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Monster Hunt: The Ruiner Prince

On his first name day, the faeries approached the king and queen to ask what gift they would have for their son. They could have wished that the prince would be wise, or that he lead a long and happy life, or that he bring prosperity to his people. Instead they wished him be strong, stronger than any who would challenge him.

The heir to a kingdom faces many challenges, and only a fool, or a monster, could think that strength could solve them all.

- Braidbrook’s Fables

In the husk of a once grand palace, a wretched giant squats among squalor and bones awaiting the champion that will slay him. Surrounding villages have been abandoned for decades for fear of the giant’s rampages, and all in the realm dread the day that boredom or some mad fool’s promise of tribute bring the giant to their homes. It will take more than blades and bravado for the party to overcome this foe, as they will not only have to face off against an invincible opponent, but an awful and irrevocable curse.

Adventure Hooks:

For generations the counts and countesses of Galinae have borne a blade handed down since the founding of the kingdom, a mark of their steadfast and indelible honour. This tradition has become a problem for the countess Orana Galinae, since her brother lost the sword and got himself killed trying to slay the Ruiner Prince thirty years ago. Only recently ascended to her ancestral seat, Orana is already hearing rumours circulate that the blade’s absence is a dire omen for her reign. The countess is sure to bestow great rewards and honours for any who return the heirloom to her, though the party’s attempt at a stealthy extraction might be hindered when they realize that though the castle is littered with scattered weapons, many of the choicest ones have been impaled into the meat of the giant’s back, where he is sure to notice their theft.

Fairy gifts are not easily returned, even when the fairy in question could wish nothing more  Over a century of watching the boy she was supposed to be godmother to go feral has filled the fey known as Mossmaven with regret, and seen her doting on the mad giant in those few moments where his brimming rage gives way to confusion and loneliness. She may take on a disguise to request the party’s help in undoing the magic she has done, or attempt to intercede should she discover them skulking about the ruiner’s palace. Should the party agree to help her, they’ll likely end up on a journey through the feywild in search of a partiularly introspective mirror.

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Hello! I've been batting around an idea for a warlock of the undead whose patron is an eldritch Far Realm entity, but haven't been able to find much in the way of official lore for the plane. I would love to hear your take on the subject, if you had any ideas for the landscape and inhabitants and such!

Planescape: The Far Dead Realm(s)

So for those not in the know, the far realm is the d&d cosmology's designated corner for lovecraftian shenanigans, being the default origin of most aberrations as well as anything particularly "madness" related or stuff too weird to fit into the morality based system of planes.

I'm not a big fan of the far ream ( insert joke about me being too weird to fit into the morality based system of planes) because it makes the entry level cosmic-horror fan mistake of conflating tentacles with the unfathomable and paints things beyond human perception as innately hostile and entropic.

To me, the astral sea is the place where all that far-realm weirdness should live, being that its the place where thoughts become physical heedless of any physical constraint. There’d naturally be alien environments that were hostile to life native to the material plane, either in that they were unsuited to conventional biology, or operated on a different set of physics/math/coherence to more traditional reality. That said, it does serve our storymaking to have a bad place from whence things can come from/be banished to, so for that end I'll let you in on my own version of the unknowable plane: The Dead Realms

TLDR: The dead realms are a cosmic junk heap, myriad realities that have become unstable or suffered through an irreparable apocalypse and have inturn scoured or abandoned of mortal life and the gods that oversee them. Seeking to avoid further disruption of the cosmos, the great entities which govern the astral sea quarantine the dead realms in their own fold of space. Cross contamination renders the plane into a simmering cauldron of chaotic energies, as civilization plagues and reality storms crash against eachother with the tomb-prions of world eating gods as backdrop. Any breach of the realms’ containment could lead to potential doom, as anything that can survive the end of multiple worlds is likely more than capable of ending a few on its own.

