I really like the three stage effect. Powerful, evocative, and can be used to structure the whole campaign around. The 'curse' spell in Warhammer is even weaker, but could be much more thematic. It adds a permanent -1 modifier to all your stats. This means that it will make you fail in these clutch moments, but unfortunately, it also means it comes into play exceedingly rarely.
Shadow Steel definitely has a lot of potential to be expanded upon especially as magic items. I personally am imagining a sword that reduces hp or a ring that can give darkvision or the like. I am really excited to see where Grim Hollow goes next
This is absolutely one of the best D&D channels on TH-cam. I pray that some day you get the recognition you deserve. I see hundreds of thousands of subscribers in your future (I’m a divination wizard main, trust me)
One thing I did with curses in my current campaign is to have the big bad show up at the beginning and mark the players. This "curse" levels up after certain things happen (you can make it whatever, I made it level up after x uses). The mark would give them new abilities down the road. At first it was just positives and no down sides. After the curse got to level 5 there was now added downsides. Something like the power was a bit stronger and out of your control when us used the curse power this time and you did psychic damage to a nearby NPC (chosen by DM of course). Or now that the mark gives off enough power, it can be detected by an ancient order meant to stop the beast and all of its followers that bear the mark. Now the player is hunted by this order and they may show up randomly. Furthermore I didn't like the idea of remove curse just ending this, so I decided that remove curse would work, but it had to be cast at 5th level or higher and even then, it would only remove 1 stage of the curse and would take such a toll on the player that they would fall unconscious. I love curses and hope to steal some ideas from this video implement! Thanks for the awesome video as always!
Curses have really needed a buff to make them more narratively meaningful. This is so much cooler! Glad to see the community picking up the slack with creativity.
I think it’s fun (and useful?) to think of curses as basically really long term puzzles, and rather than just a normal debuff a curse is more a set of rules or a bad situation that does usually have a “solve” traditionally with a moral undertone
I love this idea - curses should be strange, potent and terrifying manifestations of the most intense malice and hatred born by the caster against the target. In mythology all over the world, curses are no small thing that can be easily reversed or countered. Many classic monsters of folklore find their origin in curses, most obviously the werewolf, since the original folkloric lycanthrope was not created by being bitten by another werewolf but rather was either someone who used magical artefacts like an enchanted wolf pelt to deliberately change their form, or they were the target of a curse that imposed a bestial nature upon them, sometimes as a punishment for terrible crimes or monstrously immoral actions, as was the case in ancient Greek mythology where King Lycaon of Arcadia, along with his sons, was cursed to turn into a wolf because, depending on the version of the myth you follow, he either sacrificed a child in one of Zeus' temples and was punished with a transformative curse, or because Zeus visited him in the form of a man and Lycaon, aware of the deception, wanted to test the limits of Zeus' power and knowledge as a god, and so murdered a Molossian hostage he held and served the man's entrails to Zeus in a meal. Zeus detected what Lycaon had done, and was so disgusted that he cursed Lycaon to become a wolf so that his outer form matched his inner character and savagery. That is the sort of role curses play in much classical mythology - as divine punishments, though often not fair ones, as the myth of Medusa (where a woman is turned into a gorgon like monster as punishment for being attacked and violated in one of Athena's temples despite the fact that she was the victim of someone else's crime) demonstrates. If all that can simply be reversed outright by a simple cleric spell, then it does somewhat undermine the dramatic potential of curses as a mechanic within a campaign. Beefing curses up and making them more potent, more unsettling, and far more difficult to stop has huge potential for roleplaying, storytelling, and with a little care and forethought, world building.
I've disliked curses in 5e so much I (and a bunch of other talented designers) redesigned them in one of our books. Built in prgoression system, how players can identify the curse and it's cure, and different methods/reasons for why you end up with the curse.
curses that have circumstantial triggers are fun (like walking under a ladder, or breaking a mirror) if you keep the trigger secret. kinda like being peppered with "spring heeled jack" every time you say the word "paint"
I also homebrewed a few curses that act as a segway to transformations, where in the curses culmination the sufferer is transformed into a monster, unless the meet the requirements to undergo the transformation - in which case they can avoid this fate and gain a transformation if they succed on a save. This kept a fair bit of added risk to the process of gaining transformations, as well as added a more organic way to introduce them.
@@GhostfireGaming Yeah, Lycanthropy was got me down thar road after a player got bit. But ive also made curses for the Abberant horror, Fiend, Vampire (which becams relevant soon after), Fey, primordial, spectre, and Wyrm.
@imer Pairing the curse rules with transformations is absolutely brilliant. Curses classically being associated with Lycanthropy certainly springs to mind, but you could also have a lot of fun with a vampire bite initiating a curse that links the vampire with their victim, forcing the victim to make wisdom saving throws to resist the influence of the vampire, that can reach them over any distance and through defences and wards, and might allow the vampire to use the afflicted party to advance its own ends. As the curse progresses through stages the victim becomes more and more inhuman, beginning to manifest vampiric attributes and hungers before 'dying' and then fully turning into a vampire spawn, unless they can resist the pull of the vampire that bit them and instead become an independent vampire in their own right or a Dhampir. You could so a similar thing for a devil or demon influencing a victim through some infernal mark.
