A simple digital rendition of the mansion map from “The Joy of Extradimensional Spaces,” Candlekeep Mysteries. Sharing this in case anyone out there wants to run the thing but plays online like me.
D&D Eating Contest Rules
Fairly recently I gave some players in a D&D game a little minigame to participate in, should they choose. Here are the rules I put into a handout for them, followed by some DM notes from when I ran it. It went really well!
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The Laughing Spirit is holding its Monthly Mega Meatball Madness event! For the cost of two silver - one going to the house, the other to the winner's pot - a participant competes with all comers to see who can down the largest number of mega-meatballs in five minutes without losing the lot. Speed is essential, but so is constitution. May the greatest gut take all!
Rules
Each mega-meatball will normally take a minute to eat. Make a Dexterity check, DC 12, for alacrity - a failure adds 30 seconds to the base minute, a success allows you to maintain the minute speed average, and a success by more than 5 allows you to eat the meatball in half the time!
In addition, after each meatball eaten, make a Constitution check. The DC starts at 10, and 1 is added for each meatball downed. If the DC is failed by less than 5, you may continue, but with a bonus to the DC equal to the amount failed by. If failed by 5 or more, you physically cannot continue. If failed by 5 or more due to a natural 1 roll, you are compelled to seek out the nearest bucket as your stomach completely rebels.
At the end of five minutes, the number of full meatballs eaten is tallied up for each competitor. If there's a tie, out comes the pie!
The Pot-Pie-Breaker
A test of pure endurance and strength of stomach, the Pie is a no-pity, no-mercy, no-holds-barred eating match that ends only when one contestant is left standing.
Each participant starts at the Constitution DC they ended with during the meatball segment. They must eat a slice of pie - speed is not essential here - and upon finishing, meet the DC previously set with a Constitution check. Upon success, the DC for the next slice goes up by 2 instead of 1, and so on until one participant drops out due to wide-margin failure, if not worse.
The Prize
The winner takes silver equal in value to the number of participants, as well as a coupon for one free meal and drink at The Laughing Spirit - redeemable anytime!
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Narratively, there were 20 total participants to set the prize pot total, but in terms of rolling I only specified two top local contenders as actual threats to the participating players’ attempts. I gave these two names and bonuses to dexterity and constitution and rolled for them specifically, narrating other contestants as being unable to keep up with the pace in order to prevent having to roll for over a dozen NPCs every round.
I kept some scratch paper on the side with relevant contestant names, a tally of how many meatballs were eaten, time for each meatball, and updated Con Save DC for each individual. The order in which I wrote the characters down became a sort of rough initiative; I went down the list having each roll their checks, narrating the results, and updating their progress notes and keeping the players up to date on how their character was faring. Note that while there was a little bit of desynchronized time (i.e. one character being two minutes in on the same round another was at two minutes thirty) it actually averaged out fairly well. If someone hits the five minute mark early just skip over them on the next round. Also, partial final meatballs do not count; if you’re trying to get meatball number 5 done, you’re at 4:30, and your dexterity roll brings you over 5 minutes, you only ate half the meatball and it isn’t counted in your tally.
One thing I learned while running this: if you don’t want to give your players tons of ammunition for bawdy jokes, give them something other than meatballs. If you want to give them even more ammunition, and if they get to the pie-breaker (as mine did), specify that it’s a sausage pie.
Either way, it was fun!
18 Languages in 15 Levels
With a bonus of 18 languages in 12 levels at the bottom.
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D&D has 8 official Standard languages, including common, 8 Exotic languages, and 2 secret languages (druidic, thieves’ cant). Most characters have two from their race, maybe one or two from their background, and perhaps one or two from a class or subclass.
I’ve figured out a way to get all 18.
Of note, this does assume that your DM allows you to pick any language from any list, standard or exotic, when given the option. Some tables restrict languages more than others, so this might not actually be possible at yours. It also involves a lot of multiclassing dips, which might make your character feel somewhat stagnant and unplayable as you’ll be stuck with first level spells and abilities while other players are getting more and more obviously powerful. As such, this might be better as an exercise of theory rather than a practical build guide.
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1. Race. You have options: Half Elf, Variant Human (take the prodigy feat), Firbolg, or Yuan-Ti Pureblood. Each of these gives you three total languages instead of two, including common. If you can choose a language, don’t pick sylvan. Druidic is also to be avoided, but as a secret language it likely won’t be on the table anyhow. (3)
2. Background. Options, again: Acolyte, Sage, City Watch, Cloistered Scholar, Courtier, or Faction Agent. Each of these gives two languages of choice. (2)
3. Stats. Dex and Wis are your key stats here. Make them your highest, with a bare 13 minimum in each. Hilariously, you can dump Int or Cha despite becoming an omniglot capable of communicating with anyone or anything that speaks a listed language.
