Tabletop Ventures

In 2018 I finally was introduced to tabletop RPGs, something that had piqued my interest around the time it was pretty much piquing everyone’s interest who had not been into it prior. Before this, I had absolutely 0 experience with it. It was not even a thing remotely around me in my life–I can’t recall if any of my friends growing up played any games. It just didn’t feel available to me, until it became pretty popular among my internet circles, and I was hooked in.

I mean, here was a make-believe game where you would create a character and tell a story with them, along with others doing the same. I love stories, and I love making characters–naturally, I had to try this out. And generously my good friend Crit offered to have me, my partner and some friends in a game of DnD, which started it off. This whole post is a major shout out to him, honestly, for being such a patient, passionate and a welcoming GM who has invited me into several games now. Thanks for showing me the ropes and getting me into TTRPGs!

Naturally, I’ve drawn a lot of art for these games, so this post will be going through each of them and the art that accompanies it.

Immortal Kingdom — DnD 5e

This was my first venture into tabletop in general, and Crit was amazing and created a whole homebrew campaign for us. Unfortunately we never completed it, as we decided to move on to another campaign instead. Still, it was great getting my sea legs with this one! My character was Shax Fairfax, a tiefling rogue who was a bit of a flirt. Very much a (Gay) Baby’s First Tabletop PC. On top of art for her, I also drew the highlights of the first several games as little comics.

All the little comics made for each session. I eventually fell off of doing it, but I’m glad I did this to document those early sessions!

I could never settle on her horn shape… or whether or not to give her pupils, hahaha.

Homebrew Campaign — DnD 5e

This was my first in-person campaign, put together by my partner’s friends from their work. This one was a blast, but now comes with some bittersweet feelings as unfortunately the group had a falling out, and we never completed the campaign. From this one came Lady Hela Sagittarius, an aarakocra sorcerer, who I later took and revamped into a character for my own stories. So, although this campaign may have crumbled, I have no regrets, and was able to build something from it!

Nowadays she also has a human form, but I always adored how villainous her secretary bird look was.

Age of Ashes — Pathfinder 2e

This was the campaign we moved onto from Immortal Kingdom. Crit always preferred Pathfinder as a system, and wanted to try an official campaign (therefore, please no spoilers, since this is an official Pathfinder campaign! This also goes for all the official campaigns here). I quickly fell in love with Pathfinder, it’s a lot of fun, and this game is still ongoing! We’re on book 5 out of 6, almost complete, making it (hopefully) the first campaign I properly finish. My character for this one is Urva Stonetalon, a dwarf ranger who uses her trusty raptor partner Mellburn to take down baddies.

She’s changed a lot during the campaign, and so has Mell!

Homebrew Campaign — DnD 5e

This was another little homebrew game made with some other friends who my partner and I meet with regularly, GMed by our friend Gisele. We decided it would be fun to have a little game we could play every so often when we meet up! Since the pandemic, however, it’s slowed down as it’s been a lot harder to meet up . This one was really engaging because Gisele would let us worldbuild with them, and also had with a fun system for dealing with baddies that had different consequences whether we let it live or not. For this one I played Thunderclap, a kenku barbarian, out to collect shiny trinkets for her wife’s antique shop.

Big buff bird mama.

Shattered Star — Pathfinder 1e

This was a game offered to us by Crit to join some of his friends, GMed by Michelle. I thank everyone in this group for their patience in me getting used to the switch from 2e to 1e. Having now played both versions, I enjoy them a lot–I think they each have good strengths to them. So far this has been a hilarious campaign, with a pretty goofy set of characters. For this one I play Chiaroscuro, or Rosco, a strix bloodrager–a strong but also foolhardy warrior who will totally eat the cooked rats she finds just lying around.

Her bloodline is Abyssal so she gets to go all demon-y when she rages.

Rise of the Runelords — Pathfinder 1e

This campaign is also run by Crit, and one we talked about often while still doing Age of Ashes, since it has the same players as that one. Originally, it was going to be our game once AoA ended, but we were able to squeeze it in on weeks we weren’t able to play AoA instead. We aren’t super far into this one yet, but so far I’ve been enjoying it–the party has a lot of really quirky fun characters. I play Maksim, a dhampir cavalier that is trying to keep their dhampir-ness secret, despite it probably being very obvious, riding into battle on their giant elk Pierogi.

They get to deal with my partner’s witch pc, Poe.

Dead Suns — Starfinder

Our newest game, once again run by Crit and with many of the same players as Shattered Star. This is my first go at Starfinder, and has quickly overtaken my heart (and I think the other players too). Starfinder is really fun (have I mentioned enough that each game has been fun??), especially since so far I’ve only played fantasy-based games, which–don’t get me wrong, is great, but it’s nice to try out a new setting, and Starfinder’s sci-fi world is really fresh new take. For this one I play The Radiation Eater, AKA Raddley, a vesk soldier, who has a gruff exterior but deep down maybe just hopes the others think she’s cool.

She just barely gets along with the team captain, Jax the bee guy (also my partner’s pc)

Special mention: There’s also Deeg, a lil kobold rogue I made for a one-shot, which unfortunately also didn’t reach the end. I’d love to bring him back to play some day.

This amount of games since 2018 isn’t too shabby! I wanted to document all the fun and art I’ve had with them in one post, because it’s great seeing it all together! Tabletop also became a big part of helping me through 2020 and all the garbage that happened during that year. It was a tough time for me, not just because of the pandemic, and having a steady game to look forward to every week became a anticipated escape. And it continues to–any day with a game is the highlight of the week. So here’s to more games to come, and the fun it’ll bring!