12/10/23 – This time next week we will have our v1.0 of “Mayor of Mayville” available as a link in this weekly newsletter! We’ve got some finishing touches we’re working through (formatting is tough!), and will have the link here first.
We’ll also be aiming to have a roughly structured Holiday One Shot available next week for anyone looking to get a wintery session in before or during the holidays.
That’s it for now, have a great week!
DnD Creator Spotlight
DM Resource: At PAX Unplugged, folks from the D&D Studio (including Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins) announced a revised Player’s Handbook will be releasing in mid-2024. Still 5e, but with changes to combat, classes, weapon rules, and new spells, “mountains of brand new art,” new subclasses.
Dungeons and Dragons Fanatics had a solid objective breakdown of some of the changes if you don’t want to watch the video. It’s a bit odd that it’s a revised book, but still the same edition, so be sure to keep tabs on the changes and talk to your tables about what changes will be made in your games.
Artist: 7he_blindman (Shane Brockway) is a professional miniature painter, sculptor, cyclopes and mixed media artist. He’s also the lead painter for Dimension 20 and has some gnarly minis he’s made over the years. If you’re looking for some gross inspiration with extreme creativity, Brockway is a must follow. His work on the Ravening War alone was insane.
Live Play: TabletopTroupe is a group of folks from Cape Town South Africa with some interesting new twists to the live play category. High production quality and a good amount of silliness, we were particularly amused with their D&D VS, which can best be explained as “what sort of shenanigans take place when the party is out adventuring.” Bulk Bogan (knight) vs. Betsey Blighto (green hag). The VS series pits two similar CR monsters together and lets the table play it out. Good fun and 100% worth a follow and subscribe. (Thanks to @neil_hxyzamer for the tip!)
DM Resource: If you need BBEG inspiration, this thread on Reddit is a great place to look. “Who is the Big Bad of Your Campaign” has over 550 comments at the time of this writing and is chock full of ideas.
DM Resource: Tips for writing easy villians. Another Reddit thread we found useful this week was over on DMAcademy. TL;DR Take a noble motivation and see it through a corrupted lens.
Have other creators we should feature? Let us know
Free NPCs
- Criss Cross – Short for Crisstopher Crosstopher, is a stone golem that rolls from town to town searching for his wife, Crisstinapher Crosstopher, who went missing a few weeks ago. He found some crumbled pebbles in their home and assumes the worst. He will not stop searching until he is sure of the answer.
- Stairy Potter – The first woman in her gnome town to ever conceive of “stairs,” finds herself at odds with a community entrenched in their ground-level ranch homes. The very notion of elevating oneself above the earth had never crossed their minds; ladders were as foreign to them as tamable Tarrasques.
This Week’s Encounters
- The Elves on the Shelves – A frost giant who aspires to be an elf has captured the local snow elves, imprisoning them in glass terrariums and keeping them safely on his shelf. Stealthily rescue the prisoners and take care of the giant in this encounter for party levels 4-7.
- Another Arctic Encounter: Pitt’s Berg Stealers – Captain Pitt and his crew enter a turf war over precious crystalline ice in this arctic ocean encounter for party levels 4-7.
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