Subverted Modron

Subverted Modron
A clockwork outsider from the lawfully aligned planes, reprogrammed by a clockwork mechanician to serve him.
Init -5
Speed 6
HP 100, Bloody 50
AC 13
F +5 R +1 W+3
-Resists: poison 10, misc 10 (see below)

Pliers +10
Dmg 1d6 + 5.

Orderly Combat: Once per round when the modron is targeted with an offensive spell, he may immediately cast a spell that targets the source of the spell.

Spells: Burning Hands, Flame Arrows, Incinerating Touch. (Swap with any first to third level spells that you like)

Orderly Adaption: Once per round when the modron suffers energy damage, he may immediately change his misc energy resistance to that energy type. This does not help against that particular energy attack, but remains that energy resistance until the end of the encounter or the modron decides to change it.

Logical Aura: Any creature opposing you must roll a Will save DC 20 at the start of the encounter, or become delirious for the duration of the encounter.

Clockwork Prawnalope aka "The Brillig Beasty"

This was the boss of the "futuristic" clockwork dungeon that my PCs have just hacked their way through. It was a pretty neat dungeon, I'm digging the clockwork chic. I omitted the limb loss stuff that all my bosses/minibosses in this campaign have.

Mechanical Prawnalope (huge construct)
A mechanical creatures resembling a cross between a deer and a giant prawn.
Init +5
Speed 8
HP 140, Bloody 70
AC 17
F +11
R +4
W +3
-Resists: Electric 20

Claw +9 (Crit 17-20)
dmg 1d10
-May make Whirlwind Attack as a full round action.

-Ram: When struck by a ranged attack or spell, the prawnalope may immediately charge the source of the damage and make an attack, assuming that the target is within its movement range. If the attack hits, the target is knocked prone unless he is wearing heavy armor.

-Bloody: When first bloodied, the prawnalope may emit a medium range lightning bolt that is 10' wide and inflicts 24 damage, Reflex 19 for half.
-While bloodied, the prawnalope's whirlwind and ram damage increase by 2d6 damage.

-Death: When destroyed, the prawnalope explodes, causing 8 fire damage to creatures within short range.

Rust Snark

My present adventure is going pretty well. The PCs have found a clockwork garden from a lost civilization, a sort of clockwork Xanadu. They fought a slightly tougher version of the Snark, given here. The picture is by me, though I based some of the line work on a random google image that I found.



Rust Snark (huge construct)
A clockwork monster that resembles a cross between a shark and a lobster. It is surrounded by a cloud of poisonous corrosion.

Init +0
Speed 6
HP 100, Bloody 50
AC 17
F +10 R +2 W+5
-Resists: Fire 10, Cold 10
-Vuln: Electric 5

Chomp +9 Dmg 1d12
-Critical 18-20: On a critical, the shark bites off a limb. Any equipment worn on that limb is destroyed, even if not made of ferrous metal. Limb Loss Table (d6): 1-3: Leg, 4-5: Secondary Arm, 6: Primary Arm.

Aura: On the snark's turn, it automatically inflicts 4 poison damage to all adjacent creatures.

-Breath Weapon: The creature may exhale a short range cone of corrosion as a move action, 14 poison damage, Reflex 17 for half. It may not use this ability two rounds in a row. If a natural roll of 1-3 is rolled on this save, a piece of equipment is also destroyed. Roll 1d10 to determine which slot: 1: Head, 2: Neck, 3: Hands, 4: Waist, 5: Cloak, 6: Feet, 7: Ring, 8: Weapon/Implement, 9-10: Armor.

-Like Clockwork: This creature is immune to mind and metabolic effects.

-Bloody: When the snark becomes bloodied, it may immediately charge and make a chomp attack against the source of the damage that rendered it bloody, if the damage source is within range.

-Death: When the snark is slain, it explodes in a cloud of burning corrosion. Creatures within short range suffer as though targeted by it's breath weapon.

New Campaign World Map

Here's the campaign map for my new game. The map isn't going to be used for a hex crawl or anything, my players just wanted some context for the game.

Edgy Commentary About The Forgotten Realms

Baby's First RPG

With a slight Dragon Quest prelude, my roleplaying teeth were cut on the 2e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting boxed set. It was and is a terrible setting. There were a few things I liked. The adventure portion was all right. It had exploration, infiltration, weird shit, and best of all, an evil plan to foil. The pictures of NPCs were very shi-shi, too.

An Exercise In Bland, Derivative Drivel

Unfortunately, it also acclimated the player to the bland, derivative Realms setting. Beyond the cheesy, instantly cliched characters, the indecisively vast pantheon, and the novel-cum-game profit model, it committed an unforgivable sin. It failed to convince me, even at age thirteen, that there was really a place where the players could be heroes. As best I could tell, the big guys had it under control.

And the big guys, oy. It felt like there was some kind of weird adventurer class struggle going on. Elminster would make cameos in published modules so you could brush shoulders with people that actually matter in the campaign world. Never mind that Elminster is the most obvious fantasy character cliche in existence. And never mind that the character it ripped off was pretty tepid, too. If Gandalf was a stately nod toward Merlin, then Elminster is a burning paper bag left on Gandalf's front porch.

Worse and Worse

Since then, the situation has worsened. Campaign settings don't update well. Every edition, the Realms has had some lame catastrophe occur to justify whatever changes the game designers would make, and more schlock would get plastered onto the earlier layers of schlock. The Time of Troubles was like a bad Neil Gaiman novel, and the more recent 4e moon magic crap is even worse. Just another excuse to showcase novels about drow and half-dragons, cat people and dinosaur people. Give it a rest, dudes.

I have played in other peoples' well-meaning attempts to run Realms campaigns. They have been festooned with chaotic good drow, thinly veiled attempts on the part of the DMs to insert their own characters into the Realms metaplot, and otherwise were complete let-downs. This is less a commentary on the Realms, than a commentary on the kind of people that the Realms attracts.

Themeless

Part of the problem with the Realms is that they don't have a unifying theme. Or if they do, I'm completely mystified about what it could be. Dark Sun had ecological and liberty-related themes. Planescape had philosophical struggle. Even Spelljammer had exploration. If I had to sum up the theme of the Realms in a few words, and I had to use words with more than four letters, I'd probably call it "excess by design."

The sole joy for me to find in the Realms is pushing the envelope and misusing the setting to scandalize people that actually like it. A good example: Dark-skinned elves that murder and attack the surface? Well let me tell you, my Sun Elf knew just how to deal with that sort of criminal. I got to roleplay a lynching!