an-actual-dungeon

[an-actual-dungeon]

Dice Set #55: Neon Sunrise Layers

[an-actual-dungeon]

A force so powerful it will fracture light itself

[an-actual-dungeon]

We should let praying mantises and other bugs play on ipad

[an-actual-dungeon]

💎 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺! H'rethi Cloak of Shielding Wondrous item, very rare (requires attunement) ___

This asymmetrical cloak is typically worn by desert nomads in place of more durable armor. Its woven fibers have been enchanted to be like the shifting sand of the desert, shrugging off extraordinary heat and devastating blows. While wearing the cloak, you have resistance to fire damage, and any critical hit against you becomes a normal hit. The cloak also has 4 charges and regains 1d4 expended charges daily at dawn. When a creature within 5 feet of you hits you with an attack (but before it deals damage), you can use your reaction to expend 1 of the cloak’s charges to force that creature to reroll the attack. It must use the new roll. ___

✨ Patrons get huge perks! Access this and hundreds of other item cards, art files, and compendium entries when you support The Griffon’s Saddlebag on Patreon for less than $10 a month!

[an-actual-dungeon]

Gnolls, a Reinvented Player Race by DM Tuz

The Gnolls have arrived! This is a new take on an existing race that gets alot of love from the community, but not alot of love from WotC. Get your hands on additional racial options, such as an additional race, an additional subrace, as well as several feats and more by becoming a patron or buy it directly from my Kofi-Shop!

[an-actual-dungeon]

Our take on halflings! A bit of lore for them in our homebrew setting.

[an-actual-dungeon]

core classes as undead :)

[an-actual-dungeon]

Arizona green tea 😉

[an-actual-dungeon]

Just a lil recap of my favorite creations during the inktober challenge… WHICH I FINISHED FOR THE FIRST TIME. I’ll go back to drawing monsters and characters too, but I am having a lot of fun making this magic items for DnD 5e. If you like them, it would help me greatly making it a viable project if I gain more followers on the dedicated instagram. Anyway, tumblr is still my fav hell circle of the internet, I wanted to thank all of you, I love you all, my little cursed followers, and thank you all for the love, likes and reblogs <3 https://www.instagram.com/luca_emporium

[an-actual-dungeon]

I’ve heard from DMs that their players are using my maps for gruesome fights where they battle hideous goblins and villainous wizards, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to set you up for success with a map you can use appropriately. This map will certainly prove useful as your rogue stealthily approaches the Baron of Mortham and convinces him through deliberate flattery to join forces with your patron, the Viscount of the Rusted Keep. Just imagine the subtle wordplay as your warlock bandies words with upstart nobles, using this map to its fullest potential as he dances across the hall with the powerful Duchess, owner of a silver mine critical to your Lady’s carefully-laid plans. Yes, the subtle intrigue will be simply magnificent, I can imagine it now. I hope you tell your players that violence will no longer be necessary in your campaigns from now on- there are more elegant ways to deal with your barbarian king, Skolrosgrel the Ruthless, the Lord of Treachery and True Progenitor of All Deceptions. 

Download the full resolution image of this map at my Patreon, as well as alternate gridless, night, and outlines-only versions!

[an-actual-dungeon]

quality dice shops masterpost

based in the us: 

die hard dice - free shipping on orders over $20, v nice exclusives, and basically always includes freebies

bryce’s dice - free shipping on orders over $10, p good stock of newer dice, cheapest prices

cozygamer - good selection, a little pricier but gets new sets quickly and has some v cool exclusives

dice envy - also a little pricier but has v neat exclusives and the option to buy singles (also has a subscription box)

ogopogo gaming - smaller selection but has some p cool exclusives

dark elf dice - slower to get new dice but has a p wide selection, decent prices

metallic dice games - same as above but has also done some cool kickstarters

based outside the us 

most of these i haven’t ordered from personally bc i’m us based but i have heard good things!

lindorm dice - sweden based, $4 shipping worldwide, decent selection

phoenix dice - taiwan based, focused on sustainability, smaller selection but has a good amount of newer dice and includes freebies with larger purchases

dice shop online- uk based, super wide selection, has the option to buy singles and has some out of print dice in their offers section

beholders gaze - uk based, gets new dice super soon upon release, v good selection

random encounter dice - australia based, seems to have a decent selection 

roll with advantage - same as above but site is currently closed but will reopen on 7/6/20

q workshop - poland based, has v unique dice

little dragon corp - canada based, has some v cool exclusives and a good selection

libris arcana - canada based, decent selection, has some nice exclusives and a subscription box

feel free to add shops if u have any recommendations!

