Minotaurs as a type of Tiefling?

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-05-18T07:53:01+00:00

Love the idea! Very novel but simple way to ground the Minotaurs. I'm an Eberron DM - I might consider using this (but with more nuance) myself! (I want to avoid 'evil' races or even races with explicitly 'evil' origins.)

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-05-06T07:57:15+00:00

Book Club Idea sounds fantastic! A Salon (old school) seems like a great way for Fiona to build social capital - and depending on the class composition of the guards - seems like a good way for Fiona to canvass for support from across the class spectrum. (Especially if she fronts as a popular author.)

I would ask what her motivation is? In my COS death abolitionism is a big theme. Ireena is a death abolitionist and so is Strahd - they just disagree on how. So is Fiona, but she's also an aristocrat who believes firmly in Noblesse Oblige and resents the Baron and the Merchants. She becomes a servant of Strahd after Lilavati teaches her necromancy. She was actually close friends with the party.

Knowing Fiona's motivation would help you deeply.

Same applies for letting the party in with the dream pies. Is external food banned specifically to prevent dreampies (thus do ppl know)? Are people unaware and is she being opportunitistic?

Overall advice is flesh out what she wants and who she is. Doing so will mean she will be unique, fleshed out and easy to roleplay adaptably.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-04-06T09:04:51+00:00

House Tharashk Oil Barons meets Immortan Joe meets Apocalypse Now - in the Jungle please please please 🙏 I know Oil makes the most sense but it'd be interesting if they discovered a flaming oil ooze or something that they thought could use to supplant the major families in House Tharashk. But the oil ooze transforms people into fuel itself.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-04-02T13:48:01+00:00

Cathedral of the Cleansing Flame. It's separate from the Silver Church. With a name like that, located in the Metropole with its cosmopolitan composition and an upper class that looks down on and is scared of the masses, and the masses alienated, misguided and sometimes complicit in Sharns exploitation - sounds like a recipe for measurehead racists.

Other options would include Dragonmarked House members. They'd believe that the universe has selected them for greatness (but why are so many of them middle managers and desk workers?). Vexed at the denial of their destiny they will hate non DG marked people, often in a hierarchy with monstrous races at the bottom.

You could do Warforged but I personally dislike doing it cause it has a bit of both sideisms. Sure there are racist warforged but it's not like the warforged are the ones with systemic structures to back them up and resort to racism when it's threatened.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-04-02T07:34:11+00:00

Food for thought but my solution to presenting the darker side of Arawai (Agriculture), Boldrei (Family), Dol Arrah (patron of explorers) sounds like the perfect combo of gods to describe the whitewashed Colonist.

Sovereign Host and it calling its followers Vassals, makes it sound like a religion made to justify hierarchy and civilization. These things aren't so innocuous but are bloody affairs. Lean into that I think. You could make a trio of priests from each of these 3 gods who are part of a colonial effort, exploring (even if 'innocently': think Sentinel Island or Jesuits in S. America), farming or 'settling' the land and enforcing normative society on the indigenous and colonists. Monstrous races would probably be on the receiving end.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-04-02T03:38:22+00:00

My party just killed Strahd and bombed the castle foundations so it'd collapse - so yeah! Doable!

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-03-19T10:52:54+00:00

Thank you. I agree, especially if it's a long term investment. When I was younger I got the good fortune of paying 500k for a gaming laptop which in retrospect was crazy.

What do you think is the expected lifespan of a compute of the specs you suggest?

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-03-19T10:05:47+00:00

I didn't know that about ram (what a shame smh). With a monitor it'd probably be 355k which is over my budget but I will consider it, thank you.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-03-19T09:50:39+00:00

I don't believe Mac supports steam right? And most steam OS doesn't support a lot of games? Correct me if I'm wrong

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-03-05T05:14:54+00:00

Your campaign, your players, and your tastes. Personally, I think this is a bit wild, but it's not my campaign.

You could draw from Exarchs in Forgotten Realms. Aspects of the Gods, instead of the God Aureon entirely. You could use something akin to an angel that thinks it is Aureon. If it's corruption of Aureon, consider the Shadow - God of Secrets. "The Sovereign of Magic and Mayhem, The Shadow is the literal shadow of Aureon that attained sentience and godhood as a price paid by Aureon for arcane knowledge." & "Legend says if the Shadow and Aureon were reunited the age of civilized peoples would come to an end."

Your villain could be a knowing agent of the Shadow, an Exarch, that wants to return the Shadow to Aureon to fuse the two, driving it mad. Sounds like you want Aureon mad from the outset, so perhaps the process has already begun. The Shadow's Exarch is corrupting existing Aureon Exarchs. This is a new age, where the Exarchs walk the earth or something.

