#was originally a dnd map but was never used as such

[luckydreams218]

Also Here is a Map

Just for reference, this is the map wherein my story takes place!

Masterlist

[nykloss]

Ditching D&D Beyond or never got it in the first place? Here's some free/pwyw resources.

Dicecloud. This online app allows you to make and track character sheets for free! It does a lot of the calculations for you, just like dnd beyond would. Best overall replacement. (Thank you, @chryslerisdead)

PWYW Class Character Sheets by Emmet Byrne. These character sheets in my opinion, are easier to fill out and harder to mess up, with class-specific features built-in. You can easily edit them digitally, and there's even multiclass/homebrew options. Slap em on Google drive or something, share with your DM, lots of options.

Point-Buy Calculator. Easily automates character stat creation if you're using the Point-Buy system.

5e Level Up Tool. Select your class, select your level, get a digestible checklist of everything you need to do to level up. This one is SO GOOD and so slept on.

5e Spellbook. A quick way to reference your spells and build a Spellbook with a ton of filters.

Encounter Calculator. I know challenge rating isn't everything, but this is a good/fast way to see how balanced your encounters are, at a glance, at least in the eyes of the source books.

RPGbot. Lots of resources for DMs and players: encounter builders, dpr calculators, and lists of player options with sample builds and optimization suggestions, which may be helpful to folks new to the game.

Bonus: Online Tools (System Agnostic)

Here.fm. This is the alternative I use instead of roll20, because it's faster/easier. Drag and drop in maps and tokens in seconds, built-in library of stickers you can use for effects, draw right on the virtual tabletop, use temporary drawings to map out moves, built-in dice rollers, and options for proximity chat. I use it in combination with discord (just have players join your here room muted), but it could be used entirely on it's own, I imagine. Not built for ttrpgs, but works incredibly well for them.

Kenku.fm. A PWYW mini browser focused on mixing and sharing music to your dnd games through whatever app you use, with helpful discord support. This app also LEGALLY bypasses the issue that got all the YouTube discord bots shut down, so you can share YouTube audio worry-free.

Additional Resources (Aka, stuff I found out about after I originally posted this):

flapkan. Holy shit, this might be the BEST character sheet option on this list! Form-fillable pdfs with fully automated built-in prompts to auto fill features and spells, built-in Point-Buy and other automated calculations, and it generates a lot for you. Can be used digitally or you can print!

[chronotsr]

No. 7 - S1, Tomb of Horrors (October 1978)

Author(s): Gary Gygax Artist(s): David C. Sutherland III (Cover), David Trampier Level range: 10-14 Theme: Meatgrinder Dungeoncrawl Major re-releases: So, so many. S1-4 Realms of Horror, Return to the Tomb of Horrors, Tomb of Horrors (2005), Tomb of Horrors (2010), S1-4 Dungeons of Dread, Dungeon #213, Tales from the Yawning Portal, Tomb of Annihilation (sort-of)

I said earlier that S1 is probably the only adventure more ported than G1, and I was right. You have so many options for S1. The original monochrome, the green cover, the compilation version, the silver anniversary version re-erlease-and-sequel, a 3.5e port, a 4e port, a DND Next port w/ 4e porting instructions, and then finally the 5e port in Tales from the Yawning Portal. The only people being left out here are the 2e people, and making 1e adventures go into 2e is as natural as breathing.

As the cover points out, this was originally run at Origins I, and there is so much community lore surrounding this module that I will spare you the rigamarole. If you know where I stand on the "meatgrinder vs fair challenge" argument, go read the Theme header again.

These illustrations are iconic. In basically every re-release they are kept as is, one of the few things that makes the 5e release stand out is not including the original 31 illustrations. And while the new art is OK, I, it can't hold a candle to the sheer charisma of the originals. And -- why no green devil head? That's the single most memorable thing from the scenario? We get one, actually, but it's on the map and I think it's an image from the archives because it looks an awful lot like an old cover of Dragon. If you do run this in 5e, you really owe it to your players to hunt down and use the original illustrations.

I am now morally obliged to tell you that, when I went through Tomb of Horrors (5e version, that's what I can find GMs for), I died to the Juggernaut. Which is actually extremely funny, because earlier when I was in Tomb of Annihilation I died the exact same way! So I guess Juggernauts are my personal arch nemesis. I personally didn't like my time there, but there is value in a module that everyone has played. I wouldn't've picked S1 for the task but I'm glad we have one at least. In general, this will be a a sparse entry in the series. The Tomb of Horrors is Tomb of Horrors. It is both extremely notable and also weirdly bland -- there's just not much to say about a lot of these trollish traps. They're highly specific and only really work in the moment, for very specific tables, at a very specific cultural moment. It's actually kind of boring to read in 2024? How much can one really say about a 20-colored mural with a variety of "it does nothing" effects?

Alright, enough stalling. The module starts with now-traditional Gary intro of "hey, your players are going to try and get extra information in [obvious way], defeat that." Today's edition is that Legend Lore is rendered useless by a combination of obscurity and….too much information? Ok… And then the also very Gary "If your players are dumb stupid idiots they will hate this module", which he also did in G1-3.

Eventually, your party finds this stupid looking thing, which is (I know this is repetitive) iconicly so-bad-its-good. And everything about this intro is trolling. So There are three routes into the tomb, two of which are trapped and fake. 2024 DND players would never think to try any of these things, but I do get the sense that in 1978 it would've occurred to most veteran players to try things like "poking the wall with sticks" and "extensive excavations". Anyone who tries to be clever and bypass shit by phasing into a parallel plane gets got by Demons, and I like the theory that Seth Skorkowsky aired a while ago that the Demons are the ones maintaining the Tomb so you should steal that.

You know what? Let's just go into keyed mode.

I do not respect this "only these express options work" mindset. It's very anti-ttrpg to have pre-programmed solutions Naturally, the second door cannot be removed by strength, only by one of 5 spells and thinking to wedge the door with iron in a specific day works. IDK bro I know the idea is Acererak is an asshole and has bewitched this complex to high hell but cmon, even the fake doors are borderline invulnerable?

There's a riddle-poem that hints at the solutions to the dungeon's puzzles. I actually really like this poem, and for all this module's sins I disagree with commenters who think the poem is too vague. At least when I was playing, it was just right.

That is the most off brand Ancient Egyptian tomb hallway I ever did see, and I do kind of love it. As for how confusing the wall-door-chest trap is, it's trollish but it makes sense to me. The chest is a red herring to distract you from the actual secret door, which is a literal door, and honestly that's a hint I consider fairly on the nose.

The misty arch sucks. The short version is that if you press the glowing stones in the right order, you progress, otherwise you get teleported to one of three random rooms. The solution is inscrutable to me (why that order? you could brute force it but that'd be suicide) and I really wish that the book spelled out what the puzzle logic was -- a lot of newer adventures will explain the operating logic in parentheticals next to the solution. If the answer is "you're supposed to brute force it", I have no respect for that mindset.

The devilhead is obviously iconic as hell and we love it. As many commenters have noted, the often-cited "our whole party climbed in and died" story is incompatible with a RAW or RAI interpretation -- your GM was just an asshole, your character died as soon as their head got annihilated and the party would see their body go limp suddenly. There is no way all 5 of you piled in without removing a body and discovering they're Very Dead.

The lever room also sucks. You could only guess the solution, and the act of testing will get you killed. And don't give me "well your hirelings" your hirelings are not going to test any traps after they see the 2rd guy get turned into meatpaste, and while ADND lacks the hard cap on people hireable that Basic had, you're still going to run out of guys who are willing to commit suicide in here in short order.

"Yet there are also depicted various religious symbols of goad alignment, and a faint aura of good can be magically detected. What a puzzle! Could the demi-lich actually have been of good alignment" This will fool no-one Gary. It's the Tomb of Horrors, not the Tomb of Hope. He clearly bewitched the chapel to appear as good, which literally anyone would think of. Heartbreaking: worst lich you know has access to revolutionary SRS magic.

