#(((lore dump featuring the twins!)))

[dragonmasterhiccup]

Hearing him say 'young love' brought Freya to a still, blinking down at her hands as she silently fought against the urge to stand closer to him again. She did not like how quickly her face could get red now - and it was all thanks to Hiccup...and his words. "Yeah, hopefully... that's all they say.."

Rolling her eyes at his comment, she couldn't stop the growing smile on her lips,

'Dork..'

----------

Holding back from sighing, Freya rested her chin in the palm of her hand, leaning on the table that she and her little sister were using. Boredom was practically glowing from her features, internally wanting to help out in the forge and not be a distraction to Ayla so she wouldn't say anything out of line. That, and she could stand next to Hiccup again...or at least talk to him.

Ayla seemed on top of the world, though, speaking non-stop about how cool she'd look with her new helmet and saddle combined on her 'very awesome' future dragon. At some point, it all went ignored when she never stopped talking. She wondered how Gobber was able to deal with that..even if it was for a couple of minutes. She'd usually chatter like that to their mother, something they both had in common.

Sooner or later, her thoughts wandered off onto, none other than, Hiccup. She wasn't so sure if she was completely fine with that...but she couldn't get the image of his eyes and hair out of her mind, practically his whole face, actually. Which was also something she didn't know if she was ready to accept. Finally giving in, she slowly began to glance over in his direction, only to see him abruptly cut himself - right on his hand.

Immediately, Freya straightened up, a worried expression taking over her features, "Hiccup!" Without another second wasted, she sprinted to where he stood, her only concern being on him. She glared at the sword for a moment as though it were the one to blame before delicately taking his wrist, carefully inspecting the cut on his hand, "Are you alright? How did this happen? Why in the world would you cut yourself!?" She winced at the sight of blood, already noticing the wound wasn't a paper cut in any way.

Usually, she'd avoid treating people with a lot of bloody injuries, but it was if all of her senses were consumed with making sure he was okay. So, she reached down to grab the cloth he had given her, snatching it out of the covering of her dagger before she attentively wrapped it around his hand. She remained silent for the most part, not wanting to yell on accident because of her fretting demeanor. However, at the thought of him being in pain, her brows furrowed in frustration, "You dork, why did you have to go and hurt yourself..?"

She didn't even hear Ayla's frightened questions of whether or not he'd be okay, making sure the cloth was securely tied around his hand while she took a step back. "You need to go to Gothi's..now. That wrapping is only until we get there because you are not walking around with an open, bleeding wound." Glimpsing over at Gobber, she hurriedly spoke: "We need to go, I'll make up for his lost time here today if I have to, but he needs to get this properly treated."

Freya turned to reassure her younger sister, quickly telling her to go back home while she went with Hiccup. Despite her brief complaints of wanting to come with them, she eventually listened and left the forge, glancing back at them both a few times as she went. Once she was out of sight, Freya whistled to get Blaze's attention, running towards him in urgency. Before she mounted him, however, her stern gaze found Hiccup yet again, "I'd tell you to come with me on Blaze but I don't think Toothless will enjoy being away from you while you're hurt like this."

She knew the Night Fury couldn't fly on his own either, so she only allowed him to do this just once. "Let's go, we need to figure out if you'll need stitches or not."

-------------

Much to her relief, Hiccup didn't need the stitches. Although it was a pretty bad cut, Gothi communicated to them that he would need to rest, allow it to heal, and apply the dreadful salve once in the morning and evening. She instructed that it'll take a few days, up to a week, for his hand to begin to fully heal, if he didn't do anything too drastic throughout that time.

Gothi was able to give him much more proper bandages, applying the necessary amount of salve to the wound before she wrapped it once more. Freya knew the feeling of having that spread over an injury, on her hand nonetheless, and she would've stayed inside with him while it happened, but Gothi motioned for her to step outside for that moment. As soon as the door reopened, she practically barged in, standing close in front of Hiccup as she examined the freshly cleaned and bandaged wound, still slightly upset at the sight of him being hurt.

Instead of allowing him to go to his hut, which she knew she should've let happen, Freya insisted that he come to hers instead, at least for now. She offered to make him something to eat, give him any other extra necessary herbs Yrsa might've had somewhere if Gothi didn't already, but she felt that there was something in her that wanted him around for other reasons. It took her a while to realize she wanted him close by because of his injury, not wanting to leave him alone purely due to her own worry.

She felt slightly guilty for keeping him away from his own hut, but there was a part of her that needed to be reassured that he was really okay, even if it was only a cut on his hand. As they came to a stop in front of her home, she glanced at Hiccup with concern vividly present in her eyes, "I'll make some porridge while Ayla can keep you company.." She rubbed Blaze's neck, silently letting him know she was...alright, for the most part, when he stared at her as though he knew something was wrong with her.

Dismounting the Sand Wraith, she quickly walked up the steps leading to the door of her hut, swiftly rushing to get a pot ready for the oats once she was inside. As soon as she did so, Ayla raced down the stairs, frantically bombarding Hiccup with her perturbed questions: "You're back! Are you okay? Did you need stitches!? How did you even cut yourself?"

He hadn't expected Freya to just...run to him, like she had... But then again, wouldn't he have done the same? Hadn't he, when she had cut her hand in the forest?

Teeth clenched, he hissed as she took his wrist to inspect his hand. The slight movement made it sting even more, but the cut probably looked worse than it actually was.

Exhaling, he said flatly, "I didn't do this on purpose, Fey. Got... distracted... Dumb mistake..." Squeezing his eyes shut, he inwardly groaned.

He was an experienced smithy, something like this should never have happened.

"I'll be fine, I've...I've had worse injuries."

At the touch of a cloth, he opened his eyes, surprised to see her wrapping up his hand...using the cloth he'd given her the evening before.

His eyes moved up to her face, a little scrunched in concentration. While his own hands were calloused, hers were softer, and he could tell she was careful to not irritate the wounds any further...

His breathing steadied, and the pain in his hand started to turn into a dull throb.

"I...I didn't mean to, you know that, right?" His voice was soft, tentative, because...she seemed genuinely upset that he'd been hurt.

Gobber, having seen and heard all of this, waved a hook. "Go on, make sure he doesn't get hurt again during the trip. Sometimes I feel the lad is accident-prone...don't worry, I can hold down the fort. Just look after him, aye?"

Hiccup was a little shocked by the turn of events, and feeling a little lightheaded from Freya's hands on his own as he followed her outside.

Toothless flocked to him immediately, eyeing his bandaged hand with concern. "It's nothing bud, really."

Hopping on Toothless, he held his injured hand halfway up, holding on with the other as they flew to Gothi's.

--------------

While you're hurt like this...

He didn't understand. It was just a cut, on his hand. Sure, it wasn't minor, but...he'd pushed through much worse than this...

These thoughts were running through his mind as Gothi inspected the wound, having already removed and discarded the bloodied cloth.

As she sentenced him to rest, he tried not to look too frustrated. He hated being forced to rest. He hated having to sit still for too long. He needed to be doing something, keep his hands and his mind busy or he would go crazy.

-------

As Gothi tended to Hiccup inside, the twins happened to be passing by, pausing to see Freya waiting outside the hut.

News of their relationship had spread fast, even faster after the kiss during the morning session, so Tuffnut knew exactly who Freya was waiting for.

"So, Hiccup's hurt himself again, I see...how bad is it this time? He lose another limb?"

Ruffnut rolled her eyes. "Seriously, Tuff? He hasn't come close to that in like, years! It'd be much more of a better guess to ask if he almost drowned again, like with the Submaripper that kept Berk from getting supplies."

"Oh!" Tuffnut's eyes widened, like he got an idea. "Or if he was kidnapped again! Was there another ransom this time? Remember that, Ruff? He was kidnapped like, four times in one day that time!"

She nodded, listing off a few other instances that happened while they were on the Edge. She finished with, "Yeah, Hiccup's probably got more scars than all of us combined!"

Learning the true reason Hiccup was at Gothi's, they just shrugged.

"That's nothing. Frankly, I'm a little disappointed. It's usually so much more epic! Like that time he got hit by lightning!"

Ruffnut snickered. "Yeah! We're pretty sure Hiccup is some sort of magical wizard. Otherwise, how did he survive all that stuff??"

"Either that, or part dragon! He got knocked out by dragon root gas, remember?"

----------------

As Freya returned, Hiccup stood to greet her, having been sitting on a stool so it was easier for Gothi to treat his hand.

He wasn't used to this level of attentiveness...he didn't know what to do with it.

At her instructions, he just nodded mutely, following her to her hut.

While the offer of porridge sounded good, he shook his head. "You really don't have to worry about me, I'm fine. Gothi said it wasn't serious."

Toothless stayed outside with Blaze, watching Hiccup as he entered the hut.

He had questions for Freya, but was immediately cornered by Ayla.

"Oh, hey! No, I'm fine, it wasn't that deep. She just said I had to take it easy for a few days, put some salve on it." Glancing at Freya, he just said, "It was an accident. Just goes to show, it's important to pay full attention when working in the forge."

Going to sit down with Ayla, he asked, "Tell me about that saddle you were designing?"

[leahnardo-da-veggie]

Can I get a lore dump on hash and will we see her again? (Feel free to ramble)

Of course you're seeing him again, he's immortal. He will live forever and ever and ever and- Yeah.

Okay, so here's the meta about Hash:

He came attached to Hans right from the very beginning. You dont seperate those two.

So yeah, he's occupied my brains for a very long time

Originally, he was the evil one and a doppelganger/mimic instead of a shape shifter, but over time he got nicer and eventually ended up being a good guy (sort of)

Oh, and he went from he/him to she/her to it/its and then finally he/she

Gay. (Jk he's pan)

He has a shitty fake Paliodaen accent (despite being born in Palioden lol), which is like if a southern USA accent had a baby with the Scottish

He and Hans are supposed to be each other's foils, which is why he's a coward, but also a genuinely good person. I'd say his alignment is Chaotic Good.

