#every dm is so over their player’s shenanigans

[gemstarstarlight]

Listening to Murder on the Rockport Limited and I forgot how Absolutely Done™️ Griffin is with his brothers and dad at all times.

[efangamez]

Yoooooo the GRIM expansion "The Palace of Eyes" has some actually NUTS lore. The work for the content is almost finished, but it needs to get fine tuned for publication while I include it in the handbook.

I'll be talking a bit about it here, so if you don't wanna possibly get ANY spoilers, you can dip now!!!

Okay so because I have pretty chronic pain in my fingers I'm going to be using text to speech or speech to text to share some of this information. So this will be my first time writing something that has like time travel and dimension travel shenanigans and the way that I was inspired by Metal Gear Solid to have these wild storylines all going on at once with some twists and turns but it's still kind of holds together through lower explanations is really really cool. I've honestly had a blast making every one of the story beats come together in one giant epic of a story to be honest with you.

There are actual pieces of lore in here that were crafted not only because they were cool but because they are thematic and have almost a cinematic and ideological feel to them. I think that the more that I build worlds and the more that I come to terms with who I am as a person the more fleshed out and well built stories can be created through my games. I kind of realized that when I made Neon Nights and some of my other games. I thought that if I just made a system that had a little bit of scaffolding I think that would be enough but to me I really do think that just like in a video game playing in a world where you are able to explore and uncover mysteries and be shocked by events I think it's really really cool and I like that. I think that's because one of my strengths and interests is in narrative and while I've gotten older I don't really have the patience too much anymore for prose, but I have fallen in love even more with World building and creating narratives with that World building if that makes sense.

I think that this expansion will not only be a really fun thing to explore within the GRIM multiverse but to also kind of look within yourself and to relate to some of these characters in their struggles and to kind of be invested in their stories and what's cool about tabletop games is that their stories are not fleshed out all the way. The scaffolding is there with strong connections to the world but the way that you the players will interact and the way that the watcher who is basically the standing for GM or DM in a game will be completely unique. I think that that's one of the powerful components of an RPG. And while GRIM may not have the most robust mechanics for role-playing in a system or using a system to roleplay rather you can still create Grand narratives by just being interpersonal with your players.

I don't know I just kind of wanted the info dump a little bit and not have my fingers hurt while I type so that's why I use speech to text. I'm really really excited working on this. I have over 34 pages of content in a document that hasn't even been designed yet. This thing is going to be a big lad probably over 100 pages at least. It's going to be kind of hard also to price this at $9.99 but I think that to me what matters most is getting this out there and kind of showing off my talents as well as giving people an awesome epic to play along with GRIM.

Anywho I hope you have a fantastic day today! Make sure you drink your water you eat your food and you take care of yourselves. Love ya!

[crownedinmarigolds]

If the Stakebait Coterie all played D&D together what classes would they play? And who would be the DM?

O-oh my gosh thank you for the question! It's my favorite kind - dungeons and dragons + Stakebait!! Straight from the horse's mouth (@thesixthplaneteer ) it goes as such:

Dungeon Master - Sydney aka the Dusk Angel, leader of the Thinblood revolution in ATL and exasperated den mother. No telling where he got the time to run this game but maybe he needs to feel some real control in his life. He is probably always late by maximum half an hour but he's at least always prepared. His stories are always thoughtful and well-put together and he eventually gives everyone what they want.

Ranger - Ralph! Despite his IRL size he's a much better fighter at a distance so that would probably carry into his gameplay. According to thesixthplaneteer he'd be a half-orc. The least optimized person at the table but he's ALWAYS going to play the character he wants. 🥰 I imagine him cracking jokes the entire session but gets scary tactical during combat. And he brought the white claw. (Probably jokes about ERP with Khloe after the session is over... JK! Unless.)

Wizard - Khloe! The chronic overthinker and planner, she'd definitely be a clever spellcaster who would try and use her environment to her advantage because wizards have paper skin and glass bones. While she likes martial classes that's just so many numbers she's not prepared to handle. I think race-wise she might be a human variant like a Genasi! Or perhaps a gnome. Either or. Something where she can be colorful! She probably has dinner for everyone at the table and plenty of snackies. She'd take gameplay INCREDIBLY seriously but would definitely slip into silly shenanigans when prompted.

Fighter - Christian. Human fighter - completely by the numbers made in a generator character sheet. Has probably never played DND in his life but he loves hanging out without his coterie despite his grumpy demeanor so he's "toughing it out" and playing the most generic race+class combo imaginable at the DM's suggestion. He's made fun of it relentlessly by Ralph but he does a good job fighting. He's probably a stoic RP'er who only speaks minimally unless something really interests him, but he at least takes the game seriously enough so everyone still has a good time. He probably brought a giant coffee thermos because he always just got off work before a session. And actual beer because "fuck white claw, goddamnit."

Cleric - Kyle! The forever Healer both in unlife and at the table! He'd be a gorgeous elf of whom he'd already have stunning commissioned artwork of. He also has the highest Charisma at the table and probably has a stable of lovers in every port they visit. All implied of course and nothing explicit at the table. Probably spoke with the DM beforehand about a custom made God that is dubiously aligned morally... bordering on Warlock but he knows the system enough to game it properly. 🤭He and Khloe would be the ones taking the story the MOST serious, Kyle breaking character the least out of the party. Bonus Player: Nyth, Sydney's boyfriend(?) who will randomly join him some sessions to play a various pre-made NPC. He'd probably steal everyone's hearts before bailing halfway to go meet up with his bestie Noa or he'll make the session go on forever for one reason or another. He's a mess and we love him. AH so fun.... THANK YOU!

((Art by @the-art-block!!! Sydney, Nyth, Khloe, Ralph, Kyle, and Christian!))

[soylent-robot]

saw that d&d movie

i will vomit my thoughts here

it was really good! just a fun fantasy heist movie, simple. im glad it didnt do a 4th wall thing where it shows the "real players" at the table, that would have broke it for me, but plenty of things in the movie still felt like the kind of shenanigans that happen in D&D

like side characters have names that sound like the DM made them up on the spot. Xenk feels like an over levelled DM insert to help the players. the heist plans are the kind of bizarre nonsense players often come up with

the fights feel as chaotic as they do in the game too! everyone is frantic, they make mistakes, they dogpile opponents to get the upper hand. theyre absolutely not some overchoreographed display, so they felt like real life or death situations

and you see spells & creatures & abilities without the movie pointing them out to you. it doesnt nudge you and go "hey the Barbarian activates their Barbarian Rage" wink wink it just does it and if you know, you know

one final thought, its great how as much as possible was filmed on location and used practical effects with the costumes and locations. it would have been *so easy* to greenscreen everything and have CGI everywhere and im glad they restrained themselves

like theres CGI in it of course, theres dragons and all sorts of crazy stuff, but its not absolutely every possible thing in CGI. that bird dude is a real costume, and it looks great!

so yeah it was a neat enjoyable movie

[idkaguyorsomething]

Why you should read Darths and Droids:

Are you a fan of Star Wars or tabletop RPGs? Do you wish that the Star Wars movies had a more consistent quality of writing? Have you ever wanted to read a story where Qui-Gon Jinn was a crackhead crazy-as-shit dumbass who orchestrates the most hilariously convoluted terrible plans, Anakin Skywalker was a menacing manipulator who makes the most influential people in the galaxy dance like puppets to his tune, and Jar Jar Binks was a genuinely helpful badass? Well have I got the webcomic for you!

What It’s About: Darths and Droids is a retelling of the Star Wars movies where the story is reframed as an ongoing campaign between a group of friends who keep derailing their poor GM’s plans with their shenanigans. By taking screenshots from the movies and adding different dialogue, it manages to tell a completely different story that weaves in a lot of familiar elements but manages to turn a lot of them completely on their head. The story of the various player’s lives outside of the game and the drama they experience is also added into the narrative, creating two different layers of story that are both interesting in different ways and allows for humor and heart to be integrated with intrigue and adventure.

Why You Should Read It: This comic has some seriously clever writing, you guys. It starts out as a simple parody of a lot of the goofier elements of Star Wars, but as it goes on it whips out some quite impressive Chekhov’s Guns, deconstructs various themes and elements of the Star Wars universe thoroughly, and offers rich new storylines in its place. What it means to balance the Light and Dark when there is a prophecy fortelling one who will even its scales, for example, as well as exploring cool concepts that the movies never quite took advantage of, like the existence of shapeshifters, clones, and the ability to upload one’s consciousness into other vessels. Framing it as a tabletop game also does wonders for clearing up plot holes, and the script is so tight that you’d have a hard time picking out any continuity errors if you tried. Rereads and attention to detail is incredibly rewarding, as you get to see a huge amount of setup pay off, and it’s really nice to see the players grow up and watch their lives change over the course of several years. Also, for the visually impaired, each episode comes with a handy transcript that makes it easily accessible, as well as some nice food for thought from the writers about game design.

