Mark Krawec
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markkrawec.bsky.social
Mark Krawec
@markkrawec.bsky.social
87 followers 160 following 88 posts
IT guy, translator, tabletop RPG nut, martial arts student, cat coddler, horse attendant, pinko, trying to learn the hurdy gurdy (don't judge me); original posts mostly ideas for RPG creatures & items based on illos or photos

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markkrawec.bsky.social
The Respondent. Skull pommel can answer any one question once its blade has tasted sufficient blood. The more obscure the question, of course, the more blood it demands. Note that the stabbee doesn't have to know the answer; the Respondent will speak it anyway.

#magicitems #ttrpg
Black & white photo of a single-edged knife with a cord wrapped around the handle & a pommel crudely shaped like a skull.
November 25, 2025 at 8:21 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
Show me your getaway vehicle
A bare bones homemade helicopter with no cockpit or even windshield, just an open seat that looks like it came out of a small car, sitting on the grass in front of a salvage yard.
August 13, 2025 at 6:09 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
Stonecutter, sword that cuts anything immune to slashing damage. Anything not immune it can only bludgeon. Try to slice a melon with it & you mash it to a pulp; swing at a stone pillar & it'll cut through it like slashing a rope.

#ttrpg
#magicitem
A Turkish saber in a leather-wrapped scabbard with gold trimmings. The saber's hilt is a single piece of agate.
August 6, 2025 at 8:01 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
Percussion pistol-dha, mid 19th century, Burmese

#ttrpg #weapons
A top-right side view of a percussion gun with a long, straight stock. The stock is the scabbard for a dha, whose handle points forward over the barrel of the gun. The weapon separated into its component parts. The dha is laid out above the pistol, with the gun's ramrod below.
July 2, 2025 at 7:42 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
Own Hand Amulet. Lets the wearer seize control of someone else's arm for as long as they do nothing but concentrate on puppeting it.

#ttrpg
A rock crystal pendant in the shape of a human hand with an enameled gilt cuff
June 24, 2025 at 2:41 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
Shadecutter. Use as a regular smallsword or to slice off your opponent's shadow. They pale & weaken until it's reattached; if a month goes by without it they fade away entirely, leaving nothing but a sooty smudge behind.

#ttrpg
A smallsword hilt made of onyx, decorated with gilt & enamel. A smallsword with a hilt made of onyx, decorated with gilt & enamel.
June 13, 2025 at 4:38 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
If you see this, post your getaway vehicle
A man in a gray flight suit & white helmet pilots a bare bones autogyro over the countryside. Two snow capped mountains rise in the distance
May 3, 2025 at 2:49 AM
markkrawec.bsky.social
Fell Flock - 4th level conjuration. Summons d4 harriers made of steel. Make a Dex save against each of them or they bite a freakin' hand or foot clean off.

from "speculum humanae salvatoris", Germany (Augsburg), early 15th c.

#ttrpg
An early Renaissance illustration of three birds, each of which is carrying a bloody human hand or foot in its beak.
April 7, 2025 at 12:58 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
No flying carpet? You can get by with a sturdy chair, two griffons & a whole paprika dusted roast rabbit on a stick, if you have to.

(from a manuscript of johannes hartlieb's translation of the alexander romance, illustrated by hector mülich. augsburg, c. 1455)

#ttrpg
A 15th century illustration of a king seated in a chair that's been lashed between two griffons. The King is holding a long stick with what could be some kind of roast animal on the end. The griffons are both intently focused on the animal as they fly high above a hilly landscape, carrying the King.
March 27, 2025 at 12:26 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
Kriegsspork

German, 16th century

#ttrpg #weapons
An all-iron war ... hammer? ... that has four heads: a three tined fork-like structure; a broad, flat scoop or chisel; a square hammer head; & a spike. There's also another, fluted spike atop the whole thing.
March 19, 2025 at 3:45 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
Bareknuckle Boxer - Arrives looking half asleep, refusing to speak to anyone. Waits for the cry of "toe the line!", then their meat jacket falls away as they rattle into the ring. Ferociously hard hitters; tough to knock out since they can't be concussed or winded.

#ttrpg #monster
A shirtless white man in early 19th century pants & stockings, hands up in a boxing stance. He's recoiling in horror from his opponent, an animated skeleton. The legs & hand of a supine man can be seen behind the skeleton.
March 17, 2025 at 8:11 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
More fashion-forward druids mod their Barkskin spells to produce Fiberskin.

(hydrangea armor by hallofstars)

#ttrpg
A person's left forearm & hand posed against a tree. A sort of elbow-length glove of hydrangea leaves covers the person's arm. There's a single, thumb sized bloom in the middle of the back of the person's hand.
March 17, 2025 at 2:43 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
This woman is clearly some kind of wizard.

