Fatal Encounters: Gorgimerae

There are days when I still get up early, go upstairs, and have the feeling that I need to start getting coffee and brown sugar maple Cream of Wheat and orange juice put out for someone who is no longer here. Or, that the creaking upstairs is from someone walking around and not just the wind. Yesterday was one of those days, and to alleviate the sad thoughts for a moment and keep my mind busy, let's do something easy that makes me feel accomplished for a little while: make monsters!

This time, my twist on the gorgimera, and encounters inspired by The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.
  Design and balance note: I had some trouble making this "fatal encounter" less fatal and still impactful. Which, may or may not be a good thing depending on the person reading this. You'll see later that it uses a handful of d6 for its attacks, which used to be a lot more d6 plus a lot of d8. I found this set of stats and abilities to work well for me and the group I intended it for (five 5th-level PCs), and for some DMs/parties those could very well be reduced further to mostly d4 damage dice or increased slightly. Hopefully some of the encounter suggestions are helpful for fine tuning and improvising as well.
  If you missed them, check out my previous blog post and Matt Colville's "Action Oriented Monsters" video here for examples of "villain actions," or "elite actions" as I call them.

Gorgimera (GORR-geh-MAYR-uh)

• The offspring of terrifying chimerae and gorgons (the D&D gorgon, a metal-scaled bull monstrosity with petrifying green vapor breath), gorgimera are even more fearsome. This monster bears leonine and draconian features and has three heads, two of which (the lion and red dragon) are the same as it, but the third head is a fuming gorgon instead of a rabid goat.
• Gorgons and gorgimerae, having metallic bodies (or partly, in the latter's case) and lungs that create petrifying vapors, are immune to being petrified by their kin's vapor and are highly resistant to other petrification effects from basilisks, cockatrice, and medusae. The lion and dragon heads, however, are still susceptible to a degree. If turned to stone, the other two heads and all its limbs will slowly regenerate back to normal within a week to a month (longer for older gorgimerae), and the process is hastened by sunlight.
• Gorgimerae are more rampant and tenacious than chimerae thanks to the attitude their gorgon parents pass on to them, and can be stubborn and unyielding to the extreme. Instead of fleeing when wounded by a powerful foe, most gorgimera will choose go into a frenzy, even fighting to the death in their prideful stubborness. Although they are not as skilled at flying as chimera for their greater strength and ferocity, they can cover much more ground at the first sight of competition and when riled up.
    They rarely fight with their chimera and gorgon cousins, and more rarely with each other being so few and far between, but a gorgimera duel is a spectacular sight. Some try to petrify their opponent as quickly as possible, at which point it will break apart its stone body and eat it. Others opt to try headbutting and goring the goat or gorgon head like a hammer trying to hit and shatter another hammer, at which point the victor (not unlikely to win by the merit of the loser's stupidity against a bulkier foe) will devour the loser with its lion and dragon mouths.
• When the lion and dragon heads aren't craving fresh meat, aren't picking fights, and nothing is distracting or provoking the gorgon one, it spends that little time casually wandering and grazing plains and riverbanks. Occasionally, a gorgimera can be found pawing and bobbing (almost playfully) in a river or beach for fish with each of its heads (eating salmon, trout, sturgeon, catfish, and small sharks) and picking through rocks to chew on with its gorgon head. A rarer and more exceptional sight is a gorgimera playfully splashing in shallow water like a jovial pup—nothing deeper than its knees, though, as they struggle to swim.

Gorgimera
Large monstrosity, chaotic evilAC 16, HP 152 (16d10 + 64), Bloodied 76, Speed 40 ft., fly 60 ft.
STR 19 (+4), DEX 11 (+0), CON 18 (+4), INT 5 (-3), WIS 12 (+1), CHA 10 (+0)
Skills: Intimidation +6, Perception +7
Condition Immunities: petrified
Senses: darkvision 90 ft., passive Perception 17
Languages: understands Draconic and Giant but can't speak
Challenge Rating: 9 (5,000 XP)
Traits
Three Heads. The gorgimera has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks and on saving throws against being blinded, deafened, frightened, stunned, and knocked unconscious. Additionally, each of its heads can be targeted individually and have the following properties:
  Lion Head. AC 15, HP 38. While this head is unconscious, its frightful roar and bite are disabled.
  Dragon Head. AC 17, HP 50. While this head is unconscious, its fire breath and meteor are disabled.
  Gorgon Head. AC 19, HP 64. While this head is unconscious, its gore and petrifying breath are disabled.
Trample. If the gorgimera moves at least 20 feet and then hits a creature with a melee attack on the same turn, that target must succeed on a DC 17 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If a target is prone, the gorgimera can make one stomp attack against it as a bonus action.
Lion Head: Frightful Roar. Each creature of the gorgimera's choice that is within 60 feet of the gorgimera and that can hear it must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature's save is successful or the effect ends for it, it is immune to the gorgimera's roar for 24 hours.
ActionsMultiattack. The gorgimera makes one of each of the following attacks:
  Lion Head: Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (1d6 + 6) piercing damage.
  Dragon Head: Fire Breath. Each creature in a 15-foot cone must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 10 (3d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much on a successful one.
  Gorgon Head: Gore. Melee Weapon Attack:  +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (1d6 + 6) piercing damage.
Stomp. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., up to four targets. Hit: 8 (1d8 + 4) slashing damage.
Dragon Head: Meteor (2/day). Ranged Spell Attack: range 120 ft. Each creature in a 20-foot sphere must make a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw, taking 17 (5d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much on a successful one. Additionally on a failed save, a creature has disadvantage on saving throws against the gorgimera's fire breath until the end of its next turn.
Gorgon Head: Petrifying Breath (2/day). The gorgon head exhales green vapor all around it. Each creature in a 15-foot cone must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or begin to turn to stone and restrained. The restrained target must repeat the saving throw at the end of its next turn, ending the effect on itself on a success. On a failure, the target is petrified until freed by the greater restoration spell or other magic.
Elite ActionsFirestorm. As a free action at the start of the first round of combat, the gorgimera uses meteor.
Bull Rush. At the start of the first round of combat, the gorgimera uses its movement to fly up to its speed within 20 feet of a creature and then run at it and use gore and petrifying breath (see trample).
Tantrum. When the gorgimera becomes bloodied, it immediately runs around up to its speed in a straight line or circle, trampling creatures underfoot. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity. It uses stomp against each creature it moved past with a +10 to hit, dealing bludgeoning damage instead of slashing damage, and then it uses stomp against all prone creatures within reach (see trample).

The Rainbow Caverns

Recommended for a party of four to six 4th-6th level characters, intended for five 5th-level characters.

Patiently awaiting the next generation of spelunkers and thieves is a sprawling cavern-scape first discovered by a mage of old who quickly filled it with unimaginable wealth and unspeakable terrors.
  Overgrown, well-worn steps lie ahead, leading down into its twisting halls and absolute darkness. The caves sigh with cool, deep breaths, as if calling out to you.

Environment Features
Absolute Darkness. No light reaches the caves beyond the first few steps at the entrance. All creatures require a light source or special senses (such as blindsight or tremorsense) in order to see anything. Darkvision does not allow a creature to see in the caves unless it has a light source. A creature that can't see must succeed on a DC 17 Survival check to avoid getting lost.
Earthcancer. Much of the ground is covered in aberrant formations and corrupted, fungal growths. Random patches of ground count as difficult terrain (movement speed is reduced by 1/4th on average). A creature that comes in contact with earthcancer or ends its turn in the space must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or take 2 (1d4) poison damage. If it fails the save by 5 or more (DC 12), it becomes nauseated and unable to take any action until the end of their next turn.
  If the party is healthy when they enter the gorgimera lair, the more earthcancer there will be. Likewise, if the party is in worse shape, the less earthcancer there will be.

Part 1

As the party journeys deeper into the caves, down both winding natural paths and straight artificial stairways, they come to a flat area. The ground here has become earthcancer and has formed 1d4 shriekers. Swarms of bats and 1d4 stirges swirl around each character and move deftly through interconnected tunnels pocked with large insect (centipede) and stirge nests and little more, bothering the party only for a moment if they disturb the fungi or nests.
  Inside one small side cave lies a body, face-down, wearing loose brown, moldy, moth-eaten clothes and a bulky satchel. Something glints in light (the pommel of a longsword, a flying sword) and the sword and satchel both glow with an aura for anyone benefiting from detect magic. Earthcancer has spread in a 5-foot radius around the corpse, and a gas spore is growing under the clothers in the corpse (DC 14 Perception check to spot the spore). The flying sword (+7 to hit) will attack whoever touches it or the corpse; at 0 HP it falls to the ground and becomes a longsword +1 with 3 charges which can be spent to turn it into a dancing sword for 1 hour (it does not regain spent charges). Inside the satchel are two rings of protection, one of which appears to grant +3 AC if identified but actually curses whoever attunes to it and imparts a -3 penalty to AC (the ring cannot be removed while the wearer is cursed, and the curse can only be removed by separating the finger and ring from the wearer for 24 hours, or by casting remove curse at 5th level).

