Caislen Campaign Notes

The Shovel Of Alden traces back to a game I ran in an online format on a forum, long ago, while working a boring office job. A coworker joined the game with a character named Alden, a goodly paladin, initially. I introduced an evil god that wanted to corrupt his character, and for reasons I forget now, a shovel became Alden's weapon of choice for smiting things. The evil god eventually bestowed a vampiric power on the shovel so that attacking with it did some decent damage and also stole hit points from the target and gave them to Alden.

Later, that game long past, I'd reintroduce the “Shovel Of Alden” as a cursed shovel weapon that does vampiric damage and ultimately works to corrupt the PC that has it. It's pretty hard for a player to resist running around with a shovel that actually heals them and lets them beat the snot out of things, so I deemed this fun enough to keep returning to.

The Shovel of Alden's lore at is that its influence overwhelms any single person who carries it for more than a day straight. Alden had been heavily influenced and he created a team of 3 goblins whom carried the shovel when he was not in possession of it, passing it amongst themselves. These three shovel bearers were represented by wearing tunics with a white triangle on it, representing their place as the three¹⁾.

• If any one person carries this weapon perpetually, it starts influencing them in ways they cannot stop.
• Damage: 1d6 bludgeoning or slashing. Damage increases with wielder level on odd levels starting at level 3. e.g. at LV3 damage is 2d6. at LV5 it is 3d6.
• Shovel does Vampiric damage giving 1/2 HP from the damage (rounded down) to the wielder.
  • Unless the target is Undead.
• Will give temporary hit points if wielder is already at max, no limit!
• Temp hit points expire WHEN/IF:
  • Midnight
  • A long or short rest begins.
  • A healing spell is used on the wielder.
  • Any kind of restorative magic is used on the wielder that simulates getting health or magic replenished.

• The Shovel Of Alden was been buried by The Party underwater and underground at the Goldfish Pond in Goldvale. This was recommended by Jack & they did it without questioning why this could be a good location for it. Urist the barbarian had a little remorse about this.
• Later the AAP would show up in Goldvale and Harthi1776 led them to the Goldfish Pond to retrieve the shovel. Milo walked away from that experience, the latest owner of the shovel.