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Monsters of Murka Trilogy: Ratified & Radified

Created by Action Fiction

Enter a World where Capitalism is King. Then, punch it in the face. Monsters of Murka is a Platinum-Best-Selling trilogy of campaign settings for 5e D&D. We've added hundreds of new spells, items, and monsters, all with that over-the-top Murka flavor!

Latest Updates from Our Project:

🏋️‍♂️ Barbarian: Path of Gains 2.0 + Brotein Shake [Subclass Overhaul & item rework]
about 1 year ago – Wed, Apr 30, 2025 at 10:48:04 AM

Subclass Overhaul: Path of Gains (Barbarian)


Hello again, my fellow Murkans! Today, I bring you a double delight: A redesigned subclass, and a reworked item!

Barbarians are so much fun to design. Their class feature and its associated primary gameplay loop make for SUCH clear, clean-cut mechanical design. This Barbarian subclass was one of the very first subclasses we envisioned for the book, and it turned out pretty good, even the first time around.

Even so, when we looked at it again, we recognized room for improvement. Some of the abilities weren't as effective as we'd have liked, and we had left a lot of opportunity for comedy on the cutting room floor. Redesigning this subclass, we really focused on streamlining the design, but also giving more broad options. I'm particularly tickled by the Back Day mechanic; I have seen some CRAZY lat spreads, and I really like the idea that the target, rather than the Barbarian, can choose whether to be intimidated by the raw strength and power on display, or wooed by it.

(I know which one I'm picking)

And, of course, we couldn't give the Barbarian some new love without also reworking the Brotein Shake that they make.  This mostly came in the form of clarifying how it initiates a rage-like effect in a consumer, functioning like an extremely powerful pre-workout mixture. If you've ever taken pre-workout, you know exactly what that rush of energy can feel like, haha.

I hope you enjoy the Path of Gains. 

For many barbarians, their strength, their anger, comes from some outside force: a powerful totem, an ancestral guardian, a primal spirit. But for some, their strength comes from sheer determination, and their rage comes from their concentrated power of will... and whatever mysterious supplements they put in their brotein shake.

The Path of Gains is not for the faint of heart or weak of spirit; it’s for those who wish to lift big and get bigger. It’s for those beasts who chase the pump like their life depends on it. For those who meal prep religiously, who manage their macros—for those who don’t skip leg day. It’s about drive. It’s about power. It’s about pushing themselves to their absolute limit—and beyond.

Let us know what you think in the comments! As a reminder, this subclass is a work-in-progress, and we're looking for your feedback and playtesting. If you see any glaring issues, don't be shy about pointing them out!

Also, don't forget to let us know which subclasses, spells, items, or monsters you'd like to see us showcase! We'll be dropping sneak peaks from across all three books as the campaign continues. 

Cheers, and thanks for reading!

Jaron R. M. Johnson and the Action Fiction Faction

🤼 Monk: Way of the Wild Ensemble 2.0 [Subclass Overhaul]
about 1 year ago – Thu, Apr 24, 2025 at 08:12:46 AM

Subclass Overhaul: Way of the Wild Ensemble (Monk)


The team and I have been giving our first book a complete ground-up redesign, and the amount of content we're adding to the book is staggering. As a natural course of re-editing it, we're going back through the subclasses, and the Monk subclass, our wrestler monk, the Way of the Wild Ensemble (WWE) was one of the first subclasses we ever wanted to redesign after publication.

I don't want to harp too much on the original version—we were younger designers, and just learning terms like "MAD" and "Primary Gameplay Loop." But, it was always a pain point to look back at that monk subclass and wonder what could have been.

Well, wonder no longer.

The subclass has been completely reworked, giving it a core gameplay feature that revolves around grappling, with the ability to do a lot of very cool classic wrestling moves (including an elbow drop - who doesn't want to give a troll the People's Elbow???). This is a monk subclass that I can REALLY see myself enjoying playing, and I hope you feel the same way. 

I hope you enjoy the Way of the Wild Ensemble.

Some monks devote themselves to lives of modesty, taking vows of silence, poverty, or chastity, making themselves an example to those outside their lifestyle that, through self-discipline and rigorous routine, anything is possible. Then, there are those who follow the Way of the Wild Ensemble. It doesn’t matter what their names are; these monks know the unstoppable power of showmanship. They have turned their bodies into monumental temples of muscle, designed to inspire the masses and strike fear into the hearts of their opponents. They are the cream of the crop, destined to rise to the top.

These practitioners attune themselves to the thoughts of the people, the heroes of old, and the stories that live in the hearts thereof. Often accumulating huge swaths of fans, they take their training no less seriously than any other martial artist, because for them, it isn’t just about laying the smackdown—it’s about drive. It’s about power. It’s about achieving and inspiring something far greater than themselves. It’s about being the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be.

Let us know what you think in the comments! As a reminder, this subclass is a work-in-progress, and we're looking for your feedback and playtesting. If you see any glaring issues, don't be shy about pointing them out!

Also, don't forget to let us know which subclasses, spells, items, or monsters you'd like to see us showcase! We'll be dropping sneak peaks from across all three books as the campaign continues. 

