#{DASH GAMES}「God Playing Dice」

[godinmyhands]

Anyway have an inspo chart that's the equivalent of bright colors on a poison dart frog

Zamasu - Dragon Ball Super

Ra's Al Ghul- DC Comics

Enrico Pucci - JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

DIO - JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, again

Doc Scratch - ...Homestuck

Light Yagami - Death Note

[lionheartedmusings]

bear with me bc this is gonna be a bit of a long one, but i've seen folks talking about how they're excited to get the horrors back on the qsmp and while i totally agree that i miss those blood-curdling, creepy, uncanny valley sort of scenes... i think the beauty of the overall storyline (as much as it's execution can be criticised ) is that we as the audience are seeing things in a vacuum.

the qsmp storyline is a living breathing player alongside our povs, and while we're aware of that, we're also not always engaging with it. we're getting swept up in the day-to-day of it all and getting lulled into a sense of security that ultimately makes us unable to truly comprehend the horror of the last few months until we take a step back and analyze it bit by bit.

children went missing in the night, leaving only their identifiers behind on empty beds. there were no leads. people looked and looked, and found nothing. parents were mad with concern and grief, and the all-seeing, all-powerful entity that rules their lives trapped in this hamster wheel of an island has no answers.

then, the items left behind on those beds vanish too.

then, there's mind-controlling, happiness inducing drugs being pumped into people against their will. still no news of the children. people are falling apart at the seams.

people are led to a maze where a wheel is spun and everything they have left of the children of this godforsaken island is gone. burned up. what does it mean? no one knows. they have to live on.

suddenly, a game is played. a clone of a dead child shows up, leading some of them into the same maze, forcing them to walk through a maze of doors and corridors, only to find a game of dice orchestrated by an unknown entity.

new people arrive, bearing witness to the hopeless, grim, sad reality of everyone who was already there. there's hope — there's always hope — but my god the pain is overwhelming.

there's clues, but there's not. the government keeping them trapped here against their will still has no answers, nothing to point them in the right direction.

faceless bears go missing.

faceless bodies show up on the streets. bloodied. dead. eaten.

suddenly, there's thunder and lightning and oh! oh, their children! of course they'll get on the train, that's where the children are!

but they're hijacked. stolen. once again, their autonomy is stripped entirely as another entity with power they cannot comprehend forces them to split into factions and compete for... something. their children's lives are on the line and they maim and kill those they call family because they fear they have no choice.

everyone went through hell — purgatory was a bad title for what they went through. it was hell, with no salvation in sight.

when all is said and done, when all the murder and backstabbing is over, they see their children through glass they cannot break. one escapes because chance said so, and the rest are left behind as the ceiling collapses on them.

the world is ending and their salvation is one singular boat a thousand blocks away. lovers can't say goodbye, friends run for their lives together, a father and a son dash desperately with no hope in sight. some stay behind, through choice or chance.

the government official that has made their life hell returns the children to them, and brings some new ones. those new children get carted off to new parents without option (again) and suddenly everything's supposed to be fine! nevermind your friends are gone! nothing to see here!

behind the scenes, the all-seeing all-knowing government is breaking apart, there's something far more horrifying and twisted at play in the background... but it's nothing the islanders can help with. nothing they can do. they have to live on and pretend their golden cage is fine and dandy bc at the end of the day, it's their only option.

one-eyed creatures show up demanding something "of theirs" back and bc humanity is strong, one islander refuses to hand someone kind and innocent off to them.

it dooms them, as their humanity has every single time.

now, they're under attack and they can barely defend themselves despite months of prep and having amazing gear — again, they try their hardest but everything is stacked against them. they fight, and fight, but their children are on the line and that's their main concern.

every fight? there's bodies littering the ground and panicked screams. explosions. chainsaws revving, and worry, and it's a war ten times a week.

a child loses a life, and now it's personal, but what can they do? no one listens to them, no one has ever listened to them.

and in the middle of all of this? their family is still gone, trapped in a wasteland, or missing, or... dead.

there was no funeral for q!maxo bc there's no stopping to smell the roses on quesadilla island, not really. where's slime? where's pol? where's the people who they haven't seen yet? gone, yes, but they don't have time to stop and worry about them. they don't have time to mourn losses and grieve their dead.

luffy, who came to try and help their friends, was stolen and hurt.

those eyeball workers? they were people once, maybe good people. maybe the best people we never got to meet, but they got shifted and changed into something monstrous and out of their control.

my point being: the story that the qsmp is telling is innately horrifying. it's not just creepy — it's twisted, and tragic, and absolutely terrifying. it's about loss of agency and running on an endless hamster wheel of someone else's making, and how you just sort of... live with it after a while.

and i think that's really fucking cool, because like these characters we too get used to the tragedy of life, little by little, and forget to see the whole thing from a bird's eye view (pun intended).

[bee-kathony]

Out of the Woods | Jane & Guildford

An alternate first meeting of Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley. What would happen if Jane followed Guildford after the chaos in the tavern?

For the first time in Jane’s entire life, no one knows where she is. 

She is alone and free. She can finally escape, ride north, and create her destiny. 

After thwarting the guards, Jane escaped on horseback promising to return home. But home was the last place she wished to return. Her own mother, now her dear cousin Edward had promised her to a marriage she did not want. 

Jane wanted her freedom to do as she pleased. The last thing she wanted was to be tied to someone else for all eternity. So she fled!

As Jane rode on, she swore she could taste her freedom. But there was something in the woods. A light, and suddenly Jane saw them. Guards, a search party clearly sent by King Edward or her dratted mother. She needed somewhere to hide, somewhere no one would ever think to look. 

Dashing off to the right, Jane rode deeper into the woods and thanked the gods as she approached a small village. As she tied up her horse outside a tavern, Jane took one quick glance around her before rushing inside. 

It was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. People were playing dice games, drinking, and laughing. Jane relaxed, leaning against the stairwell as she took everything in. 

That’s when she spotted him from across the tavern. She couldn’t keep her eyes off of him. This dark-haired stranger. 

Jane couldn’t decipher what argument he was dissolving between his friends, but suddenly he had jumped onto the table.

“And now we’re gonna gut ya!” She heard the man’s friend (or perhaps they weren’t friends) say. 

“Gut me with what?” The dark-haired stranger asked as he reached behind him and grabbed what appeared to be the two squabbling drinkers’ knives. 

“Are you looking for these?” Expertly, he tossed a knife and it landed bullseye on the dart board. And the next right beside it. The entire bar cheered, and Jane found herself smiling as she watched this man. 

“And now I have your attention, shall I torture you with a poem?”

“No!” Shouted the rowdy tavern. 

“Too late,” the man said, shrugging. 

“I have decided to die in a tavern.” He was speaking in Latin. Well, he was attempting, but it impressed Jane. 

“Where the wine will be close to my dying…” he continued, searching for the words and the crowd finished for him. 

“Mouth!” They raised their glasses, drinking. 

Jane was entranced, utterly besotted by the display she’d just witnessed. As she’d never been in an establishment quite like this one before, she wasn’t sure what to do next. 

That was…

Until he laid eyes on her. 

Jane looked around, surely he must be mistaken. This dark-haired stranger that had so easily diffused a fight couldn’t be looking at her. 

She couldn’t remember her feet moving, but it was as if she was drawn to the man, and now she found herself standing directly in front of him. 

“So, do you… come here often?” Two seconds later, judging by his gaze, she instantly regretted that question. 

The man finished off his drink, turned back, and burped in her face.  

“Wow,” Jane said, her opinions quickly changing. 

“Oops.” The man covered his mouth. 

“That’s your response? So you can recite the Archpoet standing on a table in a dirt-floor tavern, but you can’t muster a simple apology?” 

The man shrugged, looking her up and down, “I said, ‘oops’”. 

“You mispronounced ‘vina,’ by the way. It’s ‘Vee-na’’, where’d you learn your Latin? In a ditch?” Jane questioned him. 

“Who would teach Latin in a ditch?” His body turned toward her, but Jane wouldn’t be persuaded. 

“Oh, you’re missing the point.”

“The point being?” He took a sip of his drink. 

Jane crossed her arms. “Your mediocre Latin and disappointing table manners.”

The man looked around, “Are we at a table? No.”

“Again, missing the point.” 

The frustrating man stared down her her, just a breath away, “Has anybody ever told you that you’re an insufferable pedant?”

“Oh, where I come from, pedantry is a virtue.” 

“Where I come from amiability trumps semantics.”

“Amiability is for the meek.”

“Amiability is for the amiable.”

They squared off, their words quick as they sized one another up. It was clear Jane had been mistaken about this man. Sure, he seemed charming enough, but he was grating on her nerves. 

“You are the rudest man I have ever met!” Jane rolled her eyes. 

The man raised his glass, “Well, the night is young. Mingle.” 

“Oh, I intend to. Goodnight.” Jane turned to leave, eager to leave him behind and never see him again. 

“Wait!” He reached out for her. “Who are you?”

Jane evaded his question by asking him the same. “Who are you?”

But they were interrupted before either could say a name. 

A soldier burst through the door. “Good evening!” 

Everyone in the tavern hushed, and a few men at the bar looked nervous. Jane only hoped the guards weren’t there for her. 

“Come with me,” the man whispered, taking her arm. 

“As if!” She brushed him away. 

“What?!”

“I said, good evening, my good people. We have it on excellent authority that a certain beast might be in here. Goes by the name of Archer. He’s wanted for robbery, arson, sedition.” 

Jane breathed a sigh of relief. They weren’t looking for her. But a beast? 

“Hand him over or we dunk every last one of you.” 

Suddenly a man close to Jane walked forward. “Why don’t you leave him alone, you bunch of thugs? I’m Archer.” 

The guards rushed towards him, “Then you’re coming with me.”

“Not likely!” Just then Archer transformed into a bear. 

“Ethian?” Jane’s eyes grew wide as she froze. 

Everyone began to scream and run, it was complete chaos. Jane felt herself being pulled towards the door. 

“Right. Let’s go!” The man grabbed her arm, pulling her away from the outbreak. 

They dashed through the crowd, Jane was so curious. As she’d never actually seen an Ethian transform before her eyes. That was until just the other day when her maid Susannah had transformed into a hawk.

“This door leads outside,” the man said as they ducked under the stairs. 

“This is madness. I never knew things were like this.”

“You’ve never seen a bear in a bar before?”

“Never,” Jane said softly. 

The dark-haired man pulled her close, his eyes boring into hers. “Last chance. Come with me.” 

“I can’t… I-“, someone smashed against the stairs. Jane screamed, and before she could protest further, the dark-haired man was dragging her outside into the cool night air. The chaos of the bar drifted behind them as they fled. 

“Wait!” Jane struggled against his grip. “I can’t go with you!” 

“I’m not stealing you,” the man laughed, leading them into the forest. “I’m simply making sure that a lady such as yourself doesn’t die. I can’t have that on my conscience you see.” 

“Ah yes,” Jane tore her hand away from his. “I do see. I’m just another pretty girl you lure into the woods. I think I’ll take my chances with the bear!” 

Jane turned to leave back towards the bar. After all, she had lost her sense of direction, and as much as she didn’t want to return home. She didn’t know where else to go at this exact moment. 

“Not so fast, little one,” the man grabbed her arm, twisting her into him. They were face to face, their chests heaving from the excitement. “I know a safe place we can wait.” 

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Jane spoke softly. “Just let me go.” 

The man stared at her, his eyes making an assessment. 

“Seeing as how your conversational skills were so lacking-“ 

“I was not-“ Jane cut him off. 

He held up a finger against her lips. “I’d wager that you’ve never been to a place like that. Never seen something like that before.” 

“Perhaps.” 

“Well, perhaps,” the man let his hand slide down, taking her hand again. “You also don’t know that the King’s guards will be traversing this area all night until they find what they want.” 

Jane couldn’t have that. Maybe staying with this man and letting her lead her somewhere safe was the only way she could make it to tomorrow. 

“Fine,” Jane agreed, stamping her foot slightly. “Take me to wherever you are going. I’ll wait until dawn before I go my own way.” 

“Very well,” the man said, sighing. “Stay close.” 

He kept her hand in his as they walked quietly for another fifteen minutes. The sound of the crunching leaves under their feet was making Jane rather anxious. How did she get herself into this situation? Walking through the woods at midnight with a handsome stranger. 

Jane’s mind kept drifting back to the events of the day. Not only had her mother gone behind her back and arranged a marriage she did not want. Her dearly beloved cousin Edward, who just so happened to be the King of England, had approved of the marriage and given his consent. Feeling worn down, all Jane could do was hope that this mysterious suitor died suddenly of the affliction and she wouldn’t have to attend the wedding. 

“How much further?” Jane whispered. “It’s freezing!” 

“We’re almost there,” the man said. “In fact, here we are.” 

Jane had to squint to see what exactly she was looking at. It appeared to be a small cottage if one could call it that. Perhaps, a shack was a better term for it. 

“Come,” the man said and pulled her along behind him. “No one will find us here.” 

Inside the small shack, Jane was surprised to see it wasn’t entirely falling apart. In fact, there was a cozy fireplace on one wall, shelves of books, and a bed off in the corner. It looked like someone lived here. 

“Is this your home?” Jane asked as the stranger rid himself of his jacket and laid it across the chair by the fire. 

“Maybe,” the man shrugged. 

“It’s so…” 

“Small? Ugly? Strange?” The man offered. 

“No,” Jane looked around once again. “Cozy.” 

“Hmph,” the man looked at Jane quizzically before squatting down to the fire. “We can hide here for a few hours. But I must leave before the sun rises.”

“Oh yes, I had better return home as soon as I’m able,” Jane sighed and took a seat in the chair, watching at the man started a small fire. “If we are to stay here for the next several hours, then will you at least tell me your name?”

“Tell me yours,” he looked up at her through his falling hair. 

Jane rolled her eyes, expecting nothing less. She wanted to tell this man everything. Nothing but the truth, which was odd seeing as how he was a complete stranger. But there was something about him, the way he looked at her and made her feel seen and alive. 

“Elizabeth,” Jane lied. While yes, she felt she could trust him. One could never be too careful. 

“John,” the man put his hand on his chest. Little did Jane know that this man was also lying about his real name. 

They were silent as John finished the fire and sat in the chair opposite her. 

“Do you really live here?” Jane asked, curiosity sparking once again. 

“Sometimes,” John said. “My family…” he started, looking down at his crossed hands. “My family doesn’t provide much peace you see. So I built this place as a sort of refuge to get away every now and then.” 

Jane knew he wasn’t being completely truthful, but she hadn’t exactly been either. Seeing how harsh the soldiers had been on the Ethians in the bar, Jane understood that you couldn’t trust anyone these days. 

“Where did you come from Elizabeth? I’ve never seen you at that bar before tonight.” John questioned. 

Lie or truth?

“I ran away,” she said, deciding to tell the truth. 

“From who?”

“My family,” Jane sighed, sinking into the chair. “They want me to do something, and I absolutely will not! My mother,” Jane growled. “She thinks she can determine my future, but I won’t allow it.” 

John blinked before responding. “Well, they would be insane to go against you. Then why would you return home?”

Jane did not want to go home and admit defeat, but she didn’t see another option. Yes, she could ride off into the night and disappear, but she didn’t have any money, nor any idea of how to get some. It was a nice dream she’d had to determine her own destiny, but perhaps destiny wasn’t something one made for themselves after all. 

“I don’t know what else to do,” Jane shrugged. “I’m a woman, and since I am unmarried I cannot do anything for myself.” 

“A shame,” John shook his head. “I would love to see the man that could come up against you.” 

“I don’t believe there is any such man,” Jane laughed. Certainly not this man her mother wanted her to marry, Guildford Dudley. 

“You should rest,” John said, nodding to the bed in the corner. “I’ll sit watch by the fire here.”

The bed did look awfully cozy. Jane had had a tiring day. An exhausting day of having her hopes and dreams dashed. Betrayed by the very people she thought she could trust. 

