Friday Encounter: Haunted Inn

This encounter is to be used if the PCs decide to stop at an inn, whether that be along the road or in a town. It should ideally be an inn that the party isn't familiar with.

When the party asks about rooms, the innkeeper gives their normal rates of 2 SP per room, but mentions that there is one particular room that guests can stay in for free. The reason? The room is said to be haunted, with guests reporting hearing strange whispers and feeling drafts that seem to come from nowhere. One guest even reported finding ectoplasm on the walls not too long ago. In addition to the strange phenomena observed in the room, it seems that anyone who stays in the room is stricken by misfortune; in the last year alone, two of the guests who stayed there fell ill and died, and a third was cut down by highwaymen. Regulars of the inn are also familiar with the rumors, and may have their own stories to tell, but none of them have ever stayed in the room - they wouldn't dare risk it.

Still, it's a free room, and it may well be something worth investigating. In my experience, dangling the prospect of a haunting in front of the PCs will encourage them to look deeper into it far more often than it will scare them away. If the PCs ask for the room, the innkeeper will allow them to have it for free, but not without attempting to talk them out of it.

The haunted room has two beds and meager amenities, with little more than a wardrobe for storing clothes, an end table with a lantern on it, and a rug strewn over the floor. Compared to other rooms in the inn, the haunted room is clearly unkempt - the sheets are askew, and there is dust built up on the furniture. The staff are wary of the haunting and avoid the room whenever possible.

The room is indeed haunted by the ghost of a tax collector named Uther von Gerholdt, who stopped at the inn some thirty years ago. The innkeeper, Holger Kunze, is a stingy, paranoid man who knew Uther's reputation as a shrewd professional who always collected his share, no matter how his clients attempted to get out of paying. Unwilling to part with his money, and feeling squeezed by the local nobles, Holger gave Uther a tankard of ale drugged with a powerful sedative, and, when he grew drowsy, offered him a bed at the inn so he could sleep off his stupor for the night. When Uther fell asleep, Holger stabbed him to death and buried his body under the cellar.

However, since Uther was fast asleep when he died, he doesn't actually realize that he's dead, or that years have passed since his murder. He believes it to still be the night that he visited the inn - and thus, he views guests as trying to barge in and invade his privacy. His anger subconsciously manifests as the effects observed in the room, trying to drive "intruders" out.

Uther's ghost cannot be seen or heard directly by those staying in the inn. However, using a see invisibility spell will detect the flickering figure of a man in fine clothes lurching about the room. One can perform a seance using a contact other plane spell, a spirit board, or other means to communicate with the ghost. Uther will tell them of the events leading up to his death, but admits his memory is hazy due to being so drunk.

PCs who spend the night in the room are able to gain the benefits of a short rest, but they hear shuffling, whispering, and moaning through the night, preventing them from getting the full benefits of a long rest. Additionally, the DM should have some form of misfortune befall any PCs that spent the night in the haunted room. This is up to their discretion, but it should target those PCs specifically - a powerful enemy might take a special interest in them, or they may be stricken with a mysterious illness with no apparent cause. Once this event occurs, they are no longer haunted and no longer suffer misfortune.

Holger suspects that the rumors of the ghost is related to the murder he committed years ago, but will adamantly deny any involvement and takes great pains to cover his tracks. In fact, he's deliberately played up the rumors of the haunting, making sure to tell any guests the story to try and scare them away from staying in that room just in case Uther gives them any clues. If the PCs are able to discover the truth, however, they may seek proof.

Holger keeps the basement of the inn locked at all times with a key he wears around his neck; it is a DC 15 check with thieves' tools to pick this lock. The basement has a rammed earth floor; if the PCs spend an hour digging in the basement, they will unearth Uther's skeleton, still wearing the signet ring of a tax collector in service to the local nobility. This task can be divided among multiple PCs - two characters digging will unearth the skeleton in 30 minutes, three will unearth it in 20 minutes, and so on.

