Sarah Darkmagic

So, chapter 2 of the Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Just a reminder but I’m going to look at this in depth, so there will be spoilers aplenty. I think the easiest way to describe this section is that it’s a sandboxed area that requires a number of things to happen.

This chapter has three subsections.

• Stragglers - Really slow and not too bright raiders that the party should be able to not only take but also get information from.
• Rear Guard - Soldiers meant to either stop people like the PCs from attacking the camp before the raiders have had a chance to rest and regroup or at least warn the camp of an impending attack.
• Camp life - Infiltrate the camp, find information, and save the monk, Leosin Erlanthar.

The Stragglers

I feel like the stragglers serve three purposes. First, a reminder to the players and the DM that not all of the NPCs are super bright or tactical. I mean, these characters just raided a town, are in no rush to get back to their camp, and they have a campfire that can be spotted from miles away. The second purpose is to show and/or reinforce that there can be factions even among the raiders, an important point when the PCs realize that the camp is full with a hundred or so raiders. Not only do the humans and kobolds do different things when attacked, they provide different information when questioned. Finally, they can provide information to help with the upcoming challenges, potentially allowing a party to skip a challenging fight and having their cover blown before they even reach the camp.

Rear Guard

This one has me scratching my head a bit. The text of the adventure even states it’s the smart thing to bypass this encounter. It feels like a trap encounter for a hack ‘n slash party. In some ways, that’s fine, there are upcoming challenges that will have serious consequences if the party adopts the hack ‘n slash approach, but it also makes me wonder if there are better ways of handling this. Also, it doesn’t really provide the party with a safe space to learn this lesson. If the runner successfully reaches the camp, the person who has to “pay” for the party’s decision is really the DM, I think it becomes both more difficult and less fun to run.

There’s also an issue, maybe due to editing, of conflicting information. In the rewards section, the description says that the cultists outfits and weapons could be invaluable to the PCs when they try to enter camp but the camp section says “[i]f characters are wearing Cult of the Dragon regalia taken from the rearguard, the characters have disadvantage on [a recognition] roll because no one returning to camp at this time should be in uniform.”

The Camp

Obviously, the primary quest in the camp is to free Leosin Erlanthar. Personally, I’m not sure my groups would necessarily care unless I did work upfront to weave Leosin into their backstories.

When they decide to attempt to free him depends on two things: do they want to try to collect information first and if they are recognized. These two things provide the main tension for the area. The more the PCs can learn about the cultists’ plans, the easier the rest of the adventure will go, both from them and the DM. However, with each question they ask, they risk revealing themselves as newcomers and/or running across someone who recognizes them. So, for me, I’d approach pacing by using this tension to work for me.

Now, SlyFlourish has some great suggestions on his blog for how to run this part of the adventure. I particularly agree with not being afraid to split the party here. Safety in numbers isn’t going to work when you are easily outnumbered 20 to 1 anyway and the dramatic tension that can occur when you switch to the next person right after the current PC realizes they have been recognized can be priceless. Of course, it depends on your group.

One of the difficulties I’ll stress here is that while this section fits perfectly within the hero’s journey narrative, it works against the self-concept many people have of heroes, since you can’t directly challenge the bad guys here. I can see this being frustrating for some players. Adding injustices within the camp that the players can defeat might help relieve some of that frustration if it happens. The hunters mght be an interesting place to add this in. For instance, they could steal some of the meat back for them or something. Finding ways to secretly aid the prisoners could also work or even somehow making the prisoners’ guards look bad.

Well, that’s it for now. Next time I’ll come up with a cheat sheet similar to the one I created for the first episode.

On Friday I released the main text for Sickness in Springdale. Here's the main text of Black Rock Bandits.

The Black Rock Bandits

In this adventure, the PCs attempt to deal with the infamous Black Rock Bandits, a band of local bandits who have been terrorizing the caravans who pass through Black Rock via the King’s Road. Many of the characters provided with this adventure have direct ties to the bandit leader. Others, like Zazzel, are interested in the ruined temple the bandits currently call home.

