#atla ttrpg

[biconickyoshi]

Is this the first ever time we’ve gotten official show-style art of Lu Ten??? I love him so much, he’s got Iroh’s eyes 😭

[circlique]

Chapter 4: Moonlight

Overall Rating: Mature (this chapter, Gen)

Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: Gen, Multi

Fandoms: Avatar: The Last Airbender

In the era of Kyoshi, a scrap of ancient history was discovered. Faded by centuries of dust and neglect, all that could be discerned from the tattered parchment was the words, “Dai Li’s agents brought balance to the chaos of Ba Sing Se.” It is from this that Kyoshi would find the inspiration to establish a new police force in Ba Sing Se in her era. But what of the original Dai Li? Thousands of years before Kyoshi, Kuruk, and Yangchen–a history all but lost to time–the world teetered on the brink. Nations one incident from all out war, environments destroyed by the greed of man, and spirits angered by the insolence of humanity. The spirits threatened to wipe them all out, unless the humans could make a change. From this chaos, a man named Dai Li attempted to unite the world. With his charismatic aura and strange bending abilities, he all but compelled his followers to complete devotion. His power spread, commanding total submission. His daughter, however, would ruin his plans. After his first fall, Dai Li, thought dead, faded into obscurity, and his daughter, granted a strange power by the last Lion Turtle, rose to fill the void of the absent Avatar. Ten years later, Dai Li would rear his head again, and Juno, knowing humanity under Dai Li’s rule would have no humanity at all, sought out her own band of benders to take on her father. With all their differences and flaws, she will have her work cut out for her as they face Dai Li’s enigmatic cult, their own demons, and the Avatar of whom no one speaks.

In this chapter:

The hallway was illuminated by the faint light of the moon shining in through the window at the end. The hallway was empty, but by the moonlight, he could see all the way down the hall into the common area. Across the suite, the doorway that led from the common area to the outdoor walkway beyond—the door that should have been locked—was ever so slightly ajar…and as Chai Li watched it, it slowly drifted shut.

Someone had been here.

Read on AO3!

Prologue/Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4

[ettawritesnstudies]

Animated a lil meme for my ATLA DnD Party!

[islepttoolong]

Long time, no post my lovelies! I'd like to share my new podcast where some friends and I play the brand new Avatar: Legend TTRPG. Set during the 100 years war, I play a defector from the Fire Nation Army who protects the vulnerable, runs into some familiar faces and has some good laughs along the way! Come join in the fun!

[spitebears]

(Click to read, Image description in alt text)

"Who are you"

a comic a long time coming showing one of my favorite scenes from my ATLA game. My character is the airbender, Sora. Seraphine belongs to my friend Sarina, she's the one in the grey. Seraphine's cousin, Asira, is an NPC and arc-villain.

This is only one half of this conversation! After Seraphine left, Sora had a chance to interact with Asira one on one and their conversation was even more dramatic, but this is a nice stopping half-way point to post what I've finished so far.

[pyromaniacpaladin]

[IT'S THE ONLY THING I'VE EVER KNOWN]

[terkmc]

Custom Atlas Commission

[rynmaru]

A Manic Attempt to Sell You on the Atlas Frame:

You ever want to get the effective range and speed of teleportation without actually teleporting? Feel the urge to play fruit ninja with your enemies? Ever want to experience the sweet sweet taste of victory while your mind melds with the hundreds who came before you and you no longer know which you is the real you? Then my friend, the Atlas is the frame for you!

You can Titan Fall wall run, hide in plain sight, get a sickass katana, clothesline people with a zip line, and then the lore of inherited memories is just- *chef’s kiss*

If speed is what you’re after, then put a lot of points in Agility and make a few strategic picks for your talents and you too can cross a hex map in a single turn, snag the objective, and still be able to barrage or just ✌🏼 disappear.

And don’t get me started on the lore!

