Day 04

We’re back to the charcoal dice, so I’m guessing we’re going to at least get a charcoal set. Based on last year it’s looking like one charcoal set and one bloody metal set. But it could be a misdirect! (After all, we’re dealing with Krampus here!) Maybe one or both of these are in the random dice camp. Odds are low of that, but we’re too early in the calendar to know for sure. Let’s look at today’s die!

Day 03

What’s always fun about the early days in the Dice Envy Advent Calendar is that I don’t yet know which dice are part of sets and which dice are standalone dice. Looking back at last year’s calendar there was one Dice Envy Special (meaning chonky d20, chonky d6, and infinity d4), one 8-piece set, 6 random dice (including 3 d12s - so it turns out to be easy to do a Daggerhart hope/fear with those), and a Wee Lads set. So as I opened up today’s flap, I was curious to see what I would get.

Day 02

Krampus seems to be tied to a purple theme. I’m not sure I’d consider purple to be the opposite of red, but who knows? Maybe it’s an inversion of purple being a royal color? As far as I can remember, this isn’t just a Dice Envy thing - I’ve seen Krampus associated with purple elsewhere. All this to say, I expected purple dice and I was not disappointed.

I wasn’t sure I was going to get Dice Envy’s 2025 Dice Advent Calendar. I had a blast opening each day last year, but, as you can see, I don’t really need any more dice:

But then Dice Envy went and got creative by releasing both a Krampus and a Santa box. I was very curious what interpretation Dice Envy might have a for an “evil” Christmas dice advent calendar. After all, last year had lots of Christmas-y dice like the ones I called Elsa Blue or the 12 days of Christmas d12. Enough preamble, let’s go!

For people who are new to TTRPGs (especially d20 games like D&D, Pathfinder, or Tales of the Valiant), it’s hard to know how long a story, or campaign, should be. Newbies only have two examples: Actual Plays on YouTube and Twitch or the campaign books published by Wizards of the Coast, Paizo, and Kobold Press. Campaigns published for 5e tend to be (in my experience) 8-12 adventures long. The time required for any given tale to finish a campaign depends on how long each session is. (At the fastest - one session per adventure you’re looking at about a year to finish the campaign) Alternatively, looking to Critical Role as an example finds the gang playing campaigns (Vox Machina, Mighty Nein, Bells Hells) that are years long each. This is why I subtitled the post “A Different Kind of Mercer Effect” (in reference to the original Mercer effect - where inexperienced GMs try to mimic his voices, accents, and GM style) I do know that there are other campaigns that go for a long time - including the GRRM campaign that led to Wild Cards, but most new TTRPG players and GMs will have more of a chance of having come to the game after having seen Critical Role vs those other examples.

Story

After defeating the giant, The Pyros broke up. Scrabble joined a pirate ship (the Flying Harpy) at Messori Harbor. On the ship Scrabble met Flint, The Red Moon Reaver. They engaged in some pirating off the coast of the Magocracy of Allain. After a year they have found themselves at pirating the Nieder Straits. Scrabble and Flint are friendly, but not close friends; they work together well. The Flying Harpy attacked a research vessel and Treb and the rest of the crew of the research vessel. Treb was just on the research vessel to get away from his past so he signs the book and joins the crew of The Flying Harpy. Treb is at the bottom rung of the crew as the newest member. The ship has pulled into port at Stannisgard and the crew is on shore leave.

Gameplay

As the crew leaves Mossbeard’s forest near The Smithy, Jackal looks up and sees a Ratatosk in the trees. It jumps down in front of them and it’s wearing a uniform and has a cylindrical container on its back. It casts a verbal and somatic spell to identify which of the heroes is Appaluna. As she glows, he knows to give her the letter.

She reads the letter from her patron inviting her to the palace of Countess Levosu, mentioning that she needs to come right away, and it tells her to go via the River Styx and also includes the fare for 3 folks to ride. Appaluna finds a dwarf within The Smithy and asks how to get to the River Styx. She’s told to go to the Five Ways Bridge. When they get there they see a few piers on the banks near the bridge. There’s a robed man with a bluish tinge to his skin on a gondola-style boat. They pay for passage and find out his name is Thomas.

Gameplay

(started off with the following flavor-text)

“Ariana, as you look around at this verdant forest you’ve entered by the use of the Portal Key that belonged to your parents, you feel a deeper connection than you’ve ever felt ever since you chose to become a Leaf druid after becoming an adult. It is not just an ancient forest, but it also has a certain vitality and magical quality you’ve never felt before.”