Exeggcute and Exeggutor, which I really struggled to not call eggplants. Japanese eggplants actually are round and white, though not nearly as large. It seems inspired from the Japanese yokai Jinmenju, a tree with hand-leaves (palm leaves) with heads that smile and laugh. In game, they're dopey walking palms trees that fire mind blasts. Or a tree that attacks by smashing its face into the ground, that locals dare call the proper form. It's hilarious, but come on. Alolan exeggutor is fun to use simply because it can spam AOE attacks, something pretty rare. Normal exeggutor will rarely fight, pretty docile. The egg swarms are definitely useful in a fight to just do massive damage, but one of the more useful traits is just getting some distance. They form a sort of hostile terrain, like a tiny mobile wall of fire. It can either surround itself in eggs to punish anyone getting close, or lay them down like caltrops and sprint away to safety. Speaking of fighting these, encounter time! - Portals to the fey realm can mess with the plantlife around them. In this case, exeggcute who plant themselves don't sprout. They split at midnight and emerge as two more exeggcute at dawn. no problem at first, but it's quickly growing out of hand. - A cult of Demogorgon has taken to raising exeggutor. Having so many "heads" and constantly spawning more has lead them to believe it sacred, and they feel it sacrifices to enrich its diet before carrying its young out to be spread. When clearing out the temple, the last thing the party expected is a carnivorous exeggutor with swarms of hungry young. -A druid circle has raised an exeggcute into an Alolan exeggutor, who resides in grove of awakened trees. Lately the tree has turned violent however, and has commanded its entire grove to do the same. The druids ask for the party to reason with it, and if absolutely necessary bring it down. The culprit is a green dragon wyrmling, hiding in the fronds and whispering corruption to it.

[Reddit]

Check out Tabletop Gaming Resources for more art, tips, and tools for your game!

The Botanical Bestiary is a project I had the honor of being the artist for. It's a bunch of leshy miscreants who will try to destroy you, or possibly be adopted into your party as family. It's a bit of a toss up

The Botanical Bestiary is for Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5e. It contains: 

65 leshy monsters

10 leshy heritages  You can find it on DriveThruRPG here

D&D Character Concept: The Druid in the Walls

You know when weird bits of inspiration combine from very disparate sources? Specifically to give you extremely horrible backstories for a character?

Because I’ve been walking the dog the last while, and I’ve been noticing a lot of the wall plants. You know, the bits of plants, pennywort and red robin and the like, that grow in the cracks in the walls? Between the stones, in the gaps in the plaster. They’re really pretty, and I just love the stubbornness of them, to wind their way into wherever they can anchor and just bloom there.

I’ve written some things before on urban druids in D&D, and I was thinking idly about making a character in that context. The plants that grow in the cracks in the walls. And, because this is D&D and tragic backstories are, like, the thing, I was considering …

Beyond just general urban misery, where would you be where the sight of a stubborn little weed growing in the crack in a wall might be the one beautiful thing you can see and a seed that becomes a focus for your whole being?

Prison is an obvious answer. A cell, looking up at the bit of green growing near a high window. But the idea merged with a crime documentary I watched on youtube, which I cannot find again, about (warning for child death) a Victorian/Early 20th century murder of a child. A society woman who’d had a child out of wedlock as a teenager collected her young daughter from the woman who’d been caring for her, brought her to the cellar of her new husband’s house, and murdered her, without realising that one of the maids witnessed the deed. Which, yes, extraordinarily dark. But.

A child in the cellar. An illegitimate child, hidden away. A bit of green in a high window.

For some reason, my first thought was half elf, because D&D has some options for visibly illegitimate children. But then I remembered we can go one further for social ramifications. We could have a tiefling. A tiefling druid, who spent her first years in the care of a nurse, until she was old enough that they knew she would survive, and then was violently taken away and hidden. Because she is living proof of a … of an indiscretion. A sin.

There’s a bit of me that wants to go with the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide tiefling variants as well, here. Because, while we’re on this very bleak trip into victorianesque worries about the physical markers of illegitimacy and immorality, there’s the alternate appearance descriptions for variant tieflings: “Your tiefling might not look like other tieflings. Rather than having the physical characteristics described in the Player's Handbook, choose 1d4+1 of the following features: small horns; fangs or sharp teeth; a forked tongue; catlike eyes; six fingers on each hand; goatlike legs; cloven hoofs; a forked tail; leathery or scaly skin; red or dark blue skin; cast no shadow or reflection; exude a smell of brimstone.”

