Sideblog for Dungeons and Dragons homebrew content, including collaborations and resources for my Dragon Age setting 5e campaign, "The Broken Crowns." (avatar by @LGuppies on twitter)
My, my… what big teeth you have! Meet the Pacific stargazer (Astroscopus zephyreus). Found in coastal waters from California to Peru, this fish is an ambush hunter. Spending most of its life buried beneath the sand, the stargazer’s upturned face is an adaptation that allows it to see even when most of its body is concealed. What’s more? This species is capable of stunning prey with electrical shocks of up to 50 volts!
Photo: alboertoalcala, CC BY 4.0 iNaturalist
I'm going to give my players a rumor about a kindly Hag in the Fey wild with a name like Grammy Sweets and she's a genuinely kind and gentle lady but she looks like this
2025-01-26: Taiga Encounter Map Environmental Features
These are a list of things that may have a small use outside of encounters, but probably aren't very useful in the heat of combat.
Taiga Environmental Features (d8)
Fallen limbs from evergreen trees have resin that makes them ideal for torches.
Peeling bark from some of the trees can make a substitute for parchment or paper.
Fresh pine needles from some of the young trees can be boiled into a tea that will remove a single level of exhaustion during a short rest.
The frozen corpse of a large creature sits here; its pelt is still intact and usable for protection from the elements if you can find a way to remove it
Stunted trees with brittle limbs make good firewood
Plants here can be brewed into a stout drink that may or may help someone become more charismatic (for a while at least)
Crushed berries from the area can make a sour-tasting drink that provides advantage on CON saving throws for the next 24 hours.
A certain mildly toxic berry grows here. If only one berry is consumed in a day, it doubles the amount of time a creature can hold its breath. Any more than that applies the Poisoned condition for 12 hours and the creature takes 1d4 poison damage; the damage from the berries occurs only once per Poisoning and does not stack.
It's hard for your enemies to pin you down when even you don't know what's coming. When you want to roll the dice and feel the fear in your DM's eyes, this is the subclass for you.
I've often had a lot of problems telling scary stories at my table, whether it be in d&d or other horror focused games. I personally don't get scared easily, especially around "traditionally horrifying" things so it's hard for me to recreate that experience in others. Likewise, you can't just port horror movie iconography into tabletop and expect it to evoke genuine fear: I've already spoken of being bored out of my mind during the zombie apocalypse, and my few trips into ravenloft have all been filled with similar levels of limp and derivative grimdark.
It took me a long time (and a lot of video essays about films I'd never watched) to realize that in terms of an experience fear is a lot like a joke, in that it requires multiple steps of setup and payoff. Dread is that setup, it's the rising tension in a scene that makes the revelation worth it, the slow and literal rising of a rollercoaster before the drop. It's way easier to inspire dread in your party than it is to scare them apropos of nothing, which has the added flexibility of letting you choose just the right time to deliver the frights.
TLDR: You start with one of the basic human fears (guide to that below) to emotionally prime your players and introduce it to your party in a initially non-threataning manor. Then you introduce a more severe version of it in a way that has stakes but is not overwhelmingly scary just yet. You wait until they're neck deep in this second scenario before throwing in some kind of twist that forces them to confront their discomfort head on.
More advice (and spoilers for The Magnus Archives) below the cut.
Before we go any farther it's vitally important that you learn your party's limits and triggers before a game begins. A lot of ttrpg content can be downright horrifying without even trying to be, so it's critical you know how everyone in your party is going to react to something before you go into it. Whether or not you're running an actual horror game or just wanting to add some tension to an otherwise heroic romp, you and your group need to be on the same page about this, and discuss safety systems from session 0 onwards.
The Fundamental Fears: It may seem a bit basic but one of the greatest tools to help me understand different aspects of horror was the taxonomy invented by Jonathan Sims of The Magnus Archives podcast. He breaks down fear into different thematic and emotional through lines, each given a snappy name and iconography that's so memorable that I often joke it's the queer-horror version of pokemon types or hogwarts houses. If we start with a basic understanding of WHY people find things scary we learn just what dials we need turn in order to build dread in our players.
Implementation: Each of these examples is like a colour we can paint a scene or encounter with, flavouring it just so to tickle a particular, primal part of our party's brains. You don't have to do much, just something along the lines of "the upcoming cave tunnel is getting a little too close for comfort" or "the all-too thin walkway creaks under your weight ", or "what you don't see is the movement at the edge of the room". Once the seed is planted your party's' minds will do most of the work: humans are social, pattern seeking creatures, and the hint of danger to one member of the group will lay the groundwork of fear in all the rest.
The trick here is not to over commit, which is the mistake most ttrpgs make with horror: actually showing the monster, putting the party into a dangerous situation, that’s the finisher, the punchline of the joke. It’s also a release valve on all the pressure you’ve been hard at work building.
There’s nothing all that scary about fighting a level-appropriate number of skeletons, but forcing your party to creep through a series of dark, cobweb infested catacombs with the THREAT of being attacked by undead? That’s going to have them climbing the walls.
Let narration and bad dice rolls be your main tools here, driving home the discomfort, the risk, the looming threat.