It's at about this point where I realized how little there really is to comment on in this dungeon. It really is just a sequence of obtuse murder traps that are faintly hinted at. The things that are iconic about it (the devilhead, the acerack fakeout) are actually exceptions to the rule -- both of those are super clear traps that are designed to tease particularly foolish players. The majority of the dungeon is, tap random objects and get gassed by poison or dropped into spikes. In a lot of ways ToH feels like the bad timeline version of White Plume Mountain, which is trollish in a more memorable way? What I mean here is, when people complain that ToH is unfair they're burying the lede. A hard dungeon can be fun. An unfair dungeon can be fun! The issue is that Tomb of Horrors is boring. Every room being a puzzle tied to a deathtrap with almost no combat or negotiation is tedious.

Basically every tomb of horrors room has this setup:

You walk into a room with an illustration that looks cool, and there is some vague image, object, or feature in the room that is conspicuous

There is either no obvious exit (strongly implying a secret), or an extremely obvious exit that is currently impassable

You have to try fiddling with any object in the room that can be fiddled with, or grope around for an illusion

There is a roughly 25% chance there is a vague hint from 3 gameplay hours ago that will help you if you interpret it correctly, and a 75% chance that this is intended as attrition

You fuck around for a while, and maybe you work out the puzzle and maybe you don't. Almost certainly, someone takes 50% damage or has some vital asset removed or changed about them.

You eventually pass into the next room

Really the variety of traps in this dungeon is surprisingly narrow -- something like half of these traps are "activate these objects in a specific order or orientation". The other half are some variety of mist or gas or cloud or other fluid that kills you if you do not avoid or interact with it in the specific way. Occasionally when you're lucky, you simply turn a lever and get skewered -- what a treat!

The final encounter with Acereak, you will be unsurprised to learn, also sucks. If you touch his jeweled skull, he instantly steals your soul and ruins your body (no save, no appeal). If you guess one of the, again, explicit list of options to destroy the skull (which you have already established will instantly kill one ally per touch) which is of course very specific (essentially, holy attacks, the most powerful magical swords, and inexplicably gem-slinging), you can kill him in 50 hp. Weirdly, the soul gems that you get trapped into do offer some escape from death, but it's a terrible one -- IF you pass your save, IF they crush the gem, IF there is an eligible body for their soul to go into (yours was ruined), then you may come back to life in a very different form. Completing the Tomb gives you, of course, 100k exp. And in ADND that'ssss…. actually not very much. At level 10, 100k exp is not even a full level for most classes to get a level (thieves are the exception) and your actual treasure haul I think is going to be fairly meager -- I think the average character will get maybe one level of experience after distributing the loot. For going through one of the most dangerous dungeons ever.

I remain a bit of a ToH hater.

In blog news, we are looking at post 7.5 coming up, in which I will do another retrospective on the year's developments, and as a special treat we will be briefly discussing the first Dragon Magazine dungeon!

[realsorcerershit]

OK OC QUESTIONS HERE: 6, 10, 13, 29, 38, 57, 61, 68

OH I'M ESPECIALLY EXCITED ABOUT A FEW OF THESE. Under a read more as always just because I don't wanna clog people's dashes but here we go, these are probably gonna be a lil sloppy but-

6) How have they changed in the last year? How about the last five years?

The biggest growth Lumen has had, I think, shines in the past year especially, and is that he's far more willing to stand up for himself than he was before. Slowly but surely, he's becoming more determined and more comfortable in his own skin. He's also slowly becoming convinced of just how capable he really is, at, well. Everything.

I guess that's the two biggest things. Able to stand up for himself, and believes he's far more capable of a person than he used to.

10) What inspired this character's creation?

Okay, there's actually a really long fucking story with this one, and I'm kind of excited to share it? Originally, at most Lumen was merely a concept I created because a group of friends were running a DnD Christmas oneshot, and I wanted to try playing a new class. The idea of a wild magic sorcerer kind of jumped out at me, so I decided on that and started building. Granted, it was a for fun oneshot, so I didn't do much with it at the time. A while later, I wanted to reuse him in a campaign (that ultimately got cut short), so I worked with that last campaign to incorporate all of that into his current backstory and everything in the campaign that he is now!

Tl;dr: He was originally a oneshot test character that I expanded on until he got to a point where I grew overly attached to him.

13) What are some motifs you associate with them? Did you intentionally bring in those motifs, or did it happen over time?

Two major motifs. Fate, and apparently ice magic.

The fate motif kind of worked out on its own, and wasn't really super intentional or anything. It was kind of just there, because of the Wild Magic Sorcerer feature of Bend Luck. Always tried to play it that he has a slight hand in other people's fates, but not his own. (Try to avoid using it on my own rolls, really.)

As for the ice magic, that one kind of came up after he got a Staff of Frost and. That one was a total accident that came up over time. Apparently the boy just likes using ice. I didn't even think about it.

29) What feelings do they internalize?

Bouncing off my answer in #6 there, there's still some internalized inadequacy, for lack of a better term. Just that feeling that. Maybe, just maybe, he might be unable to handle all of this. He's working on it, though.

Also there's a very moderate fear that everyone he knows is just gonna die and he'll be all alone yet again. Oh, and his horrifying fear of being watched/known by the Cult that the party is up against.

38) Do they see themselves as an important part of their party?

God this is kind of a hard one to answer. In a *way*, yes, he does. He knows his merits and his use, and also knows how much people like having him around. But, that being said, he still thinks "I sure hope they like having me around" consistently enough. What can I say, he's still got some insecurity eating away at him, really.

57) Do they see value in the laws of where they live?

Kind Of? The laws are there, for sure, but. He's never really thought about or considered them. As long as people aren't ruthlessly killing people or dragging others down for the sake of dragging them down, everything's fine. The laws at most kind of ensure people don't do those things.

61) Is there an in-game moment of theirs you think about and just laugh?

Oh absolutely. There was the time Lumen and Sigurd both set up this ridiculously elaborate glitter bomb trap that was rigged to go off inside of the room those two were staying in because Lumen had a way to bait Lucien into walking through the wall into their room. It was ridiculous.

68) Where's their home?

We have a custom map and world and everything, so - lil context. In a Country named Falias, near the edge of the road before you reach a bit of an empty space between there and Averon. Lumen lives in a small little cozy town named Dushill, particularly, in a church dedicated to Torm within that town.

[voidimp]

im embarrassed to say but i dont know what kind of setting oli and cameron are in. is it like dnd or modern times? are vampires and necromancers publicly known or a secret?

OKAY SO

technically they belong to a few different settings, one of them is modern but i dont do much w that one anymore, theres the games they originally came from (oli was my first character in sunless sea & cameron was from a game of blades in the dark that never really made it off the ground), sometimes other miscellaneous things. BUT we are not here to talk about those. we are here to talk about lor.

if youve seen any of my posts about some kind of victorian cyberpunk nonsense, thats lor. (if you havent, dw, i dont mention it super frequently.) its not The Most Accurate description, but it gets the point across well enough — basically a cyberpunk setting with a victorian(ish) aesthetic. i say "ish" bc like... really the architecture is where its the most accurate, but even thats a little loose. in terms of fashion,

some of it is more edwardian, some of it is like that fake victorian vampire aesthetic, theres some influence from ouji/lolita styles to some degree... and then blend that in with some more typical cyberpunk stuff, from the fashion to the technology to the neon signs... its kind of a weird combination & im still trying to find the right balance with a lot of stuff lmao.

in-universe, lor got its start as a kind of trading hub, since its sort of in the middle of the map in relation to the other continents. the cultures in any given part of the continent have a lot of variance, largely influenced by the cultures of whichever other continent is nearest. the main sort of country (yet unnamed) of the story with cameron & oli mostly takes influence from the us (bc of my personal familiarity) & the uk (bc of the settings they originally came from), but theres still a bit of a mix. id love to get more into developing the rest of the world eventually, but i gotta focus on whats immediately relevant first.

