I think this is my favourite spell I’ve ever written. I’m not sorry.
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I think this is my favourite spell I’ve ever written. I’m not sorry.
How to Structure a Oneshot That Hits Like a Thunderclap
“A good oneshot is a single breath—sharp in, slow out.”
A oneshot isn’t just a short story. It’s a moment, a mood, a slice of intimacy that wouldn’t survive being stretched into a full-length fic. Here’s how to make it count.
Pick One Core Emotion
Build the whole thing around a single feeling. Obsession. Longing. Regret. Euphoria. Grief.
If a full-length fic is a symphony, your oneshot is a single piano note.
Ask: What should the reader feel when they finish?
Ex: “This oneshot is about the moment someone realizes they’ve already fallen in love.”
Limit the Timeline
Don’t span days. Or even hours, if you can help it. The strongest oneshots focus on a single scene or moment.
A kiss in a hallway.
A final goodbye at dawn.
A confession said too late.
Tight time = tight tension.
Start Late, End Early
Drop us into the scene already in motion—no lengthy set-up. And leave us just after the climax, not long after.
Don’t: “They met three years ago and…”
Do: “It’s raining the night he finally says it.”
Your oneshot should feel like eavesdropping on something private.
Structure Like This
ACT I: Setup (15–25%)
Who are we with? Where are we? What’s simmering under the surface?
ACT II: The Shift (50–70%)
Something changes. A kiss. A fight. A confession. A memory.
The mood deepens or flips—this is your emotional peak.
ACT III: The Fallout (15–25%)
How does it end? A single line. A final look. A choice not made.
Leave a lingering echo, not an epilogue.
Let Style Do the Heavy Lifting
A oneshot gives you space to lean into voice, imagery, and metaphor. Write like it’s the last thing you’ll ever write.
“He says her name like it’s a prayer, but the gods stopped listening hours ago.”
Mood. Matters.
Or you could go with the One act story structure... BTW, Youtube and Tiktok do this a lot, so in your bones you know it. If you cut the three Act and then pick the other advice, that's a one-act story structure. You aim for a particular mood or thought in one go.
Start Late, End Early comes from Edgar Allen Poe advice about short stories.
One Act as in TV/movie structure comes from the great Alice Guy Blaché who said she didn't invent it, but did use it. (Also invented things like the close up and the majority of early film language.)
I've traced the history of the three act structure and its origins before... so I'd be beating a dead horse by this point. But for a short or a one-shot, sometimes cutting the number of acts down is better.
For example, Musicals have 2 acts cut down from Opera's 3 acts. And Opera's 3 acts is different from the whole mutated Syd Field 3-act structure.
Highlighting the thinkers so people can examine them, actually think about it, see if it really does apply, and check my and other people's works. Because I saw what happens when people don't give credit.
Have you ever created a character without ever playing them ?
God All the time, I love my ocs
Sometimes I like creating characters to see how the system works
Sometimes for games that never went past session 0
Never created a character that I didn't play
What Critical Role campaign did you start with?
C1, as it was airing
C1, as C2 was airing
C1, as C3 is airing
C1 after watching TLOVM
C1 after watching Calamity
C2, as it was airing
C2, as C3 is airing
C2, after watching TLOVM
C2, after watching Calamity
C3, as it’s airing
C3, after watching TLOVM
C3, after watching Calamity
So, so curious about how the fandom came to be, and where y’all started. I’m especially interested to see which events (start of a new campaign, TLOVM, Calamity) brought in the most fans, and which campaign most people started with.
I know lots of folks start and finish campaign in between campaigns/across many years, so please mark when you started your first campaign. I’m also not necessarily asking about campaigns you’ve finished, so if you’re in-progress, just mark your primary starter campaign!
