#>builds new pc to prepare for wilds

[theworldbrewery]

saturday d&d tip: think ahead of your level.

as your PC progresses, they're going to unlock new and more powerful abilities. there's no rule against your characters knowing that adventuring makes them more powerful--and it can be really fun to have a character that builds the skills they'll use later on.

say we've got a 4th-level rogue: maybe she starts using the Dodge action in combat when it makes sense, setting herself up for Uncanny Dodge at 5th level. And she could start taking the lead on most of the group's skill checks for Investigation and Arcana, teeing up to take Expertise in those skills at level 6.

A druid may start going off into the wilderness to track rare beasts and gain them as future wild shape options as their wild shape ability improves, a wizard may start investing in the material components used in spells he plans to take, a cleric might make a pilgrimage to a temple at level 9 in preparation for the infusion of power that is Divine Intervention.

how would your character prepare themself for the next level?

[linuxgamenews]

Prepare for the Epic Sequel: Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter

Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter sequel for the action RPG game is coming to Linux, Mac, and Windows PC. Thanks to the skilled team at Odd Bug Studio for creating another engaging experience. Due to make its way onto Steam in 2024. Let’s dive into Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter on Linux. First off, we've got the return of Odd Bug Studio and United Label, hot on the heels of their 2021 hit. This sequel isn’t just a repeat; it’s a whole new chapter that promises to level up everything. The backdrop is the Ratdom's northern realms. You're stepping into the shoes of Arlo, the Warden of the North's son. A brutal onslaught by the Dark Wings, a new threat emerging from the icy wilderness. This isn’t just about survival; it’s a quest fueled by revenge and the need to reclaim lost ground. The Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter story is more than just a simple continuation. It's a deep, engaging campaign that propels you into Arlo’s world, thick with challenges and chances for growth. The original action RPG game left us reeling at its bloody conclusion, but the sequel takes that intensity and runs with it. Arlo's journey is laden with hard choices and even harder battles. While setting the stage for a gripping Linux adventure.

Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter | Announcement Trailer

Combat, a hallmark of the series, is more visceral and impactful than ever. With new gameplay elements, you've got a combat system that’s not just about swinging a sword. Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter is tactical, with each move requiring thought and precision. Elemental effects like fire, ice, electricity, and poison add layers to your strategy, demanding you adapt to different situations and foes. Monster hunting, a fresh addition, brings a whole new dynamic to the game. Imagine tracking down massive beasts, each a unique challenge. Defeating them isn’t just about bragging rights; it’s also a way to gather rare materials to upgrade your gear. This new element adds depth, making each encounter a test of skill and strategy in this action RPG. Then there's the expanded settlement mechanics. Rebuilding Winter’s Edge isn’t just busywork. It’s about creating a stronghold, enhancing your abilities, and making notable progress in the world. Each upgrade feels bigger, directly impacting your journey. Now, what truly sets Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter apart is the day and night system. This alters the gameplay. Different enemies emerge depending on the time, making each foray into the wild a unique experience. It’s not just about when you venture out, but how you prepare for these shifts. Adding to the deep experience is the voice acting of Doug Cockle, renowned for his roles in "The Witcher 3" and "Baldur’s Gate 3". His voice lends a gritty, authentic feel to Arlo's quest, enhancing the storytelling.

Co-founder and Lead Designer

Jack Bennett and his team at Odd Bug Studio have taken fan feedback to heart. This isn’t just a follow-up; it’s a response to what players loved and wanted more of. They’ve woven in new mechanics and storytelling elements, ensuring that this journey in the Ratdom is more than just another adventure. Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter is a richer, more intense experience, building on the foundation of the original to create something truly special. So, Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter isn't just an action RPG sequel. It’s an evolution, a testament to Odd Bug Studio's commitment to their craft and their community. This is set to be a remarkable journey through a rich, challenging world, promising hours of gaming. If you like the first game, get ready to be wowed. If you’re new to the series, prepare to be drawn into a beautifully crafted, brutal world of adventure and revenge. Due to make its way onto Steam and will launch later in 2024. Along with support for Linux, Mac, and Windows PC.

[satoshi-mochida]

The Last Alchemist launches July 12 - Gematsu

From Gematsu

Third-person alchemy simulation game The Last Alchemist will launch for PC via Steam on July 12 for $19.99, publisher Marvelous Europe and developer Vile Monarch announced. It will be available at a 10 percent-off discount price for the first week of release.

Here is an overview of the game, via its Steam page:

About

Welcome to the wholesome science-fantasy world of The Last Alchemist, a third-person alchemy simulation game about the blazing pursuit of science and friendship. Embrace your weird and wonderful role as the world’s last Alchemist! You will craft your workshop from the ground up, practice alchemy by solving puzzles, befriend and understand the Agari folk, and roam a vibrant world packed with brilliant resources to bring home and make use of.

Key Features

Solve Alchemy Puzzles – Test, Combine, Transform. Extract Essences from everything you collect, fuse them together and solve Alchemy puzzles to obtain the Properties you need to discover the wonders of this charming world.

Craft Your Workshop – Find and use various materials to craft your alchemical workshop. You need tools to harvest and research ingredients as well as large machines to perform further experiments. The complexity of known blueprints will increase and soon you will find yourself preparing compound substances or cultivating plants to get necessary ingredients. You can also build furniture for convenience…. and for style.

Meet the Agari: Your Little Mushroom Friends – You share your laboratory with the Agari, a local civilization of sentient mushroom creatures with their own secrets. These cute but cryptic folk run both the economy and the machines you need to optimize production. But you’ll have to work to earn their invaluable trust.

Roam the Wilds – Explore colorful and enchanting landscapes rich in resources, secrets, peculiar plants, fungi and minerals. Some of these unique materials need specific alchemical mixtures to be gathered. Find ways to overcome obstacles, unlock new routes and discover wondrous places among the gorgeous, lush peaks of the Alps.

Watch a new trailer below.

Release Date Trailer

[44gamez]

Survival RPG Enshrouded Gets New Gameplay Trailer

Developer Eager Video games has launched a brand new fight gameplay trailer for its upcoming survival RPG Enshrouded. The 4-minute narrated trailer showcases a number of gameplay components together with fight, enemies, crafting, constructing, a number of environments, and extra. Enshrouded will launch someday in 2023 in Early Entry for PC through Steam. Enshrouded is “a brand new survival motion RPG for one to 16 gamers, set in an unlimited deserted realm corrupted by mysterious fog.” The primary deep-dive introduces gamers to the tough and unforgiving world of Enshrouded, which is full of risks among the many ruins of the misplaced kingdom and the wretched fog that consumed the world. Gamers need to combat to outlive by locking on to their goal, finding out the enemies’ assault sample and blocking or parrying incoming assaults. As soon as the enemy’s stamina is totally depleted, gamers can unleash a cruel assault—a devastating blow dealing large injury to the goal. Enshrouded options all kinds of highly effective weapons to assist completely different play types. Mild melee weapons like swords and heavy melee weapons like hammers and axes allow gamers to cope with enemies in close-quarter fight, whereas bows and several types of arrows permit for ranged assaults. Wands are fitted to fast pictures of elemental magic coming from a distance, and staffs create heavy magic assaults greatest fitted to teams of enemies. As gamers discover the world, they may encounter the various completely different enemy factions that inhabit the remnants of the misplaced kingdom. The wildlife is harmful, inhabitants that have been consumed by the mysterious fog became the Fell, scavengers are scouring by way of the lands, and wild beasts pose a risk to all who dare to method them. In Enshrouded, preparation and technique are key. Profiting from buffs, meals and potions and being conscious of enemy varieties, is important in conquering more difficult enemy camps. Moreover, gamers can penetrate enemy outposts utilizing their grappling hook to scale enemy partitions, dig tunnels by way of their defenses or shock foes from above by gliding into battle. The fight showcase additionally gives a deeper take a look at the extent system, crafting and multiplayer mode. By gaining expertise factors, gamers can stage up and get talent factors to unlock extra strikes or enhance their perks even additional, permitting for quite a lot of completely different builds. Moreover, they will craft and enhance their very own weapons and armor and unlock extra perks, with particular legendary gear hidden throughout the land. Enshrouded helps as much as 16 gamers, who can be part of collectively on devoted servers. Whereas exploring the world as a celebration, gamers can heal, buff, and even revive one another when difficult the various risks of the misplaced kingdom. Read the full article

[first-impressions-gaming]

GAMING RECAP (OCTOBER 28-31)

Rollerdrome is coming to Xbox in November, and will be on Game Pass Day 1

The single-player roller-skating action game, which was developed by OlliOlli studio Roll7, is coming to Xbox Series X/S and Windows PC (via the Microsoft Store) on November 28.

According to a tweet from the official Rollerdrome Twitter account, the game will also be availble on Xbox Game Pass that same day, on console, PC and cloud.

Continue reading

Coming Soon to Game Pass: Like A Dragon Gaiden, Wild Hearts, Football Manager 2024, and More

In addition to coming games, check out updates below:

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition – The Mountain Royals – Available today Game Pass members save up to 10%! Prepare to embark on a legendary journey as we introduce the “The Mountain Royals” DLC for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. Unlock the rich history and untold stories of the Armenians and Georgians, part of three new campaigns!

EA Sports WRC: EA Play Early Access Trial – Available today PC Game Pass & Ultimate members can get behind the wheel for 5 hours starting today courtesy of EA Play. Build the car of your dreams, unlock up to 5 cosmetics in EA Sports WRC each season, and save 10% on purchases of EA digital content!

Also, these games are leaving the service soon:

Leaving November 14

Rocket Arena (Console and PC) EA Play

Leaving November 15

Coffee Talk (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Exapunks (PC)

Ghost Song (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Gungrave G.O.R.E (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Football Manager 2023 (PC)

Football Manager 2023 Console (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Lapin (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Townscaper (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Continue reading

[meltykarasu]

Failures In Worldbuilding

Rather than my usual post I’d like to celebrate a little; I run a little tabletop group online and we recently completed our third campaign with myself as DM/GM — this one taking place in the Star Wars universe and acting as a strange mix of The Mandalorian-inspired bounty hunting coupled with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead-ing through the background of the Star Wars films (a device I liberally cribbed from the very funny Tag and Bink comics they did in the early-to-mid-2000’s). We grappled with friends and foes and the esoteric systems of West End Games’s d6 system and the honestly janky Roll20 sheet I had to edit myself after a style update busted the fanmade one we were using.

Starting in a couple weeks, we’re going to be playing Dungeons & Dragons again in a setting I’ve been building for some time. I’m not going to discuss it a ton because, well, some of my players do follow this blog, and I’d rather not tip my hand before the first session. I’d rather talk about my earlier settings right now. 

The second campaign I did was a contemporary setting inspired heavily by Sailor Moon and Persona 4 and etc, etc. Admittedly, I think that Dungeons and Dragons was a poor choice for this and if I had to do it again I would find something more rules-lite, like FATE Accelerated. I think that the plot setup, however, made me really flex my muscles in world and especially character building, because the PCs were stuck in the same town for the entire thing and ran into the same characters repeatedly, including one of my favorite villains: a talking skeleton named Commandant Bones, who once introduced himself by declaring, “Prepare for trouble! And make it single! Because it’s just me.”

I think that my first campaign, though, is what I want to talk about, because a lot of my ambitions for it and the failures to meet them are part of what led me back to D&D after spending fourteen or so months immersed in Star Wars. (The other part, by the way, was Berserk, The Witcher, and D&D: Honor Among Thieves getting me back into fantasy as a genre.)

