D&D

Tondropolis: the D&D connection

D&D was my first roleplaying game. I left it for Champions and, in the process, skipped 2nd edition D&D entirely. When the 3rd edition came out I decided to run home to momma, and I've really enjoyed the game.

This page serves two purposes: it is a resource for the players trapped in my own Eberron campaign, Dragoneye Investigations. It also serves as a place for me to spotlight some of my own experiences as a player.

Eberron: Since the new Eberron setting came out I have been running a campaign set in that world. Prestige classes, feats, house rules, campaign logs, adversaries, etc.
Raistlin Majere: I've been playing in Kevin Eustice's Dragonlance campaign for about two years now. Here's my version of Raistlin, my PC.
Adventures in the Markyverse: Some of my favorite characters found life online in games run by my good friend Mark.

Eberron

I started a weekly D&D 3.5 campaign set in the new world of Eberron in late July, 2004. I'll be using this space to keep a brief log of the game's events as well as reviews of Eberron products and other notes on the campaign setting.

Dragoneye Investigations
Sharn Resources

Character Index
City Neighborhoods

Supporting Cast
Review: the Eberron Campaign Setting
The Story Thus Far

The Case of the Forgotten Forge, part I
The Case of the Forgotten Forge, part II
Shadows of the Last War, part I
Shadows of the Last War, part II
Shadows of the Last War, part III
Shadows of the Last War, part IV
Interlude: Monkey Mayhem
Winter Wonderland, part I
Arcane Express
Mister Boddy

House Rules: Prices, firing into cover, the Dungeon Flu, and a lot more.

Paragon Racial Classes: Changes to the Elf and Orc, new classes for the Changeling, Kalashtar, Shifter and Warforged.
Feats: Wildhunt Elite.
Prestige Classes: Bembridge Scholar.

Amanda d'Nama: My own character in Daniel Ray's Eberron campaign.

Dragoneye Investigations

Ordinarily I like to think of the PC's as "a company of adventurers," mostly because "a fellowship" is taken. But Eberron demanded a new framework for this sort of thing and I've decided that, considering the setting's pulp flavor and its emphasis on detective fiction, that groups of adventurers set themselves up not as companies but as agencies.

The players didn't know anything about this for a long time, but when they left for their adventure in northern Aundair a goblin NPC they met in their first adventure made himself their self-appointed publicist. Skakan called the players, "Dragoneye Investigations" and started lining up cases for them, embellishing their reputation when necessary. When they failed to quickly return, however, Skakan was forced to get some of the investigation done himself, so he hired his goblin friends from the sewer gangs, who would work for copper pieces, and got them to do the easy stuff: checking up on cheating husbands, missing person cases, that sort of thing. Posters around the city advertised the agency and Skakan talked a good game, so that by the time the players returned from Aundair they were already marginally famous. They could have shut the whole agency down, and still might, but so far they seem to be going along for the ride with varied levels of protest.

	Setep (LN male human necromancer 6) A human wizard whose family raised him on the Elven island of Aerenal. Setep expected to be permitted to participate in the religion of the Undying Court but as he grew he realized that this was not an option for non-elves. Distrustful of elves and determined to probe the secrets of undeath, Setep became a member of the Blood of Vol cult and a necromancer. Setep has the best Diplomacy skill in the agency and does a lot of the talking; he also spends a lot of time hiding from battle or suggesting the others let the city watch handle problems. Setep is usually acccompanied by Horus, his ever-loyal skeletal minion.
	Aurora d'Phiarlan (NG female elf rogue 6) An elf of House Phiarlan, Aurora is employed as a librarian at Morgrave University. Loosely modeled on the character of Evey from The Mummy and its sequel The Mummy Returns, Aurora is a rogue with high Intelligence and "every Knowledge skill." She's not been very effective in combat, but when the agency encounters a puzzle, trap or riddle, chances are it is Aurora who figures the problem out. Alas, her applications to the Bembridge Scholars have continuously been rejected.
	Drum (male halfling cleric 6) The cleric for the agency is a halfling devoted to Olladra. Drum is a bit of a loose cannon, whimsical but devoted to protecting his allies. When the heroes got a big payoff at the end of the Case of the Forgotten Forge, Drum used his money to buy a clawfoot riding dinosaur, which he is currently trying to teach to grapple opponents. His healing gifts are particularly strong, he is a potent turner of undead, and his spells give him the ability to speak with and calm animals. At the moment, Drum is in the Talenta Plains helping out with a family emergency.
	Lagnus Soldorak (LN male dwarf fighter 6) A dwarf fighter who failed to protect a family heirloom and has been exiled as a result. Lagnus is branded on the back of his hands with the dwarvish word for "outcast"; he's a doughty warrior, however, wielding a dwarven war axe in one hand, using an extreme shield, and wearing heavy armor. Lagnus tends to have his eye on monetary reward, which has proven useful to the agency more than once. He specializes in the Bull Rush, and in fighting opponents of Large size.
	Kala (CG male shifter barbarian 1/fighter 1/ranger 3) A shifter barbarian/ranger associated with the Gatekeepers, Kala was sent to Darguun looking for Garet. When that individual was recalled to the Reaches for a mission of great secrecy, he asked Kala to take his place in the agency, helping them in their current quest. Kala is a Wild Hunt shifter possessed of great strength and ferocity but a limited vocabulary. He wields a spiked chain, a flail, or any one of a number of other weapons, and is making himself a valuable contribution to the group. He's angling for the Weretouched Master prestige class and was instrumental in the agency's defeat of a young adult white dragon in northern Aundair, where he had a brief romance with Meena ir'Idalis, a member of the Royal Eyes.
	Varel (male elf bard 6) An elf of Valenar, Varel first learned of the agency when he purchased a Valenar heirloom which the players had sold for plunder. Traveling north with Delbourne, he found the heroes in time to help fight a dragon, then returned with them to Sharn. He's currently trying to get enough money for an original Clebdecher, and if you don't know what that is, you don't deserve to wear one.
	Delbourne d'Tharashk (LG male human paladin 5) Delbourne is a human from the Shadow Marches and he answers the call of the Silver Flame. A man of moderation, he does not fit the religious fanatic mold often seen in that faith. With his heavy flail and plate armor he has proven himself a stalwart warrior. As a member of House Tharashk who has manifested a dragonmark, he is helping Lagnus to find a stolen heirloom of the Soldarak family, last seen in the possession of a mind flayer.
	Robyn (female personality warforged fighter 5) Robyn claimed to be the last warforged to come off the assembly line in Cyre before the explosion that turned it into the Mournland. While other warforged also make this claim (notably the Lord of Blades), Robyn proved her point with the fact that she was missing several important pieces: one eye and a few parts of her construct brain. The Lord of Blades may be the last complete warforged to come off the line, but Robyn was still on the line, and not yet finished, when it was shut down. Robyn had Int 4 as a result of her missing piece, but she was an effective combatant nonetheless, using an ogre-sized greatsword to complement her adamantine body. Robyn perished while the agency was exploring a secret House Vidalis breeding facility in northern Aundair. She was caught alone by a hellcat and its bearded devil servitor. Her remains were buried at the site.
	Teran (male human artificer 4) A human artificer, Teran joined the company halfway through the Case of the Forgotten Forge when he was rescued from the clutches of some dolgrim. Teran is a clever and an aspiring investigator; combined with his artificer skills his player describes him as "the D&D equivalent of CSI." In combat he wields a mace and a light crossbow, but the most interesting thing about him so far has been seeing how the new artificer class works out. Since he is the only person who can repair Robyn, the two have become fast friends. While investigating the same House Vidalis research facility where Robyn died, Teran was caught by a wendigo and driven mad. He was eventually cured, but he decided adventuring was a bit too dangerous for him and he settled down to a life of quiet artificing in Fairhaven.
	Garet (male ranger 3) A human ranger of House Vidalis, a native of the Eldeen Reaches and a member of the Gatekeeper sect, Garet lent his considerable archery skills to the agency until he was recalled to the Reaches for a mysterious mission. Kala was his replacement in the agency.

Back to Eberron

Sharn Resources

Sharn, City of Towers was published in December of 2004 by Wizards of the Coast. It is a good book, with a lot of plot material for any DM using Eberron. The city is discussed in nice detail, with plenty of unique locations for the players to visit. The city is full of NPCs, so that when heroes show up looking for, for example, a cleric who can cast raise dead, the DM knows who they need to see.

But the book is not perfect. There are two hundred and fifty people mentioned by name in Sharn, City of Towers and there is no index. If the players are looking for a wizard, the DM has to know not only who the wizards are but where they live, because that is where the character will be discussed. The city is huge, with over 90 distinct neighborhoods. Needless to say, in play this gives rise to a lot of page flipping. Alternately, the DM can just adlib it, but if he's going to do that then why did he buy this $35 book anyway?

So I have two resources compiled for Sharn so far. The first is an index to the characters mentioned in the book. It's meant for DMs rather than players, as it includes character level, class, alignment, and affiliation (such as "Cults of the Dragon Below" or "Emerald Claw"). It's a Word file, for easy searching.

Sharn Characters

The second item I have here is a list of the neighborhoods of Sharn, with location, a one or two word description, and page reference. It's a .pdf good for players and DM's alike.

Sharn Neighborhoods

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Supporting Cast

	Amavakti, Telepath in Need First encountered off stage when her agent Blake intentionally lost a poker game to Garet, Amavakti sought to enlist the aid of the agency to stop the kruthik menace. When the player characters returned to Sharn she revealed herself. When she learned that Tasra and Lalia were Quori, she panicked and wanted to flee the city. Instead, the heroes asked Skakan to arrange for a hiding place for her. This sophisticated and beautiful woman is currently hiding in a goblin sewer beneath Sharn.
	Dara d'Deneith, Tough Broad The leader of a squad of Sentinel Marshalls, Dara was first assigned to guard the body of Kyle d'Ferris as it was brought to Sharn. Now that Kyle is awake and planning an attack on the Cults of the Dragon Below in Sharn, Dara and her men are under his command. Dara has proven herself a reasonable woman, loyal to her friends and to her duty as a Marshall. She is willing to fight, but smart enough to know when she is out of her league.
	Dara d’Deneith (female human paladin 3): Medium-size humanoid (human); HD 3d10+3; 24 hp; Init +1; Spd 20 ft in full plate; AC 21 (+8 armor, +2 shield, +1 Dex), touch 11, flat-footed 20; BAB +3; Grap +5; Atk +7 melee (1d8+2/19-20 masterwork longsword), +4 ranged (1d8+2/x3 composite longbow); SA smite evil; SQ aura of courage, detect evil, divine health, lay on hands; AL LG; SV Fort +6, Ref +3, Will +4; Str 15, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 14. Skills & Feats: Diplomacy +8, Heal +7, Sense Motive +7; Least Dragonmark (protection from arrows 1/day), Improved Smiting, Weapon Focus (longsword). Aura of Courage: Dara is immune to fear; those within 10 feet of her gain +4 on saves against fear. Divine Health: Dara is immune to all disease. Lay on Hands: Dara can cure 6 hp of damage a day. Smite Evil: Dara can smite evil once a day. Her smite attack is treated as good for overcoming damage reduction, she gains a +2 on her attack roll, and +1d6+3 to the damage. Possessions: Masterwork longsword, masterwork full plate, masterwork heavy wooden shield, composite longbow and 20 arrows, potion of cure moderate wounds, 177 gp.
	Lady Elaydren d'Cannith, Wealthy Patron Lady Elaydren was the first patron for the people who would come to be known as Dragoneye Investigations. It was she who hired them to retrieve a fragment of a lost House Cannith blueprint hidden in the undercity of Sharn (The Case of the Forgotten Forge). For this, she rewarded them handomely, but when they next saw her she was being pursued by agents of the Lord of Blades, who also wanted the blueprint (Shadows of the Last War). She fled the city while the heroes retrieved the second piece of the blueprint from a House Cannith research facility inside the Mournland. She reunited with them in Darguun where, having eluded her pursuers, she acted as Cannith ambassador to the Lhesh Haruuc (Monkey Madness) and returned with the heroes to Sharn, traveling in style. Elaydren enjoys a life of luxury as an heir of House Cannith. To her friends, she is generous, loyal, and admiring. She has some magical talent and is something of a social chameleon, able to act the part of a poor refugee, a pampered aristocrat, or a warrior princess as the occasion demands.
	Lady Elaydren d’Cannith (female human aristocrat 2/sorcerer 3): CR 4; Medium humanoid; HD 2d8 plus 3d4; 20 hp; Init +5; Spd 30 ft; AC 12 (16 with mage armor), touch 12, flat-footed 11; BAB +2; Grp +1; Atk +1 melee (1d4-1/19-20 masterwork dagger), +3 ranged (1d4-1/19-20 masterwork dagger); SA spells; SQ familiar; AL N; SV Fort +1, Ref +2, Will +7; Str 8, Dex 13, Con 10, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 16. Skills & Feats: Bluff +10, Concentration +5, Diplomacy +10 (+12 with outfit), Gather Information +8, Intimidate +8, Knowledge (arcana) +5, Knowledge (nobility & royalty) +7, Sense Motive +8, Spellcraft +5; Least Dragonmark (make whole 1/day), Improved Initiative, Negotiator. Languages: Common, Giant, Gnome. Sorcerer Spells Known (cast 6/6 per day): 0—acid splash, detect magic, detect poison, mending, prestidigitation; 1—charm person (DC 14), lesser electric orb, mage armor. Possessions: ring of protection +1, scrolls of invisibility, expeditious retreat, shield, protection from evil, arcane lock and bear's endurance, feather fall token, House Cannith arcane signet ring, potion of cure moderate wounds, Clebdecher courtier’s outfit, masterwork dagger, jewelry worth 150 gp, belt pouch (20 gp, 28 pp, two sets of identification papers, one false).
	Brother Garrow A leader in the organization of the Emerald Claw, the agency encountered Brother Garrow when they investigated a devastated town on the edge of Cyre. Garrow and his minions were searching for the second piece to a House Cannith construction pattern, but when he realized the players were looking for the same thing he let them go and followed them with the help of a pet undead vulture. After the heroes entered the Mournland and recovered the schema in a Cannith research facility, Garrow showed up with his necromancer allies, a band of skeletons, and about a dozen Emerald Claw soldiers. He demanded the schema or he would kill the player characters. They, knowing they had a duplicate of the schema and the more important larger pattern into which the schema fit, gave him one of the copies. He left, but not before ordering his men to kill the heroes anyway. He hasn't been seen since. Garrow is a spellcaster and possibly a vampire; the jury is still out on this one.
	Iyanna ir'Talan, Diligent Watch Commander Iyanna is the commander of the watch in Middle Tavick's Landing where Dragoneye's office is located. As such, she has fairly regular contact with the player characters. While most of the city watch in Sharn is notoriously corrupt, Iyanna is known for her dedication to duty and hard work. Her father is the Lord Commander of the City Watch.
	Karolus, Loyal Sentinel One of the Sentinel Marshals who accompanied Kyle d'Ferris from Karrnath, Karolus is Dara's right hand man. While not terribly creative in his thinking, he is a stalwart ally (LG human male paladin 2).
	Kyle d'Ferris, Sentinel With A Mission Kyle was first met at the court of the Lhesh Haruuc in Darguun, where he was representing House Deneith while pursuing a criminal across royal borders. A seasoned and well-respected Sentinel, Kyle has a reputation for judging people based on their actions rather than their stereotype (which explains his success in the hobgoblin court). While there are many social issues that can get in a paladin's way, Kyle prefers to let others worry about them while he is out tracking down criminals. On a solo mission into the depths of Khyber, Kylewas captured and made victim to a powerful curse before help arrived. Although rescued, he could not be awoken from an enchanted sleep. House Deneith performed divinations and learned that, if he could be awoken, Ferris had vital knowledge regarding the Cults of the Dragon Below. Eventually, the agency managed to get Lan Hazal to break the curse. Kyle is now preparing for a battle with the Cult below Sharn.
	Kyle d’Ferris, Sentinel Marshall and Deneith Ambassador (male human paladin 6): HD 6d10+12; 45 hp; Init +0; Spd 20 ft (heavy armor); AC 20 (touch 10, flat-footed 20); BAB +6; Grp +9; Atk +11 melee (1d8+4/19-20 +1 longsword), +6 ranged; Full Atk +11/+6 melee (1d8+4/19-20 +1 longsword); SA smite evil 2/day, turn undead; SQ aura of courage, detect evil, divine health, lay on hands, remove disease, special mount; AL LG; SV Fort +9, Ref +4, Will +5; Str 16, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 11, Wis 13, Cha 14. Skills & Feats: Diplomacy +8, Heal +5, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +5, Knowledge (nobility & royalty) +5, Ride +5, Sense Motive +5, Survival +1 (+3 underground); Cleave, Divine Might, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (heavy blades). Aura of Courage: Kyle is immune to fear; any ally within 10 feet of him has a +4 morale bonus on saves against fear. Detect Evil: Kyle can detect evil at will. Divine Health: Kyle is immune to disease, including magical disease. Lay on Hands: Kyle can heal up to 12 hit points a day by touch. Smite Evil: Kyle can smite evil twice a day for an additional +2 on the attack roll and +6 damage. Turn Undead: Kyle can turn undead 5 times a day as a 3rd level cleric. Special Mount: Kyle’s special mount is a heavy warhorse named Archer. Kyle and Archer have an empathic link and they share spells and saving throws. Archer has evasion, Int 6, +1 to Strength, +4 to natural armor and +2 Hit Dice. Equipment: Masterwork full plate, masterwork heavy steel shield, +1 longsword, 2 potions of cure moderate wounds, letter of marque, identification papers, traveling papers.
	Tasra and Lalia d'Deneith, Deadly Dream Girls Sentinel Marshalls in Sharn, Tasra and Lalia are twin sisters of House Deneith. Tasra is an expert in city investigation, while Lalia is a master of the wilderness. Both excel in hunting down their quarry, and they are seldom out of each other's company. What few know is that Tasra and Lalia are both hosts for Quori spirits native to the Realm of Dreams. The Quori are hunting the kalashtar people, and these two have their sights set on Amavakti.
	Lan Hazal, Priest of the Blood Most people know Hazal as a prosperous Karrnathi merchant in the Graywall district. He is also leader of the Blood of Vol cult in Sharn. A spellcaster of impressive power (adept 12), Hazal willingly broke the curse on Kyle d'Ferris as a personal favor to Setep.
	Mandyran, Retiree and Hotel Owner Mandyran (male human bard 3/expert 3) used to be an adventurer, but retired after the Last War to set up the Golden Horn, a high-class hotel in Upper Menthis. Now he acts as the city's representative of the Circle of Song, Khorvaire's unofficial bard support network.
	Quietus, Killing You Softly A bard native to Sharn, Quietus was always a loner but recently he broke the Circle of Song's rule against killing other bards. This has led to his expulsion from the Circle. Soon after, Quietus tried to kill the sleeping Kyle, before the curse could be broken. He was thwarted by the agency, but escaped thanks to his magic. Quietus is a bard who casts magic through poetic verses. He uses magical disguises and defenses to protect himself, always wearing a featureless black hood of odd leather.
	Scimitar Scimitar (female personality warforged fighter 6) is an agent of the Lord of Blades and she led an attack on the players when they were aboard the lightning rail heading over the Blackpeaks. Her eight warforged minions were killed but she was last seen diving off the train into a lake.
	Skakan, Executive Administrative Assistant Skakan was met in the agency's first adventure, the Case of the Forgotten Forge, when he sold them some information. Believing that this group of adventurers was his ticket out of the sewers, he set himself up as their manager and began booking clients for them even while they were out of town. When he ran out of previous cases to brag about, he made some up. When a case looked easy, he hired his goblin friends to handle it. He printed up advertisements for Dragoneye Investigations and pasted them all over the city. When the heroes returned from Aundair, he revealed what he had done and was very glad he was not killed. Skakan lives in the Dragoneye offices in Middle Tavick's Landing. Since moving up, he wears gray suits and little glasses on his nose.
	Skakan (male goblin expert 5): CR 3; Small humanoid; HD 5d6; 17 hp; Init +3; Spd 30 ft; AC 14 (+3 dex, +1 size); BAB +3; Grap –3; Atk +4 melee, +6 ranged; SQ darkvision 60 ft; AL N; SV Fort +1, Ref +4, Will +7; Str 6, Dex 16, Con 10, Int 13, Wis 12, Cha 14. Skills & Feats: Appraise +8, Bluff +10, Diplomacy +12, Disguise +1 (+3 to act in character), Gather Information +10, Hide +7, Intimidate +3, Knowledge (local) +7, Listen +7, Move Silently +7, Sense Motive +7, Sleight of Hand +5, Spot +7; Alertness, Iron Will. Languages: Common, Goblin, Gnoll. Possessions: Dagger, suit, a few copper pieces. All of Skakan's personal wealth is invested in the Dragoneye offices.
	Tyasha d'Phiarlan, Living Legend One of the greatest bards in Khorvaire, Tyasha d'Phiarlan is about 600 years old and has been courted by three kings, including the last king of Galifar. An actress without peer, she performs rarely and only in the most exclusive venues, rehearsing in her home with her private troupe and then traveling in secret to and from the performances. Rumors abound, including one theory that she is a vampire, another than she is a changeling, and a third that she is an elaborate Phiarlan fiction meant to enable the house to spy on royal patrons. Despite her legendary secrecy, Varel and Aurora snuck into her tower in Upper Menthis in an attempt to secure aid for Kyle d'Ferris, who was cursed. While she declined to get involved, she seemed otherwise friendly to the heroes (if distant).

