The Singing Pickle sings "Santa Claus (I Still Believe in You)" by Alabama

Below is the longest animation endeavor I've ever accomplished! When I was 12 years old, I was messing around in front of the camera when my family was decorating the Christmas tree and I made a pickle sing one of the carols that was playing in the background. Thus began a weird tradition of "the Singing Pickle" that made an appearance each Christmas season. And today, for the first time, he makes an appearance in animated form as part of my family Christmas Eve talent show. Enjoy!

Deities of Hearth: Artifacts

Among the legendary magic items of Hearth, none are more renowned than the possessions of the gods themselves. These artifacts embody divine will and the power of the Pentatheon. Where they appear, these weapons change the tide of wars and the course of history.

Typically a deity bestows their weapon only on a favored champion or devotee. Depending on the champion’s piety score, the mortal can tap into hidden properties of the weapon. Alternatively, those who don’t worship the weapon’s divine owner often find themselves cursed for their lack of proper devotion.

EDIT 2023: AI art illustrations added!

Deities of Hearth: Lawbringer

Lawbringer

God of Order

Lawbringer is an ambiguous, androgynous god of absolute order, the deity of cities, civilization, technology, crafting, and nobility. Lawbringer does not care for mercy or circumstance: only justice and equality. Lawbringer is the patron god of judges, kings, and those who crave justice, or sometimes even vengeance, and are sometimes called even to settle disputes among the gods or devils. Lawbringer finds beauty only in straight lines and hard angles, never in shades of gray or in wavering. Lawbringer is also the god of fire, which refines metals and turns the wood of the wilds into warmth and light for civilization.

Lawbringer is depicted as a bald, androgynous being with brassy skin holding scales in one hand and a hammer in the other, wearing a robe with geometric symbols across it.

Deities of Hearth: Deepwarden

Deepwarden

God of Death

Deepwarden is the god of the ocean, darkness, treasures beneath the earth, secrets, and death. He is the overseer of dying souls who pass through the underworld, the patron god of underground peoples and monsters in dark places, and the merciless deity who stirs up nations to war against each other. Warriors on both sides of battles pray to him for guidance, and he often favors those who sacrifice to him or who have secrets of their own to share with him or tribute to pay his churches.

Deepwarden is depicted as a stern man with ashen skin, eyes that glow like blue embers, and golden armor studded with diamonds. He is often shown holding two black swords or riding his giant skeletal dragon, Kalsedne.

Deities of Hearth: Moondancer

Moondancer

Goddess of the Wilds

Moondancer is the daughter of Skyfather and Hearthmatron and the goddess of animals, the chaos of the wilds, the moon, and the hunt. She is the patron goddess of hunters, herders, rangers, and those who live far away from civilization. She is also the goddess of revelry, lust, and wine, as well as the patron goddess of thieves, who pray to her when sneaking about by moonlight.

She is depicted as a beautiful elven woman with pale skin covered with markings of many colors across her body, wearing a suit of skins and holding a bow and arrow. Her pet, Silversong, is said to be able to take any bestial shape, but is most often a silvery falcon, leopard, stag, or zebra.

Deities of Hearth: Hearthmatron

 

Hearthmatron

Goddess of Life

Hearthmatron is the mother of all living, the soul of Hearth itself. She is the patron goddess of midwives, farmers, and families, and the force of unselfish good in the world. Peasants pray to her for fertility, both in themselves and in their crops, and all those who are sick beseech her healing powers. Of all the gods, Hearthmatron has the most clerics, all of whom wander the land ridding it of disease and purging it of undead. 

Wise and even-tempered, Hearthmatron values community, stability, and the balance of nature. She is the god of maternity, family, orphans, domestication, and agriculture, as well as defense of the home and territory.

Hearthmatron is depicted as a pregnant, middle-aged woman wearing green robes and flowers in her hair.

