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Ixier, Who Dreams for The Dead

Ask not for whom the dead dream, they dream for you.

I've been looking forward to this guy for a while. You see his art and can't help but wonder what's going on. I figured some kind of bloodthirsty war demon monster thing. Ixier is so much more... also not that at all.

Ixier is a construct/entity/phenomenon created from the spilled blood of a Rakshasa, and a village's worth of consumed dreams. Don't you hate it when that I happens? I personally really like this kind of thing. It really shows how powerful the exalted are when beings are born from the conflict between them and their adversaries. Plus it gives you a chance to have Ixier be born from your own adventures. Very cool.

Ixier is a mournful, reflective energy vampire. He's cursed with the hunger of the Rakshasa from which he was born. So he hungers for dreams. However like any good vampire he's found a way to sublimate his needs by only feeding on the dreams of those who are dying. So he's a kind of death bed companion, who feeds on the dying and quite literally takes on their dreams as his own. Their desires become his desires and he lives his life hoping to fulfill their dreams. It's really cool. He doesn't even subscribe value to one dream over another. dreams of wealth and power are just as important to him as dreams of peace and quiet.

I think Ixier has a lot of potential to be a sort of frankenstein's monster of your campaign. A hunted entity not quite of nature that people have a hard time tolerating. I mean he's carrion, and feeds of the dead. Polite society would reject him completely if not kill him, even though he has no malice to his designs. Players will have to decide if they hunt him down, or if they protect him from the angry mob that will no doubt form from his presence.

He offers a great chance to explore themes that you might not get elsewhere. What does it mean to be alive? Is Ixier a person, a monster, an anomaly? Is it alright to drain the emotions out of a dying person? What happens to their ghost? Is Ixier one being, or many? Is Ixier a path to immortality?

The only knock I have against Ixier is that I have a hard time imagining how you'd use him in a campaign. He doesn't seem like a natural fit to any situation not specifically built around him. Plus I think examining his full depth would require players not being as trigger happy as they usually like to be. I don't see him as the primary villain of a campaign, I don't really see him as a villain at all. He's just kind of a weird possible threat you might encounter at the edges of the east.

Rating: 7/10 Unfufilled dreams. He's a really cool and imaginative character who looks real cool too. Only held back by his difficulty to use. Not everything has to be a big world ending villain, but I do think that him just being a good somber creature isn't enough to push him into the big leagues.

Misc. I got nothin’

1. Ixier Takes a Lover: Among the many dreams within Ixier are those whose biggest hope is simply to be loved. Ixier can change his form and seduce someone if he so chose, but that would not be enough. He wants to be seen, and understood, and to have someone to understand. The only thing that could fulfill his needs is someone just like him. Of course the only way there could ever be another like him, was if he repeated the horrific circumstance under which he himself were born...

2. Immortal dreams. An old and powerful sorcerer discovers Ixier and realize his long sought key to immortality is at hand. He plans to invite Ixier to his domain have have himself consumed by the creature. Only for his consciousness to overwhelm Ixier's taking over Ixier's immortaly body, and its unlimited potential. Do the players seek to stop these scheme, or are they hired by the sorcerer to ensure a dangerous Fae creature does not continue to roam free?

3.Ruby Blood. Ixier is living blood, infused with the essence of an entire village. The mere scent of him is enough to drive a vampire into a complete frenzy. He is irresistible to these undead who are drawn to him the moment they get his scent. However the very life that attracts the vampires also destroys them upon consumption. Just a taste of his blood is enough overwhelm and destroy even the oldest vampire. An order of vampire hunters seeks to utilize Ixier to destroy The Empire of The Night and end the rule of the Vampire King once and for all.

4. Dr.Sleep The party is chasing an assassin who kills people through their dreams. He seeks refuge within the complex dreamscape of Ixier and his many acquired dreams. In order to catch the killer the players will have to delve into Ixier's mind and deal with the many being's he's collected over his life. Including Exalted, and of course, the killer.

5. Death, is only the beginning. In the east there is a death cult who fears, and hates Ixier above all other beings. For he robs others and has the potential to rob them of the supreme ecstasy of death. They seek to destroy him, but fear that death by his hands would leave them with an emotionless end. As their conflict with Ixier escalates, more of them die and are consumed at his hands. Ixier himself begins to dream and long for the sweetest end to fufill their dreams. Can the players save Ixier from these mad cultists, and himself?

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Iolanthe, Queen of the Golden Beryl Palace

Pinch me I’m in love.

