#eberron high

[clockworkdragonffxiv]

I started my D&D campaign back in April of 2020 shortly after the COVID Lockdown hit. I was bored out of my skull and stressed, and a friend had expressed his frustration with his own D&D group and I just went "Fuck it."

I hadn't played DnD since college. I had never GM'd a tabletop game. But I had nothing better to do. So I went on to Discord into, like, the three channels I'm active in and rounded up a gaggle of friends from FFXIV and from my old City of Heroes group. For my starter campaign I used the very first Eberron campaign ever published for I think 3e or 3.5e, converted to 5e, "The Forgotten Forge."

And three and a half years, multiple cases of COVID, two rounds of cancer and chemotherapy, four or five moves, three kidney stones, multiple bouts of depression, and a half dozen job changes, we finally finished the campaign at level 16, having convinced the Lord of Blades to devote his talents to building the new Warforged nation and healing the Mournlands using the unique techno-organic warforged plants and animals we'd discovered, instead of his original plan which was to absorb the power of a Creation Engine and a Demon Overlord into himself, achieve apotheosis, and drown the world in a tide of blood.

My original plan for the final battle has in large underlined letters the phrase "Biblically Accurate Chainsaw Angel" and included a speech with lines like "LET THE SEAS BOIL AND THE SKIES FALL! LET THE WORLD BURN!"

Also probably ending up with the players picking the Red, Blue or Green endings from the End-o-Matic 9000.

But that didn't happen.

So instead, the campaign that started with our little group of heroes stumbling onto the murder of a professor with the clues to a hidden workshop, ended with the wedding of Seeker the Warforged Artificer, the man who'd talked the Lord of Blades down (despite having a Charisma of 8) and now holds the title of Maestro Seeker, is an advisor to the national leadership, and is the teacher of a whole new batch of warforged, and the warforged medic Solace, an NPC whose existence began as a joke about Seeker having a whirlwind romance with a medic in the space of about 23 minutes while the rest of the party were running errands.

Hot damn was that a lot of work. Three and a half years, and despite it starting in modules by the second I'd decided I didn't like the story as it was written, threw it out, and told my own story. Featuring friendly little fire elementals named Phil, packs of extremely patriotic and laddish mimics named Jimmy, an eight foot robotic sweetheart named Friend whose primary weapon was an equally massive tower shield and her totally-not-boyfriend warforged druid/allosaurus/swearasaurus Din, a wrestling match with a hobgoblin that nearly turned lethal when an 18 foot tall warforged titan came in with the steel chair, an alligator with a gun, and banishing the elemental dragon powering a flying battleship while A) the team was still on the battleship and B) it was still several hundred feet in the air and C) it was the only thing keeping it there... it's done.

And it was all worth it. God I love these guys. So here's to you, Katie, Jacquie, Mike, Stan, and Will. I'll see you all next week for our next adventure.

#dnd #dungeons & dragons #dnd 5e #forever DM #eberron #i want a fucking medal #anyone who runs a full campaign from 1 to high levels and herds a half dozen people into regular games should get a certificate or somethin #and for SOME REASON I'm running the next campaign too! #I mean I love GMing but still

[robustaart]

Occupational hazard

IG/TWITTER: ROBUSTAART

Dm me for commissions

#dnd #dnd5e #digitalart #illustrator #characterdesign #fantasyart #ttrpg #fanart #commission #orc girl #half orc #high elf #elf oc #artificier #iron golem #warforged #tabletop #forgotten realms #eberron

[yellowmagicalgirl]

Yay I finally have polls!

#eberron #tales of arcadia #miraculous ladybug #voltron legendary defender #ragnarok 2020 #trollhunters #3below #toawizards #thora tavin d'tarkanan #claire nuñez #erandis vol #krel tarron #isolde eidsvoll #hisirdoux casperan #adrien agreste #keith kogane #pidge gunderson #one of these characters i'm no longer a fan of but was mildly obsessed with in high school #i won't say whom though

[nythscribble]

we got a mans and his daughter

bday gift for @gray-ghost-waves <3

her draconic bloodline sorcerer as a baby with her (definitely not a dragon in disguise) father :))))

#venus #zekkian #dungeons and dragons #dnd character #dnd high elf #dnd dragon #draconic bloodline #sorcerer #dnd sorcerer #high elf sorcerer #silver dragon #dnd sorlock #sorlock #dnd ar #eberron #eberron campaign

[crewofthegoldrush]

team dad and work wives whose dink life is interrupted by their rowdy crew mates

not every found family has this dynamic but boy ours does

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #dnd 5e #Eberron #dragonborn #changeling #warforged #demetrius can get his parent friend badge back when he sobers the hell up #liseran is off leash cause she's not rowdy lmaoo #this was funnier when i was high #alt clothing idea: everybody in 'if lost please return to monty/aubrey/wayfinder #shirts #monty: im monty wayfinder: im wayfinder aubrey: keep them