Long story short, I had neat worldbuilding ideas going into the first campaign and I want to talk about how a couple of them failed to manifest properly. None of these are going into my new setting as a result of the differing focus/foundational worldbuilding, so if you ARE one of my players, feel free to read this through.

Idea One: Couriers

Do you know what Death Stranding and Fallout: New Vegas have in common? No, it’s not the inexplicable celebrity cameos, although we can all love Matthew Perry saying “What in the goddamn?” No, it’s couriers. In both you play as couriers thrust into something greater after a delivery gone wrong, which is an idea I really liked as a plot setup. 

So I had this idea that the couriers were the adventurers of the setting, and that the players were couriers, and there were these isolated settlements they were meant to travel to, but I think that I jumped the gun too soon on giving the players a vehicle. They never really got to experience trekking through the wilds of the very imaginatively named Home Continent (I also have an issue with naming things, but we don’t need to get into that right now.)

I also never gave them the option to have another courier job beyond the initial plot one. I think this would have allowed them to grow a cash base and run a business (very Acquisitions Incorporated, whose book does have rules on business forming that I would use if I were to run this style of game). I think it would have been better for that. Players like having ownership over A Thing they they get to fill out and make stronger.

Third, and maybe most importantly, they never encountered another courier. I think that this, too, would have helped make this job feel more important. During this latest Star Wars campaign, I had them run into other bounty hunters — big names like Boba Fett and Bossk, along with original small names like Wolfram Aphra and Molly Ringworld. They had professional, preexisting notions and relationships with these characters, which makes the profession feel alive — important if you want to convey that this is an important job that more than just your PCs do.

Idea Two: Barter

I also had the idea that things were primarily barter-based: you did not get paid in coins, but in things: items or favors. This immediately fell out of the worldbuilding a couple sessions in when I realized that I had not told the players and the wizard attempted to pay for an inn room with gold pieces. Yikes! 

Basically: reinforce these fundamental ideas if they do not mesh with what is established in materials like rulebooks, etc. This should be a bullet point on your lore doc or something you state in session zero.

Idea Three: The Silos

I’m going to admit that I’ve never seen the show, but I read the premise of Turn A Gundam and knew I wanted it to be part of this campaign: the idea that fantastical advanced technology had been buried, and the world turned ever on until someone discovered it and caused an arms race of unearthing progressively more destructive technology. 

I just don’t think I communicated this enough! I had all these grand story ideas but I think that they weren’t well-exposited or depicted. We didn’t even go to an excavation site! How foolish of me!

Going Forward

James Cameron and Stan Winston, on the DVD commentary for Aliens, discussed how everything that they’d done for that film had, in effect, become R&D for The Abyss and Terminator 2 — everything you do is research and development for your next project. I think that this is an important mentality to have in the creation of art. 

After I had what I perceived as a failure of a campaign, where it felt like maybe a third of my ideas for the setting and plot went anywhere, I sat down and I experimented. I set an entire campaign in and around a single town. I think this worked well because there were locations there that kept getting revisited — the school, the local shrine, the main characters’ houses, their usual haunts. They formed a more effective bond with the setting and NPCs because they couldn’t gallivant around the world on an airship. 

On the opposite end, I let my players roam relatively free in our Star Wars campaign. They had open choices on where to take the story, what they wanted to do each week (generally from a short list of adventures). Revisiting the bar after a hard job or dropping by the Merchant after a firefight to restock or taking the ship in for repairs and upgrades meant more when it was a choice the players made.

I still had things go wrong (which, hopefully, my players did not notice too much) but I think that my skills are much more sharpened for another crack at this. I’ll let you know how it goes. 

[dalihdgaming]

Smalland: Survive the Wilds PC Gameplay 1440p 60fps

Experience a big adventure on a tiny scale! Enjoy multiplayer survival in a vast, hazardous world. Preparation is key when you're this small & at the bottom of the food chain. Craft weapons & armour, tame & ride creatures, build encampments & explore a strange new land.

Smalland: Survive the Wilds on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/768200/Smalland_Survive_the_Wilds/

#smallandsurvivethewilds #jimmydali #mergegames

[onlyjellyillputinmybelly]

Fantasy High- the og campaign with the og cast. Many of them do not really know how to play dnd well, so its good for learning abt the game with pretty low stakes. Its like your classic high school funny sitcom, except its magic and in dnd. Extremely fun, very relatable, great mixture of story elements and mystery elements and combat.

Bloodkeep: fun little villainous sidequest. Much shorter than FH. Very funny with more CH members. Ive never really gotten too into its story personally but its still good.

FH sophomore year: WATCH THE FIRST FH FIRST. YOU WILL NOT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING IF YOU DONT

The Unsleeping City: a fucking masterpiece. Goes a lot more into dnd mechanics so it is a bit less beginner friendly. OG cast. Amazing characters, story, combat, and lore. Its set in NYC but theres magic. Very funny but also very emotional.

Tiny Heist: sidequest with a new cast (special guests the Mcelroys). Very short, very funny, less lore based but still very good story, its kinda toy story esque but much cooler.

A crown of candy: FUCKING WILD. Back to the OGs. Very long, EXTREMELY lore heavy and extremely angsty. Just be aware. Insane world building and really cool use of dnd mechanics in a setting where everything is food. Only watch this when youre mentally and emotionally prepared for it. Still funny tho

Pirates of Leviathan: dont watch before you finish FH sophomore year. Its a sidequest in the FH universe with some spoilers and lore that you wont rly understand til you watch it

Mice and murder: another one that i actually havent finished cuz i couldnt get into it but chill lil sidequest w a lot of mystery

Misfits and Magic: i love this one. Its the first campaign that Aabria DMs and i adore her. Also you get Brennan as a PC. Its the first campaign to have ab adventuring party talkback show after each episode so you gotta watch that too. Only like 4 episodes and its really funny and rly cool (its based on harry potter but its mostly just making fun of it. Also its not traditional dnd 5e mechanics)

The Seven: hear me when i say its truly my fave campaign. YOU MUST WATCH FANTASY HIGH SEASON 1 BEFORE IT. Set in the FH universe, all women except for brennan, definitely the funniest and horniest campaign ever.

Shriek Week: short lil campaign with non traditional dnd mechanics. Very funny, great if youre a horror nut but also like college stories

Starstruck: up there in terms of favorite seasons. Back w the OGs. Set in space and the villain is so flagrantly capitalism. Incredible sci fi vibes but also like 80s vibes. Incredible characters, really cool added mechanics, hilarious.

Coffin Run: another incredible campaign with altered mechanics. Perfect if you like horror, also IZZY ROLAND IS MY FAVORITE DND PLAYER EVER

ACOFAF: another brilliant Aabria campaign. Its beautiful. Its regency so if ur not into that maybe skip it. Its so hilarious tho and every character is so fucking incredible

Neverafter: a masterpiece. Back w the ogs. Prolly dont watch this one first because the mystery elements are SO hardcore and the interwoven lore is kinda hard to follow if youre not used to brennans storytelling

The ravening war: guest dm whoopieeee also dont watch this till after ACOC

Dungeons and Drag Queens: great standalone series but i just couldnt get into it personally

Mentopolis: love it but again, brennans insane storytelling so you have to fet used to it. Also HANK GREEN

Burrows end: holy fuck. Aabria. This one is also a lot but its so good. But dont watch it first or else your stabdards will be way too high

FH jr year and unsleeping city 2- you know the drill

I'm recovering from an ear infection so I'm gonna try and relax by playing balatro and watching dimension 20 where should I start

[updatecrazy]

The Witcher 3 patch 4.02 is available on PS4, PS5, PC and Xbox Series X/S players. According to the Witcher 3 Wild Hunt Game of the Year Edition update 4.02 patch notes, the latest update improves CPU core utilization in the DX 12 version. Apart from this, the Witcher 3 version 4.02 also improves the overall stability and performance of the game. Recently, a major Witcher 3 update 4.0 added 4K, 60FPS, cross-play and other new features on PC and next gen consoles. Unfortunetly, since the last patch, players are experiencing various performance and stability issues. The Witcher 3 update 4.02 will address a few of these issues. Read more details below. What is new in The Witcher 3 update 4.02 Today? - March 13, 2023 [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1200"] The Witcher 3 Patch 4.02 Notes: New Update - March 13, 2023[/caption] PC-SPECIFIC Improved CPU core utilization in the DX 12 version. Restored horizon-based ambient occlusion. Players who had previously turned Ambient Occlusion off will need to do so again. You can find it in Options → Video → Graphics. Fixed an issue where the "My Rewards" section was not localized in REDlauncher. Fixed an issue with a flickering landscape in Toussaint that occurred when NVIDIA HairWorks was disabled. Fixed an issue related to particle optimization which could result in temporary stuttering. VISUAL Improved immersion of water appearance by adding refraction to SSR and ray-traced reflections. Fixed a visual issue with brick textures where black artifacts covered stone arches. Added a Motion Blur slider. It can be found in Options → Video → Graphics. QUESTS & GAMEPLAY Battle Preparations - Fixed the lack of a dialogue option that would progress the quest during the objective "Let Avallac'h know everything's ready." Reason of State - Fixed an issue where the door to the warehouse could become permanently locked if the player knocked, entered and then immediately left the building. Scavenger Hunt: Cat School Gear Upgrade Diagrams Part 1 - Fixed an issue where the quest could stay active even after the diagrams were looted. Fixed an issue where trying to start a New Game+ on an incompatible save would block the player from starting the expansions in standalone mode until the game was restarted. LOCALIZATION Fixed an issue with the Korean localization of Ciri's and Geralt's Gwent card descriptions. Fixed punctuation issues in Arabic localization. Updated Traditional Chinese font. Download the Witcher 3 patch 4.02 on PS4, Xbox and PC.

[linuxgamenews]

Craft Your Strategy and Arsenal in Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness

Last Spartan: Glory over Madness deck-building roguelike game is due to launch this fall on Linux, Mac, and Windows PC. Thanks to the creative genius of BAD Spiele Studio. All due to make its way onto Steam. Channel your inner Spartan king and get ready for war with this dice-fueled roguelike, coming to Steam on November 1st. You play as Leonidas, the legendary Spartan king, but this isn't the Greece you know. Instead, you’re thrown into a twisted version where Greek myths mix with the horrors of H.P. Lovecraft. Each deck-building battle depends on the roll of custom dice in Last Spartan: Glory over Madness which you craft with powerful abilities in this roguelike. It's not about luck—it's about strategy and creating the best arsenal for every run. Every choice you make is crucial. Smart decisions can earn you great rewards, blessings, and allies among the Greek gods. But one wrong move could curse you and drive you mad. Can you keep your sanity and defeat the darkness?

Last Spartan: Glory over Madness New Trailer for the Launch

You'll need to prepare for every roll and team up with legendary Greek gods. Unlock gods like Ares, Hera, Apollo, Hephaestus, and six more. Each god offers unique abilities and classes, allowing you to experiment with different strategies to defeat the monsters threatening your glory and sanity. This game is a wild mix of Greek mythology and Lovecraftian horror. You’ll face terrifying enemies and explore creepy environments in a story-driven campaign with a unique 2.5D style. Last Spartan: Glory over Madness launches the deck-building roguelike on Steam on November 1st, 2024. But is due to hit consoles in early 2025. Catch the team at Gamescom in Hall 10.2 at stand F042g, where Bad Spiele will showcase the game.

Here’s what you can expect:

Explore Ancient Greece in 2.5D: Get up close to the madness and horrors as you make your choices.