“Perhaps just a little rest,” Jane agreed and stood up, only her feet caught under her dress and she stumbled. Right into the arms of John. He was sturdy, and he smelled good, oh did he ever! 

“Oh bollocks,” Jane tried to right herself, but her hand pushed against something hard, and John winced, crying out. It was only then as he screwed his face in pain that she realized she’d pushed against his member. 

“I’m sorry!” Jane blushed, her arms flailing out trying to push against anything else but his body. 

“Elizabeth,” John caught her arms, steadying her as he leaned forward in the chair. “Just relax.” 

Before she could process what was happening, Jane had been swept up into John’s strong arms and he carried her over to the bed, gently placing her down. His hands lingered, caressing her cheek, a thumb running over her lips. 

“John,” she whispered, feeling that same intense pull as before in the bar. 

His lips crashed into hers, and Jane moaned, her arms winding around his neck. This was certainly not what Jane had envisioned when she’d come to this cabin. In fact, Jane had just sworn off all men earlier that day. But John felt so good. He tasted so good. 

“Elizabeth,” he sighed against her lips, pressing her to lay flat on her back. Her head rested against the pillows as John’s body covered hers. Just as her hand had felt him just a few moments earlier, she now felt his hard member against her thigh. 

Jane had no experience with men unless one counted kissing the stable boy when she was twelve. Which Jane did not. 

John slid his hand along her body, over the thick layers of her dress until his hand rested on her neck. His tongue opened her mouth, and she let him in. Jane wanted more of him, more of him everywhere. 

Their breathing escalated as they began to undress. John reached for the laces of her dress, and she reached for the buckle of his pants. As Jane sat back and watched him take his shirt off, she began to get nervous. 

“Wait,” she whispered, not knowing if he’d heard her. 

“What’s wrong?” John tossed his shirt aside, his hands coming to her face, gently. 

“I’ve never…” she said shyly. “I don’t…” 

“Ah,” John smiled, kissing the tip of her nose. “That makes sense.” 

“What makes sense?” Jane asked, only feeling somewhat offended. 

John smirked, his thumb rubbing across her lips and down her neck. 

“All that pent-up frustration,” John kissed her lightly. “That spark. No one’s taken it yet.” 

Jane melted against him as he twisted his body and laid down beside her. He kept one hand on her neck, the other in her hair. “I won’t bed you Elizabeth. That honor deserves to be for your husband.” 

“Well aren’t you suddenly a gentlemen,” Jane laughed, feeling relief but also a sense of sadness and regret. While she wasn’t prepared to have sex tonight with a near stranger, she also wanted to do it on her terms. 

“Don’t think I don’t want to,” John kissed her bare shoulder, pulling up the sheet around her. “Gods, I want to.” 

“Will you hold me?” Jane asked, unable to feel him let go. 

John gathered her close, pulling her to his chest as he rested his chin atop her head. Jane pulled the sheet over the both of them. 

“My family wants me to do something I don’t want to either,” John admitted in the silence. Jane couldn’t see his face now, but she listened, feeling his voice reverberate through her whole body. 

“It’s for my protection, and theirs,” he continued. “I only hope it works.” 

“What works?” Jane asked, wrapping her arm tighter around his middle. 

“The solution to all my problems,” he sighed and Jane didn’t want to press further. 

Silence fell on the small shack, the low rumble of the fire flickering as they both fell into a peaceful sleep. Jane had never slept as well as she had those few hours in John’s arms. As she opened her eyes to the cracks of the first light, she noticed she was alone. 

“How chivalrous,” Jane sighed, knowing it was too good to be true. At some point, she had felt John stir next to her in the night, but she’d quickly fallen back asleep. Now she knew he had been sneaking out to leave her. 

It wasn’t as if she knew him, or that they had even been intimate together. But there was something there, something she couldn’t quite place. 

Jane gathered up her few belongings and left the little shack, closing the door behind her. Attached to the front door was a piece of parchment with a nail drive through it. 

“Dearest Elizabeth, 

I hate to have left you alone, you seemed so peaceful. Those few hours in your arms were the most peace I have felt in so long. It was a pleasure making your acquaintance… however tumultuous our first meeting began.” 

Yours, John G.D. 

Jane felt what could only be described as butterflies in the pit of her stomach. Folding the note neatly, she slid it into the pocket of her cloak. The sun had risen now, and lit a path to a nearby road. Surely if her mother and Edward were looking for her, she could find them along the main path. 

As Jane began to make her way through the forest, thinking of her night spent with the mysterious John, she heard a sort of snuffle beside her. 

It was a horse!

A dark brown horse, with a black mane and tail. He was feet away to her left, and he was staring at her. Jane froze, a sense of familiarity striking. Jane began to walk towards the horse, but he shook his mane and ran off deeper into the woods. 

How odd.

[grailfinders]

Grailfinders Viewers' Choice: Don Quixote

today on Grailfinders we’re making Charle- wait, no, not him yet. today we’re making Don Quixote, the man de la mancha! he’s a Swords Bard to get a little too into tales of chivalry and make fantasies into reality, as well as a Watchers Paladin to bring reality crashing back down, but not before proving himself as a hero. maybe.

check out his build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Ancestry & Background

we’ll get to Dulcinea/sancho panza/Rocinante later, but don quixote is definitely a Human. that gives him +1 Strength and Charisma, as well as proficiency in Acrobatics because you definitely fall off your horse plenty and don’t die, as well as the Charger feat. now when you dash, you can use your bonus action to attack or shove a creature, and as a bonus, if you move more than 10’ in a straight line beforehand, you either deal extra damage, or push them even further. it’s not a “good” feat, but it fits with the don’s battle style of charging in without much of a plan.

of course, quixote’s a noble so he gets proficiency in History and Persuasion as well. he’s a little too proficient in history for his own good, and people usually at least play along with whatever nonsense he’s gotten himself into.

Ability Scores

number one is Charisma. it’s how he casts spells, and presumably how his love for stories about knights is warping reality. second is Constitution, because it doesn’t measure how much health you have, but how many hits you can take and keep going. and god knows Quixote doesn’t know when to give up. third is Strength, while that probably should be lower, we need it for multiclassing and I’m not enough of a sadist to do that to you. your Dexterity is just okay. he’s a bit clumsy but its usually played for slapstick comedy. that means your Intelligence is middling- he’s well read, but only in fiction books- and we’re dumping Wisdom. if that’s a surprise to you I really don’t know what to say.

Class Levels

1. Bard 1: since quixote was a nerd and then he tried to be a night, we’ll be getting all his bard levels first, then go to paladin afterwards. that’s probably not the best way to do it in-game, but I’m a sucker for symbolism.

still, as a bard you start off with proficiency in Dexterity and Charisma saves, as well as three skills of your choice- Athletics to charge without getting wind(mill)ed, Animal Handling to ride a horse moderately well, and Deception to fool a country into thinking you’re a king. good luck with that btw, I haven’t gotten that far in traum yet.

you also gain Bardic Inspiration- as a bonus action you can give an ally an extra d6 to add to an attack, check, or save they make in the next minute.

also, you can cast Spells using your Charisma! cantrips like Blade Ward to not die til you have armor on, or Mage Hand for a lightweight Dulcinea; or even spells like Command to be a little kingly on occasion, Feather Fall for your flying girlfriend/horse to break your fall, Unseen Servant for a heavy duty Dulcinea, or Heroism to inspire yourself and others into a battle they probably shouldn’t be fighting.

it’s worth pointing out that bards don’t get proficiency with lances, but you can either call his weapon a spear or let him be not proficient with it. it’s pretty in-character tbh.

2. Bard 2: at level two you become a Jack of All Trades, giving you half proficiency in every ability you’re not explicitly proficient in. I think this is the first time I’d call this feature out of character, but we need it to get anything else out of the class. you can also perform a Song of Rest during short rests for an extra d6 of healing but that’s so negligible it’s barely worth mentioning.

the big bonus this level is your Magical Inspiration- now your inspiration dice can be added to healing or damaging spells to help them fantasy up the place. you can also cast Longstrider this level, quickening your step so you can move ten feet faster for an hour. it’s not huge, but it’s concentration-free!

3. Bard 3: at level three you graduate from the College of Swords, giving you proficiency with medium armor so you can finally get that breastplate out of your closet and go adventuring! you also get the Dueling fighting style, adding 2 points of damage to every attack you make with only one weapon in hand.

you also learn how to make Blade Flourishes by spending your inspiration dice. now your attack actions always increase your walking speed by 10 feet, and upon hitting something you can add an inspiration die to the damage and get one of three benefits. a Defensive Flourish adds the same roll to your AC for a round, a Slashing Flourish deals that damage to every creature you choose next to you, and a Mobile Flourish pushes the target, and then you can react to have Dulcinea drag you back into melee range.

you can also cast second level spells this level, like Enhance Ability, which gives you advantage on one kind of ability check. you can literally gaslight yourself into being stronger now! speaking of checks, your Expertise doubles your proficiency bonus in Persuasion and History checks.

4. Bard 4: at fourth level you can use your first Ability Score Improvement on something useful… or dump it into Charisma for stronger spells. spells like Minor Illusion to make little fantasies for free, or Kinetic Jaunt to ricochet around the battlefield even more! for up to a minute afterwards, your speed is increased by 10’, you don’t have to worry about attacks of opportunity, and you can move through creatures without slowing down! a knight always has to be on the front lines, after all. probably.

5. Bard 5: fifth level bards get some big ol’ boons, like a bigger Bardic Inspiration die, as well as becoming a Font of Inspiration, so you can recharge them on short rests instead of long ones. also you can start learning third level spells like Dispel Magic! it feels rough to end the fantasy before it begins, but it’s hard to get this spell later. it will instantly break any magic of third level or lower, and there’s a charisma check to break higher level spells. given how busted your ability checks can be, I doubt you’ll have a problem dealing with that.

6. Bard 6: at sixth level, bards can use a Countercharm to prevent their allies from being charmed or frightened for a round. it’s not great, you use your action on it, it doesn’t last long, and it only gives advantage on saves. still in-character though. even better, you get an Extra Attack each action, so now you can attack twice instead of once.

also you can cast Motivational Speech this level! it’s a more offensively-focused Heroism, which fits your skillset better.

7. Bard 7: seventh level bards get fourth level spells, like Confusion. let’s be honest, you were confusing people way before this, now it’s just official.

8. Bard 8: at eighth level you can max out your Charisma using your next ASI, and Dulcinea can also help free you from any predicaments you get caught in by giving you Freedom of Movement. while moving freely, difficult terrain and magic cannot slow you down or make you paralyzed or restrained, and nonmagical restraints can be escaped from with just five feet of movement. you even get to move at full speed underwater! I think the only water don quixote falls in in the books is a well, so this is probably canon.

9. Bard 9: ninth level bards get fifth level spells, and we can finally make your ascension-hopping make more sense thanks to the Seeming spell. for eight hours, you and anyone within 30’ of you will look different (if they don’t want to they can try a charisma save but good luck), allowing you to change their physical appearance as well as any clothes or equipment they’ve got. now you can turn beat up old relics into proper knighting around armor!

10. Bard 10: at tenth level, you get another round of Expertise to double down on your Deception game and your Acrobatics. you also learn a new cantrip, True Strike! it’s bad, but your strength score is still a 14 at level ten, so you’ll need all the help to hit you can get. also you can cast Legend Lore too, to learn (or make up) fantastical stories about whatever piece of garbage you find on your adventures.

the fun doesn’t stop there though! your Bardic Inspiration die grows to a d10, and you learn Magical Secrets, letting you pick up spells from other classes! now you can finally Summon Celestial to bring Dulcinea to life, or use Nystul’s Magic Aura to make your armor seem even more special than it already is. the latter spell lets you make nonmagical items magical or vice-versa, at least as far as magical detection is concerned. you can even make living things show up as other kinds of creatures, but that’s outside quixote’s scope.

11. Paladin 1: you’ve got all your delusions of grandeur, so now let’s get questing! at level one, you get proficiency with all martial weapons, so that means you can finally use a lance all proper-like. also you think you have a Divine Sense to root out otherworldly foes as an action 6 times a day. you’ll figure out what kind of enemy you’re facing, but not their exact identity. unless you make one up for them, of course.

also you can Lay on Hands, drawing from a pool of HP to give to yourself or your lady Dulcinea as an action. you can spend five points to curse diseases or poisonings, and they recharge on long rests.

12. Paladin 2: second level paladins get their own kind of Spellcasting, which also uses your charisma. unlike bards, paladins can swap their spells each day, so you can get a bit more loosey goosey here. that being said, I suggest checking out the Compelled Duel spell to force your dreaded nemeses to draw steel, Ceremony to give them a chance to repent like the noble knight you are, and Shield of Faith to actually make your shield a bit better for short periods of time.

you could also use those spell slots to make some Divine Smites, spending magic to deal extra damage with your lance. you’ve even got fifth level spell slots already, so you’re actually ahead of the curve compared to pure paladins. (right, almost forgot to mention, check your PHB to see what spell slots you have at any given point from here on out, multiclassing makes it weird.)

moving away from spells for a second, you get another Fighting Style, and the Protection style is perfect for a gallant knight protecting his lady love. when a creature next to you is being attacked, you can react to put your shield between them and their attacker, forcing disadvantage on the roll.

13. Paladin 3: at third level, you join the Watchers, and elite group of paladins dedicated to defeating evil from other worlds… which, if you’re being very generous, is what don quixote’s already been doing! (hey, his imagination isn’t the material plane.) when you join up, you can Channel Divinity once per short rest, letting you invoke the Watcher’s Will to give five creatures advantage on intelligence, wisdom, and charisma saves for a minute, or you can Abjure the Extraplanar to send aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, and fiends packing if they fail their wisdom save. alternatively, you can Harness Divine Power, spending your CD usage to regain a spell slot.

you also get free spells that are always prepared for you, Alarm and Detect Magic. quixote seems naturally jumpy, and you can’t end fantasy if you don’t know it’s there, probably.

you’re also in Divine Health, letting you ignore any diseases you get. sunstroke isn’t a disease though, you might want to get that checked out.

14. Paladin 4: at fourth level you get another ASI, and we could improve your strength so you can hit things better… orrr we can get Mage Slayer! now casting spells next to you provokes an attack of opportunity, and you get better at ending fantasy without even using a spell slot because everyone you hit has disadvantage on their concentration saves! you also get advantage on your saves against melee range spells.

15. Paladin 5: fifth level paladins get second level spells, a nice consolation prize since their extra attack doesn’t work with your bardic one. your freebies include Moonbeam, which will destroy any shapeshifters it hits, and See Invisibility. neither wolfman nor the invisible man could exist in 15th century Spain, I’m sad to say.

you can also Find Steed if you need Roccinante without all the others attached, or turn your lance into a Magic Weapon so you can actually hit people with it.

16. Paladin 6: at sixth level you get an Aura of Protection, giving everyone within 10’ of you a whopping +5 bonus to every save they make. some people thing spellcasting is a good choice of profession, so I guess it’s time you destroy their fantasy.

17. Paladin 7: seventh level watchers have an Aura of the Sentinel, giving you and everyone within ten feet of you a +6 to their initiative rolls. when you’re literally tilting at windmills, you’re always ready for a fight.

18. Paladin 8: okay fiiiine, I guess you can improve your Strength to something “not bad”, if you really want. now you might be able to actually hit the windmills when you fight them.

19. Paladin 9: ninth level paladins get third level spells, finally giving you Counterspell to stop fantasies in progress, and Nondetection to turn into a regular old man, no matter how many magical items you’ve picked up over this adventure.

we’ll also grab one last anti-fantasy spell with Remove Curse so now there’s practically no magic you can’t suppress, as well as Blinding Smite and Spirit Shroud for a more powerful girlfriend/squire/horse.