as for vampires, demons, etc... its the kind of thing everyone Knows About but doesnt Talk About. its not a secret that they exist, but its mostly discussed in hushed tones, and people arent gonna just out themselves. theres definitely some prejudice at play against people who are inhuman (or "manufactured" humans, but thats like. a whole separate thing), and secret identities are a pretty big part of the story as a whole. this is actually pretty central to the main city (also yet unnamed lmao), which has a second sort of underground city within it. everyone knows its there, most people frequent it, but theres a sort of unspoken rule that you dont speak about what goes on there. its very common for people to wear disguises, particularly masks. undercuts became a popular hairstyle because someone tying their hair up, in combination with wearing a mask and perhaps a hood or hat, can help to obscure their identity. maybe not to the point of being totally unrecognizable, but at least to the point of causing uncertainty. (this is definitely not bc i just like undercuts & wanted some sort of reason to justify so many characters having them.) even if you do recognize someone, you pretend you dont. of course, sometimes tarnishing your own reputation just a bit can be worth it for the sake of blackmail or rumors... people do love a bit of drama.

magic & such has less of a stigma around it, mostly because it tends to not be very strong. its rare for humans to be capable of magic; its more something people are born with than something they learn, so no like. wizards walking around with spellbooks or anything like that. generally someone capable of magic will have one small thing they specialize in, & while they can hone their skills, theres really not much of a way to learn more. even demons, who are much more in tune with magic, have limits; camerons influence over weather, for example, is fairly weak (since theyre only a half demon), but even their fathers magic doesnt go beyond the scope of weather manipulation. its also harder to prove — are they psychic or are they just observant? did they really infuse that drink with magic or was that just the natural effect of the ingredients? did they actually bring someone back from the dead or— well, that one is best not mentioned.

anyway i think. thats about it for the... basics? maybe this went beyond the basics a bit lmao. i think ive said enough for one ask but if u have any more questions tho feel free to ask!!

[rootsofdread]

Hey! 🐿️ anon here again :] Those are neat photos you got of Michael Myers - was his photoshoot part of an event or did you stumble across him in the wild just doing that for fun?

What do you think of the new killer, the Lich?

as far as i know he was just out in the wild doing it for fun! which was just awesome to see. it's really fun seeing cosplayers out and about on normal days :-)

and i LOVE vecna!!! i kept meaning to make a big post w/ my thoughts on the chapter but kept forgetting...anyways, as i understand it he's not really popular among the community right now (i really hope he grows on everyone), and maybe i just love the chapter because i love DND a lot, (i'm actually DMing my own campaign currently!) but man i love him so much. his power is really unique and so are his perks, i love his voice lines ("cursed flame!" when he gets blinded killssss me), and the fact he has a unique mori for survivors holding his hand and his eye is really awesome (his base mori is already super cool). i'm super excited to get to play against him when the chapter goes live!!

his map is REALLY COOL as well (i love the little space room in the dungeon it's sooo pretty, and the portals around the map are such a cool touch) and i adore the survivors he came with! i love that they're original honestly, i was expecting him to come with another greyhawk campaign character but i'm really happy BHVR made their own characters. aestri is my favorite of the two :-) but i love baermar too!! i saw that aestri apparently took him in as a child, and i think that's so cute. crossing my fingers they add a tiefling character as a skin for them 🤞 and i totally love the bardic inspiration perk, i know it'll be sooo hard to get real value out of but i'm totally gonna use it lol (probably only with my brother when we SWF though, it's definitely a SWFing perk and we already came up with matching builds for it lol)

ALSO?? i noticed when i went to answer this you sent me another ask a while ago i never saw! i'm so sorry tumblr didn't notify me of it :-((( i'll answer it here under the cut!! 🫶🫶

my april was great and i had a ton of fun playing quantum break! i haven't gotten all the achievements yet but i will be going back to get all of them 🥺 i also bought alan wake remastered when it was on sale for 10 bucks so i have that in my library too. i played the tutorial a while ago and it was really fun so i'm excited to play more of it!!

and maybe i'll give bloodborne a try one day!! or i might do what you suggested and watch playthroughs :-)) and i actually like no commentary playthroughs of games! idk it's kinda fun for me to settle down and watch someone else silently play a game lol ❤️

[championofapollo]

I'm just starting to think that my family are just a bunch of DnD characters irl. We all have Tragic Backstories TM and an absurd amount of feats/skills

My mom is an Elf Ranger who went to cosmetology school, had her own radio show in Uni, graduated with an English degree, yet now has a job as an Engineer?? Plus, she used to speak 3 languages, but she hasn't spoken French or Spanish in a while, so she's forgotten vocab (I vividly remember her holding full conversations in Spanish when I was little). She's the reason we live out in the middle of nowhere, beside a pond, with many horses.

My dad is a Human Paladin (I guess). He's been GMing since High School, used to play precussion, and is now part-time Engineer part-time Writer. Don't ask me how, but in 24 hours, he can give you detailed records of just about any city. Original maps, who lived there, and pretty much general information about the town history n some fun facts. Also, when he dies, he insists that he wants to be thrown in a volcano that's about to errupt so that his ashes will travel the globe. Oh! And he throws axes.

Idrk what my older sister would be? She's certainly an elf like my mom, but I can't decide if she would be a caster or barbarian... Eh, multiclass! She grew up in my household, so obviously, she's a witch. She knows at least 20 ways to kill a person and can summon storms with her emotions. When she was younger, she decided she was going to learn Swahili, so ta da! She wanted to go to school for architecture but then picked up streaming, and now she has an internship for coding ._.

Iiii am somehow a Fae Rogue? All my life, I've vibrated at an odd frequency, so I'm never clear in photos. I don't know how many knives I have anymore, I'm an op pick-pocket, then give me 30 seconds so I can hide in plain sight (true story, they were looking for half an hour). I speak 5 languages (none fluently), play 3 instruments, draw, know how to make pottery on the lil wheel thingy, do embroidery, and am working on my sewing. I also write and am descent at photography. But I'm going to Uni for Marine Science!

Last but not least, my younger twin brother. He has to be at least part elf because of how extra he is, but he's not quite a half elf. 1/4 Elf Fighter! This is my goofy sibling that insists on having a sword collection, has an armoire full of legos, used to think he was a Monster Truck, and works part time as a Fencing Instructor. He was the one that got dad into throwing axes. His life goal is to own a castle somewhere in France to be a safehaven for gays, as well as to direct his own movies.

How did we end up like this-??

[thedungeonmother]

I posted 1,686 times in 2022

That's 398 more posts than 2021!

265 posts created (16%)

1,421 posts reblogged (84%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@incorrect-dnd-classes

@incorrect-frozen-quotes

@incorrectmarvelquote

@writing-prompt-s

@dragons-homebrew-hoard

I tagged 243 of my posts in 2022

#royal road - 71 posts

#writing - 58 posts

#discworld - 56 posts

#live reading - 39 posts

#original fiction - 31 posts

#wip - 28 posts

#shaynen - 27 posts

#black as ice - 24 posts

#dnd story - 20 posts

#the truth - 20 posts

Longest Tag: 63 characters

#know anyone who works for coffee and three hot cheetos an hour?

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

See the full post

18 notes - Posted August 2, 2022

#4

“I knew you’d come up with something, Sam. You go all slow and cold and that means something really dreadful’s going to happen. I wasn’t frightened.”

“Really? I was scared shi—stiff,” said Vimes.

- The Fifth Elephant, Discworld #24

A cinema wins worthy moment of pure trust. You love to see it.

23 notes - Posted October 7, 2022

#3

“Oh, nothing, nothing. Someone in Uberwald seems to be taking an interest in him lately. And now he’s dead. I would not dream of telling the Watch their job, of course.” He watched Colon carefully to see if this had sunk in.

“I said that it is entirely up to you to choose what to investigate in this bustling city,” he prompted.

Colon was lost in unfamiliar country without a map.

“Thank you, sah!” he barked.

