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I would first like to link A Theory of Magic from /u/Mimir-ion. He responds very well to a lot of the questions and comments in this thread.

I am copy-pasting excerpts from my comments on this thread. This is how the magic works in the world I run.

Overview

In 5e, there are two named types of magic. Divine and Arcane. But that doesn't explain everything. Jeremy Crawford says that those two definitions "mostly pertain to spells" and "The D&D multiverse is filled with magic that doesn’t fall into any category." This makes a lot of sense in universe, and from a game design perspective, but it doesn't really help us much. I am an engineer, so, like you, I want there to be hard rules and even equations on how a fireball works. I want there to be a formula written in that wizard's spell book.

So, my rationalization to it is as follows. There are three main types of magic. Divine and Arcane. Plus another called "Physical" which I will get into in a second.

Divine simply corresponds to much of the periodic table. Helium, Oxygen, Carbon, Iron, stuff that exists everywhere in the world, and has always existed.

Arcane is a bit tough to get to, but through years of study, human(oid)ity has found ways to create this new interesting kind of matter AKA new kinds of magic. Americium, Technetium, Promethium, isotopes of various metals that must be manufactured to be studied, such as Uranium 238.

This explains how someone using divine magic (read "naturally occurring elements") and someone using arcane magic (read someone using "man-made elements") can both create a fireball (read "explosion"). But how does a psionic do that? Now that I think of it, how do monks have magic hands? What makes a barbarian gain a flying speed by channeling the energy of an eagle?

Okay, clearly I am missing something pretty big. Let's call this new type of magic, "Physical Magic". Ki, which comes from the Chinese Qi, is traditionally an energy that exists in every living being. When this Qi is blocked, it leads to disease. Balancing this Qi can let you go days without eating and have hands faster than the eye can see. (From a scientist's point of view, I think this Qi stuff is a bit wonky in reality, but I digress. It explains what I need it to.)

But what makes the fireball. What holds the monster. What charms the person. The explanation of the Weave helps me with this. "The Weave is an essential element of the universe, running through everything in unseen threads." -SCAG Remind you of anything? Okay okay, I know string theory doesn't really work like this. But it does remind me of the image associated with it.

In my mind, a concentration of magic works sort of like gravity. The Weave folds a bit more, causing more disruption to the things around it. Casting fireball is creating a big ripple in the strings, causing an influx of energy, represented as heat. Hold Monster causes the threads of physical magic around the monster to become stiff, not allowing it to move. Charming a person pulls on and rearranges the threads inside a person's brain, magically making it more susceptible for a little while, before the strings realign.

I know this explanation barely scratches the surface, but I feel like it is a rigid enough understanding to understand interactions in universe. Magic is just energy that pulls and tugs on different threads in different ways to cause some effects.

Other Interesting Notes

How do Arcane Foci work? I know some spells require components which are consumed, usually tied to a monetary cost. However spells which don't have a cost tied to them can be cast using a Focus, negating the need for components. Perhaps a Focus provides some sort of catch-all energy that can be used for less demanding spells?

An interesting thought. Entropy could be thought of as material components. Gems (and others, but mostly gems) are literally destroyed in the casting of a spell. Are they crushed? Are they turned to dust? What if they are what it actually costs to form the reaction that is "magic". You need 6[CO2] + 6 [H2O] + sunlight to make --> [C6H12O6] + 6[O2]. A material component could be thought of as that sunlight that you don't get back.

Questions from Above

/2. How do members of your pantheon interact with magic?

Beings of large power have direct ties with the Weave. Liches and grand wizards spend their lives studying the arcane side. Deities inherently know how to pull and tug on the Weave to get the results they want. Other powerful beings such as archdevils or archfey may not internally realize the great power they have, it may be as simple as them thinking "I have all this power. The Weave must really like me." Dragons are smart, sure, but do they really comprehend how they can breathe fire? It is just a natural process they are born with; they don't need to fully comprehend the intricacies of it; it just works. It is unknown whether this inherent power drawn from pulling the strings of the Weave is programmed into these creatures from their creation, or whether it is evolution and the weave magically playing its role on life in the universe.

/3. Do your gods grant spellcasting abilities to their followers?

I think I will just explain how each class is granted power.

