 | Marin on Mounts |
| Marin on Mounts |
 | Rick & Morty for… on Exemplar Class |
 | MarcusRoani on Boons and Setbacks in 5e |
| Castlevania D&D… on Exemplar Class |
Hey all! This blog is getting a facelift thanks to Ryan Hennesy. Check out his work!
On Wednesday the site down for a few hours but we’ll be back up and running with a totally new look by Thursday. Can’t wait to show off what he’s made!
If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!
Hey I just wanted to let you know I’m contributing to Mike Myler’s Book of Exalted Darkness which you can back on Kickstarter right now!
At the beginning of the year I unveiled my plan to make Enora my first fully published world.
With that world comes new monsters, races, subclasses, and more. I’m now adding a druid circle to the flying world – the Circle of the Sky.
Note that what is below is considered playtest material. Please let me know what you think!
Publisher’s Choice Quality Stock Art © Rick Hershey / Fat Goblin Games
The Circle of the Sky is made up of guardians and warriors who wield the power of lightning and thunder to destroy their enemies from above. These protectors watch from the trees, mountains, and sky, preferring to ambush their prey as a falcon does a mouse. The circles meet at high places, like the peaks of mountains or tops of trees, to exchange reports about the movements of marauding monsters, such as gnolls or orcs, and plan coordinated attacks. Circle of the Sky druids are vigilant and suffer none who would destroy nature for personal gain.
When you choose this circle at 2nd level, you learn the hurl lightning cantrip.
Starting at 2nd level, you can cast the feather fall spell on only yourself without needing to expend any spell slots or material components. You must finish a short rest before you can use this feature again.
Your mystical connection to the sky infuses you with the ability to cast certain spells. At 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th level you gain access to druid circle spells connected to the sky as indicated on the Circle of the Sky Spells table.
Once you gain access to a circle spell, you always have it prepared, and it doesn’t count against the number of spells you can prepare each day. If you gain access to a spell that doesn’t appear on the druid spell list, the spell is nonetheless a druid spell for you.
Circle of the Sky Spells
| Druid Level | Spells |
| 3rd | gust of wind, shatter |
| 5th | lightning bolt, fly |
| 7th | freedom of movement, greater invisibility |
| 9th | cloudkill, telekinesis |
Starting at 6th level, you can add your Wisdom modifier to any spell you cast that deals lightning or thunder damage. In addition, when you make an attack in a beast shape while using Wild Shape, that attack deals an extra 1d6 thunder damage.
When you reach 10th level, you can cast the levitate spell on yourself at will without expending any spell slots or material components, and you are resistant to thunder and lightning damage.
At 14th level, you can expend two uses of wild shape to transform into an air elemental.
In addition, you can use your action to give yourself and a number of creatures within 30 feet of you that you can see a fly speed equal to their walking speed for 1 hour. Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.
Of course for this new class, we need a new cantrip. Hurl lightning is described below and can be added to any druid’s spell list at the DM’s discretion.
Evocation cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 90 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous
You throw a small bolt of lightning at a creature or object within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. You have advantage on the attack roll if the target is wearing metal armor or made of metal. On a hit, the target takes 1d6 lightning damage.
The spell’s damage increased by 1d6 when you reach 5th level (2d6), 11th level (3d6), and 17th level (4d6).
If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!
I’m going to write a post that is self-indulgent. I guess that’s true about every post on this blog in one way or another, but this blog post is going to be a story in which I am the central character, which is a little unusual for this site. Usually it’s some crazy monster, magic item, piece of advice, or game mechanic that takes center stage. If you hadn’t guessed from the title, this post will tell you how I became a somewhat, kinda, sorta, maybe, known creator in the world of tabletop roleplaying games.
I’m writing this post because several people have asked me how I “made it” in the industry. To be honest, I’m not sure I have “made it” at least by the modern definition. I’ve got a full-time gig outside the industry as a TV commercial writer/producer (which I really love). That being said, I do get paid to work on some pretty great projects in the industry and I am doing more in this space than I dared to dream, so in some ways I guess I have “made it” in this industry. At least made it further than I expected.
