Link to this new Class here


Opening to the Article:



Most of my conceptual brewing is like panning for gold: rolling the idea over in my head again and again to refine it before putting pen to paper (or keyboard to screen) and shaping it into something hopefully understandable to my fellow man

Other times, a concept strikes out of the blue, arriving almost fully formed and ready to be developed. This was one such occasion. As I was having breakfast and saw a meme comparing American to Japanese isekai, it hit me...

D&D, in its early conception, was heavily inspired by the pulp fiction of the 1920s to 1950s. This influence is evident in its monsters and magic. But one genre from that era, which we retroactively might now call the "American isekai," aligns particularly well with the spirit of those stories.

Isekais are a popular Japanese genre where a mundane protagonist is transported to a fantastical world, often discovering latent powers or abilities that are drawn out by this new world they now inhabit or are imbued with by this world.

In contrast, an American isekai doesn't feature some average three-piece-chicken-mcnobody salaryman, but someone already competent or exceptional: a scientist, a soldier, a scrappy mechanic, an inventor, or someone with a strong education and a well-to-do moral upstanding. These protagonists were remarkable in their own world, and their talents make them nearly unparalleled in a new, fantastical one.

Stories in this vein include H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars, and even video games like Half-Life 2. Inspired by this archetype, I present the Yankee: a class for playing this kind of character in a D&D world.

Note: This class was written with Basic Fantasy in mind, featuring 10 named levels. I chose this system because it's freely available, but converting the class to your systems of preference is quite simple.

I love it ! Next time a character dies in my campain, i'll unlock it. Thank you good sir !

Nice, now I can bring my boomstick to any campaign lol Thanks for the article!