Dungeon: Thousand Ends

Dare: The Silent King’s Vigil

Setup: many in the castle will attest to the existence of a ghost in the catacombs beneath the foundations, if not from their own experience, but from generations of tales going back to the days of the petty,  tribal kings, when the realm was divided up into a patchwork of little territories ruled over by whatever warlord could martial enough blades to hold them. 

While most stories tell of the ghost stalking out of its crypt to drag the living down to the shadows with it,  or attempted exorcisms of blade and blessed book, a few hold the whisper of truth: those that venture down to the catacombs when the moon is right and sit in silent meditation with the peaceful phantom can gain great insights into themselves, or secret truths known  only to the dead. 

Adventure Hooks: 

While staying in the castle of their patron, the party hears the rumor of the ghost and its vigil, particularly from a harrowed young page who was thrown into the catacombs by his youthful tormentors and developed several nervous quirks from the experience. They tell the party that it wasn’t the ghost itself that traumatized them so, but the fact that they were trapped in the catacombs so long with noone but the dead for company. Chief among the page’s new eccentricities is a fascination with the macabre, and they gently try to coax the party down into the catacombs so they can share in the page’s experience. 

By Feudal grant, a newly risen knight has taken up residence in the castle, and is more than a little put out by the fact that her new home has such an infamous reputation among the surrounding populace. Seeking to show her new prestige and authority, she puts out a call for brave warriors willing and capable of removing this unwelcome spirit from her domicile. 

A member of the clergy has gone missing while attempting the Silent King’s vigil, locking themselves inside the tombs for several days while attempting to communicate with and permanently put the spirit to rest. A mentor to the party’s cleric, or important for one of thier ongoing adventures, the party must search the catacombs for the missing vicar, or attempt his abandoned ritual and ask the ghost where the holyman might have wandered off to. 

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i bought paws at a con recently and i have been having fun rubbing my bf's cheeks with them. Like doing biscuits on his face. They're so soft!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*show u my pawws* do u think they're cuute

*show u my paws* do u wnna touch them

*show u my paws* do u think they're soft paws

*show u my paws* do you love and care my soft paws

i know we're all sick of self-care being a marketing tactic now, but i don't think a lot of us have any other concept of self-care beyond what companies have tried to sell us, so i thought i'd share my favorite self-care hand out

brought to you by how mad i just got at a Target ad

Your adventures are awesome, just getting that out of the way. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about spelljammer, due to rewatching treasure planet most likely, and I’m curious how you would handle it

Drafting an Adventure: Setting Sail in the Astral Sea 

Forgive the break from my usual format for this prompt, but as it deals with past versions of d&d and how I implement some of these ideas in my game, I figured I needed to change up my authorial voice for this one.

For those who might not know, Spelljammer is d&d’s answer to starwars style planetary adventuring, and is both its own setting as well as an “addon” to other campaigns involving a magical means by which adventurers could fly out from their homeworld into an version of space modelled on archaic views of the universe as a way of explaining why their wooden spaceship didn’t have to worry about things like gravity or vacuum pressure. 

I was never into Spelljammer myself, as it was primarily a 2nd edition thing and i started playing the game with 3/3.5. While the idea of fantasy spaceships was always intriguing, I felt that Spelljammer itself was a bit silly, with its space hamsters, British hippo gun fetishists, and reliance on “ D&D trope, BUT IN SPACE” to prop up much of its material. 

That said, we can all agree Treasure Planet, and the idea of fantasy space pirates is SICK AS SHIT, so I’d be doing a disservice to myself and the campaigns I run if I didn’t have that sort of thing running in the background. 

So lets talk first about how I run the astral sea, as I use that as my backdrop for such adventures:

The Astral Sea is an expanse of starry void, filled with glittering mists and nebulae and aurora, as well as the occasional field of crystalline coral.  It is the raw canvas of creation upon which the gods ( and other great powers) paint their myriad creations. This morphic quality is also utilized by powerful arcanists to create their own worldlets and mind-palaces, making their dreams into physical domains of impossible wonder. When these arcanists die or otherwise move on, these realms endure, slowly drifting together into ruinous archipelagos that provide habitat for astral denizens.

