CUTE Pathfinder 2e Character Sheets Just Dropped!! 🎉🎉🎉

I've had a campaign idea for a while where the party chases after a monster/demon that's taken the appearance of a giant fox and they have to hunt it down or trap it, I'm unsure of how to run it as of now, but any ideas are appreciated!

Monster Hunt: The Smoke-Tailed Fox 

“Listen, the magistrates are already at eachother’s throats as how to classify this mess....  Is it grave robbing if the victim wasn’t buried yet? Is it attempted regicide if she was already dead?  All I know is that the court’s willing to pay extra to see this over and done with as soon as possible”

-Roderik Tull, Bounty Officer. 

Adventure Hooks: 

The Funeral procession of the recently departed queen was attacked while on its way to the royal sepulcher for last rites and entombment. While not even the most desperate bandits would attempt this daring feat, the honor guard present were unprepared to deal with the appearance of a tremendous white fox that emerged from the forest to strike their caravan with lightning-quick speed.  Throwing the defenders aside, the fox beast sundered the wagon carrying the queen’s body and savagely mauled the body with one of its claws. Witnesses report seeing the fox “drinking” an unearthly light from the royal remains before taking off once again into the woods. Everyone is pretty sure this is a bad omen, but few can agree exactly what it portends. 

Burial rights within the kingdom involve the priests invoking various rituals in order to “sign” which deity has taken up the departed soul, usually this is a chance for the gods to speak, and provide veiled commentary on the life of the lost, but upon the attempted buriel of the queen, it appears as if none of the gods have claimed her. People have begun to whisper that the Fox-beast stole their monarch’s soul, which again.. can’t mean anything good for the fate of the kingdom. 

Hunters going after the fox have reported that the woods it fled into have become a haze choked labrynth, with even the most well trod paths suddenly becoming winding meandering things that don’t lead you to their customary exits. A trapper fears for her partner who’s been lost out there for a few days, caught out in the woods when the Fox decided to lay down it’s curse.. or whatever type of spell it’s woven over the landscape. 

Setup:  Though Psychopomps come in many forms, they are all spirits preoccupied with shepherding mortal souls to the afterlife, ensuring that they do not tarry on among the living become ghosts. While some peruse this task with a solemn determination,  and others with a warmhearted cheer,  these entities help to maintain the balance of the cosmos, and ensure that the shades of the departed do not overwhelm their descendants. 

What happens then, when a Psychopomp abandons their duty? This is what happened to Ruvo, a vulpine steward of the dead who was sent to watch over the ailing health of the queen. Taking the form of a simple grey fox or unremarkable house servent, Ruvo watched over the queen as she spent her last remaining months tending to her gardens, never tarrying to far from her side lest her frail old body finally give out.  Newly appointed to this grim task, and not yet assigned to watch over the soul of one yet to perish, Ruvo developed a fondness for the resilient monarch,  which over time grew to a protective attachment as he cared for the woman who he was eventually supposed to escort off the mortal coil. 

The fox-spirit has made off with the queen’s soul, emotionally paralyzed at the thought of his “ friend” leaving him and perhaps fading away forever. Now perused by hunters, royal guard, and agents of whatever death deity he shirked in the queen’s favor, Ruvo has hidden the two of them away in an isolated spot in the forest, shrouding the surroundings in magic and hoping the whole mess will blow over if he just stays hiding long enough. 

Art 1

Art 2

Avatar/dollmakers

Here’s a list of various avatar creators/dollmakers/Picrews for writers who don’t draw, can’t afford to commission an artist, or who are just lazy, or procrastinating, or don’t have time, or … really, anyone. Sorry for taking so long to post it, I forgot this was in my drafts <3

I’ve split them into sources (aka which website they’re from) and I’ll write a short description for each that describes the artstyle, whether the characters you can make are gendered in a specific way, how varied the skintone options are, whether or not there’s a specific genre or clothing style expressed, like fantasy or sci fi etc, and how much of the character you can see (headshot, bust, half-body, fullbody etc), and how many body types are available.

I should also mention that there are hundreds, probably thousands of these things, so if you don’t like my selection, feel free to go to these websites I’ve linked and see for yourself! Unfortunately the death of Flash has impacted a lot of dollmakers so not everything that seems cute in thumbnails will work.

Putting under a cut in case of link rot or potential future updates.

