Tolkien's Dragon-Spell

The Glance of Glaurung by Alexey Rudikov

In Middle Earth, dragons have an ability known as the dragon-spell. This is essentially described as a kind of hypnotic voice/gaze, allowing them to manipulate humans and elves to their will. Dragon-spell could create feelings of distrust, influence the target's perception of the truth (as with Smaug), and even lead to total memory loss and madness (as with Glaurung).

This ability has been connected to dragon-sickness, in which individuals exposed to a dragon's hoard (especially after the dragon's death) can be overcome with greed.

Further information on these can be found at A Tolkienist Perspective and the Lord of the Rings Fandom Wiki.

I wanted to have a go at making these traits into mechanics that could be used for dragons in tabletop games, using D&D 5e mechanics for this entry with the knowledge that they could then be converted into other systems as and when needed.

Sacrifice to the Green Dragon by John Tedrick

Dragon-Spell

Dragons with this capability gain the following additional traits:

Roving Eyes. The dragon targets one creature within 120 feet that can see the dragon's eyes. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw or be charmed by the dragon. At the end of each hour, the target can repeat the saving throw, ending the effect on a success. On a successful save, the target is immune to this dragon's Roving Eyes for 24 hours.

Serpent's Tongue. if the creature can understand the dragon, it must make a Charisma saving throw or become influenced by the dragon indefinitely. A creature that cannot understand the dragon is unaffected by this ability. Before the saving throw is made, the dragon chooses one of the following effects to apply to the creature if it fails the saving throw:

False Truths. The dragon manipulates the target's perception of the truth, creating feelings of greed, loyalty, distrust, or any other desired mindset.
Memory Loss. The dragon clouds the target's memories, causing partial or total memory loss. The dragon can only remove memories in broad strokes (e.g. "your childhood" or "your time in the castle").

The effect can be ended early by the dragon speaking a command word as a bonus action, or by a remove curse, greater restoration, wish spell or similar ability.

Dragon Sickness

This counts as a curse that starts when a dragon dies. Within 1d4 hours, the hoard becomes infested with the curse. Any creature that comes within 30 feet of the hoard must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature is afflicted with dragon sickness. On a successful save, the creature is immune to this hoard's dragon sickness for 24 hours. A creature with dragon sickness gains indefinite madness (DMG, pg 258-260), adding the following flaw to their character: 

"protecting the hoard is all that matters to me now."

The character puts the hoard above all else, and the hoard intends to keep things that way. At the DM's discretion, a particularly large hoard may also provide the following effects to a cursed individual:
- They only eat and drink half as much as a regular person, and sleep half as long
- They are immune to disease
- They have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened
- They age at 1/3 of the rate of their normal race

Dragon Sickness can be cured as with any other indefinite madness. At the DM's discretion, a character may also be able to repeat the saving throw after an extended period of time away from the hoard, or if their desire to protect the hoard conflicts drastically with their character bond (such as with the case of Thorin choosing between the hoard and aiding his allies in battle). Should additional effects be used, the target returns to their own mind with 1d4 levels of exhaustion (no more than 4 total) and their age catches up to them.

Dragon's Hoard by Adam Paquette

I would potentially consider also adding this effect to magic items within the hoard as a curse, similar to the effect on items stolen from the lairs of Mummy Lords (MM, pg 229). Straight up taking the specific regional effect would also work fine.

I also feel that these abilities would work well together with the 'words of power' used by dragons in Skyrim; perhaps instead of traditional breath weapons, they use effects similar to power word stun, power word pain, or power word kill?

Reintroducing Alignment

I wanted to get some vague ideas down on how alignment could be made into a more integral part of 5e, either in general or for a specific setting or campaign. Many of these suggestions are mechanical and come down to the same root point of having alignment be more mechanically present than it is currently, but there are a few lore suggestions here and there as well.

Unfortunately this post is going to be a bit disorganised, though that's nothing new here.