[an-actual-dungeon]

Working on making metallic dragons get even weirder than chromatics, somehow...

Gold dragons use their many sensitive facial tentacles to sift for fine pearls and gems, known to be natural repositories of magic, from their hoards. They are also partial to a variety of humanoid delicacies, in addition to small shrimps and fish, which they also ensnare their fabulous mustaches during aquatic forays.

Though they lack the kobold worker castes of chromatics, they are excellent at striking up friendly relations with doting humanoids, which works almost as well for hoard building purposes.

[an-actual-dungeon]

I’ve had dragons on the brain lately

Like, silly dnd ones

My thoughts so far: none of em are truly evil, but some actually care about puny humans beyond like, food and threat potential more than others

I’ve also decided that chromatic dragons are eusocial; they build a lair, settle down, and start popping out kobolds to keep expanding the lair while they take a well deserved rest

Broad stokes chromatic dragon ecology: every few decades a resting queen dragon will head out on a mating flight to find a swarm of winged kobolds (the drone). This is a taxing process for such a large dragon and she has to refuel a lot on her journey; reds are especially notorious for razing whole forest to drive out as much prey as possible. That said, each dragon plays an important role in its local ecosystem as the endemic species adapt to periodic renewal by fire (as with reds), fumigation (as with greens), etc.

[an-actual-dungeon]

https://www.artstation.com/mangotino

[an-actual-dungeon]

Do you have any suggestions on how to make Dungeon Crawls more.. exciting or have a better atmosphere? Rather than just "The hallway extends 20ft and turns left.." I love dungeons, but as a DM it feels like my delivery is.. bland.

Lots of DMs struggle with this, and for good reason. 

Dungeons are the most mechanically straightforward aspect of the game besides combat, and the immediate shape and contents of them is more pressing to players than the atmosphere. 

But, there are some simple ways to make your dungeons more atmospheric. Here’s my proposed solutions, both a long thinky one and a fast random one:

I think that dungeons should thought about as ‘once functional spaces’. Every place in the world has a purpose for which it was built, even if it’s a weirdo crazy one. Dungeon rooms should almost always be more than just treasure, traps, and monsters. 

For example, temples have cloisters, treasuries, storage rooms, waiting rooms, choirs, sanctuaries, apse, washing rooms, etc. Each of these rooms has specific objects and furniture inside them, as well as different acoustics. They get decorated with frescoes and murals or hanging art or sculptures. They’re cultural places. Think about them as physical spaces that people would use. 

Now imagine something happened in them, long ago. Why is this place a ‘dungeon’ and not still used? What event caused it to be abandoned? A battle? Plague? Was the place cursed? Come up with that and you can seed the rooms with small historical details: evidence of fights, skeletal remains, treasures hidden so they could be reclaimed later (but never were).

Now add the effects of time and nature. Fabric rots, metal rusts, stone erodes and crumbles. Plants and roots push stone tiles aside, and water seeps in and floods deep places. The passage of ages scours away history and purpose. Now, your once functional rooms don’t appear so functional, but their purpose can still be intuited.

Now add some new tenants. Monsters are always the first to reclaim abandoned civilized spaces: goblins make shantytowns out of old human ruins, beasts make warrens in sepulchral tombs, small dragons and basilisks favour places with statuaries and abandoned treasures. No matter the space or its original purpose, monsters move in and call it home. Sometimes multiple species of monsters…and then they fight or argue over sharing space.

So now your dungeon has a vivid look and feel. The important bit now is to think about how that imagined space sounds and smells. 

With every room and hallway, imagine how its history smells. Is it acrid or pungent? Smokey or mouldy? Does it smell surprisingly pleasant? If so, that’s often a worrisome sign, because it means something sentient might already be there. 

Audio can clue players into a space faster than any other description. Wind whistling indicates access to the surface…or a much deeper cave. Dripping denotes water (you hope). Creaking could mean doors…or ghosts. Large spaces echo, and sounds warp and distort the further away they are. There’s even different kinds of silence. There’s an empty, lonely silence that comes with long dead spaces, or the claustrophobic close silence of small spaces. 

Appeal to your players senses besides sight. Describe what rooms smell, sound, and even taste or feel like. This is a surefire way to make your dungeon rooms stand out. For example:

“You enter a 20 by 20 foot square room. It’s a stuffy old parlour. Pushing the door open you immediately smell something caustic and sour, but you don’t see an immediate source. All the furniture is rotted, but some of it looks smashed. You can hear the faintest scraping of something against the wall in the adjacent room”.

