Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
[Let's Read] The Adventurer's Guide to the Bible
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 8774839" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/jMC6R2A.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"><strong>Events & Encounters, Part I</strong></p><p></p><p>Even larger than the Atlas at nearly 100 pages, Events & Encounters is the longest chapter of the book. Made up of 19 scenarios, these provide detailed descriptions of the more involved events, dungeons, cities, and regions relevant to the main quest of the Adventurer’s Guide to the Bible. Some are location-neutral, being more generic templates for broad scenario types while others are tied strongly to specific people and places. In some scenarios, such as finding the Magi or helping Raphael fight Naamah, the party can convince an NPC to temporarily join them on their quest with a successful Persuasion check.</p><p></p><p>By the time the PCs resolve Tobias’ journey they’ll be 3rd level. Only a few of these listed encounters have specific level up points using the milestone system: when the party rescues Balthazar from the Den of Serpents, when they defeat one of the five archdemons (Abbadon and Lilith are fought at campaign’s end), and after Jesus’ crucifixion in Way of the Cross. The party is expected to meet Jesus sometime around level 6, and start the Way of the Cross around 9th level. But I did happen to notice one oddity in regards to expected party level from the proposed sequence of events:</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/zyeQLSk.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>Barring Way of the Cross, the only level up opportunity not involving killing a demon involves finding Balthasar. While Naamah is weaker than the other archdemons CR-wise, it’s inevitable that the PCs will be fighting at least 1 of the other archdemons around 5th level, quite short of the 7th level suggestion of this adventure. Barring Naamah’s retreat in the Story Begins, the archdemon scenarios don’t exactly have them retreating for a “phase two” somewhere else. That being said, most of the archdemon stats can be doable as challenging boss battles for 4th to 6th level parties.</p><p></p><p><em>Tournament of Champions</em> is a location-generic event that can take place in any city with a Roman colosseum, which is basically most Roman-held cities. This event is actually a series of 10 mini-games revolving around gladiatorial contests and gambling, along with a sample map and room description for a colosseum in case PCs wish to break into a treasure vault, rescue an enslaved gladiator, and/or escape from capture themselves. The minigames include solo and team-based chariot racing, single and team-based gladiatorial combat, Carpe Vexillum which is basically capture the flag, mock naval combats, and four different types of popular tavern games, 3 of which involve gambling and one of which involves drinking shots and flicking the liquid remnants at teetering plates via tests of inebriated dexterity. All of these games have their own rules for PCs who wish to participate. In regards to straight-on gladiatorial combat, PCs pay an entry fee to compete, where they are pitted against progressively stronger monsters or NPCs. After each fight they can gracefully bow out with an amount of gold based on the number of completed fights, or push their luck and try another. Losing a fight forfeits all gold accumulated. It takes 2 fights to break even, there are 7 maximum fights per “tournament,” and the party can take a short rest between each fight save for the 6th, which instead allows for a long rest. And we have maps for arenas, both normal and water-filled for appropriate mini-games.</p><p></p><p>Overall a detailed and fun addition.</p><p></p><p><em>Blood and Sand</em> is a dungeon crawl in a 7 room series of tunnels and caverns that the Shadow of the Beast cult are using as a hideout. Known as the Den of Serpents, it is located in the Wilderness of Zin and closest to the city of Sirwah in the Kingdom of Sheba. Balthazar the Magi is being held captive by the cult, who are led by a snake-like demon known as a Shedim. Most of the rooms contain some variety of enemies, mostly Saraph Serpents (a new snake monster whose venomous bite can reduce HP maximum over time until magically healed) along with 3 cultists and their Shedim leader. In addition to the captive Magi, the Shedim also has a Staff of the Bronze Serpent, a magic item which is actually a reconstructed segment of staff of an original pole made by Moses himself. Its charges can be used to cast various healing spells and provide resistance and advantage vs poison damage and effects for the wielder.