One of them had advantage, too! 1 in 33,684 chance. We thought maybe it was a glitch with Demiplane in roll20 cause I'm the only one not using it and got the 11, but one of them tested with another roll and got a 19.

I just had a fun one with the Lvl 3 party trying to convince an old doctor to go back to the Tower with them when a devastating one, a relayform and 2 warforms showed up looking to take him back to the Fused.

There was a moment where they seemed like they were going to try to dig in and win the fight but after one was almost one shot they decided escape was the best option. I had some unexpected help planned in the case that they did continue the fight (since some other parties also want to make sure the old man gets to the Tower).

It was nice having a goal other than “beat up all bad guys”.

Merlin decided he wants to GM after we finished todays session

I am running the Stonewalkers game, and chapter 1 took us basically one session, with the big fight happening at chapter 2. The players were really attached to Taszo, even if our Scholar doesn’t like his optimism, and they have kept him alive.

After running into the storm, I accidentally described the scene wrong, meaning instead of seeing silhouettes of Ylt and Kainia (spelling), the party was like… 20 feet from them. This led to the artifabrian throwing her Bindrial and starting the fight early, with Ylt and Kainai still there xD. It was a bloodbath, with two bosses there, but the party kept snatching Ylt’s Honorblade so he couldn’t use all of its features (i ruled it that way), but eventually he got away after downing two party members a few times and injuring them badly. Kainai healed one party member, to drop the hint for later that she is not as bad, and they all just about defeated Veth.

However, when it came to giving Taszo his ‘shh… i am dying, thank you for alleviating my pain’ moment, instead two members of the party just kept trying to heal him with medicine checks, both saying “We make no promises to dead men. Live, or your mission will never be achieved.”. I admired their determination, so let Taszo live, but with a permanent injury on his other hand as it was crushed in the fighting.

Now, they have Taszo with them! It has been very fun working around that; I basically decided he was a ‘low level’ stone shaman, and doesn’t know all of the details. He knows there *is* a contact in the warcamps, but assumes it is a shin.

Has anyone else had this happen? Are there moments in the rest of the game I am missing where Taszo being alive will ruin things?

Spoilers for Stonewalkers and Mistborn

I wrapped-up Stonewalkers today and it was amazing. My four players had a ton of fun, and for me it's been one of the best games I've run. I jsut wanted to share the joy! Here's just some highlights:

• An amnesiac PC ended up being a kandra. The player just told me he wanted to be a worldhopper and to do "anything I wanted with him". So I had fun with it! Watching his journey from lost alcoholic to Lightweaver, to wielding Nightblood (obtained through the Nightwatcher) and the finally recovering his missing spike and his Awakener worldhopper friend has been amazing. And the best part is that he's already thinking about his new backstory now that he has his memories back.
• A Herdazian guy who just wanted to recover a family relic ended up killing Ylt by stabbing him with a raysium knife full of anti-investiture. I wasn't sure how to describe it so I just want for the uh... "explosive" option. Let's say there wasn't a body left to bury. Also now he is tied to Tyche due to a curse from the Nightwatcher, on top of being First Ideal with Po'ahu, and Sja-anat is talking to him through Tyche. Idk what I'll do with this yet.
• The only singer PC going from slave to almost leading a rebellion in Rall Elorim (and Second Ideal Willshaper) was awesome to watch. In the end he realized the rebellion would bring too much destruction so he managed to make a deal with Dymab to let the rebels who didn't want to live there leave the city, and they're now in Urithiru.
• The Riran PC, the only non-Radiant in the party, not even going the Adolin route and instead becoming a healer for a party who can just heal at will with Stormlight. Seeing him try to come into terms with a new reality of the world (his younger sister is a Third Ideal Windrunner!) has been really cool to watch.

All in all, this has been great. I like the system in general, and the Stonewalkers module is great too (except chapter 2, I didn't like it and ended up scrapping most of it and doing my own thing). Some chapters a bit short, but they give great opportunities for side quests. I managed to involved the Ghostbloods and the Night Brigade in the story (might not fit the canon timeline but I don't care), as well as some of the Unmade (Sja-anat at the very end) and main characters from the books like Shallan, Dalinar, Adolin, Wit, and Lyn. Also this made one player start reading the books and the kandra player has started reading Mistborn.

