To celebrate spooky season, Kobold Press is releasing “special ‘monstery’ lineages and heritages this month” for Tales of the Valiant, its spin on DnD 5e. The Broodling might be the most upsetting of these playable bad dreams, a spiderlike humanoid that can make its own 50’ silk ropes.
The Broodling species looks an awful lot like DnD’s classic Ettercap, and that is one possible explanation of its origins: “a mad wizard’s failed experiment to cross ettercaps with humans”. More commonly, they believe they’re descended “from a fallen spider god”. They dwell “in isolated colonies in the deep forest” in buildings made from web. Think of them as DnD elves, only with more limbs and eyes.
You’ll find all the details for the Broodling on the Kobold Press website. Neat features include a climbing speed, advantage on saves against exhaustion and being frightened (they’re part monster themselves), and their spinnerets which let them rapidly produce spider silk.
Tales of the Valiant splits up the rules for its DnD races into two parts. Lineages represent the species (or magical equivalent) that a character is part of, while Heritages represent their upbringing. The new Silk Strider Heritage can be taken by anyone who was raised in a Broodling community. It grants proficiency with Acrobatics and construction tools, and doubles your proficiency with all things weblike – whether walking on tightropes, or building structures from strands of silk.
Tales of the Valiant is compatible with both the 2014 and 2024 versions of DnD. If you want to use the Broodling in either system, remember that TotV gives characters slightly higher base stats, but doesn’t add the attribute bonuses that 5e does with your choice of race, or that the 2024 rules do with your choice of DnD background. Just give the Broodling three extra stat points when you generate them, and they’ll work handily for any DnD class.
Make sure you read our site DnD expert Mollie Russell’s take on the Tales of the Valiant product line. It’s only subtly different from DnD 5e, which may be a selling point, or a black mark, depending on your priorities.
Source: Wargamer