Vetinari sighed. “And now, Acting Captain, I’m sure there’s much that needs your attention.”

“Sah! I’ve got plans to—”

“I meant, do not let me detain you.”

“Oh, that’s all right, sir, I’ve got plenty of time—”

“Goodbye, Acting Captain Colon.”

-The Fifth Elephant, Discworld #24

I'm snickering so hard. I work customer service and I've definitely spoken to people like this and it's so funny.

36 notes - Posted October 6, 2022

#2

“I sometimes crumble to dust. But zat which does not kill us makes us stronk.”

-The Truth, Discworld #25

STRONK.

I'm such an adult.

39 notes - Posted October 21, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

“Then you can look the other way! I didn’t ask you to follow me! Do you think I’m proud of this? I’ve got a brother who’s a sheepdog!”

“A champion sheepdog,” said Carrot earnestly.

- The Fifth Elephant, Discworld #24

I love how he never uses sarcasm, even though that's something I would absolutely say sarcastically.

103 notes - Posted October 11, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[honeyedwordsandblades]

I'm not in any means truly knowledgeable about DnD or Forgotten Relams stuff. I've been kinda toying with the idea of doing DnD myself for sometime now and am now more looking into things because of BG3. So take all I say with a huge grain of salt. But...

artemis-entreri's reply (screenshotted below for everyone's convenience) is certainly interesting. Again I do not really know much about the DnD world, in-universe or the outside meta real world goings on, so I have no idea how true and reliable the first part they said about Ed Greenwood is.

(Coming back after doing a quick Google search about it, seems Ed Greenwood created Forgotten Realms and very much himself says the original intention was that it (Faerûn) was a continent on a world, one of many worlds (ours included), in a multiverse connected by portals and because of this was influenced by things brought into that world (and vice versa into ours, i.e. the idea of dragons, vampires, etc. - called Forgotten Realms bc we on Earth had forgotten where those portals were). So, there wasn't truly any real analogue of real world places. It was supposed to be a whole other world of its own.

What happened was that outside of that story, meta real world speaking, he never had full control over Forgotten Realms stuff. TSR, Inc., the publishing company, did. They changed the multiverse portal stuff so that dumb young kids didn't get themselves into trouble/hurt/or even worse fates looking for them in the real world. Other than that, Ed doesn't really say in the article I'm looking at. I'm not sure if TSR had made any changes so there were then real world analogues or if that was just the nature of DnD players/fans doing that on their own. From the article, he seems to imply the latter, but I've got no clue about TSR's involvement there. Food for thought, I suppose. Up to you, how you interpret and use it for what you're doing.)

Now how reliable the second reddit link part is: After looking at it, it seems… pretty dubious and questionable. (A commenter gives a list of comparisons and says he'll link the post he got that from but never does?? Ehhh… Hmm. Not great.) (And from I learned from that Campfire article with Ed, doesn't truly seem to matter much anyway.)

I will say one thing though. The whole reason I decided to actually reply and make a big to do with an actual post: I've actually in curiosity on my own, for multiple different reasons, across multiple different times, have wondered about some real world analogue for the Forgotten Realms world (Hello Mexican ancestry wanting to know about any fictional counterpart and certainly finding it) and also, after discovering Faerûn was just one continent of the planet (analogous to Europe, I think we can all agree), wanting to know if the planet has a name of it's own. It does actually! It's Toril. Or apparently it's full but much less commonly used name is Abeir-Toril.

Here's a map of all the continents of Toril. Full-page about Toril on the Forgotten Realms Fandom.com site. (I know, I know. Fandom.com bad. I know. I am unaware of any other wiki site for Forgotten Realms currently. If anyone else knows, let us know.)

Maztica is clearly supposed to be an analogue to Mexico, while above it is very plainly labeled "Unknown Lands" (i.e. the rest of the analogue for North America). On the wiki page for Toril, however, it appears it does actually have a name?? Anchorome, (pronounced ang-kor-OH-may) apparently. That appears to be a good jumping off point for what you're looking for. I don't know how canon that is, but as we've already established "canon" analogues with Forgotten Realms was already kinda of shaky at best. But good luck with your own personal worldbuilding though!

Here's another question

This one's aimed at folks who have a pretty good grasp on the geography of Faerûn:

I'm well aware that Faerûn is meant to be based on aspects of Afro-Eurasia, but if y'all were to compare nations and/or cities to areas of the United States, based on like culture, geography, or climate, what equivalents would you come up with?

I've been trying to research the continent of Faerûn and all the different cultures/nations/histories it contains and it's making my head spin

[liaredacteddnd]

woo finally updated the full canon appearance reference, only took me like a week, and 8+ hours in total of actual drawing.

[dailyadventureprompts]

i'm not super into dnd, mostly bc no real try at it has worked out w me and my family/friends and Current Events means i can't like go to my local game place, so i come with something that may not fit, but could be a good inspo for someone else. could you make a safe, happy place? like a lil sanctuary where adventurers can take a breather, maybe do some lil side quests for trinkets. no hidden motive, no secret evil, just a place to relax and grow together as a party. Maybe even some RP opportunities? idk, if that's too much then just pick out what u want to use. ty for ur time

Player home: Duskwater Manor

Adventure Hooks:

Bruised, blooded, and exhausted after their last disastrous expedition, the party finds themselves on the doorstep of a grand lakeside estate, welcomed in by the few servants who maintain the grounds and provided a place to rest and refresh themselves. A true and lifesaving boon to be sure, but what exactly is this place, and why is it that the oft referred to mistress of the house never quite makes an appearance?

While in the company of some more seasoned adventurers, the party hears tell of a place called Duskwater Manor, a sort of clubhouse or retreat exclusive to those who've "made it" as wandering explorers and do-gooders. If the party wants to join this esteemed society, they'll need to bolster their reputation as local heroes, earning the respect of their peers and whatever unseen benefactor offers access to this manse.

Actually FINDING Duskwater Manor can be quite convoluted, as few in the nearby settlement actually recognize the name. Rather than instructions, the invitation the party may receive ( or stumble across in the course of their adventures) contains a few pleasantries and a hand drawn map depicting a stretch of the local lakeside. The heroes will need to put their cartographic skills to the test, searching out the area on foot or perhaps hiring a boat to survey the lake itself.

Setup: Built on the edge of a lake famous for the way it reflects and refracts the colors of the setting sun, Duskwater Manor is a scenic sanctuary located on the edge of civilized land, a perfect place of respite for those heading to/from adventurers in the greater wilderness.

While it was originally built as a small fortress meant to protect the town on the other side of the lake from raiders and river pirates, the structure was eventually abandoned and became a lair for wandering monsters. When a group of adventurers were hired to drive these monsters out, they fell in love with the beautiful lakeside views, and decided to refurbish the crumbling fortification as their base of operation. Generations later, Duskwater Manor is a haven for the wayward, providing a home for all those who venture far in service to the greater good.

Further Adventures:

Travelers and bravos congregate by the Manor's hearth, recuperating after long journeys abroad or simply preferring the scenery to the clutter of the nearby town. While some prefer to spend these days in solitude wandering the grounds, others cluster by the hearth or in the halls, trading boasts and stories of their travels. If the party keeps an ear out, these gossips can be an endless source of new adventure hooks, sharing tales of near and far and mysteries waiting to be explored.

Like any great house, Duskwater Manor employs people to take care of it, though the staff is largely limited to a few servants and groundskeepers, as well as a bargeman who ferries supplies and guests to and from town when offered the proper incentive. By far the most notable of this staff is the gnomish librarian Forebeth Valchi, the niece of one of the original adventurers who took Duskwater as their home. An ardent bibliophile and keeper of knowledge, Forebeth has a special interest in tales of dragons, and is delighted to speak with any who might share rumors or accounts of them. A party who befriends Forebeth can get leads on lost hordes, on wyrms still marauding out in the wilderness. They might even be able to bribe her with salvaged draconic scales or teeth for access to the Manor's restricted books and other secrets.

