d20 Dwarven Beers

 I’ve been playing Deep Rock Galactic lately. Before any mission in the game, you can stop at the bar for a drink (as any red-blooded dwarf should). Some of the beers they serve give you stat boosts and other beneficial effects for missions, but most are just fun/weird.

So, inspired by DRG, here are 20 Dwarven beers. Like potions, but dwarfier!

From Deep Rock Galactic

1. Black Lotus Stout: Blue-black, creamy, tastes like bitter dark chocolate. You vomit up your soul. While your body is blacked out, you exist as an invisible ghost. Can be force-fed to a possessed person to exorcise a spirit. Lasts 10 minutes.

2. Barber’s Bock: Smells like aftershave and burns your throat. You grow a 10' beard. You can manipulate the beard like a clumsy extra limb, but it’s too slow to attack. Lasts 30 minutes, then the beard falls out (unless you’re a dwarf, then it just gets shorter).

3. Golden Griffon: Sweet citrus smell. Light, fizzy, tangy. You become light as a feather and with a jump or a push you can float around like a drunken, air-filled balloon. 1-in-6 chance each round to burp and go flying in a random direction. Lasts 10 minutes.

4. Stormgut Ale: Very bubbly. After drinking, you spend a round letting out a thunderous belch as you deflate like a balloon, becoming a floppy pile of skin. You can still crawl around, just slowly. Lasts 30 minutes.

5. Firefly Blonde: Amber colored, subtle glow, goes down like warm honey. Your body glows a warm yellow, shedding light out to 10 ft. Open your mouth for a focused spotlight. Lasts 30 minutes.

6. Dragon Snout Stout: Red-gold, smells like metal. You can sniff out any gold nearby. Lasts 30 minutes.

7. Devil’s Tongue: Smells like animal musk. You speak in slurred gibberish that animals can perfectly understand. Lasts 10 minutes.

8. Stoneskin Malt: Earthy, wet cement texture. You pass out for 1d6+6 rounds. Your body is invulnerable until you wake up.

9. Blue Salamander: Frosty mist, numbing minty taste. Your skin turns blue and your teeth chatter incessantly. You are immune to fire and heat. Pour the beer on the ground for a slick sheet of ice. Lasts 30 minutes.

10. Magnetite Ale: Looks like foamy quicksilver, Greasy electrical smell, oily, tingles like static. You become magnetized. Any nearby metal objects lighter than you are pulled towards you. If a metal object is heavier than you, you are pulled to it. Lasts 30 minutes.

11. Perjurer’s Poison: Anyone that drinks this becomes too drunk to knowingly tell a lie. Lasts 10 minutes, after which the drinker passes out.

12. Displacer Brew: Looks like the inside of a lava lamp. Once per turn, you teleport to a random location within 60ft. Lasts 30 minutes.

13. Headstrong Stout: Bubbly, smell opens your airways. You are immune to all mind reading, charms, fear, and psychic attacks. Lasts 1d6 hours.

14. Iron Gut. Smells like rust. You can eat anything with no ill effects. Lasts 30 minutes.

15. Brimstone Brew. Yellow-green, stinks like sulfur. Thick black smoke billows out of your mouth. Lasts 30 minutes.

16.  Legend’s Lager. Sparkling gold, buttery, warm. The smell brings memories of battles you never experienced, of dwarves and goblins and digging too deep. You gain the stats of a 6th level dwarf. When the drink’s effect ends, you pass out for 1d6 hours. When you wake up, you will have forgotten everything you did while you were drunk.

17. Blood of the Mountain. Warm red color, earthy. Drinking it feels like a religious experience. It heals all wounds and ailments.

18.  Alchemist’s Special. Octarine color, magical sparkles, flavor cycles through the taste spectrum as you drink it. Has the effects of two random potions.

19.  Strong-in-the-Arm. Smells like sweat, musty, sour. Your Strength is doubled for the duration. When the drink’s effect ends, your Strength score is halved until you rest. Lasts 10 minutes.

20. Armok’s Breath. Smells of incense and holy oils. Your breath turns undead as a 5th level cleric, but cannot destroy them. Lasts 30 minutes.

d20 Magic Wand Malfunctions

Here's a d20 table of mostly negative modifiers you can apply to magic wands to make them a little more interesting. Some of these effects are more suited to blasty wands, but most can apply to wands of any type.

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1. Overcharged. When used, it fires off all its charges until empty. Strength check to keep control of it, otherwise it wrestles from your grip and bounces around shooting wildly. An overcharged wand will usually have an “aura” based on its effect; a wand of fireballs causes the air to shimmer around it, a wand of cold sheds icy mist, etc.

