A Domesticated Cockatrice and Friends

Lady Skaver and Master Grimbul

The Lady Skaver, Burgomeister Morgan's adopted goblin daughter

Original Image Source

Master Grimbul Stormhammer, Owlbear Wagoneer and sometime paramour of Lady Skaver

Original Image Source

Mandrogi

HD- 1/4, HP-1, AC-10 MV-10

Tiny hand-sized grass golems, create via ritual magic learned by rote by various craftsmen. Will obey simple commands and can carry only very small loads (~ 1 lb.)  Can hop about at the same speed a human walks.  Typically last 2-3 months, less if put to heavy use.  Very flammable.

Can attack with small implements, but because of lack of strength, they do at most 1 hp of damage.

Crafting: 5 gp of material and 1 week to craft. On the day the Mandrogi is completed, the crafter must give up 1 spell slot or the cantrips for that day.  User can have 1 Madrogi plus 1 per level at a time, up to a maximum of half their Wisdom.

There is a non-ritual, full wizard spell for creating Mandrogi, which can be done instantly, but is rarely used and not well known as wizards have access to better magical servants.  This is the common folk ritual spell, only known to some craftsmen clans and guilds, and often passed down within families.

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Igor's New Friend

Adventure Log Session 2

DATE: May 1-3rd 1226

CHARACTERS

Thom Tum, Lvl 1 Gnome Rogue
Igor, Lvl 1 Dwarf Cleric
Iron Stone, Lvl 1 Dwarf Fighter

EVENTS

May 1

-- Iron Stone joins the party,

-- The Real Catherine has party sign a contract for employment (1 gp/day + 1 gp per fight on her behalf)

-- Nar the Orc convinces Igor to adopt a Rottweiler puppy

-- Iron Stone spies Safiya stealing a pendant from a jeweler.  Upon confronting her, he learns it was a test by her master, the sorcerer Murgel.  He tells Iron Stone that he will divulge information if the Dwarf can find the sorcerer's guild

May 2

-- In the morning, they hear that the royal authorities have closed any roads heading north.  Attending a rally to hear the Burgomaster's speech.  Thom Tum starts a public argument about the morality of the Catherines. 

-- Igor sees the Burgomaister's goblin daughter Skaver talk to a human.  He follows the human to the bathhouse and spies Murgel.

-- The PCs meet up in passing and follow Murgel to Aishen the Scribe's house.  Safiya surprises Igor and iron Stone with a picnic lunch with Murgel's compliments.

-- Thom stealths around to see Murgel visiting his sick friend Aishen, then leaves.  Thom then sneaks in, has an encounter with Zacharius the Cockatrice., and befriends Aishen.  They talk for quite a while.

-- As evening approaches, Grimbal the dwarf breaks into the room next to the party's surprising a half-naked goblin woman and a human male.  Iron Stone tried to subdue Grimbal, but gets attacked and stabbed by Skaver, who then uses a sleep spell on Igor.

-- The city guard arrive, and things are sorted out.  Skaver is still mad at the party for interfering in her little scheme to make Grimbal jealous, and warn them not to get in her way again.

May 3

-- The next day more and more people are showing up in Timbervale sick from an unknown illness.  Thom goes to the temple to check on the woman from the wagon,a nd Igor helps out there in general with the sick for most of the day.

-- Orringale, the woman from the wagon, rewards Thom for rescuing her with two Mandrogi (tiny grass golem helpers), and offers to teach him how to create his own via ritual magic.

-- Iron Stone sees much smoke coming from Iverell some 5 miles to the west, with sounds of many distant explosions.

-- Mergel shows up at the temple, seeming very sick and more than a little mad.  After blasting out a wlal of the temple, he vomits blood and faints.

-- Igor and Thom learn from the temple priests that the spreading disease is hitting spell users very hard--the more potent magic/spells they use, the sicker nd more deranged they seem to get.

Herbalism Rules

A portable Herbalism Kit

HOMEBREW RULES for using HERBALISM PROFICIENCY (taken from emails)

CRAFTING POTIONS

There are rules for crafting items in the PHB, page 187.  Unfortunately, the creation of something like a potion of healing takes a lot of effort.  Quoting:

"For every day of downtime you spend crafting, you can craft one or more items with a total market value not exceeding 5 gp, and you must expend raw materials worth half the total market value. If something you want to craft has a market value greater than 5 gp, you make progress every day in 5-gp increments until you reach the market value of the item. For example, a suit of plate armor (market value 1,500 gp) takes 300 days to craft by yourself."

A potion of healing is listed as 50 gp, so at 5gp of effort a day, it would take 10 days to craft and cost half of that, 25 gp, in materials to make.