</p><p></p><p>It is quite likely that the PCs will visit this dungeon early on, and may even still be 3rd level when they encounter it. As such, it can be rather difficult in comparison to the other dungeons and encounters as the party has less resources between long rests. While most rooms have 3 foes on average, one containing 6 Saraph Serpents can be pretty deadly. Moreso if the DM runs the enemies realistically and has them respond to sounds of combat elsewhere in the dungeon. However, the scales may be tipped a bit if the party convinces Iskinder, the military commander in the nearby city of Sirwah, to accompany them for this quest. He likely has more HP than any of the party members at this point (88 HP) and can potentially attack four times per round with Multiattack and his Scimitar of Speed! While this can be welcome help to some groups, the likelihood of the party getting recent aid from Raphael in the opening adventure may give the impression that powerful DMPCs are the standard in this module, and no self-respecting DM wants that!</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/YS6nkBe.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The three <em>Finding the Magi</em> events detail places where the Three Wise Men can be encountered, their current troubles, what information they can tell the party about the archdemons and the Messiah, and where to find the other Magi if they haven’t been located yet. Each also has a unique magic item which make up a set known as the Armor of God. These gifts were initially the presents they planned to give to Jesus on his birth, but an angel told them that the items were meant for another group of heroes: “The Messiah has weapons of which you do not know, and would not understand. Give them instead to those who will follow him, for theirs is the way of the sword, and his the way of the cross.” Balthazar’s location has been explained above, and he can tell the party about how the seven archdemons use the power of sin to grow stronger and anchor themselves to the world via simulacrums. He’ll give the PCs the Helm of Salvation, which has 3 charges which can be spent to allow a creature within sight to reroll a failed saving throw. Oddly enough, he doesn’t remember the name of the baby he visited in Bethleheim, nor did he understand what the angel meant by the word Messiah or the way of the cross. I imagine that the visit plus meeting an angel would be the kind of thing you’d remember for the rest of your life. Balthazar certainly seemed to remember the angel’s statement word for word and knows that “the child born under the star would destroy sin once and for all,” but is somehow unable to remember his name. Even back then the Magi would know the baby was special, for the Biblical account mentions that they were searching for a child they believed would be King of the Jews. I can get the justification as being a fuzzy memory from the progression of old age, but his perfect memory of the angel’s recited statement makes it feel a bit done for the convenience of the plot.</p><p></p><p>Melchior is in the Library of Alexandria’s archives, helped by an assistant named Strabo. He can tell the party more about the archdemons’ backstories and Satan’s fall from grace. While Balthazar somehow forgot the name of the baby they visited, Melchior knows that his name is Jesus and is the Messiah, part of a prophecy which makes him a threat to the archdemons but otherwise doesn’t know how that will be fulfilled. Thus he pleads with the party to protect Jesus from any attempt at harm. He’ll give the party a Shield of Faith, a +2 shield that grants resistance to the damage of ranged weapons, and can cast the Shield of Faith spell at will without the need to maintain concentration on it.</p><p></p><p>Caspar has spent the last twenty years researching the sky and stars at an observatory on the island of Cyprus. By charting the stars he managed to locate the Messiah’s current location in the region of Galilee as well as the archdemons via tracking the size of their sin-enhancing auras. But he is having trouble finding Abaddon, given that the world is a hateful and violent place, as well as Lilith as he hasn’t detected any epicenters of Pride-based sin auras and thus only knows she’s not near any major cities. He’ll give the PCs the Boots of the Gospel, which allow the wearer to cast Teleport once per day. Hey, a literal Fast Travel feature! Additionally Aristarchus, who is Caspar’s assistant, was the former High Curator of the Museum of Alexandria exiled by Roman occupation, and has a quest for interested PCs…</p><p></p><p><em>Museum Heist</em> is a pseudo-dungeon crawl where the PCs break into the Library and Museum of Alexandria to gain access to a vault full of valuable items. There are several reasons and motivations to take this quest besides succumbing to the sin of greed, as several of the items can tie into other quests. The Mernetaph Codex is believed to contain useful information about the archdemon hideouts in Egypt, while Cleopatra’s