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Published Mar 5, 2026, 2:00 PM EST
The rules for going beyond 20th level have raised $200K on Kickstarter
Image: Ariadne's Codex of StringsWhen Ariadne’s Codex of Strings founder Marcelo Fosco was running Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, his players were so dedicated to the game that they reached 20th level and wanted to keep going. He started inventing his own Epic Boons and extremely powerful monsters to challenge his players, adding foes with a challenge rating of 30 to Ariadne’s 5e-compatible books. The response was so positive that the company launched a Kickstarter campaign in February to fund Ariadne’s Book of Legends, which provides extensive rules for crafting epic adventures reminiscent of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End or The Avengers.
“Frieren is a big inspiration for us because it’s basically the story of this adventurer that got to 20th level and then just stayed there,” Fosco told Polygon in a video interview. “She’s doing things that nobody else can, and we want to try to emulate that for the whole party, to have you feel like a legendary hero. Everyone knows who you are, and what you’ve done, and you can deal with threats that are world-ending and plane-shattering.”
Ariadne’s Book of Legends adds rules for five legendary levels, giving players access to the legendary action points used by the most powerful D&D monsters. They have to be tactical when deciding whether to use them for big offensive abilities or to survive powerful enemy attacks.
Image: Ariadne's Codex of StringsBeyond adding new levels, Book of Legends deals with one of the biggest existing problems in high level D&D play: the power divide between spellcasters and the martial classes. Fosco points out that when a wizard puts a fighter in a Forcecage that can only be destroyed by casting Disintegrate, they’re stuck unless an allied spellcaster intervenes. His solution was to create Mythical Techniques that might let a barbarian leap across a battlefield or punch through a tower.
“If a spellcaster can cast Maze and make the enemy disappear, then a martial [character] should have a tool that’s almost as powerful,” Fosco said. “We created a strike that can push the soul out of a character like Doctor Strange. We saw the best spells that were being used, and created their counterparts to give martial characters the tools to compete with spellcasters.”
Spellcasters will get their own power-up with 10th level spells inspired by some of the world-shaking magic from the D&D 3rd Edition Epic Level Handbook. Fosco also drew on that book’s advice for crafting challenges for high-level characters who have easy access to resurrection magic.
Image: Ariadne's Codex of Strings“It’s really important to have secondary objectives within the battles that would define if the fight was a failure or a success,” Fosco said. “Think of The Avengers. It was more important to stop the invasion of New York City than to defeat the actual monsters that were attacking. In Avengers: Age of Ultron there’s a whole city hanging in the balance. We’re not expecting [the Avengers] to die, but they can still lose.”
The adversaries in Ariadne’s Book of Legends are designed with secondary objectives in mind. Players might face a former hero who’s been taken over by a god trapped in the scythe she’s wielding, so they have to figure out if they can save her before the evil deity is released and tears reality apart. They can engage in monastic trials that test their wisdom and honor, not just their combat prowess. The goal is to provide a wide variety of challenges for players who aren’t ready to say goodbye to the characters they love, even when they hit 5e’s level cap.
“We all want to see our characters that we spend so much time on actually become these legends that we set them up to be,” Fosco said. “Many games end way before that, but every player thinks ‘What would happen if I was 20th level? Would I be a king? Would I be a god?’ We’re just saying ‘Let’s see what you become. Let’s see how far you can get.’”
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