Saturday, June 30, 2018

Working Draft -- Dragon Gods

The Elder dragon gods -  Before Tiamat and her brother Bahamut created the 10 bloodlines, dragons grew more chaotic and wilder than mortals today could imagine. Many were both the first and last of their lines, others have kin still lurking in darkened glens or forgotten mountains, colorless and feral, some cherished few attained Godhood.

(Clean this later)


Amatsuma the Eternal Storm – A great serpentine Dragon of with vivid yellow scales and the pales of white streaks across his sides. In his mortal life this great dragonlord was a talented elementalist who could wield whole storms as a weapon. He later achieved godhood and became the Eternal Storm, his mere presence spawning horrific hurricanes and massive lightning storms. His worship is found in elementalist temples and ancient draconic shrines a like. Sailors are most often those who call Amatsuma often ask for his mercy in passing through storms, a sea witch on the other hand might curse a sailor by drawing Amatsumas wrath upon them.

Myojin Dragon God of Fire and War.  - One of the first dragon gods, Myojin predates even Tiamat, it is said that all dragon fire was handed down through Myojin who swallowed a long dead dwarven fire god. Myojin is a war god among dragons, but not the petty genocides that dragons might inflict upon mortals, Myojin is a god of draconic war. To invoke Myojins name is to invoke clan rights, and it is under his watchful eye that draconic parlay occurs. For a dragon to breach draconic treaty is to invite Myojins wrath. Dragons seldom wage clan wars, but when they do every ancient rule is abided by on both sides out of fear and respect for Great Myojin


Nerio – A great lumbering beast of a dragon. It is said she was once black scaled, and payed an elvish smith handsomely to gold plait each of her scales. Statues to her honor are often solid gold and depict her with diamond studded wings. Nerio is the Goddess of Draconic wealth, and the richest dragon to have ever lived. She is the original hoarder, from whom all draconic hoarding stems, but she is also suave and cunning. It is said that she coveted the world and so became a god,  but as a god she became of aware of much greater things to covet. Few invoke her name but the desperate and the greedy, once it was said that melting a golden coin in her name could bring good fortune, but those who curry true favor give up so much more to this envious god.


Uthanlos God of Ice and Mountains, Father of Drakes -- The Great White Terror Uthanlos was always a feral dragon, throwing around his sheer size and brutality to get his way. His territory was absolute and he had no need for language or civility, he would wage war against any who dare impede on his domain. It did not take long for Uthanlos to become despised among the great elder dragons, and soon Myojin came to bring Uthanlos into line. The two raged across the mountain tops, ice and fire leveling whole mountains and creating whole glaciers. Dwarves believe this fight is what created the first volcanoes as the two dragons drove the mountains to a boiling rage. After several years myojin, victoriously tore off Uthanlos wings and cast him to the mountain side to die. But Uthanlos did not die, and though he healed his wings never regrew, and his hatred for all dragon kind drove him mad. Uthanlos is the father of drakes, and though his name is seldom worshipped, the druids sometimes whisper his name in their chants of rage, and barbarians depict the great white terror, a coiled wingless beast upon their standards.


Xetesk the Pale – Somber, black eyed Xetesk is a pale and ancient goddess of passing. Xetesk was once a great purple scaled dragon, a ruler of kingdoms, she fond herself immersed in the lives of mortals and their praises rang in her ears. But Xetesk found that none of these mortal praises lasted long, and the sorrow and loss when her favorite humans wilted before her eyes outweighed their praise. She committed ritualized suicide and became a draconic goddess of death in order to be reunited with her lost worshippers, and now she serves as a shepherd of souls. Her worshippers despise necromancy in all it's forms and strive to act as shepherds to both the living and the dead, helping the living to find their "Death Path", a phrase which here  means the path of life which leads them to the best possible death (think of it as really grim dark legacy crafting, how will people remember you?) and helping the dead to find peace with the paths they walked in life. Xeteskian priests are common funeral orators. 

