New Supplement: Recurring Fantasy NPCs!

Posted on February 4, 2020 by Joe

Hi everyone! This week I published a new RPG supplement for your campaign (any system!). It’s a handy little collection of recurring Non-Player Characters (NPCs) that you can drop into your world to spice things up. Each NPC is designed to provide multiple encounters, many of which evolve over time, and some present unique items to your heroes. And it’s free!

(Actually, it’s pay-what-you-want, but I mostly want to see your feedback in the reviews.)

The supplement contains twelve (12!) characters drawn from the world of Dungeon Age. Each one is laid out on a single page, and includes all the details you need to slip them into your game: locations, appearance, personality, abilities, story function, and encounters, as well as treasure!

Here’s a quick list of those characters:

  • Dying cursed soldier
  • Mutating warrior nun
  • Thieving mercenary twins
  • Eldritch horror worshiper
  • Tiny hummingbird rider
  • Unfriendly celestial warlock
  • Magical praying mantis
  • Two romantic mole-snakes
  • Influential warrior bard
  • Shapeshifting mother
  • Unlucky wizard from the past
  • Possessed doll detective

Again, the PDF is pay-what-you-want, and should be compatible with any D&D-style system, so go check it out. Or don’t. Your call. I respect that.

Recurring Fantasy NPCs

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New Adventure: Ragged Hollow Nightmare

Posted on January 27, 2020 by Joe

Hi everyone! This week I published a new D&D (5e and OSR) adventure module titled Dungeon Age: Ragged Hollow Nightmare.

Yesterday, young Tobias went to investigate an old tomb by himself. Everyone told him it was a bad idea. Everyone was right. Today, you and your companions awaken to a town in chaos. Why is the temple sealed behind a divine shield? Why are children and worshipers trapped within? How do we get inside? What did Tobias do?!

This is my first “classic” starting town. There is a central adventure (temple dungeon), but the town and surrounding wilderness also provide a small sandbox full of hooks for side-quests and mini-dungeons. I love low-level play, so I wanted to cram this starting town full of content for newbies and nostalgia-lovers alike.

There are goblins and witches in the woods, a house full of traps, a basement of vermin, kobolds in a cave, bandits on the road, riddling ravens, a 50-room temple dungeon, nursery-rhyme monsters, living nightmares, Lovecraftian horrors, and tons of unique items to find.

The preview shows you the first 15 of 47 pages, it’s available in both 5e and OSR versions, and it’s only $5.00, so go check it out. Or don’t. Your call. I respect that.

Ragged Hollow Nightmare

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Homebrew: “Formulaic Alchemist” class for 5e

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Joe

So, I know that everyone and their sister has homebrewed up their own Alchemist class for 5e by now, because we went so long without an official one, and lots of folks don’t love the official one. Including me. So, here’s mine.

This “Formulaic Alchemist” has no sub-classes, it’s just the one build, and it is focused heavily on the themes of chemistry and biology. There is no spell-casting, and almost no tinkering, and it runs on Short Rests. Also, I only made 12 levels because I don’t believe in high-level play. It’s a myth, a myth I tells ya!

My goal was to create a mad scientist-type class with enough options to let you play as support, glass cannon, or skill monkey, depending on your choices. I haven’t checked out my math on any of this, so it may be wildly over- or under-powered. But hopefully I will have a chance to play-test it one day and tweak it.

Check it out and let me know what you think in the comments!

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Homebrew: New fighter subclass for 5e: Grove Knight

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Joe

I really like rangers, in theory. But like many folks, I have found the published ranger designs for 5e to be a bit… off? Some say weak or unbalanced, some say ineffective or irrelevant to actual campaign styles. Whatever it is, it bugged me enough to take a swing at designing a class that might scratch that ranger itch for me. And as you’ve noticed from the title of this post, my ranger is a fighter.

