Everyone everywhere agrees that Tui T. Sutherlandās dragon planet is freaking awesome and, consequentially, it would be really cool to play Dungeons & Dragons in the world of the book series about Dragons. However, the differences from more typical fantasy worlds that make Pyrrhia endearing also mean it does not always mesh perfectly with popular TTRPG systems like Dungeons & Dragons 5e. The goal of these posts is to provide suggestions towards bridging the gaps between setting and system while hopefully maintaining the spirit of both. Some of the features for the races and subclasses are adapted from Forgotten Realms counterparts, while many others are completely new. Enjoy! Or don't. I don't make the rules.
Section links:
2 - General Considerations
3 - Races
3.5 - Book 16 Races
4 - Setting Specific Backgrounds
5 - Subclasses
6 - Feats
7 - Curses and other optional features
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
ā Live Streamingā Interactive Chatā Private Showsā HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch ā¢ No registration required ā¢ HD streaming
Sooooo... I've been thinking. There's a certain fanon-tribe fandom wiki page that has caught the attention of certain other kobolds in the same packs I frequent, one could say. And as I lay staring up at the ceiling, it pushed at the edges of my mind and crushed out all other thought, leaving naught but the insatiable drive to bring something terrible into the world. Something dreadful. Something... horseful.
...In case it wasn't clear, this one's an inside joke and I'm not gonna include it in the main Scavengers & Dragons page. But if you've stumbled across this anyways, who am I to argue with fate, right?
Scavengers & Dragons: HorseWing Worshipper Domain
HorseWing Domain spells by Cleric level
1st - Speak with Animals, Find Familiar (Summons a Tiny horse)
9th - Summon Draconic Spirit (Takes the form of a HorseWing), Negative Energy Flood
Horseful Blessing
At 1st level, you draw upon the forbidden powers of a tribe so unimaginably mighty merely invoking their name is enough to fuel your domain.Ā Whilst they were banished from the forefront of reality for their meddling, your reverence for them ensures some of their aspects become more than fiction; choose one of the following forms to gain the related benefits.
Earth. Your connection to the wingless folk makes you frankly quite smart when it comes to the ground. You gain proficiency in the Nature and Survival skills, and your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check that uses either of those abilities. Additionally, as an action you can touch any seed or growing plant and cause it to instantly grow to its full potential.
Aquatic. You have always felt a strong kinship with horses shaped like fish. Not seahorses, to be clear. Just... hypothetical horses, who live in the sea. This causes both you and any creatures that you summon using spells to gain a swimming speed equal to their walking speed and the ability to breath underwater.
Fire. You can't stop daydreaming about how awesome horses would be if they were constantly emanating fire. This makes fire reluctant to harm you in a lasting fashion; whenever you take fire damage, you regain the same amount of hitpoints at the start of your next unless you start your turn with 0 hitpoints. Additionally, any fire within 30 feet of you can burn normally underwater, and fires can be started underwater in that radius.
Air. You're like, 90% certain that you have spiritual wings as well as your actual physical ones. These spiritual wings activate whenever you are in high emotional spirits and cause you to glow with bright light in a 60-foot radius and dim light for an additional 60 feet. During these times of joy, you are also affected by a Reverse Gravity spell that cannot be dispelled and has no radius, instead only targeting you.
Magic. You swear you once saw a horse with a horn on its head and can alter your spellcasting by clinging to that memory. Whenever you cast a spell, you can choose to have the spell originate from any horse-type creature in your line of sight rather than from yourself.
Royalty. Horses inexplicably kneel reverently in your presence. You can communicate telepathically with all horse-type creatures you can see, who can respond to you in the same fashion, and they are inclined to do anything they can to aid you in your noble quest. However, should they decide your will is leading the kingdom of the horses down too grim a path, they may choose to enact a coup. The coup is a magical ritual with a casting time of three days, but if it is completed, it causes you to be instantly banished to the Astral Plane until you atone for your sins.
