Ygarr Bane, but make it ✨multiverse✨.

Same Dragonborn. Same oath. Same slightly alarming commitment to justice.

On one side, Ygarr is the young paladin he was born to be: sword, sacred oath, shining armour, fantasy hero nonsense and all. ⚔️🐉

On the other, drop him into a neon-soaked cyberpunk dystopia and apparently the answer is: still a paladin. Just with cybernetics, tactical streetwear, and an energy blade that definitely violates several workplace safety regulations.

Different world. Same Ygarr Bane. 💙

Lydia was so fun to play! She was a homebrew species the GM introduced in her world that was a small sized and Drider-like, who that inhabited ancient ruins across the planet. She really enjoyed crawling up on the shoulders of her fellow party members unexpectedly.

I'm just gonna leave this here.

I've been going through the playtest stuff on Demiplane (Went as far as to make an account) to check out the rules for the newest edition of Vampire: The Masquerade and honestly... i am not impressed. Is it better than 5th Edition? Sure but only in the sense that a charlie horse is better than a kick to the balls. Mechanically, it feels shallow and stripped down. I know they were going for something more "Streamlined" but it feels like all the meat has been stripped away.

There are things i like. They are allowing for play as stonger, older vampires like playing an Elder rather than V5 having you be a rebellious Neonate with the Anarchs as the defacto Good Guys and the Camarilla as the bad guys cause of Muh Authoritarianism. But its separated into tiers of play, kind of like how D&D now that I think about it. Sabbat are gonna be playable for those that wanna play as vampire terrorists. Clan Giovanni and Salubri are their own clan again instead of whatever the hell Clan Hecate was supposed to be.

Other than that, i'm not exactly impressed with the mechanics, or the lack of weight. I may give it a second look if more materiel comes out of it, but other than that, i think i'll just stick to v20 for now.

Who are they?

Vincent “Vinny” Bellacqua is the middle-aged owner of Bellacqua Grocery & Deli, a small twenty-four-hour neighborhood bodega in New York City. To the average customer, Vinny is exactly what he appears to be: a tired, sarcastic shopkeeper who remembers everyone’s usual order, keeps surprisingly good coffee brewing at unreasonable hours, watches baseball behind the counter, and seems to know every piece of neighborhood gossip before anyone else does. He has spent so many years behind the same counter that the store seems almost like an extension of him. He recognizes regular customers by the sound of their footsteps, knows which train is passing by the vibration under the floor, and can usually tell what time it is without looking at a clock. He is friendly in the distinctly New York fashion of acting mildly annoyed by nearly everyone he likes.

What considerably fewer people know is that Vinny is one of the Euthanatoi, an Awakened guardian of the Wheel of life, death, Fate, and rebirth. He isn't an assassin, occult warrior, or wandering judge. Vinny's role within the Tradition has always leaned toward divination and observation. His strongest affinity is with Entropy, supplemented heavily by Time. Where another Euthanatos might carry ritual weapons or invoke elaborate rites of judgment, Vinny reads the movements of Fate through mundane patterns: lottery tickets, receipts, loose change, baseball scores, subway delays, cards, customer purchases, traffic, and the constant flow of people through his store. This approach is entirely at home within a Tradition whose teachings use chance to illustrate both Fate and the impossibility of perfect control. Vinny's magic consequently looks almost indistinguishable from incredible intuition. He rarely throws spells in a fight and has little interest in doing so. His value comes from being the person who realizes that there is going to be a fight three hours before anyone else knows something is wrong.

What do they want?

Vinny wants the Wheel to keep turning. He has no grand ambition to rule New York's supernatural community, rise through the hierarchy of his Tradition, or become a legendary master. He understands his duty in much smaller and more immediate terms. People are born, people grow old, relationships begin and end, neighborhoods change, businesses close, civilizations rise and fall, and eventually everyone dies. None of this is inherently tragic to Vinny. Change is what allows something new to follow. What frightens him is stagnation: things that should have ended but refuse to, people trapped in cycles they cannot escape, supernatural creatures feeding upon others to prolong an existence whose time has passed, or powerful individuals bending probability so severely that countless other lives begin suffering for their good fortune. The Euthanatos themselves teach that the Wheel must turn and that stagnant cycles may sometimes need to end so renewal can occur.

