Worldbuilding Opportunities Through Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount — Spells
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted unravel esoteric arcane mysteries from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount and discuss new spells for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons in the latest book. Powerful magic energy called dunamis manipulates fundamental forces of the multiverse to alter time, potential and gravity. Dunamancers study this ancient magic and gain the ability to control those forces through deeper understanding of cosmic mysteries. The collection of new 5E D&D spells in the book represent a handful of known dunamis spells, and they are powerful. A terrific sidebar offers suggestions for introducing dunamis spells into your campaign so if we’re looking for collaborative worldbuilding for Dungeon Masters and players, the rubber meets the road here. Crunchy spell effects notwithstanding, introducing new spells presents a great opportunity for DMs and players to collaborate, explore and expand on a campaign setting together.
Worldbuilding Opportunities Through Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount — Classes
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted continue their look through Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount with a look at the new fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons subclasses in the latest book. Echo Knight fighter, Chronurgy Magic wizard and Graviturgy Magic wizard join the ranks of official subclasses in the 5E D&D multiverse and the same things interest me about these options as the new races in the book. Shove all the crunchy bits aside, new character options present fantastic opportunities for worldbuilding and whether it starts with a Dungeon Master or the players in the adventuring party, any component of character creation or development becomes a wealth of ways for DMs and players to collaborate, explore and expand on a campaign setting together.
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.
Worldbuilding Opportunities Through Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount — Races
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted cracked open a fresh copy of Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount to go over the new player options for races for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons characters. Dave and Ted talk about the new races and their mechanical attributes, and in that regard the book contains five new options: pallid elf, lotusden halfling, draconblood and ravenite dragonborn and orcs of Exandria. New player options are always a welcome addition to 5E D&D and it’s fun to examine new races to see what classes they mesh with through their traits and attributes. But what really interests me about Character Options — Races in Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount isn’t the crunchy parts at all. Rather, I’m fascinated by the example of worldbuilding through all the existing options we already had and how Matt Mercer takes things we already know and enriches his own campaign setting with them. Worldbuilding doesn’t start or stop with a Dungeon Master, and the most basic component of character creation offers a terrific example of how this aspect of the game provides fertile ground for players and DMs to collaborate and build things together.
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.
Hooked on Adventure — Reversal of Fortune
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted roll some funny shaped dice and talk about all the ways a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character can become a dice master. Between the halfling Lucky trait, Lucky and Bountiful Luck feats and a slew of class features the probability of creating a fun, effective dice master character for 5E D&D is quite high. These characters step beyond inexplicable good fortune to begin actively manipulating chance. Call it fate, destiny, karma or kismet the dice master character sees the cascade of cause and effect and inserts themselves into the process. Pretty heady stuff! Dungeon Masters can certainly get in on the action too, and odds bending creatures, areas or magic items can be weal for DMs and woe for adventurers. In Fat of the Land a Rural Pig Sty became a low level adventure for 5E D&D giving adventurers a chance to investigate strange goings on leading back to a small family farm. In this encounter unusual behavior spreads through a town to the misfortune of all.
Hooked on Adventure — Fat of the Land
Hello! We are introducing a new series here on the website. In Hooked on Adventure we’ll take inspiration from our 3D printed terrain and miniatures to create encounters for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons you can drop right into your game. In Cultivating Chaos we turned the Rural Chicken Coop into an engaging low level adventure for 5E D&D pitting adventurers against demonic forces to save a family farm. In this encounter strange disappearances and transformations lead back to a small farm with a dark history. To enhance the encounter we used Dungeonfog, an online map maker and authoring tool designed for Game Masters, to create a map image for the Rural Chicken Coop. Check out Dungeonfog and use the promo code NERDARCHY to get 10% discount on your first annual and annual-CL (Commercial-License) order here.
D&D Ideas — Tropes
Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. This week’s topic is tropes, which we discussed in our exclusive Patreon live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST with Patreon supporters and talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy, by signing up here. The last days for Out of the Box: Encounters for Fifth Edition Pledge Manager are nigh! We’re in the final push before sending everything off to the printing press. We just received a huge number of gorgeous illustrations from Kim Van Deun and evocative maps from Darryl T. Jones, and we gave the text an additional level of editing from Matt Click. Speaking of tropes, in Girl with the Dragon SNAFU adventurers might meet in a tavern but it’s anything but just another night at the bar! Check out the Pledge Manager here.
