The world is old beyond the memory of all but the longest lived, and heroes who were once renowned for their selfless sacrifices and mighty deeds are long forgotten. The genius minstrel Wol Dreyfoot claimed to have been inspired by the many partial tales and snippets of longer stories held in the bardic college’s vaults as he composed his magnum opus, “Song of the Forgotten Hero”, nearly a century ago.

With hundreds of verses, the song tells the tale of Nymia over five acts and typically has an interlude after the third. The epic’s protagonist was a knight already known for her skills in battle and commitment to justice when her love was abducted. The song covers the many trials and adventures she faced trying to rescue him, and the powerful verses that describe her journey are filled with passion, fear, hope, victory, and loss. So long is the song that a full performance can last for several hours.

Using his fame and his position within the bard’s college, Wol ensured his epic was part of the final exam for admittance, and now generations of bards have trained to perfect it. For many of them, it has become customary to perform it a week after Longnight, during what used to be called the Feast of Memory. This much older celebration, dedicated to a now-obscure god of knowledge, has waned in popularity along with that particular faith, but many of its rituals have been rolled into the Feast of the Forgotten Hero.

During the first act, which describes the depths of the hero’s love, small honeyed grain cakes are passed among the crowd and shared between spouses and lovers. The second act is split between alternate verses where the hero is helped by the wise and good-hearted or impeded by fools or the wicked. This act is often extended to incorporate patrons, local figures—and of course visiting adventurers) exposing them to praise or ridicule, depending on the opinion of the performer.

At the close of the third act, the hero is at the gates of the underworld, having discovered that the goddess of that realm has seized her love in jealousy. She sits at the table of the satyr Caretus, eating old mutt on and vegetable stew accompanied by coarse bread. As the satyr complains of the poor fare, she replies with compliments and thanks for a last meal in the land of the living. As the bard pauses to refresh themselves during the interlude, it is traditional for the same stew and bread to be served to the listeners.

The fourth act is the most technically difficult to perform, as it requires the singer to shift styles several times, and the best bards also learn to sing in different voices. It sees the protagonist traverse the underworld, meeting countless heroes who have been forgotten and hearing fragments of their tales.

The final act is a rising crescendo of triumph as the hero returns to life with her love, but the end is tinged with sorrow: to escape the land of the dead, the hero had to give up all fame and renown, and is from that moment forth forever remembered as Nymia, an ancient word meaning ‘nameless.’

Game Mechanics

Those who attend a performance may be affected in the following ways:

• Romantic partners that share a cake gain a limited empathic sense. For the following month, while their partner is within 100 feet, a creature can spend a bonus action to understand the emotional state of their partner. At the Narrator’s discretion, strong emotions felt by one partner may be transmitted to the other during this time. Those who renounce their feelings in front of their partner three times can willfully dispel this effect, but doing so is thought to bring terrible luck for the next year and a day.
• Individuals mentioned in the second act as wise and good-hearted gain advantage on Persuasion checks for the next two days. Those described as fools or the wicked suffer disadvantage on Deception checks for the same period.
• Consuming the stew and bread during the performance grants a creature advantage on their next death saving throw made before the first day of summer.

Hearthenflame occurs on the night of the first new moon of winter and commemorates the bravery of Paneth, the celestial who legend holds brought knowledge of hearth and fire to mortals in direct defiance of the gods. When discovered he was transformed into a pig by the gods and then unknowingly cooked and eaten by the mortals to whom he had given the secrets.

In each settlement, a vast communal bonfire is prepared, the hollow at its center lined with oil-soaked silver birch bark. Taking on the role of Paneth, one member of each family dresses in a harlequin costume of red and yellow. Carrying a torch and a stone taken from their hearth (often carved with a family initial or symbol to make later identification easy), they march from their homes calling out the ritual chant “Hearthenflame! I bring hearthenflame!” as they travel to the bonfire.

As each arrives, they place their stone inside the pyre and form a ring around the stacked wood, holding their torches aloft. As the last of the sunlight fades from the sky, each throws their torch and the fire is lit signaling the celebrations can begin. Maintained throughout the night, the bonfire is used to cook a sacrificial pig, recalling Paneth’s punishment, though poorer communities or individual families celebrating abroad may instead burn wooden pig figurines. Communities often cook any food that cannot be stored through the winter, with generous supplies of ale and wine also typically made available. The latter is often used to toast the celestial and the gifts they gave humanity.

In the morning, as the flames are permitted to fade, each family reclaims their stone, hurrying it back home. It is said that the solidarity of the community warms the stones imbuing each with special magic, and if the stone is returned to the family hearth while still warm it will keep the deadly cold from that house all winter.