Though the servants speak of her with Reverance, and the guests toast to her each night, the Mistress of the Manor remains unnamed and unseen, making her will known through intermediaries or notes slipped under doors in the dead of night. Guessing at the Mistress's identity is a popular pastime among local adventures, with leading theories being a scandalized offshoot of the ruling family, a victim of a faerie curse of anonymity, or the ghost of one of the original adventures.

Art 1

Art 2

[macabrecabra]

I’m alive! Just the art I’m finishing can’t be shown juuust yet! Have to keep it a surprise! I have 16 monsters/enemies to design, then one background to draw and maps to prep c:

Below the cut are future creative projects and tentative timelines!

Writing Projects

So writing has been slow but I have two goals this year:

Finish In Time This Too Shall Pass: it is only six chapters away from being done and the last act will be edited and one chapter posted a week on Saturday c:

Finish Coded Connections: original outline was lost so working to get story organized and outlined again properly!

Won’t start any new fics until these two are done and I see my mood for next big fic!

DnD Campaigns

Currently running my Saturday game but have four campaigns brewing I would like to DM in the future and art for current game!

A Journey Far Away: home brew : this one is my baby and is rather experimental but a huge focus on characters. It will be limited in terms of race, but will be far more open world. Working on planning art to finish before recruiting launch! Will be a Sunday game

Lovecraft university: home brew: a more dark humor campaign with a focus on puzzles and exploring than combat where players are university students trying to survive first semester at Miskatonic University. Working on script and assets. If game comes to fruition, it opens for recruitment in August!

Elements of the Broken God: more standard DnD campaign with focus on players being chosen during an attack on their school to take in part of a god and gain an element domain and work together to save kingdom. This one is in planning phase, probably a Saturday game after current one finishes.

Hellcyon Office Duty: honebrew: this entire campaign would be improv off basic idea of layers being Hellcyon demons working office jobs regarding insurance claims and just surving the job. Dark humor and silly, meant to be more stress relief and loose to just let players run wild with imagination. No day set, still just a concept!

Current Game: Faces of Oblivion: my Saturday game that revived my confidence in GMing! Currently working on art and maps for part two of three for the campaign c: having fun and getting faster with my art!

DIY Projects

Working on real life projects too! Plan on the following to finish before June:

Stain new banister for stairwell. Love working with stain! Just need a long weekend to finish this one!

Sew new curtains. Making my own blackout curtains once I feel confident on sewing machine.

Painting on Canvas, want to do some reproductions of impressionist painters for house

Prepare yard for planting in May. Gotta get ready for all the new plants!!!

Comics Ideas in Works

I have always wanted to make webcomics but never had confidence to do so and always getting suckered to do things for others… this year that changes and I’m going to more seriously pursue this dream. Not to make money or a career, just for fun and to get ideas out at last.

Goal is comics I make go out in a whole chapter to give readers lots of content in bursts like seasons of a show. This giving me breaks to more leisurely do pages in meantime. There are five comic ideas that are in the works!

Lovecraft Inspired Comic: currently unnamed Lovecraft comic. I’ve started doodling for it recently and getting looks down. Going to focus on more character are and concepting before getting my notes yogyto write the script proper. I’ll use the Lovecraft DnD game as means to explore and expand idea. This one would be a late 2023 release as it still in concepting phase!

Heaven on Earth: completely original world setting and characters. The story has been scripted and going through the editing phase to flesh out the outline. The world is also being stressed tested to make sure it is solid and works with story. It is about to enter preproduction of concept art and if that goes smoothly, I can see it ready to go by August!

Beyond the Storm: comic based on a dream I had and am forming up. Currently doing the world building to make sure the story has a coherent foundation for its lore. The story is roughly outlined and ready for edits. Needs more design work to get the look down so this one is a next year project unless things go smoothly!

Villainously Employed: a story taking place in sane world as Heaven on Earth with focus on “villains “ who are just doing a day job and one character sort of burnt out on it. Dark humor galore but some heavy themes. This one the script is a jumble of ideas to organize and characters need designs… but the work setting is rock solid. This one is on back burner development until Heaven is completed.

And last idea…Untitled revamped romance story:

this story… the most near and dear to me. It was actually a project made to support an ex-friend’s project. I had a full script, two chapters sketched, four pages rendered… and this ex-friend pulled some awful passive-aggressive attacks. Long story short, one year of emotional and mental manipulation later and months of making me feel like a mental patient and I was to blame for everything and should make seek their forgiveness… I cut ties. Noped out and honestly, 1000% better off without that toxic one-sided friendship.

But I was too hurt to continue on this project until now. I still want to tell the story. I still want to show these characters and see them in action. Do this story is revived. Currently rewriting the script entirely and finding it works much better… more solid work building, ability to now explore complex themes. Redesign characters so they don’t have to be “cute” to be appealing. So this one is a mess but it is moving forward as I reclaim it and bring it closer to reveal! Script is being hammered out, preproduction can tentatively start!

But those are all my projects! It is a lot but I like working on multiple projects and keeping my always buzzing brain busy c: I look forward to showing these projects off soon!

[gnomebud]

ok if i can’t draw rena right now i am going to give you fun facts about her. i love her

in dnd mechanics she is a forest halfling! at the moment she is a fighter who is multiclassing into cleric. she has a sword. and a tail bc i love when ppl give halflings tails

originally she was a gnome cleric who was multiclassing into paladin but the other way around makes more sense for backstory reasons. idk why i switched from gnome to halfling, i just think halfling fits her better

my pinterest board for her currently has exactly 300 pins which is. way more than i have for any other oc

she likes maps!! and flowers and velvet and embroidery. she absolutely does not have the patience for embroidery but she loves the look of it. she doesn’t really like dancing but she loves an event

she is a cleric of ehlonna! a nature/forest/life deity. rena’s whole thing is that she previously was an adventurer (hence the fighter class) but it did not really go well and she was not with a good group. she sort of stumbled her way upon a temple for ehlonna and stayed with the people there

she is <3 aroace spec! she doesn’t know how attraction works and does not care. she has her person already and loves him so much. she met iliya at the temple and they originally got along very well because he is goofy but also a fucking nerd. he meets this tiny angsty halfling with a badass sword and is like you are the coolest person ever and attaches himself to her immediately. in dnd mechanics he’s either a monk or a ranger, i think!

iliya can play a few instruments and rena never learned & can’t carry a tune so she just curls up around him and listens :]

in my mind her story is like, a “searching for someone and finding yourself instead” story. except she does also find who she was looking for (not metaphorical; ppl [iliya] go missing) bc why not have both !! she has hypervigilance issues and also issues with being overly protective and self sacrificing and not knowing when to take a step back and trusting others and a lot of her story is about like. coming into her own and finding strength in those around her and all that jazz!! very. heretic’s guide inspired bc i think every story i ever think abt is going to have traces of the heretic’s guide

i use lots of dnd terms in my brain to think abt her but i’m honestly probably never going to play her in a full campaign bc i care abt her too much now and need all the control. i might write lil stories for fun though :)

shoutout to @majorkirastan for getting all this info for the first time as her dm parent when i got to play her in dnd a few times. she is still my most precious oc

[ezra-iolite]

Law of the Valiant Ramblings: Part 1

Story/Campaign Location

So... I have some OCs I really need to put out there, just to prove that I'm not entirely obsessed with Transformers... well, only a little. 😅 I've been benching this project of mine for some time now due to how complex and vast it is, but now I feel like I can finally work on it again.

In short, it's a novel I've been working on for a long time now, called "Law of the Valiant: The Bronzemoon Legacy" and it's going to be a series of books, if it ever does become more than just a personal project and turn into an actual original story to be published somewhere.

Luckily, this is a shared project I've been hammering away at with my boyfriend for the last 3-5 years, out of the 6 we've been together... it really says something about how impactful DND is, doesn't it? ¬w¬ But it all thanks to him, in the end! He helped me create my own character, how to understand the rules of DnD, and because I have no one to really play a session with, we created our own campaign, mainly based on our very own homebrewed world and races. It's gotten so big, we literally created an entire pantheon that has different deities based on the races and cultures of the entire world, alongside how each island/country is run.

