Tasha's Cauldron and Freeport, Part 2: Everything Else

 For my past columns about using D&D Fifth Edition sourcebooks with Freeport: The City of Adventure, see the Freeport 5E Index.

Last time, I reviewed the new origin rules, the artificer class, 26 new subclasses, new feats, and other character options in Chapter 1 of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. This column tackles the rest of the book.

Chapter 2: Group Patrons

Patrons give a way to build connections between PCs through their shared relationship with a powerful organization or influential NPC. Having a patron grants a number of perks, and they can be the source of quests. This chapter also gives rules for being your own patron, for characters more interested in running a new organization themselves. Freeport has examples of every type of patron presented here, and the patron rules would be an excellent way to enhance a campaign centered around one of the city's institutions, whether a temple, guild, or syndicate.

Chapter 3: Magical Miscellany

Spells: A few cantrips presented here (booming blade, green-flame blade, lightning lure, sword burst) are reprinted from Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. Most of the others first appeared in Unearthed Arcana.

Psionic casters, like the Aberrant Mind, gain a few new spells fitting that theme, including intellect fortress, mind sliver, and Tasha's mind whip. The book's purported author also has two other spells in this chapter (Tasha's caustic brew and Tasha's otherworldly guise).

Several new summoning spells presented here come with a special stat block to use with that spell. The spell's level determines the summoned spirit's AC, hit points, and number of attacks. The caster chooses one of two or three options that determine some of its other stats; for example, a bestial spirit can be an air, land, or sea creature, with appropriate movement types. These spells provide an interesting alternative to the handful of summoning spells in the Player's Handbook, where the player needs to be familiar with the relevant Monster Manual entries. Summoning spells are frighteningly commonplace in Freeport, so using these spells could save the GM some effort when running summoner NPCs.

This section ends with a brief section about personalizing spells, which encourages players to get creative about the cosmetic manifestations of their spells.

Magic Items: This section presents a new type of magic item--magical tattoos--which take up an amount of space on the body determined by its rarity (from a few inches for common tattoos, or half your body for legendary ones). The sample tattoos presented include a variety of effects, from enhancing attacks to storing a spell to changing your appearance. Magical tattoos are highly appropriate for Freeport, where mundane tattoos are common among sailors, exotic martial artists, and other groups.

The other new magic items here include several artifacts, including Tasha's own Demonomicon of Iggwilv, and her adoptive mother Baba Yaga's mortar and pestle. Most of these artifacts are tied to a specific campaign world (the Crook of Rao belongs to Greyhawk, for example) so will need some adapting for Freeport campaigns not set in those worlds. Some, however, beg to be used in a high-level campaign that explores parts of Freeport's past, such as forging links between the Mighty Servant of Leuk-O and the Ironjack.

Other notable categories of new items include:

• Magic books could be found in the libraries of the Wizard's Guild or Temple of the God of Knowledge, or could be sought by those organizations, or by other lore-seekers. The atlas of endless horizons seems thematically appropriate for Freeport's mystic navigators.  
• Magical instruments of various types can enhance a bard's class abilities.
• Magical shards contain the essence of another plane, and give sorcerers the ability to add extra effects when using their metamagic options. 

Chapter 4: Dungeon Master's Tools

Session Zero: "Session zero" refers to the practice of using the first session of a new campaign to establish expectations, outline the group's social contract, and share house rules. Sometimes this also includes creating characters together, so that players will choose options that will useful in the campaign. 

Sidekicks: This section provides rules for sidekicks--creatures befriended by the PCs, who accompany them on adventures, and who improve by gaining levels alongside their PC friends. The sidekick must be CR 1 or less, but gains levels in one of three sidekick classes (warrior, expert, or spellcaster). Most of the class abilities are borrowed from PC classes, but are simplified. A few seem very powerful, and hard for even a PC to qualify for (such as the warrior's Improved Critical), but in general they seem to be in line with characters of their level. 

These rules seem overly extensive for someone who is essentially a henchman or follower. But these rules could be very helpful in providing stats to a knight's retainers, or a more robust animal companion for a druid or ranger. They also seem perfect for small groups of players who want to round out a party with more heroes, but still want to keep the focus on each player's primary character.

(Nitpicky rules note, because I'm "the errata guy": Creatures of CR 1 or less already have a proficiency bonus of +2, so that bonus will not improve until they reach 5th level in their sidekick class. That might not be obvious from reading the rules, but it is critical for preserving 5E's bounded accuracy.)

The urban setting of Freeport: The City of Adventure makes acquiring townsfolk as sidekicks rather easy to justify. (In some cases, perhaps too much so, if a new friend embodies the label "follower" too literally!) These rules could also be useful at sea, to detail a friendly ship's captain who helps the heroes out from time to time, or important NPC officers if the PCs have their own ship.

Parleying with Monsters: This section gives some ideas for adjudicating social encounters with monsters of various types. Of particular interest for long time players of other d20 System games is the Monster Research table, which lists suggested skills for learning more about monsters based on their creature type, with a DC based on CR. This kind of check is an integral part of the knowledge skill rules in D&D 3E and Pathfinder, but was conspicuously missing from the 5E core rulebooks.

Environmental Hazards: This section provides random tables of events that may happen in regions where the supernatural has a strong influence (such as haunted places, areas corrupted by the Far Realm, or a location with a powerful psychic aura). This is followed by rules for various kinds of magical phenomena, such as eldritch storms, enchanted springs, magic mushrooms, and even mimic colonies. A brief section on natural hazards introduces rules for a few new situations, plus a table suggesting spells to use to model other environmental effects or disasters.

Many of these hazards are well-suited to Freeport: the Far Realm and hauntings fit the setting's horror aspects particularly well, while travelers may have to weather eldritch storms or navigate unearthly roads, or simply survive falling into water on a not infrequent basis. 

Puzzles: Finally, the last section of the book presents some sample puzzles that can used as-is or as a template for your own puzzles. Suggestions are given for skill checks that will provide hints, which is a useful idea to remember when creating other puzzles. None of the examples strike me as being out of place in Freeport, but they will need some customizing to integrate them into the setting.

Tasha's Cauldron and Freeport, Part 1: Character Options

For my past columns about using D&D Fifth Edition sourcebooks with Freeport: The City of Adventure, see the Freeport 5E Index.

Tasha's Cauldron of  Everything introduces a slew of new character options, from subclasses to spells to feats, as well as a number of new magic items and several tools for the GM. Much like Xanathar's Book of Everything, a significant fraction of the content of this book appeared in playtest form in Unearthed Arcana, and thus I have commented on those earlier iterations in past installments of this blog. I'll be compiling and revisiting those comments here, as well as reviewing brand-new additions. And as with Xanathar's, I'll be splitting my review into two parts, with this first part devoted to just Chapter 1: Character Options.

As the book's introduction points out, everything in this book is optional. Use as much or as little of it as you see fit for your campaigns.

Customizing Your Origin 

These rules allow you to customize the ability score increases, languages, and proficiencies you receive from your race or subrace. This option allows for a greater diversity among the members of each race, and makes it easier to represent an upbringing that might be radically different from the stereotypical standard. A sidebar gives simple rules for playing a custom lineage instead of one of the game's races.  

The Freeport setting frequently plays up the typical racial stereotypes built into the game (dwarves are known for craftsmanship and warfare, elves for magic and stealth, half-orcs and orcs for rage and bloodlust). However, the City of Adventure is also home to many NPCs who very much play against expectations about their ancestry (such as a half-orc noble, a half-orc lawyer, and a goblin wizard) and is something of a melting pot as well, despite all its racial tensions. A party of adventurers could easily include PCs built with the standard race packages as well as PCs with customized origins.

(While strictly optional, the customized origin rules have become the default assumption for all new lineages presented in Unearthed Arcana.)

Artificer

Artificers are master crafters who use their tools to imbue objects with magical power. They may create magical elixirs, enchant armors or weapons, or build mechanical servants. Even their spells manifest as wondrous effects produced by their inventions, rather than traditional spellcasting.

This class has four kinds of specialists (subclasses): Alchemists create elixirs and enhance their spells using their alchemist's supplies. The Armorer creates a powerful bond with their armor, turning it into fully enclosed power armor. The Artillerist is accompanied by an eldritch cannon, and gain potent battle magic. The Battle Smith focuses on protective enchantments and crafts a defensive construct companion.

Artificers work very well with Freeport's unusual mix of eldritch magic and experimental technology. The Armorer seems especially appropriate for experimenters who blur the lines between man and machine, such as the Manikins (Hell in Freeport) or Ironjack (The Ironjack Legacy). 

Optional Class Features: Each of the next 12 sections begins with a selection of Optional Class Features for that class. Some replace a standard class feature, while others are available at the discretion of the GM. This might mean they're given for free, after a quest, or in place of a standard class feature, but no real guidance is given for determining that. The Unearthed Arcana article in which they originally appeared did provide more explicit instructions (typically, the character gave up a class feature of the listed level in order to gain the new feature), but much of that language was cut from the final print version. Players can be a greedy, pushy lot at times, so more explicit guidelines would have been welcome here.

