āThe old magic persists thanks to itās unfathomable power.ā
No, the old magic persists because the new magic canāt run the legacy spells I need to do my job, and keeps trying to install spirits I donāt want or need onto my orb.
Look, if the new magic didn't have a personality construct that kept trying to tell me which spells to use, maybe I wouldn't still be using the old magic.
You try to get guidance for the new magic and the king's sorcerers maybe will answer you in a few days with an unhelpful suggestion to buy the newest orb.
You need guidance for the old magic and a dozen retired middle-aged wizards will pop up to explain it to you rune by rune if necessary.
I would absolutely download a dragon, and Iāve already shared this with my D&D group. Weāre gonna have some adventures! Thank you to everyone who made this possible!
This is leaving out the best part of his patreon, which is that heās been doing polls for āsilly modelsā to create for years, bringing us such wonders as the Baba Yaga Taco Truck, the Horse Head, Goostarian (Goose Astarion), a Pirate Ship Mimic, the Honkdra, and Definitely The Five-Headed Dragon God Tiamat And Not Five Wyrmlings In A Trenchcoat
āThe old magic persists thanks to itās unfathomable power.ā
No, the old magic persists because the new magic canāt run the legacy spells I need to do my job, and keeps trying to install spirits I donāt want or need onto my orb.
Look, if the new magic didn't have a personality construct that kept trying to tell me which spells to use, maybe I wouldn't still be using the old magic.
You try to get guidance for the new magic and the king's sorcerers maybe will answer you in a few days with an unhelpful suggestion to buy the newest orb.
You need guidance for the old magic and a dozen retired middle-aged wizards will pop up to explain it to you rune by rune if necessary.
Greater Potion of Heroism: grants a rolled number of temporary hit points, at the cost of the PC losing the ability to feel pain. The DM tracks all their damage and HP until the effect wears off, at which point it hits them all at onceā¦ and may take them into death saves
In the D&D campaign I'm running with my wife's siblings, one of them learned about how trolls regenerate within minutes of any damage not caused by fire or acid, and then asked why people don't just like. Cage them and eat them, forever. Why there aren't troll meat dungeons in the king's castle as a safeguard against sieges or famines.
And you know, I thought it was a fair question, so I said that if you eat enough troll meat, you start getting troll-y. And then I went further and just treated it like troll flesh is a general contaminant - if you eat enough troll, you'll turn into a troll, but if you bury enough dead troll flesh in a forest, the trees will start growing in strange ways, and will scream and heal and bleed when you hit them with axes.
I liked this idea. So as we played further, I just played around with the idea of Troll Origins, and I came up with something sort of like the Odyssey, but instead stealing Helios's cattle, it was Hathor's, and the horrible, awful, unending immortality was her curse of the army that pillaged her lands. A god of healing does not condemn you to die, she condemns you to live.
And then I got this fun idea for maybe the king that led the army is still kind of alive in the troll taint. Like a sort of literal fisher king. The kingdom is sick because he is, literally, the kingdom. The trees that bleed, bleed his blood and their screams are his screams. He is both the faintly green bear running down the mountain and the faintly green deer and there is no way past this without suffering. He is the entire ecosystem, and he eats nothing but himself and he dreams nothing but death and yet still, on and on and on and on, he lives.
Anyway they're traveling next session so I'm throwing this shit at them. I already have some gross ideas for like. Describing everything like it's a body (flowers red as blood, white as bone, pink as meat, grass fine as hair) then finally throwing horrible living things at them. Trees that grow eyeballs that turn and stare at them, or flowers with teeth instead of petals and trolls that speak in long dead tongues about how they wish they'd never tried to rob a god.
Anyway I'm passing this on because this is my new troll lore and I want it to become canonized in the way that all D&D lore becomes canonized: By having eople read it and go "oh, neat" then start doing that too.
š How to Build a Culture Without Just Inventing Spices and Necklaces
(a worldbuilding roast. with love.)
So. Youāre building a fantasy world, and youāve just invented:
ā Three types of ceremonial jewelry
ā A spice that tastes like cinnamon if it were bitter and cursed
ā A holiday where everyone wears gold and screams at dawn
Cute. But thatās not culture. Thatās aesthetics.
