Mike Shea

And what you get from that is interesting information from the player about what they're thinking about for their character in the game. And it gives you ideas for hooks. It gives you ideas about like what to focus on. You can get a lot of really good information from it. And, and, and I think it's, and it's really handy to do.

And essentially the, the, the model for it is the characters are all around a campfire spending a night resting. What are they talking to each other about? Or what are they thinking about? Like, as you sit around this campfires there with your friends, where does your mind go? What do you think about what's been happening? What, what do you think about in your past?

I think that's probably the best kind of question that you've got there. So, you know, so I think that dropping that in is a really good, a really good thing. And it's a valuable aid that offers you a lot of stuff as a GM, as a lazy GM in particular. Yeah. So then we meet the Goblins. So we've got our scene. This is probably a couple of sessions at least.

In fact, oh, I think they're going to level up. Campfire Tail and level up. I think we're going to get them to fourth level, right? Now that they've defeated the Shrine, now that they've rescued the prisoners, and now that they've dealt with Erez Don Gaze, they're going to level up to fourth level and take a rest. Which, you know, this is going to take a long time.

Like that's going to be half the session right there. And then there'll be like another scene where they're making their way to the pit of unending thirst. And that will be another scene. And then they'll really just start to get into the pit. So I don't think we're going to get very far into that fourth bullet there. I think that that, you know, is about as far as we're going to get.

But on the other hand, we only have four players today. And when you have four players, more stuff gets done. Yeah.

so we got our scene so what about secrets and clues let's take a look at our old secrets and clues here i like to copy them over a lot of these are no longer relevant because they dealt with the the black venom no so kuka tarma was ravaged by the blood magic the kandaharians who used it to defend themselves i don't think they learned that so that's really good beneath the ziggurat is a red portal the puzzle box is the key that's really good we're gonna keep that the puzzle box is in two parts one part is held by the goblin i need the goblin give the goblin a name i think we have a goblin

name puzzle box also imprisons a demon they did not learn that sanguine path seeks the puzzle box to bind this demon so it can serve them they also seek forbidden texts in the pit of unending thirst that's a really good one thoth hermes god of knowledge and learning the wise creative so that's just like information about thoth hermes that's good lord of unending thirst was worshipped by the kandaharians who sought the lord's connection to blood and hunger as a source of magical power a purple worm with tentacle that's really good so what's funny is most of these are really solid and they didn't learn them last game because they were too busy dealing with the black venom gnolls

Black Venom Nulls worship Abriac, Prince of Swarms. They did learn that. Sanguine Path gave the Black Venom Nulls rituals to strengthen their concoctions, to control their slaves and forbid... They didn't learn that. I don't know how important that is at this point. The Black Venom Nulls are conscripted by Ermonli, Scaled Lords of Adasha. We don't need that.

So that gives, how many secrets is that? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So we have seven secrets that are still valid given their current position. Oh, so I think we, let's look at some stuff about Adesha because they're facing a scaled Lord of Adesha and they might learn more stuff from that. So Adesha, Lord of the Gizmiri province, right?

Padishah of the Flaming City, Morza of the East, Heart of the Desert, Khan of the Province of Gizmiri. That's pretty good. So, well, that gives a bunch of titles. That's cool. Titles are cool. Multiple titles are cool for villains. I really dig that. So Dominion of Adashah, the Burning Sand, deadly wasteland that is what is due to the dragon who rules it.

Adashah incorporates the essence of fire as few dragons do. Fiery presence create the deserts around him and he carries it wherever he goes. I like that. Adashah's fiery presence creates the desert around him and he carries it wherever he goes. That's a fun secret. Lives in the holy temple of Al-Araq in the city of Sarkland.

Only Dragonkin, Efreeti, and other fiery creatures can survive the burning presence of Adesha. That's cool. Some believe... A good secret here. Some believe Adesha wants to turn the entire world into a burning ember. Only he, his fiery minions, can live in. And he seeks... The apocalyptic magic to do so. That's kind of a fun secret. So those are three secrets that we've got.

Let me switch my notes over. Here are my notes. Let's take a quick look through the notes that I wasn't showing previously. So we have our characters, Amavin, Gaudenzia, Rowan, Tolstoy. I wrote the secrets for each of them under the thing there. And I have my strong start, Facing Air and Dawn Gaze, Half-Dragon, Akinji Commander. Havadishah of the Burning Sands. We have the scenes.

Facing Erezdon Gaze. Taking a rest. Campfire Tales and leveling up. Travel to the Pit of Unending Thirst, which is an encounter. Navigating into and through the Pit of Unending Thirst and then meeting the Goblin. Let's go find out. Who is this Goblin? So initially we were thinking like, oh, there's like a sneaky Goblin running around who stole a thing, right?

And that kind of fits that stereotype of a Goblin. But I think instead it's Athelia Silvergaze is the name of the Goblin. and Athelia Silvergate is the Goblin Sage of Hewn. And they met some priests of Hewn before, and I was going to have them be good guys, but it might be kind of interesting. The reason was, why didn't they mention that Athelia is one of their priests?

And it could be that they feel, the other priests, feel that Athelia's work to unlock the Red Portal is sacrilegious to their order. They study portal magic, but only academically. So this is actually kind of similar to wizards in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. There's this idea of like, oh, or whatever they call themselves, wizards or whatever they meant.

And they were like, well, we don't know. Wizards don't cast spells like wizards study magic. We just understand it. We don't use it like that. Yeah. Oh, like we're using it. And I think it might be interesting if the order of Hune is sort of like that, that Ithelia is like, look, we can actually use this thing. Like, no, no, no. We're just supposed to understand the portals.

We're not supposed to use the portals. So, yeah, right. Applied portal magic. How low class. Yeah, that's pretty funny, right? So that could be a fun, that's a fun little secret there. So now we've, I think that's a fun way to introduce Athelia.

And I think Athelia could be a good ally of the characters who can then use portal magic to help them get around the Dragon Empire faster and easier and secretly and in a speed that no one else can because they'll have access to one red portal. And then we'll have to figure out where that other red portal goes. But I don't think we have to worry about that right now.