Mystic Arts

Look at this concept art!

The first step in developing the look of Blackguard was finding out what the people look like.

I knew I wanted to chase that idea of playing a fantasy RPG in that London we see in the Guy Ritche Sherlock Holmes movies, you know that one that's all smokey, moody, and somehow always bereft of daylight.

But it couldn't be too historical, it still had to be visibly a fantasy world. ...

Livestreams — a Story of Overtime

The Gameplay Trailer for Echoes of the End is now out, and so is the release date; August 12th. As you can imagine, I'm working hard on that project right now. We're polishing the game, bug testing, meeting certification, and all the final steps before a game can be released. And it's a lot of work with some occasional overtime.

From the beginning of this channel it's been stolen moments; a few hours here and a few hours there between sessions and work...

Hexploration now in store

Hey if you always wanted to pick up the Hexploration rules alone, they are now available as al-a-carte purchase in our store!

Our Patreon is changing...

...before you panic, there are no price hikes!

If the Welcome surveys are to be trusted, we know a lot of you are here for the Hexcrawl rules, which; Hi! Welcome! They're on here! But that's not all that's going to be on here. We're wanting to make sure we're making something new and exciting going forward.

We've been thinking a lot about how we can best serve the growing community here on our Patreon... because it's take...

Vessels of Light | Adept PDF

The Vessels of Light are a pair of divine artifacts for fifth edition. These are very powerful magic items that should not be handed out lightly, but in the hands of a true champion of good have the potential to bring dawn to even the darkest night.

Each artifact comes with some supplementary materials, whether that’s a list of spells or a complementary magic item. These were specifically designed to be used with their respective artifacts and were not balanc...

Warlord now in store

As promised, we're putting the individual Mystic Adept PDFs into the store one-by-one three months later. So, the Warlord is now available in the store and at a lower price! Please do check it out and tell us what you think about it!

What Combat Type should we cover next?

In one of our first videos, we talked about 8 Types of Combat, and since then, we've two specific types; the Ambush and the Boss Battle. But there's six more, which types are you looking forward to the most?

The Hungry Mutts

You don't get it, do you? This town needs us.

This is the Hungry Mutts, a five room dungeon that underwent mitosis. It's an adventure I ran successfully for our group a few months back and we outlined here as an adventure document!

The introduction goes:

As the party arrives in the isolated town of Soda Springs, they’re greeted by a retired military man named Gregor Heldt. Gregor is polite, well-spoken, and invites the party to...

2025-05-25 15:00:15 +0000 UTC View Post

GSS Centurion | Adept PDF

Disintegration is a painless death.

What if you ran a spaceship in 5e? Like, your players literally came across a spaceship in their fantasy world and delved into it, thinking it was a dungeon crawl, and slowly realized the truth. This adventure idea has come in various forms in the past, most famously in the classic tournament play adventure Expedition to the Barrier Peaks! This is my take on this iconic premise.

I ran this adventure originally a...

Open Question: Bonus Videos?

We're wanting to provide more content on here for patrons exclusively. We're wondering what kind of bonus video content are you most excited about seeing? Feel free to comment a suggestion, and if you see a comment with a suggestion you agree with, like it!

I'd love to hear what you all think!

Firearm Rules available in Store

Starting now, by popular demand, we're selling Mystic Adept PDFs as individual posts on the Patreon Store three months after they've been made available for Mystic Adepts. So, today, the Firearms Rules are now available for al-a-cart purchase! They're a bit cheaper...

Wreck of the Wavesplitter | Adept PDF

Remember the Wavesplitter? This 5-page modular adventure was designed over two livestreams earlier this year, with Daði and the chat working together to create a story of shipwrecked pirates infected by the Reef, a coral hivemind lurking deep underground.

Since then it's received a little bit of polish, but it remains an example of the fact that you don't need a lot to run a dungeon. There's no map, only a reference picture of the atoll (courtesy of 2025-05-15 15:00:15 +0000 UTC View Post

What videos do we make in June?

We're starting to think about videos we want to make after Dungeon Mayhem is over, and we're wanting to look into some more out-there and different advice, as opposed to the classic approach of dungeons.

Which of these video titles sounds MOST interesting to you?
(We'll do them all eventually, just trying to prioritize!)

All Hail Gek!

It's DUNGEON MAY-HEM and we're posting four dungeons on the Patreon this month! Some are exclusive to Mystic Adepts, and others will be free. But before we get to the new stuff, we're starting off with ALL HAIL GEK!

All Hail Gek! is a dungeon written for beginners, and it explains itself as you run it. It's a quick and simple tutorial on dungeon mastery as well as a suitable beginner dungeon for new players. It features kobolds, treasure, a mystery, a political plot, a ...

Why Dungeon May-hem!?

It's a bunch of videos about dungeon in May. What else were we going to call it?

