Dungeons and Dragons is all about community storytelling. As a DM I create the skeleton of a story that the players fill in with their characters’ actions. I have a lot of influence on the events of a session, but ultimately it’s my job to let the story go where the players want it to go. Sometimes I can’t help myself though and I end up writing a little vignette for the players to read, often in the form of a prophetic dream like the following short story.

Eathirilu has a dream. It starts off like the nightmares he’s had before. The dragovinians have won. The world is a smoking ruin, barely resembling what he recognizes. Dragovinians stalk the skies, looking for anything with the barest scrap of blood to devour. They fight amongst themselves when they encounter each other. The victor consumes the loser.

Eathirilu walks through the waste towards a high mountain. He climbs the mountain. The architect of this world waits at the top, Blendegad. When he reaches the top, Eathirilu transforms into a T-rex and throws himself at the red dragon god. Their struggle shakes the earth. They toss and roll as their conflict continues, destroying the mountain in the process. In the end Eathirilu stands over Blendegad in the rubble with the dragon’s has neck in his jowls.

Eathirilu transforms back into an elf, but he is a giant elf, bright and shining. He holds Blendegad’s neck in his left hand while his right is free. Blendegad struggles against the elf’s iron grip as Eathirilu reaches for the wooden spear on his back. He takes the spear, lines up his strike, and plunges it into Blendegad’s breast. The beast shrieks, spitting fire all around, but it does not die.

The Touch of Nature shines on Eathirilu’s forehead. The Touch splits into a thousand rays of light that shoot off in all directions, illuminating the entire world. Then the rays return, all of them pouring into Blendegad’s body through the wooden spear made wound. Blendegad deflates and then turns into millions of particles of light. The wind picks up and the light is blown throughout the lands. Eathirilu’s keen hearing picks out the sounds of dragovinians dying as the light touches them.

And the light is EVERYWHERE. And Pan has returned.

And Eathirilu wakes up. It is morning and the sun is in his eyes.

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I’m Isaac

Welcome to the GoCorral website! I’m Isaac Shaker and this is a place for me to write about D&D and occasionally other topics. I host a podcast called Setting the Stage that interviews different DMs about their campaigns. I’m currently focused on completing the Cimmeria campaign setting and turning it into a book.

Setting the Stage Podcast

89 – Bunnies vs. the Borg D&D (Avery and Traumwald) Setting the Stage, Campaigns for D&D and Other RPGs

Avery presents her world of Traumwald which means Dream Forest. Traumwald was a peaceful, magical world inhabited by anthropomorphic animals of all kinds. Their peace was shattered by the attack of the Ichal, a biomechanical hive mind species similar to the Borg. The Ichal are led by the dark god Ulvakros who seeks to absorb all life into himself. The Ichal have spread across different dimensions and now they have come to Traumwald as the next stop on their mission of multiversal conquest.Traumwald has a D&D 5.0e supplement that Avery made. It's a setting and a campaign in one book. Species generation rules allow you to create any sort of animal species for your PC. There are lots of new subclasses to play and a new base class, the Ascetic. The campaign is adaptable with a dynamic faction system for tracking the events as they unfold at your table. Each campaign run in Traumwald is guaranteed to be different as the factions fluctuate and change to player actions. You can lift the faction system for your personal campaign as well!You can find Traumwald on Avery's itch.io page.Check out the Setting the Stage website!Want to be on the show? Fill out this survey.Join our Discord!Support Setting the Stage on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
  1. 89 – Bunnies vs. the Borg D&D (Avery and Traumwald)
  2. 88 – DM & Roleplaying Tips with Balance of Aksio (Jay + Sandra! and 3RPG)
  3. 87 – Adapted Azeroth D&D (Flare and Akridon)
  4. 86 – Wuxia Adventures in RPGS (Daniel and Metanoia/Ithasen)
  5. 85 – Medical Doctor D&D (Justin and Oops! All Healers!)