Using 13th Age Icon rolls as Random Encounters

In my 13th Age campaign I am using relationship rolls in the way I used random encounter table in my This is Thracia Game.

I have a table for each player and their relationships and results for if they roll a 5 or a 6 for that Icon.

This article from the Pelgrane website also has some great ideas that can be used to make Icon Rolls into random encounters.

Here are some examples from my both my current and previous campaigns: (Players in my 13th Age game may want to read no further as there are spoilers to be had, or they might want to read them and pick a favorite do they can suggest it next time they roll that result for their Icons.)

Gribnez

Half Orc Half Elf Barbarian prophesied to be “The next big thing in Sorcery” (to bring balance to the... Magic was also suggested. She has no magical talent at all and instead sometimes seems to suck the magic out of things and store it acting like a strange magical battery.

Her Icon relationships reflect her status as a child of prophecy, Three Icons are interested in her but all seem a bit disappointed that she isn’t overtly Magical.   

 

Conflicted Elf Queen 5 - Her magic batteryness goes wrong

Conflicted Elf Queen 6 - Her magic batteryness goes right

Conflicted High Druid 5 - Dire Animal needs help but is from the faction that doesn't like her

Conflicted high Druid 6 - Dire Animal comes to help

Conflicted High Druid 6 - Druid awakens her dog

Conflicted Orc Lord 5 - Orcs try to kidnap her!

Conflicted Orc Lord 6 - Orcs spies help her

Ash

Imported from my 13th Age of the Hungry Phoenix game. Ash is a Halfling Rogue, cook and con man. His One Unique Thing and Icon relationships all stem from a Con Job he pulled with the Prince of Shadows where a misplaces Love Potion left him fleeing from a smitten wife, who was also the Daughter of the Diabolist!

2 point Negative Diabolist

5 - Demon infested Kitchen! Maybe it is possesed

5 - Agents of Apocalyptica (his wife) find him.   

5 - Demon infested item makes him take it with him or it will tell his wife where to find him.

5 - Diabolist sends agent with love potion, accidently gives it to another player.

5 - The demon that Gribnez summoned turns up to repay her favor, this should help Gribnez but will probably mess with Ash.

5 - Cultist pirates from The Circle (The Ship where Gribnez summoned a Demon) turn up, the captain might have been deposed in a mutiny because he let the players go and now he wants their help to get his ship back.

6 -  Love note from “wife” with helpful magic item.

1 point conflicted Prince of Shadows

5 - Deneth Serassalion (The magic Item forger) causes trouble after discovering that he was not in fact being Punked when they broke into his warehouse.

6 - One of Ash’s old acquaintances has a package for him from the prince of Shadows. (A Magic item that might help against Demons or scrying)

Mattias

The bastard son of the Archmage and The Diabolist, his half sister is married to Ash.

Diabolist conflicted - They really like him and want him to use demonic power, He wants nothing to do with them.

5 - Demon offers to help in a time of extreme need.

5 - Demon hunter turns up looking for him.

5 - Magic Sword with a demon in it

5 - His sister sends a message to him asking for help finding Ash

5 - Cultist pirates turn up (as per Ash’s result above)

Conflicted Diabolist 6 - Diabolist Agent disguised as an Agent of the tower gives him a demonic magic item.

6 - Archiraxyous (his Imp familiar) becomes supercharged

Conflicted relationship with the Archmage because while he is a loyal member of the Tower (The Archmage’s Secret Service) his parentage both shames the archmage and makes him the target of suspicion from his superiors.

2 dice

Conflicted Archmage 5 - Superior demands a full report of any Demonic activity in the area.

5 - Deneth Serassalion  - The magic Item forger who got Punked causes trouble

Conflicted Archmage 6 - Agent of the tower turns up with a magic item to protect him from Demonic influence.

Jasper

Gnome Bard

2 points Positive with the Great Gold Wyrm: He thinks he is the Avatar of the Great Gold Wyrm.

5 - Paladin of the Great Gold Wyrm has been conned out of all his stuff and needs their help getting his gear back.

6 - Paladin of the Great Gold Wyrm turns up to lend him her aid in his struggle

1 point Conflicted Emperor: He once started a Rebellion against the empire

5 - Imperial official recognises him from an old wanted poster and tries to arrest him.

5 - Bounty Hunter turns up looking for him with old wanted poster

6 - Anti Imperial Rebel recognises him as a fellow free spirit and offers to help him in his cause against the man.

Stocking Fleurs Temple and 13th age session Write up.

So having made this map out of my dwarven forge, I used it for a 13th Age game on Saturday evening.

 This is what I stocked it with combined with a session summary:

The players were asked to travel to Fleur’s Temple to retrieve an Idol of the dark god of the huntsman by See’s Far Ahead a Druid in the Service of the High Druid who often takes the form of a Giant Owl.

I used the opening Icon relation ship rolls to figure out who wanted them to go on the mission and made Grimness (played by K8) who had a 6 with the High Druid to define her contact in The High Druid’s organisation. That done they set off for the mesa.

