SESSION 43E: SNAKES IN A WHOREHOUSE

October 25th, 2009
The 24th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

INTO PORPHYRY HOUSE

They found a secluded corner on the northern side of the building, well-shielded from prying public eyes, and drilled through. They found themselves in a long hallway that looked to run almost the entire length of the building. On the long opposite wall of the hall were roughly a dozen secret doors – or, rather, the back-side of secret doors. Although their construction clearly indicated that they were designed to be lay flush with the wall on the opposite side, from this side their nature and operation were plain. The hall was capped at either end by similar doors.

One of these doors gave out into a large, vaulted chamber decorated with hangings of red and blue curtains, risqué paintings, bonsai trees, and erotic statuary. The floor here was covered with a deep, soft carpet that felt as if they were walking across a very firm, forgiving bed. The air was filled with the subtle scents of jasmine-tinted incenses.

In one corner, a stair of intricately carved porphyry curved up through the ceiling. Along one wall a large, elegantly curved desk of gleaming mahogany extruded itself from the wall. And at the far end of the chamber broad, curved steps rose up to a massive pair of daised doors.

The door they had come through was, in fact, disguised from this side. There was also another door of polished wood not far along the same wall. They had clearly entered the “public” area of the brothel.

Crossing the luxurious chamber they ascended to the double doors and eased them open, only to find themselves entering an even larger chamber. The massive hall was dimly lit with glowing tiles in the ceiling and a set of four braziers around a wide, shallow pool of water. Several other pools of heated water off to one side bubbled away, filling that end of the room with misty vapor. Dozens of large cushions were strewn here and there. At the far end of the chamber was a raised balcony lined with a wall of tall of mirrors. The place smelled of sweat and deeper, muskier odors.

Directly opposite their entry was a matching set of doors. Passing through these, they found themselves in a second antechamber similar to the one they had passed through before. Tee even confirmed their suspicion that there would be a matching secret door in the far corner of the room.

Poking around the desk in this room they found papers detailing registrations for various orgies held in the house. Oddly, despite regular orgies scheduled multiple times per week, there was a gap in the registration records indicating that no orgies were currently being held. The next orgy – which was apparently going to be of prodigious proportions – was scheduled on the 18^th of Noctural.

(They noted that all of the records here were for female participants, but a quick double-check in the opposite chamber found that a similar gap existed in the registration for men.)

The secret door in this room also passed into what appeared to be a service hall. A quick check through the other door revealed a luxury-filled hallway lined with matching doors, leading them to conclude that the secret doors probably led into the individual brothel chambers. They didn’t see any need to go into those, and they were fairly certain that what they were looking for wouldn’t be found in the brothel’s public halls.

A little way down the luxurious hall, however, Tee found another secret door in the wall opposite the doors they suspected led to bedrooms. This seemed likely to take them where they wanted to go, so she slid open the panel.

This revealed a large, barracks-like chamber containing four beds (each with a large chest at its foot). The creatures lying in the beds, however, were serpentine monstrosities.

Tee pulled out the onyx ring Nasira had enchanted with an aura of magically enforced silence and motioned the others into position. As the serpent-men started stirring, Agnarr and Tee moved to one bed; Tor to another. While Nasira kept a watch in the hall, Tor swung his blade down and sliced the serpent-man in half.

Despite its  rapid dismemberment, however, the blood-spewing thing’s upper half squirmed towards him. Agnarr and Tee managed to destroy the one they had chosen by slicing it into ever smaller portions, but the arterial sprays of blood were beginning to wake the others—

And magical darkness suddenly descended on the room.

Tor felt his way over to another of the beds and started hacking blindly in the darkness, but the serpent-man who had been bedding there managed to slip away.

Tee stumbled out the far side of the darkness zone and found the two remaining serpent-men trying to regroup by the far door. One of them had grabbed a small bag of black leather and silver stitching that had been slung over one of the bedposts. Now that it was open, the bag glowed from within with a neonesque, blood-red light. The serpent-men were dipping their weapons into the bag and as they drew the weapons out they were drenched in the living light.

