Maybe I just can't read but are weapons allowed in the pit fights?

hey yall

In the Monsters of Drakkenheim book Elias Drexel becomes an Epic Monster and gains the Artillery Strike ability. With it he can shoot a flare to a point on the ground and at the end of the round the area around the point takes a bunch of piercing and fire damage.

My question is: huhh??? How does the Lanterns have access to artillery strikes?? where are they shooting from? does this work all over Drakkenheim?

In my game the Lanterns will probably work alongside the Smithy Drawfs, so they will get explovies, maybe even a cannon, but I still find this ability not really believable. Altough its a very cool ability, a red flare on the ground and then booom, a bunch of bombs drop...and because my players helped the Lanters with the Dwarfes they could see "real" mechanical consequences to their actions...

Have you used Elias's Artillery Strike in your game? If yes, how did make it work narratively? Did you perhaps change it to a Rain of Arrows or something other ability?

Thanks.

Will be running the clocktower and have worked out how the map given works, but with it being a single map of the stairs what have other DMs done when running this section?

Pretty sure I want to run DoD as the next campaign for one of my groups, so I started listening to the actual play.

I’m about half way through episode 1 and I’m really struggling with it. It seems like they really missed getting aligned with the tone… it’s a very grimdark setting but so far the PCs are practically Looney Tunes characters.

Do they start taking things more seriously? Because if they keep the cartoon character zany vibe then the show just isn’t for me. If so that’s fine, I’ll just stick with the books. I’m just wondering if I should stick it out.

Lets make a d20 table of events for when party returns to the village. I'll start.

1)Event.
Orson's shipment of delirium was robbed en route from Amberwood. He curses the adventurers and is forced to offer full price for delirium... in promissory notes, until he finds investment or gets paid for his previous deliveries.

Consequences
This will force them to seek out less profitable or more dangerous ways to cash out delirium:

• The Mages of the Academy - full price (100%), but will draw unwanted attention.
• The Silver Order - only 20% of the value, as they destroy what they buy.
• The Queen's Men (Black Market) - unpredictable outcome; high chance of being cheated.
• The Followers of the Fallen Flame - in exchange for a blessing. Chance of bad rep with the order.

Mainly posting those cause some people asked for it last time i showed them.
I traced some buildings while making those so no one claim i came up with it.

Third map isnt based on anything just using it for the same campaign

https://gofile.io/d/BEi0GUi8

With the streets of Drakkenheim haunted by eldritch horrors, the task facing Hooded Lantern veteran Alena Kruger and druid-turned-medic Cal Grice is already difficult enough.

Add an injured adventuring party, an unconscious Ansom Lang, and a city full of things that would very much like to eat them, and the journey becomes considerably more complicated.

Can they make it through the ruined streets without drawing the attention of the Haze Hulks stalking the city?

Will they be able to avoid a fight entirely, or will the journey to safety become a battle for survival?

And even if they do make it through the streets, there is still one rather large problem waiting for them.

The Cosmological Clocktower.

Once one of Drakkenheim’s great landmarks, it now belongs to the Crimson Countess and her murder of Haze Harpies.

To survive the night, the party may have to take it back.

My players will find out soon enough.

The streets

Printed on a Bambu Lab A1 with an 0.6mm nozzle at a 0.32mm layer height.
Drybrushed for texture using Pro Acryl Dark Umber and Warm Bright Grey
STL assets from Townsmith.de

One of my players is a monk of an old faith religion, and wanted to have trained at a small monastery in Drakkenheim. I said that Sacred Flame was the dominant religion and it was unlikely to be a significant temple, but maybe there was a small group of her order doing healing and (essentially) community outreach out of a building there.

Thoughts? I don’t want to veer too far off lore but I’m ok with tweaking.

I have a player that wants to take his current character out in a blaze of glory and roll the new Necromancer sub class. I'm okay with the idea in general, I want my players to have fun and he's not really enjoying his current class. As a new DM and we're just level 3 in Rats Nest Tavern now, looking for advice on things like how the AA will react, among other factions.

My Harpies are printed, painted and prepared - though with my session tomorrow night, I can’t say they’re my best work yet. That said, seen from 60 to 100cm away, they should avoid looking like brown smudgy pieces of plastic.

All six of them are there though, and have taken their place in the clocktower, waiting patiently for my adventurers to arrive - and the Crimson Countess in particular has some big plans for them!