Background

The King’s Road winds through the Black Rock Hills. Some say these hills are so named for the large chunks of black limestone mined from the area generations ago. When polished, the stone turns a deep and shining black. Others believe it’s because the rocks on the ground often turned black from blood after the numerous wars fought here over the centuries.

Regardless of the origins of the name, the area now is known for the infamous Black Rock Bandits, a group of caravan raiders who collect their own tolls from the caravans that travel along the King’s Road. The tithe is enough for the bandits to live on but not enough for the King to send out his knights to deal with the problem. Others, would-be bandits and adventurers alike, fear the numerous stories of ghouls and other foul creatures that are said to haunt the hillsides. Thus the King is forced to hire bands of inexperienced adventurers to deal with the problem, paying them so little that they either join the bandits when they see their amassed wealth or they are so inexperienced that they easily suffer death at the end of a bandit sword.

The Village

Here are some of the more interesting locations and individuals in the town of Black Rock.

Blacksmith – The town’s smith is a quiet man by the name of Roland, also known as Roland the Lion. In addition to horseshoes and other necessities of rural life, he can make decent but mundane swords, daggers, arrow tips and other simple weapons. Roland’s mischievous daughter Hope ran away from home a year ago. He and his assistant Tamil are available as player characters.

Apothecary – Sister Rose, cleric of Melora set up shop in the town. In addition to maintaining a small chapel to the goddess, the cleric raises funds by running a small apothecary shop. PCs can buy a variety of herbs and potions from her. She is available as a player character.

General Store – A small general goods store imports and sells most of the necessities for the town. Simon Small, a rather short, quiet man, runs the small shop. Its popularity is due to the work of his daughter, Samantha, or Sam as she is often called. She is close friends with Roland’s daughter Hope and is available as a player character.

Bakery – Zazzel loves nothing more than to study his musty old books all day, but unfortunately books don’t pay the bills and no one was wiling to pay for his research into the peculiarities of the Black Rock region. Most of those with coin view the area as an uninteresting backwater and swear that anything of value has been taken long ago. So Zazzel runs his bakery, using bits of magic to produce the most exquisite desserts and lightest loaves found outside of the major cities. His young apprentice, Paeter, does most of the work both in the bakery and in field research. Paeter is available as a player character.

Town Guard – Sylvia heads the local town guard. She hates the Black Rock Bandits. In truth, she’d prefer the group suffer some horrible accident rather than dealing with incarcerating the band. Sylvia is available as a player character.

Scene 1: An Ambushed Caravan Arrives

One of the caravan leaders, a human named Maynard, decided not to pay the toll. He and his guards fought off the bandits, but at a great cost. They lost 5 of their own and one of their wagons. However, they did bring a prize, a captured bandit by the name of Phaelon.

The adventure starts with the PCs in the center of town. If they play the pregenerated characters, they have reasons for being interested in the caravan’s arrival. If they decide to make their own characters, find a reason for each of them to care about the caravan’s arrival and weave that into the adventure. Perhaps they are waiting for a letter, package or even a visitor to arrive or they are friends with some of those traveling with the caravan.

Quest (500 XP): The town guard wants the Black Rock Bandits defeated. Dead or alive, each bandit is worth 10 GP and 20 GP for the leader. If you run this as a one shot adventure, the Baron pays the reward at the end. If you want a reason to send the characters elsewhere as part of a continuing campaign, tell the players that the town doesn’t keep that sort of money in its coffers but will pay with promissory notes redeemable in one of the kingdom’s larger cities.

Quest (100 XP): The caravan leader, Maynard, asks the group to retrieve a trunk for him. It’s a worn traveler’s trunk, full of dents from years of travel. During the raid, he placed his young son, Theron, within the trunk for safety, but it was on the wagon the bandits stole.

Quest (100 XP): The Baron’s 50th birthday is in a month. Zazzel ordered some special cake flour to use for his cake. It was among the goods the bandits stole.

