In my review of the Magic the Gathering Official Encyclopedia yesterday I mentioned how Magic cards can be used to great effect as a quick source of inspiration. Here are a couple quick examples of this from my own campaigns.

ARBORETUM GROTTO

“Clay Golem” – Magic the Gathering: Fourth Edition

• A thick, tiered cleft. Magical lights clinging to the ceiling seem to cast daylight down onto the thick pleats of overgrowth choking the miniature, underground veil.
• SPINDERS: 8 spinders roam through the overgrowth. (These can be found in the Book of Fiends, one of the best bestiaries ever produced.)
• STATUE OF LIGHT: In the middle of the grotto sits a squat statue of clay clasping a bowl which seems lit from within. (See visual handout, above.)
  • LIQUID LIGHT: The bowl is filled with liquid light. Anyone touching the liquid will cause it to flow up over their hand (or hands). From that point forward, their hands will permanently glow white — producing the effects of a daylight spell.
• ALCHEMY (DC 25): Recognize that most of the plants growing here are actually valuable alchemical ingredients. 6 hours harvesting could yield 5,000 gp of raw ingredients.

THE GLASSWORKS

“Urza’s Power Plant” – Magic the Gathering: Antiquities

• A twisted morass of glass piping filled with flowing fire.
• THE ARTIFURNACE: Near the center of the twist labyrinth of glass is the Artifurnace. Eight large valves run around its circumference . (See visual handout, above.)
  • CRACKING THE ARTIFURNACE: If all eight valves are released, the Artifurnace can be opened.
  • HELM OF FIRE ELEMENTAL CONTROL: Suspended within the Artifurance is a helm of fire elemental control (crafted from brass and gold). But it doesn’t work: One wearing the helm can summon a Large fire elemental, but anyone wearing the helm will instantly provoke rage from any fire elemental.
• FIRE ELEMENTALS: If any of the glass tubing is broken or the valves of the Artifurnace opened, the fire elementals trapped within the tubing will break free in a rage.
  • 1 Huge Fire Elemental, 2 Large Fire Elementals, 16 Small Fire Elementals
• DM BACKGROUND: The idea was to create a magical item through entirely sympathetic rituals (by controlling the fire elementals physically, imbue an item with the ability to control them). Instead, the item became imbued with the rage of the imprisoned elementals.

So in the realm of utterly bizarre realities, I offer you the Deep Storage Project. The simple gist is that someone is going to load up that crazy, multi-pronged modern art piece with tissue samples from thousands of volunteers and then lower it into the Marianas Trench so that if an apocalyptic disaster should occur the samples would be preserved and could be used to repopulate the species.

Nothing about this plan makes any sense: DNA samples that will decay into uselessness within mere years placed in a location that we would have difficulty retrieving them from now (let alone after an apocalypse).

But what I can’t help noticing is that this bizarre repository bears a truly uncanny resemblance to what an Elder Sign would look like if you extruded it into three dimensions. And that’s true whether you’re talking about the Lovecraftian original (on the left) or the Derlethian derivative you’re probably more familiar with (on the right):

So, hang on a second: They’re sculpting a dimensionally-extruded Elder Sign, filling it with offerings of human blood, and sending it to the deepest part of the ocean?

Are they trying to mitigate the Apocalypse… or start it?

Gnome Stew has an article up today: Hot Button — Secrets

Upon further reflection, I’ve decided that I don’t understand the practice of giving flowers at a funeral.

On the day itself, they are beautiful and I was deeply touched by the gesture (and deeply in need of seeing how much my mother was supported and loved).

But as the days pass, the flower arrangements become something that you desperately but futilely attempt to care for until they wither and die before your eyes.

It seems like the last thing I really want to be reminded of.

For a beginning GM, the location-based method of adventure prep is the best way to go: Draw a map. Number the rooms. Key the rooms (i.e., describe what’s in each room).

(1) Start small with a Five Room Dungeon.

(2) After a couple of those, go a little larger. And, when you do, start thinking about Xandering Your Dungeon.

(3) Okay, that’s getting awesome. But this map-and-key thing is a little too static: Monsters are just sitting in their rooms and waiting for the PCs to wander by and hit them over the head. So mix it up by prepping an Adversary Roster that’s independent of the map key and then run the monsters in the complex actively (so that goblins from area 6 might run across the compound and reinforce the goblins at area 1). At this point, it may also be useful to broaden your encounter design to give yourself more flexibility in how you use encounter groups.

At this point you’ve probably run about a dozen adventures and you’re starting to get comfortable as a DM. Awesome. Now you can start exploring non-location-based methods of adventure prep. For some basic priming check out: Three Clue Rule, Node-Based Scenario Design, and Don’t Prep Plots. Or, for another classic alternative, check out Hexcrawls.

And if you’re really ready to jump into the deep end: Game Structures.

HOW TO PREP

Throughout all of this, however, don’t over-prep. I think it’s really important to NOT use published adventures as an example of how to prep: Professional adventure writers are trying to communicate their vision to you. If you’re prepping notes for yourself, however, you can trust your creative instincts in the moment.

For example, it’s not necessary to elaborately work out and write down all of the different tactics that a group of orc fighters might use. You can just jot down “8 orcs” or “8 orcs, they’ll try to kick over the pot of boiling stew to burn the PCs” and then trust yourself to be creative in the moment.

Rule of thumb: Details are overrated (with the proviso that essential details and awesome details should always be jotted down).

Similarly, you don’t need to spend a lot of time customizing every stat block. You can take generic stat blocks out of the Bestiary and make them interesting through context and use and creative description. (The one-eyed orc chietain wearing the steel-plated skull of a wyrmling is pretty awesome. But there’s no reason you can’t just use the stat block for an orc warrior from pg. 222 of the Bestiary.)

Another rule of thumb: If you’re spending more time prepping it than your players spend playing it, you’re probably doing something wrong.

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