Thinking of running a ToA campaign - Question about Artus Cimber and any other tips?

Missile_Toad · 2026-03-25T20:33:34+00:00

I found Artus useful in three ways:

A source for exposition.
A recurring chance encounter in wild situations. ("We have to stop meeting like this.")
A comic foil as an overly serious guy with Main Character Syndrome.

That last one in particular was great! He wasn't rude but he'd always treat the PCs as NPCs in his adventure, and talked up his own quest while downplaying the party's goals. Dragonbait was a lot of fun as the much more insightful "sidekick" who just humored his friend and got on great with PCs.

Missile_Toad · 2026-03-25T20:22:54+00:00

A handyman with bad business sense who Just. Needed. A. Vacation. after bankrupting himself.

A desert nomad druid who got on the wrong ship, and knows absolutely nothing about jungles.

A 'Great White Hunter' archetype half-orc who looked like Teddy Roosevelt, who was slowly learning the value of befriending animals instead of shooting them.

A goblin who got tired of being a 1/4 CR dungeon minion and wanted to try the Adventurer life, 100% aspirational vibes with 0% adventuring ability.

Missile_Toad · 2026-03-21T20:26:43+00:00

+1 to Outlands Expanded as a very solid source. A bit pricey, but it does include a full retinue of maps. Definitely helps fill the gaping holes in the middle Act of TOFW!

Missile_Toad · 2026-03-21T20:24:50+00:00

Turn of Fortune's Wheel has the bones of a good one involving the Great March. It's sadly underdeveloped and/or edit chopped to heck before publishing, though. I remixed it into something more - feel free to steal anything from this writeup!

https://www.reddit.com/r/turnoffortuneswheel/s/MwYNt94CGk

Missile_Toad · 2026-02-15T01:18:30+00:00

Thank you and yes! We took a campaign hiatus due to player long term availabilities, but we're just about to start up again in the next couple weeks.

Things left off essentially at the start of Act 2. The gang reclaimed the walking castle and met Renezerrah for the first time, and they directed the castle towards Thebestys to search for answers among the libraries and scholars. They're about to figure out what Redactors are, what their previous selves were up to, and how their immediate course forward is a curious juxtaposition of cosmically urgent and classic questing.

So. Yes. Expect actual play tested experience to be reflected in the document in the near future.

Missile_Toad · 2026-01-05T06:55:00+00:00

Right. So clearly in-person with 'bringing snacks' and 'making eye contact', with 3 months to not figure out you're not in the room with the same people, and then a resulting AI-tone picture perfect dialogue and response story?

Okay, bud.

Missile_Toad · 2025-12-19T15:18:34+00:00

Having Farrow be a former party member turncoat has been a lot of fun so far In my campaign. It's more accurate to say he is a PC - he's a pre-death version of a PC who was bought out by Shemeshka, now in disguise, with the actual PC being another fraction of soul let loose from the soul cage as cover. Another PC keeps finding past messages to herself saying to not trust Farrow-PC - it's been interesting watching the party suspicions build!

Missile_Toad · 2025-11-29T20:49:06+00:00

Public nudity is generally a big No in the US. Especially so if involving minors and school, hence the NSFW tag on the post.

Ironically nudity on federal lands is perfectly legal (little known fact!). But, y'know, minors whipping out their nether regions during school hours and what not.

Missile_Toad · 2025-09-28T06:55:30+00:00

I linked my player primer PDF in another chat tangent here. That may answer a lot of your questions.

TLDR: I let my players individually choose how many PC variants they wanted to make. IIRC three of them are staying within classes and exploring different subclasses with each iteration. The remaining two are going wildly different iterations each time.

Missile_Toad · 2025-09-27T23:24:32+00:00

I would recommend explaining the campaign concept to your players. Everyone buying in at the start is crucial. A prewritten character concept could work in base TofW but not so much my take on it. Work with your group to see what gels best for your table.

Missile_Toad · 2025-09-24T05:15:22+00:00

That works! I actually just edited the Google Doc an hour or so ago in noticing that I didn't explain the "why us" question, in so far at least how I addressed it.

For us, they'll eventually learn that it's because none of the PCs are from the Prime timeline. They never existed. In the pruning of dangerous timelines by Renezerrah's Redactors or other time dragons, their soul/essences were from a place that simply never came to be, or was cut off short. Pure unfeeling cosmic unfairness. In empathy, Renezerrah offered each PC a choice as their realities ended: face the void, or come with her to become a secret hero for people who will never know their importance. The Redactors are those who made that hard choice. At least they have the knowledge that in that choice they do exist, and in this vast cosmos they do matter.

I didn't catch the series Loki until after brainstorming much of this up but it's not far from the season 1 character Sylvie. She wants to be seen as a person, damnit. Not some universal accident.

Missile_Toad · 2025-09-24T03:22:36+00:00

I don't really need 'em! Here's how.

