Elemental Reductions

    This is post is for this month's  RPG Blog Carnival topic: Other, Between, and Under hosted by vdoughnut .  Once again, the gods laughed at my plans, and the full work is beyond the scope of a single blog post, so I'll share a link to the GDocs draft, of course down below.       First, let me say that for a setting I have never had a chance to play, I really love the concept of Spelljammer .  I like creating wild fantasy settings that go beyond another hex crawl on a world, to a world crawl.     So along these lines, I decided to make a setting that takes place on a pocket plane between the elemental planes of air and water.  Here's the introduction which paints some broad brushstrokes of what's going on: Stormheart is a small but cosmopolitan trading town that mostly exists in a pocket on the border of the Planes of Air and Water, on a plane one hundred miles in radius that separates the Sky from The Deep , l...

Session 6 Previous AARs:   Strata Under the Temple Session 5 Strata Under the Temple Session 4 Strata Under the Temple Sessions 2 & 3   Strata Under the Temple Sessions 1 Case of Characters Player Characters Beep - Thief 4, Halfling, she/her, played by Soddentowel  Hivara - Thief 4, Hagamido Saurian, she/her, played by Gwenchant "Red" Kolva - Thief 4, she/her, played by Socrates Steve - Wizard 4, Human, he/him, played by Soddentowel Zago - Wizard 4, Goblin, he/him, played by Socrates Zaphiel - Cleric 4, Elf, she/her played by Gwenchant NPCs Gasatano - Fighter, Hagamido Saurian Polima - Wizard, Hagamido Saurian, partner of Hivara Malita - Cleric of Bufamela-Sa, Hagamido Saurian Events At the end of last session,  they defeated the semi-lich, a failed Hagamido that had tried to become a full lich.  There was enough loot there for the party to advance to fourth level.  Beep got the pair of magical boots, as a concession for not getting an unc...

Session 5 Previous AARs:   Strata Under the Temple Sessions 4 Strata Under the Temple Sessions 2 & 3   Strata Under the Temple Sessions 1 Case of Characters Player Characters Beep - Thief 3, Halfling, played by Soddentowel  Evara - Thief 3, transformed into a Hagamido Saurian, played by Gwenchant "Red" Kolva - Thief 3, played by Socrates Steve - Wizard 3, Human, played by Soddentowel Zago - Wizard 3, Goblin, played by Socrates Zaphiel - Cleric 3, Elf, played by Gwenchant NPCs Gasatano - Fighter, Hagamido Saurian Polima - Wizard, Hagamido Saurian Malita - Cleric of Bufamela-Sa, Hagamido Saurian Events While resting in the Hall of Scholars after fighting the Gray Ponderer, a secret door opened in the northern door, and the party was surprised by an emaciated Hagamido female in robes.  It manically attacked with an icy touch, and seemed to be immune to their weapons.  The party rallied and struck at the creature, but it seemed immune to most of t...

    Hello Friends! It was a blast to host RPG Blog Carnival 's 2024 year-end topic, Beyond Vancian Magic ! Thank you all so much for your input!  In no particular order, here's what some of you shared as your response to the topic, along with attempts at summaries: Robgoblin kicks things off with Skills for the Magic-User .  Starting with propositions for turning read magic and detect magic into skills, then suggesting some innovations with counterspells, upcasting, and harsher spell recovery to bring wizards closer to linear power progression. Xaosseed shares a spell point and spellburn system of magic , which briefly talks about the system Xaosseed uses to add more risk to magic when magic-users run dry, and shares a wish list of what the perfect magic system would have. VDonnut Valley gives us Beyond Vancian Magic - Wizards of Sword of Don II , which talks about magic of the culture in the wake of the fall of the Bronze Towers of Marano.  Where onc...

Summoning Elementals "It is known that the one can summon an elemental so easily, it can happen by accident," the teacher said. "It is known," the students intoned. "So it is important to know how to create circles of protection."   The teacher picked up a piece of chalk from the table next to him, and held it up. "The simplest circle can be done with nothing more than a piece of chalk, or if one is most desperate, a finger drawn in the sand or dirt."  He gets down on the ground at the front of the courtyard the class was sitting around, his knees creaking.  He pauses for a moment and looks up to the class with an amused grin on his creased face. "It is said the witches of the north use very sharp knives for this, so that they may draw one anywhere!" He returns to his focus on the ground, and draws a simple circle, then a second one centered inside the first, half the height of a man, with a band a hand-span wide separating them. Then h...

Elven Trinkets Gifts from elves! They have a detectable but faint aura of magic. The mechanics should not be disclosed to the player, except through game play.   If more than one token is carried at a time, only the one closest to the token carrier's body is the one that is in effect.  If there is any contention or ambiguity, none work.   Some GMs may want a token to have been carried for a full day before the bearer can activate it. d100 Item Mechanics 1 Panther Claw The bearer deals 1d4 normal combat damage with unarmed combat. 2 Golden Egg If the person carrying this dies, they are reincarnated, consuming the egg in a small spontaneous fire.  They appear within a turn knowing the party and 75% of their previous incarnation's memories, although their knowledge may be different. 3 Golden Twig If the person carrying this suffers a hit which would kill them , the twig instead turns into a normal dried twig, and crumbles into multiple pieces, and t...

A short post today.... I have two ideas for inserting education into playing D&D with kids: For savings throws, instead of rolling a save in the conventional way, roll two dice to generate a math problem.  The dice you roll are arbitrary, probably based on grade level or math ability somehow, but the idea is you present the two values as the arguments for a mathematical operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponentiation, and so on).  The player has so many seconds to do it, possibly with a pencil and paper, or possibly only via mental math.  If they get it correct, they proceed. For casting spells, they have to translate a sentence from their native language to a non-native language, speak it into google translate, and have it return their original native language sentence. A variation on 2: to execute a scroll, have them read something in the non-native language in question to google translate, and see if the correct native language word comes...

Session 4 Previous AARs:   Strata Under the Temple Sessions 2 & 3   Strata Under the Temple Sessions 1 Case of Characters Player Characters Beep - Thief 3, Halfling, played by Soddentowel  Evara - Thief 3, transformed into a Hagamido Saurian, played by Gwenchant "Red" Kolva - Thief 3, played by Socrates Steve - Wizard 3, Human, played by Soddentowel Zago - Wizard 3, Goblin, played by Socrates Zaphiel - Cleric 3, Elf, played by Gwenchant NPCs Gasatano - Fighter, Hagamido Saurian Polima - Wizard, Hagamido Saurian Malita - Cleric of Bufamela-Sa, Hagamido Saurian Events In walking through the Gate to the Land of the Dead to exit Bufamela-Sa's dream, Evara was the only one who decided to accept his offer to become a Hagamido.  She gave up her Orcish ancestry, and in return became a Hagamido (crested saurian). The party transitions to the last room in the crypt they had been in, with Gasatano, Polima, and Malita.  They talked.  The Hagamido noted...

This is completely from my recollection, and so likely full of errors. Session 2 The party had ended last session by resting on the mountain outside the caves, taking Boop's corpse outside, where his brother Beep was watching their things.  They returned through the tunnel to the circular room, entering on its north side.   About fifteen feet across, the ceiling glowed with a warm yellow light, illuminating the whole room.  Strange script was inscribed in a circle about seven feet across located in the center of the room.  A door is set to each of the other cardinal directions.  They chose to go through the door to the east. The room to the east was unnaturally dark, limiting the light of their torches to only about fifteen feet.  after exploring, they noted that it was square, about twenty-five feet across, with a well in the middle, a door  in the center of the east wall, and another five feet from the west end of the north wall.  They checked t...