Artificer Update UA

 Holy crap, it has been a while, hasn't it?

Yes, today we've got a new Unearthed Arcana, and it's one that is all about my beloved Artificer, the sole non-core, WotC-published full class for 5th Edition.

I've said many a time that I was a bit sad to see the Artificer left out of the new Player's Handbook, fearing it means that it'll always be harder to update with new subclasses and other options. Well, that issue might remain, but it does not appear that the folks at Wizards of the Coast have forgotten the class exists, because our first UA following the release of (two out of three of) the new core rulebooks is all about the Artificer.

Essentially, what we have is a big proposed update for the class as it appeared in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, including tweaks to all four subclasses.

On a fundamental level, the class looks similar - they are the master craftsmen, using tools and invention as their strengths.

Let's start with the base class:

The absolute biggest transformation for the class is that Artificer Infusions have been redesigned to become Replicate Magic Item. Rather than finding mundane items to then infuse with magical power, you'll simply create those items whole-cloth. Also, every infusion is now simply a standard magic item. The Artificer-specific infusions, such as the Mind Sharpener or the Repulsion Shield, are all, with one exception, now magic items in their own right that a DM could have players find in their world - the Artificer can simply choose these as possibilities for their core feature like any other.

The exception here is the Homunculus Servant, which is now the very first Artificer-exclusive spell. It's a 2nd level spell and has a stat block that now scales with the level at which you cast it. Notably, the Homunculus is also no longer really bound by action economy, simply acting after you and following your commands, similar to the various Summon spells. It does consume the 100g gem that used to be the target of the infusion, so if you have a mean DM you might find it expensive to maintain one, but it should now work pretty well even for bonus-action-dependent subclasses.

Your options for Replicate Magic Item are quite broad - in addition to a curated list, each level (level 2, 6, 10, and 14) that you expand the list also has an option that gives you any item of a given rarity and of a given set of item types (for example, at 6th level you can make uncommon Armors, Wands, and Weapons, but need to wait until 10 to make uncommon Rings and Wondrous Items).

Another change, going back to level 1, is that Magical Tinkering works totally differently now - the old version was kind of a poor man's Prestidigitation, which Artificers already get access to (not sure if they always did...) and so the new version just allows you to create, whole-cloth with Tinker's Tools, a common object like a Rope, Net, Pole, etc. Like before, you can have a limited number of such items at a time, but it's really cementing the Artificer as the class who has the right tool for the job.

A new feature is Magic Item Tinker, which, beyond expanding your potential infusion plans, allows you to consume magic items created with your Replicate Magic Item feature to regain spell slots, gaining higher-level spell slots for rarer items.

Actually, there's a nerf here: the Tools Expertise appears to be gone, and the ability to craft Common and Uncommon magical items in half the time for half the cost is gone (though each subclass appears to get something akin to this for appropriate items).

There is one nice buff, though: Spell-Storing Items can now have a 3rd level spell in them. Hey, do you want to be able to cast Fireball ten times a day without expending a spell slot as an Artillerist?

Flash of Genius has gotten the Bardic Inspiration treatment, allowing you to wait and see if the d20 test failed before you use it (something I'm sure the Artificer in my campaign would be very happy about).

Soul of Artifice gets one major nerf: it no longer increases your saving throw bonuses. That hurts a lot, though as a DM in a campaign where the Artificer now has a special blessing to attune to a seventh magic item, I've been terrified of reaching level 20. Still, it hurts. Additionally, this no longer requires a reaction to use its "Cheat Death" feature, which also now restores you to 20, rather than 1, HP. This is amazing given that, technically, it was ambiguous whether you would even have your reaction to use this feature in the old version (though if your DM argued you couldn't use it, stop playing with them). It also now includes Magical Guidance, which lets you add a d6 to one ability check per turn as long as you're attuned to a magic item (so yes). Once a turn basically means always outside of combat. 

A few spells were also added to the Artificer spell list. One of these I'm very excited to see: True Strike, maybe the biggest glow-up spell from 2014 to 2024, and one that feels very right for an Artificer. My only gripe here is that the two subclasses likely to use it, the Alchemist and the Artillerist, technically can't use their 5th level features with it. I'd really hoped that they would allow Pistols and Muskets as potential Arcane Firearms, and if I was your DM, I'd 100% allow that. (Hey, this is UA, maybe we can get them to change it!)

Other additions to the list: Elementalism, Arcane Vigor, Homunculus Servant (as mentioned above) and Circle of Power.

Now, let's get into subclasses:

Alchemists:

I'll be honest, this is the subclass that I've seen a couple players choose and I while, flavorfully, I think it's very cool (the protagonist of the novel I'm writing began his life as an elaborate character backstory for a Dhampir Alchemist Artificer, and then I realized I'd rather just write a book,) I've always found it the least appealing in terms of mechanics (though I've found that the Experimental Elixir might actually be pretty good when you use it with spell slots and get to choose the option). The update, frankly, feels like more of a nerf than a buff, which is surprising given that this always felt like the subclass that needed to be buffed.

That said, one nice change is that Blight has been replaced on their spell list with Vitriolic Sphere, which I think is a far better spell (really Blight probably needed a big damage buff - if you're casting a spell that is higher-level than a Fireball and it only hits one target, it needs to be doing, like, at least twice Fireball's average damage - probably should use the Finger of Death/Disintegrate model of a massive static amount in addition to the dice rolls).

Alchemists, in addition to getting their proficiency with Alchemy Supplies, can now craft potions in half the time (which I think is already halved from normal magic item crafting given that they're consumables).

Experimental Elixir now has six potential results, but the sixth is "your choice," so I think the chance of getting the specific one you want is 2/6 rather than 1/4, meaning it's slightly more likely to get what you want! The Elixir, like all potions now, can be consumed with a bonus action, which is great. Also, the healing option is buffed, restoring 2d8+your Int with it, which is actually a pretty good heal (it's basically the new version of a Cure Wounds spell).

Restorative Reagents has changed so that the Temp HP you get from an Experimental Elixir is now your Intelligence plus your Artificer level - so a pretty hefty chunk at higher levels.

Chemical Mastery has had a redesign. First, it allows you to deal an extra 2d8 damage to a target when you cast a spell that deals Acid, Fire, Necrotic, or Poison damage (the specificity of "to a target" makes me feel like this might not work with AoE spells? But at the very least, at this level an Acid Splash is doing like 3d6+2d8+probably 5 damage - 24.5 damage average, I think?) You also gain resistance to Acid and Poison (which I think was the case before?)

However, what feels like it could be a nerf is that, rather than getting to cast Greater Restoration and Heal, you can instead cast Tasha's Bubbling Cauldron once a day for free. Losing Heal feels really tough, but let's remind ourselves how this new spell works:

Like Heal, it's a 6th level spell (normally outside the range of Artificer spellcasting - you won't even have 5th levels when you get this feature) and is cast as an action. The cauldron is filled with a Common or Uncommon potion of your choice, which friends can scoop out as a bonus action. The Cauldron has a number of doses equal to your spellcasting ability (so probably 5 at this point) and disappears when the last is consumed.

So, this is for certain very flavorful for an Alchemist - it'd be a real shame if the subclass most about brewing potions didn't get access to it (though in my research for my book, going down the rabbit-hole of esoteric alchemy, "brewing potions" is like the barest tip of the iceberg when it comes to what the Alchemists were trying to achieve, and it was really more of a mystical practice that sought to work miracles and find enlightenment). But is it worth losing Greater Restoration and Heal once a day? 

Among the Uncommon magic items, Potion of Resistance might be decent, especially given that you can pop this out in a single turn (though the wording seems to suggest that everyone will need a bonus action to take the potion from the cauldron and another to drink it, I think). The most obvious analogue would be Greater Potions of Healing, so 5 doses of 4d4+4 healing (14 a pop, so about 70 HP total - which is actually right there with Heal, though far more action economy investment).

Basically, I love Tasha's Bubbling Cauldron, but it feels like the Alchemist is really losing a lot of its healing capability to get it.

Armorer:

Ah, my beloved that I never really got to play for real. The Armorer was the new subclass that hadn't been in the Eberron book.

One thing I think we really need to address here is that the change from Artificer Infusions to Replicate Magic Items actually grants a huge bonus to low-level Armorers. A set of plate armor costs 1500 gold, which most characters can't really afford until around level 8 (I think our party with two heavy-armor wearers, the Paladins, in Wildemount has them both still in Splint - the Fighter is a Medium Armor Master). And +1 Armor is in our level 6 list. Ok, that's a bit annoying as we had Enhanced Defense from the get-go at level 2 in the previous version. But you know what? Rather than putting a +1 on that Chain Mail that you could barely afford at level 2, how about just making some Plate Armor of Gleaming? That'll be better than your +1 Chain Mail and on top of that, you'll look spiffy. Oh, and +1 Shields are on the level 2 list as well, so you could, with just your two replicated magic items, have an AC of 21 by the time you can wear heavy armor at level 3.

