Episode 207 of Mastering Dungeons! Main topic: 2024 5E Resting Rules and Greyhawk’s Regions! Discover the subtle changes 2024 5E makes to short and long rests and how they compare to previous editions. We assess the potential campaigns behind the design of Greyhawk’s Rovers of the Barens, Scarlet Brotherhood, Sea Barons, Sea Princes, and Shield Lands! News: 2024 5E and the AL, New Ravenloft Novel, When to Explain a Crime, and more! Contents 00:00 LEGO Mini Mania 04:20 D&D Epic vs Open? 09:47 Empire of the What? 11:17 Explaining a Crime? 15:19 Why is Medicine Useless? 21:24 2024 and Adv League 31:38 New Ravenloft Novel 33:23 D&D Cartoon Theme Found 35:18 Un Millón de Monedas 40:22 Oleumancer for Draw Steel 41:29 How to Create in 2024 42:46 2024 vs 2014: Healing and Resting 43:08 Value of Conditions 44:45 Design Goal for Recovery 48:44 Recovery in AD&D 52:17 3.5 Rest and Recovery 54:05 4E Rest and Recovery 57:53 2024 Long Rest Changes 01:03:04 2024 Short Rest 01:09:39 Rovers of the Barrens 01:13:42 Scarlet Brotherhood 01:18:20 Sea Barons 01:20:43 Sea Princes 01:24:05 Shield Lands 01:28:01 Shout-Outs Thank you for listening! Get the full show notes with links on Patreon. Show Search Engine: https://mdsearch.alphastream.org/ Our intro and outro music is Metropolis Fanfare, provided royalty-free by Tabletop Audio (https://tabletopaudio.com) under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). MP3 file metadata populated with Online MP3 Podcast Chapter Editor, built by Dominik Peters. https://mp3chapters.github.io/ and customized for Mastering Dungeons by Vladimir Prenner from Croatia.
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Hello, and welcome to another week here at Mastering Dungeons. I'm Sean Merwin here with Teos Abadie, who is very excited about what he is holding in his hand right now. It looks to me like a Lego minifig.
It is. It's a fan wizard. This is what the little boxes look like. I'm holding it up. They're very small, kind of fits in your hand. It's not oversized packaging for once. Amazing. Well done, Lego there. And, you know, we reported back a few weeks ago that you could get these and that they we had heard that you can scan the barcode and know what's inside. And so I put that theory to the test.
I wasn't sure. This is Tasha looking really good with a cauldron and a book in one hand. Oh, nice. Or egg wolf. You know, you do. Mm hmm.
uh and uh so i i bought these like big oh i think i can reach one uh this is what a box like you can buy a box of six and they look big okay so the boxes of six have a um this will be our mini review they have uh the same they look the same on the outside so you can't tell one box of six from another as far as i could tell like all the upc codes whatever the same Open that up.
Now you get like a barcode on the individual ones. And then there's like a little thing here that that's basically it's like the UPC code. And there's another thing next to it. That's the thing that I found was unique. And the brick scanner, whatever it's called, app did not do anything for me with that.
But what I did see as I was opening them is every one of these little numbers over to the side was in fact unique for me. And I bought two of those packs of six from the Lego store. And probably by luck, they were two distinct units of six. And I got the full 12, all 12 with just buying two boxes. It was like the best collecting ever.
My wife thanked the gods of collecting that I often fall prey to. So it was great. So I got all of them, and they're pretty sweet. And, you know, we've got little, like, tieflings with a little pet dragon shooting out an Eldritch Blast.
Wow.
Yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff. So I might show them, you know, as we go, you know, here and there. Anyway, what was your weekend about, Sean?
My weekend was about working like it pretty much always is. So, yeah, that's, I live quite an exciting life to have. The word mines. Yeah, yeah. I mean, people might laugh and go, oh, my gosh, Teos, his excitement was buying 12 Lego minifigs. And I'm like, boy, that is exciting, actually.
Well, I did have one thing that was kind of funny. I had a dream at night. At some point, we'll get to listener questions.
but i had a dream and i it was like i woke up like at four o'clock in the morning or something from this dream and the dream was that i had just finished work for catalyst game labs uh somehow updating shadowrun right and like i'd done my last bit of reference work and it felt so real that when i woke up in this like groggy state i was like wait do i need to turn that in Do I have this job?
And I really didn't know for like I was like, I got to remember when I wake up to find out whether I actually have to turn this in because but I guess I did it. And I'm like, I don't remember doing the work. And then I fell back asleep and I woke up and just laughed because it was such a hilarious, you know, no, I do not have this job, but. Somehow, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock in the morning.
That sounds painfully like me. I did get a chance to DM again on Friday night. One session left, I hope, in the Citadel Dancing Sun campaign. They're about to face the big...
boss battle at the end so we'll see how that goes very cool very excited to get through that and very excited to talk to our listeners who send us questions and comments via all of the socials patreon discord youtube mastodon blue sky the hellscape that is twitter uh they talk to us in real life send us emails and this at conventions sometimes we dream about these questions uh
And so we're going to answer some of those, and all of them are real this time. First, coming from Thomas Connolly via Patreon. Here's a really short question, finally. What is the difference between an open and an epic? When we talk about those. So I'll try to give you a briefish answer. So an open can be an epic, but not all epics are opens. So what's an open?
The D&D open has changed over the years. I mean, we're going back to the 70s now for this.
generally opens are competitive events where you as a team a party of say five or six players will play the same adventure as all of the other teams playing and you will receive a score of some kind how those scores are done differ from open to open but generally then after your team plays say a four-hour adventure
you will get a score and the highest scoring team from that session or that round will move on to the next round. So maybe maybe it runs four times over four slots and the highest scoring three teams from each slot move on to like the next round. And then maybe the top four teams from that round move on to the finals, something of that nature.
And it's been different at different times, but that's generally the idea. So it's super competitive. Runs and rounds, there's generally an elimination or a moving on depending on your score until a champion, if you will, is crowned. That's an open in a nutshell.
An epic is generally an event where the tables are all playing the same adventure at the same time, but they're all part of the same story. So in epics, generally, you are working with the rest of the players to try to achieve the goals of the adventure, even going so far as to help each other out. So there may be mechanics within the epic to give boosts, give boons, give direct help to...
go to another table or tables might be shuffled, but it's a large sort of table spanning single event, whereas the opens now there have been opens that were run as epics. So there was times when you were all playing the same big story, but yet there was still scoring going on. So that's a short version of that. Anything to add to this?
yeah i love that i mean that's really what it is right the open is is generally competitive um even though there are many tables going through the same event and it's deliberately meant to be a sort of test and it harkens back to what the open was originally which was and i'm not entirely sure when the name open came in the first thing i have in my notes is in 1978 with what became shrine of kuotola
i have there it written of as an open i i'm not sure that's science i just have that word there uh but the first tournament which is what the kind of where it all came from was the tournaments began with the adventure you may have heard of tomb of horrors at origins one july 25th to 27 1975 at johns hopkins university that was that was the first tournament
And it introduced this idea of, hey, when we all play at a convention together, it's going to be competitive and see how far you can get. And this was a thrill. And yeah, that idea of like, you know, only going to play in day two if you were one of the best teams in day one. And at the end, there's a winner.
And around the third edition and fourth edition, I think even second edition era, the Open was an event at Gen Con that was very important to a certain segment of the D&D player populace. It was all separate from organized play, right? It was just its own thing. And you would get the pregens at a certain time. And sometimes you've made your characters, but usually it's pregens.