If that seems like a lot to write, try something like this: Reveal each bullet point as the players inquire about them, or when they make Perception checks:

Parlour, 20 ft square room.

The room feels uncomfortably thick and stuffy.

All the furniture is rotted out. Some of it is smashed. Evidence of a fight.

Smells caustic and sour. The smell comes from under a tattered rug. It’s beholder puke. 50gp if collected and sold to the right buyer.

Scraping sounds from the cloaker in the next room.

So maybe you already have a pretty basic dungeon and you need to make each room (or block of rooms) less boring. Here’s my handy set of sense tables:

Random Room Sensations:

For each room you want to enhance, roll four dice (a d12, a d10, a d8, and a d6). Your rolls will determine what’s up with this room. Every time you roll a result, cross it out and replace it with a new one you come up with.

Smells (1d12):

Sickly sweet, like rotting fruit or wilting flowers.

Musty, like old people and expired cologne.

Tangy, like body odour and grime.

Dusty, the choking scent of age and ghosts.

Foul, like waste and death; something unholy.

Crisp, like freshly cut grass or unchecked plant life.

Soggy, the lingering smell of still water and flooding.

Pungent, like rot and decay.

Spicy, like herbs and dried ingredients, aged.

Electric, a faint aroma of ozone and metals.

Earthy, like fresh dirt and clay, mixed in with the copper of blood.

Roll again twice, both smells clash together.

Sounds (1d10):

Claustrophobic silence.

Deep, echoing silence.

Low moaning or groaning.

Creaking of wood in the distance.

Faint, maddeningly indistinct whispering.

Faint, maddeningly indistinct whispering in a language you don’t know.

Metal scraping against metal, rhythmically.

Dripping of some kind of liquid onto stone.

Dripping of some kind of liquid into more liquid.

Roll again twice, both sounds are present.

Touch Sensations (1d8):

Dryness on the skin, chapped lips and dry eyes.

Cold dampness, water beads on metal items.

Humidity, clothes become hot and heavy, metal feels colder.

Dry heat, throats become parched, skin itches.

Pressure change, ears pop and noises distort.

Static tingling, hair stands up on end, goosebumps.

Unholy chill, shivers, goosebumps, a sense of unease.

The feeling of being watched, an uncomfortable presence.

Kinds of Darkness, if applicable (1d6):

Grey, distant darkness that yields to lantern light.

Cloying, smothering darkness that seems to draw close to you.

Eerie still darkness that feels like it holds endless monsters.

Calm, still darkness that invites restfulness.

Flickering, shifting darkness where the room seems to be moving.

Impenetrable darkness that makes darkvision endowed races feel at uneasy.

I hope all this helps make your dungeons a little less boring. The dungeon tables in the back of the 5e Dungeon Master’s Guide from @dndwizards is also helpful in this regard. 

[an-actual-dungeon]

Some DnD Homebrew Rules to Fix Common Player Bugbears (Not Bugbear Player Characters, Which Are Perfect)

Brought to you by DMs who have had to concede with players that, yeah, that rule is dumb, let’s fix it.

“Natural 20′s on Initiative are a waste of a Crit″- A Nat20 on initiative gives the player one Hasted Action (to be used to Attack once, Dash, Disengage, Dodge or Use An Item) for the first Round of combat. Nat1′s on Initiative mean the player can use their Action or Bonus Action but not both, and loose their Reaction for the first Round of combat. 

“This Healing Potion cost me all my gold and it’s healed me for nothing.” - You can use a Healing Potion as an Action or a Bonus Action. If used as an Action you stop and concentrate on drinking it, and heal the max amount of HP. If used as a Bonus Action, you take a swig and hope it was enough, so you roll for the healing received as per usual rules.

“The Cleric has run out of Spell Slots and there is no healing Cantrip, we’re screwed and they feel useless” - Since Clerics are literal channels between their god and the world, I’ve given my Clerics an ability we called Divine Conduit - As an Action, you may cast Cure Wounds without a Spell Slot by sacrificing your own HP equivalent to 10xthe Spell Level you cast it at (10 HP for Lvl 1, 20 for Lvl 2 etc) as you literally burn yourself up by releasing more divine power than your body can take. 

“Why don’t cats have Darkvision?” - No clue. Cats have Darkvision now. 

Remember, if the rules as written aren’t working for you and your group, you can change them! 

[an-actual-dungeon]

been a while since I made something like this, bass warning