*travis willingham voice* RoCkInG hOrSeS

💎 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺! Cloche of Surprise Treats Wondrous item, very rare ___

This magic silver cloche covers a large dinner platter. You can use an action to speak the cloche’s command word and remove it from the platter. When you do, use the table below to determine what kind of meal appears.

d12 | Meal - 1| A delicious meal appears on the platter large enough for one creature and provides as much nourishment as 1 day of rations - 2 – 5 | A number of decadent, perfectly ripe mixed berries equal to twice the number rolled on the d12 appear on the platter. Eating one of these berries duplicates the effect of eating a berry from the “goodberry" spell. These berries remain potent for up to 10 days. - 6 – 12 | The cloche magically conjures a great feast, as if by the “heroes’ feast" spell. This version of the spell can feed a number of creatures equal to the number rolled on the d12.

Once the cloche has been used to conjure a meal in this way, it can’t be used again until a number of days have passed equal to the number rolled on the d12. ___

Character Ideas:

Character creation masterpost

Character Alignment Chart

More character alignment descriptions

Muslim Character questions

Characters with magical powers

Building a new character advice

How to create a character for an online or tabletop RPG (also a good guide on creating characters in general)

Royalty/nobility TV Tropes page

Basic character profile

OC masterpost

Random character generators - (1), (2), (3), (4)

D&D Character Building Tool

Character Design Ideas:

How clothing affects a character’s personality

Character Design Inspiration blog

Concept art, fan art, cool art to be inspired by

Character design references and inspiration

Sources for POC character design ideas and models

Create your own character model using HeroForge

For horned characters

Body and hair types guide

Random outfit generator

Naming Help:

Amazing site with an endless amount of naming resources

General advice on avoiding naming appropriation

Hispanic Surnames

Gothic Victorian names

Huge master list for character things in general

Masterlist of names of all types - including but not limited to ancient/old world names, Celtic, African, Northern European, Southern and Central American Native names, Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, Polynesian, and more

Another name masterlist

How to pick a character name guide

Yet another names masterlist

Creating Background/backstory:

Character Sheet/Development Sheet

Another character development list

In-depth character personality, motivations and traits sheet

320 talents and passions for characters

On writing likes and dislikes that aren’t frivolous

Why you should write non-human characters non-conforming to the gender binary

Stereotypes, tropes, and archetypes

Random backstory generator

Assassin and thief character tropes to avoid

Character Interactions and putting your character into your world/story:

Comparing character height/height references

Characters who are scientists and writing about them doing science

Describing what different voices sound like

Describing skin tones

Writing friendship interactions that are platonic

Why having one character knock their friend unconscious to prevent them from doing something is a bad idea

Advice on shipping OCs with canon characters and what to avoid doing

Sweet Polly Oliver and Sweet on Polly Oliver situations (think of Disney’s Mulan for an example)

How to write multiple viewpoints/juggling a main cast of more than 4 to 6 characters

How to make readers care about your morally gray hero/anti-hero

On platonic OC and canon character relationships

How to avoid Godmodding in RPs

When it’s cheap to kill off a character

Writing dialogue

Things you shouldn’t do to canon characters

Avoiding purple prose in writing and RPs

Slang resources

Dialogue tips

Websites to chart your story/plot/character relationships

If your character wasn’t an adventurer, what livelihood would they lead?

Who in the party would your character trust the most with their life?

What are your character’s core moral beliefs?

What relationship does your character have with their parents and siblings?

Does your character have any biases for or against certain races?

What is your character’s opinion on nobility? On authority?

Describe your character’s current appearance: clothes, armor, scars they’ve picked up along the journey, etc.

What location encountered in the campaign has your character felt the most “at home” in, or just generally liked the most?

What deity, if any, does your character worship? What’s their opinion on other people’s worship?

If your character had time to pick up any artisan’s tools, game set, instrument, etc., what would it be?

Describe your character’s current relationship with the player character sitting to your right.

What is your character’s current goal, summed up in one sentence?

Does your character ever want to “settle down” with a spouse, children, house, etc.?

Has your character ever been in love?

What battle in the campaign has been most memorable to your character?

If your character wasn’t whatever class they are, what would they be instead?

What is your character’s favorite season?

What would your character’s Zodiac sign be, following stereotypical astrology?

Where in the world does your character most want to visit?

What is the biggest mistake your character has ever made?

Does your character have any noticeable scars? If so, what are their stories?

What animal best represents your character?

If your character could go back in time and change one thing about their life, what would it be?

Which other player character does your character find themselves having the most in common with?

Does your character regret any particular choice the party has made?

What would your character say their best trait would be?

What is your character’s greatest fear? Deep, irrational?

What is currently motivating your character to stay with the party?

What are your character’s hobbies and interests outside of their class?

What would most people think when they first see your character?

What stereotypical group role does your character play in the party? (The Mom, the Mess, the Comic Relief, etc. Optionally: What role would your character play in the “Five Man Band” structure?)

What is your character the most insecure about?

What person does your character admire most?

What does your character admire and dislike the most about the player character sitting to your left?

Why is your character’s lowest stat their lowest (the in-character reason, not “because there’s no reason for a wizard to have 16 strength, duh”)?

What would be your character’s theme song/favorite band/favorite genre of music?

What stereotypical role would your character play in a high school AU/if they attended a normal high school? (Nerd, jock, bully, goth, etc.)

What treasure/item/artifact that your character has collected during the adventure is the most important to them?

Is there any particular weapon, item, etc. that your character longs to find?

Where does your character feel the most at home?

Does your character care about how they’re perceived by others? How do they change themselves to fit in with other people?

What does your character think is the true meaning of life?

What is your character’s scent? (Bonus points for a description that sounds like it could be from a bad [or awesome] fanfic.)

Does your character think more with their heart or their brain?

What is your character’s most recent or frequent nightmare?

What opinion does your character have on [CERTAIN ESTABLISHED GROUPS/AUTHORITIES IN THE GAME WORLD]? (Dragonmarked Houses, royal crown, etc.)

How did your character spend their childhood? Where did they grow up/who were their childhood friends?

What aspect of your character’s future are they most curious about? (If they could know one thing about the future, what would it be?)

What colors are associated with your character?

Who in the party would your character prioritize rescuing, in dire circumstances?

Is your character the most swayed by ethos, pathos, or logos?

If your character was granted a single use of Wish, what would they use it for?

What is your character’s favorite spell? If they don’t use spells: what is their favorite personal weapon/combat maneuver/skill/etc.?

How does your character feel about keeping secrets from the rest of the party?

What type of creature in the world is your character the most intrigued by?

When they were a child, what did your character want to be, or think they were going to be, when they grew up?

The player character to your left admits that they’re passionately in love with your character. How would your character respond?

If somebody (an NPC, someone from their backstory, etc.) your character trusts/loves asked your character to do something against the party’s best interest, who would they side with?

Does your character value their own best interest more than the party’s?

What decision would the party have to make in order for your character to consider splitting off from the group?

How does your character imagine the way they will die?

What is your character’s greatest achievement?

Is your character willing to risk the well-being of others in order to achieve their goal?

What is your character’s opinion on killing others?

What is your character’s favorite food? Beverage?

How generous is your character? Especially to those they don’t know?

What is your character the most envious about, regarding anyone in the party?

The player character to your left and the player character to your right are both telling your character two different versions of the truth. Who does your character believe?

What is your character’s sexuality/relationship with sex?

What is your character’s biggest pet peeve?

Describe how your character feels about the party’s current situation/objective/etc.

Who in the party would your character trust the most to keep an important secret?

If your character knew that they were going to die in a month, how would they spend the rest of their life?

What makes your character feel safe?

If your character had the chance to rename the party/give the party a name, no questions asked, what would it be?

What memory does your character want to forget the most?

If your character had to multiclass into a class they currently aren’t the next time they level up, what would it be and what reason would they have for doing so?

What television/book/video game/etc. character would your character be best friends with? (Or: what media character is your character the most influenced by/similar to?

What unusual talents does your character possess?

How does your character feel about receiving/giving orders? Are they more of a leader, or a follower?

What does your character’s name represent to them? (Or: why as a player did you choose your character’s name?)

Is your character more of an introvert, or an extrovert?

How far is your character willing to go to pursue the “greater good”? Do they believe in a greater good at all?

What does your character want to be remembered by?

What would be your character’s major in college?

Does your character consider themselves a hero, villain, or something else?

What major arcana tarot card best represents your character?

Where does your character see themselves in 20 years?

What is your character’s relationship with magic? Are they scared of it, wish to know more about it, indifferent to it?

Who is your character’s biggest rival?

What is your character’s guiltiest pleasure?

What does your character hope for the afterlife?

Who in the party does your character trust the least?

