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The setting for my world is called: Heshamoketh.
Heshamoketh has a similar beginning to the core setting in the D&D rulebooks. The world was created by Primordials who shifted the dark parts to one side (creating the Shadowfell) and the bright parts to another (creating the Feywild). The Gods residing in the Astral Plane decided to end the chaos the Primordials inflicted upon the world and the war began to rage. In the end, the Primordials lost, and the chaos was washed away to form the Elemental Chaos plane. The Gods shaped and created the new world to their liking, and things were normal for many centuries.

Eventually, however, the Plague arrived and everything changed. Stories differ on where the Plague originated from(Zehir and the Yaunti, Tharizdun the Chained One, a Primordeal such ...

I Dungeon Master a weekly 3.5 game at my place every Saturday.  Recently,  three of my 5 players were out of gaming commission for a couple of weeks. One had to work the first of the two off-game saturdays. One was in Germany for two weeks with his wife, and another had to get things ready for his teaching job as school was about to start back up.

All this aside, my fighter decided he wanted to try running a mini-adventure to fill in the time during the week.  I created a half-orc ranger - who turned out to be quite an interesting character, I might add - and prepared for the event.  Zack had never DM'd a game before so I was'nt sure what to expect.

So, Monday evening rolled around, and he showed up at my place along with our paladin.  We sat around the table ready...

I am glad to announce my new site, DM Starfire on Wordpress.  Follow my blog to learn new ways to keep your game fun, efficient, and above all else, the best D&D game ever.  Please come support me there.  I'm taking suggestions for articles and topics right now so comment on my page over there or here to give me some ideas!  I'll be posting soon about a new project that I've undergone to create the best method EVER for creating adventures.  Check it out!  And thanks for your continued support!

Hey Gamers, 
It has been a few weeks since the last post but I am getting away from campaign details in this post to talk about an important piece of every D&D game: preparation.  

First off, you obviously need to prep your adventure and what will actually happen in the game session.  I will not go into details on adventure creation here but there are a few things you need to be sure to have.  Have a basic outline of the storyline as a minimum.  Chris Perkins provides a fantastic example in his article here.  

DM TIP!
I use Obsidian Portal to organize my campaign and outline sheets like the one above.  Wizard's Community also has an excellent wiki to organize and save data like this.  

Next up, you need your monsters.  Have the stat cards on hand ...

Hey everyone!  Quick update.  My party has recently split into 2 groups for a few reasons.  Firstly, we were at 7 PCs with another wanting to play.  Too many for an epic tier adventure.  Secondly, the group was wanting to go in different directions storywise.  Lastly (along with a growing tension between a few players) it worked better based on where everyone lived and how far they had to commute to play.  
The first group I refer to as the Seekers (Lomian the vryloka warlock, Gauthak the goliath barbarian, Jinroy the changeling bard, and Astrid the half-elf battlemind) because they went off seeking other things.  The second group is the Chosen (Three the warforged cleric, Shadow the human hybrid, Aetius the eladrin bladesinger, and Stelian the vryloka...

Fellow gamers,
Tonight I played in another campaign run by a friend of mine.  I love DMing more than anything but its good to get to see a game from the players' side, too.  Our session tonight included ZERO combat encounters and that is what I wanted to talk about in this post.  

Dungeons & Dragons with no fighting?  What in the...

Tonight's game made me realize what it takes to have no combat involved.  I've always known that extreme roleplaying groups can pull off no combat sessions but this was my first experience in one.  I was told before hand so I was a little bummed that there was not going to be any fighting.  But the next thing I knew, the session was over and I had a blast.  Here's why:

Freedom
Our characters were not railroaded in any way. ...

SPOILER ALERT!!!
THIS BLOG IS REGARDING THE TOMB OF HORRORS 4TH EDITION ADVENTURE.  SKIP DOWN TO "GAMING ON" TO AVOID SPOILERS!!


The players finally made their way to the end of the tomb on Pluton.  After a vicious fight with a fey in the feywild crossover, the characters end up in a room with a large skull on the floor.  While attempting to return the magical gems to their spots on the skull, an aspect of the dead god Nerull attacks.  A second appears and the fight is really on!  Lomian, the vryloka warlock was the first to fall.  Shortly after, Three, the warforged cleric, died and that is when the party began to freak.  With some good rolls, good tactics, and strong wills the three remaining party members were able to defeat the aspects and move on to...

There's a reason I enjoy running home-brew campaigns over pre-made adventures, is for me they are easier.  Even though I write a huge amount of information and when I am done they look like a store bought module, but they are still easier.  The reason for them being easy is that I remember most of what I wrote, and only have to refer to my notes during a game.  My players have always enjoyed them, and I have always gotten good feedback on my sessions. 

What makes the game enjoyable for my players is that I use a method of writing that is similar to what novels, movies, and TV shows use.  I call it the roller coaster method, because there are a lot of ups, downs, twists and curves.  my goal is to always build tension and suspense and then give the players a ...

Our campaign is run in a semi-created world known as, "The Fold."  The 4th Edition D&D campaign known as “Quest for Starfire” takes place in a world that includes some of the published D&D world.  You can find remnants of Bael Turath as well as the Nentir Vale in the southeastern region of our world.  The special portion of our map is of a region known as “Aestonia.”  This is place, originally created by me but expanded upon by our gaming group.  Most of the campaign takes place on this massive continent.  I’ve created a map of one coast of Aestonia for reference:

The map shown here is the main region of Aestonia.  Most of the events occur near this area.  Keep in mind that this map shows no

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