"Fey can only die when they are known, man can only die when he is forgotten"... Holy crap that's beautiful!

"Up yours, authority. That's what villains say." - Asmodeus, lawful evil lord and tyrant of all devils, begins typing furiously.

"I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm just very opinionated, and think too much." I need a poster of this... and a shirt, and a mug and...

"Thats alot of times to be on fire while your asleep" For sure thats waaaay to many times, i would be mad by the second year lol

That outfit is a LOOK

1. noice pirates of penzance reference 2. right, leaving at 5.02. no spoilers here. 3. you done great, very effective lasertag look. you did shoot me on my birthday though, so i hate you forever

When I saw your videos for the first time I thought, "cool! another dnd YTer that I can learn and/or steal ideas from." Then I saw some of your other stuff and thought, "YAY! ANOTHER MYTHOLOGY NERD!"

Another idea to make your melee types fear getting into close range is an Aura. Let’s say that a ten foot aura causes creatures to become drowsy. If they end their turn in the aura, they must make a DC13 Constitution Saving Throw or make all rolls at disadvantage on the following turn. Alternatively, you could give them fire damage, as befits his fiery nature. Ending one’s turn within a ten foot aura deals 1d6 fire damage. This way he always has a chance to hurt someone when it’s not their turn. Since he is a fey creature, perhaps he is asynchronous with space and time. This allows him to disengage as a bonus action once during the fight. Or it could be a legendary action that he can disengage, since he is likely to want to keep himself alive.

The fey dying if you know their name reminded me that in norwegian folklore, there are underworld creatures called "jotner" which dies if humans utters their name. Also, there is another concept called "bytting", where a child from the underworld were switched with a human baby (bytting literally means "trading" in norwegian), and so the human family must raise a child of the underworld. A "bytting" will die if you get them to tell you their age.

Love the outfit Dael! Very excited to see your big sub bump. Remember, Colville might have sent people your way, but all he did was get eyeballs on your content. Those eyeballs wouldn't be subbing if it wasn't for the hard work that YOU do, and for the great content that YOU create. So, yes, thank Colville, but mostly thank yourself. You're the one the put in the hard work for so long and have been producing great content. Anyway, keep up the great work! I'm happy to see things taking off! 😃👊

"I have no idea what I'm doing; I'm just very opinionated, and think too much." Wow, you're more like Colville than you think. xD

"Ah! It's so hard to punch you because you're burning me!" I feel like Minsc would say this, right Boo?

"A firm reinforcer of the idea that names have power" YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS That's all I have to say

Just trying to visualize your rogue throwing sneaky cats at the villain

"Just pick thematic spells" Love having easy going players that this works.

"I'm a believer in breaking the rules." Yes, good. I firmly believe that DnD is just a guideline. I've probably broke every rule at least once either in some change made to a spell or ability or villain. I like to call this Chaotic Neutral DMing (or Chaotic Good if the changes are more beneficial for the players).

I hate it when I'm walking around and wake up in a faery.

Commenting on a two year old video to mention that this gave me summer great ideas for my setting and campaign! I won't rattle on about it but I love anything that gets the gears turning.

I'm very interested in what you've mentioned so far regarding "deep" or "old" magic. Have you done a video on the elements you use to give magic that feel in your game world? If not, I would love to see one when it fits with whatever else you're planning.

I love the idea of the burner prince. That whole description leading up to seeing the burner prince in a serene yet displaced scenery was really great! I'm definitely stealing that lol thank you so much!

About a year ago I ran my players against a Faerie Prince, they had lots of time and tools available to them but they basically only skimmed this and found a location for him and went to confront him. Oddly they would not do this vs a dragon or a demon but thought this was fine vs a Fey :) So this fight was nearly impossible to win and they actually got wiped however the Prince is easily bored and wandered away allowing another fey who was his enemy to rescue them. This Fay berated them (and the players finally realised that this was a super bad guy not just a boss fight :) ). They did two quests to find his true name and then used this to make a dael ( :) ) with him to keep him from the prime material plane for 1000 years (nothing to him but seemed good to the players). Your videos have gotten me to include a lot more plot lines and points influenced by other mythologies than Norse.