Deities of Hearth: Skyfather

Skyfather

God of the Skies

Skyfather is the embodiment of the uncaring elements from above. Sunlight, snow, lightning, wind, and rain do not distinguish between law and chaos. They merely exist to run their course, and so does Skyfather.

Pride and self-assurance radiate from Skyfather as light floods from the sun. He is cheerful and sociable, forming bonds easily with those who prove themselves strong and honorable. His friendship can be as easily lost, though, turning him from ally to enemy as the consequence of a single misstep or perceived betrayal.

He is often depicted as a strong, bronze-skinned warrior with clouds for a beard, eyes as bright as the sun, and wielding a spear of lightning and a swirling shield of wind.

The Pentatheon: Deities of Hearth

In this new series, I'll be exploring the aspects of the five gods of my homebrew D&D world, Hearth, collectively known as The Pentatheon. I've organized each article like the sourcebook Mythic Odysseys of Theros, so consult that book if you're not sure how things like piety work. I personally highly recommend limiting your homebrew pantheon to just a few gods like this. It's much easier for the players to remember and much simpler for fleshing them out as the DM.

Shaarzahn Races: Hathinors

 I've always loved the idea of a "good demon" subversion of a race, but these Hathinors ended up basically being draenei from World of Warcraft.

Shaarzahn Races: Tibaa

These are definitely the weirdest race I made for Shaarzahn. I like the idea of their nature as cave-dwelling and uncaring of most aspects of life except tinkering with stuff, but I also made them almost insect hive-like in their sociology, which I've since realized just feels too alien for a humanoid race.

Shaarzahn Races: Golems

And last of all, the Golem races. I've always thought it would be interesting to roleplay as a construct. There's the Warforged race in the Eberron setting, of course, but what if the setting was in the bronze age? Marble and clay golems would be their equivalents!

Shaarzahn Races: Gro:ghim

Here's another race made by my cousin. I thought his descriptions of them were a bit too human, so to set them apart I made them more colorful and made the assumption that they had wings instead of arms, instead of in addition to them.

Shaarzahn Races: Skendarn

 The quintessential "beast race" of Shaarzahn! These were my creation, and I'm pretty impressed with how they turned out.

Shaarzahn Races: Schleem

 My cousin made up this race. I hope I did it justice on the appearance based on his descriptions.

Hourly Comic Day 2020

There wasn't much going on while I was doing this, but more than that, my heart just wasn't in it, so I didn't finish. Work's been frustratingly boring lately and I think it carried over. At least what I did come up with was pretty funny, and I'm proud of the drawings.

Shaarzahn Races: Humans

 More fun with Hero Forge! This time I decided to go back to my cousin's Bronze Age forum RPG setting and mine, Shaarzahn, for inspiration. The next few posts will be the races we designed several years ago. We tried for a much more outside-the-box approach to inventing these races, rather than leaning on old Tolkeinesque stereotypes.

D&D: Infernal War Machine Tokens Expansion: Warlords of the Avernian Wastelands

My basic tokens for the infernal war machine tokens for Roll20 were a huge hit, both with my party and with some folks I shared them with. I decided to make some extra tokens for the other Avernian warlords you encounter in the game and to make them have unique looks to them. There's something about video games with different-skinned models where a little change can go a long way in evoking a different feeling. Also, a few of them have different upgrades swapped around.

Making these made me think of the files inside a map editor that let you find the models exclusively used in the campaign. Perhaps I'll make an HD expansion someday in the future and give all the models more subtle differences beyond just coloration. That could be fun.

1d20 Interesting Ships

 I marathonned all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies this year and really, genuinely enjoyed them. I remember being so confused when I watched them the first time, but they're meant to just be fun adventures, not sensical-plot films. Anyway, them and reading through Ghosts of Saltmarsh gave me some ideas for some interesting ships you might encounter on the high seas of D&D.

