D&D 5E 5th Edition and Cormyr: Flexing My Idea Muscle and Thinking Out Loud

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Bones and skulls. Skulls and Bones...

1. SPELL Bone Sacrifice: As a reaction you may cause a ranged spell targetting you to target an animated skeleton under your control. If the ranged spell targets more than one creature, the other creatures remain targets as normal.

2. SPELL Summon Bones: You summon forth bones. You may fill a space 5' on a side with bones. You can summon more at higher levels. The bones are a mix of humanoid bones, including skulls, etc.

3. SPELL Skull Duplicate (ritual): You create a duplicate of your own skull. This skull duplicate can be used as your arcane focus. It may also be used in spells requiring a Skull Duplicate as a material component. You may have a maximum of skull duplicates equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.

4. SPELL Stored in Bone (ritual): You store a spell you have prepared into a Skull Duplicate created by you. If the spell requires material components, these are consumed as part of the ritual when the spell is placed into the Skull Duplicate. While the spell is stored in this way, you may not prepare the spell or otherwise cast it yourself. As a bonus action, you may cast a spell stored in a Skull Duplicate that you are holding or carrying. During the ritual, you may store one spell in each Skull Duplicate you have created.

5. SPELL Skull Float: You cause a skull to float by your side. You may float a number of skulls this way equal to the highest level of spell you can cast (e.g., 3 skulls if the highest level spell you can cast is 3rd level). You have limited control over the skulls. You may cause them to slowly rotate above your head, to float in a circle behind you, to lurk over your shoulder and so on. Reorienting the skulls is a free action. The skulls do their best to avoid objects and move to avoid striking walls, etc., but must always occupy the same space as you. A skull that is forced to move more than 5 feet away from you falls to the ground.

6. SPELL Harden Skull: This spell increases the durability of a skull.

7. SPELL Accio Skull!: You cause a skull within range (120 feet) to fly to your hand. You do not need to be able to see the skull, but you must know where it is located relative to you for this spell to work. This spell does not remove skulls that are worked into objects (such as a throne made of skulls) or skulls that are part of a creature (such as the skull belonging to an animated skeleton). If the nearest skull is stored (such as a skull in a coffin), the skull will do its best to shake and rattle and bump its way free. The skull stops moving towards you if you move more than 120 feet away from it, or after 1 minute.

8. SPELL Pound of Flesh: Target - 1 humanoid creature. Material component - A small piece of the a creature (flesh, bone, fingernail, hair, scales, or blood). You cause an animated skeleton that you control to sprout flesh, hair, eyes, etc. identical to the creature you took the material component from. This effect lasts for one day, or until you dismiss the animated skeleton or it is destroyed. You may extend the effect by one additional day by feeding the target another small piece sourced from the same creature. You may feed the target only once per day. You may do this for as long as you have pieces with which to feed. (Feeding the skeleton part of a different creature does not cause it to change into a different creature.) If the duration ends, the flesh melts away and becomes dust. (It's a really dumb Terminator!)

9. SPELL Conversation Companion: You create a Conversation Companion. You enchant a Skull Duplicate created by you with the ability to float at your shoulder, and to speak and converse with you only. You may have only one Conversation Companion at a time. If you are seated, you may cause the Conversation Companion to move to face you or to occupy the space over a chair or similar that is within 5 feet of you. The Conversation Companion thinks and speaks as you would, though it only pays attention to you and not to any events going on around it. Duration??

10. SPELL Skeletal Perfection: This spell causes one misaligned bones in the body of a creature you touch to become aligned and otherwise shaped properly for a creature of the target's type. This spell does not work to heal freshly broken bones; it only fixes bones that have healed improperly or that have otherwise grown improperly. This spell requires a bone from a creature at least the same size as the target of the spell, which is consume in the casting of the spell.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Yet more skulls and bones...

