Hey y'all! I've been playing the lovely pastoral fantasy rpg Wanderhome lately and I've just published a space-themed expansion for it on my itch.io!
Check it out if you like tiny planets, moonbeam bridges, and moths in space!
So I've been thinking about what a dice system might look like in Wanderhome (or something like it).
Arguably, that premise is flawed from the get-go. Wanderhome uses a diceless token system for a reason, and the lack of random chance and proscribed success and failure is a core mechanical and thematic element of the game.
HOWEVER... in spite of all that tight mechanical and thematic design, I am sorely tempted to fantasy-adventure-ify it. You know, toss in dice, maps, overland travel, the works. This is mainly due to the moves that the Natures in Wanderhome have, and how I think they'd also make for really cool random encounters in a game that plays out travel in a more open-world, map-focused, even hexcrawl-like style with elements of challenge and peril (as compared to the sort of "tell a story set in one new place each session" approach that Wanderhome takes by default)
Like,
Is a fantastic set of prompts for little self-contained scenes as you're journeying through a graveyard-like area. (The first move of every nature is always something more descriptive that doesn't necessarily provoke immediate action, so you could use it as a backdrop for characters to attend to tasks like cooking, mending, foraging, and journaling)
So I could just steal the natures and bolt them onto a different game, ORR I could take a crack at making Wanderhome a slightly different sort of game. Hence, dice! I'm not sure if what I've come up with is actually good for Wanderhome, but it's interesting and probably good for something!
The core idea behind making dice feel a bit more Wanderhome-y, for me, is reading them a bit more like a magic 8-ball. Each number you can roll should do something unique and different and probably a bit more messy than just high rolls being strictly better. Bolting this onto Wanderhome might butt up against token moves like "provide a solution to an aspect of a material or immediate problem," but I think you can somewhat resolve that by thinking of token moves like that as narrative contrivances, vs dice rolls as more concrete actions. "Do I have what I need to solve this?" vs "Can I do what I need to do to solve this?" And dice are also great for low-stakes but unpredictable things like going fishing and leaving the results to chance.
So here's the system! Whenever you do something unpredictable or risky and test your luck, roll 2d6. Each die will give you one of six possible outcomes, and you get to pick which of the two you rolled you want to have happen. If you roll doubles, you can either take that outcome or spend a token to pick whichever one of the other five you like. (Assuming we're still using tokens in this system - if not, figure something out!) And those possible outcomes are...
I think the inherent presumption of earnest nonviolence in Wanderhome makes options like a 6 interesting. Because say you're attacked by a big, hungry scorpion and you're rolling to try to protect yourself. In nearly any other game, rolling a 6 as like a critical hit to deal a ton of damage so that it can't fight back would be an unqualified success. But in Wanderhome, hurting something else badly, even something that was going to hurt you when you just wanted to protect yourself, is in no way a straightforward triumph
I have some very strong and correct and nonarbitrary opinions about dice.
First of all, d10s. They don't belong in dice sets. They're fine in systems that utilize them in dice pools (Storyteller) and systems that utilize them for the awesome d100 (BRP, Rolemaster, WFRP) but they should not be a part of the set of polyhedrons from d4 to d20. Why? Because all the other dice in that set are Platonic solids and the d10 isn't. I can't even be bothered to Google what shape a d10 is but it ain't Platonic. This die fucks.
Anyway the set consisting of d4, d6, d8, d12 and d20 are the full set of Platonic solids. The set is also fun in the sense that it contains its own dual polyhedra. The dodecahedron (d12) is the dual of the icosahedron (d20) because the dodecahedron has three pentagons meeting at each vertex while an icosahedron has five triangles meeting at each vertex. The cube (d6) and octahedron (d8) are each other's duals: on the cube you have three squares meeting at each vertex and on the octahedron it's four triangles at each vertex. The tetrahedron (d4) is its own self-dual since it has three triangles meeting at each vertex.
Anyway so the d10 doesn't belong with those five although in certain contexts it can hang. But speaking of d10, while I have a soft spot for the d100 (done through rolling two d10 and reading one of them as the ones digit and the other as the tens digit) the most beautiful arrangement of numbers can be achieved on a 2d10. Look at this shit!
It's the way the probability of getting a result of 2 is 1%, the probability of getting a 3 is 2%, and so on all the way until you get to a 10% chance of getting an 11, after which it starts going down again, until you get to a 1% chance of getting a 20. That's fucking beautiful. It's enough to make you believe that there's some design behind all these numbers. More than that, it's enough to make you realize that this Plato guy was full of shit. His nice set of solids? Yeah they're pretty good. But can they do this? Probably. But not as nicely as this beautiful ten-sided freak.
Anyway, so that's a bunch of really normal opinions to have about dice and surely not a sign of some weird thought processes going on because of my neurons and syndromes.