Critical Role Ask Game
satyr: how did you discover critical role
dragonborn: when did you start watching
human: what is your favorite main campaign
elf: what is your favorite side campaign
dwarf: what is your favorite one-shot
tiefling: who is your favorite female player
gnome: who is your favorite male player
halfling: who is your favorite dm
half-elf: who is your favorite guest player
goliath: who is your favorite campaign 1 character
changeling: who is your favorite campaign 2 character
genasi: who is your favorite campaign 3 character (so far)
goblin: who is your favorite non-main campaign character
aasimar: what is your favorite location in exandria (or out of it)
eisfuura: who is your favorite npc
wizard: what is your favorite party name
paladin: what is your favorite friendship
monk: what is your favorite canon relationship
druid: what is your favorite non-canon ship
bard: what is your favorite “how do you want to do this?”
rogue: what was a moment that made you cry
fighter: what was your favorite funny moment
paladin: what was your favorite badass moment
cleric: what is your favorite battle
barbarian: who is your favorite villain
ranger: who is your favorite animal companion
warlock: what is your favorite critical role merch
sorcerer: what is your favorite sam commercial skit
concept: there are lots of different worlds and all of them have different levels of access to magic. Some are just all over the place and some have no magic at all.
You would think that we would be one of the strictly non-magical worlds, but actually, that’s not the case—we don’t have like, a huge excess of magic, but we have, like, dreams, and the placebo effect, which puts us pretty solidly in the “Numinous” world category.
This post brought to you by the placebo effect, which is completely insane if you think about it for more than like 3 seconds
but for some reason we insist on thinking of it like “so people’s symptoms improve, but like, it’s Fake” rather than “HOLY SHIT humans are so powerful, they can improve the symptoms of their illnesses just by believing they are being cared for.”
Anyway just imagine like
Human, suddenly sucked by portal into a Magical Land: damn I wish I came from a magical world lol
Elf wizard dude: hahaha bro what are you talking about
Human: well, my world is just—
Elf wizard dude: what about the magic rocks????
Human: What magic rocks?
Elf wizard dude: You know, the magic rocks. The ones that generate near infinite energy by tearing apart the fabric of their reality? You know, like, uranium? You haven’t found those yet?
Human: Wait wait wait. That’s not—
Elf wizard dude: And like, come on, you even have some low level necromantic spells over there, like—
Human: We do not have necromantic spells, what are you talking about
Elf wizard dude: didn’t you say your friend was an EMT though? they do that shit all the time. Hell, you don’t even have to be like a high level caster or some shit, it takes like a few weeks to learn CPR
Human: Wh—
Elf wizard dude: You guys do have CPR, right?
Human: I mean yes but—what the—CPR is not necromancy!! That’s not how it works, it doesn’t bring people back from the—well I guess technically it does but that doesn’t—
Elf wizard dude: Next you’re going to be telling me Mothman doesn’t “count” either.
Human:
Human: …
Human: …What.
Human: You don’t understand. I mean…Radioactivity kills people!
Elf wizard dude: Ohhh. You got just the cursed magic rocks.
Human: …
Elf wizard dude: Damn. That sucks man.
Elf wizard dude: So you have no talking animals? None?
Human: Well I mean—there is that one type of parrot but like that doesn’t—
Elf wizard dude: godDAMN it
It got better!
Human: Oh, right, and various of the corvids. Ravens and that. They talk too.
Elf wizard dude: And no sapient animals? At all?
Human: Well ... I mean, depends what you call ‘sapient’. Crows remember who’s nice to them and bring them presents, and will get the whole flock to attack people who are mean to them, and cats basically conned us into lavishing them with food and attention--
Elf wizard dude: And that?
Human: Oh, that’s a pigeon. They’re really dumb, though.
Elf wizard dude: It’s getting on your public transport network!
Human: Yeah, it’ll get off at its stop-- wait.
Elf wizard dude: CATCHING ON YET?!?
Elf wizard dude: Well, at least you don't have the thinking sand oracles.
Human: The what?
Elf wizard dude: OK, this one is real crazy. Powerful arcanists take sand, use heat spells to extract certain materials from it, and melt them into these runes, right? I mean, there's some metal components too, even gold. And they're all put onto these handheld boards in these runic channels. Then these cover these magic sand boards with glass, that they can conjure images of artificial realities onto...
Human: Oh shit dude, I think that's just cell phones.
Elf wizard dude: You gave them telepathy?!
This absolutely made my day!!!
25 Magical Artifact Adventure Seeds
by Robb at readytorole.com
The Chaos Blade is said to be a sword forged in the fires of the world when it was still forming. The since ruined Temple of Order were the last known keepers of the accursed weapon but murmurs have emerged of many treasure hunters looking for it.
The rise of demons serving under the dark god has led to an increased search for the lost temple of the goddess of love. Her holy weapon, the maul Heartbreaker, is the only weapon known that could defeat the dark god, her former lover.
The Staff of Soulcatching has made its way into the hands of the mad queen and she is already abusing the powers of it. A rogue faction has been seeking adventurers brave enough to siege the castle before she siphons the souls of her entire city.
A pair of throwing daggers, Lionspride and Wolfspack, are entombed in a statue of two brother generals stabbing each other at their final battle. Many have tried to pry them from the statue but magic repels all but siblings from even trying.
A famous escape artist was once the owner of the aptly named Doordagger; a dagger that could carve a door into any surface. She and the crew of the ship that were detaining her met their end when she thought to carve a door into the bottom of the ship, not expecting to immediately flood the ship and drown with her captors.
Originally a gift to mortals by the god of nature, the Longbow of the Harvest can spread and speed up the growth of flora by being cast over any land. A group of misguided druids have gotten their hands on it and now spread briers and poisonous plants towards civilization as a way to make them atone for their perceived crimes against nature.
The Maze of the Laughing God is home to a few treasures and many a trap, but the only ones ever recovered were the Lockpick Bolts used to magically undo locks from a distance. After the last bolt was used by a notorious criminal they are said to have returned to the maze, waiting to be won again.
In the underground tunnels that run beneath the dwarven mountains the Stoneshield has fallen into the hands of the wretched trolls. While they are unsure of how to wield its power, their shaman king wears it as a belt buckle to mock those who once had it.
A shield known as The Tower is famous for its ability to house its wielder inside of a magical tower at a moment’s notice. However, after the last wielder refused to leave, many feared his death, and many more feared so after seeing and hearing signs of the undead coming from the magical tower.
The otherworldly Djinnplate, crafted by the efreeti and other djinn, was stored in a magic lamp much as they sometimes are imprisoned. The effects of this wondrous armor are not known to mortals, but that has not stopped dragons of terrible renown from fighting over the lamp that holds the relic.
The Crowfeather Robe has been the ire of many an adventurer who sought to slay the infamous lich of the wastes. Whenever his defeat is imminent he simply turns into a murder of crows, flying away and appearing at whatever crow is most suitable to him as he returns to his lair.
The Cloak of the Colorless once gave a mercenary power to best the most experienced swordsmen in single battle. Misconstruing the intent of the cloak, a dryad that lived inside of a painting lured the mercenary inside where he would be forced to live in color without a way out of the painting.
They say to be wary of old women gambling away magic garments on the side of the road to travelers. A hag is known to lose away the Twicehexed Mantle to those down on their luck, first bringing them great fortune and then having them lose it all and then some for the entertainment of the hag.
In the dungeon of woe lies a relic that is key to escaping through its mouse-sized hallways. The Belt of Shrinking allows the wearer to tighten the belt, growing smaller as they do so until they stop pulling on it, though loosening it doesn’t seem to make you grow any larger.
The tribes of the desert have a legend that says inside every shooting star is a ring that will imbue the wearer with the strength of the star itself. One recently crashed down in the desert and the tribes have been in conflict over it ever since.
On the wrist of a most loved king in an ancient tomb is the Bracelet of the Worldeater. The bracelet is said to have been the key to destroying the entire world and was given to the king as a way to stop it from falling into the wrong hands. The sight of skeletons stirring in the tomb has given way to a terrible feeling of despair around the world.
In the Hall of the Unseen is the Ring of the Observer, a ring which allows anyone looking through it to see any and all invisible matter. The irony is that the Hall of the Unseen can only be seen through the ring, but the ring itself is visible to any who approach the hall, unable to reach it through invisible walls and protected by invisible creatures.
The prince of the cloud giants wears the Sun Necklace as a bracelet around his wrist. In truth the necklace can command the sun stay where it is or call it in the night, but even when told the prince refuses to give it up or use its power for good.
A fanatical group of anti-magic crusaders have taken up the Nullmagic Axe as a way to stop the use of magic in the region. The axe has been able to slice through magical barriers and weapons with ease, and effectively cuts down those with magic in their veins.
Yesterday’s Orb allows one to scry into events of the past and get a true understanding of history. A cult of chronomancers have seen to taking and hiding the orb as they fear some might use its power to change the timeline of the world and alter history and future both.
Alongside many other banners outside of a dragon’s cave is the Stoneheart Banner. Simply being in the presence of the immaculate banner removes the fear from mortals in the face of certain death, which the dragon has come to appreciate as his meals become more frequent.