*Slaps Atlas*

This bad boy can fit so much lore in it! Memories of past pilots merging with your own to help you fight better? Fuck yes! You can flavor it as a constant data stream into the brain! Space magic! Ghosts! Grey matter in the mech’s internal components! Your pilot can start to slowly pick up the ticks and traits of past pilots the longer they use the Core Power! Hell, my flash cloned pilot was given the Atlas to try and force reboot their brain to make them remember the person they used to be (didn’t work! Just fucked them up!). The possibilities are endless!

Do you have great HP? No. Do you have a large repair cap? No. Heat cap? Nope. Will you immolate yourself the moment you overcharge? Absolutely. But when you’re playing a speed oriented striker Atlas build you don’t need high HP or a massive repair cap when god himself can’t beat your evasion!

If you main an Atlas you know you’re running a glass cannon and that’s okay! Because Atlas pilots do it for the love of the fucking game and the risk is half the reward!

[catgirlforeskin]

Since Wizards of the Coast is torpedoing all the good-will they have with DnD to wring more money out of it, I want to make a guide for people who recognize they should jump ship, but don’t know alternatives.

If you’re deeply invested in DnD and want something as similar as possible, Pathfinder 2 is what you want. It’s the next biggest game in the tabletop scene (in the US), you can find physical copies in stores easily, and Paizo allows free resources online to exist without constant threat of being taken down like WotC does. It will remain free to play on any VTT while DnD will require you to subscribe to their proprietary one.

Most importantly, though, it improves on almost every aspect of DnD. Combat and class balance is extremely well thought out and makes all combats engaging and difficult in a fun way, requiring teamwork and clever thinking. Roleplay is integrated into character creation and play better, and you no longer have to choose between being good in combat or exploration or roleplay, you get to play and feel useful during all aspects of the game. It’s hard to emphasize how much better it is without just playing, if you still want something like DnD, play Pathfinder 2.

If you like high fantasy adventuring but are willing to get more out there, Fellowship and Dungeon World are good options. Fellowship is a more free-form adventure game focused on creating a cinematic experience over getting bogged-down in rules-heavy play. If you want to play a Lord of the Rings style campaign and have it feel like the movies, Fellowship is the way to go.

Dungeon World is called “Powered by the Apocalypse” which means it was inspired by Apocalypse World, an amazing ttrpg that revolutionized the scene and became the gold standard for interweaving roleplay and gameplay. Dungeon World is meant to be a bridge between DnD and indie rpgs, and it’s good for that, though there are better PbtA games. It’s a good introduction to principles like failing forward and playing to find out what happens (and hell, a good introduction to games having principles lol). There’s also an Avatar the Last Airbender licensed PbtA game that’s very good, if that’s your thing!

Speaking of licensed games, Free League Publishing sets the benchmark for rpgs built for existing intellectual properties, and while I haven’t played all of their games, I’m a big fan of what I have played. They also have independent settings, like Twilight 2000, a really good apocalypse survival game set in a collapsing warfront between an alternate-history NATO and Soviet Union as the two dying empires bring all of society down in their death spiral. I’m using it as the base for my Halo rpg, it’s very good.

Blades in the Dark is another big name in the indie scene, and for good reason. It’s a heist game that has been adapted to lots of other settings (games that say they’re “Forged in the Dark” take inspiration here) and it’s clear to see why so many have used it as a foundation once you’ve played, it’s an exciting crime procedural where you play a group of scoundrels punching above your weight and facing the consequences

There’s a million other amazing rpgs I could mention here, and I’m sure people will talk about plenty of lovely ones I’ve missed in the notes, but I think the most important thing I want to convey with this is that there’s a whole world of diverse and interesting rpgs at all levels of production, from big corporate teams to one girl with a laptop who barely knows how to make a pdf, and there’s no better time to start exploring them.

A common refrain is that DnD can be modified to do anything, but once you’ve played other rpgs you’ll see why that’s not true, and why those creative efforts would be better spent in other systems. Hacking rpgs is as old a tradition as rpgs themselves, but if the only tools you know are DnD, you’re being limited with what you can create more than you could possibly know. There’s no better time to leave this Plato’s Cave and see the beauty and wonder of the whole ttrpg scene

[bregflr]

Lord of battle

First lancer personal piece of the year, was struggling a bit for ideas, but i'm overall really happy with it! What mech would you like to see me doing next?

