Adventure: The Dragon of Krom Frykt – Wilderness Encounters
Welcome to the second in Claw Claw Bite’s series of weekly adventure posts! Today we present the overland travel portion of our serial adventure. Having taken up the quest to rescue the dragon’s treasure from the goblins who hold it hostage, the players must now travel north to the dragon’s lair in the Smoking Valley. For the adventure’s introduction, click here.
Encounters
Over Hill and Dale – The players will face minor hardships while traveling to the dragon’s lair.
Hazard – CR 1/2 – 50 XP per player – First they must make three DC 7 acrobatics checks as they traverse the rocky mountain slopes on their way to the dragon’s valley – failing a check results in a fall for 1d6 points of damage.
Creatures – CR 4 – 1200 XP – During the journey a pair of lynxes will stalk the party. If they can they will sneak up (Stealth +10) and attack stragglers or pounce during a moment of confusion such as after a party member falls.
Hazard – CR 1 – 100 XP per player – Two different geothermal vents present a hazard as the party approaches the lair’s entrance, and unless players make a successful DC 17 Dungeoneering or Survival skill check they will have to make DC 13 Reflex saves to avoid blasts of hot poison gasses that deal 1d8 points of damage.
The Dragon’s Cave – Once the players reach the entrance read or paraphrase the following:
The rocky hillside, cracked and smoking from various vents, descends to the valley floor here where a wide, low cavern lies. A natural stone awning canopies an open space of small scattered rocks. Within, a dark passage emits heat and haze.
One goblin hides among the rocks in at the entrance (DC 20 perception to spot) and watches the approach (perception +0). If he sees the party approaching the cave he will alert the goblins in area 1 (see below).
An alternate entrance can be discovered through investigating the vents on the hillside above and succeeding on a DC 20 nature, survival or dungeoneering skill check. Success means they discover a fissure on the hillside above the cave, which leads to a corridor behind the entrance guards (area 2 on map).
To continue into the dragon’s lair, go here.
Posted in 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons / d20 fantasy / Pathfinder, Adventure, Encounter and tagged Dragon of Krom Frykt by Adam A. Thompson with no comments yet.
Adventure – The Dragon of Krom Frykt – Introduction
This begins the first in a new weekly series of Pathfinder & 3rd Edition D&D adventures. Over the next four weeks, we will be posting this adventure one section at a time. So enjoy and look for the complete adventure in the next issue of Claw Claw Bite magazine!
The Dragon of Krom Frykt
An adventure for 2nd – 4th level characters, for use with Pathfinder or 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons rules
Introduction
The heroes, while returning from their latest adventure, get lost in the hilly wilderness during a long spring rainstorm. When the players find their way to the town of Seraford, they hear of a reward being offered to assist the valley’s temple to Krom.
This temple was dedicated to Krom long ago, at a time when he was known as Krom Frykt. In ancient times he came here, killed a bloody-handed monster known as Tyran, and claimed the land as his, saying he would kill any who did evil or who did not pay due respects at his temple, before moving on to further adventures as Krom is said to have done. Now, those who tend the temple uphold this promise in his fearsome name – every spring a feast is held where whoever wins in games of wrestling and feats of strength earns the title of Dread Champion, and who must uphold Krom’s promise when called upon, in exchange for the earthly privileges of the temple.
When the Player Characters arrive at the temple, they hear that it is occupied by a threatening cinder-mawed dragon. The terrified priests bring the heroes before the dragon who declares, “I am a drake of the earth. My most precious treasure is stolen by cowardly thieves and sneaks. I come to demand justice of Krom Frykt.” The dragon refuses to leave until its treasure is once again safe, explaining that a goblin sneaked in and snatched it, and threatened to destroy it unless the dragon left and stayed away. She demands assistance in the name of the god of the temple, and if rebuffed threatens to “turn this vale and all the lands I can see from this peak into scorched and barren dust, where I shall gnash the bones of the dead.” The dragon tells the Player Characters that “the temple champion has not returned,” and asks the players to sneak into its lair “in the valley that smokes” and secure what is in “the chamber of earthfire” from the goblins who tricked their way into her lair.
The priests confirm that the creature claims it has been wronged and has come to the temple to demand justice from their fearsome god, and the temple Champion, a warrior ordained to hand out justice in Krom’s name, went to the lair a week ago with some of the former champions and has not yet returned. The priests will offer the adventurers the eternal gratitude of the temple and 100 gold each if they help. The priests will ask, then beg for assistance, eventually offering up to 500 gold to each Player Character if they will undertake the task.
For the wilderness portion of the adventure, journey here.