If presented with the body, Holger will have no choice but to confess to his crimes, and will be hanged by the local guard. It is up to the DM what happens to the inn now that it has no owner. If the party needs a base of operations, this could be an opportunity to give them one.

With his killer brought to justice, Uther will move on to the Land of the Dead. He appears before the party one last time to apologize for any trouble he caused and to thank them for their aid before leaving them his signet ring. It can be sold for 50 GP, and could be used to forge official documents. Additionally, due to the residual ghostly energies permeating the ring, characters wearing it will automatically succeed on their next death save, but the ring breaks afterward and can no longer be used. Staying in the room from then on no longer carries any ill effects.

Thoughts on the British Old School

I first shared this post to the OSR subreddit seven years ago, long before I had a blog. It garnered some very interesting discussion in the day - I even inspired an entire blog centered around the subject that offered some great insights but sadly no longer appears to be online. It's still a topic that I'm interested by. I consider the Lunar Lands to be, spiritually, a setting in the British old-school RPG tradition, as it draws consciously or unconsciously on much of the same ground - and perhaps for that reason, I've felt more of a resonance with British fantasy of the era than with the stuff from across the pond. So I figured it would be helpful to have an archive on my blog.

Some trends in the OSR community that I cited back then aren't quite as relevant these days; the OSR hasn't trended so heavily toward weird fantasy since...what, 2019? But I still think it's helpful to outline the qualities I find a consistent, and identifiable, thread across British fantasy gaming from the 70s to the 90s, and in a place I can easily look up and link to. Besides, I think it's a subject that's still ripe for exploration.

Friday Encounter: Fallen Star

This encounter definitely isn't for everyone, and that's okay. It introduces elements of science fiction into the campaign, which might work in a setting that trends more gonzo or isn't afraid to mix genres, but would probably be about as jarring as a brick to the face in a campaign with a more mythic or purely fantastic tone. But the beauty of D&D, as I've outlined before, is that it can do both - and my recent discussions on sci-fi put it in my head. This isn't an encounter I would use in my typical campaigns, but maybe it would work for you.

This encounter is best used in the wilderness, but it could also work on the road or in a more settled area. It probably has the most potential if used in a low-tech setting - most medieval fantasy settings would qualify, but in a campaign that already trends toward science fiction, it could be used on an underdeveloped backwater planet. The idea is to put advanced technology into the hands of the PCs, and explore how that impacts the world around them.

The PCs should ideally hear rumors of a comet sighted in the vicinity - a bright light in the night sky that went shrieking toward the ground, after which a great tremor was felt through the earth. Or the PCs might observe such a phenomenon themselves and decide to investigate.

Either way, if the PCs decide to investigate the site where the "star" was said to have fallen, they will discover a strange mass of smoking twisted metal, about the size of a large carriage, lying in a crater. It appears to be a machine of some sort, but using mechanisms and components beyond anything they've seen before. There is a door on the machine - it is bent and warped, but a DC 10 Athletics check can be used to force the door open; this check can be made with Advantage if a PC has a crowbar or another object that could be used to wedge it open.

If the door is opened, the PCs will discover a compartment inside where two skeletons of an unknown humanoid race are seated before an array of lights and switches, dressed in strange and tattered attire. Further investigation will yield documents in an indecipherable language. Using comprehend language will determine that these are orders from the "Ashtar Galactic Command" to patrol the "Omicron-92 Sector" to protect against "piracy and incursions from the Lidarian Federation;" if the players press further, make up more contextless sci-fi sounding jargon as needed. Furthermore, each of the skeletons is carrying a holster at their hip containing a pistol-like device; another such device, like an oddly-shaped arquebus, is located in a cache behind them.

The "falling star" was in fact an alien spaceship that crash-landed on the campaign world - and left its advanced technology behind. The pistols are laser pistols, and the other gun is a laser rifle (see the Dungeon Master's Guide section on firearms). You can also throw in other advanced technological devices for the PCs to plunder if you wish. These don't have to be anything fancy - for example, a device that can create a flame at the press of the button without the need for fuel (ie, a lighter) would be an incredible treasure in a world where fires are lit by flint and steel.

