Proud to announce the first character highlight of the week this is Luna!!!!
I’ll be doing some Luna art and qna questions this week since she won first place in my poll. So feel free to send in any asks with questions. I’ll be going over some other stuff as well.
Luna is a Shifter Beast Barbarian/ Battlemaster who grew up in the city of Redwater as an underground fighter. This character belongs to my player Kamd and has greatly developed throughout the campaign.
She’s a blunt domesticated canine shifter who fought her way tooth and nail out of her old life as a pit fighter. Taken as a pup by pirates she was forced to fight under the Lords of Redwater for entertainment. As she grew older and rugged she bought her freedom and found her wife. She lost her wife in childbirth, and despite the baby not being hers she loved this child as her own. Naming her “Dawn” her new goal, is to become a loving mother and find a newer, safer life, for Dawn to live far from the crimes of Redwater.
Luna now works for The Collector, and has found a deep sense of motherhood in her fellow party members.
She is mostly recognized by her “fight not think” mentality and her Southern Draw. She is based off of a Banhkar Mastiff
question: can D&D vampires eat normal food if they want? Astarion canonically drinks wine in the game, although he complains about the flavor; just curious if he could eat food if he wanted, though I'm assuming he doesn't really derive any nutrients from it.
Thanks for the ask!
VP by @alstromeri-a
5th Edition D&D (Monster Manual, p. 295) and earlier sources make a few points clear:
• Vampires do not require food or drink other than blood.
• Consuming ordinary food or beverages provides no nourishment, no satiety, and no mechanical benefit.
• Many sources note that mortal food sits poorly in a vampire’s body—often leading to nausea, coughing it back up, or a deeply inconvenient and undignified retching fit. (Strahd himself is written as disdaining mortal food unless he is trying to perform humanity.)
But
Previous editions, most particularly the Libris Mortis and 3.5 Ravenloft adventure guides tell a more nuanced story.
• Vampires can taste food, but the sensation is muted—like hearing a beloved song through a closed door.
• Some can swallow and momentarily enjoy texture or flavor, but their bodies reject it soon after.
• A few rare variants (Dhampirs, Daywalkers, certain cursed lines) can digest mortal food with effort—but still gain no nourishment.
The lore leans heavily on symbolism:
pleasure without sustenance, beauty without life, longing without fulfillment.
Hi Morri! Happy World-Building Wednesday! When you're writing about your D&D Characters in either pre-made campaigns or campaigns designed by a DM, how do you engage with the worlds in which they're set and to what extent do you do your own worldbuilding?
// @crypticpaths
Hi Quentin!!! Thank you for the ask!!!! Especially thank you for asking about my D&D stuff!!! (There is nothing in the world I love talking about more.)
This is going under the cut because I talk a LOT.
But the short answer is: It depends on the campaign, but in all of them I have at least some degree of a collaborative relationship with my DM. (I'm very lucky and have some awesome DMs in my life. Two of them are two of my best friends in the world!)
So, the answer is that it depends on the campaign!!!! Some of the campaigns are pre-written modules, and so they have some pretty strict worldbuilding.
Drakkenheim (Carrion's campaign) is an excellent example of this, because the worldbuilding is literally the entire foundation of the plot and the campaign. So for his game, I will ask my DM if I'm about to break the rules of that setting.
For example, I had originally said that when Carrion was a child he was stuck under the rubble of his home for a few hours before being rescued. However, she told me that anyone who didn't leave within ~2 hours post-meteor died. So, we changed it so that he had been under there about an hour before being found by a group of Silver Order members who were trying to fight their way out of the city, instead of coming in to look for survivors.
It ended up making some really cool ideas that I swear I will someday turn into a vignette thing.
Actually, fun fact about Carrion: Theodore is actually a major campaign NPC. He's the leader of the Silver Order, one of the 5 major factions in the campaign. The DM was kind enough to let me borrow him for my backstory.
However, I have other campaigns that are totally homebrew, and in that case, it's a bit different. A good example is Rook's game, where I have been responsible for creating a non-insignificant portion of the world lore.
When I first joined Rook's campaign, the rest of the party had already been playing for 6 months. As I was messaging the DM about potential characters, I mentioned Rook and a vague overview of his backstory (escaped after having been captured and tortured by a rival pirate captain). The DM excitedly messaged me back to tell me that he had already had the nebulous idea of a pirate villain for the second arc of the campaign.
So we essentially built Wolf (and her crew) together. Zara was entirely my creation. However, their shared backstory was the DM's creation, and was as much a surprise to me as it was to Rook.
