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Showing posts from 2017

Not all Poisons...

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... Are Created Equal   I was recently reading I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin (inspirational reading while I run Curse of Strahd) and something mentioned in the book sparked an idea. In the book, Strahd creates a potion he plans to give to one of his human servants. After the human ingests the potion, the servant collapses, and Strahd fears he may have made the potion too strong. Later, he attempts to give a similar potion to a captured vampire enemy. This potion was crafted to be 10 times as strong as the previous one, knowing that it needed to be so potent to affect the vampire. This got me thinking about when PCs find vials of poisons in treasure hordes, which always seemed a little meta-gamey to me. Why would they be there, if not for PCs to find later? Why do I have a poison in my treasure looking like any other tasty little potion, if not for the "gotcha" to the player when their character drinks it. One way to rationalize this is to have the poison vial

Accentuate Your Characters

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Speaking about Character... If you're a player or DM who likes being in-character, one of the best ways to help establish a character is through the use of a unique voice, one that is somehow different from your own nature voice. This can include something like a catch phrase. If you think of Wolverine and his use of the word "Bub" in relation to those around him, or The Thing and "It's Clobberin' Time" these are great ways to help you identify a bit about the character. Wolverine tends to be a man of few words, and more action, so "Bub" is a great line, and for the The Thing, "Clobberin' Time" makes him sound a bit uneducated, but also hints that he's not a bloodthirsty killer. Another way to help get that unique character voice is through the use of an accent. Here I must admit that accents are not my specialty, though I have be trying hard to keep the right accent for Count Strahd in my current CoS game. If you are

Game Session: Pilgrimage (Part 2)

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Since it's been a while between Game Session posts, you may want to refresh yourself with the last session, here , or review all previous Game Sessions, here . As mentioned in the previous session recap, our small party of heroes had been tasked with journeying to the Shrine of Sir Arden Brightheart to look for a group of pilgrims who had apparently gone missing recently. In the shrine, they found some of the pilgrims under a magical compulsion. Since these pilgrims posed no threat, the party left them alone and journeyed further into the shrine... Continuing down the well crafted hall, the party turned a corner and found a door along one wall and huge, ornate double doors at the end of the hall. Checking out the single side door, they found it locked, but could hear noises coming from within. After "picking the lock" forcefully with a dagger, they opened the door. Inside was a room dedicated to Sir Arden Brightheart's greatest achievement, the defeat of the nec

TerrainCrate on Kickstarter

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If you are a terrain addict like me (wait, it's not an addiction, I can quit any time I want), there is a great Kickstarter you should check out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/terraincrate-plastic-affordable-fantasy-terrain/description TerrainCrate by Mantic Games is in the last few hours of it's campaign. As you can see, there are offering a metric ton of terrain options, from Dungeon and Battlefield accessories, to add-ons from their popular Dungeon Saga product and a Dark Wizard's Tower pack suitable for any Dungeon or Castle sets you may already have. They've been blowing through stretch goals the whole campain, and look to be on target to raise about half a million. Regardless of what you might be looking for, I'm sure you can find something usable in the many different offering in this Kickstarter. Check them out today!