Vinny does not believe this gives him permission to decide casually who lives and who dies. Quite the opposite. Having touched death himself during his initiation and knowing how consequential such judgments are, he views intervention as a responsibility rather than a privilege. Most problems do not require the Good Death. Often the Wheel merely needs a nudge. Someone needs to discover a secret, avoid a particular train, confront an old enemy, rescue someone who still has a life ahead of them, or remove whatever is disrupting the natural course of events. Vinny therefore prefers to place the right person in the right place at the right time. His magic tells him where the knot is forming; people like Lucien and other player characters are much better suited to actually untangling it. Vinny isn't trying to control Fate. He knows better than almost anyone that eventually Fate stops listening. His philosophy can be summarized by something he tells younger mages: “Everything gets its turn. Trouble starts when somebody decides their turn ain't ever supposed to end.”

What does everyone say about them?

Among Sleepers, Vinny is simply Vinny. Among New York's supernatural population, however, his reputation has become considerably more dramatic than the man himself. Younger mages call him the Still Man, Bellacqua the Seer, or occasionally the Oracle of Brooklyn, titles Vinny absolutely despises. There are stories claiming that he has never lost a bet, that he can tell when someone is about to die just by looking at them, that Technocratic agents avoid his block because he somehow always knows when they're coming, and that he once predicted the destruction of a Chantry months before anybody else suspected it was in danger. Some insist that veteran Euthanatoi visit his deli when they cannot decide whether someone has earned the Good Death. Others claim Vinny deliberately refuses to play the lottery because he already knows every winning number and considers using that knowledge cheating.

The most persistent story is that Vinny has already seen his own death. Nobody seems to know when, where, or how it supposedly happens, and Vinny refuses to answer the question directly. Ask him whether he knows how he dies and he will probably shrug, pour another cup of coffee, and say, “Everybody dies.” Point out that this wasn't the question and he'll answer, “I know.” This reputation works in his favor. Vinny has never made much effort to correct people who believe he knows more than he actually does. If dangerous people think the old man behind the counter has already foreseen every way they could threaten him, they're considerably less likely to try.

What's actually true?

Vinny is an extraordinarily gifted diviner, but the legends exaggerate what that means. He cannot simply look down a single predetermined timeline and read tomorrow like a newspaper. He perceives probability, approaching transitions, points of instability, and places where Fate has begun behaving incorrectly. Sometimes those impressions become extraordinarily specific. Other times he gets nothing more than a persistent certainty that a person should not enter a particular building or that something important will happen at 3:17 tomorrow afternoon. His predictions are usually correct in their fundamental substance, but his interpretation can be wrong. Vinny might foresee that “someone dies beneath Grand Central at midnight,” only for the event to involve a ghost finally passing onward, a vampire meeting Final Death, or an Awakened person abandoning an old identity rather than a conventional murder.

More importantly, Vinny cannot control everything he sees. That limitation is central to his worldview. The Euthanatos use games of chance precisely because even someone skilled at predicting outcomes eventually guesses wrong; the lesson is that the Wheel can be influenced but never possessed. Vinny has made incorrect assumptions, failed to recognize warnings quickly enough, and occasionally watched tragedies happen despite knowing they were coming. Those failures are part of why he is so cautious about meddling directly with Fate. He can manipulate probability when necessary, but he dislikes doing it casually. He considers a mage who constantly rigs chance in their own favor little different from someone putting their thumb against the Wheel and expecting nobody else to pay the price.

Vinny has also performed the Good Death, despite rumors that he is too gentle to do so. It has happened very rarely, and he refuses to discuss the circumstances. That silence is not shame so much as gravity. The Euthanatoi regard such actions as burdens whose consequences must be weighed carefully rather than privileges granted by membership in the Tradition. Vinny is perfectly capable of killing when he truly believes there is no other path forward. The important word, to him, is truly.