Why You Might Want To Avoid: First and foremost, this is a long comic. It’s been updating three times a week for nearly two decades, and at a glance the archives reveals it to be quite a binge (though there are a couple of recorded play versions of the first arc that might take you less time to get through). Some arcs can also drag significantly more than others, since the better Star Wars movies tend to provide less material for satire or plot holes to cover, though they still contain some pretty juicy drama and entertaining jokes. However, if you’re here for the characters from Star Wars that you know and love, you will not find them here. This is a game played between a group of friends, and the versions of every character they encounter are very different from canon. Not to mention that, if you’re unfamiliar with tabletop RPGs, then a lot of the jokes and references will probably confuse you, though the writer’s commentary does a good job of explaining everything to the uninitiated. Still, it was a pretty influential comic back in the day for a reason. It really elevated a lot of the ideas another webcomic with a similar concept, DM of the Rings, first came up with, and by extension, a lot of the ideas in Star Wars.

TL;DR Darths and Droids is a fantastic cleverly written webcomic that combines tabletop gaming and Star Wars to excellent effect and manages to tell a funny, memorable story with tight action, knotty intrigue, and witty plotting. It’s super bingeable and you’ll never be able to look at Star Wars the same way after reading it.

[brodingles]

Year in Review, 2022

I actually made a couple of these, because it was hard deciding what really encompassed my year. The version above is the one with my Aesthetic version, which has the pieces I think were the prettiest or most aesthetically pleasing ones I did for that month.

This post has my thoughts on the pieces and some overall thoughts on my progression through the year! I’ll post one with just the image afterwards.

January

I spent most of January coming off the end of IR and DMP, and as such I had a lot of. Juniper, Dorkus, and Angie on the brain. I actually made a few of these little comics. >:0 Dorkus is one of my favourite expressions I’ve done in a long time, and it lives in my army of Discord emotes haha.

This kind of WAS my meme for the month, my favourite thing overall.

February

This piece is actually part of a set that I did on stream! It’s part of a set. Keep this artstyle in mind, it will come back later!

Was still drawing Triad Shenanigans this month. I just wanted to share Discount Chocolate Dorkus.

Despite what it may seem like, I actually spent this month planning Tiny Gents! I made headshots for every important NPC for the first oneshot I ran ever in my life. Very shaky knees, but everything went well!!

March

I have no idea what came over me for this one I just went as feral as Barbeau haha. This HAD to be when we were talking about doing a certain DnD game, but the DM and players have been so busy all year we never played. Maybe 2023 is the year Barbeau comes into fruition??

Not the full comic and no Dorkus because I’ve already shared plenty of Dorkus and Juniper needs to be in here SOMEWHERE, but apparently I was still going strong with these in March?? Wild!

We ran the second(?) Tiny Gents session this month. I am including Tiny Gents because it was such a big part of the year in total haha. April

I actually don’t like this piece very much, if I’m honest, but I made it and that should be worth something!! I had the song Eyes Don’t Lie going on loop for this, and I put it on my Rememdium playlist, which is probably my most played playlist of the year (If not, it’s TG). This song is going to come up again, but it definitely put me in A Rememdium brainspace.

I actually spent the month drawing more Tiny Gents stuff. Pictured above is one of the “Feral Group” PCs (featuring Charming reading a book). I did some more character design stuff this month, mostly sketching traditionally.

May

This piece is actually from a LIST of pieces that I did in a row for the Song Meme. This one just looks the nicest when cropped to me haha.

I also redrew a classic comic with the newer designs for the TG RA’s. I...got so much done this month haha.

June

Pride! Emilio and (then) Geon! This was actually NOT the highlight of the month, because this month I created Aine!!

She just POPPED into existence while I was listening to Eyes Don’t Lie and then she took over my brain for a while. 

I also did more Tiny Gents art because I had brainrot all year.

July

ANTHONY TOKEN

So Anthony, my boy, came into existence a little before this month, but I didn’t draw him much or think about him much until AFTER I drew his token. Now I’m obsessed with the goober. I plan on redrawing this, I’m not as happy with it now.

I actually posted this one here recently, but I did this as a send off with the Feral Group for TG. They haven’t played since and I miss them ;v;

August

I did a lot of doodles? This month? It was a little slow. I created Hisscisca (the half orc) and Jamie (the pink goth). I actually did frames for an animatic done by @anatthema-art 

Also created another character with the help of @churrobird

Got back into Triad shenanigans and made Dorkus a gf. I also did a set of outfits for Juniper! I’ll try to post these separately, this post is getting long.

BUSY MONTH.

September

More Tiny Gents. I did so much Tiny Gents. Not so much art but just doing Tiny Gents.

BUT I ALSO WENT INTO ANTHONY BRAINROT

I HAVE SO MUCH ANTHONY. I DID AN ANIMATIC FOR ANTHONY I WEEP. I SOB. I CRY.

October

I drew this one in a haste and for love of the game to do MOTI’s Songtober! It was a really fun piece to do, and I’m surprised I have not done more fanart for this game ohoho. Omori made a big impact on my art.

I also tried really hard to do a TG comic this month, and I did 3 pages. Hooray! I can’t find it in my files, but it sure is a thing I did.

I also did like...3 birthday pieces because I have so many OCs with October birthdays.

I actually also spent this month working on an even bigger project...

 So Monkey’s Paw is not mentioned ANYWHERE in this summary, and that’s because I forgot I had to do a ton of art for it despite it consuming my being for several months. It is a surprise I got anything else done, really. I don’t even remember when I drew these-- technically they should be earlier. I’m glad the song and video are out haha. Also yes I put an Omori reference in the video.

November

This piece kind of changed how I approach my pieces in general? There was a lot of reference gathering and editing that went into it, even though it didn’t take long to actually draw. I just wanted to try something cool, and it seems to have succeeded.  Really this month I did a bunch of cool art with Anthony, I’m also quite fond of the sword piece.

I have so many feelings about this image you don’t understand.

December

I actually don’t know if the person I did this for has a Tumblr, but it was a Secret Santa gift! I did other smaller pieces this month, a lot of them, actually, but I mostly just chilled out. December was very reflective for me personally, and I became so grateful for things that happened this year. This summary is very visual heavy and I apologize for that, but there’s so much art to share this time around and I wanted to do that! Conclusion

I spent this year working mostly on my own projects, which was very surreal. I’m very grateful for being able to do that, and would like to continue working on projects throughout 2023 as well!

[muse-soup]

Get to Know Me Meme

Name: Gyro (Enough people called me Gyro-mun back in the day that once, when I was in a group chat with two other people who had the same birth name, I said "fuck it" and just started going by Gyro. It's been ten years lmao.) Pronouns: They/Them Sexuality: Yes Single or Taken: Taken

THREE FACTS

- I've danced in a West End production of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. There was an audience participation number and some of us got pulled up on stage. - I run a D&D game on Saturdays. We started out playing Curse of Strahd, but it's kind of mutated from there. The party pissed off a night hag who is now making two of the party members collect souls for her as reparations, adopted a gate guard, created a power vacuum by killing both major political leaders and started a peasant revolt in the main hub town, "rescued" a flesh golem and left her to her own devices in the forest, may or may not have lit an abbey on fire, melted a pack of werewolves with acid, lost a party member who they are now seeking (the irl player had other commitments lol), went into a Bag of Holding to fight the Bag Man, and are currently investigating a spider cult who are a splinter faction of the canonical demon cult they stopped before the plot could unfold. It's been a wild ride. - I always type "DRAFT" on replies I save for later in case I accidentally post them.

EXPERIENCE

HOW LONG - Since I was around 12-ish? So nearly 18 years.

WHAT PLATFORMS - Neopets, an ancient Nightmare Before Christmas fan site, GaiaOnline, Facebook DMs, DeviantArt, Skype, Tumblr, and Discord. Pretty much just those last two these days.

BEST EXPERIENCE - If I could be sappy for a moment, it was probably meeting my partner (and many friends besides!) through Tumblr RP. But if we want something more specific, I was part of that giant vampire story that @dreamsofalife mentioned in her meme (x); I was the guy whose head got cut off and came back as a robot. Also worth mentioning was a big thread I did with an old pal, where their muse was turned into a swan via Magic Anon, and they decided the anon (now known as Greyfellow) would take his place as his doppelganger and try to take over the kingdom. Shenanigans ensued, a parrot trapped my muse in a pantry and lit the kitchen on fire, the Queen almost had her soul sucked out-- good times.

MUSE TYPE

FEMALE OR MALE - Any and all.

