Arcadia 1 features a colorful, but grim depiction of a harpy (or harpy-like creature) roosting on a branch in a dark forest while clutching a hapless victim in a taloned claw. The bones tucked up behind suggest that this is the monster's lair. This evocative scene is by Gustavo Pelissari.
The inaugural editors note by James Introcaso (an amazing designer whose name has an extremely high probably of being on your favorite non-WOTC 5e product and who also has writing and design credits on a number of WOTC works) leads with a quote from Matt Colville regarding the magazine's mission; “ARCADIA should be full of stuff that is super actionable and really freaking dope.” On a side note, I think that while history and consumers will be the ultimate judge, Colville definitely has the personality and potential to be seen as a person as influential as Gygax or others on the development of this hobby. He certainly could be considered among the biggest names that have and will pop up in the 21st century.
Introcaso relates how the magazine will be a three issue experiment before the company assesses its direction and how to proceed. Oh, if he could only know then how long it would run. The articles credited are two adventures by Leon Barillaro and Sadie Lowry respectively, a Sorcerer subclass by Gabe Hicks, and new mounted combat rules and mounts by Willy Abeel. Spoilers follow for the adventures, so reader be warned…
The Workshop Watches by Leon Barillaro is essentially the story of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this case it is a magical lab rather than a computer, but in any case, the lab is now sentient. The parallels with HAL are made even more obvious by the lab named S.A.M. it's also building a magical robot body to contain itself so it can leave its confines on a mountain. It's interesting in making the dungeon itself the enemy in this adventure. One criticism is that information that would normally be held in a stat block is instead embedded in descriptive paragraphs. I think it would simply be more user friendly and easy to read if provided as an abbreviated stat block. Another critique is that some critical progression is locked behind possibly unnecessary skill checks, but there are minimal consequences for failure because this would completely derail the adventure. The section on approaching the workshop commits this foul, with a group survival check required to successfully navigate the overgrown trail and a group athletics check if you lose the way with a level of exhaustion for each failure. Presumably then a party could also simply die of exhaustion on the mountainside, given enough failed rolls. I suppose my point is that if the checks add no real narrative value then just cut it so we can get to the dungeon. On the other hand, I love the dynamic and creative actions that are included in a “Workshop Reaction Table,” which outlines random actions that the lab can take that remind the characters that they are in a sentient creature, not just a dungeon crawl.
While keyed to seven areas, the dungeon is basically a five room dungeon, meaning that it isn't arduous to run or prep. My complaint is that it's totally linear, and I personally think it's a bit of a waste to have a full color map mostly colored brown. But those are nitpicks. The maps are available via links at the back of the pdf, as they are with all MCDM products (which is amazing! Especially for folks tied primarily to VTTs for battlemaps). There are also some great handout illustrations for your players. Overall, while I personally don't really go for the “machines will take over and destroy us” type of story, I think this could be an interesting one shot or story work into a longer campaign. If I were to use it I might try setting it in Midgard or Eberron to if I had a gearforged or warforged player to confront them with a moral dilemma as to how to deal with another magically sentient construct.
On to the Titan Heart sorcerer! This is a five page subclass, along with a Titan Heart sorcerer NPC stat block, five new spells for the subclass, and a Titan Heart retainer (from MCDM's Strongholds & Followers). The flavor is unique, providing an early buff to size and in essence creating almost a frontline sorcerer build by buffing AC while in a titanic form, along with an option to use Charisma for the melee skill modifier, along with a boost to melee attack damage. The progression is simple, increasing the number of times the basic ability is available for the most part and following narratively themed grows in power like allowing an even larger size increase. Abilities that might seem more unbalanced are given at levels 14 and 18. Because those are already high levels that are appropriate to have some larger powers at, I think the Titan Heart is fairly balanced on paper, and perhaps in some circumstances it may even be underpowered. I say this because the core feature, Titan Manifestation, can only be used two times per long rest, and this only increases to three times at sixth level. Each instance also only lasts for one minute. All of the additional features of the Titan Heart, including its powerful first level spells are tied to activating Titan Manifestation. So if the DM throws more encounters at a party than that, then the sorcerer will primarily be playing as a regular old sorcerer. I would definitely allow this subclass in my own games. The art in this section is also beautiful. My favorite is the art by the Titan Mage retainer stat block.
Titan Mage illustrative art by Ognjen Sporin
Willy Abeel’s updated mounted rules are the next article. First, a summary of the existing 5e mounted rules is provided. I’ll admit, mounted combat was one of those things that seemed really hard to keep track of when I first started D&D. I still regret railroading the players in my very first campaign when they asked where they might find mounts and there was no ferrier or stable on the map in Saltmarsh so I simply said there weren’t any suitable mounts available.
The mounted combat rules as summarized in the article are helpful, and easy to grab for a GMs notes on their screen or as a reference so they can avoid my railroading mistake (I’ll be taking my own advice ASAP). The new content provided is really focused on building out better mount options that provide better abilities for the mount in combat and also help it scale as the player advances so they aren’t a powerful hero astride a fragile mount as they advance in level. These mounts end up being very similar to the final design for the companions in MCDM’s later product, the Beastheart. Stats are provided for a Basilisk, a Giant Toad, a Hippogriff, a Nightmare (my personal favorite), an Owlbear, and the dressed up warhorse (several years later, Willy also appeared in an MCDM video on these rules and stats out an Axebeak). There is accompanying art for most of these creatures (not the hippogriff or the warhorse). Some simple rules for taming a wild mount are also provided, and an encounter that can be dropped in your game to employ these new mounts. Notably this story contains a link to an audio recording by an NPC recorded by Willy. It’s a creative multimedia inclusion. The adventure as written is a bit railroady, but has interesting themes and ideas. It would be good drop in content for a wilderness town in your setting.
Finally, we have Uqaviel the Recreant, by Sadie Lowry, a high level arc featuring complex interactions between a fallen archangel and the peer who has betrayed and framed them. This adventure encapsulates the character-focused themes of 5e, providing complex motivations for Uqaviel, and offering the possibility of redemption or destruction as the betrayed becomes the type of villain they were bound to destroy. I really enjoy this story and would love to weave it into a campaign at some point. The art is very inspired by biblical ideas of celestial beings, an artistic motif that is also seen in MCDM's Strongholds & Followers. The article also provides some unique stat blocks for high level archangels that could be remixed or used for other purposes. These have some unique features, but are largely pulled from the solar stat block available in the 5e SRD.
Onwards to Arcadia 2!
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