Tee, unwilling to give them a chance to slip through the door and raise the alarm, threw herself at them. With their backs literally to the wall, the serpent-men fought with desperation – and the red light on their blades burned her blood where it struck. But Tee was able to hold them long enough for Tor and Agnarr to join her, and then the tide turned and the serpents were cut down.

They took the strange bag to Ranthir, who identified it as a witchlight reservoir. Such reservoirs were designed to hold small quantities of naturalistic magical energy. Empowered with exposure to sunlight or moonlight or with sacrifices of blood or wine, such reservoirs could fuel minor effects. This particular reservoir, as they had seen, was designed to graft its power onto melee weapons. Ranthir was also able to determine that it was currently empowered with human blood, which raised some unpleasant questions about where such blood had come from.

They quickly stripped down the room. They found several small caches of gold, but were deeply impressed with the high magical quality of the equipment they found. (In many ways, they were thankful that they had surprised the serpent-men while they hadn’t been wearing or using any of it.) It was somewhat disturbing, however, to see that each of the serpent-men had a suit of the porcelain-and-gold armor they had seen the human guards wearing at the front of the building (complete with human vizor). Were those guards also serpent-men? Somehow disguised in plain sight by their armor?

They locked the door the serpent-men had been rallying near (in the hope that it might slow down any accidental discovery of the blood-stained chamber), and headed back through the orgy registration rooms to what they believed would be a second, mirrored barracks on the opposite side of the building.

They did, in fact, find a secret door where they had expected one. But on the other side, instead of a second barracks, they found an opulent lounge of low-lying couches. On one of these, another of the serpent-men lounged, a hookah lying at its side.

Tor leapt forward and beheaded the creature while it was still trying to rise out of its drugged stupor.

With the onyx silence ring still on her finger, Tee moved to one of the doors on the far side of the lounge. Easing it open, she peered into the galley of a long kitchen. Around a table at the near end two more of the serpent-men were playing a desultory game of cards.

They rushed the table: Tee’s blade literally pinioned one of the serpent-men to the table, while Tor chopped off the head of the other.

Heading further down the length of the kitchen they discovered that it opened up into a larger area with a dozen or so humans sleeping in rags on the floor. All of the humans wore bands of green stone around their wrists, which Ranthir identified as slave rings. A slave owner wearing a master ring could use these slave rings to deal out punishments (including death) and even look through the eyes of his slaves.

Waking the slaves, therefore, was too dangerous. They decided to quietly retreat out of the kitchen before they alerted the entire compound.

Running the Campaign: Prepping Porphyry House – Campaign Journal: Session 44A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

The rules for hiding and invisibility in D&D 5^th Edition have always been a mess. There’s lots of reasons for this — ranging from the designers of the game having a deeply held belief that being invisible is the same as standing outside on a moonlit night to the weirdly contradictory hardcoding of being blind, being heavily obscured, and being invisible — but the end result are rules that are difficult to use, in large part because they so frequently produce a result that’s completely counterintuitive to how we expect human eyes to work.

The 2024 edition of the rules tried to clean all of this up, but mostly just made a different mess. For example, Hide makes you Invisible. You can Hide if you’re Heavily Obscured, but Heavily Obscured means people are considered Blind when looking at you, and the only effect of that is identical to being Invisible except Invisibility also gives you advantage on Initiative rolls. Also, neither Hiding nor Invisibility prevent enemies from knowing your location.

This only scratches the surface, and I’m not really going to belabor or attempt to breakdown all the problems here. I think it would only distract from the real purpose of this post: To provide a comprehensive fix for the mess.

The house rules below are designed to slot into the existing D&D 2024 rules as cleanly as possible, while being built around a simple mental-mechanical model in which characters are either:

• Not Hidden
• Pinpointed (observers know where they are, but can’t clearly see them)
• Hidden (observers don’t know where they are)

This model makes it easier for DMs to run stealthy situations both in and out of combat with great clarity and confidence, while other elements of these rules simultaneously make them far more useful for making flexible rulings to cover unusual situations and cool ideas that your players might cook up.