This is actually really fun when I think about it cause I've posted about how I don't get the "buying lots of pretty dice" side of the hobby, or like I get it but at the same time I realize I'm not wired like that, but meanwhile I'm out here like "so hey it's normal to rotate a cube and constantly bevel it into an octahedron and then back into a cube, and form triangular numbers from the probability spread of a 2d10, right? That's normal, right?"
Anyway if y'all have weirdly normal and strong opinions about dice let me have 'em I love to know what why fellow normal people are thinking about
Also also, now I'm thinking whether there'd be any way for me to make a system that somehow uses the duals of the various polyhedrons for some reason? Like, a system where it's actually meaningful that the d6 and d8 are duals as are the d12 and d20. Hmm
Another cool thing of platonics solids is that, being Ancient Greeks the huge cosmogonical nerds they were, is that every one of them has an element associated to them based on their characteristics.
Like, the tetrahedron is the fire shape because it is the one with the least surface area, as opposed to the icosahedron which is the one with the highest surface area and thus, the water polyhedron. The cube is the earth polyhedron because it is the one that can most solidly stand and the octahedron belongs to the air because it can spin over one of its vertices.
The dodecahedron, meanwhile, belongs to the ether because it is made out of pentagons and that makes it special.
I am quite sure some early atomists said that those were the shape of the atoms belonging to every element, too. (Things get a bit weirder later on, though, as they start giving more attributes to atoms so they could mechanically interact with each other).
It is a bit silly and cumbersome, but I really want to make a system that uses different dice for different elemental manifestations... But it is hard to adapt when the result ranges are so different between each shape.
And, yeah, d10s are awesome. But they don't have any element assigned to them, so...
The coolest thing about dice is they make fun clacky sounds and you can put them in your mouth.
Hell, same
OOH ok, the idea of different dice representing different elements has got my brain going, and I think the different result ranges could be ok if you interpret each one like a unique sort of magic 8-ball with different results for each face rather than having a unified system of higher number = success.
Note that I use the term momentum a lot - this might have a more defined meaning in whatever system this is for, but I kinda use it in a loose, vibes-y way to define how much you're able to be proactive vs how much you're stuck reacting to your opposition.
So something like this...
The d4 is the die of fire.
Roll it when taking a bold, precarious, destructive approach.
1: Burnout. Unmitigated disaster.
2: Fire's Price. You fail painfully, but keep momentum
3: Rising Blaze. You prevail, and seize momentum
4: Inferno. You obliterate all opposition in your path. There may be collateral damage or long-term consequences.
The d6 is the die of earth.
Roll it when attempting to make sturdy, steady, methodical progress.
1: Dust. You lose a foothold, or a layer of your defenses gives way.
2: Buried. The situation grinds to a halt. Further impediments present themselves.
3: Calcified. You hold fast, but lose momentum.
4: Stone's Advance. You gain a bit of ground and are protected from consequences.
5: Earthen Bounty. A chance to deescalate. You and your opposition both get some of what you wanted in a way that doesn't directly harm one another. (Feel free to negotiate for this. "Opposition" and "want" can be abstract for something like a landscape you're traversing.)
6: Stronghold. Lay claim to a position (in battle, in negotiations, etc.) None may take it from you as long as you continuously defend it.
The d8 is the die of air.
Roll it when you act on a whim and seek fluid, changeable results.
1: Becalmed. Change fails to materialize. Lose momentum as the current situation gets worse.
2: Breeze. Succeed against minor obstacles, but fail against anything greater and suffer the consequences.
3: Zephyr. Dance around the obstacle. You make no headway, but keep momentum and understand it better.
4: Dancing leaves. Fail, but gently and with good fortune. You spot another way forward.
5: Gust. A head-on attempt. Succeed, but leave yourself vulnerable.
6: Gale. You spot a risky opportunity and take it. Succeed at a significant cost and you and your allies gain tremendous momentum.
7: Cyclone. A reversal of fortunes. The desperate triumph, the triumphant are brought low.
8: Tempest. Wildly destabilize things in unanticipated ways. The situation changes drastically, for better or worse.
The d12 is the die of aether.
Roll it when you seek revelations or leave your fate to the heavens. This is the die to use if you seek to do the impossible, though it may cost you dearly.
1: Synthesis. You and your allies gain a greater understanding of one another. Share something, learn something, and create an opportunity for them.
2: Duality. You and your opposition gain a greater understanding of one another. Share something, learn something, then choose whether to escalate or deescalate things.
3: Triune. Make a note whenever someone rolls this result. The first two times, nothing changes. The third time, everything does. (Then reset the count)
4: Shadow. You realize something previously unseen that makes the situation far worse. Lose momentum as you are shaken by the revelations.