Review: Eberron Campaign Setting

I was one of the 10,999 losers in the great Wizards contest that spawned Eberron, so I could be excused for a little bitterness. After all, if I had an entire building full of designers to throw at my concept, along with a year of work and millions of dollars, I bet it would have been pretty good too. But I didn't, and we have Eberron instead. And it's pretty cool. So before I go into a long review, I'll give you the Top Ten things about Eberron.

10. Psionics are integrated. I don't use them a lot, but it's nice to see the option there for people who like them.
9. Artificers, the new PC class. I've played one and seen someone else play one, and they are different than any other PC.
8. Mixed up races. In Eberron, orcs and yuan-ti the good guys, Drow are barbarians that live in abandoned ruins, and rakshasa are a big threat.
7. Each of the canon races has been altered a little to make it interesting: necromantic elves, dinosaur-riding halflings, superspy gnomes, etc.
6. An emphasis on travel means that players visit new lands every session, instead of staying at one dungeon locale for a month.
5. Fewer high-level NPCs. Players cannot assume they can call on the King's 15th level court wizard to come help them. They're on their own.
4. There is no proof the gods exist. Hey, having faith in your god suddenly means something again!
3, Intrigue. The 12 Dragonmarked houses in particular make for great plot hooks.
2. Fuzzy alignment. The players will often have to cooperate with evil characters to accomplish their goal.
1. Pulp setting. While cleverly disguised, Eberron is basically 1930s D&D.

Eberron is a fantasy patina laid over a pulp-era adventure game. Listen to this, and see if it sounds familiar: the world has just emerged from a terrible War to End All Wars, which no one believes will really do that. As the governments prepare for the next war, there is political scheming and spying going on all over. Veterans of the war roam the streets and the cities; they don't know what to do with themselves and the common folk resent them as reminders of the dark times and as potential troublemakers. Characters take zeppelins and locomotives to exotic locales and Dark Continents where they plunder ancient civilizations and struggle to keep back Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Once the DM realizes that Sharn is basically the Eberron version of 1930s New York City (there are a million stories in this city of secrets ...) the whole thing starts to make a lot more sense.

For me, this makes Eberron a lot of fun to run. I think many GMs (of any game) will agree that it is often hard to keep one's NPCs and plots feeling fresh. We have stock characters that we fall back on when forced to improvise, and our long-term players can recognize these stock characters. But in Eberron I have a whole new set to draw from. I can use NPCs like the garrulous taxi driver, the officious hotel manager, the femme fatale, the plucky reporter and so on, all of them straight out of pulp novels, and it feels different than my usual supporting cast. The same goes for scenery and backdrop: I could not wait to run my first Eberron adventure on a moving train. I can use magnificent hotels, newspaper offices and casinos, and even when a place might already exist in a regular fantasy game (like, say, a library or a manor) it looks and feels so much different in Eberron that it makes it all fresh again.

As one of my players pointed out, "In Forgotten Realms, you can't spit on a street corner without hitting a 12th level wizard." The designers of Eberron have intentionally gone away from that mentality. Some people will not like this; if nothing else it invalidates a lot of rules for population centers in the DMG. The high level NPCs that you expect in a D&D world simply are not there in Eberron; not a single epic character has been revealed to live in this world. This should probably affect the rules for magic item pricing, since items with high caster levels should be much rarer, but I think this is something that has been intentionally left alone. The upshot of all this is that the players have to rely on themselves more: chances are that the party cleric is the only guy around with raise dead, which means that until the party reaches 9th level, the chances of raising anyone are very slim. This directly contradicts the regular D&D setting, where there is a cure for every condition if the players can only get enough money together. In Eberron, I don't care how much money you have, sometimes you may just be stuck.

The afterlife is much different in Eberron. For characters in the Realms, and even Grayhawk, dying is a promotion. After all, you go off to the heaven of your choice, where you become a follower of your chosen god. If your god is a warrior deity, you can fight the good fight for all eternity. Heck, you may even become a powerful outsider! But the afterlife in Eberron is more like the Hades of Greek myth: a dull, boring place of shades where nothing interesting ever happens. If the gods exist in Eberron, there is no proof of it. They don't walk the earth, they don't take their followers to heaven (or at least haven't yet) and they don't speak to anyone reliable. What does this mean for you: it means if you want to be a hero, you need to be a hero now, in this world. Seize the day, man. Seize the day.

As a byproduct of this (or perhaps the other way around), the gods are much more remote in Eberron. Clerics do not have to be the same (or nearly the same) alignment as their deity. A fallen cleric of a good god can have an evil alignment and still cast spells. That opens up possibilities for player characters and for DMs as well, and its hard to argue with that. Frankly, the gods may not exist. A cleric can get spells without worshipping any god at all! Faith actually exists in Eberron. In the Realms, clerics just fight over whose god is better. In Eberron, as in our world, clerics fight over their god's right to exist.

Plusses:

Interesting Look: The art direction in Eberron is making a welcome shift away from the bondage catalog style that has plagued D&D since 3.0. (And I am not accusing Wizards of this without grounds; Wizards artists have told me point blank that they were told to render characters like something from an S&M club.) The look for Eberron is stylish and exciting and it does seem to capture the pulp feel found throughout the setting. A guy wearing a bomber jacket, with a whip at his side and a holster for his wand, would fit right in here. My only request: more jodhpurs.

Wide Open: One of the problems with Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms is that it is pretty crowded. It is pretty hard to find a part of that setting that doesn't have a novel written about it, not to mention various game supplements of one edition or another. It's crowded, and all that action distracts from the players. It also makes it harder for the DM to make the players center stage. Eberron is a largely open canvas; if I want to set my next adventure in the Whisper Woods, I can rest assured that I know pretty much everything there is to know about it and that the players are going to be the first ones to go there.

Minuses:

Pronounciation: Eberron has a slew of words which are ambigiously pronounced. Let's start with Eberron itself. Is it "eh-BEAR-on" or "EBB-er-on"? ", "vi-DAL-is" or "VI-da-lis", "den-EETH" or "den-EE-ith", and so on. I don't normally need a pronounciation guide with my settings, but something about the naming conventions in Eberron really make me trip. I would have appreciated a half-column box giving me the basics of these common names.

Errata: It really gets me when a book we have waited a year for has really obvious errors, like sample characters who do not qualify for the prestige class they are a sample of, or references to magic items that are nowhere discussed.

The Big Map: There are many small maps in Eberron, and one continent map, but that one has none of the political borders, city locations, adventure sites, rail routes, and so on that are found on the smaller maps. Come on, guys. I need one map that I can point everyone to. This came out at last on the Wizards website, but not including it in the book was a simple screw-up.

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The Story Thus Far

The Case of the Forgotten Forge

A half dozen residents of Sharn, the City of Towers, were meeting for a drink after work at a tavern when they caught sight of a mysterious figure moving through the rain, fleeing the scene of a corpse. As they investigated, they were attacked by the killer, a warforged who seemed particularly outraged at the presence of Robyn among so many humans and humanoids. The murderer was dispatched but a strange flying device left her person immediately after, and the heroes were left with a journal which they lifted from the dead body of a man Aurora now recognized as a professor at Margrave University. The city watch arrived and, though there was initial suspicion, Set-ep managed to convince the soldiers that the warforge was the culprit and they were just helpful citizens.

As they retired to a tavern to discuss these events and to examine the journal, the heroes were approached by a shady man who suggested that, if they wanted to know the truth behind the journal, the motley crew would be at the Broken Anvil tavern at dawn. The man then withdrew. The journal, though marked with a mystic sigil on the outside, was blank within.

The next morning the adventurers met with Lady Elaydrin, a lovely aristocrat and a member of House Cannith. She informed them that she had meant to meet with the dead professor but that he had been assassinated first; the man had located a long-forgotten foundy deep in the heart of Sharn where a lost schema - a piece of a blueprint for magical items of some unknown sort - was thought to be located. She offered the heroes 1,000 gold coins to follow the directions hidden in the journal and retieve the schema, avoiding the Lord of Blades and anyone else who might be after the thing. For their part, the players were very suspicious of Lady Elaydren and doubted that she was, in fact, who she said she was. Nevertheless, they eventually agreed to take her money and pursue this matter at least a little farther. Using her signet ring, Elaydren unlocked the invisible pages of the journal and gave them the next step on their journey: a deep sub-level of one of Sharn's towers. She paid them 100 gold coins up front but kept the rest back until the schema was delivered.

Following the directions they had been given, and keeping the journal with them, the would-be adventurers descended deep below Sharn's sewer system to a layer of tunnels long abandoned by the city's human population. There they found Rat's Market, a flea market and bazaar managed by one Skakan, an excitable goblin of uncertain loyalties. Once Aurora bought a sunrod out of the market-master's stash of dubious valuables and Set-ep applied the kilowatt smile, however, the goblin more or less came around and agreed to lead the heroes where they wanted to go for a mere eight gold pieces. The players repeatedly asked Skakan how he knew the maze of tunnels so well, but like a good stage magician, he refused to reveal his secrets, insisting only "Skakan knows! Skakan knows!"

As he soon proved when, after a short descent further into the tunnels, Skakan pointed the heroes to a valve complex beyond which he would not travel. Aurora put in a little reconnaissance and thought the coast was clear, but the heroes had hardly entered the place before another warforged -- this time with a pair of shifter mercenaries -- ambushed them. This battle was fierce, with Garet forced to hold off both shifters at once and Drum risking death to heal the mortally injured Set-ep. But the necromancer recovered from the crossbow bolt in his chest and a well-placed sleep spell evened the odds for Garet. When the enemy warforge was defeated, again a small flying device lept from his back and flew down the sewer tunnel; ostensibly to report to the Lord of Blades, or at least his agent in the area.

The heroes were tired and some near death, but the door they were seeking was just around the corner and by touching the mystic sigil writ upon it with the matching sigil from the journal Aurora was able to open the way. Finding a safe place within to camp, the players decided to re-seal the door and rest, safe from attack.

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The Case of the Forgotten Forge, Part II

In the night, however, disaster struck. The heroes had been accompanied by a novice summoner who stood guard that night along with Robyn. But Robyn was somehow incapacitated by surprise and by the time she awoke the summoner was gone. Robyn woke the rest of her friends and a search of the area was rapidly conducted, after which Garet concluded the kidnappers must have numbered about four individuals; they had rendered Robyn and the summoner unconscious and then taken their human prey, leaving the rest of the adventurers be.

Under Set-ep's urging the rescue effort began at once, leading deep into uncharted sections of the tunnel complex. The path eventually led to a small chamber where a trio of repulsive four-armed creatures were seen conversing. More important, the heroes spotted a dwarven warrior also observing the creatures from another doorway. In a flash, the heroes lept into action, with Garet and Aurora both slaying one of the creatures with bowfire as the third retreated behind a sturdy door. Briefly slowed, the explorers met the dwarf, whose story was much like theirs: he had been employed as a guard by a merchant with more money than smarts, a man intent on searching the bowels of Sharn for lost magical lore. When the merchant's explorations came to nought, Lagnus (for so the dwarf was called) had insisted on returning to the surface but his employer, rather than obey, fled his own guard for deeper tunnels whereupon he was promptly kidnapped. Lagnus was in pursuit, and had followed the culprits to the same room that the others had. For now, at least, the band appeared to have a common enemy.

None of the heroes had experience battling dolgrim, but they knew the things by reputation and Garet, a member of the Gatekeeper sect, was determined to hunt them all down. Aurora managed to get the door open and the adventurers discovered a lone dolgrim standing guard over a heavy door; while Lagnus and Robyn saw to him the others found a kitchen where a dolgrim crossbowman was busy preparing dinner Ð a writhing bundle still tied up in a sack. Garet and Aurora took care of this one, only to find that the creature in the bag was none other than Skakan, who had been caught by the dolgrim on his way back from leading the player characters to the sewer system.

Behind the heavily guarded door they found a few captives, including their friend the summoner and Teran, a human artificer. When Teran was able to repair the many injuries Robyn had suffered in the battles thus far he was instantly accepted into the group, but by now the heroes rightfully suspected their presence in this dolgrim lair had been detected. Teran reported that the gang of dolgrim was led by a priest of some sort, a spellcaster, and they delved further into the sewer complex on high alert.

The dolgrim adept had prepared as best he could for their arrival, conjuring a fiendish giant centipede and retreating down a narrow corridor that forced the players to come after him one at a time. His fiendish bat familiar proved more of a nuisance than anything else and the centipede was quickly dispatched; the priest's own sleep and cause fear were more useful. But in the end sheer numbers overwhelmed the dolgrim and he was slain; in his chambers the adventurers found plunder from other hapless travelers, including a magical staff, a wand of cure light wounds, some .alchemist's fire, and other valuables.

Their friend the summoner had experienced quite enough adventuring for a while and withdrew to the surface, but Lagnus and Teran remained with the heroes, who returned to the mystic doorway and its tunnels down to the ancient ruins below Sharn. In time they discovered a vast lightless chamber which they began to explore with caution. Attacked by a swarm of flesh-eating beetles, Teran responded with alchemist's fire, accidentally striking Aurora with a direct hit. Others were more successful, using torches and more of the fire to disperse the beetles after the creatures had inflicted considerable harm. A pair of horrid rats smelled prey and attacked but their acidic bites and armor-plated hide were overcome with greater ease.