It's also worth mentioning that this isn't a post on why alignment should be implemented, merely how.

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To start off, I'm going to give definitions of alignment. The notion of what is or isn't under which alignment is flexible and open to interpretation, but for this post I'm going to steal and tweak my definitions from a previous post I made on alignment-based factions:

Good: acting for the benefit of others, especially when no personal gain is achieved from it. Altruism, compassion, and empathy are tenants of Good.

Evil: allow or enforce suffering upon others, for one's own benefit or for no benefit whatsoever. Selfishness, manipulation, and abuse are tenants of Evil.

Law: adhere to and enforce a set structure to life and society. This could be a city's laws, a factions rules, a deity's oaths etc.

Chaos: promote free will and metamorphosis, opposing control and restriction, and abiding by one's own sense of how to behave.

Alignment for characters has a dominant trait and a recessive trait, as shown with capitalisation. This is used to indicate which of the two alignments - law-chaos and good-evil - overrides the other in decision making. For example, a Lawful good character will choose Law over Good if pushed, whilst a lawful Good character would choose Good over Law.

Unaligned creatures are such because they lack an understanding of the alignment system and as such are unaffected by its influence. Whilst an animal may act in a chaotic neutral manner, it does so because of its instinctual drives, not due to a sense that the alternative is morally wrong or unfavourable. Creatures with completely different senses of morality and alignment are also classified as Unaligned - in my books, this should arguably include oozes and aberrations, given that their minds are so alien to ours that they may not work on the same notions that we do. They are outside of alignment.

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A game that brings back alignment as a prominent aspect should bring it to the front mechanically as well as in theme and lore. D&D does do this, but 5th edition does so significantly less than past editions. We mainly see alignment present in these aspects:

Spells: spirit guardians has its damage type vary on character alignment. This kind of thing should be expanded upon. Different character alignments or deity alignments should influence damage types, or potentially further influence spell effects. Perhaps casting burning hands whilst Chaotic in alignment makes more things ignite on contact, or bless and bane could be the same spell, with the effect changing based on whether you're Good or Evil?

Monsters: There are some monsters that have alignment-based abilities. Sprites can detect alignment using their Heart Sight; rakshasas are vulnerable to piercing damage from good-aligned creatures; demiliches and unicorns have lair traits/regional effects that affect non-evil and good creatures respectively. Planar creatures especially show these traits, which is to be expected given their stronger connections to alignment.

Items: Items show some of the more prominent alignment mechanics in the game, with items that can only be attuned to if you are of a specific alignment. This makes sense to include, or potentially to expand upon: perhaps an Evil artifact can be attuned to by a Good person, but the abilities they get are different. Alternatively, maybe their abilities are warped? A Good cleric attunes to the Evil item and now all of her healing spells instead deal necrotic damage, or only give temporary hit points?

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As a vague idea, why not have the forces of alignment be more conventional large-scale forces, like deities? We have dichotomous notions of deities in real world religions (e.g. Abrahamic God and Satan), and Forgotten Realms already has the alignments act as planar forces, so why not have gods of Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos? These could in turn create the gods of dual alignments, and/or create emissaries to spread their influence - the devils, slaadi, celestials, modrons etc.

With my personal prefernce for Chaos and Law, I'd potentially go for a god/entity of each of these, which in turn have six opposing spawn (for Chaotic and Lawful good, evil, and neutral).

Alternatively, why not go the route of Avatar? Each alignment is an ideology and way of life, none perfect on their own but best seen in their interactions with one another and the balance of the four. In such a setting, Neutral may be seen as the ideal state to be in, with players traveling the land to learn about the different ways of life and their influences on the world. This could also be an interesting way of exploring how different alignments look from outside perspectives, and how they can come across in many different forms.

An important idea in such a setting to get across for me is that the prescriptive nature of character alignment is something special - it is an indication of free will and the ability to make choices. It is this that differentiates them from celestials and fiends, and this that links them to giants, dragons, and other such creatures. Whilst they may lean towards certain alignments, this isn't set in stone.

