Campfires Aren’t Just for Character Intros Anymore!
Campfire Writing Software is a tool for writers. It’s phenomenal for tracking everything from characters, to major plot lines, to world building, and more! I was provided a free copy to review, and boy, do I have thoughts. Spoiler alert (in case the article’s title didn’t give it away), I loved it! If you want to watch me go through it initially and get my raw thoughts, you can watch this week’s RPGtube video on my channel!
Curse of Hollow Hills – Undead Miniatures on Kickstarter
From the people of Crippled God Foundry, allow me to present the Curse of Hollow Hills. Dungeons & Dragons, or let’s face it any fantasy roleplaying game, would not be the same without hordes of undead. It is that fear of a fate worse than death that can scare the normal mortal into staying in town. It takes a brave adventurer — or a foolish one — to brave the trials and tribulations of the monsters out there. And the undead are one of those. Curse of Hollow Hills is a miniatures project of fantasy heroes & undead monsters. If funded, it will include a collection of up to 50 original sculpts (including future stretch goals), inspired by the most iconic undead creatures of fantasy novels, RPGs & tabletop board games.
Mega Dungeon Crawl to End All 5e D&D Dungeon Crawls
We were contacted by the folks over at Hammerdog Games about their latest KickStart:
The Grande Temple of Jing – 5th Edition: The DUNGEON CRAWL THAT RULES THEM ALL
Now updated for 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. And with exclusive miniatures! This thing is massive with huge amounts of talent on this project – Danny O’Neill with Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Ed Greenwood, Jim Ward, Chris Pramas, Stan!, Grimtooth, Matt Mayhew, Dave Gross, Kevin Andrew Murphy and more.
This is the 5e D&D version of the Pathfinder original. With minis, character maps, and some improvements to the book. It’ll still work with Pathfinder, but the focus is on 5e. Did I mention this thing is massive? 65 themed dungeon levels in a book that is 500+ pages. There are levels that are appropriate for levels from 1st all the way up to 20th.
Make Your Own D&D Maps with Dungeonfog
Let’s face it — Game Masters can never have enough tools to help make running their D&D games easier. DUNGEONFOG is just one of those tools. The fine folks over at DUNGEONFOG sent us over some copies to check it out and sponsored this article and some videos. They were even nice enough to give us the promo code Nerdarchy so you can score a 10 percent discount on the annual subscription which is already discounted from the monthly subscription. There are a ton of features to help GMs run their games and prepare beautiful maps. Not only that, there are tons of maps already on DUNGEONFOG that you can drop into your games or modify to your needs. Go sign up for free here.
Need D&D Battle Maps for Your Game
Since the inception of D&D maps have played a huge part of the game. But that makes a lot of sense when you consider the origin of the game. Since Dungeons & Dragons was born of Chain Mail, a tabletop miniatures war game. From the earliest day of Dungeons & Dragons it has been played both in the theater of the mind as well as with D&D battle maps and miniatures. Theater of the mind is a style of play that doesn’t use miniatures or battle maps. Many tabletop roleplaying games have come along since the beginning of Dungeons & Dragons. Some favor theater of the mind while others lean heavily towards using minis and battle maps.
D&D Sorcerer or Warlock Out of the Chaos
Time to slip into some Nerdarchy home brew D&D lore. With this piece of lore we’ve got some ideas for creating either a 5E D&D sorcerer or warlock subclass. Maybe even both, but for starters we throw it to the Nerdarchy community. We start off by discussing the land and monsters that spawn our concepts. Whether we go with a D&D warlock or sorcerer they will be steeped in chaos. We took our inspiration from the chaos giant miniature from Pacesetter Games & Simulations. We had former intern Jake paint them with some Vallejo Paints. You can find pictures below.
New 5E D&D Magic Items for Dungeon Masters and Players
What would be a Dungeons & Dragons game without magic items? Players love them, the Dungeon Master loves giving them out. Magic items have always been a huge part of the Dungeons & Dragons game. 5E D&D magic items are no different. They can completely make, and in some cases break, a Dungeons & Dragons game. How many stories have I heard of a new excited Dungeon Master who’s broken their game by giving out to many magical goodies too soon. Speaking of magic items, right now on Kickstarter you can find the Tome of Magical Mystery. It’s a new book full of over 200+ magic items for 5E. Check out the Kickstarter here.
D&D Barbarian 5E — Path of the Frost Wyrm
Nerdarchy has teamed up with Pacesetter Games & Simulations as well as Vallejo Paints to put together something special in our opinion, but we might be a bit biased. For one, both companies are sponsoring this article, video, and contest. So, disclaimer out of the way if you care about such things. Inspired by the Frost Wyrm miniature by Pacesetters Games & Simulations we came up with the concept of the Frost Wyrm barbarian tribe. As well as a brand new D&D barbarian primal path for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. For some extra inspiration we had our former intern Jake Kosman work his magic with Vallejo Paints.
