Sarah Darkmagic

Currently on Kickstarter is a game called One Child's Heart, designed by Camdon Wright.

There are pivotal moments in every child’s life that shape who they become. One Child's Heart is a tabletop roleplaying game that invites players to take the role of child welfare professionals participating in a new mental health care memory exploration experiment. The Central Limbic Engagement Recovery System (CLERS – pronounced, “clears”) brings characters into the memories of these key moments to give support and guidance to a child who needs both.

What I love about this game is that it focuses on human connection and empathy while not being about "tragedy tourism." In addition, as hard as at may be to accept, players cannot change what has already happened. There is no ability to be the savior. But, just like in real life, what can be done is helping the child learn tools to cope with their life to come.

The basics of game play are described in the Kickstarter. Players take on one of five playable professions: the child psychologist, the clergy, law enforcement, the social worker, and the therapist. They help the child through the memory and attempt to earn enough tokens for an optimal outcome. Dice are used to determine whether or not a connection is made, which makes sense because each child is unique and the reality is that we cannot know what is going to connect with an individual.

In addition to the game idea itself, the reason why this is a "More Like This Please" post is because it has a kickass team working on it. First, let me be clear and say a number of people I know and admire are part of this, including Sharang Biswas whom I know from outside of gaming. The whole group is immensely talented and bring a diverse range of experiences to the table, incredibly important in a game such as this.

If you are interested in learning more, I recommend listening to the actual play sessions listed on the Kickstarter page:

• One Shot Podcast
• She's a Super Geek Podcast
• Party of One

Swordsfall is an Afropunk Sci-Fantasy setting and future tabletop roleplaying game. It's a world where gods and spirits are real, where mortals can kill a god and the aftermath has world changing consequences.

The action takes place on the world of Tikor, which is heavily influenced by and pulled from the rich and diverse pre-colonial history of Africa. For those who would love to learn more about the world, there are pages upon pages of content on WorldAnvil discussing and detailing it, sometimes in the form of knowledge articles and other times through fiction. The world comes alive through the words and artwork. Currently, there are more than 100 posts and the creation of the lore is supported through the Swordsfall Patreon.

If you are interested in learning more and especially if, like me, you might need a bit more of a clear introduction to the world (it's not easy to read websites with a toddler about), you might be interested in the Welcome to Tikor Kickstarter. The project aims to provide a setting and art book about the world, get a bunch of amazing art produced for this project and future use in the role playing game, and be a springboard for exploration into the world.

Since the project is already at almost $28k, backers will likely get at least 3 pdfs: the setting and art book, a book detailing the 34 professions, the pantheon, and a comic about the pirate Nubia. The lore is from Brandon Dixon. In addition, there will be art from T'umo Mere and Sabina Lewis, and pins from Taylor Ruddle. If additional goals are met, we'll also get art from Jonah Lobe and an additional book, this time on the creatures of Tikor.

For me, this project is important not only because representation matters, but also to undo some of the harm done by colonialism. We need to see this art and explore this lore. With so many ways to support this project (the Kickstarter, the Patreon, and by reading and sharing content from World Anvil), perhaps we can bring more light to the world. I love what I have read and seen thus far, and can't wait to see more.

Maybe you have seen them in someone’s social media profile. Or on a ribbon someone had attached to their badge at a recent convention. Displaying one’s pronouns is getting rather common and for good reason, it subtly reinforces that we might not want to always assume that we know a person’s gender just from what we (think we) perceive.

Why are so many folks doing it? Part of it is that if only trans folks make their pronouns clear, it subtly (or not so subtly) signals that they are different, because they are being asked to do something that cis folks don’t generally need to do. It also reinforces a general lack of care about pronouns and may even reinforce a belief that folks will always be able to tell gender by appearances.

And so folks of all genders (or no gender at all) began publishing their pronouns in their bios and wearing them proudly with ribbons.

This general acceptance (although by no means universal) got me thinking recently, however, as I was reading through an adventure. I was struck by how odd it felt to read "female human commoner" in regard to an NPC. Clearly this is not the first time I had come across such a phrase because it is a very common way to denote NPCs. But it made a thought start to scratch at the back of my brain and a few different thoughts started to form.

I can understand why the term female is used there, but it seems sort of clinical and makes my skin crawl. On one hand, pointing out gender is super important, especially for folks used to a society a defaults to men in many cases. On the other, it reminds me of TERFs and discussions of gender versus sex and other things that can have harmful implications, especially for folks who aren’t cis.

And this super reminds me of a time during the development of 5e when they were trying to figure out how to make it clear that the D&D world isn’t just full of white folks, without making it similarly clinical and about skin tones. What they decided to do was to make cultures of the D&D world have different skin tones and suggest through the cultural name what people looked like. This lead to the development of a world bible that demonstrated the differences between groups, including skin tone.

