I Cast...Brainstorm issue 5!

This week — A new spell, an idea from the Brainstormer community, and a roadside inn

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Let’s brainstorm some fun!

In this issue...

• A New Magic Spell

  • Bright Eyes

• From the Brainstormer Community

  • Awarding Experience for Treasure

• The Harthen Home Inn

  • First Floor

  • Second floor

  • Cellar

  • About the Harthen Home Inn

  • Cast of Characters

• Brainstorming Links

• What I’m DM-ing

• Ye Olde Shoppe

A New Magic Spell

Bright Eyes

Level Cantrip
Casting Time 1 Bonus Action
Range/Area Self
Components V
Duration 1 Hour
School Evocation
Attack/Save None
Damage/Effect Creation

When you cast the spell, your eyes immediately glow with light of any color you choose. Until the spell ends, you can choose to create beams of bright light extending from your eyes in a 10’ long, 5’ wide cone, (that shed dim light for an additional 10 feet).

The light doesn’t inhibit your normal vision in any way. Narrrowing your eyes acts like the shutters of a hooded lantern, and closing your eyes blocks the light.

Spell Tags: Creation, Utility
Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Wizard, Warlock - Celestial Patron, Arcane Trickster Rogue

From the Brainstormer Community

Awarding Experience for Treasure

Submitted by GMJames

Remember when experience points were given for treasure in D&D? It’s true. XP for treasure. Why would any DM give XP for loot?

Awarding 1 XP for every gold piece worth of treasure acquired was last seen in AD&D 2nd edition, but your 5th Edition game might benefit from it, too. In earlier iterations of the game, seeking large amounts of treasure often required the creative use of skills to search, investigate, and detect. This out-of-the-box thinking and plotting added breadth to the game, causing players to consider what skills might be useful when researching historical tales for example, or deciphering unfamiliar languages. It also added tension between the players, as they sometimes sought to garner resources their fellow party members may have overlooked, or did not see quietly pocketed away. A bit of inter-character tension might not be all bad.

Acquiring, and carrying, treasure also adds a real element of encumbrance to the game. Looting at the bag-of-gold level is pretty easy. But if your characters are looking for the big score, it takes time and energy to get the treasure somewhere it can be protected. You’re certainly not carrying those solid gold urns through the next thirty dungeon rooms. Imagine the noise alone.

Today’s game would need a few adjustments to reintroduce XP for treasure. As D&D evolved over the years, the experience point requirements for leveling went down, allowing characters to more quickly advance. XP for gold, (at 1 XP per 1 gp in value), could level-up the characters faster than you’d like, or cause the characters to speed past the recommended progression per chapter in a published adventure. If so, adjustments to the adventure, especially monster strength, would need to be made down the line. But, if your players are looking to level up as fast as they can, awarding XP for loot could be a great way to accommodate them.

Accumulated treasure also needs a place to be stored and spent. Storing treasure could be used as an adventure hook all by itself, and the new bastion rules in the 2024 5th edition Dungeon Masters Guide synergize well with this idea. The characters might need to build a tower, with a vault, and traps, and a guardian, and the bastion rules can help put a cost and time needed for these things, and more. And what will the characters then set their sights on when they’re not spending just to protect their treasure? Magic items and spells are a simple option, but what about influence, position, and power? Perhaps philanthropy best fits an individual or the party in your game. Whatever the case, the choices are already broadening the game, and introducing new ways to role play and develop more memorable sessions.

The Harthen Home Inn

Harthen Home is a roadside inn, situated along any well-traveled road, at least a day or two by horseback from the closest towns. Below is a description of the building and some characters to fill it, which you can use as is, or as a leaping off point for your own creation. And if you need a map or two, Reddit and DM’s guild are both good resources. There are also a lot of talented map creators out there like CZRPG, and I personally love using Dungeon Alchemist to create my own, too. Adjust the descriptions below to match your favorite map.

First Floor

Most of the first floor is a common area with tables and benches in the middle of the room, and booths along the walls, warmed by a large fireplace centered on the wall opposite the front door. Oil lamps in wall sconces provide additional light at night, and leaded glass windows to either side of the front door, (which faces the road) provide light during the day. A counter at one end of the room is where the proprietor, Denikka Wystkin can be found greeting guests, preparing drinks and taking food orders, with the jangling from a large ring of keys she wears at her hip responding to her every movement. Behind the counter is a saloon door that leads to the kitchen, where Denikka’s spouse Harth scurries about as he prepares meals with the help of a few cooks and servers.