daughter Selene wants to retrieve her mother’s brooch from the vault. The archdemon Legion may send one of his agents to get the PCs to steal the Codex with the intentions of ambushing them later, and Aristarchus isn’t fond of the current High Curator and wants the PCs to find a means of getting him fired. This is a two-story, 24 room location, and certain sections of the building are open to the public and besides a pair of Dybbuk* the potentially hostile sources are all Roman guards. This allows the PCs a bit of freedom in how they go about their stealth mission. The vault is magically reinforced with alarm and sleep glyphs that can be disabled only if a pair of keys are used to unlock the vault. One key is carried on the Roman Centurion Lars Proximus, and the other by Balbillus, the current High Curator. While the Centurion dutifully keeps his key attached to his belt at all times, Balbillus has a habit of misplacing it and can be found in a random d6 location.</p><p></p><p>*undead souls who escaped from Sheol.</p><p></p><p>While breaking into the vault and stealing something can be scandalous enough to cost Balbillus his job, there are other means of getting him replaced. In his office, he keeps records in his personal lockbox of financial transactions which prove he’s been stealing money from the Museum’s treasury, which can be used to blackmail him into compliance or get him arrested so some other ally can replace him and get the PCs what they want.</p><p></p><p>The Merneptah is an ancient Egyptian spellbook telling a pro-Egypt, anti-Jewish account of Moses freeing his people from slavery, where the prophet is cast as a legendary villain who is eventually wiped out by the Pharoah’s army, proving that the Egyptian gods were superior to that of the Hebrews. The spellbook contains 8 spells, one of which is Create Golem which in true folkloric fashion involves the use of a Hebrew sign for life. I find that spell’s inclusion ironic considering who likely wrote it. Unfortunately the module says nothing about the Codex revealing the location of archdemon lairs; that kind of thing should be included as a matter of course for the sake of sandboxy goodness.</p><p></p><p>There are three other priceless magic items to be obtained in the vault: the Sword of Alexander the Great (+2 longsword, has 3 charges which can be spent to reroll a single attack, ability check, or saving throw), a ring belonging to one of Egypt’s Pharaohs (Increases Charisma and Charisma maximum by 2, advantage on Charisma checks when wearing it openly in Egypt), and Cleopatra’s Brooch (spend charges to turn a failed save into a successful one).</p><p></p><p><em>Prison Break</em> is a location and scenario-neutral entry for when a merciful DM decides that the party ends up captured rather than killed via TPK. Maybe they got arrested by authorities, overwhelmed by one of the archdemons and taken to a cult hideout, or some other unfortunate fate. Regardless, there’s a map for a small fortress-prison with 3 rooms. The sentries can use the generic Guard stat block or other ones as the DM deems appropriate. Besides the primary goal of escaping with their equipment in tow, one of the rooms is an office that contains information relevant about the group who captured the party.</p><p></p><p><em>The Forgotten Temple</em> is another location and scenario-neutral dungeon crawl, a two-story and four room mini-dungeon. It’s really just a set of two maps with no treasure or monster details besides some suggestions for a boss monster in the final room. A bit of a letdown IMO, for generic dungeon maps are a dime a dozen on places like Pinterest.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/qKbmFDs.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><em>Aphrodite’s Touch</em> is the lair of Naamah the Seducer, Archdemon of Lust. Located in the City of Thebes, she has used her influence to make a sex cult claiming to honor the old gods, and uses a temple converted to a brothel to grow strong off of sin. PCs can meet up with the angel Raphael in the city, where he can serve as backup in bringing down the archdemon.</p><p></p><p>This entire section is a giant content warning, so I’m going to spoiler all of it save for the fight and stats of Naamah herself.</p><p></p><p><strong>Content Warning Sexual assault, sexual slavery, coerced suicide, pedophilia</strong></p><p></p><p>[spoiler]As you might have guessed from the CW, Naamah is the worst kind of monster. As a representation of the negative aspects of sexuality, Naamah hates the idea of sex being used in a loving and consensual manner. Sex devoid of love is her sin of choice: all of the sex workers in Aphrodite’s Touch are mind-controlled by her, and once she’s defeated they’ll come to and be traumatized by what they were made to do. One of the shedim demons working for Naamah unsuccessfully attempted to purchase Cleopatra’s daughter Selene as a slave to put to work when she was just 10 years old, and Selene can act as an adventure hook in taking revenge on the establishment. Another adventure hook for PCs visiting Thebes has them meet a young teenage girl crying because her parents are pressuring her into working at the brothel. Finally, PCs who trigger a random encounter with the Witch of Endor (who I’ll talk about in the next post) may be tasked with delivering a love letter to one of the sex workers in Thebes. There, they can learn that Naamah has been trying to drive her to suicide.