By Kobold Staff Aug 7, 2020 | Articles, Wallpapers |
It’s August, and everyone’s gaming! So here’s a magical set of wallpapers for your computer, your smartphone, or whatever electronic device you’ve got. This month, we’ve got a piece from Deep Magic (artist Marcel Mercado). Let’s cast some spells, adventurers! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Please, click on the image you want to download to expand it into a downloadable...
By Sarah Madsen Aug 5, 2020 | Articles, Dungeon Tables |
A GM’s work is never done, so to make things easier on you, we’re providing a series of tables to help you flesh out your encounters, adventures—your world. First up is everyone’s favorite: loot! Gold is good, but it gets boring after a while. Need to add some interesting items to a bag of holding? Have a bunch of bandits that require killing? Did your adventurers find a corpse and pilfer its pockets? (Of course, they did.) This Trinkets and...
By Kobold Staff Aug 3, 2020 | Articles, Midgard |
The inquisitors of Kammae know how to strike at their foes’ weakest spots. The priests of the Moon Goddess know where and when to attack those foes. The oracle knows how defeating those foes leads to a chain of events culminating in Kammae’s ultimate triumph. It is all foretold. It is a time of change for Kammae. With the freeing of the sea god Nethus as husband and equal partner to their beloved Hecate, Kammae Straboli rises high on a new...
By Agartha Christie Jul 31, 2020 | Articles, The Amber Bazaar |
Everything must go! Prices slashed 100%! Please just take these items. I don’t want them anymore. Free me! Bancho’s Fleet Catamaran Wondrous item, very rare (requires attunement) This item functions as a folding boat. When activated in any form, it is festooned with flamboyant red and blue racing stripes and pendants along its hull, and its speed is 10 times normal for a boat of its type. Curse. This item is cursed. Attuning to it curses you...
By Kobold Staff Jul 29, 2020 | Announcements, Articles |
MAGIC! You know all those new spells from Deep Magic? They’re all available for use on Fantasy Grounds now: available through their store or through Steam. That’s 700 spells you can incorporate directly into your virtual game: 19 divine domains from Beer to Mountain and Speed to Winter; 13 new wizard specialties, such as the elementalist and the timekeeper; 6 new sorcerous origins, including the Aristocrat and the Farseer; 3...
By Kobold Staff Jul 27, 2020 | Announcements, Articles |
Have You Gone on an Adventure Today? Because we’ve got a treat for you. Step this way—watch your head—for our next freebie, Warlock Lair 23: Wrath of the Bramble King, is now free to download. To get yours, just sign up for the newsletter below to have the coupon code sent to you, and then adventures galore! (Or use the code SaferAtHomeBramble.) This special offer will be available through Sunday, August 9. Warlock Lair 23: Wrath of the...
By Jeff Lee & Steven Winter Jul 24, 2020 | Articles, Contest |
Gaming companies, especially Kobold Press, often hold design contests, asking contestants to submit a creature, encounter, or spell. These can be fun and exciting and a possible way to gain some attention and break into gaming publication. I managed to gain the attention of Kobold Press in 2013 by winning their Lost Magic contest. I went on to write material for the Pathfinder Deep Magic. More recently, I wrote new material for the 5th Edition...
By Christopher Lockey Jul 22, 2020 | Articles, Warlock's Apprentice |
Chances are you’ll only take a trip to Midgard’s Blood Kingdom if your gaming group enjoys a fair bit of horror in your shared roleplaying experience. If this is the case, you’re in for a treat, for the Blood Kingdom is rife with dread. If you’re relatively new to the horror genre or simply reluctant to taste of its forbidden fruits, then rest assured: a little fear in your storytelling makes the light-hearted fare taste oh so sweeter. But...
By Mike Welham Jul 20, 2020 | Articles, Expanding Codex, Monsters |
Alternate Traits and Actions The following changes allow GMs to alter a fulminar without modifying its challenge rating: Forked Lightning. When the fulminar flies at least 10 feet, it creates a duplicate lightning form that potentially fools attackers. Until the beginning of its next turn, after it moves, attack rolls against it have disadvantage. If it is hit by an attack, this trait is disrupted until it moves again. The fulminar loses its...
By Nick Landry Jul 17, 2020 | Articles, Midgard, Midgard Ley Magic |
Welcome back to Midgard Ley Magic, a series where we explore the mysticism and mechanics of ley lines, the powerful magical effects that can be drawn from them, and the daring spellcasters who study and manipulate these sources of raw power. If you have not had a chance to read prior entries in the series, you can find them here. After exploring some specific scenarios that can occur when tapping ley lines last month, we now turn to the...
By Kobold Staff Jul 15, 2020 | Articles |
Dr. Megan Connell, the GM for Clinical Roll and a psychologist who uses D&D in her work, sent the Kobolds the following message this morning: Hello! I had a short story for you I thought you might get a kick out of. In our streamed game Clinical Roll, the party faced the Shark Bowl Ooze, and we added a feature that it could create smaller oolets. One of the players asked if it was a baby shark, and yes of course, now it was a baby shark,...
By Kobold Staff Jul 13, 2020 | Articles, Monsters |
Hide armor and scraps of mail are nailed onto this scarred and tattooed mole-like beast. A ring of tentacles sprouts above its mouth, which is dominated by spade-like incisors. The beast has no visible ears and only tiny, cataract-filled eyes. Blood and foam fleck from its tentacled maw. Grown from Chaos. What the derro have done with certain breeds of dogmole almost defies description, but the secret of their size is a steady diet of chaos...
By Jonathan Ball and Beth Ball Jul 10, 2020 | Articles, One-on-One Roleplaying |
In our last post, we talked about how one-on-one play works best when the PC is flexible in both melee and ranged combat. Today we are going to round out the party by talking about how you can provide the PC with a worthy and supportive adventuring companion. In this post, you’ll find three primary considerations as you build a GMPC for your duet game: complementary class, roleplay, and character motivation. In some circles, the phrase “GMPC”...
By Lou Anders Jul 8, 2020 | Articles, interview |
Empire of the Ghouls is the latest offering from Kobold Press and their first hardcover 5th Edition adventure. It’s a tour de force, over three hundred fifty pages of setting guide, spells, creatures, NPCs, magic items, and an epic quest that takes players from 1st to 13th level. It’s been released alongside two related books, Underworld Lairs and Underworld Player’s Guide, that compliment and expand the experience, though there is plenty in...
By Amanda Hamon Jul 7, 2020 | Announcements, Articles |
Some news from the warrens! Starting today, I have the privilege of stepping into the role of Editorial Director for Kobold Press. I absolutely cannot wait to get started working with all of my fellow minions to bring the best and scaliest gaming material to your tables! For those of you meeting me for the first time, hello! My name is Amanda, and I’m an ENnie Award–winning tabletop game writer, designer, developer, and editor. For the past...
By Celeste Conowitch Jul 6, 2020 | Articles, Beyond the Audience |
We’ve done a few articles now about the real-world strategies that support your game, so I wanted to wade back into a topic centered on spicing up your game content. Today’s article is all about how to make interesting NPCs! I’m going to go over two main strategies for building fascinating characters in your world, including knowing their motivations and knowing how to subvert familiar tropes. It’s common knowledge that most...