Battle 300 Unique Enemies: Every play through offers a dark, randomly generated world with 300 different encounters.

Build Your Deck: Customize your dice with 300 unique faces, giving you endless options for crafting your strategy.

Collect Powerful Artifacts: Find 300 deck-building relic that grant permanent stats and abilities for your Last Spartan: Glory over Madness roguelike runs.

Choose Your Ally God: Pick from 10 Greek gods, each offering different abilities and playstyles.

Fresh Challenges: With over 300 unique enemies, encounters, dice faces, and artifacts, every run feels new. You won’t see the same enemy until at least four hours in.

Fight for your sanity, face unspeakable horrors, and navigate a world on the brink of madness. Last Spartan: Glory over Madness is available to Wishlist on the deck-building roguelike Steam, but due to launch on November 1st. Along with support for Linux and Windows PC. Get ready to roll the dice and embrace the madness this November!

[0gl1tch0]

I’m gonna try to write down my methods for writing a Campaign. Every game is a delicate balance between world building, rail roading, and improv.

I use what I call the puzzle piece method of world building. For example, I had this idea a long time ago of a vampire who built a hotel and fed off the guests. However, the vampire is so old that the road he put his hotel on, and the town that he built his hotel in, are very rarely used now. So there’s a random side road that has a hotel and nothing else on it, anyone who stays there has their blood fed to an emaciated vampire trapped in the basement, and if it ever gets enough food it escapes.

This is a great puzzle piece, because it can literally slot anywhere in your world that is barren. No matter what wilderness the party is walking through, you can just slap a random hotel that doesn’t belong there in the wilderness, and you’ve got yourself an encounter. As follow ups to the encounter, It can l stand as a hint towards an ancient city or road that was destroyed for some reason that the party needs to learn about. You can also put a coffin for a different extra vampire in the hotel, and if the party destroys it they have a new antagonist.

My vampire hotel is complete in my mind with what the vampires living space is like (he has four drow as a string quartet, cursed to eternally play. Their fingers are dripping with blood from always using the strings, and while the rest of their body is perfectly polite, their eyes beg for death) the kind of treasure he has (powerful but cursed books in the library, and trophies taken from other slain monster hunters on display), and the traps in his domain (mostly illusions, as vampires are immune to those. There’s also a Medusa head mounted over his inner sanctum, people who stare at it turn to stone but vampires are immune to paralysis. Finally, his emergency door is solid stone with no handle, but with small square slits at the bottom so if he turns to most, he can get back to his coffin.)

I have a lot of puzzle pieces in my repertoire at any time, and it’s just stuff I saw in real life I found inspiring. I have a side-villain based off John Mulaney’s cameo character in the TV show The Bear. I’ve got a weird horror encounter based on all of the creepy empty offices is my post-Covid workplace. The city of “Corpse” is the orcish capital city, it’s built inside a dead giant’s skeleton, and their primary commerce is breaking off pieces of its humongous mithral armor and selling them. Whatever inspires you, build it into a portion of a session. Maybe just an NPC, maybe just a location, whatever.

Then, you want to take all of these puzzle pieces and overlap them, even if they don’t make sense together. If you’ve got like five partial ideas for games, surprise! Slap all five of them into one story and the world will feel complicated and full. If you rally like the theros god cards from Magic the Gathering but were more interested in an island hopping pirate game? Maybe each god has their own island with its own culture devoted to it. What would that look like?

The more puzzle pieces you jam together, the clearer the picture of your world will look like, and the more prepared you’ll be if the party does wild shit. That’s world building.

The next step is rail roading. Giving your party too much free reign isn’t always the best idea. This is a collaborative storytelling game, and you have to bring enough of a plot for the players to latch on to so the story isn’t aimless. Knowing who your player characters are helps a lot, because a large part of the game is character growth and fantasy fulfillment. If you find out one of your PCs is an anarchist, you’re going to want to tweak your government so it’s evil and oppressive and needs to be overthrown, even if that wasn’t your original idea.

The nice thing about world building by fluid puzzle pieces, as opposed to drawing a map that’s set in stone, is you can remove pieces that don’t fit. If one of your PCs is playing as a goblin, you can remove the evil goblin pieces and slot in other things instead.

I use milestone leveling rather than experience, and my goal is to get players to level up 10 times in any given campaign (sometimes I run high level campaigns from 11-20 where players get to revisit their old favorite characters). That means you need 10 levels worth of milestones to tell your story.

Of those 10, 4-5 of those are the climax of your players personal stories. Rescuing someone important to them, defeating a rival, whatever. The last level (from 10 to 11), is defeating. The antagonist. So you actually only need to write 4 or 5 story beats, your players will provide inspiration for the other half. The story beats you MUST have are:

Why do the party group up.

Why do the party care at all about your villain.

Good story beats to have, but that aren’t necessary:

Retrieving the McGuffin. Making the McGuffin powerful weaponry is also really cool. For example if your villain is werewolves, then one part of the quest can be retrieving silvered weapons, and the party will feel a lot stronger once they’ve earned them.

Learning a surprise twist! One of my players is a bastard, and the BBEG is actually their father. Figuring out one man is actually behind what appear to be several unrelated evil organizations, and then learning it’s daddy, is going to be a fun session.

Clearing a homebase! Having a castle or a ship the players are based out of let’s them upgrade that base in ways that are cool and fulfilling.

Rescuing a pet! Players, especially new players, get very invested in their pets, which is good because they can struggle to get invested in games in general.

Removing a curse! This comes with the added bonus that you the DM get to curse the players, always a good time.

Acquiring a truly unreasonable amount of money. This one’s great to pull out if your party isn’t meshing well, because almost all players like taking money from the evil who hoard it.

Start with grouping your party. They’re all hired for the same quest and it gets out of hand, they’re all on the same boat that crashes in an unexpected place, they’re all in the same teleportation spell that goes wrong, whatever. They’re a group, they know each other, they find themselves in danger, encounter, level 2.

Next introduce them to the villain in some way. Maybe not the actual BBEG, maybe a representative, but good stories have dialogue and so taking to someone who’s evil is never a bad story choice. Or maybe they just come across evidence of misdeeds or victims of whoever. This is your starter thread, and if your players aren’t interested, you can drop the whole thing and try a different antagonist instead. Maybe your players are of a more chaotic neutral persuasion and want to run a heist adventure. That’s fine! If the players aren’t enticed by the evil dragon they met this session, you can have them meet a douchebag wealthy casino owner next session. And you can have the casino owner be an ally of the evil dragon if you wanna bring that plot line back later.

Throw in a couple puzzle pieces as they come up, whatever you as the DM thinks is fun. As you figure out your players, figure out what their session is going to be, boom.

You’ve got a rough layout to follow.

Writing an actual session is pretty simple. Write a dot on top of a piece of paper with where the party is. Write a dot on the bottom of a piece of paper with the next step in your loose framework, and then write dots between those until you’ve got an idea for how your session should go. This dotted line is the railroad your party drives down.

The final step is improv. That’s just about being flexible with your puzzle pieces and your railroad. If your party decides they hate an NPC you were expecting them to like, maybe he’s a villain. If you really wanted your party to go to the circus but they’re more interested in the docks, maybe the circus is near the docks.

The key to improv is going “yes and”. Whatever weird shit your party does, your goal as a DM is to say yes to it. I think dungeons and dragons is about the “Yes also”. Yes, you guys throw a feast for the impoverished citizens in the capital. Also, the villain you were supposed to meet as my next dot on my railroad? He hates the feast, he tries to shut it down.

Yes, you successfully make a pirate fleet and they’re off sailing around earning you money. Also? They come across a weird cursed island they think you should check out (please go to the cursed island I have remove curse as the next milestone for leveling, and I can put my villains backstory as the cause of the curse).

With these three powers combined, you’ll have yourself a great D&d game that will fall apart for scheduling reasons.

Go get ‘em

DnD DM's of tumblr: how tf do you come up with a campaign. I have no idea what I'm doing plz help

[redd956]

DM/GM Mistakes I made my first time

And how to not make them

I started my first ran campaign as a homebrew so trust when I say I have made grand mistakes. I myself am still new to the game, and finding new things every day, despites starting about three years ago. 

So here’s some of them, and how not to do them

Giving players OP (magical) items

I still regret this one in my running campaign. I tragically gave my players a handful of OP items out of fear of not pleasing them with the loot prepared. I didn’t think of the implications real well, and kept doing it after seeing the glee on my players faces after the first one. 

How to avoid...

Never give powerful items on a whim

Think of the implications, whether your players are assholes or not, they will metagame, minmax, and exploit. So plan for it. Pretend that they will, and plan for it. 

Start small, and experiment with your players & loot. Tiny little things will do just as well most of the time, and big items are better for late game players.

Sidetracking Side Quests

Players try to look at everything as a puzzle or challenge. Often times they manage to find fake red herrings in the norm, or chase after wild geese you didn’t even know existed. Sometimes that goose is a side quest you intended to be small, and now for a second session you are watching your players chase it down.

How to avoid...

Have all or most of your side-quest tie into the main quests, so even if they get super sidetracked it will eventually bring them back into, or build on the main storyline, potentially enriching your worldbuilding & campaign.

If a quests seems too off putting for the world or storyline ditch or change it.

Don’t make the side quests more enticing than the main storyline, otherwise players will believe that it is the main storyline.

Too many PC's pets

Players will try to adopt anything and everything whether or not it's practical. Owl Bears, Displacer Beats, Local mysterious NPC. Soon enough my party had so many I couldn't keep track, and dreaded the introduction of any other animal.

Fight your PCs. If you think they shouldn't have it or be able to care for it don't let them.

Keep the pets weak and flimsy. Makes for dramatic emotional roleplay moments when they perish, and allows you to control the numbers.

Force your players to care for them so the next six pets are seen as extra resource consumers and responsibilities.

[pricemarshfield]

don’t go

A post-canon/canon divergence Climbing Class fic. Read on AO3 here. Does not name the monsters from UD.

The thing is, Chris never believed in ghosts.

Past tense, because though Ouija boards are definitely still bullshit, flesh-eating nightmares who are his friends from beyond made his internal perspective change, a little. Less focused on Ashley (now happily dating Sam, who'd have thunk), less focused on cleverness, less focused on everything other than survival.

The problem with that is, survival is way, way less of a concern everywhere else.

No matter how much Mike asks, Chris won't go to the gym, won't go running with Sam. Instead, he goes to the gun range and shoots, practices with a dozen different guns until he can hit a target from as far as they'll let him try. Someone asks him if he wants to go hunting, and he says, "No, thanks. I don't have the stomach for it." With a practiced, self-deprecating grin and a little anecdote about getting sick in health class after watching Supersize Me (but hey, he'll still eat fast food!), they just laugh, clap his shoulder, and say, "Well, maybe next time."

Chris knows now how to hunt. He won't go because he doesn't want to go back to the mountain, but if something happens, if Jess ends up going on her expedition to find Emily's remains like she keeps talking about, if any circumstance happens that'll force him back out of his safety, he'll be ready. He has a dozen books on how to skin and prepare wild game, has a YouTube watch history that he probably shares with a future serial killer, is slowly working his way through quizzes on edible plants in the area he can forage.

Two weeks after the mountain, his friends all found it normal. Six months after the mountain, he worries he's the only one still caught up in it.