Still I thought sharing my story might be helpful for anyone out there interested in a freelance RPG design career, but I will say that my path is unique and involves a lot of luck, so I’m not sure it can be replicated. I was inspired to share thanks in part to the requests I got, but also by a recent episode of the Down with D&D podcast in which designers and podcasters Shawn Merwin and Chris Sniezak shared their own stories. Definitely check out the episode because they have great stories and a lot of amazing advice.
In Fall of 2013 I was listening to a lot of podcasts and playing tons of D&D with my friends on Roll20. The D&D Next playtest was in full swing and I devoured every piece of D&D news I could find. One of my favorite programs was the News Desk on The Tome Show, but it only came out once a month. I searched for other D&D news podcasts, but most were actual plays, none with D&D news. I remember telling my then-girlfriend, now-wife, Bonnie, that I wanted to listen to a weekly show that covered the latest D&D news in-depth. I told her there was no show out there like it (that I knew of) and Bonnie said, “Why don’t you make it?”
What did I have to lose by giving it a shot? I already knew how to edit audio… but I didn’t know how to book guests, build an audience, or even submit a podcast feed to iTunes. At the time I was listening to backlogs of the now-defunct D&D advice podcast Critical Hits hosted by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish. At the end of each podcast he gave our his contact information, including email, and encouraged folks with questions to reach out. I emailed Mike, thanking him for his awesome contributions to the community and asked for advice on starting a podcast. I soon realized how gracious he truly was. The man gave me 600 words of free advice and told me if I wanted more I should contact Jeff Greiner, the creator and owner of the aforementioned Tome Show podcast.
Already a subscriber to Jeff’s show, I eagerly went to him for advice next. Jeff asked me to pitch him my idea and without even knowing it was coming he offered me a chance to do my show on the Tome Show’s feed, immediately hitting a large audience of subscribers! I admit, this is some pure, amazing luck. Thus my first public RPG-related creation was born: The Round Table podcast. Special thanks to Rudy Basso, Alex Basso, Greg Blair, and Vegas Lancaster for making those first several episodes with me and encouraging me to keep making the show in those first weeks. Extra special thanks to Sam Dillon for actually getting all those episodes on the air. After several months of consistent output, Jeff told me (after I asked a few times) that he trusted me enough to revive the Gamer to Gamer franchise on the network and I started interviewing professionals in the industry. (Shoutout to my first interviewee on that show, Wolfgang Baur!)
Takeaways:
I was three episodes into The Round Table and seeing thousands of people listening to the show when I decided I should probably use the podcast as a platform to promote something I always wanted to do, but had been too lazy to start – a blog about homebrew design. I had a lot of time on my hands, since Bonnie was on a two-week business trip, so rather than play video games every night (which was my normal MO when she was gone before the blog and podcast), I used the time to create this site. I made a commitment to write two articles a week. To keep myself accountable, I started shouting the site out on the podcast, knowing that I would need to keep it stocked with content if people were going to show up.
The blog’s audience growth was slow, but steady. I started with less than 10 views a day, but as I kept updating it consistently and shouting out new posts to various social media groups and message boards, the views crept up. Now on days when I don’t post something new, I get about 500 hits in a day, but it took me three years to get here.
Takeaways:
So how did I finally get paid for some game design? Well my first jobs came from EN5ider and Johnn Four‘s Roleplaying Tips and they came about quite differently.
I had a year of blogging and podcasting under my belt when I saw EN5ider was just starting up. I saw a post on EN World calling for article submissions, so I figured I’d give it a shot. I had been rejected before by Dungeon and Dragon magazines and by the Adventurers League, but I didn’t let that discourage me. Editor James Haeck accepted of my pitch! Give Chase was born… after careful outlining, planning, proof-reading and revising, and revising again once I got notes from James. I made sure to hit each deadline and to listen to the editor’s feedback, incorporating it into the article, rather than rejecting what was said. James and I worked well together and I’ve written a few more articles for EN5ider since then.