Interrogating Phaelon
When the party first meets Phaelon, he snarls and snaps at them as if he was a wild creature. A PC who makes an Arcana check, DC 8, or an Insight check, DC 12, learns that an evil spirit took over his body. The PCs aren’t high enough level to cure him of the possession, but they can restore his sanity for a short time. If the players decide to not use the pregens, have Sister Rose or Zazzel step forward in town and mention its existence. They can teach the ritual to a PC trained in Heal.

Glimpse of Sanity
Allow a creature possessed by the spirits of the Black Rock temple a few brief moments of sanity.

Glimpse of Sanity allows a character driven insane by the evil Black Rock spirits to temporarily become sane again. The Heal check determines how long the person remains sane. If this is used as part of an interrogation, the DM decides how long each question can be but generally it takes 1 minute to ask and answer a question. The DC is set by level of the spirit possessing the creature, if known, or by the level of the party if not (since it’s assumed that the party is facing enemies of their level).
This ritual helps the person beneath fight off the evil spirits for a time, and as a result physically exhausts the recipient. He or she will be unconscious for a number of days equal to the number of minutes of sanity.

Questions Phaelon might answer:
How many entrances are there to the temple? There are two. The well-known front entrance and the relatively unknown rear one. His description gives a +4 to perception checks for finding the rear entrance.

How many bandits live in the temple? A couple dozen and a few dogs.

Are there any traps? Yes. His information gives a +4 to perception checks checking for traps.

Who is your leader? A girl named Hope, the daughter of the blacksmith Roland. Since they moved to the new headquarters, she wears a horned helm and swings a mean battleaxe.

Scene 2: The Temple

History of the Temple
Hundreds of years ago, the current bandit enclave started as a temple to the demon lord Baphomet, carved from the black rock beneath one of the hills. Minotaurs carved out a simple maze in honor of the Horned Lord himself.

Eventually gnoll followers of Yeenoghu overran the minotaurs and they made some changes to the original temple to better fit their practices. They tore down some of the maze walls to create kennels for the hyenas they preferred to sacrifice. They carved a skylight in the middle of the central altar, allowing the moonlight to filter inside. The last active worshippers in the temple left over a hundred years ago.

As a result of the years of sacrifices performed in the temple, a number of evil spirits haunt the maze. They try to possess whoever they can and currently control the bandits’ bodies. When the creature they possess is killed (not knocked unconscious), they leave that creature’s body to find a new host.

Areas of the Temple

A. West Entrance – This is the main entrance to the temple. A large rotted oak door hangs open in the entrance. An Insight check, DC 12 (use passive), suggests that the bandits aren’t concerned about unwanted guests. Daylight doesn’t penetrate more than a few feet inside the door.

B. Intrusion Detection Traps – A thin string, painted black to match the floor, is tied across the passageway. A Perception check (DC 12 base, normal vision penalties for darkness apply) reveals the string. Countermeasure: step over it with an acrobatics check, DC 8. If triggered, bones and gore fall from the ceiling, doing 2 damage, causing a loud noise and covering the PC in ichor. PC takes a -2 penalty to stealth checks unless the character removes or disguises the scent.

C. Storage Area 1 – This area holds extra cloaks, boots and other outdoor gear of the bandits. In addition, a Perception check, DC 8 reveals a small pile of rocks, each carved with an eye in one corner. A Perception check, DC 18, reveals a bit of the wall that is oddly shaped and a shade darker than the others around it. A Thievery check, DC 12, reveals the mechanism for opening the niche. Inside is a ceremonial dagger with a handle of bone inscribed with runes of death and destruction. (Magic +1 Dagger).

