The portrait of a large male Troll, with green skin and small tusks. He looks uncomfortable sitting for the portrait. His hair has been slicked back and he is wearing clothing that doesn't quite fit. His dress shirt is too small, and his dark brown jacket is too large.

Here we have the last of the headmasters (for now) from Pavan's Academy from my D&D home game. More fantastic art from @samiligia.bsky.social ! Mulch, a male Troll, was the groundskeeper for Pavan's Academy but stepped up to be the temporary acting headmaster on two separate occasions.

A portrait of an Orc male with his greying hair in a short ponytail. He is wearing gold half-moon glasses and has a grey little chin goatee. He is wearing a collared shirt with no tie, and a brown jacket with leather patches on the sleeves. He is carrying a large scroll under his left arm.

Starting the week off with another round of headmasters from Pavan's Academy of the Arcane Arts from my D&D home game! @samiligia.bsky.social did such an incredible job on the art! Here we have the current headmaster, an Orc named Morgenstern. He is widely loved by the students and staff.

Want to spice up combat and give your players a unique encounter? You can always tweak a pre-existing stat block to make something new. Blue dragon encounter in the rain? That's a Thunderstorm Dragon. Only one of it's kind. Can do lightening or thunder damage.

The portrait of an Elven woman with brown skin and brown eyes. She has big wavy/curly hair that has been styled for the portrait. She is wearing a well tailored blue dress that sits off the shoulders, and has deep sleeves and silver detailing around the collar and waist. She holds her right hand up a little, producing blue light that is wispy. She is powerful, elegant, and kind.

One more shout out to @kahlfrida.bsky.social for the incredible artwork for my D&D game! Solan'ia Mistar, another previous headmaster at Pavan's Academy, was known for her leadership during the Siege of Gundy and her pivotal role in reclaiming the City of Gundy. She is powerful, elegant, and kind.

A portrait of a man with a mustache sitting in a chair with a book in front of him. His hair is short and a little messy. He is wearing a partially unbuttoned collared shirt, with a washed out green vest and brown sleeveless jacket. He is staring straight out, eyes intense. He is conjuring some sort of swirling light with his right hand.

A huge thank you to @kahlfrida.bsky.social for the fantastic artwork for my D&D game. Here we have Bendek Jager, another previous headmaster at Pavan's Academy of the Arcane Arts. He is known for creating the spell Bendek's Blinding Blizzard, and students reported he was very intense.

Sometimes you spend a lot of time trying to nail down a character's personality and voice before a game, and then in the moment you panic and something completely different comes out of your mouth. And because of that, now I have a character that sounds like Kermit the Frog.

It's D&D night tonight! We will be doing a casual lookback session and covering how far the players have come since we started while they travel to the city of Veledra. It'll be the last real chance to catch their breath before they go undercover to follow members of the Heart of the Dragon cult.

As a TTRPG player, do you have any rituals or techniques to get into your character's headspace? I like to make playlists for my characters. I feel like creating a playlist is also helpful in figuring out and developing the character, and once it's done I can listen to it and get right back in.

I'm mainly a D&D guy but I really want to give Lancer a shot. Piloting a custom mech is a dream of mine, and the little kid inside of me just wants a chance to draw big robots again. Does anyone play Lancer? Can you point me in the right direction on how to learn it?

If my players ask about something specific, or are looking for something specific, but that thing is small, weird, or has no major impact on anything...it just exists now. "Do any of these merchants sell eggs?" "Does this tavern serve cereal?" "Can I buy doll furniture for my pet bug" Always yes!

In my D&D home game, I use a lot of creatures and monsters from @goblincoach.bsky.social. My players recently met a ranger who had a Flora Golem named Rawly as his animal companion. It was a huge hit. Everyone loved the weird little plant guy, and I'm pretty sure they would die for Rawly.

One more huge shout out to @nayomiarts.bsky.social for the artwork she did for my D&D home game. This is Dragomir Cosca, another previous headmaster at Pavan's Academy of the Arcane Arts. He assisted in taking down several Titans during the Titan Crusades, and has a few spells named after him.

Artwork of an older woman with shorter gray hair, half-moon glasses, and green eyes.

