So, I Splurged on 2nd Edition Planescape Sourcebooks on DM's Guild

 Yes, I picked up Planes of Law, Planes of Chaos, and Planes of Conflict off of DM's Guild for about 20 bucks total.

To my great joy, at least so far, the books seem to be really lore-focused, with fairly little in terms of mechanical stuff - and as someone who knows very little about AD&D rules, that makes this far more useful to me.

These books go into detail about the various outer planes. I've only read some of Planes of Law at this point, but the depth of detail one gets is pretty great. In 5th Edition we've really barely gotten anything about the Outer Planes - there are a few paragraphs for each in the DMG and then a bit about them in the Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus adventure as well as some in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (specifically about the Blood War).

But these publications go deep. I don't know exactly how they were published back in the day, but Planes of Law is divided into a few pdfs - one with a broad overview and then extensive write-ups of each plane within its purview - for example, the pdf I'm currently reading is all about Acheron, and it's 34 pages, with details about the four layers of the plane (interestingly it's really only the first layer that's engaged in constant warfare) with bits about notable locations (for example, Nishrek, the home of Gruumsh and the rest of the Orcish pantheon).

While I haven't read its in-depth description, I find it interesting how even a good-leaning plane like Arcadia could potentially be dangerous, with the Harmonium presence there and the local petitioners not really tolerating anything that doesn't fit their utopian vision.

Even Mount Celestia, while purported to be one of the safest planes in the Great Ring, has a dungeon-like environment out in the holy water ocean on its lowest layer, Lunia. Also, we never encountered it in my Descent into Avernus game, but the Garden on Avernus is super creepy - a beautiful, edenic place that devils (ahem, baatezu, as we're in 2nd Edition and responding to the Satanic Panic) fear to go, and is perfectly safe if you ignore that people will disappear, their possessions set down and then a few footprints that go off about 10 feet before abruptly ending.

Planescape has a lot of strangeness to it, and I'm always looking out for the particularly weird stuff. The highlight in this regard for Acheron (beyond the "everything's on a floating iron cube" thing) are the Hassitorium - fortresses that move because people/spirits can be, as a punishment, made part of the fort itself and have to walk around, carrying it on their feet. The weak collapse and are crushed beneath the forts, but I'd definitely emphasize for  party encountering one of these (such as the town of Istvarhan) that they're watching a big castle walking toward them on thousands of humanoid-sized feet.

While lore certainly gets updated between editions - we're seeing how the Spelljammer setting is transforming quite significantly in 5th Edition, replacing the Phlogiston with the Astral Plane - the stuff here is usable at least until it's otherwise contradicted (and of course, nothing is preventing you from playing with 2nd Edition canon.)

While I'm yearning to run something back in my homebrew setting after 2+ years of Ravnica, I've also become quite enamored with a few other canon settings. I've been champing at the bit to run a Ravenloft campaign at some point and make use of all the cool stuff from Van Richten's, but I think if I had to pick a setting that seemed to speak to my sensibilities the most, I think I've got to go with Planescape.

I am still very hopeful that we'll get a 5th Edition Planescape book some time in the near future (the Wonders of the Multiverse UA seemed to tease one similarly to how Travelers of the Multiverse seemed to tease Spelljammer and "Gothic Races" and "Gothic Subclasses" did with Ravenloft, so fingers crossed!) But I am gobbling up the lore of Planescape here (even if I think THAC0 is way overcomplicated and am very thankful that we simply have a +hit bonus against AC, where you want both of your numbers to be high and you want the enemy's to be low.)

Imagining 5th Edition Planescape

 Planescape is D&D's most expansive setting - you could argue that it actually encapsulates all other D&D settings, as the whole premise of it is the traversal of the many planes of the D&D multiverse - which would include the 17 Outer Planes (including The Outlands, which are the hub of the Great Wheel,) the Astral Plane, the Elemental Planes (the four big ones and then the various hybrid planes, also, at least in 2nd Edition cosmology, including the positive and negative energy planes, which then creates hybrids with the other elemental planes) as well as the more recently codified Feywild and Shadowfell... not to mention the Prime Material Plane where most D&D takes place.

These planes can be used in more down-to-earth campaigns, of course - the influence of the planes and the gods and outsiders that inhabit them can often be a fixture of a D&D campaign set in one of the prime material worlds - if you have a campaign about some demon lord's attempt to destroy your world, you might have demons popping up for your party to fight and maybe even have some chapter of the campaign see you braving the terrors of the Abyss to cut off the assault from its source.

In such a case, the experience of traveling to one of these planes is a high-stakes, highly dangerous phase of the story that should hopefully resolve with the players escaping and returning to their home world.

Planescape, though, imagines these places as ones that persist even when there is not some crisis that has to be resolved. It imagines the planes as places where people live their whole lives, not only as an afterlife, but as a place where one might live out a natural mortal lifetime, even though one is amidst all manner of supernatural beings in a landscape that is shaped by thought and philosophy.

The 90s saw a bunch of D&D-based computer RPGs, such as Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and, most relevant here, Planescape: Torment.

The latter reflected in many ways the philosophical underpinnings of Planescape as a setting - the story here is not about stopping some demon lord or archlich. Instead, it's about the individual protagonist, a man who awakens in a morgue covered with scars, trying to figure out who he is, within the city of Sigil, and the stakes of the story are really more about whether the Nameless One can make amends for the things he's done and ultimately change his fate.

Planescape's philosophical focus was paired with a distinctive look. Artist Tony DiTerlizzi provided all the illustrations for the 2nd Edition Planescape line - this was back when TSR was publishing a lot more books for their various settings, in contrast to the 5th Edition strategy of generally doing one product per setting other than the Forgotten Realms (though I suppose Exandria and Ravenloft have gotten two). DiTerlizzi's gorgeous, sketchy style gave the whole setting a very different feel - sure, there were demons and devils (renamed in response to the Satanic Panic as Tanar'ri and Baatezu, respectively) but they looked a lot funkier - a bit more like they were from a fairy tale or a Jim Henson movie.

Key to the setting, as well, was the city of Sigil (brief aside: old-school players insist that it has a hard "g" sound, to rhyme with "wiggle" despite the actual word sigil using a soft g. I suspect it's that a lot of people simply didn't know how that word was pronounced, and that they are claiming this as canon to cover for their mispronunciation. But perhaps we'll get official word if we get an official publication).

As a relative D&D neophyte (though I guess with 7 years under my belt, that might be less accurate a descriptor,) Sigil can seem a little odd - Planescape has all these planes to explore, but it seems like most of the source material is really focused on this one city. To be fair, it's a super cool city - Sigil floats above an infinitely tall spire that rises out of The Outlands (we're in planes of thought and concept, so that's not impossible) on the inside of a toroid (donut-shape,) such that if you're anywhere in the city, you can look up and see more city.

Sigil has a lot going on - it's ruled by the Lady of Pain, an enigmatic figure who is apparently omnipotent within the city, but if you value not being shredded in an explosion of gore, do not worship her as a god. Indeed, Sigil is a god-free zone, and the last god who tried to enter it was annihilated by the Lady, along with every last one of his worshippers.

Sigil is also home to the Factions - these are groups of philosophically like-minded individuals who help run the city but also follow their own very strict codes, and their worldviews are often quite strange.

So, already, putting this setting together for 5th Edition is a bit daunting.

Practically speaking, the way I see it is that there are two key elements of lore that we would want to cover:

First is the Planes themselves. In several earlier editions, there was a "Manual of the Planes" book - not under the Planescape title, but simply as a guide to the various outer, inner, and transitory planes.

In 5th Edition, we have a bit in the DMG that covers the planes, but most are not terribly detailed. The Nine Hells and the Abyss, the two planes most likely to be the home of your campaign villains, get a bit of explanation with descriptions of various layers - from the homes of various demon lords in the Abyss to the nine layers of the Hells and their reigning archdevils. But, for example, Carceri gets like three sentences.

I'd love to see a detailed sourcebook for 5th Edition (or, potentially 6th or whatever the 2024 releases are called) that just gives us the nitty-gritty of the planes, perhaps with a bestiary that includes native inhabitants of each of those planes - tell me, for example, how the denizens of Bytopia differ from those in Arcadia, or what makes the fiends of Carceri different from those in Pandemonium.

Then, I think, we could have a truly Planescape-focused release that would give us the modern version of all those Planescape specifics.

We've seen in the recent Unearthed Arcana, Wonders of the Multiverse, that backgrounds like Planar Philosopher could allow one to play as a member of one of Sigil's factions (I should note that these factions are not limited to Sigil - they have holdings across the planes).

2nd Edition had a lot of fiddly rules about what sort of magic worked in various places, and I don't know if that fits in with the 5th Edition design philosophies, but I'd love to touch on new races, subclasses, spells, and items that would fit within a Planescape game.

I also think expanding on the effects of the planes and how one's philosophy and alignment could affect someone traveling the planes could be interesting. Van Richten's optional rules for fear and stress might be an example of the kind of things you could play with here.

5th Edition has deemphasized alignment as a core part of your character - indeed, I have friends who come up with alternate alignments like "helpful good" or "hedonistic neutral," which are fun, but I think Planescape could make alignment pretty important, given that it's the underlying structure of the planes.

Moreover, something I'd like to see is a bit more experimentation in the aesthetic - 5th Edition has had a very consistent art style for the most part. I think it's important for Planescape to feel strange and otherworldly - all fantasy worlds are somewhat otherworldly, but I think Planescape needs to feel particularly odd. Tony DiTerlizzi's art did a great deal to establish the feel of Planescape, and I'd want it to retain that surreal, 90s "new weird" look and feel.

This extends to gameplay - I don't think Planescape needs to be totally combat-free, but I think any sourcebook should offer some guidance on how to build fun challenges that don't revolve around violence, and, more importantly, ones that will give characters of every class something to do.

One thing I loved about Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft was that, in addition to the lore surrounding the various domains and their Darklords, there was also a section in each domain chapter that provided tools for making adventures that take place in that specific domain - like how to run a plague lockdown in Richemulot or the ways to gain renown with the warring factions of Kalakeri. Taking this approach when detailing the various planes, or the various factions, could be very useful.

Now, as someone who is 2+ years into a Ravnica campaign, naturally the notion of philosophical factions that run a giant city is a little well-worn ground for me at this point, so I'll confess I'm less interested in the Factions, but I think the way that Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica is laid out could also be useful for structuring an exploration of Sigil.

We're still a couple weeks away from the Spelljammer box set coming out. I'm curious to see how well that works out (I'm still a little skeptical of the short lengths of the books in it - even with all three, that still only adds up to 192 pages, which is pretty short for a sourcebook). I do think that Planescape is so expansive that it might not fit within a single book. At the very least, I'd hope for a big tome like Van Richten's, but if I had my druthers, we'd get numerous releases.