• Barbarian/Monk/Druid wildshape/Fighter action surge/Rogue sneak attackother examples are available: Physical magic exists in these beings, granting them amazing displays of power. Energy coursing through a barbarian's veins allowing it to slug off damage. Monk's flurry of blows or a fighter's action surge allow them to act in a blink of an eye. A rogue is not only stabbing in pressure points, he is severing the Weave within his target, forcing an imbalance of magical flow. Changing form into different beasts doesn't take study; it is a direct connection between the body of the druid and the Weave itself.
  
  
• Bard: The study of music and poetry enhances something within the very existence of life itself. Bards know how to pluck and pull the strings of their lute, likewise resonating with the Weave around them to shape the world to their will.
  
  
• Cleric/Paladin: Divine casters that devote themselves to a ideal. Now, whether the deity they choose notices their sacrifice is another store. Clerics and paladins don't have to devote themselves to a specific god, they can just choose a value they hold true, hoping that a god will give them strength. A cleric might devote his life to healing others, mechanically he is a life cleric, and the god giving him strength could be Lathander. I currently have a paladin "Oath of the Sentry" who has dedicated himself to protecting his friends. He doesn't have a specific god in mind, but the Triad usually grants his divine wishes.
  
  
• Druid spells/Ranger: Communing with nature and devoting yourself to protecting an area of mother earth can lend you helpful abilities. Much like the cleric and paladin, these casters are divine. They don't intentionally lend themselves to the gods, but the deities lend their power anyway. Gods such as Grumbar, Silvanus, and Talos are known to share power with druids and rangers.
  
  
• Sorcerer: Yes, these casters are chosen from birth to have power. Some might even argue that a Divine Soul sorcerer might have divine power. Think of sorcerers like a kid having his first chemistry set, but with no instruction. He may have all the pieces, but he has to study it himself. He has to figure out how to mix oxygen and hydrogen to create water. Oh no! He created carbon monoxide instead. Well that isn't exactly natural, but useful nonetheless!
  
  
• Warlock: These characters sap power from beings stronger than they realize. They may be pulling from a divine user such as a fey prince or devil lord, but they are doing so through a contract. This contract pulls unnaturally on the strings of the Weave, leading to the power output being arcane.
  
  
• Wizard: I don't think there is a question here. Studying the Weave and creating new spells is certainly arcane magic.

Thanks for posting this. I will definitely be trying this in my next game. Currently I use one of these to track the combat in my games. It works okay, but I love the player view that you have here.

A few thoughts that I have after playing with it:

1. Could you add some kind of spell tracking for spells that last multiple rounds? I have several spellcasters in my party right now and I find that nearly every combat I am tracking the duration of some spell.
   
   
2. Maybe make a place to take quick notes so the DM can have a few reminders about the encounter on the same screen.
   
   
3. Maybe hard to do with the account-less setup you have here (which is nice as it lowers the friction of getting your players on it) but I would like the ability to send messages to a single player through the app. Not a huge thing, but it would be nice to send them a message on a screen they are already looking at.
   
   Anyways, I love the idea of this and I can't wait to give it a try at the table soon. Thanks for making this and sharing it with us!

One of the best uses of this was in the old Forgotten Realms books, especially those for 2nd-edition AD&D. They had a whole section in the FR hardcover book on alternate currencies and their effective values. It also had several pages of tables for coming up with gemstones, artistic objects, and non-gem stone as treasure.

(By 'non-gem stone' I mean things like marble. A half-ton block of marble might be incredibly unwieldy, but worth a nice chunk of coin to a sculptor.)

The coinage included cultural notes that gave some glimpses into various countries. Things like the 'bela', from when Sembia tried their hand at making paper currency. They printed too many and devalued it to the point where a 1-bela note is worth only 1 cp. Same goes for the steelpence, made as an alternative to gold but overproduced. It mentions the term "Buying steelpence with bela" meaning financial stupidity.

Waterdeep has an unusual-shaped coin made of electrum. It has very little value outside the city -- something like 2 sp -- but is worth something like 10 gp in the city. Cormyr's coins have notable kings stamped on them.

I think the book's worth using if you have a Realms game, regardless of edition. Here's the Amazon listing.

