Roll for Equality

On the show, I try hard to showcase other D&D related podcasts to my listeners. There’s a lot of us out there, and we each have something different to bring to the audience that has value, so I love working with other shows to get the word out.

One of the most recent shows I’ve been promoting is Tales of Mystara. The host, Tom, tells an epic high fantasy story using DnD 5e and dice rolls to determine the outcomes within the story. It’s an amazing exercise in storytelling and gaming that had me hooked immediately.

It also had me asking myself some hard questions. You see, I’ve been working on my own fantasy series since I was 15 years old. That’s a total of 23 years. Blows my mind to think of it and feels overwhelming with how little I’ve accomplished with it. Most of it stays in my mind and confidence is what I am lacking. Writing is something I love, but it’s also hard as fuck.

Since I started podcasting, I’ve realized, on a small scale, a dream I had as a kid. I wanted to be on the radio. It’s not something I really tell people. Radio always seemed like the perfect medium for me because I crazy about music and audio technology, and I am such a private person that I never wanted anyone to see me as I worked.

As I listened to Tales of Mystara and another show called Tales of the Manticore, I had to ask myself, “Is this what I should be doing? Doing audio storytelling?!”

So, I’ve been considering it.

You see, I have this DnD campaign that I fleshed out really well. It’s an entire region that took my players nearly two years to complete. So far, it has been their favorite campaign I ever wrote for them, and they encouraged me to make it into a book.

But I wonder if I should test out my storytelling skills on my show instead. Hmm….

I guess we will see in the next few months.

5 Details for Easy World-building

On this week’s episode of Roll for Equality, I had a chat with my old friend DM Rick about the epic minefield that is worldbuilding. Like all DMs, we’ve had our fair share of ups and downs, astounding victories and bitter failures surrounding this topic. There’s a lot of creativity and gnashing of teeth that goes into it.

In our interview, Rick advocated for starting small – advice I heartily agree with for preserving DM mental health – by beginning with a single village; add in a few NPCs, shops, a head honcho, and BAM you’re good.

Here’s a small list of things I like to focus on when building my first little village!

Economy: How do we make the monies?!

As boring as it may sound, I always like to know what the major economy is in my village. This helps with so many things, particularly plot points!

You could use the economy as the impetus for conflict or war between this village and another. Maybe there’s a cult that wants to create a monopoly on the item that this village is known for, or deify it among the locals. This would make the village a difficult place to navigate for your PCs.

It also just makes your world feel hella lived in. If the locals have a goal, like getting as much of this resource or protecting it no matter the cost, then you have ample opportunity for plot hooks, storyline, or encounters.

Architecture: Oh, where did you get that gorgeous marble statue of [Insert Local God]?

Architecture: most of us don’t notice it. Well, at least not directly. While most of us won’t know the names for building materials or the names of artistic features, we do know the difference between what looks rich, poor, and everything in between.

Seeing where NPCs live will tell a lot to your players about what sorts of people they will be encountering during their dealings in the village, thus avoiding information dumping.

Plus, adding architecture can tell your players if the town is new, old, been through a catastrophe, survived a dragon attack, is neglected by local big wigs…anything!

Government: Who in the hell is in charge around here!?

If you ever need something for your PCs to fight against, why not try the local village Elder? He seems like an autocratic dick monkey with a chokehold on the local population.

Setting up a government system doesn’t have to be too difficult. I do my best to not get bogged down in creating a whole legal system. I find creating a local leader, a smattering of simpering sycophants, and 1-2 big laws to follow is really all you need, if that.

Honestly, you could just make the local leader and nothing else, and make up the rest on the fly as your players move through the town.

But I do find that making the local guy at least a little shady can lead to both questions and a deeper delve, leading to the possible start of an adventure.

Weather: Am I hot, cold, or…both!?

The weather! Where is your village located? Are we freezing our asses off in the 100-year snow frost in the wild north? Or are we sweating in the head under the influence of some local specially beverage magically-spiked by some local wizard who just LOVES the beach?

Weather not only sets the tone for your adventure, but it also helps you hone in on what sorts of encounters you can develop. If you’re in hot climate you can have a rainforest or jungle for your players to explore with specific monsters to face that they wouldn’t find in more temperate or colder areas.

Temples, structures, artifacts, environmental hazards are all different in each type of climate. Hell, why not blend some together and see what you get?

