Gods of Argaenothruzil: DALL-E

AI is getting more and more impressive, and it is downright astounding to see things that have been in my own head come to life with fewer and fewer uncanny issues! This week I got into using the DALL-E AI image generator at bing.com/create, which is free and very impressive! (in short, the only thing I'll ever use Bing for). With its impressive grasp of descriptions, I was able to breathe new life into the gods of my fantasy settings once again.

Worldbuilding More Interesting Deities in 5e

The gods in DM Quest (watch episodes here!) play a big part in the narrative of our campaign. Jasper is a divine soul of the Treefather, Dakren found solace from his demonic pact in the goddess Tonna, Shaz is a war champion of Tual'dir, and Hargus the bard has a... complicated past with Bancotha, the goddess of death. We use the rules for piety as found in Mythic Odysseys of Theros, and the extra abilities we've gotten from our relationships with the gods have created some of the most memorable roleplaying experiences in all of my time playing D&D.

However, there have been some moments I thought detracted from our gameplay experience—mostly involving non-cleric players saying a prayer to a god and getting amazing boons for very little work, or multiplying the number of days of downtime by the number of times the character could cast commune to basically divine the answer to absolutely any puzzle in the game.

Just as Superman is the least interesting superhero because he has all the powers and only one easily-avoidable weakness, gods who know everything and are always waiting on their followers' every need to give them whatever they ask are boring. Interesting stories come from interesting choices and from creatively dealing with constraints and challenges, and it doesn't make sense that a being with as high of an existence as a god would play such an intimate part in mortals' quests and questions.

Instead of making gods all-encompassing in their influence over mortal affairs, consider juggling the following godly attributes for each deity: omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnibenevolent (all-caring). Only picking one of them will make for a much more interesting god for your religious player characters to interact with.

Better 5e Bastion Facility Boons

As discussed in my last post, the new Bastion system is inspiring, but its reward system (and a few fundamental systems) lacks a clear motivation for players to utilize it: Harvesting ten floral bouquets worth 5 gp each? Recruiting guild members to make fifty barrels of ale worth 10 gp each? Crafting some sovereign glue for 100,000 gp?!

I'm confident that the roleplaying and story-focused aspects of Bastions will be taken care of automatically by the players themselves. What players and DMs need in an established system are facilities that provide useful, mechanical rewards they can award players with. Each benefit should be be temporary, consumable, or incremental, and should have a cost of some kind. I put a special emphasis on spending gold. Players get treasure all the time and never have anything to spend it on but magic items! Why not buildings that give them lasting benefits on their future adventures?

Improving the Bastion / Stronghold System in D&D 5e

The most recent Unearthed Arcana about Bastions is very intriguing. Imperfect, but very inspiring and full of potential. Since my fellow players and I have been enjoying our own keep in our DM Quest campaign for the past couple of years, I definitely think that D&D 5e could use a more robust stronghold system than it currently does. Having a place for the adventurers to call home, gain benefits from over time, and most importantly, invest gold in, is a great way to make players feel more bonded and invested in the world and campaign as a whole.

Dubbing Differences: The Jungle Book

I found the following notable changes in the Brazilian Portuguese dub of Disney's The Jungle Book:

Dubbing Differences: Peter Pan

 

D&D Subclass: Earth Domain Cleric

I'm kind of surprised that 5e doesn't have this as a domain, at least as a supplemental subclass. Here's my take on an Earth domain cleric. This fits well with my own deities like Deepwarden, Moeki, and Jord from my friends' DM Quest series. It can also fit with a god of stone giants, or of the Underworld without being too focused on death.

Dubbing Differences: A Goofy Movie

Gods of Argaenothruzil and Hearth: Mirror AI

A couple of months ago (I don't know why I sometimes wait so long after doing a project), I discovered Mirror AI, an app that looks at photos and makes them into cartoons, comic book art, or a bunch of other types. It's incredible that such things can be done nowadays. I can't wait to see what AI can do 5 or 10 years from now. Maybe you can put yourself in a movie and be the main character with your own face and voice?

Anyway. I decided to pair Mirror AI and Hero Forge and go back and make all of the Argaenothruzil and Hearth gods in this new style. It really brings them to life in a new art style that I don't think I was ever expecting to see, especially when I first created Argaenothruzil.

