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Showing posts from July, 2018

The Dead Isles of Altarin

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My first “campaign” was over. The Savage Front campaign, in my eyes, had been a failure caused by me, the Dungeon Master. Under ten sessions long, one total party kill, and a few failed plots was enough for me to end the story and start a new campaign. Did I quit? Yes. Looking back, I could have handled it much better and saved the Savage Front without beginning something new. Alas, that’s not what happened; instead, me and my friends began a new campaign called the Dead Isles of Altarin. This time, I decided against doing mountains of preparation beforehand and instead started with a simple idea: an archipelago ruled over by a trio of three liches called the Dread Admirals. Under them, common folk lived and thrived but a revolution was slowly brewing against the undead. As the party entered the world, they’d have to take a side and decide the fate of the Dead Isles of Altarin. This campaign, I was going to prepare little, improvise a lot, and go with the flow of the story. Well, how…
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Acute Adventures: Into Toko Hill

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Good day, folks. Today brings the second of my adventures. Into Toko Hill can be played as a continuation of last week's The Horror of Kwaka; both can be effortlessly weaved into the Tomb of Annihilation module by Wizards of the Coast.

If you prefer, here's the link to the .pdf.
Enjoy, everyone!
Into Toko HillIn the jungle of Iwanagig, human natives and vegepygmy invaders vie for dominance over a mystical spring. Terrified of venturing into the moldfolk’s domain, Toko Hill, the village seeks braver souls to take out the vegepygmies for them.

Note: Into Toko Hill can be played as part two of the prior adventure, The Horror of Kwaka, or as a standalone adventure. Feel free to use NPCs or encounters from the Horror of Kwaka in this adventure to further flesh it out.
NPCsEztli Ka: A beautiful but grizzly human female of Kwaka. She leads and trains most of the village’s warriors, and has fought the most with the vegepygmies of Toko Hill.Agari the Azure: A navy colored myconid cover…
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Voices in My Head

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It’s Friday night. My Enoach group is searching for information about the Aphid Alliance, a region-wide thieves’ guild of thri-kreen. To do so, they’re scouring the desert town of Asudem for clues and talking to everyone they can. They speak to Iviriel Alorro, a locally despised elf wizard and their patron. When Iviriel departs for an important and secret journey south, they quickly converse with Iviriel’s only apprentice, a shy and greasy human wizard named Fazil Sanmis. Soon after, they travel across town and pass by the recently vacated Storm Temple of Talos and make words with the captain of the town watch, Zir Carver. Pleased with the conversation, they walk toward the Shrine of Zet and encounter Glo Imixson, fire genasi wizard and member of the Black Zar Cabal. Not long after that, they meet Rev Sandriven, a halfling cleric and high priest of Zet and catch him up on the latest happenings with the corrupted clergy of the Storm Temple.

From the shrine, they shamble to one of the b…
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Acute Adventures: The Horror of Kwaka

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Greetings and salutations, dungeon masters and dungeoneers. This week, I'd like to introduce you all to a short project on RJD20.com: A short series of adventures. Today's adventure uses vegepygmies, the monster discussed in this week's Musing Over Monsters article. Without further ado, onto my first Acute Adventure: The Horror of Kwaka. Let's roll.
The Horror of KwakaA tiny village nestled in the dense jungle of Iwanagig is locked in a state of horror as an already frightening monstrosity haunts them, returned to life with blight and brawn. This is a short adventure for player characters of levels 1-3 using the fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons rule set.

If you would prefer reading in .pdf format, here's a link to the .pdf.
NPCsMolizuma: A dark-skinned human female with sharp bone earrings who leads the village of Kwaka. She will drive communication with any beings passing through Kwaka.Tlatonk: An ebony-skinned human male with vicious teeth marks and scars acros…
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Vegepygmies: The Forgotten Fungi

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It’s Monday night. I’m preparing for this week’s Dungeons and Dragons session located in my homegrown world of Aelonis. This particular campaign is based on Wizard of the Coast’s menacing adventure module, Tomb of Annihilation, and the PCs are currently on their way to my world’s equivalent to Port Nyanzaru, the great emerald city of Syroli. Sadly, their elemental airship was sabotaged by a sinister dragonborn and the party crash-landed on a tiny islet off the coast of the mainland named Zaza Isle. The politics and people on the island are inconsequential to the rest of the world, but vital to the party. A grung tribe lead by a zealotus queen is locked in constant combat with a tribe of vegepygmies, all while an insane, immortal, and trapped elf druid observes from an overgrown tower - and the grung hold the party’s airship crew captive. Luckily for the crew, the party is ready to assault the grung village for a second time, seeking to save the few crew members that survived the airsh…
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A New Journey

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Well met, fellow dungeon masters and adventurers.