I Backed Grim Hollow. Im running a Grim Hollow Campaign atm. Shadow steel involving the those harmed by daemons would be intriguing. A daemon possessing a mortal victim stands over its next target, whether the target me to kill, take fore ritualistic malpractice or too envelop in its evil. The exact nature of the spirits intent has never been known, however if the target manages to slay the Daemon in that moment. The weapon used can be broken down into 'Shadow Meld.' Molten Shadow material that can then be crafted into shadow ingots to mold Shadow weapons and armor for various effects.
My take on Remove Curse (except for the really simple curses, such as what Ben mentioned) is that it should be treated like an arcane interruption while the curative measures are administered. Without Remove Curse, the curative measures can't sink in and are overpowered by the curse. Similarly, without the cure, Remove Curse will interrupt for a short duration before the curse resumes at full strength.
I love this idea, using the remove curse spell seems like such a cop out for something as powerful as a curse should be. I’d love to see curses expanded as well as shadow steel and maybe other components. More cursed monsters and more curses would be great. I would also love to have a deeper dive into the lore of the gods, and the countries. I like homebrewing but I would love more of a solid base to build off of.
I love these curses and this will help me expand the use of curses in my game. A few years ago, I had to homebrew that Remove Curse only reveals the identity of the curse and the components to remove it. Once the party retrieves the components, they can perform a ritual and cast Remove Curse again to eliminate it. I also love the idea of shadow steel and hope to see you expand on it.
Shadowsteel fascinates me, I've been toying how to include something similar in my own setting. My brain likes to conflate with the concept of Blackstone from 40k, where it is this misunderstood material that certain people have learnt how to make it do things, but not why it does those things. Instincitvely it feels connected to the Shadowfell/Negative Energy plane, which then generates a question of does it have an anti-thesis object, something touched by the Positive Energy plane (tbh the Postive/negative energy planes are a weird concept)
Shadowsteel sounds like it has massive potential for world building in Grim Hollow, and I would encourage the mad geniuses at Ghostfire Games to explore more of its role in that setting. I especially like the idea of cursed, possibly semi-sentient shadow steel magic items and weapons that tempt a potential wielder with great power and all sorts of utility, but carry a sting in the tale that using, or even merely carrying them or being proximate to them, runs the risk of some sort of mystical addiction that could cause your character to draw ever more recklessly on that power until it consumes them. Perhaps such items cannot easily be destroyed but present a terrible threat so long as they remain at large in the world, leaving the party with a quest to try to destroy the almost indestructible before its evil devours them from within. If it was good enough for J R R Tolkien, I say it is good enough for a D&D campaign...
I'd love to see more expansion on Shadowsteel! When I was reading through the Grim Hollow books, I always thought it was super interesting. It would be cool to see more on it.
I have been doing the "cure component" for a long time and I love it! And because I like giving them options there will almost always an easier component that takes more time to get or a much harder one that can be obtained more quickly.
I like this, I love this. Yes. I want more! Shadowsteel sounds awesome! And these curses make curses bearable as a DM. Having a simple spell cast to remove seems anti-climatic.
I am prepping a Grim Hollow game currently and have bought and read all the books and Lairs of Etharis, and their monster bounty cards and can confidently say, it is absolutely one of the best things to release using 5e. Thank you for the content! More shadowsteel please
Your videos got me so hyped I rushed to get the Grim Hollow bundle soon after I discovered this awesome channel, but it's been more than a month and the order is still processing. I tried to contact Ghostfire Gaming with a mail, but got no answer. Is the wait normal? Sorry for asking here, I just can't wait for my books and would only appreciate to know things are moving forward. Keep up with the great work!
It took a long time for me to receive my bundle when I ordered too (about 2 months iirc). Depending on where you are in the world, it may take a while to ship
Would love to see more cuses. The ones in the main book are good, but I feel like a lot of their originality gets circumvented by them all turning the target into a monster. Would love to see more like the Arboreal Curse that have more variety for how they conclude. Just feels like a lot of them are super diverse with each of their three stages, only for them all to have basically the same ending.
In one grim hollow campaign, my barbarian had to get a cure component in a rural village. He ended up getting the highest pine cone by raging and chucking one he found on the ground into low orbit.
I think a campaign or several adventures centered on shadow steel or cursed monsters would be awesome. Some of the Best Witcher missions have been around cursed creatures and the stories surrounding them and a location.