Glad to see Matthew's shout out is having a positive effect! I had watched you for a while, as well as Colville, and him giving you a shout out warmed my heart.

I love the idea of slipping between planes. I did a similar thing in one of my campaigns. Any time they strayed into a deeply wooded area, they had a chance of accidentally wandering into the fey realm. Because of this, it was very difficult to harvest lumber in densely forested areas. Most of the buildings in the world were stone or brick and things crafted from wood were very valuable. Made for an interesting setting. And it took my players awhile to figure out what was happening 😅

"I've only been running the game for a handful of years, so you should go in this knowing that I have no idea what I'm doing" me too. even with ~15 years of DM experience under my belt ... I still have that feeling. I "wing it" a lot, and things happen to fall into place ... but knowing what I'm doing? Nope. The only thing I know (or think I know), is that it's a game, and games are supposed to be fun, and you try to figure out what the people on your table want, and like a hollywood writer/direcotr you try to direct a story for them.

"Down with the man, up yours to authority" is what a fair amount of my heroes say too

Initiative every round was a common practice. You had to declare your actions ahead of time. I can't quite remember the action mechanic but it was basically a move action & an attack action. Everybody would roll initiative and carry out the first half of their declared action, in order, some players would delay. After the first half of the turn was completed then you'd carry out the second half of the previously declared actions. This would result in the players being committed to their declared actions but, not knowing how the belligerents/monsters were going to react, which lead to wasted turns via misjudgments. Players would anticipate something a declare their actions off of their anticipations, however by the time they went the situation on the board had changed. The basic tactics was melee players wanted to move last in initiative order in the first half of the round and then attack first in initiative order in the second half of the round. I know we rolled were supposed to roll initiative every round but I believe we rolled initiative every half of round. This was in the AD&D days.

Honestly, having the perspective from someone who's new enough to still probably have at least some memory of their first time DMing is more helpful to the current crop of newbies than having the Old Gods talk about their methods. You remember what it's like sitting awkwardly in front of a group of friends for the first time psyching yourself up to painting a world in their minds with your words.

I've been playing/Mostly DMing since '78, and you look to be a great DM to run a character under. Good stuff.

Gaining alertness at bloodied is BRILLIANT.

You are my new hero. This is what I've always wanted D&D to be, I'm glad I'm not alone.

What I love to do with my big evil bad guys that are high tier magic users in 5th E: epic concentration. they can hold up to 3 concentration spells at a time. It's custom made and i have so far made only positive expieriances with it =)

I really like the idea of having the bad guy roll initiative each round. Anything to keep combat dynamic, unpredictable, and therefore fun and exciting. I am totally going to try that.

Congrats on your shout-out! Your villain you describe here is probably the most creative D&D villain I've heard of! Thanks so much for sharing.

I’m no Colville but I name drop you wherever dnd videos are found. My wife and I both love you, you’re clever, fun, and as cute as a button. We love that your channel has dnd, folklore, and so much more. Keep up the great work and at any point you start streaming your games, I’m there!

Great advice and ideas, thanks again and congratulations on the surge of subscribers. I love the first level spells being like cantrips to the BBEG caster. A similar thing I've had good results from, for my villainous casters, has been scaling up their spells. Basically, I cast any spell of fifth level or lower as fifth level - it's a bit like Pact Magic and helps me handle bookkeeping, but it could quickly turn the fight into a slaughter. BTW, what is it with the male players and the death yo-yo tactic? All of my female players will withdraw and take a healing potion when they're getting low on health, but the males just expect someone else to use their turn to revive them. I don't have a lot of DMing experience, but there's definitely been an absolute correlation between respective player gender and tactic used. Definitely going to try out reroling the baddies initiative and see if that affects them.