Denikka Wystkin (Middle-aged CN Tough Boss — friendly, fastidious, brawny)
Harthen Wystkin (Adult CG Commoner — short, nimble, distracted)

The kitchen contains a fireplace, stove, washbasin, and large butcher block table. A narrow stairway in one corner leads down into the cellar, and an exterior door opens to the back of the building. An open doorway leads to a well-stocked pantry, and a door next to the pantry is the entrance to a small suite of rooms where the Wystkins live, consisting of two bedrooms, an office, a washroom, and a comfortable living area.

Treasure — a metal box hidden under a removable floorboard in the Wystkin’s office contains the bulk of their savings. A DC 18 (Wisdom) Perception check in the proper corner will reveal the worn edge of the floorboard that can be lifted to reveal the box. The box is locked, (Denikka carries the key on her ring of keys), and can be picked with a DC 22 (Dexterity) Thieves Tools check. Inside is 715 gp, 72 pp, 3 diamonds worth 200 gp each, and a Rare magic item, (a souvenir from Denikka’s adventuresome youth).

Across the common room from the counter and kitchen is a wide interior stairway leading to the second floor, as well as a side door that leads outside to the stables. The stables are large enough for sixteen horses and three carriages or wagons, and appears well-tended by the Wystkin’s son Laer — a hulking teenager in a leather apron. Around to the back of the establishment are three outhouses, a wooden bulkhead door which opens to a stone stairway leading to the cellar, and a paved path from the exterior kitchen door to a well, (about twenty feet away).

Laer Wystkin (Teen LG Tough — happy, heavily muscled, never stops moving)

Second floor

The stairs from the common room lead to a sitting area with a fireplace and overstuffed chairs, lit by oil lamps. Across from the fireplace are four doors — three lead to small rooms with a bed, chair, and small table set with a wash basin and pitcher. The fourth door opens on a larger room with three beds, a table and three chairs, and a small table with a wash basin and pitcher.

A hallway with six doors — three to a side — extends from the sitting area to the far end of the building. The two doors closest to the sitting area open on two smaller rooms, the next two doors are two more larger rooms (each with three beds), and the last two doors are two suites, each with a bedroom, a sitting room and a separate washroom.

All of the doors are stout wood, banded in iron, with a keyhole above the door handle.

Cellar

The cellar can be accessed from the stairs in the kitchen, or through the bulkhead doors at the back of the inn. The bulkhead doors are always barred from the inside.

The walls of the cellar are rough stone supported with thick timbers, and the floor is packed dirt. An oil lantern hangs from a hook at the bottom of the kitchen stairs. The cellar is large — about the size of the first floor common room — and a pile of picks and shovels in one corner reveal how the Wystkins have enlarged it as needed.

Crates and barrels of grains, vegetables, flour, beer, wine, and other foods are arranged around the space. One wall is lined with shelves with linens, mugs, plates, cutlery, and other supplies. Dressed venison hangs from hooks down the center of the room.

Secret — The Wystkins have no idea that the last time they expanded the cellar, Laer nearly broke through the wall into a dank tunnel that leads farther underground. A crack in the wall (noticed with a Passive Perception of 12 or greater) can be quickly widened to a 5’ wide opening with a DC 14 (Strength) Athletics check, (at Advantage if a pick is used). You can decide what creatures, if any, are on the other side of the wall, and if they have any interest in the Harthen Home.

About the Harthen Home Inn

Denikka and Harthen met at the Harthen Home, just after Harth opened the inn with a small inheritance. Denikka was traveling alone, fleeing a bit of trouble she had gotten into, and entered the inn just as a bench flew by and smashed through a window. A full scale brawl was filled the common room, and Harth was trying to break up the ruckus and failing miserably. Denikka — strong, six feet tall, and an excellent boxer — knocked a few heads together until everyone settled down, and Harth was so thankful he asked her to stay and act as a bouncer. Denikka soon learned that Harth was a talented chef, but easily distracted and a horrible businessman. What the inn really needed was a manager, and Denikka proved to be more than capable in that regard. Over the following months, as they worked tirelessly on the inn, the two fell in love.

Now, twenty years later, the Harthen Home is a successful business, and Denikka and Harth are a happy family, along with their son Laer, (who takes after his mother in terms of pugilistic prowess, but is too easy-going to ever throw a punch). However, the Wystkins have no idea that the trouble that Denikka was fleeing twenty years ago has finally caught up with her, and is currently in the common room.