I've been inspired to use more! We've been playing in Etharis for over 2 years now, and I must say the curses I dropped into regular campaign play have been the highlight (along with the transformations). The party ran into a night hag,... the bard spent the night,... was cursed with Lost Sentiments... began losing his memory... the party tracked down a murderer to a bell tower who turned out to be a wealthy patron now who had crossed the hag weeks ago, now metamorphosed into a multi armed Dream Whisper! Whilst being an epic battle the party also got a taste of what would be coming should they not be able to find the cure for their Bard companion. I believe he drank from the river Lethe in the afterlife along with a remove curse and components to have it removed at stage 3. Our Barbarian was not so fortunate, having been stabbed by a Rakshasa with a ShadowSteel Blade in it's final death throws and cursing him with Wrath,... being a Barbarian the party hasn't noticed much, but on day one of making his stage 3 save, he rolled a 1! Anything else and he would have continued in stage 2,... the components are difficult to find,...he's gone back the Hrist to find the Bard and Dwarf... while the rest of the party is on the Isle of Solstice trying to put an end to the Frost Maiden's Endless night (combined Icewind Campaign with Etharis)... I'm affraid our 13 level Babarian may not be so lucky,... and the Avatar of Slaughter may be unleashed upon the party when the least expect! Shadowsteel, Chardalyn (Frostmaiden) and Delirium (from Drakkenheim) I've put into somewhat of the same category,... all eldritch deep void space nether realm Lovecraftian kind of materials.. when used on an attack rolling under a 5 or when touched directly on the skin, a sanity check Wis DC 13 is required, a fail means a box of sanity is ticked off from 9 boxes... we have a few that are in the 3rd stage permanent madness (box 7 8 9) from the DMG! With great power, can come great madness! The Horror!!! Sanity-Corruption and Curses are a great mechanic which we all find even more enjoyable than hit points (well we use deadly damage, taking above 30% of you hp max after level 5 means, lost limbs, scalding burns, dazed and broken ribs and so on can make HP's fun as well) the point is... With the Valikan book out on Pdf now, what I would like to see would be Campaign Guides for the Burach Empire-Liesech, Ostoya, Castinella, and Charnault-Morencia including more art work and integration of the Etharis races and npcs as well as specific sub-classes, tranformations, diseases, and curses that capture the tropes in each region.
I'd like some more content for the Charneault Kingdom. Dark takes on classic fairy tale tropes is what Grim Hollow needs to focus more on after Aberrant Horrors, Vampires, and Norse Vikings.
I’m thinking that I would make certain curses require a higher level Remove Curse, especially from more powerful monsters. Or some other method other than the Remove Curse spell. Imagine if to the player’s surprise, the rogue cursed with the greed of the dragon isn’t affected by Remove Curse, but by something else, like perhaps willingly giving up their entire hoard, or making peace with the fact that money never fills voids. Or seeking forgiveness from the dragon that cursed them. Or perhaps a curse cannot be removed, it’s something the cursed must learn to live with, kinda like Eda from The Owl House. But by the end of the series, the cast can be split into two camps: Characters who have learned to live with their curses, make peace with them, and found happiness, and characters who succumbed to their curses, and paid the price, with Belos having fallen prey to the curse of hatred and ego.
This video brushes against the fundamental problem with curses in D&D, one that's dated all the way back to BECMI and AD&D with lycanthropy, which is that the instant curses become a part of the campaign, there has to be a reason why _remove curse_ can't just be cast on it. Whether it's Ravenloft or Grim Hollow, the first thing any horror or dark fantasy setting does is to establish rules why _remove curse_ doesn't work. But it goes even further than that, which is that a curse is a manifestation of magical powers that are subtle, fearsome, and far out of line with the established magic system. Curses work by their own logic, have devastating effects, and can be inflicted by people far out of their game-system power level (many curses cannot be cured even by a _wish_ and yet can be inflicted by characters of far lower level, possibly even by non-leveled NPCs depending on the setting, and can have devastating effects). There's always an inherent tension between the infliction, effects, and cure of a curse, and the way supernatural or magical abilities work in the rest of the game system (especially in 5e, which is scaled more than previous editions towards the characters being powerful and character death being rare and significant). Which makes the initial challenge of using curses like the ones in Grim Hollow to get past the idea that the DM is "cheating," whether it's in inflicting them on the players or making curing a cursed NPC the center of an adventure or series of adventures, because the curse mechanics bypass the characters' normal abilities and their clever use of those abilities to force the players to pursue a specific course of action to cure them. Obviously, in a horror campaign or dark fantasy it's easier to do this, because there's generally player buy-in to the themes of the campaign itself at the beginning, which usually include a low-magic setting and/or one where arcane magic is obscure, dangerous, and unpredictable rather than understood by rigorous magical science. But even then, the DM needs to be careful that curses are not used to railroad the players, because a mechanic that breaks the usual game rules is often one that puts the players on a fixed track of events to resolve it. (Since, for example, a Grim Hollow curse can be cast on a PC, even using the GH curse spell's rules as written, in such a way to inflict, "you must make a saving throw with a massive penalty, or a sequence of events begins that will eventually kill your character.") In that respect, a PC getting hit with a curse of this type is basically an inciting event, similar to "your characters wake up in a prison, wearing nothing but loincloths and with none of your equipment" and the DM needs to make sure that the players have options with how to deal with it.
This is a great idea for anyone that has murder hobos in their game maybe the spouse or the child of the parents that will brutally slaughtered by your murder hobo in your game goes to the most darkest individual that can get the hands on. They put a curse that's bound to the murderer's soul and you get together most grotesque way to kill them through that. Or the individual gets debuffs because it's reliving the moments of the murder through the eyes of the victim. And you can add them when is in campaigns of battle situations or when he's trying to make deals. Just random moments where the victim traumatic and horrible moments relived.
I would love to hear more about shadow steel! I like the mystery but would also like to hear more properties! I have an image of someone using a shadow steel blade cursing a party member with their dying breath because they are filled with hatred for some reason
I would like to learn how shadow steel is made. So, a quest can be made where the party has to forge a weapon from it to be able to slay a specific monster or abomination.
