#This campaign will happen one day

[sunhlland]

He knows what he was doing

Calvin Klein 🖤

[ceaselessly-mad]

Based on this first comic:

So I had some people feeling sorry for Eddie in my previous comic (about a silly scenario where he had to deliver all those Wally Makeship plushies), so I figured I'd fix it here for the Barnaby ones!

...this is what y'all wanted, right?

Also a bonus, because I think Howdy would absolutely make his nephews deliver them

I mean, he made them work during Homewarming for crying out loud!

[heartofstanding]

I once saw someone talking about Thomas of Lancaster being bi and for a brief moment I was like "...yeah I'll incorporate that into my worldview" and then I realised they were talking about the Thomas of Lancaster who was the Earl of Lancaster who was executed by Edward II and who Thomas was probably named after.

[averyangrytissuebox]

Out of all the campaigns I have played The Dunwich Legacy the most in both two player, four player moshpit and true solo as Joe Diamond so I probably have more to say on each scenario than other campaigns. With all that said and done; let's get to it already, the Essex County Express waits for no-one.

The Dunwich Legacy: Good but with growing pains

Set after the story Dunwich Horror, Dunwich Legacy sees you being tasked by Dr. Armitage to find his colleagues nwho have disappeared as he fears for the worst. Finding these professors draws you into a race against time to stop the cultists who want to awake Yog Sothoth. This campaign has some phenomenal scenarios but also some pretty bad ones, not top 3 worst but fairly miserable. When playing Dunwich, one of the things that will come up a lot is deck management. Lots of cards interact with your deck by forcing you to discard cards and some just kill you when you run out of cards like Beyond the Veil and other things.

When it's good in dunwich, it's really good with Essex County Express being a true standout. In this scenario, the location are carts on this train as it gets torn apart by rip in reality. All you have to do is run through the train and jumpstart the engine because time is against you. The five agendas are short and discard the furthest back train carts when they happen so the tension is high and only enhanced by ancient evils being in the deck (A rare good use of it too). The House Always Wins is also a fun scenario with a unique twist where enemies are nonhostile in the first act until the fighting starts so you can gamble in the casino as enemies slowly pile up and turn into a mosh pit by the end.

Dunwich horror was the first campaign created and you can tell because some scenarios have growing pains. Every time Essex County calls to me, I get reminded of Miskatonic Museum and Undimensioned and Unseen which have similar issues, immortal creatures. In Miskatonic Museum, there is only 1 enemy, the Hunting little shit horror which cannot die. When you kill it, it goes back into the shadows of the museum to return stronger which sounds fine until you realise that at a certain point, you just can't kill it at all because the numbers are too high. The scenario isn't that interesting outside of this gimmick. At least in this scenario you get some sweet loot in the form of the necronomicon which is always worth taking. Undimensioned and Unseen is worse because the aim of this scenario is to kill as many rampaging brood of yog sothoth as possible who are immune to damage except by an esoteric formula. Playing this scenario requires a lot of housekeeping too because these broods moving randomly every turn.

Dunwich Legacy's focus on discarding the deck as a threat means investigators who draw a lot like Winnifred or Patrice are poor fits for the campaign. It is also a low XP campaign where you end the campaign at about 20xp so investigators who need minimal XP is recommended (Sorry Amina)

Overall, despite my many complaints, I do love Dunwich Legacy as a campaign. When its good, it's phenomenal and it is simple enough for new players with a nice difficulty curve. I've heard that return to Dunwich Legacy solves most of its issues but it is out of print. Ranking wise, I will put it above Night of the Zealot simply because there is more of it and a more consistent quality than Night of the Zealot having 1 stand out.

Other reviews in the series:

Path to Carcosa: The perfection of the base formula

Night of the Zealot: Let's start at the beginning. It is a very good place to start

[erlandious]

My favorite pastime? Saying “You know what would be so funny” and then proceeding to describe the most heart-wrenching, gut-curling hypothetical

[essektheylyss]

It is wild to me how many people are like, "hahaha op's speech did nothing," as if I am running and participating in these polls to get validation for my blorbo. If I just wanted to be content with my blorbo, I would absolutely not be tossing him up on a platform to be heckled for a week straight. I would be retreating to some echo chamber Discord server to experience the emotional equivalent of everyone gathering around and petting a puppy.

I literally do not think Essek is going to win this poll! I do not think he is going to win the tournament! I seeded Laerryn number one for a reason! For a number of factors I think it would be very difficult for anyone to beat her! I literally put him and Laerryn on the same side of the bracket so that they would not end up in the final, because I did not think it was going to be an interesting fight! We as a fandom beat "Laerryn could smash any wizard in Exandria without contest" into the ground weeks ago! I considered writing a stump speech just for kicks for every semifinalist, because I like to argue things and I love playing up a ridiculous and meaningless kayfabe!

But like, Laerryn has swept many polls, and it's deeply boring to me if she wins in a landslide. I am a polling nerd, and I can confirm that no one watches landslide races. They are not interesting. And this is fully just for the fun of it, so I am gonna make it interesting.

If there's no challenge, no consideration of how the other side might win, then what the fuck is the point of running a tournament?

In conclusion:

[finncakes]

having some art block so that means ballpoint pen scribbles

[thresholdbb]

I keep getting a pro-gun political ad for a 'local' right-wing politician on here, and I keep reporting it. This is where I post about the idea of our utopic space future where children aren't regularly endangered/gunned down because of greedy politicians and political machinations

We could move towards that now, and therefore pro-gun ads are both malicious and offensive

[lovebirdgames]

I saw dnd mentioned in one of the other ask posts and I gotta say that a campaign with the LIs would be wild.