There is no such thing as distance in the astral plane, more of a notional geography of one landmark in relation to another. Part of the reason this great expanse is referred to as a "sea" is that navigation in such a realm requires either the following of particular " currents" that follow predictable routes through the expanse, or by the charting the relative position of various landmarks in relation to one's desired destination. One could also make use of the vast network of portals to get about, trace the boughs of the cosmic trees, or take a walk on the infinite staircase.

Its bad to be out in the astral sea for too long, as that primordial chaos can either unweave one's being or make some unwanted "Creative additions". This necessitates an astral ship for a long journey, or sheltering in a crystalline reef or other structure.

The Shallows of the astral sea reside in the realms of mortal dreams, and the phantasms of imagination and flotsam of fantasy spill over into the starry expanse.

Running Astral Adventures:

Since the Astral plane is by definition so far removed from the "grounded" state of traditional fantasy adventuring, I like to think of it as a sort of secret/background/bonus lore that's never touched on in most games, until the party starts having dealings with high level wizards and the like. A wonderous thing they get to discover when they cross over the threshold from practical heroics into the realm of the fantastical. That threshold is likely an unintentional one, as an unknown portal or teleportation mishap sends the party hurtling into the unknown, only for them to have to struggle through a strange world and find their way back to reality.

The construction, reclamation, or chartering of an astral ship is then a later benchmark where the party has taken control over their destiny, allowing them to travel between the realms by their own agency.

Adventure Hooks:

The diaspora of innumerable dead worlds spread out through the astral cosmos, survivors of realities that collapsed under their own weight or the mismanagement of their gods. These Starry pilgrims can find new homes among the reefs, or travel from world to world as astral nomads. Such an existence is a hard one, and it's not unusual for some of these peoples to turn to interdimensional raiding and piracy as a means of survival. Often the loot of these raids ends up in the markets of Leng, where the treasure of a thousand worlds flows through wicked hands of that world's miasmic masters.

In the most twisted and surreal expanses of the dreamscape, the Quori hold sway, formless tyrants incapable of creation themselves and so desperate to claim the minds of mortals to give shape and order to their nightmare realm.

The ruins of civilizations beyond count float in the astral sea, just waiting to be explored. Expeditions to these dream palaces can be great undertakings, but can provide campaigns without frequent dungeon crawls a chance to get their delve on without having to leave an important central location of a campaign.

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I said this months ago but I'll say it again: if you're transgender you HAVE TO LIVE

🧦☕🧸A Guide to Writing Cozy Fantasy

Check out my masterpost for more tips :)

What is "cozy fantasy"? 🧺🪵

Cozy fantasy is a subgenre that is characterized by a more everyday approach to fantasy.

While its definition is not as clear-cut (everyone will have a sightly different idea of what it needs to look like), there are some general approaches to writing in this subgenre.

Elements of Cozy Fantasy 🕯️ೀ

A comforting, healing ambience 🍪

Rather than bloody battle and cunning witches, we have our next door wizard baker chumming up his special pumpkin pie.

Every magical book at their deepest core evoke a healing quality, but for these cozy novels, this warm element takes control.

2. "Kindness” and ‘gentleness” tropes 🍂

Found family/community, a sense of togetherness

Kind hearted protangoists

Plots gull of joy, hope or happy endings. Give your readers reassurance that everything will work out. And they do.

Ambience woven in the worldbuilding that gets the reader intitamely close to the world

Slower pace, allow the reader to delve into the story world and build stake in these kind, loving characters.

Slice of life: provide personal insight into the character’s “mundane” lives. 

