Latest Posts by bungeonsandbagons - Page 2

Wilderness: Roads of the Coldhearted

Your party presses through the veil of sleet, and every step you take feels like a struggle. You are fighting the very wind itself, and the frost covered bones and crumbling ruins you’ve passed serve to remind you that standing still in such weather is a death sentance. How did you get here? What need could be so great as to climb these perilous peeks? The hole in your memory shocks you enough that you nearly lose your friends around a bend in the path. Catching up to them, you see it, battlements only visable against the rock and the migrane colored sky by their sheer scale.   A castle, and perhaps a chance to get out of the cold you’ve been trapped in for so long. 

Setup:  There are many dread domains, each one a nightmare prison built to contain a great evil. This one is a labyrinthian tangle of pathways through a jagged mountainside, reflecting the final hours of a bloodthirsty margrave who spent hours fighting though a winter storm to return home, only to discover that all his cruelty had been in vain. 

Sorrow, war, and misfortune are the ruling elements here, along with the horror of exposure and a chilling wind that hunts the party with it’s own malicious will. 

Challenges & Complications: 

Wretched beasts ride the skies of this domain, striking without warning or circling like stormbitten buzzards. The remnants of soldiers mummified by the cold shamble their way through patrols or wait in ambush, and always return to their station after some time after their clashes with the party. Those that wear tattered officer’s uniform even manage to remember previous encounters, and will plan their defenses accordingly. 

Leaving the domain will require the party to trace a shifting maze of claustrophobic caverns, icy canyons, crumbling bridges and narrow switchbacks that what. as the “roads” of this domain. They possess their own sinister intelligence, seeming to know the exact right time to close or fail and drop the party into a new form of peril.  Scaps of maps may be found hidden along the road like treasure, but these too are full of misdirections, showing no true path and seemingly only able to agree that the mountains they depict are called “The Sorrows”. 

The castle in the heart of the ragged web of pathways is no shelter from the blizzard, as the cold winds pour from its open windows and echo through it’s echoing halls. This fortress is home to many terrible beasts, none more so than a screaming windstorm known as the Resounding Agony, which prowls the domain the way a shark might a reef. While not exactly intelligent, it will harry interlopers by alerting their pursuers, causing avalanches, and causing maddening fatigue. 

Sorrowsworn and other shadowfell beats are drawn to the Roads of the coldhearted en-masse, and can frequently be seen clashing with the soldiers. This is quite unusual for a dread domain, but whatever unseen architect is at work here seems to allow it. 

Keep reading

Adventure:  Rebels in the Rimebough 

No matter how cold the north wind blows, the pain of old injustice burns hotter. 

Setup: The Frontier kingdom of Volskolt sits on the edge of a vast wilderness, the last bastion of so called civilization against the vast territories where no sovereign save winter can rule. Given that the kingdom was only established and its populace converted to the dominant faith less than two centuries ago most on the continent regard the Volskoltans to be little more than backwater heathens, feigning piety in polite company while practicing barbaric rituals while at home. This attitude is reflected by the urban Volskoltan population towards their rural neighbors, and by those rural neighbors towards the migratory tribes that live in the hinterlands. 

It is this tension that sits at the heart of the kigndom’s current troubles, as the elders among their people remember that their now sedate nobles came to their land as militant holy orders seeking to crusade against their heathen neighbors, burning what villages they did not take for their own and building stout stone walls as a sign of their dominance. While the elites now consider themselves one people with the “common Volskoltan”, few who keep to the old ways have forgiven them for the bloodshed, or the merciless suppression of their ancestral rites in favor of the continental faith. 

And so we come to the crossroads of fate, nearly two hundred years of injustice and resentment reaching a boiling point during the coldest winter in generations. Rebels gather their power, giants stir in the mountains, and the destiny of a kingdom may hinge on a single life. 

Adventure Hooks: 

After rescuing a waylaid caravan of holyfolk out in the hinterlands, the party arrives in a village just in time to interupt a group of villagers being burned alive in their home by a priest and his mob. Though there is no secular law against worshiping other gods in the kingdom, the church takes folk worshiping both the new and ancesteral ways as the greatest affront. Now the party must decide between preserving their in with the church and doing the right thing and saving the townsfolk from a mob that could just as easily turn on them.  

The party is called together by noble allies who have become aware of a grim secret. The young heir to the throne of Volskolt has been kidnapped while hunting near the Rimebough forest. Some ready themselves for ransom, while others cultists are behind the dead, others are worried that political dissidents are behind these actions and expect him to be used against the royal family some time soon. All that matters now is that the boy be returned home unharmed, a deed that will require the party to brave the harshest wilderness, but will see them royally rewarded. 

While everything else is happening, a normally sedate clan of giants have decided to start marauding down into civilized lands.  Is this mere chance? A plot by a faction of the Rimebough rebels? or do these giants answer the call of something even more ancient? 

Keep reading

As war grips the land, a group of warriors band together to protect a population of displaced peasants and towsnfolk as they winter in an ancient mountain fortress.  

Led by the veteran warleader Voadicia, the warriors have amassed a sizeable force of skilled fighters and eager recruits to their cause. Little interested in the goings on of the wider war, their group of holdouts has none the less attracted the attention of the embattled monarchs of the region, who see this rogue warband as a needless complication in their plans of conquest. 

Quest hooks: 

The party is made up of the initiate members of the warband, tossed together from deserters and aspiring peasants who wish to put themselves between the innocents in their charge and the horrors of the war. Their tasks are endless, scouting, exploring the reaches of the ruins, searching for more supplies. Should they cultivate a reputation as trustworthy and capable warriors, they will be brought into Voadicia’s councils about how best to defend their crumbling fortress, and what to do AFTER the war has passed. 

