Yes, I’m a nerd and I play Dungeons & Dragons. I’ve played for around seventeen years, and DMed one RPG or another for the past decade. Now, in addition to writing stories, poetry, novels, and the like, I also write and self-publish a great deal of D&D content.
What is Dungeons & Dragons?
Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a fantasy table-top role-playing game (TTRPG), which is something between a board game, a video game, and a structured improv or choose-your-own-adventure scenario. One player, called the Dungeon Master (DM), serves as the narrator and referee. The DM creates a story in which the protagonists are created by the other players. These player-characters (PCs) have a great deal of autonomy and can choose how they go about interacting with various people, locations, and monsters in the world that the DM creates.
D&D can be whatever you want it to be. A DM can create their own world from scratch or use a preexisting world in which they set an adventure, or even run adventures written and published by the Wizards of the Coast (WotC), the official D&D publishers, or published by a 3rd party writer. Players can work with their DM to create a game that perfectly suits their desires. Want to run a highly combat-focused game where your heroes hack and slash through hordes of enemies? What about a highly political game full of intrigue, shady dealings, and skullduggery? Want to run a band of criminals running a heist to steal a mage’s powerful artifacts, or adventurers seeking glory and the head of an ancient dragon? You can trek across icy tundras or scorching deserts, through lush jungles or deep caverns, into long-lost dungeons or metropolitan cities. You can explore classic medieval-European-themed kingdoms, climb towering Steampunk skyscrapers, or even play games in ancient low-tech city-states. D&D is a game that is truly limited only by the scope of your imagination.
D&D can be whatever you want it to be. A DM can create their own world from scratch or use a preexisting world in which they set an adventure, or even run adventures written and published by the Wizards of the Coast (WotC), the official D&D publishers, or published by a 3rd party writer. Players can work with their DM to create a game that perfectly suits their desires. Want to run a highly combat-focused game where your heroes hack and slash through hordes of enemies? What about a highly political game full of intrigue, shady dealings, and skullduggery? Want to run a band of criminals running a heist to steal a mage’s powerful artifacts, or adventurers seeking glory and the head of an ancient dragon? You can trek across icy tundras or scorching deserts, through lush jungles or deep caverns, into long-lost dungeons or metropolitan cities. You can explore classic medieval-European-themed kingdoms, climb towering Steampunk skyscrapers, or even play games in ancient low-tech city-states. D&D is a game that is truly limited only by the scope of your imagination.
The Kaleidosphere
I’ve developed a multiverse in which my D&D campaigns take place. The Kaleidosphere encapsulates all D&D games that I run; although my games will take place in different universes, they exist in the same multiverse, and thus there are a few Easter eggs that crop up in my various campaigns. Some of my Kaleidosphere campaigns will take place in official D&D settings such as the Forgotten Realms or Eberron, but others will be set in homebrew campaign worlds like the oceanic world of Nera'ohan.
Works in Progress
I'm always designing new classes and subclasses, thinking up new races, and tweaking various mechanics in D&D. I've decided to follow WotC's Unearthed Arcana model of releasing drafted content before publishing it.
Here are three subclasses I've been developing! The path of the Chieftain is for barbarians that want to inspire their fellows to rage alongside them. The Weaveshredder is a rogue path specializing in assassinating mages. The School of Miasmatism is for wizards that study good and bad air (based on "science" from various plagues in the middle ages) and use this miasma to augment their spells with pathogens.
Here are three subclasses I've been developing! The path of the Chieftain is for barbarians that want to inspire their fellows to rage alongside them. The Weaveshredder is a rogue path specializing in assassinating mages. The School of Miasmatism is for wizards that study good and bad air (based on "science" from various plagues in the middle ages) and use this miasma to augment their spells with pathogens.
Publications
Thus far, I have published two books on the DMs Guild, an online marketplace where 3rd-party creators like me can publish their own ideas to be used by other D&D players! You can check out my publications here:
- Strahd’s Manual of Shadow, a 200+ page supplement that offers all the horror and Halloween content you could ask for! 5 new races, 6 new CLASSES, and a myriad of new feats, items, spells, and monsters… including the dread Vampyrilich.
- Each of the 6 classes are also available for individual purchase if you only want a small sample of my work.
- Oberon's Guide to the Courts of Power is another approximately 200 page supplement that focuses on the social and political dynamics at play in D&D campaigns, especially in the Feywild where various fey spirits try to out-politick each other. It includes new rules for tracking your social standing, which is a kind of alternative HP system. When you are reduced to 0, you don't die, of course, but you do become shunned from certain sociopolitical domains.
