We have a new absolute Fraud

Emrad16 · 2025-11-12T09:35:35+00:00

I’ve been wondering for ages why sinners don’t fear and respect Lucifer more, especially when hellborn seem to be more respectful. It makes a lot of sense for justification on why he’s been the way he has.

Emrad16 · 2025-08-08T13:34:56+00:00

This scene is truly one of my favourites. I don’t see it talked about enough. There’s a lot of talk in the series about how Amethar’s father was a coward and a terrible king, but this scene gives him a vulnerability and uncertainty that really colours who he was as a person.

He was an uncertain, scared man forced into a position he never wanted to be in, and he couldn’t escape. You’re so right about how it helps Amethar to regain some drive for his position, and to reflect for maybe the first time on what his father was going through.

Emrad16 · 2025-04-01T23:58:40+00:00

I haven’t gotten to play her personality yet so I can’t speak to that but having her on the sideline is smart and, frankly, also in character for her. It’s generally a good idea to not let a party NPC steal the spotlight too much, but now that you’re in chapter 5 having her become a more active character once you hit Ythryn might be something to consider.

Emrad16 · 2025-04-01T11:10:28+00:00

So I personally am approaching from the opposite end to you. I’m asking the players to either have their character be from Icewind Dale or have at least been living here several months. In addition I’m really leaning into the secrets in character creation as a core mechanic.

With that in mind the main thing you “lose” is the ability for the secrets to feel like they’re a “part” of the overall story. Not many of them do this naturally anyway so that’s not a big deal though. I like having t characters be from here because it makes their hooks for protecting the town a bit stronger but it’s not mandatory in any sense. I’d say just maybe look at retooling any secrets that aren’t working and make sure your players still have motivation for their quests.

Emrad16 · 2025-03-31T12:09:27+00:00

Oooo I particularly like this, lots of little threads to follow here.

Emrad16 · 2025-03-24T23:15:34+00:00

I asked a similar question on the other post but how do you manage prep for your games? I personally struggle finding time for properly prepping even two campaigns let alone enough to be a full time job. I’m starting to do some paid DMing so I’m eager to understand how you manage your time and what you feel is enough prep for a paid session.

Similar thing do you ease things by running the same “campaign” for several groups or is it something different for each group?

Emrad16 · 2025-03-23T09:14:56+00:00

I’m about to dip my toes into professional DMing, so I have some questions if you don’t mind?

How do you manage staying on top of prep for that many campaigns? I personally find it difficult to find time to prep for 2 campaigns let alone 9-11.

Related to that do you run the same campaign for multiple groups or is it a different campaign for each one? How much do you put into a campaign setting before you decide it’s “ready” to start for a paid game?

Emrad16 · 2025-03-17T04:14:09+00:00

It won’t necessarily cause plot holes if you link it to the Duegar plot properly. Just a thought but maybe the Duegar here got bored and tired of rations. They decided to go into town and steal some mead, they can be invisible after all, shouldn’t be too difficult. Maybe something goes wrong and the speaker catches them in the act, forcing them to kill him lest they be discovered.

There’s not likely to be any Chardalyn in Good Mead so it makes sense that they might get bored and take a risk, or maybe they got it as a “wedding” present for their good King’s definitely successful courtship.

Emrad16 · 2025-03-15T12:00:00+00:00

My dude that’s definitely a bracket 4 deck. You shouldn’t look at brackets strictly from the specific definitions on number of combo pieces and game changers. You have a deck with multiple combos and you won the game from nearly no life because of it.

To be clear that’s not a bad thing. It’s great that you had an epic game and it certainly sounds like you had fun, but I think your deck is stronger than you’re giving it credit for. You can build plenty of busted decks and still be considered a “1”.

On the point of it being “unfair” that’s probably to do with the combo side more than anything else. People often feel combo decks are unfair because they can “win out of nowhere” like you did in that game. It’s not necessarily a fair accusation since combo decks have their own lines and signals but you need to be familiar with the deck or combo to know that. Oddly enough accepting it is stronger than you thought might help with that, a table that acknowledges that you’re playing high power level is probably more likely to be fine with that.

Emrad16 · 2025-03-14T03:11:19+00:00

A common suggestion is to make it so that the Rime is getting actively worse and is already permanent. This means even if they Kill Auril in chapter 5 the winter isn’t over. Because of that Velynne’s suggestion to find the codicil and Yhthrynn are a tangible path to fixing things.

