The portal takes the party to large and mostly empty expanse.
Everything is predominantly gray. The sky is dark and a lifeless moon hangs in the sky. The light is roughly twilight and there is no sun in the sky.
On entering this plane all characters must make a saving throw vs. Death. Failing means they lose 1 point of Constitution and 1d6+2 hp of damage permanently. A successful save means the loss is only 1d4+1 hp of damage, but this is permanent also.
There is a dark castle in the distance.
As the party exits this layer following a grand flight of stairs they see a large glowing portal before them.
This portal will transport the characters to the Tomb of the Vampire Queen.
When Ed Greenwood was exploring the Realms in the pages of Dragon, he had a guide, the Sage of Shadowdale Elminster. Elminster told him stories of the Realms and was the intermediary between his world and ours.
But Elminster, like Ed, was an expert on the Realms. I am not. I am not even good. I am an enthusiastic novice with no idea how much I am trying to bite off here. So. I also need a guide. But my guide has to be as naïve as me so we can discover it together.
Generally, for these explorations, I have characters on hand. When I was writing about vampires and undead it was my Paladin Johan. When it is magic, the occult or witches, it is my witch Larina. They are great characters, but neither is appropriate here. Neither has anything to do with the Realms for starters and I need a native.
So introducing (again) Sinéad. She is a half-elf from the Moonshae Isles and her elven mother claims to have ancestry from Evermeet. And...that is all I know. Fun right? Now to expand her out I used her as a character in Baldur's Gate 3 and of the many games I have played of it I liked her run the best.
As I progress through the material and books I am taking the literary license of having her tell me what she shows me as my guide, munch in the same way the Ed has Elminster. Plus it feels like a fun little nod to Ed and Elminster as well.
Sinéad
What do I know about her? Well looking back at my 2nd Ed idea I know she is a magic-user of some sort and a Bard. Given some of the material I have read I also like idea she has wild magic, something she is not quite capable of controlling. This is why she leaves home. She needs a reason to go away from a loving family after all and I am not reverting to the trope of dead parents.
This worked great in my run with her in Baldur's Gate. But I'll get to pencil and paper details in future posts.
Since I had such a great time with her and I'll be using her in tabletop games next year I couldn't help but get a new HeroForge mini of her as an early Christmas present to myself.
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| Sinéad from HeroForge |
Not too bad really. Here is how she looks on the HeroForge site AND in Baldur's Gate 3.
.png "Sinéad Hero Forge")
I rather like how she came out. Of course, I had to do two of my favorite characters from the game, Shadowheart and Karlach.
I rather like how they all came out.
And Karlach:
Yeah. If I am going to do this, then I will do it right.
I am also doing runs with Skylla and Kelek in BG3. Those have also been fun.
The exit to this maze is in sight. The only thing stopping you is the titanic red dragon.
Unlike the black dragon from earlier in this maze, the red dragon (Raxafalion) has made his home here. He has amassed a pile of gold from the Dwarven tombs above and whatever Akelarre has not claimed.
If Sir Fluffles is still with the party he will attack.
This dragon has maximum hp (80 hp) and twice the normal treasure (Hx2).
I am now at my last set of gods (or whatever the Fates are), which brings me full circle. Today, I want to talk about the Fates.
When I began this project I talked about this book of mythology I had that had stories of the Greek myths, the Norse myths, and ending in Beowulf. In my young mind, these looked like a continuum, one set of tales flowed into the next. While age would teach me that these were separate myths, later age would also teach me they are still just one set of myths from an even older source (Proto-Indo-European, which I still want to tackle one day). But even way back then (I want to say 5th Grade) I saw the similarities between the Greek Fates and the Norse Norns. Three women, each representing the Past, Present, and Future, spinning, weaving, or otherwise looming the fate of humankind. Each person, from birth until death.
The image was powerful, and I was sure there was a connection between them. Even doing the briefest of surface research (ok, briefest of literature review. I am particular how people throw the word "research" around) one kind find similar beings all over the Earth and across time due to their PIE origins.
Those are only the most obvious.
For my Pantheon here I want to include them. They were important to the Greeks and Romans in their guise of The Fates (Moirai) and very important in Norse myth. Indeed, in Norse mythology, every living creature had a corresponding set of Norns that measured out their fates.
I will also admit (and a little begrudgingly now) that some of my ideas of the Fates have also been colored by the Piers Anthony book series, The Incarnations of Immortality, with Book 3 With a Tangled Skein chief among them. The first five books were fun. The next two ok to falling apart at the end (it's like he had painted himself into a corner among other issues) and the last one? Well I have not read it despite owning it, I heard it was terrible.
Fata Norne
The Fates of the Black Forest Mythos are not gods in the traditional sense. They are immortal, or more accurately, unending. They often appear as three young, mature, and old women in similar aspects of the Maiden, Mother, and Crone, though that is not who they are. Instead, they are Future, Present, and Past respectively. They can also appear as three identical sisters of indeterminate age. It is their job to measure the fates of the Gods and Mortals alike. No one, not even the Gods, can escape their decrees. It has led to a saying, "Once Fate has spoken, it is so."
