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Blightshard

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After a big weekend and a few plans in the real world tonight I wanted to slow it down to a different pace and talk about Blightshard. This weeks encounter had Velmore using a longsword called Blightshard, Whisperer of Suffering and I wanted to explore that a bit tonight. The smith maketh the blade, but the name can do soo much more for it. Being in the hands of a duke of hell (forgotten or otherwise) the sword needed to be imposing. So Blightshard was its name – but we’ll touch on that in the update below!

Blightshard

347SaBl

A few weeks ago I mentioned the concept of parasitic and symbiotic weapons that enable the weapon (or item) to grow with the party and adventurer. This is one such item that will look at testing out this concept with something that is relatively controlled.

Adding 1d6 poison damage isn’t a huge deal, nor is the DC 13 con save to ignore the effects. However if you can make that 5d6 poison damage and DC17 con save. Now that’s more of a deal. It also make sense for a blade that a devil, a fiendish angel hunter would wield to grant him the advantage against his greatest foes. And now hte blade is turned towards the party.

Blightshard – created in DnD Beyond.

That’s it for me tonight, a bit of a short one but its good to enjoy a small break sometimes. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for more D&D content and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Oneshot Throwback – The Salve of Youth

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Welcome to a bit of a weird Saturday. As this week was a follow-on, a link between last weeks adventure and the next this weekend I wanted to look at a Oneshot Throwback – The Salve of Youth. This was a fun impromptu one-shot that I did when coaching another new DM where I picked a creature, a NPC and a motivator for them to be connected. And let’s just say it was quite a fun adventure despite being only a few hours long.

So let’s get a glimpse at what it was as I turn and old favourite into a new one!

Oneshot Throwback – The Salve of Youth

The man nervously stood at the barrel on the corner of an alley near where a few shopkeepers were hawking their wares. He knew the power of what he held in the pale pink salve in the jars before him. He had invested a lot of time and gold into what was in the jar.

He was an alchemist by trade so it was no surprise that when people came up that knew him from one of the shops in town that they asked him for the usual potions, ointments and salves. “Well, actually I don’t have any of those now. I don’t work for Mr Green any more. But I do have something else…” he had said before the first customers left him. This then brought the attention of the store owners who made him move away from their business for fear of dragging their business down with his.

Eventually he left for home for the day without having made a single sale. Opening the door to the single bed room that he was staying in, out of the generosity of an old friend, he fell face first onto the old bed. There was only so long he could remain here living like this. He had sacrificed everything for this salve and he was risking a lot in how it was made. Tomorrow, he would try again and show off what it could do. Tomorrow there was a big market where nobles would come to shop for the wares of the city and there he surely would be able to sell his salve, surely. As he tried to get comfortable he unwound the bandages on his left arm and applied some of his salve to the arm. Within minutes the wrinkled, damaged and ghastly skin was looking like it did a few months ago – before the accident.

The sun was just cresting over the walls of the city when he stood on the corner of the road in and the road to the market, away from regular stores he stopped each and every person. “You, yes you there. I have developed this salve that will make your skin as soft and smooth. It will take away the years or even recover…” he began each time but the merchants, nobles or commoners would just pass by him.

After a few hours he began to give up hope again when he saw a figure striding through the streets towards him, someone he had never wanted to see again. “There you are Theo. I thought I heard your voice here earlier. I really do wish you’d consider coming back to work with me. You can’t let an accident stop you from earning an honest coin.” the tall man said with a fake smile.

Mr Green had requested that Theo create vials of alchemist fire for an order, but when the customer arrived to pick up they robbed him and threw the contents of one vial over his arm. Mr Green then docked his pay based on the lost merchandise and blamed Theo on the mistake. This pushed Theo to look into ways to heal and aid his burnt and destroyed flesh and in doing so, he came across his Salve.

But despite this Theo didn’t want to make enemies in a small city and had to play it cool “Thanks for your offer but I am doing quite well. I have nearly recovered from the accident and am turning over a new leaf. Thanks for the offer Mr Green but no thank you at this stage.” he replied. But Theo could not be prepared for the snake-like reflexes that grabbed his wrist and pulled off the bandages from his arm. The crowd around him shrieked with horror at the vision of his deformity.

