THINKING ABOUT The Merging Of Sailors And Ship That Takes Place In The Act Of Sailing & How The Ship

Art by KJKallo. If it ever becomes possible to play as a skeleton, I think they should be flimsy, tireless, and reliable: a sentinel that keeps watch for the party but can often get bonked down in combat. Here's a crack at it - with an entire lore section based off a wint tweet lmao

i think reframing 'writing a campaign' or 'writing a plot' as writing beats has dramatically changed the quality of my dming. for me personally, i work best when i have a world with pieces that would be moving (regardless of whether the players would be there but obviously, you put the players in the crosshairs to effect change) and plan each 2-4 sessions as its own small story and i've developed a method that really works for me that i use for oneshots, mini campaigns, and in arcs for longer games.

[ID: a screenshot of a bullet point list with template headers: Location, Framing Plot (subheaders Social, Exploration, and Combat), Key NPCS, World Plot Progression, Player Hooks (subheaders repeating Player to be replaced with a PC's name)]

to further explain:

Location(s) — where the sessions will likely take place, so I have a manageable list of places to develop further in terms of worldbuilding.

Framing Plot — What is happening, what is the inciting the incident and what are the things the players cannot control. Then the subheaders are the three tiers of play. I think it's important to have an idea to tap into all of them or lean heavier into what your party is interested in but consider all of them for fun and exciting Mechanical gameplay as well as story and roleplay.

Key NPCS — Who are the NPCS that are going to be important to the framing and to the players. This is usually just a handful.

World Plot Progression — How does / how will the events of this scenario push forward what your players are working towards?

Player Hooks — Specific thoughts for how to connect the framing plot to each player character and make each player feel invested and like their choices matter.

and that's what I do to plot out my games. It's never "this is how things will resolve" it is, "this is what the situation is and this is how i want to connect my players to it and see what they do"

Game-Changing Sites for Writers

A recent search for a specific type of site to help me build new characters led me down a rabbit hole. Normally, that would make me much less productive, but I have found a treasure trove of websites for writers.

Bring Characters/Places to Life

There are a few different places you can use to create a picture of something entirely new. I love this site for making character pictures as references, instead of stock photos or whatever pops up on Google Images.

thispersondoesnotexist: every time you reload the page, this site generates a headshot of someone who doesn't exist. This is great if you're thinking about a character's personality or age and don't have specifics for their facial features yet.

Night Cafe: this is an AI art generator that takes your text prompt and generates an image for it. I tried it for various scenery, like "forest" or "cottage." It takes a minute for your requested photo to load, but no more than maybe five for the program to finish the picture.

Art Breeder: this website has endless images of people, places, and general things. Users can blend photos to create something new and curious visitors can browse/download those images without creating an account. (But if you do want to make an account to create your own, it's free!)

Find Random Places on Earth

You might prefer to set a story in a real-life environment so you can reference that place's weather, seasons, small-town vibe, or whatever you like. If that's the case, try:

MapCrunch: the homepage generates a new location each day and gives the location/GPS info in the top left of the screen. To see more images from previous days, hit "Gallery" in the top left.

Atlas Obscura: hover over or tap the "Places" tab, then hit "Random Place." A new page will load with a randomly generated location on the planet, provide a Google Maps link, and tell you a little bit about the place.

Random World Cities: this site makes randomly selected lists of global cities. Six appear for each search, although you'll have to look them up to find more information about each place. You can also use the site to have it select countries, US cities or US states too.

Vary Your Wording

Thesauruses are great, but these websites have some pretty cool perspectives on finding just the right words for stories.

Describing Words: tell this website which word you want to stop repeating and it will give you tons of alternative words that mean the same thing. It typically has way more options than other sites I use.

Reverse Dictionary: type what you need a word for in Reverse Dictionary's search box and it will give you tons of words that closely match what you want. It also lists the words in order of relevancy, starting with a word that most accurately describes what you typed. (There's also an option to get definitions for search results!)

Tip of My Tongue: this website is phenomenal. It lets you search for that word you can't quite place by a letter in it, the definition, what it sounds like, or even its scrambled letters. A long list of potential options will appear on the right side of the screen for every search.

