Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Horde of the Pirate Queen

I'm still running Horde of the Dragon Queen at the FLGS for the D&D Adventurers League.  It's been fun, but I've had to take the game off the rails for my sanity, as well as the players.  A lot of the reasoning behind situations in Horde of the Dragon Queen just don't make sense and players tend to think that their quest givers are idiots.

Spoilers!

A well constructed railroad would have been okay, but this adventure requires a lot of pruning and reworking to feel right - at least for my group.

After getting fed up, I decided to replace all of the faction contacts with new NPCs.  The players felt that Leosin was a useless fool and Ontharr was a pointless poser.  And that's pretty accurate.  So I brought in their supervisors and made them capable, proactive kind of people who set traps for choice cultists in Baldur's Gate and used the PCs to help extract information.  That sat a lot better with the players.  No one likes to work for a moron.

Sections 4 and 5 involve a two-month overland caravan guarding gig while spying on the Cult's treasure caravan travelling from Baldur's Gate to Waterdeep and beyond.  I decided to give the player's some agency and have the Cult split the treasure into multiple shipments travelling in different directs and methods.  So they got to choose their own adventure.

The players chose the sea option.  The cult joined a merchant flotilla and the players followed behind.  Sure, it's just a reskin of the caravan thing, but where else can you get:

  • Auction house deals with Shadovar agents and magical rugs,
  • A socially inept, magically disguised, always laughing Marid sultan/merchant shipping vacuum packed weaponized sand with his ten fish-wives back to the elemental plane of water,
  • Trails of aboleth slime in the ocean, ready to be scooped up by PCs who don't know what will happen if they touch it,
  • Sahuagin boarding parties rising up from the deep,
  • A trip to Mintarn - being just a reskin of FREEPORT,
  • A pink haired gnome theif girl slash whore-house tour guide,
  • JEFF'S CAROUSING TABLES BEING USED IN A WICKED PIRATE CITY,
  • Having to post bail and pay back various powerful loan-sharks,
  • A magical wharf that makes ships invisible for a day,
  • A cambion pirate named Captain Dan(te) and his first mate and navigator who happen to be cheerleader/barbie doll sucubbi,
  • A GLABRZU bosun and a cloud of imps that live up in a ship's rigging,
  • Wiping out the fiendish command crew of a pirate vessel with aboleth slime and a sorcerer-induced randomly generated pack of flumphs.
  • Attacking a Mintarn ship-of-the-line from an invisible corvair captained by a renegade succubus out for revenge.
  • Etc.
It's not EXACTLY a reskin.  Okay, I pretty much threw everything in Horde out, including the whole Zentarim/Cultists theft/murder/revenge storyline.  But eventually they'll track down the Cultists again - somewhere in the Mere of Dead Men and be ready for Section 6. :)

- Ark





Kylie


I drew this while streaming in front of a live studio audience.  Strange experience.  Kinda like DMing in public.  I'l have to do it again sometime. :)

- Ark

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Yelling Sketch


I'm back to fiddling with drawing on the computer.  Sketching on the Nexus kinda got me excited about the computer thing again, so I decided to load up the drivers for the Wacom and see where it went.  Here is the initial sketch with my Bamboo and the reference that I used.  Twenty minutes or so, using SketchBook Pro.  I reqlly enjoy the ease of shading with the program - as opposed to dorking with the pencil.  Oh - and undo is a horrific and wonderful cheat. :)

- Ark

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Two Hours at the Coffee House


Computer is all fixed up and I can scan again.  Above is the result of two hours at the coffee shop this morning, warm-up and all.  Off to go play D&D now.  Enjoy.

- Ark

Friday, November 14, 2014

Lady Sarafina Out of Her Plate Mail


More work on the nexus since my computer is down.  This is Lady Sarafina.  Yup.  She's still alive and kicking, but now in Suzail, married to an Earl, and causing a ruckus at noble parties throughout the city.

- Ark