Todd Kenreck: I sat down with my friend Dani Hartel to talk about her new cosplay Scrummy, which she showed off at D&D's stream of Many Eyes.

Dani Hartel: This costume was made weekly on my show Craft Hags on the D&D Twitch channel and it was really fun. We got to start from concept to finish. It was really cool, lots of changes along the way and I got to introduce the audience to all of the problems that arise when you're trying to plan a costume and then make it in time and then life gets in the way and it was a lot of fun. My character's name is Scrummy. She's a gnome warlock and I created her a few years ago now just in a really quick game. I never thought that she would turn into a character I even gave a shit about. But I love her and she's kind of helped me develop myself in a way. Not in a way, in so many ways and it's even just become a thing with my friends where if I'm acting like Scrummy a little bit, if I'm in a mood or something, they'll be like, "Oh, she's Scrummin' right now. She's being so Scrum," and it's just become a whole thing.

So it's part of my identity now, which is really weird to say because this is a fictional character I pulled out of my ass and it was just supposed to be a dumb, one off game. But she encourages me to act in the ways that I would want to. But usually, you're like, "Oh, that's not proper or maybe we be more polite in these situations," when there's no need for it. So she's actually affected my personality and I say what I want to a lot more often now and it tends to go well. So that's why I care so much about this costume. It's very personal for me and it was an accident. I never thought it would become something like this. But that's why I really dug into what everything's made out of and what it would really look like and the mood she would have been in if she had to make it herself, which is obviously very similar to myself.

So I just got to be me while I was making it and I was like, "Pfft, I hate that or just trashing it or this needs to be fixed. I'm gonna spend more time on it because I care about this piece for whatever reason or this needs to look more gross," and I really liked personalizing it and making it exactly what I want to wear too. You don't just find clothes that are exactly what you want. So it was a fun experiment to just be like, what is the most me outfit I could even think of, which was a cool experiment. You don't really get chances to do that, especially as a costumer, very often or from cosplay. You're usually imitating a character somebody else made up. So it was just such a cool experience to turn myself into a costume, I guess. I don't know and I used all of the techniques I really love. I'm super into felting and this was all felt and I made it on Craft Hags last season, actually, and just threw it on this time because some other piece I made didn't work out.

But that's the cool part is that I don't have to stay canon to any design or anything. It's just like, this is me and I'm gonna wear what I want.

Todd Kenreck: Thank you, Dani, for being on the show. D&D Beyond is the official digital tool set of fifth edition D&D. Thank you, everyone, for watching.