#morrigan plays dnd

[memento-morri-writes]

More dnd writing because it's all I have but I here's a snippet from a vignette I did of Rook's past (from Zara's POV), because Rook and his mentors never fails to make me sick (/pos).

[transcript under the cut]

Taking a coin out of her pocket, she rolled it across her knuckles, back and forth. It gave her hands something to do, and prevented the urge to bite her nails, something she hadn’t done in years. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. Zara began to pace as Rook’s breathing grew shakier and the color drained from his skin. Where the hells is Jay? she wondered. The room was so quiet that she could hear every tick of the small clock on her bedside table, and each one echoed in her head. How many ticks does he have left? She didn’t want to think about it.  She’d had crew members die before, of course. You don’t go as many years as a captain as she had and never lose a soul. But all the others who had died had died quickly, in combat. She’d mourned for all of them, even shed tears in private, but there was something different about watching the life drain out of a person right in front of your eyes.

[morrigan-sims]

D&D OC Intro

(inspired by @goldenwaves's post!!)

[transcript under the cut]

This is FAR from everyone, but it's the characters I've played for more than a oneshot, and the ones I actually talk about.

TRANSCRIPT:

Zenara Raventhorn (aka Zen)

Tiefling Warlock (Pact of the Fiend)

The first D&D character I ever played.

Only got to play two sessions with them.

Unintentionally inspired by Critical Role Campaign 2

Backstory written between 1-3am on my phone.

Has an imp familiar who looks like a raven.

Occasionally gets possessed by their patron, and then gets given new powers as an "apology".

Fire theme.

Rook (Adrian Lockwood)

Half-elf Rogue (Swashbuckler)

First (and only) character to make it past 8 sessions. (So far.)

Disaster bisexual pirate boy with SO MUCH trauma.

Wields a magic rapier that was a gift from his captain + first mentor.

Enemies with a different pirate captain who wants to capture him.

Has decent charisma but relatively terrible social skills.

Bastard son of a nobleman. Has daddy issues.

Reckless and impulsive to a fault. Would die for his friends.

May or may not be cursed by a demon lord.

Asola Riava Ashmark

Aasimar Paladin (Oath of Vengeance)

Made it 8 sessions before we switched campaigns.

Doesn't know she's an aasimar. Her powers show up when she experiences extreme emotions and it's only ever happened twice in her life.

Got briefly possessed and then force-shut-down by a literal god.

Has a habit of picking up stray traumatized young people.

The party's moral compass. Tried to keep them somewhat in line.

Believes that laying down her life to save someone else's is worth it. Swears she doesn't have self-worth issues.

Morana Novak

Witch (Curse Patron)

Character for an eventual Pathfinder game.

Named after a Slavic goddess of death and winter.

Necromancer, got kicked out of her hometown for graverobbing and experimenting on corpses.

Her familiar is a raven named Miro, who she rescued and trained.

Autistic as hell, which will be fun for me to play.

Very creepy and unsettling person.

One of her future party members nicknamed her "Mortician".

Cyra

Fire Genasi Barbarian (Path of the Storm Herald)

Newest character on this powerpoint.

Fights with a magical flaming quarterstaff that she can summon from inside herself.

Has a stolen, magically powered vehicle.

Formerly part of a cult. Only stayed around for their toxic then-girlfriend.

Somehow basically the least traumatized member of the party. That was NOT the plan.

Avra Shadaowbreath

Shadar-Kai/Reborn Rogue (Phantom)

Devout follower of the Raven Queen, has utter faith in her actions.

Used to work for an assassin's guild until she was killed after a job gone wrong.

Revived by the Raven Queen herself to be her assassin.

Sent to Barovia to kill a powerful lich.

Has complicated feelings on her own resurrection, but her faith in the Raven Queen is stronger than her doubts about herself, for now...

A massive hypocrite when it comes to other people being resurrected.

Odynia Adrasteia Erinys

Aasimar Paladin (Oath of Vengeance)

Devoted follower of Nemesis, goddess of divine retribution.