In a typical medieval fantasy world, these weapons will be more powerful than most mundane weapons available - but on the flip side, no one will be familiar with what they are or how to use them, and the PCs must discover their properties through trial and error. They will also likely be quite valuable if the PCs can find the right buyer - a feudal lord or bandit chief with access to such power would be nearly uncontested. However, that same value could easily paint a target on the PCs if knowledge spreads that they are carrying such items.

For a variation on this encounter, perhaps the PCs aren't the first to get to the crash site. Maybe the ship has landed near a town, and the people have already salvaged its technology - if so, the party might hear rumors of people armed with powerful "magical" devices that they guard fiercely. Or the devices might already be in the hands of entities hostile to the party. Either way, it's unlikely that they'd give such things back without a fight.

And if you really want to shake the campaign up, perhaps the ship's employers might come back looking for it...

The Sci-Fi Kitchen Sink Setting

Don't ask why. Ask why not.

There has never been a successful RPG that has done for science fiction what Dungeons & Dragons has done for fantasy.

Already, I'm sure there are hundreds of hands running to keyboards to tell me I'm wrong. Surely I can't believe that - there are all kinds of successful sci-fi RPGs out there. What about Traveler, which has a history almost as long as D&D's own? What about games like Spelljammer and Starfinder, which build off D&D's rules to facilitate space adventures? Star Frontiers was being published by TSR at the same time they were publishing D&D; surely that counts. There's all manner of RPGs based on existing sci-fi properties, like Star Wars or Warhammer 40,000. And if we step outside the space opera subgenre that's dominated this conversation so far, we'd be remiss to forget Cyberpunk and Shadowrun. Science fiction surely has as much support as fantasy does in the TRPG landscape!

And that statement is absolutely correct! However, that isn't the point I'm making. I don't mean to say that there has never been a successful sci-fi RPG. I'm saying there has never been a successful sci-fi D&D.

All the games I just listed, to some degree or another, have their own defined tone, look, and feel. They all have a setting they're either built around or heavily associated with. They're geared toward playing a specific kind of sci-fi. Most RPGs are like that - D&D, despite being the oldest and most popular of them all, is somewhat of an outlier in that it doesn't try to emulate a specific subgenre of fantasy.

Much has been made about the "kitchen sink" nature of a typical D&D campaign. If you asked what kind of fantasy D&D is, the answer would be "yes." It combines Tolkienian elves, dwarves, halflings, and orcs with the barbarians of the Hyborian Age, monsters from myth and legend, Hammer Horror vampires and werewolves, Lovecraftian elder gods, and even some original creations. That's been tempered somewhat in recent years, as Wizards of the Coast has tried to lock down a canon for the game, and while I understand why that is - they're part of Hasbro now, and a game about an entire multifaceted genre doesn't do well to attract investors or establish a brand identity - I can't help but feel it's lost something. To me, D&D is at its best when it's a game that can cater to and accomodate pretty much everything under the fantasy umbrella, allowing DMs to create their own fantasy worlds with whatever colors of the genre's broad spectrum they choose.

Science fiction has long been viewed as fantasy's sister genre, but it doesn't have anything like that. And I've always found that curious. Really, there's not much of a difference between expecting every high fantasy setting to include elves and expecting every space opera setting to include Wookiees. Both races were created as something specific and idiosyncratic to a seminal work in their respective genre, but one expectation is normalized, and the other sounds completely insane.

Part of it might be because of copyright laws. Tolkien, after all, was building off of a long tradition of mythology and folklore. He might have codified the ways we view elves and dwarves, but no one owns elves and dwarves, as a concept. Meanwhile, most of the classic sci-fi races were created out of whole cloth in living memory, and are protected by large and litigious corporations. Gygax faced legal trouble with hobbits and balrogs, after all. But, on the flip side, he was able to get away with basically using them as-is once he changed their names, and no one stopped him. No one in sci-fi has even tried that.