In his eyes, he's a failed hero. The greatest shapeshifter of his people, meant to bring glory to the shapeshifters and let them rule over the world. And then he ended up causing their death by saving humanity instead of them.

And did he stick around afterwards? No, he ran away and hid his face some more. He could have saved the world. He had a dozen chances to, when he met the Godhuntress as a young woman and encountered the Witch of Emwy on her quest to stop death. He could have stopped the Harpies from stealing the moon, and intercepted Tabitha-who-saw-the-gods when she got kidnapped.

Of course, that's just what he thinks of himself. He has done good, as evidenced by the convenience store vampire. He's changed the world in ways big and small, though he hardly sticks around to see it or notice it.

On a lighter note, he's also meant to be a bit of a trickster, though less so than his original form. One of these days I'll post the story I wrote when I was 15, which was my first feature of him.

I love him and his imposter syndrome lol.

Anywaysss, picrew dump!!!! (Top left is from back when she was Hans' twin)

[aquaticfox32]

Lore dump for Into the Lush Forest:

In this AU, the world revolves around magic. Creatures of the forests and deserts are dominant creatures who have mastered the arts of magic, each having a unique ability to control or command. Narrator and Curator are considered prodigies for their kind due to their parent. Mana is connected to the soul of the individual, a sensitive part of any being and most vulnerable part to protect.

Mariella was originally human, being one of the sacrifices to be given away. Curator found her and eventually loved her enough to leave her home, her younger twin following her example. Not wanting to let Mariella age, she changed some her body to adapt for a long life, not as long as her own but long enough to make the best of it. This is why Mariella has animalistic features on her body.

This range of power has a lasting effect on the user, usually draining a part of their mana or their life force to be exact. If they use an excessive amount of their mana, they will be weak enough to be hurt or killed by any non magic user. A way they regain their mana is to devour anything that has a high amount of mana in it, ranging from plants to animals, even human. They can eventually recover their mana on their own but this is a long process which forces them into hibernation and not all of them have the privilege to stay hidden long enough to do so.

Humans are also part of the category of who can use mana, but this comes at a certain price. From long exposure to usage of mana, their bodies slowly give into the side effects, usually a shorten lifespan, mental illness, and inability to have any children.

There used to be a great amount of human mages who were able to use mana but as time passed with humans residing in their current towns and cities, the knowledge and talent disappeared with it. Anybody who were possibly related to these mages would have no knowledge of it since the family history was not kept up to date.

[amarisrosalette]

Archons x WoF x Warrior Cats Concepts

update: so finals are nearing and apparently my sanity has been dragging down recently so i thought combining my hyperfixations into an au is how i cope /hj

(i actually drew this during finals, now its been sitting on my drafts for god knows how long)

so i began thinking of two separate crossover aus where the archons, specifically my comforts barbatos and morax, would look like in the following book series: Wings of Fire and Warrior Cats

so for the people who don't know both of these books series are fantasy novels surrounding dragons and cats, respectively

and because i haven't told you guys that i love dragons and cats now is the best time that i reveal it

so i present to you guys:

Character Concepts of Barbatos and Morax as dragons in Wings Of Fire style!! (FYI i plan to separate this au from WoF because i too am not very happy with the canon lore and i overall just don't rlly vibe with it and WC is just. kinda sitting there. no real plot or plan purpose. just did that for fun.)

these were the concepts i did while i was experimenting around krita and whatnots, so let's start with old gods as dragons shall we?

Wings of Fire (+ closer zoom-ins, ignore the doodles, i'm a little insane i know but hey this is tumblr)

okay so just allow me to lore dump for a while, I'll also talk about the other archons who aren't featured here because I'm still thinking of concepts for them

starting with Barbatos, fellow WoF people might not recognize his species but he is an AvianWing, which are the basically bird-like dragons that i created in my au

they're very fast and agile creatures, they are known to hunt in packs like raptors and make efficient yet deadly hunters. they have sickle claws on their hindlegs and are known for their famous "songs" which are long melodious, almost song-like, calls that they use for various things such as communication, mating, echolocation, and more.

although not known for brute strength, venti doesn't let that stop him. where he lacks for brute strength and size he makes up for his speed in his slim body, force, powerful beak, and talons made up of strong muscles for pulling and slashing.

while he isn't a fan of hostility and fighting, he is much stronger, older, and wiser than he looks. he may act youthfully and even a bit silly, but this doesn't come from a place of naivety but rather a wish to enjoy life as it passes.

he is a well-known dragon around his kingdom, although he isn't a ruler, he laid the foundations of the reforms of his kingdom but refuses to take fame for himself, instead giving it to his older twin brother, Himmel (who is nameless bard and is alive in this au)

he and his brother are, of course, traveling bards, who'd like to perform on the streets or look after dragonets in the villages when their mothers weren't around.

many dragonets know and love him and Himmel, and they see them as elder brothers they like to snuggle with to hear their wonderful stories and beautiful songs.

he's kind and well-loved around his kingdom, and even established good relations with the current ruler.

cunning and swift, he has heightened senses for successful hunting. common in all AvianWings, they are known to possess a keener eye than most dragons for spotting small prey from above ground.

with that said, the look of underestimation on some dragons' faces does not go unnoticed by him.

but it doesn't matter, he could use it to his advantage anyway, so he plays along.

it wasn't until he unexpectedly turned the tables, making them face the hidden strength that he was provoked into protecting his loved ones in the distant past...

but that was all but a memory now, as he cuddled up eager dragonets with his wings chirruping and squawking when they wanted to hear his song. those wide pairs of eyes were hard to resist, even for a bard like him.

his elder brother settles them near and gently shushes them to behave before they begin, which they so obediently follow.

he chuckles, and so he sings with his voice, of tales gone by from the past, carefully woven into a meaning that one day, he hopes, the future dragonets will understand.

lore dump aside, i genuinely created the avianwings because i wanted to accommodate the WoF universe for venti and mondstadt because i thought that the bird and freedom motifs would suit him really well + the stigma of not looking strong at a glance but can shock you when you're not looking carefully. idk guys i think the birds are venti's spirit animal yk :)

next is Morax. i haven't quite thought of his lore yet, so let me go over the concepts i thought while drawing of him.

one day, i had a question in my head of a "what-if" scenario of what would morax's exuvia look like if he was in a different style of a dragon, specifically the western dragon and in WoF style, aside from the traditional lung.

now this isn't meant to be a cultural erasure, as i know the lung dragon is an important figure in Chinese mythology and formed an integral part of zhongli's character in genshin, however, i just wanted to entertain a new idea, and so i experimented with a new style of his dragon form (more specifically the European dragon style of WoF).

this isn't to say that his exuvia form looks bad or ugly, this is only a curious experiment or retelling of him in a new light.

anyway in the au i'm thinking like he's some sort of a skywing general or warrior bc the whole mountain dragon thing going on for the skywings seems really fitting for him

he's a very strong guy, well-spoken past his prime age but he still stands a formidable warrior

he's an experienced general who was trained vigorously from a very young age, and he rose to his ranks and became a famed and well-respected warrior

he also carries one of the most rarest genetic traits called metallic scales, and they reflect the sun's golden sheen under the light which earned him the title "Warrior of the Sun"

hes just a big scary dragon that looks intimidating but actually has a soft heart inside like canon morax, he may or may not have retired from his position but this was him during his prime (?)

dragon zhongli (not morax) is just a grandpa now bc i say so. hehehe

also skywings in my au are much different from their canon counterparts, they're much taller, stronger, and have more color diversity than just red or orange, and their tribe personality is different than just being thin, grumpy, or violent

(and yes all of the tribes in my au are more sensible and less arrogant than canon)

and uhm. dont mind the third doodle. i just went a little crazy if venti was a tiny bit messed up as a dragon)

moraxs dragon form and the whole metallic scales thing was heavily inspired by an artist called @sarcosse.7 on instagram. they don’t have a tumblr but their art is amazing! if you want to you can go and check them out!! they’re really good at writing and their oc lore is interesting.

next is warrior cats (and no im not beating the weird kid allegations, i genuinely cannot contain the silliness anymore, i love cats smmmmm)

and YES DONT MIND ME I TOYED AROUND ABOUT CATS WITH HAIR. it looks cool okay don't judge me /hj (my designs my rules, i am defying the laws of logic)

on the second-third drawing, i tried to experiment with a new brush with the disney-esque feel with fluid motions (like the waving motion of his)

ANYHOWWWW. i just pictured venti as a silly mischievous lil cat. think he might be a windchill warrior or rogue or something idk. but i was thinking about how the genshin nations would look like if they were in warrior cats clans.

also cats with braids r cool

i don’t have anything else to say in here other than KITTIES

ppl i wanna call just in case: @cinnabell2 @lanternlightss @ventisslut @probably-haven

[hiratelier]

Was developing some lore for my twins so have this scuffed sketch of Mario and Maria as kids

Also have some bit of lore dump under the cut :)

Maria and Mario's current names aren't their real ones; when they got older and started to integrate themselves within human society, they chose to adopt civilian names in order to blend in. To this day we don't really know what their real names actually are

The twins are half-qilin; they can actually toggle their beast-like features as they wish, but it's worth noting that when they were born, it didn't seem that they were born with such features until they got older; turns out that toggling them on gives the twins a major boost in power

Maria and Mario are the current incarnations of a singular divine being who was a full-blooded qilin and acted as a divine protector; before its passing, it wished to be reincarnated as a human, which did become true but something went wrong while their wish was granted, hence their next incarnation came in the form of twins. Their birthday is on April 4, 1298

When the twins were born, they were found by an elderly couple (with apparently long lifespans), who then raised them as their children within solitude, away from the clutches of human society. The couple found out about the twins' peculiar nature when it came to their pyrokinesis abilities, so they taught the twins how to harness their powers effectively. They even taught the twins how to toggle on their antlers and tails once they found out that they were half-qilin

