FIENDS zine #1

 

The first issue of FIENDS is now available for download!

FIENDS is a zine of Lego builds, stories, and whatever else people want to put in it. It features submissions from the BrikWars community but is open to anyone.

Download FIENDS #1 here!

More Ways to Die: Getting Old

 You wanna see the most messed up class feature in all of 5e?

 

 

"Timeless Body (Monk feature)

At 15th level, your ki sustains you so that you suffer none of the frailty of old age, and you can't be aged magically. You can still die of old age, however. In addition, you no longer need food or water."

 

You know what rules there are in 5e for "frailty of old age" and "dying of old age"? That's right, none.

 

Ever since I ran a Traveller campaign I feel like a system is just incomplete without rules for aging and dying. It's especially relevant to my group because not only do we have a monk in the party, we also have an awakened cat. Cats don't live very long, you know.

 

So, here are my rules for getting old in 5e. They assume the use of my other house rules for dying, though you could just attach them to vanilla 5e.

 

The species table uses "official" lifespans as far as I could find them. The exception is eladrin, elves, sea elves, and half-elves, who have Tolkien-style immortality. If you prefer the official lifespans for these species, use the values of shadar-kai for eladrin, elves, and sea elves, and use the values of minotaurs for half-elves.

 

Old Age
To determine your birthday, roll 1d12 for month and 1d30 for day.

When you reach a certain age, you must start making aging checks regularly at a certain interval of years. To pass an aging check, you must roll 4+ on 1d6. If you fail, your exhaustion limit (the amount of exhaustion at which you die) is reduced by one. If the limit reaches zero, you die. At a certain age, the difficulty of the aging check increases to 5+, and later to 6+.

If you succeed on an aging check, roll 1d4 on the Aging Effects table below.

1. Your life experience grants you XP equal to your age times your level times 5.
2. Randomly determine three different ability scores. Increase one of your choice by 1, and decrease another one of your choice by 1. The one you decrease has its maximum value reduced by 1.
3. You gain expertise with one skill or tool you have proficiency with.
4. You have entered the golden years. Until you fail an aging check, you gain inspiration on each of your birthdays. This effect can stack, granting you several instances of inspiration.

Your starting age, the age at which you must start making aging checks, the ages at which the difficulty of the check increases, and the interval in years between the checks, are all determined by your species.

Species	Starting age	Interval	Aging 4+	Aging 5+	Aging 6+
Aarakocra	2+1d3	2	6	16	26
Aasimar	15+3d8	8	64	104	144
Bugbear	13+3d6	4	32	52	72
Cat	1d4	1	5	10	15
Centaur	15+3d6	4	36	56	76
Changeling	13+2d6	4	36	56	76
Dragonborn	13+2d6	4	36	56	76
Duergar	15+3d8	24	120	240	360
Dwarf	15+3d8	24	120	240	360
Eladrin*	15+3d8	40	40	-	-
Elf*	15+3d8	40	40	-	-
Fairy	15+3d6	4	60	80	100
Firbolg	15+3d8	28	140	280	420
Genasi	15+3d6	4	72	92	112
Githyanki**	15+3d6	4	36	56	76
Githzerai	15+3d8	8	56	96	136
Gnome	15+3d8	28	140	280	420
Goblin	7+1d6	4	14	34	54
Goliath	15+3d6	4	36	56	76
Half-elf***	15+3d8	4	40	60	80
Halfling	15+3d8	8	40	80	120
Half-orc	12+2d6	4	28	48	68
Harengon	15+3d6	4	36	56	76
Hobgoblin	15+3d6	4	36	56	76
Human	15+3d6	4	36	56	76
Kenku	11+1d6	4	20	40	60
Kobold	5+1d6	8	24	64	104
Lizardfolk	13+1d6	4	20	40	60
Loxodon	15+3d8	28	140	280	420
Minotaur	15+3d8	8	100	140	180
Orc	10+2d6	2	26	36	46
Satyr	15+3d6	4	36	56	76
Sea elf*	15+3d8	40	40	-	-
Shadar-kai	15+3d8	56	180	460	740
Shifter	8+2d6	4	24	44	64
Simic hybrid****	?	?	?	?	?
Tabaxi	15+3d6	4	36	56	76
Tiefling	15+3d6	4	40	60	80
Tortle	13+2d6	2	32	42	52
Triton	15+3d8	8	100	140	180
Vedalken	36+4d6	28	140	280	420
Yuan-ti	15+3d6	4	36	56	76

 *Eladrin, elves, and sea elves are immortal. When they fail an aging check, their exhaustion limit is not reduced. Instead, they incur a cumulative -10% penalty to all XP gained. This can eventually prevent them from gaining XP entirely. Successful aging checks do not grant a roll on the Aging Effects table.