FLUFF, ANGST, OR SMUT - Honestly? Too much fluff or too much angst becomes stale and one-note after a while, and smut's something I tend to do sparingly since it rarely adds to the plot. They're seasonings, not the main dish. I CRAVE VARIETY AND NUANCE, BABY!

PLOT OR MEMES - I'm good with both! Although I admit I default to memes if I'm feeling low energy or if I don't know my partner well.

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES - Either! Sometimes you need multiple paragraphs to set your scene, and other times a simple "Oh, fuck." will suffice. As long as the other person has enough to work with, everything's fair game.

BEST TIME TO WRITE - Honestly I do my best writing either right when I wake up (whatever time that may be) or after dinner, when I get my second wind. Sometimes I get random spurts throughout the day, though.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSES? - Some of them are aspirational, and some of them are just me in a hat. For the most part, though, I try to find a good balance of how much of myself I allow to slip through. And every once in a while I'll try to write a muse who's nothing like me at all, only to realize we're more alike than I thought.

[eponymous-rose]

Wanted to add, if anyone’s curious: Critical Role is starting its third campaign tomorrow (Thursday, October 21)! If you’ve been looking for a jumping-on point for the show that doesn’t involve watching hundreds and hundreds of hours of content to catch up, this is it. Each campaign takes place in the same overall world as the previous ones, but at enough of a remove (different continent, set some time later) that the impact of prior campaigns is usually reduced to the odd NPC cameo and no knowledge of those plots is needed to enjoy the story.

I know D&D actual-plays are much more mainstream than they were back when campaign two was first getting started, but in case that hasn’t been your thing: it’s literally just listening in on someone else’s game of Dungeons and Dragons. They’ve got great production value and an absolutely absurd new set for the new campaign (projections????), but the game itself is totally unedited, which means you get the full experience of table talk, flubs, and occasionally having to take an early break because everyone has the giggles. The players are all experienced actors and longtime friends, though, so they’re very good at sharing the spotlight, building each other up, and occasionally messing with each other for maximum humorous effect.

Matt Mercer, the DM, is clearly living his Dungeons & Dragons dreams - he’s mentioned that this set is something he’s daydreamed about since he was DMing in high school, and on top of creating the world, he has control over the visual effects during the game and builds the battle maps himself. The seven players (plus occasional guest players!) buy in to their characters in a huge way; it really does feel like reading a book or watching a show where every single character has a writer who’s always in their corner. They’ve got a great crew (including, now that they’re pre-recording, subtitles for every episode as it airs) and the show’s getting more and more polished without losing the fun side of the chaos of it all.

The episodes are free-to-watch and air every Thursday (except, starting in November, for the last week of each month when a one-shot will air instead) at 7 PM Pacific Time on Twitch, typically running for around 4 hours. That’s long as heck, so if you’re not super into watching something for that long in one sitting or if the time zone’s not in your favor, you’re in luck: they rebroadcast on Twitch at midnight Pacific Time and 9 AM Pacific Time on Fridays, then post to YouTube the following Monday. You can also subscribe on Twitch to be able to watch the VOD immediately after (and even during) airing - if you have an Amazon Prime account, you get one free subscription.

They also post episodes in audio-only form to a podcast feed a week after airing - you may have to poke around a bit because the earlier episodes were on a different feed due to the changeover to CR becoming its own company.

Anyway, I do really love this show - I think it’s an incredibly fun example of creativity and communal storytelling, and the throughline always hews back to found family and deep friendships. It feels like watching a fantasy epic that’s somehow had the goofy cast shenanigans integrated right into it, with the added intensity of a really good sports game - after all, everything is unscripted and the nature of D&D means that a character can permanently die at any time.

It’s great fun all around, and even if you do fall behind on it and only poke your head back in occasionally down the line, jumping in at the start of a new campaign is a pretty wild experience all around.

If you’re interested, the Twitch channel is here and the YouTube channel is here. Watch live at 7 PM Pacific on Thursday, October 21st!

[raining-anonymously]

infodump to me please.

ok but as you may know i am hyperfixating on a dnd series that none of tumblr cares about. it’s 1 For All DND by Deerstalker Pictures on Youtube and it is so funny and chaotic and well-made. i think i saw in a behind the scenes video that they film with a black magic camera (which i have seen in practice before and it’s. like. very good and expensive) and edit with adobe premiere (my beloved).

anyway series concept is that there are four Guys—Patrick the DM and his three players Eva, Antonio, and Nicole. Eva plays a half-elf fighter called Evandra who is tough and cool and scary and also bisexual. she has a sword and armor. sometimes she’s the common sense and sometimes she is Not. is that not top-notch character design? also her hair gets progressively cooler throughout the series which is very amazing of her.

Antonio plays a human bard named Antrius, who is incredibly full of himself, flirts with everyone (including a villain he successfully seduced, two paladins, evandra, his rival bard, a vampire, a random knight, a dwarven couple whose child evandra murdered, himself, etc), carries a lute but also plays everything from a kazoo to an accordion. he once said, “There’s no I in team. There’s an A, though—which stands for Antrius!” before doing a silly dance.

then there’s Nicole’s character, a tiefling sorcerer named Nixie. she can be a bit on the oblivious side—her intelligence score is zero—but she makes up for it with FIRE. like. literal fire. she’s adorable and pink but also she has one plan ever and it’s FIREBALL. also she likes women. when she was a kid she accidentally burnt her whole family to a crisp, probably due to wild magic and repression. disaster.

then there’s Pat the DM. who just wants a nice campaign. he also plays Every NPC (excluding a few roles later on) regardless of species and gender. he has to put up with the party’s shenanigans, which are exhausting, but he clearly does enjoy what he does, which is nice.

of course, this alone is great potential for a series—but what really brings it in for me are the side characters. aka guest players. over the course of the series, there have been a LOT of those: Vlithryn the triton cleric who’s tired of the party, Annandale the warlock who everybody hates, Dargle-Bark the… eccentric druid, Lorienne the paladin (who eva and antonio flirt with both in and out of character), the catlike Rogue who Nixie flirts with and Evandra hates, Mogdar the pacifist half-orc barbarian artist, Godfreya the incredibly amazing paladin, and my personal favorite—Zephyr the air genasi bard, who a) is Antrius’s ex, b) is Antrius’s rival, c) flirts with Antrius despite all this, d) is a bit (read: a lot) of a prick actually, and e) is crushingly insecure and cries himself to sleep.

that last character appears in a one-shot and one full episode, but that doesn’t stop him from being my blorbo. i have also watched the episode and gone over each shot and frame so many times that yesterday i realized that there’s a mistake towards the end where his flute switches hands in the very last shot of him. because i’m at that point where i have to see every facial expression from every character in that (musical!) episode, including nixie and evandra’s glorious background actions.

there’s also another earlier musical episode, which happens to be the best-rated episode of the series. the party’s been captured, and antrius (mis)uses bardic inspiration to get them out of it—and it’s beautiful. it’s just beautiful. wonderful cinematography, wonderful singing, wonderful lyrics, wonderful acting, wonderful script, just wonderful.

the episodes are short which is great if you have a wildly fluctuating attention span like me. the characters are often terrible people but they’re somehow still likable and hilarious. tw for extreme fantasy violence and sex jokes, but it’s a great series with great humor and the rest of tumblr needs to watch it so i can see fanart and fanfic without having to make it myself. you guys would love annandale

[xyloophones]

Hey Cher, seen you posting abt dimension 20 a bit, and yeah I could Google it but it looks very cool and I'd rather hear it from you if it's that cool 💜

helloooo my beloved pal <333 yes yes lemme talk about dimension 20 !!

dimension 20 is an actual play dnd show (theres also an audio only version if you prefer podcasts !) !! there are several campaigns, some with wildly different settings & different players, most of them DM'd by brennan lee mulligan who is an INCREDIBLE storyteller. d20 has a diverse cast & really memorable characters and i've kind of passively watched for a while but i recently finished watching one of their campaigns and Fell In Love

i'm just gonna list the campaigns ive seen so far in order of my favorites:

fantasy high. 6 teens go to a high school that like. specializes in adventuring parties, found family and shenanigans ensue. everyone is gay and neurodivergent. i'm very attached to the characters and their dynamics with each other AND the npcs <33 season one is on youtube for free, however season 2 is my favorite bc it contains probably my fav dnd npc to ever exist (i am an ayda aguefort stan until i DIE). i'm making my way through The Seven right now, which is a spin-off of another adventuring party that are friends with the original 6 in seasons 1 & 2.

a starstruck odyssey. fun campy space romp feat. more found family. this one is has the same players and dm as fantasy high! it has a sci-fi spacey setting and the party is the crew of a spaceship that looks like a giant hotdog. the fights in this one are absolutely wild.

the unsleeping city. an urban magic setting in new york city! another one with the main player cast and dm and once again the party dynamics and character relationships are just !!! so good !!! you will cry over a rat man !!!!! i think these two seasons definitely made me the most emotional. i aspire to get to this level of world building in my own writing.

a court of fey & flowers. ok this one is still ongoing but !!!!!! the only reason it's not number one on this list is because it's not done yet but hsajkf holy shit it's so good?? it's dm'd by aabria iyengar and it's basically using dnd in a regency fey setting to play around with high society gossip and court expectations and AAAAA i have never been so invested in wanting someone to roll well when sending shady letters to other members in the court. it's so good.

there are a ton more campaigns + one shots but i'm still making my way through them! unfortunately, most of it is only available with a dropout subscription so i'd recommend watching the first season of fantasy high on youtube to see if you like it before diving in!

if anyone else has any questions about dimension 20 feel free to send me an ask!! i could probably talk for hours about my favorite characters and details but i'll leave it here <33

real quick edit: if anyone needs trigger/content warnings for things please send me an ask !! every episode has content warnings in the description, but some campaigns in general have darker themes so let me know if you need warnings !)