D. General Sleeping Quarters – These two rooms serve as the sleeping quarters for most of the bandits. To provide some airflow, the doors to the rooms are open as are the doors between the rooms. If the PCs trigger one of the bone traps or runs into a guard, these bandits awake. Their personal belongings are in the room. (See page $page for encounter information)

E. Storage Area 2 – Once used to hold creatures for ritual sacrifice, this room has an air of deep foreboding. Many of the larger items from the caravan raids and collected tolls fill this room, including bolts of cloth, wagon wheels, trunks full of traveler’s clothing, and the flour for the Baron’s cake. If the characters left the town within half a day of the caravan attack: In the northwest corner, a knocking noise emanates from one of the trunks. It is locked and bears marks of someone trying to open it with an axe. An Arcana check, DC 8, tells the character the chest is magically enhanced. A Thievery check, DC 12, unlocks it. Inside is Theron, the caravan leader’s son. If the characters spent more than a half of a day before leaving: In the middle of the room is an open trunk, matching the description given by the caravan leader. A pair of small shoes lies in one corner of the trunk and the inside is smeared with blood.

F. Shrine to Yeenoghu – Long ago, worshippers of Yeenoghu fastened the bones of their victims to the wall in the form of the triple-headed flail. Thick, red water seeps from a crack in the wall above the flail, giving the appearance of blood dripping from the heads of the flail.

G. Ritual Room/Mess Hall/Kitchen – Once the room where creatures were ritually sacrificed, first to Baphomet and later to Yeenoghu, this room currently serves as the mess hall and kitchen for the bandits. The large opening in the center of the room, that once provided moonlight during the sacrifices to Yeenoghu, makes a natural chimney. (See page $page for encounter information.)

H. Shrine to Baphomet – Bits of ancient bones litter the floor. The current occupants have been creating a sculpture out of the bones of their victims. Instead of a skull, a cracked obsidian mirror (250 GP and see below) serves as the head. With a Religion check, DC 8, a character recognizes the broad shape of Baphomet, the Horned Lord. With an Arcana check, DC 12, a character recognizes the obsidian mirror and recalls that such mirrors are often required as a focus to trap spirits or create portals to the planes below. Trap Spirit – Standard Action. Close burst 1. Intelligence vs. Will. Target: Black Rock Spirits in burst. Hit: Spirit is captured in the mirror.

I. Food Storage Area – This dank alcove serves as the pantry for the bandits. Bits of moldy cheese, salted beef and pork, bushels of potatoes and apples fill their larder. Among the foodstuffs are 2 potions of healing, which can be spotted with a Perception check DC 12.

J. Hope’s Bedchamber – A feather bed, complete with four posts and bed curtains fills the southeast corner of the room. Across from it is a small dresser, with a silver brush and mirror set, inlaid with semi-precious stones (set worth 50 GP).

K. Backdoor - Hidden and locked, Perception check, DC 18, to find and Thievery check, DC 12, to unlock. It is on the east side of the hill.

Running the Temple
Run each half of the temple as one encounter. Most of the bandits are in the main encounter locations, although some Black Rock Bandits patrol the halls. When combat starts in a main encounter area, draw the patrols into the fight. If the PCs try to take a short rest after killing a patrol, throw more patrols at them. Remember to give them XP for the additional bandits.

After the Temple

After the PCs finish the temple, there are a few things they can do.

• If they retrieved the mirror, with an Arcana check, DC 18, they recognize that the spirits left it when it cracked. If they repair the crack (e.g. the Make Whole ritual) within 48 hours, any spirits already trapped inside will remain there permanently.
• While the bandits share some responsibility for their crimes, the spirits that invaded their bodies had some influence as well. The PCs can learn this through an Insight (DC 8), Arcana (DC 8) or Religion (DC 12). From there, they can decide how they would like to deal with that information.
• If they remove the spirit who possesses Hope, she will show remorse for the crimes she has committed. The PCs then decide if they want her and the other bandits to answer for their crimes (collecting the bounty along the way) or find some other way of dealing with them.

Black Rock Bandits Map - No Key

Black Rock Bandits Map - Key

Things on the internet are making me sad today, so I'm doing the only thing I can think of. I'm releasing the text of my adventure, Sickness in Springdale, and making it free for everyone. This post will have the story, the next will have the encounters, and the last will have the pregenerated characters. This was originally written to be used with 4e but I think you'll notice that it will fit the 5e structure quite well even though it was written years before 5e was announced.

