The Planeswalker's Stronghold

  WotC, faulted or not, have provided a plethora of copyrighted worlds to be enjoyed by Players and DMs alike. Each of these, more often than not, comes along with it's own Pantheon of Deities, ranging from 4th additions simplified list, to expansive multi edition models. "Each world in the D&D multiverse has its own pantheons of deities. This appendix deals with one pantheon, that of the Forgotten Realms. Dozens of deities are revered, worshiped, and feared throughout the world of the Forgotten Realms. At least thirty deities are widely known across the Realms, and many more are worshiped locally, by individual tribes, small cults, or certain sects of larger religious temples." -2018 Basic Rules, Appendix B What do you really need to run your campaign? Well, to be honest not much. If you have a divine player in the party, they most likely will choose a Deity with which they associate. Even if you don't have a divine player in your group, and perhaps more import

  WotC doesn't always give a lot of support for the Free&D players out there, but December looks like it's going to shape up pretty well for us. Thanks WotC, and Happy Holidays to everyone! Make sure to check out the December One D&D drop featuring an interesting update to the Cleric class, as well as updated "species" (aka we don't call it Race anymore) options. Even more exciting we have seen the launch of the D&D Adventure Calendar for 2022 5th Dragonlance Monster Compendium. 5 Creatures, 3 Cultures, 2 NPCs, and a Magic item all added in a compact D&D Beyond Freebie. A full half of the additions are Tier1, so this really offers a lot for everyone. I am particularly looking forward to using the Traag in my campaigns, as Dragonborn are pretty rare in my worlds. Verminaard and Ember make interesting BBEG, right out of the box, as Tiamat and her cult followers are already prominent parts of our Pantheon. 

  The fine folk at WotC were kind enough to give us a single encounter with just the right Spooky theme for Halloween, Drowned Sailors! This is a very simple encounter, intended to be an introduction to the larger story arch of Storm Wreck Isle. They distributed it free, so we can use what is presented. We always look to get more content than they intended. Stormwreck Isle Map Probably the best part of this roughly 4 page freebie, is the map. It shows the jagged 5 mile island, just of the coast of what I resume to be the Sword Coast, and the only identifiable land mark is the High Road. This allows us to place this bit of Geography as we please, but I suppose the intended location is just south of Neverwinter, near Helms Hold. The island itself appears to be mostly rocky peaks, with little vegetation and is described as a center of conflict between chromatic and metallic dragons. " Ages ago, metallic dragons imprisoned a rampaging red dragon beneath the ocean floor. But the red dr

Mearcis is a middle aged male which I most often cast as a Halfling, but occasionally as a Tiefling in less traditional settings in which I really want to telegraph the "bad news" vibe. He plays the part of a very respectable looking merchant. His base clothing is sturdy and well made shirt and pants, with shoes which were once very fine, but now are rather worn but clean and polished. He wears a fancy waste coat, taking it off only if manual labor is called for, and replaces it as soon as such work is finished. A casual observer will note a gold watch chain affixed to the coat. The affixed watch appear to be of very good quality, and can be set once per day so that it "chimes" the next time the user is told a lie. He wears a signet ring, with an symbol no one will recognize, and he will speak of a known, but distant land and his mother who was the 3rd daughter of a major trading house, alas little of the family fortune and influence found it's way to him, and h

  The Rogue: Equipment: Very little has changed here, but I do like the elimination of the choice in equipment, providing the short sword as a primary melee and the short bow as a range option. I am a little "concerned" at the removal of the rapier, perhaps it's being removed from the weapon list, or the finesse attribute has been removed? The Rogue also gains proficiency with finesse Martial Weapons, which is a long overlooked opportunity in 5E. Thieves' Cant , but now they Can! The simple change to the Thieves' Cant feature is really next level from a world building perspective. This feature previously just gave access to a "secret" simplified language allowing for covert communication. It was one of my favorite world building aspects, creating all those subtle little interactions, and standardized meanings, but it created a "thieves only" corner of the world, and led to separation from the broader world. I think the addition of a Standard o

