#it’s st I think a lot about as someone that write dnd stuff (running one campaign + tentatively plotting out two others)

[gamerhamlet]

guhhhhh I love my solo bg3 run and character v much but my multiplayer campaign is so special to meeeee 💕 like tldr but it soothes a lot of the problems I have w dnd/forgotten realm’s writing to talk them out w others instead of slogging through them alone while writing revisions in my head

[ambersky-ocs]

Bored so. Random OC things cause I don't feel like actually writing

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Taylor is amazing cuddler. Lots of practice from past partners and her younger siblings. Learns quickly what people like and will do it when cuddling, especially if they've had a bad day

Also she very strong and makes whoever she's cuddling feel protected.

A lot of Dali don't like being touched between their wings, but Dani adores it, practically melting as soon as someone touches him there

Jeremiah's used to not talking while working, and has to get used to Dani and Taylor asking him questions about what he's working on. But he does love them taking an interest, and can usually focus. If he can't he'll ask them to write their questions down and ask later

Taylor's best relationship advice is "just fucking talk to each other" and if you have a crush it's "tell them about it, if they reject you move on"

She often ignores that second piece of advice if it concerns friends already in relationships and it takes awhile for her to finally get over herself and bring it up

Taylor's family is really close, and a lot of people wonder how a house of five can get along really really well. Occasionally it bumps up to eight(eventually nine then eleven) people living in one of their houses at a time

Max made the necklace Taylor always wears, and also made a few jackets that Taylor will wear if she's going out to a bar or something. Taylor doesn't wear the jackets in Tongyi mostly because it's too warm for them, but she does show them off to her friends in Tongyi.

The first dog Dani ever meets is Lucky, Leona's 5-year-old St. Bernard. Dani fell in love with the dog very quickly and Lucky gets really really excited whenever he sees Dani visit, will run to the young royal no matter what, he cannot be stopped-

Jeremiah may or may not have changed the programming of a Tempest bot named Benny. Benny's original programming wanted it to protect Tempest officials. Jeremiah tweaked some stuff to make Benny go 'rogue', attack the officials, and instead protect innocent targets

No one in Tempest ever found out it was Jeremiah

Leona originally kidnapped Keegan Francis so Marie could take out her anger on the bastard for the shit he put Marie through, but Marie instead asked Taylor if she could contact Vic and offer Keegan as a thank you for treating Taylor well.

Let's just say Vic agreed and Keegan was never seen again.

Dani and Jeremiah wonder how the hell Taylor managed to survive dating a cannibal, but agree it does have benefits. They also wonder how the fuck an entire forest cursed cannibals to be stuck in it but that gets answered later on. Ish.

Vic takes one look at Dani and Jeremiah before fixing Taylor with a "really? You're dating guys like this?" look. Cause to Vic the dudes look relatively normal and that's kinda the opposite of Taylor's type but then he learns about Angel and how they each have a piece of her soul and also that Jeremiah used to work at Tempest and that Dani is apparently not technically a human and Vic has an "ah" moment and understands completely

Evanna and any other rulers are all very confused as to how she has lived to be in her 50s.

Also when Evanna was pretty young and soon after she had been crowned queen she discovered her council members had a rather... Dirty way of going about things, using assassins to murder any opposing rulers in Sadia for the war behind Evanna's back. Evanna may or may not have convinced a group of dragons to kill them. No one really asks why she doesn't have a council anymore, no one really questions where the original council went either.

Briar, Erin, and Kord are all part of the "I adore my wife and kids" crowd. Good families with strong bonds. Nothing really happens to them 😅

Azzy and Dolan co-parent Nezu for a while before Dolan realizes Nezu could probably be parented better by Azzy. Azzy and Erin also really wanted to have a kid but neither could get pregnant exactly, and adoption centers aren't really a thing in Tongyi. So! Nezu was adopted by Azzy and Erin!

