Ladies and gentlemen, I would like for you to meet Kigariss.

Kigariss is a goose that accompanies the party that I DM for my kids. The players discovered this regular old goose - fully white, with one odd black feather on his neck. The goose took a liking to them, especially to Br'kar the kazari (felanoid) fighter, who gave it treats and pretended that the goose was a great warrior. As a joke, they named the goose "Kigariss" after a legendary dragon who was slain centuries ago after being a menace to the five kingdoms for many decades.

The goose followed them everywhere, even joining them in combat - where it inflicts at most 1d2 damage. Alas, Kigariss the goose is far braver than he is wise; the goose joined them in fighting binderaks (sort of cross between spiders and crabs, but the size of large dogs) one fell day, and he was slain in the battle, much to my players' dismay. They felt guilty, the players were genuinely upset; their characters built a small rock cairn and gave the goose a funeral.

Remember, this is Audalis - death is almost always absolutely final. Ressurections are the stuff of legend. You can imagine their surprise when later that evening, the goose waddled up to the campfire, honking for a treat.

The goose has since died two other times, including one time fighting a summoned demonic creature that it could not hope to injure. Each time the goose dies, it reappears shortly after.

The party tried locking the goose up in a building. Again, it appeared back with them shortly after, even though a goose obviously cannot open a barred door.

The goose has been part of hijinks, once chasing the cidal (halfling) around noisily to create a distraction for town guards while the kazari snuck in.

They detected evil on the goose - nothing. They used detect magic on the goose, and the wizard was baffled. The way I handle detect magic is that everything in the world has an aura - nonmagical creatures and items are still visible, they simply radiate no magic. Magical items, enspelled creatures, etc. radiate magical auras that vary in strength and type.

Kigarass the goose has no aura whatsoever. Under detect magic, he appears to be a goose-shaped hole in reality. Our wizard had never heard of such a thing.

The party took him to a powerful diviner. The diviner was even more upset - he had never perceived anything like it, felt that it was an affront to how the universe functions. Anti-magic fields have an aura, even wards that block divination have auras - Kigariss just doesn't seem to exist *at all* to any sort of divination magic. The diviner demanded that they leave and take their goose abomination as far from him as possible.

The goose continues to accompany the party. He has not scaled; he does not inflict more damage. He can still die - not that he stays dead. If the party forgets about him, he usually does nothing to draw attention to himself, but anytime anyone asks where Kigariss is, they look, and he has been waddling around the entire time; even if they are in some underground crypt, or have climbed some cliff, he is there.

The real story is that Kigariss is a creation of Thrikell, the lesser god of mischief. Thrikell loves nothing in the world more than a practical joke, and to him, an unkillable goose that cannot be prevented from rejoining the party is a wonderful joke. It delights him to no end when they seek some grand reason for the goose to exist, when they spout never-ending conspiracy theories as to what he actually is - there is a lot of support around the table for the idea that I as the DM influenced them to name the goose after a legendary dragon because he actually *is* that dragon (or another dragon) in polymorphed form, and the dragon is toying with them. Mind you, I did no such thing - they asked for the names of some dragons on their own, and picked the name (without my influence) as a joke.

Kigariss has accompanied them for more than three years of real world time in various sessions. He has become their mascot; they are certain that he holds some terrible secret, but now figure that they can't do anything but wait for the reveal. Meanwhile, they are providing ongoing amusement for a trickster deity.

And a goose believes himself to be a terrifying beast of legend.

Hey everyone! I’ve been curious about Dungeons & Dragons for a while, but I’ve never been able to work up the courage to get into it. Recently, my little one has expressed an interest in it, so I’m wondering if there’s anything out there that’s more geared toward children and could help ease both of us into it at the same time. Lol! 😂

While the full nature of this won't be revealed until a later campaign, I've created a celestial event that occurs every 10 years. It's called the Weeping Comet and like Hailey's Comet, when it reaches the planet where the action is set, it takes two months to orbit it, then it returns in 10 years.

So far, the only effect I have is that when it can be seen in the night sky, it amplifies a person's emotional bonds. It gives people intense separation anxiety to the point where they will cry or get extremely irritable if they are far from friends or loved ones. But now, I'm going to tell you what this comet REALLY is.

VERY long story short, and this is still a work in progress, this comet is actually a celestial being who's older then the world and maybe even older then the gods the people of this world worship.(this group of gods found the world, but it was a death world in it's infancy) But the celestial is hurting. You see, she is looking for her long lost child... who accidentally created the world when he realized he was lost and could not find his mother. And through a series of events, accidentally split his conscious and power into a series of Macguffins. Yep, turns out, God is actually his kind's equivalent of a very small child. Like Trelane from Star Trek or The Collector from The Owl House

But his mother, distraught and worried about her son, is searching the cosmos and passes by the planet. But she cannot find him because his conscious has split.

