Sometimes, it can be hard to #LoveYourYou, but nothing like the support you can get from your gaming group to help with that! We welcome Honey from Honey & Dice to bring you some sweetness.

In our “Playing the Other” segment, we welcome Sebastian Yūe to talk about eating disorders and RPGs.

Content Warning: Eating Disorders

0:28 Introduction & Announcements

4:26 Honey and Dice

17:13 Sebastian Yūe on Eating Disorders

30:00 Wrap-up

Manually captioned. Transcript available at our website.

Honey & Dice links

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/honeyanddice 
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/honeyanddice 
• www.honeyanddice.com

Sebastian Yūe links

• Website: http://sebastianyue.ca/
• DMs Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Sebastian%20Y%C5%ABe
• itch.io: https://sebastianyue.itch.io/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/sebastianyue
• Lake of Secrets: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/319812/Lake-of-Secrets?affiliate_id=1917806 

Wyrmworks Publishing

• http://wyrmworkspublishing.com
• https://Patreon.com/wyrmworkspublishing
• Maps: https://wyrmworkspublishing.itch.io 
• https://facebook.com/wyrmworkspublishing
• @wyrmworksdale

The fire is coming. Will you prevent it in time?

It’s an old forest with majestic trees so thick that the canopy darkens the forest floor, but a looming danger is coming: the Ember Elk! What will happen to the forest when this flaming deer appears? And what about the goblin woman living in the cottage in the woods — can you save her?

This side adventure is designed for four to six characters with an average party level of 4.

This adventure includes new stat blocks:

• Monster: The Ember Elk
• NPC: Arieni Kettlewhistle (Our free Disabled NPC of the Week)

4K Battle Map available free to subscribers or for purchase at DriveThruRPG

Make Lives Better through Role-Playing Games

This adventure is one piece of a movement within the D&D community to invite, encourage, and include those who have not been, both in the RPG community and nearly everywhere in real life. Wyrmworks Publishing is dedicated to using RPGs to help you make lives better, to provide tools, training, and a community to this end. We believe that this will extend far beyond the ever-growing RPG community as more and more people learn, grow, and give and receive acceptance.

To that end, this adventure includes disabled NPCs just like in real life, including paralysis and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

This free adventure includes a simplified version for screen readers for the blind and visually impaired, stat blocks and information for two monsters, a new artifact, a village map, and multiple NPCs, plus illustrations of each NPC for your players.

Content Trigger Warnings

This adventure includes topics of violence, death of both people and animals, property destruction, and betrayal.

Arieni Kettlewhistle is a fourth level Ranger (Hunter) halfling who happens to have a paralyzed arm, but she has no problem weilding her hand crossbow and short sword in the other hand! She also has Attention Deficit, so she’s easily distracted by interesting plants and fungi, but that hyperfixation makes her a fearsome opponent to vegepygmies and other plant creatures!

Arieni Kettlewhistle is featured in the Accessible Adventure of the Week, The Ember Elk.

We all have disabled, neurodivergent, and mentally ill people in our lives.  Maybe that’s you. Doesn’t it make sense to have them in our Dungeons & Dragons game, as well? The disabled NPC of the week makes it easy for you to bring characters like that into your game to represent those you care about in real life, to help people become comfortable interacting with people that are different from them, and to normalize disability in all of our lives. Each week, we give you a free NPC with some form of disability that you can plug right into your game, complete with game mechanics taken from the Disabilities and Depth book. Sign up for our newsletter at wyrmworkspublishing.com to get notified of more free weekly content!

Make Lives Better through Role-Playing Games

This character is one piece of a movement within the D&D community to invite, encourage, and include those who have not been, both in the RPG community and nearly everywhere in real life. Wyrmworks Publishing is dedicated to using RPGs to help you make lives better, to provide tools, training, and a community to this end. We believe that this will extend far beyond the ever-growing RPG community as more and more people learn, grow, and give and receive acceptance.

Content Trigger Warnings

This character includes topics of violence.

