With so much gloom about and April Fools day coming up, we're encouraging GMs everywhere to liven up their games with Zlick Willy’s Wily Wares! Get some laughs out of the table and kick a session into light-hearted mode with Zlick’s message cushion (imagine everybody’s faces when the wizard sits down and their chair seems to say, “Get off me you tub of lard!...
2020-03-23 20:12:59 +0000 UTC View Post
In ‘Act One: Against the Titans’ the PCs are in a Risur with no sun and the nature of magic itself has been fundamentally altered, forcing them to adapt as the fey titans wreak havoc. Before they can address these supreme entities however there’s bedlam in the city of Boles with the will of the people uniting, morphing into a bloodthirsty hivemind of tentacles! Afterward they must deal wi...
2020-03-16 15:20:54 +0000 UTC View Post
To protect cities from disease this reclusive organization populates the sewers beneath with oozes and other detritus feeders that clean waste and purify water sources. Although they provide a valuable service the seeding of sewers with gelatinous cubes is easily misconstrued by a fearful public so their work is done in secret, cultivating the dangerous creatures in hidden laboratories and rele...
2020-03-09 19:39:50 +0000 UTC View Post
Classically a chimera is a fire-breathing female monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail—and that's great. What's not to love? We're far too keen on these hybrid animal monsters to have just one however, so we've got another four to add to the list! This article includes the goatrilla (CR 5), manta lobstshark (CR 9), octobearfly (CR 3), and tyrazodactylsaurus (CR 12) w...
2020-03-02 19:32:47 +0000 UTC View Post
A mysterious message is brought to the adventurers, promising them that a reward and great boon await in the abandoned clanhold of the Greymail dwarves. When they arrive however they are confronted with a challenge: Voorhan Greymail believes they are the descendants of those responsible for bringing ruin to his clan, and he demands justice. The PCs can simply fight Voorhan and his dwarven champ...
2020-02-24 20:58:55 +0000 UTC View Post
The Esoteres believe a comprehensive understanding of reality is where true power lay—but that does not mean arcana should be abandoned. Their sages and scribes have developed a suite of unique spells to enhance their mastery over natural forces and the world around them, whether that be the calculat...
2020-02-17 21:27:47 +0000 UTC View Post
Perhaps feeling some butterflies in your tummy today or a spot of nervous indigestion? Maybe its your appendices that are the culprit—worry not because today's post is all about appendices! This segment of the module brings ZEITGEIST #9 to its official close with an appendix for each of the following: the Rites of Rulership (rules for monarchs that the PCs will get to make u...
2020-02-14 18:43:27 +0000 UTC View Post
Although they are certainly places of decay and death, swamps are also home to a great deal of life and they bustle with activity—the popping of gasses rising out of the muck, the chittering of insects ever searching for food, and in Chokewater, the clack of colliding lead firing off an explosive charge from Jaxi's rifle! The Blightgunner has fiercely protected her lair for 16 years now, thou...
2020-02-10 19:50:29 +0000 UTC View Post
After finding an orphaned baby displacer beast, enlightening the misguided apprentice to a mad wizard, or helping a lonely dire lion heal an injury making it aggressive there are many adventuring groups that won't want to abandon a wayward NPC or monster—instead they'll plead to include it in the party. Let them and use this article to guide the process, utilizing the mechanics for Morale, Go...
2020-02-03 19:17:32 +0000 UTC View Post
The seasons should have passed but spring still hasn't arrived—almost as if winter's chill is stalking the adventurers. Soon they realize the truth of the situation and discover that one of the party members has inadvertently won over the love of a powerful cold elemental, Gelissa the Spirit of Winter, and though her affection for them might be red hot it's too cool to be sustained. While not...
2020-01-27 20:10:22 +0000 UTC View Post
In every city adventurers tread one thing remains constant: there's probably a city watch or local police force. Usually these guards only come into play when the plot requires it or a group of PCs start brazenly breaking the law, but minor as they often are that doesn't mean that all city watches will be the same. That's where this article shines—use these templates and guides to rapid...
2020-01-20 19:09:46 +0000 UTC View Post
The name of the game in the second half of this module is regicide! These 36 pages bring a narrative close to ZEITGEIST's 9th adventure with 7 maps and 27 (!) different NPCs involved in plots to assassinate King Aodhan.
Catherine Romana (CR 9), Senior Ghost Councilor (CR 10), Ghost Council Detachment (CR 12), Skeletal Dragon Tyrant (CR 18), Profess...
2020-01-18 11:03:18 +0000 UTC View Post
Congratulations! With daring, skill, and a touch of luck you've achieved new heights of herodom by slaying a powerful monster! As the party starts canvassing its lair for treasure however, you instead draw your carving knife and get to work taking a trophy for yourself from the creature's cadaver. Unfortunately you don't really get much for your dragon's tooth, the scales of a chitinous aberrat...
2020-01-13 19:36:35 +0000 UTC View Post
A few weeks ago we introduced the sapient magical life forms wrought by the Order of Sentience as creatures—today’s article gives sentient illusions rules for use as a player race! Start adventuring as magic incarnate by choosing your core (diamond, emerald, onyx, ruby, sapphire, or topaz) and later on perhaps...
2020-01-06 22:04:44 +0000 UTC View Post
With decades of adventuring behind him it’s finally time for Talladio Mihrad to rest his blade and settle down. Unfortunately however this charismatic vagabond’s past is coming back to haunt him—he was a glorious monster slayer and hero to many, but he also sired copious children that are all now tracking him down to exact vengeance for their abandonment! This supplemental mini-adventure ...