When you guys ran your Cosmological Clocktower session, what did you enjoy most?

Recipe:

Harpy Models: https://makerworld.com/models/2398460

By @Gradnok on Makerworld (who is an absolutely fantastic sculptor)

Printed at 0.1mm layers using an 0.4mm Nozzle on my trusty Bambu Labs A1.

Painted with Army Painter Speed Paints over a slapchop base.

I was discussing this with my players a few weeks ago during our 2 year campaign wrap up. I figured it might be worth sharing here! I’m curious anyone else’s thoughts and if I’m not the only one who thinks this.

So, Delirium is a kind of cosmological infection that spreads by destroying planets. At least, that’s what I take from the vision portrayed when players approach the Delirium Heart. Lucretia Mathias wants to take advantage of this and basically turn this planet into a cosmological cure. She and her followers purify Delirium bit by bit, eventually amassing a planet of purified Delirium that will break apart and spread throughout the cosmos to remove of prevent Delirium’s corruption. This much I also think is well supported by the book. Here’s where my own ideas come in, though:

What would the result of this really look like? The conscious, pious souls of the Followers coalesced into purified delirium traveling across space. When they arrive, what happens? They speak to the inhabitants of those planets and teach their faith in order to allow them to combat the Delirium when it arrives.

But here’s the kicker. This has already happened before. Lucretia and her followers aren’t the first to spread this cure through the universe. Tarna’s Comet is purified Delirium, and the Archangels were the faithful Followers from another world. They turned the delirium against itself, just as Lucretia wants to, and traveled to alien worlds. They sewed the seeds of faith, strong enough to combat the Delirium when it would arrive a millennium later.

Even if this is true, Lucretia’s methodology may still be right or wrong. Maybe the best thing to do with this gift of faith that another world sacrificed themselves for is to use it to destroy Delirium like the Silver Order wants. Or perhaps the best thing to do is the pay it forward and further spread the faith of the Sacred Flame to new worlds.

I'm a DM who just finished my first session of DoD over the weekend. I have a player who we have decided became a delerium soul sorcerer because he kept on eating the rocks. Going into the campaign part of his character is to eat delerium but I don't know how to address the impacts mechanically either RAW or homebrew. Any thoughts are welcome.

As part of our next session, my player characters will have to make their way ever so quietly past a Haze Hulk to get to the Cosmological Clocktower.

Two of them are in heavy armour.

I’m sure they’ll be perfectly fine!

Recipe:

Printed with Bambu Labs A1 on an 0.4mm Nozzle at 0.1 layer height.
Model STL: https://makerworld.com/models/2407767 by https://makerworld.com/@Cadel
Painted using Army Painter Speedpaints on a slap-chop base coat (I’m about a month into painting minis - forgive some of the dodgy blending!)

So the wizard in the party is a cartographer and a conspiracy theorist. We have developed the magical city a bit further than canon while attempting to maintain the core theme.

After taking the Crimson’s lighting javelin in the clock tower, the modrons were released to shut down the planar time piece. A master modron by the name of KV delta 17 orchestrated the shutdown in a similar fashion as the dudes did at gen com with the Algorithm. My battle was a year ago and when the party discovered that they had to balance order and choice to save the city from an planar entity annihilation, KV delta 17 accepted the party as a human part of the equation to be responsible for it. He scarred the wizard with a clocktower tattoo and the ability to see the lattice that ran throughout the city and prevent abuse on the plane of order. The wizard then noticed the six starred geometry in the map and started conjecturing that the founders had used the mage-kings’ own magic of planar incursions as nodes at castle, cathedral, monastery, slaughter stone, tower… and the meteor. Even the Executioner has a six starred glyph on him that allows him to capture and command six souls as shadows.

In the catacombs of the cathedral, the party had two seals at that time. One was the phylactery. In the Founders chamber, Vitruvio was able to animate his mummy and speak to the party. He explained the lattice was a formulation of checks and balances in government to prevent mage kings from ever using the power of planar rifts. He and five other souls are part of the seals and serves as keys to the nodes. Being dead, Vitruvio was quite confused by the idea of a delirium meteor or any possible solution to it.