It could also simply be the fact that D&D was the first of its kind. When it came out there was no real precedent for what a roleplaying game was supposed to be, and TSR was allowed to make their genre as broad and as open-ended as "fantasy," with no further qualifiers, without anyone telling them not to. So too, it was a game made by and for fans of the fantasy genre, not by any large-scale corporation, so it's understandable that the people behind the game would want to make something to capture the magic of their favorite stories instead of trying to stand on its own within its genre as a product that could itself be marketed for its background lore, as later games would do.

I can't help but wonder, if D&D was made today, assuming the TRPG landscape was otherwise identical, would there still be elves, dwarves, and halflings, or would it just be dragonborn, tieflings, and kenku? Many have noted a greater trend toward players wanting to use D&D original races instead of those grounded in Tolkien, but I have to ask if that's truly just a player thing, or if it's what Wizards wants - after all, they can establish dragonborn as their thing. They can't do that for dwarves. And we were getting setting-specific RPGs as early on as Empire of the Petal Throne. Sci-fi RPGs, then, had to enter a world where merely being a sci-fi RPG wouldn't set them apart. They needed to create their universe from the ground up, and be RPGs about playing in that setting, not just in a sci-fi setting.

Now, you'll notice the qualifiers I used. I said that no successful RPG has pulled off a sci-fi kitchen sink setting like this. That was on purpose, because there have been attempts. Grognardia, which has a very good article on this very subject, reviewed 1980's Space Opera, an RPG by Fantasy Games Unlimited that probably came closest out of any published RPG to what I'm positing here. To pull a direct quote, "this is a game where Flash Gordon, Chewbacca, Ming the Merciless, Barbarella, and assorted aliens can meet in a cantina and go adventuring among the stars without the petty concerns of rhyme or reason." Alas, Space Opera was burdened with an incoherent ruleset and the shadow of Traveler, and never caught on.

But I also want to talk about something outside the scope of TRPGs. I want to talk about Star Schlock.

Star Schlock is a skirmish wargame by Wunkay Games that's seen steady releases for the last few years, with both rules and an official miniatures range. It's themed around science fiction cinema and TV from the late 60s to the early 80s. I don't have much interest in the game itself, but as someone who's been steadily getting back into miniatures, and as someone who's always been interested in retrofuturism - and in particular, the cassette futurism movement of that era - it scratches an itch for me, and I've picked up several of the minis for my collection.

But even if I might not ever play the game, I'm fascinated by Star Schlock's setting. The developers have made no attempt to hide its origins. Their ranges all draw heavy inspiration from assorted source material. The two armies included in the starter set are the Explorer Corps, an agency of scientists and explorers charting the final frontier led by "Captain Timothy J. Curt," and the Simian Star Kingdom, a brutal regime of ape despots and their oppressed human slaves led by "Dr. Zayce." Other factions include the Eternal Empire and its faceless, white-armored "Dronetroopers," the zombie plague of the Necronauts, and the Viper Legion, a ruthless terrorist organization led by a megalomaniacal masked commander. There are stat profiles for lawyer-friendly versions of Boba Fett, Buck Rogers, Robbie the Robot, and even Ro-Man from Robot Monster. To my delight, the cuts run so deep that there's an entire faction that seems to be based on the concept art from Alejandro Jodorowsky's aborted Dune adaptation, complete with a miniature of Salvador Dali as the Emperor of the Known Universe.

It's a game that unabashedly started as an exercise to mash up forces from different sci-fi universes and find out who would win. But in order to justify that, the game has spun a setting with surprisingly deep and extensive lore that places these different factions in the same universe - and it works. The starter set includes a "Galaxy Guide" devoted entirely to background information, and the official Schlocklog magazine publishes enough articles on the setting that I've found them an engaging read even when I have no plans to play the actual game.

