While popular medieval pastimes like jousting and archery often feature in campaign settings and adventures, other organized sports barely rate a mention.
Even in fantasy fiction, sports get a short shrift, with a few notable exceptions, such as Quidditch from Harry Potter and Ja’la dh Jin from the Sword of Truth series.
It’s a fun change of pace to get your PCs involved in a game within the game! Players can experience competition without life or death stakes, and GM can set up rivalries and enemies without worrying about whether they’ll be killed by the end of the session. That’s already a win!
Each article in the Sporting Goods series introduces a sport that a GM can incorporate into a fantasy campaign. Given the high fantasy nature of most campaigns, many of these sports have magical or monstrous components. Most are also team-oriented so that a group of PCs can participate (perhaps with some persuasion or modification).
Ashjirit
Plant your flag in the magical game of ashjirit!
History of Ashjirit
Though rare, Humanoids are not the only creatures to indulge in sports. Giants, Fey, and even some Elementals and Celestials enjoy similar pastimes. One of these is ashjirit, a sport rooted in an ancient conflict between rival genie clans.
Several millennia ago, on the thriving desert plane of Shiranat, a group of djinn and hinn fought over the rights to the tallest mountain in the world. Unable to settle the matter through diplomacy or simple violence, the two sides finally devised a contest to resolve the matter once and for all.
Their solution was ashjirit, a type of tag in which two teams battle to place a pennant atop a tiered pyramid of different elemental materials. Ultimately, the hinn won the event and claimed the mountain for their own.
Genies and Humanoids now play Ashjirit throughout the elemental realms and Material Plane. While the game’s highly magical nature often makes it difficult to set up, it draws enormous crowds and provides a fantastic spectacle.
Playing Area
Ashjirit’s playing area is a pyramid made up of six different tiers or zones. Each tier is roughly 20 feet wide and 10 feet high, in the following order:
1. A basic earthen or stone tier (no effect of creatures).
2. A tier composed of thick, magically compressed mud (counts as difficult terrain).
3. A tier of magically slippery ice that causes a creature to make DC 13 DEX (Acrobatics) check or fall prone and slide 1d10 feet in a random direction. A creature must make this check when it first enters the tier and if it begins its turn in the area.
4. A tier of hot, magically condensed smoke fills the entire space. The smoke blinds a creature moving through it and deals 1d4 fire damage to a creature that ends its turn on the tier.
5. A tier of magically infused crystal teleports anyone standing on its surface back 1d4 tiers unless they succeed at a DC 13 WIS save. A creature must make this save when it first enters the tier and every turn it begins on the tier.
6. The top tier is the top of the pyramid, a square about 5 feet across. It is constructed from bare stone or solidified clouds that includes a short wooden or metal pole on which to mount a pennant.
Not all ashjirit pyramids are created equally. In less magical environments, some tiers might be replaced with greased floors or ones containing movable blocks that shoot out to strike players and force them back down the pyramid.
Teams
Up to four teams can play Ashjirit, each starting on one corner of the pyramid. Each team has at least four members but can have as many as eight. Each team has a captain in charge of various plays and strategies. The captain also represents the team if a conflict or problem needs to be resolved (such as accusations of cheating).
Equipment
Beyond the extraordinary play space, the only equipment needed for ashjirit is a sturdy pennant constructed of a fireproof substance for each team. Most ashjirit pennants are created from the enchanted silk of elemental fire spiders.
Occasionally, ashjirit players wear extra layers of protection, such as helmets, and knee and elbow pads crafted from stiffened leather.
Rules
The goal of ashjirit is for a team to affix their pennant atop the pyramid. The first team to successfully do so wins the match.
Players can freely pass their team’s pennant to another team member at any time, even across tiers or while being grappled. A player can also toss the pennant to another team member, including one in a different tier.
To prevent a team from placing their pennant atop the pyramid first, the opposing team must grab the player holding it and either force the pennant from their hands and toss it away or make the player fall back down the pyramid.
Magic is forbidden during play, as are nonmagical forms of movement aside from walking and climbing speeds (such as burrowing and flying). However, a creature can use any nonmagical form of movement to prevent injury if it would otherwise take damage from a fall. A creature must stop using these forms of movement when it is no longer in danger.
A team caught using magic or any form of unlawful movement during a match is given a warning and must immediately cease doing so or risk disqualification.
Adventure Hooks
Here are some ways to introduce ashjirit to your campaign:
- As part of a quest to retrieve a powerful elemental artifact, the PCs must participate in an ashjirit match against magical replicas of themselves in the depths of an ancient tomb.
- A major humanoid city holds its first ashjirit match and offers the victors a purse of 1,000 gp. The city’s ruler decides to make the game more interesting by releasing wild beasts and monstrosities into the arena where the match is being held.
- PCs are tasked with gathering the materials for an ashjirit pyramid, including a shard of pure elemental ice, the heart of a fire giant, and the perfectly preserved corpse of a clay golem.