20. Paladin 10: with our final level, you exude an Aura of Courage, making you and friendly creatures nearby immune to being frightened. some say it’s because the image of a gallant knight riding to battle can stir the heart of the most craven of men, others say it’s because you suck all the gravitas out of a situation, but either way you won’t be fleeing any time soon.

Pros & Cons:

Pros:

bards are especially good at destroying magic, meaning this build can give even Medea and Sima Yi a run for their money in the anti-magic field. with maxed out charisma, an additional half-proficiency, and advantage from enhance ability, you have an effective +13 on your spellbreaking checks! that’s a 75% chance of breaking through ninth level magic, no matter what spell slots you use.

you’re also great at getting around. no, not like that, I mean you’re a speedy little bugger and you’re hard to pin down, letting you make sure you’re always in the least convenient spot for your enemies.

also you’ve got maxed out charisma and expertise in two different charisma skills, so you can dominate any conversation. whether that’s actually a good thing for your party or not is up to you.       

Cons:

I know I said charger is a bad feat, but it is impressive how poorly it slots into this build. you’ve already got spells that can improve your mobility, so it probably doesn’t help too much there, and not only does it stop you from using your inspiration or divine smites by eating your bonus action, but it prevents you from using your flourishes by keeping you away from the attack action to boot! in a similar vein, mage killer is nice, but if you’re using a lance you’d want to keep people at a ten foot range, not a five foot one, which negates most of the feat.

don’t spend ten levels straight in bard. just don’t. having divine smites or an aura of protection would have been super helpful earlier than we got them, and also we can’t actually use a lance as a spellcasting focus until we’re proficient with them- which currently doesn’t happen until level 11. that’s a long time to wait for a basic part of your build to work right.

the don doesn’t really have any clear direction about what they’re supposed to be doing at any point in time. you could go on defense with powerful anti-magic, or offense with divine smites, but both eat into the same resource and require your full attention to work well. and you might have high charisma, but you have terrible insight, so you’re likely to fall for the first liar you come across- making you the party’s face would be a recipe for disaster. thankfully your deception’s high enough that you can pretend those flaws don’t exist, and everyone will believe you.

[galaxyofhair]

HHNNNGGGH, HERE WE GOOOO

There was a super weird absolute dud sequel to Pitfall for the Ps2 called Pitfall: The Lost Expedition. It’s probably super problematic now (I’m thinking about some of the plot now and yeah holy shit lol) but it was such a cool fucking adventure platformer game. You got to punch monkeys and henchmen in the face, the right stick could sometimes be articulate the right arm to grab things. This game occupies a weird, deep space in my brain.

The other one that I wish got more conversation was Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri--It was like the second or third 4x game Firaxis released. It literally introduced me to 4x games, and its magical.

It’s a super unique, weird sci-fi setting with psychic worms, 90s cheese, and a dash of real world politics. Every time you get a new technology, instead of a quote from a famous historical figure, its a quote from the fake autobiographies and papers written by each leader, narrated by that leader. Some of these fake quotes were so iconic they have stuck with me to this day:

“Not only does God play dice--the dice are loaded!” Chairman Sheng Ji-Yang, Looking God in The Eye

There's a lot of games from our childhood people still talk about However, what's a game you were OBSESSED with as a kid but see no one talk about nowadays? Mine were super princess peach, mario hoops 3on3 and bomberman land touch

[v3joker]

Game of Dice - Phantom Ion (Regular and PLUS) - spin animation

[violetrainbow412-blog]

D20 [E. M]

Eddie Munson x fem!reader

Word count: 2.1k

Summary: Eddie and Max play an innocent game that inevitably ends up focusing on you.

A/N: I really like to imagine that Max and Eddie could have been good friends, so here's a short one. I hope you like it!

Eddie rubbed his eyes as he walked to the door to attend to the knocking. It was pouring rain outside, who the hell could it be?

"Red" he greeted lazily. It was his youngest neighbor, Max, who had taken shelter from the rain on the porch of the trailer.

"My mom isn’t here and I don't have a key, can I stay here?" she asked, to which Eddie nodded and stepped aside to let her pass. After both of them had been nearly killed by Vecna ​​they had grown closer, a friendship blossoming from their common trauma. Eddie sometimes took the girl to school and had visits from her like this on occasion, while he had even learned to play some of Kate Bush on his acoustic guitar for her to listen to. He felt good having the girl around, as he had always wanted a younger sister and somehow he could see her as that.

“Do you want something to eat for dinner?” Eddie asked, pulling a couple of grapes from a fruit bowl to pop into his mouth. Thank Wayne and God at least there was never a shortage of food in that house (or trailer, rather).

"I ate something at Lucas's house"

"Huh, so you were with Sinclair," he sneered and inevitably she blushed "He stopped being a jerk yet?"

"Not yet, but... it's less so now"

"It's less so now," he repeated with amusement. He didn't want to push her too hard so he just flopped down on the couch next to her, not mentioning anything else on the subject. Before she arrived, he was writing a song for the band so he took the notebook back to check how he could improve the lyrics, but the truth was that he abandoned it after a few minutes. He was racking his brains to find something good, but he knew inspiration would come at some point, no pressure. "Do you want to play something?" he murmured, hoping that with that they could beat the boredom.

"Play what?" Eddie held up a finger as a request that she wait and dashed into her room to find a small black and red D20. “No! You know I don't like D&D."

"I know you don't like it, it's not that," he laughed. He motioned for her to come over to the bar and sit in front of him, “We're going to say random things, and then we're going to throw it. If a natural 20 comes up, we have to do it,” he explained. It was simple, nothing dangerous and fun, so she nodded at the idea.

"And what do I have to say?"

"I don't know, whatever you want," he exclaimed as she shrugged. Max thought about it for a moment and then spoke again.

"If I roll a natural 20, you... you're going to go out in the rain for a minute." she rolled the dice on the bar and when she stopped there was a 3 on the top face of it.

“My turn,” Eddie said, taking the object and shaking it in his hand. “If I roll a natural 20, you're going to steal Mike's lunch on Monday.” The girl laughed and nodded as Eddie rolled the dice. This time a 9 came up.

So they went on, beginning with small things, for a long time. The challenges ranged from wearing ridiculous clothes to school to ruining beloved Steve Harrington's hair, but luckily only a couple of those had come to fruition. At some point Max's eyes lit up at an idea and she smirked at the boy.

“If I roll a natural 20, you have to call Y/N and tell her you like her”

Eddie froze at this, not even daring to breathe at the sound of your name. Oh, how could he begin to describe you? He and you had started talking, like most of his new friends, thanks to the disaster that had threatened Hawkins. Chrissy's death in the school gym had shocked everyone and although there was no relationship, most had harshly judged Hellfire under the allegation that they ‘were a cult’ and practiced all that satanic shit. And that's where you came to the rescue, willing to even fight with blows with those who messed with your children. You were very protective of the underage group, and luckily for Eddie, you were also protective of him, even though you barely knew him. Inevitably he got mixed up in the 'Upside Down' stuff and that's how you formally introduced yourself. It had been months since, for reasons still unknown to you, Eddie had saved you and Dustin from a demobat attack and the rest is history.

But he had never discussed his feelings for you with anyone. If he had, he'd probably tell her that he'd felt that way for many years, when he'd seen you sometime in high school, and that he'd been trying to bury that silly crush deep inside his being. But sometimes it was impossible for him, especially when he looked at you in the corridors looking so pretty, with that smile that drove him crazy.

The idea that someone knew how in love he was with you terrified him and in the panic of the moment, he understood that Max wasn't stupid. Any movement would simply give him away.

"And why would I say that?" he murmured, trying not to stutter, as he drummed his fingers on the bar.

"So you deny that it's true?" she responded nimbly, narrowing her eyebrows in his direction. Eddie was silent for a moment and shook his head.

“I don't know what you're talking about” he answered nervously and she laughed.

"Don't be a liar, I've seen how you look at her"

"What?" he half screeched "And how do I look at her?"

“With those goofy eyes of yours. And then your eyelashes flutter like you're a flirtatious schoolgirl”

"Shut up!" he laughed, nudging the redhead slightly. "That's not true."

“Of course it is, we all know that,” she exclaimed with amusement, but that made Eddie's heart clench a little.

"Are you serious?" he asked sadly. He didn't want you to think he was weird or depraved or anything like that and his friend finding out so quickly worried him.

“Well, by everyone I mean just Dustin and me. Maybe Robin and if she knows so does Steve, who probably told Nancy…”

"Okay, I got it, everyone knows I'm head over heels in love with Y/N."

"So you admit it?"

"Mayfield!" he complained, pouting. "Just forget it, it's stupid and she'd never pay attention to me." Eddie snorted, visibly sad.

“Oh, c’mon, don't be discouraged. I know you're not the best and you smell a little ugly but maybe she can get to like you” he tried to encourage him, but Eddie let out an offended laugh “Listen, we've rolled the dice so many times and it's never come up a 20, what could happen?” the younger murmured, holding out the dice to her friend. "Just do it, just like I ate that horrible thing you had in the fridge," she practically demanded.

Eddie sighed and took the dice in his hands to shake it a couple of times before throwing it on the table. One, two, three turns and he finally stopped.

20.

“It has to be a joke,” Eddie groaned, staring in disbelief at the result.

"Well, I guess it's fate, Munson," Max sneered. The boy was pale because he knew perfectly well that his friend wouldn’t forgive him for the dare.

“But how am I going to tell her? It's going to be super weird, she's going to freak out!" he muttered worriedly, unconsciously biting off a piece of his fingernail.

“Just call her and explain that you want to tell her something, and tell her. It’s not complicated” 

“Easy for you to say,” he screeched. The two of them argued for a bit until Max practically forced him to comply, after all it had been his idea of ​​the game in the first place.

“I don't know her phone number, to begin with.” He tried to excuse himself, but Max recited it from memory. Both your number and Steve's and of course her mother's were engraved in her brain for emergencies.

Eddie took a deep breath as he punched in the digits and with each passing second, he became more convinced that this was a terrible idea. But Max was right, he had to comply and he wasn't going to look stupid in front of a girl.

"Hello?" your soft voice asked. He jumped when he heard you and froze "Is anyone there?"

“Hello, Y/N”

"Eddie?" you murmured at his stutter "How did you get my number?" you said from the other side of the line. You sounded a little confused but the truth was that you were just curious. Eddie was a company you were enjoying a lot lately, always being goofy and pretty without even trying.

"Max…" he exclaimed, but his response sounded more like a question.

"What happened to her? She is fine?"

"Yes, she is wonderful" he continued, avoiding at all costs having to make his confession. But Maxine’s questioning look across the bar didn't help much. "But I asked her because… huh, well… I wanted to tell you something important."

“Oh, something important?” you asked and he nodded, wanting to punch himself realizing you couldn't see him. Max obviously laughed at this. "Sure, tell me," you exclaimed cheerfully, even if you hadn't received a verbal response. That was when Eddie felt his palms sweat and a knot form in his stomach. How could he say that he liked you? "Ed?"

"I'm here," he exclaimed shakily. Shit, he was just going to say it “I just wanted to tell you that I really like you… rrr hair”

Max looked at him in confusion and Eddie closed his eyes as he let his head fall back. He had chickened out at the last moment and just hoped he hadn't sounded too stupid, which he probably had.

“My hair?” you exclaimed, hearing yourself confused even through the phone.

“Hjm” he hummed “And I wanted to ask you what product you use because it always looks so soft and silky and I would love mine to look like that”

"Oh," you exhaled, still a little weirded out by things. That wasn’t the direction that Eddie would have wanted for the talk, but it would be necessary to improvise “I use a shampoo and a conditioner of the same brand, in addition to drying it after I shower. But my hair is a bit straighter than yours, pretty, that's why it looks like this."

"Super, you can tell me where you bought it later and I'll go get them" he mumbled, trying to ignore the fact that you had called him pretty "Thank you very much, Y/N"

“Did you call me in the middle of the night just to ask me what hair product I use?” you said amused, letting out a giggle that wasn't meant to be mocking. Eddie also laughed on the other end of the phone.

“I'm sorry, you know when I have something on my mind, I can't get it out of my head” he apologized. Max, who was witnessing everything, was looking at him with murderous eyes.

“Your curls are cute either way. I like them"

"Really?" he said, with one of the goofiest smiles.

"Yes. Even if you want…”

"Yeah?"

“There are some products to define curls and if you want to invest in something that would be a good option. I can accompany you one day”

"Please. I only know the 5-in-1 shampoo that my uncle buys” he confessed and you burst out laughing.

"You need urgent help then," I snorted, making him laugh softly. There was a short silence and although neither of you could see each other each had a loving smile.

"Thanks again. Have a good night"

"Rest, Eddie"

“You too,” he said, and even though he didn't want to do it he had to hang up. He didn't need more than a glance from his redheaded friend to start whimpering “I panicked! Okay? And technically I told her… in a roundabout way, but I did.”

“You’re a complete fool”

"Someday I'm going to tell her, don't push me" he snorted, walking to the couch and flopping down "Forget that stupid game, come and pick a movie, and don't say anything anymore" he groaned as he crossed his arms. Max just shook his head in amusement and did as he asked, not saying a word about it.

After all, she knew that, with a little effort, that boy could finally tell you how he felt about you. Someday he would.

TAG LIST: @sweetdayme4427 @smol-book-nerd @ilikewomendealwithit @harringt8ns @katsukis1wife @ilovereadingfanfics

[hiccanna-tidbits]

The RotBTD+ Gang Plays DnD! (Feat. my ships, sorry not sorry XD)

So highkey I’ve actually been wanting to do a “The Gang Plays DnD” type post for AGES now, but then I saw @hobie-brown and @ohlooksheswriting-wips do DnD AU posts for RotBTD, and then I was like “Ah shit, I really should finish mine, eh?” So thank you to both of you for inspiring me to get off my ass and actually write the post!!!

Hiccup DMs. He comes up with this super complex plot revolving around dragons (because of course) where the party has to dismantle this society ruled by evil knights who want to genocide all of the dragons. Imagine his chagrin when the party wants to do nothing but fuck around in towns and aggravate NPCs 90% of the time.

They usually end up playing at Jack’s apartment, mainly because Hiccup’s dad doesn’t really want a bunch of loud nerds yelling about 20-sided dice in his household while he’s trying to work, if he can at all help it. Jack’s sister regularly barges into their living room and roasts the fuck out of Jack and his friends for being such damn nerds and eats all of their DnD snacks they’ve set out. If they’re in the middle of a combat session, she always gleefully proclaims that they’re all going to die. While Jack is annoyed by this, the rest of the party finds it deeply hilarious.

Jack Overland plays the absolute mayhem warlock Jack Frost, who got his powers through making a deal with the archfey Prince of Frost and has absolutely no qualms about being an evil god’s mortal Sower of Chaos. He spends the vast majority of the campaign doing such useful things as creating ice slicks under annoying NPCs and freezing people’s drinks. He also plays a Tiefling because absolutely no one can talk this boy out of playing the creepy demon race.

Rapunzel plays a woodland nymph druid who is also the party healer (because of course she is). Her name is probably Sunlily or something else suitably hippie-esque. Whenever there’s downtime (or whenever the rest of the party is also dicking around, and she can get away with it), Rapunzel likes to go into the nearest forest and pick the best berries and nuts for the rest of the party. She also loves baking fruit pies and cooking the best nymph food for her companions when given the chance. Definitely the party Cinnamon Roll (every party has one!). She often will turn into cute animals to distract the guards while the party infiltrates a building.

Merida’s character is the party archer and general ranged weapon master, as well as a raging lesbian. Hiccup learns very quickly that any male NPC who tries to flirt with her will very quickly get impaled with an arrow. She can’t ever decide if she wants to be a ranger or a rogue, so she multiclasses in both for flare. She also plays a Tiefling, and continually insists that her character is both scarier and sexier than Jack’s. In combat, she either Leeroy Jenkins her way in with a sword and just starts slashing every which way, or just shoots 90% of the enemies with arrows before the fight even starts. There’s really no in between. She can get away with this because she’s highkey one of the party tanks, and consistently deals a shitton of damage.

