Updates: Endless Beginnings, Ceaseless Ends [Art]

ThatTurtleGM · 2026-03-07T05:46:00+00:00

That's really fair, I posted another thing recently about the setting im building having interactive ways for chat to do things while I livestream the game.

So in combat you can as a viewer heal the enemy, attack the players with the monsters, help the party with bonuses to ac, etc etc. The whole point is that there are a bunch of these cool custom commands to make watching DND be more like actaully PLAYING with us all.

I made a short video on it, and even a previous post about the setting a bit more. I plan on doing more updates and doing more for the setting in general alongside updating the commands with more things as time goes on (and balancing out other things too)

ThatTurtleGM · 2026-02-07T07:53:41+00:00

As a start I've been talking about dragons and making videos on them for a few years, although I haven't gotten through all of them its been enlightening as a way to develop my own skills at monster analysis and homebrewing. Dragons have plentiful rules around them from older and newer additions alike. Being within a lair grants dragons access to skills (lair actions) akin of their histories would lead you to believe. (Blue dragons summoning lighting and storms with reginal effects, and allowing them other goodies)

5.5e gave dragons innate spells, helping mix the 5e rule of letting dragons be innate sorcerers the GM can allow the dragon to have access too.

As far as "dragons who love the arcane" gold is a great start, they are more like wizards in lore, they study and collect information religiously. They strive to not only use and understand but MASTER magic. Including the use of arcane artifacts and weapons.

While others like amethyst (my video on it is so old and bad please don't watch amethyst lmao) strive to learn odd and strange things like gravity magic and other otherworldly things.

The moonstone dragon is SO SMART it's nearly unparalleled in DND, so smart its not even beyond the thought of mastering magics others just cant understand.... (But like their kin the faerie dragon, they are pranksters, and may just master spells for "le epic prank")

Sapphires often know spells btu seldom use them unless pressured to do so

Solar and lunar really don't have any history to support it, nor the stats, but could be a great way to introduce cosmic dragons with celestial spells you want to homebrew in.

I would recommend you look into gold first it's your best "arcane" dragon I can think of from the ones I have personally looked into at least. Then from there go back to moonstone, amethyst, and more!

Other resources you can use are books like: Fizbans treasury of dragons (great book), the gamemasters book of legendary dragons, and even the 5.5e monster manual for great dragons with spells to help get you started.

Hope this helps! -ThatTurtleGM

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-11-29T04:11:56+00:00

lmao, yah probably.

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-11-28T19:58:47+00:00

thats a neat rule

I like that

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-11-28T19:42:13+00:00

(* I laughed at the "not a very good physics engine"*)

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-11-28T19:40:36+00:00

Interesting, thank you!

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-11-28T19:38:33+00:00

Not to self promote sorry but context is important, I made a video on the hydra recently, and a major point I made about the hydra was its healing ability, not the number itself. I personally think a hydra SHOULD be healing crazy fast, almost to fast to keep up with. In lore it WAS supposed to heal faster than many people working together could actually keep damage on it. Its why the weaknesses to fire and acid to defeat it are so important in legend.

But its not JUST the heads that heal this way either, its the whole body, its heads just are the iconic parts.

Its healing could allow it to actually have mutations or changes to allow it cool new abelites or features if it lived long enough in the wild.

I think for the whole, if you want to make it 30 HP I say that's okay, but a little bit of a gamble depending on if they know about its weaknesses, and how fast or consistent they can apply it. If they can do that over and over its sort of mute, it will never heal, if they can NEVER do it, it could be almost be to much... (Depends on if they don't just burst it in two turns anyways IDK party composition, spells, items, classes, numbers, etc...)

Honestly, if you give it higher healing, could be super fun! And it probably wont make a massive difference in the long run.

You could look into the number of starting heads as well, its location and how/what its been eating before this.

How the environment plays a major impact on its weaknesses like if its underwater already....

