Hey there adventurers! I love the recent addition of the warforged race and their additional lore provided in Eberron: Rising From The Last War, and since D&D Beyond provides me with a terrifying amount of freedom I thought the best way to show my appreciation for this carefully balanced player race is to add my own tweaks.
However, as the title of this piece suggests, you should hate all of my ideas. This is because I wrote them all under the following conditions:
- I had not slept in 9 days.
- The only food or drink I consumed in the last 9 days was cranberry-flavored Emergen-C sprinkled on leftover Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.
- I was listening to the Diablo III soundtrack backwards on a loop.
- According to my doctor I had an "amoeba whose large size is of historic scientific note" in my cranial cavity.
- The amoeba insisted on creative control of the final draft.
Therefore I am required by the content team to use the above headline, implying I am about to instill hatred in my own ideas. Whether you agree with them or an amoeba-enhanced individual is entirely up to you.
Skin Material
Previously, the armor-like warforged were made from stone, steel, and wood. This now includes deep-fried chicken. Some alchemists got sucked into that whole chicken sandwich war, and the final result was sentient chicken sandwiches.
We know what you're thinking: this isn't funny, it's just strange. And maybe you don't even like chicken that much. Well too bad, it's very lucrative in corporate America right now to even write the phrase "chicken sandwich" on your website so that it will show up in a billion Google search results. So warforged are just part chicken now, and if by sheer coincidence any megacorporations would like to use this for cross-promotional purposes please get in touch with us.
Players may choose between crispy, buffalo, herbs and spices, and original recipe warforged.
Vegan players may choose between soy, almond, oat, or cashew based armor.
Additional Quirks
We thought you could use some more 1d8 quirks to choose from at character creation, so feel free to choose from the following.
d8 | Quirk |
---|---|
1 | You think you are missing an internal gear and compulsively eat pocket watches in the hopes of it resolving your deficiency. |
2 | You think every time someone says "Damn!" they are calling for someone named Dan. |
3 | You start beatboxing uncontrollably every time you hear a sick rhyme. |
4 | You think fedoras actually look good on you. |
5 | You think goblins taste like cilantro. |
6 | You whisper "resistance is futile" while hugging people, which you do as often as possible. |
7 | You were designed to mimic humanoid facial expressions, but like real-world robots designed for it, you are utterly terrifying and people use animated images of your weird mechanical face as magical meme fodder. |
8 | You collect and keep doves in your pockets and release them after your friends speak in order to drive home their points. |
More Warforged Names
Still can't name your own warforged? Yeesh. Okay. Here you go.
More Warforged Names: Anchor, Bookend, Creep, Doorstop, Epipen, Fedora, Glow-up, Hotplate, Inkjet, Jujubee, Krusty, Luxembourg, Marzipan, Niacin, Onomatopoeia, Pzzzzzrpt, Quilt, Rectangle, Softshoe, Textile, Uvula, V-neck, Wingding, Professor Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Yoshinoya, Zankou.
You Can Replace One Of Your Hands With What Is Basically Just A Chainsaw
To be used for trees and deadites zombies.
All Warforged Can Turn Into A Vehicle At Will
Players can choose between morphing into a war machine, a covered wagon, a keelboat, or a boombox.
Transforming takes the character's action, makes an "ee-aw-oo-ee" sound, and now the creature is a vehicle that other people can ride around in with the same AC and movement of that vehicle.
If players choose keelboats, they must roll a DC 20 Wisdom saving throw once per day, timing at the discretion of the dungeon master, and on a failed save they involuntarily turn into a boat while on land. This is because it's funny to see a useless boat in the middle of an inn or a battlefield.
Also the warforged's face is still visible in a really awkward way, because let's be honest, it's too hard to hide that part and robot-y faces are cool to look at.
Additional Languages
You can now speak to inanimate objects. This should solve most puzzles, as you can now speak to their actual stone and steel parts to ask for the answers. Whew, finally, no more of those annoying puzzles!
Dan Telfer is the Dungeons Humorist aka Comedy Archmage for D&D Beyond (a fun way they are letting him say "writer"), dungeon master for the Nerd Poker podcast, a stand-up comedian, a TV writer who also helped win some Emmys over at Comedy Central, and a former editor of MAD Magazine and The Onion. He can be found riding his bike around Los Angeles from gig to gig to gaming store, though the best way to find out what he's up to is to follow him on Twitter via @dantelfer.