Channel Divinity: Visions of Topeki
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity as an action to breach the veil of reality and dip into a realm lost to Pyrrhia. This causes you to disappear to a parallel plane of existence for one minute. Whilst there, your senses are distorted such that the landscape and locals appear only as a beautiful and overwhelming haze of colours washing over you. You can ask one question of the locals per visit. When you do so, the DM rolls a d100. On a roll of 1-79, you hear the whispers of an ancient Queen who provides you an accurate but esoterically phrased answer. On a roll of 80-99, you hear only neighing and the swishing of tails or the clop of hooves. On a roll of 100, you are violently ejected back to your original plane and then automatically cast Shatter centered on yourself as the HorseWings express their disapproval. Otherwise, you return to your original plane at the end of the one-minute duration.
Equine Habits
Starting at 6th level, you begin to emulate the same habits as the people in that strange land - specifically, you begin to act a bit horselike. You might sometimes stamp your feet, flick your ears or tail, and make nickering sounds that get you odd looks from other dragons. The nature of your magic and its connection to Topeki also allows you cast spells using these gestures, substituting equine habits for all verbal, material, and somatic components that the spell would normally require and preventing most onlookers from realizing a spell was cast at all.
Divine Sword Art: The Heavenly Herd of Diversity Tramples Forth
Starting at 8th level, whenever you hit with an attack roll and deal damage, you can use your reaction to call forth a spectral herd of flashing manes and crushing hooves. This causes the target to take an additional 1d6 thunder damage for each horse-type creature in a 100-foot radius of you. Enemies that witness this feature also begin to tear up at the corners of their eyes, though they can never describe why.
Revelation of the Equine
At 17th level, your dream comes true. Your connection to the forbidden realm of Topeki becomes so strong that you physically morph into a HorseWing before the eyes of your party in a grotesque ritual of blood, scales, and fur. This alters your appearance to match the form you chose in your Horseful Blessing feature, and additionally provides the following benefits:
Your scales become insanely strong, causing any form of harm that deals 20 or less damage to instead deal 0 to you.
You gain a flying speed if you didn't have one already, and your base flying speed becomes 300 feet with the ability to hover. This doesn't require using your wings.
You can speak and understand all languages, since it's straight from the horse's mouth.
You can choose for your unarmed strikes to deal 1d20 lightning damage, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.
...Oh, and here's the silly fantribe that inspired all this ruckus:
Horsewings are lovely dragons that live in a perfect harmony. They come in f forms, one made especially for the royals. These forms are Eart
so I started a drawing challenge to draw every single character from the Summer King Chronicles/Dragon Star Saga by Jess E. Owen, because I think it'd be fun character design practice, because this series doesn't get nearly enough fanart, and because the entire series is very near and dear to my heart
but my question is, there are 170 characters. I already have 15 completed. should I post them here, individually, in clusters, or on a separate blog?
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
ā Live Streamingā Interactive Chatā Private Showsā HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch ā¢ No registration required ā¢ HD streaming
I think a lot about the fact that they gave cosmonauts triple-barrel guns so they could deal with wildlife when they landed. Like, imagine being one of the first humans to get to leave the planet entirely and experience the wonders of the stars up close, and then when you get back you also have to fight hungry bears. One of the famous hazards of space travel. Of course.
One of my favorite parts of this book was getting a piecemeal description of BeetleWings throughout. All for us to rearrange into the full puzzle with our grubby little scavenger hands. And what a long-awaited tribe, we've known about them for years but only now gotten any details... I loved the hype of it all. Anyways, the point of it is I'm channeling this gushing into dungeons & dragons features. Will they be balanced? Don't ask me, I just work here!
Increase one score of your choice by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1. You can't raise any of your scores above 20.
Type
You are a Dragon.
Size
Your size is Medium or Small. You choose the size when you select this race.
Speed
You have a base walking speed of 30 feet and a flying speed equal to your walking speed.
