Hey friends, Ginny Di here!
And today I just wanted to do a really indulgent, highly aesthetic tour
of the journal I have been putting together for my D&D character, Aisling
It's kind of like, part character sheet, part campaign notes, part scrapbook
I've designed it to be both useful and pretty
as sort of a celebration and documentation of Aisling so far
Just in case you want to make a similar notebook
I will link to athe items I use to put it together in the description
It also features some art, both gifts and commissions
So I will also link to each artist in the description
in case you want to check out their work and maybe commission them for yourself!
So, let's get started!
I...
[Doorbell rings]
Ooh, hang on a second
(Singing to the tune of Hello! from Book of Mormon) ♪ Hello! My name is Ginny Di ♪
♪ And I've been sponsored to tell you about a brand new book! ♪
♪ It's called ♪
♪ The Scarlet Citadel ♪
♪ It's made for 5th edition, you should really have a look! ♪
*Ding Dong*
♪ It's from ♪
♪ the folks from Kobold Press ♪
*Ding Dong*
♪ And it's a classic dungeon crawler, such exciting news! ♪
*Ding Dong*
♪ It's made ♪
♪ For levels 1-10 ♪
♪ And it has online features your whole group could really use ♪
*Ding Dong x2*
♪ It has ♪
♪ A path of battle maps ♪
-Hi!
♪ Their poster sized have these awesome color overlays ♪
*Ding Dong*
♪ You can ♪
*Ding Dong*
♪ Read all about it now ♪
- Hello!
♪ Go pledge a couple dollars to their Kickstarter campaign ♪
- Hello!
♪ It will ♪
♪ be so much fun, I know ♪
♪ It starts out in a ruined fortress in the depths below ♪
- Hey friends!
♪ I'll just leave the link ♪
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♪ (Oh no) ♪
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*Sighs*
- Solicitors
So rude
Okay, so, my D&D journal
When I first started playing my Warlock, Aisling
I kept a little notebook, and then I hand wrote her stats into the first few pages
Then I used the pages after that to take notes during sessions
We use a lot of homebrew features, so it didn't really make sense for me to use online tools like D&D Beyond
This notebook works fine for a few levels
But as Aisling gained abilities
I started to outgrow the pages I had laid out in the beginning
And when I decided to multi-class into Druid, it became clear that my system needed to be updated
I wanted something where I could easily replace, or update, or add pages
But I also care a lot about aesthetics
So, I didn't just want to make a big, ugly, unwieldy binder or anything
I hunted around for resources online
And I eventually found this cute little miniature faux-leather three-ring binder
I'm also using plastic sleeves
Mini notebook paper
Plastic trading card sleeves
And these little floral dividers
I will link all of this in the description, in case you want to use the same things to put together a similar journal
Okay, enough explanation, let's look inside!
Thanks to commissions and gifts, I have some beautiful art of Aisling that I wanted to include in the journal
This cover page is by Sarah Mills, an old friend, and an extremely talented artist
I've also added some fake flowers and leaves to a few of these pages
Sort of, scrapbook style
This is the main character sheet page with all of Aisling's core stats
It also features this gorgeous portrait of Aisling by Joe; aka, Art of Joenni
One thing that kind of sucks about D&D is that you have to mark at least some of your stats in pencil
Because they are going to change over the course of the game
But also, pencil smears when you touch it, which drives me absolutely nuts
So I got a bunch of plastic sleeves, so I could keep my pages contained and safe
And then remove them when they needed to be edited
The net page has languages and proficiencies, features, and traits; and all of her money and equipment
To be totally honest, we don't keep super close track of money and equipment in this game
Our Barbarian has a bag of holding, and she manages inventory for that
And otherwise, this stuff just doesn't come up that much
I could see needing more than one page, or a more organized page
for a game that puts a little more preasure on inventory
Of course if it does become a problem, I can just easily add more pages here
I also added some cute little floral dividers to help me quickly navigate between sections
This purple one is for Nightshade, Aisling's pseudo-dragon familiar
The coverart is a commission from Wingbuffet
And I cannot tell you how lucky I feel to have gotten one of his commission slots
He even portrayed Aisling's hair in a transition point between Summer and Autumn colors
Which is so cool
Most of the art so far is spring and summer themed
And my own cosplays have only shown her in Spring and Summer form
But, I can't wait to share her Autumn and Winter looks with you guys some day
This spread is all of Nightshade's basic stats
As well as the spell information for the Find Familiar ritual
The art on the right here is by Liz Kramer
The sketches on top were some of the ideation phase, and the bottom is the finished art
But, I just love the sketches so much that I wanted to include them
Liz is a actually open for commissions right now
And offers 10% off, if your character is a lizard or a dragon
Which is just amazing
Next up is spells
Aisling has levels in Warlock and Druid
So I definitely wanted a specific section where I could reference all of her magical abilities during games
The first page here is spell basics for both classes, and then a list of her Warlock spells
After that I have written out each of her Warlock spells in full
Some of them had to be pretty heavily condensed to fit into this space
But, the good thing about this style of journal
is that if I realize this method isn't working
I have the flexibility to swap it out
And maybe print off spells or write them onto larger pages if I need to
For Druid spells, I was lucky enough to buy a deck of spell cards
which don't appear to be available for Warlocks
But it all works out, because Druids can change their spells every long rest
Whereas Warlocks are kind of stuck with whatever you picked
So it's super helpful that these are the spells that I can easily pull out and replace as necessary
I did the same thing for her most common wildshapes
Which right now are Dire Wolf, Giant Spider, Spider, and Cat
I have a whole deck of these, so as her wildshape improves
And as I find use for other forms
I can add as many as I want for easy reference
Finally, the back half of the journal is for session notes
These are not usually very pretty, or I would have looked for a more aesthetically pleasing paper
But usually these are just me noting down NPC names and lore information
And keeping track of damage and spell slots and such
So I don't have to constantly erase and update my main character sheet page
My favorite thing about this style of character journal
is that I can change my mind as many times as I want, which will probably be often
I'm easily influenced by seeing other people's ideas
or cool layouts on Pinterest, or hearing an interesting concept on Twitter
So the fact that I could redo, for example, my spell section anytime
if I stumble across a more efficient or cooler idea for how to do it is really attractive to me
For me, this isn't just a character sheet
it's also a creative representation of Aisling's character
As I continue to play her I would love to add pages with narrative pages about her backstory
Or scrapbook style recountings of some of the quests and adventures she's been on
I hope you enjoyed seeing my character journal
and if any of you keep a journal or scrapbook for your character
I would love to hear what kind of stuff you include in it in the comments
Even though I've cosplayed Aisling a few times already
It's always with pieces from other costumes
But I am finally putting the finishing touches on a complete Aisling costume
that was specifically desgined and created for her
And I cannot wait to show it to you
I've been posting some updates about the build on my Twitter, in case you aren't already following me there
And don't forget to subscribe, and click the little notification bell, I guess
I guess I'm supposed to be asking people to do that
Because I guess subscriptions have become functionally meaningless
Because YouTube doesn't show you the things you are subscribed to anyway
I don't know, algorithms are terrible; and analytics are meaningless