DM Adventure Development Journal: Dwarven Colonies

DM prep for Dwarven colonies featured image is a combination of images by WotC in the Player’s Handbook and by Ali Lokhandwala at Unsplash.
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Hello and welcome to my adventure development journal for a Short Arc (sometimes known as a one-shot, although it’ll likely be more than 1 session) for my weekly game. In this, we’ll be discussing the building of an adventure from concepts to encounter design to laying out the course of the adventure. Finally, we’ll be reviewing the adventure after I’ve run it with my group to see how our preparation is executed at the table. We’ll be using the D&D 5th Edition ruleset with a few house rules. Which I’ll include in the text if you’re interested.

I’m doing my players a disservice by pulling back the curtain on my methodology. Part of being the DM is the mystique behind how you do what you do. However, I think that explaining how I do things will hopefully inspire other DMs to improve their StoryCrafting skills.

Concept: Dwarves Colonizing Undead Tunnels

8-10 hours of playtime are documented in this DM preparation journal.

Background and Concept

To understand the concept, we’ll need to work through the setup. Simply put, tunnels have been excavated all over the continent at the command of a lich to facilitate the movement of undead armies. In my last campaign, the party defeated said lich and prevented his regeneration. Now, the dwarves are building an exhibition force to explore the tunnels to colonize them. Many of the clans and holds have started sending in adventuring groups as force recon to see how clear the tunnels are of the undead and other unsavory baddies.

I want the major theme of this adventure to revolve around an artifact that creates an oppressive environment for living creatures. Whether this is curated by a necromancer or similar being or is just a vestigial dropping of the lich I have yet to decide. I will look at the encounters and decide how to approach that later. The artifact should create an environmental effect that cascades down the tunnels for a range and lingers once it has affected a creature. The intent is to drive a sense of urgency with the player characters, that they need to complete the adventure quickly or suffer greatly. This will require careful consideration when doing encounter design as limiting long rests will make later encounters very difficult for the party.

Setup with Mechanics

For this adventure I have the party starting at level 11, this is the introduction of the high-tier gameplay. The players have a lot at their disposal and many groups can quickly move through encounters. This is where the CR system in the DMG begins to break down and action economy and environment are more important than challenge rating.

Setting up the mechanics of the environment will allow us to better balance encounters. Making the mechanics interesting and new is important to players that love to discover new things in the game. It can cause a little contention at the table as some players have a difficult time with new mechanics. That is where trust at the table is important, never introduce something to the players that is impossible for them to handle or isn’t explained as something that they can stop. If you don’t do this, then it seems a lot like railroading and there will be hard feelings at the table.

Complicated effects like this need to be the center of a plot to justify the complexity, this cannot just be added as an afterthought. It is the reason why I’m beginning with this instead of the monsters and other encounter designs.

Lingering Shadows (Environmental Effect) An oppressive environment to all living creatures, the lingering shadows of a powerful lich echo through the tunnels. Every 8 hours that a living creature spends in the effect they must roll a saving throw depending on how long they’ve spent in the environment. Once they’ve failed a save they will be treated as being cursed. The curse lingers until it is removed by a Remove Curse Spell cast at level 5 or higher, with material components that are outlined below. 

The effect is cyclical, if a creature succeeds a saving throw the environment will move on to the next effect in order until a creature fails a save, once this occurs then it will repeat the save until the creature succeeds. If a creature succeeds in all the saves without failing once through the cycle, they are immune to the effects of Lingering Shadows for the remainder of their time there. If they leave and then reenter, they will need to start the saving throws over again.

If a creature dies from any of these effects, it will immediately turn into an undead creature (DMs choice). Lingering effects are applied after a creature leaves the Lingering Shadows environment.

*Note after Session 1: I’m changing the DCs of the active effects while in the environment to be progressive, DC 10 + the number of increments that they’ve been in the tunnels. For more on increments see the section Monsters and Encounters, I’m keeping the lingering effects at DC 17.

