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I'm lucky to have won a writing contest at my school during my last semester But Looking at it now, I could do a lot better Time to edit it before submitting to a bigger magazine

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What happens when a Robot turns himself into a living weapon?

Armament is a mechizen (ie, warforged) artificer who has spent countless hours upgrading his body.

Check out the article here for his history, advice for using him in your own D&D adventures, and how he has enhanced his capabilities over time.

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Introducing Dragonfall

For the past few years, I've been working on my own ttrpg. As it nears being complete enough to share with the world for beta testing, I'd like to announce it Check out my patreon for more details. Posts will be dropped weekly detailing more and more aspects about the game

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While watching through Invincible, I realized

Powerplex and Ludanis are super similar characters.

Both of them had family members die as collateral damage in a battle between two extremely powerful beings. In both of those battles, one of the combatants was trying their best to save innocent lives, and the other was squashing mortals like bugs.

And both of them turned into monsters trying to get revenge against someone just trying their best to save people.

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changing the field action prompts from tapping A to holding A is so mean it’s really fucking me up I have a decade of instincts this is fighting against

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The most fun part of this game is sneaking into the areas you are very underleved for and doing your best to not get one shot all so you can access that one survey location or get to the lv 12 quest they put behind lv 30 enemies

And no one can tell me otherwise

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When you do all the quests and overlevel and a side quest spoils the game

(Luckily I already knew the plot twist, but it's still funny)

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Three days and about 15 hours in, and here's my current thoughts on the remake

Quick recharge!? Hell yeah! Makes it so much easier to trigger party members' soul voices

The new tracking system and updated follow ball? Thank you so much for pointing me right where I need. And I can rven track material needed for developing equipment!

Bigger user interface so I can actually read what's on screen? Thank the gods

I haven't experienced the overdrive guide yet (haven't unlocked the ability), or any of the new content, but I am very excited to

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One thing I really appreciated in Epic is how it actually took a decently hellenistic approach to writing gods as antagonists.

Focusing on Poseidon because his is the most obvious, a lot of the nuance can be seen in "Ruthlessness is Mercy".

In particular, he says (to paraphrase) "if you had killed my son instead of blinding him, I wouldn't be here."

Why does he say this? Wouldn't killing his son be worse than blinding him?

And this is because Poseidon isn't really after Oddysseus out of his own volation, at least not in the traditional way. It's a lot more clear in the Oddessey itself, where Polyphemus actively calls for his father to curse Oddysseus, but the principal still stands here.

Poseidon is not there for a personal sense of revenge. He's there because Polyphemus' request has put him under a sort of divine contract. And he has to uphold his end of the bargin.

And this is a very hellenistic way to have the gods be antagonists without outright villifying them. As a hellenist myself, a major portion of the religion is reciprocity. You give to the theoi as payment, each side giving their end of the bargin.

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Is it just me, or are "credits" as currency in scifi kimda distopian

On one level, sure, what else are we supposed to call currency when it's all digital

But depending on the setting, what does it say about the economy that literally everything is on credit?

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And you know, another thing that I've thought about having watched Divergence.

The Platinum Dragon would not care one iota about Jester's graffitiying his temple. Nor would he single out Braius for blame and ruin his life over it.

Having lived a long mortal life full of struggle, suffering, self doubt, loss...why would he be angry at a woman who's in pain and grieving the loss of a close friend, who's trying to handle a terrible thing that's happened to her in the way she knows how to best: joy and mischief.

Why would he blame one man for a moment of failing? Why would he not understand and forgive, having lived the life of Erro? Who lost and was lost and who found his way back?

Bahamut would be a HELL of a lot more understanding and forgiving of the failings of people and the mistakes we make than his priests and followers are, apparently, in my opinion.

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Got the chance to listen through Epic: the Musical with friends.

And I have to say, it has this Hellenist's aproval! I really enjoyed my time with it.

And it's inspiring me to write some projects that are adaptations of other mythologies

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Xenoblade Chronicles X definitive has arived!

So excited to go on this journey again (and actually finish it this time)

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I suspect that one of the greatest factors of the media literacy crisis is that people come into a work expecting it to be tailored to them, instead of what the author wanted to make.

There's a piece of editing advice that goes "don't write the best story you can, make it the best version of their story it can be"

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I love what Brennan is doing with faith in Divergence so far.

The skies of the Riftenmist peninsula in Gwessar (not yet Tal’dorei) have been choked with ash and smoke for decades. Most of the short lived races have never seen a clear sky.

Starmian saw the rain when he was younger. He knew it existed once, and his faith was that it would again. He told Nia about it and used it as encouragement that this struggle would be worth it. She watched him die moments before the rains finally came.

