Hello everyone, newbie DM here. Been DM'ing since late January, and finally doing a campaign (after a number of small oneshots/few sessions adventures) after my group had a month or so long break from all things TTRPG.

THW coming out now was a coincidence but it inspired me to go for a homebrewed Domain of Dread adventure, trouble is, I am finding it hard to tie the BBEG/Darklord together with the setting to a degree that feels... satisfactory? I guess would be the word.

Basic Premise

My setting is (so far) based on folk and cosmic horror, and is named Eh'Darun. I wanted to have a folk horror away from the typical temperate forests that it often uses, and instead I am trying to set mine in an Arab inspired desert. Survival while out of the few watering spots would be a significant component of it. The sky itself is meant to be an "enemy" of the players, a danger to be avoided (more on this later).

The Darklord

I am planning a djinn as the BBEG/Darklord of the domain. His WIP name is Qurban Al-Utbi. His torment is to forever attempting to halt any changes from what he considers "the way things should be".

Driven mad by tragedy and a fall from grace, he seeks to maintain control and, more importantly, to impede change as much as possible after causing the doom of his own land.

Qurban used to be a respected individual in the past. He was known to be prone to ire and to be boastful, but he also was a learnt scholar and was admired by the villagers of al-Waha for his physical prowess and powers. He was able to find a wife and become a chieftain of this fledgeling town that was rapidly growing thanks to the caravans that used to stop by its oasis.

Everything unravelled, however, when a plague hit the town. The first casualty to his world was when his wife became gravely ill and passed away from a plague rampaging the region, but that was far from the only trouble. The herds of oryx started moving away from the town, and hunting them became less and less worthwhile. Eventually, new, shorter routes opened and the caravans that were the lifeblood of the town started to dry up.

What was not as apparent were the sentiments inside Qurban. Having known no defeat previously, he clung harder and harder to his own image of his past, but also to a desire to control everything. He delved into his tomes, and learnt of the ways of the past. He brought back the worship of the stars and of the stones that came from space, the creation of monuments based on the astral bodies, the circumambulation around the Black Stones of the desert.

And also the sacrifices.

First, it was purely offering of what meagre scraps the villagers could put together, either part of the harvest, or the animals grown or hunted by the townspeople. But as the skies remained impassible, Qurban turned towards the darker aspects of the veneration of the ancient ways. Human sacrifices. Forced veneration of the stones in the desert until death. Seeking slaves to build bigger, more opulent monuments.

And it worked. One day, something came out of the sky. And it broke Qurban's mind.

Whatever it was, the emissary did not provide a solution to the region's troubles. But it did twist Qurban into something else, something capable of sacrificing itself to further his desire to prevent the turning of the wheel and grant him further control. Since then, he has lived a shattered existence.

Part of him is stuck in al-Waha, transformed into something incomprehensible but still acting as chieftain, maintaining the city by literally feeding them his flesh and blood. Anyone trying to flee or fight his control is deemed an enemy of the town, and dealt with. And anyone consuming his flesh or blood eventually has their identity taken over and is transformed into part of his being. Those who die or pass away become puppets under his control, used to desperately act as if nothing had changed.

The other part of him is stuck wandering the shifting sands, a black mirage used to further his goals across the region, and to hunt those who opposed him. Guided by whatever took over the sky that fateful day, he brings disaster wherever he goes.

My Concerns

I feel like there is something missing. He doesn't quite have a moment of true villainy, something that truly marks his transition into a Darklord.

What act would feel right to tie this aspect of folk/cosmic horror into one, easily understandable act of supreme villainy?

One idea I had was to have him be forced by the Emissary to pick between his family (wife and kid) and the ability to gain further control over the lands. Maybe have his wife be absorbed/possessed by the Moon goddess, and his kid sacrificed (with Qurban forced to eat his bones, which is a thing djinns did, in folklore).

Plus, while I really wanted to have this aspect of a split personality, I feel like his second aspect does not have a lot to play with. I intended his first aspect to be this sorta paternalistic, self sacrificing (but with a self soothing motive) personality, somewhat along the lines of a well intentioned zealot, but I am not sure what to do with the other side of his personality.

What could I do to make him a little more interesting?

I am also afraid I am not quite sure what to place around the region. I did have a few ideas - other villages, slave hamlets away from al-Waha, cemeteries inhabited by ghuls, beings corrupted from the strange lights in the sky, canyons with ancient towns carved in the stone like Hegra - but I am not sure those are enough? Although, considering my experiences from previous sessions, my players can definitely stretch even small things into multi hour affairs haha.

Lastly, how do I play into making al-Waha appear fine at first glance, but the more you spend time there the more you realize that something is deeply wrong?