• Touch of Undeath (Con Save DC 17 *See note above) The shadows in the tunnels attacks the tissue of the living. On a successful save nothing happens and move on to the next effect. On a failed save the creature gains 1 level of exhaustion. 
  • Lingering Effect: The curse lingers and the creature has disadvantage on saves, ability checks, and attack rolls while exposed to bright light. If they are exposed to bright light they must immediately make a DC 17 Con save or take an additional level of exhaustion. If a creature succeeds 3 times in a row they break the curse.
  • Remove Curse Material Components: A vial of blood from a celestial creature.
• Fear of Darkness (Wis Save DC 17 *See note above) Shadows and darkness have become your greatest fear. On a successful save nothing happens and move on to the next effect. On a failed save the creature loses one of their action types (Action, Bonus Action, or Move Action; players’ choice), they also lose their reaction. If the creature has failed 2 saves then they lose two of its action types. If the creature has failed three they are treated as paralyzed in combat due to fear. Outside of combat they can act but move at ½ speed.
  • Lingering Effect: The curse lingers and the creature is afraid of the dark, if the creature moves or is moved into an area of dim light or darker they must make a DC 17 Wis save or become paralyzed for 1d6 rounds. If they fail 5 times in a row they die of fright. If a creature succeeds 3 times in a row they break the curse.
  • Remove Curse Material Components: A radiant fruit from one of the high celestial planes.
• Lashes of Shadow (Dex Save DC 17 *See note above) The incorporeal shadows lash out at you as whips begin to hold you back. On a successful save nothing happens and move on to the next effect. On a failed save you are lashed by fragments of the Shadowfell, your movement is decreased by (10 ft x the number of failed dex saves) as long as you are in dim or darker light. If the creature’s speed reaches 0 they are treated as restrained while in dim or darker light. Whenever they take damage while in darkness they must make a DC 17 Dex save or take necrotic damage equal to the damage just dealt, ½ on a successful save.
  • Lingering Effect: The curse lingers and the creature must make a DC 17 Dex save whenever moving or is moved into dim or darker light or their speed becomes 0 and they are considered restrained. If a creature fails 5 times in a row their soul is ripped from their body into the Shadowfell and they die. If a creature succeeds 3 times in a row they break the curse.
  • Remove Curse Material Components: An angels’ weapon.
• Unliving Nightmares (Cha Save DC 17 *See note above) Your dreams are filled with the horrible images of death and undeath, the horrible visages they see turn to real damage. On a successful save nothing happens and move on to the next effect. On a failed save the creature begins to see things in the shadows of the tunnels, when the creature deals damage it will take half the amount dealt in psychic damage.
  • Lingering Effect: The curse lingers and the creature must make a DC 17 Cha save when attempting a long rest, if it fails then the long rest is unsuccessful and treated as if they did not rest at all. If a creature succeeds 3 times in a row they break the curse.
  • Remove Curse Material Components: A blanket made of Unicorn hair.
• Drudge of the Shadowfell (Str Save DC 17 *See note above) The shadows are clinging and oppressive to you, preventing you from acting smoothly and even impeding your senses. On a successful save nothing happens and move on to the next effect. On a failed save the creature begins to slow as if affected by the slow spell. Any special senses that the creature has the range halved (Darkvision 60 ft becomes Darkvision 30 ft). Hearing and vision become limited to 60 ft in dim or darker light.
  • Lingering Effect: The curse lingers and the creature must make a DC 17 Str save if they attempt to leave an area of dim or darker light. If the save fails then they become paralyzed until they are encompassed wholly by dim or darker light. If they fail the save 3 times they become blind and deaf, if they fail the save 5 times they die. If a creature succeeds 3 times in a row they break the curse.
  • Remove Curse Material Components: A lock of hair from an Empyrean
• Shadow Mirage (Int Save DC 17 *See note above) Illusions and mirages fill the shadows, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not. On a successful save nothing happens and move on to the next effect. On a failed save, the creature begins to see and hear illusions in the darkness. Whenever the creature attempts to take an action (attack, cast a spell, etc) they must make a DC 17 Int save or be subject to Phantasmal Force (as the spell) until the beginning of their next turn. The action that they’re attempting is wasted as they deal with the new threat.
  • Lingering Effect: The curse lingers and the creature must make a DC 17 Int save if they attempt to do anything more than a menial task while in dim light or darker, any amount of excursion is an attack on their senses. If they fail the save they are under the effect of Phantasmal Force (as the spell for 1 minute).
  • Remove Curse Material Components: The eye of a dragon.

The intent of this is to build an impending doom and need to locate and destroy the source of these curses. To do that the StoryCrafter must set up the source of dread properly and that would be with good foreshadowing and ambiance.

Foreshadowing

A very important tool for building tension is foreshadowing. Giving the players enough information that they’ll be able to able to extrapolate what could be potentially heading their way, but not too much that they’ll be able to figure out how to beat it. This can be done in many ways, through props such as journal excerpts, showing the effects of something, or interviewing the recent victims of a curse. This allows the party to overtly discover information ahead of time and allow them to prepare, it will also allow you to listen to them about what you’ve set up for them.

