I had a bit of a quick play round in Heroforge to make some guards that were zombies for a scenario knocking around in my head – I’ve saved the models but did quickly make some virtual tokens that I could scatter around a map to scare some players. I mostly just played around with head positions and changed a couple of minor details, but wanted to keep enough of the same basic equipment and colours to suggest a uniform.
Not bad for a quick ten minutes clicking away on the laptop – I’m thinking of scenarios ranging from adventurers happening across an overrun checkpoint, an invasion by necromancy-using forces, an unearthly portal to a dark dimension, or a buried eldritch machine that has been reactivated and that is draining the life force from the area and needs to be quickly found and destroyed.
Feel free to grab copies for yourself, and as ever if you use them, let me know – I’m always on the lookout for scenario ideas.
There’s an aspect of fantasy world storytelling that appeals that focuses on characters caught between two worlds or cultures – the idea of the halfbreed who may or may not be accepted by either of their species or cultures. Sometimes this leads them to dark places, sometimes to brighter places. They can be an allegory or not, depending on the whim of the author or the player (who may have picked their character traits for some trait that fitted their concept)
So with that in mind, here are two new NPCs I’ve modelled in HeroForge and toyed around with in DNDBeyond: Rufen Hagspawn and Arianna Hytheknot.
Rufen is a custom lineage involving trolls and hags as the concept – very much inspired by the current DDC adventures. He is a barbarian with distinctive broken ram’s horns sprouting from his brow, who appears brutish but is unexpectedly charismatic. He may not be schooled in the ways of civilisation, but he has an uncommon amount of common sense (or wisdom). Even so, that wisdom is largely concerned with where and when to swing the great axe he carries. He is largely shunned wherever he goes, but he has managed to bargain for a trinket that once per day allows him to disguise himself as a human or similarly sized individual. This allows him to access shops and taverns without automatically being chased out of town as a monstrous abomination.
Arianna is a tiefling druid who lives by the docks of a town, preserving the wildlife and plantlife at the interface between civilisation and the natural world. The rats and vermin act as her eye and ears as she sells charms to sailors and potions to housewives. On occasion she’ll be asked to patch up someone caught by footpads, or on the run from the watch – and she turns any coin from that towards making her corner of the world a little calmer and safer for the youngsters. The horns on her head may make for an arresting sight but she finds it a good way to test people by not mentioning it, and pretending to be completely unaware of them when questioned.
Both are good examples of border characters that live on the edges of society and who may well be living in shades of moral greyness. How they react to player characters may well depend on how they in turn are treated on first contact or in how the actions of the characters are reported to others.
Rufen is more of a lone wolf individual who might eke out a living as a hunter, or who might be a mercenary encountered with a bunch of bandits who use his hardiness and regenerative powers to break defences. Arianna is much more of a socialised individual who works within or on the fringes of a society – the docks which inspire her second name. A hythe is an an old english word for a dock, usually on a river – so a hytheknot may be what secures a rope from a boat as it rests in its mooring – or maybe there’s a more sinister aspect related to punishment for pirates.
As ever, feel free to download these PNG format graphics and use them for your own VTTs – and if you do, drop me a note and let me know what they get up to – or how else you’ve used them.
In the world of Eberron, one of the species that can be played, or that can be encountered are the Shifters. It is said that they are descended from lycanthropes in the distant past, inheriting the ability to manifest animalistic traits that can boost their reflexes or strength or other senses. Often mistrusted by others – in part due to horror stories of their savage ancestors – a shifter is often welcomed into the world of gangs and other criminal factions.
Having started to make some default guards for my games, I thought I should also look at some tokens for their counterparts and created three individuals who may be encountered together, on their own, or as part of a wider and more diverse group. As with the other entries in this series, they have been made using the HeroForge website, and I’ve shared them on there for others to use the models as they may please.
I’ve not gone for any kind of colour scheme or common theme, but have tried to show different ways that the shifter abilities might manifest. The first has the face of a wolf and claws on their fingertips and is advancing to attack. The second wields a machete and is dressed in a more swashbuckling style that contrasts with his clawed fingers, animal like teeth, and wolf-like legs. The third is more subtle – pointed ears and teeth, and claws even while clutching cleavers and having a more passive stance.