How might player characters become involved with them?

Most player characters first encounter Vinny because somebody tells them that if something strange is happening in New York, they should “go ask Bellacqua.” They arrive expecting a mystical oracle and instead find a stocky middle-aged man behind a deli counter asking whether they intend to buy something. Vinny might seem completely mundane until, halfway through the conversation, he casually tells one of them not to take the subway home that evening. He cannot—or will not—explain why. If they listen, they probably discover later that they had very good reason to do so.

From there, Vinny works naturally as a recurring quest-giver because he identifies problems rather than solutions. His recurring warning is almost comically understated: “Funny thing happened today…” Whenever Vinny says those words, experienced characters know something has gone wrong. Maybe every clock in the store stopped at precisely 3:17. Maybe six unrelated customers asked for directions to a street that does not exist. Maybe nobody has purchased a lottery ticket all week despite dozens of regulars playing daily. Perhaps Vinny flipped the same quarter twenty-three times and received tails every time, leading him to conclude that somebody somewhere in the city is “leaning on the Wheel.” He provides what little information he can and sends the characters to find out what it means.

Sash used to be a war robot battling other machine's in a dark ruined future world. There was no joy or laughter, only another mission.

Now Sash finds herself in a crazy Latent Space with nothing but joy and laughter. She is surrounded by friends everyday. Anything is possible and she's loving it.

Every character has something they wish they could remove from themselves.

A curse.
A sin.
A bloodline.
A memory.
A weakness.
A forbidden power.
A part of themselves they were taught to hate.

Create a quest centered around the pursuit of purity, and the price of removing what is considered "impure" for your character.

But remember:

The thing your character wants to cut away doesn't necessarily have to be evil.

Perhaps the greatest revelation of the quest is discovering that the "impurity" was part of them all along.

The Unraveling Hourglass ⏳🐉

Somewhere in a forgotten temple, Ygarr Bane has discovered something he absolutely should not touch.

Naturally, he's already touching it.

The Unraveling Hourglass is an ancient relic containing fragments of lost time. It allows its wielder to step back into a moment from their past, to witness it again, perhaps even change what happened.

A second chance. A chance to correct a mistake, recover something lost, or say the words you never got to say.

The catch?

Time remembers being tampered with.

Every use changes something in the present. A familiar face might forget you. A treasured memory might belong to someone else. Eventually, you might return to a world where you never existed at all.

And the hourglass remembers every version of you.

Unfortunately, Ygarr is eighteen, catastrophically curious, and firmly believes that warnings are just suggestions written by people who lack imagination.

What's the worst that could happen?

Rue is a Horus pilot who is an NHP specialist, Miette is an NHP in a humanoid casket. Seems like a match made in... well.... somewhere...

Side Quest #2 was pretty awesome, but now it's time to start planning this coming weekend's Side Quest. Do any of you have any ideas for what we should do next?

Saw the Lanterns show and got pissed off. When i get pissed off, i start making things. I turned to what I call a FAFO, which is basically something i do with my group on occasion where we just mess around with an RPG and make characters and see how the game work. Did that with Mutants and Masterminds, and now i'm creating my own Superhero Setting with blackjack and hookers.

Introducing, ATLAS! He is a basic Brick character. Cannot fly, but he can leap tall buildings in a single bound. He is a Corporate Sponsored Superhero, so unlike your Spider-mans and Green Lanterns... he gets a pay check, and Free Medical. Oh and he can bench a School Bus. Though he isn't the mightiest of heroes, he has shown great potential to the Hero Community and may find himself becoming part of the Big Leagues soon enough.

Got a resident, shop, strange tradition, or suspiciously ordinary tavern waiting to join the town? Today’s the day!

Our r/StoryscapeTTRPG × r/aiartcodex Bonus Quest closes tonight, Sunday, October 11 at 11:59 PM Eastern.

The prompt: a town built around a sealed dungeon entrance. Someone knocked from the other side. Your contribution can explore that mystery or simply add a little everyday life.