Foreshadowing can be a useful tool to gain insight into the minds and motivations of your players, what kind of game they like to play, how they approach different situations, and what they will enjoy most out of your game. For the game that I’m setting up, I know that my players like new and interesting mechanics that allow them to flex problem-solving muscles. Through trial and error, they’ll come to the correct conclusion, but I need to allow them the ability to know a little about what they’re heading into. I’ll be setting up a scenario where a lower leveled scout party has returned, each with different afflictions from the environmental effects of Lingering Shadows. They’ll be allowed to question the afflicted party at length about their journey into the tunnels. The key points that I want to convey are as follows.

• The severity of the environmental effects and the nature of the tunnels.
• What kind of monsters to expect in the tunnels.
• That the effects are coming from an artifact that needs to be neutralized to end the effects.
• That specialized materials are needed to end the curses if the PCs get afflicted with one.

Ambiance

Setting the mood of the environment will help build the suspense and nature of that environment. Certain popular Twitch DMs are very good at this and can give key details in the way that they describe the scene. Coupled with appropriate music (I recommend trying to get a player to manage ambient music) and background noise, it can have an astounding effect on the pace and style of your game. You as the DM set the pace, and you do this through description, exposition, and detail. If you find that the players are moving quickly through your adventure and skipping over details, lay them out in an exposition or description. Alternatively, if the plot has stalled and the players are stuck discussing the efficacy of a chair, using NPCs or descriptions to divert attention away from the distracting furniture can help get things moving again. Using your descriptions to point to key details and possible points of interest is an important skill to practice.

In this case, I’ll be using description to set the oppressive mood that the tunnels themselves create. The environmental effects of the Lingering Shadows are such that they have a tangible appearance to any observers.

It is evident that as you enter the tunnels even those with darkvision can sense and see waves of magically enhanced darkness move lazily throughout the long carved caves. It looks as though a fog has implemented itself throughout the network and adapted itself to fit the darkness it inhabits, and the corrupt nature of this fog even erodes the walls of the tunnel, causing horrific images to be carved into the stone. When encompassed by this magical darkness the feeling of dread and regret fill those that wander these unhallowed halls and still have the audacity to breathe. It’s as if death itself is beckoning, and those that hear its call must answer.

I want to have fog banks like clouds of magical darkness that overcome and overtake the party every so often, Darkness that overtakes spells such as Light, and natural light sources such as lanterns and torches. This should be the most dangerous part of the journey to the source as that is when undead creatures of all sorts will take advantage of an ambush and attack.

Monsters and Encounters

Looking now at monsters, I’ll need to set up appropriate monsters for the mechanics and environment that I already have in place. In this case, I’ll be heavily leaning on the undead, both from the monster manual and those that I’ve developed myself. With the environment the way that it is we’ll likely be using Shadows and like creatures. I’m going to be using a shadow creature that I developed myself that mimics Shadows in the monster manual, but I’ve beefed them up for higher-level parties.

• Shadows
• Shaded Animals
• Shaded Elementals
• Ghoul
• Ghast
• Zombies
• Skeletons
• Death Knight
• Flame Skull
• Shadow Dragon

With the monsters listed out, I think I’m going to go with a Shadow Dragon that is guarding this artifact and attempting to build an undead army. I’ll start with my final encounter first and then work my way backward. The final encounter will need to be set up to be flexible to be beatable but difficult, with the environmental effects and possibility for the party to be significantly weakened I’ll need to have the option to lighten the load without removing too much peril. The goal is to apply the perception of peril while also providing a balanced encounter.

• Final encounter; 1 Adult Black Shadow Dragon, 2-5 Flame Skulls. I’ve changed this after Session 1, see further in the article to find out why.
• Supplemental encounters;
  • SE – Solitary Shadow Elemental*
  • SB – 1d4+1 Lingering Shades*
  • ZH – Zombie Horde; 6d10 total zombies; Waves, 2d6 Zombies per round
  • GH – Ghoul Horde; 3d10 total Ghouls, 5% Ghasts; Waves, 2d4 Ghouls per round

I’ll be looking at also supplementing encounters with Flame Skulls if needed. The hordes can be modified to be larger or smaller if it seems too easy or hard, the goal is to challenge the party, not slaughter them (save that for the end fight).

*These are monsters that I designed for the last campaign. I won’t include stats here but might include them as part of a Developing Monsters Article if there is interest.

I’ll be utilizing a simplified form of a random encounter table, this will be in the form of increments, starting with 8-hour and then decreasing as the threat level increases. The modifiers of the table will be entirely dependent on the way that the party deals with encounters in previous increments. Threat level increments will increase if an encounter involves loud noises, alerting other monsters in the tunnels to the party’s presence. It will decrease if the party deals with an encounter quietly or there is no encounter. I’ll also increase the threat level every 8 hours to keep them on their toes. I also reserve the right to adjust the threat level as I see fit.

