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Random encounters can be used to achieve several different effects. In the case of the Avernian Hexcrawl, they’re designed to provide flexible content that will give a dynamic life to the Avernian wastelands, either as the PCs travel between keyed locations or while fleshing out those locations during play.

When using the Avernian Random Encounters, you may find it useful to check out:

• 5E Hexcrawl: Encounters, which breaks down the basic mechanics for random encounters. You can also use these tools to tweak the encounter check procedures described below.
• Hexcrawl Tool: Tracks, for details on running encounters from the Tracks results.
• Random GM Tip: Encounter Distance, which can be used to add encounter distances to your encounter generation procedures.
• Breathing Life Into the Wandering Monster, which looks at the actual practice of using procedural content generators at the gaming table.

The random encounters will use material from several sources, which are referenced using abbreviations:

• MM = Monster Manual
• TOF = Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes
• GTM = Volo’s Guide to Monsters
• DIA = Descent Into Avernus
• EIA = Encounters in Avernus
• IE = Infernal Encounters
• EGD = Emirikol’s Guide to Devils
• SSA = Scientific Secrets of Avernus
• BOF = Book of Fiends 5E
• DDAL09-19 = Avernus Rising: Fang & Claw

ENCOUNTER CHECKS

Roll 2d10 and 1d12.

• A roll of 1 on 1d10 indicates an encounter. (Double 1’s indicate two simultaneous encounters.)
• A roll of doubles on d10’s (other than double 1’s) indicates that you should roll on the Designed Encounters table. Otherwise roll on the Procedural Encounters table for each one. (If you roll a designed encounter you’ve already used, roll a procedural encounter instead.)
• If the PCs are traveling on/along the Styx, there’s a 50% chance that any procedural should be rolled on the Styx Encounters table instead of the normal table.
• For each procedural encounter, check Track %, then Lair %.
• A roll of 1 on 1d12 indicates the PCs have encountered the keyed location in the hex. (If there are multiple keyed locations in the current hex, determine which one is encountered randomly.)

These results can be combined into a simultaneous encounter. (For example, rolling doubles on the d10’s and 1 on the d12 would indicate a scripted encounter taking place at the hex’s keyed location. Or you might roll a procedural tracks encounter plus a location encounter, indicating that the PCs have found tracks at they keyed location.)

DESIGN NOTES

I don’t typically use designed encounters (for reasons discussed here), unless there’s some specific design goal or advantage to be gained. In this case, as described above, I’m drawing encounter material from a wide variety of sources, and several of these include really good prepackaged encounters. It would be silly not to include this material, even though it adds a little extra complexity to our encounter checks.

Actually, I’m hoping that by using multiple dice and checking for doubles, that I have at least managed to streamline the number of dice rolls. (I was also quite pleased to easily generate simultaneous encounters with this system, which I felt were particularly important to include (a) given the fractious nature of Avernus and (b) to provide significantly more variety to the encounters.)

For procedural encounters, the tables have been designed to usually generate an encounter between 7^th Level Deadly (8,500 XP) and 12^th Level Hard (15,000 XP) for five PCs. Since multiple encounters can occur simultaneously, this creates a functional range from 8,500 XP to 30,000 XP (which is Deadly for 15^th level characters).

(Some encounters are an exception to this towards the lower end, where interesting or relevant fiends have been included even if would take a bajillion of them to hit the desired challenge range. They’ll either be scenic in nature or provide a little extra color when generated simultaneously with another encounter.)

This distribution is generally achieved on some form of bell curve, so the extremes will be relatively unusual. The net effect, however, is that Avernus will be very dangerous when the PCs first arrive and they will never be able to feel completely safe in Hell. This is deliberate because, well… It’s Hell. But it should also be mitigated to some degree because not every encounter should be thirsting for the PCs’ blood (which you can simulate using the Avernian Reactions table, or improvise according to your own predilections).

It is also possible to generate a very rare dangerous devil. These fiends are individually Deadly encounters for Level 12 to Level 18 characters (22,500 XP to 47,500 XP). They are obviously incredibly dangerous, particularly if they get combined with another encounter. Things to consider include:

• Assuming either indifference or a non-hostile intent on the part of these devils (e.g., the PCs see them flying far overhead or they offer the PCs a standing offer for their souls).
• Choosing to ignore the dangerous devil encounters entirely (or selectively ignoring them as appropriate).
• Increasing the Tracks % for these encounters (possibly to 100%) so that the PCs become aware of the danger without being immediately confronted by it.