This, to me, is what a setting that does for science fiction what D&D has done for fantasy would really look like. And I'd argue that it's a setting that would work very well for roleplaying. There's enough background material out there for a prospective DM to get started on a campaign, with a number of distinct factions and power players; there's even been multiple planets that have gotten their own dedicated writeups in the pages of Schlocklog. So too, the mix-and-match nature of the setting makes it easy for newcomers to get in - chances are they'll be familiar with the series these factions were drawn from, and can come to the table with their understanding of what they can expect from them, no expodumps needed. It might have been written for a wargame, but the information would be just as applicable, and just as useful, for a TRPG.

Am I asking for an official Star Schlock RPG some day? Not necessarily - though it would be cool. But I do think what's there could prove just as useful to DMs as it could to wargamers. It would be a good fit for Retrostar, an RPG designed to emulate science fiction film and television of the same era, if one wanted to lean into the genre conventions (the system even puts a limit on how many actions can be made per session to ensure "episodes" fit into a 30-to-60-minute timeslot). But if one didn't want to go such a meta route, I'd argue that you could grab a sci-fi ruleset of your choice, use the Galaxy Guide and Schlocklog as your campaign setting, and be good to go.

Timekeeping in the Lunar Lands

Just a quick worldbuilding post today on the calendar system I use for my main campaign setting. The idea is to create something flavorful and fantastic, but still recognizable enough to the players. This allows them to utilize what they themselves know about time, scheduling, and how it works without needing to be pointed out that a week is actually ten days and for them to need to remember that. Much of this is just for reference and doesn't necessarily come up in-game - but I know it's there, and that's what matters.

Years

Years in the Lunar Lands are not numbered from a specific date; rather, they are charted relative to the reigning Vardessian Emperor at the time. Years in which a new Emperor takes the throne are considered both the nth Year of their reign and the First Year of their successor's reign, and the titles are used interchangably.

Thus, the "current" year in my campaign is the Twenty-Fourth Year of Harald IV's Reign (abbreviated 24HLD4). The year in which he took the throne can be regarded as the First Year of Harald IV's Reign (1HLD4) or the Forty-Ninth Year of Leopold III's Reign (49LPD3). Years prior to the founding of the Vardessian Empire are counted backward - thus, the First Year of Gustav I's Reign (1GST1) was proceeded by the First Pre-Imperial Year (PE1), which was proceeded by the Second Pre-Imperial Year (PE2), and so on.

Months

The Lunar Lands uses a lunar calendar - months are measured from the first night of a new moon to the first night of the subsequent new moon, using the largest of the three moons for reference. There are twelve months in a year, and Midwinter (the winter solstice) is regarded as the new year. If this does not fall on a new moon, the remaining days between Midwinter and the next new moon form an intercalary month at the beginning of the new year. Generally, months are thirty days, but may be longer or shorter depending on the lunar cycle. These months, and their corresponding real-world months, are:

Frostmoon: January

Snowmoon: February

Windmoon: March

Seedmoon: April (the time of planting)

Flowermoon: May

Fallowmoon: June

Haymoon: July (the time where hay is made)

Harvestmoon: August

Barleymoon: September

Winemoon: October

Bloodmoon: November (the time the livestock is slaughtered)

Oakmoon: December

Weeks
A week is seven days, and there are usually four weeks per month. Each day of the week is sacred to a different god, and their temples tend to hold rites on those days. These days, and their corresponding real-world days, are:

Sunday: Sunday. Sacred to Solenna.

Moonsday: Monday. Sacred to Mondi, god of the moon and husband to Solenna.

Huntsday: Tuesday. Sacred to Kerne.

Fieldsday: Wednesday. Sacred to Eostre.

Starday: Thursday. Sacred to Torvald.

Kingsday: Friday. Sacred to Voltan.

Queensday: Saturday. Sacred to Marseah.

Days
Days are measured from midnight to midnight. There are 24 hours per day, with 12 AM being midnight and 12 PM being noon.

