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The cover image for My Dad's Monster Manual

My Dad’s Monster Manual is Here!

General / D&D, D&D 5e, D&D fifth edition, D&D5e, DMs Guild, DMs Guild Adepts, DnD, DnD 5e, DnD5e, dungeons and dragons, dungeons and dragons fifth edition, Fifth Edition D&D, fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons, Monster, monster creation, monster design, Monster Manual, monsters, My Dad's Monster Manual / 0 comments

December 17, 2020

My Dad’s Monster Manual is number 1! Seriously, at the moment of publishing this post, it is the top seller on DMs Guild, and you can get it now in PDF and print! Plus you can view the first 20 pages of the book for free on the product’s page. Here’s the description:

“This book needed a lot more of me in it. Instead, they completely rewrote my part and turned me into a giggling, tentacled grapefruit.”

—B. Holder, Aberrations Quarterly

“This book did not taste like a dad at all, and I have eaten a lot of fathers in my time.”

—Al Bare, Monster Report

“Thank goodness. This will get your father out of the house for a little while.”

—Camille Introcaso

Behold the power of my dad’s mind! Hey, my name is James Introcaso, and my father is pretty great. From the time I was a kid, my father created original stories using my toys. Now as an adult and professional game designer, I asked my dad to look at just the art of the Monster Manual. For every picture, I asked him how he thought this creature behaved, its history, and its name. Then I took this information and rewrote the Monster Manual according to my dad’s lore.

This book contains 80 new stat blocks and lore for original D&D creatures inspired by the art of the Monster Manual and Lucian’s imagination. Get ready to read My Dad’s Monster Manual.

This is a DMs Guild Adepts product. The DMs Guild Adept Program was started and is managed by Wizards of the Coast. It brings together talented creators to produce quality content for the DMs Guild. DMs Guild Adepts products are identified by the gold ampersand logo.

Thank you so much to everyone who has already purchased a copy, shouted out the previews on this blog, and shared your joy. If you’ve got a copy and can leave a review on the product page, it would mean a lot! If you haven’t picked it up yet, check it out!

My father is thrilled that our book is selling so well! Huge thanks to the team: Hannah Rose, Rich Lescouflair, Daniel Kwan, Leona Maple, and many, many playtesters.

On a personal note, this is my final product as a DMs Guild Adept, since in 2021 I’ll be joining the folks at MCDM full-time as a line developer. Thank you to everyone for the huge support of all my DMs Guild products, and to all the amazing people who made awesome stuff with me.

If you like what you’re reading, please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, sign up for my mailing list, find my products on the DMs Guild and DriveThruRPG, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Last Chance to Get 20% Off My Dad’s Monster Manual

General / D&D, D&D 5e, D&D fifth edition, D&D Next, D&D5e, DMs Guild, DMs Guild Adepts, DnD, DnD 5e, DnD5e, Monster, monster creation, monster design, Monster Manual, monsters, My Dad's Monster Manual, pdf / 0 comments

December 10, 2020

Check out Burn Bryte, an original science fantasy TTRPG I helped create for Roll20!

If you’ve been following this blog at all this year, then you know that I’ve been working with my father, Hannah Rose, Rich Lescouflair, Daniel Kwan, and Leona Maple on My Dad’s Monster Manual. I’ve shown off many, many previews of the work. Well on Tuesday, December 15th, you can buy My Dad’s Monster Manual in softcover print and in PDF on DMs Guild!

If you want to get 20% off, sign up now for my mailing list. On December 15th, you’ll get a coupon for 20% off the PDF in your email!

And before we go… how about a preview of the final product!

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Puzzle Master: Volume 1

General / D&D, D&D 5e, D&D fifth edition, D&D5e, DMs Guild, DMs Guild Adepts, DnD, DnD 5e, DnD5e, DnDBlog, dungeons and dragons fifth edition, Fifth Edition D&D, fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons, pdf, Puzzles / 0 comments

November 18, 2020

Check out Burn Bryte, an original science fantasy TTRPG I helped create for Roll20!

