Spes Magna Games

College of Cheer and Good Tidings
Bards associated with the College of Cheer and Good Tidings celebrate joyous events and help others celebrate those events as well. These festive bards sing folk songs, carols, birthday ditties, and so on, performing in homes, around campfires, in taverns, in royal courts.

When times turn troubled and situations become dire, bards of the College of Cheer and Good Tidings go out among the stricken to help bolster spirits, to encourage the frightened, and to bring light-heartedness to darkened places.

Bonus Proficiencies
At 3rd level, you become proficient with Athletics, Religion, and Vehicles (land). You add double your proficiency bonus to Athletics and Vehicles (land) when the activity involves ice or snow.

Enliven the Spirit
Also at 3rd level, when you use your Song of Rest to help revitalize wounded allies during a short rest, those allies regain extra hit points as normal, but they also gain inspiration.

Unavoidable Sing-Along
At 6th level, you can perform a catchy rendition of a popular tune. Each enemy within 30 feet of you that can hear your performance must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature becomes charmed for a duration equal to concentration, up to 1 minute. While charmed, the creature does its best to sing along with you. The charm ends for an affected creature if it takes any damage or if someone else uses an action to shake the creature of its musical reverie. This feature expends one of your uses of Bardic Inspiration.

Indefatigble Soul
At 14th level, your joie de vivre reaches its highest level. You have advantage on ability checks, skill checks, and saving throws against effects that control or manipulate your mind or emotions. When you use Charisma (Persuasion) to influence a creature, you double your proficiency bonus so long as the creature can understand you and what you’re persuading the creature to do involves cheer and good will.

Tags: 5E D&D, Character Classes, OSR Christmas Calendar

Far to the east in the rugged mountains of an uncivilized land, jungle tribes of humans live in simple villages, growing rice, peas, sugarcane, and spices, some of which find their way into civilized markets, brought by ships or caravans. Centuries ago, this land of rice and spices was ruled by belligerent princes, the sons of a great king who in his twilight years divided his land and turned his mind toward heavenly things. This king reckoned that he could secure a place in the Upper Planes by honoring the gods of those planes, something he had failed to do throughout his life.

And so the king commissioned foreign bell founders to cast an enormous bell that would sound on the anniversary of his death. He sent out soldiers to his provinces and rounded up hundreds of able-bodied men who, under threat of torture and mutilation, set to the task of building a great mausoleum and temple. In its former capacity, it would hold the king’s body, his most valued possessions, and two score specially chosen servants and wives who would be interred alive with their monarch. In its latter capacity as temple, it would honor the deeds of the gods of the Upper Planes, serving as a place of pilgrimage for the faithful. Thus, the gods would be pleased with the king and grant him a place among their ranks.

The bell was completed first and installed some three hundred yards to the east of the mausoleum-temple. By this time, slaves had labored for a nearly a decade on the first floor and crypts of the king’s grand folly. The suffering of the slaves was a blight upon the land, and the costs of the bell and the construction threatened to bankrupt the kingdom. The people murmured against the king, and the king’s sons met to discuss what to do.

First, the princes’ spies confirmed the rumors of the king’s madness. The gods, far from pleased with the king’s arrogance, touched his mind, stirring up obsessive thoughts about ever more elaborate ways to please the heavens. Dozens of bizarre rituals consumed the king’s waking hours. He had to eat three eggs every morning as the sun rose, eating each one facing a different direction, but never facing the west. He wore mismatched boots. Every other door in his palace had to be bolted, and every other window was left unshuttered.

When an earthquake struck the region of the mausoleum-temple, a falling tree hit the bell, causing it to sound. The facade of the mausoleum-temple cracked. The princes seized upon this event, convincing their deranged father that the gods were displeased with his wasteful ways. Construction was halted, and those men who survived the years of hard labor returned to their homes.

A few days after construction was halted, guards burst into the king’s bedchambers and murdered him. The princes interred his body according to the king’s instructions, selecting several of their enemies to serve their father in the next life. In short order, the princes took to squabbling and then warring among themselves. Civil war destroyed the kingdom. The jungle reclaimed much of the land. The king’s bell and unfinished mausoleum-temple remain. The jungle tribes know the place is cursed, and they avoid it entirely. Their elders believe that the king’s bell will sound again, heralding the dead king’s return.

Whatever sleeps in the mausoleum-temple possesses great power and greater evil. Its presence has twisted the environment within and around the mausoleum-temple.

Lair Actions

When the dead king fights inside his lair, he can invoke the ambient magic to take lair actions. On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the dead king takes a lair action to cause one of the following effects:

* The dead king calls forth the angry spirits of those who died building his lair. The spirits attack one creature that the dead king can see within 60 feet of him. The target must succeed on a DC 16 Strength saving throw, taking 36 (8d6) necrotic damage and being dragged 120 (7d6 x 5) feet away from the dead king on a failed save. On a success, the target takes half as much damage and is not dragged away by the wailing cloud of spirits.

* The dead king’s undead servants within the lair act as the dead king’s eyes, ears, and voice. As a lair action, the dead king can bolster one of his undead servants by having it act as his proxy until initiative count 20 of the next round. The bolstered undead makes attacks and saving throws with advantage, and it gains 14 (4d6) temporary hit points. The temporary hit points fade after the dead king stops using the undead creature as his proxy.

* The dead king warps the structure of his lair at will. He chooses one creature he can see within 60 feet. The target must succeed on a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw to avoid being entombed, surrounded by stone walls (as per wall of stone).

Regional Effects

The region containing the mausoleum-temple is profaned by the dead king’s evil, which creates one or more of the following effects:

* Giant spiders and monstrous insects infest the region. These creatures act as the dead king’s eyes and ears if they are within a 1 mile radius of the dead king’s lair.

