We Interviewed Avery The Creator of Synesthesia Toolkit

We had the pleasure of chatting with Avery about their work!

1. How long have you been in the dnd space?

I’ve been playing D&D for about 4 years or so, but been in the online ttrpg/content creation space for just under a year, I believe.

2. What inspired your work?

One of my players is playing a Wild Magic Sorcerer in my homebrew campaign and we were doing some character backstory brainstorming and I threw out maybe she had a magical version of synesthesia and could smell magic. I liked the idea a lot and threw it out on twitter and a lot of people seemed to be into the idea so I started expanding the concept.

3. Tell us all about Synesthesia Toolkit?

Synesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon where sensory input is combined, like tasting words and seeing music.The Synesthesia Toolkit is a collection of features and options for players and GMs who want to incorporate synesthesia into their character builds. It incorporates RP focused guidelines like a character background, but also a couple new mechanics I developed – Synesthesia Abilities and Sensory Overload. The Abilities is a similar mechanic to Eldritch Invocations for Warlocks and there are over 25 options to choose from to create synesthete characters with really customizable abilities. Sensory Overload is meant to balance the abilities and make situations with high levels of sensory stimulus challenging. There are also over 25 tables to roll on or use as inspiration when crafting your character’s sensory associations to make interesting and unique experiences. Lastly, there is a section with character concepts for all 12 base classes in D&D in case you don’t know where to start.

4. What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into dnd?

Don’t feel obligated to stick with the first group you play with. You don’t always get lucky enough to find a group that you fit well with right off the bat, so don’t feel bad if you want to try something different. I also recommend playing with different GMs if you’re able to – everyone has their own style and not all GM and player styles mesh well. I personally don’t prefer combat heavy games and dungeon crawls (I tend toward more RP focused games) and made the difficult decision a while ago to drop out of a game of Dungeon of the Mad Mage despite playing with a lot of my close friends. Nothing wrong with the GM or game itself, it just wasn’t my cup of tea and I ended up not enjoying the game anymore and it felt like a chore to show up to sessions. Once I stepped out of that game, I was able to focus my energy on other games more my style and felt a million times better.

5. Goals for 2023?

I hope to continue creating content and sharing it with the community. I have a few ideas floating around but I’m not going to commit to anything quite yet – you never know when inspiration will spark!

6. Where can people support your work?

6. My main social media focus is Twitter (@MN_DnD_Unicorn) but I’m also on TikTok at the same username and post sporadically. Right now, you can find my content on my ko-fi (http://ko-fi.com/mndndunicorn). Any expansions to other platforms will be announced on my Twitter.

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