I wrote the Spirit and Exorcism domains a few months back, and they got me thinking about domains that imply totally dissimilar approaches to religion and spirituality. Here is another, perhaps more suited to sinister gods, such as the Blood of Vol in Eberron, but gods of battle such as […]
My breakdown of elven personality, with traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws, was kindly received, so I have moved on to dwarves. This is still some serious easy-mode of stereotypes, but even halflings are a less-trodden ground than elves and dwarves in fantasy. As before, I’ve made no effort here to […]
In the Unearthed Arcana playtest document that included the minotaur race, the designers included traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws specific to the race, which proved to be a great way to present ready-to-play stereotypes of the minotaurs. (Remember, kids: stereotyping is awful in Real Life, but when used correctly, it is immensely […]
Over the past three weeks, I’ve run three sessions of D&D 5th edition. Across all of these sessions, there have been eighteen different players (Kainenchen played in all three, though very little in the last case; our son was uncooperative). Ranging from people who have played 5e since the earliest […]
I’ve been perusing the adventure included in the D&D 5e Starter Set, “Lost Mine of Phandelver,” with intent to commit heinous acts of game-running. I would guess that about 33% of the folks reading this blog post have also read the adventure, since I’ve heard so much commentary on it […]
O sages standing in God’s holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. –W.B. Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium” Okay, I’ll fess up – this isn’t a post about how to use […]
The other day, I got to talking with a friend about game-running, particularly in a setting for which the game-runner is not the initial creator. This includes LARPs, tabletop games, and for that matter, content development in video games – something most folks will never need to care about, but […]
About six months ago, I wrote about my conflicted relationship with the Forgotten Realms setting, and mentioned that I might like to rebuild Menzoberranzan and the conception of the drow as a whole. My problem with them is that the Menzoberranzan boxed set is written to support an urban, all-drow campaign, […]
In the past couple of months, for whatever reasons of nostalgia (and reading about the new expansion of Lords of Waterdeep), I’ve been thinking about the Forgotten Realms setting – likely the single most loved and hated setting in all of D&D. Hence the title of this post quoting Bernard Cornwell, […]