**For a githyanki, time spent in the Astral Plane does not count towards their aging. They still use their full age and actual birthdays for effects from the Aging Effects table. A starting githyanki character is assumed to have spent half their life so far in the Astral Plane.

***When a half-elf reaches age 40, they must choose whether to accept or refuse immortality. If they accept, they age as an elf. If they refuse, they age normally using the given values.

****Simic hybrids use the values of their origin species. The ages at which they must start making aging checks, and at which the aging check increases in difficulty, are reduced by a number of years equal to the origin species' interval. This does not apply if their origin species is eladrin, elf, or sea elf.

Consuming Draconic Essence

After fighting elves for a bit the party decided to return to the castle, and go for round two against the dragon. They slew it! The sorcerer decided to bite into the dragon's heart, and received a vision of the missing princess speaking with the dragon. But the sorcerer was not satisified with just a bite. He ate the whole thing.

You gotta reward that kind of behavior, so for the next session I prepared some consequences.

YOU WILL BELIEVE. (No, I have not seen this movie) 

 Consuming Draconic Essence

You can consume the essence of a dragon by devouring its heart, or by another appropriate method. Each dragon only has one essence.

The first time you consume the essence of a dragon, roll 1d4 on the Benefits table and 1d4 on the Penalties table. For every subsequent essence consumed, the size of the die you roll on the Benefits table increases by one step, to a maximum of 1d10. You always roll 1d4 on the Penalties table.

Reroll duplicate results on the Benefits table, but not on the Penalties table. 

Benefits

1. At the end of each session, you gain 5 extra XP for every 50 gp worth of treasure you own. These XP are only for you and not shared with anyone else.

2. You grow scales and gain natural armor that gives an AC equal to 13 + your Con modifier.

3. You learn Draconic, and can cast charm person once per day without using a spell slot. If you don’t have a spellcasting ability score, use Charisma.

4. Whenever you deal damage of the same type as the most common breath weapon among the draconic essences you have consumed, you deal 1 extra damage per draconic essence you have consumed.

5. You gain a breath weapon that you can use once per day. It affects a 30’ cone. It deals 1d6 damage per draconic essence you have consumed. The damage type is that of the most common breath weapon among the draconic essences you have consumed. A target can make a Dex save to take half damage. The DC is 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Con modifier.

6. You gain resistance to the damage type of the most common breath weapon among the draconic essences you have consumed.

7. You gain +2 Constitution, and your maximum possible Constitution increases by 2.

8. You gain +2 Charisma, and your maximum possible Charisma increases by 2.

9. You become one size category larger. Your weapon/unarmed attacks deal 2 extra damage.

10. You grow wings and gain a flying speed of 60’.

Penalties

1. Half of all treasure you own, and half of any you earn (rounding up) are considered your hoard. To spend treasure from your hoard, you must pass a Wis save of DC 12 + the number of digits in the gp value you want to spend. If you fail, you can try again the next day. The DC increases by 2 for every additional time you roll this penalty.

2. If any of your treasure is stolen or lost, you take 1d4 psychic damage per digit in the gp value lost. The size of the dice increases by one step for every additional time you roll this penalty.

3. Your ungainly body reduces your Dexterity by 1, and your maximum possible Dexterity is reduced by 1.

4. The stress of your transformation causes you to gain one level of exhaustion and lose 50 XP.

How to Die, and XP for Failure

Ok, so like I said in the last post, I made some changes to the 5e 2014 rules. The major change is to the dying and resting rules, which ties in to how I award XP. You may be able to apply the basic principle in other games.

Dying: When you go to 0 HP, you gain one level of exhaustion. Then, the party gains XP equal to your level of exhaustion, times your level, times 100. This XP is shared equally among all PCs at the end of the session.