The scales on Maria and Mario weren't always there; when they were first born, they only had scales on their pointed ears, and as they grew up, more scales appeared on their bodies and it appears to have stopped by the time they were going to leave their lives in solitude

The gloves that Maria wears to suppress her destructive pyrokinesis was a gift from her grandmother figure, so she takes extra care in wearing them and making sure that they don't get taken off by accident. She's even researching how to replicate the gloves' properties since she never thought about asking her grandma how to make them

Maria's pyrokinesis is geared towards destroying anything and everything, while Mario's pyrokinesis is geared towards healing and regenerating

Maria and Mario were gifted weapons by their grandparent figures to help them channel their pyrokinesis, and were taught how to use them; Maria was given an odachi while Mario was given a spear; both of them can physically manifest their weapons at any time without worrying about carrying them around constantly

The elderly couple would then pass away at the beginning of the 21st century; the twins were adults (physically 20 years old) at the time, and they left their isolated lives and now live amongst human civilization, adopting new names and occupations as they went

Maria can easily adapt to new technology and trends despite spending centuries of her life living in solitude; Mario is more of a country bumpkin, but he takes his time in adjusting to new things

The twins and their previous incarnation are immortal, but they can still be killed - it's just that it's EXTREMELY difficult to do that; they can't die of diseases though

My sudden lore dump was inspired by this tweet that featured fan art of Maria and Mario! It looks fantastic :D

[totaleclipse573]

Okay but so can you make (or link me to) a post going over your OCs cause i am in constant confusion whenever i see them 😭

Well, if you want more info on the more lore-heavy oc's (Terios and Doleon) to get somewhat of an idea, they each have tags! They're :

#terios lore

#doleon lore? (with the question mark lmao)

Has a bunch of stuff there on them. I'd link you to the Terios lore post from some time ago but some of the stuff on there is really incomplete/some parts are inaccurate due to that now. I'd be happy to tell you about my silly little oc's though! (And maybe a refresher in case anyone needs it)

I'm warning you. This WILL be long 😅 Mainly because of Terios. It's all part of an alt canon of mine (Oc Universe au) and I have a lot of oc's. GRAB SNACKS.

DOLEON

Starting with him, because he plays a HUGE part in Terios' lore and story

Essentially, he's the Black Doom of this au. (Fun fact : he was created because I had no idea how to draw actual Black Doom, nor had the energy to learn, so I made him a hedgehog/alien thing. Then I got to thinking and now he has his own separate lore jhsdbfbkjdb. It's a bit complicated.)

Centuries ago, he had six other brothers (who also each have their own tag, just their names) https://www.tumblr.com/totaleclipse573/739530015615664128/can-i-dump-some-lore-on-yall-real-quick-actually?source=share

This explains everything pretty well I think. Still check out the tag itself if you'd like more info! (You should probably know for later, this guy right here is the definition of "I ALWAYS COME BACK >:D")

Personality wise, he's very egotistical, has a burning hatred for humans and humanity, and is always seeking power. He tends to see himself as much more intelligent and overall better than others (even though some *cough cough Starline cough* perceive him as dumb due to not knowing much about Earth or how things work on this planet.) While sometimes impulsive, he also really knows how to put up a good battle strategy wise. As of now, he (along with Shadow, Eclipse and Terios,) are the only remaining Black Arms left. (ALSO AS OF NOW : he met Starline, WHO IS TOTALLY ALIVE AFTER ISSUE 50, and they decided to form a partnership for each others own secret benefits, planning to stab one another in the back afterwards. They never do 😭 They're just really gay 😭)

TERIOS

(Cw for child abuse)

2000+ years after the Doleon shards incident, Terios is the accidental twin to Shadow, the initial project being rather mysteriously cloned. The only real explanation found had something to do with energy. This "clone" looked a bit off, with features that pointed to the idea that it seemed to hold more Black Arms DNA (ex. long pointed tail, all sharp teeth, green blooded, clawed fingers.)

But Doleon takes notice to that little mistake in the process. He can use that to his advantage. A pact is rather forcibly made, once the now two projects are finished, Doleon is entitled to one of them to use for his own purposes. He's part of the reason they even exist. He can make things happen if he doesn't get his way. (Geraldoom divorce arc /j)

He takes the black and white-striped one (who doesn't seem to want to be away from its twin it only JUST met, annoyingly.) It seems to be the exact opposite of it's twin, who is loud and confident. It (he can't keep calling this thing an it, for Supreme's sake...his name is Terios now) should be easier for what he has planned.

So while Shadow grew on the ARK, Terios grew on the Black Comet. And uh..............it was rough. He's essentially a victim of child abuse and a hell of a lot of manipulation. Brainwashed for years.

Doleon has Terios for his future plans now, but the downside on his end is that he now actually has to "care" for this small child until he’s old enough to begin his training.

But uh. Well...

Here's something from his lore tag regarding...a certain huge part of his lore

And some art of bitty him

Terios (and Shadow) grew rather quickly (in terms of appearance.) Doleon took that as a sign of "he's old enough" and the brutal and quite frankly traumatizing training began. He would be the BEST, and this was the way to make sure of that. He could never mess up, never make a mistake, he had to be perfect. And he made sure Terios knew that too. Every mistake he made would get him clawed at. The more severe the mistake, more likely the deeper the gash. (Learn how to heal yourself with that energy...or don't, and suffer. Sometimes, if his mistake was so bad, he wouldn't even be allowed to heal with the energy.) It was always on one of his arms or on his face. More often would he get shouted at, grabbed and tossed to the ground like some kind of rag doll. The lesson he eventually had to learn?

Don't ever mess up. On anything. Expect pain and suffering otherwise.

There's also this one other little habit he was eased into...

He doesn't hate his father for these things though. He still cares deeply for him and doesn't ever wish to disappoint him, as he's been doing. Father's doing this for a good reason...! Terios would soon be passed the honor of the power the Shards of Chaos hold, he needed a lot of training and discipline to be able to handle that...!

And that's what he told himself. Every. Time.

This goes on for a few years, and he's gotten much better with his training (he pretty much had to, the injuries weren't healing fast enough.) He rarely speaks unless told to, he's terribly obedient, he's tired, he's hurting, but it doesn't matter. He's what he's supposed to be! He's finally near perfection! (Except for these weird sparks and bursts of shard energy he gets whenever he feels sad...or angry...maybe he could just drown that out?)

Then things get crazy bc Tikal is here now. LET ME EXPLAIN PLEASE-(I first made Terios' story when I was like, ten years old? XD He's a revived oc)

Short summary : In this AU, Tikal is more like a free-ranging spirit. Tikal knew Doleon and his brothers, way back then. She was a ghost and could somehow get through the strange barrier of this little area the brothers were confined to, so they became friends! Tikal, Kieran and Doleon specifically. She wasn't around for when the others were killed, but the last person she saw was Kieran once the barrier was no longer there. That wasn't the only thing that was broken.

Since she already knew Doleon and what he had done in the past, she knew he had no good intentions. While he was away from Terios, she appeared before the Darkhog, alerting and telling him of what the shards really were, and what they could do to a person. And Terios, of course, started to panic. Was he being corrupted right now? Was he ALREADY corrupted? He needed to escape. But how? There was no escape. 

Luckily for Terios, Tikal’s spirit was able to transport him back to where he was created, the ARK (not without Doleon putting up a fight of course.) Unluckily, however, at the time he was transported there, the whole ARK fiasco was going on, and Maria had already sent Shadow down to Earth and stuff. Now there were only G.U.N. soldiers, and they spotted him, calling him “Project Shard," for some reason (He had a separate file. There can't be TWO Project Shadow's) So he tries to run from them, but can’t, and they catch up to him. Soon enough, they lock him up in a facility, putting him into cryostasis. 

Skip about...54 (???) years (4 years after SA2) and Terios is about to be released for nothing good. And guess what.

There's a one shot for one of the parts I randomly felt like writing out one day :D

This leads up to months of subtle brainwashing (aGAIN) and being brought back to his old mentalities until Terios just HATES that one hedgehog he's never met (gee doesn't that sound a bit like another irrelevant plotline of mine-) He's fully loyal to the Black Arms and to his kind only! Finding the Shards...for Doleon...that's his destiny. That's why he exists!

And so when they finally arrive to conquer earth (and find the remaining shards,) Terios is sent out to do his job. Except he meets people. Whoops.

The first person he ever met was Rouge, out on the streets of Westopolis. She just kind of...appeared? Upside down? Flying? Apparently, she'd seen him around. The things he could do...and she'd like his assistance in a little something. She was getting in his way, he could NOT be sidetracked by some bat.

He got sidetracked by some bat. The power of Rouge everybody. (But its okay because he didn't realize it. No panic attack here.) He still found one of the Shards afterwards! She led him to it, almost...surely a coincidence. Unless she was looking for them too? For some reason? WHY WAS SHE BEING NICE TO HIM ANYWAY??? WHAT TRICKERY WAS THIS??

...Not bad, though. If his tail would stop MOVING LIKE THAT FOR AT LEAST FIVE SECONDS, THOUGH, IT WOULD BE NICER.

Going back to Doleon with the shard, he should've expected somewhat of a lecture for socializing with allies of the enemy. AND OF COURSE, he got that. He's lucky he came back with the shard...he won't be punished.

After that, Ter, being sent out to the same place as a current horde of Black Arms soldiers, runs into Tails after going astray. Lecture down the drain, somewhat. What’s his name? Why is his tail so long? Can he use it in battle? Does he have any powers? He could ask questions all day if it weren’t for Terios starting to look overwhelmed by them (which gets an apology)

All the sudden, that horde of Black Arms start raiding the area Tails and Terios are in, so Tails, knowing this as current danger, grabs Terios by the hand and tells him he knows a safe, inside place.

