One of the great parts of Dungeons & Dragons is the impromptu nature of it all. When you’re at the table, especially for a homebrew campaign, things just happen. The participants riff off of each other and a story is created that shouldn’t exist and can never exist again. It is a moment in time. Mijdaf was born in one such moment recently.
Mijdaf, the paddler
Mijdaf is an NPC in the current campaign. He started because the group needed transportation up the river from their neighborhood to one on the very edges of urbanity.
Me: There’s a barge pulled along the ropes on the side of the river.
The PCs: That seems slow.
Me: There’s also a paddleboat operated by a goliath.
The PCs: We take that.
That’s how a desert goliath living in the largest city of the region started to grow into relevance in the game. But at this point he’s just a ferryman in a boat. Sure, he’s huge and can paddle upriver faster than those humans can pull themselves, but he’s not yet unique.
PCs: What kind of birds does he have?
Me: Four seagulls that mostly rest on a branching perch above his head. He asks where your companions are.
PCs: We’re trying to get a new one for Lauray. Do you know a good breeder?
As Mijdaf I talk about two options and why he has one that he prefers. It’s one that doesn’t recognize the current government. Mijdaf starts talking about the history of the region that connects to an artisan that they’d met in the previous session.
They riff off of this, pulling more information from the goliath. It’s interactive at this point. They roll very well. I start playing into Mijdaf being willing to talk, constantly. Soon the PCs figure out that the reason that Mijdaf was available is because no locals will ride in his boat.
He’s not just a talker — he’s a conspiracy theorist.
Mijdaf pulls out a slate with tangential connections between various politicians, professors and military leaders. He keeps going.
At the table this was great. The players with me that day were smiling, nodding and laughing. The total scene may have been 10 minutes. There were some social dice rolls and a lot of me as the DM picking up on table clues to see what the group was enjoying and emphasizing that.
And then Mijdaf reached the destination, dropping them off. He and they never expected to see each other again.
A day later in game time the group needs to get back from the nearly rural neighborhood to their home base deep in the port city. They recognize a paddleboat, but don’t see Mijdaf. They steal the boat.
That’s how Mijdaf, the paddler, went from a simple single scene NPC into a character with purpose, gaming joy, and just possibly a problem for the future.
Within the World of the Everflow magic is relatively new, well besides the Everflow’s healing power and ability to flow in two directions and the powerful bond between beast and Kin. In the current Proctors of Song and Book magic returned ~27 years ago. First that was via the Born Generation when over a period of a year every child of Kin came of age knowing a single cantrip. About 7 years ago the Lorebook of Divination was found and over the following years, magic started to spread with the realization that there were 17 or so Lorebooks scattered across the lands.
The current campaign takes place in Sas Rurulit, where the Proctors are attempting to collect two Lorebooks. But the ingenious groups that control the Lorebooks down in this land broke them up. The Lorebook of the Book are people who cast directly from books and scrolls.
These peoples are manifesting magic at various colleges. The college of metallurgy used every fire and electricity spell to forge metals. The college of hydrology was water and air spells, with a bit of illusion. The Proctors (PCs) have essentially destroyed these two schools ability to function by either capturing or damaging the master books there.
In the last session they visited a public park that is also the School of Herbimancy.
Unlike traditional D&D approaches to herbs, the School of Herbimancy isn’t about ingesting herbs in some fashion to gain magical effects. Instead, the plants themselves are the magic.
For example, the paths in the park were softly lit at night via the glowing flowers of a particular plant (a version of Dancing Lights). Maybe the smell of burning needles from a deciduous tree heals (Healing Spirit). Fallen branches from a tree are a magical staff (Shillelagh). Within Sas Rurulit, this school’s magic is artifice meets druid — the plants are simultaneously technology and magical.
The group failed a series of checks, one with a natural 1, so they don’t know the professor in charge of the school. Instead, they got the name of the banker financing the project. A way to turn a nat 1 into a meaningful failure!
They also didn’t quite figure out that the seed room may be the equal of a scroll room or library at the other schools they’ve raided (some read this site and it would be a natural conclusion for the characters to reach after fleeing the fires they set to cover their raid).
I’m doing Lore 24, an attempt to write small lore elements daily in the year 2024. Each element will be something that’s come up in play or will come up in play within my homebrew World of the Everflow — there will be actionable threads for PCs to grab onto and advance the story.
Every year I publish a look back at my favorite writing, podcast and video appearances for the year. This helps me remember what I’ve done, re-up things to people who discovered me late in the year and when attempting to freelance it gives me a handy spot to find work to share with editors and other hiring managers.