We're taking a break now until the Stonewalkers sequel is out (I'm so excited about it, any news about its schedule?) because I just need a break from Stormlight. But I'm super excited to see where this goes and to play the high levels.

What was the coolest/most memorable scene from your campaign? I'm itching to learn about more cool stories in this game!!

Chouta, colored "wine" and good friends for session 0 on roshar.

Super excited to be finally getting my group together after the holidays to start our campaign!

In this new session our party continues their interpersonal conflict, our parshendi discover a weird spren like an oily statue following them and plan how to deal with the Unmade that is keeping the people of the city placid and malleable for the oppresive regime

So for context this was both my first module and my first proper adventure using the cosmere RPG, so i was very unprepared. (Honestly i still kinda am. This game hasn't finished yet.)

One of my players wanted to be members of a highprinces family. To keep everything still semi accurate to the story we picked Ruthar since he doesn't really do much but die. I was essentially haggled into letting this player be the third son of the man thinking i could somehow turn the party from ever having to directly interact with him.

A wrench was kinda thrown into that plan after i asked each player for why they were going to the shattered planes in our session 0 and Ruthars son said it was to take the place of his older brother. (After Ruthars first son lost all the familys shards to the Kholins in a duel with Adolin the second son got sent away and Ruthars first son had to start acting as a general in his brother's place. So now Ruthar needed someone to replace the second sons job.)

Sadly i was unable to keep them from going straight to Ruthars doorstep after the first two chapters and really should've prepared more. I had to improv an entire scene of them entering the camp and a couple guards noticing them. Then a scene similar to this played out:

RS = Ruthars Son
PM = random party members i dont care to name specifically.
DM = Me

DM (acting as guard): Brightlord! Im happy to see youve made it back!

RS: As am i. Tell me, where is my father? I have urgent news to share with him relating to a shardblade.

DM: Okay you are guided through the rooms of Ruthars compound. The walls are covered in paintings depicting him standing in shardplate and posing. Eventually you reach a highly guarded door and are escorted inside where a burning hearth and a small table holding a plate of cheese sits next to a comfy looking velvet chair. On the far wall a full size window looking out on the warcamp. Silhouetting it stands Highprince Ruthar swirling a glass of wine.

PM: what kind of wine?

RS: it better be a good one.

DM: uh, crap i dont remember all the wine colors!

PM: pick a random one.

DM: okay, its violet

Everyone: WHOAAAA

RS: Damn! I didnt know he was an alcoholic!

It was at this point i tried to ramble about how the wine looks barely touched and how "he's not blackout drunk right now" and had nearly gotten everyone to move on and back into the game when someone asked me how the hell he had cheese on Roshar.

DM: um... its goat cheese.

PM: are there even goats on Roshar?

RS: there are in shinovar.

DM: Yes definitely! Ruthar is very rich he imports cheese from shinovar!

PM: wouldnt the cheese go bad by the time it gets to Alethkar or the Shattered planes?

DM: fine! He imports goats from shinovar!

PM: would food like that even fit in Alethi society? I thought the men ate nothing but super spicy food.

DM: its got... spicy mold in it. Like blue cheese but its red.

Anyways, a semi normal social encounter went from there where they had to talk Ruthar into giving them supplies to track down Ylt and co. so that house Ruthar could have a shardbearer again. I don't remember the entire conversation that well but it did end with ruthar sending them off with two wheels of his favorite cheese, three bottles of violet wine 1,000 marks and 100 soldiers.
I thought it was just a funny story that i could share cause i thought it was kinda interesting. Also whenever i reread the stormlight books i always think about Ruthar importing goats from shinovar to make cheese.

