Tag Archives: New DnD Modules

An….Intermission….and…Update!

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Oh…..hello there!!! Were you expecting a continuation of Aden’s journal? Hah! Well…as a DM…I fooked up! I had a player, my business partner Mr. Jonbar, writing a journal of his character’s adventures. Something that maybe any DM would hope for….but you see….the dice determine things..right? As a DM, you got to go by the dice!! No fudging…no bullshit…otherwise, things are cheapened…..at least, that’s my opinion, right??? and sure…. others may play differently–the gods bless their souls…Is Aden dead then? hmm…I’m not sure to be honest…perhaps you can all gather around and tell me what you think should be this Sun Priest’s fate……..but for now, I’m taking over the updates of this perilous journey as the party makes their way through the Icicles of the Cryoptera, found in the Coming of Winter: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/473203/the-coming-of-winter

Ok…you see…the party had arrived at the Icicles of the Cryoptera!! An enormous frozen waterfall, riddled with caves within the cliffs and treacherous, slippery paths, as well as huge icicles dangling from the frozen waterfall…thus, its name…..and well, perhaps you know of this already if you have followed Aden’s journal as they attempted to infiltrate this fortress, mostly with a hard-headed dwarf in the fore to destroy this area quickly….so they attempted to cross this 80′ long ice bridge….

But as you can see…from the great artistry of Del Tiegeler….the party met some frozen banngiests that impeded their journey….as well as a few patrols of cryoptera…but let’s refresh yourselves from Aden’s journal:

“We chose to retreat carefully back across the bridge, to find a place to heal and recoup for everyone was wounded and well spent. I advised that we do something with all the bodies, but no one wanted to bother.”

HAH!!! Part of the enjoyment of being a DM is when the party is at odds with one another….they mess up!!! Right?! They are assaulting a fortress but don’t bother with being sneaky??!!….no hiding of the bodies?! DELICIOUS I say!!….

Within a few hours….cryoptera patrols located the battered party and immediately sent someone for help….to arouse the entire hive!! Because….at this time, they are nurturing three elders…hoping they emerge from their icy cocoons to become demi-gods to lead them to glory! Any type of distraction is UNACCEPTABLE!!!

The party fought off the cryoptera patrol but realized they had pissed off the whole hive!! The cryoptera would have their vengeance!!!!

Swarms of cryoptera attempted to cross the ice bridge to tear apart the party…..Schlomo used his magical wand and blasted the bridge with Lighting Bolt. The whole bridge shuttered, but was not destroyed,…only cracking of ice leaving a weakened pathway. The party fought those that crossed as well as spell-casting insectoid men that threw harmful spells from their rune-engraved wings! Schlomo then gave the party some time, by unleashing a Solid Fog from the wand upon those on the bridge…blinding and slowing the enemy.

The battle continued…with Sonny, the powerful half-orc priest and fighter, being levitated and dragged through the air by a winged opponent to finally be ‘released’ to fall to his death to the icy river below…..but Sonny prevailed, barely surviving the fall, landing in the river and pulling himself from its icy clutches….he started to make his way towards the cliff where he felt he could maybe climb out of the chasm.

The mysterious gnome, Izzy, the murderous dwarf Mudreck and Valbryn, the leader of the party became holed up in one of the tunnels, trapped by vaporous fog, and a horrendous icy spike growth that impeded their movement. They watched in horror as Sonny fell….unable to do anything! They waited with baited breath as the gnome tried to rest enough for PSP’s to get them to safety with his Dimension Door ability. The enemy seemed to leave them alone…for now….

Meanwhile Schlomo and Aden fought off the enemy on the slippery slope leading out of the chasm….they howled in victory as eventually the ice bridge groaned and cracked…finally weakening enough to fall into the icy crevasse taking several of the enemy below….Most died upon impact, but some proved hardier, emerging from the icy river and started to trail Sonny…

The two priests fought valiantly against overwhelming odds and finally Aden fell. Schlomo became ignored as he was successful in casting Sanctuary upon himself. He managed to heal the heavily injured Aden before the cryoptera flew his body across the chasm. The cryoptera seemed excited, recognizing Aden’s holy symbol and clothing…perhaps Aden could provide some answers to some of the symbols and runes they found upon icy doors of this Shrine of Ardennor, Aden’s chosen deity….

The party eventually escaped and returned to the camp of the Beaver Clan. Gaining reinforcements in Wilma and Dayrll, both a warrior and ranger and a powerful archer named Skooz…as well as a mysterious Raven Clan shaman, Evara.

They went back to the fortress, eventually following a white manticore down its access point behind the waterfall…..

They fought it off, but it still survives, licking its wounds…its young unmolested for now…but most of its treasure stolen.

The party has explored this new area of the fortress, more like a tomb….but perhaps stumbling into parts of the ancient shrine of Ardennor…Their intention is to save the sun priest Aden…but hell….they had already forgotten his name!! LOL!….and now they stirred the lair of some sort of white snow pile….a white pudding!!!. Will they figure out how to work together to survive?

And Aden….heavily injured, barely clinging to life….wakes momentarily to see the insectoid creatures thrusting symbols of his god in front of him…but he can barely understand…the buzzing of death overtakes his mind….and yet…later he sees a face of a wild, crazed Verloren asking if he is ok!….but he passes out. Somehow…that grizzled face gives him a little hope and strength.

But that sense of dread lingers…perhaps the cryoptera will sacrifice this sun priest in an attempt to give power to awaken their sleeping elders—who may be the only ones powerful enough to waken the sleeping ice-devil, demi-god…the one known as Gwerendok!

