Colossal Beast - Ti'an the Celestial Dragon (Promptober 2025 #24)

Ti'an, Celestial Dragon
Mythical creator of Beneterra

One ancient myth from the Yamagura Empire tells of an ancient and massive dragon sacrificing itself to create the world of Beneterra. The myth gives the dragon a name, Ti'an, literally meaning "heaven" or "sky" (though modern translations break the name into two characters roughly meaning "bloody paste". Linguistic evolution. Go figure.). The myth refers to Ti'an as a Celestial Dragon from that point on. Ti'an supposedly has scales made of the purest metals: platinum, mithril, and adamantine, and its body glows with starlight and holy fire.

The myth starts with the Celestial Dragon flying across the universe, creating life in its wake as it travels. It weeps comets and breathes dust and fire to ignite the stars in the heavens. Sometimes it hovers and watches what it created, and most times its creations die out in short order, but mostly it moves on to the next patch of sky that craves more than emptiness. Ti'an eventually tired of its journey after millennia of seeding the heavens, and it decided to sacrifice itself in a final concentrated burst of creative energy. It found a warm, welcoming, yellowish sun, then curled up and slept until it expired, laying the seeds of life and intelligence in its own corpse.

Aliens (Promptober 2025 #23)

Fantasy Aliens Within?

In a fantasy setting, we rarely see instances of extraplanetary high-tech aliens. Early on in TSR's history we have Metamorphosis Alpha, set aboard a generational ship gone haywire, with mutated creatures and forgotten technology. We also find the classic module S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, where the party discovers a crashed alien ship containing robots, odd life forms, and laser weaponry to find and use. After that, things get a little more limited in the classic D&D canon: UK4 When A Star Falls has the party recovering a meteorite for a deep gnome sage, but no actual life forms.

I tried aliens once, back in my Adris campaign. (Good gravy, that game ended about 20 years ago now.)

Summoning Circles (Promptober 2025 #22)

A common protective circle

Summoning circles (and protective circles generally) come in many forms. Circles made of quickly-spread holy water, rock salt, or silver dust can do in a pinch, but something a little more permanent will provide more power and durability, so a simple gust of wind won't break the circle and let your powerful summoned entity free. How can the everyday wizard or temple cleric set up a more permanent circle?

To start, take some time to design the circle. What form will it take? Do you want a simple pentagram, or an elaborate concentric collection of arcane iconography or divine sigils? What materials will you use to make the circle? Will it be crushed lapis lazuli surrounded by white marble, or worked mithril inlaid in mahogany? How big do you need it? Should you go larger than the standard 10 foot diameter in case you want to summon a demon lord or Archduke of Hell and provide some small amount of comfort?

Sword In The Forest - Forest Blade (Promptober 2025 #21)

Forest Blade

Forest Blade (Glad'sigil)

Weapon (scimitar), rare (requires attunement)

This short, sturdy blade of ancient design looks like a cross between a short sword and a machete. Forged primarily as a forestry tool and secondarily as a slashing weapon, the blade's enchantments provide boons to anyone operating in wilderness environments.

You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. Once attuned, add your proficiency bonus to Survival rolls to forage food, gather firewood, build shelters, follow tracks, blaze trails, and navigate the wilderness. If you are already proficient with or have expertise in Survival, simply add your proficiency bonus again.

Lost Knowledge - Beneterra's History (Promptober 2025 #20)

Past and Future in One

How do we even know what knowledge we've lost over the past several millennia? The characters in my Fellport game have a vague idea of recent history, but some of the deep, dark secrets and stories elude nearly everyone living in Beneterra today. Even the stories and myths that nearly everyone knows have been altered after the centuries of telling and retelling.

Let's talk about a few major things from Beneterra's distant past.

Beneterra's Creation

During the party's time in Krugheim, capital city of the dwarven Clan Stormhammer, they found a pillar that flashed random colors with no discernible pattern. An artist colony grew in the cave around the pillar, and dwarven scientists set up a lab to study it.

And of course, the party went up and licked it. The party's psionic tried to gather psychic echoes from the pillar using Psionic Investigation and rolled a natural 20.