The Floating City of Orostead — New Setting and Subclass! (v1.1) (Patreon)

Psst! Files are at the bottom: scroll down!

The bustling city of Orostead is a twisted maze of wooden docks and bridges that float upon the surface of Lake Ils. Centered around a dizzyingly tall wizards’ tower, Orostead serves as a welcome refuge for all who seek peace and protection from persecution—especially mages. It has grown into a shining pillar of what civilization is capable of when constructive ideals are made possible by compassionate leaders and clever magic. Strategically placed at a nexus of several key waterways, Orostead’s economy is supported by the never-ending stream of trade vessels bringing and trading their wares from around the region. Benevolent leaders, capable wizards, and a flourishing economy are all defended by the commendable force of the Orostead Pegasus Knights, and made nearly impregnable by a set of powerful magic wards.

With magic seemingly commonplace and a steady current of new visitors walking the docks every day, even the impossible becomes probable within the city of Orostead—in fact, stranger things have probably already happened.

What's included:

• New city and regional details, including historical and governing backgrounds
• Detailed city locations for building out your game
• Random magical mishaps that affect the whole city
• Magical quest and adventure hooks
• 7 new encounters, including renowned necromancers!
• 2 maps donated by Cze & Peku
• Hawkren Bloodstone NPC card and 3D model available through the Eldritch Foundry 
• New Wizard subclass: the Wizard of Wand Lore!

Credits

I was responsible for direction, design, and additional editing for this setting. However, this couldn't be possible without extra help. If you like this setting, consider supporting these other incredible 5e content creators:

Ty Christensen — Writing, editing

TheArenaGuy — Monster creation, editing

Cze & Peku — Maps

Fabian Saravia — Subclass illustration

Benjamin Sommeregger — Cover art

What comes next?

As patrons, you can help decide what setting and subclass come next! Vote in this poll during the setting's first week of its exclusive release and choose what comes next!

This will be a freely accessible post after 1 week of being patron-exclusive. Thank you for your support, heroes, and for letting me make this content for you and the rest of the community!

Updates: v1.1

File name change is only in the subclass doc. The orostead doc below will always be the most up to date version.

• Fixed a couple minor spelling and grammatical errors in the document.
• Wand Lore changes are as follows:

1. You were always supposed to have a cap of 7 core charges. I don't know what got into me that made me forget to include that cap. That should, hopefully, be a huge help with the balance of this.
2. Closing a loophole of infinite charges.
3. Revised the first bulleted benefit of the core charges to remove the ability check bonus option.
4. Revised Wand Savant to include a stipulation that the target must be visible and mustn't be behind cover.
5. Revised Arcane Battery to not be a bad use of your Arcane Recovery feature: now just gives 3 expended core charges, and the second effect is now more thematic by allowing you to power up a single-target spell save DC using up to 3 of the charges.
6. Imbue Minor Wand was revised to limit the number of charges it had to be equal to your Intelligence modifier, rather than always 7. I also changed some of the criteria involved in choosing spells, namely allowing bonus action spells but disallowing spells with concentration. By including bonus action spells, it only allows misty step to be cast. And again, RAW, casting that from the wand will still take an action to do so. This change will limit the number of hyper-strong spells a fighter or barbarian can use, like blur, in favor of one-time-use effects. There are still some exceptions, like mirror image, but especially with the reduced charge count, I don't think that will be as big of an issue. And since you need to expend spell slots to gain core charges now (as was originally intended, whoops), this doesn't serve as just another way to get more of those core wand charges. I also removed the ability to cram it with damaging cantrips, which aren't a huge deal, but does allow for the potential of abuse when you start handing out lightning lure or green flame blade, even when they're cast at 1st level, simply because of their strong base utility.