#and yes the wizards are literally from a dnd oneshot i once had with my friends

[milkywayan]

Andromeda – Great Old One Warlock, Mephistopheles Tiefling, Sage Background

Backstory under the cut

When, where and to what parents Andromeda was born – or what her real name was, she did not know. Her first memories were of The Library, a giant castle in the Sunset mountains, inhabited by a group of very old, very powerful, and very eccentric wizards.

The group of wizards in question had been educated together – a very long time ago – met up a century later to kill a dragon for the fun of it, and then decided to work together, merging all their personal libraries and making it their quest to expand it.

But a library of this size was hard to manage, and the elementals conjured to defend it were no help in actually organise the books, a task for which the group of wizards themselves were too busy for.

Thus, they started to take in orphans – children with no family, and no future, in a pretence of being philanthropic, and to give them a chance to a better life, while instead using them as cheap labour.

The children grew up in the vast library, educated to be perfect librarians, and being free to read about what they liked. Many of course started to learn magic, fascinated by what they found, and amazed by what the wizards of the library were able to do, and so over the years, many talented spellcasters emerged from the castle, on a quest to gather more knowledge, and to find new books to bring home.

Andromeda was one of the orphans taken in, named after a star, by one of the wizards who oversaw her education. The wizard in question was R’lyeh, a mindflayer with arcane powers, who had managed to cut himself off the elder brain.

Andromeda was like a sponge for knowledge, reading about everything she could, and always asking too many questions. At an early age already, she grew more and more fascinated by the Far Realms, asking her mentor all about the place, where his own race originated from.

The young tiefling ventured ever deeper into the libraries, finding books about other dimensions, and great old gods beyond the comprehension of mortals. Most of the books were complete gibberish at first, but started to make more and more sense the more time she spent reading them, puzzle pieces falling together.

Sometimes she spent days in the depths of the library, forgetting everything around her, forgetting to eat and sleep, her eyes glued to the pages, unable to focus on anything else but the knowledge that made her dizzy.

One book in particular had gripped her, a hand written tome bound in strange, greenish leather, filled with spells and rituals and secrets, most of them completely incomprehensible. It gave instructions on how to connect with the Far Realms, how to tap into the knowledge and powers of an elder being, and Andromeda could not think of anything she wanted more.

Parts of the library were still filled with empty shelves – to soon be filled with rare tomes and books – and this was where Andromeda headed one night, alone in the darkness, with candles and books, to set up what she needed for the ritual.

She sat down on the cold stone floor, painting onto the tiles the strange symbols and images, candles illuminating the scene, as she chanted in a Deep Speech. The light of the candles turned green, the shadows around her deepening, as if only she and the small circle of light was real anymore. Her mind opened up, felt infinite and too small at the same time, and she felt a foreign intelligence connect to hers.

There were eyes, too many eyes, and tentacles, in a mass of moving flesh, grotesque but yet so beautiful that Andromeda was in awe.

She pulled a dagger out of her robes, the blade glowing green like the candles, her hand guided by something that was not entirely her own will.

She groaned as she carved into the flesh of her face, knowing the pattern without having to see herself, guided by the foreign intelligence. The cuts bled, and glowed, and with every new movement of her dagger, she felt the connection to the Far Realms grow.

There was no communication, no words, only feelings, sensations, thoughts, images.

Yes, this was right, yes this was good.

The last cut was placed and the dagger fell to the ground, the sound so far away that Andromeda did not even hear it. All she could see was eyes and tentacles, and Aeus. The Great Old being, the eldritch god. Aeus.

There were no words but there was a question, and Andromeda said yes – no, she screamed yes. Yes!

Seething pain was in her eyes as everything went dark, tentacles sprouting out of her eye sockets and she screamed in pain, before unconsciousness took her.

She did not know how long she had been gone, but when she woke up again she was lying in a puddle of dark, black, blood, the candles around her burnt up. There was a whisper in the back of her mind, soothing and reassuring, and urging her to know, urging her to find out.

She flexed her hands, and felt power, magic flow through her, a grin appearing on her face, realising that it had worked.

Returning to her rooms, washing up, she saw the aftermath of the ritual, the cuts in her face that would lead to scars she would wear forever. But not only that, no – around her eyes, where the tentacles had sprouted, they were now marked on her face, as if tattooed on. A branding, a sign. Aeus was looking out through her eyes.