DM could be Tom, cause I feel like he would be pretty good at it.

And then I just know Peter would be the one to try and seduce everything, Doug would have his dump stat be intelligence (true himbo), Sam would just be vibing, and I feel like Clark would be trying to take the campaign seriously but is getting frustrated with the others (like usual).

...Though, I don't know what Poptart and Garth would be doing in the campaign.

I WAS LITERALLY JUST SITTING HERE THINKING ABOUT THIS, ANON. And I tried to assign them all classes and wanted to draw it but...I kind of like Fire Emblem classes better so maybe I'll draw that someday instead.

And yup, you got it. That's exactly how it would go down. :')

I'd be impressed if they got Garth to attend, he would be like "Wait what do you MEAN these games last hours and hours?! I have a life!" Poptart would be thinking of the absolute weirdest off-the-wall behaviors he could pull to throw off Tom's DM game.

And since I'm sure someone will ask, this is what I wrote down last night...

Tom: Paladin Peter: Bard Clark: Warlock Samuel: Cleric (was initially Bard but let's be real, he's not gonna bring his saxophone on some dangerous adventure...plus I just love the idea of Peter as a flirty Bard) Poptart: Rogue Doug: Barbarian Garth: Monk

[gilliontidestriderchampionoftheu]

grand finale ! BITB!! rand is the spiral. kian is the corruption. rolan is the stranger.

[justalittlebluetiefling]

I’m having so many unpopular takes!

[sillymeter]

everyone needs to stop reblogging my partyjockers post and start posting about cellphones

[remington-zero]

Dude, your OC Nero is so cool! Can you tell us more about him?

aw thanks!! i'm glad you like him!

he was an oc for an rp community (near-future setting with superpowers+dungeons and the characters were all gathered to do an apocalyptic dungeon crawl where if they fail to clear this particular set the whole world goes boom) and his superpower was to basically turn into a giant, 10' tall wolf (he was a tank role)

he's got a lot of social anxiety and a complex about being Monstrous, he lost control once when he was 16 and accidentally killed people while fighting some escaped dungeon creatures. he did get disowned for that and was homeless for a long time but with help now has his GED and a very tiny studio apartment. for now he has a day job (night stocker at the local supermarket) and a side job ("hunter", which is the term for people who clear dungeons). after the community plot ended and everyone got Extremely Famous he cut his hair and grew a beard and disappeared into northern minnesota to do logging work for a year because he could Not handle the media presence

his favourite food is grilled cheese and tomato soup/tamales, and lives mostly off of kraft dinners. he can't eat meat/mushrooms/similarly textured foods because he does remember what it's like to tear someone apart with your teeth.

his clothes are pretty exclusively hoodies and sweatpants + some band tees. his secret background story for the comm was that he was a hugeass nerd and enjoys both anime and ttrpgs...his formative anime is probably nge and i did throw in some taz refs while playing haha

what else...his music tastes are half metal, half anime+jpop

everyone got a Small Creature at the beginning of the community plotline so his is a very small manta ray named pancake! she is his Baby. he got her a hat shaped like a pat of butter.

wow it's been like 84 years since i last talked about an oc anywhere so this was like....kind of like getting back onto a bicycle except i also haven't ridden a bicycle in 84 years and my legs want to know if they're really supposed to move like this

thanks for asking!!

[silver-queen]

how do i use my measly six hours of free time so i can feel refreshed by tomorrow...

[call-me-lemon]

I want to build a fort with a sign on the door that reads "No uggos allowed" but I never stop anyone from coming in ever even if they look like a literal eldrich horror so it both promotes positivity in the sense that no one is denied meaning no one is ugly and also that it confuses the hell out of all visitors as to the origins of the sign and to what exactly I consider to be ugly

[mysticarcanum]

straight up getting emotional about a thing that happened in a campaign that ended over a year ago

like. i wrote an ambiguous and biased backstory of a character who is part of an apocalyptic world-ending cult, who deep down wanted to study wizardry but had to frame it as going undercover as an apprentice and stealing secrets from this doddering old archmage to aid her people’s cause . and then she goes and learns wizardry and eventually realizes she wants more for herself and breaks from her cult

and i mean. there’s a lot of ways my dm could have run with that. i was fully expecting that archmage to be furious at my character for lying to and stealing from him. and so when they ran into each other again, i was braced for a fight, or at least an altercation

but instead the archmage went. i knew all along. of course i knew. i’m a divination wizard, silly. i saw a young woman in a bad place and i wanted to help her. i thought that by showing her kindness and creating an environment for her that wasn’t all about power struggles and nihilistic fanaticism that she might realize that there was more out there in the world for her. that she deserved more. you didn’t steal secrets from me, because i gave them to you. i was your teacher. i loved you and love you still

and god i didn’t know where that character was going to end up before then. i thought maybe she could go on a typical wizard hubris spiral, or a revenge quest against her old cult, but in that moment i was like. oh. she is loved. she has new friends, new family. she has a reason to change, a reason to care. her story is just about love, and about making people’s lives better

her alignment shifted from neutral to neutral good soon after. she never stopped being curious, sometimes to the point of foolishness, but she never squandered her teacher’s gift. she left the world better than she found it