This is in contrast with extraplanar entities that directly serve the ideals of their alignment. Their alignment is a fixed state, a constant (yes, even the Chaotic entities) mindset that is unwavering. It can be confused, misled, possibly even manipulated, but their actions and personality are inherently shaped by what they are. Unlike players and other such entities, where alignment is prescriptive, these entities have descriptive alignment.

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Alignment Thresholds
Alignment is on a scale for a reason. There are degrees to which an individual shows alignment, and having thresholds is one way that players can quantify how Good or Lawful their character is.

This is akin to Ravnica's Renown rules, where completing certain actions increases your level of influence and benefits within a faction. It could also be compared to the Humanity and Path tables in Vampire, where committing certain acts influences your behaviour and abilities.

The DM would have a table for each alignment. On these tables are actions and modifiers - actions such as harming an innocent, forcing an ally to face the force of justice, starting a rebellion or putting yourself in harm's way to save another. When players commit an action, the DM can alter the number of points they have on the alignment axis. You need a minimum number of points to be classified as an alignment; under this you count as Neutral.

Upon reaching certain point thresholds, different boons become available to you. These range from being more amiable with creatures of the same alignment to actual abilities based on the tenants of your alignment. They should ideally be beneficial to both martial and spellcasting classes, and have some flavour based on your alignment of choice. Perhaps there could be multiple to choose from, depending on how detailed this system was.

EDIT: After some discussion, these boons should ideally be focused on non-combat aspects of the game to prevent players going specific alignments just for certain attacks or combat benefits.

If you drop below your alignment threshold, the boons you had beyond your new score are lost to you.

These boons may also be available to NPCs, giving nice flavourful mechanics to your allies and enemies, and also informing players about what kind of person or creature you're dealing with.

Running Ten Candles online: a reflection

These things are true.

The world is dark.

And we are alive.

I am very happy to report that last night I had a successful first time running Ten Candles, a tragic horror one-shot TTRPG written by Stephen Dewey and published by Cavalry Games. In this game, players collaboratively tell the tale of a group of survivors, attempting to do one last act of defiance against the enemy (Them) that will slowly and surely consume them in the darkness. It is very much intended to be a game played in person, with much of the game’s mechanics being linked to the visual display of the game, as ten candles are lit in a circle and each player literally burns their trait cards one by one as they are used up.

I don’t currently have ten candles, a fireproof bowl, or a group of people with time to run this game. I also didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of people by discovering halfway through a game that I can’t do horror very well. With that in mind, I had to improvise, running the game online through Discord and Roll20.

Below isn’t necessarily a full review of the game itself, but instead a reflection on how it went running the game on a digital platform, and what lessons from this session could be brought into future games both on and off the computer.

Faction Prompt: Gorgon Templars

I was sent this post recently, and having both a soft spot for bullet point worldbuilding and gorgons, I wanted to have a go at expanding on this concept a bit.

The tale of Saint Orabella is one of martyrdom and monsters: her homeland decayed under the weight of their corpulence and corruption. Distraught at what she saw, Orabella prayed to take on the sins of her people so that they may be given a chance to start anew and redeem themselves. In doing so, she was transformed into a gorgon, and her church cast her out as a monster. Orabella held onto her faith for the rest of her life, until another saint slew her as part of their journey.

Knights that seek to emulate Saint Orabella - to take on the burdens and sins of those around them, to endure deformity and exile for their faith and the betterment of others - may find themselves entering her sect. Entering her cathedral, they are watched by stone sentries, their faces wrought with looks of defiance, endurance, and exhaustion. The cathedral's interior is plain. At the far end, an altar awaits its worshipers; held atop in the caring hands of a headless statue is a relic, covered in a thin veil of silk.

The severed head of Orabella.

