• Filming at Wells Cathedral puts Dungeons & Dragons movie stars in range of paparrazi

    Filming at Wells Cathedral puts Dungeons & Dragons movie stars in range of paparrazi

    Lately most of my writing efforts have focused on job applications, new backgrounds (Vintner, Midwife), and Feats (Bonded Companion, Born to be Wild) that help define the world where I DM and write. Getting read to relaunch in-person D&D has been such a joy. In this era where the game and everything surrounding it is more popular, I expect my drop-in episodic campaign will be popular. Sessions will be in South King County, in public place. Details quite soon.

    Enough about me. Mondays are about the D&D movie, TV shows, video games, and non-TTRPG portions of the franchise.

    Paparazzi provide glimpse of D&D stars’ costumes

    Mostly due to filming at Wells Cathedral in Somerset, the celeb-stalking paparazzi snapped photos of the starts of the Dungeons and Dragons film in partial costume on their way to-and-from various shoots.

    Hugh Grant took most of the attention, of course. He’s the biggest classic name attached to the project that also includes Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, and many more. There’s no surprise that there’s a powerful ensemble associated with a brand built around party dynamics.

    Michelle Rodriguez is seen wearing a paparazzi-defense visor. Yes, this item belongs in your game. It should hide emotions, but will not hide your identity.

    Filming at Alnwick Castle in Somerset also attracts attention

    There’s an intriguing shot of a fully costumed and made-up character practicing swordplay in a field outside of Alnwick Castle. Northumberton is enjoying the spotlight. Alnwick seems to feature more outdoors action.

    Indiana Jones 5 is being filmed just down the way.

    Regé-Jean Page teases Variety

    At this point Page’s star is going to be attached to every franchise in existence. It took just one season in Bridgerton for him to be attached to James Bond. He’ll be in The Gray Man and D&D for certain. He’s enjoyed games inspired by D&D, and now he’ll get to be a Paladin, possibly.

    The D&D film is part of why Motley Fool thinks AMC stock is going to keep climbing.

    Dark Alliance is out June 22 – couch co-op on the way

    The Drizzt and companions button-smashing metal glory of Dark Alliance has a few free DLCs scheduled already, including couch co-op.

    Magic: The Gathering crossover cards starting to be revealed.

    Someone put D&D in my Monopoly & Clue

    No, really. D&D Monopoly and Clue are real things that exist now. Will I get them for the minis and props? No. But I’m tempted.

    As always, maps

    Me being a DM that cannot draw, I count on adapting various maps and map tools to my campaigns. Here’s a couple I like.

    https://twitter.com/czepeku/status/1398375433914261512

    Free maps from Mike Schley? yep. Just register and download.

    Free Monthly Content: Elven Places by Mike Schley
  • Call the Midwife – a 5th edition D&D Background

    Call the Midwife – a 5th edition D&D Background

    In a city you might be part of a guild, where in rural communities you could be the only midwife for miles. You are there to aid during pregnancy and birth. Your role goes beyond just those times, as you are also the confidant within the region. Your charges trust you, confide in you, and know that you will support them in their time of need.

    You are capable of calming emotions during impassioned times, trained in techniques of general healing, when you are present life is honored and saved. Whether itinerant or attached to a guild, your role within the community is respected. Those who don’t need your services still hold you in esteem, if from a distance.

    Cottage

    Midwife

    Skill Proficiencies: Insight
    Tool Proficiencies: Herbalism Kit
    Languages: None
    Cantrip: Spare the Dying
    Equipment: Druidic focus or religious symbol, healer’s kit, traveler’s clothes, flask, jug, steel mirror, soap, 5 gp

    Feature: Welcome to our home

    Folk that care for families will always welcome a midwife into their house. They will not fight for the midwife, but will help them hide, provide some food or provisions for the midwife and their friends if able, and share the gossip that caregivers invariably know about a community.

    Characteristics: For now, use those from the Folk Hero or pick & choose your favorites. Whenever my background project sees full publication there will be unique characteristics for each of them

    Midwife Design Goals

    First and foremost, this design is to honor my late mother-in-law. She was a maternity nurse, and through her I met many other nurses. Secondly, the background leans into Call the Midwife, which my wife watches regularly. There is a bit of inspiration from Nynaeve al’Meara (Wheel of Time) and her time as Wisdom of Emond’s Field when she cared for the community as a healer and confidant for the women of the community. As there is no healer among official D&D products, the Midwife attempts to fill some of that niche (as will the Barber, the Apothecary, and the Healer).

