2/12/25 Ettercaps

Check the original post here: Ettercap

So, I decided to switch it up this week. My past posts didn't really seem like one-offs and more like resources to be used as flavor for homebrew campaigns, or to spice up modules. This time, I decided to pick a monster, have it be the enemy, and center the mission around it. This time, it was the Ettercap; an enemy I have never used in any of my campaigns. 

It's fun to experiment with different things. As such, I think I've found a new method for writing. Let me know what you think! Does this work better for you as a format, or should I go back to making items and locations, etc?

1/22/25; Buildable dungeons

I love modulation.

That's basically it this week; I like having physical things to represent drawings, such as miniatures. This is basically the same thing, but for simple dungeons.

Years ago, I used to get stuff printed at a local college. I got 50 full comic books printed, stapled, and boxed up, all for $50. Legit, it was a steal. Anyway, I learned about card stock and the printing process and all of that jazz, and I realized there was more to paper than just what you buy for your printer or what you get in a notebook. During this time, I was also drawing a bunch of dungeons. Like, an unreasonable amount of dungeons. It got kind of concerning at one point. I had kind of always wanted to modulate my dungeons in a way that made it fun, and unpredictable, but also unique and limited.

The only thing I hadn't included in this post were the corridors. Those being like, a 30ft x 30ft square room, or a circular room, or a room with pillars lining the middle. Those will come at a later date.

I can't post the raw files on here because this website cannot host those types of files. But I am making a Google Drive to share them, that you can only find here. I'm only doing this to funnel people to this blog.

The link is somewhere in the next sentence, so be weary of it. I'm sure some people are going to get frustrated because it's not displaying like a regular link, but oh well. You're dealing with a trickster god.

Anyway, I hope you have a great week. It's been quite the month, hasn't it?

1/15/25; Madam Philastephanie

 Read the original post here

Madam Philastephanie is a special lady to me. She reminds me of my aunt, who is very much an animal person, and also a reason that I write and create so much. The idea of her having various woodland creatures doing tasks for her, communicating with her, and sharing a mutual love and respect for the other is a life I want to live myself.

When coming up with shops, I always think "How can I make this one unique and memorable?"

For Philastephanie, I wanted her shop to show that it's green magic, calming and reassuring. Compared to another local magic vendor, she's meant to be kind-hearted, contrasting their bitterness, but not being as useful. She has no ill bone in her body and loves everyone, regardless of how angry they may get. 

I don't think I put this in the posting, but if you practice Tarot, she can give readings for a fee. This means you could actually do a reading for your player, or just make up a meaning.

As I'm developing these ideas, I realize I'm not giving people enough autonomy and just giving a concrete solution. I am still learning how to break these ideas from my own personal use into the world for others to use. All the tables, all the specific details of things...like, sure, they help me out, but they might not help the next person out. I do want to encourage people who use my ideas to bend them how they need to. I don't want people to plagiarize my ideas, however. I mean to inspire, not profit. 

I went off on a tangent, I'm sorry.

How was your holiday? Mine was ruined by my period and isolation from snow storms. But, I'll get over it. There's always next year!

Holiday Break

 Hi!

So, I'm going to work on more campaign ideas over my break, so I won't be posting for the two next weeks. However, I would still like to post something on the Wednesday of Christmas as a sort of annual tradition. This year, I've decided to post some movie recommendations, as I've really been into low-budget movies recently. 

The ones I list can be found on Tubi as of today. Tubi is free with ads (for now) and I honestly think these are worth a watch or two. 

 

Alien Weekend - a feel good nerdy comedy about a girl, her friends, and a giant sloth (Dave) from space that have to escape the government because of an egg from the sloth's home planet. It is not a buddy comedy, Dave is used as an actual character and is actually pretty down to Earth, no pun intended. It's very female driven, as the majority of lead characters are female. It gives a great atmosphere, and really captures that feeling of having a great group of close nerdy friends. Each character has their own unique style and personality, and is really well written.

5/5 stars. This movie hits in all the right places for me; the comedy is on point, the girls are strong, and witty, like actual women and not caricatures of them. I've watched this movie last night, and twice before that. I keep coming back because it's so good!

 

Boy Meets Girl - A transgender woman and a cisgender man from Kentucky are looking for love, but not from each other because they're best friends! It's honestly been a minute since I've watched this...mostly because it made me cry. For a YouTuber, Michelle really rocked this performance. She continues to entertain on her YouTube channel linked here. This movie made good trans jokes, displays good relationship culture, such as asking for consent and protection before having sex, and generally makes me feel good to know this movie is out there. It can explain a bit of what the trans experience is like.

4/5 stars. Lost one star due to gender envy.

 Deadheads - As described by Tubi; When a zombie slacker discovers and engagement ring in his pocket, he enlists the help of his friend to embark on a quest in search of his lost love.  It's really so much more than that. It's genuinely funny, and heartfelt. The concept is quite interesting with both zombies being conscious of their current situation. It does a good job of writing bad ass characters, and making fun of the ones who think they're bad ass. A triple agent gets thrown into the mix and, holy shit, do you have a movie! 