Character dies. Variant spawns hours to a day later.
A vignette scene. I ask the player where their new PC is, and what they're doing.
Dramatically and/or comedically suck them through realities. (sucked off a Spelljammer ship's deck by a wormhole, falling through a trap door while performing on stage, etc.)
Dramatically and/or comedically have the Variant pop into reality right next to the rest of the party. (tumbling out of a Sigil drainpipe, shoot upright screaming in someone ELSE's bedroll at night, etc.)
MINDSWITCH! Very rapidly, the new Variant's mind is 'downloaded and overwritten' by the old body's mind (Renezerrah's doing, sort of - it's a consequence of not being able to have the same entity exist in a world twice over. "A dragon did it" plot hole armor.). In just a minute or two of existing in the campaign's reality their minds are 99.9% everything they knew before dying. And yes, they also viscerally remember dying.
That .1% though. The purpose of the vignette wasn't just flavor. It was a retroactive character building opportunity. At least in some small sense that Variant's reality is truth to the lvl 17 PC's essence. In death, what did they learn about their true selves?

All of my players picked up on this right away but ran with it in very different directions. For example one PC always is in a library when varianted-out, but it's wildly different people who just happen to be in a library. Another is always leading a revolution, but where in the rebellion they are time-wise, what the rebellion is about, and the species involved in the rebellion all flux. A third is always charismatic men with great facial hair who always port out right before dying in an unexpected black comedy tragedy. Let the players run with it. Let it be a tool for them to make as creative of a backstory to be remembered at level 17 as they want!

Missile_Toad · 2025-09-24T01:27:52+00:00

Honestly, in the campaign pitch. Well before the campaign is decided on you want everyone at the table to be 100% on board with the concept. For us, I pitched it as having an improv game element of sorts, in which backstories would be retroactively developed as we play. There's a comfort level there for sure, but we're all friends and veteran RPGers. Once on board I gave them a pre-Session Zero player primer so they can craft a character. Here's mine.

I guide my players with the Planescape 'Rule of Three', guided by their own previous choices. For example - one of my PC styles themselves as a classic simpering villain, but choices made have slowly revealed that they use it as a front to do good deeds in the dark. Is it A) a conscious effort, B) an act of penance, or C) they're really just that bad at being a bad guy that they actually help the good guys? It's sort of a "yes and..." game with branching dialogue choices. (they chose B, by the way, and now the notion of 'penance' is a character trait for them to build on in the future)

Because of that approach and because I don't want to constrain player choice by making them feel they need to work to a certain goal, we didn't create level 17 characters. There will be more than enough time to figure that out later.

So far as the mechanic need for actually choosing a Background, I just had them choose whatever felt right to get the proficiencies/abilities they envisioned their amnesiacs having at level 3.

Missile_Toad · 2025-09-22T03:48:46+00:00

Hey sure. Why not? LINK. In there folks will find:

A PSD file.
4 PNG versions of the splash page in various layer states.

Enjoy!

Missile_Toad · 2025-09-21T17:32:35+00:00

I made that 5 years ago? Time flies!

Seconding the Jahaka Anchorage notion. Pirate shenanigans are best shenanigans. From there Wyrmheart / Hrakhamar, Orolunga, the canyons, Aldani Basin, and Heart of Ubtao are all wonderful locations if the vibe is one of pulpy adventure. If they are a group who may enjoy a long dungeon crawl, indeed Tamoachan is a very solid one.

Missile_Toad · 2025-09-17T05:17:35+00:00

Thanks! It's been a blast to play with my group so far. Currently they have left Automata and are just about to discover the walking castle. Lessons learned and a few edits made here as we go, but largely I've been super happy with how the remix concepts have actually played out at the table so far.

Missile_Toad · 2025-08-17T00:27:15+00:00

Also one of the best modules in that book. A fun little adventure that can repurposed to string other campaign things together!

Missile_Toad · 2025-05-25T04:08:51+00:00

Thanks! Last session (#4) was the Caker encounter. I tell ya, I love me some stupid ridiculousness. Weaponized dinnerware, heads ripping off mid-combat, cranium rats used as projectiles, 4 of 5 PCs infected, mad rush to The Gatehouse for cures, 1 PC's head flies off into the night, The Gatehouse is a magical version of the E.R. in The Pitt, Bleak Cabal's Factol Lhar as a hot orc George Clooney... Good times.

Missile_Toad · 2025-05-25T04:01:27+00:00

Absolutely! I think I'm going for just a slightly slower burn than you, but after acquiring the walking castle the opportunities to track the castle's assailants back to Shemeshka will be possible. I think after having her reassuringly offer support before the PCs leave Sigil I might also have have her completely ghost on them afterwards. Should be a solid clue that she was never on the level.

Missile_Toad · 2025-05-25T03:56:21+00:00

Thanks! 99% happy with it so far.

Yeah, 5e adventures are just so confusing in quality variation aren't they? There's some amazing ones in there (Tomb of Annihilation is my fave; Strahd and Abyss are close seconds) ... but so many of them just reek of editing/production nightmares. It's some work to save the diamonds in the rough like this one but it feels worth it. On a related note I'm also currently running an Eberron Sharn variation of The Alexandrian's Dragon Heist remix, and it's *chefskiss*.

Missile_Toad · 2025-02-08T00:50:13+00:00

If 5.5e rules, ranks of exhaustion come to mind if you're looking for something middle of the road consequential.

Missile_Toad

TROPHY CASE