jungle.
The game that day went like this...
With no other ideas of where to go the party decided to head towards the tower. The eladrin ranger, Killominatu, led the way, hacking through the jungle with his twin longswords. The elf wizard, Kel'thonis, followed close behind maintaining 3 prestidigitation spells trying to keep the irritating spores off the ranger.
They came across a clearing filled with 3 inch tall blue puffball mushrooms and when halfway across a large grick plopped down out of the trees, spread its tentacles wide and screamed hatred at the party. They drew their weapons as three man-sized gricks burst from their disturbed nest under the partys feet. Two opportunistic dire stirges flew out from a tangle of hollow fungi-trees and attacked the dwarf paladin.
The fight ended up being extremely difficult, not all of the players showed up so the group was a dwarf paladin, elf wizard, eladrin ranger and raccoon fighter.
The stirges drained the dwarf of 60 hit points worth of blood and crawled back into the jungle with full swollen bellies, leaving the paladin unconscious. The large momma grick and a smaaler one were the first to fall in battle and the last two young ones tentacle raked the other party members unconscious except for Kel'thonis. The elf mage barely managed to finish off the badly wounded pair running round and round the clearing casting cold spells. The raccoon fighter ended up dying of her wounds (failed three death saving throws).
They didn't want to spend the night in the jungle of horrors but they needed to rest so they holed up in the gricks nest with the raccoons corpse.
So whats the dead raccoon fighters name, how about the dwarf paladin? I dunno, they didn't make a background or guild.
Next session...
The party hacked their way through the fungus jungle and made it up the narrow winding stairs carved into the side of the plateau to the onyx ruins above. Lurking behind the rubble was a group of Ritoru Kyojin, some party members made their Nature skill checks and surprisingly enough Donnie caught on to the Iron Chef reference.
After a heated battle the RK heretic surrendered and the party got a few questions answered as to what was going on. Which is that their cauldron in the black tower had been captured then corrupted to poison the food of Mourningstar by yuan-ti.
Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.
-Heinrich Heine (1797 - 1856)
Final 4e session...
Ok, the party went to the black tower and fought the yuan-ti cultists for control of the RK cauldron then returned to Mourningstar and met the death priest of Orcus and pals. Hooray, victory... I feel like a dentist.
Thank the gods thats over
So thats it for now, I am taking a break, Donnie said he is going to run 3.5 next.
When (if) I get back to 4th edition the characters will be advanced to 10th level for the next part of Mourningstar where I will use the PCs background stuff for the ideas.
If I went with earning xp for leveling no one would have gained a single level and the entire party would still be at level 5.
Two reasons for this, combat takes a loooooong time, every monster has 100 hit points or more and we like to sit around and talk.
OK, so after our brief experiment with 4th edition I have come to the conclusion that if the party was made up of all dwarf clerics they would do better than a mix of races and classes. I miss the profession/background skills. I like the heal from zero if your unconscious rule. I miss multi-classing and prestige classes.
Pathfinder conversion
A character knows the following with a successful nature check
DC 15: Penguins dwell near white dragon lairs, maintaining a safe distance but bringing sacrifices to their god.
Most white dragons ignore penguins but those that take an interest in its penguin cult can become more dangerous.
DC 20: Penguins are skilled at trap making, which they use to capture fish and sacrifices for their god.
A standard long range penguin patrol is comprised of
2 Penguin Dragonshields (level 2 soldiers)
2 Penguin Slingers (level 1 artillery)
4 Penguin Minions (level 1 minions)
A character knows the following information about white dragons with a successful Nature check.
DC 15: White Dragons are highly adaptable but prefer to dwell in cold places, their breath weapon is a blast of frost.
DC 20: White Dragons are easy to bribe with gifts of diamonds, but they are even more responsive if the gift includes meat.
The young of White Dragons that embrace their penguin cult become fat bloated creatures that resemble toads more than lizards and
lose their ability to fly more than a minute or two, some lose the ability completely.
The following information about toads can be obtained with a successful Nature check.
DC 15: Toads live to make war. A typical tribe includes a mixture of sizes, with the mightiest holding the title of warchief.
A toad has little tolerance for talk and resorts to conversation only if the advantage of doing so is apparent.
DC 20: Toads once had an empire which fell to internal strife and interference from otherworldly forces.
Meetings between toads from different tribes turn violent if members aren't restrained.
DC 25: Toads developed mundane and magical methods for taming and breeding toads as guards, laborers, and
soldiers and they all carry on this tradition.
DC 30: Larger toads serve as elite warriors, and smaller ones work as scouts, infiltrators and slaves.
The disintegration of toad power led to widespread and diverse sorts of tribes.
A character knows the following information with a successful Nature check.
DC 15: Lesser Toads are cowardly and tend to retreat or surrender when outmatched.
They are fond of taking slaves and often become slaves themselves.
DC 20: Lesser Toads sleep, eat, and spend leisure time in shared living areas. Only a leader has private chambers.
A Lesser Toad lair is stinking and soiled, though easily defensible and often riddled with simple traps designed to snare or kill intruders.
A character knows the following information about Dire Toads with a successful Nature check.
DC 15: Dire Toads hunt in packs and croak and use body language to communicate
A standard Toad Patrol consists of
A Toad Commander
3 Toad Warriors
and a Dire Toad