In the entrance room they found a trio of Angry Rangers (I used Gnoll Rangers with changed racial traits) and a band of Human Thugs hiding in the long left hand room. After a brief and unfortunately unsuccessful attempt to Bluff their way past them a fight ensued.

Victorious, the players discovered that the the small left room was a storeroom. In which the player found a variety of Potions, Oils and Runes. (I used the table in the 13th Age book for non cash rewards)

Up the stairs to the right was a strange broken Elven Oracular Device that the Followers of Fleur used to get information about their targets. Despite being broken it answered one question for each player after fresh blood was poured upon it. I gave them a freebie question from a 5 with the Elf Queen and had the device lie on a roll of 5 or less on a d20. The first question they asked was how to fix it and they promptly fed it blood from the recently slain Rangers granting the rest of the party a question each.

The next room contained two statues in alcoves on either wall. the left hand Statue depicted Fleur as a Dark Elf holding an unloaded crossbow, while the right hand showed him as a Wood Elf with an unloaded bow. Each alcove was carved like the environment each type of elf would hunt in.

A careful examination revealed that each statue stood on a pressure plate, in the carvings were  hidden small holes and each statue had loose Arrows or Bolts in carved quivers. Careful use of the Mage Hand Cantrip loaded each weapon and set of the trap firing darts out of the alcoves. Once both weapons were loaded a third alcove was revealed in the third wall showing a High Elven Depiction of Fleur. Another careful use of Mage hand placed a wand from it’s carved holster into the hand of the statue and revealed the Idol and it’s Guardian.

A Displacer Beast. I used the tables in the 13th age book and the ideas from the 4th ed version of the monster to make it.

Displacer Beast

Large 4th level Monster.

+11 Initiative

AC 20 (natural odd rolls miss Displacer Beasts) PD18 MD 14

HP 108

2x tentacle attacks +9 hit:14 damage

“Where the hell is it?” Once per turn; If you miss a displacer beast it can pop free and make a free tentacle attack.

Moving the Idol also caused the traps to go off again catching the players near the alcoves. Once they had the Idol and had defeated the Beast I let them retrieve the magical ammo and Wand from the Statues. They received a Wand of Aegis form the 13th age core book. 2 Arrows of Slaying and a Keen Bolt.

By the time they had finished off the beast it was beginning to get late so I slightly rushed the rest of the dungeon. If I had more time I would have filled the section hidden by Secret Doors in the southeast part of the map with Giant Spiders.

As it was I asked what the players who had unused Icon Rolls would like to find in the rest of the dungeon. Dead bodies with plot hooks were suggested so I made the south most room a cell with 2 bodies inside. On the bodies they found a torc suggesting a link to the High Druid and a Book of paintings about Ley Lines.

Then as they headed for the exit I used one of the players outstanding relationship rolls a 5 conflicted with The Emperor. I had a squad of imperial Dragon knights turn up reveal that the Idol could be used to  unleash the Wild Hunt and therefore they needed to take it into custody. K8 then asked if should step outside and made crude hooting noises. She cashed in her 6 with the High Druid and got carried off by a Giant Owl.

The rest of the part looked sheepishly at the Dragon Knights until Ash (played by Dan) piped up that he had a 5 left with the Prince of Shadows and revealed the receipt for “One Fake Idol” Signed by the Prince of Shadows that had fallen off the Idol when it was put into Grimness’ Bag.

We finished the session in a great place with a host of plot hooks dangling to make more adventures out of.

Where is the Real Idol?

What is with the book of Ley Line paintings?

Who was the dead Druid?

How will the players meet up with Grimness?

13th Age Thracia Icon

There has been some really interesting discussion around changing the Icons in different ways. This article talks about gender flipped icons which also then change their motivation.  In my This is Thracia DnD Next game I am looking at which gods/powerful figures of the ancient age would make interesting 13th Age Icons:

This is what i have so far:

The Emperor : As he is presently cast in Thracia the Emperor of Constantinople would be more of an antagonistic Icon. His plans currently include his own Apotheosis into Godhood and to that end the outlawing of the traditional (in setting at least) Olympian Religions of the area. His would be opposed to the priestess because he is trying to make himself a god,

Axis and Constantinople have enough commonalities (or an Arena at least) to convert quite easily.

The Priestess: Perhaps an Ever Living Egyptian Princess (Cleopatra? Possibly as an embodiment of Isis) (opens up Alexander the Great as an unliving version of the Crusader?)

Santa Cora could be Cairo the the Cathedral being more of a meme or Idea connecting all of the Temples and Pyramids (like the Netherworld from Feng Shui)

The Archwizard: Ptolemy or another of the Philosophers would fit here (with a little bit of historical hand waving or life extension magics) Horizon’s equivalent city is probably therefore Alexandria. Playing through one of the Burnings of the library’s there could also make for an interesting session.

The High Druid could be Merlin in Briton or Gaul (or Nimue) or an aspect of Artemis the Huntress and as an aside an entirely Arthurian 13th age Icon set would be quite interesting, Possibly hijacking ideas from the Great Pendragon Campaign.

