Arcane Invitation is a toolbox for running academic adventures using 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons as a core mechanic. You and your friends create kid characters, ready to take on the magical world through the lens of their educational experience. The DM adapts our curriculum of classes, professors, and mysteries into a campaign that brings out the best in your young heroes.
In this tome you’ll find all the classes, feats, backgrounds, spells, magical items and more that will bring your burgeoning spellcaster to life. We provide rules for wands (or orbs, rods, or staves) that choose the wizard, puzzles and tests, schoolyard fights, arcane athleticism, social status, mysteries on the school grounds, vindictive or inspirational professors, and more. The mechanics of Arcane Invitation encompass the usual physical encounters, as well as the mental and social battles that take place at places of learning.
While the usual D&D races can be used with Arcane Invitation, the corebook also provides a system for designing school Houses to fill that role for a character. Each House aspires to certain virtues (or vices), which they impress upon their members. Houses are a great way to bind characters together, make them into rivals, or just give them a social hierarchy to navigate. Entire campaigns might plumb the depths of a House’s origins and secrets, or explore the idiosyncrasies of its members.
Arcane Invitation is a D&D adaptation, not a campaign setting. It’s a toolbox and a starting place for building your own campaigns. Heavily inspired by hit books and films set in magical boarding schools, it’s designed to bridge the gap between our favorite young adult fiction settings and our favorite fantasy roleplaying system. It’s whimsical and magical, but artistically and thematically focused on real life. Artwork in Arcane Invitation is made from turning real photos into seemingly arcane situations.
- from the publisher's blurb