1. SPELL Bone Shell/Mimic Statue: This spell causes a very thin shell of pure white bone to encase you from head to foot. You resemble a statue made of white marble. The shell does not restrict your ability to breath, and does not block your vision and hearing. Any movement by you or a successful attack against you causes the shell to crack and break, which ends the spell. Duration: until broken. A close inspection reveals you are inside a shell of bone. DC = your normal DC (intelligence investigation probably).

2. ENCOUNTER LOCATION IDEA: Bones Under the Moon.
By day, soldiers appear to march back and forth on the battlements of a run down keep in the middle of nowhere. By night the soldiers appear to have fallen in on themselves. Their tabards hang limp. Under the light of the moon, wicked skulls shine beneath helmets.

- 2a. This effect is fixed on the old keep. It animates the skeletons of the once-living guards, and causes the spell effect of Pound of Flesh (see the post above this one) on all the skeletons in daylight. The spell effect goes away at night.

- 2b. Under the light of the full moon, all the skeletons glow (candlelight).

3. SPELL Theft of Traits: You grant yourself one trait (Speed, Ability Score, Vulnerability, Resistance, Immunity or Sense) from an Animated Skeleton that you control and is in range, such as Darkvision 60 feet or immunity to poison. For the duration of this spell, all of the animated skeletons under your control have this trait. Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour.

4 SPELL Unfair Fight: You cause the arms of the animated skeletons under your control to detach and spin. The arms fly towards a target in range and each makes one attack against the target. The arms and any weapons carried fall to the ground. Your animated skeletons each gain 1 bite attack. and lose all attacks that utilize arms or appendages.

5 SPELL Skull Hammer: You cause the skulls of one or more animated skeletons under your control to detach and fly towards a target in range. Make one ranged attack for each skull. If the skull hits, it deals 1d6 Bludgeoning damage. Any skulls that miss return to the skeletons they came from. Your animated skeletons without skulls behave as normal.

6 SPELL Skull Friend: You lend one of your Skull Duplicates to a willing creature. The Skull Duplicate floats over the creature's shoulder. While a Skull Duplicate is lent out in this way, the willing creature may spend an action to communicate with you as though you and the creature were adjacent to each other. You may do the same. This spell cannot cross between planes of existence.

7 SPELL Skull Fortress: You create a fortress of bone. See the Dyson Map for what it looks like.

8. SPELL Skull Tutor: You infuse your knowledge of one subject into a Skull Duplicate. While the duplicate possesses this knowledge, you do not have access to it. The duplicate may teach the knowledge it possesses to someone else.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

08/20/2019
Monday

1. SPELL Flock of Daggers - This spell causes a flock of birds to become daggers with wings. The daggers fly within range and fall upon an area you designate. The daggers then revert to normal and fly away.

2. MAGIC ITEM - Avian Dagger - On command, this magical dagger takes to the air and follows a flock of birds, flying at their speed. An enchantment causes the dagger to be viewed as friendly by the birds. The dagger attacks anything that tries to cause harm to the birds (be it a predator, a bowman, a spellcaster, etc.). The dagger returns with incredible speed to the flock when the threat retreats or is slain.

3. SPELL - Truth in Flies - This spell causes all flies in the area of effect to watch for travelers, creatures and other beings that pass through the area. Other flying insects in the area of effect are not affected by this spell. Before the duration ends, you may command the flies to show you who or what passed through. Your magic causes the flies to fly in formation in the approximate shape of each creature that went by. The flies resume their watch until you end the spell or the duration ends.

4. SPELL - Martial Tribute - This spell causes one weapon to float within 10 feet of a corpse you designate. The weapon remains near the corpse until funeral rights have been completed and the corpse laid to rest (buried, burned, etc.). The weapon automatically attacks any creature that attempts to harm or steal the corpse. The weapon comes to rest over the body (becoming part of the burial, for example, or laying itself over the corpse after it has burned in a pyre).