When you fail a death saving throw, you gain one level of exhaustion, and the party gains XP in the same way as above.

Exhaustion: The normal penalties for exhaustion do not apply, except you still die if you reach six levels of exhaustion.

Short rest: During a short rest, you can spend hit dice to regain hit points as normal. You always regain the maximum amount of hit points from each die, no need to roll.

Long rest: A long rest does not let you recover any hit points by itself, but you can spend hit dice just like during a short rest. You recover all hit dice and spell slots at the end of a long rest. But if you have exhaustion, there is an X in 6 chance to not recover an expended hit die or spell slot, where X is your level of exhaustion. Roll a d6 for each expended hit die and spell slot.

After determining what hit dice and spell slots you recover, remove one level of exhaustion.

Channel Divinity: A cleric or paladin with exhaustion must roll to recover expended uses of Channel Divinity during a short rest, in the same way as for hit dice and spell slots during a long rest. They always recover Channel Divinity during a long rest. (We agreed to implement this after the Life Cleric went crazy with her Channel Divinity healing.)

Base XP Reward: At the end of each session, in addition to the XP gained from dying, each character earns XP equal to the highest level among the surviving characters, times 100.

New Characters: If your character dies, your new character starts one level lower than your high score (minimum 3).

The guys who survived the dragon fight found themselves mysteriously dumped in the wilderness. They headed to town and someone had the idea "hey, maybe we should tell the queen there's a friggin dragon in her castle." So they returned to the castle and screwed around, killed some wolves and more suitors, never got around to telling the queen anything, and then an old guy with an arrow in his back showed up in town and said the elves were coming. I didn't mention this last post, but our heroes did previously break a statue of the king's grandpa that had a weird pointy-eared monster inside. Which they killed. Well what they don't know is that it was the elf lord of the land, twisted by his long imprisonment, who was sealed in there by the first human king, and with the old elf lord dead, the great fey has finally chosen a new ruler of the land's elves, and she has called upon them to take back what is theirs, and now the elf war is about to begin.

ELF WAR PARTIES

Roll d4 for Frontline and Support, and combine.

Frontline

1. 1d4 elfmaidens riding unicorns
2. 1d2 fey trolls (cannot regenerate while touching steel)
3. Vine mech piloted by an elf
4. 1d6 foxfolk mercenaries

Support

1. 1d6 stealth archer elves
2. 1d4 singing bard elves
3. 1d4 solar priest elves
4. 1d4 flying wind wizard elves 

The Old-school 5e Renaissance Has Begun

 The new edition of D&D 5e has been out for a while, and people seem to agree that it's kinda bad but it's all right. I have no interest in playing it. But it did make me think back to the olden days (mid-2010s) when I first ran 5e. It was fun! 5e was, at the time, an OSR game. We had weird player characters wandering the wilderness and delving dungeons, searching for treasure and dying horribly to my home-made monsters. Why not return to those rose-tinted days of high adventure!

My friends were thinking the same, so we've started a 5e 2014 campaign. There's a talking cat, and a servant of cosmic Law, and a kobold that can turn giant, and more, and they came to the sick king's castle that had turned into a dungeon, and they fought poison-spitting stag lizards and creepy suitors looking to marry the queen, and they met a raven man who gave them random prophecies of doom, and the queen wanted them to cure the king and also find the lost princess, and they looted the princess's bedroom and found a secret door, and they fought a dragon that kicked their ass and killed the kobold, but the player came back with a githyanki stand-user... Yes, this is just like I remember it!

Of course I had to make some changes to the rules, but that's all part of the fun. Here's what I think needs fixing in 5e 2014. Maybe I'll go into more detail on how I did it later.

• All player options are allowed
• Put ability score bonuses wherever you want 
• Start at level 3
• No feats or multiclassing
• Fix or ban the annoying spells
• Fix the druid
• Fix the ranger
• Don't fully recover after a single long rest if you got really beat up
• Add a travel system
• Decide how to reward XP
• And most importantly: Make the monsters deadlier

I know there have been people trying to make 5e into more of an "old-school" game before, but I'm not really trying to make 5e like the early editions of D&D. I'm trying to make it into the 5e I remember playing, the game from my blurry nostalgic memories. And I'm succeeding!

