Dicemas 2020 or Nerdy places to shop this Holiday Season...

 

The corporate mandated holiday giving season is upon us again, or you are browsing this post long after, but either way here are some Nerdy Shops that are worth a browse as you search for gifts for nerdy family & friends, or treats for yourself. 

Crow & Crown
Artistic, Nerdy and RPG adjacent illustrations.
Dark Elf Dice
Has a great and always rotating selection of dice and other RPG goodies, I've ordered many a set for myself or to give as gifts.
Dbl Feature
One of my wife's favorite nerd shops, with cute RPG themed accessories and apparel
GraveMarkings
Dark and nerdy art.
Laser Wolf Attack
The merch shop of Andrew MacLean, who is best known for the excellent graphic novel series, Head Lopper.
Mystery School Comics Group
Selling the art, merch and short comics of Michael Conrad and Becky Cloonan.
Severed Books
Gelatinous Cube dice, Bag of Holding Mimic Fanny Packs and many more excellent nerdy delights abound.
Topataco
Merchandise emporium for many webcomics and other nerdy brands.
VOID MERCH
Merchandise designed and curated by Dread Singles In Your Area

Of course, if you know more about what your nerdy friend might want and their email, you can also send them gifts from DriveThruRPG or the DM's Guild, or even purchase Roll20 assets for your favorite Game Master. 

Bag o' Gulls - Weird Magic Item #27

Inspired by the incredibly excellent Weird Magic Item generator over at Donjon.bin.sh, I've been coming up with a few of my own system agnostic weird magic items to put in the many games I run, be they 13th Age or Beyond the Wall...

Eventually I want to try and put them into a randomizer, but I need to generate a few first. I'm going to try and post one every other Wednesday. Please let me know if you end up using an item I've created in your own game. You can find the entire series here...

Antagonist Relations Weird Magic Item Generator Presents...

Bag o’ Gulls

Uncommon Wondrous Item

This filthy, off-white sack smells faintly of seabird guano and was created by the notoriously eccentric Dwarven sea-mage, Scant Muckbeard. Once per day, as an action, the holder of the bag can use a command word and open the bag to release 2d12+12 sea gulls (for 5e D&D, use the stats for a raven, without the mimicry trait). The individual who utters the command word can have the gulls perform one of the actions below:

• Seek Dry Land. The gulls fly in the direction of the nearest dry land, soaring at a speed that can be followed by a boat or ship. The gulls circle above the dry land until the individual who spoke the command word is within 300ft of the dry land or until 8 hours have passed, at which point the gulls disperse.
• Swarm. The gulls swarm and attack a single target you verbally designate as a free action, using the stats of a Raven Swarm (for 5e D&D) or other appropriate stat block for the system. The gulls attack only the target creature, dispersing if the target of their attacks falls unconscious or dead.
• Befoul. For 1d4+1 minutes the gulls befoul an area of huge size or smaller, eating any food, flapping their wings and squawking at any creatures present. If attacked or driven away, they do not fight back, instead they fly up and let loose a truly epic amount of guano, covering any creatures attacking them or attempting to drive them off. If left undisturbed, the gulls may still defecate before they depart but they do not focus their excretions on any single target, instead covering the area with their droppings.
• Communicate. For a number of minutes equal to the number of gulls released, the user gains the ability to speak and understand Auran (the language of Air elementals) and has the effect of the Speak with Animals spell but only for birds, allowing them to use the gulls to speak to any other avians present.

Additionally, the bag serves as the material component for a find familiar spell, but when cast only sea gulls arrive to serve as the caster’s familiar.

Once the Gulls complete the command of the user, they fly off as normal gulls, completely free of any lingering effects and the bag cannot be used again until the next day.

Greatsword of Bashing - Weird Magic Item #26

Inspired by the incredibly excellent Weird Magic Item generator over at Donjon.bin.sh, I've been coming up with a few of my own system agnostic weird magic items to put in the many games I run, be they 13th Age or Beyond the Wall...

Eventually I want to try and put them into a randomizer, but I need to generate a few first. I'm going to try and post one every other Wednesday. Please let me know if you end up using an item I've created in your own game. You can find the entire series here...

Antagonist Relations Weird Magic Item Generator Presents...

Greatsword of Bashing

The legendary berserker, Hjördís Bonebreaker, commissioned this sword after helping a band of adventurers clear the crypts of the Marrow King. During her time in the crypts she was frustrated by the need between to switch her preferred great sword and a maul that would better damage skeletons and other bony undead, so she asked a wizard to enchant her sword so that it dealt bludgeoning damage in addition to slashing. Hjördís christened her original greatsword Marrowdrinker, but since that time several more have been crafted as other berserkers and warriors ask mages to enchant weapons well suited to both cleaving goblins in twain and smashing the skulls of skeletons.

Amalia Sebara’s Fire-breathing Coin Hog - Weird Magic Item #25

Inspired by the incredibly excellent Weird Magic Item generator over at Donjon.bin.sh, I've been coming up with a few of my own system agnostic weird magic items to put in the many games I run, be they 13th Age or Beyond the Wall...

Eventually I want to try and put them into a randomizer, but I need to generate a few first. I'm going to try and post one every other Wednesday. Please let me know if you end up using an item I've created in your own game. You can find the entire series here...

Antagonist Relations Weird Magic Item Generator Presents...

