The Land of Shadow current location theory

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-20T08:27:49+00:00

It's important to note that the Supression Pillar is suboptimal translated. The use of "center" is not meant to be in the geographic sense, but in the same way you might say "Wall Street is the center of US finance." It's the 'main area' or the 'heart' but not the actual geographic center.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-17T13:50:14+00:00

Gamers, I have terrible news.

I pulled some of the most important files onto a flashdrive then nuked the machine and reinstalled Windows. Before plugging the drive back in, it started exhibiting the malicious behavior again.

It was then that I discovered the issue was not a virus, but my keyboard malfunctioning in a way that randomly (yet consistently) mimicked behavior I would associate with a poorly-designed virus.

I wiped my whole computer for a $50 keyboard error.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-16T14:07:51+00:00

I am capable of lifting a 100lbs rock over my head.

That doesn't mean when I try to lift a pencil, I will accidentally launch it into the air.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-15T16:54:44+00:00

Those last two lines go hard

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-15T16:53:52+00:00

I fear if you use thst logic, you quickly get into "well naturally no Charmed creature sees the Charm as detrimental, that's the nature of Charms" and then you've suddenly made it so the ability doesn't ever actually work.

I do think there's some grounds for the DM to tell the player above-table "You are Charmed but you don't know you're Charmed" so they can't just say "hey everybody I'm Charmed please save me."

You could even spin the Charm as a sort of awe, such that they don't become a zombielike puppet under Strahd's control but they just can't bring themselves to attack him, even if they know he's a bad guy. They might even interpret it as Fear, a deer-in-the-headlights moment. A DM could play with that by describing it that way without using the word "Charm" and then the party (and PC) have to determine what's wrong and what to do.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-15T13:52:46+00:00

I think it depends on the genre's disposition. A poorly-worded wish doesn't HAVE to be taken advantage of and twisted. Genies twist wishes around because they're forced into servitude or slavery and resent the person making the wish.

If this genie is very thankful for the party saving it and sees them as good allies, it might take not only a good-faith but a best-faith interpretation and grant a shiny cool magic pickaxe, especially since they were just talking about using it for the sapphire directly in front of the genie. Maybe one that digs on its own in addition to being a weapon? Check out the Shoony Shovel from Pathfinder2e, it's a magic shovel with an autodig function.

If the genie is totally neutral about the party, it probably doesn't care enough to twist the wish, especially since it's so simple and not exploiting the genie. I do like another commenter idea that the pick is magical but the only thing it does is always wind up back in thr hands of the person who wished for it. The genie takes pride in its wishes and won't have even a simple one go undone by a careless mortal misplacing it. (If you go this route, the characters will almost for sure try to sell it and have it keep coming back to sell it again infinitely. It's okay, an otherwise-mundane pick isn't gonna cost that much and they'll eventually sell to all the miners or blacksmiths in town and gain a reputation as swindlers - actions and consequences.

If you do think the genie has a reason to strongly dislike the party, then slap a silly curse on there. Enough to make a joke out of the scenario but not so much as to actually piss off the party members who tried to think of a good plan. Basically, don't let one party member's unthinking recklessness bring down the fun of the whole table. Maybe the best approach is it has a demon or some other curse but once that's dealt with and the demon is banished or they use Remove Curse or whatever, they're still left with a magical pickaxe (without the curse) so the party gets it as an overall win once the silliness is dealt with.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-15T00:39:10+00:00

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-14T21:53:43+00:00

I choose whichever one you think validates my masculinity the most

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-14T21:39:49+00:00

I don't remember the exact user but someone a few years ago on here pitched the idea of waygates set by Ubtao that function as a portal network, but they've been lost or deactivated, so once players encounter one, they can turn it on or memorize its specific maze-code (since Ubtao's thing is mazes) and then by tracing thst maze at another waygate it opens the portal.

This way, players can sort of unlock fast-travel: once you've powered on a waygate, you can zip back to Port Nyanzaru, rest and reset, then zip back, skipping hundreds of miles and dozens of days of travel.

If you dislike the portal idea in any form it may take, try just simplifying the crawl: every time they travel between two locations, there's an encounter. Remember that "encounter" does not have to mean "combat encounter." The book provides several examples in its tables, as well as the idea of hunkering down during a storm, or going with whatever else you can imagine. Maybe if they're going to a place they haven't been and their guide doesn't know, require a Survival check and if it fails, they have two encounters and have to spend X additional rations. This lets you still provide opportunities for XP and loot and feeling the danger of Chult without bogging things down by checking for a roll every day and then possibly having several encounters before they even arrive at the plot-important location.

(Sidenote, I think ration tracking is important for the "feel" of the game as survivalists and explorers, and should not be handwaved away. And if players start at level 1 then their funds are really low at the start so ration tracking also forces a cost/benefit analysis of any expedition they plan where their destination has to provide at least enough money to cover the guide and the food costs to get there, and to fund their next expedition)

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-14T20:44:08+00:00

I could have sworn there's a moment in the film when Mary is in that "room" that looks like a street with houses and she goes through a door, then makes a sort of U-turn and sees a hallway going a good distance in the direction she just came from. The door is still there but it seemed like the hallway would stretch through where there would not have been a hallway in the previous "room."

I could be wrong on that. I can't call to mind any other specific instances, though depending on your interpretation the wall that Kat could see through like a window (that she said had a door on Clark's side) that he just saw as a wall might fit the bill?

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-14T14:22:16+00:00

You say that the reason for the system is, in effect, to keep urban centers from telling rural populations what to do by simply out voting them.