Medusa Head by Shafiq Cromwell

Initiation into the Sect of Saint Orabella requires each knight to gaze into the eyes of their saint and endure her stare. To the knights, petrification and the power it brings is as much a symbol as a real affliction. For them, it is a physical representative of the burdens one has to bear and the temptations one must resist in order to be a good person. Those that are petrified give in to these temptations and cannot carry their burdens, whilst those that endure are able to push them back... for a while. In time, they too shall fall victim to the curse and join their brothers and sisters as stone guardians of the cathedral.

Exactly why this happens has been interpreted in many ways. Some argue that temptation is not something that can be resisted forever by mere mortals, and the petrification takes its hold over all because they are simply human (or whatever other species they may be). Others claim that the 'blessing' of their saint is simply a curse given by a monster, and that the knights are clearly deluded for seeking power from a monster's affliction.

The knights bear their marks with subtlety at first. Their eyes look weary, sometimes reddened and weeping. Their joints ache and muscles tense without provocation. Though their skin may be clean and youthful from the constant use of healing salves, the smell of alchemical ingredients clings to their body, and over application may stain their skin in time. It is this staining and reliance on alchemists that has led to this sect being ousted in the past; few alchemists are willing to withhold details of their clients when a templar inquisition is at their doorstep.

The excommunication and imprisonment of these knights has been kept a close secret, for knowledge of splintering within the templars - or that this splintering was due to the praise of a saint turned monster - would do little to aid their efforts in maintaining control and praise of the common folk. Justifying bloodshed and raiding in the name of their lord is hard enough without including severed heads and petrification into the mix.

Response to A Tradition

I haven't posted anything here in a while, and I often find the best way to get back into blog post writing is to start off with something simple and keep that ball rolling. So for today, I decided to respond to the following Tumblr prompt by sonatagreen (original post here):

In peacetime, the ruler grows their hair long. In war, they cut it short.
A ruler with long hair is held in great esteem, for defending the peace.
The traditional declaration of war is for the ruler to send their cut off hair to the enemy ruler. The statement carries greater weight the longer the hair: the receive long hair says that you have angered one who is slow to anger, that you have incurred a wrath not easily woken.

And here is a response by wakor-rising that was included in the screenshot I initially saw of the post:

Violent war-mongering leader frantically and aggressively tries to shave just a LITTLE hair off the top of their head into an envelope.
A faraway king receives a heavy wooden crate filled with a coil of the longest hair he has ever seen.
A despised ruler finds hundreds of pounds of cut-off ponytails at her castle entrance, each one belonging to her own people.
A young emperor refuses to cut their hair and insists on trying to make peace with invaders. The enemy leader steps forward, draws their blade, and cuts the emperor's hair themselves.
Hellen cuts her hair off and throws it in Cathy's face at her son's soccer scrimmage.

The notion of hair as a symbol of power and the symbolic losing of one's hair isn't a new concept. In the Hebrew Bible, we have Samson, who gained supernatural strength from being a nazirite (an Israelite who, amongst other things, allows their hair to grow long and doesn't cut it). When his hair is cut, Samson loses this power. A more recent take on this theme can be seen in George R R Martin's Dothraki, who braid their hair with bells after each victory and have their hair cut as a symbol of shame upon defeat. Culturally, we see hair and its presentation have prominence in multiple cultures, as a sign of power, life, beauty, and civility.

So the idea of hair as a sign of stability definitely has roots in real life and past fiction. The notion of cutting hair short in times of conflict also serves as a good practical practice: just as horse tails may be knotted to stop people using them for leverage, so too might rulers wish to have short hair so it cannot be used against them in combat.

Of course, there are multiple factors that could also come into play in such a culture, which add a lot of depth to such a setting. For example, methods of masking the true length of one's hair: in ancient Rome, Caesar hid his thinning hair with a laurel wreath, as a full head of hair was seen as desirable. In a similar way, rulers with short hair may use hair extensions or wigs to mask the true length of their hair, whilst hats and crowns may be seen as obvious forms of deceit, and as such be seen as unfavourable for a ruler to wear. Rulers who aren't gifted with long locks may have to seek other ways of providing large quantities of hair, such as having professional 'hair growers' to harvest from.

