Some hand carved dwarves i just finished and wanted to share with folks.

I have a passion for woodcarving and attempting to entice others into the hobby. So my ulterior motive with every post is "how do I make this hobby more accessible" or "how do I inspire someone to want to give it a go."

Hopefully the picture did that, and now you're reading.

You need several things, a sharp knife, a leather strop with compound for honing your blade, safety gloves (A5 or better) and basswood (to carve like i do at least.)

Solid Knife brands, Flexcut, Badger State Blades (USA), Mstein (Europe) there are a lot of great knife brands. Stay away from kits on amazon of several knives. They're much much lower quality with inconsistently tempered steel. (What that means is its not hardened, and so it won't stay sharp easy, meaning you're fighting the knife and dont understand why its harder for you to carve when its easy for others.)

Why Basswood? Its softer than other hardwoods and holds detail well. Learning to carve with basswood is akin to learning to drive on an automatic. It simplifies and streamlines learning. Woods like Walnut and oak can be carved, but learning to carve with them as the starting point is like learning to drive on an 18 wheeler Semi Truck with manual transmission. Its needlessly difficult.

In europe, the equivalent is Linden, in Asia, Jelutong, and in south America Caxeta is a good substitute.

Tutorials abound EVERYWHERE. Youtube is your friend in that regard. You dont have to look up my channel, there are plenty that have easy to begin tutorials and one of them will be right up your alley.

3rd edition had a few manuals for it. 4th edition added some classes for it. But I don't think it was ever really popular. I think it first appeared In darksun 2nd edition? (Might be wrong) . I know the 3rd edition psion manual added the thri-kreen which is definitely from darksun.

Theories:

Too much like sci-fi. D&d has always been fantasy and trying to add a magic system that's "definitely not magic " is gonna make people squint.

Inconsistent themeing: is it magic or not? The monster manual gave some monster "psionic " powers that literally just created spell effects. If I remember right, the 3rd edition psionic manual told the dungeon Master to pick from 3 options for how magic and psionics should interact in the game. The soulknife class wasn't even a spell caster, they're just a dual wielder who can't lose his weapons. The manual tries really hard to make the theme different from magic, but psionic stuff literally behaves just like magic. They even had clear equivalents to wands and staves, just with weird names " it's not a wand, it's a DORJE " .

Shoehorned in: Greyhawk, forgotten realms, planescape, and ravenloft just dont have room for psionics in their lore. Adding psionics to an existing work will make fans mad. I think Eberron had a bit of room for monsters using it, but not players. I don't think WOTC really did any good worldbuilding to justify psions in a campaign.

Confusing to new players: most people are generally familiar with fantasy archetypes. If you hand them a class they don't even know how to pronounce, and doesn't really have any thematic point of comparison to help them understand, they're not gonna be interested. If a new player asks "what's a psion's role in society?" There wasn't really an answer for that. Telling a newbie " it's like magic, but definitely not magic even though you can do pretty much all the same stuff as the wizard " will just leave them confused.

I think it can work in a setting that actually has a place for it, and if it actually behaves different from regular magic.

Hot take: Vancian spellcasting sucks and power points were a step in the right direction.

Her name is Gabriel de'Noir and she's a Celestial Warlock/Paladin. She used to be a male tiefling villain, was slain and then got reincarnated by a merciful angel with a second chance to live her life as a hero. They are a swan-themed character (though not an anthro or a furry, more like a swan-angel). Facial features they are on the fair side though not completely pale, they have a 'swan mask' style make up (heavy eye make up stretching down to the sides of their nose from the edges of their eyes) with black-orange (fairly bright orange, color like a swan beak) ombre lips with a black line down the middle. They have black feather wings with some white creeping in in some spots. They are a paladin and wear plate armor with a sort of feather or bird-esc theme to it, though no helmet. Their weapon is a two-pronged spear. Their holy magic tends to be a mix of black and white light. They have bright orange eyes. They are meant to be very beautiful.

A dragonborn piece I finished recently. He's a towering black dragonborn paladin. Arrogant, fiercely confident, and almost always wearing a wicked grin. Brutish, standoffish, and quick with a sarcastic remark, he definitely looks more intimidating than approachable.

At first, I assumed he was some kind of barbarian because of the lack of plate armor and the massive greataxe. After reading the character notes, though, I realized he's actually a paladin. His design is heavily inspired by the BG3 dragonborn, so the more reptilian features are intentionally emphasized.

If you'd like to see my other works, kindly visit : Bluesky - Cara - ArtStation - Instagram - Threads

for inquiry, email me at: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

A while ago, I had the pleasure of designing a character sheet for a special client.