Roleplaying Tips came about in a much different way. World Builder Blog was a regular contributor to the monthly RPG Blog Carnival and through that Johnn noticed my work, he reached out to me and asked if I would write an article for his newsletter that gave worldbuilding lessons. I’d be paid for the work and I could repost it here on the blog. That’s a great deal, so of course I said yes. Johnn and I have worked together on a few projects since, including a massive adventure that should be coming soon!
It was about another year before I got to do work for more people. In that time the DMs Guild launched. I already had a heaping helping of fifth edition content on this blog, so I put some of that into PDFs (without having ever done layout). The reputation I had built for myself on the blog and podcast helped get my products some buzz and a few became best-sellers. That’s when things really started to pick up.
The Adventurers League asked me to write an adventure for them and Shawn Merwin asked me to write another for Baldman Games. Roll20’s owners (who I met after applying for their game master job, which I did not get but did give me a chance to make connections with these very cool people) asked me to create their introductory fifth edition adventure, The Master’s Vault. Since then I’ve worked on a few other projects, but those are going to stay secret for now. Many of them are people I have met at conventions.
You know the rest of the tale. I’ve continued to create and since left the Tome Show to create my own podcast network with Rudy Basso. What’s in store for the future? Only time shall tell!
Takeaways:
I clearly owe a lot of people many thanks. I could not have made it to even where I am today without them. My timing worked out and I was very lucky, but I also created some of my own luck by working hard. Hopefully this story helps some of you out there!
If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!
A few weeks ago I was running a game in my homebrew setting Exploration Age. The characters were on a beach slinging ranged attacks at an approaching metal warship full of anarchist dragonborn. That’s when Vegas Lancaster, who plays Ichabod Dragonsblood, drow bard, asked, “Hey can I cast heat metal on the warship?”
I laughed. “I don’t think the spell can heat up a warship.”
Vegas shot back, “Well it says, ‘Choose a manufactured metal object, such as a metal weapon or a suit of heavy or medium metal armor, that you can see within range. You cause the object to glow red-hot.’ No real parameters on the object otherwise.”
I’m sure this was one of those moments where rules as written clashed with rules as intended. The Dungeons and Dragons default assumption is that most boats, buildings, and other large objects aren’t made of metal so this would never come up. I didn’t realize I’d break the game with my (admittedly ridiculous) battleship.
Since there were plenty of other enormous metal objects in the party’s future, I didn’t want to say yes outright. I also didn’t want to kill a player’s cool idea, so I said, “You can heat the entire ship… if you use an 8th level spell slot.” Vegas agreed and the dragonborn fried.
That got me thinking about how spells could be used with higher level spell slots to do things beyond their normal description and the “at higher levels” description. I came up with a rough system below. Let me know what you think! I’m definitely still playing with it.
When it comes to using higher level spell slots in creative ways, there are two things I’m keeping in mind:
Spells that have an area of effect which is a cone, cube, cylinder, line, or sphere, and already contain an “at higher levels” effect in their description are eligible for this spell slot upgrade, which is used in place of the current “at higher levels” effect. The spell’s area of effect dimensions are doubled when the spell is cast using a spell slot two levels higher than the spell’s initial casting slot.
Spells that have a material component for which there is no cost listed are eligible for this spell slot upgrade, which is used in place of any current “at higher levels” effect. The material component is not required to cast the spell if the spell is cast using a spell slot one level higher than the spell’s initial casting slot.
Spells that require a saving throw are eligible for this spell slot upgrade, which is used in place of any current “at higher levels” effect. If the spell requires a Constitution, Dexterity, or Wisdom saving throw, you can change the save to be one of the others in that list if the spell is cast using a spell slot two levels higher than the spell’s initial slot. If the spell requires a Strength, Intelligence, or Charisma saving throw, you can change the save to be any other save if the spell is cast using a spell slot two levels higher than the spell’s initial slot. You must describe how your spell has changed to require this new save.
Spells that deal damage are eligible for this spell slot upgrade, which is used in place of any current “at higher levels” effect. You can change the damage type of the spell to any other damage type if the spell is cast using a spell slot two levels higher than the spell’s initial slot.