Sickness in Springdale

In this adventure, the PCs attempt to save the town from a deadly illness by finding a source of Lady’s Staff, a plant that cures the affliction. To do so, they need to travel through the Lady’s Woods where they will meet a series of challenges to gain her favor. During the course of their travels, they find that their town is not the only one with the disease, the local goblins and elves are sick as well. If they gain her favor, she provides a ritual that multiplies the plant, providing enough to heal the town as well as the elves and goblins. If they fail, they will find their trip difficult and arduous.

Background

“Feel the warmth and safety of the Lady’s Blessing.”

When Springdale was founded 100 years ago, after the last great war, those words enticed scores of people
to settle in the small town on the border of the Lady’s Woods. With her blessing, it seemed like anything was possible, even abundance and peace.

However, over the last decade, that feeling has been changing. Small bands of goblins raid Springdale and other nearby towns every year. The crops are less abundant. It feels as though the Lady’s power fades with each season.

To help with the goblin problem and to investigate the larger issue of the waning protection of the woods, the local baron sent a small force, the PCs Reed and Willow Appleberry, Desmona Thaneborn, and Ewen Banister. They are tasked with fortifying the town, training the locals how to fight, and finding out what they can. They are joined by a number of locals including the PCs Meadow Greene and Garleth Strongbow.

The winter started off normally, but things quickly take a turn for the worse. Most of the town spends their days in bed, sick from a terrifying cough and fever. If they have any hope of surviving the winter, the characters must cure the townspeople. The herb most effective against the malady, Lady’s Staff, is in short supply. The heroes must find an additional source. Fortunately, the midwinter thaw opened some of the roads and paths in the area.

Consuming Cough
The townspeople are sick with the consuming cough, similar to our tuberculosis. While consuming cough is a common ailment, the number of cases this winter is overwhelming. It causes frequent coughs, difficulty breathing, night sweats and weight loss. Without treatment, it kills more than 50% of its victims.

At the beginning of the session have each player make a saving throw against the disease. If they fail the saving throw, they have the initial effect.

Consuming Cough – Level 2 Disease
Endurance:
Improve DC 12
Maintain DC 8-11
Worsen: 7 or lower

Stages of the Cough:
0: Target is cured.
1: Initial Effect: Target develops a chronic cough. Gains a -2 penalty to stealth checks.
2: Target loses weight and develops night sweats. Needs an additional 2 hours of rest to achieve an extended rest. The target takes a -2 to Fortitude.
3. The target is weakened. In addition, the effort of combat further fatigues the target. At the end of a combat encounter, roll a d4. On a 1, the target loses a healing surge that cannot be regained until he or she is cured.
4. Final Stage: The target dies.

Scene One: Springdale

Silvanus Greene, the mayor of Springdale and Meadow’s father, calls the PCs to his office.

When the PCs enter the mayor’s office read:

The mayor sits behind an ornately carved wooden desk and motions to you to sit. To his right stands Woodsman Strongbow, Garleth’s father and leader of the Lady’s Thorns, the town’s militia. To his left is Handmaiden Aurora, the town’s herbalist and connection to the Handmaidens.

Mayor Greene: “Our town is in serious peril. Those most ill will last a week at the most. We need you to find a source of Lady’s Staff so we can cure our people. Aurora here believes the Handmaidens may have some or know where you can obtain it. Do you have any questions before you prepare for your journey?”