Third in characters, who I decided I would love based solely on their art, the others being 1st Place Gleaming Genisis, and The Lunar who's name escapes me. No one ever remembers 2nd place :(. Well if you judge enough books by their covers, eventually the writer will do service to their artist.

Is it a coincidence that I'm in love with both of the big bad fae characters? I dunno, but I'm happy we're here.

So first things first. Apparently when The Scarlet Empress activated the swordofcreation.net it covered the land in iron needles, to burn and kill all of the fae. Um.... freaking baller! That's so cool! I was always told she just nuked the world, which was always highly disappointing, and inconsistent with the setting. I much prefer the idea that the swordofcreation.net can just produce whatever world ending weapon you need for that particular instant. Iron needles to cover the earth? You got it. Nuclear Armageddon? No problem! A media ecosystem specifically designed to radicalize it's viewers, and turn them into facists? We're on it.

Iolanthe is a Fae Prince who managed to hide her people under ground in the southwest of The Enchanted Isle, and there she has ruled for three hundred years. Now that the Empress is gone, she looks to build and army, and finish the crusade she started centuries ago.

And sure it's upsetting that one of her intimacies is pretty much "The South Will Rise Again.", and yes she's probably not vaccinated, and maybe I let her borrow $500 dollars to pay for her ex's bail money, but I love her!

Her gown is sewn from the vows of her subjects, um very cool. Especially since it gives her 16 Soak and 7 Hardness. She's covered in gold and jewels, and has a hearthstone the size of an egg. She carries no weapons because her words alone, can kill a man. Yes please.

I'm a real sucker for the vain queen archetype, and I think Iolanthe fulfills her role perfectly. Her defining Intimacy is "No one will contest my beauty and power." which has got to be a rough way to live your life. If no one can contest your power... you're just going to keep fighting until you're dead, basically. Sad. Her more interesting intimacy is that she views The Golden Beryl Palace as her pet... so like... is it alive? I personally think her having a huge crystal elemental that she uses as a palace, is awesome.

Furthermore she's got a whole host of minions and secrets she's collected during her years of exile. It's interesting to note that she knows the locations of ancient exalted burial sites, not just solar! Soooo that's really interesting right? Entire complexes dedicated to the exalted built during their war with the primordial? I'd do it. Arlington Cemetary for legions of Dragonblooded soilers. She's also made deals with the mountainfolk, stupid sexy house Iselsi, and proto-humans. So you can take this to mean things like neanderthals/ troglodytes typical underdark stuff. Or you could go the way of Adam Kadmon, which is basically Adam of The Bible before he was put into a physical and earthly vessel, essentially perfect humans. We imagine these proto-humans were found in caves, but what if Iolanthe just found vaults created by the primordial for some of their experiments? These humans were a little too powerful for what they had planned for Creation, so they hid them away and worked on teaching humans how to fart and be racist. They give you lots of chances to make her a big bad in your game, including an excuse for giving her a big bloated army.

During Earthquakes her people will rise out of the ground, and drag people down into their crystal lair, either turning them into food, or she'll just step on them until they're so in love they'll fight for her. Which includes equipping them with flawless fae weapons and armor.

Her stats are superhuman, some of the best/the best in the book. I don't know nothing about previous editions. But I did hear that when Fae was a player choice, their whole thing is that their stats could go beyond 5, so it's cool that her own stats reflect that. With a 7 in Apperance and charisma, and a 6 in Stamina.

One of her charms let's her use your own intimacies against you, when she uses her voice to kill you, she can talk about your intimacies and reduces your soak, hardness, and cover bonus by and amount equal to your intimacy, Sick! An attack wich already, by itself does 15 dice of damage. Her ultimate attack is that she does an attack against your character's resolve, and for every extra success, she reduces your willpower by 1, if it goes to zero, you either get a defining derangement, or are polymorphed... FOREVER!

For defense she has a charm that just let's her ignore, any defense negating abilities you have. (I.e she effortlessly grabs the attack, that literally says unblockable between her fingers like it's nothing. But the even cooler/ way dumber charm, makes it so if an attack kills her, you discover that you've been fighting an illusion. A nearby combatant throws off their disguise revealing that they were Iolthane the entire time! Then she resets to base Initiative, hilarious.