I am super excited to announce that Puzzle Master: Volume 1 is currently available on the DMs Guild! I contributed to this DMs Guild Adepts product that was led by Celeste Conowitch and featured the work of Stacey Allan, M.T. Black, and Hannah Rose. Here’s the description of the product from the DMs Guild:

Greetings traveler, you are invited to the grand opening of Aenigma’s premiere puzzle dungeon! Congratulations on receiving this illustrious invitation! You’d best be on your way. Dragons don’t like to be kept waiting.

Challenge and delight your players with the premiere issue of Puzzle Master! Inside this supplement, you will find ten puzzles suitable for every level of play, accompanied by beautifully rendered handouts.

Puzzle Master also includes a unique dungeon that utilizes the puzzles to craft an escape room-style experience.

This title includes:

-10 puzzles suitable to use in any adventure.

-20 hand-crafted puzzle handouts for you to print or digitally share with your players.

-A unique puzzle dungeon play experience.

-Difficulty ratings for each puzzle, and suggestions on how to adapt them.

-A series of hints to help your players solve each puzzle.

-Suggestions on how to run each puzzle in person or digitally.

So if you want puzzles to drop into your games, check out Puzzle Master: Volume 1.

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Encounters in Theros, Charity Bundles, and Freebies!

General / D&D, D&D 5e, D&D fifth edition, D&D5e, DMs Guild, DMs Guild Adepts, DnD, DnD 5e, DnD5e, DnDBlog, dungeons and dragons, Magic: The Gathering, Mythic Odysseys of Theros / 0 comments

June 11, 2020

Check out my ongoing Kickstarter for Fantastic Lairs, a book of twenty drop-in boss battles and climactic encounters for your D&D games!

I have a ton of announcements this week for you. Let’s start with a little DMs Guild fun.

Encounters in Theros

Encounters in Theros is the latest DMs Guild product I contributed to with the team of DMs Guild Adepts. This supplement is great for any Theros or D&D campaign inspired by ancient Greece. Here’s the product description:

Bring your mythic campaign to life with this companion supplement for Mythic Odysseys of Theros!

Encounters in Theros presents over 70 short encounters for a variety of environments. Keep characters busy with these story-rich experiences that help flesh out the world of Theros. This supplement is great for Mythic Odysseys of Theros or any other mythic campaign!

This is a DMs Guild Adept product. The Dungeon Masters Guild Adept program brings talented individuals together to produce quality content for the DMs Guild. Guild Adept products are identified with the golden ampersand.
From the DMs Guild product page

National Police Accountability Project Bundle

The DMs Guild has three Black Lives Matter charity bundles and Invasion from the Planet of Tarrasques is part of the National Police Accountability Project bundle. You can also check out the Black Lives Matter bundle and the NAACP Legal Defense bundle. Each bundle benefits charity, costs $9.99, and has more than $150 of content within!

Hellturel and Two Dungeons: FREE

For a limited time, Hellturel, my expansion for Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus, is available for FREE as part of the D&D Stay at Home, Play at Home promotion. If that’s not enough free for you, then head on over to my ongoing Kickstarter for Fantastic Lairs and grab TWO free dungeons that you can drop into any game: Caves of the Cockatrice and the mechadragon that is Ashsnarl’s Secret.

If you like what you’re reading please consider supporting me on Patreon, supporting me on Ko-fi, follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Hagmalgams for Valentine’s Day

General / D&D, DMs Guild, DnD, DnD 5e, DnD5e, Fifth Edition D&D, fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons, Hag, Monster, monster design, pdf / 0 comments

February 13, 2020

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

Do you like the valentine of the hagicorn above? What about the hagbear below?

Half bheur hag. Half angelic polar bear.

Or the hag-rin?

If you like these Valentines, you can get more at printable quality from Kayla Cline’s Patreon!

What the Heck are Hagmalgams?

Hagmalgams is the title of a product I wrote and Kayla Cline illustrated that is now available on DMs Guild.

The product was inspired by this tweet from Jeremy Crawford, the lead rules designer for D&D.

More stories should feature hags riding unicorns. That is all.
— Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford) October 26, 2019

This tweet also inspired an upcoming collaboration called Unbridled that does not involve me, but I will be buying.