The plot must take this "happy" nad kind" element as the MAIN theme. Every book provides catharsis at the end, but if the process if filled with dark, dangerous adventures, that's not cozy at all!

3. Cozy doesn’t mean “no/low stake” 📖

No novel would be interesting without conflict and some kind of loss.

Think of “personal” stakes. Cozy fantasy can be grand adventures, quiet magical quests, fairytales or healing slice of life stories.

For example, the protagonist can develop new relationship around town and figure out her passion to express the theme of importance of enduring. 

4. Generally slower pace, focusing more on the inner development of the protagonist and the main side characters.

Cozy Fantasy Starter Recommendations 🎧🌙

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J.Klune

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travie Baldree

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 📸

Alright! Let's actually talk about this waterfall thing. It is an amazing showcase of many things that I adore from late 90s graphics. I am replicating this in Blender, through mere observation of the final game, so some things might not be exactly accurate to what the PS1 does.

First off, this is what I started off with, straight from the Noesis exporter into Blender.

"Looks boring!" "What are those weird gradient quads?!" Oh we'll talk about those too, don't worry.

Let's start simple, figuring out the Layers.

We've got the base level geometry, then two layers of water, each with a different texture.

Let's focus on the bottom Water layer first. A waterfall's water falls, and the age old trick to replicate that behaviour is to scroll the texture along the mesh by offsetting the texture coordinates every frame.

Simple enough. Not too convincing yet.

Let's do the same with the other layer.

Look at it goooo!

An often-used trick to enhance the waterfall effect is to increase the distance between vertices (or squash texture coordinates) as the geometry goes down.

This affects the scrolling velocity for the texture in each section, making it look like gravity is accelerating the water.

MGS pulls yet another trick on top of that:

Vertices are subtly animated to oscillate, making the water flow seem more irregular.

It seems to be something similar to what is done to geometry when the camera goes underwater in the docks or vents area.

One opaque layer of water on top of another is no good.

Alpha Blending is an expensive technique and it'd not give the desired effect.

Additive Blending is used instead. The lower layer is rendered first, the second layer is then rendered on top, adding the color values together.

Now we get to talk about those weird quads.

They are darkening gradients! Instead of using Additive Blending, they do the opposite, the color value from the texture is subtracted from the scene that was rendered below, effectively creating shadowed areas.

Who needs HBAO+ anyway?

Lighting pass!

I just threw a few point lights to try and replicate the original vibes of the scene.

MGS, instead, uses lighting information baked into the vertices of the scene to create this mood. And what a mood it is!

Here's an additional example of the same techniques used in the bottom part of the same scene. Although the game seems to be rendering that water mesh as (almost?) completely opaque, there is an actual floor mesh under it.

There, I fixed this post. If you enjoy my posts, shit or not, consider supporting me on Ko-fi, I will appreciate it a lot 💞: https://ko-fi.com/parametricpalta

tw: body horror, blood

vin and human

I’ve been trying to think of a setting for a nautical campaign. A vast expanse of tropical islands and waterways with the obligatory shady towns that sit on the water and temples of worship deep in both the jungle and the water. Any thoughts?

Yeknow what, fuck it, I wasn’t planning on writing a full pirate campaign anytime soon but everything’s better with pirates so lets do this!

Campaign: Scoundrels of the Sundered Isles

The Priests debate as to how our hearts may be weighted against its bearer’s sins.. but we Sailors no Better: ‘tis not sin our hearts are weighed against, ‘tis coin, as only coin could get a man to sail out to the edge o’ the bleedin world and gettim to stay ‘ere long enough to get to sinnin in the firstplace. 

-Overheard at The Last Hurrah Tavern

Setup:  The Tropical waters of the Tourmaline Sea have been a flurry of activity over the past century and a half, as natives and settlers from three different continents work together to reclaim land once lost after a half-millennia of supernatural darkness rendered a large chunk of the mainland uninhabitable. Most people deserted the Sundered Isles ( their name derived from a mistranslation that they were “Sun-Dead”) fearing the raiders and plagues that issued from that calamity, and they stayed away even after the sun returned, letting the gentle creeping of green reclaim the once barren rocks. 