5E D&D Traps — Nord Games is Making Them Treacherous
Our friends over at Nord Games asked us to help get out the word about their latest D&D Kickstarter — Treacherous Traps for 5th Edition! This is a sponsored article by Nord Games if you care about such things. For me the Holy Trinity of third party publishers is Kobold Press, Nord Games, and Frog God games. I feel you can generally drop any of the D&D content these folks are making right in your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons game with no problem.
New Circle for Druid 5E D&D — Worshipping the Froghemoth
Nerdarchy recently partnered with Pacesetter Games & Simulations as well as Vallejo Paints. Use the promo code staynerdy15 for a 15 percent discount on their products. We’ve taken this partnership and built some and cool content for 5E D&D. We kicked things off with Horris the Horned Lord. Most recently we moved on to Abalor the Abhorrent and a dark druid 5E Circle — the Circle from the Beyond. Abalor is based off of the froghemoth model from Pacesetter. It’s a great looking model. You can see it below as painted by Jake Kosman using Vallejo Paints. The froghemoth D&D monster was reintroduced into 5E D&D in Volo’s Guide to Monsters. Part of the awesome Nerdarchy, Pacesetter, and Vallejo team-up is a contest to win a froghemoth both painted, unpainted, and the paints to paint your very own froghemoth miniature. There’s a bunch of ways to enter the contest to win the minis and paints. Check it out here.
Better D&D Dungeons with ZFigs Interlocking Dungeon Tiles
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage has just been released for Dungeon Masters to test their players’ mettle with. D&D dungeons are a tried and true staple of the game. Over the years there has been D&D dungeon after D&D dungeon. From the Tomb of Horrors to today’s modern Dungeon of the Mad Mage. And over the years Dungeon Masters have used a ton of different methods for representing their dungeons. Now there is another one from Toy Vault live on KickStarter. Their new ZFigs Interlocking Dungeon Tiles is affordable 3D dungeon terrain for everyone’s tabletop games. There are some really nice high dungeon tiles and sets out there, but they aren’t also within the average gamer’s budget.
Monstrous Humanoids in 5E D&D
Over the years Dungeons & Dragons has offered many different races for players to choose from. I know that some Dungeon Masters are very much against anything that does not look normal. Let’s forget the dragonborn and tielfing and play with humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes and halflings. With those races there are plenty of options even without all the subrace choices. But if you are like me you enjoy all the choices and you want to play the things that are bizarre and interesting. If you happen to look around this site you will see many different monstrous humanoids I statted out for 5E D&D and even made up some of my own, so feel free to poke around. I’ve had a fondness for monstrous humanoid races from the beginning of my roleplaying days. The Complete Book of Humanoids was always my favorite, with races like the wemic, the ogre mage and of course the dino people — saurials. I used this book over and over again playing second edition AD&D. And now Deck of Many has an free PDF designed for anyone who enjoys anthropomorphic characters for 5E D&D.
A D&D Encounter for Your Game Night
We recently built a D&D encounter around the miniature sent to us by channel sponsor Pacesetter Games & Simulations. As a side note, right now there is a staynerdy15 promo code over at Pacesetters that you can use to save 15 percent off your purchases. Not to mention there is plenty of free stuff to download on their site. The paints to paint the mini were supplied by Vallejo Paints. There is also currently a give-a-way to win the painted mini, unpainted mini, and paints to go with it here. The mini is a sculpt of Baphomet from the Pacesetter’s Demons and Devils miniature line.
Armor Up Your 5E D&D Character Sheets With Gauntlets
Our friends over at ArchVillain Games have asked us to sponsor an article to help get the word out about their KickStarter for Gauntlets — Beautiful 5E Character Sheet Cases. I’m not sure how much help they needed though. After only 16 hours Archvillain Games has successfully funded their first KickStarter. Cameron Rout and Konstantinos Martinos are the minds behind Archvillain Games. I know some might be put off by this being a first KickStarter, but Cameron is one the minds behind D&D in a Castle with several more castles planned for next year. He’s got my vote of confidence after witnessing the inaugural D&D in Castle firsthand. Gauntlets are designed to have 5E D&D character sheets inserted in them or they can act as template for your character sheet by just using a blank sheet of paper. They come different options and designs. I don’t think it would be an overstatement to call the Gauntlet an artisanal way of displaying your character sheet either on the gaming table, a book shelf, or anywhere else you keep your gaming gear.
Take Your Dungeons & Dragons Game on the Road with a Tome of Holding
Our latest sponsor The Tome of Holding has a KickStarter for your Dungeons & Dragons game on the go. What is the Tome of Holding? It’s a carry box plus dice tray. Compact, super portable, a good looking way to transport your D&D dice, miniature, and it doubles as a dice tray. There are different versions of the Tome of Holding — various etched designs, and with or without various inserts (pictured below) — all designed to make your travels to Dungeons & Dragons game night easy. These look great! When you aren’t gaming and rolling those D&D dice they’ll look amazing on your bookshelf or even as a conversation piece on a coffee table.
