Dungeon: the Ashmill

Could not find author.

A 20-room windmill dungeon set in an ashen wasteland on the borders of a forest, occupied by bandits which have pledged allegiance to a half-comatose vampire. It attempts to make a heavy use of verticality in its layout, and provide a large variety of eye-catching treasure rather than the usual gold and gems.

Download it here

Or the slightly improved WIP version here

It should be appropriate for 3-6 characters level 1-3 and their hirelings but has yet to be playtested for now. It contains 28,409 gp in treasure and assumes a gold standard for coinage.

Contains the following minor details, in no specific order: An ogre with a golden lantern! Opposing snake-cults! Wyvern blood! A truffle-person! A magic sail! Talking bats! Valuable hogs! And the greatest plot-hook reward of all: free bread for life.

This is a beta release and should receive further improvement.

3d4 crystals

d4 crystal colors
1. A sickly, faded magenta
2. A soft, warm, pale green
3. Like frozen storm clouds
4. Pristine, pearlescent white

d4 crystal clump shapes
1. Tall and towering, like a city of monoliths
2. Growing like a gnarled tree
3. A stack of perfect cubes
4. A carpet of tiny, sharp spikes

d4 crystal properties
1. Glows in the presence of a troubled mind
2. Shattered by loud sounds
3. Multiplies with dangerous speed when exposed to light
4. Entrancing, hypnotic shapes and patterns

Special mention to Anonymous, for mentioning that perfectly cubic crystals were a tell-tale sign of crystal wombats.

1d6 ways to break the curse (feat. the Curse-Eater Bird)

The wise old hermit consults the spirits for advice. She lifts her crooked cane and turns to you. You must...

d6 ways to break the curse:
1. Stand atop the mountain's peak and dance three days and three nights. That holy ritual will cleanse and fortify you. (+1 STR and CON, permanently, once.)
2. Wait for a rainy day. Then, a massive statue (elephant-sized, made of stone, possibly bigger/more expensive depending on the curse) of that which cursed you must be built. The statue must be started when the rain begins and finished before it ends. When the rain ends, the curse will transfer to the statue.
3. Compose a poem or ode to the curse, or have a bard do it for you. Curses are very vain and fickle things. Powerful curses will require the work of a master wordsmith and possibly a large crowd for you to read it to. The curse will steal the poem and disappear with it. Your audience will probably have nightmares for a while - there's no telling what might come of that.
4. Live in cold and darkness and see no human face for a week and a day, no exceptions. On the very last day, at noon exactly, a family member must bring you under the light of the sun, where friends will be waiting to cheer you on. The unexpected onslaught of love and light will annihilate the curse.
5. Travel to the place where you were born and lie down in a deep, deep pit of mud there. Then cut off one of your fingers (-1 DEX permanently) and bury it in that spot. Your home and those who live in it will bear the curse, and so will your heirs, if you have any, but you will never suffer this kind of curse again as long as your finger still lies there (that is to say, as long as no angry mob finds and unearths the finger and hunts you down).
6. Find the curse-eater bird and pluck a feather from it when it sleeps. It is said the bird will eat your curse if you return the feather. Do not push your luck. Do not steal its evil trinkets. Do not look at its terrible eggs. Do NOT anger the bird.

Curse-Eater Bird ("Melphage" in pedantic wizard-speak)
Where it lives - Lands broken and shattered by magical wars long past, in a nest made of ugly swords, with its (1d8-3) screeching, peeping nestlings.
What it looks like - Size of an ox. Beautiful iridescent red plumage, eyes like bottomless pits, jagged beak. Or, pick a curse and base an appearance on it. What would mummy rot look like if it were a bird?
Encountering it - You'll hear its horrible screaming from a mile away. It speaks - its words sound like it's constantly being choked (because, in a way, it is).
Personality - It wants suffering and beauty. Like a curse, it is vain, fickle, relentless, vengeful. Like a bird, it wants to feed, and to care for its nest above all else.
Curse removal/Ecology - Its empty gaze can draw out a curse (it takes a form like a will-o-wisp's) and eat it like an earthworm. The process is painful for the bird if done on living beings, so it prefers corpses. It also feeds on curse sources (like a cursed item) but the process of drawing out such a curse, edible piece by edible piece, can take generations - or multiple birds convinced to work together.

