Recent Projects

I’ve got a number of things available for purchase or download-with-subscription at this point, and I haven’t really promoted them in this blog as I should. Sure, some of them are linked over in the “Published Work and Reviews” page in the right-side column, but I think a lot of […]


D&D 5e: The Protection Fighting Style 10

My gaming schedule has given me a lot more chances to see people create new 5e characters lately, including more than a few fighters and paladins. Some of those players set out to be the tankiest tanks that ever tanked, so they pick up the Protection fighting style, and… it […]


LARP Event Postmortem: Artemis

The LARP that I play, Eclipse, recently staged an event that genuinely surprised me and did things I had never before seen in the whole medium of boffer LARPing. I had a phenomenal time, and I want to break down what they did and talk about all the different elements […]


D&D 5e: The Dragonborn Personality

It’s been awhile, but I have an ongoing series in this blog where I dig deeper into the non-human races of D&D and give them tables of traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws, as additional or replacement options for the personality features of their Backgrounds. We come now to the dragonborn, […]


D&D 5e: The Blood Domain

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 […]


D&D 5e: My House Rules 3

I’m introducing a lot of new players to my 5e Aurikesh campaign all at once, so I had to sit down and write out all of the house rules that have accreted in the three-years-and-change that we’ve been playing. This post, then, is to discuss why they exist; if you’ve […]


D&D 5e Playtest: Psionics and the Mystic — Take Two

Back in July of last year, Unearthed Arcana unveiled the Mystic, a class for psions and psychic warriors. That document only charted the class as far as fifth level; this month’s post reworks the first five levels and expands the class to tenth level. I found last July’s version conceptually […]


D&D 5e: The Survivalist Ranger Archetype

My thoughts turned back to the Ranger class recently, as I’m working toward the release of a PDF of ranger archetypes through the OGL. I’ve written two so far, the Lantern-bearer and the Stormcloak, and coming up with a third seemed fitting. At first I was thinking of doing something […]


Review: Sorcerer King

I’ve just won my first map of Sorcerer King, a new-ish 4X from Stardock. It’s part of the same continuity as Fallen Enchantress, which has been a go-to fantasy 4X for me for a few years now (especially with the Legendary Heroes update). There’s a lot to love about FE, […]


LARP Design: Circle Tests

By request from a reader, I’m talking today about Circle Tests in LARPs. These are far from universal in live-action games or any other kind of game, and I am far from an authority on all of the best practices around them. To my knowledge, the term comes from Shattered […]