Each spellcasting class is given an expanded spell list, which includes spells from the Player's Handbook as well as new spells from Chapter 3 of this book. Other options include:

• Replaced class features: The character trades away one class feature for a new one.
• Enhanced class features: The existing class feature is expanded to do a little more than before. (The following two items are specific kinds of enhancement.)
• Expanded options: Class features that require a choice from several options (fighting styles, metamagic, invocations, etc.) get new options.
• Retraining: The character can change one of their cantrips, maneuvers, or other class features more easily.

Barbarian

The Path of the Beast barbarian is a partial shapechanger who can grow natural weapons in combat. As they advance, they can adapt to new movement modes, and spread their rage to allies and enemies. This archetype is suitable for characters with a connection to lycanthropes, druids, or fey or animal spirits--of which there are many examples in Rolland and in the more exotic lands of the World of Freeport.

The Path of Wild Magic is a barbarian who is saturated with powerful magic, over which they have little control until later levels. It's very much a martial sibling to the Wild Magic sorcerer. (I'm not sure whether multiclassing between the two would be awesome or obnoxious--or both.)

Bard

Bards who join the College of Creation learn to use the esoteric power of music to manipulate the world around them, from summoning lingering notes that bolster inspiration, to animating a dancing item, to literally creating nonmagical objects out of nothing. The theme of this archetype reminds me of the Finnish creation myth in which the world itself emerges from a bard's song; DMs may wish to take that a step further and tie this tradition to the doomed world from which Lowyatar is the sole survivor (see Cults of Freeport).

The College of Eloquence gives a bard increased powers of persuasion, communication, and inspiration. The effects are less flashy than many other subclasses, but very well-suited to a silver-tongued bard.

Cleric

The Order Domain is designed for gods of law, civilization, and leadership. If you are using The Book of the Righteous with Freeport, then this domain is most appropriate for Maal (LN god of justice) and Asmodeus (LE god of tyranny). However, those two gods already have the Balance and Tyranny domains, respectively, which embody their own takes on law and order. 

The Peace Domain [renamed from the Unity Domain] emphasizes teamwork and emotional bonds. This domain would be an excellent way to translate the Community domain from Third Edition. (That is one gap that The Book of the Righteous did not fill.)

The Twilight Domain is a natural fit for heroes who brave the darkness to combat the dangers that it hides. Two examples in Freeport canon include Tagmata's dualistic light-based faith of Astrape, and the cult of Nut in Hamunaptra.

Druid

The Circle of Spores druid is attuned to mold and decay, gaining poison attacks and eventually the ability to temporarily raise its victims as zombies. These druids might operate in the jungle of A'Val or in the sewers below Freeport. 

The Circle of Stars for druids involves studying the night sky and channeling the power of starlight. Some of the features gained are tied to astrological foretelling, while others alter wild shape to take on a starry form tied to a constellation's power. The powers of this subclass are thematically appropriate for both the Order of Starry Wisdom and the Wanderer, though druids are not obvious candidates for either cult.

The Circle of Wildfire embraces both the destructive side of fire and the new growth that it makes possible. It's imminently suited for druids who live near volcanoes like the one on A'Val--but such a character is likely to inspire a great deal of terror in Freeporters due to painful memories of the Great Green Fire that ravaged the island a few years ago.

Fighter

The Psi Warrior [formerly Psychic Warrior] uses psionic energy to augment attacks and defenses that improve with level. In the World of Freeport, psionics are most common in Naranjan, the land of the Mindshadows setting. 

Rune Knights learn how to imbue their possessions with the power of giantish rune magic. In the World of Freeport, this archetype would be most common among the northern barbarian tribes of Druzhdin. or possibly the dwarves of Vorizar.

In addition to presenting new fighting styles and maneuvers, this class's section ends in a list of Battle Master builds, with suggested fighting styles, maneuvers, and feats for different types of warriors, such as archers, lancers, and pugilists.

Monk

Monks who follow the Way of Mercy tradition are both skilled healers as well as bringers of swift death to the evil and the ailing. Many wear masks to shroud their identities in mystery. These monks would be appropriate for followers of a god of medicine, or one who holds power over life and death.

The Way of the Astral Self provides a way for a monk to manifest their true form using their ki. This astral form is mastered a piece at a time, starting with extra arms that deal radiant or necrotic damage, then later a mask (visage) that enhances their senses. Later levels enhance both the offensive and defensive benefits of this astral self. This subclass seems best suited for an exotic, possibly psionic-flavored, monastic order, perhaps one started by a planar-traveling race such as the githyanki or githzerai.

Paladin

The Oath of Glory [formerly Heroism] is for paladins who are destined for legendary greatness, enhancing their own powers in a way that eventually can be used to inspire allies and frighten enemies.

Paladins who swear the Oath of the Watchers are guardians against extraplanar threats. This manifests as heightened vigilance and methods to punish unworldly foes. This archetype is very well suited to servants of the Inquisition and other champions who hunt the devils and demons who plague Freeport from time to time. 

Most Sacred Oaths suggest one or more alignments common to their members, but these two do not. In Freeport, that might mean these oaths are equally valid for both idealistic crusaders and their more jaded, corrupt associates. The Oath of Glory in particular seems more concerned with personal glory than the greater good, and that kind of egotism does fit Freeport just fine.

Ranger

The Fey Wanderer ranger archetype is a guardian of the borders between the Feywild and the material plane. They are imbued with fey magic that allows them to better negotiate with beings from both worlds, to resist some of the snares of the fey, and to bend the minds of others. This subclass is probably most common in the elven kingdom of Rolland, but might also be appropriate for rangers (human and otherwise) who have learned something about the strange, rare fey peculiar to the Serpent's Teeth.

The Swarmkeeper ranger archetype has a connection to a fey nature spirit that manifests as a swarm of tiny beasts sharing their space. As the ranger advances in level, this swarm can increase their weapon damage and enhance their movement. This subclass is rather bizarre and potentially offputting in social encounters, but could be appropriate to a wide variety of characters, from fey-bonded wood elves from Rolland, to worshipers of insect or plague gods from Hamunaptra, to weird outcasts who dwell in the sewers beneath Freeport.

This class's optional class features include an alternative to the Beast Master's animal companion. That original take has been much criticized for its poor action economy, and Primal Companions help improve that somewhat. (They also don't require the level of familiarity with the Monster Manual that picking a companion can sometimes entail.)

Rogue

The Phantom is a killer with a mystical connection to the dead. That connection gives them a bonus proficiency (which can be changed after a rest), and at later levels it can give them a little bit of the luck or knowledge of those who have died near them. When they sneak attack a foe, they can cause ghostly wails to damage a second target. This subclass would be ideal for the assassins of a death cult, or a haunted loner. It fits in admirably with the horror elements of the Freeport setting.

A Soulknife can create a blade of pure psychic energy, and at very high level, can target an enemy's mind directly. As with the Psi Warrior, Soulknives would be most common in Naranjan.

Sorcerer

The Aberrant Mind sorcerer has had an alien experience that warped their mind and body. This subclass gives them limited telepathy, psionic-flavored additional spells known, and (at higher levels) resistance to psychic damage. Higher levels also give the ability to transform into an aberrant form, and a destructive teleport ability. In Freeport, an Aberrant Mind might have acquired her powers through an encounter with servitors of the Yellow Sign or other eldritch horrors.

The Clockwork Soul is a sorcerous origin tied to Mechanus, the plane of ultimate order. The archetype's powers focus on warding magic and reducing the extremes of random chance (usually by denying advantage or disadvantage). The World of Freeport includes enough constructs (particularly in adventures such as Hell in Freeport and The Ironjack Legacy) that this subclass has a solid place there.

Warlock

The Fathomless is a powerful entity of the deep ocean, or the Elemental Plane of Water. In addition to an expanded spell list with water and weather-themed spells, this patron grants the ability to create spectral tentacles to attack your enemies. At higher levels, these appendages can help defend the warlock, and she can conjure more deadly manifestations of her patron's power. The warlock eventually gains some class features that make it easier to move through and survive in her master's watery domain. The Fathomless is perfectly suited to Yarash and Dagon's cults.

The Genie is an otherworldly patron from among the nobles of geniekind. Warlocks of this subclass actually take on some of the properties of their genie masters: they start with a genie's vessel, in which they can retreat from the outer world to rest. At later levels, they gain resistance based on their master's element, can take others into their vessel, and eventually gain some limited wish magic. Genie-binders are an established part of Freeport history, both in the construction of the Wizards Guild, and among the efreeti-blooded azhar, and this subclass offers an interesting inversion of that master-servant relationship.

Wizard

The Bladesinging tradition melds magic with martial prowess to gain enhanced AC, mobility, and concentration saves. At higher levels, they gain Extra Attack, and can sacrifice spell slots to absorb damage. This subclass originally appeared in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, where it was restricted to elves and half-elves. That limit has been omitted here, but in the World of Freeport, most Bladesingers would come from those races. One prestigious school for Bladesinging is the Arcane Blade Academy at Dragonmont, in Rolland (mentioned in True20 Freeport: The Lost Island).