5. For the spell Martial Tribute, there exist other spells that allow a caster to enchant a weapon that completes the burial process so it remains as an eternal guardian for the corpse it guarded. Other spells cause the corpse (or a ghost/facsimile of it) to appear with the weapon in hand. Still others can summon all the weapon in an area.

6. SPELL - Trail Loop - This spell causes two ends of a trail to become linked. Travelers that pass through one linked area and continue to the next linked area will teleport back to the first linked area. Duration: 24 hours.

7. SPELL - Trail Forbiddance - This spell causes an area of trail to become an obstacle to any creature walking it that is not the correct type. A creature of the wrong type that attempts to walk the trail must content with a Gust of Wind that continually pushes them back the way they came for as long as they remain on the trail.

8. SPELL - Stars in the Water - This spell causes a body of water to remember the formation and appearance of stars in the sky at night when the spell is cast. If the moon is present, this is remembered too. The caster designates a word or line of words that must be spoken or sung. Forever after, and so long as there remains water in the body of water targeted, the surface of the water changes to appear as the sky reflected on the water when the spell was cast if the word/words are spoken. This change lasts until the speaker/singer stops concentrating.

9. SPELL - Wake of Song - This spell trails music in your wake--up to 100 feet behind you--as you travel. The music is a repetition of what you or someone else is singing or playing in your vicinity when you cast the spell. For every two additional spell slots higher, you extend the wake an additional 100 feet.

10. SPELL - Water Warden's Count - When you touch a fish within a body of water (river, pond, lake or similar, but not an ocean), you know how many of that kind of fish are alive in the body of water.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

08/21/2019
Tuesday

Magic, Mystery, Music and More in Waymoot

1. The stag heads within Woodbrand's keep, where the Queen's Lord resides ("Queen's Lord" meaning the Queen's appointed representative who speaks and rules on her behalf in Waymoot and the surrounding woodlands; also called a "local lord") glow by night. If the proper stag head is touched and the correct word spoken, one may ascertain how many stags are alive in the King's Forest.

2. The Guardian Golem within the Temple of the Sheltering Hand (Tymora) has smashed its share of trolls. Few know the eyes of the golem have been further enchanted to blaze with fire whenever trolls more than three in number come within a mile of Waymoot.

3. The merchant Ostramagarus has retired to a life of horse breeding and rearing in Waymoot after a career of far-flung trading in Sembia and the Heartlands. Why then, the locals of Waymoot wonder, does the former merchant entertain a different group of adventurers within his home every tenday? His latest visitors, the Men of the Horngate, are rumored to have delivered something of value from the monks within the Vault of the Restful Dead (Kelemvor) to Old Ostra.

4. Within the Moon and Stars (a tavern), there are not as many guardian rangers and ex-adventurers as their used to be. The blades of the guardians who have passed away yet remain, each lurking among the rafters overhead and blessed by the Goddess Mielikki to render aid to the master of the tavern whenever trouble gets out of hand.

5. Every Spring, a gathering of the Arms of Mielikki takes place in Waymoot. Rangers and other followers of the Forest Queen travel from all over the King's Forest to Waymoot for a day and night of song, storytelling and feasting. Just as quickly as they arrived, the Arms disappear before dawn of the next day. Most Waymootans assume the followers of the goddess return home. In truth, each Arm is guided by a vision sent from Mielikki to one of several hidden vales and chasms in the nearby woods, where druids grow seedlings of rare forest plants and tend forest animals. These the followers take and either plant or release in the part of the King's Forest from which they came.

6. Waymootans with a sense of humor have begun playing "paerehel" tunes (that is, personalized entrance music) whenever certain overbearing, rude or disliked nobles enter a tavern or other place the locals prefer remain for their use alone. The music is usually short and mocking, of the kind that apes ditties written about the many less than capable nobles that have "graced" Cormyr with their presence down the centuries.

7. The coming of Fall in Waymoot heralds the march of the forest kin. At sunset, centaurs, swanmays, faerie dragons, satyrs, and a fey representative from nearby Aloushe (an independent fey realm within the King's Forest) play music and pass one after the other in front of Woodbrand's keep. Waymootans assemble, cheer and smile, and bow respectfully when the Aloushe'alar passes by.