R’lyeh was not surprised, seeing her, telling her that he has expected that it was just a matter of time for her to go down that path. He encouraged her to learn, to study, to find out more about the realms, the material world and beyond, to sate the hunger of knowledge her new patron had.

A few years later, on an errand for the library to pick up books that had been sent, Andromeda was abducted by the mindflayer ship, strangely enough not.. not that afraid.

Her close bond with her mentor, and her knowledge of the Far Realms made her.. curious more than anything.

She embraces the tadpole powers, pushes the boundaries and maybe trusts a certain being more than is advisable.

[talesfromatabletop]

Am I behind on posting campaign summaries? Yes. So have something totally new instead of those!

I ran a oneshot.

Our usual Wednesday DM was under the weather and knew he wouldn't be able to handle running a session one week. All of us respected that, of course, and were discussing the possibility of "meeting up" (online campaign, but you know how it be) anyway to play some Gartic Phone or something.

A suggestion came up that someone runs a oneshot, and I volunteered. I've never DM'd before but I had this great prewritten adventure that would fit our time slot perfectly and decided to dip my toes into mastering the dungeon. The oneshot was based in the Feywild and had a Brothers Grimm inspiration so I figured we'd have fun - plus our DM could be a player and just chill without stressing!

I had commented to my roommate earlier that day that there was only one way to just totally derail the whole adventure, and that it probably would be fine.

As soon as I introduced the hook - a secret BBEG that was also the questgiver - our usual DM ate it.

Obviously I mean his character, and obviously he didn't REALIZE it was the hook/BBEG. I wasn't going to actively stop him, either. It was a oneshot being purely held to give us some shots and goggles and I was fucking dying that they actually were derailing the session. In LITERALLY three minutes.

Everyone rolled initiative and between the DM's barbarian, a monk, a sorcerer, a wizard, and an additional barbarian to just round it out, they actually did enough damage to absolutely destroy this BBEG despite it's resistances and immunities.

Once it was dead, the group was even nice enough to follow some really shitty directions I nudged them in so the session wouldn't end in under half an hour. These led the party to another NPC that I figured they'd talk to, or beat up and interrogate.

... obviously, not what happened. Instead they knocked her old lady hag ass to the ground SO HARD that she must have broken a hip, because she was grappled or prone from the start of combat to her death.

Overall they completed nothing, but had a wacky time doing it. My DM skills need a lot of work but I think we all had fun and we filled most of the time with DnD...the rest was still done in Gartic lol!

[thesovereignsequel]

1-49

1. What do you think your d&d race would be?

Dwarf, probably. I’m short, chunky, and do have pervasive body hair. I actually have like two actual hairs growing out of my neck and some thick peachfuzz so I feel like my body wants a beard bad enough for me to be a dwarf.

2. What class?

I think maaaaybe a bard? I have a lot of anxiety concerning performing but I could be a stand up comedy bard. If not that, maybe a barbarian? I wanna go feral at all times.

3. What two feats would you have?

Inspiring Leader and Tavern Brawler. I am good at encouraging people and literally love the concept at going feral w/ whatever weapon possible.

4. What has been your favorite d&d character you’ve played? (NPCs count for DMs)

Ooooo! I guess my favorite PC I’ve played is Viper, my assassin tiefling. My favorite NPC I’ve played is probably Daniel Devito (original character do not steal)

5. Which of your d&d characters has been the most like you?

None of my characters are particularly like me, all of them have like, one trait I can relate to tops. Same with NPCs.

6. Which of your d&d characters has been the least like you?

For NPCs, the big bad of my last campaign (Duke Maloret) but for PCs probably Viper?

7. How do you go about making a character or NPC?

I go with a basic concept when making a player character and flesh it out from there once I have an idea what the setting is like. For an NPC, I already know what the setting is like so I create someone I think would fit and have a place and purpose in the setting. And when I make joke NPCs I just come up w/ something funny that somehow usually works with lore.

8. What is the most memorable natural 20 you’ve ever experienced?

In the CoS game I’m playing, our warlock got a fuckin nat 20 and one shot an NPC, who was definitely going to kill us, mortal combat style.