… Tieflings really are playing on a lot of … of very old fears and prejudices. So yeah. But if we’re consciously playing with that, here. It does work.

And this is the sort of house that has a cellar. That has maids. That has nurses. This is urban nobility. But this kid has no memory of wealth, comfort. She just remembers a prison. A cold room with a high window onto street level. And the bit of green, the delicate bloom, the one pretty thing she can remember, shining in the dusty light of that window.

I also, I’ve been handwashing a lot of clothes lately, and I was thinking about the red hands you get from hand laundry. Caught red-handed. And, urban nobility like that, they’d have laundry. Maybe even laundry in the cellar. And I was thinking about the maid in that documentary. And I was thinking … someone freed them. Someone heard the creature in the walls of that house, and the hints upstairs of what it might be, and someone found the compassion in their hearts to do something. Some tiny thing. Even if it was just ‘accidentally’ leaving a door open. And all this kid remembers of how she got out of that prison is … red hands. The raw, boiled red hands of a laundry woman, as she darted past them into the light, in search of their tiny sprout of green.

So she escaped. She lived as a street urchin for a while, a good few years. And she never lost … She looks for the plants. The weeds. The tiny scraps of green the city over. The flowers blooming in the cracks in the walls. Because there’s … there’s an ethos there. A sympathy. A stubborn, determined thing. They grow where they’re not wanted, in the dirt and in the dark, and they bloom anyway. They survive, and they bloom, and they give hope to those around them. It’s a scrap of a thing, a fragile shred of green, but it grows. No matter how unwanted it is. And it gives hope when there’s nothing else.

At some point another druid stumbled across her. An apothecary, maybe, an urban herbalist, or just a vagabond with their own sympathy and appreciation for those shreds of green that all the artifice of urban living could not drive away. She found a teacher. She learned some things. And she gave back some things. Druids have goodberry. Healing word. Spells to help … those who survive in the city’s cracks and crevices. And she wants to. Because of the green, yes, for the hope in the darkness, and also for those boiled red hands. For the servant who helped her, for the faceless person in her memory, that pair of hands, that helped the monster in the walls when no one else would. She doesn’t know who she was. She don’t know what happened to her. The house she came from had a demonic child caged within it. Who knows what they’d do to a servant who interfered in the family business like that? Urban elite, nobility, tend to have … pragmatic solutions to things like that.

Though they hadn’t killed her. Why didn’t they just kill the monstrous child, the proof of their sins? Why hide her, instead of simply getting rid of her? So maybe … maybe there’s hope. Maybe that poor woman, whoever she was, didn’t die for her good deed. I think that is a hope she holds. That she wants to find out what happened to that woman, and maybe, if it’s possible, if it’s not so very much too much to hope, to meet her. Thank her. And … until then. To emulate her. To help. Before anything else, just to help.

I do know I want this druid to have the druidcraft cantrip. Because, yes, it might be largely useless, compared to the likes of prestidigitation and even thaumaturgy. And yes, druids only start with two cantrips, and she probably should take more useful ones. But there is one effect of druidcraft: “You instantly make a flower blossom, a seed pod open, or a leaf bud bloom.” And that’s …

I’m not sure if it’d be ruled that she could create flowers with that. Let small flowers bloom in the cracks with a whisper. But even if she’s only helping the ones already there to bloom, it’s still …

That was her hope. Her symbol of the outside world. The only beautiful thing in her world for years. And she wants to be able to spread that. That was the first magic she learned. The first warmth and hope she ever held in her hands. The ability to make flowers bloom. Even here. Even in the dirt and the dust and the misery. A little tendril of green, stubbornly rooted into the stones of the world. Sometimes you don’t need to be able to fight. Sometimes you just need to be able to provide hope.

(If she could also get herself a Staff of Flowers along the way, she’d love that too)

Maybe a lot of the local urchins know to follow the flowers to find help. You know?

So yeah. Yeah. A tiefling urchin urban druid. A child of sin, with the cherished power to coax hope to bloom, and the stubborn determination to grow no matter what. And to … to repay the small and infinitely precious kindnesses they have received.