There is also the potential for scalping: forcibly removing hair - roots and all - from the scalp, leaving the victim with heavy scarring and the inability to grow hair in those areas. This would surely be seen as a ruthless form of defeating or humiliating a ruler. Alternatively, it could be seen as a dishonourable act on the part of the aggressor, as it gives the victim no option to participate in this culture of peaceful presentation and forewarning of battle.

Societal customs outside of nobility could also show influences from this practice (as in the case of wakor-rising's soccer game). People with long hair are seen as more level-headed and reasonable whilst those with short hair are more temperamental and violent. Barbers may hold a higher status, given their profession of shaping and shearing this status symbol. Those with long hair may wear protective head garments to stop others from cutting it off - assassinations of character may come in the form of skulking into rooms at night with scissors, providing temporary shame without risk of bloodshed or the crime of murder.

A final point I will bring up is that if this took place in a setting with magic, then there is the potential for a lord's challenge to go poorly for them if the ability to curse people with samples of their body parts is present. As in fictional depictions of Voodoo dolls, a ruler's hair could be used to harm them, and as such this cultural practice may require extra precautions in order to be done safely. Alternatively, the potential for curses may make the declaration of war that much more prominent, given that the ruler is willing to risk their own life and chop off their symbol of peace and strength in order to declare battle against an enemy.

Selkie Race for D&D 5e

In a similar time frame to making my medusoids, I also made a race block for selkies, a creature from Scottish folklore that is essentially a sensible response to the Mermaid Problem but with seals instead of fish.

The Selkie by Kitty-Grimm

Here's the lore part I included:

The elusive selkies or seal-folk are mostly known of through sea shanties and bard songs; typically the tales of fishermen that steal their pelts and coerce them into marriage. The pelt must be hidden, for as soon as the selkie finds her pelt, she returns to the sea and is never seen again.

Few selkies that choose to interact with the surface world are open about their origin, predominantly due to these tales. Those that are not deterred by these stories tend to come to land to either learn more of the strange world of air and sky, or to seek vengeance for the hunting of one of their kin or the polluting of their homelands.

A selkie without their pelt is near identical to a human, bar some unusual skin blemishes akin to seal spots and the smell of salt on their skin. The children of humans and selkies are less fortunate; they are born with webbed hands and feet, with a rare few born with even more seal-like traits. These individuals may be kept on land by their human parent as a reminder of the love they once had, or rejected and cast out into the cold seas that are no more their home than the harbor towns and fishing villages they were born in.

I've also included a rough statblock for a generic seal, given that there wasn't one already (I mean, there's the sea lion, which could maybe be a form obtained later on as a feat or something?)

To read the racial statblock, check out the link here. The art in the document is Vengeful Selkie by BeaGifted.

Medusoids: Jellyfish people for D&D 5e

Just a quick post today, sharing a brew for jellyfish people inspired by Caitlin Soliman's art, especially her jellyfish-themed mermaids:

Here are just a few of them!

As a bit of lore for them:

Watchers of the tides and archivists of history, the medusoids measure their lives not in years, but in aspects: units of time defined by going from one life to another. As one aspect withers, it is rejuvenated into an infant state, equipped with knowledge from its past lives and a fresh, new outlook on the future.

Medusoids that answer the call to adventure do so due to a need to change the world they have witnessed for so long, either to restore some constant balance or to instil long-needed change. Though not physically strong, they compensate for this with great knowledge and an array of nematocyst-ridden tendrils emerging from their bodies.

Tales from the surface speak little of the medusoids, other than sailors telling drunken tales of singing jellyfish, ghosts of drowned wives-to-be, and strange findings of translucent clumps of vaguely humanoid flesh washed up on beaches, clean of pecks by any seabirds.

To read the racial statblock, check out the link here.