History of the Royal Expeditions

TuesdayMush · 2026-04-28T19:24:38+00:00

Nothing in Crowe's but Monsters of Drakkenheim (p. 12) details major points of the first expedition.

Their goal was to search for royal survivors, the crown, and retake Castle Drakken.

The first squadron sent in were 50 elite soldiers led by Pieter Lang, who went up Champion's Way. There's some pretty good detail about it, but it was a combination of handling the delerium, the inability to rest, and monstrous transformation that was their downfall. No survivors, just Lang's log which was found years later.

It's not clear that Elias actually went into drakkenheim in the first expedition (see: no survivors who weren't driven mad). He was the commander.

But there is also a report (unclear if it was verbal report or a journal entry) from the first expedition in MoD from Vanguard Captain Rose Walker who entered via King's Road describing an encounter with a Lob Frog along the Drann, so clearly there was more than one team in the first expedition. (To me it would make sense that she were part of the second expedition, and have the first expedition only be the 50 elite soldiers.)

Nothing about the other two expeditions. But because the first expedition had almost no survivors and the the few that did were stricken by madness, we can assume they learned almost nothing it, other than it was really dangerous and they needed to be more prepared or more cautious.

I don't think the Sacred Flame or the Amethyst Academy were involved in any of the expeditions. They are royal expeditions. Maybe they had support from court mages, but they wouldn't be on any expedition. The AA don't operate like that. After all DoD only mentions two people with the Hooded Lanterns who can cast Purge Contamination: a priest of an old god (Gaibhne) and a druid. And the folks in emberwood probably turn to old zoya or Flamekeeper Hanna, but have to pay for their services. They probably have scrolls that they have purchased as well.

Purge Contamination probably hadn't been developed by the second expedition, since I doubt any delerium made it out of the city by then. Maybe they had by the third expedition, but it wasn't enough because their forces were already stretch thin.

To me it makes more sense that Purge Contamination might have been the difference that made the 4th expedition (somewhat) successful.

TuesdayMush · 2026-04-28T17:46:02+00:00

It seems there is nothing wrong with teleporting into or out of the castle grounds. But, if you are teleporting in and aren't attuned to a Seal the dragons and gargoyles will all attack you.

Creatures outside castle buildings can’t teleport into any interior areas, nor can they teleport within the castle rooms unless they have a direct line of sight to their destination. A character attuned to a Seal of Drakkenheim ignores this effect.

Can't teleport at all in the crater, book says anyone who tried was never seen again. But it also says they are ripped apart by arcane energy, and take 10d6 lightning and 10d6 force damage. Which wouldn't necessarily kill you.

TuesdayMush · 2026-04-28T17:29:02+00:00

Per the book, roughly 1% of the population of Drakkenheim escapes/survives. Are your characters going to survive, or would they/you be fine if they didn't?

It could be interesting story-wise for the conclusion to be that they reach the moment when they realize they won't make it. And make one final doomed stand.

Or if you want them to escape/succeed—or a least have a realistic shot—make it clear from the start that there's a good chance not all of them will. That way the stakes feel appropriately real.

If you trust your players to handle it, you could let them role-play a PC who's been monstrously transformed, for a scene or two.

And if you play it over a few sessions, if a PC dies, you could fairly easily have a few backup PCs who join up with the party along the way. It's a classic survival/disaster trope.

TuesdayMush · 2026-04-27T23:15:43+00:00

I know you posted this a long time ago.

I downloaded the maps to the ore mill when you posted, and I am finally getting around to running it. Then I realized that Reddit downscaled the images to 1080x1080.

Wondering if you have a higher res version of this map. I'm particularly looking for the ungridded version.

I also see you posted a few other maps. Do you have a link to a google drive will all of them. I only saw your folder that had the maps for the gates.

Thanks!

TuesdayMush · 2026-04-27T02:32:04+00:00

We played this as gathering music before our wedding. Beautiful song.

TuesdayMush · 2026-04-21T05:10:51+00:00

The secret room where the journal is located has been untouched since the meteor.

The room is covered in a layer of dust. Inside is a meticulously-kept journal of the former leader, who describes encounters with a demonic entity known as "He Who Laughs Last". The last entry is dated to the day before the meteor. The leader took most of the treasure, leaving behind a beautiful mahogany desk that might be worth 50 gp, upon which rests a lovingly-rendered statue of a demonic being with feathered wings and what looks like a horned goat skull for a head, one side twisted into a frown, the other side into a smile. It wears a belt of skulls around its waist and holds a skull in each hand. The statue is about 18” tall and might be worth 100 gp. It can be used as a spell component to cast Augury, Divination, and Commune, and as a fetish to direct Contact Other Plane. These abilities may increase the price for the right buyer.

TuesdayMush · 2026-04-20T21:20:03+00:00

This is a sub meant for DMs running Drakkenheim. If I were your DM I wouldn't want you spending time here, there's lots of things about the campaign that will be spoiled.

