Hammerfast: A Dwarven Outpost Adventure Site

I recently purchased the new Hammerfast adventure supplement that WOTC just released. I have not read through the entire supplement, but I got the gist and for the most part, Hammerfast seems to be a pretty cool place to spring adventure plots for any group campaigning in the Nentir Vale setting.

Hammerfast is a town that has been built within an ancient dwarven tomb. Hammerfast obviously has a dark past, it was once the humble burial site of the local dwarves. Over time, the burial site became overpopulated with lavish, treasure encased sepulchers - making it a huge target for bandits. The enemies of the dwarves, a tribe known as the "Bloodspear" orcs eventually attacked the tomb to plunder its riches. They slew many of the dwarves there and swore to Gruumsh that they would retrieve all the tomb's riches. They failed. The traps and protections guarding many of the treasures were too great for the orcs. The Bloodspear eventually gave up and wandered away. When Hammerfast was clear of the original orc occupation, the dwarves eventually came back to build a town. Many ghosts now appeared in Hammerfast, of them which were haunts guarding their former life's treasures and some of which were fallen warriors from the war with the Bloodspear. The dwarves were forced to reside in peace with the ghosts of Hammerfast in order to build a town. At some point, the Bloodspear orcs also decided that Hammerfast was sacred ground to them and wanted to live there. Instead of facing even more war, the gods decided that Hammerfast was sacred ground for both peoples. The gods created a compact that forced both sides to live together, so that if they chose to wage war, divine strife would be placed upon them - lighting, plagues all that good shiznit. So Hammerfast is a town built on a tomb, where dwarves, ghosts and orcs all live together.

The rest of the book details many specific locations within Hammerfast and fills it out with lots of cool plot hooks and stories about the town and the surrounding Dawnforge Mountains.

My thoughts... I like that there are ghosts wandering the streets of Hammerfast, because it creates interesting social encounters, unique possibilities for new adventure dynamics involving the ghosts and compelling adventure activities. I also enjoyed one of the monsters found later in the book, a three-headed dragon named Calastryx! Very classy. There are in-game holidays they include, which are fun story-telling tools and good for fun social interactions and adventure ops. Hammerfast comes with one of those old school adventure maps that you can use with your minis and there is a large map of the town. Good visual aids! There is a cool little drunken "Giant Feat" game they describe in the bar too. For me, this book will definitely serve its purpose, as I am running two campaigns - one of them is in the Nentir Vale. Perfect...

The only part of this supplement that I do not like is the reasoning behind the orcs and dwarves becoming neighbors. To sum it up, the orcs (who slew dwarves in the name of Gruumsh in Hammerfast), feel Hammerfast is a sacred ground to them. The dwarves feel the same obviously, as it is a burial ground. They both want to live there. That's a cool point of tension for games... The part I don't like about this is that the two opposing gods concluded that they needed to allow both groups of followers to live in Hammerfast to avoid another war between the dwarves and the orcs. Why would Moradin, the LAWFUL GOOD god of creation come to an accord with Gruumsh the CHAOTIC EVIL god of destruction, just to avoid seeing a second war. Gruumsh defiled Moradin's tomb. Gruumsh is a god of destruction. Moradin is a god of creation. I really feel this part of the overall setup would have been better if there was some force that put both sides at a better standstill than an agreement to avoid more war. I'm trying to concoct something else for my game to make better sense of this part. Perhaps the original war created vulnerability to a Far Realm entrance in the Dawnforge Mountains through too much bloodshed on sacred grounds... near a deep cave. The realm is safe for now, but if that much blood spilt again... well... no one wants to see those weird tendril dudes creepin' on in.

Other than that one thing... I love the supplement and will plunder it for many adventures!

Harrowing Halls, Sinister Woods & Caves of Carnage

Here are more pictures of the tiles I used in my game last night. The house (Harrowing Halls tile set) was a Rogue's Den hidden in the woods, with the Sinister Woods tiles I used to make a 'front yard' area. I designated the dark green bushy areas in the front of the house, Daggerthorn Briar (Page 90 of the DMG). PCs and NPCs alike had one hell of a fight with the Daggerthorn Briar grasping at them when they moved into adjacent spaces to the Briar during the combat.

When the Briar hit, it would drag the creature it hit into the bush, dealing damage (as the dagger like thorns pierced flesh and drained the blood of the creature it hit). Consequently, the captured target was also immobilizing at that point. One thing to really understand here is that this fight would NOT have been challenging if you took the Daggerthorn Briar out of it. The combatants were 5 PCs versus 2 Shadow Hounds and one Human Knife Fighter.

Here are some more pictures...






The tiles I used for this set are from Caves of Carnage, minus the 3D tile at the far end of the set, which is from Harrowing Halls.

This is the next encounter the group will be dealing with. The Rogues are in league with a Berbalang who is beneath the sewers of the town, in secret tunnels, trying to gain access to old demon bones... what ever would it be doing that for?

Harrowing Halls

Dungeons & Dragons Banned From Prison

Wow, no D&D in prison!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/27dungeons.html?emc=eta1

Picture of a Japanese D&D Book

For All the Paladins in the World...

RPG Weekend Recap

So this weekend (Saturday) I ran 4th Edition D&D for my friends up in Sunland. Prior to the game, I made a set for encounters to take place. This game was supposed to be a 'holiday' D&D game, so I made a forrest with snowy trees. Here is the list of things I used to create the set and the result below:
-Sinister Woods Dungeon Tiles
-Black foam core board
-1 foam core block
-Fake grass (from a diorama kit)
-Snow covered trees (I got a pack of them at Michael's on sale for $8)
-Scotch Tape
-Green Acrylic Gems

I used Scotch Tape to stick the dungeon tiles to the foam core and did the same to tape the trees on top of the tiles (so they wouldn't fall over during the game). By the way, using Scotch Tape with the Dungeon Tiles did not damage them. I took the fake grass and cut it into a couple of pieces, then taped it to the foam core block to create a cliff in the environment. The result is the picture below (click on any of the pictures below for a larger view).

Shot 1


Shot 2


Shot 3


Here are some post game shots, showing how some of the combat encounters broke down. (For this game I used some ambient tracks from the artist, Robert Rich)

The group was in an Elven settlement, watching over things. They were expecting some cultists to attack and heard some screams from a nearby glade. They entered the glade.



This Elven glade was lined with magical, green crystals that provided warmth throughout the snowy glade (they also provided light in the dark and granted 2 healing surges per encounter to any ally of the Elves). Some Elves had been praying to the Raven Queen in the glade the group entered. The group found the Elves dead by the hands of the cultists they encountered there.


They spotted a Wyvern on top of a 40' high cliff in the glade too! (Yeah, I know the miniature is a dragon, couldn't find any Wyverns in time for the game).


Yuan-ti Malison Sharp Eyes (Archers), who were in control of the Wyvern were also on the cliff.


Combat ensued! (I used an empty dice container to indicate the Wyvern was flying.)






The group beat the cultists, then they went looking for their lair. At that point I had the players go through a skill challenge as they traveled to a more dangerous part of the woods. Eventually they ran into some Eladrin Lingerers (1 Encanter, 2 Knights).


(I rearranged the trees for this encounter)


By the end of the skill challenge, the guys were one success away from finding the Temple of the Emerald Dawn, and one failure away from losing the skill challenge entirely!

Their last roll was indeed a success, which brought the group to the dungeon door. We ended the night with one more combat encounter between their group and some cultists who were outside the temple, on guard.

Fortunately for them, they didn't have to find out what failing the skill challenge meant. Something else was lurking through those woods...


(yes, this is a photo of the actual miniature Wizards sells)