Part 2

Gem-crusted stalactites hang from the ceiling of a narrowing tunnel. Dirt and a few tiny rocks fall from one of the formations as the party moves through, and minute vibrations from an unseen source cause one stalactite to crack and fall (DC 16 Dexterity save or take 1d6 bludgeoning damage). Walking through the tunnel, each character must make a Perception check. The character with the highest roll spots another stalactite that looks like a crystal-coated piercer; if the roll is 18 or higher they also spot a ruby on it. If damaged, the stalactite will break, fall (dealing 1d6 bludgeoning damage if someone is underneath it and doesn't move), and release a ruby worth 750 gp.
  Rumbling is heard and felt behind the party as a xorn moves through, paying no mind to the party, eating crystals in a wall behind them that causes part of it to collapse and a tight passage to open to another room with a wall full of crystals. In that room, the damp floor marked with patches of earthcancer (difficult terrain not including the walls and ceiling, DC 16 Athletics check to climb the walls) is littered with junk. On the far side of the room, a heavily scarred roper is munching on three dead troglodytes. 1 merrow is on the opposite side of the room sitting against a stalagmite, catching its breath and reading a scroll of stone to flesh written in aquan. It takes ten minutes to sort through the junk in the room and gather one explorer's pack worth of salvageable items (except with 5 rations total and the rope breaks if more than 50 pounds of weight is put on it).

Part 3

The main passageway continues winding onward and sloping down then abruptly starts to widen horizontally and vertically, eventually coming to a wider opening (50 ft in all dimensions) with a 15-foot-deep pool of clear water. A haze of magical darkness lingers in the area, obscuring everything from the surface of the pool to the ceiling. Marred stone statues and broken pieces of humanoids and beasts barely jut out of the darkness at the water's edge. Eight crumbling creatures are frozen solid in the middle of crawling back towards the tunnel, and many more have sunken and piled up beneath the surface, making the pool shallower at the near and far side. On the far side of the pool, some of the statues and limbs have returned to their natural, fleshy state, and dark blood stains the area. Also lurking underwater are 2 swarms of quippers and 3 ghasts. Earthcancer has spread in a 30-foot radius around the far edge of the pool.

For a stronger or more experienced party, replace 1 swarm of quippers with 1 giant zombie constrictor snake (a constrictor snake with the undead fortitude trait).

  Crossing the pool leads to a massive cave (60 ft wide, 100 ft high) covered with crystals and rippling streams and glossy bumps that all sparkle and shimmer with a rainbow of colors from the tiniest glint of light. A heap of treasure—gems, silver and gold and mithril coins and squares of chain maille, and steel and bronze weapons and helmets and armor the designs of which must span centuries—sits in the center of the chamber. Six stalactites at the very top of the cave ceiling twist and end in an elegant jeweled point, which give off sunlight that matches the natural light outside at the current time of day and gradually cure petrification over the course of 1d10 days. After their awe dissipates, characters will notice the broken, prone stone bodies and earthcancer covering the chamber floor. And beneath the mound of treasure lies a gorgimera starved of fresh meat.

For a stronger or fresh party, the gorgimera may push them into areas where earthcancer is festering, grounding the strongest or weakest link in the chain as it sees fit. For a much larger party or long encounter (or after the encounter ends), 1d4 of the statues start to animate every other round (use the ghoul stat block with a speed of 10 feet for the first round they are animated and 30 feet thereafter).

  The treasure hoard contains the following: 6 cp, 5,000 sp, 2,160 gp, 400 pp (enchanted to weigh twice as much and fall out of any pocket or bag they are placed in), 10 gems (each gem weighs 1d10 lbs and is worth 5d10 x 100 gp), fine clothes, costume clothes (goat costume), costume clothes (gorgon costume), a potion of fire breath, 3 vials of saffron (worth 150 gp each and can be used in food or potions to create a potion of clairvoyance that also grants truesight out to 60 feet for the duration), 2 vials of red dragon repellant oil, a scroll of protection from elementals written in draconic, a dagger +1, a mithril war maul head (4 lbs), a bag of holding (contains two diamond dice worth 750 gp each), a heavily-stained 6-page notebook (a cursed copied section of the book of vile darkness, swarms of leeches spawn when opened to the the flawed 5th and 6th pages), and a small vial of purple ooze (when poured out and left in a space with oxygen or water, it grows one size category every 1d8 hours until it becomes a moaning otyugh-shaped black pudding).
  A stairwell is hidden at the back of the chamber behind a towering wall of stalagmites, which leads to a squished tunnel that is flooded for a short length that then leads to a back entrance/exit covered in a mound of dirt and small shrubs and their tangled roots.

Thanks for reading, and if you enjoyed any of this, check out more monsters in my Brash Brutes series and my first DMsGuild adventure, Disturbance at Dusk, set in the plane of Ravnica.

Fatal Encounters: Slum Reapers

"October! It's already here!" And my favorite time of the year is already over.

Nearly thirty days ago I started writing a blog post (this post) about a monster in my (spooky-ish) Ravnica adventure Disturbance at Dusk, but never quite got around to finishing it. The monsters featured in the adventure are riffs on an existing creature from Magic: The Gathering called the slum reaper. Let's jump in and (finally) talk about them, everything that I wanted to do with them, and about a few aspects of general monster design.

Slum Reaper art for Magic: The Gathering by Karl Kopinski

Visually one of my favorite horrors (read: aberrations) in Magic, slum reapers channel both Giger and Lovecraft with their hard, glossy, pseudo-insectile legs and upper bodies with a slew of other alien features, including incomprehensible maws, long clawed arms with too many joints and erroneous extra bones, and winding serpentine lower bodies that almost-but-not-quite clash with the rest of their form. In Ravnica lore, the slum reapers, as their name suggests, are creatures sent into slums to reap the "souls of those no one will miss." They are controlled (according to the card's original flavor text) by the Orzhov Syndicate to bolster the guild's army of indentured spirits, but (according to the text in a reprint) are known by some undercity travelers to roam near the territory of the Golgari Swarm. For official lore, as with most Magic creatures, that's all there is. Of course, for fun, exciting, flavorful Dungeon's & Dragons adventures, that isn't enough, so I've expanded on those two seeds for my own Ravnica adventures using some very old ideas of my own and a few queues from the art.

• Undercity Abominations. The slum reapers dwell in the darkest, dingiest regions beneath the city, in nasty habitats ranging from ancient catacombs and overgrown churches to rotten sewer tunnels and rubblebelt caves. Their secondary habitats seem to be wherever there is food—and, in Ravnica, the busy streets are the greatest hunting grounds for many predators.
• Uncommon and Unique. Few slum reapers are the same, even in their general form. They all share a similar chitinous skin, have many legs and claws, and typically have small, bony or membranous wings. All other features beyond those, and their behaviors, vary wildly.
• Vermin Eaters. Some of the creatures have been suspected to co-exist with vermin and insects—rats, giant centipedes, and possibly even kraul—but such beliefs are only theory for now. What is known is that they feed on small beasts, insects, and humanoids, and that they have an ingrained, insatiable hunger for the flesh and blood of the sick, injured, and forlorn.
• Born, or Built? The greatest unsolved mystery about the aberrant creatures of Ravnica is their origin, and this is no different for the slum reapers. They have existed for millennia but none know of where they come from or if they mutated and evolved from ancient insects. Few signs point to the same theory, which may suggest that their current form didn't come about naturally. Perhaps their appetites and natural habitats gave rise to mutations that made them fearsome predators of the past, which peaked the curiosity of a fleshwarper or thrull breeder who then captured, bred, dissected, and reconstructed them, releasing their failed experiments back into the underground urban wilds.

In Disturbance at Dusk, a group of uniquely pale slum reapers appears to harass the citizens and the party, all of them with strange contraptions grafted to their bodies and limbs. These I called "dread reapers," just one of many variants I toyed with while making encounters. For their stat blocks, I referred DMs to the flying horror found in Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica (p. 203) with a short list of adjustments. What I wanted to do was create an all-new monster stat block, but made the decision to use the flying horror because it seemed like an elegant solution that made writing the adventure easier for me. Now, though, I've come up with a much more interesting "base monster" and a handful of monster "templates" or "plug-ins" to, well, plug-in to the base monster.

While making monsters for other DMs to use who don't normally use monsters the same way that I do, and many who haven't played other editions of D&D and used monsters in them (such as 4e), I've been trying to come up with a better way to present monsters that is still familiar when compared to stat blocks and rules in 5e. My intent with the base monster template here is to present a basic monster stat block that follows the design and language (more or less) of stat blocks in the Monster Manual and other official sourcebooks and adventures, but that I and DMs-who-aren't-me can combine with more fun sets of traits and actions.

Action Oriented Monsters

I'll take a second to derail my post and point you to a video by Matt Colville about what he calls "Action Oriented Monsters" found here. The goal of designing monsters in the way seen in the video (particularly "solo" or "boss" monsters) is the same as my goals; to make interesting, memorable encounters that are fun and challenging for players and flexible for DMs. The inspirations for a lot of the design, I presume, are also similar and come from memorable scenes in books and movies and video games, but also the way monsters are presented in 4e. The basic concepts are as follows:

• Give your monster the basic stats you need (AC, HP, movement speed, initiative, and any important ability scores),
• Let yourself be flexible with those stats during gameplay,
• Give it senses (passive Perception, darkvision or other senses if applicable) and a few notable traits or vulnerabilities/resistances (optional),
• Give it an easy-to-remember basic attack (and a multiattack that uses it if applicable),
• Give it an easy-to-remember (and probably weaker) ranged or melee attack (whichever one it doesn't already have),
• And, lastly, give it something unique, such as a more powerful attack it can use once per encounter, a strong spell (or spell-like ability) it can use each round, a reaction, or a special action that lets it move and attack or even summon other monsters or set and activate traps.

