The Designing with Style series breaks down the official 5th-edition style guide to help designers create content that’s well-written, polished, and precise. The exact language for rules and mechanics is extremely specific for a reason: to avoid ambiguity, the enemy of elegant design and easy play.
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?
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 …
Tour of the Empire: The Throttle, a Darakhul Outpost Read More »
“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” ―John Muir “Tom’s words laid bare the hearts of the trees and their thoughts, which were often dark and strange, filled with a hatred of things that go free upon the earth, gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning: destroyers and usurpers. It …
Watching with many rows of eyes, this mantis creature strikes with slashing claws and recurved barbs dripping with venom. Dimensional Travelers. The clandestine xhkarsh are beings from another cosmic cycle. Their devices and armor are incomprehensible to—possibly even incompatible with— creatures of this reality.
Tales of the Old Margreve takes your 5th Edition game deep into the ancient, magical forest, with new spells, monsters, magic items, and wondrous locations, a monster appendix, and twelve adventures for heroes level 1–10. Over 200 pages of adventures and forest secrets!
Midgard is my favorite campaign setting, and Tales of the Old Margreve is poised to be my favorite campaign book. Quite apart from my own contributions to the Player’s Guide—about which, more in a later article—I was able to playtest a lot of this in my own Midgard campaign, and it’s just deliciously chock-full of …
Inside the Kobold Mines: A Conversation with Matt Corley Read More »
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.
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. …
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 …
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, …
Welcome to Midgard: Crossroads Mercenary Companies Read More »
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: …
Warlock’s Apprentice: Treasures of Perun’s Daughter Read More »
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 …
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!
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 …
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 …
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