A more simplified summary of events that come after all this because this is getting too long already sdbjbjkacvhjj

Terios says he has to go and this happens :

(that last part will become relevant in just a bit....)

More shard hunting

Doleon is harder on Terios now that Shadow is out of the picture. He isn't STUPID, Terios, he KNOWS what you've been doing. You keep derailing. Making mistakes. You know exactly where that leads.

Terios is quite literally beaten some sense into and this is the result :

Terios soon realizes Doleon PROBABLY isn't actually trying to help him at all, and instead joines the heroes in an attempt to stop him. He's with them for a while, starts to get somewhat comfortable around them...enough so that his real self starts showing.

And it confuses most. So you mean to say, this weird looking alien hybrid thing that only first showed himself in an attempt to brutally murder Shadow, had an alliance with Doom and the Black Arms from the start, and showed nothing but pure loyalty to them, even to go so far as to declare his actions in their name for the better? He's actually just this...guy. That was really, really badly manipulated.

Look at the way he came in. Even if he wouldn't specify where all those injuries came from, he was obviously treated like garbage. Just something to be used and then thrown aside. But oddly enough, he felt safe around these people. They were supposed to be the enemy!! Just another lie. He could change!! He could be better. Not the kind of better Doleon expected him to be, the kind of better that really just felt like the right thing now.

But hoooooooooooo when Doleon finds out about this.

Terios goes back into the comet after a while of being gone, its noticeable and he's mentally beating himself up about being so stupid. It's part of the plan, though. He'll go in first, so that the others remain unnoticed. Doleon has known about everything. And, if this kid won't LISTEN, he'll just have to MAKE HIM. His mental barriers were always weak anyway...he was the one to really mold the Darkhog into that for convenience.

Um.................angst...............it naturally follows :

When the others see him walking back out again they're confused. What is he DOING?? This isn't part of what they planned at all!

Until Doleon makes himself known as well and says something like "I only took back what belongs to me! It was rightfully mine from the start..." or some other CLEARLY rage-inducing thing. It gets on Shadow's nerves specifically sooooooooo bad, the way Doleon is speaking of Terios. Doesn't matter what they do, though. Terios won't listen. He won't speak. Everything else is blocked out. He belongs here. It's where he's always belonged. He's safe now. This is all he needs. He's home again.

And if it's what the Master told him, wanted of him, he would do anything to prove his loyalty. Anything.

He's forced to fight them, and they're forced to find some kind of way to snap him out of it before he can hurt anyone. He seems to be specifically going after Shadow for the kill, though.

Once he DOES get snapped out of it, he feels IMMENSE guilt. He can see how he hurt some of them, even if it was only a little. And that hurts him

APPARENTLY DOLEON OVER HERE WAS JUST HAVING SOME FUN, BECAUSE ONLY AFTER THIS DOES HE BRING OUT THE SHARDS AND GAIN A NEW FORM ENTIRELY TO FINALLY ENACT HIS END GOAL. Luckily Shadow has the Chaos Emeralds >:D Terios, though? Still terrified, and even more so now. WHAT IS A SUPER FORM?!?!?! He might need some help...

So they have to defeat Doleon in their super forms but Terios is still very new to the concept of chaos energy and super forms and such (he's far more shard energy than chaos energy,) and there may or may not be a scene somewhat reminiscent of that one SA2 scene in my head except no one dies. HOORAY!

And after all that, Terios can finally learn to be himself with his new allies, which leads to his redemption arc!

This part of his story moreso revolves around Terios learning to break free from what had happened before, and learn to better himself with the help of others. He also needs to learn some decent self care (whether it be simple things like taking better care of his fur, or more complex things like learning to accept help with his current mental state.)

At first, he’s still a bit paranoid about everything that happened. He’s worried Doleon could somehow come back at any moment, that the Black Arms could return along with him, that he would be forcibly dragged back in again, even after his life had only just started getting better (oH the nightmare scenes.) Luckily for him, though, now he has people that can actually help with these fears, and he eventually does feel ready to try and move on. Then he feels comfortable enough to start meeting people, and interacts with more of the cast!

This is also the time where he meets Eclipse and the Dark Arms! Short summary : Terios wants to do a Steven Universe and help Eclipse the way all the others helped him. Terios just kinda randomly stumbled into him while he was out one day and got VERY much lost. Eclipse doesn't like him and his sappy “I can help you bc power of friendship!” attitude at first, but then he's able to sense Terios' connection to the hivemind. It feels a bit different than Shadow. So now he's pretty curious as to why and starts asking Terios questions. Eventually Eclipse kinda grows to like Terios, this hybrid is actually nice to him, for some reason. But then Shadow finds them. You can probably tell where that goes (It’s bad for a long while, but it eventually ends with Shadow, Eclipse and Terios all living together bc they're brothers, it’s my own little canon and I can do as I wish XD)

Some redemption arc stuff I've talked about :

Aaaaand a little something about the way he behaves, even now :

Theres one more relevant story arc for him after this, and thats the "Doom arc" I rarely talk about. So shortened version : Shards of Chaos need a new host, they literally POSSESS Terios to do so (since he already has an established connection to them,) Doleon ends up being revived by the energy anyway, due to corruption, Tikal comes back, Espio becomes a sort of mentor for Terios post-possession so he can learn how to manage his newfound unstableness, aaaaand...yeah XD Like I said, this part is more in my head than written. The possessed form is still able to be accessed, very rarely, since Ter can't control it in the slightest.

And so now he's....the way he is! He is him :D He's shy, lacking in confidence, somewhat naïve due to wanting to see the good in everyone, and rather pacifistic, a surprising trait for that of Black Arms descent. He's very sweet, but can be angered on rare occasions. And when that rare occasion happens : start running.

I also gave him a speech disorder, specifically trauma-induced stuttering. He doesn't like it since it makes him sound nervous all the time, but otherwise, he doesn't mind, barely ever notices anymore. I did a lot of research just to be able to portray it accurately (I hope)

I know this was long, but I really just wanted to be able to explain everything clearly. I have other oc's that are FAR less complex, which is most of the others, so if you want, that'll probably have to be like a part two post 😅 Hope you found my oc rambling at least somewhat interesting! (I also hope it isn't too confusing 😭)

[rxttenfish]

putting these in their own post, old conversation/discussion/lore dumps about merfolk reproduction, with date and also sometimes what prompted it

-

[Overview on what merfolk children are like, Jan 12th 2022]

The first thing to remember is that merfolk are more closely related to amphibians than anything else alive today. 

While they aren’t modern amphibians proper, and belong to an entirely different clade all their own, with themselves and the leviathans being the only extant members remaining, there’s still a lot of similarities among them. Sure, they have more derived features, but that’s just due to them ending up with selective pressures to convergently evolve things like scales and claws. And their specific reproductive strategy is one of the places where this is the most obvious.

You know how amphibians will create many squishy eggs that entirely lack a shell and cannot be taken out of water? Merfolk do the same! However, they also encountered the same issue that other tetrapods also had. Namely, that the eggs could both dry out, but also that they were remarkably delicate. Amniotes solved this issue through the creation of the amniotic sac, hence the name, allowing them to create eggs ( and, later, switch to live birth ).

The clade merfolk belong to took a... different route. As in, they never actually switched to any kind of shelled egg! They looked at their squishy eggs that needed to be laid in water, and instead decided to begin just using themselves as their pool of water.

A given merfolk will release several dozen eggs at the same time, and they’ll still be contained within the body. If these eggs are fertilized, then they’ll begin to develop and go through roughly the equivalent stages of fetal development (or, in this case, the comparison would directly go to things like tadpoles and metamorphosis). Merfolk also have a form of histotrophy, which brings me to exactly what happens during development.

Namely, in that merfolk will begin to cannibalize each other in the womb. This wasn’t universal amongst their clade, some others would simply release the young as effectively-tadpoles and others would already be inclined towards larger numbers of offspring, but among all living members, only one pup will be born at a time. While it certainly does help with things like minimizing immediately-fatal birth defects, largely this is just because of space and resource constraints. Merfolk and leviathans both are K-selected species, and having carnivorous offspring that hatch, begin to kill and eat each other in the womb, and have one remaining at the end is a fairly easy way to do so. 

This is also why twins are so rare — because it requires for two pups to make it that far without killing each other in the womb, and that thinning-out happens rather early on in gestation. There can be problems, if one kills the other far later on than they were supposed to.

Merfolk similarly have long pregnancies for this reason, as well as just how their pups are born. Namely, they also needed their pups to be able to both swim and (somewhat) defend themselves from the moment of birth, plus they are simply large animals, so they need that extra time. 14 months is the universal average amongst merfolk.

The parents will also have a hormonal shift during that time. Merfolk, evolutionarily speaking, had an issue with other merfolk killing and sometimes cannibalizing pups, and for a lot of other marine predators, mer pups make for very easy meals. So, in order to prevent this, soon-to-be mer parents will have a dip in their social needs and will separate off to themselves, to have the pup in a safe, isolated location. Similarly, they will become more irritable and defensive, protective of their new pup and very, very stubborn in not letting anyone else near them. I’ve been waffling back and forth on how intense to exactly make it, whether it be just a more emotional time or if it’s outright more of a fugue state, but regardless, they will refuse to let anyone else close to the location or to the pup, and can be a lot more eager to try and physically deter anything that is not letting them have their space. As in, there are warning signs within the Merkingdom that mean that a couple with a new pup is there, and you should turn back now unless you possibly want to get bit.

You can think about merfolk as new parents in the same way you might consider a mother crocodile. Do not approach, they are territorial and aggressive and immensely protective, and you are not uniquely safe from it.