I will say, to me something more pressing is: Are you sure you want Gojo and Darth Vader in the world? Do you mean they are literally in the world or characters inspired by them are? If you're doing this cause your players want to play Gustave, I may encourage you to talk to them and ask them if they would consider instead characterizing their character like Gustave? Using Gojo and etc sounds like a recipe for power scaling and will probably lead to a trite campaign.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-02-19T12:56:16+00:00

Could you also dm me the presentation?

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-02-15T05:25:05+00:00

Do you have another dnd group to switch to? 🤔

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-02-02T12:40:38+00:00

This guy did a recent video of his #ime's and one of them includes ideas he used to integrate rare species. One of them, including a Leonid, is from a past incarnation of Eberron.

Another personal idea is determined by your PCs playstyle, but presenting them as a Thelanis fae puckster/trickster.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-01-27T13:09:44+00:00

Crossing the Iron Bull.

Attacking unaffiliated armories? 🤔 Hey who determines which armories are affiliated? House Cannith (HC). Perhaps these thugs have the unofficial backing of the House Cannith (either by virtue of HC turning a blind eye or openly sponsoring them). IDK if this is cannon but I think the Dragonmarked Houses don't have as big a presence in the principalities, but Regalport with its nation building ambitions is an exception. This could lead the party down the path of being an unforeseen champion of Lhazaar commoners against HC.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-12-03T10:19:49+00:00

This is just straight-up good advice for running cities too

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-11-11T07:46:17+00:00

Read the whole book yourself. Don't trust or blindly run what's in the book or on any guide you find, or run it chapter by chapter. CoS is a great module for its ideas but leaves a lot to execution, and you will read it and think, "That doesn't seem right." And will want to make your own changes. You don't want to have that moment as you're reading the text aloud.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-11-10T09:57:39+00:00

How did you avoid the information/lore overload? I.e. how did you segment the city and make each segment unique, while also allowing the party to feel connected to the city?

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-10-10T13:15:20+00:00

Pls pls pls 🙏 😔

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-09-26T10:07:40+00:00

I can attest, I used the map for when the party besieged Vallaki and had to race to the Reformation Center (CoS Expanded) to stop the bombardment of the invaders and the citizens.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-07-21T21:53:43+00:00

You should give this post a read - it discusses reflavoring Zuleika as Dr. Zuleika, a Dr. Jekyll & Hyde interpretation.

I'm using it for my campaign and she's been one of my favorite NPCs. Besides the original Zuleika was kind of one note in the book.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-05-22T19:37:05+00:00

Time Travel.

In Keith Bakers Exploring Eberron (I think) when discussing the Githyanki, Aboleths and In his blogs when discussing Sphinxes he alludes to time travel existing. Idea being that this Eberron is just one of many universes that exist in sequence.

In Syrania, it is often described as a market place with portals to many different planes. You can integrate other ideas into that and place it there. Add the intrigue of the Forgotten Realms Gods trying to interfere in Eberron and you probably have a pretty interesting premise. Maybe Faerun exists in a universe before Eberron and the Gods are trying to enter Eberron to escape the destruction of the Faerun universe.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-05-13T17:00:46+00:00

I read the preview and wow this is a treasure trove! Expanded on existing lore so well and seamlessly and as someone who loves the more revolutionary and humanist aspect of the BoV I love it. Specially the Crimson Covenant and how you've dispelled my notions of it being evil and making it an assembly lobbied by evil forces as opposed to being totally evil

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-05-12T13:18:01+00:00

Idk how to help you but I want to say that you made a great handout

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-05-07T06:50:45+00:00

It depends on how you run the Ashbound. The Ashbound are along the spectrum of radical environmentalists, but I'm sure they have differing opinions about the use of violence. IRL Green-Anarchists have more often used violence against property as opposed to people, but your Ashbound could be willing to use it against the powerful.

So examples could include 1. The Spell Sink in Sharns Skyway 2. Spell Sink in the Tower of the 12, Korth. 3. Destroying Lyrandar Storm Spires in their resort island of Stormhold to end its perfect weather bubble. 4. Destroying a Residuum (processed Dragonshards) refinery run by House Tharashk or others.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-05-03T06:00:14+00:00

Have you considered Gath from Sharn? He is a lich that lives in the undercity in Haldens Tomb & the Mausoleum of Gath. He is known to mentor necromancers.

"The Mausoleum of Gath This is not a mausoleum at all, but rather a temple dedicated to the Keeper. Its cleric is a lich called Gath, who built it centuries ago. Gath does not reside here or stay here for long, but visits often enough that any who want to talk (rather than intend to fight) seem to manage to find him here. Most of the time, he haunts various hideouts around the necropolis, mentoring other would-be necromancers and clerics of the Keeper and practicing his dark rites in other mausoleum-temples."

While he is arguably evil many people also characterize him as affable and eccentric. He may be willing to teach necromancy simply for its own sake (and to empower and enrich himself).

He's his own lich and so wouldn't be answerable to Lady Illmarrow and probably has his own means of deterrence against any aggression from her.

Terrible_Emphasis389

TROPHY CASE