Eight New Healing Spells 2

Stands-in-the-Fire started a conversation over in Twitter about healing gameplay styles. Now, he’s talking about a lot more than D&D 5e there, but there are enough great ideas floating around in the thread that I wanted to write a bunch of new healing spells. A lot of the thread focused […]


The “Pious” Warlock, Part Four 7

Oh hey, it’s been a really long time since I’ve touched this series. I’ve done a ton of Planescape reading, between Hellbound and Faces of Evil. There’s enough there that I haven’t really scratched that surface yet, but I’m plowing ahead. That’s the power of CHAOS, baby! Because today, I’m […]


D&D 5e: House Rules 2021 7

At the request of a reader and for the general convenience of my players, this is an update to the Aurikesh house rules. It’s been five years, and I’ve had time to see the effects of things in play. Character Generation 4d6 drop lowest for one column. Roll 2d6 for […]


Villain Schemes: Immortality 4

In a recent episode of Edition Wars, I got to talk to DM Samuel, Kainenchen, and Stands in the Fire about Chapter 4 of the 5e DMG. It’s a wide-ranging conversation about a very short chapter, which is about what you’d expect from Edition Wars. It left me with a […]


D&D 5e: Kaiju Battle as a Complex Trap 4

As you know if you’ve been following my work for long enough, I’ve spent a lot of time working on how to handle kaiju battles in D&D 5e. To spell that out a bit: I want something that uses the PCs’ combat abilities and mostly feels like a fight, but […]


Revised Archfey Patron 13

I’ve got significant problems with the existing Archfey patron that I haven’t been shy about. This isn’t even my first effort at overhauling the Archfey! The short version of the issue is that Fey Presence as a one-round charm/fear just… isn’t much. Misty Escape is a great per-short-rest get-out-of-jail-free card. […]


D&D 5e: New Cleric and Paladin Spells 11

I’m hip deep in editing and development work, which means that occasionally my brain needs a break to create some new stuff. Even after XGTE, TCOE, and Seas of Vodari, the higher spell levels are fairly slim pickings for clerics, so that’s what I’m hoping to deal with a bit […]


Warden of the Ancients Fighter Archetype 9

Like a lot of what I’m posting these days, this is content for Under the Seas of Vodari, written by me with a lot of development support from Shawn Ellsworth. It deals heavily in the setting lore, a little more of which you can see in this previous post. It’s […]


More Aquatic Magic Items 2

Aquatic magic items? Still a stretch goal from the Under the Seas of Vodari Kickstarter that I need to knock out, and this is the blog where I do that. Check out all of the Seas of Vodari content here on Harbinger of Doom. Narwhal’s Spiral Blade Weapon (longspike), rare […]


LARP Design: Five More Field Battle Models 3

Back in January, I wrote about five common field battle designs, and it sparked an interesting couple of days of conversation among my LARPing community. This time out, I’m talking about five much less common (but still highly reusable) models. Image by Christian Körtke from Pixabay 6. Long-Distance Escort If you also play […]