2. Extra-Strength. Can only hold one charge at a time. When you cast its spell, it deals maximum damage, but you must save vs. wands or be blown backwards, knocked prone, and deafened for 1d6 rounds.

3. Two-sided. The spell shoots out of both ends.

4. Crooked. No matter how you try to aim it, the wand’s target is always random.

5. Forceful. Each time you fire off a spell, make a Strength check. If you fail, the kickback knocks the wand out of your hand.

6. Dim. After expending a charge, you can’t use the wand again unless you spend 1 round shaking it.

7. Explosive. The wand emits a low electrical hum and is laced with cracks leaking magical light. When you attempt to use the wand, it explodes.

8. Fragile. 1-in-6 chance every use to break into a million little pieces.

9. Hungry. The wand has no charges of its own. The only way to charge it is to have a magic-user feed their own magical energy into the wand (1 spell slot = 1 charge).

10. Blinding. When used, the wand’s tip releases a flash of light. Everyone nearby must save vs. wands or be blinded for 1d6 rounds.

11. Leaking. Leaves the air feeling greasy and tingly around it. The wand loses 1 charge per hour.

12. Fickle. Only works...(d6): 1. in direct sunlight 2. at night 3. underground 4. underwater 5. when no-one is looking 6. when it’s quiet.

13. Interference. Spells cast within 15’ of the wand have a 1-in-6 chance to fizzle.

14. Double. The wand is split into two prongs. When used, each tip fires its spell (you can choose two different targets), but each spell is only half as effective.

15. Flammable. Warm to the touch. 1-in-6 chance each use to burst into flames.

16. Sluggish. Takes 1d4 rounds to activate when you attempt to use it.

17. Sentient. The wand has a personality. It is...(d4):

1. Pacifistic. It won't work if you intend to directly harm someone.

2. Sadistic. It will only work when used to cause direct harm.

3. Heroic. It will only use its powers to do good and smite evil. Its judgment is that of a lawful stupid paladin.

4. Defeatist. It only works if it's on the winning side of a conflict.

18. Vampiric. The wand has unlimited charges, but each time you use it, you take 1 HD of damage as it siphons your life-force for fuel.

19. Sickening. The wand’s magic makes your head swim and your stomach turn. Every time you use it, make a save vs. wands or spend 1 round vomiting. 

20. “Fixed”. The two once-broken halves of this wand have been reattached with string or glue. It only works half the time.

The Counterspell

It’s no secret that wizards tend to be morally dubious individuals. Sequestered up in their towers or in their dungeons, practicing profane spells on innocent test subjects, and learning secrets of the universe that would shatter the psyche of any sane person. There are few lengths to which the average wizard will not go in pursuit of magical power.

Despite all their apparent fearlessness in the face of cosmic forces, there is one fear that all wizards share. The one piece of occult knowledge the majority would rather ignore. It is the question that keeps them up at night. It evokes existential dread in every one of them, like staring up at the sun and knowing that one day it will explode and destroy everything you have ever known.

What if magic were to disappear?

Some wizards have spent their lives theorizing about this topic. Some have proposed the existence of anti-magic. After presenting their research to their peers, these wizards were promptly relieved of their positions and of their lives. 

The smart ones choose to forget this line of thinking altogether and busy themselves with the discovery of the next elixir of immortality or philosopher’s stone.

Yet in ancient libraries hidden deep in the dungeons below the earth there are books that speak of the Arcanophage, a spell that consumes all other spells. And somewhere else, even deeper down, is a dead wizard. The Counterspell is trapped inside his head.

If by some means you were able to get the Counterspell out and memorize it yourself, here’s how it would work:

1. After memorizing the Counterspell, any other spells inside your head will be wiped from your memory, one by one. Consumed by the Counterspell.

2. Any time you lose focus or are endangered by a magical threat, make a save. If you're unconscious you don't get a save. You will hear strange words drool out of your mouth and feel your fingers twist themselves into mystic signs out of your control. The Counterspell wants to be cast. It wants to be free, to eat, to grow.

3. If you let the spell take hold or fail the save, it escapes. It uses up all your magic power to get out. You expend all your magic dice, spell slots, MP, whatever. It’s all gone. Fuel.

4. The Counterspell is cast. A marble-sized black sphere appears in the air before you and expands based on how much magic you already fed it. It inverts the colors of all the things inside it. Anything magical that passes through the sphere loses its power and feeds the growth of the sphere. It will continue to grow until it consumes all magic.