Or just roll with it and let the dice fall where they may.

Go to Part 7H-B: Designed Encounters

Fantasy worlds are places of mysterious wonder and rare treasures. They are filled with exotic creatures, awesome vistas, and mind-numbing terrors. They offer unspeakable beauty which can never be seen, songs that will never be heard, and wonders that will never be known. Their pervasive magic changes the very substance of mortal reality.

This article attempts to provide the foundations of such a world: The raw materials from which wonders can be built and treasures can be forged.

But these are not the common materials of history or the modern world. Items of marvelous grandeur may be forged from gold and silver, but such items lack that spark of the fundamentally fantastic which even a simple blade of mithril possesses.

This, then, is a catalog of things which have never been and will never be. Here there are gems which will never sparkle; trees which will never be felled; stones from quarries which will never be mined; metals which will never be forged.

They are the building blocks of a world which can live only in our imaginations.

FANTASY WOODS

Blackoak: This variety of oak grows in thick groves. At night its ashy gray bark and dark green leaves blot out starlight and moonlight alike, creating copses of stygian blackness. It is often logged for its strong, dark gray wood which, when treated with the proper stains, becomes a deep, lustrous black.

Bronzewood: Bronzewood is a dark, naturally golden wood. It can be finished to either gleam like pale gold or glow like burnished bronze.

Cinderheart: Cinderheart trees are often mistaken for beech trees, although their bark is much darker (usually a chocolate brown or a sepulchral charcoal in color). The wood of a cinderheart tree is the color of pale ash and is totally resistant to fire.

Darkwood: The sight of the rare darkwood tree is justly renowned for its breathtaking beauty. Its trunk, a vibrant reddish-brown, contrasts vividly with its thick, dark leaves. But the eye is drawn instantly to the large, translucent globes which hang from its boughs and glow softly as a constant reminder of the tree’s innately magical nature. Its wood, when cut, is naturally a deep, rich red that, in its finished form, can be treated to either a bright crimson or a dull, reddish-gray.

Although as hard as normal wood, darkwood is very light. Any wooden or mostly wooden item (such as a bow, an arrow, or a spear) made from darkwood is considered a masterwork item and weighs only half as much as a normal wooden item of that type. Items not normally made of wood or only partially of wood (such as a battleaxe or a mace) either cannot be made from darkwood or do not gain any special benefit from being made of darkwood. The armor check penalty of a darkwood shield is lessened by 2 compared to an ordinary shield of its type.

Dreadwood: The dreadwood tree is a stunted, twisted thing. Its barkless trunk is a lusterless black run through with red veins which seem to pulse with thick, turgid blood. About such a tree there is an aura of the unnatural profoundly disturbing to the mortal mind. Any who would approach a dreadwood tree must succeed at a Wisdom save (DC 15) or turn aside with loathing and fear. This DC is increased by +1 for every additional dreadwood tree in the area, up to a maximum DC of 30.

If the wood of the dreadwood can be harvested and treated with the proper alchemical substances, its red veins can be made to pulse even in death. Those near an object crafted from treated dreadwood suffer a –2 penalty to Will saves. Those handling an object of dreadwood, or entering a room built of it, suffer a –4 penalty to Will saves and must succeed at a Will save (DC 15) or become shaken for as long as they are near the dreadwood and for 1d6 rounds thereafter.

A dreadwood tree does not require sunlight in order to grow and many are found deep beneath the surface of the earth. In fact, the dreadwood’s manner of sustenance remains a mystery much studied by arcanists and druids alike.

Godwood: Godwood is a pale wood, almost pearlescent white in color. In the presence of divine magic godwood gives off a faint glow. As a result, despite its rarity and expense, godwood is often used for holy symbols. And although few churches can afford to panel entire walls with godwood, many will use finely-carved inlays of the wood to form exquisite mosaics or murals.