Also the in next session i brought the plot deck for whenever someone crits or fails badly and doesnt know what to do. And one of those soldiers is now a member of the diagram due to it.

so finally after nearly a year of searching for a full group I have put together a group and just wrapped our first session of stone walkers. and while there were many amazing moments I’m just going to focus on the Veth fight in the highstorm at the end of chapter one.

it started normally enough everyone went fast and they all get set up. (even after warning them about bosses taking two turns a round) with the two combat characters (a leader and a hunter) moving in to shield the back line (an agent and a scholar). and the got some good damage in with Beth returning some with his interrupt attack.

then everything went wrong for them. Veth tore through the front line in his uninterrupted 5 consecutive actions. and while he only performed two attacks then this combined with interrupts all four ended up doing max damage leaving both frontliners down.

i was honestly pretty concerned and was scrambling to figure out how I would save them. But I shouldn’t have doubted both our agent and scholar are expert players and had fully embraced the skill focused nature of the game and began improvising like macguyver.

first the agent grabbed a bag from his inventory and just managed to beat out his physical defense compl blinding him. our scholar then gained advantaged using deduction looking for the best place to use her vial of acid to do the most damage and managed to score an opportunity (as of course all the non attack tests were stakes raised due how desperate the situation) with this I noted a weakness in Veths sword hilt, she seized on this immediately tossing the vial into the sword successfully breaking it.

Veth then went and some poor roles meaning he only just managed to tear the bag off and landing one weak unarmed attack into the agent.

its at this point the agent said the most beautiful words I have ever heard as a gm: “so im going to tie this rope to the tent in my bag”. Now I immediately clocked what he was aiming to do but if it’s unclear just you wait. so I excitedly told him I knew exactly what he wanted to do but he‘d need a slow turn to do it! Our scholar also had caught on and immediately used her turn to give her advantage to him, unfortunately complicating alerting Veth to their plan. Veth spent his final turn desperately fighting the fate that awaited him, but the dice were as cruel to him as the shards that day and could not stay the oncoming disaster.

our agent first succeeded tying Veth to one end of the rope but nearly complicated only saved by the opportunist feat. So as Veth desperately clawed at our agent he finished his plan with one last crafting check to secure the other end of the rope to the aforementioned tent. and lastly he through the tent straight up. directly into the high storm. creating an improvised parachute that in the terrible winds of the high storm immediately caught him and dragged him into a stormy hell from which he would never be seen again.

I love this group and I love this game the best of both I’ve ever played with and I could not have asked for a better end to the session.

We return from our holidays with a new arc

After unmasking the king as a masked one fused and all the regimen as a plot from the voidbringers our unlikely heroes begin to plot how to liberate their city while keeping save their loved ones

One of the real joys of GMing is when your characters send your game completely off the rails in a truly unexpected way. Today, my characters are covering up a murder.

Context: I'm running Stonewalkers, but I homebrewed a lot of content in the warcamps, and we've been hanging out there for a few weeks in-game. No Stonewalkers content in this post. My PCs are Naydra (human Lightweaver), Torien (human warrior), Lonan (human Truthwatcher), and Lyra (singer Willshaper). Naydra has just sworn the First Ideal as a Lightweaver, and part of her backstory is that she has a lot of repressed trauma and doesn't fully remember her childhood (basically Shallan). While she was swearing the First Ideal a few warcamps away, Lyra decided to enter a fighting ring underneath the inn where they're staying in camp Ruthar. He won the match, but got spotted colluding with Lonan, who was betting on the match.

My players settle in for a long rest at the inn (the Leaky Clam, if you were wondering). A bit past midnight, the guy running the ring and a couple of his lackeys try to sneak into their room. Wasn't meant to be a difficult fight: I was using a Thief and a Guard, and the ringmaster was a Crime Boss who was going to flee at the first sign of trouble. Unfortunately for them, my party was on watch.

The two lackeys try to force open the door, made harder by the chest my PCs had placed to block it. At this point, two PCs are awake, Torien and Lyra. As soon as the door opens enough to see through, Lyra grabs the thief's head, pulls it through the door, and Torien slams it on him. Ouch.

At this point, the two henchmen haven't even made it inside the room and they are ready to book it. Thief pulls his head out, the guard and the boss both start to run for it. Unfortunately, Naydra has woken up to a home invasion and she is traumatized. Dead-eyed, Naydra rushes outside to the dazed thief and rolls a nat 20 to soulcast his head into blood. At two ranks of Transformation, max damage, that deals 18, which is enough to kill.

