D&D Stuff

Half-Elf Genetics in Dungeons & Dragons : An Alternative View is a paper I wrote out of dissatisfaction with existing literature about Dungeons & Dragons half-elves and the nature of their descendents. In short, what happens when 2 half-elves decide to have kids? It has been harshly criticized by many gamers for making them think.

Something's Cooking is a map I drew for the Something's Cooking adventure available for free on the D&D website. After my players got clobbered by a Runehound in the Barrow of the Forgotten King, my players needed a little more adventure to level up, and a way to get some silvered weapons. I came up with a side adventure to a weaponsmith who would tell them about Runehounds and silver their weapons, but the adventurers would need to get the alchemical silver from a spellcaster in a remote cottage. This is the cottage from Something's Cooking. The Something's Cooking adventure describes the cottage, but no map is provided. Because quarters were tight, a map would be helpful, so I drew a map with the Gimp and it comes across quite well when printed in draft mode.

The fireplace masonry should form a central support column for the entire structure. I imagined that the fire elemental in the fireplace/chimney would have the capability of jumping from floor to floor as needed, so if the owners wanted heat in the kitchen or living room, they could call the fire elemental to the first floor; at night (to heat the bedroom), or when they want to heat bathwater, they could call the fire elemental to the 2nd floor; and so on. As you can tell, in the basement, the fireplace masonry is very wide, and it gets narrower as you go up. On the first floor, the oven is built in as an extension to the central chimney. It should be large enough to accomodate the Calzone Golem in the adventure.

In retrospect, I should have put the water closet/master bath where the master closet/attic space is; as it is, any time someone flushes the toilet, guests in the living room will hear the plumbing noise through the ceiling.

Candlemaker’s Fire is a map I drew for the Candlemaker’s Fire adventure available for free on the D&D website. After my players defeated Xeron in the Barrow of the Forgotten King, my players needed some more adventure before they could advance to Level 5. I found this Level 4 adventure, but it didn't come with a map, only room descriptions; so I drew up this map. Most of the Giant Bee encounters took place outside the cabin, so I had to draw up a forested area in front of the cabin on a vinyl Battlemat for the bees to swoop through.

Interesting note: the adventure describes the wizard's inner sanctum as something like: "...a perfectly square 30-foot by 20-foot room..." I assume a perfect square has all sides the same length; does this mean it's a 30-foot square with a 20-foot ceiling? I concluded that in this context, "perfectly square" means that this master bedroom room has flat, smooth walls and 90-degree corners, rather than the rough-hewn cave-like walls elsewhere in the utilitarian dungeon, and I drew the map accordingly.

I realize that this map is rather boring and lacks richly-rendered texture, but it still took hours for me to draw using the Gimp and it comes across quite well when printed in draft mode.

Kingsholm is a sleepy town near the Barrow of the Forgotten King. After my players defeated Xeron in the Barrow of the Forgotten King, my players needed some more adventure before they could advance to Level 5; I decided to set up a street brawl between their adventure party and a rival group of adventurers led by a Chaotic Evil Ranger who saw the adventure as an opportunity to loot some tombs.

In the Barrow of the Forgotten King, you can find an illustration depicting the sleepy town of Kingsholm; I attempted to extrapolate a small map depicting the area presented in this illustration. The view in the illustration would be from the street that runs in front of Donardo's Smithy. I realize that this map is rather boring and lacks richly-rendered texture, but it still took hours for me to draw using the Gimp and it comes across quite well when printed in draft mode.

Miniatures

As I said, I usually like to run my games with a gridded map and miniatures that we can move around like pieces on a chess board. Unfortunately, most adventures contain a lot of monsters that nobody sells miniatures of; I might very well buy a set of monsters from Wizards of the Coast or Reaper Miniatures if they contained all the monsters used in the adventure. Instead, I decided to create little models out of Sculpey polymer clay with a wire armature. The grid in the photos is a 1/5th-inch (~5mm) grid.

