Matthew J. Hanson runs Sneak Attack Press, has backed over 100 Kickstarters and has run over a dozen.
The ENnie-nominated designer is back on the platform with a D&D 5e and Pathfinder 2e adventure anthology. Graveyard of the Gods has three weeks left to run and has characters exploring the corpses of dead gods adrift on the astral plane.
Matthew’s agreed to write up a preview, letting us see inside and offer GMs something which could be adopted for use in their games even before getting their hands on Graveyard of the Gods.
Gifts from Dead Gods
Graveyard of the Gods, now on Kickstarter, features six adventures each set on the remains of a different dead god adrift in the astral sea. Within that theme, there is a wide range of adventures, including an urban adventure in a city being slowly crushed in a dead god’s hand, a dungeon crawl inside a dead god of storms, and a hex-crawl upon the corpse of a primal god that existed before intelligent life.
The hexcrawl gives rangers and other wilderness-focused characters time to shine. Some wilderness adventures ask for a skill check and the benefit of success is just that nothing bad happens. However, on the corpse of this nameless god—now called the Primal Jungle—we want to reward wilderness-focused characters and show off the magical setting, so we created Gifts of the Wild.
Gifts of the Wild
A group can choose to spend a shift (6 hours) exploring a hex in search of useful plants and animals. A ranger with the Natural Explorer feature or any character with the Outlander background can do this even while traveling.
Exploring requires a DC 15 Wisdom (Nature or Survival) check. When a hex is successfully explored in this way, roll on the following table and then remove that result; each gift can only be found once. Also, only one gift can be found per hex, so the players should mark the hex to know not to search it again.
d20 Gift
1 You find a rare orchid that shivers when threatened. It acts as a wand of enemy detection as long as it’s in the Primal Jungle.
2 You witness a beautiful, multi-colored moth, and collect its dust. A character can spread it on themselves as an action to gain advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects for 5 minutes.
3 You find a liana vine infused with primal magic. You make a bracelet out of it, and it acts like a ring of the ram as long as it’s in the Primal Jungle.
4 The enchanted bones of a dead dinosaur call to you. You find a giant, curled bone that functions as a berserker axe except it’s a pick.
5 A giant snake died here, leaving behind a fang that functions as a dagger of venom.
6 During a recent thunderstorm a magical lightning has struck a tree and torn it asunder. Three of its branches can serve as javelins of lightning.
7 An ant hill is full of the rare, nutritious bloom ants. Eating them serves as a potion of superior healing, and there’s enough for three characters.
8 A tall, white-barked tree has a dark patch of special moss, which can be gathered. Applying the moss to a tree acts as a single casting of tree stride.
9 A pool of clear, fresh water allows everyone to recover one hit die or a level of exhaustion. The group knows how to find this pool again, but it takes a week for its magic to replenish.
10 A small opening in the ground reveals a large, cozy cave, and inside it, the jungle seems far away. From now on, this place can be used for a long rest.
11 A tight bundle of roots seems to have a life of its own. It can be used as an iron bands of binding, but it’s made of plant material instead of iron.
12 Some time in the past, an iron flask landed here. A male deva named Pla’im is trapped inside, and if freed, grants the PCs full use of his Healing Touch action. He also becomes aware of Nephel (another Deva found later in the adventure) and has a short telepathic conversation with them, which gives the depressed Nephel some long-lost hope, granting the PCs an advantage on finding and talking with them. Then Pla’im departs, off to take care of some ancient mission. The flask is old and loses its magic after the deva is released.
13 A polished river stone hovers in the air. It can act as an ioun stone of sustenance, but its power only works outside of the Primal Jungle.
14 A bulbous root, when eaten, grants immunity to the poisoned condition and immunity to poison damage for a week.
15 You track the origin of a wall of thorns to a fist-sized hedgehog that looks at you with suspicion. The magical hedgehog needs no food or water (but it’d like some anyway) and can be thrown in order to transform into a wall of thorns, after which it disappears.
16 The closed petals of a strangely tall passiflora move as if there’s something inside them. The flower acts as a tan bag of tricks, but each creature can only be pulled once. The flower loses its magical power and wilts once the last creature is pulled.
17 Among the branches you find a tiny magical wasp hive, with only five wasps. When thrown, the hive breaks and the five wasps become giant wasps, which are not under your control.
18 You find a 3 ft. long piece of magical hollow bamboo. When pointing it at a nearby animal and talking through one end, the sounds which come out the other end are translated from your speech to the animal’s speech and vice versa. This acts as a speak with animal spell. The magic recharges at dawn.
19 You find some black berries which act as animal friendship when fed to a creature. There’s enough for three uses.
20 A ray of sun shines through the foliage—only there’s no sun around here. It’s a remnant of divinity, and you gain the ability to cast guidance on yourself at will, for a week.
To get more other-worldly landscapes, go to the Graveyard of the Gods Kickstarter page and back now.
What do you think? Measured observations are welcome and you can leave them in the comment section below.
