Tag: Shadow of the Demon Lord

Ring Side Report- Fine Country Folk adventure for Shadow of the Demon Lord

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Product– Fine Country Folk

System– Shadow of the Demon Lord

Producer–Schwalb Entertainment

Price– $2.79 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/270395/Fine-Country-Folk?affiliate_id=658618

TL; DR-Do you hear banjos?  95%

Basics– We don’t cotton to kindly to your kind ‘round here…  In Fine Country Folk, two factions of rednecks vie for dark powers.  Can you find the source of their vile power and end it or will you end up dinner for the inbred yokels or one of the made betters?

Mechanics or Crunch-Shadow of the Demon Lord is one of the slickest systems out there, and Fine Country Folk keeps up that fine tradition.  The adventure has some great mechanics for a hex crawl. Good, simple to draw map with a good random distribution of events, and well detailed locals with new monsters to fight.  The simple nature of the adventure makes its a fun, easy to run, four hour adventure. 5/5

Theme or Fluff-Fine Country Folk is a hex crawl through and through, and it has some of the problems of a hex crawl.  Overall, it’s an awesome adventure once it gets going, but like all hex crawls you can drop into the middle of an active campaign, the start is a bit rough.  The hook into the adventure is the weakest part. Once the players have a reason to kill he inbred hicks or redneck mechanical abominations in the woods, they will have a great time.  As a hex crawl, the DM has more work to do than in a set piece adventures to make sure a story flows and give the players a reason to stay. The adventure has prompts for DMs, but this is an important heads up that you should be aware of.  It’s a fun adventure that will require a bit more muscle to get the story to crack over in the beginning but it hums along after the start. 4.25/5

Execution-Fine Country Folk is one of Schwalb’s longest adventure with lots of details and new monsters.  This adventure is twice as long as his other individual adventures and FOUR times as long as some of the adventures from the first campaign.  It has great art, nicely done tables, and is a breeze to read. Heck, it even references WITH PAGES things that DMs might need to review when they run this adventure.  This is what I want a Shadow of the Demon Lord adventures to look like. 5/5

Summary-Fine Country Folk is standard Schwalb, and Schwalb is an acquired taste.  I love sushi, but if you can’t stand fish or raw food, go away. Even Michelin star sushi is still sushi.  This is some of Schwalb’s best writing, but it is still Schwalb’s writing. If rape, murder, violence, cthulhu-satan, or a whole host of other mean nasty things, you will be turned away by this one.  I love sushi and the horrible, monstrous things Schwalb has to say, so this is a great work of dark vile fantasy to drop your players into. That said, it’s not perfect. Your adventure will need to shift into this one and hooking your players into this can be a bit tricky and I would like more explicit ways to get them involved more readily.  That said, once you are past that, you will enjoy this fine food and the fine country folk who will try to eat you, skin you alive, or horrible experiment on you. Just pray your PC doesn’t have a pretty mouth. 95 %

 

Daily Punch 12-12-16 Dark Flute of the Cult relic for Shadow of the Demon Lord

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Alright, let’s get back into the swing of things!

Here is a relic from one of my games for Shadow of the Demon Lord

 

Dark Flute of the Cult

Play the song of Pain
As an action, you can play the flute. Make a Will challenge roll with 1 bane per use of the flute today. If you succeed, flesh and blood cultist of the demon lord appears and is pulled apart by invisible hooks that write horrific things on the air. You can say these words and cast a spell from the Forbidden tradition of a power level you are normally able to based on your other traditions. If you fail, you gain one corruption and a piece of your soul is stolen.  You feel its loss. By successfully using this flute once, you learn Dark Speech. You do not gain corruption for using this flute if you succeed on the Will challenge roll.

 

Thoughts?

 

Daily Punch 11-28-16 Compact of the Queen

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Another item for my players.  How about a fey gift…
Compact of the Queen

Sometimes they fey give gifts.  These are items of power.  Sometimes the Fairy Queen gives a gift.  This is even more powerful.  All come with strings attached.  The magical makeup compact is full of powder and a mirror.  As a triggered action, you can apply the powder and look in the mirror.  If you do, you increase the power of your own glamour and any creature that must make a save against an enchantment tradition spell cast by you has one bane added the roll.
Thoughts?

