Friday Encounter: Ogres' Ferry

Following up with the theme I've been on for the last few Friday Encounter posts, here's a simple puzzle I used in a recent session. I used it as a room in a dungeon, but it could easily be used in the wilderness as well.

The PCs should come across a river that is flowing too quickly to easily cross on foot, and no bridge or ford in sight. A small rowboat, big enough to hold two people at a time, is sitting on the shore closest to the PCs. Also on the shore with the PCs are a number of ogres equal to that of the party members, who are standing around grumbling and arguing with one another. At the sight of the PCs, they accost them, insisting they need their help to ferry them across the river. They note that they have been stranded here a while, and are growing hungry.

This encounter is based on an old logic puzzle known as the "missionaries and cannibals problem" or "jealous husbands problem" - to boil it down to the essentials, you have to get two parties of equal size across the river, making sure that Party A does not outnumber Party B on either bank of the river at any time.

In this case, the party must transport each ogre to the other side of the river. The boat can hold two people at any time - they can be ogres, PCs, or any combination of the two. However, the ogres are hungry enough to make a bid for the PCs if they think they can get away with it. The ogres are cowards, and they won't try to attack the PCs if there are more PCs present on their bank than ogres. But as soon as they outnumber the PCs on a given bank, they'll attack, ganging up on the PCs so they can kill and eat them.

To make sure this information is available to the players, you may wish to have one of the ogres grab for the outnumbered PC(s) as soon as the boat begins to leave the shore, so that whoever is rowing has a chance to intervene - if the ogres see them change course, they'll immediately drop what they're doing. In any case, the party will either have to take multiple trips to get all ogres and PCs on the other side of the river, or prepare for a fight.

According to Wikipedia, the missionaries and cannibals problem can be solved in a minimum of 11 moves if there are three missionaries and three cannibals (or husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, masters and valets...you get the idea). In order to add urgency to this encounter, you could have the tides slightly rise after each move - the PCs must solve the puzzle in, say, 20-30 moves (to give them leeway to make mistakes) before the tides become too high to safely cross the river. If this happens, they might be swept away, potentially requiring them to make some rolls to avoid being tossed overboard, or perhaps they'd be washed away to a new location. In my campaign, I had three party members and three ogres. If you have a larger party, you'll need to increase the number of alloted moves.

In my campaign, one of the ogres had a broken arm, preventing him from rowing the boat. This would explain why the ogres couldn't row themselves across, and forces the PCs to man the boat at least once. However, my players used this to surmise that the ogre with the broken arm wouldn't be able to fight them either, and that he wouldn't count toward the number of ogres outnumbering the party since he couldn't pose a threat. This made the puzzle significantly easier, but it was logic I couldn't argue with, so I let them have it.

Since I was using this puzzle in a dungeon, I had a door open once all the PCs and ogres were on the same side of the river. You could have this be operated by a pressure plate that will only open under the combined weight of all PCs and ogres standing on it (note that creatures would not need to be alive in order to meet the required weight). Or you could have a passage or treasure located on a higher ledge that the PCs can only access by climbing on the ogres' shoulders.

The Isle of the Sun

Our gazetteer of the world(s) of The Saga of the Ortegids is pretty much complete. Over the last few months, I've summarized every major region in the first three Dragon Quest games and explored their potential for TRPG scenarios. However, just today I started thinking about one small area I didn't pay any heed to before, but one that just might be more interesting than I thought.

In Dragon Quest III, upon crossing through the Pit of Giaga, you come out on a small island in the western gulf of Alefgard, directly across from Tantegel. This is the only location in this part of the game that has no counterpart in Dragon Quest I, likely because there's no sea travel in that game. On it is a small, unnamed port - there are no shops or inns here, so it's likely a small fishing village rather than a regional trade center. It's really just there to give you access to a ship while in Torland, and for this reason I overlooked it in my discussion of Alefgard.