Got transformed into an aasimar after being chosen to be Nemesis's eye on the mortal plane.

"And eye for an eye" but make it literal.

Has black feathered wings sometimes.

More than a little bit of a bitch. Very prickly at best.

Her name means "inescapable pain/grief" so that bodes well.

Hellbent on revenge... but why?

Aspen Vale

Half-Elf/Changeling Bard/Warlock (Glamour/Archfey)

Pied Piper'd into the Feywild as a child.

Learned bardic magic there, and made a pact with their patron, Fin, the god of death.

Sent back to the material plane with ZERO memories.

Named themself after the first thing they saw in the material plane - an aspen grove.

Carries a "broken" compass that Fin uses to guide them in the right direction without their knowledge.

[six-improbable-things]

Compilation of the ways Rook has told his mentor that he literally fucking died:

and

[rooolt]

Brian Murphy is constantly looking out for us losergirl dykes, first jaina bronzebeard, now Kenna ironheart. He knows what the people want

[memento-morri-writes]

Thank you!! <3

so, apparently aspen and emery have invaded my brain, because I came up with a new idea for a dnd character (glamour bard / archfey warlock multiclass who got lure into the fey wild by a Pied Piper-type entity, and has no memories of anything before than appearing in a grove of aspen trees on the material plane. Doesn't know they're a warlock and thinks their familiar (who is a fey sent to spy on them by their patron) is just a normal animal.) And one, they're mainly a bard, and two when I was trying to come up with a name, the ONLY name that sounded right was Aspen. (I decided they named themself after the first thing they saw when someone asked them their name: aspen trees.)

So uhh... congrats on infecting my head with TSS. This is a testament to how AMAZING your characters are, truly. I can't WAIT to get my hands on TSW. I preordered it the first day you made the announcement, and I'm eagerly awaiting for 1) it to come out, 2) my copy to ship to my dad's house, and 3) for my school semester to be over so I actually have the time and energy to read it.

~Morrigan (@memento-morri-writes)

Ahhhh I love this!!! So much fun! <3 I'm glad you enjoyed TSS- hope the rest of the semester goes smoothly for you!

[paragonrobits]

"Gaining Karlach's approval centers around being forthcoming and somewhat heroic - showing compassion toward the wronged and almost uncompromising good." WELL I KNOW WHO I'M BEFRIENDING WHEN I PLAY THIS GAME

[willowwormwood]

2018 > 2023

I got reminded of this drawing, this was the first drawing I made of my OC Morrigan! They were my first d&d character

[flashhwing]

plotting out this warden like "oh i am gonna need SO many mods"

[memento-morri-writes]

I lost my mind, truly. I can’t wait to see where this goes!!

Hiii space!! This is Morri. I know you were invested in Carrion, so I thought I’d update you on how his first session went. It went SO differently than I expected, but in a really good way!!!! One of the other characters, a cosmic warlock named Valeska, completely and utterly unbalanced Carrion and his world is already starting to crumble.

So, our characters had been hired to guard a merchant’s wagon heading towards the last stop before Drakkenheim, and we camped for the night. Some people who were leaving Drakkenheim came up to us and asked to stay the night with us for protection. The merchant who hired us said yes. One of them was corrupted by Delirium, the super dangerous, kind of radioactive magic crystal that is found in the meteor that destroyed Drakkenheim.

I choose 2nd watch on purpose, knowing it’s when we’re most likely to get attacked. My prediction proves correct and the corrupted man transforms into a monster, killing one of his companions. Carrion transforms in his rage, and fights the monster. Everyone else was asleep and wakes up to see TWO big freaky monsters fighting it out. (And as described in the official description of my subclass, if people haven’t seen me transform, they don’t know it’s me.)

So they end up attacking Carrion as well as the actual monster. But Carrion kills the actual monster and luckily still has a bonus action left to end his rage.

Instead of reacting with fear, Valeska responds with nothing other than pure and naked curiosity, which baffles Carrion. He expected fear or revulsion, could even maybe fathom pity, but none of those?? He doesn’t understand it.