Jeremy Crawford isn’t wrong. When he first shared this thought on Twitter, my mind raced with ideas. Hags riding unicorns was such a fun, out-there idea. Could it go further? What if a hag was a unicorn? What would this horned witchy centaur look like? How did this hagicorn come to be? How would the monster act? Where would it live? Is such a creature good or evil?

As these questions bounced in my brain, I was working on another project called Abyssal Incursion with Kayla Cline, who just happens to be the single greatest hag artist ever. When our project wrapped, I pitched this idea: Would she like to work on a series of hagmalgams, creatures that were half-hag, half-celestial. The hagicorn was the first idea we kicked around, but that quickly grew into the hag-rin, hagasus, hagyphant, hagbear, and, Kayla’s personal favorite, the hagtopus. Kayla’s art floored me. I was expecting a lot. She overdelivered. Her unique style and interpretation of the hagmalgams will inspire Dungeon Masters and players everywhere.

While the idea of hagmalgams started out as silly fun, these creatures took a turn for the serious and sympathetic in large part due to Kayla’s art. The hagmalgams had character, pain, and a story to tell written in their faces. Inspired by Kayla’s images, I crafted story and mechanics to make what I believe are sympathetic creatures. Two souls that abhor one another twisted together in a gross paradox.

Did it work? Playtesters were amused, terrified, and pitying the creatures all at once. That’s exactly what a designer wants to happen. I hope these creatures inspire great stories at your table.

Here’s a link to the product!

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Abyssal Incursion and Infernal Machine Rebuild

General / Baldur's Gate, D&D, D&D fifth edition, D&D5e, Descent into Avernus, DMs Guild, DMs Guild Adepts, DnD, DnDBlog, Fifth Edition D&D, fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons, pdf / 0 comments

November 14, 2019

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

I have two new products on the DMs Guild this week!

Abyssal Incursion

The first is a demon-tastic expansion for your Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus campaign called Abyssal Incursion. I previewed two artifact weapons from it in last week’s post. Here’s the product description:

Note: Light spoilers for Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus in this description!

Expand your Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus game with three new adventure locations, complete with plot hooks and NPCs, plus two new artifacts: Baphomet’s glaive, Heartcleaver, and Yeenoghu’s flail, Butcher! This supplement adds more challenges for characters of levels 8 and above who dare face Demon Lords on the River Styx.

Face Baphomet aboard his war barge!

Go inside the belly of Yeenoghu’s beast, Crokek’toeck (literally)!

Get a little Eberron in your Forgotten Realms by acquiring an elemental galleon made to sail the River Styx… if you can deal with the yugoloths defending it!

Maps and a printer friendly version included as separate files!

The Blood War rages in Avernus. Will you sieze opportunity, fight back the hordes, or perish?

This product is meant to be a companion to Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus and requires the adventure.

The incredible maps for this adventure were done by Kayla Cline. Check out her depiction of the inside of Crokek’toeck! She’s a genius!

Infernal Machine Rebuild

I am also pleased to say I got to contribute to Infernal Machine Rebuild, a special adventure led by Bart Carroll with all proceeds going to Extra Life! Here’s the description:

A fallen clock tower holds components from an ancient artifact. Upon discovery of the components, competing agents look to launch expeditions to uncover additional components scattered across distant places—and times. The now-lost Temple of Moloch and the construction site of the legendary Tomb of Horrors are two of those locations. However great the risks, finding the components demands the effort, for whoever does so can reassemble the fabled Infernal Machine of Lum the Mad!

For characters 5^th-10^th level.

This adventure explores two dungeon locations and includes new monsters, magic items, plus new artifact powers submitted by the player community!

Further featuring new art, maps (from Claudio Pozas), cartoon (from Jason Thompson), even an Adventurers League cert for a new trinket—and all monies that Wizards of the Coast receives from sales of this PDF are donated to Extra Life.

Your purchase of this adventure goes to a truly great cause!

About Extra Life:

Extra Life unites thousands of gamers around the world to play games in support of their local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital. Since its inception in 2008, Extra Life has raised more than $30 million for sick and injured kids. Sign up today and dedicate a day of play for kids in your community!

This was so much fun to be a part of! Plus you can see Chris Perkins running the adventure in video below!