At the DM’s discretion, you can increase the effect of a spell to make it more potent. You propose how you’d like to use the spell. For instance you might say, “I’d to target a creature with and Intelligence score of less than 4 with Tasha’s hideous laughter,” or, “I want to block both undead and fiends with my magic circle.” The DM then determines if this action is possible and if so, what level spell slot should be used to create the desired effect.
To decide which slot should be used, DM’s should first ask, “Does this new effect come close to the effect of another spell?” If the answer is yes, then the spell slot required should be that comparable’s spell’s level plus two. For instance, if a character wants to shape a fireball spell into a 60-foot-cone, that’s an area similar to the 5th-level cone of cold spell, so the DM might tell the character this is possible using a 7th-level slot.
If the desired effect isn’t similar to any spell that already exists, then think about the scale sliding in powers of two. If the change is rather minor, it should cost a spell slot two levels higher than the initial casting. If it is a major change, it should cost four levels higher than the initial casting. If the change completely redefines what the spell can do, it should cost six levels higher than the initial casting. DMs should let the player know this is an experimental process and that rulings may change.
In all cases the spell should gain no other benefits from the higher level casting than what the player and DM agree upon.
If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!
Have you ever sat down to run a D&D game and thought, “Oh crap. What am I gonna do? Why didn’t I prepare ANYTHING?” This happened to me sometimes as a kid and now it happens more than I care to admit as an adult. People get busy. There’s chores to be done, work to be accomplished, family obligations, social obligations, and more. These commitments also often get in the way of actual game time, so I’d rather run a game unprepared because who knows when the next time we’ll get to play is? Not only that, my players have cleared time on their schedules and made a commitment to the game. I don’t want to let them down. At the same time I don’t to run a bad game either which can be a result of unpreparedness. What’s a DM to do? You should prepare to be unprepared.
This blog post provides a few tricks you can try for those games when you couldn’t even spare the last-minute prep.
Having an adventure you can pull off the shelf that you’ve already read makes life easy when you haven’t prepped. As a bonus, reading a well-written D&D adventure can be just as enjoyable as reading a book. Yet where can we find the time for pleasurable reading? We don’t even have time to prep our games! Fear not, there’s some solutions. First try multitasking. If you commute using public transportation or get a little cardio in on a treadmill or bike during the week, these are perfect times to read an adventure. If neither of those things work for you, remember – everyone poops.
I know reading the Wizards of the Coast hardcover D&D adventures can seem daunting. If you don’t have the time, desire, or money to read one, you don’t have to do that. There are tons of adventures you can for free (like on this site or found in Dragon+) or very cheap on the DMs guild or DriveThruRPG. Ratings and rankings can help you discover which adventures are well written as can the in-depth reviews from Merric’s Musings. If you’ve got time to scroll through social media, odds are you have time to read a short adventure.
As you read an adventure, the best thing to do is mark segments and encounters you really love. You just slap a quick post it note on a hard copy or place a bookmark on a PDF. When the fateful day comes that you’re unprepared you’ll be able to grab what you need and go. You don’t need to use the whole adventure, just take the parts you like (more on that below).
If you’re playing a longer campaign with a connected story, you can still make use of published encounters and adventures. Some simple re-flavoring (or re-skinning) will make everything fit in your story. For example, let’s say you’re running a story in which giants are the main antagonists, but you really want to use a red dragon encounter from Rise of Tiamat. Simply re-flavor the red dragon to be fire giant eldritch knight (the breath weapon and flight abilities are spells and the attacks are various weapons and stomps). The minions can likely stay the same. Boom. No math required. It’s all done on the fly.
In a world full of actual play and advice podcasts and web videos, it’s even easier to multitask. The Adventure Zone, Total Party Thrill, Critical Role, Behind the DMs Screen on The Tome Show, Venture Maidens, Dice, Camera, Action, and more have lots of folks playing or talking about their D&D campaigns. If you’re hurting for an idea, there’s absolutely no shame in stealing from these properties, especially if your players aren’t part of the audience of the property you’re stealing from. Even then you can make an idea work, provided you add a bit of a twist of your own or apply some of that reskinning.