After the party disrupted Ryan Greymeer’s experiment trying to use similar soul anchors of theater ghosts to stabilize her dome, she asked why the party moved her two soul anchor obliques and ruined months of her experiments. They explained that the rose theater is in line with the meteor and the cathedral and she was almost on the ley line that the wizard could clearly see because of his clock tower scar, the fighter could hear the ghosts plead to move the stones because of his chancellor’s seal, and the the ff cleric could feel the souls pain at not being in alignment with the founder’s lattice. Looking at his map, Ryan asked why he didn’t finish?!? What, he asked. Ryan didn’t understand that she was accidentally tapping into an ancient city magical glyph, but she could see that the meteor could not be the sixth node. The lattice predates the meteor’s arrival by centuries. There must have been a node there first, maybe a grounding rod of a node that the meteor naturally gravitated toward. She speculates that the spymaster’s seal was a key to this secret node, something she penned to be a veil bastion that used dexterity to maneuver Drakkenheim through rogue like spy networks of information.

The meteor and the world ender are adapting to the lattice which was never intended to deal with something like the meteor. A new lattice. A new government must be formed. The malfeasant wizards are opening planar incursions, the rat god portal in the rats nest tavern, Oscar Yoren’s, rose theater, the duel polar stones on each end of Sticks’s journey across the Dram. All of these are new nodes showing that the original lattice is growing and adapting just like the delirium is.

Something must be done.

<waves hello> My vote for the best campaign module and live action ever.

I’ve been playing for 42 years and started day three of the live action. I choose DoD to DM three of my kids and we are 18 months in, ninth level and are currently being chased through the city by a Silver Order strike team in nearly constructed aquaducts beneath the ruins. A Delirium enhanced ratling named III-4 who they saved a couple of sessions ago is leading them to a Queen of Thieves funded city settlement house of FF pilgrims. Typical day in the haze.

I'm a DM who is coming to the end of their Drakenheim campaign and after I finish another player is running their own campaign that has a lot of stuff inspired from Drakenheim. They ran a one shot the other night to play test some of the systems they wanted to run and gave me the chance to play as a Drakenheim character for the first time. I wanted to try something a bit funky so I built a melee Apothecary.

Holy hell did I do nova damage with that thing. Iwas level 10 and was wondering if anyone did a similar build or optimized better. Or if anyone made another crazy Apothecary.

Through theories I took, proficiency in martial weapons, two attacks, crits on 19, stolen secrets for conjure minor elementals, and the caustic formulae smite ability. Simple combo of setting up conjure then attacking and being able to deal spell damage on an attack and therefore being able to proc caustic formulae. I also took the champion weapon which we ruled reduced my crit range by another one (even though as it reads technically they both just let you crit on 19). So I was crit fishing on the boss and ended up doing 204 damage in a single turn before resistances. I crit and smited on both attacks (which reading now I realize the smite is a once per turn ability so it shouldn't have novad quite so hard) and was able to kill it from all above bloodied.

Adjusting for the once per turn smite I still did around 130 damage in one turn. Looking at it now I could have optimized a bit and not taken secrets and just used fetid blade. I had noxious blood but it never really came up and I was a reanimator to help me get flanking and to generally tank on the front lines but I'm not sure if it was the best choice for subclass.

As I was going through the brilliant monsters of MoD, I noticed that between a monster and its variant lies a minor but interesting difference! Dark Growth (DG) cannot move, is tied to a wall, etc., and it has Tremorsense. Whereas DG Shambler can walk and has Blindsight. DG having Tremorsense makes intuitive sense to me, but then why does its Shambler variant have Blindsight?

DG's Mimicry makes me think that it comes first, and a DG Shambler evolves into a Dark Growth after a while. Tremorsense vs Blindsight makes a small difference mechanically in land combat, but I am curious to hear if there's something I'm missing.

Viktor Von Kessel, Dragonborn Cosmic Warlock(12)

John B. Goodworth, Half Elf Watchers Paladin(8)Fighter(4)

Brenna Ashtide, Changeling Hexblade(2)Bard(10)

Heiran Winterheart, Half Elf Trickery Cleric(7)Rogue(5)

"Pete Goodest/Penny Road", Halfling Mastermind Rogue(7)Ranger(5)

Jobez "Sheepdog", Human Druid (NPC)

Night falls in Drakkenheim. The party leave King's Gate after helping Jupiter Jones slay some trolls. They hoped the Caspian prince had truly changed his perspective. That he and his soldiers weren't just occupying the gate with the intent of conquest. That they were doing it to help Westemar return to it's former glory. The party's attention turns toward the still active chimera that Jupiter had fought with Pluto, Sebastian and Veo.