5: Starlight. You see a clear path to victory, though it may be far and perilous. Gain momentum as long as you follow it.
6: Cycles. You see how the past repeats itself in the current situation. Succeed but lose momentum if you perpetuate the cycle. Fail and suffer the consequences but gain momentum if you try to break it.
7: Purity. You spot an opportunity to test your convictions. Succeed if you act with absolute certainty and conviction. Any uncertainty or hypocrisy, and it comes crashing down around you.
8: Fate. You glimpse how this is meant to unfold. State one thing that is certain and fated about the current situation and its outcome. The GM states one such thing that is certain and fated as well.
9: Music of the Spheres. You touch something far beyond you. Succeed, but you are forever changed.
10: Perfection. A sudden, impossible insight. Ask one question about anything at all, and the GM must answer truthfully.
11: Hubris. You are undone. The greater your ambition, the greater the punishment.
12: Apotheosis. You are ascendant. The greater your ambition, the greater the reward.
The d20 is the die of water.
Roll it when you follow the current and patiently await opportunity.
1-10: Receding Tide. You lose momentum.
11-20: Rising Tide. You gain momentum.
And...
1, 11: Drought. Falter, fail, and suffer the consequences.
2, 12: Rainfall. Deescalate the situation.
3, 13: Trickling Streams. Fail and suffer the consequences, but your next success is magnified.
4, 14: Still Waters. You wait patiently, and are protected from harm as things unfold around you.
5, 15: Cascade. The situation continues along its current course.
6, 16: Crashing Waves. Surge forward and succeed, but your next failure is magnified.
7, 17: Undertow. Undermine a strength or position of your opposition.
8, 18: The Deep. Fail and suffer the consequences, but learn something important.
9, 19: Leviathan. An outside force arrives and greatly disrupts the situation.
10, 20: The Flood. Drastic, unexpected action. You take your opposition by surprise and triumph.
(with props to the Wildsea RPG, which has some kinda similar mechanics for damaging gear, traits, and pets that inspired this)
Here's an idea for violence in tabletop rpgs.
Take what makes someone uniquely them. "My radiant smile." "The strength of my back." "My faith in my friends."
We'll call these anchors. Jot down a few for each character. Maybe one external, tangible thing, one internal, mental thing, and one that sums up what they are on a base physical, bodily level (warm mortal blood, grinding cogs and servos, slick and rubbery goblin-flesh, a husk of bramble and bone...).
These are assets that can help you on your journey. (Think of them like skills, if you like)
They are also things that can be targeted, and harmed, and shattered.
If one of your anchors is shattered, you have a choice - yield, surrender, pass out, whatever - or push on and burn through your remaining anchors as fuel. Lose all your anchors and you’re gone for good - dead, lost, or unrecognizable.
Afterwards, if one of your anchors has been shattered, you have another choice. You can go try to mend and reforge it, or you can let it go and find something new to take its place.
This goes for monsters too.
Consider the following:
You don’t kill a dragon just by hitting it. You’ve got to find a way to clip its wings, and douse its breath, and break its teeth and claws, and take its hoard, and shatter its pride
If a creature just happens to be hungry, you can solve that easily enough by finding something for it to eat other than you. If, however, one of its anchors is "a vicious, gnawing hunger," then that's something deeper and more fundamental about who or what it is. Something that needs to be either broken or - perhaps - changed through great and sustained effort.
Say armor serves to protect specific anchors. Armor for "my quick and clever hands" is simple enough - just get some sturdy gauntlets and you're set. But what does armor for "my boundless curiosity" or "my faith in my friends" look like? A cherished book? A memento of your time together?
Given your base physical being is something that can repeatedly shatter and be replaced a dozen times over your travels, I like to think this is a world full of old ghosts and revenants and faded gods and cybernetics and whatnot, with still-living flesh-and-blood mortals something of a cherished rarity. Killing anyone with these rules feels a bit like exorcising a ghost, and possibly everyone and everything is a bit ghostly.
Say you break down somewhere wild and haunted and deadly. You could hope you'll live long enough to make it out in a weakened state and find a way to heal properly. OR you could take something properly wretched and awful but quick and easy and make it an essential part of you, just to get up and running again.
Perhaps the same anchors you attack to unmake someone are also the traits you might connect with to form bonds and relationships with them, to really sell that "you could be doing something other than tearing one another apart, but here we are" energy.
Initiative in games like D&D is, broadly speaking, a pain. Just as a fight is about to break out, you've gotta kill the momentum to roll up an initiative order. It's staid. It's static. It doesn't radiate joy.
Now, you could try another game that does things differently. (Seriously, go do it - It's a great time!) But sometimes you got an adventure you want to run in D&D or Pathfinder or what-have-you, and suddenly you're scrambling for ways to wrangle the initiative rules into something you're happy with.
