Tw: Body Horror, Blood

Urskan

Image by Steve Ellis, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Frostburn Art Gallery here

[Despite being a well-read kid, I somehow never even heard of His Dark Materials until I was a senior in high school, and didn’t know about the panserbjorn until publicity for The Golden Compass movie geared up a few years later. So when I first read Frostburn, I thought, “armored polar bears? What a weird and novel idea!” I’m onto your game, WotC.

The original urskan was a strongly overpowered CR 5–I bumped them to CR 7 and still had to tone down their offensive capabilities. No more powerful charge, no more rend. I also got rid of their cold subtype, because not every arctic monster needs it.]

Urskan CR 7 Magical Beast This white bear has a gleam of intelligence in its eyes, and a suit of armor on its body.

The urskan are a species of sapient, semi-aquatic bears. Due to their love of heavy armor, they are sometimes referred to as “armored bears” or even “tank bears” by outsiders. Although they resemble polar bears closely, they also have a notable feature of pandas. All urskans possess a mobile sesamoid bone in their wrist, acting like a thumb to help them grip objects. Although their grip is not as fine as a human’s—urskan writing implements more closely resemble fitted bracers than a pen—it is good enough for them to hold tools and weapons.

Urskans typically hunt in the water for seals, whales and large fish, and do so unarmored. Their armor is donned for territorial battles, displays and clashes with other polar powers such as frost giants. Their claws are exceedingly sharp, but many urskans wield hammers, picks or other dual-purpose weapons as well.

An urskan stands ten feet tall when it rears on its hind legs, but they typically walk on all fours. They get along well with dwarves, and are somewhat distrusting of humans. An urskan’s lifespan is short by humanoid standards—one that survives into its fifties is seen as ancient.

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I’ve been trying to think of a setting for a nautical campaign. A vast expanse of tropical islands and waterways with the obligatory shady towns that sit on the water and temples of worship deep in both the jungle and the water. Any thoughts?

Yeknow what, fuck it, I wasn’t planning on writing a full pirate campaign anytime soon but everything’s better with pirates so lets do this!

Campaign: Scoundrels of the Sundered Isles

The Priests debate as to how our hearts may be weighted against its bearer’s sins.. but we Sailors no Better: ‘tis not sin our hearts are weighed against, ‘tis coin, as only coin could get a man to sail out to the edge o’ the bleedin world and gettim to stay ‘ere long enough to get to sinnin in the firstplace. 

-Overheard at The Last Hurrah Tavern

Setup:  The Tropical waters of the Tourmaline Sea have been a flurry of activity over the past century and a half, as natives and settlers from three different continents work together to reclaim land once lost after a half-millennia of supernatural darkness rendered a large chunk of the mainland uninhabitable. Most people deserted the Sundered Isles ( their name derived from a mistranslation that they were “Sun-Dead”) fearing the raiders and plagues that issued from that calamity, and they stayed away even after the sun returned, letting the gentle creeping of green reclaim the once barren rocks. 

Ever hungry for expansion, civilization makes its first tentative steps into these dangerous lands, with ports popping up all along the coast and archipelagos, the first wave of resettlement of a land once thought consigned to oblivion. 

All is not peaceful however, as powers both foreign and continental strive to establish dominance in this new frontier, with settlers, traders, and foolhearty sailors caught in the clash between. Discover the Mysteries long buried in darkness and sunken beneath the crashing waves, as you and your party strive to make your way in the Sundered Isles

Campaign Start

Captives of the Villainous XROC Merchant company and on their way to do hard labor in one of a number of debt-colonies, the party is miraculously saved when a tremendous wave crashes against the ship where they are imprisoned, shattering it upon the coastline and giving them the chance to escape together through the island.   There they find themselves Port Calmayne, a prosperous trade hub where the party can get their sea-legs under them while determining the best course of action and evading the Company. 

Early Game: 

A Priestess of the sea god has work for the party, neverminded that she’s a “retired” pirate, and the job involves helping a group of smugglers exterminate some monsters they accidently imported from the continent 

Investigate the haunted manor of an old Commodore, recover a treasuremap, and perhaps acquire some funds by looting through his hold treasures. Don’t get shot by a ghost while you’re at it. 

Earn the Respect of the local sailorfolk by diving for treasure into shark infested waters. Hidden among the bones of a great dragon are tokens that prove the party’s skill and sea-blessed luck, earning them passage on any ship going anywhere in the Sundered Isles

Mid Game: 

Make your way to Greenveil Lagoon, hidden home of all true pirates and the Bretherin Court. Help reunite an old salty-dog pay respects to his long departed crew, or start treasurehunting for the world’s most skilled but unlukiest mapmaker. 

