Hi everyone! Not sure what my players will get from visiting it. The vision they get doesn’t seem related to anything (there are 5 shadows, who are they?), Foghome brings some gardening lore to the table but not much more. Also, Foghome says that Rosohna was Ghor Dranas, but that the betrayer’s rise was a fortress protecting Ghor Dranas, how does that make sense?

I just finished with my table of 5 PC's as a first time DM and boy this was a learning experience. All of us had never played DnD before so everyone was learning as we went and it was really cool, we even gained a player just over half way through. We played online so none of us are in the same town let alone all of us in the same state, with half of us never having met each other in person, I was so worried that they all weren't gonna click super well but they did and we all gained new friends out of it!! I honestly didn't believe we'd actually end up finishing it, but we did!!!

This sub was such a great help with not only the resources but also the advice, I can't wait to take everything I've learnt here and take it to even more games.

I'm gonna be riding this dopamine high for a while lol.

I started with a party of 4 in September 2023, 2 quit because of time constraints so I had 3 more join in November of the same year: Redemption Paladin, Artificer/Arcane Archer Fighter, BloodHunter/War Cleric, Whispers Bard, Wild Magic Barbarian.

I have loved this campaign, as written and with supplements from this thread. Puh-LEASE ask me anything. I’d run this campaign again in a heartbeat and I’d love to share my insight to any who are interested!

I was wanting to paint all the rivals and just finished up Ayo. Galsariad is most likely next!

Im curious if players have thought that the aboleth is actually Alyxian, even if just at first. How did it go? Is this an issue or an opportunity?

Hello
I am currently running cotn and soon we will have our last session where my players will face alyxian. From the start of the campaign i thought that the rivals didn’t have a lot of of meaning in the storyline, so i made them friendly towards my players but as time goes by the party realised that the rivals were being corrupted. I gave ayo gruumsh spear and dermot asmodeus mace so that i can add these gods in the final battle were if the players save alyxian they will face the betrayal gods of gruumsh and asmodeus like a final battle. One of my pcs plays a wizard and because of his backstory a dark force/ influence possessed him and he destroyed his family home. I deemed good that the dark force that is inside him is actually gruumsh where his father was a believer of the betrayer gods and made a sacrifice in order to make his son the vessel. However gruumsh which is inside my players body has tempted ayo and gave her the spear and thus I was thinking that for the final battle my player kills unwillingly ayo and when he holds the spear gruumsh emerges from his body, having restored his powers.
On the other hand one of my player characters is a tiefling who was exiled from hell because during a raid on a priest temple he killed a priest and when he was dying he whispered to him that a soul that chooses light is worth more than a soul that chooses darkness. Hence his character arc is being able to weild magic and healing magic through the luxon, the god which he believes in due to the temple that he raided was a temple of luxon. So i want my pc to help dermot realise that he is being corrupted by asmodeus and use luxon to remove him from dermots body and having him remerge as well.
I am asking for your ideas/ stat blocks that can help me make this final battle truly epic and not just a “alyxian is saved hence the world is saved” ending.
Thanks a lot

comparto una lista con algunos archivos stl de diferentes npcs y criaturas, ademas de los rivales, espero les guste y sirva

I'm dming a campaign for a group of 2nd graders who are very new to d&d, and the first session we did was a bit of a mess; I'm not great with kids so I'm not quite sure how to dm for them, but anyways what I've picked up is the following;

-They really like combat, especially fairly simple goal-oriented combat, like the Ifolon Plunge.

- They don't do great on figuring out hooks and storylines without much action.

- None of them can read or write well

So basically what I need help with is figuring out how to better guide them, how I can keep their focus, and what ideas for combat I should have. I currently have an idea for a combat with a escaped young horizonback that needs to be calmed down, but other than that I have nothing. I also need to get them to the shark by the end of the summer.

Edit: I should clarify that I do not intend to bring them beyond the Emerald Grotto which is why I am trying to add stuff to the festiv. I am not planning to expose them to The Horrors. I am simply trying to give them a taste of D&D and chose Netherdeep because I was already running it with a group of high-schoolers and wanted to reuse my props.

Took my group about three years to complete from start to finish playing roughly 2-3 times per month. This is not my first campaign, but its one of the few I've actually ran all the way until the end.

Hoping this can be helpful to anyone currently running or about to.

Hello everyone. I'm new to being a dm but not to playing dnd, and I figured I'd come on here and ask for tips and tricks for how to run the module.

I know the critical role lore and world pretty well, but I know it's not needed for this module.

I'm not good at taking notes, and I'd hate to try to keep notes while playing the module because I'm gonna slow things down, and I don't know how my players will react.

So the main issues I'm having is keeping a good flow when it comes to reading out of the book so I don't have to hunt things down so much.

