the ebon zikkuract

Ancient when the world was still young, the zikkuract was a weathered step pyramid made of black basalt blocks hewn by hands far greater than those of mere humans.  A simple ziggurat of it's dimensions would take a priest-king's slave army generations to finish.  Yet the fact of it's existence is a shadow of the great wonder that exists today.  After a dream sent to them by the gods, the hierophants placed at the capstone a starstone block enchanted by ritual and invoked ancient, incomprehensible powers causing mirrors to smoulder and shadows to run like ink.  When libation was made, dark shapes loomed amid the congregation for an instant, plucking the faithless out in an eye-blink leaving only a few drops of blood on their neighbour. The ziggurat trembled and for a moment, all was as blood.  Then everything was back, and everything had changed..

The apex of the ziggurat was plunged into shadow yet shafts of light came from each side and from above.  These illuminated dark basalt walls and a ceiling yet each wall and the ceiling had a stair sunken into it, leading away.  The stair in the ceiling was almost a mirror of the apex of the ziggurat.  A hierophant realised that the walls and ceiling were in fact the apex of another ziggurat. Curious he touched one of the walls and found himself lying on it, when he stood up, he was perpendicular to the wall and parallel to the apex where his fellow worshippers watched in awe.  He moved from one wall to the next, as he touched them his body fell to the new floor.  Finally he walked up to the edge of the ceiling and touched it, then he stood up on it and hailed his peers from above them, his hair and robes unperturbed though he was seemingly upside down.  The hierophants named the phenomenon zikkuract, blending the ancient name for ziggurat with an arcane term for a shape that exists in many places.

On his return, warrior-slaves were dispatched to investigate each of the walls and the ceiling.  When the priest-king and the hierophants left they saw the basalt block atop the ziggurat and marvelled.  Scholars were sent with them and reported that the hierophant was correct - each wall was the apex of another ziggurat and that the stairs led to different places.  The northern wall revealed an icy ruined city amid tundra where the air was thin and three moons hung in the sky.  The eastern wall revealed an abandoned city in a bright desert lit by two suns that punished any warrior clad in metal.  The southern wall revealed a creeper-choked ruin in a lush jungle under a green-tinged sun.  The western wall revealed a lone black ziggurat on a basalt causeway over wine-dark seas.  The ceiling led to a great city with a smoking sun overhead and the horizon curving upward in every direction.  Each of the ziggurats now appeared to have a great basalt block atop it forcing anyone seeking entrance to use the stairway.

The priest-king ordered further exploration.  He realised these places could make his kingdom wealthy and make him great.  The hierophants warned of dangers from the other places yet the priest-king knew that if he did not explore, when word of this wonder spread then his enemies would seek to conquer him.  He would call for heroes to explore these places, sending soldiers and scholars to claim these lands and envoys to treat with any ruler who they found.  The priest-king and hierophants decreed only the worthy would be chosen and this led to much intrigue.  Spies for other priest-kings reported great activity at the site of an ancient ruin where a black basalt block had impossibly appeared atop an ancient ziggurat.  Soldiers and scholars were travelling in and out of the ziggurat.  This was a matter of great import for the other priest-kings who sought to know why the gods had chosen this priest-king for favour?

(inspired by this post by Planet Algol who is hitting them out the park at the moment).

three things: inflictions

This content is provided under the terms of the OGL.

Lachrymose Mask - This ivory tragedy mask is intended as a punishment for errant spellcasters and overly shrewish or loud conversationalists and magically adjusts to fit any humanoid head. When donned, the mask fastens itself with arcane lock. The mask prevents all speech and rewards attempts to speak by slowly drowning the wearer in magical tears. Attempting to speak causes the wearer 1d6 subdual damage and forces them to make a Constitution check (DC10 +1 per round) or be forced to cough up the salty water filling their lungs. Creatures that can communicate without speech do not incur the effects of the mask.
Market Cost: 4000gp.
Creation:Create Wondrous Item, arcane lock, create water.

Rod of Burning Remembrance - This slim rod is made from a ferula plant and is capped with spiked iron tips.  It is treated as a +1 club and usable by any class able to use one.  It has three additional functions, using them is equivalent to drawing a weapon.

• Once a day it can provide a +2 to any Intelligence-based skill check.
• Once a day it can inflict 1d8+4 fire damage with a successful melee touch attack
• Once a day it can with a successful melee touch attack cause the target to suffer the effects of a symbol of pain (-4 to attacks, skill and ability checks) for 10 minutes.

