World Weaver's Cottage of Everything

May 24

May 24 Special Traits for Monsters

Every monster in Dungeons and Dragons has unique traits that make it what it is. These traits include spellcasting, attacks, Legendary Actions, senses, languages, saves, and skill proficiencies. However, what about those sort of – listed traits that don’t fall into those categories? Well, that’s called a ‘Special Trait’, and they’re on most stat blocks for monsters. Special Traits normally encompass passive abilities, such as auras, particularly special senses, additional damage under certain conditions, certain resistances, and basically any other ability that doesn’t fall under the other categories of the stat block.

May 3

May 3 More Supernatural Charms for D&D 5e

Olivia Grills

Homebrew

Supernatural charms are small enchantments granted to players either explicitly (as with the Chwinga creature) or implicitly (an ethereal creature gives a player character a gift in gratitude). They’re temporary, useful, and great when you don’t really want to reward gold or magic items for a job well done. Here’s fifty of them for your game!

Aug 14

Aug 14 A Guide to Homebrewing Magic Items

Olivia Grills

Homebrew, Advice

There’s a lot of things to look forward to when you create your own world for Dungeons and Dragons. You can make landscapes, entire dimensions, societies, religions, divine beings, terrifying enemies - it’s all at your command. To be honest, though, while every creation I make excites me in some way, the unique element of magical items in D&D is some of the best fun I can have.

Jul 15

Jul 15 Artisan Tools Revisited: Alchemy

Olivia Grills

Homebrew, Revisited

It’s very likely you’ve seen some homebrew for Alchemy in particular. For my guide, I aim for something more meaningful and interactive, but also very easy to drop into your game without it becoming so time-consuming that it takes up a full session to make a potion.

Jun 13

Jun 13 The Basics of World Building: Realism, Believability & Fantasy

Olivia Grills

World Building, Homebrew

As readers and viewers of fantasy, we have different thresholds for how much we’re willing to believe based on what information we have on the world and how it functions. If the world is set up well, people will rarely question how something is possible, because the world does a good job establishing that it is possible.

May 24

May 24 Homebrew Ideas: Elven Nonverbals

Olivia Grills

Homebrew

In Elven culture, it’s preferable to solve conflicts with words over violence, if possible. But if words fail, but violence is unneeded, many Elves utilize a special form of sign language to communicate complex feelings.

May 14

May 14 Homebrew Ideas: Magic Tattoos

Olivia Grills

Homebrew

Rather than getting the tattoos from particular artists, a player using RAW would instead find a special needle that’s pressed to the skin for the attunement process, then the tattoo would simply appear on the skin. The process of receiving them, in this weaver’s humble opinion, could use more flavor. I believe tattoos should require more than just finding a special needle in a dragon hoard, so I reworked the rules for my version.