Tag: Dungeons and Dragons

  • My Best Writing of 2023

    My Best Writing of 2023

    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.

    I’m probably not going to do a full post on Honor Among Thieves overall streaming success. Here’s the end of year data from Flixpatrol;

    • 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.

    You can find five of my backgrounds, converted to A5e, in Worlds to Go! The Elysians, my first ever Kickstarter. There’s also Sports in D&D rules in that book.

    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.

    The most popular of those was a Reign themed newsletter on network effects and the sum of a team being greater than the individual pieces.

    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.

  • Tasting the official D&D coffee: Dragonfire Roast

    Tasting the official D&D coffee: Dragonfire Roast

    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.

    D&D’s official coffee does a couple things really well. There’s also a major miss.

    Dungeon's & Dragons Dragonfire Roast bag with the zip-pull opened. The art shows a red dragon breathing fire on a solitary fighter with a shield. The bag is black. In the background are two cafe art pieces.

    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.

  • Baldur’s Gate 3 is the next D&D TV show in development, maybe

    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 already one Dungeons & Dragons show that’s been picked up by Paramount+. The Marshall Rawson Thurber project is in pre-production. Thurber is probably best known for Netflix’s Red Notice.

    Derek Kolstad, known for John Wick 1-3, is also writing and showrunning a different “untitled D&D” series. Kolstad’s project, but that may still be just a pitch, rather than a purchased series. It was supposedly connected to Drizzt Do’Urden.

    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.

  • How Christmas can inspire your next Artificer

    How Christmas can inspire your next Artificer

    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.

    From DnDBeyond.

    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.

    Photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels.com

    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.

  • Honor Among Thieves could get a sequel

    Honor Among Thieves could get a sequel

    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.” 

    Gamesradar

    Now, I’m totally behind Gizmodo’s take — Make Dungeons & Dragons 2, you cowards.

    Why should Paramount and Hasbro remake this movie that fell short of its box office goals?

    • Because it wasn’t that short of the box office, and thanks to the shared nature of production costs the largest loss from either studio was $25 million.
    • 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 marketing impact of the film for the game D&D meant that even when WotC released zero game products, the game division went up.
    • Because releasing more movies helps amplify interest in things like D&D: Adventures, the FAST Channel.
    • 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.
    • Because Honor Among Thieves is still regularly one of the most popular films in the world. No, really. It’s top 5 on Paramount+ in the world this week and top 3 on P+ in the USA.

    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.

  • Throwing Stars and the Pentiad — two sports on the Fields of Elysia

    Throwing Stars and the Pentiad — two sports on the Fields of Elysia

    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.

    We’ve released a sample of the sports rules over on Drivethru RPG.

    Sports in the 5e, the Fields of Elysia

    The project has a few differences from my past writings on sports in D&D.

    • Sports on the Fields of Elysia doesn’t use the Tools rule.
    • 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.
    Photo by Ioannis Ritos on Pexels.com

    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.

  • My first Kickstarter project — Worlds to-go! The Elysians

    My first Kickstarter project — Worlds to-go! The Elysians

    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 to Kickstarter and 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.

  • Why am I so concerned with the popularity of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves?

    Why am I so concerned with the popularity of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves?

    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.

    Video on Demand numbers are even stronger.

    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.

  • 5e D&D SRD Creative Commons 4.0 CC-BY expands into four more languages

    5e D&D SRD Creative Commons 4.0 CC-BY expands into four more languages

    Wizards of the Coast announced that they added French, Italian, German, and Spanish language releases of the 5.1 SRD via Creative Commons.

    Community Update

    Depending on sourcing (I’ll use Berlitz) that’s now languages one, four, five, twelve and Italian (outside of the top twenty) that have a free, open version of Dungeons & Dragons available to them.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if Japanese is added soon, as WotC took over the Japanese release of D&D a couple years ago.

    Chinese, Portuguese, Arabic and Dutch were the next most popular languages for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves that have not yet had an SRD released for them.

  • Proctors of the Everflow: Campaign one sheet

    Proctors of the Everflow: Campaign one sheet

    This is an introduction to the seventh campaign set in the World of the Everflow. The most significant difference between these and the previous campaigns are that the player characters are all members of the Proctors, a group that once completely restricted magic from entering the Land of the Six Kingdoms.

    The campaign will start in the city of Ras Rurulit in Daoud shortly after the PCs were dropped off there. They have a safe house. Operating in the city either in hiding or in open defiance of convention will be up to the party.

