I’m sure by this point, you’ve noticed a distinct lack of the Adventures in Erylia in your ears for the last month. Things have been a little crazy around here and I’m trying to get them on track while balancing out the other things going on in my life. Things never really slowed down after the new year like I was expecting. If you wanna chat, about the show or otherwise, come hit us up in our Discord.

I have been listening to some new podcasts lately, especially trying to target some Dungeon Mastering and World Building shows to help make me better with building and running my own world. Just the other day I was listening to this episode of the Dungeon Master's Block about time lines and had a burst of inspiration. Here is a brief overview of the known history of Syvahl, as I expand into working on other continents, this time line will be stretched to take them in to account as well.

It's been a while since this blog has seen any love. Instead of just focusing on the world building for Erylia, I'm going to start writing more about playing D&D, being a Dungeon Master, and still work in world building elements when I think it fits. It's still going to be fairly sporadic when I post, but I'll try to get at least one thing a month. With that out of the way, let's talk about randomness and how it can be worked naturally into a game. One note before you continue reading, my experience as a DM come from the stories I run in this podcast, so the things I talk about are a look behind the curtain and are likely to ruin some immersion. 

Due to changes in my life schedule; an increased workload for school, trying to get ahead on editing episodes, and working on other projects for the podcast, I am putting World Building Wednesday on hold. I may still do posts for world building, but they will be less frequent and structured. If you're interested in the world of Erylia, make sure to follow us on World Anvil.

Ah. The mighty gourselk. You may have been wondering about them if you read the short story, Cassien’s Dishonor, a few weeks ago. Gourselks are a creature that I actually created on the fly for that story. The gourselk is a staple creature of the underdark and is largely docile. When I created it, the gourselk is essentially the cow of the drow.

Soul Thistle is an herb that is primarily known to be used in a ritual for a potential warlock to reach out to a patron and try to form a pact. Soul Thistle on Syvahl is generally an herb that is exported from The Faevale, however the Fae do not often deal with outsiders on their own, and it is very difficult to get to The Faevale. Due to this, not many people are able to get their hands on Soul Thistle, and those that do are able to charge a premium for it. There are rumors that a few people have managed to grow Soul Thistle on their own, but those who have keep the supply scarce to keep its value up.

Soul Thistle is a small flower that sprouts from a fuzzy looking bulb on its stock. The flower itself grows silver and it is said to react to the magic around it, giving it a slight glow in highly magical areas. For Soul Thistle to grow into a useful form, it must feed off of magic and absorb it, this is why it grows so natively in The Faevale, few other places are as magical. This also means that those who wish to grow it themselves have to nurture it with magic of their own, draining them of the ability to use it in the process.

This week isn’t going to be a post that’s actually about the world of Erylia. Instead, this post will be more for other world builders that don’t already know about this tool. As the Dungeon Master for Adventures in Erylia, I have come to absolutely love online tools to help make my work easier, more organized, and most importantly, digital. We have adopted Dungeon Fog for making battle maps, D&D Beyond for character management, and now I am testing out one for world building.

I’ve been wanting to get to this post for a long time. Ever since the plot line of the Mieveht Story had its course set. With this week’s episode, An Emotional Encounter, I can finally post about the Nailo Family and their history without it skewing the story. I’m also doing something for the first time this Wednesday. Cassien’s history will be told through a narrative story instead of the more technical tone these posts have taken so far.

A short story detailing the events that brought Cassien Nailo and his daughter, Xanphia, to their home in Mieveht. These events will help fill in some of the gaps created by the episode An Emotional Encounter, Mieveht Story Episode 10.

So thanks to a little Twitter notification telling me the Adventures in Erylia Twitter account is 1 year old, I realized we’ve been doing this for a year now! We don’t have any big anniversary plans right now, because I tend to consider our relaunch the new anniversary for the show. However, I was still pretty excited to see that we’ve actually been doing this for a full year now. To us, we’re just some friends who get together once or twice a month to play dungeons and dragons with some microphones in front of us.