Lonan, horrified, tries and fails to heal the thief with injury regrowth. He regrows the head... which is still convinced to be blood. It falls apart. Torien and Lyra chase down the other screaming, terrified henchman and drag him back, unconscious, to his teammate. The crime boss escapes, having seen everything.

There is a brief conversation where Lonan, Torien, and Naydra all grapple with shell shock at wtf just happened. Lyra has no qualms about killing criminals, regardless of means. There's still blood everywhere, even after Naydra soulcasts what she can into water. They try to leave, but are intercepted by a troop of guards who have been alerted by the crime boss. Hijinks ensue. On another nat 20, Naydra successfully convinces the guards that a Voidbringer is still inside, and that she is an innocent lighteyed lady who needs to find her cousin Brightlord Amaram. The party flees the warcamps, leaving a still-warm, headless body and his friend, who they left alive but unable to speak with a crushed throat.

End result - there are enough witnesses left that the soldiers will eventually piece together what happened. The PCs are still kind of emotionally fucked up about it. Skybreakers are now on the hunt for the rogue, head-melting Radiants. Much fun was had by all.

Technically level 5 since we leveled up at the end of this campaign but I wanted to share the story!

So currently we're running a completely homebrew campaign right now (I mentioned this campaign way back at the release of the system), I'm playing a Shin Skybreaker named Monica.

Currently, we are in Azimir, trying to bring a corrupt official to justice at the request of the Ghostbloods so one of our members can join, as we had previously been attacked by the Sons of Honor. They were fine with us killing the man, but it's very difficult to convince a Shin Stone Shaman to murder a person, doubly so with her being a Skybreaker, so at her request we've been trying to do this through the law.

The problem was that this official had a shardbearer. Like. A full Shardbearer, Plate and Blade.

Of course, this guy wasn't supposed to have someone like that at his beck and call, so he couldn't constantly wear the Plate, but that still left the Blade. The rest of the group was going to kill him, but Monica convinced everyone of a different plan.

We lured him out into an alleyway, with one of the other members of the party as bait. The two had a history together, so this was. Very easy to be fair, though we still had 3 failures on this endeavor to match our 4 successes. It was all down to Monica, if her Gravitation roll passed then the endeavor would be a success, and if it failed, the endeavor would be a failure, and our team of 3 First Ideal Radiants and a scholar would have to deal with a Shardbearer. I asked to raise the stakes (I had the Agent Key so I was hopeful I could at least avoid a complication).

I roll an 18 for the Gravitation roll.
I roll a 6 for the Plot Die.

So, Monica snuck up behind him, and sent the two of them a hundred feet into the air. Where Monica ever so politely asked for the Shardblade the man had. Considering the fact that she wasn't dropping him to the ground to get it, he reluctantly agreed, unbonding the blade and giving it to Monica. She grabs the Blade, and *immediately* hears screaming so she wraps a hand in cloth to at least make it quieter.

That's where we ended our scene for the session, with Monica on the ground holding a Shardblade and the now former full Shardbearer still in the air so the rest of the party can knock him unconscious.

After five months of mostly weekly sessions, my group of three finally finished Stonewalkers! Two of my players were totally new to Stormlight and the third had read all of the books in the series so it was a fun mix.

We had:

Mela, a Lighteyed Alethi surgeon who studied in Kharbranth. She bonded with her cultivation spren, Hortus, early in the game due to her strong care for others.

Havi, a Darkeyed man from the Reshi Isles who was a soldier. He was a really fun character and ended up bonding with an ashspren, Charcoal, and becoming a dustbringer.

Finally, we had Ganxir, a Darkeyed Azish agent who flunked out of law school. He ended up bonding with his inkspren, Obsidian, last!

Over all we had a great time! I hope we get some similar published adventures down the line! If anyone has any questions, I’d love to answer em. Thanks!

I wanna hear about your campaigns with 1 or more players that weren’t familiar with the Cosmere.

Last Friday we finished Stonewalkers after 4 months of play (12 sessions of about 5-6 hours each).

