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Monsters

Nerdarchy > Dungeons & Dragons  > Monsters (Page 9)
5E D&D Witcher style monster folklore monster

Creating Folklore Monsters for 5E D&D

Over at Nerdarhcy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted shot a video response to Making Enemies in 5E Witchery from Zee Bashew. The idea is taking the way monsters and monster hunting are presented in the world of The Witcher and apply the concepts to 5E D&D. What I really dig about this approach is how it encompasses several components to help players create more engaging and exciting stories together with the Dungeon Master. Since we started playing a Nerdarchy team campaign last week with a fresh party of 1st level characters I thought it would be fun and useful to use the Witcher style monsters discussed in the videos by Zee Bashew and our own Dave and Ted to create a terrifying monster for the Adventurers of Adventure to face off against. So let’s get into it, lay down the ground rules and create a Witcher style monster for 5E D&D.

New Arcane Tradition Beardomancy was Only the Beginning

Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted share a video inspired by Beardomancy from Chance’s D&D Spellbook. In the video within the video Chance creates an animated short and goes over a homebrew spell for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, the wizard cantrip beard whip from our Beardomancy product. Ted and I worked on the project together for our April Patreon rewards in 2019. We wanted to do something fun to celebrate April Fool’s Day and over the years no small number of people proposed we come up with some beard related content. Beardomancy grew from these sentiments. It got unruly at times but with proper care we tamed the tangle of content and came up with a new Arcane Tradition and school of magic and replete with magical lore and mundane enrichment for beardomancers ready to drop right into your game.

Your 5E D&D Monsters Need More Actions

If you are anything like me then you like making monsters for your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons games. I consistently game with veteran players. In fact, many of the people I have recently been playing with have been gaming longer than I have or even longer than I have been alive in some cases. They’re generally familiar with all the great monsters in the Monster Manual and other official 5E D&D publications, making it challenging to surprise them.

Because making my own monsters from the ground up involves mainly my own creativity, this means there is no way players are going to have a chance of knowing what is in the stat block. Only I do, because I made it. But after years of playing 5E D&D I fear I have made a mistake with many of the monsters I made previously. It is very easy to take a monster and scale it up or down to make it more powerful or weaker, but this is not very creative. I have also taken a monster, made some slight changes, moved some stats around and described it differently. But this is not what I am looking for either.

5E D&D aberrations monsters

5E D&D World of Monsters — Aberrations

Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted started a new video series called Nerdarchy’s Guide to D&D Monsters. We like creating new video series for the same reason we enjoy starting a new campaign with a set number of sessions. It helps focus your attention more closely because you have a finite amount of time to explore an idea, and you get the satisfaction of completing a tidy, succinct experience. I particularly dig video series here at Nerdarchy the Website because we publish a new post with every video and I do most of the writing. A series with a theme makes a great jumping off point. Since the guide to aberrations in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons video covers what to expect and how to manage things when these creature types show up in your campaign setting and adventures, it was kinda tough coming up with a theme for these accompanying posts. How about this: what if aberrations are the only type of monsters in your 5E D&D world?

Monsters of the City Cawood 5E D&D

Monsters of the City for 5E RPG is Live!

We all love monsters, right? So many gamers cite books like the Monster Manual as their entry into the tabletop roleplaying game hobby. Evocative art, fantastical creatures and the rich lore accompanying them led many nerds to discover Dungeons & Dragons. All of those elements leap out in the work of Cawood Publishing, an RPG publisher with more than 25 bestsellers of Fifth Edition content. Perhaps the most recognizable of these books is the Monsters series that began with Monsters of Feyland, followed up with Monsters of the Underworld. Both of those books are terrific, and show really wonderful growth. Monsters of Feyland is remarkable, and Monsters of the Underworld builds on the solid foundation presenting even richer material in what is essentially a monster book. And now the third book in the series is live on Kickstarter! I cannot wait to see what Monsters of the City adds to my 5E D&D games.

explorers guide to wildemount 5E D&D critical role

Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount for 5E D&D Revealed

A mysterious new title from Wizard of the Coast showed up on Amazon last week and now we know it’s the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount! The D&D Team at WotC teams up with Critical Role’s Matt Mercer for an official collaboration on a new book detailing the continent of Wildemount where the second campaign of Critical Role takes place. Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount includes player options such as subclasses, magic items and more along with detailed information about the campaign setting, resources for Dungeon Masters and some really cool sounding new material for 5E D&D.

