The Necronomicon: 28-page long Lovecraftian Homebrew Supplement (almost completed)

[Requilac]

This thread's title is misleading and I can't manage to change it, so a new thread has been created which you can find here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?561968-The-Necronomicon-an-gt-30-page-long-Lovecraftian-Mini-Supplement-(Completed-amp-Edited)&p=23168819#post23168819) which has a more accurate name. Please move conversation over there.

Greetings playground, for those of you who have been checking the homebrew design boards as of late, you have probably come across many different projects by me revolving around some of Lovecraft's works. All of these individual projects were made with the purpose of creating an entire mini supplement of Lovecraftian content for D&D 5e entitled "The Necronomicon". It is 28 pages long, so it is slightly longer than the Elemental Evil Player's Companion which is just 25 pages. This supplement covers aspects of D&D all across the board; including both character options (such as races and sub-classes) and monsters coming straight from Lovecraft's books (such as the deep one and night-gaunt). In total I have managed to homebrew 3 races, 5 sub-classes, 8 feats, 4 familiars, and 14 monsters, a spell and a magical item, all of which have fully built flavor descriptions. Each of the content presented here has had its own individual thread where it has been reviewed by the members of the playground and refined by their requests. All of them have been combined into this single document where they have been fully formatted and organized. I proof-read the document what must be three times to and have fixed almost all the grammatical errors, but I am willing to bet I missed some along the way. Now it has been almost completely finished and is only in need of extra reviewing by more players from this thread here. If you think there is anything I should fix (whether it be mechanics, flavor descriptions, grammar or formatting) then please tell me about it here so I may perfect the Necronomicon. If you ever decide to use any of the content here, then I would like it if you gave me a review of it either here or through a PM, but it is by no means necessary.

Now my friends, the stars have aligned, and if you think you can handle what comes from beyond the veil of sanity found within the deranged pages of the Necronomicon, then follow the link here to a home-brewery document of sinister arcane lore and d20s.
http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/r1BPNFaHWX


Special thanks to the following people...
- Kingovrats for drawing almost all of the great illustrations you see throughout the book
- MxKit for comprehensively reviewing the races
- Nifft, Potato Priest, Molemage and Aniikinis for their much needed help in the creation of the night-gaunt race
- JNA productions, Galactic Axe Kick and Avigor for helping to refine the aberration fighter sub-class
- BlackBando for his assisstance in multiple projects, especially the sub-classes and feats
- Demonslayerelf for his thorough critiquing of both the the conjure aberration spell and the monsters.
- Urist McMage for suggestions on some features to grant to some of the monsters
- All of the other wonderful playgrounders who helped me with this task!

Thank you in advance to anyone who helps me here or simply takes the time to read through the supplement!

[Gideon Falcon]

Dang. This is on the same level as one of Kellus or Realm of Chaos' old projects- and I do like what you've done with it. There's a ton of material, but it's pretty cool, and oozing with flavor as anyone could expect of Lovecraftian mythology. Awesome work!

[Requilac]

Dang. This is on the same level as one of Kellus or Realm of Chaos' old projects- and I do like what you've done with it. There's a ton of material, but it's pretty cool, and oozing with flavor as anyone could expect of Lovecraftian mythology. Awesome work!

Thank you for the compliments. Though I have to ask, who is Kellus and Realm of Chaos? I am relatively new to this forum, so I am not exactly aware of some of the older posters.

[Gideon Falcon]

They're legendary homebrewers, at least as far as I'm concerned, known for very large projects- Kellus' Graft System (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?205119-Must-Affix-Everything-to-Everything!-(Grafts-That-Don-t-Make-Me-Cry-Myself-To-Sleep)) and, even more famous, the most extensive, in-depth, and insanely cool magitech system ever made (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?291019-By-the-Inferior-Science-of-our-Enemies-Gramarie-Mark-II&p=15557390#post15557390) mark his accomplishments, though I believe nowadays he's pretty dormant. Realm of Chaos still does something small every now and again, I think, but is similarly retired with his even more extensive laureates (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=11819893&postcount=130)of many, many individual classes, feats, and ideas, not to mention the (appropriate for this thread) Lovecraftian Far-Realm magic system (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?122103-Xenotheurgy-Far-Realms-magic-system), his vast expansion of Shadowcaster material, (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?74519-Descent-of-Shadows-Project-Shadow-Returns) and really, truly Epic refit and expansion of Epic Prestige classes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?247756-Librim-Eternia-Tome-of-Epic-Prestige-(Completed)).

So... yeah. Being compared to them is high praise.

[Blackbando]

Ahaha! I'm glad to see that this is where the fruits of your labor have gone, Requilac! This honestly looks really great, and if I ever run a Lovecraft-based game, then I'll definitely use the material in here.

