Escape from the Gladiator Pits of the Yoblin Kings

So it looks like I'm going to be DMing for some first timers, which is fucking awesome. I love introducing people to my hobby. But here's the thing: they want the "traditional DnD experience" which apparently means fighting goblins.

Alright.

I can do that.  I can do goblins.

I can.

But I'm going to use my funky fungal goblins and make it into an introductory dungeon-module-thing.

I'm going to call it Escape from the Gladiator Pits of the Yoblin Kings.

Because you only know the title and you already know what it's all about.

Yoblins were the my very first monster that I ever felt ownership over, so it'll be nice to start the first dungeon with the first monster. They have a wonderful lifecycle:

Three Things and How They Died

1

They filled her mouth with daffodils and cleaned her face of dirt.  They placed her palms together and even retied her shoe.  They hemmed her ragged corners in and closed her misty eyes.  They loomed above her body like mirages, their shoulders pressed against each other, huddled from the cold they no longer felt.

Dismembering and remembering was all that they knew, and those were like nothing at all.

2

The nape of his neck broke the water every four minutes. The seconds in between were filled with constant movement. The ocean's soft suction against his skin. The insistence of the whirlpool, that spun him around to face the black rocks and then the sinking ship and then the black rocks again. The reassuring bump of the sandy bottom that dislodges the harpoon.  He would be here for less than an hour before the slugs found him.  Their barrel mouths would mince him with pinecone monotony.

3

Truly an object, now. Pulled apart and spun like fine flax. A few seconds ago she was an adrenaline respone and inviolate skin and bloody engine, beating faster faster to be this far down. But suddenly seized and teased apart by quantum fingers and the molecular loom. Thus decanted, her fibers were whisked down invisible arterioles. She traveled a hundred miles in every direction at once. Discrete tongues tasted her and, having recognized her, pointed their noses into the ether.

Lady Evica

 

You'll find her in the lakeside town of Havenholt, where she lives. The easiest way to approach her is after Sunday mass, when all of the parishners gather on the lawn and patio to talk and exchange the week's news. They stand in small circles, talking with the deacon, inquiring about each other's health and the weather. They might say

“That's two masses in a row that Grocer Hammond has missed. I hope he isn't ill.”

or perhaps you will hear

“Daley, get away from the fountain. You're bothering the koi.”

She dresses conservatively, like her peers. Her long auburn hair is usually up in a bun, or in a braid beneath a headscarf. Her dress will be brown or navy, perhaps with a small carnation on the breast, and it will reach all the way down to her black leather patents.

A short veil may shade her eyes when she faces east, towards the lake and the morning sun. Her face is young, but not girlish. Her skin is flawless and her lips are full. Her jawline is a graceful, subtle curve, like the neck of a swan or the keel of a courtship canoe. Her eyes shine like sunlight on the water, and her laugh is as clear and dulcet as a bell. Her dress is bulky, but it carries a few hints of the voluptuous physique beneath it. In speech, she is modest, playful, and warm.

She is terrifyingly beautiful, but that is no surprise, since she chose the shape of her body. Shapeshifters rarely settle for the unremarkable.

Her nature is not a secret to the inhabitants of Havenholt. They have forgiven her monstrous origin.  But more than that, they love her.

Nalta

I don't think Nalta will play much of a part in a Land of Flowers game, but whatever.

Nalta and the Glimmering Isles

Seven Years Upon The Fish

The greatest ocean in the world is the Sea of Fish, and the men who sail upon are the greatest of sailors.

The Sea of Fish is sometimes also called the "Fishy Blue" or sometimes just the "Fish".  A sailor might say something like, "aye, I spent seven years upon the Fish, an watched her swallow me mates and me son, though I still love her, I do".

It is said that the gillmen call it the "Sea of Apes" because of all the humans sailing on it.

Towards a Better Cleric

Our religions are some of the weirdest things we've ever come up with (see also: sacred foreskins, cargo cults, Xenu). And since everything in a fantasy world is weirder, fantasy religions should be totally insane. 

Most fantasy religions I've seen are analogues of real-world religions, probably because:
1. Religions are already fantastic enough.
2. Atheist nerds need to be able to relate to them.
3. The DM is comfortable with the pseudo-fantasy milieu that DnD assumes.
But those are all stupid reasons. Make your religions weirder and your game will be enriched.

And clerics are the bleeding edge of this sword called religion.