HeroForged Corridor Tokens

 Who knows, maybe Corridor could be conceivably ported to a service like Roll20 in the future. Eh, who am I kidding? I'm just having fun with my month of subscription to Hero Forge. It does make me wonder what Corridor could have become if I hadn't realized how much better D&D is.

HeroForged Corridor Classes: Hybrids

 I just realized my first batch of HeroForged classes was posted in November as well! Huh!

HeroForged Corridor Classes: Mages

 

HeroForged Corridor Classes: Craft

 

HeroForged Corridor Classes: Warriors

 HeroForge has gotten better by massive leaps and bounds since I made this post five years ago. With color, textures, more props, and especially poses, I was able to remake all of my original Corridor classes that I made eight years ago. It's a great tool for D&D, and it's been fun to use to remake a lot of stuff like this.

Corridor Class Pictures Set #5

 Is six years too long of a break from these? :D Since HeroForge updated to implement coloration, I've been messing around with it in my free time, and in doing so I decided to remake all these Corridor classes in a much better form. However, I realized that in order to do that, I needed to actually finish the final three classes first. So I did. And here they are. Many years later.

Also, after all these years and all the hours coloring Knight Guy by hand, I finally figured out how to use the Threshold adjustment to cut down coloring time! That makes me kind of angry, but maybe it'll be a factor in returning to drawing my beloved webcomic. Who knows? It was indeed really fun to come back to graphic art after this long break.

Inktober 2020 Entries!

Inktober was a ton of fun, even though I ended up getting behind and only finishing today. I'm definitely going to make this a yearly tradition. This month gave me the chance to get out of my comfort zone, learn some figure drawing, draw several things I've never drawn before in my life, and practice techniques like varying line width. These all look like perfect candidates for drawings that I can color digitally later, so stay tuned for that, maybe as a month project in six months or something.

Without further ado, here are all the drawings from Inktober 2020 along with their prompts! Also, you can mouse over each drawing to get some commentary on them.

D&D: Better Infernal War Machine Tokens for Roll20

 I'm running the Descent into Avernus campaign for some of my friends right now, and tomorrow they're going to find out what infernal war machines are for the first time. The module on Roll20 comes with some default tokens for the war machines, but quite frankly, they're lazy trash. They just cut out the sketches from the book and put them on blank red backgrounds, and they just look bad.

I decided I don't want to go with these for the whole campaign, so I made my own versions of each vehicle using Dungeondraft. I even included identifiable station markers (the platform with the circle inside a square) so that the players can place their tokens there when manning them. These are PNG images that can easily be imported into Roll20 and fit perfectly to the grid, so feel free to download them and use them in your own campaign, Descent to Avernus or any other with a Mad Max: Fury Road chase in it!

Inktober 2020 Begins!

This year I'm going to participate in Inktober, the worldwide challenge to make a drawing for each day in October. Some people do color or digital drawings, but I'm going to stick with the traditional approach of inking, partially because I need practice with inking drawings, partially because I really need practice with sketching drawings before inking them. So I have a fine-tip marker, 07 and 05 G2 pens, a pencil, an eraser, and a new sketchpad ready to go.

For the past several... years, I guess, I've been putting off drawing, which has been taxing on my soul. I love doodling, but you have to be in a very specific environment to doodle without drawing garbage, and I haven't been in such an environment—sitting in a classroom during a lecture—for a long time. And I miss it. So this is a great chance to reignite my passion of drawing, maybe learn some new techniques, and possibly find new chances to draw in the future.

My siblings and even daughter are even joining me, so I'm excited to get into this mode.

Let Inktober begin!

EDIT: Click here to see the finished entries!

1d100 Curses for Magic Items

A great way to throw players off is with cursed magic items. Simply take a regular magic item (which identifies as such), roll on this table, and add the accompanying curse to the item. Unless explained otherwise, these curses only affect the character or item when the character is attuned to it. The curse may linger after the character breaks their attunement to the item, which a remove curse or greater restoration spell can fix. At your discretion, these effects may also only happen if the character uses a cursed weapon and rolls a natural 1 with an attack with it, expends its charges, or other triggers.