And if your worldbuilding is all outfits, dances, and spice blends with vaguely mystical names, your storyās probably going to feel like a cosplay convention held inside a Pinterest board.
Hereās how to fix thatāaka: how to build a real, functioning culture that shapes your story, not just its vibes.
āāāāāāā ā¦ āāāāāāā
š Culture Is Built on Power, Not Just Style
Ask yourself:
ā Whoās in charge, and why?
ā Who has land? Who doesnāt?
ā Whatās considered taboo, sacred, or punishable by death?
Culture is shaped by who gets to make the rules and who gets crushed by them. Thatās where things like religion, family structure, class divisions, gender roles, and social expectations actually come from.
Start there. Not at the embroidery.
āāāāāāā ā¦ āāāāāāā
2.šŖ Culture Comes From Conflict
Did this society evolve peacefully? Was it colonized? Did it colonize? Was it rebuilt after a war? Is it still in one?
ā What was destroyed and mythologized?
ā What do the survivors still whisper about?
ā What do children get taught in school thatāsā¦ suspiciously sanitized?
No culture is neutral. Every tradition has a history, and that history should taste like blood, loss, or propaganda.
āāāāāāā ā¦ āāāāāāā
3.š§ Belief Systems > Customs Lists
Sure, rituals and holidays are cool. But what do people believe about:
ā Death?
ā Love?
ā Time?
ā The natural world?
ā Justice?
Example: A society that believes time is cyclical vs. one that sees time as linear will approach everythingāfrom prison sentences to griefācompletely differently.
You donāt need to invent 80 gods. You need to know what those gods mean to the people who pray to them.
āāāāāāā ā¦ āāāāāāā
4.š« Culture Controls Behavior (Quietly)
Culture shows up in:
ā What people apologize for
ā What insults cut deepest
ā What people are embarrassed about
ā Whatās praised publicly vs. whatās hidden privately
For instance:
ā A culture obsessed with stoicism wonāt say āI love you.ā Theyāll say āHave you eaten?ā
ā A culture built on legacy might prioritize ancestor veneration, archival writing, name inheritance.
This stuff? Way more immersive than giving everyone matching earrings.
āāāāāāā ā¦ āāāāāāā
5. š Culture = Daily Life, Not Just Festivals
Sure, your MC might attend a funeral where people paint their faces blue. But what about:
ā Breakfast routines?
ā How people greet each other on the street?
ā Who cooks, and who eats first?
ā Whatās considered ācleanā or āproperā?
ā How is parenting handled? Divorce?
Culture is what happens between plot points. It should shape your characterās assumptions, language, fears, and habitsāwhether or not a festival is going on.
āāāāāāā ā¦ āāāāāāā
6. š¬ Let Your Characters Disagree With Their Own Culture
A culture isnāt a monolith.
Even in deeply traditional societies, people:
ā Rebel
ā Question
ā Break rules
ā Misinterpret laws
ā Mock sacred things
ā Act hypocritically
ā Weaponize or resist whatās expected
Let your characters wrestle with the culture around them. Thatās where realism (and tension) lives.
āāāāāāā ā¦ āāāāāāā
7.š§¼ Beware the āPretty = Goodā Trap
Worldbuilding gets boring fast when:
ā The protagonistās homeland is beautiful and pure
ā The enemyās culture is dark and ābarbaricā
ā Every detail just reinforces who the reader should like
You canāand shouldāchallenge the aesthetic hierarchy.
ā Let ugly things be beloved.
ā Let beautiful things be corrupt.
ā Let your MC romanticize their culture and then get disillusioned by it later.
āāāāāāā ā¦ āāāāāāā
š TL;DR (but like, spicy):
ā Culture is not food and jewelry.
ā Culture is power, fear, memory, contradiction.
ā Stop inventing spices until you know who starved last winter.
ā Let your world feel lived in, not curated.
The best cultural worldbuilding doesnāt look like a list.