9. Has one of your d&d characters ever died? How?

In a oneshot playing w/ some ppl I don’t really care for, one of my characters died. They died bc a player threw a grenade to kill a big monster even though I said “yo, don’t!”

10. What is your favorite class to play?

Monk!!! The power, the range. Lovely.

11. Have you ever fought a dragon?

Yes? Kind of?

12. Have you ever fought a beholder?

I don’t think so.

13. Have you ever fought a mind flayer?

No

14. Have you ever had a romance with an NPC or another PC?

As a DM, I have. As a player I haven’t yet, but my necromancer/life cleric is in high demand so that’s gonna change ;0

15. Do you prefer to DM or play?

I like both. I’m better as a player though so playing is usually what I prefer bc I feel like I make a better experience playing. I love DMing so fuckin much tho :’0

16. What is your favorite D&D pod/vodcast?

I only listen/watch two “dnd” pod/vodcasts, those being Critical Role and The Adventure Zone. I prefer the Adventure Zone just a teensy bit.

17. Who is your favorite “celebrity dm?”

If the question had said GM and not DM I’d have an answer.

18. Do you use props/minis/terrain in your game?

Nope. We’re digital bby!!

19. How did you discover D&D?

I knew about dnd since forever, but only started desiring to play after listening to the Adventure Zone. And it took at least a year before I was ever actually able to play (think it probably took two)

20. If you run a homebrew game, give an out of context spoiler.

Being yeeted can be fun, fresh, and flirty.

21. Drop a picture of a mini you painted (if applicable)

Don’t have one :’0

22. Write a brief scene centered around one of your characters!

I’ll answer this in another ask.

23. Do you have any art of your characters?

I do!

24. Have you ever played any TTRPGs other than D&D?

I’ve played Monster of the Week and Tavern Tales.

25. What is your favorite snack for d&d?

Bc discord is over audio I usually don’t have the option of eating a snack.

26. If you could have one potion from d&d, which one would you choose?

Potion of Animal Friendship. I want the neighborhood cats to love me.

27. If you could cast one spell from d&d, which would you cast?

Fly. I just wanna soar bby.

28. What is the most memorable natural 1 you’ve experienced?

I remember every nat one that has a negative modifier and I love all of them.

29. Have you ever been drunk playing d&d?

I have never been drunk period.

30. Homebrew or prewritten?

I prefer DMing homebrew and have no preference for either when it comes to playing.

31. Tell me about your current party!

I’ll get into this one in a different post bc I have a few.

32. Most memorable NPC you’ve encountered in a game you played in.

Flinder Flameweaver. He sold fake ostrich boots claiming they were genuine ostrich and we saw through his lies.

33. Do you listen to music while playing? What kinds?

I play professor Layton music a lot during my games.

34. Favorite accent to do for characters?

Young British child.

35. Favorite classic d&d trope

Sexey demons.

36. What was your first d&d character you made?

A Dragonborn noblewoman who was secretly so buff but wore lots of frills.

37. What is the most recent PC or NPC you’ve created?

I can’t talk about NPCs, bc spoilers, but my latest player character I believe is a yuan ti wizard boi

38. Goblins or Kobolds?

Why not both?

39. Favorite villain you’ve defeated?

This asshole from our CoS campaignwho was very much the reactionary “pleased to see you upset” white dude.

40. What d&d deity would you be a cleric of?

None tbh

41. Give an out of context quote from one of your games!

I have a couple. “DM stands for Daddy Master”, “Griffindor Macklemore is my heterosona” and “Or what, you’ll stab me?”

42. Have you ever rolled turn into a potted plant on the wild magic table?

Unfortunately I’ve only cast a few spells as a wild magic sorcerer and everyone else I play w/ is a coward.

43. Minis and terrain or theater of the mind?

Theater of the mind.

44. Mulligan, Mercer, Murphy, or McElroy?

I like Mercer and McElroy

45. What is the longest session you’ve ever had?

god I think I’ve had one that was at least six hours before.

46. What is the longest battle you’ve fought or run?

The dreaded cockatrice fight.

47. Have you ever played at level 20?

Unfortunately no, not yet.

48. Does your dm say “How do you want to do this?”

Some do, some don’t.

49. Have you ever played an edition other than 5th?

No I have not.