I’ll be making cards for reference for the encounters with individual modifiers for each encounter to ensure that no two encounters are the same. The idea is to put more pressure on the party the longer they stay in the tunnels.

House Rules

These are my own house rules, I like them and my group and I heavily discuss house rules before each of our Short Arcs as well as house rule review periodically during Long Arc/Multiple Arc campaigns. What you do at your table is up to you and your players.

• Variant Healing Word and Death Ward (and similar effects) – Healing Word is replaced by a spell that is a Reaction when the target reaches 0 hp, immediately lets the target use hit dice up to the level of the spell. Deathward and similar abilities also use hit dice per the spell level of the ability.
• Variant Initiative – Initiative is determined as a skill check given the situation, pulled from PF2.
• Variant Proficiency Gains – An extra proficiency is given when a character’s proficiency modifier is increased, this can be used to gain proficiency (or expertise) in a skill, language, weapon, tool, or vehicle. Also if a background, class, or race would give you double proficiency in a skill, tool, or vehicle, you gain expertise.
• Variant Starting HP – Level-1 HP is determined by your Constitution Score plus your maxed class hit die. In all following levels, HP is determined normally.
• Lucky Feat Variant – The Lucky feat text is replaced as follows, “If you roll a 1 or an enemy rolls a 20 against you, you may reroll and must use the value of the new roll. You can do this 3 times per long rest.”
• Reaction Spells Variant – If you cast a leveled spell as a reaction you may only cast cantrips until the end of your next turn.
• *Variant HP Gain on Rest – You no longer regain all your HP after a long rest. You may only regain HP on a long or short rest by spending hit dice. Hit dice regain normally at ½ your total per long rest. *See next section, this is still being tested.
• Variant Divine Spells – Divine spellcasters can only switch out an equivalent of their level in spells per long rest, they still have access to their entire spell list but must spend time to switch out their spell list. For example, a level 11 Cleric may only switch spells whose total spell levels are equal to 11, a level 5 and a level 6, or 3 level 3’s and a level 2.
• TCoE Variants – All class variant rules are allowed. However, variant race rules are not, I’m working on a different variation where race/culture becomes more fluid, like PF2s racial feats system.
• Strength AC Variant – Strength may be added to AC instead of Dexterity.
• Variant Counterspell/Dispel Magic – Counterspell triggers a concentration check DC (Casters Spell Save + Spell level of the Counterspell) or lose the spell. Dispel Magic forces the original caster to make a concentration check (same DC above) or lose the spell.

Post-Session 1 Note: This needs refinement, I would like to see it in play and get feedback from my players first. Unfortunately none of my PCs this time are counterspell capable so it’ll have to wait until the next short arc.

Preparation Conclusion

This short arc is specifically designed to test new mechanics and viability for some house rules, this one is specifically aimed at the Variant HP Gain on Rest. It is designed to be a combat marathon to stress the new rules and whether or not it’s a viable way to make the game feel more gritty. I’ll just need to draw up a map for the final encounter and theater of the mind for the rest of the encounters.

For reference, this adventure took roughly 8-10 hours to plan (I didn’t include the 4-6 hours of prep for making new monsters from the previous campaign). If you don’t spend the time to plan these out, then you will only get out of the adventure that you put in.

Running the Game

I develop, prepare, and run my games week by week. Fully prepping a game ahead of time (if it’s a known one-shot that is different) doesn’t allow for planned adaptation on the part of the StoryCrafter. I leave avenues open and plan for eventualities. This is where improv skills come in handy if your party does something unexpected or bypasses objectives that you had put into place for a timesink. Ending a game early is okay too, I’ve known some sessions where the party will waffle on and on about this and that, and what you planned to take 1 session ends up being 4. Other times they’ll blitz your plot and what you planned for 3-4 sessions they’ll finish after 2 hours. Generally though, if you plan correctly, things will go as you expect them to go.

Session 0/1 – 2 ½ hours

I was somewhat lazy when it came to running a full session 0, I asked my players to come up with character concepts and bring level 11 characters to the game. At this time this will be the 4th session 0 that I’ve had with them in 4 months, they knew and understood the house rules, table taboos, and the like. One of my stronger players had set up a character that would be a good lead for the story and so I surprised him and let him build the group, essentially running the character introduction part of session 0 in character. He took it in stride and ran with it. I couldn’t have done a better job of setting up the party, now all I needed to do was introduce the plot.