Weather can make each campaign seem different from the next, and guides the DM on what to stock their worlds with.

Food: Hm…the smells coming out of that tavern are amazing! Is that…roasted troll feet?!

Food. We all need it; we all want it. What types of food are your NPCs eating? Are they scraping by on tasteless bread, moldy cheese, and stale ale? Or do they have the money for more refined vittles? You can tell a lot about people by what they eat.

How much and what NPCs eat will tell your players a lot about the economic status and motivations of the villagers. If your town is known for certain resources, why not create a signature dish that is related to it in some way?

Where ever you can, make small connections between all 5 aspects of life. It adds a richness that will make your world seem more lived in without you having to break your brain searching desperately for ideas.

So, what are you waiting for? Go make your village!

The Strange Lure of DMing

When I started to really get into D&D, I had a problem that a lot of us players face. My friends and I would start a campaign with one of them reluctantly volunteering to take on the hefty role of DM.

There would always be a hint of jealousy from the DM as we rolled our dice, shouted out strategy across the table, and celebrated our escape from a possible TPK with a high five or the clink of a glass.

And I felt terrible as the DM smiled slightly and put his chin in his hand with a grumbled sigh. Campaigns ended pretty soon after that, usually within a few weeks or couple months because no one really wanted the job of DMing.

That’s when I decided to learn the trade of being a Dungeon Master, and now, 4 years later, I find that not only am I rarely a player, but I actually *prefer* to DM. OMG, what happened to me!?

So, what lures me to DM to the point where I hardly play anymore and actively volunteer my services? Well, here are three things I find incredibly addicting when it comes to running games:

The Amount of Acting

Of course, in the world of TTRPGs everyone is role playing to some extent. It’s built into the damn game! Everyone acts out their character according to their comfort level, customizing their RP to their personal style.

But here’s the thing: each player is usually only RPing one character. As a DM, I get to RP EVERYONE! And yes, I used “get to” deliberately rather than “have to”.

I am totally addicted to the thrill of acting in front of an audience. I was a theatre nerd in my school days and that urge to perform regularly rears its head. I’m always throwing out a weird accent or funny voice to answer basic questions like, “What do you want for dinner?” or “How was work?” or “Is this going to be an all-day thing, you overdramatic nutjob?!”.

Giving voices, gestures, ticks, etc., to my NPCs gives me a focus for that strange part of my normally introverted self. As the DM, it makes me feel as immersed in the narrative as my players do; I love that sense of connection that we feel from all of us getting to interact and spend time in my world.

The Writing Routine

I know…I know. Ask any DM and they will tell you of all the times they ripped their hair out staring at a blank page as that evil storm giant called “writers block” rolled the ever-loving crit out of their creativity.

Writing isn’t easy. Writing, as anyone who has done it will tell you, is a bitch troll from hell. But I owe D&D more than a bit of gratitude for getting me back into this painstaking, soul-wrenching hobby that I adore to the core of my being and making me do the hardest thing…

I actually write every day.

Even if it’s only a few paragraphs describing a location in my world, a quick character dialogue, or ideas for an episode of Roll for Equality. Because I write every day, I feel more confident about all the campaigns and writing projects I’m working on, and I feel the ideas running around in my brain haphazardly and ready to find a home on a scrap of paper.

It doesn’t matter if those ideas suck right now. Just that I have them, trash them, or use them as a foundation for something better later – what matters is I write!

The World Building

This is one intimidating behemoth of a task casting its doom-filled shadow across the quaking psyche of your DM. Create a totally original world with villages, castles, monsters, magical items, mysteries, NPCs, histories, geographies, economies, power struggles, intrigues, villains…?! Are you insane!

Yes, probably. But I love it!

As strange as it sounds, world building does not scare me like it should. I realize there are some DMs who want to punch me right now, and I get it. Like I said, it’s gargantuan mountain to climb that can be a huge blow to a DMs confidence. It’s usually accompanied by questions like…

“Is this idea for a location stupid?”

“Does the magical trap upon which the entire dungeon hinges make sense?

-AND the dreaded-

“Will my players regret playing in my world?”

