Phelanar's Guide
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Phelanar’s Guide to Monsters of the Forgotten Sagas part 2 for The 13th Age Roleplaying Game Compatibility with the 13th Age Roleplaying Game requires the 13th Age Roleplaying Game from Fire Opal Media Inc. and Pelgrane Press Ltd. See 13thAge.com for more information on the 13th Age Roleplaying Game. Fire Opal Media does not guarantee compatibility, and does not endorse this product. Introduction The first part of Monsters of the Forgotten Sagas was a lot of fun to write and a lot of people told me how much they enjoyed not only the monsters, but the “commentary” and designer’s notes that I included with those monsters. I really liked being able to revisit those old monsters, revise some of them, and give some context for them. I will be doing the same here in part 2, along with some extra scans and bonuses as I can do them. Part one covered the first 17 sessions of Forgotten Sagas of the 13th which was roughly the first third of the campaign. This second part should cover the next 24 sessions before the party found themselves in Forge for the final stretch of the campaign. This part of the campaign is much more focused than the first, as it delves into dealing with duergar and cultists of dead gods. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t side treks and ventures into more odd encounters & enemies, but the variety shrinks down a bit and has a more natural progression. If you’re interested in watching the campaign for yourself, maybe as you read about the monsters as I’m using and seeing how they worked back then, you can find it on Youtube here and if you’d like to see the campaign on Obsidian Portal you can find it here. If you are interested in following along with my current campaign (Dark Lantern’s Light) as it plays out, you can find it on Youtube here and on Obsidian Portal here with livestreams taking place every two weeks on Wednesdays at 5pm PST/8pm EST on Google Hangouts. Stop by the stream as we’re playing and you can comment, ask questions, or otherwise participate as we play! June 2015 Monsters of the Forgotten Sagas part 2 Page 2 The Duergar Clans Duergar Warrior Duergar Runecaster Level 1 Mook (Humanoid) Level 3 Caster Init: +3 Init: +5 Handaxe +6 vs AC 4 damage R: Word of Hate +8 vs MD 8 damage Thrown Axe +5 vs AC 4 damage Natural Even Hit Target is Vulnerable (Save Ends) Shield Wall Duergar Warriors gain a +2 to AC when 2 or more Duergar are engaged Flame Hammer +7 vs AC 10 Fire Damage with the same target Natural 16+ Hit One nearby nonmook ally heals 10 damage AC 17 PD 16 HP 8 (Mook) Word of Rage One nearby nonmook ally MD 10 gains a +2 to their next attack roll. Usable Mook: Kill 1 Duergar Warrior for every 8 damage once per turn as a quick action. done to the mob AC 19 PD 13 HP 48 MD 17 Duergar Soldier Duergar Berserker Level 2 Troop (Humanoid) Level 2 Wrecker (Humanoid) Init +4 Init: +6 Warhammer +7 vs AC 7 damage Bloody Axe +10 vs AC 7 damage Natural 16+ Hit Hit 1 nearby enemy for 3 Natural Even Miss 3 damage damage Bloodhunt +2 damage when hitting Crossbow +6 vs AC 7 damage staggered enemies Shield Bash +6 vs PD 5 damage and the Unstoppable Rage The berserker gains +2 target takes a 2 penalty to AC until the to crit range while staggered beginning of the Duergar Soldier’s next turn. Usable once per turn as a quick action. AC 15 PD 14 HP 40 Durable Ignore the first 4 damage each MD 9 round AC 19 PD 17 HP 36 MD 10 June 2015 Monsters of the Forgotten Sagas part 2 Page 3 Darksign Duergar Rhianwen, Queen of Ravens Double Strength Level 2 Troop (Humanoid) Double Strength Level 3 Caster (Humanoid) Init +6 Init +5 Hungry Axe +7 vs AC 12 damage R: Red Raven +8 vs AC 15 damage Natural Even Hit or Miss Ongoing 5 Natural Even Hit Ongoing 5 damage damage C: Chain of Shadows +6 vs MD against C: Cloak of Darkness +7 vs MD against 1d3 1d3 nearby enemies 10 damage and the nearby enemies The target is Vulnerable to target is Stuck (save ends) the next Darksign Duergar attack against it and is 2 to their next attack against the Razor Claws +6 vs AC 10 damage Darksign Duergar. Usable once per battle. Natural Even Miss 5 damage Tattoo Shield As an immediate interrupt once Burning Health One nearby nonmook ally per battle, reduce damage