I knew I wanted to end the session with the party entering the tunnels where the artifact was producing its environmental effects, I also needed them to have a heads up of what to expect once they entered. I had an old joke NPC that was left hanging by the party roughly halfway through the previous main campaign, the group loves to insert this character subtly into their backstories just to see if I do something with it. I used this NPC to give exposition to the nature of the tunnels, they were able to ask questions and gain as much knowledge as I thought was necessary. I needed to instill a sense of dread and fear about the tunnels, giving too much information away at the beginning would ruin that. However, if I don’t give them anything then it’ll be a blind plot with no suspense.

Two other things that I established are the NPC that is sponsoring the expedition and an NPC that would act as a store of sorts. Both went well, I built an antagonistic relationship between one of the PCs and the benefactor while also building a support role for the supply officer. I ended the session with them rolling their first saves against Lingering Shadows (detailed above) and gave them the setup for immediate combat at the beginning of the next session. I’m thinking Zombies, just a small horde of 40 or so, just enough to get the fireballs going.

Session 2 Prep: Ground Work – 3ish hours

I’m prepping this session during the week between session 0/1 and session 2. The anticipated time to complete preparations will be 4-5 hours.

For this session I’ll be needing to set up all of the combat scenarios so that I have everything ready to go no matter what happens, I’ll also be prerolling my random encounters so that I can better narrate the consequences of their actions after each combat. As threat levels in the tunnels increase, the environment will react accordingly. I started with the magical darkness being like a fog, lazily whispering through the tunnels and as the threat level increases, I think that the nature of that fog will change. I’m imagining that the fog becomes more active and animated as the threat level increases, identifying threats to the tunnels for the denizens to find and destroy.

The second thing I’m going to do is change the DC saves on Lingering Shadows, I had all of the saves static at DC 17 to start, I’m not liking that now. I’m going to have it be a progressive DC instead. I’m starting at DC 10 and increasing it by 1 for every increment that they stay in the tunnels, meaning that if they keep the threat level low, they’ll be able to stay in the tunnels much longer than if they get to maximum threat level quickly.

I was fortunate that 1 of the PCs failed their Con Save for the Lingering Shadows effect and so I’ll be able to start building that threat up quickly. I’ll also be able to narratively convey the idea of threat levels to the party through this PC, him feeling more anxious or tired as the threat level rises and decreases. To better drive this point home, I’ll need to ensure that the threat level decreases at least once so that the players know that they can and will change the way the environment affects them. This might seem like a bit of railroading, I don’t think so, the players need to know what the rules are, and using the game to describe the rules will make the short arc more memorable.

For the encounters, I’ll be prepping them like I always do, on 3×5 cards. I don’t run games with a screen, it’s a personal choice that I believe allows me to better interact with the group as a whole. I also roll dice mostly in the open to build additional trust with the players so they know that I’m not fudging roles. With the encounters I simply write the basic combat stats of the monster(s) I’ll be using on a 3×5 card. I’ll vary the HP up by putting down a range, min to max HP (for example 4d8+8 would average out to 26, I would range it to 12-40 HP). Using the HP range allows me a second option for the monster; damage threshold, if a PC deals more than the minimum HP of the creature on a single attack I’ll roll a quick Con Save to see if it’s injured, if it rolls a nat 1 I might even kill it outright. Injuries are made up on the spot and mostly are purely for flavor, rarely do they have direct mechanical consequences, but it spices up combat and makes it more memorable for the players.

Using the 3×5 cards also affords me the flexibility I need to quickly reference my monsters without looking at a complicated stat block. I’ll also have one of the players keep track of the HP of the monsters, it’s less work for me, and since I vary up the HP from monster to monster it doesn’t matter if the players know how much damage a specific monster has taken. I have found that it increases excitement during the combat as they realize that they’ve dealt 800+ hp in damage and it only looks slightly wounded, bwahahahaha! As a final note, instead of being cryptic about damage resistances, AC, or other such things, I’ll straight up tell them. Resistances are revealed after they attempt to do a certain type of damage, “it’s not as effective as you’d expect it to be” could be interpreted in many different ways, “it has resistance to fire” works just as well as long as you’re adequately narrating everything else. After about 2-3 rounds I’ll also just let them know the AC, most of the time they’ve figured it out anyway.

For the maps of the encounters, I don’t bother with them for the smaller combats. Theater of the mind works just as well, or something that I do quite often is just plopping miniatures on the table and using fabric rulers to measure movement and effect distance, foregoing the grid system entirely (I stopped using it about 2 ½ years ago, one of the best decisions I’ve made to speed up combat). I’ve used books, notecards, waterbottles, dice towers, and all sorts of objects found around the table for barriers and furniture for combat, it saves on prep time and my group doesn’t mind it at all, as it allows me to focus on mapping out the big combats.

Session 2 prep tasks. I don’t anticipate them finishing the arc in session 2, it will be combat-heavy. I should have something ready for the final fight in case they surprise me.

