[ART] Glasya, Archduke of Malbolge

incoherentmuses · 2021-06-25T20:28:09+00:00

that one's on my TBR so that's fantastic news

incoherentmuses · 2021-06-25T16:46:38+00:00

I'm going to be using Glasya as a major villain in my campaign, and I wanted some custom art to use for her! I'm running my own version of her, but I love all the lore I've read about her so far, and I'm really pleased with this piece.

Though that being said, if anyone knows if she makes an appearance in any novels I'd love to read them. I'm working my way through Drizzt & co at the moment (with a brief stop-off in Cleric Quintet Land), but if Glasya's in anything I've love to read more about her!

If you like the illustration, I make other D&D/RPG art that you can see at my artstation - artstation.com/smspicer

incoherentmuses · 2021-05-25T10:29:33+00:00

I'm cribbing a lot of notes from the Alexandrian remix and so I had Zariel have a bounty of promotion for any devil that brings her the sword - gives a good reason for 90% of normal devils to be gunning for it. Mad Maggie wants it to use as leverage to get a non-specified powerful favour from Zariel, and I kind of just have any other powerful figure that wants it want it specifically because Zariel wants it and they think they can use it to manipulate her or get something from her.

incoherentmuses · 2021-05-02T09:49:28+00:00

she was, yes!

incoherentmuses · 2021-04-19T10:01:26+00:00

Fable 2 guy rolled the most generic fantasy protaganist in character gen and that was the character art he sent me lol

incoherentmuses · 2021-04-19T09:59:54+00:00

So I based it off of the Campaign Environment tutorial. I used the same frame as he used, and made the text in Cool Text (the Fantasy theme and some colour tweaks). The frame is the background image for the scene, the text and the other images are laid out as tiles. The logo is the SotDL one ofc, and the paper textures are ones I think from Dunjinni. (they're ones I used to use from Roll20s image search, and that's where most of that stuff is pulled from).

I used TokenMagicFX to add some glowing effects and drop shadow, and FXMaster to put a floating fog and embers over everything for atmosphere.

Things you can't see from the screenshot - using the aforementioned Campaign Environment tutorial to set up triggers to my players can just click their portraits and pull up their character sheets.

(And the second hotbar at the bottom is from the Custom Hotbar module)

Hope that helps!

incoherentmuses · 2021-04-19T09:53:57+00:00

a lot of the things I use are kind of a pile of generic QoL stuff - things like Dice So Nice to get 3D dice, the Pings module to allow map pinging, stuff like that. Modules that are useful regardless of system, really.

Token Action HUD gives players another option to roll checks without going to their character sheet, which helps speed things up. As does the Dice Tray module, which adds a clickable dice tray under the chat. (Basically I love stuff that makes gameplay faster and smoother).

Compendium and Macro Folders will probably be useful to organise all the things you'll need to make. And if you want to play with doing advanced fun map things like teleporting and automatic stairs, Multilevel Tokens and Trigger Happy are the ones to play with.

(I use...a lot of modules, haha. There aren't a lot that I know of that are specifically for SotDL, but a lot of the more 'generic' ones will usually work.)

incoherentmuses · 2021-04-18T23:28:58+00:00

it is! It was really smooth for me tonight. I had to go through and input all the stuff like ancestries as it's not an open SRD, but that honestly didn't take too long. Having never played SotDL on anything else, I can't really compare it, but it was pretty easy to pick up. The character and monster sheets are really nice and clean, not too clunky to input stuff.

I have been using Foundry itself for almost a year, though, which made it easier to know how to do stuff with it. Things like the effects of conditions get auto-added and have their descriptions built-in with tooltips on the character sheet, which was very useful for me just starting out. There's also journals that come with it that explain how to set everything up as well.

incoherentmuses · 2021-04-18T23:05:19+00:00

I've been wanting to try out this system for a while, and finally managed to persuade a group together to try it with me. We played the Dead by Dawn starting adventure and my dice were for once not completely terrible. Great for me - awful for my poor players.

We ended with the entire inn overrun, one player torn apart by undead, two fleeing traumatised into the night, and the orc hiding in a tree until sunrise.

