I'm here to share with you our new subclasses. The Painted Wastelands has 12 all-new subclasses to crank up the weirdness for your DnD campaign. Let's check out the Warrior of Shattered Chakras for Monks.
Every person’s subtle body is governed by an invisible energy force. You have trained with gurus in secret monasteries how to channel, rearrange and destroy these chakras. Your ways are subtle, but you can bring an enemy to their knees with a gentle caress.
Level 3: Third-Eye Charka Strike. You strike invisible points with your Unarmed Strike to break a creature's chakras handing out debuffs. Level 6: Root Chakra Dislocation. This shatters the target's connection to the ground halving its speed. Level 11: Chakra Vampire. You can redirect spiritual energy displaced by your strikes into another living creature granting temporary hit points. Level 17: Shatter Chakra. You can strike a creature's spiritual anatomy so precisely that its spirit becomes temporarily crippled.
How do the Painted Wastelands miniatures look when they're all printed? Let's take a look!
The laughing spider is unleashed and it is truly epic. This was printed up by a friend of mine We wanted to have thick spider legs not thin spindly legs. I handed him off to my friend Tom, a slayer sword and golden demon winning painter, to paint. I can't wait to show you the process!
I would like to point out we are not making physical miniatures at the moment. While 3d printing a few items is a lot of fun, we're not at the point where we can mass produce miniatures. Another major challenge is shipping them in such a way that they won't get damaged. For now, I recommend leaning on friends who have 3d printers and tossing them some cash to cover the resin costs.
Multiple folks have come to me to ask if there could be a $1 pledge to allow you to purchase only our fun extras like the tea, the T-shirt, the dice boxes, or the miniature STLs.
We have now added the $1 Support Pledge, feel free to use it to build your pledge as you see fit!
Today I'm here to talk about one of our very exciting add-ons: The Dice Vault!
This is something I've wanted to put together for a while. Back in 2016, during my very first trip to GenCon, I bought a cool dice box from Wyrmwood. I still love it. As we were heading into this project, I wanted to create something new and special.
When I set out to create a product like this, I spend a lot of time researching options, and ordering prototypes. I have to feel the item in my hands and determine if it is high quality or not. One of the things you'll learn about me is that I'm a cheap bastard. It's really hard for me to justify spending money on things, especially nerd stuff. Thus, if I am going to finally crack open my wallet, it better be worth it! If one of our proposed products do not meet my high standards, I will cancel it in a heartbeat. This is the story about how the dice vault was almost canceled.
Strike One
The first company I checked with was a company from China who make dice. They also had an option to make custom dice boxes. The cost of these boxes was very low and the profit margins were high. I paid to have a prototype made and it turned out looking like garbage. This is made from bamboo and is very unpleasant. It looked bad, feels bad, and just is not the quality I wanted to see.
Strike Two
After the failure of the first company, I decided I would just block them and never work with them again. There is another company that I found that also makes dice boxes so I connected with them and ordered a prototype. This one also turned out terribly. The image just turned out so poorly. What's worse, is the stain job they did was so sloppy that they missed a spot on the inside. In my mind, this is the greatest indictment of the poor craftsmanship. If you're not going to do your best on the prototype, how can I trust you to do your best on 100 items?
I Didn't Come Here to Fuck Spiders
Tim taught me an Australian idiom while in Japan. "I didn't come here to fuck spiders." It means "I'm not here to mess around." It means it's time to get serious. Just as I was ready to give up on this part of our project I contacted Ravenwood. This is a small company ran by Robert Jones and his wife. They go to conventions selling dice boxes and we had a conversation about working together over email. This wasn't easy, I had to convert the image into a vector file. Rob and I were both dealing with the challenges of family emergencies and our day jobs. But in the end, he sent me two amazing pieces.
The dice box is made of Jatoba wood which is a dense hardwood with a reddish-brown color. It feels substantial over the cheaper bamboo. The profit margins on these boxes are much slimmer than the crappier versions, but that's not really the point. This dice box supports two American businesses and these items are handmade in a workshop. They are not mass produced in a factory in China.
It is time for us to peer into the pages of the Adventurer's Handbook!
Fixing a Design Flaw The original Painted Wastelands book for OSE has a few design flaws. The biggest one for me was the fact that player information is in the same book as DM information. I will be perfectly honest with you and admit that I had no idea if this project would be successful when we started all those years ago. Now look at us!
Later, I would make The Painted Wastelands Player's Guide which included new information and old information. It was a paperback book, the first that we had ever made. It was filled with art, a little lore info, and character options. This book actually won an ENnie award for Best Supplement.
