• The Hunger and The Dusk is story fuel for your hot orc summer

    The Hunger and The Dusk is story fuel for your hot orc summer

    As a lover of fantasy fiction and storytelling my friends have consistently suggested comic books for more D&D source material, for further stories. Unlike many in the space, I was not a comics fan and certainly not a collector in my youth.

    I came to comics through soccer — the friends that I made through the game. The first person who really convinced me to give comics a shot was ETHAN HD, owner of Destiny City Comics and real life superhero in Tacoma.

    We chatted about subcultures, genre and the power of story. I picked up a couple comics, different formats — March, Dungeons & Dragons, some supers stuff.

    Later, again through soccer, I met G. Willow Wilson. We chatted about the paths to fandom, embracing stories of others and discovery of commonalities in differences. I now have a Poison Ivy book, because I loved and learned from Wilson’s Kamala Khan and her Empty Quarter.

    Wilson has a new series coming out and it’s right up my alley. The D&D vibe is strong. The Hunger and The Dusk is set in an enviro-apocalypse with an invasion of alien and/or planar beings. I’ll probably create the main characters as NPCs in my world.

    Releasing to the public on July 12, The Hunger and The Dusk from G. Willow Wilson and Chris Wildgoose is story fuel for any Dungeon/Game Master who tells fantasy stories. You’ll immediately recognize the first issue’s story of destruction, sadness and tiny bit of hope.

    This preview is from a pdf of issue #1 given by G. Willow Wilson. I had already pre-ordered the issue based on earlier reviews.

    I will attempt to not spoil anything.

    An interior cover of The Hunger and The Dusk. The left frame shows a building on fire. The right of the frame has the title The Hunger and The Dusk wrapping around a dark cloud. The character Will walks away from the fire, his head hanging.

    This is an interior cover, effectively the transition from prologue to main story. The prologue shows the multiple dangers facing the world. There’s environmental destruction forcing migration, there are the conflicts between human and orc, and there are the Vangol — an alien and superior being destroying all living things.

    They came out of the Dusk

    A view of orcs and humans after a Vangol raid. The colors and reds and oranges, with several bloody figures on the ground. The few standing are helping each other treat wounds. The main characters are in the distances, walking away from the destruction.

    The introduction of the Vangol is violent, swift. They are more powerful than orcs and humans acting on their own. Whether warrior or farmstead the peoples of this world cannot stand up to the Vangol.

    They came as an Omen

    The combination of language, color and layout are powerful. You see scale of story and individual depth in equal parts. The main characters are Gruakhtar Icemane, and Callum Battlechild (I think that’s Will too in later scenes). They have complimentary fantasy tropes and there’s depth to them behind just tropes early in issue 1.

    The Hunger and The Dusk mixes color themes in a way to signify despair and hope. Lush green fields are rare, a brief respite in a world where there is drought up and down the coast. The ending image of issue one is a transition from the oranges of a violent dusk to a soft, dark green hillside show that our protagonists might just be heroes, if things work out.

    I’m excited to see where the story goes. In interviews Wilson has said that this is a “hot orc saga.” I expect there’s some romance, there’s certainly found family to come, and there’s probably hope, because the world of The Hunger and The Dusk deserves hope.

    The final frame of issue one, this frame shows the main characters walking away from the destruction behind them. They enter a green land, still dark. Tara and Callum are out front, a third character is chasing them.

    The story of Gruakhtar Icemane, Callum Battlechild and the Last Men Standing is available in The Hunger and The Dusk at your favorite local comic book shop (like Destiny City Comics) or online on July 12 and throughout the hot orc summer.

  • Meet Passive Aggression and Izzy Handball, two more characters inspired by the soccer team I sponsored

    Meet Passive Aggression and Izzy Handball, two more characters inspired by the soccer team I sponsored

    I went and sponsored a soccer team. It’s a pub league team with several friends I met through Sounders soccer. Rather than advertise my soccer blog they all know about already I put the logo for Full Moon Storytelling on their kits. And then I offered to make any of them an Adventurer’s League legal character that represents some of their favorite soccer players and themselves.

    A character sheet in Dungeons & Dragons is a story told in short hand.

    Here’s the story I was trying to tell with Passive Aggression.

    With Passive Aggression, one of the first things I wanted to do was have a little honey badger companion (in Reroll I used a cat). Ozzie Alonso was Seattle’s honey badger for so long that I must, must honor him. The player who submitted their favorite players requested a minotaur, which also suits Alonso well. It is easy to imagine Alonso lowering his head and charging through someone.