The adventurers were again suspicious when they discovered what appeared to be an abandoned temple. A cursory inspection revealed nothing dangerous within, only a pool of cool and clear water. Leery of any water that had been down here in the depths for a thousand years (for they judged it had been so long since anyone else had walked these halls), Lagnus nonetheless experimented and found the water to have curative properties. In a flash Garet and Teran drank the rest of the water, healing most of their wounds.

Further investigation led them to discover another intact structure; indeed, it was all too intact. The door was made of pure adamantine and Aurora's best effort could not pick it. There was much debate while Garet searched the area, finding that another individual -- probably a warforged -- had been prowling around the area. Climbing the wall, Aurora found that entrance to the building could be easily secured through a hole in the roof and the heroes decided to retreat to the temple and rest for the night; they would keep a vigilant watch on the foundry building and assay it in the morning.

The night passed uneventfully and the heroes scaled the outside of the building to find a pair of iron guardians within, sentries in the shape of dogs who had been ordered to guard the foundry against intruders. With most of the group providing covering fire, Lagnus and Robyn descended and entered hand to hand combat with the things, dispatching them quickly. The wreckage of each produced a key, and a third key was found after an exhaustive search of the foundry floor. Three keyholes were located near the forge but trying the keys resulted in an electric shock which wounded several. It was Aurora who deduced the proper sequence of keys and, once the vault was open, the heroes found the scheme they had come for (along with other treasures).

After a cursory inventory of the valuables the group resolved to leave the way they had come, via the roof. Only Robyn had finished the descent, however, when they came under attack by a final warforged hiding amid rocks in the dark chamber. This was the last agent of the Lord of the Blades, and while he was outnumbered, most of the group was still atop the roof of the foundry while the ambusher was protected by cover and in excellent position. A furious and perilously close battle followed, with Robyn charging the foe to buy time for his allies to descend. For his trouble the brave warforged was quickly rendered inert, but by this time Lagnus had taken his place. Aurora snuck round to attempt a sneak attack on the thing but it was no use; that adamantine body was just too strong. Set-ep used every spell in his arsenal. As Lagnus was sent to the ground, Garet and Teran would jump in to cover for him while Drum healed the dwarf again and again. Eventually, after being sent to the brink of death at least three times, Lagnus was able to crack that adamantine shell with good old dwarven steel (and a lot of action points).

There was much rejoicing; the heroes had survived their first quest!

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Shadows of the Last War, part one

Quickly appraising the enemy warforged's sword as a potential magic weapon, the wounded and exhausted heroes retraced their path and reached the sunlit world of Sharn once more. That evening they met with Lady Elaydren, who was most pleased to learn of their success. She happily paid them the remainder of their fee and suggested she may have more work for them in the future. In the meantime, they had treasure to divide!

With the help of a wizard-for-hire who identified a few magic items they had yet to figure out, the group was able to parcel everything out in a more or less equal fashion. The staff was found to be a so-called staff of the apprentice, a rare magical weapon designed for the novice (and oh so fragile) wizard; this went to Set-ep, as well as a masterwork dagger made of the only material that could harm deathless elves (this item was recovered from the dolgrim adept). Robyn armed herself with the +1 longsword while the wand of cure light wounds and several cure potions found along the way were placed into a "party fund" for general use. Teran claimed an elixir of truth, Drum donned a masterwork chain shirt recovered from the foundry, and most of the rest of the shares was made up of gold and jewelry. Much of this was soon spent; in the week to come each member of the group had their own business to conduct.

Drum bought a clawfoot, the traditional mount of his tribe during wartime. After a successful effort grappling the dolgrim guard, Drum began teaching the dinosaur how to grapple, with no initial success. He was, however, found by Skakan who suggested that the one thing the heroes needed was a publicist to spread word of their great deeds. All the great agencies had them, Skakan insisted. The goblin, of course, volunteered his own services for this enterprise. Drum said he'd "think about it" and sent Skakan on his way.

Garet found himself in a card game, where an initial losing streak ended rather surprisingly. One of the players in the game, a dark-haired man calling himself Blake, used a strange piece of scale or shell as a bet. Garet won the hand (despite poor cards) and found himself in possession of the strange scale. With Aurora's help he was able to identify it as not, in fact, a scale, but some kind of chitin from the body of a giant insect. Greenish-gray in color, the chitin fragment defied any further categorization at this time.

Set-ep spent the majority of his stockpiled gold to secure a human corpse. In a world where at least two nations boast armies of undead warriors, it was not particularly hard to acquire a corpse in Sharn, even one that belonged to a warrior. With the help of some herbs and potions, Set-ep was able to animate the corpse into a skeletal minion completely loyal to Set-ep himself. He named the skeleton "Horus" and there was much rejoicing.

Teran spent most of the week scribing scrolls; this proved more difficult than first thought but after seven days he nonetheless had managed to make four or five scrolls of various sorts, from cure to comprehend languages and scorching ray.

Aurora received an invitation to a dinner at the home of the Baroness Phiarlan and selected Robyn as her bodyguard/guest.While she had little opportunity to converse with the Baroness herself at this gala event attended by all of Sharn's elite, the Baroness nonetheless found time to diplomatically remind Aurora of her house obligations. "House Phiarlan has only one weapon with which to survive; we have no armies, no magical weapons, no warforged. What we have is information." Dutifully agreeing that she would inform the Baroness of anything important which might happen, Aurora nevertheless failed to mention anything about the Lord of Blades, the lost schema, or House Cannith's interest in the schema before she left the party with her escort.

Lagnus, meanwhile, was searching for leads on the family heirloom which he had been questing for. Alas, he had a cold welcome among other dwarves but, while preparing to meet with Robyn for a round of drinks at the local tavern, overheard an abduction in the crime-ridden streets of Sharn. But this was no mere cutpurse; a child had been snatched by a strange monster, some kind of floating brain with tentacles descending to the ground. With Ribyn's help Lagnus was able to save the child but he was himself paralyzed by the creature before it grievously wounded Robyn and fled. When offered a 10 gold piece reward for the boy's return by his impoverished parents, Lagnus accepted the gold over Robyn's protests. The warforged immediately insisted upon half the reward as his share of the battle, then gave the five coins back to the dwarven family. Lagnus was steamed, to say the least.

A week had passed, and the aspiring heroes met up to check in on the House Sivis message station where Elaydra had directed them, only to find the station ransacked and the gnome scribe unconscious. Drum revived her and a bout of intense questioning and detailed investigation of the crime scene followed. Teran confirmed the gnome's story that four kobolds had come into the place and trashed it after a cloaked humanoid, almost certainly a warforged, had intercepted a message meant for the heroes. The gnome of House Sivis insisted she could not recall the contents of the message, that out of concern for client privacy all scribing stone operators were trained to forget every message they recorded as soon as it was complete, and the tough and undiplomatic grilling the adventurers gave her failed to woo any further cooperation out of her. Set-ep had gone in search of the city watch, who took charge of the scene and gently but forcibly ejected the amateurs.

Outside a giant owl approached, delivering a message to Garet on behalf of Lady Elaydren. The intercepted message had been from her and, with agents closing in on her, she was desperate to meet the player characters at the Broken Anvil. Quickly they went to the tavern and found Elaydren, looking dirty and disheveled after her lovely and fashionable appearances in the previous week. She informed them that the second piece of the scema the adventurers had already recovered had been located and was the object of a hunt by more than one interested party. Elaydren's enemies were near and there was little time. Indeed, even as the heroes spoke with her, the mysterious warforged and his kobold mercenaries attacked!

This fight was another near thing, though the heroes were much more prepared than they were in their last battle. Most of the kobolds were quickly dispatched, but one duelled Teran for half a minute before dashing round the tavern table and taking a stab at Lady Elaydren; an arrow from Garet, who by this time was standing on the table releasing two arrows a round, finally put the creature out of its misery. Robyn was once more rendered inert by a terrific blow by the Lord's agent, and Lagnus, Drum, and Aurora teamed up to finally down the adamantine-armored fighter. Set-ep spent most of the fight hiding under the table, using the newly-mobile Horus as cover.

Heeding Elaydren's plea to take the backpack she had prepared for them and flee the city as fast as possible, the heroes escaped the tavern and found a safe locale to examine the pack. Within they found a letter from Elaydren and plentiful supplies, along with a letter of credit that would pay for transit to Darguun, the goblin nation. This, it appeared, was their next stop. Of the many routes that could be taken, the sea seemed to be the best choice available, so the heroes secured passage by Lyrandar galleon to Darguun, leaving that very night.

Sailing around the southern coast of Khorvaire, the galleon made some twenty miles an hour and could reach the capital of Darguun in just under four days. It was late one night as the ship traveled through deep fog when the adventurers were next attacked. This time, however, it was no agent of the Lord of Blades. Instead, eight skeleton warriors made the climb up the side of the ship to ambush the four or so heroes who happened to be on deck at the time. What seemed like a dangerous fight, however, quickly became much less terrifying when Drum called upon the power of Olladra to turn the undead. In a flash half the creatures were destroyed and, a few rounds later, he completed the task on the other side of the ship. While the whole business had been handled relatively easily, it did leave the players wondering who had attacked them, and where could they get some bludgeoning weapons.

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Shadows of the Last War, part two

(This episode takes the form of a diary entry written by Set-ep)

After a perilous sea voyage, finally we are about to arrive in Darguun. The captain has warned me to watch myself as the natives aren't particularly civilized despite their inclusion in the twelve nations treaty. Once ashore my companions and I recruit the services of a dock urchin to lead us to the bloody market where we are to meet our House Cannith contact.

As we are about to leave, our tracker recieves an urgent message from home that must be dealt with. He regrets that he has to leave us at this time, but his allies there have sent a replacement to fill in for him. Kala is a huge tower of musle and bristling hair, his shifter heiritage obvious. Though he seems to lack eloquence of speech, I would guess that's more due to the fact that he spends little time around civilization rather than any dearth of intellect. We welcome him as best we can in these disturbing circumstances, and set out for the center of town.

The market is filled with the most racaus noise and disorderly trading I have ever laid my eyes upon, as brute goblinoids use a combination of violence and foul rhetoric to accomplish their purchases. Lagnus seems inordinately interested in purchasing a slave, but upon our cries of protest and outrage he has reconsidered, though obviously with ill grace. Are their no depths to his mercantile nature?

Soon we find ourselves in front of the Clenched Fist, a seedy inn where we are to meet our contact. Briefly I stop to closely examine the mummified remains of an ogre hand hanging from the sign in front, it seems remarkably well preserved. Hearing signs of my companions impatience I leave off my examination, and we proceed down the steps into the semi-darkness.

Procuring a mug of thin beer, I wander over to a table and sit down, ordering Horus to keep a sharp eye out behind me. Aurora, impetuous as ever has already found our contact and appears to be bargaining with him. It turn out that our contact Failen is a disgraced member of house Orien, but seems quite willing to do business with us. He has my deepest sympathies as I know how hard it can be to be rejected by those of your birthplace. Lagnus and I do some hard bargaining with the man over his fees, and manage to get him down to a more reasonable price, but he's a shrewd haggler and we end up paying far more than we would like.

As we stand up to leave a motley gang of Bugbears and Kobolds come crashing through the doorway, and by his nervous look I can see that they're after our contact. Having just expended considerable time and effort to locate him, my companions and I don't take lightly to this intrusion, especially as they have the audacity to attack us without even a semblance of parley. Robyn's eye flashes with the simple joy of battle as she wades into the fray clanking, she has ever been one to enjoy a good fight. Amidst a hail of crossbow bolts and the hideous sound of Lagnus' axe crushing one their skulls we manage to kill most of the offensive ruffians. Knowing that we'll be in a hurry to get out of here since it's obvious our pursuers have located us, I intone kyrak's third word of power while making the symbol of the western guardian with my left hand and drive forth the remaining thug screaming in terror.

Pausing only long enough to examine our attackers, we quickly proceed to Failen's stable, where he keeps a most impressive elemental wagon. Quickly we load our gear, and set out for Rose Quarry where we hope to find some clues as to the location of the next schema we seek for Lady Eladryn our patron. I am not particularly comfortable with these arrangements as Drum's mount is quite fearsome and irritable in such close quarters, but I manage to put aside such petty concerns so that I may stay focused on my latest bit of study on the nature of death.

Several days later our guide stops before a small rise to point out our destination, still several miles away. Peering over the ridge, we can see a visage of awesome desolation. It appears that during the war, some terrible fate has befallen the town, completely covering it in a thick layer of glass, trapping the buildings and inhabitants within. Off to the west there appears to be an encampment of sorts, being made up of undead, soldiers of the Emerald Claw and their mounts. This is quite disturbing as they are known for their extreme methods, and outlawed even in their own nation, not to mention being elite troops.

After discussing the matter briefly we decide to wait for darkness before attempting to sneak around the encampment and approach the town from the opposite direction so that we might seek out our objective unobserved. Doing the best we can to maintain silence, though obviously not up to Aurora's standards given her fierce glares every time Robyn grinds a gear, or Lagnus' armor clanks, we move around to the eastern edge of town. Terran has elected to stay back in the wagon with Failen as he is still very sick from our sea voyage.

Moving into the desolate landscape of the town, we find that the surface is in fact quite slippery, making it hard to maintain ones balance. Haunting shadows, and the glass covered corpses of the inhabitants make for eerie accompanyment to our journey. As we're moving down one of the main thoroughfares we can hear a dreadful noise off to our left, sort of a combination of moans and the harsh sound glass scraping against itself. Emerging from amongst the shattered buildings are several corpses, their bodies covered in glass. Apparently our presence has enraged them, and they have come to see that we join them in death. Sure that I can soothe their anger I begin to step forward, but my companions have been startled by this unnatural sight, and reach for their weapons. Kala in particular seems disturbed, and frantically smashes at them with his spiked chain, and a good thing too since Aurora's rapier appears ill-suited for this sort of work.

Once the sounds of shattering glass and the meaty thunk of bodies being dismembered fades into the night, we listen carefully, fearing those in the encampment have heard us. We can hear the loud sounds of digging from up ahead, but no shouting, so apparently no harm has been done. Aurora and Kala move up ahead to see if they can locate the source of the digging noises since they seem to be able to handle this trecherous terrain better than the rest of us. I can't really see what's going on, but I hear voices around the corner, then Aurora lets loose her battle cry, and we can hear the pouding of her boots as she rushes forward to engage. Desperate to help her, we all try to move forward at our best speed, but much to our dismay keep slipping on the glass.

When we finally move round the corner of the building, we see a patch of fog, which given the current conditions must be artificial, and inside we can hear the sounds of a titanic conflict, with yells, screams, and ripping flesh set amidst the moans and slobbers of the undead. Nearly in unison, we move forward to assist, diving into the fog in our haste. I catch fleeting glimpses of a gnarled tree, slavering jaws, and wounded flesh both living and dead amidst the clamor of no quarter infighting.

Finally, we fight our way out the other side, and things grow quiet for a moment as Aurora explains that a man looking like a dead elf with razor sharp teeth was directing the excavation of bodies from a graveyard. Upon challenging him, he obscured the area with mist, and then fled back towards the encampment. Lagnus takes a few moments out to give respect to the dead dwarves lying about while we consider our next move.

Uncertain just how many troopers are at the encampment, we decide to push on to the House Cannith outpost which we can see just across the street, in the hopes that we can get what we came for and be gone before anyone is the wiser. Quietly we move across the road to pile up against the side of the building. We can hear another of the undead moving around inside. Given that this is my area of expertise, I volunteer to take care of it so that we can move on with our mission. The others, still shaken from our encounter in the graveyard are inclined to agree.

Moving stealthily around the corner Horus and I enter the doorway where we spot one of the animate who has been forced to labor for the Emerald Claw. I attempt to soothe the creatures spirit with kind words, and encourage it to return to the peace of the grave, but the extremists hold is too strong, lashed forward by the bonds of command, it actually goes so far as to bite me, much to my shock and dismay. Briefly falling back to a side chamber, Horus holds the thing off while I gather my strength. Calling upon my link to the otherworld, I channel the supernatural energy into a bright ball of force which I unleash upon the hapless creature. Fortunately my companions barge in at this juncture, for despite my intense studies I am not yet able to channel sufficient energy to do more than annoy the thing.

All of this noise has alerted the occupants of the inner chamber, and they rush out to give battle. The fighting is desperate in this confined space, especially since we know that we're living on borrowed time with the encampment aware of our presence. Drum, stalwart as always, moves among us, the bright light of his faith lending us strength and resolve before this dangerous foe. At first things look grim, but by uttering some somnolent phrases of the old speech, I'm able to induce the leader to fall down into restful slumber, and that gives us the edge we need to turn the tide. A few more seconds of intense fighting see us victorious and surrounded by an expanding pool of blood.

While several people guard the door, the rest of us move into the main chamber to look around. Inlaid into the floor is an incredibly detailed map of House Cannith holdings, though much of it is covered by debris. A clever arrangement of hearths and statues gives clues that eventually allow us to figure out where to find Whitehall, our final destination, and the likely location of the schema.

