Q4. Who is the mightiest wizard in the land?

Near Fortune, the strongest known wizard is Damon Rhiales, the necromancer who took up residence in the city ruins. His nephew, Tam, still comes to town for supplies every tenday or so.

Q3. Where can we go to get platemail custom fitted for this monster I just befriended?

No one in Fortune can handle such a job. Your nearest bet is to head to Free City Valor and see if one of the armorers or barding specialists can accommodate the request. Of course, depending on the monster, you might not be able to enter the city in the first place. For those, Wyndhaven should be your destination. Though, for flying mounts, there is nowhere better than Magic City Vane, home of airborne cavalry.

There are several exotic armorers in Wyndhaven that can customize plate for your monster. Humanoid, beast-like, amorphous ... everything can be found for a price in the most cosmopolitan Free City.

Swordtember 2021

Normally an artist prompt to draw a sword based on the theme word each day of September, I will instead be creating a magic sword description instead. These were initially posted to Twitter.

Q2. Where can we go to buy standard equipment?

For questions like this, I will answer assuming a campaign centered on the Ruins of Trokair near Fortune and another centered in Wyndhaven.

Rose and Thorn Duelist (3e Prestige Class)

Created by the incomparable Aelryinth from Okay-Your Turn.

A Rose and Thorn stylist is equal parts grace and cunning. The style is based around the use of two weapons, the Rose (rapier) and the Thorn (long knife/stilletto/main-gaunche).

Q1. What is the deal with my cleric's religion?

I am going to approach this mostly as "which gods are available" as you would need to know that before creating any details about the religion. 

20 Campaign Questions

You can run D&D with just some PCs and a dungeon. I think that's totally legit. But if you have a campaign setting, here are some things for you to think about.  Better to muse on these before your players ask you, rather than finding yourself on the spot.

Elf Forests of Trokair

The elves of Trokair make their homes in isolated forests and, while they are open to alliance and mutual aid, outsiders are not welcome within their woods.

Knight of the Chalice (3e Prestige Class)

Old 3e prestige class that I love. 

Devoted Defender (3e Prestige Class)

Old 3e prestige class that I love. 

Variant Races - Adding to the Inhuman

Read a thread about how most RPG elves and dwarves and other races are funny-looking humans instead of actually different creatures. That is to say, they think and act like regular humans, maybe with a few dials turned up and down. There is nothing wrong with it, but the poster wanted something else. He wanted to see races that were more inhuman.

GURPS Ebony Death Goddess

 Dungeon Fantastic: RIP Ray Harryhausen & the Ebony Death Goddess

Ebony Death Goddess

A golem-like construct in the form of 6’ midnight-black statue of a six-armed nude woman. It is made of some unknown stone-like material. Usually found guarding dark temples, or springing from magical statuettes made by some unknown creator. They project a magical field around their swords that allows them to shear through armor with ease. The swords, however, are usually mundane.

ST: 20 (2-1/3+2)    HP: 20      Speed: 7.50
DX: 15                 Will: 12    Move: 8
IQ: 8                    Per: 12
HT: 15                 FP: N/A    SM: +0

Dodge: 11+DB 2   Parry (x4)/Block (x2): 14+DB 2    DR: 5

Scimitar (20) (x4): 3d+3 (2) cutting or 2d (2) impaling; Reach 1. Usually launched as Deceptive Attacks -2 (4 in 6, effective skill 16) or Deceptive Attack -4 (2 in 6, effective skill 12).

Traits: Automaton; Cannot Learn; Combat Reflexes; Dark Vision; Doesn’t Breathe; Doesn’t Eat or Drink; Doesn’t Sleep; Extra Attack 3; Fragile (Unnatural); High Pain Threshold; Immunity to Metabolic Hazards; Indomitable; Injury Tolerance (Homogenous, No Blood); Pressure Support 3; Reprogrammable; Unfazeable; Unhealing (Total); Temperature Tolerance 10; Vacuum Support.
Skills: Broadsword-20 and Shield-20.
Class: Construct.
Notes: Cannot negotiate. Carries four scimitars and two indestructible medium shields (DB 2). Dull-witted but they fight intelligently. While it will engage multiple foes, it will generally try to attack one target as much as possible. Can and will use Cross Parry (see GURPS Martial Arts, p. 131) to deal with heavy attacks or if it needs a +2; Disintegrates into dust when destroyed, leaving only four normal quality scimitars (each $600, 3 lbs.); its shields are made of the same mysterious material as the statue and will disintegrate with it.

Notice the "magical field" effect is the (2) after weapon damage. It means that DR is halved vs the attack.

GURPS Gelatinous Cube (obstacle)

 Dungeon Fantastic: Iconic Monster Use & GURPS 10' Gelatin Cube Monster

 

Killer Cube O' Gelatin
A 10 foot cube of hunting gelatin. "Attacks" by moving into/onto a target and then digesting it. Usually motors along at less than 1 yard/second, eating mold, fungus, carrion, and wood (including doors in a pinch!), but it can and will speed up if attacked or it senses a large amount of food.