2019-12-30 20:01:42 +0000 UTC View Post
This time of year is dominated by holidays—the Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Pancha Ganapati, Saturnalia, Yule, Boxing Day, Festivus—and in honor of these many traditions we've prepared a special article from a source uniquely suited to tackle religious subjects. Regular EN5ider contributor Josh Gentry is not only a talented and creative game designer, he's also a studyin...
2019-12-24 18:51:26 +0000 UTC View Post
Today's entry in the Monstrous Menagerie series brings into focus illusory arcana that have gone beyond the bounds of figmentation, attaining not just physical forms but sentience as well! The unique nature of these creatures ties each to a gemstone and set of characteristics that define the boundaries of a sentient illusion’s capacity for change after it achieves independent thought...
2019-12-23 19:51:59 +0000 UTC View Post
The second act of the ZEITGEIST adventure path begins its end in a perilous race against time as the heroes are trapped within the Dreaming. They are hard pressed to escape quickly to stop an Obscurati plot of regicide against the king of Risur, but to do so the adventurers must please a fey court and trick a true titan of nature!
This module (for PCs of 15th-16th level) is...
2019-12-16 20:12:53 +0000 UTC View Post
When the adventurers emerge battered and bruised from a dangerous situation they fortuitously stumble across the traveling healer Sanador. The elven woman introduces herself as an emergency medic who seeks out danger to offer aid, then gives each of the PCs a healing potion absolutely free of charge. What the party don't know is that the alchemist secretly laces her healing potions with a highl...
2019-12-09 20:01:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Baronies and fiefdoms are a staple of medieval fantasy, playing a role in many of our games and worlds—today's article takes a historical approach to understanding the barony of Alexander Ouer Middleton, providing a perfect example of the usual ruler, subordinates, and culture to be found in a medieval estate. Included are statistics for the baron (CR 3), his reeve (CR ¼), and the local mill...
2019-12-02 20:02:17 +0000 UTC View Post
The Monstrous Menagerie series is back with a variety of new dragons to enrich your 5E game! This article includes the fey dragon template with Teyladin the Reclaimer (a young green fey dragon) and the memory dragon template (used for the Librarian of Orban Tur, an ancient silver memory dragon). Written by Ben Green; illustrated by Alba Palacio and Ellis Goodson.
2019-11-25 22:47:24 +0000 UTC View Post
Many adventuring parties are heading into Hell for a bit and EN5ider has something to offer for these daring heroes, an Intriguing Organization that takes in the truly repentant to try and lead them to find redemption: the House of the Reclaimed Soul. Despite the horrorscape around them these ex-clerics, warlocks, and other fools tricked into serving fiends d...
2019-11-18 16:53:15 +0000 UTC View Post
Make your next overland trip more interesting and really engage adventurers with the world in just a few dice rolls! This article takes a look upon our collective past, using historical information and parallels to help GMs create realistic NPC encounters outside of major settlements (with examples), providing opportunities to roleplay, pass information via highway gossip, and even trade and re...
2019-11-11 19:32:53 +0000 UTC View Post
This is EN5ider's 300th ARTICLE! Thank you, wonderful patrons, for helping us reach this seminal milestone. To commemorate the achievement we've got an excellent extra special mini-adventure for today: a module that's meant for 11th-12th level play but with a little modification can be used anywhere from 3rd to 16th level. This has not one or two but THREE different ma...
2019-11-04 21:12:15 +0000 UTC View Post
With their next destination revealed the PCs must begin their plans to reach the ghost city of Methia, located deep in enemy territory, and they will need to properly plan their method of insertion and extraction from the Danoran-held city. To succeed the adventurers must journey across a dead magic field, sneak past an army, unleash a colossus, temporarily wind back time 5 years, face the vill...
2019-10-31 18:14:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Halloween is later this week and to help spookify your games we've got an unassuming horror to titillate, captivate, and eviscerate adventurers: the undead ragdoll Rosie Arkwright. Despite her small size she is durable, deadly, and able to create legions of creatures like herself, vastly outnumbering victims before swarming upon them with mystical needle and thread used to sew up mo...
2019-10-28 20:14:33 +0000 UTC View Post
Halloween is nearly here so the next couple articles offer a bit of creepy or gruesome content for your 5E game. With that in mind today's offering is all about corpses! Get the adventurers rooting about in cadavers after a battle ends in search of monster reagents they can transform into items that enhance spells, help concoct virulent poisons or useful potions, and even replicate the ab...
2019-10-21 19:36:48 +0000 UTC View Post
Veteran EN5ider designer Andrew Engelbrite has penned another article of fabulous magic items, but this time they're not enchanted trinkets—instead each are innocuous objects of a different sort, powered by curious little gremlins that love nothing more than to perform the specific tasks they've been conjured for! There are a total of 13 different such items within ranging from the s...
2019-10-14 19:55:55 +0000 UTC View Post
This short sidequest (designed for 4-6 PCs of 5th-9th level) can be placed in any campaign not currently set in an arid location. The adventurers find the climate becoming unusually hot during a journey, to the point that plants are dying around them. As they continue the normal landscape suddenly turns harsh, dry, and hot, and they encounter a few random fire elementals. At the center of this ...
2019-10-07 19:17:26 +0000 UTC View Post
In this 32 page second act of ZEITGEIST #8: Diaspora the party recovers an artifact to let Kasvarina recollect over five centuries of memories from across the world, and they too bear witness to the memory-events! For GMs that aren't using the adventure path yet the PDF includes 16 (SIXTEEN!) NPCs and monsters: a Vigil Chaplain (CR 9), Vigil Vindicator (CR 5), the Godhand Comm...
2019-09-30 18:54:25 +0000 UTC View Post