#forbidden d20

[xdraonarts]

tfw the guy that looks like a surface version of Your Dad hits on you

[samwellthembo]

i wanna eat the turbo tokens so bad

[soggycardboardbox]

My Forbidden Candy sticker set is available over on my Etsy Store

[antique-traveler]

i think an essential part of the experience of watching community is having to skip advanced dungeons and dragons and advanced advanced dungeons and dragons because they’re such wildly, horribly, insultingly, offensively incorrect portrayals of how dnd is played that it makes you grind your teeth so hard you get a migraine

[dispeldice]

It’s a giant D20 filled with forbidden juice.

[mushy-bread]

A non-exhaustive list of ideas for future d20 seasons

- Spider verse (using a power by the apocalypse system)

- The 7 season 2

- Fantasy High but it’s the parents on an adventure together

- Bring dadlands to d20 add rehka and ally and Jess to mcelroys

- Honestly just a superhero season would be fun

- Some sort of universe hopping season that goes through all of d20 canon

- ACOFAF SEASON 2

- a stranger things-esque pbta game with a 90s/00s aesthetic and analog horror

- Honestly give them my hedge maze world it’d slap

- Pls god something with scandal/political intrigue, give me hamlet, give me acofaf in a different font. GET MESSY GET PETTY GET HORNY MAKE IT FORBIDDEN PLS

- Give me Stanley parable, office comedy with a dark twist

- Monster of the week idc what just use this game pls and thanks

- Saw trap season dm’d by Sam Reich with og CH people

- Last of us, Zombie apocalypse give it a twist idk what

- Murder mystery!!! CLUE, Knives Out, you get the vibes!

[thisisnotthenerd]

alright people. it's time for another edition of thisisnotthenerd's d20 stats. this time, we're talking in-world campaign settings.

there have been a fair few that we've cycled through in the dome; some that we've come back to, and some that we haven't.

d20 campaign settings

in chronological order:

Spyre:

the world of teen adventurers; a combination of classic dnd cosmology and dungeon-delving with modern technology equivalents and a school system

seasons: fantasy high, fantasy high sophomore year, pirates of leviathan, the seven, fantasy high junior year

Elna:

Lord of the Rings parody world, where evil reigns over the lands of gorgar

seasons: escape from the bloodkeep

Magic NYC/The Unsleeping City:

it's on the can--the magical side of New York, pretty parallel to our Earth

seasons: the unsleeping city, the unsleeping city chapter ii

Thimble Lane:

a normal neighborhood to the naked eye, but if you look a little closer, a world of tiny inhabitants blooms to life

seasons: tiny heist

Calorum:

a food-based medieval society with multiple nations, complex societal and religious dynamics, and a lot of magic, both free and forbidden

seasons: a crown of candy, the ravening war

Tufting Meadows:

an all animal community, whose local lord resides in loam hall. in the countryside of england

seasons: mice & murder

Gowpenny:

a british magic school that's recently opened its doors to a few american students

seasons: misfits & magic, misfits & magic holiday special

Bram University:

a university founded by bram stoker and dracula, where humans and monsters/cryptids coexist

seasons: shriek week

AnarchEra:

it's only ever called the galaxy, but it's home to the starstruck comics, play, and now a starstruck odyssey

seasons: a starstruck odyssey

Transylvania:

set in the late 19th century, this is transylvania as ruled by the great count dracula

seasons: coffin run

Fey Realm:

a fantastical plane of magic and whimsy, home to many courts, including the court of wonder, the seelie and unseelie courts, the court of craft, the goblin court, the lords of the wing, and many others. connected to the material plane via portals.