I've got 3 campaigns in mind, and this truth will only come to light in the 3rd and final one. It's here where PC's learn the truth, find out why this happened, face the villains who's been secretly conducting everything, and in the end, restore the young celestial's consciousness, and reunite him with his mother. But until then, I want the mother is show up in comet form in at least one of the preceding adventures as a bit of a foreshadow of a future story. And when that comet appears, PC's are going to be clinging to each other and socializing more intensely, and getting depressed if they have friends and family that are far away. But I don't think that's enough. Any ideas on how it could impact the world? Remember, this comet is actually a worried mother who's spent millions or billions of years trying to find her child.

I am running a campaign based on political intrigue and investigation. The BBEG is a powerful politician, and every quest giver is somehow politically connected. In Session 0, I even presented the political factions and told my players to choose one or even create their own view that maybe was a blend of 2.

1 of my players really struggled to keep track of alliances or understand motivations. For example, they could not understand why one faction went to war over a rumor. (insert real-world example here)

Eventually, we had another Session 0 and I confirmed that all of my other players were able to follow what was going on. 1 of my players even went on a conspiracy rant. . . He was like 98% correct. So I felt reassured that I was conveying the setting and information well.

But to accommodate the struggling player. We agreed that all of the factions would merge into 2 factions. This resulted in a hyper-partisan setting, which I was fine with. All of my players picked the same side, except my struggling player.

The struggling player has refused to pick a side. Now, all of the other players are buddy-buddy with one faction. Except, the struggling player is alone and still confused about how the two political parties have so much misinformation and incorrect information. They also don't understand why the 2 super factions don't just “get along”.

Any advice

Note. Everyone at the table is in their late 20s to mid-30s.

_____
Addendum
Last session my players discovered that both sides have plans for a possible civil war against the other side. Both sides’ reports were rife with inaccuracies about the other. Overestimations, underestimations, blind spots, and general poor assessments of the other's capabilities. Ultimately, both concluded. They would lose, which has resulted in a panicked frenzy of building and preparing.

The struggling player was very confused as the reports disagreed with each other.

Had some interest expressed online about how we play, homebrew we use etc, and there was a lot of curiosity about our character sheets. Thought id share our main sheet (yes there are more) in case anybody got a kick out of it

Here's a character I illustrated: He was born with two marks on his body, one on each hand. During a stormy night, he accidentally killed his father after losing control of the power he was born with. Since then, consumed by guilt, he has worn his father's gloves to conceal his marks and remind himself of what happened. I designed the character to represent someone who is always on the move, exhausted yet constantly aware of his surroundings. With his worn-out clothes and hidden marks, he tries to escape his past, but he can never truly leave it behind. In the end, he will have to embrace the very power he was born with. Created with Photoshop.

How would you play him? Tell me what you think overall :D

Want your own character in my art style? Full-body character commissions are only $25!

If you are interested, you can contact me here.

I love the Encounter Party show and podcast, but looking for something new to listen to on Audible. Anyone familiar with Encounter Party, that could recommend something new for me with similar energy and player/DM chemistry?

The Critical Role stuff to me is just kinda Meh. I'm sure plenty of people like them, but for me EP is better.

Thanks for any help.

*** If there is a better place to post this, I apologize and please just point me in right direction.

Heavensfall is a sacred warhammer designed to grow in power alongside its wielder, evolving into a relic capable of unleashing devastating radiant magic.

Forged to hunt fiends and undead, its divine power can prevent slain enemies from returning to life, while its most powerful form grants access to an arsenal of holy spells.

I wanted to create something that could accompany a paladin or cleric throughout an entire campaign, gradually becoming a true instrument of divine judgment.

This entry comes from my compendium for D&D5E and 5.5E: The Vault of Ascending Items! This manual features:

• 50 Ascending Items, including a series of rules, guidelines, and balance considerations are included within the compendium to scale these items depending on the intended power level of your campaign;
• 12 Premade Ascension Quests, each meant to be used to ascend the items within the compendium or to be employed as additional quests and short adventures to include within your games;
• 30 New Creatures and Monsters, all used within the quests included in the manual or summoned by certain Ascending Items. All these creatures are multi-tiered, offering varied levels of challenge and complexity to shape your quests and encounters;
• A Table with 100 Additional Ascending Items Concepts, providing the name and a brief overview for each without providing mechanical rules. This is designed to provide GMs with ideas to create their own scaling items without having to come up with new concepts on their own.

The compendium just received a v2.0 update, featuring brand-new artwork and illustrations, expanded compatibility with both 5E and 5.5E, balance adjustments, several new spells, general layout improvements, and more! or the occasion, you can find it discounted either on DriveThruRPG or my Patreon, alongside a vast collection of previews for this and all my other titles! I'm currently working on updated version of all my older manuals, so there's a lot to uncover.

You can also find this manual (and many more) discounted on my 300+ Mythological Items for 5E and 5.5E Kickstarter! This project brings weapons, treasures, and relics from Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Asian, Mesoamerican, and many other mythologies to 5E and 5.5E, including scaling items that grow alongside your characters. If you’d like to bring a piece of these legends to your table, check out the campaign!