HD 5, AC as leather, fly as bird, move as ox, morale 9 (12 when defending nest).
Attacks: talon 1d6 + beak 2d6. Alternatively, intense screaming (all within 60' save or throw up blood, taking 1d4 damage).

Treasure:
2d6-4 deformed eggs in sickly, shining colors, each representing a specific curse, inflicting it if thrown or eaten. (it will scream if you take more than a quick glance at these)
1d100 feathers worth 100 gp each (+ 1d10 in nest, it won't notice or care at all if you steal these)
4d6 ugly swords and trinkets (it won't notice or care much if you steal these)
1d4-1 cursed swords and items (it may notice and protest if you steal these, they're food)

d10 illustrated magic items

I wrote these two years ago based on some "make a magic item out of this image" prompts. The images in question are included for reference's sake and I have attempted to identify their authors to the best of my ability. If I'm infringing on your copyright, let me know - the offending pic will be taken down ASAP.

Boulder opal - could not find source

1. Opalescent egg

This egg can be ground into fine powder. Blowing on the powder creates a perfectly realistic-looking rainbow in the sky. (Optional: The egg comes with a set of special lenses. If you whisper a message when blowing on the powder, anyone wearing the lense can see the message written on the rainbow.)

"pink amulet stock" by demoncherryart on deviantArt

2. Medaillon of Youth
Bathing this medaillon in blood under the moonlight every week slows down the wearer's aging, and causes their nails to lengthen and sharpen to a deadly degree.

"Leather Mask of Stag Spirit", by teonova on deviantArt and Etsy

3. Mask of the Doomed
Wearing this mask allows you to hear the voices of the soon-to-be dead in a quarter-mile radius. It's fairly difficult to make sense of what they say, especially when you consider all the screaming.
Optional: If you manage to meditate for long enough while wearing the mask (it's quite a feat, you need a significant amount of willpower) you become increasingly able to isolate the voices in your mind and understand them.

Handcrafted ring, could not find name or details, from mysecretwoods.com

4. Ring of the Depths
When wearing this ring inside a cavern, you can always locate an exit to the surface.
Optional: Wear it long enough, and you'll gain the ability to perceive your position in the dark through echolocation... but your vision might suffer.

Metal sculpture at gahr.art (gahr_kunst_metall), could not find name or details

5. The Flaming Oracle
This oven-sized stone grants useful visions of the future. The fire is hungry and seems to have a mind of its own. To benefit from these visions, you must write down some of your memories on a piece of parchment and feed it to the flame oracle -- you immediately forget the memories in question.


The more important and positive the memories, the longer and more precise the visions will get. If you throw in the diary you've kept since you were 10, you'll know nearly everything that'll happen to you in the next decades, at the cost of forgetting who you are.

Could not find source.

6. Selena's Smile
If you look at the night sky while wearing this necklace, you may speak to the moon herself. She is ancient and knowledgeable, but tired and slow to answer. Optional: You're not actually talking to the moon, but to the ghost/soul/simulated personality of a long-dead sorcerer's loved one. The sorcerer lost her in a tragic accident and perhaps wanted to save her soul from a terrible afterlife. Said loved one may or may not believe herself to be the moon, after all this time stuck in a necklace.

By designer Eli Tahari

7. Heels of Radiant Truth
These heels were given to a priestess of truth and law by her divinity. It was meant as both a gift and a test of faith. They surround you in radiant light if you so desire, let you walk through great heat or fire unscathed, and let you discern truths and lies.

When you knowingly speak a harmful or self-interested lie of your own, you suffer painful burns. This happens even if you've taken the heels off. The heels no longer have any effects on you, until you either confess the truth or spend a day in repentant pilgrimage and prayer

Could not find source.

8. Gentleman's geode
A gift to a dwarven noble. It talks in a smooth voice and helpfully reminds you about today's agenda.