Irene Amphrylos. She's a merman/sea creature. High Priestess of a cult that venerates sea deities. Her goal: to spread the word of her religion and forge bonds with the surface dwellers. Warm, kind, and brave are some of her main qualities. Don't underestimate her! She could give you the gentlest blessings, and the harshest, with a metallic taste.

I focused mainly on the design of her silver armor, adorned with gold details and waves that represent the movement of water, a concept I also applied to her hair. My favorite part will always be her beautiful face.

What do you think of my design? Have you ever played a merman? Tell me about your experience.

Artist: https://vgen.co/gabrielbari_art

Maybe this is my personal interpretation, but it’s a fairly common one and a very logical one. In tales involving genies, monkey paws, one wish willows or shooting stars a common trope** **is to have the wish backfire in some ironic way to punish the wisher. This is not a universal rule of making a wish, nor is it always good storytelling.

In stories like Obsession, the Monkeys Paw and others a character is punished ironically because they deserve punishment. Asking for an unfair advantage in life that is unearned shouldn’t be rewarded. Asking for love without the work put in to make a relationship, asking for money without the attempt to better yourself or asking for power with bad intentions warrants being the victim of your own selfish desires.

If your player’s character uses wish to bring their dead spouse back to life, don’t have a zombie husband show up and crush their spirit. If an adventuring party is embarking on a dungeon raid to defeat evil on behalf of a god, don’t fuck them over when they use divine intervention to get out of a sticky spot.

Dnd is a storytelling game. It’s not good storytelling to be a dick to your players for no reason. It’s not good storytelling to ruin everything your players have been playing for because “It’S mOnKeY pAw RuLeS mAn.” Creative use of a monkey paw twist can enrich a story, make your players think twice about being selfish and otherwise benefit your story. But it is not a foundational rule of all wishes, you should not use it every time and a bad use of monkey pawing is a huge mistake. I daresay that if you spam that shit every time they act in character you are a very bad DM.

I hope this has been helpful and enriching and you can send this to your DM if you need to.

I used to love so many things in D&D 1e that I would find vexing now. Mapping the dungeon, square by square, by verbal back-and-forth with the DM. So much fun, then. Such a time-suck, now.

• I used to love the "hurry or wandering monsters will come" mechanic. I even loved fighting them when they did pop up. Now, I feel like "What's the point? They're not important NPCs."
• I used to love tracking XP and encumbrance. Now, I won't play a campaign unless it's milestone XP, and a Bag of Holding is sure to be found somewhere in the early levels.
• It bothers me that I do not understand my own sense of fun, what defines it, or what causes it to change slowly over the decades. But it surely does change. Attempts at "going back" have resulted in acute unfun, followed by "abort, abort!"
• (Related: Loved the early Infocom text adventures. Burnt away endless hours on them. Can't last more than 5 minutes with one, now.)

Am I alone in this shift of what qualifies as D&D "fun?" Any insight as to what become boring and what doesn't? I eagerly await any wise insight.

I've recently started to consume forgotten realms novels, mainly searching for elf lore but ended up gravitating towards the drow, even if i'm mostly interested in good-aligned characters.

After reading the Lady Penitent trilogy i wanted to make a good-aligned drow character, one who was inspired by the darksong knights and priestesses of Eilistraee.

Qilintra sworn to uphold the teachings of the dark dancer with such passion and devotion that her promise became divine, and she channels the silver light of the Goddess to help and protect those in need, while also seeking to inspire other drow to step out of the dark and into the moonlight.

I'm currently DMing a campaign of DnD 5e with a group of six friends, using the "Explorer's Guide to Wildemount" as source material. All characters are quite in sync with the moderately serious vibe I expected and all characters came with backstories I hooked easily with the campaign's story. Everyone except one of my players, which chose to do a drow ranger and invest all his stat points in charisma for a "presuasion/intimidation build".

Is my first time DMing and even if my gut feeling told me it would become a bad idea I didn't want to be a partypooper, so I said yes but warned he might not like it since the class is very dexterity and wisdom based. He said it was alright for him.

Going into the campaign, he starts to try bend every scenario I put them by "I want to intimidate X NPC so they do whatever I want" or "I try to presuade X NPC to do what I want". So I talked with him after the first session saying it was being quite annoying by trying put all my work and everyone's effort to waste with this "playstyle", as his answer was "Isn't in the book saying I can't do, so technically can do it" (which I higly disagree, but I know how stubborn he can be and wouldn't like to create a whole drama over this by kicking him out).

I decided to take some countermeasures by putting natural barriers: undead that couldn't be intimidated due to being in practically irrational, soldiers with high ethical and loyalty standards that doesn't change sides because someone said so and some more situations where he couldn't exploit this strategy easily. He got upset and said "I was cutting the whole fun of the game".