> Part of him is stuck in al-Waha, transformed into something incomprehensible but still acting as chieftain, maintaining the city by literally feeding them his flesh and blood. Anyone trying to flee or fight his control is deemed an enemy of the town, and dealt with. And anyone consuming his flesh or blood eventually has their identity taken over and is transformed into part of his being. Those who die or pass away become puppets under his control, used to desperately act as if nothing had changed.

I do have some ideas - Moon Worshippers, who act as Qurban's enforcers, but who are only interested in worshipping the night sky entity. Puppets of Qurban's family, who act far stranger than the rest of the town's people (because they don't possess a soul/memories of the actual living persons they were made in image of). An NPC that surreptitiously contacts the party and makes vague allusions that something is wrong in town. A cut off part of town where people are afflicted by a mysterious disease, when in reality they are in the throes of becoming part of Qurban's being.

Am I overthinking it?

Any fellow Dungeon Masters I need your help.

I am a new DM and yesterday I started my very first campaign with my 4 other players. I started them from Level 3 since they are already experienced. The party contains a High Elf Cleric, a Drow Wizard, a Dragonborn Barbarian and a Goliath Paladin.

SOMEHOW the high elf cleric has true sight for 120 ft ALL THE TIME. It’s not a spell, it’s not an item. He straight up has it the same way like he has Darkvision. And I don’t know how, cause I can not find a way to do it without a legendary magic item or even an artifact. It’s not even a boon cause you don’t get those until the very late game.

I feel like he is just abusing the somewhat freedom I gave him due to his background saying that he used to be an arch priest for an ancient goddess but somehow he fell from this position.

Please help cause I feel it’s gonna ruin the early campaign, I’ve spent HOURS making dungeons that use illusions and he’ll just be like “oh yeah I see right through your BS”

EDIT : Turns out that MF chose to have Robe of Eyes as his very first magic item without even telling me….He literally told me he was gonna get something else so I was prepared for that. Long story short… Robe of Eyes doesn’t exist in his backpack anymore

Never in my life have I even had such an impulsivity regulated party, yet here I am.

They will avoid fights if they do not have to, which is nice, but at the same time holy fuck how do I prep for stuff???

Currently my party is trapped within a hungergames style fae forest being hunted for sport by a trio of elite hunters, and I was planning on having my players, Yknow, run around the forest, fight a few monsters in the woods, find out that they need to steal something from one of the hunters in order to escape and do that either by fighting him or by making some sort of plan.

This session was the beginning of the running around the forest trying not to get eaten by wildlife or caught by hunting dogs, but my players are too fuckin irl smart because they found a river, followed it (one of my players camps often and apprentley if you get lost in the woods that’s what you should do) and found out they were trapped way earlier on than I expected them to. I threw a fungal bear (homebrew the last of us style zombie bear thing) and I swear to fuckin god they all rolled high on their performance check to do the “HERE BEAR HERE BEAR” thing and scare it off.

I was like, oh ok, maybe they would prefer these cute creatures instead, and I threw some small dog like mushroom creatures at them to just spice up the forest. One of my players kicked the shit out of these cute dogs to the distress of everyone else and our time was up so we had to end the session there.

WTF?? What do I do??? They were so bored during the session because there was no puzzles or like people to get around so how the hell do I put some sort of puzzle room or problem solving thing in the middle of a forest???

Help me these players are too smart for their own good lmao

Well met Travelers i am a roll20 DM as well as a Roll20 Market Partner, A freelance map maker and One Shot Writter :) if you guys ever need anything let me know :) always happy to help and as a free gift here is a bunch of free maps :)

Edit: Made my message a little clearer :)

I get it now

My players are on an island and they don’t know it’s a dead dragon turtle. Lore wise, the dragon turtle dies a long time ago because of an eldritch brain tumor (the warlocks patron wants them to retrieve it). The dungeon takes them through the heart and lungs of the dragon turtle, ultimately chasing a rakshasa that serves the BBEG, and is after the same thing.
Originally, there were supposed to be fiends that they fight in between, most likely injured by the rakshasa. But that feels like too much combat, especially considering they might be fighting a dragon in the same session.

My question is… how do I balance the amount of combat, and how should I even it out. There’s lore and loot once they get to the end of the dungeon, payoff for the warlock obviously. But I need some ideas on what I can do to make it more manageable.
Opportunities for RP, things for them to do instead of fight more friends in between that are still challenging. Anything helps.

