Me sending you bad vibes before I fucking stab you.

Azalin Reviews: Ankhtepot 5e version

Domain: Har’Akir Domain Formation: Unknown; 551 BC (old lore) Power Level: 💀💀💀⚫⚫(3/5 Skulls) Sources: Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft (5e) With van Richten’s latest guide, Ankhtepot’s Domain morphed into a realm at least three times the size it once was. Though, Har’Akir is still an ancient, scorched land perfectly suited for its ancient, scorched Pharaoh. Ankhtepot’s beginnings, however, have changed. Most importantly , he appears to have learned that touching everyone and everything after being cursed isn’t the best of ideas. Ankhtepot was a high priest of an unknown deity who served under three generations of Pharaoh’s in the “Land of Reeds and Lotuse”. In the Material Plane, Upper Egypt was often referred to as tꜣ šmꜣw, which translates to “The Land of Reeds”, so one may speculate that Ankhtepot was originally from Gothic Earth. The third Pharaoh was vastly unfavored and unpopular with the people and particularly with Ankhtepot’s priests. Ankhtepot, always having a high opinion of himself and believing his opinions mattered more than the tradition of royal succession, decided he was meant to rule in place of this new Pharaoh. So, on the day the Pharaoh was to bind his will to the gods, Ankhtepot led his priests to rise up against their ruler and murdered him before countless witnesses. The peasantry is often an unpredictable lot and often they do not care for who sits upon a throne as long as there is stability in the realm. Slaughtering their Pharaoh, unfavorable or not, and potentially causing their peaceful land to descend into chaos did not lead the people to rally behind Ankhtepot as he had thought. So, instead of bowing and thanking Ankhtepot and his followers, the people captured them and had them executed. Ankhtepot’s deities acted in kind. He was denied death, stripped him of his Ka, and suffered through the entire mummification process fully aware of what was happening to his own corpse. And I thought drinking that lich potion had been bad… He laid entombed in his crypt, covered in filthy rags for decades or centuries…as with most things in Ankhtepot’s unlife, time has no meaning. He was given another chance by his deities when they asked if he still thought he was fit to rule. Naturally, this was not any of his so called gods, but the workings of our Tormentors. When Ankhtepot ensured these unknown voices that he was meant to be a Pharaoh, the Mists took him and gave him the land of Har’Akir. Upon awakening, Ankhtepot slaughtered any trace of the gods he once served and replaced them with those of his own creation - the Child of Ankhtepot. He has the rule he once longed for, but without his Ka he lacks the desire to do anything beyond gathering dust in his temple while priests act as his voice and actually rule the land Ankhtepot mostly ignores.

NEW D&D SOURCE BOOK OUT

Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft came out a few days ago. I bought it an read through it. The book expands stuff in the classic module the Curse of Strahd, a Gothic Horror centred campaign in which a party are pitted against a very powerful Vampire and other types of horrors in a cursed land.

Most of the book’s content details these things:

How to make a horror centred campaign

How to make scary encounters

How to scare your players while also not crossing personal boundaries

I have to commend the book on how informative it is on how to maintain a healthy playing environment. Such as having a thorough discussion with the players before you begin about what players are comfortable with and what they aren’t, so you have topics and themes in the story that you know not to touch upon as it may upset players and ruin the fun. The book also recommends that you avoid using players irl phobias in the game as it ruins gameplay experience as well. For more advice on how to run a healthy fun playing experience, I recommend checking out Dimension 20′s Adventuring Academy podcast. Its a great advice podcast on all things table top.

All the stuff in the Source Book is horror specific, so if you’re not into horror or any scary stuff in D&D, the book is not for you and that’s fine. For those that like horror, the book does a great job of helping set the tone for a horror game and how to build and maintain tension.

It also sets out a guide for how to adapt elements of Curse of Strahd into homebrew games. So say you love the vibe and mechanics in Curse of Strahd, but you don’t really care with the BBEG being a Vampire. The source book lists at least 16 adventures with varying genres of Horror with different creatures and encounters. 

So in one adventure, you can play in this accursed desert where the BBEG is a powerful Mummy Lord. Or in another you can play in a strange carnival in which the BBEG is a Fey creature. There’s zombie outbreaks, mindflayers- everything you can imagine, you can create and play and the book will help you to do so.