I would allow the Remove Curse spell, cast without a component, to temporarily alleviate some or all the effects of a curse, But I think I would also limit how often it can be cast on the afflicted person, say once per week or once per month.
Hi, kinda new here. Is Grim Hollow as a book still reliant on D&D 5e rules? Or is it a standalone new rule set? If I introduced this to 5e players, how easily would they pick it up?
Hey, welcome! Grim Hollow is a 5e supplement, with new player options and GM tools that help your D&D game capture a dark fantasy atmosphere. The new rules are entirely plug and play into 5e, so current 5e players would pick it up immediately.
I'm curious, and a bit nerdy, if you could do something to dinosaurs tat would make them more interesting to utilize. The only ideas I've ever had was something akin to Dino Crisi 3.
I really like shadow steel as a concept, an extremely powerful material that is man made and wrapped in mystery. One of my favourite npc’s collects rare materials to make weapons out of so I would love to see more about shadow steel in the future of grim hollow
Thats a cool idea! Using the Grim Hollow curse rules, Remove Curse without a cure component could reset the curse to its first stage, or just pull it back a stage, spending spell slots to buy time but not being a permanent solution. A nice slow burn of rising tension.
Can you guys please please please make playing cards of curses and what ways you can remove them if you don't have a cleric or a priest in the campaign world. I know for a fact a lot of people will pay a Kickstarter if you guys did that. Why not continue on from what you said, shadow steel is made from alchemist and dark means. Maybe the blood sacrifice is used to cool the dark material or even the blood of innocence strengthens it. If you have raw material of black steel, it's essentially half is potent compared to the refined version which more dark rituals and incantations and blood sacrifices are used to create it like for example you need a thousand souls to make one drop the philosopher's Stone.
A serious look at curses & boons could reveal how they played a huge part in Hindu mythology. Thats exactly what we do in "Khor The World of Many Portals". Our new world setting coming in 2025. A world where the gods have secrets & "sentient kind" seeks to uncover those. Curses are a thing in Khor!
I like to Homebrew certain things at my table and Oaths/Vows are serious business in my world, all of them. Paladins, wedding vows, oath of protection. At my table, if you break your oath of any kind, you are cursed, the severity depends on how intentional your oathbreaking is. If a Player intentionally picks to play a Paladin to just be an Oathbreaker, they are cursed with deformity, potential undeath, and gain weakness to Radiant damage, something that will feel like a real punishment. I do add ways to remove these special curses like redemption, fiendish pacts, lvl 9 Remove Curse, wish. An Oathbreaker suffering his curse will be prime pickings for a Devil to make a deal to help ease his pain. Roleplay your path to corruption and while you will be cursed, I'll make it easier because you actually roleplayed the fall. Those who failed to uphold their vows are a case by case. If it was truly beyond their power, the punishment is minor and can be removed with ease, while say a Knight who betrays his king will be punished with a mark of betrayal and everyone will know he's a traitor. Because Oaths and Vows are enforced by divine powers, upholding them also has advantages as well. Divine characters have a more calming presence, potentially giving them an advantage on Persuasion checks with relatively good natured people. Mages are met with awe and curiosity and may offer special trades, offering special material components you need. Warriors receive a discount at the smithy. Stuff like that. It's kind of like a reputation system and the oaths/vows helps you benefit from it.
One idea would be to massively expand on the role of Hags. They by definition should be unoffical overlords of the monster section of D&D or any fantasy setting, as the cursed forces of nature that create and control them. One way to do this: using the curse system of Grim Hollow, you can make it, so a creature that created from one the curses can be converted into a Hag using a ritual using a Shadowsteel caulderon and literally bake one into existence that will retain traits from it's previous existences. Another idea would be to expand on the Hag Coven system: a spellbook that is produced when 3 Hags pool their resources together that contains recipes for all kinds of spells, curses and items. Hell, outright make is os Shadowsteel is the product of a primordial Hag Coven.
The concept is very, very cool, but it looks like Grim Hollow got stuck on it. With all these supposedly very personal and special curses following the same repeating pattern, even the vanilla D&D curses feel more mysterious and magical to me. And while the ways of curing a curse are propably my favourite thing about all this, when it comes to preventing one it seems to be mostly just "cross your fingers and pray"
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I really like the three stage effect. Powerful, evocative, and can be used to structure the whole campaign around.
The 'curse' spell in Warhammer is even weaker, but could be much more thematic. It adds a permanent -1 modifier to all your stats. This means that it will make you fail in these clutch moments, but unfortunately, it also means it comes into play exceedingly rarely.
Shadow Steel definitely has a lot of potential to be expanded upon especially as magic items. I personally am imagining a sword that reduces hp or a ring that can give darkvision or the like. I am really excited to see where Grim Hollow goes next
This is absolutely one of the best D&D channels on TH-cam. I pray that some day you get the recognition you deserve. I see hundreds of thousands of subscribers in your future (I’m a divination wizard main, trust me)
Very much appreciate the kind words! 😄 Thanks for watching.