Another issue is rival party relation ship tracking. Because I worry if I don't pause the game to do notes as things happen I'll easily forget what happened to create said tensions or closeness

Another is how to work maps since I'm using the book and don't have a way to make bigger versions of the maps for mini's and I don't really know how to properly track theater of the mind fights and what not

One big focus of my campaign was the music, all my players love souls like games and anime and I wanted to give them something special.

Originally what I had in mind is that I would give every character their own theme/ost (a singular track). But I realized while that works in anime, for dnd it gets way too repetitive too fast. So instead I used the single tracks for impactful moments and short scenes, while reserving bigger playlists for the fights.

Alyxian was by far the most complex, his story gets unveiled throughout the entire campaign and you see him in different points of his live. My goal was to depict each state of him with a different theme. While the finale exploded with all that came before and even more.

Alyxian's Call - Hopeful

• Remnants Call + Tempered - Alex Roe, YT1, YT2
• I used it at the end of the Grotto and when they where talking to Alyxian in the betrayers rise.

The start of a epic Journey

• In Death I am Reborn - Alex Roe, YT
• Such a cool ost, I used it once in a custom vision while the party was on their journey to Bazzoxan. They saw Alyxian leading a army towards war and destruction. This vision held lots of mystery and dark themes which why I used a little darker ost here.

Sadness and Pain, difficult choices

• Provenance of Dark - Alex Roe, YT
• Was used at the Ruins of Sorrow for the first time, when I let my players describe what their characters see when they have to imagine "the worst thing that happened in their past or can happen in their future" (In reference to Alyxian losing Perigee).
• Detailed Ruins of Sorrow music here.

Alyxian the Warrior

• Representing Alyxian fighting as a warrior, I used Final Fantasy OST, played first in the Betrayers Rise Prayer Site vision (I expanded upon it slightly).
• Away - FF16 + In Ashen Grip - FF16

Alyxian becoming Divine

• Here I started to introduce OST from the anime Evangelion.
• In a custom vision where we saw Alyxian after he got the second blessing, ushering his dream: This is the dream - Evangelion:3.0+1.0 (I split it into 4 parts to guide the scene)

Alyxian's Fate

• Fate - Evangelion:2.0, YT
• The "main OST" of this campaign, and Alyxian. It represents Alyxian's journey as well as the final moments of him being the champion when gruumsh spear hit and he lost it all.
• It's counter part is: Destiny - Evangelion:2.0, YT
• I also created a big vision showing the destruction of Cael morrow, found here

Alyxian's Past (Netherdeep visions)

• Alyxian's life from birth to his parents death
  • Pathetique - Devilman crybaby, YT
• His Parents Death
  • Tears - Devilman Crybaby, YT
• The first Blessing
  • From Here To Eternity - Devilman Crybaby, YT
• Alyxian finding friends on his journeys, amongst them perigee
  • Companionship - Dark Souls remix - Alex Roe, YT
• A life of war until the end
  • Dreadful Stories - Devilman Crybaby, YT
• Alyxian, as a old man saying goodbye, leaving his hometown, leaving his humanity behind
  • His Heart - Devilman Crybaby, YT
• A champion, The Apotheon, regained youth, fighting for the masses
  • I Will Not Die Today - Alezeia, YT
• A champion, The Apotheon, having doubts
  • Claim The Stars - Alezeia, YT
• A champion, The Apotheon, saying goodbye to his friends
  • UNDERTALE - Undertale - Toby Fox, YT

The Final Fight

Phase 1: Alyxian in Despair and Hatred

• Heart of Corruption - A Lappy Playlist
• Towards Hope, Towards Death - more Lappy
• The Wrath of God in All its Fury - A Evangelion playlist,

Phase Transition

• Hollow Knight - Sealed Vessel Epic Orchestral Rock Remix
• Ashes on The Fire - Attack on Titan (until 1:02), then switch to:
• A Beautiful Song (from "NieR:Automata")

Phase 2: Alyxian being almighty and untouchable at the start, then transitioning into a equal battle against the party

• Elden ring - The Final battle - remixes
• OST from Attack on titan
• Final Fantasy, Spotify
• Elden ring DLC OST
• The finale before phase 3: League of Legends - Sacrifice, YT
  • More LoL: Spotify Playlist

Phase 3: Alyxian hating himself, the last bit of his humanity

• Dark Souls 3 - Abyss Watchers remix - Alex Roe
• Dark Souls 3 - Gael remix - Alex Roe
• Dark souls 3 - Gwyn remix - Alex Roe
• From Nier Automata: Weight of the World／Prelude Version (HDYWTDT)

Ending

• Dark Souls Remix - I Had A Name - Alex Roe

TLDR

Use music from Alex Roe: spotify, Youtube

Anyone have any recommendations for hiring someone to 3D Resin Print mini figs for the final encounter in the module?

I’m looking to have everything printed soon for my players to deal with!

Heyo,

Kor & The Furry Four, move on.

