What is 'Awaken' for? - D&D Favorites

[@ArkadiBolschek]

"You fucked up a perfectly good eagle, that's what you did. Look at it. It's got anxiety."

[@willisad92]

My dm had us go on an epic journey to go repair reality after it broke and in the process came across a seed near the near-dead world tree of this fractured world. (was a small branch left in a stump) Being a druid i could feel the power in it and knew that reviving the tree could be done but i stashed the seed away until we fixed reality. upon returning to chult (he was lizardman himself) he sent the party to civilization while he stayed behind a couple days to catch up with his tribe. in the days he had fertilized the land and made small landscaping improvements. He planted the world tree seed near his tribe. "The deities and Primals have their pacts...No gods in Chult. Dendar stays sealed. Ive planted a new Sapling to the world tree so that it may grow far from the hands of the gods." i then told the DM i was to awaken the world tree sapling. DM was really impressed i had that planned since i found the seed. (none of the party know yet.) from there the next day i rejoined the party at one of their homes and witnessed a wedding! Bonus: taught lizardmen to read and write common, and set up the tradition of pilgrimaging for new ideas and knowledge. What could possibly go wrong? *nervous laugh*

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Oh wow, that’s next level! I love the forward thinking to preserve the seeds, that sounds like it paid off in an awesome moment.

[@futurecaredesign]

Damn that sounds like a fun gaming group! I love your creativity in this storyline as well!

[@stormallen1490]

Awaken the moss growing on a sloth, but not the sloth itself.

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Hahaha, that’s too good not to try.

[@shiningfractal4514]

MOVE! GO! COME ON!! WE'RE FALLING BEHIND! I CAN GROW FASTER THAN THIS!

[@zhuslyth6164]

The druid in the party i dmed for used it on the party's cart horse, whom said druid already talked with a lot. It resulted in Yip the steed weirding everyone's characters out by talking about daily life as both a horse and adventurer. Have to say, for what was originaly just a silly thing it truly turned into something rather interesting.

[@WaysAwayTavern]

That's awesome! A perfect outcome in my mind, equal parts strange and wholesome 🥰

[@futurecaredesign]

I have plans to Awaken an oak sapling my character has planted in the center of town as a symbol of hope. We play on a westmarches server and our town is safe but we are surrounded by an apocalyptic magical wasteland, the aftermath of a Dragonwar. We are basically rebuilding our town and surrounding area and going on cool missions. Simcity plus DnD.

[@whatsmyname100]

i Think the best use for awaken is when you target some mould with it. seeing as mould can spread in pretty much any environment and dosent need to worry about attracting unwanted attention, you could spread it throughout a city or town and have an excellent spy and intelligence gatherer

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Dang, that’s super creative, I never thought about something like that!

[@angelofbagels]

The best kind of Christmas gift. NEW TAVERN VID

[@WaysAwayTavern]

I couldn't leave you hanging 🎅🤝

[@comfortzone2282]

This presentation is fantastic and clean, and the editing is rock solid. Feel this channel is going to snowball in popularity soon, keep it up! As for awaken, most fun use for it is as a DM just throwing in a fun NPC of a talking cat, or an intelligent bear that lives in a log house. Adds such a fun fairytail aesthetic to the games. Its also one of my go to spell scrolls for "throw it at an early level party to see what happens"

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Thanks so much, I'm excited to make more! And making it a spell scroll is big brain, I didn't even consider that! That's going in my playbook for sure. 🤝

[@AdamSmith-dp6ub]

I would love to play as an awakened spider swarm puppeteering a human skin suit with ideally crazy high charisma so I could convince anyone important or with authority that I am just a normal person even though the common person would know otherwise

[@StarshadowMelody]

And then someone _doesn't buy it,_ but believes due to observation that you're able to function well enough as one anyway. Perhaps they're unscrupulous enough to offer you a job as a spy, expecting you to kill and replace certain individuals and exploit their positions to gather intel. Or perhaps they're simply of egalitarian enough bent that any such intelligent creature- or collective in this case- are deserving of... let's just say "grace" as a shorthand for whatever fits here.