One thing I did with curses in my current campaign is to have the big bad show up at the beginning and mark the players. This "curse" levels up after certain things happen (you can make it whatever, I made it level up after x uses). The mark would give them new abilities down the road. At first it was just positives and no down sides. After the curse got to level 5 there was now added downsides. Something like the power was a bit stronger and out of your control when us used the curse power this time and you did psychic damage to a nearby NPC (chosen by DM of course). Or now that the mark gives off enough power, it can be detected by an ancient order meant to stop the beast and all of its followers that bear the mark. Now the player is hunted by this order and they may show up randomly.
Furthermore I didn't like the idea of remove curse just ending this, so I decided that remove curse would work, but it had to be cast at 5th level or higher and even then, it would only remove 1 stage of the curse and would take such a toll on the player that they would fall unconscious. I love curses and hope to steal some ideas from this video implement! Thanks for the awesome video as always!
Curses have really needed a buff to make them more narratively meaningful. This is so much cooler! Glad to see the community picking up the slack with creativity.
I think it’s fun (and useful?) to think of curses as basically really long term puzzles, and rather than just a normal debuff a curse is more a set of rules or a bad situation that does usually have a “solve” traditionally with a moral undertone
I love this idea - curses should be strange, potent and terrifying manifestations of the most intense malice and hatred born by the caster against the target. In mythology all over the world, curses are no small thing that can be easily reversed or countered. Many classic monsters of folklore find their origin in curses, most obviously the werewolf, since the original folkloric lycanthrope was not created by being bitten by another werewolf but rather was either someone who used magical artefacts like an enchanted wolf pelt to deliberately change their form, or they were the target of a curse that imposed a bestial nature upon them, sometimes as a punishment for terrible crimes or monstrously immoral actions, as was the case in ancient Greek mythology where King Lycaon of Arcadia, along with his sons, was cursed to turn into a wolf because, depending on the version of the myth you follow, he either sacrificed a child in one of Zeus' temples and was punished with a transformative curse, or because Zeus visited him in the form of a man and Lycaon, aware of the deception, wanted to test the limits of Zeus' power and knowledge as a god, and so murdered a Molossian hostage he held and served the man's entrails to Zeus in a meal. Zeus detected what Lycaon had done, and was so disgusted that he cursed Lycaon to become a wolf so that his outer form matched his inner character and savagery.
That is the sort of role curses play in much classical mythology - as divine punishments, though often not fair ones, as the myth of Medusa (where a woman is turned into a gorgon like monster as punishment for being attacked and violated in one of Athena's temples despite the fact that she was the victim of someone else's crime) demonstrates. If all that can simply be reversed outright by a simple cleric spell, then it does somewhat undermine the dramatic potential of curses as a mechanic within a campaign. Beefing curses up and making them more potent, more unsettling, and far more difficult to stop has huge potential for roleplaying, storytelling, and with a little care and forethought, world building.
I've disliked curses in 5e so much I (and a bunch of other talented designers) redesigned them in one of our books. Built in prgoression system, how players can identify the curse and it's cure, and different methods/reasons for why you end up with the curse.
What is this book you speak of? You have peaked my curiosity!
@@sarcthesheep8348 it's called Vecna's Book of Vile Darkness on the DMsGuild. Was a community project that a lot of great people were part of
Interesting!
"this is covered in my book, which i will not name"
curses that have circumstantial triggers are fun (like walking under a ladder, or breaking a mirror) if you keep the trigger secret. kinda like being peppered with "spring heeled jack" every time you say the word "paint"
I also homebrewed a few curses that act as a segway to transformations, where in the curses culmination the sufferer is transformed into a monster, unless the meet the requirements to undergo the transformation - in which case they can avoid this fate and gain a transformation if they succed on a save. This kept a fair bit of added risk to the process of gaining transformations, as well as added a more organic way to introduce them.
That’s really cool! Transformations (especially lycanthropy) marry with these curse rules really well.
@@GhostfireGaming Yeah, Lycanthropy was got me down thar road after a player got bit. But ive also made curses for the Abberant horror, Fiend, Vampire (which becams relevant soon after), Fey, primordial, spectre, and Wyrm.
@imer Pairing the curse rules with transformations is absolutely brilliant. Curses classically being associated with Lycanthropy certainly springs to mind, but you could also have a lot of fun with a vampire bite initiating a curse that links the vampire with their victim, forcing the victim to make wisdom saving throws to resist the influence of the vampire, that can reach them over any distance and through defences and wards, and might allow the vampire to use the afflicted party to advance its own ends. As the curse progresses through stages the victim becomes more and more inhuman, beginning to manifest vampiric attributes and hungers before 'dying' and then fully turning into a vampire spawn, unless they can resist the pull of the vampire that bit them and instead become an independent vampire in their own right or a Dhampir. You could so a similar thing for a devil or demon influencing a victim through some infernal mark.
I Backed Grim Hollow. Im running a Grim Hollow Campaign atm. Shadow steel involving the those harmed by daemons would be intriguing.
A daemon possessing a mortal victim stands over its next target, whether the target me to kill, take fore ritualistic malpractice or too envelop in its evil. The exact nature of the spirits intent has never been known, however if the target manages to slay the Daemon in that moment. The weapon used can be broken down into 'Shadow Meld.' Molten Shadow material that can then be crafted into shadow ingots to mold Shadow weapons and armor for various effects.
