Today’s Hook: Monster/Magic Item grab bag
Talk about getting into your character…

On this very special “double sized” episode, the Adventure Hook guys take the premise of using random charts to structure an adventure, and go totally crazy with it to actually create the background of the character that Rob will be playing in the new actual-play 2nd Edition D&D Dark Sun campaign series that Aaron will be running soon… and which will (once again) be created in collaboration with Red Moon Roleplaying!

From random encounter charts, to old skool magic item tables… from wild talent lists to simple flips of a coin, the Adventure Hook guys take inspiratiuon from all manner of random material, and weave it together with the anthropological, near-exhaustive Dark Sun source material to shape the details of the brutal background of Rob’s mantis-man telepath PC, the Thri-kreen Psionicist: Mma'ak-qhari of the Kanoko• Pack. 

And of course, what character creation for an Aaron game would be complete with first consulting his infamous Dark Secrets table..?

Racial memory, past-lives, cycles of reincarnation, and even memories of a hellish afterlife are just a few of the esoteric concepts Aaron and Rob visit as they create this uniquely Dark Sun character… while simultaneously exploring the setting he was born into. Aaron provides listeners with another gazetteer-level dissertation on Athas, the world of Dark Sun, and exuberantly expounds upon the various progressive ideas (climate change, social justice, gender identity, and more) that from its inception were thematically intrinsic to this rather avant-garde little RPG setting from the early 90’s. 

Also this time, not only are Aaron’s Star Trek references totally on point, but you’ll get to see how they merge with a Star Wars one Rob makes later to create one super cool concept for a player character indeed (let’s just say we see how the Thri-kreen are kinda like Klingons + Jedi). Anyway, Rob offers up all sorts of interesting fill-in-the-blanks in need of answers to round his mantis-man’s background out, but for those truly “in the know” fans of the setting, the guys also answer perhaps the most burning question of all…

Has Mma’ak ever tasted elf flesh?

Plus!: Enjoy listening to the guys as they continually struggle to pronounce the word “chatkcha”…

 

LINKS

Adventure Hook (on Patreon) 

Red Moon Roleplaying (two-time ENnie winner for best actual-play podcast)

Dark Sun Boxed Set (2e) (on DriveThruRPG)

Thri-Kreen of Athas (2e) (on DriveThruRPG)

The Art of Gerald Brom (Official Webpage)

IGN’s Best Comic Book Series of the Year (on IGN.com)

John Constantine: Hellblazer (2019-) #1 of 12  (on Kindle & comiXology)

Maryland Institute, College of Art (MICA) (Aaron & Rob’s alma mater)

Mad Max: Fury Road (on Amazon)

Clovis Culture (on Wikipedia)

To Baator & Back (Adventure Hook’s collaboration with Red Moon Roleplaying)

Cania – the 8th level of the Nine Hells… actually (on the Forgotten Realms wiki)

Dungeon Master’s Guide (2e) (on DriveThruRPG)

Sven-Ole Thorsen (on Wikipedia)

Episode 2: An Item Coveted By All (on Patreon)

Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com made available for use under the Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 License.

Adventure Meme

Ominous Intro

8-Bit Dungeon Boss

Be sure to submit your own Adventure Hook ideas using the hashtag #newadventurehook and they could end up the topic of a future episode!  

Also you can use the hashtag #Critfail to instead give us your worst ideas which will occupy a place on our dreaded Cr...