Hooked on Adventure — Cultivating Chaos
Hello! We are introducing a new series here on the website. Nerdarchist Ted takes inspiration from our 3D printed terrain and miniatures to create encounters for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons you can drop right into your game. For his first foray into this territory Ted takes a closer look at our Rural Chicken Coop and designs a fun low level 5E D&D encounter. It’s not uncommon for starting adventurers to take on work clearing out giant spiders or rescuing kidnapped townsfolk from goblins. For this encounter Ted spices things up with Abyssal forces terrorizing a rural homestead and sowing chaos. To enhance the encounter we used Dungeonfog, an online map maker and authoring tool designed for Game Masters, to create a map image for the Rural Chicken Coop. Check out Dungeonfog and use the promo code NERDARCHY to get 10% discount on your first annual and annual-CL (Commercial-License) order here.
RPG Crate Holds the Recipe for Adventure for 5E D&D
If you know anything about RPG Crate you might already be aware of their wondrous Recipe for Adventure cards. If you have watched the monthly RPG Crate game I have run for a while over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel you may have heard me talk about them. Recipe for Adventure cards are fun index cards that allow you to take your fantasy roleplaying game to a whole new level.
Galladoria Games is Creating Painted and Unpainted Miniatures and Terrain
If you love excellently sculpted terrain and miniatures available in both painted and unpainted options then you really need to check out Galladoria Games. I first found them when they released the Mimic Invasion Kit 1. The kit includes the disguised and revealed mimic versions of items and terrain features like sleeping bags, hats, books, barrels and more. Mimic Invasion Kit 1 is a great collection. Mimic Invasion Kit 2 recently released too. The follow up set adds more fun mimics like thrones, anvils and piles of treasure.
Gamer Community and Group Identity
Group identity is important to tabletop roleplaying games. Heck, it’s important to any group of people. We as gamers see ourselves as a community. Whether they admit it or not, people need community. “Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human,” Aristotle wrote in Politics. The lone wolf is actually quite a rare phenomenon. Now, if you want I can go deep into scholarly literature about collective identity and start quoting research, but I won’t. After all, while I may be working toward my PhD, such academic stuff isn’t everyone’s cup of meat.
Wringing More from Halaster’s Tumultuous Templates and Mighty Conjurations for 5E D&D
Wow, D&D Spell Effects: Halaster’s Tumultuous Templates and D&D Icons of the Realms: Spell Effects: Mighty Conjurations are a mouthfuls for sure. If you are like me than you really dig using battle mats, miniatures terrain and effects to get more visual with your fifth edition Dungeon & Dragons or other roleplaying games. So I want to tell you about these two wonderful sets from WizKids. Halaster’s Tumultuous Templates and Spell Effects: Mighty Conjurations both allow you to add these lasting effects at your table so players and Dungeon Masters alike will have no question where any effects are, ending any potential dispute.
Dragon Age’s Thedas is My Middle Earth for the Fantasy Genre
For many, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is their quintessential introduction into the fantasy genre, but that isn’t how it went with me. Today, I’m getting personal and sharing my own introduction into the fantasy genre, a world that few would expect: Thedas, the lands where the stories of Dragon Age take place. However, before I explain how Thedas is my Middle Earth, I need to provide some context. So, please indulge as I share some of my personal history.
Mythology of a 5E D&D Dwarven Artificer Specialist
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted tinker with ideas for playing an artificer in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. A while back we did a video series about the best race to play each 5E D&D class and with the artificer being the only new official class since the Player’s Handbook we were compelled to add a new title to the series. The discussion on YouTube brought up some intriguing ideas and if I’m honest the artificer class itself didn’t really captivate me until I was watching the video. One of the races they mention for potential best artificer doesn’t make the final cut for them but for me it shot to the top of the list and remained there like mountain bedrock. At least for my own growing campaign setting the best artificers are dwarves.