Should Aden survive or be sacrificed? Post your vote below in the comments (no Jon…I’m not counting your comment)!!!

Beware the Cannibals…..!!!

In other news, Ray Weidner “Edgewise”, author of Peril of Olden Wood, is hard at work on an exciting adventure for Beware the King of the Cannibal Cult!. A huge city adventure for high level characters that surely will challenge their mettle! Keep your eyes and ears open in the next few months as we wait for art to pile in so we can attempt to bring this exciting adventure (100+ pages) to life…its fruition will need a successful Kickstarter attempt for the rest of the art pieces!! Ill sneak in some of the initial art pieces soon….they are amazing!! (Shh..don’t tell Ray.) We could really use your support to get this adventure out there so keep an eye out and we will be throwing in some deals for Merciless Merchant adventures into the mix!

Do the Gods even care?!

Need some flavor for your campaign??! Jonbar and Malrex are working on the Pantheon of Yulara, a book of the deities in the world of Yulara which includes the Dragonback Mts and Vermilion Sea. Each deity has a specialty priest and there are several new spells to explore and use for your own campaign! Coming soon to DrivethruRPG!!!

The Bone Toilers Return!!!

Malrex is slowly working on a Part 2 of the Bone Toilers of the Tar Pits! This 7-10th level or so adventure has the party competing with others to enter a crazy, dying dimension to find out where the bone toiler threat comes from…and perhaps save a goddess?

The Green Light….

I’m also giving Jonbar the green light to take a break from the HUGE Coppercore campaign and come up with a new adventure of his choosing. Yes…we are still working on the Coppercore campaign and WILL release it, but still play testing it…tweaking it….etc….will be throwing out the nets soon for a series of artists soon to help get this project done. It’s been like 7 years in the making so far, and still needs work….This is a very exciting project and has soaked up most of our time. Curious? then check out our stream every Wednesday! https://www.youtube.com/@TheMercilessMerchants-yx8pd

The Dragonback Mountains – The Beginning of an Entire World

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This is a map that Jonbar drew up which includes the Dragonback Mountains (north) and the Zontani Sea region (south). The Zontani Sea holds the City of Vermilion and we have recently put out a bunch of adventures in that region, as well as playtesting the City of Vermilion. The giant empire of Rhone lays between the Dragonback Mountains and the Zontani Sea.. But we will focus on the Dragonback Mountains for now:

A closer view of the Dragonback Mountains that Jonbar drew a long while back. The darker etched mountains in the middle are the Dragonback and its name comes from the region looks like a dragon with arching wings and a long tail. Building a world like this is a giant task, so we started with the Dragonback Mountains but eventually broke it down to Drachenvale.

This Drachenvale map was generated by Grutzi who does a lot of great map work (and possesses an astounding creative mind)! It is a living map that is constantly expanding and becoming more detailed as we publish more old school modules. In its current state it shows the location of some of our already published OSR Adventures including The Willowmere Vagabonds (near Willowmere), the Nevermore Mine, Trollback Keep, Of Beasts and Men (north of Oakvale near the Elvish Ruins), and the Dragon’s Gullet. Winter’s Feast is not shown but is up past Mammoth Lake in the Mammoth Glacier area!

Within Drachenvale sits the city of Coppercore, the main human town in this region that we started with. From Dragonback, to Drachenvale, to Coppercore.

We realized very quickly that Coppercore itself was getting big, fast, and so we decided to break the map down even further! There are several adventures the party can follow that surround the city proper that include its three wayhouse settlements (Ersten, Mittelholme, and Farholme), as well as locations underneath Coppercore!

Further still are three fully fleshed out adventures that we’ve decided to combine into one singular production for a Kickstarter in the works called the Coming of Winter. If you want a quick bundle and want to support us, amazing artists we work with, and kick us some beer money then we’d appreciate it! It really goes right back into creating more adventures and breaking-even on commissions paid to (very talented) artists.

This entire region is also currently the setting of our live stream on Twitch. If you want to poke your head into our adventures every so often, the stream is every Wednesday with recordings posted to Youtube by the following Sunday.

This map shows Coppercore’s location and how close those three adventures are: Ice Needles of Cryoptera, the frost giant and wolf lair (Winter’s Grasp) and ice troll cave (Winter’s Blight).

We continue to delve into creating our own lore, deities, and other aspects that make this a living, breathing, world. This is nothing new as I believe a lot of GM’s enjoy world-building and all the little details, but I wanted to share what our own flavor or ‘world’ looks like.

If you have ideas for adventures that might fit in our world and want to try your hand at publishing, reach out to me through email themercilessmerchants@gmail.com or on our Discord (link on the homepage)! There are several continents and hundreds of ideas we haven’t come up with yet!

Final Version–Entering the Ice Troll Cave

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I wanted to share the final version of Del’s art for the party entering the Ice Troll Cave. The more I type that out, the more I want a real name for the adventure….ugh..it will come to me. But check it out!!!:

I love how it came together. The dark inks remind me of the art in the old school first edition D&D books. I know most newer gamers like the colored fancy art, but the black and white brings back nostalgia for me.

Anyways, back to editing. I have finished Winter’s Grasp and we are starting to get some art in for that by Eric Hunt, which is looking pretty sweet. And I’m about 95% of the way finished with Ice Needles of the Cryoptera, but I’ve decided to add another level to the dungeon, so going to bust that out. Also going to use ScorpyDesign for the art in that adventure. Once Ice Needles is done with editing and new areas, I’ll do some thorough editing through Ice Trolls and we will be good to go.