Wondrous Item, uncommon

This heart-shaped amulet with a winding key has 3 charges. While holding it to your chest and using an action to wind the key, you can expend 1 charge for the following properties.

Assistive Heartbeat. The amulet sends a magic signal to your heart that lasts for 1 day to compensate for Organ Failure, Heart Palpitations, or other heart-related conditions. This stops any form of deterioration in condition for 1 day and gives you +2 on all related saving throws. This function lasts a full day as long as the amulet remains within 1 foot of your chest.

Heart Goes Out. You use your action to touch a living creature, and you take 1d4 necrotic damage, which can’t be reduced in any way, and the creature that you touch regains a number of hit points equal to twice the necrotic damage you take.

Give Me Your Heart. You use your action to touch a willing living creature. The creature that you touch takes 2d4 necrotic damage, which can’t be reduced in any way, and you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to half the necrotic damage.

The amulet regains 1 expended charge daily after a long rest.

Wondrous Item, common

This wizard spellbook records spells verbally and can speak them back to the caster, eliminating inscription and preparation penalties, but it speaks at a normal conversation level, and the volume cannot be adjusted, ruining any stealth possibilities. The book can also speak the verbal components to the spell if the caster is unable to speak.

Wondrous Item, common

This iron hand, covered in gears and other moving parts, can grip with vice-like strength. Once you successfully grapple a target, you have advantage on Strength checks to maintain the grapple. It also eliminates penalties to Strength (Athletics) checks while climbing and gives advantage to any other Strength check to maintain a grip.

Wondrous Item, very rare

This visual prosthetic appears as a hollow white semicircle the size of an eye socket hanging from a 16-inch gold chain. When you affix it over your closed eyelid, it takes on your preferred aesthetics and the size and shape of your eye socket, keeping that appearance when removed. While worn, this sentient eye can see and hear within a 120 foot cone and can communicate what it sees and hears through emotional impressions. Twice per day, you can use a reaction to cause an attack within its cone to be made with disadvantage. You can use an action to cast the Mislead spell once per day. You may use an action to cast the Detect Thoughts spell three times per day. While casting Detect Thoughts and choosing to probe, the bearer may attempt an additional contested Charisma check on the eye’s behalf to hide its presence in the target creature’s mind. If the item fails the check, the spell ends. The eye regains all expended charges after a long rest.

Wondrous Item, common

These brown bracers, made from a giant centipede exoskeleton, attach to a limb with leg-like clips. When worn, they reduce the IE of Cramps on arms or legs by 2 while worn by relaxing the cramping muscles, but they also cause IE 2 Numbness and Paralysis to the affected limb after being worn for a minute. The paralysis lasts for 2d4 minutes after the bracers are removed.

Wondrous Item, uncommon

This back brace, made from the carapace of a giant scorpion, has 3 charges. While wearing it, you have +2 on all Back Stiffness-related saving throws and can expend 1 charge as a melee weapon attack to sting one creature, causing 7 (1d10 + 2) piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 12 Constitution saving throw, taking 11 (2d10) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. The brace regains 1d3 expended charges daily after a long rest.

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To my wife, Teresa, for always being my companion on the many harrowing adventures that comprise our lifetime together.

Adding Depth to Inclusion

A band of goblin bandits, snarling and brandishing their weapons, charged at the party. The fighter stepped forward, using her training and strength to take on the goblins head-on. She swung her sword with precision, cutting down the goblins one by one.

Meanwhile, the gnome wizard unleashed a flurry of spells, engulfing the goblins in fire and ice. The halfling rogue used her agility and stealth to strike from the shadows, taking out the goblins with swift and deadly blows. And the dwarven cleric used his divine magic to heal his companions and smite the goblins with holy energy. They fought together valiantly, and in the end, they emerged victorious.

Those adventurers succeeded thanks to the combination of skills important to a well-balanced party, able to accomplish more together than each could individually. The same applies to disabled characters. A blind paladin is not less capable of being a hero/adventurer/party member than a seeing rogue—they just have different skills and abilities. An elf might consider all humans disabled for lacking darkvision or needing to sleep, and a halfling might consider those without their luck limited, but when we begin first with the person—their values, hopes, dreams, fears, and joys—and then consider other traits, whether mental, mobility, magic, or martial, we develop characters with depth and authenticity.

Do your research. Find real-world examples, interviews, blog posts, and other information about not just the symptoms or traits of a disability, but how it’s experienced by those who experience it, and note that no two persons experience it the same way, yet their experiences share commonalities. How does this experience affect daily life and responsibilities, from dressing and eating to social interaction? What challenges does it bring, and what advantages? How does that person adapt to the challenges, and how do they want others to help them? Incorporating this information into your game can help create more realistic and nuanced characters. 