Relic Document: Redge's Dudes Stats

Here's a document like the one I posted yesterday, but one I made for my brother's team. The lore for it is interesting, and thanks to the note on his signature battlefield, I can tell these were both written in 2002, but I'm not sure if Redge ever even saw this document after it was typed up.

Relic Document: Austin's Veterans Stats

 This is an odd sort of project. I loved the game Worms 2 as a kid, and I seem to have made up a roster for the members of a Worms team I made on my parents' typewriter. I can tell that all the names (except mine) were randomly generated, and then I made up actual military roles for each of them based on what they could do in the game. My knowledge of military jargin has always been shoddy at best (the crap is a "prime navigator"?), but it's fun to see little bits and pieces of my childhood self in this writing.

My favorite thing to do on Worms 2 was to use the Ninja Rope to fling myself to specific places, so it's easy to see why that's my character's specialty. I wish I had a screenshot of "Newt Castle," because though I have no memory of what it looks like, I'm almost positive I made the map on Worms 2 as an actual map. I think my favorite aspect of this document is how I tried to explain away certain Worms 2 weapons that are utterly absurd in a sensible, game-manual-lore sort of way. Also, I think it's funny that I'm publishing this on my blog when I'm actually thirty-one years old. Not sure why I chose that age when I wrote this.

Heroes of Might and Magic Spells on DMsGuild!

In my free time, I like to adapt magic items and spells from other game franchises to D&D 5e, and the Heroes of Might and Magic series has always been on the top of the list for those. I recently finished, polished up, and published a collection of spells from both Heroes of Might and Magic II and III and put them up for sale on DMsGuild. It was fun to try and adapt the spells into unique and useful spells for a tabletop roleplaying game, and I know I'm definitely going to use some of them in my own campaigns that I run.

My suggested price is $2, but you can get it for free if you want as well. Click here to check out the product!

How do you like my copyright-free cover?

D&D Mechanics Inspired by Divinity: Original Sin 2

With the recent announcement of development of the game Baldur's Gate III, I found out about Divinity: Original Sin 2, made by the same company. It doesn't take place in the D&D universe like Baldur's Gate will, but its cooperative, turn-based, roleplaying style is very reminiscent of Dungeons & Dragons, and just while playing through the game lately, I've been inspired by some of the game's mechanics that could be useful in a homebrew D&D campaign. I also was able to see existing D&D mechanics in a new light, which may help me be a better Dungeon Master.

Extended Wild Magic Surge Table

Do you play a Wild Magic Sorcerer in D&D 5e? Do you use the Wild Magic Table for wacky areas in your campaign suffused with magic? Do you think it's lame that the d100 Wild Magic table only has 50 options? Below is an expanded table with (I hope) 50 more effects that are just as wacky, powerful, and dangerous as the original table.

My D&D Player Characters, to Date

I've mostly been a Dungeon Master when playing D&D over the past three years, by preference as a creative outlet mostly, but also out of necessity since more people like playing than refereeing. But I've still had my share of chances to play in some games, and I thought it'd be fun to showcase these characters and their stories here. The only character I'm not showcasing is my very, very first character I made, who I never got to play, Mungo the Gnome Bard. He has no story, and thus no place in this post.

Relic Short Story: "Pain-Ball"

I remember writing this story around sixth grade, but I can't for the life of me remember why I wrote it or how I got the subject material. I was never into pinball, though I guess I was into books where the main kid protagonist got sucked into a video game.
It's funny that I made the main character a fictionalized version of myself, complete with my actual brother's name, but my best friend's name is Yoshi Grendel? Really? At least I got to hand it to my sixth-grade self: the similes are pretty silly, but well written. And I for one wish I had kept going with the story.