Daily Punch 11-29-16 Blessed Antlers of The Horned King for Shadow of the Demon Lord

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I had two players get items over the weekend.  Here is what one player got.
Blessed Antlers of the Horned King

While the Maiden in the Moon changes every month, the Horned King does bow to the cycles of nature as well.  Occasionally, he loses his antlers.  Such antlers retain a fraction of his power and are fashioned into items of great magic.  This head dress charges the healers of his faith by providing and additional 1d6 hit points for any Life tradition spell that restores damage.
Thoughts?

Daily Punch 10-27-16 Mirror of Eternity relic for Shadow of the Demon Lord

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How about an item for Shadow of the Demon Lord

 

Mirror of Eternity

This concaved silvered disk reflects all behind it.  If you stare deep into the disk, you can see deep into the universe.  Sometimes, you don’t want to see what stares back.

 

As a triggered action, a character can stare into the disk.  If they do so, for the next minute they gain 2 boons on all spell casting checks.  At the end of that minute, the character must make a Will challenge roll.  If they fail, the demon lord stares back, the mirror fades to black until the next dawn, and the character has 1 bane on all spell casting checks until they take a long rest.

Daily Punch 10-12-16 Witch Gun curse spell for Shadow of the Demon Lord

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Let’s make a witch gun for SotDL!

HEX                                     CURSE ATTACK 0

Target One creature within short range that can see you

Make an Agility attack roll against the target’s defense. On a success, the target becomes cursed for 1d6 rounds. While cursed, the target is impaired.

Attack Roll 20+ The target also becomes takes for 1d6 damage.

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 10-11-16 Sword Sorcerer master path for Shadow of the Demon Lord

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Ok, let’s get back into it!  This week we will kick off with some Shadow of the Demon Lord.  I want a swordmage in SotDL, so let’s make that happen!

 

Sword Sorcerer

Sword Sorcerers dance the line between magic and steel using steel where most mages would use a wand and magic where most warriors would use a blade.  The sword sorcerer is a master of magic and metal tying spells to the blade creating devastating strikes that hit two-fold.  Much like all power, this comes with a cost.

Level 7 Sword Sorcerer

Attributes Increase three by 1 each

Characteristics Health +5, Power +1

Language and Professions You can speak another language or add a profession.

Magic You discover one tradition or learn one spell

Magic Blade When you make a melee attack with a weapon, you can also expend a casting of a spell whose rank cannot exceed more than half your Power and that effects a single creature regardless of range on the attack as part of the attack.  If you do, you gain 1 boon on the attack roll.  If the attack is successful, the weapon deals damage as normal and the spell is successfully cast against the target regardless of the type of attack that normally occurs int he spell.  If you fail the attack roll, spell is expended.

Spells that target up to multiple targets only hit one target.  Spells that have effect are negated by attacking a target still occur and the next attack against the target cause the effect.

Weapon attacks and talents that would strike multiple targets may only target one target with the Magic Blade talent, while other creatures may be struck at normal.

Level 10 Sword Sorcerer

Characteristics Health +5

Magic You learn one spell

Greater Magic Blade When you use the Magic Blade talent, you can expend a casting of a spell of any rank you have learned.

Daily Punch 5-13-16 Spell Strike melee attack option for Shadow of the Demon Lord

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My favorite class in DnD is the up close wizard/warrior.  I like hitting with spells and magic at the same time.  I think we can do that if we play with some boons and banes just like two-weapon fighting…

 

 

Spell Strike

You can cast a spell and perform a one-handed melee attack in the same turn.  If you attack the same target with both, the melee attack suffers two banes, and the spell attack suffers two banes.  If the spell requires a challenge roll, the target gets two boons.

If you target two different targets, you suffer three banes to the attack roll for the spell and the melee weapon.  If the spell requires a challenge roll, the target gets three boons.

 

 

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 3-28-16 Aware of the Dark roll modifier for Shadow of the Demon Lord

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I like throwing insanity at my players, but I want them to have a bit of say over how crazy they go.  Let’s try something

 

Aware of the Dark

When you would make a challenge roll to avoid going insane, you may elect to gain one bane on the roll.  If you do so, fail the roll, and would go insane, you roll twice on the madness table and choose which result to occur.

 

 

Thoughts?  Does this allow a little more control to the players or does it change the game too much?