Nowadays, few would think twice when presented with this basic 12-card deck used in the simple and popular Cutthroat card game. Cartomancers and players who remember the sordid origins of Cutthroat still carry the enchanted version of the deck, smuggled into secure areas for their work.
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Cutthroat Deck
Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement)
This magical deck of cards holds 12 cards printed on a magical stiff vellum.
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2023-04-03 14:04:00 +0000 UTC
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These ante chips are perfectly crafted from thin metal and ashen wood. The Curator of the Golden Hoard casino personally bequeaths enchanted gold and silver ante chips to patrons who embody the gambling spirit. Officially, they serve as supportive encouragement that keep gamblers alive, but the Curator also uses them to keep tabs on her customers.
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Gambler's Chip
Wondrous item, rare
Two types of Gambler's Chips ex...
2023-04-03 14:03:00 +0000 UTC
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Bearing the recognizable shimmer of the Golden Hoard casino's lights, this plate armor combines the accessibility of gambling with gaudy display of wealth. Some may say only fools entrust their luck to the chaos of the universe, but those who know better understand how to nudge luck in the right direction.
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Roulette Plate
Armor (half plate or plate), rare (requires attunement)
You have a +1 bonus to your AC while you wear thi...
2023-04-03 14:01:59 +0000 UTC
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This weapon's blade is forged from solid enchanted gold, created for no discernible logical reason besides the flashy display of wealth. Grooves in the blade indicate locations where sections of blade can be snapped off.
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Blade of Exorbitant Wealth
Weapon (greatsword), uncommon
You have a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. When first found, this greatsword's blade has four solid gold sectio...
2023-04-03 14:00:05 +0000 UTC
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This is a preview for March's Primordial's Wrath compendium! This 33-page compendium presents lore and descriptions for running a campaign set against a cataclysmic primordial backdrop. Discover 64 options to differentiate your elemental rifts, sets of corruption templates to grant monsters elemental flavor, 10 adventure hooks, 1 elemental ranger subclass, 20 elemental items, and 9 elemental foes, including f...
2023-03-27 14:05:01 +0000 UTC
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(Full Rare+ Version)
An endless deluge of water spews forth from the primordial corruption of water, drenching the ground below with torrential downpour. The massive elemental itself is composed entirely of water or ice and typically manifests a form that closely resembles creatures of the deep sea, such as sea jellies, crabs, lobsters, octopus, sea horses, or sharks. It swims through the air as if underwater, intent on drowning the material plane in its element.
2023-03-27 14:03:01 +0000 UTC
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(Full Rare+ Version)
The primordial corruption of fire is a gargantuan elemental borne of flame, heat, and volatile destruction. It typically manifests as a creature drawn to fire such as a fire beetle, moth, or pseudodragon, or as a creature whose home has been ravaged by the primordial incursion event such as a forest beast or woodland critter. Whichever its form, the primordial corruption of fire becomes a being of pure molten material encased by a hard magmatic ...
2023-03-27 14:01:02 +0000 UTC
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The primordial corruption of earth manifests as a reflection of an underground dweller, typically as an enormous burrower creature or millions of tiny elementals condensed into one. The form can be any ground-dweller, ranging from earthworms, spiders, snakes, badgers, rabbits, or turtles, and gains a rocky composition and appearance. Yellow shard-like crystals infused with the essence of primal earth grow out of the elemental’s body in wicked skewers.
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DESIGN...
2023-03-27 14:00:04 +0000 UTC
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(Full Rare+ Version)
The primordial corruption of air typically manifests as a gargantuan swarm of tiny elementals, each crackling with the force of wind and lightning. The swarm behaves as a loose swirling cyclone, though in rare instances it briefly condenses into the terrifying shape of a flying creature, which may be a moth, dragonfly, wasp, hawk, bat, or other Tiny flying beast. When it sweeps across the world’s surface, it leaves behind burned bodies, shatte...
2023-03-24 14:00:05 +0000 UTC
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The primordial corruption of air typically manifests as a gargantuan swarm of tiny elementals, each crackling with the force of wind and lightning. The swarm behaves as a loose swirling cyclone, though in rare instances it briefly condenses into the terrifying shape of a flying creature, which may be a moth, dragonfly, wasp, hawk, bat, or other Tiny flying beast. When it sweeps across the world’s surface, it leaves behind burned bodies, shattered windows, toppled structures, and debris ...