[rush-wing]

ahem hem, soooo any OCs you have been ✨hyperfixating✨ on lately? or in general??

where do i start

It’s all d&d characters, all the way down btw. I’m a forever DM so I tend to make characters whenever the whim strikes but these guys never get played much, I just rotate them in my head sadly, waiting for the day…

I might throw you some art for visualisation but I’m still.. eh.. learning so enjoy little extremely stylised doodles

Everyone here you can find me reblogging things for over on @hearthkeep too!

First!

Is Jaisarie AKA Jaise – she was primed to be in a Saltmarsh campaign but that’s not going ahead now so she’s just sitting on the pier in my head, kicking her feet above the water idly. She’s my undead pirate : ) Jaise started unlife because I got my mitts on the Wildemount campaign guide and thought an Echo Knight’s echoes could make a fun reflavouring as something ghosty. Originally she was a Hollow One, but I’ve since altered her to the Reborn "race", but it’s all dead things at any rate~ She doesn’t know how she died, and isn’t sure she wants to know! Last thing she truly remembers is being dragged out of the ocean as bloated corpse, but the open gash on her neck and her abdomen seems to point to the idea that she was murdered by someone good at their job. Well, aside from glimpses of memories of an old crew she’s fond of, but she couldn’t pick them from a crowd if they stood right in front of her at the moment. I have some ideas for what she was involved in, but the great thing about this is I am pretty happy for any and all of that to go out the window for whatever a good game requires.

Second! Is a constant returner:

My boy Keats. He was my first PC I have made, so yess it’s trueee… he’s a bit special for me. I’ve played him the most out of anyone (which I can count on the one hand), and every time he’s just such a hoot to play. God I love him. And he’s “just” a half-elf battle master Fighter! (I will throw hands on anyone saying he’s boring for that though--) He’s an acrobat-turned-gladiator and a complete dumbass so he is big on stupid stunts, and most of the time, bounces right back up when he eats the pavement face-first. Honestly I think I just wish I had his confidence and bravado.

Third:

This is the gentlemen who I’ve been playing Thousand Year Old Vampire as - Madieren. He started out as a half-elven scholar from an isolated monastery dedicated to the study of magic, but he decided he liked blood magic and went off on a tangent. So you can call him a “vampire” of some description, but I refer to him officially as an immortal blood mage. I’ve had a lot of fun with him over the past few months, watching him evolve, go through the shit (his only student got murdered, has been kicked out of his home at least three times, oh, and had his arm accidentally cut off, just to name a few things), and eat his own hubris whole. He actually started life known as Alezaren, but due to certain shenanigans he’s shed his original name. Madieren ended his run making up with his rival who’s been chasing him down across the continent (who also ended up immortal due to the influence of one of the other player’s characters) and like there was only so much those two could stab each other before the tension went elsewhere.

And lastly:

This is Eon! He’s had a nostalgia resurgence after watching something last night and like I want to do something with him now but what??? I have an Eon-sized itch and I cannot scratch it!!!! Anyway, Eon is my sad wizard tiefling. Well, “wizard” in quotation marks because he’s technically an Eldritch Knight. Eon’s a blacksmith by trade, but dabbles in magic because there’s a quiet passion there for it that was nurtured by an eccentric mentor he hasn’t seen in a long time. So, yes, he has the tragic backstory, to the point I somewhat recently realised I gave an 8-year-old PTSD to get him so. Um. Sorry, Eon. He’s got a very stand-offish, stoic exterior, but he really is such a soft creature at heart. Eon’s my nerd. The oxymoronic buff wizard. I have a set of dice someone in my group made from scratch specifically for him so one day I need to play him so I get to actually roll them for him.

[hiccanna-tidbits]

The RotBTD+ Gang Plays DnD! (Feat. my ships, sorry not sorry XD)

So highkey I’ve actually been wanting to do a “The Gang Plays DnD” type post for AGES now, but then I saw @hobie-brown and @ohlooksheswriting-wips do DnD AU posts for RotBTD, and then I was like “Ah shit, I really should finish mine, eh?” So thank you to both of you for inspiring me to get off my ass and actually write the post!!!

Hiccup DMs. He comes up with this super complex plot revolving around dragons (because of course) where the party has to dismantle this society ruled by evil knights who want to genocide all of the dragons. Imagine his chagrin when the party wants to do nothing but fuck around in towns and aggravate NPCs 90% of the time.

They usually end up playing at Jack’s apartment, mainly because Hiccup’s dad doesn’t really want a bunch of loud nerds yelling about 20-sided dice in his household while he’s trying to work, if he can at all help it. Jack’s sister regularly barges into their living room and roasts the fuck out of Jack and his friends for being such damn nerds and eats all of their DnD snacks they’ve set out. If they’re in the middle of a combat session, she always gleefully proclaims that they’re all going to die. While Jack is annoyed by this, the rest of the party finds it deeply hilarious.

Jack Overland plays the absolute mayhem warlock Jack Frost, who got his powers through making a deal with the archfey Prince of Frost and has absolutely no qualms about being an evil god’s mortal Sower of Chaos. He spends the vast majority of the campaign doing such useful things as creating ice slicks under annoying NPCs and freezing people’s drinks. He also plays a Tiefling because absolutely no one can talk this boy out of playing the creepy demon race.

Rapunzel plays a woodland nymph druid who is also the party healer (because of course she is). Her name is probably Sunlily or something else suitably hippie-esque. Whenever there’s downtime (or whenever the rest of the party is also dicking around, and she can get away with it), Rapunzel likes to go into the nearest forest and pick the best berries and nuts for the rest of the party. She also loves baking fruit pies and cooking the best nymph food for her companions when given the chance. Definitely the party Cinnamon Roll (every party has one!). She often will turn into cute animals to distract the guards while the party infiltrates a building.

Merida’s character is the party archer and general ranged weapon master, as well as a raging lesbian. Hiccup learns very quickly that any male NPC who tries to flirt with her will very quickly get impaled with an arrow. She can’t ever decide if she wants to be a ranger or a rogue, so she multiclasses in both for flare. She also plays a Tiefling, and continually insists that her character is both scarier and sexier than Jack’s. In combat, she either Leeroy Jenkins her way in with a sword and just starts slashing every which way, or just shoots 90% of the enemies with arrows before the fight even starts. There’s really no in between. She can get away with this because she’s highkey one of the party tanks, and consistently deals a shitton of damage.

Anna plays a human bard, basically having read over the class options and going “Wait, in this one I get to make stylish medieval music??? And wear dramatic and garish outfits and a dumb hat??? And cast wacky illusion spells??? And do silly little magic tricks??? And INSPIRE EVERYONE??? Hell yeah, I’m in!!!” She mostly uses magic attacks in combat (definitely favors Tasha’s Hideous Laughter), but occasionally when she’s out of spell slots she’ll just take to slamming enemies in the face with her lute. She also has WAY too much fun with Vicious Mockery, let’s be real.

Elsa, upon hearing Jack’s character concept, rolls her eyes so far up in her head she can see her damn brain, and vows to play his concept, but serious–solely out of spite. She rolls up a super OP elf Chaos Sorcerer, filled with lots of brooding angst about how uncontrollable her winter powers can get if she isn’t careful. She combines it a bit with Storm Sorcerer so she can create literal blizzards, and Hiccup ends up allowing it just because he thinks it’s cool. Although Elsa’s character is undoubtedly aggravated by the rest of the party’s antics, she starts becoming grudgingly protective of these idiots and can deal some pretty crazy damage when her companions are threatened. She also contains one of the party’s only brain cells.