So... screw it. I'm gonna infodump about it here and see where it takes me. Enjoy the long read!! Also, @tigracespace , @exileandtrust , or anyone else with a DnD AU or OC, you're more than welcome to take snippets of this lore if it'll help you in any way! 🥰 Just give credit where it's due!

(Also yes, I signed the picture to prevent any eejits from taking it for themselves, since this is actually my BFs casual work. We worked too hard on this together for it to be used without my consent! 🤬)

~*~

For this post, I'll start with the world that "Law of the Valiant" takes place in.....

The campaign/story occurs within a world that mainly consists of islands clustered at the tail of the Valian Empire, with the biggest island being the land of Kernai. For convenient purposes, when referring to everything you see on this map as a collective, the entire world can also be called Kernai, only because most of the action occurs on that island.

Moving in a clockwise manner, we'll start on the bottom left corner of the map to describe each island within the vast world shown here...

Leviathan's Veil: Said to be the birthplace of the world's magic, as well as the original home to the dragons and magical fauna that now inhabit the rest of the world, the floating islands are eternally shrouded in mists that force any who foolishly approach by boat or airship to turn back towards the mainland, no matter the mechanical tools or magical help they use to ensure their path keeps towards the floating archipelago. But even if they do find the means of passing through the protective magical fog, they will soon learn why these floating islands are only accessible by air, and why the entire area, mainly the shielding mists, are called Leviathan's Veil...

Soultorn Isle: At the heart of this craggy island, where it is said that one's lifeforce is drained from you upon setting foot on its cold, granular surface, dwells a tower that serves as a dark omen to any who are foolish enough to approach this island. For deep within its dark, skyward walls are its prisoners... the Mind Flayers, once an advanced civilization that had originally conquered all of Kernai and its inhabitants to become their willing slaves. No one remembers what led to their disappearance into the depths of the prison tower, but what they do know is that any who dare make it across the island and into the tower are never seen again.

Namdia: A land purely made of rock and ice, only those who's bodies and spirits are equal in strength have any chance at surviving on this island... And yet the fur-cladded (Viking-like) humans and Tabaxi who call this place their home have since thrived in their underground kingdom, one that is run by traditions consisting of the use of steam pipes built by their Dwarven founders, trade with their neighbors only ever performed on the icy tundra above their kingdom to ensure its secrecy, and their practiced use of control over the embodying elements of the island, of earth, fire and water.

Thesbia: Thousands of years ago the island was once home to the mountain-sized Giants, that is until the arrival of the first humans, the earliest known instance after "The Great Divide" that would split the world between humans and humanoids. Now, only their human-hybrid descendants, the clan-armored Titans (who now only reach under 10 feet in height), remain as the sole protectors of their ancestral home. Roaming the island with their swords and axes in hand, they live alongside the savannah dwelling Leonin, the forest based Centaurs, the mountain clambering Minotaurs, and many other humans and humanoids in the Greek-Romanesque kingdom. The inhabitants of Thesbia, mainly the once colonial and explorative Leonin, are mostly known for their hand in the creation of the magic barrier that keeps out the northern chill from half the island, caused by a war that destroyed the upper half of the island and turned it into the three sectors split by climate... the warm south, the icy mountain split, and the magically-created desert north.

Torbroch: An island entirely inhabited by Orc and Goblin tribes, it is under the rule of the xenophobic and prideful Order of the Four Fangs, who guide the chieftains and leaders of the tribes and punish any who trespass on the island or form a half-breed offspring with one of the tribe folk with the death penalty.

Valia/The Valian Empire: The "Cradle of Humanity" and the deathbed of Kernai's magic, Valia is a country ruled by the iron fist of Emperor Solias Valis and the (Victorian) caste based culture of science and steam-powered machinery, all at the cost of free will for the lesser populace and the prejudice against magic and the people outside the empire's rule. Under the city of Valiento dwells a city of criminals, undesirables (aka humanoids and disabled folk alike) and forgotten Warforged, struggling to get by day by day in the eternal twilight of the city, a city only known as the Hive. It is run by the Upper Guards, those sent by the Emperor himself to control the "beastly folk", with the elite amongst them being the Lightning Riders and the Plague Bearers, as well as a few notable gangs who run the underbelly of the Hive, such as the Azumites and the Warforged Time Lords. There's even word of a Warforged who wanders within the Hive, built to embody the Emperor in his younger days and act as his second hand, with a mind containing all his memories but without any of the human need for fear or fatigue. This project is known only as The Emperor's Shadow.

Azuma: Once a prosperous and bountiful oriental kingdom, Azuma was governed by an Emperor named Daijo Ori'ai alongside his Council of Lords, who in turn governed each major city across the island kingdom. Some years ago, Azuma was conquered by the Valian Empire as Emperor Solias enslaved the kingdom to fund his research into understanding Kernai's magic for his use. As insurance against a rebellion, Solias stole the Daijo's youngest heir, Prince Ai'Maketa, and made him a guinea pig for his assistant, the amortal alchemist Doctor Blanca Nyx. The young prince is still trapped in Valia, bound by Blanca's binding runes branded onto him that ensnares his own elemental power and ability to escape, while unbeknownst to him the kingdom of Azuma now lies in ruin, nothing more than a barren wasteland of ash and death after the successful test of Solias's newest weapon.

Hell's Gate: A haven for pirates and fleeing rogues alike, the archipelago consists entirely of sharp rocks between barely habitable islands, making travel by boat near impossible to those who do not frequent its protective harbor. One island, however, lies deep within its craggy clutches, and is home to the Pirate Matron.

Kilvaani's Rest: Home to the Scholar's Academy, the Great Library, and one of the biggest temples to the God of Knowledge, Kindness and the Four Winds, Aeori; this small kingdom is ruled by the last Tiefling of noble blood, Princess Lyria, who survived one of the Empire's many early crusades across Kernai in its attempt to control the land of Kernai. Since then, Kilvaani's Rest has become walled off against any who are not proven scholars in pursuit of humble and peaceful knowledge, earning the kingdom's nickname of the Fortress College.

The Khanaran Desert: Home to the struggling Tieflings of the small, and the only place that's habitable, village of Aesyir (the rest being scattered across the island of Kernai), the slaver Nagas of Cathargo and the pyramid temple to Akri, the prosperous and proud Aarakocra of the northwestern city of Aerkin, and the Dragon Rider clans on their side of the Silverthroat Mountains. It was here that the once white sands were turned red from the multitude of wars fought, between the earliest civilization of Dwarves and Tieflings (who would later establish their first kingdoms at the end of this war, later to be known as the Khanaran War) against their former masters of the Demon Court, Prince Oxarus the Eternal Flame and Thogodius the Fool; between the once prosperous Tiefling and Naga kingdoms, a war that drove both kingdoms to ruin and forced both races into a dwindling memory of their former selves; the more recent war between the Dragon Riders and the forces of the Valian Empire, one that has brought ruin to the desert through the glass forests and graveyards of airship and dragon skeletons.

The Emerald Valley/The Kingdom of Whitecliff: Consisting entirely of lush farmland, homely villages, outposts for stationed guards to help protect the region, some villas and vineyards for the nobility, and the ancestral Mathaerin Forest, the last part of the once towering forest that covered the entirety of the valley before The Great Divide. This region is ruled by two governing bodies rather than just one kingdom; the imperial capital city of Whitecliff, and the Agrarian Council, consisting entirely of farmers and important members of the community per village all across the Valley. While the council does report to the king of Whitecliff, it is a symbiotic relationship of equal trade of labor and fair pay in exchange for peace and safety. This safety comes in the form of Whitecliff's elite knights, known as The Emerald Guard, who follow a strict code and seven years worth of training before being stationed in one of the many outposts across the Emerald Valley. To ensure that the Emerald Guards never bring fear or harm to the people, the royal court mages created a curse on the armour of every guard who graduates from training that would only ever activate the moment the curse's words came true...