Homebrew: Circle of Monsters

 The first game I played with a Druid class was World of Warcraft. Druids in WoW are all about shapeshifting. They're the one class with four different specializations (the WoW equivalent of subclasses, though something you can much more easily swap out) and three of those involve shapeshifting - Guardian Druids take on Bear forms to tank, Feral Druids take on Cat forms to act as melee DPS, and Balance Druids take on a Moonkin form to cast space-themed spells (sun, moon, and stars). Moonking, incidentally are kind of WoW's take on Owlbears, though they walk upright and have antlers and are generally thought of as humanoids.

I don't know when - it was probably when they were introduced to D&D - but Druids have been associated with shapeshifting in fantasy RPGs for a long time.

And that makes it kind of funny that for D&D 5th Edition, only one of the subclasses really makes use of Wild Shape as a central gameplay mechanic. Circle of the Moon gets to take higher-CR beast forms, can transform as a bonus action, and gets various necessary bonuses to make sure that they can function in high-level play, like the ability to deal "magical" weapon damage.

The other earlier subclasses kind of relegated Wild Shape to a supplementary utility tool - you weren't really meant to use animal forms to fight, but might become a rat to sneak through a grate or under a door. More recent ones have given alternative uses for the feature - Circle of Spores lets you use Symbiotic Entity to buff your melee damage with poison (there's a whole other post to be made about how it'd be nice if fewer creatures were immune to poison damage) and give yourself a ton of temp HP. Circle of Wildfire lets you use it to summon your Wildfire Spirit rather than transforming yourself. And Circle of Stars gives you forms that, like Symbiotic Entity, don't change the things you can do, but gives you various bonuses.

But I think that the image of the Druid as a class fantasy really involves transforming into animal forms, and really only Circle of the Moon can do that (and, ironically, at higher levels really tends to instead take on elemental forms).

There has also been a lot of discourse (in my experience very tongue-in-cheek) about the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves trailer in which their druid takes on an Owlbear form - which the rules of 5th Edition would not allow given that an Owlbear is a Monstrosity rather than a Beast.

Naturally, DMs are free to house rule that it's still a perfectly reasonable option (though only Circle of the Moon would be able to do it as an Owlbear is CR 3 and for most Druids the limit on CR caps out at 1) but I started thinking about how you could design a subclass built around turning into Monstrosities.

Monstrosities are, of course, the big catch-all creature type, but I started thinking about how Druids could play in a way that revolves around the idea of a Monster - there are the Greek-style monsters like Griffons and Hippogrifs that are mash-ups of real animals (and I'd put Owlbears in that category) but also things like Shadowsworn, which are more like the boogeyman a kid imagines in their closet.

This subclass is intended to let you customize what you mean by "monster," but plays up the idea of being a scary creature. It's also slightly inspired by the aesthetics of the Emerald Nightmare from World of Warcraft, which got a distinctive and cool aesthetic in the Legion expansion - images like a shadowy bear with thorny vines growing out of it, as an example of the kind of look we're talking about.

Also, similar to the new conjuration spells, rather than giving the player full access to any stat blocks in 5th Edition, this gives the player two options - the Hulking Monster, which is tankier, and the Creeping Monster, which is more of a stealth infiltrator and damage-dealer.

As a caveat, this subclass has received minimal revisions and no playtesting, so if you want to test it, work with your DM to make sure that it's not too overpowered (or underpowered, though I'm not really worried about that). The areas I suspect could be problematic are the relatively high HP of your monster forms and the Divine Smite-like ability within Monstrous Strike.

Also, some of the language requires cleaning up - Monstrous Shape is technically a separate ability from Wild Shape, but works almost identically (along with the Circle of the Moon's ability to activate it as a bonus action). There might be some redundancies in its description.

So, without further ado, I present the Circle of Monsters:

The D&D Movie and an Owlbear Wild Shape

 So, that D&D movie has a trailer.

Adapting games into movies has had about the worst track record you could imagine - the result is almost exclusively terrible. Usually this is about video games. D&D is very different from video games, but I think it presents a lot of challenges - while the Forgotten Realms (which is clearly where this takes place) is a rich setting with tons of stuff to pull from, the diversity of threats and locations and factions makes fertile ground for DMs and players to tell all sorts of stories within it, but this can make it somewhat unfocused from a traditional fantasy story perspective.

But also, let's talk about the druid taking the form of an Owlbear.

Discourse surrounding the trailer has, in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, revolved a great deal around Doric the Druid, played by Sophia Lillis (who you might recognize from the recent adaptation of Stephen King's IT,) and the scene that is in the trailer of her transforming into an Owlbear.

And those of us who get very pedantic about nerdy things all pushed our proverbial glasses up our noses and said "um, actually, an owlbear is a monstrosity, not a beast, and therefore she should not be able to use that form for Wild Shape."

But let's look at the Owlbear, because, hey, this is fun, right?

The Owlbear is a CR 3 monstrosity. Most Druids can never change into an animal form that is anything higher than CR 1, but we can assume that if she is using animal forms in combat, that she has probably gone Circle of the Moon.

(This is all also assuming we're using 5th Edition rules, just to specify.)

With Circle of the Moon, the limits on CR instead start at 1 when you pick up the subclass at level 2, and then subsequently are your druid level divided by 3, maxing out at 6 at level 18 (though you also get to turn into CR 5 elementals at level 10).

Thus, if Owlbears were beasts, a Circle of the Moon Druid would be able to take that form at level 9.

The Owlbear is a monstrosity, but its features are not terribly outlandish - it has the Keen Sight of an Owl and the Keen Smell of a Bear. (It doesn't have the keen hearing of an owl though).

The Owlbear's attacks include a Beak attack that does 1d10+5 damage and a Claws attack that does 2d8+5, with a +7 to hit. It has a 40 foot movement speed, 59 hit points, and an AC of 13.

There aren't a ton of CR 3 beasts, but if we compare it to an Ankylosaurus, the latter (the dinosaur) has 15 AC and 68 hit points (and is huge) but is slower at only 30 feet and only makes a single attack that deals 4d6+4 damage and can potentially knock the target prone.

So, honestly, I don't think that it's really overpowered for an Owlbear to be an option for a druid's Wild Shape. You could argue that Owlbears aren't natural, as they might have been created by ancient wizards, but they certainly seem quite like beasts, especially with their low intelligence and charisma. Owlbears are quite strong though, with 20 Strength - most monsters that aren't geared for high-level players don't max out any of their stats.

Ultimately, this is just a silly exercise.

The movie looks - well, I'm not going to expect it to be good. Chris Pine is a charming performer, and I actually love the fact that he speaks with an American accent (there's no reason why fantasy worlds should all be British). The trailer is basically one big series of references that D&D fans will recognize - Owlbears, Mimics, Displacer Beasts, Gelatinous Cubes, Red Wizards of Thay, Liches (including one that seems likely to be Szass Tam,) and probably more that have slipped my mind.

This kind of fanservice can be fun, but ultimately this movie is going to live or die on whether it can be charming without winking so hard it goes blind.

Giff Lore and Firearms

 Presumably with the Spelljammer box set coming in less than a month, WotC has transitioned from explaining the various elements of D&D that are referenced in Stranger Things (including the Shadowfell, which plays a similar role to the Upside-Down on the show, and which didn't strictly exist until 4th Edition in the late 2000s, but which had rough equivalents going back to the beginning) to now hyping up the new, outlandish campaign setting that we haven't seen published in about 30 years.

All the "Travelers of the Multiverse" races are getting printed in the book, but it does look like feedback has allowed for a bit of change to them. Astral Elves got the first video, but the next was about the Giff, which I believe are becoming a playable race for the first time.

In the Unearthed Arcana form, I found the Giff fairly underwhelming - just a couple of features that weren't generally better than what other races could get - a swim speed but no water breathing, and a boost to melee damage but not ranged... for a race that is so tied to firearms.

And so, here, we find that the revisions that will make it to print appear to have been souped up a little.

Like the Githyanki and Astral Elves, the Giff spend a lot of time in the Astral Plane - meaning you might have a very old Giff character.

The Giff's role previously (and as introduced in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and a reprint/revision in Monsters of the Multiverse,) is that they're often found working as mercenaries, and have an obsessions with firearms and explosives.

While most racial features that are cultural, rather than physiologically innate, have tended to be moved out of racial traits in recent printings, the Giff affinity for gunpowder is apparently an in-born trait related to one of the forgotten gods that created them. Yes, these hippo people (who I think should exclusively talk with boisterous English accents, if you ask me and probably most people) are divinely gifted with a propensity for boomsticks, and that apparently manifests in the ability to do bonus damage with firearms - I would presume a limited number of times per day.

What I find really interesting about this is that this would seem to require the presence of firearms in a campaign in order for the Giff to be able to make use of this racial feature. We, of course, don't have the wording on how the feature works (I could imagine it might apply to all ranged weapons in a campaign where firearms are not commonplace) but it does seem that Spelljammer, with its limited sci-fi elements (it's more accurately fantasy in space, but so is Star Wars and that had futuristic technology) might make firearms a common thing - even part of the setting innately.

The Giff story is also pretty interesting - they don't know what planet they're from, and while they have gods - including this god of firearms - they don't actually know who they are. Given the way that deities in D&D tend to require the worship and belief of mortals in order to exist, I wonder if these gods are even still alive. The Astral Plane is where dead gods float on eternally after they are no longer worshipped, so perhaps the Giff presence there is related to that.

First Impressions of Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel

 I picked up my copy of Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel today. I've been a little hesitant to grab adventure books, as I really run homebrew exclusively, and I have all these books I don't know when I'm ever going to get the chance to run.

Still, conceptually I was curious about this one.

If you haven't been reading up on it, the Radiant Citadel is a kind of adventure hub that floats within the Ethereal Plane - as far as I can tell, it's one of the very few distinct locations in the Deep Ethereal to be detailed.

Built around an enormous magical diamond, the Radiant Citadel is connected to several civilizations on different worlds - the cultures that are connected to it are not generally said to be on specific canonical settings, though there are suggestions of how they might be communities in the Forgotten Realms or Eberron, or in one case even Ravenloft (while the Dark Powers can usually keep people trapped in their realms, I could imagine that whatever force behind the Radiant Citadel might be powerful enough to force a gateway open through the Mists).

The book is then a series of adventures within these various civilizations. The book is notably inspired by and written by people of color, with worlds inspired by real-world cultures. For example, the second adventure is a Southern Gothic story with a culture inspired by the Black Diaspora in the American South (and is absolutely my kind of spooky!)