A piece of godwood will glow if any divine spell is cast or divine magic item brought within 10 feet x the spell level. If the godwood is removed from the vicinity of the divine effect, or if the divine effect comes to an end, the godwood will continue to glow for a number of rounds equal to 1d6 + the spell level of the divine effect. For example, if an instantaneous 5^th-level spell were to be cast anywhere within 50 feet of a piece of godwood, the godwood would glow for 1d6+5 rounds.

Goldleaf: The wood of the goldleaf is a pale ivory laced with veins that glitter like gold dust. Despite its natural beauty, goldleaf is seldom cut for its wood, for it is a rare tree and difficult to seed or cultivate. Instead, goldleaf trees are prized for their leaves, which – although not truly metallic – have the appearance of pure gold. These leaves can be harvested, usually maintaining their appearance for at least one or two years before slowly fading to a dull, dead brown.

Ironwood: Ironwood in its natural state is a dull, metallic gray, but it can be stained to resemble a richly-hued dark mahogany. It is most notable, however, because it possesses all the strength of its namesake. (When attempting to break any object crafted from ironwood, treat the object as if it were made from iron. Similarly, any armor or shield of ironwood should be treated as identical to its metallic equivalent. Ironwood does not hold an edge, however, and cannot be used to craft weapons which would not normally be made of wood. Ironwood burns like normal wood. It does not rust.)

Ironwood is prolific in its growth and is often found in vast swaths of deep forest. Ironwood trees have silvery-grey bark and dark green leaves. During the fall, their leaves turn a deep, rich purple. Although difficult to log, usually requiring axes of adamantine and great skill, there are many settlements which have become rich supplying ironwood to the outside world.         Because ironwood is such a difficult material to work with, it is almost never used for detailed carving (although wizards have, upon occasion, used fabricate spells and similar effects to craft ironwood carvings which have endured for centuries). Bowyers, however, often use ironwood for the construction of composite bows. It is also often used architecturally – particularly for doors – and its durability means that, even in ancient ruins, ironwood fixtures may still be found intact.

Wave Cypress: Wave cypress is a pale blue wood which grows beneath the surface of the ocean, usually in coastal or near-coastal waters. Wave cypress never rots, making it particularly useful in seaside ports and for smaller boats (it lacks the strength necessary for larger vessels). Although difficult for surface dwellers to harvest in great quantities, wave cypress is often used by mermen and other underwater races.

Note: The mechanics in this article are designed for 3E.

When I reviewed Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, I commented that Arveiaturace — the white wyrm with the dead body of her beloved wizard-rider strapped to her back — was one of the coolest things created for the book.

I wasn’t alone. You can find lots of people saying the same thing.

She’s still very cool.

But it turns out she wasn’t created for the book.

I realized my mistake recently when I was reading through Storm King’s Thunder and noticed a reference to Arveiaturace. (Which is a testament to how cool her presentation in Rime of the Frostmaiden is, because it made her stick in my mind so that future references would stick out like that.)

My curiosity piqued, I started digging deeper. And it turns out Arveiaturace is also mentioned in Tyranny of Dragons, where her mate Arauthator is trying to find a new rider for her in the hopes that it will convince her to take the rotting corpse off her back.

(True story.)

Around this time, Arauthator and Arveiaturace were both mentioned in R.A. Salvatore’s Rise of the King, but their origin actually traces back thorugh Dragons of Faerun (a 3^rd Edition supplement that I’m pretty sure is the source text from which they entered 5^th Edition) all the way to Dragon Magazine #230, where Ed Greenwood launched a column called Wyrms of the North. The first column was dedicated to Arauthator. The second column, in #231, was about Arveiaturace, featuring art by Storn Cook:

You can actually find the original article in Wizard’s online archives. (Thanks to Graham Ward for finding that link.)

If you go back and read it, there are some really interesting games of Telephone that you can trace through the later books where it seems fairly clear authors were aware of one of the older references, but didn’t realize (just like me at the beginning of this article!) that it was all based on a larger body of previous lore.

For example, Arveiaturace’s lair is located in Icepeak, where it is part of the lair of the wizard who was/is her rider.

Because Arveiaturace doesn’t actually appear in Tyranny of Dragons, this lair is not mentioned there. But it is mentioned that her mate, Arauthator, has a lair inside a hollowed out iceberg.

