#( v: landbound. )

[idanwyn-et-al]

Modryb.

Overhead, the great, upended blue bowl of the summer-sky heavens curved around the seas below,  dwarfing a group of ships that sailed the indigo deep. Waves crashed against each hull of the mighty fleet of Lluantoum the Depth Charge, whose Summermender sailed at the front of the sprawling V; migratory folk, these were, their shanties looping through the air like birdsong, keeping them tethered and familiar to all others in the flock. 

Idanwyn, just a sennight shy of her twelfth nameday, crouched on the starboard midship railing. She was shirtless, her legs wrapped in threadbare trousers, barefoot and grubby, a wiry pale thing with a great untamed shock of two-toned hair, the indigo roots slowly giving way to ember-red ends. “Ye said this ship could fly one day, modryb. Papa t’inks ye’re full o’ shite...an’ sae do I. I dinnae see any wings.”

Hymlbyrta Lluanswysta, the ‘modryb’ in question, turned amused yellow eyes to her niece. “I thought I told you to curb that brogue, lass. You’ve but a few summers left where you can cling to the masts like a blue-spined urchin.” The Captain of the Nixie ruffled Idanwyn’s hair, and the girl grinned broadly, swaying with the movement of the waves easily on her precarious perch, listening as her aunt continued. “My dear brother does not believe this ship can fly because he is bound by tradition that has long-since outlived its usefulness.” She enumerated Lluantoum’s flaws on her gloved right hand. “He adheres to our outdated language; our outdated method of earning income; outdated methods of sailing the seas.” 

She filled her pipe with cinnamon fogweed, lighting it with a flint; the ritual and smell of this enthralled Idanwyn, how her aunt always managed it so effortlessly. None of her Captain’s finery ever caught aflame --- though it did when Idanwyn and Styrnwyn had tried to mimic their aunt’s behavior; an episode of dress up that was never to be repeated. 

“Weall. If it cannae fly wi’ wings,” Idanwyn began, then checked herself, trying to speak properly. “If she does not fly wi’ wings, how else would she fly?” Her aunt was the lone bastion of civilization Idanwyn clung to when the clan was on the high seas. Autumns in Kugane had her friends and their parents at the docks, teaching her their language; Limsa Lominsa offered a chance for herself, Styrnwyn, and their cousins to run free like landbound children, giving their parents a reprieve for the winter moons while the ships underwent maintenance. The rest of the year, however, was limited to the same bland meals day in and day out, scampering amongst the rigging, never sleeping soundly in her hammock tucked beneath the foredeck of the Summermender. When she was able to visit the Nixie, she felt as if she were transported to another world entirely. It had a proper library, gardens, a stage dedicated to the arts, and always seemed to have a new cabin somewhere in its twisting, ponderous belowdecks. To Idanwyn, her aunt, her modryb, represented the height of Sea Wolf culture: with her watered silk Captain’s coat cut just-so and trimmed with scalloped lace from faraway Ishgard; her tricorn hat and polished black leather heeled boots; her smell of blood oranges and dark ale and fogweed. 

Hymlbyrta exhaled a perfect smoke ring that immediately stretched into a line of grey fog as the ship continued her fast pace through the waves. “Ceruleum, Lluansgeim. The way of the future. The Admiral Merlwyb knows it; she’s already making quite the stir in Limsa. Your father is a stubborn auroch’s ass, and willnae bleedin’ do wha’ is th’ best, ye ken?” She paused, a smile blooming across her broad lips. “Hmm. It seems I still have to temper the brogue, as well.”

Idanwyn hopped down from her perch to chase an errant blue crab that scuttled across the deck. Plucking it from the boards, she let it run over her hands and arms; it didn’t pinch her, which was a novelty. “Ye a’ready have sae much, modryb. All yer books, an’ yer fine t’ings. Papa says ye could retire lit’ a pirate queen. Why d’ye need cer...surrul-the-um?”

The Captain reached out, laying the back of her hand against Idanwyn’s left forearm. Hesitantly, the blue crab climbed into the woman’s leather-gloved hand, and she tossed it over the starboard railing with a casual underhand. “Ceruleum. To fly, little urchin.” She took another drag from her pipe before tapping the spent bowl into the waves below. “To see what is beyond this endless blue and the wallowing we do atop it before our corpses are within it.” Giving her niece a gentle pat on the shoulder, she turned on her heel and was off with a quick stride to give one order after the other. She was always like this; with you for a brief, intense moment, and then off to give someone else their own brief, intense moment. 