[dndsettingsinfo]

High-Level Eberron Hooks by AndaliteBandit626 & SilaPrirode

#high level #eberron #hooks #ideas #lore #encounters #quests

[mimzalot]

stuck in a spin-cycle of political intrigue and emotional despair after our last D&D session (you can watch it here) next week can’t come soon enough _(:ι」∠)_

#dungeons and dragons #dnd #eberron #high prince ryger #metanoia blues #mimzariginal

[t-dubber]

#dungeons and dragons #dnd #melisandredupont #Eberron #oc #digital art #artists on tumblr #artwork #animatic #cat #tiefling #bard #critical role #dimension 20 #the adventure zone #yes I’m adding this tags to make some new friends #d20 #d20 fantasy high #dice

[the-dragonshard]

I’ve been thinking a while about my two favorite things (Eberron and Spider-Man) and I think they would actually fit together very well. Consider:

Peter Parker, a human working for the Sharn Inquisitive, is bitten by a magebred spider that escaped a secret House Vadalis facility

Swinging around Sharn would be absolutely perfect and a great way of traversing the vertical city

JJJ is now a gnome named G Gnomah Gnomeson (or alternatively, J Jonah Jorasco) and the head of the Sharn Inquisitve. He still has just as much rage, just packed into a smaller frame

Black Cat is a high-society swiftstride shifter burglar with a 30s-femme-fatale vibe

Venom was another reporter for the Sharn Inquisitive who found a Daelkyr symbiont in the lower wards which bonded with him

Green Goblin is a ghaal’dar of the Heirs of Dhakaan with talent in artifice and uses it to terrorize the people of Sharn, who built their city on old Dhakaani ruins

Vulture is a fallen aasimar (or an aasimar of Mabar)

I think I might continue making ideas for this universe in the future, or maybe some art?

#eberron #dnd #d&d #dungeons & dragons #dungeons and dragons #eberron characters #dnd5e #character idea #spider man #spiderman #spider-man #peter parker #spider man au

[rpgsandbox]

Vecna: Eve of Ruin

WHO WILL SAVE EXISTENCE?

Save existence from annihilation in this epic, multiverse-spanning adventure.

The notorious lich Vecna is weaving a ritual to eliminate good, obliterate the gods, and subjugate all worlds. To stop Vecna before he remakes the universe, the heroes work with three of the multiverse’s most famous archmages, travel to far-flung locales, and rebuild the legendary Rod of Seven Parts.

Vecna: Eve of Ruin is a high-stakes DUNGEONS & DRAGONS adventure in which the fate of the multiverse hangs in the balance. The heroes begin in the Forgotten Realms® and travel to Planescape, Spelljammer, Eberron, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk as they race to save existence from obliteration.  

A DUNGEONS & DRAGONS adventure for characters of levels 10–20. GET AN EXCLUSIVE BONUS ADVENTURE Prepare for the final battle with Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye, a single-session adventure that foreshadows the events in Vecna: Eve of Ruin. This D&D Beyond exclusive releases 4/16 and is available with digital preorder only.  

Vecna: Eve of Ruin, a 256-page hardcover adventure book for 10th to 20th level characters

Double-sided poster map

30+ Terrifying new monsters spawning from all over the multiverse

Detailed character dossiers with exclusive insights into legendary allies who you may recognize from other D&D adventures

D&D Beyond digital copy of Vecna: Eve of Ruin

PREORDER TO UNLOCK:

D&D Beyond access to Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye, starting April 16, 2024

Early access to Vecna: Eve of Ruin on D&D Beyond, starting May 7, 2024

Hardcover – 21 May 2024, from Wizards of the Coast.

#RPG #Dungeons and Dragons #Vecna #Wizards of the Coast

[honourablejester]

Random Thoughts around D&D Westerns

Okay. So this started out as me thinking about character concepts for a D&D western-type campaign, and then moved to me thinking about setting elements for a western campaign, and then devolved into me thinking about both westerns and D&D style fantasy as genres, so like … bear with me? I’m trying to figure out how to pull this back and put it in order.

But. Okay. Let’s do it the way I did it. Let’s start from the characters.

So I’ve been noodling around the odd western type character concept for D&D the last little while, things like a druid/light cleric using guiding bolt for high noon style duels (and thorn whip as a lasso), and probably stemming originally from Kossi, my knowledge cleric/fey ranger frontier postwoman character that I’m playing in a solo campaign. So I was thinking about western characters in D&D, and thinking about the archetypes of westerns and how they’d fit.

