A Humoural Theory of the Undead - Sanguine and Melancholic Undead

In the world of Sea Wolves undead are classified according to the science of the Four Humours. An Imperial scholar explains below:

 Any Imperial Scholar of note must be familiar with the prevailing Humoural Theory of the Undead. Whilst less civilised peoples may believe in such discredited theories as 'negative energy' or 'spontaneous generation' as their means of explaining the existence of the Undead, it is simple reason that the a serious excess or deficit in any one humour will lead to the rising or transformation into an undead creature. Whilst the animating humour determines much of the nature of the creature risen, all undead are united in that they recoil in horror from articles of the faith, and flee before the Eye of the Authority. Thus does the Authority mark them as anathema, to be cast down and destroyed.

Undead can, of course, be animated by sorcery, independent of these types. Mostly they are Melancholic or Choleric Undead, trapped in their remains by sorcery to do the bidding of apostate magi.


The Sanguine Undead - Undead of Blood. 
Known also as ghouls or vampirii sanguinis, sanguine undead arise from an excess of blood in the body. This malady can arise piecemeal - excessive unclean and lustful thoughts or the consumption of too much rich food over a life time - or through one horrifying act, such as the consumption of human flesh or blood.

They are characterised by being of the body. Even in their undead state, they will desire to despoil maidens, empty wine cellars and devour their enemies. Those of the labouring classes will become ghouls: hideous, bloated, grasping and corpulent, whose one joy is the heady devouring of human flesh, either fresh or rotten. Those of the gentry become sanguine vampires,  more elegantly drinking only the blood of their prey. Just as the gentry might command the labourer, oft the genteel sanguine vampire might enjoy the homage of several ghouls.

Being of flesh and blood, Sanguine undead can be vanquished like any mortal man by sword and shot and they have no specific weaknesses. However, their rapacious appetites  also grant them increased strength. As a ghoul gluts himself on flesh, his corpulent and vast body becomes ever more physically strong, until he can catch and tear open his victim with sheer might: breaking through sturdy doors and dragging some unfortunate out into the night in a single action. A sanguine vampire who has sampled a variety of vintages will take something from each: a thought, a memory, a quart-taste of their sorcerous bloodline. A well-fed sanguine vampire is the truest Renaissance man: a swordsman, poet, lover, sorcerer, rapist, cannibal and fiend.

Sanguine undead are not immortal and the Authority has marked them to expire like any mortal man, but the constant infusion of new vitae can keep them roving and hunting for spans of centuries. Troublingly, they can often conceal themselves among the human flock and prey from such a secluded position on all society.

The Melancholic Undead - Undead of Black BileWhen a figure with an excess of black bile passes, they can sometimes rise as Melancholic Undead. This can happen in minutes, weeks or centuries, and none can say what causes the disparity. Some posit that all will one day rise as Melancholic Undead. They are the silent and sure guardians of  forgotten tombs and in the ruins of lost cities. Some are animated bone, treading on calcified feet the perimeter of diminutive tombs. Others are mere spirit, their temporal remains now simply dust, drifting like leaves on the winds around the black and silent depths of their resting-place. We may posit that many thousands such undead occupy their dark, quiet sanctums, awaiting the Eschaton with the same silent patience as stone.

Despite their sure pensivity and seeming passivity, tomb-raiders, gentleman-archaeologists and the occasional desperate body-snatcher may find themselves the victim of Melancholic Undead. When disturbed they will make sure and silent war on interlopers, dragging antique weaponry after them in the dark to drive them from their resting-places. Truly, these undead are not unquiet until man makes them so.
Melancholic undead are hardy and difficult to destroy. Many have noted the broken and shattered remains of vanquished Melancholic undead dragging themselves together to renew their struggle with the living. Holy magic can cast them down, and destruction of the remains by fire or pulverising can end them permanently. Those with no mortal remains are oft anchored to an object of sentiment or importance: destroying this can scatter the apparition permanently.