A wizard of the Order of Scribes can create a magical quill at will, and instills some limited sentience in his own spellbook. At higher levels, they become expert spell scroll makers, and their spellbook gains new abilities. This subclass seems ideal for a lorekeeper at the Wizard's Guild or an archivist at the Temple of the God of Knowledge.

Feats

This section presents 15 new feats. Some grant a small taste of another class's abilities (Artificer Initiate, Eldritch Adept, Fighting Initiate, Metamagic Adept). Others enhance the use of a skill (Chef, Poisoner, Skill Expert). Two represent the influence of another plane (Fey Touched, Shadow Touched). Two give some cantrip-level psionic abilities (Telekinetic, Telepathic). The rest give advantages in combat, usually enhancing attacks (Crusher, Gunner, Piercer, Slasher). All of these feats are appropriate for Freeport, though GMs who don't want to use artificers or firearms in their game will need to restrict access to Artificer Initiate and Gunner, respectively.

Next up: Everything Else! (Chapters 2-4.)

Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Freeport

For my past columns about using D&D Fifth Edition sourcebooks with Freeport: The City of Adventure, see the Freeport 5E Index.

This columns contains spoilers for the adventures in Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh is a nautical-themed anthology of seven adventures from previous editions of D&D updated to the Fifth Edition rules. Three of these form the original Saltmarsh trilogy (The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, Danger at Dunwater, and The Final Enemy), so the book begins with a much expanded description of that port town. The appendix includes rules for ships, sea travel and encounters, and a few additional encounter locations that are too short for chapters of their own.

This book should be invaluable for a GM running a Freeport campaign using 5E. Some adventures will be easier to adapt to that setting than others (see each chapter's entry below), but almost everything in the appendix will be useful in any maritime campaign.

Saltmarsh

Saltmarsh is a coastal port town with a sizable fishing fleet, but it also serves as a port of call for many merchant traders. It is a far cry from the cosmopolitan, pirate- and cult-infested island city of Freeport, so the three Saltmarsh adventures in this book will require some thought to fit into a Freeport campaign. 

Perhaps the easiest option is to locate Saltmarsh on the Continent, some days' sail from Freeport--but that make the campaign more about the Saltmarsh region than about Freeport, at least for the duration of those adventures. On the other hand, Saltmarsh could be very useful for fleshing out part of the Ivory Ports part of the Continent, for when your Freeporters are passing through and catch a whiff of interesting news and rumors that cause them to tarry a while.

This chapter also includes a few new backgrounds for PCs--fisher, marine, shipwright, and smuggler--that are perfectly suited to a Freeport campaign. Each of the backgrounds from the Player's Handbook gets a few notes about how to tie them into Saltmarsh, which may inspire similar connections for Freeport GMs.

The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh

The first Saltmarsh adventure involves investigating a seaside haunted house outside the town, then taking on the crew of a smuggling ship using the site as cover. This is a classic adventure, perfect for starting characters, but difficult to work into a campaign that starts in Freeport. It probably works best if set elsewhere in the Serpent's Teeth, perhaps near Libertyville or one of the handful of plantations on the islands. The house and the ship can also be easily used separately, if the GM needs a creepy hideout or a low-level ship's crew for their own adventures.

Danger at Dunwater

The second part of the trilogy is easier to adapt to a Freeport game. The adventure takes place within a massive lizardfolk lair located in a swamp. Lizardfolk are known to live in the Serpent's Teeth, and a tribe of this size would certainly pose a potential threat to other settlements there (though probably very little to Freeport itself). The other races present for the emerging alliance are also common to the seas near Freeport. 

The new lizardfolk stat blocks in the Appendix should be useful in converting older adventures such as "Dead Man's Chest," in Tales of Freeport.

Salvage Operation

This adventure is easily dropped into any ongoing nautical campaign, and Freeport has no shortage of desperate merchants who need adventurers to do dangerous work for them. Demonic cults are also a staple of Freeport campaigns, though GM who wish to emphasize the World of Freeport over Wizards of the Coast's IP may wish to have the villain of this piece worship the alternate Spider Queen described in Green Ronin's Plots & Poison: A Guidebook to Drow.

Isle of the Abbey

The heroes are hired to clear out evil clerics and undead that guard an abbey, while the cult is weakened from a pirate raid. Much like the Freeport line does, the adventure leaves the identity of the cult's god open-ended, with a few campaign world-specific suggestions given in the "Placing the Adventure" sidebar. 

The Final Enemy

In many ways, the finale of the Saltmarsh trilogy is the easiest to incorporate into a Freeport campaign. The sahaugin fortress is located some distance from the city, and could easily be located on an obscure reef near the Serpent's Teeth. The "sea devils" (as Freeporters call them) are a perennial problem for the City of Adventure, so scouting and then assaulting the site would be a highly appropriate mission for Freeport-based heroes. The module presents the stronghold as a former lizardfolk lair, but in the World of Freeport it might actually be an ancient Valossan ruin.

This adventure also includes many new stat blocks for new sahaugin foes and other undersea monsters (in the Appendices) that Freeport GMs can make use of elsewhere--for example, in converting the sahaugin attack in Crisis in Freeport.

Tammeraut's Fate

An island hermitage has come under attack by undead pirates, and by other monsters drawn to the scent of death. Once the PCs secure the island, they must follow the undead below the waves to stop the real threat that they pose.

The Styes

The Styes is a decaying port slowly sinking into the sea. Overall, the City of Adventure is too prosperous to be a good match, but the major sites of the adventure could be probably be transplanted to the docks of Scurvytown. Mr. Dory might be a gang leader, or a politician with ties to a member of the Captains' Council. The Tharizdun cult might be recast as a followers of one of Freeport's secret cults, such as the Unspeakable One, the Crawling Chaos, or Yarash. This adventure is certainly the most Lovecraftian in feel in the anthology, so may very well be worth the extra effort to adapt to Freeport.

Of Ships and the Sea

The book's first appendix presents rules for ships and ship combat, sea travel, and water hazards. Tables for generating random encounters, ships, and mysterious islands are also included. Finally, a trio of underwater locations are briefly detailed. 

Magic Items

A handful of new magic items are presented here, including a couple classic items updated from older editions of D&D.

Monsters and NPCs

In addition to the new monsters already mentioned above, this appendix includes a number of new undead and constructs that should prove useful in other adventures in the "sword & sorcery" vein of Freeport.

Book Review: Shadowtide

Shadowtide, Joseph D. Carriker. Jr.'s second novel, is set in Green Ronin's Blue Rose RPG setting. It tells the story of three members of the Sovereign's Finest who team up to discover what happened to two colleagues who disappeared in the Shadow-tainted Veran Marsh.

The Blue Rose setting debuted in 2005 using the True20 System (a d20 System derivative originally crafted for this setting), and was relaunched in 2017 using the Adventure Game Engine (AGE) rules set. Both versions belong solidly to the romantic fantasy genre, inspired by the character-driven fiction of Mercedes Lackey, Diane Duane, Tamora Pierce, and others. Blue Rose caused quite a stir upon its initial release due to its deliberate inclusion of gay, bisexual, transgender, and asexual characters, as well as its normalization of polyamorous and polygamous relationships. The new edition of the game goes even further to be welcoming and all-inclusive, with intelligent, sensitive discussion of characters with disabilities being one new addition to the spectrum of possibilities.

Much as he did in his first novel, Sacred Band (which I reviewed here recently), Carriker puts a great deal of thought into his characters and how they fit into the setting. His trio of protagonists are very representative of the kinds of heroes found in this setting, while being very distinctly their own unique selves. All three belong to the Sovereign's Finest, an organization of diverse special agents serving the enlightened nation of Aldis--the symbol of which, the Blue Rose, gives the setting its name. (In most Blue Rose campaigns, the PCs will belong to the Finest, or aspire to join them.)

• Master Soot is a rhy-crow, one of the many varieties of rhydan, animals who have manifested sentience and psychic powers. All can use mindspeech (telepathy with other intelligent creatures), but Soot has also mastered healing magic and communication with normal animals. He recently returned to field work after some years in semi-retirement training other adepts.
• Ydah is one of the night folk, a race originally created as servants to powerful sorcerer kings in ages past, but since freed to find their own place in the world. Ydah is a tough-as-nails warrior and a skilled ranger, but at the time of the novel's beginning, she is still grieving the loss of her bond-mate, a rhy-wolf who died protecting her.
• Morjin Brightstar is the one human on the team. He is a Roamer (similar to our world's Romani) exiled from his family's caravan, who can tap into seer-like abilities when consulting the Royal Road (this setting's name for the Tarot deck). Most of the time, however, he relies on his good looks and quick wits to gather intelligence as a spy for the Crown--and when those fail, his skill with knives helps him to survive another day. 

Soot uses his contacts in the Finest to recruit Ydah and Morjin, who are already in the Veran Marsh and have some familiarity with the region, to help him trace their missing colleagues. Their investigation takes them to Serpent's Haven, a gang-ruled refuge for people who wish to avoid the rule of both Aldis and Jarzon (who border opposites sides of the marsh). Like many newly-formed adventuring parties, these three face some struggles in working together smoothly, but soon prove to be a very effective team. (And, quite naturally for both the genre and the RPG, that team is iconically composed of one adept, one warrior, and one expert--as well as one human, one near-human, and one rhydan.) 

