thaumic-hobo

[thaumic-hobo]

DIE is a move in a similar direction. Sort of?

Has anyone ever made an Understanding TTRPGs book in a similar vein to Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics?

So like an exploration into what TTRPGs are in the form of a TTRPG? I don't think so. Sounds cool as hell though.

[thaumic-hobo]

Geology of Natural Disasters and How to write them into your fictional universe.

So, you want to write about a natural disaster to advance your plot and torture your players/characters even more? Let me tell you how, accurately.

I feel like unless it is a volcano, natural disasters are a pretty slept on plot drivers, and some of them are really cool and unique! Today, I will talk to you about land slides, earthquakes (And earthquake related disasters), and volcanoes.

Landslides: Probably one I see the least in stories, but one that would be incredibly interesting to write into a plot where they believe in curses. Landslides can happen along ocean bluffs, slightly hilly areas, and highly mountainous areas, this means it is something that can happen in most landscapes. But what can trigger a landslide? Mostly all you need to trigger a landslide could be just abnormally large amounts of rain, excessive deforestation (with a little bit of rain), or an earthquake. If you don't want to use deforestation or an earthquake as a catalyst, a really cool indicator that the land is slipping and may be prone to a collapse is J hooked trees.

This indicates that there is soil creeping slowly over time, and it may lead to a major landslide.

2. Earthquakes: Probably one of the easiest things to write, earthquakes can happen anywhere, but they are most common in places that are tectonically active areas. There are about three types of environments you can expect earthquakes to be common. The first is just rugged mountains, if your landscape looks like this, you should write in earthquakes. Associated hazards could be landslides, avalanches, and large falling rocks.

The next landscape could be a thin mountain range, next to the ocean, very scenic, but very dangerous. Essentially, I am describing a subduction zone environment.

Earthquakes in these areas could equal a couple different associated disasters. Scenario one: A very large earthquake happens, and the ocean begins to recede. This is a tsunami, enough said. If you are writing a tsunami though, please, please, do not write it as a large wave, thank you. Also, a common way people are hurt by tsunami's are from them going into the ocean because they don't understand a tsunami is going to happen.

Scenario two: A large earthquake happens, your characters are in a valley and suddenly the ground begins to liquify as the ground shakes, once the shaking stops, the ground becomes solid like nothing ever happened, except everything has suddenly sunk into the now hard ground. This is called liquefaction and it typically happens in areas that have loose dirt or lots of saturated soil.

Scenario three: There are a lot of small earthquakes, they do not cause a lot of damage, but you begin to notice that one of the isolated mountains has a plume rising. Earthquakes can indicate lava moving underground and the filling of magma chambers.

The next environment that can host lots of earthquakes would be regions that have a lot of really deep valleys and small mountain ranges (not cone volcanoes), but overall seems pretty flat.

This indicates a transform fault like the San Andreas. If you want to hint at there being earthquakes in the area, you can show fence posts that are suddenly several feet out of line at a dilapidated farm or something similar.

(These earthquakes are different because they are cased from sideways movement, not an up-and-down movement this hint can only be used for this environment). Volcanoes would not be found here, but liquefaction and landslides could still occur here.

4. Volcanoes: If you thought earthquakes had a lot of information, volcanoes do too. First you have to ask yourself, what kind of volcano you want to have, what kind of eruption style? So lets break down the kind of eruptions you can have and what their landscapes look like. Hawaiian Shield volcano: This will produce a smooth fast lava, the landscape typically is pretty flat, but there will be small cones and the rocks can have a ropey or jagged texture and the rocks will be almost exclusively black to dark red.

Stratovolcanoes: These will be solitary mountains, typically, that look like perfect cones (Picture shown in earthquake section). These will have large ash cloud eruptions and pyroclastic flows, they may have some lava, but typically most damage is done from the pyroclastic flows (think Pompeii). Some hints of these, other than describing the cone features (which can be hidden by other mountains), would be to talk about petrified wood! Trees can get fossilized in the ash and I imagine it would be very strange to find this rock that clearly looks to be a piece of wood, but its a rock. Subcategory- Calderas: Used to be a large stratovolcano, but they erupt so explosively that the entire cone collapses and creates a basin.

There are a lot of kinds of volcanoes out there, so forgive me for just putting an infographic and then talking to you about these really rare types of eruptions that I feel like people should know about.