And there was, you know, some some fanfare around this. And the prizes could be fabulous. Like in the fourth edition era, people got things like, you know, custom iPods or you name it, you know, black, the huge one, each of the huge dragons to the top team. Like it was a lot. So it was a big deal. And then it disappeared for a few years.
Yep.
The idea of competitive D&D to some people is awesome, and to some people is abhorrent to the point of existential crisis. Because role-playing games, especially D&D, are meant to be cooperative, storytelling, fun, work together. So the idea of competing is sort of antithetical to everything, for some people, that role-playing games and D&D specifically hold dear. So...
to each their own, but to our own, we go forward to ask. I have to ask this test. Did you run an empire of the ghouls campaign? I did not. Okay. And I didn't either. So we got a question from Jason Campbell who said, now I think you're wrapping up your empire of the ghouls campaign. I wonder if you're playing into a wrap up of review of what you thought about it. Yeah. Excuse me.
And the only thing I can think of is maybe, oh, I just lost my voice. Maybe Jason is referring to Citadel of the Unseen Sun. So Jason, if you're out there, clarify the question. And when I do finish Citadel of the Unseen Sun, if you're interested, I will give a brief review of it.
Yeah. Until then, we can only give fake reviews. I thought that there were too many ghouls. I thought that the Empire was not really well detailed in terms of, you know, I found it ghastly.
Right, right. I would have much preferred Empire of the Ghasts.
Yeah, yeah. That's a ghast, ghast, ghast. Also found that at the end, I couldn't believe that it was a giant chocolate monster with a nougat layer. That was unexpected as the big boss.
Yeah, just so you're aware, Empire of the Ghouls is a large scale campaign done by Cobalt Press. Richard Green worked on it. Richard Green, exactly. Richard Green, I think, was the primary writer on it.
I do not own it. I have not seen it. I can't talk about it. Yep.
And so we'll move on to Marcelo de Velasquez via Patreon, who says, Buenos dias. I'm reaching out to ask for some insight on mystery-themed adventures. Where should the summary of the quote-unquote crime be placed for GM awareness? That is, the synopsis of who, what, when, and where.
Should it all be placed at the beginning of the adventure, or can it be spread throughout the adventure's different parts? Perhaps through sidebars or at the introduction of each adventure's chapter or part? I'm leaning toward doing it all at the beginning of the entire adventure, but I'm not sure if this is the most effective approach. I appreciate any insight you could share here.
My quick answer is it totally depends. on the length of the adventure on how complicated it is etc but what i would say is i would prefer an explanation of complicated plots up front it doesn't have to be extremely detailed for a very complicated plot but it should at least give the game master a blueprint to follow that they can then in later parts dig down into.
So I want a brief but thorough explanation of the complications. Then within each encounter or chapter or part where there is important information and important action to happen, then I want that drill down of, remember how, you know, We said that there were three murderers and this is the first murderer that their characters will deal with.
And from this murderer, they should gain these clues about the other two murderers. Boom. Now I know that and we can move on. Yeah. Thoughts?
Yeah, one of the reasons that you often see adventure designers not tell you everything is because they're trying to help you not give things away. We've seen this in fifth edition adventures fairly recent, right? We reviewed Planescape. There's another one out there. And what they're often trying to do is so that you can role play this NPC totally comfortably without giving anything away.
And then later you will get the reveal if you didn't read the whole thing and the players will get the reveal. And so that makes sense. And that's not terrible, but I would rather you just tell the GM as an adventure designer how to run this convincingly or what it is now, even though you know the larger truth and rather than hiding it. I also think that it's it's.
While it's easy to come up with this sort of one-two punch of reveal, the truth is that it's seldom doing anyone any benefits because the players are now also cut off from all possibilities to uncover anything useful. And it's better to just adventure-proof the adventure rather than...
hide things because you know what does happen if they cast a spell on this npc and you know detect their alignment was the oldest thing in the book right going back to many many editions right well i'm a paladin so i'm going to detect evil on the npc yeah they're evil or in third edition we'd always say are they wearing a hat right the hat of disguise like you just always ask are they wearing a hat well they've got a ribbon in their hair yeah right probably a hat of disguise you know
And I'm holding up a Strahd figure while I... Oh, yes.
Speaking of detecting evil. Yeah, so that's a great question, Marcelo. And I think... especially given the propensity for game masters to want to modify things, the more information that they can have upfront without overwhelming them, the better you are in terms of getting that information across in your adventure.
And last but not least, Raul via Patreon says, your recent discussion on conditions and exhaustion reminded me that I have always wondered why the designers of 5E chose to make the medicine skill so useless. Medicine could help overcome exhaustion, for instance, via a check during short rests.
While we're at it, why can't medicine get rid of poison condition or alleviate maximum endpoint reductions inflicted by undead? You wouldn't even have to catalog what medicine can and can't do in the skill description. You could just put a rider on the effects regarding how fast, like an action or a short rest, and which DC medicine would cancel it.
If you don't want players to spam medicine, you could ask them to spend hit dice for the benefits of a medicine check. Oh, and by the way, didn't older editions have mechanics for improved recovery via medicine or whatever its predecessors were?
In some, why gate exhaustion recovery behind long rest only if it is so devastating and other conditions behind restoration spells rather than have the utility of medicine be on par with perception stealth and the socials? I'd love to get your designer's perspective on this. Thanks so much. Lots to unpack there.
And I'm going to give an analogy that's not perfect, but I think gets part of the point across, which is this. To answer the question about why you can't heal or cure disease or cure exhaustion with the medicine skill, it's the same reason why you can't create balls of fire that damage creatures with the arcana skill. Because there's already other ways that the game expects you to do it.
And that goes to the deeper question of what should the role of skills be in D&D? I'm going to stop there for just a second to let Teos chime in.
I think that's brilliant. If I pick up what you're putting down, it's that skills are meant to provide information, uncover options. It's engagement and interaction. It's not truly solving problems. It's not creating things. It's not attacking, healing, interacting with those parts of the game. It's not combat-oriented. It's not something that you don't want to drive behavior
to where someone feels they must maximize a skill and the only possible uh you know where you do see that is perception because you want to find hidden things and you see it with uh stealth and you see it with anything that whatever you decide is traps right that's that's you're going to have some you there's no better way to do it for the game so it just is what it is you're going to see that in the skill section but otherwise
You know, just in the same way that maximizing your arcana skill isn't supposed to unlock the game for you. You know, same thing with medicine. We did see in 1D&D a early version where you can sort of use a healer's kit and medicine to heal. And when they were playing, sorry, not 1D&D, in D&D Next, when they were playtesting the 2014 rules,
There was a version where you could use the combination of a healer's kit and medicine skill. And that was a little too strong, right? It was sort of like a potion of healing all the time. And so you saw people become a healer through the feat that juiced up the medicine skill. And it was a little much.
Yeah. And then, so you could go in the opposite direction, going on that it's too powerful. What about having a rule where if you try to regain hit points by resting overnight, you need a medicine check to do that?
Yeah, I played Dragonbane not too long ago, and assuming we played it correctly with the starter set, one of the things that we all just went, wait, what? Was that when you bedded down each night for your long rest, you had to make a check to see if you essentially bedded down correctly. I forget the exact name of the skill, but it's a, you know, camping kind of skill. And...
If you succeeded, then you got hit points back. And if you didn't, you didn't. And well, you know, immediately we're like, OK, we must all maximize this skill check. Right. Right. And it just becomes a cost to your skill points because you've got to have this. And, you know, in theory, it's I'm sure the designers are like, well, this is so fun.