When it came time to convert the book for 5th edition I knew I wanted to strengthen and beef up this player facing book. I wanted it to serve as a tool to get players excited about exploring this weird setting you got your hands on.
Inside, you’ll find:
12 new subclasses, one for each core class.
7 playable species.
13 backgrounds and 13 origin feats.
37 spells, including a new school of magic: Oneiromancy.
8 factions, with membership benefits and renown rewards.
8 faction-associated Bastion facilities.
New blasters, vehicles, and rules for driving them dangerously.
A guide to the customs, faiths, and places of the Lower Ethereal Hierarchy.
Each subclass takes something from the setting and makes it part of how your character plays.
Path of the Painted Raider, Barbarian: Slather yourself in psychoactive warpaint, throw homemade grenades, and eventually ride your own explosions into battle.
College of Mixtapes, Bard: Record fragments of reality onto your ectosynthesizer, then play them back to change the outcome of later rolls.
Forgotten Faith Domain, Cleric: Collect the relics and teachings of dying religions. Carry their blessings with you and give forgotten gods someone to answer.
Circle of the Outer Dreamlands, Druid: Bring a piece of the Dreamlands wherever you go, changing the ground beneath your feet and opening impossible paths for your friends.
Liminalist, Fighter: Strap on an ectoplasmic apparatus and operate slightly ahead of everyone else in time. It’s easier to avoid a sword when you’ve already seen it coming.
Warrior of Shattered Chakras, Monk: Strike the invisible points where body and spirit meet, disrupting your enemies’ movement and redirecting their spiritual energy.
Oath of the Whale God, Paladin: Dedicate yourself to the glorious cosmic bellyflop. Charge headfirst into danger and send your enemies crashing into each other.
Nightmare Slayer, Ranger: Study the horrors of the Dreamlands, discover their weaknesses, and hunt them with sacred oils and consecrated weapons.
Occult Archaeologist, Rogue: Put scholarship and a collection of questionable relics to work. There’s probably something in your bag that can help with this nightmare.
Sorcerer of the Teeming Edge: Channel the place where reality dissolves into the Liminality. Tear open the sky and bring a piece of dead starship crashing down.
Skinless One Patron, Warlock: Receive revelations about the rules governing existence, then learn how to rewrite them.
Oneiromancer, Wizard: Master the magic of dreams, decipher forgotten Oneiroglyphs, and loosen reality’s grip on the world around you.
Let's talk about the origins and processes for creating this project and delve into what makes The Painted Wastelands.
Origin Story
Two and a half years ago, I was browsing Facebook and stumbled across an amazing piece of character art. It was a weird pink-skinned sorcerer smoking a giant pipe, by an artist named Tim Molloy. I decided to email him out of the blue. I took that image and wrote up a sample encounter. I wanted to show him what I could do.
The original idea was, "Hey, I could take art you've already drawn and make up a story for it." Then he told me, "Actually, there's a world and setting that already exists in my head. All of my paintings, comics, drawings, and Instagram captions are connected to each other."
OK, let's do that instead!
Tim and I have an amazing working relationship. We literally talk every day, yet had never met. Tim lives in Australia, and I live in Arizona. However, just ONE WEEK AGO, we met in person for the first time in Tokyo, Japan!
Why 5th Edition?
The original Painted Wastelands was written for Old-School Essentials, but I always knew we'd convert our books for other rulesets in the future. The reason I began with OSE is that I feel it is very straightforward and easy to convert to your preferred system, and I love Gavin Norman.
The TTRPG world is splintering into many different rule systems, and through my many discussions with many Dungeon Masters, I've seen that most DMs run a mix of games or homebrewed rules. Generally, I am not trying to focus on game mechanics too much. I am here to sell an all-new world that utilizes familiar rules. This is why we have not made our own bespoke rule system. There are so many that already exist.
The reason I decided to convert The Painted Wastelands to 5th edition now is due to several interactions I had with gamers at Phoenix Fan Fusion, our local comic con. These are enfranchised gamers (although less so than the ones at Gen Con), and the number one question I would get was, "Is this for 5th edition?" And then I'd say, "No! This is for Old-School Essentials, which is Basic and Expert D&D from the '80s and uses THAC0!" Then I would just watch the light fade from their eyes.
Switching to 5th edition has been a controversial decision, and there has been no shortage of people rushing to their keyboards to tell me all about it.
However, I push back against this view. At the end of the day, they're all just games. There's no such thing as the perfect game system. If there were, it would be the only one, and no other game systems would exist. I think 5.5e D&D's value is the fact that it is a powerful introduction to roleplaying at large. It's a good first step into the wider world of TTRPGs. I imagine most of us began with RPG books published by TSR or Wizards of the Coast.