To be continued...? 

MM3: Dragon to Giant

<-Previous 

Dragon

Blizzard dragon, earthquake dragon, volcanic dragon (all with wyrmling, young, adult, elder, and ancient variants)

By the time of the third monster manual, 4e had already gone through chromatic and metallic dragons, so now it was time to get a bit weirder. Here we have the catastrophic dragons, which are great! Dragons as living disasters make a lot of sense, and you could easily come up with more types: thunder dragons, tsunami dragons...

The catastrophic dragons don’t have breath weapons. Instead, their catastrophe is constantly raging, with the dragon at the heart of the calamity. I think the behaviour of the dragons would vary depending on their type. A volcanic dragon would have a volcanic lair, occasionally venturing forth to ravage the land. A blizzard dragon might haunt a tundra or mountain range. An earthquake dragon would live deep beneath the earth, rising to the surface to bring destruction before descending into the depths once again.

Dread warrior

Dread protector, dread marauder, dread archer, dread guardian

These are undead soldiers who retain the martial skill they possessed in life, and are utterly loyal to their master. They are described as still being kinda stupid and unable to follow complex orders, but I think it’s more interesting if they are intelligent, at least in matters of warfare. If the dread warriors’ master is slain, they are freed and can do as they please. But what would undead creatures that only know war do with their freedom? Become mercenaries? Set out to conquer the world? Retire and un-live in peace? Each dread warrior must make a decision on how to spend their undying existence.

Drow

Drow zealot, draegloth abomination, drow shadowblade, drow archmage, drow exalted consort, drow lady of spiders

The drow described in this book are the abyssal drow, who live in the demonic Abyss at Lolth’s side. (Remember, the mortal world’s drow empire was destroyed by the chitines.) The drow make for yet another faction in the eternal war for the Abyss.

Draegloth abominations are fusions of drow, spider, and demon. Every draegloth should be unique and messed up: a drider-like creature, a spider with eight elf-legs, a humanoid with a spider head and one arm replaced by two spider legs...

Drow shadowblades are cool too. They’re assassins who can summon a shadow clone of themselves. They might team up on a target, or just send the shadow off by itself.

Elemental

Air elemental, earth elemental, fire elemental, water elemental (all with lesser, normal, and greater variants)

4e preferred elementals that combined several elements, so the regular elementals didn’t appear until this third monster manual. Multi-element elementals are more interesting for sure, but there is something to be said for the thematic resonance of “pure” elementals. I would use them sparingly, perhaps bound to magical items a la the old “brazier of fire elementals” and so on. The one who possesses the item can summon forth an elemental, but must concentrate to stay in control of it. Allows for shenanigans with stealing the item and taking control of the elemental, the elemental going wild and so on.

Forsaken

Forsaken fearwrack, forsaken infiltrator, forsaken loreseeker, forsaken slaughterer, forsaken mastermind

The forsaken are humanoids infused with the dispersed essence of slain gods. Having got a taste of divinity, they want more. They hunt angels and devils to absorb their divine essence, and scheme to kill more gods. Also, they took their own eyes out so they don’t have to look at the mortal world. Also, they’re all super-powerful, level 26 at minimum.

I kinda want to totally rewrite this. Forsaken are people who are addicted to divine essence. Long-term use makes their eyes deteriorate, as a defense mechanism against having to see the meagre truth of their mortal existence. Also, the forsaken become incredibly powerful, filled with residual god power... as long as they keep getting their fix.

I could see forsaken as a ruling class, of a society fully geared towards getting their leaders that divine essence. Devils might be the most easily accessible source. Parties of devil hunters would be sent out into the world, probably armed with some spell or item to prevent defeated devils from escaping to Hell.

Foulspawn

Foulspawn wretch, foulspawn mockery, foulspawn warpcaller

Fucked up guys from the Far Realm. Nothing really special about them, they are enemies of all that is natural, they want to kill you or drive you mad, etc. I don’t think Far Realm creatures should be out to destroy the world or whatever, they should generally be indifferent to it. Foulspawn could be less powerful entities of the Far Realm that have entered this world by accident or summoning. The physical laws of this realm are entirely different from those of their home, and so the foulspawn find themselves inhabiting new, bizarre bodies in an alien world they can barely comprehend. A horrifying experience for everyone involved.