Exiting the building we can see the Emerald Claw forces have massed, but don't seem to be moving forward to engage. At this juncture we're willing to take whatever luck we can get, and move quickly through the ruins to the outskirts of town where we meet up with Failen and Terran to make our escape at high speed.

The light from the fire is fading, and I grow weary, perhaps I shall write more upon the morrow.

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Shadows of the Last War, part three

(This episode takes the form of a journal entry by Lagnus.)

Treachery is truly a veiled beast. How could I not see his true intent? Was I so naive as to think... I must concentrate on the task at hand. Judging by the preparation of those men they seem to be getting ready to leave. What could they be doing here? Are they with the Lord of Blades? He wouldn't use humans to do his bidding. Maybe one of the other House Cannith factions? Engaging these men in battle is a unprofitable venture. This may be our chance to escape Rose Quarry with the information we just gathered. We must get to Whitehearth before they do to retrieve the schema. Our reward and future business is at stake!

We gathered our belongings and make a swift retreat back the way we came. Luckily none of the men follow and we are able to meet back with Failin and his elemental powered wagon. Instead of taking us back to Rukan Draal we instruct Failin to take us to Whitehearth past the Grey Mist. Due to the unknown dangers that lie ahead we decide to make camp for the night at the edge of the Mist.

At noon the next day we set off for Whitehearth. Inside the Grey Mist we come across a ruined siege engine with dead bodies littering the area. They seem as though they were just killed. This must be the fowl effect of the Mist. This is why dwarves prefer living underground. A wise man once said (me) a dead man has no need of possessions. It would be a waste and an insult to craftsmen everywhere if we left these perfectly good pieces of equipment to lie here for eternity. We decide to gather up the valuables and investigate the area. While searching the area a pack of strange undead wolves emerges from the rubble. We seem to be running into an unusual amount of undead. I'll have to keep a close eye out on the necromancer. His cowardliness goes beyond the norm. It may be an act. These undead wolves seem to be made up of a hodge podge collection of different types of bones. Apparentally they no longer wish to exist. I will grant them their wish.

Once we leave the siege engine ruins we noticed a large bird in the distance. It may be a vulture of some kind. It seems to be following us. This does not bode well for us. It is probably a spy of the evil magic user we encountered at Rose Quarry.

After a few hours of travel we saw in the distance what looks like the remains of a large battle. Bodies lie everywhere: elves and halfliings. There are so many dead bodies that our wagon is having trouble making its way through. To honor the fallen warriors I suggested that we take their best equipment and put them to good use. Kala seems to have noticed a rather large pile of bodies and begins to search through it. Unfortunately for him the pile of bodies is actually a Carcass Crab laying in wait. Kala is immediately scooped up by one of its massive claws. It then launches one of many spikes on its back at me! He has just signed his death warrant. We all surround the foul beast and eventually send it back to the Abyss where it belongs.

The rest of the trip has gone by without incident. Soon we are finally at Whitehearth. We can finally retrieve the schema and leave this godforsaken land. Setep makes another deal with Failin to stick around and wait until we are finished. With our return trip secured we cautiously enter the mine. The construction is not bad, not bad at all (for human work).

Once inside we find 4 large adamantine plates on the ground. Thanks to Kala triggering one of the traps we now know to be careful when dealing with the plates (<sigh> barbarians). The third plate turns out to have a ladder going down into magical darkness. We have no way of knowing what is past the darkness. Luckily Robyn agrees to go down first. I fear during her construction Robyn was a victim of an unfortunate manufacturing snafu.

Once Robyn confirms it is safe we all climb down the ladder. This leads into a large spherical room with a octagonal plate on a pedestal. The Pedestal has various colored holes on each side and on top. Aurora realizes that the blue wand-looking device given to us by Lady Eladrin may have something to do with this pedestal. She places the blue wand in a blue hole and lo and behold it makes the room rotate! This causes the opening we entered from rotate to a new position and reveals another corridor.

Going down this corridor reveals a large room filled with clothes, linen and other garments. Occasionally one of the clothes would levitate up into the air and float over to a water basin. Then it proceeded to wash itself. No doubt some magic trick.

We go back to the spherical room and try another blue key hole. The room rotates again and reveals another corridor. This corridor is charred black as if a hot fire burned inside. This is obviously not good. Our danger to profit ratio is getting worse. A metal door at the end of the corridor is half melted. This was a hot fire indeed. An open space next to the door on the wall is visible as well. Some light from a flame is coming out of this space. It may be someone that can tell us about the schema.

Robyn again agrees to go investigate and proceeds down the hall. After making it about half way a large ball of flame comes out of the open space! Amazingly it seems to be hovering above ground and moving with.... intent?? Setep swears it looks like a sphere of fire from the spell with the same name. How could this be? The sphere rushes Robyn and attacks. I yell out to Robyn to come out of the corridor so we can have a more tactical advantage but I might as well be talking to a large piece of iron. Reluctantly I run down to aid her. The heat is intense but we manage to defeat the flame.

The space next to the door leads to a room with a pool of water and beyond that another room with latrines. A dead charred female body lies in the latrine room. While liberating the unused equipment we find a brown key for the pedestal. Hopefully this will lead to the schema.

We try the brown key on the key pedestal and this causes the room to rotate to a corridor 30' long that ends with a metal door. The room beyond is filled with food, water, wine and other common products. This was not a total waste of time as we found a box with some potions inside.

Satisfied that there is nothing else of value in the room we go back to the spherical room and try the next blue key hole. The room once again rotates and reveals a 60' corridor with 2 doors at the end and an opening. This place was definitely designed by wizards. No one with any common sense would design such a place. Magic folk...

On our way down the corridor a huge dire wolf emerges from one of the doors! I am confident in my abilities but a dire wolf is no simple creature. To our amazement it is intelligent and explains to us about a problem she is having. Apparently there is an evil dire wolf somewhere in this place holding some regular wolves hostage. In exchange for their freedom the dire wolf is willing to lend us a green pedestal key she has in her possession as well as a pearl. Normally I would laugh at such an offer but we have to retrieve that schema. We accept and make our way toward where she thinks the other dire wolf is. It seems the ratio just keeps getting worse and worse. I do have to admit that my companions are competent in what they do. I could have done worse...

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Shadows of the Last War, part four

(This episode was written by Robyn's player; no first-person journal this time since the character has an Int of 4.)

We left of with the party taking a break with Rorsha and her pack. We were given the green key rod to go and defeat a dire wolf turned evil when the accident happened years ago. Kala must have identified with Rorsha and her wolves because he stayed with them for the adventure. We then left and headed off to the green key hole. The room shifted and we came to a long hallway where Aurora heard growls and howls of wolves. She went to go check on a door when Robyn decided to march down the hall and call out the big wolf.

Sure enough, a big half-golem dire wolf should up to fight. The match was soon under way when we were first able to see the power of this thing when it chomped into Robyn's arm and bent the hell out of it. She soon retaliated with a few devastating blows, chipping off it's black marble body. Robyn was later bit in the face and dropped to her inert state. After she was disposed of, Lagnus made many blows on the wolf before he was also put down. I think everyone hit the thing at some time, but it just kept going. I am now convinced that energizer has a new spokes person, a half-golem dire wolf.

Drum soon healed Lagnus so he could stand up and get knocked down again. Setep made the final blow with the wand of Melf's acid arrow that we found. We then went to find Rorsha so she could come and get the rest of her pack. She was very grateful and gave us the pearl around her neck. I think at that point we have rested. We then left to go down another hallway.

We came to a door and opened it to be suddenly amazed at the brilliant lights in an all mirrored room. Robyn stepped in and was surrounded by some bright lights (a living color spray) and soon became blind and stunned. Luckily her screams were not heard because of the silent effect in the room. Robyn stayed blinded and stunned through the whole fight. The rest of the party battled the living ooze with minor troubles, at the end Lagnus was also engulfed alive by the thing. Aurora was the one to finally deal the fatal blow.

A little later Robyn and Lagnus came to, then we all went to check on Aurora with the next door. She opened the door to see a room with a curtain in it. She peeked through the huge curtain to see three large flames floating around a large crucible of molten. It looked to be the same substance that we saw over the ground at the Emerald Claw base. There was five glass hydra heads stretching out of the crucible, but they were not moving and appeared to be broken. There was also a crystal chest with the schema we were looking for, along with other items.

We all couldn't feel the heat of the room, so we already thought things were weird. Naturally, we debated on what to do for about on hour and came up with the "brilliant" plan of trying to lasso the chest with a rope and drag it to us. When Aurora threw her mighty silk rope it hit an invisible wall. It seems we were looking at an illusion of the final room. We then explored some more.

We ended up finding a third activation room and put the orange key in and the room shifted to where there was a hole in the middle of the floor. Drum, then fell to his death.......just kidding, he was a bit bruised up and a little full of water, but he was fine. We tied Aurora up with a rope and lowered her down, but found nothing. We soon hit the sack and had a good nights sleep.

We woke up and horsed around for a while before we decided it had to be with the pit. So they tied up the willing Warforged and lowered her down the pit, to her death........just kidding again. Robyn walked on the bottom of the water, but still found nothing. They tried the red key again (the first time we tried it, it did nothing) but nothing happened. Setep then put in the Orange key to open to pit door again so they could retrieve the waiting Warforged. To their dismay, a new hallway opened. The red key was some kind of safeguard key. So they raised Robyn and made their way to the new hallway, to their death..........okay, sorry, I know it's getting old.

We came to a door where we could definitely feel the heat. Setep gave Robyn the resist energy spell, then we kicked down the door. Inside was the same thing we saw through the illusion wall. There was the three fire elementals, and they meant business. Aurora came bursting in with a house Cannith signet ring that we found earlier and commanded the elementals to stop. I think they replied with "You'll never keep us as slaves again"! Oh great, now we really pissed them off.

That's when they started their pitiful attack. With Robyn having 10 resistance against their fire damage and 2 against their normal slam attack, they stood no chance. We made quick work of them and claimed our prize. In the chest we found not one, but two schemas, along with a large metal disc that Teran thought was some creation pattern that might create some kind of weapon. We collected everything, gave Rorsha back her green key, then made our way above ground.

Of course those bastard Emerald Claw were waiting for us with their invisible mascot. We were heavily outnumbered and thought we were doomed. The invisible Vampire told us to give them the third schema and they would let us live. We debated for longer then we should have but after much discussion, we gave them the schema.

Robyn and Lagnus came to the conclusion to give it up and Setep brought up the valid point that they had no chance without us. So after we give up the schema, what does douche bag say? "Kill them all"! Luckily him and his girlfriend necromancer ran away with some soldiers. We only had to fight four soldiers and four skeletons. We destroyed the soldiers with smaller problems then with the elementals. Between Robyn and Lagnus' sword and axe and Setep controlling one of the skeletons to fight his own team, they really stood little chance. Mwahahaha!

We then waited around for Phalin and hopped a ride back to Rhukaan Draal to meet with Lady Aladrin. We made it back in one peace and told her what happened, She understood that we were outnumbered and was shocked to find out about the second schema and the creation pattern. She offered us another 1,000gp for the disc and now we're accompanying her back to Sharn for additional gold.

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Interlude: Monkey Madness

Editor's note: This episode is written by Joshua Cavett, Teran's player.

After retrieving the second schema, our heroes had retired to Rhukaan Draal. The party was to escort Lady Elaydran back to Sharn on a ship that was to leave Rhukaan Draal in four days.

As true adventurers, the first order of business attended to was the allocation and selling of the loot found during their travels. Following this, the first day in Rhukaan Draal was spent locating a bazaar that would be able to accommodate the exotic needs of the adventurers. After asking around, Aurora was able to locate an unusually well-stocked and well-connected shop run by an ancient hobgoblin who seemed to favor wearing his military uniform from a long forgotten (except by himself and maybe Aurora) war. Our heroes were able to acquire all of the standard equipment they wished to purchase as well as place orders for more exotic items which the proprietor guaranteed would be available in a couple of days. This hobgoblin (Ed Note: Kaad) obviously was able to make many contacts during his life that served him well in his current business.

The following day, Lady Elaydran received an invitation to a dinner party to be held two days hence. The party was to be hosted by the Lhesh Haruus at Kaara M’Borous, the “Red House.” Attending this party would cause the group to miss their ship and have to take another one a few days later, but to not attend would be to pass up an excellent opportunity for the Lady Elaydran to improve relations with the hobgoblin kingdom and possibly insult the Lhesh as well. This seemed quite unwise, so the Lady Elaydran decided to postpone her return to Sharn for a few days in order to attend the upcoming social event. She requested that our heroes accompanied her in order to present a more impressive show of strength on the Lady’s part. The adventurers readily agreed. You know… free food and all.

Much to the pleasure of everyone, the hobgoblin proprietor was able to secure all of the items requested by the various members of the party. Lagnus seemed particularly excited about the acquisition of his full plate armour and extreme shield. Those dwarves love their armour.

Noting the pleased looks on the adventurers’ faces, the hobgoblin took it upon himself to make a small request of our heroes. He had heard that the group was to attend the Lesh’s dinner party and requested that a message be given to the princess Yezira. Aurora, less put off by the idea of getting mixed up in hobgoblin espionage than the other members of the party, agreed to pass on his message. She was to tell the princess, “It is winter. The rocks are far away.” Seeming unruffled by the obvious duplicitous nature of the message, Aurora assured the hobgoblin that it would be delivered.

The next evening, our heroes ventured to Kaara M’Borous- dressed to kill (literally). They were introduced to a number of important figures including: Zuukat- the advisor to the Lhesh, Rhius Dalkaan - cousin of the cheiftan of the Dakaani tribe, Conrad d'Zelderan- prospector for House Therashk, and Kyle Ferris - a Sentinel Marshal currently in the area. After the introductions, the party split up to mingle.

Aurora met princess Yezira and passed on the cryptic message sent from the old hobgoblin soldier. The princess did not respond, although Robyn, who had accompanied Aurora as a bodyguard, noticed that the message seemed to further depress the already dour princess.

Teran noted that although Rhius acted as if intoxicated, he was obviously not drunk. This suspicious behaviour coupled with Rhius’ hesitance to toast to the trade agreements with other races raised Teran’s suspicions, and he asked around about the hobgoblin and kept an eye on him throughout the party.

Other notable events during the party: Lagnus broke etiquette by asking for ale, Setep became ill after eating the wyvern meat, Robyn discussed becoming a Sentinel Marshal with Ferris, Aurora impressed the Lhesh with her insight to a historical battle, and Lagnus spoke with Conrad d'Zelderan about purchasing services from house Therashk in the attempts to find a stolen dwarven artifact (he has not shared this with the rest of the group as of yet).

After dinner, Rhius presented the Lhesh with a gift of 12 white monkeys in small wooden cages. The Lhesh attempted to open one of the cages, but was unable to do so. As he continued to try to open the cage, the monkeys began to shriek and then burst from their cages as they grew into large ape-creatures. The heroes jumped from their chairs to aid in the capture of these possibly hostile animals.

This proved to be more difficult than originally expected. After a few moments, the apes convulsed in pain and then grew into larger, more hostile dire apes. As if this were not bad enough, the apes shuddered in pain again shortly thereafter- growing even larger, and two more arms burst from their torsos. They fought briefly, then, convulsing yet again, they grew larger then split into two of the original large apes- doubling their original number, while the party was ravaged.

Most impressive in this battle were Lagnus and Setep. The armour Lagnus had acquired made him very difficult to hurt, allowing him to wade into the apes and strike out with his mighty dwarven axe. Meanwhile, Setep launched magic missiles, captured two of the apes in a web, and healed a downed Robyn- all from the cover of the immense table in the great hall.

Finally, the last ape fell to axe, sword, and chain. All attention was then focused on the one responsible for this fight- Rhius. The Lhesh called him forward, pointed out the carnage caused by the apes he had loosed, and told him, “Great entertainment! Thank you for the gift. Tell your cousin that I will be by this winter for a visit.” With this, Rhius was dismissed.

Seeing the disgust in Lagnus, the Lhesh spoke to him. “This is not the first assassination attempt that I have lived through. I laughed at his attempt, and now he and his cousin will fear my coming this winter.” The Lhesh was obviously a master at the brutal diplomacy of the hobgoblins.

It was at this time that some members of the group noticed the absence of the princess Yezira.

Shaking their heads in wonder at their first (and hopefully last) hobgoblin dinner party, our heroes limped back to the inn to try to find some rest.

The next day, the proprietor of the hobgoblin shop was arrested and many more guards were seen in the streets. The princess’ disappearance had obviously been noticed.

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Winter Wonderland, part one

Editor's Note: This chapter of the game summary is written by Graydon, Kala's player.

When last we saw our intrepid heroes, they had just helped the Lesh and his guards foil what appeared to be an assassination attempt by the mountain clan of hobgoblins, though the Lesh himself seemed less than concerned by the monkey business. After, they retired to their inn rooms, noting on their way out that the Princess was noticeably absent. Two days until the journey back to Sharn . . .

The next morning, while nosing around town looking for Kaad, Aurora and Teran heard whispers that the Princess had disappeared. Kaad was nowhere to be found. By the afternoon a few things had become clear. First, Kaad was a member of the Dhakani Clan, and formerly a great warrior of that clan. Secondly, he had some sort of trouble with the Lesh a number of years ago. And finally, Kaad was arrested at his shop and taken to the Lesh’s prison. Aurora followed him to the gates of the palace. Little could be done as the only entrance to the prison was at the bottom of a deep shaft filled with lethal devices beyond imagining and surround by fell beasts hunted and trapped in the dark of Xendrik, brought here for no reason but to torment and devour those who would dare challenge the will of the Lesh. The Lesh himself has the only key to both the traps and the door.