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Hope this helps when you need a hand during next writing session 💛

Dungeon: The Shattered Garden

“ Careful not to cut yourself on all this Pretty” 

Adventure Hooks: 

Seeking a precious artifact, the party is force to make a harrowing climb up freezing, alpine mountains to gain access to a castle that was said to have fallen from the sky. Finding the ruins of this structure deep within a mountain rift, they must explore a labyrinth of jagged shards and broken halls, hoping that the whole beautiful calamity doesn’t cave in. 

What a miserable place for a heist. What treasure is so grand that it could make a self-respecting thief leave the poorly guarded vaults and easily duped nobles of the city, trudge halfway up a mountain, and risk freezing their precious lock-picking fingers off in the process? How about the Hyborian Stylus, a weapon of such power that any warmage worth their salt would pay out the nose for the chance at wielding it.  To get their hands on this treasure, the party will need to outwit an ostentatious but heinously bloodthirsty oni by the name of Banehail, who treats the dungeon as her own personal gallery/art instillation.

Sometimes things in the life of an adventurer are simple. You hear rumors that someone saw a castle made out of clouds crash-landing on a mountainside, you grab some friends, go on a hike, and investigate. Maybe you get eaten by wolves, maybe you grow as a person by confronting the unkown, it’s not that complicated. 

Challenges & Complications: 

Situated at the bottom of fissure high up in an alpine mountain range, the party will have to battle through harsh conditions to even get to the dungeon site, and then figure out a reliable way of getting down into the dungeon, ascending up with their prize, and finding their way back down the mountain. This may not prove too challenging to a party only interested in stealing one or two items from the dungeon, but the Garden is filled with numerous, weighty treasures, all of which can slow the party’s escape. 

While some rooms and pockets of surrounding architecture survived the impact unscathed, most were either reduced to reduced to piles of jagged detritus or so structurally compromised that they might as well be uninhabitable. The party must test their caving skills, managing tight squeezes through once beatific galleries or prepare descents into wings that now slope at treacherous angles. Delicate floors crack like glass under the party’s treasure-laden footstep, and ceilings may at any time collapse into razors if too much damage is done to the surrounding rooms. 

Entering the Shattered garden is no protection from the chill outside, as harsh boreal winds surge through particular hallways and seek to rip the life-giving heat from a potential explorer’s bones. THe greatest of these dangers is gallery which contains the Hyborian Stylus itself, which may freeze characters solid if they linger in it too long. If the alarm is sounded, the elemental denizens of this dungeon may paradoxically open the doors to this most valuable of treasures, transforming the Shattered Garden into an indoor blizzard in the hopes of flushing out the warm-blooded intruders. 

This dungeon is part of a larger adventure path “A Kingdom Washed Away”, which you can find the rest of @dailyadventureprompts​

Jason Isaacs as Colonel William Tavington in “The Patriot”

Mystery: Butcher in the Backwoods

There’s a reason everyone everyone goes to bed so early out in the country. 

Adventure Hooks: 

The party has come to the small village of Tolthurt, perhaps because they were traveling through the region with a caravan, or because their quest takes them to a dungeon in the nearby wilderness.  After getting out of the rain and arranging lodging for the night ( Tolthurt is so small that it’s inn is more of a common room the party is welcome to lay their bedrolls out on), the party meets with Ralson Rollick, an over-the-hill bard who boasts a cheery attitude and a love of the minstrel’s trade despite never making it big. While they swap stories about their travels, Ralson takes a shine to the party, and hints he might’ve learned something that’ll be of interest to them, which he’ll tell them about once he’s sobered up in the morning.    

When the party awakes, they discover a crowd of villagers clustered around a body laying in the road. Half submerged in mud and blood, the victim has been heavily mauled, but is very clearly Ralson, robbed along with his life of his instruments, packs, and his purse.  Tolhurt’s Mayor insists that no one be allowed to leave until the killers are caught, as clearly Ralson was set upon by a group of attackers, which puts the party and their traveling companions as the primary suspects. 

Though regarded with suspicion, the publican at the commonroom insists she saw the party there all night, and on her word they’re allowed to attempt to prove their innocence. Asking the villagers about Ralson’s activities reveal he was in town for a few days claiming to need to rest from a long time on the road, while examining his body reveals it wasn’t blades he was savaged by, but claws and teeth. Clearly something more than petty banditry is going on here, which the party will obviously discover on the second night when their wagon and mounts mysteriously go missing, preventing them from easily leaving town. 

