DnD with Ray

Have you ever wondered why there are so many blonde-haired, sword-wielding twinks with one arm who are bad at talking to girls and have non-human sidekicks in media? No? Just me? Well it's true! A lot of male-presenting sword-fighters seem to have at least 3 of these tropes attached to them and it's weird that there are so many of them. Here are a few AND here's a table-top game where you can play as your very own Twinks w/ Swords!

Link from Legend of Zelda

Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy 7

Finn the Human from Adventure Time

Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist

Luke and Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars

KA•🐀•E (pronounced KA-RAT-E) is a no-prep, GM-run, TTRPG for a group of 4-6 players (including the GM) that I released! You play as a family of rats who nestle in the hairs of one man entering a mixed martial arts tournament. Your goal is to "ratatouille" your way to victory through 5 rounds of increasingly difficult enemies.

"For one reason or another, you and your mates, a ragtag group of OPOSSUMS, are breaking into one of the most heavily-guarded GOVERNMENT FACILITIES in the world. With your past behind you, secrets ahead of you, and friendship to be made along the way, you gear up and get ready for MAYHEM."

[ Image Transcription Below ]

Background Details

Riding on horseback with spurred boots, tending to cattle with a long, hempen lasso, a scruffy-looking character jolts to a stop as they hear a gunshot off in the distance. They sigh, wipe the sweat from their brow, and have their bronco charge towards the sound with a Colt drawn. Because that's what it means to be a Cowboy. Towards danger—never away.

Backstory Details

Montrose Colorado comes from off-planet. He's a fugitive wanted by the Astral Federation for 27 counts of murder. He had his reasons, though. He is, and was, a bounty-hunter--a profession that makes it very easy to make enemies in. Now, he's crash-landed in a galaxy he's never set foot in and is looking for pieces to fix his mech so he can make it back home to save his daughter from The Federation.

Class Details

Far from the bustle of cities and towns, past the hedges that shelter the most distant farms from the terrors of the wild, amid the dense-packed trees of trackless forests and across wide and empty plains, Rangers keep their unending watch.

Subclass Details

Hardened by a tough and fast-paced world, these rangers have taken up the arms of the future and are ready to bring justice to untamed lands. Masters of firearms, when these lawmen stride into a village, they are spoken about in hushed tones—lest they catch the ire of the Ranger... with the Big Iron on his hip.

Zoox from The Adventure Zone: Ethersea!

I was trying to draw an all-coral body for Zoox but saw a post by @brandy-andy and loved the idea of Zoox in a diving suit so I definitely stole the outerwear from them.

I also included some silly little sketches of Zoox's aquatic friends that he's summoned throughout the story!

After using all their mana on prior encounters, the artificer scrounges up what bits of scrap she can, the warlock sells a bit more of his life force to his patron, and the cleric pleads to their goddess for just one last chance. What comes of this, is Chaos Magic.

When a spellcaster attempts to cast a spell while out of spell slots, they must make a Constitution saving throw. The DC equals 10 + the spell's level. On a failure, the caster suffers a number of levels of exhaustion equal to double the spell's level. On a success, the caster suffers half as many levels of exhaustion, rounded down (minimum of 1). [ Note this ruleset is to be used with OneDnD's version of Exhaustion rules. ]

Then, roll a D6 to see how your spell comes out. You must roll on this table regardless of the outcome of your CON save. Your spell will always hit when casting using Exhausted Spellcasting.

1. Your spell backfires giving the opposite-desired effect. If it were to harm an enemy, instead, it heals them. If it were to heal an ally, it instead harms them.

2. The spell overcharges and blows up, causing the effect of said spell to apply to all creatures with 15 feet of it.

3. This really takes a lot out of you. You take an additional point of exhaustion from casting.

4. Something odd happens in addition to the spell you cast. Roll on the Wild Magic table (D100).

5. You cast the spell successfully with no additional effects. Thank the gods.

[Strahd:] Who did she think she was? That girl had tangled with the wrong man! No one says "no" to Strahd!

[Cyrus Belview:] Heh heh. Darn right.

[Strahd:] Dismissed! Rejected! Publicly Humiliated! Why, it's was than I could bear.

[Cyrus Belview:] More beer, sir?

[Gaston:] Cyrus, you know I'm more of a blood wine guy... Besides, nothing helps. I'm disgraced.

[Cyrus Belview:] Who, you? Never! Strahd, you've got to pull yourself together.

Gosh it disturbs me to see you, Lord Strahd

Looking so down in the dumps

Every guy here'd love to be you, Lord Strahd

Offering wine that hearts pump

There's no man in this realm as admired as you

You're ev'ryone's favorite guy

Ev'ryone's awed and inspired by you

And it's not very hard to see why

No one's slick as Lord Strahd

No one's quick as Lord Strahd

No one's ego's as incredibly thick as Lord Strahd

For there's no man in this realm half as manly

Perfect, a pure paragon

You can ask any Ismark, Ireena, or Mad Mary

And they'll tell you who's fear puts the pressure on

[Chorus:] No one's been like Lord Strahd

A king pin like Lord Strahd

[Cyrus Belview:] No one's got quite the devilish grin like Lord Strahd

[Strahd:] As a specimen, yes, I'm intimidating

The year is 14 BSR (Before Strahd's Reign). Count Strahd von Zarovich is sitting in his study, surrounded by bookshelves, with a pen and quill in hand, writing away on a notebook illuminated by candlelight. Through the window behind him, there is a heavy downpour, dark, clouded skies, and the occasional flash of lightning.