FATA NORNE
Eternals
ARMOR CLASS: 5
MOVE: 24"
HIT POINTS: 300 each
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: Special Only
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Decree of Fate
SPECIAL DEFENSES: See Below
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 100%
SIZE: M (5')
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
WORSHIPER'S ALIGN: None
SYMBOL: The faces of three women or a loom
PLANE: Erde (Prime Material)
CLERIC/DRUID: 15th level Cleric
FIGHTER: Nil
MAGIC-USER/ILLUSIONIST: 15th level Magic-user
THIEF/ASSASSIN: Nil
MONK/BARD: 10th level Bard
WITCH/WARLOCK: 15th level Witch
PSIONIC ABILITY: II
S: 23 I: 25 W: 25 D: 16 C: 24 CH: 10
Fata Norne, the Fates, are the goddesses in charge of all fates, from the lowest vermin to the mightiest gods. They do not interact with mortals save in the direst of circumstances. They avoid direct contact with the other gods; likewise, the gods avoid and possibly fear them.
If the Fates are encountered, they need a mortal agent of fate to complete some quest. They will give this mortal what they need but no more than that. It is assumed that since they know all creatures' fates, their choice is correct, but that is not the same thing as the mortal succeeding or even living through the quest.
If anyone is foolish enough to attack the Fata Norne, they can pass the Decree of Fate. Which removes the threat permanently. They decree that the attacker was never born and they cease to exist; no saving throw is permitted. In some cases, the offending mortal (or god) is instantly replaced with an alternate version who lived the same life but was not as foolish as to attack them.
They can't be hit by normal weapons; even magic is ineffective. In addition to the radical removal of the offending attacker from all existence, they can, more simply, remove their attacker's knowledge of whatever magic they would use to attack.
At their choice, they can cast spells as a 15th-level spell caster, either as a Cleric, Magic-user, or Witch.
No one worships the Fata Norne, and they do not grant spells to clerics.
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There you have it! All the gods and monsters of this syncretized set of myths. Hope you can find some uses for them.
Now to produce a PDF of these.
Links
Encounter area 29 is a large goat demon. He has been waiting for you.
This is the Demon Prince Akelarre.
He is the demonic patron of the Vampire Queen. They have an agreement and he is protecting her tomb, but he is under no obligation to stay and will retreat if the battle goes against him.
Unlike the others on this level, he can come and go as he pleases. Indeed he is the one that summons these creatures here. He is given all the spoils of this level.
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| Image by Freepik |
Incidentally, 2024 is also the Year of the Dragon.
Tentatively, I am looking at the following "theme months."
January will be part of TardisCaptain's New Year New Character challenge. Mine though will be delving into some of my favorite characters since I started playing D&D.
April is the A to Z Challenge, where I will write about D&D and its history.
May is Sci-Fi month and I'll do a deep dive into Gamma World, Star Frontiers, and the d20 Star Wars. I'll also looking into games with a solid D&D connection with me.
June has typically been Basic-era month where I focus a lot on B/X, BECMI, and OSE/LL. I really want to be sure I do that this year.
August is Dave Chapman's RPGaDAY month. I pretty much do this one as is. But I might focus on D&D more than other games.
October is "horror" month for me. I want to focus on Ravenloft. All my horror movies will also all be connected to D&D in some way. Either movies from Appendix N authors or horror movies that mention D&D or fantasy/horror. I'll start putting together my list soon.
Additionally, I have something else fun planned throughout the year that I am keeping close to my chest for now.
But the big thing for me next year is going to be my year-long exploration of the Forgotten Realms.
The Forgotten Realms and Me
I was never a Forgotten Realms fan. I dismissed it in the 1980s as an "upstart," ignored it in the early 90s, and actively disliked it in the late 90s. But it seems my ire was misplaced. Around the time the 3rd Edition Realms book came out I was beginning to soften my stance. By the 4th Ed era I was considering moving a campaign to the Realms. In the 5th Ed era I made it official, more or less.
Honestly, my coverage of Ed Greenwood's work in the pages of Dragon magazine changed my mind.
These past few months, I have been playing the hell out of Baldur's Gate 3, and my desire to play in the Realms has only grown.
To this end, I have amassed a small collection of Forgotten Realms books. Nothing special, just ones that I have come by easily either at game auctions, Half-Price Books, or as in the books pictured above, Print on Demand from DriveThruRPG. So I will go over them in detail throughout the editions.
I'd like to run a Realms-based game someday, but I am still figuring out what edition to use. Part of me thinks I need to do it in AD&D 2nd Edition since that was the edition that was the most "Realms" to me.
The Forgotten Realms to me was always viewed through the eyes of a character, whether that was Elminster or Drizzt or whomever. Likewise, I am going to look into the Realms through the eyes of a new character. Presently I am leaning toward my half-elf sorceress Sinéad. I know I want use someone that has magic, and someone that I can tie to the rich lore of elves in this world. She is also one of two characters I had specifically created for the Realms in all my years of gaming. I think I owe it to myself to actually give her a spin someday. However, my wife reminded me the other night that Keller the Silent Monk might also be fun.
In any case, 2024 is going to be a busy year of posting here and I am looking forward to it.