Even though I love building worlds, that doesn’t mean I don’t ask myself these questions. I do. After nearly every session. It is a constant internal fight to not rip myself to shreds for a small mistake. But I have a job that I chose to do, one that I love,

My players have a small notebook we always put on the table called, “The Book of Awesome”. Inside they keep the stories of all the fun, crazy, and epic shit their characters did in our sessions over the years. We constantly refer to it, laughing and raising our glasses to their wildest successes. This reminds me, in spite of all the big-ass mistakes I think I’ve made as a DM, that they have enjoyed the hell out of themselves over all the years we’ve been gathering to game around my table.

This is what keeps me coming back to DMing more than anything else.

So, tell me DMs out there, what is it that drives you to run games?

Elizabeth Bathory Script and Character Build

I: Elizabeth’s Background:

Born into the Hungarian nobility in 1560
Known as the Blood Countess for the practice of bathing in the blood of young girls to keep her youthful complexion
She got away with it for years because of the power of her family and only got caught when she turned her murderous obsession on the nobility itself.
The whole region was wrapped in violence due to the centuries long war with the invading Ottoman Turks and was still a feudal society where local noble families had incredible power and absolute rule. For some context, this is the area right next to where just 150 years before Vlad Dracul had been doing his thing in Wallachia.

II: Elizabeth’s Childhood and Marriage:

Born into the powerful and influencal Bathory family. Her parents were cousins, as was tradition, and we all know what happens when cousins marry each other over generations…in fact, the family had a long history of several of its members not being quite so right in the head. Some were labeled “sexual deviants” (read: falling somewhere on the LGBTQ scale), while others exhibited gruesome violence to others or to their own selves.
From a young age, Elizabeth herself is said to have fallen into fits of sudden and violent rage, with some historians believing she might have suffered from epilepsy. As a member of the nobility, she was not punished and was allowed to engage in such behavior at will. Whatever the root cause, these outbursts of violence and foaming hatred lasted until the day she died.
One of the most defining moments for young Elizabeth was witnessing her father’s punishment of a thief when she was only a small child. <Trigger Warning: cruelty to animals and torture> In the courtyard of the castle, the thief was brought out in chains next to a horse. With the horse still alive, the poor animal’s stomach was slit open, and as it fell onto the bloody cobblestones of the courtyard the thief was stuffed inside the creature’s belly. Their torturers quickly sewed up the horse’s stomach, trapping the thief inside screaming for mercy, trying desperately to claw his way out of the animal while the horse writhed in pitiful agony against the cobblestones. It took the rest of the day for both thief and horse to die while young Elizabeth and her father’s court watched, thoroughly entertained by the grotesque spectacle.
Elizabeth married when she was 15 years old. Her husband was Franz Nadasdy, a soldier from a noble family who spent a great deal of time away from home fighting the Ottoman Turks. Franz was not a scholarly man and preferred endevors of brute strength and ferousity to educational refinement. He was known for outbursts of rage similar to his wife, and known to whip and flog those who displeased him. Though Elizabeth was far more educated than her husband, they shared a love for torturing others, though they never did it together. With Franz away from home so often, I imagine they didn’t get much torture bonding time. So Elizabeth did her torturing on her own in secret…

III: Elizabeth’s obsession with youth:

With her husband gone most of their marriage, Elizabeth had a lot of time on her hands. It is said that her aunt Klara (a reputed bi-sexual whose hobbies included lesbian orgies and dabbling in the occult and devil worship because that tracks) made frequent visits to Elizabeth. Auntie Klara’s extracurricular activities apparently piqued the interests of the bored housewife, and Elizabeth soon indulged occult practices and the sexual joys of flagellation (that’s whipping a person for religious reasons or sex fun…or both depending). A lot of historians think that Elizabeth herself was bisexual, and if so, her aunt Klara could have been quite an influence.
Like all of us, Elizabeth aged, and as she did she felt a creeping feeling she had never felt before: fear. It is rumored that she sat in front of her bedroom mirror for hours at a time agonizing over every small flaw: the sag of her breasts, the pallor of her skin, the horrid little wrinkles about her eyes. But what to do?

IV: Elizabeth’s Career of Torture:

At first, Elizabeth kept to small physical punishments any time a lady in waiting made the smallest mistake.
After Franz’s death, Elizabeth found herself in her early 40’s looking not quite so fresh and sought out a cure for aging in her obsession with the occult. A local witch calling herself Darvulia (which wasn’t her real name apparently, but damn that’s a badass name!) came into Elizabeth’s service and suggested she moisturize in the blood of young virgins to keep youthful.
Young peasant girls were recruited for jobs as the castle only to be mutilated for Elizabeth’s entertainment and their blood collected for her beauty regime. No one said anything because they feared the powerful Bathory family and this went on for some years with more young girls missing from the countryside.
When the beauty regime wasn’t working to Elizabeth’s expectations, Darvulia suggested that peasant blood wasn’t good enough and only the blood of the nobility could keep Elizabeth looking her fiercest. So Elizabeth set up a kind of finishing school for young noble women. With the power of the Bathory repuation as one of the great aristocratic families in Hungary, noble families jumped at the chance for their daughters to learn etiquette from Elizabeth little knowing what fate awaited them at her torture castle.

A list of tortures include, and…trigger warning guys, this gets gruesome…

Placing girls in a cage with internal spikes. The cage could be tightened, resulting in the iron spikes piercing the girl’s body all over.
Elizabeth used heated iron tongs to burn and tear the flesh from the bodies. Sometimes using her own mouth to bite the skin off faces, arms, and other parts of the body.
She would strip a girl down, completely douse her in cold water, then leave her outside to freeze to death in the harsh Hungarian winter
One of her favorite inventions was called the “Iron Virgin”, a contraption Elizabeth thought up when some of her more “conventional” tortures got boring. It was a device that looked like a young woman with real human hair and teeth; it also had movable eyes for a little added creep factor. By pressing a gem at the base of the neck the mechanized arms would embrace and trap a victim in its grasp while blades from the hollow torso would slowly extend and impale the victims body causing a slow and agonizing death.
Girls were sometimes stripped naked, covered with honey, and tied to a tree in the forest to be devoured by animal and insect alike.

V: Elizabeth’s Undoing:

Though young peasant girls had been missing for years, no one lifted a finger against the power of Elizabeth’s family name. It was not until noble young women started going missing that anyone really started to investigate when broken bodies of the dead were found in spots outside the castle. One of those concerned was Elizabeth’s own cousin, Thurzo, who dropped by the torture castle one day unexpectedly…
According to Thurzo, he found the corpse of a young girl in the main hall as he entered the castle and slight groans indicated another girl slowly dying nearby. In the basement were found other girls either dead or nearly-dead in cells, while others found tied up in various stages of distress or death. More corpses were found buried under the stones of the basement floor. All in all, between 100-200 corpses were found and removed from Elizabeth’s hellish estate.
Thurzo claims to have found a ledger in Elizabeth’s desk that detailed each victim and how they were tortured. The amount of victims documented in the ledger was around 550 total.
The evidence:
- Testimony of more than 300 survivors and witnesses
- Physical evidence in the form of mutilated dead
- Imprisoned young girls found when her castle was raided
- The ledger of Elizabeth’s killing records that disappeared and is lost to history

For reasons of money, family power, and the position of the aristocracy, Elizabeth never went to trial. Instead, her family took matters into their own hands by walling Elizabeth up inside her bedroom with only a small hole through which water and food could be passed. Her castle was condemned, leaving the castle abandoned by all except for herself and a lone servant to feed her every day. 4 years later, she was died alone in the ruins of her torture castle.

Character Build!

Class:

Night Blood

Goes well thematically with our infamous Blood Countess with features like Dark Blood, Crimson Bite, Blood Frenzy…you get the idea. So lets take a look at a few.
Dark Blood: This feature starts right at 1^st level and essentially lets you smear your own blood on your weapon for an additional damage die. You will take a reduction to your HP to do it, but fuck that is cool!
Crimson Bite: This is also a 1^st level feat that allows you to use retractable fangs. You deal necrotic damage equal to double the dark blood damage dice and your Charisma modifier, THEN regain hit points equal to the damage you mettled out. There’s also something to do with victim memories and such. Overall, a really cool feature.

