Inspire 5E D&D Adventure by Reading the Tarokka Deck and Spirit Board from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft
Salutations, nerds! It’s time to get down with some mystical woohoo stuff for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. By this I mean fortune telling and communion with the spirit world courtesy of Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. I know you can’t see me but imagine me wiggling my fingers at you. This particular topic is near and dear to my heart because I myself am an avid collector of tarot cards, which the Tarokka Deck is based on for 5E D&D, and use them frequently. I’ve been reading for about 17 years now and whether you believe there’s any real magic in them or not there’s something really fun about turning over a card and seeing what the reading has to say for you. In Ravenloft this is doubly true. A draw of a card from the Tarokka Deck or contacting spirits or other mysterious forces via a Spirit Board can greatly change the shape of your 5E D&D adventure and this is really cool. So let’s get to it, shall we?
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game with Pride as a Rainbow Domain Cleric
Happy Pride Month! As a proud member of the Queer+ community and a Nerdarchy staff writer I really wanted to do something special for Pride Month this year — something that screams “I love Dungeons & Dragons and rainbows and all of that!” I kept wracking my brain of what we could do to offer some Pride positivity into the 5E D&D sphere. Chromatic spells are an obvious hook but they’re not quite potent enough for what I wanted to create. The more I thought the more the notion of a subclass surfaced in my mind.
Horror Pacing in 5E D&D with Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft
Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons is probably my favorite setting book to date from Wizards of the Coast. It has so many great resources for 5E D&D players and Dungeon Masters alike. Among my favorites is the section walking the DM through a step-by-step guide to running a horror game.
Expanding 5E D&D Background Characteristics — Hermit
Salutations, nerds! I’m rolling on over to yet another background and focusing on the Hermit background in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. The background options in the 5E D&D Player’s Handbook offer suggested characteristics to help define a character and spark your imagination for roleplaying. Seclusion, contemplation and keeping away from the rest of the world in what is at the very least isolation represents the formative part of life for these 5E D&D characters. As with every background there’s a lot to chew on here so let’s get started.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Holy Paragon
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel the community never lets Nerdarchists Dave and Ted down, sharing suggestions and requests for all sorts of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons characters and for this one a player digs the idea of the holiest character around. Divine power permeates 5E D&D so the options are many but our prayers are answered. The Holy Paragon character combines divine lineage and personal conviction, eager to learn more about divinity and strengthen their faith through study and devoted practice. Let’s get into it.
D&D Ideas — Armor
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is armor, 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. Magical armor is one of the best treasures an adventurer can discover during their perilous quests. Armor equals protection at the very least and mythical abilities at the pinnacle of armor power. Armor of Fallen Leaves harkens back to earlier days of D&D and turned a shade of Nerdarchy in more recent times from one of our earliest modules. Now it’s the May Magic Item Card. While wearing this mystical armor you can transform into a swirling cloud of leaves! Find out more about it here.
Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Sorcerous Origins by a Factor of Three
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted take a look at the top rated fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons homebrew Bard Colleges from D&D Beyond. We have a lot of fun 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.) I’m not choosing sorcery for a closer look this week — the power chose me to check out the most magical class in 5E D&D — the sorcerer — and checking out the Top 10 homebrew Sorcerous Origins. There’s currently over 1,720 homebrew of them so let’s get into it.
Wizard Like No Other with Order of Scribes from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
Wizards portrayed as book nerds is nothing new when it comes to Dungeons & Dragons and more broadly fantasy as a whole. In fifth edition D&D the Order of Scribes from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything takes wizards’ cliche bookishness and cranks the dial all the way up. These 5E D&D wizards invest devote time and energy to their precious spellbooks — so much they imbue those tomes with a magical power of their own! Let’s get into it.
Domains of Ravenloft Cover All the Horror for 5E D&D with Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft
Way back in 1983 I6: Ravenloft was but one of over 200 modules published by TSR for first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. The plot of the now legendary module introduced one of the most iconic villains in D&D history with the vampire Strahd von Zarovich. The module proved so popular it spawned a sequel and later an entire campaign setting for second edition AD&D encompassing an entire pocket dimension called the Demiplane of Dread and the collection of domains ruled by mystical Darklords bound together by the Dark Powers. Fast forward to today where Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft re-introduces the Domains of Dread for the fifth edition D&D community. Let’s get into it.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as an Adopted Trash Panda
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted put their own unique spin on a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character build guide request. One of our most longtime Nerdarchy community members asked for our take on a forest gnome Circle of the Shepherd druid. With so many components already laid out the only wiggle room came from this character’s background, ability scores and certain choices made along the way. Once we decided this 5E D&D character was raised by raccoons in an urban environment everything else for the Adopted Trash Panda character fell into place. Let’s get into it.