"Only the blood of tainted hearts may touch the green you wear. For if your plating should turn black, their weight in blood you shall forever bear."

It is also here where the story begins, in the small farming village of Alentou, built to support travelling farmers and merchants journeying to and from the capital or Hammerdeep and the forest city of . Quiet and dull, the lakeside village has everything one could need to live a humble country life, including the tavern known as the Daisy Djinn Inn, owned and run by a retired Rune Knight-Fighter Mountain Dwarf named Maddie Bronzemoon-Diazerae, and her entire family... consisting of her adoptive Elven mage sister and co-owner, Daisy Bronzemoon, Maddie's Rogue-Ranger Tiefling husband, Calder Bronzemoon-Diazerae, alongside their seven children; Bula Bronzemoon-Diazerae (Calder's half-orc daughter from a past relationship with a Torbroch chieftain's daughter), Garth Silverfang, Layla Bluemoon, Daisy's twins Raevyrn and Allora, Wren and baby Lorelai. More will be explained about those in orange in the next post...

The Silverthroat Mountains: At the foot of the mountains, on the western side, resides the great Mathaerin Forest, home to the High and Wood Elves, Centaurs, canine Leshen, forest spirits, and a plethora of both dangerous and docile magical fauna hidden within the protective tress of old. Deeper still within the forest, you will find trees that nearly reach half the height of the mountains, wider than any standard house, and their trunks containing the ruins of the very first homes of the ancient Erikeans who lived in early Kernai. But at the heart of this forest lies the High Elven capital, Silvervale. None are permitted to enter its stronghold walls unless they are merchants with an invite from the Mathaerkin/Matron Queen, a badly injured person on the brink of death seeking refuge (which by their code they must offer help but with tight security to ensure none are harmed while they are within their walls), or a fellow Elf.

If you travel along a path hidden within the forest, only known by those with experience journeying to this location, you will come across your first obstacle through the mountains... the Dragon Riders. Clans consisting of many mixed races but all bearing the exact same defining features that unite them as their own separate kingdom and community, of scales along their arms, back and cheeks, reptilian eyes, and never without their loyal dragon steeds to help protect their mountain home. The clans are divided into two based on where they live... the western Glacial tribe that help protect the Emerald Valley from large or country-wide threats such as delivering goods to help alleviate a famine or defend the mountain path against any Valian spies, and the eastern Sun tribe who continue to fend off the Valian Emperor's men from the shores of the Eastern Gap and their side of the mountain path through the Khanaran Desert.

However, if you manage to get by the Dragon Rider guards and follow the path to the largest mountain within the Silverthroat range, you will finally come to the grand stone gates of the underground Dwarven kingdom, arriving first to its capital city of Hammerdeep. Rocky structures made with golden details and steam pipes will be the first thing you see, alongside a bustling market as far as the eye can see, for Hammerdeep is the true heart of all crafter based trade within Kernai, mainly jewelers, stonecarvers, and the biggest trade being sword and blacksmithing. The city is run by a family-clan based hierarchy, while the rest of the kingdom is ruled by a council made up of the most powerful and providing clans, much like Whitecliff and its agricultural council. The largest and most influential clan are the Bronzemoons, the surviving descendants of Hammerdeep's heroic founder, Boic "Bravesoul" Bronzemoon, and one of the best family of blacksmiths and swordsmiths due to their use of runework and artistic craftsmanship, with their emblem being a bronze Celtic knot style crescent moon branded on anything they create.

~*~

And that's the world of Kernai for you! Sorry for this being so long, but as you can tell a LOT of work has gone into this over the years. So feel free to tell me your thoughts on how I could improve this, and enjoy the fruits of the labor my boyfriend and I have created together. And eventually I'll get around to posting about the OCs for this world, including my boyfriend's character, Calder~

Thank you so much for reading. ^w^

[captainsspnanon]

C2E60 - A Turtle By Any Other Name - rewatch

It’s odd.  I hated the HP trackers in CR, but I love the HP trackers in D20.  *shrugs*

Did I just watch the episode with the origin of “Hoot Growl” in D20? (or at least the episode where it comes up the most?)  Yes.  Am I jumping back into CR for now?  Also yes.

(I used to watch things that weren’t dnd, you know.  Like, tv shows and shit. *sighs wistfully*  ...then again, I’m very much a creature of habit.  Fell in love with Leverage?  Let’s watch Hustle, and White Collar, and Person of Interest...and not finish any of them.   EVENTUALLY.)

……...is this the episode which starts Fjord’s fear of turtles?  OH YES

Or, I suppose, Fjord’s fear of any creature Polymorphed into a small should be harmless thing that still decides to attack him.  *cough purple worm bunny cough*

Damn, looks like top table’s going to be a bit fuzzy again.  Hopefully it’ll get back to clear soon.  (from later on, it looks better now?  Can’t tell if the switched that cam with the standing Matt cam?  I give up XD)

Fun fact!  By watching C2 before C1, I had NO CLUE that Travis and Ashley are as close as they are, especially since Yasha and Fjord don’t interact too much until later on in the campaign.  So moments like now, when Yasha uses Healing Hands on Fjord, and even moments of Travis getting excited when she rages, I never got the unspoken background like I do now.  Very similar to not having the experience of having the twins first before Caleb and Jester, or Vaxleth before Beau and Caleb. Watching it know with the knowledge of all the relationships beforehand, I won’t say it impacts my watching greatly – because these are all professional actors and the PC relationships are so distinct, but it instead triggers small flashes of tie ins.  Was the Healing Hands a ‘Buddy!’ moment from C1?  Are Fjord and Beau so close because there was a layer of Keyleth and Grog that they didn’t get the chance to explore (I’m still fascinated by the fact that Marisha was considering a level of barbarian for Keyleth)?  It’s a unique undercurrent, because it’s not subtext in the campaign, it’s not anything layered in there from the cast.  It’s a fans-eye-view perspective of the dynamics.

*just heart-eyes Caleb’s description for Flaming Sphere*  I’m currently playing a Circle of Stars druid, and I’m flavoring a lot of my spells to be star-related, and I’m taking SO MUCH influence from how Liam played Caleb.  Throwing in a ton of flavor, but just over the span of a few seconds so that the rest of the table doesn’t feel like they’re sitting through a spiel.  (my Thorn Whip is a thin rope of inky darkness studded with pinpricks of starlight that pierce the target with flares of white.  Still piercing damage, still a cantrip, but flavored for funs.  No material components though, got my star map focus as a long dangling multi-disc earring)

First Making My Way!!!  Though in this case (and for a bit yet), they sing more of the song before they start shortening it up.  Two running jokes in quick succession for episodes!

Caleb killing the goblin and Matt tearing up the NPC sheet while the cast cracks up is the BEST.

lol Laura doughnut craving and then basically everyone jumping in quietly with an order

POLY MORPH POLY MORPH POLY MORPH

Huh, I forgot that the fear effect may be why Fjord is so frighted of it.  I’ll have to see if he makes his save or not.  REGARDLESS, I love that it becomes a running joke even without the fear effect.

Ah the Giant Tortoise vs having to use stats so Giant Snapping Turtle which suddenly is much more violent

Nothing as beautiful a representation of the top table by having Marisha hold the box of doughnuts and Travis and Liam LUNGE to hide the logo at the exact same time.  OH THE CHAOS.

LIGHTING GLOVES!!!! I don’t have much to say because just extended combat which is...yanno, just combat, but there’s still a lot of fun moments happening.

Huh.  Being more familiar with the rules of dnd now, it is interesting to see Matt make some weird calls that really make no sense.  Fjord can’t take the dodge action because he’s up against the wall?  I get that it’s a very funny moment and they’re all cracking jokes, but I can’t really see a mechanical reason that he wouldn’t be allowed to take the dodge, especially because he’s actively not doing anything else.  Doesn’t ruin my enjoyment!  But I’m definitely seeing things that I super didn’t notice the first time around because I didn’t know enough.