Holiday 
Different kingdoms and cultures celebrate different civil and folk holidays, ranging from local festivals to grand official fetes. However, almost every culture observes the Wheel of the Year, a series of holidays plotted around the solstices and equinoxes (quarter days) and the midpoints between them (cross-quarter days). Because these dates are important for agriculture, they are celebrated in most regions, though the customs of celebration are variable and multifaceted, and they may be celebrated in different ways. These dates are:

Imbolc (First of Snowmoon): A cross-quarter day marking the start of spring. Festivals celebrate the end of winter and the rebirth of life, and oaths are traditionally made to be completed in the coming summer. Many also visit oracles in this time to learn of what the coming year will bring.

Eostrefest (Spring Equinox): A quarter day corresponding to the midpoint of spring. This day is associated with Eostre, the goddess of fertility, and the greatest celebrations of her cult are held then to ensure good crop yields in the fall.

Beltane (First of Flowermoon): A cross-quarter day marking the start of summer. Cattle are sent out to pasture on this day, often garlanded in flowers, and bonfires are often lit in celebration. This is one of the two dates at which the borders between this world and the realms beyond are at their weakest, making it easier for beings to cross between worlds. For this reason, it is often celebrated as Hexennacht - Witches' Night - as it is a popular date for rituals and summonings to be performed. In western Vardessy, it is celebrated as Saint Kriemhild's Day, largely in response to this.

Midsummer (Summer Solstice): A quarter day celebrating the longest day of the year. It is the most sacred day in the cult of Solenna, goddess of the sun. Devotees spend much of this day outside observing the sun's path.

Lammas (First of Harvestmoon): A cross-quarter day marking the official start of the harvest season. Typically celebrated with great feasts, often held outside on hilltops, in which the first fruits of the harvests are offered as a sacrifice to the gods. In many towns, elaborate festival days have grown around this feast, with public markets, contests, and performances held.

Mabon (Fall Equinox): A quarter day marking the midpoint of autumn, and the end of the harvest season. Also a time of feasting and thanking the gods for the harvest, though usually a more solemn affair than Lammas, as the days begin to get shorter thereafter and all must start to prepare for winter.

Samhain (First of Bloodmoon): A cross-quarter day marking the start of winter. Most notably, it is one of the two days at which the borders between this world and the realms beyond are at their weakest, allowing beings from other planes to most easily be contacted or summoned. This includes the shades of the Land of the Dead, and it is known that Morthanos, god of the dead, and his agents roam the roads on this day in search of souls that have escaped his domain. For many revelers, this is commemorated by walking the roads in costume. In Valossa, it is also the holy day of the Lady of Death, a local funerary goddess, in which people make offerings to their ancestors.

Midwinter (Winter Solstice): A quarter day celebrating the longest night of the year. In the dead of winter, it is often spent inside with much feasting and merriment to keep the morale during the cold, dead season, and to inspire hope for the spring to come. This date marks the end of the current year and the start of the next.

Magic Items of Erdland

To round out my posts statting up magic items from the first two Dragon Quest games for The Saga of the Ortegids, here's a few magic items from Dragon Quest III.

Lifestone

Wondrous Item, Rare, Requires Attunement

1 lb.

These stones are inscribed with powerful magic governing the forces of life and death. It is believed that the means of creating such items was first devised by the ancient Isisians, but this civilization left behind records of the process, and lifestones have been produced over the milennia by many subsequent magicians. Isisian legend tells that if the holder of a lifestone was to die through unnatural means, the stone will take the place of their soul in the afterlife, allowing them to go on living. This has made them prized as protective talismans, and more than one warrior has credited their lifestone with allowing them to survive a close brush with fate on the battlefield.

If a creature attuned to a lifestone drops to 0 HP, they do not roll death saves and are considered automatically stabilized (but are still at 0 HP). The stone then shatters and cannot be reused.

Vase of Drought

Wondrous Item, Very Rare

2 lb.

Though it appears from the outside to be an unremarkable vase, this vase possesses two notable qualities - it can draw in water and store great quantities far in excess of its apparent dimensions. Each Vase of Drought can store up to 3d100 gallons. When it is submerged in water (or another liquid), it begins to rapidly suck in fluid at a rate of 1 gallon per 8 seconds until it is either full or removed from the body it is submerged in. This fluid is stored as though in a bag of holding and can be decanted at will, up to the amount stored. Stored fluid does not affect the weight of the vase.