Also, it really touches my heart that you put me in the special thanks. I appreciate it.

[Requilac]

They're legendary homebrewers, at least as far as I'm concerned, known for very large projects- Kellus' Graft System (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?205119-Must-Affix-Everything-to-Everything!-(Grafts-That-Don-t-Make-Me-Cry-Myself-To-Sleep)) and, even more famous, the most extensive, in-depth, and insanely cool magitech system ever made (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?291019-By-the-Inferior-Science-of-our-Enemies-Gramarie-Mark-II&p=15557390#post15557390) mark his accomplishments, though I believe nowadays he's pretty dormant. Realm of Chaos still does something small every now and again, I think, but is similarly retired with his even more extensive laureates (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=11819893&postcount=130)of many, many individual classes, feats, and ideas, not to mention the (appropriate for this thread) Lovecraftian Far-Realm magic system (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?122103-Xenotheurgy-Far-Realms-magic-system), his vast expansion of Shadowcaster material, (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?74519-Descent-of-Shadows-Project-Shadow-Returns) and really, truly Epic refit and expansion of Epic Prestige classes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?247756-Librim-Eternia-Tome-of-Epic-Prestige-(Completed)).

So... yeah. Being compared to them is high praise.

Oh wow, those are extensive projects. Well, I mean I have never played 3.5 before so I do not actually know how good in quality they are, but they look pretty impressive at the least. High praise indeed. But they did not create anything for 5e now did they? I could become like the 5e version of them (in time).


Ahaha! I'm glad to see that this is where the fruits of your labor have gone, Requilac! This honestly looks really great, and if I ever run a Lovecraft-based game, then I'll definitely use the material in here.

Also, it really touches my heart that you put me in the special thanks. I appreciate it.

You did help out quite a lot, so I only thought it fair to include you in the special thanks. Without you some of those sub-classes might have become buried and never got reviewed, so you deserve it. Thank you, and I hope this homebrew is all up to par with your experienced homebrewer's eye.

[Requilac]

I made some aesthetic edits to the document. Nothing revolving around mechanics, just fixing up the formatting of the mobile version and refining my grammar. I made several mistakes with capitalization and apostrophes.

[Requilac]

Alright everyone I have made some rather major changes to the content here as a result from player feedback. Heavy editions have been made to the monsters and feats, and to a lesser extent the subclasses. The biggest thing I fixed is that I remade all of the monster statblocks to actually fit the listed CR, because I was actually calculating CR wrong. Here is my change log.

Subclasses
-A target who fails the saving throw of the aberration fighter's impregnable mind suffers long term madness, not short turn
-The aberration fighter's psychotic howl feature deals a small amount of Damage over Time
-The insanity bard's summon abomination feature has expanded to include five different monsters, not just two
-The knowledge paladin's level 15 feature, danger sense, was replaced with evasion.
-Mantle of the commander for knowledge paladin's automaticaly casts mirror image instead of shield of faith
-Wraith walker renamed outsider
-the damage for the reaper's harvest of the outsider no longer scales by level
and uses a d6 instead of a d4
-the occultist sorcerer's aura of dread frightens foes instead of poisoning them and withers mundane plants

Feats
-reworded the semi-amorphous form's 2nd bullet to make it more clear
-deep dweller grants resistance to cold damage and amphibiousness instead of a bonus to int/con
-iron will no longer has a pre-requisite
-removed the ABI from monstrous mutations

Monsters
-statblocks for each monster have been entirely rebuilt, but most of them aren't very different from their original at all
-checked that each monster fits the CR it was designed with

[Dragonkingofth]

Nicely done. verrrry niccce. I did not even know you could use it to share, though all you could do Is pint to PDF to share it. I have no play test and little 'hard' DnD experience SO I'm not sure about balance or anything. I can say there seems to be a formatting issue with the Gug, need another /page in there other wise it's trying to make 3 column on a two column page.,

EDIT: more then the Gug really, the Cthulhu, Shoggoth, Yithian and maybe a few others have the same problem.

[Requilac]

Nicely done. verrrry niccce. I did not even know you could use it to share, though all you could do Is pint to PDF to share it. I have no play test and little 'hard' DnD experience SO I'm not sure about balance or anything. I can say there seems to be a formatting issue with the Gug, need another /page in there other wise it's trying to make 3 column on a two column page.,

EDIT: more then the Gug really, the Cthulhu, Shoggoth, Yithian and maybe a few others have the same problem.

Are you using Chrome? Homebrewery tends to have formating issues if not viewed through chrome. I am going to need to look into making it into a more universally accessible form, though the process of doing so is not doubt a lengthy one.