“I doubt that anyone would buy from an alchemist who looks like that. My offer won’t be there forever and I have clients that want to do business with you again.” he said snidely as he walked away.

Theo clutched his hand and looked down at the salve on his little barrel. This was it, the hill he would die on. “I don’t need your offer. I can heal this arm with my own concoction. Behold!” he said dramatically as he held out his deformed arm and applied the salve cautiously to the cries of the onlookers who were drawn to the commotion. Within a few moments his skin smoothed and regained a normal colour, the flesh underneath filled out and nearly all evidence of the accident was removed.

Immediately people’s cries of shock, disgust and horror turned into wonderment. People rushed to his barrel and started to ask about his salve, how he had done it, what magic he used (of which there was none) and how much it would cost them. Mr Green watched slack-jawed with a look of disbelief. Theo’s business was about to kick off.

That’s it for me tonight. The start of an adventure where the party discover something more about Theo and his salve. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for more D&D content and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

A Brazen Dice Magazine

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So the past few weeks I have spent some time learning 3d modelling, primarily in tinkercad, with the aim to create some useful tools and widgets for both my TTRPGS and my wargaming. A while back I used some spare foam-core board and created a way to store 20 dice in rows so I could easily access the right number of dice quickly without spending ages counting dice.

I, well I call it this regardless, “dicelexia” – I struggle to count dice as they lay on a table. So I try and limit myself to only having 20 dice available at my hands at any one time. When I am not rolling dice actively I would put my dice back in the holder, a “DiceMag” which stored 4 columns of 5 dice for 20 dice in total.

To ensure that it transported well I also sculpted from epoxy-putty a ‘lid’ that encased the entire DiceMag and was secured, quite well, with magnets. However I found out the hard way what happens if you dropped it. Picking up 20 dice in a gaming hall was not ideal.

So a year and a bit later, I think, I got myself a 3d printer and created the second version. Tonight see’s the first prototype (another improved version is ready to print) that improves on getting the DiceMag out of the lid and the strength of the magnets to bind it all together more securely – because, well… Magnets are great.

Version 1

Current Version

The circle, painted to represent my logo’s Brazen Moon is hand painted and something that I might experiment with. It’s designed to be a flat surface to paint on, apply decals or something else to give a creative freedom to who ever has such a DiceMag.

I am sure that I will have other versions of this – but for me this is something fun, useful and perhaps something valuable to the broader community.

Thanks for your interest in my side project!
The Brazen Wolfe

Alternative traditional Magic Weapons

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Welcome to another Musings Saturday where tonight I want to look at two Alternative traditional Magic Weapons that use a underappreciated resource – the hit dice. A quick search revealed that this has been done before and at least several people have come to the “same” conclusions but I have a specific thing I am wanting to explore.

Alternative traditional Magic Weapons

The gap identified

The gap I have that really started me thinking about other alternative traditional magic weapons is the old roleplay story. Your player may have been gifted the bow from their teacher and asked to look after it just before they went to fight a dragon – of which they never returned. Since then the character has always used this bow and felt a strong connection to their mentor when they use it.

This roleplay aspect that drives elements of the story forward, and a times drives many decisions the PC would make is what has me focused tonight. This concept is similar to ancestral weapons where a weapon grows while you wield it and unlock its secret but the emphasis is on player grown and it fuelling the weapon.

For this purpose I have a ‘Parasitic’ and ‘Symbiotic’ alternative to an ancestral blade.

Parasitic

The parasitic alternative traditional magic weapons is as the name suggests. Probably found in weapons that consume ammo or ‘charges’ these items consume a hit dice from who its attuned to to return or generate either a random or a pre-determined number of charges for an item. This means that at level one the item may be quite weak and able to be used once per long rest (depending on the charge mechanic) but at higher levels it could be truly spectacular.

Take the Emberborn wand for example – created by a wizard that spend most of their time studying in volcanic lands.

The wand has three spell effects, Burning hands (1st level) , Scorching Ray (2nd level) and Stinking Cloud (3rd level). To cast Burning hands at 1st level its a single Charge, and then its 2 additional for 2nd level and a further 3 for 3rd level (and so forth.) the cost to increase the level of spell slot available it accumulative.

  • 1st level spell slot – 1 charge
  • 2nd level spell slot – 3 charges
  • 3rd level spell slot – 6 charges
  • 4th level spell slot – 10 charges
  • etc.