Photo by Carly "Scorpion Sorbet" Fridhandler

#characterinspiration #ttrpg
An elderly north Asian or maybe First Nation woman with pastel rainbow colored hair. She's wearing a choker made of small interlinked silver rectangles with clear stones inset. Her shirt is a satiny pinkish purple. Her forehead, eyebrows & cheeks are covered with tiny multicolored gems.
March 13, 2025 at 6:19 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
"NPCs backstage, waiting for the GM to call them out"
A sandy patch of ground, ringed by boulders, in front of an FX green screen. The Witch King of Angmar is slouched in a folding chair, waiting for the next take.
March 12, 2025 at 6:19 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
They said right at the end of T2:
March 11, 2025 at 7:28 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
If you see this, post a witch! 🧙‍♀️
A young white woman in early 20th century clothing stands in a pasture with a basket in her hands. There are three cows browsing at the edge of a nearby forest. Above the cows a naked, ghostly pale witch flies by, riding a birch branch. The young woman is looking up at the witch with what her posture suggests is wistful longing. Painting by Jakub Rozalski
February 26, 2025 at 8:43 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
Random encounter: alligator sage. They've spent so long in motionless meditation that they've grown a full-body fur coat of algae. Is able to provide in-depth answers about swamp history & local spirits, if you can rouse them from their contemplation & speak the local gator dialect.

#ttrpg
An alligator paddling across a stream littered with fallen leaves. The gator is almost completely covered with long hairlike algae, only its shiny black eyes bare. Photographer unknown, unfortunately
February 26, 2025 at 7:24 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
The regard of the Archlich Mataxilla doesn't blast her foes with terror. Instead her half-lidded gaze plunges them into deep meditation - unless they doze off altogether.

photo by Paul Koudounaris

#ttrpg
A human skull wrapped in something like cheesecloth, wearing a coif made of gold chains & a circlet of black metal laurel leaves with golden berries. The skull's eye socket is filled with an ornate gold plug in which is set a glass eye. The eye is half-shut, giving the skull a relaxed, even drowsy expression.
February 25, 2025 at 8:32 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
Ramblewithes prowl barrens & bogs for lone travelers whose bodily hydration they can drain to maintain their own mobility. Fall into their gnarled grasp & there'll be nothing left of you but dry bones & tatters of leathery hide.

(Willow sculpture by Trevor Leat
www.trevorleat.co.uk)

#ttrpg
A crouching humanoid form made from tightly interwoven willow branches. It looks like it's creeping over a stone wall at the edge of a mountain bog.
February 18, 2025 at 8:36 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
Just what a Trail of Cthulhu investigator needs when the situation's dire but they didn't buy quite enough Fleeing.

1930 Henderson KJ Streamliner

#ttrpg #trailofcthulhu
A lemon yellow motorcycle. It's so streamlined that both front & rear wheels are completely encased to within three or four inches of the ground, making the bike vaguely peanut-shaped.
February 14, 2025 at 6:49 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
Helm of Swagger. Grants a +1 bonus to armor, +2 to persuasion. Also permits wearer to get small bands of leaderless fighters to follow their direction, because anyone with a hat that stylin' must be in charge.
A steel helmet in the shape of a broad-brimmed hat, with the rim folded up on one side, cavalier style. On the front is a brass badge of some kind.
February 11, 2025 at 9:41 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
Assailed by minions of Ithaqua, Marjory had no choice but to bust out her wing chun.

#ttrpg #callofcthulhu
A 1919 photo of two white people skating on a rink in Chicago. One is a man dressed entirely in close-fitting black clothes with a dark fur hat. He's supporting a woman in a fur trimmed jacket, skirt & hat. She's balancing on one foot with the other held out at waist height as if delivering a side kick, while she holds out one hand as if to parry someone else's strike.
January 30, 2025 at 4:37 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
High tea at the Circle of the Orangery druid conclave
An outdoor table surrounded by eight chairs. There are eight place settings of tea cups, soup bowls & flatware. The table has a patterned cloth. Table, chairs, cups & bowls are all full of or covered with moss & ivy.
January 29, 2025 at 4:19 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
Sure, bridges that are covered with buildings are cool. So how about a town that's nothing but a bridge & its buildings?

Jacek Yerka, Osadnicy z Marsa, 2019
An endless field of red grasses with the occasional blue & white flower, interspersed with small ponds. Two dirt road ruts wind across it. It's bisected by a green river with very steep banks. Across the river stands a bridge completely covered by about three dozen multicolored buildings.
January 15, 2025 at 6:36 PM
markkrawec.bsky.social
The Chicken People of the Northern Hills generally seem like a harmless though somewhat twitchy, nervous people. Don't get on their bad side though, or they're liable to go off & peck you in the eye. A dozen of their warriors in a fighting mood? They'll freakin' skeletonize you in minutes.
A ceramic figure of a person dressed in a teal green jacket with a colorful patterned border over a floor-length white robe. The person has the head of a rooster. Found in a tomb at Gaochang, a Tang city on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert, 7th-10th century, Tang Dynasty, China.
January 10, 2025 at 2:17 PM