Idanwyn was used to it. She scampered belowdecks to place her hand on the glowing, seething core of her aunt’s ship. Her father said the vessel was cursed, that her mainmast was overgrown with something misshapen. When Idanwyn laid her hand upon it, though, she could only see her aunt’s proud, bold stride; her fine silks; her indomitable will. These things permeated the Nixie herself, to the point that sometimes Idanwyn wondered where her father’s sister ended, and where the ship began.

[kenyatta]

Now in its fifth year, the  competition  is open again from today until the end of June. The full list of terms & conditions can be found  here on the website,  and should be read by anyone planning to send in a new story submission over the coming weeks.  

[...]

Prospective entrants should listen to previous winning entries, to understand what kind of adventures the judges are looking for.  

The first winning story, selected from over a thousand submissions in 2016, was  Forever Fallen  by  Joshua Wanisko. The finished production, narrated by Nicholas Briggs, can be downloaded for free from the Big Finish website. The subsequent three winning stories, Landbound  by  Selim Ulug,  The Last Day at Work  by  Harry Draper, and The Best Laid Plans by Ben Tedds are also excellent starting points.  

[monstersdownthepath]

Theme TRUE Finale: Thuskchoon, the Everglutton

CR 21

Chaotic Evil Gargantuan Outsider

Pathfinder Bestiary 6, pg. 238~239

Ahhh, you know, as soon as I started thinking about this adorable slug-octopus-centipede again, I couldn’t not have him be the true capstone of Theme Week V(ore). Every pantheon’s got a gluttonous beastie in it, but I have to say, I appreciate Thuskchoon more than any of them. His design is simple yet endearing (if you look close, his neck is actually made up of separate tentacles--his whole “head” can split open like a flower!) and he’s got one of the most adorable facts you could have for a flesh-eating horror: Unlike most other Qlippoth Lords, primordial rulers of the deepest reaches of the Abyss, Thuskchoon’s intellect is not staggering or overwhelming in its depth and power. In fact, with an Intelligence of 3, Thuskchoon is just barely above the threshold for sapience!

The Everglutton is so hungry that the vast majority of the time he is Nearly Mindless, gaining a hefty bonus to saving throws versus mind-affecting abilities but essentially turning him into a slavering animal. He has a list of fairly dangerous spell-like abilities useful for crippling prey so he can rush in and eat them, such as his 3/day Blindness/Deafness, Power Word Blind, Waves of Exhaustion, and his at-will Slow, but while he’s Nearly Mindless he cannot use ANY of them. So how does he overcome this mindless state? He can’t! Not permanently, at least.

While combating other beings, every round there’s a cumulative 20% chance that ‘Choon will gain an Intellectual Flash, instilling on him inhuman intelligence and reasoning skills for a single round. Among other things, this allows him to use his spell-like abilities to lethal effect. While this Flash fades after only a single round, there is one other way for him to overcome his maddening hunger: The Everglutton can bite down with his tentacle-mouth for 6d8+13 damage, plus an additional 2d6 acid damage and the ever-present grab, and with Fast Swallow he can immediately gulp up his target. Once in his belly, the victim takes 10d6 bludgeoning and 10d6 acid damage every round... Along with 1d6 Intelligence damage. ‘Choon devours not only bodies, but minds, and each point of Intelligence damage done by his otherworldly digestive process sates his hunger for a single round, allowing him to make use of his False Intelligence so long as his swallowed victim(s) still have minds of their own.

Given how much emphasis his abilities place on getting foes in his belly so he can have a proper Think now and then, most of his other abilities (like the aforementioned spells) revolve around holding victims in place. ‘Choon exudes thick Trailing Tar wherever he moves, transforming all terrain he passes over into difficult terrain, so landbound foes have a harder time chasing him down... or escaping, when he turns back around. There’s also his Entangling Acid ability, which causes of his acid damage to snare foes, cutting their speed in half (which stacks with Waves of Exhaustion’s speed reduction, by the way) and reducing their Dexterity. Entangling Acid works on all acid damage he does, by the way, including the minor damage from his bite, the not-so-minor damage of his lengthy, acidic breath weapon, and even the corrosive air of Acid Fog, letting him tangle people from over 200 feet away.

One of his more dangerous “stay here” powers, though, is his Horrific Appearance. All Qlippoth have a Horrific Appearance that slap people with painful debuffs just for looking at them, but only Qlippoth Lords really shine in this regard, their appearances so horrific that they can cause physical deformities. Thuskchoon’s Horrific Appearance causes unsightly mutations to overcome its foes, either granting them a crippling deformity from the Mutant template (scroll down a bit) or reducing one of their physical ability scores by -4... And permanently striking them with Feeblemind, reducing their Intelligence and Charisma to 1, making them just as dumb as Thuskchoon himself.

