Vovir Mesk: the Shire Reeve of Brin Shander By Emil This is the second custom NPC from my personal Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign. He is a direct response to my players’ frustration about the supposedly lawful good leaders of Ten Towns allowing or even encouraging human sacrifices to Auril. To me, the sacrifices to…
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Playing a video game and you’re deep into a dungeon not opened in centuries, you’ve fought your way past ancient guardians, booby traps and foul odours only to find that, inexplicably, that traveling merchant from earlier has set up shop among the cobwebs and has exactly the items you need. I’m the…
First Floor By Emil Zehra scurried down the empty hallway in a haze. Her claws clicked against the stone floor. Why had she gone to the Yawning Portal? Why was she chasing random adventurers through this dungeon? How had they gotten so far ahead of her? She was distracted. The demon statues at the entrance…
D&D isn’t just fun, it’s actually good for you By Puzzle Lockdowns may have given us the perfect excuse to sit our PJs all day and eat dry cereal straight from the box but they also created a very real lack of connection. Online TTRPGs have helped quite a few of us bridge that gap…
The lord of war stood facing the window. Dis always felt bigger from this perspective. On the street you could only ever see what was in front of you. Buildings. People. Chaos. You needed distance to understand the scope. From up here, the faces and stench of the crowded streets faded into a thousand-thousand cogs,…
Doing some prep for a Dogs in the Vineyard game and I made a couple of cheat sheets Thought I’d post them here. If you haven’t heard of it look it up! It’s not like any other RPG I’ve ever seen and is a blast to play.“Dogs in the Vineyard” was written by D. Vincent Baker and…
I’ve got two players in my campaign who are close friends in real life, but like to make characters that have tension between them. Think Star Lord and Rocket Raccoon. I like their strong character choices and want to be able to mechanically reinforce their role play decisions as a DM. The problem is that…
I like Matt’s video on action-oriented monsters, but I haven’t got a chance to test it out yet. Let’s build a solo monster for a level 5 party and see how it turns out! I want to make a pulpy sci-fi/horror monster. Something to terrify my players, and that they can feel good about killing…
The village of Balshaw has always had tense relations with the nearby Cacklewood Forest. All sorts of strange and dangerous things happen in there. Not the least of which was the cackleface goblin clan who called it home. They would attack travelers dumb enough to wander the woods alone and occasionally gather enough forces to…
“I’m sorry, our town’s not really big enough to have a tavern or an Inn. Are you sure you don’t know anyone you could stay with? Well, there is an old hag just outside of town who lets travelers stay in her loft. But I’d sleep with one eye open if I were you” Background…