You know, you'll you want all, you know, resting is tough in the wild. But what it does is it just tells the player, well, you got to dump points into this stat. No matter what, to get this, you turn to the skill to get it better. Yeah.
Yeah. And so that's where we're going here. We're talking. It's a great question. And it really goes to. Well, one, it goes to. separating the game from reality. Because in our reality, medicine fixes a lot. Our medical advancements, you can do lots and lots of things with medicines. In this game, that fact doesn't carry through.
The game doesn't want you to do it and the story doesn't want you to do it because that's why we have clerics and spells and stuff. And speaking of resting and speaking of first edition D&D, when we do our next segment,
we're going to talk about rests and healing in 2024 and throughout the uh throughout the history of dnd so hang in there for that because this goes in a little bit into that oh yeah we got more minis coming out i'm holding up two dnd lego minis the elven bard and the dragonborn uh i think he's a paladin maybe he's a cleric i forget but uh very cool looking um
Yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to that talk. That's a neat piece, the short and long rests and how they change.
But before we get into our look at 2024 rules, we're going to do our news and commentary section, starting with some news that just dropped today dealing with the Adventurers League and how they are going to handle the 2024 core rules update. This document, which you can find on D&D Beyond,
tells us first gives us some general rules guidance it says that uh essentially when uh a new new core rulebook is available the adventures league will switch to those rules but until then use the 2014 rules even if you've already switched to the 2024 rules for other stuff. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah.
And they kind of iterate this, right? So they're kind of saying like, well, if we don't have a new monster manual, well, then you use the old one. But when you do, you use the new one. And they say, if a rule appears in a previous book, such as Tasha's or Xanathar's, right? This is very true of player character features.
But if that has seen a rule update because that Tasha's piece was, say, pulled into the player's handbook as a new updated subclass, then you use the new core book version, right? That's the most recent version, the 2024 player's handbook. So you use that, not the Tasha's version.
And if it has not been updated, well, then you use the most recently published version, whether that's in Tasha's or wherever it might be. So essentially always use the latest version, which has always been the case in the past. And so, again, now this is happening and it's happening for 2024. And it's and it's effective today.
Well, by the time you hear this, September 17th is the date when 2024 is available for playwrights, general release. Everybody can have a player's handbook. And so therefore, everybody can use it at the table in their games from both the GM and player side. But there's a grace period.
There will be a grace period. Players will have 60 days before they must update to the latest version for their characters. But the DMs should use the new rules once a book is available. And there are free rules. The rules glossary is up. So you can use those even if you don't own the new core rule books. And, of course, the 2024 Player's Handbook is now available.
Stores, Amazon, mail order, online, D&D Beyond, et cetera, et cetera. So characters can be rebuilt. Rules options can be swapped, and so on. And you should check out the D&D Beyond post for specifics on treasure, on backgrounds, and on species.
Yeah, and then they give us some dates. So the DMG will be available for Adventurers League play starting November 12th. They point out, hey, magic items will be updated. So you may have a magic item that changes on your character and you'll use that latest version and there'll be specific guidance when this happens. 2024 Monster Manual will be available for Adventures League on February 18th.
More specifics for that will come at that time as well. But we do get some information around that kind of gives us a look at how the monster changes will work because we get advice on previous adventures.
Yep. And previous adventures, they say...
use them as published when the latest core rule book comes out use those so use 2014 monsters until the 2024 monster manual is available then switch over and begin using the new monsters but if you have the player's handbook there are a few monsters there you can if you so choose switch over to the 2024 player's handbook monsters rather than using the 2014 version
Yeah, I know like wolves and things that the characters can have as companions or things they can turn into. Summon, yeah. Summon, yep, are in the 2024.
Yeah, and then, you know, your giant weasel and spider and stuff like that. Those are all there.
yeah um and then let's see what else they say oh dungeon craft so dungeon craft is the program by which adventure designers can create and publish on the dm's guild for the adventures league play uh and it says that from now until before release of the 2024 monster manual you should replace or you should reference the two 2014 rules where applicable applicable
and then updates to the dungeon craft program will be available after the 2024 monster manual release along with the srd 5.2 i didn't love the wording here it's a little i but i think what they're saying is hold off on 2024 for dungeon craft until the monster manual come out that's what i read so if we misinterpreted you know hopefully greg marks or someone else can can clarify
But that's what I understood, probably because of the SRD 5.2. Maybe, though. I mean, technically, the DMs Guild can use anything. But that's what I understood, Sean. Did you understand the same thing looking at this?
Yeah, I understood the same thing. It was more about the SRD 5.2 than it was about the Modster Manual 2024. Yeah. Because I think they're going to want people to publish under that because it's the new rules. So when we see the new SRD, we will find out. Right. But we're also told, common sense-wise, don't stop play if you're DMing and you see a player with an outdated character.
We, society as a whole, the Adventurers League specifically, doesn't want you to ruin an experience for everyone because of a small nit like this. So just say, oh... You should update your character next time before you play. Just take the time to update your character, and here's how you do it. Be respectful of the players and the DMs as they learn the new rules as well.
We want Adventurers League to be welcoming and fun for everyone, and we will take the steps to make it so, I hope.
I'm holding up the Lego minifigs for the Druid and the Barbarian. And one thing I should mention about these Lego minifigs is they come with multiple heads. So like one female, one male. So you can decide whatever kind of face they have. And often they're also double-sided, so they can be like intense grin or happy smile for either. So that's kind of fun.
So looking at these rules, Sean, I think it's all very reasonable. It's all very logical flow. And the only thing that I, you know, when I really step back and look at them was, well, what you didn't do is say, play with either 2014 or 2024. Right.
They could have chosen to do that, given that this is all fully compatible, which I mean, honestly, it kind of is, or at least close enough compared to any previous fully compatibles that have been attempted in the past. So, you know, should they have? Why didn't they? And my general thought is that the hardcore AL player would just try to maximize stuff, right?
And probably cause trouble at the table where you'd take both kinds of counterspell, for example. Right. And you would, you know, I'm going to do the stunning fist that I used to have on my monk, but then I'm going to take this other, you know, I think there would have been that sort of because Ale can draw out that sort of min max or there could have been some of that destructiveness in play.
That may be why they did this. I don't know. What do you think about it?
I think that. What I want is a new Adventurers League campaign. Me too. I was hoping this document would never be made. I think the document's fine. It makes total sense. And for the people who have played and will continue to play Adventurers League, it needed to be done. It makes total sense. What I want is... Here's our new campaign. We're using the 2024 rules once the SRD 5.2 hits.
Brand new characters, brand new stories, brand new things. Let's get excited. Let's pump some money for marketing. Let's get game stores and conventions involved. Let's come at this fast.
let's come at this strong and let's bring in some new blood, especially with, you know, all the excitement around the new rules rather than sometimes the biggest barrier to entry for new players in Adventurers League is old players. Yes. I don't mean old age wise. I mean, old as in experienced, established, entitled. And
I understand the need to market to them and keep them involved and keep them excited and playing. But I am always going to be the person that says, five years, good run. What's next?
Yeah, absolutely. 100% on everything you just said. I am pulling up the Lego Mind Flayer with its Intellect Devourer Companion, and I am using its mental powers to try to convince Wizards of the Coast to release a new campaign and retire the old one.
And now that doesn't mean that we're not going to get one. There's still a lot of time before now and now and whenever, between now and the DMG, between now and the Monster Manual, between now and the next SRD. But that's where I stand. I don't think anybody who knows me is very surprised to hear me saying that. Yeah, so let's go from that to a new novel, Penguin Random House.