When you do have time to prepare, build a little improv into your game. Maybe write the first and last scene for a session, but let the players decide how to get from beginning to end. You can use random tables in the Dungeon Master’s Guide and have a few of the resources listed below ready to roll as a safety net. If you don’t feel comfortable doing that, maybe just have a single improvised scene and go from there. Improvisational storytelling is a muscle. Work it out, build it up, and you’ll be ready if you find yourself running a game for which you did not prepare.
Sometimes players go off the rails, causing you to throw out what you’ve prepared. Don’t walk away from that sweet kobold dungeon just because your players decided to hunt pirates on the high seas. Keep that for your less-than-prepared day.
If you haven’t prepared anything and feel comfortable with improv, let your players decide where the story goes next. Maybe they have downtime between adventures and decide to pursue a plot thread from one of their backstories or an enemy that got away during a previous quest. Maybe they have a dark relic that they want to figure out how to destroy. Maybe they want to blow off the main quest anyway and hunt pirates. If this is the case, ask lots of questions at the start and listen to the players as they respond. Let them construct the plan of action. Ask what they want to do and how they want to accomplish it. Take notes and answer any of their questions and you’re ready to roll. For some players it might be weird to open up a game by asking, “What do YOU want to do?” but once they realize what’s happening, most will love it.
In addition to the resources listed in this post, you might also want to checkout Kobold Press’ Prepared! by Jon Sawatsky and the Book of Lairs. The former is a book of encounters and the latter is a book of dungeons. Put ’em together and you got game nights to spare! I also recommend two products by Michael E. Shea of Sly Flourish. Fantastic Locations gives you a bunch of amazing abstract locations that can be turned into dungeons large and small. His latest (currently) ongoing Kickstarter for Fantastic Adventures is a bunch of short one-shot D&D adventures with fun twists and turns. This book can be used with Fantastic Locations to really flesh out adventures and have an awesome experience.
If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!
Last year I gave not one, but two status updates about my sales on the Dungeon Master’s Guild. I’ve got several pay what you want products in addition to a few paid products now on the guild. One of those paid products is the D&D Adventurers League adventure DDAL 05-05 A Dish Best Served Cold which is an official part of the Storm King’s Thunder storyline. (You can find Travis Woodall’s amazing Deluxe Maps for the adventure here.) People have been asking me to do another update and share my AL sales. I’m more than happy to do that.
Below are all my sale numbers including free downloads of my pay what you want products:
And here are the sale numbers with paid purchases only:
For reference, the pay what you want products are:
*Free purchases are not factored into a pay what you want product’s average payment.
So it seems a lot of my assumptions about pay what you want products vs paid products hold true after over a year. Pay what you want products see lots of downloads and get your name out there. They can quickly become “best sellers” since any sale of $0.01 or more counts towards your numbers. Sounds great, right? Yet one year in and I’ve still made less than $0.01 a word on these products. Any further releases I have on the DMs Guild will likely be paid only.
If you want to know more about why I made my initial products pay what you want, see my first post on this topic. I’ve learned tons about layout, editing, and art acquisition since I started posting products on the DMs Guild, so future products will not only be paid, but they should also be of a superior quality to my pay what you want products.
When it comes to making paid products, sales skyrocket if a product is part of the main D&D Adventurers League storyline. A Dish Best Served Cold has only been up since November 1, 2016, yet has over 1000 sales and is already close to Platinum Best Seller status. Add to that the fact that adventure designers make 60% commission on their D&D Adventurers League adventures if they were published in season five or later and it is by far my biggest money-maker, despite the fact that it has roughly 1/10th the downloads of 50 New Magic Items.
Now the question becomes, does this hold true for adventures in the convention created content program? Not as much.
If you don’t know what the convention created content program is, here’s a nutshell description. Wizards of the Coast allows conventions to create adventures set in the Moonsea region of the Forgotten Realms. Those adventures are then played at the convention that created them, are considered Adventurers League legal, and can be sold on the DMs Guild after the convention.