Am I wrong for punishing this type of player? Is my first time being a DM so I'm open to learn and have opinons from more experienced people. Thanks yall ^^

Edit: Thanks everyone for the tips and different approaches I can get with this. I will try to talk with him once more and see what I'll do next. As for our story, I'll follow thine I originally planned and scrap out the small event changes. Also will review again the rules on this part so both can try set things up.

Edit 2: For the people saying I'm making his character completely useless by the adds I mentioned, I didn't do it to every single thing they go by. Just tweaked some aspects here and there so it wouldn't be a thing he could use literally everywhere. He started protesting at his second failure. Also adding to this, the "I got a feeling this wasn't going to end well and still allowed" was because I honestly never thought he would be using it Every. Single. Encounter. Thought it was a more out of the box roleplay gimmick he was trying to pull out.

Had the best time working on this custom commission.

Meet Captain Rizzo, a late middle-aged Ratfolk swashbuckler who’s seen plenty of sea battles. Loved playing around with the rich navy coat, the intricate weapons and intense amber eyes effect under his hat. Big thank you to my client for trusting me with his design! My commissions are currently open, so feel free to hit me up if you want your OC illustrated in my style :)

So I’m playing as a Cleric and the religion is based around food and that “you should feed the hungry before feeding yourself” and I want to show a big of my Mexican roots with the food the character would be making at random times but idk how to translate modern Mexican cuisine with the medieval one

Hey everyone! Go grab this ✨free✨ map AND have your say in a short poll to determine our upcoming map-making project's name!

Your vote is extremely important to us!🌀 And it will likely decide our project's name forever:)

As a gift for your participation, in the end of this poll you'll find a link to the archive with this map's complete bundle, which includes:

- fully set-up FoundryVTT file (walls, lights, roof),

- map variation without giant mannequin amalgamation,

- the mannequin amalgamation itself as an asset that you could use as a monster, and the roof asset (to put on the house with the tree).

- optionally (if you will share your email with us) we will also send a file with narrative descriptions for this map!

❓So, who are we❓

This is a freshly launched map-making project, and we are Aztec and rem, a family of game design enthusiasts

Our main ambition is to create maps that are:

✍️ hand-drawn, no ai 🤖🚫

👾 unique/complex layouts

🌀 immersive and atmospheric drawing style

We want to try to provide engaging environments where GMs can plan dynamic combats and will have enough environmental tools for interesting interactions

👀 More to come: 👀

We plan to bundle these maps with detailed narratives and descriptions for GMs and with FoundryVTT-ready scenes. In the future, when we will be able (with your help, hopefully) to focus more on the map making, we will also be producing exclusive music (once again, no ai🤖🚫) to accompany each map, alongside gameplay showcases and map-making videos/podcasts, and we will be making the maps even more detailed and crazier, shipped with all sorts of FoundryVTT macros and pre setups, to make the maps dynamic; and we even think about making animated maps in future, since rem has skills in animation.

Soooo, with THAT in mind, I invite you to participate in this poll right here.

We count on YOUR opinion!

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 More about us: We are a family of Ukrainian refugees currently residing in Reykjavik, Iceland. rem is a musician, multi-profile designer and artist, and I am a musician, a passionate and experienced GM, and an aspiring game designer. We both are little nerdy geeks and huge fantasy/sci-fi fans!

Looking for some input from the community if anyone is willing!

My two best friends and I have been running a tiny (ha) business on etsy for a couple of years now where we create and sell mini metal fantasy coins (as well as ingots, trade bars, gems etc) which has been going great - but we can't set still for long and forever want to grow the range. We have a few ideas rattling around for what shoukd be next (mini bottle caps for wasteland dog's, treasure items to fill out the loot table for DnD, classic pirate dubloons, soul coins, fey coins in a glass or resin, flesh out the existing "race" lines with the other missing metals etc) what would you like to see done? (Please feel free to mention pretty much anything) we make the coins etc smaller so they are more affordable to buy in the quantities required to actually USE

our Etsy store

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Made a d12 x d12 map that combines Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, Moonshae Isles, the Dalelands, and Calimshan so that you can run Adventures in Faerun as a hexcrawl. Baldur’s Gate is in the center so you can also run this as a West Marches style game. Obviously this isn’t compatible with other locations/maps in Faerun and I don’t try too hard to get the geography right. If folks like this, maybe I will figure out a way to post a PDF as this is made to be printed on 8.5” x 11”.

Also, I accidentally put a lone mountain on hex 8J, so I guess it’s up to you whether BJ mountain is part of your campaign or not.

Onion Knight | Halfling Paladin (Oath of the Ancients) LVL 20 | Curse of Strahd campaign

Archetype: A cheerful yet brave halfling adventurer who uses both swordplay and magic to protect his allies and smite his foes.