    The other guidance is the maestro Luka Modrić. Ranger helped with this, because the bit of magic makes sense. Luka is one of the more technical players in the world, with the titles and individual recognition that makes sense. When the player is that exceptional only magic makes sense. Zephyr Strike seemed perfect for that representation.

    I chose the subclass Gloom Stalker because of the Our Flag Means Offside FC player sees themselves as someone who can be a support player across the battlefield, Entangle and Dread Ambuser helped capture that story

    Here’s the story I was trying to tell with Izzy Handball.

    Roger Levesque is a legendary Sounder, from the time before they were in MLS. He also puts on a great pirate impression. Pelé is the world’s greatest player, ever. Young people please don’t come at me with your modern faves — Izzy Handball will slay you.

    Combining a cult legend and the world’s greatest was a fun challenge. I started with the pirate, which meant Swashbuckler Rogue, which also fits Pelé’s personality. He loved to go one-on-one, or one-on-four, whatever. Dual-wielding swords made sense because Pelé would strike rapidly, constantly and with both feet.

    A wood elf was chosen to further lean into Pelé’s pace, his fey ancestry and his charm.

    With both of the soccer players the Folk Hero made sense. Whether form the streets of Brazil or the artificial turf of Starfire, Levesque and Pelé became legends with tales growing taller every year.

    Character graphics are made using ReRoll app. All eight players who submitted their favorite players and idealized playing styles to be imagined as D&D characters can be seen on DnDBeyond.

  • Sports in Fantasy with Cutting Edge Cosplay

    Sports in Fantasy with Cutting Edge Cosplay

    After one of my regular D&D sessions at Logan Brewing someone watching us started asking me about my campaign. I just couldn’t stop talking. We eventually got to talking about Sports in D&D.

    That’s when Bears invited me onto her podcast, because I’m a talker.

    The Cutting Edge Cosplay group were great hosts. I’ve listened to all of their other episodes and enjoy how much they share their passions for performance via cosplay.

    This episode is also available as a podcast.

    Share your passions, open up to others — you never know the friends you can make.

  • Sports: A New Tool for 5th Edition D&D

    Sports: A New Tool for 5th Edition D&D

    Most Dungeons & Dragons settings (Forgotten Realms, Eberron, DragonLance, Midgard, Greyhawk) exist in a similar socio-economic state to the very late Middle Ages through the Victorian period. The commonality of magic, the relative wealth and existence of a middle class, and other indicators compare fairly well to those concepts. There is a certain apocrypha that makes it clear that much of the fantasy we roleplay is not from Arthurian legend, instead there are modern concepts such as trade guilds, inns with more individual rooms rather than sleeping halls, massive sailing ships, some worlds even have printing presses producing newspapers.

    Something lacking in almost every world set within that many hundred year period is sports. Almost all sporting events mentioned in the literature are individual in nature, essentially replacing things which were in the original Olympics. This ignores the fact that by the time societies had inns, guilds, papers, etc. they had team sports.

    By Unknown author – Pietro di Lorenzo Bini (ed.), Memorie del calcio fiorentino tratte da diverse scritture e dedicate all’altezze serenissime di Ferdinando Principe di Toscana e Violante Beatrice di Baviera, Firenze, Stamperia di S.A.S. alla Condotta [1688], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=864734

    A partial list of the team sports from around the globe within the time periods that inspire a majority of D&D fiction includes Town Ball (ball, stick, & safety), Mob Ball (ball, foot, & goal), Lacrosse (ball, stick, & goal), Maya Ballgame (ball, stick/hip, & goal), Polo (ball, stick, horse, & goal), Dakyu (ball, stick, & goal with maybe horses), Buzkashi (animal head, horse, & goal), and others – like the predecessor of hockey.

    Fantasy Team Sports

    Fantasy literature tends to ignore the element of sports. There are some that exist — from the barely mentioned phandrel (team chasing-and-destination) in the Forgotten Realms to, of course, quidditch, which somehow exists in the real world now. The Magicians has welters, which combines chess with magical violence. Strixhaven, the Magic: the Gathering and D&D setting, has Mage Tower and the single reference to Silk Ball (and a map).

    Yes, adventures like Tomb of Annihilation, Rime of the Frostmaiden, and Theros capture individual sports.

    But we know that the times upon which our worlds are based have a wonderful glut of sports. At the minimum these should be used to add color and flavor to our worlds. Make them part of festivals. Have a red v blue v green v orange v black phandrel contest that interrupts a chase scene, or maybe even becomes part of it.

    Still, there’s more available to make your world live and breathe. Not just the Athlete and Gladiator backgrounds, which are great for a hero that specializes in individual sport. Add team sports to your character’s history.

