If you have been playing RPGs, especially DnD, for a while (or maybe you just started) there is a good chance you have at least considered creating your own setting. I started work on my personal setting back when 2E was the DnD of the day, and through the years it has undergone some permutations …
Continuing with my discussion of art in DnD, this week I am taking a look at art for monsters and not just any old enemies but rather the sorts of epic threats that have been handled so poorly by DnD in the past (4E included). Epic Threats Epic threats need to be just that, epic. …
Last week when I posted about art that I liked Rich Green asked about landscapes and it is a fair question that deserves a longer response. In visual media such as computer games and movies the environment is a critical element. For fantasy computer games and movies the environment needs to be designed from the …
For most users of the arcane arts, the unlocking of their true potential is gradual but constant, warlocks who prove their capability to their patron receive ever greater power, bards craft new ballads and insulting poems, the arcane threads of the world woven into the musical notation used to transcribe their work. But it is …
The Rituals of the Dwarven Forge Masters ‘The sound of hammering resonates outwards from the anvil, each blow felt collectively by the 20 or so dwarves working their, sweat dripping from their beards in the sweltering heat generated by the forge’s fire. Here, in the heart of the clan hold, they were making magic…’ Almost …
Old Tricks In the 1920′s Georges Polti wrote a book called The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations, and I first came in contact with it through the Legend of the Five Rings GM’s Survival Guide (still an excellent DM resource, and not just for L5R). Mr Polti set forth a structure for defining each story with respect …
This list is far from complete. It’s not even trying to be complete. It knows better than that. It just wants to be helpful and provide some inspiration here and there; you know, offer little suggestions that might lead to bigger ideas. (Especially by using the words offered as Wikipedia searches!) Feel free to make …
Reading the human racial write up in Heroes of the Fallen Lands gave me stark picture of the problem with Nerath: it lacks culture. In this case I mean it lacks a set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices to characterize it. Nerath, even when described vaguely is described in such a way as …
Dragons are iconic to the game and yet prior to 4th edition I hated using them. But in the past two years my home campaign has seen more dragons fall to the heroes than in nearly every prior year combined. I’ve written 7 delves for Living Forgotten Realms and 6 of them feature a dragon …
Last night my players had a choice of going to the Shadowfell or going to the Feywild. I prepped the Feywild. They went to the Shadowfell. So I had to put together something on the spot essentially (the results of which will be up later this week made into a full paragon encounter). I wanted …
