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freswoe · 27 days

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as always when i get Too Into a Thing i gotta make some ocs for it SO please put your hands together for:

The Birdcatchers, my fantasy high oc party! they’re currently level 12 juniors like the bad kids :D

(called the birdcatchers cause due to some shenaniganery and japes they spent their first day meeting each other while chasing after a flock of birds that had stolen their possessions)

OUR CAST:

Malory Clara Dorothy Eleanor Mildmay, (she/her), Warforged Storm Sorcerer. Basically an Enid Blyton/post-WW2 English boarding school girl dropped into an 80s American high school setting and is having a Bad Time. she is excessively polite, uses honourifics copiously, is deeply nervous and a very good liar. doesn’t talk much about her family.

Zeke Ambercrown, (he/him), Way of the Drunken Master Monk Satyr. very lithe jock kid, plays bloodrush, a lot smarter than he lets on. learnt the monk technique from his family, who love him dearly. lives at the Ambercrown brewery and enjoys experimenting with different fermenting processes to make new drinks - loves chemistry, but is willing to play the ‘dumb jock’ so he can be underestimated. following the events of their freshman year, zeke opened up the older, disused secondary brewery and worked to transform it into a place for everyone to live, work, and be safe.

Trib Ferrier, (they/them), Oath of Vengeance Goblin Paladin. very serious, and comes from a long line of Jesters. considered a disappointment to their lineage, they have instead taken on a blood oath against a rival house of dreaded Mimes to redeem themself in the eye of their family. picture the smallest goblin possible with Hugemassive eyes, the aura of a depressed businessman, and the attire of a court jester. bells and all.

Talaria (Tally) Beira, (she/her), College of Whispers High Elf Bard. tally is a prankster and a bit of a shithead, plays the bass as her channeling tool for her magic (resents being compared to Fig, as in Tally’s eyes she’s been playing the bass way longer than Fig). badly split-dyed hair, jean jacket, and missing half of one ear, she loves nothing more than planning out a good prank. despite this, she’s a terrible coward and is loathe to face consequences for her actions. she hates this part of herself but doesn’t know how to change it. but hey funny water bucket on door sick bass riff right!! haha that’s funny right!! right?

Orfeo Ravocrath, (he/him), Grave Cleric/Phantom Rogue White Dragonborn. despite being a six and a half foot tall white dragonborn wearing a black cowboy hat, orfeo is pretty hard to spot. when he wants to be seen, though, he’s seen - he’s got that southern charm, chill personality, and is also a perfect priest of death, and also seems to be the most popular of the birdcatchers. he’s a little bemused by this, as all he really wants is to go with the flow and doesn’t much care about popularity (which infuriates some of his party members to no end). rumour goes, though, that he’s not actually a cowboy - just a theatre kid who’s really, really method.

Rose Orry, (she/her), Ancestral Guardians Barbarian Tiefling. rose comes from a prestigious house of fashion designers, and she’s never seen without her signature sunglasses. she’s a classic mean bitch, vain about her appearance and prideful about her fashion designing talents, and the most annoying thing about her is that she’s actually really fucking good. beneath that bubblegum-pink, knife-sharp exterior, though, seems to be a normal high school student, forced to grow up too soon and terrified of never finding her true love.

these are the Greachurs and i love them dearly. might try to draw them soon <3 more of a ref post for me anyways

#the birdcatchers #dimension 20 #fantasy high #fantasy high ocs #dimension 20 ocs

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the-backspin-alchemist · 2 years

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omg pls share more about ur half-drow alucard energy dnd character he sounds incredible

I absolutely missed this so this is SUPER late I bet, BUT

(long post, character stuff below the break)

In the current campaign I am taking part in (currently GMing, but given that it's a rotating hotseat campaign and my big siege arc is coming to a close, that's about to change), I play a half-drow ranger named Jace Caellos, who basically was initially designed as "Alucard, but a half-drow, and given the lore it's his mom that used to be the big scary overlord"

Mind you, a bunch of tweaks happened along the way because our setting is SUUUUPER homebrewed, while still retaining SOME stuff from Forgotten Realms lore?

Super-boiled down backstory: Jace is the product of a loving marriage between a Drow warlord that left the Underdark and made a name for herself on the surface because she didn't like how annoying Lolth and her people were, and a human apothecary that stands very much by the idea that everyone deserves to be treated well and that also believe that the Underdark had a number of herbs and fungi and possible means of helping treat illnesses that were being ignored because...Underdark.

When Jace is about 17, a bunch of assholes lynch his dad for willingly marrying and having a kid with a drow, and his mom goes nuts and leads a brutal and bloody campaign across the countryside out of rage and grief.

Jace tries to stop her.

She nearly kills him.

He lives, barely, learns How To Ranger over the span of two years, and tries to stop her again.

She nearly kills him, has a breakdown at nearly killing her own kid, and then lets him kill her.

Campaign ends, Jace is now emotionally traumatized, and goes back into being the Ranger in the Woods.

Fast forward another two and a half years, and he joins up with the Adventurer's Guild out of Holtan as a means of trying to put all his fancy Ranger skills to work, and as an excuse to dip his toe back into society.

During this time, he is a GRUMPY individual. Extremely snarky, in many cases vaguely condescending,

He's got his own set of "rules" that he insists on following, a sort of code to keep him from going off the rails (since that's what he did in outright killing his mother, in his head.) He also has a very complicated relationship with the gods, as both parents basically had the idea of "respect them so long as they're not active dicks to people."