It fades back to normal after a few weeks or so, when the pup is considered “ready” to be safely brought into the community of other merfolk. In the past, some merfolk have counted the day where it fades enough to come back as the new pup’s birthday, but in the modern era, they will often count the actual day of birth (since new parents can still easily mark that down so long as they have a clock with them and no one else is sending them into a frenzy). The parents will still stick with the pup and care for them basically until their adulthood (around the same time as it is for humans), but they will also begin communally raising the pup with everyone else. Most communities will consider any children within them to be basically everyone’s children, with some special weight given to their blood family, but largely with expectations on everyone to play some part. This is why there’s actually very little pressure for any mer that is not a royal to become a parent, but LOTS of pressure for them to be good around kids. 

It’s also a good explanation for why merfolk compulsively adopt children that they might find, even if they aren’t actually other merfolk. If the Merkingdom didn’t refuse to let anyone past their borders, then merfolk would rather quickly form a reputation for massive mixed-species families, their urge to adopt is that strong.

But all of this comes back to merfolk pups in of themselves:

Pups are born already very developed and independent. They are capable of swimming with decently powerful tails, they have very strong vocal cords for chirping and shrieking, ability to chase after small fish ( and their parents), claws, and a full set of teeth. While adult merfolk have their own dentition, as pups, all merfolk are born with a set of simple, needle-like teeth. They do not have the jaw power of adults yet, but they are perfectly adapted to eat and process soft-bodied prey and meat that has been stripped of bone, and will require being fed like this from the moment they are born. They also have a fairly strong grip — as merfolk will carry their pups a bit like sloths do. Chest-to-chest, both facing forward, with the pup’s hands beneath the adult’s arms, easily within reach to hold onto should something happen. For abyssals, they are born without bioluminescence and their fins cannot yet maintain the consistent shape of the adults’.

And, yes, if they are placed upon land at this early stage, mer pups can even begin walking from the moment of birth.

Taking care of them is, likewise, about as straining as you could imagine a baby that could run around on its own and open cabinets would be. They’re kinda feral.

-

[On merfolk war gods, April 6th 2024]

i mentioned the other day about how a lot of merfolk gods of war and violence are connected to childcare, and i've been meaning to explain it a little more-

merfolk do give live birth, and as amphibians their tadpoles go through a full metamorphosis in the womb, coming out as basically tiny versions of the adults. this is something that their specific lineage of temnospondyls specialized in, since they were actually rather terrestrial and were made to be able to travel long distances over land between wet areas and to adapt to a variety of conditions easier. oviviviparity meant that they weren't reliant on vernal pools at all, with some lineages then depositing the live tadpoles in a water source, some of them going through full metamorphosis before birth, some having more or less tadpoles in general with a variety of r- and k- selection depending on their individual adaptations.

merfolk in particular, then, are descended from a group that began to specialize not only in metamorphosis in the womb, but also in having fewer offspring that they invested greater resources into, making sure that they were as likely to survive the strain as possible. they also already fed their live offspring within the womb by both histotrophy and oophagy, putting extra resources into making sure they were healthy and strong when they were born. which is why when the lineage began to select for reduced offspring, the solution was mostly… just to keep them in longer, and to provide an additional source of nutrition in the form of intrauterine cannibalism. this guaranteed not only was only one offspring born at a time, but also that they were the healthiest among all the tadpoles, minimizing immediately-lethal mutations.

you also have the adults, who at this point in their evolutionary history, had predation by other merfolk being a major driving factor. pregnancy with this many resources going into it, even when you are a large, social predator who can afford it, is still an exhausting and risky affair, and the earliest moments of life are easily among the riskiest. merfolk have very good senses of smell and taste, making it easy for outside merfolk to find merfolk who were pupping, and if there's a strain in the social cohesion of the group they're already in, it would also be very easy for even merfolk in those early social groups to turn on one member and to enforce who is allowed to reproduce. merfolk also came from animals that lived along shorelines in loosely associated but dense colonies, and getting away from the others for vulnerable moments was already a factor.

so the answer evolution took with merfolk was to make the pupping merfolk experience a sudden massive drop in their need to socialize and bond with other merfolk, and a heightened sense of aggression towards other merfolk. this would occur around the last few weeks of their pregnancy, and would continue a few weeks after the birth, taking up a period of about a month. this would also involve usually only one other merfolk from the same social group experiencing the same shift, the hormones creating a positive feedback loop between each individual merfolk, who would essentially act as a midwife or carer for the pupping merfolk, and was enough of a guarantee that both were well-fed that it was selected for.

for modern merfolk: pupping is universally seen as the one time violence is "permitted" without question, as they experience it as nearly a fugue state where they are unable to control themselves and cannot stop the aggression they feel towards all other merfolk or other "intruders" (sharks being an example of something common for your usual merfolk that wouldn't be tolerated here). however, since they aren't violent all the time and calm down if they are allowed to be away and apart from other merfolk, the modern solution has usually been to create "pupping rooms", glorified apartments with no windows and intense soundproofing, where they can be alone and feel safe. other buildings can be converted into pupping spaces, or they can simply be places located far enough off from the main township to not set it off, but in all cases, there's a lot of warnings set up around them, with the symbols being very similar across cultures. a sort of "do not enter, do not disturb the peace, this is a nursery".

food and resources are delivered in as non-obstructive a way as possible, and usually some medical training/advice is given to the merfolk well ahead of time, since getting someone else into that space puts everyone at risk. some merfolk, however, out of cultural habit or due to having health issues, will select for "midwives" as their non-pregnant pupping partner to help care for them, a practice that is the default among the royals. its selected for primarily by time spent in close contact with each other, and involves a professional who has been trained in medicine pairing up with the pregnant merfolk for this time, going through the fugue state together, and broadly being able to better confirm the health of everyone involved.

where the war gods come in, is that merfolk often say that this sudden aggression and will to do violence comes from the (one of their) god of violence and warfare being given the domain of children and pregnancy as either a blessing or a punishment. a punishment usually involves the story of how the god came to earn the ire of the other gods, and was given this task to make up for the debt they owed, so they gave their bloodlust and terrible rage to young children and to new parents, in retribution for this insult. a blessing, however, involves them more voluntarily offering their services, and giving their battle lust and war rage to the young and vulnerable, in order to better keep them safe and to ensure they grow up into great hunters and protectors of their communities.

because of this, in areas where the pupping rooms are closed off from the outside instead of being isolated from other merfolk, shrines and tribute to said war god are set up. some of the nice royal pupping rooms have large frescos and statues outside of the area, both as a warning to keep away, and as a place where visitors will come by, unseen and unbothersome to the pupping merfolk inside, to offer tribute or make prayers or otherwise pay their respects to such a god, to ask for their blessings in warfare and honorable victory in battle or to soothe violence and rage where they see it. likewise, some military positions can only be held by merfolk who have been pregnant before.

this god, and other variations of gods of violence and warfare across merfolk cultures, often are depicted as being pregnant themselves, and/or with severe mutations that could not survive out of the womb. merfolk do know such mutations happen, due to autopsies given to pregnant merfolk who have passed away, and they're retroactively seen as being monstrous or demonic in nature, saying that they were what killed the pregnant merfolk, when often its more likely the other way around (the parent died, and because of this, this mutation wasn't just consumed by their siblings and could be discovered).

at the same time, merfolk also believe in a high plurality of even single individuals, with their spirituality suggesting that their sapience and intelligence is given through the gesalt of all these merfolk coming together as one even before birth, and seeing the intrauterine cannibalism as more spiritual and holy than how humans might see the same thing, being a combination of both merfolk's intense desire to socialize and needing their large social groups, and as a common philosophy towards hunting and the eating of other animals, which is that the animal is willingly giving their spirit and strength to the hunter in exchange for the hunter ensuring the health of all of said type of animal.

so these war gods are also, uniquely, said to be truly individual in a way that few merfolk deities are, and this being partially an explanation for how monstrous and terrifying they are, that they are removed from even the natural process that animals go through, let alone the dual process that merfolk go through. this too, also effects their policies and attitudes towards other species and why they view them as child-like and primitive, being that they are far too individual to make any accurate judgements about the world and cannot tend it like merfolk do.

[cityandking]

just finished mapping out daichi's post-resurrection timeline and discovered that as of our last session it has been exactly 2 weeks since he was in the abyss. featuring such hits as:

Day 3 post-Abyss, the party tracks down Lyn and pulls Abraham, the lost prince of Airedon, out of a void portal and smuggles him into the city so he can give us a big ol' (possibly incorrect) lore dump

Day 8 post-Abyss, the party goes into the cursed maddening forest outside of Selto and fights an Ancient Black Dragon to rescue Harriet's lost twin brother.

Day 10 post-Abyss, the party returns to Airedon and Daichi sees his dad again for the first time in years. Also, Ozy becomes a paladin of Selene.

Day 11 post-Abyss, the city is attacked by the Void in the middle of the night and the exhausted party, a few of them still slightly drunk, rallies to defend it.

Day 12 post-Abyss, the party interrogates some of the Void-possessed people and Scratch experiences a Terrible Hunger. Kallux kisses Ozy. The party spends some time outside the city walls. The party leaves Airedon and descends into the Underdark. The party finds where the drow went. The party fights a fucked-up beholder. Daichi has to choose between saving Scratch and Zaref. The party teleports to the Astral Sea.

[xxmissarichanxx]

✨XMACX Monthly✨ | February 2024

Happy February! Thank you again so much for voting for the Cover Model last month! March's Cover Model Poll drops tomorrow!

You may read this month's update as a public post on PTRN or below the cut! You can also see the previous issue here.

Last month went by way too quickly and now Valentines' Day is just around the corner! Then I'll blink and be another year older... This month, I'll be focusing on adding the final touches of Froot Basket: Dark Chocolate and prepping for a White Day (March 15) release. February is a short month, so I know it'll fly by... but we've got a lot of fun stuff including two OC birthdays!

Schedule

February 1 - XMACX Monthly

February 2 - Cover Model Polls

February 7 - Valentine Cards

February 9 - Cover Story

February 14 - Valentines' Day, Sidney's Bday

February 15 - Kurosaki Twin's Bday

February 16 - Art Process

February 23 - FBDC Voice Update released for Patrons!