I just don't understand why so many people get so riled up because he tries to make us laugh. No one asked for you to rant about how stupid these articles are. Just chill y'all
I think it's beyond a 'different opinion' when people are demanding that the articles stop appearing on the site and are insulting the writer.
It's kind of like saying the Grinch just had a 'different opinion' about Christmas when he decided to destroy it. There are plenty of people on this site who enjoy Dan Telfer's articles, so the people insisting that DAN TELFER MUST GO are trying to take away something we enjoy for no reason at all, except that they don't like it.
If I don't like chocolate ice cream, should I go to every ice cream shop and demand that it be removed from the menu?
If I think the 'weekly encounters' are lame crutches for DMs who don't have enough imagination to make up their own stuff, should I scream and rant and order that they be removed from the site and replaced with something that I want?
I've never felt the slightest need to check out one of the D&D Beyond Heroes episodes, does that mean I should make a point of going on every episode and post, "Oh, this crap again, I don't need this, make it disappear, what's wrong with you, I can't believe you are wasting space that could be full of more Dan Telfer articles.'
I agree with you on this 100%. Most of these gag articles so far have been more annoying than funny. I like humor in my games. I try to add humorous situations into the middle sessions as often as I think the players will take them up.
What these articles are is satire on the system and the hobby itself. It generates a vision, an expectation that sitting down to play one of these games cant be serious or deep. The entire experience is going to be some sarcastic tongue in cheek romp every time. Let's see what Strahd would be like as a muppet style slapstick comedy. The idea is hilarious but that's not what most of us want to play.
In truth I dont mind the articles but there has been more of this than I think is good for us lately.
Oh my goodness people. If you don't like DnD humor don't read the article
Don't listen to 'em Dan, your stuff is great.
They said it better than I could've
If you don't like comedy, don't read stuff by a comedian. you knew it was a comedy article, if you don't want to read it, you don't have to read it. bye.
I feel like a lot of folks are posting without understanding what others are saying.
The volume of joke articles is drowning out the useful content. I am not asking that Dan stop writing. I am not insulting Dan. I am aware that I can simply not read the joke articles. I am just asking that we have a higher proportion of useful content.
I agree. Dan is talented, and he makes me laugh. I like the humor, I just don't think it is good for new players who are coming to D&D Beyond to learn what D&D is about, then see these joke articles, and then think D&D is a giant meme. I think that if these jokes were less extreme, less common, and had usable content it would be great to have on D&D beyond, but as they are, and as common as they are, I think these articles are bad for the D&D society, and don't want more of them unless they change.
I like the articles, just want better, usable content.
Please don't listen to this crazed madman. Dan Telfer's pieces are the best.
Sorry if I have an opinion different than yours. You don't have to call me insane. I agree the articles are amusing, I just don't think they're good for the D&D community and new players.
https://youtu.be/NCIgX8mklEU
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/207-chris-perkins-on-writing-your-own-adventures
Huh: "Players and DMs will bring [humor] to every adventure whether the adventure intended it or not. We often tell writers, and have in the past, you don't have to go out of your way to be funny because the people around the table are going to bring that to funny."
I ran across that video today and it reminded me of this discussion. This quote is what I mean when I say that I love humor in D&D but don't enjoy when it feels forced or awkward.
idk how itd sound but i know it'd be time consuming
in the words of a famous hero “whyyyyyy???”
So glad there are all these brave gatekeepers here to steward the hobby, tell us all how DnD SHOULD be, and assume new players are too stupid to know a joke article when they see one.
Alternate course of action: quit trying to ruin the fun the rest of us are having and just don't read the humor articles.
Im gonna say it...Thanks for the skin update now I wolnt have to homebrew
Good job
100% agree 👍🏻
So you're telling me that you don't consistently consume pocket watches?
These are amazing. I might bump off my character I've made for an upcoming campaign and do a Warforged called Hotrod that turns into a small skybike.
I'm not trying to ruin any fun. I'm simply requesting a higher proportion of useful articles so that the helpful content isn't drown out by the joke content.