Embracing a 5E D&D Sorcerer’s Epic Destiny through The Witcher
Season 2 of The Witcher is officially out on Netflix and it’s no surprise how great it’s been. Based on the acclaimed novels that inspired the famous video game franchise The Witcher series is a treat for those fantasy fans who enjoy a thrill with a pinch of horror monsters. While watching I recognized a new use for one of our previously published subclasses.
Level Up Your 5E D&D Game with Evocative Descriptions
I play Dungeons & Dragons three times a week. On Tuesdays I play with the gang on Nerdarchy Live. On Wednesdays I play in my home game with my chosen family and every other Thursday I play with my author friends on Quill & Sword. Having played so much 5E D&D I’ve learned that descriptions are utterly vital. Dungeons & Dragons is a type of theater of the mind. You and your friends share a story experience much like a play or a movie except the experience is different for each person because there are no screens or stages — only your imagination. As such, Dungeon Masters must take a role similar to an author. They craft stories with descriptions to help their audience (in this case the players at the table) to envision what’s happening.
This Manual of Monsters Might Save Your D&D Adventurer’s Life
Ever faced a Dungeons & Dragons tarrasque and lived? Do you even know what a tarrasque is in the D&D multiverse? I can assure you for any character regardless of level a tarrasque is quite terrifying, as not many adventures live to tell the tale of this mighty beast. Not to mention many D&D adventurers consider a tarrasque the most deadly creature within D&D. Intense, right? The best I can describe this behemoth is Godzilla mixed with a spot of an armadillo and a dragon. There are high level adventuring groups whose end goal involves facing and defeating the creature. I can only imagine a treasure hoard of this monstrosity the size of a five story building!
Monsters & Creatures Offers a Perfect Entry Point for Budding D&D Adventurers
Have a young adventurer in your life? There is a set of Dungeons & Dragons guides specifically catered to younger readers. One of these is Monsters & Creatures: A Young Adventurer’s Guide by Jim Zub, Stacy King and Andrew Wheeler. This guide is part of an officially licensed D&D set called The Young Adventurer’s Collection. Monsters & Creatures is a total of 105 pages long and is fully illustrated in full color.
Adapting Dreams of Fire for 5E D&D Plus a New Feat for Sorcerers
Council of Geeks is a nerdy YouTube channel where Author Nathaniel Wayne discusses everything from Doctor Who to the Marvel multiverses, Netflix series, movies and general nerd-dom. But Nathaniel just couldn’t stop at talking about their favorite geeky stories — they needed to write their own! Enter the new electropunk fantasy novel with a fey twist: Dreams of Fire. Having shared my review of the book I feel it’s fairly apparent I enjoyed Dreams of Fire thoroughly. As such, of course my mind began swirling around how to adapt Dreams of Fire into fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons play.
How Hogfather and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Offer Hope for 2021 and Beyond
Recently on our second channel Nerdarchy Live Nerdarchist Dave and Nerditor Doug talked about comedy in tabletop roleplaying games. Since I’ve written my own comedic fantasy book and the genre niche is my jam I simply had to talk about it. Talking about comedic fantasy reminds me of one of my favorite movies of all time, which also happens to be a holiday favorite, Hogfather. Or as I like to call this movie — How Death Saved Fantasy Christmas.
Join #My30DayWorld RPG World Building Challenge with Jorphdan
Renowned YouTuber Jorphdan’s (the PH is silent) normal repertoire includes Dungeons & Dragons lore videos on everything from Forgotten Realms to Spelljammer. Spurred by My 30 Day World challenge put out by Absolute Tabletop and a Fantasy World Building Guide from WebWriter.net, Jorphdan concocted a challenge to end this 2020 — 30 Days of RPG World Building! If you missed out on NaNoWriMo or GamoWriMo never fear because there’s still plenty of time to do #My30DayWorld challenge!
Free Fifth Edition Gift for Awesome RPG Community
Over five years ago we sent out the very first Nerdarchy the Newsletter on Aug. 23, 2015. The inaugural message was delivered to 14 people who received a special message from Nerdarchist Dave along with an invitation to what would become the Company of the NAG and the platform for our monthly community one shot games still taking place to this day.