</p><p></p><p>I can get that sex crimes are a special level of heinous and that the writers are trying to make Naamah an utterly loathsome individual. However this adventure can be understandably hard to run for many groups. As the sin of Lust can also cover desire in general and not just the sexual kind, I’m a bit surprised that the module didn’t have a “toned down” version or a nonsexual one given that I imagine this module is intended to be run by faithful Christians and not all may wish to have such material in their games. Then again, going for the “they’re unholy because they’re having sex outside of marriage” in and of itself may be too prudish for a lot of gamers, so my guess is they went with the sexual slavery angle to make Naamah more unambiguously evil to a non-conservative audience.[/spoiler]</p><p></p><p>Each Archdemon has a unified set of mechanics: they all have Lair and Legendary Actions, and are a two-stage boss battle where their human-seeing simulacrum form with its own stat block is fought first. Once the simulacrum is killed, it begins to discorporate in an obviously supernatural way, giving the party one free round to prepare themselves when the archdemon reappears in its true form. Most archdemons can cast an Induce Sin spell in line with their favored sin (Naamah can cast Induce Lust), and they also constantly radiate a 1 mile Aura of Temptation which pushes those within the radius to be more inclined to perform a certain kind of sinful activity as well as creating recurring distracting illusions in line with such sins. Additionally, each simulacrum has Atonement Vulnerability, meaning that spells and effects which can destroy or atone for sins and evil actions deal automatic damage to them every round they’re subjected to the spell’s effects.</p><p></p><p>Aphrodite’s Touch is a luxurious building guarded by Roman soldiers on Naamah’s payroll, and the archdemon is accompanied by a giant mercenary as her bodyguard. She’ll try to engage the party in conversation first, hoping to use her Charm ability on one PC to violently turn them against the others when combat begins. Her simulacrum form is named Seraphine and doesn’t really have many direct-damage features save an AoE perfume cloud, but can mind control a single target at a time and also short-range teleport in reaction to taking damage. Her true archdemon form is a bat-winged humanoid with goat hooves and a head, and is more of a straightforward combatant, such as claw and hoof attacks, a scream counterattack that can impose disadvantage on an attack roll, and legendary actions which can turn her invisible for 1 round or a stun-based seductive gaze attack.</p><p></p><p>Naamah’s first form is not that dangerous for level 4-6 parties, particularly with Raphael’s help. If anything, the major dangers will be from her giant bodyguard and Roman soldiers who will flock to her aid. Her archdemon form is a decent challenge from my reading of it too. Her major weakness is that she doesn’t have access to any good ranged attacks, although her fly speed likely means she is meant to make hit and run attacks.</p><p></p><p>In the aftermath, Raphael will depart back to the spirit world if he survived the fight, although he may choose to stay on Earth (and may become a traveling companion) with a successful Persuasion check. PCs searching Naamah’s office and who overcome her Glyph of Warding trap can find a collection of letters exchanged with other archdemons, pointing the party to Moloch’s location in particular.</p><p></p><p><strong>Thoughts So Far:</strong> If I had to pick a favorite event so far, it would be the Tournament of Champions. For those of you who read my last Let’s Read, I’m quite fond of mini-games, and this section alone is easily mineable for other campaign settings. The Prison Break is a neat touch although a little barebones, and the Forgotten Temple is hardly an event or encounter at all. I like the open-endedness of the Museum Heist quest, as well as the three Magi all having unique magic items to give the PCs as a reward for finding them. I have some reservations about the Den of Serpents dungeon and its potential lethality for low-level parties, and Aphrodite’s Touch is the kind of thing you’ll need to heavily revise for a fair portion of gaming groups, so those are the low points of this section.