Fear and Horror Emanate from Haunted Traps in 5E D&D with Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft
Salutations, nerds! Today I’m going to be taking a closer look at the Haunted Traps section of Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Long story short, normal traps were put in place on purpose by a person for a reason. Haunted traps by contrast aren’t set with purpose and instead manifest like a stain. This is a recurrent theme in a lot of horror works, it turns out, and now it’s represented in 5E D&D too.
Dr. Benard Finklestien’s Catalog of Quality of Life Improvements
One of the easiest ways to add some fun and spice to gameplay is to create dynamic and mysterious NPCs and maybe add some fun items. Easy items to add would be minor but interesting items that just improve the adventurer’s quality of life, like a magnifying glass for example. You would not want anything game breaking or changing, but instead something simple that adds to the gameplay.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Stealer of Souls
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted offer up blood and souls for a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character. This Stealer of Souls character build for 5E D&D came about because frankly we just wanted to make a paladin/Hexblade warlock character. While discussing it, a certain albino anti-hero from literature came up, so we leaned into the connection. Let’s get into it.
Classical Style and Impactful 5E D&D Adventure Meet in Tartarus | Journey Into the Underworld
Salutations, nerds! We’ve got something particularly interesting to chew on today as Elise Cretel brings us Tartarus | Journey into the Underworld! I don’t have any real complaints about this fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons adventure. Those of you who haven’t died of shock, please read on.
D&D Ideas — Rods, Staves and Wands
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is rods, staves and wands, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Rods, staves and wands are all powerful arcane implements but there’s plenty of variety and opportunities for those who don’t use magic to make use of them too. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.
Experience the Horror Firsthand with Survivors in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft
Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft offers a menagerie of tools to help Dungeon Masters and players of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons sink their teeth into genres of horror. We’ve already written about preparing horror games, running horror games with atmosphere and pacing to enhance the experience of your 5E D&D group. However, if you really want to sell the horror flavor and show players how grim and unforgiving the world can be then Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft suggests the use of survivors.
Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Transmutation Spells by a Factor of Three
You thought this week would be conjuration spells didn’t you? Those who follow along each week might notice my penchant for following alphabetical order so I’m mixing it up this week to check out what rose to the top when it comes to homebrew transmutation spells for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted snuck a look at homebrew Roguish Archetypes for 5E D&D from D&D Beyond. We get a kick out of checking out the 5E D&D content folks come up with and sharing their homebrew creations. (There’s lots of these posts whether for homebrew subclasses, magic items, spells, feats and more floating around for the curious.) Incidentally our upcoming July rewards include a bunch of new spells we created ourselves and several of them are transmutation spells so changing the properties of creatures, objects or environments is already on my mind. There’s currently over 10,180 of them at DDB, which I believe may be the highest number of anything I’ve looked at here before. So let’s get into it.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as an Extreme Brawler
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted knuckle down to punch up a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character. One of the Fighting Styles in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything creates an opportunity to explore a popular concept and one we think is really fun and cool and now it’s got mechanical support — no reflavoring necessary! Woe be to the unfortunate enemy squaring off
against the Extreme Brawler character whose fists become deadly weapons. These 5E D&D brawlers are tough enough to stay in the fight no matter the odds. Let’s get into it.
Dark Gifts Await 5E D&D’s Haunted Heroes with Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft
The Mists of Ravenloft swallow adventurers from across the multiverse to pit them against whatever horrors the Dark Powers conjure. Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft describes these Domains of Dread and the Darklords who both rule them and remain imprisoned by their own nightmare realms. The fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Haunted Heroes facing such horrors can gain an edge though. Whether their origins lie in the same tales of terror or the Dark Powers of Ravenloft grant a Dark Gift these 5E D&D characters forge ties to the grim and haunted domains and gain a double-edged connection to these genres of horror. Let’s get into it.
Transform your 5E D&D Characters Through Lineages from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft
Salutations, nerds! Today I’m looking at the Lineages for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons found in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. I’ve got a player in a weekly game I’m in who went with one of these lineages for their character. They didn’t tell any of us up front so we played several sessions assuming the character was human until he opened his entire head and bit a minion’s face off. I can already tell this is going to be a fun one.