Sam's still going out in wilderness semi-regularly, albeit with so many protein bars in her bag that she could feed a small army. Mike throws himself into whatever the hell project he's involved with. (Chris and Ashley make a point of not asking about it, just to see his face turn red.) Jess rock climbs now, but however it started, now she just seems to be having fun, and Chris doesn't want to ruin the mood by asking why she's doing it. Ashley writes, poems and prose and articles, jumping on their fifteen minutes of fame to get a foot in the door of publishing.

Josh doesn't do much of anything.

They'd found him next to the bodies of Matt and Emily and Jack Fiddler, emaciated and staring at the bodies with a hunger that had caused all of this. (Chris assumes. He wasn't there, wouldn't have been there even if he'd known he would have found Josh okay. He wasn't brave before, let alone now.)

His parents won't let him keep a handgun in the house, so he moves.

Finding an apartment is hard. Nothing to do with the publicity or lack of options or even money; he just is picky. It needs good WiFi, because he's still Chris Hartley. It needs a room without windows, easily defensible and big enough to be able to stockpile food. It needs walls that aren't painted a sickly green color that he jokes is scarier than the idea of going back.

justgidding: Terrible joke!

justgidding: Even if it wasn't in bad taste, it's just not funny.

sn0wflakequ33n: I thought it was funny Chris

gogogadget: thank you jess

screamking: Oh bro is that that place on Hilda St?

screamking: I looked at that place when I was trying to find a place

screamking: Definitely the worst

ladykiller: why did you move out, rich boy? don't you have like six bedrooms in your old place?

sn0wflakequ33n: don't be a dick, mike

smartcookie: Eh

smartcookie: Not the most dickish thing one of us has done this year

justgidding: Okay guys, let's not bring this up over TEXT!!

sn0wflakequ33n: why do you hate the internet sam

smartcookie: I always forget how much of a Luddite you are, babe

ladykiller: i don't know what that means

gogogadget: i feel like we've gotten farther from the point

gogogadget: which is how ugly these walls are

So, yeah. Apartment hunting. Would it be weird to ask Josh what place he found? He needs to move if he's gonna get a gun, and while he knows logically it's not going to help and that he's not in danger, he's pretty sure just having it around would be great for his peace of mind.

Also in the case of monster attack, but at this point, preparedness for monster attacks and his peace of mind are pretty much one and the same. Not only correlational but causal relationship.

gogogadget: josh dyou mind sending me the address?

screamking: Why, you coming over?

gogogadget: trying to find a place

gogogadget: or are you still looking?

screamking: Nah, here

screamking has sent you their location!

---

Chris is sure that the place Josh's sent him will be too expensive, because Chris is comfortable, but Josh is. Well. His family owned a mountain (past tense). But as it turns out, if he moves in now in February rent is cheaper for as long as he lives here. It's still a lot, but it's at the very upper range of his budget rather than completely out of it.

They don't allow pets, but they do allow (legal) guns, and Chris signs the lease right after seeing the place. The property manager seems thrilled, but Chris doesn't really care why; he's just glad to have a place.

Sam and Ashley are the only two friends available to help him move, though Ashley mostly just picks through his books. Chris doesn't have a ton of stuff, and the only really heavy things are the one box of books and his PC. It takes one trip in just the one car and then he's in his apartment, alone.

Unpacking takes the better part of a couple days, but that's mostly just building furniture and setting up his food stores. The place doesn't quite feel like his, but he's alright with that. It feels safe, and that means a lot more.

His neighbor keeps thudding against the wall, though, and at 2am, when it wakes Chris up, he bangs back in annoyance.

"Sorry," his neighbor calls.

"...Josh?" Chris responds.

"Oh, what?" Josh says, and then Chris' phone lights up.

gogogadget: dude what the fuck

screamking: My bad, dude

screamking: Won't happen again

gogogadget: look as long as it's not ghosts i'm okay lol

screamking: I've got some bad news for you

gogogadget: JOSH WE TALKED ABOUT PRANKS

He can hear Josh laughing from across the wall, and Chris texts back a bunch of middle finger emojis.

screamking: If the ghosts do scare you, consider this an open invitation to come over

gogogadget: there are BETTER WAYS to invite me over dude

gogogadget: game nights

gogogadget: weed

gogogadget: just a straight up booty call

Chris doesn't really realize what he's said until after he's sent it, and then he briefly considers skipping out on his lease so he can go lie down outside and wait to die.

screamking: So if I were to do one of those now

screamking: You'd come over?

gogogadget: if you have someone over and that's what the banging's about i'll literally never talk to you again

gogogadget: just so you know

screamking: Nah it's just a tennis ball

screamking: Helps with anxiety

screamking: Dude?

screamking: If this isn't your thing we can still be friends, man

screamking: That better be you knocking on the door

---

justgidding: Chris, wake up!!!

justgidding: You said you'd go to the farmer's market today

justgidding: I WILL break this door down I don't care about your security deposit.

justgidding: Ashley says you're not answering your phone

justgidding: Josh is, though :)

justgidding: I'm texting the group chat

gogogadget: groupchat is one word

justgidding: Get dressed now we're going to the farmer's market!

gogogadget's phone can no longer recieve messages! This could be due to a loss of WiFi or the phone being turned off.

justgidding: Bitch?

gogogadget's phone can no longer recieve messages! This could be due to a loss of WiFi or the phone being turned off.

[jawsandbones]

if i remember correctly you run some campaigns for dnd, i’ve been trying to dm a campaign for a few years and i’ve finally found a group. do you have any advice for new dms?

Hello anon! I do indeed run some campaigns. 

I’m currently running my second major campaign. I will fully admit that the first campaign I ran was basically my first experience with DnD and it was 100% a shit show BUT I learned a lot, and now you get to benefit from my blunders!

There’s a lot involved in preparation for a campaign or even a session, but these things are so personalized to the style of each DM. I, personally, like to be overly prepared and took a few months to really brick up lore and details of NPC’s, cities, environments, major homebrew elements, potential story beats, etc etc... I will say that if this is your first experience DM’ing, I recommend staying away from homebrew. I really regret not starting with a pre-made module as they give a lot of great advice and show different aspects to quests and checks. But again, that’s just opinion so I’ll stay away from the prep aspect aside from one golden rule: as the DM you are not the sole arbiter of the story. 

You’re building that with your players. This isn’t a book and you must bend to your players character’s decisions, even if it goes entirely where you don’t expect. This is a team game that definitely includes the DM. So with that said: that respect goes both ways. Talk to your players, and they’ll talk to you. Respect their character decisions, they’ll trust and respect your story decisions. If a DM is doing their job correctly, all of this is pretty moot, because if your players have the correct resources, hooks and information, chances are they’re going to do what you expect/want anyway. It’s just up to the DM to give them those correct resources, hooks and information. If there’s a disconnect, it’s because that was broken along the way. 

All that being said! Here is my list that I keep stickied to my monitor

The players never miss. Failure needs active opposition, be in combat, during dialogue or a check. Even from level one, player characters are absolute badasses compared to the rest of the population. It sucks when the game doesn’t reflect that. So instead of “lol you miss”, what happens if that becomes, “the bandit is just barely able to block your blow, gasping as they reel backwards out your reach - for now”? Feels a lot better.

Along those lines, if your players are adding combat flavor to their attack rolls, don’t punish them for participating and make them do checks for it. Not everything needs a roll. Let them be cool. 

Answer “will this work” from the perspective of the character asking. This could go for anything a player asks. Try and answer in a way their character would understand. Someone from the cold regions of the north and someone from the swampy regions of the south will have differing thoughts/opinions/knowledge of things. PC’s live in the world. Put their lived experience into their rolls.

Insight also follows this. Insight shouldn’t just be, “he’s telling the truth” or “he’s lying”. If the particularly perceptive bard who is the charismatic face of the party is doing an insight check, they might pick up the twitch of an eye, the sweat on a brow. If the distracted monk holding the party’s adopted kenku is asking the question, they might not notice these things. 

Let your players talk and interact. Don’t be in a hurry to move things along if the party is bonding or looking into things. This doesn’t mean let them linger forever - if you find things have stalled, then of course a “so, what would you like to do now,” never hurts. I mean in the way of interjecting to participate. A DM is a part of the group but isn’t, yeah?

The less you share/hint to your players the better. Don’t let them know what they got or what they missed. What they have is what they have. Sometimes it’s fun to let them know of a potential thing that could have happened, but generally... don’t be an active participant in those conversations. Essentially, with your players, be ‘excited for Vague Future Stuff and Things’ (literally I just copy paste that into the chat when I’m planning out stuff and can’t repress the need to blurt out excitement), not next session’s x event. 

The internet is your friend. There are so many resources, everywhere you look. I am particularly fond of the subreddits /r/DnDBehindTheScreen and /r/DMAcademy. Don’t be afraid to pull inspiration from your favourite media as well - bring the The Trouble with Tribbles to your adventuring crew, you won’t regret it. You’re going to burn yourself out fast trying to out-do yourself as well, and there are a lot of pre-made drop-in adventures. This is a patchwork quilt you are making with your friends, go fucking wild. 

A list of my favourite resources!

Treasure Generator

NPC/Merchant Generator

Town Generator (seriously this one is god-like)

All Shops and Items (base things)

Random Generator and D100 lists (this one also fantastic)

Besides that: take good notes, communicate openly with your players, discuss sessions after they’ve concluded to find what worked and what didn’t for everyone. Don’t be afraid to say no. A lot of other things, it’s just going to take time and experience.

Good luck, have fun, roll well!

[ravnicaforgoblins]

Ravnica for Goblins

Exciting Planeswalker Visitors

(Caution: Before we begin, this post is going to be much more opinion-based than previous ones. These are my own homebrew ideas, use them as/if you wish, discard/dismiss them if you prefer.)

Planeswalkers are an integral part of MTG Lore, as well as several of its most iconic characters. Put simply, a Planeswalker is an individual with an inherent gift for traveling between planes, or worlds. The gift does not appear at birth, but is usually triggered by some manner of incredibly emotional (usually traumatizing) event. In addition, each Planeswalker displays a unique aptitude for a particular style of magic; be it plant growth, transformation, becoming transparent, illusions, invulnerability, summoning beasts, structural analysis, setting things on fire, etc. Whatever their specific brand of magic is, it’s usually on a higher level than an ordinary person can hope to achieve.

Planeswalkers, as a general rule, are wanderers by nature. They may have a home plane, or even an adopted home plane, but being able to traverse the multiverse leads many towards lives of constant adventuring/shenanigans. Add in the fact that Planeswalkers cannot bring anyone else with them on these travels (except in very rare cases), and you end up with a special breed of super-powerful magical loner. They show up, make a name for themselves with their big magic, and depart when they feel like it. Did you say, “Instant Adventure”?

Ravnica has a few native Planeswalkers among its citizens; Ral Zarek, Vraska, and Domri Rade. In addition, it has several Planeswalkers who have at some point or another (depending on your timeline) devoted enough time & energy to be effectively considered citizens; Azor, Tezzeret, Kaya, Dack Fayden, Dovin Baan, Gideon Jura, and Jace Beleren. Some of these are currently dead, missing, or magically barred from ever returning. At one point, Ravnica had more Planeswalkers on it at one time than any plane in the multiverse has ever or will ever see. If you are going the War of the Spark direction, good luck. You'll need it and so will your players. For everyone else, which Planeswalkers you choose to include in your campaign (if any), should be based on who will work the best for the story you’re trying to tell. A recommendation; if you find their lore too distracting and complicated, stick to the main beats. A lot of these figures can be boiled down to simple ideas, and you don’t want to bore your party with the entire novel of these usually dramatic/tragic lives. Trust me, the base concepts are enough.