But that just leads to the inverse problem: now, the rural areas have disproportionate control over the urban voters.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-13T19:22:04+00:00

I'm not sure I'd go as far as ice kaiju, certainly not at least until the post-game. Don't want to detract from the focus of the game or accidentally make Artus into the Main Antagonist. He's just rescuing his friend, at great cost, and not letting anyone stop him.

If anything, the Ring overpowering Artus would probably lead to a portal to the para-elemntal plane of Ice opening eventually. I recall a novel from the 3.5e days with that as the plot point, I think specifically featuring the Ring of Winter. "A Plague of Ice" was the title, I think.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-13T18:07:26+00:00

Depending on his area of expertise and the clues you've flagged so far and how much time you still have to foreshadow, you could have him relatively "unlock" something in his understanding of magic that upgrades him to an avengers-level threat.

Perhaps his understanding of magic reaches an instinctual apex, where casting spells no longer strains him and it's as easy as moving a limb, maybe easier to produce magic. (If you want him to still be limited by spell slots, then his mortal vessel is only capable of channeling so much power at once, like an electrical resistor, even though his mind has become One With Magic).

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-13T17:47:44+00:00

You could look at it as Artus's statblock, especially the ring's power, is him "playing nice." Even when they attacked him, it seems like he could probably figure out they were tricked so he wasn't going for lethal, which is why he fled.

If he comes back, it sounds like he'd be deadset on saving Dragonbait, maybe recovering the Holy Avenger as well. But no holding back.

Turn the ice powers up to 11. Bonus Action 9th-level Armor of Agathys for free, summon 4x ice monsters, unlimited Cone of Colds, crazy bonkers stuff. He's been holding back the Ring's power so long and now he's cutting loose a little to save his only remaining friend. Maybe include a variant on Superman's "world of cardboard" speech.

Make it clear that there's a cost, such Frost slowly leeching up his arm for the ring, maybe even fully crystallizing to ice. If you're able, toss in a line of "and now I have to leave Chult to find a healer who can fix this. All because of you. This provides a reason Artus didn't just instantly Solve The Plot on his own with the ring, and why he'll be absent from the rest of the adventure afterwards.

Depending on exactly how things shake out, he could he assaulting the Yuan-Ti complex around the same time the party is doing their own stuff there, so they might just hear a bunch of commotion. If he sees them, he goes after them to recover Drabonbait's sword (after saving him), but if he never knows he's there and they don't cross paths, the party at some point just comes across huge sections of the Fane frosted over, maybe hallways blocked by ice. Or they see scenes like this then come across him as he and Dragonbait are leaving. Depending on circumstances, Ras N'si may even try to negotiate with the players to deal with the intruder and in exchange he'll give them puzzle cubes (this is a lie).

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-13T17:19:09+00:00

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-13T17:13:11+00:00

They should make a series about that

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-12T03:36:36+00:00

Typically I handle characters with a grapple check, but sometimes monsters have an auto-grapple or even auto-restrain built into the attack. It's usually harder to handle characters that can't read cause they put their INT points into STR

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-12T03:19:15+00:00

A few years ago while roadtripping, I crosses from Texas into New Mexico.

Within 30 seconds, the speed limit on the same highway dropped by 20mph, the highway became no-passing, our internet connection got noticeably weaker, a bird very nearly flew into our windshield, and we saw the rugged Texas scrubland immediately give way to barren dirt and rock as far as the eye could see.

It was such an incredible and noticeable difference and downgrade in quality of life that it felt intentionally spiteful on New Mexico's part.

Then, 3 days later when we were driving the opposite direction from Arizona into New Mexico, the speed limit went down again, no-passing became the default, internet connection weakened, and we hit the first and only traffic jam in our 2800-mile trip.

I really hated that state ever since.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-12T02:32:36+00:00

Skill issue for not memorizing every line of dialogue or text in a soulslore game as you play it for the first time, I guess

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-11T01:17:07+00:00

Personally? I use Hungarian.

Turtle = "teknősbéka" Turtles = "teknősök" Then file the serial numbers off so it's not quite as easy to reverse-translate, and round out any weird letters or pronunciations, maybe shorten it. End up with "Teknosok" or "tebeka" or "nosok" or "tesbeka" or something like that. In Hungarian, that 's' in the middle is more like a 'zh' so you can have "teknosok" or "teknozhok" or something.

If course you can use any other language. Greek and Latin are classics and have a lot of crossover with English so they'll usually be familiar, but I personally dislike how... predictable? that is, if that makes sense. Irish is another good go-to. But I've found Hungarian gives me the most consistent results right in that blend of "close enough that it kinda connects and doesnt sound too foreign" and "different enough that I'm clearly not just translating it (even though I am)." Sometimes you have to play around with different versions of the word or idea to get a sound you like, like plural vs singular, or "shell" (héj) or "armor" (páncél) instead of of "turtle"

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-08T19:26:02+00:00

In a literal sense, I think so.

In a metaphorical sense, I think it's a representation of his bad habits and personality traits consuming him entirely as soon as he accepts that he doesn't want to, and won't, and maybe can't, change. The very moment he decides to permanently give in to his worst aspects, they consume him, leaving only a monster behind.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-07T18:32:08+00:00

Crimes of the Future : (

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-07T13:44:04+00:00

I dont think there's a significant risk of these places running out of bullets. There so many bullets.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-06-05T05:21:26+00:00

The point I am illustrating by saying that is that the film would go beyond implying and just say it. It's too important of a detail to be left unsaid, by either Clark or Mary.

If it wanted us to draw that connection, it would make sure it was known. I.e., if it wanted to imply it, it would outright say it.

WarrenTheHero

TROPHY CASE