8. Suzail is the capital of Cormyr, but many consider Waymoot to be the true heart of the Forest Kingdom. The rumor that Cormyr's kings are all of them buried in the catacomb's below Woodbrand's Keep is long lived, though of late more adventurers than usual have chased the rumor all the way to Waymoot in order to find a means of entering the place. Such individuals are roundly turned away from the keep proper, but are allowed to go about their business beyond its walls. The mysterious clanging that rings up from the catacombs to echo through the Keep has also increased recently.

9. Even in death, Lord Woodbrand, once a popular and respected local lord of Waymoot, casts a long shadow over the forest town he helped to establish centuries ago. On the first day of the second tenday of Uktar (November), the shops of Waymoot close and locals gather in the keep named after him to celebrate his life and his doings. The night is closed in tears, bitter smiles and embraces as the celebrants listen to the song of Woodbrand's passing. The song tells the story of Woodbrand's last defense of the town from the trolls that forever plague the region, and his fall in single combat against the Troll King.

10. A symphony of harp spiders have gathered near Waymoot, some as big as the farm pigs raised by Waymootan ranchers. Royal foresters are warning travelers and explorers alike from playing lutes, harps or other stringed instruments near the symphony, as this will surely lure the spiders close.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

08/22/2019
Thursday

1. Make haste to the battlefield: Healers, herbalists and clerics may be found traveling to, or remaining at, battlefields where the living have departed and the dead are left to rot. After a tenday, the blood soaked, corpse-strewn ground becomes host to fleshwort, a vegetable prized for its usefulness in healing deep wounds.

2. Of the endless variety of poisons in the Realms, Belarris is more likely to be found in Cormyr thanks to the many wyverns that lair in its mountainous borders. Whereas the usual mixture of wyvern blood, tree bark and plant sap causes fatigue and then unconsciousness, certain poison makers have found that mixing fresh belarris with the ground stems of fleshwort creates a soft substance similar to bread dough that can then be cooked. The result is a black loaf with almost no taste. When consumed, there is an equal chance of one's organs failing or the total banishment of all internal ailments. Experimentation continues...

3. Swiftsleep remains an abundant poison in Cormyr, though law keepers rarely make the effort to confiscate it when commoners or families possess it. (Law keepers reserve their ire for apothecaries or herbalists who sell it for uses other than helping troubled family members find rest). A variety of swiftsleep eschews crushed flies in favor of brainflies. This rare variety of swiftsleep causes instant slumber, but subjects the victim to a riot of dreams spawned from memories stolen and consumed by the brainflies added into the mixture.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

08/23/2019
Friday

Thinking about Waymoot...

1. A noble hung by the neck from from a tree.

2. SPELL - Puddle Reflection - This spell allows you to see all creatures that cast a reflection into a puddle or other body of water within the last hour, from the angle at which you are standing when you cast the spell and gaze into the puddle. For every 2 spell slots higher, you can see further back by 1 hour.

3. On the Road: Grain carts trundling to Waymoot with feed for the many horses reared there.

4. Jobs in Waymoot: Bailing hay.

5. Jobs: Carting horse dung.

6. On the Road: Peddlers selling trinkets.

7. On the Road: Local sellers of foodstuffs for the road-weary traveler. Also found at the small campsites spaced about a day apart on the Way of the Dragon.

8. Waymoot Family: One that has lived in, cleaned and prepped Woodbrand's Keep for generations.

9. Querry to Ed Greenwood (via Twitter):
"Hello Ed. I hope you are healing up and feeling better.

I was curious if there are any named waystops on the way of the Dragon between Zundle and Waymoot that have room for more than one large merchant caravan for a night?