We got the D&D movie novel. We got Forgotten Realms novel, a Dragonlance novel, Spelljammer novel. What's coming next? How about a Ravenloft novel? Tell us about the Ravenloft novel. Yeah.
There's no name yet, but it's on the penguinrandomhouse.com website. Link in our show notes. And it says, Journey to the domains of dread and face the fearsome Count Strahd Van Zorovich in his upcoming official Dungeons and Dragons novel. Or this upcoming.
A group of adventurers must fight their way through a dark and twisted realm known as the domains of dread, where powerful dark lords rule over worlds filled with supernatural horrors. Well, that told me nothing, Sean.
Yeah, it sounds like Ravenloft. Sure is Ravenloft up in here. So, okay, cool.
30 bucks, hardcover.
I have not 30 bucks hardcover releasing April 15th. I can't say that I have read any of the newest D&D books. I read the...
the the movie tie-in ones those are great yeah really really yeah that's done and the fall oh and i can't fall back i think they're called the fallbacks that was really good too so very fun very much what i would want from a dnd type novel light easily read by people of any age group most groups i i the the the ravenloft one is the one that attracts me the most to maybe
read it just because of that little dark fantasy twist i'd like to see how they how they handle that for anyone i heard the spelljammer one was good i haven't read it yet but it got praise from folks on our discord awesome uh If you're going to lose something, what you don't want to lose is the theme song to the D&D cartoon.
But if you're going to find something, what you want to find is that same theme song. And that's exactly what happened. A composer named Johnny Douglas composed the music for the Dungeons & Dragons 80s cartoon, which released in the UK 40 years ago last week, September 17th. 1983 in the U S and yeah, in the U S and then September 10th, 84 in the UK. And, uh, it was lost, but what happened to us?
Tell us the, tell us the happy ending.
I mean, it's kind of funny listening to the interview. It's a, it's a lovely recording that kind of says like, you know, and then I went, you know, this is Louise can be the granddaughter who like kind of goes through his boxes. I mean, it was only, but so lost, you know, it's like, well, maybe we should go through grandpa's stuff.
And they find the tapes that were believed lost for 40 years containing the 44 second theme song he composed. I mean, honestly, though, he shouldn't have hidden it underneath all his box of cables that, you know, that that's where they want everyone to go through those. I'm kidding about that. So, yeah, it's just 44 seconds, but it's beautiful. And the grandfather, I thought this was neat.
In the interview, they say that he had composed various songs for Marvel, Transformers and other properties. And I forget the exact wording. It basically says this was what was like most requested by fans. Yeah, cool. So the music came out last week on YouTube. There's a link in our show notes. And it's gorgeous. Just 44 seconds.
But it's that song that plays at the beginning of the carnival ride and through the end. And it's just it's lovely. It's fun to see it. And there's some nice pictures of the grandfather of Johnny Douglas composing and doing other things. And so it's neat. I like it.
That's cool. And we go from a really happy, lighthearted story to one that's a little bit darker. Teos, this was your find. So I'm going to let you.
Yeah, this came from my daughter who said, OK, you got to listen to this. And she was right. So it is the recording. The podcast is in Spanish. It's a really nice piece done by Radio Ambulante and NPR with an episode called One Million Coins, Un Millón de Monedas. And if you can understand Spanish, I highly recommend this as a fantastic listen for for all kinds of reasons.
There is also an English transcript that you can see from the link in our show notes. And what it's all about is how Venezuelans began to find the game of classic runescape online, a massive multiplayer game.
as a way to make ends meet and we get a couple of different voices that talk through this experience they had including a couple who are in university in 2018 they begin to farm items in the game to essentially pay for college right and They slowly start making money there and good money. So they tell their uncle and their cousin and their mother in law.
And I mean, you name it and everybody starts going on to runescape and farming items. And there's places you can go and risky places you can go and, you know, the easy places. And so you've got to pick your poison of how much you're willing to risk, because in the game, if you get killed, everybody can take your stuff. And so you lose everything.
And so they often in because of their economic status, can't risk dying in game. So it's very interesting in that way. And then the economy in Venezuela goes through lots of issues and there are all these power outages. And the number of Venezuelan in-game farmers had grown so high. This is right around just before the pandemic and the early pandemic.
that when the Venezuelans can't log in, the economy of the entire game crashes, right? It's massively affected. Prices skyrocket for everything. So, you know, everybody who's nice and wealthy can't just buy the super cool thing for cheap. Now they got to pay five times, 10 times the usual price. And instead of this bringing thanks to the Venezuelans, it brings lots of racist attacks against them.
And huge bully guilds kind of organize against the Venezuelans. And this culminates in a huge in-game war with Venezuelans and allies beating off these bully guilds. And then eventually the company steps in and stops all the battles, right? And then we get views during the pandemic of how critical this was. People...
facing just, I mean, the complete destabilization of Venezuela and the impacts it has for all those. And so the farming becomes so massive that people have to move to other games, right? It's like it's kind of farmed out and the economy is not producing. So they jump from game to game. The culture sort of fragments a bit as they're all sort of searching different ways.
But it's just it's such an interesting lesson, right, of what people in other countries where we might take for granted just playing a game for fun and people are doing it for subsistence. Right? Like, there are a couple, you know, that couple that's in university kind of shares, like, this is the only reason we made it kind of thing, right?
Like, because we're farming these items for wealthy players. And at the end, you know, they look back on it with, like, emotion of, like, you know, and I've kept my avatar in case my daughter wants it, right? And just, you know, even though it was work, right? But it's such a part of their identity having been through this. It's really, it's a great emotional end to the story, right?
and really heartbreaking of what games can be for different folks so if you do understand spanish or if you're interested in the in the um um in the english transcript check out it's at radioambulante.org i will try to americanize it there yeah it's interesting that i've seen economists who will use
massive you know multiplayer games to model economies of nations or of eras or you know subsistence versus risk and as you say right how it's happening in a game but it models how people over the ages have, should I do the safe thing or should I take that risk? And we can see it in the actual play. Uh, thanks to, although there's no thanks involved, uh, to a, a computer game.
I can't hear you. Oh, sorry then. Yeah, absolutely agreed. And, and, and fascinating that, that, this this this is an economy not just the in-game economy but that right country's economy right like that interplay is fascinating and and and scary at the same time we will now go to our creator corner where we get a new class for a new game
The Olimancer is a new class for DrawSteel. Last week, we talked about how MCDM created a creator license for their playtest packet, and they already have a publisher, Pesto Publishing, releasing a new class. As an Oluomancer, you unleash delusions of acid, slimes, and oils to create or destroy objects, bolster or hinder movement, and fortify or disrupt other creatures.
So this is a draft of a class based on the license, which may be updated as the rules update. And it is a name your own price release via itch.io. Cool.
Pesto has done some great work. He's one of their big play testers. So neat to see him take the lead on that creator license and put it to use.
Yeah. I was wondering how long it would take, and it didn't take long. No. Secondly, we have a how to get started in the industry in 2024. So this is a question I always get, and I would love to hear how James Quigley talks about it, Teos.
Yeah, James Quigley on his blog pulls together a tremendous list of resources. He's got them itemized and categorized, everything from associations and conventions, how and where to publish, tools, all of this. So you can check out our link in our show or go to quigjam.substack.com. And then in our show notes, we have the direct link to it. But it's great. It has all kinds of stuff.