</p><p></p><p><strong>Join us next time as we cover the second half of Events and Encounters, including the rest of the archdemons, visiting the holy lands of Judea, meeting Jesus, and the final battle against Lilith!</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libertad, post: 8774839, member: 6750502"] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/jMC6R2A.png[/img] [b]Events & Encounters, Part I[/b][/center] Even larger than the Atlas at nearly 100 pages, Events & Encounters is the longest chapter of the book. Made up of 19 scenarios, these provide detailed descriptions of the more involved events, dungeons, cities, and regions relevant to the main quest of the Adventurer’s Guide to the Bible. Some are location-neutral, being more generic templates for broad scenario types while others are tied strongly to specific people and places. In some scenarios, such as finding the Magi or helping Raphael fight Naamah, the party can convince an NPC to temporarily join them on their quest with a successful Persuasion check. By the time the PCs resolve Tobias’ journey they’ll be 3rd level. Only a few of these listed encounters have specific level up points using the milestone system: when the party rescues Balthazar from the Den of Serpents, when they defeat one of the five archdemons (Abbadon and Lilith are fought at campaign’s end), and after Jesus’ crucifixion in Way of the Cross. The party is expected to meet Jesus sometime around level 6, and start the Way of the Cross around 9th level. But I did happen to notice one oddity in regards to expected party level from the proposed sequence of events: [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/zyeQLSk.png[/img][/center] Barring Way of the Cross, the only level up opportunity not involving killing a demon involves finding Balthasar. While Naamah is weaker than the other archdemons CR-wise, it’s inevitable that the PCs will be fighting at least 1 of the other archdemons around 5th level, quite short of the 7th level suggestion of this adventure. Barring Naamah’s retreat in the Story Begins, the archdemon scenarios don’t exactly have them retreating for a “phase two” somewhere else. That being said, most of the archdemon stats can be doable as challenging boss battles for 4th to 6th level parties. [i]Tournament of Champions[/i] is a location-generic event that can take place in any city with a Roman colosseum, which is basically most Roman-held cities. This event is actually a series of 10 mini-games revolving around gladiatorial contests and gambling, along with a sample map and room description for a colosseum in case PCs wish to break into a treasure vault, rescue an enslaved gladiator, and/or escape from capture themselves. The minigames include solo and team-based chariot racing, single and team-based gladiatorial combat, Carpe Vexillum which is basically capture the flag, mock naval combats, and four different types of popular tavern games, 3 of which involve gambling and one of which involves drinking shots and flicking the liquid remnants at teetering plates via tests of inebriated dexterity. All of these games have their own rules for PCs who wish to participate. In regards to straight-on gladiatorial combat, PCs pay an entry fee to compete, where they are pitted against progressively stronger monsters or NPCs. After each fight they can gracefully bow out with an amount of gold based on the number of completed fights, or push their luck and try another. Losing a fight forfeits all gold accumulated. It takes 2 fights to break even, there are 7 maximum fights per “tournament,” and the party can take a short rest between each fight save for the 6th, which instead allows for a long rest. And we have maps for arenas, both normal and water-filled for appropriate mini-games. Overall a detailed and fun addition. [i]Blood and Sand[/i] is a dungeon crawl in a 7 room series of tunnels and caverns that the Shadow of the Beast cult are using as a hideout. Known as the Den of Serpents, it is located in the Wilderness of Zin and closest to the city of Sirwah in the Kingdom of Sheba. Balthazar the Magi is being held captive by the cult, who are led by a snake-like demon known as a Shedim. Most of the rooms contain some variety of enemies, mostly Saraph Serpents (a new snake monster whose venomous bite can reduce HP maximum over time until magically healed) along with 3 cultists and their Shedim leader. In addition to the captive Magi, the Shedim also has a Staff of the Bronze Serpent, a magic item which is actually a reconstructed segment of staff of an original pole made by Moses himself. Its charges can be used to cast various healing spells and provide resistance and advantage vs poison damage and effects for the wielder. It is quite likely that the PCs will visit this dungeon early on, and may even still be 3rd level when they encounter it. As such, it