I have been a fan of the Midgard campaign setting since I first started reading about the city of Zobeck in Kobold Quarterly, when I was still mourning the demise of the physical form of Dragon Magazine. One of the highlights of my one trip to Gen Con in 2008 was getting to actually talk to Wolfgang Baur and buy a copy of Kobold Quarterly directly from the man himself.
But, in all of this time since 2008, I have never, ever,
gotten to run a game set in Midgard. I have Midgard products for the AGE
system, Pathfinder, 13th Age, and now 5th edition
D&D. It’s like the more systems I could support, the better
the chance that I could work in a game. Alas, it has not yet come to pass.
However, those 5th edition products are coming on
a much more regular basis, and the PDF version of one of the Kickstarter
projects I backed has arrived at my virtual door, so today I’m going to
turn my attention to Demon Cults and Secret Societies, a Kobold Press product
that, while drawing on Midgard campaign material, also has support for use in
other campaign settings.
Speaking the
Unspeakable About this Volume
The book clocks in at 176 pages, including a couple of ad
pages for other Kobold Press products, the OGL, and an index. The book has
light background images that consist of various symbols, with detailed borders
at the top of the page. It has full color art throughout. The artwork has
several recycled pieces from books like the Tome of Beasts or the various Deep
Magic supplements, but where images are repeated, it makes sense (such as when
a monster from that supplement is referenced).
It may just be me, but it seems like a lot of publishers are
finding a much better balance between the background images and readability of
text, and this book is certainly an example of that. While visually interesting,
the symbols behind the page text are light enough that they don’t distract the
eye too much, but this will likely vary based on your preferences. Overall, this
is a very nice looking book, and while it is all thematically appropriate, for
a book on dark cults and secret societies, the colors can be very striking and
bright in places.
Introduction
The introduction is brief, and mentions a few minor
differences that a standard D&D campaign might have versus Midgard, and that
there will be notes on Midgard specific aspects of the various chapters. It
also lays out the structure, which is largely one chapter per cult or secret
society. Each chapter has stat blocks for cult members, a few important NPCs,
and possibly spells, monsters, and magic items particular to that cult or secret
society.
The chapters do not have fully fleshed out adventures, but
they do have campaign arcs, with notes on the types of adventures that PCs
might run into at different character levels, and how a confrontation with the
cult or society might culminate and at what level.
I’ll say right here, this is the kind of thing that hooks
me. I have a hard time running an adventure “straight” for too long, but I like
having the guard rails of what an adventure provides, so that I can reign
myself in when I get too crazy plotting out too much material for the campaign.
This provides a similar structure, without fully fleshing out the adventure. As
described, these are very similar to Plot Points in Savage Worlds products.
There is also some similarity to the “meta-plot” episodes of a show like Flash
or Supernatural, where the heroes go and do other things for a few episodes,
then come back to the looming threat on a regular basis.
Black Goat’s Flock
Right off the bat, we start with a cult of Shub-Niggurath
from Lovecraft's work. Since Midgard includes Lovecraftian elements, this fits
both the campaign setting, and other campaign settings where those
influences wouldn’t be out of place.
One of the goals of the cult is to tell the oppressed to
throw off their chains and promote anarchy, but more specifically, they are
trying to piece together the Viridian Codex, an ancient tome of magical
knowledge granted by the Black Goat to the cultists.
The cult leaders presented are a human wizard, a sort-of
insectile satyr that might be more aberration than fey, and a wandering goblin
prophet that keeps getting kicked out of cities. I already love this
combination of NPCs, especially when the goblins are used more as “look at the
downtrodden that may rise up” than just cannon fodder for more powerful
humanoid creatures.
The sketched out campaign has suggestions going all the way
to 15th level, and the only real issue I’d have with the culmination
of the cult’s ambitions is that there is a sky hole to deal with. I get that
gates to other worlds are a staple for cults, but the sky hole is briefly
described as a super black cloud, and I actually like that imagery better than
accidentally invoking the third act of every sci-fi and fantasy movie for the
last decade.
The thematic elements added in to this chapter include a
tree-like aberration, a spellbook that grants access to the Void magic spells
detailed in one of the Deep Magic supplements (with a bit of a drawback to that
granted knowledge), some spells that involve shape changing, as well as a
modified wish spell that always has some negative consequences.
