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The Silvanesti elves isolate themselves from the world and dismiss most outsiders as inferior (George Barr, AD&D supplement Dragonlance Adventures, TSR, 1987)

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Girl and Sword - Leszek Woźniak

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Goblin by Hugo Solis

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The party explores the plane of elemental Water, protected by a magical bubble of air (Stephen Fabian, AD&D Manual of the Planes by Jeff Grubb, TSR, 1987)

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Druid Cave

Let your heroes explore the enchanting depths of this druid cave, pulsating with life and mystical energy.

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This is Dark Folk (1983), the Role Aids sourcebook for trolls, orcs, goblins, kobolds and gnolls. Not a great title, in terms of contemporary acceptability. The content fares better, though. Like Dwarves, the authors are trying to portray the societies of these “monsters” and there is a lot of thinking here about why they do the things they do (and, generally, finding fictional explanations for those actions, rather than subverting them). I find that they present these tribal humanoids in slightly more multifaceted ways then vanilla D&D but still basically fall back to essentialism. Chaosium’s Trollpak, a high-water mark in the portrayal of complex non-human sentient species, had come out in 1982, so this book probably marks a step back in this regard, even if it is an improvement on the Monster Manual’s absolutes.

One minor note: I think this might be the first time kobolds are explicitly characterized as reptilian and being hatched from eggs. The Monster Manual is ambiguous and I feel (without any particular evidence) that the dog-like portrayal of kobolds was dominant until 3E.

A cool thing about the book is the structure. Each species gets its cultural profile, which is followed by an adventure that builds on that information. I’m a sucker for that kind of construction, which TSR employed nicely in the Monstrous Arcana series in the late ’90s. And because the adventures and the cultural histories would probably feel unmoored without a larger setting, the first few pages of the book are devoted to a broad description of the continent of Mamaryl.

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Red Sonja by Jeehyung Lee

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Guide: Naming a Town or City

There are many things to keep in mind when naming the town or city in your novel:

1) Genre/Theme/Tone

It’s very important to consider the genre and theme of your story when choosing a town name. Take these names for example, each of which indicates the genre or theme of the story: King’s Landing (sounds fantastical) Cloud City (sounds futuristic) Silent Hill (sounds scary) Sweet Valley (sounds happy and upbeat) Bikini Bottom (sounds funny) Radiator Springs (sounds car-related) Halloween Town (sounds Halloween-related) Storybrooke (sounds fairytale-related) 2) Time/Place It’s also important to consider the time and place where your story takes place. For example, you wouldn’t use “Vista Gulch” as a name for a town in Victorian England. You probably wouldn’t use it for a town in modern day North Carolina, either. Vista is a Spanish word and would normally be found in places where Spanish names are common, like Spain, Central and South America, the southwest United States (including southern California), Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Florida. 3) Size/Settlement Type An isolated town of 300 people probably won’t be Valley City, but a sprawling metropolis of 30 million could be called Windyville, because it could have started out as a small town and grew into a large city. 4) Geography Words like gulch, butte,and bayou tend to be regional terms. You probably wouldn’t find Berle’s Bayou in Idaho, or Windy Butte in Rhode Island. Words like mount, cape, and valley are dependent upon terrain. Most of the time, you won’t have a town named “mount” something unless there are hills or mountains nearby. You wouldn’t use “cape” unless the town was on a cape, which requires a large body of water. 5) History Is there a historical person or event that your town might be named after? The Simpsons’ hometown of Springfield is ironically named after its founder, Jebediah Springfield. Chattanooga, Tennessee is named after the Cherokee town that was there first. Nargothrond, in The Lord of the Rings, is an Elvish town with an Elvish name. 6) Combination of Words

person name + geographical term = Smithfield, Smith Creek

group name + geographical term = Pioneer Valley, Settlers’ Ridge

descriptive word + geographical term = Mystic Falls, Smoky Hill

person name + settlement type = Smithton, Claraville

landmark + settlement type = Bridgton, Beaconville

Word Lists: Types of Settlements

Geographical Features

Place Words

Common Suffixes

Other Descriptors

Try a combination of two words from any of these lists. :)

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The classic and innovative isometric maps from 1983's AD&D I6 Ravenloft module… on Map Monday aka Dungeon Day!!

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Trogs by corndoggy

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Greetings!

As the hunger starts to set in, the cold adventurers now desperate for any kind of food start trying desperate measures.

Some of them are sure that here, in this small, freezing lake thrives a community of tasty, tasty fish. It's nonsense of course, this far into the cold wilderness there's hardly any fish, tasty or otherwise.

But maybe, just maybe they're right and this lake is home to a giant, man-eating aquatic creature that doesn't take kindly to the adventurer's attempts to see it as food.

Can the adventurers defeat the creature? Or will the creature best them in this snowy landscape?

You can see a preview of this map’s Patreon content by clicking here.

If you liked the map I’d be extremely thankful if you considered supporting me on my Patreon, rewards include higher resolution files, gridless versions, alternate versions, line versions, PSDs and more. Thank you!

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How to turn archery into a full-body workout! (Aka when you have more hobbies than time)

Psst... I upload bonus content to Patreon

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Fairy faces in the forest (AD&D 2e Dungeon Master's Guide, TSR, 1989)

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Hello, everyone!

There's a band of evil gnomes that has been nothing but trouble for the city. For months, they have committed serious crimes against the citizens.

Fortunately, a party of powerful adventurers has come to the rescue, and they will soon be able to find out their hideout to put an end to their streak of violence and theft.

Hidden inside a mountain nearby, the gnome hideout will prove a challenge to your players. For these crafty gnomes have plenty at their disposal to make the heroes' lives impossible.

The creature tokens for this map are a Demonic Werewolf, a Festering Aberration and a Warrior Abomination. Emerald tier gets the Demonic Werewolf while Diamond tier gets all three. In addition, Sapphire tier gets extra creature token variants.

You can see a preview of all of this week’s Patreon content here.

Thank you very much for taking a look and be sure to check out my Patreon where you can pledge for gridless version, alternate map versions as well as the tokens pertaining to this map.

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Connoisseur's Charm – Potion, very rare

The connoisseur‘s charm contains the captured essence of the copycat’s grim stare and grants an eerie understanding of any creature roaming through the planes. Given the liquid’s permanent effect as well as its extreme rarity makes it delicate to carry around for too long. Many sinister folks seek a grasp of the copycat’s view of things and would do anything to obtain this peculiar potion.

🔮 If you like my work, kindly consider to support me on Patreon to gain access to monster pages, tokens & artwork of over 250 quirky creatures as well as dozens of potion & item cards based on their lore.