Sword of Rubiss

Artifact

A sacred treasure of the goddess Rubiss, this sword is imbued with divine magic. Though Rubiss is the goddess of life and creation and normally detests senseless violence, she nevertheless blessed this sword for one of her champions in the God-War before it was lost into the bowels of the earth. Rumor holds it is buried beneath Leiamland, guarded by a ferocious golden dragon.

The Sword of Rubiss behaves as a +3 longsword, and deals an additional 1d10 radiant damage against fiends and undead. Additionally, the blade is inscribed with the word "THORDAIN." A DC 10 Religion check will determine that this is an incantation in the tongue of the gods relating to thunder and lightning; characters with proficiency in the Celestial language will know this automatically. As an action, a creature who points the sword at a target and speaks this inscription to cast lightning bolt at a spell save DC of 15. The sword has three charges; using it in this fashion consumes one charge. It regains one charge at dawn each day.

Staff of Reflection

Staff, Very Rare, Requires Attunement

This staff has a mirror set into its head, and is sculpted with clouds. It can be used as a magic quarterstaff that grants a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. Additionally, as an action, the staff can be used to generate a barrier that reflects magic around any creature in touch range. To maintain the barrier requires concentration. Any spells of 7th level or lower that are made against a single target instead target the caster, using the slot level, spell save DC, attack bonus, and spellcasting ability of the caster, if made against the shielded creature.

Staff of Change

Staff, Legendary, Requires Attunement

This staff can be used to alter the user's form. It can be used as a magic quarterstaff that grants a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. When the butt of the staff is stamped against the ground, the user can adopt the shape of any creature. This functions as the polymorph spell, but is not limited to beasts. The user can use this to appear as a generic specimen of the chosen form (eg. an elf), or as a specific one (eg. the King of Manoza). If they adopt the form of a humanoid, they can alter any items they are wearing or carrying as well. Each time the staff is used, there is a 1% chance that it backfires, instead transforming the user into something else - roll 1d20 on the table below.

1. Rabbit

2. Sheep

3. Pig

4. Bird

5. Toad

6. Dog 

7. Cat

8. Horse

9. Wolf

10. Slime (stats of a grey ooze)

11. A different specimen of the user's race, of the same age and sex.

12. A different specimen of the user's race, but 1d20 years younger.

13. A different specimen of the user's race, but 1d20 years older.

14. A different specimen of the user's race, of the opposite sex.

15. Elf (as 10 if the user is an elf)

16. Dwarf (as 10 if the user is a dwarf)

17. Hobbit (as 10 if the user is a hobbit)

18. Beastman (stats of an orc. If the user is a beastman, roll 1d6: 1-4, as 10; 5-6; they become a beastman with the features of a different animal)

19. Dragovian (if the user is a Dragovian, roll 1d6: 1-4, as 10; 5-6; they become a Dragovian of a different color)

20. Young Red Dragon 

Friday Encounter: Interrupted Summoning

This encounter could be used in a dungeon, at a site in the wilderness, or maybe even in a town - preferably in some run-down house tucked away in a dark alley out of sight. You may want to plant rumors in the surrounding areas of strange robed figures gathering and chanting heard in the vicinity if you wish to lead your players to investigate.

Background

The Brotherhood of the Scarlet Palm is a cult of demon worshipers, seeking to contact Hell in order to negotiate with demons for earthly power. It was not long ago that they first began meeting in secret under the leadership of a disgruntled merchant named Vladislav Mikhailov, who, upon facing numerous failed business ventures, decided to summon a demon in order to guarantee him financial success. However, Vladislav's resources were limited, and he did not have access to arcane knowledge, having to cobble together his notes from a few scattered texts. This resulted in his cult performing a few botched and ineffective rituals, but they remained desperate enough to keep trying.