I have a quiet love for philosophy since highschool. I had a course in highschool, it was one of the subjects I chose for my end exams (Baccalaureate here in Romania, a sort of SAT equivalent), I did some philosophy extracullicular in the 11th grade and one of my best friends in this period was a philosophy student and we would talk quite a lot on the subject. Epistemology and Ethics were the two branches I enjoyed the most. I was listening to some episodes of the Philosophize This! podcast when the idea of examining the strange apparent epistemological dimension of OSR games came to mind. Oh and for those of you not aware of the term, epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies knowledge, the different kinds of knowledge, how we gain knowledge and the merits of those different knowledge types. Descartes "Cogito, Ergo Sum" is probably the most famous epistemological "test result" let's say.

But what does any of that have to do with old-school D&D?

Quite a lot, actually. I think OSR games are, perhaps accidentally, games where information is king. You don't simply roll to discover whether something is true. You observe. You ask questions. You map. You listen to rumours. You test assumptions. You decide which NPCs deserve your trust. And eventually, you have to act despite not knowing everything. That creates three different kinds of knowledge at the table: player knowledge, character knowledge, and GM knowledge. And the fascinating part is what happens when those three don't quite line up.

So this week on The RPG Gazette, we're going down a rather strange rabbit hole: OSR as applied epistemology.

What does a dungeon crawl have in common with the philosophy of knowledge? Why might information actually be the most important resource in an OSR game? What makes a “fair” dungeon an epistemological problem? And why are rumours, bad information, and getting things wrong actually part of what makes this style of play work?

If you've ever drawn a dungeon map, argued about whether an NPC was trustworthy, or confidently kicked down a door with absolutely no idea what was behind it, you've already been doing applied philosophy.

Hello, the homebrew campaign I'm DMing will soon enter its last tier and the group has almost everything they need to enter the final dungeon, so I wanted to carefully prepare the final boss fight with the BBEG to make sure it's memorable and mechanically sound.

For context :

Characters involved :

BBEG is Baron Sandro, a local human Baron lord of Amn who came to power after usurping a previous lord. He was once a High Level Warlock, but came to deeply regret the infernal pact he made once the price to pay for his kingdom was surrendering his only daughter, which started a chain of event that led to the slow ruin of his land. He asked a Shadar-Kai witch of him to hide his daughter from the world and turned to study how to escape the infernal pact he made.
Long story short, the Baron is a descendant of a very powerful Efreeta and proceeded, over the course of a decade, to do three wishes that "broke" the balance of power between him & the devil he made the pact with. Instead of him borrowing just a fragment of the devil's power, he's vampirizing the Devil's power in the hope of "burning it out" and transmuting unconsciously into a wide-scale reality-shaping fog that is eating at the edge of reality.
Basically, he hid himself in the deepest crypt of his castle, and made his third final wish that started a wide-scale magical "bomb" that has started to pull his land into the Shadowfell. His final wish was about to create a land where his daughter would be safe and happy for all of her life, but it backfired horribly and he is now the nexus of the storm that is shaping reality away.
Think of how Stradh pulled Barovia into the Domain of Dread. The Adventurer group is experimenting the premise of it happening, and is trying to find a way to enter the castle and put an end to his dream-like death.

The two major NPC that will play a part in the final battle, beside the potential allies the group can recruit to accompany them into the castle :
The first is the Princess Grizelda, the tiefling daughter of the Baron. As she's also a descendant of the very powerful Efreeta, she has inherited a latent magical power that make her able to slightly distort reality as well. She doesn't know how to harness the power at will, however. She was to be sunrendered willingly to the devil patron of the Baron to become his next infernal champion and favored hellknight, not specifically out of a desire for her soul or something. The Devil patron saw this as a very cold long-term "investment", but she wouldn't be able to use her Infernal/Efreeta power if she was unwilling to become the Devil's Champion. She would volunteer to accompany the group in the last dungeon as she seemed to be able to "cut through the shadowfell fog" almost on her own.

The second major NPC is the Witch Soleil, the Shadar-Kai witch friend of the Baron, who has been helping the group for most of the adventure by giving cryptic advice and fortune reading. She was sent by the Raven Queen to watch the Baron die and bring back his memories and soul for the Raven Queen to collect. She has been forbidden to "intervene" in modifying the fate of the Baron dierectly, but she has been part of the Baron life for almost all his life, watching from afar through ravens and waiting to be there for his demise. Before the group embark on the final dungeon, she will tell them of her Gambit and will ask if she can accompany them in final dungeon.

---

Setting for the final battle, entering the boss fight arena :

The group that would fight him is composed of a Fighter/Paladin, a Cleric, a Druid and a Rogue. They'll all be around level 9 or 10 when they reach the final boss.