While this certainly helps low-level or low-funded Armorers, there's one major downside that might require a reasonable DM to make some allowances: because we're no longer infusing existing weapons but instead making magic weapons whole-cloth, can we actually make +X versions of our Armor Model weapons? The rules are a bit ambiguous: the weapons are described as Simple Weapons (thus we will have proficiency,) but are not a standard option for a weapon. Still, it feels very reasonable (and very flavorful) that an Artificer would be able to use this Replicate Magic Item feature to create the weapon module for their armor model. I'd certainly allow it as a DM. But I think it might be good to have some reminder text to ensure that this is a possibility. It also makes the process of changing your Armor Model a little more fraught - in the old version, swapping between Guardian and Infiltrator would, to my mind, also include swapping Enhanced Weapon from the Thunder Gauntlets to the Lightning Launcher.

The biggest change here, I think, is the introduction of the Dreadnaught, (I thought it was Dreadnought? Neither is getting spell-corrected, so maybe both are acceptable?) which is a third Armor Model you can choose in addition to Guardian and Infiltrator.

The Dreadnaught has a ball-and-chain weapon that deals 1d10 bludgeoning damage and has the Reach property. It can also use a bonus action to grow to Large size (if not already that big,) which further extends the reach by an additional 5 feet, which you can do Int mod per day. The "Armor Flail" weapon, when it hits a target that is at least one size smaller than you, can push it away from you or pull it toward you up to 10 feet.

It's interesting: if the Guardian is a tank that taunts targets to attack them, the Dreadnaught is not exactly a major damage-dealer, but is more of a battlefield-controller. I will say that I feel that between this and the Path of the Giant Barbarian, Rune Knights must be feeling like their signature thing is being stolen (in our Wildemount campaign, we have a Rune Knight named Cyp, and whenever he uses his Giant's Might, we all yell out "BIG CYP!")

Guardian got a slight nerf - they can now only activate their Defensive Field when Bloodied. It probably doesn't amount to much, but it means that you won't be able to cushion an attack that could do 50% or more of your HP. I don't know why this change was made. You also lose the Temp HP if you doff the armor, which is actually reasonable given that it's clearly meant to be built into the armor. OH! Hold up, this is not a nerf. Unlike the Dreadnaught's Giant Stature, the Defensive Field is now unlimited in uses. That... that is actually freaking awesome. That might be up there with Rage and Deflect Attacks as effective damage-reduction, to be honest. Still, you'll really want to push Con to ensure that your Bloodied level is as high as possible, and that when you are bloodied, you'll survive until your next turn to activate this.

Infiltrator appears to be unchanged in its base model.

Now, rather than Armor Model, you now have Armor Replication - which makes sense given that the way that Infusions have been replaced with Replicate Magic item. This simply adds one Plan ("infusions known") and allows you to replicate one additional item, as long as this bonus plan and bonus item are both Armor-type items, which... yeah, I mean, no fear there. It does nerf the old version slightly, but it's fairly elegant (and hopefully there will be an update on D&D Beyond to actually be able to use this without a bunch of kludges).

Perfected Armor has gotten some changes:

Dreadnaughts, of course, being brand-new, have all new... new features. The damage die for your Flail becomes 2d6 instead of 1d10 (about 1.5 more damage per hit). When you use Giant Stature, you can grow to Huge instead of Large if you have room, and your reach while enlarged extends an additional 5 feet (so 10 from Giant Stature, 5 from the reach property, and 5 from basic melee range, which means a 20-foot reach). Also, while enlarged, you can fly as well.

Guardians get a slight boost in that their Thunder Gauntlets now do a d10 of damage instead of a d8.

Infiltrators now do 2d6 with their Lightning Launcher's attack rather than 1d6, but while the Lightning Launcher does impose disadvantage on the target's attacks against you, it no longer gives you advantage on attacks against them. Damage-wise, let me figure this out: in the old version, you could hit them the first time on your turn for 2d6 (one for the base damage and one for the once-a-turn bonus d6) and then you'd get advantage on the next attack, which would also deal 2d6 because the advantage granted that d6 as well. Then, an ally would likely get another d6 thanks to their advantage, so a total of 5d6. Here, it's also 5d6 because your base damage is now 2d6, and you get that once-a-turn extra d6 you got at level 3. However, while far simpler to track, I think we have to call this a nerf because there's no advantage.

Oh, and like Alchemists with potions, you can now craft nonmagical armor in half the time. Granted, you probably won't be doing this for yourself, but with decent downtime, you could help out other armor-wearing members of your party.

Artillerists:

One again, there's a pretty big central change that doesn't really add anything, but makes you more flexible: You now get to choose what your Eldritch Cannon (or Cannons at high levels - the Artificer in my Ravnica campaign has names for both of theirs) does each time you fire them. Frankly, this is fantastic. The high-level Artillerist in the game I run almost exclusively uses the Force Ballista option, even when certain situations would perhaps be better for the other types, simply because a Force Ballista is never useless (except when they were fighting a Wasteland Dragon that was immune to Force damage).

Like all the subclasses, you become better at crafting something, in this case Wands, halving the time required to do so.

Detonating your cannons now deals a bit more damage (3d10 rather than, I believe, 3d8) but is also used now as a reaction when your cannon is reduced to zero hit points. I'll be frank, I think as DM I've maybe destroyed one of my Artificer's cannons like once, so this will probably feel more like a ribbon feature - in fact, I think this might be a nerf given that you can't just use this when you want to.

Battle Smith:

Again, like all subclasses, you can craft items faster - in this case, weapons - both mundane and magical. (Hey, how come Armorers can't craft magic armor faster? They're the only subclass limited to nonmagical items.)

The Steel Defender's HP is now 5+5 times your Artificer level, rather than 2 + your Int mod + 5x your Artificer level, which is likely a nerf, though by a pretty tiny amount (likely it's the same at level 1 and then winds up costing you, like 2 HP as you max out your Intelligence).

Its Force-Empowered Rend also deals slightly different damage - it now deals 2 + your Int mod + 1d8, rather than 1d8 + PB damage. This, conversely, is a buff, as the old version would have gone from 1d8+2 to 1d8+6 and the new version likely starts off as 1d8+4 and ends up at 1d8+7. Again, not huge, but nice.

But that's about it. So, let's gather some thoughts:

    I can't decide if this is a big change to the class or a minor tweak. The open-endedness of the Replicate Magic item tables, which have specific options in addition to broad categories, helps future-proof the class a little bit as new items are added to the game.

I will say that I always thought that Artillerists and Alchemists should use weapon attack instead of relying on damage cantrips, and that their level 5 features should have granted them unique weapons only their subclass could use. And I really feel like an Artillerist should be able to use a Pistol or Musket as their Arcane Firearm, which then, I think, would allow them to fire using True Strike - picture it, Repeating Shot on an Arcane Firearm Musket and using True Strike. At level 5, you'd be dealing 1d12+1d8+1d6+5 radiant damage.

I'll also say that the Armorer and Battle Smith feel like they should have gotten Weapon Mastery. Maybe the Armorer is ok, as their weapons are unique and have some mastery-adjacent properties (the Armor Flail gets Push if you are enlarged,) but the Battle Smith really feels like they should get Weapon Mastery, as they are using standard weapon types.

I do think that there's some streamlining here. I also haven't finished the interview with Jeremy Crawford on YouTube, which might have additional insights into the reasons for these changes. Hell, let me finish that before posting and I can see what I might not have noticed.

Ok, finished the video - not a ton of new thoughts from it, though there were some ideas I had independently that I added to the above paragraphs.

I'm very happy that the Artificer isn't just being left in the dust as we move into this "5.5E" era. Overall the changes here largely feel pretty minor. There are some positives: I think the Dreadnaught sounds fun, I love the change to Eldritch Cannons, where you get to choose its mode each time you use it. But there are some nerfs here that I don't think were deserved - particularly the Alchemist, who feels like it really needed some love (the 2d8 extra damage is nice, but I don't know that it really makes up for everything else).

Indeed, I think they really need to figure out what they want the Alchemist to do as a subclass: are they a healer? If so, they need access to Heal and other powerful healing and restorative capabilities to keep up with Clerics and Druids. Are they a damage-dealer? Then they probably need some kind of supplement to their damage output that equals the power of the Artillerist's Eldritch Cannons.

We don't even know what book this revised Artificer would appear in, so I think there will be plenty of time to iterate on it, but I hope that some of my concerns are shared by enough people that the designers take a look at them.

Godwyn and the Lands of Shadow

 Godwyn is a kind of fascinating figure in Elden Ring. Given that Elden Ring's world was largely created by George R. R. Martin, the author of the books upon which Game of Thrones is based, it's natural to draw some parallels between these works of fantasy fiction. Martin and Miyazaki both clearly approach fantasy with a profound skepticism toward those who seek power and the received history of who has the "right" to rule over others (Martin, I'm certain, was heavily influenced by Frank Herbert's Dune series, which is sci-fi but deals with a lot of themes I generally associate more with fantasy, especially given its sort of feudal society in that 20,000-year future).