2023-03-24 14:00:04 +0000 UTC
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These items didn't have a fully-realized visual design during their stats development. I initially had more spells laid out when figuring out the other items, but cut them due to feature bloat, so I basically crammed the remainder here. As a side effect, these slivers are now mentioned as an object needed to combine the Four Primordial Weapons.
The slivers were originally wands; eventually I picked a more open-ended look (with distinct colors and silhouette) and incorporated some of the...
2023-03-20 14:02:01 +0000 UTC
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Captured within this rugged armor is the purest and most primal essence of earth, unyielding in moments yet ever-changing. Rocks wax and wane along the armor like the growth and erosion of earth.
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Plate of Primal Earth
Armor (half plate), legendary (requires attunement)
This plate grants you a +1 bonus to your AC as well as resistance to bludgeoning damage. You also have tremorsense out to 15 feet.
Earthen B...
2023-03-20 14:01:02 +0000 UTC
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Captured within this crown is the purest and most primal essence of fire, naturally volatile and destructive. Flames bursts from the spires, consuming anything to empower its own uncontrollable inferno.
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Crown of Primal Fire
Wondrous item, legendary (requires attunement)
While you wear this crown, you have resistance to fire damage, and you can magically see from a flame or fire within 30 feet of you as if you were in its spa...
2023-03-20 14:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Embodied by the cloak's everflowing form is the purest and most primal essence of water, flexible in small quantities yet unstoppable as a mass. Water seemingly spills from the cloak's collar onto the ground before evaporating without a trace.
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Cloak of Primal Water
Wondrous item, legendary (requires attunement)
While you wear this cloak, you have resistance to cold damage as well as a swim speed of 40 feet.
2023-03-13 14:03:01 +0000 UTC
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Held within the belt is the purest and most primal essence of air: flexible, free, yet strong in forcible bursts. The belt draws air into orbit around you in a slow swirling vortex.
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Belt of Primal Air
Wondrous item, legendary (requires attunement)
While you wear this belt, you have resistance to thunder damage, and you can hear whispers from up to 30 feet away.
Weight of Air. While wearing thi...
2023-03-13 14:02:01 +0000 UTC
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Voidspan is a new material for this themed compendium. In searching for weapons that slay elementals (as would be needed if primordial titans are on the rise), I realized that nothingness is the opposite of what the four elements (in this fantasy) represents. The Null Reaver is a slightly more special version of a voidspan weapon. It's got a cool look.
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The voidspan in this weapon thrums with the constant clash between nothingness and existence. As the opposition to the phy...
2023-03-13 14:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Thank you to everyone who supported the Aripockily Homebrew projects! All this awesome content is only possible through your generosity. The Four Elements have been one of those ideas that's always floated around but I never got around to doing.
The elemental corruptions in the book are especially exciting. Because of how devastating primordials are, they needed a way to essentially generate a ton of elemental minions without overloading the book - hence some corruption templates that c...
2023-03-13 14:00:05 +0000 UTC
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I've been fascinated by elemental interactions since I discovered the runes in Runescape, so the mephits of 5e are no different. I really like the random summon table, though I had to design some lower-CR versions of the elementals for when 2d4 yielded the same result. At CR 2, each proto-elemental is about double the CR of 2 mephits.
The proto-elementals are mostly pared down versions of their full counterparts, with a couple fun changes.
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This helmet belonged to ele...
2023-03-13 14:00:02 +0000 UTC
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One of the strange challenges of designing elemental items is that equal time need to be devoted to all four elements, yet not enough design space to accommodate too many items of the same element. The solution is items with affiliations, whose mechanics are mostly the same but vary based on the element.
I like these boots because their mobility benefits are quite varied, particularly when it comes to the "teleportative" plasma of fire.
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Explorers of elemental planes ...
2023-03-06 15:02:01 +0000 UTC
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This weapon is the culmination of the four elemental weapons, merged into one. The artifact essentially solves the question of attuning to all four weapons by combining them into one. Of course, this is an Artifact level item, so its extraordinary power, while wieldable, is granted solely at the GM's discretion based on how the story requires they be fused.
