Alkemancy Arcane Tradition for Wizards and a New School of Magic? Review of Deep Magic: Alkemancy by Kobold Press
If you’ve been keeping up with my review series on the Deep Magic: Alkemancy supplement for 5th Edition from Kobold Press, you know that last time was rough, but we’re not done yet! This supplement also contained a whole new school of magic: Alkemancy. Of course, this was accompanied by an Arcane Tradition subclass for wizards. As a note before we dive in, I was provided a free copy to review. This in no way skews my opinions. With that out of the way, let’s dive in!
Cursed Magic Items Get Top Billing in Cursed Collective Kickstarter
There’s only so many cursed magic items to tempt and torment characters with in our fantasy roleplaying games. Game Masters can have a lot of fun seeding our campaign settings with powerful magic for the heroes that come with a price. For those GMs who enjoy presenting players with a little risk vs. reward treasure — or just straight up risky magic items — Cursed Collective is a Kickstarter campaign promising over 50 new unique and creative cursed items suitable for all your tabletop roleplaying game campaigns.
Credible D&D Threats and Challenges — Raising the Stakes Without Being a Killer DM
Salutations, nerds! I’m talking to the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters, today in particular, so strap in. We’re going on an adventure that has to do with creating credible D&D threats and challenges without being labeled a “killer DM.” We want our players to feel like the game has stakes. We want them to feel like death is a possibility without feeling like that is specifically what we have in mind for them. After all, what fun is it if it’s too easy, right? But it’s also no fun to feel like the DM is actually trying to kill you on purpose. And as DMs it’s our job to strike that balance.
D&D Ideas — Tools
Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. This week in the live chat we talked about using tools in D&D and ways a Dungeon Master might allow players to use them in a game. Moreso we delved into whose responsibility it is to make tool more relevant during gameplay. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy, by signing up here.
Real World Adventure Hooks for D&D — Something Happened on the Beach
Last week I spotted an image on Twitter shared by Dungeons & Dragons Game Designer Dan Dillon. A collection of detritus had been arranged very conspicuously on the beach. Dan, a terrific designer and creative mind for the RPG hobby, took note. “Odd beach sights,” is the caption. “Something happened here. Make an Intelligence (Investigation) or Intelligence (Arcana) check, your choice.” Okay, I’m game. What adventure hooks for D&D can we takeaway through this real world sighting?
Immortalize your D&D Adventure Stories with Campaign Medals from Ancient Lair
Fifth edition characters do some pretty heroic stuff. Or at least extraordinary, for good or ill. In the course of a campaign, a party of adventurers is likely to do at least one thing worthy of being awarded a medal. Unless you’re Chewbacca. What’s a wookie gotta do to get a medal if helping blow up the Death Star and save the Rebellion doesn’t cut it? Ancient Lair has a Kickstarter going on right now with an awesome way to commemorate the deeds of 5E heroes. Campaign Medals: Collectable medals for your RPG adventures is creating metal and resin displayable medals for your RPG group inspired by D&D 5E adventure modules. But even if you’re not into the cool rewards you and your group can share as mementos of your mighty triumphs, you can get yourself a medal with a display box and a neat PDF with new stuff to add to your game inspired by the medals themselves.
Games Within Games — Skill Challenges and Minigames in D&D
We’ve been talking a lot about tools in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons around the Nerdarchy HQ lately. The topic was the focus for a recent weekly live chat and newsletter, and came up again during a later live chat too. One set of D&D tools in particular — the gaming set — inspired our upcoming monthly Patreon rewards too. Rolling Bones is all about games within the games of our D&D campaign settings and adventure worlds. Our talk and writing about tools and gaming sets got me thinking about minigames in D&D in different ways. So let’s get into it.
Descent into Avernus Inspiring D&D Nine Hells Adventures and Content
Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus released recently. The fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign adventure is the latest from Wizards of the Coast, and as always the creative D&D community is sharing their enthusiasm for the hellish new quest. In sales, Descent into Avernus is No. 173 on the Amazon Best Sellers Rank for books, and No. 3 for Dungeons & Dragons behind the Player’s Handbook and the Essentials Kit. New players continue to discover the game and the PHB + Essentials Kit sales, with Descent into Avernus right behind, suggests they’re diving right into the hobby. And there’s a ton of content being created by gamers and designers to support Descent into Avernus, too.
Is Using Poison in D&D Evil?
In one of the recent videos on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discussed poison in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, taking a look at the history of poison in earlier editions. Using poison in D&D has evolved over the decades for sure, and the conversation raised some interesting points. There are plenty of comments on the video too, offering lots of different perspectives. I’ve got my own thoughts on the subject, so let’s get into it and, at least from my point of view, answer the question if using poison in D&D is evil.
What is Alkemancy? An overview of Deep Magic: Alkemancy by Kobold Press
I was privileged to receive a review copy of Kobold Press’s new Deep Magic: Alkemancy supplement for 5th Edition in order to review it. The notion of potion making is nothing new to the fantasy genre, and I was eager to hop onto this. I love seeing new rules from passionate third-party publishers that I can use at my game table. That being said, this supplement is rich with content, and I cannot possibly cover all of the different aspects in a single article. As such, I’ll be writing a series of articles, each detailing different aspects of the book, and I’ll culminate the whole thing in a video review, over on my YouTube channel, once I finish the articles here. With all that out of the way, let’s dive into this overview!