You have things like the lone wanderer seeking justice or vengeance. The sly gambler with the heart of gold. The fire and brimstone preacher. The fiery homesteader fighting to drive bandits or railway barons off their land. The taciturn bounty hunter more at home in the wilderness than the town. The bewildered easterner about to get a sharp lesson in the way of things out west. The civil war veteran (of either side) trying to make a new life out here where people don’t care who you were, and where the rough and tumble lessons of war won’t look too out of place. The foolish miner lured to his death by greed for gold. The desperado determined to die free, go out in a blaze of glory.

The western, as a genre, is evocative. And, well, of course it is. The western is basically an attempt to valorise and mythologise a particular period of history, to gild over or ignore or straight up heroicise the, uh, less than laudable elements of that era. It’s a mythology, so of course it has some very evocative imagery.

But it is, also, a product/reimagining of a very specific historical and cultural context. And there’s elements of that particular setting that maybe you don’t want to carry over. And others that you do, but they need some set up to build in.

So I started thinking about how to get a western setting, how to make a campaign that would feel like a western. And there are …

See, the thing is, D&D kind is a lot of the way there already? When you think about the kind of stories that show up in westerns, the band of heroes defending a town, or the hunters sent out into the wilderness to track down a dangerous foe. Westerns definitely are one of the progenitor genres for D&D’s whole brand of fantasy to begin with. So what would make a setting feel more deliberately western than just standard D&D?

And, I mean. You have your basic biome shift. Put the story somewhere more arid, like the stereotypical western desert, instead of in a European forest analogue, and already it feels a bit more western. There’s also technology. Firearms, a telegraph analogue, trains. Bring some Eberron elements in, that’ll shift things a bit. But are those just cosmetic changes? Well. Yes but no. Put a pin in that for later. For now, ignoring what a western setting looks like, what does a western setting feel like?

And I think, to a large extent, it comes down to theme. Westerns had a particular set of themes that ran through them, and that’s where the backbone of your setting will come from.

So. Some of the themes I think you see a lot in westerns:

Land Ownership/Land Custodianship/Territory. Westerns are about land, on an extremely intrinsic level. It’s where the colonial underpinnings of the entire genre really show up. Think of all the western books and movies and series you’ve seen that are about claiming land and then defending that claim. So many stories are about being driven off your land. The homesteader under threat from robber barons and cattle barons and railway barons. Towns under threat from ‘Indians’. Miners getting driven off their claims. Who owns what territory. Who has the right to hold what territory. Who can defend their right to that territory. And there is … there’s a cyclical kind of terror in there. A cyclical colonisation. Because the first settlers went out there and took land from the first nations, set up their own towns and ways of life, and then the great civilising forces of the east, the railways and the telegraph wires and the big ranches, rolled in and stole it from them in turn. There’s a kind of a ‘what you do unto others will be done unto you’ sort of terror underpinning a lot of the ethos of the genre. The central theme of a lot of westerns is, basically, the territorial dispute. The land, who owns the land.

Resources/The Lure of Gold. Linked to that, there’s the resources of the land, and who gets to use them, and how far do they get to use them, and who gets murdered in the process. Gold rush. Oil. Lumber. Water. Again, very much linked back to the territorial dispute, but often in a more directly destructive way. Who can not just own the land but destroy the land. How much does owning the land give you the right to use it. And, linked from that, if you own one bit of land, and you destroy it, how does that affect, say, everything downstream of your land? (Mines and mining has a lot of knock on effects).

Civilisation vs Wilderness/Urban vs Rural. Again, linked back, but a lot of the underlying mythology of the Wild West was about being that halfway place, between the full untamed wilderness (or the full ‘savagery’ of the native peoples) and the full civilisation of the big eastern cities. A lot of (particularly later) westerns are about valorising that lost freedom and independence and rough and tumble ‘honesty’, before the railways came through and the cities built up. Which leads to a smaller scale:

Personal Freedom vs Rule of Law. Outlaws. Sheriffs. Bounty Hunters. Gunslingers. The fundamental conflict between a person’s right to do what they think best, exacerbated by so many people feeling like they had to do things for themselves because they were on their own out in the ‘wilderness’, and the need for the civilising, but also potentially tyrannical, forces of law and order. Bringing law and civilisation to the wild frontier. Personal vengeance vs impersonal justice. Corruption. Freedom. Basically, a lot of the conflict in a western will primarily run along the law vs chaos alignment axis. Good and evil depend on your interpretations of the players involved, but the fundament of the conflict will be order vs chaos. And also:

‘Progress’ vs Preservation. The thing about westerns, particularly the ‘golden age’ between the end of the civil war and around about the 1890s, was that they were right in the middle of that 19th century theme of industrialisation. As well as the colonial theme of ‘progressive civilisation vs backwards barbarism’ (hence the inverted commas on ‘progress’). This is a whole bundling together of the above themes, but westerns had a definite theme of encroaching progress. The old way of life being bulldozed for the new. The railroads are coming. Law and order are coming. The old rough and tumble frontier life is dying. The last great gunslinger is about to have his final duel. The famous desperadoes are going out in a blaze of glory. Progress is coming. And it will destroy everything in its path. But will it be a better future? And again, that kind of ties back to the colonial thing. Westerns are weirdly poised where the white settlers are experiencing what they did to those before them.