[@EliTheBeag]

Another great video as always! I can really feel you getting more comfortable with the format and it's awesome! :)

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Thanks! Awesome, that feels great to hear 🙌

[@crowsenpai5625]

Another potential use is this is an easy way for if a player wants to play an animal for their PC. Once had a character that was a Monk Monkey (obvious Sun Wokong reference, I know) His backstory was a no-good Druid Awakened him, and used him it’s an accomplice in a small crime spree, and when not stealing just general labor/butler-y. Terrible living, but not harmful enough to break the Charm. On day 29 of the 30 day charm he left me in the middle of the woods he awakened me, said “I’ll be right back, just wait here.” And never came back as I sat in a clearing for 24 hours. After the charm wore off my character was angry at being used, couldn’t re-fit in with his family due to his new intelligence and thus exiled himself, soon learned that he had a small bounty due to his charm induced crime spree, and left with the one goal to learn how to fight, find that Druid, and KICK HIS ASS! Learned the basics of hand to hand combat (1 level in monk) and found the party in a Tavern and joined with them in questing to get stronger and travel so he could look for leads into that Druid.

[@ManCbo29]

Can't wait for this channel to blow up! Great content and top notch production quality.

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Thank you, I'm super happy to hear that!

[@Kakkarot211]

looked up some options earlier and I like the idea of awakening a spider...incredibly useful ally and can potentially grow and spread that sentience if it's say a queen ice spider

[@calebkopp7636]

ah yes Awaken, how to get an entire party super existential about what the hell sentience/sapience means. Also this video is genuinely really well made. Glad I clicked.

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Haha, true, there’s that hidden mental cost of casting this one. And thanks, I’m glad you checked it out!

[@StarshadowMelody]

My first idea on how to use it was "I need to get a message to somewhere but am prevented by circumstance," which specifically a spell like Pathfinder's "Animal Messenger" does better, unless the trip will be especially long. That said, I think other such "I cannot be in two places at once" dilemmas could still warrant such use. Perhaps awakening a wolf or bear to serve as a home settlement's guardian while the party is away on adventure, in exchange for food or the like.

[@jacobreese735]

One of my favorite spells

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Awesome! I haven't talked with many people who've had first-hand experience with it, but I just know that some wild things have come from it.

[@mattd7695]

Just stumbled on this, amazing quality. Animations and narration is on point 👌

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Thanks, I really appreciate that!

[@bender7167]

That is a cool spell that could offer some really interesting RP and useful allies or even a tree that has it out for you

[@WaysAwayTavern]

I totally agree! I think the potential to create fun and/or strange RP situations is one of my favorite parts of this one.

[@LaggyOwlProductions]

Another fantastic well thought and concise explanation of a mechanic. Amazing work!

[@LaggyOwlProductions]

One of the best parts of dnd is how different every single player, dm, and game can pan out. Thousands of iterations that can happen and no one interaction will be the same. This spell really proves that point of you make a sandbox that gets to evolve in whatever way the players and dm decide.

[@WaysAwayTavern]

@@LaggyOwlProductions Thanks so much! And for sure, such a good thing to point out; it really does feel like a sandbox of endless possibilities.

[@blackgriffinxx]

awaken is the most out of the box spell . This spell is just pure chaos It is a great flavor spell This spell can get so deep But it all how the DM choose to play it. The DM can monkey paw some things or play what is that game. Ask a bird for food .You get seed and bugs or it steals from others.

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Such a great point! The level of DM control over this one is so wild and fun to me.

[@talscorner3696]

"Now I gotta file taxes, Jeff? What the fuck?! I liked it better when I just had to eat worms..."

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Haha, honestly same. I’m still not sure if this spell is ethical for reasons like this.

[@talscorner3696]

"It was all going WONDERFULLY, until you fuckwits had the AMAZING idea of making me smart enough to be crippled by depression and bureacracy..."

