Copper Cauldron

You approach the door to the ancient temple, running your hand over the symbols etched deeply into the sandstone. Suddenly, as if you had called for something deep below, the ground rumbles and you watch orange stone break through the surface of the hot sand, revealing the armored figure of a stone warrior. Its carved eyes show no sense of sight, and yet it turns to you and braces into a fighting…

Campaign Diary: The Four - Session 45... In which this #dnd party gets driven made by one heckuva long walk.

My party awoke to the feeling of their limbs being tightened to their sides, their bodies restrained by rough sets of tendrils which were pulling them in towards the maw of a hungry Roper; they then progressed into a seemingly endless tunnel that drove them mad; and finished looking out upon their destination.

It’s that middle bit I want to talk about in today’s diary.

(more…)

Two new #dnd teddy bear constructs to charm (or terrorize) your players with.

Tracing the footsteps you heard from within the room, you peek around the corner and see a pile of discarded toys. Nothing appears to be behind them, above them, within them– perhaps you imagined it. As you turn and walk away, you hear them again, the plodding steps. This time from behind you. You turn on your heel and see it: A child’s stuffed bear, tattered at the sides with stuffing dribbling…

Mini Diary: The House at Bent Hill — Session 2

Every other Wednesday you can catch me playing live on the Mimics n Monstrosities Twitch Channel at 5:00pm Mountain / 7:00pm Eastern where I play as one of four misguided fools who have entered a terribly haunted house.

Every other Thursday, you can catch a mini diary entry here on Copper Cauldron. Unlike my campaign diaries for the campaign I run, I’m a player here and thus have a little…

My answer to what would make a Druid join up with a Construct-- The Mecha Druid: Circle of the Axiom subclass!

You know that moment when you’re laying in bed, staring at your alarm clock in staunch refusal to wake up on time, and you start thinking about how to make a gundam character in Dungeons & Dragons?

No?

How about when you stand mindlessly in the shower, letting scalding water pound on you while you hear that ‘click’ and realize that the easiest mechanic to manipulate for a gundam character…

Campaign Diary: The Four – Session 44

Every Monday night I dungeon master for a 5th Edition game that has been going on long-term. We started every other Sunday with four people, picked up another, lost two, picked up one more, and eventually moved to gaming every week. It’s been a long journey to get a consistent campaign — but boy am I glad to be here.

A quick recap: The party found themselves chosen as unwitting sacrifices to…

Keeping things moving with a new #dnd feat. This one is for all you crafters out there--

The Druid cautiously weaves the silk taken from the spiders into a long, and fragile rope before coiling it into the basin of purified water. Muttering arcane words they unfurl a handful of citrine dust, which clings to the rope as it glows beneath the water.

A confession: I love crafting.

No, not any real-world, useful kind of crafting. I don’t put together beautiful terrain pieces or mold…

The lion chief lets out a mighty roar, and slams his blackened scimitar into the soil. The point of impact crackles and roils with a swirl of shadow before a paw with threatening claws bursts out of it– followed by another. Then, the form of a phantom emerges, a lion crafted of shadow and violence that growls with a maw dribbling in black. And as the lion chief lunges at you– so does it’s shadow.

As a dungeon master who’s earliest influences stem from video games, the concept of ‘bosses’ has always held a great appeal to me. The “boss fight” is an exciting moment where the situation boils over and leads to an epic confrontation with many layers. One of those layers often becomes a player’s favourite: magic items.

Read more on Copper Cauldron @ Wordpress.

Just in case you can’t tell: I’m a huge fan of Dungeons and Dragons.

I have a very clear memory of the first time I played. I was a dumb fifteen year old who had only heard of it on television, and had a very clear idea of what it was. A very clear, very wrong idea. My older sister’s partner at the time was putting a 3.5 game together, and not a single person wanted to play a Cleric. So, they asked me: Come play with the cool adults? (Caveat: Play a healbot).

See, I was already a fantasy nerd. I’d been running an online roleplay forum where my friends and I, and a few internet strangers, made cool-for-the-time characters and posted back and forth to tell a story. As I quickly learned, D&D was the same thing, save for two facts:

You roll dice to determine each outcome.

Everything moves so… Much… Faster!

I was in! I quickly got a hold of the Player’s Handbook and made my first character, who was a total rip-off of a character I was already playing on the web forum, and showed up to the first session with a bunch of d6s. Yeah, that was wrong.

Anyway, long story short: The campaign went for a few months before falling apart, but the bug firmly bit me. I bought as many books as I could, worked on making my world D&D-friendly, and started writing campaigns.

I didn’t get to play again until 5th Edition came out. None of my friends could be convinced to go past character creation due to the barrier-to-entry. When that brand new, shiny Player’s Handbook was released? My world changed again. I dropped the forum, and turned to DMing as much as I could. And when I wasn’t dungeon mastering? I was homebrewing.

Magic items for my campaigns. New monsters to throw up against my players. A whole pantheon of gods with a new planar system and all that went with it.

Like most homebrewers, I sucked from right out of the gate. I look back at a lot of the content I made and cringe… But I also improved. I took advice, DMed more, played more, watched more streams– And sure, not everything is solid. But I’m proud of where I’ve come, and I’m ready to share that on a more consistent scale. I just have to look at the first class I tried to make, and where it is today, and I know that I do some pretty respectable work.

So that is what Copper Cauldron is. My little witch’s brew of supplemental material for 5th Edition D&D that hopefully someone out there (or maybe no one) will appreciate. The true goal is to push myself to create more, and to create packs of well tested content that I can place on the DM’s Guild.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll post as consistently as I plan.

…Here goes nothing!