Spells cast at the sphere will vanish like raindrops in an ocean. Magic swords will brittle. Wizards will be knocked unconscious as the spells are sucked out of their skulls. Dragons will flap desperately to keep their impossible bodies airborne and detonate as they try to make a flame. And the Counterspell will grow.

Your only hope is to find some way to stop it.

Here’s the spell written in GLOG terms:

Counterspell

R: n/a T: n/a D: permanent

While you have this spell memorized, all other spells are purged from your memory, consumed. To cast this spell you must invest all your remaining magic dice. Whenever you lose concentration or are endangered by magic, make a save. If you fail, the spell casts itself through you.

When cast, a marble-sized sphere of negative space appears before you, expanding to a [sum]+[dice] ft. radius over 10 seconds. Any magic that enters the sphere is consumed, causing the sphere to expand by 1d6 feet for every memorized spell, magic dice, magic item, and HD of magical creatures that passes through. A magic-user that passes through loses all their memorized spells and magic dice to the sphere. 

The sphere expands naturally at a rate of 1d6 feet per day. It will continue to eat and grow until it consumes all magic.

by Kev Walker

d6 Magical Merchants

Each of these merchants sells a specific type of magic item. None of them accept standard currencies, which will hopefully facilitate some adventuring to get what they want to trade. Most of them will only trade for a specific kind of magic item for their own.

None of the example items have been tested or explicitly balanced, they’re just things I thought would be cool.

1. The Vizard Wizard

Sells: Magic Masks

Currency: Faces

He travels around in his snake oil salesman wagon, a rickety purple thing with "The Vizard Wizard!" painted on the sides.

He dresses in exotic clothing and jewelry from across the world. His round, bald head always wears the same expression: a wide closed mouth smile and uncomfortably squinted eyes. He is always careful to only speak when no one is looking at his face.

Buying from the Vizard Wizard is simple: a face for a face. That could mean trading him a well-made mask, or offering your own face (leaving you mute and with a vizard-like black void where your face used to be), or giving him the face of a dead monster, or if you like fairy tale logic, something like a many-faceted gem could suffice.

Another happy customer!

Example Wares:

False Face: Transform into whatever the face belonged to. To change back you must take off the mask by pulling at the back of your head or the base of your neck. (This part can be tricky if you're transformed into something without hands.)

Yellow Beak: Like a plague doctor's mask but canary yellow. You can sense the direction of the nearest exit.

Ghost Hood: You can walk through solid materials, but you can't see where you're going.

2.The Lady of Leaves

Sells: Magic Plants

Currency: Other Magical/Exotic Plants

The keeper of a Mazirian-esque garden of exotic and magical plants.

She can be either beautiful or creepy depending on how you look at her. Most of the time she's both. She is a wispy, hawk-nosed woman draped in the moss-and-leaves dress of a fairy sorceress. Her eyes are crystal blue and a little too wide. Her long gentle fingers end in dirt-caked nails.

She strolls through her garden caressing her plants. Her head twitches like a bird's as she holds a dainty hand to her ear, listening to whispers you cannot hear.

She offers the cuttings and seeds from her plants in exchange for new additions to the garden.

Example wares:

Door Bulb: A tuberous bulb. Looks like a round turnip with thick green roots. The bulb can be planted into any flat surface, where its roots will dig in and carve out a functional doorway (the bulb is the knob). Single use.

Axiomatic Rose: Midnight blue on the outside, pale yellow on the inside. The petals close when someone lies and re-open when someone tells the truth.

Salamander Seeds: Blazing red seeds that, when lit on fire, grow into red creeper vines that can cover an entire room and will climb up any surface.

3. The Beggar

Sells: Lost Things

Currency: Any Magic Items

No-one is sure if he’s a magician, or a small god, or perhaps just a very strange man. Some even think he’s just a myth to promote kindness towards the poor. The Beggar is the platonic ideal of a hobo: five o’clock shadow, fingerless gloves, puffy purple eyes, and a big nose colored alcoholic red. He wears his entire wardrobe of clothes a century out of style all at once. 

He keeps his wares in a dingy old trunk that's much bigger on the inside. The trunk is a doorway to the Underwhere, the place where all lost things end up. If you look around there long enough, you can find anything you’ve ever lost.

With proper directions, you could navigate the endless hills of lonely socks and forgotten toys and climb out from under any bed or through any cluttered closet or crease between the couch cushions.