Anyway, in Martin's Song of Ice and Fire (and Game of Thrones,) one of the most important figures in the story actually died decades before the first book starts. Rhaegar Targaryen was the eldest son of King Aerys, and was thus in line for the throne. Much of the drama that sweeps the world is due to the fact that Robert Baratheon, one of the major lords of Westeros, rose up in rebellion against the "Mad King" and ended the Targaryen dynasty that had united the continent centuries ago. Rhaegar was among the casualties of that war, killed by Robert in one of the war's decisive battles.

At the beginning of the story, now-King Robert is one of the closest friends and allies of the character who we initially follow as our main protagonist, and we see things from his and the rebels' perspective, which painted the Targaryens are cruel tyrants.

And yet, the more we read the story, the more Rhaegar, at least, starts to sound like he would have been the ideal person to succeed his mad father - that, perhaps, had the war not been lost, or even started in the first place, that Rhaegar might have forced his father into a kind of retirement with him serving as regent until Aerys died and Rhaegar could become king proper.

The tragedy, then, is that Robert's rage at Rhaegar, robbed the land of a chance to have a good and wise king.

But it's also more complicated than that:

I won't go into every last detail, especially because some of the way this story plays out is fully confirmed in the TV show but only strongly hinted at in the books. Rhaegar appears to have been a great, well-intentioned man, but he's also one who was obsessed with prophecy, and the main point of contention between him and Robert (who's actually his cousin, because these are a bunch of medieval noble houses) is a woman named Lyanna Stark. Rhaegar, evidently, felt that he needed to father a child with Lyanna in order to produce a destined savior (they were also probably in love, though Robert, who also loved Lyanna, is convinced that she was kidnapped and worse).

And I think that's also something that comes up as a theme - this idea that there's the sort of human level of love and true bonding, but also the call of destiny.

Godwyn was, by nearly all accounts, the best of the demigods. Golden-haired like his mother, he also demonstrated a gift for diplomacy, turning the Ancient Dragons, who at one point had been the greatest threat to the Erdtree and the Golden Order (see Gransax's massive corpse that covers half of Leyndell, the damage of his attack still not fully repaired after who knows how long - boy, there's another whole post to be written about figuring out where that happens in the timeline) into stalwart allies, with an entire Dragon Cult that was friendly to Leyndell (I love that we finally learn how the rah-rah, pro-Dragon Dragon Cult and the "eat their hearts" Dragon Communion practice were actually compatible and actually make total sense).

Again, everyone seemed to adore Godwyn, and unlike Miquella, whose great rune compelled adoration (in my mind it's almost like a supercharged version of the instinct to protect children that basically every mammal has,) it seems Godwyn won his adoration through his actions.

And that's why it must have been such a heinous shock when Godwyn was murdered on the Night of Black Knives.

Godwyn's murder, as I understand it, along with many other murders of other demigods on that same night (there's even apparently a theory amongst Japanese Elden Ring fans that our Tarnished is one of the demigods who was slain that night, though I'm not convinced,) led Marika to shatter the Elden Ring in grief, which then brought about the Shattering War, the aftermath of which being kind of what we find ourselves in as the game begins.

Interestingly, Godwyn is never identified as an Empyrean. In fact, the only male empyrean we ever hear about is Miquella (the others being Ranni, Malenia, Marika, and the Gloam-Eyed Queen). However, perhaps in part because his naming convention follows from Godfrey (he's the only one of Marika-as-Marika's children who doesn't have an "M" name - not counting the children she fathered as Radagon, who all have "R" names) I'm inclined to think that the destiny expected for him was to become Elden Lord.

In fact, there's a bizarre detail that I'd never really thought to put together: In the base game, Mohg is obsessed with creating a new dynasty, elevating Miquella to godhood while he serves as Elden Lord. He calls this the "Mohgwyn Dynasty."

What, exactly, does he mean by that?

As we discover in the DLC, Mohg's actions are actually compelled by Miquella - it appears that he was pushed into this position to free up the body for Miquella to then use to house Radahn's soul. Mohg, it would seem, was sort of a pawn in all of this.

But this idea of a "Mohgwyn Dynasty" is curious for two reasons: the first is that it adds this "wyn" suffix to Mohg's name. Godwyn and Mohg are, in fact, full brothers (I'd always thought of Mohg and Morgott as being older brothers to Godwyn, but I could be wrong, and Godwyn could be the eldest). Might Mohg be seeking to be seen in as positive a light as his near-universally-beloved brother?

Second, he claims to be starting a new dynasty. Given that Godfrey begat Godwyn, and somewhere down the line there were also Godefroy and Godrick, there's a whole "God" line here (one that, given the state of Godrick, clearly doesn't end up in a particularly impressive place). Mohg is the son of Godfrey, but he might feel that, as an omen who has so been separated from his royal lineage, he may as well consider his "house" a separate one (while Morgott, despite all the abuses he suffers, is loyal to Marika to the bitter end). Had Mohg gotten the future he wanted, might there have been a Mohgfroy and Mohgrick somewhere down the line?

Also, it's interesting to note that the name "Godwyn" means, essentially, "friend of god." Godwyn does seem to be very talented at making friendships with both his fellow demigods and with the ancient dragons. (Ironically, Godfrey means "god's peace," which is more or less a nature that Hoarah Loux has enforced upon him by Serosh, when the actual man is only his true self when he is a savage warrior).

Anyway, we find out in Shadow of the Erdtree that Miquella and Radahn swore an oath to one another, that when Miquella achieved apotheosis, that Radahn would be his consort and Elden Lord. It's never been totally clear to me whether Radahn strove to get out of this obligation, and that Malenia journeyed to Caelid in order to force Radahn into compliance, or if the duel they fought was actually part and parcel of the pact they had sworn.

Still, while Radahn is one of the greatest warriors the Lands Between have ever seen, I find myself wondering if perhaps he wasn't Miquella's first choice.

Miquella, of course, at some point, tried to perform some kind of ritual involving an Eclipse to restore Godwyn's slain soul. (It's interesting that we almost never see the Sun in the game - for a long time, I was convinced that there simply was no sun, and only the Erdtree provided daylight to the Lands Between, but you can actually see a little sun in the sky in certain parts of the map, like Altus Plateau. A missing sun would have had interesting implications for the Eclipse, as well as the Dung Eater's armor and the Furnace Golems, but that's another post). Isn't it possible, even likely, that the motivation for this was not only out of Miquella's kind heart, but also perhaps to restore the figure who he first wanted as Elden Lord?

I'll admit that there might be holes in this: if Miquella and Radahn made their pact while both were children, that would likely have come before the Night of Black Knives. I mean, I think. (Actually, just the idea that Miquella ever knew Radahn as a child is somewhat questionable - we presume that the Marika/Radagon children were all born after the Radagon/Rennala children, though think there could have been some overlap - again, one of the toughest things about figuring out Elden Ring lore is just putting the timeline in sequence).

Still, thanks to the half-cursemark of death being carved into Godwyn's body, he's associated with death, and is the source of the rather horrific deathroot (one of the creepiest things found in the game) which then, in turn, seems to give rise to Those Who Live in Death, Elden Ring's take on the undead.

And thus, it is perhaps not a surprise that something of Godwyn wends its way into the Land of Shadow.

But I think a number of people were also surprised that his presence and relevance to the main plot of Shadow of the Erdtree was pretty minimal.

The Lands of Shadow are said to be a place where all manner of death washes up. So, if Godwyn is now the Prince of Death, it's be reasonable to see him here. And we do, but it's a little off:

In the base game, the catacombs - burial places that are connected to (or at least were connected to) the roots of the Erdtree can be found nearly everywhere - it's one of the most common "mini-dungeon" types. And we find that they're all infested with Deathroot, the creepy plant growths that, upon close inspection, have eyes and weird tendrils in them.

The Land of Shadow has only three catacombs - each of which is much larger than the ones we find in the Lands Between - even larger than the (four, I think?) Heroes' Graves (one of which we actually come out of after dying at the Chapel of Anticipation right at the start of the game).

These catacombs are bigger dungeons than the ones we saw before, but there's also a major distinction: they are not infested with Deathroot.

In two of these, the final boss is a Death Knight - a loyal knight of Godwyn, wielding both the signature dragon cult lightning powers, but also having a skeletal aesthetic befitting those serving the Prince of Death. The third, we find a slain Death Knight in a rather roundabout route (and get the cool armor, which I might be a little over-leveled in Endurance to use over heavier pieces) who perhaps we can guess was taken out by the Hornsent Inquisitors, as the final boss there is one of them (technically, this boss is fought outside of the dungeon, and thus gives you a separate site of grace).

But the two surviving Death Knights (well, surviving until we show up) are each guarding a massive Godwyn face, similar to the one we can find in the depths of Stormveil Castle.

And that's curious, because it's the only "Godwyn growth" we find in the Land of Shadows, despite there being some (though not many) of Those Who Live in Death, including a Tibia Mariner in Charo's Grave (not even sure where to begin with the fact that the Shadow Keep has a bunch of Tibia boats).

