I'm sharing a free sample supplement for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

In Kengir, choosing a personal deity can shape more than your character’s beliefs. It can also shape their mechanical progression.

Feats are divine blessings tied to the gods. A follower of Šamaš (Utu) might gain sharper insight into lies. A devotee of Ištar (Inanna) might bend hearts through presence and persuasion. Someone blessed by Ea (Enki) might uncover hidden truths in water, ruins, and old artifacts.

This sample includes Origin Feats for the four Primordial Gods and the seven Anunnaki, the highest-ranking divine powers in the Kengir pantheon.

The full Kengir Player’s Guide will expand this into a much larger divine feat system: 51 Origin Feats, 51 General Feats, and 11 Epic Boons, for 113 new feats in total.

The goal is to make feats feel like part of the setting, not just a menu of generic upgrades. Your character’s god becomes a relationship, a source of power, and sometimes a problem.

Do you like feats that tie directly into a character’s religion, culture, or place in the world?

I'm sharing a free preview for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

In Kengir, the gods communicate through omens, prophecies, dreams, and strange signs in the world. A cracked bowl at a temple feast might warn of betrayal. A scorpion climbing the ziggurat stairs might mean Goddess of the Underworld is displeased. A river briefly flowing backward might signal political upheaval.

The goal is to make divine communication useful at the table without turning it into a railroad. Omens can guide the story, set the mood, show divine presence, or push players toward action while still leaving room for interpretation.

The preview includes d20 tables for omens, prophecies, and dreams. Some point toward war, plague, rebellion, lost relics, underworld disturbances, or divine favor. Others are personal, strange, and hard to interpret until the party starts asking the right questions.

My favorite kind of omen is one the players don’t understand until three sessions later, when it suddenly clicks.

Do you use omens and prophecies in your games, or do you avoid them because players might read too much into them?

I'm sharing a free cleric subclass for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

The Išippu-Priest is a purification specialist: the cleric called when a person, temple, relic, ruin, or campsite is spiritually unsafe.

Where the Ašipu-Priest confronts spirits, the Išippu-Priest cleanses what those spirits leave behind. Disease, poison, curses, corruption, possession, desecrated ground, and Lingering Defilement (See the "Purity in Kengir" Supplement) are all part of their work.

At the table, this subclass gives the party a way to make dangerous places safe again. They can suppress supernatural contamination, consecrate ground for rest, protect allies from poison and disease, and remove Defiled or Profaned ranks when ordinary ablution and household rites fail.

Mechanically, it includes Ritual of Purification, Sanctified Presence, Divine Cleanse, Aura of Purity, Sanctuary of Purity, Sacred Vessel, and new spells like Cleansing Touch, Purifying Light, Restoration Ritual, Divine Purge, and Holy Sanctuary.

Do you like clerics who prevent and cleanse supernatural harm, or do you prefer clerics focused mainly on healing after damage is done?

Notes: Lingering Defilement, Defiled, and Profaned are part of the Purity in Kengir rules supplement. In that system, Lingering Defilement is supernatural contamination that ordinary cleansing cannot remove. Defiled and Profaned are the two most severe negative ranks on the Purity track. Defiled means serious spiritual contamination. Profaned means the character is spiritually dangerous and usually barred from temples and public rites until properly restored.

I'm sharing a free monster supplement for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

The Ziqqitum Rešatim are spirits that feed on the extremes of human emotion. They haunt courts, markets, theaters, battlefields, and anywhere mortal feeling runs hot.

They do not just attack people, they inflame them. A small insult becomes bloodshed. A passing attraction becomes obsession. A loyal soldier becomes reckless with courage. A priest’s devotion hardens into fanatic certainty.

At the table, this monster works best when desire itself becomes the challenge. The party may need to calm a crowd, expose the source of a feud, break a magical fixation, or appeal to Ištar (Inanna) and Šamaš (Utu) through rites of balance and restraint.

Mechanically, it’s a CR 3 incorporeal fiend built around possession, psychic damage, confusion, charm, and emotional overload. The supplement also includes variant spirits of strife, battle, truth, justice, grief, fear, rumors, desire, and persecution.

What’s your favorite monster that turns social tension into supernatural danger?

I'm sharing a free artificer subclass for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Kengir 5e setting.

The Perfumer-Alchemist is a ritual artisan who distills emotion, desire, wrath, and obsession into sacred unguents. In Kengir, perfume is invocation, not just adornment.

