Somnus Domina: Lyre’s Guide to Retia (5E Handbook)

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Setting by Logan Laidlaw

Lyre’s Guide to Retia is a setting guide that introduces a new way to engage with 5th Edition D&D: 5.19th Edition! Refined through years of play, this rule subset is completely reverse-compatible with regular 5th-edition Dungeons and Dragons, allowing a table to pick and choose which elements they want to incorporate.

Below is a quick run-through of what can be found within this 616-page guide:

• 5 New Classes
• 100+ Subclasses
• New optional base class features
• 34 New Races
• Over 190 Subraces
• New systems to mix races
• New Equipment & Firearms
• Over 200 spells
• Spell Groups
• Feats
• Backgrounds
• Reincarnations Tables

The book offers several of our previously released classes (the Sword Saint, Inscriptor, and Petal Knight) as well as introduces the 19th Edition revised Ranged and the newly created Favored Soul. These classes feature a wealth of subclasses and new options to bring new dynamics to the game, and several expand on the hither-to limited pact casting options presented in 5th-Edition Dungeons and Dragons.

Over 100 subclasses are featured in the book for the new classes and those you would be familiar with from base 5th Edition. Alongside these new subclasses, optional features are offered for existing classes to update their use and give them new options in combat, including extensive changes to the Fighter that allow it to essentially function as a new class, standing on its own two feet against the likes of newer classes that might challenge its purpose.

This book contains 34 new and revised races and over 190 subraces between them. It reconstructs most of the legacy races for D&D to work with one of the main features of 19th Edition: the Legacy Trait system! Using interchangeable Legacy Traits, players can leave half-races behind and cross racial features as they desire, building their character to represent any sort of lineage they desire.

The guide includes new feats, backgrounds, and equipment alongside new equipment properties. Among them are an extensive firearm system that describes how to gain proficiency with firearms, fuse them with other weapons to make “trigger” weapons, and balances them for use in campaigns that would feature them. Additionally, Fighting Styles have been revised to create advanceable styles that can be improved as characters grow. New classes and optional class features allow Fighting Styles to be advanced automatically depending on one’s class or advanced when a character takes a feat.

The guide’s main purpose is to introduce Retia, one of the primary continents in the setting of Somnus Domina. The book features a timeline of the world and its creation, a description of its factions and gods (including how divinity works within the setting), hazards, how magic functions, cities, people, conflicts, and more! The book features information on all of the countries that make up Retia, their systems of government, conflicts, factions, both good and evil, their gods, and their tribulations.

This setting revisits and expands upon planes, featuring versions of familiar settings and many new ones, such as the Arthenaerie, the plane of dragons, and many more.

Somnus Domina: Lyre’s Guide to Retia (5E Handbook) is available through DriveThruRPG in PDF.

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