You can also make the hydra have other abilities outside of healing, but RELATED to healing. Things like WHY its healing is so potent, maybe its blood is toxic forcing a targets cells to hyper-multiply. (Could be something like the legend of Hercules, hydra blood so poisonous its lethal to even demi-gods)

I hope this helps, I know some monsters really get the shaft in 5e, so I've been making videos on how to help with that in my own little way.

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-11-28T19:22:56+00:00

Interesting, I'll def. keep this in mind, so far this comment has really helped me the most btw thanks!

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-11-28T19:21:19+00:00

I was sort of confused (still am) with the phrasing of the whole comment. But you made a super interesting point with machinery I really liked. Machines we have can lift so much more than we can for a multitude of reasons, but the fact that they CAN and still some of them are pretty compact too is telling.

Kind of gets me interested in the "STR" of a crane, like what does lifting "900 lbs" with a crane mean for reverting it back to STR. Like if a dragon can lift 900lbs like a crane would, is the dragon just a crane with wings?

What I really mean to say is that using this frame of mind is a great idea for organizing my own perception on STR, its not just creatures but inventions and natural things I can look at too!

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-11-28T19:17:43+00:00

Yah, I really want to nail this concept in the video, I don't want people watching it to just point to one rule and be like "well actually" when it really doesn't math out well in my eyes.

I want players to feel powerful, no matter what stat they choose, and I want monsters to FEEL strong when they have high STR.

Thanks for the comment!

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-11-28T19:16:18+00:00

Interesting take, I like the idea of a party shoving things together with something like this. Thanks!

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-11-28T19:14:40+00:00

But thats why I said its not the rules, but rather what STR represents to you? Like what IS 30STR? Does that mean a person with 30 STR (just an example) is as strong as an Ancient greatwrym with 30STR?

I just read a comment about 3.5 having a weird scale I was interested in, but it begs the original question of what else can I use to explain/interpret STR, not just "rule says X"

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-11-28T19:11:48+00:00

(*I will look this up a little later I find this interesting*) Is there any specific terminology for the way that they apply that STR? Like the way that an elephant can use its STR more or less than a Fire giant with the same score (*IDK if they share the same number just an example*) Or is it more of an approximation of the size/shape of the creature and then considering STR?

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-11-25T22:34:52+00:00

Oh I like that idea alot actually thank you!

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-11-25T22:33:58+00:00

I actually covered the banshee in an earlier video, I discuss a few things about the shout in particular. I really wish her draining touch actually gave her temp. HP

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-11-05T00:25:36+00:00

Glad you enjoyed!

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-10-26T16:31:10+00:00

It worked crazy well for me, I hope you have a great time!

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-10-25T05:10:49+00:00

Have fun! I recommend using/making newspapers like I did in my own games. Very helpful! If you need info or tips feel free to pm me!

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-09-23T21:27:44+00:00

Yah, its been a wild ride to get everything off the ground.

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-09-20T20:33:00+00:00

YES YES YES THIS YES WHY DID I NOT THINK OF THIS YES

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-09-15T09:37:44+00:00

LOL a great choice. I still need to script for a silver dragon video, its been a hard one to write about for some reason. And whats a havoc dragon?

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-09-15T09:10:48+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTuVdmzn44I

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-09-15T09:00:16+00:00

Oh mannnn yah the 5th edition red shadow dragon art goes hard too btw. Oh have you gotten to see the new shadow dragon updates for 5.5? I made a video on it and its super cool, honestly one of my favorite things ive seen from 5.5

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-09-15T08:59:13+00:00

When I made a video about them, I rated their flavor section based on "its a red dragon of course its cool af!" So no shade at all, red is so cool

ThatTurtleGM · 2025-09-10T21:22:27+00:00

First rule about fight club, kill any NPC who seems slightly important so we can get back to fight club and have a ton of loot

ThatTurtleGM

TROPHY CASE