Level Up: Gate Pass Gazette Issue #22 (A5E)

Beneath the Canopy: Exploration Challenges of the Tropical Forests

Places of darkness, oppressive heat, and air so thick with humidity it feels like you could drink it—jungles and other tropical rainforests are dangerous even before you encounter the wildlife that hunts even the hunters. Included here are a series of challenging environments for your players to encounter while moving through such an environment, though many would work well for dense forests of all climates. By Tyler Omichinski.

Year of Celebration: Winter Wassails

As the dark months close in and snows blanket the ground, a community gathers around fires, swapping tales of better times and waiting for the light to return.

Winter Wassails presents narrators with a range of winter holidays for their games. In addition providing lore and depth to any setting, the festival listings below also include relevant game mechanics for the effects of taking part. By Marc Kenobi.

Mastering the Elements: Introducing Rare Skills

Mages and priests famously bend the land, sea, sky, and flame to their will through precise and carefully constructed invocations that yield specific and powerful effects. But less well known are those who practice the gentler elemental arts. To those who have the gift, directing the fire in its dance or the river in its wanderings is a natural extension of themselves, and although mastering that capacity may require practice and patience, the versatility of these gifts is unrivaled. By Clarke Peterson.

Eccentric Arcana: Wizard Archetypes

The methods and styles of learning arcana are as varied as the spells themselves. No two wizards are alike but some schools are truly eccentric even by the magical world’s incredibly low standards of normalcy. These arcane schools and their students can be strange, unpredictable, and downright dangerous. This article addresses three such groups, two of unique schools of thought, and one that can hardly be called a school at all. By Andrew Engelbrite.