Absolutely didn't get along with the dwarf in the party (which later on was GENIUSLY improvised by said dwarf's player by being because he recognized Jace as his mom's kid almost immediately, and had fought against her). He's since gotten less uptight about things, and he and the barbarian have an understanding now that certain things are out in the open.

He's more or less mentoring our kenku rogue in How To Morality, since he's basically a Chaotic Neutral literal magpie that doesn't get why you can't just take things that you think are pretty, or mess with statues of the gods for fun, and is also just generally much younger than the other adventurers.

He's got a sort-of rapport with the aasimar paladin of the party, who he sees as being the party member with a strong code (even if he thinks she's impulsive as hell at times), and she seems to have a soft spot for him for...some reason. (@punkpuppydragon plays said paladin, named Oz, so if he wants to shed insight on that, he can.)

His..."love interest" (which I blame entirely on @charlezarrd) is the party's tiefling sorcerer, Ashes. He got along with her because she WOULDN'T just rush straight into danger, is generally nice to most people to a fault, and seems to have a fairly decent head on her shoulders. Then Charles took a one-liner from a session about Jace getting annoyed at a gnoll for attacking Ashes and went "oh wait they could be a Thing™" and has been vaguely pushing in that direction for a bit (until Oz asked Ashes out, turning this whole situation into a weird love-triangle thing I won't totally get into here).

Jace helped Ashes tame and adopt Chester the Mimic, and is kind of currently trying to deal with two tiny Displacer Beast cubs that are rowdy but otherwise are basically just larger kittens with weird tentacly-things (since that's basically what displacer beasts are).

He's had at least two mental breakdowns so far due to The Trauma™ (the last one gave me a convenient excuse to have him leave the party and find his parents' journals when I started my current stint as GM to avoid having him just be the DMPC of the arc), he's oddly polite when dealing with people that aren't in the party (mostly due to his dad's influence) and has become much less obnoxious towards the current party members after his last breakdown when fighting a werewolf that murdered his own father out of sheer pettiness and revenge (a thing that Jace naturally has his own issues with).

He carves stuff in his spare time, and has unwittingly seduced a banshee with a stupidly-high Persuasion check and then a natural 20 on a Performance check for a song (he then absolutely misunderstood the intentions of said banshee, and things got awkward when he had to explain he was asexual and wasn't interested).

He lied to a gnome once about her whacky killer werewolf boyfriend actually loving her, because he didn't want to mar the guy's image in her mind too much (Ashes immediately called him out on this, with the gnome unknowingly present to see all this).

He got bodied by an ancient golden dragon and collapsed in front of the Guild Hall, bleeding out, because he can't even nearly die in a manner that isn't dramatic, which was fun.

He threatened a silver dragon (disguised as an elf, in fairness, but who was a known silver dragon) for being creepy towards Ashes.

He plays the kalimba.

That's Jace. He's weird. And fun to play.

#DND

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darthsuki · 2 years

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5, 6, 8, 13, 17, 18, 19, 25, 26, 28, 30 please :3

Ask me things about DnD!

This is definitely a long post since I am 300% down to talk about my campaign and players, so it's going under a readmore cut. But, to give a little generic background for the setting, I offer a brief 'inside bookcover' synopsis:

When four strangers are called upon as heroes to another world in a mission-gone-awry, they must face not only the mounting problems of Solarus and its muddled history, but also the lingering doubts and issues within themselves that they've carried from Faerûn.

With their only path forward being an ominous warning from a mysterious benefactor and a dark prophecy from a now-unknown god, they must learn the power of not only what it means to be remembered, but also what it means to be forgotten.

5. Favorite NPC.

A young 20-something tiefling named Draugr Slovenka! He was the first NPC that my players encountered when they were transported to Solarus, so I felt it was important that they had a memorable 'tutorial' character that could give them some basic guidance for the lay of the land so to speak, especially since I had built up a fair bit of worldbuilding by that point that I wanted them to learn organically.

...Unfortunately, the party became extremely endeared of this russian wannabe-bard twink and wound up taking him along for the first 'arc' of the campaign and somehow ended up with three sugar-daddy boyfriends when the party finally arrived in one of the world's major cities.

[Art by me!]

6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc).

Picture this: in the climatic battle of the first arc to the campaign, all my players are set up in a dilapidated old church. They've been investigating the cause to a series of shadow-monster attacks to a small town near the edge of a forest claimed to be the source. After learning that these creatures were the work of a deranged sorcereress named Jolene who is hell-bent on resurrecting a dark god--those shadow monsters were all the failed attempts--they decide to put an end to her madness.

It's supposed to be a difficult fight, she's got a lot of spells at her disposal and several shadow guards designed to give the party a healthy challenge for the level they're currently at. Now imagine a short time into this battle, one of my players--a rather softspoken divine soul sorcerer--decides to start dipping into her metamagic feature as a sorcerer instead of saving it back for later.

This is a really great moment for her since she's a newer player and still learning these abilities. She decides she wants to 'twin' her guiding bolt spell (essentially quick-casting it twice) and I ask for the rolls and whatnot-

And she crits. Spectacularly. The damage rolls are stupendously high and these creatures have a natural weakness to radiant damage. The party is actively going nuts and this tiny drow essentially YEETS the evil sorceress into nonexistence.

It was glorious.