Hunt ruins for a fabulous relic, then defend it in a ship-duel from a mystic privateer intent on taking it back.  When a job goes bad, it goes bad, and it’ll take all the party’s skill as sailors to evade this tenacious ( and seemingly omniscient) foe. 

Sign on With the Monster Hunting Crew of the Leviathan’s Bane, travel to the most dangerous corners of the archipelago, fight creatures that break ships between their coils, learn how to cook seamonster

Explore an ancient, eternal lighthouse, used as a lair by an eccentric pyromancer. Help a wayward celestial find their misplaced chariot of fire and learn clues as to the darkness that overtook the mainland so long ago. 

Late Game

The Merchant company that enslaved the players wants control over trade in the Sundered Isles, and is willing to unleash a madwoman in order to get it. This renegade pirate is obsessed with becoming the terror of the high seas, going so far as to overthrow the brethren court that keeps order among the Isles’ freebooters, and even unleash a vampire on the populace in hopes of becoming one herself. 

Venture into the lush jungles and overgrown ruins of the continent, and meet the fallen demigod who caused the devastation in the first place. Now little more than an eccentric old lizardfolk, this seemingly benign evil has many stories to tell, and more than a little wickedness still in him. 

The Wave that set the party free was only the herald to a true upset, as over moths an entire new archipelago of islands emerges from the seafloor after millennia in the depths.  Dotted with ruins and artifacts of a long dead civilization, these new isles draw fortunehunters into a clash with the merfolk exiled by the sudden rising of their home, all the while an ancient power wakes, looking to assert itself over the world once again. 

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Today's budget commander sleeper is one that was already featured in our series on Wilds of Eldraine, but I feel like this is the most underrated card in the set for commander, so it gets a standalone post, this card should see play beyond decks that want tapping effects.

In limited, the crown is excellent by virtue of being a tapper. Having something that removes an attacker from combat every turn at instant speed and isn't easy to remove as an artifact is stellar there. You almost never want to cash it in for card draw because it's doing its tapping job.

In commander, this dynamic flips on its head. Tapping one thing is a nice upside on the card, will keep you alive sometimes, but not something you'd use a slot in most decks for. However, the sacrifice ability scales with the number of players, it takes into account the tapped creatures of every opponent. This is really good. For a total of six mana, payable in installments, on the typical board, you should be able to draw reliably what, three to six cards? Given that the tapping is free on your turn, you can even tap an additional creature before cracking it, netting you an extra card, and if you wait before cracking it, you can pay 1 to tap a creature at end step then crack it on your turn for card draw.

Now, is it the best card draw ever? No, but as far as mass card draw effect, this beats almost everything in red and white, and a good bunch of Black's too. And you incidentally get a tapping effect while you wait on your big card draw spell, which is quite an upside.

If you want a mass card draw effect to refuel your hand outside of blue (and green), at mid-power tables that often have a lot of creatures running around, take another look at this card. It's relatively easy to deploy early and cash in later, or in the late game just cast as a mass card draw spell.

Oh, and it's a 3-drop, which means sun titan, Sevinne's Reclamation and Goblin Engineer are all able to grab it back for more card draw if you want to. It's currently under half a dollar, the set has only been out for a month, and I already got three copies that all found homes in decks that wanted one among my collection

The Spirit Of The Samurai is a 2.5D side-scrolling samurai action horror game where you slay grotesque stop-motion monsters!

Read More & Play The Beta Demo, Free (Steam)

Gameplay Video:

Free Githyanki Marauder Pf2e Stats on Patreon

Writing Resources

My main thesaurus website which is up while I write:

My favorite Random Name Generator: There are so many ways to tweak the settings and generate names to choose from:

Behind the Name

Random Name Generator

This random name generator can suggest names for babies, characters, or anything else that needs naming.

If you have spare credits/moolah/kruge, these are awesome:

WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®

The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide To Character Expression (2nd Edition) - WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®

Released on February 19, 2019. The bestselling Emotion Thesaurus, often hailed as “the gold standard for writers” and credited with transfor

WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®

Emotional Wound Thesaurus - WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®

Below are samples of the entries in our popular emotional wound thesaurus. For the complete and enhanced collection, please visit One Stop F

Translations: Nothing beats having a native or fluent speaker's help, but DeepL tends to do better than Google Translate:

deepl.com

DeepL Translate: The world's most accurate translator

Translate texts & full document files instantly. Accurate translations for individuals and Teams. Millions translate with DeepL every day.