seasons: a court of fey and flowers

Neverafter:

a land of stories where people live their lives by the ink and pen of godlike authors, and archetypes rise amidst the tales

seasons: neverafter

Kelvorda & the Underworld:

a classic dnd world with exploration of the underworld and the after life

seasons: dungeons & drag queens

Mentopolis:

a city of noir archetypes and mysteries in the mind of elias hodge, a junior researcher at gobstopper industries

seasons: mentopolis

The Blue Forest:

a forest of nuclear fallout radiation, that's home to some 20000 magical, sapient stoats

seasons: burrow's end

now that we've gone through all of the d20 campaign settings, let's consider how tey could plausibly be connected. there's the one dimension theory by porkchopsensei on reddit from a few years ago, among with a few others that i've seen, but i'd take a slightly different approach to it.

that being, instead of a singular world/dimension in which these stories take place, there are parent worlds and offshoots. offshoots can involve different places, or even different timelines.

parent world #1: the world of spyre. the individual world we've spent the most time in so far, with 5 seasons to date. spyre has a lot to offer between the classic adventure and the high school drama.

offshoots:

elna: if you recall my previous comments about connecting spyre and elna, there's several reasons, one of which is that the elves could be the same, and that fallinel and the celestine sea separate what's shown on the map of spyre and what's shown on the map of elna.

calorum: in the world of spyre, the timeline would be very condensed. the funny theory is that calorum exists inside gilear's minifridge.

parent world #2: the unsleeping city, or TUC-Earth. as the modern with magic representative, this parent world has a lot of room to encompass other campaign settings.

offshoots:

thimble lane: notably in the heartland of america. while there's the obvious connection of gladiator, there's also a straight up mafia of tiny people. where have we seen that before? it's got connections to the fey, and to a bunch of magic that tracks with what's happening in the unsleeping city.

gowpenny: another notably modern with magic setting, but it's funny to me that the british are the way they are about magic in this setting. when evan says 'that's some american magic, bitch!' he means it.

fey realm: there's consistent references to the material plane and the fact that they have their own magic there; the streets of gritty los angeles, wannessa, chirp's family, binx's warlocks and court. also very funny to imagine rowan berry showing up to the next bloom after her court has been established. we don't really see much of the seelie court beyond the oberon scene and lady sylmenar, so i think the events of tuc chapter 1 plausibly could have happened before the bloom.

and for a timeline offshoot: the Blue Forest. instead of the unsleeping city hiding, the presence of magic comes with a bunch of super radioactive stoats

parent world #3: anarchera (the starstruck galaxy). it's already plenty full with comics and plays and lots of chaos, but hey! why not add some more!

offshoots:

mentopolis: elias hodge works for gobstopper industries in a 'retrofuturistic world'. given the breadth of the galaxy, who's to say that elias hodge isn't from a much earlier cycle? also knowing that psychics exist, mentopolis is a very funny concept. he created an artificial cerebroslug.

parent world #4: dracula's transylvania. this isn't an offshoot of the unsleeping city because it's anachronistic 19th century with vampires and other creatures.

offshoots:

bram university: in my mind, after the fang gang gets the castle dracula back they have a good few years of running along, before a bram stoker comes along with a novel about dracula's exploits. this prompts a deal that resulted in bram university.

individual worlds:

neverafter: as a multiverse of stories, the neverafter kind of exists on its own. if you get really theoretical about it, every single story could be encompassed there, but it doesn't really connect meaningfully with other worlds that d20 has used.

tufting meadows: while i'd love to group tufting meadows with some of d20's other period settings, it is fully a bacchanal of animals who are living the story of sherlock holmes sylvester cross. there are no humans.

kelvorda/the underworld: dungeons & drag queens takes place in a very classic dnd campaign setting. one could make the argument that nekronomikron of spyre could plausibly connect to thanara's underworld, what with there being a similar gauntlet to pass through, but i think this adventure stands better as its own story in its own world.

anyway, that's all for this time! check out the spreadsheet to see this analysis in chart form.