As an action you can spend 1 hit dice to generate d6 charges. (or 3 charges flat) which expire after a long rest. This means that a magical item like this will scale with player level and may find more use as the party progress onwards. The alternative is that it always starts with 7 charges but to ‘feed’ into it to keep it stated and charged it takes 1 hit dice from your pool and rolls that to regain spent charges.

Symbiotic

Now the symbiotic alternative to traditional magic weapons is a bit different but the same principle. Instead of fuelling charges you push the hit-dice into the weapon (or item) to ‘level it up’ for the day. The item then is powered at the level it absorbed hit dice from its attuned wielder which may get better every ‘rank up’ or, they will get better every odd number (which aligns with class features, normally…)

These effects would stack to ensure that there is a sense of worthwhile investment in the blade but they reset on dawn (end of long rest-esque period).

As an example the same wizard created the Emberborn Blade (a short sword).

  • Level 1 (Power: 1) – +1 to attack rolls
  • Level 2 (Power: 3) – Attacks deal an extra 1d6 fire damage, the blade also sheds light in the same manner as a torch
  • Level 3 (Power: 5) – +1 to attack
  • Level 4 (Power: 7) – Upon landing a successful hit the wielder can cause an eruption of ash and cinders in a 15ft cone starting at the point of impact. Creatures in this must make a DC 15 constitution saving throw or take an additional 2d6 fire damage and are blinded until the end of their next turn.

This blade was designed to be balanced, mostly, from 1 Hit dice = 1 charge and gives a strong advantage to the wielder if they are willing to live life a bit riskier by not having any hit-dice to heal during a short rest… Or fuel other magic items that is.

That’s it for me tonight. I will look at what this system could look like as it has promise and if I can work our how to balance it I may create a few items to share. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for more D&D content and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Cold determination

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Welcome to another Musings Saturday where I do something a bit different tonight. But as I intend this could be a bit of a write-up I will leave the introduction here and power onwards with cold determination.

Cold Determination

The heat from the forge was a sharp comparison from the icy wind that blew outside. The constant tine of hammer on anvil rang through the workshop as she and her fellow apprentice smiths gave life to the iron.

One by one the dwarves around her quenched their blades in the barrels nearby but she toiled onwards. There was something she would do differently, a theory that she knew would work. But in order to do so she needed the forge to be hotter. Jumping at the gallows she pulled down with all her strength on the large chain to force air into the forge she was working on. The other Apprentices stopped sharpening their blades and watched as she worked hers hotter than many of them dared to, hotter than their instructors had told them to.

Darting back to her iron she pulled it out and hammered the last few bits of her blade to get a sharp, thin edge naturally from way she folded the steel. Then she made for the window. Climbing over some boxes she had set up earlier the other apprentices all but stopped working on their blades as the small gnome hurtled over the boxes and out the window that drew cold, fresh mountain air into the smithy. Dragging her white-hot blade behind her she threw herself onto the ground, picked herself off the frozen earth after a heartbeat and dove blade first into the snow.

The ‘tink’ of shocked steel could be heard loud and clear but she pushed on. Packing the loose snow tighter on top of the blade that had already started to melt the metal she had shoved in there. After the snow stopped melting and the laughter from the room died down to nothing she pulled out her blade, praying that her theory had worked. The shattered blade she held in her tongs revealed the truth. It had not.

This was not the first time she had tried to quench a blade with snow. The theory was the sudden shock of cold would force the metal to shrink and harden far harder than any oil or water could. But the dwarvern master smiths could not see eye to eye with the little gnome who had some skill at forging blades. The hiding she received that night for wasting good steel and going against the norm would not be the last either.

The years of toiling away in the forges had eventually seen her graduate to become a smith in her own right. But her fascination with snow and ice-tempered steel saw her get requests for tools rather than blades and her reputation kept her from getting the best jobs.

She continued her experiments though and she made some progress. The closest she had gotten to was a blade that was sharper and harder than steel that could cut through rocks itself. The dwarven masters had been impressed for a moment until the blade had hit a solid object side on and it was revealed to be as brittle as glass. The fragments had exploded and looked like falling ice – which she had thought beautiful. The elders and other smiths no so much.