However, one of the NPCs there asks the party if they've come from "the upper world," which indicates that the people of Torland are familiar with the existence of Erdland. To recap the cosmology I'm using for The Saga of the Ortegids, I have chosen - in part because it provides for more interesting gaming opportunities - to interpret Torland as literally being inside of a hollow Erdland, with the Pit of Giaga being an actual, physical pit connecting the two surfaces. Interestingly, the Western fandom tends to interpret the Pit of Giaga as being a portal and the worlds as separate universes, but the Japanese fandom is more equivocal about it. In any case, for Saga, it's a physical pit - which ties into my next point.

Torland (unlike Erdland) has no consistent day-night cycle and is shown to be in a state of constant night before the Sphere of Light is used for the first time in DQ3. Furthermore, the Dragonlord stealing the Sphere in DQ1 is sometimes said to cause an unending night, depending on what source you're reading (this could be metaphorical, but for me it's not). Under my interpretation, this implies that Torland had no natural light source until the Sphere of Light created one, being the inside of a hollow planet and all. So far, everything is interally consistent.

But then I realized that if the Pit of Giaga physically separates Erdland from Torland, if there's a big hole in the ground in Erdland, there must conversely be a big hole in the sky in Torland. And we do know that Erdland has a sun. Before the Sphere of Light was used, this island below the Pit of Giaga must have been the only place in Torland to receive natural light - that is, what was able to stream through the Pit when the sun was overhead.

Art by Vsevlod Ivanov
(Seriously, check his stuff out)

This likely wouldn't be enough light to illuminate all of Torland on a regular basis, but it would mean that this one island would receive direct sunlight for part of the day. In an otherwise lightless world, this would no doubt have a significant effect on the local culture. Perhaps the locals of this island, even if they know of the existence of an upper world, don't realize how a natural sun really works, and view this light as a divine phenomenon. This would transform the Isle of the Sun, as I've called it, into a natural choice for a holy site, with cults springing up around the light and adherents making pilgrimages to witness it.

With this in mind, perhaps the port we see in DQ3 isn't the only settlement on the island - perhaps there is another city that serves as the center of this sun cult, and we just don't see it in-game because there was nothing useful for gameplay or narrative purposes there. Given the Norse vibes of Torland in general and Alefgard in particular, let's call this city Sollenborg. While ostensibly a subject of the Alefgardic crown, it would be an autonomous power headed by a cult worshiping the sun, with the priesthood holding local positions of authority.

Art by Noah Bradley

In a campaign set in Torland before the events of DQ3, this city could be a curiosity for the party to investigate, or a regional power given its apparent blessed nature. It would also offer another religion to add to the worldbuilding of the setting. Also, one of the easiest ways to kill vampires in a pre-sun Torland. I also find it interesting to think about how even in a magical fantasy world, there would still be perfectly natural phenomena that are misinterpreted as miracles.

I also think it's interesting to consider what might happen to Sollenborg after the events of DQ3. Surely the sun cult would lose quite a bit of its authority with the Sphere of Light providing constant sunlight. This could lead to a crisis of faith for its adherents - and perhaps the more worldly of the cult's authorities, fearful of losing power, might be jealous of what the Sphere provides and covet it for themselves. You could also probably tell an interesting side-story about how the sun cult would handle the Dragonlord's theft of the Sphere. If Alefgard was suddenly deprived of its sunlight, the cult would have something unique to offer the people, who would surely grow desperate in such a time.

Friday Encounter: Stepwell Passage

Following on from my last Friday Encounter, here's another dungeon puzzle I've used in a recent session.

This encounter is designed to be used as a dungeon room. The room is dominated by a large stepwell - a pit dug into the ground, with a series of staircases leading downward along its sides to allow groundwater to be carried up. The twelth step from the bottom is covered in gold leaf, while the rest are bare stone. The pit is lined with multiple levels of archways stacked on top of each other, allowing water to be retrieved from different points. Each archway contains a door - some are closed, and some are open to chutes leading either up or down to control the flow of water. The doors have no handle, knob, or mechanism and cannot be opened manually. Furthermore, at the very bottom of the stepwell is a door inset in a golden frame.  Also in the room, there are four pillars in a line leading toward the stepwell, each of which has a wheel set into it.