It feels like a system. A pressure. A presence your characters canāt escapeāeven if they try.
Now go. Build something real. (You can add spices later.)
ārin t.
// writing advice for worldbuilders with rage and range
// thewriteadviceforwriters
Sometimes the problem isnāt your plot. Itās your first 5 pages. Fix it here ā š¤ Free eBook: 5 Opening Pages Mistakes to Stop Making:
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A gothic prompt pack for writers who love cursed universities, secret societies, and scholarly rot.ā Write the Darkness āA 75-prompt horror
I feel like you're veering away from the most fundamental and interesting part of what makes a culture: material conditions.
What DO they eat? I don't mean the spice, though that's interesting for trade relations. I mean are they agricultural? Pastoralist? Forest gardening? Fishing? A magic-based system of sustenance that never existed IRL? What's the climate like? How long do they need to store food to make it through the year? How much latitude do they have before famine? What are the horizontal and vertical lines of association people form as a safety network for a bad year?
What's the weather like? What's the landscape like? Where, in what shape, and out of what do they build houses? Are there earthquakes, tornados, floods that they need to make their houses resistant to?
What's the wildlife like? What do they hunt and eat, what hunts and eats them, what do they consider sacred, what did they domesticate? What do they feed to the domesticated ones and how does this align with their own sustenance? Who can afford to keep, or not keep, animals? What do they have a symbiotic relationship with? What animals are pests and what animals hunt them? (Note: this includes bugs and birds)
How easy is it to find metal? Which metal? How easy is it to find stone? Clay? Wood? Other fuel? Sand? What's the most abundant/easy to grow resource to make fabric out of? What unique/rare resources do they have for trade? How easily defensible is the territory?
What food is considered low class "last resort before famine"? How does the wealthy/ruling class distinguish itself? What technology do they have? (Note: magic that actually works is technology) What's the demographic dynamic (dying out, boom-bust cycle, growing, stable)? How many children do they have and how many of them die? What trade/diplomatic links do they have? How much of the land is inhabited and by what principle? (Ie just the coast, fertile valleys with mountains in between, desert oases, along rivers, etc)
How widespread is literacy? How expensive are books? What do they use for non-book casual writing and how expensive is that? Do they have public education and for whom? How urbanized are they? How much do they use currency vs barter vs guy economy? ("I know a guy")
There's so, so much that forms a culture out of where they live and what they eat. You won't invent a truly interesting and deep culture without starting with how it grows out of the land it lives on. Aesthetics you can slap on top however you want, invent or steal, as long as they go on top of a solid foundation.
And that is where you can REALLY mess with worldbuilding. What about a subterranean culture that hides from deadly conditions on the surface? What about a seafaring culture that forms floating islands out of connected ships? What about a tree-dwelling culture that uses magic to ensure they have everything they need? What about a culture that actually legitimately needs blood sacrifice to appease deific neighbours? Building houses out of seaweed, wood, stone, clay, bones? Dragon riders, dragon tamers, dragon allies?
Most of what's in the OP is determined by / arises from the material conditions I've listed here. Oh, it's not RIGIDLY determined, there's still plenty of degrees of freedom, but lots of options get cut off as nonsensical. It's EASIER to build a society that hangs together if you start with what they eat. It doesn't matter what you call their staple grain, it matters where and how they grow it. The personality and relationships of their gods literally DESCRIBE their climate. Most religious/sacred customs are a form of passing on agricultural/hygienic/ecological/historical knowledge. Most aesthetics are based on what local materials are available+cheap to make pretty with.
You can do SO MUCH if you start with questions like "what way of life would naturally form around resetting dungeons"!!!!
Author note: The purpose of these homebrew mechanics was initially to make combat more dynamic, engaging and easier to track on DMās part by removing the AC, modifiers and need to keep note of NPCsā stats. It has become part of the original Crystalnest system, but still can be used as an alternative combat system for dnd-like ttrpg.
Combat initiative
Note: You can use your preferred home rules for setting up the initiative and freely skip this part.
At the start of the encounter determine which side has an advantage.
If neither side is taken by surprise, each side rolls d20 and the side with higher total sum starts the combat.
