This quest honestly feels like a spelljammer homage / introduction which is pretty cool to me. And since one of the secrets connects to this quest, it can have some significance/roleplay. Plus who doesn't love random alien encounters.
Agreed! I’m tying Spelljammer lore into my campaign and my world has a second campaign where space travel is even more likely so this works great for me.
We not only worked with the Mind Flayers in our game, but they came to our rescue in Sunblight and helped us against the boss there. My Bard is still using a Lazer Rifle in Ythrin right now.
Agreed! I was conflicted at first because it was cool seeing gnome ceremorphs like some creepy small alien but I think for a dark horror campaign a regular mind flayer is just so much more scary
Didn't sound lie your heart was in this one steely. You forgot to mention that this is also one of the secrets. One of my players has this, and I think it played correctly could lend itself to some good paranoia role playing. I hope my players won't think it is too silly to enjoy, cuz I'm definitely going to run it. Thanks for the vids! I have been devouring all things frostmaiden lately. Keep it up!
I have a vary serious d&d group and they will love it as we all played tons of spwlljammer back in the day and add it in to almost every campaign that we play even the ones published by wotc. I was surprised and happy to see a true spaceship show up after years of 5e.
This might be a sin for a DM to do but I let my players steal the ship because they didn't pursue the Xardorok quest so they had something to fight the Chardalyn Dragon with (which i interpret as it doesn't have much of a need to land according to its stat block). This turned out to be one of the most fun quests because they got a really powerful ship that could jump dimensions. Of course the party ended up losing it, but they had fun with it while they had it.
Finally getting to run this for my group. Turns out they are all excited to see an actual space ship. So will see how well it goes. I hope it doesn't take more than one session as the main plot is being put on hold for it, but that's D&D for you. Players never do what you want them to, but they write a good story anyway.
Thanks for the guide! My players are right next to this thing. We’ll see if they finally get over to it or if they get attacked by the Bullete at the start rather than the end.
Dunno about you guys, i am loving this. i love mindflayers and these guys are no different, sure it's as horror campaign but this could be a good opportunity to relax a bit from constant tension and horror. Though i am adding some homebrew stuff and add some Daelkyr items on the ship to equip my players with some strange weaponry. Unfortunate i am the DM here and not the player because i am enjoying this.
I'm running this adventure in the near future. My group just retrieved the summer star from the Black Cabin a little bit ago, so I think.I might try and.use that object to incorporate it into this adventure since my group doesn't have a psi crystal. Instead the mind flayers will insist that the summer star has technology pieces it needs to repair their ship.
Honestly. I don't really feel like it's immersion breaking if you let people know there's sci-fi elements in Session Zero. Honestly, I just ran it as a UFO crashes in the snow, and just play menacing alien music as people explore these otherworldly beings. Sure, it's cutesy, but it makes me think more of little grey men than anything. I leaned into that. They even said, "We come in peace."
Sam, if I run ROTFM and one of the my party is a Githyanki, I feel this character needs to go through this adventure. Would this Gith know alot of about the nautiloid ship, tech inside? Would the character also be able to use the Psi Crystal?
At the beginning of the video game Baldur's Gate 3 there is a Gith that is freed from the mind flayer prison along with the main character. She has a pretty decent understanding of the mind flayer tech and she isn't even very high up the Gith society. So in my opinion, yes. It is totally possible for your player's character to not only recognize the ship but to understand their tech and it's purpose.
One of my players has attuned to the psi crystal. How do you deal with him constantly hearing the repeating distress signal in his head? I don’t want him to de-attune from it, because the signal is what leads the party to the ship, but I would imagine this signal would start to drive him insane.
yeh I felt the same way, I would save that distress signal for when you are ready for your party to go through id ascendant, if they decide not to do the quest the signal goes away after 24 hours (when the power runs out)
So you may think I'm a psychopath like my players do, But I've made the ship to have crashed a couple of years ago, So that I could replace the boring bullet with a Cr13 Neothelid That chases them into the ship Which they have to partially repowered and use its ballistics to hopefully drive it off😈
I hate all of this. I hate gnomes i hate space crap i hate guns in dnd its all bad and distasteful for a medieval fantasy. If my players find the psi crystal ill have it lead them to the thing in the ice in the caves of hunger instead. Of course not until they get there will it be close enough to speak to them
100% understand where you are coming from, thankfully this -chapter- location isn't important to the story and you can easily sweep it under the rug. What do you plan to do with the egg in karkolohk?
This quest honestly feels like a spelljammer homage / introduction which is pretty cool to me. And since one of the secrets connects to this quest, it can have some significance/roleplay. Plus who doesn't love random alien encounters.
They've hinted at Spelljammer in several other adventures as well, with Giff and actual spelljammer helms
Agreed! I’m tying Spelljammer lore into my campaign and my world has a second campaign where space travel is even more likely so this works great for me.