Take popcorn initiative - altogether a cool and simple solution that involves each player (or the GM, in the case of the monsters) choosing who to pass the initiative to at the end of their turn. It's easy. It probably works. But I like the idea of making things more unpredictable and less gameable. So how about this:
As it stands, multiclassing in 5e is a mixed bag – weaker most of the time than just continuing to level up in your main class and exceptionally powerful in a few rare, specific cases. This set of feats aims to even things out, so that any multiclass combination you might imagine for your character can give you something useful and thematically satisfying while still allowing you to advance in your main class. Use these in place of the normal multiclass rules. A character with a multiclass feat for a certain class counts as that class for things like attunement restrictions on magic items.
There are 27 feats here – two for each of the game’s 13 classes and an additional feat aimed at single-classed characters, Focused Mastery. A character can only take the multiclass feats for a single class or Focused Mastery, and cannot take either of the multiclass feats for the class they already have. As the feats presented here are generally more powerful than those in the base game, Focused Mastery is intended to keep characters who don’t wish to multiclass from being overshadowed. It also alleviates some of the pressure of choosing between feats and ability score improvements in early levels when feats are scarce.
(For more D&D cultures and info on how all this works, see here)
Following on those goblin and bugbear cultures, it’s time to complete the trifecta with hobgoblins! The first culture here is a more heroic take on the traditional hobgoblin legion, while the next two have a nice symmetry involving the Shadowfell and the Feywild. Finally, the last culture here could be an interesting counterpart to yesterday’s bugbear butchers, with hobgoblins and dwarves on one side and bugbears and elves on the other.
Legions of the Northern Front
War rages in the frigid wastelands of the North. As frozen horrors thaw from their slumber to carve a southward trail of devastation, the hobgoblins hold the line. Bound by an ancient oath sworn before their martyred gods, they have rallied their goblin and bugbear cousins to stand beside them in battle. Life on the Front is brutal even for the few civilians who call it home, with frostbite and starvation an ever-looming threat. But in the face of their monstrous enemy, their resolve yet holds.
Common language: Goblin
Pick two:
Doomed Knights
In realms haunted by the grim presence of the Shadowfell, hobgoblins dwell amidst the tattered remains of glories past. They raise their moldering banners and don their tarnished armor, rushing headlong into acts of grandiose futility. Clinging to meager dregs of honor and might, they lord over vassal houses of goblins and bugbears and duel one another over blood-soaked scraps of land and petty slights.
Common language: Goblin
Pick two:
Fey Porters
These hobgoblins build their settlements in places where the veil between the material plane and the Feywild is thin, coming and going as they please. Once insular and reclusive, they have since grown adept at facilitating trade and travel and brokering pacts between the two realms. Their maps of the hidden gates and passageways between world are second to none, and through their navigational expertise and masterful diplomacy they have made themselves indispensable on both sides of the planar divide.
Common language: Sylvan or Goblin
Pick two:
Humble Shepherds
Far from the chaos of battle, these hobgoblins tend to their flocks among the hills and valleys of a mountainous land. They share the land around these mountains with the dwarven miners below, and though tensions have flared between them in ages past, they currently enjoy a rather peaceful coexistence. As trade has grown between the dwarves and the hobgoblins, their languages and peoples have intermingled, and it's not uncommon to find a dwarf or two among the hobgoblins' small communities or vice versa.
Common language: Goblin or Dwarvish
Pick two:
(For more D&D cultures and info on how all this works, see here)
Next up in the trifecta of goblinoids is bugbears. There's a lot of giant animals kicking around in D&D, and I thought it would be fun to have a culture that capitalized on that by cooking and eating them. Meanwhile, the last two cultures here act as two different snapshots into the whole having their original pantheon killed by a conquering usurper thing - one while it's still in the process of happening as the bugbears mount a resistance, and one where it's over and they've been freed.
Beast Butchers
Giant beasts roam in the depths of the woods, and these clans of hunters and butchers have perfected the art of turning them into meat. Historically comprised of bugbears, the clans have intermingled with neighboring groups of elves in recent generations. For all their terrifying skill with their enormous cleavers they’re a surprisingly friendly lot, once you get past the smell of blood and viscera. And with the sheer scale of most of their kills and their skill at smoking and curing, they’ve just about cornered the market on meat for a great many miles.
Common language: Goblin or Elvish
Pick two:
Begrudging Enforcers
It's not every day you see a bugbear in the city, but even those that come hoping to make an honest living are often snapped up by the old hobgoblin crime families as hired muscle. It's not a pretty job, pulling teeth and breaking kneecaps, but it pays.
