Welcome to Lore Collage, a weekly look at things going on around Dungeons & Dragons, fiction related to D&D, and a few other things within RPG and fantasy that you should grab for your next character or campaign. This list is curated with the goal to make certain that readers will not miss major announcement because they aren’t online at all times, as well as to expose them to unique and/or interesting projects that deserve amplification.
Add Mechanical Wolves to Your Campaign
Your next town of gnomes and/or artificers should copy Takikawa, Japan. They defended themselves from bear attacks by installing mechanical wolves — that are way too creepy. It’s a new twist on warforged, and frankly your home table needs this. Whatever natural plague is impacting your urban areas in D&D can be defended by completely bizarre things, not just walls and towers.
Official D&D Announcements
This weekend is the first ever Virtual Weekend of play for Adventurers League. There’s trial size and standard adventures still available. Creators and DMs will have the option to expand beyond prepared content. That will increase the variety of stories available to players in ways that past AL and convention play did not.
Sage Advice got a massive update in preparation for release of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. Awf will be impacted by this, as Bladesingers took a low-level nerf and a high-level buff.
Learn more about Tasha through Ginny D’s cosplay or the Lore You Should Know in DragonTalk.
Famous People Play D&D – Star Trek: Discovery, Vince Vaughn, Andrew Ervin
Star Trek: Discovery’s cast plays together using DnD Beyond and Zoom. No fancy VTT, just a camera pointed at a map and Theater of the Mind.
Andrew Ervin credits playing D&D for informing his ability to create worlds.
At this point it will start being news when someone in Hollywood doesn’t play.
Chase Scenes Are Classics in Genre, but Hard to Run – Merric Solves That
Dyson Logos Latest Town
Every few days Dyson Logos comes up with a new map, including the lore around it. If you’re running behind your session prep or just need a one-off dropping these into your campaign are simple and easy.
Not D&D – Creators to Back
Swordsfall continues to expand on the lore for their Afro-hope-punk future RPG. The latest drop is a massive graphic novel.
I’m a sucker for rebellion stories. I just watched the BBC Robin Hood from 2006, love Thomas Paine, and have a few subclass concepts I’m working through for my own campaign. Backing Flames of Freedom made too much sense. Their Kickstarter is done, but you can still order via Backerkit. Watch the amazing blend of rebellion, dark magick, and the power of all the peoples of the grimm alt-history of Boston on their Twitch channel.
Ribbons
Ali’s latest twitter thread on djinn focuses on the djinn of plagues.
Destiny City Comics is going to give youth the gift of comics.
Tor’s gift guide is based on your family’s personalities.
D&D is so ubiquitous that it is used in elections stories now.
Full Moon Storytelling 