He plans to leave assuming the party doesn’t want him around, but Valeska stops him, confused as to why he’s leaving. He says that they don’t want a monster around and she says she doesn’t see him as a monster. She asks if he’s used to people trying to kill him, and he just says “My name wasn’t always Carrion.”

The next day she asks him to come with her into Drakkenheim.

AND THEN THIS IS WHERE VALESKA’S PLAYER BROKE ME. We’re sitting in our tavern room, the Paladin is at the chapel, and Valeska asks if he’s afraid of his transformations. Carrion says he’s not, more afraid of other people’s reactions to them. Valeska says “I think you’re lying. Why else would you call yourself a monster?” Carrion pauses and then says “Because no one has ever called me anything different.” She doesn’t respond right away so he tried to brush that confession aside by saying that they have to be up early in the morning, and turns away to go to sleep. As he turns away, Valeska calls his name. He asks her what she wants, and she says “Nothing, just saying your name. See? I called you something other than a monster.”

I WAS BROKEN, SPACE. FUCKING DESTROYED. These two have known each other for like a week and only been talking for like 24 hours and she’s already said arguably the kindest thing anyone has ever told him. (We will ignore the backstory of how he got that name. It’s the thought that counts.)

Okay, sorry for spamming you but I HAD to tell SOMEONE about this because I’m losing my fucking mind over this.

~ Morri (memento-morri-writes)

hi morri!

ohhh my god i am highfiving valeska's player, that RP was SO GOOD. emotional devastation session ONE asdljakdj

“See? I called you something other than a monster.” HOW EVEN. AHHHH

i love that the first transformation happened like that though, it's such a great bit of storytelling to get into

it seems like the campaign is off to a PHENOMENAL start

[geezmarty]

ooo what inspired your tav design? like did you go in with a specific character in mind, or did it come from playing around with the character maker?

Oh boy ok. You’re about to find out just how insane I get over RPG character creation. “marty you don’t have to disclose it” I can’t believe you guys are forcing me to do this.

SO, I actually started bg3 with another character entirely, a ghityanki bard, which I thought would be fun and for a bit it was! But I wasn’t feeling crazy about her and when I play an RPG I love to turn my PC into a proper OC I can be obsessed with, so I restarted the game and before I went to character creation I literally sat down with a sketchbook and started brainstorming.

I wanted my pc to have an aesthetic of her own separate from the main companions but I also wanted her to blend in with the rest of the cast, I went for dark urge bc I heard that it gives you a personal quest and I landed for half drow and wild magic sorcerer, which is another class no major companion has (and also, I’ve always wanted to play wild magic even in regular dnd and this was a nice excuse to!)

Her aesthetic pretty much came up as I was sketching her and thinking about all the info above, what could set her apart but still feel like she could blend in? And most importantly, what would be fun for ME to draw? And so I went for witchy goth woman and luckily the design I sketched was very easy to reproduce in the character creator - and the rest came up organically as I drew more of her.

(I also named her after my very first dnd character Brigha, a half orc warlock, and it’s only after I finalized her design that I realized I’d borrowed some elements from hers eheh)

Witch goth was especially fun to play with bc I feel like most companions have a goth vibe about them but we’re missing the mean, spooky, feminine witch archetype (yes, morrigan from dao was part of the inspiration I love my wife <3). You could argue that Gale sort of fills the witch role already but I feel like they stand very nicely at opposite ends of the witch spectrum which is also fun considering their wizard-sorcerer one sided animosity.

[memento-morri-writes]

okay, this is kind of overdramatic, maybe, but I do like this last paragraph of Val's backstory summary doc:

Particularly "But the tides change, as they always do..."

(I realized I forgot to ever share Val's backstory doc with the party, despite me promising I'd do after they left.)

[morrigan-sims]

OC Height Tag

I was tagged by @hauntedtrait. Thank you fangs!!!