Yesterday, I officially began a new venture, yet another leg in my quest to become a prominent voice in the Dungeons and Dragons and roleplaying game community. I created a plan for YouTube and posted my first, official video to my channel (aptly named RJD20).
This premiere video is the first in a series that will be known as Legendary Lessons TL;DR. This series will go over all of my Legendary Lessons articles, extracting the most important information from them and streamlining the content for those who don't enjoy reading as much as they enjoy watching content. In addition, the videos will be more personalized and contain more anecdotes from my home games.
Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndGF1VSSi6g
Please check it out! If you like the video, subscribe for more. If you don't, tell me why!
In other news, as some of you probably know, I'm married! We've been together for nearly eight years now and …
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Myconids: The Mystical Mushrooms

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It’s Wednesday night. I’ve finally arrived home from a long day at school, performing complex calculations such as addition, subtraction, and multiplication. My mind is boggled, my brain exhausted, and my fingers ache with mathematical frustration. Yet, as I boot up Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark and hear the familiar main menu music, all the confusion and pain fades. It’s time for eight year old me to relax. I load into my favorite world, a place of myriad magic items and god-like characters: Lost Souls. The last time I logged on I was wandering through a mystical forest rife with mushroom-folk and vegepygmies. They were strong-willed and possessed magics unknown to me. The creatures utilized their spores to bring my character to a deep sleep, rattle their mind, and utterly annihilate me. This time, though, I knew they would be conquered; I’d prepared for their psionic barrages, their use of fungi-juju, and the endless swarms of them that were assuredly ready to wail on …
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Reality Versus Fiction in D&D

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It’s Friday night. Two new players are being introduced into Altarin campaign, a rowdy romp through a slew of sea-stranded islands and pirate parties. The group has been on a quest to find pieces of an ancient, powerful gauntlet capable of destroying a lich’s phylactery and controlling legions of undead. Their mission has brought them to the sea, to the Foredoomed Spire, a sunken tower built by a cabal of storm giant wizards; within waits a missing piece of the gauntlet. However, the tower rests on the ocean floor, miles below the surface. The party hatches a plan to use their newly-acquired sea elf companions and their underwater-capable vessel to barrel to the bottom of the ocean and then enter the giant’s tower. They begin their descent, water racing past them, tropical creatures rushing around them, when a player pipes up, “Shouldn’t the water pressure be killing us? What’s going on here?” My description stopped, my face swelled, and my mind was stumped. He’s right, I thought. Bu…
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The Dead Isles of Altarin

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My first “campaign” was over. The Savage Front campaign, in my eyes, had been a failure caused by me, the Dungeon Master. Under ten sessions long, one total party kill, and a few failed plots was enough for me to end the story and start a new campaign. Did I quit? Yes. Looking back, I could have handled it much better and saved the Savage Front without beginning something new. Alas, that’s not what happened; instead, me and my friends began a new campaign called the Dead Isles of Altarin. This time, I decided against doing mountains of preparation beforehand and instead started with a simple idea: an archipelago ruled over by a trio of three liches called the Dread Admirals. Under them, common folk lived and thrived but a revolution was slowly brewing against the undead. As the party entered the world, they’d have to take a side and decide the fate of the Dead Isles of Altarin. This campaign, I was going to prepare little, improvise a lot, and go with the flow of the story. Well, how…
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Monsters Abound!

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Friday night. The Altarin campaign group is diving into the depths of Highkeep, the stronghold of the eccentric halfling wizard, Kenric Shallowren. Within, they hope to steal from the maniacal wizard’s vaults, which hold two items they need to reforge a legendary artifact. However, between them and the vaults is a labyrinth created by Kenric. Populating the dungeon are cruel traps, unfair puzzles, and mutated monsters taken from the nearby jungle. Unabashedly, they travel into the labyrinth. Inside, they battle a medusa with a serpentine body and a humanoid head, sacrifice valuables to massive-chested, sentient gorillas, and fell a winged, scaly monstrosity with four burly arms and venomous, regenerative flesh. At the end of the night, they emerge from the depths of Highkeep, items in hand, but bodies and minds scarred by these strange, new creatures.

Every battle beneath Highkeep was unique, every interaction new; this was because the creatures encountered were unknown the players. A…
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Session Starters

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The table is set, all my players are here, and I’m ready to begin today’s session of Dungeons & Dragons. Before I give my brief recap of last time’s events, I ask everyone a question, “Do you have an irrational fear? If you do, do you show it to others, or try to keep it hidden away?” Everyone starts to think; they’re putting themselves in the mind of their characters. Alovnek is terrified of cultists of Bhaal, god of murder. Ra is terrified of losing his clan, the Tarsa. Grobbolith cannot stand creatures that surpass his own power. And Qoyish is fearful of minotaurs, despite one being a member of their party. We all laugh and prepare to delve into tonight’s story. I begin the session. “Previously in the Karlith Straits…”
For some groups, it’s terribly difficult to start a session. People talk, grab food, and meander around the table, still set in their real-world ways. In my latest campaign, I’ve put into use an idea I found in the wild a while ago I now call session starters. W…
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