'The Definitive Adventurer's Guide to the Omegaverse' is a short, free D&D supplement that takes the tropes of the Omegaverse erotic fiction subgenre and turns them into new player powers and subsystems to add melodramatic sexual tension to any campaign. That may sound a bit raunchy, but, look - if you know anything about the Omegaverse, you'll be surprised by how tasteful, sane, and downright usable this supplement is.
If you're an innocent D&D fan who doesn't already know what the Omegaverse is, I'm afraid I have to explain it, and that's either going to awaken something in you or make you lose your faith in humanity. There's very little middle ground.
Omegaverse is a set of genre conventions in erotic fiction themed around bad wolf science. The human(oid) characters in these stories can be Betas - normal folks; Alphas - dominant pack leader-types; or Omegas - naturally submissive. From time to time Omegas go into uncontrollable heat which - this being erotic fiction - the Alphas deal with. This can involve 'knotting', because Greek letters weren't the only thing that the early Omegaverse authors got from wolves. Also, men can get pregnant.
With that context, you should understand my expectations for this little supplement were lurid. Imagine my surprise to discover that it's far more focused on the procedural narrative aspects of the Omegaverse as a set of genre conventions than the feral specifics. The author, pro DM and YouTuber Brikoblin, notes in the introduction that players should "use what you like, ignore what you don't, and remember: communication is key".
You can download The Definitive Adventurer's Guide to the Omegaverse for free from Brikoblin's public Google Drive.
The lynchpin of the supplement is, of course, the ability to make your character an Alpha, Omega, or Beta. This is a separate category that exists alongside their D&D class or species, and provides a small, flavorful buff: rough and tough Alphas get advantage on a Strength check once per long rest, while Omegas get a similar advantage to Charisma checks.
A big part of Omegaverse stories is characters completely losing their minds to overwhelming love or lust, which is represented here by the Heat / Rut tables. Alpha and Omega characters make a random test after each long rest to see if they're affected, and roll a D12 to see what madness overcomes them. An Alpha might become Possessive, granting them a new reaction that allows them to lunge towards an ally that takes damage; an Omega might go into a Nesting Frenzy and lose an entire sleep cycle making a cubby to brood in, downgrading their recovery from a Long to Short rest. There are some slightly more primal options too, but nothing explicit.
And it wouldn't be romantasy without rules for 'bonding'. Alphas and Omegas can bond with one another after spending a long rest together (presumably reading poetry and braiding one another's hair). Bonded characters ignore the random effects of Heat and Rut, and gain bonuses to protect and even avenge one another in combat. Lovers who fight together is such an iconic genre trope that even the ancient Greeks had it (look up The Sacred Band of Thebes).
I don't think my regular players would be interested in a game based around erotic melodrama, so I'm unlikely to test this. But if you want to try a DnD 5e campaign with interparty sexual tension as a big theme, this is genuinely worth a look. Or if you're up for exploring RPGs beyond DnD, you could try Thirsty Sword Lesbians from Evil Hat, or Ben Lehman's Hot Guys Making Out.
Have you ever, successfully, made sex and romance a theme in a DnD campaign? I'd be interested to hear how you managed it - share your tales in the Wargamer Discord community!