No Queens, No Moons, No Masters
You are familiar with a culture and system of government completely alien to the other tribes, involving no monarchy at all and (gasp) equal rights between tribes and genders. This provides you the following benefits:
You have advantage on History checks pertaining to tribes other than your own
You have advantage on Wisdom saving throws to avoid spells, conditions, or effects that would force you to take a specific action. This does not include the frightened condition.
Pack Tactics does not provide creatures with advantage against you.
Spur & Spine
You can use your barbed carapace to make unarmed strikes without needing a free limb. When you hit with the barbs, the strike deals 1d6 + your Strength modifier slashing, poison, or piercing damage (your choice), instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.
Breath Weapon
You gain the Breath Weapon feature of another tribe of your choice. Alternatively, you can instead choose to gain a Variant feature of another tribe in place of this feature.
Your Dexterity score increases by 2 and your Intelligence score increases by 1.
Type
You are a Dragon.
Size
Your size is Medium or Small. You choose the size when you select this race.
Speed
You have a base walking speed of 35 feet and a flying speed equal to your walking speed.
Ancient Glade
Your ancestors fought for territory in a forest of memories, and stepping amidst them comes naturally to you. You gain proficiency in the Stealth skill, and you can cast Pass Without Trace at will while you are in the forest. This does not allow you to learn the spell or cast it with other spell slots; you can only invoke this immemorial magic while in the right environment.
Tooth & Claw
You can use your claws and teeth to make unarmed strikes. When you hit with them, the strike deals 1d6 + your Strength modifier slashing, acid, or piercing damage (your choice), instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.
Envenom
Your claws contain a mind-numbing venom that you can inject, given the chance, with dire results. Whenever you have a creature grappled, you can use a bonus action to afflict them with this venom. The target becomes Poisoned for ten minutes, and during that duration they must choose whether they get a move, an action, or a bonus action; they get only one of the three as their thoughts become sluggish.
Additionally, whenever you attempt to grapple or maintain a grapple, you can choose to use Dexterity for the Athletics check rather than Strength.
You can inject your venom a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
You have a base walking speed of 30 feet and a flying speed equal to your walking speed.
Living Spell
While you were animated by a spell, your meticulous creator built you to be particularly lifelike. This grants the following benefits:
You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage.
You donāt need to eat, drink, or breathe.
You benefit from several spells that normally wouldn't affect Constructs, including: Cure Wounds,Ā Healing Word,Ā Mass Cure Wounds,Ā Mass Healing Word, andĀ Spare the Dying.
Warden's Key
Hidden within your body lies a key that blends the mechanical and magical to breach any lock, designed for navigating the Dungeon Isle. You can unfold this special key from beneath one of your wings at will. While unfolded, it functions as thieves' tools that can be held only by you, and which you always have proficiency with. Re-folding it causes it to instantly disappear from sight.
Additionally, once per short rest as a bonus action while the key is unfolded, you can activate its enchantment to cast Knock at will. This special version of the spell makes a barely-audible click rather than a loud knock, though the sound somehow still travels the full 300 feet. Using this feature does not use a spell slot, nor does it cause you to learn the spell for other contexts.
Tracking Welt
You can produce a strange substance with a connection to your own spell that allows you to keep track of prisoners or, more broadly, anybody you don't particularly like. During any short or long rest, you can produce a vial of this toxin which can later be applied to a weapon as an action or consumed. The first time the coated weapon hits a creature or a creature drinks from the vial, they become marked by the spell. This causes an angry-looking red welt to appear somewhere on the target's body. You always innately know this welt's exact geographic location. While you have this knowledge, the target canāt become hidden from you, and if itās invisible, it gains no benefit from that condition against you.
The welt dissipates after one week or immediately if you use this feature again.
āI desired dragons with a profound desireā¦ the world that contained even the imagination of Fafnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever cost of peril.ā
Soā¦ bit of a wild question. But do you think if Tolkien had grown up around the internet he wouldāve been a furry?