With that in mind, here are four Planeswalkers that I, a random person on the internet, believe would work great for a Ravnica campaign. My choices are not based on who has canonically already spent time in Ravnica, or who would be the most powerful/dangerous to suddenly appear in the city. Several Planeswalkers have their own prior commitments on other planes that are pretty central to their character, and BAMFing them to Ravnica for a quick Bad Guy to take down wouldn’t do them justice. These four characters would slide into various aspects of Ravnica beautifully. These four would be the most exciting visitors to Ravnica.

Ashiok, Dream Render

I don’t think any MTG character could be as good a fit for a Ravnican Guild as Ashiok is for House Dimir. Ashiok is almost literally a walking shadow of secrets and intrigue. Their origins, their age, their motives, their face; hell, their gender is a secret yet unrevealed. Ashiok’s power is creating living beings born of the greatest fears stolen from people’s nightmares. Literally.

It’s like if the Dimir stopped half-assing the art of stealing thoughts and turned it into a weapon of mass destruction. Because even the mightiest of Ravnicans are afraid of things. Ask Niv-Mizzet about the Nephilim sometime, see how quickly he changes the subject. What’s better, for a Guild that prides itself on always having the up & up on everyone, Ashiok is inscrutable. They have no past that can be divined, no secrets that can be stolen, no previous encounters to prepare any for their arrival. Neither Lazav nor Etrata can claim such anonymity, despite their best efforts. Ashiok is a true enigma and a dangerous new weapon for House Dimir.

Ashiok also comes with the ability to create minions and NPCs from out of any PC’s worst nightmares, making encounters a great combination of roleplaying & combat. Fighting them is specifically facing one’s deepest & darkest fears made real. Can you say, “character development”?

Ashiok’s arrival could spread this new magical art to other Dimir Agents for a longer campaign, but it might be best to confine it to Ashiok in order to allow for a cleaner victory. Ashiok is not a fighter, cornering them into a direct confrontation should be enough to make the Nightmare Sculptor run for the hills. The mind is powerful, but also very squishy.

Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded

You know how the Cult of Rakdos are technically Chaotic Evil but generally just a bunch of artsy hedonistic nuisances? Tibalt is to them what a gallon of gasoline would be to a lit stove. Good for fire, bad for everything else. Tibalt is an empath specializing in Pain Magic. Quite literally, he loves hurting people for fun. Drawn to pain like a magnet; physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological, etc, he is sadism personified.

His brief time on Ravnica during War of the Spark was enough to make a strong impression on the Rakdos.

“I like this one’s energy.”

This is because they do not realize how bad Tibalt would be for the Cult. There is a fundamental difference between the Chaotic Evil the Cult practices and the Chaotic Evil Tibalt delights in. The Rakdos have survived 10,000 years by taking in the freaks, the rejects, and the crazies, and giving them a place where they can live out their most depraved hedonistic fantasies. They are the voice of the outsiders bringing all figures of power & authority down a peg. They always punch up, never down. Tibalt is a young man with no home, no friends, no job, and no interests or hobbies beyond inflicting pain in as many people as possible. Tibalt punches everyone. The most important distinction between the two is that the Cult of Rakdos is a culture, a way of life for people to embrace; it might be crazy, but it welcomes & accepts people no matter how insane the world says they are. Tibalt does not care about anyone but himself. Following his example would see the city turned into the largest, bloodiest, and most destructive riot in its history; with Tibalt inciting and sicking every monstrosity he can find onto the city at once. He will burn the Rakdos candle at both ends and leave them to suffer the consequences of his fun. The aftermath being the city in ruins, the Cult wiped from the face of existence, and him moving on to his next project. In short, Tibalt will hurt the Cult of Rakdos as much, if not more, than the rest of Ravnica. Because that’s how he gets his kicks.

The one thing standing in his way will be Rakdos himself. As the single largest diva on the entire plane, Rakdos does not tolerate anyone who tries to steal his spotlight. As a 10,000+ year-old Demon Lord, Rakdos is in a league of his own, and Tibalt is just a hotshit little pain mage with a few tricks. It’s not a fight, it’s either an exit or a curtain call for the Planeswalker. If Rakdos is around, Tibalt’s spree will be very short-lived. If, however, Rakdos is doing his usual thing of hibernating for weeks, months, or years at a time, that’s a different story. Tibalt is good for if your campaign wants to bypass politics & intrigue and go straight to killing Cultists & Demons. He’s bad for anyone he comes in contact with.

Garruk Wildspeaker

In case I haven’t made my contempt for Domri Rade clear, I hold Domri Rade in utter contempt. As a character, as a Planeswalker, and most of all as a Gruul, he’s a failure. Scrawny, weak, gullible, and stupid. My chief grievance with Domri is that he fell short in all the areas the Gruul Clans idolize. He couldn’t survive in the wilderness on his own without his Planeswalker abilities, he couldn’t fight for himself except against weaker opponents or with herds of animals as backup, and he acted on orders from someone else who wasn’t Gruul. For a Guild built on independence and survival of the fittest, he failed both completely.

Garruk is the real deal. Gigantic, strong, savage, and cunning. Here is a man who, on a fundamental level, has embraced animal savagery as a way of life. He lives like a predator on the hunt, an alpha of any pack, and a fierce threat to all who intrude upon his territory. On a plane like Ravnica, where civilization has encroached on the untamed wilds almost completely, Garruk would be a gamechanger. Not only could he feasibly fight Borborygmos for leadership of the Gruul, he could win, and he could unite the Gruul under his howl of reclaiming the wilds from so-called “civilization”. Garruk would bring animal strength to the Gruul in ways they’ve only begun to tap into, and he’d do it in their language. Because Garruk understands the Gruul, and they understand him. They have so much in common with each other that it’s hard to think of any Planeswalker who could be welcomed so readily into a Guild. They would become so much more than rock-smashers and anarchists, they would become Ravnica’s reminder that nature will survive when all traces of society have crumbled away.

As if taking on the city itself wasn’t big enough already, Garruk has also taken to hunting other Planeswalkers, and can actually track them across the Multiverse. Meaning a few high-ranking members of Guilds and even the Living Guildpact have to take his threat seriously. He’s got a particular grudge against necromancers, dislikes talking, and has a special gift with animals of all varieties. All of which provides plenty of ideas to build from. He’s an 8ft tall Human Druid/Barbarian who willingly chooses animal savagery over intellectual reasoning, can there be anyone more perfect for the Gruul?

Did I say Ashiok was the most perfect fit for an MTG character in a Ravnican Guild? Yeah, scratch that. Garruk is.

Sarkhan Vol

Most Planeswalkers have a theme to their abilities. For some, that theme extends to their personalities as well. And then there are Planeswalkers who can be adequately summed up in a single word. For Sarkhan, that word would be “dragons”. Sarkhan sees dragons as nature’s purest & most destructive form, and carries a fascination with them that is perfectly healthy for anything with wings and scales that breathes fire, but generally less healthy for everything & everyone else.

One of the things that makes Ravnica unique is the distinct lack of dragons (emphasis on the plural). Ravnica has a dragon, Niv-Mizzet the Firemind, who made the executive decision thousands of years ago that he alone was sufficient to represent his entire species. Ravnican dragons are considered more intelligent than dragons on other planes, Niv himself being a prime example of this. Around the original signing of the Guildpact, Ravnica’s Godlike dragons were hunted to extinction, with Niv leading the hunt against his own kind. They were not entirely successful in this endeavor, but what few dragons do remain in the present day survive by staying as far off Niv’s radar as possible. Some dragons live by carrying out Niv’s will under constant supervision, or by hunting in the untamed wilds outside the city, or as sideshow attractions for the Rakdos (usually with their wings cut off to prevent escape). They are effectively stripped of anything that would identify them as “dragons” for the sake of their own existence. Since dragons are such a notoriously touchy subject for the Firemind, few have the nerve or fire immunity necessary to speak out against it.

Sarkhan would be horrified. If he thought the extinction of dragons on his home plane of Tarkir was bad, seeing them living like this would infuriate him beyond words. What would Sarkhan do once the initial shock of seeing his spirit animal (in more ways than one) reduced to pitiful scraps of life as lab rats, scared prey, and freak shows wears off? Let’s make it a game! Do you think Sarkhan will:

A. Cry.

B. Throw up.

C. Embrace this as a plane’s reality that he has no right to get involved with.

D. Scream.

E. Set something on fire.

F. Set everything on fire.

G. Bring back the dragons.

H. Burn the city to the ground with dragons.

I. Kill Niv-Mizzet.

J. All the above except “C”.

If you selected Answer “J”, then congratulations! You’ve just won a free trip to a BURNING METROPOLIS! Sarkhan will absolutely make it his life’s goal to bring dragons back to Ravnica and destroy the whole wretched city down to the last brick. How he would do it is up to you, but it’s a solid bet that even if every other Guild treats him like an apocalyptic madman, the Gruul might side with him over some shared beliefs in smashing the city apart with ferocious animal savagery. They tend to lean towards such ideas with uncharacteristic willful compliance. Ravnican dragons are primarily red, with the most prominent breed still remaining being the Utvara Hellkites beyond the city limits.

Oh, and Sarkhan can turn into a dragon, too. Have fun with that.

[the-last-teabender]

FANFIC: Oxventure - Duel Destinies

RATING: G

WORDS: Just under 7k

SUMMARY: Corazón gets hit on the head.

A/N: This isn’t my first time writing fanfic, but it’s my first time in literal decades writing something that a) isn’t going into a charity anthology and b) isn’t single-sentence goofs in my Gchat window with @randomthunk. So I actually am a little nervous to just yeet my work out into the world without an editor/publisher frontline protecting me from looking foolish. I do have plans to fic more tho.

I approached this as though I was writing an official tie-in because that’s my comfort zone (and occasionally my job). Which was a little challenging because there’s a lot that’s not part of the story but is part of the viewing experience. I have not mastered it in one story but the attempt was fun. Also I haven’t smashed alt-codes this obsessively while writing since I wrote about Señor 105.

Thanks aforementioned Ginger for being my beta reader and basically sitting on me to post this instead of hide it in my writing folder.

Anyway, if you like what I’m throwing out here, I have actually a lot of stuff in print and even more coming.

----------

“Right,” Dob said, pacing the length of the deck, “before we go, let’s review. Prudence, what happened yesterday?”

“We found a bad man killing off local slimes to make slime booze.”

“Good. Corazón, what happened yesterday?”

“I began my awesome new career as a detective and threw someone out a window.”

“All right. Merilwen?”

“Mow.”

“Excellent. Egbert?”

“I set a tavern on fire and got my seal very drunk on slime gin.”

“All right, that’s us caught up.”

That wasn’t the entire catch-up, but all of them knew the events of the day before well enough. The forest outside the town of Esterwell was in turmoil, according to the wizard Binbag after he tumbled unexpectedly out of a pantry. It was suddenly bereft of slimes — the cute little blobby creatures generally used for target practice by up-and-coming adventurers. As it happened, slimes had other uses. Serving as the base for a delightful high-end alcoholic brew, for one. Serving as the base of the entire local food chain, for another. If the slime population continued to plummet, eventually the other animal populations would follow suit.

An investigation of the local slime hunters (led by DCI Jeff Crimestopper, a pseudonym Corazón was becoming increasingly attached to) turned up that they were all in the employ of the same man: one Alonzo Horgan, owner of the Horgan Distillery. One especially talkative young hunter revealed that Horgan intended to “wring all the slimes out of Esterwell Forest” before upping sticks to his next hunting ground.

