dndenny

[dndenny]

calm after a storm

[dndenny]

Support a Trans Playwright!

Hey! along with dungeons and dragons, I am actual an early career playwright/theatre artist. And recently my play “Clara & Carmilla” was accepted to a play festival in NYC and is going to performed later this fall. “Clara & Carmilla” explores mental health through the vampire mythos. Every single character is apart of the LGBTQ+ community with the majority of them being trans, non binary, and gender non conforming. This is a dream come true of mine, but in order to make this happen, I need to produce it as well. Which means I need to raise money so I can rent out rehearsal space, pay the cast/crew, gather costumes and any other fees that would come up with putting on a show. The goal is to raise 2000 dollars by the end of August before we start production. If you are willing/able to, please consider donating. I have just graduated college, and found out about this all in a hug whirlwind. I want to make this happen, and share this story that is important to me, and hopefully bring comfort to people. And if you are unable to donate, please share this with everyone you know! Help queer artists tell queer stories!

https://gofund.me/8eba0584

[dndenny]

Taste of Blood (A d&d short story)

I sometimes like writing short stories centered around my D&D characters. It’s silly and goofy, but it helps me 1. practice my writing skills, and 2. work through what my character is feeling. I did one recently for my Curse of Strahd character, This version of Strahd is set in a western version of Barovia, and has been so much fun. (Thanks @sabrina-romano-art for running it). We’re on hiatus right now, and I can’t stop thinking about my artificer Sophie Allinbright. A hexblood that was raised by Baba Lysaga, before she ran away to the town of Valaki. I wanted to try sharing it, and seeing what you all think! Do you do stuff like this for your characters especially during a hiatus! I want to know!!! Well here it is! A Taste of blood, a Sophie Allinbright story...

Sophie AllinBright is all too familiar with the taste of blood. She was spoon fed it as a child. The taste of iron filling her stomach and quenching her thirst. She bathed in it. She longed for it. She needed it. 

Or so she was told. She was told a lot of things that were not true. She didn’t have to eat people. She didn’t have to kill innocents to protect the lord. She didn’t need to bathe in blood to be young. She was not born a hexblood. She was…something else before being taken away by Baba Lysaga. Sophie was twisted into some sort of servant for her. Sheltering her away from everyone that might tell her the truth of Barovia, and who she is. 

Despite everything, Sophie hoped Baba would remember her. She did raise her. Despite raising her in the darkness of the lord. She thought a sliver of love might fill her eyes. 

Laughable, yes. The woman who lied to her, her whole life, Sophie hoped she still cared for her. 

Sophie AllinBright used to be simply The Grandaughter. Doted over by Baba Lysaga. The Grandmother. Grandmother taught her potion making, about the land of Barovia, and about their lord, Strahd Von Zarovich. He was the land, and it was her job to protect the land from outsiders. The Grandaughter wanted nothing  but to please her Grandmother, which would please the Lord. That is all she wanted. 

Sophie spits at that now. How naive she was. How naive she still is. A life filled with nothing but lies and betrayal. You think the moment she found out her whole life was a lie she would turn bitter. But no…the man who took her in, showed her kindness, and love. Real kindness and real love. He told her the truth, and did not talk down to her. He decided to teach her. Teach her everything he knew. Dr. Albert Allinbright. The first person to ever show Sophie what love is. The man she considered to be her father now, and he considered her to be his daughter. 

And now he is as good as dead. Trapped in the dungeon of Ravenloft Manor. She wants to find him, she wants to rescue him, but if she is strong enough that is the real question. Sophie never thought she was particularly strong at all. She was clever, and quick, but freezes up at any sort of conflict, and trusts everyone she meets. She dreams of romance, and living happily ever after, with the man she loves. 

Maxwell BlessedBranch. Someone she never thought would look her way twice, is now actually dating her. He is strong, and brave. But he is more than that. Each moment she spends with him, she finds the little things about him, the things he doesn’t let people see, to be the most wonderful. But he is protective, and although at times she doesn’t mind it, being carried in his big strong arms: she knows she can handle herself. She is learning to handle herself. 