February 28 - Sketch Dump

Cover Story Preview | Momo's Special Chocolate Recipe

Momo made some special Valentine chocolate for his beloved senpai. This month, he's sharing his special recipe!

Valentine Special

I'll be dropping some Valentine cards for everyone to download and send to your pals! I'm saving Valentines' social media post for Sidney because it's his birthday, so I'll drop the Valentine cards on social media before then.

February's OC Birthdays

This month we're celebrating Sidney, Ken, and Maya's birthdays! Sidney is an adorable red head from my project After-Party Chemistry! Ken and Maya are fraternal twins. They're not associated with any one project right now... But I'll be dropping some fun illustrations and OC lore about them on their respective days for everyone!

VN Development | Froot Basket: Dark Chocolate Release 

I'll be releasing Froot Basket: Dark Chocolate's voiced update for patrons this month! You can play before I drop it on Itch on March 15. Last month, I added a "recustomize Jordan" menu in case you want to swap between Jordan's voices or looks in-game. I also messed around with the Gallery and Achievements screen, but you'll have to see in the update.

Other than prepping for FBDC's Voiced Update Release, I have some marketing art for release to work on lol... I'm planning two different pieces: a new poster featuring all the characters and a piece which features the four different color combinations of Jordans. I don't expect to finish these this month because day job's looking pretty busy, BUT I'm hoping to at least get some sketches done.

Other Goals this Month

I'll be wrapping up some zine pieces and commissions. :^)

Next Month

March 1st falls on a Friday so the Monthly and Polls will drop all on the same day. I can't wait to see who'll make my birth month's cover!

Aloha nui~ Ari

[thevindicativevordan]

Comics this week?

Action Comics #1054 - Loved Superman going all Naruto with a susanno, loved how PKJ portrayed Supes in line with both the original Golden Age attitude (he calls Metallo a bully and takes him down a peg) and the softer modern incarnation (he offers to help Metallo save his sister). Reads just like Morrison Superman does. My one complaint is that we're still falling back on Metallo spamming kryptonite. All the upgrades he got from Warworld tech, and he's resorting to that yet again? Disappointing. Metallo isn't a total jobber, he's crippled Kara, beaten Conner and Jon, kidnapped the Super-Twins, built an army, he's kicking ass and is dangerous... except he can't even seem to scratch Clark himself. Henshaw calling Metallo a loser does seem to be true. I have a notion where this is going, I think Tracy is either going to die or be revealed as the leader of the Blue Earth group, and Metallo will join that movement to get revenge on Superman for her death, or to work for her because she's the only thing he cares about anymore. If Metallo gets to kill Henshaw and PKJ sets him up to return down the road for another big arc where he finally kicks Clark's ass, that's good enough for me. Otherwise, much as I've enjoyed this, I can't say PKJ has succeeded with Metallo the way he did with Mongul. He did however make me realize the one big Superman trait Metallo contrasts with that I'll write about at the end of this arc.

Green Arrow #1 - Never been a huge Green Arrow fan, an odd thing to say considering I read his entire Rebirth run start to finish, but I enjoyed Williamson's Superman so much I decided to give this a shot. Cry For Justice was actually one of the earliest stories I read because my library had a trade of it. Insane that this is where we finally get a reunion between Roy and Lian. Otherwise I thought it was fine, not sure about the cosmic aspect of things, but I intend to read the first arc at least.

Unstoppable Doom Patrol #2 - Doing a piss take on the Krakoa Era X-Men right as I've become bored with them post-Hickman is just what I needed. Cackled at the data page jab, and also Culver lampooning how stupid it is for every magic group to just slap "Dark" on their title (knock it off Johns). Robotman launching Worm into orbit to prevent him from blowing up the Shelter was hilariously fucked up, should hopefully assuage the people afraid this would just be a knock-off X-Book. That's pure Doom Patrol right there, even more so with the reveal that Velvet is the true double agent. Peacemaker is a bastard and a great villain for the Doom Patrol, Culver has me fully on board with the Suicide Squad being the true antithesis to the Doom Patrol. Loved Burnham's depiction of the Shelter, FINALLY some cool superhero bases again! I missed that

Detective Comics #1071 - Interesting experience reading PKJ Action and Ram Detective at the same time, because they are both aiming for long epic runs that redefine their respective franchises. Action works better for me because it never loses sight of Superman being at the center, whereas here we get an issue full of lore dumping with Batman barely featuring. At this point I'm losing track of all of these new characters and the MacGuffins they're squabbling over, plus yet another retelling of Ra's early days. V's best work has been with Two-Face and Mr. Freeze, these Orghams are rather dull and derivative of other would-be usurpers, and I don't care about them anymore.

The Riddler: Year One #4 - How? How is this so good? How is a movie tie-in written by an actor who has never written a comic before running laps around experienced writers?

Blue Beetle: Graduation Day #6 - Surprisingly strong ending. Probably the best bridge between the original Giffen run and what the movie is changing. Looking forward to the ongoing now.

Sins of Sinister: Dominion #1 - Think I'm as sick of Sinister as the X-Men themselves are. Moira attempting to reclaim control of the narrative was nice, now how about we actually DO that by making her more than a mustache twirler? Unless the solicits are lying, Emma, Hope, Exodus, and Charles going into the Pit is going to be undone quick, but perhaps at the cost of resurrections. I give this event a 7/10, a huge step down from Judgement Day.

Invincible Iron Man #5 - Think I'm out, Fei Long and Tony's rivalry is stupid. Long just picks a fight with Stark for no real reason other than "I want a rival!" and while there's some justification beyond that, it's bound up in the Avengers not claiming Mars while the X-Men did. If this was Long wanting Stark's company to help Orchis, and Tony thwarting him being what kicks off their personal enmity, then it would be better. Instead Duggan tries to jump right into making things personal, but the crux of their fight having roots in another franchise undermines the whole endeavor.

Hulk #14 - Terrible ending but I expected nothing less. Had a chuckle at how heavy handed the letter from Samson was, might as well have been Ottley going "yeah sorry this run didn't go the way we wanted with Cates bailing, here's Bruce reset back to status quo, good luck to the next creative team!"

Doctor Strange #2 - Honestly I preferred Clea as the solo lead. The book is fine but it's not gripping me the way I want. I'll give it until issue 6 to pick up.

W0rldtr33 #1 - It's great, Tynion doing another horror book how could it not be? Jesus Christ though, somehow this is hitting even harder for me than the Department of Truth did. Internet as a demonic entity could come across as corny, but damn if Tynion doesn't make it terrifying.

[hollowwhisperings]

I AM ALWAYS HAPPY TO INTRODUCE "KING JAIME" THEORY (if asked but also sometimes by accident).

The general gist is "Jaime Hates Kings, [Monarchy] & Politics: Bran, from his Chair, Tells Jaime To Be King (Jaime becomes King)".

Since Bran is the one Kingmaking, he has access to all that a King Bran premise would use and can subsequently shove the Actual Responsibilities onto an Adult Who Ruined His Life (one of many but one that Keeps Surviving & one capable of Remorse & Atonenent).

There is A Lot that Jaime has & HASN'T done that makes him hugely in debt to the Starks, even without the specfic act of "defenstrating Bran, a literal child".

Jaime being "King" is functionally his being sentenced to Community Service, scaled up. It is not, necessarily, "for life": it could be "until we've recovered, until people are Older, until we set up the next System of Governance". King Jaime can also be An Accident in the wake of Cersei's Nuking KL & Jaime's evacuating its populace: Cersei, dead or judged incapable, is removed from power & Jaime assumes a role of Regent to King Tommen (even if Tommen is ALSO dead by this point) because it's the Least Awful option at the time.

"King[-Regent] Jaime" then becomes (by accident from Jaime; by design of Bran) Permanent.

1) Jaime does Care about People, when he's not wallowing & is thinking for himself.

2) Jaime's not actually as stupid as he believes he is, actually being fairly decent at governance & ruling due to being raised an Heir + experience as an army officer + seeking Advisors for absolutely everything + thinking "What Would Aerys/Tywin/Robert/Cersei Do?" and Doing The Opposite.

3) Jaime has ended up one of the Rare Surviving Adults amongst too many Traumatised Teenagers, all of whom he considers [babies].

4) Jaime HATES being King & would gladly give it up to anyone else that proves to be a Less Awful Option than himself.

Except... anyone who actually WANTS kingship renders themselves, by his standards, "Unfit to Hold Office"? And all those "kids" he wronged are finally Recovering by being far, far away from This Nonsense so he can't dump such a Burden on them now, not when they're HAPPY (not after everyhing he put them through). Jaime ends up prolonging his own punishment by being too guilt-ridden to wish it on anyone "Good" but too triggered by the thought of a unleashing yet another Tyrant on the populace.

So, uh, King Jaime. All According To Plan (Bran's, Sansa's, Arya's, Other Anti-Lannisters).

The reasons for "King Jaime & Kingmaker Bran" easily switch around to the results of "King Bran & Jaime The Golden-Hand"("Jaime the One-Handed Hand) or other variations on "Kingmaker Bran" that feature Jaime's unwittingly Surviving the series.

I also suspect/hope that Hivemind Puppet is not Bran's Endgame but another horrific feature of his Story. Jojen is the character most likely to successfully intervene in such plotlines, be he a Dream from His Past & Bran's Future or "why the heck would they need to literally eat Jojen when they're ritualistically eating weirwoods (which are heavily personified & thus probably literal people, e.g. sacrifices or Brynden The Actual Tree-Person)?".