I'll tag @goldenwaves (I wanna see Clem next to Asa, aksdjasds.), @potionio @salemssimblr @panicsimss and @warwickroyals

OOPS, SORRY, I FORGOT THE LINK. HERE YOU GO

Commentary under the cut.

Here's the main cast of RTQ/ATQH (I really wanted to add the side characters too, but it was already getting to be so many...). Technically Fallon is the only one of those sims that I made, but I have custody of all of them. (Order is just the order they're in on the character page, cause that's where I had to check all their heights, lmao.) I try my best to include height differences in my poses, but they're usually more subtle than the actual ones, partly because posing two drastically different height characters is a pain in the ass.

The second group is some of my favorite D&D characters I've come up with. Cyra and Rook I'm currently playing, Zen was the first character I ever played and I played them for two sessions, Laverna was made for a tumblr thing well before I ever played dnd, but I'd love to play her someday, and Morana is for a pathfinder game that I will be in someday. I could have done more, but I didn't know who else to choose, these were most of my named characters anyways, ajdakjds.

As you can probably tell, I have a very skewed perception of normal heights, lmao. I'm 5'10, and Fallon is my shortest OC that I can name off the top of my head, at 5'6". And I rarely make any taller than 6'1" or so. Most of them clock in at either 5'10" or 5'11" because those are the ideal heights in my mind, lmao.

[six-improbable-things]

"summon lesser chicken" was a success.

i love dungeons and dragons

[six-improbable-things]

My first Blades session is going great. We're breaking into a drug lab to fuck with the supply, and the Leech (Dr. Quack, who loves his crack) failed a roll and now has both level 2 and level 1 harm right now (so -1d and reduced effect) because he's so distracted by the drugs, so he bumped into a metal pole making a bunch of noise.

So his child, Sixtine (the Whisper), tried to quickly find the supply, and teleported through the ghost field into a room with two twinky-looking guys making some drugs.

My character, Jamie, took off to find them, which resulted in this quote:

Jamie runs down there and see that one of the twinks has thrown a vial of the drug at Sixtine, so she whips out a gun and shoots this guy, and kills him.

Two more guys came down from upstairs and Dr. Quack threw a firebomb at them. Which obviously made a loud noise, and also set the whole building on fire.

So now half of us are trapped in the basement while the building above us is on fire. We have four "rounds" to escape before the fire and burning drugs would incapacitate us.

Man, I love ttrpgs.

[dice-sociation]

Girls Who Don’t DnD

Quick Info

Audio Quality: High-Quality Audio, Effects, Music. (Occasional fan-submitted recordings)

Vibes: Throne of Glass, Doctor Who, Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Princess and the Pauper

Extras: Patreon rewards, Discord Community with Book Club, and more!

System: 5e DnD

Campaign/ Show Length: Long Term Campaign

Average Episode time: 1.5 Hours (varies a bit)

Uploads 1 episode a month. 

Diversity: Majority Women

Platforms: Podcast, Audio Only. 

Number of Episodes This Review is based on: 30+ 

** If you want the TLDR, scroll to the bottom of the post **

Why Girls Who Don’t DnD?

How often have you said to yourself, “Man, I wish I could experience that for the first time again?” While we can’t reset your brain, you can live vicariously through the Girls Who Don’t D&D podcast. 

If you're looking for a podcast with relaxed gameplay, fantastic humor, great editing, and effects, you should read on to learn more. This wonderful adventure showcases the beautiful experience of watching three girls fall in love with Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). 

Starting the Pod

The podcast starts with Cory, the Dungeon Master (DM), explaining that he has invited three girls, Indy, Alana, and Stacey, who have never played D&D, into his world of Kalee with premade characters. If you, the listener, haven’t played before, you’ll learn a lot just from listening. Cory purposely doesn’t edit out explanations of how to play. I’m confident my experience was better because I was still learning to play the game myself as I started listening.

