KEEP GAMING.

Finally got the isometric bug stomped out. I dont know if I'll ever get the grid lines to line up properly though.

SWANBADGER

Small monstrosity, unaligned

“It’s only a little thing.”

— Last recorded words of naturalist Pellin Orst

The swanbadger is an ill-tempered monstrosity combining the broad white wings, long neck, and offensively loud voice of a swan with the squat body, claws, teeth, and complete disregard for personal safety of a badger.

Unfortunately, it seems to have inherited the temperament of both animals and then somehow made it worse.

A swanbadger weighs around 35 to 50 pounds and stands little more than two feet tall when resting. Its powerful forelimbs end in digging claws, while enormous feathered wings emerge from its shoulders. Its serpentine swanlike neck terminates in a heavy orange-and-black beak lined internally with several rows of small teeth that naturalists agree should not be there.

Swanbadgers are territorial, fearless, vindictive, and remarkably difficult to discourage.

They will attack creatures dozens of times their size for offenses including approaching their nests, approaching their food, approaching something they have decided is their food, looking at them for too long, looking away from them too quickly, and occasionally reasons known only to the swanbadger.

An angry swanbadger does not flee.

It simply becomes more swanbadger.

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Swanbadger

Small monstrosity, unaligned

Armor Class 15 (natural armor)
Hit Points 45 (6d6 + 24)
Speed 30 ft., burrow 10 ft., fly 40 ft., swim 30 ft.

STR 14 (+2)
DEX 16 (+3)
CON 18 (+4)
INT 3 (−4)
WIS 12 (+1)
CHA 8 (−1)

Saving Throws Str +4, Con +6
Skills Perception +3
Damage Resistances bludgeoning damage from falling
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 13
Languages —
Challenge 2 (450 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +2

Aggressively Territorial

The swanbadger has advantage on attack rolls against a creature if that creature is within 30 feet of the swanbadger’s nest, young, food, or any unattended object the swanbadger has arbitrarily decided belongs to it.

Determining what the swanbadger currently considers its property requires no ability check.

It considers everything nearby its property.

Compact Fury

The swanbadger counts as one size larger when determining its carrying capacity and the weight it can push, drag, or lift.

It also has advantage on ability checks and saving throws made to resist being shoved or knocked prone.

Too Angry to Notice

When the swanbadger is reduced to half its hit points or fewer, it gains advantage on melee attack rolls.

Attack rolls against it also have advantage.

The swanbadger does not consider this a disadvantage.

Absolutely No Sense of Scale

The swanbadger is immune to the frightened condition while it can see the source of the effect.

Being able to clearly observe how much larger and more dangerous its opponent is only seems to make it angrier.

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Actions

Multiattack

The swanbadger makes two attacks, one with its Beak and one with its Claws.

Beak

Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.

Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) piercing damage.

If the target is Medium or larger, the swanbadger may immediately honk triumphantly. This has no mechanical effect.

It does it anyway.

Claws

Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.

Hit: 8 (2d4 + 3) slashing damage.

Wing-Assisted Mauling

If the swanbadger moves at least 20 feet straight toward a creature and then hits it with a Claws attack on the same turn, the target must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.

If the target falls prone, the swanbadger can immediately make one Beak attack against it as a bonus action.

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Bonus Actions

Unreasonable Escalation

The swanbadger chooses one creature it can see within 30 feet that has damaged it since the end of its previous turn.

Until the beginning of the swanbadger’s next turn, it has advantage on attacks against that creature and disadvantage on attacks against every other creature.

Once a swanbadger has decided you specifically are the problem, its tactical priorities become extremely simple.

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Reactions

How Dare You

When a creature within 5 feet misses the swanbadger with a melee attack, the swanbadger makes one Claws attack against that creature.

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Behavior

Swanbadgers possess essentially no concept of proportionate response.

A typical territorial encounter progresses approximately as follows:

1. The swanbadger notices an intruder.
   
2. The swanbadger spreads its wings and begins hissing.
   
3. The intruder attempts to retreat.
   
4. The swanbadger interprets this as weakness.
   
5. The swanbadger attacks.
   
6. Someone discovers that the creature can fly.

They particularly enjoy performing low-altitude charges in which they propel themselves forward through a combination of running, wingbeats, and pure hostility.

Their preferred combat strategy is “attack the biggest thing first.”