The Big Bad in the campaign I recently finished was a level 20 Warlock Vampire who's split-personality alter-ego was the girlfriend of one of the party characters. Their motivation was revenge for the 200 years they'd been captive of the family of another member of the party (who had no idea this had gone down until late in the campaign). So they "kidnapped" the girlfriend and there was a showdown on a frozen rock in the far north. It got more complicated, though, because the girlfriend alter-ego was a branch out of the original personality of the Vampire before they were captured and infected with Vampirism; the "girlfriend" they thought they'd come to rescue never *truly* existed, so when they managed to purge the evil personality, they decided to cure her of Vampirism (with her blessing) by killing then resurrecting her. It was an emotional 2-session climax for the year-long campaign, that's for sure. It also doesn't matter so much that you may not have been running the game for as long as others because perspectives are useful and other points of view are really good to see.

Thanks for the quick channel intro, I am here because of the Colville shout out so it's greatly appreciated. Also, so nice to see a fellow Aussie making great content, and D&D content to boot.

I’ve watched several of your videos and enjoyed the content but I subbed when you sang Tom Bombadill. More of this please.

Happy to say I've been here since BEFORE Matt Colville gave you a shout out. #Represent

The legendary reaction system is definitely something I'm taking for my big bad. Awesome video.

Came here for DnD-content, discovered your mythology-vids, loved them equally. This channel really is a hidden gem.

Doing a livestream brainstorming session would be amazing, keep us posted :)

Two Colville shout outs, Nice! For the record though, it was your mad skills with the ukulele that earned my sub ;-)

I know this video came out awhile ago, but I just came here to say that this video inspired me to start my own campaign with the Burner Prince as the bbeg, and tonight we had our final session after over two years. They finally killed him, truly, with his true name and all that.

Love the idea of legendary reactions! It's a cool design space to make epic villain encounters feel more unique, definitely going to steal that one

I LOVE the idea about changing initiative every round for the bad guy. I am using that Idea POSSIBLY this weekend.

I love the idea of big baddie gets to roll initiative every round.

As a Scot who's super into his countries native mythology, it is AWESOME to know that people are interested in faeries and get that they're scary mofos. I got directed here by the wonderful KZfaq algorithms and I'm very grateful of them for once. I've been super enjoying your videos, and this one made me subscribe. Thanks for being awesome, dude.

Yay D&D video! EDIT: ok, now that I've actually watched the video, I love all of this! I'm also a big fan of the Deep Magic vibe, and if you're looking for some interesting mechanics to make that more volatile and unpredictable you might want to check out the DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics) spell system. It has some fun things involving random rolls and the unpredictable nature of magic, as well as a system called Mercurial Magic that flavors spells differently for different casters. Going more into the main topic of the video, having your BBEG break the rules is usually a good plan, and another way to help the solo caster villain really work is to strait up have them prepare for the party. Some DMs don't like this approach, but WebDM has a great video talking about how it can totally be justified with the abundance of scrying magic in 5e, of course this will just train your players to use non-detection spells like Vox Machina uses insight checks, but that's half the fun! On the topic of worldbuiding/world-explaining livestreams, I know I'd be a fan of that sort of content. You seem to have a very well thought out world and I'd honestly like to hear more about it if only to shamelessly steal parts for my own game. Anyways this comment is officially way too long, so I'm just going to say great video and leave now.

AAAHHH so many new viewers and subscribers! You've come so far since the old days of Geek & Sundry vlogs!

Don't really know who matt is , but I'm glad he helped! Yay! Teamwork!

The idea of attaching an enemy's abilities to an item and giving it to the players is exactly what I've been doing recently. I created a massive shield that splits in two and is dual wielded like a weapon. It gives your STR mod in AC, lets you leap to allies as a reaction and take a hit for them, and let's you slap the ground knocking everything adjacent to you prone. Can't wait until they have to fight a military squad with two of these bad boys in the mix :D

I just noticed that boxes of MTG Theros in the top left corner! That was my favorite set 😁

I've been watching your videos since the G&S vloggers days. Seeing Colville shout you out made me squee so much for you

Dael, you are every bit as important a D&D channel to me as Colville is. Keep it up! I am also enjoying your mythology stuff!