The Veran Marsh was created by devastating Shadow magic ages ago, and is still something of a magnet for corruption. From the start, Soot suspects a Shadow cult to be responsible for whatever happened to his protege, but none of our heroes is truly prepared for just how dangerous and insidious the enemy proves to be...

Shadowtide is a very satisfying introduction to the world of Blue Rose, as well as a being a rousing adventure tale in its own right. I anticipate that it will leave many readers eager to try out the game for themselves--as well as hungry for more of Joe's excellent fiction. A sequel, the novella Pit of Vipers, was recently released in e-book format by Nisaba Press. There are also two free PDF tie-ins available:

• A Guide to Shadowtide, in which Carriker provides more background information on Serpent's Haven for Blue Rose games, as well as stat blocks and histories for the novel's three heroes. 
• Shadowtide: Recipes from Aldea, by Jess Hartley, which presents recipes for some of the novel's cuisine.

TBT: Corasgrove

"Corasgrove" was a dungeon-crawl D&D v.3.5 campaign that I ran for about one year in 2009-2010. It was inspired by and based on Cartographica by Todd Gamble (Green Ronin Publishing, out-of-print), which features interconnected maps for a cemetery, underground tombs, cavern tunnels, a dragon's lair, and a wizard's tower. I populated the maps, created the town of Corasgrove as a base of operations, and let the PCs explore it sandbox-style.

The Heroes

The party consisted of the following characters, who started at 10th level and reached 13th level by campaign's end:

• Daraj L'Bayal: male dwarf fighter/evoker/eldritch knight.
• Rekla: hawk (familiar).
• Kinashal Durret: female human rogue/shadowdancer.
• Blot and Blotch: shadow (companions, original and new, respectively).
• Merrick Acari: male human ranger.
• Bigby: wolf (animal companion).
• Kymoria Seldeson: female half-elf bard (cohort, gained during campaign).
• Mitzinya nic Pelor: female half-orc paladin of Pelor.
• Bob: heavy warhorse (special mount)
• Drusilia Chandler: female half-elf cleric of Fharlanghn.

Drusilia was an NPC added to provide healing and local background information. She was treated as a cohort to the party as a whole, advancing when they did but always two levels behind.

The following information was background provided to the players. It has been archived here at Thastygliax's Vault, where I have also archived the PCs' stat blocks and a handful of the NPCs and new monsters they encountered.

The Duchy of Ivellion

Ivellion is a fair-sized human realm bordered by the sea to the east, the forested elven homeland to the north, mountains to the west (populated by dwarves and giants), and monster-infested wilderness to the south (full of orcs and goblinoids, and worse). Many enclaves of nonhumans [the PH races] can be found within Ivellion, and several human settlements have notable nonhuman minorities.

Duke Wilhelm Lakes rules from the bustling metropolis of Silverport (pop. 47,000), at the mouth of the Silver River (the main east-west trade route). The capital contains the chief temples of several gods worshiped in Ivellion (Heironeous and Yondalla in particular), a loose confederation of artisan and merchant guilds, and the Arcane Cabal (a wizards' guild of sorts).

About two week's travel to the northwest is the city of Nallow (pop. 10,000), home of a major temple of Pelor. The city and surrounding lands are ruled by the half-elven baroness Valenta Wallsby. Being roughly a week's travel of the dwarven mountains, the elven woods, and the small gnomish republic in between the two, Nallow is a major trade center, and fairly rich and cosmopolitan for its size.

The town of Corasgrove is located about two days' ride from Nallow.

Corasgrove

Corasgrove was founded a century ago by three sibling adventurers (the Coras) and their band of companions and followers. One brother, the paladin Sir Vernon Cora, organized the town's defenses and government, while his sister Samantha, a druid, led the nature-worshipers of the nearby forest that gave the town its name.

A network of natural and excavated tunnels was discovered in the area, and the Coras found themselves busy trying to rid them of undead and other threats. This culminated in a series of battles with a vampire lord, in which the third sibling, Torrance Cora, and his wife were slain and turned. The vampire was never slain, but had lost much of its former power. The surviving Coras erected a mausoleum to honor their brother and retainers; this also served to block and ward the most obvious entrance to the catacombs.

A generation later, after the paladin's death, a black dragon moved into water-filled caverns near the town and its lake, and began to prey on local animals and people. Eventually, the druid took the fight into the dragon's lair, but was never seen again; however, the dragon did leave the area very soon afterwards.

Fifteen years ago, a powerful wizard received the town council's approval to build a dam and tower between the town's lake and the next lake upstream. He is a recluse, and is only seen when he makes rare trips to Corasgrove for supplies.

Over the last few years, Corasgrove has been plagued by increasing numbers of monsters--mostly undead--emerging from the tunnels once more. Then two years ago, the dragon returned. So far, it has avoided attacking humans unless they tried to deny it a meal, but it still poses a significant threat to the town.

A traveling priest of Fharlanghn has brought word of the town's undead and dragon problems to the city in which the PCs live. They quickly agreed to go to Corasgrove with her to try to eradicate these threats.

Additional Corasgrove Background

Here's a summary of what the party knows about Corasgrove, after Drusilia's initial briefing and some additional information gathering about town:

Corasgrove

• Population 1400; about 3/4 human.
• Ruled by a town council.
• Town guard is small (only about a dozen full-time soldiers), led by Constable Hank Corasson. (Probably less than 100 militia could be mustered?)
• Some experienced warriors and hunters, but lacks heroes of founders' caliber.
• Sam's Tree, in the town square, is site of seasonal rites for town; popular with farmers and elves.

Corasgrove timeline

• 120 Years Ago (YA): Corasgrove founded by Cora siblings (paladin Sir Vernon, warrior Torrance, druid Samantha), their adventuring companions, and retainers. Named for the druid grove that Samantha adopted as her own.
• From founding, town has accepted any race and creed (other than outright evil).
• 110 YA: Sir Vernon and Torrance slain fighting Balthazar the Black, a vampire who ruled the local dungeons; the vampire lord escaped. Torrance's body not recovered; believed turned. Mausoleum built to seal known entrance to dungeons, as well as to house Sir Vernon and deceased retainers.
• 80 YA: Vonnaril Senthirron (elf), a Cora comrade, leaves town to become high priestess of Corellon in Silverport (and still is).
• 70 YA: Zhakungar (female black dragon) moves into caves near the falls between the two ponds.
• 65 YA: Corasson Keep, built as a defense against dragon, is completed. Sir Vernon Cora's direct descendents still live in it.
• 60 YA: Earthquake damages Corellon's temple in the Grove, and it falls into disuse.
• 40 YA: Samantha Cora vows to rid town of the dragon, but disappears soon after. The dragon leaves the area not long after that.
• 15 YA: Master Adam Tarnwater (human wizard) gets permission to build a dam and tower over the falls, for undisclosed experiments.
• 6 YA: Increase in sightings of ghosts and walking dead in town burial ground; also sightings of sinister black hounds, and rumors of worse.
• 2 YA: Zhakungar returns to Corasgrove. The town council is divided about what to do about her (and attempts to quash any rumors that they would even consider giving in to the dragon).

The Grove

• A number of fey live here, including at least a few dryads and sprites.
• In Samantha Cora's time, the Grove's druids were on friendly terms with the townsfolk. Since her disappearance 40 YA, however, they have become much more secretive. There are likely only a handful there now, and the townsfolk don't know any of them.
• Vonnaril Senthirron built and presided over the temple of Corellon, but eventually left for her god's temple in Silverport. 20 years later, an earthquake damaged the Grove temple, and the elves stop using it; some worshipped at home, in the forest, or at Sam's Tree, while others drifted to the worship of Ehlonna or Pelor.

The Burial Ground

• Rumored to be haunted pretty much since town founded.
• Safe during the day; avoided at night due to spirits and walking dead.
• Townsfolk occasionally attacked by skeletons, zombies, or shadows; occurring more frequently in past 6 years, plus rumors of worse.
• Sinister black hounds have been seen from time to time; their howls are occasionally heard in the closest parts of Corasgrove itself.
• More than one person has seen "things" digging at graves; most tales claim seeing 2-4 at a time; uncertain if humanoid or quadruped.
• Another paladin, a squire to Sir Vernon, is buried in own tomb here, instead of in Mausoleum.
• Occasionally, a new monument is found where none stood before. Town clerics can detect no evil aura about them.
• The burial ground holds shrines to Wee Jas and St. Cuthbert, believed to be long disused.
• A small group of armored men have been sighted entering the nearby Shrine of Boccob, also thought sealed and abandoned for some time.
• Local criminals use the cemetery's haunted reputation to conduct business there (and possibly to rob tombs?). Burglaries in Corasgrove are more common in the north end of town, nearest the burial ground.

The Dragon

• Zhakungar, female black dragon (age unknown, but well over 70).
• First moved into caves 70 YA; left 40 YA, soon after Samantha Cora vanished; returned 2 YA. Nothing is known about her life away from Corasgrove.
• Since return, seems content to hunt game and livestock. Has only killed humans who got between her and prey.

