November Online: Understand Object, The Hallowed Hills, NPC Generator

Welcome to November! Now that the core rules are completed, it's time for the traditional D&D practice of adding ungodly amounts of stuff to the game in the form of endless crunch, bloating the monster, spell and magic item lists to ridiculous levels while also adding feats and prestige classes galore, a special joy we only got after 3rd edition started. Let's start off with some of the online additions for November; I don't have specific dates for these, so I'm just going with the first of the month just to make it easier.

We begin with a new spell: Understand Object. This is a 1st-level bard spell or a 2nd-level sorcerer/wizard Divination spell. This is for figuring out what the non-magical functions of an object or technological item are. It won't detect magical functions (such as a trap armed with a spell), but it's good for learning what that strange device you found in the dungeon does (assuming it does it through natural or technological means). I'm thinking it would be useful in a module like Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, with lots of high-tech loot to discover on a crashed and buried spaceship. But since the theme of Dragon Magazine this month is futuristic campaigning, this spell seems appropriate for that sort of game as well.

Next we have our Cliffhanger: The Hallowed Hills. It's written for 3rd-level characters, and it involves exploring some newly-uncovered caverns underneath a monastery that were revealed by an earthquake. The problem is that three monks have disappeared in those caves, and need to be rescued if possible. Note that these are cleric-monks, not ninja monks. The adventure starts in the old crypt where the earthquake tore a corner of it apart, and there are several broken and wrecked coffins as well as items that went missing. The abbot wants the bodies and items returned, if possible.

Going down into the hole created by the earthquake reveals a large cavern, inside of which are four ghouls. Well, that should answer what happened to the missing monks, shouldn't it? Ghouls do need to eat, after all. Assuming the party can overcome these, there is some treasure, including some of the missing stuff from upstairs. Down a hall are a flock of stirges...I always hated stirges as a player. Humungous mosquitos. Nasty beasties.

In the third episode, the party will come across a cavern of fungi, including the violet kind, as well as some shriekers. They will also find the bodies of the two acolytes who came down here, drained husks now. In fact, they have been completely drained of blood, which may or may not be a clue for the PCs as to what else might be down here. There's also a buried exit in this room leading to the surface, but it's been clogged quite thoroughly by the earthquake. Further on, the party will encounter a patrol of orcs that got trapped by the earthquake; they came in through the exit in the fungi chamber, and now they would like to get out. However, something else has coerced them into staying...

And it turns out that the something else is the other missing monk, who has become a vampire spawn. Brother Durham will try to keep this a secret, of course, hoping to lull the party into a false sense of security. The vampire that spawned him is searching the deeper caves for either food, servants, or treasure. Assuming the party can figure out what's happened and can defeat the vampire spawn, there's some nice treasure to pick up, plus the monastery is, at least temporarily, safe. The vampire that is exploring doesn't show up in this adventure, which is probably a good thing since 3rd-level characters and vampires are not a good mix.

So, a nice little adventure with a logical premise and monsters that suit the scenario. The treasure is valuable, but not ridiculous, and making friends with the monks of the monastery can only be a good thing. At least, until the vampire decides to come up to the surface to spank the monks and the PCs...

The third online offering we're going to look at today comes from none other than Peter Adkison, the original Wizard of the Coast. It's from the Celebrity Game Table category, and while there's no campaign stuff here, there's a very useful NPC generator that is taken from the tables in the DMG. It's an Excel spreadsheet, and it's from a much older edition of the software, so it will run just fine on pretty much any spreadsheet software today. It's slightly limited in that it doesn't include racial modifiers (ability score mods and, in the case of humans, the extra feat they get). But that's easy enough to fix, and this provides countless DMG NPCs for the DM in seconds. I like it, and I'll definitely hang on to this even 25 years later.

So, that's it for today. Tomorrow being Sunday, there's another Map-a-Week, and depending on what's on that map I'll see if I can do a few other online things as well. In the meantime, stay healthy, and game on.