I don't care how experienced you are, you'll probably find some link there that's useful or that you're thinking, yeah, I should keep this in my toolbar somewhere so I can get to it periodically and go to it. Very useful. Nice write-up. And he even links to something of mine, which is really nice.
I've already put it up in my toolbar, so I will be checking it out later.
Fantastic. Lady of Pain, last mini of the 12. There you go.
We have now seen all 12 of the minifigs that Teos got with only two six-packs. So it's a Lego miracle. Now for our main topic here on Mastering Dungeons, we are going to do the twofer again. We are going to talk about the 2024 5e rules in our mini review, and then we will get to more regions from Greyhawk as detailed in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer.
This week, last week we talked about conditions. And Tom Dunn, our most favorite people who put things in spreadsheets and seem very, very smart, did an analysis of the relative value of each condition for 2014. So he notes that the 2014 Stun condition is worth significantly more than the average damage per round of a typical player character. it's an awesome read that Tom has put up on GitHub.
And we have a link in our show notes where he gives values for those conditions.
That's neat. And I, yeah. He numerically kind of ranks everything and, you know, plus and minus and how does it compare to advantage and disadvantage. And it's really kind of fascinating. But yeah, I mean, it does show that it's hard to balance these out, which is one of the things we talked about on the show.
And I think it's well known that Wizards of the Coast does the same thing, right? When they are saying how strong a monster is, they will look at the damage and look at the number of attacks and look at the armor class and look at the points, but they also look at the conditions that a monster might apply, set a value to those, and make that part of the balance of monster math.
It would be interesting to see how their math compared to Tom's, but we don't know theirs, so we can't do that. So this week, as I mentioned in our previous segment, we are going to talk about natural healing, short rests, and long rests. What they mean to the game, what they were in 2014, and what they have become in 2024. And so what is the design goal?
What's the design goal of natural healing and long rests and short rests? And I will ask that age old question, is D&D a resource management game? And I get lots of different feedback on this. The only answer I will not accept is no. Because even if you only talk about hit points as resources, they are a resource that needs to be managed.
Because if you fail to manage those hit points, then your character will likely die. So at least hit points are a resource management part of D&D, have been for a long time. And Then the next question is, what are some of the other resources in the game? And are those part of a resource management game?
The designers of no addition of D&D have really ever qualified or quantified that answer of how much of a resource management game is it? So what we have to do then is we have to go back and look at the game over the years to see what are some of the resources and how have they been manipulated, specifically hit points and specifically... Healing without magic.
Yeah. And I want to add something to this, Sean, that goes back to those design goals, right? So absolutely, design goal is around this resource management and particularly hit points, but also its cadence of play. And this has been a critical thing for players, for GMs, and for designers, right? We heard a lot of discussion about this in third edition and fourth edition, right?
if you are, you know, are you going to stop and rest and buff up and heal and all these things right before you open the door?
every door right are you going to um uh save certain things for the big boss fight right are you going to have one fight sleep go to your next fight every time right or do you feel you can play forever right are you going to try to go to the dungeon not even get there and have to go back and rest right those kinds of questions that cadence of play is super critical
to how enjoyable the experience is and even what kind of experience it is.
It's more, it's less for me about how enjoyable it is and then like you say, what kind of experience it is. Because if you have a game where you cannot get back all of your hit points or all of your other resources unless you take a long rest. And you can only heal one hit point per night while you rest. There are certain kinds of stories that become more powerful.
And there are certain kinds of stories that become very, very hard to tell because of those rules. So the game dictates through its rules, the kinds of stories and the kinds of, as you said, cadence that the stories are expected to take. So let's look at rest rules and hit point rules, recovery rules of previous editions to sort of illustrate this.
AD&D First Edition tells us there are numerous ways to restore lost hit points. The most mundane is by resting and allowing time to do the job. For each day of rest, one hit point of damage is restored. After 30 days of game time have passed, hit points accrue at the rate of five per day thereafter.
paladins laying on hands, spells, potions, and other magical devices can more quickly restore lost hit points. A wish spell can be used to restore all lost hit points to several characters all at once. Hit points can never exceed the total rolled for the character plus bonuses. So in other words, you can't go above your maximum.
If you live through this, you may recall that going back to rest was weeks. It was at least a week. Because even spell slot, the other thing is that there were fewer spell slots and the number of them that could be used for healing spells. And so what would...
even if you had a cleric in the party, you needed many days for all those spells to be cast and rehealed once per day to allow you to get back onto it. And of course, then get all their spells back that they wanted to adventure with so you could head out. And so even with a spellcaster or two in the party, you could be looking at a week or more to rest before you could get out there.
And that was a very different cadence of play, right?
Yeah. And that's why... the adventures for those earliest first edition ad and d things were not event driven because if you had to rest for a week the events have already passed so everything was site based it was you go to the dungeon now what was event based was if the characters leave
after x number of days monsters return and replenish in the dungeon yeah but there was no and then you know three days later the messenger comes and says that the dragon has burned this town the published adventures did not have a lot of that your
dm made home stuff might yeah and your players would do things like layman's spells um the rope trick right those were critical to just like vanish so that the dungeon dwellers looking for you while you need a whole week to heal on level two might not find you right and also design wise there are often things like a weird grotto that none of the goblins would go into and well you clear that grotto out and you hide there as long as you can right
Yep. So it was definitely a different cadence, definitely a different style of play than a lot of the play we see today.
I'll just say real fast, one last thing, which is that it's so interesting to me often when I look at old school type games, they do not return to this, right? They all kind of seem to agree. Yeah, no, no, you heal overnight or much more easily. Right.
Yeah. I was about to say the exact same thing. Or if you do see these rules, it's for a very specific kind of play that is hopefully spelled out clearly at the start of the adventure, at the start of the rules, that this is a different thing than the role-playing games you see now. Yeah. So I'm going to go from a D&D first edition to 3.5 edition D&D.
Surely by that point you were healing overnight, right? With a full day's rest of eight hours, you recover hit points equal to twice your character level. So at first level, overnight you heal two hit points. If you have a complete day and night of bed rest, you can recover twice that. So your normal let's camp for eight hours, first level, two hit points.
Full day overnight plus full bed rest, four hit points at first level.
I didn't remember that at all. That's really funny. You did this research, and thank you.
You know and probably because what we did was we wanted it all away right a wand of cure light wounds There was a magic item crafting things it wasn't particularly hard to get to the level where you could craft this thing and Once you could you would just take a wand of cure light wounds with full charges and slowly burn through that Healing each other until you were ready to go the next day if not even right down there.
Yeah
Right then and there. And as Teo said, there were rules for crafting, and it was not difficult to make. So the way to get around this and not have a slow, oh, we have to wait a week, was to use this rule to make the happy stick. Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
50, uh, 50 charges of cure light wounds can do 50 D eight or whatever it was, uh, plus 50 points of healing all at once. So then you just throw the, uh, used stick away. Well, we'll make a new one tomorrow. All right. So we got through third edition. We hadn't learned our lesson yet. So fourth edition said for an extended rest of at least six hours, you, uh,
and you must wait 12 hours between extended rests, you regain all hip points and healing surges. Now remember, healing surges in fourth edition was the gate which sort of slowed healing down. You could only spend the healing surges at certain points, and once you were out of healing surges, you could not heal anymore, except in very rare circumstances.
And the amount of them was pretty high. So it wasn't usually a problem, but it was nice because it was a tool where when you wanted to do that sort of deep dungeon exploration or very difficult series of combats one after the other, you know, every time, even in combat, when that somebody is that leader is healing you, you, you know, hey, you spend a healing surge and get, you know, 10 hit points.
cool if you have healing surges available. And if you started to run out, then that's where everybody started blinking and going, hey, this is really hard. What do we do? Yep.