[threetrenchcoatsinatrenchcoat]

It's that time again, guess the next D20 season with literally no information

Woodland creature revenge thriller

The haunting of human resources

Robots patiently reforesting the earth so their humans may return

Toy soldiers caught between the opposition and the stuffed teddy

Oops all character creation anthology season

That reverse indiana jones Brennan invented on Um Actually

Up-and-coming fashion designers during a minor zombie apocalypse

Biopic subjects forced to team up with their method actor portrayers when the aliens take hollywood

Pneumatictubepunk

Vaporwave western

First girl eliminated last year returns to Engagement Island to murder the new contestants

Forbidden romance between the hoodies and the dress shirts

Stranded archeologists crashed their starship and must restore the ancient windows 8 machine

Mad max but with public transportation

Deep sea soap opera

Fungal espionage intrigue spanning millenia

Superheroes' assistants unionize

The prophecy states that before they can banish the old gods for good they must win regionals

Lou dms and kills Brennan's pc

Ross dms musical improv (and Zach and Jess play exes)

More Alex Song-Xia

Birds

[diceyclipse]

Dragée Palette set - A set in shades of grey and pink with clouds and sparkle. I KNOW I say this often but. Really really liked that one !

That d20 looks like the best tasting forbidden candy ever offered by the Fey.

[nomi800]

Just put up my third set of d20 keychains and this forbidden candy set is extra sweet!

Download them from cults or consider joining my patreon to get all three sets and lots more!

[reckless-glitch]

honestly I really would like to see an updated nymphology book for d20 systems

and I don't want it couched in all this "oooo it's forbidden and taboo to talk about using magic for sex"

the community is always talking about the seductive bard trope...lemme see what's in that toolbox (😏)

[performance-fart]

Collecting data for normal reasons

[beatriceeagle]

11, 5, 29

5 - What work got more feedback than you expected?

Gonna list two here, because my immediate answer was Mastermind, which is a Dimension 20 vid that I kind of expected not to get much attention, but which has gotten tons of views and comments, and seems to have really connected with a lot of D20 fans.

But in terms of fics, definitely Seven Days on Starbase Twelve. I didn't imagine that there would be a ton of audience for my one-shot fic about a canonically doomed couple on Strange New Worlds, but boy, some other people feel some feelings about those two.

11 - What work took you the longest to write?

A solid year and a half passed between the first words I wrote on this year's love and the final draft. Even when I started working on it in earnest, it was several months of work that I completed in two separate spells a month or so apart.

29 - Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

Almost certainly something from a white and soundless place, and honestly it's hard to narrow it down more than that, because I really love that fic—I think it did absolutely everything I wanted to do, and it did it well. I literally had one passage copy-pasted here, was about to click post, and then second-guessed myself. And then did it again.

But I think I'm going to go with this one:

Una was a well-behaved child, but she had her moments of failure like any person. When she was fourteen, she stole a book from her mother. It was not, she reasoned, truly stealing; the book lived on a shelf in her own home, and Una had every intention of returning it when she was finished. But it was a book her mother had forbidden her to touch, for, oh, for many reasons. Because it was a little bit racy, certainly, but probably also because it was the first book Mother had been able to afford in two years, and Una was a clumsy child. Una secreted the book off the shelf and carried it with her to school to read under her desk. On the way home, reading as she walked, she dropped it in a puddle. She never forgot Mother’s face when she saw the warped pages and blurry print. Mother knew exactly why Una had done what she did, had probably felt that same insatiable thirst for words her whole life, and yet she looked so hurt. So betrayed. And that was only a book.

I like this passage because I always like it when I can make a scene do more than one thing, and this passage does a lot of things. It establishes Una's love of books and stories; it establishes her family's poverty; it deepens Una's relationship with her mother, which is very important to the fic; it carries the theme; it establishes, without directly saying it, how Una feels about what Bren did. I also like it because I think it reflects Una's narrative voice well, and because it's a little bit subtle.