One thing that I hadn't even seen talked about until recently (I wish I could remember which of the dozen or so Elden Ring Youtubers I saw point it out,) but Stormveil is also free of Deathroot, despite the briars that are growing through the walls and making massive holes. These, it seems, are likely instead due to the "befouled winds" resulting from Godrick's grafting practices, and these briars might be related instead to the "briars of sin."

Going back to Mohg: Miquella needed Mohg for two reasons: he needed a new body, free of the Scarlet Rot, to put Radahn's soul into (this, again, feels like a point in favor of "Radahn was resisting his obligations" argument) but he also needed Mohg's connection, as an omen, to the realm of the Hornsent. It's pretty clear that "Omens" are really just the same people who, in the Hornsent culture, would be honored as touched by the divine. Because they were locked away in the Land of Shadow, perhaps Mohg's status as one of these Crucible-touched figures makes him a proper medium to enter the realm.

But if Mohg and Radahn were both back-up plans, and Miquella initially intended Godwyn to be his Elden Lord, was Godwyn capable of performing the same function?

First off, let's talk about Mohg and Godwyn (Morgott gets left out of this, I guess). Each is a son of Marika and Godfrey. And Godfrey had, as his loyal knights, the Crucible Knights. Now, how those knights related to the Hornsent is a bit of a question: we never see any Crucible Knights without their armor on, but the armor doesn't seem to have any means to accommodate Crucible mutations. Instead, the Crucible Knights use incantations to take on "aspects of the crucible," conjuring these animalistic aspects out of pure faith rather than physical embodiment - which might have been more seemly in Marika's eyes.

Mohg was utterly covered in horn growths - something that would have earned him high status among the Hornsent, but which condemned him as far as Marika's world was concerned.

And what of Godwyn?

What we see of Godwyn in cutscenes, including the moments after his assassination by the Black Knives, is what we might expect from someone loved and honored by Marika - a muscular and very human body, with golden blond hair.

But when we see his twisted and mutated body in the Deeproot Depths, he's obviously transformed considerably, his head now looking somewhat like a giant scallop (and it's unclear which is the "top" of his head). He also, interestingly enough, has a fish-tail rather than legs.

And that's been one of the major "what the hell" mysteries of the game. What is it about being the Prince of Death that has given him this strange, merman-like form.

But what if it's not anything to do with being the Prince of Death? What if he was always touched by the Crucible the same way his full brothers were? Or rather, not the same way. He does not have horns. But he does have this animalistic aspect. The Hornsent valued all expressions of the Crucible, but they considered horns the most desirable. Might Marika, thus, in a contrarian manner, found those non-Horn aspects to be, conversely, more acceptable?

Miquella needs a connection to the Lands of Shadow because it is where Enir-Elim stands, and where he can achieve his apotheosis (I'm curious whether Ranni is able to accomplish this without it because she's either more creative than Miquella or because her Darkmoon, with its portal-like appearance, grants her a literal different path toward divinity) through the Gates of Divinity, like Marika did before him. But Godwyn could have been that for him - he could have been both the way into the Shadowlands and also the right and proper Elden Lord for his new age.

Indeed, Godwyn seems like a better fit for Miquella anyway, as someone who was able to win the loyalty and friendship of former enemies, which is basically what Miquella envisions the entire world doing under his divine reign. Radahn, meanwhile, is awesome (and loved his horse so much he mastered gravity magic so he could continue to ride him) but really models himself more after Godfrey, a consumate warrior who wishes to battle fierce foes forever - a strange choice given that Miquella intends to end the very idea of war.

But the Black Knives plot kind of ruins it all, doesn't it?

That said, what is done - Godwyn becoming a living body whose soul is dead (whatever that ultimately means - Miquella seemed to believe it would be possible to revive Godwyn's soul via the Eclipse, but this also, notably, did not seem to work) and Ranni being a living soul whose body is dead - might have then served as inspiration for the act of necromancy that put Radahn's soul in Mohg's body.

Would such an act have been necessary in order to make Godwyn his Elden Lord? Or perhaps it was Miquella's failed Eclipse experiments that taught him what was needed to achieve this with Radahn and Mohg.

One last thing, and this might be more of a tangent that deserves its own post:

What, precisely, was the Eclipse that he was hoping for? How would it have revived Godwyn?

We experience two types of Eclipse here in the real world - a Lunar Eclipse is when the Moon passes beneath the Earth's shadow, which can only happen during a Full Moon because that's when the moon is directly opposite the position of the sun, and only when the plane of the Earth's revolution overlaps with the plane of the Moon's revolutions. Solar eclipses can only happen during a New Moon, because the moon must now be directly between the Sun and the Earth, and again, this is only when the planes of each are overlapping.

In Elden Ring, the moon's phases are treated as if they're separate entities - indeed, at the Moonlight Altar in Liurnia, we actually see two different moons, one bright and white, the other dark and blue. And this Full Moon and Darkmoon (a New Moon can be thought of this way because, given that the side of it that faces the sun faces away from us, it looks mostly dark from our perspective) are associated with Rennala and Ranni, respectively.

Thus, I have to imagine that the Eclipse would have had some major effect on the Carians, Miquella's kind of half-family. And I believe that the ghost in Castle Sol speaks of the sun being consumed, so we're probably talking about the Darkmoon in this case.

How interesting, then, that Miquella's plan to revive Godwyn would likely involve the very moon associated with Ranni, who took advantage of, or even planned, the Night of Black Knives that claimed Godwyn in the first place?

And might she have been the one who kept it from succeeding?

Last bit:

There is a shocking dearth of solar imagery in Elden Ring. It's among the most potent symbols in human culture, but we only see Sun imagery in two places, as far as I know. The sun itself is also barely visible in the sky - only a rather faint, small dot visible in a few parts of the map. The Erdtree's radiance really feels like the source of light in the Lands Between (not unlike the great trees of Tolkien's legendarium, which were the second versions of the world's great light sources after the Great Lamps were destroyed - I want to say it's the pilot of Rings of Power that lets you see them in their glory when Galadriel is a little girl) and the sun is kind of redundant.

But it's not as if no one is aware of it. The faces on the Furnace Golems appear like suns, the rays surrounding them wrought like horns. We also see a similar symbol of the Dung Eater's armor. Given his fixation on cursing people with omen-like horns, and his wearing of this symbol associated with the great weapons of Messmer's crusade, I do wonder if he either was a Crusader who was broken by his actions, or perhaps was meant to be one who then refused to go into the Land of Shadow.

But what does the sun, then, mean or represent?

Who is affiliated with it?

I could imagine Godwyn being associated with the sun simply because of his status as a radiant Golden Child, but I don't really have evidence to support that.

Now, I could imagine that sun imagery was avoided in part because it was such a prominent part of the symbolism of Dark Souls, what with Gwyn being the Lord of Sunlight and Solaire and all of that. Still, I really wonder if figuring out the role of the Sun in the lore of Elden Ring might be a key to unlocking some of its deepest mysteries.

Night Lord? What? Elden Ring: Nightreign

 So, I've literally only watched the gameplay trailer, but according to IGN's description, FromSoft is making a co-op standalone spin-off of Elden Ring called Nightreign.

While my first assumption was that this would be a second expansion to Elden Ring (something I never expected them to do,) instead this appears to be a multiplayer-focused, randomized "rogue-like" system that has the players eventually face off against someone called the Nightlord after facing a number of randomized enemies.

Bizarrely, among the enemies seen in the trailer was the Nameless King and his friend/mount the dragon known as the King of Storms, from Dark Souls III.

So...

On one hand, I think we might be looking at a kind of corporate cash-grabby thing here, spitting out a multiplayer live-service game that borrows the IP of something I consider a really passionately-wrought work of art.

On the other hand, this is coming from FromSoft, so it's possible that it's the "FromSoft" version of a live-service game much in the way that Elden Ring was their version of an open-world game - which, in practice, was really just one of their normal Souls-likes that just so happened to be in a vast world.

I'll be honest, online multiplayer is not something that gets me excited. I barely have any interest in playing with random players online, with the exceptions of the true anonymity of Magic the Gathering: Arena (which seemed to borrow some strategies from Hearthstone) and the, well, totally online World of Warcraft (which is kind of grandfathered in now since I've been playing it for eighteen years).

Indeed, I actually love that Elden Ring is about as opt-in to its multiplayer as any previous games - you can enjoy the bloodstains and notes left by other players in Elden Ring without worrying about being invaded - something I freaking love (if I understand correctly, the only time you can get invaded is if you're already playing co-op or if you put down an invasion sign).

So, we'll see.

The real question I have, though, is about the lore. The trailer is tantalizing, with what looks like ghostflame spreading out across the Lands Between. What is this Nightlord? Is it connected to Morgott's Night's Cavalry, or perhaps the Dark Knights like Jolan? Might it have something to do with Godwyn?

It does look like there will be some significant new means of traversal in Nightreign, including what appears to be the ability to summon a spirit-eagle who will fly you around.