Through some miracle, Vladislav finally managed to contact a demon - a pit fiend by the name of Ag'draluun the Tormentor - a few days ago, and set to summon him into the mortal plane to discuss a deal. He set a protective circle over the ground, burned some candles, and read some incantations. Through this, Vladislav was able to open a portal to Ag'draluun's domain - but the ritual did not work according to plan. The cultists were able to form a portal, but not one big enough to accomodate such a hulking creature. Now, Ag'draluun is trapped partway in and partway out of the portal - and the cultists are in the middle of trying to get it to open the rest of the way.

The Encounter

The party should come upon Vladislav's circle to find three cultists standing at the points of a triangle inscribed on the ground, surrounded by a rim of candles that burn with violet flames. They have their heads bowed low and are chanting. At the center of the circle, suspended in the air, is what appears to be a rift in reality. It appears like a hole in a tapestry opening into an orange glow, but floats in midair above the ground. The portal gives off an intense heat, and flames can be seen flickering around it. Every so often, a huge clawed arm, covered in black scales like cracked magma, emerges from the portal, flailing around, and muffled cursing in Infernal can be heard.

One square equals five feet.

There are five other cultists gathered before the circle, watching; Vladislav stands behind them, flipping through a book at a hurried pace. It should be obvious that he is the leader; for instance, he may wear differently colored robes than his underlings.

Additionally, there is a circle of pillars gathered around the circle. These have the Concealing, Full Cover, and Impassible terrain tags - they provide full cover, cannot be passed through, and creatures hiding behind them have Advantage on Stealth checks.

Enter Action Time. The cultists will be too busy with trying to correct the ritual to monitor their surroundings, giving the PCs the opportunity to sneak up on them; they will thus not attack if they are not alerted to the presence of intruders. However, if the PCs do draw the cult's attention, Vladislav will order the cultists to attack.

Vladislav has the stats of a cult fanatic; his underlings have the stats of cultists. He will start by sending the five cultists staying back by him to ward off the PCs while he tries to lead the ritual. The three cultists gathered around the circle will remain where they are, continuing to chant. If two or more cultists are killed or incapacitated, or if Vladislav is directly accosted, he will enter the fight.

As long as the portal remains stuck in its partially open state, the three cultists at the circle will spend each of their turns chanting. When this happens, roll a d20 - on a roll of 11 or higher, the cultist successfully performs a chant. At the end of a round, if any cultist succeeded on the chant that round, the portal flickers and begins to widen. If no cultists succeeded, the portal remains in its current state.

Ag'draluun is trapped on the other side of the portal, unable to pass through. He cannot move across it (it's too small), and his Fear Aura will not affect creatures on the other side of the portal; however, he will reach through and make an attack with his claws at any PCs within five feet of the portal. If the portal is widened three times, it opens fully, summoning Ag'draluun into the world. He is quite angry that the summoning was performed so poorly, and is just as wont to attack the cultists as he is the PCs - but he won't hesitate to attack them either, if they're in range!

If all three cultists around the circle are killed or incapacitated, the portal winks out of existence. Ag'draluun's arm will be caught outside of it if this happens, causing it to be cut off; it falls to the ground before burning away into cinders. Alternatively, you could make it persist so that the PCs could retrieve it - the arm of a demon would surely have interesting alchemical properties.

Further Developments

If Vladislav is alive when the portal closes, he will flee the scene. He may become a recurring antagonist to the party - but perhaps a less than effectual one, unless he discovers more useful arcane knowledge. Either way, he will leave behind his books, which contain notes on a few rituals cobbled together from different sources. Some of this information could prove useful if the PCs need to research a ritual. Also left near the portal are his bags, containing 150 GP in gold and jewels and a scroll of Tasha's Hideous Laughter.

Ag'draluun might make for a recurring antagonist as well. Even if the portal was closed on him, he now knows the party, and will blame them for the loss of his arm, seeking a portal or a more competent summoner to re-enter reality so that he can enact his vengeance.

And if the portal was opened and the party somehow survived...well, they now have released an incredibly powerful demon upon the world, and can expect to deal with the consequences!