Secrets of the Secrets of the Vault: Mage Forge
Part of my self-appointed tasks as nerditor-in-chief for Nerdarchy is organizing content. Cleaning up all the categories and tags here on the website, creating and maintaining the publication budget and schedule for posts, and putting together our products like Fantastical Mounts and From Hit Dice to Heroics all share something in common — exposure to the vast library of archived content produced by Nerdarchy over the last few years. When we decided to try our hand at product creation in 2018, I thought about all the comments I’ve read from Nerdarchy fans curious about the homebrew campaign setting of Ulthe-Ganya. That’s how Secrets of the Vault: Mage Forge Vol. 1 developed. I realized a lot of what people ask for is already out there. Let’s open up the Vault, see what’s inside, how it came to be, and ultimately went full circle by becoming an incredible new D&D artifact itself.
D&D Planes, Cosmology, and Welcome to the Realm of Chaos
Delving back into Nerdarchy’s homebrew campaign setting Chimes of Discordia for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, I want to talk to about some of our D&D cosmology and our Realm of Chaos or the Chaos Realm. We have this Stranger or Traveler god that either was spawned from the Realm of Chaos or created the Chaos Realm with their birth. Like many creation myths the multiverse started out as chaos. Powerful beings that would come to be known as gods came forth from somewhere else, looked upon the chaos and brought order to it. They gathered up all of the chaos and cast it out and far away. That mass of chaos condensed and built up over the ages.
The Iconic Dungeons & Dragons Monster – A Love Letter to Them
The beholder was introduced with the first Dungeons & Dragons supplement, Greyhawk in 1975. The mind flayer first appeared in the official newsletter of TSR Games, The Strategic Review No. 1 in spring 1975. These are two of the most iconic Dungeons & Dragons monsters in the game. I’d love to know how many players have met their end to one of these two baddies. Of course D&D is rife with monsters what makes the beholder and mind flayer so special. I think it’s because they are so alien and bizarre that they really capture the imagination of players and Dungeon Masters alike in a way that very few other Dungeons and Dragons Monsters do.
Using Exotic Mounts in D&D – The Knights of the Crimson Spiral
Nerdarchy plays fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons in the our own campaign setting Chimes of Discordia. The world is Ulthe-Ganya, a hodgepodge one of our early campaigns we are currently doing in D&D games. In that world there is our god of war Stromguard, the lord of battle, bloodshed, and warfare. He is a brutal being that lives for strife and conflict. It is only fitting he has champions to match his demeanor. His followers are drawn from warriors, soldiers, and more primitive tribal peoples. Mechanically his followers in our campaign setting will be drawn from the barbarian, fighter, and War Domain cleric character classes. Some outliers would be bard (skalds), ranger, monk (brawlers), and paladin. Paladins in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons have become holy warriors dedicated to a particular oath. The most violent and warlike of these might find that oath sworn before the altar of Stromguard. Two oaths in particular stand out for Stromguard — Oath of Conquest and Oath of Vengeance. These champions are both revered and feared even among the faithful of Stromguard.
Nerdarchy Patreon Evolved! Original 5E Content — Bigger, Better, Bolder
Since 2014, Nerdarchy has been hard at work creating content all over the place. What began with a video featuring Nerdarchist Dave geeking out has grown to a library of well over 2000 videos on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. Here on the website, you’ll find over 1500 posts sharing news, views, and homebrews as well as the Nerdarchy Store with even more original content. But there’s another place we create even more content still! Through the Nerdarchy Patreon, we’ve been rewarding supporters with original 5E content since 2016. And now it’s evolved!
The Case for Half-Dragons as a Playable D&D Race
There can be no denying that dragons are a huge part of D&D. After all, they’re half the name. Most of the time they function as adversaries: a monster to slay in order to save a princess or town. In a few cases, good-aligned dragons can function as mentors or allies to a party of adventurers. However, interest in playing a character of draconic descent must have increased in recent years, because the last three editions of Dungeons & Dragons have had playable races of draconic descent, with the dragonborn even being featured in the fourth edition and fifth edition Player’s Handbooks. Dragonborn have continued to be a popular selection for many players. But their inclusion as a mainstream race has always baffled me, because even before they were introduced, there was another great candidate for a playable D&D race of draconic descent: half-dragons, the children of true dragons and their mortal lovers.