For Storm King’s Thunder, whoever wrote the section describing Icepeak (p. 92, where it appears as “Ice Peak”) knew the original source for Arveiaturace or, more likely, Dragons of Faerun and places her lair “correctly” in Icepeak.

But whoever wrote the section on the Sea of Moving Ice (p. 106) was probably sourcing strictly from Tyranny of Dragons and so writes, “Each dragon [Arauthator and Arveiaturace] makes it lair inside a hollowed-out iceberg.”

In Rime of the Frostmaiden, the author of Arveiaturace’s section (p. 105) once again is sourcing strictly from Tyranny of Dragons, is unaware of either reference in Storm King’s Thunder, and decides to place the “unknown” location of her lair atop the Reghed Glacier.

I love this kind of thing because it’s a simple exemplar of something that happens all the time in actual history texts describing the real world. For example, check out CGP Grey’s “The Race to Win Staten Island,” which brilliantly tears apart a historical legend which has perniciously crept its way into historical “fact.”

Another fun fact here is that, in her original appearance, Arveiaturace is a straight-up draconic whore:

Arauthator regards the white dragon Arveiaturace as an acceptable mate when he feels inclined. He employs a sending spell to call her to his lair for dalliance, giving her gems from his hoard after each mating but firmly escorting her out of his domain to rear any hatchlings that may result on her own.

(No shame intended, to be clear. Everyone’s a consenting Adult age category here.)

Where are their kids, by the way? That could be a really interesting thread to pull on in your Tyranny of Dragons, Storm King’s Thunder, or Rime of the Frostmaiden campaigns. Or, if your players have already run through those campaigns, to drop into a future storyline.

My favorite anecdote from Dragon #231, though, is that Laeral Silverhand of Waterdeep heard that Arveiaturace had besieged Candlekeep in response to someone writing a disparaging remark about Melathorand, her dead wizard-rider. So Laeral immediately commissioned The High History of the Mighty Mage Melathorand (he’s the dreamiest!) and hand-delivered a copy to Arveiaturace, cementing a long-term alliance with the tempestuous wyrm (which apparently lasts unto the present day).

It’s also worth noting that Melathorand’s corpse has been strapped to her back for over a hundred years now. I’m guessing it’s not in great shape.

Or perhaps Arveiaturace periodically seeks out preservation spells to maintain the corpse in good condition. Although if she’s aware of that need, it raises the question of why she has not resurrected the mage. Does the mage not wish to return to life? (Why not?) Or is his soul trapped somewhere? That could be a fascinating adventure seed!

Alternatively, perhaps Arveiaturace is utterly mad and someone (likely Arauthator?) is the one who periodically arranges for the corpse to be magically preserved or restored.

Long story short, if you want to add a lot of lore to your presentation of Arveiaturace, track down Dragon #231 for “Wyrms of the North: Arveiaturace, the White Wyrm” (which, again, you can currently read here). Pretty much everything else is just a cliff’s note version of Greenwood’s original work.

Go to Icewind Dale Index

Go to Part 1 – Click for PDF

Where the encumbrance by stone system really comes alive is the equipment sheet, which basically makes tracking encumbrance as easy as listing what you’re carrying.

Encumbrance Rule: You can write down your character’s encumbrance rule (based on their Strength score) in the spaces provided in the lower right corner.

Armor/Shield/Weapons: The assumption is that your currently equipped armor, shield, and weapons will be listed for reference on the front of your character sheet. You can jot down the current encumbrance value for these items in the spaces provided in the lower right hand corner of the sheet.

Coins/Gems: These are listed in the upper right and their encumbrance is calculated as shown. (To quench the “I have one coin and it apparently weighs a ton” complaints, you can allow PCs carrying 20 or fewer coins to list them as “loose change” in the miscellaneous equipment section.)

Heavy Items: This section is for listing anything that qualifies as a heavy item (i.e., weighs 1 or more stones all by itself).

Miscellaneous Items: This column is the heart of the sheet. Simply list everything you’re carrying in bundles of 20 or less. When you’re done, you can immediately see how many stones of miscellaneous equipment you’re carrying. Bam.