I’m thinking of using these in the Wednesday group sessions which are set in, on, and above the streets of Sharn – a magitech city of impossible towers, suspended walkways, flying transports, and hidden secrets. I think these would be a good match for the tone and power level of that group as a general threat to be stumbled over. Perhaps they might be sent to rough the group up if they annoy the wrong person, or they might be in a dark alley, lying in wait.
This is how I’ve set the tokens to appear on the virtual maps, but the circular tokens above could work just as well, depending on your tastes. Feel free to download and use these PNG images if you like – and if you do, consider letting me know how you challenged people with them – or if they became character tokens instead.
We picked up the story from last time with the group making their way across a frozen lake towards a burning trading post. Battle was joined with a group of four trolls, and at the end of the last session, Kerne had slain one of them with a deluge of acid.
This week, the remaining trolls ran for cover, running around or into the trading post, forcing the DDC to pursue them. This was the moment they found that the trolls had left concealed bear traps in their paths – a level of preparation and use of tactics not typical of troll encounters. They lost sight of two of the trolls, but the third could be seen through the trading post’s windows. Valenia and Caeluma therefore focused their efforts on shooting into the burning building with varying degrees of success.
Arwan made his way inside in pursuit and was charged by the troll he found in there – and despite weathering powerful blows stood his ground. Valenia finished the troll off with acid-infused magical arrows and just for a moment all was quiet. Arwan extinguished the largest fire in the building by summoning water – and then the other two trolls reappeared.
They had climbed onto the roof undetected and crawled over the top to try and flank the group when the damaged roof collapsed. One leapt clear and landed next to Kerne – the other fell through and landed next to Arwan. In the blink of an eye Kerne was on the ground and bleeding out, with the troll preparing to eat them. Caeluma and Arwan fought the other troll with magics that severed limbs and dropped it quickly.
Valenia risked the irate troll’s claws to heal Kerne, saving their life but getting her back sliced open in the process. Inside the trading post, the fallen troll’s separated body parts began to fight on independently. For a few moments, as fast as the DDC knocked the trolls down, they or their body parts got back up and continued fighting. Then Arwan called on the gods to summon a flame strike from the heavens. The column of fire punched down through the broken roof. It incinerated the troll remains in moments. Outside, Valenia and Thorin finished off the remaining attacker with acid.
In the aftermath, the group took a short rest and investigated the wreckage. There was nothing of any worth remaining in the ruins, but each of the trolls wore two tokens. The first was a bone and iron brooch in the shape of a humanoid skull. The second was a crude silver fist wrought in silver on a silver chain.
Valenia’s investigations also found deliberately dumped animal and human remains. Blood and gore were placed to form a lure to the area, and based on the blood on the troll remains, they had been the ones placing the lures. They mirrored the gore piles found earlier in the forest trails. The DDC decided to return to the Hold to plan and research their next move.
I’ve included the map here, as well as the zipped file of the Dungeon Alchemy base file, jpeg, and text file with dynamic lighting, door, and window location details: tradingpost attack.zip
I started showing boy s the basics of Dungeon Alchemy while we were away so that he could design the shrine that his character Caeluma is founding at Amberhammer Hold. He’s got a basic layout sorted out, and will now need to do the tweaks and nudges to the decor and props to finish it all off.
This has brought me back to making some random maps to toy with some more of the new features in the recent update, which has led to this mixture of landscape and hidden crypt dominated by the wedged skull of a long-dead dragon:
Entry to this snowbound pass through the mountains is under the skull wedged above the southern end of the pass. A small crypt or shrine has been tunnelled out of the mountain rock, with its entrance at the top of a rocky slope covered in ice and snow. Danger might come from within that structure, or from bandits on the clifftop or even on top of the skull. Perhaps a yeti has taken up residence in the pass, or a troll preys on the unwary.
As usual I’ve put together a zipfile of the original .dam file, the exported jpeg and the text file containing lighting information – and that is included in this blog: dragonskullpass.zip
If you use this for anything, please let me know – I’d love to hear how you used it.
