Welcome to the Skyline Tavern where tales of adventures, heroes, and storytellers are told over pints of your favourite beverage.
Our entertainment varies, but you can always count on a story or two from our lore master, Juqre, enjoyed safely from your favourite comfy seat at home.
Skyline Tavern is a blog of tabletop roleplaying game storytelling, character development, and world-building.
If you enjoy reading about fantasy adventures, character creation, and Dungeons & Dragons, these articles are for you. Whether you’re a seasoned Game Master (GM) who creates their own content, or a noob who just found out about the world yesterday, there’s something for you in our pages.
Categories
- Character Discovery (4)
- Character Retro (4)
- Critical Role Fanfics (6)
- Dangerous Designs Adventure (3)
- Frozen Sick Adventure (6)
- Game Review (2)
- GM Zone (6)
- Wages of Vice: Highsummer in Zadash (4)
- Wildemount Sandbox Campaign (7)
A note from the Author
I had no idea what Dungeons & Dragons really was until 2017; had never played a tabletop roleplaying game before, and cringed at the idea of improvising anything let alone doing improv for fun.
But, I have always been a fantasy and science-fiction nerd. My uncle bought me a copy of The Hobbit when I was 5 years old, which I read with my mom. My best friend and I listened to the first 3 Narnia books by the time we finished kindergarten. I subsequently started Fellowship of the Ring when I was 7 (though struggled to get out of the Shire, so I didn’t read the whole book until I was 8).
Every fiction-based writing assignment I had before high school spun my mind into a cascade of new worlds; magic or aliens or historical heroes, and their made-up stories. I remember a writing project one year, where we all created stories about The Friggles, fictional aliens that looked kind of like a pompom balls with smaller pompoms as feet. I’m not even sure if everyone did this or it was just me and my friends. The circular bodied aliens stick out in my memory still to this day. I remember making up their mannerisms with my friend who always had the most creative ideas in the classroom. She wasn’t afraid to make things up, to improvise, and shout her ideas from a rooftop. I was afraid of doing all of that. I would quietly sit in the corner, write in my journal and hide everything from the rest of the world.
When I think back on the best moments of my childhood, and I know I’m privileged to have many, what stands out the most for me are the memories of my favourite place. A forest, a gravel beach, and a windy saltwater lake. Cold summer nights wrapped in sleeping bags and fleece, and days full of playing in the ferns and fallen logs. Driftwood superstructures and the tumultuous shore break on our boogie boards. Me and my three friends, waving sticks around as pretend swords or guns, and sitting in camping chairs like we were flying the Millenium Falcon.
The more I think about the elements I love about playing fantasy games, I realize it’s exactly what I loved to do as a ten year old in the forest with my friends. We would always have a base world, cycling through a fantasized medieval period, Pokemon, Middle Earth, Transformers/Beast Wars, the extended Star Wars universe, or later the wizarding world of Harry Potter. We would all choose our characters, describe what they looked like. How tall they were, what they wore and what weapons they had. The characters all had different abilities, strengths and weaknesses. We named our characters, drew them and created custom statblocks for each of them, filling pages of sketchbooks with their weapons and armour. Then we’d fight, or we’d run from monsters, or pilot ships across the galaxy. The four of us would take turns making things up and acting them out. One of my friends always came up with the wackiest ideas, but at the time we were all too immature to appreciate going against tropes and creating something new. Now, I think those ideas were the best ideas, but as a child I remember laughing at them and rejecting them because they weren’t represented by what I saw in movies or read in books.
All of this brings me to why I’m writing this blog now. There are so many different people in the world, they all have their own story and their own unique perspectives on life. We should be bringing the different to the forefront and celebrating it, instead of marching behind whatever our version of “normal” is. I don’t think what I have to say is revolutionary, or more creative or interesting as the next person. I just want to write fun adventures down, and hopefully add some more perspective to the world.
Skyline Tavern is my small contribution to the noise, and I hope you enjoy what you read. Comments and questions are always welcome! Hoping what you find here brightens your day, makes you think, or helps you open your mind – even just a little bit.