    Like the Remarkable Drudge, the Midwife grants a cantrip at the cost of a skill and a tool/language.

    Custom Backgrounds for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons

    Fediverse reactions
  • Born to be Wild: A Feat of Wild Magic

    Born to be Wild: A Feat of Wild Magic

    Within the literature that inspires Dungeons & Dragons we see many tales of those born to magic. Some of these peoples are untrained, their magic barely controlled. In 5th edition D&D these are represented by Wild Magic Sorcerers. Not all fit the narrative around Sorcerers, because they are more than just an in-born mage. They have hints of spellcasting, but because it is born rather than learned control is not there.

    Yes, multiclassing can solve this. So can a Feat.

    The desire with Born to be Wild is to capture the feeling of those who have a tiny bit of innate magic in their bodies, but no control. Their magic sparks bizarre occurrences that range from helpful to destructive. Maybe they get trained someday. Maybe they are a warrior who can heal an ally, or a thief that can blast with missiles of power. Whoever they are, they struggle with innate powers and the impact of casting.

    Photo by Max Aquino

    Born to be Wild

    • Choose a cantrip from the following list: Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy, Druidcraft. [This represents that you have innate minor powers]
    • Choose any 1st level spell. You may now cast this spell once per short rest, but when you do you roll on the Wild Magic Surge table of the Wild Magic Sorcerer. This spell may be added to your spell list, but whenever cast does cause a surge. [There is a temptation to have the player roll on the table twice and let them choose the better effect.]
    • Your spellcasting ability for these spells is Constitution. [This is to represent that the magic courses through your body.]

    Design notes

    The intent here is to be similar in power to Magic Initiate, but to embrace the chaos of the Wild Magic Sorcerer. Dropping one cantrip and upping the usage of the spell is similar to the Artificer Initiate. Adding Metamagic would give the holder of the Feat control, which is in opposition to the intent.

  • Feat: Bonded Companion

    Feat: Bonded Companion

    Salvy

    Animal Companions, or Bonded Companions, or a key element of life in Kin. The Kin are the people of friendship, loyalty of loving those around them. This extends towards their non-humanoid companions as well. Where an elf might group in a land where spells are used to do mundane things, in Kin when a goliath needs a bit of string to finish sewing they send their swallow off to do it, or their heron to fish. Halflings have dogs that pull, push, fetch, hunt, fish, carry, and many other tasks. Human bonds with goats, rams, dogs, birds and horses are quite common. Bonds of Kin are a very essence of life. Almost everyone has one.

    This ruleset needs to do a few things.

    • Scale like cantrips, attacks and proficiency. The companion is expected to live alongside their friend for some time.
    • Build in a reason that having a Bond die is bad for the PC
    • Not destroy the action economy
    • As a bonus, can it be simplified for usage in gaming outside the World of Everflow?

    Feat: Bonded Companion

    Prerequisite: Wisdom of 13 or higher. Kin and Rangers ignore this prerequisite.
    This feat can be taken more than once.

    Two dogs on gravel

    You have an intense bond with a beast. These beasts cannot have a higher Intelligence than the character. In certain worlds the bonded companion can be a monstrosity. At this point I considered just granting access to the Bonded Companion system in a similar manner as to how Magic Initiate works, but instead built it within the Feat. The rule could be built by making Bonded Companion a Class Feature and Feat, but I digress. Taking the feat gives you Companion Points. You also gain companion points in the following manners;

    • Rangers at 1st, 3rd, 5th, 11th, and 17th levels
    • Druids at 1st and 5th level.
    • Clerics with the Nature domain at 1st level.
    • Your Wisdom modifier

    Those points can be spent on a single companion or multiple companions. A character can bond with a number of Companions equal to their Wisdom modifier +1 (minimum 1). Each new companion takes a number of weeks to establish a bond as their cost in companion points. This can be done as downtime, or could be a solo adventure. A character may only spend new points when they take the feat or if they are a Ranger or Druid at their higher levels that earn Companion Points.

    The following chart lists various Companions and their Companion Point cost.