She has Intimacy overriding charm, but her really interesting charm, allows her to grant a character supernatural dedication on a quest she's given then. This not only gives them a number of bonus dice to all of their actions equal to the intimacy she used to manipulate them, it also gives them Intimacyx2 Mutations to help with the question. Perferct PERfect PERFECT! for those character's who your team has eclipsed, coming back for their miniboss fight at the end of the campaign!

She also makes it harder to resist her, playing with your intimacies, making it cost up to THREE willpower to resist her temptations.

Okay, a little extra reading did in fact reveal that The Golden Beryl Palace, is an elemental. A Gemlord, who was once a prince among the earth elementals. It's a mile wild elemental that the fae live in. It's memory has been erased, and all the remains is it's loyalty to Iolanthe, kind of sad actually. He can sense the nature of anything inside of him, and also has instant telecommunication with Iolanthe, so good luck getting away with anything while inside the palace. Oh, wait, you're solars.

Rating: 10/10 long-ass nails, drumming bordely on her fainting couch. Absolutely marvelous, great work, very pushed. I have no idea why she was paired with Siluris, both writeups were so good, and had so much content. Definitely one of the better packages of the group. Love her! I'm already thinking about introducing her in my Dragonblooded campaign.

Misc. Golden Beryls are basically just Yellow Saphires/ Emeralds. They're found in Namibia, Madagascar, and Brazil. You can see them in her Jewlery, anklet, necklace, and big ass ring.

If you squint her name looks like Lolth, and her people are basically the Drow. I dunno, I thought that was funny.

Iolanthe, is also a Gilbert and Sulivan Opera, about the fairy Iolanthe who arranged all the fairies' music and dance, but was banished for the crime of loving a mortal.

Hooks:

1. The name Iolanthe has been scrubbed from the records of man. All but forgotten, to the realm. Only the people of the south, the lands she scoured before coming to the blessed isle remember her name. When they speak of it, they talk as if referring to some primordial terror, abomination, or even natural disaster. They only know that whole valleys of civilization were wiped away by the Iolanthe, and now on The Blessed Isles, those who claim to see the future, shudder and convulse, the only thing to escape their lips is madness, and a single name: Iolanthe.

2. When the civil war breaks out, the relatively empty Southwest is neglected and forgotten, it's the backyard, of a Great House, and not very contested. Until practically overnight, that house falls into ruin as Iolanthe rises from The Southwest to claim their lands. With monsters, and hordes of fanatical follower, the great houses must now contend with yet another hopeful for the throne. Iolanthe only ever feared one woman, and now that's she's gone, she'll bring ruin to The Scarlet Empresses' legacy. Revenge for the humiliation she's endured for three centuries.

3. Iolanthe has had enough of hiding beneath the earth. She now seeks to park her home on the tallest point in creation. Like King Kong The Golden Beryl Palace emerges from the earth, and begins to climb to the top of The Imperial Mountain. From her perch upon the word, she will speak and all of creation will hear her. First she will make them all love her, and shout their praise in a single voice. Then she will drive them mad, and then once nothing is left of civilization, culture, or meaning, she will simply ask creation to stop.

4.Iolanthe is nearly unstopable, her powers are too immense, too deadly, too dangerous. However, no matter how many victories she scores against he players, it's never enough. She must always live with the fact that she wasn't able to beat The Scarlet Empress. The players can use this to distract her from her mission of world domination, or maybe this thought occurs to Iolanthe if she's already won, for some sort of post-loss campaign, but nothing she's done has any meaning if she did it without besting The Scarlet Empress. She must find her, and beat her to prove that Iolanthe's beauty and power is uncontested. Once the players have convinced her of this, she drops everything, world domination, her armies, and schemes and pours everything she has into finding her rival. Buying the players enough time to figure out a way to destroy her. Maybe Iolanthe actually helps the players goals, if they're truly set on finding The Scarlet Empress.

5. Iolanthe either as herself or as maybe a kindly witch, or other friendly lass asks the players for help, in completing a quest. A quest that happens to fit perfectly into their intimacies. Unforunately for them as soon as they accept Iolanthe rips off her disguise and reveals her true form, but her bewitching charms make it so they can't help but zealously pursue the quest they agreed to go on. Furthermore Iolanthe grants them mutations based to help with their quest, and bonus die on all their actions. The quest is in their interest, destorying a Dragonblooded army or something like that. The players find their mutations quite useful, and they're more powerful than ever serving her... They may be tempted to stay on her side, and even if they're not, she'll provide that temptation for them.

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Josie and The Pussycats Episode 3

Oh no, it’s going to keep doing this isn’t it?

