October 2 Update

Had to post an update sometime, do I?

David Foxfire

Oct 03, 2022

Trigger Warning

Early October Update

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Item: Amber of the Woods Episode 3

The past few weeks have been slow for me. Sometimes you just need to take a step back, find a side project (I’ll you more about this side project elsewhere,) tend to your personal well-being, and get some of the excess stuff off your mind. We all get those moments, I get these moments, it’s all we can do to just plow through those moments and get to the other side.

Episode 3 is more or less filler, a series of light scenes before Amber and Nalladrie enter Oakroot. Things will pick up next episode. I also introduce a couple of supporting characters and get into more of the history behind Oakroot and the world.

You can get to Episode 3 over at this link: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AjNYReLtj6OIoV6FfltEV3REJkve?e=eZcod8

Item: Product Identity Replacements

The Open Game License has that list of items you can’t include in your non-Wizards authorized setting (or your complete overhaul of Fifth Edition such as Swifttail D&D) because Wizards of the Coast owns those particular intellectual properties. However, using some of these items can’t be helped: You can’t play Dungeons & Dragons without using the name ‘Dungeons & Dragons,’ can you? And there’s a reason why I designed my own Ampersand logo because Wizards of the Coast is not collectively stupid enough to sue anyone using the ampersand itself, right? I mean, the glyph (&) itself. It’s on every keyboard, would Wizards demand that the 7 key be ripped off every computer and laptop?

And then there’s my biggest issue with having to include names in brackets on spells and magic items. It’s purely for reference: Do you know a player that uses the System Reference Document? No, they do not, they use the Players Handbook. And in the Player’s Handbook, the spell Hideous Laughter is—gasp—not under the H’s in the spells. It is under the T’s, because it is listed as [Tasha’s] Hideous Laughter. I have to put the name in there so that people can find it in the books and that’s just the way it is.

But there are some items I can easily replace, especially some of the creatures. I don’t need to replace all of them because a good number of the items are setting-specific. Yaun-ti is too ensconced in the Forgotten Realms, and Githyanki and Githzerai are much a part of Spelljammer. But other beloved creatures such as Illithids (beloved?) could use an Open Content replacement. Sometimes, I only need to look into another Wizards of the Coast publication for plenty of material to use.

Like Space Clowns

In Spelljammer: Adventures in Space (Boo’s Astral Menagerie Page 54) Space Clowns were originally peoplekind who spelljammed into a wildspace consisting of three ring-shaped planets run by an entity who is a deity version of PT Barnum with a focus on festivals and frivolity, where they ingested copious amounts of Thrill Joy, a highly addictive chemical that locked the imbibers into a constant state of happiness and joy. Over time the nature of Thrill Joy, due to the properties of the Bozo Flower it came from, transformed them into their clown-like appearances, with colorful costumes with white rubbery skin, squeaky shoes, large gloved hands, and ray guns that are mere harmless toys in the hands of anyone but them.

In my version, I’ll pass over the demonic influence behind the original. Space Clowns can get scary enough without the fiend part, and I tend to steer clear of infernal material in my games anyway. (Although I can see why considering that Wizards uses Killer Clowns from Outer Space for inspiration.) But I have already created something clown-related in Tales of Penumaria that I can incorporate into my version of Space Clowns:

Wildcherry’s Carnival

To remind people since it’s been a while since I mentioned her, Wildcherry is a clown girl who runs a traveling carnival that goes from town to town. All of the workers there are clowns as well because Wildcherry would often take someone who ran away to join her circus and transform them, body and mind, into a clown like her, with the hopes of turning as many people into clowns as she can, for a purpose that is anyone’s guess, including Wildcherry’s.

At first, I could see Wildcherry as a Dread Lord-type character because her Carnival is a cross between The Carnival in Van Richton’s Guide to Ravenloft and the Witchlight Carnival in The Wild beyond the Witchlight. However, I could easily make her a Space Clown and her carnival fairgrounds being a floating Spelljamming Vessel. And not only would she put Thrill Joy into all the concessions, but she’ll use a constant drip of the stuff to transform someone into one of her Clowns.

This idea on Space Clowns is one idea I have for replacing creatures like Mind Flayers. While space clowns don’t have psionics they do have a different kind of horror, and an alternative to Ceremorphosis by putting someone into a permanent zoot on Thrill Joy. While I’d still consider using other creatures to replace Illithids, I already have enough material on Space Clowns to add them to the Spelljammer Worldbuilding Document.

Item: Jeshua in the game.

