Wizard & Wolf

Nearly a year and a half ago I decided, for the first time, to try my hand at being a DM. Honestly, nothing had ever been quite so scary in any hobby I've ever had before. I gathered a group of friends from work, most of whom had never played D&D in their lives, and one who was new to 5e. I figured a short introduction campaign would be the best to test the waters, both for me behind the screen and them as players. After some consideration, I landed on Hoard of the Dragon Queen as it was lengthy but not too long, and relatively linear in design. As the saying goes, your plans rarely survive contact with your players. It was clear very early on that this was not going to be the straightforward introduction that I was hoping for... and it was definitely for the best. After a few sessions it was obvious the campaign module just wasn't going to cut it and I found myself all of a sudden not only worrying about DMing and maintaining rules at the table, but having to wr...

Wow! What a weekend! Not only did we get an amazing weekend full of great streams but we also learned about not one, not two, but five new D&D products! In future posts I want to dive a little deeper into my thoughts on each of these, but for now let's take a look at the overview of goodies coming our way soon. First, and what I am personally most excited about, we have a brand new adventure that explores the first layer of the Nine Hells. I have always been interested in the cosmic side of D&D, and especially anything dealing with demons, devils, or the Blood War so this product is right up my alley. It seems this adventure will run from levels 1 through 13 which should make for an interesting climax if the goal is to ultimately confront Zariel (who sports a challenge rating of 26 in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes ). What is perhaps more interesting is that the book's official name is "Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus" so it will be fun to see how...

For this edition of Creations & Characters I wanted to share one of the more fun characters I've had a chance to play. This one was created for a Ravnica based mini-campaign that lasted roughly 5 sessions (the details of this story will be featured in a future post). I had always wanted to try my hand at Cleric and when I saw that Loxodon were becoming a playable race it seemed like the perfect combination. For those of you unfamiliar with the Ravnica setting, this character was a member of the Selesnya Conclave, a group dedicated to bringing all of Ravnica into their peaceful collective under the worship of their god Mat'Selesnya. For those of you familiar with Magic: The Gathering, Ravnica is the White/Green guild so naturally Dobrun was a Nature Domain Cleric. His character sheet can be found on D&D Beyond . Healer Dobrun Race: Loxodon Class: Cleric - Nature Domain Background: Selesnya Initiate I lead a life of devotion. Since my beginning, I have...

For this entry of Creations & Characters I wanted to do a spotlight on one of my newest characters. This one was made to be Adventurers League legal utilizing only the Player's Handbook and Xanathar's Guide to Everything. For a peak at the mechanical bits of this character, you can view him on D&D Beyond here . He is currently level 1 but will eventually take the Swashbuckler subclass. Below you will find a bio, including his backstory told in his own words.  Rhonin Helltide Race: Variant Human - Male Class: Rogue Background: Pirate The name's Rhonin Helltide, most feared and respected pirate on all the seas... OK, so maybe not THE most, but I'm definitely up there. You don't make it to my age in this line of work unless you're extremely good, or total shit, and I can ensure you I'm definitely not shit. I've spent my life on the high seas, sailing from port to port taking what I want and doing what I fancy. I managed to make qu...

I got into Critical Role a little later than most, coming on board with season two for the adventures of the Mighty Nein. I was hooked immediately. Ever since I started watching, I've been dying to get my hands on a set of the Wildemount dice, but they are always out of stock. Yesterday, the dream became a reality as I finally received my dice. These babies are gorgeous and definitely worth the wait. I love the color combination and the non-standard numbering. I can't wait to try these out in my next game. If you want a set for yourself, you can find them here . Hurry though! Who knows how long they'll stay in stock.

Before we dive headlong into the misadventures of the Four Horsemen (more on that team name in a later post) let's take a minute to introduce the cast of characters we'll meet along the way. This story is based loosing on the Tyranny of Dragons  adventure, but has been modified for a homebrew campaign. I will be giving very brief introductions to each of the characters below with snippets of their backstory but maintaining any secrets that have yet to be revealed in game (this is an ongoing campaign). The Players: Arkavel Race: Water Genasi - Male Class: Wizard Background: Guild Artisan / Merchant Arkavel was born and raised at sea, spending his early years working as a sailor. During his tenure, he began to learn the art of smithing from a Dwarven shipmate and found his passion. In time Arkavel realized a life at sea was not for him and left it behind to become a merchant and study the arcane arts. For the past ten years he has worked as a merchant f...

As you might imagine with a blog name like Wizard & Wolf, I'm a pretty big fan of wolves in general. So imagine my disappointment when I realize there isn't really a nice wolf-like race for me to play as or use in my D&D games... so I decided to make one. I spent some time work-shopping a name for the race, but in the end I realized I had known it all along. It was staring me right in the face in my own username. The Wolfkin. I'm still early in the process, working through the finalized traits and lore behind this race, but I wanted to take a minute to share my rough draft of the traits I have planned. The following traits will be common to all Wolfkin, but there will also be three sub-races that will add a little more flavor (more on those in a future post). ©2019 Wizards Ability Score Increase Your Wisdom score increases by 2. Age Wolfkin have lifespans similar to those of humans. They are considered adults at age 20 and live an average of 80 year...

For the first edition of Creations & Characters (a series where I share some of my homebrew and highlight characters I've made) I wanted to share one of my first magical items. This is a relatively simple item, whose purpose is more flavor than mechanical. The Lute of Standing Ovation was created very early on in one of my campaigns as a reward for a player who was playing Bard. The idea was simply to highlight his standing as a very proficient lute player and allow him to more often succeed at gaining some extra spending money during a night at the inn. The magic item text is as follows: This lute is expertly crafted and always perfectly tuned. You have advantage on performance checks while playing this instrument. If you have proficiency with a given musical instrument, you can add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to play music with the instrument. A bard can use a musical instrument as a spellcasting focus. As I said, from a mechanical standp...

Welcome to Wizard & Wolf, a hobby blog focused on all topics related to Dungeons & Dragons. A few things to know about me: I'm a late bloomer, coming into the game with 5th edition. However, this hasn't diminished the impact this game has had on me in the short time I've been around. After playing for a year or two, I eventually graduated into the role of Dungeon Master where I've been happily challenging (or torturing) my players ever since. What I've noticed, over and over again, is just how amazing and awesome this community is and thought it was well past time that I became more involved, hence this blog you're now reading. For a while now, I've wanted to find a way to keep track of the adventures (and misadventures) that D&D has provided me and my friends with over the past few years. I've also wanted a place where I could experiment with writing content for my own setting, sharing those with the community at large, and hopefully get...