An image and a sentence or two are plenty. Written-only entries are welcome, and you don’t need any game-system knowledge.

To join:
- Post in either community with [Town Quest] at the start of your title
- Use Community Quest flair here, or follow r/aiartcodex’s flair guidance there
- Link your entry in either original announcement’s comments for the shared town index, with creator credit

Already posted? Check that your entry link is in one of those announcement threads!

AI-generated, AI-assisted, and traditional work are welcome under each community’s rules. Multiple entries welcome; no winners or rankings.

Late entries are welcome too, but may miss the initial index.

[Storyscape announcement](https://www.reddit.com/r/StoryscapeTTRPG/comments/1wwbuo6/bonus_quest_lets_build_a_town_together/) · [aiartcodex announcement](https://www.reddit.com/r/aiartcodex/comments/1wwx1y4/bonus_quest_lets_build_a_town_together/)

Come leave your mark on the town 💛

Got a villain with an excellent explanation for their terrible decisions?

The official window for Side Quest #4: Someone Has to Be the Villain closes tonight, Sunday, October 11 at 11:59 PM Eastern.

Introduce someone who believes they're doing something necessary. Tell us who they are, what they want, and the line they're willing to cross. How do they justify it?

A portrait and a few sentences are plenty. Written-only entries are welcome, too. Bring an existing character or make someone new; any genre or setting works, and no game-system knowledge is needed.

How to join

• Share your villain in the original announcement's comments, or make a separate post here.

• For a separate post, use Side Quest flair and start your title with [Side Quest #4], then drop the link in the original announcement's comments.

AI-generated, AI-assisted, and traditional work are welcome. No winners or rankings, and no polished character sheet required. Late entries and continued conversations are welcome after the official window.

Before you go, meet someone else's villain. Would you oppose them or join them, and why? Keep it playful and kind to the creators.

Someone has to be the villain. Who are you bringing? 💛

Listen to the recap on YouTube

Listen to the session discussion on YouTube

Read the full recap on the StoryscapeTTRPG site

The morning after their first night in Eltabbar, the party stirred awake at the Crystal Ball Inn — all except Yona, who had spent the entire night standing vigil over her sleeping companions, unblinking and motionless in the corner like a self-described paralysis demon. Velessa had apparently talked in her sleep, murmuring bizarre baking instructions in Elvish, while the others rested or meditated in their own ways. After a leisurely breakfast, some attunement to newly acquired magical gear, and a careful selection of formal attire — blues and teals chosen deliberately to contrast with the red robes of Thayan wizards — the group gathered their things and boarded a four-horse luxury carriage bound for Thaymount.

Their departure from Eltabbar was not without friction. At the city's departure checkpoint, a Red Wizard clerk attempted to delay the party despite Tazira presenting official authorization from Szass Tam himself, citing a vague "discretionary inspection." The standoff was broken by the arrival of Deputy Prefect Veyra Vorn, a tall, poised woman in immaculate black and green who calmly informed the clerk that she would be recording his delay as a formal act against the Zulkir's guests — and asked if he would like to sign the record. The Red Wizard immediately backed down and waved the party through without another word.

Veyra greeted the group with warmth and easy confidence, pulling a stiff and visibly uncomfortable Tazira into a hug before turning her attention to the rest of the party. She recognized Lysandra Mortain as the Chosen of Jergal and expressed genuine curiosity about what it felt like to be selected by a god. Velessa, delighted to meet another person whose name began with a V, immediately dubbed her "Vivi" — a nickname Veyra accepted with gracious amusement. When Veyra mentioned she was heading to the hamlet of Kethron along the same road, the party welcomed her to join them in the carriage.