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Saltmarsh Encounters

General / D&D, D&D5e, DMs Guild, DMs Guild Adepts, DnD, dungeons and dragons, dungeons and dragons fifth edition, Encounters, pdf, world building, worldbuilding / 0 comments

June 20, 2019

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

A new product from many great creators (including yours truly) is now available on the DMs Guild! Behold Saltmarsh Encounters for your Ghosts of Saltmarsh or any high seas campaign!

Bring your campaign to life with this companion supplement for Ghosts of Saltmarsh!

Saltmarsh Encounters presents 60 short encounters for the town, coast, and sea. Over 150 variations are included, making the encounters highly replayable and allowing you to customise them to fit YOUR game. The supplement is great for Ghosts of Saltmarsh or any coastal or high seas campaign!

Saltmarsh Encounters is already a Silver Best Seller and includes the work of these fine authors:

M.T. Black
James Haeck
James Introcaso
Rich Lescouflair
Ashley Warren

Right now this product is a steal at $4.95! I contributed quite a few encounters, so if you like my work, you’ll enjoy this book!

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Introcaso EntrepreNERD and Eberron Bundle

General / D&D, D&D fifth edition, D&D5e, DMs Guild, DMs Guild Adepts, DnD, dungeons and dragons, Eberron / 0 comments

June 6, 2019

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

A quick update (or a 51-minute update depending on how you look at it) this week!

EntrepreNERD Podcast

Do you want some #RPG business advice? You’re in luck! Tim Lundy was kind enough to invite me onto his EntrepreNERD podcast, and let me babble on about this blog, Don’t Split the Podcast Network, and my RPG design work. It was a blast! If you want to hear my story, listen below. Thanks for having me on, Tim!

Eberron Bundle

More good news! You can now pick up all twelve of the Embers of the Last War adventures and Encounters in Sharn as a discounted bundle on DMs Guild! Even if you already have one or more of the titles, you can get the rest discounted (since DMs Guild bundles do not make you pay for the titles within a bundle you’ve already purchased). Get the whole shebang for a $26 discount!

Become a Patron!

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More Boxed Text and Artifacts of the Guild

General / Boxed Text, D&D, D&D fifth edition, D&D5e, DMs Guild, DnD, dungeons and dragons, pdf, world building, worldbuilding / 1 comment

April 18, 2019

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

Hey all! So last week’s post spurred a fun conversation across the community about the value of boxed text. Thanks to all who read and participated. I want to clarify something that came up many times on Twitter.

Boxed Text Has Value And Shouldn’t Be Abolished in Favor of Nothing

As I pointed out in my previous post, I do think boxed text has value, mostly in providing a place for upfront player knowledge and giving the GM some flavor in descriptions. If we are to replace boxed text, I would want to do so with a device that also does both of those things and all of the things boxed text does not. So to be clear, I’d rather have boxed text than nothing, though not everyone feels that way, and that is also good.

I saw a lot of “I like boxed text, but…” responses. Those “buts” are the problems I think game designers like myself should try to address, while keeping the aspects people like. Based on the responses, many people like the fact that boxed text has the two benefits I pointed out. Others also find boxed text atheistically pleasing in an adventure, which I think can also be handled with any new method a game designer creates. (There is no reason I can’t throw a box around some bullet points.)

Artifacts of the Guild

I also contributed to Artifacts of the Guild, an already Platinum-best-selling compilation of magic items from authors across the DMs Guild! Many of the magic items I contributed were first put on this blog. They now exist in a revised, playtested form in the product. Here’s the description:

Add 260 new magic items into your Dungeons & Dragons 5e game, including 10 all-new Artifacts!

Artifacts of the Guild is a DMs Guild community project that gives you more magic items to use at your table. From minor trinkets to ancient relics, these items will enthrall your players, power up your NPCs, and inspire your campaigns.

Written by 58 of the Guild’s most talented and exciting creators, this book instantly provides you with more heroic magic items, suitable to fill a treasure chest of any size. From a sunken shipwreck to a dragon’s hoard, these items will fit perfectly into any fantasy campaign.