What is your character’s biggest flaw?

How did your character learn the languages that they speak?

What is your character’s favorite school of magic/type of weaponry?

What is most important to your character: health, wealth, or happiness?

What advice would your character give to a younger version of themselves?

Are there any social or political issues your character feels strongly about?

What, currently, is your character the most curious about?

Cities - go near water!  freshwater lakes and rivers (rivers especially) are the best places for cities because A) source of water and B) travel and trade is much easier cus you can put your boats like right there.  Basically ever relevant city ever was built on a lake or a river.

for rivers in general - because gravity, rivers run from mountains (forming from melting snow and ice (this is why they get fat in spring–more stuff melting)) to lakes/ocean where they can empty out (and even lakes will have rivers leading out that eventually get to the ocean), which can help when mapping out where those start and end.  rivers are also much thinner and faster in steeper elevations and very slow and wide when the land is flat

mountains - i like to think of what the tectonic plates look like because that’s what makes mountains!  mountains are also never standalone they’re always in mountain ranges (archipelagos are really just underwater mountain ranges babey).  a cool trick I like to do is occasionally separate mountain ranges across continents, because over time the tectonic plates shifted and literally split the range in half.  These mountains are really old tho so they’ve eroded and therefore it makes them smaller and rounder (like the appalachians) as opposed to relatively young mountain ranges like the rocky mountains which have taller and sharper peaks

Another mountain trick: if your mountains run along the ocean, the ocean side of the mountains will get a LOT of rain while the other side will be very dry–almost desert-like, in fact.  think of temperate rainforests in British Columbia vs the drier conditions in the canadian prairies

forests - depends on how warm the area might be.  coniferous forests are found further north (before you hit the tree line, and then it’s only tundra onwards) but as you head south you get leafier trees, and the leaves tend to get larger too

If you think about general elevation too, you’ll have places that might be swampy (wet + lower).  if your world has an ice age like we did, then glaciers may have carved the land, leaving piles of soil in the south that was left when the ice receded and places where the bedrock has been bared north of that (like the Canadian Shield in Canada–the reason we see that is because of the glaciers)

You might also have a land that’s dotted in a shitton of freshwater lakes as well because the meltwater filled the holes that the glaciers scraped out (this is why canada has so many goddamn lakes)

and if the ice age was more recent than it was in our world, then you might not even have the forest re-growth and it could be a lot of open plains

Though, for fantasy, you can make the world operate on entirely different principles:

With that done, the actual topic of city placement can be covered by videos like this:

Or

Once you have your places, if you want help naming them in realistic ways, this video can help:

This one is on architecture, which is definitely a subset of cities:

But for a more relevant practical guide on making settlements realistic:

Here’s a quick guide for making demographics:

beholders:

bheur hag:

mind flayers:

nilbog:

gnolls:

kobolds:

annis hag:

broke d&d taverns: filled with 50+ people yet only one barman (is often the landlord is just always on shift???) and one floor staff, chef is  n e v e r  heard of, is there even more than one chef? How long are the shifts? Drinks are a pathetically small menu with barely one of each kind of beverage, usually just called ale (wtf just ale? is it dark, amber, light, hoppy, malty??), elvish wine, mead, and dwarven ale. Food? okay, basically just full englishes at any given hour, not healthy or diverse but enjoyable enough if you don’t visit regularly (would explain lack of chefs!). What’s the service time on that food? I hear people be picking bacon off trays as it’s carried past?? HOW ARE THEY CHARGING FOR THAT SHIT?? WHO’s KEEPING TRACK OF THE BILLS?? Also open in at least half capacity all night long every night!?!

I SEE YOU JERRY ‘ONE WOMAN RESTAURANT-PROPHETESS DRAN’ HOLKINS! 

I SEE YOU MATTHEW “1 BARMAID, 1 FLOOR STAFF YET INSTANT FOOD” MERCER!

NO ONE IS SLEEPING IN A TAVERN OR PUB IN THE DINING AREA, YOU GET TOLD TO LEAVE IF YOU TRY THAT ANYWHERE

woke d&d taverns: 2 bar staff, 2-3 on floor, uncoordinated checkbacks, the party is bothered at least twice. You can hear violent yelling from at least 2 kitchen staff whenever the kitchen door swings open. Opens at 8-9am (small crew of 2-3 people) shift changes at 10am (couple more), 3pm (openers leave) and 6pm (night staff). The staff are all vaguely passive aggressive when party are like that. Five meal options, and 2ish light bites. DM gets to create bunch of silly drink names and uses them interchangeably between pubs depending on regions. 5 beers, 4 whiskeys, 3-4 ciders, 2-3 wines, and a brandy. ORDER AND PAY AT SAME TIME!  How often do they have music? No motherfucker is playing lute at 11pm on the regular at the local.

