#how-to-be — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #how-to-be, aggregated by home.social.
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How To Be: Rimuru Tempest (in 4e D&D)
Isekai is an overcrowded genre of media in which a few works stand tall. Some of them are just enduring classics of the form, things like Escaflowne and El Hazard, works that served to crystallise a genre. Some have been successful beyond all reasonable ken, like Sword Art Online. Resultant from that has been a whole diversifying ecosystem of isekai stories that expand on the narrative wishes of their increasingly specific wants. As an example, the want to not go to work, and suddenly being hot enough to be voiced by Miho Okasaki.
That’s right, it’s…
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-rimuru-tempest-in-4e-dd/ #DnD4e #HowToBe #ThatTimeIWasReincarnatedAsASlime -
How to Be: Frieren (in 4e D&D)
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is an anime about what happens after an adventure is over and the player character with all of their level 20 powers wanders the world keeping their brains from being pickled by the feelings of losing all your friends. It’s a well-regarded, critically acclaimed series, and it’s clearly resonating with a lot of people. It’s a story about grieving and loss and finding your own purpose, as well as a story about connecting to your own emotions, and recognising the way your own life can pass by you.
It is also a story about a petite smug elf who turns into animated gifs really well.
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-frieren-in-4e-dd/ #DnD4e #HowToBe -
How To Be: Princess Zelda (in 4e D&D)
Hey, haven’t I done this before?
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-princess-zelda-in-4e-dd/ #HowToBe -
How To be: Sherlock Holmes (In 4e D&D)
In this project, there’s always a challenge presented by every character. Even when the character straight up ports from a piece of media based on Dungeons & Dragons there’s always going to be something that comes in the translation that has challenges going back. Usually, the problem is one of specificity, where the character is represented in a particular form that can be very clear, with fine detail — a high resolution image, as it were. If a character can leap twice their height and do a diving bomb attack with their weapon, and they do that all the time, any build is going to have to represent that meaningfully or it won’t feel like the character.
The other, rarer problem, perhaps only encountered once before with Robin Hood, is when I’m talking about a character with such vast cultural presence that there’s almost anything they could do.
The game is afoot.
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-sherlock-holmes-in-4e-dd/ #DnD4e #HowToBe -
Decemberween: The 2025 How To Be Covers
Every month throughout the year, I make an article about taking Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition and using a system that is somewhat renowned for being confining and unexpressive, and using it to represent a character who is meant to belong to a different kind of property. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and every year, I try to present an article where you can just look at the covers, nice and high resolution, clear and visible and not in the middle of a field or at an odd angle. It’s also a chance to reflect on the How to Be Category.
Here’s 2025!
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https://press.invincible.ink/decemberween-the-2025-how-to-be-covers/ #HowToBe -
How To Be: Captain America (in 4e D&D)
Doing this kind of exercise about real long-running characters can be an interesting challenge because so many of them, with enough time, try enough things in different ways that it’s challenging to really identify what makes the character the character to everyone.
And sometimes it’s really easy because Disney makes a billion dollars selling pictures of his butt.
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-captain-america-in-4e-dd/
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How To Be: Gideon Nav (in 4e D&D)
What a bozo!
First things first, before we go past the fold (as we normally do), I need to lay out a quick spoiler warning. I’m going to mention things about Gideon Nav, the protagonist of Gideon the Ninth and a factor in the subsequent stories Harrow the Ninth and Nona The Ninth.
What I’m going to discuss is what I consider establishing details; that is, it’s hardly really meaningful for me to tell you that Gideon Nav is a tall woman with red hair and a sword, even if, strictly speaking, those are things revealed in the later chapters of the book. I don’t intend to spoil anything meaningfully deep about why things are the way they are for Gideon, so you can read this if you want.
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How To Be: Nobara Kugisaki from Jujutsu Kaisen (In 4e D&D)
I like Jujutsu Kaisen but I don’t like how it went. Not because the story is bad, per se, but because the things that it wanted to focus on weren’t as cool to me as the things they were doing before that focus happened. Nonetheless, it’s a banger of a show and it has some great character designs, such as today’s subject:
As a necessity this is going to include some spoilers. After all, Nobara is not in the first episode of the anime or the first issue of the manga, which means even her existence is a spoiler (geeze, look at that anime ending, spoilering such important things like ‘she exists’). Necessarily, though, I am going to mention some things about how this character’s story goes, and includes spoiling things from both an old season of anime and a manga story that’s four years old.
Point is, you’ve had your time to catch up if you care a lot, but even then, I’m giving you a spoiler warning here if you want it.
Also, Content Warning: Jujutsu Kaisen is a horror action manga and I’m going to mention themes that could invoke self-harm.