    The ground floor of a small house. The entry space has a tower-stair that goes to the second floor. There is hall that connects a living room and a kitchen.
    Home builder from Oleg Dolya
    Second floor of the small house. There is an entry loft that connects to a library and a bedroom.
    A small circular neighborhood with light woods in the north. The west and south are mostly barren. The east has a few trees. In the center is a courtyard, large tree and a few government buildings.
    Far Band is a town circle in Sas Rurulit, produced by the Neighborhood Generator
    Map of the Akamnasulun Turalagh Coast. There's a peninsula that stretches from southeast to north. Cities mostly line the coastal areas with few in the interior.
    Perilous Shores providing the Akamnasulun Turalagh Coast

    Campaign Premise

    Your group of Proctors are working together to capture and contain the Book of the Word and the Book of Dance, two groups of Scholars active in southern Daoud. You are authorized to use any measures necessary to control this group. They have been teaching well beyond just a Scholar and two Students – end them.

    Background

    In the last passing of the Dragon, the fourth moon, the World of Everflow experienced the return of magic, the introduction of goblins with smog teknologies, and empowerment of animal companions. Native to the Lands of the Everflow, the Kin all have animal companions, some learning minor magics. Rarer are those whose companions are empowered.

    The fey Ken object to these souls casting spells. Their Proctors crush the spread of magic and seek the Lorebooks from the seventeen schools where spellcraft was trapped. As the Ken invade from the west and the Six Kingdoms’ borders are rewritten, a forgotten peoples float on airxips from the north. The Kon are a smog-punk society with klackety, noisy tek coming from an island of guilds and invention.

    Heroes rise with their animal companions joining their journey. From humble beginnings these heroes show the power of fellowship and share knowledge with the greater world.

    In this case, the PCs are not heroes. They are not antiheroes. They are the Ken, people of knowledge, hoarding and limiting magic from the common people in the Six Kingdoms.

    This map is what the initial intelligence of the Ken thought the Six Kingdoms looked like. It’s quite wrong. Your group of Proctors are in the far south of Daoud, a rough land similar to the non-desert coastal Maghreb.

    Grand Conflicts

    • Proctors versus Scholars
    • Proctors versus the rare Gobkon in the south
    • Do the Elder Dragons really know best?

    Factions

    • The Book of the Word – book based spellcasters
    • The Book of the Song – music based spellcasters
    • Fleet of the Silent Knight – Daoud’s force responsible for maintaining control of the bay.
    • Isarnalijik and Isamamimir’s Squadron – the remnants of land forces who insist they are the rightful heir to the desert lands.

    Rumors

    • There are many colleges and universities in the land.
    • Magistrate Sas Rurulit is the greatest singer in Daoud’s history.
    • Ishurrumukuf has been taken over by one of the trade guilds of Qin
    • A great storm is coming from the West.

    Facets

    • The group are a collection of secret agents or special operators. They may act undercover or violently during the mission.
    • They have one ally to start, Sabrinigha. She runs the safehouse and is a halfling of the born generation slowly discovering spell craft.
    • The lack of animal companions will be obvious. They’ll need a cover story.
    • In traditional D&D this mission would be Lawful Evil.

    Variant Rules

    • Ken start with a Feat that grants a 1st level spell such as Magic Initiate.
    • Short rests are 8 hours. Long rests need sanctuary and 12 hours. This leads to a pace more similar to a novel.
    • Find Familiar and similar spells are banned from PC knowledge at the start of the game.
    • 50% of Enchantment spells no longer exist. This will not impact your spell choice.
    • Use point buy or standard array for starting attributes. If you want something random, the redrick roller gives random point buy valid stats.
    • Start at 7th level because the Proctors are powerful.
    • There are several custom backgrounds and tools available. We will use cultures, not languages. Each character will start with “Daoud (Common to the area) and Ken” for their cultures. If your PC would have more languages discuss that with the DM.
    • Each character will start with 500+1d10*25 gold to spend on mundane items or to put in a pouch and use as spending money.
    • Each character will start with TWO COMMON magic items, plus an Oriq Mask (see Strixhaven) and one RARE item based on the character’s Background and role within the Proctors. That Rare item will have story elements to it, may get stolen. May level up. We’ll see.
    • Each character must be be a spellcaster, but no Druids or Clerics or Rangers. Proctors serve the Elder Dragons, not gods or nature.
    • Every character must represent one of the Proctor factions – Seeker, Defender, Striker. The chart below shows a few examples.
    SeekerDefenderStriker
    Wizard
    EvokerX
    DivinerX
    AbjurerX
    Warlock (dragons)
    ArchfeyX
    FiendX
    Great Old OneX
    Sorcerer
    DraconicX
    WildX
    Rogue
    Arcane TricksterX
    Paladin
    AncientsX
    Devotion
    Monk
    Four ElementsX
    Fighter
    Eldritch KnightXX
    Bard
    LoreXX
    ValorXX
    Artificer
    ArmorerXXX
    ArtilleristXX
    AlchemistXX
    Battle SmithX
    Subclasses in other 5e Wizards of the Coast and Kobold Press books may be used as well.