D&D Spells for Heroes of Might and Magic

For the past two and a half years, I've been collecting ideas for 5e magic items and spells based on games and other franchises I'm familiar with. Last week, I decided to finally compile all the spells for one of the franchises, Heroes of Might and Magic, into an actual document that could be sold on DMsGuild or something. I'd love any feedback you have on balance.

My main goal when making this document, and in adapting spells from other sources in general, is to merge the franchise with D&D as seamlessly as possible. I take great care to look at other existing spells, to follow the tips for designing spells in the DMG, and to even do things like tweak the wording slightly in order to make it sound more like a spell that would be in an official D&D source. I also try to make the spells versatile enough and vague enough that each would fit into any D&D campaign setting, not only the one the spell came from.

Lots of franchises have spells that are more or less the same as D&D, such as fireball, cone of cold, and heal, so for these I just skip entirely and focus more on ones that would be a welcome, fresh addition to the game. In other cases, in the case of clone in Heroes of Might and Magic III, I change the name so that it's clear that it does something different than the existing spell in D&D that had the same name. Lastly, if a spell's name doesn't make sense given what it does in the original game, I use the name as inspiration for a brand new spell. For instance, in Heroes 3, a spell called forgetfulness causes half of all creatures you target to "forget" to use their ranged attack on their turn. Instead, I just made it a spell similar to modify memory, though not as potent.

Below are some of my favorite spells I adapted from Heroes of Might and Magic II and III:

My Favorite Hearthstone Deck of All Time

I've recently gotten back into Hearthstone after a two-year break, which is something I didn't think would happen. I really got sick of Blizzard making up crappy lore and making Warcraft, my favorite lore franchise of all time, even more messed up that World of Warcraft made it. What with Sir Finley Mrrglson, the "League of E.V.I.L.," and all that garbage. Well, now, they've gone back to their roots of lore bits like Outland, and the Demon Hunter is a pretty cool new class.

I rejoined the game playing mostly with an old Wild deck I made over the course of a long period of months a good 3 or 4 years ago: a warlock deck simply called "Mwoo hoo haa haa." I was delighted to find that, with only a couple of small updates, it is just as amazing of a deck as it was before I took a break from playing. Below is an explanation of the deck and the strategy I employ when playing it.

Inkarnate Map: Sylvaranth

I recently signed up for a Pro Subscription on Inkarnate, an awesome fantasy mapping app that just got a big update. I think with how much worldbuilding I've been doing on D&D, it'll definitely be worth it. I decided to start things off by mapping the city my current work D&D group is in, Sylvaranth, the ancestral home of the wood elves of Hearth (or one of them; I keep forgetting how big worlds really are). Much better than hand-drawing a black-and-white outline on Roll20.

D&D Magic Items: The Holiday Stones

Below are a few magic items I created just for the fun of it. I think I got the idea from a story arc on the webcomic PVP.

Argaenothruzil Creation of the World Poem Parchment

I was going through my documents and found a lot of material I wrote about Argaenothruzil. As much as I like writing stuff for my newer, more D&D DMG-helped-along setting, Hearth, Argae will always hold a special place in my heart, and sometimes I forget just how much work I put into its worldbuilding.

This parchment, the text of which can be red here, is based on the original Anglo-Saxon manuscript found of Beowulf. The poem uses kennings and alliterative verse to tell the story, just like Beowulf does, and it does so surprisingly well. I've noticed that it takes about 5 years to appreciate something anew, and I'm really impressed with this project.

Lipsyncing Animation Practice

I've been stuck inside for the COVID-19 quarantine, so I thought I'd entertain myself by drawing the eight frames needed to lipsync any vocal sounds and rearrange them to fit songs, quotes, and just recently, a press conference at Blizzcon 2018. I've been getting a bit better every time, and it's been fun to learn some new things about phonetics and phonology in the process. It's amazing how even something like the rhythm of blinking has to be determined when animating vocals... I don't know how the big studios do it so thoroughly. Here are my projects so far:

D&D for Kids (Bonus): Warlock Class

Bonus Magical Class

Warlock

Warlocks are people who "borrow" their magical abilities from a master more powerful than they are, like a genie, a demon, a angel, or a fairy queen. These magical abilities come with a price, however: as long as the warlock wants to keep their powers, they must do whatever their master says. Keeping deals in this way can be risky, but warlocks can enjoy magical power  (see “Magic and Spellcasting” to choose) without even having to study old books to learn it. If you want to be a warlock, choose one of the Class Abilities below to start with.

• Familiar. Your master gives you a familiar, which is a small creature that calls you its master. The familiar can look like any type of small animal like a cat, toad, or bat, and you can see what it sees and cast spells through its hands instead of yours if you want. 
• Level 1 Spellcasting. You learn to cast one Arcane Level 1 spell. Level 1 spells are weak, but they only require 1 action to cast, and you can cast them as many times as you want.
• Level 2 Spellcasting. You learn to cast one Arcane Level 2 spell. Level 2 spells are better than Level 1 spells, but they require 2 actions to cast. Once you cast this spell two times, you have to rest before you can cast it again. Once you cast this spell two times, you have to rest before you can cast it again.
• Level 3 Spellcasting. You learn to cast one Arcane Level 3 spell. Level 3 spells are the most powerful spells, but they require 3 actions to cast. Once you cast this spell, you have to rest before you can cast it again.
• Pact Blade. You can use 1 action to summon a magical weapon into your hand. It can be any kind of weapon, and you can use 1 action to make the weapon disappear or change to a different kind of weapon.
• Epic Ability: Eldritch Blast. You can fire a blast of energy at a monster from far away to hurt it. This ability only costs 1 action, so you can use it up to 3 times in one turn!