Evanna teaches Queen Fera's son how to use his abilities(the kid's an illusionist like Evanna. Evanna uses this to her advantage to not get murdered instantly in Sadia and also ends the war)

Queen Fera literally has no idea how illusions worked and accepted Evanna's offer to teach the kid because she didn't want her son to grow up being unable to use or control his abilities

Also since illusionists were more rare to be born, it wasn't like Fera could just find a teacher

The Sydney's play DnD together for family game night and use exclusively sign language (Spanish sign language usually, American sign language if Kord, Chloe, and Neva join them)

Dani and Jeremiah start learning sign language a bit after hanging around the Sydney family

Ollie gets really excited when one day Dani greets her and sparks up a conversation in ASL and she catches Jeremiah practicing some signs when he takes breaks from working on things

The boys also really love Ollie and bring her a ton of little things they think she might like. Marie drew the line when Dani offered to get her a custom knife from one of the best blacksmiths in all of Fahndali (she said he could get one but wait until Ollie was sixteen at least to actually give it to her)

Jayden is incredibly fascinated by Dali born as illusionists

Max learns about some traditional patterns or fabrics used in Tongyi, as well as other kingdoms, and surprises Dani with a jumpsuit combining the Capital's traditional style with Tongyi's. Dani wears it to any and all formal events

Upon learning that Jeremiah helped create Jayden's prosthetic leg, Jayden goes to ask him a bunch of questions. He's momentarily disappointed when Jeremiah says he can't answer a lot of them, but gets excited when Jeremiah calls up an old friend who can and puts her on the phone with Jayden

Dani's afraid of the dark. Taylor and Jeremiah don't really know about this for awhile until they all start sharing a room and Dani asks to keep the lamps on. He claims he really doesn't want to explain why so the two don't push but they do hold him that bit tighter as they all drift to sleep

[nairdde32]

He Just “Come at be Broed” You! A Guide to the Human Monk

I said I was going to do one of these for every character so here we go. As usual if you’re new to dnd, I would highly recommend watching “How to Play Dungeons and Dragons 5e – Intro” by Don’t Stop Thinking on YouTube. I will try and use as little jargon as possible so people who are new to D&D can figure it out. This week it’s everyone’s favorite disaster, Beauregard, the Human Monk.

Race: Variant Human

Technically (technically) there are two kinds of humans in dnd. There’s the normal boring human that gets absolutely nothing and nobody plays, and then there’s variant human. Variant humans get a feat! Why is that important you may ask? Well you see, in older editions of dnd, feats weren’t all that great. They were more like little level up bonuses. You needed a lot of them before they actually started making a difference. But in Fifth Edition D&D, Feats were drastically reduced. There are far less of them, and you get far fewer (to the point where they’re optional in the players handbook) as you have to sacrifice ability score increases to get them. But, they’re incredibly powerful now, some to the point of game breaking (anybody remember grog’s great weapon master shenanigans?). Because of how strong they are, being able to get a free one at 1st level is pretty fantastic.

The Deets

Ability score increase. +1 to two ability scores of your choice. While many will scoff, the fact that you can choose where to put them means that humans can be literally anything. Half-Elves have it better but still.

Skills. Free proficiency in one skill of your choice. Pretty good, but Half-Elves still have it better.

Feat. You get a free feat, so long as you meet the prereqs. If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of us salty Half-Elf players in the distance OH HEY THERE XGTE.

Class: Monk

The monk is a rather versatile class that focuses on big damage. They forgo any sort of armor in favor of mobility, and have a wide variety of abilities that make them good in almost any situation. They also have really high ac.

The feetsies.

Hit Points. You get a d8. This seems paltry, especially for someone who’s supposed to be a front line fighter. But hp doesn’t matter when you have a sky high ac and you can dodge like Neo.

Proficiencies. You get nothing. Ok that’s not quite fair, you do get a tool. Or an instrument, but like, don’t? Bards? Exist? That’s what they want you to think.

Unarmored Defense (1). Remember how I was talking about that big AC? Well this is how. With 20/20 in Dex/Wis your ac is 20. That’s the same as a fool in full plate & a shield! And you can run on walls, so that’s pretty cool.

Martial Arts (1). Congratulations, you are now (insert anime martial artist of your choice here). Your punches git gud, and only get better. The damage even applies to the weapons you’re proficient in!