Common language: Goblin
Pick two:
Embittered Guerillas
Danger surrounds these bugbears and their ancestral forests. From one side, their ancient elven enemies draw ever closer. From the other, the hobgoblin hordes seek to snuff out their few remaining deities and bring the bugbears under banner of the conquering god. Adversity has taught them to be swift and ruthless, striking in an instant and vanishing without a trace as they fight to protect their people and their history.
Common language: Goblin
Pick two:
Wandering Pilgrims
Once, these bugbears had many gods to call their own. But their deities were toppled by a cruel usurper, slain, buried, or scattered to the winds. Only when the conquering god finally fell were they free to mourn what they had lost. They learned to live freely and honor what memories they had, building a new way of life on the bones of the old. The most pious among them wander the roads, seeking out pieces of their lost faith and tending to the shrines of small and forgotten gods.
Common language: Goblin
Pick two:
(For more D&D cultures and info on how all this works, see here)
Next up, we have goblins! My main takeaway here is that goblin villains should really work for hags more often, preferably as a sort of fucked-up Oliver Twist scenario. It makes for a great justification for doing crimes and causing problems on purpose, plus some wonderful fey magic vibes.
Hagsworn Magpies
Wicked hags are always on the prowl for stray goblin children, eager to take them under their wings and mold them to their whims. The oldest and mightiest among them command entire clans of goblins, all born and raised under their watchful eye. These goblins creep into villages at night to steal, make mischief, and avenge their hag's every petty grudge. They snatch rings off of fingers, cradles from under babies, pickles from jars and teeth from the mouths of the elderly - all of it fodder for the strange magic the hags weave.
Common language: Sylvan
Pick two:
Resourceful Scavengers
Where others see only trash, these goblins find a home. They live in crumbling and abandoned places alongside kobolds, kenku, bullywugs - anyone trying to get by on the fringes of society. Together they comb through sewers, scrap heaps, or rubble-strewn ruins, mending what they find or recycling it into something new.
Common language: Any
Pick two:
Wasteland Daredevils
In the sun-blasted wasteland they ride, tearing up the parched earth on hulking, smoking, screaming machines. Alongside their hobgoblin and bugbear cousins, these goblins cobble together titans from scrap metal and clash with the great sand wurms, each hungry for their next feast. They live fast and die spectacularly, hoping to earn their gods' applause.
Common language: Goblin
Pick two:
Bubbly Alchemists
Many years ago, a cruel wizard bound a goblin clan to serve him on his quest for alchemical immortality. They scoured the fields and forests for rare reagents, bartered for strange tomes and spells on his behalf, and manned the great vats and cauldrons of his workshop. Ultimately the whole thing was a bit of a wash, and the wizard died sad and alone while the goblins laughed. They were free to go now - but honestly, without the wizard bossing them around they had a pretty sweet setup right where they were. They made the wizard's lab their own, churning out potions and tonics, poisons and liquors, inventing new concoctions as they went. These days, it takes all sorts to keep the casks full and the cauldrons bubbling, whether gardeners, foragers, brewers, alchemists, scholars and scribes, or merchants and traders.
Common language: Goblin
Pick two:
(For more D&D cultures and info on how all this works, see here)
I've got some (g)nice gnome cultures here today, but this first, library-dwelling one has got to be my favorite even just based on the description I came up with it. There's a back and forth between weird and whimsical and tactile and relatable when it comes to imagining fantasy cultures, and I think this hits that sweet spot right in between them. Conversely, the next one veers hard into the strange and inscrutable. Would a vast conspiracy of reality-warping illusionists make for a good PC culture of origin, or even a functioning culture in its own right? No idea! But it could make for a hell of an adventure plot hook, and if nothing else you could probably make a cool cleric or warlock with ties to it.
Dutiful Librarians
It is said that when the god of knowledge ascended from the mortal plane, xe left the gnomes behind to tend to xyr legacy. Many gnomes live their entire lives within the sprawling corridors of the infinite library, building nestlike homes among the high stacks, hunting bookworms in the deep archives, falling in love over millennia-old poetry and launching generations-long feuds debating ancient marginalia. Yet the bravest and most capable among them venture out into the world beyond, sharing the knowledge of their people and bringing home new texts and treatises to update their collection.
Common language: Celestial
Pick two:
Heralds of the Grand Illusion
All is not as it seems. Behind the false firmament they scurry about, weaving dreams, building illusory cities, repainting the sky. All of them but pawns of some grander, stranger figment. Don't look too closely at the seams, lest they unravel.
Common language: Gnomish
Pick two:
Sylvan Neighbors
Seldom seen or heard, these woodland gnomes are nonetheless happy to make their presence known to courteous neighbors. Bake them a cake and they'll leave you a pie. Feed their birds and you'll find your fences mended. Just take care not to abuse their kindness. Their memories are long, and they have friends in many places.
