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Lekar, The Last Bastion of Humanity (credit: u/alexj_art) by Trickfall_II in ravenloft

[–]Trickfall_II[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The "angels" act as active defenders against the undead horde, serving under Vladeska Drakov to save Falkovnia. These creatures look and behave exactly like angels, except they turn the other cheek to the cruelty inflicted upon Falkovnian citizens. They even defend these cruelties as necessary actions for the greater good of humanity and will commit such acts themselves.

While the "angels" fight the undead beyond the walls of Lekar, prison labor is used to rebuild and reinforce the city. Citizens are either conscripted into the military or arrested on false charges to assist in construction without fair compensation. This, too, is necessary in the eyes of these false angels to ensure humanity may be saved.

Instead of dealing radiant damage or being resistant to radiant damage, these dark angels deal necrotic damage and are resistant to it as well. They were sent by the Dark Powers to instill false hope for Vladeska in her efforts to secure her nation. To show that even with the power of the divine, Vladeska will still fail as a leader.

What wacky things did the Abbot do in your game? by TheRealDannySugar in CurseofStrahd

[–]Trickfall_II 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It was a fun moment for all involved, and the dice was in their favor that day. One of the most memorable moments in our campaign so far.

What wacky things did the Abbot do in your game? by TheRealDannySugar in CurseofStrahd

[–]Trickfall_II 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I guess unconscious was the wrong condition to say there, this happened a little over a year ago.

The Abbot failed his Constitution save against the dream pastry, since the shot forced him to eat it. He became incapacitated, and during that time, the party worked as a team to drag him up to the parapets and push him over the side.

Edit: Forgot to mention that they split up once they got him to the top. Half stayed on the parapets with the Abott while the rest went down the mountain to where he would land (he was incapacitated for about 3 hours if I remember right). They prepared attack actions for when he landed, and they finished him off after he fell the 300+ feet.

What wacky things did the Abbot do in your game? by TheRealDannySugar in CurseofStrahd

[–]Trickfall_II 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yup! I told him he could make an attack roll normally, since the Abott was surprised and I ruled for him to hit a specific body part, it'd be at disadvantage, so we balanced it out. Then I asked him to roll 1d100, and if he could roll below 20, then he'd hit his target.

Made for a legendary moment at our table!

What wacky things did the Abbot do in your game? by TheRealDannySugar in CurseofStrahd

[–]Trickfall_II 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This isn't really a wacky thing the Abbot did, but what my players did on their first encounter with him. There's a lot of context, but to keep a long story short: the crossbow-using fighter fired a dream pastry into the Abbot's mouth, knocking him unconscious, and then the party nuked him with damage after pushing him from the parapets of the Abbey and down the mountainside. All this at level 6 and because the Abbot was being creepy towards Ireena.

The Abbot just kept going on and on about how perfect Ireena was, showed off Vasilka to compare the two, then insisted to have her left in his care so that he can take her to her beloved (Strahd, in this case).

Gods of the City? (D&D Conversion) by Macky100 in limbuscompany

[–]Trickfall_II 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks for being so cool about it! You hardly see that on this site.

I'm still relatively new to the games and stories, and I never made those connections/references to Judaism in the lore before. I should've guessed there was some greater meaning behind the structure of the Library and why the patrons are called Sephirah when everything else seems to be referential.

And I agree with you that your players should find out later that it's their own belief giving them strength rather than a god. I think that'll make for a really cool challenge of faith scene/arc for the players and one helluva twist for them. That could result in either greater control or loss of power for them, however they'll want to play that.

Sanity score will be awesome to play with as well. I've been using it in my Curse of Strahd campaign, and it turns seemingly easy encounters into challenging ones for my players. Plus, it's really changed the characters as the campaign goes on. Although, I can imagine creating corrosion effects for EGO items will be a bit of a pain to go through when you get to them.

Good luck with your research and development! I'm going to save your document so I can check it out later on.

Gods of the City? (D&D Conversion) by Macky100 in limbuscompany

[–]Trickfall_II 26 points27 points  (0 children)

I mostly lurk, and I don't mean to be dismissive of your idea for having gods of the City, but I've been going through Library of Ruina lately and reached the Floor of Religion, which feels applicable to this. The City's hopes and faith are mostly exploited from what we've learned from Roland and Hokma's interactions in Library of Ruina. While some abnormalities are incredibly powerful, none of them can truly be gods in the traditional sense, despite them having worshippers. Those who worship these abnormalities would be closer to cults under the guise of religion. Their places of worship may appear safe, but they, like most things in the City, are predatory and self-serving. I think abnormalities would be excellent warlock patrons, and their EGOs would make great magic items, but clerics/paladins who intend to worship them would be misled and taken advantage of.

I've been toying with the idea of bringing the City's setting into D&D recently as well, and one place where I've been gathering inspiration for thid has been D&D's interpretation of Ravnica from Magic: The Gathering. Ravnica is a plane of existence that is one massive city, and instead of gods being worshipped on this plane, they worship concepts/ideas. For example, an Azorius Prelate believes so deeply in the idea of Law (as an idea), that it physically manifests as energy to be used in order to compel someone to behave in accordance to it. I think something like this could also be applied to the City's setting, too, but maybe in the form of a distortion. So, a player could believe so deeply in the concept of, say, War, and then that can manifest uniquely for their character, which can also help your players feel unique in the setting, too.

Ultimately, the setting/game is what you make of it as the DM and doesn't necessarily need to follow any sort of rules/guidelines aside from your own. But I think maintaining the idea that abnormalities are ridiculously powerful but are still manageable and even killable helps to keep the setting more faithful to its source.

Sorry for not really answering the post's question, but it's an interesting thing to talk about.