Setup: Raimus Rollick wasn’t just a minstrel, but an agent of the duke’s court, sent to investigate strange goings on in Tolthurt by his liege’s request. Through stealthy observation he discovered that ancestral enemies of the Duke’s family had survived a clash between their clans, and settled in Tolthurt to bide their time and lick their wounds. 

Said enemies (The Ibrerynne)  happened to be a family of werewolves, who in the intervening generations have expanded themselves into a pack, swaying key individuals such as the mayor with the promise of predatory power, while threatening others (like the stablemaster) with savage violence should their secret ever leak.  The Iberynne family themselves live near constantly in wolf form, dwelling in a tumbeldown ruin that they’ve made into their new “estate” and stewing in their decades long thoughts of revenge. Raimus found one of their noble seals in the mayor’s office (the Ibrerynne had been reaching out to old allies and needed someone to handle their mail), and put it, a coded letter to the duke, and his emblem of safe travel in the party’s bag before he was killed by the Ibrerynne following him. 

The mayor, having not yet received his marching orders from his half-feral masters, didn’t know who’d killed the minstrel or why, but knew he needed to defer blame. A good number of Tolthurt’s inhabitants don’t know anything about the werewolves in the forest, and his job was to keep it that way.  For their part, the Iberynne are finding the seal at any cost, and are cutting off hope of escape from the village one avenue at a time, will the party realize it before it’s too late? 

Keep reading

You can take your honor with you to the grave. I’m not dying for someone else’s war; I’m not dying for anyone but myself!

So says a Deserter, who takes the military training of a warrior and bends it to means most unsavory. Highly adept at hitting enemies when they’re down, but against an opponent who can give a straight fight, a Deserter will have to be a bit more selfish, setting up advantage with Focused Aim instead. Somewhat of a mix of the Battlemaster and Samurai, mechanically, but the Rogue chassis makes for a very different experience than the raw offensive prowess of a Fighter. Synergizes extremely well with Focused Aim, from Tasha’s, and while potentially doubling your Sneak Attack damage is impressive, it’s actually only slightly ahead of, say, using Booming Blade and keeping your advantage. Naturally, it’s not possible to stack them… at least, not without six levels of Bladesinger, but that means giving up a whole lot of Sneak Attack dice.

Dare: The Glittering Reef: 

“While the dragon may long be dead, there’s more than one predator in these waters. You best be quick if you wish to claim your prize.“

Setup: Generations ago the crystal clear waters of the Ildathan coast ran red with blood, as a terrible archdrake terrorized the trade routes and savaged any merchant ship it caught eyes on. Known to locals as Hullraker, this beast would use its powerful claws to crack open the body of ships to gorge itself on sailors and treasure alike. 

While its a myth that dragons eat gold, they do sometimes devour valuable objects to spit up into their hordes later. This habbit would eventually lead to the drake’s defeat, as a group of clever pirates tired of the drake’s meddling caste a series of golden cannonballs, then hollowed them out and filled them with black powder, and an alchemical compound that would ignite after being exposed to the drake’s insides for some length of time.  Loading up a dummy ship with their deadly decoys and piles of coin as bait, they watched in glee as the drake’s belly exploded mid air, showering the sea with golden shrapnel and sending Hullraker plunging into the reef below. 

The Challenge: Since the time of its death, treasure hunters have paddled out to the glimmering reef in the hopes of  reclaiming a portion of the dragons last, fatal meal. Having stripped most of the upper reef clear of coins. Now after years of plundering only the strongest of divers can make it down to the dark, shark infested shelf of the reef where the dragon’s bones and the bulk of its treasure remains. Tradition is that each diver only takes a single coin, and while one gold piece isn’t much to an adventure, a “drowned queen” (one of the particular printing of coins the pirates used for the bulk of their bait) is a mighty prize among sailors and other folk of the sea, said to confer the luck and cunning of the pirates that took Hullraker down. 

Writing Angry Scenes: Tips to Avoid Melodrama and Make It Real

Anger can be one of the most intense, relatable emotions to read—and one of the trickiest to write. When handled well, an angry scene can pull readers deep into the emotional world of a character, building tension and driving the story forward. But when handled poorly, anger can easily slip into melodrama, making the character’s feelings seem overblown, forced, or even cringe-worthy.