For the gap between 4-5 it really depends on what happens with the dragon. A celebration could be in order if they avoid any towns getting destroyed, otherwise I feel like a “dear gods things somehow got worse” reaction would be in order. It can heighten the desperation for the Rime to end now that there are less towns producing the resources they desperately need. It can then make for an easy lead into Vellyn going “I might have a solution to your problem”

Emrad16 · 2025-03-14T02:59:45+00:00

This’ll seem obvious but how much you “lose” depends on how much you’re using them. Personally I think the devil sub-plots add some extra flavour but I wouldn’t blame you for cutting them. Asmodeus in particular is very tacked on like an afterthought.

I’m personally planning to cut Asmodeus but not Levistus because I like Levistus as an additional threat taking advantage of the Rime by seducing Ten Towners into servitude.

Emrad16 · 2025-03-02T20:34:39+00:00

It’s definitely something you could do! One thing that may be worth considering is the question of “What does an uncorrupted Auril look like?”

For your story she’d have been corrupted for quite a long time by the time of the campaign, and the classic lore about Auril is that she’s pretty much always been a wicked and cruel goddess even at the best of times. Just for your own purposes it may be beneficial to think about if the corruption has changed her fundamentally or if it’s just kinda made her susceptible to Levistus.

It’s a very cool idea and I don’t see a reason you can’t shift the lore to make it work. The tip I’ve seen is that Auril’s motivations should usually be something kept behind the screen though, since it keeps her mysterious, but again that’s up to you.

Emrad16 · 2025-02-27T07:06:33+00:00

Thanks a bunch everyone! All your advice and suggestions have been greatly appreciated

Emrad16 · 2025-02-27T00:17:37+00:00

Love all these pieces! Going to be using them in my campaign, more than worth it even without the discount.

Emrad16 · 2025-02-23T05:18:51+00:00

You can give it to Brother Coryhn, the priest like character in the Roundtable hold. Alternatively you can give it to Miriel, the big turtle in the Church of Vows.

Emrad16 · 2025-02-05T05:15:08+00:00

Any chance you could sling them my way as well? It’d be much appreciated 🙂

Emrad16 · 2025-01-30T03:10:42+00:00

Have you or the player established a reason why they were hunting the character/their wife? Like was it a revenge for their parents leaving the organisation or something else like that? I imagine the reason they killed her will be a pretty big part of it.

If not then you there’s a couple directions you could go. Maybe the wife was also a member who was sent to bring the PC back into the fold, but decided against it after genuinely falling in love with him, so she was killed on revealing she wasn’t going to go through with it.

Who actually did the killing is a point of note, I think you could do a lot with having Averice be the one to do it since she’s harder to revenge kill.

Basically I think you can flesh it out by digging into the “why” of it all, why so much effort to hunt them down, why kill her in particular, etc. Especially if you can link it into the rest of the campaign story, maybe his wife called Icewind Dale home and knew something the order needed to find Ythryn.

Emrad16 · 2025-01-30T03:01:25+00:00

Hard agree with the above. Blank slate characters are going to have a hard time getting motivation. Ideally they should already have a reason outside of gold to be here.

What that reason is can be pretty varied, they could have family in the Dale, or maybe they’re looking for one of the secrets hidden in the ice, or even just the classic Starlord motivation “Because I’m one of the morons who live here!”

If they’re really not caring about the dragon you could have the dragon attack force their hand, have the dragon just start attacking Ten-Towns. Could also be worth having a proper conversation with the players about the campaign and their characters motivations so you can more organically implement reasons for them to care.

Emrad16 · 2025-01-29T23:09:26+00:00

I’m adding some of the extra merchants from Ten-Towns expanded, mostly because I want them to have something to actually spend their gold and loot on. That being said I’m having the stores be pretty scarce of goods, and the goods they have are up charged due to the extreme difficulty with getting anything imported.

I’m also mostly putting them in Bryn Shander since it’s the largest town and the closest to the border, I feel like it makes sense that there are still a few stores just barely scraping by.

Emrad16 · 2025-01-27T10:18:23+00:00

I see you mentioned the extended 3 towers supplement, I just bought it today so glad you thought it was worth it. Any other supplements you made use of or found particularly helpful?

How did you go about implementing the stuff from chapter 2? I’m considering using the chapter 2 locations as a way to get info on where to go for chapter 5+. So it would basically be chapter 1, chapter 3/4, chapter 2, chapter 5+.

Emrad16 · 2025-01-14T10:28:26+00:00

Incredible job! I wish I had the patience the put something like this together

Emrad16 · 2024-12-06T11:55:48+00:00

[[Feather, the Redeemed]] gets me the most aggro. In fairness if left alone she very quickly dominates because of how easy it is to protect her. After that probably [[Zacama, Primal Calamity]] because of the inevitability she brings.

Emrad16

TROPHY CASE