• Finalize and write out the monster stat blocks.
• Finalize all possible encounters, including the final boss.
• Rough draft of final encounter map. I’ll be drawing it out by hand first, then I’ll import it into Adobe Illustrator for a more refined map if I have the time.
• Preroll all random encounters (up to 10) and then lay out threat level cards with rules.

Session 2 Prep: Last Minute Changes – 1 hour

Always give yourself time to think and review your notes, plot, player comments, and direction of your narrative. Especially the day before or the day of your next session. Here I sit thinking about how I’m not totally in love with this story and it just feels shallow. I spent a whole lot of time describing the dwarves’ fort and specifically the scars from a pottery explosion on the benefactor’s hands and the fact that he is a Master Potter. I can’t let that go to waste. A warning to any less experienced DMs out there, making any last-minute changes like this can go sideways. If you don’t know your group and their motivations inside and out or are not good at making adjustments on the fly, changing your plot drastically the day before (or day of) the game is not recommended and won’t likely come out the way you want it to.

I’m running a quick cliche plot correction and I’m going to have the benefactor be the one that is trying to make this Lingering Darkness worse, and sending people that are troublesome to him into the tunnels to die under the guise of a colonization push. Secondly, a bit of context, I disallow Underdark races in my game. I don’t like the idea of the Underdark (I know a lot of people love it) because logistically it just doesn’t make sense to me, how can an entire ecosystem exist under the surface without it spilling over until it’s convenient to the plot and character level. It either needs to be fully integrated or not. In my lore, the Underdark is instead a sub-layer of the Shadowfell.

Many of my players want to play Underdark races and I think I can slay two dragons with one arrow. If the benefactor is activating Lingering Darkness to open a portal to the Underdark and introduce a connection for players to play Underdark races moving forward. I could do it under the guise of a looming threat to try to unite the Dwarven race under the banner of conquering these new evil Underdark races. It’s an old trope but I think it’ll work great under these circumstances as I already have put in the work with foreshadowing. 

Note: It is important that you do the work to suggest a plot device or twist, then when the event happens it won’t seem like railroading or DM fiat, and instead be a thought-out plot device.

I’ll need to tie in the mechanics with this idea, I can have each encounter have a jar (more foreshadowing) that when it is broken or the encounter is finished the increment effects of lingering darkness are activated. It then takes an active form that I’ll be able to narrate and give the players a heads up about what is activating it and possible creative solutions to stop it. I’ll wait and see what they come up with and roll with what they give me.

This adjustment means that I’ll need to adjust the final boss to be the benefactor and a hybrid Mind Flayer Shadow Black Dragon (a monster that was heavily used in my last Campaign), I’m pretty sure that I can run this session without them blitzing it to the boss, so I’ll finalize prep the increment encounters and have a solid “normal” encounter ready for them if they work their way to the boss fight. I don’t think it’ll go past session 3 (although I should plan for a 4th session) so I’ll keep that pacing in mind as I move into this session. I’ll need to get 2-3 encounters completed in 3 hours, a pretty tall order even for the most efficient groups.

Session 2 – 3 ¼ hours

Never underestimate your players, they will surprise you in many ways. We moved quickly through 3 combats and only went over time 15 minutes. Whittling them down with encounter after encounter is the intention of this, it is meant to be a stress test of the new Hit Dice and rest mechanics. Only having one dedicated spell caster is interesting as the party is usually flush with them, he is quickly running out of spells. All members of the party have at least one level of exhaustion, as two of the encounters that they fought had monsters that added exhaustion levels as part of an attack.

Initially, I used the zombie encounter, 37 zombies attacked in waves. The party made short work of the encounter as the zombies had little to no ability to apply damage. If you use the encounter calculator in the DMG this should have been an easy to moderate encounter, however, I depleted next to none of the actual party resources (at least nothing that couldn’t be recovered in a short rest due to magic items). I had used a new system of “threshold” on the zombies specifically, essentially each zombie had two hits to die, but each hit needed to be more than 12 damage to count as a hit, with a destruction threshold of 27 damage. This worked okay but favored the heavy hitters, and the Rune Knight Fighter, a Fireball, and a Wall of Fire were the highlights of the combat. The Monk, Rogue, and Eldritch Knight all either had a hard time dealing enough damage to break the threshold or didn’t have enough action application to deal with the swarm.

With the next two encounters, there was much more of a sense of wearing the party down. The environmental effects combined with the exhaustion are making my party worry that they’ll not be able to make it through the whole plot successfully. This is the gritty style that I was hoping for, but I know that not all of my players like this, and I’m considering making a ruling at the start of the next session that if they expend half their hit dice on a long rest that they’ll be able to recover and an additional level of exhaustion or the effects of the curse if they’ve failed a save more than once (they must keep the first level of the curse until it is broken). This will put more of the power and decisions in the hands of the players and how they want to use the resources at their disposal, allowing for strategy. We’ll see.