Keep reading

Drawings from The Cursed Catacombs, a solo role-playing game where you play as the last living apprentice to a legendary wizard, sent out on a final deadly errand.

If pick-your-path novels and fantasy RPGs are you thing, the book will be on shelves this summer, and you can preorder now (preferably at your local bookstore)!

Wilderness: Roads of the Coldhearted

Your party presses through the veil of sleet, and every step you take feels like a struggle. You are fighting the very wind itself, and the frost covered bones and crumbling ruins you’ve passed serve to remind you that standing still in such weather is a death sentance. How did you get here? What need could be so great as to climb these perilous peeks? The hole in your memory shocks you enough that you nearly lose your friends around a bend in the path. Catching up to them, you see it, battlements only visable against the rock and the migrane colored sky by their sheer scale.   A castle, and perhaps a chance to get out of the cold you’ve been trapped in for so long. 

Setup:  There are many dread domains, each one a nightmare prison built to contain a great evil. This one is a labyrinthian tangle of pathways through a jagged mountainside, reflecting the final hours of a bloodthirsty margrave who spent hours fighting though a winter storm to return home, only to discover that all his cruelty had been in vain. 

Sorrow, war, and misfortune are the ruling elements here, along with the horror of exposure and a chilling wind that hunts the party with it’s own malicious will. 

Challenges & Complications: 

Wretched beasts ride the skies of this domain, striking without warning or circling like stormbitten buzzards. The remnants of soldiers mummified by the cold shamble their way through patrols or wait in ambush, and always return to their station after some time after their clashes with the party. Those that wear tattered officer’s uniform even manage to remember previous encounters, and will plan their defenses accordingly. 

Leaving the domain will require the party to trace a shifting maze of claustrophobic caverns, icy canyons, crumbling bridges and narrow switchbacks that what. as the “roads” of this domain. They possess their own sinister intelligence, seeming to know the exact right time to close or fail and drop the party into a new form of peril.  Scaps of maps may be found hidden along the road like treasure, but these too are full of misdirections, showing no true path and seemingly only able to agree that the mountains they depict are called “The Sorrows”. 

The castle in the heart of the ragged web of pathways is no shelter from the blizzard, as the cold winds pour from its open windows and echo through it’s echoing halls. This fortress is home to many terrible beasts, none more so than a screaming windstorm known as the Resounding Agony, which prowls the domain the way a shark might a reef. While not exactly intelligent, it will harry interlopers by alerting their pursuers, causing avalanches, and causing maddening fatigue. 

Sorrowsworn and other shadowfell beats are drawn to the Roads of the coldhearted en-masse, and can frequently be seen clashing with the soldiers. This is quite unusual for a dread domain, but whatever unseen architect is at work here seems to allow it. 

Keep reading

✒ Solo RPGs

About a month ago I went down a rabbit hole and came out the other side absolutely obsessed.

A singular post on r/fountainpens notified me to the existence of Solo Journaling RPGs- literally, tabletop experiences that you play by yourself. Some of these games have physical components, but many are played entirely with a pen and a piece of paper.

Needless to say, I was absolutely thrilled at the concept of being able to scratch that TTRPG itch without the social drain, impossible scheduling, AND with the bonus of using up my enormous stores of fountain pen inks. Since the middle of November I have tried three separate Solo RPGs, with one being a longer experience with a physical book with rules and tables...with the other two finished experiences being short, one-to-two page PDF's that can be played out in several hours.

✒ Experiences so far...

During my first attempt I tackled a larger-than-anticipated RPG called Apothecaria. In this game, you are sent a letter by a witch who wishes for you to take her place making potions in the town of High Rannock. You gather reagents, explore, make potions, and develop your reputation and relationships with characters in town. Very Stardew Valley inspired, but with a fun, witchy twist. There is also a cute animal version called Apawthecaria, as well as a few expansions for the main game, which I have yet to look at.

I was excited to start but otherwise clueless about the typical pacing and play of journaling RPGs, and soon found that I was writing way too much information!! My hand got tired, and I put it aside for the time being. I will have to revisit it soon, as it is DISGUSTINGLY cute and fun, but for now I have focused my sights on smaller experiences.

During my second, I played a cute little experience called Last Tea Shop. The game has since released a "full" version with more mechanics, but I found the classic version to be exactly what I was looking for on a lazy saturday night. It took me about 4.5 hours to complete thanks to several distractions, but the playtime was probably closer to 3.