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-nobara-kugisaki-from-jujutsu-kaisen-in-4e-dd/
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How To Be: The Elusive Samurai (in 4e D&D)
In 1333, in Japan, the Hojo clan fell. The Kamakura Shogunate was defeated by the forces of the Ashikaga. The Ashikaga clan – the eventual provenance of the future shogun Ashikaga Takauji – conquered Hojo territory and left almost nobody alive. Only Tokiyuki Hojo, whose life is a mysterious footnote in this spotty period of history, seemed to escape the situation, fleeing to friendly territory and engaging a war against the Ashikaga that was composed of so many retreats it’s literally the thing Hojo is known for. We don’t know when Tokiyuki was born, only when he died, and even that is from a period of historical records that are so unreliable it’s entirely possible that they’re making up the dates to cover their asses for the Shogunate’s records.
Yet the Hojo are not gone, and the Hojo family name remains. The history persists in story and folklore, and has been retold through statues and monuments and historians poring over old letters about the story. In 2021, a manga was started that decided to cast Tokiyuki Hojo as a twelve year old boy talented in avoiding problems, and it kicks ass. Today, I want to address the question, then, of how we make that Tokiyuki Hojo in 4th edition D&D, and then I’m going to be mad at myself for how hard I made this.
I am going to mention some of the real historical events and some events that come up in the manga, which constitutes something of a spoiler for the anime. Like, that shouldn’t really matter much? Because you know, history spoilers, everyone dies eventually, but if you are interested in reading the manga, that’s a good impulse to follow. I like it a lot, and there are these great sections at the end of each volume where the historian consultant provides interesting input.
Ready?
Okay let’s be basara.
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-the-elusive-samurai-in-4e-dd/
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How To Be: A My Hero Academia Character (in 4e D&D)
What are we doing here today. I’m not feeling well, but the words need to be worded so how hard can it be. I plan this blog out in advance, I have a specific plan in mind for the rest of the year, all I really need to do is look at the plan and then map it out through a process I do understand really well. Let’s see what we have here, what treasures Past Me has set up so that Current Me can have an easier time.
‘A Hero Academia character.’
Well fudge.
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-a-my-hero-academia-character-in-4e-dd/
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How To Be: Hitsugaya Toshiro (in 4e D&D)
The anime of my lifetime have been a series of towering successes that, typically, plow face-first into the ground. I loved Robotech, and it pulled me into loving anime at all. I loved Ranma 1/2, and it pulled me into creating characters and recognising I was bisexual. I loved Bleach, and it pulled me into wanting to understand ways to be cool in storytelling.
Now let’s talk about a character from Bleach who is both very cool, and also, at least trying to appeal to people who are incredibly bisexual.
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-hitsugaya-toshiro-in-4e-dd/
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How To Be: Baiken (in 4e D&D)
The random Arc Systems Works round start text generator I use for these characters has broken, perhaps a victim of link rot, or some change in pastebin structure. For whatever reason, goodnight sweet prince, THE FRIDGE IS EMPTY, round the FIRST, eat SHIT!
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How To Be: A Bunch Of People From Arcane (Season 1)
This one gets really big and sprawling pretty quickly, here, hey, we’re going to talk about the characters from Arcane.
https://squarefireballs.invincible.ink/how-to-be-a-bunch-of-people-from-arcane-season-1/
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How To Be: A Bunch Of People From Arcane (Season 1) (In 4th Edition D&D)
This one gets really big and sprawling pretty quickly, here, hey, we’re going to talk about the characters from Arcane. Oh, and necessarily:
Spoiler Warning: I’m going to talk about Arcane season 1. Doing so I’m going to imply that I didn’t think much of Arcane season 2.
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-a-bunch-of-people-from-arcane-season-1-in-4th-edition-dd/
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How To Be: Kaedehara Kazuha (In 4e D&D)
His white hair flutters; the river spins in its slow and wending way around him, the wind dancing with its surface. The stone beneath him is cool, his clothing resting and barely shifting by his breath. Head forwards, he contemplates the world full of complicated feelings.
A sigh;
his lips part;
and he speaks, as if to the trailer;
There’s literally no difference between good things and bad things. You idiot. You absolute imbecile.
Let’s talk about a Genshin Impact character.
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-kaedehara-kazuha-in-4e-dd/
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How To Be: Marisa Rosetti (in 4e D&D)
In my ongoing effort to not just work my way through the entire cast of Ranma 1/2 for February How To Be challenges, spurred in part by not wanting to cover Shampoo since people would get pissy about me pointing out she’s kinda boring and a bit dumb, I have instead decided to reach out to some other source material, seeking an interesting example of a character defined by their ability to fight things, but also wanting something simple enough that I wouldn’t have to do a ton of research, and hopefully from a source material that could afford to be big on personality and a bit stupid.
Ah, Street Fighter, perfect.