The Wizard

• Master Adam Tarnwater, human wizard.
• Arrived 15 YA; built dam and tower.
• Rarely visits town, except to purchase supplies, which vary from foodstuffs to building supplies to arcane materials (though town's resources very limited there).
• On trips to town, always accompanied by a humanoid, animated statue of some sort. Sometimes also accompanied by an extremely attractive young woman (name unknown).
• Tarnwater has been known to purchase unusual animals (lizards, snakes, other exotic pets) or carcasses (magical beasts found or slain by the town's better hunters).

Introducing new spells

The question of how to introduce new spells into a game came up today in one of the online gaming forums I frequent. For example, when you introduce a cleric spell from a new sourcebook, or when a cleric PC researches a completely original spell, do ALL clerics suddenly gain access to it? I replied there, but decided to share (and expand on) my answer here.

I personally like the rules for "uncommon divine spells" that appeared in the introduction to Pathfinder Short Cuts #2: Inquisitor Spells of Freeport, by Owen K.C. Stephens (PDF available in the Green Ronin Online Store). While written for Pathfinder, this concept is easy to adapt to any d20 game where distinctions are made between casters who get full access to their class's spell list (such as most divine casters) vs. those with a limited number of spells known.

The general idea is that when introducing new sourcebooks into a campaign, it can be very unbalancing to allow divine spellcasters to immediately gain access to all new spells included in that content. In addition, the need to reference multiple books can bog down the process of daily spell selection. Instead, all spells outside the core rulebook are considered to be uncommon, and require the caster to find and study a description of the spell before they can learn it. This process is similar to how a wizard learns new spells, but is less involved (and less costly). Divine casters who already have a limited number of spells known (such as oracles and inquisitors in Pathfinder, or rangers in 5E) ignore this restriction.

[I use this rule in my "Time of the Tarrasque" Pathfinder campaign. Our only prepared caster PC is a cleric/wizard aiming for mystic theurge, so making the process of expanding her divine repertoire mirror that of her arcane class is perfectly on-theme.]

In contrast, the arcane classes must all specifically learn each new spell before they can cast it, and (in 5E) only the wizard can learn an unlimited number of new spells. Therefore, you don't really need any new rules to limit these classes' access to spells from new sources. However, the idea of core rulebook spells being common, and spells from all other sources being uncommon, is still handy for explaining why a new spell (for any class) isn't as widely known in the world, and why it might take more effort to track down the means to learn it.

Finally--and I hope obviously--any original spell created through the spell research rules is automatically an uncommon spell. At first, other casters will have to bargain with the inventor to study her original notes before they can learn to cast the spell. As more people learn it, finding a teacher becomes less of an obstacle. Of course, many spell inventors will jealously guard their secrets in order to reserve the advantage for themselves--and sometimes their allies.

Kickstarter and Me: 2019 Update

I backed a number of new Kickstarters in 2017-2018, all for D&D Fifth Edition products. I have received my rewards for most of them over the past couple of months, so it seems high time to give an update. Here are links to my earlier columns about projects I've backed:

• Kickstarter and Me (5/25/2016)
• Kickstarter and Me, Revisited (9/6/2017)

First, here are a few quick updates on some of the projects listed in those previous columns:

Fate Core: The last remaining stretch goal reward, Shadow of the Century, was delivered to backers in January 2019. I haven't read through all of the most recent digital stretch goals, but the core rulebook and first few supplements were solid work.

Freeport: The City of Adventure for the Pathfinder RPG: The sixth and final part of Return in Freeport was released in late 2018. The collected edition is available in PDF now, with the print version coming very soon (it's currently available to preorder). I provided feedback and errata for each installment as they came out, so earned a proofreading credit in the final book. 

Just last month, Green Ronin announced to backers that the long-promised Freeport Companion for Fantasy AGE will finally be released later in 2019. That will be the last promised reward for this 2013 Kickstarter.

Spirit Island: This boardgame's Kickstarter is long over, but it recently had a follow-up campaign for an expansion, Spirit Island: Jagged Earth (which I believe we backed through my wife's KS account).

Book of the Righteous for Fifth Edition: I had just received this book before my last update, and--like every other Green Ronin book I've funded--it has proved to be one of my better investments on Kickstarter. The book contains a great amount of detail about its unique pantheon of gods, some solid new crunch for 5E games, and lovely full-color art throughout. Since then, I have written two blog posts about using this book with the Freeport setting (here and here). 

Next, here are details on the four projects I have backed since my last update, and their status:

Mini-Dungeon Tome for 5th Edition or Pathfinder RPG, by AAW Games (September 2017): I only backed this for a PDF of the 5E version, which was delivered last year. A few bonus mini-dungeons, including a half-dozen holiday-themed adventures, have been released since then. Because I only got the PDF, I haven't yet read the entire book; in retrospect, I should have sprung for a print copy so that I could browse it more comfortably. 

A larger obstacle to me getting full use of the book is that many adventures use monsters from third-party sources that I don't own (such as Open Design's Tome of Beasts). The book contains an index with highly-abbreviated stat blocks, but that's not nearly enough information for a GM unfamiliar with the source.

Tome of Horrors: Reborn for Fifth Edition, by Frog God Games (November 2017): The original Tome of Horrors (by Necromancer Games, the precursor to FGG) was a ground-breaking work that converted hundreds of monsters from previous editions of D&D to the v.3.0 rules set. The later Tome of Horrors Revised updated it to v.3.5, then the Tome of Horrors Complete did the same for Pathfinder, and the book also spawned a couple of sequels of all-original monsters. The Reborn version offers a selection of monsters from all of those previous Tomes, updated to the 5E rules. I owned the v.3.0 edition in print, and the v.3.5 in PDF, so only backed the Kickstarter at the PDF level. That delivered this past fall, and I'm still making my way through it. (The parts that I've most read most carefully are the handful of entries that converted monsters from Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, which I hope to run using 5E someday.)

Strongholds & Streaming, by Matt Colville (February 2018): Colville's "Running the Game" series, which strives to demystify the experience of becoming a good DM, quickly became a runaway hit on YouTube. This allowed him to take a pet project and spin it into a full-fledged book, Strongholds & Followers. The Kickstarter also funded the creation of a studio setting for livestreaming his next D&D campaign--in fact, the Kickstarter was so overwhelmingly successful that Colville has formed his own company, MCDM Productions, and quit his former day job. The book is complete, backers have received the PDF, the print version is in production, and Colville has started planning his next book (for 5E mass combat rules). His D&D campaign, "The Chain," streamed its first episode in January 2019.

I backed this project for both the PDF and print book. I won't be reading the book in great detail until I receive the hard copy, which is still a few months away. (When I do, expect to see a review here, slanted as usual towards how useful it would be for a Freeport game.) I still haven't decided whether I'll be watching any of the streamed game yet, because I have many other ways that I'd rather spend my free time (like playing games myself). But I backed the project because people like Colville, who has many great ideas to share with the RPG community, deserve to be supported and encouraged in what they do. Even if I never watch the streamed game or use any of the material in the book, I'll be satisfied in having backed his Kickstarter.

Pirate Campaign Compendium for 5E and Pathfinder RPG, by Legendary Games (February 2018): I backed this project for the 5E version, and have recently received both the PDF and the print copies. I've only read about half of this book so far, but am already more disappointed than thrilled with the result. While the book does update a huge amount of existing nautical-themed material for Pathfinder into 5E mechanics, the published text seems rushed and in dire need of extensive editing. After creating and maintaining my unofficial RPG errata archive for most of two decades, I find it very hard to shut off my "editor mode" and ignore grammatical errors, sloppy implementation of rules language, and incomplete conversions. When I feel compelled to correct the text multiple times per page, as I have for many chapters, reading a book like this one becomes far more exhausting than fun. This book has put me off of buying any future Legendary Games products--in fact, at the moment, I'm rather dubious about whether I'd ever want to try to use anything from this title in my future campaigns. Which is a damn shame, because this book should have been a go-to reference for anyone who, like me, is thinking about running a 5E Freeport campaign. But, to put it very bluntly, if this book had been produced by a company with more rigorous standards, such as Green Ronin, Paizo, or Wizards of the Coast*, it would never have been allowed to go to print in the form we received it.

On the plus side, the company promptly sent me a replacement copy when I discovered that one of the signatures (16-page sections) of my book was missing, and the previous signature duplicated instead. But that's small consolation for the other issues.

-----

This past year's Kickstarters have rather polarized me regarding future campaigns. I'll gladly back interesting projects by companies that I already know well and trust to deliver high-quality products (like Green Ronin, Greater Than Games, and potentially MCDM), but I've grown more and more leery of projects by companies I've never bought anything from before.

* Just yesterday, I heard that Wizards has revealed that its next D&D hardcover, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, will include rules for ships and related nautical subjects. That's sure to be a better investment by a long shot.

Converting Death in Freeport to Fifth Edition

First of all, I have a bit of a confession to make: Despite thinking and writing a great deal here about how I'd combine Freeport with D&D Fifth Edition, I haven't actually tried running such a game yet, so I haven't spent a great deal of time trying to convert Freeport adventures or monsters to the current edition. Up until now, my most ambitious project of that type has been converting the pregenerated characters from Death in Freeport to 5E (see the first four entries in the Freeport 5E Index).