Not OP, but check out the board game Massive Darkness.

It's almost always on sale (I saw it for $75 once), and comes with 75 minis. $1 per mini is a good price.

The game comes with enough goblins, orcs, and dwarves (which I painted as Duergar) to play quite a few low-level adventures, and comes with some neat unique monsters and heroes.

And you get a board game too! It's probably the best value I've found, so give it a look to get an instant collection.

The word I use is "tael." One 1st level commoner is worth 32; in-game it is described as a portion of their soul. Creatures of high CR only exist because they have consumed many ordinary souls, and when you kill them you can harvest a portion of those.

I did make one major change: my XP curve doubles with every level, to keep a lid on the high ranks. I can't simulate a psuedo-medieval world with multiple 13th level casters in every large city.

This automatically puts a clamp on magic items, as there are very few NPCs who can make 2nd or 3rd tier magic items. The other change is that I swap the gold and XP components of magic items (so that the bulk of their cost is in XP, but they only require a small amount of gold).

Other than that, I tried to stick to the 3E rules as closely as possible. Players love it; they spend far more on NPC followers than you would expect, they pool their resources to promote the cleric first, and so on.

I have a bunch of free stuff up on DriveThruRPG that goes into the details: Heroes of Prime. I'm using it in my current campaign Campaign Journal. I am also writing a fantasy series based on this concept: Sword of the Bright Lady.

My campaign is a sandbox so I'm just building a world, creating conflicts, and dropping the players in to let them pursue what they want. The major inspirations from Ghibli are the conflicts and world building flavor:

• Nature vs Science: Half my world is civilized, half is wilderness. The civilized world looks like Howl's Moving Castle - Victorian, steampunk flavor. Instead of steam, machines and tech are powered by magic and wands are used as arcane focuses. High magic setting, & I added the Lightning Rail from Eberron. I included the homebrew classes Gunslinger, Artificer, and Pugilist to lend to the Victorian vibe. The Wastes in Howl's would be The Wilds in my world, filled with mystical magic and nature spirits feared by city folk. Princess Mononoke's whole plot could be dropped in at the border between the city and the wilds if my players choose to go there.
  
• Spirits vs Technology: My classic dnd monsters & pantheon are all replaced by the blanket term "Spirits". Good and evil spirits draw from Japanese mythology and Shintoism. Totoro is great source for friendly spirits, Bourdain's "Hungry Ghosts" inspired me for evil ones. Or simply use the monster manual. Anything needed beyond that, Monsters of the Orient is perfect. It's easy to repurpose just about every dnd monster & god to this end. Some folks seek power from the Spirits (paladins, clerics, warlocks), some are touched by the Spirits (sorcerers, druids, etc), some can only access magic through study and technological advancement (wizards, artificers, etc).
  
• Good vs Evil: In Miyazaki's films, good and evil are often not so black and white. I'm designing villains like Lady Eboshi - sure she's destroying the forest, but she's doing it because she believes it is for the greater good. It's up to the players to choose their moral standing and "pick a side" - however that decision may not be as clean cut as they imagine.
  
  I love world building and map making, so I'm having a blast populating the world in painful detail. There is QUITE a lot more to it than this, but if you take those core conflicts and sprinkle in some of the plot hooks from OP, you should be good to go have a grand adventure in Ghibli land.

I love the idea about birthdays, I'm definitely gonna steal that.

I've always had a similar thought about made-up calendars. They are often complicated with a bunch of names and dates that need to be remembered. For my current campaign, I decided to literally just use a real-life calendar. I bought a cheap mini-calendar from amazon and have been marking off the days as they pass in-game. This way I can also tell the players "It's February 23rd" and they know exactly what kind of weather to expect, how much time has passed since January 2nd, stuff like that.

I was also very happy with the calendar that I found because the title of it is "Unlikely Friendships", which could pretty much be the name of every campaign I've ever played in.

You should check out the Dragon Magazine and the Draconomicon. Just about everything is pulled from those canon sources.

• There would obviously be fluctuation between the value of larger and smaller items. I simplified information to fit into a single page.
  
  
• Yes. 50 gp for each bone, claw, or fang. I'm sure there would be fluctuation, but again, i was going for simplicity.
  