Game Mechanics

Once returned to a family hearth, the hearthenstone remains effective until it is removed, or for 1d3 + 1 months. Creatures who complete a long rest in such a building gain resistance to cold damage for the next 24 hours. Additionally, those who make a toast to Paneth during the feast gain an expertise die on their next Arcana, Culture, History, or Nature check (a creature can only gain this blessing once per year).

Places of darkness, oppressive heat, and air so thick with humidity it feels like you could drink it—jungles and other tropical rainforests are dangerous even before you encounter the wildlife that hunts even the hunters. Included here are a series of challenging environments for your players to encounter while moving through such an environment, though many would work well for dense forests of all climates.

Note: In some entries, challenges list the trait Dense Canopy, along with the alternate trait, Dense Undergrowth, allowing Narrators to tweak the exploration challenge to reflect the aspects of the forest. Rainforests, for example, are old growth forests featuring large, towering trees that block so much light that it is difficult for smaller plants to grow beneath them. Jungles, on the other hand, are younger forests, often on the edges of older forests and where natural effects or disasters have thinned the trees, meaning they have much thicker undergrowth.

Alternate Challenge Trait: Corrupt

Exploration challenges such as Maddening Twilight would be fitting places to introduce the Corruption mechanics, as seen in “Perverse Contamination: Corruption Mechanics” in Gate Pass Gazette Issue #20. Narrators who wish to do so can add the following trait or use it in place of the Cursed trait:

Corrupt. Upon entering the area, each adventurer must make a Constitution saving throw . On a failure, they suffer one level of corruption. At the end of each short or long rest in the area, each adventurer makes another Constitution saving throw, suffering an additional level of corruption on a failure.

Carnivorous Fish || Corpse Plant Stench || Follow the Waystones || Maddening Twilight || Perpetual Twilight || Sacred Garden of the Ancients || Treetop Bridge || Wilderness Garden

Alternative Challenges: Corrupting Twilight || Corrupted Garden of the Ancients

This article introduces the mechanic of rare skills to Level Up: Advanced Fifth Edition, and details four new rare skills, collectively known as the elemental skills. Mechanically, rare skills function exactly like normal skills except that a character can only attempt a rare skill check if a feature explicitly grants them access to the skill. (See the end of this article for new features that grant access to rare skills.) A character with access to a rare skill is not necessarily proficient in it, but if they have access they may cultivate that skill like any other, such as choosing to gain proficiency in a rare skill when a feature offers the chance to gain proficiency in an unspecified skill. Narrators can give rare skills to monsters and NPCs without changing their CR.

Skill-Specific Rules

The following rules apply to the elemental skills introduced in this article, but not necessarily to rare skills introduced elsewhere.

• Under normal conditions, you may only use these skills to affect a target or area no greater than a 5-foot cube and no more than 30 feet away from you, although you may sense beyond these limits on a particularly high roll. Doing so requires an action. You may only move an object you target up to 5 feet in any direction as an action.
• You must have a clear path (no total cover ) between you and the target or area you affect with these skills, and you must be able to see or otherwise know the precise location of the area or target you affect.
• Some environments may limit how you can use these skills. For instance, being in mid-flight high above the ground or standing on an ice floe would make geokinesis nearly impossible, strong winds may complicate aerokinesis or pyrokinesis, and hydrokinesis would be difficult in the desert.
• Effects created with these skills last until the start of your next turn if physical conditions would not otherwise support them (such as supporting a boulder in midair), although you may end them early at any time without an action. However, they persist if you use your action on the following turn to either maintain or further the effect (such as gradually moving a boulder across a chasm). However, doing so requires concentration like a spell, and the Narrator may call for a Constitution saving throw as per the rules for a forced march for each minute you maintain this concentration after the first.
• These skills are considered magical and cannot be used where magic is suppressed, such as in an antimagic field. Although they are not spells, they are considered cantrips for the purposes of counterspell , dispel magic , and similar magic.
• It is normally impossible to directly manipulate an unwilling creature’s breath, body heat, blood, bones, etc. using the skills in this article, not only because a clear line of sight is often unfeasible, but also because such elements take on a new essence when incorporated into a being with a creature type. This applies even to creatures such as elementals or constructs that may be entirely composed of a pure element. However, Narrators may rule that a willing creature can be affected by certain uses of these skills, such as using Pyrokinesis to warm a creature.