Right from the start you will hear how much work Cory puts into editing and pre-recording. He recruits people to voice-act for non-player characters (NPCs) or to play out memories or scenes. Some additions are just for the listeners, giving us a little extra information about the lore of the world. This includes the origin of magical artifacts, gods, and sometimes an NPC’s perspective that the players don’t get to hear.  It feels like listening to an audiobook and honestly, I think “booktok” would love Girls Who Don’t DnD. 

We learn that the three player characters, Freya, Kaa'Riin, and Morrigan, have lost their memories and need to recover them. The story and the discovery of who the player characters are and what happened to them work in tandem with the players themselves learning the game in a beautiful way. 

Power gamers and hardcore strategy? We don’t need that here. (Tosses book over shoulder). This group is made of story-tellers who usually choose to progress the narrative over strategy. At first, it's like watching Without A Recipe or the British Bake Off challenge where they have no clue what they are supposed to be making. This makes it all the more special when the players get more comfortable with the gameplay and more grounded in their characters. 

About the Team

Cory, "(who owns all the books but hasn't read them)"* completely absorbs the chaos the girls bring to the table and somehow also keeps them immersed in the story. He holds onto the rules of D&D loosely, letting his players use their abilities in different and unique ways. You still get full epic fights with no pulled punches, yet they feel more cinematic than the usual D&D grind. Outside of combat, Cory introduces challenging puzzles and encounters that present more opportunities for his players to think outside the mechanics of the game.

I adore Alana, Indy, and Stacy. I have some difficulty with telling their voices apart, but I never felt like that took away from my enjoyment of the show. Over time they develop their characters and have different play styles. They all have so much personality and bring their own flavor to the table. 

Indy, playing Freya the Rogue, has to be the most classic of first-time players, starting a little hack-and-slash happy, but eventually, she gets really into the strategy of the game. Freya is a cheeky scamp of a character and Indy leans naturally into the rogue class.  

Alana, playing Morrigan the Sorcerer, is usually the most sensible of the group. She is a leader in a way. There is so much more I want to say but I can't think of anything that isn't a big spoiler. Playing a sorcerer for your first time playing D&D is never easy, but Cory was able to ease her into the role and she runs with it.

Stacey, playing Kaa'Riin the Bearbarian (Druid with some Barbarian), has some epic combat moments. She can change from one animal to another without reverting to humanoid form, which deviates from traditional Druid rules. This decision, as well as other tweaks of the rules, help the pacing of the overall production. 

And sure, you're probably thinking their whole schtick is that they don't know D&D, so wouldn't it lose its charm after they get better? Absolutely not. Not even a little bit. This table is casual, silly, charming, and gripping. They make me feel like I am with my best friends playing our chaos gremlins together. 

A special shout to Mia Stegner (https://www.miastegner.com/) who composed and performed the opening and closing songs. It’s the cherry on top of this podcast sunday.

*Referenced from the Podcast Description. https://www.girlswhodontdnd.com/ 

About the world

“There is a saying among the good people of Kalee, when you know what is right, do what is right, and then deliver it all into the endless sea” From Episode 1: Throw it Into the Sea, Aug 16, 2021.

Cory presents a world both complex and informed by the player's choices and features some of the more bizarre parts of typical High Fantasy settings. 

There is just something so satisfying about learning the characters' backstories and how their stories are expertly baked in the many-layered cake that makes the world. Flavors include; wild magic, strange and whimsical characters, Evil Queens, “timey-wimey” stuff, super cute plans, snails, Gods, magic crystals, trapped souls, and Alan (the real star of the later episodes).

Extras

There are so many Patreon perks! You get behind-the-scenes talks, recipes from Indy, DMing tips, Lana's book reviews, and more! You can also join their Discord server where Cory is pretty active and they encourage community gaming and have a book club.

TL;DR: 

This podcast is about girls learning to play D&D using premade characters with amnesia. The girls learning to play parallels the story’s progression as they regain memories. 

Reliving the experience of learning to play for the first time all over again. 

Loosely follows the rules of 5e to keep the pacing up.

DM Cory recruits people to voice act for NPCs or to play out memories or scenes. Some additions are just for the listeners, giving us a little extra information about the lore of the world.