Thinking About The Painted Wastelands Differently
Besides serving as a powerful Rosetta Stone to trick unsuspecting new gamers into trying weirder RPGs, converting The Painted Wastelands to 5.5e D&D forced Tim and me to think about the world differently. For example: subclasses.
In the original Painted Wastelands, we created a few new OSE classes: the Oneiromancer and the Cat. Eventually, we added the Nightmare Slayer. These are all integral parts of Tim's world. When I converted to 5.5e D&D, I wanted to make a subclass for every class. This required Tim and me to sit down and think about each class and its role in the setting. Some came easily, like the Wizard (Oneiromancer) and Warlock (Pact of the Skinless Ones). Some were more difficult because we simply had not thought of them. What are fighters doing in The Painted Wastelands? Where are the monks?
The Cat did not have enough mechanical distinction to serve as a subclass in 5.5e D&D, so we converted it to a species. OSE allows for both race-as-class and race standing alone.
I've gotten a lot of questions about some of these new designs feeding their way back to OSE. The answer is yes, 100%! Agamemnon Press is not turning away from OSE. Our next project, coming this spring, is The Hundred Year Coast, and it is written for OSE. I plan on finding an interesting way to introduce some of the new character options to the OSE version. These will be classes, races, and equipment that maintain the spirit of the design while also feeling balanced. I'm not trying to set out to make a class called "The Fighter but Better."
Why Two Books?
The creative process of Agamemnon Press is about learning. We are constantly learning and developing ways to improve our products. One of the earliest flaws I ran into with my very first design was the fact that I had to hand over my copy of The Painted Wastelands to players so they could copy their spells or read the descriptions. After our first book, I decided to try and separate player-facing info from DM-facing info.
Tomorrow we will delve deeply and greedily into the two new books!
I'm here to share with you our new subclasses. The Painted Wastelands has 12 all-new subclasses to crank up the weirdness for your DnD campaign. Let's check out the Warrior of Shattered Chakras for Monks.
Every person’s subtle body is governed by an invisible energy force. You have trained with gurus in secret monasteries how to channel, rearrange and destroy these chakras. Your ways are subtle, but you can bring an enemy to their knees with a gentle caress.
Level 3: Third-Eye Charka Strike. You strike invisible points with your Unarmed Strike to break a creature's chakras handing out debuffs. Level 6: Root Chakra Dislocation. This shatters the target's connection to the ground halving its speed. Level 11: Chakra Vampire. You can redirect spiritual energy displaced by your strikes into another living creature granting temporary hit points. Level 17: Shatter Chakra. You can strike a creature's spiritual anatomy so precisely that its spirit becomes temporarily crippled.
How do the Painted Wastelands miniatures look when they're all printed? Let's take a look!
The laughing spider is unleashed and it is truly epic. This was printed up by a friend of mine We wanted to have thick spider legs not thin spindly legs. I handed him off to my friend Tom, a slayer sword and golden demon winning painter, to paint. I can't wait to show you the process!
I would like to point out we are not making physical miniatures at the moment. While 3d printing a few items is a lot of fun, we're not at the point where we can mass produce miniatures. Another major challenge is shipping them in such a way that they won't get damaged. For now, I recommend leaning on friends who have 3d printers and tossing them some cash to cover the resin costs.
Today I'm here to talk about one of our very exciting add-ons: The Dice Vault!
This is something I've wanted to put together for a while. Back in 2016, during my very first trip to GenCon, I bought a cool dice box from Wyrmwood. I still love it. As we were heading into this project, I wanted to create something new and special.
When I set out to create a product like this, I spend a lot of time researching options, and ordering prototypes. I have to feel the item in my hands and determine if it is high quality or not. One of the things you'll learn about me is that I'm a cheap bastard. It's really hard for me to justify spending money on things, especially nerd stuff. Thus, if I am going to finally crack open my wallet, it better be worth it! If one of our proposed products do not meet my high standards, I will cancel it in a heartbeat. This is the story about how the dice vault was almost canceled.
Strike One
The first company I checked with was a company from China who make dice. They also had an option to make custom dice boxes. The cost of these boxes was very low and the profit margins were high. I paid to have a prototype made and it turned out looking like garbage. This is made from bamboo and is very unpleasant. It looked bad, feels bad, and just is not the quality I wanted to see.
