You embark from deep within the great Elven forest of Alastia between two great elven cities Myrast on the Lake of Haloust to the south and the forested city of Estbara in the north.
Wood elves are solitary beings preferring to inhabit their own pockets of forest with their own family groups or small villages. You however, were born with the eyes of the distant traveller; always in focus for what lays beyond the next valley and over the next range.
In your comparatively young life you have travelled to almost all parts of the Alastian forest. This is no mean feat. The forest is vast and runs from the Brofous ranges in the west to the Forgotten Territories in the east, and from the gnomish kingdom of the Pinnacle Mountains in the South.
A shy race, you rarely communicate with other cultures and races, preferring the solitude and protection of the forest, but recently something has changed. Something is calling you to wander yet further.
Slaves of Troustar sets each player out on their own path. Each starting player discovers a poster inviting them to travel to Ac Rumb and join a party for adventure, fame and fortune.
Top Secret Note:When players first meet they will know nothing of each other and barely be able to tell what their companions look like let alone their race, class and background. This means that there can be no game Zero for the players and the Dungeon Master.
Instead, preparation for the game starts with a short correspondence between players and the DM. I recommend that after you receive a reply from the initial invitation you take some time and take a look at the map and history to place characters in the world.
The invitation
Before the game, players are sent an invitation. The invitation contains a poster that their character finds and some further details on character creation.
Try an get the invitations sent out at least a week before you start your game. This will give you some time to prepare some of the characters backgrounds. Also make sure you get your players to respond to your invitation ASAP.
Just getting started for our game of Dead of Winter. I hope I don’t get Sparky.
Sparky the wonder dog?! Faark…That’s it, I’m gonna get this bushy tailed little bastard topped! I send sparky out of the colony deftly avoiding the zombies mounting at the door. I’m not going to waste a fuel card on this mongrel. How would he realistically use it?
On the way to the hospital, Sparky finds a pole to pee on. The pole turns out to be the legs of a zombie. In retaliation, the zombie groans and tries rip apart Sparky’s hind legs incurring one would token. Sparky yelps in pain and instinctively turns on his attacker with a snarling bite taking off the wrist of his attacker.
Ewh!!! That must taste awful, but then again Sparky can occasionally be found savouring the truffle-like delights of cat poo.
Sparky yelps away making his way to the Hospital where he encounters one of the survivor that I control, the red headed siren of innocence Janet Taylor (Get it? Get it? Hurh, hurh, hurh…oh nevermind.), who has yet again fallen down. Clumsy bugger. At least she knows where the good meds are.
Meanwhile, Sparky’s launched himself at the neck of another zombie. Crushing it in his maw. As he starts to develop a taste for zombie marrow, another zombie lurches mouth first at Sparky, taking a chunk out of his hind quarter. Sparky yelps again, zombie neck escaping his mouth, as he leaps through the now opened door as Janet fends off the other zombie.
Good job Sparky. Have another wound.
While this is happening, hippy fortune teller, Talia Jones, is rummaging through the Grocery Store for supplies. She goes into the back office and finds a med kit in the store manager’s office. A headless clerk lies on the ground nearby. Talia rifles through the clerks pockets. Sweet! In the clerk’s jean pockets she finds a small bag of dried mushrooms.
Talia takes a small one out and chomps down. Holy shitballz. This is some serious stuff. Her spirit leaves her body and drifts over the town. She can see what is going to happen next. Drool running from her mouth, she fumbles for her hand radio pressing the call button to radio to the colony. “More Fuel,” is all she could say before drifts deeper into her trip.
Dead of Winter
The Dead of Winter is a table-top cooperative survival board game for 2 to 5 players. The premise is simple, as a small colony of survivors, you must help each other to survive after a zombie apocalypse.
‘Administrator’ is a relatively loose term for the quiet, stoic mountains of muscles who make up the personal guard of the Patrician of Vesluvia, Lord Vecevious. Rumored to have been hand picked from the Assassins Guild these guards are elite fighters.
Below is a copy of a homebrew Hobo monster. I am using this NPC for my campaign Slaves of Troustar. In play-testing these stats came ups pretty go against my players who were level one, unarmed and unarmoured (long story).
Why there was no Hobo in the D&D Monster Manual 5e is beyond me. You really haven’t lived until you have got into a fight with a hobo.
The Hobo doesn’t really have much skill considering their constant state of inebriation. However, due to the numbing factors of the booze, their constitution is generally better than most commoners.
The only ability that the Hobo has is Why Has The Rum Gone which gives the Hobo advantage on attack rolls on any who have hidden or are in possession of their booze.
Fistycuffs is their weapon attack. As the name suggests, it is bludgeon damage from fists with a 1d4 Hit.