The Beggar will accept any magic items for his services. However, if he knows that you're not giving up your good stuff, he'll do the same to you.

Example Wares:

Directions through the Underwhere: He knows the way to most cities and popular dungeons, but not *exactly* where you’ll pop out.

Treasure: Something you missed during your last adventure.

Something that you lost: could be anything from a lost sock to a forgotten memory.

Lost Knowledge: A map to buried pirates’ treasure; A rosetta stone for a dead language; A secret history exposing the king as a shapeshifting reptilian.

4. The Masked Thieves

Sells: Wizard Trash

Currency: Magic Foods

A city-spanning colony of raccoons. They can be contacted by performing the secret knock on a sewer grate or trash bin.

The thieves have their specific tastes. After years of digging around wizards' towers they've grown to love the tingly, electrical flavor of magic. Doesn't matter what effect that weird glowing mushroom might have, the taste is more than worth it.

Their constant arcane dumpster diving seems to have granted them both the ability to understand human speech and some business savvy, as they've been known to alter their trades based on the quality and amount of food offered.

They may even be willing to steal directly from the source if you can bring them some of the really good stuff...

Example Wares:

Polymorph Potion (Unstable): A greasy bottle filled with a swig of liquid with a color that strobes through the rainbow. Drink it and you’ll be transformed into a different creature every round for 1d6 rounds.

Philosopher’s Stone (Reversed): An egg-shaped blue gemstone that can transform gold into lead. After 1d6 uses, the stone disintegrates into non-magical jelly.

Magic Wand (Malfunctioned): A wand that looks to be glued back together after a magical mishap and now has a tip that bends 30 degrees to the right. When the wand’s spell is cast, the spell always targets the wand’s wielder.

5. The Toymaker

Sells: Helpful Toys

Currency: Stories

An old man with large calloused hands and a set of spectacles . The toymaker has exiled himself to a lonely cottage in the woods after some great disgrace which he will never willingly reveal to anyone. The only hint as to what might have happened is that he has sworn to never make another weapon.

Due to the lack of social interaction, he made himself a friend. Literally, out of wood. His name is Boggy.

Boggy is a little wooden dummy on the toymaker wears on his hand, and the old hermit speaks to him as if he were real. However, the toymaker is no ventriloquist, and his mouth moves when he talks for Boggy (a fact which angers them both if pointed out). 

Both the Toymaker and Boggy love stories. They will offer one of their toys to anyone who can spin a dramatic tale of adventure, tragedy, romance, and derring-do.

Example Wares

Magic Boxes: A pair of colorfully painted wooden boxes, each about the size of a shoebox. If you place an object inside a box and close the lid, the object is transported to the other box.

Stuffed Bandersnatch: A stuffed animal, about 2 feet long with a long neck and great snapping jaws. Goblinoids are deathly afraid of these creatures, and would surely be fooled by this replica.

Little Bingy: A featureless wooden doll with limp, segmented limbs. If you ask "Bingy, what did you see?" The doll springs to life and pantomimes everything it witnessed in the past 4 hours.

6. The Bottle Witch

Sells: Magic Bottles

Currency: Your Favorite Magic Item

A tiny old woman cocooned in a mound of robes. The only visible parts of her are her tiny wrinkled face poking through strata of scarves and hood. And her rat paw hands.

She can be found shuffling along in any place a tiny old woman shouldn’t be (the monster-infested woods, a dungeon, hell, etc.), heralded by the clinking of the glass bottles that hang from her like ornaments on a Christmas tree. Bottles of all shapes and sizes, filled with tiny animals, miniature storm clouds and rainbows, and colorful bubbling elixirs.

She always needs something. 

“My boots have worn out and my feet are so sore from walking but…my, those lovely elvish boots you have sure look comfortable…”

“I have a long journey through the woods ahead, and the monsters would surely kill a frail old woman like me...but that gleaming sword you have there, now that would surely scare them off! Care to trade?”

Example Wares:

Bottled Rage: This bottle holds a tiny red storm cloud. When the cork is popped, whoever you're pointing the bottle at is overcome with blind rage. Single use.

Bottled Blizzard: A frosty bottle filled with falling snow like the inside of a snow globe. Uncork to loose a blast of icy wind that freezes anything in its path, or if uncorked toward the open sky, conjure a freak blizzard. Single use.

Empty Bottle: Pop off the cork to bottle anything. You could bottle a dragon, a wildfire, a wound, a memory, a feeling, a color, anything. 2 Uses -- 1 to trap something in the bottle, and 1 to release it.