Dungeon Master Ideas- Locations, Characters, Monsters, etc.

Here to help anyone find what they're looking for.  If you can't find it in our archives, maybe we know what you're looking for.  @aspiring-protagonist is my main blog where you can contact me about whatever you want.  Feel free to ask me anything about any game I'm in or have been in.

[freecandyman]

Japanese spider crabs in the whale fall exhibit

@montereybayaquarium

[aspiring-dm]

So, in my dreams of one day running Beam Saber, might be making a series of posts tagged as 'mech inspiration'

[poly-carbon-based-lifeform]

for those who don’t know, I stream stuff.  Sometimes I even stream right now.

[aspiring-dm]

[aspiring-dm]

I just finished watching Sandman and now I’ve got a bunch of ideas for a City of Mist game borrowing elements from the show, so you might start seeing things tagged with ‘city of dreams’

[chongoblog]

Had a dream that there was a new Pokemon that was ghost type and it was like. Half a greyhound. It was a spectral dog that was known as one of the fastest Pokemon. And yet it only had it front legs. There were wispy floating stubs on its back half which sort of implied there COULD be legs, but they never reached even close to the ground. It stood on its front legs as if the back legs were still there.

I don’t know what this Pokemon’s name was but its appeared in many of my dreams so either they made it real and I forgot or I’m being haunted by a Fakemon.

[chongoblog]

I have been informed it is not a real Pokemon so I’ll share another detail I recall seeing about it more than once.

One of its main features about it is that it could run stupidly fast, like, a solid 100 MPH (at least thats my best guess from a dream) but more impressively or eerily is that it could go from 100 to 0 almost immediately, stopping in a stance where it stood up straight and at attention

I think I love this weird dream dog

[chongoblog]

I assume this is for artists so sure thing

I imagine that this dog is very tall and sleek (like a good five feet tall), with a sickly pale (with just a hint of light blue hue). Its eyes are a pure empty (yet still piercing somehow) white. Along its front half across the back and its legs are pale green sets of stripes, almost like racing stripes.

As for how the ghostly “back legs” worked, they looked sort of like this

with his physical form slowly transitioning into an pale blue ectoplasm, and there were amorphous hints of what could have possibly once been legs. Despite completely missing his back half, the posture seen here is still its regular posture, standing straight up, as if a soldier at attention.

Hope this helps!

[shadowphoenixdraws]

Had to take a crack at drawing the spooky doggy! Complete w/ a little pre-evo and the concept I sketched up before the detailed description

[aspiring-dm]

I don’t think my players actually understand the concept of supply and demand.  A couple sessions ago they walked up to a jewel merchant and basically said “we desperately need to sell these jewels and you’re the only person we can sell them to” and then asked if they could make a persuasion roll to get more money for it.

[aspiring-dm]

Apparently the most popular episode of the entire Aspiring Dungeon Master podcast, aside from the first episode of Princes of the Apocalypse, was the Dungeon World one-shot “Reek: High Flying, Adored.”  Not even D&D, so I guess I found, idk, the Friends at the Table community?  Anyway go check that out, it was a lot of fun, featuring a pirate kobold getting way out of his depth in Star Wars shit.

[honeypumpkin-ffxiv]

I did the Dark Knight quest line and I feel so many things

[aspiring-dm]

D&D Ask: #30 and 34

30. Homebrew or prewritten?

Both. I'll run a homebrew if I've become hyperfixated on an idea for a game, but usually I would prefer to run it in a system other than D&D, but if I have a group that meets once a week or so I'll usually go for prewritten so there's always stuff ready to go. Far too many times have I had to send a message that says "Hey guys, sorry but I don't think I'm prepared to run anything this week."

34. Favorite accent to do for characters?

Oh, vaguely Russianish accent is always good. Just a Yelena Romanov impression.

[aspiring-dm]

[aspiring-dm]

Oh, as an addendum, for burning hands and any other spells that require it, Intelligence is always the spell-casting modifier for spells learned from this item, regardless of what class’s spell list it came from.

[aspiring-dm]

[aspiring-dm]

[aspiring-dm]

27, 28, dnd ask

If you could cast one spell from D&D what would you cast?

Ima go ahead and pretend that Wish isn't an option. Mage Hand is a cool one to just have, lots of uses. If I had disguise self or any other appearance altering spell I'd probably just keep that up forever. But I'd probably take like Augury or Divination, sometimes I just wanna know if something's a good idea before I hit send, y'know?

What is the most memorable natural 1 you've experienced?

1? Not 20? Damn, uhhhhh, not a lot of light shining on natural 1s in my memory tbh. Not sure I can remember any at all.

Not for me, but I was running a game one time where they just ran into like some giant spiders while walking, and my ex was playing a dragonborn paladin and the wizard was downed with one failed save, and she was trying to decide whether it was better to try to get her breath weapon off to maximize damage against the spiders or heal the wizard. She figured the wizard would live another round and went for the breath weapon, but then the wizard rolled a nat 1 and died.

[aspiring-dm]

39?

My favorite villain I've defeated was just last year, the party had been flung a thousand-ish years into the future at the start of the campaign and found themselves in a town run by a maniac despot named Magnus who had a crown bolted directly onto his head and talked like a surfer dude, he was pretty much just a partying frat king who held gladiator fights.

My character at the time was a not-much-less crazy tiefling that'd my DM let me homebrew to be more music-of-the-universe focused and less infernal, a chaotic wild sorcerer. Anyway, the rest of the party was going to fight in the gladiator pit while through a mixture of actual disguises and disguise self casts (along with the actor feat) I snuck into the tower Magnus was watching from and tried to figure out how to disable his force field. Cue the D&D equivalent of in Skyrim where you try to fight someone but they turn out to be stronger than you expected so you run away and hide until they forget about you and then try again.

So in the end we started a revolution and he was very much dead at the end. I'd say either him, or one-shotting explicitus defilus in the 1.0 Against the Cult of the Reptile God.

[soysaucednd]

50 d&d questions

1. What do you think your d&d race would be?

2. What class?

3. What two feats would you have?

4. What has been your favorite d&d character you've played? (NPCs count for DMs)

5. Which of your d&d characters has been the most like you?

6. Which of your d&d characters has been the least like you?

7. How do you go about making a character or NPC?

8. What is the most memorable natural 20 you've ever experienced?

9. Has one of your d&d characters ever died? How?

10. What is your favorite class to play?

11. Have you ever fought a dragon?

12. Have you ever fought a beholder?

13. Have you ever fought a mind flayer?

14. Have you ever had a romance with an NPC or another PC?

15. Do you prefer to DM or play?

16. What is your favorite D&D pod/vodcast?

17. Who is your favorite "celebrity dm?"

18. Do you use props/minis/terrain in your game?

19. How did you discover D&D?

20. If you run a homebrew game, give an out of context spoiler.

21. Drop a picture of a mini you painted (if applicable)

22. Write a brief scene centered around one of your characters!

23. Do you have any art of your characters?

24. Have you ever played any TTRPGs other than D&D?

25. What is your favorite snack for d&d?

26. If you could have one potion from d&d, which one would you choose?

27. If you could cast one spell from d&d, which would you cast?

28. What is the most memorable natural 1 you've experienced?

29. Have you ever been drunk playing d&d?

30. Homebrew or prewritten?

31. Tell me about your current party!

32. Most memorable NPC you've encountered in a game you played in.

33. Do you listen to music while playing? What kinds?

34. Favorite accent to do for characters?

35. Favorite classic d&d trope

36. What was your first d&d character you made?

37. What is the most recent PC or NPC you've created?

38. Goblins or Kobolds?

39. Favorite villain you've defeated?

40. What d&d deity would you be a cleric of?

41. Give an out of context quote from one of your games!

42. Have you ever rolled turn into a potted plant on the wild magic table?

43. Minis and terrain or theater of the mind?

44. Mulligan, Mercer, Murphy, or McElroy?

45. What is the longest session you've ever had?

46. What is the longest battle you've fought or run?

47. Have you ever played at level 20?

48. Does your dm say "How do you want to do this?"

49. Have you ever played an edition other than 5th?

50. Any question you want!

[thecollectibles]

Art by YIN ZHE

[thecollectibles]

The Collectibles: Best of 2021