Your Aasimar Character’s Angelic Guide is a Link to 5E D&D Adventure
Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted take a closer look at the aasimar for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons with an eye towards what character classes fit well with this playable race from Volo’s Guide to Monsters. As always they start with a broad look at the race both mechanically and thematically, diving deeper into each subrace with expected and unexpected class choices. Whether your aasimar character for 5E D&D is fallen, protector or scourge, they posses powers granted from their celestial heritage including darkvision, resistance to necrotic and radiant damage and the ability to heal with a touch. On top of all these amazing abilities, aasimar receive a special link to an supernatural being too. The angelic guide doesn’t carry any explicit mechanical attributes. But it is a really cool aspect of a character to explore and incorporate into your roleplaying.
WizKids 4D Settings Miniatures Spotted at PAX Unplugged
I know that some of you out there turn to us when it comes to getting new information about miniatures. Perhaps like myself you look fondly upon all these great pieces of plastic and gain delight at the the thought of how this is going to be used on the gaming table. Perhaps you enjoy having the options, or perhaps you delight in getting new miniatures to showcase the amazing collection you have on display. Whatever your reason I am glad you stopped by and I hope these teases are fun and give you a delight as you look forward to the great things WizKids has in the lineup for future miniatures entering into 2020.
Holiday Season, First Edition Dungeons & Dragons Style
Twas the week of Christmas/Hanukkah and all through the… Oh, Hell, I can’t think of a fun rhyme. In any case, this time of year many gamers have visions of dice rolling through their heads. Hopefully you all avoid rolling 1’s (unless you’re playing Squad Leader).
My spouse is not a gamer, so my holidays were practically game free. As I’m an old grognard, I was around for first edition Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons by TSR. One Christmas I received an amazing (for me) Christmas gift I didn’t expect. This is that story, so gather around the fire with your eggnog or whatever (I’ll have a Glenmorangie, please) and I’ll tell it.
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?
Factotum for 5E D&D Far From an Absurd Character
Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discuss a character concept shared by fellow YouTuber and player in my first and only live stream D&D campaign, Puffin Forest. In his D&D Story: A Most Abserd Character video, Ben (the talented animator behind Puffin Forest) shares the tale of Abserd, a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character with one level is every character class. The video is hilarious of course, as Ben’s videos tend to be, and it has millions of views. In our video Dave and Ted talk about how to go about creating this sort of absurd character for 5E D&D and the implications — mechanically and narratively — of doing so in the first place. But for my money I’m reminded of one of my favorite character classes from D&D history and maybe this Abserd character isn’t so absurd?
D&D Ideas — Travel
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is travel, and we’ve got a few more new segments including a Product Spotlight from Nerdarchy the Store, an update on our end of the year mega giveaway and changes coming to our content release schedule. Speaking of travel check out the image below from our wildly successful Out of the Box: Encounters for 5th Edition Kickstarter. In Down on the Farm, adventurers encounter an unusual merchant with a very select clientele. The Out of the Box Pledge Manager remains open for late pledges. You can get your hands on the book and all the add-ons including presale badges for Nerdarchy the Convention, or upgrade your badge to Legendary or Artifact level. There’s also a FREE encounter Seizing the Means you can download for a sneak peek at the sort of content you’ll find in the book. Check it out here.
A Homebrew Healing Cantrip for 5E D&D
Over at the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Facebook group I came across a post sharing a very intriguing idea for a healing cantrip for 5E D&D. I know what you’re thinking — it’s madness! — and believe me I’d agree with you almost all of the time. But I think there’s some merit to this homebrew healing cantrip worth considering. Maybe it’s perfect for your game or maybe it would break the system asunder. Character death in 5E D&D doesn’t occur with the kind of frequency it has in past editions. Your mileage may vary of course but the rules for death and dying lean towards the forgiving side. At any rate I think close wound is worth taking a closer look at and sharing with the D&D community. So let’s get into it and see what this homebrew healing cantrip for 5E D&D is all about.
Expanding the Go-To Druid Spell List with Unearthed Arcana and Solstice Magic
Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discuss another entry in the go-to D&D spells series. This time they’re looking at druids for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and the 3rd-5th level spells they gain access to during tier 2 play. Animals, plants and weather control feature prominently in druid spellcasting so it’s no surprise the spells that made the cut. Druids are so versatile and have access to a wide range of spells and effects, and they clearly have powerful connections to nature. The hardest thing about making the list of go-to spells was narrowing it down because the druid spell list contains so many incredible spells. In the recent Unearthed Arcana — Class Feature Variants all the 5E D&D classes get a little something new to play with, with druids getting an expanded spell list in the collection of playtest material. Let’s check it closer and see if anything supplants Dave and Ted’s picks.
How to Create Holidays in Your RPG Fantasy Worlds — Taking a Tip from Terry Pratchett
Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanzaa! Blessed Yule! Phew! Happy Hogswatch! *Wipes sweat from brow* There are a ton of holidays this time of year, and that last one mentioned is what sparked the inspiration for this article. Hogswatch is a fictional holiday presented in the Discworld. During my annual re-read of Hogfather by Terry Pratchett I got to thinking about creating original holidays in fantasy worlds.
Centaur Knights and Fantasy Cultures in 5E D&D
Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted came up with ideas for a classic fantasy character concept, a centaur knight. The image of an half human, half horse warrior in shining armor captivated me since I was a little kid and after helping plan this video, watching it and putting the Character Build Guide together I’m thinking about how awesome this concept is all over again. This got me thinking how there’s not a whole lot of centaur action going on in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, at least not in my experience. Centaurs get a bump in Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica, there’s a centaur mummy in Tales from the Yawning Portal’s Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan and the terrifically named Centaur of Attention encounter in Dragons of Icespire Peak. And that’s about it in beyond the Monster Manual entry. Never a better time like the present to take a closer look at centaurs and by extension fantasy cultures for our 5E D&D campaign settings.
3 Christmas and Holiday Adventure Ideas from Folklore for 5E D&D
Salutations, nerds! And happy holidays. Today we’re going to be taking a second to talk about holiday adventures for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. We’re always mining folklore for monster ideas, and ideas for things to happen in a 5E D&D campaign setting, and there’s a lot of folklore surrounding the winter solstice. It’s the longest night of the year, and that’s always been something fascinating and mysterious to people. Ergo, naturally, it’s collected a lot of stories and folklore we can use to inspire a holiday adventure.
Following Leads and Finding Jobs like The Mandalorian in 5E D&D
If you’ve been following along with this series on creating a bounty hunter campaign inspired by The Mandalorian for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons you’ll notice I’ve mentioned a book called Remarkable Inns several times. This nearly 90 page resource details 8 distinct taverns and inns with wonderful detail along with tips and options for developing your own memorable establishments and everything that goes on within. When I prepped for the first session of our 5E D&D bounty hunter campaign, Remarkable Inns became an important tool for worldbuilding and providing an avenue to two very different paths the bounty hunting characters could take to begin their first contract. Let’s get into it.
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.