Trust can get you killed. Recklessness can get you hurt. Expectations can disappoint you. And hope is fragile. But if she gives up on it, no matter how tempting it might be. Then he wins. Strahd wins, and she cannot let that happen. 

Sophie AllinBright knows the taste of blood well. It was all she knew for the first fifteen years of her life. But when she bursted into her old home, staring down Baba Lysaga. Her grandmother, she was not expecting the first blood she longed to spill to be hers. She stared Sophie dead in the eye, the child she raised from birth, the child she protected, the child she taught everything she knows, and said “Who are you?” Those three little words sent Sophie in a rage, and all she wanted was blood. Her blood splattered on the ground, by her hands. If Baba Lysaga did not remember what she did to Sophie, fine. Sophie would still inflict all of that pain on her and force her to remember. 

Sophie is gentle, sweet, and kind. Sophie wants to heal, and invent cures for illnesses that normally spell death for a person.  Sophie wants to bring medicine to Barovia. Sophie isn’t a killer, she’s a healer. 

But the taste of blood does not go away. Not in Barovia. And now she senses something deep within her. The taste of blood has returned, but this time it will not be mindless. She plans on tasting the blood of every single person that has wronged her and the ones she loves. Sophie will not be helpless any longer. 

[dndenny]

oops

I got complelty caught up in school, and graduating, and so much other life stuff I forgot I made this blog. But I think im gonna try it again

[dndenny]

Finishing a Campaign

Finishing any campaign whether it’s through Dungeons and dragons or any other ttrpg is always bittersweet. So far I’ve finished 4 campaigns one of which is one I dmed, and i have another one coming to a close this week actually. There’s this feeling i think you collectively get as players and or the gm when you know the campaign is ready to come to a close. You can feel when the story is finished. I’ve always believed in ending the story naturally when you feel it’s coming to is natural close. Not all campaigns need to end at level 20, not all of them need every little thing addressed, some times it’s nice to leave things open, especially if you want to do another campaign in the same world. It’s fun to revisit things as new characters. That’s currently happening in one of the campaigns I’m in and it’s fun to see a world you are familiar with, in a new set of eyes. 

Nevertheless I still feel sad when a campaign ends. My group and I always try to do something special for the day. Whether we order food, or dress up. I remember finishing are first big dnd campaign we ordered in food, and went long into the night. We hugged and cried eachother. It was really something special. It is always special especially when you share it with people you care about. Going into this I’m obviously sad to say goodbye to characters and the story we have told, but I am always excited to tell a new one. 

[dndenny]

My homebrew world

When my Ravinca campaign that was I dming was coming to a close, I decided to do something I have always wanted to do. I wanted to create my homebrew setting for dungeons and dragons. This was around March of 2020, when I started working on my world, then the pandemic hit, when that happened of course I did one thing...I stayed inside and spent weeks working on my homebrew setting. Because of all the time I had on my hands I built this from the ground up. Three countries on a single continent, with a sprawling landscape. Not only that but I created my own mythology. I made my own elemental titans, along with a brand new panethon of gods. (10 in total). The pandemic gave me a lot of time to come up with how the world was built, and how the three countries interact with eachother, and I am really proud of how my setting came out, and I want to share it with all of you. 

First off the continent is called Unakera and it is made up of three countries. There is Szerlim, Csillag, and Itthon. I’ll probably do separate posts about each of the countries and what there vibe is in the future. The two countries Szerlim and Csillag had just ended a 52 year war, with Itthon being sort of caught in the middle of the two countries feud. The campaign takes place two years after the peace treaty was sighed. A war torn country teetering on the very edge of peace. 

 A lot of my inspiration for this campaign setting is rather strange. When writing this campaign I was binging the magnus archives and playing a lot of legend of Zelda (specifically ocarina of time) sometimes I would be playing Zelda while listening to tma which is a combination and a half, but sometimes you get ideas from the most unlikely of places. 