For strong, solo monsters, Matt suggests a few other things including one trick I used to use all the time but, for whatever reason, had completely forgot about until I watched his video. That trick is to give it one (or more) special actions that happen on specific rounds in combat. I used to use that all the time for "elite"/solo and boss monsters, and for hazards like weather and traps. Instead of giving a monster a recharge action (an action that, once used, makes the DM roll a d6 to see if it recharges and is used again), these round-based actions remove some of the randomness and reduces the swingy-ness of a fight, making an encounter with that monster more controlled but still exciting and memorable and, if need be, dangerous. For this dread reaper design and the design of a vampire villain (a topic for another day), that was my "Aha! Wait... Why didn't I remember that?" moment.
  The terminology I've been using for the actions varies slightly from his; what Matt calls "Villain Actions" in his video are what I call "Elite Actions" (or sometimes "Solo Actions" or "Encounter Powers") referring to solo or elite creatures that are slightly more powerful than the average creature. Legendary Actions I still use the same way as the official 5e rules. Some minions (creatures that die when hit by any attack that deals damage) I also give these actions to, though I make sure they are very minor effects or for much higher challenge rating monsters.
  For the sake of not having to write it out every time, here's a reminder for the "Legendary Action" rules: A creature can take a set number of legendary actions, choosing from the options in its stat block. Only one legendary action can be taken at a time and only at the end of another creature's turn. A creature with legendary actions regains spent actions at the start of its turn.

Now, back to my monsters.

The Reaper Comes

For the first half of the puzzle, the base stat block:

Slum Reaper
Medium aberration, lawful evil
AC 15, HP 55 (10d8 + 10), Bloodied 24 (HP/2), Speed 40 ft., Fly 30 ft., INI +3
STR 10 (+0), DEX 18 (+4), CON 12 (+1), INT 2 (-4), WIS 15 (+2), CHA 16 (+3)
Skills: Perception +4, Stealth +6
Damage Vulnerabilities: radiant
Condition Immunities: frightened
Senses: darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 14
Languages: —
Challenge Rating: 3 (700 XP)
Traits
Keen Senses. The slum reaper has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight, hearing, or smell. Additionally, it gains a +2 bonus to checks made to locate creatures that are suffering from a disease or injury.
Sunlight Sensitivity. While in sunlight, the slum reaper has disadvantage on attack rolls, as well as on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
Actions
Multiattack. The slum reaper makes one claw attack and one tail attack.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d6 + 3) slashing damage plus 5 (2d4) psychic damage.
Tail. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d8) bludgeoning damage.

Essentially, this is just the stat block for a paired-down, modified flying horror from GGR that could be used as-is. More than that, it's a foundation to build a better monster on top of, a monster that fits the fantastic art above and (hopefully) the story and tension in whatever adventure you use it in.
  In the adventure, I chose to change their attacks to deal lightning damage to highlight their strange grafts, but psychic damage makes more sense for the base aberration. Also note that the frightening screech attack from the flying horror has been removed; instead, I'm going to have extra actions included in the variants below.

Optional Trait: Death Shriek. When the reaper dies, it lets out a piercing cry with its last breath. Creatures outside the encounter within 120 feet and that are smaller than it in size have a 50% chance to flee in fear, otherwise they slowly approach to investigate.
  With this trait, smaller creature will likely run even farther away from the battle, while some creatures or larger monsters may come to inspect the site or feed on its corpse. It's a quirky, flavorful trait, but it can make the world seem more alive and make the death of the monster more impactful. Another monster in Disturbance at Dusk can mimic the sounds of other creatures, and it might mimic a slum reaper's terrible shrieks to scare aware other predators or attract the party into an ambush.

Now onto the second half (the fun half).

Monster Variants

For each of these variants, everything in the variant is added to the base stat block above, or replaces a stat in it. For example, the base slum reaper's speed is 40 feet, for the screeching horror variant its speed becomes 30 instead; likewise with its damage vulnerabilities. If a variant doesn't list a stat or trait, use whatever is given in the base stat block. In general, I use the AC, HP, Speed, Initiative, ability scores, skills, senses and so forth from the base monster, and its basic attack or multiattack.

For the first variant, I'm just going to recreate the flying horror from GGR with a few changes.
  Notable loot from this and any other variant can include the following: mandibles dotted with distorted yellow and black teeth, long chitinous claws and nails, large leathery wings (for making clothing, light and medium armor, or perhaps a macabre kite), and hollow bones from its grotesquely long limbs (as sturdy as common wood varieties but lighter in weight). Radiant damage, and in this case fire as well, might burn away its wings and weaken some of its limbs and bones, weakening the creature but turning potential crafting materials into ash.

Reaper Frightener
Speed 30 ft., Fly 60 ft.
Damage Vulnerabilities: fire, radiant
Traits
Fear Frenzy. The reaper has advantage on attack rolls against frightened creatures.
Reactions
Psychic Rebuke. When the reaper is hit by a melee attack, it emits a blast of psychic energy, dealing 3 (1d6) psychic damage to each creature within 5 feet of it. Then it can fly up to 20 feet away and does not provoke opportunity attacks during this movement.
Elite Actions
The reaper uses its frightening shriek at the start of rounds one and three.
Frightening Shriek. The reaper shrieks, creating a head-splitting blast of energy that rings out for several hundred feet. Each creature within 60 feet of it that can hear it must succeed on a DC 11 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of it for 1 minute, and each creature within 20 feet of it must succeed on a DC 15 saving throw instead. A frightened creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature's saving throw is successful or the effect ends, the creature is immune to the effect for the next 24 hours.

For its elite action, it uses frightening shriek at the start of the first and third rounds of combat, and the scream more dangerous for characters close to the reaper. To me that's fairly simple (after all, I'm the one who made it), but a lot of people who I help create adventures for have a lot questions about abilities like this. Here are a few that I either asked myself or get asked by others:

• What if the party has a surprise round in which it can't act, like if it's unconscious or paralyzed for whatever reason? In that case, you can just have it use the ability as soon as it's able to, and two rounds after that.
• What if the encounter goes on for more than three rounds? It might not, but if it does then I could have it continue shrieking every three rounds or so. Or, it might stop shrieking if every PC in the encounter has become immune to the effect, or it will deem the shriek an ineffective use of its energy so it stops—either way, I can forget about it and instead focus on other aspects of the encounter and improvising to keep it interesting, or give it one more round of rampaging attacks and end it before it technically reaches zero hit points if it feels like it's dragging on.
• If this monster was the final boss of a lengthy undercity delve or foray into a crumbling necropolis, I might give it a heftier flyby reaction, or increase its flying speed further and give it the flyby trait (it doesn't provoke an opportunity attack when it flies out of an enemy's reach).
• If this reaper was in a group with other monsters, I might remove it's "elite action" entire or decide to have the shriek only affect creatures within 30 feet with a DC of 13 like the flying horror's original attack. Against a party of ranged characters or, perhaps, if it was at the bottom of the initiative count, I might choose to use its rush to close in 30 extra towards an attacker during the first round.

As with everything in D&D, assess the situation and improvise as needed. This world, unlike Ravnica, doesn't have metaphysical law magic preventing you from doing something that isn't in the stat block, the important thing is for everyone playing to have fun. As long you the basic idea and stay flexible, I find that the majority of the time everything comes together fairly naturally. And the more you play, improvise, and make or use interesting monsters, the easier it all gets.
  It may be worth noting again here that, for me, I am using more long-winded language because I send my monsters to other DMs and also use them in published adventures (or at least I intend to). If you make monsters for your own use, you don't need to be nearly as precise with the language you use for anything, as long as you can understand what it means at a glance during gameplay.

For the second variant, I'll make a monster that fits what I imagined when creating Disturbance at Dusk, something closer to what I wanted to playtest against a party.
  Notable loot from this variant would be the spark blade grafted onto its arm:
  Spark Blade. Magic weapon (longsword), rare, 3 lbs. 1d8 slashing damage, versatile (1d10). You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. This weapon has three charges. You can use an action and expend a charge to cause it to crackle with lightning. The effects lasts for 1 minute or until an attack with this weapon hits a creature. That creature must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or take 7 (2d6) lightning damage and become paralyzed until the end of its next turn.

Dread Reaper
Traits
Spark Rig Graft. The reaper has a magical contraption grafted to its body and arms. The spark rig has the following properties:
  If the reaper kills a creature with a soul, the rig absorbs it. All of the reaper's lightning damage dice are upgraded to a d8 until the end of its next turn.
  When the reaper becomes bloodied, the spark rig becomes damaged, and its spark bolt and charge actions are disabled until the spark rig is repaired. Additionally, roll a d4. On a 1, the graft deals 5 (2d4) lightning damage to the reaper. On a 4, the graft deals 5 (2d4) lightning damage to all creatures within 10 feet of the reaper.
Actions
Multiattack. The reaper makes one spark blade attack and one tail attack.
Spark Blade. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d6 + 3) slashing damage plus 7 (2d6) lightning damage.
Spark Bolt. Each creature in a 60-foot line must make a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw, taking 10 (3d6) lightning on a failed save or half as much on a successful one. The reaper must not be bloodied to do so.
Elite Actions
Beginning on the second round of combat, the reaper uses its charge every other round.
Charge. The reaper's spark rig charges with energy. At the start of the next round, it uses its overload. The reaper must not be bloodied to do so.
Overload. The reaper slams its arms into the ground or slashes in the air, unleashing waves of lightning from its spark rig graft. Each creature in a 20-foot cone must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 10 (3d6) lightning damage on a failed save or half as much on a successful one. Additionally on a failed save, a creature must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving or be paralyzed for 1 minute. A creature can reapeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

An attentive or curious PCs can attempt to make an Intelligence (Arcana) check when they first encounter the monster and when it uses its charge. On a 15 or higher, they learn about its spark rig graft trait, and on a 17 or higher learn the effects of the reaper's charge and overload elite actions. On a result of 19 or higher, they also know that the graft is a ramshackle experiment using Izzet technology combined with some kind of spirit-powered contraption.