"Green Mask", by enayla on deviantArt

9. Mask of the Simurgh
A ceremonial mask worn by high-ranked cultists of the Simurgh, the great ancient bird, and bearing its blessing. The mask can be submerged into water or buried into the earth to purify it. The wearer may divine the past of an object it touches, specifically how it was created and by whom.

Could not find source.

10. Warrior's memento
This ball of roughly carved jade can be set down on the corpse of a recently dead warrior. It will help guide the warrior's soul to the afterlife. If the warrior so wishes, he may impart a particular skill he had in life onto the piece of carved jade, such as a signature technique of theirs. A companion of the warrior who holds this item close to their heart can imitate this technique perfectly, guided by the warrior's spirit.

d6 power gems

Based on an anonymous prompt.

d6 power gems:
1. Sunspark gem. Glows softly (as torch). If you focus the sun's light through it, it'll create a blinding beam.
2. Battery gem. Tiny little bubbles rise upwards inside. It's a power core for some ancient piece of technology.
3. Astrologer's gem. Constellations are visible inside the gem. If you look at the sky through it, the constellation you're looking at will light up, along with its name, even in daytime.
4. Chronomantic gem. The gem is bound to a certain period in the past or future. If you look at something through the gem, you'll see what it looks like in that time period. (This is a good opportunity to get some mileage out of your setting's overdeveloped ancient lore or hint at a future apocalypse.)
5. Hollow gem. Speak the command word and it will unfold like a paper-craft pattern and reveal what's hidden inside.
6. Sentinel gem. Twirl it in your hands and the gem will float into the air, throwing lasers at anything that moves nearby as long as it keeps spinning. Pew pew.

5d6 serpent-folk or nagas

Here's a cleaned-up, more serious version of a table that originated as a shitpost, and somehow sparked a deluge of fantastic anonymous additions (not listed here).

d6: SNAKE HALF
1. Glimmering cobra, shifting colors
2. Tiny black-and-grey rattlesnake
3. Red-streaked boa
4. White albino cave snake
5. Made of fire
6. Quetzacoatl: green scales covered in blue feathers

d6: HUMAN HALF
1. Pale, thin, missing a fang
2. Chubby, wears immense earrings
3. Long braided hair, covered in tattoos
4. Wears colorful scraps of fabric, can probably snap you in half
5. Skeleton
6. Old, ashen skin, has a jewel embedded in their tongue (100 gp)

d6: PERSONALITY
1. Always grinning, trickster type
2. Regal and with a flair for the dramatic
3. Patient guardian of dark secrets
4. Sleepy and outrageously bored
5. Manic and dangerously excitable
6. Wistful and brooding

d6: POWERS
1. Thought-reading (ESP 1/day)
2. Hypnosis (Charm Person 1/day)
3. Shapeshifting (turn into a snake or human 3/day)
4. Save-or-die poison (at will)
5. Oracle's visions (grants DM fiat prophecies and/or rolls 2d20 at dawn, can replace rolls with the results)
6. Just being way too fucking big (increase size category by 1, +50% HD)

d6: RECRUITING AS AN ALLY, OR IF YOUR IDIOT PLAYERS WANT TO ROLL TO SEDUCE
1. No. Their interest in your group is fleeting and mortals die so quickly
2. Maybe. Amused by your antics, remains with you out of curiosity
3. Yes. Interested, but is creepy and controlling
4. Yes. Actually genuinely enjoys hanging out
5. Yes. Will eat you in your sleep
6. Yes. Will eat you in your sleep (absentmindedly, will let you out with an apology)

Exponential strength for D&D 5e

Figured I'd post this here.

In D&D 5e, using the lifting & carrying rules as written, a Commoner can lift one (1) big thing (300lbs) and carry half (150lbs) in his backpack, whereas a Fighter approaching demigod-level strength is... only twice as efficient. Pretty lame for a game about region-saving, evil-empire-toppling, dark-god-killing heroes.

But what if every extra couple points of Strength had an exponential effect? It'd certainly make high level fighters and barbarians more heroic. Starting at 128 lbs, halving for every point below 0, doubling for every point above 1. As illustrated by this table:

Elephant-tossing barbarians sound a little bit more in line with the reality-rewriting mages now. And Tiamat throwing immense monuments at the party seems like something any high level game should have.