However, in the thread at the Ronin Army forums where I post links to my Freeport 5E articles, I was recently asked for help in converting Death in Freeport to 5E. That is definitely the adventure that I would choose to convert first--it's the one that started the whole setting and product line, and it's for 1st level and fairly short, so should be the easiest to adapt to 5E. My reply to that query started off with the caveat above, but then I tried to make a first stab at the problem. This column will reiterate and expand upon that initial answer.

First of all, Third Edition and 5E are different enough rules sets that I would never attempt to do an exact conversion. For some encounters (such as orcs and skeletons), it's easy enough to just use the 5E Monster Manual stat block. Human foes can be represented by the MM's low-level NPC stat blocks (acolyte, bandit, commoner, cultist, guard), possibly with some small tweaks to weapons and spells to better match the original.

The serpent people are the one real challenge in converting this module. For the degenerates, I compared reptilian humanoid races in the MM, and found that the troglodyte's ability scores and hit points were a surprisingly good match to the original 3E degenerate stat block. Keep multiattack, but replace their claw attacks with a single weapon attack and a shield (+2 AC). The troglodyte's chameleon hide is a decent fit for the 3E serpent people's racial bonus to Hide, so keep it, but delete stench and sunlight sensitivity. Finally, replace the Troglodyte language with Valossan.

For Milos, the sole civilized serpent person in this first adventure, the obvious quick-and-dirty option is to use the cult fanatic stat block (which already has the correct 2nd-level spells!), and add darkvision, Valossan, and the doppelganger's shapechanger ability.

Converting serpent people from later adventures follows a similar process. First, find an existing NPC stat block that approximates the serpent person's class and level. (Volo's Guide to Monsters greatly expands the choices here, including many new arcane specialties for spellcasters.) For civilized serpent people, simply add darkvision, Valossan, and shapechanger, as with Milos. For more powerful degenerate serpent people, more changes will be needed due to their additional racial traits and their low Intelligence and Charisma scores. See Chapter 9 of the Dungeon Master's Guide for more guidance about adding racial traits to NPCs. Use the Troglodyte entry of the NPC Features table--with the changes given above--to modify an existing NPC stat block.

Two other concerns that I did not address in that quick reply include skill and save difficulties, and treasure.

5E was designed with bounded accuracy, meaning that modifiers to attacks, saves, and skills do not increase as rapidly, or go as high, as in 3E's open-ended structure. The DC for a skill check or saving throw will tend to be a little lower in 5E, though at 1st level, that difference is minimal (a point or two in most cases). For DCs that aren't set by a creature or PC's stat block, look for examples in the rules for appropriate DCs for the desired difficulty of the task. In 3E, DCs started to get challenging at 15; in 5E, that's probably more like a 12. A DC 20 task in 3E probably should only be a 15 in 5E, and so on. Also note that many skills have changed name between editions, and a few were dropped entirely; for example, a Gather Information check should now be a Charisma, or perhaps Charisma (Persuasion), check.

Purely monetary treasure seems to be roughly equivalent between the two editions, but 5E is designed to make magic items far rarer. Few if any assumptions are made about what gear a character will have at a given level, unlike 3E's finely-tuned "wealth by level" track. And because magic items are harder to acquire in 5E, it's also harder to simply buy them--which means that character have significantly fewer ways to spend their acquired wealth than in 3E. But keep in mind that because the Freeport setting was born during the 3E era, most past titles assume that magic is fairly common and that low-powered magic items are easy to acquire. Because of this, DMs of Freeport campaigns may want to allow the DMG's optional downtime activities related to crafting and selling magic items. Uncommon and rare items should remain scarce--and in a hive of scum and villainy like Freeport, they may quickly attract unwelcome attention from others who covet them. Death in Freeport has a number of low-level magic items in it, but in my opinion, it's not an excessive amount for a 1st-level 5E adventure. Later adventures in the setting will need a more careful vetting of magic items, as 3E's assumptions about wealth become more pronounced at higher levels.

Finally, here's a summary of my quick conversions for characters and creatures encountered in Death in Freeport:

• Sailors: Pirates count as Bandits (MM); change weapons to clubs, and add Intimidate +2. (Note that this press-gang initially attacks to knock out characters at 0 hit points, not kill them.)
• Egil: Acolyte (MM).
• Orc Pirates: Orc (MM).
• Aggro: Orc (MM) with extra hit points, or possibly an Orog (MM).
• Captain Scarbelly: Orog (MM) with a +1 battleaxe. (For the staff of defense in his ship's hold, see New Magic Items in The Lost Mine of Phandelver, in the D&D Starter Set.)
• Yellow Shields: Cultist (MM); add shield (+2 AC).
• Belko: Apprentice Wizard (Volo's).
• Rittoro: Guard (MM).
• Enzo: Enzo is not given stats in the adventure. If needed, he is a commoner (MM).
• Camouflage Pit Trap: Hidden Pit (setback, 1d10) (DMG).
• Degenerate serpent people: Troglodyte (MM); remove claws, stench, and sunlight sensitivity; add a spear attack and a shield (+2 AC); change language to Valossan.
• Skeletons: Skeleton (MM).
• Temple Attendant: Acolyte (MM) with some spells changed.
• Milos: Cult fanatic (MM); add darkvision, Valossan, and shapechanger (as doppelganger, MM).
• Lucius: Apprentice Wizard (Volo's); remove spellcasting; add proficiency with Religion, calligrapher's tools, and several languages.

As mentioned above, I have already converted the four pregenerated characters (Thorgrim, Rollo, Malevir, and Alaina) to 5E. I'm still satisfied with those results.

The Kynthiad: Sources for reference and inspiration

Artemis, goddess of the hunt

For the past 11 years, I have been running a solo RPG campaign for my wife Erika, using the Big Eyes Small Mouth rules. "The Nine Journeys of Kynthia," AKA "The Kynthiad," is set in the world of ancient Greek mythology, with a certain amount of real-world Bronze Age history mixed in with the purely fantasy elements. Over the course of the game, I have drawn details and inspiration from a great many sources, the most important ones of which I'll briefly touch on here.

A more complete bibliography of the game's sources can be found here, but that page lacks the commentary I'm giving in this column.

The Game System

The campaign uses BESM Third Edition. The Second Edition BESM Fantasy Bestiary includes a large number of creatures based on Greek mythology, many of which I have converted to Third Edition or used as a benchmark for my own versions. Big Ears, Small Mouse has also been invaluable in designing smaller creatures, and animals in general.

Other RPG Sourcebooks

My lifelong interest in history and mythology has resulted in a good-sized collection of sourcebooks for other game systems that I've been able to use as reference for The Kynthiad. To start with, I have a large GURPS library of over 40 titles. The research put into that game's historical and genre sourcebooks is pretty solid, and most of the subject matter is system-neutral. Unsurprisingly, GURPS Greece and Egypt have seen the most use, but Bestiary, Fantasy Bestiary, Monsters, Places of Mystery, Timeline, and even Celtic Myth have all been very useful, too. In GURPS Greece, author Jon Ziegler even provides a timeline that tries to make sense of the often-contradictory sequencing of the major myths, which I've adopted mostly intact as a framework for the recent history and current events of The Kynthiad.

Green Ronin Publishing's "Mythic Vistas" product line includes a couple titles that are great references for this game: Trojan War covers the most famous conflict of the period, and Testament provides information on the ancient Hebrews, Canaanites, Egyptians, and Mesopotamians.

There are also a few older D&D sources that I've used in my research for the game. I own the Dragon Magazine CD Archive--which includes occasional mythology-themed gems such as Michael Parkinson's "The Blood of Medusa"--and the Age of Heroes Historical Reference sourcebook. (I also own the deities sourcebooks for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition, but I find the treatments of the Greek gods in books such as Trojan War to be far preferable to these versions, all of which devote far more space to game mechanics than to divine lore.)

History

I have used a combination of ancient and modern texts to research the ancient Near East. Herodotus's Histories provide a wealth of detail about the world of his time (circa 440 BC), and he isn't stingy about relating myths tied to the events, people, and places he'd writing about. Even though he's writing several centuries after the "Heroic Age," the Histories have provided me with a wealth of details to flesh out obscure parts of the world such as the Scythians, Amazons, Medes, and Hyperboreans.

Probably the most important scholarly text that I've read in preparing this game has been The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C., by Robert Drews (Princeton University Press, 1993). This book takes a detailed look at the widespread sacking of Mediterranean cities contemporary with historical Troy, and the technology and tactics that contributed to it. The section on chariot design and tactics alone is worth the read, just to dispel a lot of common misunderstandings about how war was conducted at that time.

Mythology

My collection of translations and retellings of Greek mythology is far too large to catalog briefly, but a few items stand out as most useful to a GM trying to run a roleplaying campaign in this setting.