    Sports (type): A 5th Edition Tool

    Lean into tools for the mechanics. They are an excellent way to add more story to your backstory. The use and specialization in a specific set of tools tells us much about the artisan, the bard, the entertainer and so many other backgrounds.

    Expand on your Athlete by adding Sports (type) as one of their tools. Borrow from what was established by Musical Instrument (shawm, etc) for your model. The specific type of sport is purely a flavor and story element, until it isn’t. Maybe, you’ll find a fun town ball bat, or a ball game stick, or whatever, during your journeys and that may provide a clue as to who was in that space prior – DC YY Intelligence (Investigation) with advantage if you have experience with that or a similar sport, for example.

    Bringing sports into your game as a tool expands the tales you can tell. Be Waterdeep’s version of Roy Hobbs, or a Sharn’s version of Mara. Maybe during a chaotic match of mob football between Aviceland and Copperwall in the Foxshaw Field you became a folk hero that repelled a skeleton attack.

    Don’t Worry About Mechanics

    As always, here at Full Moon Storytelling we’re focused on story rather than mechanics. Using a new Tool isn’t going to change your D&D game’s power level, not even as much as Coffee Gear.

    Trying to figure out a winner might be necessary, but not with significant frequency. If you wanted to roleplay actual sports something like Blaseball would be a better than D&D. But, if you need a result and want to use the dice, limit the contest to a single roll for each participant on the team (use party sizes of 3 to 6), and have it opposed by an NPC. Through the description of their primary role within the sport and what that character is attempting have them make a roll Athletics or Acrobatics, assigned to an attribute that most fits their action and with advantage if they character is proficient. Then roll the same for the NPC. Have the first team to 3 successes wins that match.

    Most games before the codification of rule and laws (baseball and football/soccer in the mid 19th century) could last from sunrise to sunset. If the players succeed on their first three rolls, consider that a game done by lunch. If it takes five, or more due to a bunch of ties, make it last into twilight.

    Do not attempt to get deeper into the mechanics than this. Your session doesn’t need hours dedicated to sport. Instead any match should be a way to access new stories told at the table. Instead of hanging at the bar, or boxing – play some Dakyu. Meet some new NPCs based around that event, then hit the tavern to talk about that day’s new star athlete.

    Handy Maps for Play

    Two-minute Tabletop’s wonderful map works for many structures. There’s a small stadium with markings for halves that could work for town ball or mob ball that develop into a spectator sport.

    Strixhaven has maps for both Mage Tower and Silk Ball. The rules for Mage Tower are developed, while Silk Ball has space to make your own sport.

    Prefer this topic as a vlog or podcast?

  • Meet Davy Jones, an exceptional striker and brave defender

    Meet Davy Jones, an exceptional striker and brave defender

    I went and sponsored a soccer team. It’s a pub league team with several friends I met through Sounders soccer. Rather than advertise my soccer blog they all know about already I put the logo for Full Moon Storytelling on their kits. And then I offered to make any of them an Adventurer’s League legal character that represents some of their favorite soccer players and themselves.

    First up is Davy Jones. Why Davy? Because that persona is on the reveal graphic.

    A character sheet in Dungeons & Dragons is a story told in short hand.

    Here’s the story I was trying to tell with Davy Jones — the name on the back of one of the players’ shirts. I didn’t look up the real players to build these. I did use their soccer-name as inspiration.

    The soccer players provided in the prompt questions were Fredy Montero, DeAndre Yedlin, Zlatan. In some of the prompts there were references to Jessica Jones and Ljósálfar.

    D&D is an imperfect way to represent these things. My attempts here are to capture the vibes of a potent showperson, a striker from distance and a stout defender. An Aasimar is more similar to the light elves of Nordic legend than the current version of D&D, plus that helps add more magic to Davy Jones — Zlatan has to have magic, so does Fredy “Golden God” Montero.

    It was Fredy that helped the lean towards Paladin, as well as the Jessica Jones mention. Jones helped the decision towards Oath of Vengeance. Having Compelled Duel was another touch point towards Zlatan.

    With DeAndre Yedlin still to be incorporated the Background choice was obvious — Folk Hero. Yedlin was the first MLS Sounder to rise from the Academy, the first to play in the World Cup because of their performance as a Sounder and the first to be sold to Europe. He’s a legend in his home town, and so is Davy Jones.

    Each skill, weapon, spell is chosen to emphasize the combination of mystical striker, bewitching technique and the willingness to be a stout defender.

    That’s Davy Jones.

    Character graphics are made using ReRoll app. All eight players who submitted their favorite players and idealized playing styles to be imagined as D&D characters can be seen on DnDBeyond.

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