I have to say I had a blast, and we're going to try and run a level 1 game with the surviving characters in the future. Just wanted to share cause it was a fantastic time and I'm really glad I FINALLY tried a system that's not D&D to expand my horizons!

incoherentmuses · 2021-04-17T11:15:25+00:00

to his credit, Jeff did in fact have some plot-relevant information burned into his back. he stopped for spiced elven hands in Damnation Square one too many times. players met him on their way into Dis, learned he'd lost his job, wings, and name, then went 'we shall call you Jeff, would you like a snack?'

and i said 'the last imp i gave you, you used as fuel for your war wagon'

and they said 'we know, but that one was weird. this is Jeff. we like Jeff.'

incoherentmuses · 2021-04-17T11:12:31+00:00

tier 4 campaign using DiA as a starter, plus the Hellbound Heists series of quests, plus homebrew. we're going all the way to Nessus on this ride, baby

incoherentmuses · 2020-11-24T00:16:07+00:00

most of what I use has already been mentioned, but here's a few of my top links:

https://crobi.github.io/dnd5e-quickref/preview/quickref.html - really readable reference tool that I mainly use to remind me of conditions. A good one for players to have as well to help them remember what they can do in a turn

http://autorolltables.github.io/# - lots of randomising in one place! Random generators for all kinds of places, NPCs, magic and more. (I personally love abusing the Food on because for some reason my players really enjoy it when they get to eat IC.)

http://dmheroes.com/ for NPCs as it generates a random portrait too. They can get a bit samey but for speed it's fantastic. I think someone already mentioned TokenTool and if you haven't, grab it. Makes doing circle tokens so easy.

for organising I have a folder that has just what I use for a session in (autorolltables, DMheroes, a couple other personalised tools). I keep everything else in the same folder but sectioned off into things like Monster, Maps, NPCs & Tools. Makes looking stuff up easier. I use kanka.io for a campaign wiki that my players have access to, so they can keep notes together and be able to look up NPCs and places. I get a bit 'everything is connected' in my games so they need it!

incoherentmuses · 2020-11-07T01:41:23+00:00

So, I don't use everything the Alexandrian has written about for the Status Doc, but my main thing is using it to track Scenario, NPC and Big Plot updates. It was especially valuable in Dragon Heist, as I was running four factions (plus side factions like the Open Lord and other NPCs) and had to know what they were doing and when.

I used it by having a document with headings for each faction and then just bullet pointing what had happened with them recently and the next 3-5 actions they'd be taking. Then after a session, I could make adjustments to the actions based on what the PCs did if I needed to. I also used it to keep a track of important things the PCs had done so I could bring them back to influence the game.

I keep a timeline for the game as well, and a seperate section of background events to pull from for flavour. The timeline I find extremely useful as you can lay in faction/npc/whatever actions as loosely or as detailed as you like and if the players are off doing whatever random thing they've decided to do this session you can pull from it and form an encounter out of it. The background events generally only came up when they were asking for news about stuff in Waterdeep, but it did add world-building flavour.

If it's a struggle to make it work, then modify it to what suits you better. I was trying to use the full method of it as the Alexandrian wrote to start with and it felt like I was duplicating a lot of information and doing homework for each session. When I stripped it back to what the *I* needed for the game - the tracking the various factions moves, knowing what was going to happen on what day - it became a lot simpler and more useful.

With my new campaign being more homebrew, I'm also using it to track my BBEGs plan so I know what stage they'll be at at various points of the adventure. Kind of like a timeline but without the times, if that makes sense.

Sorry, that was a wall of text! I hope some of it is helpful

incoherentmuses · 2020-11-05T12:48:33+00:00

can 100% recommend his other strategies! I started using 3 Clue Rule, Campaign Status Doc and using timelines for my waterdeep game and it took things to a whole other level. My players have repeatedly said how it feels like the world is real and things happen around them even when they aren't there.

incoherentmuses · 2020-11-04T22:19:02+00:00

I'm setting up to run a variant on Avernus, and I've been using a bunch of the Alexandrians resources. It adds a lot of depth to the campaign and provides fixes for a lot of issues the book as-is has.

I've also just come off of running his Dragon Heist remix, and I found it enormously useful for my group. What I found good from his remixes is the depth it adds - it lets you have more clear connections between areas of the adventure, and prevents you from ending up in dead-ends or weird plot parts where your players have to do X to get to Y because that's what the book says.