    OneTwoThreeFiveSevenTen
    Herd dogSled DogWarhound *Giant Eagle *&Rhino &Mammoth *&
    RetrieverMastiff *Axebeak *&BisonElephant *Wyvern *&
    TerrierBloodoundOstrich &Bear *&Dire Wolf *&Roc *&
    Sentry DogGuard dog *Elk &Lion *&Owlbear *& 
    SprinterRavenPanther *&Worg *&Griffon *& 
    HeronEagle *&Bear Cub *&Hippogriff *&Pegasus *& 
    PigeonFalcon *Wolf *&Peryton *&  
    SparrowParrotTiger *&Awakened Tree &  
    Pony/MuleDraft HorseWarhorse *   
    FoxRiding HorseApe &   
    Goat/SheepMonkey    
    Awakened Shrub &Cow    

    Legend: The ‘&’ is used to indicate an animal companion that can only be paired with a Ranger, Druid or Nature Cleric. They are normally wild. The ‘*’ is used to indicate animals that can enter combat on command.

    "Postduif". Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Postduif.jpg#/media/File:Postduif.jpg
    “Postduif” – Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

    As a Bonus Action the Bonder can command their animal. These commands are Attack, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, or Help. An animal without a * can only attack if the Bonder passes a Wisdom (Animal Handling) DC: 20 check. The Companion will continue that action until the combat is complete or another Bonus Action is used (ie they will Attack the directed target until that target is no longer participating in the combat). Some Companions have other actions that can be taken (A Retriever can Fetch as an action). Check with your DM for these other actions.

    When separated a Bonder and Companion that are on the same plane know the direction and rough travel time between them.

    If someone tries to control a Companion it is an opposed Animal Handling check for the Bonder and whatever skill or spell is appropriate for the attempt to control the Companion. The duration of the control is per the appropriate spell or skill.

    If a Companion dies the Bonder takes half their Companion’s hit points in psychic damage. If they make a Wisdom save (DC: 15) they then take one quarter of their Companion’s hit points in psychic damage.

    Variant Rule in Kin: At first level and below halflings usually bond with canines and goliaths usually bond with avians. All Kin start with an additional Companion Point.

  • Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft reviews and more D&D tabletop news

    Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft reviews and more D&D tabletop news

    When I step away from reality for a few days, playing D&D is difficult. Visiting family or friends isn’t the best time to schedule a Dungeons & Dragons game (except for when it is). But that space away from the table is also fuel for new ideas (the Vintner Background is on its way). Dungeon Mayhem was also a great way to get light-D&D themes while playing with single-digit kids.

    A photo of a bookshelf with 21 different D&D titles, as well as three other RPG books.
    Whenever I visit a town I stop by a local café, a local brewery/winery, and their local gaming store. Book & Game was stocked full of D&D.

    On Tuesdays Lore Collage focuses on the D&D game of dice and paper.

    Reviewing Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft

    If you want horror that is only solved through combat, Polygon’s Hall thinks you’ll be surprised that VGtR leans heavily into other tropes and other pillars of play. This book keeps moving up my purchase list. I’m not the only gamer that used to play Ravenloft and didn’t need a new version of the setting that now wants it for setting fuel. Van Richten’s Guide offers ways to add horror to your own world.

    It also cleans out some of the problematic histories of Ravenloft.

    Summer of Drizzt means more lore changes, good

    The huge Drizzt event (covered yesterday because it also includes video games, tv, more?) also includes changes to Lolth, the evil spider goddess, and to Drow themselves. There are two new Drow cultures on the way.

    Business of D&D is strong

    D&D’s best year ever (Forbes, PC Gamer) isn’t expected to lead to a slow down. It’s part of a planned slow-growth design that was amplified by the covid-19 pandemic.

    “From the outside, D&D looks like math,” he added. “But you watch people livestreaming D&D, and you think, ‘it’s a group of friends drinking beer and making each other laugh. I didn’t know there was a game for that.’ It really helps make it more approachable. The game’s a sort of social lubricant.”

    Wizards’ own streaming show, D&D Live, is scheduled for July 16-17, billed as a special two-day event. Its schedule includes interviews, special product announcement, and a Dungeon Masters’ roundtable discussion, but is centered around four “star-studded” live-play games. The exact lineup for this year’s games has yet to be announced at time of writing.

     Nathan Stewart, head of franchise for D&D at Wizards of the Coast, to GeekWire.

    Baldman Games is expanding to offer ‘Concierge DMs’

    Not everyone can make the specific time slots for the official Virtual Weekends (next is June 11-13), so Baldman Games is exploring a way to expand their offerings to specific adventures, days, and times.

    This program is aimed at complete groups (6 players) looking for specific games, at specific times, and perhaps even with a specific DM. This is not for single players trying to make the perfect schedule (that makes my head hurt). For our initial beta of the program we are going to limit it to a handful of groups to work out the kinks and make sure we are offering what you want, that it is scalable and repeatable, and that the program has value.

    As always, maps

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