The Crusader should be the main character from gladiator; Maximus Decimus something or other or as mentioned above an Unliving or Everliving Crusader of Alexander the Great would set him interestingly against the Emperor.

The Three don’t need a lot of editing, Rome would make an interesting Drakkenhall and one of the players was a Dragonologist pointing to another organisation connected to the Three or the Great Gold Wyrm.

The Lich King: Ceasar or Priam the former ruler of Troy (Now the Ruler of The Haunted Ruins of Troy)

Orc Lord: Could be a Mongolian Ghengis Khan equivalent.

The Great Gold Wyrm: Connected to Dragonologists as per the Three above. Where would be an interesting place to put a hole into the abyss?

The Diabolist? A follower or Hades or more likely the pretender god Thanos trying to usurp Hades

The Elf Queen: Her Court could be in France filling Gaul with Elves or We could swap her to Ameretat from Persian mythology as the goddess ever living who looks after plants.

The Dwarf King:Like the Elf Queen all that we really need to do for him is find a place to put Anvil. Good locations could be Austria/Switzerland and the alps or The Mountains around Romania. Otherwise Finland and the Viking lands with all the norse trappings but that puts it a long way away from the campaign epicenter.

The Prince of Shadows: Venice might be an interesting Shadow Port. Again the Icon himself doesn’t need a lot of modification to drop straight into the setting.

Closer to home it would be interesting to see how this would translate into Arthurian myth:

The Priestess: The Lady of the Lake

The Arch Wizard: Merlin

The High Druid: ?

The Crusader: Lancelot

The Three: The Red, ??? and Blue Dragons of Wales and other places

The Lich King: Uther PenDragon (Arthur’s father)

The Orc Lord: The King of the French or possibly the Scots/Celts or picts depending on how far you want to bend your history

The Great Gold Wyrm: The Wygt Draga or White Dragon

The Diabolist: Morgan Le Fey

The Elf Queen: Nimue

The Dwarf King: ?

The Prince of Shadows: Mordred

Who would be your historical Fantasy Icon equivalents?

Dwarven Forge Dysons Delve

For my Game this evening I have taken this map from Dysons Delves and assembled a close approximation of it from Dwarven Forge.

Next up I am going to fill it with monsters and Treasure.

The North Half of the dungeon

Diet update and 13th Age item

I weigh 14st 7lbs. I re started my Kettlebell swings yesterday morning and K8 and I trained at Reading Ninjutsu Last night.

Over the Weekend Nats ran her first session of Pathfinder which she blogged about here. I am playing an Alchemist and am already enjoying Bombing things.

Also today I have a 13th age Item and a variant monster and things that I wrote for my 13th Age of the Hungry Phoenix game.:

Mask of the Charred Zombie:

A plain slightly Charred looking porcelain mask. (or could be made of burnt wood or something similar)

Attunes as a head slot item and adds +1, 2 or 3 to MD

1 per day the wearer can remove a copy of the mask from the front of it and place it onto a corpse. This chars and animates the corpse into a Charred Zombie.

The wearer can control 2 of these zombies per Level but can make more if they have another way of wrangling them.

The mask is always warm, and becomes very hot when it’s power is used, often burning the face of the wearer.

Quirk: Over attuning causes the wearers skin to start to crisp, they become unsightly and averse to cold temperatures.

Charred Zombie

As a Zombie but it heals from Fire Damage and slowly regenerates normal damage by catching fire. I give them extra fire damage after they have been hurt. They can’t regenerate Cold Damage.

Weekend of Gaming

I had an extremely pleasant weekend Relaxing and playing games.

Gav gave me a copy of his new book, full review to follow. Age of Scorpio I am currently about half way through it and it is excellent.

As Saturday was #Tabletopday we played Hordes and had an ace 4 player game.

Then in the evening I ran Day After Ragnarok (a game that you should look at just because of this map) Over dinner I got each of the players to text me something they wanted to see in the adventure.

I got: Iranian Car bombing, Antartic expedition and Fighting Nazi’s/Occultists in a Norweigen Fjord.

So I started my Adventure in Tehran with the players escorting a German Mystic/Scientist who was defecting to the Commonwealth. I blew up the front car in the convoy and then started a massive combat scene with A Giant Snake an Angry Mob and lots of disguised German troops.

Several Grenades a Satchel bomb and a short chase scene later the players followed clues leading them to a secret German U-Boat base in Norway (unsurprisingly in a Fjord) Where they infiltrated the base, set explosives and unleashed a massive Wolf creature frozen in Ice.

All in all the session was brilliant.    

We also played the first Achtung Cthulhu Scenario (Their kickstarter just finished but you can still last moment pledge if you want) Dan ran that session and we bungled through the mission with quite a diverse and unfocused skill set.

Finally on Monday Gav and I played Warmachine over a board made of my Dwarven Forge which looked Epic.

All in all it was an awesome weekend.

What did you get up to?