News Roundup: Embrace your Inner Mindflayer in D&D's Latest Unearthed Arcana

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Today’s a catch-up day for a good bit of news. We have a look at a new D&D unearthed arcana. MCDM is crowdfunding its latest project. And two interview pieces we think you should consider about monsters and wordplay.

Become Tav in Dungeons and Dragons’ Latest Underdark-themed Unearthed Arcana

A new Unearthed Arcana for Dungeons and Dragons went live on Thursday, describing a set of three classes as well as an expansion of the recently tested “transformation feats” that will allow players to become mindflayers.

The first major additions are three new subclasses

• The Path of Unlight Barbarian, where players channel a strange energy known as ‘unlight’, giving barbarians radiant magic in the process.

• House Agent Rogue, which plays off the previously described politics of the Underdark and the drow city of Menzoberranzan.

• The Imaskarcanist, a special wizard drawing on the distinct magic of an underground region known as Deep Imaskar to channel new forms of energy into traditionally arcanic magics.

All the classes appear to draw on the history of the Underdark, exploring Deep Imaskar and Unlight in varying forms. They’re obviously in early tests.

The more interesting addition is the Path of Ceremorphosis, a set of feats and traits that a player take on through storytelling after being infected by an illithid tadpole. The player remains mentally free but gained traits and psionic skills as they add on feats. Eventually they can choose to become a mindflayer (either one good at lots of psionic magic or just at the process of eating brains.) If this feels like Baldur’s Gate 3, it is exactly the player experience.

The tools echo a new set of character design aspects that D&D tested in the past, where players could take on feats and slowly become either a Death Knight or Lich.

The playtest is available now, while the feedback for it opens on August 27.

Matt Colville’s CROWS, a Dungeon Crawling Dark Adventuring Followup to Draw Steel Launches on Backerkit

MCDM, Matt Colville’s publisher, remains one of the ongoing successes in the space with its campaigns. Whether it was Draw Steel or Crack the Sun, the game’s fanbase remains excited. And the same can be said for Crows, a new “brand-new survival horror RPG for dungeon crawls, wilderness travel, and base building.”

The game successfully raised $650,000¹ this week and continues to do so.

The game describes itself as a “fantasy RPG where PCs are adventurers brave or foolish enough to make a living (and a dying) by diving into monster-infested ruins for treasure. It uses the power roll mechanic from Draw Steel, but this is far from heroic fantasy.”

While it might feel like a traditional fantasy, there are elements of the game that have led many to compare it to the OSR scene.

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Roll20 Adds ‘Quantum Dice’, Grid Alignment Tools to VTT

The popular virtual tabletop Roll20 is adding a number of new features to its website to make play easier, including a set of “quantum dice” that are now available for general use.

The Quantum Dice is a VTT-less roller that allows players to roll any size dice they might without having to log into their account. It’s an option for when you might want to roll a random d20 while hanging with friends, or have dice options via phone or laptop. The dice are based on the QuantumRoll dice engine, which generates seeds that can be tracked and tested to help players ensure that the digital dice remain quantifiably reliable.

A new tool for helping sync maps was also added. The align-to-grid tool, which helps square-based maps match the ones in the JPEGs, is being tested in beta. (The option did receive a temporary rollback as of Thursday, August 20.)

Today, I have an interview with Darryl Jones of Splattered Ink Games, who just announced a new expansion for his dino-meets-time-travel D&D 5e expansion.

I spoke with him about what inspired him to get weird with his games, his upcoming projects, and more! You can read it all here.

We also featured our interview with Modiphius’ team about Discworld, the TTRPG adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s work on Saturday. Still haven’t read it? Check it out here.

That’s all for this week! If you have thoughts, comments or ideas then feel free to send us tips or emails at [email protected].

1  This is especially interesting when you get into the weeds of TTRPG crowdfunding practices since most games will ask for smaller amounts but secretly need larger ones to succeed. They just ask for smaller amounts so they can say “crowdfunded in 10 minutes” or whatever, which is really good for building excitement and convincing potential backers that it’s real. MCDM asked for the actual amount they needed up front, and got it. That’s a win.