Frog

Thornskin frog, sporeback frog, murklord frog

Frogs are neat, they can shoot their tongues out and pull enemies in. Uhh, yeah, that’s about it, the text really doesn’t tell you anything unexpected. Gotta come up with something... Okay, so sporebacks have mushrooms growing on their back. Thornskins would have thorns, then? So frogs live in direct symbiosis with plants and fungi. What about murklords? The text says they have stripes on their back that flare when enemies approach. Perhaps a colony of psychic, bioluminescent microorganisms that detect foes for the frog.

Frogs might be tamed and used by nomads as mobile gardens. A herbalist always has access to fresh ingredients of all kinds, no matter what lands they are travelling through, all thanks to their trusty frog.

Gargoyle

Ironstone gargoyle, hornstone gargoyle, obsidian gargoyle, runic gargoyle

Gargoyles are described as a type of earth elemental, spawned from rock. That makes no sense to me. Gargoyles are at their core statues: they should be crafted. The runic gargoyle is the most interesting variant here. It is described as covered in arcane runes that bond it to its master. There we go, there’s a set of runes you can use to animate and control elemental creatures. Items used to control other elementals probably carry similar runes. Non-runic gargoyles likely had their runes destroyed or worn off, letting them run wild.

Ghoul

Ghoul flesh seeker, adept of Orcus, ghast

My idea of ghouls will be forever shaped by Pickman’s Model. Humans twisted into inhumanity through cannibalism, who steal children to teach them to eat as they do. There’s nothing in this entry to counter that interpretation, so that’s all good.

Ghouls are noted to dig vast tunnel networks beneath the earth. Pulling from Lovecraft yet again, perhaps these tunnels reach between the planes? An easy way for the party to travel between worlds, if they can stomach allying with the ghouls.

Giant

Fire giant lavamaster, fire giant flamedancer, fire giant smokecaller, frost giant berserker, frost giant shield bearer, frost giant chieftain, hill giant smasher, hill giant rockthrower, hill giant avalancher

Fire, frost, and hill giants are detailed in this book. Those happen to be my favorites from among the standard giant types. Perfect!

Going by the titles given, the frost giants seem to have a Viking-esque society, with chieftains, shield bearers and berserkers. The fire giants seem more fantastical and mystical, interacting directly with lava, flame, and smoke. And the hill giants just seem brutish, neither civilized nor magical.

Perhaps the frost giants were the original giants, ruling the world in a colder age. As the climate became warmer, some giants allied themselves with fire, while others stayed loyal to frost, retreating into colder regions. And a few outcasts refused both elements, wandering the green hills by their lonesome.

MM3: Chitine to Devil

<- Previous

Chitine

Chitine grunt, chitine warrior, chitine scout, chitine marauder, chitine web crafter, choldrith

“The chitines are a failed attempt to create the perfect slave race.” That’s pretty fucking raw. They’re Drow-Frankenstein’s spider-monsters who rebelled and now have their own society, which has some similarities to drow society. They worship Lolth, and they are ruled by a caste of priestesses (choldriths).

That’s pretty good: The drow empire brought down by their own creations. The chitine now rule the fallen cities, a twisted reflection of the long-gone elves.

Cloaker

Cloaker ambusher, cloaker lord

Flat flying creatures that live underground and envelop people to eat them. It’s fine, but not that exciting.

Then the text drops the fact that cloakers gather in conclaves where they join together in a big sphere to communicate! Now we’re talking! Take them out of the underdark and put them in the air, a giant balloon made up of scores of cloakers, floating high in the sky. Individual cloakers drop off to hunt, and to carry the conclave’s demands to the towns they hover above.

Craud

Craud impaler, craud crusher, craud king

Crauds are basically giant lobsters, and I would use them as such. Big dumb shellfish, potentially dangerous, but easy to catch if you know what you’re doing. Hardworking fishermen bring them in to sell as delicacies.

Until one fateful day, when the craud king calls his subjects to war, and the shorelines are swarmed by hundreds of rampaging giant crustaceans.

Dark one

Hex knight, shadow bolter, shadow speaker

Small people who live in the Shadowfell and come to the mortal world to steal stuff. The lore speculates that they are descendants of halflings who went to the Shadowfell, but the other way around is much better: Halflings are dark ones who left the Shadowfell and lost the dark half of their selves, and that’s why they are called “halflings” now.

“Hex knight” is a cool title. “Shadow bolter”, eeeh... We are told that shadow speakers lead raiding parties into the mortal world, and they carry small clay jugs filled with Shadowfell soil. Of course! They take a piece of the Shadowfell with them, to prevent the dark ones from losing their darkness and turning into halflings.

Demon

Babau, klurichir, maw demon, greater maw demon, molydeus, nalfeshnee swine guard, nalfeshnee tyrant, quasit, ultrodemon schemer

Demons dwell in the Abyss, where eternal war rages. I imagine it much like the hell of the Doom games, all ruins and wastelands, full of demons locked in constant battle.

Babau: Demonic spies and assassins. They were born from the blood of a demon lord wounded by a devil’s sword, and they combine the qualities of demons and devils. I think these guys may be more free-thinking than both demons and devils, doing mercenary work for the various powers of the Abyss.

Klurichir: Klurichirs are spawned in the lowest depths of the Abyss, take command of demonic hordes, and start conquering. As one demon’s realm crumbles, a new one arises. A good way to keep things fresh!

Maw demon: Just a mouth on four legs that is always hungry. Simple but effective. They can be Abyssal “wildlife”, or maybe some evil guy has a big one in a pit to feed prisoners to.

Molydeus: There are seven molydeuses, who were Tharizdun’s angels tasked with protecting a shard of pure evil, and then they got corrupted. I don’t know, I don’t really care for “evil” as a tangible substance. How about: Tharizdun tried to conquer the Abyss, with the aid of his seven archangels. Tharizdun was defeated, but his angels continue the war. Now they are just another faction in the neverending conflict, albeit one that claims their goals are divinely ordinated.

Nalfeshnee: Swine-things, huh? Gotta pull from House on the Borderland here. The lore says the nalfeshnees’ demon lord father was killed by the gods, and the nalfeshnee devoured his body. I can see it, the great fortress of the demon lord on a bleak plain in the Abyss, its master long gone, swine-things waddling through its corridors. Should they find their way to the mortal realm, they will dispassionately kill and devour all they encounter.

Quasit: Tiny demons who are familiars to wizards. The text describes them as tempters, but I think that should be a devil’s job. Here’s my take: a quasit familiar lets a wizard draw magic from the Abyss to empower their spells. The “summoning ritual” for a quasit in fact creates a new demon from scratch. As the wizard channels power through the quasit, the tiny demon grows bigger and stronger...

Ultrodemon: This demon wants to get rich, for the sake of it. Number go up; capitalism incarnate. A villain that schemes not to destroy the world, but to funnel as many gold pieces as possible to their personal hoard? Sounds similar to a dragon, but I feel like a dragon would just steal or extort gold. An ultrodemon would run a business empire. They don’t really seem at home in the Abyss, the mortal world is a better place to make money. What if an ultrodemon is actually a mortal rich guy who turned into a demon to become immortal? Like with a lich type ritual, but for billionaires instead of wizards.

Derro

Derro warrior, derro thug, derro fanatic, derro harvester, derro ironguard, derro savant, warped slave

Look, are derro supposed to be evil dwarves or not? The duergar already fill that niche. But I don’t really care for duergar. And they don’t appear in this book anyway. My decision is, derro are dwarves. Moving on.

Derro are described as corrupted by the Far Realm, the cosmic horror place in the D&D cosmology. To me, the Far Realm is just outer space. I would say the derro have learned to use certain “cosmic rays” to travel between the Underdark, the surface world, and the distant stars. They now understand the insignificance of their home world in the grand scheme of the cosmos, and how the true powers among the stars could at any time end all life on the planet through their mere presence. But the derro have a plan. They will transform the world and all its lifeforms, making it compatible with the Far Realm. To this end, they kidnap people and animals using their cosmic rays. The derro expose their victims to the warping energies of the Far Realm, and take note of the effects. Subjects who survive are released, transported back to the place they were taken from. Few will believe their wild tales of being abducted and experimented on.