Allied with one faction in the war, the party is sent to negotiate with Voadicia’s warriors after several raids are made on their patron’s supply train. With careful persuasion the warband could be turned from a liability into a powerful ally, if only the party can mind their manners against a disillusioned band of brigands, or get past the fact that their patron is Voadicia’s former leige lord, who would more than happily see her in irons or with her head on a pike as an ally. 

Though the ruins the warband has taken as their home are said to have belonged to a line of forgotten kings, they are infact the last edifices of an ancient empire that spanned the continent and far eclipsed the development of the barbaric present. Vast treasures still remain undiscovered within its vaults, as do powerful artifacts of a forgotten age. Should they be discovered and put to use, it might just be enough to turn the enclave of warriors and refugees into a kingdom of their own, and Voadicia into a reluctant queen. 

Settlement: The Flamefond peaks of Promtharra

“Fire is and always has been the mortal element. Like us it breathes, it eats, it flares and flourishes and dies. We Understand one another, and we smiths of Promtharra understand that better than most.” 

Setup: Built around a number of free flowing volcanic crests, the scattered villages, spires, and foundries collectively known as Promtharra are famous the world over for their artisans. A powerful layline of primeval magic runs through the region, allowing their culture to develop a deep understanding of its elemental nature without fear of being burned or buried in a sudden, cataclysmic eruption. 

More than simple trade secrets, what sets those who learn their craft in Promtharra apart is their practice of shamanistic-smithing, an art of communing with the elements involved in a particular work to go beyond shaping it physically and begin to affect it on a metaphysical level. In this way the Promtharrans are able to make unbreakable armor without the need for costly adamantine, or create blades that retain the heat of the forge for years withouth losing any of their solidity or edge. 

While the skill of their hands has ensured the people of Promtharra exist in relative comfort ( living atop a mountain that alternates between burning and freezing does give itself over to a degree of ruggedness), their isolation and virtual independence is due to the compact they have with the dragons that live in the region. Rather than fighting for territory or control, the dragons and the people strive together for the benefit of their collective home, often working side by side in the forges, or venturing out together on hunts. Legends surrounding the mountains often include moments where on the eve of a great and fateful battle or trial, a messenger from the Flamefond peaks arrives on dragon-wing to present the hero with some life-saving weapon or tool. 

Adventure Hooks: 

If the party seek something mythical repaired or sundered, Promtharra is a good place to start. Between the cumulative skills of generations of smiths and “chucking it in a volcano”, the full spectrum of creation and destruction is available. Of those who could aid in this task, “Reiko Winterschilde” is the fist name on anybody’s lips:  a masterful smith with an undeniably strong connection to the elements, but Reiko has recently fallen into a desperate spiral of depression and worry. After her son accepted the invocation of a foreign ruler to act as his master artisan, the two communicated back and forth for months as the younger Winderschilde grew accustomed to his new position. It has been a year since the last message, it has been nearly half a year since the last message, and the master-smith is half dead with concern. If the party can find out what happened to the wayward journeyman, Reiko will ensure that they are well equipped and may even tutor the party’s crafter in the fundamentals of her shamanic practice. 

While in the region, they may be approached by an agent of the draconic historian Ilzaadorant, a collector of interesting trinkets and historical curios who may offer to buy any of the artifacts they’ve collected in their travels. A shameless bookwyrm, Ilzaadorant ( Or “Izzy” as the locals call him) is interested in mementos of far of and long forgotten culture, and pulls double duty as a merchant of magic items, swapping more curious oddities for “boring” practicalities the adventurers may find useful.   Given that he can’t fly out to the largest settlements without getting shot out of the sky as a feral drake, Ilzaadorant is willing to recruit the party as his gobetweens,

The grand peaks of Promtharra are carved into spires and cathederasls of volcanic stone, with channels, aqueducts, and even fountains constructed to properly bleed off the ever molten blood of the mountains. Most of structures are occupied by the dragonbroods, or by pyromancers seeking a more palpable connection with their element, but others lay abandoned to structural instability or uncontrollable lava flow. These derilict towers are begging for exploration, though an adventurous party will need to be cautious. Rogue elementals and feral dragon-kin are not the only dangers, as too much damage to the wrong wall could have the chamber filled with scalding steam or see the entire dungeon begin to flood with lava from the top down. 

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​

Settlement: Javhintor’s Keel

 Lets get one thing straight, no one sane travels during the winter, not even adventurers. There’s no food to be foraged in the wilderness, which makes for difficult crossings and even more aggressive predators. Likewise, traveling into unpredictable winter weather is suicide for all but the most prepared groups as snow or sleet can make normally hospitable terrain impassable, and exaustion compounds quickly when traveling overland. If you’re a sellsword: find someplace to hunker down where you can still get paid without ranging too far afield, contract work is best, but plenty of settlements will have odd jobs you can make due with in the cold, lean days. 

Dizidel Lek, “A traveler’s guide to not dying like an idiot and having strangers turn over your bones for loose change” , Vol. 4

Adventure Hooks: 

In the dying days of autumn, while considering where they’re going to winter, the party receives an invitation from the Jarl of Javhintor’s Keel, a thriving freehold on the edge of the sea of daggers. She’s heard of their deeds and bravery, and has invited them to enjoy the hospitality of her hall, to share mead and songs and good tidings and to lend their prestige to her own.  A message with great potential to be sure, as such offers of hospitality are often trialruns for offers of more formal oaths of patronage. The exchanging of gifts is a common practice to make such occasions official, but what gift to give a Jarl when you and your friends are but petty sellswords with narry a gold peice to rub together between yourselves?  Why not that beast that’s been rampaging through the countryside nearby ? Hunt it, slay it, stuff it, and present its head(s) to the Jarl as a trophy for her wall and a symbol of the strength you could lend to her cause. 