Foreshadowing the jars and the Mind Flayer Dragon, all of my veteran players’ out-of-game know what’s coming and I kinda feel bad for the one new person in the group (but who am I kidding, he loves the idea of the party dying on the final battle). With that in mind, I think I’m going to ramp up the encounters with one to two more combats and then push into the final encounter. I would like to do a puzzle to allow the players to deactivate the artifact, and as they’re finally getting the final steps to turn off the device I’ll start the final battle and they must complete the puzzle under duress. That’s all part of the prep work though and I’ll have more on that below.

All-in-all I think that the session was a success, I did a good job establishing the ambiance desired. There were successes and failures all around the table as the player characters moved through the combat encounters, each of the players had shining moments and looked like they were enjoying themselves. The more mechanically minded players enjoyed figuring out the mechanics of the environment and the monsters, the newest player is very observant and had extrapolated the monster mechanics after 2 rounds of combat. There was even enough time to have a few role-playing moments for the PCs.

Session 3 Prep: Puzzles, Maps, and Bosses – 3 hours

Alright, the plan is simple, wrap up the whittle-down encounters with a final Ghoul Horde and then lead them through the last two of the Lingering Darkness saves. I’d like them to be able to take a long rest before the final boss fight as I believe that I’ve used up a sufficient amount of their resources to make it interesting. I’ll need to finalize the stat blocks for the benefactor antagonist, I’m thinking Transmutation Wizard, with a long rest they should be able to make short work of him in 2-4 rounds so I’m going to incorporate an easy puzzle for them to solve that will need to be completed during combat with the benefactor. Once the combat starts they will have 4 rounds before the next phase of the combat begins, I’ll need to foreshadow this through descriptions of events happening at the top of each round. The second phase of combat will involve the Mind Flayer Black Shadow Dragon, it’ll enter through the rift that connects the material plane with my version of the Underdark. To reinforce the idea that the Underdark is accessible, I’ll need to include 2 low-level Drow that can be eliminated quickly, possibly introducing them in the first couple of rounds of combat to show that the rift is open and passible.

The puzzle is simple, they’ll need to investigate the artifact that is maintaining the rift with the Underdark and disable the 8 nodes that are in the form of jars in a particular order. I’ll need to write a riddle to complete the puzzle, simple enough that it can be figured out quickly but not obvious when you first read it. I’ll be considering that as I complete the map. Each node should be 100-120 ft apart on the floor and ceiling with a 40 ft ceiling, the destruction of the node should be 10 damage to the jar with a threshold of 5. I have been hinting at the colors of the jars and I believe that I’ll use that as the riddle, I’ll need eight different color combinations. The riddle will be as follows, they will have associated colors with their words on the artifact;

Morning, Spring, Noon, Summer, Evening, Fall, Night, Winter

The color combinations of the jars will need to be destroyed in that order, if the incorrect jar is attacked no damage is done to it. Yellow for Morning, Green for Spring, Blue for Noon, Turquoise for Summer, Orange for Evening, Red for Fall, Black for Night, White for Winter. The combat will start after they destroy the first jar. While this is a simplistic puzzle, I want them to move quickly through this as it’s the combat during the puzzle that is important, not the puzzle itself, I have limited time to conclude the arc and need to keep that in consideration. If they destroy the last of the jars the artifact will become inert and the rift will close.

After the conclusion of the 3rd round, I’ll need to introduce the Dragon. If the party hasn’t disposed of the Wizard yet I’ll have the dragon demonstrate its capabilities on the Benefactor, stunning him, and consuming its brain in front of the party. After the initiation of phase 2 of the combat, it’ll be up to the dice to see who lives and who dies. I’ll keep it interesting by introducing a low-level Drow at the top of each round as they phase into the material plane. I’ll be adjusting the numbers and the encounter as it happens in real-time, I don’t intend to overwhelm them, the goal is the make it challenging and even deadly, but not impossible. If I think that the dice and tactics of the players are making the combat too easy, I set up contingencies to ensure that I can keep it at the level of difficulty that I would like, hence the concept of possible reinforcements.

I’m finalizing the map and stat blocks now and I think it should be an interesting end of the arc. Hopefully, we should be entering the final battle with 60-90 minutes left in the session, encounter timing and table management are important skills to develop as a StoryCrafter, and it is something that can only come with practice and knowledge of your group. As a surprise for the group as they continue to play in my setting, if they fail to shut off the artifact they will have the ability to play as Underdark native races from now on, if they succeed they will continue to be restricted on those races. I want to maintain a semblance of continuity in the world and have the PC’s actions reflect on the influence that they can have.

