I Need A Quick Break Before I Get Back To Art And D&D Prep, And I've Been Considering Animating Some

I need a quick break before I get back to art and D&D prep, and I've been considering animating some of my D&D PC's voice lines, so here's my dirty little guy.

Context: Devleik is a reborn (originally drow) and swarmkeeper ranger, who came back to life the first day of the campaign. For a while at the beginning he couldn't speak Common, and still prefers to speak in Old Common, his native language/the equivalent to Latin in our game. Most NPCs can't speak it, so he doesn't tend to talk much. It's for the best, people tend to ask uncomfortable questions if they pay too much attention to him. His voice is pretty scratchy, and after a few hours of playing, is usually broken up by my coughing.

Andrel is a bard we met at the beginning of the campaign and he's shown up a couple times after.

Friendly Introduction:

Ah, Andrel! My friend! I've been wondering when I'll next see you again, please, tell me the roads have been treating you well!

Neutral Intro:

Oh? Can I help you? The goal is to direct their attention away from himself, ideally making them focus on one of the human party members.

Hostile Intro/Combat Initiated/Threatened:

Get away from me! or Stand back! Followed by Dev drawing his weapons, and, if it's safe for him to do so, showing off his spider swarm as warning. It normally doesn't go well.

Combat Victory:

Good... Is everyone else alright? No one else dead yet?

Critical Fail/Miss, Near Incapacitated/Dying:

Oh dear... That's... unfortunate... Breathing becomes more labored, the result of an instinct from his old life, not because he needs to breath anymore.

Support Ally:

Hold on, just keep talking. This will only take a moment. You'll be okay soon enough. or Hold on, we don't need another dead man walking around just yet. For some reason, our undead, actively rotting ranger is our healer.

Flee:

We should go. Now. We'll meet back up at the camp.

Received Gift:

Are you sure? Oh, thank you, my friend! I am in your debt, may life treat you well.

Lost an Item:

My friends? Do we still have the [item]? Which cart did we leave it on again? Do we still have that cart with us? Where is it, I need something from it.

Received Flirt/Unsolicited Flirt:

Excuse me? You must be mistaken...

Disliking Activity:

I'm not getting wet. I don't care. I don't dry out easy, this will only make the problem worse. I'm not explaining this one.

Waking Up:

If it's sunny: Well, that's unfortunate. If it's overcast: Oh! Decent weather, for once. If it's raining: Well, I suppose it could be worse. We should do our best to stay dry though. Dev still has sunlight sensitivity, despite being a reborn. And his mummification hasn't held up to water well.

Middle of Day:

You know, I think we could go without the sun for a bit. Like, I don't think it would kill us.

Bored/Idle (playing with his swarm):

Hey, check out this spider! Does it have too many legs to you too?

Preparing to Rest:

The stars are nice tonight...

idk what to tag this as but here's a silly thing i made

fill in the blank oc voice lines game! i did these in the perspective of the oc (so like friendly means oc friendly to someone else) but its freeform so yea!

Fill in what your OC would say/do in these situations!

Friendly Introduction:

Neutral Intro:

Hostile Intro:

Combat Initiated:

Combat Victory:

Attack:

Critical Fail/Miss:

Critical Hit:

Nat20ed against a BBEG:

Support Ally:

Flee:

Combat Defeat:

Near Incapacitated:

Received Reward:

Received Gift:

Lost an Item:

Received Flirt:

Received Unsolicited Flirt:

Sees Favorite (object/subject):

Sees Disliked (object/subject):

Enjoying Activity:

Disliking Activity:

Waking Up:

Middle of Day:

Bored/Idle:

Preparing to Rest:

once you stop being terrified of wasps you can live in awe of their diversity and beauty

What is the most drastic sexual dimorphism difference you’ve seen in any insect?

The first one that comes to mind would be beetles that have larviform females and winged males. Trilobite beetles are a fairly well-known example of that. I think most people who saw these two bugs would not imagine they're the same species:

Photo by Tiia Monto via Wikipedia

We are quickly approaching our 2nd check in, which marks about halfway through the project! While we work towards the end, I am going to promote the lovely contributors to this project! Keep an eye out for moderator and contributor spotlights in February!

D&D Vampirism & the Results of Regenerative Abilities

A small note:

I’ve posted about both Elder Scrolls and D&D on this blog, and I’m pretty sure I’ve already written some headcanons about TES’s portrayal of vampirism. What’s described here is only for my D&D world building, Barovia/General Ravenloft in particular, where the condition is generally treated much more like a curse than in the Elder Scrolls franchise, where it’s a contracted illness. I won’t promise that I will or won’t write about TES vampirism, as i think it’s fun, it’s not something I find fitting for the Domains of Dread.