Race:

Coldvein

Ability score increase: Charisma by 2 and Dex by 1
Black Eyes: in darkness, make WIS check. Considered profen in percep so double the profic bonus to the check

Background:

Heir to a Fallen Kingdom:

Noble background; you could do a lot of different and creative things with the backstory
Feature: Royal Influence – High society believes you have a right to be anywhere you want to be and the lower classes will do anything to avoid your wrath. This is in keeping with the reality of Elizabeth Bathory and would work well for a villain by adding layers of fear and dread into the campaign environment.
This background allows your character, NPC or BBEG to be more austintaous with their power

Hooded Figure:

If secrecy and deception are more to your tastes, then the Hooded Figure background might be right up your roguish sleeve.
You get proficiencies in slight of hand and deception, a musical instrument which can add a bit of mystery should you choose, and you get one exotic language of your choice such as Abyssal, Celestial, Infernal, Undercommon, etc.
You get to choose a past for yourself from choices like Cultist, Assassin, Summoner, Shamed Murder, etc.
And there are two possible features to choose from: Eyes of Crime or On the Run.

Ching Shih Script

I: The Beginnings of Ching Shih

Ching’s humble beginnings started with her birth in 1775 in the southern Chinese port city of Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. Guangzhou lies on the Pearl River northwest of Hong Kong, and was known for a long time as Canton. This sprawling port city welcomed visitors and merchants from all over the world, and became famous for their “flower boats”, or floating brothels. It was believed at the time that the gentle rocking of the river provided a scintillating and thrilling element to the customers’ sexual experience. These flower boats floated all along the Pearl River, and at a very early age Ching Shih began working on one as a lady of the night. More than likely, due to the rampant poverty in Guangzhou, Ching Shih was forced into this profession by her parents. This was a common fate for many young girls in this area at the time, and Ching Shih could have easily faded into history as one in a long line of prostitutes on the flower boats of Guangzhou.

Yet Ching Shih set herself apart in several ways. She was renowned for her exquisite beauty and her earned a reputation for providing grand and lavish hospitality to her customers. Her charm, beauty, and grace shot her up the working girl ladder, and she is said to have entertained many high-ranking guests from military leaders to palace statesmen. In DnD terms, this woman had a 20 in Charisma and rolled those saving throws with double-ultra-mega advantage. It is clear that Ching Shih didn’t want to be chained to rules and laws all her life, because for all the men of quote un quote “good breeding” she put under her spell, it was a pirate that she ultimately chose to run away with.

II: For the Love of a Pirate

Though Ching Shih took her tragic circumstance as a young adolescent girl forced into prostitution and turned it to her advantage, she had no wish to be stuck on the flower boats for the rest of her life. Because of her history as a sex worker, she would have little to no chance to marry into polite society. With her options limited she waited for the right opportunity to show itself. In 1801, in stepped Zheng Yi, the fierce and hardened commander of the Red Flag Fleet, one of the most notorious bands of pirates hunting on the waves of the South China Sea.

Accounts differ on just how the charming brothel worker and the gentleman of fortune started their romance. One story goes that Zheng Yi was a customer on Ching Shih’s flower boat and was so awed by her striking looks and charm that he became overcome with all consuming passion for her. Once he was back on his ship, he commanded a raid on the flower boat housing the object of his desire, had his men kidnap Ching Shih, and married her on the spot. Another, and in my opinion more likely story given how damn savvy this woman was, says that Zheng Yi kinda did the boring, yet respectful, thing and simply asked for her hand in marriage. Ching Shih agreed on the proviso that she wield some power withing the Red Flag Fleet and receive her equal and rightful share of the plunder. Is it just me, or are there few things sexier than a whip smart woman who knows how to work the system?

No matter which account is true or not, what we do know for certain is that Ching Shih refused to be a docile flower of a wife and got her terms and conditions met, and soon these two started tearing shit up all over the South China Sea together. Zheng Yi’s original Red Flag Fleet numbered 200 ships at the time of their wedding and eventually grew to around 1,800 ships in a matter of months. Ching Shih’s time on the flower boats paid off as she used her paralyzing charisma and sick negotiating skills to schmooze other pirate lords to join the Red Flag Fleet. Soon their numbers swelled to upwards of 70,000 pirates flying under her and Yi’s fleet, making it the largest horde of pirates ever assembled in history. For 6 years, Ching Shih and her pirate husband raided and pillaged the Chinese coast and port cities, and plundering merchant ships from all over the world on the high seas. As they reveled in their riches and their romance, neither one of them could have known just what the sea, mercurial and uncaring, had in mind for them…

III: Breaking the Pirate Glass Ceiling

In the year 1807, Zheng Yi was riding high on the waves of his good fortune. He was the commander of the greatest pirate fleet to ever put sail to wind, richer than he could have ever fathomed, and had a gorgeous wife who not only made this all possible, but was his match in ferousity and battle prowess. While sailing off the coast of Vietnam, a sudden violent storm appeared on the horizon, engulfing Yi’s ship and drowning the pirate captain and most of his crew.