A reminder for what "bloodied" means: A creature is bloodied when its hit points are equal to or less than half its maximum hit points.
  For the dread reaper, being bloodied also means its spark rig graft is damaged and unstable.

The third variant is a slum reaper warped by the negative energies of the Shadowfell.
  Notable "loot" from this variant is most likely to include lingering madness and despair effects (DMG p. 258-260), and lingering injuries from its claws and bites (DMG p. 272). Such effects may even be "awarded" as soon as a character sees the monster!

Reaper Duskwalker
Large aberration, neutral evilHP 65 (10d10 + 10), Bloodied 32 (HP/2), Speed 40 ft., Climb 40 ft., INI +4
Skills: Perception +6, Stealth +8
Damage Resistances: acid, necrotic, poison, psychic
Challenge Rating: 4 (1,100 XP)
Traits
Mind Sight. Magical darkness doesn't impede the reaper's vision.
Spider Climb. The reaper can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
ActionsMultiattack. The reaper makes two claw attacks. If both hit, the target is grappled (escape DC 14) and the reaper makes a bite attack with advantage.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6 + 4) slashing damage plus 7 (2d6) necrotic damage.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 3 (1d6) piercing damage plus 3 (1d6) acid damage. Miss: 3 (1d6) acid damage.
Legendary Actions
The reaper can take 3 legendary actions.
Bite. The reaper makes a bite attack. Additionally on a hit, it regains 3 hit points.
Consuming Shadows. The reaper deals 5 (2d6) necrotic damage to a creature standing in darkness that it can see up to 60 feet away.
Shadow Step (Costs 2 Actions). The reaper fills a 5-foot cube within 5 feet of it with magical darkness which remains for 1 minute, and gains +2 AC while in dim light or darkness until the start of its next turn. A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it. Additionally, the reaper can teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space that is in dim light or darkness.
Elite Actions
The reaper uses darkness at the end of the first round of combat.
Darkness. The reaper casts the darkness spell which covers a 30-foot-radius sphere.

Sample reaper duskwalker encounter:
  The reaper is hiding in the shadows, clinging on a high ceiling, buried under debris or in a giant trapdoor spider lair under the street pavement (the former resident having been eaten), or skulking across rooftops during a "duskfall" (a Plane of Shadow manifest zone that cloaks the area in heavy, asphyxiating mist). As the party passes by, it reaches out to grab a creature and makes two claw attacks. If both claw attacks hit, the target is grappled (escape DC 14) and the reaper makes a bite attack with advantage.

Other Effects

Enraged (Barbarian Rage or basic attacks cleave and hit another adjacent creature), bleeding (Bloodied or steadily losing blood and hit points), infested (by insects), wounded (limping and loses part of its multiattack or deals reduced damage with an attack).
  PCs might encounter a slum reaper displaying one of these effects, or they might cause an affliction like enraged or wounded.

Stress and My Creative Process

Stress. The last two months, for me, have felt like floating in a dull, endless ocean of stress.

At the end of last month, I felt a surge of desire and motivation to write and publish my own D&D adventure (Disturbance at Dusk, available on the DMs Guild). The idea for that adventure came from a lot of places, and the writing and encounters came from twisting some old adventures I made and creating lot of brand new pieces. Whenever I sat down at my tiny desk in my cold room in the week leading up October 1st, I had a lot of positive energy helping me drive myself and the writing forward, helping me progress, helping me come up with new ideas. In four days I wrote over 14,000 words, or about 3,500 a day—2,000 words a day is my goal on days I try to dedicate entirely to writing, and most of the time that writing isn't so completely focused on one story. Around 8,000 of those words made it into the final product, and I had so many other ideas that I never fleshed out and incorporated.

After spending one last day re-reading and editing and tweaking, I published it. It felt great. I immediately wanted to continue working on the next chapter of that adventure, and for a day I did. Then I realized how completely exhausted I was. I needed time to recharge, and I couldn't help but dwell on all the parts of the adventure that could have been better. So, I decided to take a few days off. In that time, my forward momentum stopped, as I expected from resting, relaxing, taking time away from the pen and paper and the keyboard and bright computer monitor. After that break, I wanted to get back into gear, build up that momentum and positive energy again, write and design more cool things for another adventure and have it ready to publish two weeks after my first (yesterday, at the time of publishing this blog post). But, life and stress got in the way.
  The positive energy and forward momentum I had a couple of weeks ago became negative energy and heavy, inert weight dragging me and my ability to create new things and put together ideas. The thoughts of "I can do this," and "this will be good" became "I can't do this," and "this will never work." And not just about writing another adventure. As the days of personal and family business continued, it also became about life in general and my ability to create anything. My desire to write and make is still high, but my ability to do so, my ability to lift the proverbial weight around my ankles and shoulders feels miserable. Now, it feels like I have no ability whatsoever to change anything around me, from being able to put words to paper (or monitor) to putting food on my own plate. It feels like this cycle, like it has countless times throughout my life, will never end.

Some things I know I am in control of, deep down I know I am, but the feeling that I'm not is unshakeable. Others I know I'm not in control of—getting a call back after applying for a new job, the weather cooperating as it gets colder, anything my family is doing or not doing, saddening (and maddening) world news—I know shouldn't feel bad for not being able to control, shouldn't feel as defeated as I do because I couldn't have changed it, but the more my mind dwells on it the worse it feels whether I want to think about it or not.

Being a creative person, to me, at least in this moment, seems to mean that life will be filled with the most vibrant, positive highs but also the most gray, negative lows. Things are rarely even-keel. And when they're at a point, it will never not feel like that low point will ever end, or never return.

For now, I will to do my best to keep moving forward, and have to trust in myself that I can reach another high point in the future full of forward momentum by slogging through the muck in the present.

Thanks for everyone who has purchased Disturbance at Dusk, reads this blog, and follows me on social media. Your mostly silent presence is strange, but nonetheless supportive and motivating.

Disturbance at Dusk

I just published a new Ravnica adventure on the DMsGuild! Disturbance at Dusk is a small adventure and DM toolkit with a light horror theme set in autumn, inspired by Slavic cultures and folklore and, of course, October weather and Halloween.

I hope I can create or commission cool covers at some point. Fingers crossed.

After diving deep into Slavic mythology this past month and watching Guillermo del Toro films again, I felt a need to make something like the adventures I used to play and write in middle school. Inside the adventure is some backstory about a little corner of Ravnica that I've been playing in and fleshing out, as well as information about the harvest festival that takes place around this time of year and events surrounding it.

There is so, so much more that I wanted to add to it from my piles of scribbled notes, but I felt like I should restrain myself for my first public, published adventure. The characters behind the scenes in this adventure in particular I have enjoyed creating but it will take a few more adventures after Disturbance at Dusk for parties to encounter them, since it starts where I start most new adventures, at level 1.

I hope someone out there gets it and can make use of it for others groups of players, or can pull ideas out of it and be inspired to make something fantastic. It's available right now, believe it or not, in all its 8,000-some-odd word glory for $2.95 USD.

Spicing up Ravnica: Mythology

Ravnica. One of my favorite settings in the Magic: The Gathering card game (along with a lot of other players and viewers), naturally because it is one of the best designed settings due to its sublime connection to the game's mechanics, as well as because of its fantastical, pseudo-modern setting and extremely colorful characters. The worldbuilding of Ravnica is fun, each guild is extremely flavorful, interesting, and all ten guilds are very distinct from each other in their own ways and provide a great amount of tools to use for storytelling. But digging deeper, beyond the interactions of the ten guilds in the Tenth District, there is a lot lacking. Certainly, there are some cards in each of the nine card sets that show and/or tell a little bit about what the setting is like outside the guilds, showing a few guildless characters and a handful of creatures roughly inspired by Ravnica's source material. But not much. Once you start asking questions about what life is like for the average citizen, or what other districts and entire cities outside the Tenth are like, you'll find a swath of unanswered questions.
  Reading some of the official short stories and novels may answer a few of those questions, but still not nearly enough. So, what I decided to do was to dive instead into the original inspiration for the setting to inspire my own stories and Dungeons & Dragons adventures: Slavic mythology.

Elements of Mythology: cultural and religious traditions, folk lore, and fairy tales.

In Slavic mythology, there are three defined genres:

• Bylichka (beh-LEECH-kuh). Literally "tales." First- or second-hand accounts of strange, often paranormal or supernatural events or encounters with spirits that they experienced—typical tall tales with no real plot, but also some religious stories. Common tales are about someone getting lost in a forest and seeing something bizarre, children going missing and turning up years later saying or doing strange things before disappearing, or about meeting a revered house spirit or another fairy and making a deal with it which they must keep a secret for many years. Some of these sound like a child's stories about playing with an imaginary friend, pages torn out of Alice in Wonderland, or bizarre dreams (never so frightening to be a nightmare) apparently made real.
• Skazka (SKAZ-kuh). Stories or fairy tales. Short stories and oral folk tales as a form of fictional entertainment involving magic and fantastical creatures, or about mundane daily life. Authors of current, well-known children's fairy tales were often inspired by these stories (such as Sleeping Beauty), and some stories have been adapted to modern times by replacing magical plot devices with scientific ones.
• Bylina (beh-LEE-nuh). Epic oral poetry, sometimes called "stariny" (literally "stories of old"). In contrast to skazka, many of these bardic poems or songs would have originated from historical accounts that were then embellished with hyperbolic and fantastical elements over time, although there are some that are purely fictional. Many of the storytellers were/are illiterate singers, or, possibly, were simply dedicated to preserving their culture of the epic oral poems as it was understood that paraphrasing a story to anyone without performing the full song leaves out too much detail. Like modern singers and comedians, the particular stories they sang and many details about named locations or characters were improvised based on the current locations they were at and the company they were with.
    The structure of these poems is not unlike the structure of the hero's journey or a classic D&D adventure: a "bogatyr" (BOH-guh-TEER; mythic hero or character similar to a knight-errant) receives a task or rises to the call to action and encounters fantastical things on a long journey, and gets a reward of some kind at the end of it or upon returning home. Very rarely are sub-plots of any kind present; the story moves straight along from point A to B to C with a simple overarching conflict.