Relic Comic: Invasion Aves

My best friend as a teenager, Jason Durfee, gave me the idea for this comic. I planned to make it go even more unnecessarily long, using all kinds of different birds that would have specialties in every aspect of a military regiment, but I think it's probably good it didn't go on much longer.

I think it's funny how it demonstrates my lack of shame of blatantly ripping off existing jokes word for word (Home Alone). It's also funny that I misspelled "aves." "Invasion Avis" would mean "Invasion of the Grandparents," not birds.

Relic Comic: Pie for the Guy

This is a weird one. Especially with that oddly philosophical border around the edges of the paper. Much like the Head of Osiris one I shared earlier, I seemed to start with some kind of idea and then devolved into just wanting to draw something else entirely but not abandon the drawing. Very admirable, actually, considering all the truly unfinished comics I've made. At least it ends somehow.

Relic Comic: The Frost Wyvern

I'm not sure why I was so into monks getting interrupted while writing when I drew comics back then. And I wish that the "lighting effects" I talk about at the end showed up better after scanning. The pencilwork is quite admirable.

Relic Comic: The Tamarisk Tree

I already had this comic uploaded on my computer, but I never put it onto Pretzel Lectern! Funny that this same situation made it into two comics, down to not knowing what the actual tree was called.

Relic Comic: The Head of Osiris

Clearly this comic was inspired by the PC game Age of Mythology, specifically the 18th level in the campaign, "A Long Way from Home." I called it the "Tree-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" because I forgot it was called the Tamarisk Tree, and I just thought it was funny.

I like the video game elements scattered throughout, like the damage numbers, health pie charts, and the line chart showing the unit populations. And of course, the fact that I got bored and settled halfway through is hilarious. I think it made it so much funnier than an actual full-length comic! 
Another funny thing is, I'm pretty sure I made another comic about the Tamarisk tree that had some Paper Mario jokes in it... I'll have to look for that one too sometime.

Repunzel's [sic] Revenge

I stumbled upon a wealth of relics from my childhood and adolescence this week while vacationing at my parents' house! The first I'd like to showcase is this spin on a classic fairy tale I wrote in February 2000. You can learn a lot about my ten-year-old self from reading this story and seeing how I warped the familiar plot and characters, and the word choice I use that just indicated what I thought was funny back then. True to my nature, I hid a couple of Easter eggs from my interests at the time of writing it (Digimon, in this case).

I've preserved the incorrect spelling of "Rapunzel," but otherwise I've fixed the grammar to read better.

D&D 5e Lingering Injuries by Damage Type

As a 5e Dungeon Master, I've been thinking about how low of stakes it is for players to "drop to 0 hit points."  Getting that close to death should come with some serious repercussions—Players should remember each and every time they came that close to dying and have the scars to prove it. So I'm going to implement Lingering Injuries into my games. Rather than using the catch-all table in the Dungeon Master's Guide, I liked Farland's idea of doing it by damage type. After all, how could you bruise your ribs from taking acid damage?

This list is heavily based on Farland's, so thanks to him (them?) for doing the heavy lifting, but I made some changes; namely, making some things curable by "six levels' worth of healing spells," such as a cure wounds spell cast at 8th level, or eight 1st-level cure wounds spells, or a single heal spell, and I made Force its own table instead of sharing the table of Bludgeoning. I think Force is more than just getting pounded by something magical—a lingering injury from Force damage would mess up your own personal magic space.

Austin's COVID Quarantine Routine 2020

Here's another routine article for you, now that it's a new and extremely memorable year for all of us.

Ballard Bucks

My wife and I decided this past week to make a household currency system for our kids. The newly minted "Ballard Bucks" could be earned by doing chores, reading, and making age-related accomplishments (like successful potty training), and could be spent on screen time and desserts, or cashed in for real money, or taken away as payment for us doing their jobs for them.

