#ratdnd

[marmett]

shit the session im running next week in a player's absence is supposed to be a plot unrelated one-off, but i just came up with a terrible idea for what happens to the boss after the party defeats him. ive already established that there is one weird elf in this setting who cant die, and the boss fight for the one shot is another elf who has similarities in appearance (they're shadar-kai, but the party doesnt know that yet, im not sure if anyone im playing w/ knows abt them at all, and ive made changes to their lore and appearance)

anyway he was using pipes of the sewers to control swarms of rats, and after hes killed the rat swarms start eating his corpse. but ive already established they CANT DIE. so what if he shows up later as a half rat monstrosity, bc when he regenerated it just... incorporated the rats that ate him.

[marmett]

whatever. i'll make my OWN dark fantasy masterpiece w/ my dnd campaign. as soon as i stop putting goofy shit in.

[marmett]

im planning a dnd campaign and doing some lil portraits of notable NPCs, heres the first one ive finished so far uwu.

[marmett]

ideas for oneshots for when one of my players is absent:

vorn, one of my player characters, has a rat companion. in the first one shot, rat begins acting strangely, and seconds later runs off and disappears into a sewer grate. the party finds an entrance to the sewer to track him down, has to solve a water puzzle, fight some slimes or a water weird, and then finds a cocoa bananas shadar-kai elf hiding in the sewers, playing the pipes of the sewers while rats swarm around him. i like this one, bc the shadar-kai are a big thing in my campaign, and this will be their first encounter w/ one, but its framed as a one-off. so when they actually meet the plot relevant shadar-kai character, endel, theyll have expectations (that shes fucking bonkers, which she is, but in a totally different

something to do with a ghost ship? instead of combat, they can investigate and solve a mystery and put the spirits to rest peacefully.

something to do w/ vampire pirates. hesitant to do vampires, bc if anyone compares them to astarion i'll have to take them out back.

saw trap shenanigans w/ a night hag. not sure if i'll put this one in the main campaign or not though.

i think 3-4 one shots will be good for the campaign, im leaning toward horror themes for them bc its a horror campaign after all. i just dont want them to feel too similar to anything happening in the main plot.

[marmett]

(if ur playing in my campaign and are seeing this, dont read it)

so ive been reading guides from 4th edition to get some ideas for my campaign, and its kind of a sequel to the 4th edition the keep on the shadowfell adventure, and its also going to use the 4th edition gloomwrought setting, when the party leaves saltmarsh for the shadowfell. thats where the second half of the campaign will take place and it gets tonally a lot darker.

im also basing a lot of my ideas on the themes in cabal/nightbreed. i just love the way that novel/movie taps into the fear of being the other. the terror of being the scary thing in the night that everyone is hunting down bc theyre afraid of.it. so im going to be pushing my player characters to maybe go through monstrous transformations themselves.

ive also been really intrigued by the shadar-kai, the elves who serve the raven queen. ive reinterpreted them a bit. bc there are multiple iterations of shadar-kai (in 4th edition they were humans!) im using... all of them in their own way.

the "true" shadar-kai are immortal elves who took part in the raven queens failed ascension. theyve all gone a little bonkers from being alive for so long, and spending so much time in the shadowfell. the common shadar-kai are descendents of the original ones. theyre like the ones described in van richten's . they live for 750 years like all other elves, but they still have the touch of the shadowfell.

the false shadar-kai are the humans described in 4th edition.

the campaign doesnt have a single antagonist or one BBEG, but the party has conflict with a group of drow lead by one of the player character's sister and the other's ex gf. they havent been introduced yet, but a group of paladins who serve corellen will also serve as antagonists.

and in the end, the party will probably even have beef w/ the raven queen bc she has another characters parents w/ her in the fortress of memories.

[marmett]

REALLY excited for next session bc theres a plot thread from session 1 thats advancing, and it can go in SO many directions, and theyre all going to be wild.

[marmett]

i came up w/ some rlly fun concepts for NPCs in my dnd campaign. under the cut to make sure my players dont look 👀

theres a wizard tower in the campaign setting that im using, but the wizard was kind of... a harmful stereotype so i decided to replace him w/ a nonbinary cat girl (tabaxi) sorcerer, who's beefing w/ the hag who lives in the cursed forest, and if my players encounter them they'll give the party a quest related to that. their appearance is based on a sand cat and theyre kind of chaotic and a lil unethical but in a fun endearing way.

i guess i also have a dmpc, but i made him a cleric who only has support spells bc my party desperately needs someone running support (theres only 3 players rn, but we may get a 4th). anyway despite being a cleric, he isnt religious at all and he insists that he's a warlock. there is a story reason for this and its fucking wild. i havent decided if he knows hes a cleric and hes just insisting hes a warlock as a cover story, or if he truly believes hes a warlock. theyll probably meet him around session 3 or 4.

theres a mysterious goth elf woman. itll be quite some time before they meet her, but shes plot relevant, and will be hinted at around session 2 or 3. shes heavily inspired by the people of midian from the novel cabal/movie nightbreed, and she kinda wants to die real bad bc shes been alive for too long.

and lastly i have two paladin characters who serve the god corellen, but theyre probably going to be antagonistic to the party. just w/ the way my players think, i am anticipating them to not be on board w/ the paladins' agenda. i love taking lawful aligned characters who are usually on the side of good and complicating things.

anyway i LOVE making OCs, dming is fun bc i can shove in my OCs even if the players only talk to them for five minutes.

[marmett]

im working on stuff for a dnd campaign im dm'ing, and my player group is rlly small, so i made two companion characters to help fill out the party. i think theyre both pretty cute c:

[marmett]