5E D&D Character Build Guides — From Community to Creation to the Game Table

Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted addressed a concern from the video audience community regarding character build guides for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. They share a great discussion on the motivation to create character build guides and character builds in general. These days we imagine and create characters for 5E D&D but building characters is a nerdy tradition throughout all the editions of the game. I certainly created far more 2E AD&D characters than I ever played, and we played a lot. Since we outline and research video discussions together as a team, I thought it would be fun to share how we arrive at our version of character build guides for 5E D&D. So let’s get into it.

The Dreamt Join the Ranks of the Lord of Dead Dreams

Jarease, the Lord of Dead Dreams is a powerful ogre magi who has a divine past. I am not here to talk about the villain from our Lord of Dead Dreams book so much, but the ogre magi is important to this monster I’ve created because after all, Jarease created them. This is enhanced content for those who have gone over to our store and purchased the Lord of Dead Dreams, which has just had a new cover art to spruce up a really great product. This 5E D&D villain thrives on dark dreams and nightmares, and I thought it would be fun to add another new creature to the ranks of his minions. Lots of people have enjoyed the content in the book and I set out to expand on the lore and scope of the ogre magi’s plans.

Treasures of the Tundra for 5E D&D Await Your Discovery

Salutations, nerds! I’m going to take a break here to talk to you about January’s Patreon reward content, aptly named Treasures of the Tundra. The idea this time around was to pull together content all about the players for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, and I feel like we’ve done a pretty excellent job of this if I do say so myself. Within you will find 17 new magic items, two beast mounts I affectionately refer to as the Big Woolly and the Small Woolly. Additionally, you’ll find 10 new poisons specifically geared to cold climate play, and a new playable race, the yaska (or, so the more irreverent folks might say, miniature yeti). You’ll also find four new playable subclasses for 5E D&D play.

San-Tac-Laus Delivers Randomized Beholder Cheer for the Holidays

Nerdarchy has shared many great posts over the many years we have been around. But recently something popped back into my mind and it bent and twisted into new directions. There is a post about randomizing the eye rays of a beholder. This was such a good blog post we wound up doing a video on it. We talked about what kind of beholder would have the eye rays that we randomized. But this time of year people are thinking about the holidays and with that the big man known as Santa Claus. What if I were to take the randomized beholder concept and pick the eye rays Santa might have and make a Santa Beholder? I recently picked up am unpainted beholder from WizKids I planned to make into into a Christmas Beholder and all my ideas began to fall into place.

Deck of Many Shares Free Big Bad Booklet for Your Holiday Adventure Boss Monster

Whether you are running a one shot, a small campaign or a long story arc for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, coming up with a compelling, interesting and unique story end villain or boss monster can be trouble sometimes. Well, what would you say if I told you I have a solution for you? Have you heard of the Big Bad Booklet by our friends over at the Deck of Many?

Worldbuilding through Language in 5E D&D

Worldbuilding is a passion for many fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters and many players. Part of what drives this passion is a desire to make a place, a nation, a people or a culture feel alive and turns things like the simple concept of an orc or goblin that player characters sweep aside with swords and spells into cultures deserving of a deeper look. One deeper look to make the world feel more alive is the concept of culture and language to help define a people. Some cultures have a deep understanding of a written language, and others a verbal tradition. They may have customs and beliefs different from ours, but plausible within their own environment. How a people communicate can define how they behave. Their collective understanding of themselves and the world abroad defines itself through language.

Old Monsters Create Extra Life Through DM’s Guild’s Fiendish Folio

Did you know the Extra Life D&D team has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last few years for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals? One of the ways they raise money is through special products available through the Dungeon Masters Guild. The most recent of these is Mordenkainen’s Fiendish Folio, Volume 1: Monsters Malevolent and Benign, a collection of monsters for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. The creatures contained within first appeared in the Fiend Folio, a classic title from first edition AD&D. Back when I was a fledgling young nerdy D&D player the Fiend Folio was very special. There was one older kid in the neighborhood who had a copy and everyone loved flipping through there. The death knight lurked in there. And drow. And svirfneblin! I can’t wait to see what this new iteration contains. So let’s check it out.

5E D&D artificer Eberron

Lord of Blades is the Ultimate Artificer — But He Needs Your Help!

Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted took a thorough look at the new character class for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, the artificer. 5E D&D players have been champing at the bit for some time to see an official version of this longtime favorite class first seen in D&D 3.5. Artificers are a integral part of the Eberron campaign setting, so it’s only natural the 5E D&D version comes in Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Since Dave and Ted covered the artificer class in great detail in the video below, I’m going to take a look at the class from a Dungeon Master’s point of view.