ST: 0 HP: 10 Speed: 4.00
DX: 6 Will: 10 Move: 2
IQ: 1 Per: 8
HT: 10 FP: 10 SM: +4

Dodge: N/A Parry: N/A DR: 0

Slam or Touch (N/A): 1 point corrosive damage (every 5 pts damage reduces DR by 1 and inflicts 1 damage) (doesn’t affect most metals or any stone/pottery) plus paralysis (contact agent, resisted by HT-2), lasts 1 minute after no longer in contact with cube.
Envelopment (N/A): It can fully envelop paralyzed foes; envelopment does 10 points of corrosive damage per second, plus paralysis as above.

Traits: Amphibious; Discriminatory Smell; Doesn’t Breathe; Doesn’t Sleep; High Pain Threshold; Immunity to Metabolic Hazards; Immunity to Mind Control; Injury Tolerance (Homogenous; No Blood); Invertebrate; No Legs (Slithers); No Manipulators; Regeneration (1 HP/Hour, not from fire); Silence 3; Universal Digestion; Vibration Sense (Air).
Skills: Stealth-12.
Class: Slime
Notes: Nonsentient and can’t negotiate. Plant/Slime spells won’t work. Gelatinous cube jelly is worth $10 a quart, 1d6 quarts can be gathered from a slain cube.

 

And from the comments section of that link:

• Wounded guys left behind, unconcious enemies left for "questioning later," corpses left for eventual resurrection - all have some real concerns with this thing. Armed and ready adventurers? None.
• Or deploy them by the dozens as support for the 10 x 10 x 10 yard Mother Cube that does 3d corrosive or so and has a boatload more HP. 
• An interesting variation on the cube would be to make it Diffuse, and make it a cloud of corrosive digestive vapor-slime instead. That would make it much harder to kill.
• Basically, it's a way to:
• explain why corpses, etc. disappear
• why chalk marks and such disappear from walls when your players ask why you didn't mention their chalk marks from eight sessions ago
• make it dangerous to leave wounded companions behind or leave corpses behind for later recovery and resurrection
• make it dangerous to let your guard down
• make a mobile obstacle, so previously "safe" places might not be safe this time. Or later on.
• make it dangerous to run in a dungeon, even to try and run out of the dungeon.

But it's not a foe any more than that 10' pit is.

I really like the idea of the cloud of corrosive vapor-slime. Harder to kill and likely faster moving. Maybe after sufficient meal it thickens out into a regular gelatinous cube and either remains stationary or slowly treks back to a "lair" to digest. It then returns to its vapor form before going on the hunt again.

 

Graveyard Nymph

Goblin Punch: Graveyard Nymph

I am considering this versus making it a naiad and putting it in the flooded tombs.

Bound to the Black Sea

Kernel of an idea that came to me while driving. I was listening to a podcast (Make Me Smart) and they were talking about the move by the right wing from Facebook to apps like Parler. One of the hosts mentioned that someone had pronounced it like parley instead of parlor and the thought of pirates immediately leapt into mind.

Why would pirates respect a code of conduct like the law of parley (as seen in Pirates of the Caribbean)? Perhaps they are magically bound to do so.

I thought of a large, literally black sea. It could be in the overworld or contained in a vast underground cavern. Any who try to enter the waters or even sail upon the black sea are consumed by it unless they first make a pact to bind themselves. Those who are bound to the black sea must remain within a certain distance of its waters but they are otherwise safe from its deadly consumption (able to swim and sail). This binding includes certain idiosyncrasies, one of which is the law of parley (the rest to be determined later; they will likely include certain weird/faerie things that make little sense to us but serve an unknown/unfathomable [see what I did there] purpose). If one breaks the laws of the black sea, various ill fates may befall them (black tentacles from the unseen depths drag you down; a host of bloated corpses [previous unbound who met their demise] clamber upon your ship or even onto the nearby shore to tear you apart; etc.).

Why would one want to bind themselves to the black sea? Because it is filled with islands brimming with rare resources and outright treasure. Despite its dangers, there are settlements on its shores where one could live it up after acquiring riches from its dark waters. Many exotic plants, animals, and materials are to be found in the black sea and merchants hawk them to traders who visit the nearby cities and town.

Some ideas can be found in an old post about a Pirates of the Sunless Sea idea by Phindar (http://eldriciv.blogspot.com/2008/05/underdark-locations.html). A somewhat similar but separate idea is the Black Pudding Lake (https://eldriciv.blogspot.com/2017/09/black-pudding-lake.html). And perhaps at the center of the black sea lies a lost island (http://eldriciv.blogspot.com/2008/05/lost-island.html).