This guy considered mythical creatures key to his identity and placed such reference in fiction that he tries to write his analysis of it with the same thematic vibe as the media he is analyzing, at huge cost to clarity.
When he was 17 he signed his notebook as āLuttroā (Otter)
So like, surely, right? Zero chance heād have a tumblr bio less than a page long.
Fellas, is it gay to use the thought of your childhood friend as a mental anchor to avoid going mad whilst facing down incomprehensible horrors so you can save them?
When reading this book, I was fascinated by the fact that the inhabitants of the isle swear by the "wild stars" rather than the three moons. This probably represents the more individualistic and democratic culture of the isle, which might emphasize free will rather than the connection to prophecy and fate that the faith of the three moons seems to have. I was also intrigued by the idea that, considering the beliefs of the Pyrrhian NightWings are backed by actual magic, who's to say the same might not be the case for NightWings of the isle? So, the following domain is designed for those who reject the three moons' chosen fate in favor of the innumerable stars that shine on despite it all.
Wild Stars Domain spells by Cleric level
1st - Chaos Bolt, Find Familiar
3rd - Jim's Glowing Coin, Nystul's Magic Aura
5th - Fly, Nondetection
7th - Sickening Radiance, Freedom of Movement
9th - Wall of Light, Reincarnate
Unwritten Wildness
At 1st level, the unpredictable ebb and flow of suns far from your own provide you the following benefits:
Magical predictions of the future ignore your existence and fail to take you into account when determining potential outcomes.Ā
You canāt be targeted by any divination magic or perceived through magical scrying sensors.
Your dice rolls cannot be influenced by features that set the outcome to a specific result regardless of the roll, such as Portent.
(Partly a shared feature with Comet Conclave, but with the added direct counter to Three Moons domain. Because obviously.)
Channel Divinity: Interstellar Blink
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to briefly transform into an unruly wink of light. As a bonus action, choose a point within a radius around you equal to your speed. If any path whatsoever exists between you and that point, you and any creatures of your choice within 5 feet of you merge into a shooting star that then immediately zips to the destination, including around corners and through tiny openings. You then return to normal, and other creatures brought along are deposited in free spaces within 5 feet of you.
The radius increases to twice your speed at 5th level, and again to three times your speed at 9th level.
Glimmering Crowd
Starting at 6th level, whenever an attack roll misses you or one of your allies, or when you or one of your allies succeeds a saving throw, you can use your reaction to create one of the following effects:
If they are not already under the effects of Glimmering Crowd, the creature that was targeted by the attack or succeeded the save begins to emit bright, scintillating starlight in a fifteen-foot radius. This light slowly flickers and fades over the course of one minute. While it lasts, the creature gains +3 AC and a +2 bonus to saving throws as they are empowered by the innumerable cheers of dragons far, far away.
If they are already under the effects of Glimmering Crowd, the light instead intensifies to an insufferable swirling roar. This forces hostile creatures within the light to make a Charisma saving throw against your spell save DC or become blinded until the end of their next turn. Additionally, the duration of the light is reset to one minute.
(The design philosophy behind this feature was, essentially... what if Warding Flare was gambling? It's a similar light effect, but with more chaotic theming and a more volatile triggering circumstance. If you find the +3 AC to be too strong, it could easily be toned down to +2 and still be useful - I just figured it would make sense for a feature that relies on the enemy happening to miss you, an uncertain occurence, to have a particularly powerful reward.)
Wild Strike
At 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with chaotic energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 damage of a type determined by the number rolled, using the same table as Chaos Bolt.
The Hundred Billion Hopes
At 17th level, you can hardly believe anyone puts much stock in the fatalism of the Moons when there's this many chortling onlookers amidst the sky. Glimmering Crowd no longer requires your reaction to activate. Furthermore, each time that the blinding flash is activated, all instances of Glimmering Crowd then provide an additional +1 bonus to AC and saving throws. This bonus can stack, and only resets when no instances of the feature remain active.