Which leads me to wonder if it wouldn’t help to put in pronouns, either in addition to or instead of gender. So human commoner (she/her). Or halfling rogue (they/them). Granted, pronouns aren’t the same as gender. For instance, some folks who are non-binary may still prefer pronouns that are often coded as gendered. But using a range of pronouns would reinforce the diversity of the world (which I would contend is the main use for using male/female). It would further normalize stating one’s pronouns. And it would also allow for a greater range of genders since we wouldn’t be limited to just female/male.

Also, if this post got you thinking about pronouns and, in particular, pronoun ribbons and you want to know more, I highly suggest visiting http://www.pronounribbons.org/.

Recently the DMs Guild offered a number of bundles to raise money for RAINN. I bought all of the bundles and started going through the content offered. One of the first items to stand out to me is an introductory adventure called The Ring of the Battle Maiden by Ashley Warren. It’s a 5e adventure for 2-6 first level characters set in the Moonshae Isles.

This isn’t a review exactly but my response to reading through the adventure. It will contain spoilers about the adventure.

At a high level, it’s a rather straightforward adventure. Ashley provides a number of adventure hooks to give ideas on how to get the player characters interested the ring of the battle maiden, a reference to the famed battle maiden Dagmar the Unyielding, and currently protected by the Daughters of the Gray. As the adventure points out pretty quickly, the ring isn’t an ornament to be worn on a finger but rather an arena for combat and proving one’s worth. The ring is located on the northern coast of Norland and so options for travel to the location are also provided.

So, at its core it’s a tournament adventure complete with bracket and some additional opponents. That’s not typically my style but there are a lot of items within the adventure that I really love.

Most obviously, it’s full of female characters. I only noticed one character that is described with male pronouns, and that was in one of the adventure hooks. Ashley writes at the end of the module that she wanted a female-dominated adventure because why not? Which I happen to think is pretty awesome.

To get a full understanding of what I mean when I say it’s full of female characters, here is a list of said characters:

Non-player characters:

• Dagmar the Unyielding
• Baron Hossenfeffer
• Helmi
• Korina Kodex
• Tora Hrafnkelsdottir
• Sarya Skaya
• Gunnar
• Korja Kodex
• Noel
• Freya
• Honey
• Petra
• Ayla
• Marya
• Gritte
• Kas the Cutthroat
• Ariadne the Demondancer
• Eliana the Keen-Eyed
• Baywar the Stormbringer
• Fela the Fiery
• Mazoga the Doomslayer

That’s 21 named NPCs, at least 19 of which are women.

For the monsters, we have:

• harpy
• troll

Harpies are female by definition in D&D. The gender of the troll is unknown.

And for the gods, we have:

• Umberlee
• Selûne

What’s interesting to me about this module is that nothing about it is stereotypically gendered. There’s a diverse number of women and even their depictions in the art are fairly diverse. The adventure itself could easily also be full of men, but it just happens to be full of women this time. Given the sheer number of women, the sheer number of roles that women fulfill in the story, etc, we’re not risking reinforcing most stereotypes about women.

In fact, the strongest argument along those veins that I could see, is the common complaint that women have to be "like men" in order to be seen as strong. But even there, I’m not sure the module falls completely in that trap. For instance, Freya and Honey are also there in town and are not directly part of the tournaments. It’s unclear that Freya is a Daughter. And to be a Daughter, one just needs to prove bravery, not necessarily martial strength.

Another thing I enjoy about the way it is written is that while the ring is intended to test folks so that they can see what they are made of, it’s also a nurturing and supportive community where folks give to each other what they can and try to make it as safe as possible for that exploration of self.

I also super enjoyed the song list and other advice given to run the adventure. And, the art. Let’s talk about the art.

There are 14 different depictions of women in the 24 pages of the pdf. Let that sink in for a moment. We get a fairly awesome cover.

The Ring of the Battle Maiden Cover

Ok, so this might take a moment to explain and why this is not a review, but my reaction to the adventure. Yes, I noticed what could be called the "panty shot," the uncovered hip and thighs, and what reminds me of garter belts. Yes, the cover made me nervous about the rest of the content since it’s the first adventure I read from this author.

I sat with those reactions for a moment and then also noticed the abstraction to the art, the amount of muscle, and the fact that her face is determined and fierce. I also went through the rest of the art. While Ashley calls the adventure campy, it doesn’t feel exploitative to me and just seems comfortable and fun.

The cover wasn’t the only piece I enjoyed. In particular, I’d like to call attention to the Kas the Cutthroat.

Kas the Cutthroat

Finally, sitting back and taking a look at the adventure as a whole (which I get is short and intended to be simple), I love the fact that Daughters can be of any gender but the terminology centers on women and that by using it as an introductory adventure, the players will start out with a strong group of women that they can potentially ally with throughout the Realms.

The only thing I might say that is more critical is that some of the read aloud text is fairly long so DMs might want to consider how they want to handle those. I only bring it up because I get super self-conscious when I speak for too long, especially when it’s due to read aloud text. But that is the smallest of issues and is a matter of opinion and style.

I highly suggest checking out the adventure and keeping it ready to run whenever you want something simple and straightforward for folks to check out. You can find it here (affiliate link).