The stats include a suggestion of another item which I may or may not illustrate, which are basically powerful elemental crystals. ...
2023-03-06 15:01:02 +0000 UTC
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The fourth and final weapon of the primordial set. Mirror Image is a pretty great spell on its own. I initially designed the look to be more akin to a stream of water, but changed course later on when I realized it did not look as powerful as would a stream of seawater, more akin to the tide.
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This whip is one of four weapons wielded by the heroes of the last Awakening, used to slay the primordial titans before their disaster can befall the mortal realm. Icy spikes jut from...
2023-03-06 15:00:05 +0000 UTC
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With three weapons out, it should get pretty clear how these items work! They'll be a great part of a item collection campaign (for around mid-level through high-level adventurers) and eventually combine into something great. Note that there's room for attunement to all 4 items, which is only relevant to certain classes or special items, and will also make a bit more sense later.
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This halo is one of four weapons wielded by the heroes of the last Awakening, used to slay the...
2023-03-02 17:02:00 +0000 UTC
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I tried out a different render method for this one. I'm not sure it's completely successful, but it might be because I didn't realize how difficult it'd be to make natural stone look imposing!
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This staff is one of four weapons wielded by the heroes of the last Awakening, used to slay the primordial titans before their disaster can befall the mortal realm. Its haft is conglomerated stone, bound by the prime earth crystals growing from its head.
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2023-03-01 17:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Welcome to the new month! This month, the most popular theme was PRIMORDIALS, aka elementals. It's funny because we just explored an air theme and now we'll do a little more of that. There's usually 3-4 posts released on Mondays, but I was a little busy with other work/life, so they'll come out 1-2 days later this week. The week after shouldn't change. 🤞
This first weapon is one of a set of five, and took maybe 6 hours to re-think and tweak (part of the reason for the delay tbh). The...
2023-02-27 15:00:06 +0000 UTC
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A separate post for the empyrie stat block.
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I knew I wanted a Big Bird™ as part of a sky-themed compendium. In the end it kind of ended up being like a roc with a few extra steps, which I suppose is fine. Its potential celestial flavor and its mystical need to never land is pretty fun to play with though, and should offer lots of opportunities in games.
2023-02-25 15:04:00 +0000 UTC
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A separate post for those who only want the stat block for the cloud dragon.
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This dragon was pretty fun to design! One of the things I liked about this is how the two breath weapons combo with each other and make the environment that much more difficult to fight in. The lingering breath weapon cloud is dangerous to be in for a variety of reasons. Players will have to think more cleverly or make decent preparations to defeat the cloud dragon. Compared to other dragons, the clou...
2023-02-25 15:02:59 +0000 UTC
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This is a preview for February's Among the Open Skies compendium! This 27-page compendium brings you 1 new player ancestry, 1 new monk subclass, 23 new items with beautiful art, 9 new sky-themed monsters, and 8 pages of lore, features, and adventures for the open skies and the capital flying city of Cirro.
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Want to see more? Patrons at the $5+ level gain instant access to over 500 pages of cont...
2023-02-25 15:02:00 +0000 UTC
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Monks of the Way of Dancing Wind hone their discipline from observing the flow of the wind, unrestrained in its freedom yet devastating when properly shaped and harnessed.
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Monk was a natural choice for a sky theme, the other being the Druid. Most other full casters were not Wisdom-based, and those that were already had some sort of existing sky flavored subclass. And I already did a ton of rangers in September. Monks already had a bunch of movement-based features in t...
2023-02-20 15:04:59 +0000 UTC
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A skybound people, cloudlings trace their origins to the vast primal magic of the open sky. Whichever the case, the cloudling loses its original ancestry and becomes something entirely different.
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I had not yet created an ancestry capable of limitless flight (the only other flying ancestry is the myrachid, aka million bugs), so I figured an open sky theme would be the perfect time to do so. Thematically, I wanted to build upon sky magic - whether from dragons or giants...
2023-02-20 15:02:00 +0000 UTC
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This cloak was originally just like any other feathered flying cloak but a later rework to make it more interesting and unique. Now it has baked-in lore potential, allowing characters to theoretically make thi...
2023-02-20 15:01:02 +0000 UTC
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