Avery Penn is a 20-year-old female human innkeeper. She has very long, curled, dark hair and brown eyes. She has rugged, dirty, brown skin. She stands 172cm (5’7″) tall and has a round build. She has a tattoo of a cobra on her right arm and a colorful tattoo of the word fear translated into draconic on her back. Born without a left hand, she has a wooden prosthetic with a leather strap and cam cleat that allows her to hold things with it. She is friendly and self-confident and enjoys listening to the villagers’ stories, celebrating with them and being a shoulder to cry on.

This character also includes a description of her inn, The Bronze Mandolin, as featured in the Accessible Adventure of the Week, The Inevitable.

We all have disabled, neurodivergent, and mentally ill people in our lives.  Maybe that’s you. Doesn’t it make sense to have them in our Dungeons & Dragons game, as well? The disabled NPC of the week makes it easy for you to bring characters like that into your game to represent those you care about in real life, to help people become comfortable interacting with people that are different from them, and to normalize disability in all of our lives. Each week, we give you a free NPC with some form of disability that you can plug right into your game, complete with game mechanics taken from Limitless Heroics – Including Characters with Disabilities, Mental Illness, and Neurodivergence in Fifth Edition.

Make Lives Better through Role-Playing Games

This character is one piece of a movement within the D&D community to invite, encourage, and include those who have not been, both in the RPG community and nearly everywhere in real life. Wyrmworks Publishing is dedicated to using RPGs to help you make lives better, to provide tools, training, and a community to this end. We believe that this will extend far beyond the ever-growing RPG community as more and more people learn, grow, and give and receive acceptance.

Content Trigger Warnings

This character includes topics of death and family loss.

A one-shot side-quest for characters level 4-6.

Can Peace Be Maintained Indefinitely?

The town is perfectly peaceful. Perfectly. Everyone gets along. Always. How can that be bad?

The village that makes its subsistence on spiced melon and red rye holds a dark secret, and the shoemaker and his wife will upset the perfect peace.

This adventure includes stat blocks for the following, which may be used in other adventures:

• Avery Penn (Disabled NPC of the Week)
• Deathlok (Lich Patron)
• Undead Wolves
• Artifact: Crystal of Peace

4K Maps are free for all subscribers or can be purchased from DriveThruRPG

Make Lives Better through Role-Playing Games

This adventure is one piece of a movement within the D&D community to invite, encourage, and include those who have not been, both in the RPG community and nearly everywhere in real life. Wyrmworks Publishing is dedicated to using RPGs to help you make lives better, to provide tools, training, and a community to this end. We believe that this will extend far beyond the ever-growing RPG community as more and more people learn, grow, and give and receive acceptance.

To that end, this adventure includes disabled NPCs just like in real life, including a unique prosthetic arm, a character with chronic pain, and more.

This free adventure includes a simplified version for screen readers for the blind and visually impaired, stat blocks and information for two monsters, a new artifact, a village map, and multiple NPCs, plus illustrations of each NPC for your players.

Content Trigger Warnings

This adventure includes topics of violence, death of both people and animals, ableism, and undead people and animals.

This adventure was created as part of the Summer 2021 Storytelling Collective.

It’s been a while since we posted new content, but that’s not because we’ve been using downtime to kick back at the inn! Since Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything says we can change class & subclass when we level up, we’re taking her up on that opportunity! We’ve been training & working on some new magic that will be a massive level up!

You may have noticed the Patreon links around here. Fly over there, and you’ll see what’s coming. Here’s a short list of some of it:

• Major change in focus to using RPGs to make people’s lives better
• New book with instructions for adding disabled characters to D&D with ~300 pages of tables, descriptions, game mechanics, magic items, and more.
• Complete website overhaul to be as accessible as possible
• Random generators
• Podcast with interviews discussing using RPGs to make people’s lives better
• Training for individuals and organizations in how to use RPGs to make people’s lives better

Note that the Wyrmling Patreon level gives free access to every product we produce, and the Young Dragon level gives a lot more, with access to prerelease content literally as it’s being written, the ultimate look behind the curtain.

And finally, we plan to exponentially increase our content output as Patreon support buys more time away from other commitments to focus on the work of helping you make people’s lives better through RPGs. If you would like to be a part of making this happen, you can do so for as little as $3/month.

Expect a major public launch once our modrons get everything in place. That will happen sooner the more support we get from our patrons now. If you’d like to get this adventure started, please consider helping make it happen so we can help you make people’s lives better through RPGs.