Anna plays a human bard, basically having read over the class options and going “Wait, in this one I get to make stylish medieval music??? And wear dramatic and garish outfits and a dumb hat??? And cast wacky illusion spells??? And do silly little magic tricks??? And INSPIRE EVERYONE??? Hell yeah, I’m in!!!” She mostly uses magic attacks in combat (definitely favors Tasha’s Hideous Laughter), but occasionally when she’s out of spell slots she’ll just take to slamming enemies in the face with her lute. She also has WAY too much fun with Vicious Mockery, let’s be real.

Elsa, upon hearing Jack’s character concept, rolls her eyes so far up in her head she can see her damn brain, and vows to play his concept, but serious–solely out of spite. She rolls up a super OP elf Chaos Sorcerer, filled with lots of brooding angst about how uncontrollable her winter powers can get if she isn’t careful. She combines it a bit with Storm Sorcerer so she can create literal blizzards, and Hiccup ends up allowing it just because he thinks it’s cool. Although Elsa’s character is undoubtedly aggravated by the rest of the party’s antics, she starts becoming grudgingly protective of these idiots and can deal some pretty crazy damage when her companions are threatened. She also contains one of the party’s only brain cells.

Eugene of course plays dashing rogue master thief Flynn Rider. Although his high deception and lockpicking skills certainly come in handy, he’s the most chaotic neutral fucker you’ve ever met and will take any excuse to rob NPCs blind or cheat them out of every cent they have in a tavern card game. It’s nigh impossible to get him to cooperate with the rest of the party much of the time, and often Elsa’s character has to either bribe him with some of her family’s gold or threaten to freeze him to stop him backstabbing one or more party members. Eugene’s character forces Hiccup to add in many more heist plotlines than he originally intended. This delights Eugene immensely, and sometimes he goes a bit crazy planning elaborate heists.

Moana plays a sorcerer water genasi. She can control any body of water, but she has a special affinity for controlling saltwater (i.e. the ocean lol). She also requests an animal handling bonus, but only with marine animals, solely because she thought it would be funny. She’s also an ex-pirate who robbed a lot of wealthy merchant ships and freed their slaves back in the day, which Merida thinks is incredibly badass. Moana tends to get bored and unengaged when there are no bodies of water to play around with, so Hiccup ends up having to add a lot more lakes, rivers, and oceans to the campaign than he originally planned on. Moana also takes a sailing skill, and thus the party often ends up traveling by boat. Typically Eugene and Rapunzel will infiltrate and hijack it, and Moana will sail it. Moana probably contains the party’s only other brain cell.

Astrid plays a gigantic berserker orc barbarian who is never without his trusty axe. Astrid is hands down the party’s top tank, and unquestionably deals the most damage every combat session. Much like Merida’s character, Astrid’s character is absolutely a shameless power fantasy. Hiccup pretty easily picks up on this, but is too polite to say anything about it. Jack also picks up on this, but is hardly as courteous as their DM, and teases Astrid mercilessly. Astrid is not amused.

Rapunzel requests that her weapon of choice be a frying pan, her justification being that her character found a discarded one at the edge of a human village outside her woods and mistaked it for a highly-dangerous human weapon. Hiccup is like “…you know what? Fuck it” and rolls up stats for a goddamn frying pan. Jack has nigh-endless admiration for Rapunzel for choosing such a goddamn memey, absurd, yet oddly effective weapon and it definitely makes the poor boy even more smitten with her than he already is.

Eugene and Merida have a bet going on who can sleep with more sexy barmaids. Merida is currently winning, much to Eugene’s chagrin. She’s not even inherently better at seducing NPCs, she and Eugene have the same charisma stat–she just consistently rolls better than Eugene. Eugene is incredibly salty about this.

Anna and Elsa want to be sisters in-game as well, but neither want to change their race–so Anna decides her character was adopted. Hiccup and the rest of the party go along with it, mainly because there’s something deeply hilarious about a regular human bard being adopted and raised by a family of high-powered elf ice mages.

Astrid is absolutely the sort of player who tends to get bored and restless outside of fights, and tends to fidget and twiddle her thumbs waiting for the next combat session. Jack picks up on this, and purposely does more roleplay for longer just to piss her off. He’s also just a very dramatic fucker and highkey loves roleplay.

When she’s not causing mayhem around the town or sleeping with hot women, Merida tries to entertain Astrid between combat sessions by offering to spar with her. Unfortunately, this does not usually end well for poor Merida, as even the most hardcore and badass of tieflings is prone to getting dumpstered by an 8-foot-tall barbarian orc with an axe. Astrid is, nonetheless, grateful to have someone to fight.

Rapunzel, Elsa, and Moana will humor Hiccup and attempt to actually play the main plot. Meanwhile, Jack, Merida, and Eugene are a DM’s worst nightmare. They constantly derail the damn campaign to fuck around, cause mayhem, and do inane shenanigans in every. Damn. Town. They go to. Anna is kind of a wildcard–she’ll typically go with whatever group looks like they’re going to be doing something more interesting. Astrid will go along with whichever group is more likely to get into a fight–which, often as not, is Jack and his posse of terrible Chaotic Neutrals (who have definitely pissed off a number of NPCs into attacking them).

As the campaign goes on, Elsa and Eugene become the beleaguered Party Mom and Dad. Both are quite aggravated by this–especially poor Eugene, who just wanted to play a morally-gray charming rogue who stole everything and got away with it and then accidentally ended up caring about these idiots he got stuck with.

Anna initially joins the campaign because she has a planet-size crush on Hiccup, and inevitably is the one who dragged Elsa into it too. Being the hopeless romantic that she is, Anna writes a love interest into her backstory. Hiccup eventually has the party run into said love interest, and Anna is overjoyed. He starts flirting with her as the love interest, and it’s easily the best 30 minutes of Anna’s life.

Moana and Elsa also give Hiccup pretty detailed backstories, and he works in little subplots for them. Moana gets to bring water back to a dying part of the jungle in the middle of a draught, while Elsa gets to go on a whole sidequest to explore her family history and how they came to be sorcerers.

Jack, Merida, and Eugene also give Hiccup fairly elaborate backstories, but Jack’s and Merida’s are like 99% memes and Dumb Shit. Hiccup tries to give all of them backstory-related plot hooks, but inevitably any hooks he provides are either stabbed, robbed, or frozen. Honestly any plot hook offered to these 3 will be all but spat in the face of and tossed off a cliff.

The one relevant part of Eugene’s backstory is that he and Rapunzel decide they used to be partners in crime before the campaign started. Rapunzel would infiltrate and scout out places he wanted to rob as small, unobtrusive animals (her preferred Wild Shape is a chameleon) and later distract the guards as a bunny or kitten while he went in and took every gold coin in sight. In return, Flynn Rider would bribe builders to not develop into Sunlily’s forest. Rapunzel and Eugene partly came up with this For Funsies, but also it was Rapunzel’s sneaky way of tricking Eugene into having prior connections in the party so he’d be less likely to betray them. It works pretty well–although the entire party is protective of Cinnamon Roll Sunlily, Flynn is certainly especially protective of her.

Astrid does the absolute bare minimum as far as backstories go. She is literally just here to smash stuff, slice people, and beat some fuckers up.

Rapunzel has a backstory, but she’s typically so invested in the main plot and the other party members that Hiccup rarely needs to bring it in to keep her engaged. She’s highkey the party emotional rock, and probably the only one keeping them all together.

On that note, Rapunzel’s character is the ONLY one who can get Jack’s character to take the plot even REMOTELY seriously. Like he’ll be dicking around in the nearest tavern challenging the nearest orc to a drinking game, and Rapunzel will come in and ask him to help them on a Main Plot Quest. And he’ll be like “come onnnnn I’m having funnn” and she’ll be like “Jack pleeeeeease?” and you just. Can’t resist Sunlily’s puppy dog eyes. At all. Also, whenever Sunlily is genuinely threatened, any silliness immediately goes out the window and Jack Frost is OUT FOR BLOOD.

For better or for worse, Rapunzel is not immune to being looped into Jack’s shenanigans. Occasionally if either Merida or Eugene have a particularly hare-brained scheme she’ll go along with it, but by and large Jack is the most successful in convincing her to temporarily abandon the plot and cause mild mischief with him. They once wasted half a session creating an elaborate “ice theme park” for some squirrels in the forest.

Hiccup tries to get Merida to play the main plot by eventually having there be no more sexy female NPCs to seduce in the towns they go to. Unfortunately, this backfires–Merida just hooks up with Moana’s character instead. When asked to roll for how good the lay is, Merida gets a nat 20–and thus her character and Moana’s character end up hooking up regularly throughout the rest of the campaign.

Hiccup introduces a few Wise Old Mentor-type NPCs to guide the party throughout the campaign. While Rapunzel, Elsa, Moana, and Anna actually try to listen to them and take their advice, Merida, Jack, and Eugene absolutely refuse to take them seriously and mercilessly play pranks on them.

At one point, Hiccup gives the party the option to attempt to tame a group of wild dragons and use them as mounts. They all have to make animal handling checks. Anna, Rapunzel, Elsa, and Moana pass. The rest of the party fails, with Jack and Eugene crit-failing. Hilarity ensues.

Hiccup ends up bringing back Anna’s backstory love interest as an NPC regular. Anna thinks he’s just being a good friend and a good DM and trying to incorporate her backstory as much as he can, but really, he just wants an excuse to regularly flirt with her. He hardly has the balls to out-of-game.

Merida comes out as gay toward the end of the campaign. Everyone in the group is extremely supportive, of course, but everyone is also like “Merida…with the amount of barmaids you’ve banged…and the amount of times you and Moana’s character hooked up…this isn’t exactly surprising.”

Hiccup actually finds a way to use Jack and Elsa’s same-concept-opposite-execution characters to the plot’s advantage. He decides one of the main villains will have a prophecy saying he’ll be taken down by a powerful ice mage. The party manages to fool this guy into thinking this ice mage is Jack, and sends Jack to fight him. As soon as the villain sees Jack, he’s like “WHAT??? THIS clown???” (word has absolutely spread throughout the land of Jack not using his ice powers for anything besides mildly annoying trolling). Naturally, the bad guy lets his guard down after thinking he’s going to fight this literal joke, and then Elsa crashes in from the side and absolutely dumpsters him.

Jack tries to defeat the final boss by just annoying him so much that he leaves. Unfortunately, he just annoys him so much that he attacks Rapunzel’s character. Jack’s just like “oh HELL no” and attacks with absolutely nothing held back. Turns out he’s pretty terrifying when he’s not using his magic for Dumb Antics.

During the final boss of the campaign, the Big Bad tries to one-shot Moana’s character, and Merida’s character super theatrically jumps in front of her to take the blow instead. Rapunzel just barely manages to heal Merida’s character, but it’s a really close call. During all this, Merida is like “ah shit...maybe I’m NOT just in this to get fantasy-laid.” After the fight’s over, her and Moana’s characters have a big dramatic love confession and share a Big Damn Kiss in front of everyone. It’s pretty epic.

After the final session of the campaign, Merida drags Moana outside Jack’s apartment and sputters and trips over her words for a solid minute before she finally gets out that through all this nonsense...well...maybe it’s not just in the game that she thinks Moana is hot. Moana just gets this HUGE grin on her face and says “c’mere, Leeroy Jenkins” and just pulls Merida in and kisses her. Cue the rest of the party barging in on them. Merida and Moana freeze, and there’s a moment of terrified silence...and then the entire party starts cheering them on like “took you long enough!”

The entire rest of the party could detect the sexual tension. Literally all of them.

But Eugene is like “HA, THIS MEANS IF WE DO A SEQUEL CAMPAIGN I’M WINNING THAT BET! BECAUSE YOU’RE GONNA BE DATING MO’S CHAR AND THUS NOT ABLE TO SLEEP WITH ANY MORE BARMAIDS!”

By the epilogue session, Jack and Rapunzel are dating. Merida and Moana are also dating. Hiccup and Anna STILL haven’t figured out why they’re so prone to spending half the session flirting when Anna’s love interest shows up, and Hiccup STILL hasn’t figured out why he likes to have Anna’s love interest show up so often. Bless their souls. Maybe they’ll figure it out next campaign...?

Damn I actually really like this...maybe if people like it I’ll do some incorrect quotes or a drabble or something??? Or maybe some HCs from next campaign???

[gement]

I broke down and started an actual character build... which immediately turned into three and was actually a mental RP of a live character roll-up session with my usual group, which I think had some useful advice on how to guide that and also was a HELL of a lot of fun. tl;dr I have accidentally generated a villain trio who are ready to assassinate God with extreme prejudice.

And eat Him, obviously.

(Apologies, I did not come up with formal names.)

Cellophane

Ethos 4, Pathos 5, Logos 6

Undercooked, Roving Members, Polycephalous [* pick]

Art of Emulation

Cellophane is kind of poorly-drawn, sparsely-haired, and Moomin-like. Xir formal name probably includes "The whole is more than the sum of its parts" even though Aristotle didn't actually write that as the others keep telling xem. Xir pushmi-pullyu paws-wandering-off bullshit is fucking terrifying.

Smiles

Ethos 5, Pathos 3, Logos 7

Vile Venom (Necrotic), Striking Mien (Trustworthy), Wicked Weapon (Teeth)

Art of Conveyance [* pick]

You would think that a snake as thick as a human arm, with enormous teeth dripping black venom and capable of chewing concrete, who just casually blipped out of nowhere to coil comfortably just behind your ankle, would freak you out. You'd think that. He seems so nice, though. It's probably the cravat.

[Someone has already inquired how the cravat holds its shape. It is tucked into his little suit jacket. Obviously. No, the jacket does not have arms, but in a masterwork of tailoring, it does have a tasteful hint of a suggestion of shoulders.]

Mem'ry

Ethos 4, Pathos 7, Logos 4 [* reroll]

Amphibious, Copious Fluids (Slippery), Chameleonic [* swap]

Art of Multiplicity

Mem'ry's dreams of Broadway stardom were dashed just because she's a 50cm high octopus from a deicidal cult. Her ability to multiply into arbitrarily long coordinated chorus lines, flashing threat displays and twirling her legs in unison while kicking ass, is pretty impressive as long as she doesn't freak out and start inking everything. (Do not remind her.)

[Octopus doesn't mean Mem'ry can use Dexterous or Hundred-Handed or those other things, she just looks fancy. Until the day we get bored and switch some out.]

Build Experience Notes

[*] not rolled or not first roll

I found the idea of actually picking a character completely overwhelming for a game this silly when I didn't have a plan to play it and constraints spur creativity, so I picked up my dice... but I knew "take the first thing you roll" would also just piss me off. So I pretended there were three of us, which was basically what you recommended anyway, and this is what happened:

Basically, we used the dice in conjunction with the Roger Rabbit rule to say "We will find a way to obey the dice as often as we can make it funny."

Third person rerolled Facets because we looked at the three and said we had too similar a set of stats. We also would have swapped around or manually adjusted immediately if someone strongly preferred playing "the [whatever] one" because stats are a PITA and less of a creative thing.

We rolled one trait at a time, and every time there was a duplicate, the person who already had the trait had the option to keep it or cross it off and let the new roller have it. (I know we could also decide to duplicate them, but meh. More interesting to spread out the powers.) This allowed a lot of flexibility and horse-trading while still giving the dice significant control of what came into play. That "keep or pass" mechanic was great.

We marked ? for all those 6X blanks on the table, but mostly chose to reroll them because making up new ones sounded like work. One on the last round of Traits seemed like a good chance to allow a swap and manual pick where the character concepts were really coming together. Keeping a couple of those 6X slots free if you don't think of really great things to do with them would both prompt "invent your own trait" and leave space for other wildcard mechanics that players like me come up with.