"What cargo is on that ship?" System neutral random generator

As my Sea Wolves characters have finally got their hands on their very first ship and took to the waves seeking plunder, I needed a way to quickly generate the cargoes of any unfortunate merchant vessel they come across. This generator tries to combine a fair chance of the crushingly mundane for the demands of verisimilitude but during creation I did little to limit my sense of whimsy. ("nine barrels of bloody awful gin each containing a pickled monkey" remains my personal favourite.) Useful if you're running any kind of fantasy Age of Sail adventure, and if you're running something historical nix the supernatural stuff.

Monster Review - Vegepygmy [Volo's Guide to Monsters, p. 197]

The Vegepygmy is an Pulp-y goblin alternative with a dubious name, borne from one of those weird 2e Adventures which was also responsible for the Froghemoth (a much needed addition to a game bursting from every orifice with frog monsters). It has no mythical antecedent but is instead a strange crossbreed of science fiction and pulp tropes - a grubby fungus from beyond the stars looking to set down some mycelium in your heart. Bizarrely, the Vegepygmy has long dwelt in the rather short shadow of the Myconids and Blights. Competition is apparently fierce in the world of CR 1/4 plant men.

Art

A significant improvement on the hideous previous efforts this combines a daring pulp colour scheme with a distinctively alien design. It looks eerily moist and damp and you can imagine its turgid aroma. It moves towards the body horror implied in the description (a mold infested corpse turned ambulatory vector of infection) but doesn't quite dare get there. The 'Thorny' who shares the illustration overawes the Vegepgymy with its impressive vegetable malice, however. WotC's attempt to make Vegepygmies relatable, cute and Disneyfied through the inclusion of Kapalue in the Tomb of Annihilation dilute the scariness of the Vegepygmy further.

Purpose and Tactics 
The basic Vegepygmy is disposable low-level chaff. With an AC of 13 and 9 HP, even a level 1 party will quickly reduce a Vegepygmy to so much disappointing crudités. As a result, Vegepgymies work best as an ambushing force: emerging from the subterranean murk or some brooding overgrown jungle in force with their increased Stealth skill and Plant Camouflage ability. At higher levels, you can season this encounter salad with any number of plant-based allies: either using the Thornies and Vegepygmy chief here included, or Myconids, Blights, Dryads, Treants, Wood Woads and Shambling Mounds. The regeneration will be essentially meaningless in most battles for healing - even a level 1 character should easily dispatch a Vegepygmy in one or two hits. Its power - which will be great at higher levels - is that the Vegepygmies will keep getting up and into the scrap until the team does Fire, Cold or Necrotic damage to them. This will be trivial in a team with several casters but adds an element of puzzle monster to the first encounter with Vegepygmies for your group, helping to differentiate the Vegepygmy from the pack.

The Chief is a weightier foe and his regeneration is likely to keep him fighting for quite some time as a low-level boss monster. The one-off Spore attack is a potentially potent AoE that seems statistically most likely to fizzle as players are unlikely to fail the Constitution check persistently, but it helps jazz up what is otherwise a fairly mundane bruiser monster.

In terms of quests, Vegepygmy lore places them best as a threat to a local region or ecosystem. They could threaten a forest village with infection of them or their animals, or they could be raiding farmlands of other regions for resources of their own.

Fluff

The Vegeygmy fluff is an interesting throw-back to the more eclectic early days of D&D when the occasional spaceship or laser-pistol might slip in to Ye Olde Fantasy Europe without anyone batting an eyelid. Terrified of acknowledging this explicitly, the fluff is very coy about the origins of the Vegepygmy beyond the stars, and only implies that fact. Much of the fluff doesn't relate to something that is gameable: Vegepygmies possess little civilization and can't really communicate, which feels to me like they're being slowly pushed into the 'disposable bad guy not plot hook' category of monsters. In fact, the Vegepygmy is sold short by his own publicist who can't stop waxing lyrical about Russet Mold instead. I would throw all the fluff out and start again, making Vegepygmies either a force of nature with Druidic overtones or a kind of fungal zombie a la The Last of Us and The Girl With all the Gifts. Nothing in the fluff deals with the serious issue I have here: my players would find the Vegepygmy ridiculous. 
Plot Hooks
Grimlin's Trading Company are finding their grain infected with some kind of fungus, causing ergotism and madness. The bodies of those infected have disappeared, and Grimlin suspects some conspiracy against his corporation. They are at a loss as to where this infection comes from, but would like it investigated covertly without any damage to their trading reputation...