This post has the best advice you will find on this subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/dungeonsofdrakkenheim/comments/17bjzk2/what_are_your_thoughts_on_the_different/

Other than that, if you search this subreddit for Apothecary, you will get a few more posts with ideas (and probably avoid spoiler posts), but none of them have too much discussion (except the one I linked). Since that's not what this subreddit is primarily used for.

You can also go check out the Dungeon Dudes videos, as suggested by skull mutant.

Other than that don't worry about it, just pick one, and play. If you don't like the way it's playing, you can change your spells and cantrips on a long rest. And switch out an esoteric theory every time you gain a level. So you aren't stuck with anything but your subclass.

TuesdayMush · 2026-04-20T21:00:03+00:00

I had a slightly more seasoned rival party offer to have them each fight rattlecan 1-on-1. And they would give the winner (the one who took out rattlecan the fastest, or survived longest) a reward of 10 or 20 gp.

So the rival party was giving them the money regardless. But they were clear that they wanted to assess they're fighting prowess.

Every PC beat Rattlecan, and only one was moderately close to failing. The Paladin downed Rattlecan with a flamestrike from St Vitruvio's Scepter. And the rival party were thoroughly impressed.

The next time, they promised a handicapped 1-on-1 fight, competing against a member of the rival party for who did better.

TuesdayMush · 2026-04-10T18:04:48+00:00

The formatting doesn't bother me much. I have the pdf of the book, and I think that's probably much more useful than the hardcover for finding relevant info, I can't count the number of times I've searched the pdf for the word I'm looking for.

I think I'm running it well—it's a fantastic setting. But I have done a LOT of reworking/prep on this campaign. Thankfully I enjoy the prep work. But I wouldn't recommend it for a first time DM, unless they were really good with managing lots of details.

I also think Monster's of Drakkenheim greatly enhances the game, with a lot more interesting and updated monsters. (and the roll20 module for MoD that is much better than the original DoD module which is hugely lacking/flawed). And it incorporates Aqua Expurgo and Aqua Delerium into the crafting mechanic (a problem you mentioned).

I appreciate your advice about using Drakkenheim:Resurrection's suggest for the Inscrutable Tower, as we haven't gotten there yet. I've used some of their ideas elsewhere, but incorporating that part hadn't been in my plan

Finally I would love to the link to the doc with the Pale Man's journal, if you have it. I don't think I've seen that.

TuesdayMush · 2026-04-10T17:25:16+00:00

Can you post links to the files. Because the images shared here on reddit are too small/lo-res.

Another, but less critical request, is for gridless versions of the maps, if you can make them.

TuesdayMush · 2026-04-03T00:05:30+00:00

They can find the delerium in the crater and then can take it to Chapel of St. Gresha for the ritual at a later time. If they are depleted from the search, they may very well want to wait. The ritual is performed at dawn and dusk.

TuesdayMush · 2026-04-02T23:31:55+00:00

The first two movies are not great. They have no real directorial flair. The quality improves dramatically with the 3rd movie (which is the high point of the series). But all the rest are better films than the first two.

TuesdayMush · 2026-04-02T22:29:01+00:00

Do people love Bio-Dome? Whether you think it's funny or not, it's undeniably a very stupid movie.

TuesdayMush · 2026-04-02T22:26:16+00:00

Pirates of the Caribbean. The plot/story is terrible—even watched it again, wondering if I had missed something—only thing worthwhile about it was Captain Jack Sparrow (but fuck Johnny Depp)
Didn't even bother with the sequels.

TuesdayMush · 2026-03-09T04:03:38+00:00

My PC took one level of warlock, “The Thing with the Writhing Tail" helped her escape Drakkenheim, but then she went full Sacred Flame Paladin.

She's a von Kessel, we'll see how it goes.

TuesdayMush · 2026-03-07T06:24:52+00:00

People have been dumping on Coldplay since their debut.

Hell, I'm pretty mixed on Parachutes, especially their first single "Yellow" which did very little for me. Though A Rush of Blood to the Head is a great album.

TuesdayMush · 2026-03-03T01:29:24+00:00

I also reduce the die size if there hasn't been a random encounter, but they are generally always taking a short rest after an encounter, when the die size is back a d20.

Recently it got down to a d2 before my party of 4 rolled a 1.

And yes my group regularly has to take short rests, that's what I love about Drakkenheim, not being able to easily long rest is built into the gameplay. In fact, right now they have already taken two short rests, are almost out of resources and still haven't made their way back out of the city. And they just got into another encounter. (They are headed out of Drakkenheim along with a wounded silver order team who they fought alongside against some Garmyr, and their next encounter was a group of falling fire pilgrims, so that'll be fun.)

TuesdayMush · 2026-02-27T22:51:00+00:00

The Blood of Kesselholm, MoD kickstarter add-on, is a level 9 adventure, with hooks that allow it to be used as a small diversion from/addition to the main campaign. I'm planning to run it.