8. Your favorite fight/encounter.

While exploring the dilapidated church related in the question above, the party meets a very odd but well-spoken man named Tachun who is literally in the middle of a very powerful-looking summoning. He doesn't seem overtly hostile to the party when they come upon him and his dark ritual, and it's made even stranger when he, upon seeing one of the party members, seems ecstatic. He then happily proclaims that one of the party members (Hilriasi) to be the 'prophet' of the cult he and the sorceress Jolene are apart of--the Cult of Nyx.

This wigs out the party severely, to say the least, moreso when he stops casting whatever crazy dark ritual he's got going on and all-too-casually begins talking to them about how he feels Jolene has really 'lost her way' in the cult, and how the 'prophet' will finally lead Solarus into a new era of prosperity...

The party wasn't sure whether they loved or hated this proclaimed 'fruity bitch' and I can't wait to see if he shows back up later.

13. Introduce your current party.

Hilriasi (Fallen Aasimar) - It can be hard to be the child of powerful parents. Harder still is growing up with the knowledge that your parents had saved the world from ending some years back—and Hilriasi is that very child, and their family being the members of the adventuring group that their parents had been apart of.

Life could have been simple in following their footsteps or merely living in the glow of their accomplishments, but fate decided that was not the way; a terrible and unknown incident when Hilriasi was young led to them losing their color and falling from grace—which is never a good or simple thing for an aasimar to experience, especially when their parents never looked at them the same way again.

It was all too easy to leave home after that. Easier still to be a soldier. A mercenary. And after Hilriasi is led to meet the other members of the party and learns that they have a deep connection to a dark force that threatens the world of Solarus, perhaps they are more alike their parents than they realize.

Art by monsterradio on dA

Judge (Glasya Tiefling) - There are several things one could say about Judge when they first meet him. He’s absurdly tall (almost seven feet), absurdly quiet, and absurdly direct. But most importantly of all: he is damn good at his job.

His job? Whatever he is contracted to do—as the members of the Underclaw are supposed to be when hired out by a client. Murder, blackmail, intimidation, thievery—Judge has done it plenty of times, having been raised from birth by the dark organization to be akin to a fine-tuned machine of death and bloodshed. But even this quiet man has weaknesses: he never removes the mask that he wears (even to sleep), and he loathes birds more than almost anything.

Art by evaporatingvoid on Twitter

Kenzir Ghostblade (Feathren) - Of a homebrew race by the Griffon’s Saddlebag, Kenzir is a mapmaker by trade and a wanderer by hobby—he never remains in one place for very long in his search for the end of the horizon’s beyond and always curious about anything that catches his attention.

But while his wanderlust is his greatest pride, it is also his deepest flaw. Sure, it is hard to keep friends when constantly roaming the world over, but those friends would surely leave you first wouldn’t they? So why bother building relationships that would only leave one hurt in the end—especially if Kenzir will have to eventually move on? It isn’t until he is thrown into another world entirely that Kenzir meets someone he cares about enough that he is prepared to confront one of the most terrifying thoughts of all: what might happen if he wants to stay in Solarus after all? To not… wander on?

Art by smogteeth on Twitter

Rilrae (Drow) - This young woman is incredibly intelligent in matters of magicks and religion, and she is a divine sorcerer and a faithful worshiper of Selûne. That skill is however balanced against the fact that she is the youngest of the group, culturally speaking, so that leaves her often trying to compel the others to respect her as a young adult. Though Rilrae remembers very little of her childhood, she knows that the moon has always played a keen role in her love of the world beyond the Underdark.

In Solarus, she is cut-off from her connection to Selune, and is forced to find herself again in an entirely new world--will she be able to rekindle her connection to the pantheon of this new place and find a place that she belongs? Who knows--she's still figuring that out.

[Art by me!]

17. What are some house rules that your group has?

1. No animal cruelty or death allowed in the campaign.

2. Storytelling is paramount, so be creative with abilities and challenges and it will be rewarded.

3. Test rolls with dice are allowed to weed out the Problem Dice™, but must be announced before the roll.

4. Relationships, romantic are otherwise, are encouraged! Spicy scenes will fade-to-black, and can be discussed in discord RP if we're really feeling the chemistry.

18. Does your party keep any pets?

Tarnish is a small dragonette owned by Hilriasi who has a very very small horde of 1 (one) platinum coin that he keeps on his tiny body at all times. To the current point in the campaign he has largely been an Emotional Support Dragonette normally perched on Hilriasi’s shoulders, but I can guarantee something batshit insane is going to happen to either this pet or the one below by the end of the campaign (in a good way).

Henri is a Totally Normal Rabbit(tm) that is based on a Flemish giant rabbit. Judge the rogue bought him in one of the first larger towns the party traveled through, and is assumed to be carried in a large messenger bag at all times. Since Judge has a habit of sleeping completely flat and face down (to protect his mask from being removed) Henri has taken to flopping on the rogues’ back and sleeping on him every night.

But for real, I want you to imagine that the party's rogue, a seven-foot-tall tiefling, always has the rabbit in a sling around him like this:

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions?

My players absolutely prefer to roll physical dice unless I specifically ask them otherwise—and I allow that without issue. This is because that they claim all the rolls made in dnd beyond will favor absolute chaos in roleplay and combat alike because I (the DM) pay the subscription to host everything. I argue the point humorously and constantly, but I can’t say I blame them when one player tried the digital dice and got below 10 on five rolls in a row in a skill their character was otherwise proficient in.

