MalevolentDM

Eberron's Lore is pretty overwhelming, from what I have begun to delve into lately. It reminds me very much of real World War I history, where you have a complicated network of alliances, and interests, wrapped into technological innovation and great social/ideological change.

I'm wondering if anyone has made a podcast or video doing an in-depth history of Eberron's Last War, in a style similar to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast?

I'd love a piece that goes in depth on the different powers, the political situation before the war, and kind of a play-by-play of the Last War as it went along up to the Day of Mourning.

Does something like this exist? I would love to find it, if

Considering introducing some gnolls into my new campaign. I was inspired by the volo's guide piece on them, as well as that episode in Critical Role where the town is on fire while gnolls rampage.

But there is something i can't get my mind around: Where do all the hyenas come from?

The Lore states that the way gnolls reproduce, is when a hyena eats remains of a humanoid killed by an especially demonic gnoll, a hand of yeenogh edit: Fang of Yeenoghu. (or something like that). That hyena then begins to swell and some days later, it's stomach bursts and an adult gnoll comes out of the corpse. cool.

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Gnolls are always portrayed as being in large packs or small armies, t

I see this occasionally in online discussions, but more often in real-life.

"Min/Maxing", "optimizing", "powergaming", whatever you want to call it, is sometimes looked down on. Building optimized characters is seen as unsportsmanlike, rude, or somehow hindering a character's role-play potential.

As someone who has DM'd a lot, I find it hard to see why this style of play is a problem. Because as a DM, you hold all the cards in combat. You choose the monsters, the environment, the tactics of said monsters, preparations/surprise before the fight, action economy, etc. It seems trivially easy to just pick higher CR monsters, or add more of them if you are struggling to challenge your part

> Be Me

> DMing Curse of Strahd

> * [Spoilers] *

​

> Party had a quest to protect an NPC from the vampire Strahd.

> they mostly succeeded, and brought her to this city where she will presumably be safe.

> Party then basically leaves her at an inn for a couple days while doing side quests:

> * collect some seeds for a druid

> * uncover character backstory elements.

> * discover a vast web of political alliances and power

> * set fire to vast web of political alliances.

> ... wait, what was that last one?

​

> Party was approached by several political figures, all seeking their help.

> Each promis

Friend is DMing one-shot for the group

We're fantasy paranormal investigators in this magic city. Like X-files or some other crime drama.

Follow some leads about young kids being abducted to an abandoned warehouse

That leads to a sewer complex beneath.

[CRIME DRAMA INTENSIFIES]

End up fighting some were-rats in this antimagic fog.

After killing half of them, mid-combat we discover that some of them match the description of the missing children.

Whoops.jpg

Question the remaining two young boys, who say some dark sorcerer captured and experimented on them.

Party decides to let them go.

There are more children missing however, s

I just stumbled into this line of thinking the other day.

As a longtime DM, suddenly turned forever-player over the last year, I have a horrible habit of making very niche characters with long backstories. This is... okay... but the problem is that these characters are often so pre-defined, that they don't have room to GROW or change as we play.

So i got an idea, you know all those one-note NPC's we DM's make?

You know the ones. The kind that are literally just:

• race
• class/ocuptaion
• single character trait

well... why don't we just make our character start from there? Those NPC's were fun and memorable because they weren't bogged down in pre-planning.

Even better: any DM likely

> Be a half elf thief in a smugglers guild

> just hanging out in our underground bunker, playing cards with my half orc pal Regi

> drinking a bit, just passing the time till our watch

> Brumla is snoring in the cot in the other room, damn loud dwarves

> hear thump in tunnel outside door.

> "What's that?"

> "Esreial, i'm not stupid, you gonna fold or what?"

> "No, shut up, i heard somethin..."

> "It's probably just polonius rollin around. that gnome always screws around on watch."

> "I think we should check it out, regi."

> "Don't be ridiculous. He's got an alarm spell on the hatch, so we would have heard something if an-"

**> DOOR B