Underneath a landslide are the Boots of the Immovable. What is not immovable is the rest of the body of one wearing these boots, which was found bloody and flattened at the bottom of the landslide.
After the king was poisoned, it was discovered his chef had been using a mysterious Gemstone of Flavor that had the ability to mask or enhance the flavors of any ingredients. When asked why he would do such a thing to his king the chef replied that the gemstone told him to.
A thousand years ago, a crazed gnomish sorcerer created the Clockwork Cube of Destruction. It laid dormant in his workshop until recently when it was seen rolling around the countryside, slaughtering livestock by simply touching them.
The archmage has put out a discrete call for adventurers to retrieve a stolen artifact of his. He claims that a thief must have bypassed his magical securities to take his Bag of Portals, which can pull any creature from any plane of existence randomly.
Geomorphic dungeon tutorial
Geomorphs are essentially little bits of dungeon that fit together in any orientation, and they’re probably one of the most fun things I’ve ever messed around with when it comes to TTRPG mapping.
They’re great to make when the blank page seems too intimidatong because a little 10x10 bit of a dungeon is a smaller commitment than a full dungeon, you can make them in a couple minutes, and if you get into the habit of drawing one or two every once in a while you’ll soon build up a big library you can use to make dungeons of any size.
So here’s how to make ‘em.
Draw a 10 by 10 square. Place entrances on the 3rd and 8th square of every side
(You can actually do any size as long as all entrances are the same distance from the corner)
Draw a bit of a dungeon however you want. Not all entrances need to be accessible from each other, some can even be dead ends.
Optionally, draw some 5x10 and 5x5 ones to close off edges and corners.
Draw a lot of them
When you have a full page, cut them
(I store mine in ziploc bags to avoid losing them)
Assemble them! If you placed the entrances correctly, they should fit together no matter how you place them or rotate them.
You can ever stagger them like bricks
Then, transfer it to a more permanent medium (redraw it or just take a picture)
Here are some more examples of dungeons I’ve made using my geomorph set:
Announcement time, everyone! As some of you may have noticed, the old 'middle finger of vecna' blog on Blogspot has been inactive for a while, and some links to it may have stopped working. Well, I can now tell you that we have a new homepage, magehandpress.com, which shall be hosting weekly conent henceforth!
All of the old MFoV posts have been moved over to the new site for posterity, and the free versions of our base classes have been updated in line with the changes made for Valda's Spire of Secrets. The blog is the place to go for new base classes, subclasses, races, variant rules, and more!
I probably won't be cross-posting every main blog post onto tumblr any more, but i would like to draw your attention to these two packages of new battlemaster manoeuvres, which were sitting in the drafts on the old blog since April, only to be sneakily published onto the new blog when no one was looking. I had a lot of fun writing these, so I want to make sure people get to see them!
Every few years I remember that the Alternative Limb Project exists and get blown away once more by their work.
This one is half hyper-realistic, and half swapable sections based on the woman's personality, moods, and spirituality.
This one comes with a DRONE and has control panels in the wrist and forearm, as well as a flashlight and laser pointer.
This one is older, from 2012, but I still love it. Shiny shiny.
This one has a WORKING CUCKOO CLOCK IN THE KNEE. A WORKING. CUCKOO CLOCK.
Another older one, this one with realistic snake.
This is a two part one, dedicated to railway workers/builders/passengers who lost limbs. The limbs can be hooked together to allow the little train to travel between them.
This one is a literal swiss army knife arm, full of survival supplies.
Just. GAH. They are all so neat.
The project was started by Sophie de Oliveira Barata and you really have to check out her work: https://thealternativelimbproject.com/
Gelatinous Cube Plushies!
Easily make your own with a cut-and-sew pattern available on my Spoonflower!
In The Hoop Owlbear Pattern! by NoxxPlush on Etsy.
Make your own owlbear friend with just your embroidery machine!