“LAST ORDERS!”…half hour later *waitress* “if you ain’t got rooms GTFO now! I have kids and need to be up at 6am! *Points at barman* “He doesn’t have kids but he’s covering an midday shift so he should have been gone an hour ago!”

ADDITIONALLY: There is a union/guild called HAMAG; Hospitality Against Mercenaries and Adventurers Guild, that makes sure all adventurers are legally contracted to sign a waver and deposit gold as insurance for damages because of the sheer ridiculous amount of violence these people bring to the industry. Spontaneous pub brawls are cracked down upon, there are bouncers, and all staff have cudgels. Absolutely no motherfucker is going to run a pub when it’s at constant peril of being vandalised by nigh unkillable magical superheroes every week.

The long and short, I am  V E R Y petty when it comes to logistical details about the service/hospitality industry. And before you @me I am aware pubs and taverns are filler backdrops for revelry/meet-ups and whatever but my gods the fiscal irresponsibility kills me!

the players:

the DM: ...her...

the players:

Air Genasi can cast Levitate once a day and can hold their breath indefinitely while not incapacitated. That spell and ability is super fucking situational. I think they should get resistance to thunder damage.

1) People reacting to the end of the second episode of Fantasy High

Lots of DMs struggle with this, and for good reason. 

Dungeons are the most mechanically straightforward aspect of the game besides combat, and the immediate shape and contents of them is more pressing to players than the atmosphere. 

But, there are some simple ways to make your dungeons more atmospheric. Here’s my proposed solutions, both a long thinky one and a fast random one:

I think that dungeons should thought about as ‘once functional spaces’. Every place in the world has a purpose for which it was built, even if it’s a weirdo crazy one. Dungeon rooms should almost always be more than just treasure, traps, and monsters. 

For example, temples have cloisters, treasuries, storage rooms, waiting rooms, choirs, sanctuaries, apse, washing rooms, etc. Each of these rooms has specific objects and furniture inside them, as well as different acoustics. They get decorated with frescoes and murals or hanging art or sculptures. They’re cultural places. Think about them as physical spaces that people would use. 

Now imagine something happened in them, long ago. Why is this place a ‘dungeon’ and not still used? What event caused it to be abandoned? A battle? Plague? Was the place cursed? Come up with that and you can seed the rooms with small historical details: evidence of fights, skeletal remains, treasures hidden so they could be reclaimed later (but never were).

Now add the effects of time and nature. Fabric rots, metal rusts, stone erodes and crumbles. Plants and roots push stone tiles aside, and water seeps in and floods deep places. The passage of ages scours away history and purpose. Now, your once functional rooms don’t appear so functional, but their purpose can still be intuited.

Now add some new tenants. Monsters are always the first to reclaim abandoned civilized spaces: goblins make shantytowns out of old human ruins, beasts make warrens in sepulchral tombs, small dragons and basilisks favour places with statuaries and abandoned treasures. No matter the space or its original purpose, monsters move in and call it home. Sometimes multiple species of monsters…and then they fight or argue over sharing space.

So now your dungeon has a vivid look and feel. The important bit now is to think about how that imagined space sounds and smells. 

With every room and hallway, imagine how its history smells. Is it acrid or pungent? Smokey or mouldy? Does it smell surprisingly pleasant? If so, that’s often a worrisome sign, because it means something sentient might already be there. 

Audio can clue players into a space faster than any other description. Wind whistling indicates access to the surface…or a much deeper cave. Dripping denotes water (you hope). Creaking could mean doors…or ghosts. Large spaces echo, and sounds warp and distort the further away they are. There’s even different kinds of silence. There’s an empty, lonely silence that comes with long dead spaces, or the claustrophobic close silence of small spaces. 

Appeal to your players senses besides sight. Describe what rooms smell, sound, and even taste or feel like. This is a surefire way to make your dungeon rooms stand out. For example:

“You enter a 20 by 20 foot square room. It’s a stuffy old parlour. Pushing the door open you immediately smell something caustic and sour, but you don’t see an immediate source. All the furniture is rotted, but some of it looks smashed. You can hear the faintest scraping of something against the wall in the adjacent room”.