And this made sense because they also added a short rest mechanic where a short rest was only five minutes long. You renewed all your encounter powers and you could spend as many healing surges as you wanted while you were doing a short rest. And this goes along with this sort of
dare I say, resource management at its height, I would say, where you had your at-will powers, you had your encounter powers. So after each encounter, you really wanted to take that five-minute rest, heal up. And it sort of sat as much as any edition ever has, set that cadence. for what they expected an adventuring day to look like.
You have these discrete blocks, you can spend these healing surges, but you only have a certain amount of these healing surges, a certain number of these healing surges, and then you had to take a rest.
And it's just, you know, remark on just five minutes, right? We're talking about just that you can just Right. So really what it was that every encounter had your encounter powers because you could assume five minutes was possible. But that also gave you a tool as GM, as storyteller to say, no, you've got to run from this room to the next. Right.
You've got to keep, you know, the poison gases in this in the dungeon, as Tom Walken famously did, or, you know, some other reason why.
now you can't just regain your encounter power and then the game could actually really change which was a neat tool right if you wanted to have that pressure and and people would take it so for granted that you'd get your encounters back that if they didn't it was like oh edgier seed time right like okay all right now we're really resource managing big time because we you know our the scenario has alerted us to this special condition
Yeah, so fourth edition introduced this short rest mechanic. which, when we get to 2014, carries over, along with not healing surges, but the use of hit dice as healing surges. And so you can see that then, just in this one instance, how all of the previous editions sort of built on the perceived flaws or
sort of nuanced play of previous editions, either to fix it or to reinforce it, until we got to this amalgam of all of them, which is 2014. And I'm going to go right to 2024, because 2014 is very, very similar to 2024. We'll clarify, we'll note where there are exceptions. So, We now have the extension of this long rest.
A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least eight hours available to any creature. Here's where we get into very specific clarifications of what these terms mean. Because in 2014, it would say things like, okay, you sleep for eight hours and you can't do strenuous activity. And of course, the question is, what's strenuous activity? What does that count as?
So they very specifically lay out in 2024, during a long rest, you must sleep for six hours.
and perform no more than two hours of light activity such as reading talking eating or standing watch and then they give us some pretty specific bullets during sleep you have the unconscious condition after you finish a long rest you must wait at least 16 hours before starting another one so no more no more you know wake up have a tough encounter take another long rest
What are the benefits of a long rest? You have to have at least one hit point to start a long rest. And then when you finish the rest, you gain the following. You regain all your hit points and all spent hit point dice. This is different than 2014 where you regained half of your maximum hit point dice. Yeah.
Well, we'll talk about that later. I'm just putting a pin in that because that fascinated me when I first saw it.
Okay, ability scores are restored to normal if they had been reduced. Your exhaustion level is reduced by one. Any special features that recharge on a long rest are recharged. And how is a long rest interrupted? Again, this is new in its clarification. If you roll initiative for any reason, a long rest is interrupted. If you cast a spell other than a cantrip,
rest is interrupted that's that's interesting taking any damage will interrupt the long rest and any uh an hour of walking or physical exertion so no even walking for an hour is no no resting there or physical exertion if your rest is interrupted After an hour, you can gain the benefits of a short rest, but not a long rest.
And you can restart a long rest after an interruption, but you have to add an hour to the time needed to finish that rest. So if you get in seven hours of a rest and you're interrupted, you don't have to go back and do a full eight hours. You just have to have an additional hour of rest to make up that difference.
And that's good because, you know, if you have a fight in the middle of night, right, you don't want to say and now start over your. But it's interesting they decide to add that hour. I mean, that's a new thing, that idea that like interruption equals and an extra hour. So if time is brief, you know, maybe that messes you up somehow and you actually can't deal with the rest.
You know, it's interesting.
Yeah.
It's a strange addition. I don't know that it needed to be there. It's like a sudden attempt at realism. But OK.
Yeah, I think probably there were just so many questions that they got that we don't often talk about, but we must acknowledge customer service. people call the Wizards of the Coast customer service line and ask magic and D&D questions all the time.
And those questions are often either answered if it's a cut and dry answer or elevated to the design team if it's something that is a little more complicated. And so they may get these questions all the time and now they're like, okay, here's our chance to say, this is what happens with an interruption.
You know, something I miss just because people may not listeners may not know this, but in fourth edition, this was really like they did a lot of this. And in fact, there were a couple of times that designers took the phone lines. And I remember there was a particular day was like call and speak to the designers.
And I called in with a question about my crossbow rogue and Greg Bills and I think I think he he had said something on the Internet or something. So I was like, is Greg there to give me his opinion? And they're like, Greg doesn't like your your rogue using a crossbow. They don't think that should work. He doesn't like it is allowed, but it doesn't like it.
And I remember just laughing like, oh, Greg doesn't like my ability. But I liked that there was that interaction back then to that level. I don't know to what level it exists today. But yeah, for sure, feedback makes its way and they see these things.
And now short rest is a one-hour period of downtime, which a creature attempting can do nothing more strenuous than reading, talking, eating, or standing watch. You have to have at least one hit point to start a short rest. The benefits are you could spend hit point dice. They're not called hit dice now. They're called hit point dice.
You can roll as many as you want one at a time, adding your constitution modifier to each roll. Any special features that recharge on a short rest are recharged at the end of that short rest. They're interrupted. Short rests are, again, by rolling initiative, casting a spell other than a cantrip, or taking any damage. And an interrupted short rest confers no benefit.
So you have to restart that short rest and do a full hour. The one thing I've noticed in the rules around short rests are we're getting a lot of things that refresh all at the end of a long rest, or one instance of this ability at the end of a short rest, which I thought was an interesting compromise. And the game designer in me went, okay, cool, but now you have to be very careful about what you
let recharge on a short rest, because you could get into that loop of, oh, I can recharge this on a short rest, so I get one every time, and I can use that one instance of this ability to regain a spell slot, and with that spell slot, I can cast heal. So now, basically, on a short rest, everyone is healed. So do we ever really have to take a long rest? And
I don't know if enough designers think all the way through that process.
I mean, there was clearly a bit of a change in that we saw like Tasha's and those in Earth Arcana's around then would really heavily lean into all subclass features started becoming not short rests, but, you know, per day. And it almost felt like the short rest was disappearing, which begged the question, what about those classes that really use them?
And so we thought, you know, maybe in 2024, we're just going to see that all vanish. Right. Monk, warlock, whatever, like, forget it. Nothing's going to say short rest. But no, some things still do. There are fewer, but it's still there. And I think it is a bit awkward still. Like, it's a bit awkward where some classes you want to raise your hand and say, hey, everybody, can we take a short rest?
And lots of other classes or subclasses will say, no, why would I like what to keep going? Why would we take an hour? And I thought this, you know, the change, it used to be like 10 minutes and 30 minutes in the 2014 playtest packets. And then at the very end, I know it happened right before Vault of the Dracolich came out because we had to talk about it with the DMs.
It changed to an hour in that very last packet. And that still, to me, feels too long.
um for that kind of cadence impact it makes it it's hard to fit an hour break into the story of a lot of dungeons or other places where you may want to rest it's like if you can fit an hour you can probably fit an eight right if you can hide for an hour you can hide for eight kind of thing and you've got a good enough hidey hole that's gonna you know but
20, 30, that's a little easier to explain that, yeah, maybe you could hide out behind the crates and sort of heal, you know, something like that, but not an hour.