Robert Graves' Greek Myths is one of my primary reference works for quickly finding summaries of many stories, and following connections between them. My copy (The Folio Society, 1966) has an index of names which includes the meanings of many of them. Each section of the main text is followed by Graves' notes on sources, and his theories about the origins and meaning of the myths. Many of these notes are typical scholarly glosses, but in some passages, Graves expounds on his own bizarre pet theories about the subject at hand (however tenuously linked that subject and his theory might be). To give just a couple examples, he shares Frazer's obsession with attributing everything to sacred kings and fertility cults, and he has some very radical (many would say crazypants) ideas about the secret tree lore of the Druids. However, I have managed to distill a number of very useful ideas for use in my RPG campaign from his weirder ramblings.

My other favorite reference is Carlos Parada's Greek Mythology Link website, which is a massively hyperlinked database of people and places in Greek myths, including footnotes giving the original period sources for each page's topic. Special features of the site include genealogical charts, contextual charts (e.g., events before, during, and after the Trojan War), and detailed maps. These graphics are often limited in resolution on the website, but can be purchased as high-resolution PDFs. I acquired my copies several years ago, back when a handy and inexpensive archive of the complete database was available for purchase on CD.

Film

Naturally, movies and television have provided a great deal of inspiration for The Kynthiad. Series like Hercules and Xena play much more "fast and loose" with historical periods than I'm ever going to in this campaign, but they're still good for mining for story ideas. Movies like Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts, Troy, and Gods of Egypt provide great over-the-top battle scenes to use as models for RPGs involving gods and monsters, despite their many deviations from the classical versions of those stories. (I used to get much more bent out of shape over the liberties the screenwriters take with the source material, until I realized that the ancients were just as guilty of it.)

As I mentioned in an earlier column, I cast most characters in The Kynthiad using real-world actors so that my wife and I have a common frame of reference for them. The movie Troy was released just a few years before we started the campaign, and I knew that many of those characters would appear in the game, so it was easy to just keep the same casting for most of them. To cast other roles, I've drawn from a wide variety of other movies and TV shows--many but far from all of them being period pieces or fantasy films--to find suitable actors. In most cases, I limited myself to living actors whose current ages fit the parts I choose for them, but I have made a few exceptions. For example, Jolene Blalock played Medea in a TV movie of Jason and the Argonauts in 2000. My game is set a generation later, but Medea is a demigoddess who doesn't age as quickly as mortals do, so my reference photos for her include that costume as well as more recent headshots. Similarly, a handful of actors have died since I started the campaign (most notably Alan Rickman and Peter O'Toole), but I continue to use them in the game.


If you have a favorite source for information on the ancient Near East and its history and mythology, please share a link in the comments!

Past posts about "The Kynthiad"

• The Kynthiad: Solo adventures in the world of ancient Greek mythology (7/23/2015)
• The Kynthiad: How many gods? (7/30/2015)
• The Kynthiad: The borders of the world (8/6/2015)
• The Kynthiad: The Witches (10/27/2016)
• #RPGaDay2018: Days 4-5, 11-12 (Day 5 briefly discusses Thaleia; 8/16/2018) 

Mordenkainen's Book of Foes and Freeport

The newest D&D Fifth Edition hardcover, Mordenkainen's Book of Foes, provides details about some of the greatest conflicts throughout the D&D multiverse: the Blood War between devils and demons; the origin of the drow and duergar subraces; and the wars of the Gith. The second half of the book provides new monsters tied into that lore, including a large number of high-Challenge rating creatures (such as arch-fiends, supreme rulers among the drow, etc.). This new material is suitable for most D&D settings, but my interest for this series is in Freeport.

For my past columns about using D&D Fifth Edition sourcebooks with Freeport: The City of Adventure, see the Freeport 5E Index.

The Blood War

This book's new material on devils and demons is imminently suited for use with the perennially cult-plagued city of Freeport. It can easily be combined with two 3E Green Ronin books, Hell in Freeport and The Book of Fiends, though the DM will need to makes some choices about which source to follow in certain areas. For example, yugoloths have never been Open Game Content, so Green Ronin had to develop their own versions of daemons to populate Gehenna in The Book of Fiends.

The roster of archdevils has changed a few times over the various editions of D&D, including the  falls of Moloch and Geryon from power--and the Book of Foes introduces a few new developments, such as the return to power of the corrupted celestial Zariel. A DM using The Book of Fiends can use the infernal hierarchy described there, or the one in the Book of Foes, or pick and choose from those sources as well as earlier editions' planar handbooks (notably the multiple versions of the Manual of the Planes and Book of Vile Darkness). Asmodeus is the one constant through all versions of D&D, so the lore about the King of Hell in Green Ronin's The Book of the Righteous may be useful here as well.

The "Familiar Demon Princes" sidebar in The Book of Fiends (p. 140) describes many of the same demon lords that appear in the Book of Foes, but under thinly disguised names due to the strictures of the 3E Open Game License. Lolth (or "Arachnidia") is discussed in the next chapter, about the elves.

This chapter also includes some suggested traits for cultists serving a demon lord or archdevil, as well as new tiefling subraces tied to the Lords of the Nine. (Both sections first appeared in Unearthed Arcana.)

Elves

References to most gods in Freeport titles are left purposefully generic, so that the city can more easily be combined with the DM's preferred campaign settings. DMs using The Book of the Righteous to fill in more detail may find the extensive racial pantheons presented here (and in the Storm Coast Adventurer's Guide) hard to reconcile with that book's Great Church model. However, the brief section on "Racial Gods" (BotR, p. 178) gives some ideas for how to approach this.

Drow are a canonical part of the World of Freeport (at least since Cults of Freeport), though usually quite remote from that city. DMs who wish to draw upon as many Green Ronin sources as possible for their Freeport campaigns can compare Plot & Poison: A Guidebook to Drow and Dezzavold: Fortress of the Drow (both for 3E) to the information given about the Dark Seldarine in Mordenkainen's Book of Foes. Plot & Poison, for instance, presents its own drow pantheon ruled by an unnamed Spider Queen.

Eladrin, sea elves, and shadar-kai were first presented for 5E in Unearthed Arcana (see Part 6 and Part 7 of my reviews of those columns). Mordenkainen's Book of Foes, however, gives far more lore about the extraplanar origins of both the eladrin and shadar-kai, and their relationships with their gods. This information makes it clear that while the eladrin are likely to visit the elven kingdom of Rolland from time to time, their loyalties lie within the Feywild. Likewise, while Lord Bonewrack could have ties to the shadar-kai, he rules only a minute portion of the Shadowfell.

Dwarves and Duergar

Freeport is a far cry from the security of a remote dwarven stronghold, but like many human cities of any significant size, it is home to a small population of dwarves. Most are merchants, adventurers, or outcasts--which probably makes them more like the others races in the City of Adventure than they would care to admit.

Duergar also appeared as a potential player race in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, which I've commented on here.

Gith and Their Endless War

When the gith races appeared in Unearthed Arcana, I pointed out that they had never appeared in any Freeport products because they were never made Open Game Content by Wizards of the Coast. However, at least one mind flayer (Cuttleblack) does appear in Freeport canon, so encountering a party of gith pursuing others of his ilk would not be out of the question. In addition, Mordenkainen's Book of Foes gives some details on githyanki airships, which could prove useful in some Freeport campaigns. And after all, githyanki raiding parties are essentially plane-hopping, psionic pirates.

Halflings and Gnomes

Halflings in Freeport have notably less innocence and leisure than the norm described here, but their  ties to their community are just as important for their survival.

Gnomes in Freeport are likely to be a mix of subraces. As I noted way back when I converted Rollo to 5E, the Player's Handbook says that most gnomes are rock gnomes, but the forest gnome has the minor illusion magic and ability to speak with animals that match his original 3E traits. On the other hand, rock gnomes in 5E are tinkerers and artificers, which also fits a number of gnomes in Freeport canon, such as the firearms inventor Kolter.

Since the original  Freeport Trilogy, other titles (the 3rd  Era Freeport Companion and the Pathfinder edition of Freeport: The City of Adventure) have established the crag gnomes of Iovan as the dominant subrace in the World of Freeport. Crag gnomes have darkvision and an affinity for earth magic, which makes the deep gnome subrace a decent fit for them.

Bestiary

See the previous sections for general commentary about demons, devils, drow, duergar, and eladrin.

A few of the new monsters presented in this chapter, such as the allip and choker, are already Freeport canon, so their entries would prove very helpful in updating existing Freeport adventures to 5E.

A few of the new fiends can be substituted for foes appearing in Hell in Freeport and The Book of Fiends. One of the better matches here is substituting orthons for the Faceless, as both are relentless trackers of similar power levels.

Strange magical machines occasionally appear in published Freeport adventures, so new constructs such as clockworks and hellfire engines are appropriate additions to the setting's bestiary.

Similarly, mastery of elemental magic is a common pursuit in the city (and elsewhere), so elder elementals and elemental myrmidons have a place in the World of Freeport. (In fact, the leviathan fills a very similar niche to the ocean wyrm in Creatures of Freeport and the Freeport Bestiary.)

Finally, star spawn are perfectly suited to the element of cosmic horror that has pervaded the Freeport setting since its debut. The larva mage in particular seems appropriate for a minor avatar of the King in Yellow. The Elder Evil blessings can be adapted to cults featured in Freeport sources (Radiant Flames for Tuulazcha, Tharizdun's Spark for the Unspeakable One, etc.) or used as inspiration for new gifts.