My take on Remove Curse (except for the really simple curses, such as what Ben mentioned) is that it should be treated like an arcane interruption while the curative measures are administered. Without Remove Curse, the curative measures can't sink in and are overpowered by the curse. Similarly, without the cure, Remove Curse will interrupt for a short duration before the curse resumes at full strength.
I love this idea, using the remove curse spell seems like such a cop out for something as powerful as a curse should be. I’d love to see curses expanded as well as shadow steel and maybe other components. More cursed monsters and more curses would be great.
I would also love to have a deeper dive into the lore of the gods, and the countries. I like homebrewing but I would love more of a solid base to build off of.
I love these curses and this will help me expand the use of curses in my game. A few years ago, I had to homebrew that Remove Curse only reveals the identity of the curse and the components to remove it. Once the party retrieves the components, they can perform a ritual and cast Remove Curse again to eliminate it. I also love the idea of shadow steel and hope to see you expand on it.
Shadowsteel fascinates me, I've been toying how to include something similar in my own setting. My brain likes to conflate with the concept of Blackstone from 40k, where it is this misunderstood material that certain people have learnt how to make it do things, but not why it does those things.
Instincitvely it feels connected to the Shadowfell/Negative Energy plane, which then generates a question of does it have an anti-thesis object, something touched by the Positive Energy plane (tbh the Postive/negative energy planes are a weird concept)
Absolutely expand the rules and lore regarding Shadowsteel. I love all your content!
Thanks so much!
Shadowsteel sounds like it has massive potential for world building in Grim Hollow, and I would encourage the mad geniuses at Ghostfire Games to explore more of its role in that setting. I especially like the idea of cursed, possibly semi-sentient shadow steel magic items and weapons that tempt a potential wielder with great power and all sorts of utility, but carry a sting in the tale that using, or even merely carrying them or being proximate to them, runs the risk of some sort of mystical addiction that could cause your character to draw ever more recklessly on that power until it consumes them. Perhaps such items cannot easily be destroyed but present a terrible threat so long as they remain at large in the world, leaving the party with a quest to try to destroy the almost indestructible before its evil devours them from within. If it was good enough for J R R Tolkien, I say it is good enough for a D&D campaign...
I love how you were aware of your thumbnail and continued it in the video title, I know it's a small thing but well played
I love that you know the reference, too! 😄
Wow great job on this one Ben.
Appreciate you watching!
I'd love to see more expansion on Shadowsteel! When I was reading through the Grim Hollow books, I always thought it was super interesting. It would be cool to see more on it.
I have been doing the "cure component" for a long time and I love it! And because I like giving them options there will almost always an easier component that takes more time to get or a much harder one that can be obtained more quickly.
I’d love more lore on the shadow steel, but also more about the Netherworld. To me it feels so different from the 9 Hells, I’d like to learn more
I like this, I love this. Yes. I want more! Shadowsteel sounds awesome! And these curses make curses bearable as a DM. Having a simple spell cast to remove seems anti-climatic.
Man I love your content. I just wish I could get my players to agree to a dark campaign like this.
I am prepping a Grim Hollow game currently and have bought and read all the books and Lairs of Etharis, and their monster bounty cards and can confidently say, it is absolutely one of the best things to release using 5e. Thank you for the content! More shadowsteel please
Your videos got me so hyped I rushed to get the Grim Hollow bundle soon after I discovered this awesome channel, but it's been more than a month and the order is still processing.
I tried to contact Ghostfire Gaming with a mail, but got no answer. Is the wait normal?
Sorry for asking here, I just can't wait for my books and would only appreciate to know things are moving forward.
Keep up with the great work!
It took a long time for me to receive my bundle when I ordered too (about 2 months iirc). Depending on where you are in the world, it may take a while to ship
I definitely want to know more about Shadow Steel!
Good video, im making a campaign with heavy religious and occult tones, and this video helps a lot
Glad we could help! Thanks for watching.
Would love to see more cuses. The ones in the main book are good, but I feel like a lot of their originality gets circumvented by them all turning the target into a monster. Would love to see more like the Arboreal Curse that have more variety for how they conclude. Just feels like a lot of them are super diverse with each of their three stages, only for them all to have basically the same ending.
In one grim hollow campaign, my barbarian had to get a cure component in a rural village. He ended up getting the highest pine cone by raging and chucking one he found on the ground into low orbit.
I think a campaign or several adventures centered on shadow steel or cursed monsters would be awesome. Some of the Best Witcher missions have been around cursed creatures and the stories surrounding them and a location.
I've been inspired to use more! We've been playing in Etharis for over 2 years now, and I must say the curses I dropped into regular campaign play have been the highlight (along with the transformations). The party ran into a night hag,... the bard spent the night,... was cursed with Lost Sentiments... began losing his memory... the party tracked down a murderer to a bell tower who turned out to be a wealthy patron now who had crossed the hag weeks ago, now metamorphosed into a multi armed Dream Whisper! Whilst being an epic battle the party also got a taste of what would be coming should they not be able to find the cure for their Bard companion. I believe he drank from the river Lethe in the afterlife along with a remove curse and components to have it removed at stage 3.