Wizards of the Coast recently revealed that they will be releasing a new book March 16, 2021 with an announcement date of next week, January 12. So what can we expect, both this spring and in the rest of 2021? I don’t have any connections at WotC, nor am I a Divination School wizard, but let’s do a little Legend Lore and see what we can determine.

A new book will come in one of the following categories: rules supplement, monster supplement, campaign guide, large adventure, or themed adventure collection.

We just got a new rules supplement with Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, so fresh that the community is still passionately debating the new race rules, so we can safely rule that one out. So say we all. (Although I really want the next one to be called Bigby’s Handbook of Everything. If they don’t I will. Can you grasp why?)

Monster Supplement? That’s coming soon since we haven’t had one since Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes in 2018, but I predict not yet. We just saw the Unearthed Arcana test material for dragon-based subclasses, including the Way of the Ascendant Dragon Monk and Drakewarden Ranger. This looks like they’re working on a new Draconomicon, but it’s too soon after the UA release, not to mention that we’ve only seen UA for 2 classes, and we don’t have an Ancient Dragon Warlock yet, much less a draconic barbarian, so stay tuned for more draconic classes and a 5e version of the Draconomicon this fall, probably November according to tradition.

(It was this awareness that caused me to second-guess continuing work on the Draconic Omnibus series we’re developing here, but after looking at previous Draconomicon editions and the UA subclasses, I realized that my plan would nicely supplement what we can probably expect from WotC for those who want more dragon flavor in their game, plus our subclasses are different for each dragon type, treating each color more individually.)

That brings us to campaign guides, large adventures, and adventure collections, and here’s where the future gets muddier. Like 2019, 2020 saw two campaign guides, Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount and Mythic Odysseys of Theros. Especially since Tasha lifted the blue veil and made several references to Spelljammer and other planes, an emphasis on more Prime Material Plane campaign settings gives us a hint that another campaign book may be coming soon, but if so, which world?

They have multiple options from Magic: The Gathering, and Ravnica and Theros have been well-received, so that’s a possibility, but they also said last year that they intend to revisit classic settings, so since they’re looking for a chance to redeem themselves for the depictions of the Vistani in Curse of Strahd (The recent “Revamped” version only made minor changes.), a Ravenloft setting book would be a long-awaited and coveted addition, and the recent College of Spirits Bard and The Undead Warlock Patron UA would point to that likelihood. At the same time, a collection of Ravenloft adventures (like Tales from the Yawning Portal) would be possible without a full campaign book and allow for the Vistani revisions.

That said, the recent Dragonlance lawsuit drama could be a hint that they’re working on the Dragonlance setting, which would definitely require a new campaign guide and could be the reason for the aforementioned dragon subclasses, but again, it’s too soon, so that could be the traditional fall release. (Would a Dragonlance book mean no Draconomicon?)

It seems a bit early for an adventure release so soon after Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, but I know WotC is eager to clean up their image, so a TftYP-style adventure collection would help cover that gaping wound, but it would be easier to clean that up with a campaign guide.

So here’s my predictions:

• March 2021: Ravenloft Campaign Guide
• June 2021: Dragonlance Campaign Guide
• November 2021: Draconomicon

What are you expecting?

We’re thrilled to announce our first entry on the DM’s Guild, Silver Dragon: Draconic Omnibus, Vol. 2. Look into the world of the “shield dragon”, and discover how it fits into your 5e campaign!

This supplement includes:

• Dragon Background Option Charts
• Implied Abilities based on their stat blocks
• Associated Creatures, including 4 new draconic hybrid creatures with complete stat blocks
• Spellcasting
• Lair and Hoard Details, including combat strategies based on age
• 2 New Magic Items
• 2 New Spells
• Ideas for using the dragon in your campaign
  • Dragon as Group Patron
  • And more…
• Ideas for using the dragon with your character
  • Contact
  • Paladin Oath Of Loyalty
  • Druid Circle Of Clouds
  • Barbarian Path Of The Silver Dragon
  • Bard College Of Affinity
  • Monk Way Of The Wind
  • Dragon-Associated Feats
  • Subraces And Variants
  • Dragon-Related Character Backgrounds

Also, get the additional supplement that includes details to include this dragon in the Caphora: The Divided Continent campaign setting.

