“The Albatross”- Out of the Box #18
listening to the radio in my car, or a playlist on my phone while showering, can lead to outbursts of “I have to write that down!” Songs inspire character concepts, back stories, encounters, scenes I want to lay out for my players, or images that lead to character sketches and other artwork. This encounter was inspired when I heard “Albatross” by Big Wreck.
5th Edition Tome of Beasts – Arch Devils and Devils
Last week I delved into the Tome of Beats and the Rulers of the Fey Court. You can check out that 
Article here. This week I have torn through the devils and lets see what we get.
Not only does Tome of Beast give us some new lower tier Devils to play with but some Upper tier Arch Devils that can be a source for an entire campaign arc. If you have not pre-ordered you own copy you can do so here.
We get 4 new Arch Devils to inspire us in new ways. Kobold press did an excellent job of creating foes with goals and agendas. They also added a new format of damage requiring weapons to be silvered to damage certain foes.
Arbeyach is the first Arch Devil we get to explore and he is literally made of a swarm of insects. His greatest weapons is to cause people to be poisoned and he removes resistance and immunities from those close to him. Be warned. Though his power wains through inaction he has many that serve him.
Ia’Affrat is actually the offspring of Arbeyach. While his father is a swarm of insects, he is a swarm of fire. He is composed of tiny elementals. So removed from flesh and blood he is immune to weapon damage of any kind. Do not get into a fight with him unless you are prepared.
Fan2Sea: Comic Con Goodness on the High Seas
No longer do you have to just dream of setting sail on the seas of high adventure. Now you can do the real thing. Coming in January 2017, with the Fan2Sea Cruise you can take the ultimate comic book and pop culture vacation aboard Royal Caribbean...
“Fountain of Fortunes”- Out of the Box D&D Encounters #17
see value in monetary things, but this may simply a pragmatic outlook and not greed. The reality is that things generally cost money. However, many others place value on the intangible. Some place value in concepts or ideals. Love, honour, faith, hope, justice, and freedom…, or even death, carnage, corruption and tyranny. Add to that a bit of flavor text I read in the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, and we have an encounter.5th Edition Tome of Beasts – Fey Lords and Ladies
last week we delved into the Tome of Beasts and touched on the Dragons. Today we are going to talk 
about the Fey Lords and Ladies. This is from the Tome of Beasts that is coming out for 5th Edition. You can pre-order your own copy here. It is expected to be released on September 13th.
They divide the fey lords and ladies up into regions and tell you the power and political side of things. if you wanted to run a game dealing with them there is the structure set up already. Each of these mighty beings has the ability to alter the land around around them coming in with legendary actions, lair actions and regional effects. These beings are not toppled easily and unless you have a DM set things up poorly or you set up machinations correctly you are never going to encounter them alone.
The mythological Cold Iron comes back into play with these might Fey Lords and Ladies. There has been no previous mention, I am familiar with. There is a side bar for how to obtain them in the game but crafter beware. These beings are powerful and live a long time. They might kill you just for making them. The reason cold iron is a thing as these mighty beings can’t be harmed with weapons that are not made of the stuff. Only 2 of the Fey lords and Ladies are able to be hurt with just regular magic weapons. The rest require you to have Cold Iron Weapons.
Blast from the Past: Mattel Electronics Handheld Games
Blast from the Past: Mattel Electronics Handheld Games
You see a kid walking down the street. His eyes are glued to the game in his hands, so he barely notices when he strolls across a busy street, and he doesn’t hear tires squeal and horns blare. Could he be playing Pokemon Go? Or is he doing something else on his smart phone?
Of course not. The year is 1976, after all.
How can that be? Believe it or not, way back in the dinosaur ages we actually had electronic handheld games, and they were quite popular. Sports games were probably the most common, but plenty of others were available. Companies like Coleco and Sears (yes, that Sears) had plenty of games available, and it seemed more came out every year, especially at Christmas.
But of all the companies which sold such devices, by far the most popular had to be Mattel Electronics. 
This company kicked everything off with the very first all-digital electronic game, Auto Race, which came out in stores in 1976.