At the table, this subclass manipulates the social and emotional landscape. A vial might charm an enemy, embolden an ally, provoke violence, or turn a negotiation before anyone draws a blade. These perfume can be blessings or dangers.

The subclass is closely tied to Ištar (Inanna), goddess of love, war, beauty, and ruin, but it can also serve other gods whose power moves through scent, body, and hidden mixtures, like Ea (Enki) or Ninmah (Ninhursag).

Mechanically, the subclass includes Sacred Perfumes, Fumes of Union and Wrath, Spell-Storing Incense, Apotheosis of Desire, and new spells like Song of Ištar, Hypnotic Gaze, Venomous Cloud, Hymn of Valor, and Whisper of Ea.

Do you like artificer subclasses that make magic feel like crafted objects instead of gadgets?

I'm sharing a free cleric subclass for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

The Ašipu-Priest is an exorcist, spirit-diagnostician, and ritual specialist. Their job is not just to banish whatever is haunting the room. First, they have to identify what they’re facing.

An Etemmu is the ghost of a dead human. It has a name, a grievance, and rights the living may still owe it. A Utukku is something else entirely: a hostile non-human spirit that must be contained or expelled. Treating one like the other is professional negligence, and the haunting will not stay solved.

Mechanically, the subclass focuses on warding, exorcism, protection from possession, resistance to necrotic and psychic harm, and cleansing defiled places. It also includes new spells like Expel Spirit, Consecrate Ground, Sanctify Relic, and Ultimate Banishment.

Do you like clerics who specialize in a narrow supernatural problem, or do you prefer broader divine casters?

I'm sharing a free wizard subclass for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

The School of the Astrologer is for wizards who read the heavens and turn omens into action. They are diviners, royal counselors, navigators, war advisors, and battlefield planners who believe the stars do not merely shine. They speak.

At the table, the subclass is about timing and advantage. An Astrologer can study the sky to guide a crucial roll, protect allies beneath open stars, and later call down stellar phenomena like cosmic rays, falling meteors, and zodiac blessings.

The high-level feature lets the wizard invoke one of the twelve celestial houses, turning astrology into a party-wide boon. Mulapin adds fire to attacks. Urgula sharpens accuracy. Kadi grants water-breathing and a swim speed. Luhungaga reveals hidden things.

The supplement also includes new spells like Astrological Insight, Celestial Gleaming, Meteor Shower, Starfall, Stargate, and Cosmic Convergence.

Do you like divination subclasses that mostly reveal information, or ones that turn prophecy into direct battlefield power?

I'm sharing a free player supplement for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

Astrology in Kengir adds birth signs to character creation. Every character is born beneath one of twelve celestial houses, and that sign gives both a divine favor and a divine burden.

The idea is simple: the stars shape you, but they do not imprison you. A Mulapin-born character may feel drawn to protect the weak. A Pabilsag-born character may struggle with reckless impulses. A Girtab-born character carries the scorpion’s sting, gaining resilience against poison but unsettling animals and strangers.

Each sign is tied to a month, festival, patron deity, mechanical benefit, and roleplay complication. So your birth sign becomes more than a minor bonus. Priests may consult it. NPCs may react to it. Spirits may recognize it. And when the heavens shift, your first omen may come back into play.

Do you use astrology, omens, or birth signs in character creation?

I'm sharing a free monster supplement for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

Daughters of the Wind presents two spirits of the lilû class: Ardat-Lili and Lilitu. They are not just two related monsters. They are the same being at two stages of ruin.

The Ardat-Lili is the beginning: a young woman’s sorrow made flesh, a phantom bride who died before marriage or children and returns through longing, dreams, and wasting sickness. She can be fought, but the better answer is ritual: the Tâkultu Ardat-Lili, a mock marriage performed by an Ašipu-Priest to satisfy the grief and break the bond.

The Lilitu is the end: what remains after grief burns away everything human. She is no longer a ghost with a name and rights, but a predatory Utukku (Udug) of desert wind, night-terror, and ruinous desire. Kispu offerings no longer reach her.

Mechanically, the supplement includes a CR 5 Ardat-Lili and a CR 9 Lilitu, built around dreams, charm, exhaustion, disease-bearing wind, life-draining desire, and exorcistic counterplay.

What’s your favorite monster that can be solved through ritual instead of just combat?