I found this to be a strangely emotional little experience, which probably should have been expected since you are playing as a shopkeep at the edge between life and death. I will admit to shedding a few tears by the end of my journey- but they were happy ones. I will be returning for the full version sometime after I have let the experience settle.

My most recent experience-- as of maybe 30 minutes ago, to be precise-- is a lesser-known RPG called Axe Wielding Priest. This was a wonderful switch up from the cozy games I have tried so far, and as a person who adores a good (but understandably controversial) "sanity" mechanic in a game, it scratched my itch for madness.

There are some warnings in the description for blood, self-harm (flagellation), violence, and paranoia, but I thoroughly enjoyed the 2 hours I spent exploring the mind and history of my character.

✒ Conclusion

I am absolutely obsessed. I'm always itching to come up with stories, but have burned many a role-playing partner by being flaky or losing interest. These offer a few overarching mechanics and rules and otherwise let your mind run free. That sense of loose structure is exactly what I need as someone who struggles with ADHD, but also enjoys coming up with solutions within a set boundary.

There are "old-school" solo RPGs out there, as well as others that aren't just acting as a tool for creative writing. I will be trying some of those out as well as the time comes, as well as the games that use physical maps and movement around a grid.

Ley Strider By WillOBrien

Check out Tabletop Gaming Resources for more art, tips, and tools for your game!

Dungeon: The Shattered Garden

“ Careful not to cut yourself on all this Pretty” 

Adventure Hooks: 

Seeking a precious artifact, the party is force to make a harrowing climb up freezing, alpine mountains to gain access to a castle that was said to have fallen from the sky. Finding the ruins of this structure deep within a mountain rift, they must explore a labyrinth of jagged shards and broken halls, hoping that the whole beautiful calamity doesn’t cave in. 

What a miserable place for a heist. What treasure is so grand that it could make a self-respecting thief leave the poorly guarded vaults and easily duped nobles of the city, trudge halfway up a mountain, and risk freezing their precious lock-picking fingers off in the process? How about the Hyborian Stylus, a weapon of such power that any warmage worth their salt would pay out the nose for the chance at wielding it.  To get their hands on this treasure, the party will need to outwit an ostentatious but heinously bloodthirsty oni by the name of Banehail, who treats the dungeon as her own personal gallery/art instillation.

Sometimes things in the life of an adventurer are simple. You hear rumors that someone saw a castle made out of clouds crash-landing on a mountainside, you grab some friends, go on a hike, and investigate. Maybe you get eaten by wolves, maybe you grow as a person by confronting the unkown, it’s not that complicated. 

Challenges & Complications: 

Situated at the bottom of fissure high up in an alpine mountain range, the party will have to battle through harsh conditions to even get to the dungeon site, and then figure out a reliable way of getting down into the dungeon, ascending up with their prize, and finding their way back down the mountain. This may not prove too challenging to a party only interested in stealing one or two items from the dungeon, but the Garden is filled with numerous, weighty treasures, all of which can slow the party’s escape. 

While some rooms and pockets of surrounding architecture survived the impact unscathed, most were either reduced to reduced to piles of jagged detritus or so structurally compromised that they might as well be uninhabitable. The party must test their caving skills, managing tight squeezes through once beatific galleries or prepare descents into wings that now slope at treacherous angles. Delicate floors crack like glass under the party’s treasure-laden footstep, and ceilings may at any time collapse into razors if too much damage is done to the surrounding rooms. 

Entering the Shattered garden is no protection from the chill outside, as harsh boreal winds surge through particular hallways and seek to rip the life-giving heat from a potential explorer’s bones. THe greatest of these dangers is gallery which contains the Hyborian Stylus itself, which may freeze characters solid if they linger in it too long. If the alarm is sounded, the elemental denizens of this dungeon may paradoxically open the doors to this most valuable of treasures, transforming the Shattered Garden into an indoor blizzard in the hopes of flushing out the warm-blooded intruders. 

This dungeon is part of a larger adventure path “A Kingdom Washed Away”, which you can find the rest of @dailyadventureprompts​

05.11 - Lakeside Visit

OP: When demonstrating dance moves, it's crucial to execute the actions precisely. (cr 爵士舞柳柳老师)