The other night, I saw artist friends Wendy Xu and Trungles posting sketches of their Dungeons and Dragons characters on Mastodon, and I couldn’t help wanting to play along. D&D was a huge part of my middle school years. I spent hundreds of hours working on characters, drawing maps, designing castles and ships and coats of arms, and even writing constitutions for my fictional worlds. All of that play and work absolutely helped prepare me for what I do every day as an adult writer.

So I crashed Wendy’s and Trungles’ party and drew my own, new D&D character. Meet Blackheart, a halfling berserker who needs a hug.