The goal was, in short, to stop Horgan’s machinations before he destabilized the entire local ecosystem and went on to do the same to others. Somewhere along the way, Dob had got it into his head that the goal was to start a brewery of their own and hold a cider-making contest in the Esterwell town square… an idea the group at large now referred to as “Plan C.”

Plan A, currently underway, was to continue the detective lark and either talk sense into Horgan or (more likely) run him out of town. Plan B was burning down the distillery.

“I’m still very much in favor of bumping Plan B up to Plan A,” said Prudence, wiggling her fingers as the group made their way back into Esterwell.

“Mrow,” Merilwen the cat grumbled from Dob’s shoulder, which translated to something like, “But that doesn’t actually solve the problem of making him stop.”

“Oh, fine,” Prudence huffed. “Detectives it is.”

Corazón pumped a fist low and (he thought) out of sight. “DCI Jeff Crimestopper back on the case, bay-bee.”

They arrived at the home of Alonzo Horgan — a palatial manor in a town that really wasn’t the sort to have palatial manors. At least half a dozen residences would have to have been knocked down to make way for the place, which stood half again as high as the buildings around it that had survived.

Merilwen hopped lightly from Dob’s shoulder, turning back into an elf again, as the half-orc tapped politely on the door.

“No, no.” Egbert shoved past him, balling up one scaly fist. “You’ve gotta really punch it.” He slammed his fist against the door several times, making it bow slightly under the pressure.

“Open up!” Corazón shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. “We have a warrant!”

“Don’t just say we have a warrant!” Merilwen hissed.

The door was opened mere moments later by a tall, rail-thin man with an upturned nose and a downturned moustache. “Mmcan I help you?”

Corazón pushed past the man. “Yeah, you can take us to Alonzo Horgan. We’re taking him down to the station for questioning.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Horgan is not—” But the man was cut off as the rest of the group piled past and into the house.

“Where is he, then? Upstairs?” Corazón pointed up the stairwell, one foot on the steps.

The man at the door, to his credit, did his best to maintain his decorum. “Mr. Horgan is not taking visitors.”

“We’re not visitors,” Dob said gruffly, looming over the man, “we’re detectives.”

“Is that so? Well, I do hope you meant what you said about having a warrant. Otherwise I may have to take you to the authorities.” 

Alonzo Horgan’s voice silenced the group, but had it not, his presence would have. Fully six-foot-four, a stocky mix of fat and muscle generally only seen on back alley brawlers, stuffed into a fancy suit. His glare was imperious; his moustache was excellent.

Corazón swiveled and approached the master of the house. “Alonzo Horgan?”

“Yes, I’m… not sure who else I would be.” Horgan seemed put out for a moment, but recovered himself. “May I ask what business you have here?”

“DCI Jeff Crimestopper.” Corazón pulled a piece of paper from his coat, flashed it briefly, and put it away again. “This is my DI, Dob Tyler.”

Dob grinned toothily; had it not been Dob, it might have looked threatening. “Here to make sure my loose cannon superior does things by the book.”

Corazón gestured to the rest of the party. “DS Prudence, DC Merilwen. And, er, PC Egbert, he mostly makes the tea.”

“It’s really good tea,” Egbert piped up.

“No offense, sir…” Horgan gestured to Corazón. “But you look more like a pirate than a detective.”

“Deep cover, obviously. I wouldn’t expect a civilian to understand.”

Horgan waved a hand dismissively. “Even if I were to entertain the idea that you’re who you claim to be, I feel I’ve done nothing to warrant an investigation.”

Merilwen narrowed her eyes. “Nothing, Mr. Horgan?” Her voice was tense, hitting that slightly higher octave that her friends knew meant violence was quickly becoming an option. “Killing off an entire species for your own benefit is ‘nothing’? Allowing the local wildlife to starve is ‘nothing’?”

“Oh, it’s about the distillery, is it? I promise you, my dear, I’ve heard it all before.”

Dob gritted his teeth, giving Horgan a highly dramatic, highly knowing look. “I’d be careful if I was you, sir. DC Merilwen has a license to… er. Bear.”

Still, none of this seemed to faze Horgan. “If you think complaining about my methods is going to have any effect… let me assure you, it hasn’t yet. Now, unless you have any actual business with me…”

Prudence stepped up. “All right, look. Fine. We’re not actually detectives.”

“You don’t say,” Horgan deadpanned.

“That said… the whole slime issue is a real thing, and we really do need you to stop hunting them out completely. Or at least cut back.” Prudence looked back at Merilwen. “Cut back? Would that be good enough?”

“I prefer the idea of him stopping completely,” Merilwen seethed.

Prudence gestured to Merilwen. “Yeah, what she said. But I mean, it affects you, too. Do you like, uh… wild boar? I guess? Rabbit? Pheasant? I don’t know.” She spread her hands in an exaggerated shrug. “Screw up the food chain and you don’t get any of those.”

Horgan looked them all over, one by one. “You come into my home. You pretend to be something you’re not. And then you make demands of me that would effectively shut down my business. Give me one reason why I should even listen to what you have to say.”

Egbert had mostly detached from the scene in front of him, his eyes scanning his surroundings in search of something entertaining. They lighted on a pair of crossed swords on the wall, with a bronze plaque underneath: Esterwell Annual Fencing Championship, Second Place. Without thinking, he blurted out, “A duel.”

“I beg your pardon?” Horgan asked. The rest of the party fixed Egbert with confused looks.

“A duel,” the dragonborn repeated, with a little more confidence this time — confidence filled in a lot of blanks, in his experience. “If one of us bests you in a duel, you have to at least give us a proper audience.”

Much to the group’s surprise — including Egbert’s, truth be told — Horgan seemed to consider it. “Hmm. Well. I suppose it makes more sense than… whatever we’ve been doing.” He gestured at the room in general, then turned to Corazón. “On the condition that I fight this one.”

Corazón grinned. “Hell yeah. I’ll fight you. Prepare to have your whole scene wrecked by Corazón de Ballena.”

“I thought you said your name was Jeff Crimestopper.”

“I told you. Deep cover.”

Horgan sighed wearily and turned to his doorman. “See them out. Tomorrow at sunrise on the lawn. Come alone, whatever your name is. And pray you do not lose. I have no patience for time-wasters.”

The five were ushered out without another word.

“Not sure it’s wise to challenge a prizewinning fighter to a duel,” Merilwen noted when they were outside town again. “That sort of seems like the main thing he’ll be ready for.”

Egbert waved a hand. “Pff, it’s fine. The plaque on his wall said he was only second place. That means there’s at least one person better than him in town.”

“Still… What’s going to happen if Corazón if he loses?”

Corazón laughed. “Pff. Hah. Nothing. Because Corazón won’t lose.” He unsheathed his rapier and stopped to take a few jabs at a nearby tree. A heavy branch, near to breaking, creaked overhead. “You know what my crew used to call me?”

“Yes,” said Prudence, “you’ve complained about it several times.”

“I mean in battle. You know, when we captured ships. My swordsmanship is second to none. They used to call me Corazón the—”

There was a crash, and silence.

Egbert stopped walking, waiting for the punchline. “Corazón the what?”

“Er.” Merilwen pointed back toward the tree hesitantly. “Corazón the unconscious, apparently.”

Prudence turned and lifted away the branch, wincing at the sight of the pirate splayed out on the ground. “Oh, dear…” Then she looked up at the group. “So does this mean I’m captain now?”

---

The general consensus had been to let Corazón be once he’d been carried back to the Joyful Damnation and bundled into bed. He would likely be full of opinions and complaints as soon as he woke up. That, and he’d need his rest before dueling Horgan the next morning. 

There was no bleeding as far as they could tell. Just a big bruise that would get bruisier over the next few days. Egbert dropped a quick bit of healing on Corazón which, while it would likely be helpful in the long run, did nothing to wake him. Eventually, Dob took up a seat by the enormous bed in the captain’s quarters, keeping an eye on the patient and picking out a few chords to pass the time. Just as he was getting a good riff worked out... 

“Ow.”

“Ow?” Dob leaned over the bed. “Did you say ow?”

“Yes, I said ow. Because I’m in pain.”

Dob jumped up from his seat and threw the door open. “Guys! Guys! He’s awake!”

Prudence was the first to run in. “Is he okay?”

“Sounds like it.”

Egbert followed, with Merilwen bringing up the rear. They crowded around Corazón’s bed, realized at the same time that that would probably look weird from his vantage point, and backed off a bit.

“Corazón?” Dob leaned in slightly. “How’s your head?”

He squinted up at Dob. “What did you call me?”

“Oh, right.” Dob laughed. “Silly me. How’s your head, DCI Crimestopper?”

This just seemed to confuse him more. “Who… what are you talking about?” Then he pulled himself up to sitting, perhaps a little more quickly than he ought, and pressed a hand to the top of his head, looking around. “I feel like I’ve been beaned with an entire tree. Where the hell am I?”

“Your room,” Prudence offered. “We figured you’d want a nap after the bludgeoning.”

He shook his head, still sounding a bit dazed. “No… this isn’t my room. My room is bigger. And it doesn’t rock and creak. Are we… are we on a ship?” He looked up at the others again, as though seeing them for the first time.

“... who the hell are all of you?”

There was an awkward silence.

“He’s messing about, right?” Egbert grinned nervously at the others. 

“It’s Corazón,” Prudence said quickly, “of course he’s messing about. Just humor him, he’ll be on to something new when he’s tired of it.”

Dob was already on board at humor him. He pressed a hand to his forehead. “Oh, no! Corazón! All our precious memories, lost forever! Please say it isn’t so, old friend!”

If Corazón was acting, he was really leaning into the deadpan delivery. “Is this some sort of prank? It’s not a very good one, if…” His gaze wandered down to his hands resting on the bed sheet, his sleeves wrinkled back somewhat. His eyes went wide, and he made a sort of choking, stammering sound.

Then, again far more quickly than he probably should have, he threw himself out of bed, shoving past Egbert on the way to the largest of his mirrors. Carefully, he pulled his collar aside. And gasped.

“Oh, my God, I’ve been tattooed in my sleep!”

“Gosh,” Egbert said with an admiring smile, “he’s really devoting himself to the bit, isn’t he?”

Merilwen shook her head slightly. “I… don’t… know if it’s a bit.”

“Which one of you did this to me?!” Corazón pointed at the tentacle tattoo emerging from under his collar. “Why would you do that? Why… what happened to my hair!? How long have I been asleep!?” He grabbed the nearest person — Egbert — by the collar. “Are you trying to change my identity!? Am I going to be sold off to the highest bidder!? What’s your plan!? You have to tell me!”

Dob grabbed for his lute, a nervous grin plastered on his face. “Ooooh! Oh, dear! Looks like someone could use a nice lullaby.”

Merilwen held out a warning hand to Dob. “No? No. One second.” She waved a hand to Corazón, the way one might a skittish fox. “Hey, over here.”

“What!? What do you want now!?”

“Just. Okay. Calm down for a second. Calm…” Merilwen inhaled and exhaled slowly, guiding the breathing with her hands. Corazón, surprisingly did the same. That in itself was a sign that something was off.

“Okay, just keep your eyes on me, all right?”

“Sure.” Corazón’s voice was strained.

Merilwen rooted around in the pocket of one of Corazón’s jackets, folded neatly over a nearby chair. She found what she was looking for — a little leather pouch of gold coins — and poured the contents out into her hand. She showed them to Corazón, as though setting up a magic trick. He watched and nodded tensely, his jaw set.

