A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement College of the Crow’s Nest

College of the Crow’s Nest by R. Morgan Slade is a role playing game supplement published by Wizards of the Coast through the DMs Guild Community Content Programme for use with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.

The supplement is available as a 14 page PDF from DMs Guild for $1.95 but was purchased at a reduced price thanks to a special offer. The PDF comes in two versions, one of which is printer friendly that lacks page backgrounds and has greyscale images. One page is the front cover and one the Contents and Credits.

College of the Crow’s Nest is a new bardic college and the opening paragraphs explains that this college seeks treasures, and often to return to their rightful owners. Such returned treasures result in ethereal keepsakes stored in their familiar’s pocket dimension.

It then describes the bonus proficiencies at 3rd level – History, Vehicles (Water) and Navigator’s tools – as well as gaining a bonus spell, find familiar; the familiar can use the forms described later and Bardic Inspiration can be used to change their form. The player, with the DM’s agreement, can also choose an item to be a sought treasure, which the character will then seek; the terms of what this can be are covered and more scarcer items can be chosen at later levels. Should this treasure have rightful heirs, it may then be returned for an ethereal keepsake, with benefits that are described.

The bard at different levels gains an aura based on the familiar’s type can be created to benefit bard, familiar and friendlies within range, the ability to use ethereal keepsakes more, take damage instead of the familiar taking it and immediately retrieve a keepsake.

Following this are 15 different familiars with stats, each of which has different benefits. Next are some adventure hooks for sought treasures, with options for expanding the effects of ethereal keepsakes. There are also nine treasures to seek, a new feat and three spells.

College of the Crow’s Nest in Review

The PDF is well bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. The Contents is to a similar level of depth and is hyperlinked. Navigation is very good. The text maintains a two column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a number of colour stock illustrations. Presentation is good.

This is a nice expansion to the bard, with quite a lot of material, all relevant to it. Some is optional and others provide examples of appropriate kinds of things but all in this is a good little supplement. Perhaps the only downside, given that it’s community content, is that it isn’t linked to one of the official settings. But that’s a comparatively minor niggle for the college. College of the Crow’s Nest is a good little supplement and it can be found by clicking here.