Dungeons & Dragons
The most popular story in the history of Full Moon Storytelling is no longer about sports. My essay on how to use third places to amplify verisimilitude surpassed the sports and cultures essay and then lapped it, twice in just a year. This helped boost Full Moon Storytelling to have 74% more views than last year. Alos, in 2023 FMS had more total views and visitors than the total of either from its founding in 2014 to 2022. Federating via WordPress helped contribute to that growth as well.
D&D: Honor Among Thieves had an interesting release to judge as a success or not. Opening week was fine, but not great. The falloff was significant, and yet there are many reasons to think that there will be a sequel. It was a massive success when it came to marketing D&D and is one of the most streamed movies of 2023. My fascination with the mainstreaming of the hobby by Hollywood is one of my favorite writings.
Ended the year as the 8th most popular movie to purchase on Google, Rakuten and Amazon.
It spent 246 days in Google’s top 10 most purchased movies & shows again globally. That’s basically every day it was available.
On Paramount+, its primary streaming platform, it spent 228 days in the top 10 globally good for 9th overall. It spent the last weekend of 2023 in 6th worldwide and 4th in the USA on P+
On iTunes it finished 12th, with 224 days in the top 10.
In most Asia it was streamed on HBO Max. It spent 83 days in the top 10 globally for HBO movies, despite only being available in limited markets.
In much of Latin America it was on Star+. It finished 11th among movies on that platform, spending 46 days in the top 10.
Backgrounds continue to be my specialty. The most popular released this year was the Weaver, working its way into the top 5 all time.
During a vacation I saw roads with funky names and decided they can inspire D&D and other fantasy settings. You too can find inspiration in normal places.
Why do I keep a d20 in my pocket? Because it gives me a sense of belonging.
I sponsored two soccer teams. Our Flag Means Offside FC and What We Do On The Sidelines FC had opposite records on the field, but they’re both #1 in my heart. I’m already sponsored a spring 2024 team. I can’t wait to see the new jersey.
Sounders and other soccer
Back in 2008 I founded Sounder at Heart. In 2019 I left to work for Tacoma Defiance and Reign FC, rejoining SaH in late 2020. This year the current Managing Editor, Jeremiah Oshan took the site independent. As part of that effort I now write the twice-weekly newsletter now called the Ship’s Log.
I also help maintain the Depth Chart and cover Defiance.
Risk Intelligence
For Factal I also help with a newsletter — Benchmarker. Similar to the SaH newsletter, the open rates are climbing, click-through rates are climbing and distribution is growing. Mostly, my job there is to help people within Global Security, Business Continuity, Resilience and Crisis find our free resources (and then our paid service). The work we do there helps keep people alive and business operating. You can read more about that in our annual recap.
People outside of security and continuity fields will enjoy things I don’t do — the Factal Forecast and The Debrief. The Forecast is our editors’ look at the planned news of the next week. The Debrief dives deep into an issue that isn’t on the front page of US media, but needs attention.
Licensing incongruent products is hard. We’ve all seen poor attempts at Big Screen Movie + Pancake House, or French Fries and that other Big Movie Franchise. Getting the proper fit for tie-ins is art and science.
Dungeons and Dragons attempted bologna in the 80s and these days the lifestyle brand has a $70 two-slice toaster. Those don’t work. Their t-shirts have been great — I strongly recommend the Harper Motto shirt.
Merging coffee and a brand is also difficult. I’ve been part of this with a major morning show and a coffee brand in the past, that was a fairly natural fit. Gamers of all types and caffeine tends to be a good fit too. Mt Dew and various energy drinks have partnered with numerous video games over the decades.
The art and branding continuity is perfect. This coffee looks to be a perfect extension of official Dungeons & Dragons and presented by Wizards of the Coast. Easy access to the art is a big reason for that.
But there are plenty of these kinds of partnerships that get the art and branding wrong, despite the easy legal and marketing access.
The bag’s language is very 5e D&D in writing style. The ampersand is all over the sidewalls of the bag. That central art piece is tremendous — matching the aesthetic of modern D&D.
When I was a full-time apprentice coffee taster we focused on four major elements to coffee flavor — body, acidity, flavor and finish. Despite not working in that field for a decade now, that’s still how I approach flavor, including when selling beer or tasting wine for pleasure.
This is where Dragonfire fails.