Ever hungry for expansion, civilization makes its first tentative steps into these dangerous lands, with ports popping up all along the coast and archipelagos, the first wave of resettlement of a land once thought consigned to oblivion. 

All is not peaceful however, as powers both foreign and continental strive to establish dominance in this new frontier, with settlers, traders, and foolhearty sailors caught in the clash between. Discover the Mysteries long buried in darkness and sunken beneath the crashing waves, as you and your party strive to make your way in the Sundered Isles

Campaign Start

Captives of the Villainous XROC Merchant company and on their way to do hard labor in one of a number of debt-colonies, the party is miraculously saved when a tremendous wave crashes against the ship where they are imprisoned, shattering it upon the coastline and giving them the chance to escape together through the island.   There they find themselves Port Calmayne, a prosperous trade hub where the party can get their sea-legs under them while determining the best course of action and evading the Company. 

Early Game: 

A Priestess of the sea god has work for the party, neverminded that she’s a “retired” pirate, and the job involves helping a group of smugglers exterminate some monsters they accidently imported from the continent 

Investigate the haunted manor of an old Commodore, recover a treasuremap, and perhaps acquire some funds by looting through his hold treasures. Don’t get shot by a ghost while you’re at it. 

Earn the Respect of the local sailorfolk by diving for treasure into shark infested waters. Hidden among the bones of a great dragon are tokens that prove the party’s skill and sea-blessed luck, earning them passage on any ship going anywhere in the Sundered Isles

Mid Game: 

Make your way to Greenveil Lagoon, hidden home of all true pirates and the Bretherin Court. Help reunite an old salty-dog pay respects to his long departed crew, or start treasurehunting for the world’s most skilled but unlukiest mapmaker. 

Hunt ruins for a fabulous relic, then defend it in a ship-duel from a mystic privateer intent on taking it back.  When a job goes bad, it goes bad, and it’ll take all the party’s skill as sailors to evade this tenacious ( and seemingly omniscient) foe. 

Sign on With the Monster Hunting Crew of the Leviathan’s Bane, travel to the most dangerous corners of the archipelago, fight creatures that break ships between their coils, learn how to cook seamonster

Explore an ancient, eternal lighthouse, used as a lair by an eccentric pyromancer. Help a wayward celestial find their misplaced chariot of fire and learn clues as to the darkness that overtook the mainland so long ago. 

Late Game

The Merchant company that enslaved the players wants control over trade in the Sundered Isles, and is willing to unleash a madwoman in order to get it. This renegade pirate is obsessed with becoming the terror of the high seas, going so far as to overthrow the brethren court that keeps order among the Isles’ freebooters, and even unleash a vampire on the populace in hopes of becoming one herself. 

Venture into the lush jungles and overgrown ruins of the continent, and meet the fallen demigod who caused the devastation in the first place. Now little more than an eccentric old lizardfolk, this seemingly benign evil has many stories to tell, and more than a little wickedness still in him. 

The Wave that set the party free was only the herald to a true upset, as over moths an entire new archipelago of islands emerges from the seafloor after millennia in the depths.  Dotted with ruins and artifacts of a long dead civilization, these new isles draw fortunehunters into a clash with the merfolk exiled by the sudden rising of their home, all the while an ancient power wakes, looking to assert itself over the world once again. 

As always, I’m tremendously grateful for all my followers, but if you’d like to support my creative efforts, consider checking out the links below:

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Art 

I've been a nail biter my entire life. Tried to quit for years and years. It's silly.

Watched one video that started me on hand/nail dysphoria.

Haven't bitten my nails ever since then. Nails growing nicely. Never been this long my entire life. The video fuckin killed that habit. Insane.