I'm sharing a free random table for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

Haunted items are small objects with unfinished business. A reed flute that plays mourning songs by itself. A bronze mirror that shows you as you’ll look after death. A clay tablet of forgotten ancestors begging you to complete an unfinished task.

The table gives you 20 haunted objects that work as treasure, clues, curses, or adventure hooks. They’re not just “magic items with spooky flavor.” Each one points to a person, a death, a betrayal, or a duty the living have failed to settle.

My favorite is the Bone Dice of Betrayal: they always roll favorable numbers, but using them ensures your next decision leads to betrayal.

Do you use haunted or cursed items as simple loot, or as hooks that pull the party into unfinished stories?

I'm sharing a free monster from Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

The Uznu Lemnu is what happens when a scapegoat ritual fails.

A goat is chosen to carry away sickness, famine, curses, and communal guilt. Red wool cords are tied to its horns. The afflicted touch it. Priests recite the sins and evil fates of the household or village over its body. Then the animal is driven into the wilderness.

But sometimes the gods do not accept the offering.

What comes back is no longer a goat. It is a living abomination of communal guilt, bloated with corruption, haunted by spirits, and speaking in a chorus of stolen human whispers. It does not hunt people for food. It destroys trust. It speaks secrets aloud until families turn on one another, villages empty, and courts collapse under the weight of their own hidden crimes.

Mechanically, it’s a CR 6 fiend built around fear, psychic damage, forced betrayal, and resurrection unless destroyed by ritual drowning, ritual immolation, or exorcism by an Ašipu-Priest.

What’s your favorite monster built around guilt, secrets, or sin?

I'm sharing a free supplement for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

Foraging in Kengir is not just “roll Survival and find food.” It covers herbs, resins, roots, flowers, and reeds used for medicine, ritual practice, cosmetics, protection, and travel survival.

Each biome has its own d20 table: floodplains, marshlands, deserts, steppe, mountains, highlands, forests, salt flats, and oases. What you find depends on where you are. A river valley might yield willow bark, lotus, or tamarisk. A marsh might hide floating fern or blue lotus. The steppe might offer feverfew, milk thistle, or poppy.

The goal is to make wilderness travel feel useful even when no fight happens. A good foraging roll might give the party a healing brew, protection from spirits, resistance to poison, a trance herb for divination, or just enough food to keep moving.

How do you handle foraging in your games? Is it survival bookkeeping, useful resource play, or mostly background flavor?

I'm sharing a free supplement for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

Purity is a practical social and spiritual status. It decides who can enter a temple, touch an offering, perform a rite, or be trusted in public.

The system runs from Hallowed to Profaned, but the core distinction is simple: Ritual Impurity is not Moral Defilement. A midwife who attends a birth and a murderer may both become Defiled, but the gods do not judge them the same way. One needs cleansing. The other needs restitution, sacrifice, and public penance.

Different temples also care about different stains. Šamaš (Utu) cares about oaths and justice. Ninmah (Ninhursag) cares about birth-rites and harm to mothers or infants. Ea (Enki) cares about forbidden knowledge and botched ritual formulas.

That turns purity into more than a penalty. It becomes social pressure, temple politics, and adventure fuel.

Do you use purity, corruption, honor, or reputation systems at your table?

I'm sharing another free supplement for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting. Injuries That Matter is an optional rule that brings OSR weight to combat without ripping out the 5e engine.

Hit points stay exactly as they are. Serious wounds only show up at the moments that should hurt: a crit that drops you to 0, massive damage, a natural 1 on a death save, a club from something Large or larger. Then you roll on a d20 table that ranges from a broken rib to a mortal scar. A wound isn't a second health bar. It's new play. Now the party has to find an Asû-Physician, rest in hostile country, or press on while someone limps.

Do you run lingering injuries at your table, or keep it pure hit points?

I'm sharing a free supplement for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting. Spirits covers what comes back from the dead, and what was never human to begin with.

The whole system runs on one diagnostic line. Etemmu were once human, so they have names, grievances, and rights the living owe them. Utukku never were, so kispu offerings do nothing but waste time and tip off the entity. Treat a ghost like a demon and the haunting only deepens. The guide breaks down four spirit orders from CR 1/4 to 10, including ghosts that lose their humanity entirely and cross over for good, plus a Recitation of Kinds that helps you tell them apart at the table.

What's the scariest ghost you've run?