The book polishes up some Unearthed Arcana stuff, namely three new playable races. Dhampir (a watered down vampire that you can play as a PC), Hexblood (a humanoid mutated by Hag magic) and Reborn (an undead or construct reincarnation) all of them are pretty interesting.

They also sort out two UA subclasses, namely College of Spirtits Bard and Warlock patron of Undead. he latter of which you can have someone like Strahd be your patron.

There’s also some new backgrounds that are interesting and a new Dark Gift feature that is also pretty cool. A character can choose to receive a Dark Gift from a Dark Lord, an example being Strahd, so that they get some benefits but also some negative impacts as well. It can make some very fun game play for those who are interested.

But, the main thing I buy source books for is the classic DM stuff. NEW MONSTERS! Here are some of my favourites. 

Dullahan, a headless horseman. Very spooky and potentially lethal

Death Head, very interesting monster that can be flavoured to a DMs whims. ou can have a flying medusa head or a flying nothic head, or any type of flying head. The head is your oyster. They go well with the Dullahan and there is a specific adventure in the Source Book that includes both of them in case you wanna play a sleepy hollow esque game

Gallow Speaker. Picture a mix between an Oracle and a Spectre, you have one very creepy monster that can also make a very spooky NPC

Gremishka. A very creepy monstrous cat that is like the opposite of a familiar. In fact, its whole existence is just to be the bane of Spellcasters. Very creepy and has some interesting features, though I think you’d have to juice it up if your Wizard is higher than lvl 3.

Inquisitors. You have three separate Inquisitors whose whole lore mixes with Curse of Strahd but I won’t get into. There are; Inquisitor of the Mind Fire, Inquisitor of the Sword and Inquisitor of the Tome. If you like elements of the Githzarai but don’t know how implement them into your campaign, Inquisitors are a good alternative

Jiangshi. A very interesting undead. Basically a mix between a Ghoul and a Vampire, would make a very interesting monster for low level PCs

Loup Garou. An alpha werewolf. For werewolf fans like me, I imagine you’re disappointed that werewolves are only a CR 3. With Loup Garou though, you now have a werewolf with legendary actions. Very interesting monster and there is a very cool adventure in the source book that features the monster. It also has some very cool werefwolf mechanics if a PC gets infected with lycanthropy and also has a magic item linked to it thats pretty cool

Nechricor. Imagine if a Lich failed at Lichdom and accidentally turned themselves into an ooze; that’s Nechricor. I always love the tope of very powerful villains trapped in like a bottle or a knife or a statue, so a Nechricor is right up my alley

Nosferatu. Very much like a Vampire Spawn but a hell of a lot grosser. They have a feature where they can hurt people by projectile vomiting blood on them. Very nasty. If you wanna remove the romanticism from vampirism, Nosferatu are the way to go. Also if you wanna use vampires with lower level PCs, Nosferatu can be very good alternative

Vampire Mind Flayer. Enough said

And that’s most of my favourites. There’s plenty more, such as the Relentless Slasher- which is great if you wanna play a murder mystery campaign or a Friday the 13th one shot- very interesting monster.

There’s a lot of other monsters that are also really cool but I don’t really want to share them cause they’re so gross or creepy. There’s a monster called the Boneless which is literally just a bunch of skin that chokes people. There’s a bog star spawn monster that is just super gross and horrifying. There’s also a monster called a Carrionette, which is just a doll that can steal your soul- super creepy! The artists definitely outdid themselves on this source book.

If you wanna check the, out or get a hold of the stat block of these monsters above, check out Van Richtens Guide to Ravenloft

what's your favorite ravenloft book and why?

Not an easy question to answer as I'm uncertain if you mean out of the novels or of all the source material.

Source material - any of the Van Richten's Guides from 2e - every time I read Guide to Fiends or Liches or Ancient Undead I get so many ideas for my games. Same goes for all of the Gazetteers from 3e and I also thoroughly enjoy Azalin and S's snide back and forth commentary without those.

Novels - King of the Dead. Again, this novel gives me a lot of ideas when I read it and I'm about to do so again since I'm currently working on a campaign entirely set in Darkon. I also enjoy the exploration of Azalin's life within and how he had so many chances to do the right thing, but always chose the wrong. Its a fascinating character study of my favorite lich.