The Verglast (4 songs, 5 maps, 5 encounters, 5 items, 10 creatures) (Patreon)

Greetings adventurers!

This mega winter-fey encounter pack was created in collaboration with Scott Docherty and Crafty's Tabletop. If you're interested to see the rest of their amazing work, go check them out!

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Welcome to The Verglast!

Inside this pack you will find everything you need to run a quest of frost-crusted, magical weirdness that you could sling at any point into your ongoing campaign or run it purely as a self-contained one-shot. The encounters will take the party into a setting inspired by the fey realm, but specifically, by the dark, bitterly cold, inhospitable part no-one likes to talk about, the one whose layer of frost has been powered by the deep sorrow of an archfey's broken heart. On occasion in this volatile environment, the planes of the warmer, more inviting seasons might be glimpsed through an impenetrable glass floor, reminding the denizens of this place what life might be like were this eternal sorrow ever addressed, before the harsh northern wind blows a thick layer of snow across the glass to wipe away all hope.

Time within this icy-cold fey realm might act strangely, with minutes passing as years or even centuries in the material realm or vice versa, as might space, with objects seemingly far off in the distance suddenly appearing, with a mere blink of the eye, to be very close indeed. More crucially, when you guide the players through this realm, have in mind that its landscape and dreamlike substance might shift in every moment, as though it is reacting to the party’s mood, with objects and creatures forming and shifting appearance as manifestations of emotions from the party or as warped echoes of other planes. And in this same manner, how this adventure begins must depend on the players answering collaboratively in advance these questions: You are an established party which has just failed in a quest. What was that quest? What did you each do wrong? Why must your wrongdoing remain secret?

Their answer to these questions will not only help the party bond from the outset, but will also help shape how the environment looks as the adventure begins, how the party ends up sucked into the fey realm, and also perhaps, how it might escape. For example, if the party has just completed a quest to clear out a dungeon of shadowy creatures, but some of the creatures managed to escape and then harm townsfolk, then this adventure might begin as the party chases after those creatures, the chase leading the party into shadowy woods whose trees appear warped into the shape of the creatures, their mocking cackles echoing all around as the party tries to find them, but then the woods close in...

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Music:

• The Frost King's Pass
• Rose of Winter
• The Oathbreaker
• Lights Of Ulhannar

Folder paths:

michael ghelfi's audio\music\adventure
michael ghelfi's audio\music\combat
michael ghelfi's audio\music\exploration

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Filip Melvan