NEW MAGIC ITEM Gravestaff

-
Related image
Gravestaff

This item appears as an ordinary fighting staff that when used in combat strikes as a +1 weapon. In the hands of an evil cleric or any magic-user with knowledge of Necromancy spells, the staff acts as a +2 weapon and has the power to Animate Dead. By merely touching the staff to a complete corpse (or equivalent mass of human remains), the Necromancer is able to transform the lifeless body into a skeleton, zombie, or ghoul depending upon the state of decomposition. This draws a number of charges from the staff depending upon the type of undead created, 1 for skeletons, 2 for zombies, and 3 for ghouls. The staff holds a maximum of 20-25 charges as usual and automatically recharges daily at dusk. Note that all undead animated by the staff will be under the Necromancer’s control as long as the Necromancer possesses the Gravestaff, but if for any reason the staff ever reaches 0 charges, control will be broken and, sensing this weakness, all undead within 18” will then attack the Necromancer!

XP Value: 9000, GP Sale Value: 45,000

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

12 Story Hooks at the Tavern

-
Image
It's been said "you meet at a tavern" is no way to kick off a story, campaign, or epic adventure. It's too over-done, too cliche. Nonetheless, left complete to their own devices, two out of three players will decide their character heads to the tavern. So unless you plan on leading your players by the nose through the adventure, it is prudent to be prepared to begin here: A female merchant is looking to hire armed couriers to make an important delivery. A female merchant is looking to hire armed escorts for a business meeting with some unsavory characters. The dark-cloaked man in the corner is about to propose a mission to the player characters when he suddenly dies mid-sentence. A suspicious man is seen darting out of the tavern immediately after. A serving wench tells the party of a cave a mere 2 hour ride from town where there are said to be jewels and riches. She is one of the bandit chief’s lovers and she is sending the party into an ambush to be
Read more

The LEDGE Method: 5 Things to Consider When Designing Encounters

-
Image
Some gamers like to play and/or run RPGs with a real story bent. And some story buffs like to take a "fractal" approach to stories, where each scene in the telling of a story is a mini-story in itself. Me, personally, I prefer to never lose sight of that roleplaying games are games. But unlike some of the prevailing theories out there, I feel good game, good story, and logical coherency actually work best in tandem. And so I think even gamers who aren't necessarily trying to create a story in their games will find these ideas make encounters more interesting. First, I'll say I have actual reasons why I feel different styles actually work better together rather than separately. It's not just a warm and fuzzy sentiment for me. It's because when I get into some heavy duty thinkers, like famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung and legendary economist Ludwig von Mises. I couldn't help but notice that the anatomy of Jung's conception of a story correlates strongly to
Read more

Smack-Rush-Ice: System Agnostic Initiative Revision

-
Universal Combat Initiative System for Turn-based Tabletop Role Playing Games Just a quick introductory note as to the history and purpose of this system. It is a systematization of basically the way I’ve always run RPGs. Of course the roots are in AD&D, but a lot of refining also came through years of playing Lejendary Adventure. The AD&D 1st Ed initiative system has been seen as indecipherable by a lot of people. In an effort to boil down the official “by the book” method for easy consumption, there was an outline produced by a DMPrata that supposedly compiled all the rules. Of course, the thing looked like a mess. I felt this was overblown and really failed to hit the spirit of the rules. Which is that initiative in AD&D was intended to be a simple group initiative. Roll d6. Highest goes first. Like many rules, of course, there are exceptions. And AD&D being “Advanced,” it took the time to try to outline a lot of the exceptions. And that’s where the confusion
Read more