Players decide their action for the round and proceed in the following order:
Melee attacks (brawl/melee weapon/improvised melee weapon [Note: This system does not separate weapons to ācommon/militaryā but instead by a categories such ādaggers/swords/axes/ etcā])
Magic users
Note: The order between players can change in the next round.
Actions during the round
Each character during the round has the following actions (unless the status states otherwise ie. character being prone, unconscious etc)
Movement (1 per round)
Character can move to a distance equal their speed in squares/hexes (further as āmovement pontsāā) [Note: after finishing movement all unspent āmovement pointsā will expire until the next round]
āSprintā action:Ā
Gain 3 āmovement pointsā
Gain 1 opportunity on a dodge roll when being attacked during this round (roll 2 ādodge diceā and pick the better result)
Lose 1 active action (further as āaction pointā) for this round
āHold positionā action:Ā
trade the full amount of the āmovement pointsā to gain 1 extra āaction pointā for themself or one or the allies in this round
Active action (get 1 āaction pointā on beginning of each round):
Interact with objects, change weapon, prepare a reaction etc spending 1 āaction pointā
Attack
A roll of an āattack diceā against the target's d20 roll, the target must be in distance for the weapon.Ā
Author note: the weapon damage is ā1 hitā or equal to āattack diceā, depending on whether you use tally marks or hitpoints for your NPCs during combat.
Example: Rog the Paladin attacks kobold with an axe. Rogās player roll d20=14, game master rolls d20=11, Rog hits the kobold for 14 damage.
A Natural 20 (20 on d20 roll) is a critical role and doubles the damage.
Character is āengagedā if an enemy is next tile to them and neither of them are hidden by any means
Attack dice:
Weapon w/out proficiency, improvised weaponĀ - 1d12 (no special features)
Brawl - 1d12
āEngagedā characters cannot use ranged attacks and must either move or change weaponSpellcasting
Author note: This part is under construction at this stage, please, use your preferable magic system, with targetās AC substituted for a d20 roll for targeted damage spells.
When being attacked
When PC is being attacked they can either Dodge, Block or just take the damage.
Taking damage
When failed to deflect the attack the Player roll d100, and if the number below or equal their armour Protection score they receive half the damage.
Dodging
A roll of a ādodge diceā against the attacker's d20 roll, the ādodge diceā is determined by the armour
A successful Dodge allows to move to any unoccupied adjusted square
A fail will result in taking damage
Blocking
A roll of a āblock diceā against the attacker's d20 roll, the āblock diceā is determined by the shield type
A successful Block allows to push the attacker (if close) to any unoccupied adjusted square
A Block roll equal to the Attack roll in melee combat allows for Parry:
Eriast Empire (that rose during the light era and lost vast majority of it's territory during the cataclysms and is now is basically ruled by the religious sect that low-key xenophobic towards the "magic" races and magix in general - like, they officially erased the name of th3 god of magic (my boy Neivar) from any written mention in history thus making him the Nameless god) anyway
So Eriast doesn't really recognise elven marriage laws - with Eriast culture being heterocentric (even if homosexuality is not prosecuted but we remember - the cult) and elves being basically androgynous intersex moth people - so if elven couple wants to settle down in the empire (the cities) they have to live 3 years there together with strict split of the responsibilities basically playing "a providing husband" and "a hearth keeper wife"
The theme of the world is the cycle of light and darkness (with both of them being good and evil) like driving forces
But the cycle is not in the "cycle' style but more like a pendulum: one side gaining power, while the other loses it, until it reaches the limit where it becomes destructive and it becomes the catalyst for a major event that pushes the pendulum into the other direction with the grey area in the middle
The original dnd campaign for the setting was supposed to be taking place during the grey period: the witch king was killed and the reign of dark ended, the goddess of dark fell asleep but no light awoke from it
So the decisions of the players were supposed to push the pendulum into either direction
š š”š²š š¶šš²šŗ!