Jojen surviving to Do Lore at the Isle of Faces makes more sense, especially given Euron's upcoming Apocalypse & Meera's Growing Fury (i not only hope but EXPECT Meera to burn Brynden alive, hopefully to Death). There'd be a Scary Moment where the kids Can't Go Home to Howland's Moving Castle bc it would Kill Jojen & so need to cross in other, riskier ways, likely through secret paths of Moat Cailin (a broken castle for a "Bran The Builder" Future) but possibly a Horrific Trip through The Twins with Psychic Flashbacks for EVERYONE (TRW, Frey Civil War, refugees headed South, wights, to other perilous bridge crossings: there's a lot to choose from, especially if the Others had already gone South ahead of them).

i love the Long Night as a conflict because... it is not something you can "fix" with violence (violence makes it Stronger), with bribery or flattery (the Others just sound like glaciers to most everyone thus far)...

Jaime, already feeling "unmanned" by losing his Hand; Theon, more literally so; Arya, losing her humanity; Brienne, losing her ideals; Jon, made "complicit" via Whatever Happens With Him: all the traditionally "badass" characters who, in the face of Winter Itself, have their defining skills rendered "useless". One cannot just stab one's way to ending Winter: the living are THE priority (lest they add to the problem); managing logistics and supply lines becomes VERY important (i.e. household management & hosting); "women's work" is required of everyone (from fine embroidery to surgery, cooking & textiles & caring); money is useless to the freezing farmer far from any tradeport; beauty is lost to frostbite & rationing... it's just very exciting, given all the fuss over dueling and murder and warring. VIOLENCE IS MEANINGLESS NOW!

(except for, y'know, batting off wights while acting sentry or smuggling supplies)

Most people, most CHARACTERS don't have dragonglass or valyrian steel (or dragons). Those that DO... don't know to use it: very few characters would know how to begin stabbing their way to a resolution, and THAT'S assuming they don't get lost in the dark or freeze in the cold while trying to find an Other at the heart of a storm!

It's why Harrenhal Theories are so exciting, especially given the context of the Riverlands being where "most" of the "stabbing your way to success" has taken place so far (the entire setting is gratuitously violent but not in the constant, deliberate & narratively [nihilistic] manner seen with all the battles for kingship or in Arya & Brienne's chapters). Since the Riverlands have had the most "recent" battles, the most "continuous" violence... sooooo many wights in the mud. Some wights whose deaths we know far too intimately. It kind of makes me wonder if Stoneheart and Other Fire Zombies would be considered "kin" to the armies of the Walkers. Ritualistically offing onself as a means of joining some special ops unit to go behind enemy linesvwould be so creepy yet so so on brand, y'know? But even they could not use violence to "fix" anything because they'd need to puzzle out WHY the Others want to go South at all, assassinating Others at random would just tip them off & make uncovering enemy intelligence even MORE dangerous!

Harrenhal will be the new seat of what’s left of the Seven Kingdoms at the ending.

I know a few people have already said bits and pieces of this but I wanted to get everything in one post for my own sanity lmao. There’s three kind of main branches to this theory: geographical reasons, historical reasons, and reasons specific to King Bran theories.

Geography surrounding Harrenhal

It’s the center of everything! Let me show you on the map because i’m a visual learner:

Ignore the North and Dorne and probably the Iron Islands too, bc the first two are not gonna be part of The Seven Kingdoms anymore and the Iron Islands is…gonna be a fucking mess lmao. Lemme zoom in:

It’s a very centralized point in the Riverlands but it’s also fairly centralized to the Crownlands (which will probably get absorbed into the others), the Stormlands, the Eyrie, the Reach, and the Westerlands. It makes sense, from a geographical standpoint, that if the lords need to choose a new ruling seat - and they will no matter what, because King’s Landing is gonna go boom - that a more centralized location for easier access to the capital would be their decision.

The Riverlands is also an excellent choice in general because geographically, they are always getting screwed due to being right in the middle of everyone. They get fucked during the Dance, the Blackfyre Rebellions, Robert’s Rebellion, AND the War of the Five Kings. The only area that really gets screwed over more during the various wars is probably the Dornish Marches, because of the conflicts between the stony Dornishmen and the Storm and Reacher Lords but you can’t really set up there because it’s too far from the Eyrie and Riverlands.

And the thing about the Riverlands is that part of why it gets fucked up is that it’s right in the middle of everything and has no natural defenses. The Eyrie has the mountains, the North has their snow, the Dornish has their desert. The Reach manages to stay out of a lot of fighting because that’s where the food is (although the Iron Islands are about to screw them, but that’s because the war has spiraled out of control) and while both the Stormlands and the Westerlands have seen big battles, they have some protection in their coasts, which gives them ships that the Riverlands just can’t quite access. Having the King set up in the Riverlands gives the smallfolk of the Riverlands some much needed protection and potentially, a break from all the fighting.

So the Riverlands is a good place to set up shop, but Harrenhal specifically? Well, that’s because it’s huge:

Every child of the Trident knew the tales told of Harrenhal, the vast fortress that King Harren the Black had raised beside the waters of Gods Eye three hundred years past, when the Seven Kingdoms had been seven kingdoms, and the riverlands were ruled by the ironmen from the islands. In his pride, Harren had desired the highest hall and tallest towers in all Westeros. Forty years it had taken, rising like a great shadow on the shore of the lake while Harren's armies plundered his neighbors for stone, lumber, gold, and workers. Thousands of captives died in his quarries, chained to his sledges, or laboring on his five colossal towers. Men froze by winter and sweltered in summer. Weirwoods that had stood three thousand years were cut down for beams and rafters. Harren had beggared the riverlands and the Iron Islands alike to ornament his dream. And when at last Harrenhal stood complete, on the very day King Harren took up residence, Aegon the Conqueror had come ashore at King's Landing.

If it’s going to be the capital, it has to be somewhere that can hold a whole lot of people and Harrenhal is ginormous and perfect for holding lots of people. It’s even happened before; part of why Lord Whent stages his big tourney where Lyanna is crowned queen of love and beauty is because likely because Ser Oswell Whent, his brother on the Kingsguard, asked him to stage an excuse to get all the Lords together so Rhaegar could discuss with them what to do about his father and Harrenhal is the biggest castle they can do that in outside of King’s Landing. From The Kingbreaker chapter:

Old Lord Whent had announced the tourney shortly after a visit from his brother, Ser Oswell Whent of the Kingsguard. With Varys whispering in his ear, King Aerys became convinced that his son was conspiring to depose him, that Whent's tourney was but a ploy to give Rhaegar a pretext for meeting with as many great lords as could be brought together.

It’s also built up to be sturdier than King’s Landing. Whereas King’s Landing was kind of haphazardly thrown together as it built up over the years, Harren the Black had always meant for a lot of people to be housed there. We see how many people can live in it during Arya’s chapters as she runs around inside of it and Harrentown and this is with a ruler who has no interest in keeping a lot of people in it. With a King or Queen living there, it opens itself up to growing in a much more easily defensible way than King’s Landing.

Historical Reasons Harrenhal is Significant

As you can see on the map, it’s built right on the edge of a very important place: The Isle of Faces and the lake that surrounds it, called the Gods Eye.

It’s a key place for the history of Westeros because it’s where the First Men and the Children of the Forest made peace:

Inexorably, the war ground on across generations, until at last the children understood that they could not win. The First Men, perhaps tired of war, also wished to see an end to the fighting. The wisest of both races prevailed, and the chief heroes and rulers of both sides met upon the isle in the Gods Eye to form the Pact…

It’s also notable for being the only place the Andals never managed to conquer:

It is possible that a few [Children of the Forest] survived on the Isle of Faces, as some have written, under the protection of the green men, whom the Andals never succeeded in destroying.

It’s a place associated with peace and negotiations between people, a place to stand strong against war and untouched by its horrors. A monument to what could be, if you will. And Harrenhal sits on its shore; it would add a very rich layer to setting up King’s Landing in a place associated with peace. And this isn’t the only time a succession crisis of sorts is settled there. The Great Council of 101 AC was held there.

To resolve the matter of his heir once and for all, Jaehaerys called the first Great Council in the year 101 AC, to put the matter before the lords of the realm. And from all corners of the realm the lords came. No castle could hold so many save for Harrenhal, so it was there that they gathered. The lords, great and small, came with their trains of bannermen, knights, squires, grooms, and servants. And behind them came yet more—the camp followers and washerwomen, the hawkers and smiths and carters. Thousands of tents sprang up over the moons, until the castle town of Harrenton was accounted the fourth largest city of the Realm.

Once again, we have Harrenhal associated with peace and negotiation in its history. However, that’s not all it’s associated with; there are several very significant battles that take place near the Gods Eye - again, it is in the middle of everything. It’s a place with lots of history and lots of ties to everyone in Westeros. There’s the Battle Beneath the Gods Eye between Maegor and Aegon the Uncrowned, The Battle of the Lake Shore and The Battle Over the Gods Eye during the Dance, as well as the story of Addam Velaryon landing Seasmoke on the Isle of Faces to take counsel from the green men after being accused of treason. It is, all in all, a very significant place in Westeros.

But that’s not the only reason Harrenhal is talked about. Basically every single time Harrenhal is brought up, someone will mention that it’s haunted. This belief comes because of Aegon the Conquerer and Harren the Black. While Orys Baratheon and Rhaenys march for the Stormlands & Daemon Velaryon and Visenya left for the Vale, Aegon himself first turns towards Harren the Black and the Riverlands. All three face opposition but Aegon conquers the Riverlands first because Harren is so ill loved:

So now the riverlands rose against him, led by Lord Edmyn Tully of Riverrun. Summoned to the defense of Harrenhal, Tully declared for House Targaryen instead, raised the dragon banner over his castle, and rode forth with his knights and archers to join his strength to Aegon’s. His defiance gave heart to the other riverlords. One by one, the lords of the Trident renounced Harren and declared for Aegon the Dragon. Blackwoods, Mallisters, Vances, Brackens, Pipers, Freys, Strongs … summoning their levies, they descended on Harrenhal.