I am definitely going to be posting more in the future about Unakera, and I hope you all are looking forward to it! It is my baby, and one the things I am most proud of a s a dungeon master. 

[dndenny]

Let’s go o o o o o o o o o o

[dndenny]

...i listen to too many actual play podcasts

[dndenny]

Hey if you all want some awesome art, my friend currently has commissions open! They drew my profile picture for me!

opening up commissions!!!  i’ll have five slots open which i’ll keep updated on my banner.  i’ll be sure to respond to your requests quickly.  

[dndenny]

Bigfoot and Popstars

While currently playing in a Monster of the Week campaign with some of my best friends, I was listening to a TTRPG Podcast that used the game “Oh, Dang! Bigfoot stole my car with my Friend’s Birthday Present inside” and thought about using it for this setting. A major NPC in it is Bigfoot, who is one of our PC’s weed dealers. So I went up to our gm since I am a player and asked her if it would be okay if I ran this system set in her monster of the week universe. She happily agreed and even asked if she could play a younger version of one of the npcs in her campaign, Thomas the head of the monster hunting agency known as the Blair Agency. 

All my friends were on board and we already had one character, but we needed to figure out what everyone else was playing. I didn’t want this to be taken seriously (this was for shits and giggles), so I told everyone to come up with the most ridiculous characters they could think of. This led to some interesting choices,(a monsterfucking accountant named Ted who eventually has alien children, and literally Tad Strange from Gravity Falls but with a gun.)  The one that really threw me for a loop was that one of my friends decided to play Avril Lavinge. 

Yes, real life actual canadian singer-songwriter from the 2000’s Avril lavinge. I lost my shit and I wanted to see how we could make Avril Lavinge fit in the monster hunting world we all loved very much. So she was introduced into the game having gone rogue from her tour and was hanging out with a succubus named Violet played by another one of my friends. Ted and Violet had a threesome with an alien, Avril’s bus was filled with swords and guns she “found. ” The party had to fight off a bootleg Jessie and James that wanted to capture bigfoot, which was very quickly dealt with. Tad Strange revealed that the one thing he is good at is killing, poor Thomas was exhausted by all these people and wasn’t expecting to deal with a monster on his vacation. By the end of the night we were a little tipsy and Avril Lavinge had given a concert for Bigfoot’s son's birthday party. It was a fun night to do a crazy one shot in a world we love so much, but that wasn’t gonna be the last we saw of Avril Lavinge.

A few weeks later after the one shot we were playing our regular monster of the week campaign. I was back in the player's seat and our characters were not in the best position. We were currently on the run from the police and the monster hunting agency we used to work for. We managed to make contact with an ally that was still working with the monster hunting agency.  They told us that the agency dispatched a team to hunt us down. Our gm looked at us with a huge smile on her face as she said Avril Lavinge was on the team hunting us. 

We lost our shit as players, we couldn’t believe it that are gm took the stupid one shot I ran, and turned it against us by making Avril Lavinge a monster hunter chasing us! It was insane, and it was brilliant. It’s stuff like this that reminds me how much I love these games, and how crazy they can get. Don’t worry we eventually got Avril Lavinge back on our side.

[dndenny]

TTRPG Time!

Hi! My name is Denny and well I finally bit the bullet and started my own d&d blog. (it’s not only gonna be D&D I’m gonna talk about other ttrpgs but dndenny had a better ring to it lol) Anyway I want to use this blog to post homebrew stuff I’ve been working which includes monsters, rules, and everything there is to know about my homebrew world that I am currently running a campaign in. I also want to post about the different ttrpg systems that I like to play that hopefully you all may want to try too!

This is also where I am gonna share fun things I like to do for d&d, talk about my favorite d&d play shows, and honestly share my own experiences playing these games that mean so much. I have so much fun playing and I want to share that! Can’t wait to share my love of ttrpgs with all of you!