I’m Chinese, I’ve never seen a map like this before. We usually just use Mercator but split along the Atlantic ocean instead of the Pacific. This map is just kinda bizzare. Why is Antarctica so prioritized? Why’s it in portrait orientation? I think it’s just intentionally weird, which is still cool.

I was curious about Alert’s name, and assumed it was because the town served as an alerting system for something, but I looked it up and turns out it’s cause a ship called HMS Alert wintered there.

He’s a wizard, the revolver is actually firing shrunken 16 inch HE shells.

The main advantage of early guns wasn’t that they were more powerful, it’s that they were easy to use. You can train someone to fire a gun in a day, while it takes months of training just to get an archer strong enough to draw a bow.

Also the whole “the Europeans were dirty diseased peasants” thing isn’t accurate, and I have to say that IMO the right response to racist depictions of indigenous people as unwashed savages isn’t to just turn around and say “actually the stereotypes are correct it’s just that it’s about the Europeans this time”.

And Indigenous people had more advanced technoglogy than many give them credit for but "The Europeans were technologically behind indigenous people in nearly every way. " is just blatantly wrong.

I do think you’re right though that without smallpox and other diseases the Europeans wouldn’t have colonised the Americas, though there were several other major factors in it.

P.S. I’m not a historian, grain of salt, etc.

ONE OF US! ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

Looks cool.
How much of the post-processing was done in Photoshop vs in Blender?

Besides reading the Basic Rules, which someone else has already linked, I suggest you check out a game on Youtube. Note that usually these aren’t an accurate representation of how most games actually go- Critical Role for instance is comprised entirely of experienced voice actors- but it’ll give you an impression of how the game runs.

Just don’t base your expectations of your players/dm on them.

You can get the Basic Rules online for free, which are enough to get started. If you want to get deeper into D&D though you’ll have to buy the Player’s Handbook, and probably also Tasha’s Cauldron and Xanathar’s Guide.

Then you should figure out if you want to play online or in-person. It’s much easier to find people to play with online but they don’t have the “vibe” of in-person games.

To find a group, there are several Discord servers, including the official one; there’s also r/LFG, though I’m not sure if they’re participating in the blackout or not; and you can look on Roll20 for online games, though from what I’ve heard that’s not a good option. For in-person games I can’t really help you.

If you’re going to play online, you’ll have to pick a VTT- virtual table top. Roll20 is the most popular one, and is quite simple. Foundry is the best one, but costs money. I don’t know much about the rest.

I think that for a beginner, a “one-shot” is a good way to learn the game. Basically a one-shot is an adventure that you’re supposed to finish in one session, instead of a campaign that might take dozens of sessions over months. It lets you dip your toes in without too much commitment. I’m part of this discord server for one-shots that is pretty good.

Also, consider that D&D is far from the only TTRPG (Table Top RolePlaying Game) system out there. Pathfinder 2E is the main competitor to D&D, it’s a pretty similar D20 based system, but it’s rules are more comprehensive and it’s run by a much better company (D&D’s parent company has done a lot of shady shit, including charging 3rd party creators ridiculously high royalty fees, mistreating their staff, and sending Pinkerton mercenaries to threaten a Youtuber who leaked a new expansion.)

Oh and also all the rules for PF2 are available completely for free with no strings attatched on Archive of Nethys.

Oh nice, good to see r/conservative doing their absolute best to get people to avoid Reddit.