  
• Scales are a part of the hide of the dragon. To remove a scale specifically would destroy that portion of hide. If you want to scales, it's the hide check.
  
  
• The sources don't intimate that it takes longer than a day to do the job. But I can understand it taking longer. DM discretion I guess.
  
  
• Sure. An argument can be made that raw components typically cost less than the final product. I made assessments based on the cost of the items they can be bade into and the value of a "super rare" material. Again, DM discretion.
  
  
• Bones are brittle and hollow. According to the Draconomicon, only a thigh bone is suitable for the bow. In a larger dragon, sure. More are suitable.
  
  
• The harvest check is Survival. I run a few different game types with parties, and one of them uses a Microlite20 variant. So for them the check is (Dex+Subterfuge). I re-uploaded the 5e version here and it has Survival now.
  
  
• I agree. In situations where dragons are more rare, that would be the case. I made assumptions on the average DM's desire to have dragons in the world. If you have a lower magic economy, then you can add a multiplier. I included the HomeBrewery source code for those who want to make edits for their own.
  
  Edit: I don't know why the bullet points aren't working. Sorry.

• Wizards of the Coast disagrees.
  
• Pathfinder disagrees.(I play pathfinder, but all of this is convertable, so I really enjoy this subreddit)
  
• When you read any GM guide and it says "Welcome to a collection of advice and inspiration, tools and rules, designed for a game like none other: your own." So if he wants to use D&D rules to make scifi world, I see nothing wrong with that.

The Vampires Tarot of Eternal Night by Barbara Moore is a very pretty set of tarot cards, which I bought once years ago when I was still pagan (got that behind me by now) (nothing against pagans) at Barnes and Noble.

(I just bought the book then found you and now I'm reading through both. This is amazing, thank you!)

I happened to still have it.

IDK if y'all know much about Tarot reading but a little background in it, reading a "how to" book or so (back when I was pagan, Scott Cunningham was fantastic, IDK if he has tarot but he was no nonsense and readable) for the role playing.

But the deck I named is just the art style to work fantastically in for tarroka (some of the images don't fit perfectly but your players will never notice, I promise you.)

I'll give my interpretations to how to assign them but they fit the atmosphere so much better than a pack of old Bicycle cards, and look prettier than any Tarroka I could print.

Major Arcana to High deck (cards have roman numerals on them)

• Artifact=2
  
• Beast=8
  
• Broken One=19
  
• Darklord=13?
  
• Donjon=16
  
• Ghost=9
  
• Executioner=5
  
• Horseman=0
  
• Innocent=17
  
• Marionette=7
  
• Mists=10
  
• Raven=20
  
• Seer=21
  
• Tempter=11
  
  as for the Minor Arcana, Stars symbolize desire for power and Glyphs are about faith and healing, so I made Stars=Wands and Glyphs=Cups. Coins and Swords are already part of the deck.
  
  If Tarroka and Vampire Tarot won't work for you, and you must use playing cards, These are spooky and creepy, if not quite gothic horror.

I don't mean to one-up OP here but I thought I'd mention Grimtooth's traps again. A big collection of traps and short encounters that are extremely deadly and unpleasant (as in your party will almost definitely die to them) but are VERY good for inspiration. They were written in the 80s so it's back when D&D was a bit more deadly and characters considered more expendable so they WILL need tweaking. But the traps are described in quite a bit of detail including triggering mechanisms and diagrams for the more complicated ones. They also only rely on very basic spells or are purely mechanical so you can fit them in anywhere. Quite a lot of them are just about fooling the player into killing themselves, which is always fun :D.

I've yet to find a better resource for traps than those books so I thought I'd share :).

This immediately made me think of the fantastic novel by Susanna Clarke Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell wiki
I don't want to go into detail because spoilers. I think I can get away with saying that someone is half-given to a faerie who transports the person magically every night - they end up sleep deprived and no-one can understand why they are so tired and lose all strength to live with. You could certainly spin it around some similarly dark invisible drawback.
I HIGHLY recommend the book. It's also available in a well regarded TV series
Perhaps the pixie might even pass on her 'ownership' as a gift to a higher ranking and more powerful fae Lord or Lady?