[piichivii]

dew & cloudburst // sương, the destined

[circlique]

Okay, I think we do know who my favorite is after all... I gotta say I'm really happy with how this came out. The last session of Avatar DND is this Sunday, and I'm gonna miss badass characters like this a lot.

Avatar DND Masterpost

-------

Name: Maika (Japanese, 舞 "dance, flit, circle, wheel" / 花 flower; alt Mycah, Hebrew "who is like god")

Age: 30

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (leaning, at times, into Chaotic Evil)

Highest stat: Wisdom

Bending: Air (primary), Water (including blood and spiritbending), Earth, Fire

Theme: Finale: Apex & bad apple!!

Played by: Z, the DM

Background: Last but not least, we have Avatar Maika. Once a confident, somewhat spontaneous young airbender, she trained at the Southern Air Temple as a teenager before growing disillusioned with the elders' teachings of detachment and leaving to learn the four elements on her own. She put together her own team of bending companions, who she learned from instead. When she met Juno, their goals and morality overlapped, and so she was quickly folded into the team as well (although Maika, at the time, assumed Juno was a nonbender). Team Avatar then traveled the world, solving problems in a (usually) nonviolent manner.

Then, the day came that they were to confront Dai Lee, who was trying to free the world of corrupt governments by simply taking over himself. Juno had just revealed herself as a mindbender, which sowed distrust among the team. As it would turn out, Dai Lee already had extensive intel on every member of Team Avatar--all their interpersonal conflicts, insecurities, and secrets--which he then used to turn them all against each other with murderous intent. This is not something most mindbenders are able to do. Nonetheless, Maika was forced to watch her teammates tear each other apart, and was then taken captive by Dai Lee while Juno was able to escape.

During the month Maika was captive, Dai Lee mindbent her almost continuously, trying to break her will. He also had her brainwashed with a sleeper phrase that, when activated, would supposedly make her obedient to him and allow him to execute his plan without her interference. Fortunately, Ephemeris, the spiritbender tasked with keeping Maika from entering the Avatar State, began to doubt Dai Lee's methods and found a way to contact Juno. Together, they hatched a plan to free Maika under the cover of a Fire Nation attack on Dai Lee's headquarters. They were successful, but the Avatar would never be the same. Though her spirit was never broken, her faith in humanity was.

As Juno and Maika returned to old villages where they had once resolved conflicts, they began to discover that those same conflicts had resurfaced, often in a worse state than they had originally found them. Maika, feeling that her fallen teammates' efforts had been in vain, gradually began to resort to more violent methods and "permanent solutions." After some time, she and Juno split ways over this. Maika sought out new masters, namely Xin Li and Laminar, who taught her more brutal and cruel bending techniques (unbeknownst to her, these masters were also allies of Dai Lee who had been asked to encourage this behavior in her).

At some point, she willingly entered a contract with the blood spirit Panggu, convinced she needed the extra power to truly scare the world's worst out of their evil ways. When Juno eventually caught wind of Maika's new methods of brutality, she tracked the Avatar obsessively until one day she found her (under Panggu's influence) surrounded by dead children as she attacked a school for some unknown reason. Shocked by this scene, Juno could not put off the inevitable confrontation any longer, and attempted to take Maika's bending. However, Maika, for all she'd been through, still possessed an iron will, and her spirit was unbendable, and so Juno's energybending failed.

Juno went back into hiding, but the incident served as a wake-up call for Maika. When she was alone again, she bled herself nearly to death bloodbending and spiritbending herself until she was able to forcibly remove the spirit that was tied to her blood.