Once they get to Javhintor’s keel, the DM has an excuse to really let the players dig into a setting, see it develop over their three months of stay, get to know the locals, and become part of the town themselves.  Such distractions may include: 

Exploring wrecks, islands and sea caves along the coast for bitesized dungeon content.

Solving the Mystery behind a haunted lighthouse

Earning the respect of Captian Priska and her crew of reavers, earning an invitation to their next raid on foreign shores, and their own snake-venom tattoo. 

Hunt the mysterious ice-red stag that haunts the forest like a ghost

Make a Pilgramage up to the shrine of Tyr on the tallest peak and see what the god of valor has to say about their prospects

Help a mad fisherman capture a sea-beast that’s encroached on the bay and has been devouring all the fish from his neighbor’s nets. 

Apprentice under one of the many grizzled warriors that make thier home in the keel, learning new fighting techniques

Help a pair of starcrossed traders realize that though they’re fierce business rivals, the oracle’s dire prophecy regarding their competitor was infact a very poorly worded dating advice. 

Prepare for all hearth’s eve, in the Jarl’s palace the biggest festival of the winter solstice. Sneak into the mysterious forbidden wing, and figure out who the hell has stolen all the Hearth’s eve presents! 

Setup:  Jarl Irwyf is a shrewd woman, and in possession of an understanding that led her through her youth as an honored warrior and to her ascension as Jarl of the Keel. She understand that it is a warrior’s reputation that prevents their rivals from encroaching, and that by perusing a path of peace and prosperity for her people, she has dulled her own reputation in exchange. Not some tyrant to wage war on a neighbor just to strengthen her own position, Irwyf seeks to bolster her kingdom’s reputation for might and valor by playing host to the realm’s next generation of heroes. To this end she intends test the party’s character and mettle, bind them to her in loyalty, then send them out into the world to accomplish great deeds that might reflect favorably on her patronage. 

Something however seems intent on sabotaging all her plans. Her winter stores are running out faster than expected, sections of her fortress are overrun with rats, and just as the festivities really kick into gear, something goes and makes off with the food and gifts she’d prepared to bestow upon her courtiers.  A diplomatic disaster waiting to happen, as many of those courtiers are due gifts by tribal right, or else Irwyf will have been considered to have dishonored her subordinates. Her only hope now is to let the party in on her distress, showing her hand as seemingly implacable benefactor in exchange for their aid and discursion. 

Keep reading

Ally: Lady Keiva Marzanna, The Waylaid Huntress

“ What are you standing around for? Any longer and It’ll kill all of them, think you can distract it long enough for me to get off another few shots?” 

Adventure Hook: Shots and screams ring out as the players approach the city, along with the roaring of some great beast and the thunder of its footsteps across snowy earth. 

Arriving, they find a grisly scene in action: a procession of riders and their mounts slaughtered, and a towering jotun murderously trundling towards a crowd of fleeing travelers. 

A woman in a voluminous winter riding gown sits with her back to a tree, face stained with blood, black powder, and frozen tears. She labors to reload her massive flintlock rifle braced against a broken leg and splintered ribs. With a plea, she turns and fires, drawing the jotun’s attention to her position and the party’s presence. 

Setup: It was an inauspicious morning when Lady Keiva set out with her brother  Valiboor’s hunting party, restless of her life as the family’s courtly heir and jealous of her younger sibling’s marital pursuits.   As it happened, this was the morning a giant burst from the thick ice of the nearby trade river and decided to besiege the city. Barely past the gate ,  Valiboor and his hunting party turned about to try and delay the beast till proper help could arrive and managed to harry it for some time as it picked them off in twos and threes. Though Keiva had held back as was her duty as noble heir, she took up her brother’s gun after watching Valdiboor and his last few riders fall beneath a tree hurled by the jotun. 

The party finds her just having been swatted off her mount, injured and mad with avenging grief she pulled her body free of the mangled beast’s carcass and limped over to find a better shooting vantage. If they aid her, the party will earn the favor of one of the city’s most powerful noble families, that is if they survive a confrontation with an icy, bone-crunching colossus first.  

Keep reading

CUTE Pathfinder 2e Character Sheets just dropped!! 🎉🎉🎉

Find them here!

Some fun ideas for warlock pacts. You can see the rest of this series on my Kofi! I appreciate all tips.

More Non-Monetary Rewards

People seemed to like the previous list, so I thought I’d make some more.

Honorary Titles (courtesy of Vlad)

Free passage aboard any vessel in the fleet

A scroll of any spell the court wizard can cast

A manual outlining the fundamentals of the local language

A portion of land with a fixer-upper of a keep

The finest hound from the kennels

A large, unidentified, jewel encrusted egg

The captain of the guard as a retainer

A map detailing the location of a mythic treasure

The book of vile darkness

A willow extract that cures headaches

A book of coupons (near expiry)

Monster hunt: Goudslok the Gorger 

“ Fellers, yer not going to ‘alieve this, but I was siftin through all this pickrel and I think I found me ol’ keys, how’d ya think they ended up ‘ere?”

Setup: The gnomish village on the shore of a great lake is seasonally plagued by the appearance of a tremendous golden carp. Nicknamed “the gorger” by the locals, this golden monstrosity emerges from the depths to devour all the fish at the height of the catching season before returning to the muddy deep for another year. 

Furious after years of plundered nets, a fishergnome by the name of Lennart Trawley has found the biggest boat he could, gathered a crew full of cousins, and stockpiled an arsenal of harpoons and cable. He’s still looking for a few strong backs to aid in his Ahabic vengeance quest and the party look like viable candidates for a pressganging.  

Adventure Hooks

While the Gorger is an easy enough quarry to find, catching it is another matter. The massive fish is capable of splintering hulls with a slap of its tail and causing weaker vessels to tip over with its trashing. What’s more, no mundane line or net is capable of holding the creature, as it seems preternaturally able to break any bond forced upon it. If the party manages to pick themselves up out of their first sodden defeat, they may wish to seek out artisans capable of crafting unbreakable or otherwise enchanted fishing gear, perhaps a blacksmith that works in adamantine or a fey tinker who can spin a promise into a rope? 