Note: Since it
comes up in each entry, the way the adventures suggestions are structured are
as follows—there is a level range listed (i.e. Levels 1-3), then there are
usually about three ideas in that level range, fleshed out in a paragraph or
two each, describing the kinds of adventures that the PCs might have that
intersect with the organization, and how those adventures might build on
previous encounters. Depending on the organization, there may be suggestions
for levels 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, and 13-15, although some have a suggested arc
that doesn’t make it through all of the tiers detailed here.
The Burning Rune
This cult has a nice twist to it, because as written, they
are a heretical branch of an existing dragon god’s church that is now obsessed
with the power of runes, revealed to the cult leader when he was wandering in
the north. The cult's goals are fairly straightforward and less insane than the
previous entry—they want to be THE version of the dragon god’s church, and they
want temporal power.
The NPCs associated with the leadership are the aforementioned
rune obsessed leader, and a phlogiston faerie, a fey creature of elemental
fire. This sets up an interesting dynamic, because while the faerie is going
along for the ride at the moment, she’s actually less malevolent than her
partner, and might be leveraged against him.
The suggested campaign arc culminates at about 12th
level, and the detailed NPCs to support the cult include dwarf runecasters and
dragonkin bodyguards. While the goals are straightforward, the local politics,
tactics of the cult, and the potential tension between cult leaders gives the campaign arc more texture.
There is also a new magic item, which is essentially a bomb
disguised as a normal object, and a golem, which is actually an altar that
houses a flame, which transforms into a guardian of the cult’s holy places.
There is also a new rune, presented in a manner similar to the runes in the Deep
Magic Rune Magic supplement. At this point in the book, I was starting to
wonder if the cults were all themed to tie into some Deep Magic supplement
(there are a few more, but it’s not a theme of every cult or secret society in
the book).
The Chosen of the Demon Bat
What do you get when your cult is made up of an exiled demon
lord’s servant, derro, a vampire derro, and some Mi-Go? A cult that is trying
to create a moon made of total darkness to cause a perpetual eclipse is what
you get.
While the story arc described is a legitimate threat, it is
amusing that this section details some of the less viable plans that the derro
had for blotting out the sun, such as creating a whole lot of swarms of
creatures that eat fire and hoping they would fly to the sun and eat it.
Tension in the cult comes from the fact that becoming a
vampire made the derro cult leader more sane than she was before, the
titular demon bat doesn’t really care about the cult’s goals and just wants to
get back home, and the Mi-Go advisors don’t care about any of it, but like to
suggest new experiments for the derro to try out and take notes.
The suggested arc has adventure ideas going up to 15th
level, since the PCs may be taking on a demon lord’s old friend and a big, fake
moon. There is support material in the form of inhaled concoctions, vehicles
made out of creatures plus fungus, and the stats for the aforementioned fire
eating bat swarms. My favorite is probably the most low key of the supporting
materials, just because of its utility--there is a spell that uses creatures
like ravens or bats as spies that I think could be very thematic either for PC
use or for villains in a variety of campaigns.
The Creed of All Flesh
Like the Burning Rune above, this cult is a heretical sect
of an existing religion. In this case, the god worshipped by the ghouls of the
established ghoul empire in Midgard. They are tolerated, but as soon as they
cause too much trouble, the ghouls are waiting to drop the hammer, or allow it
to be dropped.
The Creed caters not just to ghouls, but to living beings
that might be interesting in eating sentient beings. While there are ghouls in
the cult, there are also a lot of living mortals that just like the idea of
eating people that they could have some dinner conversation with beforehand.
Of special note with this cult is that one of the branches
is that of the Performance Eaters—performers that keep sentient beings alive
while eating them, for an audience. This is so twisted and wrong, and for some
reason I love this idea so much for a villainous cult.
The suggested campaign has the PCs running into the growing
influence of the cult, and various societies being infiltrated by them,
including isolated tribes and decadent nobles. I really like the culmination of
the suggested arc, because essentially the cult has drawn a bit too much
attention to itself, and the ghouls allow the PCs to come into their empire to
deal with them before they upset existing power structures. I like the tension
this could potentially create. The suggested adventures top out around 15th
level, as the group gets to corner the cult in its home base and deal with its
leaders.
