Baldur's Gate: A Barbarian in Hell

 My son and I have been enjoying the new game, Baldur's Gate 3. He is much further along than I am and so is his D&D 5e group. One of his favorite characters is Karlach, the tiefling barbarian. I admit, she is great. Karlach is this 6ft+ tall tiefling warrior goddess who is also one of the funniest, most optimistic characters in the game. My son calls her a "cinnamon roll" because of how sweet and fluffy she is.

When your character is idle she will be humming to herself and dancing in place. She says things like "fuck! It is great to be alive!" and when she runs into combat she laughs. She calls everyone "soldier" and loves it when you stick up for the underdog, kids or find ways to keep the innocents alive. She has every right to be angry and bitter; instead, she is cheerful and optimistic. 

And sadly...she is also dying.

Spoilers ahead for the Baldur's Gate 3 video game.

Karlach has an "infernal engine" for a heart. It works great in Hell, where she was fighting in the blood war, but on the Prime Material, it is burning her up from the inside. One of your quests is to find a way to keep her from burning up. You can, for a while (and it is worth the effort!) but in the end...well the Devil has their due. 

There are a lot of different endings for all the "origin" characters, but Karlach's was particularly bleak. Her happy ending was to be able to say she loved everyone before burning up, leaving only ash.

What did Larian Studios do about this when players started complaining about it? Simple they did what any good studio would do.  They pulled back in the voice actress, reshot Karlach's ending with all new material, and patched it to the game in a matter of DAYS.

You can see her new "happy" ending here.

Personally, I love the idea that she and Wyll go off together since their backstories are so intertwined. If I do another run-through of this game, I want to do it as Wyll with the purpose of seeing what I can do to save Karlach. Karlach would never do it for herself; that is not who she is.

BUT. Even with the "they lived happily ever-after in Hell" ending my son and his group are less than happy with it. So we were talking about it one night while playing BG3.

He wants an adventure for his party where they go to Hell to rescue both Karlach and Wyll.  He wanted to know if I had anything.  

I told him that was a silly question.

I mentioned the adventure A Paladin in Hell does this, and it has somewhat the same premise as the newer D&D 5 adventure (and Baldur's Gate 3 prequel) Descent into Avernus.

I told him to use the basic outline of APiH, use details from BG:DiA, and make it a mission to rescue Karlach and call it "A Barbarian in Hell." However, in my current run-through, Wyll has rejected his warlock powers to become a Paladin. So I guess it still works.  I half-jokingly have called this "No Sleep Till Avernus" with my son.

In this adventure, Karlach and Wyll are defending a piece of Elturel that has remained in Avernus (let's say it was the temple in A Paladin in Hell).  The characters in Baldur's Gate 3 are limited to 12th level. "Descent into Avernus" takes the characters from level 1 to 13. The AD&D 2nd Ed "A Paladin in Hell" is for characters 15-20 level. So then A Barbarian in Hell is for characters 13th level and above. 

The motivation for most D&D adventures is glory and gold. The motivation for A Paladin in Hell is "the greater good."  For A Barbarian in Hell, the motivation is "Save our friends."  And that is a good motivation, really. 

Besides, if the roles were reversed, you know Karlach would have saved your ass a long time ago.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 9, Room 19

 The end of the hallway (Room 14) opens to a large chamber.

There are floating orbs here and a glowing magical portal.  Entering the portal will transport the character to one of the other levels of the dungeon. Roll a 1d12 to determine which one. They appear in Room 1. If characters step through together, then they are all teleported to the same place. Characters that enter separately arrive at different locations. 

The orbs just float and give off light as per a light spell. The orbs (15 in total) are worth 150 GP each (normal glass orb with levitate and light spells).  They break easy, having only 1 hp and a save of 18.

Monstrous Mondays: A Basic Bestiary Update - Of Sorts

 This is the first Monday in more than a month I can sit down and write something about monsters. As it turns out.  I got nuthin. 

Well...that is not entirely true. It could be said I have too much but lack a clear direction.

Here is my issue as it stands right now.

I have a lot of monsters done. Not as many as I want, but a lot. Enough to easily fill a book. But I also have all this other material here that can go with it. Spells. Gods. NPCs. 

Since I am supposed to be developing a SWOT analysis rubric for an MBA course I am developing now, I may try that out here with my current problem. My feeling is it is going to tell me things I already know. That is why these work best with teams. 