Today’s episode is set in India, and yup, it’s bad.

The cats uncover a conspiracy trying to take over the world by kidnapping the leader of another country. This happens because Alexandra gives the crew bad directions so she can be in a cab alone with Alan.

Alexandra gets some great licks in on Josie this episode. “He looks like a really creepy type.” “Yeah just your type.” And telling Josie she should look so good when a dude’s face melts.

Alexander: “Fel, for a girl you’re a mechanical genius.” 🙄

Right after they get the car onto the balcony, Alexander lowers the car with a robe, with his own hands!

Is magic real? They have lightning shooting staffs.

The chase song slaps.

This is the first episode where the band actually gets to their gig.

The formula for the show is just so good, the crew really just understands their medium, their bits are good, some of the lines are genuinely clever, and the episodes all seem pretty busy.

They fight a tiger!

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Josie and The Pussycats Episode 2

Come on Cats Let’s make tracks!

Episode 2 is just as wild as the first.

Dr. Greenthumb wants to destroy all plant life in the world. These villains don’t do anything by halves.

Alexandra tries to traffic Josie to the Amazon while the rest of the band goes to Nashville. The entire band ends up in the plane. Alexander is like “don’t tell me you put us on the wrong plan.”

And she’s like “of course I did!”

This episode heavily features some classic Hannah Barberas Tribal Depictions, deeply unfortunate. There’s lots of ungabunga talk, and it sucks. Josie and The Pussycats so far strikes me as a melding of scooby doo Johnny Quest. Which is a fun flavor, but if you’re going to dip your toe into pulp fiction, you’re gonna step on something racist. So here we are. Not to say scooby doo escapes it either.

Valarie is confirmed as the smart one of the group this episode, she springs them from the jail. And requires the evil scientist’s device, those are very strong feats!

Speaking of which, Alan is not Fred Jones, he’s a super human monster. He lifts all those instruments, he flings plants over his head like they’re nothing! The man I strong.

Alexandra proves to be weirdly competent in this episode, landing the parachute, performing magic, reuniting with the band. Plus a killer plant is going after her, and she just dead ass bites it, absolutely amazing.

The song for this episode slaps, great listen.

Alexandra name drops scooby doo!

I like Melody hearing the war drums, and being like “Groovy Beat!” And joining in. Peak.

All the officials at the end are white, in the Amazon. 🙄

The plants at the end dance with Alexandra, evil prickly creature recognize evil prickly creature.

The animations are so so, but I love how fluid some of the stuff is in their credits, the extra effort shows!

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It’s always been my goal to watch every scooby doo anything ever made, because it’s my favorite show off all time. But that’s a lot to swallow, but it’s a lot less effort to get through the fucked up mystery solvers that didn’t make it as far.

Today it’s Josie and The Pussy Cats

We’re hitting episode 1 and can I just say, this show slaps!

I love the expanded cast, six characters is very nice and busy. Everyone has their own color which I’m realizing is very important for these shows.

Josie is the main of the show, so far no real personality, Except she like Alan and is a red head.

Valarie- it’s so cool to see a person of color in one of these cartoons. I’m a white guy so not really as sensitive to it as others, but just seeing her on screen really filled me up. Unfortunately she doesn’t get as much screen time on this episode as other characters, but she appears to be capable because she was working on the motor and knew what she was doing. She also plays tambourine.

Melody- is the groups bimbo, we love her. She is life, she must be protected, she just wants to help!

Alan is Fred Jones

Alexander is the groups manager, he’s like Shaggy’s sleezy cousin. I love him being like Shaggy, but kind of clever in a bad way, it’s cool.

Alexandra is Alexander’s sister, and she is That bitch! She is our queen. Just a sour, mean, lemon of a woman with an evil white streak of hair, she’s perfect.

The mascot character for this group is Sebastian, and is the polar opposite of scooby. He’s here for the chaos, he loves drama, and since he saved everyone in like two seconds, he seems really competent.

I loved it, it felt really fresh from the scooby formula, and I’m actually quite smitten by the show so far.

Captain Nemo is the villain for this episode, or his grandson rather, which…. Is that actually a thing for captain Nemo because it happens in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He’s just a big doofus looking to sink EVERY SHIP IN THE WORLD, literally this man is willing to kill billions to make people respect his name. Besides genocide, this guy also trapped six kids at the bottom of the ocean in glass tubes. Which would run out of air real quick, and then they’d die! Maniac!