Ching Shih did not have much time to mourn her husband as his death left a massive rift in power within the Red Flag Fleet. Factions formed, loyalties were broken, and yet Ching Shih was able to cobble together enough support to keep the Fleet intact and assume command. Those who were disloyal quickly had their necks introduced to the chop of a blade. Though Ching Shih swiftly established her authority over the bickering pirates, she still had one loose end to tie up. What happened next was as strategic as it was downright…weird.

Within a few weeks of Zheng Yi’s death, Ching Shih married a strapping young pirate named Chang Pao. This in itself isn’t strange. A charismatic older woman taking a younger man as her man candy isn’t surprising, but lets look at just why this was strategic and weird. First, the strategy! Chang Pao had been her husband’s right-hand man throughout their marriage. He was well known and well respected among the various factions making up the Red Flag Fleet. Ching Shih knew him well and had his undying loyalty. Having Chang Pao as her husband would quell the sexist whispers among the crew that could turn into active betrayal against their female commander. Given this situation, why was this effective strategy so damn weird?

Well, here’s the thing about Chang Pao. He was not only Zheng Yi’s loyal lieutenant; he was also the adopted son of the pirate couple. Yep, Zheng Yi and Ching Shih had adopted Chang Pao as their son and Yi’s official heir, making Ching Shih’s marriage to Chang Pao a tad bit incestuous. But let’s add a scooch more weirdness to this relationship, shall we? According to some of my sources Ching Shih and Chang Pao were having secret sexual liaisons while she was still married to Zheng Yi. And then, just to turn the weirdness up a dozen more notches, other sources claim that Chang Pao was also hooking up with Zheng Yi as the pirate captain’s lover!! What…in the fuck…is happening!??!?! Now I’m not here to kink shame anyone, but here’s the good thing…whatever happened between this adopted family of three at least everyone was a consenting adult. Ching Shih and Chang Pao’s marriage even turned out to be fruitful later on. In the meantime, before the kiddies came along, Chang Pao deferred completely to his adopted mother wife’s authority over the fleet, leaving her the freedom to set up some new rules for her massive gaggle of pirates.

IV: Laws and Pirate Life

Where Zheng Yi had ruled the Red Flag Fleet with the boisterous rage befitting a gold hunting pirate, Ching Shih led with a quiet, calculated iron fist not to be fucked with. As the new pirate lord of nearly 70,000 scary pirates, she implemented new rules for her howling horde to strictly adhere to, particularly when it came to female captives. These included:

Those female captives who were considered quote unquote “ugly” were to be unharmed and immediately released.
If a female captive was beautiful enough that a pirate wanted her, then he would not only have to marry her but also remain faithful to her on pain of death. The rest were either ransomed or freed.
Raping a female captive carried an immediate death penalty.
Consensual sex between a pirate and captive led to a swift beheading for the pirate and some tightly fastened lead weights for a quick descent to a watery grave in Davy Jones’ Locker for the female captive.

Other laws were more geared toward Ching Shih keeping her position as pirate lord and the distribution of treasure:

Heaven help the pirate who thinks he knows better than Ching Shih and gives out unsanctioned orders. You’re dead were you stand.
All loot, be it goods, money, or slaves, goes straight to your superior for equal distribution.
If you steal from the public coffers, your head gets a permanent, vacation from your shoulders.

For several years, Ching Shih had total dominion over all goings on in the South China Sea. No ship entered her waters without her knowledge, and these merchants were ripe for plunder or coerced taxation at the end of a blade. Their choice. The Red Flag Fleet had connections all along the coast, with whole villages working for the pirates, helping keep them fed and watered, providing shelter when needed, and keeping them apprised the movements of merchant ships along the coastline. Ching Shih was a menace not only to the Chinese government, but to several governments in Europe who were trying to buy and sell goods in Chinese ports. In other words, this bitch made her badassery known worldwide.