“Dob,” she said with a sweet smile, opening the cabin window. “Would you do the honors?”

“Would I?” Without hesitation, he took the little handful of coins from Merilwen, slid over to the window, and chucked them out into the sea, one by one.

All eyes turned toward Corazón.

“Yes, and?” The nervousness was tinged with irritation. “What?”

Another awkward silence, this one longer. And awkwarder. As they all, in their own time, came to terms with the fact that Corazón was not, in fact, acting.

Prudence tapped him experimentally on the shoulder. He flinched away, balling his hands into fists and holding them in front of his face.

“Hey, hey, whoa! No, no, we’re your friends! It’s us!” Prudence smiled, gesturing around the room. “You know. The Oxventurers! Can’t you recognize us?”

Corazón lowered his fists. “If you mean could I pick you out of a lineup, then yes, I certainly could.”

“Corazón…”

“Hff… and stop calling me that! It’s weird!” He brushed off his sleeve where Prudence had tapped him. “If you’re my kidnappers, then I would hope you already know who I am.”

“Y-Yeah.... Sorry.” Prudence frowned, then smiled. “Percy?”

“Thank you. That’s more like it.” And Corazón made a break for the deck. 

---

“All I’m saying,” said the half-orc with the large hammer and the very nice hair, “is that we could be having a cider-making contest in the town square right now.”

“Or burning things,” said the tiefling, as a pair of ancient tomes played around her heels like rowdy puppies. “We could also be burning things right now.”

If this was a kidnapping, it was a very civilized one. Percy hadn’t had any practical experience with being kidnapped, to be fair. His father had suggested that it might happen once or twice in his youth, because that was just how life was for the children of rich and influential people. But after making it to adulthood without ever waking up in a dingy cellar surrounded by leering mercenaries, he’d just put it to the side.

He’d also been a bit disappointed, as escaping from said mercenaries could have been fun. But in retrospect, he might not have done as well at that as he liked to pretend.

He wasn’t tied up, or locked up. At worst, he had been prevented from leaping off the ship by all four of his kidnappers (and a seal, he was still contending with that information) piling themselves on top of him. They’d bundled him back into the captain’s quarters while they consulted with each other. Percy took the time to shave — the itch from his stubble was frazzling his already-frazzled brain — and change into a shirt that still had functional buttons.

The change had gotten a slight stare of disbelief from his captors, as though he’d gone and swapped heads, but no actual comments were made. And now, the dragonborn was sitting by him on the deck and handing him a cup of tea, and it smelled suspiciously like what he drank at home, and yes, this was absolutely one of his teacups.

“So!” the dragonborn said with a toothy grin. “Cora-... er, Percival. Percy? Mr. Milquetoast? Sorry, not sure what to call you now.” He had a cup of his own, but rather than sipping from it, he opened his long snout and splashed the contents inside. Judging by the reaction that followed, the tea was still very hot.

“Just, er… whichever? I guess?” Why was he sitting on a ship drinking tea with his kidnappers while they asked what to call him? Why had his father not been mentioned yet? Was that still incoming? His teacup rattled against the saucer.

“Mmmm… Percy. I’ve always thought you looked like a Percy.”

“Always?” Percy put his teacup down shakily on its saucer. “Then you’ve been spying on me? For how long?”

“No!” The dragonborn waved a hand frantically in front of himself. “No, no, I mean… we’re not…” He looked behind him, where the other three were peering at the scene thoughtfully. “Um, guys, I’m not doing great. Someone else try.”

The elf stepped in and tapped him on the shoulder, as though relieving him from duty. Good. As far as Percy could tell, she was the most logical of the group. She wasn’t panicking… not that he could see, at least.

“So you’re Good Cop, then?” Percy eyed her warily.

“No…” The elf sighed, a sort of long-suffering sigh that made him feel like this was not the first long-suffering sigh she’d issued him. “We’re your friends, really. And we’re just trying to figure out how to help you.”

Percy narrowed his eyes. “My friends.”

“Yes.”

“Not magical kidnappers looking for a piece of the Milquetoast fortune.”

“No. Not magical kidnappers looking for a piece of the family fortune. I promise.” 

“I mean, I have friends at home. I can just go home to my actual friends, and not whatever you guys are pretending to be.”

The elf’s face settled into an expression that somehow managed to be both neutral and confrontational, her lips pressed into a line. “Name four friends you have at home.”

Damn. “Uh, th-there’s, uh… there’s Steve… F-Friendsman.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s, a-um, Roger… M’buddy.”

The elf pressed a hand to her face. “Please, at least let us try to help you.”

She seemed absolutely genuine. It was making his head hurt. This was not how criminals acted. As far as he knew. “Fine, help me, or whatever it is you want to do.”

“All right, so…” The elf clasped her hands together. “It’s probably just a matter of jogging your memory. You got a little bop on the head, it shook things up, but we can help you connect things up again. Right?”

“Sure,” Percy said hesitantly, now with the added wrinkle of wondering when and how he’d been hit over the head. He considered asking, but he could already hear the answer. No, we didn’t hit you over the head intentionally. It was a love tap. Something like that.

The elf smiled. It didn’t seem like a kidnapper’s smile. But again, he had nothing to go on. Maybe kidnappers had really nice smiles. “Okay, good. So let’s just rattle out a few of the high points, and see what your brain latches onto.”

Percy nodded, taking a sip from the teacup he still held in a death grip.

“Okay. Spicy rat?” She paused, and he wasn’t sure what for. After a short silence, she picked up again. “No? Okay, that was a while ago, admittedly. Uh… baby-making watch?”

“Babies don’t come from watches,” Percy scoffed. “They come from under cabbage leaves.”

The elf ground to a halt in her questioning, but picked up again with a shake of the head. “What about the party? The one where you went dressed as a sexy nurse and made a teenage girl cry.”

Percy scowled. “I would never do that!”

The half-orc chuckled. “Oh, you very much did.”

“I will not allow you to paint me with the same brush as you, you… s-scoundrels!” Percy felt a chill down the back of his neck. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? You’re trying to convince me I’m one of you and whisk me away to do unspeakable crimes, is that it?”

“Hasn’t taken much trying so far, mate,” Merilwen grumbled.

“Waaaait wait wait wait.” The tiefling squeezed up next to the elf. “We’re coming at this from the wrong angle. He’s clearly forgotten stuff from before we met him, too, right? What we need to do is remind him of why he became a pirate.”

Percy looked around the ship. Then down at the clothes he’d woken up in. And the tattoo on his wrist. “I’m a pirate?”

“Yep, you are a pirate.”

“So… this really is my ship?”

“Er, our ship, yes.” The tiefling seemed to take a lot of pride in saying that. Well, being co-owner of a ship was something to be proud of… if it was true, he’d probably let himself feel a bit proud, too. “So, maybe if you can summon up the feelings that made you want to run away from home and be a pirate, the rest will follow. So, tell us about your dad.”

“He’s… dumb?” Percy shrugged. “He’s annoying? I don’t know, it’s a lot of effort to run away from him for being dumb and annoying. I’ve got nothing.” 

The tiefling leaned in conspiratorially. “Nothing about what a bad dad he is? How he has ridiculous expectations of you? Doesn’t want you to have fun and live your own life?” She paused. “How he’s got a stupid wig and he’s all stuffy and bossy?”

Percy leaned away from her. “You seem to have plenty against him already.”

“Oh, no, no. I don’t hate him. You do.”

“No, it really does sound like it’s you.”

The tiefling laughed, waving a hand. “Oh, no, that’s just because he bothers you. It’s a support thing. I’d totally love to live in his big ol’ house.”

“So you’re telling me you don’t like my father, but you do like his money, and that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

The tiefling’s face twisted into a confused frown. “Oh, man. Yeah, we do kinda sound like we kidnapped you for ransom, don’t we?”

Percy flinched away, nearly dropping his teacup. Oddly, the tiefling was once again trying to reassure him. “Which we didn’t?? Which we didn’t. I’m just saying.” She sighed. “I guess he forgot whatever happened that made him want to run away, too. How about you, Egbert? Got any paladin magic for him?”

“I’ve got something better!”

All eyes, Percy’s included, turned to the dragonborn — who was now swinging a mace from one clawed hand.

“So, you know how in all the stories, right? Someone gets knocked on the head and gets amnesia, but then they get hit in the same spot and all their memories come back. Let’s just do that!”

The dragonborn strode over to Percy, winding up the mace. Percy stumbled backwards, his teacup falling and shattering on the deck. “Don’t you dare!”

“Egbert, not that mace!” the elf shouted.

“Oh, it’s fiiiine. I had to hit whatsisname loads of times before he actually turned into a seal.”

Percy looked at the seal. The seal looked back.

“Eg.”

The dragonborn raised his mace over his head. Percy stumbled backwards towards the door to the captain’s quarters, eyes locked on the cursed weapon. He reached behind him for the doorknob and twisted frantically. The door wouldn’t give way.

The elf flung herself at the dragonborn, turning into an octopus in midair. The two hit the deck, the mace rolling harmlessly across the deck as the octopus held the would-be attacker in place. Percy finally managed to yank the door open, racing into the captain’s quarters and slamming the door behind him.

“I meant a spell!” Percy heard the tiefling yell from the other side of the door. “You’ve got more healing spells, don’t you?”

“Oh, riiiight…”

There was a gentle tap at the door. Percy eyed it nervously.

“Heeey, buddy. You okay?” It was the half-orc. “Can I come in?”

“No, you absolutely cannot come in. You’re all insane and there’s a seal man out there saying egg.”

“That’s cool, that’s cool. I’ll just sit out here, how’s that?”

Percy heard a gentle thump against the other side of the door. “So… you really don’t remember anything, do you? About us, or your pirate crew, or any of that?”

“Last thing I remember is going to bed at Milquetoast Manor and thinking tomorrow night’s party was going to be very boring. Then I woke up in bed on a strange boat, with all of you standing over me looking ready to dissect me or something.” Percy sat down, leaning on the other side of the door. His head still felt foggy. “So? Which one of you blackjacked me?”

“You blackjacked yourself with a tree.”

Percy frowned. “Is that the sort of thing I’m likely to do?”

“Oh, yes,” the half-orc said cheerfully. “Merilwen had a stack of tree puns ready to go, but under the circumstances it seemed, uh… bit tasteless.”

“Merilwen?”

“The elf. Don’t worry, you can hear them later. You know, when your head’s right again.” A pause. “Oh! Haha. Of course. I’m Dob, by the way. The tiefling is Prudence, and the big dragon man is Egbert. And we’re all your friends, and we all do super cool things together.”

Percy nodded, still not completely convinced. Then he realized Dob wouldn’t be able to see him on the other side of the door. “If you say so.”

“Gosh. Introducing myself to you. That brings back memories.” Dob stopped himself, fumbling, as if he’d just said something extremely offensive. “I mean… you know…”

Against his better judgment, Percy got up and opened the door. Dob, leaning heavily on it, tumbled backwards… but turned the tumble into a backwards somersault and landed lightly on his feet. He gave a little bow, and Percy felt he ought to clap. Just considering the effort.

“You ready to come out and talk to the others?”

Percy leaned to one side and looked out onto the deck. Egbert was on his feet again, with Merilwen (now an elf) still clinging to his back, as though uncertain whether the dragonborn could be trusted on his own yet. Prudence wore a friendly smile that seemed to say “I’m not going to sacrifice you to my eldritch god, but I’m also not not going to sacrifice you to my eldritch god.” His trusted friends. Apparently.

