Dawnfist Newsletter - Magic Tattoos, Evolving Encounters, and Battle Scars!

Welcome to the monthly Dawnfist Newsletter where we share community gems, helpful advice and always bring you a new creation of our own! If you aren’t already subscribed, click on the button below.

Our 5 Favorite Community Gems

Every month, we sift through all the goodness from the TTRPG community and handpick our five favorites — the ones we believe are the most useful and valuable.

This month, we devoured 203 articles, blog posts, threads, and videos to bring you the five absolute standouts. Because that’s the purpose of this newsletter, to save you valuable time and help you find some golden nuggets.

1. Goblin Henchman introduces a clever way to make random encounter tables evolve over time. Instead of a standard 2D6 table with 11 entries, you start with 16, but keep five “out of range.” Each time an encounter is rolled, it’s crossed out, shifting new entries into range. This naturally escalates encounters, both in danger and narrative. Early results might be mooks with the occasional brute, but as the table depletes, tougher foes come into play. A simple but powerful way to create emergent gameplay and make random encounters feel like they’re building toward something. This method can of course also be used for random treasure or rumor tables that evolves over time.

2. Stoneaxe Tabletop Gaming ran a solo session of Adventurous (our game!), which was very enjoyable to watch. He has a natural, engaging style, and it’s clear he enjoys running his own game, making it all the more fun to watch. This video isn’t just a great look at Adventurous in action—it’s also a great source of inspiration for anyone wanting to try out solo play, and a great insight into various tools, tables, and dice that can spice up any game, whether you play alone or with a group. (link to Adventurous on DriveThruRPG)

3. Roleplaying Tips offers some much needed advice on how to make your players actually care about the lore you’ve prepared. Spoiler alert, it’s not about writing really good lore, or dumping it on them at the start of a campaign. Instead, make lore something players engage with, not just listen to. When they need to use it to solve problems, they’ll start paying attention. The post is packed with practical, actionable advice, including ways to weave lore into gameplay so it actually sticks. One of my favorite ideas is using recurring motifs. Let’s say you’ve created an abandoned god of light for your campaign. You can then introduce it by describing an overgrown shrine in a village, and have a villager say a few words (mini lore dump). Then present the same symbol again, in the depths of a dungeon, etched on a stone door the PCs can’t seem to open, they’ll remember the symbol, the lore they learned, and use that knowledge to open the door. Actionable and memorable!

4. D4 Caltrops delivers, as always. This month, the standout D100 table is enchanted body art—magic tattoos that grant supernatural abilities but fade with use. Instead of being permanent, each activation risks weakening the magic until the tattoo vanishes forever. The Usage Die mechanic keeps things simple and exciting, tracking how much power remains. The effects range from practical to bizarre, like Aggravated Ants, which lets you lift ten times your weight for a few rounds, or Mirroring Mermaids, which reflects charm spells back at its caster. A brilliant way to grant magic that feels personal and powerful but doesn’t cause power inflation.

5. Bandit’s Keep makes a strong case for custom spark tables—randomized prompts designed to inspire game events, with an emphasis on Custom. Generic versions, like those in the Mythic GM Emulator, work across settings but often feel too broad. Daniel argues that by tailoring spark tables to your campaign’s tone, themes, and ongoing story, they become far more useful. He suggests structuring them around combat, social, and exploration encounters, using words that reflect your setting’s unique flavor. Whether for solo play, improvisation, or worldbuilding, a well-crafted spark table has a much higher chance of actually sparking the creative ideas you need.

Monthly Dawnfist advice

This month, our main advice is to check out the live stream we did with Avenue Studios on YouTube, a 2.5-hour session where I ran the tailor-made adventure, Chalice of Oaths.

It was a ton of fun (and a bit nerve-wracking as a first-time stream GM), but it's a great way to see Adventurous in action! You’ll also get a sneak peek at the upcoming Bard class expansion, as one of the players chose to play a Bard.

If you enjoy the stream and want to check out Adventurous, you’ll find the core rules on DriveThruRPG.

The new thing - D10 Battle Scars!

Barely surviving a battle is always thrilling, and what better way to mark the moment than with a lasting reminder?

Below is a D10 Battle Scars table, roll on it whenever a PC survives a brush with death, perhaps after being dropped to 0 HP but brought back to fight another day. These scars are purely cosmetic, with no mechanical impact, but sometimes, pretty decorations are the best memories of our epic adventures!

Thank you for reading and don’t forget to explore our games, modules and supplements on DriveThruRPG. See you next month!

///Sebastian Grabne - Dawnfist Games