If that seems like a lot to write, try something like this: Reveal each bullet point as the players inquire about them, or when they make Perception checks:

Parlour, 20 ft square room.

The room feels uncomfortably thick and stuffy.

All the furniture is rotted out. Some of it is smashed. Evidence of a fight.

Smells caustic and sour. The smell comes from under a tattered rug. It’s beholder puke. 50gp if collected and sold to the right buyer.

Scraping sounds from the cloaker in the next room.

So maybe you already have a pretty basic dungeon and you need to make each room (or block of rooms) less boring. Here’s my handy set of sense tables:

Random Room Sensations:

For each room you want to enhance, roll four dice (a d12, a d10, a d8, and a d6). Your rolls will determine what’s up with this room. Every time you roll a result, cross it out and replace it with a new one you come up with.

Smells (1d12):

Sickly sweet, like rotting fruit or wilting flowers.

Musty, like old people and expired cologne.

Tangy, like body odour and grime.

Dusty, the choking scent of age and ghosts.

Foul, like waste and death; something unholy.

Crisp, like freshly cut grass or unchecked plant life.

Soggy, the lingering smell of still water and flooding.

Pungent, like rot and decay.

Spicy, like herbs and dried ingredients, aged.

Electric, a faint aroma of ozone and metals.

Earthy, like fresh dirt and clay, mixed in with the copper of blood.

Roll again twice, both smells clash together.

Sounds (1d10):

Claustrophobic silence.

Deep, echoing silence.

Low moaning or groaning.

Creaking of wood in the distance.

Faint, maddeningly indistinct whispering.

Faint, maddeningly indistinct whispering in a language you don’t know.

Metal scraping against metal, rhythmically.

Dripping of some kind of liquid onto stone.

Dripping of some kind of liquid into more liquid.

Roll again twice, both sounds are present.

Touch Sensations (1d8):

Dryness on the skin, chapped lips and dry eyes.

Cold dampness, water beads on metal items.

Humidity, clothes become hot and heavy, metal feels colder.

Dry heat, throats become parched, skin itches.

Pressure change, ears pop and noises distort.

Static tingling, hair stands up on end, goosebumps.

Unholy chill, shivers, goosebumps, a sense of unease.

The feeling of being watched, an uncomfortable presence.

Kinds of Darkness, if applicable (1d6):

Grey, distant darkness that yields to lantern light.

Cloying, smothering darkness that seems to draw close to you.

Eerie still darkness that feels like it holds endless monsters.

Calm, still darkness that invites restfulness.

Flickering, shifting darkness where the room seems to be moving.

Impenetrable darkness that makes darkvision endowed races feel at uneasy.

I hope all this helps make your dungeons a little less boring. The dungeon tables in the back of the 5e Dungeon Master’s Guide from @dndwizards is also helpful in this regard. 

The way it works is it breaks down all of Dungeon crawling into four elements: lore, traps, treasure, & encounters.

This idea states that every room of your dungeon should have 3 of these four. That way every player has something to do.

Example:

You enter a simple rectangular chamber. The cold air washes over your skin sending goosebumps down your spine, no less than the sight of the eerie statue of a woman in the center of the room does. Her lifeless eyes stare down at a brazier in her hands, inside of which is a shining pile of gold. As you slowly approach to get a closer you look, you also spy two things. First, several crates in the back of the room, stacked in the corner. Second, the sound of scratching on stone, near yet muffled. What will you do?

In this example I have three elements present that the players don’t know but get a hint of.

I have treasure clearly in display for those who like loot.

The scratching sound implies combat. The fighters are ready and on edge waiting for something to jump them.

The smart players know that the statue isn’t gonna give away the gold for free. Especially after I called it “eerie.” So those who love a good puzzle or trap are now gonna go nuts looking for a trap on that statue.

As for what the trap is, it matters little. The gold could be covering a pressure plate and when removed it would open secret doors behind which would stand some horrid beast. To find it PCs would need some sort of a Investigation check or what not. The point is this situation provides 3 of 4 elements and entertains 3 out of 4 types of players.

And if you’re wondering what was up with the crates, those contain some minor loot. A potion or two, some gold. That’s for the players to not feel cheated out completely of their reward. Or you can make them mimics. PCs love mimics.

What do you guys think?

In both cases the writer is set-designer, camera-operator and director for the movie being projected in the imaginations of readers / player-listeners.