So far, it's a huge success! We have yet to make a list of all the things Ballard Bucks are useful for, but the kids are so far really motivated by them, and though we've had to make a shared Note on our iPhones to keep track of how many Bucks each kid has just in case they try to steal the actual bills, things have gone smoothly otherwise.

Anyway, I wanted to showcase the Ballard Bucks I designed. It was fun looking at existing world currency and taking bits from some of them. I never realized before how it must be to actually design currency. You want to create something unique, recognizeable, and complex enough to be hard to counterfeit. It should show notable symbols of the country minting the currency, as well as identifying numbers and signatures to prove its authenticity. Below is the first batch of minted Ballard Bucks. I added symbology of the Ballard family crest (the gryphon), my religion, myself, and some cool designs. In retrospect, even though I would be printing these out in black and white for cost's sake, I should have made it in color just for the sake of presentation on the computer. That would've been pretty cool.

D&D Spells for Heroes of Might and Magic

For the past two and a half years, I've been collecting ideas for 5e magic items and spells based on games and other franchises I'm familiar with. Last week, I decided to finally compile all the spells for one of the franchises, Heroes of Might and Magic, into an actual document that could be sold on DMsGuild or something. I'd love any feedback you have on balance.

My main goal when making this document, and in adapting spells from other sources in general, is to merge the franchise with D&D as seamlessly as possible. I take great care to look at other existing spells, to follow the tips for designing spells in the DMG, and to even do things like tweak the wording slightly in order to make it sound more like a spell that would be in an official D&D source. I also try to make the spells versatile enough and vague enough that each would fit into any D&D campaign setting, not only the one the spell came from.

Lots of franchises have spells that are more or less the same as D&D, such as fireball, cone of cold, and heal, so for these I just skip entirely and focus more on ones that would be a welcome, fresh addition to the game. In other cases, in the case of clone in Heroes of Might and Magic III, I change the name so that it's clear that it does something different than the existing spell in D&D that had the same name. Lastly, if a spell's name doesn't make sense given what it does in the original game, I use the name as inspiration for a brand new spell. For instance, in Heroes 3, a spell called forgetfulness causes half of all creatures you target to "forget" to use their ranged attack on their turn. Instead, I just made it a spell similar to modify memory, though not as potent.

Below are some of my favorite spells I adapted from Heroes of Might and Magic II and III:

My Favorite Hearthstone Deck of All Time

I've recently gotten back into Hearthstone after a two-year break, which is something I didn't think would happen. I really got sick of Blizzard making up crappy lore and making Warcraft, my favorite lore franchise of all time, even more messed up that World of Warcraft made it. What with Sir Finley Mrrglson, the "League of E.V.I.L.," and all that garbage. Well, now, they've gone back to their roots of lore bits like Outland, and the Demon Hunter is a pretty cool new class.

I rejoined the game playing mostly with an old Wild deck I made over the course of a long period of months a good 3 or 4 years ago: a warlock deck simply called "Mwoo hoo haa haa." I was delighted to find that, with only a couple of small updates, it is just as amazing of a deck as it was before I took a break from playing. Below is an explanation of the deck and the strategy I employ when playing it.

Inkarnate Map: Sylvaranth

I recently signed up for a Pro Subscription on Inkarnate, an awesome fantasy mapping app that just got a big update. I think with how much worldbuilding I've been doing on D&D, it'll definitely be worth it. I decided to start things off by mapping the city my current work D&D group is in, Sylvaranth, the ancestral home of the wood elves of Hearth (or one of them; I keep forgetting how big worlds really are). Much better than hand-drawing a black-and-white outline on Roll20.

D&D Magic Items: The Holiday Stones

Below are a few magic items I created just for the fun of it. I think I got the idea from a story arc on the webcomic PVP.

Argaenothruzil Creation of the World Poem Parchment

I was going through my documents and found a lot of material I wrote about Argaenothruzil. As much as I like writing stuff for my newer, more D&D DMG-helped-along setting, Hearth, Argae will always hold a special place in my heart, and sometimes I forget just how much work I put into its worldbuilding.