I modified a Challenge Rating Sheet created by Krispy KremeGuy if you want to give it a go yourself. It doesn’t Challenge Rate monsters with a CR of zero, but it is easy to modify.
Warlock – Eldritch Invocations – Mask of Many Faces(Disguise Self)
At first, I really didn’t think that non-combat spells were all that useful compared to the immediate need of a combat spell, particularly in what was turning out to be mostly a dungeon crawl. However, I wanted to stay true to my character so upon reaching second level my half-elf Warlock, Sagan Bra’el acquired the mastery of Mask of Many Faces.
In the D&D Player’s Handbook 5e p.107, Warlocks at level two begin to learn fragments of forbidden knowledge know as Eldritch Invocations. At this level you uncover two invocations and at higher levels you get more. Most invocations are available unless they have a prerequisite. For example, at level one,my character Sagan learnt the cantrip Eldritch Blast (p237). Eldritch Blast is a prerequisite for the Eldritch Invocation, Agonizing Blast (p110) which allows the Warlock to add its Charisma modifier to the damage it deals.
The unification and naming of Re’ Stam No’e Gnud is a microcosm of the relationship between the empires for many thousands of years. For much of the time the empires have been at conflict in some form of other, while on the rare occasion, there have been bouts of short lasting peace.
Approximately two thousand years ago, there seems to have been a major unification of the nations, but oddly, there are few records that have lasted from that time. What historians do know is that the unification was forged to fight a greater, more sinister force from a realm well known in the past, but lost to many today. This dark force emanated from what is now known as Forgotten Territories.
It appears that this unification ended soon after a massive geological event rendered the lands between east and west asunder (Yeah, I just wanted to use ‘asunder’ in a sentence). This event, know as The Rift was felt throughout, causing worldwide collapse of many structures and a number of subsequent fires, leading historians to suggest that this might have been the cause of the dearth of information since those times. Other academics disagree and have more conspiratorial views.
I send a message to my DM letting him know I am going for the Rod of Ruin. My note reads simply:
My mistress compels me to seek the Rod of Ruin, I have no choice but to follow her command.
Careful to make sure some of the metagamers in the group don’t see me, I slip the note to the DM. Distracted by the euphoric end to game, my companions don’t see the hand over.
This Kalarel bugger is a right nasty fellow.
Kalarel, the arch nemesis of our campaign, was almost dead and I made the first of my dex(stealth) rolls. Being a -1 on Dexterity was no help, but my mistress Silussa was looking down on me this day. My first roll was an 18 followed by my second, a 17. I send another note to my DM giving him the results and telling him I can make it to the Rod in two turns.
On our second round, Kalarel is toast. I can’t even remember how he died. I was too focused. I needed the rod and then I had to get to the portal to Orcus.
We continue our round according to initiative. I don’t move my character so the metagamers don’t know where I am headed.
I quietly whisper to my DM that I have made it to the rod while my companions attempt to examine the room and try and destroy the portal to the Underworld, and Orcus. I make a strength check of 15, plus 1 for my strength modifier. It should be enough. Let’s see what the Dungeon Master thinks.
Orcus, Lord of the Undead.
I scratch out a note as the party attempt to make Medicine and History checks. They must get 8 successful check before they make 3 failures. They are up to 3 successes and 1 failure right now. I palm the message to the DM:
I’m gonna make a run for the mirror and try and jump through.
The World for the Dungeons and Dragons 5e Campaign: Slaves of Troustar
See what I did there? The very height of cleverness, I know, but I was having a slow brain day and I kinda like how it turned out.
For the remote humanoid cat-people known as the Purrs who reside in a distant valley of the Forgotten Territories, Purrusa – the great cat herder – created the giant sand box know to the rest of the world as Re’ Stam No’e Gnud. These people believe that this world was created for them to find dark crevices to fit in, knock carefully placed objects off and to generally feels a blissful sense of apathy towards. The remoteness of the Purrs has lead them to believe that they are the only cognizant creatures in the realm even when the occasional adventurer makes their way to these far reaches they often ignore the person, unless of course this adventurer is in their comfy spot. Then there is blood…a lot of blood.
The Origin of the Name
But for the rest of the world we are concerned about, how did such a long and convoluted name come about?
Well, committee of course.
Some fifty years past, a fragile peace was forged between the Human empire of Vesluvia, the Elf empire of Alastia and the Dwarf Kingdom of Todimn. Each empire had a name for the world and after months of bickering and threats Lord Vecevious, Patrician of the Vesluvian Empire calmly interjected, suggesting that all names for the world be forged into one and that a public draw be made to determine which name would determine its order.