I just got [these] (http://www.amazon.de/Pathfinder-Pawns-Assortment-Paizo-Publishing/dp/1601256698/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457173156&sr=8-1&keywords=paizo+pawn+base) original Paizo bases, which work perfectly!
Just print on some heavier paper, i think i chose 250g.

Then if you fold the minis and fold the bottom once again you can perfectly fit them into the base.

And you'll end up with this
sorry for the quality of the first picture :D

I just finished CoS a few weeks ago... easily one of my favorite campaigns. I loved the old 2nd edition stuff and had all the supplements and all the novels. I loved all the little references to the characters and family lines I knew from the novel I, Strahd (which is a fabulous book to read if you haven't already; I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin is also worth it).

So! I didn't want to leave this place either. My players are returning soon with new characters 150 years after the events of the story involving their old characters. I want them to see the long-term changes their old characters made, like how they restructured the leadership of Vallaki. Across the realm, they new characters will explore the changed terrain while the players will be able to recognize the marks their old characters left behind.

You can easily go this route, but there's another option, too, if they're set on keeping these characters. Look up an event called The Grand Conjunction. My memory isn't perfect, but I'm sure there are plenty others in this sub and similar subs that can help you out. Basically, you had to stop the realm of Barovia from bleeding into the Forgotten Realms plane and unleashing its evil upon its inhabitants. The borders of the Ravenloft realms shuffle and open, and other realms like Nova Vaasa, Forlorn, and Borca, join Barovia to form the Demiplanes of Dread properly. There's a 6-book adventure set that culminates in Roots of Evil. This page can tell you more; scroll down to section II.

I think you might find this could be difficult for some players who don't have a well-developed or trained sense of pitch, so I wouldn't have anything where players had to recognize these sorts of things by EAR.

I'm reminded of the Legend of Zelda games like Wind Waker and Ocarina of Time, where there are music-related puzzles, but they are always combined with a visual or symbolic key to help the players along.

I think it would be great to add a "magic item" to the game in physical form, though... perhaps one of those cheap almost-toy "zithers" that your players would have to actually enact the musical patterns on....

http://www.amazon.com/Hape-Early-Melodies-Happy-Harp/dp/B00IHZYWE0/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1450813269&sr=8-4&keywords=zither

Depending on the players, I like to use real puzzles and incorporate them into the story. For example, players find a set of keys one unlocks a room of minor treasure and the second unlocks a hidden room of major treasure that can be found with a perception or investigation check.Trick is the keys are entangled and they need to pull them apart to even use the first one. This is the puzzle I used and it's gotten a lot of positive feedback in the games I run. Here's a link to the key puzzle itself.

http://www.amazon.com/Hanayama-Metal-Brain-Teaser-Puzzle/dp/B00TSWOEOY

It's not 5E, but the Pathfinder supplement Dungeons of Golarion gives several themes for mega-dungeons. In particular, the last one, the ruins of a mine overrun by undead, is my favorite description and setup of a mega dungeon that I have ever seen.

The book doesn't detail ready to run dungeons, but instead has a chapter on each dungeon, giving a history/backstory, level descriptions or overviews and some unique monsters or magic-items that can be found in the dungeon. It should be readily usable for 5E or 4E. If you can get a copy it might be a decent source of inspiration.

Just an FYI I have this scanner and it works great. You have so much awesome history to preserve.

I think you're looking for this. You'd have to update basically everything you see, but if you want Undermountain - this is Undermountain.

edit: D&D 3.5 and 4e D&D made conversions of the original, those might also might be an avenue to take.

I'm unfamiliar with 5th edition and any changes they have done to any campaign settings, so I might say something pretty stupid here.

So, why not go for something that has already been done in the FR setting? You could use the Undermountain, located under the mountain range (and the city of) Waterdeep. There is a 3.5 supplement of Waterdeep, and a 3.5 supplement for the Undermountain (and there is also one for 4th edition, but I have no experience with that one). The waterdeep book is mostly flavor, and you can use the undermountain book for the same reason and simply convert whatever you find interesting to suit your 5e needs.

See if you can track down a copy of the 3.5 Draconomicon. Apart from being a very good resource in general, it goes in to some very good detail about just exactly what you can do with the parts of a dragon and how much different parts can sell for. I've used it almost as-is for 5e with no trouble.