Course Reflection

 

During this course I have worked with mediums that I have never touched before. The only thing I have ever touched on before this class was digital painting through Krita, with barely touching Gimp and Inkscape. I had never worked with video editing or music before. So those two were the greatest experiment for me. While I still need to improve my skills in both of those, at least now I know how to use iMovie and Soundation! I also now have more experience working with vector graphics, which will be useful in the future if I decide to go into marketing!

I have been on a journey to figure out what I want to do with the next, hopefully, 40+ years of my life before retirement. I have been on this journey for nearly 6 years and I'm still not quite sure what I want to do. I am aiming to go into consumer psychology currently, working more on the business and marketing side, maybe even going into advertisement development. I think no matter which career path I end up going down, this course has helped me. I now have digital media skills I hadn't before, and with some practice, would be confident enough to share my work in the future. 

All together I thought this was a great class. It didn't focus solely on digital painting, like I had assumed, which is okay. It taught me that digital media includes so much more, things that I had never even thought or heard of! 

The Ragtag Lionhearts by Taylor Pohlman

D&D YouTube Channels!

In this blog I'm going to introduce you to some YouTube channels that I find useful as both a D&D player and a DM! These include tutorials and just simple videos about the game!


First of all, if you're new to D&D or want to learn more about D&D I would immediately recommend the show Critical Role, found on YouTube. They are "a group of nerdy ass voice actors that sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons". It stars Matt Mercer as the DM, Liam O'Brien, Taliesen Jaffe, Laura Baily, Travis Willingham, Sam Riegel, and Ashley Johnson. They have one completed campaign, which has over 100 episodes and are currently playing another campaign that already has over 80 episodes. Each episode ranges from 3-5 hours long, but it's not like a cartoon or a tv show where you have to watch every second of it. I listen to it in the background while I draw or play video games. You don't even have to watch the first campaign if you want to skip to the second one. I personally haven't watched all of the first campaign. This channel is a great inspiration for story plots or how to better your own roleplaying!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpXBGqwsBkpvcYjsJBQ7LEQ


Another channel I follow is Black Magic Craft. This channel features a guy named Jeremy how has a knack for building his own terrain and models for tabletop RPGs. He has tutorials on how to build your own. He even has instructional videos: painting different effects, how to build different buildings, how to create different terrain effects, what paint brushes to use, and so many more. While he does have many videos on how to paint, his videos focus more on painting terrain and buildings, which don't require nearly as much fine detail as the figurine miniatures.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Rlv-ug-mtnXuMwlpcqFgg/videos

Wyloch's Armory is another channel that is good for terrain building. He also focuses on building your own miniatures from different materials.  I think his most fascinating video is how to craft an Umber Hulk from seashells! It looks nearly as good as the mass produced miniatures!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrKJd7jQ989DZvtf5C69mYA/videos



Finally, while it is not it's own channel, there is Mini Primetime with Will Friedle sponsored by Critical Role and the playlist for all the episodes can be found on their channel. Not only is Will's approach to the tutorials entertaining, but he also does a great job at explaining the process. While so far there have only been 7 episodes, each featuring a cast or crew member of Critical Role, who are all either talented artists, or have a knack for art, it is amazing to see what they can do with a tiny brush.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1tiwbzkOjQz9kKDaPRPrX2E7RPTaxEZd

There's also SchnauzerFaceMinis for more tutorials on painting the miniatures. I have never watched any of their videos, but if you do, I hope it's helpful. Plus it has dogs!
https://www.youtube.com/user/SchnauzerFaceMinis/videos


I hope you found this blog to be useful in your adventure to be a D&D player, or even a hobbyist that enjoys painting miniatures!

D&D Essentials!

For this blog post, instead of telling the story of Reyna and the Ragtag Lionhearts, I am going to go through some awesome stuff to aid any fellow Dungeon Masters or player out there!

   1.  DM Screen

A DM screen is an essential part of any D&D group. Not only does it prevent the players from seeing the DM's rolls, but a lot of DM screens come with cheat sheets on the inside, full of useful information for any session. 

https://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/dungeon-masters-screen This is the DM screen we currently use in our game. It comes with quick information on status conditions, cover bonuses, a random name generator, an exhaustion chart, and more! The front features a group's worst nightmare: a dragon!

