Hey Everyone,

For our third and final timed release, I'd like to share the near-finalized stat block of the great dragon, J'gulga, and explain how this primordial monstrosity affects gameplay and the party's decisions.

MONSTER STAT BLOCK

This is the book's most complex and powerful monster. I designed J'gulga so that referees can run it quickly at the table. The familiar stat line caps the block, followed by the dragon's offensive options and then its defensive and behavioral traits.

As you can see below, even the highest-level heroes will discover that this creature is not easily killed. To achieve such a victory, the players must study J'gulga, learn its patterns and behaviors, and lure it to a predetermined battlefield that gives them the greatest possible advantage. For example, the dragon always telegraphs its breath weapon by visibly charging during the spell declaration phase.

The dragon's heads are especially vulnerable to a few tricks that can gradually reduce J'gulga's offensive output. Each head the heroes destroy brings them one step closer to permanently slaying the beast.

But even after exploiting these weaknesses and preparing carefully for battle, the dragon can slaughter the party if they suffer a few unlucky rolls.

Several artifacts hidden within the megadungeon of Exesed Mordax can swing the battle further in the heroes' favor. This design encourages players to explore the setting and discover as much as they can about the beast. However, the adventure doesn't force them to do so. That's because slaying the dragon is technically possible without any of these hidden artifacts, leaving each group free to decide exactly how they will bring down the great dragon, and become legends themselves.

RUNNING THE DRAGON

LEARNING THE DRAGON

• If encountered near Exesed Mordax, the dragon brutally attacks anyone approaching or leaving the megadungeon, acting as the city's guardian. The heroes must flee back into the ruins and wait for the monster to depart before daring the long journey home again. Thankfully, J'gulga only strafes the dungeon a few times each day, so entry and escape remain possible even for low-level adventurers.

• In the mountainous Spines of Arratan, however, where J'gulga hunts larger prey, the dragon isn't immediately hostile. One encounter describes the PCs spotting 1d3 rocs soaring overhead as if preparing to attack the party, only to notice an enormous silhouette darkening the clouds above. A moment later, the 230-foot-long dragon swoops down and tears into the largest roc with all six biting heads, crashing into the mountainside with its prey and pinning the bird beneath its titanic weight. One of J'gulga's heads snarls at the heroes while the others begin feeding on the thrashing avian. As long as the PCs do not approach or attack the dragon while it dines, it leaves them be.

• In other regions, J'gulga flies low overhead and roars as it passes, scattering the party's retainers and horses. The adventurers must chase after their fleeing hirelings and mounts, possibly losing some of them if they fail to react quickly enough.

FINAL THOUGHTS

In short, the dragon serves the campaign as both a hazardous environmental force and an end-game party goal. Unlike many adventures, where the villain appears only briefly to monologue in the dungeon's final room, the players feel this Big Boss's presence from the campaign's very beginning. They also have many chances to interact with J'gulga before the final showdown (if one ever occurs).

I hope you and your players find J'gulga a challenging, memorable, and exciting foe unlike any other!

Very Best,
Rob, PHP

Below is an early layout sample from The Overlords of Steel.

• Strong visual hierarchy. Major topics, subsections, rules, and reference material should be immediately recognizable. 
• Short, digestible sections. Longer subjects are broken into smaller chunks rather than buried inside walls of text. 
• Bolded interactive information. Important rules, terms, locations, and game elements should jump off the page when you need them. 
• Tables whenever they make information faster to use. If something can be understood more easily at a glance, I want it presented that way. 
• Rules next to the material they affect. Setting information should not be divorced from the things characters can actually experience, manipulate, or exploit during play. 
• Two-page-spread thinking. Wherever possible, material will be organized so that related information lives together rather than forcing the referee to constantly flip pages. 

• A Black Syzygy weakens light and strengthens the undead. 
• A Savage Moon drives creatures toward violence. 
• Other conjunctions affect magic, surprise, wandering monsters, missile attacks, and more. 

Designed for a Big Sandbox

This Is Still a Work in Progress

Lost City Under the Earth

Exesed Mordax is the principal adventuring site of this mega-adventure book: a vast, interconnected underworld composed of ~30 full-color maps, originally designed by hand at 17" × 22" apiece, and containing well over 1,000 keyed areas.

The megadungeon's ruins descend beneath two surface towers, through buried districts, forgotten complexes, natural caverns, ancient works, and unfathomable regions swallowed by the earth. And the deeper the adventurers travel, the stranger the city becomes.

The diagram below shows the overall depth and structure of Exesed Mordax.

The Surface

The ruins begin on the valley's rocky surface. Your stalwart heroes will discover 4 possible entrances into the megadungeon's early levels via the western tower, eastern tower, and an expanse between them containing evidence of a primordial battlefield.

Other secret avenues into Exesed Mordax exist that are not depicted on this map, however, and determined adventurers may eventually find them.

"Jaquays-ed" to be Explored

Exesed Mordax is an interconnected environment containing alternate routes, hidden passages, vertical connections, magical shortcuts, cunning factions, sealed vaults, and technological discoveries that can change the way adventurers navigate this dangerous place.

Within its depths, the adventurers will encounter the mysterious remains of a forgotten civilization: corridors, chambers, workshops, vaults, shrines, and bizarre machines left behind by a civilization whose mastery of arcana and pseudo-science technology far exceeded that of the present age.

As the buried city intersects with the natural world beneath Qa'rood, its passages open into immense subterranean environments: sprawling catacombs, underground waterways, alien caverns, and astonishing rifts. These places have evolved for centuries in darkness, as have their violent inhabitants...

Faction Interplay

The megadungeon is also home to multiple competing factions, each with its own goals, territories, rivalries, and ambitions. These groups are not simply enemies waiting in stasis to be fought and killed. Adventurers may negotiate with them, manipulate their fears and rivalries, trade information, strike temporary alliances, play one faction against another, or make enemies whose influence reaches far beyond the dungeon level being explored.

Relationships can shift over the course of the campaign as factions gain or lose territory, suffer setbacks, discover new routes, or react to the party’s actions. Clever players may find that diplomacy, deception, and carefully chosen alliances can be just as powerful as spells and swords.

Campaign Variety: The Spice of Life!

But importantly, the complex is not intended to be cleared from top to bottom, room by room, nor is it designed so that your band of heroes must spend the entire campaign exploring its dark halls.

Factional developments in civilization will vie for the players' attention back home, challenging them with new obstacles and compelling goals far away from Exesed Mordax, meaning they don't have to stay in the dungeon all the time. These unscripted events occur organically throughout the campaign.

This intentional design keeps the game exciting and gives players a variety of adventures to pursue and enjoy. And because of this, I think you'll enjoy the final product very much!

All Best,
Rob, PHP