Less specific to the current campaign, but it’s also traditional for each of our dnd characters to have a set of dice that is specifically for THEM, and rolling another character’s dice set is akin to goading the Dice Gods to smite us personally for such an affront to their power.

25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for?

Me, internally: Okay, so I have all these clues strewn about this first town to act as a good first arc of this campaign. These clues will slowly lead the party to carefully scout out a nearby ruin, which in turn will lead them to this old cursed church and-

The party: Hey we're going to the old church.

Me: :U

The party: Oh yeah! We also would like to pull out the obviously cursed sword sticking in the rock in the center of town.

Me, quickly rewriting everything: Of course exactly as planned

26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters.

Without giving too much information, since my party is currently still in this arc, it would be the 'opening scene' for what we're calling the 'Carnival Arc'. The party was called upon to investigate a mysterious roaming carnival that has re-emerged from hundreds of years of obscurity, and worse still has become the place that a princess of another kingdom has gone missing in--they are tasked to find her and figure out what is sustaining the carnival and it's ongoing curse.

I planned the entire setting to be creepy and vaguely off-colored from it's apparent visage of wonder and excitement, and the host was undoubtedly the best part. Miss Mystic, apparently a warforge/constructed being, plays the part of an enthusiastic host to the point it's almost sickly-sweet.

However, in that first introduction to the carnival, I accidentally clicked on the sound effect for a broken music box item that the party was supposed to obtain later on in the session instead of the proper music for the background noise. Cue my players all absolutely freaking out and immediately declaring that they wanted to go home.

Suffice to say, the first impression of the arc went exactly as desired!

28. How often do you use NPCs in a party?

This band of beautiful gremlins have tried to adopt NPCs at such a rate that I once had to have a drawn-out conversation with myself as three or four separate characters.

This of course is not helped by the fact that Solarus began as a setting for several different original writing and multi-media projects, so I often shove more NPCs into the sessions than I really should, if only because I’m always looking at it as a fleshed-out world with a story first and a dnd game setting second.

…I also make sure that every PC is able to connect with at least one NPC. It just so happens that those PCs end up dating their NPC. Some of them with multiple.

30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos?

They are quite diplomatic! In fact, I don't believe they've started any fights at all outside of interactions that were explicitly aggressive. Hell, there's been several instances that some good rolls and carefully-selected words have dissolved the conflict before it even began (please see the character Tachun in the questions above).

Though this has led to the party being extremely careful about the reputation they have, it has been a very fun experience when as a new DM I had worried about them all becoming the stereotypical murder hobos most parties can devolve into.

Court of the Sun: 50% roleplay, 30% politics, 20% hot NPCs

#dnd #court of the sun #solarus #court of the sun campaign #dungeons and dragons #dungeons & dragons #ask meme #dnd ask meme

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radramblog · 3 years

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Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Commanders

Due to circumstances I won’t get into at time of writing (don’t worry it’s mostly good) I’ve been forced, dragged over, and required to actually fucking read all the new Commanders from Magic’s newest set, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. I’ve only recently gotten deeper into D&D, I don’t know who like any of these clowns are (except Tiamat, obviously).

Also due to circmstances beyond my control (that are less good but understandable) my Commander night has been called off and I don’t get to play with my shiny new Cabal Coffers. It’s a bit sad, and it means I want to get my fix elsewhere.

What better way than to combine these two and just write about every AFR ‘mander? That’ll pass the time. There’s like, what, 30? I can manage that if I’m quick. Let’s get into it.

(No I’m not doing the precon cards I haven’t been staring at those all week)

Acererak the Archlich

The way I see this guy going is one of two things. You either do infinite Venture by making him free (not too hard in Black, what with Heartless Summoning, Carnival of Souls, etc.) and have a probably fine combo commander. For the record, infinite Venture does kill your opponents flat-out, BUT only because of Lost Mine of Phandelver’s Dark Pool room, and only if their life totals are lower than your deck count because you’re going to be drawing it in the process. That shouldn’t be an issue, but you never know.

The other option is just playing him fairly, which requires completing Tomb of Annihilation, and you just have a kinda mid Stax commander I guess? Eh.

Asmodeus the Archfiend

This Devil is clearly trying to echo prior Demons like Griselbrand and Vilis, but I’m not sure it’s going to be successful- if only because the mana investment means it’s a lot slower. And if he gets killed when you don’t have B up? Blown the fuck out. Add in no evasion and this is a God I’m happy to pass on.

Barrowin of Clan Undurr

Okay so this is kind of like Alesha, in less colours and more mana, if you manage to complete a dungeon. And there aren’t that many dungeon cards, so you’re probably playing some bad ones to make up for it. This is definitely a 99’er in that Esper Dungeon precon, and certainly not a commander.

Bruenor Battlehammer

In an attempt to solve one of Boros’s problems, Bruenor saves you a bunch of mana on equips and makes shit like Argentum Armor substantially more playable. He also gets kinda fuckin beefy with even just a few on him, hitting that 7 no matter what the first one is and 11 not long after. As far as Boros Boys go, you can do a lot worse!

Delina, Wild Mage

Didn’t we just get this card? Like, in C21? This is harder to make busted than Rionya, but it is cheaper and works with legends, so fair call. There’s not enough “advantage” dice mechanics in Red, certainly, so you can’t go probability-mad with this, but it’s pretty decent value. It also happens to be a Shaman, so it works with that new MH2 card, and that’s fun.