Ironically, the reason that the asker can’t find lore about the far realm is that its on purpose, and that’s sorta the problem: The far realm was written to be intentionally vague, hearkening to unseen and unknowable horrors of the lovecraft mythos.  The problem with that is that as part of the greater dnd multiverse ( atleast the default one) the far realm is a place you theoretically CAN go, and given that some of the game’s biggest baddies originate there, meaning that there needs to be more about the plane than a simple gesture at it being gross and full of tentacles.

Compare the thematic weight of a party visiting the far and dead realm(s): The former is weird, surely, but other than horrifying chaos, the far realm doesn’t really say anything. On the contrary, both heroes and their players can understand the dead realms as a forewarning of what happens if they fail in their cosmic level responsibilities, and see echoes of their own desperate struggles among the ruins.

Geography:  The process of transposing multiple worlds into a single plane is not a gentle one, even more so when many of those worlds do not share an underlying model of reality. The cracked remnants of planetary bodies float together like asteroid clusters, while flat-earth geographies impose themselves on space at awkward angles like planes of glass, or weave through it like ribbons of a shredded map. Remnant kingdoms are scorched as newly arrived worlds bring their stars with them, and blighted seas spill from one celestial body to the next like wine spilled across a table from a tipped glass.

Its junk drawer architecture, a dumpster into which broken worlds are heaved with no care for their condition or where they might come to rest, slowly ruining eachother like kitchen scraps heaped upon old clothes layered over discarded furniture

Inhabitants: Despite their name the dead realms are not empty, besides the monstrous scavengers Vast wastelands conceal remnant holdouts and the decaying lairs of senile god kings. Only those great authorities of the cosmos decide when a realm is beyond saving, and those left behind on it are considered forfeit to save the greater cosmos from the horrors they endure. That said, there are other entities that live in the maelstrom, and they are far more threat to a wandering party that’ve become stranded in the forbidden realm:

Kaotori*: Once a group of arcane explorers who sought salvage and secrets from the oldest reaches of the dead realms, they were lost in the depths where time itself had begun to rot. They trickled back one by one, transmuted into resin soaked horrors and scattered across the centuries both before and after they left. Stripped of all but a few scraps of their previous identities, the remnants of their former lives knaw at them like the ache of a rotten tooth, which the Kaotori are desperate to extract. Turning their wicked power to the task, each Kaotori combs the cosmos for any trace of its former life, looking to extinguish the source of these memories that it might finally know some twisted form of peace.

Eldrazi*:Like beetles skittering over and through a fallen log until it is mulch, the aberrant broods known as the Eldrazi toil endlessly to return the material of dead worlds back into raw stuff of creation, dismantling matter, magic, and creature alike until all they touch is cosmic dust. Mostly harmless if left at a distance, Eldrazi do not distinguish intruders into their domain from unprocessed worldstuff and their domain extends ever forward so long as their is material to reclaim.

Ancient automata: The engines of forgotten ages still stir on many abandoned worlds, whether they be crystaline consiousness of superhuman intellect or the derlict mechanisms of a single tinkerer

Feral Celestials: while many angels are content to wander from task to task, there are those so dedicated to their divinely ordained mission that they choose to go “down with the ship” when the time comes to ring in the apocalypse. After their particular endtimes have come and gone, these entities slowly begin to waste away, being reduced over time to becoming avatars of strange faiths, or hunting through the wilderness little better than beasts. 

Outergods: Whether  they reign over a destroyed worlds, were imprisoned within one,  or maybe  just like the vibe, the dead realms are full of outergods, which make up the only pantheon for those desperate souls stranded in the expanse. Kronos the cannibal god reigns over lands of dust and ruin, Cezil’Tek holds entire worlds in still and silent loneliness, While Shub-Nuggurath and her brood flourish in toxic swamps and fleshy jungles, just to name a few

* You can find 3rd party stats for these creatures online,

Adventure Hooks:

After falling trough an unstable portal or getting lost fucking around with teleportation, the party find themselves stranded in the dead realms, specifically in a barren desert landscape with a half-buried city built into some wind-scarred cliffs their only landmark. Far off in the distance, amid an alien sky, they can see a massive purple-green cloud approaching, which is in fact a rogue ocean displaced from its original bed that will come crashing down on their desert world in a matter of days. With time running short and an entire city’s worth of secrets to distract them, the party must comb through the ruins for a means of returning home lest they drown along with the desert world.