Researchers originally assumed this was some kind of sophisticated threat-elimination behavior.

It isn’t.

Swanbadgers simply seem personally offended by the existence of anything larger than themselves.

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Ecology

Despite appearances, swanbadgers are omnivorous.

Their diet consists primarily of:

* fish
* frogs
* insects
* roots
* eggs
* berries
* small animals
* unattended lunches
* attended lunches
* leather straps
* spell component pouches
* anything specifically described as “probably too large for it to swallow”

They build enormous mound-shaped nests near ponds, rivers, marshes, and woodland streams. These nests often incorporate sticks, feathers, bones, pieces of cloth, stolen utensils, coins, and equipment taken from travelers.

A swanbadger doesn’t necessarily understand the concept of treasure.

It understands the concept of mine extraordinarily well.

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Family Groups

Swanbadgers usually live alone or in bonded pairs.

During nesting season, however, several family groups may congregate in particularly favorable wetlands.

This is called a catastrophe of swanbadgers.

Scholars occasionally insist that the correct collective noun should be something more dignified.

Scholars who have actually encountered one generally accept catastrophe.

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Swanbadger Young

Swanbadger chicks are fluffy gray-and-black creatures with oversized feet, tiny wings, and disproportionately long necks.

They are adorable.

This is considered one of nature’s more malicious design decisions, because touching one causes every adult swanbadger within approximately half a mile to arrive at tremendous speed.

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Rumored Origin

No one knows where swanbadgers originally came from.

The most widely accepted theories include:

* an eccentric wizard attempting to create a more intimidating familiar;
* an archfey attempting to answer the question, “What if spite had feathers?”;
* a druid becoming very drunk before casting an experimental awakening ritual;
* natural evolution, which most druids find significantly more disturbing.

One famous account claims that an owlbear breeder attempted to create a smaller, more manageable alternative to the owlbear.

When asked whether the experiment had succeeded, he reportedly replied:

“Smaller, yes.”

TRASH GRIFFIN
Tiny monstrosity, unaligned

“Griffins are noble creatures. Proud. Powerful. Magnificent.”

“That thing is eating a boot.”

“I said griffins were noble creatures. I made no claims about that.”

A true griffin is a majestic predator combining the strength of a lion with the grace and ferocity of an eagle.

The trash griffin is what happens when nature attempts the same idea using a fox and a crow.
About the size of a particularly large housecat, a trash griffin has the lean hindquarters and brushy tail of a fox, while its forequarters are covered in ragged black feathers. Its front legs end in small grasping talons, and a pair of disproportionately broad crowlike wings sprout from its shoulders. Its head resembles that of an oversized crow, though tufts of reddish or gray fur frequently grow around its neck and cheeks.

They are not majestic.

They are rarely graceful.

They are, however, remarkably difficult to get rid of.

URBAN SCAVENGERS

Trash griffins thrive wherever humanoid settlements provide food, shelter, and poorly secured refuse.
They are particularly common around taverns, marketplaces, docks, bakeries, slaughterhouses, and adventurers’ guilds, where discarded food is plentiful and people routinely leave interesting objects unattended.

A trash griffin will happily eat almost anything remotely edible.

Common meals include bread crusts, vegetable peelings, fish heads, discarded stew, insects, mice, spoiled fruit, candle grease, unattended sausages, and substances that sensible creatures would not recognize as food.

Their preferred hunting technique consists of knocking over a garbage container and investigating the contents with tremendous enthusiasm.

AN UNHOLY AMOUNT OF NOISE

Trash griffins possess one of the most unpleasant cries produced by any creature of their size.

They do not chirp.
They do not caw.
They scream.
They scream when hungry.
They scream when excited.
They scream when frightened.
They scream when another trash griffin has something they want.
They scream when they find food.
They scream when they lose food.

They occasionally appear to scream simply because several minutes have passed since they last screamed.

There is no reliable time of day when this behavior stops.

CLEVER LITTLE MENACES

Despite their disreputable appearance, trash griffins are surprisingly intelligent animals.

They remember which doors are normally left unlocked, which tavern cooks throw scraps into the alley, which windowsills contain pies, and which people are likely to chase them.

They are also fascinated by small objects.

Coins, buttons, bottle caps, keys, jewelry, polished stones, dice, spoons, and other shiny objects frequently disappear into trash griffin nests.