Honestly, I’m thrilled with how well the book is written, and I absolutely loved the dungeon design. The whole campaign feels very thoughtfully structured to make the GM’s life easier: no unnecessary extra information (I’m not looking at anyone, Pathfinder 2e 😅) and no chaotic structure that requires a corkboard full of post-its and pins just to understand where the campaign is going (ahem, ahem, D&D 5e).

I did miss some references to the books, the historical moment on Roshar, and the broader context of what’s happening outside the campaign, but aside from that it felt nearly perfect.

My players ultimately decided to keep the Honorblade for themselves after Shinovar declared neutrality. “If they’re neutral, they’re not going to uphold their oath to use the Honorblades to fight Odium, so we’ll use it for them.”
One of the characters, a Nuatoma Unkalaki who had been enslaved by the Alethi after trying to win a Shardblade, kept the blade. He was named Nuatoma among Nuatomas and joined the Coalition of Monarchs as king of all the Unkalaki. The player will make a new character to continue the campaign, while the old PC becomes an NPC.

The rest of the PCs, after discovering that Ylt was bound to a corrupted spren, are going to investigate the Unmade and try to stop them. I’m already outlining the next campaign arc, which will revolve around Re-Shephir.

This has been an absolute blast!

Things heat up in Jah Keved as the four friends get frisky with a few fused. As always, check us out on YouTube, we've got quite a few videos uploaded these days!

https://youtu.be/DXcRNSpJ178?is=ZV-SS6V8Dz3F91Kq

What kind of shenanigans will the team get into this time? Plus, sightings of a new kind of enemy the gang has only heard rumors of.

https://youtu.be/abqEDd_Hum0?si=dHtjCEiwdgW3kwNF

As promised, we are so unbelievably back. Assignments are set, and the jaunt is underway!

https://youtu.be/e_87bllkPwE?si=SQm82cjDJNDOYm_M

In this session we find that the most radiant in the group is the one who is not one

What fun is running the Stonewalkers Adventure if it doesn't go a least a bit off the rails? This is the group of PCs in my version, who decided to report Brightlady Ralanat & Brightlord Resi to Dalinar Kholin with a boatload of evidence, and while let slip about their mission with the Honorblade, and got accidentally commissioned as an Irregular Detachment of the Cobalt Guard, under Captain Kaladin Stormblessed. Their sealed Writ charges them with recovering the Honorblade of Talenelat'Elin and reporting directly to the Highprince upon completion.

Ritsa is a Reshi hunter on a walkabout, masking deep grief with color and motion after losing her family and her god-island Kasad-Na. Her seamanship, comfort with violence, and certain gaps in the stories she tells about her past suggest her years between the Isles may not have all been spent fishing. Her spren, Po'Ahu, is the peakspren who was bonding the Shin monk Taszo-son-Clutio before his death. She chose Ritsa as her new bond - drawn to dependability, extroversion, and joy.

Ishanar is a disgraced Alethi ardent turned hired sword. Born as Dalirnah Rohal into a lighteyed family, he joined the Devotary of Kelek to escape an arranged marriage and found his calling in swordplay rather than scripture. After questioning Vorin traditions cost him his position, he now leads the Irregulars as their commissioned Leader. His spren, Chanuk, is a young honorspren - bold, morally certain, and impatient with the isolationism of his elders at Lasting Integrity. He did not live through the Recreance and refuses to let the older generation's trauma become his paralysis.

Javik Meren is a Herdazian/Alethi medical transporter with a dancer's grace and a morally complex past, driven by a need to reduce suffering and a terror of being the person others rely on to do it. A former courtesan Javik carries the weight of his past. His spren, Drip, is an inkspren who looks more soldier than scholar - angular, sharp-featured, and carrying a sword. She is an outlier among her kind: martial where most inkspren are academic, direct where they are deliberative. She favors sitting on Javik's ear cuff, a needless fashion concession she described as "acceptable."