Common language: Gnomish
Pick two:
Ingenious Aeronauts
Born of the finest mechanical minds among gnomes, dwarves, and goblins, the soaring city is a sight to behold. It floats in great leaps and bounds across fields and over mountains, buzzing and whirring with the sounds of a thousand haphazard contraptions. For those who dare to come aboard, it's loud, messy, ramshackle, exhilarating, and above all, home.
Common language: Gnomish, Dwarvish, or Goblin
Pick two:
(For more D&D cultures and info on how all this works, see here)
Having cultures that play around with the lore and history of specific D&D races is all well and good, but sometimes you just want some forest-dwelling folks without all that baggage. So in a break from my usual way of doing cultures I've put together a longer list of ten cultures equally suited to characters of any ancestry, based on the regular list of ranger/land druid terrains plus rural and city. Generally I've kept the proficiencies pretty grounded in the practical side of living and surviving in a given environment, and I've thrown in a handful of spells that seemed particularly useful or appropriate as well.
Arctic Folk
Among the frigid polar lands, your people make their home. The winter nights here are long and dark, but by firelight you come together.
Common language: Any
Pick two:
Before linking to all my previous cultures each time I want to post a new one gets too unwieldy, I figured I'd just make a single post to link to and collect them all there. So here's all the D&D culture stuff I've been working on!
(For an explanation on how all this works plus some cultures for elves, see here. Other cultures: Dwarves, Orcs, Halflings)
Next up is humans, and damn, they sure do have culture. Humans in D&D (and, y'know, in general) are traditionally quite varied and adaptable, so I took this as an opportunity to make some cultures which focus specifically on how humanity engages with the unknown, and which consequentially get a little funky genre-wise. We've got something vaguely gothic-horror-adjacent, some spelljamming sci-fi, and the setup for a weird sort of quasi-Isekai. Is this a take on our modern world? An alternate history? What happens to a Tolkien-esque fantasy land once the magic's fully faded away? Who knows, but it sure does have trains, those wonderfully ambiguous touchstones of some-time-after-medieval-fantasy.
As far as the common language for this one in particular goes, there's some awkwardness here with how D&D typically handles human languages (or the lack thereof). You can make up a language as appropriate, or use a regular D&D language like Elvish to represent traces of language preserved in old stories from the world-that-was.
The final culture here is a pretty typical fantasy kingdom with a bit of draconic flair, if you're looking for something that will slot neatly into most fantasy worlds. That said, if you're hoping for more generic cultures to suit humans (along with folks of any other ancestry), keep an eye out - I've got something planned for Wednesday.
And now, the cultures:
Grim Townsfolk
Beyond the walls of human towns, monsters stalk the night. Dragons lurk in every cave, witches flit across the night sky and consort with demons, and elves weave strange spells and steal children's breath - or so the stories go. Faced with a strange and dangerous world beyond their comprehension, their fear gave way to paranoia. They made walls of stone and laws of iron, bound angels to their will and submitted to the rule of petty tyrants, all in a bid to keep the dark at bay.
Common language: Celestial
Pick two:
Astral Voyagers
Born in the twilight years of a dying world, these humans came together in pursuit of one last, great hope. They gave all they had to built a fleet of spelljamming ships - one that could carry their children and their legacy for generations to come. And when at last they pierced the sky and emerged into the swirling splendor of the astral sea, they found that they were not alone. Now, these voyagers soar across a multiverse teeming with life, making new friends and taking on crewmates wherever the astral winds carry them.
Common language: Any
Pick two:
Faded Fantasy
The ages turned, and the world forgot. Now the maps are fixed. Now trains roll through once-sleepy towns, and old houses sit empty as the families who once lived there move on. Yet in the far corners of the land there are traces of what came before, in snippets of stories and prayers to gods whose names no one remembers. And every so often some brave fool walks away and vanishes past the far mountains, in search of a land where elves and dwarves still walk the earth, and dragons still soar the skies.
Common language: Any
Pick two:
Friends of the Dragon
Once, there was a wild and fearsome dragon who rampaged across the land, laying waste to all she touched. Though she was mighty, she feared what would happen were she to show the slightest hint of weakness. Yet one day, a few human farmers came to her not with swords but with kindness, to tend to her wounds and learn from her wisdom. In time, she learned to walk among them and share her magic. A town grew up around the dragon, then a kingdom, as she put her great strength to work healing the land and making a home of it. And though she has since grown ancient and weary, the kingdom she helped build still prospers and its people still cherish her.