Of course, all of these elements bleed into and influence each other over many, many generations to create a vast, rich, epic tapestry.

Bylichka in Ravnica

Common tall tales and, for RPG players, adventure hooks or rumors to investigate and other places to discover and explore. But the rumors and missions all have a twist to them. Alternatively, read these tales and tweak and adapt them for weird, supernatural social encounters, puzzles, visions or dreams, and any other quirky, non-combat scenes.

Someone goes missing and a family member, partner, or close friend or coworker tells the hero(es) about what happened. It turns out later, however, that the events transpired decades ago and the person who told the story is actually a ghost in need of putting to rest. Or, that the events have yet to happen, and the person is befriended unknowingly (as they were wearing different garb or their face was obfuscated when first "met") and, days or months later, the strange series of events happen to the character who then becomes the missing person.
  Fey creatures from friendly pixies or malicious sprites to scheming hags always make for interesting scenes, especially when there is something the characters and the fey want from each other. Instead of talking in riddles or offering a trade of some kind, a faerie might give an ominous message or hand over a curious consumable with a clearly stated, positive effects and an obscure, abstracted warning of its negative side effects (if any warning is given at all).
  If there are choices the character can make, different paths to choose from, there should be some noticeable effect caused by their actions and not simply the illusion of choice. But whatever the situation, it is not one in which failure results in any severe or long-term consequences, if there even is a way to fail.

Skazka in Ravnica

With these, I mostly see monster encounters and acts in story. In any part of Ravnica, these fairy tales and brief stories can give hints and clues about what to expect from an adventure, or describe (possibly in a roundabout or convoluted way) how to negotiate with adversaries down the road or overcome malevolent spirits and monsters. Very likely, they are ominous tales the party overhears (or tells themselves) that foreshadow an upcoming encounter or greater adventure. Fairy tales of all kinds are ripe for picking apart and putting back together with all manner of changes and adaptations. They're also incredibly varied in how innocent and whimsical or bleak and gruesome they can be, and more innocent tales can easily be turned grisly and vice versa.
  When looking at a fairy tale to plug into your world—assuming that world is not meant to completely simulate a pre-existing real-world setting, culture, and mythology/religion—ask how it would look different in your world compared to the world it originated from. Most fairy tales are incredibly old and involve outdated places with outdated tools and technology and lack countless modern concepts. In Ravnica, a spirit might not be the housekeeper for one family but the manager for a whole apartment, or are employed by a high-ranking spirit or are working to pay off debts to the owner or a family long after the creature made a metaphysical pact with a now-dead relative. Faeries in a massive city don't just wear clothes made of leafs and sip nectar from flowers all day, they have suits or adventuring gear to wear and jobs or quests to complete for nobles, alchemists, spies, guildmasters, and so on. Merfolk, only recently discovered by the greater public, keep to themselves except when city projects and war threaten their homes—that, or they didn't exist at all until they were created by scientists looking to create new soldiers or evolve tools (gills and fins) for themselves so they can explore winding rivers, underground oceans, and drowned ruins, or they appeared suddenly after a catastrophic event that involved dozens (potentially thousands) of people drowning and returning as horrid, wailing sirens or amphibious zombies.
  There are so many fantastic fairy tales and creatures in Slavic mythology, and there is plenty of room for them in Ravnica, in the Tenth District and elsewhere in the world.

Bylina in Ravnica

In the Tenth District—the center of the most densely populated city of Ravnica (a name which the plane itself shares) and highest concentration of guild-related activity—the tradition of bylina storytelling with few or no instruments except the singer's voice is likely to have faded to a great degree, with it only remaining as the memory of the origins of modern songs, plays, and recorded albums, much like it has changed in the real world.
  Inside the Tenth, these songs are probably most commonly sang by Gruul clanspeople, with the most popular tales singing about the guild's parun, grand mountainscapes and storm clouds, and the great Raze-Boar god, Ilharg, who will bring about the apocalyptic End-Raze, after which the remaining Gruul members will celebrate and dance in the plane-wide ruins of the city. With the Gruul, these songs are always accompanied by dancers, a riot, or both. Rakdos guild members may have been the ones who took the tradition and transformed it into their well-known elaborate (and sometimes macabre) performances with music, dancing, acrobatics, and so forth, which modern operas and plays in the Tenth's theaters an jazz clubs could also originate from alongside the development of certain musical instruments.
  Outside the Tenth, in other cities and smaller towns or with nomadic tribes, traditional bylina is likely much more common. If one leaves the big city and visits a rubblebelt, underground river, forest, or any small settlement, they would undoubtedly find a group of people huddled around a campfire, inside a large hall (or tavern), or flocking to a rickety shelter where music can be heard with a bard singing epic tales. Families and factions in smaller towns likely preserve many of the traditions, telling stories about ancestors and heroic (or doomed) adventurers and their adversaries with one or two instruments providing distinctly background music. Subject matter ranges from fighting monsters to solving a catastrophic problem, removing an epic villain or oppressive guild from the region, or the history of how their ancestors relocated to or founded a long-overbuilt town after surviving a terrible war. At night or during bad weather in any region, dense and modern or sparse and traditional, parents sing poems to their children—parents who are guild members may try to impress on their children with songs of guild heroes, success and money (or a lack of them), or a clumsy character who failed at their task because they opposed the guild. Older siblings may choose to tell spooky stories to younger ones as opposed to heroic and cheerful tales, and embellish them with fantastically gruesome details. Hosts may stand and sing to their guests at breakfast or dinner, or will hire or ask someone else to sing at a gathering.
  Wherever you go, songs reflect the types of work people are doing and the specific struggles they have overcome in the past and are trying to overcome in the present and near-future. Newspapers, depending on the region, publisher, and writers, could start with a teaser poem on the front page with a longer story inside, and may be more popular when guild politics and tensions are high.

Bogatyr in Ravnica

Every culture has great heroes and tales of their epic deeds. Wherever the characters are, what are some local legends people tell in the district or neighborhood, who do people look up to? Perhaps some heroes have books written about them and kids desire collectible statues resembling a larger-than-life-size one in another city. What kinds of legendary heroes and ancestors do local families tell the children about? Are they tales of glory, or darker legends of fallen heroes and collapsed cities with moral lessons to be learned (or rebelled against)? In the guild that one of the player characters is a member of, whose footsteps do they strive to follow so they may bring glory to their guild? Does a prominent tale of an old hero have another side to it, or maybe it has been twisted by  notable members of a family or guild that opposed them—wrongly, justly, or entirely gray on all sides.
  Planeswalkers who visit Ravnica are bound to become legendary heroes or villains, and some may cause stories to form about mysterious, larger-than-life figures who travel beyond the nothingness outside the world's boundary—these are obviously absurd legends, of course, but epic nonetheless.
  Statues, memorials, and temples dedicated to legends in folktales and to heroes of times of war and strife are scattered across every part of each layer of each city, from the highest promenades to the murkiest, disintegrated depths of the Undercity. Tomes new and old talk about them with a different perspective or opinion on their deeds based on the time period and author(s). Old paintings, relief sculptures, and ancient relics show off their deeds, although archaeologists and scholars can never agree on who is pictured and what the symbolism was intended to mean at the time of their creation.

If there aren't any of these heroes and epic songs about their deeds that can be heard in the city (or just the apartment or bar down the street), the characters will change that soon enough.

New Platforms

It's been a busy week, and I have a couple of new platforms! The first new platform is a Facebook page, a simple thing to reach more people who use that site instead of Twitter. Now, you can find my blog content here as usual, see blog posts linked on my Twitter page along with other posts, and you'll be able to find blog posts linked on the new Facebook page starting now.
The second new platform is a little more interesting...

I Created a Patreon Page!

With a Patreon and a few supporters, I can put much more time and energy into making content and tabletop RPG adventures than I would otherwise. Hopefully this will become a source of income outside of other infrequent projects online and stressful work in real life, but I need to start making content on my blog and publishing adventures on my own with my own name on them.

Going forward, I want to buckle down and make this my primary source of income. To do that, I need to get more ideas out there, start more discussions, and finish more products. For the past year, give or take, I've been writing adventures for acquaintances and acting as a sort of "adventure writing and designing consultant" for people online while writing bits and pieces of bigger adventures and campaigns for myself. Up until recently, when my grandfather passed away, I didn't have enough time nor energy to turn those bits and pieces into whole products. Now that I have the time, of course, I don't have as much money, and since Google AdSense has been in limbo for several months now, that's what I hope Patreon will fix. Stress, from anything but especially where money and security are concerned, is a huge hindrance on my own creativity as I'm sure any artist, writer, or other maker out there knows; having a small constant source of income will help with that immensely.

With that said, please go follow my Facebook and Twitter pages if you use either platform, and check out my new Patreon page! I have a lot of work to do, and I'll be seeing you in another post very soon.

Thank you.