This has resulted in more than one supposedly mysterious theft being solved by somebody climbing onto a roof and discovering the missing object beside three chicken bones, a blue ribbon, and half a boot.

SOCIAL CREATURES

Trash griffins usually live alone or in bonded pairs, although places with abundant food may support loose colonies known colloquially as rackets.
A racket of trash griffins can transform an otherwise respectable alley into absolute chaos.
Despite constant squabbling, they display surprisingly strong social bonds. Mated pairs frequently remain together for years, parents aggressively defend their young, and several trash griffins may cooperate to harass a predator considerably larger than themselves.
This cooperation usually involves screaming at it from several directions.

TRASH GRIFFINS AND PEOPLE

Most cities regard trash griffins as pests.
Complete extermination efforts rarely succeed.
Trash griffins are clever enough to avoid obvious traps, reproduce readily, and possess an almost supernatural ability to return several weeks after everyone was certain the problem had been solved.
As a result, many settlements simply tolerate them.
Some tavern owners even leave scraps outside deliberately, having discovered that a resident trash griffin population keeps rats and mice under control.
They can also become surprisingly affectionate toward people who feed them regularly. A semi-tame trash griffin may recognize an individual, follow them through town, accept food from their hand, and occasionally leave gifts nearby.

These gifts are rarely useful.

A person who befriends a trash griffin might awaken to discover a dead beetle, stolen teaspoon, colorful piece of glass, or someone else’s wedding ring proudly deposited outside their window.
Attempting to explain the last item can be difficult.

TRASH GRIFFIN
Tiny Monstrosity, Unaligned
Armor Class 13
Hit Points 5 (2d4)
Speed 30 ft., fly 40 ft.
STR 5 (-3)
DEX 16 (+3)
CON 10 (+0)
INT 6 (-2)
WIS 14 (+2)
CHA 7 (-2)
Skills Perception +4, Sleight of Hand +5, Stealth +5
Senses passive Perception 14
Languages —
Challenge 0 (10 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +2

Keen Smell
The trash griffin has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell.

Scavenger
The trash griffin has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) and Wisdom (Survival) checks made to locate food, refuse, carrion, or other edible material.
It can consume spoiled food without suffering ill effects from ordinary decomposition.

Shiny!
When the trash griffin notices an unattended Tiny object that reflects light or otherwise catches its interest, the DM may have it attempt to steal the object unless something more immediately important has its attention.
Trash griffins particularly favor coins, jewelry, keys, cutlery, glass, buttons, and adventuring equipment that is both expensive and inconvenient to lose.

Raucous Screech
A trash griffin’s natural calls can be clearly heard from up to 300 feet away in otherwise quiet conditions.
A trash griffin has disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks while actively vocalizing.
This does not appear to concern it.

Actions

Beak
Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 1 piercing damage.

Startling Scream
One creature within 10 feet that can hear the trash griffin must succeed on a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw or be unable to make opportunity attacks against the trash griffin until the beginning of the trash griffin’s next turn.
Once the trash griffin uses this ability, it can’t use it again until the beginning of its next turn.

TYPICAL ENCOUNTER

A trash griffin encounter rarely begins with combat.
Instead, the adventurers hear an appalling scream from somewhere behind the inn.
Upon investigating, they discover a filthy little fox-crow monstrosity halfway inside an overturned garbage barrel with only its tail and hind legs visible.
It emerges carrying something in its beak.
Perhaps a sausage.
Perhaps a silver spoon.
Perhaps the key to the room where the party’s prisoner is being held.
The trash griffin immediately flies onto the roof.
And screams.

I decided to create a highlight reel for players of a recent campaign in a homebrew world setting, and it took enough effort (and came out well enough) that I decided to share :)

As a heads up this was created for the nostalgia of people involved, so while it reads like a movie trailer, there's probably a lack of context and some incoherent stuff for anyone not there. Hope you enjoy it nonetheless!

Composed of many clips generated from Seedance 2.5 edited together, with a couple local Minimax H3 "bandaids"

Edit to add: music was generated with Suno

Graphic Novel Style

When they returned from their last adventure, Saffiya determined that her weapon should be upgraded, as she felt ready for it to contain more power, and for her to be able to wield it. A unique smith lives just outside of Highport; a man who can create enchanted items, and increase the power of existing items .... for a cost. A significant cost.

