#pmd&d

2023 Holiday Doodle #5

Oh thanks for asking about it! I'd be happy to answer questions about the campaign I'm hosting right now, but for now I'll just give a general recap of what's going on for the players and what the plot currently is.

So the plot so far has been about Shadow Pokemon suddenly appearing, and the players trying to find who is responsible for their sudden appearance. Shadow Pokemon tend to be extremely aggressive and will typically attack non-shadows on sight (with a few exceptions).

The cause of the Shadow Pokemon outbreak came from one of their clients early in the game, when the group was acting as a sort of rescue team instead of investigating the Shadow Pokemon problem. They were around an Absol named Seth, who suddenly became sick after grabbing a treasure deep inside of a dungeon. They escorted him to a town of herbalists who they believed could help cure his sickness, only to find the town wiped out during their time collecting ingredients that the inhabitants needed to cure his illness. They haven't seen that Absol since, but they did find some strange, shadowy feathers in the room he was in...

Since then, the group has been trying to find a way to combat the shadows, and perhaps turn them back to normal. To achieve this, they enlisted the help of a scientist and researcher, a Porygon-Z by the name of Dr. Zed. Zed is currently working on a machine that can be used against the shadows, one he claims will be able to return them to normal. However, the ingredients he needs to make this weapon work are difficult to obtain, so the group has been helping him gather what he needs.

As for the current situation, they are trying to reach Mesprit's lake, which she seems to have turned into a sort of night club beneath a once bustling city, one that has been overrun with Shadow Pokemon.

I can't share much more of the plot at this time without spoiling my players (who will likely see this post), but I will include a few silly doodles my players have made that might not have been posted anywhere!

As for what I think of the system, before this I was running games off of a completely homebrewed system, which, while it worked, it was a bit unstructured and somewhat loose with the rules. Using Pokerole definitely gives our game a more solid foundation for rules and mechanics, but the module itself seems geared around encounters being extremely vicious and hard to survive. The inclusion of things like lethal damage (aka, a move will straight up kill you instead of knock you out), among a few other changes has led to me needing to make adjustments on the fly just to make sure even more basic encounters aren't a wipe. I do like the system! I just feel like it could be better balanced against players dying so often. That being said, I must be doing something right if there's only been one "death" so far! (And by death, I mean the character's fate is currently unknown, they were abandoned and dragged away by a Shadow Luxray, but they didn't find any kind of remains when they went to look for him!)

OLD 2021 ART

more PMD&D! this time the whole cast, fully evolved (save for bunt’d because he didn’t want to, and chad because he’s… well… a zygarde core)

Oh about them huh? Their name was Sam, they're a Zangoose/Decidueye hybrid, here's a picture of what they look like!

Anyways, this is the character I mentioned in my last DND post, who's fate I said was unknown. The long story of that is that the group fled into a nearby forest after seeing a town they were in at the time was being attacked by shadows. One of the shadows, a massive Luxray, saw them flee and gave chase, following them down the forest path.

I should mention, it was the dead of night when this encounter took place, so the only thing they could clearly see in the dark was the gleaming eyes of the Luxray chasing them down. Unfortunately for the party, they ran into a dead end, and had no choice but to try and fight their way past the Luxray that cornered them.

It was a long battle, and the group actually almost won! They don't get to see enemy health bars usually, but the Luxray only had around 3 hp left when they decided to flee. When running away, Sam was shot in the leg with a shadow attack, causing him to fall. The Luxray quickly caught up to him, and dragged him back into the dark, away from the other players, who opted to abandon him due to how terrible shape they were in at the time.

From there, the group returned to the town and heard of a safe haven being built nearby, a sort of refugee camp where they went to take refuge and recover.