So. With all of that said. How much of that do we want to emulate? How much of that do we need to emulate? Maybe I don’t want to get into colonialism and land ownership right now, maybe all I want is a setting where a lonesome spellslinger can wander up to a desert town seeking justice, or a rough and tumble party can get together to defend a town from some desperadoes.

But. On a macro geographic level. I do think there’s some elements you want about your setting to set up those kinds of stories.

On a basic level, you want a large region of contested, non-urbanised and non-agriculturalised land (at least in the European sense of ‘endless fields of tillage’), that is divided up into a lot of small territories, where the largest urban areas tend to be towns at best, and large sections of it are claimed by various different groups or even individual owners. This region needs to be bordered by one or several very urbanised and centrally controlled powers. Probably several, not necessarily because you want to directly mirror North vs South or America vs Mexico, but because this region has been the recipient of the leftovers of a lot of outside conflicts. It’s where people come to hide, or reinvent themselves.

And it’s also where people, powers, come to build themselves. So you want to give it resources. Things people want to come and take. The constant theme in westerns is, someone wants your land. Someone wants your gold. Someone wants your town. And why? What do you have that someone wants?

Maybe, since we’re in fantasy western territory, you want to give it a rare, mystical resource. Maybe you can link that up to the theme of progress, too. A particular mineral that allows the manufacture of more powerful, durable spellstones, that would enable someone to set up a network of sending stone stations that would allow news (and information for outside powers) to flow more easily. You know. A telegraph network. Anyway.

So. A large, divided, contested region, not directly occupied by but of interest to several nearby urbanised, civilised powers. An area where there has been a lot of successive waves of people coming in, often from conflicts in or between those surrounding civilised powers. An area with a distinctly fractured and individualistic ethos as a result. An area that maybe always did, because it was never natively inhabited by empire-building societies. Everyone is this land has always claimed their own piece, just big enough for themselves, and been content with that. Yeah, bigger groups wanted more, and wars were had, because people are people, but this idea of ever-expanding ‘progress’ is new and weird and kind of terrifying.

Is this sounding a lot like a typical D&D setting again? Well, I did say D&D has a lot of western in its bones.

So. How do you make it distinct, then? Is it just cosmetic elements, biome shifts and different technology? Give it a more directly desert, 19th century vibe? And, well, that is part of it. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be technology. You don’t have to give everyone a gun. There just has to be a theme of progress. Maybe it is that sending stone network. Maybe you do want to invent a fantasy railway. But you don’t necessarily need gunslingers directly.

As an option for the gun thing, you could give every character, regardless of class, a free ranged attack cantrip. Make it part of the local culture. Defense of home. Every kid in these parts gets taught enough magic to manage that. Shit, hon, everyone teaches their five year olds how to throw a firebolt around here. What if they meet critters out there? Or worse, people?

Mostly, you want to theme your adventures around small, independent towns and groups. You want a lot of the conflict to be over land, over who has the right to be where, over who has the right to take what. You want external regional threats that are attempting to push into the area, often under the guise of for its own good. You want a theme of freedom vs law. You want wilderness vs civilisation. Or ‘wilderness’ vs ‘civilisation’, given how loaded those terms are from a standing start. You want progress as both a promise and a threat. You want natural resources, you want greed, you want boom towns and magical mining and the communities downstream that are paying for it. You want bands of outlaws running from foreign wars and making it everyone else’s problem. You want folk heroes of dubious morality. You want big powers talking about big projects, like driving a new trade route straight through someone else’s territory, like stealing rivers to bring water to cities two hundred miles away, like carving out a whole mountain that doesn’t belong to them to fuel a magical revolution in another city just as far.

And, yeah. Looping back to character concepts and plot elements. Some specific elements and ideas that I might personally include:

An apprentice wizard who’s working as a sending stone operator for the newly established United Sending Corporation station in the local town. It’s the big new thing! You can send messages instantly to any town that has one! Think of how easy it’ll be to get news! It only costs a bit per message. And yeah, the USC high ups are all big city folk from down on the coast, but hey! All the operators are local, and it is a good idea! So why not, huh?