Following scraps of planear lore and desperate to protect their home from an otherworldy threat, a party of spelljammers must slip past the watch of the celestial authority to salvage pieces of a planetary warding system. This system allowed another world to stave off the threat in the past, but didn't’ stop its original architects from falling prey to the whiles of an outer god and leading their world to doom from within. Now situated among the junk drifts of the dead realms, this fallen world is slowly being eaten away by eldrazi as the last zealots of the outergod look for cruel and desperate ways to stem the tide.

Monstrous aberrations comb the countryside, attacking villages, searching for something, pushing the party into cooperation with a goodnatured  wizard who was exiled from the circle of mages for his curiosity about forbidden magic.  During a moment of heroic sacrifice, the wizard inadvertantly opens a rift to the dead realms and ends up falling through, becoming lost in time and space and eventully transformed into a kaotri... the very same kaotri that has spent centuries combing through the multiverse looking for this particular kingdom. Warped irrevocably and wracked by the pangs of a now recursive present, this Kaotri now seeks to wipe its once home off the map, and just use that recently opened dead-realm portal to do it.

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Wolf Folk 5e Player Race

Artwork by QueenChikkibug and me!

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- Tuz

The classic betrayer

This is where everyone subtly knows that this guy's going to turn the other way.

The betrayer puts on a show for our heroes - kind, compassionate and supporting at first.

it just so happens that the villainthinks the heros are the bad guys.

make them actually likable.emotionally ruin the hero upon betrayal.

The remorseful traitor

whether he had bad intentions from the start or was deceived by others, the betrayer regrets his choices.

when he realizes his mistakes, it's too late to stop the evil, which introduces guilt.

throw the guilt and shame on the character.

even the protagonist can be a traitor! will others forgive him?

The Double Agent

this type of traitor will keep the readers wondering whether this guy is truly on your side.

keep your readers guessing. is that an evil smirk or a genuine smile? does he really love drinking, or is he just trying to get the hero drugged?

Snape in Harry Potter is a great example.

The guy can be good or bad - just keep balancing the two

Unrealiable narrators

these characters are not entirely betrayers, but horribly misinformed. they can make others appear like traitors - when in truth, they just have it wrong.

pit your narrow-minded narrator against his allies.

these characters are great for misunderstanding plots.

have your narrator do irreversible damage to the hero. would they forgive him?

Tragic betrayers

these are characters, due to their past wounds and trauma, cannot help but betray the group.

they confess the hero's secrets under physical/mental torment and doesn't have the backbone to do otherwise.

these characters can either be pitiful or frustrating would the hero still fight for the betrayer?

Play around with pov

you can have the readers know about the upcomong betrayal by switching points of view, building up anticipation to the moment of realization.

on the flip side, you can change povs in a way that the reader doens't see what's happening at the hero's back.

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Urskan

Image by Steve Ellis, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Frostburn Art Gallery here

[Despite being a well-read kid, I somehow never even heard of His Dark Materials until I was a senior in high school, and didn’t know about the panserbjorn until publicity for The Golden Compass movie geared up a few years later. So when I first read Frostburn, I thought, “armored polar bears? What a weird and novel idea!” I’m onto your game, WotC.

The original urskan was a strongly overpowered CR 5–I bumped them to CR 7 and still had to tone down their offensive capabilities. No more powerful charge, no more rend. I also got rid of their cold subtype, because not every arctic monster needs it.]

Urskan CR 7 Magical Beast This white bear has a gleam of intelligence in its eyes, and a suit of armor on its body.

