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Adventure Hooks

Nerdarchy > Dungeons & Dragons  > Adventure Hooks (Page 15)

D&D Adventurers League Witch Doctor Delivers Instant Funk

Of all the Adventurers League Character Build Guides we’ve done, this one might be my favorite. I should preface by letting you know I think this almost every time. What captures my attention more than anything in these guides are the character backgrounds and narratives we come up with for each one. Whether it’s a pure class 1-20 levels or a mashup of several classes, each choice from race to deciding between ability score improvements or feats and go-to spell loadouts make every character unique. The thing I love about the witch doctor is before Nerdarchists Dave and Ted get around to choosing their first class level, the character already has a rich story, fertile grounds for roleplaying and an impressive set of skills and knowledge.

Real World Adventure Hooks for D&D — How Do You Like Them Apples?

Players of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and other roleplaying games seem to always have at least a sliver of brain power devoted to thinking about the games we love. Art can inspire a character we play or the setting for an encounter. Dramatic relationships and interactions can inspire campaign plots and NPC motivations. And the world we see all around us can add clever details and verisimilitude to our settings. A recent tweet from Grand DM caught my eye and this installment of Real World Adventure Hooks for D&D comes directly from the image they shared.

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?

D&D grung white toad white grung

Real World Adventure Hooks for D&D — the White Grung

The other day Nerdarchist Dave and I were talking on the phone when he spotted an unusual creature on his front porch. A white toad sat on the railing and over the next few minutes climbed, jumped and scrambled its way around the porch. He’d never seen a white toad before, and we wondered what it could be up to. How did it get there, and what was the motivation for exploring the porch? Could we glean some adventure hooks for D&D through this real world curiosity?

Tales of Terror 5e Miniatures — Something Wicked (Foundations) This Way Comes

I’m taking a page out of Nerdarchist Ted’s playbook today to share some news about some highly detailed miniatures to augment your tabletop roleplaying experience. Wicked Foundations: Tales of Terror 5e Miniatures is a live Kickstarter campaign featuring some truly creepy and terrifying minis along with storytelling material to help Game Masters bring the fear!

Real Treasure in Cawood Publishing’s Treasured Finds is Storytelling Gold

The fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide describes two types of adventures: location based, and event based. But after looking through a new product from the Dungeon Master’s Guild, my takeaway is a third type of adventure — treasure based. Treasured Finds from Cawood Publishing presents organized loot for 5th Edition, and for my 2 cp it’s the storytelling elements hidden in these random tables that’s the real treasure. But the chests stuffed with magic items aren’t too shabby either.

Tell Tales of the Old Margreve at Your Gaming Table

Hello! For the last few months, Tales of the Old Margreve from Kobold Press has been burning a hole in my bookshelf. The kobolds blessed me with a hardcover copy of Tales of the Old Margreve and a copy of the Margreve Player’s Guide. It’s no secret I’m a huge KP fan, and the Margreve stuff is no exception. Part campaign setting guide, part adventure, and part new player options, like my favorite KP products, Tales of the Old Margreve adds new dimensions to fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons games whether you play in the Midgard setting, another established world or your own creation. Let’s get into it. At the end you’ll find an exclusive coupon code to expand your Old Margreve experience.

worldbuilding calendars

D&D Ideas — Seasons

Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. This week our topic is seasons in your D&D game. This week we also had a new sponsor join the Nerdarchy family, Campfire Technology. It’s a tool to help authors and anyone interested in worldbuilding. You can give them a look and explore what Campfire Technology can do for your games on their website. There is a 10-day trial to poke around and see how useful this can be for you. After you get some ideas for using seasons in your D&D campaign, expand on the ideas and develop your own calendar for your campaign setting.

D&D Ideas — Aquatic Adventures

Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. This week we are feeling a little inspired by the new Wizards of the Coast adventure Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Also, Frog God Games currently has a live Kickstarter for Sea King’s Malice: a 5E Adventure in the Deadly Depths. It’s designed to take adventurers on a sweeping quest across the ocean, to previously uncharted lands, and finally down under the waves to the very depths of the sea.

D&D Ideas — Nightmares

Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. This newsletter was super late. My apologies, fellow Nerdarchists. It’s been a bit tough readjusting to the new Nerdarchy schedule. We’ve front loaded most of what we do here Monday-Wednesday. We’ll do our best to get on track so you fine nerds will know when to expect the newsletter. You can always find these newsletters here on the website every Sunday too. This week’s topic is nightmares.
D&D artifacts

D&D Ideas — Artifacts

Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. This week we are talking about artifacts — uber-powerful magic items that can reshape your D&D campaign world. But before we dive into that, an update on the Facebook page. I’ve regained access, but I wouldn’t say control. The forces of evil are still listed as the owners of the page. I’ve got it unpublished but not deleted. These people won’t have to be subjected to the nonsense that has been going over there. I’m convinced I won’t be booted off the page by these evildoers again. We are fighting to get it back before we initiate the self destruct mechanism. We are leaving that for the last resort.

D&D fey eladrin 5E D&D teleport

D&D Ideas — Fey

Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. It has been trying a week. If you are a fan of the Nerdarchy Facebook page you may have noticed some weirdness over there. On Monday the page was hijacked, or stolen if you would. We would appreciate anyone who reaches out to Facebook on our behalf. We are working on getting the page restored, but haven’t had a ton of headway yet. We were also given the sad news that Nerdarchy writer, community mod, and friend James Leslie has passed. His friends and family are in our thoughts. He will be missed. [NERDITOR’S NOTE: It was a great pleasure to work with James here on the site. He put his heart into everything he did, including a lot of terrific writing. You can check out James’ posts here.]

D&D Ideas — Sci-Fi in D&D Fantasy

Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. Last week on the live chat we discussed adding sci-fi in D&D in honor of the Monte Cook Games Kickstarter Arcana of the Ancients. Initially it was just about taking the concepts of the Ninth World and Numenera to convert to the 5E system. The Kickstarter is so successful and has unlocked so many stretch goals that will be doing a straight conversion of the Numenera campaign setting for the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons set. There will be a handbook for just running sci-fi and weird science — the original objective for the Kickstarter. Then there is going to be a corresponding monster book, some adventures, and finally the campaign setting. The Arcana of the Ancients Kickstarter has ended by now and was a huge success.