I don't heed even a third of its suggestions, but the Hemingway Editor is good for finding stupidly long run-on sentences that I otherwise skim over. It encourages me to rework some things, make them more succinct:

Cultural Quirks for Fantasy Country 📜

Once a year the community gives the oldest person to the forests as tribute to preserve the community. They then hold a happy festival with the soon-to-be-deceased as the guest of honor

The community believes that the world beyond the towns borders does not exist. It is a dream realm that one can become lost in if you stray too far. Any creatures or people coming from the dreamlands are welcome to pass through but cannot stay.

They believe that all spells to revive the dead must have a dove present while the ritual takes place. The dove carries soul back into the mortal plane and withoutit the wrong soul could find its way into the body. 

Every single home must have a living firefly inside their vase It is said that it’s the only thing protecting the death force from stepping inside their home at night

Lies are punishable by death. As a result of this, down through the years the definition of “lie” has been clouded. Now everyone habitually speaks every through that comes to their mind. 

Hundred of years ago, ther was a plague in the region and the people used a certain type of flower as an amulet against it. Now these flowers are farmed here in spring, made into wreaths and given as gifts. 

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I had my very first big mood swing yesterday! I got uncharacteristically upset at my partner, it wasn't very cool of me. We had a talk and everything was okay in the end, but that instance was weird. And the moodswing didn't end there! I continued to have the most intense panic-cry I've had in weeks. It was really not fun. My Mister stuck by me and weathered the storm, he was so helpful to me, even though I'd been so rude to him earlier.

When I was ready to emerge from the cave, he suggested I sit on the floor in front of the couch so he could play with my hair. I asked if we could watch an instructional video on how to use my brand new ROUND HAIR-BRUSH!!!!!!🌠🌠🌠 He agreed, and we sat down to practice. He pet me and called me a good girl.

Well. Apparently you need a fucking blow dryer to use round brushes! Guess what; I didn't fuckin know that. I dont have one! But Mister was so determined to help me feel better that he tried to follow along with the video as best he could to get it down before we added a blow dryer someday when I could afford one. He brushed my hair for at least an hour and a half as I dove into a femme self-care tutorial video RABBITHOLE. We watched a "how-to do a 90's blowout!" and "here's my everything shower routine!" and "my Coachella nails for 2024!" and more.

Each video taught me so fucking much it was incredible honestly. The everything shower video told me I should be shampooing twice, conditioning only the mids-ends of my hair, etc. While the Coachella Nails video taught me a certain level of what to expect if I wanted to go get my nails done at a salon (maybe?), but it also realized within me: Hand/Nail dysphoria.

I stared at my hands for maybe 10 minutes noticing how thick, lined, and scarred they are. Even though my hands are soft they don't look soft. The video host's fingers were so slender, long, elegant. Mine are stubby in comparison. My nails are so short because I bite them when I have nothing else to fidget with. Her nails were at least an inch long on her nailbed, it was like they were groomed specifically for nail art and extensions (i suppose they were). I've never thought about my hands before. I used to like having scarred hands. But now they make me feel sick.

I needed a change of pace. I switched to a video that detailed tips and tricks for DIY alt/goth fashion by a channel called Rattus Rattus. Loved it. Only made it 20 minutes in as it was 1:30am and I was fading. Captivated by each of the videos telling me how to achieve a certain level of high-maintenace girlhood, my eyes drooped closed until i could keep them open no longer. I lied down on the floor and fell asleep until my husband decided it was time to sleep in a real bed.

Anyway. Big day yesterday for learning and new experiences. It was intense. Time for sleep.

VTM character concepts that I am compelled to share as they have completely taken over my brain:

1. A fledgling who wakes up after their embrace to an “Alice in Wonderland”-style “unbirthday party” complete with some rather grizzly tea and presents. Their sire is either a Malkavian who genuinely thinks they are doing something nice, or a very twisted Toreador.

2.  A Lasombra antiquarian bookseller who takes sadistic pleasure in charging Tremere vamps OBSCENE amounts of money for rare occult tomes. 3.  A Salubri vampire who consensually feeds from those suffering from chronic pain in order to give them a little relief, unknowingly creating people addicted to the kiss in the process. 4. Nosferatu with a gorgeous voice who posts songs on social media without revealing their face. They are often asked to perform at Elysium, provoking much jealousy from the local Toreador. 5.  A Toreador dominatrix whose art form is torture. They work with the sheriff to “extract” information, and are currently searching for a fiend to teach them fleshcraft. Please feel free to use any of these as my brain continues to sprout characters without actually having chronicles to play them in lol.