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d20 Villain Actions

Posted on December 9, 2019 by Joe

So, game designer and Internet DM guru Matt Colville did a video in which he described how to make a villain or monster more interesting by using the action economy to give your baddies some cool new abilities to engage your players. So, if you’re interested in doing that but can’t think of any actions, I made you some lists! Just pick 3 or so to give your villain, and you should be good to go!

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Session report: Family One-Shot “Escape from Crab Island!”

Posted on December 1, 2019 by Joe

Yesterday I DM’d a one-shot with my wife, two daughters, and my dad using a little homebrew system I made the day beforehand. It went really well! The system was easy to use and everyone said they had fun, so I’d call that a win. I’ll keep noodling with it before I think about posting it, but so far it seems pretty good for getting a bunch of noobies having fun quickly.

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Review: Elric: The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (Moorcock)

Posted on November 11, 2019 by Joe

Elric, rebel sorcerer and albino outcast, would-be emperor and reluctant servant of Chaos, continues his wayward journey across his strange world, trying to learn new virtues and ideas of justice before he returns home to take his rightful place on the Ruby Throne of Melnibone. While fleeing from enemies, he climbs aboard a foreign ship full of unusual men, including three warriors who are mystically bound to him, claiming to all be the same Eternal Champion, but from different times and places. The ship is captained by a blind man through a perpetual fog across different planes of existence, until they arrive where Fate requires them to be.

So…that’s a pretty interesting setup. What follows are several semi-connected tales of exploration, adventure, friendship, and betrayal that largely define Elric as a…tragic hero? anti-hero? anti-villain? It’s complicated.

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Homebrew: Necromancy spells for fifth edition (5e)

Posted on November 3, 2019 by Joe

I just re-watched the Castlevania animated series (which I enjoyed on many levels, yet again), and one of the characters that resonated with me this time was Hector. He is a human “forge-master” who creates undead monsters to fight for Dracula, but his character hook is that he is appalled by suffering. He may be helping Dracula to end the human race, but he doesn’t want it to be any worse than it needs to be. He just wants to be left in peace to play with his undead puppies. The other villains often say Hector is like a child, who needs to be managed and coddled, and lied to.

I really liked the idea of a person who loves animals, and hates suffering, and has a bunch of friendly undead puppies to play with. So in that spirit, I created the following spells for Necromancers in 5e. I think necromancy is underwhelming in that system, it has fewer spells than other magic schools, and the special abilities are very narrow and not terribly thematic.

So here are my new spells for friendly necromancers everywhere who would like to have more ghostly, ghoulish, or skeletal friends:

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Rune Knight (version 2.0)

Posted on October 19, 2019 by Joe

Wizards of the Coast recently released new D&D playtest material (“Unearthed Arcana”) that included a “Rune Knight”. I really liked this concept, but I wasn’t terribly excited about the options and design flavor that they came up with. Their version is all about Giants and as a friend pointed out, it feels very Barbarian-ish. So I re-skinned the concept to make it more fighter-y. What do you think?

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Dungeon Age stories series #1: Wizard

Posted on October 14, 2019 by Joe

So, I am writing my new book, but it’s a little different from previous books. This one still has main characters and a main story, but I’m writing the book as a collection of short stories so you get to experience the plot from about 20 different points of view, and we explore some of the strangeness of this world from new perspectives.

The first sequence of the book centers on the wizard Malachi Draas. You might remember him from Beneath the Dying Land as the wizard who accidentally opened a few hellmouths in his search for the World Within and the road to the Cradle of Life. The new book opens with five stories about him and the people in his orbit as he begins his descent into the World Within.

#1 – Wizard. Malachi escapes from Sahar and wanders the desert alone.

#2 – Dusteater. A desert hermit has her first human encounter in years with the wizard.

#3 – Ghost. A dead man implores the wizard for help.

#4 – Paladin. A young warrior seeks justice for everyone the wizard has killed.

#5 – Outlaw. A thief tries to rob the wizard using his nightmares against him.

The next sequence of the book, Witch, will be along soon.

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