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Sometimes, even battle-hardened adventurers need to take a long rest. The holidays are the perfect time to encourage your players to stow away their weapons and armor in favor of gift-giving and whimsy. But a wintry holiday in the Forgotten Realms—or really anywhere in the multiverse—can get weird when you’re drawing from real-life myth and letting your players’ imaginations run wild.
To celebrate the oddities and downright cool things that can come with homebrewing for holiday adventures, we’re spotlighting community creations. To kick things off, I’d like to share one creation I credit to the players of my home game: PeePaw Winterman.
The Legend of PeePaw Winterman
Santa doesn’t exist, at least not in my version of the Forgotten Realms. But PeePaw Winterman does.
When I ran Waterdeep: Dragon Heist for my table, their adventure ran into the winter. When the question of Christmas came up, the table joked about what Santa would look like in Faerun. Surely he wouldn’t don his classic red-and-white jacket or visit homes aboard a sleigh pulled by reindeer. In a realm of giant rats and grimlocks—not to mention powerful evil-doers who’d vie for his power—Santa would need to be a demigod and have the appearance of someone belonging in Faerun. Santa, with all his jolliness and brightly colored clothes, would not do.
And so, PeePaw Winterman was born.
He’s Like Santa, But Worse
PeePaw Winterman is a gruff-looking man dressed as a cat. Or he’s a cat that’s dressed like a man. Reports are inconsistent. But his sleigh is drawn by cats that prance across Faerun with a cold and calculating focus. Like Santa, Peepaw Winterman sneaks into homes to deliver gifts. But it isn’t toys or coal he offers.
What adventurers often forget is that the common working folk of Faerun are lucky to scrounge together a few copper a day. For them, every copper goes toward survival. (Like food, which we all totally track in our D&D games, right?) A Santa-like figure dumping toys in their laps is about as helpful as a bow with no bow string. That’s why folks who act with honor and kindness throughout the year are rewarded with animal pelts come winter. These aren’t typical animal pelts, either. They are luxurious pelts believed to be from the Beastlands, one of my favorite planes.
And for those unkind, selfish folk? They awaken with shaved heads! I haven’t quite figured out how we landed on that. Perhaps a shaved head is a way of publicly shaming them, especially around the Midwinter holiday, when alliances and deals are made and commemorated. At any rate, it brought me joy to describe a couple characters waking up one morning to find their heads shaved. My players were not as amused. But that’s the ruthlessness of Peepaw Winterman. He giveth the pelt and he taketh the hair.
Santa Claus
OK, but what if you do want Santa Claus to make an appearance in your D&D game? Even better, what if you want to fight him? You can search through different versions of Santa Claus that D&D Beyond users have homebrewed.
This Santa Claus by BadHairGaming portrays the character as a wizard. Spells like scrying and arcane eye ensure Santa will always know what you’re doing, and modify memory and time stop make it difficult to know whether he’s visited your home.
And if you’ve been naughty, you may become acquainted with Santa’s greataxe, not to mention an arsenal of reindeer from his fleet.
Krampus
Where PeePaw Winterman may shave your head for being naughty, and Santa will leave you coal, Krampus will bag your soul. The mythological creature has fiendish and fey elements, with D&D Beyond user Scarletstream leaning more into the former with their version of Krampus.
Armed with spiked chains, this Krampus will grapple evildoers before stuffing them into his Bag of the Damned. Remain in the bag for too long and you’ll die. Krampus also sports an aura of cold that extinguishes flames and damages nearby creatures. With an exceptional resistance to magic and sporting legendary resistances and actions, your party may be hard pressed to defeat this fiend on a wintry night.
The Lord’s Cup and the Lord’s Cap
Around the time PeePaw Winterman was journeying across Faerun to impart pelts and shave heads, the Midwinter festival was kicking off in Waterdeep. To celebrate, I adopted some homebrew concepts for my game:
- Lord’s Cup: Each year, the city’s magical academy hides an enchanted cup among those offered by vendors. A drink served in this cup refills after being drunk. You won’t know that you’ve found the Lord’s Cup until you’ve emptied your drink.
- Lord’s Cap: During a time when alliances and deals are made and renewed, Leira the Lady of Deception sows chaos. During the festival, one random hat is enchanted as a hat of disguise.
These items encouraged two things. One, to drink massive amounts of ale in search of the Lord’s Cup. And two, to try on every hat found during the festival. Each time a character finished a drink or put on a new hat, we made a d100 roll to determine whether they’d found one of the mythical items. Eventually, they found the Lord’s Cap in a sewer. This was around the time one of the characters was bit by a wererat and contracted the curse of lycanthropy. It was a wild couple sessions, ya’ll.
Magic Items to Survive Winter
When temperatures drop and yetis come out to prey, you best be armed! These homebrew magic items help bring the spirit of winter to your table, with DM’s permission:
- Cloak of the winter wolf: Made by Gygaxes_and_Allies, the cloak of the winter wolf is an uncommon magic item that allows you to withstand freezing temperatures. Just beware donning this in warmer climates, lest you risk exhaustion.
- Endless flask of hot cocoa: Who needs ale to keep you warm when you can have an endless flask of hot cocoa? Made by Dokusa.
- Santa’s bag of presents: So, you’ve captured Santa. What’s there left to do? See what presents he has in store, of course! Grab a present and see what appears with this artifact made by jamaso21!
Killer Snowmen and Other Chilling Spells
Nothing says happy holidays like getting turned into an ice sculpture. You can find tons of winter-themed spells made by the community in the homebrew spells section of the site. Here are a few of my favorites. Just make sure you have DM approval before adding any to your character sheet!
- Conjure snowman: Build a snowman and bring them to life to destroy your enemies with Embertosser’s 4th-level spell conjure snowman.
- Pillars of winter: Conjure enormous pillars of ice and send them crashing down upon your enemies to restrain and harm them. Upcast this spell from Hesbravelwt for even more pillars!
- Snowball: Turn enemies into ice sculptures with this 3rd-level spell from IamSposta. The spell is part Fireball, part flesh to stone.
- Snowshoes: The dangers of Icewind Dale be damned, this 1st-level spell from PenguinInaJar allows you to traverse ice and snow with ease, and makes you impossibly hard to track.
What Antics Are You Causing This Holiday?
Whether you’re in between quests or just want to run a holiday one-shot adventure, dropping the players into a winter festival or introducing new myths can be an exciting change of pace. Allow your players to add to the lore of your established holidays, or dream up entirely new ones! You can use these details time and again for celebrations that occur in your campaigns. Remember, D&D doesn’t have to be serious all the time. You can get weird, and even absurd!
Michael Galvis (@michaelgalvis) is a tabletop content producer for D&D Beyond. He is a longtime Dungeon Master who enjoys horror films and all things fantasy and sci-fi. When he isn’t in the DM’s seat or rolling dice as his anxious halfling sorcerer, he’s playing League of Legends and Magic: The Gathering with his husband. They live together in Los Angeles with their adorable dog, Quentin.
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