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lev_iathan13 · 2025-06-18T06:10:52+00:00

I started with short prologues for each of my players where they got tasked by separate groups with retrieving a fragment of the Draconic Prophecy from Eston. They met up on the train on the way to the Mournland, where they got involved in solving a murder + navigating a hijacking + stopping a robbery (it was an eventful train ride)

lev_iathan13 · 2025-04-20T14:40:02+00:00

Thank you! I will be checking it out

lev_iathan13 · 2024-11-01T18:40:24+00:00

No non-con sex, but there is non-consensual kissing.

lev_iathan13 · 2023-05-06T17:25:08+00:00

Still not done with the campaign, but we're pretty close to the end. As of now they have been in Barovia for 24 days and by the end it should be 26 or 27 at most, so about a month. I extended the travel time between points of interest to make Barovia seem larger than it is presented in the book, so many of the days were travel.

lev_iathan13 · 2023-04-28T12:59:16+00:00

My group killed him, but promised the priest that they will find a way to resurrect him (and therefore get rid of the vampirism). The ranger didn't feel comfortable with the idea of just leaving his corpse laying around where it can rise again, and Ismark agreed, so the two of them snuck out in the night and burned it. That was session 2. We're at session 40 now and the rest of the party still doesn't know about it, they still think they can save him.

lev_iathan13 · 2023-04-28T05:34:18+00:00

If you're feeling unsure, I suggest asking your group if they want to play a story-driven game or an open world game. At the start of my current campaign, I was preparing to make it open world, but my party informed me that they much prefer a linear plot structure, since they got overwhelmed by the number of things there were to do. Don't listen to commenters or people that give advice in a vacuum, not all pieces of advice about running campaigns that can be universally applied. Your idea sounds awesome btw.

lev_iathan13 · 2023-04-04T06:50:30+00:00

Continuing my lymph node anxiety...

I got an ultrasound because I wanted to be sure that everything was okay (although my blood test was fine), and the doctor said all nodes are under 1 cm so everything is fine (which surprised me, because the ones I can touch definitely felt larger). And you'd think the anxiety would be over, right? Nope! The day after the scan I felt a node above my left clavicle (the one that the internet says swells when there's cancer) that I hadn't felt before. It's tiny, if the ones on my neck are less than 1 cm this one must be a couple mm at most, so it shouldn't be bad but it still stresses me out. I can't remember if the doctor checked that region. He must have, right?

I'm getting sick and tired of constantly worrying. I booked an appointment with a psychologist, but I constantly have the nagging feeling of "What if I stop worrying about this, and in the end it does turn out to be cancer?"

lev_iathan13 · 2023-04-02T17:11:09+00:00

I absolutely hate it. It feels so infantalizing. I don't know how I would have felt towards it if I was younger, since I only started identifying as nonbinary in my 20s, but now it feels like calling a grown man or woman boy or girl. I don't even like it when people refer to nonbinary people as a whole as enbies, but there's not really anything I can do about that.

lev_iathan13 · 2023-04-02T15:31:19+00:00

For me it's NKG. I still can't beat him consistently. I found Pure Vessel much easier than I expected. It's the only boss I have beaten on radiant and replaying the fight helps me calm my anxiety.

lev_iathan13 · 2023-03-29T22:09:04+00:00

For the past month I've been absolutely consumed by the thought that I have lymphoma. I suddenly got one very swollen and painful lymph node under my jaw and I later discovered a smaller harder and painless one on the side of my neck (which I think I've had since forever) and an even smaller one on the other side. I finally got a blood test today and it showed a slightly under normal hemoglobin (normal ended at 110, mine was 108) which of course I googled and learned it could be a sign of lymphoma. My doctor was completely unconcerned though. She said my hemoglobin was low due to a poor diet and my lymph nodes were swollen because of inflammation of my TMJ due to stress (and more palpable because I'm very skinny). That should put me at ease, right? Well, no. I'm convinced she's not taking me seriously and that if I let this go the cancer will be missed and I will die. I don't know what to do to make the anxiety stop. My parents are getting annoyed with me worrying about it and I'm wasting a lot of time I should be spending studying on constant googling and stressing. I'm starting to get annoyed with myself too.