Grief

deep sigh This post feels like it's been a very, very long time coming. Looking back on the first date on here, April, it feels like a lifetime ago.

Almost five months ago, now. That was when my grandfather got sick.

Friday, April 19th

My grandfather, who I started taking care of full-time at the start of the year, called me early in the morning. He was in pain and thought his ear or scalp was bleeding, so I bolted up the stairs to check him out—sprinting through thoughts about what I needed to do to stop it, how to get to the hospital if he was in that much trouble, and so on. When I got upstairs, I looked him over and found no blood, no cuts nor bruises nor anything at all out of the ordinary. My grandpa didn't believe me at first, so I got a warm washcloth and washed his ear and scalp and his glasses, then gave him an ice pack to put over the spot that was in pain.
  The pain went away shortly, and it returned a few times throughout the day and night but wasn't as bad, according to him.

Saturday, the pain returned, but still no evidence of any cause. My grandpa drove himself to the clinic that morning, I believe, and was sent home with instructions to take some aspirin, which seemed to do the trick. The fact that he was in pain but there were no signs as to what was going on was, needless to say, very disturbing. Otherwise, nothing changed and we went about our usual routines as normal.

Sunday morning (or perhaps it was Monday), more pain along with a little swelling, we drive to the clinic together. The doctor suspected he might have an infection caused by his glasses arm rubbing against his scalp and ear, scratching it a lot, and prescribed him some strong antibiotics in the form of an injection at the clinic and some pills throughout the week. And more painkillers. At night, he didn't sleep as well, but could get to sleep as long as he didn't roll over onto that side of his head.

Wednesday, April 24th

Sudden, dramatic progression of my grandpa's condition. I get up early and make breakfast before he gets up, then check him over as soon as possible. Immediately, I notice that his head and ear are extremely swollen and extremely red with some dark splotches, then notice a split second later that the swelling actually goes from his ear to the back of his head and down to his collar bone and shoulder. We decide to go to the clinic after having half of our breakfast (instead of immediately going straight to the ER like I wanted to do). After waiting at the clinic for what seemed like all day, we meet with a nice nurse and briefly speak with his doctor, who tells us to go to the ER.

So, after a few minutes of both of us trying to tell my grandpa that there are more important things going on than his concerns about... I don't even remember what he was asking about, something amazingly trivial, we get back into the car and zip over to the hospital up the road. Out of the car, into a wheelchair, up the elevator, across the hall—bypassing the ER thanks to the doctor calling ahead—and hoisted into a hospital bed. Vitals taken, a lot of questions asked with answers from both of us, then hooked right up to some very strong IV antibiotics and fluids throughout the day.
  We meet the doctor, very nice and very professional guy. Message the family throughout the day. Meet the very nice nurses and nursing assistants. Eat lunch and snacks at the hospital. It was a busy day. We talked to my uncle, his son, and it was looking like his condition was improving. He got an MRI at some point, too, and the wound care team came by to clean up his cellulitis later that week.

Since my job for the entire year so far (plus a few months at the end of last year) was taking care of my grandpa, I stayed at the hospital for all but a few hours a day, going home to shower or change and make food to bring back for myself. A lot of the nurses were surprised that I was not only staying for so much of the day, but shocked at my willingness to help them with all kinds of stuff and to even stay the night. I don't why, but it felt bizarre to me that people would see that as impressive or exceptional; I usually replied with something along the lines of "well, what the hell else am I going to do while he's here?"

I can't remember if it was that Saturday or when, but at some point he asked if I could read him one of the books he was reading, or probably re-reading. It was so dry, and my voice was hoarse from talking a thousand times more than I ever do and in a bone-dry hospital, but I got some water and read a few chapters to him one night before bed.
  My immediate thought when he asked was a no because I didn't want him to be disappointed about me fumbling over names and not being a great reader. But I did it. He was really happy that I did. And I'm happy I did, too.

Sigh. That was a long, long week...

Sunday, April 28th

Sunday morning. I notice it, and for some reason it didn't click with me, maybe because I hadn't slept well, I don't know. The side of his face (the same as the infection) was droopy. When the doctor visited in the morning, he asked me about it and then it clicked. Doc asked him his name (or birthday, whichever), he answered correctly. Doc asked him where he was, he didn't. We both fear that he had a stroke in the night, and the doctor tries to get him in for a CT scan that day, and plan for an MRI the next morning when people who operate that equipment will be there.
  I go home for a bit when he goes in for the CT scan, and find out when I get back that it didn't offer any clues as to what happened. The doctor thinks it might be from a pinched nerve since the swelling goes over a big cluster of nerves on the side of the head and behind the ear.

The side of his face makes it very difficult for him to drink water and eat food, but we make do for the day. As the sun started to set—and what would become the new routine for a few days—his condition became... nightmarish.
  He had worsening hallucinations that afternoon and by that night he was in some other world the vast majority of the time. He kept believing that he was back home and wanting to go get a particular jacket he always wears in the house, or make food in the kitchen. I'd ask him where he was, and sometimes he would answer "at home" or just look down with a confused expression, halfway understanding that he was at the hospital. Over time, the response turned into an "at home" most of the time, or, worse, no response as if he didn't hear me speaking to him over whatever noises he was hearing and things he was seeing.
  Asking to go get something from his room or the kitchen turned into him demanding to go, trying to bargain to get me or a nurse to leave and go, or into him trying to get out of his bed—still connected to the IV at this point, and I asked a nurse disconnect it before long—and essentially fighting against me trying to leave the room he was in to get to his own bed, or get his jacket, or go make food in the kitchen. And he would get shimmering, scintillating, waterfall-like effects in his vision. Later into the night, reminding him of where he was and why he was there, and talking back and forth about his hallucinations was happening not just every hour or every ten minutes, but literally every few seconds. Sometimes, after a second anyway, he would know that he was seeing something that wasn't there, wasn't real, and sometimes not.

While the nurses were tending to other people in the hospital, I sat on my knees on the floor, keeping my grandfather from hurting himself as best as I could for as long as I could. That was one of the longest, most excruciating nights I've had in my entire life. Eventually I couldn't sit there anymore, but ended up sitting there for another half hour which felt like a whole day. He finally settled down (read: got too tired to stay up for a few minutes) and I explained to the nurses (who had also just gotten a break) what was going on and that I needed to leave. Oh, it started snowing, too, I almost forgot about that...
  I made some food, cried, shoveled some snow, cried, showered and changed. Then, I went back to the hospital instead of taking a nap. When I got back, the lady at the ER entrance recognized me again, and I walked down the hall wondering what happened while I was gone, what would happen next. They told me they gave him some haloperidol, an antipsychotic drug, which I fully expected. In the room, he didn't seem to recognize me and was backwards in the bed in the fetal position. He was seeing letters, like a newspaper projected onto the wall or random numbers and letters repeating. Later he saw some eggplants, I think it was, turn into rabbits which ran around in front of him and off into the distance.

Throughout the day I was messaging family again, telling them a little of what was going on between trying to handle the situation. I got a lot of questions and demands for information, frustrated messages over nurses "not doing anything to help" when in reality they couldn't do more than what they did. I'm not sure if it happened, but it sounded like someone next door to us got resuscitated.

Monday. MRI. Another short break to go home after staying the rest of the night before and trying to do breakfast the following morning. Nurses asking about respite (for me) one night, how things usually go with him, how much help he needs and what I do for him, what I'll do in the future. Up until this year he was still very independent; he would drive himself everywhere, get meals delivered, go to the liquor store for Irish cream and wine, go the grocery store for milk and hot cereal and several-day-old sweets from the bakery, play bridge with a small group three times a week, and even go hiking in the mountains. I didn't need much respite up until that month, really. Thinking about the future, I had no idea what I would do after we got out of the hospital or if he passed away—I definitely still don't have no idea what I'm going to do about most things.

After a few rough days, his hallucinations get a little less severe and he has a lot more moments of clarity again, which was obviously great, though he still couldn't eat or drink all that well. And, the doctor got swapped out for a new one (they have one work for a period of time then take a break, bringing in another doctor to take over everything).
  After talking to more people, a lot of friends started coming and going, and family from out of state and out of the country arrived. Lots of family and all of the nurses were impressed by my caregiving abilities over the past several months and at the hospital, which makes me think about becoming a caregiver, nurse, paramedic, or something along those lines. My grandpa had mentioned that I would be a good paramedic earlier in March because I was dressing a big wound from surgery he had to remove melanoma from his arm and had helped him solve some of his catheter problems.
  I thought a lot about everything involved with being a caregiver, nurse, etc.; about how everyone telling me how great I would be at it—like with a lot of things friends, parents, or teachers would say I could be great at as a kid—couldn't see how stressed I really was, how little sleep I was really getting, and how much wear and tear my insomnia and OCD inflict even without everything else going on. I would love to do everything I did for my grandpa for other people, I love helping people and I do know I can be very good at helping people, but the stress kills me. And if I'm not healthy and taking care of other people instead of myself, then I stop being able to care for anyone else. It's complicated. I wish it wasn't so complicated.

By now, grandpa's infection has retreated a lot, and was still a bit pink but not swelling as much. We start talking about going back home soon; "not just yet, but soon." What else changed was his attitude. Like a switch, he went from his usual, easy-going, comedic, and doctor self—he's a doctor, by the way, which made conversations with the prior doctor very interesting and often efficient and lighthearted—to short and quick with his words, very loud, and... Different. Lot's of loud "YES" or "NO" or random outbursts which, granted, were sometimes helpful and nice, or just plain funny and much like his old funny self. That continued over the next couple of days.