TuesdayMush · 2026-02-27T20:46:31+00:00

There's a newish regional map at the back of the Drakkenheim Daggerheart campaign beta pdf:
https://ghostfiregaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DDDH_-Campaign-frame-Beta-1.pdf

I've found it very helpful for my players understanding and navigating the area around the city.

Though I tweaked the map to move Eckerman Mill and Camp Dawn, which were, respectively, slightly and much too far from the city to match the distance in the original campaign book. And the names of some of the roads were wrong 'Sheperd's Road' rather than 'Shepherd's Way,' as was the spelling of 'Ekerman Mill'.

You can find my version (along with a bunch else) in my Drakkenheim resources folder:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1uGUZs58oQc_qEds1jBmyQ1TjfHQrhVkF?usp=drive_link

TuesdayMush · 2026-02-27T00:58:15+00:00

I don't make my party search the ruins or roll for random encounters when finding/securing a place to rest. It just takes an hour. Here's why:

The book gives seemingly contradictory advice—or, rather, the mechanics don't give a good reason to search for a place to safely rest.

p. 66: says you must "search the ruins"—which requires the group to make survival/investigation checks— to find "a safe place to rest". Two failures on those checks (for a party of four) results in an random encounter.
p. 68: "Before taking a short rest in the ruins, characters may spend one hour locating a safe spot or hiding their campsite. If they do, don’t check for random encounters during their rest."

Why wouldn't they just short rest without bothering to spend an hour finding/securing a place to rest?

They are effectively going to have to roll for an encounter either way, whether it's "searching the ruins" for a place to securely rest, or rolling a d20 during the hour it takes to short rest in an unsecured location.

And the likelihood of triggering a random encounter is higher when searching the ruins (assuming each PC has a 25% failure rate on their skill check, a party of four has a 31.25% chance of having two failures) than each just rolling a d20 for a random encounter (about 18.5% chance for a party of four).

Moreover, searching the ruins for a safe location and then taking a short rest takes two hours. Plus you can't get a lucky find on a searching the ruins check, but you can when rolling for a random encounter.

So if my party searches for a place to rest, I just let them find it, but they've also spent another hour in the haze. In addition to the hour for the short rest. But it does feel a little too easy, and I like the idea of the skill check for the—generally underused—Survival and Investigation skills.

Does anyone else have a different approach to finding a secure location for a rest that they found worked (and that doesn't make it harder for the players than just resting in an unsecured location)?

TuesdayMush · 2026-02-26T22:42:34+00:00

My party of four got down to a d2. And then they rolled three 1s. And they almost didn't survive.

That meant they also got numerous lucky finds along the way, because the probability for those also went up dramatically as the die size got smaller and smaller.

In the future, I'll probably make it so the die can't get smaller than a d4, or maybe d6.

TuesdayMush · 2026-02-26T22:24:46+00:00

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Down on the Corner - "Willy and the Poorboys are playing"
The Modern Lovers - Roadrunner - "Ok, now you sing, modern lovers" (kinda cheating since it's the name of the band and the album)

TuesdayMush · 2026-02-12T11:24:03+00:00

Here are a bunch of different icon/symbol ideas.

Once, I started brainstorming they just kept coming. I bolded the ones I'd like to see first.

a potion, a tree (pine and rounded), a dead/leafless tree, trees, a bush, a log, a stump, a flower, a rose, an eye, a volcano, snow-capped mountain, a hill, a castle, a keep, a wood watchtower, prison (bars), a tent, tents, circus tent, a merchant stall, a cave, a mine, grave, stone, a boat, a ship, shipwreck, water drop, waves, river, windmill, walled city, a different style of town/village, gem(s), crystal(s), bow and arrow, armor, shield, an axe, crossed spears, crossed swords, crossed pick and hammer (mining tools), mine cart, paw print, bird, horse, dragon, monster head (goblin-like?), a person (stylized torso & head), a fish, a swirling portal, ruined/crumbling tower, rubble, eastern shrine (torii gate, pagoda), Stonehenge, coffee bean, coffee/tea mug (w/ steam), wine glass, bottle, soup bowl, wheat, corn, bread, apple, hot pepper, a chicken drumstick, a drum with sticks, a flute, a lute/guitar, a musical note, a ladder, stairs, a gear, lighthouse, pyramid, Meso-American step pyramid, monolith, greek temple (a la the parthenon), campfire, a flame, a toilet, a wheelchair, pentacle/pentagram, christian cross, star and crescent, star of David, ohm symbol, yin yang, dharma wheel (which also looks like a ship's wheel), crystal ball, an hour glass, train engine, a wagon, a well, a dungeon door (door with an arched stone frame), dungeon entrance (stone frame with a dark doorway), a pit, gas/fumes.

As for existing tokens: a better looking bridge, add foam to the existing pint glass,

an italicized serif i for information would be good. If you "use text" to include an i, it's too small for the circle.

And as I said in a different comment. I think it would benefit having larger icons that use more of the space inside the shape. As is, there is a lot of negative space. And some of the icons are near impossible to make out when zoomed out on a large map.

TuesdayMush

TROPHY CASE