Eugene of course plays dashing rogue master thief Flynn Rider. Although his high deception and lockpicking skills certainly come in handy, he’s the most chaotic neutral fucker you’ve ever met and will take any excuse to rob NPCs blind or cheat them out of every cent they have in a tavern card game. It’s nigh impossible to get him to cooperate with the rest of the party much of the time, and often Elsa’s character has to either bribe him with some of her family’s gold or threaten to freeze him to stop him backstabbing one or more party members. Eugene’s character forces Hiccup to add in many more heist plotlines than he originally intended. This delights Eugene immensely, and sometimes he goes a bit crazy planning elaborate heists.

Moana plays a sorcerer water genasi. She can control any body of water, but she has a special affinity for controlling saltwater (i.e. the ocean lol). She also requests an animal handling bonus, but only with marine animals, solely because she thought it would be funny. She’s also an ex-pirate who robbed a lot of wealthy merchant ships and freed their slaves back in the day, which Merida thinks is incredibly badass. Moana tends to get bored and unengaged when there are no bodies of water to play around with, so Hiccup ends up having to add a lot more lakes, rivers, and oceans to the campaign than he originally planned on. Moana also takes a sailing skill, and thus the party often ends up traveling by boat. Typically Eugene and Rapunzel will infiltrate and hijack it, and Moana will sail it. Moana probably contains the party’s only other brain cell.

Astrid plays a gigantic berserker orc barbarian who is never without his trusty axe. Astrid is hands down the party’s top tank, and unquestionably deals the most damage every combat session. Much like Merida’s character, Astrid’s character is absolutely a shameless power fantasy. Hiccup pretty easily picks up on this, but is too polite to say anything about it. Jack also picks up on this, but is hardly as courteous as their DM, and teases Astrid mercilessly. Astrid is not amused.

Rapunzel requests that her weapon of choice be a frying pan, her justification being that her character found a discarded one at the edge of a human village outside her woods and mistaked it for a highly-dangerous human weapon. Hiccup is like “…you know what? Fuck it” and rolls up stats for a goddamn frying pan. Jack has nigh-endless admiration for Rapunzel for choosing such a goddamn memey, absurd, yet oddly effective weapon and it definitely makes the poor boy even more smitten with her than he already is.

Eugene and Merida have a bet going on who can sleep with more sexy barmaids. Merida is currently winning, much to Eugene’s chagrin. She’s not even inherently better at seducing NPCs, she and Eugene have the same charisma stat–she just consistently rolls better than Eugene. Eugene is incredibly salty about this.

Anna and Elsa want to be sisters in-game as well, but neither want to change their race–so Anna decides her character was adopted. Hiccup and the rest of the party go along with it, mainly because there’s something deeply hilarious about a regular human bard being adopted and raised by a family of high-powered elf ice mages.

Astrid is absolutely the sort of player who tends to get bored and restless outside of fights, and tends to fidget and twiddle her thumbs waiting for the next combat session. Jack picks up on this, and purposely does more roleplay for longer just to piss her off. He’s also just a very dramatic fucker and highkey loves roleplay.

When she’s not causing mayhem around the town or sleeping with hot women, Merida tries to entertain Astrid between combat sessions by offering to spar with her. Unfortunately, this does not usually end well for poor Merida, as even the most hardcore and badass of tieflings is prone to getting dumpstered by an 8-foot-tall barbarian orc with an axe. Astrid is, nonetheless, grateful to have someone to fight.

Rapunzel, Elsa, and Moana will humor Hiccup and attempt to actually play the main plot. Meanwhile, Jack, Merida, and Eugene are a DM’s worst nightmare. They constantly derail the damn campaign to fuck around, cause mayhem, and do inane shenanigans in every. Damn. Town. They go to. Anna is kind of a wildcard–she’ll typically go with whatever group looks like they’re going to be doing something more interesting. Astrid will go along with whichever group is more likely to get into a fight–which, often as not, is Jack and his posse of terrible Chaotic Neutrals (who have definitely pissed off a number of NPCs into attacking them).

As the campaign goes on, Elsa and Eugene become the beleaguered Party Mom and Dad. Both are quite aggravated by this–especially poor Eugene, who just wanted to play a morally-gray charming rogue who stole everything and got away with it and then accidentally ended up caring about these idiots he got stuck with.

Anna initially joins the campaign because she has a planet-size crush on Hiccup, and inevitably is the one who dragged Elsa into it too. Being the hopeless romantic that she is, Anna writes a love interest into her backstory. Hiccup eventually has the party run into said love interest, and Anna is overjoyed. He starts flirting with her as the love interest, and it’s easily the best 30 minutes of Anna’s life.

Moana and Elsa also give Hiccup pretty detailed backstories, and he works in little subplots for them. Moana gets to bring water back to a dying part of the jungle in the middle of a draught, while Elsa gets to go on a whole sidequest to explore her family history and how they came to be sorcerers.

Jack, Merida, and Eugene also give Hiccup fairly elaborate backstories, but Jack’s and Merida’s are like 99% memes and Dumb Shit. Hiccup tries to give all of them backstory-related plot hooks, but inevitably any hooks he provides are either stabbed, robbed, or frozen. Honestly any plot hook offered to these 3 will be all but spat in the face of and tossed off a cliff.

The one relevant part of Eugene’s backstory is that he and Rapunzel decide they used to be partners in crime before the campaign started. Rapunzel would infiltrate and scout out places he wanted to rob as small, unobtrusive animals (her preferred Wild Shape is a chameleon) and later distract the guards as a bunny or kitten while he went in and took every gold coin in sight. In return, Flynn Rider would bribe builders to not develop into Sunlily’s forest. Rapunzel and Eugene partly came up with this For Funsies, but also it was Rapunzel’s sneaky way of tricking Eugene into having prior connections in the party so he’d be less likely to betray them. It works pretty well–although the entire party is protective of Cinnamon Roll Sunlily, Flynn is certainly especially protective of her.

Astrid does the absolute bare minimum as far as backstories go. She is literally just here to smash stuff, slice people, and beat some fuckers up.

Rapunzel has a backstory, but she’s typically so invested in the main plot and the other party members that Hiccup rarely needs to bring it in to keep her engaged. She’s highkey the party emotional rock, and probably the only one keeping them all together.

On that note, Rapunzel’s character is the ONLY one who can get Jack’s character to take the plot even REMOTELY seriously. Like he’ll be dicking around in the nearest tavern challenging the nearest orc to a drinking game, and Rapunzel will come in and ask him to help them on a Main Plot Quest. And he’ll be like “come onnnnn I’m having funnn” and she’ll be like “Jack pleeeeeease?” and you just. Can’t resist Sunlily’s puppy dog eyes. At all. Also, whenever Sunlily is genuinely threatened, any silliness immediately goes out the window and Jack Frost is OUT FOR BLOOD.

For better or for worse, Rapunzel is not immune to being looped into Jack’s shenanigans. Occasionally if either Merida or Eugene have a particularly hare-brained scheme she’ll go along with it, but by and large Jack is the most successful in convincing her to temporarily abandon the plot and cause mild mischief with him. They once wasted half a session creating an elaborate “ice theme park” for some squirrels in the forest.

Hiccup tries to get Merida to play the main plot by eventually having there be no more sexy female NPCs to seduce in the towns they go to. Unfortunately, this backfires–Merida just hooks up with Moana’s character instead. When asked to roll for how good the lay is, Merida gets a nat 20–and thus her character and Moana’s character end up hooking up regularly throughout the rest of the campaign.

Hiccup introduces a few Wise Old Mentor-type NPCs to guide the party throughout the campaign. While Rapunzel, Elsa, Moana, and Anna actually try to listen to them and take their advice, Merida, Jack, and Eugene absolutely refuse to take them seriously and mercilessly play pranks on them.

At one point, Hiccup gives the party the option to attempt to tame a group of wild dragons and use them as mounts. They all have to make animal handling checks. Anna, Rapunzel, Elsa, and Moana pass. The rest of the party fails, with Jack and Eugene crit-failing. Hilarity ensues.

Hiccup ends up bringing back Anna’s backstory love interest as an NPC regular. Anna thinks he’s just being a good friend and a good DM and trying to incorporate her backstory as much as he can, but really, he just wants an excuse to regularly flirt with her. He hardly has the balls to out-of-game.

Merida comes out as gay toward the end of the campaign. Everyone in the group is extremely supportive, of course, but everyone is also like “Merida…with the amount of barmaids you’ve banged…and the amount of times you and Moana’s character hooked up…this isn’t exactly surprising.”

Hiccup actually finds a way to use Jack and Elsa’s same-concept-opposite-execution characters to the plot’s advantage. He decides one of the main villains will have a prophecy saying he’ll be taken down by a powerful ice mage. The party manages to fool this guy into thinking this ice mage is Jack, and sends Jack to fight him. As soon as the villain sees Jack, he’s like “WHAT??? THIS clown???” (word has absolutely spread throughout the land of Jack not using his ice powers for anything besides mildly annoying trolling). Naturally, the bad guy lets his guard down after thinking he’s going to fight this literal joke, and then Elsa crashes in from the side and absolutely dumpsters him.