Before Percy could answer, Dob slapped him on the back and walked him out onto the deck. “All right. We’ve all had a little breather, a little think, and I think… and this is just me… we should back-burner the memory loss issue and focus on the bigger problem.”

“There’s a bigger problem?” Percy looked at Dob incredulously.

The group at large winced. “Yeah…” Dob continued to speak for the group, and no one seemed to mind being relieved of that duty for the moment. “See, Percy. Percival. Friend. Our good friend of so long…”

“Just tell me what’s going to happen to me.”

“You have to duel someone tomorrow morning.”

Percy extracted himself from Dob’s friendly side-arm. “What? Why? Why would I do that?”

“Again,” said Dob, “if it makes you feel better, it is extremely on brand.”

“Hsfd… it doesn’t make me feel better! I have to fight someone tomorrow and I’m not me! I mean, I am me, but I’m not this other me who went and did a thing I didn’t do!”

Amongst them, Percy’s friends(?) laid out the entire situation. All he managed to retain were slimes, collapse of the natural world, very large man, and imminent swordfight. The rest was a sort of blur, and one he was in no mood to attempt to figure out.

“I can’t do this.” It was a statement of fact. “Maybe this Corazón guy can do this, but I can’t. Horgan’s going to be expecting some jerk pirate who can swordfight.”

“We can try another refresher,” suggested Merilwen.

Egbert reached for his mace. “I could try—-”

“No,” said everyone, possibly even the seal.

“Look,” Dob said gently, “we’ll have puh-lenty of time to work on the memory thing, right? All we have to do is get through tomorrow, and if it hasn’t cleared up by then, we’ll find someone to help you, no problem.”

“How can you be so sure?” Percy asked, the fretting feeling coming back even stronger than before.

Egbert shrugged. “It’ll happen. That’s how it tends to go. A problem comes up, and then a couple days later someone comes along with a quest that’ll fix it. It’s really handy.”

“Okay, that’s great for after tomorrow morning. But what about me, tomorrow morning, with swords? What’s my guarantee I get past that alive? Because I’ve never actually stabbed a man.”

“Yes you have,” Prudence pointed out.

“Like a lot,” Merilwen added.

“Apparently you kicked a man to death once,” said Egbert. “I mean, I found out later, but I believe it.”

“But I don’t remember that!” Percy flailed an arm helplessly. “It’s… hds… that’s some future guy and I’m not the future guy, I’m the me guy. How is the me guy going to survive?”

The group fell silent.

“... did I actually kick a man to death?”

They all nodded.

“Oh…”

“And see? That’s why we believe in you, Cor… er, Percy.” Dob threw an arm around Percy’s shoulders again. “We know what you’re capable of. We know it’s in here.” He jabbed at Percy’s chest with one finger. “And in here.” At his head.

“Ow!”

“The head, Dob,” Merilwen hissed, “watch the head.”

“Right, right. Look. We’ve got tonight to train you up into a believable Corazón de Ballena. You’ve already got the look, you’ve already got the voice. That’s more than most people start with.”

Percy let out a weak groan.

“Hey! No, this is good! We can do this! And maybe, somewhere along the way, something will trigger the ol’ bean and the memories will just come flooding back. Right, guys?”

The rest of the team seemed to believe it about as much as Percy did. Which wasn’t much.

“Are you sure we can’t just…” Percy motioned to the anchor rope. “Leave?”

“No,” Merilwen said firmly. But her expression was still hesitant. “No, we have to stop Horgan. More than anything else, that has to happen.”

She was insistent. This was important to her. Percy groaned again.

“Come on, buddy.” Dob lifted his arm from Percy’s shoulders, grabbing him by both arms and staring him in the eyes. “Look me in the eye.”

“Yeah. Looking.”

“Now. Are you a Thieves Cant, or a Thieves Can?”

Merilwen, at least, seemed to appreciate what Dob was going for.

---

Plan B no longer stood for Burning. Plan B, as indicated by a wild-shaped Merilwen taking up a spot behind the topiaries on Horgan’s lawn, now stood for Bear. And possibly Bomb, and Blast, and Bard Casts Thunder Wave, depending on who got trigger-happy first.

No amount of swordfighting or storytelling brought Corazón’s memory back. Nor did any amount of actually insisting on calling him Corazón. Their last ditch hope — that he’d wake up the next morning acting like nothing had happened — didn’t pan out, either. Dob gave pep talk after pep talk as Corazón fretted uncharacteristically, the latter eventually wrapping the uneaten bacon sandwich he’d made for himself in a piece of paper and stowing it in a jacket pocket. Finally, though, they’d all had to take up their positions and leave the rest to luck.

Corazón was left to make the walk up the lawn alone, but the other four had formed a perimeter: Merilwen in the topiary, Dob in a nearby tree, Prudence behind a fence, and Egbert peering over a hedge. Dob promised to shoot Corazón an occasional prompt if things got hairy; but, by and large, it was all him.

As the sun began to rise, Corazón walked up the paved path to the appointed spot. He’d not quite gotten his own swagger down, instead walking slow, measured steps with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

Try to look like you’re too cool for the room! Dob thought; Corazón looked up and around, surprised, then seemed to remember what Dob had said about sending mental messages. He stopped where he was, pulled his hands out of his pockets, squared his shoulders, and walked even more awkwardly up the path.

Fine. It’d have to do.

Just as the light of sunrise hit its best and most aesthetic hue, Alonzo Horgan and his servant walked out. The former wore a rapier at his belt.

“Corazón de Ballena,” Horgan said broadly, his voice dripping with fake friendliness. “Or are we going by something new today?”

“No, er, that’s me.”

Dob thought another swift message.

“I mean… that’s right! That’s me, Corazón. The mighty pirate. Here to run you through like a tasty kebab and grill… grill you on the fires of justice? What the hell does that mean?”

Just go with it, Dob thought irritably, but the moment had passed. Shame. He was rather proud of that one.

Horgan eyed Corazón with amusement. “I can wait if you need a moment.”

“No, no. Erm. Yes, that’s me.” Corazón’s hand hovered over the hilt of his rapier. He was tense. He was ready. He might have been about to faint. It was hard to tell.

Horgan’s retainer’s voice was soft. None of them could hear it from their respective points along the perimeter. Corazón didn’t look especially surprised by any of it, which hopefully meant there was nothing odd about the rules of the duel.

From their spots, separated though each of them was, they all had the same thought at the same time: what would it take? What hadn’t they done? Would they need a spell? Some sort of quest? A skilled healer? Would another bop on the head really have done it?

A shrill whistle blew. Each of them was shaken out of their thoughts to see that the duel had begun, and Corazón was already flagging quickly. It was less of a duel and more of a chase, the enormous Horgan lumbering across the lawn after his smaller opponent. Corazón, for his part, was holding his ground… though “his ground” was constantly moving backwards across the lawn in zigzags.

His heel came dangerously close to a stray root, nearly hidden by the grass.

“Look out!” Egbert shouted. Merilwen, Dob, and Prudence shushed him. Horgan looked up and around for the source of the voice. Corazón, on the other hand, missed the warning entirely. His heel caught on the root, and he windmilled backwards, landing flat on his back.

Merilwen hesitated behind the topiary, one huge, clawed paw creeping around the side of the greenery. Was it go time? The others were in the same state of indecision, poised to attack but waiting to see what happened.

Corazón lifted his head slightly. The massive form of Horgan hovering over him, blade raised threatening, blocked out the faint light of sunrise. The sword hung there for a moment… then was flung across the lawn, accompanied by a disgusted sigh from Horgan.

“How very disappointing.”

The group shot each other quick glances. The message was clear. Well, clear-ish. “Stop Horgan before he can leave” was clear enough, but what would be done with him once apprehended was likely still up in the air. Corazón, unaware of any of this, propped himself up on his elbows.

“Where are you going?” he asked weakly. “We’re not done here.”

“I rather think we are.” Horgan shook his head in… amusement? Disappointment? It was hard to tell. “What a shame. You were so full of piss and vinegar yesterday, and today you’ve got no real fight in you.”

“I’ve got fight… I’ve got plenty of… hhhh.” Corazón put a hand to his head.

“Serves me right, thinking I’d get a good fight out of some puffed-up fake pirate.”

“... what did you say?” Corazón’s voice was suddenly oddly sharp and cold.

Horgan chuckled. “You heard me. You’re less convincing than the chap I hired for my niece’s seventh birthday party.” He waved a hand to his servant. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve not had breakfast yet and I’m peckish. Think I might go to the kitchen and have a bit of a graze.”

On his next step, Horgan’s booted foot slid forward, sending him falling backwards into a puddle of grease that had absolutely not been there moments ago. Now it was his turn to look up at a looming silhouette: Corazón de Ballena, sword pointing down threateningly in one hand, bacon sandwich in the other.

“How appropriate. You fight like a cow.”

Horgan spluttered, eyes bulging. “You… what nonsense is this!?”

“It’s called the power of grease, that’s what nonsense this is. Now get up and fight me so we can have our little talk. Or would you rather we just go ahead and burn your whole scene down?”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Yeah, you’re right, I wouldn’t. I think Prudence might, though.” Corazón shouted toward the fence. “Prudence! Plan B for burn?”

Prudence threw her hands in the air. “Plan B for buuuurn!”

Horgan had managed to pull himself up to one knee, the grease still dangerously slick beneath him. “I said to come alone!”

“Yeah, well, pirate. Don’t know what you expected.” Corazón stepped back, taking a bite of his sandwich. “So, I’m calling this a win for Team Oxventure. Which means it’s time for some negotiations concerning your, er, current business model.”

“But…” Horgan looked in the direction of his servant. He was long gone. Whether he’d run off, or whether the large bear standing where he’d stood had disposed of him, Horgan couldn’t tell.

“Oh, yes. That’s our sustainability advisor, Merilwen. She’ll be taking over from here.”

Merilwen growled.

---

“So what you’re saying,” said Egbert, “is that my plan was the best and would have worked.”

“Hff… no! Absolutely not.” Corazón was rubbing a hand over his chin, displeased with the lack of facial hair. “A one-in-six chance of being turned into an animal is not a best plan. Why did you let me shave? I hate it.”

“It’ll grow back.” Prudence poured out a mug of slime beer… the last remaining barrel, which they’d taken with them as a gratuity after aggressively convincing Horgan to discontinue his fermented slime line. She offered the mug to Merilwen, who waved a hand in front of herself emphatically.

“No, I don’t want to drink the poor baby slimes…” The rest became too high-pitched and tearful to translate.

“I’ll drink the poor baby slimes.” Dob grabbed the mug and necked half of it, much to Merilwen’s chagrin. “Anyway, what snapped you out of it? Was it hitting your head again?”

Corazón wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Don’t know. I know I got really mad when whatsisname called me a fake pirate, and I wasn’t having that.”

Prudence’s eyes lit up. “Ohh, spite! Literally the one thing we didn’t think to try!”

“Well,” said Dob, passing Corazón his mended teacup topped off with beer, “I think we’ve all had a chance to learn something about friendship and patience and being true to ourselves.”

Egbert poured himself a pint. “I haven’t learned anything.”

“I have.”

Everyone looked at Corazón. “Have you?” Dob asked.

“Yep.” Corazón took a sip of beer from the teacup. “We are absolutely terrifying.”

Merilwen nodded sagely. 

“Yeah,” Prudence said dreamily. “It’s good.”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to my room, and I’m not coming out again until my good facial hair is back.” The door to the captain’s quarters slammed behind Corazón.

And that is the story of how the Oxventurers brought down a corrupt businessman with a breakfast sandwich.