from an attack by heals 12 HP, but takes a 2 penalty to half. If the Darksign Duergar crits with Hungry defenses until the end of their next turn. Axe, this ability can be used again. AC 19 Power of Death When the Escalation Die is PD 14 HP 85 odd, the Darksign Duergar adds it to its attack MD 17 AC 19 PD 17 HP 70 MD 10 Designer’s Notes Duergar weren’t intended to be as big a part of the rest of the campaign as they were, but thankfully I think they came out pretty well. One of the first things to say about my versions of duergar is that I have what could be called a mixed relationship with the fantasy concept of culture being the same thing as race. Things like snow elves and gold dwarves and so on where it’s not really a separate race, but instead is the same race just in a different environment which has different cultural knowledge and physical needs. So here, instead of saying “Okay, duergar are a whole different race” and giving them wacky powers like venomous spikes in their hair or being able to grow to giant size, duergar are just dwarves. Exiles, outcasts, and renegades, but still just dwarves. They’re different culturally, not physically. I even came up with a faux etymology where “duergar” comes from the dwarven words “duer” and “gar” which mean “fallen” and “brother” respectively. Not to say that I didn’t get some weird powers in there, but that’s more a factor of what these particular duergar clans are doing and not because of who they are. But to start, things were pretty simple. My duergar designs started as basically bad guy dwarves. They’re solid and dependable and evil. They were like that mechanically as well. The duergar warrior is a pretty simple design, but versatile and has some good staying power due to the shield wall power. Players still mowed it down, as you should with mooks, but they were a definite thorn in June 2015 Monsters of the Forgotten Sagas part 2 Page 4 the side of the adventurers until they were just too far behind in levels to be any real threat. But for characters up to about level 3, the warriors are reasonably dangerous. The duergar soldier is one of those designs that I like so much that I’ve repeated elements of it over and over. It’s dangerous at all ranges. That shield bash attack? I’ve stolen that from myself repeatedly because I really love it. I like the idea of quick action attacks and abilities. It’s something you’ll see a lot through my designs. As a GM, I like to make my monsters slightly more complex because that makes them a little more fun to play. A quick action ability, whether it’s an attack, a buff, a heal, whatever, is just fun. I think I do tend to overdo them, yes. Especially ones like the shield bash here, which basically sets up any PC that’s hit with it for the soldier’s main attack. I should, sometimes, keep those two things separate, so that one enemy forgoes some damage in order to set up a nasty blow for another enemy. However, that pushed aside, I loved using the soldier and it showed up nearly all the way to the end. When the players were level 5, they were almost like mooks and I think the players found it satisfying to mow them down when they had been such trouble early on. The runecaster is a really nasty piece of work. It’s very versatile and makes all its allies better. It’s also one of the higher level “grunt” duergar that I used for a long while, so between that and the collection of abilities I rarely used more than one of them in a fight. It was kind of like the “officer” of any given fight. In addition, their abilities made them useful for longer than their level would indicate all the way up into the low Champion tier. The berserkers are pretty straight forward. They’re glass cannons, which is something I also like to do fairly often. They can deal out a ton of damage, but they’re very easy to hit and don’t have more HP than the average creature. That makes them a prime target for players, which might make them ignore other threats (like the runecaster above). The Darksign Duergar is a “plot” duergar. It’s not a normal duergar, but one that’s been tattooed and imbued with power that ultimately arises from dead gods. Originally, the Darksign was a bosslike monster, to let players know that things weren’t quite as simple as they appeared.