When the PCs first discover the stepwell, the water is sitting at the level of the third step from the bottom. By turning the wheels attached to the pillars, they can open certain doors on the walls and allow water to flow in or out of the pit, thus raising or lowering the water level. The objective is to raise the water level to the gilded step.

Essentially, this is a simple math puzzle - each wheel raises or lowers the water level by a certain amount of steps. The wheels must be turned completely in order to work, so you can't get a partial effect. You can't have a "negative" water level - if you were to drain more steps than are present in the stepwell, the whole stepwell drains.

You can adjust the values as needed (perhaps even using more or less than four pillars if you want), but here's what I did in my game.

• Pillar 1 (furthest from the stepwell) lowers the water level by 8 steps.
• Pillar 2 raises the water level by 5 steps.
• Pillar 3 raises the water level by 10 steps.
• Pillar 4 (closest to the stepwell) lowers the water level by 3 steps.

So, if the water level starts at Step 3 and the goal is to get it to Step 12, the puzzle can be solved by draining the stepwell by turning the wheels on Pillar 1 or 4, then using the wheel on Pillar 3 to raise it to Step 10, then Pillar 2 to raise it to Step 15, then Pillar 4 to lower it to Step 12. You get the idea.

Once the water level hits Step 12, a gong sounds, and all water flushes out of the stepwell. The gold-rimmed door at the very bottom then opens. In my campaign, this door led to the next area of the dungeon, but you could have it contain treasure or a magic item or the like.

Elements of Japanese Fantasy

I've discussed the distinct phenomenon of British fantasy gaming in the 70s and 80s - a movement that had its own tropes and conventions quite different from that across the Atlantic. In fact, that was my first brush with writing on this sort of thing when I first submitted it as a long post on the OSR subreddit that garnered plenty of discussion and made me realize I'd do well with this whole blogging thing. But there's also something to be said about the distinct flavor of the fantasy subgenre across the Pacific as well. Japanese fantasy, as seen in anime and JRPG video games but also in that country's own canon of fantasy literature (there's quite a bit there, even if most of it has never been translated into English) has its own idiosyncracies, and while we're on the subject, I figured that would be a fun tangent to explore.

What's interesting about the fantasy genre in Japan is how much of it was popularized through the medium of gaming. While The Lord of the Rings was translated in Japan and was quite popular and influential there in its own right, what really made Western fantasy take off was when Dungeons & Dragons was imported, receiving a complete facelift with new illustrations from local artists. Early works in the Japanese fantasy scene, like Record of Lodoss War, were direct novelizations of the writers' D&D campaigns. This in turn created a demand for video RPGs, which resulted in Ultima and Wizardry becoming such big hits that they spurred the creation of homegrown takes on the genre like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, and those in turn fed back into the popular Japanese consciousness to the point where RPG-like mechanics are commonly employed in fantasy storytelling even if the story isn't based on an existing RPG - what's called the literary RPG, or LitRPG genre. This can range from game mechanics being reinterpreted as in-universe phenomena (like the concept of "monsters," as I'll discuss below) to characters outright talking about leveling up in-universe with a straight face.

This isn't really something I enjoy. As I've discussed elsewhere on this blog, I prefer my game mechanics to facilitate the worldbuilding, not the other way around. Still, it's an interesting observation when it comes to the history of fantasy gaming, and it's worth noting because it makes up a pretty big part of the genre in the Japanese consciousness.

On that note, I should clarify that, despite being based on Dragon Quest, The Saga of the Ortegids is quite pointedly not a "Japanese fantasy" setting. It's based on the older entries in the series before the tropes of Japanese fantasy fully crystalized into what they are today, and specifically on the artwork used to promote the games in Western markets back in the NES era, which downplayed the series' ties to anime in favor of emphasizing its Western fantasy roots. A big part of that exercise was trying to put what we see in the games through the lens of old-school Western fantasy, and seeing what came out on the other side. However, in researching Dragon Quest and its inspirations and derivative works, it's impossible not to come across some common threads that are worth cataloguing. I'm sure it would be of use to some DMs out there.