Add Misc. Equipment + Heavy Items + Coins/Gems + Armor/Shield/Weapons to determine your Total Encumbrance. In practice, this is all single digit arithmetic and adjusting your encumbrance on-the-fly during an adventure is practically automatic.

Moving equipment to your horse? Picked up a bunch of treasure? Throwing away your shield in order to run away from the goblin horde at your heels? It can all be done in seconds.

TIPS & TRICKS

Stored Items: This section of the sheet is for anything you own that isn’t currently being carried by your character.

Inventory of Gems: The specific value of gems are tracked separately to make calculating coin/gem encumbrance easier.

Containers: This area is used for listing containers in use (which don’t count against encumbrance). Empty containers should be listed as miscellaneous equipment. There are two easy methods for tracking which items are in which container:

1. List miscellaneous equipment slot numbers next to the container.
2. Put a symbol (star, circle, square, etc.) next to the container, then mark items in the container with the same symbol.

Tracking Supplies: The intention is that you list your supplies in the miscellaneous equipment section, but you can quickly check off supplies used on the trackers. At some point of convenience, you can go through your equipment list, adjust the totals, and then erase the supply checklists to start anew.

The Blank Space: After making the sheet I kept expecting something to crop up that I’d forgotten. (At which point I’d have this convenient blank space to slot it into.) After a several years, nobody has suggested anything. (Let me know if you think of something.)

DESIGN NOTES

The goal of the encumbrance by stone system is to simplify the encumbrance rules to the point where:

1. It is virtually effortless to track encumbrance and, therefore,
2. The rules can be used to meaningful effect on-the-fly during actual gameplay.

All the way back in 1974, this type of gameplay was discussed. In Volume 3: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, for example, we can read:

If the adventurers choose to flee, the monster will continue to pursue in a straight line as long as there is not more than 90 feet between the two. (…) Distance will open or close dependent upon the relative speeds of the two parties, men according to their encumbrance and monsters according to the speed given on the Monster Table in Volume II. In order to move faster characters may elect to discard items such as treasure, weapons, shields, etc. in order to lighten encumbrance.

But in actual practice the encumbrance rules were such a pain in the ass — and have remained such a pain in the ass — that either (a) they’re not used at all or (b) the amount of calculation required to adjust your encumbrance is sufficiently onerous that no one is going to try to do it in the middle of a chase scene.

When I started using the encumbrance by stone system, however, I almost immediately saw explicit encumbrance-based play crop up in actual play. And although “encumbrance-based play” may not sound all that exciting at first glance, being forced to throw away your favorite shield or abandon several weeks worth of rations on the pack horse actually creates really cool moments! (Going back for your shield, for example, can be a unique motivator. Running out of food because you had to leave the rations behind can throw your plans completely out of whack and force you to start improvising.)

My experience has been that, once you have a fully functional encumbrance system, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. Encumbrance certainly isn’t essential to every adventure, but it is particularly vital for expedition-based play: It is a budget you are spending to prepare for the expedition and it is also frequently the limit on the rewards you can bring back. The desire to manage and expand your encumbrance limits for an expedition (by using mounts, pack animals, and/or hirelings) will frequently unlock unique gameplay and storytelling opportunities.

Running expedition-based play without encumbrance is like running combat without keeping track of hit points. The encumbrance by stone just makes it easy to do what you need to do.

THINKING ABOUT STONES

Roughly speaking, for the purposes of estimating the stone weight of larger items, you can assume that a stone is equal to 15 lbs. in 5^th Edition.

Thinking about the “value” of a stone in such concrete terms, however, is to largely miss the point of the system: The stone is deliberately chosen as an obscure unit of measurement whose definition is intentionally vague. The stone is not defined as a specific weight; it exists in a nebulous range, but probably somewhere between 10 and 20 pounds most of the time.

This is based on historical fact: Although eventually set by British law at 14 pounds, the stone historically varied depending on the commodity being traded and the location in which it was being traded. (For example, the 1772 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica states that a stone of beef was eight pounds in London, twelve pounds in Hertfordshire, and sixteen pounds in Scotland.) This makes it fairly ideal to provide a system which uses crude approximation in an effort to vastly simplify the bookkeeping involved with tracking encumbrance. And the slightly archaic nature of the terminology is also immersive for a fantasy world. (“I’m carrying about eight stone.”)