New Rare Skills

Under specific conditions, characters can gain proficiency in the following rare skills. Creatures can’t make a check for a special skill unless they have proficiency in it. Like all skills, the Narrator determines which ability score is called for in a given situation.

Aerokinesis. A character makes an Aerokinesis check to mystically attune to and manipulate the air, atmosphere, and potentially other air-adjacent phenomena such as sound and weather. The most commonly used ability score is Wisdom. A character might use Charisma to amplify their voice or Dexterity to manipulate a glider.

Specialties: odors, pressure and vacuums, sound, transportation, weather

Geokinesis. Geokinesis represents a character’s ability to mystically attune to and manipulate earth in the form of stone, sand, silt, clay, and potentially earth-adjacent materials such as metals or magma. The most commonly used ability score is Wisdom. A character might use Intelligence to identify a fake gemstone or Charisma to sculpt a statue.

Specialties: gems, magma, magnets, metals, mud, sand, seismic activity

Hydrokinesis. Hydrokinesis represents a character’s ability to mystically attune to and manipulate water, ice, and potentially other water-based substances such as acids and sap. The most commonly used ability score is Wisdom. A character might use Constitution to hold back a crashing wave for a long period of time or Intelligence to identify impurities in water.

Specialties: acids, condensation and freezing, dowsing, evaporation and melting, purification, sap

Pyrokinesis. Pyrokinesis represents a character’s ability to mystically produce, attune to, and manipulate fire and heat, and potentially other fire adjacent-phenomena such as light and lightning, at the Narrator’s discretion. The most commonly used ability score is Wisdom. A character might use Charisma to put on a pyrotechnic display or Intelligence to deduce how long an object will burn unassisted.

Specialties: heat, light, lightning, pyrotechnics, smoke

Example Ability Check DCs for Elemental Skills

Establishing Elemental Skill DCs

Rare skills offer alternative methods of approaching a problem, but these methods aren’t necessarily easier than conventional ones. Lifting a boulder with Geokinesis is just as hard as it is with Athletics and lighting a fire in a storm is impressive whether you rely on Survival or Pyrokinesis. When setting a DC for a rare skill, it is helpful to think of comparable means of accomplishing the same effect with mundane skills. Often, the DC should be the same.

Note that the DC is typically higher to interact with or manipulate a substance or phenomenon the further it is conceptually from the base element. For example, it is easier to warm an object with Pyrokinesis than it is with Aerokinesis, but it is more difficult to cool with Pyrokinesis than with Aerokinesis. Likewise, it is fairly easy to manipulate soil with Geokinesis, but harder to manipulate metal.

Elemental Ability Check Criticals

These tables apply to all of the elemental skills.

Critical Success

1. Breakthrough. Choose a specialty in the triggering skill closely associated with the intended effect. If this is your first time getting a critical success with that specialty, you have a key insight into its underlying essence. Write down the specialty. After you have rolled this result with the same skill three times, you permanently gain that specialty.

2. Effortless. For 1 minute, you can maintain effects caused by the triggering skill as a bonus action instead of an action. This does not apply to causing a new effect with the triggering skill.

3. Elemental Ward. You gain resistance to the energy type associated with your use of the triggering skill (such as acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage), as determined by the Narrator, for 1 hour.

4. Receptive Locale. For 24 hours, the range at which you can use the triggering skill doubles.

5. Restorative Energy. You regain 1d4 exertion points, a 1st-level spell slot, or 2 pact magic points. If you cannot benefit from this, reroll.

6. Unity of Substance and Soul. Until your next short or long rest , you can choose to use Wisdom for ability checks that would otherwise use Strength or Dexterity, or vice versa.

Critical Failure

1. Choke. For the next hour, When you make a check with the triggering skill and the d20 shows a natural result of more than 10, you must count the d20 result as being 10.

2. Collateral Damage. A creature or object of the Narrator’s choice within range takes 1d4 damage of a type associated with the triggering skill, (such as acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage) as determined by the Narrator.

3. Lose Center. You channel power in ways you are unprepared to handle and become confused for until the end of your next turn as you regain your composure.

4. Menacing Mephit. Your actions awaken and disturb a nearby mephit or other thematically appropriate creature of CR 1/2 or less. At some point in the next 24 hours, they take an impish action to noticeably frustrate, annoy, or otherwise inconvenience you.

5. Misdirected. Instead of affecting your target, the effect manifests in another location of the Narrator’s choice within range.

6. Taxing. You lose a number of hit dice equal to half your proficiency bonus as though you had expended them. The number of hit dice you have cannot be reduced to less than 0 this way.