Ki (2). This is your magic. You get “Ki Points” equal to your level, used to fuel various abilities. It doesn’t do a whole lot at first (besides turning you into Neo, and making you Star Platinum, ok maybe it does do a whole lot) but there are a few nifty tricks you can do later.

Unarmored Movement (2/9). Become sanic. And later, become hardcore parkour! A lot of people forget you can run on walls/water at 9th level.

Monastic Tradition (3). You can now choose to become one of the following: Kenshiro, Ezio Auditore, Aang, Jackie Chan, Ahsoka Tano, SSGSS Ultra Instinct Kaio Ken x20 Goku, Edgy or (if you have the Tal’dorei Campaign Guide) a Librarian. Beauregard has chosen to become a librarian.

Deflect Missiles (3). You can now catch arrows. Need I say more?  

Ability Score Improvement (4/8/12/16/19). You get five, same as everyone else sans fighter and rogue. Standard rules apply, moving on.

Slow Fall (4). You can reduce falling damage by a decent amount. Useful for when the wizard didn’t prepare feather fall, or you don’t have wings.

Extra Attack (5). You now attack twice. If you’re using a weapon (which you should be unless you’re Goku), it now become twice as good.

Stunning Strike (5). Stun on demand. For those of you who don’t get how powerful this is, if you’re stunned you auto fail dex saves. Disintegrate requires a dex save.

Ki-Empowered Strikes (6). Your unarmed attacks are now magical. Useful for the levels when you’re starting to encounter bigger foes that are immune to normal attacks.

Evasion (7). One wordy explanation later, you are now immune to fireball. Identical to the rogue feature, and NO you don’t have to actively use it. This isn’t uncanny dodge.

Stillness of Mind (7). You can use your action to not be scared. Alright then.

Purity of Body (10). Complete immunity to poison and disease? Yeah that’s good.

Tongue of the Sun and Moon (13). You understand everything and everything understands you. Who needs language when you’re a literal universal translator!

Diamond Soul (14). You have proficiency in all saving throws. All. Saving throws. And you can reroll failed saves so long as you have the Ki. Hooooooooooo BOY. That’s good.

Timeless Body (15). This walking disaster doesn’t need food or water and basically is immune to old age. How? Just become a Monk 15.

Empty Body (18). “Non-concentration invisibility for one minute plus resistance to most damage that doesn’t go away when you attack can be yours, for the low low price of just FOUR Ki points! Call now and we’ll throw in the ability to astral project!”

Perfect Self (20). Roll initiative, acquire Ki. Getting back Ki points when you need them but don’t have them is pretty good.

The base monk class is a sold chassis for some pretty fun and creative subclasses (but everyone goes Open Hand because memes). It has everything a damage focused martial character could need and just a little bit more.

Subclass: Way of the Cobalt Soul

A brand new subclass appearing in the Tal’dorei Campaign Guide, the Way of the Cobalt Soul is based on the Monks of the Cobalt Reserve. Joking aside, it is a rather powerful subclass, especially in a campaign where there’s significant homebrew. Which is Critical Role in case you couldn’t catch my meaning. The good stuff:

Mystical Erudition (3). Get more languages and spend Ki points to get advantage on knowlage checks. “But Beau already gets every language!” No, she can understand all languages. Learning a language means you can read it too. Which is really important when your DM writes everything in celestial.

Extract Aspects (3). When you hit someone with multiple attacks you can spend ki to learn several key pieces of info. Really, really good when your DM homebrews everything.

Extort Truth (6). You get a mini Zone of Truth at the cost of ki. Still requires you to land multiple attacks, though.

Mind of Mercury (6). You have more reactions each round based on your intelligence. They require Ki points though, so if you’re not careful you’ll exhaust yourself before you know it.

Preternatural Counter (11). If an attack misses you, you get to attack back. Synergizes nicely with other monk abilities.

Debilitating Barrage. For the low low price of three Ki, you can give something disadvantage on attacks until the end of the next round, and you can select a type of damage that they’re then vulnerable to. If you have a rogue in the party who uses a certain damage type (like piercing) that’s pretty good.

I never knew librarians were this badass. Huh. Remember kids, make sure to turn your library books in on time.