(The "DM Scraps!" series is a collection of assorted notes from my own tabletop adventures. I am sharing them in hopes of providing some inspiration and insight into what goes on behind my DM screen. They are raw and unedited, but I will highlight details that I find interesting to look back on. Enjoy!)
[I have removed all the game statistics from these notes to enhance readability and to respect proprietery game information.]
This is a session from midway through my 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons campaign War of Whispers. It took place about halfway through, around levels 5-6. This first section is how I handled an expedititious trip to a merchant, allowing the players to purchase supplies before departing on their next mission. They each received 10k gold points to spend, and I submitted to them this menu of specialty items to purchase.
Budget:
10, 000 gp each
4.000
ITEMS:
Ring of Protection +1 1,000 gp
Adamantine armor 10,000 gp
Spells 1,000 gp ea.
ring of lesser spell storing 1,500 gp
Boots of kicking (improved unarmed) 2,000 gp
Staff of illusion 8,000 gp
Gloves of ogre strength 5,000 gp
Cloak of shadows 5,000 gp
Bag of holding 9,000 gp
Eager Anarchic Greataxe 4,000 gp
Belt of endurance (AE) 5,000 gp
Blindfolds of true darkness 2,000 gp
Pet clockroach 2,500 gp
Autocart 7,000 gp
Mithral armor 6,000 gp
Mithral ring armor 4,000 gp
Amulet of health +2 4,000 gp
Cape of the Mountebank 6,000 gp
Gnome calculus 20 gp
Pearl of power 1 2 3 500 gp, 1,500 gp, 3,000 gp
Wand of jumping 1,000 gp
wand of magic missile 2 2,500 gp
Snowshoes 15 gp
Crampons (climbing hooks) 5 gp
Portable hut 100 gp
Vitruvius buckler: Sonic resistance 10
Dug’s helm: Listen +1, Fortification 1 (25% chance of preventing crit)
Then, before departing from their home base I had each character delivered a letter that would provide plot hooks for future sessions. I had each one printed up as a handout and passed them around the table. For the cleric Vitruvius, the letter was scorched and damaged by fire, which would have ominous implications for the fate of his mentor. Handouts like these are a great way to implement the rule of "show, don't tell," and let the players get immersed and explore the story for themselves.
MAIL CALL:
Vitruvius:
My dear pupil Lucernus,
If you are reading this I am afraid it is because I have passed on to Pelor’s Kingdom. Please know that, whatever the circumstances of my perishing may have been, I have no regrets. I insstructed the brotherhood to send this letter on to you in hopes that you will realize that you are my most prized student, and the next in line to carry on my work. All that I have left behind I entrust to you. Carry it well and remember to value mercy and preach redemption even when others have not the strength.
Farewell and may Pelor’s light guide thee afar,
Father Flamma Niteo
Dug: *Missing notes*
Taishi: *Missing notes*
Loolipook:
Ms Croftbarrow,
I know these playful antics are just your way of acting out but this is really too much!!!! No more explosive runes for you young lady! I’ll have you know that I am highly allergic to combustion and had to go see a physician about my sinuses! Next time you will not be so insolent, I am making sure of it. I am assembling the Gaston Force and we will be seeing you soon.
STONEHEDGE:
Covered in snow, ice
In my initial notes I included the official rules for handling inclement weather like snow and extreme cold. This would help set the tone of the setting, the dreary arctic environment in which I would set a creepy werewolf and mind flayer conspiracy. I also included monster notes for creatures that were certain to appear in the adventure at some point.
Mind Flayer Stats
Ice Beast Gargoyle (3)
This hunched, winged creature seems to be made of pale ice. It
has curving horns, a long tail, and fi erce claws, and two large
tusks jut from its jaw.
Combat
An ice beast gargoyle attacks as its creator orders.
Frigid Touch (Su): An ice beast gargoyle deals an extra 1d6
points of cold damage with each successful melee attack.
Construct Traits
Here I included stats for wererats and werewolves, two enemy types that would be recurring in the game. Recurring enemy types can become tedious very easily, so I don't usually have very many and I make sure they don't last for a long time in encounters. Done right they can contribute greatly to making a certain setting memorable, holding a sense of nostalgia from their particular time and place in a campaign. After all, everybody remembers the Imperial Stormtroopers from Star Wars. Keeping them unique to this region meant that there was a particular theme associated with this part of the adventure. This theme was also played out in the other lupine encounters.