Greetings from the Colvillians, young amateur female australian Matt Colville. Been watching and enjoying your dnd content so far. Happy to be here!

One idea I’ve been thinking about is a villain who, when directly attacked, dodges and hits back really hard for free. He doesn’t have to roll to dodge, he just gets to dodge and counterattack. The catch is they have to “directly” attack, so an indirect attack (say destabilizing the ground beneath him to send him falling to his death) doesn’t trigger the ability. Also, he has to counter, so if if the players can trick him into accidentally attacking himself somehow (idk how that would work) his counter ALSO nails him. I have no tabletop RPG experience whatsoever but I’d like to play in the near future, so I don’t know if this is a good idea, but I love the idea of “puzzle battles” and I thought this might be cool or interesting.

Came for the topic, stayed cause I appreciated the pirates of Penzance reference

You may not have the years of experience, but you do have good ideas, a charming personality and a great screen presence. Looking forward to burning through your videos!

Love the fey name gimmick and the legendary reaction mechanic. Makes legendary actions feel less cheap, yet more awesome. Even a bit cerebral, which is always appreciated.

Discovered you by recommendation from my D&D group. Will say, as an Irishman, it really made me grin seeing how eager you got into designing a boss around an old legend of ours and it certainly was a cool idea. Ive only been a DM for 4 months, and due to a one shot I ran on my birthday as a treat to myself, my group (surprisingly) asked me to continue the story into a campaign as they found the villain too interesting to let it end there. So, big proud moment for me there. However, Ive always felt over the last few months that I never make encounters that feel as threatening as they should be against the group. Either homebrewing monsters that dont hit hard enough or, just in general, even hit the players. Nothing feels threatening to them since my big bad and her big henchman hurt them at lvl5. Hopefully my one shot this week will change things, but we'll see. I'll just have to try and make encounters actually scarier. Though the Bard who has relied on Bane for the last 3 sessions to stop the enemies, hopefully she's gonna feel scared fighting my Magic Eaters :3

This was so helpful!! Thank you. Especially that re-rolling initiative.

I started watching your D&D videos a few weeks before the Colville shout-out because I actively search for youtube D&D enthusiasts and you’re one of them now.

Grave Cleric made Death Yo-Yo an issue for my group, so I started using a system of lingering injury whenever a player drops to 0. A lot of them can be cured by Lesser Restoration, but when my Paladin lost his sword hand from a white dragon’s breath weapon, it really changed the party’s attitude regarding hitting 0 HP.

Honestly, to me, your figuring-out-for-yourself take on D&D is what brought me here. Keep it up!

Dael, excellent job as always. Don't be nervous many D&D nerds, like me, were here before & though we appreciate Matt getting your name out there, I do not want you to change things. Keep your standard schedule. I am sure you have plenty to say about D&D, but I enjoy your other content too.

Holy fucking shit, this sounds like the coolest boss fight in the world. 15:28 This is SUCH a great idea. Dangerous, but brilliant.

This villain should definitively fight with the Blink spell! More specifically, he would use this spell at an stressed/threatened state when facing off with the party.

I strongly like the way you treat the plains. Makes good story telling sense

"Im just very oppinionated", well im hooked.

My presence here is entirely Matt's fault and I'm glad to have found this place. You make good gaming stuff.

Mercer looks really different in this intro, new hair dye maybe?

Two D&D videos in a row!! Yay! I’ve been watching your stuff for a couple months now, and your D&D videos are my favorite.

Re Rolling initiative oh my god you're a genius.

A proud member of the hoard arriving via Matt Colville. Which sounds like a good spell name. "Arrive via Matt Colville"

Not sure if anybody has mentioned this at all, but you may like the "Earthsea" series. The magic system in it is tied to the "true name" of every thing, items, animals, beings, etc

My group had a big bad that was a sort of embodiment of chaos who would have a new initiative every round- it works as well as you're hoping! Definitely kept us players on our toes! I think it gives a nice contrast to normal battles, so it's great for bosses!