A local druid who’s been seeing strange new afflictions in the plants and animals in their area, and who has come to town to see if anyone else has been having similar issues. And a few people have, mostly along waterways leading back to a particular area of the mountains. Incidentally, there’s also a lot of wagon traffic and provisioners moving through town. Miners and supplies moving out to a big new claim in the mountains …

A wandering itinerant preacher-slash-teacher of a gentle god who, this last little while, has been found themselves moving through towns where another, clearly much more militant preacher has been there ahead of them, and who has been riling up local tensions in ways that they’re beginning to suspect are deliberate. Setting towns on towns, tribes on tribes. Misplaced zeal, or perhaps a more long-reaching attempt to clear a path through the area for something else?

A genteel gambler who’s maintained a careful circuit around some of the local settlements for some time now, taking care not to over-harvest their flock at any one place, has started hearing whispers of a new group of bandits in the area, and some of the whispered names are worryingly familiar, echoes of the good old bad old days, when they were a different person in a different place, and under a different name …

A lean, hard, soft-spoken ranger, who ain’t got no home, who hasn’t had a home in forty years, who gets paid good money to track people down and bring ‘em in, and who has been wondering, after these last couple jobs, just who exactly has been setting the bounties in this area. Because there’s starting to be a pattern in their targets, and they’re starting not to like it.

A tired fighter, not even forty years old and already grizzled, with an albatross around their neck in the form of a legend. A bright young child who watched everything they loved be destroyed, home burned, family killed, and land stolen, and who became the fastest, meanest, most dangerous spellsword in the land in response. But that was thirty fucking years ago, and vengeance can only sustain you for so long, and now they’re broke down and broke up, and so fucking tired of all these young idiots trying to make a name for themselves out of their hide.

A charming, vicious sorcerer with a very visible scar who tends to respond dramatically to threats, and who takes a certain amount of perverse pride in being the ‘bad element’ in any town they wind up in, but who maybe, if it was offered, wouldn’t say no to chance to be better regarded than that. At least in one place. At least by one person.

Because, you know, as tangled and thorny as the genre is, westerns do have some really fucking iconic archetypes, and they are fun. Throw magic on top of it, and it is a vibe. I do enjoy it. Just, you know. You’ve got to set it up a bit carefully around the implications. Heh.

#d&d #fantasy #westerns #weird westerns #themes of the genre #character concepts #setting concepts #rambling

[barilleon]

System Recommendations Based On What I Like About D&D

Sometimes you want to play a different system because you are looking for a brand-new experience. Sometimes you want to play a different system because you have an ethical objection to the one you're playing now. If you're the latter, you probably don't want to hear about how awesome games like Orbital Blues and Stillfleet are. They are awesome, but right now you're looking for a system to move to that can capture the magic you feel playing Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. This post is for you.

Here are the parts of D&D 5e that I really enjoy:

Involved Character Customization ("Build Creating")

Tactical Combat

Ability to use Magic

Appealing World

High Fantasy With Heroic, Upbeat, or even Comedic Undertones

Getting to be Gay with my Friends

Each of my recommendations has at least two of these factors and is intended to be played in a group setting over multiple sessions. So let's jump in!

Blue Rose (or The AGE System)

Features: Tactical Combat, Build Creating, Magic, Appealing World, High Fantasy, Gay

Blue Rose uses the AGE System, which might be some of my favorite tactical combat design. In particular, I love stunts. When you roll good in combat or other scenarios, you get stunt points, which you can spend to create additional effects, like setting up a teammate or taunting your opponent. There's a lot of options to choose from when building a character, and you can make some of that stuff synergize real well. This is all true of most AGE system games, so I'd also recommend checking out Fantasy AGE and the Dragon Age TTRPG.

Blue Rose in particular is all about Romantic Fantasy: humans going on fantastical adventures with magic talking animals, protecting the land and those who would harm it, that kind of stuff. The setting is also explicitly queer, and "relationships" are an emphasized part of character creation and development. Found Family all over the place.

If you liked The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, or the Uncaged anthologies, you might enjoy Blue Rose!

7th Sea

Features: Tactical "Combat," Magic, Appealing World

7th Sea is all about swashbuckling adventure, court intrigue, and intense action. There technically isn't a "combat" system in 7th Sea, so much as there is an "action" system. Swordfights, escaping a burning ship, high-stakes chases: all that stuff uses the same system, where you have to think about how to set up good opportunities. The combat is meant to be fast-paced. GMs are encouraged to not give players too much time to think.

The world is full of secret societies and shadow organizations, as one would expect for a game about gentlefolk and intrigue. One of my favorite parts in particular is the "Story," which is what 7th Sea calls a PC's backstory. There are guidelines for creating one, with expectations and progression hard-coded in, from the First Step to the ultimate resolution.

There's a lot here to do with Ship Combat. If you liked Ghosts of Saltmarsh or 3rd Party products like the Seas of Vodari, give this a look.

