Document: Civic Spells Spreadsheet

I've uploaded an Excel Spreadsheet of spells from the Player's Handbook that a governing body would probably want on hand for various reasons- protecting government officials, ministering to the public, or giving their police force a little extra oomph without actually damaging their constituants. You may download it from Filefront, here.

I made it just for myself, as a reference of spells to consider when building towns. It's always useful to remember that if a town has a Level Eleven Druid, Sorcerer, or Wizard, then they have the ability to quickly make flat fields or terraced areas with Move Earth. Similarly, any Village with a Level Three Cleric, Sorcerer, or Wizard is sure to be perpetually lit with numerous lamps of Continual Flame. This spreadsheet just keeps it all organized.

In addition, it contains two extra tabs- one for the spells that the PHB suggests should be affected by Permanency (always up to the DM of course), and the other is a breakdown of the standard PC and NPC class levels in urban areas of various sizes, as determined in the Dungeon Master's Guide. Looking at that spreadsheet will quickly enable any DM to say which spells a town of a given size will most likely have access to, and which spells a town of a given size could possibly have access to.

Article: The Problem with Eragon

As a preemptive disclaimer, I've only seen the movie- I have not read the original source. However the movie made a few common fantasy mistakes, and here's what I think of them!


1) A farmboy whose only "training" consists of sparring matches with his cousin/brother grows over a very brief period of time to be a hero capable of defeating the corrupt king's second in command- a wizard known as a shade, who has made a pact with demons for his power.

The problem here is that this young boy (of 17) with no real training to speak of becomes (or IS!) very able to do things which he has no reasonable ability to do. Swinging a sword is very different from swinging a hoe- and a sword is far heavier. The musclemass he built as a farmboy would be nearly useless when attempting to hold a sword- forget the fact that in the middle ages most career soldiers began training with weapons as early as age 12 to accustom themselves to the weight, heft, and techniques of using them.
Secondly, when Eragon reaches the rebels, he immediately dons a suit of armor. Armor is not something I've ever worn, but a few of my friends in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) assure me it's quite heavy- and I've held some, and it is. The endurance and pysical training required to wear a heavy suit of armor for long periods of time would have been beyond a boy of his training. As a farmhand, he probably had a pretty strong constitution, so simply wearing it for a while probably could have been fine- but to fight in it? Highly unlikely.
Finally, in the climactic battle, Eragon on his dragon faces the Shade on his flying dark-magic creature. Nevermind the fact that the physics of the battle are way off- the dark-magic beast carries the dragon by the neck, and yet neither creature falls from the sky- here we have the second-in-command to the King, and he is beaten by a farmboy. Purportedly his only weakness is to penetration of his heart. The only solution for Eragon, then, is to be thrown by his dragon's tail AT the flying Shade, land on his dark-magic beast, and stab him in the heart, in midair. Again, this wizard has shown the ability to teleport at will, levitate weapons on command, hurl bolts of arcane fire, and (finally) summon a dark-magic beast. Eragon has only managed to shoot an exploding arrow, which knocked him unconscious. It's simply implausible- but hey, maybe he rolled a few natural 20's on this one.

2) Magic is used as a deus-ex-machina.

Eragon and his grizzled-but-friendly mentor make a stop in a town which appears to be in the middle of the swamp. All of a sudden, the town is swarming with evil baddies! Eragon is in the midst of escaping across a bridge when a hand grabs his foot, tripping him up. He grabs for his bow-and-arrows and fires one off while muttering a phrase he'd never heard (intuition, the movie explains). The arrow glows blue and explodes on impact, destroying the bridge and the baddies on it. We're not talking a firecracker, here- this is more like industrial grade TNT. Later on, despite an earlier failure of Eragon's to perform the same spell on a human target, Eragon manages to heal his dragon of all wounds- a massive beast, mortally wounded from being bitten (and carried!) on the neck by a dark-magic beastie. It's a common problem in high-magic fantasy (see Robert Jordan) to use magic as a sort of instant fix. In a world where magic is an incredibly powerful tool that saves the hero's butt, it must concurrently be an incredibly powerful tool for saving the badguys' butts. Especially when the badguys are older and more experienced- and, shall we say, have made pacts with demons for that little extra oomph.

3) The rebels are ultimately good, the empire is ultimately bad.

Eragon runs into the rebels, and summons his dragon to him. Now is the perfect moment for the leader of the rebels to throw Eragon in chains and use him as a threat against the dragon, keeping it subdued- after all, a dragon dies when its rider dies. The leader of the rebels, an experienced dragonrider whose dragon was slain long ago, had the chance to once again ride on the back of a great winged beast, fighting (arguably better than Eragon EVER could) against the evil empire. Even if it wasn't the leader who took this action, did NONE of the former dragonriders among the rebels feel the temptation to steal the beast for his own use? Where did this pocket of incredibly pure-minded people come from, in a kingdom that spawned a vicious and oppressive empire?

