Anyone Can Be Psionic with New 5E D&D Feats in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
Psionics have finally made their canonical fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons debut in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. And when I say now anyone can be psionic I mean anyone. Courtesy of two new 5E D&D psionic feats any character or creature can manifest at least a base level of psionic power!
Unearthed Arcana — Psionics Revisited Presents New 5E D&D Opportunities
Are you awakened? Do you have the mental fortitude to manifest your will into being, warping the very fabric of reality itself? Psionics have been a staple of Dungeons & Dragons worlds since the early days. Traditionally psionic powers stem from Intelligence, but the latest Unearthed Arcana 2020 — Psionic Options Revisited for fifth edition D&D offers new perspectives and options, leaving the traditional Intelligence exclusive model. So let’s talk about flavor and what the different subclasses look like contextually when it comes to psionics in 5E D&D.
Theros? But What About Your Favorite D&D Campaign Setting?!
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted speculate on what we might see in the upcoming fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons book Mythic Odysseys of Theros. Since I already shared my own speculation in the post we published when we discovered the new book before any official announcement that’s not going to work here. Instead I’ll take the opportunity to consider a perspective we see and hear a lot as regards MOoT and the previous Magic: the Gathering material brought into the 5E D&D multiverse, Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica. There’s a lot of D&D players out there who see these M:tG settings crossing over with D&D taking away from the game and giving short shrift to campaign settings of the past they’d like to see updated for 5E D&D. According to Wikipedia there’s nearly 30 official D&D campaign settings in the game’s history, last updated March 14, 2020 to include Exandria. The campaign setting for Critical Role’s adventures became an official part of the D&D multiverse with the release of Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount.
D&D Gets Post Apocalyptic with Hellscapes
There’s a huge variety of tabletop roleplaying games out there on the market, providing infinite variety in settings, themes and mechanics. Everything from primitive worlds to vast universes, quickstart guides to 500-page rulebooks, and low-brow humor to high-brow drama. But if you’re like me, and can simply never get enough Dungeons & Dragons, testing the limits of fifth edition D&D keeps you plenty satisfied with your RPG obsession. In the weekly live stream game I run on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel, we cobbled together our own gonzo Spelljammer setting using material from Hyperlanes. And now with Hellscapes, the follow-up project from the same creators, a new avenue is open to explore – post apocalyptic adventures using the 5E engine!
Dark Sun Ever Mindful of D&D Psionics
Like Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch mention in the video above, psionics has been a part of Dungeons & Dragons since 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. In the interest of utmost accuracy, the supernatural power of psionics were first introduced to D&D in Eldritch Wizardry, a 1976 supplemental rulebook for the original edition. Also of note are the other now-iconic facets of D&D included in that 60-page digest: the druid class, demons and demon lords like Orcus and Demogorgon, mind flayers, and artifacts like the Rod of Seven Parts and Axe of the Dwarvish Lords.
With those bits of long forgotten secrets behind us now, let’s turn our clairsentience to the future. Based on hints and bits of information shared through social media and in interviews, a fifth edition D&D iteration of Dark Sun is almost certain.
We’ve already got the mystic class available through the Dungeon Master’s Guild, giving D&D players the opportunity to utilize the awesome power of psionics in D&D 5E.
Now we only await the introduction of the sun-scorched setting of Dark Sun.
Mad Max Fury Road & The Dark Fantasy Art Influences of Brom
Furiosa’s black war paint beside Brom’s painting from 10 years prior.
So I may lose nerd cred here, but I was only just able to see the fantastic, nitrous injected film that was Mad Max Fury Road this past weekend. I don’t feel I can add much to the discussion of the cultural significance of the film, but there is one unique slant regarding the visuals that I might offer.
Fury Road explodes like an oil tanker flame-throwered and jack-knifed into the desert wastes at 60 mph with rich, detailed costumes, weapons, and vehicles- I was simply floored by how visually extravagant this film was! The many muted tones of the film giving the few instances of vibrant color an incredible punch!
It was full of dark fantasy imagery coupled with something else- maybe call it a “Rust Punk” aesthetic with all of it’s super-charged, lethal, heap of junk vehicles. For those less well-versed in dark fantasy imagery, it tends to have a more threatening and fetishized look about it. The first name that comes to mind when I think “dark fantasy” is: Gerald Brom, or to many, just simply Brom.
Top 5 D&D Campaign Settings
Hello and well met. I’m here to discuss my top 5 picks for D&D campaign settings through out my 30+ years of the game. First and foremost we will be skipping Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms. I find these to be the most generic of D&D campaign settings. They could literally be anyone’s homebrew game. Oh wait, Forgotten Realms was Ed Greenwood’s. Nothing against those settings it’s just there isn’t anything really different in them. The only reason Forgotten Realms is interesting at all is because of the amount of detail that has gone into it, with tons of authors having written in that setting. Even with all of that it strikes as being incredibly generic. Personally if I’m going to play in a generic setting I’d rather just run my own homebrew.
The Desert World of Athas — Dark Sun Campaign Setting
Hello friends, Nerdarchist Ted here to talk about Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings. Today I would like to talk about Dark Sun or the desert world of Athas. With most D&D campaign settings the world is mostly good. That is not the case in Dark Sun. In most campaign settings magic is prevalent and not harmful at its core. In the desert world of Athas magic destroys life just by being cast.