Posted in 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons / d20 fantasy / Pathfinder, Adventure, rules agnostic and tagged Dragon of Krom Frykt by Adam A. Thompson with no comments yet.
The Lich – a Hip-Hopera of Extraordinary Magnitude
The Lich is an epic tale of one wizard’s shot at immortality. Mayhem ensues. Give it a listen and get your copy over at Damp Heat’s bandcamp site:
http://dampheat.bandcamp.com/album/lich
Credits
released 30 March 2013
Story, Lyrics, Beats, Art, Engineering, and Mixing (what’s mastering?) by Daniel P. Smith
Lyrical tweaks and fixes by W. Ryan Willingham and Christopher Terry Leone
Clarinet on Forest by Adam A. Thompson
Guitars on Copy of a Map by Dan Lavoie
Guitars on Guild by Joe Madden
Dot Smith – Narrator
Emily Summerfield – Narrator, Farm Girl
Cee Monstah – Immir, a Wizard; Positive Energy Elemental; and the Butler
Dirty Dub – Corsair, a Warrior; and Dock Worker
Damp Heat – Paul, a Woodsman; Mage Guildsman; Tavern patron
Bad Barry – a Manticore
Stormshadow – another Manticore
Emcee Eats – Vampire Lord
Jomo – Master of the Mage’s GuildChorus (Tavern patrons, Vampire Spawn, Corpse Golem, Other Dock Workers, Guild Members):
Adam A. Thompson
Frank J. Kim
Cindie Jones
John Wayne Akin
Ethan Schrupp
Ryan Gardner
Posted in announcement by Adam A. Thompson with no comments yet.
Sea Currents of Findor
At the farthest north-eastern reaches of Soralia, this region is marked on old maps as Findor. The land is more popularly known among the travelers of the day as The Pirate Kingdoms – named after the area’s sea-raiders, a plague of the Soral Sea. Strongholds, towns and villages dot the landscape alongside temples and ruins, marks of lineages and creeds both extant and extinct.
The ocean currents rule this land and shape its people’s ways. A general counter-clockwise current brings cold air southwest from the arctic above the pirate kingdoms down south within fifty miles of Setheria Isle, home of the archmages, which tower provides the marker for the shift in course from southwest to southeast. Continuing southward, the current skirts the Princedoms of Ogham, providing the first opportunities for those who rise this circuit for trade and plunder. From there it meets warm southern winds from the plains and deserts that form the southern bound of the eastern Soral Sea. The winds cool the southerly plains as raiders from the north trade and plunder as they will. The current then proceeds along with the prevailing wind and carries warm air west and then north across the Great Gulf, as the captains of the Pirate Kingdoms call it, seeing as there are no lands east of there. Careful, always keeping the shadows of their masts at their shortest on the left shoulder of the steersman as a guide for their return to Grimsport and the lands of their birth, lest they be carried into the northeastern sea and the isles of ice there. They return along with the warm spring rains from the south, which temper the chill pouring south over the peaks of the Barrier Mountains and water the springs, rivers, plains, woods, hills and valleys of this rough northern land.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged Findor, Location, Soralia by Adam A. Thompson with no comments yet.
Claw Claw Bite Paints – Happy Little Figures
We here at Claw Claw Bite love using visual aids in our games. Whether it’s handouts, maps, illustrations, models, tiles, intricate model terrain, lego creations, or dungeon-building blocks, for some of us gamers lots of fun and enjoyment comes from the props we use in our games. In that spirit, here’s a little painting guide I put together for big, textured figures such as elementals. Personally, I have always wanted good figures for all of the classic elementals, but have never found a collection of them that I really liked until a fairly recent set of sculpts from Reaper Miniatures. I got the large water and earth elementals first, and then, several years later, got the large air and fire elementals. And now that I have them, I want them to look good, so I put some paint on them. Here’s what I did.
The figures used here are from Reaper’s line, but the guidelines explained here could be used for any similar miniature, or could be used for painting stone terrain. It’s an easy, fun project for beginning painters or veterans alike.
Both the fire elemental and the air elemental started with a base coat of spray model primer. In the past I would prime by hand but eventually found that a careful spray of primer gives a thinner coat and therefore diminishes the details of the figure less. I always use a respirator (gas mask) because those VOCs will give you the cancer, so whatever you do, don’t inhale those fumes. Stand upwind or whatever.