4) The plucky rebels successfully defend against a massively larger invading force which is potentially also better trained.

When the empire's armies march on the rebel stronghold, the first wave is a wave of berserker-like units. Armed to the teeth but barely armored they burst through the rock wall (what??) and begin the assault. The rebels fend them off aided by the dragon- but wait! Here comes the imperial army, looking to be at least thrice the size of the berserker battalion- not to mention better armed, armored, and trained- with an elder wizard/shade leading them. And yet the rebels win? How were they not cut down by superior numbers while the dragon and its rider were distracted by the shade and his mount?

5) The king of the empire, a man who ruthlessly slaughtered his way to the top and then stayed there either by fear or cunning, has only one general- a shade whose incompetance is shown in nearly every scene of the movie. The king's solution? Order his shade to use MORE MEN!

The strategy of the ruling empire appears to be "First use this very small group of soldiers. When that fails, use the middle-sized group. If that STILL doesn't work, use the BIG group!" How did this man become king?? Wait- we know how. He instigated fighting amongst the dragonriders of the days past. Convincing some to join his side, he cut down his opposition, and then destroyed the dragons which had sided with him. Let's face it- these are not the actions of a weakling, or a loser- this man is possessed of a powerful charisma, capable of swaying his allies and then leading them with cunning efficiency. The years on the throne have taken their toll, however, as his only remaining strategy seems to be the one we've already examined.




Some solutions to these problems:

When building a fantasy world, make sure you apply the 'rules' of the world to everyone in it- good guys and bad guys alike. If magic is a deus ex machina and gets the good guys out of scrapes, then the good guys' fortunes should turn when they seem to be winning out over the forces of evil- after all, a well placed firestorm by the enemy warlocks would certainly turn the tables.

Always make sure that the leaders are in power for a reason. If they clawed their way to the top with cunning and ruthless efficiency, you can bet that in any realistic world they'll run their kingdom with the same charisma, the same force, and the same efficiency. These are experienced generals who have fought many battles- they've seen victories, and they've seen losses, so they know what to do. This goes not only for the king of the evil empire, but also for the lovable and kindhearted resistance. After all, lucky rolls aside, the superior tactics will win the day.

When there is only one of something in the entire world- no matter what it is- all humans are fallible, and will feel drawn to the power of controlling that item (or creature!). It would be more realistic to see someone like Eragon, in possession of the last remaining dragon, having to defend himself both from those who are clearly his enemies and simply want him dead as well as from those who would appear as his friends in order to gain control over what is his. This also produces something of a twist in the plot and can be quite an effective surprise- provided it's not overused. When a close friend turns out to be a traitor, it's cliche- when the group of freedom fighters we've JUST met does something cold and selfish to set back our hero out of their own desire for power, that's thrilling.

And finally, if your plucky heroes are going to be swinging swords and wearing heavy metal armor- make sure they've spent the time training to be used to the weight and use of such items. Even your non-humanoid characters- dragons who complain about having to carry three people should not all of a sudden be able to don heavy plate-metal armor over the whole length of their body.

Article: The Deceptive Encounter

The fearless adventurers had fought their way over mountains, through swamps, across rivers and deserts to reach their final destination: The cliff-protected lair of Thx'ragna'fctshilion, an ancient red wyrm, reported to have sought out training from the most powerful wizards over the course of his lifetime. Now, from around the corner, through their carefully constructed illusions to hide their presence, they can hear the great wyrm's deep breathing. The wizard finishes the last of his spells and the cleric says a quick prayer to Saint Cuthbert, Blessing the group. The warrior draws his longsword- freezing air billows off the frosty surface. The group charges around the corner....


The massive beast, bloodied, beaten, and weary lies collapsed on the floor of the lair. One of its eyes is missing from the socket, only a smear of blood remaining. It raises its head laboriously and speaks:

"Ssso. You have come... to finish me off... have you? Very well... I am in enough pain as it is. The last ones took what they needed... and... left me like this."


The characters, who had spent most of their previous journey preparing for a battle have suddenly found themselves with a conversation! The creature would pose little threat to them now, weakened as it is, and clearly something malicious has happened- after all, they traveled all this way to slay the vicious creature but something beat them to it! Throwing little tricks such as this into a campaign can really turn a player's expectations around. Not only that, but it shows your players that the so called "monsters" they slaughter on a daily basis actually are as smart as they are fabled to be.

If the players slaughter their way through a kobold cave, finally reaching the final room to find a few runty kobolds all kneeling before one particularly small kobold- who happens to be practically glowing with arcane energy, clearly far beyond the capabilities of the party- the players will be forced into an unconventional playstyle, where they have to take what they expected and use the situation to the best of their advantage.