Anyway, details are sparse for the moment, but I'm sure to keep an eye on this.

Midra, Flowers, the Shaman, and the Melting and Melding of the Flame of Frenzy

 Admittedly, this thought only just occurred to me and I'm intending to write it down before I forget it, so this might be loose and it might be short.

The Frenzied Flame is an oddity in Elden Ring. It's clearly a horrifying force, and the basis for the one real "bad" ending that makes it pretty explicit how horrible it is (even the Dung Eater one you could argue is just kind of returning the Hornsent values to the world, so not everyone would hate it).

And yet, there's seemingly little interaction that the Flame has with the conflicts between the demigods. Even our manner of purging the Flame from ourselves to both save Melina and not destroy the world, Miquella's Needle, was designed, it would seem, initially to deal with the Scarlet Rot instead.

Thus, Midra's appearance in Shadow of the Erdtree is intriguing.

And I wonder if it is actually the reason for the whole conflict in the first place.

Let's talk flowers and Shaman.

The Shaman village, hidden behind the Shadow Keep and requiring finding some secret passages, is one of the most important locations in all of Elden Ring. It's Queen Marika's birthplace. We know that it was the site of a terrible atrocity, as the goddess returned here and created a minor erdtree despite the fact that there was no one left within to heal with the spell. The genocidal purging of the Hornsent, sending Messmer to burn Belurat to the ground and slaughter the locals (we encounter very few living hornsent - most are specters instead) was almost certainly motivated by what the Hornsent did to Marika's people, stuffing them into jars in the hopes of creating "saints."

Personally, I'm inclined to think that Marika was actually the product of the Hornsent actually succeeding - it wasn't just revenge for her sisters and mothers (are there male shaman? I'll get to that) but for her own treatment as well.

Now, why were the Hornsent doing this?

Well, the Hornsent believe that signs of the crucible - extra limbs or especially beast-like horns - are signs of a connection to divinity (there's a whole other post to look at the Crucible Knights and Godfrey and how they connect to Marika and why she might have chosen him as her first Elden Lord). The Shaman, while capable of melding with other beings, were not naturally inclined toward such physical expressions.

But I don't think that's why the Hornsent came after them.

Listening to ghosts in Bonny Village and some of the Gaols where the Shaman women were stuffed into jars, the Hornsent seemed to think that the Shaman were guilty of some terrible sin. They might have felt that the stuffing of these women into jars and mixing them with the flesh of others might have been some kind of alternate route to Crucible-like appendages, which in their eyes would make them more virtuous.

But why were they so convinced that the Shaman were in need of such punishment?

The Shaman Village is one of the prettier locations in the game. While standing right up next to the Scadutree where its fragments are collected makes the divine holy glow almost feel sickly (and it is the shadow of the Erdtree, so this makes sense), the natural beauty of the village is notable, especially, for all the colorful flowers that grow there. One could imagine that before it was in the Land of Shadow, and before its people were taken, it might have been one of the most idyllic places in the Lands Between (sidenote: yes, it's interesting to consider whether it has a connection to Dominula, the Windmill Village, but that's a whole tangent I can't afford to go on right now).

Presumably, there was a time when the Shamans lived at peace in this central part of the Lands Between. And they might not have been confined to just that one village.

In Midra's Manse, there are two paintings that are actually illusory walls that one needs to pass through to progress. Both will be relevant here.

The first one, which you must pass through right after finding the first Site of Grace right inside the building (it's actually a very compact dungeon, as Midra is just upstairs from the main hall, but requires going through the entire Manse to get to him,) depicts the Manse in what must have been happier times. Not only is the building in bright sunlight, but the Abyssal Woods don't look nearly as spooky - they, in fact, are filled with colorful wildflowers. Just like the Shaman Village.

(Another tangent: I have no idea what connection to make between the Abyssal Woods and Messmer's Abyssal Serpent.)

Therefore, I'm inclined to think that Midra was of the same culture as Marika (hell, they even both have M-names). I've stated before that I thought it possible that Midra was actually Marika's father. While the evidence for that theory is little more than a gut-feeling on my part, I think there's a logical route to arrive there.

Still, let's just remember this: the flowers in the painting of Midra's Manse in better times is why I'm inclined to think that this was a site of the Shaman culture (not entirely sure if it's also Numen - we didn't really get much Nox/Numen stuff in Shadow of the Erdtree, though the giant stone coffins in the Cerulean Coast and Great Fissue bear some investigation - another tangent). Midra's lack of horns, but his status as a noble of some sort, would seem to exclude him from being Hornsent. So let's assume that he was an important figure in Marika's home culture.

Now, of course, we know that Midra is associated with the Frenzied Flame. Much as we do if we get that ending, upon giving in to the flame, Midra's head is removed and replaced with a blazing Frenzied Flame.

Prior to this, however, Midra was horribly tortured. The Hornsent sent inquisitors after him, who burned all the books in the Manse and then impaled Midra with a nasty, barbed, branched blade (one that, in a strange way, kind of gives him a horn).

Why was he tortured?

Well, the Hornsent are quite particular about the preservation and reverence they had toward spirits. While Marika wanted a world in which people lived on not just in spirit, but in body too, the Hornsent are happy to have all their ghostly gravestones and ghostly people around them (I'm not ready to connect them directly to the Deathbird stuff, which might have been slightly its own separate thing). The thing is, the Frenzied Flame doesn't just burn physical matter. The reason Torrent won't come with you into the Abyssal Woods is that, normally, if he's killed, he can just be summoned again. As a spirit, he's basically immortal. But the Frenzied Flame is the one thing that could destroy him. Indeed, if we get the Frenzied Flame ending (and meet the Three Fingers before Melina would burn herself at the Forge of the Giants,) we see Melina pick up the smoldering remains of the whistle-ring we summon Torrent with, and she holds it as it fully burns to ash. Presumably, Torrent is consumed in this ending (making it for sure the bad ending, because Torrent is a good boy).

The Hornsent Inquisitors thus would have zero tolerance for the Flame of Frenzy.

So, how did it arrive at Midra's Manse in the first place?

The answer, I think, is Nanaya. We can find her body at the Manse, but we also see her in the portrait of Midra (the second aforementioned painting) standing behind him. Three big things of note about her in that painting:

First, she has the twin braids we see associated with the Shaman women. Marika cut one of hers and left it there in memory of those who raised her, along with the Grandmother (whose body, or maybe statue, is in the village's biggest tree... kind of like Marika will be in the Erdtree) but prior to this, it seems that women would have two braids. This, along with the bright flowers, really reinforces to me the idea that Nanaya was part of the Shaman culture.

Second, she is holding her belly. It's a classic pose in portraiture to imply that a woman is pregnant. Given that she's posing with Midra, that would suggest that he is the father.

Third, and most damningly, she's got a weird, smug half-smile. And we've seen that before: on the talisman Shabriri's Woe. Shabriri, of course, is a figure associated with the Frenzied Flame, and one that we know is capable of possessing dead bodies. (Shabriri is a term from Jewish folklore, as a kind of malevolent spirit associated with blindness. I also wonder if they also took another monster from Jewish folklore, a dybbuk, which, depending on the story, can be a possessing spirit.)

While on its own, this half-smile would be a bit of a stretch, the fact that we're dealing with the Frenzied Flame makes me about 99% convinced that Nanaya was possessed by Shabriri while pregnant (yet another tangent: the connection between Shabriri, Hyetta - who is also a possessing spirit, though not as obviously malevolent and maybe not even aware that she is one - and Daedicar, who has a "woe" talisman just like Shabriri. Hell, it's possible that Nanaya is actually another dybbuk-like spirit, and that woman had a different name).

Nanaya's corpse holds a torch that is made from the spinal chord of a man who failed to become a Lord of Frenzy, so it seems very likely that Midra was her second attempt.

And, just like the Wandering Merchants held below Leyndell's sewers, the attempt to punish and contain the Frenzied Flame actually wound up bringing it about - the Merchants were buried alive and fell into despair, calling forth the Three Fingers, while Midra endured his torturous punishment by the Hornsent for countless ages until we witness him finally give up and give in.

(Another tangent: there are scientific themes in Elden Ring, and I wonder if the Frenzied Flame is kind of just entropy? Attempts to reduce entropy within a system will create more of it outside the system, and it's the principle that eventually leads to the heat-death of the universe, where everything is just one big warm, undifferentiated mass. Entropy also feels like the central idea in Dark Souls as well, so, you know.)

Ok, but we're not quite done.

We have this sequence of events: Nanaya gets possessed by Shabriri, introduces the Frenzied Flame to Midra's Manse, the Hornsent come to contain this greatest of blasphemies and torture the one who they consider responsible (maybe even by Nanaya's design) until the Flame basically incubates within him.

This, then, is the sinfulness that the Hornsent wish to punish/correct amongst the Shaman women. They stick them in jars, melding their flesh with others to create a "saint," and then either Marika is the lone survivor, or, I think maybe more likely, is actually subjected to the same horror, but unlike all the others, she actually does become a "saint," or... perhaps in other terms, an empyrean?