In the fetid topsoil of the top-most Underdark caverns a brutal arboreal war is being fought: saplings uprooted, fields despoiled, mulch stolen and plant-men slaughtered, as a Vegepygmy tribal confederation and Myconid Hive-Mind fight a bitter, all-encompassing war. The Vegepygmies, squeezed and battered, seek deliverance from their implacable foe...

Verdict: Despite attempts to give the Vegepygmy something unique to run with, it still feels like an own-brand riff on the more recognisable plant monsters.

Age of Sail Sailing and Ship Combat Rules 5e

With the advent of Ghosts of Saltmarsh, the good people at Wizards of the Coast have released their rules 'Of Ships and the Sea'. I think these rules are really problematic in their attempt to mesh 5e combat with a different game entirely (Why does a ship need an intelligence score if they're always going to have a 0? For the fringe case of a 'magic item possessed ship'?) and it turns the ships into video-games style centrally controlled robots, not the complex little societies and hives they were.

I tried to make a slightly different set aimed at an Age of Sail / Pirate themed campaign world, that of my new campaign Sea Wolves.  Give them a look and shoot me some feedback before they're put out to sea with my new players (almost all D&D virgins).

Ship Combat and Sailing Rules

Sea Wolves - Player Introduction

As I'm moving city in but a few weeks, I need to slow my current campaign (Brumaire) to a plodding, ambulatory speed, and take up a whole new campaign with some friends from university. Below is a draft player introduction for that campaign where all names and details may be subject to change.

Here is my attempt at bringing swashbuckling adventure into 5e: Sea Wolves.

Sea Combat Rules Random generators for Ship Cargo and encounters and weather at sea. You can view the current state of the player's fleet here.

Wizard Subclass - Demon-Summoner 'Goetia' Tradition [5e]

I've always felt that the niche of demonic summoner has long been denied to Player Characters. Whilst PCs can gleefully littler the battlefield with Fey, Undead, Elementals and 36 Dire Weasels, the much more august and storied tradition of summoning and binding Fiends is curiously absent. Xanathar's Guide tried to correct this by adding a slew of demonic summoning spells but almost all of them were hamstrung out of the gate (expensive material components or the summon creatures straight up ignoring you) as being strictly worse that conjuring an elemental or animal. Inspired by the Lesser Key of Solomon and the Ars Geotia, behold its fell majesty:

Goetia Tradition

Student of the Ars Geotica
Your extensive studies have made you highly adept at dealing with extraplanar creatures. Starting at second level, you may use your Intelligence modifier rather than your Charisma modifier when attempting to use Persuasion, Intimidation or Deception on beings with the Fiend, Celestial or Elemental subtype.

Knowledge of the Seals
You are adept at knowing the True Names of Celestials, Fiends and Elementals. Starting at second level, when summoning a variety of Fiend, Celestial or Elemental you have successfully summoned before, you know the True Name already. With a Fiend, Celestial or Elemental you have not previously summoned, you may make a Religion, History or Arcana check to determine whether you know the True Name of the creature - the DC is three times the creatures’ challenge rating.

Binder of Fiends
At sixth level, you add the Summon Lesser Demons spell to your spellbook if it was not there already. When casting the spell, you may choose from the options listed rather than roll a d6, and may choose which creatures appear.

Additionally, each summoned demon will have extra hit points equal to your Wizard level, and adds your proficiency bonus to attack rolls.

Infernal Contract

At tenth level, you add the Infernal Calling spell to your spellbook if it was not there already. You may ignore the component requirement for this spell once per long rest.

 

Penumbra of Royalty
Starting at 14th level, you can use magic to bring either Fiends, Celestials or Elementals under your control, even those summoned by other wizards. Choose either Fiends, Celestials or Elementals - this choice is permanent and cannot be changed. As an action, you can choose one creature of that type that you can see within 60 feet of you. That creature must make a Charisma saving throw against your wizard spell save DC. If it succeeds, you can’t use this feature on it again. If it fails, it becomes friendly to you and obeys your commands until you use this feature again.

