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.
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Posted Dec 17, 2019All joking aside, my warforged is definitely going to use that quirk table from now on.
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Posted Dec 17, 2019It's refreshing to see Dan actually funny for once, perhaps he should avoid sleep permanently!
One of the players in our group tried to get their 'tool use' from the WGTE version as a land vehicle, then be mounted in combat for all sorts of shenanigans. It only happened once, because the player was unable to make the game and it was funny seeing them 'unable to transform'.
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Posted Dec 17, 2019Agreed
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Posted Dec 17, 2019This is pretty funny. Why the hate?
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Posted Dec 17, 2019To be fair, hatred is encouraged in the headline.
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Posted Dec 17, 2019I really enjoy the quirk table. I have always wondered what a pocket watch would sound like if you chewed it.
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Posted Dec 17, 2019the chainsaw hand would be interesting if your warforged was designed to be a cook, so they can butcher animals for food.
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Posted Dec 17, 2019I feel that being able to turn into Warmachine from Marvel Comics is overpowered and unbalanced.
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Posted Dec 17, 2019I know this article is mainly satirical but I'm going to need those chainsaw arm stats... stat.
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Posted Dec 17, 2019Hatred should never be encouraged Dan!
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Posted Dec 17, 2019Define "war machine" and then we can talk.....
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Posted Dec 17, 2019Quirk table is brilliant! Pocket watch snacks, resistance is futile hugs, terrifying uncanny valley smiles. Also transforming into vehicles. All of that is helpful and usable in-game. Thanks Dan!
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Posted Dec 17, 2019Keep 'em coming Dan, this is good stuff!
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Posted Dec 17, 2019Excuse me, that was short hand for the infernal war machines of Avernus. Please use their exact stats. This is real and it is canon. Thanks.
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Posted Dec 17, 2019Jokes are all well and good - this just doesn't feel like the right place, or at least the right frequency. 4 of the 9 articles on the front page are this joke content. I really love content like Shawn's and James's. If the bulk of the content is going to be provided by one author, it should be content that helps us run our games, IMHO.
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Posted Dec 17, 2019To be fair, this is perfect for a Joke campaign. But I see your point about it largely being useless.
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Posted Dec 17, 2019My warforged character is now named Pzzzzzrpt! and can transform into an ottoman. He can speak to inanimate objects, though they mostly give him the silent treatment. He knows what he did.
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Posted Dec 17, 2019Yeah, I love humor and jokes at my table... I guess I've seen too often characters prioritizing their jokes over other player's experiences and it seems like these articles have that same vibe for me.
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Posted Dec 17, 2019MFW i realize that all of the options on the quirk chart apply to me in real life
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Posted Dec 17, 2019I heavily disagree. I think that D&D being more light-hearted is bringing the game to a new generation of players. It wasn't so long ago that playing D&D made someone a social pariah. If comedy is a way to ensure that D&D is being talked about, and accepted on a wider scale, what's the harm? People still see many of the non-joke articles, and there's multiple other writers for the other kinds of articles. Dan's the only satirical writer.
When I ask new players what stops them from playing D&D, the most common answers are along these lines: "It seems kind of dorky", or, "It seems too inimidating/too hard to learn". When you show players like that content like this, or memes based on D&D, or funny anecdotes, they learn two very important things: 1. It's not something to be embarrassed about playing, and 2. It's fun enough to make learning the game worth it. Because, let's face it, explaining how the game works is the hardest part of recruiting a new player.
If your gripe with Dan is that he's too prolific on the site, then that's something the admins can handle, yes. But I'll argue that he should still be featured prominently on the site, for exactly these reasons. If I've totally misunderstood you, I apologize! Just wanted to contribute my two cents.