Support material includes huge, bloated, but still living
cult members that draw power from mounds of dead bodies, and weirdly mutated
lesser ghouls that are ridden like mounts by the cult. There is also special
jerky.
The Doomspeakers
The Doomspeakers were the first cult or secret society that
didn’t immediately have me conjuring images of all the campaign angles I could use
to introduce them. They aren’t bad, but they lack a bit of the personality that
the previous cults have. Essentially, they are a knightly order of
anti-paladins that want to crush society to prove how bad ass demon lords are. The feeling is that this is a group disciplined enough to
train and form a knightly order, but they exist to cause ruin and chaos.
I think some of the impact of the group is lost when you
realize that this product also has a Pathfinder version. Some of the
emphasis of this group is that they are EVIL paladins, but that impact isn’t
quite as strong in 5th edition D&D, where classes don’t have alignment restrictions,
and NPCs might not even be built using the rules for PC classes.
They are still interesting, but I don’t know that they would
be my first choice for the A list campaign villain. There is also the odd
alignment issue of the characters being very disciplined, but wanting to spread
chaos, which to me screams neutral evil on average. But to keep with the traditional
“anti-paladin” vibe, they are all chaotic evil, because "evil opposite of lawful
good."
Mechanically, there is an NPC that has a temporary hit point
mechanic that I don’t think works the way it is suppose to work for 5th
edition, and there is a magic item that does the same thing. Both mention that they provide temporary hit points, but there is a cap to how many temporary hit points you can
get with the detailed ability. In 5th edition, temporary hit
points never stack. Exceptions trump core rules, but as presented, it doesn’t
sound like an exception so much as a mistake when it comes to temporary hit
point rules.
Now, thematically, if you wanted to say--especially for a group that is called the Doomspeakers--that the first time you hit a given character you get 5 temporary hit points, and then if you hit them again, you get 10, and finally 15 if you hit them three or more times, that may be a scary ability, but just stacking the temporary hit points runs counter to how the rule works in 5th edition.
Now, thematically, if you wanted to say--especially for a group that is called the Doomspeakers--that the first time you hit a given character you get 5 temporary hit points, and then if you hit them again, you get 10, and finally 15 if you hit them three or more times, that may be a scary ability, but just stacking the temporary hit points runs counter to how the rule works in 5th edition.
The Emerald Order
While this one is technically a heretical offshoot of an
existing religion as well, I really like how this particular secret society
feels. These are alchemists that have found some ancient tablets, and are
manipulating society according to the plans laid out in the tablets they have
found. There is a nice subtlety to this order compared to some of the more over
the top cults.
The suggested campaign arc culminates at 12th
level, with the order manipulating events so that they become the preeminent
advisors to the rulers of their region. Eventually, the PCs can find the tombs
where the tablets are kept, fight guardians carved out of the same crystal as
the tablets, and potentially have to resist the influence of the tablets
themselves.
The supporting material details a magic item made from a
shard of the same material as the tablets, as well as golems also made of that
material. It also details the tablets themselves. This is an instance where the
structure and path of the cult are a bit stronger than the actual NPCs, but the
atmosphere created by the tablets and the intrigue make this society stand out
from some of the others in the book.
The Hand of Nakresh
I don’t dislike any of the cults or secret societies in this
book, but there are some that I really like more than others. The Hand of
Nakresh is one of the break out groups. Because of their goals and
how they play out, I don’t think they would be the main antagonists of a
campaign I was running, but I think they would be a strong “B” plot that was
running alongside the main arc.
This is sort of a cult, but it’s also a crime syndicate.
There are roachling, kobold, ravenfolk, derro, and gnoll leaders, and while
they all work together, for the most part, from time to time they have a huge
competition to see who gets to be the big boss, by seeing who can rake in the
biggest score.
The various adventure arcs have PCs running into the strange
thieving minions of this group, getting caught up in power struggles between
them, and ultimately being called on to bust up the whole gang because this
year’s competition has just gone too far to be tolerated by the authorities.
This section is worth the price of admission just to see the
derro wizard in tie-dyed robes, and for the albino ravenfolk with a “larcenous
aura” that automatically teleports valuables to an extra-dimensional space when
she damages her opponents.
The Night Cauldron of Chernobog
This is another heretical sect of an established religion.