So how can you avoid these pitfalls and write anger that feels real and compelling? Here are some tips to make angry scenes powerful without overdoing it.

1. Understand What Fuels Your Character’s Anger

To write anger authentically, you need to understand its roots. People get angry for complex reasons—fear, frustration, betrayal, grief, and even love. Ask yourself what’s truly driving your character’s anger. Are they afraid of losing control? Do they feel abandoned or misunderstood? Are they hurt by someone they trusted? Anger rarely exists in isolation, so dig into the deeper emotions fueling it.

When you understand the core reasons behind a character’s anger, you can weave those nuances into the scene, making the anger more relatable and layered. Readers will feel the depth of the character's rage, not just the surface heat of it.

2. Show, Don’t Tell—But Don’t Overdo It

“Show, don’t tell” is classic writing advice, but it’s especially crucial in angry scenes. Don’t rely on generic phrases like “She was furious” or “He clenched his fists in anger.” Instead, look for unique ways to convey how this specific character experiences anger. Maybe their voice drops to a deadly calm, or their eyes narrow in a way that makes everyone around them uncomfortable.

That said, showing too much can backfire, especially with exaggerated descriptions. Over-the-top body language, excessive shouting, or too many “flaring nostrils” can tip the scene into melodrama. Use body language and physical cues sparingly and mix them with subtler reactions for a more realistic portrayal.

3. Use Dialogue to Reveal Hidden Layers

People rarely say exactly what they feel, especially when they’re angry. Angry dialogue isn’t just about yelling or throwing out insults; it’s an opportunity to show the character’s deeper thoughts and vulnerabilities.

Consider using controlled, icy responses or unexpected silences. Maybe your character says something hurtful in a low voice rather than screaming. They might express sarcasm, avoidance, or even laugh at the wrong moment. Anger often carries hidden layers, and using these nuances can help your character’s dialogue feel genuine, even haunting, without falling into dramatic clichés.

4. Control the Pacing of the Scene

The pacing of an angry scene can be the difference between a powerful moment and a melodramatic one. In real life, anger doesn’t always erupt instantly; it can simmer, spike, or deflate depending on the situation and the character’s personality. Experiment with different pacing techniques to create tension.

You might build the anger slowly, with small signs that something’s brewing. Or maybe the character explodes suddenly, only to calm down just as quickly, leaving a chill in the air. Controlling the pace helps you control the reader’s emotional engagement, drawing them in without overwhelming them.

5. Avoid Clichéd Expressions and Overused Reactions

When writing anger, avoid falling back on clichés like “seeing red,” “boiling with rage,” or “blood boiling.” These phrases have been overused to the point that they lose their impact. Instead, get creative and think about how your character’s anger might feel specifically to them.

Maybe their skin feels prickly, or their jaw aches from clenching it. Think about details that are unique to the character and to the moment. By focusing on small, unique sensory details, you’ll help readers feel the anger rather than just reading about it.

6. Let the Setting Reflect the Emotion

The setting can be an effective tool to amplify a character’s anger without overstating it. Small details in the environment—such as the hum of a refrigerator, the slow ticking of a clock, or the distant sounds of laughter—can create a sense of contrast or isolation that heightens the character’s rage.

For example, imagine a character seething in a peaceful park or a quiet library. The calm of the surroundings can make their anger feel more potent. Or maybe they’re in a crowded, noisy room where they feel unseen and unheard, which fuels their frustration further. This use of setting can add depth to the scene without the need for dramatic gestures.

7. Let Consequences Speak for Themselves

An effective way to avoid melodrama is to let the consequences of the anger show its intensity. Characters don’t always have to yell or physically react; sometimes, a single choice can convey more than any outburst.

Perhaps your character cuts off a close friend or says something they can’t take back. Maybe they throw away a meaningful object or walk out in silence. By focusing on the consequences of their anger, you can reveal the impact without over-explaining it.

8. Let the Emotion Simmer After the Scene Ends

Anger is rarely resolved in a single moment, and its effects often linger. When writing an angry scene, think about how it will affect your character moving forward. Are they holding onto grudges? Do they feel guilty or exhausted afterward? Does their anger transform into something else, like sadness or regret?

Allowing the anger to simmer in your character’s mind even after the scene ends creates a more authentic and layered portrayal. It shows that anger is complex and doesn’t just disappear the moment the scene is over, adding emotional weight to both the character and the story.