IT’S A REGULAR FUCKING TURTLE I love every aspect of this with my whole heart

holy crap I forgot that Matt really doesn’t let them rest!  This’ll be the third initiative of the day.  I know there’s a lot of debate in the dnd community about the 6-8 encounters per day and possible misunderstandings thereof, so I know that this is actually fairly reasonable, but also OOF.  They don’t even get a short rest in between any of these.  Then again, I’m also very low level right now in my game, so I wonder how something like this would play out for me when I’m at the equivalent level.  I’m not used to have lots of spell slots yet, I’m not even sure how many I would HAVE. Sadly, won’t be able to share anytime soon, I don’t expect to be around this level for half a year at least.  (infrequent games, sadly)

I love that Beau’s turn this combat is just to explain her notes to Caleb.  We’re getting into bookish!Beau territory, which I fucking love.  Still a good 21 episodes from where she gets her headband of intellect though.

LOL Now that I know who set the rift making machine, I am completely thrown by the fact that they suspected Dairon.  It makes complete sense!  I’m sure I agreed when I first saw it!  But now it’s just so unthinkable to me.

Alright, time to watch the last hour of this before I watch the two part finale of Fantasy High.  (still not fully vibing with this one personally, but I want to watch all of them in order, and they have a second run for it, plus I think The Seven is also set in the same world?  So watching them all.  Very much looking forwards to the second campaign for Unsleeping City, and I have a feeling I’ll probably end up loving Crown of Candy considering all the shit I hear about it?)

I feel so bad for Soorna, she feels so responsible for not being able to save her people.  :(  Visions have never been easy to interpret!  You did the best you can!

Beau and Caleb are knowledge buddies it makes me so happy you have no idea

YASHA DREAM YASHA DREAM YASHA DREAM

OH MY GOD we have our introduction to Obann in the dream AND IT NEVER CLICKED FOR ME UNTIL NOW by the time we meet Obann I’ve completely forgotten the dream BUT HE’S RIGHT THERE AND FULLY DESCRIBED

I do admit, there’s a part of me that really wishes that more of Yasha’s backstory got discussed.  She’s been designed to be super metal and badass, with the RP that then turns her to softness and gentleness.  Hell, she has the name Orphanmaker!  But we don’t really get to see in campaign too much that actually ends up backing that up.  The Obann arc and her tearing through the Cobalt Soul is pretty much the extent of it, with then the tiny tiny bit of her meeting her tribe in the very last episode (which I don’t even remember if I figured out that they were implying she killed the previous Skyspear with maybe more members of her tribe, or if I read a comment that said that).  I don’t know.  There are several good moments of RP for it, her guilt, some conversations with Caleb (well, one.  I NEEDED MORE OF THIS), her deliberate loss of the fight, I don’t want to lessen those moments, but I do wish we’d gotten more.  First watch through, I only really started to get Yasha once she was back full time (though got a bit more of her during this stay).  With this second pass through, I’ve got her from the start, but I still wish I knew more.  I do know that her comic just got released, but I have mixed feelings about the comics anyway.  I only read Caleb’s, but I saw enough of Jester’s to see just how many things in it contradicted things that were stated multiple times in campaign, so I don’t quite consider them full canon?  ...i think I’ve just gone in circles and not actually said anything this entire paragraph.

Mmmph…. I don’t get why Cad and Jester are awake.  Honestly wish this moment could have just been a Yasha and Nott moment.  I get that Cad has very high passive perception, but still.  I don’t know.  It leads to the great moment of Yasha in the storm trying confront her god, which is fantastic, but I still feel like it was a bit of inserting yourself into someone else’s moment.  Then again, they’re all so close at the table, AND they know that Ashley can get overwhelmed when the spotlight is on her (especially when she’s been away for so long!!).  ….once again, going in circles, not saying anything. Good thing the episode is almost over.

I feel a tiny bit bad for Matt.  Over the course of his campaigns, he has his gods do things in mysterious or interpretive ways, and the players are all like ‘spell it out for me plz I didn’t get it’ and then Matt has to have the gods come out and speak much more clearly than planned.  I think the most he really got to enjoy with his vagueness was with the Wildmother for Caduceus.  Poor Matt trying to Raven Queen for Vax and Liam just being ‘wut? explain plz, i am confuzed’.  I’m sure this is a pain most DMs end up feeling.  I still dread when my DM is going to put down a puzzle for us to solve and we’re probably gonna stare at it for hours not being sure what to do

“where do you find your strength” it makes sense that the Stormlord would still ask that of his followers, but it feels almost like someone asking you a riddle that you’ve already read the solution to online.  Not quite as earned.  I don’t know if Yasha WOULD feel like she gets her strength from her friends at this point.  (again, due to Ashley not being there so still restricted RP moments)

Ashley’s face when Yasha starts getting her feathers back.  I think she’s on the next Talks, and she mentions how she never thought it could happen.  They dissipate again by the end of the episode, but I suspect only a nat20 could have broken the shackles at this point.  Which I agree with, both in the moment and with hindsight.  Yasha needed more time to process, to accept, to struggle, and to heal.  Having the chains break now?  It just doesn’t feel right.

@suicidallyreckless

[polyhedral-sunrise]

I wanna hear about your dnd ocs if you want to please share!

So I wrote most of an answer to this and forgot to save it so 🤞 for this time 😅

Tbh I have never been in a consistent long form campaign and while most of these characters were created sometime in my college years and during the pandemic, I have not had time to play them. I really loved the dnd 5e system, so I'm really good at creating characters and choosing flavor based on abilities but I suck at rp so their personalities are under developed unfortunately 😅

I'm gonna describe 3 of them for now, but there's a few more in the tank for later 😋

1. Khurz Ruinseeker (I think? I don't have the character sheet on me lol) he/him

Khurz is a half-orc conjuration wizard with a fascination for archaeology. I imagine him dressed in suits and cloaks that are always somehow dusty, even when it's wet outside. He's a little scatterbrained but he can use his abilities to make copies of artifacts he finds to study them closely without damaging the items in question. I haven't played a wizard in a minute so I'm excited to see if this campaign starts up again.

2. 73NTRI, they/them

Warforged paladin of the ancients, first nb character 😊

Name stands for 73-Natural Territory Reconnaissance and Investigation, kind of like a scout? They have a scroll case built into their forearm and are trained to make maps and scout unfamiliar territory.

Tbh I've always loved the vibes of bastion from overwatch and I kinda wanted to create a character with the same wonder and honest naivety. The (future) DM and I workshopped a little bit to buff some parts of the ancients path since it's a little under tuned for sure.

They were deactivated somehow(they don't remember) and one day woke up and heard a sourceless call for help, from an ancient nature deity, to help destroy the undead influence that has been draining the deity's power slowly over millennia. I'm writing a short story of their origin now but it's still a wip.

I'm still tinkering with the design of the character, but I'm imagining a stone and wooden construct entertwined with vines and heavy armor. I'm not too happy with the official designs for the warforged from eberron so I need to find a design I like before I can finalize it.

3. Tymir Stormbrand, he/him

This is a character I have played, in a few games, but I kinda jumped into a late stage campaign so I feel like I didn't get a chance to encompass the character as well as I'd like to 😔

He's a dwarven blood hunter, order of the ursinthrope (were-bears)

He grew up in the dwarven federation and joined the military since one of his moms holds a high position. He fell in love with one of his fellow soldiers in the war against an undead human despot but they died during the conflict and he decided to leave after his service was completed. During his travels, he was wounded by a monster and saved by the blood hunters, eventually joining them and setting off to hunt monsters to keep people safe (think the Witcher, kinda)

He was recruited and started to help in a war against the same undead king from before, and that's kinda where I left him since.

I'm not great at fleshing out the character traits since I'm weaker at rp-ing them but that's definitely something I want to improve at in the future

Let me know if you have anymore questions, I appreciate the interest!