Powerful Potions and Mutated Trolls Await Within Wyestone Horror
Another month comes with it another wonderful Nerdarchy Patreon reward. For July 2018, Critical Hit Publishing brings us a wonderful supplement by the name of The Wyestone Horror. This document is packed with interesting items, new monsters, and a great adventure appropriate for a spooky one-shot. Let’s go into some of the aspects I really enjoyed about this Patreon reward and where it has legs beyond just the one-shot held within.
The Dungeons and the Dragons of Dungeons & Dragons: Black Dragon Lairs
There are two aspects of Dungeons & Dragons history that I love to include as often as I can in my campaigns. I find dungeons so important to D&D that it’s rare I will run even short arcs without them. The iconic nature or sheer power that comes with introducing a dragon into the narrative and the reaction you get from players when they find out there are rumors of a dragon… To me, these separate are wonderful, but together make for the set piece that brings D&D to firing on all cylinders. Let’s explore the different D&D dragons and the lairs they might make in a world where dungeons are reality. Let’s start out with one of my favorites: the Black Dragon.
Creating a Beholder Lair and Bringing Beholders to Life in D&D
Monster talks at Nerdarchy?! I’m there. Illithids and beholders in Dungeons & Dragons are super iconic and really weird foes for your players to be pitted against. Both of these creatures tend to be Underdark denizens, but its not unheard of for beholders to create lairs closer to the surface or in some instances, near or within cities. I have quite a bit of experience with beholders, so I’d like to walk you through my method for bringing D&D beholders to life and making their alien nature really shine through creating a beholder lair that its mere existence is a puzzle for the players to deal with.
Krafty Kobold Encounters in your D&D Games
The Nerdarchists are at it again but this time they’re talking about something that I truly love — kobolds in Dungeons & Dragons. Nerdarchists Dave and Ted take a mechanical bend, talking about negative effects and conditions you can place on your player characters to make fights tactically harder. I enjoyed that angle, but I want to talk about what D&D kobolds mean to me and how I use kobold encounters. In doing this, I hope to convert those who don’t see the joy of kobold dungeons and maybe inspire those that already do.
Using the Corpse Rook- Fifth Edition Foes from Frog God Games| Dungeons and Dragons Monsters
What has brilliant feathers as dark as night, a massive wingspan and heads that’d make a Doduo jealous? Why, the corpse rook. Frog God Games was nice enough to include this beauty in their Fifth Edition Foes compendium and just like every other entry in the book, I love this monstrosity. Let’s jump into what I think is a great way to use this fantastic creature.
Tackle D&D Exploration in Style with a Fantastical Mount — Abizders
Deep in the Beneath, duergar clans of Ulthe-Ganya toil endlessly. Greed never satisfied, hatred never abated and resolve as strong and tempered as the metal of the forge, the grim folk work relentlessly. These dark mirrors of dwarves assert their superiority over all other races through the sheer volume of anything they set their strong minds to. In their endless search for wealth and material, one noble duergar house discovered a nest of bizarre creatures.
Demons and Devils Waging D&D Blood War in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes
Demons, devils and wars, oh my! Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes has given us all kinds of new demons and devils content to tinker with and while Nerdarchists Dave and Ted go over the creatures and lore of the D&D Blood War in the new tome, I’m going to try and give you some inspiration. I’m a Dungeon Master who uses demons and devils quite sparingly, really reserving them as true horrors and beings of pure evil. Let’s talk about the time I warped the mind of the party’s rogue with a demon that was trying to stop the summoning of a devil into the world.
Starcalled Studios Creatures of Vathis: Volume One Kickstarter is a Beast(iary)!
The team of Starcalled Studios is a group of long-time gamers dedicated to bringing you tabletop content. In addition to streaming fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, RPG video games and board games on their Twitch channel, they also created several books for their Zodiac Empires setting including a full-color, illustrated campaign setting guide and player’s guide, and an adventure, all compatible with both 5E and Pathfinder. Their latest project, Creatures of Vathis: Volume One, successfully funded in 24 hours on Kickstarter with several weeks left to go on the campaign.
Making the Beholder an Even Scarier D&D Monster
D&D monsters — the game is full scary ones, but sometimes you need to ramp things up a little more. Or maybe you want a particular monster to fit a specific role or theme. For instance you want a beholder that has been touched by the demiplane of shadow. We had a viewer to challenge us to just do that: merge the undead shadow D&D monster with the iconic beholder. Nerdarchist Ted and I accepted this challenge and did it as part of the Nerdarchy Fast and Dirty D&D Monsters series.
Enjoy a Free Download For Your D&D Game From Nerdarchy
Nerdarchy has been putting together content for your D&D game via Patreon for several years now. Like with everything we do we constantly strive to improve and get better to provide higher quality value to our fans. To that end we’ve changed our process creating Patreon content. We have enlisted the writer Sean McGovern from the Dungeon Master’s Guild and PowerScore RPG Blog.
Making a Villain of the Warlock with a Little Help from our Friends
Warlock is probably one of the most popular fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character classes. It didn’t come into existence as a character class until the later part of 3.5 D&D. Fourth edition D&D made it a core class in the fourth edition Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook. [NERDITOR’S NOTE: According to April’s And Beyond live stream with D&D Beyond lead Adam Bradford, warlocks are the No. 1 most created character class over there.]
Infusing Myth and Folklore into D&D Trolls
Trolls as depicted in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons products bear little more than a superficial resemblance to the creature of myth and lore they are based on. Like many creatures from our past they have been compartmentalized and streamlined for the sake of mechanics until they are truly a different creature. While it is in no way meant to be an exhaustive or completely academic article, this exercise attempts to bring back some of the ancient context from whence the troll came.
Celebrate International Tabletop Day with a Free Download of D&D Stuff
In 2017, some folks on the Nerdarchy team put together a free adventure for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons in recognition of International Tabletop Day. And for 2018 we’re at it again, and stepping up our game! To coincide with the revamp and relaunch of our Patreon rewards, we’re giving away a free download package of special rewards to everyone in the RPG community to help celebrate this most special of days on April 28. Empusia, Curator of Souls is a total package of D&D magic items, monsters, allies, enemies, dynamic and lost lore.
Help Save the Tarrasque: Gifted Vision Behemoth Mini Needs You
Hello gamers and fans of wonderful minis. Nerdarchist Ted here calling on you not only out of selfish greed to get the Gifted Vision Behemoth mini that I backed on Kickstarter but to help out an awesome company that makes cool miniatures. There is a bit of backstory here that I will try to explain as best as I can without being any more than a backer.
D&D Unicorn: Expanding the Legendary Creature Through Variety
Unicorns in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons are celestial creatures known for their healing and purity, yet aside from a corrupted fiend known as the Nightmare they are very limited in selection. Considering how well known these creatures are in fantasy and how many varieties of dragons we have, it is almost a crime we have only two choices. [NERDITOR’S NOTE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, nightmares are created from pegasi but who’s to say a corrupted unicorn can’t become a hell horse too?]