The structure and format of these adventures is not too dissimilar to Candlekeep Mysteries - the adventures would likely not take more than one or two sessions (depending heavily on how quickly your players handle combat.) The adventures are also pretty stand-alone - you can use the Radiant Citadel as a hub for a connected campaign, or you could easily run these independently or as adventures within a different campaign (I'm very tempted to make Godsbreath, the aforementioned Southern Gothic region, a Domain of Dread, as suggested as a possibility in the book).

In terms of pillageable material, there are not a ton of new monsters here - there's typically one new creature per adventure. However, each adventure ends with a Gazeteer for its setting, encouraging DMs to come up with additional adventures in those locations.

The Radiant Citadel itself has a lot of potential as an adventuring hub, too, with NPCs and organizations for your party to encounter.

UA - Wonders of the Multiverse

 Today we saw the release of another Unearthed Arcana - contained within is a veritable smorgasbord of features, including a new race, a new subclass, several backgrounds with associated feats, spells, and a lot of references to the Planescape setting that have set my heart aflutter.

Let's go down the list:

    Glitchlings are, it seems, a somewhat more humanoid-like cousin of the Modron. Like Modrons, they are constructs, and use the same exceptions the Autognome gets in order to allow the most common healing spells to work on them (I'm still a little concerned that higher-level heals don't, but at least in this case the list has been expanded to include Mass Healing Word and Mass Cure Wounds, which means that in most tier 2 and likely tier 3 campaigns you're still almost always going to get the heals you need.

Glitchlings get a 14+Dex baseline armor class, which is actually really amazing - any Dex-based character is going to be able to get that to better-than-respectable levels and even medium-armor characters who only go in for +2 to Dex will still be able to skip over anything other than Half Plate to get their full AC potential. They also have small wings that can let them fly for a turn at a time, PB times per day.

The most Mechanus-related ability allows them to also turn attack rolls and saving throws where you roll a 9 or lower on the die into a 10 (before bonuses) PB times per day, which is quite good.

Glitchlings also get advantage on Insight checks as well as saving throws against the charmed condition.

    Moving on, we come to the new Cleric Domain - Fate

Fate Domain is one of the elements of this UA that is somewhat themed around the Deck of Many Things, though this is more broadly interested in the concepts of fate and destiny, with a class feature called Omens and Portents.

The features here allow you to grant advantage and disadvantage, as well as adding damage or healing to particular targets. Its capstone allows you to cast Foresight once per day for free, though its duration is only a minute.

    Backgrounds here present a lot more evidence that things are going in a Planescape direction. One thing that I think is quite wise is that they suggest that if players take these new backgrounds, which come with a level 1 feat, all other characters who don't take such a background can pick up feats from a curated list that are thematically linked - including new feats like Scion of Elemental Air (or Earth, Fire, or Water) as well as pretty solid catch-all feats, Skilled and Tough.

The Gate Warden background is for characters who spent a lot of time near or influenced by a planar portal - such a characters is unfazed by planar beings coming and going, and might, for instance, treat a demon or an angel as just another passer-through or potential customer.

Gate Wardens get the Scion of the Outer Planes feat, which we'll get to, linking them to a particular plane (categorized by alignment).

Giant Foundlings are fairly straightforward - you're a humanoid (or fey or construct or ooze or whatever) that was raised by giants, and have inherited some of their culture and essence. This background grants the Strike of the Giants feat, which lets you add damage (themed on whichever giants you're linked to) to your attacks a number of times a day, and is a prerequisite for other feats.

Planar Philosopher is the clearest indication that things are going in a Planescape direction - you're an adherent of a distinct philosophy about the planes of existence or the deep mysteries of the multiverse. It's implied you're a member of an organization of like-minded individuals, who are clearly meant to be the Factions of Sigil, such as the Sensates, Harmonium, Indeps, Dustmen, etc. This background also gives you the Scion of the Outer Planes feat, as well as lodging and food at the holdings of your faction.

The suggested Planar Philosopher Traits here each seem to line up with one of Sigil's factions:

"I don't venerate any gods; we can be as powerful or greater than them" is probably the Athar.

"Experience is everything, live in the moment" is clearly the Sensates.

"When things crumble, I find meaning in the ashes" seems to be the Doomguard.

"Life thrives through order; I won't tolerate disruptions" is likely the Guvners, or possibly the Harmonium.

"When other make plans, the multiverse laughs, and so do I" is probably the Revolutionary League, or could potentially be the Xaositects.

"I know what's right, and no one will stand in my way" is... ok, this one's probably the Harmonium.

Anyway - very clearly Planescape-y.

The final background is the Rune Carver, which links the character to the art of runes, granting the Rune Carver Apprentice feat.

    Some of the Feats here are revisions of the various giant-themed options found in the previous UA. The minimum level for any feat is now 4. Several include prerequisites - for example, "Cohort of Chaos" requires that you have the Scion of the Outer Planes feat, and specifically that the plane to which you are tied is a chaotic one (which could be anything from Carceri to Limbo to the Beastlands).

Typically, the 4th level feats grant a single ability score bump of 1. As usual with feats, I'm torn between my love of the concept of feats and my impulse to want to max out any numbers on my character sheet that I can, so this softens the blow a little.

Broadly speaking, Strike of the Giants, one of the starter feats, gives you the ability to add elemental damage to a weapon attack a limited number of times per day. Depending on the giant lineage you choose, the damage type changes and there are potentially secondary effects (Fire Giants simply get a d8 added rather than a d6).

Then, the giant-themed feats this unlocks give a half-ASI and some other reaction or passive effect.

Scion of the Outer Planes gives you access to a cantrip and a damage resistance based on the alignment of your plane. Lawful planes grant radiant resistance and Guidance. Good planes give radiant resistance and Sacred Flame. Chaotic planes give necrotic resistance and Minor Illusion. Evil planes grant necrotic resistance and Chill Touch. The Astral Plane grants psychic resistance and Message. The Outlands grants psychic resistance and Mage Hand.

Of course, given that most planes are some mixture of alignments, this means that if your planar influence comes from, say, the Nine Hells, you could choose to emphasize its Lawful or its Evil side.

Like the giant feats, the choice you make when picking up this primary feat also determines which of the subsequent feats you can take, like the aforementioned Cohort of Chaos.

There are also four Scion of the Elemental Plane feats - options for if your character's planar influence is from one of the elemental planes (I guess that Fey Touched and Shadow Touched sort of already cover the Feywild and Shadowfell). These are presented as alternatives, along with Skilled and Tough, if someone else in the party takes one of the backgrounds here that give level 1 feats.

Rune Carver Apprentice has been scaled down a bit - you can only pick two spells from its list rather than just getting all of them. The subsequent Rune Carver Adept lets you use various bonus effects when you cast a spell associated with one of the runes you have active.

Also, there's a feat called Cartomancer, which requires you be a 4th level wizard, warlock, or sorcerer. You can use a deck of cards as a spell focus, and you can add a d4 to one damage roll against one creature hurt by a spell you cast, PB times per long rest. You can also cast Prestidigitation and conceal the verbal and somatic components as mundane conversation and card-handling. Finally, when you finish a long rest, you can imbue a spell of a level less than or equal to your proficiency bonus, and you can use a bonus action to cast the spell (for free, I think? Or maybe the bonus action is the main benefit?) after which the card loses its magic.

    Finally, we come to the spells!

The spells here are inspired by the Deck of Many Things - both just the nature of cards and also the effects of some of them.

Spray of Cards is a 2nd level 15-foot cone that will either blind targets who fail a con save or deal 2d10 slashing damage to creatures that fail a dex save (or half on a success). The damage here is a little worse than an up-cast Burning Hands, but the option to blind rather than damage is pretty cool and worth considering.

Antagonize lets you force a wisdom save from a creature within 30 feet of your choice, and if they fail, they take 4d4 psychic damage and must use their reaction to make a melee attack against another creature within range that you can see (if there isn't a good target, the initial target had disadvantage on its next attack roll). This spell could be very funny, but I wonder if it's good enough to be 3rd level.

House of Cards lets you build a moderately sized tower made of giant playing cards that rises up out of the ground with you on top of it. The walls are pitifully weak - AC 10 and 1 HP, with the usual immunity to poison or psychic damage. When a card/wall is destroyed, there's a 1/3 chance that the whole thing collapses and the spell ends, potentially dropping you 30 feet, but it's still pretty hilarious and awesome.

Finally, Spirit of Death and Summon Warrior Spirit function similarly to the "Summon" spells found in Tasha's. Spirit of Death will focus in on a target of your choice and only attack them, with attacks that deal 1d10+3+the spell's level (at base, 4) and a number of attacks equal to half the spell's level rounded down. The Reaper Spirit can hover and has incorporeal movement, and it always knows the direction and distance to the haunted target. It can also, once a day, potentially reduce the target's movement to 0 with a fear effect.

While flavorfully this is very cool, I don't really see it being much better than Summon Undead. The damage might be slightly higher, but the limit to only one target and the duration of only a minute (versus an hour) feels quite restrictive.

Summon Warrior Spirit allows you to choose between Barbarian, Fighter, or Monk. The Barbarian basically only makes reckless Greataxe attacks, while the Monk makes Unarmed Strikes with a Strength save against being knocked prone, and a third strike as a bonus action. The Fighter can make either ranged or melee attacks and gives 1d6 temporary hit points to an ally after it hits with its attacks.

As usual, with spells like these, I think the only downside is that the damage here is all bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing, and while the magic that conjured this spirit is... magical, I believe that the rules would suggest the creature itself does not inherently have magical attacks (otherwise, what would be the point of the Circle of Shepherds Druid's ability?)

    Anyway, with that this massive grab-bag of playtest content is there for your perusal. I'm very excited for Planescape stuff - though again, I find myself torn as I want to run a Ravenloft campaign, a Spelljammer campaign, and one in my homebrew setting as well, but Planescape also draws me in (though I'd likely put less focus on the Sigil factions given that I've been running a campaign set in a massive city controlled by philosophically bizarre guilds for the past couple years already).

Getting a Sense of the Devastation Evoker

 Dragonflight will be giving us WoW's 13th class, which is also limited to the new playable race, the Dracthyr, and, in a far more unusual move, the Dracthyr will only be able to play as Evokers. One of the odd upshots of this is that the line between "racial ability" and "class ability" is seriously blurred. Blizzard has floated the idea that Dracthyr might have access to other classes in the future, but it's not confirmed.

Evokers have two specs - presumably following the logic of the Demon Hunter, where there's just a spec per role. Devastation will be the Dracthyr DPS spec, which makes them a ranged spellcasting damage dealer... though their range is not what you typically see.