And anyway, it just it seems like a strange thing that they stuck with it and that they stuck with this sort of in-between state of many encounter things are gone that would refresh or many features are gone that would refresh to the short rest, but not all. And to me, all of this, and this ties into my previous pin about hit dice, regaining all of them with a long rest.
There are fewer options here for the DM to apply pressure.
so one of the things that would happen is if you wanted to run like a long sequence of say going through a challenging jungle and things are coming at you often right and you're resting you're getting half your hit dice back well only half and then the next day is tough and now you get half back right this creates pressure yeah and and it was a tool you could choose to use but you could also say nothing happens the next day and then you know eventually you got enough of your hit dice back that you're fine
Now that that option isn't really there, right? All pressure must be applied in a single day or you're getting it all back. Same thing with ability scores, right? There were these questions of what happens with an intellect devourer or any number of things. And there were a lot of like, I don't know, I guess it's this.
And now it's clarified that, you know, if that shadow took all your strength away, you take that long rest and it all comes back. And that erodes those possibilities for pressure. It's not all bad, but it just creates, I think, fewer options for a DM and for the creation of a campaign, things like that.
Yeah, it muddles cadence or it tells the game master that, you better make a bunch of big explosive encounters because if you try to take this story longer, uh, it's, it's going to just be, well, we're, we're back, we're full. There's no, as you said, right. There's no long-term worry about resources.
Yeah. And then what it says to me is, yeah, if there is no long-term erosion and pressure, then it's all really on the encounter, right? Or the day's encounters. And that has been hard for DMs with 2014. It's not been terrible. You know, it's certainly very, very playable. Very, you know, 5th edition is doing just fine. But it is hard. It's something that DMs complain about, right?
I don't know how to challenge my players. And that means this becomes the only way is that you must learn how to, if you want the challenge and the challenge would be fun, you must learn how to do it within the day.
So that was our look at short rest, long rest, and natural healing in 2024 and back. So let's talk Greyhawk Gazetteer. Let's go through this Gazetteer of the Flanais. We have been storming our way across all of Earth via the living Greyhawk Gazetteer. We are now up to the Rovers of the Barrens. This group of Flan Riders, known as Arapahi in their language, fight for survival against Ayuz.
Their lands border the Bandit kingdoms to the north and east of Ayuz. And there's a lot of Native American parallels given in this particular section. What do you have here, Teos?
Yeah, it's a little bit hard to sort of work through this. It feels like it's kind of unnecessarily trying to bring in their Native Americans. And basically everybody has fought against them and tried to take over their territory at great cost. And they're sort of on the last legs. And to me, this all just feels tragic in a real world context.
And the only thing we get, thankfully, is a bit of hope at the end, though, in a kind of strange way, in that a former servant of Ayur's named Tang the Horrific No one likes that drink. Escaped Ayuz and gathered rovers to attack Ayuzite forces. Tang dies in this attack on the Stonehold, but they are able to get a bunch of horses and they're victorious.
They burn down the Stonehold place they attack. They, for the first time, sort of have hope against Ayuz. And they're now negotiating an alliance with the wolf nomads. And, you know, thinking about the potential...
of this zone right it's got plenty of issues but what there is here is the kernel of hope against evil i mean all of greyhawk we said this again it's always a powder keg it's always something that's you know on a fulcrum and you know can swing anyway this is a nation that struggled it's been beaten by oppressors and now this is where an alliance heroes that could all be pivotal towards turning it around that could make for a fun campaign if you framed it in the right way
Yeah, and that's what I'm starting to see in these different regions is the question of what would a campaign here look like, a full one to 12 or whatever campaign, versus what stories could I tell here with the characters being not from this area, but coming into the area to deal with a specific issue? What sort of fun, flavorful things could I do with the story that we're gonna tell there? And
know sometimes the answer is both sometimes it would be great to do either and sometimes it's it would be good for a nice little light touch here and then sometimes it's like i don't want anything to do with this in any form shape or whatever and depending on how hard you want to lean into a campaign in this area, the rules themselves need to support that.
Because the rules, while malleable, obviously, sort of pushing your games toward a more medieval fantasy, European-y feel. And so to fully do that, I would want like a source book. I would want the rules that go along with that. So it tends for me to toward that, just visit and then... then leave.
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And that's that's interesting. You mentioned that given the next region of the Scarlet Brotherhood, The whole book, right? We said this being this book is said to be kind of rumors and widely known information. Potentially some of it could be wrong.
And they lean into it in this section because we don't even exactly know what the capital is like or exactly where it is in this area. And so things like the father of obedience who leads the whole Scholar Brotherhood, we don't get their class and level, right? It's a mystery, Sean. Yeah. I'm the GM. What do you mean? It's a mystery. It's a mystery.
Yeah. And, and there are some times when I wish they would do that, but this is this, the Scarlet Brotherhood could be the, the thing that the characters are fighting for the entire campaign. And even the monks, right. The Scarlet Brotherhood are made up of these monks for the most part. Yeah.
The whole tradition of the monk going all the way back to first edition, in D&D at least, is there's a hierarchy. And there's only one at the top of this pyramid, and there are two below that, and there might be four below that, et cetera. So as you gain levels, you need to actually fight, or one of the ones above you have to die in order for you to move up and take that.
So there's this idea baked into, D&D, Monkhood, Scarlet Brotherhood, all of that, that begged you to fight it, that begged you to know. And then it says, well, it's a mystery. No one knows. It's a mystery. Yeah. Yeah. What else do we know about the Scarlet Brotherhood?
So they control this vast Tildenot Peninsula, which is in the south, and it's hidden by the vast swamp, which they, I guess, sort of also quasi-control. And then they have a large island that they control. And the capital is somewhere in this peninsula. The Brotherhood also travels daily. They send ships to Hypmonaland, which is a sort of South American slash...
african sounding place jungle you know forbidden lands lost lands uh all for reasons unknown we're told um and the idea was that back before the greyhawk wars the vast swamp meant nobody wanted to go in there and so you just felt like oh yeah the you know whatever we've seen from spending a few travelers oh they look like farmers and traders but boy they sure grow a lot of food
And then the spies start finding out, well, it looks like maybe they worshiped Therizdun, the great destroyer, though it seems like that's just some of them in this sect called the Black Brotherhood.
And really what happens is that when during the Greyhawk Wars, they emerge and suddenly, as we talked about, you know, go through this enormous assassination attacks on various nations and turn everything around. We'll have an example of that later. That's when fear and paranoia, they become like one of the main worries other than Ayuz. here.
And they, in fact, in the entry, they say, you know, the only thing that has more enemies than the Scarlet Brotherhood is Ayuz, right? Or maybe it was the other round. Yeah, only Ayuz can count more enemies than the Scarlet Brotherhood. And they have a credible wealth and resources, we hear.
And while some nations have made gates recently, the idea is that they may be stronger than ever before, especially because this paranoia and fear, nobody knows who to trust because somebody within your own government may be secretly a member of the Scarlet Brotherhood. to which I say stop hiring so many Caucasian people. Anyway. Yeah, exactly.
I know a way to save you. If you have blonde hair in the Living Greyhawk or in the Greyhawk. I don't know. Yeah, exactly.
You know, thinking about potential, this is one of these places, it's like a setting backdrop-y thing. Because you can't just set a campaign in here with what they've given you. I mean, you can, but you'd have to make it all up. There's nothing here to be used. In fact, even to apply what's here to the rest of the campaign, nothing here is given.