#thankyou #hugs"

10. Ed's Reply:
1)
Haven’t had the surgery yet. Prelimns tomorrow (up at 3 am for the drive: ugh!), so will fall Twitter-silent for a day.
The answer is. I’m afraid, no. The roadside camping-places are very small (room for a small caravan at …
#Realmslore

2)
…best), and located where there are streams to provide water. The Crown’s intent is to discourage tarrying in the King’s Forest (and perhaps starting fires, and hunting, and getting lost, and cutting timber) between…
#Realmslore

3)
…settlements, which are sited about a day’s travel apart. (One of these small camping places can be seen early in SWORDS OF EVENINGSTAR, when we see Florin encountering a certain spirited noble lady).
#Realmslore

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

08/27/2019
TUESDAY

Thinking Waymoot
Tier I play
What's needed to get started?

1. Basic map of Waymoot

2. List of shops, inns, rooming houses and temples.

3. List at least one NPC per location -- need not always be the owner of a place.

4. Give a name to the King's Lord (well, as of 1491 DR, the Queen's Lord) of Waymoot is.

5. General idea of ranches (who owns them, etc.)

6. What's not in Waymoot in terms of goods and services is anything useful for Tier II play and beyond.

7. Emphasize that it's a "pass through" place. Sort of like Arabel, but without the large population and permanence of that city. Sure, Waymoot is a settlement, but the locals come into town; most of them don't live in town.

8. Everything is spread out for a 6-mile area, give or take (so the hex for Waymoot indicates all the farms and ranches around it, not just the town proper).

9. The town is busy taking care of itself.

10. Emphasize the idea that goods and waytraders and everyone else not local won't be around for long. The buying from and selling to vis-a-vis travelers that pass through is almost, but not quite, rushed.

11. Things do get rushed with the approach of winter. Every seller of things, from Waytraders (think peddlers and one-mule cart sellers) to large, established merchants, wants to get to wherever they live and gather supplies for the winter.

12. When winter comes, Waymoot place is dead as a doornail. I.e., it's quiet. Everyone's hunkered down to avoid the fierce winter winds that steal away one's warmth and that cause Woodbrand's Keep to moan (a drafty place, that keep).

13. Reference the opening pages from chapter 1 of the novel The Swords of Eveningstar for an idea of what it's like on the edge of town.

14. What's the BBEG at the end, when the players transition from Tier 1 to 2?

15. Methinks the Troll King, slayer of Lord Woodbrand, and the return of Lord Woodbrand's Belt of Giant Strength to the Queen's Lord of Waymoot.

16. Finally, take opportunities to show the players that Waymoot has a magical, fey-like quality. Centaurs and faerie dragons really do linger in and about town.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Who doesn't love a good table in a D&D sourcebook?

Here's a set of tables I created, which I use for the adventures and other content I write for my DMs Guild sourcebooks. It will be published in the next issue (issue #5) of Eye on Cormyr.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

The three adventures in Eye on Cormyr #4 are for 1st level. They are: Dungeon Under the Tower Keep, Dungeon Under the Pond, and The Undercellars of the Dread Destination.

It’s time to think up adventure ideas for 2nd level adventures.

1. OK, as with the 1st level adventures, everything starts in or around the village of Waymoot, in Cormyr.

2. Last time around the characters dealt with extremes of cold and exhaustion, so the new 2nd level adventures won't include those things if possible.

3. Each adventure included portals (gates, to us old timers)--I think it's a good idea to use portals again.

4. One of the portals characters can use to escape from the dungeon in The Undercellars of the Dread Destination opens into a cramped space sandwiched between between the back wall of the jakes and the outer wall of the building at the Old Man tavern in Waymoot. From the adventure:

Portal 1 exits into a cramped space accessible by a secret door set into the back wall in the jakes of the Old Man. A cozy, quiet tavern popular among retired Purple Dragons and the elderly residents of Waymoot, and referred to by locals as "the little labyrinth" for its many secret passages, the Old Man's fireplaces are kept lit day and night. The tavern is filled round the clock with guests that sip brandy distilled locally, and trade stories of the many conflicts seen by the battle-scarred shields that cover the tavern walls and the heroes that once carried them.