Digging your conception of the faewild- looking forward to exploring that in my own DMing!

I've been here since the G & S days and am so excited to see your channel having such a growth spurt! Congratulations, Dael!

I didn't hear a shout out and came completely unawares. Love the content!

Lair Actions are another great way to buff up your solo bad guy. I love the Legendary Reactions; if your players twig what's up they can try to work around it.

This is the 4th video I've watched and you're amazing!

Another wonderful video from down under! These always bring joy and creativity to my day!

This has given me way more ideas than any other video ever has! I love your style. It is now officially a goal of mine to play DnD with you one day.

These D&D videos are so good, great work Dael!

You shouldn't keep selling yourself short. You provide some of the best info I've come across 😊

You are absolutely delightful lol So happy you came up in my recommendations.

Found you via Colville, but definitely staying for all of your content! Been loving your stuff.

No wonder Colville gives you constant shout out, your content is so goddamn good! The advice, the hacking of the rules, the concepts and inspiration all is freaking awesome! I'm glad I took the time to come here and check it out! And I wouldn't call "giving the bad guys stuff players can't have" cheating, I'd say is leveling the play field. Which is all about making everything more interesting for EVERYONE. After all, we're here to play TOGETHER not against each other, right? So, keep being opinionated, Dael, it's awesome =D

Man I've been wanting a bard villain. This has been a big help.

We agree so much on how the fey and deep magic should be treated. (Also, “legendary REaction” has just become part of my DM toolbox)

Theres a lot of really cool out of the box ideas here. Amazing video! Thanks!

This is lovely! Not that I expect my 2 cents to matter, but the presentation is solidly enjoyable. You're a dork but in a friendly, sort of endearing way and not awkwardly so. It feels fun without getting silly and informative without becoming stuffy. I love mythology (in general, but specifically European) and pull from it for a lot of concept seeds. I like the idea of Legendary Reactions and the bit about keying them to specific triggers quite a bit as well as the thought of shuffling the BBEG's initiative - usually, I'll have a sort of passive that flips every 4-5 rounds where everyone rerolls (excluding unconscious, who reroll on waking anyway). I'd like to hear more of your setting in general. The arrangement of deities, divine things, devils, the fey, various cultures, geography, and Planar arrangement would be nice, too. Take care. Cheers!

The livestream idea sounds cool! I've been using the SPERM principle to help me kickstart my world-building. It's the first tip I've ever heard that actually makes building out a city seem manageable, so thank you so much for that. I've also added 3 things to it for my own personal use - Crime, Magic, Technology. Just 3 things that I think are important for D&D specifically. As for future D&D video ideas... I think anything that helps other DM's set up a campaign before it starts would be cool. There are a lot of videos of what to do before a session or what to do at the table, but not a lot for before the campaign starts. You have your group together and you are meeting for the first session in a month - what do you do to prep not just for the first session but for the campaign as a whole?

I read this as "running vikings!" and got super excited

Discovered this channel like a week ago, now officially one of my favourite KZfaq channels! Keep it up! Also I love the mythology shit. DnD and mythology are 2 of my favourite things so this is great :)

Love livestreams that involve chat, particularly on Twitch. I found your channel a couple weeks before Matt and really enjoyed your idea on raising the dead so binged your channel from there.

I am enjoying your videos, glad MC took the time to point you out. Keep making the videos that excite you or that you are passionate about making. It is obvious that you are enjoying yourself in the creative process of your videos, and that makes them enjoyable to watch.

Also some good traits and abilities that I've used I got from the Shadow of Mordor and the Shadow of War games. The Urk-Hai and Orcs have interesting traits that Talion doesn't have access to.

I may have to snag that 'Legendary Reaction' thing, it's a good concept, over all this is a great video.