Session 3 – 3 hours

I spoke earlier about being able to read the table. When the session started I listened to the banter around the table and gauged the demeanor of the group as we did the recap. It was evident that continuing with my current plan of an additional encounter, long rest and then the boss fight wasn’t going to work or be as fun as I had anticipated. The party needed an interlude between their current position and the final battle. So I made something up.

Note: Part of the skill of being a DM is the ability to improvise full encounters, whether that be combat encounters or social ones, and not have your players know if it was planned or not. Your smart players will always know, and it’s a skill you have to maintain. If you don’t have experience doing any kind of improv I fully recommend that you go and attend some of the practice sessions of a local improv group, you will learn more in the short amount of time you’re there than years behind the screen. This will improve your abilities and skills as a player as well. 

I knew I wanted to drive home the idea of the Underdark and so I had a couple of Deep Gnomes help out the party. They were able to cast a version of Tiny Hut that also “carved out” a hole in the side of the tunnel and the party had some much-needed roleplay time. I was able to do a little bit of exposition about the nature of the drift into the Underdark and make it clear that this was a connection. My party loves roleplay moments where the Characters can connect with each other, I’m glad that I allowed downtime before the final encounter as they were able to explore those aspects of the game with these characters.

This particular series of events was completely improvised. I knew I needed 90 minutes for the final battle to be resolved so I let them take their time. Keeping an eye on the clock, I started to wrap up the roleplay through the NPCs and then pushed them to the final battle. We ended up having only 75 minutes for the combat encounter, but that proved to be more than enough for what ended up happening.

I decided to make the benefactor antagonist show up after they solved the first portion of the puzzle. I went with a Transmutation Wizard to throw at the party, Level 15 with a few buffs. Coming into combat with a few spells already going, namely Tensors Transformation, Longstrider, Fire Shield, and Crown of Stars. I was going to bring in the Shadow Dragon Illithid at the top of round 4. The single wizard almost dropped two PCs in three rounds. A few crits and some really good damage rolls using d12s ended up putting the PCs in a bad place, not to mention that 1 of the PCs was focused completely on solving the puzzle with another one spending more than half the time on them as well. The action economy still favored the PCs but the damage economy favored the wizard.

They had managed to whittle down the wizard’s hit points to a respectable level when the dragon showed up, I spent the whole first round gobbling up the wizard to demonstrate to the party what they are dealing with. Luck was with DM on this one, quickly regenerating breath weapons while damage rolls continued to be ridiculously high (one breath weapon did 80 damage out of a 96 maximum). The PCs were doing okay and could scrape out a win, however, one of the fighters continued to make tactical errors and had really bad rolls, his death signaled the turn of the battle. The players knew the TPK was happening the round before it was resolved, morale dropped a bit but they were great sports about it. We ended the session right at the three-hour mark.

I would like to commend my group, I set them up with some really difficult fights and scenarios. I like the way that the mechanics of the house rules that we’re testing are working so far, we are going to continue to test the house rules in the next short arc that one of my group is running. They were good sports about the TPK and I hope that they had as much fun as I did.

Wrap Up

With almost 18 hours of prep time and nearly 9 hours of running the game, this was a decent short arc. I’m pleased with the results, and I really don’t mind that I TPKd the party. The good thing about running short arcs is that the players usually don’t get too attached to their characters (although 2 of my players really blossomed with character creation this time). It is important to frontload a lot of your prep, knowing the direction you’re taking something and hammering in the shape of your mechanics is important. Leave enough room in your prep to allow for improvisation and learn to read the table and mood of your players. This is a game about having fun, and it is critical that you recognize when your group could use a break or redirection from the current plot trajectory.

I hope that this gives you a better insight into the methodology and minds of game masters and their craft. While every single StoryCrafter will do it differently, the basics remain the same. I would love to hear from the community and see what the other veteran DMs out there do for prep of their games. I’m always interested in improving and refining my own methodologies. Let me know what you think!

When you sit at the table to play, every person at the table is a StoryCrafter whether they realize it or not. As the Game Master, you set the environment, pacing, mood, and challenges. As players, they make the decisions that drive the plot forward. Table Top Role Playing Games are a collaborative effort, and everyone at the table needs to include everyone else in this process. I couldn’t ask for a better group for my home game, and while some people come and others go, I can honestly say that many of my best friendships have been started when I sat down at a table, with a group of people I didn’t know and told epic stories.

Until next time,

Mike aka RPG StoryCraft