Conversely, a high ranking official invites the players for a dinner party at his house, which is curiously located on the seedy side of town. Nonetheless, knowing his influence with the monarchy and smelling payment or a possible quest, the party accepts- However, upon stepping into the house, the butler (a cleverly disguised well-trained monk) immediately attacks- the party's expectation of an evening of banter, negotiations, and contracts has been turned upside-down.


As with all unconventional playstyles, situations such as these are best used when they would be a surprise- and therefore, not too frequent; they are, however, useful for breaking up the monotony of a campaign that has grown somewhat predictable.

Followup: NWN2

One thing I forgot to mention in the last post:

Neverwinter Nights 2 has upgraded to 3.5 edition with absolute success. The rules will be second nature to anyone who's used the system, and very familiar to anyone who's used 3.0. For 2.0 and below- take it from an old hand, 3.0+ is simply smoother. Some people may like all those rod/breath/poison/magic saves, but they could get quite confusing.


So basically to pull the whole thing back to DnD- it's a fantastic translation of the pen and paper rulesets to a computer world. I can't wait to see some of the community-created content!

Article: Neverwinter Nights 2

So just last night our fearless dungeon master (that'd be me!) downloaded Neverwinter Nights 2 from Direct2Drive! I've been fairly excited about it because I had a lot of fun with the toolset for the original NWN, but I did find it fairly lacking in a lot of areas. The whole tileset idea, where each area had to have a specific tileset which could not mesh with other tilesets, simply didn't work for me. In addition, height was terraced- and this was at the same time as Warcraft III, whose map-making engine allowed for beautifully textured and heightmapped terrain. Additionally, the singleplayer campaign was simply not compelling.

All that aside, I did have a lot of fun with the toolset. And so, as I've recently decided that a job in the gaming industry would be a great thing to have, I immediately downloaded the second; I'd heard enough in previews- height mapping, blended textures- I was sold.

I still am sold! I've played about 2 hours into the single player campaign, and, for my money's worth, the guys from Oblivion (some of whom gave us games like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment) have done a bang-up job! The first thing I noticed was the subtle ways the developers used the dialogue to create a truly immersive world: an early reference to druids who normally inform farmers of poor crop cycles and the like. Continuing in the same vein, the first character I met, a spirited dwarven fighter, immediately had a rich and compelling backstory including slang and idioms straight from the Forgotten Realms. So far it looks fantastic.

The toolset, though. That is what I, a DM, am REALLY interested in. It looks every bit as powerful as the original toolset- which is plenty powerful, let me assure you! But on top of all that it adds some beautiful things like the ability to mix textures, add color to textures, tint and resize any monster (which I've already seen put to excellent use in the game itself in some brightly colored lizardmen surrounding a 1.5x sized lizardchief) or placeable (like houses) you could imagine. The water system, I'll freely admit, is a bit clunky- the way it works is you must paint water at a certain fixed height- normally low enough so that the surrounding terrain makes a reasonable-looking lake. It works well for stagnant or very large bodies of water, but if you were thinking of making a swiftly sloping babbling brook, forget it. Waterfalls can be done, but awkwardly- as the water level is set on a tile-by-tile basis; this means that any waterfalls must be either along the X or Y axes, AND crossing the boundary from tile to tile.

Nonetheless, my first exploratory module has been quite fun- a small forested area with a path leading through it. The end of the path leads to a lake-with-waterfall, but there is a random Kobold encounter along the road between the starting point and the destination. This encounter scales to provide an appropriate challenge for characters up to approximately 7th level, but it is nonetheless a very easy one to survive.


By and large I've been enthralled by the world, entertained by the storyline, and excited by the toolset- I would highly reccommend anyone interested in the Neverwinter Nights phenomenon to investigate this product.



Later on, in addition to submitting to some more well-traveled sites (Atari.com, maybe), I'll probably be putting my own custom-made modules up here for download! If that is the case, the title of the article will be "Module: Name".

Map: Seiloran

This is the prime material plane, also called Seiloran by its inhabitants. It is a young world, formed when the four prime elementals collided. As they drew apart from one another, they left in their wake a new plane crafted of the four elements combined. In time, the gods and demons of the universe found Seiloran and began warring over it, as they have over any hospitable plane. Their epic battles spawned life and death across the full surface of the plane. The war was concluded by a tactical retreat on the part of both sides- each erecting barriers to keep the other out of the prime material.

In the thousands of years since the invasion of the Celestials and Infernals, the fledgeling races created during the occupation have flourished, growing into kingdoms, alliances, and enmities.

The four Elemental Planes are connected to Seiloran- In the Northwest, the Plane of Earth. In the Southwest, the Plane of Fire. In the Southeast, the Plane of Water, and in the Northeast, the Plane of Air. The edges of the world touch the Void- indeed, if one goes to the edge of the world, one can walk straight off into the Void, never to be heard from again.