REVISED HIDING & INVISIBILITY RULES

These entries completely replace the matching entries in the 2024 Player’s Handbook rules glossary.

HIDE [ACTION]

With the Hide action, you try to prevent people from knowing where you are (or possibly that you are there at all). To do so, you must be in a Concealable Location, such as being Heavily Obscured, behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover, or otherwise out of an observer’s line of sight.

When attempting to Hide, you make a DC 15 Dexterity (Stealth) check. On a successful check, you gain the Hidden condition against all observers with a passive Wisdom (Perception) score lower than your check. If any new observers enter the area, you also gain the Hidden condition against them if their passive Wisdom (Perception) score is lower than your check.

When an observer takes the Search action, they can immediately attempt a Wisdom (Perception) check against the DC set by the Hidden character’s Dexterity (Stealth) check. You lose the benefits of the Hidden condition against any creature who succeeds at the Wisdom (Perception) check or who can otherwise see you (because they’re on the same side of the wall you’re hiding behind or due to a magical effect, for example).

Observers remain aware of where they last saw you or detected you.

HIDDEN [CONDITION]

When you have the Hidden condition, you experience the following effects.

• When you’re Hidden from a creature, they don’t know your location.
• If you are no longer in a Concealable Location or benefiting from another condition that allows you to take the Hide action, you immediately lose the Hidden condition.
• Concealed. You can’t be affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen if you are Hidden from the effect’s creator.
• Surprise. If you are Hidden from all enemies when you roll Initiative, you have Advantage on the roll.
• Combat Advantage. Attack rolls against a Hidden opponent have Disadvantage, and a Hidden opponent’s attack rolls have Advantage.
• Detectable Actions. If you make an attack or take some other loud or overt action (such as talking louder than a whisper, kicking open a door, or casting a spell with a Verbal component), other creatures will pinpoint your current location, allowing them to, for example, aim attacks at you (although you would still benefit from your Combat Advantage). In addition, taking a detectable action allows any observer you’re currently Hidden from to make a Wisdom (Perception) check to spot you (removing the benefits of the Hidden condition). Observers can use a reaction to gain advantage on this check.
• Leaving Concealment. If you are no longer in a Concealable Location or benefiting from another condition or effect that allows you to take the Hide action, you lose the Hidden condition. If this happens on your turn in combat, you lose the Hidden condition at the end of your turn. (If, after being revealed, you take the Hide action again, you can immediately regain the Hidden condition after losing it, but observers will remain aware of where they last saw or detected you.) If you Ready an action triggered by something that would reveal your location, you lose the Hidden condition at the end of your Readied action. (For example, you could Hide behind a closed door and then stab someone opening the door, while still gaining the benefits of Hidden on your attack.)

INVISIBLE [CONDITION]

When you have the Invisible condition, you experience the following effects.

• You cannot be seen. Any equipment you’re carrying or wearing is also invisible.
• You can take the Hide action without needing to be in a Concealable Position.
• You gain Advantage on checks that would benefit from not being seen, including Dexterity (Stealth) checks.
• Attack rolls against you have Disadvantage, and your attack rolls have Advantage.
• You do not gain the benefits of Invisible against any creature who can somehow see you. (For example, due to a see invisibility )

Thanks to piccamo, Hillsy, Grimmash, Lerris, Eshie, Yalim, Kobars Gnomies, zonerhunt, Angon, Noah, Alberek, and other members of the Alexandrian Discord for their feedback and immense help in refining these rules.

FURTHER READING
Random GM Tips: Stealthy Thoughts

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 43D: Escapades of the Ogre

Agnarr called Seeaeti off the ogre so that it could successfully regenerate. They wanted to question it.

But when it woke up, it was the one asking the questions. “Who are you?”

They naturally refused to answer. But although they tried to question it, threaten it, intimidate it, and scare it, the ogre just kept on asking questions. “Who sent you? What do you want?” And so forth.

But they resolutely refused to answer.

“Ah,” the ogre said at last. “I see I will learn nothing here.”

And it turned to gas… and then the gas itself vanished.

I think there can be a tendency for NPCs to be passive and reactive in conversations.