This parchment, the text of which can be red here, is based on the original Anglo-Saxon manuscript found of Beowulf. The poem uses kennings and alliterative verse to tell the story, just like Beowulf does, and it does so surprisingly well. I've noticed that it takes about 5 years to appreciate something anew, and I'm really impressed with this project.

Lipsyncing Animation Practice

I've been stuck inside for the COVID-19 quarantine, so I thought I'd entertain myself by drawing the eight frames needed to lipsync any vocal sounds and rearrange them to fit songs, quotes, and just recently, a press conference at Blizzcon 2018. I've been getting a bit better every time, and it's been fun to learn some new things about phonetics and phonology in the process. It's amazing how even something like the rhythm of blinking has to be determined when animating vocals... I don't know how the big studios do it so thoroughly. Here are my projects so far:

D&D for Kids (Bonus): Warlock Class

Bonus Magical Class

Warlock

Warlocks are people who "borrow" their magical abilities from a master more powerful than they are, like a genie, a demon, a angel, or a fairy queen. These magical abilities come with a price, however: as long as the warlock wants to keep their powers, they must do whatever their master says. Keeping deals in this way can be risky, but warlocks can enjoy magical power  (see “Magic and Spellcasting” to choose) without even having to study old books to learn it. If you want to be a warlock, choose one of the Class Abilities below to start with.

• Familiar. Your master gives you a familiar, which is a small creature that calls you its master. The familiar can look like any type of small animal like a cat, toad, or bat, and you can see what it sees and cast spells through its hands instead of yours if you want. 
• Level 1 Spellcasting. You learn to cast one Arcane Level 1 spell. Level 1 spells are weak, but they only require 1 action to cast, and you can cast them as many times as you want.
• Level 2 Spellcasting. You learn to cast one Arcane Level 2 spell. Level 2 spells are better than Level 1 spells, but they require 2 actions to cast. Once you cast this spell two times, you have to rest before you can cast it again. Once you cast this spell two times, you have to rest before you can cast it again.
• Level 3 Spellcasting. You learn to cast one Arcane Level 3 spell. Level 3 spells are the most powerful spells, but they require 3 actions to cast. Once you cast this spell, you have to rest before you can cast it again.
• Pact Blade. You can use 1 action to summon a magical weapon into your hand. It can be any kind of weapon, and you can use 1 action to make the weapon disappear or change to a different kind of weapon.
• Epic Ability: Eldritch Blast. You can fire a blast of energy at a monster from far away to hurt it. This ability only costs 1 action, so you can use it up to 3 times in one turn!

D&D for Kids: Magic and Spellcasting

Magic & Spellcasting

Some characters have classes that allow them to know words and gestures for casting magic spells. You may also find magical books or wands that give you magical powers. Below is a list of some spells you can choose from. You can only cast one spell per turn.

If you have an idea for a spell of your own, you can ask your Dungeon Master about it. If the spell is allowed, he or she will tell you whether it's a Level 1, Level 2, or Level 3 spell. There are two kinds of spells: Arcane spells, which use power from the magic in the universe and the world around you, and divine spells, which use power from beings like spirits, angels, nature, and gods.

D&D for Kids: Combat

Combat

Adventures often involve heroes fighting evil monsters, and the same can happen to your character! The Dungeon Master will control the monsters, and your character will be able to use his or her abilities to fight with sword, shield, or sorcery to rid the world of them. You don’t have to fight monsters; you can try reasoning with them or sneaking past them. But in the event that combat begins, here’s what you need to know.

