I have been creating D&D content for over about 5 years now, so it seems about time I got myself a website created. I am a programmer, so I don’t really have much of an excuse either! So anyways, my name is Steven Williams AKA Nerzugal and I am the one responsible for putting out all of the content you see under the Nerzugal name.
It has been so challenging and enjoyable to create content over these years. I have written over 1,000 pages of content when you factor in the formatting that is used, so it has been quite the adventure but I love every moment of it. I am a team of 1, so I handle the writing of content, formatting, editing, publication, etc… There is one particular area where I have to hire others for help – art! I am no artist, so I must use the talent of professionals to provide the graphics for my book.
Art has actually been one of the biggest points of contention with my products. I use sketch style art for my books. The primary reason is the cost to fairly pay an artist for full-color work. My books are self-funded so it is quite difficult for me to put $5,000 of my own money to get 20 pieces of art when I am unsure on whether or not I will be able to recuperate those costs. Being a solo content creator isn’t always glamorous though and sometimes you have to do what makes sense!
This site will primarily be to inform those searching for D&D products about my books, but I do plan on doing occasional posts where I share my plans for future content. Perhaps as things develop I can find something to publish more regularly to the site, but with the rules of the DM’s Guild and their exclusive publishing rights, I won’t be able to publish anything to here that will later be used in a book.
I am currently in the works on two projects – Nerzugal’s Trial of Champions and Nerzugal’s Dungeon Master Toolkit 4.
Nerzugal’s Trial of Champions is a concept I was tossing around a while back. It takes a heavy dive into the tactical combat side of D&D and mixes it with a nice hit of randomness to give it replayability. Players are tossed into an arena where they must fight their way through nine rounds of combat that grows increasingly more difficult. Face off against a random set of foes, with a set of random modifiers to make them stronger, and random modifiers that impact the battlefield. Oh the battlefield, also randomly selected for a large list of potential locations. After battle, players choose between two randomly rolled chests and receive the contents – a set of randomly rolled magic items.
Every three rounds, the party levels up, allowing them to go from level 1-3 or up to levels 8-10 for the trials. Every time they level up, they also get to choose a Boon that is randomly rolled from a table of 20 options. Overall, it is meant to be a way for a table that is full of power gamers that may want to try some fun builds to really go all out and have some fun with some crazy encounters along the way!
Almost all of the content is done for this product, but it still needs a lot of editing and some touch-ups of the rules. My biggest challenge has been how to do the maps for this one. I have them all drawn out by hand and have been attempting them to port them into a digital platform, but it is a rough skill to figure out. I may just refine and touch up the hand drawn maps – not really sure! Hoping to have this one out around the end of the year.
Nerzugal’s Dungeon Master Toolkit 4 is still in its infancy. I have a list of ideas written down for adventures, many of which I am very excited about! I think I have a few winners amongst them and am currently writing one called the Stacked Deck that brings back the Efreeti that showed up for the Ij’Namuj adventure in my Game Master Toolkit. I also have some inclusion goals I want to try to hit for this one, bringing in a huge diversity of NPCs to interact with the party.
Some other items for the book I have so far is a Rule of Law dungeon inspired by Baba is You, a beach resort adventure where everything goes wrong, an adventure similar to my Showdown in Skalintown where the party will need to defend the city (but with a big twist!), a murder mystery adventure, a Little Mermaid inspired adventure, and more!
I think it will be 3-5 Adventures, 3-5 Dungeons, 10 Puzzles, and . . . well I am not sure on the rest. Maybe Magic Items again, maybe another Bestiary. We will just have to see where inspiration takes me!
I thought I would talk about the campaigns that I am currently running / playing in! The world is a crazy place right now and my normal D&D group has moved to online, playing via Roll20. We play every week on Wednesday evenings for ~ 3 hours. The current campaign is the first I have actually run that is in a setting that wasn’t one I created – Ravnica!
I’ve been a Magic: the Gathering fan for even longer than I’ve been a fan of Dungeons & Dragons. It is still a hobby that I enjoy regularly and my wife and I have a blast playing commander. Even as I write this, my other monitor has an LSV Vintage Cube draft video up on the screen. So with that framing, when Ravnica released I was so excited to run a game in that world!
The game has 6 players and span the guilds of Ravnica, which has led to some interesting challenges and conflicts along the way. In the party we have an Azorius Paladin, two Boros Fighters, a Selesnya Druid, an Orzhovian Cleric, and a Simic Rogue. For those familiar with the story of Ravnica, I plan on capping the campaign with the party fighting against the invasion of Nicol Bolas, the Dragon God.
Nicol Bolas was established as a force in the universe a few months ago and now the party’s goals revolve largely around finding ways to prepare Ravnica against his looming invasion. This has come in the form of helping to overthrow the Obzedat and playing Teysa Karlov in power, retrieving the wings of a fallen Boros angel that had turned to glass to rebuild the solar canon of the Parhelion II, and working to convince the guild leaders to work together against this force.
The party has made many NPC friends along the way, but the favorites have been a lovable Rakdos goblin named Raz that has been with the party since the first session, a psychic octopus that was the result of a Simic experiment gone too far (taken from the Rollplay Swan Song series), and Rat – the guildless girl that the party forgets about every time she leaves their sight!
We’ve been playing this campaign for about 18 months now and the party is level 14. I plan on taking them at least up into the 17+ range before Bolas’s arrival. Quests for the future include helping to gather the components needed to build the Interplanar Beacon and summon help from Planeswalkers all across the multiverse, trying to find a way to deal with Dovin Baan and his new Azorius crackdowns, and some others that I don’t want to spoil in case a party member stumbles into this post.
I also play in a game run by Wally DM (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYBD31KkjZhT8wcpVXcZh7w) on Tuesdays online! We started out playing a Waterdeep Dragon Heist campaign nearly two years ago now and have had all sorts of crazy antics along the way. Wally is a master of puzzles and we are often his guinea pigs, which I don’t mind at all! We have just hit level 8 (yes, for the adventure that is supposed to go to level 7) and we don’t have any intentions of stopping!
In this game, I play an elven divination wizard by the name of Mirolyth Azurecrest. He is young, naive, and ambitious. One of the most famous moments in our campaigns is Mirolyth agreeing to go with some shady characters into an alleyway only under the condition that they promise not to stab him. Well, they broke the promise and Mirolyth got stabbed. He is a member of the Gray Hands and is proud to serve the city of water deep, doing whatever he can to keep the people of the city he loves safe from whatever harm may come their way.