The main DM in one group I played with would roll fantastically when he DMed, but the second he played, he rolled like crap. 

But once I DMed the first time, I realized I’m like that too, so it’s probably a DM thing. It’s weird because if I DM and play a PC at the same time, I roll great for the monsters, but can’t hit squat with my character.

I can’t wait to see the party’s faces when I tell them what the demon in the Amber Sea is. :D

I’m personally fond of 4e and, at first, never understood why people don’t like it. But then I started reading/playing a few modules. Before then, our group would only ever play or run custom adventures in custom worlds. The party quickly got frustrated with the adventures written in the modules, so we’d have to heavily modify them just to make them playable. 

It was soon after this that I played a game at a convention with a DM I’d never played with before. It was horrible. The campaign was clearly for a party with a much higher level (there was a skill check challenge requiring 6 successes before 3 failures and the DC for all checks was 25 when the party was level 1), there was combat in every single room, and the DM got mad at us for role playing or trying to develop our characters. 

It was after this game that I realized that 4e the way it’s supposed to be played really does suck. However, a little tweaking of the rules and avoiding the modules at all costs (or going through with a pad of sticky notes and revising nearly every detail) actually makes it into a nice little system. The simplistic nature of the powers makes it easier for me to focus on story telling. For me personally, the fewer numbers and more words there are, the more confident I feel DMing. I tried DMing 5e, and while I liked the system, I know I never want to DM it again. And while I love 3.5, I can already tell that DMing it would be impossible for me because it’s so number reliant. 

I like 4e. I like it a lot. But the 4e I play is completely different from the 4e stores sell.

Last night, we ended the session with three rounds of Three Dragon’s Ante. I volunteered to be an NPC with a lot of money so that the PCs had a chance to get some new revenue instead of just swapping coins among themselves. I told the rest of the party that, if they were uncomfortable using their own money but still wanted to play, they could play NPCs as well. 

One person wanted to play an NPC for all three rounds, and one wanted to play an NPC for the first round so she could get the basic idea of the game. Since this meant that round one would involve three NPCs and only one PC, I decided to throw in Quen, my NPC who has been travelling with the party for the past few sessions. It’s a good thing I did, too. 

I won the first two flights and, though I lost the third, I played good cards that let me gain more than I lost. In the end, I earned 78 gold while most of the rest of the table lost money.

The party was grateful that at least all that money went into the hands of someone in the party (even though Quen is a massive douche) instead of some random NPC they’d never see again. 

I absolutely suck at social situations, especially ones where everyone else is looking to me for guidance, unless I’m DMing a game. Is that just me?

This is a detailed map of the island of Elara, where the game takes place.

Note: Though Z’Driya is of my own creation, this island is based heavily off of the campaign world The Green Races published by Fast Forward. I’ve taken my own spin on things and changed a lot of stuff. However, a lot of terms, history, and locations are straight from this book. If you want more detailed information on Elara, you should check out The Green Races. Items, locations, NPCs, and other parts of the world come from various other Fast Forward books, including Occult Items of Power and Dungeon World: Catacombs. The map above was drawn freehand by me based loosely off of the map offered in the beginning of The Green Races.

After the Elemental Spirits sealed off Elara from the rest of the world, they created avatars to calm the races who were trapped there. These avatars resembled Eladrin, which impacted the society of the Humans of Elara. The main religion of the Humans revolved around the Eladrin until the Dragon Wars. 

During the Dragon Wars, a Human princess was killed by a Dragon. This princess and Dragon were glamorized in myths and legends, which eventually gave birth to a second religion. The princess and Dragon are the two main deities of this religion, and the various other gods in the pantheon were born from drops of the princesses blood. These two main religions have an intense rivalry. 

The Elemental Spirits kept portals from opening on Elara, protected it from the gaze of demons and lesser gods, and minimized the impact of arcane magic on its populations (Dwarves and Eladrin/Elves were the only ones who could use it decently). Once the spirits disbanded The Five Storms shielding the island, however, these protections vanished. Though portals have yet to open, ambitious demons and lesser gods have begun pulling strings on the island. The party has run into or heard about the demon in the Amber Sea, Kosk - a lesser poison demon manipulating the Kobolds, and Yamantaka - a lesser death god who has been aiding the Bugbears. 