Typically, at least in the past several expansions, ranged classes have been able to fight from 40 yards away from their targets, with Marksmanship Hunters gaining a little extra range thanks to their Mastery. Evokers, however, at it looks like this is true for both damage and healing spells, tend to have a 25-yard range.

This means they have to get significantly closer to their targets to affect them. Indeed, it can be a little misleading if you think purely in terms of distance - one of the major benefits of being at range means that you have a much larger area of targets you can hit (or, alternatively, a much larger area for you to be able to stand and still hit a target). Using some Middle School math, a 40-yard range means that you are covering a 5,027 square-yard circle. If your range drops to 25 yards, the area you can hit drops to 1,963 square yards, meaning you've got less than half the area you could cover before.

Range can be very important to allow you to stay on targets and not have to move (ranged classes are also typically forced to stand still more thanks to casting times and channeled abilities). The larger the area you can stand in, the easier it is for you to find a safe spot to be.

Thus, this is clearly a challenge being built into the Evoker - you're ranged, but positioning will be a more significant challenge for you than, say, a Warlock.

However, I also think that some of the design is being built with this in mind. Right now, I only have lists of spells and abilities, and don't have a great sense of what the "rotation" looks like, but it appears that Devastation will, like many classes, have a mechanic revolving around building up and spending resources.

That resource is Essence - you'll have spells like Azure Strike, which is an instant-cast spell with, I believe, no cooldown, that deals Spellfrost damage to a target and another nearby one. This is likely a filler ability, and I believe will help to build up Essence.

Then there are a smaller number of spells that spend Essence to do larger amounts of damage.

Only a handful of Devastation abilities actually have cast times - many have relatively short cooldowns and might cost Essence.

A few abilities, though, have a new mechanic - these are special channeled spells that allow you to either hold down the button or press it once to start charging and again to shoot it off (not being able to play I can't tell you which - though my instinct is that the latter would be somewhat more lag friendly) and will have varied effects based on how long you charge - like DoTs that last longer, cleave abilities that hit more targets, or just generally things doing more damage.

Deep Breath appears to be a big damage ability that also functions as a movement ability - you pick a direction and a distance, and then you fly over the area breathing fire on the region and land at your destination.

One thing of note is that it seems that the spells and abilities you have are often categorized by which dragonflight they're attached to. Devastation abilities have a number of Blue and Black spells, along with some Red, while I think that the Preservation Evoker - the healing spec - focuses more on Green and Bronze, along with, I'd assume, Red.

As with any expansion that brings a new class, I'm very eager to try it out. After my paladin main, my Death Knight and Demon Hunter are my next-most-played classes, and I think new classes can breathe a lot of fresh air into the game.

The Evoker looks like it should feel new and different, which is always welcome.

Spelljammer and Planar Travel

 In a series of videos released on the D&D Youtube channel, Chris Perkins (lead narrative designer for D&D) outlined a bit of the way that Spelljammer (coming out in one month minus one day!) in 5th Edition will look.

Because there hasn't been a sourcebook for Spelljammer in about 30 years, for the most part we've been operating on some very old-school lore.

So, here's the caveat to the following paragraph: this is all old stuff that is being changed.

In the old Spelljammer lore, each region of Wildspace around an established setting (or other regions) such as Realmspace, Krynnspace, Greyspace, etc., was encapsulated by a "crystal sphere," which was an impenetrable barrier that only certain types of magic could pass through - including a spelljammer ship (equipped with a spelljamming helm). The various crystal spheres were then afloat in something called the Phlogiston - an odd soup of extremely volatile fluid that had various odd effects, including barring any divine magic from taking place within it.

The spheres and the phlogiston, in this old lore, essentially made up the Prime Material Plane.

But things are changing:

The phlogiston, conceptually, appears to be completely gone. As are the crystal spheres.

Instead, regions of Wildspace exist now as kind of bubbles of reality that then lead on to the Astral Sea.

Spelljamming in 5th Edition will mean traversing Wildspace, which is a fantastical version of outer space that is dense with colorful nebulae, space-based life forms, and settled worlds, and then, if you go far enough, you'll pass through a threshold into the Astral Sea, where things get hazy and silvery, and time doesn't really pass except in a sort of subjective way. Here, dead gods and crystalline structures float freely. Getting to another Wildspace region simply requires that you navigate the Astral Sea and plunge back into it.

The implications here are actually pretty enormous.

First off, it turns the Prime Material Plane from being one continuous region of spacetime, but into these little islands or bubbles of worlds afloat in the Astral Sea.

Second, it means that interplanar travel, at least when going from the Prime Material to the Astral Plane, is simply a matter of going far enough in any given direction. The Astral Plane, after all, has portals that float within it to all the Outer Planes, and that means that you could, in theory, travel from Toril (The Forgotten Realms) to Elysium by simply getting on your spelljamming vessel and finding the right color pool in the Astral Plane.

Cosmologically, prior to these changes, the Astral Plane linked the Outer Planes, and I believe also connected with the Ethereal Plane, meaning that if you didn't have the planar equivalent of teleportation (basically the Plane Shift spell) you'd need to find a way to get into the Border Ethereal, then the Deep Ethereal, then the Astral, and then to your outer plane of choice if you wanted to get there.

I'll also note that the description of the Radiant Citadel is curious - it exists in the Deep Ethereal, but also sounds comparable to some of the things described as being afloat in the Astral Sea.

Now, to be fair, the Astral Sea is said to be one part of the Astral Plane - perhaps the "Sea" and the parts that allow access to the Outer Planes are not so easily traversed.

I'm very curious to see how the Inner Planes interact with the Astral - the Feywild and Shadowfell are the planes I tend to think of as being closest to the Prime Material, so does that mean you can travel from them to the Astral Sea as well?

I don't know to what extent the Spelljammer books will get into this nitty-gritty of planar mechanics. I've felt for a while now that I'd love to see a 5th Edition Manual of the Planes, both to add detail to the various Outer Planes that don't get as much exposure as the Nine Hells, but also perhaps to clarify some of these nuances.

I'm eager to get the Spelljammer box set in my hands. I'm mildly skeptical of how much detail we're going to get given how short each of its component books are (if all are 64 pages, that means the whole thing is only 192) but I'd love to see some discussion on what sort of planar interactions can happen with the Astral Sea.

Dragonflight Alpha Live

 Well, for a blog that started out as specifically WoW-themed, I guess we've gone a while without talking about the game.

This is despite the fact that after months away (largely induced by Elden Ring) I've actually been playing a fair amount, zipping around Zereth Mortis and trying to get my various characters decent gear... admittedly for no particular practical reason, as they're all quite over-geared for LFR and I'm not sure if I really want to put myself through the eons-long queue times to see the new raid.

My relationship with WoW has shifted a lot in the last couple years - Legion had been a breath of fresh air, reinvigorating my love for the game and seeing me and my guild more active than it had been since Wrath of the Lich King, but BFA and Shadowlands sort of saw that enthusiasm fall off - Shadowlands due to a mix of pandemic delays and the gross feelings about the company that makes WoW (feelings that aren't totally resolved, to be honest).

As usual, after a disappointing expansion (one whose disappointments were of a very different nature than Cataclysm, Warlords of Draenor, or BFA) we're hoping the next one will be a return to form.

And, while it's a little superstitious, I think the expansions that have added a class have tended to be the most popular ones. I'm still a little skeptical of making all Dracthyr Evokers and all Evokers Dracthyr (I could understand the latter, as, like Demon Hunters, there are enough cosmetic elements and story elements that would be difficult to give to a bunch of races, but I do think it's weird to have a playable race limited to a single class. Not one of my dragon-people can tank?) but I'm eager to try them out.

As of yet I think the content on the Alpha is quite limited - they're letting people try out Evokers (though not their starting area, I think) and the dragon-flying mechanics, which are supposedly quite good.

We still know very little about the expansion's story, like who its primary characters will be. I'm sure that will start to become more clear over time.

If I had to guess, the structure of Dragonflight might be a little more like Mists of Pandaria (that's not to say we'll have a big Alliance/Horde conflict, which I hope we just never have as a major story again) in that we find a new land with lots of new elements and the conflict evolve around what we discover.

Shadowlands was, I think, meant to be a villain-centric expansion in the vein of Wrath, but was undercut by the fact that the Jailer was so generic and boring an antagonist (for once, can we have a big bad who tries to charm us? And who isn't some muscle-bro?) Dragonflight doesn't even really imply a major villain in its cinematic. We know there's some kind of elemental dragon faction, but that screams "first raid tier" kind of threat.

I think the hope of this expansion is that it will be a reflection of the sort of philosophical shifts we've seen in the latter patches of Shadowlands, and overall just letting go of bad habits the developers had gotten into. The supposed lack of any borrowed power mechanic is one that I'm very excited about - even though I loved Artifact Weapons, the actual gameplay and talent trees for them were the least interesting part (really I just liked that every weapon had a story).

Anyway, the gates are now open, and soon we're going to be learning a lot more about this expansion - one that is supposedly coming out by the end of this year.

Going in Deep on Vecna Again

 As I've got one more episode of Stranger Things 4 left to watch, I've been giving a lot of thought to the Vecna the Archlich statblock that Wizards of the Coast released a month or two ago. The Vecna in Stranger Things is, like all the D&D-named beings in that show, only called that because of a reminiscence the D&D-obsessed main characters see between the characters. "Vecna" in Stranger Things is likely only vaguely aware that they're even calling him that.

The statblock came out shortly after I did a redesign of the Lich in an effort to put it more in line with the modern spellcasting statblock design - giving the creature plenty of unique but straightforward actions and reserving spellcasting more for utility.

What I wanted to figure out is how deadly Vecna is as a monster.

One of the hallmarks of D&D that you'll notice a lot more if you're a dungeon master is that, once the players hit tier 3 or so, they can overcome monsters that you'd expect to be a bigger deal given their Challenge Rating. This gets exacerbated if you run tables with lots of players - I have seven consistent players in the game I run and with a player returning that's been bumped up to eight.

Players will carve through a monster's HP very quickly, so unless you have ways to keep that monster from getting hit (things like Strahd's Heart of Ravenloft or whatever it's called, which siphons off damage he takes, is a good example) or minions that are powerful enough to withstand a little punishment of their own and present a genuine distraction for the party, you're going to have a bit of a tough time.

I think in Critical Role, when Vox Machina faced off against Vecna (with I think eight players given that Joe Manganiello's Arkhan the Cruel was helping them) he had I think something like 1100 HP, and that was even a fight where the goal wasn't to kill him, but to sink a number of anchors into him before banishing him.

Vecna the Archlich is meant to represent this iconic villain prior to the betrayal by Kas that led his eye and hand to be removed, though as a powerful wizard, he could show up in this mortal form even after his apotheosis thanks to time travel. I'd also imagine this could be a kind of avatar similar to the Aspect of Bahamut or Aspect of Tiamat - not the god itself, but a physical manifestation of its power.

According to Xanathar's Guide to Everything's guidance for encounter building (or, rather, the old UA on encounter building, which I think was published more or less unchanged) a group of 6 level 20 characters should find a CR 24 monster to be an adequate challenge.

I disagree.

Or rather, if this fight is to be one of several in a day and not one that you expect to be particularly dangerous, it's fine. But it's not what you want out of a climactic boss.

Vecna is CR 26, though there's a little ambiguity on his challenge due to the fact that he has a very powerful health-regeneration ability (albeit one that puts him dangerously close to the party). Basically, his CR drops by, I'd say like 10, if your party has someone casting Chill Touch.

While his defensive capabilities are a little tough to math out, I think we can look at his offensive capabilities with relative ease - though again, there's an extra wrinkle here where the damage he does with his dagger, Afterthought, is... an afterthought, as the big thing is that it can prevent healing - something that will terrify the party after they get hit with something like Rotten Fate.

Really, I think the main thing to discuss here is Rotten Fate - the other abilities he has can be nasty, but if we're talking about character-killing features, this is the big one.

One thing I should note also is that when I first read the statblock, I misinterpreted the Multiattack - he uses Flight of the Damned if available, Rotten Fate, or Spellcasting, and then does two Afterthought attacks. So, he doesn't get to do Rotten Fate and Flight of the Damned on the same turn. Flight of the Damned, damage-wise, only catches up to Rotten Fate when it hits three targets - not terribly difficult with a 120-foot cone, but something to consider.

The fear effect on Flight of the Damned is also worth noting, as it can help keep Vecna safe from powerful melee characters.

But let's talk Rotten Fate. This does 8d8+60 necrotic damage to someone on a failed save (and with a DC of 22, there's a pretty decent chance of a fail - maybe not on my level 20 Armorer build that gets a +19 to Con saves, but that's pretty unusual).

So, that's an average of 96 damage on a failure.

By level 20, most PCs should have over 100 hit points. But let's consider, for example, a Wizard using the standard array, who starts off with +2 to Con. If we assume they don't take any feats and just max out Intelligence and then Constitution, that means that at level 20 they can have a +5 to Con. Taking average HP, they'll have 182 HP at level 20. Enough to take... well, one of those and then get killed by the second.

Actually: point of order: while Rotten Fate will raise a creature killed by the ability as a zombie, Rotten Fate does not automatically kill a target if it gets them to 0, the way that Disintegrate does. So this is actually not terribly likely for a character of that level.

What if that Wizard is a mere level 15? That means they haven't gotten those extra ASIs, meaning after maxing Int to 20, they only have the level 12 ASI to get Con to +3. Thus, their average HP is going to be 107. While this is still enough to survive an average blast of one of these, the max damage of Rotten Fate is 124, so it's possible if Vecna rolls lucky, the damage might be too much. Still shouldn't be able to insta-kill them.

So, how do we play Vecna tactically? As a big bad, this is the sort of villain that should play to win - as a DM, I often have to remind myself not to hold back (I'm invested in these characters, after all,) and Vecna should be nasty.

I'd recommend making sure that the environment in which Vecna fights is all set up to his advantage - magical traps and pits and things to separate the party out are all useful. While Vecna has things like his Fell Rebuke to gain distance against melee opponents, he'll want to be able to close in on other characters in order to benefit from Afterthought.

Even if its damage might not be as big as Rotten Fate, I think liberal use of Flight of the Damned when available is key to reducing the number of players who can attack him - potentially shutting down melee attackers from getting close enough to him entirely, but also scaring ranged attackers into missing more often. If possible, I might even use Lightning Bolt in place of Rotten Fate if you can get enough people in it - Lightning Bolt does an average of 28 damage, so you'll need to hit 4 targets to get more damage out of it than Rotten Fate.

Fly is a good spell to have concentration on, though Globe of Invulnerability will severely limit what enemy spellcasters can do - but I'll say this, if you have Fly up, you've basically made yourself immune to melee attacks (and you can use the at-will Dispel Magic to remove the spell from PCs) and then you can use Dread Counterspell to keep the party from launching spells against you, meaning that really only ranged-weapon folks will be able to do much against you.

I would actually consider forgoing Afterthought attacks unless you can get the party separated enough to isolate someone.

I have yet to run this stat block, and I'm a little wary of high-level one-shots, as players have a ton of things to learn in a short amount of time. But there is a character who I expect my party will have to fight more than once, and the second round might use this stat block, so we'll see how it goes (this is probably not going to happen for, like, a year or more).

Tal'dorei Subclass Review - Wizards

 With no new Warlock patron from the Tal'dorei guide, we come to the final subclass found in the book: Blood Magic for Wizards. Blood Magic is associated with the Claret Orders, a secretive group of monster hunters who use this magic to protect the innocent, though the techniques can also be abused by evil people too.

Indeed, on a flavor note, this would be a great option if you wanted to play a dark wizard (though Necromancy is obviously already there) and perhaps wanted to play up that creepy warlock feel while having the flexibility of a wizard.

At 2nd level, you get Blood Channeling: while under your maximum hit points, you can use your own body as a spellcasting focus. Additionally, you can spend life to make up for the costly components of a spell. If you cast a wizard spell that requires costly components, you can choose to take 1d10 necrotic damage per 50g of the cost of the component instead of providing it. The damage can't be reduced in any way, but if you go to 0 HP because of this, the spell fails but you retain the spell slot.

This is not something I'd recommend using a ton - if you wanted to cast, say, Summon Fiend without its material component, you'd need to take 12d10 necrotic damage. Most high-level spells have costs in the thousands, which would mean at least 20d10, though I think one spell for which this could be clutch is Plane Shift - taking only 5d10 (an average of 27.5) in order to potentially get your party out of the Abyss. Not too bad, frankly.

At lower levels, though, with component costs of 50 or fewer gold, this might be more practical - 1d10.

Additionally at 2nd level, you get Sanguine Burst. When you roll damage for a spell that's 1st level or higher, you can take necrotic damage (irreducible) equal to the spell's level to reroll dice equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of 1). This, I think, is a far easier one to use - at most you're paying 9 life. If we're talking about, say, a Fireball when you're level 5 and have a +4 to Intelligence, and we're assuming you're rerolling 1s and 2s, this would mean paying three life to change the spell's average damage from 28 to, well, 30.67. But you'd only actually use it if you rolled a bunch of 1s and 2s, so...

I'll be honest, I don't know how powerful things like this and Empowered Spell are, but the cost here is pretty low (though note that any damage will force a concentration saving throw if you have a concentration spell up, so bear that in mind if you have bad luck with dice).

At 6th level, you get Bond of Mutual Suffering. If a creature hits you with an attack, you can use a reaction to force the creature that hit you to take the same amount of damage you took. You can't use this on constructs or undead, and you can only use this once per short or long rest.

So, first off, I've discovered that I don't really like abilities you can only use once per rest, unless they're really overwhelmingly huge. This is something you might save for if you get hit with a critical strike, but that might never come. Also, make sure not to use this on something like a fire elemental, which is immune to the damage it deals.

At 10, you get Glyph of Hemorrhaging. When you damage a creature with a spell, you can curse it for 1 minute. While cursed, whenever the creature is hit by an attack, it takes an extra 1d6 necrotic damage. It can make a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC at the end of its turns to end the curse.

Like the previous one, you can't use this on constructs or undead, and you can only use it once per short or long rest.

So, a party-wide Hex as a free bonus for hitting something with a damage spell. Not bad - and in fact, incredible if you have fast-hitters like a Monk or Fighter in the party. I think this is one of those things that you should be able to do multiple times - maybe PB times per long rest?

At 14, your Bond of Mutual Suffering can now be used twice per rest - ok, sounds like they heard my complaints.

Also at 14, you get Thicker than Water. Whenever a spell or magical effect causes you to regain hit points, you regain an additional number of hit points equal to your proficiency bonus.

Additionally, while you concentrate on a spell, you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks.

Ok, now this is pretty good. Concentrating on a spell is Wizard Rage? That's pretty awesome - and also will often make it easier for you to maintain that concentration. The extra healing you get should also help to offset the HP you're spending on your 2nd level features, which could encourage you to use them more.

Wizards are one of those classes where the subclass is not quite as important as the base class, and so it can hard to evaluate just how powerful a subclass is. The flavor here is very strong. Again, I think the level 6 and level 10 features would be more fun if you could use them more often. Vampiric Touch feels like a really flavorful spell to use for this subclass.

And with that, we've gotten through all the subclasses out of Tal'dorei Campaign Setting Reborn. Sadly, my own Wildemount game has been on something of a hiatus lately amidst Covid cases, a DM's missing wallet, and theatrical projects, but I'm expecting to start playing again next week (hoping my Spelljammer game also picks up again, though at this point one of the players has decided to run a Kids on Bikes game on night when our DM is unable to run, which I suspect will continue to be most weeks at least for a while).

I've found that the subclasses from this book have some strong flavor. Mechanically they feel just slightly behind the evolution WotC's own subclass philosophy has gone on in the past couple years, but all are certainly playable and could be a lot of fun.

I'm a little sad that the Blood Hunter wasn't published in the book, as I'm coming around to the possibility that it's actually a decently balanced class.

Tal'dorei Subclass Review - Sorcerers

 Skipping the Ranger and Rogue, which do not get subclasses in this book, we come to the Runechild Sorcerer.

The lore here is somewhat broad - essentially, you simply have magic because you... got magical powers. While I find that a little underwhelming, it does suggest a "standard" sorcerer that doesn't really exist out side of maybe Wild Magic (which I've tended to think of as more of a novelty than a subclass you pick for power).

At level 1, you get Essence Runes. You start with one essence rune, and get another with each level-up, making it a bit like Sorcery Points, except you get them at level 1 and it's a separate resource to track. Indeed, the correlation here is important, as when you spend Sorcery Points, at the end of the turn on which you used them, a number of essence runes you have become charged. Additionally, you can use a bonus action and spend 1 Sorcery Point to convert two essence runes into two charged runes.

If you have 5 or more charged runes, you emit bright light in a 5-foot radius and dim light for another 5 feet.

If you expend a charged rune to use one of your subclass features, it returns to being an inert essence rune, and all charged runes revert to inert runes when you finish a long rest.

Ok: recap: there's a secondary resource like an afterburner for your Sorcery Points.

Also at 1, you get Runic Magic. This works very similarly to the extra spells granted to the Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul, giving you more spells and letting you swap them out for abjuration and transmutation spells from the Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard spell lists.

These spells are: Longstrider, Protection from Evil and Good, Lesser Restoration, Protection from Poison, Glyph of Warding, Magic Circle, Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Greater Restoration, and Telekinesis.

None of these are big damage spells, but given the tiny number of spells a sorcerer can learn, the broad utility here might be quite appealing.

Also also at level 1, you get Glyph of Aegis. When you take damage, you can expend any number of charged runes as a reaction, and then roll d6s for each rune expended, reducing the damage by the total.

So, clearly we're incentivized to use our Sorcery Points liberally to thus give us this other resource - it's an interesting balancing act. It might not be a bad idea to start off your day spending SP to charge runes (as it's more efficient, albeit without any beneficial effect from the SP spent) to make sure you have a few to start with. While it's still randomized a bit thanks to the fact that the aegis is d6s, you can at least choose how potent your defense is in response to how much damage you would otherwise take.

At 6th level, your Glyph of Aegis is upgraded. As an action, you can expend up to 3 charged runes and touch a creature, who then gets to roll the number of d6s equal to the charged runes expended and reduce the next instance of damage they take by that amount if it happens in the next hour.

Obviously not as flexible as the one you use on yourself, and you won't necessarily know if the next strike they take will be big enough to warrant 3d6. Still, this lets you do a little bit of team defense, which is nice.

Also at 6, you get Sigilic Augmentation. When you make a Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution ability check, you can expend a charged rune as a reaction to gain advantage on the roll. Additionally, if you have to make a Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution saving throw, you can use a reaction and expend a charged rune to gain advantage on the save. However, using it for a saving throw is something you can only do once per long rest.

This is interesting. Honestly, I find using it for ability checks more interesting than with saves, as it competes for your reaction with Glyph of Aegis. Getting advantage relatively on demand on Dexterity checks seems pretty useful.

And still at level 6, you get Manifest Inscriptions. As an action, you can expend a charged rune to reveal hidden or invisible arcane traps, marks, runes, wards, sensors, or glyphs within 60 feet of you, causing them to glow with dim light for 1 minute.

During this minute, you have advantage on Intelligence (Arcana) checks to discern the nature of any magic revealed this way, and if they mean something in a language you can't read, you can understand them while they are glowing as if you did understand the language.

Obviously, this feature is going to be a lot more useful if your DM likes to make magical traps. I really like the flavor of it, though.

At 14, your Glyph of Aegis die becomes a d8 rather than a d6.

Also at 14, you get Runic Torrent. When you cast a spell, you can expend 2 charged runes to cause the spell to deal Force damage rather than its usual damage types. Additionally, all creatures that are targeted by the spell or within its area must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be pushed up to 15 feet away from the spell's point of origin or get knocked prone (you choose). You can use this once per short or long rest.

So, almost nothing is unaffected by Force (Helmed Horrors and similar monsters are, I think, the sole exception. (No, wait, Amethyst Dragons are resistant at least,) and Force is not an option for Transmute Spell. The pushback is also pretty hefty. I guess I'm slightly underwhelmed by the fact that this is only once per rest, but to be fair, you could potentially hit a lot of enemies with this using an AoE spell.

Finally, at level 18, you get Arcane Exemplar. Once per long rest, you can expend a charged rune to transform into a being of pure magical energy and get the following benefits: You have a flying speed of 60 feet, creatures have disadvantage on saving throws against your sorcerer spells, you have resistance to damage from spells, and whenever you cast a spell of 1st level or higher, you regain hit points equal to the spell's level.

These transformation and its benefits last until the end of your turn, but you can expend a charged rune at the end of your turn (no action required) to extend the feature's duration until the end of your next turn. When the transformation ends, you're stunned until the end of your next turn.

Ok, so this is interesting: it's an Ult that reminds me a bit of the way that the Shadow Priest's Void Form worked in World of Warcraft for a few expansions. Once you go into this, you want to try to keep it up until the fight is over - which shouldn't be hard as you can just use Metamagics to charge up your runes on your turn. And it's quite a powerful state to be in.

So, ultimately, what do we think of the Runechild? I actually think it's pretty cool - throwing in another resource to keep track of is maybe a bit much given that Sorcerers are already tracking spell slots and sorcery points, but it'd be easy enough to just write a number of charged runes and make sure it's not more than your sorcerer level. 

And, frankly, I do think that this gives a "classic sorcerer" vibe that you don't really get with Wild Magic or Draconic Bloodline. I honestly didn't expect to like this one, but here we are!

Tal'dorei Subclass Review - Paladin

 With the Way of the Cobalt Soul covered, we now move on to the other homebrewed subclass that was featured (albeit in a more limited capacity) in Critical Role's second campaign. The Oath of the Open Sea is, I'd argue, one of the clearest "Chaotic Good" paladin oaths, with its emphasis on freedom and its values of adaptability.

We only got to see the level 3 features of this subclass at work on Critical Role, though this included the Marine Layer channel divinity that seemed to have such limited use until it became extremely important in the climactic boss fight of the whole campaign. Travis Willingham's Fjord was primarily a Hexblade Warlock, a subclass that works very well multiclassed with paladin, but the character was arguably more paladin-like in personality.

As with any paladin oath, this comes with the tenets that define it - I usually skip past these, as they're really much more important to roleplay flavor and don't have any mechanical meaning, but given that I've tended to do a full post for each of these subclasses, I'll throw it in.

No Greater Life than a Life Lived Free - here, the tenet refers both to the paladin's desire for freedom and the conviction that those who would deny others their freedom should be defeated.

Trust the Skies - this one emphasizes a respect and awareness of nature and reading its signs.

Adapt Like the Water - this is about embracing a fluid strategy and ability to change course and react to changing circumstances.

Explore the Uncharted - here, the tenet drives the paladin to pursue knowledge and delve into the unknown to better protect the innocent.

Your oath spells are Create or Destroy Water, Expeditious Retreat, Augury, Misty Step, Call Lightning, Freedom of the Waves (a spell added in TDCSR,) Control Water, Freedom of Movement, Commune with Nature, and Freedom of the Winds (likewise found in TDCSR).

Freedom of the Waves (3rd level spell) allows you to conjure a kind of tidal wave that forces creatures to make a Strength save or take damage and be knocked prone, but you can also ride the wave to use it for movement and also designate friends who are immune to it if they're in the area.

Freedom of the Winds (5th level spell) allows you to fly at a 60 ft speed and get advantage on checks to avoid getting grappled and on saves against being restrained or paralyzed. You can also use a reaction to teleport 60 feet when you're targeted by a spell or attack, and if you're out of range of the triggering effect when you reappear, you're unaffected, though this ends Freedom of Winds early.

So, I like these spells (which are otherwise available to Druids, Rangers, and Sorcerers,) though I think the only other really awesome oath spell here is Misty Step.

At 3rd level, you get Channel Divinity options: Marine Layer and Fury of the Tides.

Marine Layer lets you, as an action using your channel divinity, create a cloud of fog that surrounds you out to 20 feet in all directions, moving with you and centered on you. The area is heavily obscured, but you and creatures within 5 feet of you treat it as only lightly obscured. The fog lasts 10 minutes, and unlike most fog effects, can't be dispersed early unless you choose to end it.

So, obviously, if you have powerful ranged attacks like Eldritch Blast, this can be very powerful. But I do think that anyone going full paladin with this is going to find this ability can be frustrating - generally you need to get within 5 feet of a target in order to hit it with a melee attack, and so you'll be giving the benefit to your foes - indeed, you could even make things harder on your party if an enemy gets between you and an ally - meaning they get to see your party member while your ally can't see it.

Honestly, this is something of a recurring theme in these subclasses - features that can, under certain circumstances, hurt your allies rather than help them. I think I'd maybe make a homebrew adjustment that only your allies within 5 feet of you get to see through the fog.

The other option is Fury of the Tides. As a bonus action using your channel divinity, you can get a boost to your attacks for 1 minute. Once per turn during that minute, if you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can choose to push the target 10 feet away from you. If pushed into an obstacle or another creature, the target takes bludgeoning damage equal to your Charisma modifier.

So, this feels much easier to use well. Indeed, technically you could flank with a friend and ping-pong the target between the two of you (I think this might play well with a Juggernaut Barbarian).

At level 7, you get Aura of Liberation. This 10-ft aura prevents you and creatures of your choice from being grappled or restrained, and also allows those under its effects to ignore movement and attack penalties for being underwater. Creatures that are already grappled or restrained when they enter the aura can spend 5 feet of movement to escape unless bound magically. Like other paladin auras, this extends to 30 feet at level 18.

Ok, now this is pretty good. For one thing, a lot of very dangerous monsters, especially sea monsters (like Krakens) can only swallow a creature if they have that creature grappled, so this totally prevents anyone from suffering that fate. But it also negates all sorts of things like Web, Entangling Roots... hell, this can even protect a character from a vampire's bite! (Well, at least in most circumstances). It also makes underwater combat significantly more viable - though it's here that I find it bizarre that Water Breathing isn't on the oath spell list.

At level 15, you get Stormy Waters. As a reaction, you can deal 1d12 bludgeoning damage to any creature that enters or leaves your reach. The creature must also make a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC or be knocked prone.

So, first off, that damage is unavoidable, as it happens prior to the Strength save. Also, this isn't an opportunity attack, meaning you could actually trigger this with your own Fury of the Tides. Push them away and then run the other way, forcing them to run back to you... it could be kind of ridiculous.

Finally, at level 20, your Open Sea paladin ult is Mythic Swashbuckler. As an action, you get the following benefits for 1 minute. You can do this once per long rest.

- You have advantage on Strength (Athletics) checks and gain a climbing speed equal to your walking speed, or if you already have a climbing speed, that speed is doubled.

- If you're within 5 feet of a creature and no other creatures are within 5 feet of you, you have advantage on attack rolls against that creature.

- You can dash or disengage as a bonus action.

- You have advantage on Dexterity checks and Dexterity saving throws against effects you can see.

So, this is interesting - you basically get to be part Rogue and part Barbarian (getting parts of Cunning Action and somehthing like the Swashbuckler Rogue's features, as well as Danger Sense).

As usual, making this an action makes it a little painful - it's what makes the Glory and Watcher paladin ults a little more attractive - that and that you can spend 5th-level spell slots to do it more than once per day, whereas Open Sea seems like it's using a slightly older 5th Edition precedent.