The whole thing gets wrapped up in a chase sequence, and I’m just in love.

Best line of the day: “this ship looks like a accident, heading somewhere to happen.” The our Queen Alexandra.

Watch it folks, if you have not. Episode one is awesome.

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I’m actually liking it. 😅

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Dad: Do you want to eat dinner with us tonight?

Me: No I have plans.

Dad: That’s a shame, we’re having leftover meatloaf.

Me: …My Loss

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My life as a hunter x hunter self insert character Episode 23

“Guys we do not have to just let Hon get the shit beat out of hun because he wants us to. In fact it’s negligent of us to let him keep doing it.”

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My life as a Hunter x Hunter self insert character episode 22

“Will we get t-shirts on the tour?”

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My life as a Hunter X Hunter self insert character.

“Um, Pokkle do you have a business card? Hanzo had a business card…”

——-

“The Hunter Exam isn’t over yet guys… we have to go a whole year within losing our cards!”

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My Life as a Hunter x Hunter self insert character: S1E15

“The Monkey had my badge.” 😏

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My Life as a Hunter x Hunter self insert character: S1E3

“Fellas, that lady has a gun! We better look out for her!”

“Guys, I don’t think we’re making a big enough deal over that clown making a guy’s arms vanish!”

“Sorry Tonpa, I only drink Dr. Pepper.”

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My Life as a Hunter x Hunter self insert character: S1E2

“Mr. Leorio where are you going? You’re going to miss the bus to Zaban City! MR.LEORIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

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My Life as a HunterxHunter self insert character: S1E1

“Yeah I was going to save the ship’s twink too, I was just getting my swim shorts on first” 😤

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Custom Nintendo Switch Joy-cons made by Kaltronics

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Pokemon Burgers served at Down-N-Out in Sydney, Australia 

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Just finished part 2 A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

I kind of want to stop reading.

Lucy won, Snow gets shit canned, that’s a happy ending to me.

Really don’t want to witness what I assume will be the spiritual or literal death of Lucy Grey.

But gotta say thus far, what an incredible book. Honestly loving it, I think it adds such richness to the world. Part of the reason I love it, is because it’s extremely fucked up. We see how the acts of rebellion or defiance from the main characters gets twisted to suit the system. Lucy Grey performing, her dress. The better part of the next century are shaped by her defiance and spirit. Now tributes will be forced to sing and dance and act like these horrible games are exciting. It’s a horrible perversion, and great commentary on capitalism. Anything that rises against the system will eventually be commodified and incorporated in the structure.

Even just the train that brings them in, feeding the tributes, Snow’s distaste for the train, the zoo, the starvation gets transformed into luxury cars, and feasts, and suites. He addresses the symptoms, the things that make him queasy, not the whole horrible system.

That’s great writing, that’s why he’s not a hero. We get to see where he gets the dynamic of never lying with Katniss he steals it from his own abuser. The doctor.

Also just great insight into how fucked Panem is politically. It just seems to be run by goons. Their military service last an insane 20 years, and is a punishment, for debtors and criminals. It’s probably so long because no one wants to be in it. Fucking kids from some prep school are running the show at a national event. It’s fucked! Whenever someone in class questions the system they just get brushed off. One was told their objection to the question was irrelevant and for another they were just told to assume an incorrect premise was true. They just use thought canceling instructions whenever challenged.

Snow himself can’t even conceive that a government could have the backing of it’s people. When he writes his paper he naturally assumes people will break the law, and then turn against the government. So facism is their only course. When of course the obvious answer is to just have a government that shares a consensus with it’s people. Their assumption that they’ll always be at war with the districts is insane and wrong. By the time Katniss comes around the war could have been a distant memory regulated to the few living old guards. Prosperity could have come to the whole continent. Institutions and barriers could have been torn down, and wounds would have begun to heal, have healed by the time she’s a woman. But these people chose to keep themselves and the districts traumatized and scared for 75 years.

It’s also good to see the children who are awake enough to know the hunger games are evil. Outcasts now but perhaps they build the groundswell that will eventually lead to the revolution.

The book also does a good job with snow. We can see how he eventually becomes the fuck head he becomes, but we can also imagine all the off ramps he has to escape on. He’s a sociopath everyone thinks their dealing with the real him, but he’s gaming out every interaction to his benefit. All his actions seem noble enough from the outside, but we know his thoughts, we know why he does what he does, and it’s because he’s an animal.

So far it has been stellar.