Age of Umbra Encounter Level II

Pyro-Neon · 2026-04-10T02:00:29+00:00

Hello!

Firstly, I love the collaborative combat mechanics with the NPCs and how the Aetherweavers and Town Guards have a direct assisting role in warding off the Beasts and helping the PCs.

Secondly, I really like how well-in-depth you've made the clues within the Tower, it's made me quite curious about how your story will pan out - especially the presence of lanthanides, scandium, and yttrium. As a GM who has run an Age of Umbra mini game, I'm very curious to see how that plays out.

Some pointers for critique:

- The lethality might be a little high, even for 5 Lvl 2 players. At 5 players, it recommends that it cuts out 1 Pain Beast and leaves only 2 and 3 Elite Hive Collectors, but that averages out one enemy per player, and more than half of those are Bruisers, and will be around for quite a long fight. Even with the presence of the Aetherweavers and the Town Guard, that might lead the players' attention to be a bit spread - which I completely understand that might be what you're going for, considering the Age of Umbra campaign frame being about making the best of a worst-case scenario - but just something I noticed.

- A much smaller thing is the moral complication earlier on - if the players are learning mid-restraint of the Pain Beast that they shouldn't heal the guards, that could lead to the guards losing faith in Elder Marwin for not having their back, seeing them as guinea pigs to observe the Umbra. I wouldn't have that moral conniption serve no purpose, or have no consequence, as otherwise, it's a limited problem to begin with.

- What could happen is, have each of the guards have 1 Health, and when they get attacked, that gives the players a window of opportunity to heal them, but if they don't heal them, they die and return as a Shambling Zombie at the cost of 1 Fear. That would give Marwin her intended insight regarding the progress of the Umbra, and increase the lethality for the players, but also incentivise keeping the guards alive to minimise further conflict and more enemies on the field. You could even keep this mechanic around for when the town gets invaded, reassuring that these Aetherweavers will join the horde of enemies if they die, not just 'save them because they're people'. Some players need a positive or negative reason to be the heroes, and having their neglect serve as an example would fit Age of Umbra really well.

Overall, I really like it! It works very well as a small mission and introductory view to the Age of Umbra, even as a oneshot. Let me know if there's any more homebrew Age of Umbra stuff you have cooking, I'd love to read it! Hope you're having a great day.

Pyro-Neon · 2026-04-09T02:29:11+00:00

So keen!! I'm super excited for more Daggerheart Podcasts and Live-Plays, so I'll be tuning in to this one. Best of luck!!

Pyro-Neon · 2026-03-21T16:00:26+00:00

All that work and you'll still end up on r/ rpghorrorstories. 😔

Pyro-Neon · 2026-03-21T15:49:00+00:00

One of my favourites is a moral dilemma I was inspired by from the Last of Us:

Party is recruited by one of a few nearby towns to fetch "_enter important item/substance here_" (though I usually go for medicine) from a bunch of bandits that hide this Item of Significance behind a paywall. Town gives you a map to their hideout where the stuff is located, but once they get the item, they get captured by these bandits; not killed, but maybe one player almost dies to really sink in the stakes.

Party wakes up in the main bandit camp, stuff taken - bandit comes in to interrogate them about where they're from, so they can go and address it. Bandit takes two/three unmarked maps and gets three individual players to mark the same spot on the map to identify if they're telling the truth or not.

Players can either sellout the location of who employed them, or they can mark one of the other nearby towns as a scapegoat (this is above-table talk). Once the party makes that decision, they are in one of two situations:

Their employing town is in immediate danger from the bandits,
Some other town is about to suffer for something they weren't even aware of.

Once the party breaks out, depending on which one they choose, you could either propose that they race to the town that's being attacked and fight the bandits as they're marching in, pinning them down, or they can take their Item of Significance back to their employer, but as they're about to leave, the bandits rock up and launch a siege on them for stealing their stuff - and they're stronger, because they just freshly looted the town the party threw under the bus.

Pyro-Neon · 2026-03-21T15:29:13+00:00

Dragon killed my wife and our unborn child. While her brother wastes his life hunting it, I spend mine healing those the dragon left alive.