Thirsty Sword Lesbians

Features: Upbeat Fantasy, GAY

Let me start by saying that you can play this game in any genre. In the Advanced Lovers and Lesbians expansion there's even rules for playing a session as a pack of hyenas. But if your table is the type to really lean hard into developing your characters' relationships, between PC and NPC and PC and PC, then this is the game for you. Mechanics allow you to place strings on other characters, giving you "pull" with them to influence a later decision. Status conditions are extreme emotions, and the only way to deal with them is to lean on another teammate for emotional support or indulge them in a cathartic and destructive manner (you can relieve being angry by breaking something that has value to another person, for example).

If you are gay and you play D&D you are legally obligated to try TSL. I DO make the rules.

Court of Blades

Features: Magic, Appealing World

When folks say they like Eberron and want to do crimes, I tell them to play Blades in the Dark. When folks say they like fey magic and high society and doing dirty work for wealthy patrons, I tell them to play its sexy cousin Court of Blades. CoB is a Forged in the Dark game, meaning it uses the Blades system. Instead of a heist crew, you're a coterie, and you perform errands for your patron that run the gamut from assaulting a rival to publicly embarrassing them.

One of my favorite parts about FitD systems is how it handles the aftermath of your adventures. Different groups across the city might react differently to the news, and that propels future adventures. The City of Ilrien is full of hooks and briars for your characters and GMs to get stuck on.

Court of Blades might seem like the outlier on this list, but my favorite official 5e adventure was Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. If you liked that one too, and you're looking to lean into that WAY more, you should give CoB a look.

#my blogs

[vigilskeep]

as like a general rule you'll find a lot of contemporary dnd settings (such as forgotten realms, eberron, etc) are very inclusive and have options in-world for gender affirming treatments (unlike settings such as idk dragon age. it's the nature of dnd that you can get away with realistically anything if you think about it long enough. ESPECIALLY IN FORGOTTEN REALMS).

but. the "wyll's pact doesn't even come with hrt" took me the fuck out. god. yeah you could def say you got some hrt with your warlock pact. i mean it wouldn't be the most efficient method. but oh my god. anyways i'll be thinking about trans wyll for the rest of the week. thanks.

yeah i think that’s the nature of the high magic setting and also the, like, tone. i do believe in magical gender affirming care in dragon age, and its existence is, i believe, even canon (?). i do not believe that it’s broadly socially acceptable and talked about—especially the magical stuff, considering literally anything abt the worldbuilding—and that’s just, like, the nature of the world you’re playing in. i don’t show up to my dark fantasy games looking for sunny escapism but i do look to them with the firm conviction that queer people will always be using the tools at their disposal to do wondrous things. whereas baldur’s gate, to my understanding so far, is set in a world where we get to jump straight past all that into enjoying a fantasy adventure however we want, which i ALSO love. love to have two cakes

i don’t think morghaine made a warlock pact for hrt but it’s nice to throw in there, isn’t it. as a bonus. they’re not made of money. see, wyll, these are the kind of benefits you’d be getting if you read the terms & conditions

#i dont know anything yet so all the companions are trans to me in a kind of schrodingers situation

[ozcarr]

oz can you tell me about your tabletop robot guy who is sometimes a regular guy sometime I'm so curious

Gingey you are so real for this because you FUCKING KNOW I’ll write an essay about him. But I will give you the (still extremely long) reader's digest version.

His name is Aurelio and he's Wizard/Fighter in me and the homies' hiatus-ed Strixhaven (D&D magic college) game.

idk if you have familiarity with Eberron and the Warforged but basically there was this huge century-long, continental war, and things progressed to the extent the government was manufacturing soldiers to like. You know, fight and kill and die for them. Aurelio was built by a private contractor to be a battle mage and gained consciousness 2 days before a peace treaty was signed and all the Warforged were granted citizens' rights. So he was never dispatched and spent the following year and a half kind of just rotting away in a workshop, only 90% finished with only books and newspapers to learn about the world from.

A lot of the people in Ebberon do NOT like the warforged because they're relics of a really scary and dire war (and also they're like. Built to be soldiers, with all that entails.) Aurelio is really book-smart but has a lot of internalized guilt about being inherently dangerous and he also kind of lacks identity. And he's mesmerized by life and death and the human experiences — stuff like falling in love and growing old. He's determined that the only way he'll ever be happy is if he somehow becomes an organic lifeform, and decides that the best way to go about achieving that is through reincarnation (a spell that must be performed by a 9th level druid). Whether becoming a Regular Guy would ACTUALLY fix him or not... remains to be seen. What he wants and what I want for him are usually sorta at odds.

Anyway -- what better place to find a high-level mage than academia? So Aurelio gets really good at basic illusion spells and crafts a little persona based on his creator and his creator's two sons. Cause he doesn't wanna make people uncomfortable. And he thinks he’d be happier playing out this little fantasy.