Sufficiently cleansed according to the Hornsent, they bring her to Enir-Elim to allow her to ascend to godhood (and given that a number of items in the Lands of Shadow refer to multiple gods, maybe this wasn't such an unprecedented thing - they had access to the Gates of Divinity, so maybe anyone worthy was allowed to pass through and achieve apotheosis,) thinking they'd "fixed her" and that she'd subscribe to their worldview.

Then, with the acquired divine power, Marika brings down all hell upon the people who raised her to godhood in vengeance for what was done to her people - though likely not until after she'd consolidated her power (possibly long after, assuming that Messmer was the child of her and Radagon - though given that Radagon was part of her, I could also believe that Messmer was actually born a contemporary of Godfrey, Morgott and Mohg, as a bastard child while she was still married to Godfrey. Perhaps that's one of the reasons he's hidden away in the Lands of Shadow?)

Now, there's one final piece:

The Frenzied Flame is said to melt all things down in a way that will ultimately combine them. Hyetta says that the One Great is what existed before the Greater Will made a mistake. If the Greater Will's mistake was the separation of things into disparate pieces (kind of the Big Bang of Elden Ring - again, some similar themes with Dark Souls) the Frenzied Flame is a force that pushes all things back together to become this One Great once again (likewise, Elden Ring has a ton of alchemy imagery and themes, and the separation and recombination of things is a big part of that as well).

And isn't it interesting that the Shaman can so easily combine their flesh with others'?

See, one of the things I've always found interesting is how the Frenzied Flame and the Grace of Gold are the two most "yellow"-associated forces in Elden Ring. Gold, of course, is really just a kind of shiny, metallic yellow. What if that's not a coincidence? What if these two aren't, when you get right down to it, actually fully separate forces?

There are even craftable stone items that mirror one another - I can't recall their names off the top of my head, but one is like a "Frenzystone" while another is a "Sunstone" or "Warmstone." And they look damned similar.

So: if Nanaya and Midra had a child, who is it?

Again, I'm inclined to think it's Marika. Hell, even the fact that she leaves her braid with "the grandmother" and not her mother might be because her mother isn't actually there (sure, the Grandmother might have just been the village matriarch, but maybe it's literal) because Nanaya was back at Midra's Manse, maybe already dead at the hands of the Inquisitors.

Oh, hold on: one thing I missed:

The journal page we find in Midra's Manse suggests that he might have been touched by one of the "Aged Untouchables," who force you into that stealth section. So, sure, the Flame might not have directly entered him via Nanaya, but why were they there in the first place? And, in fact, Midra does, according to the journal, seem to have successfully parried one (something I still haven't pulled off) so he might not have actually been "infected" at all, but it was enough for the Hornsent to go after him.

The thing is:

If the Frenzied Flame is incubated by suffering - essentially, the longer someone suffers, and the more they try to endure before they give in to despair, the greater the power of the Frenzied Flame - what if, and this is a really big supposition:

What if Marika's reign was engineered by Shabriri?

I mean, look, a woman goes in with the intention of creating a world without death, of endless bounty and life, and it winds up throwing the world into utter chaos - a chaos that will breed despair in all the dark corners of hopelessness across the Lands Between.

(EDIT: Ooh! One last thing: When Midra yanks his head off as the boss fight begins in earnest, he strikes a pose, holding his arms out in... yep, Marika's rune shape!)

How the Gods are Treated in D&D

 D&D, as with most fantasy fiction, has its share of fictional pantheons (before I get some evangelical atheist here saying "all pantheons are fictional" - by fictional I mean that people in the real world don't believe in/worship them). Generally, I think the model for most of these pantheons is the Greek one, which is probably the most broadly known pantheon among western audiences. Certainly, the Norse and to an extent the Egyptian pantheon are also influential here, as well as those that go beyond the European/Mediterranean region (Tiamat, for example, is from Mesopotamian myth, though she's not so much a five-headed dragon but the grand oceanic being who was slain and split in two, the bottom half becoming the ocean and the top half becoming the sky, which they thought of as being water as well).

The idea of gods seems to be a pretty universal human concept, but at the same time, I think different cultures and people of different eras had very different ways of conceptualizing them.

In our modern era, monotheism is extremely widespread, considering that Christianity and Islam, both taking Jewish myth (my use of the term myth is not meant to denounce these beliefs as false, just that it's the underlying story the religion considers as the basis for its ethical/moral/philosophical tenets) as their basis while adding stories and philosophical concepts that branched off (one thing I also think should be noted is that it's not like Judaism stopped evolving and developing when Christianity came along, just as Christianity did not remain static after Islam war born, and all three have spent the intervening millennium-plus changing and evolving with their practitioners). Given the vast popularity of Christianity and Islam, (Jews, who have not evangelized for a very long time, have a much smaller population) over half the global population believes that God is a singular being.

Thus, I think it's interesting that, in our fantasy worlds, we tend to prefer this more Greco-Roman style of polytheism. It's almost a sign that you're in a fantasy world when someone says "thank the gods" rather than "Thank God."

And yet, I think that our monotheistic culture still tends to inform how a lot of people play characters in a D&D game.

Two classes are classically associated with deities - the Cleric and the Paladin, being the two "divine" spellcasters (in some parallel universe, I wonder how D&D'24 would look had they stuck with this distinction - I think they probably made the right choice to ensure that classes had clearer identities, but I really like the concept of these three types of magic, arcane, primal, and divine, being distinct). Thus, I think a lot of players assume that if you have one of those classics, you won't shut up about your god, while if you don't, you can basically ignore the existence of the gods.

This, I think, has always struck me as kind of... wrong.

After all, most people aren't priests or clergy of any kind, but even if irreligiosity has generally been on the rise (as someone who's a secular agnostic humanist, more or less, I think most people would put me in that camp,) still the majority of people alive today believe in some kind of religious faith. Now, sure, if you're a fantasy nerd, you might be in a demographic category that is less likely to be religious (though plenty of religious people play D&D) but historically, religiosity is kind of the default assumption. Indeed, in the pre-scientific/enlightenment world, there weren't a lot of alternative explanations for how the universe worked, so unless you were just apathetic, you probably listened to what your spiritual leaders had to say (and in a lot of societies, at least claiming to believe this stuff was mandatory - I'll certainly grant that there are probably far more atheists/agnostics than are reported given the social pressure, sometimes under threat of violence, to profess a belief).

But we're actually not even quite at the point that I'm trying to make: I think a lot of players take worshipping one god or another as, effectively, belonging to one religion or another. Your character worships that one god to the exclusion of all others. Now, in monotheism, that makes sense, because you literally don't believe the other gods exist (though this doesn't seem to have always been the case: Exodus even mentions God - as in the god of Abraham - as being mightier than the gods of Egypt, which seems to imply that those other gods actually do exist, and only that the god of Moses is the supreme one that will best all others. Again, belief systems evolve over time). Of course, the funny thing is that the most prominent monotheistic religions in the world (admittedly, I'm not talking about Hinduism here because that's a weird case where it sort of looks like polytheism but technically isn't... at least as I recall from my like 7th grade world religions unit in social studies) actually consider their singular god to be the same being, with disagreements over which revelations to humanity are legitimate and which are not.

The point is, while a citizen of Athens would probably have a special spot in their heart for Athena, the Greeks all believed in all of the gods. Your worship of Athena did not prevent you from worshipping Zeus or Poseidon. It's just that these gods had different purposes. Pray to Poseidon when you're going on a sea voyage, or pray to Demeter when you're planting your crops for the year.

Now, for sure, the way that you structure your D&D world might work differently, and maybe these deities are all effectively their own religions. But I would just encourage you, and especially players in someone else's setting, to consider how they'd be likely to interact with these deities. For example, my wizard, who exists in the Wildemount setting, is not a divine spellcaster, but as a member of the Cobalt Soul, he naturally has a special devotion to the Knowing Mentor (I think CR is distancing their deities from the names created for D&D as they try to make their own brand, so while I think Ioun is still the official name of the KM, I don't know if that will always be canonical,) but he still has faith in gods like the Platinum Dragon or the Wildmother.

And this can extend to evil deities. Notably, in Greek myth, the gods aren't divided as a group of "good" and "evil" gods. Certainly, some skew far more one way or another - Athena is basically always benevolent (fitting given that we get most of our Greek mythology from Athens) while Ares is pretty much always evil (though Aprhodite is into him - is that the first instance of the "girls like bad boys" trope?) Still, even Ares might be given a sacrifice before a battle - not so much a "we love you so much" kind of offering as much as a "please leave me alone" one, given that Ares was a god of pain, death, cowardice, and all the worst aspects of war, and none of the heroism or honor (that was more Athena).

