Kobold Press Spotlights Two Homebrew Designs in State of Play

A showcase, not a new rulebook

In the post, Kobold Press founder Wolfgang Baur says the showcase follows an earlier invitation for people to share published or unpublished homebrew for promotion. The publisher calls these the top four submissions and says they are lightly edited, with notes on what makes each appealing.

This first installment covers two entries, presented in no particular order. Kobold Press says the remaining two designs will release next week. That makes this a community spotlight rather than an announcement of a new standalone game or supplement.

A dragon that belongs on a bookshelf

Cas Chalk’s Dust-Jacket Dragonette is a tiny, bookish creature created, in its fiction, as a library caretaker. It can fold its body and wings to resemble an ordinary book, read all writing, and use a dust cloud to hinder nearby creatures. Its Textbook Reversal reaction can reflect a spell attack that misses after the dragonette boosts its Armor Class.

The post gives the creature a CR 1 stat block and includes a separate Dust-Jacket Dragonette Familiars section. A willing dragonette can bond with a companion. Only while the dragonette is within 10 feet does the companion share its ability to read all writing; the dragonette can end its service as a familiar at any time. That limit gives GMs a clear boundary to consider when deciding how much agency to preserve.

A sandbox in the Blood Kingdom

DJ Shepard’s submission grew out of a campaign in Midgard, according to the post. It describes a hexcrawl and sandbox at the nexus of the Blood Kingdom and the Dwarven Cantons, with resistance to a minor vampire noble, Lady Illmalad, at its center. Shepard says the group played in the sandbox for months before players’ life circumstances intervened.

That is a campaign premise, not a complete adventure outline in the material presented here. GMs can take the opposition and location as a starting point, but should not assume the post supplies a ready-to-run map, encounter sequence, or full regional guide.

What GMs should know next

The post references a Tales of the Valiant Research downtime activity in the dragonette’s setup, while its stat block uses familiar D&D-style terms such as CR, Armor Class, and hit points. That is not, by itself, a compatibility guarantee for every existing book or ruleset. GMs should check the rules they are running and adjust as needed.

Kobold Press also uses the post to point readers toward its Underworld Open Call. It says eligible backers at $35 or more can pitch an adventure for possible publication, with selected creators contracted, paid, and credited, and publication scheduled for 2027. The post gives October 30 as the submission deadline. Because that date is close and the source does not establish the call’s live status beyond its publication date, check the publisher’s current page before acting.

Editorial advice: the dragonette is easiest to use as a memorable library encounter or an NPC familiar with clear limits. The sandbox is better treated as a campaign seed unless you have the additional material needed to run it.