Drizzt Do’Urden

This guy has a lot of potential, and for added bonus, he has a cat! A lot of the cards that are good in this are the ones that are good in, say, Varolz, but honestly if you just want to play Selesnya Beatsticks then Drizzt might be the way to go. Can’t play him in Cats, though, unless you want to lose Kaheera, so.

Ebondeath, Dracolich

Yeah I don’t think this one was for this format? I mean it’s super recursive, and probably a really good candidate for a Homicidal Seclusion/Deadly Wanderings deck. I think we need one or two more of that effect to make it actually playable, but I still like the idea.

Wait why isn’t this fucker a skeleton? WoTC Pls.

Farideh, Devil’s Chosen

Look, I tried. I really tried, but there really just isn’t enough to make Farideh work yet. At least in black-border, as I think she’s probably one of the best silver-bordered commanders printed in a minute. A shame, because I sure do enjoy Tieflings, and the effect is legitimately solid if you can trigger it consistently.

Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar

While I imagine it’s a perfectly solid commander in their own right, basically Mono-Blue Edric but not group-huggy, where this is going to really shine is in Ninja decks. Holy shit, this is so nutty for those. Honestly, ETB decks in general are going to like them, because the choice of either taking damage and letting them draw or letting them reuse a powerful ETB is pretty tough. I like everything about this, except the art, because I’m not into tentacles no thank you.

Gretchen Titchwillow

When Strixhaven came out, I thought Zimone was going to be the most boring Simic commander we’d ever see. But here comes Gretchen to outdo them.

Look, Simic can do good designs. Even at uncommon- Imoti, Moritte, and Eutropia are all super interesting in my opinion. But Simic being just draw and lands has become a meme, and I’m sick of it. Extremely so, for three main reasons- one, it’s boring, two, it’s been all over the place since WoTC decided +1/+1 counters being their only theme was bad (and, fair,) and three, it’s good.

Gretchen is the most boring card in the entire set, in my opinion, and I sure hope she isn’t a cool character in the lore because that’d be such a waste.

Hama Pashar, Ruin Seeker

There are 21 venture cards in Azorius, and some of them are even good. Most of the Room effects are pretty minor, however, save for some of the endgame ones (and copying Cradle of the Death God is pointless, Atropal is legendary), so copying them isn’t actually a huge amount of value. I’d still play this in Esper Venture, but I don’t think I’d build around it.

Icingdeath, Frost Tyrant

While this clearly isn’t built for this format, equipping this dragon with it’s own tongue is kind of a hilarious idea. You could do worse for Voltron decks, I guess, and in the 99 it’s both a thing to slap equipment on and an equipment itself- like a flying (and weaker) Halvar. Eh? I just wish the token wasn’t legendary- like yeah Flavour but this effect gets a lot worse when you can’t recur it. It’s rare that someone goes out of their way to kill an equipment that isn’t super busted, so Frost Tongue is probably hanging around for a while anyway.

Man, it feels awful if they bolt this one, huh?

Inferno of the Star Mounts

Okay this is fucking cool. It’s a Shivan Dragon with haste, and that ability is probably pretty feasible to activate- keep in mind Braid of Fire and Neheb and the like are in the format- and combined with a swing will just kill someone. In fact, when I saw this, my brain immediately started looking for ways to shrink it, just so you can get multiple 20-damage wallops in a turn.

…there aren’t very many. But still! Even if you can’t get to 20 multiple times in a turn, getting to 21 once or twice is pretty good!

Iymrith, Desert Doom

The fourth of our dragon cycle, because hey, it is Dungeons and Dragons. Iymrith reads basically identical to Dragonlord Ojutai, but without White- and for that kinda control deck, White is pretty nice to have. Iymrith can draw you more cards than Ojutai, but only if you’re low, in a blue deck, in Commander, so. With that said, a deck that just loads this with cheap auras/equipment might actually be pretty good, since they can load you back up on cards and keep the Voltron flowing, so, maybe? I’d honestly consider it if I didn’t already have Mono-blue Voltron as a deck.

Kalain, Reclusive Painter

Okay this is super interesting. He is, unfortunately kinda fighting with the RB precon face, Prosper, for the new RB treasure deck, but for an uncommon there’s a fair bit going on here.

Actually, wait, is there? I thought about this for another couple seconds, and I don’t think this card actually does that much. It’s one treasure, and it benefits you a little bit for doing something you frankly don’t really want to be burning treasures on? Like it probably plays a mean Marionette Master, but everyone does that.

There really aren’t any other RB Artifact commanders, though, aside from Prosper or a partner deck. So ehhhh? Why are more people playing this than, like, Bruenor?

Krydle of Baldur’s Gate

That’s a lot of words that don’t actually do a whole lot. I like the second ability, but Commander and especially Dimir aren’t hurting for evasion options. This is probably pretty good in Rogues, but that deck has a de facto best commander now, so. If this came out like, five years ago, it’d be kinda hype, but not anymore.

As an aside, I do kinda hate it when they just print a Tribal commander (or anything like this) that’s just miles and miles better than every other commander for that archetype, like with Anowon 2 or Edgar Markov or Anje Falkenrath. Wait….those are all vampires…….

Minsc, Beloved Ranger

Shivam Bhatt did a fucking excellent breakdown of this character’s lore on twitter, which I recommend reading- the history of D&D’s lore is fucking wild. As it is, this seems like a pretty fun Naya commander- there’s plenty of creatures that get way better if you make them large, even if targeting Boo seems kinda pointless.

