It's the most wonderful time of the year! And Day 20 has some presents for you!
This post is going to look a little anemic to start, but it will be the landing page for an event that starts on December 25th: The 12 Days of Content. For 12 days, we will be giving you small little bits of content to keep you feeling that holiday spirit all the way into the new year.
But if you can't stand waiting and just want to grab some goodies (for yourself or others), head on over to our Itch.io page where you can enjoy 20% off all of our titles in our Winter Sale, or buy the full collection for an even bigger discount!
1st Day: The D&D 5e Attacks Cheat Sheet
Keep forgetting to include your Rage bonus for damage? Do you struggle to do quick math for the Sharpshooter or Great Weapon Master feats? Do you have too many weapons to consistently remember?
This worksheet gives you a handy way of tracking, calculating, and referencing all of the copious attacks your heroic adventurer can do! With a rules guide that references all of the essential basic rules for D&D 5e and plenty of space for new weapons, this is everything you'll need to track your attacks on your epic quests.
2nd Day: The Mass
How often do we play D&D 5e and realize that the damage resistances & immunities of the monsters don't really do anything. Once the party has some good spells and magic weapons, nothing is really stopping them from reducing the HP to zero. Well we saw this as an opportunity to add more interesting, challenging mechanics into the typically no-thought exercise of picking which weapon to use.
Today you get The Mass, the first of three monsters that focus on creating interesting interactions with the physical damage types of D&D 5e: bludgeoning; piercing; and slashing. Whether magical or mundane, low or high level, these creatures are designed to add potent consequences to the weapons a party chooses. In the case of The Mass, a hulking behemoth of alien flesh that pummels and squeezes its prey, bludgeoning damage will do you know good. And anyone trying to cut this thing will soon find their weapons wrenched from their grip.
Add this exciting new monster to your games to bring a new dimension of tactical challenge to your players!
3rd Day: The Lattice
The second of three specially designed damage-type monsters is here: The Lattice!
Like a patch of alien bamboo, this creature is composed entirely of hollow tubes that flex and grow to pierce its enemies. Piercing damage will pass through harmlessly, while bludgeoning is likely to do more harm than good. We hope you and your victi-.. players enjoy another strange monster from beyond the stars!
4th Day: The Shard
The final monster in the B/P/S triarchy is The Shard, a sentient geometric anomaly. This glitch in reality is terrifying to encounter as it shreds everything around it to ribbons. The sharpest edge can't be cut, and piercing is as likely to hurt your friends as it. Choose your weapons wisely or you're unlikely to survive.
For a particularly nasty combat, consider using all three of these creatures at once. You can have all three appear simultaneously, or have each one shift into the next as the fight progresses. Our recommendation is to have the creature shift into the form corresponding to a specific damage type when it's hit for full damage: for example, the Shard would shift into the Mass when it takes bludgeoning damage.
5th Day: The Red String
We've spent long enough in 5e land - time to get thirsty! Today's gift is an new move for the amazing Thirsty Sword Lesbians system, a Powered By The Apocalypse game focused on queer storytelling and dramatic romance narratives. It's an incredible game that, if you'd not had the chance to try yet, you should absolutely do so.
This move is meant to dive deeper into feelings of lasting, powerful emotions between two characters. The String Advance system is adapted to allow players to "find the red string" and create a permanent connection that has mechanical impacts. Use this in your games for an added layer of fateful romance!
6th Day: The Heartweald
Today's content is a bit of a crossover from "The Sunset Over Vengalia" into the world of Thirsty Sword Lesbians. These rules allow characters, friend and foe, to grow closer and more honest through use of a metaphysical space called The Heartweald. This space can be narratively represented in many ways - a holodeck on a ship; a plane created by magic; an imaginary world built from meditation - but it always allows those in the space to get to the heart of the matter.
Try it out in your games today!
7th Day: Goodwill's Charm
Continuing with the run of non-5e content, today's present is totally system agnostic! You can use this magic item, Goodwill's Charm, in any TTRPG system you wish. The small token makes for a humble but perfect gift, sugaring your words and opening the hearts of any that receive it. True generosity is often its own gift, and the magic of this charm helps pave the way for a more peaceful negotiation.
8th Day: Ritual of Renewal
Another seasonally relevant, system-agnostic bit of content today. This one is geared towards celebrating the New Year, both in and out of character! As your characters proceed on their adventures, things should change. Old traumas can become resolved, while new wounds are still fresh. Acknowledge this change as well as the desire to change themselves by conducting a Ritual of Renewal.
9th Day: Quarrelsbane
Not another combat!
We all love to roll initiative and crack some heads. But that's not always the most satisfying route. Sometimes you want to understand your enemies, or maybe you just want to hit reset on a bit of RP that got out of hand. Every murder hobo deserves a shot at redemption, and with the season of peace on earth in mind, we bring you a system-agnostic magic item that can help create a calmer way forward: Quarrelsbane.
10th Day: CYTOBER 2023
Back in October, our lead writer Matt participated in an event on social media called MÖRKTOBER - a celebration of the spooky season combined with everyone's favorite dark-and-gritty OSR TTRPG MÖRK BORG. And while that game is undeniably amazing, Matt thought it would be fun to instead focus on the cyberpunk remix of the game: CY_BORG. So for 31 days they posted small snippets of content (much like this 12 Days event) and now you can pick up all of those snippets in a single PDF: CYTOBER 2023. Many of the entries have actually been improved with additional details, like item classifications, costs, and roll tables. We're in the double digits, so let's celebrate with an extra big present today!
11th Day: Project P.R.E.S.E.N.T.
Today's present is quit literally The P.R.E.S.E.N.T. - another bit of delightfully bleak cyberpunk content for CY_BORG. When you really really REALLY need to make someone go away, give them a final gift with a Personal Rectilinear Electromagnetic Slug Emitter; Neutralizes Targets. It's gonna cost you, but can you really put a price on joy?
12th Day: The Frozen
SING THE WHOLE THING NOW!
But seriously, since the entire 12 days are now done, our final bit of content is extremely special. We've done some 5e stuff. We've done some TSL stuff. We've even gone system agnostic and CY_BORG-ified ourselves. And today we bring you a multiplanar, multisystem foe called "The Frozen". This zine includes universal lore that works for any system or TTRPG setting you'd like to deploy it in, but also includes mechanics for running encounters with/against The Frozen in all three of the systems we've featured these 12 days. Whether you're telling stories of queer liberation, high fantasy heroism, or gritty cyberpunk, you'll be able to run a compelling encounter with this horrifying foe!
Thank you so much for following us through the 12 Days of Content! We hope you enjoyed this event, and we also hope you stick around for all the amazing things to come. 2024 is going to be an amazing year!