This clockwork beetle starts curled up in a little ball the size of a walnut. It can be thrown as a ranged attack and when it hits a target, will spring to life, flying into the face of its target while making a loud buzzing noise, distracting the target.
Tag: D&D_5e
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Deck of Wonders
It was no ordinary wolf. It was the size of a small horse. Kai kept their steely gaze on the creature while they slowly reached into their jacket, pulling out 5 cards: 5 diamonds! The cards streaked from Kais’ hands, leaving a trail of blue energy as they slammed into the wolf. The wolf shuddered and was no more.
I’ve been playing around with an idea for a kind of mini-card game within D&D. I want to use normal playing cards with poker hands to generate magical effects; the better the hand, the better the effect.
I played around with various ways of generating a score from a poker hand that could be applied to the game. This turned out to be harder than I imagined, but in the end, I think I settled on something simple enough to use in play that generates suitable values for hands. The effect is different depending on the suit being played. Spades (Swords if using a Tarot deck) deal slashing damage. Clubs (Wands or Staves if using a tarot deck) deal bludgeoning damage. Hearts (Cups if using a tarot deck) heals people. Diamonds (Coins in a tarot deck) create a defensive barrier.
The poker hand system can do anything from 1 point of damage, all the way up to 199 damage (or healing, or defence) for a King high straight flush. The straight flush is a pretty rare hand though so I don’t expect to see it get played much, if ever.
I also wanted some way to do this using a tarot deck mainly because the artwork on tarot decks is so much cooler than normal playing cards. Now the basic poker hand thing still works with normal tarot cards, although they have one extra card per suit (common card decks have 13 cards per suit while tarot decks have 14 cards per suit). But Tarot also have the Major Arcana which are in addition to the other cards.
For the Major Arcana, I adapted D&D’s existing Deck of Many Things by modifying some existing effects. Others I rewrote entirely, and some I kept as is. Some inspiration came from this Reddit thread.
I’ve published the final result on my GM Binder site as the Deck of Wonders.
A note on copyright: the card image I’m using here is old enough that it’s out of copyright and free to use.
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wizards tower
This old watchtower is leftover from the Golden Empire. It was once a watchtower on the border, but in the many years since the collapse of the empire, it was abandoned to the wilderness. In spite of its age, this structure is in remarkably good shape and still habitable and is currently the abode of a wizard engaged in private study.
Level 1
Room 1
A large, relatively empty area. Small (5′ by 5′) cells line the east wall.
Room 2
Store Room.
General supplies in here. Extra empty bottles, spares clothes, bedding etc. Some weapons taken from past prisoners kept in here as well.
- 2 battle axes
- 2 daggers
- 1 Longsword
- 1 set chain mail armour
- 1 set leather armour
- Kree’s Spear will be in this room.
Room 3
Another Store Room.
Food and wine stored here.
- 5 dozen bottle of average quality wine
- 2 dozen bottles of above average quality wine
- 1 dozen bottles of some very nice wine
- 1 dozen portions of perishable rations
- 1 dozen portions of iron rations
- An assortment of dried mushrooms
2 cured hams hanging from the ceiling.
Level 2
Living Quarters.
Room 4
Hallway
Nothing much to say about this one. It’s a hallway. 1 door and 2 stairs, one going up, one going down.
Room 5
Study
At the end of the room is a desk. Stacks of paper and some quill pens lie about and 2 bottles of ink. Notes written in draconic outline experiments in the use of magical items to power constructs.
Room 6
Closet
Spare wizard robes and casual clothes. Nothing special.
Room 7
Bedroom.
A reasonably sparse bedroom with a large bed.
Room 8
Closet.
Spare robes.
This is where the wizard stores his formal wizards wear. These robes are cut from better cloth, literally. Nice silk and satin robes.
Level 3
Room 9
The whole 3rd floor is taken up by the wizards’ lab. Three large work tables contain various magical and alchemical apparatus. There is a ladder that leads up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. A magic circle is engraved in the floor near the middle of the room.
Level 4
Room 10
The roof is accessible via a trap door. It leads into a covered section of the roof (probably used in ages past as shelter for any guards on duty). There is a great view from up here, but nothing else of any interest.
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spear of kree
The dreaded Spear of Kree!
In the forest lies the ruins of an Orc temple once sacred to Gruumsh.
The three teachings of Gruumsh are:- Gather and breed, and your numbers shall flourish.
- Rise up in hordes and seize that which is rightfully yours.
- Raid. Kill. Conquer.
The sect of Gruumsh followers at the temple called themselves the “Kree” and devoted themselves to just one aspect of Gruumsh’s teaching:
“Raid. Kill. Conquer.”
Why this temple was abandoned is now forgotten. Perhaps the Kree fell victim to somebody else’s attempt to conquer. Perhaps in overlooking the “Gather and breed” teaching, they simply dwindled in numbers and were lost to time.
The Kree had a sacred spear, forged by the war shamans of Gruumsh. The spears current whereabouts are unknown.
The spears full stats can be found on my GM Binder site.
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faithful chest
This one is inspired by The Luggage from Diskworld and is part Mimic and part Bag of Holding.
