Unbound Monsters - The Mycelium

Dive deep into the fungal landscapes and survive its rotten inhabitants! Get a unique template for Mycelium Thralls as well as rules for the dreaded “Rot” sickness!

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Blood Borne Monster Handbook: Cathedral Ward

I am trying something new with how i want to present my content. The big “monster manual” pic might be flashy and all but i feel that it might make all the posts seem samey. So how about putting the most flashy monster first?

Also yes, the Celestial Minion and Emissary are technicaly a “Upper Cathedral” ward monster and i did plan on feature Ebrietas in this post, but plans changed.

- Tuz

Awakened Undead Race by the_singular_anyone

Oh hey, monsters to use in the Feywild! A fairy, a dinosaur, and a plant. There are about a dozen others, but i’ll wait and see if you guys like these before throwing them up as well.  Ko-Fi | Twitter | Discord Server

So, I had the motivation to make this more official much faster than anticipated. There are still more to do and ones in my inbox to finish. Made some small edits to previously made things. Hope you enjoy! The more reblogs the better.

Wilderness Surivival Guide excerpts: Collecting Materials and Crafting by AeronDrake

All my DMs Guild titles are available at a discount!

The Biomancer’s Handbook isn’t my only DMs Guild news this week! It’s my birthday week, so I’ve done a birthday bundle: all of my titles, available at a discount in a $7.50 bundle until Sunday July 7! Check it out here! 

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OH MAN I WANT THESE!?

First set of constructs. Whole lot of stuff being made about them right now. Going to take some time to get done. I’ll work on fixing up some of the wording and presentation later. Just wanted to get these out after so long.  PDF

Barbarian Path - Chainsmith

Rivals of Ixalan prerelease is this weekend, so here’s the Angrath-based subclass I’ve been working on since the first magic story he appeared in.

For this subclass I split abilities between being generally smithing-related, and being specific for a chain-wielder. The 3rd-level starting abilities present abilities that focus on the character’s blacksmithing ability, allowing them to lower an enemy’s armour class by denting their armour out of shape.

The Chain Wrap and Heat of the Forge abilities both take more direct inspiration from Angrath himself, focusing on allowing the player to make attacks in a similar way that Angrath does in the Magic Story. These attacks are then amplified when the player reaches 10th level and gains the Heat of the Forge ability, which I gave appropriate effects to match each part of a creature’s body affected by the attack.

The final ability, Molten Core, was based on depictions of Angrath in the art, where he is shown to have a red-hot “inner glow” that can be seen in his mouth, horns and hands. I felt that this would be best represented by a final total resistance to fire, and that when injured, instead of spraying blood, the character playing this class bleeds molten metal.

For a different take on a smithing character, who forges weapons in the heat of battle, have a look at my very first homebrew class, the Stoneforge Mystic Fighter Archetype. For more Ixalan posts, click here!

Sharpen those axes and load your crossbows - It’s Time for a Monster Hunt! Available now on the DMsguild!

Populating a town or city and in desperate need of quick bounty quests?  Players asking the local tavern for rumors when you had nothing prepared?  Don’t Panic! Just head on over and grab a copy 100 Monster Hunts!  Each quest has been outlined with a bounty advertisement for your players, and additional quest details for the DM, including named NPCs, plot or objectives, loot and treasure rewards, as well as helpful page references for each item or monster used in the quest. Need something quick and don’t want to drag through all 100 hunts to find something? Just roll a d100 and consult the table to quickly whip up a sudden quest whenever you need it! So what are you waiting for? Give yourself a chance to flex those RP muscles and have your players ready their weapons - it’s monster hunting time!

Player’s Companion - Homarids (Download)

As the Dominaria art book is released this week, I thought I’d make some more Dominaria content to coincide with it, and as they’re one of the lesser-known fan favourites, I felt Homarids would be a fun thing to design.

For designing the player race, aside from the mechanics that I felt were automatically necessary to include (amphibious, darkvision and cold resistance, for deep-water dwellers, and natural armour for their shells), I had a lot of fun designing the claws trait, as the combination of the bonus to unarmed strikes and the clumsiness with handheld objects does a lot to mechanically hammer home that a homarid PC has big claws instead of hands, and can’t use their claws in the exactly same way other characters can use their hands. The NPC homarids took inspiration from existing D&D crustacean creatures like the giant crab, and the aldani lobsterfolk from Tomb of Annihilation.

For more of my Dominaria content, click here! If you want to support my work, you can make a donation to my ko-fi here, or support me on Patreon here for early access to upcoming content and patron-only design process posts!