Not one to waste a good catch, Trawley and his crew will pull Goudslok’s body to shore for the butchering, revealing a belly full of still-wriggling fish as well as a trove of strange objects The gorger has seemingly scavenged off the lakebed. loose coins and gemstones, bewitched items, even a still-locked treasure chest, a portion of wish the party will be allotted a share based on their participation, along with as much fish as they can carry. Some of these items include: the ring of a rivergod who’d very much like it back, oddly familiar keys that open doors to places they shouldn’t go, and a weighty, invulnerable breastplate that compels its wearer to go swimming against their better judgement.  

Goudslok is not a normal fish, as anyone can tell, but few could guess that its true origin lays somewhere in the feywild. To be swallowed by this great, glimmering beast is to be spat up on those shores of primal wonder, as the party may discover should their hunt go very, very badly. Likewise, slaying the beast in the mortal realm is not enough, as it will continue to return each year unless slain in its home domain. Doing so is easier said than done, and may require bargaining with whatever fey lord keeps the now miniaturized gorger as a pet. 

Second, do you have any good fantasy RPGs set in a non-european focused or at least not medieval-European world? It can be based off of a real-world culture or something brand new

THEME: Non-Western Fantasy

Hello friend! For this recommendation, I wanted to highlight games made about non-western fantasy by authors who hail from the cultures that inspire the games. For that purpose I really want to shout-out to rpgsea and rpglatam, two community/movements that have made it much easier for creators from Southeast Asian and Latin American cultures to advertise and publish their games. Not all of my recommendations come from these communities, but they’re a great jumping-off point to find more games with unique settings, fresh ideas, and beautiful, beautiful art.

Nahual, by Miguel Angel Espinoza.

Nahual is a tabletop roleplaying game about brjos nahuales, humans of mestizo and indigenous ancestry that have the power to shapeshifter into an animal form. These nahuales hunt angels to make a living, running a changarro - a business - together to sell the products they make from the bodies of the angels they have killed. These are stories about underdogs, struggling to find their place in a Mexican world of fantastical and overwhelming forces.

Miguel Ángel Espinoza is a Mexican layout artist and game designer, and the head of Smoking Mirror Games. His ttrpg Nahual really picked up steam on Kickstarter, unlocking stretch goal after stretch goal. At its core, this game is PbtA game about underdogs going up against celestial parasites. Angel Dust is a potent drug, and angels are used by corporations, politicians, and the Church to lure in worshipers and make money. You play the labourers at the bottom of this pyramid, aching for freedom but trapped inside a concrete jungle. Your biggest asset? The special gifts you’ve inherited from your ancestors, watered down as you’ve lost your cultural memories. 

This game is more urban fantasy than anything else on this list, but if you want to explore a game about reclaiming something that you’ve almost lost, you should definitely check out Nahual.

ARC, by momatoes.

Ready Yourself. For Tonight, we save the world.

The RPG to slay the apocalypse. Capture your imagination with near-inescapable dooms that threaten infinite worlds. Be a hero or be the guide to facilitate a heart-racing story to remember.

ARC enables people wishing to run a game with limited experience. The Doom and its Omens help create tension and manage the story’s pacing. The rules are approachable so you can focus on helping make the best story for the table. Additionally, the last chapter of the full book is filled with tips for building a good experience for you and your friends. 

The creator, Momatoes (aka Bianca Canoza), is from the Philippines, and is the custodian of RPGSEA, as well as a Winner of the Diana Jones Emerging Designer Award. Her game, ARC doesn’t have a lot of setting decided for you - instead, you decide elements of the setting yourself. There's even a license for creators who want to publish their own content! The biggest selling point of ARC is the Doom, a terrible event that the Heroes want to prevent at any cost. The GM will set up Omens, which are pieces of the story that advance the Doom - pieces the characters will need to investigate and interact with in order to resolve. Finally, the Doomsday clock is a tool that can be used to keep the sessions tight and focused: every moment on the Doomsday clock has the GM roll 1d6 per unresolved moment - the higher the roll, the closer you tick towards catastrophe! If you want a beginner-friendly game that allows maximum creativity, you should definitely check out ARC.

Arunika, by Anonymocha.

Darkness and gloom threaten to shroud the entirety of this world you call home. Or perhaps, it already had. However, there's hope.

You are a Light Bearer. This beacon of light you hold is the key to reviving the world's gleam and hope, through your own. You are bestowed with the pursuit of rekindling the world, forging bonds with its inhabitants along the path, and freeing it from the murk with what you can offer.

Arunika is a TTRPG of maintaining hope, sharing it with the world, and most importantly, caring for yourself while you're at it.

The rulebook reflects a world's journey towards revival from the characters who escalate it. It is made with the vision of a game that has a non-violent, narrative-first, and feelings-focused system which can be interpreted in many optimistic, creative, whimsical, melancholic, or introspective ways.

Mocha, the creator, is an Indonesian artist with a beautiful and unique art style, visible in the projects they create and contribute to. One person plays the Light Bearer, a character who holds the Light, a beacon that needs to be used to rekindle the world. Other players can play the Companions, friends and old foes that accompany the Light Bearer on their journey. This game can be run with just a GM and one player, with all of the Companions as NPCs. The stats of your character will fill or deplete depending on the events of the game, so Heart will increase when the party has a positive interaction, while Hurt will increase from suffering harm, or decrease when your character is comforted. If you want a game that is easy on the eyes, gives you the basic premise and lets you build your own world, you should check out Arunika. 

Hearts of Wulin, by Lowell Francis and Agatha Cheng.