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-marisa-rosetti-in-4e-dd/
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How To Be: Vivien Reid (in 4e D&D)
Magic: The Gathering is a fascinating nerd franchise. It is probably as a single entity responsible for the most paid high-level fantasy artists in the world making a living these days, and that art is being made in service of straight up enjoyable, indulgent nerd garbage, a sort of prestige pulp presentation. What’s more, thanks to the way that ideas of inclusion and diversity being marketably valuable, that means it’s also a game with a bunch of high profile fantasy art characters designed by top-level character designers to get that same high quality fantasy art that has multiple characters that are non-white, women, and non-white women. That gives us Vivien Reid, a character I can tell you about as a backstory about a lost world and a planet of ghosts, or as a selection of about four cards that are pretty good and one major story spotlight that absolutely sucked pants because nobody making it seemed to understand what would make the story good.
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-vivien-reid-in-4e-dd/
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How To Be 2024: The Covers
Each month of the year I make an article about trying to translate a character from general media to the comparatively constrained boundaries of Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition. This originally started out as a project to try and address a claim I saw about how that game system was limited and on rails, and any given character feels just like every other character. Since starting that project, I have written 55 articles about it, and in each article, I have included a splash image that shows the ‘book cover’ of that character’s book.
Presented here are the eleven book covers I made this year, nice and clear so you can look at them closely and check out the jokes that you may or may not have missed, presented with some notes for the articles in question.
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How To Be: Pantyhose Tarou (in 4e D&D)
Look, sometimes we’re just going to do one of these that’s for me. And Blade. Specifically, just Blade, really. I should contact him.
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-pantyhose-tarou-in-4e-dd/
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How To Be: Jason Vorhees (From Multiversus) (In 4e D&D)
Heavy breathing.
More heavy breathing.
No actual words.
Just even more heavy breathing.
Aiiiiiiiieeeeeee!
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https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-jason-vorhees-from-multiversus-in-4e-dd/
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How To Be: Jacket
…You like to hurt people, don’t you?
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How To Be: Jacket (In 4e D&D)
…You like to hurt people, don’t you?
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How To Be: Joker from Persona 5 (in 4e D&D)
In How To Be we’re going to look at a variety of characters from Not D&D and conceptualise how you might go about making a version of that character in the form of D&D that matters on this blog, D&D 4th Edition. Our guidelines are as follows:
This is going to be a brief rundown of ways to make a character that ‘feels’ like the source […]
https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-joker-from-persona-5-in-4e-dd/
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How To Be: Raiden (in 4e D&D)
For this article, we’re going to discuss Snake. Wait, no, we already have a Snake. Okay, we’ll discuss something else.
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How to Be: Astro Boy
Hey, here's some good news! This article is a little different because it was made during a time of technical downtime but now, heroically, only a few hours from live, Fox was able to get things running so I could upload pictures here. Hey everyone tell Fox happy birthday because she rules!
Anyway, let's talk about making Astro Boy, from Astro Boy!
First of all, let’s address the scale of the problem to summarise what we know of Astro Boy.
Astro Boy is the central character of a [...]
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How To Be: Astro Boy (in 4e D&D)
In How To Be we’re going to look at a variety of characters from Not D&D and conceptualise how you might go about making a version of that character in the form of D&D that matters on this blog, D&D 4th Edition. Our guidelines are as follows:
This is going to be a brief rundown of ways to make a character that ‘feels’ like the source […]
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How To Be: Tsubaki Yayoi
This month we're doing something I don't normally do, which is - no, I do fight game characters all the time, but what makes this one special?
She's got a hat.
Tsubaki Yayoi is a character of a rarer type than you see here. Specifically, she's a character who I was introduced to as part of this blog series. I have no pre-existing interest in her, I do not know the games she's from and I'm not familiar with what she's like. This means that this time instead of having an impression of a [...]
https://squarefireballs.invincible.ink/how-to-be-tsubaki-yayoi/
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How To Be: Tsubaki Yayoi (in 4e D&D)
In How To Be we’re going to look at a variety of characters from Not D&D and conceptualise how you might go about making a version of that character in the form of D&D that matters on this blog, D&D 4th Edition. Our guidelines are as follows:
This is going to be a brief rundown of ways to make a character that ‘feels’ like the source […]
https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-tsubaki-yayoi-in-4e-dd/
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How To Be: The Animorphs
One way or another, I'm going to find a way to make a build for How to Be that involves the druid, and if this is how we do it, this is how we do it. See, I can't tell you who these characters are, or where they're from. All I can tell you is that we're going to do our best to make builds for them, and one of them is definitely going to be a druid. [...]
https://squarefireballs.invincible.ink/how-to-be-the-animorphs/
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How To Be: The Animorphs (in 4e D&D)
In How To Be we’re going to look at a variety of characters from Not D&D and conceptualise how you might go about making a version of that character in the form of D&D that matters on this blog, D&D 4th Edition. Our guidelines are as follows:
This is going to be a brief rundown of ways to make a character that ‘feels’ like the source […]
https://press.invincible.ink/how-to-be-the-animorphs-in-4e-dd/