I was able to create Rook's father, and the DM slotted him nicely into the ruling council of an already existing elven-majority country on the continent. (He also added a bunch of connections to Purity / the CoE which I didn't know about, but was thrilled about when I found out.)
Creating Val (my temporary character when Rook got kidnapped)'s backstory was similar. I pitched the idea of a tiefling gang in the town where they party would take Rook post-rescue, and the DM was like "Can you read my mind?" As it turns out, canonically that area of the continent had previously been under control of the Hells, so them having a poor opinion of tieflings made perfect sense.
I will say, Rook's game is honestly probably an exception, even among homebrew games, partly because the DM and I have uncannily similar thought processes when it comes to storytelling. The number of times I have accidentally read his mind is much higher than it should be.
Also, I will point out that I have a lot of creative free-reign in that campaign because I often will create homebrew monsters for the DM to use, and will also make combat or other maps for him sometimes. However, in general, that DM is rather collaborative, and enjoys letting us plan things with him. (There's pretty much always at least one thing planned for the future that someone in the group helped scheme up and is hiding from the rest of us.)
Oh. And not only did I name and design 3 different sailing ships (Wolf's, Zara's, and Val's), I also created my own ship combat mechanics from scratch, made stat blocks for all three ships, and made battle maps for each deck of all three ships. All of which took months of work, and is probably my all-time TTRPG magnum opus.
Cyra's game is also homebrew, but the DM is a lot more secretive. So while I did add things to the world, the process is a bit more similar to Carrion's game.
I came up with Cyra's parents, and the fact that they lead a Lighthouse in the wasteland. Cyra and another PC share a connection via Nelne, the leader of the Iron Maw Ravage who used Cyra as a living weapon. (She was the creation of the other player, though.)
I also created Cyra's ex-gf Eris, and gave the DM a few ideas about what her deal might be, but ultimately left it up to him.
I also came up with Cyra's little "mission trip" to Solarion where she met Eris, as well as Rin, the tavern/bar owner who let Cyra and Eris hang around despite her strict no-cultist policy.
Another player and I decided that their PC (a doctor) had been the one to help Cyra out after she arrived in Solarion.
thank youuu boo 💖
21. If they were a potion, what would they look like? (color, glass shape, smell, etc.)
Ohhh! I think Jessica would be iridescent green with hints of blue and purple. She'd be a teardrop shaped bottle and would probably smell almost sweet? Like warm vanilla. Maybe a draught of creativity or something like that.
27. If they were a ghost, how would they haunt in the afterlife?
Jessica's a fucking menace. If she were a ghost she'd probably pull out all the horror movie tropes to terrorize people who deserve it.
40. Describe a corruption/redemption arc version of your character.
OH. OH. I took forever answering because of this fucking question.
In an alt world where Gale was driven by his thirst for power and the Crown of Karsus it would take very little for his beloved Jessica to follow. He'd ascend into Godhood and she'd go mad with desperation and depression in the six months that followed. By the time he returned, shiny and ready to bring her with him Jessica would happily accept the chance to wield power. Inspiration and Ambition.
Questions can be found here
Hello! Questions 3 and 10 for Coronis from the character asks please! 💗
Hello! Wonderful to hear from you, thank you for your ask! :)
3) Has your character ever had a day job unrelated to their class? If no, what do you think they'd be suited for?
I don’t think she has. Every job she’s had has been working in a temple in some form. It’s kinda taken up her whole life and is a core part of her lol. She doesn’t really know what else she would do. She ofc is an excellent fighter so she could do some sort of job like that, but that would still be related to her class. So, I think if she could do anything she wanted without having to worry about money or survival, I think she’d be a painter or a sculptor. She does have some artistic skill, but never really honed it or pursued it. Once she attempted to paint Chandaura but was disappointed because it didn’t look like her. She hasn’t really tried since then. She has always been so focused on her faith and training that she doesn’t pursue many hobbies. I also think she would be a great history teacher. Coronis absolutely adores history and could talk about it for hours if you let her.
Here’s my answer for number 10!
(Thought I had uploaded it already but apparently I posted the wrong draft lol)
OH, HI NONNY!!!! You send this to me on the day of my Biggest Brainrot... glorious.
I'm not really sure where to start, or how much you know. I'm going to direct you to this post, where I talked about his relationship with Rook.
But if you're already read that and want more, I have plenty more to say. I'm going to try to keep it short-ish, but knowing me it's going to be an essay.