Motivations: Though Maika still travels the world undercover "solving" issues of crime and corruption, she is obsessed with finding Juno and exacting revenge for her trying to take her bending. When the party accidentally disclosed that Juno was at the Central Air Temple, Maika wasted no time in flying there and tearing through both the temple and the volcano it was built on looking for her. This resulted in the dormant volcano erupting and killing most of the inhabitants of the temple. Juno survived and was able to escape with the party's help, but not without a second encounter in which Maika immobilized and would have killed her, if not for Chai Li managing to induce doubt in her at the last second. Though Maika has begun to show some remorse about trying to kill Juno, she has yet to show any about the swaths of casualties that seem to follow her wherever she goes.

[ettawritesnstudies]

New Sora outfit design :)

Fun details:

her shawl is supposed to be like Aang's from book 1 so she keeps an element of airbender fashion in her NWT gear

Her colors all come from the design of her guardian spirit, Shishi

Her eyes turned blue after making contact with the spirit world

The spiral on her skirt is also a family symbol - stylized but subtly showing off her Airbender roots

Her hair is longer now because it's been a couple months since the start of the campaign and her bob has grown out

Her water bender friend Suliyos gave her this outfit!

[30403099]

favorite genre of image is just some guy standing there

[flowersnax]

ladies, gentlemen, and those otherwise not specified i give YOU. the coolest fucking ninja this side of the long rim

[rychlostthespacewizard]

No matter where I look, the one most common tips i see in the worldbuilding community I see is:

THEMES AND PRINCIPLES

and it seems to be very important for the entire process so you dont end up with a clusterfuck (although i already made sure that my world is one by adding anything i think is cool into it)

So i decided to show you all the ones that help me make Aeloria:

Never One Without the Other

A grand tapestry woven from opposing and inseparable forces: life and death, light and dark, self and other. Life finds meaning in death; light defines dark; individuality exists because of the collective; one cannot have a coin with only one side. Every element is essential and interconnected, forming the true magic of the world. Your existence is inextricably essential to the greater whole.

Everything stays, but it still changes

There's a constant cycle of change and continuity in the world. Remnants of the past stay, but they transform slightly with time. History repeats itself, but never in the same way. Sudden events, seem to come out of nowhere, but they are always rooted in the past. People, instituitions and figures take roles that have been played before, as if they were reincarnations of the past. Ruins dont disappear, they become faded and overgrown, but they are still there, waiting to be discovered until they become the landscape itself.

Elements

Magic, reality, energies and matter are all made up of elements. These elements are the building blocks of the world, and they can be combined in different ways to create different things. The elements are not just physical, but also spiritual and emotional. They are the essence of everything, and they are what connects everything in the world. Each element has its own unique properties and characteristics, and they each represent many different things, they can appear in different ways in our words, like fire can be passion, or anger, or warmth, it can represent the desires and heart of a person and many other things. Some elements are more common and manageable, while others are rare and dangerous. The elements are the foundation of the world, and they are what make everything possible.

The First is More Powerful but The Last is More Refined

The first of a kind embodies raw, untamed power, while the last represents refined, distilled wisdom. The first holds primal strength but lacks control; the last offers stability and knowledge but lacks raw potential. This rule applies to all things, from the first dragons against the new ones, and the first spells agains the recently created ones. The cycle of creation and destruction is a constant in the world, and it is what keeps it in balance.

Many Pasts, Many Proofs

Multiple pasts exist, each with its own truths and stories. The past is a complex, multifaceted entity defined by collective and personal beliefs, revealing different aspects through exploration and interpretation. When one discovers evidence of the previous world, the narrative created by them reveals more about those that created it than the past itself. No one is safe from their own biases, not even the gods, as they are also part of the world.

The Rule of Twos and The In-Between (This is not really a principle but I think it fits here)

All things come in twos or exist in the in-between. The world is shaped by duality and the spaces bridging opposites. Represented by twin deities Aena and Kryela, it highlights balance and unity in duality. The In-Between signifies the spectrum between extremes, blending black and white into shades of gray. This motif guides adventurers and scholars in understanding Aeloria's complex reality, emphasizing that existence is not just black and white but a continuum of possibilities.