Ironically, while being Feebleminded makes someone much easier to actually eat, it makes them significantly less “nutritious.” Too bad the Everglutton’s not a picky eater.

You can read more about him here.

[grammarstanley-blog1]

🎮

Send me 🎮for our muses to play a horror game together.

@landbound-seafarer

[This is going to be a riot for sure and Silent Hill 2.]“Ok so the point of this game is to find this man’s wife who is actually dead and he knows that she’s dead but is still looking for her cause of a letter he’s claimed to have received from her telling her to come this town?”

Ford had asked this while watching the sea captain move around the player character named James who was wandering through the fog invested town. He was silent as he thought on this a bit.

“Bet you twenty dollars he killed her.”

[presidentsclubkrp]

Our crime tale begins with KANG TAEYOUNG, a FORTHY-FOUR year old member of THE PRESIDENT’S CLUB. HE works as their MONEY MAN, but he’s better known as the infamous SMOKE. JOIN THE HEIST?

PART ONE; the basics

Name: kang, taeyoung

Alias: n/a

Code name: smoke

Faceclaim: jung woosung

Gender/Pronouns: male, he/him/his

Date of Birth: january 2nd, 1976

Age: 44

Hometown: pyeongtaek, republic of korea

Occupation: senior border control officer, port of incheon

Canon: the money man

PART TWO; about

Biography (trigger warnings: none)

i.

kang taeyoung was born into a typical nuclear household in a working-class neighborhood. his father was a fisherman, his mother a seller at the seafood market. although the man was often gone from home for weeks on end, he always made up for his absence with quality time in between intervals, and while the woman was very affectionate, she wasn’t so weak-willed as to give into overindulgence. there might’ve occasionally been a few errors in their shared approach to child-rearing, but nothing to warrant the development of a warped outlook. they surrounded the boy with enough necessary requisites to become a benign, law-abiding citizen like they were. unfortunately for them, his was a case where nature prevailed against nurture, and he was inherently resistant to the values and beliefs they were trying to impart.

growing up in modest circumstances as dictated by his parents’ fluctuating income streams, he was told be content with whatever means within which they were living. however, at a young age, kang taeyoung was already fascinated with the affluent lifestyle portrayed in mainstream media, designed to either offer escapism or stimulate consumerism, mostly imported from foreign countries. the wealth itself was one thing, the gap between his own and the televised quasi-reality another. in a sense, he was inspired, and since nobody wouldn’t wish to improve their living standards, being ambitious shouldn’t be a problem. except that his motives were ill-directed: the way he saw it, in a world overrun with nobodies, to be recognized with riches was to have his status elevated above the masses. he wanted to be admired – envied.

ii.

kang taeyoung wasn’t among the hardest-working students in his school, yet he certainly was the most fashionable. he placed a heavy emphasis on appearance because it was the foremost basis upon which judgments would be formed, so there was always something either on or with him to widen the kids’ eyes and pique the adults’ curiosity as he walked by - whether it was his clothes, his accessories, his toys or his bicycles. upgrades happened one at a time, often enough to maintain and dial up the interest level, though not as much as he would’ve liked. he never went around bragging to his peers when he got a new item, simply vaguely implying its expensiveness once they brought it up with timid awe. it was a dignified satisfaction to have people speculative about the possible disparity in worth between one’s and their possessions.

the question wasn’t about how he managed to get his hands on authentic goods, but how he almost constantly managed to outdo himself. some neighbors came with accusations of excessive lenience and offers of management tips, only to give his parents a chance to express how proud they were to have such a mature son who understood the family’s hardships and ran errands even beyond town to cover his own expenditures, blissfully ignorant of the actual nature of his activities. truth be told, kang taeyoung was generating money from helping his uncle cheat at illegal gambling games and exploiting strangers’ compassion. the former executed via sitting in a corner and spying on the opponents’ cards, then reporting back through specific gestures. the latter, with antics like slip-and-fall accidents. he started all this at the age of seven.

iii.

as political stabilization and economic prosperity increased the volume of movement through their town, the fisherman sold his boat and invested the family savings into operating a convenience store with the help of his son. at the time, kang taeyoung could no longer tag along to his uncle’s cards games under the pretense of needing babysitting, and while he was seeking a replacement source, embezzling from the shop’s register didn’t cross his mind. until he witnessed how much of a pushover his father was now that the man was landbound. every deadbeat in the neighborhood owed him money, anyone who came in with a sob story got to leave with a free product. attempted intervention simply resulted in lengthy lectures on cynicism, so the boy thought, this was better off being wasted on his personal gratifications instead.