* Within the 1 mile radius of the dead king’s lair in which giant spiders and monstrous insects act as the dead king’s eyes and ears, the jungle assumes a hostile quality as well, making it easier for the dead king’s eyes and ears to move unseen and unheard. Giant spiders and monstrous insects within 1 mile of the dead king’s lair make Dexterity (Stealth) checks with advantage.

* The jungle shifts and twists within a 6 mile radius of the dead king’s tomb. Trespassers in the area always treat the jungle as at least a lightly obscured area, which imposes disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight. Wisdom (Survival) checks to avoid getting lost or to follow the tracks of another creature are made with disadvantage.

If the dead king is destroyed, the supernatural link between him and the giant spiders and monstrous insects breaks immediately. These creatures lose the ability to make Dexterity (Stealth) checks with advantage as well. Within 3d10 days, the jungle around the dead king’s lair ceases to shift and twist.

Tags: 5E D&D, OSR Christmas Calendar, places of power

Since at least 20 centuries before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, people have used cinnamon. It was a gift fit for a king or even a god. Its sources in places like India were carefully guarded secrets, and cinnamon growers exported this valuable spice via merchants who had no hand in the spice’s growth and harvesting. Wikipedia claims that Herodotus wrote that cinnamon sources were guarded by winged serpents, but Wikipedia errs. It is frankincense that is guarded by winged serpents, as Herodotus makes clear by writing, “For the trees which bear the frankincense are guarded by winged serpents, small in size, and of varied colours, whereof vast numbers hang about every tree.”

Herodotus notes that Arabian merchants cannot say where cinnamon comes from or from what tree the spice originates. “Where the wood grows, and what country produces it, they cannot tell”. Herodotus relates that cinnamon’s origin might be Phrygia. The cinnamon sticks are harvested only after large birds have used those sticks to make their nests. The nests “are fastened with a sort of mud to a sheer face of rock, where no foot of man is able to climb. So the Arabians, to get the cinnamon, use the following artifice. They cut all the oxen and asses and beasts of burden that die in their land into large pieces, which they carry with them into those regions”. The merchants then “withdraw to a distance, and the old birds, swooping down, seize the pieces of meat and fly with them up to their nests; which, not being able to support the weight, break off and fall to the ground. Hereupon the Arabians return and collect the cinnamon, which is afterwards carried from Arabia into other countries.”

So, to sum up, somewhere cinnamon trees grow. The location of those trees is a secret guarded by cinnamon growers. Cinnamon sticks are presumably cut and left to dry during the harvest season. At this time, large birds take the sticks to build nests on sheer cliffs. The middlemen cinnamon merchants lay out fresh meat beneath the cliffs. The large birds swoops down, carry the meat back to their nests, but the nests cannot support the meat’s weight. The nests fall and break, and the merchants collect the cinnamon sticks.

No wonder cinnamon was so valuable!

Pliny the Elder says in The Natural History that cinnamon cost 10 denarii per pound, but that price is controlled by a single monarch who restricts the supply in order to inflate the price, which once caused cinnamon to sell for 1500 denarii per pound, although this extreme inflation may have been the work of barbarians who burned the cinnamon forests or due to “the south winds that prevail in these parts [that] are sometimes so hot as to set the forests on fire.”

Fixing the relative value of ancient units of currency is tricky. During the period of the Roman Republic (approximately 509-27 B.C.), a legionary was paid about 0.3 to 0.6 denarius per day, but he probably had pay for his own food. In other words, using Pliny’s lowball price for cinnamon, one pound of the spice would cost about a legionary’s entire month’s pay. The 1E DMG sets the salary for a heavy footman as 2 gp a month; therefore, a pound of cinnamon costs 2 gp, which is what the 5E PH sets the price at on the Trade Goods table.

Unfortunately, inflation has ruined the cinnamon market in 5E. Maintaining a modest lifestyle costs 2 gp per day, which is twice what an unskilled worker made per month in 1E. According to the 5E PH, soldiers are among those who live modest lifestyles. This means a soldier makes 60 gp per month, which is 30 times what he made in 1E. It only seems fair in keeping with cinnamon’s history that the spice’s price should increase as well. In 1E, a pound of cinnamon costs 2 gp. In 5E, due to edition inflation, that same pound of cinnamon costs 60 gp.

Also, about those birds: Here’s the cinnamologus for you to use.

1E Stats
Frequency: Rare
No. Appearing: 2-12
Armor Class: 7
Move: 6″//24″
Hit Dice: 3
% in Lair: 75%
Treasure Type: Nil
No. of Attacks: 3
Damage/Attack: 1-4/1-4/2-8
Special Attacks: Dive attack
Special Defenses: Eyesight
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Animal
Alignment: Neutral
Size: M (4′ tall, 12′ wingspan)
Psionic Ability: Nil
Attack/Defens Modes: Nil
Level/XP Value: III/65 XP + 3 XP/hp

Cinnamologi build their nests out of cinnanom sticks, adhering these nests to cliff walls with a mixture of mud and grass. Their eyesight is such that they are never surprised unless encountered in their lair or at night. If they attack by diving 50 or more feet, they add +4 to hit probability, do double claw damage (2-8/2-8), but get no beak attack. They can carry up to 1000 gold pieces at half speed.

Cinnamologi are aggressive raptors that prey on a variety of animals smaller than they. These birds also scavenge carrion. If a nest holds young (25%) or eggs (50%), cinnamologi attack any creature that approaches too close. There will be 1-4 young or eggs per nest, and one nest per pair of cinnamologi. The nest of cinnamologus weighs about 500 pounds, and roughly half of that weight is cinnamon sticks.

5E Stats
Medium beast, unaligned