5. So, the Old Man works as a starting point for an adventure whether or not a group of adventurers have played through Undercellars, because the tavern is already a labyrinth of sorts that's worth exploring, and it has all those cool old shields with stories behind them.

6. When it comes to writing adventures I like to put things in players' faces and see how they react. (It's hard to be subtle and drop hints when you're writing an adventure for people you've never met.) So, whether a group of characters walks through the front door of the Old Man or finds their way into a room lit by a fireplace after they've spent a day or more in near-freezing conditions 10,123 feet up in the air (atop the mountain in the Stormhorns where Undercellars is set), a shield handing on one of the walls will start glowing.

7. What kind of glow? A crimson glow that rides the top edge of an old, battered heater (that is, a shield with a flat top, and sides that run perpendicular to the top and then taper inward to join at a point at the bottom of the shield) with colors all but faded away on its metallic surface.

8. The glow resolves into an illusion of blood that flows fast down the shield's face, the blood forming into a sinister skull with thick drops of blood circling it counterclockwise: the symbol of Bhaal, Lord of Murder.

9. An instant later the blood illusion changes back to a magical crimson glow, then a howling scream of warning bursts from the shield and echoes through the Old Man like thunder as the glow flashes outward, riding walls, floor and ceiling of the room before fading away. Strangely enough, no one outside of the Old Man will hear the scream, just as no one inside will hear it--including the characters.

(Yeah, I don't do subtle.)

10. What the characters do see is that one (or perhaps more) of the occupants in the room with the shield and fireplace will cover their ears, their faces screwed up in a grimace of pain.

11. What happens next? Perhaps the room occupants eye the characters, then draw hidden blades and attack. Or maybe the characters eye the room occupants, wondering why they reacted the way they did, while the NPCs think hard about what to do next.

Regardless, some of the all-too-many followers of Bhaal in Waymoot have been outed, and each has a new job to do: prevent the characters from bringing an end to the efforts of Bhaal's followers to gain secret control of Waymoot, and return things to the way they were before the Time of Troubles.

That's a good start.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

More ideas for 2nd level adventures in Waymoot:

1. Discovering and walking through another portal in The Old Man.

2. Tracking the hydra rampage. (I know this is for 2nd level. Doesn't mean you can't use higher CR creatures.)

3. Murder in Waymoot.

4. Discover 10,000 gp -- then deal with all the claimants.

5. Sorting the three fair flowers: each a noble of their respective Houses, all demanding the same thing from the PCs, and each noble all but ready to murder the other if they get too close to each other.

6. Market madness. Waymoot's market is super busy. Should a horse get spooked or a wagon run wild, someone may need to be the hero to keep Waymootans from being injured.

7. A ship in the woods -- how by all the Watching Gods did the trade caravel Bumbling Warlord find its way from the Sea of Fallen Stars to a clearing in the King's Forest? Who owns it? Is the cargo free for the taking? Will it fly away somewhere else?

8. Translation trouble. A character with the Sage background agrees to translate a document written in the language of a non-human race. As the work is being done, the agents of powerful interests gather close to menace, or to bribe, the other PCs and perhaps influence just what the translating PC determines the document says. Then do the PCs learn something of the important decisions that will be made in the wake of the translation.

9. Sidetrek to Eveningstar. If a character is a Chancepriest of Tymora or a Joydancer of Lliira (two goddesses with temples in Waymoot), then they are called upon to for an altar sworn journey -- deliver a parcel to Eveningstar without fail.

10. Harpsong by night. Harps of silver, wreathed in blue flame, have come to lurk in the trees by night on the outskirts of Waymoot. Their tune is the same--a funeral dirge. Someone known for being adventuresome, young (and expendable) ought to investigate.

NOTE: #10 draws on the entry for "The Harps of Silver and Blue" in Eye on Cormyr #4.