meanwhile, his portfolio of shenanigans was steadily expanding, so he recruited a distant cousin for assistance. sparing the vulnerable and focusing on non-locals due to the unlikelihood of unexpected re-encounters, their usual scenarios revolved around trading dropped wallets, fake watches, prized antiques, etc. for cash; with complex schemes like spanish prisoner and black money occurring periodically as his youth undermined the plausibility and his older yet less quick-witty partner had to be thoroughly prepped. a key to their successes was to convince the victims what they were doing were shady, because people loved the idea of beating the system and their voluntary agreement later prevented them from contacting the cops once they realized they were cheated. in high school, the duo began running an illicit id forgery business.

iv.

the store went bankrupt around his high school graduation. the total amount of his embezzlement stood at fourteen millions won, and although it posed an equal contribution to the business failure, he showed no remorse, pinning the blame entirely on his father’s misplaced generosity. seven months later, the man passed away, no one wept harder - or moved on faster, than he did. at this point, the town was reduced to a bacterium, he was far beyond its bitter jealousy of his rather inexplicable capacity for unrestrained spending. it was high time he stepped into the real world, and the pressing question on his mind was about how to sustain the desired perception of his status on a grander scale. never did kang taeyoung intend to become a full-blown con artist, which wouldn’t generate enough to cover what he was striving towards anyways.

he wanted awe without strings attached because idolization would bring social responsibilities and public scrutiny, seeking to garner prestigious possessions to remind the nobodies how miserable they were with their mundane cycles and demonstrate to the somebodies he was a force to be reckoned. the international trade sector seemed like an optimal place for the collection of significant amounts of money at fast paces : not all imports / exports were authorized, and officials carried within them various degrees of guiltiness, i.e. acceptance of bribes in exchange for feigned oblivion or misappropriation of confiscated goods for resales on the black markets. the best way to evade the laws was to understand the loopholes from the inside, hence kang taeyoung’s decision to enroll in a criminal justice degree with a major in homeland security.

v.

there kang taeyoung was, the go-to handler for smugglers and customs-cheaters, as well as the number-one black-market dealer for illicit goods in the entire gyeonggi province. armed with a silver tongue and a handsome visage, he had all the right tricks up his sleeve to leverage his bargaining powers over the opposite parties. he sold the benefits not the features, he applied time pressure to discourage critical thinking, he adapted his dress codes to facilitate cultural compliance, and he cited social evidence to drive the deals down the desired paths. his credence was further guaranteed by a national crime syndicate, headed by none other than his distant cousin. despite his extensive ties and his proclaimed preference for no-one to lose if everyone could win, he never let himself be part of anyone else’s crusade, only pursuing his own self-interests.

can trust nobody when you strike it rich was the motto he lived by, but people blinded by love forsook their strictest principles for the mistaken beliefs that their significant others were worth the exceptions. for the longest time, kang taeyoung was involved with the owner of a popular hostess club. so utterly infatuated, he didn’t think thrice when she asked him to co-sign for a loan of five-hundred millions won. the femme fatale then proceeded to vanish, and his attempts to track her movements through card usages and cellphone signals were to no avail. with the loan shark breathing down his neck and the mob blocking his exit out the country in order to avoid a strife with the former’s enforcers, the opportunity to extricate himself from this parlous situation presented itself in the form of an invitation to join the president’s club.

[holymoly-hotdog]

Rules: answer the questions in a new post and tag 20 blogs you would like to get to know better.

REPOST don’t reblog

Tagged by: @landbound-seafarer

Nickname: Rina Star sign: Cancer Height: 5′7″ Time right now: 2:27pm Favorite music artist: Uuh.. Probably Elvis idk Song stuck in your head: You’re welcome

Last movie watched: Howl’s Moving Castle Last T.V. show watched: Some show about military technology When did you create your blog: November 21st 2014 (I had to dig through hell to find this jfc) What kind of stuff do you post: The usual RP and some art Do you have any other blogs: Pff yes but uh, I’ll spare you the details and just give you my most recent @giiftbaskets

Why did you choose your URL: Because it’s a quote from the show and it’s catchy

Gender: :v

Hogwarts house: I always get either Hufflepuff or Gryffindor when I take the tests

Pokémon team: Instinct

Favorite color: Red

Average hours of sleep: 8-10

Lucky number: 5 How many blankets do you sleep with: 1 or 2 Dream job: Cartoonist or something that will make me enough money to get by Following: 217 Followers: 257

I will tag: Anyone who wants to do this lmao