But another aspect of Greek myth is that the gods were very anthropomorphic, not just in appearance but in temperament. Zeus, while projecting all the awe and majesty of being the patriarch of the gods, was also a little horndog who went around fathering bastard demigods. If you learned your Greek myth from the Disney cartoon, you wouldn't realize that it was Hera, not Hades, who was Heracles (Hercules is the Roman name) so much grief over his life, basically because she despised him for being her husband's bastard. (Also cut from the Disney movie for some reason: Heracles has to do his twelve labors because he went crazy and murdered his own children.)

Basically, even if the gods were the embodiments of all these forces of nature and reality, the Greeks viewed them as deeply flawed people. Some philosophers didn't like this, feeling that the gods should be pure moral pillars, so it's kind of interesting that Christianity was heavily shaped by the Greeks, who wrote some of the gospels and basically made the religion into what it was as it spread through Europe. In stark contrast to the philandering Zeus, Jesus and the father that he also kind of was because of that whole trinity mystery is a flawless embodiment of goodness, only growing wrathful in the face of evil. Clearly, as a religious idea, this one caught on quite well.

Thus, another question regarding worldbuilding is the degree to which your deities are anthropomorphic. Interestingly, in the Exandria setting created by Matthew Mercer for Critical Role (where my Wizard is from,) the current campaign is really focused on how the gods are... both very anthropomorphic and also very alien. We actually get an origin story for them in a weird side-campaign-inside-the-main-campaign, where their nature is revealed to be quite alien indeed, but still bound within the idea of a family. Notably, as well, the gods didn't really create Exandria, though they shaped it considerably and created the mortal races on it. Now, this is actually somewhat in common with the Greek (and Norse) mythologies, in which the Olympians, for example, are actually a few generations removed from the actual creation of the world, and Zeus basically usurped his father Cronus' role as top deity - something that Cronus had effectively done with his father Ouranos/Uranus.

This is in pretty stark contrast with the monotheistic notion that God was all that existed before the universe, and that creation only happened in the first place because They created it.

So, as a worldbuilder, which do you prefer? More anthropomorphic deities can potentially have a more relatable personality, and can effectively act as important NPCs in your game. But I think you also run into the risk of making them feel... less godly. Certainly, this person-like visage might be just one face that a much grander and deeper figure wears - indeed, I think if you're having gods in your setting, it almost has to be - but a more distant and abstract kind of deity does not necessarily limit your ability to tell an epic story.

I, for one, like there to be some ambiguity in my narratives (I've been playing a lot more Elden Ring lately, and the worldbuilding in FromSoft's games always leaves massive room for interpretation and theorizing, including who, among the many characters in their worlds, including the player, is actually morally right in what they're doing) and so I think a strong choice, if you're up for it, is making the answer "it's up for debate." Just as theologians and philosophers have argued and speculated on the nature of divinity, I think that those questions can be a driver of drama and conflict within your D&D setting.

Hell, consider that your setting might have a God of the Sun and a God of Stars (mine does). Sure, your world might look more like the medieval model of the cosmos in which the Sun is just the largest and brightest "planet" in orbit around the world, making these two ideas totally separate, or you could have astronomers on this world discover that stars are actually just distant suns (or, to frame it another way, that the sun is just our nearest star,) you know, like how we understand it in the modern age. But these deities still both exist. What, then, does that mean? I mean, both are probably capable of empowering Clerics of the Light domain. Are they secretly the same deity? Or does the distinction between them as entities actually imply that there is a distinction between some giant balls of hydrogen so massive that they undergo nuclear fusion and other such balls that are just more distant from us?

Mystery, as a word, in the modern day usually describes a perplexing question: something unexplained that the investigator is tasked with unveiling. Detective heroes like Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot are rationalist heroes who are able to piece together evidence to arrive at the truth. But mysteries in a religious context tend to be sort of unresolvable - paradoxes that are nevertheless held to be true. In Christianity (and especially Catholicism,) God is a singular entity, but appears in three separate aspects: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son, and neither is the Holy Spirit, and yet all three are God. The fact that this doesn't actually make any sense (in mathematical terms, it violates the transitive property) and yet, if you believe in the trinity, you hold it to be true, is the Mystery, and that necessity to quiet your rational mind is seen by some as a way to behold a deeper spiritual truth.

Mysteries, in this sense, can potentially create some interesting texture to your world. And, it allows for the people within that world to come into conflict over the interpretation of that mystery (the nature of that conflict, and the stakes of it, of course being up to you).

Back into the Land of Shadows

While I had a relatively easy time on my first character through the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC for Elden Ring, other characters have struggled a bit. My very first, an Int-focused spellcaster/Darkmoon Greatsword-wielder, hit some of the bosses that only took me one or two attempts on my Strength/Faith/dual-greatsword/jump build and really struggled - Gaius, in particular, which only took me two attempts the first time around because I blundered into his arena without realizing I was walking into a boss fight, proved a bit of a wall.

So, I've taken by Dex/Int character, who in the main game was using Moonveil and a Cold Uchigatana dual-wielded, I've sort of adapted to now use a Cold Milday with the Wing Stance ash of war. The L2 Wing Stance leap-and-thrust hits very hard, and while the timing can be tough on bosses, it's been proving pretty good.

After reaching Messmer, but not yet attempting him, I found myself eager to clear some of the optional areas/bosses. While not quite as efficient as my "main" character, I was able to clear the Scadutree Avatar in maybe 4 attempts and Gaius in I believe 3. Interestingly, Midra, who took me only I think one attempt on my original character, was actually pretty tough - I came back after getting the giant number of Scadutree Fragments after Gaius and didn't have too much trouble after that - Midra in particular was an important boss for this character, who is the one I got the Lord of Frenzied Flame ending on (unfortunately, as a character with only 8 Faith, I don't actually get to use a lot of the Frenzied Flame incantations or weapons. I'm tempted to make a character specifically to use those, but I also understand it's more of a PvP power, as most creatures are immune to madness).

I also went off and descended into the big fissure to fight the Putrescent Knight. Somewhat like Midra's Manor, the dungeon itself felt surprisingly quick (especially compared to how I remembered it). So, now, I'm at Bayle and have yet to do much of the Ymir/Metyr questline (other than just meeting Ymir) but I think I might do all of those before taking on Messmer (I also have access to Rauh - it's funny that Messmer is kind of in this out-of-the-way side-chamber in the Shadow Keep despite being the main boss shown in the DLC trailers. FromSoft loves doing this, like making Artorias or Maria the real faces of their games' DLCs but not the final boss of either. Anyway, the Putrescent Knight only took me two attempts (and I nearly got it on the first). I'm not sure at what point in the sequence Thiollier will tell you he's headed south, but I think you can summon him against the Knight. Even if you don't, though, he'll still be around for his questline.

I have been tempted to return to other FromSoft games - indeed, since playing Elden Ring I have also gone back to Bloodborne (which I still adore) but I don't think I've revisited Dark Souls III (Dark Souls I I had on the Xbox 360, which I'm not sure even works anymore). It would be amazing to see a Bloodborne II with some of the quality-of-life improvements we got in Elden Ring, such as a Jump button. Indeed, it's be very cool to see a Bloodborne sequel that embraces the variety of gameplay styles you get in Dark Souls/Elden Ring, while still retaining its distinctive style (and Trick weapons).

I'm given to understand that they recently stated there aren't currently any plans for an Elden Ring sequel. I love Elden Ring, but I also understand that building a world as astonishingly massive as Elden Ring, and then following it up with a "this could be its own game"-sized DLC with Shadow of the Erdtree, they might want to take a break from all that. Assuming they still want to iterate on the Demon's Souls formula as they have been for the past 15 years, I suspect we'll get something more like the earlier titles than Elden Ring's massive open world. That said, I hope they try to implement the same kind of flexibility found in Elden Ring to keep future games from having a brick wall you need to break through. At least on my first playthrough, the very early parts of Bloodborne, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls III were all really frustratingly difficult, with very little recourse if you got stuck. All of these games kind of smooth out as you get far enough to be able to upgrade a bit (the fact that Bloodborne and DSIII don't even let you level up until you've made a bit of progress is kind of obnoxious. Technically Elden Ring does that, but as long as you don't try to fight the Erdtree Sentinel, it's really not asking a ton for you to get to the Gate Town Ruins to meet Melina).

Elden Ring is, I think, a better game for your ability to hold off on certain challenges. If you're getting your ass kicked by Margit the Fell Omen, you have all of Limgrave to explore and level-up through.

Anyway, thinking back to the Shadow of the Erdtree, I do feel like the DLC seems to favor builds that can land really big hits. I've done best when I can do by Wing Stance thrust, and my main character was rolling in like he had in the base game by slamming two big greatswords down on his targets. Elden Ring generally has easier-to-stagger enemies than in Dark Souls, and it seems those really heavy hits tend to do a better job of getting foes to that point.

Collaborative Worldbuilding and Homebrew D&D

 Given that my preference, generally, is to do my own stories in my own worlds in D&D, it's funny that at this stage, I've really run more D&D in an established setting - and not even a D&D-native one, at that. My Ravnica campaign is now over four-and-a-half-years running, the players are level 17 and about to enter the dungeon whose conclusion will get them to 18 (level 17 has been one of our longer chapters in the game, as I wanted to take some time off the main story to resolve a few character-specific threads).