Friday, June 15, 2018

How to kill a God Part 1


 This is mostly a stat workshop for a friend

As such I'm not gonna worry about the lore aspects beyond Fara is an imposter god of lightning. She was a mere titan who usurped the proper lightning god, kinda similar to Orcus. She was imprisoned for that shit and for some reason that's not working out so now the heroes are on their way to kill a would be god.

I feel like I learned a lot from trying to run a God Slaying Encounter of my own about a year ago, in which I did something pretty right but a lot of things really wrong. In the end though, my players felt like they had fought and vanquished a god, and that's what I was aiming for.

Okay hold up. Let's talk about killing a god.

How to Kill a God

Firstly you'll need weapons worthy of such a feat. Deities are immune to most mortal weapons and recovering the weapon or the material that can actually harm them should be a not insignificant aspect of the quest to kill a god. Spells certainly won't impact a Deity and as such she'll simply ignore spells below a certain level. Lastly, while a Gods physical form could die, unless you follow them to the Astral Sea or bind them in the material, it's usually impossible to actually slay the god with physical means.

D6 ways to kill a god -- 
  1.  The Mud God draws his power from the earth and can only take damage if they are separated from the ground. (Grappling a mudgod is hard but possible, Gravity reversal would also work, etc) 
  2. Ooblek the Ooze God can rearrange his organs at will, regenerating and restitching himself from even the smallest scrap. If Ooblek has less than 100HP at the start of the round he instead has 100HP. (Simple DPS check, stasis and time magic, haste, and action surge could all seal his demise, this information should be known before the fight) 
  3. The Huntress Arduin can only be killed by an arrow which has been ritually prepared in the blood of a Stag in heat. (This should happen on screen. Make them track the stag, have it flee, let her divinely intervene in vague ways) 
  4. The War God Achilates has never been bested in combat, but prophecy says his death will be at the hands of a trickster. (The final blow must be a sneak attack, this might not be obvious to the players from their initial investigations but if they look into what the prophecies means they should be made aware of this caveat) 
  5. Apollon the Sun God is protected by his sister Navara the moon. If he is slain, or endangered, she will heal him. The only way to kill him is during the new moon, however, he is at his strongest during the day. (This one has a lot of nuance, make the decision to fight at night under the new moon impactful, Apollon knows he can only be killed during this time and will try to flee into the darkness and let his followers hold you off rather than fight) 
  6. Hekate the Goddess of Magic has no true physical form and can only be killed by the legendary mage slaying sword Weave Reaver, which is attuned to the weave of magic and cuts spells and flesh alike. She is also immune to magic and magic weapons (Resistance to normal weapons, immunity to magic ones and she can only be dropped below 1HP by Weave Reaver, a sentient sword which can only be attuned to by a non-caster who has killed at least 10 mages with it) 

I like some of those, I don't like others, but it's 3AM so fight me.

The key here is that the actual mechanics of D&D combat are mostly what I would call "Solved Problems" There is a Most Effective Tactic to utilize a characters stat block, and most players know what that tactic is by their 3rd or 4th level as that character. Attempting to add wrinkles to this combat in the form of hazards traps and encounter diversity is great but a Deity should go beyond that. A barbarian could swing at the Mud Gods 14 AC forever, but he has no HP bar as long as he is connected to the Earth. Meanwhile Apollon knows about the narrow window to kill him and will try to flee into the darkness when challenged.

You should probably not fight the Mud God
None of these have explicit solutions grounded in the sheet there is no built in answer in a classes kit. (Except for Achilates but again, fight me) Suddenly your players are making decisions, and choices that aren't grounded in "What does my class do?" or "What is my best standard DPS option?" instead you'll have Barbarians trying to wrestle the Mud God off the ground (dificult and he will try to escape the grapple every round) or else find creative ways to push him off a cliff etc. The mage might haste the fighter so he can keep up with the Fleeing Apollon, but can the fighter and the monk 2v1 a God long enough for the main party to catch up? Or is it better to haste the ranger so that he can better track the fleeing God?