I would add since a portion of healing is clearly magical (its insta-heal juice that never goes bad), on the final day when the potion is completed, your character would have to sacrifice either a spell slot for that day or your cantrips for that day, as you'd be imbuing that magic into the potion.

Since your character can forage, you can find the materials without spending any money, at say 1gp per hour of foraging, up to a maximum of 5 gp per day, which would count toward the days of crafting.

HEALING

-- We can try an alternate use for Herbalism if you want.  Your character can still craft potions of healing as stated above.  But you can also use  herbal remedies mixed with medicine to enhance other forms of healing the party may use.  This would be equal to your level proficiency bonus (which is +2 at level one) in HP added to the healing method. For example, a  standard healing potion is 2d4+2.  You would add an additional 2 hp of healing onto that, making it 2D4+4, using medicines, poultices, and other natural remedies to help the healing along.  This would work in tandem with potions, spells, healing items, natural healing from rest, and other effects.

Some limitations:

-- A Medicine Proficiency roll may be needed, depending on circumstance.

-- This can't be done during combat.  The characters have to at least be resting or at low activity for 10 minutes or so for your character to properly apply everything.  The plus counts per session of healing, not per potions/spell, though it can be applied multiple times in a day as the characters get hurt again.

-- It uses up any stored medicines and herbs you may have in your herbalism kit,  1 gp worth of crafting material per session.

-- If this is used even once that day, the character can't use that day for crafting any herbalism-related items, as both the tools and materials will be used for on-the-spot healing.

OTHER USES

-- Using the crafting rules, your character can use herbalism to create other potions and poultices once you learn the recipes.  Antitoxins, antivenins, inks, dyes, teas, incense, soap, perfumes, and certain drugs (mild narcotics or stimulants, symptomatics, etc) are all possible with a proficiency check.  More potent potions of healing as well as elixirs of health can also probably be crafted at higher levels.

Adventure Log Session 1

DATE: May 1, 1226 (1,226 years since the Great Sundering)

Characters:

Thom Tum, Forest Gnome Rogue (Pat)
Igor, Hill Dwarf Cleric (Terry)
Kristoph, Human Fighter (Chris)

EVENTS

-- Characters meet on Owlbear Road, heading to Timbervale on foot after their horses were confiscated by a Royal Work Party.

-- Party encounters wagon with dead driver and very ill woman in the back.  Wagon is defended by small grass golems, which are all destroyed after a brief scuffle.

-- The woman and the wagon are delivered to the Temple of the Nature Goddess in Timbervale.  The priests treat the characters to a bath and thorough cleaning, and ask that they do not speak of the incident to anyone.

-- Visiting a commercial stable, they learn locals are forbidden to sell or rent horses to travelers or strangers by recent government decree

-- They learn that a faddish spell has made conjured 'Catherines' very popular for slave labor and other uses.

-- At the Bulging Belly Inn, they join the real Catherine in a brawl against some jerky locals, and win handily.

-- Real Catherine offers to hire the party as muscle so she can go after her ex-husband who she thinks is responsible for the Catherine spell.  She believes him to be allied with a robber band somewhere in the area.

Owlbear Wagon

A Catherine

IMAGE SOURCE LINK

Timbervale

Timbervale is an official Trading Post of the Kingdom of Raelen and is located near the intersections of two major trade routes:  the Mad King's Road running north-south and the Owlbear Run running east-west.  It is not a residential settlement per se like most villages, but an incorporated town set up specifically to take advantage of the plentiful traders and caravans passing through the Kingdom's southernmost province.

Timbervale has a populations of about 350 permanent residents, though on most days during busy travel months, more than twice that can often be found in and around the town. 

It is an incorporated town, meaning that it was set up through heavy investments from private merchant interests and the crown as well, all of which have a stake in all the businesses and residences in town. No one is allowed to set up permanent residence without the permission of the Burgomaster (mayor) and the town residency council.  The applicant must also have some useful trade that either directly services the town and/or can be offered to visitors. 

The town has a garrison of about 80 soldiers, half of which are usually on duty during the daytime. The main gate is on the west, facing the Mad King's Road, and a second gate is on the east, behind the Burgomaster's mansion.  Garrison quarters are attached on both sides of the mansion 

Some features of Timbervale:

-- Large open camping areas outside the walls for caravans and travelers to camp.  Many merchants in the caravans are usually open to trade if approached

-- A dozen taverns and Inns

-- A public bathhouse

-- Commercial horse stables

-- Highly skilled craftsman capable of creating and repairing items of  quality

-- Temple district, dominated by the Temple of the Nature goddess, but with a dozen smaller temples and shrines to various pantheons and deities

-- A small sorcerer's guild with numerous magical specialists for hire.  Rumored to have a secret sorcerer's shop and tavern somewhere in town.