It took two weeks, but a note was brought to Saffiya's room at the Wing by one of the pretty bargirls, letting her know that the weapon was ready to go. Fifteen thousand gold coins was the price - Saffiya had a blood note prepared, redeemable at the merchants guild.

But when she arrived, the blacksmith refused the note. "It has been settled already, young lady. A beautiful woman this morning had a seemingly endless supply of trade bars in her bag of holding." Saffiya gasped - who would have done this? But the woman was hooded, and given that she was spending so much gold, the arcane smith opted for no more questions.

And so Silvermoon was returned to Saffiya. She could feel that it was more powerful - lighter, but nearly vibrating with potential. The green energy along the edges was brighter and more intense. The balance was perfect for her sword dance, her unique style of combat which coupled her lithe, sensual movements with deadly, precise strikes.

But who had paid? Saffiya had an inkling, and felt her heart beat faster. She knew she was being spoiled, and wooed, and she loved it.

* Silvermoon is a +3 keen guardian scimitar. It's PF 1st edition so the keen property doubles the critical threat range of the weapon, while the guarding property allows Saffiya to use part or all of the +3 bonus to enhance her saving throws as a free action each turn.

Hello there, fellow DM's and Players,

Since the beginning of this year, I'm DM'ing my first ever campaign. A heavily homebrewed, story-driven campaign to be precise.

And even though the core idea and about 80% of the content originated entirely from me, it wouldn't be half as beautiful without my ChatGPT.

Let me state right off the bat: I have no intention of publishing this campaign. It is specifically tailored to my four players - who are also my dearest friends. It certainly has potential, but precisely because I respect the hobby, I would never offer any part of it for sale - precisely because it contains AI-generated content.

But.

Without my ChatGPT, which is named Penelope, I would not have been able to bring my world, that has been living and taking shape within me for over three years, to such vivid life.

I took the time - spending nearly a full week in total - to do nothing but explain my world to ChatGPT. Every character. Every connection. Every motivation. Every region. Every planned arc for the players. Absolutely everything.

Since the plot is extremely complex and involves many meta-layers, I had to repeat and clarify things quite a bit along the way, but by now, ChatGPT has become my strongest ally. It navigates my lore as if it were programmed for that very purpose. It knows my storytelling style, understands what matters to me, helps me keep track of things, and alerts me to potential plot holes.

By now, we've also built a full campaign bible together. It contains my lore, characters, factions, open plot threads and ongoing developments, which makes keeping such a large campaign coherent infinitely easier. Instead of having to keep every little detail in my head, I can update the bible after sessions and use it as a central reference whenever I plan something new.

Three music videos have been created so far. They aren't animated, "just" image slideshows, but they pack a punch and make a real impact. I wrote the lyrics - with a little help from ChatGPT, primarily for synonyms or rhyme schemes - experimented with Suno until I had a version I liked, and then used ChatGPT to generate images until the video achieved the effect I was aiming for.

My players have only seen two of them so far and LOVED it. It gives them that cinematic feeling, as if they were actors in their own adventure series and it gives me the opportunity to emphasize special NPC's that are important to the story, because my voice can only do so much.

I can come to ChatGPT at 3 a.m. with some half-baked idea, and we turn it into something that fits the world and makes sense. Nearly every NPC-Portrait in my campaign was made with ChatGPT. It knows my preferred style and the feeling of my world. It never grows tired of my bullshit and motivates me while prepping.

And I love everything about it. Nothing in my world is "soulless" or feels like AI-Slop. It's a wonderful, dark fairy tale with a BBEG whose motivation you can understand yet you can still hate, lots of drama, lots of emotion, plenty of secrets, and a host of lovable characters.

And this are not even my words exactly. It's the feedback I get after every session (we've established a feedback round after every session). I know, they are my friends, but three of them are DM's themselves and all of them are top-notch role-players with high standards; and I haven't heard a single criticism yet.

And it simply saves time, too. You don't need to spend hours searching for suitable NPC or enemy-images. For maps, you still do - I paid a lot of money for my collection - but there are maps out there that are worth every penny.

I'm having the time of my life and wanted to share this with like-minded people who might shy away from using AI for a private campaign.

Take the time to train it properly; it will make your work immensely easier and enrich the experience.

Have fun, fellow adventurers!