In this case, the group is firmly focused on Chernobog’s portfolio of darkness,
to the point of creating an eternal night. Taken by itself, this is a strong
section, and would be worth using as campaign villains. From a product
standpoint, I was a little disappointed at the thematic crossover with the
overall goal of the Chosen of the Demon Bat.
The way the actual suggested stories play out are much
different, as there is less of an emphasis on various crazy factions almost
accidentally achieving their goals, and there is more of a focus on the cult
leader trying to get his hands on what he needs to achieve his goals.
One of the things that I really like in this chapter is the
hag coven that aids the cult leader. They function with one pool of hit points,
and none of them die until all of them do. They each have their own set of
actions, and each member of the coven has an unique actions that only they can
perform. This is a really fun expression of the concepts of a hag coven, and I’d
love to get a chance to see it at the table.
Red Sisters
I’m a little torn on this chapter. I like the organization,
and would love to include it in a campaign I was running, but because of how it
is presented, I’m not sure that it would make for a strong main villain, so
much as a support structure for other villains in the campaign.
The Red Sisters worship the same goddess that the vampires
of the established vampire kingdom in the Midgard Campaign setting worship, and
they are both support staff and essentially a check on the power of the
vampires, as they are allowed to punish vampires that don’t properly follow the
rules of the faith.
Outside of their native lands, however, they spread the good
word of their goddess, help allied forces abroad, and recruit from retreats
that help women having trouble in childbirth, and from brothels. While the
setting material makes all of this work, I’m not sure the
described arc helps to make them the main focus of a campaign.
Unlike other cults, the suggested adventures sometimes
include “if this is inside the vampire’s home country,” or “if this is outside
of those territories,” and even, “if you are using this group outside the
assumed campaign setting.” Most of the cult write ups assume that all of those
adventures, if you want to use them, can describe an ongoing campaign arc.
These don’t assume, or even make it easy, for all of the suggested adventures
to exist in the same campaign.
So while this chapter provides an interesting power group
for a campaign, I’m not sure it provides as many tools to use them in a focused
campaign, as the other chapters do.
Before I move on, however, I have to note that I love the
Blood Hound. It’s a normal guard animal that has been feed vampire
blood until it’s bonded to a given vampire and gets a boost to its natural
abilities, and I want to give these pets to almost every vampire I use from
this point on.
The Sanguine Path
It’s unfortunate that two blood-related cults come up in the
book right next to each other. I would have liked a stronger thematic
difference between them, since the Blood Sisters touch upon working as midwives
as well as using sex as a draw, and the Sanguine Path promotes itself as helping people with their health and has sex rituals. The Blood Sisters
may have vampires as members, and so might the Sanguine Path. As you get
further into the chapter, there are very clear differences between the
organizations, but in a book that already has similar overlap in a lot of
themes, it feels like there could have been a stronger delineation right out of
the gate.
The Sanguine Path gets people hooked on blood based potions
that make them better, faster, and stronger, and then those people cannot
survive without an influx of the potion. This gives the path power over people
that can’t easily leave the cult.
The focus of the chapter takes a hit when the differences
between the city version of the cult is explored versus the country version of
the cult. I like the idea of entire villages of cultists that can’t get away
because of their addiction, but the described, suggested story arc bounces
between city and country versions of the cult, and I’m not sure if the PCs
would tie them together without a lot of strong clues. I’m also not sure they
would be dividing their time between rural adventuring and city adventuring
without a stronger hook between adventures. The suggested story arc culminates
at 9th level, with the cult trying to blackmail their way into
power.
I’m interested in this as an existing element of a campaign,
but like the Red Sisters, the described story arc may not be how I would be
using them.
Selket’s Sting
Another splinter group of potential heretics, this group
revolves around a goddess of both healing and poison whose cultists are
attempting to get her some respect in a region that is no longer worshiping her
as they once did. This leads to some tactical assassinations and power plays in
the region, and culminates in a campaign ending suggested for 12th
level, where local leaders recruit the PCs to wipe out the cult once and for
all, after a series of damaging assassinations.
This is solid stuff, but the part of this chapter I really
liked was the examination of how the cult may not be 100% wrong about the
corruption in the region. While it discusses characters potentially being
members of the cult instead of using them as antagonists, this presentation of
the cult’s point of view is also useful if you want to introduce some
complexity to the campaign in the form of sympathetic, but ultimately
misguided, cultists.
