The PCs fight a mobile battle, eventually forcing their adversaries to retreat to a precipice overlooking a river of molten lava. Once everyone is fighting, the ground cracks and a massive chunk of the cliffside begins sliding down, hurtling towards the magma. After a few moments, it splashes in, floating and being swept downstream. As the fight continues, the island breaks up into smaller islands, isolating PCs and enemies randomly.
I had an epiphany a few hours ago… One of the annoying things about dice programs, my own DiceChucker included, is that using them can be quite inconvenient. It requires bringing the window into focus, mousing around, it’s just a pain if you’re in the middle of a game and trying to manage all your other stuff.
So I created a new dice roller called MicroDie. What sets MicroDie apart is that its design focuses on ease of use and unobtrusiveness. It stays on top of all other windows, but its small footprint (the screenshot is full size) means it dosn’t get in the way. Even better, you can use the number pad keys as a shortcut to roll dice, even while working in a different program!
Click the image for more if you’re interested.
The PCs are hired by a mysterious man named Alexander Koch to coerce the inhabitants of a small village into leaving. Alexander doesn’t care how the PCs do it, just so long as they don’t bring too much attention down on the village. In particular, if they kill too many people the guard of the nearby city of Landslow could be mobilized to investigate. Koch believes a shrine to a lost god of darkness and decay is hidden under the village, and wishes to reclaim it in peace.
One of the great things about 4th edition is that creating a monster is a fairly simple process. You follow a few formulas, look up on some tables to figure out how much damage it should do, and then come up with abilities you like.
Unfortunately, those formulas and tables can be a bit tedious… but no more! I’ve made a script that will go through all the formulas for you, so that you can focus on the fun part: making the new abilities!
The PCs are invited to a birthday party for the mayor of a large town. It’s a great feast with lots of good food and merriment. At the end of the night, a huge cake is hauled out into the town square. Just as the mayor is about to cut into the cake, two eyes pop open in the frosting. The cake grows hands and legs, grabbing the mayor and attempting to run off with him.
Tabilis is a world on the cusp of transition. The time of the old gods is coming to a close, and a new pantheon is about to ascend. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of competition for the few coveted spots in the new pantheon, and whether they like it or not everyone will be drawn into the coming war.
The first godling of this age was an elf named Norelle. Like all the other godlings since her, Norelle’s spark ignited not long after puberty. For Norelle, the term “ignited” was not so metaphorical as much as it was literal, for she had been given the gift of fire control. Unaware of her budding powers, she accidentally killed her best friend when they shared their first kiss.
Luckily for Norelle, the elves’ memory is long, and they were able to understand the significance of the young elf maiden’s powers. Many of the other early godlings were not so lucky. Human and orcish godlings in particular tended to be slaughtered as witches and demons when their sparks ignited.
Nearly a full generation has passed since then, and as godlings become more common they are also becoming more tolerated. Some accept their powers as a blessing and use them to help their communities. Some see the powers as a curse, hating that they are different from everyone they’ve ever known. More than a few godlings use their abilities for greed and power.
It is the nature of the godlings that they will be drawn into conflict with each other, for when a godling destroys another of his kind, the divine spark is transferred. Even the godlings who want nothing to do with their birthright, then, have no choice in the matter as they are hunted down. If they do not defend themselves, they will be killed.
Then there are the old gods. Not all of them are so ready to be shelved, and are doing everything in their power to put off this shift. Agents of these gods are out hunting the godlings as well, hoping that if the divine sparks can be extinguished then they may retain their station.
I had a hard time really conveying what I was going for here, so I guess I’ll just come right out and say it: the basic concept here is to provide a framework for superhero-meets-fantasy. Godlings are basically just mutants. The PCs could be godlings who can control the elements, turn into quicksilver, shoot laserbeams out of their eyes, whatever. Go crazy and have fun with it!
Depending on which legends you believe, people didn’t always live in the mountains. They say that once the clouds were not so thick and ubiquitous, that the sun could actually reach down to the now-ravaged surface.
They’re just legends, though. And pointless ones, at that. Life is actually pretty good. A paradise, you might even say. One of the pleasant side effects of living on mountain plateaus above the clouds is that the weather is always perfect. There’s never any rain, sleet or snow. Just sun and stars.
Of course, life isn’t all about sunbathing. You need to eat, and that means farming. And farming needs water… and water, unfortunately, is not so plentiful. Some of the larger cities are built around springs, but most plateaus require heavily fortified pumping stations to collect and transport water back up to the farms and villages.
Beneath the clouds, in the underdark, the world is very inhospitable. In some of the nicer areas, bioluminescent fungi provide just enough of a glow so that you get the briefest glimpse of whatever monster is about to snatch your life away. Most areas, though, are completely dark, and near-constant rainfall makes it difficult to keep a torch lit.
Travel between plateaus is accomplished via cloudstriders. These huge creatures are like a cross between a lilypad and a jellyfish. Their bodies are thick blue or green discs, anywhere from 5 feet to several dozen feet wide. The creature gets all its nourishment from the sun above with photosynthesis and the clouds below, absorbing moisture from vinelike tendrils which dangle beneath it.
The PCs receive a map rumored to have the location of an ancient city, from before the clouds covered the planet. Untold wealth and power could be hidden in the city, if it exists.
An old cloudstrider captain claims to have once found the legendary isle of Shangri-La, an island the clouds dare not cover. He offers to guide the PCs there, for a price.
I’ve updated the 4th Edition random encounter generator. It’s now got a bunch of advanced options to let you tailor the encounters it generates to your preferences, it won’t generate the same monster multiple times, and it now displays the source of the monster as well as allowing you to choose which sources you want to use. At the moment, only the Monster Manual and Dragon 364 are available.
As a side note, many of the Monster Manual creatures don’t list what page they’re on… That’s because I haven’t gotten that information entered yet. Sorry. It’ll be done eventually, I hope. 
Link: http://www.asmor.com/scripts/4eEncounterGen/index.php
Have the local authority offering bounties. For example, if the PCs are going to run into kobolds in their upcoming adventure, let them find posters offering a 5 gold bounty for each kobold ear delivered to the local magistrates office. Offer some more bounties, too. For example, if the kobold shamans all wear necklaces of bears’ teeth, the magistrate’s office offers a 20 gold bounty on each necklace.
I’m pleased to announce the first version of my 4th Edition Random Encounter Generator.
Currently, it creates a level-appropriate encounter at random. Although the monsters are selected entirely at random (for example, it might team up a a Githyanki and a Githzerai if both are in the level range), it does try to choose an appropriate amount of them based on status and role. For example, you’ll only ever have a single copy of a leader or solo monster (unless, by sheer coincidence, it happens to pick the same monster twice as it passes through). On the other hand, it tries to fit in between 4 and 12 minions, 2-4 soldiers, 1-3 brutes, etc.
Eventually, I’d like to get it so that it can create encounters based on the encounter templates in the DMG, so that there’s a more logical structure to the encounters. I’d also like to make it more likely to select similar types of monsters (for example, pairing together different kobolds).