Dubbing Differences: The Emperor's New Groove

 

I was having déja vu while watching The Emperor's New Groove in Portuguese, and I realized it was the first film I ever watched when Disney+ started offering Portuguese dubs! That was before I had started these projects, so this time I was able to listen much closer. Because of the slang and much more conversational tone of the dialog, there were a lot of Brazilian colloquialisms and idioms put in that were a lot of fun to discover. As a result, this is the longest Dubbing Differences yet.

Dubbing Differences: 101 Dalmatians

Dubbing Differences: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Dubbing Differences: Pinocchio

Dubbing Differences: Disney's The Rescuers

Dubbing Differences: Alice in Wonderland

A Better Way to Run Chases in D&D 5e

A few years ago, my DM ran a chase for our group during a session, following the rules for chases in the DMG verbatim. It was not fun. We spent the better part of half an hour going through the initiative order, grinding through a mountain of chase complications, while a giant Retriever crashed through the brush trying to catch us and we kept asking the DM in our theater of the mind if there was a place to hide from it. A year later, I played Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, my heart pounding as Edward Kenway sprinted down the street, down alleys, and up and down buildings trying to shake off a group of guards of Havana hot in pursuit, and had a blast.

Then, a month ago, I sat in the theater watching Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves as Doric the druid led an intense chase, complete with multiple Wild Shapes, several locations at different elevations, arrows whizzing past her, and even a failed Deception check posing as a guard in a stolen suit of armor! 

I know that roleplaying games have the capability of providing satisfying and triumphant relief at the end of a worthy battle, so there's just got to be a way to capture that same result during and after a fast-paced, exciting chase scene. Let's look over the current mechanics, where they go wrong, and a possible alternate set of rules to make chases in 5e fun.

MORE D&D Mechanics Inspired by Assassin's Creed Odyssey (Fate of Atlantis)

So it turns out Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, along with its expansion pack Fate of Atlantis, is so big that it deserves a second article on Pretzel Lectern! After putting around 130 hours into a single playthrough of the game, and after spending almost an entire year playing one Assassin's Creed game or another, I've decided to take a month or two break before I play Valhalla. Anyway! This is about the mechanics that you can use in your D&D game, so here we go. Oh yeah, and there are spoilers for the expansion, if that matters to you.

Short Story: Dakren's Visit

Today I felt like writing about my D&D character from DM Quest, Dakren of Swanbow. He's the character I've played the most throughout my time as a player in D&D, and the character who's gone through the most character development. It's been interesting to see him come to life as a character and to go in directions I didn't expect. The following is a short story that takes place around Episode 100 or so, and it's taken from the point of view of Dakren's mother.

D&D Mechanics Inspired by Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

Well, I finally caught up with my purchased Assassin's Creed games. Now it's time to try Valhalla and maybe go back and play Assassin's Creed II to see who this "Ezio" character is all the other games keep referencing. Anyway! Except for the excessive number of hit points that all the enemies on this game had, I really enjoyed this adventure in Ancient Greece, and as always, it inspired some new mechanics and plot devices for D&D games.

Adventures in Evimeria + The Horned Lord of Witherstone Tower

Yes, I've been uploading a lot of old stuff lately. This one is actually from two Junes ago when I organized an "all-day" (more like 7-hour) D&D session, to see just how much D&D I could take before I got tired of it. Childhood best friend and fellow DM Quest player Dustin acted as Dungeon Master of the world of Evimeria, and I played with other members of that group as well as my brother. It was a lot of fun to make a day of it, and I definitely wasn't tired of D&D at the end (in fact, I went on to DM my own full session soon after we finished). I've tried to organize similar events and have succeeded only once, in the Horned Lord of Witherstone Tower duology.

DM Quest: The Firebrands on YouTube

It's been about 2½ years since I co-founded a weekly D&D group consisting entirely of Dungeon Masters who rotate each adventure arc. I've made some good friends along the way, had a lot of DM practice, and have collaborated to create a somewhat disjointed yet fascinating world called Amara. The adventurers in this storyline are called the Firebrands, and their adventures are finally up on YouTube for your viewing pleasure!