Magic is now more easy to access on the island as well, which is leading to a slow cultural shift among the various races.

The map above is the map that the PCs get at the start of their journey. There are several hidden locations not located on the map that they must find as they travel. Yistria (bottom right corner) is one of them. I forgot to take it off before copying the map. >.< Luckily, the players have been good at not metagaming thus far and haven’t pulled a “I want to wander around this general area for no reason” while pointing at Yistria.

These are the playable races that exist on the mainland. The races on Elara are different and not quite as diverse. The races below are noted as “common,” “uncommon,” and “rare.” I wanted to keep the party more realistically balanced. I didn’t want the party to be, like, three Deva, a Rakshasa, and a Shardmind who decided to travel an island where all these weird, otherworldly races don’t even exist. Not to mention, all of those races are extremely limited in this world (Z’Driya only has 12 Deva total). I made a rule stating that only one PC max could be of a “rare” race and two PCs max could be of “uncommon” races. In the end, though, the party selected mostly common races, so it all worked out anyway.

Read more under the cut because it’s rather long.

Read More

This is what’s left of the main continent of Z’Driya, where the PCs are from. There used to be more. Originally, it was about the size of Europe and Asia combined, but what’s left is about the size of Russia. 

Now, I haven’t developed the history of the main continent very well (mostly because it’s not extremely relevant to the game other than as a “here’s a list of races that live in the same general area as your race” and as a “here’s a list of races/classes that don’t exist here” type thing). But here’s how it roughly breaks down.

A long time ago, the Gods (standard pantheon plus a few additional deities unique to the setting) decided they wanted a break from caring for the world, so they created five elemental beings (Fire, Water, Earth, Lightning, and Wind) to keep the balance of the world in tact in their absence. They housed these beings in a special shrine and then took off for a few thousand years.

During this time, the races of the world grew prosperous and started to expand. They tore down forests in order to make new cities. During their expansion, they stumbled upon the shrine and destroyed it.

The five elementals erupted from the shrine in a rage and razed the land in a twelve-day cataclysm known as The Sky Rend. 

On the thirteenth day, the five elemental spirits returned to their senses and realized what they had done. In an act of atonement, they selected a newly-formed island that featured the most diversity in population and sealed it off in the form of a thick ring of storm clouds that was impassible. Since the ring of storm clouds spat out not only lightning and rain, but also fire and boulders, it was thoroughly impossible to enter or leave. The ring of storm clouds became known as The Five Storms by people living on the mainland. 

I’ll talk more about the protected island, known as Elara, in a later post since it’s where the actual game takes place.

After the events of The Sky Rend, tensions were high between the races on the mainland. No one knew who had caused The Sky rend, so there was a lot of finger pointing. Several wars broke out, thinning the populations of the survivors even further. 

However, there were two unexpected consequences of The Sky Rend that went unnoticed for some time.

The first was that arcane magic was released into the world. Once this was discovered, a temple/school was built near The Five Storms in order to study and teach this strange new skill.

The other phenomenon was that portals to other realms began to open up. Luckily for the people of Z’Driya, most of these newcomers were peaceful. The only invaders came from the Shadowfell, and these races only lived in more isolated areas.

I might as well go into more details on races and classes in another post, too. 

Eventually, the Gods realized something was up and intervened. The portals were sealed and the warring populations were placated. However, old grudges still exist, and racism isn’t unheard of. 

Recently, The Five Storms have vanished, allowing people to travel to Elara. This land, known for its rare treasures, great mysteries, and fabulous tourist attractions, has become popular with people from the mainland looking for adventure.

Telling stories about Quen (my bard) and Ambrose (a friend’s necromancer) is difficult during a class where two of my classmates are named Quinn and Ambrose. 

…and all the good D&D stories I have involve at least one of those characters. :/

What my girlfriend got me for my birthday. Look at that expression! “Say whaaaa?”

This guy is probably my favorite dragon ever.