Surprise: Now that you’ve got your party marinating in dread, what you want to do to really scare them is to throw a curve ball. Go back to that list and find another fear which either compliments or contrasts the original one you set up, and have it lurking juuuust out of reach ready to pop up at a moment of perfect tension like a jack in the box. The party is climbing down a slick interior of an underdark cavern, bottom nowhere in sight? They expect to to fall, but what they couldn't possibly expect is for a giant arm to reach out of the darkness and pull one of them down. Have the party figured out that there's a shapeshifter that's infiltrated the rebel meeting and is killing their allies? They suspect suspicion and lies but what they don't expect is for the rebel base to suddenly be on FIRE forcing them to run.
My expert advice is to lightly tease this second threat LONG before you introduce the initial scare. Your players will think you're a genius for doing what amounts to a little extra work, and curse themselves for not paying more attention.
Restraint: Less is more when it comes to scares, as if you do this trick too often your players are going to be inured to it. Try to do it maybe once an adventure, or dungeon level. Scares hit so much harder when the party isn't expecting them. If you're specifically playing in a "horror" game, it's a good idea to introduce a few false scares, or make multiple encounters part of the same bait and switch scare tactic: If we're going into the filthy gross sewer with mould and rot and rats and the like, you'll get more punch if the final challenge isn't corruption based, but is instead some new threat that we could have never prepared for.
If I ever share anything that was AI generated it is purely by accident. I hate that it's getting harder and harder to tell and it makes me want to never use the internet again. It definitely had its faults, but man I miss the internet of the 2000s so much.
adding further to this: don't bash people who do it on accident, especially (but not exclusively) if they show regret afterwards. We all hate the damn thing, so just tell if someone does it on accident and move along.
New character I get to play! Shes a warforged paladin who's weapon is a giant censer bell! I meant to get her done before artfight but I was a touch late so I've added her today! >:)
⚔️ 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺! Spellrender Weapon (longsword), uncommon ___ This magic weapon has the finesse property. When you hit a creature with the weapon, you can choose to hit it with the inverted, serrated side of the blade: the damage from the attack is halved, and the target suffers a magical gash until the start of your next turn. The first time a creature begins to cast a spell while affected by the gash, the wound flares and deals 2d8 force damage to the target. Once you apply a gash, this property of the weapon can’t be used again until the start of your next turn or until the target casts a spell.
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💎 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺! Great Owl’s Pocket Library Wondrous item, rare ___ This golden owl brooch is paired with a miniature ivory figurine of a bookcase. The two items rest within a metal carrying case in the shape of a book. Though the brooch and figurine weights are negligible, the carrying case has a weight of 2 pounds. The brooch, figurine, and metal case all share a command word. 𝘽𝙧𝙤𝙤𝙘𝙝. While wearing the brooch, you gain a +5 bonus to any Intelligence check you make to learn relevant information from a book or scroll you’re reading. While holding the brooch, you can use an action to speak the command word followed by a book or scroll’s title, subject matter, or author. When you do, a spectral owl appears before you and magically directs you to the nearest relevant book or scroll within 100 feet of you, if any. The owl disappears once it reaches its destination. 𝙁𝙞𝙜𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙚. The ivory figurine contains a special demiplane that can hold up to a total of 50 books and scrolls. You can use an action while holding the figurine to speak its command word and touch a book or scroll within your reach that isn’t being worn or carried by another creature; the touched object then disappears into the demiplane, provided there’s room within it. Alternatively, you can use an action to speak the command word followed by a book or scroll’s title, subject matter, or author. When you do, the spectral owl magically appears before you and drops any relevant books or scrolls within the demiplane on the ground at your feet or in your free hand (your choice each time). The owl then disappears. If you use an action to shake the figurine, 1d10 random books stored inside the demiplane fall to the ground at your feet. 𝙈𝙚𝙩𝙖𝙡 𝘾𝙖𝙨𝙚. While holding the metal carrying case, you can use an action to speak its command word. If the case is missing any of the objects, they’re magically returned to the inside of the case with a faint “woosh” sound. If the brooch or figurine are destroyed, … …Continued in the IG comments!
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💎 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺! Battle Dancer Garb Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement) ___ This floor-length garb flows around your legs to obscure their movement. Sharp, decorative blades hang from the sides. While wearing the garb, you gain a +2 bonus to Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks, as well as Charisma (Performance) checks made to dance. The garb has 5 charges and regains 1d4 + 1 expended charges daily at dawn. While wearing it, you can use a bonus action to expend one of its charges to take the Dodge action, provided you aren’t wearing heavy armor. When you do, if a creature misses you with an attack before the start of your next turn, you can use your reaction to twirl around and force any creature within 5 feet of you to make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 2d6 slashing damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
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⚔️ 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺! Night Hawk Slayer Weapon (pistol or shortsword), rare (requires attunement) ___ This magic weapon can be used as either a shortsword or pistol. Regardless of how it’s used, you gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. When you make an attack with the sword or pistol, you can immediately make an extra attack as a bonus action using the weapon’s other option. If both attacks are against the same target, you have advantage on the second attack roll. 𝙎𝙬𝙤𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙎𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙠𝙚. The weapon has 3 charges and regains all expended charges daily at dusk. Immediately after you fire the pistol, you can expend 1 of the weapon’s charges to teleport to an unoccupied space that you can see within 5 feet of the target you shot at, provided the new space is within 30 feet of you.
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