Per the bag it is a medium roast, preground “for any filter” which basically means for various drip techniques/filters and wholly Brazilian beans. The label did not call out 100% Arabica (the website does), but there are no tell-tale signs of robusta or other varieties. It also says that it is “medium flavor.”
I did not perform a cupping, as the coffee was pre-ground.
I tasted multiple Chemex pourovers using a metal filter over the past week — my current traditional coffee preference. I also attempted to use it in an espresso machine, but was unable to tamp sufficiently enough to make up for the different grind size.
Body: fairly low body for a Brazil Acidity: essentially neutral Flavor: no spikes of premium flavors such as nutty, vanilla, etc Finish: very clean, no roughness which can be common in lower grown Brazils (this is where robustas would have been obvious)
For a coffee fan Dragonfire would not be a coffee I would suggest. As a gift to a non-flavor nerd who likes D&D and drinks coffee with sugar and/or cream it’s a decent choice.
For the flavor nerd who likes D&D I prefer Found Familiar coffees. I have a bag of Fey Magic waiting for a cupping, espresso tasting and pourover just as soon as I’m through my Middle Fork roaster and right before switching back to Campfire’s Summer Camp.
Giant Freaking Robot says that Netflix is in talks to bring Baldur’s Gate 3 to the screen. They don’t know if it would be a movie or a series yet, but the series makes more sense considering the amount of content in the video game.
There’s also a long simmering rumor that once Joe Manganiello gets done with he and his brother’s D&D documentary he’ll resume pitching his long-sought Dragonlance series. Manganiello is helping push the previous efforts at the doc over the line, there will be archival footage of many of the early particulars plus modern interviews with those in the current culture.
Yes, Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast let a lot of people go this week. The weakness of their position may be why Giant Freaking Robot has the exclusive about the deal. It’s a way to get funds for the struggling company fast.
Additionally, on Plex and Freevee there are three recently new D&D shows. On D&D Adventures you can watch a Heroes Feast (D&D cooking), Faster Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! (D&D comedy where everyone dies) and Encounter Party (an edited actual play). The Free Ad-Supported Television channel also has the original D&D cartoon, DesiQuest and Rivals of Waterdeep.
First appearing to the mass market fanbase within 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons in Eberron: Rising from the Last War and now in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, the Artificer is a kind of techno-wizard. For someone without previous connections to Eberron, the setting that exploded on the scene in 3rd edition, the Artificer confused me.
The fiction upon which it is based seemingly is all self-referring, or modern fantastical. There’s a subclass that essentially reads as if it is Iron Man ported back into D&D for example. Whereas most D&D classes stretch into the myths and legends that predate the game itself, the Artificer does not seem to have that convention.
Oddly enough, it was a Christmas movie that reminded me of Artificers within our lore. There are magical techno-wizards within holiday tales. From Christmas elves of tradition, to the inventors of Jingle Jangle, you can find your inspiration for your next Artificer.
These creators take the mundane and imbue it with magic. They create automatons, magically tinker, infuse items, and all the other things you expect from the description of an Artificer.
Masters of invention, artificers use ingenuity and magic to unlock extraordinary capabilities in objects. They see magic as a complex system waiting to be decoded and then harnessed in their spells and inventions. You can find everything you need to play one of these inventors in the next few sections.
Artificers use a variety of tools to channel their arcane power. To cast a spell, an artificer might use alchemist’s supplies to create a potent elixir, calligrapher’s supplies to inscribe a sigil of power, or tinker’s tools to craft a temporary charm. The magic of artificers is tied to their tools and their talents, and few other characters can produce the right tool for a job as well as an artificer.
Opening up a vision of an Artificer to include these amazing gift-gives also helps change how you approach D&D. A character of kindness and generosity, or that thieving Gustafson, expands the stories you can tell. When you visit the village you can brighten the spirits of the community via your infusions and spells.
It may be a Hallmark/Lifetime/FreeForm/UPTv cliche, but there is magic in the holiday season. Incorporating the magic of elves, toys, inventors, Santa, and others into your D&D characters and stories means adding more joy to a game that so often centers violence.
Generosity and joy exist in D&D (even in Barovia). Your Artificer has the power to amplify those feelings (while also being an effective combatant, but there are many places that talk about optimizing in those ways). There are 1,000 times a thousand stories available at any table and any session. Adding a little Christmas to your Artificer is a way to discover more of them.
Be Jeronicus, Jessica, Journey, or even Gustafson. Be Alabaster Snowball, Bushy Evergreen, Pepper Minstix, Shinny Upatree, Sugarplum Mary, or Wunorse Openslae. Roll dice and tell stories about the power of Artifice.