I did sensible little "only if it was funny" tweaks like crossing out the 3 Mien options that didn't make sense for Smiles, but still actually rolled between the other 3 and DANG, I was not expecting to end up with the 1/3 chance of the absurd Trustworthy option. This character is ridiculous. Thanks, dice!

Other thoughts

I saw you talking about another set of traits and that frankly just sounds like more to keep track of. Let's be horrible little animals and go eat God already.

With my schedule being The Way That It Is lately, I don't know when I'll be able to pull together a complete and playable version of Eat God, so I'm hoping this will sustain interest until that time comes. This document contains the complete character creation rules, more or less, incorporating reader feedback from the previous thread.

For those who've expressed interest in giving the character creation rules a spin, well, here you go!

For those just joining us (and anyone who's been following this blog all along but has somehow managed to miss every single previous post), Eat God is a tabletop roleplaying game where you play as a bunch of small muppety critters who are – as the title suggests – on a mission to kill and eat God. Its inspirations include... well, I'm going to let y'all work that out for yourselves.

As always, comments, criticisms, and bizarre rants welcome, though I can't promise I'll be able to respond in any timely fashion.

[godinmyhands]

Tag Dump!

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 142

Another late chapter... I’m really batting a thousand lately, seems like.

So, work has been insane, but @baelpenrose reminds me to post when I forget, thankfully. And this is SUCH a fun chapter.  I hope you all enjoy!

I dropped into a seat in Mess Hall Seven with a groan, so exhausted that I barely managed to get soup and a grilled cheese from the console.  Tyche yawned and nodded in agreement before poking at her sushi bowl idly. It was six Von-days after the last drill, and between coordinating increased training schedules for Shelters Three and Seven and helping Charly plan kink-night at the Undine, we were wiped.

“People are ungrateful,” she muttered before managing to barely balance a piece of salmon into her mouth.

I muttered something that hopefully sounded like agreement before I scooped up a bite of my soup with one wedge of sandwich, too lazy to even bother with the spoon. “Remind me why we don’t have Vati and Hannah handling the practice schedules?”

“Because they are handling the extra evacuation drills with Jokul and Arthur.”

Personally, I thought they were getting the better end of this deal, but since the raging success of their first Food Festival, it really was only fair. “And the relocations for those who need it,” I admitted. “Except mine.”

“Conor may actually strangle one of them if any of your plants don’t make it,” she pointed out, gesturing with her chopsticks for emphasis after having given up and using her fingers to eat her lunch. “Not to mention I wouldn’t wish packing with Maverick on anyone.”

“He’s letting me pack the books and textiles.” I shrugged in acceptance after taking another bite of soup-dipped sandwich.

We picked at our food in silence after that, grateful for something resembling a reprieve, before we were interrupted by a flurry of grey hair and enthusiasm landing in one of the nearby chairs with a heavy thunk. “Good afternoon, Madams Reid.”

“Hey, Jokul,” I muttered as Tyche just waggled her fingers at him. I really think I liked it better when he was trying to kill me. Right now, I might even let him do it.

“I know you are both on your meal period, but I wanted to test the waters on potentially scheduling a community activity,” he rushed out.

Tyche guarded her lunch with an almost feral aggression, having heard what happened the last time Jokul had interrupted my lunch. “That should really be something you run by Al-”

“Worthington, yes, I know,” he interrupted. “However, I know you are both quite busy and I wanted to be respectful of your time. As such, I will make this as brief as - ow!” He snatched his hand back away from the other half of my sandwich, rubbing where I had slammed my spoon down onto it.

“I have no idea where the food stealing comes from, but don’t,” I warned him.

“Rude, got it,” he nodded in a terrifying impression of Charly’s normal demeanor. “As I was saying, I recently learned a new type of game from Terra, from the Before.  It involves teamwork, and encourages creativity and escapism, and I think it would be a very good community activity - “

I surrendered to my urge to groan. “We are not doing a redux of Settlers of Cattan. Arthur stabbed someone last time.”

“I didn’t press charges…” Jokul pouted, glancing at the scar on the back of his wrist briefly. “Besides, it was only a fork. Clearly he didn’t mean it, there were four knives in arms reach counting my own.”

Tyche cocked an eyebrow at me. Seriously?

I pursed my lips and wrinkled my nose in response. Yep.

“So what game is it this time?” I asked hesitantly.

I was reward-bombarded with a grin. “It’s called Dungeons and Dragons! Somewhat like a video game, but with more people, and using writing implements and paper. Oh, and different kinds of dice, very important. One person is something of the narrator, to give the game a kind of structure, while the other players act as characters in the game… Ivan introduced me to it, and it is quite challenging with the right people.  The dungeon master - that is the narrator - has to re-evaluate the story based on the actions of the other players, but the players themselves don’t know what the dungeon master is going to do. It is very much a social diversion, and there are many classes….”

As Jokul continued to gush, he was rather oblivious to the fact that Tyche and I were stuffing our faces as quickly as possible to avoid interrupting him or laughing. We had both played when we were younger - in fact, we had been introduced to the game by our mother.  There had even been a very overwhelming pop-culture movement in our youth around the game, which further emphasized just how far out in the boonies Jokul had grown up.  As shocking as it was that he was just now discovering the game, it came at exactly zero surprise that he enjoyed it so much - it was right up his alley of interests.

About fifteen minutes and two more grilled cheeses into his retelling of the campaign he was part of, Charly and Arthur squeezed in with us, their own lunches in tow.  As seemed to be a growing trend, Arthur reached over and snagged one of my sandwiches before I could react, shoving half of it in his face.

That was apparently enough to snap Jokul out of his story. “Hey! Why didn’t you hit him?”

“His deathwish, not my problem,” I shrugged.

Around the remains of my lunch, Arthur managed to enunciate. “Told you, Noah fissed the dairy allergy.”

“Bleargh,” I gagged comically. “It’s okay, think I’m done anyway.”

Jokul’s hand swatted Arthur’s out of the way to steal the rest of my food. “As I was saying, Ivan was quite clever with his resolution to deal subdural damage to the player who was very much ruining the storyline by insisting his character was immune to magical sleep…”

“Oooooo! I love tabletops!” Charly squealed, bouncing in her seat. “What setting are you playing in right now?  My favorite was always Exalted…”

“Miss Harper, I think we are discussing different activities.” Jokul sounded supremely confused, but my heart broke a bit.

Arthur shook his head. “Maybe not Exalted, but what about Ebberron? Swordhaven, maybe?  Just tell me it isn’t Ravenloft… I know you haven’t been fucking around in a Dark Sun, but I beg you to tell me you aren’t playing Ravenloft.”

“I’m not sure what those are… Ivan introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons. There is only one setting.”

“So… Greyhawk or homebrew,” Arthur nodded. “Best place to start, get the basics down.”

Jokul’s head pivoted toward me and Tyche, squinting in annoyance. “You knew, didn’t you? And you let me prattle on…”

“You were so… happy….” I explained plaintively. “We didn’t want to ruin that for you.”

Tyche nodded. “We both remember how fun that first campaign is. And honestly? We’ve been having a kind of crappy day.  It was nice to hear someone be excited about something that isn’t work related.”

“But I came to you to discuss making it a ship activity…”

“Originally, yeah,” I shrugged. “That was maybe the first thirty seconds.  After that, you were doing what literally every tabletop roleplaying person has done since the beginning of time… telling stories about the fun, dramatic, and frankly stupid shit the people in your party are doing.”

“Says the two-foot eight halfling rogue,” Arthur scowled.

“I rolled it at random, it was fifteen years ago, get over it!” I threw my hands up dramatically. “At least I wasn’t mated to a frickin’ deity.”

Charly giggled uncontrollably while Jokul goggled at us. “Exalted is broken in all the fun ways.”

“You literally sacrificed, and I quote ‘all of your fucks to give’, for necromancy.”

“That was your idea!”

Jokul turned toward Tyche, waiting for her to say something. She just held up her hands defensively. “I was a murder monk-bunny.”

Arthur snorted. “You were the Black Rabbit of Inle….”

“Well if my wife would have just stopped dying…!”

“At least none of us were the Platinum Knight who pissed his pants every time he confronted his favored enemy,” I laughed. “He never did live that one down. Every. Single. Dragon. He would crit fail his roles.”

“Oh, please,” Arthur intoned drily. “Did I ever tell you about the time one of my players managed to make ‘Notice me, Senpai’ into the most terrifying in-universe warcry imaginable?”

Charly choked before swatting his shoulder. “Not in front of my pasta. Please.”

Jokul, however, looked both horrified and intrigued, egging Arthur on. “Barbarian whose entire clan worshipped a god named The Senpai…. Just imagine, a barbarian in a rage, bellowing ‘NOTICE ME, SENPAI!!!’ before just scything down thirty men with a broadsword.”

At this point, I was laughing so hard that tears were rolling down my face. “Please, please tell me there was a kilt and pigtails involved….”

Jokul touched his own hair, before straightening as seriously as possible. “They are warrior’s braids, Councillor.”

That was it, I couldn’t take it anymore. I just put my head down on my folded arms and waiting to either pass out from laughing so hard or from exhaustion.  A few deep breaths and a spinning head later, I managed to wipe my face on my sleeve and realized the conversation was continuing without me.  Just as I was clearing my throat to let Jokul know he should be fine to start organizing something and to send me a rough outline, Arthur dealt the final blow.

Leaning over, he whispered over my shoulder. “By the way, the barbarian’s name was Drystan of the Doki-doki tribe.”

I was proud that I managed to get up and dash into the hallway before collapsing against the wall in maniacal laughter.  I barely registered Hannah’s voice behind me asking everyone at the table if I needed medical assistance, and that did not help.

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[captainsspnanon]

ESO Pt 1:  Death & Taxes - liveblog

Starting the ESO one shots, because why the fuck not.

Hi Laura.  You now own me.  HOLY FUCK.

Sam’s PC is actually reminding me a little bit of FCG?  Not entirely sure why

lol at Taliesin’s PC being in charge of food again.  Is Taliesin a big fan of cooking?

...I miss long hair and beard Matt.  Yes, the look does age him, but he looks fucking DASHING.

LOL at Sam THROWING Slaughter’s entire backstory out in the first *checks time* 12 minutes.  And that’s counting the intro and title card sequence!

Michelle is new to me and I already adore her.  I do need the PC cards though, I can’t remember like, ANY of their names!  I only remember Slaughter because of the list of family names.

HOA!  Thank you Aabria and Laura for saying it!

...Laura playing a surly orc is SENDING me places, omg

Slaughter’s not really hitting for me at the moment, I feel like Sam likes to play these super uncertain nervous one off characters (his Critmas elf is what I’m thinking of) and it just feels a bit overplayed?  Or like, heavy handed?  One note?  Not sure how best to describe it.  (though even as I’m typing this I’m remember his Lorelei PC was very boisterous and not nervous at all, so maybe not XD)

“Aren’t we all new beings on this beautiful planet that we call” *helphelphelp* LOL new geography who dis?

A handful of gold but no tip?  How much does a single ale cost?!??!?

And Mallory has now won me over too.  I love how much Tal is just cracking up everyone else with stuff that, in context, has no humor at all.  It’s BRILLIANT.  (also I keep wanting to type Molly, so that’s gonna be a thing)

also, I am DELIGHTED whenever anyone can make Matt break when he’s in character, and Tal did it FABULOUSLY.  I feel like Matt’s the hardest to break, with Liam next, and then maybe Laura next?  Though Sam’s good at not breaking, I feel like that’s more of it’s harder to make him laugh than the others.  HE’S GOT HIGHER STANDARDS XD

LAURA IS FAKING THEIR TAXES!!!!  also I full on don’t remember her name, except that it starts with a G.  Aabria I think is playing Tavina?  Which I can only remember by thinking Tavern.

OH GOD LAURA YOUR ROLLS

New proprietors have to carry over debts from previous proprietors????  I am desperately hoping that this is just a thing made up for the game solely because I wouldn’t be surprised if this was something that actually happened in the US now.  (pretty sure it doesn’t, but still.  I have no hope in the world anymore.)

Also this is making me giggle a little because imagine that Laura had rolled a nat 20 for the dex check and a nat 20 for the deception check and Matt just went ‘yup all your taxes are in order, whatever plot hook this is is now gone, enjoy just randomly serving customers for the next three hours’ XD  It’d never happen, but it’s fun to picture

I’d totally be on the ‘let’s just murder hobo this dude’ train, but they are very respectful of obvious plot hook. XD

Then again I just realized this dude’s been drinking glass in his wine, he’s probably dead man walking

I am super surprised that Matt’s not teasing Aabria about the DM curse.  Though, did this come out before ExU or after?  Maybe they were trying to keep that hidden?

*looks through the comments because it’s late at night and I’ve lost focus*  Someone described Mallory as a cross between Caduceus and The Owlbear and that feels spot on.

Oh dear, with combat not being standard 5e stuff I’m used to, it’s definitely going to have me zone out during.  All weird spells and stuff….at least it’s the standard action/bonus action/movement it seems.

Oh hey, the only clip of this I’ve ever seen!  Which is Laura swapping out her dice mid-game XD  I lean towards Liam and Sam’s view of dice which is that the dice don’t care, but I do adore Laura’s rituals and such.

Plot device note found on a 6.  Yup!  Those you gotta find even on the nat 1s, just to make sure that plot can move along.

Sam goofing around that he doesn’t play ESO makes me wonder how they decide who among the main cast is going to be in the one shots.  I always assuming that Liam’s in a ton of one shots because he loves d&d so much, whereas Sam is in a bunch of one shots because he’s the humor boy, but it does make me think.  *looks at actual attendance*  So Liam is in 31, Matt in 30, Sam and Tal at 29, Marisha at 28, Laura at 27, Travis at 24, and Ashley unsurprisingly at 11 (which I’m sure will pick up more now that blindspot is no more).  (aww, it looks like Matt only got to play in 7 of them, had to DM the rest).  You know, look at that now it’s actually way more balanced than I would have suspected!  Though also looking at these, not sure if I’d actually count some of them as Critical Role one shots, as it includes the Campaign Tips/Critical Troll, as well as the Kinda Funny and Gamespot one shots as well.  ...what is this Sloth and Sundry?  *takes a peek* ….OKAY watching this next, I think.  And the Stephen Colbert one shot is on here too….. ALRIGHT so my own headcanon list of what counts toward the ‘official’ count and whatnot is clearly skewed, so I give up XD

Speaking of costumes (we weren’t but that’s okay) I hope that everyone is a comfortable temperature.  This group is such a mix of costume weights that I feel like either Michelle’s got to be freezing, or Taliesin and Sam are going to start sweating.  Glad that Michelle’s ears look to be on a headband though, I was worried she had them actually on her ears cause that would be painful as fuck for any longish period of time.

Wow I have never seen Matt basically give someone proficiency just to get them past the point where they are stuck.  (again, difference of a one shot vs a campaign, but still!)  This group is rolling SO BAD.  Also they have super low HP, so I wonder if they’re like, level 2/level 3?

Laura asks for and gets flanking, and then doesn’t roll with advantage XD  aw bby

Ah!  She remembers! Yay!

Grelnock is giving me the Barbarian!Laura that I’ve wanted.  Tanky damage dealer, yes pls

It’s an interesting combination, I’m enjoying watching Aabria play, but at the same time this PC feels like all the NPCs from ExU.  I think I said it at the time, but it holds true now.  Creating a ‘character’ doesn’t need to be an integral part into d&d, because she’s just as enjoyable as the other players without feeling like ‘someone different’.

(I am NOT going to go into dRaMa here, but watching this is also reminding me that there are things that some CR cast does in their regular style of play which I just don’t vibe with overall.)

LOL Mallory looks SO disgusted by Baked Alaska, but intrigued by Bananas Foster

I love watching Matt desperately nerfing damage because all the rolls are TERRIBLE

When Slaughter yells the complicated order to the skull and throws it and Sam rolls and goes “NATURAL -” I 1000% thought he want going to say 20.  I was not expecting the 1.