Devil

Corruption devil, sire of corruption, corrupted followers (lecher, glutton, monger, idler, lunatic, craven), hell knight, hellwasp colony guard, hellwasp devil, passion devil, rage devil, slime devil, swarm devil, vizier devil

While demons get the Doom hell, devils get the Dante hell (and theirs is actually called Hell).

So, the Blood War, the giant war between demons and devils, is a big thing in D&D lore, but I don’t like it. It makes the gods look lazy, like why aren’t they getting stuck in? But if they did, the whole conflict would make whatever the PCs are doing seem inconsequential. No, I don’t think gods, devils, and demons should fight each other, at least not until the seals are broken and it’s time for the final apocalypse.

Corruption devil: The essential devil, one who tempts mortals into sin and vice. The rules give them a bunch of corrupting powers, but I think forcing player characters into sin through dice rolls is cheap. Corrupt them for real! Figure out what the characters want, then offer it to them for the low low price of their eternal souls.

Corrupted follower: Mortals who took the corruption devil’s deal. I would make these the souls of the damned, trapped in Hell for eternity. Each type of corrupted follower is tied to a particular cardinal sin, but notably, there’s no Pride or Envy, and instead Cowardice is represented as a cardinal sin. Well, it would make sense for Cowardice to be a sin in D&D, what with all the gods of battle running around. In fact, let’s look at the 4e pantheon and see if we can match gods to each of the cardinal virtues and sins.

• Avandra, goddess of change. She exalts diligence, and condemns sloth.
• Erathis, goddess of civilization. She exalts temperance, and condemns gluttony.
• Ioun, goddess of reason. She exalts chastity, and condemns lust.
• Kord, god of battle. He exalts courage, and condemns cowardice.
• Pelor, god of the sun. He exalts charity, and condemns greed.
• The Raven Queen, goddess of death. She exalts patience, and condemns wrath.

These six gods would form the pantheon of the big Catholic-church equivalent religion, with the other gods having their own churches and cults.

Hell knight: Yeah, here we go. A devil knight in full armor, mounted on a burning horse. Badass. Now I said there’s no Blood War, but that doesn’t mean Hell has no army. It has legions, and the hell knights are its elite, waiting for the final battle on the day of judgment. In the meantime, they may be dispatched to deal with any intruders into Hell.

Hellwasp devil: These insectoid devils were once demons, we are told. Wait, what? How does that even work? Devils are fallen angels. So the hellwasps are fallen demons? Angels fall when they rebel against God. Demons fall when they... stop fighting each other. Yeah, that makes sense, the hellwasp are said to live in colonies after all. I think hellwasps would be outsiders in Hell, other devils looking askance at these weird bug people who just want to build their hives and stuff.

Passion devil: These devils are kinda vaguely described as seeking to inflame passions in mortals to trick them into sin. To distinguish them from corruption devils, I’ll say that while corruption devils make mortals take their sins out on the world, passion devils tempt mortals to engage in sin with the devil itself. Whether that’s by seducing mortals into lustful devil-sex, taking a terrifying guise to frighten cowards, butchering itself for delicious meat to encourage gluttony...

Rage devil: Devil soldiers who make up the brunt of Hell’s legions, and by extension, the majority of all devils. What are they raging against? The gods, of course. Rage devils might be lent out to mortal conquerors in exchange for their soul.

Slime devil: Not actually a devil, this is an amalgamation of corrupt souls. I like that. As the aeons go by, if a damned soul forgets the very sins that condemned it to Hell, it loses hold of its form, turning into a black sludge. Vast bogs of soul sludge can be found throughout Hell, and from there, slime devils emerge to drag down and dissolve any souls that come near.

Swarm devil: A devil split into a swarm of evil flies. These would make great spies and messengers for Hell’s operations in the mortal world. Singular flies can keep an eye on enemies, or carry information between devils and their allies... A terrifying communications advantage.

Vizier devil: Hell’s emissaries to the mortal world, who worm their way into the halls of power. I would say these devils masquerade as mortals, and try to influence politics in order to create conditions where many mortals can be tempted into sin by other devils. Poverty, famine, corruption, war: all can make mortals desperate enough to sell their souls for relief.

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