   2.  DICE!!!

This is my favorite part of the entire game. Dice, dice, and more dice! You can seriously never have too many dice. Dice come in all sorts of colors and made out of all sorts of materials! The most basic set you need contains 7 dice: a d4, a d6, a d6, two d10s, a d12, and a d20, though you would preferably want a second d20 for the cases you have to roll advantage or disadvantage. Materials for dice range from to resin to metal to unique gems or even bone! Some dice even glow in the dark! 

https://www.krakendice.com/cotton-candy-10pc-dice-set/?revpage=2%20
These are some of my favorite dice made by Kraken Dice. While it saddens me to know that I do not actually own these dice and wish they would make more, they are beautiful and made of simple resin. 

https://www.elderwoodacademy.com/gemstone-dice-button-rose-quartz/
Then there's these beauties. Made of rose quartz and any girls dream dice set. While I am too scared to actually use my gem dice in fear of them chipping, they are marvelous to look at and make me happy.

   3.  Miniatures

Miniatures are the basic battle pieces of all tabletop games. While it is cheaper to buy miniatures unpainted and paint them yourself, you can find pre-painted ones that cost a little more. There are even websites like https://www.heroforge.com/ and https://eldritch-foundry.com/ where you can create your own custom miniatures for your characters. They are 3D printed in a variety of materials and shipped right to you, or you can download the file and print them out yourself if you have access to that sort of technology. I myself have used heroforge multiple times now, if you use it I recommend using the premium plastic. While it is a bit costly, the quality is well worth it. These miniatures also do not come pre painted. The premium plastic has finer details on it, making it so much easier to paint than the regular plastic. 

Check out my next blog entry, which will be a review of some D&D related channels I follow on YouTube!

Reyna lights a forest on fire

In the farming town of Perdita, the group found themselves in a predicament. The town mayor did not want the group to mingle in the life of Jelly, a fellow resident, and possible intellect devourer, as it was an invasion of privacy and the group had no proof. While figuring out how to get more information on Jelly without breaking the trust of the mayor, the group ran into another problem, a local farmer was having an issue with all his crops being eaten by a mysterious monster and children were coming up missing throughout town.

The group agreed to help this crazy old farmer, who only grew corn and was obsessed with making anything with corn. After many days of investigation, the group found the culprit: a banderhobb, or as the group called it, a crazy corn frog. Chasing the frog away, the group ran into yet another problem! The frog was merely a servant of a night hag, the foulest of hags.

After an epic battle the group rid the forest of the night hag and the banderhobb. However, during the battle the hag had summoned a treant to aid her. Knowing wood is weak to fire, Reyna flung her fire spells at the tree, easily defeating it, but at a cost. The fire quickly spread to the surrounding trees, and before they knew it they were in the middle of a massive forest fire.

With the help of the entire town and the Jade Circle, a known nature-preserving group, the fire was quenched, but the forest has suffered major damage.

Still waiting to get permission to investigate Jelly, the group aided the local enchanter, an orc named Knelvar. He had the group go to a nearby orc camp and destroy the inventions that were stolen from him.

The group found the orc camp and began the massacre of everyone in there. After a messy bloodbath, the chief had holed himself inside. Reyna thought it would be a good idea to disguise herself as another orc and go in and tell the chief that the invaders had left. However, the chief saw right through the disguise. Nearly dying for the second time, Reyna and the group managed to subdue the rest of the orcs, where the group learned that their new friend Lykos wasn't what he seemed. He was a lycanthrope.

The group eventually left without being allowed to investigate Jelly, a mistake that would cost the city much later on.

The First to Go

Reyna and the group had been through a lot over the past few months. They went all over the continent in search of the contestants that had lost the Skyfall Tournament. They ended up in the city of Tennebris first, where they met their new friend, Lykos. Here they encountered their first danger: a demon.

During this excursion, Reyna nearly died due to running off on her own before the group had reformed and came up with a real plan. This would the first of many near death experiences for any member of the party. Thankfully in the end, the group dispatched the demon, who had been feeding off the patrons of a local casino.

The group found Delarin, one of the contestants and broke into her house while she was away. In her basement they found she had a flesh golem hidden away in a wardrobe, along with drawings of a strange teleportation circle and some magic chalked that helped reduce the time to produce the circle. Unfortunately for the group, Delarin returned to the house before they could escape, and combat broke out. After a close battle, where Lykos ran off like a baby, the party managed to kill Delarin and her flesh golem. Upon death, the intellect devourer residing within Delarin, revealed itself as it oozed out of her nose.