SLAUGHTER FINALLY GETTING A HIT, AND IT’S THE KILLING BLOW

Grelnock’s Skull. Hell. Yes.

[britcision]

Okay I love all of these but I have one thing to add to number 2, because it has really helped my players lean into the game

Roll for ones

Make it explicit what you’re doing, a “there’s basically no way you can fail this but let’s roll and see if you get a natty one”

And if they do, we fucking celebrate that failure as a sign from the dice gods and come up with the ridiculous circumstances that caused it

This is especially effective if you have dice goblins in your party - I don’t know anyone who plays who doesn’t like rolling their dice, even for very low stakes

The inverse is also true by the way! If you roll for a one and get a natural 20, something better has to happen to go along with it

It doesn’t need to be narratively useful, but maybe that npc you were charming is more friendly to the party afterwards. Maybe you pick the lock and get a poison dart from a disabled trap inside

It takes the sting out of ones when they crop up in the rest of the game because those are fun now, it’s a chance to lean into the sillier side of role play and encourage them to think of “failures” as a story telling device, not them doing badly

We had a really fun and low stakes version of this recently that turned into one of the best character building moments all session when our barbarian failed a check on an environmental hazard I put up for their long rest

The party had their precautions up and rolled well enough there to keep from getting into actual danger, but I had the two on watch roll anyway with a lower DC

The barbarian failed (she is dice cursed I have never seen more natural ones) so I gave her a role play reward: the character is an edgelord, extremely reserved, never shows her feelings, blah blah blah

But she failed her check. So she was unnerved enough to be off her game, and vulnerable. So I asked her player “what do you really want to talk about that she never would? Now is that time”

(She was on watch with her one-time nemesis and that made it extra sweet cuz they were making slow progress but she finally called him a friend)

(She has also rolled natty ones to climb a building three separate times and has fallen and been caught by the ranger every single time it is how they met and the core of their friendship)

A natural one also doesn’t have to mean that they fail something like picking the lock on their home base; it can just mean that something funny also happens, like forgetting they left a bucket of water on top of the door as a trap

Not every failure needs to be a negative moment, but it’s really all in the players’ mindset - that “I want to be cool but the dice won’t let me!” can be a fun joke or a serious complaint based on the story you tell

A lot of people want their characters to be impressive and cool all of the time, and might need a chance to step back and really enjoy the storytelling opportunity a one provides

Also the solution to 5) I’ve been using is that everyone can use their bonus action to attack, dash, or dodge (no one ever fucking dodges) so they get at least two chances to do something

It takes a couple levels for classes to get that ability anyway, so when we started at level 2 no one complained because everyone got it early and benefits

(It also speeds combat up and if - like me - you’re new to balancing combat and don’t want to kill anyone, it also means you’re way less likely to accidentally TPK everyone cuz they will all be the tiniest bit OP)

important things I've learned being a dnd player that will make me a better dm

(a lot of this is probably very obvious but i was a dm for nearly two years before i'd really played dnd, so.)

a player's level of investment in the game is mostly a personality thing. it has much more to do with who they are as an individual than how objectively cool or interesting your world is.

what a character would know / be good at narratively should carry more weight than the dice. if there's no chance of failure, or if that failure isn't narratively interesting, don't call for a roll. adjust dcs A LOT based on individual characters.

if a character does fail at something they're normally good at, describe it in a way where the player still feels like their character is cool. don't say the equivalent of "lol ur guy is being dumb," basically. find a narrative reason why they failed.

it's kind of stressful knowing that you're forcing the dm to do stuff they haven't planned for at all. so as the dm, try not to seem stressed out by it. improvisation really is the heart of the game.

players get cranky about bad dice rolls because they only roll once or twice per round of combat. it sucks to waste your one shot at doing a thing! i don't know how to FIX this but at least I'm more sympathetic now lmao

[raeynbowboi]

The Character Forge: How to Play as Link in DnD 5e

Link is without a doubt one of the most iconic heroes in fiction, which is why I’m excited to work on this build of Link. Now, of course Link has a long history of games where he’s had a wide variety of skills and abilities. So, for this build, I wanted to focus on his most recurring skills and items, and try to find DnD items with similar effects, if possible, to fill out his arsenal. Link is a multi-talented young man who has a talent for many skills, weapons, and items. He’s extremely flexible in what he can work with, and that was a primary focus of this build: to broaden his abilities as much as I could.

The Makings of a Hero

Hylians are clearly some kind of elf. You could make Link a Human or Variant Human if you want, but if it looks like an elf and it hyaas like an elf, chances are it’s an elf. There are a lot of kinds of elf he could be. Hylians are closely connected to the gods and think highly of themselves, so High Elf is a strong possibility. But Link is also something of a wilderness expert, so he could be a Wood Elf too.

Link is clearly good, but where on the goodness scale is a little less clear. He is a champion for goodness and light, so he could be Lawful Good, but he’s also jokingly famous for breaking into random houses and smashing random pots to steal people’s hidden money, so he could fall under Chaotic Good. And that divide could also make him Neutral Good.

As for background, that also tends to differ between game. Sometimes he’s a simple villager, a rancher, a farmer, a knight, an amnesiac foreigner. He’s so inconsistent that it’s better to just give him a background that covers the skills he doesn’t pick up from his build. Top contenders for Link’s background would be Outlander, Knight of the Order, Soldier, Far Traveler, and Folk Hero.

Skills, Abilities, & Items

Weapons      -Longsword      -Shield      -Bow and Arrows      -Bombs      -Slingshot      -Boomerang      -Greatsword      -Club      -Spear      -Magical Rods Skills      -Horse Riding      -Mounted Combat      -Dungeon Crawler      -Puzzle-solving      -Weapon proficiency      -Fighting Maneuvers Famous Items      -Triforce of Courage      -Master Sword      -Hylian Shield/Mirror Shield      -Hero Bow      -Ocarina of Time      -Power Bracelet/Golden Gauntlets      -Zora Tunic/Mermaid Suit/Zora Flippers      -Roc’s Feather/Feather Cape/Hover Boots/Glider      -Hookshot/Longshot      -Gale Boomerang      -Wind Waker      -Pegasus Boots/Pegasus Seeds      -Biggoron’s Sword      -Fire Rod      -Fire Arrow/Lightning Arrow/Ice Arrow/Light Arrow      -Ball and Chain      -Fierce Deity Mask

Get to Class

Fighter     Arcane Archer     Battle Master     Cavalier/Knight     Champion     Monster Hunter     Scout     Sharpshooter

Paladin     Ancients     Crown     Devotion     Heroism

Ranger     Hunter     Monster Hunter

Rogue     Inquisitive     Scout     Swashbuckler

Stats & Proficiencies

Honestly, Link was hard to stat balance at first. I figured his best stat should be Constitution to correlate with a late-game number of heart containers. Link needs to be able to take a serious hit, and he spends most of the game getting a bigger health bar for just that very reason. Aside from Constitution, nothing really stood out as more important, though Intelligence and Charisma can get the shaft a bit, as Intelligence covers mostly book-learning which Link isn’t really known for, and largely in part to being a mute, aside from dancing in the Subrosia dance hall or playing his Ocarina, Link isn’t exactly great with Charisma-based skills. That’s not to say he’s really bad at anything, though. Link is a real Renaissance Man, as he’s good pretty much everything. Which means he shouldn’t have any negative modifiers. But Link is also not the pinnacle of strength, durability, or insightfulness. He needs items to perform feats of great strength, speed, or stamina, and wouldn’t get very far without them, so he’s also not going to be the max in any of his stats either. Rather, he’s going to be competent in Intelligence and Charisma, and fairly good at everything else.

Proficiencies:      Acrobatics      Animal Handling      Athletics      Insight      Investigation      Nature      Perception      Stealth      Survival

Link’s New Toys

    -Bag of Holding     -Triforce of Courage (Banner of the Krig Rune)     -Mastersword (Dawnbringer)     -Hylian Shield (Shield of the Hidden Lord, Shield +3)     -Mirror Shield (Repulsion Shield)     -Hero’s Bow (Oathbow)     -Golden Gauntlets (Gauntlets of Ogre Power)     -Zora Tunic/Mermaid Suit (Cap of Water Breathing, Cloak of the Manta Ray)     -Gale Boomerang (Storm Boomerang)     -Hover Boots (Boots of Levitation)     -Pegasus Boots (Boots of Speed, Boots of Striding and Springing)     -Fire Rod (Necklace of Fireball)*     -Fierce Deity Mask (Mask of the Dragon Queen) *There are items like the Wand of Fireball and the Staff of Fire, but both items require the holder to be a magic user, which Link is not.

Name: Link Race: High Elf Background: Outlander Alignment: Neutral Good Class: Monster Slayer Ranger (6)             Battle Master Fighter (10)             Inquisitive Rogue (4) Base Stats:      Strength: 16 (+3)      Dexterity: 14 (+2)      Constitution: 18 (+4)      Intelligence: 10 (0)      Wisdom: 16 (+3)      Charisma: 10 (0) Saving Throws:      Strength: +9      Dexterity: +8      Constitution: +3      Intelligence: 0      Wisdom: +3      Charisma: 0 Combat Stats:      HP: 200      AC: 15      Speed: 30      Initiative: +2      Number of Attacks: 2      Proficiency Bonus: +6      Passive Perception: 19      Dark Vision: 60 feet Proficiencies and Expertise:      Acrobatics (Rogue)      Animal Handling (Ranger)      Athletics (Outlander)      Insight (Ranger)      Investigation (Ranger)      Perception (Elf)      Survival (Outlander) Skills:      Acrobatics: +8                 Medicine: +3      Animal Handling: +9        Nature: +6      Arcana: 0                         Perception: +9      Athletics: +15                   Performance: 0      Deception: 0                    Persuasion: 0      History: 0                         Religion:0      Insight: +9                        Sleight of Hand: +2      Intimidation: 0                  Stealth: +8      Investigation: +6              Survival: +15 Condition Resistances:        Charmed Immunities:        Sleep Racial Feature: Elf        Elven Weapon Training: Proficiency with Shortsword, Longsword, Shortbow, and Longbow. Ranger Feature: Fighting Style      Archery: Add +2 to attack rolls for ranged weapons. Ranger Feature: Favored Terrain      Forest     Grassland Ranger Feature: Favored Enemy      Monstrosity      Fiend Fighter Feature: Fighting Style      Dueling: Add +2 to melee damage rolls when using 1 one-handed weapon. Fighter Feature: Superiority Die      5 (1d10s) Fighter Feature: Maneuvers      Disarming Attack: spend a superiority die to force your target to make a Strength saving throw. On a failed roll, it drops 1 item of your choosing.      Feinting Attack: spend a superiority die as a bonus action, and select a target. You gain advantage against that creature and add the roll of your superiority die to your attack damage if you hit the target creature.      Parry: As a reaction, reduce melee damage you take by your dex modifier + the roll of a superiority die.      Precision Attack: add the roll of a superiority die to the damage roll of a melee attack you made.      Riposte: When an enemy’s attack misses you, you can make a counter attack, and add the roll of a superiority die.      Sweeping Attack: Use a superiority die to cause your melee attack to hit a second creature within 5 feet of your first target. Add your superiority dice roll.      Trip Attack: Use a superiority die to force a large or smaller creature to make a Strength saving throw. on a failed save, that creature is knocked prone. Spell Slots:      1st (4)      2nd (2) Link’s Spellbook      Cantrips True Strike      1st Level Cure Wounds Hunter’s Mark Wild Cunning Protection from Good and Evil      2nd Level Find Traps Actions:      Action Surge: take an extra action once per rest.      Primeval Awareness: Spend a spell slot. For 1 or 2 minutes, you sense the kinds of creatures within 1 mile of you, or 6 miles in forests and grasslands. Bonus Actions:      Cunning Action: Dash, Disengage, or Hide once per turn.      Second Wind: Regain 1d10+10 HP once per rest. Features, Traits, and Feats:      Archery Fighting Style: Gain +2 on attack rolls with ranged weapons.      Dueling Fighting Style: Gain +2 on damage rolls when armed with a single one-handed melee weapon.      Ear for Deceit: Any roll of 7 or lower on an Insight check against lying becomes an 8.      Extra Attack: You get two Attack actions.      Eye for Detail: Perform an Insight or Investigation check as a bonus action.      Favored Enemy: Deal +2 bonus damage to Monstrosities and Fiends. Gain advantage on Survival checks to track Monstrosities and Fiends, and Intelligence checks to remember information about them.      Fey Ancestry: Resistance to Charmed effects, immunity to magical sleep.      Hunter’s Sense: As an action, choose a creature within 60 feet. You learn the creature’s damage immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities. Can be used 3 times per long rest.      Improved Combat Superiority: Your superiority die become 1d10s.      Indomitable: Reroll a failed save once per long rest.      Insightful Fighting: As a bonus action, make an Insight check against another creature’s Deception check. If you succeed, you can use Sneak Attack against the creature even without advantage for up to a minute. Doesn’t work if you’re disadvantaged. Wears off if you target a new creature with this feature.      Know Your Enemy: If you spend at least 1 minute outside of battle observing a creature, the DM will tell you whether the creature is superior, inferior, or equal to you in any 2 of the following stats: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, AC, Current HP, Total Class Levels, or Fighter Class Levels.      Natural Explorer: Favored Terrains are Grasslands and Forests. While in your favored terrains: double proficiency bonuses for INT and WIS checks you’re proficient in, difficult terrain doesn’t slow your party down, always alert for danger, can move stealthily at a normal pace when traveling alone, find double food when foraging, and when tracking anything, you can tell how big they were, how many there were, and how long ago they passed through.      Sharpshooter: Attacking from long range doesn’t disadvantage ranged attack rolls, ranged weapon attacks ignore half and 3/4 cover, and you can -5 on a ranged weapon attack roll to add +10 to the damage roll on a successful hit.      Slayer’s Prey: As a bonus action, pick a creature within 60 feet of you. Add 1d6 damage to the first attack you make against that creature.      Sneak Attack: Add 2d6 to damage roll when you have advantage, or another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it.      Thieves’ Cant: You can articulate covert messages in casual conversations.      Trance: Trance for 4 hours instead of sleeping for 8.      Wanderer: You have an excellent memory for terrain and don’t need a map. You can remember where to find settlements, foraging spots, and geographical landmarks. You can always find enough food and water to sustain yourself and up to 5 more people provided the land can provide food and drinkable water.

I’m sure there’s some who will disagree with my picks, but I optimized a build around looking for enemy weaknesses, having a ton of proficiencies, and having a wide and varied arsenal of weapons at Link’s disposal. If you’d build Link another way, tell me what you’d do different. Who do you want to see me make next? And as always, I look forward to seeing you again at the Character Forge, where heroes are made.

[tigerkirby215]

5e Sivir, the Battle Mistress build (League of Legends)

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

Okay I know this is completely off topic but what the hell is Sivir's pose in her base splash art? Like oh my god doesn't that hurt your back? Jesus I know proportions are hard but wow this pose is terrible lmao.

Also it has come to my attention that I unintentionally made all the Legends of Runeterra Shuriman champions. Well I mean, Rammus isn't in LoR yet. Man we do really need more Shuriman champs.

Sorry I really don't have much of a blurb beyond that. Honestly only making Sivir for "randomly Shurima month." Like who actually plays Sivir anymore.

GOALS

Better duck! - We need to be able to throw everything at incoming danger and cut it down to size.

Here's where I get my cut - When faced with a hoard it doesn't hurt to be able to shoot everyone at once!

Nice try - Of course getting hit yourself would suck, so we're going to need ways to avoid incoming damage.

RACE

You have ascendant blood in you, which gives you just a touch of godly power. To connect to the gods look to the Aasimar. As an Aasimar you’d normally increase your Charisma by 2 but we’re instead going to invoke Tasha’s for a +2 to Dexterity. But your other abilities don’t change such as your Darkvision which I only mention because Light Bearer gives you the Light cantrip to help your friends with their dumb human eyes. You also get Celestial Resistance for a Spell Shield and Healing Hands for some potions in a pinch.