Meanwhile, Teran began sniffing around Kaad’s shop. The shop was being watched and cleaned by Kaad’s neighbors. From them, he learned that Kaad was occasionally visited by the Princess, though she was not supposed to leave the palace. The last time this happened was a few years ago. Aurora returns, as Teran is wrapping up, and notices that the sausage vendor across the street from the shop was replaced with a decidedly non-vendor looking hobgoblin warrior, and Charlie the sausage guy was nowhere to be found. Back at the inn, Setep lost himself in his books, Kala stared at the shiny piece of chitin, and Drum fed his dino. One day until the airship . . .

While Aurora asks around after the Princess’s whereabouts (she comes up dry), Setep completes some research, and Terran prepares a scroll, Kala Strikes out searching for a Druid to help him with the chitin. Not fully accustomed to city life, Kala does not meet with success and is in fact mistaken for a crazed beggar. Drum, touched by Kala’s difficulties, helped him contact a priest of Olahdra. Though not directly able to help, the priest recommended seeking out an expert in one of the larger cities.

In the afternoon, Aurora cases the shop again, noting that it is still being watched by a few guards and wary neighbors. The heroes consider searching the shop, but fear that it is too risky. Lift off next evening . . .

In the Morning, Aurora determinedly seeks after any sign of the Princess. There is no trace to be found. Teran and Setep keep to their academic pursuits, and Drum works training his dino to do tricks. That afternoon, Kaad is executed and his head is placed on a pike.

Lagnus hears back from the House Thurask ambassador regarding a “little matter” he needed a professional finder for. He returned the message that he would shortly be in Sharn. Likewise, Aurora sent a note to the handsome Marshall of House Denieth that she too would be reachable in Sharn. For what reason, time will tell . . .

With the death of Kaad, Aurora discovers the watch over the shop has ended, and his neighbors have helped themselves to his legacy. Armed with this knowledge Aurora and Terren search what’s left of the shop, and discover a secret basement dojo. There, they find a mural depicting a winter scene in which a hobgoblin is building a house with stones taken from the riverbed. In the mural, all of the stones in the part of the bed close to the house have already been used. The words “by winter the rocks were far away” rang hauntingly in there minds and took on new meaning. Up, up and away . . .

The crew spent two days onboard the airship from the Lesh’s capital to Sharn, courtesy of the lovely Lady Eladrin d’ Caintith. Setep characteristically lost himself in his books and the rest of the crew enjoyed the view.

After arriving in Sharn, Kala, Aurora and Teran travel to Margrave University where Aurora tugs in some strings, cajoling a few grad students into taking a look at the piece of chitin. They suggested sending a message to a famous taxonomist, Prof. Greel, which they do. Setep, unsurprisingly, studies his magic.

The next day, Prof Greel sends a message back, evidencing a strong interest in the chitin encouraging the group to travel to see him when they have the time. Meanwhile, while Teran spends time with pen and ink, Aurora checks in with Lady Eladrin. Nada.

The following morning the troupe sets out to track down the grell that had been terrorizing the dwarven quarter. Though there had been no new kidnappings among the dwarves, Teran was able to track the beasts by sightings and rumor. It took almost two full days, but finally, in an “upscale” corner of Goblintown, Teran felt certain the grell was near. Neither the “excellent staff” at the Blue Parrot, nor the shifters gambling in front of the Waldorf were much help in finding the beast, though Robyn did manage to lose some coppers in the game.

After exploring a decrepit theatre off the square, and tangling with a rather sophisticated swarm of rats (smarter than Robyn and Kala too) our heroes returned to the fountain in the square. While Kala carefully watched the water in case the grell splashed out of the fountain, Robyn along with Setep and Horus entered a small guard tower hoping to spook the grell out if it was present. The plan worked better than they could have hoped as not one, but three grell flew out of the windows and descended to the square amidst the arrows of Kala and Aurora. A battle ensued, the only moment of note being when Robyn bravely hurled herself from the top of the tower in an effort to take out one of the beasts. Though she failed in that attempt, it was a moment that the goblins of the Blue Parrot will not stop talking about for some time to come. The day after, with still no word from Lady Eladrin, the party boards the lightening rail headed for Fairhaven, with Horus in storage and Drum’s dino kept in the care of friends.

While Kala starts suffering from cabin fever and Drum relaxes in his car, ever curious Teran tries to get a look at the working engine of the rail itself. He is denied. Then, while the train passed through a dark tunnel, Aurora was assaulted by an ethereal filcher trying to “filch” her handy haversack. It failed and was gone in the blink of an eye. After a little digging, Teran learns that not only have there been mechanical failures of late, but that passengers have been “disappearing” with suggested explanation.

Bolstered with this newfound information, Teran returned to the engineering car pursuant to an “official” investigation. Not wholly convinced, the engineer none-the-less admits that to do the repair job right would require weeks of time and thousands of gold crowns.

With a little more hard-boiled investigation Teran uncovers that the disappearances have been occurring every few weeks, though not on any fixed schedule. Further, the conductor knows about both the mechanical difficulties and the disappearances, though for fear of losing his job he has not shared any of this his employers.

\Teran, clued in by a waiter, interrupts the journey of a very stuffy dwarven importer/exporter, in order to search the possible scene of one of the abductees. Finding a pearl earring, Terren is certain that something is going on. A day later, during a stopover in Marketplace, Kala did some “sniffing around” of his own, detecting the odor of “big evil cat”. He commits this scent to memory.

At lunch, the party notices it is being watched by a charming, darkly handsome man, and the crazy engineer. Aurora flirts outrageously with the dark stranger (what would the Marshall say?) and the engineer is essentially ignored. While the stranger is distracted, Teran manages to weigh the auras of everyone in the car, and the aura of the stranger comes up wanting. Teran follows the stranger to his room, 17A. While Lagnus negotiates with the conductor (free passes for life in exchange for a solution to the disappearances) Kala goes to 17A and puts his “nose” to the grindstone. The handsome stranger is apparently a big evil jungle cat (or possibly as Teran suggested a Rhakshasa).

When the Rhakshasa left the train for the night, Kala immediately whistled for a cab and Aurora attempted to overhear where the dark stranger was directing his own cab, something like “Capistano Hotel.” When the stranger’s cab began pulling away, Kala called to his own driver, “Follow that car.” The remainder of the group are split between Kala’s cab and another.

And the story continues . . .

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Winter Wonderland

DM's Note: Asking the players to keep a campaign log for XP was a bit of an experiment. It didn't work; while players were happy to take notes during the game, they never got around to actually typing the log up for other people to read. The best I've been able to get is photocopied notes. So I'll do my best to keep readers up to date on the current progress of the campaign, but this will be the Reader's Digest version of each adventure, only hitting the highlights.

The heroes traveled to the Whisper Woods in the upper reaches of Aundair, where they were trying to learn more about a mysterious creature that appeared to be half-bug and half-lizard. Led by a Meena, a hired guide, and her two bearers Kurt and Joril, they got caught in a planar conjunction with the plane of ice. I had just purchased Frostburn and wanted to use it; I was pretty happy with the results. After accidentally traveling to another plane where I got to use the Planar Handbook they eventually found their way past snow spiders, ice mephits, and other dangers to reach their goal: a secret and abandoned House Vadalis research facility known as Three Trees.

Each of these towering trees was inhabited by various monsters and groups, including a tribe of neanderthals who worshipped a young adult white dragon. The players investigated each tree one at a time, fighting wights, smilodons, and owlbears before Robyn intruded on a hellcat's lair by herself. By the time the rest of the heroes could climb into the nest, the mighty warforged fighter was dead. This was the first casualty among the players. The demon was eventually slain, and Robyn buried in a cairn at the base of the trees.

In the second tree the players met Quorasshi, an ice genie, to whom they lost a magic sword in a game of dice. Setep was almost killed by a hag, there was an attack by arrowhawks, but the players were starting to clue into the fact that there was very little treasure to be had on this adventure. Why? The dragon had it all, of course, so the players started to think ahead to fighting the thing. Meanwhile, Meena had been revealed as a wizard of no small power, about on par with Setep though focusing on enchantment rather than necromancy. About this time a group of warforged serving the Lord of Blades showed up and managed to steal Robyn's severed head, though the soldiers themselves were all slain. Delbourne and Varel, having heard of the agency from Skakan back in Sharn, showed up to lend their swords.

Finally the heroes tackled the third tree, including a snowflake ooze and four white dragon wyrmlings. The neaderthals surrounded their camp that night leading to a brutal fight with their dinosaur pets, but eventually the heroes triumphed and sent the neaderthals back to their tree, where they began beating the alarm drums to call the white dragon back home. Although the heroes climbed up the tree in the morning and stopped the drumming in a room-by-room fight with the neanderthals, it was too late. The dragon was already coming. The players climbed to the dragon's lair and prepared themselves for a tough fight. While Kala was almost slain, clever use of a gem of elemental conjuring and some lucky critical hits allowed the players to triumph.

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The Arcane Express

It took two weeks for the players to get back to Fairhaven, where they divided treasure and rested. Meena was revealed to be an agent of the Royal Eyes, and she knew that the Queen would be very interested in this information on the House Vadalis research facility, previously unknown. The heroes had also learned much about the strange creatures they had been questing after in the first place, but no living samples of the things had been found. Taking a train south to Sharn, their route was changed at the last minute, taking them over the Blackpeak Mountains and past the Black Pit. A gang of nine warforged attacked the train looking for the players, but only their leader Scimitar escaped alive. At the same time, a rot reaver out of the Black Pit climbed aboard the train for an unknown purpose; it vanished after a fight with Setep's undead minions.

When the heroes got back to Sharn they learned that they had a detective agency: Dragoneye Investigations. Skakan had a lot of explaining to do but the players seemed to take it in stride. It only took a few minutes, however, for agents of Daask, the monster mob, to come calling. There was a brief but sharp battle with two minotaurs and their gnoll officer eventually being driven off with promises that, "This isn't over!"

Mister Boddy

Kyle d'Ferris was released from a powerful curse that had left him in an enchanted sleep. An assassination attempt against him was foiled, a mysterious patron made contact with the agency, and corruption was discovered within House Deneith. Plot points have been listed below, but are not in chronological order.

The mysterious package Dara was guarding turned out to be the body of Kyle d'Ferris, who has been under a powerful curse ever since he journeyed into Khyber. The High Priest of the Sovereign Host in Sharn had agreed to lift the curse, but it turned out he was not powerful enough.
At least one of the servants in Deneith Tower in the Dragon Towers district is a follower of the Blood of Vol.
Lan Hazal, a prosperous Karrnathi merchant living in the Graywall district, is the secret leader of the Blood of Vol in Sharn. He agreed to lift the curse as a personal favor for Setep.
The Circle of Song is an unofficial society of bards across Khorvaire. In Sharn the Circle is represented by Mandyran, a retired bard now operating a high-class hotel called the Golden Horn in the University district. Varel was welcomed into the Circle.
The Circle has few rules: no bard can kill another bard; while at a Circle establishment, bards must leave their grievances aside. Even mortal enemies must be courteous to one another.
A bard named Quietus recently broke these rules by killing another bard. Quietus was never friendly, but would not normally have broken the rules. He has been acting strangely since he fell in with some "bad company." He has taken to wearing a mask and hood, and for his crimes he has been cast out of the Circle, so he is no longer under its protection.
The Circle seems to have a network for spreading news and gathering information, so that Quietus's exile will soon extend to every city in the Five Kingdoms.
Quietus later attempted to kill Kyle's sleeping body by magically disguising himself as Dara. The plot was foiled but Quietus escaped.
The mysterious insect scale which prompted the journey to Three Trees was put in the players' possession by a woman named Amavakti, who finally revealed herself to them. She has visited Three Trees herself and knew about the creation of the kruthik, but did not have the resources to pursue the matter herself, so she dropped a clue in the players' lap and hoped they would investigate it. While Amavakti did not have any immediate suggestion on what should be done about the kruthik, she did offer to help the agency with Kyle's curse.
While Amavakti and the players met with Dara at the Dragon Towers home of House Deneith, two Sentinel Marshals from the Sharn branch of Deneith appeared. Lalia and Tasra d'Deneith are twins in the service of Sadran d'Deneith, head of the house in Sharn. Sadran ordered Kyle to be transferred to the Deneith enclave in Copper Arches, where only Sharn Deneith are permitted.
While in the course of reading the minds of the Lalia and Tasra, Amavakti discovered that they are actually hosts for Quori spirits from the Realm of Dreams, Dal Quor. In a sudden panic, Amavakti fled the House. The twins announced they would be back in 24 hours to get Kyle's body and they would come in force.
Amavakti revealed that she is a kalashtar, a race originally from Dal Quor but who fled the Realm of Dreams and the Quori. She told Varel and Delbourne about the Quori's genocide of the kalashtar people and the conquest of Sarlonna by the Quori and their hosts, the Inspired. She insisted that if Kyle were taken by Lalia and Tasra, he may wake up, but he would be possessed by a Quori spirit.
Amavakti has been concealed from the Quori, for the short term at least, in the sewers beneath Sharn by Skakan and his goblin contacts.
Tyasha d'Phiarlan, a reclusive elvish actress, is one of the most powerful bards in Khorvaire. She is also about 600 years old and extremely reclusive. Rumors suggest that Tyasha may be a vampire, a changeling, or even an elaborate Phiarlan fiction. Both Varel and Aurora met with her to ask for help with Kyle's curse, but Tyasha declined to get personally involved. She did direct the players to Aerela Tal, keeper of the Citadel of the Sun in the Hope's Peak district.
When Kyle awoke, he knew the location of the Cults of the Dragon Below in Sharn. He mentioned an abandoned church beneath the city and suggested immediate action against them.
When Lalia and Tasra reappeared, Kyle was already awake. The twins asked about Amavakti, who was not present, and Varel and Aurora suggested she had "gone to Wroat." Lalia and Tasra appeared to believe this story, and suggested they would hunt her down.

And that's where we are now.

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House Rules

The first thing you need to do is download my House Rules file. (It's a 12 page .pdf.) I have modified my house rules for 3.5 and again for the Eberron setting, incorporating a lot of rule options from Unearthed Arcana. The most important rule additions are Death and Dying and additional uses for Action Points.

During the course of the Eberron campaign, some additional rulings have been made that I've noted here.

Afterwards, I have racial paragon classes, a new prestige class, and a Shifter feat.

Travel Costs: Divide the cost for travel by lightning rail or skyship by 10. Prices were exorbitant as printed in the Eberron Campaign Setting, making these sources of routine travel unavailable to anyone not both rich and foolish. (Most PCs are only one of two.

The Dungeon Flu: Sometimes players are not able to attend a game session. Often this absence is easy to explain: the character is away on personal business. However, when in the middle of a dungeon, it can be very hard to explain not only the sudden disappearance of the character in question, but his sudden reappearance a week later. Therefore, I have instigated the Dungeon Flu, with a tip of the DM screen to Daniel, my player and fellow DM, who first thought of it.

The Dungeon Flu, known also as Catacomb Cough and the Creeping Crud, is a magical disease that has its roots in the Last War. Magical experiments conducted by all the Five Nations, including biological warfare projects, resulted in the creation of this stubborn disease. Most people who catch the Dungeon Flu do so in damp, dark, underground complexes where the disease flourishes. However, strands of the Dungeon Flu have been found in every possible locale, from the coldest north to the burning desert. It also thrives in cities and has proven itself to be contagious.
Once a person contracts the Dungeon Flu it lurks in his system for months, sometimes for years. A victim will feel no significant effects from the disease until it suddenly erupts, causing extreme fatigue, nausea, and occasionally sores on the skin. Victims suffering from acute Dungeon Flu are incapacitated, but can usually fend for themselves if left with proper supplies. A bout of acute Dungeon Flu typically lasts only for a day or two, but can sometimes extend for weeks, especially when the victim is forced to travel. After this period, the disease goes back into remission.
It is virtually impossible to be absolutely secure against the Dungeon Flu; once it is contracted a victim usually has it in his body for several months and cases lasting for years have been documented. Remove Disease works only in the very short term: Dungeon Flu is very stubborn and tends to be recontracted almost instantly by those who have suffered it previously. Even people normally immune to magical disease have been laid low by Dungeon Flu. Fortunately, the disease is almost never fatal. If the victims can endure the brief incapacitations, they can live a normal life.
Obviously, the Dungeon Flu is the easiest way of explaining the sudden absence of key characters when their players do not appear. Virtually every PC already has Dungeon Flu even if they don't know it, and when their player misses a game their character endures a brief relapse.

Firing Into Cover: Individuals with cover receive a +4 AC bonus as described in the Player's Handbook. If an attack misses the character because of the cover, the attack may hit the cover. Compare the attack roll of the attack to the AC off the cover; if it is equal to or greater than the AC of the cover, the cover is hit. Otherwise, the attack bounces off the cover.