Many of the same folks who work on the main D&D Adventurers League adventures also write the con created content. The con created content adventures are often just as professional and put together as the main Adventurers League adventures, yet they have lower sales. I wrote a con created content adventure called Tales of Good & Evil for Baldman Games that premiered at Gen Con. It’s been available to the public since December 2016. While I don’t have the exact sale numbers, I can tell you that they are somewhere between 100 and 260 sales, since it’s a Silver Best Seller at the moment (more on best seller medals below).
Now, that doesn’t mean writing con created content isn’t worth it. First of all, it’s a blast to write in the Forgotten Realms and to share that story with players everywhere. Second, that’s a published adventure with your name on it, baby! I’m so proud of Tales of Good & Evil and it allowed me to work with an amazing team of people. (Don’t tell Shawn Merwin, but I would have done it for free.) If we’re talking financially, Baldman Games made sure designers were taken care of. In addition to a commission split that is handled by Baldman (which is why I don’t see the exact number of sales… that’s in their hands), Baldman also paid me an up front fee for my words. So yes, working on con created content does indeed pay, despite smaller sales.
After having products on the DMs Guild for over a year I feel confident saying the following numbers and medals correspond. It appears to take medals several hours to update, so if you just hit one of these numbers, give it a day or two.
How do I know this? At the moment, here are my own medals.
My copper best sellers are:
My silver best sellers is:
I have no electrum best sellers at the moment, but I do have two gold:
Finally, my two platinum best sellers are:
Ratings and reviews are tough to come by on the DMs Guild, and even more difficult to get organically. When I was starting out, I asked friends to take a look at and rate honestly my pay what you want products, so keep that in mind when you see the numbers below.
Here’s how my reviews are stacking up:
I will say that my free and pay what you want products have more reviews than my paid products, even when you take into account the five friends I asked to rate things for me (not all of whom actually did because they didn’t have time to read the products). It MAY be that a small number of people who download for free take the time to leave a rating (essentially giving their time instead of their cash to a product).
So there you have. The latest update on the DMs Guild. Anyone else out there having success? Did I get anything wrong? Is this information helpful to you? Sound off in the comments below!
If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!
Today I’m continuing my quest to add killer undead to the options already available in the fifth edition Monster Manual for my world of Enora. Today we enter the world of undead plants! (You read that right). You might say, “Whoa, James. Plants that are evil and dead? C’mon.” To that I’d say, “Of course, dear reader. Haven’t you ever seen Evil Dead? The most terrifying scene involves trees (that are presumably both evil and dead).”
It is with great pleasure that I now show off vampiric vines.
Vampiric vines are sentient clusters of black thorned vines that thirst for the blood of the living. When a plant dies as the result of necrotic magic and its seeds are scatter on desecrated ground, these vines grow forth and eventually uproot themselves and crawl out into the night in search of a drink.
Nocturnal Hunters. During the day, a tangle of vampiric vines stays in the desecrated dirt from which it sprung forth. At night, the undead plant crawls forth, looking for unsuspecting creatures and an easy meal before returning home. The vines leave the bodies of their drained victims behind, sometimes causing panic that a den of vampires is nearby, attacking the land at night.
Hidden in Plain Sight. Vampiric vines appear to be normal dead brush when at rest. If a victim wanders into a lair, the vine waits until it is within striking distance and then pounces.
Save Snacks for Later. Vampiric vines are surprisingly strong, and will sometimes drain enough blood from a victim to drop it unconscious and then drag the prey back to its lair for more feeding later. Sometimes vampiric vines will feed off a victim for days before drinking enough blood to kill it.
Get them in the PDF below or grab them anytime on the Free Game Resources page. These stats are in playtest mode, so I’d love any feedback you have for me!
If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!
In the last two weeks, I showed off some new undead (skeletal dragons and husks), to help fill the undead Challenge Rating gaps in the fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my world of Enora. Today I’m continuing the parade of new undead with vampire dragons!
Vampiric dragons are the unfathomable result of dragons undergoing transitions to become potent, blood-sucking undead. Of the few such terrors that exist, most underwent the transition willingly. There are many reasons for a dragon to become a vampire, fear of death and increased power chief among them.