can be rather difficult in comparison to the other dungeons and encounters as the party has less resources between long rests. While most rooms have 3 foes on average, one containing 6 Saraph Serpents can be pretty deadly. Moreso if the DM runs the enemies realistically and has them respond to sounds of combat elsewhere in the dungeon. However, the scales may be tipped a bit if the party convinces Iskinder, the military commander in the nearby city of Sirwah, to accompany them for this quest. He likely has more HP than any of the party members at this point (88 HP) and can potentially attack four times per round with Multiattack and his Scimitar of Speed! While this can be welcome help to some groups, the likelihood of the party getting recent aid from Raphael in the opening adventure may give the impression that powerful DMPCs are the standard in this module, and no self-respecting DM wants that! [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/YS6nkBe.png[/img][/center] The three [i]Finding the Magi[/i] events detail places where the Three Wise Men can be encountered, their current troubles, what information they can tell the party about the archdemons and the Messiah, and where to find the other Magi if they haven’t been located yet. Each also has a unique magic item which make up a set known as the Armor of God. These gifts were initially the presents they planned to give to Jesus on his birth, but an angel told them that the items were meant for another group of heroes: “The Messiah has weapons of which you do not know, and would not understand. Give them instead to those who will follow him, for theirs is the way of the sword, and his the way of the cross.” Balthazar’s location has been explained above, and he can tell the party about how the seven archdemons use the power of sin to grow stronger and anchor themselves to the world via simulacrums. He’ll give the PCs the Helm of Salvation, which has 3 charges which can be spent to allow a creature within sight to reroll a failed saving throw. Oddly enough, he doesn’t remember the name of the baby he visited in Bethleheim, nor did he understand what the angel meant by the word Messiah or the way of the cross. I imagine that the visit plus meeting an angel would be the kind of thing you’d remember for the rest of your life. Balthazar certainly seemed to remember the angel’s statement word for word and knows that “the child born under the star would destroy sin once and for all,” but is somehow unable to remember his name. Even back then the Magi would know the baby was special, for the Biblical account mentions that they were searching for a child they believed would be King of the Jews. I can get the justification as being a fuzzy memory from the progression of old age, but his perfect memory of the angel’s recited statement makes it feel a bit done for the convenience of the plot. Melchior is in the Library of Alexandria’s archives, helped by an assistant named Strabo. He can tell the party more about the archdemons’ backstories and Satan’s fall from grace. While Balthazar somehow forgot the name of the baby they visited, Melchior knows that his name is Jesus and is the Messiah, part of a prophecy which makes him a threat to the archdemons but otherwise doesn’t know how that will be fulfilled. Thus he pleads with the party to protect Jesus from any attempt at harm. He’ll give the party a Shield of Faith, a +2 shield that grants resistance to the damage of ranged weapons, and can cast the Shield of Faith spell at will without the need to maintain concentration on it. Caspar has spent the last twenty years researching the sky and stars at an observatory on the island of Cyprus. By charting the stars he managed to locate the Messiah’s current location in the region of Galilee as well as the archdemons via tracking the size of their sin-enhancing auras. But he is having trouble finding Abaddon, given that the world is a hateful and violent place, as well as Lilith as he hasn’t detected any epicenters of Pride-based sin auras and thus only knows she’s not near any major cities. He’ll give the PCs the Boots of the Gospel, which allow the wearer to cast Teleport once per day. Hey, a literal Fast Travel feature! Additionally Aristarchus, who is Caspar’s assistant, was the former High Curator of the Museum of Alexandria exiled by Roman occupation, and has a quest for interested PCs… [i]Museum Heist[/i] is a pseudo-dungeon crawl where the PCs break into the Library and Museum of Alexandria to gain access to a vault full of valuable items. There are several reasons and motivations to take this quest besides succumbing to the sin of greed, as several of the items can tie into other quests. The Mernetaph Codex is believed to contain useful information about the archdemon hideouts in Egypt, while Cleopatra’s daughter Selene wants to retrieve her mother’s brooch from the vault. The