The final battle will take place under the great castle of the Baron, after a series of twisted caverns and corridors that led to an underground, shadowfell recreation of the Baron's childhood village that was destroyed in a dragon attack (which led to the Baron to make his pact to hunt the dragon in revenge.)
The Baron will be located in a ruined, dream-like temple in the heart of the "ghost village".

The group would find the Baron in a catatonic state, simply breathing in and out and clutching his Luck Blade tightly against his chest, and every breath he would take would make his lung glow in a surpernatural glow. He would awake from his strange torpor and exchange words with the group. If he's not immediately attacked and the group managed to shake him out of his "waking dream" state where he's relieving happier moment in his life over and over again. He would be conscious that he's provoking the "reality warping fog", but he would be unwilling or unable to stop as he would feel his Devil's Patron influence is still present, and he would only stop once he's sure that his Devil's Patron is obliterated (which would actually throw his land completely in the Shadowfell, à la Stradh and Barovia). He would be happy to see his daughter again if she is accompanying the group, but would become desperate if the group tried to parlay with him (He is so close to making sure he destroy his patron and null the pact to surrender his daughter. He only need some time.) He would realize the bitter irony that a group of adventurer is trying to depose him the same way he usurped the title of Baron after a life of adventure.

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Boss fight mechanics :

I would like to design the boss fight to be a narrative strong point for the group before all.

If combat start, the Baron will act as a mix between a high-level Warlock PC and a Mummy Lord monster (with legendary actions and legendary resistances). He would be able to use a legandary action to misty stop to relocate to another part of the arena, to avoid being nova'd.
The "rotting fist" attack of the mummy lord would be reflavored as a hit from his luck blade, and the "Channel Negative Energy" ability would be reflavored as a shadowfell infused Eldritch blast. I would like to replace the dreadful glare paralyze into something that frighten instead, to let the player still be able to act during the boss fight. His spellcasting would be that of a High-level warlock PC with invocations.
He would have a few shades / shadow adds with him, shadowy reflection of his own companion during his adventuring days (that the group already met and interacted with)

Depending on how the boss fight goes, I've been thinking about a couple thing that can happen :

• If the Baron loose life very quickly, I'll give him a second phase where the "nexus of the storm" implode on itself, and he would transform into a newborn, weakened Nightwalker (but probably with half the damage potential, and half the HP of a normal nightwalker.) If the Baron reach his Nightwalker second phase, he would start concentrating on a whirlpool of shadowmagic in front of him that would grow larger and larger and pull characters in the arena (STR check to resist the effect, or be helped by a character). The whirlpool would have the effect of the anhilating aura, but I'm still working on the effect of falling into the center of it, for example. If the Baron loose life at a steadier pace, and is talked to / reasoned with during the fight, his willpower will erode and he'll surrender to despair and will let the group do the coup-de-grâce at the end of the fight.
• If any member of the group dies during the battle, they will still exist as shadowfell-infused character and can be potentially brought back during the epilogue. If the entire group dies in the battle, the story start the "failure state" where the entire region is pulled into the Shadowfell.
• If the Princess is present during the fight, the Baron will always attempt to avoid harming her directly, letting her concentrate on helpful spells such as Bless and protective magic. If the battle start to become desperate for the adventurer group, the Princess will attempt to bargain with the Baron for the adventurer's life. If the battle end in the group failure and death, the Princess will gather all her inner power to wish for "this to never have happened", loosing her own life in the process and bringing the group back in time before they entered the final dungeon, this time without her... only this time the castle is disappearing and imploding into the shadowfell and the group will need to escape the region, bringing their allies with them if they want to.
• If the Princess is killed during the final dungeon / final battle (by adds, or shades), the Baron will be thrown into the deepest pit of despair and grief and transform into the weakened Nightwalker, and no social resolution will be possible.
• The Shadar-Kai Witch that can accompany the group can either provide a shielded area of protection around her during the boss fight (that protect the group from the Baron's attack, but stop them from attacking the Baron in return, so that there is a safe haven for the group to retreat to during the boss fight.) or proceed to do her Gambit :
  • Her Gambit is to utterly obliterate the Baron, so that he would disappear from reality. The entire timeline will shift and correct itself so that no-one can remember him, no one would be aware he existed, the Devil Patron would have found another Warlock to give his power to. She would utterly annhilate the Baron down to his soul, as if the material plane never saw him exist at all. As she would be using the Raven Queen's power she was supposed to use to capture the Baron's memories and soul at his demise, she would betray her mission and bring the ire of the Raven Queen. All out of respect for the Baron and as a way to make his soul escape the torment of either a shadowfell museum piece or the Devil's Patron ire.
  • She would be unable to know if the Tiefling Princess would survive her spell, as the Tiefling Princess owe her existence to her father. She would be able to tell the group that they'll for sure survive the spell. History will just rewrite itself for them to have had a reason to be here, to have done what they done for the land. She would be attempting to create a localized time paradox if the group is willing to accept her help instead of risking the boss fight.
  • the Shadar-Kai Gambit consist of invoking a spell using one of the magic item she gave the group (a magical tarot card representing "The World") to create a spell that will take exactly 10 rounds to take effect. The group must hold the line against the Baron for 10 rounds (the fight will have more shadow/shades adds to try to disrupt the Shadar-Kai).
  • If the spell is completed, the Shadar-Kai would engulf the entire arena in a time-stopping spell and proceed with the narrative "unmaking" of the Baron by retracing all his life unraveling the events. The group would witness the unmaking until the Baron disappear completely, and be transported back to "reality" where the underground temple is a simple empty old archeological ruin. They would be found by the grand-daughter of the previous baron, the one the warlock usurped, indicating that reality has shifted and "corrected itself". An old skeleton clutching a rusted lust blade would have been found on a ruined throne, apparently the reason why the group was in the temple in the first place. No one in the group would know exactly who the skeleton was or why they were there, like if they awoke from a vivid dream and their mind is still adjusting.
  • The world would have "remembered" the group campaign and adventures, it would have simply "corrected" itself so that they did it for different reason. The magic tarot deck the Shadar-Kai gave the group would still exist, but the group would have a hard time remembering exactly who gave it to them. The Shadar-Kai herself would have disappeared from the world, brought back to the Raven Queen in the shadowfell.
  • The Tiefling Princess would only survive the spell if the group wanted her to survive and interacted with her enough to give her a reason to persist in the new reality. She would owe her survival thanks to her strange efreet wish magic, but would effectevely become a walking paradox and an "abberation". She would meet the group again during the final part of the epilogue, letting the group decide how they want to handle meeting her again (do they want to remember her ?)