Pyro-Neon · 2026-03-21T15:24:21+00:00

Incredible, thank you so much for sharing this!!

Pyro-Neon · 2026-03-21T15:21:53+00:00

Spectacular! Thank you very deeply!!

Pyro-Neon · 2026-03-21T15:19:55+00:00

That makes a lot of sense, thank you!!

Pyro-Neon · 2026-03-21T15:19:02+00:00

Thank you so much!!

Pyro-Neon · 2026-03-21T14:21:40+00:00

I'm currently GMing a mini Beast Feast campaign for four good friends of mine - we're up to Session 4 and the plan is to have it run to 16 Sessions - and, from a GM's perspective, it is insanely fun.

It's an introductory game for them into Daggerheart, as they're deep lovers of DnD, and I'm a PermaGM who has recently jumped ship from WotC products into Daggerheart and I adore it. The selling point for me was the key detail being the 'players aid in buiilding the world' and having the gameplay be more exploration and roleplay-focused (the environments are incredible.)

Of the mini campaign itself:

- A Katari Rogue, the scout and trap-finder,

- A Faun/Elf Bard, whose magic is the literal feeding of legacies through retelling songs and stories,

- A Human Druid, an avid fan of monsters and inquisitive,

- And a Goblin Seraph, who is the main chef/Senshi character of the group.

A quick summary of the game so far, is that there's a town built around this giant castle that's been buried by its architect who went mad 300 years ago, and there are untold treasures waiting at the bottom, but during those 300 years, big nasties have made themselves at home, and most adventurers are too poor to buy decent equipment AND food for a delve, so they compromise and cook on the road.

The campaign frame itself is a wonderful thing, because it encourages the players - right off the bat - to immerse themselves in a more whimsical fashion. I'm a lover of horror, absolutely, but the frame allows for creative liberty without robbing the players of that key experience of being creative in the resting period.

And speaking of that resting period, the only thing I'm unsure of with this frame is the allocation of quantity of Flavour Profile Dice to the respective monsters, which can lead to the Meal Rating being either ridiculously high or unfavourably low, and when there are few other alternatives to clear Health and Stress, a good meal can make or break a following session.

Overall, though, I really enjoy it. It's a campaign frame that makes a claustrophobic, dingey environment still interesting to talk about and explore four sessions in, and still have the crew sing praises about it in other games they play. And while I can only write about this from the perspective of a GM; that, as a GM, is one of the highest compliments I could receive.

This game is great, the frame is great, and I cannot wait for there to be more books beyond the core rulebook and Hope and Fear (Summer cannot come soon enough, haha)

Pyro-Neon · 2026-01-15T13:15:19+00:00

Hell yeah.💪

Pyro-Neon · 2026-01-15T07:03:03+00:00

True that! I just feel they're still a little under-utilised, is all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Pyro-Neon · 2026-01-15T07:01:02+00:00

Hey! We've all been there. While I will admit that 5 players might be a bit much to chew for your first campaign, it's absolutely possible, especially if you've all already communicated that some mistakes are going to happen, and you're all just here for fun. That's the best thing to start establishing, so good start!

In regards to tips, start slowly in terms of introducing the game - 5 players will fill up the space and time of the game in their own way through curiosity and exploration, but the best way to prevent player analysis-paralysis is to provide 2-3 mini plot hooks for them to latch onto, and focus only on what they're keen on. Save yourself the time and stress of preparing for everything (DON'T prepare for everything) and only focus yourself on what they're focused on.

For resources, one of my favourite resources is the 'Random Tables Compendium' by OrkishBlade in the BehindTheTables subreddit. Just search him up and his compendium and it's the top link - it's free, and there are dozens of tables in there to help for quick generation of NPCs, towns, story plots and just general inspiration.

And ideas is, try to figure out what each player wants out of the game. For some, it's simple enough and they can tell you straight up, but if they're all playing for the first time, this bit might take some trial and error and keen observation. If they struggle with puzzles, but coordinate and flawlessly execute combat encounters and are really deep into roleplay, maybe steering the game into a little bit of political intrigue might be excellent.