Amalia Sebara’s Fire-breathing Coin Hog

Originally developed by the legendary wizard, Amalia Sebara, this small coin purse shaped to look like a pig is stitched out of the hide of a red dragon. There is a coin sized slot on the back which is used to insert coins of any size into an extra-dimensional space within. The owner can whisper a command word and amount into the tiny ear of the ersatz hog and the amount will spill out of the hog’s mouth, provided the coin purse contains the amount. The extra-dimensional space can hold up to a million coins of any size, but will accept no other objects. It will also not accept counterfeit coins or coin shaped objects that hold no value. If anyone but the attuned owner of the coin purse attempts to steal the purse or open it, the pig opens its mouth and targets the thief with a burning hands spell. The owner can give the purse as a gift, however, and the purse becomes also becomes un-attuned 2d4 hours after the death of its owner, so those are the two most common means of obtaining one of these magical purses.

RPG Inspiration Twitter Bot List - Sword Names Table

Instead of posting another table of surnames I've made, I figured I'd put this up. I made a list of RPG Twitter Bots I find interesting/inspirational. If you have any suggestions to be added, let me know.

RPG Inspiration Bots - a list by @antag_relations

I'm hoping to have a Magic Sword/Weapon name bot set up later this summer. I've been thinking about the few swords in Thomas' al-Qadim AD&D Church game, like Angel's Fang and Wizard Death. I created a little table to generate Sword names and then couldn't stop myself after, so I started randomly generating thousands of interesting magic sword names that will eventually go into the bot. But for now you can enjoy sword names like "Ghost Shaver" and "Moon('s) Edge".

d20	Sword Name Prefix	Sword Name Suffix
1	Foe	Wrath
2	Adversary	Slicer
3	Spleen	Vengeance
4	Death	Fang
5	Moon	Blade
6	Blood	Render
7	Weakling	Breaker
8	Gore	Shard
9	Shining	Wound
10	Silver	Shaver
11	Dawn	Death
12	King	Ender
13	Angel	Edge
14	Heart	Skewer
15	Ghost	Piercer
16	Sharp	Slasher
17	Widow's	Ache
18	Sir	Carver
19	Steel	Bane
20	Mountain	Tickler

Also, last month I converted my old Zombie Twitter RPG account into a twitter account just for my RPG nonsense, which you can follow at its new handle: @antag_relations

Thursday Table: Interesting Coinage

Sometimes it feels incredibly dull to simple give out 12 copper or 6 gold, so I've written up a 2d12 Table to help determine the vintage of any coins my players might find in a game. Why not make them wonder why that goblin has four silver pieces of ancient coinage from a distant land or if the snake person they just murderized had counterfeit coins to distribute or if they were unaware of that fact.

2d12	Coin Vintage
2	Magical or enchanted
3	Magical or enchanted
4	Distant, ancient coinage
5	Distant, ancient coinage
6	Distant, ancient coinage
7	Distant, recently minted
8	Distant, recently minted
9	Distant, recently minted
10	Local, recently minted
11	Local, recently minted
12	Local, recently minted
13	Local, recently minted
14	Local, recently minted
15	Local, recently minted
16	Local, recently minted
17	Local, ancient coinage
18	Local, ancient coinage
19	Local, ancient coinage
20	Counterfeit, local
21	Counterfeit, local
22	Counterfeit, local
23	Counterfeit, distant
24	Counterfeit, ancient

Thursday Table - What's in the Sack (Beyond the Wall)

While the Further Afield supplement for Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures has several great treasure tables, what it is lacking is a "what's on the body" type chart to determine items found on a low level foe. Since I'm running two Beyond the Wall games now, I've drafted up my own little chart that I can roll on to determine an interesting item and an amount of coin by rolling 2d12 twice.

What's in the Sack, a table of random items for Beyond the Wall

#	First Roll		Second Roll
2	A fine silver spoon.	&	1d8 gold coin
3	A child's doll.	&	1d8 gold coin
4	A live chicken.	&	2d6 silver coin
5	A bottle of fine drink.	&	2d6 silver coin
6	A lodestone.	&	2d6 silver coin
7	An inaccurate map.	&	2d6 silver coin
8	Parchment, quill and ink.	&	2d6 silver coin
9	A pocket-size book of trite advice.	&	3d4 copper coin
10	A small bag of salt.	&	3d4 copper coin
11	A woodcarving knife in a well-made leather sheath.	&	3d4 copper coin
12	A sewing needle and spool of thread.	&	Nothing
13	A ripe apple or small jar of pickles.	&	Nothing
14	A small bag of oats, wooden bowl and a spoon.	&	Nothing
15	A flute or other small musical instrument.	&	3d4 copper coin
16	A twisted yew branch.	&	3d4 copper coin
17	A length of fine satin ribbon.	&	3d4 copper coin
18	A piece of an ancient marble statue.	&	2d6 silver coin
19	A small bag of fine, white sand.	&	2d6 silver coin
20	A ram's horn.	&	2d6 silver coin
21	A small packet of Blue Hallows, Goblin's Bane or other useful herb.	&	2d6 silver coin
22	A faerie key made from spidersilk.	&	2d6 silver coin
23	A feather from a cockatrice, griffon, hercinia or other magical bird.	&	1d8 gold coin
24	A pouch with seven cold iron arrowheads.	&	1d8 gold coin