It's a little hard to tell the girls apart, but I don’t think it takes away from my enjoyment at all. 

Wild magic, strange and whimsical characters, Evil Queens, “timey-wimey” stuff, super cute plans, snails, Gods, magic crystals, trapped souls, and Alan. 

DM Cory presents a world both complex and informed by the player's choices and features some of the more bizarre parts of typical High Fantasy settings.

Special thanks to Artax of Who's Taking Watch for helping with editing!

No Context Gifs:

[memento-morri-writes]

asdkajdaksdj, this was me. I meant to put my url at the end of the that message, and then I got too distracted, lmao. Anyways, here's the picrew:

(picrew link)

And Drakkenheim setting is originally from a podcast (I think it's called Dungeon Dudes? Something like that.) And they published a campaign for it, as well as an additional sourcebook with some really fucking cool subclasses. (The other players are playing a Cosmic Warlock and Urban Ranger from the Guide to Drakkenheim sourcebook, which are both super cool. The last player is playing a paladin subclass from Valda's Spire of Secrets.)

SPACE, HI. How are you? I hope you're doing well!!!

I feel like you would appreciate my latest fucked-up dnd character and his backstory, and I need to tell someone or else I'm gonna explode, so here I am, adjakdjs.

For a little context, my Friday DM just went back to college after taking a couple of gap years, and he knows some weeks he won't be able to play bc homework and stuff, and one of our players really wants to DM something, so she decided to run Dungeons of Drakkenheim for us. (If you don't know anything about that setting, tl;dr is there was a magical meteor that destroyed the capital of a country 15 years ago. The whole city is now a horrible corrupted ruin. Something called the Haze covers the whole city and you can't take any long rests in it. The fragments of the meteor contain a mineral called Delirium that is exceptionally powerful for magic, but also causes horrible corruption and mutations. There's 5 factions fighting for control of the ruins, as well as what to do about Delirium.)

So anyways, my character is named Carrion Vice, and while he looks mostly like a tiefling (canonically he was born one and then changed) he's mechanically a Beasthide Shifter. He's also a Path of the Fractured Barbarian (from the Grim Hollow Player's guide. It's an unarmed strike-based barb subclass that literally says when you rage you transform so that you are unrecognizable.)

And basically, Carrion's birth name was Reverence, he was born to a very devout family living in Drakkenheim. When the city was destroyed, he was trapped under rubble for a while. While he was rescued before too long, it was enough to grant him a strange mutation, unlike the "normal" ones from Delirium exposure.

After being rescued and fleeing, he joined up with the Knights of the Silver Order, a group of devout paladins who are sworn to purge the land of "unnatural" things. However, over the years, as his mutation became evident, they grew fearful of it. They came to see him as a monster, and his incurable mutation as a threat to the world.

So one day, while traveling, they decided to get rid of him. But seeing as he had been a member of their band for years at this point, and he saw them as family, they found themselves (most of them, anyways) hard-pressed to run him through themselves. So they tied him up and left him by the side of the remote, rarely-traveled road they were on.

The last interaction Reverence had with them was the Knight-Commander, who had been like a father to him, telling him "Soon you will be nothing but carrion."

He was luckily rescued, a couple of days later, but his faith in both the church, and the Order had been lost. He's determined to kill the Knight-Commander, and bring about the end of the Order that betrayed him. He calls himself Carrion now, so that he can prove the Knight-Commander both right and wrong when he kills him: he maybe be Carrion, but he is far from nothing.

It won't let me send images with anon asks on, but I can show you the picrew I made of this silly little man if you're interested.

hi anon! i’m doing not too bad!!

i am rubbing my hands together i love fucked up dnd characters hell yeah. yo drakkenheim sounds cool as shit what the hell. how have i never heard of this.

CARRION VICE IS A BALLER NAME NO NOTES 10/10

holy shit that’s an excellent fucked up backstory. i hope carrion gets the knight-commander’s ass

absolutely i want to see the picrew. show me the boy!!