These were notes for some of the special weapons I provided the players as loot, personalized for their own characters, of course:
THE SWORD OF KENOBASHI
+1 Shocking Katana
+1 Wakizashi
PELOR’S FIST
+2 Commanding Mace
This next section was an extensive satirical riff on the controversial Church of Scientology, depicted here as well-meaning fundamentalists tricked into serving illithids from another plane. In this RP encounter, I would see if player characters could be tricked into drinking a beverage that would force them to be sympathetic to the Psiontological cause. I also had dialogue prepared for Derek Chance, a goofy analogue of actor Tom Cruise. (No offense intended toward the man himself, but he is rife with potential for parody.)
Welcome to the New Church of Psiontology, have some fruit punch! The first drink is always free.
Everyone who drinks the beverage seems to have a glazed look in their eyes, and a placid cow-like smile on their face.
PSIONIC FRUIT PUNCH: DC 20 will save or become entranced, forced to comply with the cult’s requests. You cannot make another save until asked to do something blatantly against your personal code. Will save is 12.
Psiontologists
Tom Chance, Psion Egoist 6
Derek Chance: So you’re either on board, or... you better get on board!
It all began 75 million years ago. Back then there was a galactic federation of planes which was ruled over by the evil Lord Xaxis. Xaxis thought his world was overpopulated, and so he rounded up countless illithids from all different planets, and then had those illithids frozen. The frozen illithid bodies were loaded onto Xaxis's galactic frieghters,. The ships then took the frozen illithid bodies to our world and dumped them into the volcanoes of Tartaros. The illithids were no longer frozen, they were dead. The souls of those illithids, however, lived on, and all floated up towards the sky. But the evil Lord Xaxis had prepared for this. Xaxis didn't want their souls to return! And so he built giant soul-catchers in the sky! The souls were taken to a huge soul brain-washing facility, which Xaxis had also built. There the souls were forced to watch days of brainwashing material which tricked them into believing a false reality. Xaxis then released the illithid souls, which roamed the earth aimlessly in a fog of confusion. At the dawn of man, the souls finally found bodies which they could grab onto. They attached themselves to all mankind, which still to this day causes all our fears, our confusions, and our problems.
Ther are a couple notes here from the first true set piece for this adventure, a battle against the evil werewolf Shadi, which combined dangerous terrain and environmental effects with several dangerous gargoyles. The concept was that the characters would have to hop on icebergs to pursue the villain while his minions interfered. Between the slick ice, the chill weather, and the monsters' lashing claws, there were a number of hazards to threaten the team here.
Shadi Ice Flow Encounter
Shadi: So you all returned. I could have warned you of this, what you have all brought upon yourselves. This is how my masters repay your insolence. I pity you, the walking dead, whose misery must now be ended.
He dispatches 4 Ice gargoyles and departs.
This was another major encounter, which was run fast and furious to make up for the fact that it was all variants of one enemy type: wolves. A pack led by a winter wolf with its frost breath and evil intellect. This is an encounter that highlighted teamwork. The pack works together to flank and outwit the team, while the heroes must work in unison to defeat them.
Wolf pack emerges from the forest. Winter wolf with 2 dire wolves and 2 normal wolves
Dire wolves prefer to attack in packs, surrounding and flanking a foe when they can.
NORMAL WOLF
Winter Wolf
This creature looks like a white wolf with icy blue eyes. It stands as tall as
a horse, and its breath smokes with cold.
Dangerous predators of the tundra and other chill regions, winter
wolves pursue prey relentlessly. They rarely give up the chase until
they bring down their quarry.
Winter wolves are more intelligent than their smaller cousins
and sometimes associate with other evil creatures of their cold
homelands, such as frost giants, whom they serve as scouts,
hunters, and trackers.
A winter wolf grows about 8 feet long and stands about 4½ feet at the shoulder. It weighs about 450 pounds.
Winter wolves can speak Giant and Common
Winter wolves typically hunt in packs. Their size, cunning, and formidable breath weapon allow them to hunt and kill creatures much larger than themselves. A pack usually circles an opponent, each wolf attacking in turn to exhaust it. If they’re in a hurry, white wolves try to pin their foes.
Here's where I kept notes for a skill challenge in which the players must climb to the top of a precipice.
Mountain climb
A towering icy precipice looms before you.
Climb 10
Balance 10
Jump 15
Knowledge (Nature) 10
Survival 10
The letters below are shorthand that I used to track the progress of each PC up the cliff face, using the first initial of each character.
F
T
V
D
CHAPTER 2
Here I threw together a couple of wandering monsters to make things a bit trickier in case it was needed.
Random encounters
1 Winter Wolf
1 Frost salamander
Here's another big set piece in which I wait until the players enter this abandoned shed and find a hostage before having the baddies lock them inside and set it ablaze. A neat little encounter for which I created some werewolf druid enemies who specialized in all sorts of fire magic. Like the iceberg and wolf encounters before, this one also had a map sketched out for it, and turned out really well as the players were forced to come up with ways to break out of the inferno and face their enemies.