Heavy footsteps echo from down the hall and a beefy, grizzled dwarf with a raging look in his eyes makes his way into the room, pointing his greataxe at Strahd, bellowing, “YOU!” Strahd barely looks up, pretending like he doesn't even notice, but you can see a slight smirk come across his face.

KACHUNK!

An invisible bear trap makes its appearance clamping down on the barbarian’s right leg. He winces but powers through, taking another step.

KACHUNK!

A second, comically-placed invisible bear trap makes its way onto the barbarian's left leg.

Strahd turns to you. “You would think they would stop and reconsider their decisions or, at the very least, check for more traps, after the first one but no, they fall for it every time.”

The barbarian lets out a roar, absolutely fuming. He drags his legs across the floor but doesn't make it far before falling to his knees. Just before he does though, he heaves his greataxe straight at the dark lord himself. The axe goes flying through the air but stops just short of Strahd, like an invisible barrier had been in place all along. “YOU TOOK THEM AWAY FROM ME. YOU TOOK EVERYONE AWAY FROM ME. YOU'RE GONNA PAY YOU SICK SON OF A—”.

You look over at the dwarf as his words fall short and realize what stopped him: he no longer has a mouth. Strahd chuckles to himself, lifts a hand up into the air, causing the bear of a dwarf to float upwards as he flails about. The body floats over a third comically-placed invisible bear trap, past Strahd’s desk, and out the window. As the body disappears, the castle reforms itself, mending the broken window.

Strahd turns back to each of you and says, “Now, where were we? Ah, yes, retrieve my very cool sword from the depths of the dungeon, it should be in my brother's tomb. I'm sure I'll come up with a cool name for it in the next 314 years. And, feel free to take your time because I, have… business to attend to.”

During the Call of the Great Tree, the Babble-Rousers came to be. Frog-folk of different shades of blues and greens. Their vocal sacs are translucent and the species seems lighter than air. Some say they were born from bubbles in the mud. Babble-Rousers live in a swamp-like environment that can be heard from miles away, simply due to the constant chatter. Babble-Rousers talk about anything and everything and never stop — even mumbling in their sleep — and because of this, they aren't often welcomed in other societies (but they don't mind).

Dear Diary,

The Florans are a friendly people, kind and accepting to all. Grandpa and I went on a trip to the Pine Grove Province for the first time during the cold season and were greeted like we were old friends.

Upon entering the town in search for the inn, a pair of oak folk who were playing Hide-and-Seed with their two sapling kin, approached us to give us directions, clearly being able to tell we weren't from here. They pointed us towards the inn but then decided to walk with us, chatting with us along the way. My grandpa had a lot to talk about with the oak folk and I like to think I made a couple friends too!

The inn was run by a cactonian who bowed at us during greetings and farewells. I'd never seen a cactonian before and so she gave me a flower that had bloomed on her shoulder as a parting gift on our last day in town.

The blazing sun rises up over the desert town of Scoville, scorching the sand as tumbleweeds roll by. Ol' Skoobụt sits on the deck of The Saloon, tuning his dusty, pre-war "banjo". It's an odd name for an instrument but he insists that's what it's really called. He hucks a wad of chewing rum into a rustbucket that clunks its way past him. Them mechanized tin cans were a new addition to town. General Bazlar said having half our population be brainless bots meant making the town safer. Who were we to disagree? And so we led an assault on G.S. Robotics 'bout a pomf-and-a-half ago and came back home with as much scrap as we could handle.

There comes a time in every Elf Lord's life when they tire of the ocean's great expanse and wish to DO something meaningful. Something that matters more than just kissing babies on the forehead, or "overseeing the administration of justice", or "maintaining the peace of the entire fishdom". When it came to Lord Sycamore Tree of the Seventh Division of the Barkskin Bloodline—he chose the name and we're still not sure what a tree is. We told him it didn't make sense but he didn't listen—our lives changed drastically. Lord Sycamore Tree kind-of just decided he'd leave one day. He never told us where to and we never really heard from him again. But the problem wasn't him leaving, the problem was who he chose to lead in his absence: Willafumph, his pet manatee.

We always did tell Lord Sycamore Tree it was a bad idea to keep the ocean's tastiest mammal around, since the previous lord somehow managed to expunge our army in a war against the Bubble Kingdom, but, as always he didn't listen. And so after a few weeks of Willafumph being our new "Lord", yelling into The Conch each day, alerting every creature in a 500 maro radius that a manatee was ripe for the picking here, we got a visit. The Angler was here and it meant business. You know, if business meant putting our people on skewers and roasting them over a nearby ravine attached to an underwater volcano (we just call them volcanos).

It happened on the day of my first Beast Taming class. I was sitting in the front row of the bleachers out on the Gliffleball field when it came at me. A magma wyrm, 20 flits long. I thought it was over for me but, apparently, it had just begun. Mr. Wurnstœd let out a sharp whistle and held his right hand out, all five fingers pointing at the wyrm. Beams of light emitted from his fingertips, entangling the wyrm just half-an-arms-length from my face. I could feel the heat coming off the beast. And was quaking in my really cool anti-gravity boots that I may or may not have forgotten to take off at the end of Intro to Artificing last period. Or at least I thought I was quaking.

Turns out, everyone could feel the tremors. We later learned that the wyrms can send out high-pitched screeches that only magic dogs, dolphinoids, and other wyrms can hear. And it was then that the earth began to split, with steam rising out of every crack left in the Gliffleball field. We ran for our lives but Mr. Wurnstœd, Mjörg bless his soul, didn't make it, as a magma wyrm as monstrous as a human's ability to tell bad jokes, came to retrieve her child.