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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9460347" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/hQrEXXg.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> YlgothaOur last major region for Gnolune is a dark, foreboding place. Dominated by dusty hills, sickness-carrying winds, and ruins from the days of Once, all tell a story of how victory against the Selenian invaders was a Pyrrhic one. Some interesting locations include a community of outlanders living in a gorge that peddle strange magical wares; an encampment of jackal-headed knights whose animalistic features come from the region’s cursed nature and they have a strained relationship with the Conclave; and the crater of Nothing Rock, the site of the Incantation of Burning Heaven that is filled with ghosts from the battle as well as newer seekers of dark magic. Some interesting NPCs include Sir Delphine, one of King Aerther’s knights who is a ghost that possesses new bodies regularly and seeks to recruit people to go on heroic quests; Exylpon, a Selenian deserter who has taking up the healing arts as a means of making up for the violence he caused during the war; and a skeletal knight and unaging living baby daughter, both cursed that way by a member of the Ignoble Court. Their curses can be lifted if a PC fights and wins a duel against the Court’s retainer.The Cursed Mine of Gallows Hill was once owned by a family of Silvered Nobles, but long since abandoned it when a Selenian wizard cursed the mine with madness-inducing gas to prevent it from being used. The current owners are the Gallows Gang, a group of outlaws who have been driven mad and make a permanent camp outside, allowing adventurers to delve into it in exchange for a percentage of found valuables. The mine has no pre-set rooms or map, instead using various tables to determine terrain, notable features, dangers, and treasure. The cursed vapors bestow a randomly-determined debuff for 1d4 days upon exposure, and gaining 4 or more debuffs at once will turn a character into a crazed NPC. Beyond mundane treasure, there are 3 unique magic items that can also be found here: a magic rod that determines the value of an object it’s pointed at and takes into account the local economy of supply and demand, a pair of diamond-tipped clawed gloves that can make the wearer burrow and grants bonuses on rolls to destroy stone, and a moonstone pendant that grants a +2 bonus on saves vs illusion, charms, and madness effects.Selenian ghosts are a new monster with their own statblock, being undead that don’t do damage but expose characters to cursed vapors with a touch and can only be hurt by silver weapons and magic. Vyxl-Mir, the wizard who cursed the mines, is still alive albeit insane. He is a rather accomplished spellcaster of 7 Hit Dice, can fight with a sword, and has a random assortment of 1st to 4th level spells. Due to his madness he also makes the party reroll reaction results every round, which means that he can be murderous one round, suddenly friendly the next.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/u40BEpZ.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The Shadow Farm is home to the Grayrose family, who lived for generations in the ruins of Fort Thelum that was destroyed during the Selenian invasion. The surrounding land is poor in resources, so they make their living by harvesting the shades of spirits from a nearby battlefield. At noon, every day, the spirits rise and re-enact the battle of long ago. Although these spirits can still cause harm to the living, the Grayroses are very good at their job and make use of unique magic and equipment known as shadow-shears to capture the shades and store them in bottles. These bottles are known as shadow ampoules, single-use magic items that come in six varieties. For example, Shadow Web lets the user teleport between shadows within a 1 mile radius, but there’s a 1 in 6 chance an evil shadowy clone will begin stalking the user to kill and replace them.The shadow harvesting business is illegal in Gnolune, and people involved in its trade are subject to capital punishment at best. The Grayrose family, thus, isn’t going to trade their ampoules to a strange group of newcomer PCs right off the bat. By doing quests for them adventures can gain shadow ampoules as rewards.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/jI28StM.