We not only worked with the Mind Flayers in our game, but they came to our rescue in Sunblight and helped us against the boss there. My Bard is still using a Lazer Rifle in Ythrin right now.
I think I'm going to run this with real mind flayers. The gnome ceremorphs are a little too cutesy for me
Agreed! I was conflicted at first because it was cool seeing gnome ceremorphs like some creepy small alien but I think for a dark horror campaign a regular mind flayer is just so much more scary
Didn't sound lie your heart was in this one steely. You forgot to mention that this is also one of the secrets. One of my players has this, and I think it played correctly could lend itself to some good paranoia role playing. I hope my players won't think it is too silly to enjoy, cuz I'm definitely going to run it. Thanks for the vids! I have been devouring all things frostmaiden lately. Keep it up!
I have a vary serious d&d group and they will love it as we all played tons of spwlljammer back in the day and add it in to almost every campaign that we play even the ones published by wotc. I was surprised and happy to see a true spaceship show up after years of 5e.
This might be a sin for a DM to do
but I let my players steal the ship because they didn't pursue the Xardorok quest so they had something to fight the Chardalyn Dragon with (which i interpret as it doesn't have much of a need to land according to its stat block). This turned out to be one of the most fun quests because they got a really powerful ship that could jump dimensions.
Of course the party ended up losing it, but they had fun with it while they had it.
Finally getting to run this for my group. Turns out they are all excited to see an actual space ship. So will see how well it goes. I hope it doesn't take more than one session as the main plot is being put on hold for it, but that's D&D for you. Players never do what you want them to, but they write a good story anyway.
Thanks for the guide! My players are right next to this thing. We’ll see if they finally get over to it or if they get attacked by the Bullete at the start rather than the end.
This quest is perfect in theme for me. One of my characters has the secret related to this quest so I need to play up the alien aspects.
I think that if the party is more light hearted this part will go over very well. I’ll have to read the mood of my party.
Dunno about you guys, i am loving this. i love mindflayers and these guys are no different, sure it's as horror campaign but this could be a good opportunity to relax a bit from constant tension and horror. Though i am adding some homebrew stuff and add some Daelkyr items on the ship to equip my players with some strange weaponry. Unfortunate i am the DM here and not the player because i am enjoying this.
I'm running this adventure in the near future. My group just retrieved the summer star from the Black Cabin a little bit ago, so I think.I might try and.use that object to incorporate it into this adventure since my group doesn't have a psi crystal. Instead the mind flayers will insist that the summer star has technology pieces it needs to repair their ship.
Great video!
thank you
I want to totally change this part. Replaced it with more traditional Mind Flayer Horror themed quest
This is wayy out there, but it will work out great for the Abberant Mind sorcerer I have in my party
Honestly. I don't really feel like it's immersion breaking if you let people know there's sci-fi elements in Session Zero. Honestly, I just ran it as a UFO crashes in the snow, and just play menacing alien music as people explore these otherworldly beings. Sure, it's cutesy, but it makes me think more of little grey men than anything. I leaned into that. They even said, "We come in peace."
Sam, if I run ROTFM and one of the my party is a Githyanki, I feel this character needs to go through this adventure. Would this Gith know alot of about the nautiloid ship, tech inside? Would the character also be able to use the Psi Crystal?
At the beginning of the video game Baldur's Gate 3 there is a Gith that is freed from the mind flayer prison along with the main character. She has a pretty decent understanding of the mind flayer tech and she isn't even very high up the Gith society.
So in my opinion, yes. It is totally possible for your player's character to not only recognize the ship but to understand their tech and it's purpose.
One of my players has attuned to the psi crystal. How do you deal with him constantly hearing the repeating distress signal in his head? I don’t want him to de-attune from it, because the signal is what leads the party to the ship, but I would imagine this signal would start to drive him insane.
yeh I felt the same way, I would save that distress signal for when you are ready for your party to go through id ascendant, if they decide not to do the quest the signal goes away after 24 hours (when the power runs out)
@@SteelySam Oh yeah, I forgot about the power going out. Good call.
So you may think I'm a psychopath like my players do, But I've made the ship to have crashed a couple of years ago, So that I could replace the boring bullet with a Cr13 Neothelid That chases them into the ship Which they have to partially repowered and use its ballistics to hopefully drive it off😈
Spelljammer tie in works now they are releasing it haha
great if you liked baldurs gate 3
😆 Advanced Dungeons and dragons 2nd edition spell Jammer
I hate all of this. I hate gnomes i hate space crap i hate guns in dnd its all bad and distasteful for a medieval fantasy. If my players find the psi crystal ill have it lead them to the thing in the ice in the caves of hunger instead. Of course not until they get there will it be close enough to speak to them
100% understand where you are coming from, thankfully this -chapter- location isn't important to the story and you can easily sweep it under the rug. What do you plan to do with the egg in karkolohk?
SteelySam im still catching up on videos ill have to watch that one next