While chatting about Wish, Chris Pine suggested that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves 2 is possibly/maybe going to happen. It wasn’t a strong statement, but it’s also the strongest since the co-writer/director duo were talking before the writers and actors strikes.
“I’ve heard some rumors about it,” he tells us of a potential follow-up. “But I don’t know anything yet. But I feel pretty confident that it may happen.” When we ask if he’d be happy to return, Pine responds: “Absolutely.”
Because a large part of that falling short was due to the compacted nature of releases that have meant a majority of films missed their targets this year. Releases are stacked up next to each other due to how the covid-19 pandemic reduced available theater openings for two years.
Because the TV shows ordered, TV in development (Kolstad) and the documentary would be boosted by the greater attention that major films still get over prestige television. There would be synchronicity, and unlike Marvel, Star Wars there isn’t yet danger of being overwhelmed with barely connected interoperable plots.
Because if they act quickly the main cast are available (a small benefit of the pauses due to the strikes). Pine has only 1 project (he’s said Star Trek IV v2 is dead). Rodriguez has 1 project, Regé-Jean Page has 1 project, Justice Smith has 4 projects. Sophia Lillis has 1 project. Chloe Coleman has 1 project. The cast that advocated for school D&D and grandparents D&D and just playing D&D in general is available now. That won’t be true for long.
That last point may be the most important. Long tails are rare in the current media environment. Many studios give up on “failures” rather than wait. The path to cancellation is quick. But Paramount and Hasbro haven’t given up on Dungeons & Dragons. It sits there on Paramount+ getting attention as one of the best found family films ever, a highly rated fantasy and it continues to help earn renewals at Paramount+ globally.
So yes, I agree with Gizmodo on this point — released D&D 2, you cowards.
As part of the Worlds to-go! The Elysians Kickstarter I pitched PJ the idea of adding sports inspired by this magical world that is a conjunction of city-states, godly wilderness and island-hopping villagers. The microsetting we’re going for has some ancient Greek and Roman inspiration, flexing into similar tropes taken by the Percy Jackson series, a dash of Narnia without the chivalry and because I’m me dashes of magic in all things.
It leans into narrative as mechanics. The concept here is to describe the action your are taking using your specialty (an advanced 5e rule), skill and attribute in unique ways.
Normally I ignore individual sports as they can typically be done with a one roll roll-off. But Elysia had to have something inspired by the original multi-national sporting competition. So I added the Pentiad.
As the peoples are emulating the gods (a fun bit of lore I enjoy) there’s no such thing as cheating. Borrowing from The Magicians, I leaned into the concept that the gods have minds beyond people’s minds. Emulating the minds of gods meant no cheating. There’s no cheating! Do whatever you want for victory — that’s what the gods would do. Pursue victory using spells or even attacks. Just don’t kill people.
Throwing Stars is based off an ancient Roman juggling competition, adding in a dash of mysticism around the creation of constellations and turning it into a team event. Combat juggling is a modern thing that should be captured in this lore too. Throwing Stars takes combat juggling with magic and then instead of awarding points on surviving, awarding points on the artistry of the creation — a divine act.
When Throwing Stars what object or magic will you create to impress the gods?
You can check out Sports on the Fields of Elysia for free for a few days. It’s a proof of concept, not a final rule set. If the Kickstarter continues on its strong path you may seen the final version of the rules, along with two other team sports.
Try out the rules for sports. Tell us what you think.
Working with PJ over at Homebrew & Hacking, I’m helping put together a set of backgrounds and other elements for a micro-setting for use in the 5e D&D variant Level Up. Our project is tightly focused on a culture of temples, philosophers, oracles and city-states — Worlds to-go! The Elysians.
One of the reasons I chose a Level Up project rather than traditional 5e Dungeons & Dragons is that Level Up puts a large emphasis on Backgrounds and Cultures. Things like NPC connections, mementos and even advancement in that pre-heroic profession are featured in a Level Up Background. That fits how I want to tell stories using D&D.
I also listen to PJ’s podcast quite a bit, which I guess PJ just found out.
For the project some of my previous Backgrounds will be adapted, but there are also new ones that help fill the micro-setting of the Elysians.
Head over toKickstarterand click on “Notify Me On Launch” to see the project when it is live. The team PJ is putting together will provide you with some simple tools to help expand your D&D stories and maybe even tell the future.
tl;dr – I’ve become a horse-race style observer of the D&D movie because I see the numbers as a proxy for acceptance of a hobby that remains just on the edge of pop culture.