[fic writer ask game]

[kurakurakura99]

"i'd like some more options to be useful in combat." the martial asks me. I raise my eyebrow. She is innocent. This is maybe her second campaign, and Swashbuckler seems like a pretty limited class compared to even other Martials. She has access to Ultimate Combat, as well as all the other pathfinder books in our repository: I ask if she has looked in those, and she says yes. I know this. She needs more kick. I glance at my copy of the Tome of Battle:The vaunted text of weeaboo fightan magic, from a forgotten age. It is kept securely in a prismatic force field, floating placidly in my closet. Yes, Pathfinder is theoretically compatible with all D20 products, but...that is forbidden magic. "There is a path to martial options that some may consider...Unnatural."

[thief-of-love]

uh I believe when Eve bit the forbidden fruit God specifically says "Oough, you should not done that. Roll a d20 to make a consistution saving throw."

[dailyadventureprompts]

Alright, the votes are in, time to share the psychic damage.

On it's surface Mega-Feats Revisited is like any other 3.5/Pathfinder player supplement, packed to the gills with options for niche builds, some of which are genuinely good and creative (a cleric feat that gives you the ability to give minor healing to the targets of your buff spells), while others are mechanically redundant ( a feat that lets you haggle, a thing you could theoretically already do in game).

Then you get to stuff like this, and you just stop in your tracks:

I know that d&d takes inspiration from a lot of different mythologies/folklore traditions, and I know that a lot of those traditions have stuff to do with menstruation. I'm not squeamish, it's a thing 50% of the population needs to deal with... but why have a feat for it? Why of all aspects of moon worshipping pagan-ish practices did this make the cut for a player option? What does it say about your d&d games that you're tracking your character's flows over the course of a campaign and then using that as a month long love potion?

Did I mention there's an entire feat chain for this?

In many ways, megafeats is for me THE 3.5 book, because it combines:

a desire to simulate everything in the most rules lawyer-y way possible

totally unbalanced (both under and overpowered) content that was never playtested, and clearly not designed with fun at the table in mind

an obsession with sex and breeding, jumping right past being unsexy and directly to deeply unsettling.

If you want a better example Look no Further than the Breeder feat:

....Which takes up a total of 2.5 pages once you combine it with it's supplimental feats: Breed the Forbidden, Zooamorous Breeder, and Eugenicist (yikes!). Gameplay wise it lets you spend lots of GP and months of dedicated handle animal checks to hybridize different creatures together like you were a professional pokemon player crunching the numbers to try and find a shiny with perfect IVs. Yet again we have to ask what the FUCK kind of game these publishers are playing that they think this is a good player option. Imagine you sat down at a table with a new group to talk over builds and backstories for a new campaign when someone announces their intention to have their ranger spend his time personally inseminating owlbrears in the hopes of breeding a new master race.

I was going to just go on about weird feats (Like the one that lets you retroactively have two heads or one of your parents be a goose, the one that lets you dissolve your skeleton at will, or the actually interesting one that lets you detect if someone's ever killed for money by scent alone) but then I realized that I remembered this particular publisher's name, so I thought I'd do a little bit of a deepdive on him:

Here's a Few Details about Chris A. Field

He's written numerous 3rd party supplements, but most notably:

Multiple furry setting books ( completely normal, d&d wouldn't be what it is without furries) including one set in IRL Oregon that was repopulated by anthro immigrants after the state was depopulated by race riots (wat?) 

Black Tokyo, an X rated urban fantasy based off Japanese mythology and late 90s hentai, featuring supplements about busty magic maidens and tournament of rapists.  Less said about a game that has legit torture porn as an inspiration the better. 

Otherverse america: a d20 modern scifi setting which is set in the aftermath of “the abortion wars” where the pro life/choice debate has formed a fissure in american society that’s spilled over into psionic/cyberpunk lite street violence.  I feel like there’s some thematic resonance with the breeder feat here, but I don’t know what it is. 

All in all, an odd book by an odd dude, but a neat little window into what the 3rd party publishing space was like back when I was first getting into the game.

You folks want to see the weirdest d&d book in my collection? It absolutely beats out the Book of Erotic Fantasy for sheer whatthefuckery, at least in my opinion.