Example: Three soldiers of the Emerald Claw are shooting crossbows at Setep, who is hiding behind his trusty skeletal minion, Horus. Setep's AC is 12 normally, raised to 16 due to cover. Horus has an AC of 15. The three soldiers roll an 8, 13 and 15 respectively. The 8 misses completely; neither Horus nor Setep are harmed. The 13 would be enough to hit Setep if he did not have cover. This means it could hit Horus, but the attack roll of 13 is not equal to Horus's AC, so the crossbow bolt is deflected harmlessly off Horus's shield. The last crossbow bolt also misses Setep, and is also high enough to hit to hit the AC of the cover: Horus takes the damage from one crossbow bolt. (Fortunately, as a skeleton, he has damage reduction.)

Paragon Racial Classes

Paragon racial classes were introduced in Unearthed Arcana on pages 32-46. They increase a character's racial abilities without removing any of that race's weaknesses, and are a good way to simulate "high" races like Numenoreans, Noldor Elves, Mountain Dwarves and the like. In Eberron, paragon racial classes need some adjustment since elves, orcs and other races are much different thematically than they are in the standard D&D setting. In addition, Eberron includes four new races that need paragon racial classes.

Use the Dwarf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Halfling, Human and Tiefling racial paragon classes as they are presented in Unearthed Arcana.
Until we know more about the setting, the Drow and Half-Dragon racial paragon classes are not available.
Adjstments have been made to the Elf and Orc paragon classes.
New racial paragon classes for the Changeling, Kalashtar, Shifter and Warforged are presented below.

Changeling (incomplete)

Hit Die: d6

Level	BAB	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special
1st	+0	+0	+2	+2
2nd	+1	+0	+3	+2
3rd	+2	+1	+3	+3

Class Skills:
Skill Points at Each Level:

Class Features:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: simple weapons, light armor

Elf

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Elf paragons are proficient with all simple weapons, rapiers, scimitars, shortbows and longbows. Elf paragons are proficient with light armor, but not with shields.

Weapon Focus: At 2nd level an elf paragon gains Weapon Focus as a bonus feat. This feat may apply to either the rapier, scimitar, shortbow, longbow, composite shortbow or composite longbow.

Kalashtar (incomplete)

Hit Die: d4

Level	BAB	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Powers per Day
1st	+0	+0	+0	+2		+1 manifester level
2nd	+1	+0	+0	+2		+1 manifester level
3rd	+1	+1	+1	+3		+1 manifester level

Class Skills:
Skill Points at Each Level:

Class Features:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency:

Orc

Slayer of Aberrations (Ex): A 2nd level orc paragon heeds his race's sacred mission to protect Khorvaire from aberrations. He gains a +2 bonus on weapon damage rolls against aberrations. This replaces the 2nd level "Elfslayer" ability of the standard orc paragon.

Shifter

Hit Die: d8

Level	BAB	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Spells per Day
1st	+1	+2	+2	+0	Feral grace	+1 level of ranger
2nd	+2	+3	+3	+0	Second shift	+1 level of druid or ranger
3rd	+3	+3	+3	+1	Ability boost	+1 level of ranger

Class Skills:
Climb, Handle Animal, Hide, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (geography), Knowledge (nature), Listen, Move Silently, Sense Motive, Spot, Survival, Swim
Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier

Class Features

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Shifter paragons are proficienct with simple and martial weapons and with light armor.
Spells per Day: At 1st and 3rd level, a shifter paragon gains new spells per day as if he had gained a level of ranger. At 2nd level, a shifter paragon gains new spells per day as if he had gained a level of druid or ranger (but not both). He does not, however, gain any other benefit a druid or ranger would have gained. If a shifter paragon has no levels of druid or ranger, this class feature has no effect.
Feral Grace (Ex): Shifter paragons have a +2 racial bonus to Climb, Jump and Balance checks which stacks with the racial bonus all Shifters have (for a total bonus of +4).
Second Shift (Su): At 2nd level, a shifter paragon gains one additional use of his shifting ability per day.
Abilty Boost (Ex): At 3rd level a shifter paragon increases one of his ability scores by +2. The ability score raised is that which corresponds to his shifter trait (Strength for Longtooth and Razorclaw shifters, Dexterity for Cliffwalk and Longstride shifters, and Constitution for Beasthide and Wildhunt shifters).

Warforged

Hit Die: d10

Level	BAB	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special
1st	+1	+2	+0	+0	Improved slam, improved fortification (50%)
2nd	+2	+3	+0	+0	Reinforced plating
3rd	+3	+3	+1	+1	Ability Boost (+2 Constitution)

Class Skills:
Climb, Craft, Intimidate, Jump, Swim.
Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier

Class Features

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Warforged paragons are proficient with simple and martial weapons, with light, medium, and heavy armor, and with shields (but not tower shields).
Improved Slam (Ex): A warforged paragon increases the damage of his natural attack from 1d4 to 1d6. If his natural attack has already been increased to 1d6, it becomes 1d8.
Improved Fortification (Ex): A warforged paragon increases his fortification to 50%. If it is already 50% or higher, this class feature has no effect.
Reinforced Plating (Ex): A 2nd level warforged paragon gains a +2 bonus to the armor bonus of his composite plating racial quality. However, this also increases his arcane spell failure chance by 5% and increases his armor check penalty by 1.
Ability Boost: A 3rd level warforged paragon increases his Constitution score by 2.

Feats

Wildhunt Elite
Your shifter trait improves.
Prerequisite: Shifter with the wildhunt trait.
Benefit: While using the Track feat, you have a +4 additional bonus on Survival checks. This stacks with the +2 bonus to survival you gain from your racial trait, for a total of +6 when tracking.

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Prestige Classes

Bembridge Scholar

Hit Die: d6

Requirements
    Feat: Research
    Skills: Decipher Script 8 ranks, Knowledge (any two) 8 ranks

Class Skills
The Bembridge scholar’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Appraise (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Forgery (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Knowledge (any, chosen individually) (Int), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Speak Language (none), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Use Magic Device (Cha).
    Skill Points at Each Level: 6 + Int modifier

The Bembridge Scholar

Level	BAB	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special
1st	+0	+0	+0	+2	Arcane research, favors, field of study, lore
2nd	+1	+0	+0	+3	Bonus feat, quick read
3rd	+2	+1	+1	+3	Expert, field of study, journal
4th	+3	+1	+1	+4	Endowment, cool under pressure
5th	+3	+1	+1	+4	Field of study, master of the written word

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the Bembridge scholar.
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: Bembridge scholars gain no additional proficiency with weapons or armor.

Arcane Research (Ex): A Bembridge scholar spends her spare time poring through old tomes and ancient libraries looking for secrets others have missed. As a result of her research, every level she acquires a limited number of arcane or divine scrolls which she may then attempt to use with the Use Magic Device skill. There is no gp or XP cost for the scrolls the Bembridge Scholar gains with each new level in this class.
At 1st level, and at each subsequent level, the Bembridge scholar uncovers spell scrolls through research and study. The DM randomly selects the spells contained in the scrolls, though the Bembridge Scholar can make a Knowledge check using the Research feat to select a certain number of her own spells. The table below shows how many scrolls of each spell level the Bembridge Scholar receives upon gaining a new level, and how many of these can be researched at each level. Each desired spell can be researched once per level; the Knowledge skill required varies depending on the type of spell. Druid and ranger spells require Knowledge (nature), wizard/sorcerer and bard spells require Knowledge (arcana), while cleric or paladin spells require Knowledge (religion).

Level	1	2	3	4	Research
1st	3				2 (DC 20)
2nd	4	3			4 (DC 23)
3rd	5	4	3		6 (DC 25)
4th	6	5	4	3	8 (DC 28)
5th	7	6	5	4	10 (DC 30)

Favors (Ex): A Bembridge scholar can call upon her fellow scholars (and their students) for favors and advice as a sort of “old boy’s network.” Favors can be used to gain important information without going through the time and trouble of a Gather Information check, as well as for the loan of equipment or documents. To call in a favor, the Bembridge scholar must make a favor check, rolling a d20 + class level. The DM sets the DC based on the scope of the favor being requested; it can range from DC 10 for a simple favor to DC 25 for highly dangerous, expensive, or illegal favors. You cannot take 10 or take 20 on this check, nor can you retry the check for the same (or virtually the same) favor. A Bembridge scholar can try to call in a favor a number of times per week equal to her class level. She can never ask for more than one favor from any contact in a given week.

Field of Study (Ex): A Bembridge scholar selects a single Knowledge skill as her primary field of study and gains a +2 bonus to this skill. At 3rd level she selects a second field of study for a +2 bonus and raises her first field to a +4 bonus. At 5th level she selects a third field of study for a +2 bonus, raising each of her previous fields by +2 (for a total of +6 and +4 each).

Lore (Ex): A Bembridge scholar collects facts on just about every subject under the sun. At 1st level a Bembridge scholar gains the ability to know legends or information regarding various topics, just as a bard can with bardic knowledge. The Bembridge scholar adds her level and her intelligence modifier to the lore check. See page 28 of the Player’s Handbook for more information on bardic knowledge.

Bonus Feat: At 2nd level the Bembridge scholar may select one of the following feats as a bonus feat (she must satisfy all prerequisites for the feat chosen): Diligent, Investigate, Investigator, Iron Will, Magical Aptitude, Persuasive, Recognize Imposter, Skill Focus, Strong Mind.

Quick Read (Ex): A Bembridge scholar of at least 2nd level requires only half the normal time on any Decipher Script check or on any Knowledge check made for the Research feat. In addition, she can decipher a written spell from a scroll as a move action instead of a full-round action. She must still succeed in a Spellcraft check to decipher the scroll (DC 20 + spell level).

Expert (Ex): A Bembridge scholar of 3rd level or higher can rely on her reputation in many instances where simple education may not be enough. She can add her class level to any Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, or Intimidate check which relates to any of her fields of study. For example, a Bembridge scholar may use this ability to intimidate the guards at a library she is not allowed to enter, convince another person she knows the answer to a question when she really does not, or seek out information on a rival professor.

Journal (Ex): A Bembridge scholar is obligated to record all her research for posterity, usually in a field journal which will later be edited into a final manuscript. By 3rd level, the Bembridge scholar can consult her own notes when time permits, aiding in research. Consulting her own journal requires one minute and adds a +2 equipment bonus to Knowledge checks in which the Bembridge scholar already has at least 4 ranks.

Cool Under Pressure (Ex): A Bembridge scholar of 4th level can always take 10 on Decipher Script checks, Spellcraft checks, and Use Magic Device checks that relate to scrolls.

Endowment (Ex): By 4th level the Bembridge scholar is world renown for her scholarship and is offered a permanent high-level faculty position at a university. This position usually has a distinguished title, such as "the Robinson Chair of Arcane Studies at Margrave University" or "the Migglevee Chair of Theological Research at Northgate College." A character with an endowment receives a monthly stipend which pays for an affluent lifestyle, including an expansive and richly appointed estate, servants, fashionable attire and other amenities. If using the optional rules for Upkeep (DMG p. 130) the Bembridge scholar automatically enjoys the Good lifestyle without paying any money from her own pocket. If not using the Upkeep rules, assume the endowment pays for living expenses that amount to approximately 100 gp per month. This money cannot be used for other purposes, such as buying magic items. It is entirely consumed by living expenses.

Master of the Written Word (Ex): At 5th level a Bembridge scholar has learned to cast spells from scrolls without destroying the scroll in the process. If she attempts a Use Magic Device check on a scroll and exceeds the DC by 5 or more, the spell is not used up and the scroll can be re-used later. This ability cannot be used if the spell on the scroll requires a material component or focus costing more than 1 gp, or if it has an XP component.

Amanda d'Nama	All right, I have to confess, I'm not entirely happy with the way my first Eberron character is working out. Amanda started out as a more ordinary D&D character, a sorceress of Wee Jas, specializing in "mirror magic." I was aiming for the Mirror Master prestige class in Monte Cook's Book of Eldritch Might. But the campaign in which Amanda began ended after one session, to be replaced by an Eberron campaign. I wanted to play Amanda, but I realized that if I were to make an item-based character like Amanda, she had better be an Artificer, because an Artificer would always be better at such magic than a sorceress. And yet, mirrors aren't really in the style of Eberron, and an Artificer's other abilities (modest fighting ability, detecting and disarming traps, etc.) don't suit her. In short, I should have made a new character. But I tried to make a very round peg fit a very square hole. We'll see.
Amanda d'Nama (female human artificer 5): HD 5d6+5; 27hp; Init +2; Spd 30 ft; AC 16 (+4 armor, +2 dex); BAB +3; Grap +1; Atk +1 melee (1d4-2/19-20 dagger), +5 ranged (improvised weapon or spell); SQ Artificer Knowledge, Craft Homunculus, Craft Reserve, DisableTrap, Infusions, Item Creation, Retain Essence; AL NG; SV Fort +2, Ref +3, Will +4; AP 7; Str 8, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 16, Wis 11, Cha 16. Skills & Feats: Appraise +8 (+10 for alchemy and mirrors), Craft (alchemy) +11, Craft (mirrors) +11, Diplomacy +4, Knowledge (arcana) +13, Knowledge (architecture) +8, Knowledge (planes) +8, Search +6 (+8 for secret doors or hidden compartments), Spellcraft +13 (+15 for identifying scrolls), Use Magic Device +16 (+18 for potions, wondrous items, arms or armor, +20 for scrolls); Brew Potion, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Wondrous Item, Extraordinary Artisan, Item Familiar, Research, Scribe Scroll, Skill Focus (Use Magic Device). Languages: Common, Draconic, Elvish. Artificer Infusions (cast 5/4/2 per day): Amanda knows all infusions of first through third level that are listed in the ECS. The save DC to resist her infusions is 13 + infusion level. When casting arcane spells, she has a 10% chance of spell failure due to her mithril shirt. Possessions: Amanda's Magical Mirror, mithril shirt, glamerweave explorer’s outfit (enchanted with an air elemental to remain always dry even in rain or flooding; 10 gp; potion of cure moderate wounds; scrolls of dimension door, invisibility, silence, glitterdust, bless weapon, charm person, shield, disguise self, detect undead, mount, erase, endure elements, obscuring mist; 7 lbs); dagger (1 lb); belt pouch (small steel mirror, instant rope; 4 lbs); backpack (pouch with 1,213 gp, masterwork artisan’s tools; 9 1/2 lbs).
Amanda's Magical Mirror: This medium-size looking glass is set in a round frame and has long handles on opposite sides, allowing it to be set into a stand when not in use. It can be used to cast mirror image or summon monster II (Veroot Nerra) once per day (caster level 3). In addition, the mirror is Amanda's Item Familiar, giving her other benefits so long as it is in her possession. If it is out of her possession for more than 5 days, she loses these benefits: Invested Life Energy: So long as Amanda has the mirror, she gains +10% XP. If she loses the mirror, she not only loses this bonus XP, she loses an additional 1,000 XP. Invested Skills: Amanda has 12 skill ranks invested in her mirror (Craft Alchemy 2, Craft Mirrors 2, Know Arcana 2, Know Architecture 1, Search 1, Spellcraft 2, Use Magic Device 2). In return, she has a +2 bonus to both Knowledge (arcana) and Use Magic Device. If she loses her mirror, she loses both the invested ranks and the bonuses. Invested Spells: Amanda has invested a third level infusion into her mirror. In return, she gains one additional first level infusion. If she loses the mirror, she loses both infusion slots.
Amanda d'Nama was an orphan on the streets of a small town when she wandered into the shop of a mirror-wright (a maker of mirrors) and broke a valuable commission. The owner of the shop forced Amanda to work around the house to pay off the debt, but the young girl proved herself clever, diligent, and above all discreet. In time she became an apprentice and the shopowner became her foster mother. For several years Amanda learned the mirror-crafting trade before her magical powers surfaced: she conjured a horse out of the mirror in her bedroom. (Boy, was that a mess to clean up.) After this she was sent by her foster-mother to a boarding school devoted to the god of magic, where she was to receive wizard training. But she proved ill-suited to the strict regimen of discipline and formalized magic and after a year she returned to her dissappointed foster mother. Amanda's magic had always been strongest in the presence of mirrors, and she began to research the legendary magical properties of mirrors while assisting her mother in the shop. She expanded her mother's mirror-crafting business to include the construction of alchemical items, though this aspect of the store's profits is still very low. While Amanda feels that she is making good progress in her exploration of mirror magic, especially considering her youth, she nevertheless knows that such arcane knowledge will not just fall in her lap. She must go out to find it, and that means leaving the town where she grew up and where she spent most of her life. She has therefore spent nearly all her life's savings to equip herself for adventure, and she hopes to join up with a band of like-minded warriors who can help defend her while she uses her magic on their behalf.

Dragonlance

My very good friend Kevin Eustice has been running a Dragonlance campaign for about a year and a half now; it is set during the War of the Lance and I play Raistlin. Events have proceeded much differently than they did in the novels; for starters, Goldmoon and Tanis are dead, Flint has been reincarnated as a man (instead of a dwarf), Sturm didn't die at the High Clerist's Tower (he's still alive as of this writing) and Raistlin hasn't turned evil.

More significantly for me, Tanis and Laurana had a permanent falling out based on the fact that Tanis did not reveal his affair with Kit until long after he and Laurana had been reunited. Raistlin had fallen for Laurana in a big way and she is now more or less torn between Tanis (or at least his memory, since he just got killed by a demon) and Raistlin. The problem is made more complicated since Laurana has sworn to kill Kit, Raistlin's sister. Like the sands through the hourglass ...