Servants of the White Ape
An
explorer from the north manages to awaken a violent nature spirit. That spirit
bonds to him, and brings along with it a cult of actual apes and locals, and
there are some relic hunter friends of the northern explorer along for the
ride. Now that the explorer has the avatar of the white ape and it’s
follows on his side, he’s going to carve out a new kingdom, with the eventual
goal of showing his noble parents back home how awesome he is now.
The additional wrinkle in this story being that now there is
a disease spreading in the wake of the return of the White Ape that denies
spellcasters the use of their magic, making the northern explorer he prime
mover in the area, until any PCs might stumble upon his plans.
While it’s a fairly straight forward cult with fairly
straight forward plans (conquer this region, then use those resources to
conquer even more), elements like the magic hindering disease are a fun twist, and who doesn't want to see an army of angry apes?
Weavers of Truth
This particular organization is tied to a demon lord, but
Pazuzu is subtle, and just wants his followers to lie, maneuver, and
manipulate. The organization is very much driven by it’s leader, a woman that
married into money and was then scorned by the nobility, and falls back on her criminal past to form a new cult to aid her.
Many of the suggested adventures have the PCs running into
the cult, but not automatically as adversaries. They get maneuvered to take
out other bad actors that are also foes of the cult, or to take out elements of
the cult that have gone rogue.
The big goal of the organization isn’t opening sky holes or
summoning nasty things, but rather pulling off a spell that literally lets them
rewrite what is true on a grand scale, which is a really nice change of pace.
Closing portals and destroyed summoned creatures is a staple of the genre, but
clever twists are always appreciated.
There is also a great magic item associated with this
organization, which is a coach that can literally sow dissent in a city as it
travels through the streets.
Appendix: Antipaladins and Doomspeakers
This section eventually presents two new paladin oaths, one
that details infernally bound paladins and another that presents Lovecraftian-horror
aligned paladins. The explanation leading two these new oaths, however, feels a
little out of place. The assumption of the appendix is that paladins are
paragons of order and good, and that antipaladins must be paragons of chaos and
evil.
Since this product was developed for both 5th
edition and Pathfinder simultaneously, this feels like a heavy nod towards the
Pathfinder side of things. Paladins aren’t assumed to be lawful good in 5th
edition D&D, so leaning so heavily on the old assumption of all paladins as
the ultimate good guys feels like a little bit of wasted space.
The oaths themselves are interesting, but might not get much
play at the table. Since NPCs can be built without referencing PC class
abilities, these aren’t as necessary for villains as they might be, and while it’s
possible to use them in a campaign for PCs, there will be some issues with
keeping them on the same page as a team that doesn’t want to bring about the
ruin of civilization.
Fighting the Good
Fight
There is a lot of worthwhile material in this book. If you
want campaign ideas with some flexibility to create the details of your own
adventures, you have a ton of great material to work with in this book. There
are great NPC ideas in this book, and great mechanical twists on 5th
edition rules in this book as well. The spells, magic items, and monsters all
add a level of utility to the book beyond just the campaign structures or new
organizations.
Succumbing to the
Darkness
If you aren’t interested in buying more Midgard products
beyond this book, you may lose out on the flavor of some of the cults that rely
on the Deep Magic supplements. They are still usable, just less flavorful.
There are a lot of repeated themes, meaning that you may not want to use this
material in back to back campaigns, especially if you already have cultist
fatigue from the earlier D&D 5th edition adventures. There are a
few artifacts of the book being dual-developed with Pathfinder, like references
to the witch class or monsters like the Taiga giant that don’t have a direct
D&D equivalent.
The Light at the End
of the Campaign
Regardless of any minor quibbles I might have over the
content, this book is a gold mine of campaign ideas, new monsters, spells, and
magic items. While there are sidebars that provide some extra hooks for the
Midgard campaign setting, many of the cults (especially the Lovecraftian ones,
or those with a broader theme) should work really well even if inserted into
other campaign settings.
Fans of D&D 5th edition, and fans of the
Midgard Campaign setting, should be very happy with this purchase, and the only
hesitation I would even entertain is the repetition of some elements, and
possibly early 5e cult fatigue.
****
(out of five)