[@JJ24123]

Love these types of videos and your style

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Thanks so much!

[@invertedbubble]

This is so cool. I didn't know this spell existed... definitely gonna make use of it in future games

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Same here, I had never heard of it until a friend told me earlier this year. Awesome, I’m glad! I hope things go well 🤞

[@malayminecart]

I found your stuff on tiktok, I love your high quality content 👍!

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Awesome, thanks so much, I’m glad you came by and checked it out!

[@deaderror3660]

Loved learning about this! Thanks for the great video!

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Awesome, I’m really glad to hear that! Thanks for checking this one out too!

[@bumbochumbo]

Excellent video as always!

[@WaysAwayTavern]

🥰

[@dergartenzwergvonnebenan]

Amazing channel. Love the video-style

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Thanks so much!

[@hunter_does_art]

Amazing video, and great editing!

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Thanks, I really appreciate that!

[@NSG-Productions]

Amazing work again!

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Thanks so much!

[@ryancrawford4639]

Love the videos keep it up!

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Thanks! Definitely, excited to make some more!

[@CitanulsPumpkin]

I rule that any offspring of an awakened creature are also awakened. There are always at least 5 populations of sentient talking animals in all my campaign settings because a bunch of bards and druids cast Awaken over and over hundreds of years ago. If you go to the Arctic, you will eventually find ice castles, forts, and igloo cities populated by talking penguins. Full thriving societies ruled by dynastic lines going back centuries. Roughly half the bears on the planet are awakened. Many of them find work in the various adventurers guilds all over the world. You can tell them apart from non sentient bears because the awakened ones always wear hats. Typically fedoras or bowler hats, though top hats and sombreros are growing in popularity. If I can't work the monkey goblins from Ixalan into a setting I simply add thousands of awakened monkey and ape pirates to all tropical regions. It's possible that every single crow and raven is awakened, but they act like they aren't to mess with humanoids. If a noble seems harmless and friendly to the PCs his cat is for sure scheming and plotting their deaths behind the scenes.

[@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket]

Take a Willow tree and spawn MULTIPLE clones using cuttings. Use plant growth to make them grow, cause them to weave together creating a "greenwall". Cut them where they interlink and sterilize/seal the area with them being connected. Cast awaken and now you have a sentient garden wall. After several years it'll be THICK. Why make it sentient? Because you want it to become a druid as it grows old. O_O (level 3 druid npc spells)

[@WexMajor82]

Spell it with me. R A Z O R V I N E.

[@kingmasterlord]

why would you not use this on your spellbook? (because who doesn't have a backup?)

[@WaysAwayTavern]

That's a super fun idea! Something like "Animate Object" would probably be a good fit to accomplish something similar, because unfortunately, Rules as Written, Awaken wouldn't be able to affect things other than Beasts of Plants.

[@targetdreamer257]

There is a Wizard subclass that plays with that idea, Scribes Wizard. Though the spell book would not have full autonomy. More a homunculus/sim servant. It’s a really fun subclass.

[@kingmasterlord]

@@targetdreamer257 oh yeah, im playing with the design of a pact of the tome scribe wizlock. "hey i found this book that gave me magic powers, and now it's started talking? you nerds do magic book stuff, right?" - multiclassing into Order of Scribes wizard

[@kingmasterlord]

@@WaysAwayTavern i would argue that a leatherbound spellbook is both Beast _and_ Plant. and magic enough to make up the difference. add an Arcana skill check or something if you must. (edit* fn hell, read that in Sheldon's voice, does it show? lol)

[@greenquartz8554]

If a gardener made a plant in the shape of a dragon and a pc cast awakened on it would that be a plant dragon or a beast with a flying speed

[@WaysAwayTavern]

I wish I knew haha. Though the image of animated, talking topiaries shaped like things from the Monster Manual is one I really like!

[@linden6190]

These are way too high quality for 720 subscribers

[@WaysAwayTavern]

Thanks so much!