D&D 5e

The College of Haruspex  Equal part administrative service, funerary firm, library, and religious practice, the ministrants of the College of Haruspex worship the grim-faced Stocktaker of the Dead, who oversees the Cthonic Bureaucracy from his throne beneath the earth. The College is an unusual organisation, overseeing the gathering of information, the production and maintenance of birth and death certificates, and the proper rites of interring the dead, and the enforcement o

Dungeons and Dragons has shifted dramatically in terms of tone over the years. The very first editions of the game were effectively direct lifts of popular fantasy fiction, from Tolkein and Moorcock to Lovecraft and Howard. As the series went on, its tone shifted through space-faring science-fantasy, gothic horror, surrealist planepunk, before settling on its current cosy, fairy-tale, Winds in the Willows by way of Lord of the Rings vibe.  But occasionally, amongst all those

As the seasons shift and the Spirits of Old flit on the peripheries of waking, I felt it’d be a good time to explore the more sinister side of the classic fantasy bestiary. On this blog we have discussed dragons and Derros, and future installments will look at dwarves, elves, giants, and more. But today, on this most hallowed of eves, we'll be looking at the most feared of all beasts and bastards of by-gone days. Today, we shall take a closer look at the dreaded night hag. If

You have been wandering through the Underdark for days now. At least, you’re pretty sure it’s been days: It’s hard to tell, given the lack of sunlight and the ever-present glow of these damned mushrooms. The smell of subterranean gasses float up from deeper, darker levels of this cursed labyrinth, snagging in your throat and clinging to your nostrils. Every now and then, a lizard the size of a horse lumbers by, fixing you in its lazy purple gaze. Sometimes, you think you hear

We stand knee-deep in the spooky season, and “horror” is the word on everyone’s lips. GMs clamour to inject terror into their campaigns, and players long to be thoroughly terrified. The question, however, is how. Horror has been a staple of the TTRPG scene since its very inception, and of all the different flavours of horror that have influenced the hobby, the greatest and most terrifying is cosmic horror.  Horror is a tricky genre. Mechanically, it’s very similar to comedy:

Welcome, one and all, to the Sealight Storehouse! Amidst these dusty shelves one might find any number of strange and wondrous items,...

I have a confession to make. As someone who cut his teeth on Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder, it’s a difficult confession. However, I...

The common signifiers of the fantasy genre are pretty consistent at this point. Dragons are pretty central, as are variably-sized...