Generally speaking, I think paladin subclasses are always cushioned by the fact that the paladin class in general is very strong. I think the Aura of Liberation here is a really powerful feature that could be absolutely clutch in high-stakes situations. Even though we saw Marine Layer work brilliantly the one time, it does seem like it's only in rare circumstances that it will be all that useful.

Still, I really like the way this puts paladins in a flavor context that is usually the realm of Rogues, and any enemy-moving abilities that don't have a saving throw can be quite strong. So, I'd consider this one.

Tal'dorei Subclass Review - Monk

 As we skip past the Fighter, which did not get any subclasses in TDCSR (to be fair, it got the Echo Knight in the Wildemount book,) we come to The Way of the Cobalt Soul for Monks.

Unlike most of these, we got plenty of exposure to the Cobalt Soul subclass thanks to the character of Beauregard in campaign 2 of Critical Role, and saw, essentially, the long-form playtesting of this subclass. While Monks are a class that favors Dexterity and Wisdom, monastic traditions in the real world tend to involve a lot of study, and the Cobalt Soul Monk is all about getting power from knowledge.

At level 3, you get Extract Aspects. When you hit a creature with one of the attacks granted by your Flurry of Blows, you can analyze it. An analyzed creature remains analyzed until you finish a short or long rest. When the analyzed creature misses you with an attack, you can immediately use your reaction to make an unarmed strike against the creature if it's within your reach.

Additionally, when you analyze the creature, you learn all of its damage vulnerabilities, damage resistances, damage immunities, and condition immunities.

Ok, so: I freaking love this. As a DM, I'm often tempted to play coy with the mechanical nature of monsters, hiding important and actionable information from players lest they run roughshod over my precious monsters. But I have to fight that temptation and, for example, make those high Arcana, Nature, or Religion checks actually count for something tangible. This is a different avenue toward that knowledge, but it's the sort of thing that players should be able to gain if they work for it. The retaliatory attack is fine, but gets better later on.

Also, the fact that this doesn't simply go away when you use it on other foes is quite nice.

At level 6, you get Extort Truth. This essentially allows you to get the effects of Zone of Truth on a single target if you hit them and spend 1 ki (you can also choose not to deal damage with this, if you're not actually fighting the creature), with the target making a Charisma save against it. While affected, any Charisma checks against the creature are made at advantage. While its use in combat is questionable, other than trying to intimidate the target (Berserker Barbarians and Swashbuckler Rogues might be able to get some use out of it) Monks are often a little short on abilities that can be useful in social encounters, which is why I think this is a cool thing to get. It's also relatively cheap at 1 ki. 

Also at 6 you get Mystical Erudition, which allows you to learn a new language and gain a new skill proficiency from among Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, or Religion, or, if you already have proficiency in one of those, you can get expertise in it.

Again, this emphasizes Cobalt Soul as the "smart" monk, even if you don't have high intelligence. I think this feature is fine. The only issue I can see here is that neither of the level 6 features have combat implications, which is usually the case for other Monk subclasses.

At level 11, your Mystic Erudition gives you another skill or expertise from the same list.

Also at 11, you get Mind of Mercury. This is probably the biggest deal: once per turn, if you've already used your reaction, you can spend 1 ki to take an additional reaction - so no, you can't use this to turn Extract Aspects into a machine gun by spending all your ki, as it is limited to one per turn and one per triggering effect, but this can make you a lot more flexible, getting to make opportunity attacks or use Slow Fall even if you've already done something. Pairing this with a feat like Sentinel (as Marisha Ray did with Beau) can be quite good.

At 17 (a level that CR2 didn't get to, as they finished out at level 15) you get a third Mystic Erudition.

Also at 17, you get Debilitating Barrage. If you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can spend 3 ki points to cause the creature to gain vulnerability to one damage type of your choice for 1 minute, or until the end of a turn in which it has taken the damage of that type. If the creature is resistant to that damage, the resistance is suppressed for 1 minute, rather than gaining vulnerability. A creature that is immune to the damage type is unaffected. And a creature can only be affected by this feature once, gaining immunity to it for 24 hours.

Ok, so here's the weird math: Normally, vulnerability and resistance merely cancel each other out - much as advantage and disadvantage do. And thus, normally, adding more onto the pile doesn't change that flat state. But in this case, you're not piling vulnerability on resistance, but rather just removing the resistance. Thus, say, a Grave Cleric, would be able to use Path to the Grave, and now that you've removed the resistance, the full effect makes them truly vulnerable.

Technically, I believe you would be able to use this as something of a Monk smite, as it's triggered when you hit the target and not when you damage it, creating a small window to burn the ki points on a crit and then do double damage with that crit.

Also, of note, the effect persists to the end of any turn in which it takes the chosen type of damage. As such, if you use unarmed strikes for your main attacks and pick bludgeoning damage, the rest of your hits will also benefit. But strategically, you could also instead choose something like force damage in order to set up your Wizard's Disintegrate to do an absolutely obscene amount of damage.

Monks are, I think, one of the most underrated classes in D&D - sure, they might not look as good as other melee classes when you calculate their average damage on paper (though if they can rest up regularly and get those ki points back, they're still pretty awesome just with Flurry of Blows) but in practice, they just have so many cool things that I really encourage skeptics to give them a try.

The Cobalt Soul monk is, I think, a pretty cool subclass. Its emphasis is, like Monks in general, I think, setting up your allies to kick a lot of ass, which can be very useful. In terms of raw power potential, this might not match, say, the Way of Mercy, but I think there are a lot of fun and useful abilities here that empower the already fairly strong (and fun) Monk base class.

Tal'dorei Subclass Review - Druid

 Moving on with our subclass review, we come next to the Druid. Here, we have the Circle of the Blighted. While the Circle of Spores is an example of a "darker" druid subclass, the Blighted explicitly has the druid now been corrupted as well by the corruption to the land to which they are connected.

Thus, this is a dark and even potentially villainous, or at the least tragic subclass for the Druid.

At 2nd level, you get Defile Ground. This allows you to use a bonus action to corrupt a 10-ft radius circle of land centered on a point within 60 feet of you for 1 minute. It's difficult terrain for creatures hostile to you, and when a creature in the area takes damage from an attack or spell for the first time on a turn, it takes an extra 1d4 necrotic damage. You can move the circle of corruption up to 30 feet as a bonus action. Flying creatures are unaffected. And you can use this once per short rest.

So, the big downside I see here is that, while the difficult terrain bit only affects enemies, the 1d4 damage will hit your friends as well. It's not a huge amount, but that also means it's not a great benefit either. We'll check back in with this feature as we get to higher levels.

Also at 2nd level, you get Blighted Shape. First off, you get some cosmetic changes like blackened veins, gnarled, bony protrusions, etc. Basically, feel free to think of creepy ways your corruption manifests. Either way, you get proficiency in Intimidation (interestingly, it says you gain proficiency in specifically Charisma (Intimidation,) which would seem to imply that it wouldn't work for alternative forms of intimidation (like the classic Strength (Intimidation,)) but I assume this was just a bit of overenthusiastic writing, and that it just means you get proficiency in Intimidation.

Furthermore, you get a buff to your Wild Shape feature, gaining +2 to AC thanks to gnarled spines that protrude from your body, as well as 60-ft darkvision, or an extra 60 feet if your form already has it.

This I find really intriguing, as it's really the first subclass since Circle of the Moon that actually encourages you to use your Wild Shape as it is in the base class, unlike the recent subclasses like Spores, Stars, or Wildfire, that give you simply different features that use your Wild Shape charges. The benefits here are nice (especially given how most beasts have pretty terrible AC) but I don't know if it'll beat being able to use it as a bonus action.

At 6th level, you get Call of the Shadowseeds. If a creature that is not undead or a construct takes damage within your Defile Ground feature, you can use a reaction to summon a Blighted Sapling in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the creature, and you can have the sapling attack any creature within 5 feet of it as a reaction. Subsequently, the sapling acts on your initiative, obeying your verbal commands.

The sapling's stat block scales somewhat with your level - its AC is 10 plus your proficiency bonus, and its HP is twice your druid level. It makes a single Claws attack using your spell attack modifier as its attack bonus, doing 2d4+PB piercing damage, and then gets to attack twice at level 14. The sapling has vulnerability to fire damage, but resistance to necrotic and poison damage, which becomes immunity at level 10 (along with immunity to the poisoned condition).

The sapling persists until it's reduced to 0 hit points, or until the end of your next long rest, or until you summon another sapling. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest.

Now, that PB per long rest feature could be a bit misleading, as you'll only be able to summon your Defiled Ground once per short rest. That said, these things don't have a ton of HP, so you might summon multiple of them per fight. What I find interesting is that, unlike most subclass pets, this one doesn't require a bonus action to command. Also of note is that there's no "magical attack" element to the sapling's attacks, meaning that this becomes far less powerful when facing monsters that require magic weapons to kill.

At 10th level, your Defiled Ground gets upgraded to a 20-ft radius, and the bonus damage goes up to 1d6. Again, I think the feature on its own is not all that amazing (though 20 ft radius is a huge improvement over 10 ft) but the blighted saplings you make with it are probably a bigger deal.

Also at 10th, you get Foul Conjuration. Any beast, fey, or plant you summon (which includes your blighted sapling or creatures conjured via Conjure Woodland Creatures or Summon Fey) get the following benefits:

They're immune to necrotic and poison damage, and the poisoned condition (which is the source of the aforementioned bonus to the sapling at level 10). Additionally, they get "Toxic Demise," which causes them to explode when they hit 0 hit points. Any creature within 5 feet of the creature has to make a Con save or take damage based on the exploding creature's CR. 1/4 or lower does 1d4 necrotic, 1/2 does 1d6. 1 or higher does a number of d8s of necrotic damage equal to the creature's CR, and if the summoned creature doesn't have a CR, it's a number of d6s equal to your proficiency bonus.

As an action, you can cause a summoned creature to explode prematurely, which kills it but also triggers this damage.

So, let me tell you a story about World of Warcraft. Back in the day, Death Knights had an ability called Corpse Explosion. Back then, there was a kind of theme with the class where you'd want to make use of corpses on the battlefield. This one caused a nearby one to explode and do damage to enemies. It was gross and nasty, and I loved it because it fully fit the flavor. This very much has that feel.

Is it good? Well, it certainly adds a little functionality to the Blighted Sapling, and even makes its low HP more of a feature than a liability.

I will say that the immunity to necrotic damage is actually pretty clutch, as it will make them immune to the effects of your Defiled Ground.

Finally, at level 14, your Defiled Ground's damage increases to 1d8 - which by this level I think is even less relevant.