[Blackbando]

Are you using Chrome? Homebrewery tends to have formating issues if not viewed through chrome. I am going to need to look into making it into a more universally accessible form, though the process of doing so is not doubt a lengthy one.

It might be a little annoying to change the link on the forum every single time you update, but you could make a PDF for it each time you update. I also recommend GMBinder, as it's sort of a better Homebrewery, and might make the work/formatting easier. Also, for me, Homebrewery PDFs glitch out a bit when I make them, so if that happens for you, I once more recommend GMBinder.

[Dragonkingofth]

I double checked with chome, still a couple screw ups. BUT i'm not knocking the over all quality, the art alone put's it head an shoulders above a lot of projects. Well done! If I do lovecraft even a bit in a game, gonna be given this a good hard look over.

[Requilac]

I double checked with chome, still a couple screw ups. BUT i'm not knocking the over all quality, the art alone put's it head an shoulders above a lot of projects. Well done! If I do lovecraft even a bit in a game, gonna be given this a good hard look over.

I just checked it with chrome at 100% zoom and didn’t notice any problems. I think I am going to have to go with Blackbando’s suggestion and port it over to GM Binder.

As for the art, you can thank Kingovrats over in DeviantArt for that. None of it is of my creation. The only exception is the Night Gaunt art which was created by K.L. Turner. Kingovrats did create a Night Gaunt, but I wanted the art to make sense for a playable character race, and his version was much too weird looking for a character race to be. You can see it in this link (https://img00.deviantart.net/358f/i/2017/359/b/a/lovecraft___nightgaunt_by_kingovrats-d51et66.jpg).

Kingovrats did art for most of the Cthulhu Mythos creatures too, so you can look through that yourself if you care. Another one of my personal favorites is the Byakhee*. He really does a great job of making it seem very alien, and in my opinion is the most revulsive (in a good way) of all his art.

https://img00.deviantart.net/30a6/i/2015/344/e/3/lovecraft___byakhee_vi_by_kingovrats-d8yuiyq.jpg

[Requilac]

Despite GM Binder's claims otherwise, trying to migrate a Homebrewery document from there to GM Binder is an absolute nuisance. I would have to reformat everything to move it over there and rewrite a lot of the BB Code. Not to mention its horrible lag. I think I am just going to do the same thing I did with my monster competition submission and make it into a google doc. This is going to take a while, so be patient with me.

[KoyukiTei13]

I think I am just going to do the same thing I did with my monster competition submission and make it into a google doc. This is going to take a while, so be patient with me.

I was just about to suggest that for purposes of spellcheck and formatting.

Just a couple nitpicky things:

- ability scores should be capitalized (i.e. "your Constitution score increases by 1."
- skills should also be capitalized (i.e. "you are proficient in the Stealth skill.")
- numerical radii should be hyphenated (i.e. 30-foot radius)
- any traits for races should be followed by a period rather than a colon (optional: more a stylistic choice, but if you want to follow WotC formatting...)
- there are quite a few typos and grammatical errors (mostly then/than confusion)

[Requilac]

I was just about to suggest that for purposes of spellcheck and formatting.

Just a couple nitpicky things:

- ability scores should be capitalized (i.e. "your Constitution score increases by 1."
- skills should also be capitalized (i.e. "you are proficient in the Stealth skill.")
- numerical radii should be hyphenated (i.e. 30-foot radius)
- any traits for races should be followed by a period rather than a colon (optional: more a stylistic choice, but if you want to follow WotC formatting...)
- there are quite a few typos and grammatical errors (mostly then/than confusion)

Oh you have no idea how many grammatical errors I recognized when I ported it over to the Google Doc. It makes me wonder how I ever passed the fifth grade. And capitalization has always been my greatest weakness. As for the measures of feet (as in 30 ft. radius) and the colon at then of racial traits, that was intentional. The others were not. I will go through and check my grammar, but in truth I have reviewed this document over 5 times and didn't recognize any, so the odds of me catching them this time are minimal.

[Requilac]

I have created a new thread for this project because the current title is misleading (the document is now 32 pages long and is not almost completed, but fully completed). You can find it here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?561968-The-Necronomicon-an-gt-30-page-long-Lovecraftian-Mini-Supplement-(Completed-amp-Edited)&p=23168819#post23168819). Please move all your conversation over there.

And good news! I finally managed to migrate the content over to a pair of Google Docs. You can find part 1 which has all the player options here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z56zHN89SWUhl4p-wkXHHpgOt1kZzqlUYEvuwwljBuk/edit?usp=sharing) and part 2 which holds the bestiary here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VQ_oGXyqfXi5TcMcmaowHOlwB64ZoUTyQen_HQS_Ks4/edit?usp=sharing). Its formatting is kind of awkward, but I perfected it to the best of my ability.