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As obviously game-y as it might be, the best answer that comes to my head is that different power ranges congregate in different regions. Maybe the higher level beings have an agreement to keep lower-level beings in undisturbed “nature preserves”, and anyone who breaks that agreement will soon...

Another twig blight fan here. I also used The Wretched/Wretched Sorrowsworn a fair bit. While I haven’t done this in any game I’ve run yet, I could use manes as well, there’s nothings stopping them from being a staple of a level 1 quest. Lemures, on the other hand, seem a little too weak even...

How does he define an “NPC”? The skeleton who gets smashed to pieces in the first turn it appears is still technically an non player character.

I don’t have a clear line between gods and the Outsider spirits like celestials, fiends, modrons, and so on. In general, most outsiders need a “body” of some sort to act in the mortal world, be it a magically created one, a creature or object they possess, or a least an ethereal locus of power...

Along with all the reasons already given, it helps keep the setting from feeling too nihilistic.

The designs of the extraplanar outsiders is too naturalistic. Why does a being made out the the good-evil-lawful-chaotic energy built up in a person’s soul look like it can be (by D&D mortal species standards) my cousin? (Actually with tieflings and aasimar running around they could be).

This list gives a good rundown: Wikipedia: List of D&D Rulebooks.

I can go either way depending on the moods. That said, even in a comedic game I at prefer it at least the main villain is legitimately threatening.

I picked monstrosities, and by monstrosities I mean sorrowsworn, because Wizards didn’t want to make a Shadowfell entity category for some reason. I think sorrowsworn are well suited for having a lot of customization options. As embodiments of abject misery, there’s a lot more than five forms...

Pyromancers Blessed of Parakaros, the Eyes in the Flame, pyromancers have the fire of the phoenixes flowing through their veins. A flame both destructive and restorative, the use of phoenix fire has one caveat: everything that is burned up must one day be remade. The smoke and ash of anything...

Arcane is magic that’s a “brute fact” or “accident”, or at least can be treated as such easily enough. It doesn’t have an obvious telos, as in a purpose or goal for its existence. Wizards might get philosophical about the arcane and try to discover if there is a purpose for it, but they don’t...

I’ve kind of soured on big species lists, so my latest setting is very humanocentric. The species are as follows: Humans. Cavernborn, humans who are adapted to the Underdark equivalent. Elarin, natives to the same, they’re like a mix of dark elf and grey alien. Aetherials, basically like planar...

FAITH: The Unholy Trilogy Avernum and Spiderweb games in general A few Clark Ashton Smith stories I’m sure there’s more.

Maybe…? In my latest campaign one of the first encounters my players ran into was a shadow. I had implemented some house rules for conditions where ghostly creatures lose their resistance/immunity to mundane weapons (such as being in light for the shadow), but even then killing ghosts hardly...

One of my players’ character was a GOO warlock, but no body caught on. Even if they did, they situation was dire enough that the people he was interacting with would probably give him a pass as long as he was helping them. That’s the state of my setting really. In more peaceful times people...

Bards using the left over divine words that were used to speak creation into existence…. Bards are ur-priests.

Some (not all, that would make the book to big) monsters with extra customization options, like the Unspeakable Horror in VRGtR. Two examples in particular I’d like to see: Gulthias Tree. I find it strange how the Blights section on the 2014 MM builds up Gulthias Trees as something that can be...

I picked a pretty eclectic mix, but putting it all together implies this would be my favorite sort of adventure: Solving a mystery surrounding an event that caused or involves the sudden appearance of monsters. It will involve a lot of traveling (with hexes or otherwise), talking to NPCs and...

Lloth is coming for Zuggtmoy for title of most weirdly cute demon lord.

Was a tough decision between the fighter and wizard, but I ultimately went with wizard. With fighters there’s a wide variety of concepts you can fit into them, which is good, but there’s not a lot to distinguish those concepts from each other. But the problem with wizards goes even deeper...