However, also at level 14, you get Incarnation of Corruption. Much like your Blighted Shape, you now gain that +2 bonus to AC while in your normal form, and you also gain resistance to necrotic damage. This is represented through those spines and jagged spurs emerging from your body. Additionally, while within your Defiled Ground, you can use a bonus action to gain temporary hit points equal to your proficiency bonus.

So, let's skip ahead to the overall thoughts on this: I think this subclass has excellent flavor, and I'd be tempted to play one simply to live out that dark druid vibe. Again, I'm reminded of World of Warcraft (the game that was partially responsible for getting me to check out Critical Role, as I knew it as "that D&D stream that the actress who voices Jaina Proudmoore is on,") which has, as part of its lore, the Emerald Nightmare - a corruption within the Emerald Dream, which is kind of inner plane that represents pristine nature and balance. Nightmare corruption tends to manifest as thorns and spines and such protruding from creatures, and this would seem to be a perfect subclass for a Nightmare-corrupted druid.

Mechanically, I think the subclass is a bit overstuffed (true for a lot of the subclasses from this book,) and more importantly it feels like there's a bit of a mechanical mismatch. Defiled Ground can only happen once per short rest, which in practice means about twice a day usually. But Call of the Shadowseeds can be done more often - yet still requires you to use Defiled Ground. Thus you're sort of relying on the DM killing your minions in order to make full use of the feature, which you can still only practically use in two fights per day.

I want to love this subclass, but I have to wonder if it might have needed a bit more revision.

Tal'dorei Subclass Review - Clerics

 Continuing with our review of subclass options found in Tal'dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, we get to the Cleric. Here, we find two subclasses. I believe one of these (I want to say Blood) was found in the original, now out-of-print Tal'dorei book, but we'll just take it on its own terms.

    Blood:

The Blood Domain is connected in-universe to the Claret Orders, which are basically badass monster hunters who use forbidden magic. This gives us the Blood Hunter class (one that I've sort of come around to and might start letting players take it in my campaigns) but also this divine domain.

If Grave isn't quite enough for you and your DM doesn't let you go with Death Domain, here's another edgelord option!

Your domain spells are False Life, Sleep, Hold Person, Ray of Enfeeblement, Haste, Slow, Blight, Stoneskin, Dominate Person, and Hold Monster. Haste and Slow are both very powerful spells, though while some of the others here are pretty good, I don't know that anything else really blows me away.

At level 1 you get proficiency with martial weapons - no heavy armor, though, so you might simply use a Longbow or Heavy Crossbow as your default move.

Lastly at 1, you get Bloodletting Focus. When you cast a damage-dealing spell of 1st level or higher whose duration is instantaneous, any creature with blood that takes damage from the spell takes extra necrotic damage qual to 2 + the spell's level.

So, it's kind of the opposite of the Life Domain's bonus healing. This clearly sets the Blood Cleric up as a damage-dealer, though I don't know if 3 extra damage on a Guiding Bolt is going to be all that enormous. The best spells to take advantage of this would be AoE damage spells, though Clerics only get a few of those - Sunburst (part of the Tasha's expanded spell list for Clerics) does 12d6 radiant damage to creatures in a 60-foot radius sphere, so around 42 damage, which this would bump up to 52. Sadly, Spirit Guardians doesn't benefit from this because it's not instantaneous.

At level 2, you get Channel Divinity: Crimson Bond. Using your Channel Divinity, you can form a supernatural bond with a creature you can see or one for which you possess a blood sample. The bond lasts 1 hour or until your concentration is broken.

While in effect, you can use an action to learn the target's approximate distance and direction from you, as well as its current hit points and any conditions affecting it if it's within 10 miles of you. You can also use an action to try to connect with the target's senses. If you do so, you take 2d6 necrotic damage and the target makes a Constitution saving throw. If they succeed, the bond ends. If they fail, you can choose to either see or hear through their senses for a number of minutes equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1,) during which you are blinded or deafened (respectively) regarding your own senses. When the conneciton ends, the bond does too.

Regardless of outcome, the target feels a sense of unease when they make the saving throw.

So, this is flavorful as hell. How useful it is is really subject to the sort of campaign you're playing in. Do you have recurring villains? And can you get a blood sample of said villains? Honestly, I think this is more likely to be useful when used on friends, who can donate a vial of blood to allow you to find them should they be captured or otherwise lost.

At 6th level, you get Channel Divinity: Blood Puppet. Using an action, you can target a Large or smaller creature or corpse within 60 feet of you that has blood. A creature must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or become charmed by you - unconscious creatures automatically fail the save, and are not incapacitated while under the effects. A corpse gains a semblance of life that you control.

On the creature or corpse's turn, you can command it (no action) to move up to half its speed and interact with an object, make a single attack, or do nothing. Animated corpses or unconscious creatures take their turn immediately after yours, and use their statistics as if they were alive/conscious. The control lasts for 1 minute or until you lose concentration.

So, here's one of those cases where I think the wording could be a little more precise - after all, a 9th level Guiding Bolt is still technically an attack. I assume this is meant to mean weapon attack. However, with all the new spellcaster stat blocks that use magical attacks rather than traditional spells as their bread-and-butter, perhaps this becomes quite strong.

This is an ability that could be insanely powerful at higher levels - if you're fighting a group of, say, Evocation Wizards and your party kills one, you can then pick up that body and have it start throwing powerful blasts at its former friends. Also, any foe with sneak attack might wind up being a really good option here.

Also at level 6, you get Sanguine Recall. You can sacrifice health to regain spell slots. The spell slots can have a combined level equal to or less than half your cleric level (rounded up) and none can be 6th level or higher. You then take 1d8 necrotic damage for each spell slot level (so, you get a 2nd and 3rd level slot and you're taking 5d8) and this damage can't be reduced in any way (sorry Aasimar). You can use this feature once per long rest.

So, I don't think there are any heals that can give you an HP profit here (barring really lucky rolls - low for this feature and high for the healing) but taking 5d8 to get a slot to cast Mass Cure Wounds (3d8+Wis to up to 6 people) could be a very effective way to spread life around.

This is also a great thing to use right before a short rest - do your Harness Divine Power and then this, and then just heal up with hit dice.

At level 8, you get Divine Strike, dealing necrotic damage.

Finally, at 17th level, you get an upgrade to Blood Puppet, allowing you to use it on Huge corpses and creatures (puppeteering a dead giant? Yes, thank you.)

Also at 17, you get Vascular Corruption Aura. As an action, you can create a 30-ft radius aura around you for 1 minute. Any hostile creature with blood that starts its turn in the aura or enters it for the first time on their turn takes 3d6 necrotic damage. If a hostile creature in that aura has blood, when it regains hit points, it only regains half the amount it normally would. You can use this once per long rest.

Unavoidable damage in a huge area with built-in IFF? That's pretty good. The healing aspect could be useful, though of course only in some circumstances.

Overall, I think the biggest thing about this subclass is that you'll want to talk to your DM about defining what kind of creatures have blood or not. Does a zombie have blood? What about a Corpse Flower? Fiends have blood, right? Well, not Shadow Demons, maybe. Does a Bone Devil have blood?

I also think it's important to note that two of the subclass' features require concentration, which is a pretty precious resource in 5th Edition. Honestly, I think Blood Puppet is the coolest and strongest element to this subclass, and might be enough to justify it, though I think its other features are a little lackluster.

    Moon

In the Exandria setting, there are two moons - Catha is the fairly straightforward moon that acts much like the one in the real world, while Ruidus, the mysterious, smaller, red moon that appears at unpredictable times.

The subclass is fairly setting-specific, with references to these two moons in its mechanics. For a broader celestial/nighttime-focused cleric Domain, I'd recommend going with Twilight from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, but if you're playing in Exandria, let's see how this domain works.

Your domain spells are Faerie Fire, Silent Image, Invisibility, Moonbeam, Hypnotic Pattern, Major Image, Greater Invisibility, Hallucinatory Terrain, Dream, and Passwall.

Honestly, this is a pretty good collection. I particularly like Faerie Fire, Moonbeam, Hypnotic Pattern, and Greater Invisibility here (being an invisible healer could be pretty clutch).

At 1st level, you get Clarity of Catha - when a creature within 30 feet of you makes a Wisdom saving throw, you can use your reaction to give them advantage on that save. You can do this PB times per long rest.

I think this is decently useful, and fairly flexible, if a bit of a minor effect.

At level 2, you get Channel Divinity: Blessing of the Full Moon. As an action, using your Channel Divinity, you can give a willing creature one of the following benefits:

Watchful Moon: For 1 hour, the creature's speed increases by 10 feet and it has advantage on Wisdom (Perception or Survival) checks involving smell or made to track a creature.

Blood-Drenched Moon: For 10 minutes, the blessed creature has advantage on attack rolls against a target if at least one of the blessed creature's allies is within 5 feet of the target and isn't incapacitated.

And it's here where we start to develop a bit of a werewolf theme - the former giving something akin to a bonus to senses affiliated with wolves, and the latter giving, effectively, pack tactics.

The Blood-Drenched Blessing has very clear and good combat applications, while the Watchful one could come in handy in lots of situations.

It's good.

At level 6, you get Channel Divinity: Mind of Two Moons. You can expend a use of Channel Divinity when you cast a concentration spell while already concentrating on another spell, as long as both are Moon domain spells. If you have to make a concentration save, you do so at disadvantage and lose concentration on both upon a failure.

So, while your concentration is harder to maintain, this will allow you to keep up multiple spells. The limit to domain spells is a pretty significant restriction, but this would allow you to have, say, Greater Invisibility and Hypnotic Pattern up at the same time - harder to break your concentration when the enemy can't see you and half of them can't even do anything.

At level 8, you get Empowered Cantrips.

Finally, at 17, you get Eclipse of Ill Omen: As a bonus action, you can manifest an area of reddish dim light in a 60 foot radius around you. Creatures in this area make saving throws at disadvantage, but when you create it, you can designate any number of creatures to be unaffected by it. The eclipse lasts for 1 minute while you concentrate on it - and this counts as a Moon Domain spell for the purpose of using Mind of Two Moons.

Additionally, once per turn when you deal radiant damage to any creatures within the light, you can curse one of the creatures until the eclipse ends, reducing their speed by half and making them unable to regain hit points.

You can use this ability once per long rest.

So, this is a hell of a capstone. It's a massive area, and you can keep stacking that curse up on foe after foe. Disadvantage on all saving throws is pretty massive, and cutting out absolutely all healing is also huge (I really like that the Loup-Garou from Van Richten's does actually require you to get silver weapons to kill it, except that you can get around this with something as simple as Chill Touch).

So, I have to say, I think I like the Moon domain quite a bit. Again, the feature names tie it pretty directly to Exandria, but I think the overall theme of it is pretty strong, and a number of its features as well.