Werewolves lock heroes in building and set it on fire
Outside: 2 werewolf warriors, 1 werewolf druid
Marshal D’lan
Allocating XP is a task which I sometimes eschew entirely, but when I have a small regular group it is not that hard. Here is where I noted the XP values earned from the first session so I could reward the players with some solid numbers for their progress.
XP REWARDS:
All
1,500 xp for beating wolves
500 xp
Loolipook
600 xp for riddle
Vitruvius
750 xp for RP
250 for wave
Dug
500 xp for RP
500
Taishi
500 for side quest
250 for cape antics
750
The yetis here were an encounter that I eventually did away with. The adventure was long enough as is, and it was only a half-done concept after all. Sometimes you've just got to trim material to keep things from running too long or ending up half baked.
Yeti Clan (4): Male and female yeti; CR 3; Large
monstrous humanoid (cold);
HD 4d8+4; hp 21, 22, 24, 25;
Init +1; Spd 40 ft.;
AC 14, touch 10, flat-footed 13;
Atk +7 melee (1d6+4, 2 claws); Face/Reach 5 ft. by 5
ft./10 ft.;
SA constrict 1d6+6 plus 2d6 cold, improved
grab; SQ cold subtype, darkvision 60 ft.; AL NE;
SV Fort +2, Ref +5, Will +5; Str 18, Dex 13, Con 12, Int
12, Wis 9, Cha 11.
Skills and Feats: Climb +10, Hide +3, Listen +1,
Move Silently +6, Spot +1, Wilderness Lore +6; Iron
Will, Power Attack.
Right here I dropped in some fake latin magic words to use when the cleric cast his verbal magic spells. It added some fun flavor to the otherwise routine act of spell slinging:
Validus fluctus: Rogue wave
DO NOT BURN: HAUD EXURO
And here is where I found the stats for those custom werewolf druids and some fighters as well. A bit out of order, but I would reorganize my notes before the session itself. They seem helter-skelter in retrospect, but as long as the DM can easily access and read their material, they will serve their purpose well enough.
Werewolf druids
Hit Dice: 6d8 34 Hp
Abilities:
Human: Str 10 +0, Dex 14+2, Con 13+1, Int 12+2, Wis 16+3, Cha 8 -1
Hybrid/beast Ability Scores: Str 12 +1, Dex 18+4, Con 17+3, Int 12+2, Wis 18+4, Cha 8-1
AC:
Human 15 (+2 dex +3 armor) FF 13 touch 12
animal 18 (+4 dex, +4 natural) ff 14 touch 14
Speed: 50 feet
Initiative: +4
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+4
Attack: +7 sickle 1d6
Full Attack:
Space/Reach:
Special Attacks:+6 sickle, +5 Claws 1d4, +5 bite 1d6, trip (animal form)
Special Qualities: DR 5/silver in animal forms
Base Saves: 7/4/4
Cha 8.
Skills: 50 pnt.s
Spot 7 listen 7 Hide 3, Swim 7, Move silently 3, knowledge (nature) 4, climb 3, concentration 7
Feats: Fiery burst, weapon focus (sickle), scent, low light vision,
Spells: Per Day 6/4/3
1. Magic fang, produce flame, bull’s strength x2 DC 15
2. Flaming sphere, barkskin x2 DC 16
Treasure:
Alignment: LE
Advancement:
Level Adjustment:
LVL 4 Werewolf Warriors:
Hit Dice: 4d10 , 42 hp
AC: 14 (+4 nat AC)
Abilities: Str 16+3, Dex 13+1, Con 14+2, Int 10+0, Wis 12+1,
Cha 8-1
Initiative: +1
Speed: 50 ft
Base Attack/Grapple: +6
Attack: +9 bite claw 1 d6+3
Full Attack:
Space/Reach:
Special Attacks:
Special Qualities:
Saves: 9/5/2
Skills:
Feats: WF (Claw)
Spells:
Environment:
Organization:
Challenge Rating:
Treasure:
Alignment:
Advancement:
Level Adjustment:
This next encounter wasn't used, and I lost my notes for it, but having some additional configurations of enemy types is always useful for when the players do something unexpected or if the adventure needs more action to fill it out.
CHAIN GARDEN
Chain Devil
Chains
2 ice gargoyles
Overall, this was a neat little adventure that included lots of different encounter types and a very strong atmosphere of wintery melancholy and conspiratorial Lovecraftian menace. It set up a lot of plot hooks for future sessions, and equipped the players with tools they would need to succeed in later missions.