Digital Cartography and RPG Map Maker Software
With the internet slowly being taken over by RPG nerds and geeks we are seeing many more streams of various roleplaying games. Lots of people out there want to join the club, but many don’t know how to make something more digital. When they start with digital cartography to make the maps they go to Photoshop or its less expensive counterpart Gimp. After a few hours of frustration and confusion the idea is given up on and the stream never comes to life. I thought it a good idea to take a look at three sets of RPG map maker software: Campaign Cartographer 3, Dungeon Painter Studio, and Dungeonographer/Cityographer. These programs vary in price, sometimes drastically. These are all programs I personally use. There is no paid endorsement for these products, but I believe in them and strongly recommend them.
Put Your Gaming Set Proficiency to Work with Games within Games in D&D
The Nerdarchists brought up some interesting set pieces in their games within games in D&D video. I’ve had players really gravitate towards gambling at the tavern in between adventures, but just merely rolling skill checks can get a little dull. There are a many options out there for bringing gambling games into your sessions, but I thought I’d share one method I used to take a simple gaming set proficiency and gambling downtime activity of my local rogue and turned it into a recurring scene with an enjoyable NPC and a great way to give weird magic items to the party.
Add Beauty to your D&D World with a Custom Character Option
D&D Franchise Creative Director Mike Mearls has got creative fever! The co-creator of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons already streams his creative process during the Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour on Twitch, pulling back the curtain to show how subclass options for D&D character classes are created and developed. And recently, on Twitter he shared a creation particular to his own home campaign — the Beauty Domain for clerics. Adding a custom character option like this can enrich your own D&D world too.
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.
Keep an Eye of the Deep on Aquatic Adventures in D&D
Sometimes, adventures in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons take you away from dry land and the comfort of familiar tropes. When ancient evil threatens the world from the ocean floor, when rumors of a sunken city offer the prospects of rewards untouched by man, or simply when a transport ship sinks, then its time to dive below the waves. Aquatic adventures in D&D can offer a fresh new experience for players and give the Dungeon Master an opportunity to play with some creatures and locations that tend to go untouched. So, strap on your swim cap as we dive into running an adventure underwater.
Bubblemancer – A Different Take on Mist Walker from Taking 20
As with many out there in RPG hobby who have taken to the interwebs, I’m a fan of quite a few different content creators out there. Shocking, I know. While my love for Nerdarchy is evident, I do occasionally peek into what other channels are doing. My series-of-tube-lurking has brought me to Taking 20 this week. The ever kind Cody has released his new class the Mist Walker for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, and while I find the class chocked full of flavor, I like to take that flavor, twist it and turn it to eleven. Allow me to introduce you to: Kurugame, the Bubblemancer!
New 5E Player Race – Goatfolk, Getting Down with these Baaaa-ad boys
Goatfolk. The Beastmen. The Faun. They come by many names across many mediums. The Nerdarchy crew was inspired to create a stubborn, bearded race that wasn’t dwarves. This lead them to write us up a goatfolk 5E player race for your Fifth Edition games and I think we can christen these cloven-hoofed creatures with a proper encounter idea.
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.
A Complete 5E Sci-Fi RPG in Esper Genesis Core Manual
When I flipped through the recently released full core rulebook for Esper Genesis, the same immediate feeling of hell yeah I want to play this emerges as it did when I first heard about 5th Edition science fiction roleplaying game by Dungeon Master’s Guild Adept Rich Lescouflair and the folks at Alligator Alley Entertainment. I’ve loved playing every edition of Dungeons & Dragons since the classic red box, and enjoyed stretching the boundaries of 5E D&D in particular. I was already running a pretty outrageous Spelljammer campaign at home when I heard about Esper Genesis and the free basic rules of this 5E sci-fi RPG went right into the mix, adding awesome new vehicles, classes and esper powers like fushion beam and gravity sphere.
