Tag: #DungeonsAndDragons

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Hymn of the Hollow God

Hymn of the Hollow God – Book III of the Amberblight Quintet – is now live in digital format on the Dungeon Master’s Guild.

The adventure picks up a short time after The Hexen Temple. Ellarion and Lirael, the elves the elves on opposite sides of the race to the Temple, partners in life and in death – have both disappeared, taking the Heartspire seed with them.

It is known they have headed into Maralenth Fen – the great swamp north of Riverrock. Reports from rangers scouting the area say the swamp has come under the spell of an amber malady, and creatures horrific and unknown are now found in the deep parts of the region. It is the home to ancient elven ruins, the place where the Heartspire Tree once grew and spread its magic from.

Following the elves into the swamps is no small feat. It will take courage, and it will take the help of the dwarves and elves working together in an uneasy alliance. But what horrors lie in wait at the centre of the swamp, the forgotten Vael’shara, elven centre of Heartspire worship?

Here is the teaser text for the module:

The crypt is behind them.
The artifact is no longer safe.
And deep in the swamp, voices have started singing again.

Ellarion and Lirael have vanished, carrying the unstable Heartspire with them. To Vael’shara, the Sanctum of the First Root.

Pursuing them through the drowned temple and amber-laced ruins, something stirs beneath the muck and stone. Dreams bloom in unnatural patterns. The trees lean too closely. Reflections twitch when no one moves.

At the heart of it all, a pool of golden resin, perfectly still. And a song, as old as the stones, yet new as birth. Calling to you. Singing of doom.

Check it out at the Dungeon Master’s Guild.

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A hero in the making

I play in a couple D&D games; one weekly and one bi-weekly.

In one of my games, I’ve been playing a dwarf paladin destined to be a paladin of Moradin from the awesome Faiths of the Forgotten Realms book. And everything was progressing along nicely.

At level 2, I’ve been roleplaying little events in the game that are pointing towards his intended path. Intended, that is, until we visited a small town overrun with squid creatures from the Far Realm. Kade (Orcsplitter, in the finest Dwarven tradition) managed to get himself a parasitic squid parasite living in his head and spinal column. In a moment, he was turned from the hammer and anvil.

Later, when the party wizards and a handful of scraggily bandits managed to free everyone, Kade traded in his hammer for a battle axe. Filled with rage, he is now in the process of walking down and dismantling every infested squid-slave he can get his paws on. To the shock and dismay of some of my party members, of course.

The axe, the rage, the uncompromising judgement – they are all part of a plan that suddenly occurred to me while I was wandering around happily being a parasitic host and worshipping some old farming god. I was no longer going to be a paladin of Moradin. Instead, my experience has turned me toward a path of Vengeance. No longer would I be the hammer of justice for my god. I would be the clenched fist that wields it.

Now the real story begins. because as he is adventuring in these early levels, he is forming as a character. I’m getting a better sense of who he is and what he wants to accomplish. I’m getting to know what he likes and what he hates. And I’ve discovered that prior to level 3, “I haven’t taken my oath yet!” is a great way to shut down any criticism about Kade’s methods.

Sure, D&D is a game about rolling dice and collecting treasure. But where it truly shines, and will always shine, is as a group storytelling exercise. In my mind, the best way to do this is to live the world as your character.

Think about how your character might respond to things that are happening to them and around them. THAT is your real back story. Your background is just the bones. The meat, blood, skin, and organs grow out of those early levels.

Work stuff:

I recently heard back from the editors of a story I subbed back in October, and it turns out they liked it enough that they want to add it to their anthology. Great news! It’s always exciting to get that kind of information in your inbox. It helps that these editors are great people and very talented, and they live in my neck of the woods (internationally speaking).

I also heard back from a second place I had subbed to, and they let me know they would not be taking the story I sent them. I still have hope for this one. This is the second market it’s been turned down from, so we are still in single digits. I’m still optimistic, in other words.

I haven’t released a new adventure in a couple weeks, but I have a handful of them sitting at the moment waiting for a couple final pieces. I’m working on a process to get my maps coloured, because that would be more cool. Good work takes time (and money).

I’ll post an image from my latest WiP, a near perfect reconstruction of a Halloween adventure I ran for my 2-year Rime group. Perfect, as in it is almost exactly how I ran it back then. You’ll have to decide for yourself if it’s any good 😉

You can find my published adventures here.

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From silence to stories.

So I have spent the past couple years very quietly. This year is looking to be the opposite of that. I currently have four short stories out for consideration, written since the beginning of December, and two of whom have made second round consideration. Another one is out for some feedback. That’s not much, but it is something. What it IS is this idea in my head that short story theorycraft is finally starting to make sense to me. Almost 50 years old, better late than never.

I love Dungeons and Dragons and I’ve been playing it since I was a kid. The first time I played was with my mother and her friends, I was all of eight years old. I played through 1st and 2nd editions in Jr. High and High School. And then 3rd edition came out and I was all in on that. I still think 3.5e is the best version of this game. Problem is trying to find players who want to go back to an old edition.

I recently wrapped up a 2-year Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign I was running, and my party is on a break. Wanting to capture some of the adventures I wrote to thicken the plot soup of Rime, I’ve been rebuilding them as generic adventures. I own a ton of Dyson Logos commercial maps, and between that and my friend Erin (The talented E.M. MacCallum, check out her books!) I have started building them into something serviceable. I know AI art is not a popular thing right now, but I’ve been using MidJourney to create images for the adventures.

I don’t expect to sell more than a handful of copies of these things (if any), so dishing out a grand or more for a handful of pieces and waiting months on them being completed is outside the scope of this experiment. I’ll post about them when I stick ’em up on DMs Guild.

I plan on writing a lot more this year. I wrote almost nothing last year, but I was neck deep in some personal drama. Not an excuse. Well, actually, that’s exactly what it is. It was an excuse to focus on nothing and do even less.

That’s all over with. Bring it, 2025. I’m ready for you.