To avoid the ridicule of the others she had slowly constructed her own forge outside of the main city. Here she worked in secret and amongst the nature that she cherished – her gnome traits driving her to be amongst the wilds. It was only after a chance encounter with a wolf that she made a discovery.

The wolf had approached her forge sensing the heat and smelling a pie that had been cooked. It had startled the gnome smith so much that she had thrown the still white-hot blade at the wolf who darted out the door with pie-in mouth. The blade however had flew into a pile of snow that was piled up next to the door.

The sudden hiss as the blade melted through snow told her all she needed to know. The blade needed to be hotter when it hit the ice. So she constructed a gnomish contraption to dump ice directly from the roof of her smith into a trough that was next to the forge itself. Directing cold ice directly onto the blade itself.

However despite bringing the cold, frozen snow closer to her forge she still couldn’t get the blade hot enough. Not until she purchased a ruby that was mined in the elemental plane of fire, one that was even too hot to hold without her smithing gloves on. With this she could mould it into the blade and get it to be hotter, remain hotter and then quench much faster through harnessing the fire plane itself.

As the near molten blade came from the forge, the fire-ruby burning bright red with elemental magic she shoved the blade into the trough and then pulled a lever. The roof opened and the trough was filled with snow and ice. The snow continued to pile down just as fast as the blade melted through it, but the steam that was produced forced the gnome to move away lest she get burnt from the gas.

After the steam had stopped and the last few ‘plops’ of snow fell from the chute in the roof she looked at the blade. Her savings and years dedicated to her theory all waiting on this moment.

Before her a perfect blade lay. The blade itself was as keen as a vorpal blade, harder than mithril and perfect. However the ruby was now the colour of ice and a permanent chill came from the blade.

“I best think of a name for such a file blade” she said as she tested it on a thick section of cured hide – which is sliced through like parchment…

That’s it for me tonight and this little delay from adventure. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for more D&D content and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Making Magic Items Magical again

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Welcome to another Musings Saturday where tonight I am looking into the future to see what I can do in making magic items magical again. A bit of a weird statement but hear me out. With spells like Identify out there I wanted to try and make magical item identification more meaningful. Yes it’s a niche spell and there are dozens of better spells to pick out there but I still dislike it.

What further reduces the magical-ness of Magic Items is that, it shouldn’t be a surprise by now, has this little rule about “Short or long rests to study and identify the item.” Now in most situations this is… fine. It’s not great but for me its taking away the mystery and majesty of magic items.

For example:

Elenore studied the silver inlay in the blade before her. The smiths had really outdone themselves with this blade this time. Reaching out to he weave she started to fill her sanctum with the sound of her piercing voice. The notes, words and rhythm were critical in creating the magical blades of her elven commune and she was a master at it. Having studied for centuries and practices for as many hours as men can only dream to live through she was peerless in her craft.

As the notes mingled with her harness on the weave she directed the magic into the blade that began to thrum with power. A moon-blue glow began to shine across the polished surface of the blade and as her elven song reaches its crescendo she forced all the captured magic from the weave through her final notes into the blade. Willing the blade to absorb the power she watched as the sword bounced across the altar before clanging loudly on the floor as the last of her power entered it. Breathing heavily she took a few moments to rest before she, weakly, retrieved the blade and studied it.

She had managed to capture one of the few elven songs that had been with her people since the dawn of their race. This blade was a masterwork and there would never be anything like it again, in the history of the world.

Two hundred years later, Tom the Menacing sat by a fire looking at the curved blade before him. As the fire danced across the blade he understood what it was. “Ah, Elenore’s Songsword of the Autumn Twilight. Sweet!”

Now that didn’t feel too meaningful for a bladed with such a history. What I hope to experiment over the next few months is an attempt to make these moments a bit… more.

Making Magic Items Magical again

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The basics.

Each item type, Armour, Weapons, Potions, Rings, Rods, Scrolls, Staffs, Wands and Wondrous Items is classified on how hard it would be to identify such a thing. Potions are easiest (take a sip and find out!) but Rings, by my reasoning, would be hardest to identify due to the nature of them.