This post contains spoilers for the heavily modified version of Curse of Strahd I will be eventually running, and spoilers for the novel I, Strahd. Changes from the RAW 5e module include:

Alek is back! He’s not having a good time. 

Escher is Van Richten’s lost son. It’s not that important to this essay, but I do mention their shared eyesight problems in passing.

Shout out to @mx-lamour and their fanfic "What have I done?", for being the reason I finally sat down and wrote this all out. 

An Introduction to Vampirism & Wound Recovery in Undeath:

Whether described as a curse or blessing, Vampirism is a magical condition, one that has a number of effects on the patient’s natural recovery/healing process, and by extension, the development of scars throughout one’s unlife. While none of the information here is intended to impact gameplay and balance, it can have an influence over roleplay and certainly does in character design. Flavor is free, and I want it all.

Becoming a vampire is akin to pressing pause on one’s life and body, stopping the aging process, but not reversing it. For example, no more of Strahd’s hair will turn gray, but the streaks that are there will never change back to black. Escher’s eyesight and the myopia inherited from his father are impacted by age, getting worse over time. While being turned provided him with some new dark vision, he will remain nearsighted to the same extent he was upon death. The march of time has stopped, but that doesn’t mean it can be reversed. 

Scar tissue is subject to the same forces, and old scars obtained during life will stop fading, remaining just as visible or unapparent as they did upon the body’s death. Unhealed wounds will repair themselves only once regeneration begins, but are subject to the same factors as other wounds obtained post mortem.

General Post Mortem Wounds and Scaring Trends:

While there is some variation in these trends, there are three main degrees to which wounds will leave a lasting impact.

Minor wounds don’t last. These are the results of unsilvered weaponry, mild damage from running water, and necrotic magic. Very little is in the way of the regeneration and healing process, so there are less chances for something to go wrong, such as debris entering the wound, or the injury to scab over, and increase the chances of a scar forming. On the off chance one does form, it usually vanishes within an hour at the latest.

Most magical damage provides the same level of regenerative difficulty as that of sivered weapons and most instances of water damage. Silver and water, both considerable weaknesses of vampires, react poorly with the dark magic of a vampire’s curse, and interfere with it’s influences over the body. Similarly to those described prior, these scars will fade with time, simply taking longer, usually over the course of a couple days, or several weeks at most. 

Sunlight will cause the most dramatic injuries, leaving burns over the exposed skin, and healing to form scars that never fade.

Turning Wounds:

Turning wounds are usually bites, the injuries that kill someone as they become undead, and the place of the curse’s transference. Given the nature of the wound, magic doesn’t make the wounds particularly easy to heal, even with the assistance of vampiric regeneration, which is usually what heals them.

Unlike other wounds that result in varying scar types and will reflect the type of damage when applicable, turning wounds usually lave behind contracture scars, where the skin has tightened over the wound in the healing process, giving the impression of skin stretched over the injury. It results in much more obvious scar tissue that can sometimes cause the individual pain, both due to the nature of the scar type, and the magical influences.

While most turning wounds are bite marks, such as those on the necks of Alek and Escher, they can take the form of other injuries, such as the numerous arrow marks across Strahd’s torso and chest.

Different Types of Vampires & Exceptions to the Trends:

The patterns here assume that the subject described is a vampire spawn, a common type of vampire within Ravenloft and Barovia in particular. Consumption of blood will have an impact on healing speed, where greater access to blood will speed up the process, and under feeding can drag out the process for months or longer. However, differences in the nature of one’s curse can manifest as much more dramatic differences in healing ability.

Failed Spawn - Alek Gwilym:

For some reason, the curse didn’t transfer right. In the case of Alek, his blood was already used to reanimate someone, and the Dark Powers forbid Strahd from ever having a good time. Alek just got caught in the crossfire.

Technically they use the Nosferatu stat block but that’s behind the DM screen, not in game.

Turning wounds on failed spawn don’t heal properly, leaving open wounds that won’t bleed, but can be opened up further, and can cause significant pain if not kept clean or become irritated.

The Dark Powers hate you in particular - Strahd von Zarovich:

Aside from turning wounds, any scar will fade with time, including severe sunburns.

Injuries resulting from critical hits will have lasting impacts, such as vision or movement issues, punishment for mistakes in combat.

It needs some work, but this is inspired by the parts of Strahd’s relationship with Barov I’ve been able to flesh out. It needs some work still, but the man taught Strahd mistakes have lasting consequences, either in a material sense, or Barov holding failures over Strahd.

Cleveland Clinic on Scars (:

Here's a preview for my addition to @curseofsergei's Curse of Strahd zine, Memento Mori!

I've had a wonderful time participating, and can't wait for the zine to be out! (:

Along with my main piece, I've also been working on some of the formatting art, and will post that soon too! (: