Welcome to the Skies of Mor-ladron! You’ve come to a place filled with soaring airships, floating islands, and adventure of every kind. On this blog, you’ll find details about my Skies of Mor-ladron homebrew: world-building lore, fiction, and discussions of how I’m converting my world from D&D to the MCDM RPG.

Who am I, and what are we doing here?

My name is Seth Lang (IronMonocle on the few social media platforms I frequent), and Skies of Mor-ladron is the homebrew setting I created for my D&D games. I’m a worldbuilding GM, always creating new worlds and tinkering with used ones (much to my players' consternation). I have been DMing for over a decade, starting with 3.5 and switching to 5e in 2014. It took a while for me to settle on a world to call my own, but in 2019, I started to create the Skies of Mor-ladron. I have also GM’d many different RPGs throughout the years, but my main focus has always been D&D. That is, until the past year or so. 

I started having reservations about D&D during my latest round of Skies revisions—not as a game; it's still enjoyable—but about the effects the mechanics had on my world. I wanted to do things that D&D wouldn’t let me do (or at least not let me do easily). I love homebrewing, but after enough tweaks, you are playing a different game. The very bones of D&D seemed to be holding me back, and I began searching for a system that might better serve my world.

In early 2023, I caught wind of the MCDM RPG and found what MCDM was trying to achieve intriguing. I immediately signed up for the Patreon to see how the sausage was being made and wondered if it would fit the Skies of Mor-ladron. The more I learned, the more excited I got. 

If you are not sure what the MCDM RPG is, you can take a gander at their BackerKit campaign. If you want updates straight from the devs’ mouths, you can sign up for their Patreon, or watch Lead Developer James’s streams on Twitch (generally on Wednesdays). If you just want recaps or roundups, then Goblin Points and The Dice Society have you covered. 

Why switch systems?

The heroes you’ll meet in the Skies of Mor-ladron are mostly pirates and explorers. They’re powerful; their decisions affect the world in real ways. On the surface, D&D supports this type of storytelling well. The trouble is that with the attrition model (during which you run out of health and class resources as you progress through the day), it didn’t always feel that way. Easy battles turned into slogs because players had already used their best spells or were holding them back for a later encounter. 

I want my players to wade through hordes of creatures confidently but tremble at the sight of a boss. This feeling was impossible to create in D&D unless I threw out lots of low challenge rating (CR) creatures that took up time and got annoying. I had to start my players at level 5 so they could kill more than one creature at a time (especially non-casters). MCDM has now come out with minion rules for 5e, which I love and have used in my games, but D&D’s attrition model and encounter design weren’t the only issues. 

The obstacle that really got me looking elsewhere was when I attempted to create my own class—the storm scarred. In Skies, a world of airships and floating islands, people sometimes get caught up in magical storms that have bled over from the elemental realms (more on that in a later post). Those who survive such an encounter are storm scarred, and they are imbued with the powers of the storm. 

Unfortunately, D&D class design and my vision for the storm scarred did not mesh well. In theory, one could use the sorcerer’s storm sorcery subclass. But, in the lore, they can only use the powers of the storm, and their power grows when they’re in a storm. I could let a player choose the subclass and restrict a bunch of spells, but that creates a lot of housekeeping. Plus, the player might feel like they are missing out on important aspects of their class. 

As I tried to develop the storm scarred, I encountered even more obstacles. The storm scarred don’t cast spells so much as manipulate power—but mechanically, there is no good way to allow that in D&D. All casters cast spells, and those are all cast in the same general way. 

Rather than spells, I wanted the storm scarred to use abilities like a barbarian or rogue. They can simply do certain things with their power: the storm is part of them, not some spell they cast. Alas, nothing officially fit the bill, and I’m not a designer by trade. Not having something to base the class on pretty much put an end to the storm scarred attempts.

However, based on everything I’ve seen, the MCDM RPG has answers for many of the problems I’ve run into (plus some I haven’t even discussed yet—stay tuned). I decided it was time to make a big change rather than making small tweaks to force Skies to fit a system that wasn’t working. 

Playing with the MCDM RPG

In December, MCDM released a playtest of an early version of the game to Patreon supporters. I ran a game for my friends, and they all loved it. The mechanics evoked the sense of power, excitement, and choice I envision for my world. The system is not a perfect fit (which, how could it be? They aren’t making the game for my world)—and that’s a good thing. If it were, I wouldn't have an excuse to homebrew anything! 

This blog will record my homebrew efforts as I fully revise the Skies of Mor-ladron and convert the setting to the MCDM RPG. I will dive into the lore and history of my world as they stand now and explain the races and classes that inhabit it in this current version. 

Speaking of races and classes, I will use these terms until we start working in the MCDM RPG directly, at which point you will probably see me switch to the terms they use. Then, we will get into the changes in the lore, setting, and homebrew that I want to create. In addition, occasional short works of fiction will help bring this world and its inhabitants alive.  

An essential ethos of the project is this: Nothing is sacred. Lore, races, rules, anything—all are subject to change as I work to make a revised world for my players. I invite you to join me on this adventure as we soar above the clouds and explore the Skies of Mor-ladron.