Okay lets talk about blue lava (kind of) and black lava

You will notice the lava is still red in the middle of this image, during the day these would look like a normal eruption, but at night the burning sulfur would make it appear blue. Some cool features other than this, would be that any water in the area would become very acidic and burn the skin due to sulfuric acid. This would again be really cool if you are trying to describe a 'cursed' land.

Black lava: This happens only in the east African rift I believe, but it is a carbonatite lava, but if you are writing in a rift valley (where the continent is tearing apart to form a new ocean) this might be a cool feature. The lava will cool white and will quickly erode, it makes for a very alien landscape!

Anyway as always, this is supposed to be an introductive guide for the basics of writing geology to create cool landscapes/features into dnd or fictional universes, if you are a geologist please understand my oversimplification of tectonics, I didn't want people to run away.

[thaumic-hobo]

#ttrpgs #running games #handouts #player information

[thaumic-hobo]

Posting the list of Fragments (player backgrounds/classes) that you can pick from in Dark Confluence to remind me to post more about this game tomorrow, and also because I think they're very good :)

[thaumic-hobo]

Throwing Irregular Shapes, New Issue

Another issue, after months of silence, of the gaming newsletter: https://open.substack.com/pub/irregularshapes/p/your-questions-answered

#newsletters #dnd #ttrpgs #dnd notes #dnd5e

[thaumic-hobo]

[SPOILERS for the RADIANT CITADEL]

Second session in the new campaign!

#dnd #radiant citadel #actual play #dnd notes #benjamin barrington barcliff #ttrpgs

[thaumic-hobo]

today is my last day at my day job (could you do just one favor for me today?)

I'm making the move to turn Titanomachy RPG into a proper indie TTRPG publishing house! and there's a couple ways you can support me. but first:

a few things to look forward to:

physical copies of my games becoming available via @indiepressrevolution!

consistent game & system releases (i'm cooking up a d12 system right now and then i'll have d4, d8, and d12 under my command)

a patreon where i'll be publishing games early, along with exclusive monthly releases, and much more

seeing more of my work in some upcoming evil hat projects

prints of prayer to curse r*n depantspiss, bunny girl osr posters, and perhaps shirts/hats?

ttrpg workshops IRL in the Maryland area

and much much much much more!!

I'm also moving away from Florida in a few days because the governor is trying to eradicate trans people like my partner and me. so I need your help.

if you could do just one thing on this list today, that would be SO helpful:

reblog this post

let indie TTRPG people know i'm available for freelance work

start making a caltrop core game (caltropcore dot com)

follow me here on tumblr and itch.io

spend money on my itch.io

set a reminder on your phone for january 2nd, 2024 with a note that says "join Titanomachy RPG patreon"

if you can do more than one thing on this list, thank you!!

thank you all for your support over the past couple years. i hope to remain worthy of that support for many years to come.

-Lex

[thaumic-hobo]

[SPOILERS for the RADIANT CITADEL]

I'm getting to play in a D&D campaign for, like, the third time ever. These are my notes from the first session. Benjamin is my character; he's a firbolg wizard. Torvus, also a firbolg, is the cleric from his home village; for Reasons they're both out seeking their fortune. Elsinore is a dwarf rogue who runs a soup kitchen in the Radiant Citadel, and Green is her half-orc barbarian bouncer.

This was an absolutely excellent session, and I am looking forward immensely to the next one.

#radiant citadel #actual play #dnd notes #benjamin barrington barcliff #ttrpgs #dnd

[thaumic-hobo]

Chasing down a specific hard-to-find villain (archmage, lich, god)

Uncovering a mystery of how the world works, and changing it

Discovering the real nature of the gods

Bringing down an empire

Preventing a demonic invasion

Could y'all nerds pass this around? I want to write a guide talking about the mechanical arc of campaigns, and different styles of play DMs can focus their adventures on after a party graduates from the entry level bountyhunting/dungeon delving they were doing in the first couple of levels. It’d be helpful if I could source a lot of different opinions in the comments.

Examples I have so far include:

Taking a long journey through distant lands towards a goal, possibly by way of a caravan, ship, airship, portals.