Cheers, and thanks for reading!

Jaron R. M. Johnson and the Action Fiction Faction

🕳️ Portable Hole Foods and 🍩 Critical Rolls [New Item and Location]
over 1 year ago – Mon, Apr 21, 2025 at 08:40:08 AM

New Murka Content

I wanted to share some other new Murka content that we're adding to the book! If you're a member of our Discord, you've already seen this, but if you aren't (and why the hell aren't you?), then this will be fresh for you! 

The full new text for both the new Portable Hole Foods location, and the new Critical Roll item, are at the bottom of this document for folks who follow the Backerkit campaign. Hope you enjoy!

Portable Hole Foods



First up is something extremely near and dear to my heart: Portable Hole Foods. Some of you may know that this was one of the very first concepts we had conceived of when we began our journey writing Monsters of Murka: Restaurants & Retail back in 2020. The writing process to create that book was so much fun that Portable Hole Foods sort of got lost in the mix, fell out of the book, and was accidentally kicked under the refrigerator. Brad and I have dusted it off, and we're cramming it back into the book in the Garnished Gardens section of Flavor City.

Getting to finally include this in the book is a personal victory for me, and I hope you all hate love it.

Critical Roll

Honestly, I can't believe this joke didn't make its way into Restaurants & Retail the first time around. But also I can, because the book is massive, and there was already so much funny shit thrown around from all the writers. What can we say—it's hard to hold all these limes.

This is a new common magic item for all you gamblers out there, chock full of references to the well-known actual play from Matthew Mercer and company. Mechanically simple, but mightily chaotic, and delicious to boot.

Also, this item doesn't yet have one of our "out of 5 stars" style reviews yet, so if you have fun ideas for that, feel free to drop them in this comment section!

Scroll down just a bit more to see both Portable Hole Foods and the Critical Roll item.

⚙️ Artificer: The Illuminated 2.0 [Subclass Overhaul]
over 1 year ago – Wed, Apr 16, 2025 at 12:55:30 PM

Subclass Overhaul: Illuminated (Artificer)


I'm so excited about this one. The artificer that we made for Arcana Americana (back when it was just called "Murka," before anybody had imagined a second or third book) was one of my personal favorite concepts: An artificer who can channel the minds of America's famed inventors, adding those consciousnesses to their own. It's an awesome opportunity to do what Murka does best: be entertaining, fun, and also educational, showing off some of America's unsung heroes of the mind.

I still love that concept, but when we reviewed it for the update, we recognized a lot of opportunities for improvement: we wanted to lighten the self-inflicted damage they took, as it was too punishing, and we felt like the other subclass features weren't interesting enough for the class to fully meet our standards. We also wanted to add more Mind options and clean up existing ones, which even opened the door to channeling more than one mind at a time (inspiration we took from our Bennen Jerryzet Monk subclass in Restaurants & Retail), allowing a player to channel the minds of some inventor duos, like Wilbur and Orville Wright! In the final book, you'll also get a glimpse at William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain getting Murkanized as the first Illuminated artificers who developed the Conduit technology they use!

Without further adieu, I hope you enjoy the Illuminated Artificer.

It's long been said that great minds think alike, but few tinkering minds have the first-hand experience to prove it. There are some creators whose machinations go beyond "inspired," and reach levels of "impossibly familiar." Inventors who, at times, seem to become another person during their creative process, almost as if channeling the thoughts of someone else.

These are The Illuminated–superior scientists who have found a way to transfer the thoughts and feelings of inventors past into their own brain, merging the two minds into one powerful force of intellectual prowess. These inventors use a device called a conduit to channel these thoughts, granting them immense knowledge and capabilities. The process itself is often painful, incredibly dangerous, and sometimes even deadly. But, as they say… Two minds are better than one.

Let us know what you think in the comments! Also, don't forget to let us know which subclasses, spells, items, or monsters you'd like to see us showcase! We'll be dropping sneak peaks from across all three books as the campaign continues. 

Cheers, and thanks for reading!

Jaron R. M. Johnson and the Action Fiction Faction

Your Free Sample PDF
over 1 year ago – Mon, Apr 14, 2025 at 01:56:04 PM

Thank you for following Monsters of Murka! 

I’m sure you know by now, but Murka is a high-fantasy playable parody of the all-too-real, capitalist hellscape known as the United States of America.

What makes Murka different, you (didn’t) ask? I’ll tell you. Furry druids, dragons with guns for faces, food magic, Walmoria, gunchucks, explosives, items that aren’t just cursed, but cursed... You get the picture.

This world is a labor of love that my friends and I have been working on for 10 years oh my god, has it really only been five years? Are we in the finale episode of some television show jumping its 13th shark? What the hell is going on?

I hope you have fun with this little nearly 60-page sampler PDF. We picked stuff that we thought was bite-sized and funny, but there’s around 800 more pages of content where this came from. 

We'd love to meet you, answer your questions about Murka, and welcome you to our community. Just click here to join us on Discord! 

Cheers, thanks for reading this far. See you all real soon. 
Jaron R. M. Johnson, and the Action Fiction Faction 

Your Free Sample PDF is Below!