For both of these figures I planned a paint scheme of simple gradients through the appropriate colors. For the fire elemental I wanted a base of red in the crevasses, then a big slow dry coat of orange, then a highlight of yellow. The air elemental will go from base purple, through a progression of lighter blues and a top coat of white. Well, turns out that with figures this big and a paint scheme like this you can do very well by turning your usual dry-brushing into slightly-wet-brushing. The paint gets on the big figure faster and the scale of the details doesn’t suffer from a broad stroke. Feel it out as you usually would – try a small amount of paint on an inconspicuous spot and see what you think of the results.
These figures turn out to be very fun to paint because of their large size and the nature of the figures. There are no careful touch-ups to do because you accidentally got a drop of green on the figure’s white scroll. You just go from the valleys to the peaks of the sculpture with a darker to lighter gradient of colors and get a very dynamic figure (with all due credit to the talented sculptors over at Reaper).
So, here are the step-by-step pictures from this painting exercise. Get the dark color in the depressions, then wet-brush the highlights with the middle color, then dry-brush the highlights on the top ridges.
The models used here were from the Reaper Miniatures line here:
http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/elemental/latest/02251
http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/elemental/latest/02252
http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/elemental/latest/02780
http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/elemental/latest/02777
Happy painting,
Adam A. Thompson
Posted in Miniatures by Adam A. Thompson with no comments yet.
ChupacabraCon starting up in Austin
Lamenting the lack of gaming cons in Austin? Find MillenniumCon too devoted to historical minis? It will be interesting to see what the next ten months brings in the run up to ChupacabraCon, which is scheduled for Jan 17-19 at the Hilton Austin Airport!
We are hoping they have a slew of board games and rpgs on the schedule, and a few of us will be signing up to run some of our classic and novel adventures.
Follow the developments at the ChupacabraCon website.
And stay tuned for more info around this year’s UniCon.
Posted in announcement, convention by Adam A. Thompson with no comments yet.
Staff of Nightmares
This thick staff of unworked oak is topped by a goat skull with ruby eyes. Created by Rixlog, middle brother of the three goblin wizards of the wastes, to strike fear into his tribesmen and foes.
It can be used to evoke the following effects:
- Phantasmal Killer (2 charges)
- Nightmare (1 charge)
- Deep Slumber (1 charge)
- Cause Fear (0 charges)
Aura moderate necromancy, illusion & enchantment; CL 9th
Slot none; Price 27,000 gold; Weight 5 lbs.
Construction Requirements Craft Staff, Phantasmal Killer, Nightmare, Deep Slumber, Cause Fear; Cost 13,500 gold.
Posted in Equipment and tagged staff by Adam A. Thompson with no comments yet.
Minecraft.L2play.org is Online
This is a public post to announce that the Minecraft server that I have been building on is back up online and ready for adventurers. The server is a dungeon-filled homage to the Ultima games, but you don’t have to care about that to enjoy the first-person fantasy horror-survival experience that awaits you if you point your Minecraft client at multiplayer server minecraft.l2play.org.
monster-filled dungeons await the bold
It should be noted that this server is “adventure mode” only, which is necessary for the proper enjoyment of the difficult dungeons I’ve devised.
I’ll have more to say about the server and my vision for the Ultima IV tribute I’m building here in a later blog post.
Thanks,
Adam
Posted in Video Game by Adam A. Thompson with no comments yet.
The Sword of Storms
This gleaming blue-steel blade is tied to the power of the storms, and in addition to it’s +2 enhancement bonus, deals an extra 1d6 points of lightning damage on a hit. Those who wield it resist 5 points of lightning damage from any source. Additionally, the weapon can strike with the power of a thunderclap – once per day, upon a successful blow, the wielder can force an opponent to succeed on a DC 15 Constitution, Fortitude, or Petrify/Polymorph saving throw, or be pushed back 10 feet and stunned for one round.
Posted in 1st edition D&D, 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons / d20 fantasy / Pathfinder, 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, Equipment, Magic Item and tagged sword by Adam A. Thompson with no comments yet.
UniCON 2012 Recap
Thanks to everyone who came out and made UniCON 2012 such a great weekend of gaming. Here’s a quick recap with some photos of the fun.
Even though we had to scale it back from our original aspirations I, at least, got the complete convention experience – playing old and new games all weekend with old and new friends. That’s what it’s all about for me when I go to a convention.
I had a lot of fun running an impromptu game of Gamma World, teaching some people my board game Vampyre Women of Venus, and playing Mille Bourne, Flashpoint, Epic Spell Wars, The Official Dealer McDope Deling Game, Quarriors, Fall of Pompei, and Ra. A special thanks goes out to Jonathan Leistiko of Invisible City Games, Daniel Smith, and Stephen Hildebrand for bringing and running games.
Posted in convention by Adam A. Thompson with no comments yet.