Common language: Draconic
Pick two:
(For an explanation on how all this works plus some cultures for elves, see here. Other cultures: Dwarves, Orcs)
For today's batch of cultures, we've got a nice little heap of halflings. The first one here is pretty traditional, though I like the idea of other small folks moving in and joining halfling communities from time to time. The fourth one's where things get good and spicy though - after all, if you've got a group of folks who are all but incapable of fear and small enough to ride vultures and pterosaurs as a beastmaster ranger, why wouldn't they get into the storm-chasing business?
Pastoral Villagers
For many halflings, home is a quiet but cheerful place, full of well-cooked meals and good company. Though some such halfling communities have a reputation for being rather private and reclusive, in recent generations many have begun to welcome gnomes and even the occasional goblin or kobold among their number.
Common language: Halfling
Pick two:
Riverboat Migrants
For halflings without a land to call home, the great river beckons. Entire communities of halflings travel together in their riverboats, trading and swapping tales whenever they meet.
Common language: Halfling
Pick two:
Back-Alley Scoundrels
Life is tough for small folks in the big city. If you're not quick of wit and quicker with a knife, they'll trample you underfoot. But halflings know how to look out for one another, and their goblin neighbors too. Once, they feuded over scraps. Now no one dares touch their new family.
Common language: Halfling or Goblin
Pick two:
Fearless Storm-Chasers
Druids and wizards alike have long known of the power that bottled lightning holds, but only a few cliff-dwelling halfling tribes are brave and nimble enough to snatch it straight from the source. Though their ancient traditions have given way to a booming industry of alchemists and lightning-merchants, those fearless few among them who mount their great birds and dive into the heart of the storm still command tremendous awe and respect.
Common language: Halfling
Pick two:
(For an explanation on how all this works plus some cultures for elves, see here. Other cultures: Dwarves)
If you take one thing away from this post, let it be this: I think orcs should get to punch God, as a treat. Violence has long been associated with orcs, if at times in some very dubious ways, and it's ultimately up to you to determine what that means for the orc cultures in your world. Is it transcendent and liberatory? Dreary and grounded in the realities of war, of long marches, sore feet, and empty stomachs? Not really a thing to begin with? I went for a 50/50 split with today's orcs - half grappling with the legacy of violence inflicted upon and by them in different ways, half saying screw that, let's have some fun forest jocks/cool crypt goths.
Weary Warriors
An orc's life is to fight and kill and die, and an orc's death is to fight and kill and die again in an endless, bloody cycle of planar warfare. So you have been told, in the brief time you knew your ancestors. So you will tell your children, if you live long enough to have any. You have grown resigned to the inevitability of violence, but it weighs on you all the same.
Common language: Orc
Pick two:
Vengeful Godkillers
After untold generations in the hands of a cruel and angry god, some among your number did the impossible. You toppled your god and shattered his throne, crushed his skull beneath your boots and drank of his blood. And with the taste of liberation fresh on your tongues, you turned to find a world of gods who were never there for you, who cherished their champions in their perfect, beautiful cities even as they sent them to slaughter your people. Some day, perhaps, you will learn to forgive the mortal pawns who fought and killed and died against you. But their gods? They must pay.
Common language: Orc
Pick two:
Sturdy Lumberjacks
Among the boomtowns at the forest's edge, orcs live and work side by side with dwarves and other sturdy folk, chopping trees and shipping lumber down the river. The elves may not like it, but it's a living.
Common language: Orc or Dwarvish
Pick two:
Speakers for the Dead
The world and its peoples are old indeed, and few more so than the orcs. These orcs live among their half-buried cities and mortuaries, tending to the honored remains of the ancient dead. Though they may appear frightening to outsiders, few can match their archival knowledge or mastery of bone and spirit.
Common language: Orc
Pick two:
(For an explanation on how all this works plus some cultures for elves, see here)
I'm back, with some more cultures for dwarves in D&D (and anybody else who feels like living alongside them or borrowing some of their cultural touchstones). Here at thaumaturgekitchen, we dare to ask the groundbreaking question: what if dwarves and halflings were pals? Plus, the tang of the sea! The mortifying ordeal of rendering your life up to the architecture of the numinous! Dragons!
And now, the cultures:
Lowland Miners
Where the high peaks give way to wide, rolling hills, dwarven and halfling cultures meet and often learn to coexist. While the dwarves forge their steel and mine under the ground, halflings farm the land above - though recent generations have begun to blur those distinctions. All in all, it's a prosperous partnership that has given rise to some truly remarkable stews and ales.
Common language: Dwarvish or Halfling
Pick two:
Salty Shipwrights
Coastal clans of dwarves lie at the heart of many bustling seaside communities, the brewers, fishers, sailors, and shipwrights that keep the ports afloat. Though something of an oddity to their inland cousins, these maritime dwarves swear by the salty spray of the sea in their beards.