-- A small but well-stocked library, attached to the Burgomaster's mansion, which may be used for a small fee

-- A moneylender/moneychanger/bank with security boxes.

-- An open market along the north wall

(more may come)

Crenmoore Province

Fully Expandable Map Link

The Northern Continent

Fully EXPANDABLE Map Link

THE NATURE OF MAGIC

THE NATURE OF MAGIC


While most of the mechanics of spells and magic remain unchanged from the original game, the rationale behind them is different, as the author wants to explore some weird but hopefully fun ideas.

SOULS

The origin of magic ultimately comes from living creatures with souls.  While many untold thousands of years have passed since magic was first created or discovered, it came about because soul-bearing peoples were able to tap into the mysterious energy potential carried within their souls.  This allowed them to tap into magical energy, the fabric of reality, and other dimensions.

Souls themselves can be drained of magical energy, but rarely can be destroyed completely and will regenerate themselves over time.  They seem to tap into a great many planes of existence simultaneously, and mastering how to use this phenomenon is how spellcasters are able to create many powerful reality-bending effects.

Often soul sparks merely act as a catalyst for spells, using only tiny slivers of energy from the soul itself, with much of the bulk of the energy coming from other dimensions, beings of great power such as gods, or the SoulSpace.

AN OVERLAY OF MAGIC

All Eleven known worlds are naturally occurring worlds and their nature and real age is well known to many scholars. If all magic were removed, they would still function as normal life bearing planets.

Magic however forms an 'overlay' over all of them, saturating them completely, allowing humans to access magical power at almost any place.  However, it is possible for this 'ocean' of magic around each world to have small gaps in it, or to have zones where magic energy may be distorted in some way.

THE SOULSPACE

The souls of living beings perform a very important magic-related function besides just acting as a bridge for magical power for spellcasters to use.  They also create the SoulSpace, also called the Ether, that creates the magical field around each world that allows magical effects to perpetuate beyond just cast spells.

Every moment it is alive, the energy of a living soul feeds into and expands the SoulSpace.  It only stops when the person dies and the soul moves onto other planes.  In other words, the souls of every person who has ever lived has added to the SoulSpace, expanding its area and influence and available energy throughout their lives.  In this way a soul can be likened a faucet that is constantly pouring a small but steady stream of extradimensional energy into our plane of existence as long as a person is alive.  Spread out over the many billions of people who have lived throughout history, this has created a vast reservoir of magical potential that is ever growing.

The SoulSpace creates the ambient magical energy held in potential, sometimes known as Mana, in almost every cubic centimeter in every nook and cranny of the world, from miles below ground to far above the atmosphere.  However, it is more than just a physical energy field.  It exists across numerous adjacent planes closely aligned with the material universe, and often can take on a very abstract nature depending on how it is used and accessed.  It occupies space yet it doesn't.  It measures the ticks of a clock and yet it also ignores them.  It can take on material form, yet is also as insubstantial and purely conceptual as a dream.

Many magical phenomena originates from the SoulSpace, such as magic used by various mythic (non-soul-bearing) animals, conjurations, phasing, pocket dimensions, and others.

Strangely, the Gates that connect the known worlds don't seem to draw their power from the SoulSpace, despite being one of the most potent known examples of magic.  How exactly they work is known only to the Guild of the Gates, and they aren't talking.


OTHER DIMENSIONS

Powerful magic users and clerics can access higher dimensions, using the SoulSpace as a gateway to other planes of existence.  However, they are very reluctant to talk about what awaits there, only saying that dimensional travel if fraught with terrifying dangers and potentially mind-shattering horrors.  Many use higher dimensional access for various powerful spell effects, but those few who can travel to them do so only reluctantly.

OTHER KNOWN WORLDS

THE WORLDS


There are eleven known worlds accessible through the Gates, including Ximenes.  Five are summarized below.  More will be added as the author makes them up.


Four worlds can be accessed directly from Ximenes:

TAO: A world with one single large continent and tens of thousands of smaller islands, the world is dominated by seafaring culture and Taoans are the best ship builders known.  As Ximenes more or less has a European/Mediterranean flavor to its culture, Tao has a very Asian-like flavor to its culture.

Tao and Ximenes are the two most economically prosperous of the known worlds, and their most successful kingdoms have a friendly rivalry for trade across the other worlds.