The town guards showed up due to all the commotion and promptly arrested the group and herded them towards the jail. That was when the first of the four great stones was stolen. An airship broke through the town's barrier and went to the town's power source and most well-known artifact: the Fell Vessel. A winged being jumped from the airship and swooped up the stone and off they went, before anyone could react. However, Ezmoth was no stranger to this group. It was her old pirate crew, the Lotus.

During the chaos the group managed to flee the city and headed towards Perdita, where the bugbear Jelly from the tournament resided.

The Beginning of Greatness

Skyfall Tournament came and went like any other fighting tournament in Turris. There was challenges that each person overcame either through martial power or magical means. However, at the end, Ra-kir was named the winner. This was just trivial matters compared to what was really going on though.

Each contestant that lost their battle were taken to be "healed" in a private room. Little did anybody know that this private room was actually the lair of a mind flayer that was sucking the brains out of all the losers. This is where Reyna, Ezmoth, and Octavius ended up with a few others, including the mysterious Alex.

After a lot of struggle, the group managed to brake out of their restraints, losing only one on their way out, and escaped the mind flayer lair. Figuring out what to do next, Alex suggested the group need to tell the Grand Master of this, revealing himself to be Xander Loké brother of Grand Master Morin Loké.

Reyna, Ezmoth, Octavius, Ra-Kir, and Xander all met up in front of the palace of the Grand Master to inform him of this news. The group explained what had happened. Morin thanked the group for their work and awarded them, then asked them to go on a mission for him: search Turris for the other losers of the tournament and make sure they weren't replaced with intellect devourers like the unfortunate ones that didn't escape.

And thus begins the journey of the Ragtag Lionhearts.

The Grand Lie

My mother came to visit me first while I was in the jail cell. This was the day she destroyed my life and everything I thought I knew.

She told me of my ancestry, how I was the bastard child of some Elf named Lucan who apparently fell from the sky. How she fell in love with him and before long conceived me. But before she could run off with him some beings from the sky came and struck down Lucan while my mother watched nearby. How she clipped my elvish ears when I was born so nobody would find out about her affair. How she feared I would form powers someday due to the mixed blood, so she made sure I lived a sheltered life becoming a proper lady and would be married to someone who would keep me in my place.

 My father came down right after, appalled at what he saw. I hadn't even noticed that my hair turned a pale blonde and I could see a glow coming from my face. My father decided that he couldn't risk Leon's village seeking retribution for the death of his betrothed, so they dyed my hair black and pretended as if nothing happened, after all, Titus was on the brink of death, he could have just been imagining things.
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The wedding day came and went without any problems and off to Leon's village I went. After years of visiting the village and learning more and more about magic everyday and practicing in any secret moment I could, I knew I was capable of making it on my own outside of this prison they call home. I decided early morning would be the best time to leave, early enough nobody would be awake or want to wake up if they heard any noises outside. Packing up everything I could and snatching a few things from the manor that weren't even mine, I made my escape. I had just opened the front door when Leon peaked his head out of his bedroom. The fool threatened to send troops to my home village if I left, as though I cared what happened to that place after all the lies they thrust upon me. I ignored him as I turned back towards the door and he came running after me. Without even looking, I cast the ground around him into a hand feared by these fools to seize him. I didn't have much of an idea where I was going, I just wanted to embrace this gift I was given and teach these villages that magic is a blessing. I also knew I needed to go back and face Titus one day, show him that he is nothing compared to me when he can only use a sword while I can imbue the sword with power or even create weapons out of nothing.
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On my journey I learned quickly that tricking people into thinking I was a distraught, useless girl it was easier to take advantage of them, making it easier to hitch rides or steal from shops when I was low on gold. I found my way across the nation where I met a lot of people who were weary on the fact that I just had magic swelling inside me, so I decided to start carrying around my book and a quarterstaff to confuse people about how I used my magic. I turned my earring into my arcane focus, so I would never forget how Titus got me into this mess. My dreams were getting worse. The beings wanted me to come to them to learn my role. But I was sick of playing a role in anything, all I wanted to do was explore the world and show Titus what a fool he was for betraying me. I needed to become stronger, both with my magic and my blade. And maybe at the end of all that, I could find these beings and tell them to shove their destiny up their's. I would need to find Lucan for that though since he was supposedly involved with them.

Word about a grand tournament taking place soon quickly spread through every village I passed. Great fighters and magicians coming together to best each other. After so much training I was sure I wouldn't be made a complete fool if I entered. Maybe I could even find a tutor stronger than these city guards to help me practice my swordplay. Or even someone to help me gain even more control of my powers.