Image is copyright MCDM Productions
Another beautiful piece of cover art from Sean Andrew Murray depicting some sort of great siege engine. I love it.
Introcaso’s editor’s note focuses on asking logical questions about the fantastic details of our D&D worlds and carrying them to their conclusions. Certainly good advice for world building and reflected in this issue.
The first article is Long-Term Curses by Leon Barillaro. This provides six curses immune to the Remove Curse spell. These all seem to be less mechanical than narrative elements. The Curse of the Betrayed is interesting narratively, but seems like it would be difficult to do in practice. The Curse of Cassandra, paying homage to the Iliad, seems like it would be easier to roleplay. It’s harder to keep control of a group that is actively undermining one another and lying because it creates greater opportunities for problematic player behavior. While the prophecy curse provides an interesting narrative component that is easier to implement (the other characters simply need to act as though they don’t believe the prophecy, which is the curse, exactly as portrayed in the source material).
The Curse of the Living Dead is distinct in not really being character focused. Instead it provides the idea of a town infected by necromatic energy that causes the dead to rise at midnight, meaning that their corpses are destroyed and removed from the immediate area before they arise as zombies. Instead this is an interesting narrative element that you can insert as a quest line in almost any campaign. I may use it to describe a town in Krakovar in my Midgard campaign, defiled by the magic of the ghouls and Blood Kingdom. The characters would need to break the curse as part of their work as rebels.
The last three curses are similarly interesting narrative devices, but my favorite is the Curse of the Watchers, which slowly adds to a folk of ravens who follow an adventurer who stole a seemingly mundane item of the GM’s choice from a dungeon until the swarm attacks. This would also be a great tie in to the Grove of Crows in the Path of the Planebreaker. The Grove is essentially a horror themed demiplane with similar vibes and esthetic. Just reskin the ravens as crows.
The next article is the Goldmonger Subclasses, by Carlos Cisco. I love these subclasses, like the unique and nuanced take on avarice as a divine domain. You don’t have to be evil to be greedy or a voracious collector of valuable magic items. The article is also very well written in my opinion.
There’s a flavorful but brief description of Pta’u as a god of deals before launching into the cleric subclass. It has some powerful features, like the ability to duplicate a domain spell effect on yourself or an object you are touching after casting it on another creature or object. That means you can cast haste on your martial friend and yourself, or a number of other decent spells. Additionally there are other interesting abilities that add up to having a degree of battlefield control. Overall probably a middling subclass in terms of power, so it shouldn’t break your game.
The next is the Circle of the Gilded Druid, focusing on guarding natural resources of gold and gems from those who would take them. So I imagine they hate miners (not a subclass for Lost Mines of Phandelver perhaps). I’d need to test out the subclass to see how it performs, but largely it tries to boost the melee capabilities of the Druid with a ranged attack boost late at level ten. You’d still have the core controller and support spells of the Druid, but this certainly seems geared towards your character primarily relying on primal savagery for most of your attacks. A small boost to AC and resistance occurs at sixth level, meaning like most druids it would be advantageous to pick an ancestry that provides earlier buffs to AC if you plan to spells any significant amount of time in melee. So some cool abilities, but limited utility as far as their use. Probably another subclass that won’t break the game.
Next is the Paladin Oath of Acquisitions. The flavor on this one immediately makes me think about running an Acquisitions Incorporated game. It would definitely be a good addition thematically. It seems a little overtuned, with several abilities allowing you to impose disadvantage on enemy attacks. The aura allows this on any enemy within 10 feet, which seems like it could do a number on a boss encounter.
The final article is Alabaster’s Almanac, by Sam Mannell. This article details nine new spells for arcane casters. They are all generally balanced, if sometimes a little too specific in their use cases. There is an odd ninth level spell that lets you turn illusions into real objects or creatures (but not magic items). Much like the other spell offerings, potentially useful to inject on a case-by-case basis, or give to an NPC or villain in your campaign.
That’s it for Arcadia 5!