After many long adventures, Fistandantalus fled Raistlin's brain, taking the Staff of Magius with him. This has left Raistlin much less powerful than he used to be; he also no longer has the hourglass-eyes, though the gold skin remains. This character uses rules from the Dragonlance Campaign Setting.

For my part, I have intentionally tried to take Raistlin in new directions. My spell list is very traditional; I try to stick to classic D&D spells though recently I have yielded to Kevin's encouragement and cracked open Monte Cook's Book of Eldritch Might. I never imagined Raistlin with a familiar, so searching for an alternate led to Firefoot, a fire elemental warhorse which I find very Gandalfian. Despite that change, and a suite of magic items which help to negate Raistlin's physical ailments (he has +2 Strength, +4 Con, and +4 Int from magic items, not counting a +1 bonus to Str and Con from reading various magical books) his role in the party remains what it has always been. He is, first and foremost, a source of knowledge. Second, he aids the company through the use of teleportation, message delivery, and scrying magic. Finally, he throws the occasional big-die invocation spell. Oh, and he complains a lot. About everything. Raistlin complains endlessly.

Oh, one other game mechanics note: you will read above that "it takes Raistlin 22 seconds to prepare one spell level." This comes from the knowledge that Raistlin can prepare all his spells in a single hour every morning. Dividing one hour by the number of spell levels Raistlin prepares (about 160) gets 22 seconds per spell level. This means that if I leave a slot empty (say a 4th level slot) I know how much time I have to devote to prepping a spell in that slot (in this case, about a minute and a half). You never know when facts like this come in handy.

Raistlin Majere: human male wizard 5/Red 9; HD 5d4+10 plus 9d4+18; 71 hp; Init +1; Spd 30 ft.; AC 20 (touch 13, flat-footed 19; BAB +6/+1; Atk +5 melee touch or +7 melee (1d4+1/19-20 dagger of magius) or +7 ranged touch; Full Atk +5 melee touch or +7/+2 melee (1d4+1/19-20 dagger of magius) or +7 ranged touch; SQ Arcane Research, Patron Deity, Spells, Magic of Change, Magic of Independence, Magic of Mystery, Moon Magic, Mount, Pure Magic, Tower Resources; AL N; SV Fort +7, Ref +7, Will +15; Str 9, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 26, Wis 16, Cha 13.

Skills & Feats: Craft (alchemy) +13, Concentration +18, Intimidate +10, Knowledge (arcana) +29, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +13, Knowledge (geography) +13, Knowledge (history) +14, Knowledge (the planes) +25, Ride +5, Sense Motive +7, Spellcraft +29, Use Magic Device +15; Brew Potion, Craft Wondrous Item, Eschew Materials, Greater Spell Penetration, Scribe Scroll, Spell Focus (Transmutation), Spell Penetration, Spellcasting Prodigy.

Languages: Abasinian, Common, Draconian, Dwarven, Elven, Infernal, High Ogre, Kolshet, Magius.

Special Qualities: Patron Deity: Raistlin has chosen Lunitari as his patron. Use Magic Device is a class skill for him, and he receives a +1 bonus on Use Magic Device checks. This bonus is included in his sheet. Mount: Instead of binding a familiar as ordinary wizards do, Raistlin has a special mount, Firefoot. Firefoot is an elemental light warhorse (fire) and has special abilities as a paladin's mount, treating Raistlin as a paladin of one level lower than his character level (that is, 13th level). Raistlin and Firefoot have an empathic link and can share spells and saving throws. Firefoot has improved evasion, +6 HD, +3 Str, +8 natural armor and Int 7. Moon Magic: Raistlin's spellcasting level and save DCs are subject to the position of Lunitari, the red moon. Tower Resources: Raistlin has access to the Tower at Wayreth. There, he can copy spells into his spellbook at twice the usual rate (for a total of 2 per day) and the cost for creating new spells is only 3/4 normal. Arcane Research: Raistlin has a +4 competence bonus on Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcana) checks. Magic of Change: Four times a day Raistlin can Extend or Enlarge one of his Transmutation spells. Magic of Independence: When anyone attempts to dispel one of Raistlin's spells the DC is 15 + his caster level (14, 15 for Transformations, modified by Moon Magic). Magic of Mystery: When another spellcaster employs a divination against one of Raistlin's spells (such as detect magic) or tries to reveal the effects of one of his spells (such as see invisibility), the caster must make a level check (DC 25 or 26 for transformations) or else the divination fails. Spellcraft checks to identify Raistlin's spells have the DC raised by +2. Pure Magic: Three times per day, Raistlin may convert one of his damage dealing spells to pure magic. Half of this damage cannot be blocked by protection from elements or similar magic.

Wizard Spells Prepared (cast 4+1/7+1/6+1/6+1/6+1/5+1/4+1/3+1 per day):Raistlin's spell load changes constantly. The save DC for Raistlin's spells is 19 + spell level, or 21 + spell level for transmutations. It takes Raistlin 22 seconds to prepare 1 open spell level.

Possessions: Raistlin's Red Robes [+2 enhancement bonus to Strength and +4 to Constitution], headband of intellect +4, bracers of armor +5, amulet of natural armor +2, cloak of resistance +2, ring of counterspells (greater dispel magic), boots of big stepping (dimension door 1/day, caster level 7), rod of lesser maximize, crystal pendant [allows the casting of up to 2 spell levels within an anti-magic field], Dagger of Magius [+2 dagger which is undetectable by magical means and is not detected when Raistlin's person is searched], pearl of power (1st level, left cufflink worth additional 100 stl), pearl of power (2nd level, right cufflink worth additional 100 stl), scroll bandolier (scrolls of charm monster, levitate, polymorph, tongues, greater magic weapon (caster level 8)), courtier's outfit, spell component pouch (ivory plaque worth 50 stl [Rary's]), rowan quarterstaff.

Bag of holding (type I): Bookrod, wand of shield [32 charges], potion of false life, one mounted and one footman's dragonlance, spellbook, personal journal, journal of the ogre mage, holy symbol of Takhisis, amulet of sickness -6, healing salve, white and green dragon scales, belt pouch (five 100 gp pearls), portable writing desk, silver mirror worth 1,000 stl [scry], figurine carved from ivory and decorated with gems worth 1,500 stl [contingency], tiny lens of ruby set in a golden hoop worth 1,500 stl [analyze dwoemer], four strips of ivory worth 25 stl each [legend lore focus], incense worth 250 stl [legend lore material component]), money belt (50 steel pieces), +1 cloak of resistance.

Notes: Inherent Bonus: Raistlin's Constitution and Intelligence scores include a +1 inherent bonus. Spellcasting Prodigy: Raistlin has a 24 (28) Intelligence for the purposes of determining the Save DC for his spells and for gaining bonus spells (+9 bonus). Craft Points: Raistlin has 1500 Craft Points remaining. Enhanced Specialization: Raistlin casts Transformations at +1 caster level (that is, as a 15th level wizard) and has a +1 bonus on saves against spells from the Transformation school and against spell-like abilities which duplicate these spells. Prohibited Schools: Raistlin cannot learn necromancies or enchantments at all or any additional abjurations. He may still cast those abjurations that he currently knows. Contingency: Raistlin has a contingency spell cast along with robe of reflection. The spell activates if Raistlin is attacked with fire, cold, acid, sonic, or electricity, guarding Raistlin against that element. Permanent Arcane Sight: Raistlin has cast arcane sight and a permanency spell (caster level 14, dispel check DC 30).

Adventures in the Markyverse

My good friend Mark has been running D&D games online for years now and while they take place in a number of different settings (often the Forgotten Realms) I nonetheless lump them all together here as part of the "Markyverse." I don't have a lot to contribute to the Markyverse, but that's because Mark is one of the most innovative and professional DMs I have ever known; I just try to bring a good character to the table. So that's what I have to show you here.

Euryale, young medusa and bard
Kiot zeb Anhur, priest of the storm god
Morn Strata, red wizard and diviner
Byron Fawkes, swashbuckling fop
Vvim Toth, summoner-at-large

Euryale

My current character in Mark's D&D game is a medusa bard. Rule buffs will note that Euryale is strictly illegal: a monster character is not supposed to take any levels in a PC class until she is done advancing through all the levels of the monster class. But Mark let me do it so, you know, that's cool.

Euryale has the personality of a 16-year old cheerleader, if the cheerleader secretly knew that she was a supernatural killer who would be tracked down and murdered by ignorant savages if her true nature was revealed. Thanks to her veil of disguise and the quality of medusas to be mistaken for a human at ranges greater than 30 feet (check your Monster Manual! Mark and I decided this must be a supernatural ability) she has so far been able to keep her true nature hidden even from her close comrades. She currently adventures with a pair of men: a wizard/rogue named Shaye and a ranger, and has survived a few very close calls. She shed her skin a few weeks ago and had to lie low lest her serpentine nature be revealed, but she hopes to keep her secret until her natural powers of petrification mature enough that she can defend herself in a proper medusan manner.

Euryale (female medusa 4, bard 2): HD 3d8+9 plus 2d6+6; 43 hp; Init +4; Spd 30 ft (run); AC 23 (+1 natural, +4 dex, +6 armor, +2 shield); BAB +4; Atk +6 melee (1d8+2/19-20 longsword or 1d4+1 poisonous snakes or 1d4+2 nonlethal whip), +9 or +7/+7 ranged (1d8+3/x3 magic longbow); SA Bardic music 2/day, Poison; SQ Bardic Knowledge, Darkvision 60 ft, Spells; SV Fort +4, Ref +10, Will +7; Str 14, Dex 18, Con 17, Int 16, Wis 13, Cha 18.

Skills & Feats: Bluff +10, Disguise +10, Gather Information +7, Knowledge (nature) +8, Move Silently +10, Diplomacy +5, Perform +11, Sense Motive +4, Spot +7; Martial Weapon Proficiency (longbow), Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot.

Special Abilities: Bardic Knowledge: Euryale has a +5 modifier on bardic knowledge checks. Bardic Music: Euryale may countersong, fascinate, or inspire courage (+1) a total of two times each day. Poison: Euryale's snakes inflict 1d4 damage and poison (DC 14; 1d4 Str/2d4 Str). Proficiencies: Euryale is proficient with all simple weapons, long sword, rapier, sap, whip, short bow, long bow, light armor, and shields. She can wear light armor without a chance of arcane spellcasting failure.

Bard Spells Known (cast 3/1 per day): 0--detect magic, light, lullaby, mage hand, prestidigitation; 1--disquietude, harmony.

Possessions: composite longbow +1 (+2 Strength bonus), 32 arrows, 5 cold iron arrows, 5 mithril arrows, longsword, whip, +1 mithril shirt, heavy steel shield, veil of disguise, wand of cure light wounds (8 charges), wand of cure moderate wounds (47 charges), ring of elemental resistance (fire 10).

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Kiot zeb Anhur

Kiot began as a 2nd level cleric in Mark's White Company game. But that campaign didn't last long and when we decided to bring back a "greatest hits" group in which each player picked one of their old characters to play, I picked the Big Man. This required advancing him to the level of the other players, about half of whom were 10th level.

He was imagined as a shameless Thor clone, mostly because online you only have a few ways to differentiate your character and one of the best ones is manner of speech. Alas, like the White Company, Kiot's new game didn't last long. I never got to take the level of Exotic Weapon Master (see Complete Warrior) that would have allowed him to throw his sword ala Mjolnir. But for a true glimpse into his past you must read Kiot's story for yourself ... (it's sort of like Dr. Seuss meets The Ten Commandments).

Kiot Zeb-Anhur: male human barbarian 1, cleric 9 (Anhur); HD 1d12+3 plus 9d8+27; 102 hp; Init +1; Spd 30 ft; AC 27 (+10 armor, +4 shield, +1 deflection, +1 natural armor, +1 dex); BAB +7/+2; Atk +13/+8 melee (1d10+6/19-20 bastard sword one handed) or +13/+8 melee (1d10+8/19-20 bastard sword two-handed), +8 ranged; SQ Feat of Strength, Rage, Resistance 5 electricity, Spontaneous Cure, Turn undead; AL CG; SV Fort +11, Ref +4, Will +9; Str 16 (20), Dex 12, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 15, Cha 12.
    Special Qualities: Rage: Kiot can rage once per day for 6 rounds. During a rage, he cannot cast spells and his stats change to the following: hp 122; AC 25; Atk +15/+10 melee (1d10+8/19-20 bastard sword one handed) or +15/+10 melee (1d10+11/19-20 bastard sword two handed); SV Fort +13, Will +11; Str 20, Con 20. Spontaneous Cure: Kiot can convert any prepared cleric spell (not a domain spell) into a cure spell of equal level. Feat of Strength: Kiot can perform a feat of strength, gaining a +9 enhancement bonus to Strength for one round, once per day. Turn Undead: Kiot can attempt to turn undead 4 times per day.
    Skills & Feats: Concentration +11, Heal +10, Knowledge (the planes) +10, Knowledge (religion) +10, Ride +6; Exotic Weapon Proficiency (bastard sword), Power Attack, Quick Draw, Spell Thematics (the DC to Spellcraft Kiot's spells is 5 higher than normal and he casts the following spells as a 10th level caster: divine favor, shatter, call lightning, sleet storm, flame strike), Weapon Focus (bastard sword).
    Languages: Kiot speaks Mulhorandi and Common.
    Cleric Spells Prepared (cast 6/5/5/3/2/1 per day): 1--comprehend languages, detect evil, divine favor, hide from undead, shield of faith; 2--align weapon, bear's endurance, consecrate, shatter, shield other; 3--daylight, invisibility purge, searing light; 4--air walk, dismissal; 5--flame strike. The DC to resist Kiot's spells is 12 + spell level.
    Domain Spells Prepared: 1--entropic shield; 2--gust of wind; 3--call lightning; 4--sleet storm; 5--righteous might.
    Possessions: Belt of giant strength +4, mithril full plate armor +2, mithril bastard sword +1 returning, heavy steel shield +2, ring of protection +1, boots of the winterland, cloak of the winter wolf, amulet of natural armor +1, quiver of 6 javelins, silver holy symbol, belt pouch (healer's kit), backpack (clerical vestments, bedroll, 50 feet of hemp rope, sack, two torches, 7 days rations), traveler's outfit. (3,845 gp remaining). Potion of water breathing and swimming.

Kiot's Song

The Beginning

Listen good gentles, and you will be told

Of the life and the death of Kiot the Bold.

It's said that this hero whom some call a bore and

A cad was engendered in distant Mulhorand.

His father a priest was, of Anhur the Mighty

(His mother a concubine, lovely but flighty);

Through the line of his ancestors, blood of the Storm

Had flowed for an eon, I'm proud to inform.

Revered and respected, Kiot's proud Pop

Said, "My life for another's, I never would swap.

Even the Pharoah now owes me a ton --

If only, if only, I had me a son!"

But the wife of the high priest was frigid and cold,

Embittered by jealousy, quick to grow old.

She never would let Kiot's Dad in her bed:

"Touched by a man? I'd rather be dead!"

The lusty high priest thus sought out his harem

(Two dozen maidens, and he didn't share'em)

"Give me a son, and I will proclaim it:

Whatever you wish! You have but to name it!"

Twenty four maidens opened their arms,

Beguiled the priest with all of their charms,

The revels that followed, if put on the screen

Would merit the rating NC-17.

But after a fortnight the high priest was found

Bare as a baby and prone on the ground.

The Chamberlain said, a wise man named Wilt,

"The son he may earn, but also the guilt!"

In the passage of time, the high priest was pleased:

Of all of those women down on their knees,

Two were grown heavy. "My harem is preggers!

Pass out cigars! Open the keggers!"

But from the festivities, one stood apart:

The wife of the priest was bitter at heart.

"Oh that my husband should forsake me now

And lavish attention on some harem cow!"

"I'll have my revenge," the mad woman swore.

"And make him regret that he loves me no more."

You might say the woman an axe had to grind,

But to all of this evil the high priest was blind.

The day of the birth came, the streets filled with joy!

The babies popped out, and each was a boy!

Imagine Dad's pleasure, "I surely am blessed!

Now each of you mommies get a request!"

For nine months the mothers had thought of this day,

Both of them wondering what they would say.

Both of them loved their priest more than life,

Both of them said, "Now make me your wife!"

The high priest he stammered, stuttered and swore.

"The law gives me one wife, not any more!

I'm already married, ask something new:

Riches or freedom I give unto you!"

"Riches or freedom? What need have we?

All we desire is vested in thee.

You offered us anything; now we decide:

You must make both of us into your bride."

The End

All the man's triumph was turning to shame.

And he knew in his rashness that he was to blame.

What could he do? The law was precise.

So he went to the Pharoah, and tried to make nice.

"Oh, mighty Pharoah! You owe me some gold!

Pyramids of it! (Or so I am told.)

Let me increase my wife count to three

And your debts will all vanish, I waive them for free!"

For years had the Pharoah hoped to escape

His debt to this priest, "You are in a scrape.

I'll tell you old joe, here's what I'll do:

I'll let you increase your wife count to two."

The high priest accepting his majesty's deal,

Returned to the temple a marriage to seal.

After gazing an hour on each beauteous maid

He said, "You I'll marry; you make the grade!"

But woe for the second, less fair than the first.