All of this made the Chinese emperor desperate to get rid of this troublesome woman, so he sent the better part of his imperial navy after the Red Flag Fleet. It only took a few hours for the emperor’s navy to realize they were facing defeat and going up against a crew of 70,000 pirates with nothing to lose was really not the best idea. Ching Shih, with her superior charisma stat, told the remaining survivors that if they joined her ranks, they would be spared. The emperor’s sailors fell over themselves in a mad scramble to join the pirates, and the emperor lost a huge chunk of his own navy to Ching Shih.

V: Life after Piracy and Death

Things were going well for the Red Flag Fleet in the years following Zheng Yi’s death at sea. Under the iron guidance of their fierce female commander, the pirates were set up with unimaginable riches and beautiful wives, and they had an international reputation that paralyzed the hearts of merchants who dared sail their seas. Even better, they had humiliated a mighty emperor. With so much contentedness, it’s not surprising what came next.

In 1810, Ching Shih began to lose control of the Red Flag Fleet due to huge swathes of infighting, and the fleet broke up into 6 separate groups. With the pirate alliance lying broken and scattered on the waves, Ching Shih decided to change course.

The emperor she had humiliated offered her and the remains of the Red Flag Fleet full royal pardons and in return they would hunt down and destroy the other 5 groups of pirates who had disbanded from the pirate alliance. Chang Pao, Ching Shih’s adopted son/husband became captain of the Guangdong navy and spent his remaining years hunting down his former pirate comrades.

Ching Shih stayed on shore caring for their newborn son and daughter until Chang Pao’s death in 1822 when she decided to move to Macau at the mouth of the Pearl River Delta and put her pirate wealth to good use by setting up a gambling den, hopping on the salt trade, engaging in a bit of smuggling, and then establishing a brothel. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Unlike most pirates who died violently on the sea at a youngish age, Ching Shih died in 1844 peacefully in her sleep surrounded by her children and family at the age of 69 having maintained her ill gotten gains and provided a profitable and comfortable life for her family. By constantly challenging expectations and conventions, living her life according to her desires, and using her incredible intelligence, Ching Shih stole everything and got to keep it all…on her terms. So, let’s build this incredible bitch!

Ep. 14 – History Check! (Ching Shih)

Summary

On today’s History Check, I tell the story of the Terror of South China, the pirate queen Ching Shih! Then we build her as a PC or NPC for your ocean-based campaign.

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Links:

Hand of the Kraken: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Hand_of_the_Kraken_(5e_Class)

Selkie: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Selkie_(5e_Race)

Courtesan: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Courtesan_(5e_Background)

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Ep. 13 – Tasha’s Cauldron: Review and Interview

Summary

On this week’s episode, I review my favorite parts of Tasha’s Cauldron, introduce listener messages, and interview Valanthe with wine!

Email: roll4equality@gmail.com

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Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Roll-for-Equality-Podcast-105747774862142/?view_public_for=105747774862142

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Support us!

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/KrisGuthrie15?fan_landing=true

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Ep. 12 – History Check! (Elizabeth Bathory)

Summary

Check out the story of the Blood Countess! Sorry we had a few mistakes in editing. Working on fixing those. Check out the links before for all the information in the show!

Contact me:

Email: roll4equality@gmail.com

Twitter: @KrisGuthrie15

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/585693532119046

Be on the show! Leave an audio message: https://anchor.fm/kris-guthrie/message

Support us on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/krisguthrie

Mentioned Websites:

The Arcanery: https://thearcanery.com/

Dungeons and Drag Queens:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dungeons-and-Drag-Queens-NL-443285343096287

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4adOAHWQ-Ha3louz1n7f7g

Character Creation Links:

Coldvein: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Coldvein_(5e_Race)

Night Blood: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Night_Blood_(5e_Class)

Heir of a Fallen Kingdom: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Heir_of_a_Fallen_Kingdom_(5e_Background)

Hooded Figure: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Hooded_Figure_(5e_Background)

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Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/kris-guthrie/message

Announcements About the Podcast

Summary

2020, am I right? Things haven’t quite gone the way any of us planned. Tune in for some important news about our pod. Got questions? Wanna contribute a nugget or two of wisdom about your experiences, play style, DMing, etc.? Email us at Roll4equality@gmail.com!!

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Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/kris-guthrie/message