Hearts of Wulin is a game of wuxia melodrama, Powered by the Apocalypse. Players take the role of skilled martial artists in a world of rival clans, conspiracies, and obligations. The game emulates films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Chinese wuxia TV series like The Smiling Proud Wanderer and Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, and Chinese martial arts novels from the second half of the twentieth century. In these tales, romance is as dangerous as a blade. Everyone has ties to factions, loves they can’t quite express, and secrets which will shake them to their core. As in the source material, stories in Hearts of Wulin are driven by the characters’ duties, romantic desires, and entanglements with other characters.

You get everything you need to play the game in three different styles: Core, Courtly, and Fantastic. The core game is as described above: a game of wuxia melodrama featuring wandering wulin warriors. The courtly style of play sets the game in a world of politics and factional scheming. The fantastic game adds strong elements of the superrnatural to the story. Each style of play has its own playbooks and moves—it's like having three games in one! 

Agatha Cheng is a cultural consultant and a podcast host, on top of being a co-author of this wuxia-inspired game, in a genre she’s loved since childhood. Hearts of Wulin is an homage to melodramatic stories about protagonists, torn between equally treasured relationships. You may be in love with your teacher’s greatest rival, or perhaps your master and your father despise each-other. The PbtA system that Hearts is built on prioritizes emotional conflict and failure that moves the story forward, while slimming down the mechanics to simple 2d6 dice rolls. If what you’re looking for is story beats that rip your heart up and make you feel all of the feelings, you should check out this game.

Gubat Banwa, by makapatag.

Gubat Banwa is a game of rapid kinetic martial arts, violent sorcery, heartrending convictions and bouts of will. Warriors that channel gods face sorcerers that master black arts, martial artists who have unlocked a new form of cultivation clash swords with those that perfect the night alchemies.

Gubat Banwa is a  Southeast Asian fantasy martial arts Role-Playing Game, inspired by the refulgent cultures of Southeast Asia. Raise your spears, KADUNGGANAN, you elite warrior-braves and asura-knights who travel The Sword Isles to prove their conviction and dictate the fate of the world. Revel in larger-than-life war drama like in Asian Dramas, ballistic tactical martial arts grid gameplay in the vein of Lancer or Final Fantasy Tactics, and find glory beyond heaven. Wield the Thunderbolt of Liberation! Rejoice! In the Glory of Combat!

Makapatag, or Waks, is a Filipino creature who loves creating tactical ttrpgs. All of their games have strong Southeast Asian inspiration, but Gubat Banwa is what you’re looking for if you want good old fantasy. Rules-wise, the author credits Lancer, Pathfinder 2e, ICON, Ryuutama, Apocalypse World, and so many more iconic, well-loved games for their inspiration. This game is made to specifically centre Southeast Asian cultures, and the setting is not solely based in a specific historical setting, but is rather inspired by many cultures and stories of these cultures. I strongly recommend you read the Note On Intended Audience on page 4 if you get this book.

And what a book it is. 400 pages, with maps, roll-tables, an extensive dive into the lore and terms created for this book, and pages and pages of gorgeous gorgeous art. Character creation is heavily involved, incorporating the culture you hail from, the ideal you’re fighting for, major life events and debts, as well as different Disciplines, combat arts that each have their own styles, weapons, and techniques. Fighting in this game is not just a matter of survival - it is a science. If you want a game that gives you in-depth characters and hours and hours of material in a world in which every piece of lore has been carefully thought out, I heavily recommend Gubat Banwa.

Mangayaw, by goobernuts.

Mangayaw is an RPG for one facilitator (the Mangaawit) and at least one other player. Players act as Binmanwa, adventurers and survivors in an archipelago of bloodshed and goldlust. This game is inspired by Philippine legend, folklore, culture and history. The game and its setting is still a work-in-progress. Based on and inspired by Cairn, Into the Odd, Mausritter and numerous other games. 

Benj, the creator, is a member of RPGsea, and draws heavily from Philippine folklore and history for this game. This is absolutely for OSR fans, with delay fast combat, class-less and level-less characters, and a ton of equipment and magic items inspired by Philippines folklore.

Whereas many OSR games present the rules with the assumption that the GM knows what they’re doing, Mangayaw contains a page of principles for the Mangaawit, outlining narrative focus, the purpose of danger and treasure, and advice on how to present the characters with choices, NPC motivations, and the benefits of random generation. It also contains principles for the players, and principles of the World, providing guidance for folks who may be unfamiliar with the culture that inspires this setting. There’s suggestions for names, descriptions of unique items, and tables for magic and sorcery. If you love roll tables, you’ll love Mangayaw.

Brave Zenith, by Roll 4 Tarrasque.

Brave Zenith is a post-fantasy tabletop RPG, set in a world inspired by Brazilian culture and long summer nights playing JRPGs on a pirated PS1. With a set of simple interpretative rules, that focus on player creativity and imagination, explore the ruined world of pastpresent, meet colourful (and deadly) creatures, see the sights of the Second City, partake in delicious Monkey Oil and become an adventurer.

Roll 4 Tarrasque is a team of Latinx creators whose efforts won Game of the Year for 2022 at the Indie Groundbreaker Awards with this game. Brave Zenith is a game about fantasy odd-jobs, rather than epic quests - your characters are cleaning up houses, hunting ghosts, stealing from the rich, etc. The people and creatures of the world are unique and enchanting, from the friendly Jelly shopkeeper to the slippery butter construct, to little porcini goblins. 

Characters have 3 stats, gain abilities based off of their occupations. There are three suggested origins to help you determine what your character looks like, but you’re also welcome to create your own! There are typical hallmarks of dungeon delving here, such as loot tables, monsters to fight, and spells to cast. For the GMs, there’s a chapter full of advice on how to prepare for a session, quick NPC generation, and tables to help you write an adventure on the fly. Finally, the rulebook itself is bright, colourful, and fun - perfect for communicating the kinds of games it’s designed to run!

