![]() The River Heralds want to protect it because they believe it’s just to dangerous to wield. The Legion of Dusk people believe it’s the secret to unlock true immortality. The Sun Empire want it because they pretty much consider it holy. There’s this artifact called the Immortal Sun and every faction wants to do something with it. So what can all these factions possibly have in common in order to tie in this setting? I’m glad you asked. Coalition is just a flashy word to describe the loosely affiliated pirate captains. They used to be sailors that tried to flee from the Legion of Dusk but, when they were driven away by the Sun Empire they decided to just become pirates. The paladins of the Legion of Dusk are vampires who (un)live to serve eternally and drink the blood of their enemies.Īnd, last but definitely not least, we have the Brazen Coalition. ![]() After conquering their continent they have decided to add Ixalan to their territory. They used to be the dominant faction in the continent before the Sun Empire rose to power. Then there are the River Heralds, who are merfolk nomads and seek to live in harmony with the land. They worship the sun and can control dinosaurs. There is the Sun Empire, which is native to the continent of Ixalan. The first thing we are introduced with is the factions in this world. Now add dinosaurs, pirates, ancient dungeons, and a couple of fantasy races and you have yourself a pretty interesting setting. There is a powerful native empire and a foreign conquering force. Ixalan seems to have a Mesoamerican flavor. Sadly, I didn’t get to attend the pre-release of Rivals of Ixalan and the deck I just finished constructing is sitting on the shelf, waiting to hopefully be played in about a month. I had the opportunity to play a bit with this set and I was very pleased. Since I don’t want to spend more time complaining about the absence of free time I’ll just move to the good part. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m really busy these days and I wanted to write this analysis sooner but I couldn’t. I am late to the party and I’m sorry about that. And in a pre-planned session, I’d also encourage players to create their own 4th-level characters in conjunction with the setting document and a bit of guidance about creating the initial bonds between them.With the release of the second Ixalan set, it was about time to get its Plane Shift supplement. If I run this again, I will probably drop the treasure token mechanic entirely, and roll (or choose) the extra encounters in advance. It would have been pretty easy for the main boss at the end to TPK them, I think, particularly since a few times I forgot to apply damage resistances. Partway through the fights, I decided to reduce the total HP of some monsters, though still within the stated ranges. With four of these characters, two fights each nearly did them in. ![]() (That mechanic doesn’t matter that much in a one-shot and probably works better in a shared campaign setting.) Several of the monsters illustrate the time-honored DM technique of relabeling an existing monster with a new name and art but the same stat block.īalance was tight. Locations and loot are named after specific cards from the Ixalan block, for example, and treasure tokens work something like inspiration for handing out magic items. The adventure itself leans really hard on its roots in MtG. For sure, have some less-important encounters that you can forego if time gets tight, but pick them in advance. However, in a convention setup, I don’t think random encounters make a lot of sense. It also meant that the needed story elements were already there: every character had already agreed to work together and had particular motivations for doing so. This makes the game work well for a convention setup, where players can just grab a character sheet, sit down, and start playing. As it turned out, they had a lot of fun exploring some archetypes they don’t typically play, like Wild Magic Sorcerers and Circle of the Land Druids! Since the adventure came out before the actual Plane Shift Ixalan setting document did, this let players have characters that matched the story and unique constraints of Ixalan when they couldn’t create them yet. My friends had mixed feelings about the pregenerated 4th-level characters, but they trusted me and dove in.
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