Luz was a Moonweaver worshiper in a land where any reverence for a Prime Deity was systematically crushed by the Strife Emperor. Even prisoners in a labor camp, the bottom rung of society, looked upon them with scorn—because if they were good, why did they let this happen? Why would any idiot worship the goddess of a moon that most living people had never even seen it through choked skies? For all they know, the Betrayers could have destroyed it, too, so what is she even the goddess of anymore? Even Sehanine’s epithet seemed like a fabrication. Perhaps it was true once, and in this barren wasteland, how could anyone say that it’s still true? Then Luz died fighting for people who did not share her faith and who thought she deserved scorn for her belief. After the fight ended, the skies parted and the moon shone down on those same people: a crescent, a sabre, and a smile all in one. Sehanine wasn’t with them anymore, but she still provided what help she could through those willing to forge a connection through the gate.

Their faith mattered both to them and to the world even when they didn’t live to see the result. The point of faith isn’t to see it proved true: it’s to bolster your resolve when all the world is against you. Faith is hope when you have no evidence in hand. Faith is vital to surviving a world fraught with danger. Whether it’s placed in a god, in other people, or in the mere idea that things will get better: faith matters.

It’s exactly the kind of story a lot of people need right now.

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For what it's worth, I think Campaign 3 suffers when compared to, to put it bluntly, pretty much anything else Critical Role has ever put out, as well as most actual play that I've watched/listened to. But I think it uniquely suffers when juxtaposed with a narrative that says "if you do not make rapid decisions you and others around you will die; if you spend too much time whining about how it's unfair that you are called to make these decisions, including ones that might challenge you, you and others around you will die; and if you do not above all prioritize community and deal with threats to that community - and expand your understanding of community to be a very broad one - you will be destroyed." It was jarring and hypocritical to watch Campaign 3's defenders who had been calling for the gods to be slaughtered for much of the campaign suddenly spin around and praise Bells Hells for finding [having handed to them] the nonviolent option because that's actually always the best one, don't you know; and I think EXU Divergence challenges not just that ideal but the concept that there's a universal solution. Sometimes the right thing is to hide; sometimes it's necessary to commit violence to prevent further violence. Sometimes the right thing is to secretly eat some of the cheese yourself to prevent you from dying; sometimes it's to be on the lookout for someone trying to take more of their share in a resource-limited community and to stop them. Sometimes the right thing is to carry others; sometimes it's to give them to someone stronger and more able. And above all, many of these choices will be extremely unfair and difficult and put you at risk, and you do still have to make them, and soon.

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I actually have a perfect analogy for this.

So, the gods see mortals as their children in a sort of esoteric sense. Maybe not literally, but they made the idea of mortals and are responsible for mortals like parents are. They maybe aren't the individual parents of every single mortal, but there's a sort of cosmological relationship there.

So, let's compare this to relationships parents can have with their adult children. Let's focus on the primes and assume good parents for the sake of analogy since it seems like most of the primes try their best.

A relationship like Fjord, Caduceus, Pike, or Vax have with their deities is like an adult child who is on good terms with their parent. And, as such, the parent is there to help their adult child out when they can and are needed.

Meanwhile, Ashton and Imogen and others are the adult children who moved out, didn't keep in touch, and then complain that they're not getting anything.

Now, let's also then compare M9 and BH in terms of relationships with the gods to polytheism IRL. And, in this regard, we again see a trend of "you have to put the work in". You have to give offerings and build the relationship. Because how would you feel if someone just came up to you, demanded something, and then got pissy when you said no. Or if a stranger came up to you like "i know you do [insert trade here]. Can you do it for me for free?"

I'm also very fond of how Matt handles Fjord's third question to the Wildmother. Fjord asks, "Would you please do something or show me something or intervene or take agency in my life and show me how best to move towards achieving that sort of change?" And Matt (speaking through Caduceus, since it's his Commune spell) says, "You understand the answer, as you are a man of faith, to know that the answer is to require faith."

Comparative to the engagement with the divine in c3 that is very often focused on a "what have the gods ever done for me?" sort of energy, this interaction specifically speaks to the fact that in order for a god to take particular interest in your life, you have to live a life of faith. Caduceus is right in telling Fjord that, "Eventually, one day, somebody will pray for a miracle [...] and that miracle will be answered because you showed up. That's how it works. That's what a champion is." It's about living that faith, actively, resolutely, and folding that ideology into your life. Living those ideals and doing those good works with intentionality is how you live a life of faith, is how a god would even know to take notice and intervene. It's about doing and the ideology that drives you to action.