By Mike Welham May 13, 2019 | Articles, Expanding Codex |
The Expanding Codex series fleshes out monsters from the Creature Codex, giving GMs ways to modify the existing monsters to surprise well-prepared players or to introduce monsters to a campaign. Alternate Traits and Actions The following changes allow GMs to alter a leonino without modifying its challenge rating: Favored Messenger. While the leonino is delivering a message, it has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical...
By Kobold Staff May 10, 2019 | Articles, Con Report |
Are you going to Gen Con? Planning what games you want to get in? Kobold Press is here to help with 62 tables of delicious gaming goodness to feed your need. We’re offering mostly 5th Edition of the world’s most popular RPG but also a smattering of 1st Edition Pathfinder and 13th Age to taste. Here’s the full schedule of upcoming games from Kobold Press at Gen Con. Short descriptions follow below. Pregenerated characters will...
By GM Lent May 8, 2019 | Articles, Cult Activity |
Legends tell of an oversized cauldron made of black metal that evil creatures can use to turn the corpses of their foes into obedient undead allies. The price of using such an item is steep, but the power to be gained is significant. Of course, using a powerful evil artifact might disrupt the fabric of the multiverse. Such a shockwave attracts attention, and such attention has led a few innovators to try and create lesser cauldrons in an...
By Kobold Staff May 6, 2019 | Articles, Midgard |
Mercenary life seems full of plunder and easy money when the recruiters come around. Most of the time, it involves a great deal of boot leather and a life spent in tents and camps. The lucky recruits do get paid, find rich plunder, and retire to a manor house filled with sweet scents, rich tapestries, and obedient servants to erase memories of slaughter, death, and burnt-out villages. Most mercenaries are not that lucky. Argent Rats: Originally...
By Lysa Chen May 3, 2019 | Articles, Warlock's Apprentice |
Oft threatened by raiding centaurs, dragon legions, and the bandits of the Ruby Despotate, the Duchy of Perun’s Daughter doesn’t take kindly to outsiders too curious about what lies in Perunalia’s vaults and armories—especially those who gawk at the duchy’s leadership of powerful women. Societies dominated by men are dominated too by their rampant emotions: envy, greed, rage. Waging war to capture the coveted treasures of their neighbors seems...
By Kobold Staff May 1, 2019 | Articles |
A ghastly, green fire flickers in a long-forgotten tomb. From within comes a thunderous crash as the lid of a stone sarcophagus is contemptuously flung aside, followed by the clank of armor and the dread sound of footsteps. Something ancient and evil is coming to claim the night. That ancient evil is none other than Empire of the Ghouls—the new 5th Edition Kickstarter from Kobold Press! We’re thrilled to announce that the funding campaign is up...
By Kobold Staff Apr 29, 2019 | Articles, Wallpapers |
It’s almost May! So here’s a set of wallpapers for your computer, your smartphone, or whatever electronic device you’ve got. This month, we’re teasing the upcoming Empire of the Ghouls, with art by Craig Spearing. Let’s raise the dead, adventurers! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Please, click on the image you want to download to expand it into a downloadable...
By Jacob Huebsch Apr 26, 2019 | Articles, The Far Side of the Table |
Leaning over the large mahogany table in Lord Boler’s war room, Strass, Azreal, and Kara surveyed the various maps and plans laid out across it. Nearby, Val’s body lay on a low bench, a bone-white sheet draped across his still form. A heavy silence hung in the air, the only sound being the steady drum of Kara’s fingers on the tabletop. After a few minutes, the door to the room opened, and Lord Boler entered, dressed in crisp...
By Robert Fairbanks Apr 24, 2019 | Articles, Out of the Frying Pan |
Encounters have consequences. Every slain bandit has friends who will want revenge, and every devil banished back to the Eleven Hells reports its failure to its dark lord. What happens when the PCs’ daring deeds come back to bite them? The following encounter chains are more than just random conflicts. Each event flows organically into the next, sometimes without giving PCs the chance to catch their collective breath. Each link in the chain...
By Kobold Staff Apr 22, 2019 | Articles |
Taut dead skin, adorned entirely with tattooed fish scales, covers this woman’s face and hands. She wears scaled armor, sea green like verdigris on copper and wields a strange sword. Her pale eyes stare, unblinking. Undead Warlock Slaves. Ancient and powerful beings across the multiverse grant magical knowledge to mortals through dangerous pacts. Those bound to these pacts become warlocks, but the will and force of their patron is borne by more...
By Mike Welham Apr 19, 2019 | Articles, Warlock's Apprentice |
Many are those needing to store wealth, information, and other odds and ends they’d prefer not fall into the hands of thieves. All across Midgard, special repositories are built to this end: difficult to locate and access and often featuring traps and guardians to destroy intruders. Here are detailed but a few of those. Bemmean Wandering Vault The Wandering Vault is a semi-sentient construct that roams the Magocracy of Allain. The hexagonal...
By Lou Anders Apr 17, 2019 | Articles, Preview |
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the Southlands. And one of my favorite designers for that setting is Richard Pett. Now he’s back with a new one, An Enigma Lost in a Maze. In it, characters are sent into the insane maze in the ruins of the city of Roshgazi. Roshgazi was of course the heart of the Moon Kingdom of Tes-Qamar until it was sacked three hundred years ago by the Mharoti empire. Now the maze’s madness has grown to such an extreme...
By Mike Welham Apr 15, 2019 | Articles, Expanding Codex |
The Expanding Codex series fleshes out monsters from the Creature Codex, giving GMs ways to modify the existing monsters to surprise well-prepared players or to introduce monsters to a campaign. Alternate Traits and Actions The following changes allow GMs to alter moon drakes without modifying its challenge rating: Shiftersense. The moon drake can sense the presence of shapeshifters within 30 feet. The moon drake’s darkvision is reduced to 60...
By Kobold Staff Apr 12, 2019 | Announcements |
The forest surrounds you, darkness filling the spaces between the massive boles, as you try to keep the path. There is a certain stillness—a slumbering immensity—just under the surface that is simultaneously inspiring and terrifying, disorienting in its primacy. But the inevitable snap of twig or wind in the leaves continues to bring you back from your frequent reveries… Pre-order Tales of the Old Margreve today! Welcome to the Old...