Jack tries to defeat the final boss by just annoying him so much that he leaves. Unfortunately, he just annoys him so much that he attacks Rapunzel’s character. Jack’s just like “oh HELL no” and attacks with absolutely nothing held back. Turns out he’s pretty terrifying when he’s not using his magic for Dumb Antics.

During the final boss of the campaign, the Big Bad tries to one-shot Moana’s character, and Merida’s character super theatrically jumps in front of her to take the blow instead. Rapunzel just barely manages to heal Merida’s character, but it’s a really close call. During all this, Merida is like “ah shit...maybe I’m NOT just in this to get fantasy-laid.” After the fight’s over, her and Moana’s characters have a big dramatic love confession and share a Big Damn Kiss in front of everyone. It’s pretty epic.

After the final session of the campaign, Merida drags Moana outside Jack’s apartment and sputters and trips over her words for a solid minute before she finally gets out that through all this nonsense...well...maybe it’s not just in the game that she thinks Moana is hot. Moana just gets this HUGE grin on her face and says “c’mere, Leeroy Jenkins” and just pulls Merida in and kisses her. Cue the rest of the party barging in on them. Merida and Moana freeze, and there’s a moment of terrified silence...and then the entire party starts cheering them on like “took you long enough!”

The entire rest of the party could detect the sexual tension. Literally all of them.

But Eugene is like “HA, THIS MEANS IF WE DO A SEQUEL CAMPAIGN I’M WINNING THAT BET! BECAUSE YOU’RE GONNA BE DATING MO’S CHAR AND THUS NOT ABLE TO SLEEP WITH ANY MORE BARMAIDS!”

By the epilogue session, Jack and Rapunzel are dating. Merida and Moana are also dating. Hiccup and Anna STILL haven’t figured out why they’re so prone to spending half the session flirting when Anna’s love interest shows up, and Hiccup STILL hasn’t figured out why he likes to have Anna’s love interest show up so often. Bless their souls. Maybe they’ll figure it out next campaign...?

Damn I actually really like this...maybe if people like it I’ll do some incorrect quotes or a drabble or something??? Or maybe some HCs from next campaign???

[veryimportantsparkles]

I really need to do more shilling for Josh the Boyfriend’s project!  Neon Divide (formerly Callous Row) is a giant VRchat roleplay, played by over a 100 players and streamed by most of them.  It’s so hard to explain that.  Imagine a tabletop game like Dungeons and Dragons, but done over a 3d chat client.  So some interactions are pure improv acting, based on the players being able to speak and gesture to interact with each other realistically.  But occasionally the game mechanics require a DM to roll a dice (mostly for technical skills).  But also, Neon Divide has a dev team that coded a bunch of custom stuff into their maps so that they can use functional weapons and track damage and effects.

I’ve talked about Neon Divide a little, and done art for it (hmmm, I should update the tag to reflect the name change) but I can never figure out a good way to explain it.  I’m not an expert; I’ve never used VRchat myself, nor do I follow any of the players other than Josh.  It’s a huge setting, you can follow one player’s streams and never encounter half the other players.  They’re spread out across four separate maps with their own overarching storylines, there are several factions in-world, and of course there are little cliques of characters who hang out with each other.  I could probably give a good summary for Josh’s season 1 and 2 character, Johnny, but he’s DEAD and it’s TRAGIC.

For season 3, Josh is one of the DMs of the Upper City map.  ND is a space cyberpunk setting, taking place in a galaxy divided up between seven megacorporations.  Each corp has a branch office on the planet Hellion, which is a distant, backwater dump planet, and they’re fighting over resources and exploiting the residents in order to prove themselves to their respective main offices.  The Upper City is where (most of) the corporate characters live and work, meaning that Josh is the dungeon master of villain town.  Josh wrote a bunch of new systems for them to use, he calculates out their company stock prices and officiates “bureaucratic combat” (sneaky contract deals), a long with a bunch of other stuff that has yet to come.  The image above is my art for his character, a mad scientist doctor dog.  Every DM gets ‘DM hands,’ an avatar that’s just two sinister floating arms that can roll dice.  Josh put a skull pattern on his, because that’s how he does everything.

You could watch Neon Divide through nearly any of the gajillion characters.  I’m not familiar with a lot of them, but now that Josh is a DM if you watch his perspective you can see him jump around between characters who need dice rolls and lore info.  Sometimes he voices NPC characters (through a phone or through a generic avatar) to push the plot.  So watching him is a decent intro to the other characters on his map.  ‘Episodes’ happen every Friday, and we’re two weeks in.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Ep 1 had a lot of fussing around with technical stuff and was mostly just characters introducing/establishing themselves.  A slow start, as to be expected.  But episode 2!!!  I’m surprised by how many shenanigans are kicking off, the villains are all villaning at each other and it shows so much potential.

This is my long-winded plea to take a look at Neon Divide.  I’ll probably start posting here when episodes start, so take this as the main explanation of what I’m talking about.  Even if you don’t end up following Josh (we also use the Hundera account for streaming normal video games, in which I usually appear as well), check out some of the other players and see if anyone clicks for you.  It’s way more interesting than I can fully explain!

[dragonsisterofthemanyfandoms]

So it’s been about 2 or 3 years since i’ve been on this site…

Some shit has gone down with my goblinoids. And i have recently found out that my cousin might just be the worst player in existence. Her main character now is a firbolg bard named Primrose.

A collective list of shit Primrose has done in the 2 campaigns she’s in:

-snorted bone dust from a skeleton she powdered with shatter

-put the halfling bard’s discarded teeth in Esku’s hood. Esku is a traumatized Yuan-ti pureblood wild magic sorcerer. He has really bad anxiety. Needless to say, Albion the party mom friend gave her a strict talking-to.

-She and the halfling bard (Calfira, played by my sister) got into an argument with a bunch of grung about Esku. I had to have Ria explain to them that the FROG PEOPLE were scared of the SNAKE MAN.

-in my sister’s campaign, where I play Albion the lawful good teifling fighter, she found a cursed book. Every time you open it, a wild magic surge happens. Albion, naturally, did not like the book.

-Primrose fucking loved it though. She opens it wayyyyy to much. In doing so, she ACCIDENTALLY GASSED A BLACKSMITH SHOP TWICE. Naturally, it was up to me to save the smith.

-She ran into the shop to save the smith’s flower crown. In doing so, she got lost in the poison fog. First instinct? Fucking steal a knife.

-after being lost in the fog for a few minutes, she decided that the only option was death. Not calling for help. Just fucking stabbing herself with a sword.

-eventually, i rescued her. She immediately ran back in and tried to kermit sewer slide AGAIN. SHE SUCCEEDED ON 8 DEATH SAVING THROWS BEFORE SHE FINALLY DIED AFTER ALBION ACCIDENTALLY DROPPED HER.

-we then found out that she had done all that BECAUSE SHE WANTED A NEW CHARACTER SHEET. SHE WANTED TO PLAY AN ORDER OF THE SCRIBE WIZARD BECAUSE I HAD GIVEN ONE OF MY NPCS IN MY GAME A TALKING NOTEBOOK.

-needless to say, her new character was a dragonborn wizard named Drexac. We ‘lovingly’ nicknamed her nutsack. Yeah everyone in the party hated her new character. Albion especially.

-we explored a magic items shop. Drexac found invisibility boots. Her first instinct? Tickle Albion. My sister made her roll for it. She rolled low. It was more like she was groping him.

-she decided it would be funny to pull Albion’s tail. That did not go over well.

-Accidentally cast Compelled Duel on Albion with an enchanted glove. She then refused to duel him. She made a ur mom joke at him.  -we ended up at this cute little elf village. Albion accidentally got engaged within the first minute of being there, but that’s a different story for a different time.

-by this time, my sister and i were so sick and tired of Drexac. My sister’s solution as the dm? Kill off nutsack and resurrect prim. That’s exactly what she did.

-now that prim is back, what do we do? Go get some funky animals.  -after that, it’s time to torture Albion. She opens that fucking book again.

-Prim and Albion swap bodies. This is where it gets wild.

-after realizing she’s been body swapped with a good, pure-hearted boi who has never done anything wrong in his life, she decides to flirt with girls. Remember, Albion is engaged at this point. 

-after ruining his reputation, what does she do? RUIN IT MORE. SHE STEALS A FUCKING DINOSAUR FROM A PET SHOP. AND RUNS AWAY WITH IT. ALBION IS PRACTICALLY IN TEARS BY NOW.

-thankfully, we catch up to her and the magic effect ends.

-wanna know what she fucking does next? Sulks because Albion said he didn’t like her. After the stunt she just pulled.