It is inarguable that the D&D movie didn’t turn a profit at the box office. It was pulled from theaters after earning ~208 million dollars. Production costs were reported to be ~$150 million, some of that budget was higher due to filming during the early stages of the pandemic and across four nations (Iceland, Ireland, England and the U.S.A). Those costs were supposedly split evenly between Paramount and Hasbro, but Hasbro only held distribution rites in the U.K. and Canada due to their ownership of eOne at the time.
Paramount reported in Q1 that they spent at most $62 million on advertising the movie (that number is bundled with another film). Hasbro never revealed their ad spend, but did take a $25 million impairment due to the film not hitting theater expectations.
It is a highly rated film. And some would consider those box office numbers a failure or a flop. I have spent way too much time in certain corners of the internet arguing how it wasn’t flop or failure.
But my evidence isn’t raw dollar numbers. So why do I argue?
Part of it is because I’m a marketer that loves D&D. One piece of guidance I use is the massive increase in search around the movie.
Red is D&D the game. Blue is D&D the movie. The first blue spike is when the movie’s name was released. The second blue spike is the Super Bowl ad. The third is the release buildup. All are echoed more strongly in the game’s search results.
Search results don’t directly connect to purchasing. They are merely an indicator. But that indicator is strong, very strong. No other event in modern D&D has the spike creation that Honor Among Thieves did.
Also, a ton of people are still watching D&D: Honor Among Thieves. It’s been available in the United States via Paramount+ for more than three months. From its release week on streaming it has been a top ten movie every week.
D&D: Honor Among Thieves was #9 heading into this weekend.
Just prior to the current weekend it finally released in the U.K. and Ireland. It is number one on Paramount+ in both markets. When it was released in Canada on Netflix, it was number two for most of the first week. It releases on Amazon Prime globally on August 25.
It ranks when bigger box offices successes don’t.
Some streaming isn’t captured. For example, I just watched it on Alaska Airlines. It was the third listed movie in the New Movies section, again ahead of much more popular films.
For 35 days it was number one or two on iTunes. In the 110 days it has been available there are only seven days it is not in the top 10.
On Google Play it had a 44 day run at #1. Once on general release it has never dropped below 7th.
On Amazon it wasn’t quite as popular, but the D&D movie was still strong.
On less popular services it still did well, on Rakuten it just leapt to number one last week, for example.
How does a movie that fell a bit, but not a lot, short of financial success metrics (pre-March 2020 people would use a doubling of production+marketing, now the 1.5 is more common) do this well in the modern environment?
How did D&D: The Brand (not the game) have a 74% increase in revenue when the movie was a failure? Probably because of licensed goods. There are a lot of them. I bought the Healing Potion mints for example.
Why do I argue with people about this?
Again, I’m a marketer.
But I’m also a nerd who had his D&D books knocked out of his hands walking the halls of high school. I had a parent think that the game was the path to Satan. The moral outrage and general jocks v. nerds aspect of my relationship to the game came up a lot when I was interviewed for “Hero’s Feast: Finding Community through Dungeons and Dragons.”
I’m lucky enough to see, and help, my other main hobby grow in popularity. Soccer in America is mainstream. It’s popular enough in the Seattle area that a hobby website can go independent and fully employ at least one person.
And yes, there are similar successes in D&D. Critical Role is the largest of those. They aren’t alone. These are still often niche cases, and not an indicator of mainstream acceptance, as much as there can be a mainstream in a world where every hobby and interest has its own channel.
Honor Among Thieves was an opening for something like the mainstreaming of comics. It may not have gotten there. It might have. There’s still a D&D TV show in the works, as part Hasbro Entertainment and in cooperation with Paramount.
Paramount and Hasbro also keep expanding where D&D: Honor Among Thieves is available. That’s uncommon with niche properties. The Peripheral was just cancelled. Willow was cancelled. It’s easy to cancel shows and movies that aren’t massively popular.
Streaming continues to sort itself out. Paramount was late to the game. They are moving ahead of older streaming platforms because of their original movies and their deep catalog of TV.
And I guess that means D&D: Honor Among Thieves judgement as a financial success is a lot more like a campaign than a one-shot. There was no overnight hit, just a consistent leveling up and growth over the past six months as the fans of the game keep watching, keep showing others the movie and keep powering the growth of D&D to heights that us 1980s basement dwellers thought was just a dream.
Full Moon Storytelling 