So anyway, I've got a hobby with no practice and I decided to do something about all these books I collect for it. Plus it's fun as hell so here goes.
__
This campaign begins in the east of the Hundred Kingdoms of Yoon Suin. I've (very) casually adapted the new D&D 5e adventure "Princes of the Apocalypse" to the vastly haunted, vaguely-Asian influenced Yoon Suin and I hope it pans out. Players start in Red Larch on the border of the Lahag, the Cursed Jungle, and everyone has a connection with one of the six major establishments in the city.
The Players and their characters from last week's game are:
- River, with her Half-Elf Fighter CHUMMY, formerly a prostitute.
- Jordan, with his Slug-man Fighter SLURFIN, who comes from a family of opium smugglers.
- Tracy, with her Halfling Druid, VATA SULTENFUSS, who is an outlander.
I'll post and Adventure Log and update on the state of the game late, but for now here's just some useful stuff.
Here are the House Rules for the Campaign:
Spell Rules
- Light is now a full, Level 1 spell and not a cantrip.
- Wizards: Spell slots are gone, each spell is a single cast per day. You can RESEARCH in order to increase the strength of your spells. This is identical to researching a spell equal to the level of the strength that you're trying to attain.
Removed:
Immunity to Disease, Immunity to Poison, Darkvision. (This idea comes from Arnold K.'s article about keeping play interesting.)
Races from the Player's Handbook that must be unlocked: Dragonborn, Gnomes, Half-Orcs, Tieflings and Elves.
New Races for the setting: Slugmen, and Crabmen. (see below)
(By limiting which races are allowed initially I hope to create a greater sense of individuality for the setting than generic fantasy. Plus Dragonborn and Tieflings are OP.)
Shields Shall Be Splintered: Whenever you take damage from an attack you may sacrifice your shield in order to cancel that damage out. This destroys the shield, but who cares you didn't get hit, amiright? If you are Proficient in shields you can use this to automatically succeed on a save versus any spell that allows a save for half damage. This means you automatically take half damage, and you must decide before you roll the save, but it's better than taking a full lightning bolt to the face.
Downtime Activities (From Hack&Slash)
Whenever you go back to town you can spend your treasure to do certain downtime activities.
- CAROUSE: Spend any amount of gold drinking, partying and causing mayhem in order to gain twice that much back as XP. Pass a CON save or roll on the mishap table.
- RESEARCH: Learn a new spell or enhance an old one. Characters that are spell casters may purchase and scribe spells within their purview for 1,000 gold pieces per spell level per week. A single fourth level spell would cost 4,000 gold pieces and take 4 weeks to learn. Then you make an Intelligence (Arcana) skill check to see if you've succeeded.
- Hire HIRELINGS or HENCHMEN: Hirelings are torchbearers, porters, laborers, and lackeys. Henchmen act as individual player characters, will only adventure with the character that hired them, demand a full share of treasure and experience, and can be used as replacement characters in a pinch if you die.
- PHILANTHROPY: You spend gold on a worthy social group. At the end of the week make a WISDOM SAVE DC 15.
- STUDY LORE: You spend gold seeking ancient or forgotten lore. At the end of the week make an Intelligence SAVE DC 15
- GOURMANDISING: You spend gold seeking new things to eat, consume, or experience. At the end of the week make a save Dexterity DC 15.
- TRAINING: Whenever you gain enough XP to level up you have to go back to town and train in order to level up.
| Level Attained | Cost | Time Spent |
| 2nd-4th | 20 gp | 10 days |
| 5th-10th | 40 gp | 20 days |
| 11th-16th | 60 gp | 30 days |
| 17th-20th | 80 gp | 40 days |
Slug-men:
Slug-men are the aristocratic rulers of the Yellow City and occupy the highest social tier there. They have the best rights and property available to them, and their society is highly corrupt. They can be any class, but favor magicians and holy-men.
Roll 1d6 to determine your family background:
1-2 Oligopolist family (opium, tea, or slave traders)
3 Criminal family (smugglers)
4-6 Brahmin family (sages, tax collectors, archivists, poets, bureaucrats)
Ability Score Improvement. Your Charisma score is increased by 2 and you can choose to increase either your Wisdom or Intelligence score by 1.
Size. Slug-men are about the same size as humans. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30'.
Hermaphrodite. Slug-men are gender less, but can choose to refer to themselves as male or female around other races. Most prefer the gender neutral "it."
Merchant Princes. No one can outbid a slug. You add your proficiency bonus to any Charisma checks you make while haggling.
Languages. You speak the Trade Tongue, Slug-man, and one other language of your choice.
Crab-men:
Crab men are the lowest social tier in the Yellow City and are considered extremely dumb. Mostly used as slaves and gladiators, Crab-men can only be Fighters (Champion Archetype).
Claws. A crab-man's only attack is with his claws. Crab-men are so strong and their claws so powerful that each successful hit causes double damage: roll to hit as normal then roll 1d8x2 to determine HP loss.
Natural Armor. Crab-men have a natural AC of 15 from their tough shells. This improves to 16 at level 4, 17 at level 8, 18 at level 12, and 19 at level 16.
Languages. Crab-men can only speak Crab-man, but they understand what they are told in Trade Tongue and Slug-Man, and communicate with gestures to some degree.
Slaves. Any adventuring crab-men are non-existent and you should pick another character in the group who is your master.