“But I’m British!”

The British still commonly use stones to measure body weight. And I’ve heard from some, but not all, that this makes it too difficult to slip into the medieval/Renaissance mindset where weights are relative and often imprecise.

If you find that to be the case for yourself, I recommend just swapping out the term “stone” for something else. You can go for something generic like “slots,” although you lose the immersive quality of the system (where both you and your character think of their load in similar terms). Another option would be a purely fictional term. For example, you might reframe the system using dwarven daliks.

SPECIAL THANKS

The design of this system was originally inspired by Delta’s D&D Hotspot and Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

This simplified method for handling encumbrance using an imprecise, medieval-mindset way of thinking about weight was originally designed in 2011 for OD&D and 3^rd Edition. This version of the rules is fully adapted for 5^th Edition.

Encumbrance, measured in stones carried, determines the load a character is currently carrying. A character’s encumbrance can be normal, encumbered, or heavily encumbered. A character has a carrying capacity equal to their Strength in stones (which is the maximum weight they can carry), they are heavily encumbered if they are carrying more than two-thirds of this number (round down), and encumbered if they are carrying more than one-third this number (round down).

Each character has an encumbrance rule to keep track of these thresholds, which are precalculated on the table below. For example, a character with Strength 10 has an encumbrance rule of 10-6-3 (meaning they are encumbered when carrying 3 or more stones, heavily encumbered when carrying 6 or more stones, and cannot carry more than 10 stones).

Encumbered: An encumbered character’s speed drops by 10 feet.

Heavily Encumbered: A heavily encumbered character’s speed drops by 20 feet and they have disadvantage on ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws that use Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution.

Push, Drag, or Lift: A character can push, drag, or lift up (without carrying) twice their carrying capacity. While pushing or dragging weight in excess of their carrying capacity, a character’s speed drops to 5 feet.

Adjusting for Size: The encumbrance rule for a creature is doubled for each size category above Medium. The encumbrance rule is halved for Tiny creatures. (It is easiest to consider a Tiny creature as having half its Strength score for the purposes of calculating encumbrance, a Large creature to have double its Strength, and so forth.)

Variant – Quadrupeds: Quadrupeds can carry heavier loads and have an encumbrance rule equal to twice an equivalent biped.

WEIGHT BY STONE

To determine the number of stones carried by a character, simply consult the table below.

Miscellaneous Equipment: Up to twenty items of the same type (scrolls, arrows, potions, rope) can be bundled together for the purposes of encumbrance, with five bundles being equal to 1 stone. Items of different types aren’t bundled when determining encumbrance.

Stowed Weapons: Stowed weapons have been compactly stored in a way which makes them more difficult to draw (but easier to carry). Stowed weapons must be retrieved before they can be used, but they only count as 1 stone per 5 weapons.

Heavy Items: Anything weighing more than roughly 10 pounds can’t be effectively bundled. Estimate a weight in stones (about 10-20 pounds to the stone). When in doubt, call it a stone.

Clothing / Worn Items: Worn items don’t count for encumbrance, unless the individual items would qualify as heavy items.

CONTAINERS

Weapons are assumed to be in sheaths, armor is worn, and you might have a wineskin or two strapped to your belt. But since there’s a limit to how much you can hold in your hands, everything else you’re carrying needs a place to live. As a rule of thumb, containers can carry:

Empty containers count as miscellaneous equipment. Containers being used to carry items don’t count towards encumbrance.

Larger sacks (often referred to as “loot sacks”) are also possible, but these cannot generally be stored on the body. They must be carried in both hands.

VARIANT – CREATURE WEIGHT BY SIZE

Your own weight does not count against your encumbrance, but these figures are important for mounts. (They’ll also come in handy if you need to carry a corpse or prisoner.)

These figures are meant to serve as a useful rule of thumb, being roughly accurate for creatures similar in build and type to humans (i.e. fleshy humanoids). There will, however, be significant variance within each size category. Even typical animals of Huge size, for example, can easily range anywhere from 400 stones to 3,000 stones. Creatures of unusual material can obviously shatter these assumptions entirely (ranging from light-as-air ether cloud fairies to impossibly dense neutronium golems).

ENCUMBRANCE RULES

Part 2: The Sheet