Intelligent creatures are harder to control in this way. If the target has an Intelligence of 8 or higher, it has advantage on the saving throw. If it fails the saving throw and has an Intelligence of 12 or higher, it can repeat the saving throw at the end of every hour until it succeeds and breaks free.

Languages in Brumaire

...and hopefully some world-building. Brumaire players, pick accordingly:

Brummish - replaces Common
The mongrel speech that dominates in modern Brumaire, a chimerical combination of the different tongues of humans who settled in Brumaire and they Fey tongues indigenous to the world. Whilst it serves as the legal and political language of the Kingdom of Brumaire in recent years, it lacks a standardised form and is highly informed by local variations of accent and dialect - often native speakers of Brummish from the Western and Eastern extremities of the Kingdom feel the other might as well be speaking High Fey or Gobbledegook. With the development of the printing press and growth in literacy, there has begun to be a growth of a codified grammar and syntax in elite speakers of Brummish, and it has been considered in vogue for a few years amongst the Greatest Estate to imitate the Brummish dialect spoken in the capital province of Ildemaire. The average human citizen of the Kingdom has taken no notice of this. Insults and swearing derived from Gobbledegook are a common motif in Brummish, whereas words for arcane or legal concepts tend to derive from HIgh Fey. The written form of Brummish derives from runes used by the human settlers in Brumaire.

Lashkarish - replaces Orcish 
The camp-language of Marmelukes and soldiers which is a simplified, more practical version of Brummish deliberately engineered to drop many abstract concepts (freedom, honour, faith) in favour of practical reality. In battle, it tends of be information-rich in very few syllables, but struggles with nuance, shades of meaning and emotion -  almost all adjectives and adverbs in Lashkarish are imperfect borrowings from Brummish or Gobbledegook. Despite the intended spartan construction of this artificial language, it has grown to contain an inordinately large vocabulary of profanity, curses and scatalogical language - many lords of the Greatest Estate will swear only in Lashkarish.

High Fey  - replaces Sylvan
The traditional and culturally elevated speech of the Courts of Fey-kind, this lyrical language has a tight and highly prescriptive structure, and makes heavy use of metaphor, idiom and allusion. Reiterating traditional allusions or motifs is considered highly prestigious whilst originality of speech is considered to debase the language. This makes the language difficult to translate, read or write and it is somewhat impractical for daily use, but in retains its position as the pre-eminent language of diplomacy, literature and law in the Courts, despite having no written form. In fact, their prescriptive, highly structured nature tends to make it easy to remember lengthy epic compositions or legal texts from memory - a highly prestigious feat in the Fey courts.

Low Fey - replaces Elven
More common among rural and Wild Fey is Low Fey, a far less elevated language which retains much of the language of High Fey but greatly simplifies the complex grammatical structures and loses much of the different conjugations relating to status, social relationships or idiomatic motifs. It even founds use among the Fey courts as a language of everyday life and mundane interactions.

Gutter Fey  or Craft Fey- replaces Dwarven
This is the urban language of Fey who are mostly acclimatised to living amongst the humans of Brumaire - it derives most of its lexis from High Fey but borrows the simpler and freer grammar of Brummish to make for a more accessible language for the masses. Many Brummish words for technical or mechanical concepts derive from Gutter Fey, and most mechanical or craft manuals are published in this language by the highly industrious Dwarven communities in major cities, who have rapidly capitalised on the printing press and their own monopolistic influence on many craft-guilds to corner that market. This is the holy language of the cult of  Myrioi, Lady Progress.

Jotunnish - replaces Giantish
The shaggy haired giants are not technically Fey, thought many of them accept the sovereignty of the Courts, and have been roughly intergrated into Fey society or live wild in places distant from human habitation. Their own speech of Jotunnish is a rapidly dying language as distinct Giant communities become rarer and rarer, and much of their oral tradition is being increasingly lost.

Gobbledegook - replaces Goblin
The language of Goblin tribes, initially a dialect of Low Fey, which the Goblin tribes have retained and cultivated as a signifier of their seperation from human settlements and the traditional power structures of the Fey Courts. A language of extravagant bombast and hyperbole where many sounds are produced only out of one side of the mouth or with a distinctive clicking of tongue-on-fang. This makes it an extremely difficult language for most other races to master, which is a source of much pride for Goblinkind.