Our Barbarian was not so fortunate, having been stabbed by a Rakshasa with a ShadowSteel Blade in it's final death throws and cursing him with Wrath,... being a Barbarian the party hasn't noticed much, but on day one of making his stage 3 save, he rolled a 1! Anything else and he would have continued in stage 2,... the components are difficult to find,...he's gone back the Hrist to find the Bard and Dwarf... while the rest of the party is on the Isle of Solstice trying to put an end to the Frost Maiden's Endless night (combined Icewind Campaign with Etharis)... I'm affraid our 13 level Babarian may not be so lucky,... and the Avatar of Slaughter may be unleashed upon the party when the least expect!
Shadowsteel, Chardalyn (Frostmaiden) and Delirium (from Drakkenheim) I've put into somewhat of the same category,... all eldritch deep void space nether realm Lovecraftian kind of materials.. when used on an attack rolling under a 5 or when touched directly on the skin, a sanity check Wis DC 13 is required, a fail means a box of sanity is ticked off from 9 boxes... we have a few that are in the 3rd stage permanent madness (box 7 8 9) from the DMG! With great power, can come great madness! The Horror!!!
Sanity-Corruption and Curses are a great mechanic which we all find even more enjoyable than hit points (well we use deadly damage, taking above 30% of you hp max after level 5 means, lost limbs, scalding burns, dazed and broken ribs and so on can make HP's fun as well)
the point is...
With the Valikan book out on Pdf now, what I would like to see would be Campaign Guides for the Burach Empire-Liesech, Ostoya, Castinella, and Charnault-Morencia including more art work and integration of the Etharis races and npcs as well as specific sub-classes, tranformations, diseases, and curses that capture the tropes in each region.
I'd like some more content for the Charneault Kingdom. Dark takes on classic fairy tale tropes is what Grim Hollow needs to focus more on after Aberrant Horrors, Vampires, and Norse Vikings.
I’m thinking that I would make certain curses require a higher level Remove Curse, especially from more powerful monsters. Or some other method other than the Remove Curse spell. Imagine if to the player’s surprise, the rogue cursed with the greed of the dragon isn’t affected by Remove Curse, but by something else, like perhaps willingly giving up their entire hoard, or making peace with the fact that money never fills voids. Or seeking forgiveness from the dragon that cursed them.
Or perhaps a curse cannot be removed, it’s something the cursed must learn to live with, kinda like Eda from The Owl House. But by the end of the series, the cast can be split into two camps: Characters who have learned to live with their curses, make peace with them, and found happiness, and characters who succumbed to their curses, and paid the price, with Belos having fallen prey to the curse of hatred and ego.
This video brushes against the fundamental problem with curses in D&D, one that's dated all the way back to BECMI and AD&D with lycanthropy, which is that the instant curses become a part of the campaign, there has to be a reason why _remove curse_ can't just be cast on it. Whether it's Ravenloft or Grim Hollow, the first thing any horror or dark fantasy setting does is to establish rules why _remove curse_ doesn't work. But it goes even further than that, which is that a curse is a manifestation of magical powers that are subtle, fearsome, and far out of line with the established magic system. Curses work by their own logic, have devastating effects, and can be inflicted by people far out of their game-system power level (many curses cannot be cured even by a _wish_ and yet can be inflicted by characters of far lower level, possibly even by non-leveled NPCs depending on the setting, and can have devastating effects). There's always an inherent tension between the infliction, effects, and cure of a curse, and the way supernatural or magical abilities work in the rest of the game system (especially in 5e, which is scaled more than previous editions towards the characters being powerful and character death being rare and significant). Which makes the initial challenge of using curses like the ones in Grim Hollow to get past the idea that the DM is "cheating," whether it's in inflicting them on the players or making curing a cursed NPC the center of an adventure or series of adventures, because the curse mechanics bypass the characters' normal abilities and their clever use of those abilities to force the players to pursue a specific course of action to cure them.
Obviously, in a horror campaign or dark fantasy it's easier to do this, because there's generally player buy-in to the themes of the campaign itself at the beginning, which usually include a low-magic setting and/or one where arcane magic is obscure, dangerous, and unpredictable rather than understood by rigorous magical science. But even then, the DM needs to be careful that curses are not used to railroad the players, because a mechanic that breaks the usual game rules is often one that puts the players on a fixed track of events to resolve it. (Since, for example, a Grim Hollow curse can be cast on a PC, even using the GH curse spell's rules as written, in such a way to inflict, "you must make a saving throw with a massive penalty, or a sequence of events begins that will eventually kill your character.") In that respect, a PC getting hit with a curse of this type is basically an inciting event, similar to "your characters wake up in a prison, wearing nothing but loincloths and with none of your equipment" and the DM needs to make sure that the players have options with how to deal with it.
This is a great idea for anyone that has murder hobos in their game maybe the spouse or the child of the parents that will brutally slaughtered by your murder hobo in your game goes to the most darkest individual that can get the hands on. They put a curse that's bound to the murderer's soul and you get together most grotesque way to kill them through that. Or the individual gets debuffs because it's reliving the moments of the murder through the eyes of the victim. And you can add them when is in campaigns of battle situations or when he's trying to make deals. Just random moments where the victim traumatic and horrible moments relived.
I would love to hear more about shadow steel! I like the mystery but would also like to hear more properties! I have an image of someone using a shadow steel blade cursing a party member with their dying breath because they are filled with hatred for some reason
I would like to learn how shadow steel is made. So, a quest can be made where the party has to forge a weapon from it to be able to slay a specific monster or abomination.