There are any number of reasons for this: The PCs are, obviously, positioned as protagonists. As GMs we’re juggling a lot of different elements, and it can be easier to juggle everything if it’s relatively stable (and, therefore, possessed of a certain passivity). Plus, at least for me, GMing is often reaction — the PCs do something and then we play to find out what happens. It can be easy for a conversation to slip into the same pattern, with the PCs setting the (only) agenda and the NPCs simply reacting to their efforts.

Unfortunately, a one-sided conversation is pretty boring. This inclination can also lead is into some bad habits, with NPCs who are either pushovers or complete intransigents who just senselessly say, “No!” to everything the PCs suggest.

Sometimes, of course, we key specific information to an NPC and their function is to deliver that information to the PCs: “Yes, I saw Sally down by the lake last night.” That has the advantage of giving the conversation some narrative substance, but it’s ultimately still pretty passive and placid.

To truly bring an NPC conversation to life, you need to ask one simple question:

What does this NPC want?

What is this NPC’s goal? What is the thing they’re trying to achieve? Why?

And perhaps most importantly:

How is this conversation going to help them get it?

What do they need the PCs do? What information do they want from the PCs? What do they need the PCs to believe? What do they need to hear the PCs say? What do they need to hide from the PCs?

This is the NPC’s agenda. You want to keep it simple, short, and actionable. And then you want to play it hard, with the NPC employing all kinds of tactics and conversational gambits to get what they want.

In this session, we see a particularly strong example of this with an ogre whose overwhelming motivation is figuring out who the PCs are, where they come from, and what their interest in the Banewarrens is. He also wants to make sure that the PCs don’t find out anything about his own organization or their intentions.

Since the PCs want the exact opposite, this puts them into a strong antithesis and the entire scene can boil out from there.

Importantly, however, this kind of open antithesis isn’t necessary to generate an interesting thing. The NPC just needs to want something different than the PCs, even if it’s only subtly different.

It’s also important to remember that, when antithesis does exist, that doesn’t mean it should never be surmountable. Yes, it’s dramatic when the Jedi Council refuses Qui-Gon Jinn’s request to train Anakin Skywalker. But it’s also a classic moment when Robin Hood convinces Friar Tuck to join his Merry Men.

In other cases the solution will be for the PCs to figure out how both their interests and the NPCs’ interests can be mutually achieved. That’s a puzzle for the players to ponder!

And, of course, achieving any of this will require first figuring out what the NPC actually wants! Some characters will politely (or not so politely) announce the intentions of course, but others will be quite sly about it.

Sometimes the conversation won’t be about overcoming or fulfilling the NPCs’ agenda at all! Nevertheless, the presence of the agenda — and the NPCs’ desire to fulfill it — will fill the scene with life.

In summary, for each meaningful NPC in a conversation, think about what the NPC’s conversational agenda is. Ideally, you should be able to state this in one clear sentence.

And then pursue it with all the strength you can muster!

Campaign Journal: Session 43E – Running the Campaign: Prepping Porphyry House
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 43D: ESCAPADES OF THE OGRE

October 25th, 2009
The 23rd Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

SEEKING THE FLAYER

Ranthir had a wand which allowed him to weave magical alarms. Moving systematically through the Banewarrens they laid down alarms at every major intersection, slowly cordoning off the complex. Ranthir also laid a glamer upon his eyes allowing him to see the hidden and the invisible, while Tee kept her sharp elven nose alert for any tell-tale scents.

They eventually reached the room with the massive iron cauldron. Activating her boots of levitation, Tee carried Ranthir up to look into the cauldron… and they spotted the flayer laying at the cauldron’s bottom.

But even in that instant, the flayer reached out into their minds and whispered, “Pass on. You see me not.”

“Yes I do!” Tee cried. And shot him.

The flayer lashed out with a mind blast, causing Tee to fall into the cauldron and Ranthir to land on the floor beside it.

Nasira hit the bottom of the cauldron with a spell that would heat the metal to dangerously hot temperatures. Unfortunately, the immense size of the cauldron delayed the effect to some extent.

