Artificer's Intuition

Last summer, I spent a few blog posts delving into 4e. Since 5e's inception in spring of 2012, I hadn't revisited much of any of the main 4e concepts, apart from various books that might contain pieces of lore I wanted to revisit. With my deep dive, I took a look at many of the things I had forgotten about. At the height of it all, a friend purchased the Rules Compendium and Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms and we sat down to build characters, utilizing things like Character Themes and even creating Fortune Card decks for our characters. It was a VERY interesting afternoon, as many things came back to me that I had flat out forgotten. Last year, I invested in a few 4e things for my collection. A local store had a few packs of the Fury of the Feywild Fortune Cards, so I spent my time buying the packs to fill my collection. I also purchased the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide in order to have the genasi and swordmage class in print. I figured that I wanted all the race/clas

As I’ve gone back to dive into the options that are 4e D&D, I took another hard look at something near and dear to my heart: my 4e published article, The Trinket Lord. Published in Dungeon 205 (August 2012), it was another article in the Court of Stars series about the Archfey. With GenCon 2017 occurring right now, I figured it's a good time to talk about such things again.  I had always found the Court of Stars articles extremely intriguing and full of adventure hooks, but when I pitched this article, only two existed, The Prince of Frost (Dragon 374) and the Bramble Queen (Dungeon 185). The Trinket Lord was originally pitched back in April 2012, when WotC accepted article submissions for their Dragon and Dungeon magazines. My contact for the entire process was Greg Bilsland (which was a major “whoa!” moment for me). I consider my relatively short interactions with Greg to have been extremely insightful, as he gave me a good mix of compliments and critiques and helped me

In the first installment of my 4e plans, I discussed the book options I was going to give my players, along with my first pass of supplemental content. I received some feedback, which I wanted to address as I continue this creative exercise. One of the comments brought up was about using the Neverwinter Campaign Guide for other themes, only reflavoring them for whatever purpose I wanted to for a Points of Light setting. I was glad to get that feedback, as I had considered Neverwinter (it sits proudly on my bookcase as a source of inspiration), but didn’t open it at all due to thinking the content was too Realms-specific. There are some really solid theme choices, such as the Bre’gan Daer’the Spy, which allows drow the use of choosing a utility power to gain their famous levitation (although this was also stated to be an option for the drow racial utility powers). Taking all the themes in the book, here’s how I’m re-flavoring them to something Nentir Vale appropriate. Others ar

It's been a long time since I've utilized this blog, and instead of trying to start a new blog and start fresh, I wanted to continue the things I've started many, many years ago. There are plenty of thoughts and ideas in my mind, and this is as good a forum as any to discuss them for others to read. While I've been playing and DMing a lot of 5e, I wanted to start with some other projects I've been thinking of and start conversations about that. 4 th Edition (4e) was the start to my love of Dungeons & Dragons, yet has largely been un-played since the inception of the 5e playtest. I remember being initially skeptical of 5e coming out and replacing 5e, only to embrace it wholeheartedly once the first public playtests became available. I think one of the biggest struggles my friends had with 4e was that I purchased most of the books, and other players rarely showed up to the table prepared. With all the powers most of the classes had in 4e, being unpre

"And though this world with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us;  We will not fear, for God hath willed, His truth to triumph through us" - A Mighty Fortress is Our God, Martin Luther Adventure Synopsis: As raiding orcs pillage and raid villages for prisoners, an intrepid group of heroes tracks them to a ghost town condemned to an underground mine fire.  Exploring inside, they find a shrine dedicated to a mysterious entity as the orcs attempt to summon a fiend and incite war. Adventure Background: In the lands of the Dying Kingdom, a small abandoned village lies in the mountainous vale known as the Haze.  Records in the historic tomes of House Nowyki state that this village was once the main location of coal and fuel mining for the rest of the kingdom.  Using various trade roads, large quantities of anthracite were exported to the rest of the Dying Kingdom, supplying the lands with enough energy for the populace. While this area was not the only minin

"The way is shut.  It was made by those who are Dead, and the Dead keep it.  The way is shut." J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King As a runner, one has to find ways to pass along the time as all those miles are logged.  My good friend and I have spent many a long run (8+ miles) discussing our own fantasy world.  This was before I had discovered D&D, and had my creative outlets put on hold in life.  So, for me, these runs were just little glimpses into the wider world I would jump back into building with my friends. As I've continued to playtest D&D Next, I've been able to flesh out other areas of the world, one of them being a currently unnamed kingdom that has fallen into ruin.  I've decided to put down the thoughts and explanations of the world in order to add a basic primer to what I'm running in the campaign.  Feel free to use this post as inspiration in your own gaming world. The history of this Dying Kingdom lies in a small is