I would allow the Remove Curse spell, cast without a component, to temporarily alleviate some or all the effects of a curse, But I think I would also limit how often it can be cast on the afflicted person, say once per week or once per month.
DM’s Lair has a good video and supplement about this too
Woo, I woke up at the right moment for a new video
Will the other Grimhollow books make it onto DnD beyond?
We hope so! 🤞 We'd love to see it.
Hi, kinda new here. Is Grim Hollow as a book still reliant on D&D 5e rules? Or is it a standalone new rule set?
If I introduced this to 5e players, how easily would they pick it up?
Hey, welcome! Grim Hollow is a 5e supplement, with new player options and GM tools that help your D&D game capture a dark fantasy atmosphere. The new rules are entirely plug and play into 5e, so current 5e players would pick it up immediately.
I'm curious, and a bit nerdy, if you could do something to dinosaurs tat would make them more interesting to utilize. The only ideas I've ever had was something akin to Dino Crisi 3.
Shadowsteel comes from the items buried with the dead who carry them in to the afterlife in Talislanta...
I really like shadow steel as a concept, an extremely powerful material that is man made and wrapped in mystery. One of my favourite npc’s collects rare materials to make weapons out of so I would love to see more about shadow steel in the future of grim hollow
You can allow the curse to be removed then have it slowly reappear over an hour
Thats a cool idea! Using the Grim Hollow curse rules, Remove Curse without a cure component could reset the curse to its first stage, or just pull it back a stage, spending spell slots to buy time but not being a permanent solution. A nice slow burn of rising tension.
The subscribe pitch alone was worth the like. :D
We do our best! 😄
Yeah. Didn’t even attempt to resist that one.
Shadow steel reminds me of Dark steel from 3.5, I miss the old materials. More for martials is good, quality over quantity please in regards to items.
Can you guys please please please make playing cards of curses and what ways you can remove them if you don't have a cleric or a priest in the campaign world.
I know for a fact a lot of people will pay a Kickstarter if you guys did that.
Why not continue on from what you said, shadow steel is made from alchemist and dark means. Maybe the blood sacrifice is used to cool the dark material or even the blood of innocence strengthens it. If you have raw material of black steel, it's essentially half is potent compared to the refined version which more dark rituals and incantations and blood sacrifices are used to create it like for example you need a thousand souls to make one drop the philosopher's Stone.
A serious look at curses & boons could reveal how they played a huge part in Hindu mythology. Thats exactly what we do in "Khor The World of Many Portals". Our new world setting coming in 2025. A world where the gods have secrets & "sentient kind" seeks to uncover those. Curses are a thing in Khor!
Question of the video: I'd rather shadow steel stays a mystery for each DM to define themselves.
I like to Homebrew certain things at my table and Oaths/Vows are serious business in my world, all of them. Paladins, wedding vows, oath of protection. At my table, if you break your oath of any kind, you are cursed, the severity depends on how intentional your oathbreaking is. If a Player intentionally picks to play a Paladin to just be an Oathbreaker, they are cursed with deformity, potential undeath, and gain weakness to Radiant damage, something that will feel like a real punishment. I do add ways to remove these special curses like redemption, fiendish pacts, lvl 9 Remove Curse, wish. An Oathbreaker suffering his curse will be prime pickings for a Devil to make a deal to help ease his pain. Roleplay your path to corruption and while you will be cursed, I'll make it easier because you actually roleplayed the fall.
Those who failed to uphold their vows are a case by case. If it was truly beyond their power, the punishment is minor and can be removed with ease, while say a Knight who betrays his king will be punished with a mark of betrayal and everyone will know he's a traitor.
Because Oaths and Vows are enforced by divine powers, upholding them also has advantages as well. Divine characters have a more calming presence, potentially giving them an advantage on Persuasion checks with relatively good natured people. Mages are met with awe and curiosity and may offer special trades, offering special material components you need. Warriors receive a discount at the smithy. Stuff like that. It's kind of like a reputation system and the oaths/vows helps you benefit from it.
Hey... I don't want to be that guy but... Ben is looking fit. Good job, if it's intentional
One idea would be to massively expand on the role of Hags. They by definition should be unoffical overlords of the monster section of D&D or any fantasy setting, as the cursed forces of nature that create and control them. One way to do this: using the curse system of Grim Hollow, you can make it, so a creature that created from one the curses can be converted into a Hag using a ritual using a Shadowsteel caulderon and literally bake one into existence that will retain traits from it's previous existences. Another idea would be to expand on the Hag Coven system: a spellbook that is produced when 3 Hags pool their resources together that contains recipes for all kinds of spells, curses and items. Hell, outright make is os Shadowsteel is the product of a primordial Hag Coven.
Stage 2, comment on video.
Goooooood! 😈
More shadow steel please!
Did someone said Shadowsteel ? Please tell more .
The concept is very, very cool, but it looks like Grim Hollow got stuck on it. With all these supposedly very personal and special curses following the same repeating pattern, even the vanilla D&D curses feel more mysterious and magical to me.
And while the ways of curing a curse are propably my favourite thing about all this, when it comes to preventing one it seems to be mostly just "cross your fingers and pray"