The Book of the Righteous: Cults of Freeport

In an earlier column, I discussed how to use The Book of the Righteous (BotR) with the Freeport setting. The generic references to gods used in most Freeport titles makes it possible to use the detailed churches and mythology from BotR with that setting. Cults of Freeport represents a change from the product line's generic approach, providing more detailed information on eight secretive cults' religious practices and doctrines, plus profiles of their leaders in the City of Adventure. However, BotR can be used with these cults as well, as a source of Fifth Edition domains and subclasses.

(SPOILER WARNING: Current and potential players in Freeport campaigns--especially mine!--should consult with their GMs before reading further, as I will be discussing many of the secrets revealed in Cults of Freeport.)

Before I look at each cult individually, I'd like to discuss some common threads for the book as a whole.

One recurring theme in Freeport is the infiltration of temples by devotees of other gods. The Book of the Righteous provides an excellent rationale for how these schemes are allowed to continue without swift divine retribution. The gods' Compact (BotR, pp. 8 and 236) ended the terrible tragedies inflicted by the early wars between the gods by limiting their ability to interfere in the mortal realm. The Compact binds even Asmodeus, but permits devils, daemons, and demons to tempt mortals, as the price of allowing them to have free will. BotR gives examples of corrupted and heretical sects that continue to receive divine power--though it's possible that some receive that power from a source other than the original god. The book includes a detailed example of one church that has been taken over by an evil conspiracy secretly dedicated to another god. The gods may choose to send warnings about such threats, within strict limits, though some may have their own reasons not to interfere in such tests of their churches.

Encounters with the faiths detailed in Cults of Freeport pose serious threats to the heroes' sanity as well as their bodies. If you wish to use these cults in your 5E campaign, I strongly recommend using the madness rules from the DMG, and possibly even the Sanity score rules. Even if you don't use those rules during all adventures in your game, applying them during encounters with servants of these mad gods can greatly enhance the horrors that these cults worship and perpetuate.

Note that cult leaders are not necessarily clerics. Some will belong to other spellcasting classes, such as the wizards of the Esoteric Order of Starry Wisdom and the Obsidian Brotherhood. Others might be warlocks who have a direct personal relationship with their patron. The Archfiend patron is appropriate for Yarash and Abaddon, while the Unspeakable One, Yig, and the Crawling Chaos are obviously Great Old Ones. While Mordiggian is technically a Great Old One (being a later addition to the "Cthulhu Mythos"), the Undying patron (Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide) might be a better match for his promises of immortality.

GMs using both Cults and BoTR will find some free supplemental material on the Green Ronin website to be of interest. The first of these is The Tree of Life, an online support page for the original Third Edition Book of the Righteous, which can easily be used with the book's Fifth Edition update. This repository includes a couple of myths (written by Joe G. Kushner) that suggest possible links between the Great Church cosmology and two of the gods featured in Cults of Freeport:

• "The Unspeakable One" posits that the Nameless One turned away from the creation in order to protect it from the ancient horrors that he discovered outside it. He remains distant and Nameless in order to avoid drawing those beings' attention to himself or his creation.
• "The Source of Tinel's Sorrow" presents a heretical belief that Tinel and Yig are the same deity, and that Tinel's sorrow stems from his destruction of Valossa. This story gives two competing origins for the Unspeakable One: Either 1) it is an entity from outside the Great Sphere, whose followers corrupted other serpent people under the guise of Tinel worship, so that Tinel was forced to destroy his beloved Valossa, or 2) it is the manifestation of Tinel's own madness, and it was this aspect of Tinel that destroyed Valossa.

Finally, two free web enhancements for Cults of Freeport (written by Robert J. Schwalb and myself) provide True20 and Third Edition ("3rd Era") stat blocks for the NPCs described for each cult. The latter document also provide domains and favored weapons for deities not featured in the Gods of Freeport table in the 3rd Era Freeport Companion. While a full conversion is beyond the scope of the current column, some of that cleric-specific data has been adapted to Fifth Edition below.

The Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign

The Unspeakable One is chaotic evil, and its clerics gain the Madness domain. Oathbreaker paladins can be used to represent unholy warriors dedicated to the god.

In the "scales of Yig" cosmology described in this chapter, Yig is credited with creating the primordial world that evolved into the World of Freeport. Therefore Yig and the Unspeakable One predate the younger races' gods. As yet another alternative to the Tree of Life myth mentioned above, some scholars might interpret the primordial Yig as the serpent people's version of the Nameless One. (This would make the serpent people the only race ancient enough to preserve enough knowledge about that god to actively worship him.) In any case, Yig's collection of pieces from different worlds gives a handy explanation for the arrival of other gods, such as the Three Sisters and Three Brothers (as well as Lowyatar, discussed in her own chapter, below).

The Priesthood of Yig

Like Terak and Tinel in The Book of the Righteous, Yig has two aspects with different alignments. The Hitthkai Sect worships Yig's neutral aspect, which grants the Knowledge and Trickery domains. The Sskethvai Sect worships his neutral evil aspect, which has the Fire and War domains.

A champion such as K't'Kah would probably be best represented by a monk of the Way of Iron tradition. Bards of the college of lore would be well-suited to infiltrating sites of learning such as the Freeport Institute.

The Lost Souls of Yarash

Yarash is chaotic evil, and grants only the Death domain. Some oathbreaker paladins revere him, but any "unholy warriors" who serve him are more likely to be path of the zealot barbarians (Xanathar's Guide to Everything), or simply berserkers.

For even more information on Yarash's cult, see Black Sails Over Freeport. Most of the Cult History section of the Lost Souls chapter was distilled from that mega-adventure.

The Esoteric Order of Starry Wisdom

The Crawling Chaos is chaotic neutral. The Starry Wisdom cult in Freeport is composed exclusively of wizards, with no clerics. Where his cults do have priests, the god grants the Death and Madness domains, and possibly Arcana (from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide). The cult's holy warriors are typically fighters (eldritch knights) like Lord Defender Thorgrim.

"The Crawling Chaos" is one of the chief epithets of the deity Nyarlathotep (from the works of H.P. Lovecraft), and the Esoteric Order of Starry Wisdom is named after one of that god's cults, but that name is never used here. Nyarlathotep has many forms and cults across a staggering number of cultures and worlds, both human and alien. Some of those aspects are more obviously malign, and should be considered chaotic evil.

Possible avatars of the Crawling Chaos in the World of Freeport include the Shrouded Savior mentioned in the background of True20 Freeport: The Lost Island, and the Dark Apostle who has appeared twice in Druzhdin history (Freeport: The City of Adventure). If the latter is an aspect of Nyarlathotep, then what is his motive for promoting the traditional worship of the God of Death?

Scions of the Destroyer

Freeport's Temple of the God of Warriors is a prime example of an enemy cult that has infiltrated and seized control of an established church. In terms of The Book of the Righteous, the Scions of the Destroyer might use the trappings of the Cult of the Bound Rod (the corrupted cult of the war god Terak) to deflect suspicion from their true god and purpose.

As a demon prince, Abaddon is chaotic evil. His clerics have the War domain. However, most "acolytes" belong to purely martial classes, such as fighter or barbarian, instead. The Destroyer's truly unholy warriors are oathbreaker paladins or oath of treachery paladins (Unearthed Arcana,"Paladin: Sacred Oaths").

The Charnel Children

Mordiggian, the Charnel God, is chaotic evil. His clerics have the Death domain. His cult in Freeport has no unholy warriors, but he does count many necromancers among his servants.

For a quick and dirty conversion of the Cannibal Ritual, use the rules for the polymorph spell, but the celebrant assumes the form of a ghoul, retaining hands and speech. (The younger children will also remain Small in size.) More experienced cultists might assume the statistics of a ghast.

The Society of the Velvet Whip

Lowyatar is lawful evil. Her clerics gain the Trickery domain. (She also appears in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, as Loviatar, with the Death domain.)

The cult's leaders regularly summon fiends for various purposes. Use the infernal calling, summon greater demon, and summon lesser demons spells from Xanathar's Guide to Everything) for these rituals. Note that in 5E, succubi have been turned into fiends that are neither devil nor demon, but they should be allowed as options for either infernal calling or summon greater demon.

The Obsidian Brotherhood

The Wanderer's alignment is unknown. In his current shattered state, he has no clerics or holy warriors, only the obsessed wizards and scholars (and corrupted priests of other faiths) who serve Xyrades.

True20 Freeport: The Lost Island also features powerful, magical obsidian shards. That adventure's stones have no explicit connection to the Wanderer, but the similarity of the relics in both sources suggests one--and Xyrades would become very interested in Mokulilo if he learns of those other shards. If the two groups of stones are connected, then any theory about the Shrouded Savior being an avatar of the Crawling Chaos (see above) raises even more questions about the Wanderer's true nature: Is the Wanderer yet another avatar of the Crawling Chaos? Is Nyarlathotep the surviving sentient remnant of the Wanderer? Or is he its herald, as he is to Azathoth in Lovecraft's stories?

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For my past columns about using D&D Fifth Edition sourcebooks with Freeport: The City of Adventure, see the Freeport 5E Index.