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Introduction

Welcome to the blog.

I am Taliesin, also known as Arparrabiosa, and for the past 20 years, I have devoted a great deal of time and effort to playing and running Dungeons & Dragons. Over these two decades, I have gained experience in campaign design, game mastering, and creating homebrew worlds that might be useful to you. In addition to my direct experience, I have also studied numerous sources and resources, such as The Alexandrian, Sly Flourish, or Matt Colville’s YouTube channel, among many others, which have shaped and enriched my understanding of the game. The purpose of this blog is to share that experience with you in an organized way, providing ideas, tools, and useful advice, whether you’re a player or a game master, and no matter if you play D&D or another system.

What will you find in this blog?

  • Game Master Tips: I’ll explain how to plan everything from short adventures to long campaigns.
  • Published Content Analysis: I’ll examine commercial modules and offer recommendations on how to adapt them to the specific circumstances of your table.
  • Worldbuilding: I’ll guide you through the process of creating your own world, using my own, Ezora, as a practical example of worldbuilding.
  • Original Material: I’ll share original adventures, encounters, and backstory elements, ready to use and designed to be easily integrated into any campaign.

I hope you find ideas here that enrich your games, whether you're just starting out or have years of experience in roleplaying. From here on out, we’ll explore different facets of the game together, always with the intention of learning and honing our skills.

Taliesin

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Favourites of the Comunity

Chardaukan Hexcrawl: Adapting Fever Swamp

In this series of articles, I will guide you through the process of designing a sandbox hexcrawl, illustrating each step with Chardauka, one of the continents of my world. Throughout these articles, I will cover both adventure content creation to populate the hexes and the worldbuilding elements that bring the setting to lif e. Portada de Fever Swamp, por Andrew Walter «The air is moist. The moisture mixes with your sweat—the heat is relentless. The drone of insects gives you headaches, and the fever from the infected wounds has left you delirious. Your raft is damaged, and there are spirits in the trees.You’ve only been here for three days.» Fever Swamp is an adventure written by Luke Gearing for Lamentations of the Flame Princess and published in 2017. Gearing is also the author of the renowned Wolves upon the Coast . The module in question, which you can purchase here , is a small sandbox hexcrawl set in a swamp. Its content is evocative and original, with descriptions that i...

Chardaukan Hexcrawl: Adapting The Evils of Illmire

In this series of articles, I will guide you through the process of designing a sandbox hexcrawl, illustrating each step with Chardauka, one of the continents of my world. Throughout these articles, I will cover both adventure content creation to populate the hexes and the worldbuilding elements that bring the setting to lif e. Cover of The Evils of Illmire The Evils of Illmire is an adventure published by Spellsword Studios for B/X D&D, Old School Essentials, and other OSR systems. Originally conceived in 1998, it was remastered thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign. It is a sandbox hexcrawl with remarkable attention to detail, set, as is customary on this blog, in a swamp (although it also includes forest and mountain biomes). I believe it is one of the best hexcrawls published in recent years and a magnificent example of applying this structure to small-scale settings .  While reading Challenge of the Frog Idol and Fever Swamp , the idea of creating a hidden cult...

Adapting Red Hand of Doom to Ezora (2): Structure

Warning: This article contains spoilers about the overall structure of the Red Hand of Doom module. If you prefer to discover its details on your own, I recommend reading with caution! Adapting Adventures: Flexibility as a Narrative Key When adapting an adventure, I usually break it down into its constituent parts: locations, monsters, and NPCs. This approach is particularly useful in adventures like Red Hand of Doom (RHoD), which follow a linear structure. One question I always ask myself is: Is it possible or desirable to visit these locations (or nodes , as Justin Alexander calls them—in an order different from the one proposed in the adventure? In most cases, the answer is yes. The structure of RHoD is brilliantly summarized in a flowchart presented by ksbsnowowl in The (New) 3.5 Red Hand of Doom Handbook for DMs : Ambush on the road —> semi-remote town —> wilderness —> Army’s forward scouting base (Vraath Keep) —> secondary forward base/choke point (bridge) —> atta...