Common language: Dwarvish
Pick two:
Mountaintop Tyrants
High in the mountains, these dwarves build citadels to guard their riches. Once, they were miners and artisans. But as the mines dried up, they turned to conquest and plunder to fill their vaults with ill-gotten gold, their might bolstered by pacts with fierce and ravenous dragons.
Common language: Dwarvish
Pick two:
Architects of the Transcendent
It came to their ancestors a hundred hundred generations ago. A glimpse of the divine, in the raising of walls and the turning of gears. A holy machine of earth and stone, of art and architecture. The cosmos aligned into a vast mechanism of transcendent perfection. For their god-that-will-be, these dwarves have spent the long centuries of their lives digging and dredging and building away at the same halls and walls as a dozen generations of dwarves before them and a dozen more to come. They have built towers that pierce the heavens and dug tunnels down into the depths of hell, have dammed seas and moved mountains stone by stone. They labor away at vast works whose completion they will never live to see, secure in the faith that when at last they lay their hammer down, another will be there to take it up.
Common language: Dwarvish
Pick two:
(TL;DR: I've been coming up with D&D cultures and there's some cool elf ones towards the end of this post)
If you've been keeping up with 5e D&D the past few years, you've probably seen the shift away from assigning traits based in any particular assumed culture to D&D races. On the whole this is a good and cool thing, if one that can sometimes leave a bit of a narrative and mechanical hole where culture might otherwise go. Simultaneously, there have been numerous third-party attempts to codify culture in D&D as something distinct from race/ancestry - Arcanist Press's Ancestry & Culture is a popular one, and I've been personally having a lot of fun lately with R-N-W's Ancestries & Cultures of Hemelin. So on that note, here's mine!
I went into this aiming to make something that could work with the published races in D&D with minimal modification, and that's sufficiently simple and formulaic that you can easily make your own cultures using this model to fit your world. As written, each ancestry under this system comes with four potential cultures, most of them loose enough to be inserted into a variety of different settings. Generally I lump subraces in D&D in under the same set of four cultures, though in cases with notable physical differences like drows' superior darkvision I've also given them a separate entry with four cultures of their own.
When putting together these lists of cultures, I had a few goals in mind. Each list should contain:
Each culture comes with a brief description, a dominant language that all characters of that culture learn (in addition to the Common language typically spoken by adventurers), and a list of five features. Each character from that culture chooses two of the five features, which represent skills and training that are commonplace among that culture. The first two options always consist of proficiency in a particular skill, while the remaining three are some combination of:
Your spellcasting ability for spells learned through your culture is your choice of Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, chosen when you gain this feature. Unlike many spells gained through a character's race, the use of these spells still requires material components. They generally represent magical training prevalent in your culture rather than innate power.
Not all worlds need contain all of the cultures included here, and indeed some may have worldbuilding implications that actively contradict one another. A character of a given ancestry might have any of the cultures associated with that ancestry, any culture more commonly associated with a different ancestry (whether by adoption, by immigration, or by broader cultural shifts in your setting), or another culture of your own invention. Tweak these, rearrange them, and craft your own as you see fit.
I'll be steadily posting more cultures over the coming weeks, but for now, here's...
Sylvan Hunters
In the deep forests of the world, these reclusive elves stalk the high branches, light of foot and fluid of form. Rarely, it is said, they may take in outsiders who leave their old lives behind to join them in their endless hunts.
Common language: Elvish
Pick two:
Fey Courtesans
Among the grand illusory palaces of the Feywild, elves of all types from eladrin to drow live side by side with gnomes and goblin-kin, all vying for the favor of the fey nobility. When these palaces drift into alignment with the material plane for their midnight balls, their denizens have been known to slip between worlds.
Common language: Sylvan
Pick two:
Imperial Masters
In some realms, the pursuit of beauty and immortality has turned elves cruel. They lord over an empire built on the backs of the shorter-lived races, molding the land to fit their perfect vision.
Common language: Elvish
Pick two:
Lonely Wanderers
There are lands where elves have all but disappeared, survived only by a few lonely, aging wanderers as each generation grows fewer in number. They travel the roads taking what hospitality they can find, astounding the likes of humans and halflings with tales of centuries past.
Common language: Elvish
Pick two:
Any D&D race can start with a culture from level 1, but to keep them balanced with the default rules and avoid superfluous proficiencies that don't align with a character's culture you may wish to remove features from a character's race or background to accommodate them. First, remove the typical languages of a character's race and replace them with Common and their culture's common language. You can then remove two of the following, and should generally aim to remove them from the race if possible (as they often represent an implicit default culture for that race) and the background if not.
You might instead remove any spells a character gains from their race - this accounts for half a culture if they gain only a single spell and the full culture if they gain more than one (including additional spells at higher levels). That said, these spells can also easily represent innate powers tied to a character's ancestry rather than anything culturally-learned.
