A collection of my creative efforts

The various ramblings, writings, and other creative efforts of a wannabe writer/author/game designer

[czepeku-deactivated20260523]

Wuxia Tavern D&D Battlemap from Czepeku

Welcome to the Wuxia Tavern!

[dood-ld]

It’s been a while! Sorry for no new hermitcraft stuff, I’ve had a lot of other art projects I’ve been working on as of late, this being one of them! This is another dnd character portrait for a friend’s campaign!

[czepeku-deactivated20260523]

It's been a while since we made an ancient world themed map so we thought we'd attempt a Graeco-Roman inspired Bathhouse! 🛀

[drmapzo]

Hello, everyone!

A portal full of whimsical magic has appeared at the forest's lake!

Vegetation from another world has started to grow on the surroundings and strange creatures have started to cross over into our realm.

The group is now ready to go into the fairies' plane, what sort of magical adventures await them I wonder? Only time will tell!

The creature tokens for this map are a Frog Warrior, a Miner Fairy and a Stilt Fiend. Emerald tier gets the Frog Warrior while Diamond tier gets all three. In addition, Sapphire tier gets extra creature token variants.

You can see a preview of all of this week’s Patreon content here.

Thank you very much for taking a look and be sure to check out my Patreon where you can pledge for gridless version, alternate map versions as well as the tokens pertaining to this map.

[maunamaps]

The winter has been mild, and the snow thaws rapidly. As a result, it has been challenging to track the bandits whose heads you must collect. You know they used this bridge, but how long ago?

[raakdos-battlemap]

The Biblioplex - Scrying Chamber 32x56

The Biblioplex is a vast library that is said to hold the knowledge of the Multiverse. The largest library in the Multiverse, it is an enormous domed building that rises above the rest of the campus in Strixhaven, Arcavios.

More variations of this map:

Strixhaven Encounters #001 The Biblioplex - Scrying Chamber 32x56 | Raakdos

Get more from Raakdos on Patreon

[kaiju-emperor]

Help Me Keep My House

So, as of the making of this post, we still have to pay property taxes on the house we inherited from grandma. Of late, I started making more money, but I'm still short on funds. I need to pay as much of the property tax as possible before June 30th, which is when it goes to collections. If we can’t pay, it could lead to eviction and sale of the house to the county. Please, if you can send any money my way, it would be greatly appreciated. Every little bit helps.

TLDR Need help paying off taxes so I don't lose my home.

Writing Commission Info

P*ypal: paypal.me/kaijuemperor

C*shapp: $JoeyDauzart

05/7/2024 0$/2600$

[kaiju-emperor]

05/13/2024

265$/2600$

[dailyadventureprompts]

Encounter: The Bridgebuilder's Impasse

Frustrated with interruptions to the flow of commerce, a local caravan magnate has hired your party to slay the giant who's repeatedly destroyed the bridge spanning a turbulent river causing delays and costly detours across the realm. The one wrinkle to this otherwise straightforward mission is that the giant is the one who built the bridge in the first place, and rather than hunting a rampaging monster you and your companions have signed on to assassinate a beloved local artisan.

Whoever said “two heads are better than one” never met the giant Gilbult Gultib (or Gultib Gilbult, as he often insists) who far more embodies the adage “Every artist is their own worst critic”.  Immensely talented in stonecutting and engineering, Gilbult (or Gultib depending on who you ask) has been building and rebuilding the same bridge for the better part of two centuries, sometimes letting it stand for a generation, sometimes scrapping it and starting over several times over the course of the same month. 

With a perfectionist streak as wide as the river he's trying to cross, neither head can agree how, muchless when the bridge should be finished, agreeing only that what came before will be insufficient going forward and that they must return to the drafting board once again.

Adventure Hooks:

The locals are of divided opinion about Gultib Gilbult, most regard him as something of a curiosity, as much a fixture of the landscape as the river itself, while others see him as a gruff but otherwise pleasant neighbour or family friend. There's a very vocal minority that wish that he would get on with building the bridge, or else move and leave the maintenance to someone who won't tear it down on a whim, especially the merchants who end up paying an arm and a leg on unexpected barge fees. There's been an uptick in those actively calling for the giant to be driven off, all of which just so happen to be in the pay of the local quarry owner, who's in talks with the Caravan magnate about the construction of a tollbridge in the near future.

Having reached a new low of indecision, the giant has resulted to gambling with himself to decide the composition of this version of the bridge, anteing particular stones against himself in the hope that luck and strategy will let the superior side of his mind win out. This is just as much a stalemate as any other, but may present an opportunity for the party to resolve the situation without violence.

The tricky thing about accepting adventuring contracts from successful merchants is that they're VERY good at paperwork, and while this one did come with a sizeable advance, the fine print threatens numerous penalties (including debt and possible outlawing) if the party don't fulfill their end of the bargain and take out the giant in a timely manner.

Artist

[the-griffons-saddlebag]

💎 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺! Ring of the Koi
Ring, rare ___

While wearing this ring, you can breathe underwater, and you have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed. In addition, you can swim up waterfalls; doing so costs 2 feet of movement for every 1 foot you move.

𝙃𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙙 𝙒𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙧. You can perform a special ritual over the course of 10 minutes; doing so requires the “ring of the koi” and a golden basin worth no less than 100 gp, which must be filled with water. At the end of the ceremony, you drop the ring in the basin. The ring is then destroyed, but duplicates the effects of the “hallow” spell, centered on the basin of water. This version of the spell uses the Courage option for its extra effect. When a creature finishes a long rest within the spell’s area, it gains the benefit of the “ring of the koi’s” other effects for the next 24 hours. ___

✨ Patrons get huge perks! Access this and hundreds of other item cards, art files, and compendium entries when you support The Griffon’s Saddlebag on Patreon for less than $10 a month!

[dailyadventureprompts]

Adventure: The Big Ambitions of Baron Bittly

Monsters from the primal expanse of the Drovidiin Wilds have been appearing without warning in the kingdom’s heartland, somehow teleported hundreds of miles to rampage through towns and cities. After more than one skirmish with the beats, your party has ventured to the bordertown of Thimblewell on the edge of the wilds, seeking answers.

Adventure Hooks:

Though the party have heard whisperings of the beast attacks before, their firsthand exposure to the phenomenon comes when they hear screams and cries coming from the town’s fancy playhouse. An acid spitting drake has somehow found its way inside the building during the middle of the performance and its rampage threatens to bring the house down.

Tasked with tracking down a crew of bandits that’ve been plundering local caravans, the party’s raid of the outlaw’s encampment is thrown into chaos when one of their targets breaks open an innocuous crate, pulls out a glowing glass canister and smashes it in the middle of the melee: unleashing a beast in a burst of blue light into an already chaotic final battle.

The party find a strange tension when they arrive in the town of Thimblewell. Though the settlement has a long history of being beset by monsters from the primeval wilderness it borders, there’ve been no attacks for the past several years and no one seems to want to talk about why. Eventually a disgruntled former guardsman points them in the direction of the local landholder, an amateur mage with a reputation for conducting strange experiments. He fails to mention that said mage has a defence system built into his manse, and that he’s been expecting the party’s arrival for some time.

Keep reading

[czepeku-deactivated20260523]

Dwarven City D&D Illustration

Welcome to the Dwarven City Centre!

[eightfoldpaper]

[artwheat]

npc tokens for a d&d adventure

[zephyrbug]

Zosha Aulak my ‘human’ noble celestial warlock!!  👁⛓⚜️ Older art! This was my character in the game I was in with the Wailing Wisteria, they had opposite vibes but both believed in no mercy and bonded over that   This piece was overall a lil rushed cause I wanted to finish it before our first session but this was on of the first times I began to play with my painting style! And I got to try having a character design where the main outfit color is black so I’m still pretty happy with the outcome!

[dungeonmapster]

The Mystic Pool, a set of certified bangers from Jon over at the Dungeonmapster discord. He does beautiful work!

[kaistome]

Wish I ever got feedback on my homebrew creations .

[kaistome]

Creating Pantheons For Your Homebrew Setting

When creating a new world or setting for your players to explore, one of the first questions that is asked is who are the gods of this world? There many different methods and options for creating pantheons and gods. No one option is better or worse than the other. Here are some examples of how to get started and a few different options. 

One of the easiest options is cherry-picking existing gods from other settings. This can be used in any method of creating a pantheon. Not all of your deities have to be completely original. Sometimes taking from established dnd settings or even real world religions can even act as a stepping stone for creating other gods. For example if you have a god who has an established portfolio, you can then try to create a god who is the opposition to that god. Tiamat and Bahamut are perfect examples of deities that exist as two conflicting aspects. You can also take that established deity and tweak them to suit your needs, maybe even giving them a new name to differentiate them from their canon counterpart.

Another method is to look at existing religions and pantheons and see what kinds of deities are common across many religions and the create deities of those aspects. They can be a good foundation for building upon. As an example, many religions have a deity of the sun, moon, nature, the sea, life, and death. Other fun types of deities that exist in a lot of cultures are deities or alcohol, and trickster gods. These basic foundational gods can be a starting to point and then allow you to spread out into other granular aspects of the world that the gods have sway over. 

Going off something I said earlier with creating a god and then their opposite. This can be another fun method of creating deities. Having all of your gods exist as pairs of opposing or even complementary forces. Other groupings such as triads can be fun route as well. An example of a triad is in greek myth, where the three brothers, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades rule over the heavens, the sea, and the underworld. Another example of a triad would be creating a god of law, a god of chaos, and a god of neutrality. Not all the gods in your pantheon have to follow the trends of pairs or triads if you use this method but it does create a good starting point. 

Finally the method that I think works for new DMs the best who insist on using their own gods. Only start with two or three gods. Your players do not need to know the detailed history and entire expansive pantheon to enjoy your world. Create a handful of gods to sprinkle in as the players start to play in your world and create more as needed. This way your world can grow organically from your players experiences. This method also lends itself very well to one of your first gods being a god created by a player who wants to play a religious character. Work together to create that deity and use some of the methods above to build upon that starting deity created by you and your player. This starting small method also extends to any DMs out there looking to create a world. Start small, creating a starting town and maybe a few surrounding points of interest, as well as temples to one or more of these handful of starting deities. From this small starting point you can slowly branch out as you and your players create and explore the world together.

These methods are not the be all end all of methods for pantheon creation and there are many more. Find what works for you and best of luck creating new worlds.