ANIMIS:  A world dominated by magically-altered animal-people.  Animis has a single very large supercontinent holding hundred of kingdoms each dedicated to a particular animal totem.  Centuries ago, a single nature-worshipping religion came to dominate the world, and created magical artifacts that allowed their residents to slowly transform through childhood into avatars of a region's patron animal.  The changes are mostly cosmetic, happen over many years, and stop when they reach adulthood.  Animis is therefore home to minotaurs, catpeople, dogpeople, birdpeople, and so on.

Despite sharing a common religion, the nations of Animis are perpetually squabbling and warring with each other, even more so than the nations on Ximenes.

DRACONIS:  Until the Gate was opened, humans and their sister races were unknown on this world.  Dragons are rare on Ximenes, but very common here, with humanoid Dragonkin living in their shadow.

THE DARK REALMS:  A world whose surface is said to be deadly to any living creature, so most of its inhabitants live below it.  This world is honeycombed with continent-spanning labyrinths of tunnels and cave and underground seas, and is inhabited by races such as Dark Elves and Duergars.

OTHER WORLDS

JAEA:  A world with almost no civilization and overrun with wilderness, especially forests and jungles.  The races of the Fae are fairly rare on Ximenes, but are very plentiful here, and tend to be quite dark and cruel.  Ruins of a civilization even far older than the Ancient Ximenians are said to be found here, though this remains unconfirmed.

(more worlds to come)

FEATURES OF XIMENES

FEATURES OF XIMENES

Detailing important features named on the World Map


THE NORTHERN CONTINENT


At the time of the Great Sundering, the Northern Continent was the most densely populated surviving region, and became the nexus for the resurgence of civilization on Ximenes.  Today, it still has the heaviest population.  Mostly human, though with a wide scattering of other races as the kingdoms there become more prosperous and open to trade.

The continent used to be dominated by the Darlani Empire, which formed after the racial wars and covered half the land mass.  Today, however, it has decayed radically in both size and influence and is now a mere shadow of what it once was.  It is still very strong militarily, but it is suffering economically due to endemic corruption and a highly decadent noble class.

The current economic powerhouse of the continent is Raelen, which has been actively pursuing expanding both its internal infrastructure and its trade abroad.  It has the second most powerful army after the Darlani Empire, and the strongest navy.

Firamos dominates trade along the entrance of the Sundering Sea and has become a center of many magical schools and guilds.

The Elven Enclaves are made up of hundreds of independent Elven houses, who maintain friendly but wary contact with its human neighbors.  Each House tends to specialize in a certain trade or type of magic, and the politics between them can be quite complex.

The Mad King's Road is a major ancient stone highway built by a Darlani Emperor who went mad obsessing about building it.  It comprises two parts: an east-west portion that stretches across Darlani, and a north-south arm that runs 3000 miles down into the Southern Continent.  It is a major overland trade artery.

THE SOUTHERN CONTINENT

The Southern Continent was sparsely settled at the time of the Great Sundering.  While there are regions with kingdoms that rival those in the North, such as along the Dreaming River and Atheris, its much more common to find independent city-states surrounded by vast tracts of sparsely-settled wilderness.  One of the most prominent of these is Linlea, a powerful but notoriously corrupt trading hub along the Mad King's Road just south of the Equator.

Centuries ago, many races fled the militant humans of the north, the most significant being the Dwarves which overran many weak human kingdoms then extant in the region.  Atheris is a prominent example, a mountainous country headed by a Dwarf aristocracy but populated almost half by humans.

Halflings, gnomes, centaurs, and other races are also found in larger abundance here than in the North.

THE SUNDERING SEA

A large pacific-sized ocean dotted with a great many thousands of minor islands and chains.  So many in fact that they form a stepping-stone network for sailing ships to easily resupply while travelling between continents.  This is why that while travel through the Sundering Sea to the Western Continent is almost 1000 miles longer, its is still a much preferred route than going through the Lonely Sea, which is almost entirely devoid of any islands.

The Sundering Sea was home to numerous small island colonies at the time of the Great Sundering.  These peoples have since expanded all over that ocean, some forming nations composed of dozens or hundreds of islands.  Communities of merfolk and other sea races are also plentiful here.

Many islands are thought to still remain undiscovered.  Some of these are rumored to be haunted by horrors that somehow survived the Great Sundering, and tales abound of lost ships and narrow escapes by monster-hounded sailors.

THE WESTERN CONTINENT

The continent is almost entirely jungle, desert, and wilderness slowly overruning the remnants of the ancient Ximenian civilization that met its doom there.  Ruins and devastated cities dot the continent.  Almost all of the interior is unmapped.

