Mighty Nein + Textposts

New Vox Machina s2 Trailer Reveals!

Sooo much to see in that new trailer!

First off it looks like some in the party have gotten outfit upgrades (Keyleth, autumn edition, Grog with his new beard and Kraven’s Edge, and Vax with the Deathwalkers Ward presumably)

We get our first real good look at both Raishan and Throdak

First looks at Zahra and Kash!!! Plus presumably a Slayers Take episode

Osysa the Vasselheim Sphynx, plus Kayley and Dr Dranzel’s band!

First looks at some of the Vestiges including Fenthras and the Titanstone Knuckles, feat. Kevdak too

Our first find-a-Matt of the season, being dissolved by Raishan’s acid

Vex gets some new toys including her broom and her definitely-not-a-pokeball for Trinket

and a look at the Raven Queen herself perhaps!

Plus it looks like they’re possibly swapping in K’Varn the Beholder from the Kraghammer arc we missed instead of the Rakshaka for the Slayer’s Take arc.

What do you guys think, see any more easter eggs that I missed?

i think part of the reason i drew so much crown of candy fanart is because it has the most fun colour palette in the entire world 🍭

[art instagram] 🎨 [art twitter]

WBN animatic "The Vote"

More people need to see this (I did NOT make this, just wanted more people to see it since I never saw it on Tumblr, it was made by Furcula on YouTube)

Hey! Are there blacksmiths in your story? I'm a hobbyist blacksmith and I'm here to help!

Blacksmithing is one of those things that a lot of people get wrong because they don't realize it stuck around past the advent of the assembly line. Here's a list of some common misconceptions I see and what to do instead!

Not all blacksmiths are gigantic terrifying muscly guys with beards and deep voices. I am 5'8, skinny as a twig, have the muscle mass of wet bread, and exist on Tumblr. Anybody who is strong enough to pick up a hammer and understands fire safety can be a blacksmith.

You can make more than just swords with blacksmithing. Though swords are undeniably practical, they're not the only things that can be made. I've made candle holders, wall hooks, kebab skewers, fire pokers, and more. Look up things other people have made, it's really amazing what can be done.

"Red-hot" is actually not that hot by blacksmith terms. when heated up, the metal goes from black, to red, to orange, to yellow, to white. (for temperature reference, I got a second degree burn from picking up a piece of metal on black heat) The ideal color to work with the metal is yellow. White is not ideal at all, because the metal starts sparking and gets all weird and lumpy when it cools. (At no point in this process does the metal get even close to melting. It gets soft enough to work with, but I have never once seen metal become a liquid.)

Blacksmithing takes fucking forever. Not even taking into account starting the forge, selecting and preparing metal, etc. etc. it takes me around an hour to make one (1) fancy skewer. The metals blacksmiths work with heat up and cool down incredibly fast. When the forge is going good, it only takes like 20 seconds to get your metal hot enough to work with, but it takes about the same time for it to cool down, sometimes even less.

As long as you are careful, it is actually stupidly easy to not get hurt while blacksmithing. When I picked up this hobby I was like "okay, cool! I'm gonna make stuff, and I'm gonna end up in the hospital at some point!" Thus far, the latter has yet to occur. I've been doing this for nearly a year. I have earned myself a new scar from the aforementioned second degree burn, and one singe mark on my jeans. I don't even wear gloves half the time. Literally just eye protection, common sense, and fast reflexes and you'll probably be fine. (Accidents still happen of course, but I have found adequate safety weirdly easy to achieve with this hobby)

A forge is not a fire. The forge is the thing blacksmiths put their metal in to heat it up. It starts as a small fire, usually with newspaper or something else that's relatively small and burns easily, which we then put in the forge itself, which is sort of a fireplace-esque thing (there's a lot of different types of forge, look into it and try to figure out what sort of forge would make the most sense for the context you're writing about) and we cover it with coal, which then catches fire and heats up. The forge gets really hot, and sometimes really bright. Sometimes when I stare at the forge for too long it's like staring into the sun. The forge is also not a waterfall of lava, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Welding and blacksmithing are not the same thing. They often go hand-in-hand, but you cannot connected two pieces of metal with traditional blacksmithing alone. There is something called forge welding, where you heat your metal, sprinkle borax (or the in-universe equivalent) on it to prevent the metal from oxidizing/being non-weldable, and hammer the pieces together very quickly. Forge welding also sends sparks flying everywhere, and if you're working in a small space with other blacksmiths, you usually want to announce that you're welding before you do, so that everyone in a five-foot radius can get out of that five-foot radius. You also cannot just stuck some random pebbles into the forge and get a decent piece of metal that you can actually make something with, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Anvils are really fucking heavy. Nothing else to add here.

Making jewelry is not a blacksmithing thing unless you want jewelry made of steel. And it will be very ugly if you try. Blacksmithing wasn't invented to make small things.

If there's anything here I didn't mention, just ask and I'll do my best to answer.

✨Betwixt your cheeks ✨

Brennan Lee Mulligan, Dimension 20: The Ravening War, 2023

Gustav Courbet, The Desperate Man, 1843

some excellent zac & murph (pib & gerard) faces last ep!

figure out your pc's average damage output and their optimal damage output. why?

a. you will always have a default strategy to turn to in a pinch and will know the range of what your pc can do under optimal conditions b. your dm knowing that your rogue could hypothetically do 50 damage in a turn under the best circumstances is good information for them to have to balance encounters.

here's how i do it:

first i want to figure out 'what is the most likely combination of action and bonus action to deal damage my character can take on a given turn without using an expendable resource that only effects them that turn', things like a barbarian rage or a bladesong are different because that's a lingering buff.

lets say we're a 5th level vengeance paladin, 20 strength with a longsword & shield

our sustainable turn would probably be presumably to bonus action vow of enmity (and if we already had who could say what we'd use our bonus action for) and then action attack twice.

2d8 + 10 = average of 19 points of damage.

then you want to figure out what's the most amount of damage i could do in my turn under optimal conditions. optimal conditions for our paladin. we already have vow of emnity going. we have branding smite as a bonus action, action attack twice, presuming both hit and we decide to expend our other 2nd level spell slot and one of our first level spell slots.

2d8 + 2d6 + 3d8 + 2d8 + 10 = average of 48.5 points of damage.

assuming you're fighting a fiend or undead you actually get to add an average of 9 more points of damage to that too.

so yeah one can see why this information is both useful to know as a player and as a dm. of course, this is assuming your attacks hit and doesn't take into account advantage/disadvantage or feats like gwm/sharpshooter. but the point is not always to be able to flex about how much damage your pc can deal. it is to KNOW what you can do if you needed to, what is a sustainable option for you damage-wise and helps you figure out whether it serves you / your party better to use your turn to attempt to attack or to use it to support another endeavor in an encounter.

cheers i use anydice.com to do my math for me.

Even more gorgeous than the last time we saw them! 😭

I'm so emotional!