All creature and character options are available in the D&D Beyond Homebrew section. Just search for author: doulos12.

New Monster Stats also available for Lion’s Den’s Game Master 5

How well do you really know the dragons? Sure, you’ve memorized their stat block, but these are intelligent complex beings who affect the world and your characters so much more than a big lizard in a cave! Welcome to the Draconic Omnibus, a multi-volume set detailing the canon 5e dragons and some new varieties to round out the set.

The recent release of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything has generated significant controversy in the D&D community, most notably for the Custom Origin option, which gives players much more flexibility in the character creation process. Some raise concerns that this will allow players to min/max, optimizing their characters to be more powerful than other characters of the same level. Others counter that this allows for more roleplay options, expanding characters beyond their archetypes. Still others have argued that it’s a moot point, that a character is so much more than the sum or distribution of its stats.

But how often do we make the same mistake in real life? How often do we reduce others or ourselves to who’s strongest, smartest, or most charismatic? Isn’t that the essence of a clique: jocks, nerds, or the popular crowd? Of course, there’s more to it than that — in my high school, to be in the popular crowd, you had to be able to afford the right brands of shoes and polo shirts (It was the 80’s.) in addition to being adept with social queues.

Adults are more subtle in our approach to others, but we still evaluate people based essentially on numeric criteria, replacing wizards and rogues with executives and unskilled laborers, making class as clearly defined as in D&D, except Tasha now allows players to change their class — would that this were so easy in real life.

This becomes particularly toxic when we reduce ourselves to our stat blocks. It’s easy to think of ourselves as undesirable due to what we perceive as some bad dice rolls at our creation. Who could ever love someone with such glaring dump stats? And if you believe yourself unlovable, you will have difficulty receiving love, not trusting those who purport to love you.

Thus the Critical Advantage style of game mastering focuses on the value of each character (and more importantly, each player) regardless what numbers appear on their stat block, whether real numbers on a page or evaluations of real people. We emphasize that a character (or player) is valuable because they are loved, and if love is unconditional, then a person being lovable has nothing to do with evaluation. You are lovable because I choose to love you. Nothing you do or even think about yourself can change my decision to love you. You can’t convince me not to. You can’t prove yourself unlovable, because “lovable” is determined outside of you.

As a Christian, I take that farther. I love you, because God has declared you to be unconditionally lovable. No matter what anyone else chooses to determine about you, God Himself has assigned you the labels “lovable” and “Mine,” so when anyone else says otherwise, regardless of their criteria, they’re just wrong.

You are more than your stat block. Your defining stat is
LOVABLE: ∞

The rest is just flavor.

Rose Gold Dragons are known for their love of children. Stories abound of children lost in the wilderness or at sea who are rescued by a rose gold dragon or some other creature of a similar hue.

At the same time, these stories have sometimes grown darker, with suspicion that questions the motivations of these creatures, and anytime a child goes missing in the vicinity of a rose gold dragon layer, the dragon becomes the primary suspect.

This supplement includes:

• Full All-Ages Stat Blocks complete with Legendary and Lair Actions
• Dragon Background Option Charts
• Associated Creatures
• Implied Abilities based on their stat blocks
• Spellcasting
• Lair and Hoard Details, including combat strategies based on age
• 2 New Magic Items
• 1 New Spell
• Ideas for using the dragon in your campaign
  • Dragon as Group Patron
  • And more…
• Ideas for using the dragon with your character
  • Contact
  • New Warlock Patron
  • New Paladin Oath
  • Sorcerer Draconic Bloodline variation
  • New Bard College
  • New Monk Way
  • Dragonborn variation
  • New Character Background

This supplement includes details to include this dragon in the Caphora: The Divided Continent campaign setting from Wyrmworks Publishing, but it can also be  used as-is by changing a few location names in any campaign setting.

All creature and character options are available in the D&D Beyond Homebrew section. Just search for author: doulos12.

How well do you really know the dragons? Sure, you’ve memorized their stat block, but these are intelligent complex beings who affect the world and your characters so much more than a big lizard in a cave! Welcome to the Draconic Omnibus, a multi-volume set detailing the canon 5e dragons and some new varieties to round out the set.