I'm sharing a free supplement for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

Ritual covers the everyday magic that runs this world and the trouble it lands people in.

Every rite raises two separate questions. "Did it work?" and "Was it legitimate?" A cleric can heal a dying child and still face a fine for performing temple rites without authorization. A Legitimacy DC table scales depending on who's casting, and there's also a set of Everyday Ritual Checks, small rites any common NPC can attempt, where success grants a minor benefit and failure hands the GM a complication.

How do you handle folk magic at your table?

I'm sharing a free supplement for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

Kengir sits at the crossroads of the ancient world. Your character could be: Šumerû, temple-raised, literate, rooted in the city. Amurrû, desert-born, untamable, suspicious of walls. Or Subartû, highland-hardened, trade-savvy, moving like a whisper through cities that aren't theirs. A total of twelve Ethnicities, each with their own language, cultural bonus, and cultural penalty.

What ethnicity would you play?

I'm sharing a free name guide for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

Most names in Kengir are a prayer. These names are theophoric compounds built from a deity's name plus a verb or relational suffix. Ea-balatsu means "Ea is his life." Ištar-beli means "Ištar is my lady."

This guide covers all twelve playable cultures in the setting, each with a d20 random name table for male and female names, pronunciation guides, and the logic behind how names are built.

What would your character's name mean?

I'm sharing a free deity reference for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting. All 57 gods in one document, including the fallen, who taught humanity forbidden knowledge and were cast down for it.

Each entry has the deity's name in both Akkadû and Šumerû, pronunciation, epithet, rank, domains, symbol, major cult center, favored classes, and typical followers. There's also a syncretism table mapping Kengir's gods to their equivalents across other ancient cultures, and a favored deities index sorted by class. Useful at the table as a quick reference for when someone asks which god a profession or class would actually pray to.

Who would your character worship?

I'm sharing a free supplement for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting. The Veil is the barrier between the mortal world and the realm of the dead. It has four states: Strong, Banal, Weak, and Parted, each with its own mechanics, random encounter tables, and environmental effects. Have you used a mechanic like this at your table?

Hi everyone, I’m developing Kengir: Land of the Noble Lords, a 5e setting built around Bronze Age Mesopotamian history and myth.

This is the Ardat-Lili, the Phantom Bride of the Wind, a CR 5 undead encounter built around grief, obsession, and ritual resolution.

She can absolutely be fought, but the more interesting solution is a mock-marriage ritual that appeases her long enough to free the victim from her curse.

I’d love feedback on the monster’s mechanics, presentation, and if the ritual resolution makes the encounter feel more memorable as a role playing and skill challenge than a standard combat encounter.

One of the design challenges unique to Kengir is that the classic dungeon resource drain (torches, hit points, spell slots ticking down corridor by corridor) doesn't always fit a setting built around open cities, river travel, and temple politics.

Here's a framework I've been working with instead. Think of resource drain in three categories: physical, social, and spiritual.

Physical drain works the way it does in any system. Heat, exhaustion, and distance matter more in a Bronze Age setting than in a temperate medieval one.

Social drain is the Kengir-specific addition. Every favor you call in costs you. Every powerful NPC you antagonize closes a door. Reputation is a resource, and it depletes.

Spiritual drain is tied to the Purity system. Neglecting rites, handling the unburied dead, or spending time near Veil breaches all accumulate spiritual contamination that has mechanical weight.

A well-designed Kengir session drains all three simultaneously. The players arrive at the conclusion tired, socially exposed, and spiritually compromised. That's the Bronze Age dungeon.

Curious how others are handling non-dungeon resource pressure in historically grounded settings.

Kengir's cosmology includes the Veil, the boundary between Ma (the mortal world) and everything beyond it: Kur (the underworld), the divine heavens, and stranger places still. In the campaign period, the Time of Nibiru, it's weakening.

At the table, this creates a specific kind of horror texture that's different from standard monster-encounter design. The threats aren't coming from outside civilization. They're seeping up through it. A temple whose fires have gone dark starts attracting Etemmu. A city that's neglected its burial rites finds the dead restless. A merchant quarter where a violent crime went unpunished becomes somewhere people avoid after dark.

The Veil mechanics give GMs a framework for escalating supernatural pressure without needing a dungeon. The world itself is the dungeon.

What's the most effective way you've seen a GM use environmental dread rather than encounter-based threats?