Marksmanās CloakāØWondrous item, rare (requires attunement by a ranger)
___
While wearing this cloak, you can concentrate on a second ranger spell you cast while also concentrating on āhunterās markā.Ā If you are forced to make a Constitution saving throw to maintain your concentration, you make only one save for both spells: if you fail the save, your concentration ends on both spells. If youāre only concentrating on āhunterās markā, your concentration on it canāt be broken as a result of taking damage.
___
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In my opinion, a magic item that is SO good for a given class that EVERYONE would want one, should not be a magic item. Or a feat, or anything selectable. It should be a houserule. (Unless everyone would want one because itās TOO powerful, in which case it shouldnāt exist at all.)
You fix the Hunterās Mark issue of the 5.5 Ranger by letting all Rangers concentrate on another spell at the same time. (Or just remove concentration from Hunterās Mark and get done with it.) Not by giving a nice cloak to one of them.
You fix the āI canāt damage anything in the undead-infested dungeon!ā problem of the 3.5 Rogue by letting all Rogues sneak attack undead. Not by giving a Truedeath Crystal to one of them.
Thereās this weird trend in 5e (and 5.5) homebrewing spaces, where additional items, feats and subclasses are cool, and we can never have enough of them, but houserules are scary and unfashionable. A Bag of Magic Items sounds like a gift of shiny toys, while a Bag of Houserules sounds like homework, right?
But I want to push back against it, because thatās just a trick of the mind. Houseruling a complex system like 3rd Edition or Pathfinder CAN be nightmare (ah, but did you consider how this new rule will interact with these other 3257 interconnected rules?), but tweaking 5th Edition is a piece of cake. Learning a new houserule and adopting it is also easy. And in many cases itās simply a better solution than introducing a bunch of new items and feats.
So thatās the gift, intangible but so beautiful: a better game.
You know, the "disturbingly too tall and inhumanly proportionate trickster entity that masquerade as an elf but any other elf think there's something wrong about him even if they can't pinpoint what and who would help people or send them the wrong way where they will die just to see where it will lead the story and who's also known as a few different entities while also being Nameless"
First, the egg lies around for 2-4 weeks in a safe place, then a ānarvaā (elven larva) emerges from it
This thing is the size of a palm and grows for a year, after which it pupates and spends in a cocoon for a year or more, on average from 3 to 5 years, but there are also rarely long cases (note: Landor remained in the cocoon for about 20 years)
By the time of pupation, the narva is usually 50-70cm in length
Narvas have short legs, a protruding triangular tail, the same ears and a dense barrel-shaped body covered with āfurā, which is why they can be mistaken for cats
Despite the fact that, unlike cats, they lack flexibility (and bones), and also have a strange resemblance to a face (note: there was evidence of the ability of narva to swim, raking with its paws)
Narvas are able to understand speech, and after 2-3 months they begin to speak
Narva are carnivorous and, like adults, are not mammals. Narvaās diet - raw meat
Basically, Narva is a carnivorous caterpillar covered with fur.
After a young elf leaves the cocoon, she acquires a number of random traits natural to her kind
The most common are: night vision, skin markings and moth-like wings.
Rare features include an extra pair of upper limbs or eyes.
In some cases, pupation is unsuccessful and instead of a āhumanoidā elf, a ātawariā emerges from the cocoon - a creature similar to a naturally grown adult narva
Tavari reach lengths of up to a meter and are comparable in all but their physical appearance to their bipedal counterparts
Tavari are capable of speech (although their voice remains its unnatural sound), magic and everyday affairs (with the appropriate tools, the Tavari retain their short legs after pupation, although they gain greater mobility)
Tavari have no natural means of reproduction, however given the elfs long lifespan and general indifference to their youth, this is not a known problem
(I'm torn between the idea that dl game should be something serious and beautiful and the desire to fit as much dumb silly bullshitvin there as i possibly can)
The problem is: I'm giggly bitch, I'm a silly goose, I'm not fit to writing *a dating sim* without stumbling into crack and casual shenanigans
I already want to put the tower OSHA violations problem in there
Hell, I can make a whole arc out of it
But I am pressured by expectations to make it GoodTM which means make it serious and beautiful and perfect and canon compliant