It’s a small chest, 12 inches long by 7 inches wide and 5 inches high (not including the lid). When open, the inside is an extra dimensional space which can hold a lot more than the exterior dimensions would suggest.
Detailed stats can be found on my GM Binder site.
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a list of 5e domains
I was goofing around with adapting some D&D deities from various sources (Forgotten Realms, Greek Mythology, some homebrew stuff, and various others) for the game I’m running and got to wondering what godly domains I could be using for them. This led me down the rabbit hole of trying to find a comprehensive list of domains to use for D&D gods.
“Greek Gods Serie” by Dilem Serbest is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Looking at real-world examples was particularly interesting. Some gods have very broad domains (from Greek mythology, Poseidon is god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses), while others have unusually specific domains (Doushen is a Chinese god of smallpox).
I like the idea that in addition to several heavy hitters, you can have a heap of little gods that could add colour to a game. I keep thinking of Haku from Spirited Away. He’s a river god for one specific river, the Kohaku River.
I can imagine a god called Vano, the god of eels and fens. (I might use him in my game.)
My point is that while this is a pretty long list, I don’t need to imagine a separate god for each domain. It’s more likely that a god would cover multiple domains.
Here is the list of domains so far…
Agriculture
Air
Ale
Animal
Arcana
Art
Autumn
Avarice
Balance
Battle
Beauty
Bestial
Blacksmithing
Cavern
Change
Chaos
Charm
Child Birth
Children
Civilization
Cold
Commerce
Communication
Community
Corruption
Courage
Cowardice
Craft
Creation
Darkness
Day
Death
Deception
Demonic
Desire
Destruction
Diabolic
Domesticity
Dragon
Dragonborn
Dreams
Drow
Dwarf
Earth
Earthquakes
Elf
Envy
Evil
Family
Farming
Fate
Father
Fertility
Female
Fey
Fire
Fishing
Fog
Food
Force
Forge
Fortune
Freedom
Glory
Gluttony
Gnome
Gold
Good
Grain
Grave
Gravity
Greed
Halfling
Harvest
Hatred
Healing
Hearth
Herbal Medicine
Heroism
Home
Hope
Hunting
Human
Illusion
Insects
Inspiration
Justice
Knowledge
Law
Learning
Life
Light
Lightning
Love
Luck
Lust
Madness
Marketing
Marriage
Maternity
Medicine
Male
Mentalism
Messages
Metal
Mind
Mist
Moon
Mother
Mountains
Music
Nature
Night
Nobility
Ocean
Orc
Order
Pain
Patience
Pestilence
Plagues
Planning
Plants
Pleasure
Poetry
Poison
Portal
Pride
Prosperity
Protection
Psionics
Purity
Rain
Renewal
Repose
Retribution
Rivers
Rune
Scalykind
Sea
Secrets
Sex
Sexuality
Shadow
Skill
Sky
Slavery
Slime
Sloth
Snow
Speech
Spell
Spider
Spring
Spirit
Stone
Stories
Storm
Strategy
Strength
Strife
Suffering
Summer
Sun
Temperance
Tempest
Theatre
Thieves
Thunder
Tiefling
Time
Torment
Trade
Travel
Trickery
Truth
Tyranny
Undeath
Understanding
Underworld
Valleys
Vengeance
Virility
Volcanoes
War
Water
Watercourses
Watery Death
Wealth
Weaving
Wilderness
Wind
Wine
Winter
Wisdom
Wood
Woodlands
Wrath
Writing
Zeal -
I finished reading the 5e players handbook
So I finished reading the Players Handbook and I’m quite excited about the idea of running a 5th edition game. I nearly wept tears of joy when I saw that Wizards no longer had 1d4 for their hit points.
The one thing I’m missing now is a game to play in. I’m running a game for my son, but I don’t have a game I’m a player in at the moment. The new rules look like fun and I’ve already made up a Warlock character for myself. I normally like to play Rangers or Rogues, but Warlocks look fun in the new rules.
For my son’s game, I think I’ll give them the chance to hit the “reset” button on the game. We are currently playing D&D 3.5 edition rules, but in making the switch to the 5th edition, I think I’ll let them go crazy and completely redesign their characters if they want. 5th edition is like a whole new game so it seems silly not to give them the option of trying out all the new stuff.
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better late than never
I finally got around to buying a copy of the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons after playing D&D 3.5 on and off for years.
(I’m pretty sure it’s okay to use this picture. It’s off the official D&D media page)
I started reading the Players Handbook this morning and there’s plenty of things different already. I like the “advantage/disadvantage” system of rolling an extra dice for some tasks and choosing either the highest of the two (for advantage), or the lowest of the two (for disadvantage).
I haven’t finished reading yet, and I still have the Dungeon Masters Guide (DMG) and Monster Manual to go (do you actually read the Monster Manual? Or just refer to it?)
Once I get my head around the rules, I plan to migrate my sons game from 3.5 to 5.0. It should be fun.
I guess my only hesitation is that I have so many 3.5 supplements, and now I’m back to only having the core 3 books again for 5.0.
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