Also, I need someone to explain to me why the “Top Cards” on EDHREC for this guy right now are, like, all combo cards.

WAIT NO FIGURED IT OUT, unlike Marath he doesn’t say X can’t be 0 so you can use him as a sac outlet, for fucks sake people.

Nadaar, Selfless Paladin

Hey remember all the things I said about the WB and WU dungeon cards? I mean, at least this guy could theoretically complete the dungeon on his own, but Mono-White is even more restrictive for what you could get, so. At least he draws a card every so often. And that anthem isn’t even remotely worth it, at all.

Old Gnawbone

Green eating up more of the colour pie, I see. Now to be fair, I’ve pondered Mono-Green artifacts for a while, and this is probably a better leader for that list than Oviya Pashiri (but…I like her….), but beyond that I’m not sure what you’re doing with this. I guess people playing Sakiko because they think she’s actually good and not because they like her have a new commander.

This is fuckbusted in the 99 of like a million decks though. So there’s that.

Orcus, Prince of Undeath

That…is so much mana. In a colour combo not especially great at garnering lots of it. The second ability scales fairly well, and it is a decent body on its own, but I don’t think this is going to be a particularly popular commander. Like, you have to pump 6 mana into this just to get a 2-drop back or to Infest the board? And that’s just the first time you cast it? Nahhhhh.

Oswald Fiddlebender

Artifact Pod? Yeah, okay, sure, that seems reasonable at two mana. Keeping this mono-white was a good idea, I can’t imagine how insane this’d be in blue. I’m no artifacts expert, I’m no pod expert, but this has to be busted, right? Like surely there’s an easy way to infinite this? Someone with more brains figure it out for me, but either way it’s still a bunch of value and also a tutor in the zone.

(convert two random 2-mana rocks or wellsprings into Basalt Monolith/Rings of Brighthearth, okay that’s a good start)

Shessra, Death’s Whisper

…ehhhhhhh. Okay, so, it’s a significantly worse Deathreap ritual in the command zone, and also a terrible Lure effect. Along with the flavour words on this taking up much more space than necessary, making the effects look much bigger and better than they are. Would it have hurt to give this deathtouch? Make it trigger on every end step? Lure more than once? I dunno, this just seems painfully weak to me. We’ve had an overabundance of Golgari commanders recently, to be fair- MH2 had 3, and before that was the enemy focused Strixhaven/C21, but that’s no excuse for this to be such trash- just look at Bruenor.

Targ Nar, Demon-Fang Gnoll

I hope you like Gnolls, because that’s gotta be the only reason you’re playing this. Hello Tuya Bearclaw/Syr Faren/im sure a bunch of other boring commanders, this is another one of you. This looks so bad next to the Gruul precon (which is apparently somehow the first Gruul precon) and, well, every other RG general from the past couple years (save, again, Tuya Bearclaw). Even the fuckin Walking Dead guy is cooler than this.

The Tarrasque

Disappointment part one over here is at time of writing the only commander from this set with a fat zero decks. Considering there were like 10 commanders at that number when I last checked, people are clearly trying out the set, so The Tarrasque being abandoned is particularly sad. It just…doesn’t do anything? It’s the fucking Tarrasque, and it doesn’t have trample, or a fear ability, or anything? Ward 10 is cute, basically being hexproof unless they have infinite mana (or an uncounterable spell), but really? I want more than this idiot for my 9 fucking mana commander. Ugh.

Tiamat

I believe I’ve talked about Tiamat before, when she got spoiled, but I can’t be arsed finding that and dredging it up. I’m still disappointed, basically, especially since I’ve now read her statblock and know what she actually does. They could’ve given her a cool ability per head like Cromat, or had her recur like she does in the lore, or something. I genuinely would have preferred if she was an Emrakul-style massive game-ender (with a no-reanimation no bullshit clause) than this. How utterly meh.

Trelasarra, Moon Dancer

This is literally just Ajani’s Pridemate but Selesnya and in the zone. Also you scry. Sure? It does also have two relevant creature types I guess, and they’d probably be good in a Soul Sisters deck. But it’s not like Selesnya was hurting for Lifegain commanders- this is basically just Lathiel but much leaner and voltron-ier.

Varis, Silverymoon Ranger

Wait you can’t even play this in Esper Venture, fuck. With Flash effects, you can start clearing dungeons well quick enough, but like, for what, a Wolf? And these defensive keywords aren’t getting you anywhere either. Blegh.

Side note- I’m a big fan of tokens, and collecting various token arts, and I was extremely disappointed when I found out that the Wolf token from this set is just…the Zendikar one again? They didn’t reuse the 3/3 Angel or the Goblin or even the Zombie, why just that one? Something must have happened behind the scenes here.

Also….Silverymoon? That sounds like shit.

Volo, Guide to Monsters

Hey, I know you, you’re from that one book. As much as Anti-Tribal sounds fun, I’m pretty sure this just turns into generic Simic value. Copying things is fun, I suppose, though not working with Legends hurts. I also appreciate that this supports playing a bunch of weirdo cards or ones that have fallen out of favor because they have more unique creature types- Anphin Mutineer, Acidic Slime, and Diluvian Primordial all seem like a lot of power here.

That said, is anyone ever letting this fucker stick around for a turn?

Xanathar, Guild Kingpin

Hey, I know you, you’re from that one book. This card is completely awful to play in webcam-commander, so it’s a good thing we’re all getting vaccinated, right?

