May of the Dead: Death’s Edge
As part of the May of the Dead blog carnival, I decided to do something similar to what I did with the Winter is Coming carnival: create yet another adventure module!
This adventure is significantly smaller in scope than my earlier publications, but it's just getting started. It's a very short (5 scenes) level 0 adventure for Dungeon and Dragons 4th Edition, using the rules for creating level 0 characters published n Dragon #403, and is intended to be the first part in a three part series I am calling The Dark Mistress Saga.
The summary of the adventure:
DM1: The Dark Mistress Saga, Part One: Death's Edge
The village of Nerasi has been at war for as long as you can remember. Hordes of undead, led by a powerful necromancer named Draya (also known as "The Dark Mistress"), have descended in to the valley countless times over the last century. But this time something is different: they seem more organized, more coordinated, more bloodthirsty... and the village is in jeopardy more than ever. With the safety of the village on the line, every man and woman that was capable of swinging a blade was sent to battle. Even though the village was nowhere near the front line it was left undefended, presumed safe due to its distance from the conflict.
Now, while the battle continues in an area known as The Fields of Bone, a small group of undead creatures have found their way in to the village. With no heroes to defend the common folk, it is now up to you - the above average commoner - to drop the shovel or take off the apron, pick up the nearest weapon and defend yourself and your loved ones from the approaching invaders.
Death's Edge is an short module for a group of level 0 characters, using the character creation guidelines provided in Dragon magazine, issue #403.
The adventure, the first chapter of the saga, is available right here absolutely free! And I also provided a PDF of all the tactical maps in printable, 1" x 1" grid format.
Enjoy! And do let me know if there are any major problems with it.
The Dark Mistress Saga, Part One: Death's Edge
Adventure Module (PDF, 4.5Mb)
The Dark Mistress Saga, Part One: Death's Edge
Tactical Maps (PDF, 21.2Mb)
In the meantime, I'm actually considering starting a real Kickstarter to fund the other two parts of the campaign, starting with DM2: The Fields of Bone. Still haven't officially decided on that... Let's see what the response is on this one.
May of the Dead: The Reanimated
My big surprise, if you will, for the May of the Dead blog carnival is scheduled to be published in about a week, but I figured I'd do something unscheduled and show off a bit of a teaser that's still appropriate for the event.
The following is an excerpt from a campaign currently in development. I give you The Reanimated...
A powerful necromancer’s greatest asset is that he is never alone; he is constantly surrounded by bodies of creatures that have died and can be easily raised to do his bidding.
But bringing a creature back from the dead has its problems. Sometimes, depending on how they died, they may not have sufficient mental capacity to follow instructions or obey the necromancer’s commands. In those cases, there must be something more in place to control these creatures more effectively.
An animus wraith is just such a creation. Under direct command of the necromancer, they enter the body of the fallen and effectively take control of it. With their spirits merged with the dead, the creature now becomes a “reanimated” creature that is under the complete control of the necromancer and the animus wraiths that manipulate it from inside.
The following is a template that can be used on any non-elite creature in order to create a “reanimated”. Usually the best targets of such an infusion of necromantic energy are big creatures, creatures that are meant to do the heavy lifting and grunt work while the real soldiers fight the hard battles. Necromancers have been known to reanimate war elephants as mounts, ogres to serve as defenders of their lairs and even larger creatures to plow across the battlefield.
Once a reanimated creature dies, the animus wraiths that empowered it are released. Given an opportunity they will seek out other creatures that have fallen and immediately bond with them in a similar manner, or they may attempt to bolster another reanimated creature currently involved in the same battle.
The Dark Mistress Saga, Supplemental:
The Reanimated (PDF, approx 1.8Mb)
Status Update
It's been almost three weeks since my last post, so I figured it was time to give everyone a status update.
If you're not aware, on April 27th my mother passed away. I can't say it was unexpected - she had been dealing with a fair share of health issues and she hadn't been the same in the last few months - but even so it's been somewhat of a shock and a trying time as I deal with her loss. For a while there I lost my creative spark and desire to do anything from a design and development standpoint, but I've been slowly working my way to getting back to "business as usual" in that regard. Even so, we've still been dealing with issues as it relates to her passing, so it's still occupying a large part of my daily life. But I'm OK... pressing on day by day.