(By level 17 there's enough AC-bypassing bullshit at the disposal of the average monster that I think this should be fair rather than just making you utterly invincible. But it'll be cool as hell either way)
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
ā Live Streamingā Interactive Chatā Private Showsā HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch ā¢ No registration required ā¢ HD streaming
Would be really funny if aliens showed up and originated from a planet where predation somehow never evolved.
From their perspective, would Earth would be an existentially horrifying cycle of depravity where murder is built into the DNA of even the most basic forms of life?
Isnāt it amazing how other people can feel things that you and I simply canāt experience at all?
It is beautiful but also terrifying to me that there are elements of peoplesā identities I can never truly understand, because the only way to do that would be if one were literally in their perspective.
Itās like trying to describe a smell - impossible without using other similar sensations for a frame of reference. Can a sense ever be described to someone who doesnāt have that sense? Words donāt capture it in the slightest.
For me, I think I base a lot of my identity on what I do and what I hold to be important rather than what I am; my internal sense of gender only really extends as far as my horrendous fashion sense.
Will this come back to bite me if I lose my ability to do what I love in old age, or if I ever have to fundamentally change my worldview? Undoubtedly!
Fortunately, Iām also incredibly arrogant - so Iāll burn that bridge when I get to it. Nyeheheh
remember this project way back when? good news, IT'S FINISHED!!! the anthology is now completed and available to download on itch.io right here v
https://dragonstuck.itch.io/quill-feather
12 original stories from the perspective of different kinds of animals for you to check out! for now we are resting and enjoying the victory of getting it finished and shipped out, but we do plan on doing another one in the future so keep your eyes peeled!
What a splendiferous splurge of storytelling most sound that I have zero personal investment in whatsoever! None at all. In fact, Iām so unbiased that I recommend you see for yourself just how clever the writing is. By reading it. Especially the first bit by that handsome āElzedā fellow.
One thing I never realized about dungeons & dragons until running my own campaign was the way it allows exploration of identity separated from anything that āmattersā, from reality.
Maybe that sounds like it should be glaringly obvious since ttrpgs are all about playing pretend, but as a player in other campaigns I always felt a strong connection to the character I created - as though it should reflect on me somehow. And so all my characters would veer into my own agreeable personality; I would feel wretched if I tried to be imposing or aggressive.
By contrast, being a bunch of disparate NPCs that I know are just there to fill a specific role in my plot takes away that pressure entirely. This distinction is important on some unconscious level for me; If I know Iām simply being āthe villainā, my brain doesnāt make me feel like crap for being loud and abrasive.
So my point isā¦ if ever you want to try out being something youāre not, write a character detached from your sense of self and then pretend to be them.
Or just repress that desire forever, I guess. Humans are infamously good at that.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
ā Live Streamingā Interactive Chatā Private Showsā HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch ā¢ No registration required ā¢ HD streaming
Realized today that, interestingly, almost the only scavengers in the series to be named after major predators are all the pre-scorching ones: Cottonmouth, Coyote, and Jaguar. They still sort of fit the modern-day scavenger naming convention of āsmall underbrush thingā, but they evoke more danger and agency.
I say āalmostā because thereās one exception: the Pantalan thief Ocelot. I wonder if this is meant to insinuate that Pantalan scavengers kept more pre-scorching culture, maybe?
Wow, alrighty, so the poll results were that everyone disagrees with me and I should explode (lightheartedly). And you might be thinking, scavengers look like humans and they act like humans, so why wouldnāt they be humans? Wellā¦ they certainly arenāt Earth humans with the way Leaf is lifting boulders as tall as he is above his head. Aside from taking the physics of that too literally, thereās also just a distinct vibe that isnāt quite found among reality, a thematic sense. Likeā¦ is scampering Rose really just a human?
In short, I like to imagine theyāre a little funkier than we give them credit for.