So this is UB Gonti, I guess? And also unironically not the worst combo commander, since it stops people from playing spells on your turn in a very White-like effect. Add in some Lantern-style effects and you can get a real stew going with this guy. He looks like a lot of fun- and I’m sure he’ll end up popular as a result. Well, that and being on the cover of an expansion book gets you a lot of notoriety.

Zalto, Fire Giant Duke

Our final card, our final Venture card, and the only red one. So, uh, there are literally 4 other Venture cards in mono-red, and at least one of them is complete dogshit, so I can’t imagine this being very good. Also, it’s an Enrage trigger on a 3 toughness 5-drop? Far from ideal. I guess it’s a 7 power trampler for 5, but that’s kind of faint praise to damn with. Maybe if someone makes 5C Venture, or if Giant/Barbarian tribal feel lacking, then this guy can find a home.

Shoutout to the exactly one person who built this deck, by the way. I see you, Elder Demon Highlander, and your 100ish views on your deck tech.

And that’s the lot of them. Honestly, a lot more misses than hits, but that’s perfectly okay by me. 30 legends in a set is a lot, not to mention the 12 from the precons, and we’ve had so many actively playable legends recently that I’m fine with, like, half of these being trash. Trash is more fun anyway! Get yourself a fuckin Varis, why not.

Okay but seriously though who’s biting the bullet and building Tarrasque first? It’s not going to be me.

#ramble #mtg #commander #edh #mtgafr #adventures in the forgotten realms

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fiction-over-facts · 5 years

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a land so wild and savage Character Detail Post

AKA: all the things I wanted to write in the notes of the fic but even I know when they’re too long. Eventually.

(This is just a little post containing the planned classes and reasoning for each of them. It’s not important but I figured 1. maybe someone would be interested and 2. it would be helpful to have this saved somewhere if I ever decide to do more in the verse (especially something where this stuff actually really matters).)

General Character Summary

formatted as (name, character level, class levels):

Hashirama- 17 (12 Forest Druid, 5 Life Cleric)

Tobirama- 16 (16 Transmutation Wizard)

Mito- 16 (either 16 Paladin or 12 Paladin, 4 Warlock)

Touka- 16 (12 Rogue, 4 Barbarian UPDATE: 10 Rogue, 6 fighter; I honestly have no idea why I wanted her to have barb levels when i wrote this. If I had a reason it obviously wasn’t very good because I’ve forgotten it.)

Madara- 16 (16 Warlock, Fiend Patron (maybe?), Pact of the Blade)

Izuna- 16 (16 Lore Bard)

*Race note: in the fic I don’t really mention it but the Senju are all definitely humans, Mito is (probably) a water genasi and both Uchiha are tieflings.

**I don’t specify some class details (like Mito’s Oath for example) because I really don’t know that much about d&d outside of learning through exposure to CritRole, so I’m not sure what the best selections would be in some cases.

Character Decision/Design Notes

-Hashirama- The easiest thing to decide was that Hashirama was going to be a Druid because, I mean, it’s Hashirama. I attached Life Cleric later on, just because it felt kind of right to do (and also I love healing and wizards Concern me. Plus, I think Hashirama, already down two brothers and raised in a society where that’s much, much less expected than it is for ninja, would also be Concerned.)

-Tobirama- Tobirama as a wizard was the second easiest. I sort of thought about him being a wisdom class at first (for the perception, which could be sort of an analog for sensing in this verse) but Druid didn’t feel right and neither did Cleric, really (though from what I know he would’ve been a Grave or Death one). But wizard felt right since Tobirama, as we know, is a Nerd as any good wizard should be.

(I still wanted him to have high wis though, because unperceptive Tobirama is just wrong, so I maxed int and wis and gave him 6 charisma as a trade off (the inverse justification for this is that Tobirama isn’t precisely bad with people, he’s just logical and tells people things they definitely don’t want to hear because he doesn’t really see why he shouldn’t, so his charisma checks very, very rarely work out.)

-Madara- Madara was the third easiest, tied with Touka. Based on the temper he’s portrayed with I briefly considered barbarian but it didn’t really feel right so instead, because of the whole deal with Kaguya, he’s a Warlock. I don’t have any dnd books (or any knowledge from outside CR) but I kind of wrote him as Pact of the Fiend with the mentioned use of Hurl Through Hell toward the end of the fic (ie. what Madara did to the goliath strangling Tobirama).

Does it feel wrong to have Madara be a charisma based class?

Yes.

Do I picture him somehow still managing to fail a truly astonishing amount of charisma checks in conversations anyway?

Yes.

-Touka- Touka was set to be a Monk for basically the entire process as, as far as I know, her characterization is completely fanon whereas Izuna at least has some canon base traits and we all just fill in holes. So she was set to be a fast af hard-hitter till I saw that Monk class effectiveness apparently feels bad in later levels? And, really, there was no way in hell I was going to design a party without a rogue in it. I considered ranger at some point but melee felt right for her and from what I’ve dug up fighter/rogue works Really Well (and her being a rogue lets her really take advantage of sneak attacks when Mito or one of the others are also engaging with an enemy) (+ they really needed a way to disarm traps and pick locks and without using Knock and announcing themselves and their intentions to the world.)