Slayers

Not all Japanese fantasy stories and settings tick all these boxes. The world of Japanese fantasy runs the full gamut from the silly (Konosuba) to the grimdark (Berserk), and from settings that are almost indistinguishable from a typical D&D campaign (Dungeon Meshi) to settings that have evolved a constellation of unique tropes and traditions of their own (later Final Fantasy titles). However, there's definitely a few select qualities that are particular to Japanese fantasy traditions I want to enumerate.

• To get the more famous superficial differences out of the way: elves tend to have ears that point to the side rather than straight up. Due to the persistent influence of the early D&D editions, kobolds are more likely to be dog-like rather than reptilian, and orcs are more likely to be pig-faced (often, they go as far to be straight-up anthropomorphic pig people, complete with pink skin and portly physiques). Slimes and oozes are much more common, and almost always are low-level cannon fodder, thanks to Wizardry by way of Dragon Quest.

• 

  Dungeon Meshi

  A major difference I've noted is in the nature of monsters. In Western fantasy RPGs, "monsters" are usually a game mechanic - the term encompasses a number of different, largely unrelated beings, from animals to humanoids to sometimes even archetypes of humans. A "monster" is, effectively, anything with a statblock. In Japanese fantasy, however, it's quite common for "monsters" to be a category of being that exists in-universe and are recognized as such. A goblin, a slime, and a dragon are all, metaphysically, the same class of entity, and are fundamentally different than a human or a horse. It's rare for the cultures and societies of humanoid monsters like orcs and goblins to be explored, and they're usually treated more like exceptionally smart animals. For some reason, it's quite common for monsters to uniformly be edible, and for there to be thriving culinary traditions utilizing their meat.
• If monsters are treated as a monolith, then they will usually be portrayed as servants of a "Demon King," "Dark Lord," "Archfiend," or similar entity. I discuss that some here, but to recap: this is a stock character that serves as an embodiment of evil, but one that exists on the physical plane, with their own territory and minions. They behave as something of a cross between Tolkien's Sauron and a video game final boss, and were inspired by both. Monsters tend to be uniformly or predominately aligned with this figure; in some cases, they're the source of all evil in the world.

  

  Final Fantasy

• Often, the "Demon King" is contrasted with a "Hero." If the Demon King is an archetype that grew from the final bosses of video games, the Hero represents the player character. They are usually chosen by a divine power and may be imbued with special abilities, and tasked with slaying the Demon King. I've seen multiple settings where the Demon King and Hero were both positions in a cyclical cosmic struggle - every time the Demon King is slain by a Hero, there is a period of peace until a new Demon King arises, at which point a new Hero is chosen to oppose them. The Hero is usually the protagonist of the story, but it's a very popular twist to reveal that the prophecized Hero is in fact someone else - so popular that, despite being in many ways the template of this archetype, Dragon Quest has done it twice.
• Religion and deities do not often play an important part in the setting, compared to Western fantasy. There will often be a religion, and clerics will often have D&D-like healing magic, but it's rare for that religion to be defined in a worldbuilding sense. Usually, the aesthetics and structure of this religion will be heavily based on Catholicism, and it will either be monotheistic or worship a vaguely-defined pantheon of gods, but the gods will rarely be named or have their portfolios described. If the religion is important in the setting, it will almost invariably be villainous in nature - how this manifests can be anywhere from "run by corrupt clergy only concerned with worldly power" to "front for demon worship."

Tales of Symphonia

• Japanese fantasy settings tend to be humanocentric, even more so than their Western counterparts. Human polities and settlements will almost always be uniformly human. If other races exist, they will have entirely separate societies. Often times, if there are traditional fantasy races like elves and dwarves, they will largely be present as NPCs and their societies will not receive that much attention; nonhumans are more likely to be major characters if they belong to a race invented for the setting.
• Compared to Western fantasy settings, human civilizations are less likely to be based on a specific real-world culture, and are usually a generically late medieval melange. There are often multiple kingdoms, but they tend to be outwardly similar if not identical in culture. If there are exceptions, there will almost always be a culture based on feudal Japan (for obvious reasons). Ancient Egypt is another popular choice.