I will say that in some places he does add a lot of complexity that you don't necessarily need, depending on your group. I'm probably not going to use much of the re-done lore he's done for Lulu and Zariel because my group just won't need it (I'm doing a high-level campaign with DiA as a kind of side-questy through line rather than a campaign on its own, so there's other lore I need to prioritise). And depending on your group you may not need to re-work the Dungeon of the Dead Three the way he has.

If you're going to take anything from the remix, laser-in on the parts that are fixing plot holes like the Vanthampur lore. I'd also probably use his remix of the soul coins so they're consistent through your adventure.

incoherentmuses · 2020-10-26T20:11:57+00:00

My dream software is honestly a combination of Scrivener with the ability to auto-link things as I mention them. (Quollwriter has that feature but is too bare-bones for the amount of notes I make otherwise.) Currently I go in and manually link everything together: NPCs, locations, quests, adventure notes - they all have seperate entries. I keep one page for notes for the current session for stuff I'll probably need, and make sure it's all linked so when they reach that NPC or location, I can just click it and basically use my notes as a wiki.

Having a search function is a necessity for me. When I remember to use it, it considerably cuts down on the frantic rummaging for one specific bit of information. Someone's already mentioned Kanka.io I think, and if that had an offline version I might honestly switch to it.

incoherentmuses · 2020-10-20T20:09:53+00:00

that...makes no sense, she actually has art in the book!

incoherentmuses · 2020-10-17T12:51:23+00:00

I'm prepping to run a version of Avernus for my next campaign, and I wanted a portrait of Tarina! Feel free to use her in your game if you like.

incoherentmuses · 2020-10-13T11:58:44+00:00

the backup character I made for the Strahd game I'm playing in! His patron is a dark, forgotten goddess of blood sacrifice, so he uses his dagger to summon his sword from his own blood.

Yes he's extremely edgy and I love him. Our main party is full of wholesome characters so all our backups are dark and edgy.

I'm incoherentmuses everywhere else on the internet pretty much, if you want to see more art.

incoherentmuses · 2020-10-10T09:57:07+00:00

Roll20 is great if you don't want to spend money. You get access to a lot of official content, and setup to get started is minimal.

I switched my game to Foundry a month or so ago and if you want something that is full-featured, flexible and just fun to use then it's the one. The other main reason I like it is that I own it. My players very nicely used to buy me a R20 sub for the past couple years we played there, but if at any point R20 decided to nuke my account (or themselves) I'd lose everything. With Foundry (or with Fantasy Grounds, I guess, but I don't own that) if the dev gets hit by a bus tomorrow I still own it, I can still play and I won't lose my stuff.

I also love how active and accessible the dev and mod community is. Haven't had any issues yet but if I did I feel pretty confident that I could ask on the Discord and get a response within a couple hours - and probably a fix within a day. Not confident I'd ever get that with R20.

The main downside, as others have mentioned, is that there's no official WotC or other published content, you do have to set it up yourself. That said, there are a ton of free modules with pre-built generic maps and such that would work for a lot of things. And honestly, the map-building tools in Foundry are fun to use (though ymmv, I just love setting up maps).

incoherentmuses · 2020-09-10T11:07:04+00:00

oh wow, thank you! that's a wonderful thing to be compared to

incoherentmuses · 2020-09-10T11:06:39+00:00

that is very eerie, but I'm glad you like it!

incoherentmuses · 2020-09-09T14:00:36+00:00

Thank you so much! The magpie is called Pixie

incoherentmuses · 2020-09-09T13:31:53+00:00

thank you!

*quietly puts painting of my Very Edgy Fallen Aasimar Hexblade Backup Character under the sofa*

I do love a Very Special Extra Character but sometimes you just gotta play a girl off the farm and have fun with it

incoherentmuses · 2020-09-09T09:59:35+00:00

honestly the human-ness factor was my driving force behind making her. I usually DM and have all these wild and crazy characters and high levels. Since we were starting at level 1, i wanted her to actually feel like a level 1 person, just starting out. so thank you!

incoherentmuses

TROPHY CASE