Agnarr threw a rope over the top of the cauldron and braced it, allowing Tor to rapidly climb up to the cauldron’s lip… where he was promptly hit with a mind blast and fell backwards off the cauldron, striking his head on the floor as he fell into epileptic twitches.

Agnarr carefully backed up and then ran for the cauldron, leaping up to catch the rim and then hauling himself up. The flayer tried to hit him with another mind blast, but he shook it off and jumped down into the cauldron. Once there, he saw that, although Tee was beginning to burn from the heat of the metal (and the soles of his own feet were sore from it), the flayer was calmly floating three inches above the metal’s surface.

“Flying bastard!” Agnarr roared. “Flying squid bastard!”

In a few short, slashing blows from his sword he sliced the flayer up – its purplish-red blood spattering to boil upon the ever-heating metal. In the end, it was reduced to a pool of coagulate gore… which predictably soaked up into the back of Tee’s shirt before Agnarr finally picked her up and hauled her out of the cauldron.

ESCAPADES OF THE OGRE

With the flayer safely dead, they returned to the outer chamber where Elestra and Kalerecent were keeping an eye on Seeaeti and the mauled-but-still-regenerating ogre.

“Are we sure the flayer’s dead?” Elestra asked.

“Pretty sure,” Tor said.

“But is it regenerating like this one?”

Agnarr grunted. “Tee, turn around.”

Tee did.

“Okay, you see those squid guts all over her? It’s dead.”

Tee rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Agnarr.”

Agnarr called Seeaeti off the ogre so that it could successfully regenerate. They wanted to question it.

But when it woke up, it was the one asking the questions. “Who are you?”

They naturally refused to answer. But although they tried to question it, threaten it, intimidate it, and scare it, the ogre just kept on asking questions. “Who sent you? What do you want?” And so forth.

But they resolutely refused to answer.

“Ah,” the ogre said at last. “I see I will learn nothing here.”

And it turned into a gas… and then the gas itself vanished.

Nasira uttered a holy oath, banishing the invisibility effect. But this only resulted in causing the gas to reappear. Agnarr and Tor ran forward to attack it –  and they may have even caused some damage to it as their swords ripped through it in arcs of fire and electricity (although, on the other hand, perhaps it was only wishful thinking on their part) – but then a magical darkness popped into existence.

There was mass confusion: Tor became convinced that he had the ogre cornered (although it turned out he was only cutting away at empty air). Tee raced to block the entrance to the Banewarrens, but more darkness popped up. Then one of the alarm spells Ranthir had laid went off and they all rushed to the spot to find… nothing at all. A few moments late another alarm went off back in the antechamber and they realized that they had been completely outmaneuvered. Although they pursued him down the tunnel, the ogre had disappeared.

MORNING MISSIVES

In the morning Ranthir tracked down two scrolls detailing the creation of missive tokens. One he used to create a new missive token for Kalerecent to make sure the Banewarrens remained secure; the other he would study so that he could create them at will in the future.

The morning newssheets reported that, prior to the Midtown kidnapping, children had been disappearing from the Warrens for weeks… but no one had been reporting on it. (It was just the Warrens, after all.)

The more sensational headlines, however, reported three more killings on the Columned Row in Oldtown. Like the priest the night before, the victims had had their heads ripped open.

“Did we do that?” Elestra asked.

“No. I’m pretty sure—Wait, when did it happen? No, that wasn’t us.”

The murderer was being referred to as the “Columned Row Killer”.

Not long after, Shim reported to them. Physical scouting around Porphyry House had found no other entrances. He had tried to track down the architect responsible for the building, but nobody knew who had designed or built the place.

He was able to tell them that Porphyry House had first opened 12 months earlier (in Kadal 789). It had replaced a smaller, less prestigious brothel that had previously been built on the same site. There were rumors that, since that time, Porphyry House had been trying to force other brothels out of business in an effort to corner the market. The place was particularly famed for reputedly being able to instantly cater to the most specific (and perverted) needs of its clients. Shim had also learned that a major orgy was to be held at the House on the 18^th of Noctural.