Fallen Aasimar require high Charisma and Scourge Aasimar hurt themselves as they fight, so we’ll be going for Protector Aasimar. We’re still going to get a +1 to Intelligence instead of Wisdom with Tasha’s rules, and we’ll cover more of what your subrace does for you at level 3.

ABILITY SCORES

15; INTELLIGENCE - Intelligence is tied to Investigation which makes it the tomb raiding skill. (I’d probably put Dexterity higher to be honest but I dislike uneven Ability Scores.)

14; DEXTERITY - You’re an ADC and even if you’re throwing stuff (which we won’t be in this build) Dexterity is still tied to most ranged combat abilities.

13; CONSTITUTION - While you may be squishy on the Rift we simply don’t need any other abilities for this build.

12; WISDOM - Wisdom is tied to Perception which is also useful when trying to avoid traps.

10; CHARISMA - You’re rather rough around the edges. Maybe if you were more Charismatic your fellow tomb raiders wouldn’t have double-crossed you.

8; STRENGTH - Even though you’re throwing weapons (which again: we won’t be for this build) you are very nimble and Fleet of Foot. Put simply we don’t need Strength at all for this build.

BACKGROUND

There’s no “Tomb Raider” background so we’ll fall back on Sivir’s job as a Mercenary Veteran. You get proficiency in Athletics and Persuasion as well as Land Vehicles and a gaming set of your choice (pick your poison.)

When you live the Mercenary Life you can easily identify other mercenaries by their emblems and logos. (RIP Clubs.) You know bits and pieces about their work, and can go seek them out for hints on the next ancient tomb to break into. And if all else fails you can fall back on mercenary work to maintain a comfortable lifestyle.

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - ROGUE 1

Starting off as a Rogue because skills to raid tombs are always helpful. Skills like Acrobatics, Perception, Investigation, and... well we may as well grab Stealth as a Rogue. You also get Expertise in two skills: Investigation is the skill to find hidden loot, and Stealth is still pretty important as a Rogue.

When you live the mercenary life you know to speak in Thieves’ Cant so no wanabee treasure hunters try for your mark. Thieves’ Cant is a secret code with regular words that mean something else.

But let’s be real: what we’re really here for is Sneak Attack. When you have advantage on an attack (such as by attacking from stealth) or if your ADC is near the target you can do an additional d6 of damage.

LEVEL 2 - ROGUE 2

Second level Rogues are Fleet of Foot, and can use Cunning Action to Dash, Disengage, or Hide as a Bonus Action. Attack-Moving as an ADC is very important!

LEVEL 3 - ROGUE 3

Third level Rogues get to choose their Roguish Archetype, and you have the blood of a long-dead civilization in your veins. You revived your phantom of a great great great great (x20 more “great”s) grandfather, so Phantom Rogue will work well. Whispers of the Dead will let you choose a skill or tool to gain proficiency in after a Short or Long Rest, so you can adapt your tools to the situation at hand.

But more importantly you get Wails from the Grave. When you hit an enemy you can have your shot Ricochet to an enemy within 30 feet to deal necrotic damage equal to half the number of Sneak Attack dice for your level (round up.) You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Speaking of which your Sneak Attack die increases to 2d6. And speaking of more damage as a Protector Aasimar you get Radiant Soul. Once per long rest you can activate your Ascendant blood for 1 minute or until you end it as a bonus action. During this time you have a flying speed and deal extra Radiant damage equal to your level. Look just because we don’t see Sivir fly in-game doesn’t mean she can’t.

LEVEL 4 - ROGUE 4

4th level Rogues get an Ability Score Improvement: Dexterity controls most of what you do currently. Increase it by 2 for more damage, better skill checks, and better AC.

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 5 - FIGHTER 1

ADCs are meant to fight, and Fighters are good at that! You get a Fighting Style to boost your right clicks and a “Marksman” needs Archery, even if they’re technically throwing weapons. (By the way by this point I’d recommend using a Longbow, for multiple reasons other than “it’s better than a Shortbow / Light Crossbow.”)

You can also pop the Heal Summoner Spell for a Second Wind, healing yourself for a d10 plus your Fighter level as a Bonus Action.

LEVEL 6 - FIGHTER 2

Second level Fighters are On the Hunt (by themselves), and can Action Surge to take an additional action! For now this just means one more attack, but your damage output will really increase at higher levels!

LEVEL 7 - FIGHTER 3

Third level Fighters get to choose their Martial Archetype, and while it’s perhaps not the most accurate or the strongest Arcane Archer is the only way to get some of Sivir’s abilities. But firstly you get Arcane Archer Lore for the Arcana skill (or Nature but Arcana is better), as well as the Prestidigitation cantrip (or Druidcraft but Prestidigitation is better.)

But your main feature is of course the Arcane Shot. Once per turn you can use one of your Arcane Shot options. You decide to use it when the arrow hits a creature, unless the option doesn’t involve an attack roll. Piercing Arrow will serve as your “Boomerang” Blade, firing a projectile in a 30 foot line that deals damage to everyone it passes through. This ability will go through cover so you can shoot past walls too!

There aren’t really many other options that fit Sivir, but Bursting Arrow will make your shot “Ricochet” on enemies within 5 feet of your initial target. And will do more damage, obviously.

You have two Arcane Shots per Short or Long Rest, but I’d really recommend discussing the subclass with your DM. Arcane Archer is known for being weak but it becomes a lot stronger if you make the Arcane Shots scale with either Intelligence modifier or your Proficiency Bonus. I don’t normally recommend homebrew changes but Arcane Archer is honestly a fun subclass hampered by how limited your Arcane Shot options are. I really recommend discussing buffs to the class if you wish to play one. 

LEVEL 8 - FIGHTER 4

4th level Fighters get another Ability Score Improvement and while tricks are useful shooting good is still your main goal. Increase your Dexterity by 2 for the deadliest shots possible.

(Artwork by Horace "Hozure" Hsu and Alex "alexplank" Flores. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 9 - FIGHTER 5

5th level Fighters get their Beserker's Greaves, granting them enough attack speed for an Extra Attack to make two attacks in a turn! "Business is good."

LEVEL 10 - FIGHTER 6

Fighters get Ability Score Improvements instead of Class Features, but that's cool because it means we can get feats! Your Constitution has been sitting at 13 for awhile now, and while I'd normally try to grab a more fun feat Resilient will increase your Constitution by 1 and also make it easier to resist spells, which is like a spell shield!

LEVEL 11- FIGHTER 7

7th level Fighters get their Mythic! Kraken Slayer will give you Magic Arrows that do... exactly what they say on the tin! Magic damage for the sake of overcoming resistance or immunity to nonmagical damage.

Additionally if you miss you can use your Bonus Action to Ricochet your shot to another enemy. Curving Shot will let you redirect a missed hit towards a different enemy within 60 feet.

You also learn another Arcane Shot option: Enfeebling Arrow is like exhaust on an arrow. The target takes an additional 2d6 Necrotic damage and has to make a Constitution saving throw. If they fail the damage of their attacks is reduced by half until the start of your next turn.

LEVEL 12 - FIGHTER 8

More Feats are fun! While I could take Resilient in every stat or perhaps Mage Slayer I think Lucky works better to simulate Sivir's spell shield. If you make a roll on a d20 that you don't like you can roll a Lucky die to change it. You can use this not just on saving throws but also attack rolls, ability checks, and even enemy rolls! (Though of course the most flavorful thing would be to only use it on your own saving throws.) You do only have 3 of these per Long Rest, so be sure to use them wisely to block deadly spells.

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 13 - ROGUE 5

5th level Rogues can survive a bit of harass thanks to Uncanny Dodge, letting you reduce the damage from a weapon attack you saw coming by half with your reaction. "Nice try." Your Sneak Attack also increases to 3d6, meaning that your Wails from the Grave increase to 2d6.

LEVEL 14 - ROGUE 6

6th level Rogues get Expertise in two more skills: Perception will help you see danger coming, and Acrobatics will help you avoid that danger.

LEVEL 15 - ROGUE 7

7th level Rogues can dodge skillshot with Evasion. If you succeed on a Dexterity saving throw you take no damage. If you fail on the saving throw you only take half damage, instead of the full damage! "Step light, strike hard." Your Sneak Attack also increases to 4d6.

LEVEL 16 - ROGUE 8

Another Ability Score Improvement is in order, and this will actually be your last one! More Intelligence will boost your Arcane Shots, but the Sharpshooter feat will boost your regular shots. It’s up to you what you do really; adapt your build for more Ability Power or more Attack Damage.

LEVEL 17 - ROGUE 9

9th level Phantom Rogues can loot the dead. When a creature you see dies within 30 feet you can use your reaction to grab a Tokens of the Departed. You can have a maximum number of soul trinkets equal to your proficiency bonus, and can’t create one while at your maximum. You can use soul trinkets in the following ways:

While you have at least one soul trinket you have advantage on death saving throws and Constitution saving throws.

When you deal Sneak Attack damage you can destroy one of your soul trinkets to use Wails from the Grave without expending a use of that feature.

As an action, you can destroy one of your soul trinkets to ask the spirit associated with the trinket one question. The spirit appears to you and answers in a language it knew in life. It doesn’t have to be truthful, and it answers as concisely as possible, eager to be free. The spirit knows only what it knew in life, as determined by the DM.

And to top it off your Sneak Attack increases to 5d6, which also means your Wails from the Grave increases to 3d6! “Life’s cheap. Death pays.”

(Artwork by Jean “Curing” Go. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 18 - FIGHTER 9

9th level Rogues get another Spell Shield with Indomitable. Once per Long Rest when you fail a saving throw, you can reroll it! It’s really that simple.

LEVEL 19 - FIGHTER 10

10th level Arcane Archers get another Arcane Shot Option. What? Did you want actual class features? Too bad! Regardless take whatever option you think will be useful honestly, because we got everything we wanted from the earlier levels.

LEVEL 20 - FIGHTER 11

Now that you’re finally six-slotted you can attack three times with your Extra Attack, or 6 times with Action Surge!

FINAL BUILD

PROS

I've got values; they stack up nicely - Three attacks per turn is good in its own right, but you’ve also got Arcane Shots, a Sneak Attack that can affect two targets, and Radiant Soul to add a flat +20 to your damage every turn.

I'll fight for a cause; I won't die for one - Having around 150 HP is nothing to sneeze at, but what’s really impressive is your saving throws. Proficiency in DEX, CON, and INT saves means you won’t be failing those saves anytime soon, especially since your Soul Trinkets give you advantage on CON saves!

You've got a problem, I've got a price - You’ve got plenty of utility with Expertise in the two “searching” skills, the ability to interrogate people after death, and of course good ol’ Lucky if things go south.

CONS

Make me work for it - You need a lot of actions and reactions to operate at maximum effectiveness. Soul Trinkets are tied to spending reactions and you need your Bonus Action for Curving Shot as well as your Cunning Actions.

Don't get between me, and my gold - You’re honestly not that skillful for a Rogue, with a lot of dud skills (let’s be honest you really don’t need Athletics) instead of potentially more useful things like Insight or Survival. Sure +13 to Perception is nice but that and Investigation are probably the only two skills you’re notably good at, as your took Expertise in general Rogue abilities instead of team utility.

They say the desert is a cruel mistress - Half your saving throws are very good. The other half...? +1 Wisdom saves are quite mediocre for a common save, and -1 to Strength saves certainly has the chance to hurt. Even if you can reroll them it’s still going to be hard to make those saves.

But you’re reliable which is all that can be asked for a mercenary. Your jobs are to fight and to nab treasure, both of which you’re damn good at. Go ahead and pull this build out if the party needs a reliable marksman, and if you roleplay them well they may not even realize you’re playing a character from League of Legends. Pull a little Sneaky on them.

(Artwork by Alex “alexplank” Flores. Made for Riot Games.)

[eldritchamy]

#oh god I’m so delighted every time you answer one of these #it’s always such a fun read like #huh what’s the fighter levels for? (two seconds later) ohhhh omg #and man I am so into Cass she sounds interesting af #I think the phrase ‘dislocated soul’ is gonna be spinning around in my brain all day #out here putting the epic in epic fantasy #uneiverse #my question #eldritchamy

thank you for liking my thiiings 😭

For your consideration: two levels in Fighter ALSO gets you a Fighting Style and Action Surge.

Cass is a very fun character both in story/personality and just mechanically.

She's Soulknife 12 Rogue, Way of Shadow 6 Monk.

Deep enough into Shadow Monk to cast a couple spells with Ki points like Darkness, Silence, Pass Without a Trace, and a free Minor Illusion, and the ability to teleport up to 60 feet from one point of dim light/darkness to another, so she can just teleport from one shadow to another. She also gets +15ft of Unarmored Movement (on top of Dhampir's base 35ft), always has at least one bonus action attack she can make with either Martial Arts or Flurry of Blows, Deflect Missiles, Slow Fall to reduce up to 30 points of fall damage, Extra Attack, and all her "Unarmed Strikes" (which includes her Dhampir Bite as a "natural weapon") count as Magical weapons.

From Soulknife Rogue she gets a bunch of goodies. In addition to the standard first 12 levels of Rogue (4 Expertise skills, 6d6 Sneak Attack, Cunning Actions, Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, Reliable Talent, and FOUR ASI/Feat levels), she gets 12 d10 Psionic Dice that she can add to failed skill checks (only expended on success) or establish group telepathy for a number of hours, she can make Psychic Blades as a dagger or 60ft thrown weapon that deals Psychic damage (and leaves no visible marks on the target, perfect for a Dimir assassin), because they count as Monk weapons (i.e. a simple weapon she's proficient with) the OFFHAND Psychic Blade still gets to be a d6 instead of a d4, she can add a Psionic die to missed attacks, and she can throw the Psionic Blades to teleport to their location.

So she has two ways to teleport, one of which is completely free in dim light, she's telepathic, she's a martial class that can hit anything within 60 feet of her even when "unarmed," her vampire bite counts as a magic weapon, she's hard to hit, her WALKING SPEED is almost equal to most characters' DASH speed, she ignores up to 30ft of fall damage (and can teleport to the ground as long as she's conscious while falling), she can walk on walls, she doesn't need to breathe, she can Planeswalk, and she has the ability to sense the precise location, emotional state, and health (e.g. whether it's currently weak or out of breath) of any creature with a heartbeat within 30 feet of her, and if she focuses on them she can learn their damage resistances and whether it's currently suffering from any poisons or other ailments.

That's without getting into the specifics of her build stats, feats, and magic items. She's very much built to emphasize the vampire flavor. One of her items is an artifact weapon I homebrewed called the Blood-Stained Blade, a dagger with a stained glass aesthetic that has a number of charges for special properties that you can track based on how many of the stained glass fragments are blood red.

I've homebrewed a handful of artifact-level weapons because I DESPISE the way 5e handles them. If you go through a list of artifact items it feels like more than half of them are possessed by an evil entity that will try to take over your body (which means they can remove your ability to play your own character, which is STUPID), and all of them have an assortment of randomly generated positive and negative properties, which incentivizes re-attuning to your item over and over until you get something that isn't terrible, which is just WRETCHED game design. They should just be treated like Legendary-er weapons with more specific lore and specialized properties imo.

Anyway.

Cass was a human girl. Her father was the head of what amounts to a cross between a noble family and a mob family (Cass is technically a Viscountess, but has no love for the title), and her mother died when she was very young. Cass was therefore the only daughter of a man who needed a male heir, and sure as hell wasn't getting one from his stubborn, temperamental, and mildly psionic lesbian daughter. The only person Cass ever had any real interest in was her maidservant, Gisella Bathori (who Cass calls "Ella"). The Bathories USED to be one of the noble families but were basically ruined and cast out when great-grandma Bathori did some experimenting with some naughty naughy forbidden necromancy-flavored magic and got herself labeled a monster. Her line was then relegated to a servant class for the remaining families. Ella was only about 2 years older than Cass and was essentially taken on to look after her specifically. Since Cass was a precious commodity to her father, she was more or less housebound her entire life, practically a prisoner in her own estate. Ella was the person she spent by far the most time with, and grew closest to.