I'm now back in the creative swing, if you will. The Heart of Fire is doing as well as can be expected (the 4E market has dwindled, it seems), and I have several other projects currently in the works:
- On May 28th (I think), I will be releasing my contribution to the May of the Dead blog carnival: another level 0 adventure called Death's Edge, which involves the players defending their homes against an invading horde of undead. It's part one of a three part series I am calling The Dark Mistress Saga (I have my doubts of that name, but still), and will be available for free on this site. It's already completed, so I'm struggling with the fact that I want to get it published and am normally too impatient to wait the week and a half before its intended release date.
- I have already started work on part two of the three part series, a level 1 module that doesn't actually have a name yet. The second part is more warfare oriented, where the players are now "heroes" and are now on the front line of a war against a powerful necromancer and her vast undead army. For this second part I'm taking a lot of inspiration from the Heroes of Battle supplement for D&D 3.5E, and am debating to what extent to include some of the mechanics presented there (such as victory points, reputation points, morale, etc...).
- I was working on a Fouthcore adventure, but now I'm not sure if it's worth completing at this point. To be honest, there are many other people out there that can do Fourthcore much better than I can, and with DnD Next looming over the horizon it doesn't quite seem worth the effort at this point. So what I will probably do is release some of the areas of the campaign I've already done on this blog for anyone to use, similar in what I've done so far with the Gamma World Remnants.
- The Coming Dark is still the 700lb gorilla hiding in my closet. Once the DnD Next playtest materials hit (exactly one week from today), I am going to start planning the conversion. Granted, there might not be a whole lot I can do or would even want to do (I don't want to spent too much time creating mechanics that might change), but I can at least make some basic progress. My goal is to have one or more first level adventures available as soon as DnD Next launches (licensing limitations not withstanding), so we'll see how that goes.
- I have one adventure idea I pitched to Wizards of the Coast as part of the DDI submission window, and I have yet to hear a response regarding that. It's a really fun and somewhat wacky idea, and quite honestly I'm not expecting a positive response because of the nature of it, but whether they accept it or not it's going to get written sooner or later. It's actually about half done as it is, so once I hear "yay" or "nay" I'll complete the rest of it and publish through them or on my own.
- I have one DDI article that is slated to be published (in Dungeon, I assume)... eventually. I have no idea when, and for obvious reasons I can't say much more about it until it appears in the calendar. It is my first and, all things considered, it's pretty simple compared to my other stuff, but I'm really excited waiting for the day it's actually in print.
- As I said above, in one week the first wave of the DnD Next playtest will commence. I don't know how much I'll be able to actually play it, but I'll definitely be picking it apart with tweezers to figure out what it's all about.
Finally, there was a time I was considering a Kickstarter to fund the physical printing of The Heart of Fire, but after crunching the numbers it didn't seem all that practical to do. But now I'm seriously considering a Kickstarter to fund the development of parts two and three of The Dark Mistress Saga to help fund the creative needs of the project (cover art, maps, etc.) and to see if there's actually a demand for it. I have to run the numbers and give that some more thought.
Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know what I've been up to.
The Heart of Fire
We are pleased to announce the release of The Heart of Fire, our next major adventure/campaign for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition! Here is a brief synopsis:
Over a century ago, the nation of Cerra was terrorized by Vulkanon, a fearsome dragon that rose out from an active volcano on a small neighboring island.
To deal with the threat, the council of Cerra hired a group of adventures led by Raylen Darathar—a powerful elemental mage—to seek out of the dragon and destroy it. Raylen emerged mortally wounded, but alive. The volcano was silent, and the attacks stopped. Cerra believed itself to be safe once again.
But decades have passed and now evil stirs again. As the volcano begins to tremble, fearful rumors spread that the great dragon has somehow returned. Sailors whisper of a dark mage that has managed to resurrect the dragon and intends to use its power cower the land into submission. Cerra seeks heroes once again to save itself from fiery destruction.
This adventure has been in development for some time now, well before the "DnD Next" announcement. After I created the thing it sat on my hard drive for about a month, collecting virtual dust, with me wondering exactly what I was going to do with it. The way I see it, it was written... Might as well get it out there even if there's the risk that nobody will buy it.
