I Had A Fucking Wonderful Conversation With A Director Who Is A Trans Woman Today.

After starting Fem HRT I am much more aware of smell and it has an effect on me. Before, all I knew was "bed bath and beyond is a headache zone, avoid at all costs", but now I have a candle that smells like "English Pear" and I smell it OFTEN in order to calm down. AND MY HUSBANDS ARMPITS SMELL SO GOOD WHEN HES SWEATY IT MAKES ME MELT. He smells so sweet. He thinks it's icky. Silly man 🤦‍♀️

New budget Commander cards: Lost Caverns of Ixalan: White

You know these by now, we’ll go color by color, mixing main set and commander set. Reprints can be included if they brought the price down under our bar or are otherwise notable. All the cards presented here are under $2 at time of writing. Cards will be evaluated as part of the 99, not as commanders.

Let's start with three cards for the price of one, three one-drops to keep your curve lean and clean, with useful effects in some decks. Helping Hand is solid recursive value but will need specific decks that are running a toolbox of cheap creatures.

The reliquary is a very serviceable removal if your deck will reliably have stuff to throw away to cast it, adding Ward to an O-Ring makes it a bit less likely for it to be removed. Being a one-mana artifact also means you can find it, a removal for any creature or artifact, off of a Trinket Mage if you need to, which could be clutch.

The Gnome will basically shield you from early aggression then be cashed in as a cantrip later, particularly in decks that can sac it themself. With a reliquary, for example!

I don't know how long this will stay in the budget, but Karnstructs are strong. This represents two artifacts by itself, can be blinked or reused, and even without a board it's not hard to flip it with a few equipments or artifacts lying around and start pumping out more Karnstructs every turn. Consider it in token decks, in artifact decks, in artifact token decks...

Abuelo's Awakening is not great reanimation in any form, but four mana to bring back any powerful enchantment or artifact is pretty much the cheapest we've seen this effect... Just don't be banking on that artifact or enchantment surviving too long. And you need to know what you want to be doing to be playing this, it won't just go in any deck.

A sun titan for 4 is an interesting offer, and one that will do work in pretty much any deck. We're not replacing Sun Titan here (nor Guardian Scalelord) though, Coven requires you to have at least three creatures around, which makes this significantly worse at redeploying after a board wipe and will be much more of a feels bad when you just don't have coven when you need it, and attacking with a 3/3 on the ground can be tricky to trigger it later. I'll stick to my existing options for the time being, but if I ever run a deck that wants 4 different Sun Titan effects and has plenty of creatures, this likely would make the cut.

This is a good removal. White has a plethora of good options for removal, but have another here that's both versatile and efficient, your middle-point between a Swords to Plowshares and a Generous Gift on versatility vs cost.

Grasp of Fate on a body for just one more mana! Of course, that means it'll die much more easily, but that's why the activated ability is there to munch on things... Which will end up costing you a lot more than four mana to get rid of stuff permanently. If your pod can expect a creature to survive a turn cycle though, might still have some places to play this, particularly if you can hold up mana and threaten munching on stuff at instant speed if they point something in your foragers' direction.

This is a two-mana mana rock for artifact decks, that also happens to loop artifacts once or twice. Play it in all your artifact decks with white. Exiling your own stuff means you're less likely to go infinite with it than the average artifact, but if it merely brings back your other infinite pieces while also being a rock, it's good enough.

If you want your board wipes to be artifacts, you now have one more option in white. With a lot of artifact support pieces being creatures with low power (did you know all the Urzas have power 2 or less?), and you picking for all players, this should allow you to keep your best cheap enabler while leaving the opponents with hopefully less impactful dorks. Beyond that, the flip side is a pretty great windborn muse: who would skip their turn of casting spells just to attack you? And you get a 5/3 flier, which isn't too shabby either.

It's a new flying Pridemate, and one with quite an upside when your opponent finally removes her or wipes the board. Beyond the classic souls' attendant style decks, she will also make her way into aristocrat decks, where every blood artist turns every creature sacrificed before her into more creatures when you run out, allowing relatively easy aristocrat combo wins.

Reanimating every turn is nice when you start on the first turn, though the six mana are pretty steep here, you'll want to make sure what you're reanimating is impactful every turn. A card for angels, dragons, demons and such, but in those decks, the top of your curve tends to be filled with creatures of that type, so you might not find room for this.

TURN YOUR SOUND ON FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Can confirm. He was literally wearing the exact same collar at the comic con me and my husband saw them at yesterday.

(We bought the large bleached dye shirt with the beautiful Luna moth(?) on it. Absolutely loving it 💜)

im actually a puppy dog irl this is me btw

Free TTRPG Art - Puppeteer Spider

I appreciate the patience!  I am working on this month’s monster now, but in the meantime, have last month’s - the puppeteer spider!  It has a bit more narrow usage, but spiders lend themselves very well to traps and lair setups.  This one could have an extra hypnotic flair.

This illustration is under a CC-BY license, and is therefore free  to use in private TTRPG games and commercially for independent content  creators! If you want a transparent .png and other full-resolution  files, please visit my Ko-fi shop where it’s pay-what-you-want.