UPDATE: yeah, it got kinda long. It's all in bulletpoints though, so it's not actually too bad. Putting it under the cut for length reasons.
Sigmar doesn't actually exist. He was just a name and persona used by the BBEG, Dr. Purity, for one of his many corpse-puppets.
The body Rook knew as Sigmar has actually been dead for 12 years.
Before it died (the first time), it belonged to a scientist working for Oriana, the evil queen (at the time. she was deposed by the group's previous dnd party, before I joined.)
The body was destroyed by the party in some pretty brutal ways. The essentially tortured him to death.
Whenever Rook next runs into one of the corpse puppets, I want him to ask if Purity can feel what happens to the bodies. When talking to the DM about the reasoning for the question, I said "It's not about whose body he's possessing currently. It's about "I watched my friends tear you apart. Did you feel them do it?""
Anyways, back to Sigmar.
Despite being a persona / fake identity, the DM told me that Sigmar is the closest thing to the real person behind the mask of Dr. Purity. (We know like 5 false names he's used but not his real one.) I am so very normal about this.
He's very prickly (especially to people other than Rook), and most of the other players kinda hated him when he was traveling with the party. Unfortunately for me, there's nothing I love more than prickly unpleasant characters who don't know how to love.
Speaking of not knowing how to love, after Sigmar's true identity was revealed and Sigmar's body was destroyed, Rook went and searched his house. In a hidden cupboard, he found a book that featured a mentor character. The margins were filled with notes of how to fill that role for Rook.
As the above point proves, he really truly does love Rook. (And Rook still loves him, or at least he loves Sigmar, not Dr. Purity.)
He was the first person to ever find out that Rook was cursed by a demon lord, and that was thanks to him beating Rook's 26 Deception roll by one (27 Insight).
His house has way too many clocks, which is apparently because Dr. Purity sets all kinds of alarms to keep an eye on the MANY corpse-puppets he has.
Or well, it used to. Rook set it on fire after finding the book. No one in the party knows Rook even went there, and given that the same night Captain Wolf destroyed all the buildings owned by the Merchant's Guild, one more little arson went unnoticed.
His token has a hat and mirrored sunglasses. My sim version of him has the hat, but I can't quite take him seriously with the sunglasses.
He gave Rook the first (and so far only) birthday present he has ever received. It was a ring with an emerald (Rook's birthstone) in it.
After Sigmar found out about Rook's curse, Rook snuck out to find an enchanter to enchant the ring Sigmar gave him to hide the physical signs of his lack of sleep. On the way, he saw Sigmar doing something very similar to hide the effects of the poison from Ivan. (See the doc I linked at the top for a bit of story on that.)
Oh, and he was also the first (and for a very long time only) person to know who Rook's father is. Not even Zara knows that information, and the 2nd person who found out (an NPC old lady barbarian) only found out because she's from the city-state Rook's father helps govern and knows what he looks like.
Actually, he probably knows Rook better than anyone else in the world does, given that Rook is only starting to get to know Zara again after 3 years not seeing each other. (Also, they are only just beginning to get to know each other on an even footing, now that she named him captain in her place.)
He played our party wizard (who knew from the beginning about Sigmar's true identity) in chess, and the wizard won (we rolled dice). The wizard specifically narrated using his rook to take Sigmar's king.
His own daughter called him old and a loser. (She didn't know he was her father, and she's more of his science experiment.)
Rook once told him he had been assassinated by replying to Simgar's "You're lucky to be alive!" with a simple "I wasn't, yesterday."
Also later the same day he ran into Sigmar (literally) after a very intense combat, and the first thing he said was "I think I died again." (Which was true. Not Rook's best few days, lmao.)
He taught Rook three chess-themed combat moves, called gambits, that I can use. The first one was obviously based on the rook piece, but I also learned moves based on the pawn and the king.
In the Evil Rook AU, he has a full set of gambits, one for every piece on the board.
Sigmar and Rook's shared tarot card is the Seven of Swords, because it mostly has to do with deception.
I gave his sim the same ring I gave Rook's father's sim without knowing his true identity at the time. It was probably just because I don't have many good rings for masc sims, but I like to think it was a subconscious nod to Sigmar having told Rook that he knew his father. (Apparently it's the Asshole Ring now, hahaha.)
His sim version looks like this:
This is the Sigmar/Purity playlist:
And this is the playlist for Sigmar and Rook:
(I think Matt Maeson owes me money for emotional damages from how accurate his songs are. /j. Also Burning Down is the most perfect song of all time to describe Rook and Sigmar.)