I have this on-and-off idea which is a holy grail to me: Putting Jesus Christ in D&D. It’s one part trying to bridge a decades-old gap between the game and Christianity, and one part praise and adoration for my (some say one time, other says still, but I digress) personal Lord and Savior. And I’m very relieved to say that I’m not the only one who thought of this: I just discovered Red Panda Publishing, which created their Adventurer’s Guide to the Bible. This is a complete campaign setting based on the Gospels, and before you ask, not only is Jesus a major denizen of this campaign but they even worked the Passion Play into the storyline. I have a part of the book that focuses on Jesus saved for research.

Of course, I’m taking the idea of ‘Jesus in D&D’ in another direction: Putting Him in as a Magic: the Gathering style Planeswalker in The Realms. And yes, Jesus Christ’s planeswalker spark ignited during his resurrection. Having Him as a Planeswalker on top of the most powerful and respected deity in the realms just meshes better with a lot of things I’m planning. While Red Panda keeps things within the Bible, I take Jesus out of it and put him into storylines that, while they might be inspired by scripture, are otherwise unshackled by all those religious tropes, that is so that I could focus more on Jeshua’s—his name in the setting—personality and humanity.

Red Panda didn’t bother statblocking Jeshua. He will auto-pass every spell save, taking no damage if applicable, and He would ninja vanish as a free action at any sign of hostility. This is similar to how Wizards dealt with planeswalkers in D&D, with the example being Ellywick Tumblestum in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. “Tumblestrum can reappear to provide hints about what the group needs to do…If she is threatened, she disappears in a flashy yet harmless pyrotechnic display. No stat block for Tumblestrum is necessary, since she won’t harm or hinder [anyone] and can’t be seriously harmed by them.” (Pages 37-38, Emphasizes mine.) I see Jeshua the same way, popping in and out Dungeon Master style (think animated D&D series) to help the party that He’s taken a liking to. He might slide into an informal Group Patron role because of this. I’ll only give Him a statblock because Swifttail uses the Stat Block format as an organization tool to describe characters; it’ll be clear that Yeshu is not a combatant. In fact, not only would he slink away as he did in the Gospels the instant anyone rolls for initiative, but he might even tag in an angel from The Realms to kick ass for him. He also would downplay His divine side, appearing as normal and unassuming as possible with the only telltale sign being his arms wrapped. (Don’t want dirt to get in those nailprints.) Jeshua will show more about himself as the campaign progresses.

There are also some campaign stories I’m working on, and if there is enough interest in them, I’ll be more than happy to share them. It involves a variant of the Rod of Seven Parts, a possible adaptation of a setting that might appear to Jeshua—Journeys through the Radiant Citadel—a possible reappearance of various biblical characters, and maybe even have a climatic chapter in a setting based on 1st Century Israel, and a lot more. I might show more about it in a future article. It depends on people’s interest in the matter.

Item: One D&D update

Even with their faults, sometimes Wizards gets it right even with their One D&D, and I’ll always give a shout-out for when they hit the mark. In their most recent One D&D Unearthed Arcana article, they did something I find myself wishing they had: Combine spell lists of different classes into three categories. [Arcane, Divine, and Primal.] Artificers, Bards, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards have the Arcane spell list; Clerics and Paladins have the Divine spell list, and Druids and Rangers have the Primal spell list. I find this to be an improvement which I’ll incorporate into Swifttial’s basic rules, since having three spell lists would be easier to work with than ten. (Much like why I’ll keep using Spell Points instead of Spell Slots. One number’s easier to manage than nine.)

There are also some items that might come in with future One D&D Unearthed Arcana that I’d be more interested in, such as encounter-building rules and a system for setting up a home base, something that was missing in the earlier versions of Fifth Edition. I’ll be looking forward to incorporating these and many more items into my own fork of the rules.

And you can gain Inspiration on a Nat 1? YES!! YES!! Keep that, Wizards.

Item: Dragonlance is next

The following official Wizards of the Coast product is Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn, scheduled for release in December, and on record to being very iffish on this one. Dragonlance is a well-established setting based on a series of books, and most of the material Wizards would make for Dragonlance would be made specifically for Krynn; material that might not easily carry over to a homebrew setting. Granted, there might be a small colony of Kender out there in Penumaria somewhere, but I don’t see much beyond that.

This doesn’t make it uninteresting, though, I look forward to whatever stories written in Krynn and would go back to Dragons of Autumn Twilight and read (or watch) up with them. While I have my doubts I’ll be open-minded enough to have something come up and surprise me by being something I can work with.

Progress Report

I’m currently thinking of something in the planning stage: If nothing else, I’d get back into the Karma Mechanic (originally known as the Universally Preferable Behavior document.)

The Sunken Citadel Worldbuilding Document and Swifttail Basic Rules Volume 1 are in the First Draft.

Spelljammer Worldbuilding Document is in the proofreading stage, and I’ll be sure to add Space Clowns to the document and expand on Wildcherry’s Carnival a bit.