4. Classes & Subclasses. In no particular order, you will need:
-- 1 level in Cleric, Knowledge Domain, for 2 languages of choice. (2)
-- 2 levels in Druid, Circle of Shepherds, for druidic and sylvan. (2)
-- 3 levels in Rogue, Mastermind, for Thieves’ Cant and 2 languages of choice (3)
-- 3 levels in Fighter, either Rune Knight for giant or Samurai for 1 language of choice. If you took Firbolg for your race, go with Samurai to avoid doubling up on one language. (1)
-- 6 levels in Ranger, either base or UA, any subclass, for 2 languages from favored enemy and an ASI which you’ll use on the Linguist feat to get 3 languages of choice. (5)
It’s a bit of a mess with five different classes, two of which are full casters and one of which is a half, but at least you’re only reliant on two stats in the end.
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THE ALTERNATIVE 12 LEVEL BUILD
To get all the languages in just three fewer levels, you’re going to need to add a stat and a multiclass.
Get a Charisma score of minimum 13. Take a single level of Sorcerer with either Draconic Bloodline or Storm Sorcery. These grant draconic or primordial, respectively. Don’t do Draconic Bloodline if you’re a Yuan-Ti, as it would double that language up.
Only take one level in Ranger instead of six.
Bump either Rogue or Fighter up one level to get that ASI feat.
Weep, for you now have another spellcasting stat to deal with. But hey, you learned all the languages faster this way!
18 Skill Proficiencies in 9 Levels
Really stretching the putty of Dungeons and Dragons builds into shapes that probably weren’t entirely intended today.
D&D has a total of 18 base skills in which your character may be proficient. I figured out how to get proficiency in all of them.
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Disclaimer: I don’t recommend actually building or playing this character unless it’s ok with your DM and also all the other players. If you make a skill monkey, make sure it doesn’t end up being a monkey’s paw for game enjoyment.
I came up with this just to see if I could.
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1. Your Race options include Half-Elf, Kenku, Lizardfolk, or Tabaxi. All of these give two skill proficiencies within varying limits. Do NOT choose Deception, Persuasion, Nature, or Survival for any of these, given the choice. (2)
2. Your choice of Background, provided said background does NOT include proficiency in Deception, Persuasion, Nature, or Survival. If you chose Tabaxi above, also make sure the background doesn’t overlap with Perception or Stealth. That’s two more skills, specific to said background. (2)
3. Scores: make Charisma your highest score and put a minimum of 13 in Dexterity. Everything else is up to you.
4. Start with Bard. That’s three skill proficiencies of your choice. Keep to the exceptions above. (3)
5. Third level Bard - Lore subclass. Three more skill proficiencies, exceptions that apply. As a bonus you can also turn two of your proficiencies into expertise, which is nice. (3)
6. Fourth level Bard - ASI. Take a feat: Skilled. This gives you three more skill proficiencies! (3)
7. Switch over to Warlock for two levels. Patron doesn’t matter, take whatever flavor suits you for this. Great Old One seems like an interesting choice for being all-skilled, or perhaps Genie. Up to you though. The important thing here is at 2nd level, you get two Invocations. Make sure one of them is Beguiling Influence. There’s your Deception and Persuasion. (2)
8. Now take a level in Rogue. Multiclassing into Rogue immediately gives you one skill proficiency of your choice - avoid Nature and Survival of course - and at that first level you also get to turn two more proficiencies into expertise. Nice. (1)
9. Third level Rogue - Scout subclass. You get Nature and Survival proficiencies which immediately double to expertise. (2)
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That’s it. That’s all it takes to get all 18 skills in the game locked down with a proficiency bonus, and some of them are doubled by other features.
If you continue on until Bard 10 and Rogue 6, you get a total of four more proficiencies turned to expertise - ten expertise skills overall at level 18. Jack of All Trades is a backup feature, boosting Initiative rolls and non-skill ability checks (i.e. DM rules that something is raw, untrained [Ability] as a roll) by just a bit.
Between this and the Initiative Character Build I came up with a while ago, it seems like Bard/Rogue/Warlock is a very good multiclass combo for silly side things.