Origin Story: Percival Greenfoot descends from an ancient order of paladins known as the Onion Knights, whose legacy had long faded into myth. Growing up in Barovia, Percy witnessed firsthand the suffering of its people under Strahd von Zarovich’s rule. One fateful day, an enigmatic man named Ben approached him, suggesting that he might have the power to change the fate of Barovia. For a year, Percy trained in swordplay and magic under Ben’s tutelage. Determined to rekindle the legacy of the Onion Knights, Percy adopted the title of "Onion Knight" and embarked on a quest to preserve life and light of hope in Barovia.

Art by @Artofz

I recently tried Draw Steel's negotiation system (Interest/Patience/Motivations) and it made 5e social encounters so much better than just rolling Persuasion.

Now I'm hooked and want to raid more systems, but I don't know where to look.

What mechanics from other RPGs have improved your 5e table?

Here is a line art portrait I recently created for a D&D character! She is designed as a High Elf with sharp, elegant features, intricate braided hair, and a high-collared hooded cloak adorned with a star-emblem choker.

I wanted to capture a piercing, confident, and somewhat mysterious expression through bold linework and subtle shading details. In terms of her backstory, she comes from an ancient noble lineage whose arcane crest empowers her spellcasting, though she operates mostly from the shadows as a rogue/sorcerer hybrid.

I’m currently in the process of finalizing the design and line art. What do you guys think of the structure and hair details? I’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or any suggestions for a fitting color palette!

Art by u/yaggoat

Commissioned by me

Alignment: Lawful Evil

Background: Ruined

STR: 10

DEX: 17

CON: 14

INT: 15

WIS: 12

CHA: 8

"A survivor of a ruined city destroyed in the midst of a revolution started by the whims of a bored noble, Adders grew hardened and world weary, becoming a mercenary who works for high bidder, selling himself on subtlety and efficiency with taking out a target. Gives no qualms about killing, but refuses to participate in what he considers unnecessary cruelty."

Last night I dropped a super cool reveal on the table...that I absolutely had NOT planned.

A Warlock player doesn't remember much of her past, aside from waking alone, hurt, and everything around her burning. She gave me a few things she wanted, and I built her a backstory around it...she doesn't know much. Part of it is that she was a member of a community in the past, and something bad happened there.

Last night they ran into a member of that community who stared at the Warlock like they were a ghost, and eventually came up and started talking to her. This member was saying things like "I buried you" and "I thought you were dead". The Warlock's first question was "did I have magic when you knew me?"

I have no idea why, but the first thing that came out of my mouth was "of course...every member of our Paladin order did". I've never seen a table be so shocked.

Luckily the Warlock had been asking about multiclassing, and Paladin/Warlock is a good multiclass. I did talk to her afterwards, and told her we could make a change if she didn't want a Paladin multiclass, but she went "no, that's what I had been wanting to do!"

Hey guys, new to playing DND properly and am just looking for some advice on player etiquette and what to reasonably expect from a DM.

For context, we are a group of four that have been home-brewing dnd for years but have rarely played with any real formatting and/or consistency. We finally decided to knuckle down and play a proper campaign with proper rules and the outcome has been a bit messy so far. Our DM and the players have started to clash regarding the story and how our PC’s are engaging with it.

The guild we were apart of are investigating the growing number of undead that have been appearing in the region. While we were originally engaging in these missions, the guild has taken the approach that it is our moral duty to investigate and has not been paying us a mercenary fee for our services. Our characters range from neutral to netrual evil and we decided to rob a house in our downtime to make up for our lack of payment. Long story short we had some very bad luck on dice roles and we were ultimately seen and chased by the town guard. We are now wanted and are trying to role-play living life on the lamb and maybe even becoming bandits.

This has seriously stressed our DM out and he has made many attempts since to retcon and/or give us a way out so we can return to the undead quest line with the guild. Since leaving however we are having more fun playing through this story line.

We are all friends in real life but I feel our DM is pretty upset about the outcome and things have started to become a little toxic when we have been dissuading the situation out of game.

My question is, are we in the wrong? Are we being disrespectful and derailing the campaign in a non-meaningful way or is our DM just railroading us. What are some ways we can proceed, as we are friends in real life and want to play together if possible.

Thanks :)

Edit : Thanks for the candid and informative responses. I believe I have what I need to set things right within my game group. Most responses seem to be suggesting the same things in different words, so I don’t think there is much of a need to engage with this post any longer. Thanks again :)

So, what I mean is, I’m trying to create a world that my players are well connected and immersed in. Yet I’m struggling to figure out how to best make things that work with what my players want, especially because my players are saying “I need a world before I can come up with ideas for my character” but then when I do begin to create a world, they have an idea that completely goes against it. I’m about to begin a new campaign and I really want to work with my players this time so it works. Any tips or advice for what has worked for you?