Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 8783752" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/QVXwUoJ.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Chapter 2, Part 2Saraab the Mirage is a djinni merchant whose shop is a two-horse carriage. He was the servant of many mortals over the past several hundred years, and when his last master freed him Saraab decided to pursue his calling of traveling the world. The djinni uses his immortal knowledge to his advantage, regaling customers with tales of kingdoms of long ago and the various reminders in his shop tie into his stories. As a powerful djinni, he can summon air elements or plane shift if confronted by danger, and can command the winds themselves to scatter his wares far and wide should he be forced to flee or die. Saraab’s inventory tends towards elemental and weather themed magic items. One particular magic item he has, the Djinni’s Bracers, are a cursed item that forces the wearer to fulfill the requests of anyone who begins their command with “I wish.” Saraab doesn’t sell these to anyone he likes, but to customers who treat those below them poorly and could use a lesson in humilityShariil the Silent is a mute elven ranger who often makes camp near Feywild-touched realms. Her companion, Adras, is an elf polymorphed into the form of a fox who plays the act of a simple animal, saving his speaking skills for when needed or to surprise others. Shariil used to be able to speak and had a great singing voice, but a vengeful archfey cursed her with muteness and her lover Adras into fox form. Why? Because Shariil loved Adras and not him. Sharil’s inventory is themed around nature and archery, and her wares tend to be less expensive and more common than others in this book, perhaps to account for her lower Challenge Rating.The Awkward Ettercap is Timothy, a monster who has led quite the interesting life.Timothy’s quest hooks are uniquely humorous, like a jam session with an orcish bard inadvertently polymorphing the crowd into capybaras, or an egg sac full of thousands of his siblings hatching in the marketplace and scurrying everywhere. Timothy isn’t some uniquely strong version of his race, but his bizarre adventures have landed him the friendship of many powerful people who will come looking for anyone who harms him. Timothy’s basic inventory are cheap common-rarity magic items, although there’s a random 1d100 table which can put some powerful items hidden among his trinkets of increasing rarity. These can range from Goggles of Night and Immovable Rods, all the way up to a Holy Avenger or a Ring of 3 Wishes with one wish left!The Black Tusk is owned by Captain Drubal, a half-orc former pirate captain who decided to go straight and turned his ship into a mobile shop. He still has a bit of the pirate side in him, and will not tolerate disrespect and insults aimed at him, particularly in front of a crowd. He keeps much of his merchandise stowed in a warded chest and has a loyal crew of pirates to back him up in a fight, including a magical lobster familiar who can link up to seven creatures via a Telepathic Bond. Drubal’s wares tend towards the nautical theme, such as a Trident of Fish Command, a Folding Boat, and Cloak of the Manta Ray.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/1AwheRw.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The Bone Merchant is what would happen if Resident Evil 4’s merchant was placed in a fantasy world. Appearing as a skeleton with a voluminous cloak with pockets full of merchandise, he appears in the deepest levels of dungeons, desolate wilderness, and other places prone to having stranded and desperate adventurers. His merchandise always seems to have just what they need, but he doesn’t ask for coin. Instead he trafficks in spilled blood, life energy, memories, and souls, going for bargains that can weaken his customers or are valuable to them. Adventurers low on supplies may even be asked for remaining important items. And all of these have rules for these kinds of offerings, along with their corresponding gold piece values for determining what can be bought.The Bone Merchant can be justified as having whatever the PCs need most at the moment, but his standard inventory includes a variety of potions and scrolls along with some sinister-themed ones, like Demon Armor and a Flask of Cloning. The Flask is a new item which can grow a clone of a target, which upon death transfers their soul into the clone which rapidly grows to the original creature’s size.The Collector continues with our “creepy merchants beholden to dark powers” theme with Urzt Drak’Shara, a dragonborn warlock who gathers souls for a powerful devil. His old adventuring party died when fighting him, and in exchange for having his life spared and for his former adventuring companions to be returned to life Urzt became his servant. He will give customers a discount of 1,000 gold per character level if they sign their names in a book. In reality this will bind the writer’s soul to his diabolic patron, but due to the rules of Hellish society anyone who asks Urzt about the discount (“sounds too good to be true”) will receive an honest answer. His favored customers are those willing to make great sacrifices in the furtherance of a cause, and his inventory bears unique curses on whoever steals the item by preventing them from gaining the benefits of a long rest. The inventory is themed around cursed items and items which can bestow harmful effects on enemies, such as a Staff of Withering or Dragon’s Scepter. The latter is a new magic item which can shrink and trap a dragon so that the user can draw on their power.The Countess is a goblin woman with pretensions of nobility. She runs a famous tavern, and those who earn her interest can be shown her most valued goods. Her real name is Marizyn, and she left her tribe for the big city in hopes of making something of herself. She is biased against characters who remind her of those hard days, which include goblins and lower-class people. Her inventory includes poisons and roguish-themed magic items.The Dragon Cartel is an organized crime syndicate run by Sniv, a kobold sorcerer who runs a waste management guild as a front for his more illegal operations. In addition to physical black market goods he also has a variety of services for sale, such as corpse disposal, creation of secret passages in a city, and safehouses for those on the run from someone. Although Sniv is fond of anyone and anything to do with dragons, he is biased against dragonborn who he regards as being almost as bad as gnomes. Sniv’s inventory is broad in focus, although his most expensive item, a Bag of Devouring, is an indication of what he uses to get rid of evidence.The Gliding Giant is a frost giant by the name of Magnus. He is a consummate outdoorsman with a fondness for wilderness exploration, and travelers who spot his mammoth-drawn sled have an opportunity to talk about the tricks of the trade and buy survival gear from him. Magnus’ inventory specializes in magical items that can help one survive in the outdoors, such as Ropes of Climbing, Boots of the Winterlands, and a Map of Many Places. This is a new magic item that creates a topographical outline of the surrounding terrain.The Timeless Tower is a structure that can appear anywhere in space and time, and many figures of cosmic importance have graced its halls. Its owner is Ezkellion, a powerful archmage of unknown origin who may greet the PCs as though he knew them for a long while. In fact this is true, for his temporal travels means he has met them before and is likely to know just what they need for some future task of great import. His inventory is broad in focus but tends towards the more expensive and powerful of magical items, with a few ones themed around time and the planes.Vil’s Magical Shop is extradimensional and appears on the outside as a dilapidated or ruined building of some kind. Its owner, Vil, is a changeling who redoes his appearance and life story in line with whatever makes sense for wherever his shop is at the moment. Having walked miles in the shoes of all kinds of people he doesn’t have any real biases, but characters who can see through his disguise quickly earn his dislike. In addition to the shop being a mobile extra-dimensional plane, the magical merchandise is illusory and the real deals are summoned from the pages of a book that only works for Vil. The changeling’s merchandise is themed towards roguish and subtle magic such as illusion and enchantment.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/1EYxhCz.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Xin’s Gallery is a beautiful building located in the more well-to-do section of a town, with an architectural style closest to whatever Fantasy East Asian lands exist in the DM’s setting. Its owner, Prince Sorabia Xiniusa (or “Xin”), is the noble of a distant kingdom and far down the line of imperial succession. He found himself with little patience from the petty games of the aristocracy and used a royal allowance to make a new start far from home. Xin is fond of artwork and magic items that emphasize beauty and aesthetic pleasantries. Figurines of Wondrous Power, Animated Paintings, various rings, and the like are just a few of such wares that can be purchased from him. As the son of a prominent emperor, his shop is highly secure, with warrior monks, animated paintings that can summon monsters, and in the event of his death his family will resurrect him and hire all manner of people to hunt down the PCs.The Auction House isn’t a specific shop so much as a general set of rules for DMs who want a change of pace. Auction houses sell all kinds of rare and expensive stuff, so naturally magic items are likely to find themselves up for bidding. The rules are relatively straightforward, where PCs put up a certain amount of gold in escrow that they’ll use during bids and compete against other attendants. Some auctions employ a tactic known as silent bidding, where participants write down their bids without knowing what the other participants are bidding. During such bids skill checks (and possible clever uses of class features and spells) can come into play in trying to guess what other people bid. Once that is done, PCs and NPCs can adjust their bids before the final results are revealed.There are also guidelines for PCs who wish to put their own items up for auction, too. There are tables for rolling the makeup of guards (from mere mages and veterans all the way up to an adult silver dragon), magical defenses, and some colorful auctioneers and auction participants. In the latter case, merchants from this book are used along with randomly-determined GP amounts held in escrow.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/Ke3EDXm.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Chapter 3: Magical AdventuresThis chapter details 4 adventures, all of which are tied to one or more merchants in this book. Their level ranges are quite wide but almost all of them are suitable for the higher ends of Tier 1 and all of Tier 2. There are suggested adjustments to encounters when rebalancing for different party sizes and levels.The Highest Bid is an adventure where a morally bankrupt goblin, Mr. Gnax, is planning on getting rich by bidding a Bag of Monsters at the auction house he owns after murdering the previous owner. Illyath doesn’t want the bag to fall into the wrong hands, so she gives the PCs an invitation to the auction along with 7,500 GP to bid on the item. However, the Countess also heard about the Bag and hired an evil djinni/efreeti couple to get the magic item by any means necessary.The adventure is rather open-ended, and there are multiple ways for the PCs to weaken security and opposition. For example, the head of security is a Lawful Good medusa knight bound to Mr. Gnax’s service due to a poorly-worded contract (“until my stopwatch reaches midnight” then turns it back everyday) and if freed will not interfere in the PC’s plans. Additionally, if the genie couple gains the Bag the PCs have the opportunity to overhear where they’re staying in town, but if the PCs get the Bag the genies will try to ambush them sometime after they leave the auction house. There are other items up for