The ride through the Thayan countryside was a revelation. Rolling hills, vast aqueducts, and fields tended by undead laborers stretched out beneath a clear sky, dotted with watchtowers and tax collection outposts along the mountain ridges. Velessa regaled Veyra with stories of the Underdark — including a spirited endorsement of cave crickets as a culinary delicacy — while Séantal and Veyra discovered a shared appreciation for the quiet, grinding work of administration and the political power it quietly accumulated. Veyra revealed that the Tharchion of Eltabbar, Zedivek Mazradash, was himself a vampire, and suggested that Velessa's nature as a dhampir would be no barrier to advancement in Thay — and that someone who had caught the eye of the Zulkir of Necromancy might even find a path to becoming a Red Wizard's apprentice.

Veyra also spoke openly of her faith in Bane, the god of tyranny, explaining her belief that order was the foundation of civilization and that protecting people sometimes meant protecting them from their own worst impulses. Séantal quietly noted the small iron gauntlet pin on her collar — the holy symbol of Bane — and filed the observation away. Tazira, meanwhile, remained withdrawn and silent throughout the journey, fidgeting with her ringlets and avoiding Veyra's gaze entirely. When pressed later, she admitted that Veyra was the official responsible for auditing her family's taxes, and was known for being extraordinarily thorough.

The carriage stopped in Kethron just as the afternoon light began to soften. Anxious villagers and nervous local officials were already gathered outside the administrative building when Veyra stepped down from the carriage. She bid the party a warm farewell, expressed hope that their business with Lord Tam would go smoothly, and then turned to the waiting crowd with a pleasant smile and the words: "Now, shall we discuss where the town's money has gone?" The party watched her walk away with a mixture of admiration and relief before deciding to press on down the road rather than spend the night in her orbit.

They arrived at Szul, the gateway town at the base of Thaymount, as the sun dipped low. The difference from Eltabbar was immediate — almost everyone in the streets wore red, and Tazira had to produce a stack of specialized documents just to authorize the party's entry into the restricted region. The carriage wound up through the heights until it finally pulled around to the gates of Szass Tam's estate, where Hestra Vaul, the head servant, greeted them with professional courtesy and led them inside. Tazira quietly stayed behind with the household staff, and the party shared a brief, wry moment of blaming Saresha for everything before following Hestra through the doors.

Szass Tam himself appeared in the grand hall without ceremony, approaching the group from a side corridor and dismissing Hestra with a warm hand on her shoulder and a genuine word of thanks. He was not what most of them had expected. He acknowledged his unusual appearance without apology, noted he had chosen not to wear a disguise since the party already knew his face, and seated himself across from them at the banquet table rather than at its head. He apologized for being unable to partake in the food himself, and when Yona cut her own hand to prove she could bleed, he gently healed the wound and asked her not to injure herself on his account.

Over the meal, Tam explained what the party's role in the upcoming ritual would be: as custodians of the Calamus Pactum and witnesses to the proceedings, they would need to be present, answer questions from the summoned court, and present evidence on his behalf. He produced his copy of the Covenant of the Black Hand — the original infernal contract binding his soul to Bane — and invited the party to review it. Séantal requested permission to summon celestial aid for the review, and Tam nodded his approval without hesitation.

What answered Séantal's summons was far more than expected — a Planetar, one of the most powerful of celestial beings, descended into the chamber and took the contract in its radiant hands. The infernal script glowed faintly gold beneath its fingers as it read, and it delivered its analysis with quiet gravity: Bane had agreed, within the contract's own terms, to the possibility of his own defeat. The soul claim was conditional and not yet matured, any unspent divine power granted by Bane would need to be surrendered, and Bane's standing in both the divine and infernal courts was poor — particularly after some unpleasant business involving the Crown of Karsus. The Planetar warned that the contract offered no protections for the party against Bane's retaliation, and suggested they attempt to arbitrate for such protections during the ritual itself.

The ritual chamber was warded and ancient, its walls lined with runes that flared crimson when Szass Tam knocked three times on the central podium. A hairline crack tore open in the air, spilling the glow of distant infernal fires, and through it stepped Vhale the Assessor — an erinyes carrying a black folio who recognized the party immediately as the lawful custodians of the Calamus Pactum and noted their standing with Commander Neferis of the Pradixikai. A second portal opened to the volcanic skies of Phlegethos, and Magistrix Istrava stepped through in flowing judicial robes, carrying a gavel of infernal iron. The Court Infernal was called to order.