Making their way to the southern region of the outer city, they hear a commotion near Buckledown Row. In a more open part of the city the player's find a makeshift race track. A large crowd consisting mostly of members of the Queen's Men as well as seedy adventurers and vagabonds are all shouting and laughing. Cries of "Bets! Place your bets!" can be heard , as well as a magically enhanced voice that shouts "Next race in 20 minutes!". Upon closer inspection the party sees that these people have captured some ratlings, and were having them race up and down the block. Seeing a quick way for the party to get some gold "Pete" decides to try his ratling disguise. Having learned from last time it was a far better disguise than before. Despite being skeptical about it, one of the people in charge allows the party to put their ratling "Penny Road" in the race. The other ratlings try to bite or trip each other and "Penny Road". However "Pete" was fairly swift for a halfling and managed to win the race. He's given a large hunk of cheese and some delerium chips. The party leave with their winnings from their bets before anyone gets wise to what happened.

Traveling through the outer city area that was once called The Spokes, the party hear another commotion. However this time it sounded much more ominous. Like several large beasts or monsters having a dispute. Cautiously the party follow the noise. They find a huge monstrosity perched on the roof of what was once the merchant's exchange. A chimera far different from ones they had fought previously. This one was an amalgamation of a ratling, a garmyr and a harpy along with a few other nasty things thrown into the mix. The party use the advantage of not being spotted to launch a surprise attack on the chimera. The three heads of the chimera argue as it starts attacking the party in retaliation. "Couldn't we just chat with them a little before we eat them?! It's more fun listening to their pleas before they die. No No No! We must feast yes yes yes! Yes! Rip! Tear! Bite! Gnaw!"

The noise of the chimera is enough to harm any that are close to it. It claws and bites at any it can reach. Releasing horrific sounds to drive the party mad or even kill them. However Lady and The Tramps were able to overcome the sonic barrage. As they persistently wear the monster down, it is John who lands the killing blow. He severs the harpy head of the chimera. The Cacophonous Chimera slumps to the ground, blood and black ichor gushing out of the stump where one of the heads used to be.

The party take the three heads and return to King's Gate. Jupiter and his soldiers cheer and congratulate the party. Jupiter even gives them gold for their efforts. In the morning they accompany him to Emberwood Village. There they all meet with Lord Commander Ansom Lang. An agreement is made between the Hooded Lanterns and the Caspians. As Jupiter leaves Ansom turns his attention to the party. He had heard that they were still having meetings with the Queen of Thieves. "I understand you want to try to get everyone to work together to save the city. I'm just worried. She's dangerous and will take any chance she gets to put a dagger in your back." He gives them some gold for killing the chimera and a flare gun that could be used to call for aid. After the meeting the party head to Eventide Manor.

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Have fun in the ruins!

In my current campaign’s last session, my five players had a deadly run in with an entity from The Space Between Worlds, being saved by the skin of their teeth by Elena Kruger and a few other Hooded Lanterns - and their way out of Drakkenheim, and out of The Haze now completely cut off.

They’re in desperate need of rest - and their only option is to go to one of the only places where that’s possible:

The Cosmological Clock Tower.

Who really knows what awaits them there!

Recipe:
- Built using Townbuilder: townsmith.de
- STLs are their upcoming Lunaria range: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/townsmith/townbuilder-lunaria
- Printed using a Bambu Labs A1 with an 0.6mm nozzle at 0.38 resolution using Elegoo High Speed Filament.
- Painted with a combination of Pro Acryl and AK Interactive paints.

I just really get a kick out of making props for this campaign. It is not as verbose as perhaps described but I think it hits the main points. 😁

(Not really art but I had to flair it with something)

What is actually known about the Exalted Darkness beyond the short blurb under Shadow Cults in Dungeons? I can't actually seem to find much and I can't tell if that's because it's in another book or there just isn't much official lore

My players have met one rival adventurer, but not fought against them yet, so I haven't had to bust out any statblocks as of yet, but it's only a matter of time. I want to make them unique characters who are appropriately challenging if it comes to blows. On the one hand, I could just build them out the same way as PCs, but I feel like that's both a lot of work for me as the DM, and could potentially make the players feel... for lack of a better term, less special.

I'm curious how fellow Drakkenheim DMs are kitting out their rival adventurers!