Exploring a large uncharted region and learning it well

Gaining stewardship over a territory, cultivating it, engaging in local politics and defending it from threats

Starting an enterprise like a tavern or mine, enmeshing themselves in the weft of commerce and surrounding populace.

More the merrier, no idea too obscure! Happy to hear about stuff you’ve done in your own games or random ideas you’ve had in the past.

[thaumic-hobo]

Dragon 184 (August, 1992). Cover by Robh Ruppel. You can’t really see it, but the cover has a sort of metallic sheen to it. I think this is the first time there’s been a black and white Dragon Magazine cover.

[thaumic-hobo]

I'd rather have a thousand "OHMIGOD WE WERE RIGHT!!!" theory confirmed moments where due to good storytelling and foreshadowing the audience was able to figure out parts of the future plot than just one more stupid twist that makes no narrative sense to avoid being "predictable".

If people knowing anything about your plot spoils the show entirely maybe it's just no good lmao.

It's not worth ruining your narrative themes and character integrity just so everyone is shocked. Sometimes twists that have been guessed .... Are better.

[thaumic-hobo]

Are Animals Becoming Extinct in Fantasy Novels?

Recently, I read this post titled “Animals have been taken off in novels since 1835. Is fiction undergoing its own extinction event?” which talks about a study that found that since 1835, the use of wild animals in fiction has dropped drastically.

Many are blaming this “slow extinction” on modern societies disconnect to nature. After all, not everyone spends their days outside, so they might not notice mice, birds, or even the insects at their feet. If they do not think about animals in their daily life, why would they think about them while writing?

That is the theory, at least.

It is worthwhile pointing out what several other writers and readers are; there are plenty of animals in children’s fiction. That is true, but what about young adult to adult fantasy? Since that is what I personally write, that is what I wanted to talk about.

Just going off what books I think of first, it seems like often in fantasy novels, the only prey animals (like deer, squirrels, or rabbits) that we see are after nearly always during or after they are hunted. Then there is the complete lack of mosquitos, leaches, biting ants, and other annoying creatures.

Sometimes, there is a mention of the sound of birds singing, but rarely ever are there any details of the birds or what they are doing. Where are the ducks and swans on the lakes? Where are the birds building nests?

Now you may be going “What is the point? Why should I care?” and I get that, but by eliminating these creatures, your novels could be losing a sense of realism.

For example, in Stephen Kings The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon — which I argue is a light fantasy story, not a horror story — has a girl is lost in the woods and stalked by a creature. Interestingly, even most survival books fail to mention animals apart from for food, but Stephen King did not do that. He had deer, water bugs skittering across ponds, and even wasps that attack the main character. This added a sense of reality to the novel. It was not just a forest with some trees and plants, it was a forest filled with life, and that can be dangerous for anyone, let alone a young girl.

So, go ahead, raise the mood with your characters. If they are miserable, make them more so by having the mosquitos bite at them day and night or have them step in a anthill. If they are happy, they could watch a mother bird feeding its young or a swan rubbing necks with its partner.

Adding more hints of nature could not only amplify the mood, but it could also make your forests seem more real.

[thaumic-hobo]

Fantastical Felines! by Moniek Schilder

[thaumic-hobo]

Cover yourself in cayenne pepper. After a bite or two, they'll stop and back off.

I’m being hunted by ghouls any tips

[thaumic-hobo]

#d66 #random tables

[thaumic-hobo]

Curious Tides

Howdy, y'all.

I'm Shawn Drake, and I have no idea what I'm doing but I figure it's probably best to start with introductions. With Twitter an increasing dumpster-fire and a list of "eh, this doesn't quite hit the same way" alternatives, I'm turning to Tumblr to be my new place to scream into the void.

I'm a TTRPG designer, writer, podcaster and collectors of weird, esoteric hobbies. My games are indie, niche, and largely reflective of stuff I think is neat: fey, space, space fey...love conquering all, true brave hearts, scandal, skullduggery. That kind of thing.

I've got Thoughts™ about games, about fiction in general, about art in general.

Most often I'll probably use this space to do what I did on Twitter which was develop about a dozen ideas for various projects in real time in front of a live studio audience.

And the studio audience is optional.

More to come as I get my head around this strange new digital world. Be kind and help guide me around the sharper turns when I doubtless screw it up, won't you?

[thaumic-hobo]

I scribed all the spells my wizard learned in our last D&D campaign!