Avoid tropes, stereotypes, and assumptions. Not all disabilities are visible, and they can vary in the extent of their impact from day to day. Many wheelchair users are ambulatory, meaning they can stand and walk but not for extended durations. Blind people can use their other senses more effectively, but they don’t have heightened senses. Paralysis, like most disabilities, has degrees beginning with joint stiffness or differences in motor control. Avoid using disability as a plot device or as a defining characteristic of a character, and instead, focus on their individual personalities and perspectives.

Making an Inclusive Game

As much as tabletop roleplaying games emphasize cooperation, they’re not inherently inclusive. Intentional steps make the difference.

Representation

In the real world, disability is a common and diverse experience, and by including disabled characters in a game, designers create a world that more closely resembles the diversity of our own. This inclusion communicates a welcoming atmosphere to players the same way adding other marginalized identities and experiences does.

Especially when moving beyond tropes like pirates with peg legs, disability inclusion demonstrates openness to learning about others’ experiences, showing care and concern for others’ needs without patronizing.

When players choose to play a character with different experiences and abilities than their own, they have a unique opportunity to consider others’ lives and enhance their empathy for the feelings and needs of a wide variety of people.

When players play characters representing their own disabilities, it helps them reinvent themselves and their circumstances as victorious, even when life’s challenges or an inaccessible environment or culture cause frustration.

Accessible Gaming

Accessibility needs vary for each individual, so asking individuals privately about accessibility needs provides the most accessible environment, whether online or in person. Discuss these needs with each player before you begin, including how they want those needs or the adaptive strategies communicated to the rest of the group, and communicate your willingness to adapt the environment or tools as needed and as needs arise, thus creating a more inclusive gaming experience for everyone.

For everyone, safety tools like Lines & Veils or the X-Card can ensure sensitivity to mental health needs. See Disability, Neurodiversity, and Mental Health Resources for Tabletop Roleplaying Games on our website for details.

Multiple formats of game materials can make written content more accessible, including audio, ePub, plain text, HTML, and other options where available. Shared notes with names of NPCs, locations, plot points, and other details help everyone keep track of information, which also helps those who miss a session or when groups meet infrequently.

Consider the game space. Make sure you have plenty of room to move for those with mobility needs. Consider sound and lighting for those with sensory needs. If playing online, check what accessibility options your online tools offer. And offer breaks—depending on the group and length of a game session, five to ten minutes every hour or two can improve everyone’s enjoyment.

When meeting in person, consider the game pieces you’re using, whether miniatures, dice, or other markers, and make sure they meet the tactile and motor needs of the players.

Accessible Groups

Beyond physical and virtual tools to accommodate the needs of the group, an overall attitude within the group of intentionally seeking inclusion for all people makes such a group accessible to everyone, regardless of their needs or background.

Before beginning, the players can discuss the type of game, story genre, and other game details they prefer. A code of conduct to prevent harassment and discrimination communicates safety.

Gaming groups can also make their group more accessible by engaging with and listening to underrepresented communities, including emphasizing inclusion in descriptions for public groups, reaching out to underrepresented peoples and inviting them to join the group, and making an effort to learn more about their experiences and perspectives directly from those populations.

The Characters

The Heroes

• Aderyn Lloyd
• Brace
• Donna Nason
• Dread
• Eilwynn Ilaras
• Hadarai Liadon
• Jaydrey Forewood
• Lanark
• Lechlun Adarian
• Moonmaeven
• Naiara Trevica
• Ollie Dragao
• Orrelius
• Precision
• Rivaan Linxakasendalor
• Rohna Ginnsley
• Rork
• Veralynn Sweetbriar
• Veritas Cadell
• Zilji Larka

Supporting Cast

 

Adventures

• A Light in the Tower
• Plague in the Mountains
• Playing with Fire
• The Haunting of Smith Row
• The Search for Dread

Bonus Encounters

Credits

• Project Lead: Dale Critchley
• Character Design: Dale Critchley, Simone Arnold, Matthew Rickmon
• Sensitivity Reader: Naomi Hazlett
• Copy Editor: Lynne M. Meyer
• Layout Editor: Rodney Sloan
• Cover Design: Galadriel Coffeen
• Character Art: Dana Braga, Erin Anderson, Kalman Andrasofszky, Kii Weatherton, Luca Ippoliti
• Character Sculptors: Ludwik Łukaszewski, Matheus Zastawny
• Character Consultants: Abraham Klein, Cadfael Pugh, Daniel Wood, Donna Nason, George McDermith, Jeremy Hudgens, Jessica Ryan, Kimberly Sorenson, Lyssa Angélique, Thomas Darlington, Tony Newton, Victoria Rogers
• Additional 3D Art: Clara Rose, Lily Summer

Legal

The names and descriptions of traits, assistive devices, creatures, service animals, and all tables in this document, except for the portions specifically declared Product Identity © 2023 by Wyrmworks Publishing are licensed under CC BY 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Notice of Product Identity: Product identity includes character backgrounds and personalities, adventure text, artwork, logos, symbols, designs, depictions, illustrations, maps and cartography, likenesses, and other graphics except stock art.

This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 (“SRD 5.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.