But while I still have enough material to take us through, I'd guess, a year or more before we conclude the campaign after the party reaches level 20 (intending to have a decent chunk of the campaign taking place after hitting that max level so that people can actually enjoy all the power that comes with it - though given the plethora of powerful magic items the party has, I think they're near-god-like in power already,) I'm also feeling a strong urge to think about the next campaign I run.

For one thing, while some players have taken me up on my offer to let them convert to the 2024 version of their classes (our Barbarian is utterly devastating at this stage, in part because he's got an artifact weapon, but also because Brutal Strikes is downright nasty) it's been an opt-in choice that not everyone has taken. That's fine, but I do think moving forward, my assumed default is that you'll be playing the updated version of your class (I think I'll still allow the 2014 versions of classes and for sure subclasses, but in the former case I might need a bit of a justification - in the case of my ongoing campaign, I don't want to bait-and-switch anyone. Our Gruul Sorcerer has made ample use of various spells that summon creatures, and the new Conjure spells, while cool, don't give him the utility that he picked the spells for in the first place, so even if I really wish he were taking the new version of Counterspell, I'm ok with him sticking with the old-school stuff).

But while I've been pretty liberal in my rejiggering of Ravnica as a world to suit my tastes, I also think that this campaign's structure has been very rigid. I'd like to try something a bit more open-ended. Also, Ravnica's a setting that's 100% urban, and I'm eager to have some chance to do some adventure truly out in the wilderness (I have had the players travel to other planes from Magic the Gathering, and will, at level 20, actually have them journey to the D&D multiverse as well, but it's mostly been in Ravnica proper).

Again, given how far off the end of my Ravnica campaign is, I'm probably not going to be running another "full-fledged" D&D campaign until it's complete, though I've offered to run back-up side campaigns for when the DMs of the two I play in are unavailable or just need a break.

And here's my philosophy going forward:

The first is that I'm not going to come up with a major villain or overall arc for these campaigns until characters build a backstory. As much as I've dreamed of having the return of an ancient tyrannical dragon-emperor or a rival claimant to the throne within the empire that spans my setting's largest continent starting a civil war, these events - which will still probably be canonical in my overall timeline - are things I'll have to set aside unless they fit surprisingly well with the stories that my players come up with.

Instead, I'm going to present my setting, and likely focus in on one particular region of my setting (I've been working a lot on the kingdom of Wolfengard, which is the central part of that continent-spanning empire, and is probably the most "classic fantasy" part of the setting, being a kind of mix of British/German/French vibes,) telling the players about notable locations and giving them a map of the region, so that they can think about how their character fits into the place.

Now, I really like to write character backstories, even if they're a bit setting-agnostic. Sometimes I'll come up with my own towns and other locations. Often, I can just replace the names of such places with locations in the setting, like how I made my somewhat Western-themed Rogue in Wild Beyond the Witchlight a citizen of Red Larch in the Forgotten Realms.

But the thing is, this is my setting, made for me to run my game for my friends. And those friends are generally pretty creative people.

So, the hack that I'm really excited to try out is that I've built a map of Wolfengard in Inkarnate (the website that I use to make maps for my Ravnica game, which is played primarily online, as well as my friends' streaming show Legacy of Fools). The map has every location for the region I've come up with, including a number of major cities as well as some small towns that I've written adventures for (only some of which I've actually run). However, beyond these named locations, there are dozens of little town, village, and other symbols scattered across the map.

My intent, then, is that I will present the map to my players, and while they can easily just pick the established places, I'm going to encourage them to come up with their own locations on the map that are important to their characters, and we'll add those names to said map, making them canonical in any future campaigns or adventures I run in that setting.

But, for the purpose of that campaign, I figure this will give players a sense of buy-in and investment in the world, and allow them to really push some of their fantasy proclivities on the campaign. If a player really likes having stories involving fey whimsy, they can make a town that has a Fey Crossing in it. Perhaps someone really likes a kind of steampunk aesthetic, so they have a town that all works on clockwork and steam engines.

Essentially, fantasy is such a broad genre when you have an open mind about it, and think this is a way for the players to really be able to make it their kind of fantasy (though obviously, as DM, I'm going to inject a lot of myself into it as well).

Now, there are some challenges to running a campaign that's heavily player-directed. The simplest is just that players will often want some kind of prompt or breadcrumb to push them in the right direction. Simply saying "here's the world" and showing a bunch of locations will sometimes lead to players just wandering from place to place simply to fill out the map, as it were. Players also sometimes come up with more of a static portrait of what their character is like, and don't really think about the forward-moving plot that that character would pursue on their own.

The challenge, as a DM, as well, is to build a plot in which all the characters are equal stakeholders. I played in a campaign for years - a campaign I loved - that fell apart because the main plot of our campaign was very much focused on the quest of one player's character. And when that player moved to the East Coast and had a kid, our DM was somewhat at a loss for what, exactly, we were supposed to be doing. Meanwhile, and again, I don't want to throw this DM under the bus or anything, because I think she's really good at running D&D and is a good friend, some of us felt a little sad to find that we were sort of playing supporting roles rather than part of a co-equal ensemble (or, I should say, I felt that).

Two things can be done to ensure everyone's a crucial part of the narrative.

The first is to encourage your characters to build backstories together. While I enjoy a D&D campaign that starts with a group of strangers getting thrown together, I also think you can establish that cooperative spirit a little quicker if there's some shared history. It also makes combining characters' missions and goals easier. For example, Critical Role's first campaign has the twins Vex'halia and Vax'ildan, who were effectively orphaned (not counting their estranged elf father) by a dragon who wound up being one of the campaign's primary antagonists. While everyone in the party had plenty of reason to fight against Thordak the Cinder King, their story was tied into it personally.

Ideally, you want to take threads from all of your players' backstories and weave them together. Each character should have some goal, some question that needs answering, and hopefully, those answers can all play into the larger narrative.

Now, for sure some players are more comfortable writing backstories than others. I'm a writer by training and... calling, so it's actually one of the most enjoyable things in the world to write an RPG character backstory (in fact, it's especially fun because you get to set up a bunch of mysteries and questions but don't have to actually answer them!) So, I can rattle off a 6-8-page backstory with ease, and will usually try to edit that down a bit for the sake of my DM. But plenty of people will struggle to get more than a paragraph or two. And to be fair, some characters really like to discover their character in the playing.

So, what I like to (/would like to) do is just encourage players to keep some open-ended questions in their backstories. Have a friend or acquaintance who did something weird and unexpected, or have them witness some strange event. The point is, there should be something that happened that they don't totally understand. It should be impactful, but vague enough to let the DM push it into their larger campaign plot.

For example, I wrote a backstory for a 2024 Cloud Goliath Elements Monk. He's a sailor (and because I'm extra, he was a sailor on an airship and grew up in a floating town) whose commercial vessel, designed to collect elemental energy from storms, was shot out of the sky by a massive sky-dreadnought. He woke up on an island where he was found by the monks of a monastery, who trained him in their ways. A few days after he was rescued, the monastery was attacked by some other group of martial artists, whose motivations for the attack were unclear. However, there was a potential connection between the aggressors and the dreadnought, as one of the monks had a mask similar to the banner flown by the dreadnought: a golden bull on a crimson field.

And I, as a player, pointedly, have no idea what that could represent. Would my DM then determine that the party would, at some point, have to fight our way onto the dreadnought? Possibly. Is the golden bull actually a representation of Bael, the archdevil lieutenant of Zariel, meaning that the force behind all of this is the Nine Hells of Baator? Possibly. But furthermore, if some other player has a history of their village being raided by a horde of barbarians, what if there was a masked monk among them? Or perhaps they arrived from the sky, descending on ropes or some kind of magical parachutes from a massive ship in the sky?

Here, I think, the DM should pull different threads together from the backstories and figure out how to fit them together. First, the DM should talk with the players about what aspect of their backstory they really want to focus on (for example, that Monk also has a large number of brothers and sisters, but I'd be ok if they weren't particularly central to the plot) and then suggest an edit here or there, perhaps adding some element into that story (like the suggestion of making a masked monk or the dreadnought part of someone else's story).

Players can and probably should have some secrets, some things that only they and the DM know, and so a DM can suggest these elements for the players in an anonymous way.

Indeed, while this is more of an aspirational goal, I might even suggest creating a kind of flowchart and try to create at least one connection between each pair of player characters.

On ensemble-based TV shows, one of the ways they can come up with ideas for episodes is to pair up different members of the main cast. Your players in your D&D game are, essentially, the cast regulars of the TV show that is your campaign. Finding elements that each pair of characters will be invested in, and seeing their distinct approaches to that element, can be a great source of roleplaying and inspire you to create a lot of different kinds of adventure.

You will, at some point, need to come up with some major elements that the players don't fully anticipate. But by synthesizing the elements of all of their backstories, I think you will have a lot of material to work with.