Now, there is a whole other second edition book on the Scholar Brotherhood, but it's just, it's very hard to use this, right? We're just, when you're told there are secrets, but not what they are, that's the opposite of what a DM wants, I think. Yeah.
So speaking of Scarlet Brotherhood, we'll go to the Sea Barrens. These are islands off the former Great Kingdom's eastern coast. So we've spent a lot of time over there with like the Solnar Compact and other islands over there, the Lendor Islands. So there are five major islands, one called the Serpent Isles, that being uninhabited and maybe be cursed.
The other four inhabited ones are ruled by former Erdi lords that are now independent of the of the monarchies on the mainland. It's, as you might expect, warm, mild climates in the ocean, abundant resources, lots of trade, shipyards and ports, temples to the sea god Procan. as one might expect. What else do we have here in the Isles?
Yeah, they joined the Solnor Compact as a way to oppose the Scarlet Brotherhood and the Lordship of the Isles, who are under the control of the Scarlet Brotherhood. But they really, it's not out of friendship, it's out of fear of the Brotherhood. But I think there's some interesting potential here.
Like this could be a place where you could say, all right, if I want like a seagoing type campaign, I could have some fun here with these like,
uh you know what is this cursed island about could that maybe be pivotal to uh the the uh turning you know fighting off our enemies and thwarting the squalor brotherhood um maybe it ties into the past of this island of course this was originally flan um so maybe the whatever is ancient there is flan and origin that could be interesting um and maybe you could find a reason for
an actual alliance, right? You're doing this to be self-serving, but maybe a reason to convince as heroes that your sea barons should join the larger efforts globally. You know, that could be a cool part of a campaign.
Yeah, I love that idea of that fifth island. Yeah. I see like Indiana Jones vibes, right? There's all this stuff there. No one's been there, but we have to go. So the Nazis are going there. We have to go there. Yes. And we fight them and we fight whatever the curse is and we try to harness this power. Yeah, let's do that. That's great.
Oh, well, we've got the Sea Barrens, so of course we have to have the Sea Princes. The Sea Princes, though, are nowhere near the Sea Barrens. The Sea Princes are south of Keoland, east of the Hell Furnace Mountains, the Azura Sea, and the Jirlea Bay to the east and the southeast. So this is a nation, it's basically pirate land. Yeah. They fought Keoland. They're slave traders.
They may or may not be involved with the Scarlet Brotherhood, depending on what you think or how you want to run it. The history, it goes into the noble houses and warring with each other and Scarlet Brotherhood infiltration, et cetera, et cetera.
Yeah, I mean, in one night, the Scarlet Brotherhood takes out 27 out of 30 of the key nobles ruling the Sea Princes, right? So then half the country, even though they have like rebellions and back and forth, half the country is owned by the Scarlet Brotherhood or controlled by it. And then Killen gets involved.
Yeah, well, Keelan always gets involved with things around them. So Keelan took advantage of this, attacking and taking the city of Westkeep. Ex-captives, particularly the Olmen there, now control the western half of the nation, but the Brotherhood holds the other key settlements. And then you have merfolk and tritons attacking the Scarlet Brotherhood ships.
in in a sometimes in an alliance with others and sometimes just of their own accord what sort of potential do you see here for adventure it's such a perfect example of a greyhawk nation right in fact there is even a revolt within or infighting within the scarlet brotherhood as this black brotherhood that follows therizden led an armed revolt
uh that started the chaos that keelan took advantage of and and this was after discovering an ancient temple in the hill furnaces near the sea of dust and so it's just one of these great again it's a powder keg it's it's it's a thing that's you know it's it's not this isn't there's no stability here whatsoever and anything could chuck at one way or the other right so dm rich territory here you can say like well let's go with the black brotherhood and what they were finding in the sea of dust and why this led to revolt
And let's, you know, kind of like what you're talking about in the previous region. Or maybe we're from Keeland and we're how do we hold on to the city we have and expand? Or I want to have an ocean going thing and lean into this whole pirate business. So how do I get the sea princes back on our side and an alliance with the merfolk and the tritons?
And what secrets are there under the water that could be there? And, you know, lost pirate, whatever. I mean, there's just so much that could happen. This actually could be a really fun thing.
uh you know dump all that old slavery stuff and just focus on the piratey uh undersea ancient and and it has everything right i mean you've got deserts in the sea of dust hell furnace mountains the ocean i mean swamps and everything here it's a really could be a really fun campaign everything a young uh dm would want to put a campaign together yeah
Yeah.
And I'm holding a piece of art that shows like a broken statue and shields on the ground and, you know, just war torn landscape devastation. Yeah.
So half the lands are still held by Ayuz, including the island city of Admanfort in the Near Div. The lands are home to orders of knights who sort of see themselves as the bulwark against evil. What else do we have here in the shield lands?
So, I mean, I feel this feels like one of these places that's kind of backdrop. It does have some potential, but a lot of it is like this is the land that has always stood up and been this bulwark against evil. And it's been going for some time. In fact, there was a local warlord named Hal Madar the Cruel. And what did he find?
The artifacts known as the Hand and Eye of Vecna, and he conquered a whole bunch of territory before his subjects, his former subjects, bury him alive in the Kron Hills. And in fact, I think it was Vecna Lives takes us maybe back to even getting that from the Hand and Eye.
um from the crown hills um the shield lands faces off against the horn society then i use uh lady katarina is preparing the knights to retake their lost land so if you love that kind of mass warfare
um and the idea that you know there are gonna be these huge military campaigns to retake lost land and what could heroes do to act as strike teams or and take you know like the near div is a really cool ocean a lake in the center of this place with admin fort on an island um you could uncover powerful artifacts and secrets in either the near div or the cron hills
take out key enemies and keep some dungeons. You know, there's a lot that could happen here. If you want to lean into that kind of backdrop of war, it's not my kind of campaign, but, but there certainly is that potential there. And if the shield lands could do well, everybody around that region would be better off against eyes, right? So it's, it's a fulcrum point for the larger area around it.
Uh, it borders for Yandi and, uh, the bandit kingdoms. And so there's a lot that can happen, uh, uh that would strengthen everything if if somehow the shield lands could make uh make gains against ios i i think that's a great point if your campaign is going to be the war against ios
you can start at those fringes and start with the small skirmishes and the small battles and then move your way closer and closer. And the shield lands would be in the middle of this campaign. The middle levels would be there before you actually go up into the land of Ayuz. But if you do run that campaign, as we've shown, you have a ton of options for lands to use to host this campaign.
I never really went to the Shieldlands. It's Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota that played there, so I don't really know their storylines. Interestingly, the Sea Barrens were Italy, which is kind of cool. Yeah. The other areas, I think, weren't represented that we talked about. No, definitely not.
Cool. Well, that is... our tour for the day. But next time we will come back and talk about some barbarians and some stoneholds and some tiger nomads. So thank you everyone for listening. We hope you have enjoyed this episode. We want to thank the people who support our Patreon. So for our Master of Dungeons supporters, thank you so much.
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Teos, where can people find you and your stuff?
Find me at alphastream.org. Work has been completely busy, but boy, do I have ideas. Someday in the future. Lots of new stuff coming.
I have no ideas, but work has been busy, and you can find me on all the socials, at Sean Merwin. On some of them, I'm doing a tip of the day for TTRPG writing, so check those out on all the places. We have done a lot today. What are we going to do now?
Well, not to make things emotional, but I'm going to spend all the time I can with my son before taking him off to college this week.
Very exciting. Very exciting. Touching. I hope you have a great time. Thanks. I am going to be thankful I don't have to do that anymore.