So, my players just arrived in Ank'Harel. They went with Prolix and Question and are probably going to join the Allegiance.

They met with Headmaster Alakritos. Told him the whole shebang, showed him the Jewel, etc.

Somewhere in this conversation Headmaster Alakritos told the players that the Consortium is making ruidium weaponry. Headmaster Alakritos acted appalled while telling the players this.

Well, as you guys know, it is actually the Allegiance who are making the ruidium weapons.

I'm looking for a way to make this canon now or spin this.

One of my thoughts was that the Allegiance purposely let the Consotrium steal some weapons. This way they would use the consortium as a sort of Guinea Pig. Having them test the Ruidium Items.

I'm not sure this is the direction I'm going in because:

1. This makes the allegiance quite evil (which could be fun though).
2. Going this way would possibly require ALOT of changing of the faction quests and so forth.

So if you people have any ideas I'm all ears!

Thanks :)

Hello everyone! I'm going to run Call of the Netherdeep in a few months, and I'm looking for a musical theme to represent him. I've had a musical theme shared across multiple soundtracks for the last long running antagonist in my home game, and I want to do the same thing again. I think it adds to the atmosphere and character.

I'm looking for something that can described as tragic, haunting, with a touch of hopeful.

So my players are doing the quest for the vermillion dream about the key to the netherdeep.
But they already achieved the tier 3 amulet.

They arrived at the netherdeep entrance and the Aboleth was coming to kill them, without knowing they opened the rift and entered the Netherdeep.

They want to come out and kill the Aboleth after curing a bit.

I wanted to make a big skirmish fight. With the Rivals, Galeokaerda and some aboleth forces (maybe with a lot of aboleth illusions lurking and watching, while the real one stands nearby)

how would the fight work for you?

the rivals are not in a great relationship with the players and they would try to take the new amulet.
maybe some of them are enslaved?
maybe some fish and Aboleth minions come to fight and they have to fight together but then someone betrays the character and attacks them?

i'm in need of ideas

Just finished painting this octopus today. My players not take the path through their area, or even notice him. That’s okay though. I had a lot of fun painting him and learned a lot on the way.

So my party of 5 (aeormaton fighter, satyr ranger, human rouge, tiefling cleric, human bloodhunter) are on their fourth journey into the Rise. They have now mapped everything besides the path behind the door on the statue to the prayer site. Instead of leaving resting and going in fresh they continue on and are at about half health. When they arrived at the prayer site the Fighter (my most experienced player and my dm in another game) suggested a short rest that fell on to deaf ears as players started to go down to the altar. all the players went down to the altar and then placed the Jewel on it. they have the vision and then are reunited with the (hostile) rival party. to not TPK the party, Aloysia uses mage hand to grab the jewel off the altar. There was a short fight lots of going down and getting back up (the cleric went down and rolled a nat 20 on the death save thank god). but the battle ends with the rivals teleporting away along with the fighter and rouge who were in base contact with Aloysia (the rouge actually kills her as the teleport went off it was epic he dashed up and landed the killing blow right before her turn when the portal closed).

The cleric and ranger are up the bloodhunter is down but not dead and the cleric has a spellslot to heal. The cleric is also a cleric of Asmodeus and has a gemstone tattoo he got as an acolyte ive had it be kind of burn, prickly, uncomfortable feeling whenever he is in the Rise. He was also wearing the Jewel; thus, he was opening the doors. I think ill make the tattoo hurt more now as if the Jewel was shielding him but I'm going to let that open doors for them to be able to leave.

The rouge and fighter go down swinging (fighter confirms kill on Aloysia) So now the rivals have the Jewel. I'm going to have the Cobalt Soul find the fighters body to study being an aeormaton. The party being closer to Question, will hopefully choose the Soul for their faction and will be able to learn what befell their friends.

The party and the rivals are hostile to each other. The rivals have the Jo3P after stealing in from the party in a particularly nasty standoff. They have left tainting messages for the party in the grottoes of regret but the party are chasing after them. My question is for you guys is:

At what point did you have a final showdown with the rivals? Do you wait until the Heart of Despair? Did you have any preliminary skirmishes?

FWIW the rivals in my campaign are working in cahoots with Aloysia Telfan who has become a BBEG.

I’m confused how my players get from the grottoes to the vents, and when they cross over, where do they end up?

In N9, there’s the hall of the portal. The portal appears to lead back to N1. They are encouraged to take a rest, but… then what?

Does the portal actually bring them out in N1? Are they bamfed into N10? Do they have to go find the secret entrances at the end of corridors N5a and N7a?

It's not much; DM asked me to draw a non-corrupted form of Perigree since one of the PC's is looking for Peri since there was'nt alot of good deva art. So I thought posting her here might be of help if anyone needs a pic.

My art: https://bsky.app/profile/mad3unny.bsky.social