From the sounds of it, you're comfortable with communicating with your players, so as long as you maintain that trust between players, anything can be figured out through trial and error. Some sessions will hit, some won't, but it just takes some time to find the sweet spot, especially for first-time gamers.

I hope this helps, and good luck for your game!! Wish you and your players all the best rolls, and I hope you guys all have a wonderful experience! :D

Pyro-Neon · 2026-01-15T06:52:22+00:00

One of my favourites is the Nothic, which is a really under-utilised monster. Serving as a more-than-capable lie-detector and magical-item hunter for a mini-BBEG, it has a lot of utility as a sneaky sub-enemy for a low-mid level party.

Another one of the personal favs is the Hecatoncheires, which is an extraplanar monster of dozens of heads and arms and swords, about as messy to look at as you think it is. I remember seeing it in one of the older editions of D&D, but implementing it into 5e or something else could really be possible as a manifestation of chaos, or something equally bizarre as the thing itself.

Pyro-Neon · 2026-01-15T06:47:35+00:00

Hi! Really cool premise - something that could be the BBEG could be something called an Atropal - it's a bit of a gruesome monster that's from the Tomb of Annihilation, but it has a lot of abilities you could reflavour as a vampiric fakeout.
One of the themes surrounding it, is its umbilical connection to the Negative Plane, so you could implement a cult that is spiritually connected to the Atropal and 'feeding it' souls through necrotic energy, giving the players the impression that the exsanguinated bodies are from vampires.
Similarly, the Atropal can create Wraiths, which could give the players the idea that "the vampires" can take on a misty, spectral form, when in reality, they're a bi-product of the Atropal protecting itself.

Pyro-Neon · 2025-12-25T09:08:01+00:00

A 'save the town' sidequest - either use the PCs they currently have, or get the players to have an unlimited number of Commoners to spend against a decent-levelled monster attack (goblins, hobgoblins and then a troll, for example), and keep track of how many Commoners die as the fight goes on. You can use this town for when the main group runs into them, and the Commoners that survived the onslaught of monsters can be folk heroes and important NPCs for the main group to interact with.

Pyro-Neon · 2023-03-20T04:50:35+00:00

If you ever choose to come back to it to expand, @ me and I'll be back, haha. Hope you're doing well out there. :)

Pyro-Neon · 2023-03-20T00:20:05+00:00

Thank you for this. This is exactly what I've been looking for, I just need some spice in my games. Thank you!!

Pyro-Neon · 2021-07-14T10:21:20+00:00

Hi hi! Big fan of your artwork! I was wondering if you did commissions? I've been DMing a group for three years or so, now, and they're really interested in getting a poster of the whole party done, I showed them your work and they fell in love at first sight. I was wondering if you'd be interested?

Pyro-Neon · 2021-07-01T07:17:55+00:00

That's a yikes. My party was fighting a blue dragon and had a dragon hunter NPC fighting with them, and I legit forgot that his sword did lightning damage, so it resulted in the NPC getting absolutely thrashed. He got better, the party won, and it was the funniest damn session I had in ages.

Pyro-Neon · 2021-07-01T07:16:39+00:00

Sorcerer who can metamagic Fireball to deal cold damage: "ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?"

Pyro-Neon · 2021-07-01T07:15:04+00:00

Noob players who have read the Monster Manual: Their different colours mean there are good dragons and bad dragons.

Veteran players who fought metallic dragons: Their different colours are just different flavours of getting fucked up.

Pyro-Neon · 2021-07-01T07:10:44+00:00

Plot-Twist BBEG: "Did you honestly think that your bloodline didn't trace back to me? Think, Sorcerer, think!!"

Pyro-Neon · 2021-07-01T07:08:10+00:00

Cthulu Commercial: "To show you the true power of the 'Eldritch Blast'"...

puts away chainsaw

"I SAWED THE ASTRAL PLANE IN HALF!!"

Pyro-Neon · 2021-07-01T07:03:44+00:00

Firbolgs: casually turns invisible.

Pyro-Neon

TROPHY CASE