archdemon Legion may send one of his agents to get the PCs to steal the Codex with the intentions of ambushing them later, and Aristarchus isn’t fond of the current High Curator and wants the PCs to find a means of getting him fired. This is a two-story, 24 room location, and certain sections of the building are open to the public and besides a pair of Dybbuk* the potentially hostile sources are all Roman guards. This allows the PCs a bit of freedom in how they go about their stealth mission. The vault is magically reinforced with alarm and sleep glyphs that can be disabled only if a pair of keys are used to unlock the vault. One key is carried on the Roman Centurion Lars Proximus, and the other by Balbillus, the current High Curator. While the Centurion dutifully keeps his key attached to his belt at all times, Balbillus has a habit of misplacing it and can be found in a random d6 location. *undead souls who escaped from Sheol. While breaking into the vault and stealing something can be scandalous enough to cost Balbillus his job, there are other means of getting him replaced. In his office, he keeps records in his personal lockbox of financial transactions which prove he’s been stealing money from the Museum’s treasury, which can be used to blackmail him into compliance or get him arrested so some other ally can replace him and get the PCs what they want. The Merneptah is an ancient Egyptian spellbook telling a pro-Egypt, anti-Jewish account of Moses freeing his people from slavery, where the prophet is cast as a legendary villain who is eventually wiped out by the Pharoah’s army, proving that the Egyptian gods were superior to that of the Hebrews. The spellbook contains 8 spells, one of which is Create Golem which in true folkloric fashion involves the use of a Hebrew sign for life. I find that spell’s inclusion ironic considering who likely wrote it. Unfortunately the module says nothing about the Codex revealing the location of archdemon lairs; that kind of thing should be included as a matter of course for the sake of sandboxy goodness. There are three other priceless magic items to be obtained in the vault: the Sword of Alexander the Great (+2 longsword, has 3 charges which can be spent to reroll a single attack, ability check, or saving throw), a ring belonging to one of Egypt’s Pharaohs (Increases Charisma and Charisma maximum by 2, advantage on Charisma checks when wearing it openly in Egypt), and Cleopatra’s Brooch (spend charges to turn a failed save into a successful one). [i]Prison Break[/i] is a location and scenario-neutral entry for when a merciful DM decides that the party ends up captured rather than killed via TPK. Maybe they got arrested by authorities, overwhelmed by one of the archdemons and taken to a cult hideout, or some other unfortunate fate. Regardless, there’s a map for a small fortress-prison with 3 rooms. The sentries can use the generic Guard stat block or other ones as the DM deems appropriate. Besides the primary goal of escaping with their equipment in tow, one of the rooms is an office that contains information relevant about the group who captured the party. [i]The Forgotten Temple[/i] is another location and scenario-neutral dungeon crawl, a two-story and four room mini-dungeon. It’s really just a set of two maps with no treasure or monster details besides some suggestions for a boss monster in the final room. A bit of a letdown IMO, for generic dungeon maps are a dime a dozen on places like Pinterest. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/qKbmFDs.png[/img][/center] [i]Aphrodite’s Touch[/i] is the lair of Naamah the Seducer, Archdemon of Lust. Located in the City of Thebes, she has used her influence to make a sex cult claiming to honor the old gods, and uses a temple converted to a brothel to grow strong off of sin. PCs can meet up with the angel Raphael in the city, where he can serve as backup in bringing down the archdemon. This entire section is a giant content warning, so I’m going to spoiler all of it save for the fight and stats of Naamah herself. [b]Content Warning Sexual assault, sexual slavery, coerced suicide, pedophilia[/b] [spoiler]As you might have guessed from the CW, Naamah is the worst kind of monster. As a representation of the negative aspects of sexuality, Naamah hates the idea of sex being used in a loving and consensual manner. Sex devoid of love is her sin of choice: all of the sex workers in Aphrodite’s Touch are mind-controlled by her, and once she’s defeated they’ll come to and be traumatized by what they were made to do. One of the shedim demons working for Naamah unsuccessfully attempted to purchase Cleopatra’s daughter Selene as a slave to put to work when she was just 10 years old, and Selene can act as an adventure hook in taking revenge on the establishment. Another adventure hook for PCs visiting Thebes has them meet a young teenage girl