I wanted to write a quick post to talk a little about why we're doing Dungeon May-hem! I've mentioned this a bit in our livestream on fast travel, but I figured I'd summarize it here too!

On the twenty-fifth day in the fifth month of twenty-twenty-five, and for five ...

Daði the Dungeon Guy!

If you caught us live today you might've seen the "Daði the Dungeon Guy" theme tune and music video made by Knigobi and Delver!

I figured it'd be a shame not to share it with ya'll as an individual file!

Two CR 30 Boss Monsters

Being a huge fan of Matt Colville, when I ran my level 1 - 20 campaign, I was inspired by a villain he talked about in his videos: Ajax.

In time, I created my own fork of that character, different in many ways, mine had ascended for instance! The campaign revolved around a quest to unmake his godhood in order to be able to kill him.

When the heroes succeeded in ending his divinity, he attacked them during the Last Day of the Last War, and an epic fight took place. The last fight b...

How long should a video be?

We never think about video length when making these videos, other than as a way to gauge the difficulty of writing and editing something longer. Is there an ideal length of Mystic Arts video in your mind?

How do you like the longer form book reviews? What about those shorter tip videos? How does length factor into your decision to watch or not to watch?

Inspiring Encounters in Barovia

In a quick rush, I wrote up a new sort of encounter table for Barovia. This is a table of "Inspiring Encounters" - they aren't rigorous: they're meant to excite you when you're running the game! To be an easel you draw new ideas onto.

The Hexploration Rules | Adept PDF

Here's a rules light system that will provide a loose structure around your hexcrawls. I think it's exactly as complex as it needs to be: not even a little. I use these rules actively in my current game. It's been edited for legibility by my collaborator Magnús!

In the new revised rules, we include more guidance on the system, an outline on how you could create your own rules for random encounters, clearer rules text, improved layout, rules for permanent injuries, and more!

I've ...

Orethon Calendar

In my own campaign setting I use my own calendar! It's got it's own days and weeks and months! On one hand, I think it's immersive to have your own calendar, but I also made use they were all english words so that we could feasibly say them outloud and eventually learn which is which.

The actual calendar handout for the year 1450 was made by my one of my players Anna R.

The Kingdom of Ulvador

To quickly show how easy map making can be, I made a world map for the Kingdom of Ulvador and the surrounding realms and posted a video about it. I figured we could share the map here along with an Inkarnate link so folks can edit the map on their end as they please and maybe even finish it if they want.

https://inkarnate.com/m/5838ND

How does "Dungeon Month" sound to you?

In a poll on what our next "big idea" should be, the "huge dungeon" video idea won. And in the livestream options, the Megadungeon option won. So, ya'll like dungeons!

That had us thinking what about Dungeon Month? Throughout May, we'll make videos on huge dungeons, small dungeons, what they're good for, what they're about. All that stuff.

What are some questions you folks have about dungeons you wish we'd explain in a video? What do you want to know about dungeon...

How we set-up for our videos!

Come behind the scenes in this Patreon exclusive video, as me and AB we show how we convert our living room to be our "Youtube Studio" for filming our Mystic Arts videos!

Introducing the Bearowl!

Created long ago by misguided mages, bearowls are enormous owls with the head of a bear, blending powerful ursine jaws with silent, gliding wings. Despite their unnatural origins, these fearsome predators have adapted to the wild, soaring over moonlit forests and shadowed mountain peaks across the multiverse.

So, get this. Instead of Owlbear... bear-owl!

What should we livestream?

We're experimenting with livestreams this month! But we're wondering what kind of stream would you like to see turned into a series where we routinely revisit the same topic for a few streams to create something together?

Here's a few options tell us which option you like the most! But also, feel free to comment and post ideas that aren't on here!

The Warlord Class! | Adept PDF

The Warlord - A commander that reshapes the battlefield

The Warlord rules the battlefield. Commander, captain or battle-scarred veteran, whatever title they bear they are defined by both their martial prowess and their military insight. Warlords possess a potent combination of strength and intellect they use to win any battle they find themselves in.

The Warlord is a master of adapting to new circumstances and meting out violence in order...

2025-03-06 15:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post

Here's a bunch of town maps I made in Inkarnate!

In the newest video on the channel, we talk about how to make town maps in Inkarnate. If you want a head start, here's a bunch of images of the maps you can use, as well as Inkarnate sharing links you can use to edit the maps on your own end or use them as jumping-off points for your own towns!

Mysticarum https://inkarnate.com/m/nnXg50
Soda Springs 2025-03-04 15:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post

The next "Big Idea" video will be..?

According to our last poll on future "big idea" videos, the boss battle idea won. So, we've written a script for that and it'll be coming out in a couple of weeks!

We wanted to revisit the idea of the two other "big ideas" since they were head-to-head in the poll. So, which video would your rather see?

Here's some weird soundbites from Daði

Some folks in the Discord requested a soundboard of the strange things that Daði says, so here's that!