-Izuna- Izuna was tricky, mostly just because there’s just enough of him in canon to be problematic but not enough to be that helpful. Also I have a bias to the way I write Izuna, based a bit on other peoples’ Izuna and a bit on me just loving the idea of him being a charismatic, vaguely childish troll. I considered Paladin and Fighter for him (Fighter just because it’s kind of the least. telling class in my mind? I suppose. Paladin because Izuna is shown to be very dedicated, against the Senju until his last breath which...isn’t really applicable here, but could serve as a character basis anyway.) He was going to be a bard/rogue for a while but that’s apparently not a good multiclass and I liked rogue better on Touka anyway. (Plus not multiclassing gives Izuna the greatest access to his bard spells.) I like Izuna as the type who seems very light-hearted or even careless but has some very well hidden depths and catches on to much more than people think he does, so bard felt appropriate.

-Mito- Mito was the hardest, because there’s 1. so very little of her in canon and 2. not that much of her written in fanon either, so I didn’t really have a pre-established idea of her personality or what she would do like I did for Izuna or Touka.

Still, I figured—noble princess of a storied nation, bearing a great burden for her people? (Added to the fact that we always talk about the great vitality and constitution of the Uzumaki?) Sounds like a Paladin. (Also that means that the two best melee fighters in the party would be the ladies which is the best possible choice.)

She is the only one with an or in her class notes because I wanted her to still be the Kyuubi container in this verse, though in a different way. The or denotes my lack of decision on whether or not she can draw power away from the godlike being imprisoned in her stomach.

#fof: talks #fof: a land so wild and savage

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nea-writes · 6 years

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dgm dungeons & dragons au

Made with pix (@puriisera over on twitter) with some additional help from pea (@peatootin). This is them actually in an au, not them playing dnd, though that’s a fun idea too!! ft Sera from digital devil saga!

We’re still pretty new to dnd but!! I’ve seen a few of dgm aus for it going around and wanted to try my hand at it ^^

Allen is a rogue bloodhunter

subclass: arcana trickster

race: human (cursed)

weapon: chakram whip -> broadsword

Lenalee is a monk

race: elf

weapon: quarterstaff and dagger

Kanda is a ranger

race: red tiefling

weapon: scimitar

Lavi is a warlock bard

race: half dwarf

weapon: axe -> maul

Sera is a barbarian cleric

race: halfling

weapon: tonfas

Alma is also a tiefling!

I’m considering a fic for it but considering it’d basically be like writing a campaign and I’ve never dm-ed in my life, I might not go through with it lol we certainly cooked a bit of lore about it though.

More under the cut!

Allen’s chakram whip was totally made up lol its basically a serrated whip that clasps around his waist but can coil into a chakram. It was our effort to replicate his first two stages of his innocence (close and far ranged). Allen is one of the few who multiclasses and is initially a rogue who delves into the arcane. He later classes into bloodhunter for....reasons. That’s also when he gets his broadsword! Allen is covered head to toe. He wears a turtleneck sleeveless shirt thats incredibly thick along with the modified bolero shrug (before eventually switching to the manaca armor). He also has long thick gloves. Think like leather or some heavy duty fabric. Then his charkam whip connected around his waist, and his pants. Theyre not skin tight, a loose light fabric that makes no sound when he moves. It grows tighter around his calves/ankles, and then his flat footed boots. On top it all, a cape with a hood and mask. All of Allen’s clothes r zipped, belted, or secured with several ties

Lenalee was a bit harder to place. Eventually, due to the combined spiritual/meditative/combative traits of the monk class, we placed her there. Lenalee’s mainly a physical fighter, and uses her staff to reach what her legs can’t. She has heavy weighted boots that can break bones if she lands a hit on you. She has two sets of earrings, which don’t stand out in comparison to Lavi, but given the absence of any other jewelry, it certainly is noticeable. Lenalee has a bodice for freedom of movement but wears a cropped jacket to cover her arms outside of battle.

Kanda was the most fun to settle on. Tiefling, because it’d make him look intimidating, but also because of the general isolated nature tieflings have. A lot of Kanda’s character design is less superficial and more background, so his outfit is nothing to boast of. Loose wraps, his usual sword. Don’t touch his horns. Ever. He’s also got scarification tattoos done around his chest and left shoulder. They certainly look painful, but if you ask him about it you won’t get a word from him.

AND Lavi. He’s definitely got an interesting background. He’s half-dwarf but insanely tall. What’s the other half? Who knows. He sure isn’t telling, but he swears he’s half dwarf. Up to you if you believe him. Lavi initially has an insanely huge axe, which paired with his statue makes him very intimidating. Lavi’s clothes are less eye catching than his numerous tattoos, piercings, necklaces, and bracelets. Most notably are the piercings and bracelets. They’re welded on, and each one has a strange unique symbol... you don’t recognize any of them, but they clearly carry meaning. His tattoos seem to be of a certain language, but it’s a script no one recognizes.

Sera is a barbarian cleric due to her, hmm, dual kind of nature in canon. She wears a lot fo furs and leathers, most notably a fur collar, a fur skirt with a softer layer underneath, booties, bells along her upper arms and her ankles, and her tonfas hooked in the small of her back. she’s definitely not a powerhouse you might expect, but small means fast and deadly, and her tonfas can do quite a bit of damage. Nonetheless, Sera likes it best when she can help hear her comrades.

Anyways I tried my hand at drawing it.

#nea talks #im procrastinating on schoolwork like always #dgm #dgm: dnd #oneshots in a series would suit best huh #me: i wanna dm a campaign #me @ me: you suck ass at roleplaying #me: fine i'll just WRITE one #i love that chakram whip with all my life

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