“I don’t think that every villain in the world actually thinks they’re being a good guy, but I do think that everybody creates a value system that justifies the actions they’re taking, and and I think there’s a difference between those two things. Not everybody believes that they’re on the side of righteousness, but everybody has a way of justifying the actions they’re taking. Not every villain has to be a misunderstood hero, and in fact I think there are a lot of instances throughout history of people who were obviously doing the wrong thing and probably had an understanding of that on some level, but had some rationale or justification for it. A lot of villains in literature and media have these weird, Thanos-esque philosophies of what it is that they’re trying to do, and I think human motivation tends to come from more primal places than that. So a lot of the villains I write can be brilliant or clever (and, in fact, probably should be), but their motivation tends to be primal. They wanna be rich, they wanna have power, they wanna live forever. There’s something deep down that is, when you break it down, not too complex. Right? If you look at the real world, the people that are doing bad stuff don’t need complex motivations. They wanna rule the world! They wanna be rich! They wanna be unafraid that other people can ever screw them over, so they screw other people over. Evil is boring. Right? I kinda believe in the banality and mundanes of evil. Evil is just selfish impulses, which at the end of the day are really easy to understand. It’s easy to understand why people do bad things. It’s like “yeah, ok, you’re selfish and scared and cruel, I get it”. Being good is complex and beautiful and hard.”
—
Brennan Lee Mulligan, when asked how to create villains for ttrpgs
(I found this quote to be really meaningful in like…life in general which is why I posted it here. When he said “evil is boring”, it felt like something clicked in me that I had known deep down but hadn’t had the words for.) (via @earthmoonlotus)
Hello, everyone!
There exists an old and clever wizard who lives in the sky above. All his life he has dedicated himself to the study of dragons. After many years of risk-taking and experiment-failing, the wizard has devised a way to safely hatch dragon eggs.
Away from prying eyes, the mind of the wizard has wandered off in several direction. And the knowledge he now possesses is extremely dangerous. While he could be a threat to all life on the planet, he could also be a powerful ally. But who knows if that is a risk worth taking?
The creature tokens for this map are a Black Dragon Hatchling, a Blue Dragon Hatchling and a Gold Dragon Hatchling. Emerald tier gets the Yurei 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.
I want more villains who care about their henchmen. I wanna see the bad guy fly into a rage because the hero hurt their very favorite bungling goon and it was nearly his birthday.
"how dare you fail me you miserable oafs!!" should be retired. "How DARE they bully my adorable oafs!!!" should be industry standard.
Underlings having to hold back their dark lord like an overprotective parent because they don't really want a famous hero to get outright murdered just on their behalf.
I had to draw something
AWWWWW <3
Some plot ideas that may appeal to you Dungeon Masters.
A whimsical Marid that looooooves gossip. If you don't spill the tea, there will be ✨consequences✨. (Low to Mid level players)
There's a form of corruption spreading in the land. Monsters your party normally could easily kill that have been exposed to the corruption are now bigger and stronger than ever. (Mid to High level players)
Time to celebrate the Summer Solstice! All seems to be going well until the Elemental Plane of Fire crashed into the Material Plane with a horrifying overlap. (High level players)
Rumors are spreading of music being played by a piper at night that only certain people can hear. Anyone that hears it seems to wander off into a nearby cave that people who can't hear it also can't seem to enter. (Low to Mid level players)
Your party wakes up in a haze in a very strange mansion with no memories on how they got there. They appear to be sealed in and the mansion seems to move on its own... perhaps even have its own personality. (Low to Mid level players)
Someone has hired your players to investigate a nearby town with a strange green cloud looming above it. When they get there, the cloud is now a ground level mist throughout the entire town. The eeriest part is the dead silence... or perhaps the fact all the residents are now a motionless mannequin. Well, most of them are motionless anyway. (Mid level players)
Books are a great part of finding information. Your party hears about a hidden library by a weary traveler with powerful tomes. Be careful who you trust because what if the tomes gain their knowledge from you? (Mid to High level players)
A city seems to have mixed reviews about the recent occurrence. The dead have returned as if nothing happened and don't seem aware of their untimely demise. Who wants to tell them? (Low to Mid level players)
A local princess is soon to be married. Such a happy occasion! Well, it would be if it wasn't a forced marriage by the groom, a terrifying Pit Fiend giving the ultimatum between marriage or the destruction of the kingdom. (High level players).
Your players stop by a town for the day when everyone in town seems absolutely frightened of the party. It appears they have been there already and were quite ruthless to anyone in their way. Evil duplicates have been made of each party member. Time to stop them before they cause anymore havoc... wherever they may be. (Low to High level players)