Vampiric Qualities. Like humanoid vampires, vampiric dragons do not cast shadows or reflections and have a thirst for blood. In their normal state, they are generally undistinguishable from their dragon counterparts who are not undead. Unlike normal vampires, vampiric dragons do not need to be invited to enter a residence and have nothing to fear from running water.
Feed and Slumber. When vampiric dragons feed, they can ravage miles of countryside or an entire city in a single night. Their thirst for blood is nigh insatiable, and a vampiric dragon can devastate an entire province before it slumbers, creating armies of vampire spawn to guard its lair.
Relief comes when the dragon decides to rest. Finally satiated, the beast enters a long slumber of one-hundred years before it wakes to feed again.
Undead Nature. Vampiric dragons do not require air. Since they have nothing to fear from running water and no need to breathe, many make their lairs deep in bodies of water.
Here you go. I put them into a nice little PDF for you:
If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!
Last week, I wrote about my desire to create more undead of varying challenge ratings. I need a ton of these rotting beasties for my world of Enora. Up next are skeletal dragons!
By the way, if you like these baddies, you might enjoy my zombie dragons available on the DMs Guild in the pay-what-you-want product Arachnids, Wraiths, and Zombies.
Animating the bones of a dragon is no small feat. A huge infusion of dark magic must be brought to bear to make the skeleton of an ancient wyrm rise. Even more power is required to maintain control over the bones. While such beasts are most often created by intentional rituals, if a dragon’s grave is desecrated, over the course of a century or more dark magic can seep into the bones. This causes the skeleton to rise and wreak havoc on the world of living for no reason other than it was not allowed to rest.
Not Your Average Skeleton. Dragon skeletons are more mentally capable than their boney counterparts. They can think critically and improvise. These undead sometimes lead other minions as a result.
Undead Nature. A dragon skeleton doesn’t require air, food, drink, or sleep.
Here you go. I put them into a nice little PDF for you:
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As I’ve said before, I’m starting to make some progress in my world of Enora, where undead rule the surface of the planet! There’s just one monster of a problem with this idea: the fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual has a serious Challenge Rating gap when it comes to undead. There’s a handful of Challenge 5 undead and then it jumps to 13 with the vampire. What’s a DM with a taste for rotting flesh to do when hankering for some good mid-level baddies (not to mention during the thinner highest levels of the game)? Time to put on the necromancer hat and make some new fifth edition undead!
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be revealing some of my creations and asking for your critiques and feedback. Let me know what you think! These critters are in playtest mode. First up is the husk.
Husks are the undead shell of a creature, animated skin and muscle of surprising strength that do the bidding of their creators. Many necromancers see these horrid creations as a two-for-one deal that does not waste a corpse’s fleshy parts after animating a skeleton. Husks are loyal to the wielders of dark magic who create them, but sometimes these undead rise of their own accord in places where mass murder occurs. Husks without a master desire only the death of other creatures.
Created by Power. Only the most powerful necromancers and most atrocious acts of murder can create a husk. The creatures require a massive amount of dark energy to move without a skeleton. Having a husk servant is a point of pride for evil spellcasters. The larger the husk, the more dangerous the master.
Insatiable Desire to Kill. Even husks who are bound to masters have a strong desire to murder any living creatures they come across. A husk’s master can feel this desire and only those necromancers with the strongest wills do not give into this temptation themselves. For many dark wizards giving into the temptation is not a problem at all.
Murder Victims Only. Husks can only be created from corpses that were murdered in cold blood. Many necromancers kidnap victims and murder them one at a time when they are learning the ritual required to create a husk. Husks that rise on their own usually do so in groups, and only in places of sorrow after a mass slaying has occurred. Beyond this requirement, any creature with skin and flesh may become a husk.
Size Matters. Most husks of a given size have the same abilities. A husk that was once a human and a husk that was once a panther are statistically the same, but they might move, smell, and sound very different from one another.
Undead Nature. A husk doesn’t require air, food, drink, or sleep.
Here you go. I put them into a nice little PDF for you:
If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!
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