The urskan are a species of sapient, semi-aquatic bears. Due to their love of heavy armor, they are sometimes referred to as “armored bears” or even “tank bears” by outsiders. Although they resemble polar bears closely, they also have a notable feature of pandas. All urskans possess a mobile sesamoid bone in their wrist, acting like a thumb to help them grip objects. Although their grip is not as fine as a human’s—urskan writing implements more closely resemble fitted bracers than a pen—it is good enough for them to hold tools and weapons.

Urskans typically hunt in the water for seals, whales and large fish, and do so unarmored. Their armor is donned for territorial battles, displays and clashes with other polar powers such as frost giants. Their claws are exceedingly sharp, but many urskans wield hammers, picks or other dual-purpose weapons as well.

An urskan stands ten feet tall when it rears on its hind legs, but they typically walk on all fours. They get along well with dwarves, and are somewhat distrusting of humans. An urskan’s lifespan is short by humanoid standards—one that survives into its fifties is seen as ancient.

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Thousand Sons Tactical Squad

The Chant of Sigil : Factol Hashkar of the Fraternity of Order delivers a boring speech (as usual) at the House of Speakers

I'm having a lot of really euphoric experiences lately huh? Last night after the meeting I got to spend my night getting drunk on wine and doing crafts with two friends. One NB who ive known some 2 years now, and one wonderful new friend.

We were making collage art with a twist – the collage is going to end up being a drinking boardgame in the end. Over the course of the night we had a bottle of rosé, another bottle of white wine, and 4 shots each of Kraken rum. We were sufficiently sloshed. (We put away the scissors for safety reasons after a certain point💜)

The collage making was very fun but it was never going to be the main event of the night. We had shit to DISCUSS. I hadn't seen my NB friend for some time, and their friend who I hope to get closer with is also so delightful to talk to. Work drama, life drama, cool stuff, bad stuff, sad stuff, we talked about everything.

I was so happy being with them. I'd never had something so personal but also casual like that before. We were just drinking and sitting around the room covered in a variety of blankets and shawls, and talking about the things that were bothersome or amazing and how we felt about it. We actually talked about our feelings and we didn't need to be breaking down mentally in order to do it. I've never talked to my friends about my feelings before. I was a boy. Boys don't do that. But now I'm not a boy and I'm not shackled like that anymore.

I stayed the night at my friend's house since I wasn't comfortable walking home on my own, and I didn't want the night to be over yet. I slept on a mattress on the floor next to my NB friend's bed, and I got a little emotional, we talked, and held hands. I'll never forget it. A simple gesture that told me "everything is going to be okay." No friend has ever done that for me. It's never even been a possibility that one of my past friendships would talk me through my feelings and clasp my hand in theirs throughout, telling me that I am loved. I'll never forget it. I love my friends so much.

If this is girlhood, and if this is what friendships with non-men is like, I'm so excited to meet more people. I might not drink as much next time though.

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Archfey

The Feywild landscape creates a fantastical mirror image of the material plane, echoing its features and magnifying its wonders. The archfey who keep their kingdoms in the Plane of Faerie are likewise echoes of inhabitants of the material plane: jealous rulers, vicious peasants, greedy merchants. They are archetypes made manifest, sometimes even verging on parodies of the folk they represent. These archfey delight in mischief and revelry, but their sense of what is humorous and what is clever does not correspond to that of a mortal. The archfey described below take their entertainment from stealing children, controlling their subjects, and trapping hapless mortals in labyrinths as much as they enjoy riddles, mimicry, and flattery.

The Fallow-Fallen

The Fallow-Fallen embodies the anger of a downtrodden serf. The Fallow-Fallen seeks to feel powerful, so they exert their will over whatever unfortunate beings pass through their demesne. The Fallow-Fallen loves violence and gore more than most of their kin among the archfey, with a special taste for those who look down on others. They command a pack of faerie hounds to chase down trespassers, but a respectful guest may be rewarded with a harvest bounty or a fey steed faster than any mortal horse.