Lutong Banwa by Sinta Posadas (Diwata ng Manila).

We, the Tamawo, we have no concept of hunger, food, or of a nuclear family. We wandered aimlessly for a long time. Then, we met a Giant Grab. She took us in like her own children. Clothed and sheltered us like we were her kind. We call her Mama Kasag. She showed us more about the people that came before us. The ones she calls “Humans”. 

Lutong Banwa is a cooking game, where you set out to adventure and find ingredients from Spirits and recipes from old civilizations. Embark on this anti-canon storygame adventure with its own custom system and play to find out just what sort of zany adventures you can get up to in this weird, wild world. Do whatever you want.

Sin is a Filipino game designer who loves designing games that incorporate magic realism. Lutong Banwa is no different. You play Tamawo, who have bodies that appear similar to humans, but live in an age in which humans are long gone. Humans are strange beings of a past age, with unfamiliar customs, such as cooking. You’ve picked up cooking as something to explore, and thus go out on errands to find new ingredients for Mama Kasag. This game is charming and small, quick to learn and easy to play. It even includes recipes to get you in the cooking mood! If you like cozy games with low stakes and a charming setting, you should absolutely check out this game.

A Thousand Thousand Islands.

This is not a game, but rather, a collection of system-agnostic zines for use in fantasy tabletop games. This collection is designed by a trio of Malaysian designers, and contains places such as Mr-Kr-Gr, a river kingdom ruled by crocodiles, Korvu, a maritime nation of tenant mercenaries, and Ngelalangka, a market inspired by Southeast Asian bazaars. If you have a game system that you’re already comfortable with and you want to explore fantastical places within that system, I heavily encourage you to check out these zines.

Ally: Dru’ugo the Shoalworm

An adventurer’s desire to explore isn’t the sole province of those born to the land, as the seas contain just as many if not more secrets waiting to be explored.

A naturally curious creature, Dru’ugo has always been fascinated with artifacts left behind by ‘bovers, those mysterious folk who live beyond the scintillating surface of his watery world, and has spent his youthful decades exploring wrecks, salvaging from ruins, and collecting whatever ( often erroneous) gossip the merfolk see fit to trade him. Fittingly, this makes him one of the best contacts the party can ally with when trying to explore the sea, as the shoalworm is happy to share his findings and provide water-taxi services if the party will explain to him things like agriculture or share the stories of the places they explore together.

Adventure Hooks:

A sea beast has been menacing ships throughout a high-trafic trade channel, forcing them to veer widely off course in order to avoid a confrontation. Tired of profits lost after shipments are delayed by days, the local commerce commission offers an open bounty on the beast’s head after a reputable crew of leviathan hunters very publicly turned the job down. As it turns out this “beast” is just Dru’ugo, excited at having found a reliable place to try and make contact with ‘bovers and ask them questions, rearing up before their ship and trying to mime out what he needs with fins and tail.

Due to a tragedy of anatomy and never having attended a non-fish based school, Dru’ugo is incapable of speaking the common tongue, and his chances to learn to understand it are sparse. This has forced him to be reliant on a friendly mermaid by the name of “Opportunity-bubbles-up-from-below” ( or Ublup for short) to serve has his translator. For her part, Ublup gets figity when her friend makes her play mouthpiece for too long, as she’d much rather be out manta racing with the other deepsea layabouts.  If the party could somehow find some means of breaching the language barrier, whether by using telepathy or devising some enchantment, they’ll earn themselves a friend for all time, provided they can handle the ensuing barrage of the shoalworm’s questions.

Some time after their first excursion with the shoalworm, Dru’ugo gets word to the party that he’s found another ruin, and would love to explore it together in order to hang out with them once again. Drawn in by the prospect of looting a sunken city in good company, the group and their sea-noodle ally don’t notice that the place they’ve exploring are occupied by a cult of marrow dedicated to a terrible goddess of the deep ocean. Angered above all at Dru’ugo for helping these land-dwellers to trespass into the goddess’s domain, the high priest of this cult calls down a curse that transforms the mostly harmless shoalworm into a rampaging leviathan. While Dru’ugo struggles in vain against the curse in order to give them time to escape, the party must break for land and devise some means of subverting the goddess’s wrath, before they’re forced to slay their transmogrified buddy as he mindlessly rampages along the coast.

Cleric: Domain of Black Powder

“Hoar show no mercy to my enemies, as thy enemies would show no mercy to me.” ~Reverend Colton

For more make sure to join my Patreon, link in the reblog and comments.

Variant Classes Pt. 1

With the continued expansion of 5e through new subclasses and races, the ability to create new unique characters continues to grow. Though, in my mind, one of the faults to this is that, every time you make a new subclass or such, it's just 1 more character archetype, which can sometimes feel a little lacking in terms of new possibilities.

Now of course, there's the option to just make a lot of content, which was the style of older editions, but that eventually lead to the issue of content bloat, with there just being too much content for a single person to reasonably deal with.

Though recently in my own homebrewing, I've found what I feel is a pretty good solution for such a thing: Multiplicative, rather than additive content.

This was the idea behind my Prestige Classes document, with each single prestige class being designed to be applicable to a wide number of classes at any time, meaning that with each PrC, each would add a new potential character option for each class it could interact with (or even 1 for each subclass).

So, long rambling on thought processes, Variant Classes. The idea for this is to, by adding one new class, add new character options equal to the number of subclasses a class already had, essentially being a x2.

Variant Classes are new classes that modify an existing class to varying degrees, replacing some or many of their features with new ones, creating a whole new character option. It's sorta like a Tasha optional feature, but the optional feature messes with your entire class.