crying because her parents are pressuring her into working at the brothel. Finally, PCs who trigger a random encounter with the Witch of Endor (who I’ll talk about in the next post) may be tasked with delivering a love letter to one of the sex workers in Thebes. There, they can learn that Naamah has been trying to drive her to suicide. I can get that sex crimes are a special level of heinous and that the writers are trying to make Naamah an utterly loathsome individual. However this adventure can be understandably hard to run for many groups. As the sin of Lust can also cover desire in general and not just the sexual kind, I’m a bit surprised that the module didn’t have a “toned down” version or a nonsexual one given that I imagine this module is intended to be run by faithful Christians and not all may wish to have such material in their games. Then again, going for the “they’re unholy because they’re having sex outside of marriage” in and of itself may be too prudish for a lot of gamers, so my guess is they went with the sexual slavery angle to make Naamah more unambiguously evil to a non-conservative audience.[/spoiler] Each Archdemon has a unified set of mechanics: they all have Lair and Legendary Actions, and are a two-stage boss battle where their human-seeing simulacrum form with its own stat block is fought first. Once the simulacrum is killed, it begins to discorporate in an obviously supernatural way, giving the party one free round to prepare themselves when the archdemon reappears in its true form. Most archdemons can cast an Induce Sin spell in line with their favored sin (Naamah can cast Induce Lust), and they also constantly radiate a 1 mile Aura of Temptation which pushes those within the radius to be more inclined to perform a certain kind of sinful activity as well as creating recurring distracting illusions in line with such sins. Additionally, each simulacrum has Atonement Vulnerability, meaning that spells and effects which can destroy or atone for sins and evil actions deal automatic damage to them every round they’re subjected to the spell’s effects. Aphrodite’s Touch is a luxurious building guarded by Roman soldiers on Naamah’s payroll, and the archdemon is accompanied by a giant mercenary as her bodyguard. She’ll try to engage the party in conversation first, hoping to use her Charm ability on one PC to violently turn them against the others when combat begins. Her simulacrum form is named Seraphine and doesn’t really have many direct-damage features save an AoE perfume cloud, but can mind control a single target at a time and also short-range teleport in reaction to taking damage. Her true archdemon form is a bat-winged humanoid with goat hooves and a head, and is more of a straightforward combatant, such as claw and hoof attacks, a scream counterattack that can impose disadvantage on an attack roll, and legendary actions which can turn her invisible for 1 round or a stun-based seductive gaze attack. Naamah’s first form is not that dangerous for level 4-6 parties, particularly with Raphael’s help. If anything, the major dangers will be from her giant bodyguard and Roman soldiers who will flock to her aid. Her archdemon form is a decent challenge from my reading of it too. Her major weakness is that she doesn’t have access to any good ranged attacks, although her fly speed likely means she is meant to make hit and run attacks. In the aftermath, Raphael will depart back to the spirit world if he survived the fight, although he may choose to stay on Earth (and may become a traveling companion) with a successful Persuasion check. PCs searching Naamah’s office and who overcome her Glyph of Warding trap can find a collection of letters exchanged with other archdemons, pointing the party to Moloch’s location in particular. [b]Thoughts So Far:[/b] If I had to pick a favorite event so far, it would be the Tournament of Champions. For those of you who read my last Let’s Read, I’m quite fond of mini-games, and this section alone is easily mineable for other campaign settings. The Prison Break is a neat touch although a little barebones, and the Forgotten Temple is hardly an event or encounter at all. I like the open-endedness of the Museum Heist quest, as well as the three Magi all having unique magic items to give the PCs as a reward for finding them. I have some reservations about the Den of Serpents dungeon and its potential lethality for low-level parties, and Aphrodite’s Touch is the kind of thing you’ll need to heavily revise for a fair portion of gaming groups, so those are the low points of this section. [b]Join us next time as we cover the second half of Events and Encounters, including the rest of the archdemons, visiting the holy lands of Judea, meeting Jesus, and the final battle against Lilith![/b] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
[Let's Read] The Adventurer's Guide to the Bible
Top