3 Iconic Fantasy Characters Who Dumped Constitution
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted go the distance to examine the health, stamina and vital force of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons characters. The mere thought of dumping Constitution in 5E D&D or any edition of the game — or any game at all — is anathema for many players. Say what you will about being weak or clumsy or dumb, a character with poor health faces some tough obstacles in any game incorporating physical danger. Is a 5E D&D character with low Constitution doomed? Here’s three fantasy characters who suggest anything but, so let’s get into it.
Discover Dreams of Fire by Council of Geeks’ Nathaniel Wayne
What do you get when you mash elemental magic and a tale of escape and intrigue? Suppose you combined a world of electropunk technology with whimsical faeire dangers? What you get when these things collide is the novel Dreams of Fire. Dreams of Fire is an upcoming electropunk fey novel of intrigue and self discovery by Council of Geeks YouTube sensation and debut novelist Nathaniel Wayne. I had the privilege of interviewing Nathaniel about their upcoming work over on my YouTube channel. What’s more, beyond this interview, Nathaniel graciously agreed to answer a few more questions in the form of text, and I’ve included that interview below.
Beware the Reaver | New 5E D&D Fighter Subclass is the Darkest Yet!
Blood. Pain. Terror. For most these words evoke dread, but for the Reaver they trigger glee, excitement and promise. Some Reavers come to their powers through dark rituals or actions horrific and unspeakable and others are born with an innate connection to primal bloodlust, which fuels their sadism. Here is a homebrew fighter subclass for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons — the Reaver Martial Archetype. If you’re seeing this post for the second time, it’s due to some technical issues we had with the site, but this fighter subclass was just too good to lose.
Torth: Castle of Evil
In my last piece I wrote about one of the modules I wrote back in the Mesozoic era. “After all our 12 year old minds, while imaginative, couldn’t spin a coherent narrative. I still have a dungeon I wrote back then called Torth. It’s… um… well, the Plan 9 of modules. Made no sense.” Within hours, the stalwart and suffering editor sent to me “I am curious about Torth! Although my opinion of Plan 9 is colored by Ed Wood, which I’ve seen several more times than the actual Plan 9 haha.” [NERDITOR’S NOTE: That’s me!] However, by that point the semester was concluding, work was piling up, and I couldn’t do it. Now the semester is done (I earned 2 A’s and an A-) and here I am sitting on the couch writing about something I wrote some 40 plus years ago. Get off my lawn.
Carving a Place in the World | Giantborn – New Player Race for 5E D&D
Giantkin are a longstanding tradition in fantasy fiction and folklore. Whether it’s Jack and the Beanstalk or Attack on Titan it seems the notion of being smaller than another person is one of our most intrinsic fears. However, in the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons monsters and other frights are manifest staples of everyday life, and sooner or later people will fall in love or otherwise reproduce. That’s where the giantborn (offspring of human and giant relations) come into play! The idea for giantborn first occurred to me as belonging in my homebrew campaign setting, based on my own published novel The Mis-Adventurers: An (Almost) Epic Tale. However, this race could just as easily fit into any setting.
Learning the Secret History of Hobgoblins
Never one to leave a writing series dangling, I promised in The Secret History of Merfolk to follow up with the third and final book in the series by Ari Berk. The Secret History of Hobgoblins presents another tapestry of folklore and kitschy monster stuff...
Top 10 of All Time
Just like at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel with its thousands of videos celebrating tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, here on the website we’ve got thousands of posts too. Since 2014 we’ve been writing and posting new content here many times each week and this post marks the 2,064th publication. Since we constantly strive to improve our craft and recognize what readers, viewers and fans want we took a look at all the published posts to try and glean some useful info. The results track with what we already knew to some extent but with much sharper image came into view that’ll help us create more of the kind of content people enjoy. All this aside we thought it would be fun to share the Top 10 Most Popular Posts of All Time from Nerdarchy the Website. So let’s get into it.