Some small nations of surviving natives can be found here and there, but are barely bronze-age level with very limited knowledge of magic.  They tend to be xenophobic; some mildly, some quite violently.

Numerous small colonies from modern kingdoms dot the eastern coast along the Sundering Sea.  Raelen has two, one in the north dedicated to trade while the southern one is dedicated almost exclusively to excavating ruins for ancient knowledge and magicks.

Various treaties have allowed kingdoms from other worlds to set up colonies on the Western Continent as well.  The colony of Far Warren is sponsored by a group of kingdoms from Animis.  Taoan interests maintain a small trading colony near the equator.

THE LONELY SEA

The Lonely Sea is almost entirely devoid of small islands, and is one vast tract of unending ocean.  Storms here can become particularly intense, and rumors abound of many dark, dangerous creatures rising up from the abyssal depths to prey upon surface ships.

THE GATES

Spread along the equator are four massive mirrored globes, a hundred feet across, their lower edges floating just a few feet above sea level.  These are the magical Gates that lead to other worlds.  The Guild of the Gates zealously guard their creations at each site, closely regulating anyone and anything who wants to travel between worlds.

XIMENES HISTORY

XIMENES HISTORY



THE ANCIENT XIMENIANS

In the distant past, Ximenes was once a thriving part of a community of worlds connected by magical Gates, but known details of that civilizations is scanty at best due to the dearth of surviving records. Most civilization on Zimenes back then was concentrated on the Western Continent, with sparsely-populated colonies on the other continents and spread among the many islands of the Sundering Sea

THE GREAT SUNDERING

Approximately 1200 years ago, a cataclysm called the Great Sundering devastated the entire world and every known world beyond.  No one currently alive knows what it entailed exactly or what caused it.  It completely destroyed all civilization on the Western Continent, leaving only the scattered and scantily-populated colonies on the Sundering Sea and the Northern and Southern Continents more or less intact.

Any records containing the nature of the Sundering were destroyed in the wake of the disaster.  Those in the know at the time--including wizards, kings, elves, and others swore a sacred pact never to reveal what happened and killed themselves in a wave of suicides rather than let the truth be known about the Great Sundering.  No one knows why.

COLONIES BECOME KINGDOMS

In the centuries since, the surviving colonies adopted, expanded, and thrived in their new homes, becoming nations states of their own until they and their own daughter nations loosely filled the Northern and Southern Continents.  Even though most of the land is at least formally claimed, there are still huge swaths of unsettled wilderness on both continents, and hundreds of unsettled--and even undiscovered--islands in the Sundering Sea.

In the early centuries post-Sundering, race wars rocked the Northern Continent.  The human-dominated kingdoms forced many of the other races out of the central portions of the continent.  Elves mostly retreated north, while Halflings, Dwarves, and Gnomes retreated to the Southern Continent, in turn conquering the weaker and more sparsely-settled human kingdoms there at the time.  Orcs and Goblins and more minor races walled themselves up in many various wilderness enclaves, scattering very wildly.

In the centuries since, however, tensions between the races eased and eventually became much friendlier, as trade blossomed between the ever-more prosperous kingdoms.  Tensions still rise between racial groups occasionally, but are from the near genocidal levels of a thousand years ago.

THE GATES

About 500 years ago, a critical part of the ancient Ximenian culture was rediscovered--how to create large, stable, magical Gates to other worlds.  These are not other dimensional planes that wizards and such access, but rather seem to be other inhabited planets in the same universe as Ximenes.  The Guild of the Gates was formed to create and maintain these gates, and they very jealously guard their secrets.  The Gates take a vast amounts of time and magical resources to create.  Over the centuries only Eleven Worlds have been opened up and are currently part of the new fledgling community of kingdoms and cultures created by the Gates.

THE NEW WESTERN COLONIES

In just the last century, the more prosperous kingdoms of Ximenes have defied the long-held taboo against travelling to the Western Continent, and have established fledgling colonies there which they intend on slowly expanding.  They have discovered many mysterious ruins, some with powerful magic, from before the Great Sundering.  But rumors also abound of hideous horrors also lurking in the deepest depths of the continent.  Explorers and adventurers travel there in great number, hopeful to find great fortune, but many are simply swallowed up (some say literally) by the vast unknowns and are never seen again.

Some scattered communities of survivors have also been found there, many fairly primitive, but are very stand-offish toward the newcomers.  Some political and merchant interests from the other worlds, such as Tao and Animis, have also leased colonies on the Western Continent.

XIMENES WORLD MAP

Fully Expandable Map Link:  http://sta.sh/02c495s8x3ea