dungeons & dragons – Gamer Peak

Edgar – Greatest Disney BBEG?

Well I hardly think we need look any further. Clearly we have found the most ultimate villain Disney has to offer. Who better to inspire the Big Bad for our TTRPG!

….

Alright, let’s get this over with.

Queen of Hearts – Greatest Disney BBEG?

Alice in Wonderland has had quite the cultural impact. Dozens of movies, games and other stories are either directly inspired by this tale, or overtly live in it’s ideas and imagery. No other story is quoted or referenced as a short hand for “this story is going to be quirky”.

However, very little is made of the Queen. Alice is named or quoted, lots of stories throw in a white rabbit, so many characters emulate the cocky, spirit-guide, Cheshire Cat model, but the Queen of Hearts (or characters like her) are few and far between.

The journey Alice goes on is more fascinating than her destination.

Which is not a good start for the Queen of Heart’s chances as The Ultimate Disney Big Bad Evil Guy.

A Guard Watches a Gate

Night approached relentlessly. The sun had slipped behind the walls of Valderin and the silhouette of the city was imbued with a soft amber glow. Yet soon, that light would be snuffed out, and darkness would take hold.

Paledos stood amongst the Legionnaires on the Southern Redoubt. From this defence, the City Guard could protect the farm folk outside the city walls, and provide an early warning from assault . As the guards on the stone wall looked out across the horizon to the east and south, Paledos admired the city behind them. His prey. His plaything.

Dungeon 23 – Week 8

Let’s make some robots!

I’ve not made too many creatures for my Megadungeon yet, because I haven’t landed on what game I want to run it in yet. I default to 5th Edition D&D, but I’ve also been introduced to Old School Essentials recently, and in the recent issues with WOTC, I’ve been giving Pathfinder the side-eye.

Having said that, building monsters is fun. To me anyway, and I’ve been looking at the robotic, colour-coded ‘Sentries’ in my notes and wondering what they would look like.

Jafar – Greatest Disney BBEG?

I’m of the firm belief that any boss reaches greatness by the reveal of “a final from”. If your Big Bad gains access to their final form by tricking the heroes, that’s a big pile of bonus points. Then, if your BBEG has another final form, but that last form is their undoing… well, there you have a fitting end to your adventure.

In short, Jafar looks like a real contender from the outset.

We’re looking for the best ‘Disney villain as the Big Bad Evil Guy’ for your Table Top RPG. Why? Why not. There have been so many superb Disney villains, and whilst power level or general awesomeness are fine ways to measure a villain, how much you would want them inspiring your Games Master’s campaign is more intriguing debate to me.

<< Last week, Cruella gave it her best shot.

This week, we measure the potential of Jafar.

Cruella de Vil – Greatest Disney BBEG?

“If she doesn’t scare you, no evil thing will” is a bold statement. Not only does it imply that Cruella is the scariest thing imaginable in the world 101 Dalmatians, but the same character that sings that line is standing up the fur-obsessed villain just a few scenes later.

Scary, to some extent, sure. Hateful, despicable and unsettling, definitely. If you’re looking for inspiration for a villain in a Table Top Role Playing Game, Cruella gives some great ideas on how you can make a your main evil guy a great source of grief for your players.

But is Cruella the Greatest Disney BBEG?

Dungeon23 – Week 5

We’re going deeper underground.

The end of January means the completion of the first layer of the Megadungeon, and the beginning of the next. So I needed to make sure that the first was rounded off at 31 rooms, and I needed to think ahead to what the next layer should be.

What I’ve found curious about this self-imposed project is how the ideas flow steadily. I came up with an overall idea for the whole megadungeon from the start, but I didn’t really know how I wanted the whole of Layer 1 to look until it was half-formed. As I started on Layer 2, I had even less of an idea of how it should look. Nevertheless, day by day, the mental image is developing. I don’t think I would have created the same dungeon if I’d sat down to build it in one go.

A new layer in my mega dungeon means a new time period, a new Prophecy leading to its creation, a new clan living within its halls, and new threats for the party to face.

Fantastic Beasts and How to Slay Them: Yeti

We made it. All the way to the end of the book, two years later. 98 Fantastic Beasts turned into D&D monsters.

Some have been unique, weird and wonderful monsters that were a challenge to convert, some were a new version of a pre-existing critter, sometimes less impressive because the description in the book lacks the outlandish abilities in the original’s stats. It’s a slight downer, that the last beast falls into the latter category, but the result is, I think, a different brute of a yeti from what Dungeons & Dragons already has.

Dungeon23 – Week 4

One of the aspects that intrigues me about a Megadungeon is how they can feel so ‘lived in’. A standard dungeon might be completely barren of life – just ancient traps and treasures left behind – or it might still be occupied by a big bad monster or evil villain. If you greatly expand the limits of the rooms and landscape within, suddenly theirs room to add whole ecosystems, small pockets of civilisation, clans, potential allies and enemies.

I have an overall idea that several of the layers of my Dungeon23 creation will have humanoid groups living within. Remnants of a bygone age, or people seeking refuge from the calamities outside. As outlined in earlier blog posts, this ‘dungeon’ was a high-tech complex trying to save the world. Whilst it failed, and has since given way to the chaos, collapse and corruption, some pockets of the dungeon still support life.

If nothing else, offering a party potential companions/nemesis that are just trying to survive amongst the aging machinery and monstrous abominations, has the potential to create interesting scenarios and problems for the players to overcome. Unless they blast through human and monster alike without a second thought… that’s okay too.

Fantastic Beasts and How to Slay Them: Winged Horse

I was recently looking at a friends Lego Harry Potter set when I observed the Lego Thestral and thought: “Have I missed a monster? I’m half a dozen Fantastic Beasts from completely D&D-ifying the whole book, but I don’t remember seeing the Thestral in it.”

The reason turned out to be that Thestral are a type of Winged Horse, and are mentioned in a single half-sentence. Which is an odd way round in my opinion; in a world of griffons and hippogriffs and dragons and pixies, choosing to define a creatures by the fact that they can fly and not by its ability to be invisible to anyone who has not had a specific trauma is more than slightly odd.

What this does also mean, as I round on the penultimate entry in Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them, that I actually need to create three different stat Blocks for the Winged Horse.