bid as well, along with mentions of the likeliest opportunities for PCs to sneak around during intermission. Overall, a well-designed adventure.The Bard’s Delivery has Milando asking the PCs to deliver a magically-sealed crate to the House of Silence, a monastery where pilgrims visit to drink from magic waters rendering them mute for a year and a day. The crate contains a bard who was speaking badly about Milando, and the dark elf seeks to teach him a lesson by taking away his ability to sing. Complicating factors is that Ayyail, a drow-turned-drider priestess seeking revenge on Milando due to him playing a factor in her transformation, caught word of the delivery and seeks to disrupt the mission via hired mercenaries. The adventure details troubleshooting opportunities for PCs who go off the beaten path, like if they open the chest and find out from the bard what’s going on. Upon hearing the destination, the bard realizes he’s been given a warning and decides that going to the House of Silence is a better option than whatever Milando will do if he escapes.Otherwise the adventure is a rather linear wilderness exploration where one of the mercenaries poses as a stranded traveler and will try to sabotage the party’s next long rest by unleashing a vial of spiders in camp. There’s also varying encounters depending on if the PCs go through the mountains or the swamp, which have their own minor environmental obstacles (deep chasms, mud which ungainly PCs can lose an item in). In fact, there’s a relatively even mixture of outright combat and non-enemy dangers, the latter of which can be overcome by skill challenges. Ayyail will attack the PCs at the House of Silence with three drow minions, and if the PCs are faring poorly it is possible Milando will intervene on their behalf. But he will not attack Ayyail directly as he still has some sorrowful fondness for her, for his exile and her transformation was due to a sexual tryst they had and she was well above his station.The Countess’ Castle is a classic dungeon crawl in a haunted castle. The Countess sought to purchase an old noble estate to better cement herself in the upper class, only to find out that the dwelling is haunted. As her regular group of goons aren’t skilled in handling undead or exorcisms, she hopes that the PCs can make the haunted castle a suitable place to live.The castle was formerly owned by Baron Horace Nightway, a greedy man cursed by a Wish spell into the form of an undead dragon to punish his avarice. As long as his treasure hoard remains, he will be trapped in his castle and unable to leave. The castle has 16 rooms with a variety of traps and some monsters. PCs can gather useful clues, such as a hidden chest containing treasure and the original deed to the castle which the PCs can use to blackmail or pull a fast one on the Countess. There’s also paintings of the Nightway family which provide one of several ways to unlock the vault door (only opened if a family member or someone who looks like them steps within 5 feet), and they can also meet Edgar the ghostly butler who can tell the party an alternative means of putting the Baron’s spirit to rest.Baron Nightway is a unique dragon with shadow-based powers and a necrotic breath weapon that can drain Strength, and he has Legendary Actions to boot. PCs can slay the Baron in typical combat, but if they push his four large treasure chests into nearby acid vats they will free the Baron from his curse. This is a happier ending as he is able to depart into the afterlife on good terms with Edgar.The Wizard’s Tower is an adventure for Azân. Somewhere in the Underdark a drow transmuter by the name of Awerna Aultar managed to get her hands on a rare breed of iridescent pseudodragon, a creature that Azân wants for himself. However, she disappeared and cut contact with everyone, something the former fiendish lord noticed; he thus hires the PCs to find out what happened and retrieve the pseudodragon.In reality, Awerna combined the pseudodragon with a gorgon and rust monster into a unique kind of chimera, but she turned to stone as the chimera attacked her. Now her underground tower is eerily silent as a three-level, eight-room dungeon crawl. The tower has a variety of magical traps and defenses, and several of the monsters within include animated construct swarms posing as silverware, a cloaker who may cut a deal with the PCs and explain how her transmutation circle works if freed, and of course the unique chimera who has a petrifying breath weapon, legendary actions, and the ability to create illusory phantasms. One room contains a transmutation circle which can undo magic of that type. Getting the chimera inside it can safely separate the monsters and even unpetrify Awerna. The drow may not immediately attack the party, but she certainly won’t be willing to part with her prized possessions.As for the iridescent pseudodragon, it has the unique ability to instantly end the effects of a nearby 5th level or lower spell once per day. The pseudodragon would much rather be free if informed of the party’s mission, and it’s possible that the PCs may use their social skills to convince either Azân or the pseudodragon of changing their mind. Outcomes which result in the fiendish lord not getting the pseudodragon may give the party half their reward in gold pieces (1,000 instead of 2,000) rather than the full amount.Thoughts So Far: Once again, we have some strong contenders for Most Magnificent Merchant; almost all of them have interesting personalities, backstories, and services. The Countess and the Dragon Cartel are a bit too similar in theme for my liking, but that’s my only real criticism. I love the concept of the Bone Merchant, and the Awkward Ettercap makes for some great comic relief.The adventures are well-done, containing a variety of “thinking man’s” challenges beyond straightforward combat as well as open-ended means of resolution. The Bard’s Delivery is a bit of a weak point in being the most linear.Join us next time as we wrap up this book with new magic items along with random charts and tables for designing your own magic shop!</blockquote>

Verification