I took today off in advance because I had a feeling I’d be tired from the journey back home – and I’m glad I did as it was all very draining. So, to the accompaniment of Lady M spreading terror and chaos over various voice and Teams calls as she worked from home, I pootled around. Well, almost. Without fail there was a minor hiccup with the app that the cub uses for his bus tickets so I was pressganged into an emergency school run. A clearly not impressed cub was duly dropped off and I returned home to make cuppas and ensure that Lady M had something to eat while she worked.
One of the things I did was restart playing Halo Infinite’s campaign. I fancied a gentle romp as I hadn’t played it in ages and have been pressing rather hard on Destiny’s story recently, so I started it on Easy mode. I’m glad I did as some of the skill honing I’ve been doing in the other game translated rather pleasantly into a fun side trip into a very different space opera. By far and away the most fun moment was realising just how cleverly modelled the grappling line used by the hero is.
I channelled my inner Spider-Man and found that momentum allowed me to swing around and up a tall building onto the roof of a tower. That’s where I found a hidden secret – the IWHBYD Skull which unlocks rare incidental dialogue. This made me happy for all sorts of nostalgic reasons. I used to play a lot of Halo3 with friends, and collecting the skulls became a group activity as some of them only appeared on higher difficulties. Those who were better at it helped carry the others along through the game, and then transferred that knowledge to others in turn. This was all very early days of the internet and online gaming and I have a lot of fond memories of those evenings.
It’s been a nice change to play in a slightly different way and enjoy some nostalgia – I suppose I should get ready for the rest of the week now… Oh, and just because I’ve still got some photos of the day, here’s another one of the otters – they really were incredibly cute.
So amid the tech issues on Sunday, we did manage to get some story started – and the group began the hunt for trolls seen attacking a nearby trading post on the Southern pass. As they made their way in the direction of the trading post they began to notice that there were less sounds of birds and general wildlife. Then they began to find more and more traces of blood and gore scattered among the trees and could smell smoke.
Caeluma took to the air to scout around. In the distance, the trading post could be seen, situated between the trail and a frozen over lake. In the woods nearby there was smoke from a fire. The group decided to loop around the nearby smoke source and approach from across the frozen lake.
They had to move slowly to avoid slipping. The DDC did however manage to make their way across without any mishaps. They’d hoped to approach quietly, but were spotted by four trolls when they were still a good sixty or seventy foot away.
Unable to immediately close, the group used spells and missile weapons to pick away at the nearest trolls – and were surprised when one of them returned fire with their own bow.
One of the trolls took the brunt of the attack and ended up being entirely melted by Kerne in an explosion of acid. They watched in horror as it fell apart, limbs struggling to fight on even as they fell away. Two of the remaining trolls dove for cover – one behind rocks and the other back into the burning trading post. The fourth began to pull back as the first two members of the DDC managed to get to the shore.
And so it came to pass that three prodigies were born to the trolls of the Blackcap Mountains. Three brothers, born with rare wit and insight to match their physical strength, and they thrived. As they fought and grew, they developed a strong sense that their lot could be better. The listened to their elders talk of the wars with the dwarves and how they had been driven out of their hunting grounds and away into the harshest peaks. They raged at the loss of their ancestral homes. When they were grown, they crept away from their scattered tribe and away from the harsh territories they had known to spy on those who had conquered their birthright. They saw how the dwarves built their Hold and traded, and enjoyed the fruits of the land and the treasures of the depths. They learned all they could of civilisation, and then went their separate ways into the lands beyond after swearing a bond to return and reclaim their place. One went North and found the Wastes of the Last War. One went South and found The Pit. One went East, and found The Sisters.
In the Wastes, Urash found weapons and machines abandoned and broken by war. He created armour for himself and taught himself how to use what he had found. He began to seek out scattered trolls willing to join his cause and strike back with him. Inspired by the uniforms and medals of the fallen, he forged amulets and gave his new companions pride and purpose. The Fists of Urash would strike hard and endure. They would be loud, and draw all eyes to them. Urash The Proud was his name.
Dhumish crept into The Pit. He was second of the brothers and the hardiest of them all. Amid crumbling ruins and fell residual magics in the Lands Below, he became warped in appearance and mind alike. Preserved by his trollish resilience and unnatural will, he became a walking blight. He pulled the broken and dying of his race to his embrace, and gave them new purpose and new forms. Among his forces are trolls who are too angry to die, trolls who are riddled with rot, venom, and mutation. The Tide of Dhumish would undermine and corrupt. They would be the quiet before the avalanche. Dhumish Crackleg was his name.