Inside the book you will find:

10 incredible artifacts, including the Blades of the Archrogue, the Sanguine Shield, and the Staff of Tiamat

30 legendary items, such as Baldur’s Gatehouse, Gruumsh’s Blessing, and the Heart of Hydrathis

More than 50 very rare items, like the Black Blade of Vartigan, the Gift of Graz’zt, and the Tome of the White Hand

More than 70 rare items, including the Airstep Shroud, the Fey-Touched Summoning Egg, and the Sky Piercer

Plus almost 100 more!

Adventure Atlas Available in Print

Finally Tactical Maps: Adventure Atlas is now available in softcover! You can get your copy here!

Become a Patron!

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City of Mist: The Tourist Trap

General / City of Mist, D&D, D&D fifth edition, D&D5e, DMs Guild, DMs Guild Adepts, DnD, dungeons and dragons, pdf, world building, worldbuilding / 0 comments

April 4, 2019

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

It’s time for another release! This time I got to stretch my brain designing a new district, the Tourist Trap, for City of Mist. If you’ve never played the awesome Noir RPG, here’s a description from the game’s website:

Here’s the lowdown: City of Mist is a modern city where legends are real people. Heroes, tricksters, and monsters are reborn inside ordinary people, regular Joes and Janes, who gain supernatural powers connected to their legendary alter-egos.

The mystical veil of the Mist hides these miraculous powers from the other, sleepwalking residents of the City. It makes armor look like a flak vest and fire breathing like a cheap party trick or a gas leak explosion, so no-one ever knows about the legendary. Modern-day legends exploit this to run secret lives and insidious organizations behind the veil of the Mist.

This is your City: gritty, corrupt, and rife with magic and mystery.

And here’s what my new district, Tourist Trap, is all about:

A Flashy District of Wide-Eyed Tourists and Dangerous Pleasures

If you’re looking for a crowd, the Tourist Trap can provide, day or night. When the sun is up, families spend money in the many attractions the district has to offer. After dark is when the adults come out to play: dancing, drinking, flirting, and getting high in the district’s establishments of debauchery.

In the Tourist Trap, everything – legal or otherwise – is tacky, flashy, and overpriced. Some of the stores are shipping in more than what’s advertised in their catalogues. There is a market for high-grade, expensive drugs, fake IDs, and even weapons that come through the Tourist Trap.

The Tourist Trap is a chance for Rifts to access the endless resources of the world beyond the City, even if they don’t really care about that world…

This standalone PDF describes a new district in the City setting for the City of Mist RPG: the tacky and colorful Tourist Trap. Here are some examples of how to use the included locations, NPCs, and Dangers:

The perfect setting for cases involving victims of a wild night gone wrong. Out-of-towners and locals alike who come here to drown their sorrows, end up as the prey of the many predators of the Tourist Trap. Whether their loved one come looking for them or the crew takes on cleaning up this seedy den of inequity, opportunities abound for noir investigations beneath the light of the Ferris wheel.

A place for PCs to lose themselves and forget their troubles, setting the stage for some interesting role-playing moments. When a player character wishes to go on a self-destructive binge, the Tourist Trap welcomes her with open arms… although by morning, she’ll have more troubles than she started with.

A colorful backdrop for shady acquisitions of unique items. As an entry point into the City and a mercantile center, the Tourist Trap features high on the City’s hot locations for smuggling contraband. If the PCs are after a special artifact or commodity, word on the street is they can get it here.

Enhancing themes of superficiality. The Tourist Trap is made of cheap plastic and bright colors, and behind them… nothing. Noir wouldn’t be what it is without the lead characters going on anti-social rants about the corruption of modern-day culture, and this place can provide them with all the ammunition they need.

I was so honored to work on this game, and I’m really proud of what I helped create with an incredible team.

Adventure Atlas Update

I also wanted to let you know that if you’re thinking about purchasing or have purchased Tactical Maps: Adventure Atlas (see this post for a description and preview), there are a few things you should know:

The $14.99 sale price is going to go up to the regular price of $19.99 on Tuesday, April 9th.
A Print-On-Demand version of the product is coming for $29.99. If you already purchased the PDF, you can get a discount on the POD, but you MUST have opted-in to DMs Guild emails.

That’s it!

Become a Patron!

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