D&D for Kids (Bonus): Rare Races

Rare Races

Aasimar

Whereas tieflings are created from dark magic, aasimar (pronounced "awesome-ar") are born with heavenly powers. They are guided by angels who speak to them in dreams in visions, teaching them to use their powers for good. Aasimar mostly look like humans, but they are generally taller and more beautiful, sometimes with golden or jewel-colored eyes, alabaster skin, or silver hair. Aasimar can live up to 160 years old. Aasimar love to destroy anything evil. If you want to be an aasimar, choose one of the Racial Traits below:

• Light Magic. You can make light to shine in the darkness, and you can heal wounds. After you heal someone's wounds, you need to rest before you can do it again.
• Angel Wings. You can cause feathery, glowing angel wings to sprout from your shoulders so that you can fly for 1 minute. After you fly, you need to rest before you can do it again.
• Radiant Power. You can sense evil creatures like vampires, demons, and skeletons nearby, and dark magic can't hurt you.

D&D for Kids: Choosing a Class

Choosing a Class

Your character’s “class” involves their set of skills, what they’re good at, and their calling and job in an adventuring group. Do you want your character to be a knight in armor holding a sword and shield, a wizard with a magic staff, or something else? Choose one of the classes below, then pick a Class Ability to start with.

Each time you play D&D, you’ll gain experience that lets your character grow and gain new abilities. The more adventures and stories you adventure through, the more powerful your hero will become! Below are the classes you can be in D&D. Pick a class, and then choose one of the abilities beneath it as your Class Ability. Whenever you level up through experience, you can gain another use of your Class Ability or choose a new one. When you reach Level 10, you can gain your class’s Epic Ability.

D&D for Kids: Basic Rules & Choosing a Race

I recently joined a Facebook group called "Dads and Dragons," for dads like me who love roleplaying games and playing them with their kids. I've seen a few resources out there for adapting D&D 5e to kids, but none of them were good enough to be standalone publications. Below I've compiled a collection of rule adaptations to simplify D&D 5e for kids 6 and up, rather than 12 and up. I'm leaning on the side of opening the game for fun story opportunities and making kids feel satisfied, like making successes more likely and promoting "fun" abilities rather than decidedly "balanced" ones, but all feedback is appreciated!

Once I've gotten all the rules fleshed out and playtested, I'll release these rules on a PDF. More to come later!

Thoughts on Warcraft III Reforged (ongoing)

Well, my favorite PC game of all time has been remastered and reworked into Warcraft III: Reforged, and all my childhood dreams have come true... or have they?

Yesterday I streamed my first reactions of the Warcraft 3 Reforged campaigns and, while I remained as optimistic as possible throughout the first few missions, ultimately I ended the day in a disappointed funk. Though I like the game's models, the truth is, Blizzard got all their priorities wrong and delivered a straight-up underwhelming, misleading product. And I can't figure out why! This is the company that made modern masterpieces like Starcraft II and Heroes of the Storm, both with amazing models, UI, gameplay, and features, but then they release something that feels like an unfinished beta project made by amateurs.

I'm trying to remain positive, even though the game's score on Metacritic was 1.9 yesterday and has dropped all the way down to 1.1 as of posting this. Blizzard can't ignore that, can they? My hope is that they listen to players (for once), refund us all their money, set Warcraft III's classic launcher back to its old self, and then just start over and try again. No harm, no foul. They can come back to us in a year or two when they've released a polished product. But until then, it just feels off.

Anyway, enough ranting. My purpose in making this post was actually more constructive. I'm here to make a list of the things I like and the things I don't like about Warcraft 3 Reforged as I play through it. This list will change quite a bit as I add things to it in the coming months, so feel free to check back. These may give useful data for a future video on the Abelhawk channel.

Six-Word Memoirs

Why is it I have to wait at least five years to write about my creative works on Pretzel Lectern? It's like this blog just oozes nostalgia and has some kind of requirement for the creative works to age a little to make sure they're good enough quality. Anyhow, here are some "six-word memoirs" I wrote when I learned about them five years ago. Most of them reflect the somewhat sad state of my life back then, which is comforting now that I'm happy, prosperous, and optimistic. A salary job, Wellbutrin, and D&D have definitely helped.