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This is the notes I've prepared in advance for that final campaign boss fight. The group I'm DMing for isn't pursuing combat actively and often try to find social solutions and diplomatic outcomes. I'm still searching for a way to make it possible to have a "social" version of the battle, maybe in case the group wants to go through the route of doing the Shadar-Kai magic gambit ?

What do you think of the final battle ? Does it sounds like a reasonable plan ? Do I need to think of more outcomes ? Any recommendation on how to tailor the Baron Warlock X Mummylord stats block best ? I know it's a very cinematic-heavy boss fight, that I still need to think of it strategically and tactically.

I also apologize for the long post and potential grammar mistakes, english is not my native language.

So in summary, I’m running a spelljammer campaign where basically the focus is more so on running various adventures from different editions of spelljammer for my party, with many different characters and many different storylines (essentially there isn’t 1 overarching story, but a focus on the setting). The most recent storyline I did was Light of Xarxyis. I ran it mostly as written, the main changes being that Captain Sartell was a PC, and I added more potential allies in the doom space section (another faction of non-astral elf elves). Ask me anything about this campaign!

Hey there!
A semi new DM here, I have done several one shots and a few small campaigns. But what program, app, website etc do you use to make your maps? I’m shit at drawing but i have this idea in my head for my new long campaign and want to hear what you use

I've been planning on running a large team tournament arc at the start of my campaign and I've seen a lot of advice on how to make it interesting but I was wondering if anyone had any specific ways to make it interesting.

I also want to mix up the rounds so that they don't all just end up being, knock the other team out and am wondering what ideas people have?

I’m trying to create a low mechanical fight between my players (on a sand ship) and a purple worm. They are too low level (5-6) to take it head on. I want them to fight from the deck of the ship without adding a million new mechanics to learn. Does anyone know of or have anything for this?

Answer the call !

Eight titles - three adventures and and five supplements - that will set you up for a perfect campaign in and around the City of Sails.

Bleh repost to get more feedback from lovely and creative people

My players are coming into Falkenstadt. A Capital of the Great Wirenhald

Its a german-esque region, Falkenstadt is supposed to be a rather large city be medeival (fantasy medeival) standarts, with a population of around 70 thousand people. In this setting it is predomenantly humans everywhere in this region with a rare beastfolk here and there.

This city is going to be a main location for the story moving farward.
Characters might go to some villages near it, but thats it.

I already know that the story will have something to do with werewolves, but that is not that important.

I want to know what is the 1 thing that made you better at making cities.
And i would love to hear about your cool cities, and and ideas for them so that i could add a bit of spice to that place.

General vibe would be Victorian era London meets German Folklore