He steals some military academy records, and ships himself off to Wizard College... in hopes that he can live some facsimile of human (elf?) experience, secure the allyship of a druid, figure out what he wants to do with his life one he gets it, then self-destruct at the opportune time so that his new druid buddy can randomly generate him a new body.

But he makes all these wonderful friends and has to keep them at arm's length because he's constantly lying to them, even though he's a terrible liar. Until he feels he can't do it anymore and finally tells them. But he's in too deep, he's married to his little lie (not to mention he faked his identity to the school), so he just keeps up with the disguise -- up until recent in-game events which caused his world to shatter a little bit.

He's super emotional (because he's basically brand new and every feeling is new and horrible), a little mischievous, cagey, lacks tact, and is constantly fucking up his interpersonal relationships. But he’s well-meaning and earnest. All he knows how to do is lie (illusion magic) and wreck shit (lighting-damage evocation magic). He wants to be a good, gentle person and a good friend but he's so self-involved that his actions usually backfire in some way.

That's the guy! He's a mess!

#You asked. I'm sorry #he was *just* kinda starting a fucked up little journey of self identity and acceptance when we hit pause. so maybe he’ll figure it all out #one day #Aurelio #ayy im talkin here #asks #gingey

[theresattrpgforthat]

My absolute favorite D&D setting is Eberron. I love it to pieces, although I’ve never gotten the chance to play in it. My favorite things about the setting are 1) the potential for both pulpy adventure and juicy noirish intrigue and 2) the frequent moral ambiguity of characters and factions. The magitech is fun too, but that’s just a bonus. So I’ve been thinking: is there another game that can tide me over while I wait for the Sharn campaign of my dreams?

THEME: Pulp and Intrigue

There’s a lot of themes you’re trying to hit here all at once, so I’m going to do my best here. I’m breaking it down as follows:

1. I’m looking for games that can accommodate pulp adventure (dramatic, fast-paced, simple stories)

2. I’m looking for games that can also accommodate noir themes and intrigue.

3. I’m looking for games with morally ambiguous factions and people.

Atomic Robo RPG, by Evil Hat.

Action! Science! Robots! Punching! More Science!

Are you ready for some two-fisted science adventure? Then it's time for the Atomic Robo RPG! Have you ever wanted to face down global conspiracy as an immortal atomic robot or Carl Sagan? The Atomic Robo RPG makes it possible.

The Atomic Robo RPG brings you the most explosive Fate Core System experience yet. This is action science like you've never seen it before, coming straight at you from the pages of the popular Atomic Robo comics by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener. Play as an Action Scientist or immortal robot, super-spy or pulp adventurer—or something stranger still from the hidden corners of super-science!

This game combines wacky hiking with big conspiracies and various morally grey corporations and societies. Sure some of the folks you meet are probably pretty cartoonishly evil, but you work for Tesladyne - how morally good are you? Either way, get ready to shoot things with lasers, create impossible machines, and fight an undead Thomas Edison after he tries to get revenge on your boss.

Fae Noir, by Green Fairy Games.

The Great War is over, but its scars have yet to heal.

Will you play a pistol-packing elf or magic-slinging private eye? Fast-driving bootlegger or tango-dancing troll?

It is the Roaring 20's and everyone wants to forget the horrors of a war that spanned continents and dimensions. But the changes it wrought are not so easily dismissed. Humanity struggles to understand a world of re-awakened magic and folklore come to life. The fae, failed invaders from the lands of faery, find themselves adrift in the unfamiliar modern world, living relics of the past. It is an era of jazz and exploration, of art deco and danger; a time when the fists and courage of individuals can determine the course of history.

Fae Noir is a role-playing game set in the chaotic, pivotal decade of an alternate world where creatures of mythology returned from self-imposed exile at the height of World War I.

This is an intriguing mix of magic and noir set in a time period full of tension and high stakes. You can play as a human or one of ten different Fae races. Characters use a point-build system, and the game is run primarily off d8s. The stats given to characters are more focused on adventure than on social situations, so if you’re more into kicking down the front door of a local gangster or holding your breath in the canal so that you can sneak into the local prison rather than sweet-talking the mayor at the next soiree.

Escape from Dino Island, by Sam Tung & Sam Roberts.

Escape from Dino Island is a thrilling adventure game about intrepid heroes trapped on an island overrun with creatures from a lost age—dinosaurs!

Players take on the role of everyday people who are brave and competent, but also in over their head. The game is designed to help you create the kind of stories that are full of action and suspense, but in which fighting is rarely a good option.