Thanking Shim for what he had found, they focused their attention on forming a plan of action. They briefly revisited the idea of trying to break in through the sewers, but ended up rejecting it because they would need clairvoyance spells to pinpoint where to dig and they suspected such spells might trigger alarms within Porphyry House.

Instead they decided to use their stone-shaping spells to simply tunnel in through a side wall.

Running the Campaign: NPC Conversation Agendas – Campaign Journal: Session 43E
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

A classic walks among us once more: It is time to visit the legendary City State of the Invincible Overlord, a hoary relic left from the younger days of roleplaying.

Review Originally Published February 12th, 2001

Once upon a time, there was a company known as the Judges Guild. In their day they released more than one hundred “generic fantasy” (nudge, nudge; wink, wink) supplements. The quality of these supplements – easily some of the best material produced to that date – earned the Guild a reputation of excellence. But then the Guild went away and – although nostalgia granted it a place in the collective memory of gamedom – its products faded into the mists of time.

Undoubtedly the Guild’s most famous product, and the one which still holds renown twenty years later, was City State of the Invincible Overlord. This incredible volume described its titular subject with exacting detail: Every street and nearly every building is given a description, a cast of characters, and set of events – minimalist in each instance, perhaps, but monstrous in totality. Add to this the dungeon complexes of the Overlord’s castle, the Orcs of the Purple Claw, and the nearby Thunderhold (a dwarven citadel) and you have a product which was capable of acting as the epic cornerstone of many a campaign.

A few years after the Judges Guild disappeared, the City State supposedly returned in a boxed set released by Mayfair. This product was a travesty – robbing the City State of its former breadth of detail, while simultaneously failing to grant it any significant depth. It was obviously one of those horrid examples of someone trying to “save” a product which they don’t understand, and which never needed “saving” in the first place.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, a few months ago when I discovered that the Judges Guild had returned. No, not a “new Judges Guild.” Not someone who’s bought the name, nor someone who’s trying to copy the concept, but the founder himself and a crew dedicated to “bringing back Judges Guild the way it was – but better”. (As the Judges Guild website says.)

And their first product? What else besides a re-release of the revised version of their classic City State, complete with two B&W poster maps and everything which made the original a classic.

For $10.

Yup, you read that right: One of the classic products of gaming is back, and they’re only asking ten bucks for it. Ten measly bucks.

If you haven’t already left to go buy your copy yet, then it’s obvious you’re going to need a hard sell – which sounds like a cue for the conclusion of this review:

CONCLUSION

City State of the Invincible Overlord is a hoary relic left from the younger days of roleplaying… but there’s a reason it’s regarded as a classic: There’s more fodder here for the imaginative DM than the more polished products of today could hope to squeeze into twice as many pages.

Of course, let’s not pretend that the polished products of today don’t come with a lot more depth, development, and useful bits, too. They do. So, there’s a lot of fix-up you’re going to need to do – and a lot of development which is left to your own personal whim and taste: But at $10, City State is still a veritable steal.

City State is a firm foundation. And what you choose to build on it is all part of the fun.

Style: 3
Substance: 4

Grade: B+

Title: City State of the Invincible Overlord (Revised)
Authors: Bob Bledsaw and Bill Own
Company: Judges Guild
Line: Judges Guild
Price: $10.00
ISBN: n/a
Production Code: JG1999-0062
Pages: 86

I’d been hearing about the City State of the Invincible Overlord almost from the moment I joined the hobby, but I’d never even seen a copy. When I saw a copy of the Mayfair boxed set in the used section of my local game store, I instantly snatched up a copy… only to be bitterly disappointed to discover that it wasn’t the “real deal,” so to speak.

So, in 2001, this wasn’t quite the Holy Grail of Gaming for me. But it was certainly a Grail. So, yeah, when I heard that Judges Guild was back and selling the original City State of the Invincible Overlord for $10, I literally could not order a copy fast enough. It remains one of my most cherished gaming books.

If you’d like to see some tangible details about the book, its history, and its contents, check out Thinking About Urbancrawls: City States of the Judges Guild.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.