What the leaders know:

• The disease, the consuming cough, seems to be natural in cause but it seems strange that so many are sickened by it. They know the stages of the disease.
The only known cure in the area is a plant called the Lady’s Staff. It grows about 3 feet high. It’s most common in summer but some of the Lady’s Handmaidens claim that a sacred pool exists in the woods where it grows during the winter as well.
• The Lady's Handmaidens live in a small cluster of houses about a day’s journey from Springdale.
• The Lady of the Woods presents those who venture into her woods to seek her aid with tests to deem if they are worthy of her favor. She protects the natural beasts of the area and often gives her favor to those who show them kindness and compassion. She gives her bounty to those who are particularly careful of their actions while in her woods, especially when it puts them in harms way.
  • One tale states that she made whole a man who refused to kill a hunting wolf sent to attack him by a goblin. For those who ignore her wishes, she shows her fury.
  • Another tale tells of a group of adventures who went in seeking an old ruin and the treasure within. They killed everything in sight and soon found themselves beset on by wolves, tangled in vines and swarmed by bees.
  • Yet another tale tells of a small group of children who were lost in the woods with only a few apples and rations of jerky amongst them. They claimed that a voice whispered in their ears a ritual. Each time they performed the ritual, the amount of food tripled. This allowed them to live for a week off the rations of one day.

Quest: Find and bring back 10 Lady’s Staff plants to treat the townspeople.

Scene Two: Ambush at the Well

The townspeople point the PCs towards the Lady’s Handmaidens, a small group of women who live
by themselves in the woods. On their way there, a group of goblins with pet wolves accost the PCs. The encounter provided presents the well as one of the Lady’s challenges, but feel free to mix things up by including one of the other challenges instead. Perhaps the goblins and wolves are chasing down the white stag or are cutting down the wishing tree.

Scene Three: The Lady’s Handmaidens and Traveling the Woods

A small group of women who worship the Lady of the Woods live here. Handmaiden Pearson is the leader of the group and she can provide the PCs with the following information:

• On the way to her office, there is a small fountain where the PCs may wash their hands and face. Next to it is an offering box. If they make an offering, Haindmaiden Pearson provides them with a recipe for an effective poutice to use against the disease.
• The Handmaidens are out of Lady’s Staff. The most likely place to find some is at the Lady’s Pool, a heated pool of water that provides a microclimate, allowing certain plants to grow year round.
• Handmaiden Pearson asks them if they had any trouble between there and the town. If the PCs mention the encounter with the wolves, she will ask what happened to the wolves. If the players helped the wolves, she will thank them. If they harmed the wolves, her face turns grave and she will remind them about the Lady.

Traveling the Woods

Under normal conditions, the trip from the Handmaidens’ home to the Lady’s pool should take 3 days. However, it’s winter and things sometimes take longer than expected. Have the players make 2 checks using nature or endurance, players’ choice. If each of the highest 3 checks are all:

• 19 or greater: By interpreting the terrain and working together against the elements, characters make great progress towards their destination. This segment of travel takes half a day.
• 12-18: The heroes make average progress. This segment of travel takes 1 day.
• 6-11: The path is hard to see through the snow and drifts make it hard to keep up the expected rate of travel. This segment of travel takes 1 1⁄2 days.
• 1-5: Everywhere they turn, characters run into snow drifts and their bodies are worse for the wear. The exertion and weather conditions threaten their well-being. This segment of travel takes 1 1⁄2 days. After the first day, if they don’t currently have the consuming cough, the characters need to make a saving throw to determine if they come down with it.

Note: Increase the DC for these checks by 2 each time the PCs fail in one of the Lady’s challenges to a maximum of +6. These checks are also a great time to integrate in the additional challenges.

Additional Challenges

Feel free to use these additional scenes to provide role- playing and/or storytelling opportunities in your game. If you choose not to use these additional challenges, it may be more difficult for your group to earn the Lady’s favor.

The Wishing Tree

Locals often leave small notes written on tree leaves in the deep cracks in the bark of this tree. Legend has it that the Lady of the Woods grants some of these small wishes, if she finds those who leave them worthy. Village children leave many of the wishes, asking for simple items such as a pair of new shoes or perhaps a cloak. Adults often visit the tree to read the children’s notes and give them the things they need.

If a character uses the wishing tree to ask for something to aid the current cause, such as help finding the lady’s pool or evading animal attacks, or if he decides to fulfill the request of a village child, provide the character with a one-time boon, such as a +2 to nature or endurance, to represent a Lady’s blessing. It also earns the characters 1 success towards the Lady’s Favor; limit 1 success per session.