Thursday, May 2nd

Several days after we were originally expecting to be discharged, we are finally discharged from the hospital, sent back home with some mouth swabs, lidocaine spray and supplies from the wound team to continue cleaning his cellulitis, some thickener to make liquids nectar thick so he can swallow them, and a bunch of other random things. And with grandpa, of course.
  We move furniture in the living room and set up the hospital bed in the house in front of the TV, get situated with warm blankets fresh out of the dryer, then meet with the nice hospice nurse and another caregiver to help all of us with respite (which we don't ever end up fully utilizing and feel bad for them being there with nothing to really do).

Friday, May 3rd, 6:00 pm

This morning he was incredibly active and coherent compared to the past week, and very talkative and ornery. He ate breakfast, had coffee and maybe even some ice cream, and out of bed often (scooting over to another chair to eat or watch TV for a bit, or for the sake of getting out of bed alone). It was remarkable, and felt really good to have the whole family there while he was feeling well.

That evening, I woke up from a nap to find everyone scrambling around, confused. I was quickly informed of his actual diagnosis that was told to the family by the second hospice nurse. Everyone calls family and messages friends. We stop the food and water, start morphine and lorazepam every few hours. It turns out, for whatever reason, that the second doctor never told us what was really going on. He was dying, to put in bluntly. The cellulitis was actually late-stage melanoma, his kidneys were failing, and I don't even remember what else despite me telling it to other people a hundred times. Great, positive phone calls the day prior, and now terrible, tearful ones this day.
  We felt bad for the previous hospice nurse because, in hindsight, it was like she was sent there to take care of a completely different patient and none of the information we were telling her matched up with what was on her notes from the doctor.

We were dumbfounded, but thankful to the hospice nurse for getting everyone on the right track at the right time. As the night went on, grandpa got very tired and weak. His breathing was, well, how it gets when people start dying; labored, rattling; there's a certain despair to the unnatural pattern and sound of it. Hyoscyamine is started to help with the saliva he's producing and not swallowing, which helps with the "death rattle" breathing (it's equally for our sake, I think, maybe more for us). We take shifts to sit with him and keep track of the drugs he's getting.

Saturday, May 4th

Eventually we start giving him haloperidol on a schedule along with the morphine, and increase the frequency of both throughout the night.

By now, a lot of people have came to say goodbye. Part of the grieving process is happening for everyone, I think, it's just a matter of how much of the process. I'm trying to think where I was at as far as grieving goes, but I'm not sure. I had done some at the hospital before everyone else arrived, but because the whole experience was such a disgustingly rickety rollercoaster, I went back and forth between some stages.

Sunday, May 5th, 9:47 pm

Grandpa passed away. I was laying next to him with my hand on his chest, feeling his now extremely slow breathing and increasing frequency of apnea-like stops of breath. Then the breathing stopped, his heart slowed down, and finally his heart stopped and didn't start back up. I called my uncle and a family member (close friend, basically family) who were still there over. We cried. More calling family and messaging friends after a lot of people had gone back home a day or two prior.
  He was my last grandparent. I'm glad I got to spend so much great time with him. I didn't get to see much of my other grandparents in the months before they passed away.

Contacted the hospice nurse and the funeral and cremation service. Family and miscellaneous stuff throughout the rest of the week. More suggestions to become caregiver, more thinking about it, more weighing capability and potential and desire against mental health struggles. Thinking about what it's going to be like without grandpa around.

Sunday, May 12th

I went back home one state over. I planned on hanging out with some old friends, but I was too tired whenever they had a minute of spare time. I don't remember anything I did while I was there except pack up more things before coming back and trying to settle in for a while to take care of the house and help track bills and paperwork and all kinds of things.

Shortly after, I started writing new adventures in Eberron, and rediscovering old notes, some notes and ideas from when I was little and had just seen the cover of Secrets of Xen'drik.

Saturday, May 25th

I arrived back here to an empty house. I had issues with my bank, money, car, losing keys, all kinds of stuff was going wrong. Some things got sorted out.

Many times I woke up and forgot where I was and was unsure if was morning or evening until an hour or two passed. A lot of waking up or randomly thinking I had breakfast to make for two people, or if grandpa had bridge that day, or if we needed more of his cereal, and so on. A lot of remembering the past couple of months, too. Dreaming about memories wasn't helping my grieving at this point, and was just confusing things more.

Fast Forward: August

Family and friends of other family members start arriving and preparing for a wedding here.

Sibling breaks their collar bone, and the doctor strongly recommends surgery, which none of my immediate family members have money or insurance for.

As of finishing this post today, I'm in the middle of a bad mental health week from insomnia and increased stress and anxiety (and ODC). And I'm trying to force myself to apply for jobs again, and failing to find any promising jobs nearby, let alone actually apply for anything.
  After reevaluating an adventure I started writing, I decided to overhaul the Eberron project and change to be set in Ravnica. Naturally, I had a minor anxiety attack shortly after, and weird dreams (read: nightmares incomprehensible to the human mind). And, of course, worrying. Mostly (oddly enough) worrying about whether this adventure I'm currently trying to chip away at and finish will lead to anything that anybody can use and have fun playing with their friends.

So much has changed in the past five months. And yet, in other ways, so little has changed in the past five years since I stopped working a "real job" and started seeing therapists and working with my old (now retired) doctor to try to figure out how to cope with my mental illnesses, to put myself back on the road to getting a new job and setting myself up for a stronger future.

Lately, I'm going through one of many waves of trying hard to put myself on said path, and to think hard about the future, staying positive, moving forward. My near future is looking unstable, to say the least.

If nothing else, I'm going to finish this damn adventure. It's the only thing I feel like I can keep pushing forward with at the moment.

The Artificer 2019 Playtest

The Artificer, Or An Overwritten And Rambling Analysis Thereof

An updated version of the Unearthed Arcana playtest artificer (found here) was released and I got a chance to play it in a quick dungeon crawl, so let's talk about it!

The character I played was basically myself as a 4th-level artificer (alchemist). The dungeon crawl was very basic and not set in a specific place since we were only going for one short session.
  We fought bandits and wolves, ran into some kobolds and delved into some caverns, then fought some giant-spider-riding kobolds and encountered a trap (which the rogue-ranger set off) and half-ogres (or maybe bugbears, I'm not sure). Resting in a cave, we got ambushed by more bandits in the night and, once morning came, hauled a cart full of junk back to town using a wheelbarrow I whipped up with the help of my one-eyed malfunctioning-chameleon-skinned homunculus mutant which broke down halfway between the dungeon and the town but I'm happy that I made it at all — and I'll let you guess which of the two creations I mean broke down.
  Nothing spectacular happened except that I got to play D&D and tinker around with a new class with a few acquaintances. Thinking back on it, we might have played a tweaked part of The Keep on the Borderlands? I've watched others play it but never played it myself, a few of those pieces ring a bell now... Are there giant-spider-riding kobolds in that adventure? Anyway. Onto the more important part of this blog post: unofficial class playtest feedback!
  Before diving in, I want to point out again that this feedback is mostly from questions and concerns I was having at the table during my one session of play with a smattering of thoughts about it immediately afterwards. I'm not spending much time thinking about damage output or ways to exploit class features or multiclassing, I just played a session and have some thoughts. Mostly thoughts about terminology...

Infuse Item

Specifically, the term "infusion." It completely throws me off. To me, it implies creating mixtures, fluids, concoctions, extractions, imbibing, or it implies distillation; ideas that work for alchemists, but not characters who tinker with clockwork contraptions. Less important to me, it also implies something (usually a fluid substance) that is strong and fully saturated whereas this feature is meant to be used to add a minor supplementary or auxiliary effect to a small object until you reach higher levels — though, even at higher levels, the implications of "fully saturated" don't really fit most of the given "infusions" to me.
  Thinking about what might be better, words like "relic" or "artifact" or "talisman" don't quite fit since they imply a sense of time and historical importance. Other words like "mechanism" or "contraption" also don't quite fit since they often imply a larger scale and, especially with the latter, a certain amount of complexity.
  Ideas: gadget, tool, instrument, trinket, bauble, device, curio, apparatus, contraption, widget, prototype, accessory, charm, bangle, signet, pendant, capsule, knickknack, toy.
  "I create fascinating [trinkets, baubles, gadgets] out of mundane objects, like this one..." all sound much more on-brand to me compared to "I create wonderful infusions..." which is what an alchemist (specifically) would say. Additionally, I suspect "trinket" and "bauble" (and many of the other words listed above) are more apt to inspire artificer players to come up with their own ideas and techno-babble-icious names for their creations than "infusion" would, but that's more of a gut feeling than anything I can back up with science.
  Lastly for me (for this part), "infusions" don't line up with the fantasy I had in mind of tinkering with your spellcasting focuses and gadgets created using this feature to prepare my spells. If I'm making infusions, I think of chemistry class and teas and homemade tinctures.
  I feel like creating "infusions" should be part of an artificer subclass (the alchemist), not built-in to the base class as the featured mechanic, at least with that name.

As for the name of the class feature, there are plenty of other words that are more open to interpretation or that fit my fantasy better. Having "Infuse Item," "infusion," "Artificer Infusions list" use the same word is great for consistency and grokkability, they work together well and match the given flavor of imbuing items with your magic, but the word itself lacking the proper fantastical flavor still casts a shadow over those aspects and whole feature for me.
  I assumed that the words "Tinker" and "trinket" were intentionally not used in order to avoid being confused with "trinket lists" (lists of mundane, often useless items) in some books. However, "tinker's tools" and "tinker" abilities elsewhere are used by other creatures and NPCs all over the place (books and settings) to create clockwork devices and other gadgets that very much resemble the magic items created with this class feature. Tools that are more likely to be involved with creating an "infusion" (alchemist's supplies, herbalism kits, etc.) are not specifically mentioned for the base artificer whereas tools to create clockwork devices and gadgets are (tinker's tools).