Her son was the younger; her fate was the worst.

"You asked me a boon I'm forbidden to grant,

"And so you are banished! My vow I recant!"

In tears did she leave him, and taking her son,

She fled to the desert, followed by none.

Meanwhile back in the city the priest

Ordered a rollicking wedding-day feast!

There was wine by the gallon, venison roast,

As parties are rated, this was the most!

The proud father boasted, "My beautiful boy,

I hereby name Kiot, the source of my joy!"

But suddenly Papa, he struggled to speak.

His tongue became swollen, his limbs became weak.

"My man's turning purple!" the young bride then said,

"Somebody help him, before he is dead!"

"Nothing can save him," was the first wife's reply.

"Within moments that man that we both love will die.

"I poisoned his wine, his and mine both.

"So I'm avenged on the man I betrothed."

The funeral march was three miles long,

And all of the harem shared in the song.

The Pharoah was somber, but inwardly he

Was free of his debt, and chortled with glee!

By law was the maiden the priestess' bride,

But all of her happiness withered inside.

True she had riches, a massive estate

But the gloom in her heart would not dissipate.

Kiot grew into a beautiful lad

Generous, kind, but wrathful when mad.

His father young Kiot never would know

His mother, happiness, never did show.

He came then to wonder, "Where is my brother?

"The child borne by the rival of Mother?"

But that tale's told in a much different song.

For this little ditty is already long.

What's that you say? I promised to tell

Of Kiot's proud birth and his death oh so fell?

It's true that I said I would sing how he died.

But just like the high priest, his father, I lied!

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Morn Strata

Morn was my attempt to play a non-evil Red Wizard. As a specialist diviner, I was aiming for the Divine Oracle prestige class but she never reached it. I became very fond of Morn over time, and this was Mark's longest-lasting campaign. Morn was made with 3.0 rules.

A few explanatory notes may assist here: Arcane Spellcasting Focus was a feat I created to answer the question, "Why does Harry Potter train with a wand?" The feat allows an arcane spellcaster to select a single item which substitutes for all focuses and material components (that don't cost more than 1 gp). In Morn's case, she used her wand of magic missiles. Disdain the divine is a spell from Monte Cook's Book of Eldritch Might. Rules for tattoo magic come from Magic of Faerun.

Morn Strata: human female wizard 5, Red Wizard 2; CR 7; HD 7d4+7; 28 hp; Init +1; AC 16 (touch 11, flatfooted 15); Atk +2 melee (touch spell) or +3 melee (1d4/17-20 +1 keen dagger), +5 ranged (1d8/19-20 light crossbow with masterwork bolts) or +4 ranged (touch spell); SQ Divination, enhanced specialization, familiar, spells; AL N; SV Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +9; Str 8, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 20, Wis 12, Cha 15.

Skills & Feats: Concentration +16, Craft (bookbinding) +11, Craft (calligraphy) +11, Diplomacy +6, Intimidate +7, Knowledge (arcana) +20, Knowledge (religion) +15, Scry +18, Speak Languages (Chessentan, Common, Draconic, Elven, Mulhorandi, Untheric), Spellcraft +20; Arcane Spellcasting Focus (wand), Craft Magic Tattoo, Craft Wand, Scribe Scroll, Skill Focus (Scry), Tattoo Focus.

Special Qualities: Divination: Morn is specialized in divination magic: she may prepare one additional divination spell at each level, receives a +2 bonus on Spellcraft checks that relate to divination, but may not cast necromancy spells at all. Enhanced Specialization: Morn cannot learn any Illusion spells other than the ones already in her spellbook. Familiar: Morn's familiar is a nightingale named Melody. Melody has a +3 natural armor bonus, 14 hp, Int 8, improved evasion, and an empathic link with Morn. Morn can share spells with Melody, Melody can deliver touch spells for Morn, and Morn has a +2 on Listen and Spot checks when Melody is within arm's reach. Melody speaks (sings, really) in Elven. Specialist Defense: Morn has +1 on saves against divinations. Spell Power: Morn's divinations have a +2 bonus to save DC and a +2 bonus on caster level checks to overcome spell resistance. Divinations have been underlined.

Spells Prepared: (cast 5/7/5/4/2 per day): 0--any five (house rule); 1--charm person, disdain the divine, feather fall, know protections, lesser sonic orb, mage armor, shield; 2--alter self, combust, darkvision, mirror image, eagle's splendor; 3--dispel magic, displacement, fireball, slow; 4--minor globe of invulnerability, polymorph other. The DC to resist Morn's spells is 15 + spell level (higher for divinations).

Specialization Spells Prepared: 0--detect poison; 1--true strike; 2--detect thoughts; 3--clairaudience/clairvoyance; 4--arcane sight.

Gear: +1 keen dagger, courtier's outfit, belt pouch (7 pp, 9 gp, 4 sp, 9 cp), second belt pouch (antitoxin, potion of darkvision, potion of cure moderate wounds, potion of cure light wounds), wand of magic missiles (5th level caster, 47 charges, command word ÔKimota!'; this wand is also her arcane spellcasting focus). Scroll organizer with scrolls of haste, detect secret doors, unseen servant, locate object, see invisible, burning hands, lesser fire orb, lesser acid orb, lesser electric orb, lesser cold orb, lesser sonic orb. Morn wears a +1 cloak of resistance, a brooch of shielding (50 hp remaining), a pearl of power (level 1) in a navel ring, and a ring of the journeyman wizard, which grants her a bonus spell of levels 0-3 and a +5 bonus to Concentration, Spellcraft, and Knowledge (arcana) checks. These numbers have been included in her stats, above. She wears bracers of armor +5 on loan from the Temple of Selune.

Spellbook 1: 1--burning hands, change self, charm person, comprehend languages, detect secret doors, know protections, lesser sonic orb, mage armor, magic missile, magic weapon, shield, sleep, true strike, unseen servant; 2--alter self, cat's grace, combust, detect thoughts, invisibility, locate object, mirror image, misdirection, see invisibility; 3--clairaudience/clairvoyance, dispel magic, displacement, fireball, invisibility sphere, major image. Morn's first spellbook is prepared according to the rules in Magic of Faerun. It has a thin wood cover, a slipcase, and has 100 pages (all full) for a total weight of 4 pounds, hardness 4, and 5 hp. She made it herself with Craft (bookbinding) and spent 1/3 the market value in raw materials.

Spellbook 2: 0--All from PHB, T&B and MoF except for necromancies (21 total); 1-- identify; 2--magic mouth; 3--arcane sight, haste, illusory script, slow; 4--minor globe of invulnerability, polymorph other. Morn's second spellbook is prepared according to the rules in Magic of Faerun. It has a thin wood cover, a slipcase, and 100 vellum pages for a total weight of 4 pounds, hardness 4, and 5 hp. 56 pages are full and 44 remain empty.

Spellbook 3: 1--animate rope, disdain the divine (BoEM), enlarge, feather fall, hypnosis, ironguts, reduce; 2--blindness/deafness, bull's strength, darkness, darkvision, eagle's splendor, filter, gaze screen, mindless rage (BoEM), tasha's hideous laughter. This spellbook, formerly Laranda's, has only 50 pages, all of which are full.

Other Possessions: Morn keeps a ring of the apprentice wizard, which grants one bonus cantrip and 1st level spell, and a +3 bonus to Concentration, Spellcraft, and Knowledge (arcana) checks, but she does not wear it. 236 gp. Scrolls of stoneskin, teleport. Light crossbow, 25 masterwork bolts, dagger.

Magic Tattoos: Morn has the following tattoos inscribed on her body (spell/caster level/location): shield/1/shield (inner left forearm); mage armor/1/armor (sternum); invisibility/3/boots (right thigh).

Other Notes: Morn's patron diety is Sune. She has 22,579 XP. Morn has exchanged a ten year oath of alliance with Perrit Brynne, another Red Wizard.

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Byron Fawkes

Byron was created as the husband to a paladin by the name of Leorin, but I was really hankering to play something other than a wizard. This led me to decide on a Lawful Good rogue, which led me to a Scarlet Pimpernel homage. Many of Byron's sayings became well-tread quotes in the campaign, which was actually run not by Mark but by another mutual friend, and which was set in the Forgotten Realms.

In combat, Byron was really good against single foes whom he could outbluff, and strictly mediocre against just about anything else. But thanks to his wardrobe and his manner of speech, he was always a blast to play.

Byron Fawkes: human rogue 7; CR 7; HD 7d6; 32 hp; Init +3; Spd 30 ft.; AC 19 (flatfooted 16, touch 14); Atk +9 melee (1d6+2/18-20 +1 sure striking rapier), +9 ranged (1d4+1/19-20 thrown masterwork dagger); SQ evasion, sneak attack +4d6, uncanny dodge; AL LG; SV Fort +2, Ref +8, Will +3; Str 13, Dex 16, Con 11, Int 16, Wis 13, Cha 14.

Skills & Feats: Appraise +9, Bluff +12, Climb +9, Decipher Script +10, Diplomacy +5, Disable Device +13, Escape Artist +13, Gather Information +9, Hide +13, Jump +9, Move Silently +13, Open Lock +13, Sense Motive +12, Search +13; Combat Reflexes, Expert Tactician, Expertise, Weapon Finesse (rapier).

Special Qualities: Evasion: If Fawkes succeeds on a Reflex save against an attack that normally would inflict half damage on a successful save, he instead takes no damage. Uncanny dodge: Fawkes retains his Dex bonus to AC even if flatfooted, and cannot be flanked except by a rogue of level 10 or higher. Sneak attack: Fawkes can sneak attack an enemy that is flatfooted or is flanked, gaining +4d6 bonus damage.

Possessions: +1 sure striking rapier, +1 mithril shirt, boots of speed, satchel (masterwork thieves' tools, antitoxin, acid, two sunrods, six tindertwigs, 29 gp), belt pouch (2 potions of cure moderate wounds, potion of cat's grace), masterwork dagger, courtier's outfit, light horse, riding saddle, bit & bridle, saddlebags (climber's kit explorer's outfit, 1,200 gp). Byron's wedding ring is a +1 ring of protection.

Notes: Byron's patron diety is the Red Knight. He has 27,163 XP. He speaks Chondathan (native), Damaran, Turmic, Common, and Elven.

Born to an aggressive warlord and his manipulative, brilliant wife, Byron was neither the best soldier in the family (that was his elder brother, Lionel) nor the most beloved (that was his younger brother, Quincy). Left to his own devices, with never a hint that he would inherit from either parent, he developed a reputation as something of a wastrel. Those who knew him, however, were aware of his quick intelligence and his insatiable appetite for knowledge. He read incessantly; his broad learning combined with a knack for witty repartee and a habit of eccentric fashion to make him the center of a small group of other idle aristocratic youth. Among these friends, he was the unquestioned leader, and was known as simply, "Fox."

It was perhaps inevitable that Byron would be subjected to an arranged marriage. He learned of it at the same time everyone else did, without warning, and his friends immediately began to mourn his loss of bachelor status. Leorin and Byron had grown up together, and knew each other as well as any two children could; contemplating marriage to her was somehow ... unsettling. But he had not yet decided if this was a good thing or a bad thing before fate took him by the hand.

It was the next day that the corpse of Lord Neville Battersea was discovered in the bottom of the town well. While the local clerics and wizards poured over the area with spells, Byron found his curiousity engaged by the mystery. With his band of fellow gatabouts in tow, and visiting Leorin in an official, courting capacity virtually every day, Byron collected clues, examined evidence, subtly questioned witnesses, and eventually ruled out suspects. When he contemplated a confrontation with the killer, however, he was utterly at a loss for a method of apprehension. And then he realized the beauty of Destiny. Leorin was eager to help once Byron made his problem clear, and the two organized a trap for the killer. The other members of Fawkes' social circle proved to be more bumbling obstacle than loyal aid, but their assistance was appreciated nonetheless. The individual was captured, and for the first time Byron was regarded with something akin to respect.

Since then, Byron has continued to act as something of an amateur sleuth, teaming up with his fiancee to solve the unusually large number of bizarre crimes which occur in his proximity. Their partnership is one of mutual respect and growing love, not to mention a budding chemistry sparked by danger and excitement.

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Vvim Toth

Vvim was my first character for the Markyverse and I played him up to 5th level on the Treyvan MUSH after Mark's game folded. I wrote twenty pages of background material for him in the form of letters to and from his father, but space prohibits their inclusion here. Toth (Vvim is the family name, he comes from a long line of wizards) was great fun to play and I learned a lot about 3.0 magic from him.

Once again, you see the emphasis on tattoo magic. There was a very practical reason for using tattoos first with Vvim and then with Morn: they took less time than scrolls. In an online game, time moves at a crawl. I never had time to make magic items, so instead I got the Craft Tattoo feat, which I could use in an hour. On Treyvan, of course, magic tattoos were not an option but time was plentiful (Treyvan had a shortage of cash, not time!) so this aspect of Toth's character was altered. The tattoo thing led me to the Red Wizards, and Morn grew out of that, so there's a definite line of influence between the two characters.

Vvim Toth: male human wizard 7; medium-size humanoid (human); CR 7; HD 7d4+7; hp 26 (26 remaining); Init +1; Spd 30 feet; AC 17 (flatfooted 16, touch 11); Atk +4 melee (1d6+1 quarterstaff), +4 ranged (1d8/19-20 light crossbow); SQ Familiar; AL NG; Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +5; Str 12, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 18, Wis 10, Cha 14.

Skills & Feats: Alchemy +9, Concentration +10, Craft (calligraphy) +8, Knowledge (arcana) +14, Knowledge (religion) +7, Knowledge (the planes) +14, Ride +3, Speak Languages (Abyssal, Common, Celestial, Draconic, Ignem, Infernal, Terran), Spellcraft +14; Augment Summoning, Craft Wand, Eschew Materials, Scribe Scroll, Still Spell, Tattoo Magic.

Special Qualities: Familiar: Vvim's familiar is Ishmael, a white owl. When Ishmael is within arm's reach Vvim's Listen and Spot are +2 (total). When Ishmael is within 5 feet any spell Vvim casts on himself may also affect the familiar. When Ishmael is within a mile Vvim's Move Silently is +3 (total) and the two share an empathic link. Ishmael is a Tiny Magical Beast that can deliver touch spells for Vvim, can speak to him and to other birds, has Int 8, AC 21, 13 hp, improved evasion and low-light vision.

Spells Prepared (cast 4/5/4/3 per day) 0--detect magic, mage hand, prestidigitation, read magic; 1--hold portal, know protections, message, shield (x2); 2--aganazzar's scorcher, cause fear (Stilled), summon monster II, web; 3--dispel magic, haste, summon monster III; 4--sonic orb, summon monster IV.

Spellbook (90 pages full, 10 empty): 0--arcane mark, dancing lights, daze, detect magic, detect poison, disrupt undead, flare, ghost sound, light, mage hand, mending, open/close, prestidigitation, ray of frost, read magic, resistance; 1--cause fear, hold portal, identify, know protections, mage armor, magic weapon, message, mount, protection from chaos/evil/good/law, shield, summon monster I; 2--aganazzar's scorcher, create magic tattoo, summon monster II, web; 3--dispel magic, haste, lightning bolt, summon monster III; 4--sonic orb, summon monster IV.

Possessions: Robes of armor +6, glasses of analysis (identify three times per day, analyze dwoemer once per week); Vvim carries a quarterstaff, light crossbow, 14 bolts, backpack (waterskin, one day's rations, bedroll, sack (749 gold pieces, 60 silver pieces), flint & steel, ten candles, map case (scroll of change self, scroll of comprehend languages, copy of the first two pages of inscriptions found on Khamisa's amulet), two pages of parchment, ink, inkpen, spell component pouch), belt pouch (a silver flask), belt pouch (acid, flashpellet, 19 gold pieces, 12 silver pieces), spellbook, scroll organizer (scroll of mount), explorer's outfit, light warhorse named Starbuck (HD 4d8+16, 34 hp), riding saddle, saddlebags, bit and bridle.

Notes: Vvim has 25,439 XP. The DC to save against Vvim's spells is 14 + spell level. All of Vvim's spells are prepared without material components using the Eschew Materials feat. He is carrying 26 1/2 lbs of gear on his person and a backpack weighing 16 pounds, for a total of 42 1/2 lbs, which is within the 43 lb limit for a lightly loaded character with a 12 Strength. Vvim's spellbook is constructed according to rules from Magic of Faerun; it is bound with light wood and has 100 vellum pages giving it hardness 3 and 4 hit points.

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Tondropolis: the D&D connection

Eberron

Dragoneye Investigations

Sharn Resources

Supporting Cast

Review: Eberron Campaign Setting

The Story Thus Far

The Case of the Forgotten Forge

The Case of the Forgotten Forge, Part II

Shadows of the Last War, part one

Shadows of the Last War, part two

Shadows of the Last War, part three

Shadows of the Last War, part four

Interlude: Monkey Madness

Winter Wonderland, part one

Winter Wonderland

The Arcane Express

Mister Boddy

House Rules

Paragon Racial Classes

Changeling (incomplete)

Elf

Kalashtar (incomplete)

Orc

Shifter

Warforged

Feats

Prestige Classes

Amanda d'Nama

Dragonlance

Adventures in the Markyverse

Euryale

Kiot zeb Anhur

Morn Strata

Byron Fawkes

Vvim Toth