rootring
rooted in blogs, linked in a ring52 Monsters
Visit site Feed Incoming links Search this blog
On the ring since 2026-04-24
Latest activity 6mo ago
326 posts
Older posts · Back to profile
Earlier
-
Another month, another irregular collection of things to read and/or look at elsewhere. I only wish I could keep up with it all. MAPS and how they LIE (Blog Bandwagon) at...
-
Maybe it’s time to expand a little on the nasty things that sometimes accompany a Portable Wormhole. Not every extradimensional monster has to be a full-on Yog-Sothoth or the...
-
F is for Flying Under the Radar, a general life-sustaining skill for the adventuring type. Delving into dungeons, facing monstrous threats, braving the uncharted wilderness:...
-
Magic items! Weird and arbitrary little things, ideally without being the obvious key to a nuisance lock. Always amusing when, if you think a little too long, you start to...
-
Because there’s a Blog Bandwagon going on, let’s circle back to the idea of crap maps and make one! Call forth your inner goblin, put on a silly hat, and get your drawing...Linked by the ring
-
E is for Elder Serpent. What is a fantastic world without a prehistory, without forgotten secrets? There are the prior civilizations we know, in a way, and in our fiction there...
-
More blog stuff! Another random photograph! I’d climb up there in a heartbeat. Clouds Billow and Caverns Melt in Gabe Benzur’s Mystical Landscapes at This Is Colossal. I am all...
-
It’s not always about big, scary things. Sometimes the little monsters are what you need. Tiny things, mostly harmless, or at least beneath the threat level of your...
-
D is for Demons. Historically, they come in endless varieties, imagined by cultures across the Earth in so many ways. How could we have a proper game without them? By...
-
Part twelve, adapting the B/X spell list to Whitehack. Cleric, 2nd level. Sometimes I remind myself that while imagining alternatives within the spirit of these spells can be...
-
C is for Chiaroscuro, that term describing art – early from the Renaissance, but a go-to in film noir – with very strong light-dark contrasts. Because at my table, that’s how...
-
A request from David Skelector, because who wouldn’t relish the opportunity to introduce a fantastic coelacanth monster into the game? Plus, fish are all kinds of weird to my...
-
Magic items! The more I have sitting around in my notebook, the easier it is to drop them into the game. And I like novel toys. Today’s theme: Cold & Ice. Never mind that we no...
-
New year, new stuff out on the blogs. As usual, a selection of things I spotted, read, and would encourage you to read, too. Hive Delving (Deserts of Vo) at Whose Measure God...
-
B is for Beastfolk. Those adjacent to, but not quite, humanoids. For all the good, the bad, and the ugly that flow downstream, the standard D&D world is dominated by human...
-
Here we are: the biggest and baddest of the undead! Why, you ask, are we not placing the lich at number ten of ten? They’re the worst of the worst, the sort about which...
-
I adore maps. Good maps and architectural plans do so much heavy lifting for a referee, and I require my players to map the dungeons and wilderness of their adventures, lest...
-
Here we go: a year-long series, biweekly, exploring D&D through the alphabet. I intend to explore general concepts and their utility at the table, highlighting the specifics of...
-
There’s no shortage of blog challenges and the like out there, and they can be rather useful in spurring writing. I really can’t get my act together to do the daily stuff,...
-
Combat! Whether it’s the centerpiece of your every 5e session or the fail state of your grimdark OSR dungeon crawl, you know how it works. Plenty of rules and procedures, in no...
-
Random links that caught my attention, primarily when I was near enough to drop it in a draft post. Sure, there’s more out there than any of us can read, but it’s still...
-
Magic items! Always good to have a few in the back pocket, especially if they’re not too powerful – or at least painfully specific in use – and consumable. Using them up means...
-
Part eleven, adapting the B/X spell list to Whitehack. Cleric, 2nd level. It goes up to eleven! (And next time, even further. There are a lot of spells to work through.) Find...
-
Down the list of undead we go! Today it’s a ghost, more or less, the driftsmoke. We’ll begin with one minor distinction from our previous incorporeal friends and extrapolate...
-
Part ten, adapting the B/X spell list to Whitehack. Magic-User / Elf, 2nd level, and then one from the Cleric list. Should be obvious which. Web Possible wording: Resinous...
-
In the event it isn’t obvious, I assemble these lists haphazardly. Add ’em in as convenience permits, as memory allows. Though I do feel it’s good form to put out little...
-
Inject a bit of entertaining chaos into the game: include some bombs. Perhaps a Wise character can craft a few during downtime, creating single-use spell effects in a form that...
-
Do you include bombs in your game? I’m not saying that you should, but maybe consider it? Whitehack rules explicitly mention bombs, which I consider as essentially...
-
Part nine, adapting the B/X spell list to Whitehack. Magic-User / Elf, 2nd level. Assume wizard as vocation. Locate Object Possible wording: Divine the Direction to That Which...
-
‘Tis the season for more undead! At first blush, it seems like the wraith is merely a hybrid of our previous monsters, the lost spirit and the wight. Incorporeal and ghostly,...