The below is a quick justification on this order:
Potions – give a sip and you can normally tell. If not some may have labels… Maybe?
Scrolls – if you can read or decipher it. More powerful scrolls will be harder to understand but lower level or common spell scroll should be a simple affair as deciphering the inscription.
Weapons, generally swinging it around for a few days will tell you what it can do, but normally they have ornamental decorations as people put effort and pride into a fine blade. So they will have an inscription about flame or something to reveal its nature to the owner.
Armour – A bit harder than weapons. Perhaps there will be inscriptions on the armour but you may only find out what they do once it happens (like taking less damage, ignoring frost or acid, behing harder to hit and so forth). It’s very circumstantial to find out what they do.
Wondrous Items (cloaks, pouches, Trinkets etc.) Some are easy (Driftglobe, bag of holding) but some may be impossible without using the item (Quaal’s Feather Token). But it takes some tinkering to work out what they do and sometimes its a “too late” if you accidently use one once. So time and care goes into working these babies out.
Rods, Staffs, Wands – you know its magical but what does it do and how do you access that magic, or what it is? Some could be straight forward but is it verbally summoned, somatic? Right circumstance? What about how do you know what spells it has or charges? Yeah – a bit harder.
Rings – So this is hard. How would your character know that a ring with a squiggly line around the centre protects you from poison. It’s very unlikely that someone wrote inscriptions or a manual on the inside of the ring. Trial by error is also fraught with issues. Even if you are bitten by a viper and you are immune to its poison you may just think you lucked out “wow, that was lucky it didn’t inject venom” – Very difficult to work out most rings.

Before I bombard you with tables I will stop us there. Each category has a DC (starts mid-late teens and early 20s for the harder categories) and works its way up above 30 and into the 40s. The reasoning behind this is that the longer you use an item, or experiment or spend time around it and using it then the greater chance of success you will have on identifying that wand of fireballs.

Understanding languages, wearing/wielding/using an item, a thorough investigation using tools and dedicated knowledge, attempting to activate it, watching it being activated before you swiped it from that merchant or street performer or Big Bad guy and even Luck can come into play when trying to identify a magic item.

This isn’t to make it harder or impossible to make identifying magic items – but to make them feel more magic and open up chances for narrative descriptions of that moment that Tom the Menacing realised he was holding the last blade crafted by the master blade-singer Elenore Moonbrow.

Just something to think about…

Thanks for dropping by for a sneak peak into my madness this weekend. If you are interested in what this system looks like I will be posting it later on after I have thrown it at my party to be ‘live tested’ a few times. Don’t forget to come back next week and lastly, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

2023 Campaign Adventure Update Sidekicks

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Good evening all and I hope that you are finding the adventure intriguing as we continue following on the party (and real players) as they trek through the scene I set before them. This update is really to capture the sidekicks, Armaeth and Groku as statblocks to help the players keep track and records of these key NPCs*. So this follows on from 2023 Campaign adventure 5 update on the weekend so make sure you have looked at that.

2023 Campaign Adventure Update Sidekicks

The creation of the sidekick block was two fold, and not that hard as it used free resources. Tetra-cube, Nightcafe, Artbreeder and what ever image software you want to.

Referring to sidekicks in dnd5e.wikidot I picked the warrior for Groku and expert for Armaeth as the classes. looking at the guidance in the source books I based Groku of a Guard and Armaeth of a modified imp/sprite.

Using the Sidekick abilities gained at levels 1, 2 and 3 I created “abilities” and actions for the two sidekicks to help flesh out them to feel a bit more unique. I gave each of them something unique; Groku the variant human feat and langue proficiency, Armaeth the lore behind her poisoned weapons (and tweaked racial traits to make it more balanced than permanent invisibility).

Fleshing this out into “two columns” gave me the freedom and space to add in their portraits to help the players refer to their sidekicks easier and the rest is numbers.

The two end-state (for now) sidekick cards are below. I can also provide the tetra-cube data files for anyone who wishes to download the file and use it for their own sidekicks.

Hope this little project of mine to create sidekick cards has inspired you in some way! Don’t forget to stay tuned for the next part of this adventure and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

The missing scout

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The Missing Scout

339SaTMiSc

Steffani looked across the paperwork in front of her as she chewed on a unlit cigar. The pint that Marie had brought in with the meal from earlier grew warmer on the desk as she looked across the reports. The Lord of Warrensdeep had promised her enough gold to fund thirteen teams but had delivered just enough for four.

One team were off investigating the confirmed sightings for Abnormal creatures up north and weren’t due back for a few weeks based on the latest info. She didn’t believe in favourites but if she had a team that sprang to mind for the difficult jobs it was this one. A half-dragon, Elf, Dwarf and two humans made this this crew and they were the first ones she convinced to join forces with her. The proof they brought back was also enough to make the king force the lord of Warrensdeep into helping the cause.

The second team were currently cleaning up. Not a glamorous job the people in this team were not fighters nor skilled enough yet to see field work. Besides they all had a talent for magic and utilising that to clean, repair, mend and even dispose of evidence that would make the public uneasy. The disposal of body parts, creatures or even victims of the attacks was one of the conditions the lord of Warrensdeep had put upon her. “Do not let these things disturb the peace. The public can not know about what lies in the dark around their homes and this city.” So she assigned the promising mages this task and they did a good enough job with it.

The third team were a combination of ex military and renown hunters. These were her scouts and they submitted a report daily on rumours and sightings of the creatures. Anything that seemed amiss was what they reported back on and she left them on their own really. She had five people in this team and for the last month she had received nineteen reports. She was one short and she was anxiously waiting for the latest reports to come in.

Like clockwork Gwen walked in and placed a few small scrolls on her desk, four of them. Quickly opening them Steffani confirmed her suspicions. One of her scouts hadn’t reported in twice in a row. She sat back in her chair and mused on what to do. Team minë, were too far away to investigate in time, team atta were not fit for this type of work, the scouts, team neldë were all over the continent which left team canta. Team Canta consisted of the new recruits that she had sworn in today and out of all of the people under her command these were the most untested. But they had shown promise.

Writing up an order she scratched the names of the team down, Groku – a foolish but determined girl that showed grit and tenacity.

Tater was a dwarf – made of stronger tuff than most and showed a surprising resilience to the rumoured mind control ability of these creatures – perhaps the head injury had rendered him immune. Lastly she smiled at the duplicated name on the signed sheets in front of her.

That Goblin, Mordekai, may be a trouble maker but she had learnt a long time ago to not doubt someone determined to prove someone wrong.

These three will need a fourth member in their crew. She looked over the paper work in front of her and sighed. It may be best if she had them pick out their final member of the party themselves. After all these will be the people who they trust their lift and very survival to.

With that she quickly sealed the wax on the letter. Was she really sending the newcomers to Fustmach where one of her scouts was heading? She sighed and reached for the ale before clenching her fist. She nearly broke her oath as old habits started to take over. No, she will remain strong and sure headed. One wrong foot out of place from her and the dozens of people that relied on her would surely fail.

Now more on this tomorrow but it’s finally here! Another adventure weekend! So don’t forget to come back tomorrow for a double event and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage.
The Brazen Wolfe

Obtaining Inspiration for Characters

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After spending a bit of time recovering from being unwell I managed to find some down time where I wondered about something critical for new and old players alike. Obtaining inspiration for characters is this weeks thought-filled Saturday post and being a forever DM I was able to look what what I could do if provided the opportunity to be a player. So tonight is a bit about that process, one that I have touched on in the past as well. So sit back, grab a hot drink and let’s roll into tonight’s adventure.

Obtaining Inspiration for Characters

338SaObInFCh

Now obtaining inspiration for characters isn’t that hard and its very similar to how I obtain inspiration for adventures when I am stuck. The world we interact with these days is so fast and filled with creativity that you don’t have to look too far to find something that could inspire. Movies, anime’s, TV shows, board games, books and comics, art, music, nature… the list goes on and on and for me inspiration for characters comes from three main sources.

1. Anime, Movies and TV shows

Ok you could argue that this is three things but hear me out. I don’t get a lot of time between work, my family and the blog so I generally have to choose one of the above three to indulge in one night a week. Yup. Once a week. So for me inspiration could strike from simply watching an anime and asking the question. “That was cool, how would that work in D&D?”. If you try and pin a class or move set against a anime character you can quickly find that you start identifying similar moves. For example, Sasuke or Kakashi using Chidori could simply be Shocking grasp. Their fast speed, stealth and ability to blink around the battlefield could be fey powers (Arch-fey warlock) but most likely is monk (way of the shadows), and their ability to do a few ninjitsu well, but not all of them while blending in complex fighting techniques and assassination style combat would fill in the other class to be fighter (eldritch knight) and rogue (assassin – I guess).

By identifying move sets from a favourite character you could build a D&D character that functions very much like them. Certain supplements out there already blend some of this together into a neat package by if you’re only using core rules then multiclassing becomes interesting.

2. Music

Now I have done 30 minute adventure challenges before where the adventure was prompted from a song that was randomly selected. Provocative music could give players the right imagery to create a character from nothing. One of my all time favourite songs, Shepherd of Fire, has inspired big bad, significant NPCs, demigods and even PCs for me. Strong emotional images in the song evokes a being cursed to serve a greater purpose or being.

Someone who could hold back an army if needed or be that army. This gives me cleric (as they are strong and backed by a deity) or even warlock (fiend or even undead patrons) who acts as a key piece in the game of chess that their patron or deity plays. More mainstream songs I find difficult to create these trigger points in which characters are born but even pop songs can generate enough of a creative spark to create a character. Bards who are pacifists who charm or enthral people, armies, a whole full tavern to make them forget their woes could sing “Happy” by Pharell Williams.

3. Books

Now a pretty obvious one. Dungeons and Dragons and most other TTRPGs are governed by books. So it only makes sense that inspiration for characters can come from fiction or even non-fictional places. Most Fictional books have a protagonist of the story in which you can gain inspiration from in a heart beat. They normally act a certain way using familiar move sets or patterns which you can identify and relate to D&D or a TTRPG rule system.

The secondary or support characters can provide this inspiration too and I find myself creating more, hypothetical, characters from support characters from novels I read compared to the main protagonist. I think this is because their story goes largely unwritten. There is elements you can take and fill in to create something that feels like its your own. The main character normally has entire story boards based on just them, let alone books, so they don’t feel like they can be played any other way.

Some of the most fun characters I have created were based off a hybrid of the main character and a support character, like Cheerwell maker in the Shadows of the Apt series when blended with other support character to have a tanky front line gnome who uses inventions to describe her battle manoeuvres and spell casting.

Opportunities for obtaining inspiration for characters is everywhere and can come from nearly anything. Movies, Books, music, artwork or nature can inspire a NPC, Villian, antagonist / protagonist or even adventure if you look for the key elements that make up that something and map it to the RPG framework you use. But enough on that for tonight. So don’t forget to come back tomorrow for a Zine, hopefully, and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage.
The Brazen Wolfe

Alternative Directions

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With this week leaving the decision on how to move forward up to the players I think its wise to touch on this weeks alternative directions. Now based on the encounter planned for this week it’s going to be a big one. But if they don’t want to fight the Frost Giant and a beefed up Winter Wolf then how do we wrap up this week. That’s where the alternative directions come into play. Something that is triggered from the players decision where the outcome helps drive the story forward in a different way. So sit back, grab a hot drink and let’s roll into tonight’s adventure.

Alternative Directions

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Disappointment and Fury. More fury than disappointment when the creatures watched the idiot mortals talk with the hulking giant. Who were they to think that they could stray from the plan and make peace with the dumb brute instead of kill it. As the rage began to take over the creature calmed itself. Never mind, the plan still had another option. The idiotic mortals still removed the first guardians, the dead wolves out front had kept his agents at bay for centuries and now the pack was diminished.

Steadying a breath it pushed out a command, a series of instructions to the fell beasts that dwelt within the frozen tundra. After a few moments of concentrating the horde answered the broken commands, the confines of the creatures prison hampered its magic. But then the horde answered. A screeching, seething horde of claws, teeth, fists and blades smashed through the ice. Claws from the foul undead creatures scampered over rocks and rushed towards the spires. Foul winged beasts swooped towards the spire at their masters commands and finally, hulking brutes pushed through the ice as they were driven by ancient oaths from their ancestors towards the spire.

If you can’t trust lesser beings to do your dirty work for you then you need to do it yourself. Soon the bindings will be removed and its powers will grow but first, revenge on those who betrayed it was a dish best served frozen.

So a bit of a glimpse what the alternative will be to ensure the story for this multi-part adventure continues… But even with that considered as one of the alternative directions the party has the final say in the end. So don’t forget to come back tomorrow for some more D&D content and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage.
The Brazen Wolfe