So above, there are the two Variant Classes of this post: The Archivist and the Eldritch Sage

The Archivist takes inspiration from a 3rd edition class of the same game. They are scholarly mages, though they focus on divine magic rather than arcane. As such, mechanically they are very similar to the wizard (Even having a spellbook equivalent in their 'Prayerbook'), but differing from them is their spell list: rather than the wizard list, they use the Cleric list.

In comparison to the Cleric, the way they interact with spells is a bit different. The Cleric has access to their entire spell list for free, alongside their domain spells. The Archivist however, needs to learn spells, only gaining 3 per level and needing to pay for more. To make up for this is their Domain Studies, in which they initially learn a set of Cleric domain spells of their choice. At later levels however, they can learn additional diving domains, and choose which set of domain spells to prepare from each day. Yet later they even gain the ability to prepare two domains at once.

As such, while a Cleric will often have to focus on a single theme when it comes to their spells, an Archivist is more a multi-tool, able to have a wide number of domains and prepare whichever they might need for a given day.

The Eldritch Sage is a researcher into the otherworldly. They like Wizards use their intellect to fuel their magic, but rather than from direct study of the arcane, their application of magic comes from the study of the extraplanar.

Mechanically, the eldritch Sage is a warlock, with their patron instead representing ehat type of otherworldly entity they focus their research upon. Unlike the regular warlock, they use Int instead of Cha. Most differently is that they use regular Spellcasting rather than the warlocks Pact Magic, making them more of a traditional long rest based caster.

The Eldritch Sage also interacts with Invocations differently. Rather than having a number of invocations at will they instead learn a number of invocations, and can prepare a few of them at the end of a long rest. This means that they will often have more total invocations, but less active invocations.

Woops yeah, lots of text today.

Ah, you may have noticed the Pt.1 at the top of the post! That's because I actually made 4 variant classes, it's just that the other 2 will be posted seperately (very much my own choice, totally not because tumblr didn't like me dropping 20 pages into here). So yeah, I guess look forward to seeing in maybe a few days time the Mentalist and the Mountebank.

Honestly imo they're more my favourite out of the bunch, being the more radical in their changes to their classes. (Or maybe it's bias, since I am in the process of playtesting both of them in campaigns I'm in x) )

Edit: oh hell I forgot to put in the art credits, since they were all part of the images originally, but they'd be on the last page of the second set. My bad

Art credits:

Archivist.

- Clever Distraction from Innistrad: Crimson Vow by Andrew Mar

- Conspiracy Theorist from Strixhaven by Svetlin Velinov

Eldritch Sage.

- Contact Other Plane from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms by Alix Branwyn

- Magus of the Moon MtG from Time Spiral Remastered by Milivoj Ceran

Edit: Part 2 is up, and can be found here

Background: Chosen One by ezfi on reddit

Cursed Jewelry! Remember, canonically Identify doesn’t pick up curses, so have fun tricking your players into getting cursed. <3

The swirling blade glows with flame, imbued with powers of metallic magic powered by the genasi’s ancient ancestors. As she chops the treants to bits with her scorching magical strikes, the smell of bonfire reminds her of home.

I have always loved forge-based subclasses, and really I think only forge domain cleric currently does the theme much justice among official classes. I figured that sorcerer becoming a whirling gish of metal and magic seemed like a good way to start! The updated homebrewery link is here, while the permanent PDF of the above image is here. Hope you all enjoy, and please leave your comments and feedback!

The Pantheon Domain - A 5E Cleric Subclass Homebrew. For the cleric whose faith is as fickle as the gods themselves. Great for roguelite lovers. You’ll have to figure out what you can do with the tools at your disposal every day. Links in reblog!

Intrigue: Baroness  Magali Turcas, Lady of the Court and Daughter of The King’s justice.

“You know why I brought you here? Because you’re a nobody, and I admire that.  If you were a somebody around this court it invariably means that my father or his father tortured someone very important to you, and that means you’d be to intimidated by me to engage in conversation. Are you intimidated by me? Good, go and fetch us some drinks and I’ll tell you everyone’s dirty little secrets.”

All great courts employ torturers and executioners, but it’s only the cruellest of monarchs who have such need of these grim servants that they’d grant them lands and titles.

Such was the case for the Turcas family, simple but loyal jailers who found themselves elevated when during an attempted palace coup, their patriarch helped prevent the escape of the King’s leading political rival, thereby stifling the nascent rebellion, and preventing a civil war.

Magail Turcas grew up the beneficiary of her father’s windfall, educated along with the children of the court as befitted a young lady of nobility, but was continually excluded due to her family’s infamous reputation. Ever the outsider, Magali became a gossip and rumormonger, exposing the secret weaknesses of her rivals and dismantling reputations with the same vicious practicality that her forebears used to dismantle bodies.

Adventure Hooks

With the old king dying and an executioner sized ax to grind, Magali looks to cement her position as an indispensable fixture of the court, leveraging her web of informants and proxies into an actual spy network. Becoming master of whispers isn’t going to be easy, and she seeks competent agents who don’t mind digging up dirt or slinging mud on her behalf.

Having earned an enemy among the member of nobility, the party is approached by Baroness Magali after they’ve been backed into a corner: Bounties on their head, thrown into prison, assassins out for their blood. Magali offers to remove these obstructions, along with promises of financial and social assistance, provided they’re willing to help her destroy the antagonistic noble, and take public credit for their downfall.

Investigating a crime, the party comes across evidence that an otherwise inconspicuous servant was observing the proceedings and sending coded messages to an unknown benefactor. Breaking the code could provide vital information, but the servant is one of Magali’s loyal spies, and will not betray his mistress, even under threat of violence. IF the party wants this shortcut in their cimesolving escapades, they’ll need to broker a meeting with the would-be spymaster, and perhaps put themselves in her debt in exchange for some much needed clues.

Keep reading

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"

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.