This rod is popular with evil characters, especially torturers and schoolmasters.  The relatively nondescript appearance of the item is valued by urbane characters who prefer discretion to blatant displays of power.
Market Value: 5,600gp
Creation: Create Rod, flame blade, fox's cunning, symbol of pain

Slaver's Eye - This gem appears to be a hemispherical cabochon-cut diamond  with a dark core reminiscent of an eye's iris.  If touched to the forehead it will cling there. The slaver's eye grants the person who placed it on the recipient's forehead the ability to use a geas/quest spell up to 10 minutes after the slaver's eye is attached. If the recipient refuses, they suffer the usual effects of non-compliance with geas/quest and strange dark veins appear around the gem as symptoms, the more intense the loss, the further the veins spread.  Open-ended tasks can be granted as usual and last for 10 days.  Once the task is completed, the gem falls off, ready to be used again.  To forcibly remove the slaver's eye requires a break enchantment spell, the presence of an antimagic shell, a limited wish or even greater spell with similar effects. Attempts to remove the gem by normal means fail and may damage the wearer at DM's discretion.
Market Value:  6,000gp
Creation: Caster level 11th, Create Wondrous Item, geas/quest

3:16 - alien races

I think 3:16 is a wonderful game. Of course you can add more to it if you want and looking at the creatures I came up with a few more for Troopers to encounter. With Obsidian Portal now offering support and a number of you owning it as you donated to DriveThruRPG's Haiti appeal, there's really no excuse not to run a game, is there?

Colonists
A group of colonists defying the authority of Terra. These could be criminals trying to outrun the law or settlers rejecting Terran life with it's enforced sterilisation and indolence.  They may remind Troopers of family, hated rivals or even themselves.

Clones
All the inhabitants are identical; they may have a group mind or have radically different mindsets.  They can tell each other apart without any problem but the Troopers won't at first. How do the Troopers deal with killing the same person over and over and over? Perhaps they remind the Troopers of someone?

Energy Forms
These creatures have unlocked themselves from matter.  They may appear as angelic figures of light, raging pillars of fire or invisible monsters revealed in the pulses of an energy rife.  Give them a personality to match their current state of being and a completely alien outlook.

Equines
Horses, donkeys or zebra are the base creature.  Herd animals working together for self-defence with a strong leader.  They may have evolved to humanoid form or feral animals willing to kick Troopers to death over territory.

Fungus
From mushroom men to roiling masses of slime mold.  Sentience may be indicated by changing colours, rough speech or even telepathy.  Their spores may cause hallucinations, be poisonous or infect the flesh of Troopers to turn them into zombie-like carriers.

Parasites
The race may need another body to keep it alive or just to improve it's quality of life. Parasites may be from one or more races. Troopers who use a Weakness may be captured and risk infection and being Killed may actually mean being turned into a host…

A 4E chocolate box - review: underdark

I've been looking forward to this.  The Underdark is a wonderful environment for games and taps into the essence of D&D. What I didn't expect was a lavish campaign setting in it's own right that gives the setting the mythic quality that it truly deserves, re-invigorates classic locations and brings back some old friends. Drow fans will be delighted at Erelhei-Cinlu's return and Torog, The King Who Crawls is fleshed out - not only do exarchs provide challenges on the way, you can also meet The King at 30th-level if your Dungeon Master so wishes.

Underdark provides plenty of crunch for your buck. New terrain types, combat effects and monster themes (featured in Dungeon Master's Guide 2) as well as combat effects are organised around the different parts of the Underdark.  The monster section at the end not only has new monsters but also suggested monsters (there's your ecology) and where to find them.  This is balanced with lots of information on roleplaying attitudes of Underdark denizens, what surface dwellers know, roleplaying the psychological impact of living underground and reminding you of what is best in Underdark life.  It also brings in where the Underdark bleeds over into the Feywild, the Shadowfell and the Elemental Chaos. This book has epic scope and it does a very good job of bringing it together - it's like a box of chocolates. You know it's going to be nice with maybe a couple you'll definitely offer to a friend instead.

That's a lot of ground to cover in 160 pages yet I got a sense fewer encounters - maybe one encounter per chapter - and slightly smaller chunks of art would have given enough room for the Feydark and especially the Shadowdark to come across as more than milk Underdark and dark Underdark. Both sections could have been fleshed out into full sourcebooks (similar to the recent Dragonborn book) or even web enhancements.  Still I can dream, right?  The other peculiarity was you get lots on Torog and his exarchs, not so much on his clerics and worshippers - people you might expect to meet on the way to Maelbrathyr for example. While different DMs will have different takes, information on typical examples of worship by specific races (e.g. humans, dwarves, troglodytes) would have been helpful.

For those new to the game, Underdark opens some wonderful doors and promises vistas of adventure. More experienced hands will love what's been done to the old stomping ground and note how the advice in DMG2 has been applied yet may feel there were missed opportunities to really open the setting up. Overall, it has something for everyone and maybe I'm being greedy in hoping everything is to my taste. A Bucknard's box of infinite chocolates would be perfect. Underdark is a quality four-tray deluxe Belgian selection delivered with panache by Rob Heinsoo.  More like this please.

Metrics:(out of 5) Overall: 4 (Artwork: 4, Crunch: 5, Fluff: 4)