1) Kingdom of Tharkandor

A mostly human run monarchy, this country has a feudal system. The land is dotted with towns, manors, towers, and castles that serve as homes and rewards for companions of the king.

2) Region of Feza

An oriental country, close to the realm of Elysia. This land has been corrupted by the Taint, a force contained, for the most part, behind a huge wall to the south. It is a mostly feudal organization, with different houses and clans vying for recognition from the Emperor.

3) Region of Shallai-Har

This large region is inhabited largely by various elven cultures. There are a number of tribes within the forest, there is a large seafaring monarchy, and a few minor island kingdoms within this region.

4) The Wastelands

A large desert area. The conditions are harsh, but that doesn't stop warrior bands of Humans, Elves, Orcs, Ogres, and Dwarves from battling fiercely over the meagre resources. There is no real organization in this wilderness- alliances are made and broken easily, like the shifting dunes themselves.

5) The Mountlands

The Dwarven homeland, and home to the most powerful Dwarven Monarchy on Seiloran. Coexisting with this monarchy is a Gnomish Republic, as well as smaller groups of Halflings, Orcs, and some Ogre tribes. An Elven Commune has also taken up residence in the mountainous region.

6) Elysia

Behind an impenetrable wall of mist and ice rests the realm of Elysia, the plane from which all good outsiders originate. A connection was built between Elysia and Seiloran long ago, when the Gods and other Good outsiders decided to make Seiloran a strategic point for their war against the infernals.

7) Aqualmar

A large freshwater inland sea, fed by the rivers which originate from Oceana and flow inland. This freshwater sea is home to many aquatic creatures, including Dragon Turtles, Dire Sharks, and Sea Cats.

8) Thandoril, the Dark Marsh

A vicious swamp ruled by all manner of monster- Lizardfolk, Maticores, Jellies, Water Nagas, and Black Dragons are only a few of the beasts that call this massive bog their home.

9) Harrath Forest

Temperate-to-tropical forest, home to many tribal bands of Elves.

10) Nagashi Desert

This desert is large, and covers most of the Wastelands with its sands.

11) The Modr Mountain Range

Cool-to-cold hills and mountains, which provide habitation for many dwarves as well as many species of goblinoid.

12) Kiri North

Temperate forest, home to the Spiritfolk and the Vanara, as well as a few Nezumi.

13) Elysian Sea

Cold sea, dotted with ice floes.

14) The Nagashi Hot Springs

In an already hot area, these springs are large pools of water heated to unnaturally hot temperatures. It has been speculated that the plane of fire has veins that run beneath the surface of Seiloran, which could be responsible for this phenomenon.

15) The Spine Mountain Range

A large mountain range separating Tharkandor and the Shallai-Har region. Home to numerous Halflings, Dwarves, Gnomes and Elves, as well as all manner of monstrous creature.

16) Oceana

Temperate-to-tropical ocean, home to nearly every aquatic creature. Spawned directly from the Plane of Water.

17) Celestian Sea

A temperate sea.

18) Kord Ruin Mountain Range

A violent and dark place, inhabited by evil breeds of Goblinoids as well as many other malicious creatures. Demons, Devils, and Half-Fiends are known to inhabit the area. Beyond the enormous obsidian wall in the west is the realm of Hades, whence originate all Evil outsiders.

Download: The Seat of Erythnul

Well Filefront finally got it's servers up and running- as such, you can find a .zip file containing everything you need to run this adventure (map and description) HERE!

Adventure: The Seat of Erythnul

Click the picture for a larger (and more printer-friendly!) view.
This is an adventure designed for a party of Four level 3 characters. There are no specific character requirements. This adventure makes use of some rules and monsters found in The Book of Vile Darkness supplement.

Grab this adventure here!

The Seat of Erythnul is a derelict temple to the God of Slaughter. Ages ago, dark acolytes made blood sacrifices, filling the pools inside with the blood of hundreds. The temple has long laid empty in a defiled clearing deep within a forest, but its dark presence has drawn malevolent entities to it. Rumors of the undead lurking inside have found their way to nearby towns, along with tales of demons from other universes. Along with tales of danger and death come tales of great treasure for individuals enterprising enough to seek it out- as well as hints of dark mysteries uncovered in the murals within the temple.

Will your party be brave enough to chart the vile temple, and claim the rewards that lay within? Or will you fall prey to the temple's inhabitants, your blood refilling the long empty pools within?


Explore a deadly temple filled with challenging and evil monsters- the remnants of the God of Slaughter's grace. This adventure uses monsters from Monster Manual I and The Book of Vile Darkness. In addition, this adventure makes use of Souls as Power as described on page 33 of TBOVD, and contains a new Diabolic Engine for the extraction of souls of a captured individual.

As you can imagine, this adventure is rated "M" for blood, gore, and content suggestive of violence.