By today’s standards, Auto Race was a simple game with red LED (light-emitting diode) lights. The player controlled a bright red line one the bottom of the tiny screen. The goal was to steer your race car (that red line) from the bottom of the screen to the top of the screen four times before a time of 99 seconds ran out. If the player made it, then the player won the game. The hard part was avoiding all the other race cars (more red blips) which came at you at high speeds, and if one hit you, then your car was forced back to the bottom of the screen. The main control moved your car from left to right, but you could also change gears to speed up or slow down play.
“Mirrors of The Soul”- Out of The Box D&D Encounters #16
this, it can sometimes be hard to get players to try certain paths, enter portals, or take risks that are new. More experienced players tend to be guilty of this whereas brand new players are not.
5th Edition Tome of Beasts – Dragons
Every Dungeon Master loves access to new monsters. And what Dungeon Master does not like using Dragons. With the Open Gaming License we are starting to see 3rd party publishers getting hardbound products out as options to, well give us more options.
Kobold Press has released a new product out for Pre-order. You can preorder your copy here. We did a review on Daves copy that he got early because he backed the kickstarter.
I was sad when I found out that missed getting my own early copy. When we looked at the pdf we were not disappointed. There are so many awesome monsters in this book as well as some new beasts and NPCs to easily add into your game.
Today I am just going to talk about the Dragons that are in this book. Next week I will touch on some 
other monster groups. I will keep this series going until the book is released.
In this book you get 6 new Dragon types for your 5th edition game. Kobold Press does not give you any carbon copy of dragons that exist in your 5th edition monster manual but 6 new whole cloth creations that stand out as unique.
Almost all of the dragons have 4 separate stat blocks for the 4 age categories of Dragons: ancient, adult, young and wyrmling. I make my notes below
The cave dragon is a fierce beast that constantly needs to eat. It lives underground where its sensitivity to sunlight keeps it safe. But sadly living underground is not a place abundant with food. It is not mindless and is a true dragon. I compare this one with a white dragon with lower stats and its desire for food out weighs its desire for any coin. Sorry adventurers if you are looking to slay a dragon
A Year of Writing for Nerdarchy
Because I keep track of such things, this is my 52nd weekly article for Nerdarchy. That’s a year. 
Actually, my first Nerdarchy article appeared on the site on August 19, 2015, so it won’t quite be a complete year by the time this is published, but close enough.
It’s been an interesting year for me here at Nerdarchy. Some articles have proven more popular than others, and some have been more fun to write than others. Hey, they can’t all be winners, but you do the best you can each week. I just hope I’ve given Nerdarchy readers a few thinks to think about, maybe a little news, and the occasional chuckle.
I’ve had a handful of interviews, a few news articles, some opinion pieces about D&D, and then there’s the series I started called Blast from the Past, which looks back at Nerdy things, mostly from the ’80s because that was my teen years, sort of my heyday of being a young nerd. While the Nerdarchy site as a whole focuses upon tabletop role playing games with the occasional foray into other nerdy material, I’ve been trying to stretch those boundaries a little to include other games and movies, etc. Sometimes I’ve succeeded and maybe sometimes I haven’t, but ultimately that’s for the reader to decide. Regardless, I’ve had a good time and hope to continue on here at Nerdarchy as long as they’ll have me.
In the spirit of looking back on the year of my articles, I thought I’d post links to some of my favorites and provide perhaps a few words about each of them. If you missed these, then you’ve got something new to read, and if you’ve already seen them, feel free to take a look back. I’ll post them in order from oldest to most recent.
How Gaming (and Nerdarchy) Helped Save Me
This was my second article for Nerdarchy, and it is the most personal piece I’ve written to date. I talk about some personal issues I was dealing with a couple of years ago, how I discovered online gaming and
“The Eyes Have It”- Out of The Box D&D Encounters #15
without “homebrew” input from a DM. Using these relationships can be used to justify other interactions that can create a chain of encounters that are not only logical, but generate a build in excitement. Intellect Devourers and Illithids, Orcs and Ettins, Goblins, and Worgs…all are existing relationships where you can hint at what comes next and then scale up the danger. Even seeing one may not necessarily lead to another, but even the hint that it might could lead to some great tension or scene building.Arcknight: Flat Plastic Miniatures – Gaming options
Many of you out there like to have hordes of options when it comes to visual items to add to your gaming 
options. 3d minis comes in several options or styles. Usually you can get pre-painted plastic miniatures but these are usually blind purchase and the cost winds up being around $4-$5 a piece higher if you are going to just grab them off of ebay.