-there was a whole debacle where Albion and his wife-to-be Juniper had to bake a cake. She tried to help and got powdered sugar FUCKING EVERYWHERE. SHE ALMOST KILLED EVERYONE WITH POWDERED SUGAR.

Thats all i can think of at the moment, but rest assured i will post more dnd shenanigans because there is A LOT.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Two Cakes

So the theme of today’s exploration of video games is “Like X But I Like It More”. Because my brother-from-another-mother has basically looked at the week I’ve had like, “This is burnout and unhappiness and I like my umsibling and Forever DM not to burn out please so I will throw Zen games in that direction and hope it helps”, and as well as having ... well, quasi-Zen, honestly ... it’s given me thinky-thoughts.

Kingdoms and Castles, for example. It’s kind of like what would happen if you crossed Sim City with the latest Sid Meier Civilisation game, and made it cute. Like, “Look over there! Go get those resources so you can effectively build your town and make your citizens happy! Your citizens have to be happy or they’re going to balk at your taxes. Oh, yeah, and occasionally a building is going to catch fire for no reason”. But they have a setting that means you don’t get attacked by Vikings, which is nice. So when I don’t feel like Laying Siege To Germany (it’s an in-joke; don’t ask), I have a thing that lets me do a similar thing in a kind of chill way. I do miss the Sim City ability to just go, “I don’t like this town anymore - EXTINCTION EVENT TIIIIIIIIIIIME!”

The most recent one is Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town. Which is ... well, it’s pretty much literally Stardew Valley with better graphics. I mean it. Seriously. That is exactly what it is. Though with the better graphics comes a few more bits of fun. Like, I get a pet. So I have a Scottish Fold named Muffin, who I can actually take for walks. So, like, if I don’t want to be charging through town holding an axe or a hammer or a fishing rod or whatever, I can just grab the leash and take a walk through town doing my various chores ... with Muffin on leash. It’s adorable.

Now, see, I have Stardew Valley. You’d think that I’d be all like, “I can already do this; what do I need this expensive version of it for?” But the little differences just make it, for me. I like the better graphics. I like the 3D approach. I like having a pet that I can take on walks. Honestly, I like not having to take a weapon down to the mines with me whenever I go. And I figured out the crafting a lot faster too. Which just goes to show that you can have games that do the exact same thing as games already out there because a) someone might engage better with a different presentation, and b) ... well, the “HOLY SHIT! TWO CAKES!” effect. I have so many farming sim games and now I think I’ve found the one I actually just ... like.

It’s a similar premise to the turn-based, D&D-based RPGs, at least for me. Like, I don’t know how I’d feel about Pathfinder (maybe I should throw it back on my wishlist and find out), but I do know that I did not really feel it with Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s the kind of big that requires a more flexible DM than AI will ever be, and honestly I don’t like the companions that much. I get that it’s supposed to be edgy ‘poor little meow-meows’ or whatever terminology we’re using now, but I guess I prefer a set-up where the party members ... actually ... like each other? Where I don’t feel like I’m picking sides every time I talk to a companion? DA2 did “companions at odds with each other a bit” way better, if you ask me. So if I want turn-based D&D-based RPG, I play Solasta instead, where the mechanics (and story areas, frankly) are more forgiving, and where the party kind of has to get along since it’s entirely created by the player so they can’t do “I have a specific prejudice against This Member Of The Party”. (Not that they’re entirely without personality, the Solasta characters; it just goes by the personality traits you picked out for them according to background etc.)

Right. I have an entirely free day owing to Saturday Shenanigans being called on account of scheduling issues (it’s part of the package, I guess, but also good because after the week I’ve had, a whole weekend off feels like exactly what I need), and I have video games. I just need to pick which one. Which is the hard part. But I did manage to get another level-up done for the Cupcake Coterie, two if you count my own. Which I kind of have to because this is about to get hilarious. The DM PC who’s thankfully more PC than DM most of the time? Well ... she just hit level 10 Bard in her somewhat insane dual-class. Which not only means the full complement of Expertise (ask her to lie for the party. Please. Seriously, her stats are ludicrous. And also she’s never getting snuck up on again), but Magical Secrets. Which means two spells from any class. And she’s a College of Swords Bard married to a Paladin (or a Not-Just-A-Paladin, but still).

Alisaie’s getting smites.

Heeeeeeeeeeheeheeheehee.

[astormyjet]

Winter of 2018 - Summer of 2021 TIME FILES WHEN YOU’RE IN YOUR 20s!!!!

OH BOY. It’s been three years (or more) since I updated this. “Time is a weird soup!” to quote a fave. I guess I quit tumblr around the time there was a purge of content and creators and a smack down on a lot of the fandom communities. Tumblr has always been something of a crapshow though so I’ve been more productive with my time than I was in some ways, but I’ve also found other ways to waste my time. *cough twitter/netflix/youtube/MTGArena cough*.

General Life Achievements since 2018 -JLPT N3 GET in 2019! -Blackbelt GET in 2018! -TESOL 120 Hour and BE 50 Hour Cert from online provider GET in 2021 -STUDENT LOAN BANISHED (Thank you grandparents) -Survived Apartment flooding in early 2020. -Mystery anxiety related illness and chronic pain in my left leg from early 2020 - Present. -A mythical 6th and 7th year on the JET Programme. -Started posting on Instagram a lot more about my wanderings around Matsuyama/Uwajima. Mainly old buildings and stray cats. @astormyknight -Surviving so far in Japan with old rona-chan.

2018 was rough. I was given an additional school in the first semester (March to July) as we had someone find a better job. I enjoyed it, but it was a bit of a rough go especially when I was transferred that August after three fantastic years at Tsubaki JHS and ES and only a semester there. I legit went through the five stages of grief - which I think is another reason I stopped blogging. I was given my current base school along with four other schools. Going from 2(3) to 5 schools was a bit of an adjustment. I still feel a bit spread out.

That said, I keep running into teachers and students who were at the Tsubaki’s. The teachers shuffle around every April, so it's always a lottery with which new faces are going to be old friends (or enemies…). A couple of kids moved and transferred into my current schools from Tsubaki too. So I have one kid I can say I've been teaching for 6 out of the 7 years I've been here!

One of the kids who was in JHS 3rd grade when I first got here (in 2015!) hangs out around one of my favorite cafes, so I got chatting with him recently. He's in his second year of nursing school - his class nearly broke me in the first year, it was really a trial by fire with those kids. I was 22 then, and he’s 20 now, so it was interesting chatting to him about that first year of teaching. His younger sister was one of my favorite students too, she was in the group of kids that graduated in the March of 2018, the year group that went through Tsubaki JHS with me - they’re newly minted University students now!

This Thursday morning when I was cycling in to work, a kid who was 2nd year JHS when I left  (so 2nd or 3rd year JHS now) pulled up with their Mum in a van and got their mamachari out of the back to bike to school. The franticness of it all was hilarious. Their Mum legit sat on the horn until I pulled over. I was so happy to run into this kid, even at social distance and both of us late to work/school - because we both remembered each other and as they were going around the corners they were yelling each time they turned and humming the old elementary school directions chant and pelting me with questions about what I’ve been up to.

I've had so many students and schools now, that everything is kind of running into a blur. I remember flashes of kids faces and voices, random memories of in class or out of class shenanigans out of the blue. Also, I now, more than ever, have issues remembering kids' names, but I still know their faces (even with their masks), whose homeroom class they were in, who their friends were and which club they were in. I get random flashbacks to past conversations with them when I see them on the street or we run into each other. I feel bad because the first thing former students ask is ‘Do you remember my name?’ and I always have to be like, ‘Honestly, no, but I remember you did this on x day, x month in x classroom’.

Socially in 2018 -2019 - a few of our friends went home and things shook up a little. Our DnD group changed a bit - one of our players stepped into the role forever DM (THANK YOU RALPH). From memory the newbies were great - some of them just went home at the start of last month and it’s weird not seeing them around (JESS DO YOUR BEST!). I think we only have one or two people left from that rotation. There’s no 6th year ALTs, and only two 5th years.

Aug 2018 - Aug 2019 was the year of Hiura - my mountain school. Dang man, they were so cool. The students of the JHS and the ES combined barely hit 30, so each class was between 3-10 students depending on the grade. It was easier to get to know the kids, their abilities and their goals than it has been for me at other schools. I miss it so bad, being in nature once a week did my country-kid heart so good! The bugs! The frogs! The river! The mountain! The monkeys! The lizards! The dilapidated houses and hidden shrines!!!! The random crabs in the English room...I forgot that there was such a thing as freshwater crabs, and being right next to a river, the invasion wasn’t as out of place as I first thought...  