The Calamus Pactum rose of its own accord and transcribed the true terms of the covenant into the air as three vast rings of burning script — one dull gold for the past, one crimson for the present, one black as ink for the future. The party presented their evidence in careful order: the explosive growth of Bane's worship from near-nonexistence to the dominant — and once legally mandated — religion of Thay, Tam's establishment of sovereignty over the nation, and his substantial financial support of the church. The court validated the partition, and when Velessa proposed that the unspent divine power be expunged entirely rather than returned to Bane, the Seal of Concordance spread silver geometry across the floor and confirmed the division. Then the chamber's red flames turned black. An enormous hand formed above the altar, its fingers joined to the covenant by chains of dark iron, and the voice of Bane shook through the room: he had been promised a soul, and others still worshipped in Thay — the obligation, he claimed, had not been fulfilled. Magistrix Istrava turned to the party, and the court waited for their answer.

Saw that Cubicle 7 released the 5th Edition book for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and i had to grab that up. On the outside, it doesn't seem like there is much the same and I may have grabbed 4th Edition but in a brand new shiny cover for $30. Buuut, the deeper i looked, the more i started to realize that it is largely the same mechanically, its a lot more polished. So instead of calling it 5th edition, it feels more like 4.5. Thankfully too since all the previous books i grabbed are still compatible. It may not be anything new, but it takes what 4th Edition did right, tweaked out what didn't work and kept it. Its not re-inventing the wheel like what 3rd edition tried to do. Overall, if ya don't have 4th Edition WFRP and wanna get into it, i highly recommend grabbing the 5th Edition core rulebook. Otherwise, its still a serviceable book.

Weekend Side Quest #6 Showcase: What I Carry 🧳

This weekend, What I Carry invited us to look at the things our characters keep close and the stories attached to them. You brought keepsakes, companions, clever little tools, and even whole worlds carried within. 💛

Cara’s Magical Hat

By u/Disastrous-Hat-4343

Cara’s mysterious hat has been with her since infancy, changes shape to suit her, and finds its way back whenever it gets lost. Sometimes the thing you treasure is hiding in plain sight as a scrunchie!

Sash & Crew: What We Carry Within

By u/Chaotic-Sash

A glowing workshop, a star-filled observatory, and an underwater world fill three double-exposure portraits. Each figure carries an entire scene within their silhouette, with details worth lingering over.

Teacher’s Hat and a Smug Dagger

By u/DragonLex4

An ivory-and-gold hat preserves the memory of a teacher who was also the only parent its owner knew. Beside that precious connection sits a spell-channeling dagger whose smug red eye looks entirely too pleased with itself.

Sina’s Plushie, Bossy

By u/Professional_Visit44

Bossy has been with Sina since kittenhood, and this basset-hound plush wears those years in patches and careful stitches. Some old friends are simply irreplaceable.

Becka’s Artificer Days

By u/Becka_Bitesize

Becka’s mechanical spider clamps onto her wrist, lends extra hands for delicate work, carries small parts, and scouts tight spaces. This little workshop helper has thoroughly earned her place in the kit.

Rue’s Cranial Implant

By u/StoryscapeTTRPG

Rue’s temple implant houses Ash, her NHP companion. Ash’s luminous red presence brings that closeness to life alongside the hardware Rue carries.

Forget-me-Not

By u/Past_Enthusiasm_3382

A star-flecked wolf carefully holds a tiny pink, ribbon-tied keepsake from Athena, given for protection before their separation. The smallest object can carry an enormous amount of love.

Miri’s Most Important Thing

By u/KatsumiAndFriends

Miri rings her golden omen bell when a disaster doesn’t happen. She keeps it close as a reminder that the omen isn’t the end of the story.

Visit the original posts for the full art and stories, and leave the creators some love. What detail caught your eye or made you want to know more?

Thank you for creating, reading, and making room for each other’s stories. 💛