Will you escape with your life? And what kind of person will you become in your quest to survive? There’s only one way to find out…

If you want pulp adventure this is a great little game to get you there. Escape from Dino Island doesn’t have much in noir themes on the tin but if you want to ask questions about how the dinosaurs got there, how your characters got there, and who might be trying to profit from this while situation, you might have the makings of a bigger mystery. (Plus there’s dinosaurs, and if there’s one thing I know about Eberron, is that it’s got dinosaurs.) 

Urban Jungle, by Sanguine Productions.

The early 20th century of the United States was rife with fantastic change: from the rise of industry giants, to the great experiment of Prohibition, to the tragedy of the Great Depression, onto the dawn of the Atomic Age. The sky was tamed, the world was mapped, and the possibilities of science seemed limitless, all blue skies and buttered toast…

… for some folks, anyway.

A complete game in one volume, URBAN JUNGLE makes you a player in an anthropomorphic world of pulp-adventure, hard-boiled crime, and film noir. You’ll tangle with hardened gangsters, with jaded debutantes, with world-wear wary veterans, and with all kinds of shady characters.

Urban Jungle has a number of different cities to base your stories in, from the New-Orleans-style Bellegarde, to the Californian-inspired San Dorado, to the tribute to Miami that is Sunshine City. The GM section has some solid advice, such as the kinds of threats you can send against players, and how to use NPC death. The idea is that Urban Jungle will eat you alive (metaphorically) if your characters aren’t careful - there’s money to be made and schmucks to swindle, so you’ll have to be smart, savvy, and suave to get what you’re looking for, whether that be answers, safety, or your next meal. 

Swords of the Serpentine, by Pelgrane Press.

You round the bend past the lower fort and there she is: the great city of Eversink, sprawled out on scores of islands across the sheltered water. She may be ancient and corrupt, slowly and inexorably swallowed by an endless bog; but she’s alive in a way most cities aren’t. She’s a melding of faith and stone and wood and water – and mud – that’s unique in all the world. 

It doesn’t matter whether you’ve come to kill a rival, earn a fortune, learn a secret, or hire an army. You’re home now, and the Sinking City will embrace you. All you need to do is survive.

Swords of the Serpentine is a sword & sorcery game of daring heroism, sly politics, and bloody savagery, set in a fantasy city rife with skullduggery and death. The rules adapt the GUMSHOE investigative roleplaying system to create a fantasy RPG with a focus on high-action roleplaying and investigation inspired by the stories of Fritz Leiber, Terry Pratchett, Robert E. Howard, and others.

Your characters will discover leads that, if followed, propel them headlong into danger and forbidden knowledge. A lead might point the way to sunken treasure, jungle ruins, the missing key to a sorcerous trap, or the true identity of a notorious murderer. The GUMSHOE game mechanics ensure that you’ll always notice leads if you look for them. It’s up to you to choose which one you'll follow into whatever perils lie ahead, in hopes of fortune, glory, justice, or just staying alive another day.

If you want magic and mystery, Swords and Serpentine has it. If you want alliances and intrigue, this game also has it. Eversink is a city with many different organizations fighting for a piece of the cake that your characters can get involved in, make deals with, and try not to get stabbed in the process. There’s also a robust social system to help your characters navigate political situations where their opponents might have sorcery, curses, alchemy and more up their sleeve - and all the corruption that comes with it. 

If you want to track down foul sorcerers in a corrupt and decadent city, clamber through underground ruins to sneak into an enemy’s home and rob them, or wage a secret war against a rival political faction, you’re in the right place.

#tabletop games #dnd #asks #game recommendations #indie ttrpgs #noir #pulp

[orcelito]

so i only got into One of the fighting panels (big sad, but also theyre in high demand apparently, so the fact that i did get one of them is still something to celebrate)

also got into the TAZ book launch event (for the suffering game volume, WHICH this event gives out a copy of the book to all atendees!), which was honesty probably the one that i absolutely wanted to go to + the one that there are no other alternatives for. also very happy to have gotten into the eberron panel and the critical role artists panel. AND the mcelroy signing & selfie (i caved and decided to go for it, so im gonna be meeting the mcelroys (minus justin) in august!). mcelroy TTRPG panel, which is now sold out lol. AND some fun crafts with the dice set bracelet and the learning how to make chainmaille. the GM writer panel is like perfectly geared to me, bc it's meant for writers who want to get into GMing, which is like. EXACTLY me.

so yea maybe i only got the saber fighting event (weeping about the lack of the sword and knife events) but it's still Something, and im still happy with the other ones i got, too!

#speculation nation #the website is lagging under the weight of all the users. so since ive confirmed there are no available alternatives for the fighting event #im just going to let it rest for now. and once signups have calmed down more #i'll go back in and see if there are any other events that interest me. #right now there are tens of thousands of people fighting for event availability and you can REALLY see it with the website lmfao #man. ive been anxious about this since i woke up. so im glad to finally have it dealt with (for now)