The area is so picturesque and calming. Every week up there was a small adventure (after getting over my motion sickness from the bus ride up). The kids were constantly pranking either myself or the main English teacher. There was always some new weird bug or lizard in a tank to be educated about. There were chickens on the way to the JHS that used to escape from their cardboard box prisons to run riot on the gardens. There were old people to freak out with my youth and foreignness! The kids also got to do a lot of extra classes, sumiyakai (making charcoal the traditional way), planting and maintaining rice paddies, setting up vegetable gardens, raising fireflies, conserving a special breed of fire lily (only found in this particular mountain valley) and another rare flower, wilderness training ect.

I wish I could have stayed there a lot longer but SOMEONE (read...the BoE) decided that schools had to be shuffled again(thank goodness the dude who has it now was able to keep it from the 2021 shuffle, he's the best fit for the school). I had so many good memories from there, I wish I had been more consistent in writing it down. I do have a bunch of photos and videos from there though, so that's nice. The only thing I don’t miss is the bus trip up and down - not only was it motion sickness, there was a healthy dose of fear each ride as the driver brought us perilously close to the edge of the mountain drop…

2019 - 2020 was interesting. With the school I got given instead of the Hirua’s I was roped into more demonstration lessons which was a lot of pressure because I was also involved quite heavily with the JHS observation and training lessons too. They were somewhat rewarding, the third graders are now super smart 5th graders, but the teachers  who need to embrace the new curriculum and ways of teaching really haven’t taken on anything from the lessons....

Outside of work as well, I was given the chance, thanks to an ALT buddy of mine, to join in with the local festival. It's been one of the biggest highlights of my time here, and I am gutted it’s been cancelled for the last two years, but I understand the reason…. I was able to travel to Okinawa too during that summer for an international Karate seminar with the Dojo I train with. I met the head of the style I currently practice and a bunch of people from around the world. I also got to see Shuri castle before it burned down. So that was a stroke of luck. One of the places I want to go when/if we get out of this pandemic is Okinawa. I want to see more of those Islands so bad. Just before the whole pandemic thing too - I managed to see the Rugby World Cup, a Canada vs NZ match, I even ran into Tana Umanga in Oita city!!!

2019 - 2020 was supposed to be my last year on JET, so I was frantically Job hunting. I went to the Career Fair in Osaka in early Feb/Late January 2020. I applied and got interviewed for a position in Sendai in early Jan 2020. In the end though - the Rona hit. We started hearing whispers of it around the end of 2019, then the cruise boats happened, and then Japan refused to cancel the Olympics...every holiday season there is a new wave of infections, my nurse friends in Tokyo are struggling....my teacher friends in more populous areas of Japan are struggling…

JET couldn't get new ALTs for 2020-2021, I took the extra year when it was eventually offered, as the one job I had managed to get a serious offer for was hesitating because with the rona setting in, things were uncertain. There was a lot of time spent adjusting to the new rules surrounding what we could do in class with the kids as well as textbook change. Schools shut on and off during the spring months. 

I also got a reminder of my mortality mid May with an unrelated illness which is still smacking me around a bit - stress/age, it does things to the human body it has no right to. It's only been in the last three months I’ve been able to exercise like I used to, I’ve put on a bunch of weight I can't shrug off (one part medication, another part diet) My relationship with food needs to change, and I really need a kitchen that allows me for more than one pan meals. I also need to figure out what to do with a left leg that is in constant pain from the knee down and a heart that misses beats when stressed out (mentally and physically…). 

My apartment also got flooded by the guy upstairs at one point, I spent most of late February/early March living in a hotel while my walls and floor got redone - I think this was one of the things that really stressed me out and kicked my anxiety right up a notch, it was right when things were getting REALLY bad with rona-chan in Hokkaido and schools were shutting down here as it was filtering into the prefecture and so Japan closed schools for the first time…

Classes in covid times have been weird. We’ve been wearing facemasks full time since the early stages of the pandemic (March 2020) - so I admit that I get a bit pissed off seeing both Americans and New Zealanders back home bitching about just having to start wearing them full time in public. I have asthma and have been suffering with the things on during the 30*C plus with high 90s humidity summers. Teachers were offered vaccines late July 2021, just days before the Olympics were open - and I finished my two shots in the middle of August. But the overall distribution and take up of the jab has been slow.  As mentioned above, we can't play a lot of the games we used to play with kids in classes anymore, and a lot of the activities outlined in the textbook curriculum need to be adjusted too, so we’ve had to be creative. We use hand sanitizer a lot more too. One of the things I miss the most though, is eating lunch with the kids.

Socially from summer 2020 - now 2021 we played a lot of DnD and board games, both online and in person when we could. There were no new ALTs again for the 2021-2022 JET year, and those of us who were in 6th year were offered a 7th. Four out of six of us took it. As a whole we’re down from a peak of 38 ALTs for Junior High and Elementary school to 22 for now. We hopefully will get a new person at the end of September, and 4 more in November. Which will bring us to 27. This has led to ANOTHER round of school shuffles.

Summer vacation has been weird the last two years. With rona-chan, we haven’t really been able to travel. All the summer festivals (all the Autumn and Winter ones too!) have been cancelled, so the changing of seasons just feels, wrong. I dunno. There is so much we all miss from pre-rona-chan, and so much that doesn’t happen that makes this just feel like one long long unending year of sadness, coldness, raininess, unbearable heat and repeat. I’m tired. Time is going so fast, but so.dang.slow.

I lost my favorite school (AGAIN GDI!!!) and gained the school I taught a semester at in 2019....I had my first day there on Wednesday. Schools actually started back on September 1st so there was some drama as the BoE didn’t communicate fast enough about our school changes. We legit got told on the 27th of August (on a Friday) our schools were changing effective September 1st, but somehow some of our schools found out on the Monday 30th August. In July we were told we would be changing schools at the end of September, so.a lot of ALTs and schools were left short changed, not having opportunities to say goodbye to co-workers or students/having their planning for the semester more or less thrown out the window too. I love my job. I really dislike the way the BoE treats us, the Japanese assistant language teachers and our schools.

The new school I have is used to having an ALT there twice a week, who plans all the lessons and executes them. I’m at three elementary schools. I'm only at each once a week, I want to plan, but being that I miss an entire lesson in between visits, it's going to be difficult to do so. Not impossible, but being that I'm already doing it for two other schools, who are at two different places in the textbook ah…….. From what I have talked to my new supervisor about though, it sounds like the teachers have taken on more of the lesson planning and I'll be able to contribute ideas when I'm there. I just want to and wish I could do more without being confused all the time. (This is all usually done in my second language too, not in English so extra levels of confusion and miscommunication abound).

 I feel like this at my JHS too a lot of the time. I want to contribute more, but even with constant communication with my main in school supervisor (who is a badass and pretty much on the same page about everything with me) I still feel about as useful as tits on a bull. Especially now that classes have been cancelled and or shortened, there's less time to do stuff. Any game or activity I plan is usually cut in favor of making up time in the textbook. When I'm in class, I'm back to being a tape recorder, the fun police and general nuisance.　

Also in the last week...my two of my schools were  shut due to students testing positive for the rona. This is the second time my schools have had a scare in the last 8 months. And by shut, I mean the students were all at home, but the teachers  all had to come into the office. Because why not I guess….. I mean,  the cases increasing is really not unexpected with the amount of people who were travelling over obon and the increase of cases due to the Olympics/Japan being slow on vaccinating/delta being the dominant strain/Japan's leaders doing relatively little except asking shops and restaurants to limit people coming in at one time and closing before 8pm. I know my schools weren't the only one shut either - but still High Schools were having their sports days this week. I kept on seeing groups of kids hanging in the park after, so that was a little bit nerve wracking.

It's just frustrating - we’ve been on half days to “minimize the risk of infection” for kids and teachers, as if only being at school from 8am through to 1pm is going to reduce the risk.  My schools have only just started testing out Microsoft teams and Zoom lesson equipment. Thankfully our school’s run in this time was contained real quick, the family was super good about informing us when they got their results back, and the fact they needed to be tested. The homeroom teacher and the students from the same class were the only ones tested, and they all came back clear, which was nice. But the information came back so SLOW. 

I’m a little irritated because I found out on Wednesday night what was going on, and even if I am vaccinated, I am super worried that I will end up being the covid monkey due to being at different schools three days out of five. I think other than being worried that I will catch it myself and get real sick, my biggest fear is that I will be protected from bad symptoms from the vaccine, but still be able to pass it onto some of my more vulnerable friends and students. The whole thing is a mess.  

Other than Covid and BoE drama, life is good. I’ve had a couple of other big changes - both fantastic and not so great, but yeah.  I have my health (and health insurance!) for now. I have a job, for now. I have a sense of existential dread for the next 12 months, but we’ll see where we end up. Life post JET is going to be way less cushy and I am TERRIFIED. I mean, I have a BA in Eng/Ling and no idea what to do with it…..because I am NOT suited for academia.

TLDR: Love my job. Don’t like the system. What is life? Future scary.