The feature and its terminology as-is makes me disconnect from the rules as-written, but, judging by how little it mattered to me by the end of the session, it's possible that it will make a large chunk of artificer players construct their own words and flavors at the table out of and in character to express their own specific fantasy. Even if I don't like it or I disagree with deciding on that terminology, it will probably do its job just fine and it has the potential to (intentionally or not) inspire players to infuse their character with their own fantasy. But for a handful of reasons it does bug me.
  I like when the words to match the mechanics and the narrative, I don't like when they don't.

Specialist Summons

Both subclass options, the alchemist and artillerist, both gain features at 3rd-level to create or magically summon a homunculus or arcane turret. I find the idea of having a small homunculus ally following me around and concocting potions fairly interesting and funny, but having a pet is not something I wanted to be doing as an artificer. The flavor for the alchemist specialist is fine, and the other features make sense mechanically and narratively, but the other option of being an artillerist specialist and summoning walking cannons feels out of place everywhere — except Eberron with its magi-tech and Ravnica, also with some magi-tech including the guild keyrune artifacts. I want to play a solo artificer, so of course not having a solo-focused specialist is somewhat disappointing. Not having a seafaring, gunpowder-blasting turret option when there is a seafaring adventure book coming up is another slight letdown but changing the flavor of the turret at the table is effortless.
  A bigger discrepancy I have with the artillerist is that the given flavor is that you "summon" or "conjure" an arcane turret basically the same way you would conjure up any other summoned creature or cast a spell with a literal and figurative hand wave, as opposed to "constructing" the contraption and "deploying" it when needed. I wish there was a somewhat bulky turret crafting system built-in to the artillerist, however, the system being so lightweight also makes it easy to build on and incorporate other homebrew systems into, so I can't complain about it (too much).

Despite my disinclination to play either subclass, both offer a lot of fun potential with their summons alone, and the summons have a very large creative design space for different homunculus and turret options both for flavor and in-depth mechanical changes, all of which I really appreciate. They're bizarre, but they inspire me in weird, fun ways.

Artificer Infusions

I dislike the name of the feature, I want the written flavor to be different, and I wish there were more low-level-low-power-but-interesting effects rather than "+X/-X of a stat" effects (for the boring weapon and armor enhancements). That said, I think these are pretty cool. Each infusion acts like an optional class feature but with a lot of artificer-y flavor behind it. And, for settings like Eberron and Ravnica, the created items fit so naturally.

Specific infusion notes:

• Boots of the Winding Path. A simple teleport was surprising to see, but at 4th-level the 15-foot BAMF! seemed fine and worked well for moving between shelves at the library, as well as in combat for bouncing around and avoiding head-to-head fights and attacks of opportunity.
    Side note: This particular infusion played out almost exactly like an ability my old beguiler had (minus some ethereal phasing nonsense that I crammed in), which moves my rating from an A to an A++.
  
• Enhanced Weapon. Turning a non-magical weapon into a magical one — and one that anybody capable of wielding it can use — by spending one of your infusions and not spending a spell slot is nice. At 5th-level (when you acquire Arcane Armament) and higher, it's likely that you'll have a magic weapon or at least the arcane weapon spell, but the ability to make another one on the fly is nice. It's just nice. It could be better or worked into Arcane Armament somehow, I don't know how, but the simplicity makes it a nice on-off effect and doesn't really step into the territory of anyone else augmenting weapons/attacks.
  
• Returning Weapon. A.k.a. Mjolnir a.k.a. boomerang weapon. Nothing extreme or convoluted in the slightest, it's another on-off infusion to make a weapon magical and give it the Mjolnir property. Cool.
  
• Many-Handed Pouch. Can you connect the pouches to a bag of holding, or vice-versa? How do you "infuse" a pouch with an alchemical substance that creates a shared interdimensional space between a bunch of other pouches...? How do infusions work, really?
    "A pouch operates as long as it is within 100 miles of another one of the pouches; the pouch is otherwise empty and won’t accept any contents." (p. 9)
  Why can you not store anything in a deactivated pouch? If the infusion ends, I assume the pouches revert to being the same regular, everyday pouches they were before they were infused, just like all infusions, so why would they not function like mundane pouches when out of range? Does another rule in the game that I'm unaware of call for that line for when the item deactivates from being out of range but not for when the infusion ends? It just seems odd.
    I'm being overly critical with this one, but I did find myself internally asking a lot of questions about this particular infusion and infusions in general. I used it once and mostly forgot about it, which in my experience is what happens with everyone who has a bag of holding.
  
• Replicate Magic Item. I didn't understand how this "infusion" worked at all, mechanically or narratively. I scratched my head, scratched my chin, held The Thinker pose for several seconds if not for one whole minute, and came up with nothing.
    "Using this infusion, you replicate a magic item." (Replicate Magic Item, p. 9)
    "At 2nd level, you gain the ability to imbue mundane items with certain magical infusions. The magic items you create with this feature are effectively prototypes of permanent items." (Infuse Item, p. 5)
    "Whenever you finish a long rest, you can touch a nonmagical object and imbue it with one of your artificer infusions, turning it into a magic item." (Infusing an Item, p. 5)
  Every other infusion makes a point to say that, mechanically and narratively, you are imbuing an item with magic. Taking magic from yourself or your environment and cramming it into an object. As I read it, it seemed like I was somehow imbuing an already-magic item with more, different magic to duplicate that item. That didn't make any sense.
    Another way I interpreted it is that you learn the ability to create one of the magic items listed as long as you have your tools and are at the required level (and I guess have random scrap lying around), but the name is "replicate," not "craft" or "create" or "construct." This also doesn't make sense.
    After the session, I went back to try figuring it out again and concluded that it isn't written well for me. I had more questions including "Can this infusion take the properties of the listed item and add them to any other mundane item?" which felt like another poor interpretation. If it read "you replicate the effects of another magic item" or something along those lines, then it would line up with that thinking, but it doesn't feel like that's what this ability is meant to do... yet, it somehow does feel like it should do that at the same time...
    The last gripe I have with this feature is that it doesn't tell me where to find any of the items listed, or if it does then I didn't see it. Granted, when I skimmed over the lists I assumed that the items would be from multiple books.
    I didn't use this ability because I didn't understand how it worked so I ignored it completely after reading it. In this case — unlike my ramblings on the term "infusion" above — I do think this ability needs another revision to get across the mechanics and narrative. Or, someone should explain to me how they used it and if that worked for them.

Arcane Weaponmaster

With the Enhanced Weapon infusion, Arcane Armament feature, and the new arcane weapon spell, I'm confused about why these are part of the artificer class. Individually, the Enhanced Weapon and Arcane Armament give some variety and utility and fit in fine. Altogether, the bundle of abilities doesn't make sense; I would expect to see them in a lurk or duskblade or wizard long before the artificer. They also confuse the class. "Am I about making contraptions, or about using my magic sword?" Perhaps as an alchemist specialist it makes sense to apply a poison or alchemist's fire effect to a weapon, but an artillerist? And since we had a rogue with poisons that could deal necrotic or psychic damage and a cleric that might have been able to give weapons radiant or fire damage, how useful or redundant is my ability? (An artificer subclass focused on creating power fists or power armor or complimenting warforged would do well with an attack bundle... Anyhow.)
  Arcane weapon doesn't require the weapon to be magical or that you attune to it, so you can do some odd things to boost the damage of a weapon in a few ways and give it to a fighter or barbarian ally to attack with as long as you maintain concentration on the spell. One time we made it work and it was useful and effective and kind of neat, but doing that often or using it on my own weapons regularly doesn't fit any of my artificer, alchemist, or artillerist fantasies. And again, it felt like other characters should be doing this even it's something I'm also intended to do.
  This splotlight feature being a concentration spell is odd to me too. I want to invest my time and resources into preparing an array of magic items to supplement my list of ranged crowd control or area damage or wild magic spells and other capabilities, rather than focusing on maintaining one weapon augmentation like this. If it was a concentration spell that somehow worked with the summon, I would be more interested in an obviously artificer-flavored feature despite not wanting this to be a pet-oriented class.

In short, I want a feature that makes my infusions or artificer-ness stronger instead of a feature that lets me make more magic weapon attacks, unless that weapon is something like an Izzet pyroconverger or mizzium mortar (which, sadly, are wondrous items, not magic weapons). Which makes me wonder for a future artificer session: "What if I change this to say 'wondrous items' and bring along a pyroconverger or two?" That sounds like fun. Potentially (probably) broken, but fun.

Overall Experience

I'm not displeased with the class, I had a lot of fun playing it, but at the end of the night I was left unsatisfied with the mechanics and narrative; the fantasy didn't quite hit my mark. I think the biggest reason for that was the lack of a subclass that matched my idea of what an "artificer" is: a 24/7 obsessed tinkerer and 1-gnome-arcane-gizmo-factory, a clockwork aficionado, a scrap-hoarding power-suit-wearer, or a steam or aetherpunk Junkyard Wars or mecha-fied BattleBots veteran.
  The two subclasses pretty much hit the marks for their respective fantasies, but I won't want much more than a scoop or two of either flavor once in a blue moon (if that often). As it stands, whenever the full class is released, chances are I'm going to homebrew a few features and add in extra mechanics or downtime activities to amp up the later levels, if not make an entire subclass package for myself to enjoy.