The Manaforge
Board






A majority of the credit goes to aphterlyfe, I simply touched up one of his maps for my campaign’s needs. The Manaforge was heavily inspired by the final boss area of Baldur’s Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal.
When the players first enter the portal to this pocket dimension, they only notice a figure floating in a beam of light. They can make out who the figure is, but can’t interact with him or her. Only when they destroy one of the floating outer crystals does the figure present themself to the players, and a battle ensues. After they deal 25% damage to the final boss, a small cutscene happens and the figure is back in the beam of light, regenerating.
Time is of the essence although, they only have moments to heal and rebuff before getting back into combat. If they wait too long, a pulse emenates vertically up out of the beam, coming from the final boss. This pulse, which they deduced, is destroying the celestial planes. There are four pulses left before it’s game over.
The players destroy another crystal, and it’s rinse and repeat. Once all the crystals are destroyed, the boss enters it’s mythic action stage.
All hell breaks lose.
The final boss opens with “Dark Swarm”, a necrotic version of the 9th level 5e spell Meteor Swarm. You can see the boss they fought here.
Fantastic use of lighting. Think I might have a use for this one actually…. depends on next session events. Thanks
You read my mind! Next session features a mine with floating cubic stones under the effects of some strange magnetic force.
I was trying to figure how I’d put together a map in the day I have before the session on top of all the other prep work I needed to do. I decided to pop over the Tales Tavern and see if anyone had something remotely similar. I was about to search for mines expecting to find the mundane cave maps, but on a whim I searched for ‘floating’. I honestly wasn’t expecting good results.
Wow! Was I wrong.
Great job!