MISC.
Tabletop Roleplay ideas, poems, and other things difficult to category.
A Dream
Spring. The air is cool, the morning light is pink and pale. Small white flowers form a carpet around trees still bare from winter only recently departed.
I see her there. Flushed and fair. Glowing in that tender light, which morning only produces. She wears no smile on her lips, nor any expression on her brow. There is no need, peace prevails .
Birds sing gently through the boughs and branches. Each playing their part in the rich symphony. The flowers sway in a light breeze.
There are her eyes, searching in their depth. Like a purling stream in green and blue and gray. Now glancing from petal to branch, trunk to sky. Looking for nothing.
Hair pours down her back, long and full. Only a few strands disturbed by the breeze. Golden-brown and shining like a wood finely polished.
Softly her breast rises and falls with slowly drawn breaths. As she steps with care and grace among the blooms. I watch her pass behind a tree, she is gone. The birds are singing.
A Toast From The High Seat
A paper about the practice of feasting in Viking Age Scandinavia and its peculiarities compared to other cultures.
https://crosssection.gns.wisc.edu/2019/11/11/a-toast-from-the-high-seat-the-feast-in-the-viking-age/
Sacred Oak Spear
A spear with a shaft made of the wood of a still-living sacred ancient oak. The shaft is intricately carved with runes and animal figures.
The head is fine steel but can become dull and break like any metal.
The wood never chips or splinters, and metal weapons bounce off of it as if it were stone, but it is as flexible, springy, and light as the best wood.
It is said that it can be broken, but a giant would have trouble breaking this shaft.
If the oak dies the spear loses these properties.
Enhanced Grappling Rules for Roleplaying
Grappling is often over-simplified in roleplay gaming and does not offer the possibilities it does in reality. This is an attempt to fix that.
A skilled grappler can manipulate their opponent in myriad ways not limited to pinning and restraining. Depending on style they can break limbs, inflict damage by smashing their opponent on the ground, strangle them, or put them in a weaker position to be finished off with a weapon.
Grappling is a crucial part of armed combat and neglecting it makes for a less dynamic and believable game.
More versatile grappling rules enhance gameplay and player agency, opening up many new possibilities in combat and non-lethal encounters.
5E:
Everyone is a Grappler
Grappling/wrestling/open-handed-fighting is not the purview of one class or style of fighting, it may be necessary for any archetype of adventurer to engage in grappling at some point. This is a key aspect of close quarters fighting.
A strong character might grapple to push opponents around or hold them close to strike an opponent who would otherwise run, a more dexterous character might use it to off balance or trip opponents and give themselves and their teammates advantage, while a weaker character might only grapple to disengage from others’ attempts to wrestle them.
The feat would read:
You’ve developed the skills necessary to hold your own in close-quarters grappling. You gain the following benefits:
-increase your strength by 1 to a total of 20
-You have advantage on attack rolls against a creature you are grappling.
-You have advantage on grapple attempts and escaping from a grapple
-You can attempt joint locks, pins/restraints, power-throws, or strangles
The damage done by different types of grappling have different effects and durations. Joint lock damage (1d8+strength or dexterity) decreases movement or denies use of a limb and is only recovered through magical healing or several months of recovery. Power throws deal bludgeoning damage modified by the thrower’s strength or dexterity (1d10) critical hits have a chance to knock the one being thrown unconscious (if damage exceeds half their HP). Strangles act as a silence, if you take damage while strangling make a constitution save to maintain.