4/5 stars. Great movie, great concept, well written. There was a part where you could clearly tell a background was green-screened, but honestly, with how good the acting and writing are, I let it pass.

 

Marijuana Minutes - "They're coming to get you, Barbara" Funny high or sober, this stoner comedy had me laughing as if I were high. The general feel is comfy, all of the characters are funny (at least to me), and it's another female driven movie that paints girls like...well, people. Except for Clover. Clover is crazy in the cute "will cut off your balls if you look at her wrong" way. It explores dating, time travel, and drug use, but in a fun way. I hate to say it's quirky, but it's quirky. It's well written and has a lot of recurring gags that don't overstay their welcome. Except for Trev and his mom. That's just kind of a weird relationship. When it comes to the jokes, it diverts your attention with the dates as each guy that's introduced is a huge douche. The only date I thought was hilarious was the first one with the food waste at the tiny tapas restaurant rant.

4/5 stars; funny moments, great character design and growth, I have watched this at least 3 times in the past month...and will probably continue to watch it through the winter as it cures depression.

Jessie's Super Normal Regular Average Day (Warning; Nudity; topless nuns) - This movie made no sense, but a lot of sense. I'm not even sure if it's real. The snail was. I think. Very drug fueled. By following these three steps, you, too, can find salvation. 1) Find God. 2) Kill God 3) Party. It's like if a ska band wanted to make a movie while heavily drugged. Think John Dies At The End (the book, not the movie) meets a burning Church. The TV program has a very "lost programming, found footage" feel to it, the nuns are, frankly, kind of a dumb addition. Especially because they made the nun who was chubbier talked in the distorted voice the whole time. You could also tell the director hired these girls off of the internet to act for the movie. Each scene they were in was on a green screen.

3/5 stars; It was an alright waste of a Saturday afternoon. I mean that in a good way.

That's about it. The other ones I had watched don't really deserve a full review because they were either a cash grab or had a shitty character, or two, or didn't really pique my interest all that much.

My Alien Girlfriend - just an alright movie, kinda good premise. Good nerdy movie.

Night of the Living Deb - pretty okay considering the higher paid actors. pretty funny.

Some Nudity Required - a good look at the corruption of the film industry and the idea of "Sex sells". This tried to make a statement, but went too hard at it. Some characters were annoying. Yes, there is nudity in this movie, surprise surprise. 

Christmas with Jerks - yup. had me sappy because romance, comedy was alright, chemistry was just fine. felt like this wanted to be a series on Dirty Hallmark

Don't Feed the Gulls - don't watch this. It's very clearly a cash grab. None of the story lines intersect, it very obviously exploits women with a certain size of chest. It starts off strong, then quickly devolves into stupidity, and not the fun kind. The lead character, played by Allison Lahikainen, was the only redeemable quality of this movie.

Monster Force Zero - Someone clearly watched too much "Ancient Aliens" and had a giant T-Rex costumer laying around and said "Let's make a movie!" Yeti is shoe-horned in, acting is over the top at points. This is a great movie if you need a genuine laugh.

12/18/24; The Flower Peddler

 See the Original post here

 So, I love shops. I love flowers. I love unique NPC's. So I combined them into one thing.

This is actually an idea I had a few years ago, but the vendor wasn't selling flowers, they were selling trinkets. My players were like "Yeah! What's he got?" and me, thinking they were going to just pass this dude up, had absolutely nothing to show for it. so I made shit up on the spot, which wasn't very good.

As well as the above mentioned things, I love creating unique and random tables with multiple dice. It adds more mystery to the items when the DM rolls three separate dice. Even though this is very low steaks, it can still be exciting.

That's all I got for you this week. Join me next week when I take on a bear with my bare hands!

12/11/24; Transformative Dice

 See the original post here!

 Transformative Dice

This came from an item in BoneLab called the Avatar Dice, which will change your character model to a generic NPC model. The only bad part about that item is that you can't change what avatar you can get.

I thought I'd change that, and give the player some more control.

This item is meant to be useless until the player goes to a wizard, or a wizard is within the party. Of course, the DM can change this, but that's up to them.

This also gives non-druid, non-magical characters a chance to use wild shape or polymorph as a battle tactic, although random.

12/4/2024; Head that's always screaming

 Check out the original post here.

 The story of the Head That's Always Screaming didn't come from Gravity Falls, weirdly enough.

Back when I had started my homebrew journey around 2015 (I got more serious in college a few years later), I had this concept that had no real idea or identity. It was just a head that was always screaming, making the party visible and being annoying. I kind of had the idea based on Lollipop Chainsaw, which is a game I never played. Basically, the main character had to kill zombies with a chainsaw, and she had to chop off her boyfriends head with the chainsaw and attached it to her skirt. 

I thought the idea would work for this. Every time a character would try to throw the head out, it would slowly float back to them. That added some creepiness to it, but it didn't feel right. Then I thought, 'this head was meant to torture the enemy, so it would magically be able to appear where it needed to be in order to torment the enemy.' After the enemy died, the head continued to scream and could then be attached to a new host. 

I feel like this was a better interpretation of the item as opposed to a pointless item that no one can get rid of. It's also very fun to say "Here. Have a head that's always screaming"

Happy Playing! <3

- Marie