You can go away from the blind purchase and go for the unpainted miniatures. Here you can see exactly what you are getting and wind up paying a better price per mini but if you want them looking good you have to assemble and paint them yourself.
However what if that those prices or options are not to your liking. Well you could go and grab some cardboard pawns. The flat packing pawns with bases offers smaller storage and usually come in packs so you know what you are getting. Always handy.
I have been in games where these pawns are used and while they are great the paper minis are subject to the hazards of spills. When the excitement is high the chances of something getting knocked over or be subject to pizza fingers.
Here is another option for you. Arcknight offers flat plastic miniatures. These amazing miniatures are printed double sided so that you can actually have a front and back. If you are playing with more realistic rules and need to know which way a character is facing you will have that option. The artwork is really great with loads of character options.
Blast from the Past: Godzilla vs. Megalon
Blast from the Past: Godzilla vs. Megalon
My dad put up with a lot from me when I was a kid in the ’70s. It’s not that I was a bad kid, but he was more of a Roy Rogers and Lone Ranger kind of guy while I kept wanting Star Trek and Star Wars toys between dragging him to science fiction and horror movies.
In the summer of 1976, when I turned seven, I made him take me to yet another film I’m sure he did not want to see. We parked downtown and walked the distance to the only local theater that showed foreign films.
I don’t remember what it was that drew me to his movie. Perhaps I had heard of the main character, or maybe I had been mesmerized by the newspaper advertisement artwork which showed two giant monsters battling it out atop the World Trade Center towers (a scene which is nowhere to be found in the movie).
I’m talking about the epic Godzilla vs. Megalon, originally released in Japan in 1973 though it didn’t make it to the U.S. until 1976.
This is not everyone’s favorite Godzilla movie. In fact, it tends to be one of the lower rated of the big guy’s series of films, but for the seven-year-old me, it was simply awesome. See, this was my first Godzilla experience, and I would be something of a fan for the rest of my life.
And what wasn’t to like? First off, you’ve got the big guy himself, Godzilla, leading a monster-packed story with the likes of Gigan, a beaked and hooked horror; Jet Jaguar, a robot who can perform martial arts and change size (and looking vaguely like a later generation’s Power Rangers); and the other star of the title, Megalon, a giant bug-like monster with a star-shaped spike sticking out of its head and some kind of earth-digging drills in place of hands or claws. Even Anguirus makes an appearance, a somewhat rare site, with his dinosaur-like body with armored plates and spikes sticking out everywhere, along with Rodan, a flying, dragon-like beast.
“The Argument”- Out of The Box D&D Encounters #14
in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, one that seems to be missing is the Helm of Alignment Change. This was a cursed magical item that, once worn, converted the wearer’s alignment to whatever was diametrically opposed. The only alignment that was unaffected was Neutral, as it had no opposite. Some old school players and DMs will remember this awful item, either as a victim or as the DM who seeded a treasure trove with this bad boy to see if a greedy player would take it.OUT OF THE BOX ENCOUNTERS –
Ducknapping, Nanny Nibbling and the Governor’s Goods- A D&D 5e, SRD compatible adventure
Written with thanks to Scott Garibay for his Five Page Tabletop RPG Adventure Design
Ducknapping, Nanny Nibbling and the Governor’s Goods
D&D 5e, SRD compatible adventure.
A D&D game session in progress (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Launch and Locations
In the aftermath of a raid on the town by strange cultists with giant lizards and kobolds, the characters scouted the raiders camp. After returning from scouting the raiders’ camp, where the characters freed several enslaved townsfolk, their breakfast the following morning is interrupted.
- Green Rest Inn (Where the characters are eating breakfast after a long rest)
- Featherend Farm (Duck Farm of small repute for winning ribbons in the fair)
- Swardheart Farm (Goat Farm run by two halfling females)
- The Governor’s Manor (The Governor has retired here, delegating oversight to proper carpenters)
- Snoutslap Sties (Pastured swine farm, the furthest of the three farms from the Governor’s Manor)
Think you’ve got a lot of dice? Think again
[caption id="attachment_12106" align="aligncenter" width="742"] Image courtesy of Kevin Cook/DiceCollector.com[/caption] On September 7, 2004, a new world record was set as certified by the folks at Guinness World Records. Kevin Cook earned his certificate verifying him as having the “Largest collection of dice.” The number of dice...