Items from Tarkir in D&D

This week I’ve designed of items from Tarkir, some based on artifact cards, others inspired by other items in the setting of Tarkir.

Fire Dragon Rocket Battery Large object      Armor Class: 15     Hit Points: 30     Damage Immunities: poison, psychic The dragon’s breath rocket battery is used in combat with dragons, firing explosive vials of trapped dragons’ breath over a long range to negate dragons’ advantage of being able to dodge many attack by flying. Before it can be fired, it must be loaded and aimed. It takes one action to load the weapon, one action to aim it and one action to fire it.      Fire Dragon. Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, range 120/480 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (3d10) fire damage, and all creatures within 20 feet of the point of impact must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or suffer an additional 16 (3d10) fire damage.

This item isn’t based directly on an actual artifact card from the Tarkir block (though it uses the art for Pyrotechnics). Instead, I based these on historic Chinese combat rockets that are detailed in the Huolongjing. In the 13th century, these weapons were adapted by the Mongol empire - who serve as the main inspiration for the Mardu warriors depicted using these weapons. I based the rules for this weapon on those for ballistae and cannons featured on page 255 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, with an appropriate added explosive effect, and a damage level adequate for fighting dragons.

Ghostfire Blade Magic Weapon (any sword) - Very Rare You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. You also gain an additional +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls with this weapon against creatures immune to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks. This weapon is invisible, and deals fire damage instead of the weapon’s normal damage type, ignoring resistances. While holding this weapon, you suffer 1d4 fire damage at the start of each of your turns, ignoring resistances. 

A theme I wanted to hit on with this weapon is that it’s something ethereal, so I gave it a damage boost against creatures which are typically ethereal themselves, and allowed it to ignore resistances to its own damage type - I wanted it to feel as though the “ghostfire” is specifically potent against ghost-like creatures, and acts in a way different to conventional fire damage, including damaging the wielder and ignoring fire resistances.

Heart-Piercer Bow Magic Weapon (shortbow) - Rare This shortbow made from dragonbone is used by elite riders of the Mardu, and is known for its deadly accuracy. You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. In addition, when you score a critical hit against a living creature with this weapon, that creature must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw at the start of each of its following turns until it succeeds on a save, suffering 1d4 piercing damage on a failed save, or ending this effect on a success.

I wanted to design this weapon as a high-powered shortbow like those used by the Mardu and their historic inspiration, the Mongol empire. The additional effect of 1d4 piercing damage at the start of following rounds is designed to represent a creature being further damaged by a deeply-embedded arrowhead causing internal bleeding, which was inspired by the weapon’s name - the arrowhead sinking deep enough to pierce the heart, or at the very least cause some internal damage.

Lens of Clarity Wondrous Item - Very Rare As an action you may look through this large lens of finely polished glass. While looking through the lens, you can see the true form of shapechangers, creatures that have had their appearance altered by magic, creatures transformed by magic, and invisible creatures within 100 feet. 

I really like the flavour of this item as a useful, but impractically large item, which can be really useful in combat but won’t allow the user to make too much use of it before in their turn other than identifying their foe. Outside of combat, it’s both very useful and very conspicuous - if the player characters use it to identify an invisible or disguised character and the character spots the PCs using the lens before the PCs spot them, they’re going to bolt before the PCs can act. It serves as an item that has great advantages, but must be used tactically to get the best benefits.

Vial of Dragonfire Wondrous Item - Uncommon This vial contains swirling dragon’s breath, which explodes violently when shattered. As an action, you may throw it up to 20 feet, the vial exploding on impact. Make a ranged attack against a target, treating the vial of dragonfire as an improvised weapon. When the vial explodes, creatures within 15 feet of the vial must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, suffering 3d8 damage on a failed save or half as much on a success. The damage type of this item corresponds to the breath weapon damage of the type dragon who helped create it. For example, a vial of dragonfire containing the breath of a red dragon would deal fire damage when it is shattered , whereas a vial containing the breath of a black dragon would deal acid damage when it is shattered.

 I based this item partially on other destructible thrown items like the flasks of holy water or oil, but with the heightened damage from the explosion when it shatters. I originally only designed it to deal fire damage, but felt it’d be a fun expansion on the existing flavour to allow damage types based on it being created with the breath of different types of dragon.

For more of my Tarkir content, click here! If you want to support my work, you can make a donation to my ko-fi here, or support me on Patreon here for early access to upcoming content and patron-only design process posts.