Irreck made his way through broken lands to distant Droaam, the nation of monsters. Along the way he haunted the roads and passes to hunt travellers and hone his skills. As far from home as he was, he never forgot the Bond. The Daughter of Sora Kell were amused by the impudent troll hunter, but revealed to him the location of the Sisters of Rot. These remarkable troll sisters had studied with the Hags and also had a dream. The three sisters were a match in ambition and power to the three brothers. Irreck the Stalker was his name.
Irreck brought the Sisters of Rot back to the Blackcaps. They watched the turmoil in the dwarven lands as the forces of The Pit and the Winter Knight were pushed back into the night and swore to take advantage. A new Pact was formed. The Brothers and The Sisters became a Chosen Family. They would undermine and overthrow the dwarves and their allies. They would reclaim the hunting grounds. They would raise high the Eye of Khyber and nothing would be the same ever again
Urash The Proud, Dhumish Crackleg, and Irreck the Stalker. Granny Riptooth, Nanny Gutrun, and Missy Lambrot were their names. Their Chosen Family would soon be known to all.
I’ve been playing round with designing tokens for more generic non player characters – in particular this week I’ve been toying with themed and uniformed groups that the DDC and others are likely to encounter. To cut a long story short, here’s some tokens for two sets of guards for your virtual table. Rather than do a portrait and token, I’ve instead done two different styled tokens in PNG format – one a circled portrait, the other a top-down view of the figure that preserves transparencies.
This first one is a half-elven city guard in chainmail and armed with a buckler shield and hammer. His yellow half-cloak is as much a badge of office as a protection from the elements while on patrol. I’m not sure which faction these guards will be connected to, but I can repaint the model with different schemes. These are not bad people – they’re just doing their job.
This second token is for the newly-reformed guards of Amberhammer Hold. They’re dressed for the cold winter heights as well as the dark below in colours that reflect the yellows of the amber fields and the glint of gold in the mines. They wield war hammers as they keep the peace, and bear battle axes for times of war.
I’ve enjoyed starting to make these – there will be more
Depending on your mythology or writer of choice, trolls are often depicted as near mindless beasts – despite the archetypal introduction of a troll under a bridge extorting coin from passers by. One of the things I love about the stories by Terry Pratchett is the growing and evolving troll characters – for example Detritus the Splatter working as hired muscle and then becoming a stalwart of the City Watch. Then we have the story of his courting of with Ruby, the troll of his dreams. Its a celebration of everyone having a story, no matter their background.
In the new DDC adventure, trolls are looming large, and not just in height. The lands that comprise the surrounds of the Clan Amberhammer Hold have seen conflict between dwarves and trolls for generations. During the Last War, the trolls were pushed back. This was in no small part due to the protective militias that Thorin helped set up. Now though, in the aftermath of the coup by the mindflayers and duergar of the Cult of the Triumphant Dead, many of the old forts and defences have fallen – and signs of trolls have been found by scouts to the West.
Here are three troll heroes who are looking to reclaim lands lost to the dwarves: Urash The Proud, Irreck The Stalker, and Dhumish Crackleg
Urash The Proud has assembled his half-plate armour by hand, scavenging and bending the materials scavenged from battlefields into added protection as he leads his fellows to raid and conquer the mountain valleys. Brutal and efficient in combat, he wields a huge claymore in one hand and is known to delight in setting ambushes.
Irreck The Stalker hunts lonely paths at night, picking off lone travellers or unwary shepherds before disappearing back into the gloom. The massive glaive he uses was taken from the first knight of the realm who tried to stop him – and he takes it everywhere with him.
Dhumish Crackleg was warped by magics lingering on the old battlefields, and lumbers along with deformed limbs, a crocodilian tail, and a row of spikes growing along his spine. He lurks in lakes and marshes and takes lone prisoners to slowly break and cook in pieces. Occasionally he might ransom someone back, but they might not be returned in one piece, or even all at the same time. His feverish vitality means that even if he loses limbs, they continue to fight on if he does not immediately press them back into place.
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