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.
My god, the face quirk, my bard warforged could go *places* with that one. Use Disguise Self for the purpose of always appearing juuuuuust slightly off, just a little too mechanical, maybe my voice doesn't always line up with my face. Yesssss, yeeeeeesssssss, muahahahahaha!
Of course he can now also go places because he is a hellbike as well, got that going for him. Vroom vroom!
you should figure that out. please respond with the results
Yes. Because everyone wants to play a deep fried chicken- skinned, pocket watch eating, chainsaw handed warforged who's name is Professor Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, who can turn into a boombox to move an a vehicle. In my opinion, that's a bit too satirical. Not to be toxic, like someone we know, but there are just a few too many of these articles coming out too frequently. And although they make me laugh almost every time, bahamut's vast butt and Rick and Morty burps are immature.
How do I take your place?
None of these comments are "Toxic". It isn't toxic to question the necessity of something. It's toxic to deny other people's opinions and only have negative things to say. Neither of those things are being done
It's a vehicle of artistic expression.
Now THAT'S funny, lol.
More quirks. These are amazing. My player asked about the vehicle and talking to inanimate objects.
when can we expect this to be errata'd into the eberron book?
Yeah, I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of the lol random meme culture that a lot of players (Dan included) are bringing to the table, but it's not worth fighting about. I'm sure there will always be other people like me who are just looking to play out their own heroic story in a world away from pop culture tropes. D&D is for everyone, including the meme crowd. They can play their game and I'll play mine.
I'll just stop clicking on Dan's articles...every time I read one I die a little inside. I just keep hoping he'll put out something that's funny but also usable and not campaign-ruining silly!
What if the layout of the front page was changed so that featured articles were split by category (exact split to be determined), thus ensuring that each kind of article always had at least one or two examples visible at all times? You'd still have satirical articles like this one coming out at the same rate as usual but there wouldn't be any risk of them crowding out the more serious ones because they'd only occupy a small-but-significant fraction of the front page.
I think my preference would be to switch up the front page by writer. In no particular order... James, Dan, Lauren, etc... Including a section for guest writers. Then you can click on that writer to see additional articles by said writer.
However, I'm certain people would complain about the order of the writers as well. That's not taking shots at one side or the other of this argument. It's simply an observation of the penchant for reaction to some, in my opinion, topics of rather small import.
I think I'll give my players a feat that allows their Warforged to turn into a vehicle...cause that sounds ******* awesome!
No amount of a writer's work has the ability to stop you from taking a game you are passionate about as seriously or humorously as you like. This is how one person finds their joy in interacting with D&D and has no bearing on yours. The fact is D&D is becoming more popular, which means the audience is growing and becoming more diverse so no one gets to claim the sole definition of what D&D "is". Please, just enjoy what you like about the game and let others do the same.
I believe that Wendy had a certain input into the whole "chicken skin" thing as a way to get players interested in switching to her special setting and game system. (Google is your friend on this one)
So I guess you voted for Liam for president, eh?
You do realize continuing to argue this is rather self-defeating for those who do not want to see Dan's articles. They get a lot of attention, both good and bad. Which means they will continue to buy and post more.
Dan's driving readership whether you like it or not. The serious articles reap the benefits of that increased readership as well. All of D&D Beyond does. That is the main concern for any media site. You can create the most amazing content on the planet. However, if no one sees it, then it doesn't count for much.
I'm not saying the site should cater to the lowest common denominator. Many of the detractors have stated some of the articles are funny and some of them are even mildly useful. I'm just saying that there is value in it even if you don't like it.
Besides randomness, and bfb (burp-fart-butt) jokes have been part of D&D since the beginning. Humorous bent D&D comic series, wand of wonder, wild magic, flumphs, etc... are not new. Look back through some of the old books, magazines, message boards, and the like... It's all in there.
Ok, I was considering making a Warforged, but know I know I have to. Horse, begon ee-aw-oo-ee! *transforms into living fried chicken*. Oh, and Dan. You should add these two quirks to the table. 1. (Only applies to Warforged chicken sandwiches) Whenever someone say that they are hungry, you rip off your left middle finger and hand it to them saying “your prayers have been answered, now bow down.) 1d4 days later your finger somehow regrows. 2. Once a day, chicken warforged must make a DC 17 charisma saving throw or pretend to be a chicken for 1d4 hours and the chicken dance song plays out of your ears. Anyone who is near you while the song is playing must make a DC 12 charisma save or bock like a chicken whenever the DM finds it necessary, this effect is permanent.
I guess I'm just salty or something but I'm not a fan of these humor articles. I find them a waste and not very funny because they try to look like a real article. I hate click bait type humor.
If I'm in the minority and people are enjoying these then ignore. I also don't think they are poorly written, so this isn't meant to be aimed at the author's ability. I'm just not the audience.
* I do love the funny hand drawn maps of classic dungeons that went around. Etc. I also don't mind humor in my D&D.
Trying so hard.