(EDIT: There is an embarrassing amount of errors on this, please use the updated version: https://www.tumblr.com/cryptid-peanut/747717414107660288/heres-v2-as-soon-as-i-posted-this-on-reddit-an?source=share) For all the people who complained that Myconids aren't plants, here's a plant race! I call them Phylora. I tried to make them setting agnostic so you could do whatever with them! (Version 1)

Monster Popularity Contest: Legends of Innistrad

Well, it's been quite some time since I last posted anything here (all the way back in April, in fact!) but my long summer hiatus is finally over, and I'm happy to be back on a regular schedule once again. That starts with new Weekly Releases, including this brand-new series of monsters from Innistrad, the gothic-horror setting for Magic: the Gathering. Terrify your players with Kurbis, the huanted treefolk; whip-up a mad science mini-boss using Oglor, Devoted Assistant; or put your players firmly in celestial crosshairs using Sigarda, Font of Blessings!

And if you'd like to get early access to more releases like this, vote in weekly polls to decide what I make next, and get access to exclusive patron-only content (like a d100 table of Local Tavern Meals for your fantasy bar of choice), all for as little as $2/month, you can sign up to support me over on Patreon!

Hello, fellow D&D enjoyers. It's been a while. How you guys doing? Weathered the storm all right?

Me, I've sorta been in a slump, but I did manage to finish this bad boy: The Verdant Heart! A sorcerous origin for the green thumb-having players out there who don't want to play druid!

The features are centered around the concept of growing and replenishing, from picking spells from the druid spell list to gaining more ways to recover sorcery points to even some minor support effects riding on your spellcasting!

Sincerely hope you guys enjoy this one and as always feel free to leave constructive criticism. Much gratitude for consuming my content, and til next we meet again, you lovely internet strangers.

GM Binder link, which will have the most up-to-date version of this subclass: https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-NKq1ilSBNLWT47Nr7mo

Behold! The Plant druid!

+ Druid: Circle of the Glade

Druids have a great deal of variety. However, I was bothered that there was not a druid archetype that favored plants. Spore druids get close, but it was not plant-ish enough—not for me. So I made this subclasse.

The circle of the glade is a gaurdian of nature, not just of animals but all living organisms. They can take the forms of plant-type creatures and gain special benefits when they do. With many abilities similar to a dryad, these druids are wonderful survivalists and combatants in any environment where there is natural life.

www.dmsguild.com/product/471783/Yokai-Lore-Ledger-2--Sunamura-Tangler?affiliate_id=1722907

The Second volume of Yokai Lore Ledger a series that converts a yokai from Japanese folklore into a monster to challenge your players.

This entry contains the Sunamura Tangler, a collection of plant monsters that form more ill-tended crops.

Contains:

Lore 

4 Statblocks

Official bundle post for the Deciduous Bushes printable paper minis! As with the rest of these posts, these minis are available to grab over on my Patreon right now.

If you like what you see and want to support me and get a whole bunch more printable minis like these, check out my Patreon page! All of them come in, pre-scaled easy to print PDFs / PNG files and work great with a myriad of ttrpg games, including DnD, Pathfinder, Daggerheart, Blades in the Dark, Call of Cthulhu and more. The front view for most minis is FREE and supporters get access to a whole lot more including unique back views, color options, alternative poses & variant designs, VTT tokens and so much more. With dozens of minis to choose from, and more uploading every month, you will always have a new option for your table. ❤

[Reddit]

Check out Tabletop Gaming Resources for more art, tips, and tools for your game!

The Botanical Bestiary is a project I had the honor of being the artist for.

The Botanical Bestiary is for Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5e. It contains: 

65 leshy monsters

10 leshy heritages  You can find it on DriveThruRPG

Sorry, been falling into a hyperfixation hole unrelated to D&D. To make up for it, here's a brand new race you can use, why not

The Vitavorous, or Vitavores! A carnivorous plant race that grows berries to lure in prey and also has no eyes whoops

Yokaitober, Days 5-8

I know its the 16th and over halfway through the month, but I promise I have been (mostly) keeping up with Yokaitober. My issue is that building habits is hard, and I am definitely out of habit on posting to tumblr.

In the second series of yokai for the month, I covered a pretty wide variety of creatures, including the jubokko, a bloodthirsty tree that was actually created in the 20th century; Keizobo, one of five famous kitsune from Inaba; the yogen no tori, a helpful, pandemic-predicting raven that was "seen" only one time; and the hinoshu, a rock-like yokai the size of a germ who lives in people's spleens.

If you'd rather not wait for me to remember to post these yokai before seeing them, you can always sign up to follow me over on Patreon, where I post new yokai (almost) every day of October. Plus, if you pledge as little as $2/month, you can get access to some other great 5e homebrew, including new magic items, spells, and monsters, every single week.

Felucian for a Star Wars 5e campaign!!!