A huge thank you to @nayomiarts.bsky.social for the wonderful artwork for my D&D home game! Bergamot Braun, eccentric and paranoid magic school headmaster, turned out perfectly! She is one of many previous headmasters at Pavan's Academy of the Arcane Arts. More artwork to come soon.

If you are running a long-term D&D or other TTRPG campaign, let the players control the speed of the narrative. If they need downtime, give them some downtime and let things breathe for a bit. All action, all the time can be exhausting even in a game.

More D&D NPCs from my home game that I love and you are free to steal. Wagner Gatz, Aleksy Gatz, and Pyotr Gatz, aka The Gatz Boys. Tabaxi triplets that look like Russian Blue cats. All three are students at Pavan's Academy of the Arcane Arts, and each has a different field of magical study.

Taking a break from my usual mid-tier D&D content today to say that, I really want to see Professor Pyg as a live action Batman villain, and I really want Professor Pyg to be played by Jason Segel.

One of the easiest ways to work on customizing a published or pre-written D&D adventure is to find a digital or virtual version of the adventure, and copy and paste the text into a word document or text editor. This way you now have your own working copy where you can highlight, edit, and rewrite!

When creating a D&D or TTRPG character, where do you draw your inspiration from? I've realized over the years that many of my characters are inspired by people I know or knew. I've created characters based on people I went to high school and college with, and one is just my dad as a hobgoblin.

Sometimes I'll create tension, or at least try to create tension, by describing part of a scene or answer to a player and then just letting things hang in silence for a bit before I finish up or give an answer. That few seconds of silence can feel like forever and tends to cause player anxiety.

I have been very sick for the past week, but I'm back in action now. And I want to talk about note taking in D&D. As a DM, I've got 3 different notebooks that all serve different purposes, plus I have a few word documents and an excel spreadsheet to track NPCs by city. How do you keep your notes?

If you are into solo journaling or duo RPGs, I highly recommend you give Tangled Blessings and the new Tangled Blessings: Echoes of Lost Electives expansion a shot. I have a copy of the original Tangled Blessings and I love it! I need to buy myself a copy of this new one.

When running published D&D adventures, one way to customize the adventure is to make your own map. You can use apps like Photoshop or sketchbook, open up a picture of the official map, and then trace over it. This way, you can make changes but still have a map that follows the adventure.

Today we are talking about game snacks! What are your go to snacks for game night? At my table, we always have some type of jalapeno chips and an assortment of meats and cheeses. On a good day someone would bring cookies.

I want dragons with intimidating names that suggest a history like Idlerot, Rennerath the Ghost, Hallowhunter, Dezzerad the Sorrow Bringer, Bresk the Violator. Especially if we are talking about adult dragons or older. This is a weird pet peeve of mine but it is a hill I will die on.

One of my biggest problems with pre-written D&D adventures that include dragons, like the new dragon focused Dragon Delves or my current Tyranny of Dragons campaign, is how they name dragons. They always give them weird and unpronounceable names and I always feel like I need to rename every dragon.

It is a dream of mine to run a D&D game for a group of celebrities that would otherwise never hang out or play D&D. Like Al Pacino and Anya Taylor-Joy. Does anyone know Al Pacino? Does he want to play D&D with me?

When running a D&D game or building a world, where do you draw your inspiration from? My biggest inspirations have to be Ogre Battle 64 and Tactics Ogre. Those games have had such a massive impact on me in almost all aspects of story, depth, and how I visualize things when I play.

When working on D&D character backstories, I think most backstory discussions should happen together at the table, either through casual conversation or an official session 0. It allows the players to figure out their relationships together, and gives them an organic reason to adventure as a group.

A picture of the cover of a book titled "The Compendium of Forgotten Secrets," which shows a massive eye surrounded by four tentacles.

Another TTRPG supplement shout out! The Compendium of Forgotten Secrets by Genuine Fantasy Press is a hefty D&D supplement that includes a lot of warlock patrons, as well as other assorted subclasses for various classes, plus spells, items, and familiars. It's a supplement I use in my home game!

It doesn't matter where you come from or how your adventure begins. What matters is what you do on your adventure and who you become along the way. And when someone attacks a member of the party, we should all be prepared to fight.

#TransRights