^Speedpaint and explanation of a hypothetical dnd build which would result, at level 20, in an initiative bonus of +19, +1d10 optional, rolled at advantage, for a total initiative range of 20 minimum to 49 maximum. It’s entirely playable and shouldn’t be a drag on roleplay or party mechanics despite this focus. The keys are:
Variant Human (alert feat), 12 Rogue (swashbuckler) / 2 Bard / 6 Warlock (fiend), highest stats / ability score increases all into Dex and Cha, and a Weapon of Warning and a Luckstone as ideal yet reasonable magic items.
Witch is a homebrew class with five related subclasses for D&D 5e. Its overall focus is on new and unique uses for Find Familiar, with each subclass bringing its own flavor of further playstyle, from Blade fighting on the front lines to Chalice brewing potions for the party during rests to Cards uncovering secrets (and making the chaos of random Deck items potentially a little more playable).
All art and writing in this particular homebrew is my own. Layout and page textures are due to Homebrewery. I shouldn’t have to point out that this is homebrew material and is not endorsed or affiliated with the official D&D source material, and while I tried to keep it balanced and fun if you want to play this class you should talk to your DM about it and see if any adjustments are needed for your game and table.
So I made some more things a while back.
These are dice roller poison bottles based on D&D 5e. I’ve got 3 Wyvern Poison ones and 5 Serpent Venoms (not pictured here). They’re currently on my Etsy if you follow those links. These are nice as functional game props...you know, for when it’s good to play in person with friends again. Until then, at least shaking the bottle and tipping the dice out to roll them is satisfying in its own right.
I made a homebrew race! My goal was to make something highly variable and customizable, and as a bonus it carries a lot of roleplay and story implications to play around with.
Here’s a link to the PDF on Homebrewery, in case these screenshots are a little too small to comfortably read: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/ddWmCaUIwW1D
New DnD character for a three/four session game due to regular DM needing that time off.
So, here’s Vivianne Vesper: Scourge Aasimar, Swashbuckler Rogue, champion duelist, dragonslayer. All in the backstory of course. At game start, apparently she’s going to be just waking up from a long stint under a petrification effect, having run afoul of something capable of turning people to stone.
Holly, a Holographics-Energy Bot. She’s technically based on a warforged arcane trickster rogue but everything is reflavored for scifi, so instead she’s a robot with a hell of a lot of holographic capabilities (for illusion spells), integrated weaponry, and Zero Light functions (i.e. the scifantasy explanation for things like mage hand which have odder effects).
She’s also a little bit of a murderbot with little to no regard for squishy fleshbag lifeforms of all shapes and sizes. I was inspired a bit by HK-47 of Star Wars KOTOR fame, but cannot hope to be half as entertaining, so I just am doing my best to be terrible and condescending. It hurts my soul, but I try.
Someday there will be a cyberpunk campaign. It is somewhat planned and very promised. I want to do a psychic warrior (unearthed arcana fighter subclass), which is absolutely not a jedi, with a sunblade, which is absolutely not a lightsaber. At all.
One sketch from over a year ago, when the ship was planned.
Another from a couple of days ago, when the ship finally came to fruition.
It was the slowest of slow burns, but satisfying to conclude. Rose Guarden is officially live.
Unearthed Arcana has a Circle of Stars subclass for druids. I’ve never played a druid and honestly spellcasters in general are a little overwhelming to me, but I love the aesthetic of this subclass so much that I kind of want to play one someday. Made this one an aasimar for the celestial tie ins, and because that race has a bit of a wisdom bonus so it makes a little sense.
One of my fellow players commissioned me for a new piece of character art! Zinnia’s gone through a lot recently, but now they’re back, new and improved.
Character-based Terrarium art
Rosalind, Fey patron warlock, pact of the chain. Rose witch, linguist, enchantress.
Two nights ago, quite late, my DM messaged me asking if I could/would sketch together a couple of NPCs for a silly corn-themed side quest he was putting together for the next day. He needed a gnome mage of some kind and a fir bolg warrior with a greatcob weapon.
So I did.
They nearly took out the party though due to some unkind dice rolls and also the DM sooort of forgetting that due to some character/class swap outs he was no longer dealing with a party that was almost unilaterally great at wisdom saving throws (i.e. Confusion and Power Word Stun put half the group out of commission in the first round and continued to do so for the duration). We may never have forgiven him if he TPK’d us with corn. Luckily for us he was prepared with a sort of plan B that made us live. Unluckily for us we now have to track them down for a round 2 because they took something - or rather, someone - important.
Basically the silliness took a turn and now we’re marching a small army of dwarves into the Underdark.
Figures of Divinity