The inn never closes, and though the Wystkins take care of most of the work, they employ 5-10 servers, cleaners and other workers as needed. On any day, there are 3-5 workers at the inn, either in the kitchen, the common room, or cleaning the upstairs rooms. When the PCs arrive, the inn is moderately busy — the common room contains 10-15 patrons sitting alone or in small groups, and there are 2 wagons and 12 horses in the stables. There are 5 available rooms — 2 smaller rooms, 2 larger rooms, and 1 suite.

Cast of Characters

Along with a dozen or so other patrons and workers, the following NPCs are in the Harthen Home when the characters arrive.

Garagol the Oathsworn
Adult CG Guard Captain — relaxed, confident, observant
Garagol is the guard captain for Sir Swindley Abramax, and while Sir Swindley is in his suite upstairs, Garagol and his three guards are enjoying a mug and a meal. The veteran has been keeping eyes on everyone in the common room, as is his practice, and has noticed a patron in one corner, (Crispin Zerz), who is clocking Denikka’s every move. Garagol has also noticed whoever it is has at least three daggers hidden on their person, (boot, glove and collar), so his shortsword is already loosened in its scabbard, just in case.

Sir Swindley Abramax
Adult LN Noble — kind, well-read, bored
Swindley is the oldest son of a family who own a gem mine, and is often on the road traveling to and from the mine, as its his responsibility to ensure the family’s interests are protected, and the work is progressing as planned. Swindley has no interest in gems, mining, or anything else about the family business. What he’d really like to do is write adventure stories — which would scandalize his family, if they knew. The bigger problem, as far as Swindley is concerned, is that nothing exciting has ever happened to him, despite his years on the road, and this lack of real-world experience makes it difficult to write convincingly. When the PCs arrive at the inn, Swindley is in his suite, staring at a blank piece of parchment and wishing for something out of the ordinary to happen.

Crispin Zerz
Adult CE Assassin — haughty, careful, patient, cold
The trouble Denikka was fleeing twenty years ago has found her, in the form of Crispin Zerz, an experienced Assassin. A year earlier he was hired to find her, retrieve a powerful item she absconded with, and eliminate Denikka as painfully as possible. Crispin is currently unaware that the item is hidden under a floorboard in the Wystkin’s office. He arrived at the Harthen Home the previous day, and has been watching and biding his time — its clear that Denikka isn’t going anywhere, and Crispin understands patience is often the difference between a elegant, successful contract, and a messy, successful one.

Hrina Ko
Teen NG Commoner — clever, quiet, deferential
Hrina has worked at the Harthen Home for over a year, at first to make a few coin, but now to stay as close to Laer Wystkin as possible. Whenever he enters the room, she watches him intently, and then finds some reason work her way closer to him. She doesn’t know that Laer is interested in her, too, and has been trying to get up the courage to talk to her for months.

Brainstorming Links

If you love D&D and other RPGs as much as I do, you probably already know about the folks below, who are real inspirations to me. If you haven’t already, please check ‘em out!

DMDave — on point analysis of D&D rules, and a ton of fun ideas
https://bsky.app/profile/dmdave.bsky.social

Treantmonk — years of helpful advice and clever ideas
https://www.youtube.com/@TreantmonksTemple

RPGBot — whip smart critique and explanations of 5e rules
https://rpgbot.net/

The Arcane Library — masterpiece adventures, and Shadowdark, too!
https://www.thearcanelibrary.com

Sly Flourish — a DM’s best friend who is also a better DM
https://www.slyflourish.com/

What I’m DM-ing

• A weekly Curse of Strahd campaign via Roll20 using 2014 5th edition rules

• A weekly Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign, in-person, with 2024 5th edition rules

• A series of one-shots in a bi-weekly game at a bar in LA

• Two different campaigns with my kids, (Rime and Storm Kings Thunder) when schedules align

What I’m Playing

• A 5th ed. Dragonlance campaign as a 9th level Tinker Gnome Gadgeteer Rogue, named Professor Flondersnoot

• About to start playing Vecna: Eve of Ruin as Clybb Thistlebridge, a 9th level Halfling great-weapon Fighter

• And in all my free time, I play a LOT of Hearthstone!
  
  
  

Ye Olde Shoppe

You can also check out great gifts for the gamers in your life at Total Party Kits, which features all-original designs by yours truly on shirts, hats, mugs and other gifts!

 www.totalpartykits.etsy.com

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What Do You Think?

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The original ideas in this issue of I Cast….Brainstorm! are covered under the Creative Commons BY-SA license — all content is free to use (including commercially) and change, with proper attribution.

You can read about the license here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en