Wish I could have gone out for Halloween. Idk what I would have done, but it felt bad staying home and doing nothing. Wish I could have gone out with my husband. I wanna wear puppy makeup with my ears and paws and a tail (I don't have one of those yet). I saw so many other puppies posting to Tumblr, Twitter, discord, bluesky. Idk. Wish on the one day it was acceptable that I could have gone out and been a happy little puppy for a time.

I bought my first 2 bras today 😎😎 all by myself!!!! Ive only tried one on so far but I like it so much!!! I'm sure this enjoyment will end at some point. All my femme friends say they haven't worn bras like their entire adult lives. So I'm sure they won't spark joy forever. But for now they do!

I fear my ruin-raiding, slave-taking, trade-disrupting goblin villain still isn't villainous enough. What can be done to really make the PCs actively oppose him?

Sounds to me like the problem is less with the Character's actual Villainy and more with how your party relates to them  as I mentioned in this post, part of of my guiding philosophy when it comes to adventure prompts Is finding ways to make the adventurers care about the greater plot. Thankfully you've given me a lot to work with, so without further ado:

Villain: Rizzko Redcap, and the Plunderer’s Market

“Breathe deep dearies, wouldn’t want you putting up a fight and damaging the merchandise. I’m sure there’s an arena pit or a slave mine somewhere desperately in need of your heroic valor” 

Setup: If its one thing this grizzled goblin alchemist hates, it’s adventurers. Once the oblivious and eager assistant to a mad wizard his clan had come into the service of, young Rizzko’s family was slaughtered by a band of zealous sellswords hired to stop the arcanist’s schemes. As a cruel reminder of that day, Rizzko’s face was horribly scarred as he tried to throw himself in the way of the final blow that ended the wizard’s life. 

Nursing his wounds and his hatred for years, Rizzko ran with a number of outlaw bands before finding his place within a surprising new venture growing in the badlands between kingdoms. Different than any encampment before it, this fortified camp sought to be a place where bandits and pillagers could meet, resupply, and swap loot before carrying on to the final destination. Everyone who’s gone on more than one raid knows that even with the most solid of intentions the fury and chaos produces a very mixed bag of pilfered valuables , and that not every buyer willing to do business over obviously bloody goods is interested in everything you might have. Oh sure there’s always a place for livestock, grain  and gold, but what about the cultural artifacts? the books you didn’t burn? Who wants once preciously guarded relics, and who just wants terrified villagers they can force to work to exhaustion in their fields? 

These grisly economics led to prosperity for those who did business with this “Plunderer’s Market”, and year after year the gatherings grew, until eventually what started out as an impromptu swamp meet became a fortified settlement with ad-hock rules supported by a number of powerful bandit clans. Having perfected his early lessons in alchemy into a real talent with all things noxious and nasty, Rizzko fit right in, in particular thanks to his knowledge of arcane valuables, and the plosions he used to subdue valuable hostages for transport to the market. 

Now the goblin is running his own outlaw band, starting his carrier as an independent villain with a series of violent raids on trade routes and local delves, snapping up anyone and anything he thinks valuable enough to trade. His quest for funds and favors are all in service of  resurrecting the great work of his long departed mentor, a task that Rizzko only half remembers but is fully sure will fulfill his need for vengeance against those “civilized” peoples who hurt him so long ago. 

Adventure Hooks:

One of Rizzko’s favorite tricks is to station his gang in ambush near a local dungeon site, perhaps agitating local monsters to rampage near the village or spread rumors in town about treasure or paranormal activity. When the adventurers are drawn into the trap like bees to honey, Rizzko or his lieutenants wait until they’re exhausted and heading back to town with packs laid down with gold before striking. Hopefully the party notices that someone’s watching them while they’re at camp, otherwise they’re in for a nasty surprise. 

an unforseen windfall has befallen the slaver’s band, as one of the caravans they raided has produced three times the amount of captives the scouts initially reported, some of them high born. With so many heads to account for and not wanting to waste out on any potential investment, Rizzko has moved the captives to a cave system not too far away, and is spending the following days questioning his prisoners about their likely value.  This delay might just give the party enough time to hear about the attacked caravan, find the site of the ambush, and track the goblin’s forces to the cave before they move on or start trimming the “dead weight”. 

Further Adventures: 

Rizzko learned one important lesson from his mentor’s death: never let them trap you in the back of your stronghold. Rizzko is always ready for an intrusion by adventurers, bugging out with the most valuable and portable of the treasure and leaving behind a time-consuming alchemical trap or other distraction to make good his escape. If the party DO manage to track him down ( and not one of his many proxies), they can expect to have him slip through their grasp once or twice before finally being able to nail the slaver down. 

The Sphinx’s Bastards are a rival adventuring party our heroes meet up with over the course of their adventures, alternatively competing for contracts, intersecting on parallel jobs, or even just casually running into one another during a festival.   Led by the one eyed Falconer Daraius, the Sphinxes (as they’re called in polite company) will provide some good natured antagonism as both groups rise to prominence. One day however, the party will hear a tapping at their window: its Daraius’s falcon, with a hastily scrawled message attached. He and his crew have been ambushed during a job and have been taken prisoner by some mad goblin who’s  intent on dragging them out to the badlands to sell at auction.  With the bird to guide them, the party may just be able to rescue their friends and together put an end to the plunderer’s market once and for all. 

Art source 1

Art Source 2 

oh god

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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