The Lady’s Stag

A white stag appears to the characters, its right leg darkened with blood. If the characters take the time to bandage and/or heal it (Heal DC 8 or 12), the creature will aid them in finding the Lady’s Pool, providing them with a +2 to all travel checks for one round. It also earns the characters 1 success towards earning the Lady’s Favor. Refusing to help counts as 1 failure.

Scene Four: The Lady’s Pool

When they arrive at the pool, they first run into the elves. The elves don’t want a fight, but they are in the same situation as the PCs. Their town is sick and the Lady’s Staff is the only known cure. The players decide whether or not they fight the elves. When the rest of the creatures enter the scenario, the elves see that they have a common foe and join forces with the PCs, dealing with some off camera threat.

Winning the Lady’s Blessing and Bounty

Use this list to keep track of the party’s progress towards earning the Lady’s blessings.

Successes

• They don’t kill the wolves (Ambush at the Well)
• They heal the wolves (Ambush at the Well)
• They leave an offering at the well (Ambush at the Well)
• They give an offering to the Lady’s Handmaidens (The Lady’s Handmaidens)
• They ask for aid or promise to fulfill the request of a village child (The Wishing Tree)
• They bandage or heal the white stag (The Lady’s Stag)

Failures

• They kill the wolves (Ambush at the Well)
• They take offerings from the well (Ambush at the Well)
• They refuse to help the white stag (The Lady’s Stag)

Count up the number of success they have towards earning the Lady’s blessings. If they achieved 4 successes before 3 failures, they earned her blessing and her bounty. If they achieved at least 2 successes, they earned her blessing.

If the characters earned the Lady’s Bounty, she will whisper in the ear of the druid:
Collect 10 Lady’s Staffs and place them on the altar. Say a prayer and share in my bounty.”
The plants triple in number, enough to treat both the town and the elves.

If the characters earned the Lady’s blessing, the Lady whispers to them:
Perform the following ritual and receive my blessing. Take a handful of water and offer it to the north, for the frigid winds that bring forth winter and the death that brings life. Take another and offer it to the west, for the miracle of night and the rest it brings. Offer another to the south and the warm rains it brings. Finally, offer a handful of the water to the east for the life-giving sun. After you have done these things, say a small prayer, enter the water and be healed.

If the characters did not earn the Lady’s Bounty:
There’s only enough Lady’s Staff to help one town. With a heal check of DC 8, they think they could create a weak tea that will keep those sick alive for a month. If the elves are still alive and the PCs try to take all of the plant, the elves engage them in combat and will fight to the death.

Art: "Fiordelisa" © 2012 Jenna Fowler, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Find this and more art at Prismatic Art Collection

Discussing bias in terms of gaming is often a difficult task because it's often, but not always, the result of unconscious bias, not active discrimination. Because unconscious bias is the result of societal attitudes and practices, it is both much harder to see and often results in a greater level of defensiveness when people find out that they, too, are contributing to larger social patterns that they might otherwise decry and work against.

I understand this defensiveness because I've lived it. I've always been interested in civil rights issues, especially issues of race. But, like many people out there, I often assumed a rather equal playing field when I approached questions. For instance, when I got a job as an undergraduate advisor (my school's version of residential advisors, fellow students who provided mentorship, especially to first year students), I often worried about what "being fair" would look like on a diverse floor. Would it really be fair to ask someone from the south to take down a Confederate flag they hung in their room? It didn't help that I had grown up relatively poor and much of my extended family lived in poverty, so many of the experiences people of color shared were much like my own and seemed normal.

Eventually I came to see what I couldn't see before. Climbing the class ladder helped a bit. Now when I walk into stores, the clerks want to help me and no longer follow me around, mainly because I buy jeans that cost 3x or more what I did when I was in high school. I probably also walk differently and do other unconscious displays of social status.

I say all that to explain how I got to where I am today and why discussing things like how banshees are portrayed in some book about some elf game matters to me. While I'm forever wary of confirmation bias, my research and my life experiences lead me to a place where I find concepts like privilege, unconscious bias, implicit association, and the like are true. I think we do notice patterns in our lives and the art and media we experience, whether it's fiction or not, and internalize them in ways that we might not like if it's made explicit. And I do agree with research that suggests that the way to counter these biases isn't through censorship but through discussion and that it's through lack of discussion that these things continue. Also, it's not just the dominant group who often has these biases, for instance a research into the hiring of recent science grads showed that women were discriminated by men and women (I believe the research worked within the gender binary).

Now that I've been a bit more explicit about my own approach and biases, I'd like to talk about the Monster Manual a bit more. There is a lot I love about the book. I love that there is a richer history here, things like how hatred simmers below the surface between the azers and the efreeti. I rather enjoy the concept of lair actions and environmental effects, maybe because they remind me of the catastrophic dragons from 4e or my own monster from Lost City. (Aside, I loved Lyndsay's article about how to use these as part of world building.) Likewise, there is a lot of implied world history in the book, as Rob Donoghue points out. I've already used it to help someone knew to the game understand what the monsters we were describing in a discussion look like. Overall, the Monster Manual can be indispensable for a dungeon master as they prepare for their game or campaign and I highly recommend it.

However, that doesn't mean I'm comfortable with all the things it says about the world that we're supposed to play in. One of the goals of this edition of D&D, especially with the way organized play is set up, is that they want us to have a shared experience. I know many of you have had awesome conversations with each other about the older modules. "Man, that Acererak is a real asshole. Why the hell would he ever set up [redacted] in room [redacted]?" "Do you remember when that chick turned out to be a vampire and almost killed our entire party?" These sorts of shared stories help us bond and become our secret handshake of sorts.

Now imagine of that secret handshake left you feeling not only uncomfortable but like your basic humanity was being ignored. When a game starts making one gender the other, makes that gender a symbol for only certain things, that's what happens to many (but not all) members of that gender. Yes, it's true, there are a lot of "strong men" in D&D. But there are also physically weak male wizards who get by on their brains instead of their brawn. There are pudgy men, wise men, evil men, good men, men who lead armies, men who hide in a tower and read books all day, etc. However, women are too often limited to their looks and/or their covetousness of beautiful things. That's why the banshee, in that context, made me take notice. Mythological banshees are none of those things.

It's easy to argue for the existence of any one example or against the inclusion of one example in the pattern. If the banshee were the only example, sure, we need variety. If we had lots of other monsters that were portrayed as explicitly having female members with agency, sure, the fact that the medusa can also be male would be important to note. But those things, in our product today, aren't true. Sometimes, we are missing the forest for the trees.

When you aren't part of the core audience that the book due to explicit and/or implicit bias, which would include people of all genders who like and are well served by current societal attitudes towards gender, it's often easier to see that forest, to see that general pattern that even if it doesn't say stay away, says that you're not exactly welcome either. And that is why I write these things. Not because I hate games or because I want to tell other people that they are bad, but because if I stay quiet, if I don't mention these things, no one will ever know. People will still ask the questions, "Why is it so hard to get this person I care about to play? Are women really just not interested in this?" and no understanding will come of it because the real reasons are never allowed to be spoken, the sentiments censored.

Now, I'm not asking for total agreement. Plenty of people disagree with me on some things much of the time. Disagreement is not only good, it's going to be a fact of life. Humans are incredibly diverse in their tastes and their opinions. Just look at the full spectrum of kinks! But if you want to discuss gender essentialism or how applying the stereotype or the average to the individual is actually a good thing, well, you won't find purchase for your arguments here. That's not censorship, I just hear those opinions way too often as it is.

For those who have supported me through the years, many hearty thanks.

Art: "Scroll Raider" © 2013 Kaitlynn Peavler and Cheeky Mountain Parrot Games, created for Conquering Corsairs, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/