Just the image of cowboys sitting around a fire telling stories gave me bard ideas for the on going cowboy series

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

Writing Realistic Characters - part 2

- Journal from their perspective. It can be hard to write compelling, realistic motivation for characters if you don’t understand them yourself. By journalling from their perspective, even if the content of the journal isn’t included in your story, you’ll essentially be thinking as the character. This should help you understand who they are and how they make choices and react to things, like a real person would.

- Answer “character questions”, but be careful when using lists found online. The internet is full of lists of questions for writers to answer when building characters, but not all of them are actually that important or useful. The fact is, it really doesn’t matter what a character’s favourite colour, animal or day of the week is (unless it’s relevant to your story… but it usually isn’t). When looking for question lists online, or making your own, focus on questions that have to do with your character’s personality, such as how they’d react to a situation or which values matter more to them.

- Make character charts! I can’t stress this enough — character charts are incredibly useful tools for writers and I don’t know what I’d do without them. They’re a great way to keep track of important information about your characters in an organized way that’s easy to access when you need to quickly check a detail. I’d also strongly recommend making your own charts, not using templates online (I find it a lot easier to stay organized when I’m using my own organizational system). If you need a place to start, though, I normally create charts with 4 categories: role (protagonist, antagonist, etc.), name, identities (gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.), and description (just a brief few sentences about them). You can also make personality charts with things like their greatest flaw, greatest strength, story goals, etc.

- Come up with a few detailed memories/anecdotes from their past. Think of them as mini-stories you can drop into your main story to build a more realistic life around the character. These don’t have to be crucial to the plot, and should be brought up in a natural way, such as in conversation with another character or in the main character’s thoughts. For example, your MC’s best friend might compliment her necklace, and she tells them how her sister gave it to her as a birthday present before moving away. You can also use these anecdotes to drop in important information in a non-obvious way. Continuing the example above, the MC could mention that her sister has the same design necklace, but in green. Later, this becomes a clue, when she finds the green necklace outside the villain’s lair.

- Keep a record of their backstory. This one doesn’t really need much explaining… Just keep notes of your character’s backstory as you come up with it so you don’t risk inconsistencies, which tend to break down realism. 

- Remember that the reader can’t see what’s in your head. Your characters may be fully developed, realistic people in your head, but that makes it easy to forget that your readers don’t automatically understand them the way you do — they only know what’s on the page. Asking other people to read your work can help you understand how your characters come through to an audience, but if you don’t want to do that, just re-reading it yourself is also helpful. If you do the latter, though, go through an entire chapter at a time, the way a reader would, not small sections.

Nadier’s Nightblade by Randy Vargas

sixty-nine more questions for your ttrpg characters!

(i originally made one of these on a defunct sideblog; i thought it was about time i made a new one! send an oc’s name and a number, go wild!)

-

1. what drives them? what’s their ultimate goal?

2. what was your original concept for this character? how did playing them change that concept?

3. can they accept failure?

4. what one person, place, or thing do they love more than anything else?

5. is there something they want to be known for?

6. how have they changed in the last year? how about the last five years?

7. there’s a magic item (or technological innovation, or special resource) made just for them—what is it?

8. what songs remind you of them? if there are specific lyrics or movements, list ‘em!

9. when in their life were they most scared?

10. what inspired this character’s creation?

11. if they have a pet or animal companion, how do they spend time with them? if they don’t have one, what sort of animal would they be interested in raising, if any?

12. how have they altered their body? piercings, tattoos, biohacks, or other modifications—anything. why (or why not) did they (or someone else) make those changes?

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

14. what keeps them up at night?

15. is there something that never fails to make them laugh?

16. do they value their appearance?

17. they’re crying—what did it take to make them cry?

18. what dish brings back the best memories for them?

19. what sparks genuine, unadulterated rage in them?

20. what attracts them to someone—platonically and/or romantically, anything counts.

21. do they have an idea about how they’ll die? do you?

22. how would they decorate their living space, if they had a chance?

23. in what moment did they consider themselves to be “grown up”?

24. are they close to any family members?

25. who is their best friend?

26. what type of person pisses them off?

27. how do they usually dress? why do they dress the way they do?

28. do they collect anything?

29. what feelings do they internalize?

30. how do they handle confrontation?

31. do they respond well to praise? how about criticism?

32. which of your decisions led to their voice being the way it is?

33. what artistic medium are they most drawn to?

34. what languages do they speak? how did they learn them?

35. when did they feel loneliest?

36. how do they fidget?

37. if they’ve had one, what was their first kiss like?

38. do they see themselves as an important part of their party?

39. are they insecure about their appearance? how about their personality? what aspects specifically worry them?

40. if you had to remake this character right now, how would you change them?’

41. how do you keep notes for this character, if at all?

42. can they dance?

43. how much do they know about the world they live in?

44. what lies do they tell others?

45. what lies do they tell themselves?

46. have they taught themselves any skills just for fun?

47. what could they talk about for hours on end?

48. do they relate to anyone in their group? conversely, which person do they relate to the least?

49. how often do they cut their hair, if at all?

50. do they have a go-to beverage, alcoholic or nonalcoholic?

51. what element of their backstory are you proudest of?

52. how would they dress themselves up for a formal event?

53. do they keep their plans close to their chest?

54. how important is money in their life? do they save up for ages, or spend quickly?

55. they’re seeing their greatest wish come true—what’s happening?

56. who would they trust with their life, unequivocally?

57. do they see value in the laws of where they live?

58. how often do they swear? do they mind when others swear?

59. what’s an element of their philosophy that you disagree with?

60. what do they have faith in? what keeps them believing?

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

62. do they believe in good and evil?

63. what’s a meme or tiktok or vine (or whatever) that you associate with them?

64. how would a party member describe them?

65. what would their go-to karaoke song be?

66. which fruit do they like most?

67. do they consider themselves to be special?

68. where’s their home?

69. what’s one secret they don’t want getting out?