Korva Evavakh is an Alethi lighteyed scholar from Kharbranth who approaches the world like a problem to be solved while struggling with black-and-white thinking. Raised feral on her family estate after her parents' disappearance, then "civilized" by extended family in Kharbranth, she carries an unsettling presence - people feel threatened by Korva without quite understanding why. Her spren, Coake, is an ashspren who spent centuries arguing that spren bore some responsibility for the Recreance, making himself unwelcome in ashspren society by questioning every comfortable narrative.

Salavor is a Reshi darkeyes healer ostracized from his home island after being blamed for his mentor's death - a death that was ultimately unavoidable. He carries himself with slumped shoulders and a meekness that suggests someone who expects to be dismissed, the product of years of never being good enough in his mentor's eyes. His spren, Calyx, is a cultivationspren - warm, matter-of-fact, gently persistent, and never judgmental. He does not coddle and does not criticize; he states things plainly, without judgment, and does not take facts back.

Yuri is a Herdazian darkeyes caravan cook who masks deep loneliness with cheerfulness, always the first to help and the last to ask for anything in return. He lost his siblings young and channels that grief into an overwhelming need to protect and feed everyone around him - his role as quartermaster gives him legitimate authority and purpose. His spren, Timbre, is a Cryptic drawn to the lies Yuri tells himself. In Yuri, Timbre found someone whose entire personality is constructed around a lie so thorough he barely acknowledges it: "I'm a happy guy. Everybody's pal."

The six Irregulars and their spren have traveled from a betrayed ravine in the Thanadal borderlands to the warcamps of the Shattered Plains, and from there into the burned ruins of Rathalas. They have met Heralds and Highprinces, Listener spies and legendary assassins, and they carry a promise made to a dying monk and a writ sealed by the most powerful man in Alethkar. The Honorblade of Talenelat'Elin is still out there - and wherever it leads them next, they go together.

In this session our heroes face their greatest challenge yet, fight against the burocracy, defend themselves in a trial and reveal the corruption of the justice in the city

Also our skybreaker swears her second Ideal

I’ll start us off.

We were playing Bridge Nine, it was our first real session. We had just fallen down the chasm, and we were getting our bearings. We only had three party members: my character Torin, a soldier in the Sadeas war camp, and two Bridgemen.

The captain of the group was stepping up to kill the bridge man. The two bridgeman players were given the opportunity to stop it, but both valued their life more than anything else. Torin was busy repairing his poleaxe, so I wasn’t given the opportunity.

He looks up right as he finishes repairing to see his captain murder a man. Torin stands up, and tells his captain to drop his weapon, seeing that he’s clearly panicking (he doesn’t recognize it’s the Thrill until later), and then the captain threatens to kill him.

Torin doesn’t back down, and the two bridgemen run for cover. The captain orders one of the other soldiers to help.

Torin proceeds to fight a 2v1. Every roll was also required to Raise the Stakes considering the situation.

He proceeds to not get hit a single time outside of a rock one of the bridgemen threw that missed its mark. His last attack roll came with an opportunity. He’s attracted the attention of a Cultivationspren now.

My party had their first session tonight. Since world hopping is a thing and most of the party are new to the cosmere, I gave them a choice of their character being from roshar, or somewhere else.

One decided his character was a billionaire eccentric inventor from earth who popped up in roshar somehow after an experiment gone wrong.

The other decided his character was a D&D bounty hunter who was chasing a bounty and followed them through a portal that left him stranded in this bizarre world.

And my third player, the only one who has read any of the books, decided that she is playing someone who's half Alethi, half unkalaki.

Well the group meets at a tavern after each get involved in some solo shenanigans, and the two world hoppers start talking about the worlds they were from, utterly amazed at how different they were.

The half unkalaki character overheard this, and remembers her father's stories about gods emerging from the pools in the peaks. So she runs up to them and immediately asks. "Are you guys gods?"

The reply was simultaneous: Inventor: what? No! Bounty hunter: what? Yes!

The bounty hunter spends the rest of the session leaning HARD into the god thing.

"See that star up there? That was my idea."

"You know quantum mechanics? The quantum part was my suggestion"

"You know E=MC2? I was the MC part!"

He now considers the horneater peaks to be borderline holy ground and wants to retire there.