Hey D&D adventurers and MTG fans! Ever looked at the adorable, fierce, and utterly charming world of Bloomburrow and thought, "I wish I could play a campaign there?" Well, at MadLabGames, we've been brewing up some ideas to bring the verdant lands and courageous critter-folk of Bloomburrow straight to your D&D 5.5e table!

We're beyond excited about the possibilities, and we wanted to share a little sneak peek of how you can start integrating the spirit of Bloomburrow into your next adventure. Get ready to ditch the dragons for a bit and face down some truly monstrous toads! 🐸💥

1. New Race: The Stoic Badgerfolk 🦡🛡️

Badgerfolk are known for their unwavering resolve, their practical skills, and their deep connection to the earth. Perfect for tanking hits or crafting ingenious traps!

Badgerfolk Traits

Ability Score Increase: Your Constitution score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Age: Badgerfolk mature at a similar rate to humans but can live considerably longer, often up to 150 years.

Alignment: Badgerfolk tend towards lawful alignments, valuing community, tradition, and hard work. Many are good-aligned, but some can be gruff and set in their ways.

Size: Badgerfolk typically stand between 1 and 2 feet tall and weigh between 25 and 40 pounds. Your size is Small.

Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Stalwart Hide: Your tough hide provides a natural armor of 13 + your Dexterity modifier. You can use this natural armor if you don't wear other armor. A shield's benefits apply as normal while you use your natural armor.

Burrowing Prowess: You have a burrowing speed of 10 feet. You can only burrow through loose earth or sand.

Grounded Resolve: When you are subjected to an effect that would move you against your will, you can use your reaction to reduce the distance you are moved by 10 feet.

Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice. (Perhaps "Burrow-speak" – a guttural language of the earth?)

2. New Monster: The Grinning Toad of the Great Fen 🐸😈

Not all creatures in Bloomburrow are friendly! The Grinning Toads are apex predators of the fens, known for their surprisingly swift leaps and paralytic venom.

The Grinning Toad of the Great Fen Large Beast, Unaligned

Armor Class: 13 (Natural Armor) Hit Points: 45 (6d10 + 12) Speed: 25 ft., swim 30 ft.

STR 16 (+3) DEX 12 (+1)CON 14 (+2)

INT 2 (-4)WIS 10 (+0)CHA 5 (-3)

Skills Perception +2, Stealth +3 Senses Darkvision 60 ft., Passive Perception 12 Challenge 2 (450 XP)

Amphibious: The toad can breathe air and water.

Standing Leap: The toad's long jump is up to 20 feet and its high jump is up to 10 feet, with or without a running start.

Actions

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned for 1 minute. While poisoned this way, a creature's speed is halved. The creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

Tongue Lash (Recharge 5-6). Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: The target is grappled (escape DC 13). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, and the toad can't use its Tongue Lash on another target. The toad can use a bonus action to pull the grappled creature up to 10 feet closer to itself.

3. Bloomburrow Adventure Hook: "The Stolen Seed-Hoard" 🌰🐿️🚨

Need a quick one-shot or a kick-off for a longer campaign? Try this!

"The Annual Seed-Hoard Festival of Atheria is just around the corner, a time of feasting and sharing the bounty of the land. But disaster has struck! Overnight, the community's meticulously gathered winter seed-hoard, enough to feed the entire village through the cold season, has vanished! A frantic Squirrelfolk elder, Squeaky Nutkin, approaches the adventurers, eyes wide with panic. The tracks lead towards the murky Great Fen, a place whispered to be home to giant, malevolent toads..."

Potential Leads: Following the tracks, questioning nervous voles, finding tell-tale signs of large amphibian activity. 🐾

Challenges: Navigating the treacherous Great Fen, avoiding Grinning Toads and other monstrous amphibians, perhaps outsmarting a cunning predator who orchestrated the theft. 🌲 Swamp encounters!

Resolution: Recovering the seed-hoard, confronting the thieves (maybe not just toads, but cunning ravens or even a rogue badgerfolk!), and restoring hope to Atheria before winter sets in. 🙏🥕

What Are YOUR Bloomburrow D&D Ideas? 🤩👇

We're just scratching the surface here at MadLabGames! We'd love to hear what Bloomburrow-inspired races, monsters, or adventure hooks you'd love to see brought to life for D&D 5.5e.

Would you play a cunning Foxfolk Rogue? 🦊

What kind of terrifying weasel beast would you unleash? 👹

What grand quest would lead you across the Valley? 🗺️

One-shot adventure in Frigranden! Entered in @worldanvil Adventure April challenge. 

 💀 *SPOILERS: My players shouldn’t read further. I have a Primer for you!* 💀 

New content! New city map. New NPCs. New sites.

This is a choose-your-adventure style I am playing with, where there are multiple paths so player don’t feel railroaded. I’ll be running this for the first time in July.

If you like what you see, show me some love on the page with a like and comment. Always looking for feedback and suggestions. ☕ Spill the tea and I might use your idea!

Tavern Challenge! Thank you @worldanvil for an amazing prompt. Much more to see at the link!

Genius Loci: Mage's School by Ranarh

Creating other worlds from scratch can be tricky. Sure, you can just change the country names and map around, like Robert E. Howard did when he invented Hyboria (his fantasy setting for Conan the Barbarian), but that's not enough anymore. That's Earth with the serial numbers filed off.

Map of Hyboria shows a re-imagined Europe, Asia, and Africa.

In these days of epic fantasies and dystopian dramas, a lot of authors make the mistake of not sketching in enough detail to depict a credible, working society. Without one, the entire foundation of the story crumbles under the weight of too many unanswered questions.

Maybe what authors need is a cheat sheet of some kind, a world-building construction kit . . . How cool would that be?

Photo: Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), an early dystopian classic.

Recently, I stumbled across the basics of just such a cheat sheet, albeit from an unusual source: Daring Greatly, a wonderful self-help book about teaching shame resilience for men and women. In it, author Brené Brown says:

"I can tell a lot about the culture and values of a group, family, or organization by asking these ten questions:

What behaviors are rewarded? Punished?

Where and how are people actually spending their resources (time, money, attention)?

What rules and expectations are followed, enforced, and ignored?

Do people feel safe and supported talking about how they feel and asking for what they need?

What are the sacred cows? Who is most likely to tip them? Who stands the cows back up?

What stories are legend and what values do they convey?

What happens when someone fails, disappoints, or makes a mistake?

How is vulnerability (uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure) perceived?

How prevalent are shame and blame and how are they showing up?

What's the collective tolerance for discomfort? Is the discomfort of learning, trying new things, and giving and receiving feedback normalized, or is there a high premium put on comfort (and how does that look)?"

For fiction-writing purposes, I would add another eleven questions that cover a variety of other issues (such as magic, military, and religions). I'll share this next list with you tomorrow in Part 2.

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