Click for Mural SWOT board

I could add more, but this is enough to keep me going.

This does justify my desire to keep moving on this project, but not the direction I should be taking.

Maybe I am biting off more than I chew here.

One of the directions I took early on was to split my Basic Bestiary idea up into three groups of monsters. Maybe I should go a step further and break it down into smaller units and combine it with my Monstrous Maleficarum; smaller sized publications that would allow me to buy more art for future ones.

I could do all Basic-era monsters, then re-combine them all at the end for an "Advanced-era" hard-cover.  That way people who like Basic-era could just get those, and the people who like Advanced monsters (and hardcovers) could just get that.

With these I am going to go with "Basic-Era" and "Advanced-era" compatibility and not stick too close to any single retro-clone in particular. There are a lot of clones out there now, and to be honest, the differences are mostly trivial.  

The limiting factor, of course, is art. But this at least addresses many of the issues I have above. 

So I guess I need to see what art I have now, a figure out how many monsters per publication would be worthwhile.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 9, Room 18

 The room across from the previous on it set up in a similar manner. 

This room is empty. There are also no books here.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 9, Room 17

 Going down the hall another 50 feet there is another set of double doors on either side. The doors on the left are locked. As before there are three separate locks that need to be opened in the proper order.

The top, the lower left then the lower right. This can be figured out with divination magic or by making three successful Find Traps rolls. Inside this room is a coffin on a dais. There is a desk and many books about vampires.  Inside the coffin there is a vampire chained down with silver chains. 

The vampire has been experimented on for centuries. The tomes nearby detail every experiment done. Whoever was doing this was looking for a way to make vampires even more powerful. 

This vampire was a failure.

After a few minutes, the vampire will stir and then begin to scream.  The vampire begs the party to kill him.

Killing the vampire is not difficult. He is completely immobile, so no rolls to hit are needed, and the vampire only has 6 hp. A wooden stake will end him.

If the vampire is released then he will attack the party for blood. 

--

GMs should not grant full XP for killing this vampire. But XP can be given for finding and reading the vampire books.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 9, Room 16

 Moving across the hall opposite of the stairs (and to the left as walking down the hall) there is another door. This one is not locked and is easily opened. 

Inside the party will find a horse. This horse is obviously demonic. It is red, has small flames leaping off of it, and its eyes are glowing. It is busy eating the corpse of a long-dead elf.

The horse looks at the party and keeps eating. If the party continues to watch the horse the horse will stop eating and ask if the party wants any of the elf to eat.

The horse is demonic and it doesn't take a "Detect Evil" spell to see that.  The horse does not attack but instead it gates out if/when it is attacked in an explosion that does 4d6 hp of damage in fire and concussive blast. Save for half.

--

The horse is here due to the magical flux still effecting this tomb.

Kickstart Your Weekend: Cottages & Cerberus

Last year my family and I were playing a D&D 5e game, and we got to talking about our other 5e game. I had asked them what they wanted for their characters "after level 20."  My youngest wants to take over a town and fill it with artificers and build a community of "makers." My oldest wants his Dragonborn to build a mighty temple to the Platinum Dragon in his role as the "Sword of Bahamut."  When they turned around and asked me what I wanted for my NPC/GMPC witch character I said I wanted her to retire with her cat, have a garden of about 1000 different herbs, drink tea, and live that 100% Cottage-core life.  I had done all the "big endings" before.

Well it turns out that you can do that as well.

Cottages & Cerberus

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cottagesandcerberus/cottages-and-cerberus-new-system-pf2e-5e-support?ref=theotherside

This game is described as "A new monster hunting cottage core TTRPG system with PF2 & 5E compatible bestiary."

Sounds fun for the right groups really. 

Honestly I am happy that game designers are taking leaps and doing new things with their RPGs. This won't be everyone's cup of tea, but for someone out there this is the perfect game.

Given the number of pledges it has so far it seems like there is a pretty good market for this. 

The art looks great and there are all sorts of add-ons to enrich your current game. I am considering both the D&D 5e and Pathfinder 2e digital versions.  It might be worth it just for the stats of the "Leviathanus Rex." Imagine a Godzilla-sized narwhal. 

There is a 63-page preview and a character sheet.  I rather like the idea of "spoons" as a personal resource.

They are doing great so far and I wish them the utmost success.