Admittedly, the adventure isn't at the 100% quality that my obsessive self likes to have, but I wanted to get it published while still being eligible for this year's ENnies. There's no chance in hell any 4E product will be eligible for nomination next year; it was now or never. We are still going to be doing some basic editing to it and will post an update one of these days. If you purchase it and find something glaring in it, please let me know and I'll correct it accordingly.
I'd like to thank a few people who assisted in this project:
Editing: Stephen Newton of Thick Skull Adventures and Ian "Reg09" Ramsey. They fixed my crappy writing and horrible plot holes, and Ian provided some mechanical insight that really helped out in some of the more major encounters of the adventure.
Cover Art: The cover art is by Sigbjørn Pedersen of Pedersen Airbrush, a very talented artist. I chanced across the cover image on DeviantArt and it was absolutely perfect; I had to have it. Thanks for letting me use it!
Island Map: The map of the Isle of Pyrias was done by J.D. Harvill from the Cartographer's Guild. As I've mentioned many times before, I am fairly decent in tactical maps but are abysmal when it comes to regional and world maps. I must have tried to do the island map a dozen times and spent two weeks only to come up with crap, but less than a day after posting the request on Cartographer's Guild J.D. responded splendidly. I am eternally grateful.
Other People: A few other people have seen bits and pieces of the adventure; for example, I know a few that helped me review one major trap in the encounter ("The False Vault" on page 91). At this point I don't remember your names, so email me and I'll acknowledge you accordingly.
You can purchase it now on Drive Thru RPG! I was planning to use this to launch my own store front, but just haven't had the time to get all that done.
-=O=-
So... what's next for us? Glad you asked...
- I am currently waiting for a response from WotC regarding something I pitched. As usual, regardless of what they answer it's going to get created... It's just up to them to decide who owns it and when it sees the light of day. For obvious reasons, I can't provide more details on that.
- I have a general concept and two rooms done for a Fourthcore adventure idea I had, so I just need to find the inspiration to finish up the rest of it. The tentative name is the Something of the Crystal Something... Yeah, I know that needs a little work...
- I have another idea for a D&D 4E adventure that is based on an active war front, similar in concept to the "Reavers of the Harkenworld" mini-campaign included in the DM's Kit. Barring any major change in plans (see above) this will probably be my next major project.
- The Coming Dark is currently locked in a safe, waiting for the day that we have enough information on "D&D Next" to get working on it.
Finally, as I believe I've mentioned before: we will continue to create D&D 4th Edition content until a higher authority tells us to do otherwise. I am not the type of person to sit on my hands and not do anything about all these ideas I have. And waiting a full year to publish an idea for a game system I know very little about is unthinkable right now, so I will continue to publish with the framework I have currently available. So long as 4E has players, I will continue to create stuff for people to use.
The DnD Pantheon
The D&D 4E Pantheon... Well, most of it anyway.
Yesterday I was in a strange mood, so I decided to try and practice a little with my non-"drag clip art around" skills in Fireworks and Illustrator. I'm trying to expand my skills, get some more practice in drawing and in raw vector manipulation, so my maps and such can be a little more robust and unique.
Looking for something to do, I came across the "Deities" section of the semi-official Dungeons and Dragons Zazzle site. When I saw the first one - Asmodeus - I thought to myself "Yeah... I can do that."
Several hours later, I had all sixteen done.
The majority of them involved not much more than dropping a rectangle or circle and then screwing with the bezier anchors, plus a lot of polygon unification and "punching". Some of the more complex one involved drawing a base vector with the vector path tool and then modifying the points to match the image reference. Vecna was probably the hardest in this regard, adn Tharizdun took me the longest of all due to its complexity. Corellon, Pelor and Erathis were quite entertaining because I put a stupid amount of time to make them mathematically accurate and symmetrical.
Like I said, I did this for practice... But now that I have them I can't help but share them. So here are all 16 deities, provided in native Fireworks PNG and Illustrator 8 formats. The base image is about 700x700 pixels but it's vector so it should be very easy to scale to any size you want.
Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Deities - Fireworks PNG
Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Deities - Adobe Illustrator 8
I hope that someone out there can put these to good use.
About the Author
Software developer and game designer in Miami, Florida. Currently working on content for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, Pathfinder, 13th Age and other systems.
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