When Cass was a teenager, strange things started to happen. She had a preternatural sense of when someone was about to enter her room, and could almost always correctly predict their mood. It wasn't EXACTLY like reading minds, but there was definitely something off about her. Chair legs would break out from under potential suitors that she wanted nothing to do with. Drinks would spill and force unwanted company to retire early. No maidservant ever came to harm around her, but unwelcome men were prone to inexplicable accidents and mishaps. The more her father tried to find a suitable husband to marry her off to, the more those suitors met with misfortune and the other families started seeing her as bad luck. No one trusted her near their sons, which suited her just fine.

One day in a fit of frustration, Cass threw an unwanted fancy shoe at a fancier vase. Which fell off its fancy mantle onto a fancy mirror, which shattered rather explosively, sending a few very deadly shards of glass directly at Ella. In a split-second panic, Cass reached out a hand towards her, fearing she was about to lose the only person who mattered to her, and every single shard froze in midair. Her father heard the noise and rushed in, and the back of the door tossed some of the frozen glass shards safely to the floor. After a moment, the rest fell. There was no mistaking that Cass had done it somehow, and her father became even more desperate to marry her off and get a real heir before rumors spread further and ended his bloodline in shame.

Cass utterly could not give a shit about the family legacy because she spent her life experiencing it as a prison. She never knew any real luxury because she never had a whiff of freedom.

When her magic started manifesting more blatantly, any books in the library that related to magic mysteriously disappeared. Some of the other families suspected it was the cursed Bathori line who was afflicting her with some foul corrupting magic.

Finally, when Cass was 23, a foreign noble family looking to break into the local scene was willing to provide an heir. Cass' stubborn lack of cooperation led her father to conspire with the head of that family to have her killed after the wedding - a son by marriage was still an heir, even if she "tragically" died on her wedding night.

So they arranged just that.

After the ceremony, three men from the other family (probably including her 'husband') ambushed and killed her.

Around the same time, Ella overheard the heads of the families talking about it and panicked, dropping a portrait of Cass that she had been crying over. They caught her trying to escape out the bedroom window in an attempt to save Cass, but she was cornered. Cass's father left to fetch a lawmaster to have her arrested as a scapegoat for the corruption and murder of his precious daughter, and the other head of house was left to take care of her. She snapped a ceremonial rapier off the wall and buried it hilt deep in his throat, just as he stabbed her through the chest.

Ella used the broken rapier to carve a sigil into the floorboards: an old "protection" spell she found in Great Grandma The Naughty Wizard's spell book, and using blood forcibly taken from an enemy's throat and blood willingly given from a lover's heart as a potent catalyst, she spent her last breath begging the spell to "not let Cassandra die".

So Cass jolts awake in the back of a truck before they can dump her body, and she's disoriented and panicking, and only more confused for the fact that she's soaked in sticky, coagulating blood but her throat isn't slit and there's no knife wound in her heart. There's a heartbeat pounding in her ears and she realizes it's actually THREE heartbeats, and she's feeling them outside the truck.

She stiffly pulls herself up into a crouching position by the time the doors are flung wide open and the men scream at the sight of her: a woman absolutely COVERED in blood, disheveled and messy, mostly in shadow, with two eerie lights glinting from the eyes of something no longer human, like the eyes of a predator at night. She instinctively lunges toward the pulsing in her ears and one of them fails to get away, accidentally pulling her out of the truck and getting himself pinned under her full weight, as her new fangs sink into his neck and she pulls and pulls, not even realizing she's drinking his blood until it stops flowing from his neck.

By the time she realizes what she's doing she freaks out and jumps backwards, effortlessly, into the back of the truck, gripping the edge of one of the doors so tightly the metal bends around her hand.

She can feel strength like she's never known. She can see far better than she should in the evening light. Euphoria pumps through her veins as a newfound power courses through her. She can feel the fangs in her mouth and knows she's become a monster.

It's the worst thing that's ever happened to her, and it's utter euphoria; she's become a monster and she's never felt better.

She rushes home in the hope that Ella will know what's happening to her, and finds her dead on the floor with a mysterious sigil. Cass fails to understand or use it, and before she can even process or mourn, she feels more heartbeats enter her home. The men who ran are frantically telling her father and a lawmaster what they saw, to their mocking disbelief.

Her father reaches the top of the stairs first, sees the body of the other head of house in the doorway of his daughter's bedroom, and rushes over, only to scream and jump ungracefully backwards into a table at the frankly terrifying sight of her, and runs down the hall to barricade himself in his office. The others approach, which ends very badly for them. The lawmaster just manages to shoot her, but the wound instantly closes. She drains him and the others before stalking down the hall, breaking down her father's door, flinging his desk aside and knocking the rifle out of his hands, and then pinning him to the wall by the throat, telling him how awful he is, and then shoving her other hand in his chest and mincing his heart in an iron grip.

The mess pulls the wedding ring right off her finger, leaving her father's corpse with the perfect symbol of the only thing he really cared about wedged in the mess that used to be his heart.

Cass washes off the blood of eight people (her own plus Ella, father in law, 3 men, lawmaster, and her father), packs up whatever she knows to be valuable or useful, looks back at Ella and sorrowfully notes that there are no heartbeats in the house and that the pair of them deserved so much better, kicks one of the bodies into the room for good measure, and leaves her home forever to hunt down what remains of both families.

What Cass didn't know was that the fresh blood from one of those bodies mixed with her own blood that she tried to use on the sigil, and blood taken from the throat of an enemy mixed with blood freely given by the heart of a lover, which re-activated the spell and raised Ella as another vampire.

Cass made her way to Dominaria and then Ravnica shortly before Ravinca's Decamillennial (and not long before the Great Mending cut off planar travel by non-planeswalkers), and didn't find out Ella was still alive until 122 years later, after her new planeswalker spark led to a chance meeting back on her home plane.

They reconnected and now Ella lives on Ravnica with Cass.

Also, these are my face refs for Cass:

She's about 5'8 with short black hair, pale skin (but not inhumanly so), and hazel eyes.

What the shit. Fighting a god in hand to hand combat as a gold dragon using immovable rods goes so fucking hard and it’s the backstory for a character that’s just in the main backstory???????? AMY???

You know how a lot of people, when making DND characters, make the mistake of having their level 1 PC have an elaborate backstory where they're super badass and already recognized as a hero?

When I made Ash I did the opposite. Her backstory is elaborate, yes, but in very mundane ways that inform her personality and how she perceives the world around her, and build up the logic of how she makes decisions.

I made everyone AROUND my PC a super powerful character who had done incredible things, and I gave Ash anxiety about it.

She feels, constantly, that she is inadequate by comparison. Her entire frame of reference is shaped by a bunch of women in her life that are outstandingly powerful, and she's just a quiet girl who makes leather goods and sells them for a living. She thinks of herself as the NPC in other people's more impressive lives.

Her mother, Lailah, is a nearly seven foot tall divine warrior created in Elysium to destroy Pit Fiends. She's an angel of lightning built like an MMA fighter, and she wields a weapon like piece of a lightning bolt (not stylized, I mean a real, glowing crackling arc of electricity that she holds like a staff and can be used like anything from a polearm to a spear to a whip, and when thrown it acts like a Lightning Bolt spell). She is built, both narratively and in game stats, to be an unkillable holy destroyer, capable of fighting MULTIPLE PIT FIENDS simultaneously, and winning. She's a CR 10+ magical creature (she's a homebrewed mix of Deva and Erinyes stat blocks with some unique flavor) with eighteen class levels, 16 in Zealot Barbarian and 2 in Fighter. She has a strength of 27 and a constitution of 25. She's designed to deal HUGE amounts of damage, tank unfathomable amounts in turn, NOT DROP WHEN SHE HITS ZERO HITPOINTS, and keep swinging until every devil in her way is a pile of dust, then use bonus action Second Wind to bring herself back above 0 so she doesn't incur the auto-death caveat on Zealot Barbarian's Rage Beyond Death ability. One of her attuned items is also the very simple uncommon item "Periapt of Wound Closure" which automatically stabilizes you at the start of your turn, thereby resetting the death saving throws she would theoretically have to make each time she gets hit below 0. Also, as an angel, she's innately immune to auto-death effects like Power Word Kill, which closes almost all loopholes that get around her build. She is UNSPEAKABLY badass. I ran a simulated round of combat with her once, and she could potentially one-shot a CR 15 Skittering Horror (228 HP) in a single turn. Her theoretical maximum damage output is like, 456 damage in a turn (granted this assumes all crits and rolling max damage).

So that's Ash's mom.

Aria is interesting. She was always strongly attuned to the forces of nature, and her magic grew quickly. Where Ash grew up with someone she knew would always be there to protect her from anything, Aria did NOT have that safety net, and spent her formative years learning to be more self-sufficient in terms of relying on her own power. So eventually she got sucked into an adventuring party consisting of herself (a tiefling Witch subclass with very strong druid flavor), a tiefling zealot barbarian, and a couple of elf twins who were an Arcana cleric and a Celestial Warlock. Sometime after they had made a name for themselves, they were tasked with stopping a suspected fledgling vampire who had been kidnapping girls and killing a bunch of people. When they arrived, they met Cass, who was very much NOT a new vampire. She was almost 150 years old and had been protecting women from abusers and overzealous debt collectors, and things had gotten a little messy with one or two of them, leading to a lot more attention than she normally got. They start off fighting Cass (Aria polymorphs herself into a dire wolf and lunges directly for the throat, which Cass found amusing and impressive) but realize in the banter that Cass wasn't the real problem, and she ends up being a sort of a lesson for the group in terms of whose word they trust and who they take jobs from (YES THE BACKSTORY'S BACKSTORY HAS NARRATIVE ARCS AND MORAL LESSONS THAT LEAD TO LONG TERM CHARACTER GROWTH OKAY I CAN'T HELP MYSELF). Cass, having a particular rapport with Aria, ends up joining their party as a dhampir Soulknife Rogue/Shadow Monk.

Yes, that's all backstory that I made up for an imaginary campaign that exists entirely as a set piece for Aria as one of Ash's story NPCs. This doesn't even touch on the fact that I liked Cass so much as a character that I gave HER an entire backstory of her own. I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM.

Anyway the team only makes a bigger name for themselves for handling things that other groups can't. Eventually, they just happen to be in the Tenth District when the War of the Spark happens (major established event in the MTG canon), and I basically added some extra "scenes" to it that didn't violate existing canon so I could have that be the climax of their imaginary campaign. One of Aria's partners was a new planeswalker at the time and her spark got harvested by the Dreadhorde, specifically by the god eternal Bontu.

Gods in Magic The Gathering aren't honestly that special? They don't seem to have THAT much power, all things considered. Ravnica's gods are mostly powerful magical animals, and in the most recent Magic Story one of their gods (Anzrag the Quake Mole) was captured in an "evidence capsule" (basically Magic's version of a Pokeball). The most powerful god in MTG is probably the Ur Dragon honestly, unless you count the Eldrazi, but that's a whole other conversation since neither of those actually have the "God" creature type.

Anyway, Bontu was one of the gods of Amonket (basically a plane based on ancient Egypt), which had been conquered by an Elder Dragon planeswalker named Nichol Bolas. HE was the one who actually killed all but one of Amonket's gods, and then another planeswalker named Liliana Vess (extremely powerful necromancer) raised them as zombies for his army, because Bolas had a ton of complicated leverage over her (magical contract that he could invoke to kill her if she betrayed him). So Bontu was a god zombie.

Here's a reference:

Well, Aria was a level 18 Witch at this point since this was the climax of their campaign, so she had access to the Shapechange spell, a 9th level transmutation that lets you become any creature with a challenge rating equal or lower than your character level. And the best candidate for that was an Adult Gold Dragon (CR 17). So Aria goes full berserk and stands up on her dragon hind legs and picks a fight with a dead god that she's determined to make deader, and has a Godzilla vs King Ghidorah standoff with her.

So how do you fight a god that can suck your soul out and instantly kill you with a single touch? You don't let it touch you.

What Aria did was basically inspired by this gif of a Wildebeest trying to charge at a lion:

Or this:

And to be clear, yes, I'm saying Aria was the lion in that situation. She basically did a big dragon threat display to get Bontu's attention, and used the Gold Dragon's weakening breath to give Bontu disadvantage on Strength checks and saves. Bontu charged at her, and at the last second Aria dropped to the ground and then shot back up, clamped her teeth around the god's throat, and used her weight to throw Bontu around and knock her off balance, and her superior strength to grab her by the wrists and wrestled her to the ground so she couldn't get a grip on Aria. She had every part of the god that could have killed her pinned, and used the claws of her wings to pull Bontu's armor apart and tear at everything she could reach while thrashing her around. It was Fen, the Arcana cleric, who thought to use Immovable rods to pin Bontu down so that even if Aria lost her grip, Bontu wouldn't be able to immediately one-shot any of them. So Athena (barbarian) and Cass (rogue/monk) as the two martial classes were the ones who got close enough to handle that while Fen and her sister (Gwen) used whatever holy magic they could to help from a distance.

Now CASS had a problem, because she's a DEX based martial class, not a strength based one. She needed a boost to be able to get this job done. So she drank some of Bontu's blood from one of the wounds Aria had left on her arm to give herself a burst of strength. Except. She had to get real close to do that. And Bontu managed to get a loose grip on her, and tried to suck out her soul.

The magic that makes Cass what she is is very old and very powerful. It binds her soul to her body in a much stronger way than any living creature, fusing the two together to prevent her from dying (i.e. by having her soul separated from her body; Cass can recover from almost any conceivable physical injury as long as there's life energy, in the form of blood, for the magic that keeps her alive to feed on and maintain the seal between her body and her soul). BECAUSE SHE WAS FEEDING ON THE BLOOD OF A GOD AT THE TIME, the magic holding her together basically fought against the magic that was trying to rip her soul out, and it had enough fuel to hold on until Aria's thrashing forced Bontu to let go. So Cass survived the Elderspell thanks to a very weird and unrepeatable set of circumstances (which allows something narratively impressive and legendary to happen without being gamebreakingly overpowered and violating the established rules of the world).

Because of how her magic draws energy from other things, though, there was a side effect: she also accidentally took in one of the planeswalker sparks that Bontu had harvested. So when Cass had healed enough for her soul to no longer be dislocated, her spark activated and she became a Planeswalker. (I imagine a soul is connected to a body mostly through the nervous system, because that's how a brain holds consciousness in it, so a "dislocated" soul is like something glued to every nerve ending in your body being pulled on with an enormous amount of force, trying to sever that connection; imagine trying to pull yourself off the ground when every nerve ending in your body is superglued to the floor by something akin to the Strong Nuclear Force. It SUCKED.)

The team ended up being forced to retreat because of Cass' injuries, so Aria didn't actually manage to kill Bontu personally (or die trying, which in her grief-rage she was fully open to). Right about this time, my bottle scene ends and Magic canon comes back into play: Liliana betrays Bolas and turns the Dreadhorde against him, and Bontu ends up being the one who bites him and rips out HIS spark. Due to the enormous rush of energy of consuming all of Bolas' stolen Planeswalker sparks (tl;dr he was trying to become a god), and with the added bit of lore that it was Aria's team that heavily injured Bontu just prior to this, Bontu exploded in the process.

This resulted in Ravnica playing a game of telephone in the chaotic aftermath of the War. Aria fought a god. She's still alive and that god is dead. Rumors spread and now Aria is misremembered as the one who killed Bontu. Half the plane thinks of her as the "god killer." All she wanted was to avenge her lover or die trying.

Neither outcome happened, and now she's credited with the very thing she sees as her greatest failure. And that trauma has haunted her ever since.