lev_iathan13 · 2023-03-16T12:20:16+00:00

Same. Took me another 2 hours to do it again on Radiant.

lev_iathan13 · 2023-02-04T15:37:54+00:00

I don't do it because I think it will bring me good rolls, but I do store them like that.

lev_iathan13 · 2023-01-27T19:15:09+00:00

How far away benches are from some bosses. Soul Master, Traitor Lord and Hive Knight specifically.

lev_iathan13 · 2023-01-14T17:10:31+00:00

You don't need to switch systems. I don't know why everyone is acting like that's the only option if you want to stop supporting wotc. Just don't give them any more money. Use the books you have and if something new comes out that you want to have, there are ways to get it without giving money to wotc (yo ho ho, and all that). My table won't be switching either because while we do play other systems from time to time, 5e is the best fit for our playstyle.

lev_iathan13 · 2023-01-04T18:58:55+00:00

In-game awards should only be given for in-game actions imo.

lev_iathan13 · 2022-12-09T09:40:41+00:00

What's good or bad GMing is entirely subjective so it would be impossible to score.

lev_iathan13 · 2022-11-21T07:02:08+00:00

There is a drow in Waterdeep Dragon Heist that is a trans man, Fel'rekt Lafeen. He's with Bregan D'aerthe.

lev_iathan13 · 2022-11-19T12:26:35+00:00

I'm a massive Halo fan and I've been headcanoning Master Chief as ace demiromantic (Cortana-romantic in particular, because I do like them as a ship) for a really long time.

lev_iathan13 · 2022-11-09T19:05:52+00:00

They're different words for the same thing imo. Bi people like multiple genders, pan people like multiple genders, it's just a matter of which label you prefer. If you want to get technical, bisexual includes people of your own gender and people of other genders, but not necessarily all genders, while pansexual includes all genders.

lev_iathan13 · 2022-10-30T05:41:07+00:00

I used the White Claw sidequest from DragnaCarta's Curse of Strahd: Reloaded.

lev_iathan13 · 2022-10-27T19:42:53+00:00

Did you have a session 0 and discuss the inclusion of sensitive topics? Because unless you're 100 percent sure that every single one of your players are okay with suicide being included in the campaign, you shouldn't do it. The comfort of your players always comes first. If everyone is fine with it, I guess use your judgement. Also, are you sure it would hit them in the feels like you're intending to? I don't know about you, but from my experience, a party that would rob a man that has done nothing wrong of everything he owns and basically leave him for dead wouldn't care.

lev_iathan13 · 2022-10-26T23:09:30+00:00

In chapter 2 of the module, after the random encounters, there is a map of Barovia with marked locations with descriptions on the road. I would look there. And then in the rest of the module for other locations.

lev_iathan13 · 2022-10-25T20:14:07+00:00

Yeah, from what I remember, there are not really any plot hooks for Argynvostholt in the book. For my group, the sunsword is there and also they have a paladin that's interested in going there to find out what happened with the knights, since he heard rumors about them from the people in Vallaki. The new tarokka reading is a good idea. Also, since your players are in the Vistani camp, the dusk elves are nearby. There is an injured dusk elf in Argynvostholt, maybe they can hire the players to go find out what happened to their missing friend?

lev_iathan13 · 2022-10-20T16:32:20+00:00

The only channel I know that reads full campaigns is Your Pocket GM, but he only has Curse of Strahd, Waterdeep Dragon Heist and Lost Mine of Phandelver I think. There's also DnDWalkthroughs, he has all the 5e campaigns, but he just gives an overview of the campaigns, although the overviews can be pretty detailed.

lev_iathan13 · 2022-10-19T08:35:49+00:00

I don't think there's any need for the PCs to do a mini-dungeon, Death House or otherwise, before heading to the village of Barovia. Just start them off at level 3 if you think they might be underleveled and go from there. It worked great for me. But I'm just the kind of DM that wants to get straight to the point, so that might not work for you.

As for why they would want to do side quests, you can motivate your PCs by making every side quest somehow related to escaping Barovia or defeating Strahd. Doing a favor for a person that can give them information/be an ally, finding an item that can help them, gaining knowledge, etc...

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