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The Tower of the First Heresy is the dungeon entry for Ylgotha, a highly-secure prison for the Conclave’s accumulation of forbidden goods and people who cannot be so easily destroyed. It was first built to house Saint Selos, a former king beloved by the people of Wildendrem who became disillusioned with feudalism and began preaching a doctrine of universal equality. Not wanting to martyr the man, the Conclave captured him, transporting him to the Tower and bound him in magical chains that make it impossible to learn about his fate through divination magic.The Tower of the First Heresy is a five-floor, eight-room dungeon, with stairwells on the west and east leading to the second and third floors. A wall running north to south on these floors effectively splits them into two rooms each, with the fourth floor only accessible via the western stairwell. The dungeon is guarded by the knight Sir Morbeck, who can divide himself into clones, one for each opponent. These copies have weaker stats, and Sir Morbeck kills them after each battle, causing the area surrounding the front entrance to be littered with corpses looking exactly like him. The rest of the guardians within the Tower are of the artificial and unliving variety. They include noncombatant clay constructs known as Tower Wardens who will follow the party around quoting Conclave scripture in an attempt to get them to repent and leave; a golem made out of human finger bones that will attack the party if they don’t put a severed finger on a basin which opens up the gates for the stairwells; and a giant humanoid monster known as the Prayer Beast that is blind and covered in hands and mouths. It senses via vibrations, and it can shout futile prayers that can cause a despair debuff on a failed save and they are immune to magic from clerics. There’s also a rival adventuring party known as the Burnished Gauntlet who may be already present in one or more of the rooms based on random chance, and while the PCs can reason with them their first and only goal is to make off with the Tower’s many treasures. The four adventurers are all quite accomplished individuals, being 2nd to 4th level characters with their own unique stat blocks.The Towers’ various forbidden works are mostly heretical texts, religious icons of forbidden religions, and pornographic artwork, but they also includes some magic items like a jar containing a polite-yet murderously violent Conflagration Spirit that wants to destroy things (a one-use AoE explosion), or a Choleric Tonic that temporarily increases Strength but instills a deep loathing for all other beings. For prisoners, Selos isn’t the only person present. There’s also Camille the Moon-Touched, an elderly woman who tried to violently overthrow the Conclave and is placed in a cell that seemingly has no security. But anyone who leaves it without trading in someone else to take their place will be overwhelmed by constant, great pain, and Camille will attempt to persuade the party in finding her a replacement, if not one of the PCs serving as one themselves.Saint Selos is in the highest level and room, bound in magical shackles. The ceiling is enchanted to look like a starry night while nice music plays, which the saint claims is a simulation of the religious experience that brought about his worldview. Selos is a polite man, all too happy to expound on the circumstances of his imprisonment and how he received heavenly visions of the True Kingdom that caused him to renounce his crown. By freeing him, a character can take the Oath of the True Kingdom, which can be basically summed up as a Chaotic Good Anarchist. The Oath advocates for getting rid of national boundaries and social class distinctions, overthrowing tyrants, and helping the destitute and disenfranchised better their lot in life. If the PCs free Selos by removing his shackles, he will opt to wait in the dungeon, and the Wandering Tower to find and rescue him in 2d20 days. Unless of course the Conclave and/or Silver Nobles learn of this, in which case they’ll do what they can to intervene.Thoughts So Far: Ylgotha invokes the feeling of a realm of dark magic and forbidden things, and how anything that lives here for a time ends up wrong in some way. The Cursed Mine and Shadow Farm provide useful treasure and items, but comes at a price of some kind. The Tower of the First Heresy also plays into the “sealed evil” trope, but is an inversion in that the dungeon was built to house a person who isn’t your stereotypical dark mage, but a political dissident who sought to move against those in power.While of equivalent length of the other hex regions, Ylgotha feels briefer in comparison, and I imagine that’s mostly due to how the more detailed locations come off. The Cursed Mine is a place one would expect to be a dungeon, but it has a full-page artwork and two of the 4 pages are stat blocks and tables. The Shadow Farm is a neat location but rather predictable in how most PCs may deal with the Grayrose family, either by taking quests to get shadow ampoules or fighting them for their unholy ways. The Tower of the First Heresy is rather linear as a dungeon, and in comparison to more involved places like Sunbelow Abbey or the Perfumed Tomb of the Necropoet, there’s not as many divergent outcomes players will go through.But with all that said, I don’t think that Ylgotha is a weak entry, and I like how it has a distinct vibe to set it apart from the others.Join us next time as we finish this review with a visit to the capital city of Cimbrine!</blockquote>

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