  Po Panda recently asked "... what is your number one favorite deck to play?" and this poor innocent soul had no idea what a can of worms they'd opened, so here is my not so brief answer. Introduction Wow, this is a really rough question. Speaking a guy who is sometimes sighted as the reason Ante failed, helped make Storm a thing during Time Spiral Standard, and (responcble?) for the Grove of the Burnwillows is still a $15 card ( I attended a PTQ decades ago, oops), my favorite deck is a broad concept, but I'll try! General format and deck information can be found through the < Stronholds Format information Page > while specific decks will be individually linked to more comprehensive media resources. Rotating Formats: Standard... to me is all about the Grind, and the deck I reach for most often these days is...MR Artifacts. Alchemy... is my real choice of Grinds, I'm still about Mono White Clerics It's a beast, but maybe not as budget friendly for the

  NPC Stat Blocks are a wonderful tool for DMs to create simple interactive characters on the fly. While WotC does provide a variety, 21 broad types of characters hardly fills a world. More over, with the expected removal of Racial Bonus from character creation, the primary means of creating stat variety disappears, or at the least shifts to a much harder to convey background. I don't know about you, but when one of my guards confronts a PC, they won't likely go into a story about their early life to convey background information. This can leave an NPC feeling very similar to all the others of that role, and come across flat and flavorless. Lets look at one of the most commonly encountered NPCs, the Guard. This still leaves a variety of clues a DM can use to convey information to the PCs. First and certainly easiest, a DM can adjust the quantity. Nothing says force at hand better than the action economy of 2 guards for each PC, but lets face it, groups of Guards greater than 4

 I think every good story begins at the beginning, and for this one we are going all the way back to 2021! A member of our budget community gave me a shout out in appreciation of the MidWeek Magic content, and it inspired me to make special intro/outro and put more focus on the content. The intro segment included a graphic I made using the direct quote from the supportive viewer. The cute part was the common English grammatical error between "You're" and "Your". I actually delayed putting this into production for over a week, as I wrestled with this issue. There were a lot of factors here to consider. For instance, a lot of my viewers are from other parts of the world, and I presume English is not their primary language. Hell, I grew up speaking this nonsense, and make error of this caliber more often than I'd like. The last thing I ever wanted to do was make someone feel bad about having made the error, so I left the quote as is. Despite several people poin

  This concept has been bouncing around in my head for nearly 10 yrs, since shortly after 5E was released. It is powered from a simple, yet compelling concept; What if you play D&D with only the materials provided for FREE by Wizards of the Coast? I know the first question most people are going to ask is, Why? There are many Socio-Economic reasons why this may be a reality for any number of people out there; This hobby is not cheap. While I definitely think Wizards of the Coast (WotC) makes a number of fine, fairly priced products, and I encourage the purchase of many of them to meet your needs. I also recognize that many, ranging from young people who aren't yet in control of their financial destiny, to those who struggle to provide for themselves and those around them, will not be able to purchase the many products put out by WotC. Some fans and players may live in parts of the world where a fairly priced product becomes unattainable due to factors beyond their control. Logis

Based on the UA Character Origins published by Wizards of the Coast, August 2022. Copy right material belongs to their respective owners. While I discuss the IP for educational purposes, I make no claims to the IP. Backgrounds have gone from a rough outline in 5E, to a major defining aspect of a character. Background Features  Ability Scores . When you determine your character’s ability scores, choose two of them, and increase one by 2 and the other one by 1. Alternatively, choose three ability scores, and increase each of them by 1.  Skill Proficiencies . Choose two Skills. Your character gains Proficiency in them.  Tool Proficiency . Choose one tool. Your character gains Tool Proficiency* with it.  Language . Choose one language from the Standard Languages and Rare Languages tables (these appear later in the document). Your character knows that language. I tend to run Language a bit differently in my campaign worlds, but more on that once the One System has been flashed out a

Last Updated based on UA Origins August 2022, which is sighted in this post. All rights are given to the owners. Core Races form the base of the societies in the campaign, will represent the majority of people encountered and are not restricted to player character creation. Please note: With the December 2022 One D&D playtest release, WotC has made it clear they are moving away from the concept of Race, and will instead refer to "Species" moving forward. I will make an effort to follow this branding decision, but please forgive the occasional slip -up. Unrestricted Species These four races can be played by everyone. They are supported by the 5E Basic Rules document (2018) and are presumed to be supported by One D&D free materials Dwarves tend to be Lawful in their nature, living to serve Crom (Mordin in Dwarvish), family and craft. Dwarven society is heavily influenced by Norse and Scottish culture. They live in mountains carved out into clan-holds, thus everyone in