• 

  Konosuba

  Anachronistic technology tends to be more common than in Western fantasy settings, particularly in more animesque settings that run on the rule of cool (like Final Fantasy). This tends to manifest as steampunk technology, magically-powered technology, or both. Firearms are more likely to be present in Japanese fantasy settings than Western ones. Even in more grounded settings, there are usually anachronisms that can be attributed to the skewed perception of historical Europe as an exotic foreign culture from the perspective of Japanese writers - for instance, nobles will usually live in Baroque palaces, not medieval castles, even if the domains they govern are feudal.
• Kings and emperors are either ineffectual buffoons, corrupt tyrants, or ineffectual buffoons controlled by their corrupt tyrannical advisors. Queens are usually absent or inconsequential. Princes are spoiled snobs. Princesses are clever, kind, and often secretly yearn for lives of adventure. If lesser nobles like dukes, counts, barons, or lords show up, they are usually evil. The royal family of a kingdom will often have the name of their kingdom as a surname (seriously, once you start noticing this, you see it everywhere.)
• Magic tends to be rigidly codified, even more so than in Western fantasy settings. Owing to influence from TRPGs, video games, and martial arts anime, spells will usually have distinct names, usually of the sort spoken aloud in a dramatic fashion while casting them. Their properties are well-defined and predictable, and they may have distinct "levels" of power or difficulty to master that are known in-universe.

These are just some observations I've made through consuming this sort of media. There are almost certainly more - and if I've missed anything, feel free to leave a comment below. If you're making a fantasy setting that's inspired by anime or JRPGs, using tropes like these will help it feel more authentic, while at the same time imbuing a flavor quite distinct from Western fantasy.

Friday Encounter: Chamber of Tremors

Here's a fairly simple dungeon puzzle I used to great effect at my last session. It's based on Zhang Heng's Han Dynasty-era seismoscope, which was used to detect the direction of approaching earthquakes. Growing up, I had a book on the ancient world with a diagram of the device, which astounded me then and stuck with me well into my adulthood - so it only seemed fitting it would one day find its way into my games.

For this encounter, there should be a large central room in a dungeon dominated by a strange sculpture - a four-sided pillar, with a dragon sculpted on each side, facing each cardinal direction. Each dragon carries a pearl in its mouth, and positioned directly below it is a frog with a wide open mouth, looking up. Close inspection will reveal that the pearls in the dragons' mouths are a separate piece, but cannot easily be removed by hand. There should also be four doors on the walls, leading in each of the cardinal directions.

In each of the rooms surrounding the central room, there should be some sort of interactive element that can generate a tremor. Examples might include striking a gong, dropping iron weights from a ledge, animating a heavy statue, or getting an ogre to strike the floor with its club. I'll leave the exact details up to you, in case you have other ideas - the important part is that the ground should shake on successful completion of each room's task. If the PCs find a way to create a tremor through means other than the intended solution, such as a thunderwave or similar spell, this should also count as a successful completion of the puzzle. The physics at play here is what's important, not the finer details.

When a tremor goes off in each room, it is felt by the mechanisms in the central room. Each dragon is attached to a lever connecting to a pendulum inside the pillar. When the ground shakes, the pendulum is shifted in the direction of the vibration, causing the corresponding dragon's mouth to open and the pearl to drop into the mouth of the frog below.

If the PCs remove the pearl from the frog's mouth, they will hear a clicking noise, indicating that a pressure plate inside the frog has been relieved. The pearls contain no special attributes. If they are placed back in the dragons' mouths, the mouths close and another vibration must be produced in that direction to release the pearl again.

Once all four pearls have been dropped in the mouths of the frogs, the dragons' and frogs' eyes begin to glow blue. If the party stands by the pillar when it is in this activated state, it lifts off the ground, serving as an elevator to take them to a previously inaccessible location in the dungeon.

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 11 if the user is an elf)

16. Dwarf (as 11 if the user is a dwarf)

17. Hobbit (as 11 if the user is a hobbit)

18. Beastman (stats of an orc. If the user is a beastman, roll 1d6: 1-4, as 11; 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 11; 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!