The Thistlewise

The Thistlewise echoes the territorial nature of a solitary druid. The Thistlewise wants nothing more than to be left alone, but they have great knowledge and gifts beyond the ken of most mortals, making them a desirable endpoint of a Feywild pilgrimage. The Thistlewise tangles the mind, misleading and misdirecting creatures who dare disturb them. Their realm is overrun with tangling vines and thorny brambles that form a twisting labyrinth with neither entrance nor exit; escape is virtually impossible without a magical aid. The Thistlewise sees mortals like insects, but from time to time, a rare species might catch their eye and their aid.

The Marioneer

The Marioneer mirrors a grasping chancellor, constantly scheming for control and approval while in service to the whims of a good-natured satyr king. They command a court of puppets, strung up and charmed by them to both entertain their satyr liege and serve the Marioneer’s own desires. The Marioneer cannot keep constant control, but in their immediate presence, fey and mortals alike struggle to retain their sense of self. The Marioneer requires nothing less than absolute deference, but visitors may still garner their favor–as long as they recognize the true power behind the throne.

The Kegling

The Kegling maintains an unusual feature of the Feywild landscape: the ubiquitous tavern. A bawdy and cheerful brawler, the Kegling loves to engage in a physical challenge with their patrons only to turn about and offer a drunken riddle-contest. The Kegling is a masterful host who stands on barroom ceremony, but is over-indulgent. Less overtly sinister than most other archfey, once you’ve met the Kegling they seem ever-present, their tavern appearing on the roadside or in the midst of the Seelie Court. As lord over common knowledge and common sense, information given to the Kegling will be spread around or held in reserve for later blackmail.

The Paper King

The Paper King is no king at all, but the manifest ego of a powerful mage. They are a hoarder of knowledge and memory, particularly the memories of those who visited the Feywild and lost their recollection of those times. The Paper King’s true prize is a vast repository of spells, transcribed from lost spellbooks and tomes that found their way to the Feywild. In fact, any book lost or misplaced eventually finds its way here, to the towering retreat of the Paper King. The Paper King might allow a courageous mortal to peruse the collection, but only at the cost of a few memories of their own.

The Hungerhanded

Born of the greed of the owner of a trading company, the Hungerhanded seeks nothing more than to obtain. The Hungerhanded gives nothing without receiving more in return. They see all mortal passersby as beneath them, simply delivery carts of precious treasures who are unaware of their true purpose. The Hungerhanded will happily provide protection for their little treasure-deliverers, as well as any reward that costs them nothing. The Hungerhanded’s negotiation skills are unparalleled, and they always know when they have the upper hand.

The Autarch

The Autarch is the Feywild’s adaption of a motivational speaker, one whose words are unsettlingly persuasive. The Autarch rules a dominion of followers who each believe they are acting in their own self-interest, self-governing in ways that always seem to benefit the Autarch. Self-deceit is the name of the Autarch’s game; even they themself are convinced that everyone within their domain is acting according to their own nature. Their way, it seems, is simply the best way. Why else would so many people choose to follow this philosophy of self-rule? The people of the Autarch’s realm often speak in the Autarch’s voice, repeating the archfey’s philosophy unthinkingly. The Autarch claims to want nothing but a few moments of a creature’s time; they know that is all they need to win hearts and minds.

The Askew

The Askew exaggerates the features of a traveling minstrel. A performer and pantomimer, they are one of those rare Archfey who make their way to the material plane more often than most. They enjoy the attention, of course, but they also enjoy luring children from their homes and bringing them to the Feywild to serve in their own court for years. Sometimes even decades pass before they are permitted to rejoin their kind, but when they return, they have been made feral by their time in the Askew’s service. The Askew loves nothing, hates nothing, and fears nothing. It wants only companionship and joy, and a mortal who can offer either–even for a brief time–could please it enough to receive a rare boon. A creature who dares disturb its reverie, however, invites a curse upon their head.