Strike Two
After the failure of the first company, I decided I would just block them and never work with them again. There is another company that I found that also makes dice boxes so I connected with them and ordered a prototype. This one also turned out terribly. The image just turned out so poorly. What's worse, is the stain job they did was so sloppy that they missed a spot on the inside. In my mind, this is the greatest indictment of the poor craftsmanship. If you're not going to do your best on the prototype, how can I trust you to do your best on 100 items?
I Didn't Come Here to Fuck Spiders
Tim taught me an Australian idiom while in Japan. "I didn't come here to fuck spiders." It means "I'm not here to mess around." It means it's time to get serious. Just as I was ready to give up on this part of our project I contacted Ravenwood. This is a small company ran by Robert Jones and his wife. They go to conventions selling dice boxes and we had a conversation about working together over email. This wasn't easy, I had to convert the image into a vector file. Rob and I were both dealing with the challenges of family emergencies and our day jobs. But in the end, he sent me two amazing pieces.
The dice box is made of Jatoba wood which is a dense hardwood with a reddish-brown color. It feels substantial over the cheaper bamboo. The profit margins on these boxes are much slimmer than the crappier versions, but that's not really the point. This dice box supports two American businesses and these items are handmade in a workshop. They are not mass produced in a factory in China.
Multiple folks have come to me to ask if there could be a $1 pledge to allow you to purchase only our fun extras like the tea, the T-shirt, the dice boxes, or the miniature STLs.
We have now added the $1 Support Pledge, feel free to use it to build your pledge as you see fit!
It is time for us to peer into the pages of the Adventurer's Handbook!
Fixing a Design Flaw The original Painted Wastelands book for OSE has a few design flaws. The biggest one for me was the fact that player information is in the same book as DM information. I will be perfectly honest with you and admit that I had no idea if this project would be successful when we started all those years ago. Now look at us!
Later, I would make The Painted Wastelands Player's Guide which included new information and old information. It was a paperback book, the first that we had ever made. It was filled with art, a little lore info, and character options. This book actually won an ENnie award for Best Supplement.
When it came time to convert the book for 5th edition I knew I wanted to strengthen and beef up this player facing book. I wanted it to serve as a tool to get players excited about exploring this weird setting you got your hands on.
Inside, you’ll find:
12 new subclasses, one for each core class.
7 playable species.
13 backgrounds and 13 origin feats.
37 spells, including a new school of magic: Oneiromancy.
8 factions, with membership benefits and renown rewards.
8 faction-associated Bastion facilities.
New blasters, vehicles, and rules for driving them dangerously.
A guide to the customs, faiths, and places of the Lower Ethereal Hierarchy.
Each subclass takes something from the setting and makes it part of how your character plays.
Path of the Painted Raider, Barbarian: Slather yourself in psychoactive warpaint, throw homemade grenades, and eventually ride your own explosions into battle.
College of Mixtapes, Bard: Record fragments of reality onto your ectosynthesizer, then play them back to change the outcome of later rolls.
Forgotten Faith Domain, Cleric: Collect the relics and teachings of dying religions. Carry their blessings with you and give forgotten gods someone to answer.
Circle of the Outer Dreamlands, Druid: Bring a piece of the Dreamlands wherever you go, changing the ground beneath your feet and opening impossible paths for your friends.
Liminalist, Fighter: Strap on an ectoplasmic apparatus and operate slightly ahead of everyone else in time. It’s easier to avoid a sword when you’ve already seen it coming.
Warrior of Shattered Chakras, Monk: Strike the invisible points where body and spirit meet, disrupting your enemies’ movement and redirecting their spiritual energy.
Oath of the Whale God, Paladin: Dedicate yourself to the glorious cosmic bellyflop. Charge headfirst into danger and send your enemies crashing into each other.
Nightmare Slayer, Ranger: Study the horrors of the Dreamlands, discover their weaknesses, and hunt them with sacred oils and consecrated weapons.
Occult Archaeologist, Rogue: Put scholarship and a collection of questionable relics to work. There’s probably something in your bag that can help with this nightmare.
Sorcerer of the Teeming Edge: Channel the place where reality dissolves into the Liminality. Tear open the sky and bring a piece of dead starship crashing down.
Skinless One Patron, Warlock: Receive revelations about the rules governing existence, then learn how to rewrite them.
Oneiromancer, Wizard: Master the magic of dreams, decipher forgotten Oneiroglyphs, and loosen reality’s grip on the world around you.
We use essential cookies and our own first-party analytics to run BackerKit. With your consent, we also use cookies to measure our marketing and share data with advertising partners to show you relevant ads. Accept to allow all cookies, or reject to turn off the optional ones.
Read our cookie policy.