In The Barrow of the Forgotten King's Encounter 5, my party faced off against an Ogre Zombie. Playing against this was tough; one slam from this monster would wipe out over half of your player's hit points. We all figured out the advantages of flanking in this encounter, and my wizard realized his role as a "utility player" by casting armor spells on the fighter types. The scale of the creature seemed relevant (it's a "large" creature, with a 10-foot diameter personal space), so I took some wire and made an armature, then pressed gray Sculpey around the armature. The wire was almost too stiff to work with (all the other miniatures here use a finer guage of wire), and after pressing the clay on it, it was hard to tell where the clay ended and the wire began, so sculpting the clay after putting it on the armature was fairly impractical. The base the sculpture stands on is 2 inches wide, corresponding to the 10-foot personal space of the monster. You will notice the rough, angled edge of the miniature's base; for the later models here, I got short segments of ¹/₂", 1", and 2" copper pipe, which I use as "cookie cutters" to chop out more perfect circular bases.

In The Barrow of the Forgotten King's Encounter 8, my party took on a Runehound, and this vile abberation handed us our own butts. I realized 2 things: first, my players need to advance to Level 3; and second, my players need the opportunity to get some money and better weapons. The zombies my players had been fighting don't carry much money on them, as a rule. I sprayed a whitish primer on this, expecting that I would probably paint it. I never got around to it.

In The Barrow of the Forgotten King's Encounter 9, these varags were a challenge simply because their armor class was so high that nobody was hitting them. They handed us our butts. We had to go back and attack when they were sleeping. Seems pretty underhanded, I know. I sprayed a flat black primer on the gray Sculpey, but once again I never painted it. I should have sprayed primer on the armature; the clay is barely hanging on the wire, like beads on a string. Two of the Varags are holding swords; these are from Reaper Miniatures, and they're great, but they're pricey. I need to learn how to make my own tiny weapons for these guys.

In The Barrow of the Forgotten King's Encounter 14, these summoned monsters could pop in randomly as per a table. They were tough and tenacious. This encounter was annoying to run, because the party was supposed to be in a confusing labyrinth; I constructed several 2" x 2" room-tiles that I would arrange dynamically and randomly. Whenever my players took a wrong turn, they got a monster. They never encountered the spider nor scorpion, but they need to advance to level 4 soon, so I'll probably throw one of these guys at them, anyway. Some of the monsters were friendly celestial beings, but I only made miniatures of the nasty monsters, which included dire weasels, boars, and wolverines; these would be represented by the little brownish quadropeds, which I would "recycle" as necessary. I made a large black spider and a large black scorpion; these were tough to construct because arranging their legs on the central wire of the armature was kind of like sorting out tangly coat hangers on a closet floor. I just held them in place with clay, baked 'em, then primed 'em.

In The Barrow of the Forgotten King's Encounter 15, my party should encounter these Stygian Leech swarms and maybe the Jumbo Stygian Leeches. I'm worried, because the Jumbo ones carry a disease; I don't know how we would cure this disease—we might need to go back to town. I wanted to convey that these were aquatic creatures, so I laid down little blue "waves" on the base, then I put down the monsters. I also sprayed lacquer on them to give them a "wet" appearance. Although the creatures were described with colors like "violet" and "crimson," I'm sure the authors never intended the vibrant cartoony colors I used here.

In The Barrow of the Forgotten King's Encounter 16, my party should encounter this assortment of Small and Tiny automated constructs. They promised to be tough contenders, but instead my party dispatched them like a collection of rebellious plush toys. These colors are somewhat accurate; the little gray guys are described as having luminous eyes, so I used glow-in-the-dark Sculpey for their eyes. However, the big, circular cartoony eyes are probably not accurate; sorry. Did I mention that these guys are itsy-bitsy? Less than an inch tall; difficult to sculpt.

In The Barrow of the Forgotten King's Encounter 23, we dealt with Xeron, the Yuan-Ti sorceror mastermind behind this caper. Mostly, we dealt with the Nagatha, who lasted long enough to disappear. I tried to make Xeron just a little green, but the clay I've been using for ”white guy skin tone” is so transparent that a tiny amount of color makes a really big impact; so he looks really really green. I liked making his purple robe. He comes in handy whenever I need an evil spellcaster.