And he makes very quick work of Harrenhal, making it the first Kingdom to become part of the Seven Kingdoms:

The riverlords outside the castle walls said later that the towers of Harrenhal glowed red against the night, like five great candles … and like candles, they began to twist and melt, as runnels of molten stone ran down their sides.

Ever since the burning of Harrenhal, no House has been able to hold it without going extinct soon after. For House Targaryen’s rule in Westeros to start with Harren the Black’s hubris and the fall of Harrenhal, and end with Harrenhal becoming the new seat of the King of the Four (??) Kingdoms is a really neat connection.

Reasons Why It Works With King Bran

But wait! you say. Didn’t you just say that Harrenhal is cursed??

Why yes I did. HOWEVER. There is one family that the Curse of Harrenhal supposedly never touched: The Whents.

You see, from Harren the Black up until the Whents, every other House in charge of it has gone extinct.

House Hoare? That’s Harren’s house and we all know what happened there - they don’t call him Balerion the Black Dread for no reason.

House Qoherys? Dead less than three decades later.

House Harroway? Wiped out a decade later.

House Towers? died out within two decades, ending with sickly Maegor Towers and then old and tired Rhaena Targaryen, until the two odd friends died and the holdings were free again.

House Strong? Well…between the fire that kills Harwin and Lyonel, Larys’ shenanigans getting him merced by Cregan, and Aemond just straight committing a minor genocide in the Riverlands, they all died out (except maybe Alys Rivers’ baby but we don’t have any info there).

House Lothston? Interestingly, they hold the castle for several decades, but they too went completely extinct under King Maekar.

So we come to House Whent. They’ve held it for about 6 ish decades and though they’ve also had some bad luck, they’ve had their people grow old - Walter Whent who threw the tourney is called “Old Lord Whent” by Barristan, and Shella Whent is old when she dies. But the most interesting thing is Minisa Whent.

We don’t know a lot about the Whent line, only that Shella refused to bend the knee to Joffrey, fled Harrenhal when it was attacked, and later died. You could say the curse still got them but in every other case, the whole line dies, not just the main line! Even Janos Slynt has no descendants and Littlefinger will have none to inherit either. But the Whents do: they have House Tully. Minisa Whent married Hoster Tully and had Catelyn and Edmure. The Whents are known for their sharp cheekbones and both Catelyn and Sansa, funny enough, are described as having sharp cheekbones. This very close relation could mean that the Starklings have a claim to Harrenhal through their mother.

This fits with King Bran because we know the lords are perfectly fine fudging things and going through the female line if it fits their needs. They did the same thing with Robert and his grandmother Rhaelle Targaryen, who married Ormund Targaryen, Steffon’s mother. Renly says here:

Oh, there was talk of the blood ties between Baratheon and Targaryen, of weddings a hundred years past, of second sons and elder daughters. No one but the maesters care about any of it.

The maesters love a loophole inheritance.

And remember that the odds of surviving the books for the Baratheons and Targaryens is very, very low. It’s pretty much just bastards all the way down (on both sides lmao, because I do not think either Young Griff or Dany are gonna survive). And whenever the inheritance isn’t clear, a Great Council is called. Catelyn even suggested it while parlying with the Baratheons:

Let the three of you call for a Great Council, such as the realm has not seen for a hundred years. We will send to Winterfell, so Bran may tell his tale and all men may know the Lannisters for the true usurpers. Let the assembled lords of the Seven Kingdoms choose who shall rule them.

Mentioning Bran, of course. A lot of people think it’s far fetched and while I do think him being so young is gonna be a hard sell now that the time jump is gone, I don’t think it’s that far fetched that the lords of the Stormlands, The Reach, the Eyrie, and The Westerlands would be convinced to choose Hoster Tully’s grandson and Ned Stark’s baby boy to rule over them.

And finally, Robb wasn’t called “Robb Stark, King in the North” he was also explicitly called “King of the Trident.” All the talk about who is Robb’s heir but look at how they all think of themselves - “as brave as Robb” “as strong as Robb” or they’ll have sons and name them Robb. Whereas Who Rules The North is all tied up in Robb’s legacy, the Iron Throne isn’t! If King Bran rules from the Riverlands, however, it gives Bran that tie to Robb; he gets to protect and rule from the lands Robb swore to protect, the lands he ultimately fought and died in. For Bran, he still gets to be Robb’s heir, at least in spirit, and I think that would be, to Bran, something very bittersweet.

[sniper-childe]

Hello! I’d like to share some of my notes if I were to Beta-read the most recent Archon Quest. I will be going through what worked, what could be taken out, and what could’ve been better. Note that I’m looking at this through an editor’s lens so I’m going to try NOT to change the plot we were given no matter what my opinions are about it BUT some of the said opinions may slip out.

Also, a bit of a disclaimer: I know that Genshin isn’t an actual literary work but miHoYo is known for its writers’ great storytelling and I’ve always loved their work so it really came as a surprise as to what happened to the mess that is Inazuma Act 3. So yeah.

Contains:

1. What was foreshadowed about the characters and why the payoff of their portrayals felt cheap.

a. About Kokomi and the rebellion.

b. About the Fatui, the James Bond villain wannabe.

c. About Ei and the Raiden Shogun.

2. How Chapter 2, Act 3 could have been the turning point that would have us, as the Traveler, cement our perceptions of the Archons and Gods of Celestia OR what I think the death of Signora was supposed to be but was undermined by this one tidbit.

BONUS: I wrote this before Kokomi’s story quest was released but decided to wait for it before posting. And guess what? I think Kokomi’s Story Quest works better as an Archon Quest. At least, some parts of it.

miHoYo teased us this intelligent leader of the resistance that is well-versed in the Art of War. The end of Ch2: Act 2 showed us a powerful Kokomi. So why was she sidelined all throughout the act?

I actually like the idea of the resistance asking the Fatui for aid. But miHoYo chickened out and made it so that they did it unknowingly. To which I say: how? If Kokomi was so smart she should’ve known better. I figured it was the Fatui within a single sentence, so why didn’t Kokomi?

They should’ve stuck with the concept of the underdogs – or in Kokomi’s words, the little fish – of war in an act of desperation. They could’ve shown a calculated Kokomi “making a deal with the devil” and will do anything to win the fight against the Shogunate.

In her Character Teaser, she was willing to burn the enemies’ supplies – to starve the enemy. She can be ruthless, that’s why Kokomi actively giving Delusions to her foot soldiers would have made much more sense to cause the Fatui to be involved rather than the whole “the Fatui orchestrated everything” schtick.

Which brings me to my next point: when did the Fatui turn into a James Bond villain? I hate that trope so much. It’s like the Deus Ex Machina of villainy. It’s lazy. And it doesn’t even fit the Fatui’s modus operandi.

In the prologue, the Abyss Order corrupted Dvalin and the Fatui was just there waiting to steal Barbatos’ gnosis while the Knights are distracted. Morax decided to retire one day so the Fatui swept right in and offered a test of Liyue in exchange for his gnosis.

The last two locations had their own story to tell while the Fatui was just in the background like the opportunistic antagonist that they are.

It also would have been a stronger plotline to have the already set lore – like the tenuous relationship between Watatsumi and Narukami – be the driving force of the Inazuman Civil War.

The prologue and chapter 1 also delivered what we are told we’re going to get in the Story Preview. That’s why they are satisfying. However, with chapter 2, the way it ended turned out to be more about the Fatui rather than “what do mortals see of the eternity chased after by their god.”

Sure, we got the consequences of the war in the World Quests and some of it in the second act. But making the Fatui the Big Bad in the end takes value away from the actions of the characters that are supposed to be the main feature of this chapter.

How much of the Eternity the Raiden Shogun is pursuing is directly from Ei? How much of it is its own understanding of eternity, coupled with Ei’s memories, and its own response? How much of it is the Fatui’s influence?

I have to say though, I’m fine with the puppet actually. Believe it or not. I have had kinda figured that out with the weird shifting of emotions in and out of the puppet. And the dead glowing eyes. So kudos to the design and animation team for that foreshadowing.

It was also said that the current Electro Archon lost someone dear to her and, while I didn’t think it was a twin, I did figure that the current Electro Archon wasn’t the real Electro Archon. So the whole Baal and Beelzebul backstory didn’t really surprise me. So I guess that was foreshadowed too? But my friends didn’t feel the same way so I don’t know. I’m not touching that.

But I do agree that all of the new lore got info-dumped to us by Yae rather than have us find out about them. To be honest, I would have wanted the backstory of Ei to be in her story quest rather than it be in the Archon Quest. A World Quest could work too.

I just feel like the 2.1 Archon Quest ended up cramming so many themes and subplots when it should’ve been focusing on what was promised: the darkness that is brought by their god.

They already had set up the Visions are people’s motivations/ambitions and that taking them away also takes away their agency.

Then they could’ve played with the idea of the people of Watatsumi looking up to Kokomi as their pseudo-god in-place of Orobashi and so with her actively giving Delusions could fit well in the said theme.

They could’ve made Ei and Kokomi character foils of each other and have the final showdown be about them.

And then it’ll all, of course, end up with the people of Inazuma learning how to work without their “gods” or something like that, which is the overarching theme of the whole series if you think about it.

But as I said, my opinions about the plot shouldn’t matter and I’m only here to make what was already written better.

So let’s talk about something that the puppet has done which didn’t make any sense on the surface level but could’ve been clever if it was done right. Killing La Signora.

Okay. So there is a pivotal moment at the end of the first arc of a three-act story where the main character experiences something that will leave them no choice but to move forward. This usually is a physical thing like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. But it can also be a mental or emotional situation.

Over at Honkai, the first arc ended with the death of a beloved mentor and a shattered world (both external and internal). The characters had no choice but to step up and “to stay alive, bravely” (yes, I won’t stop using this line ever). It was so very well done and even after so many years it still hurt no matter how many times you reread/rewatch the scene.

This reread value is what shows how much a twist is well written.

And that is what miHoYo is known for. So I had high expectations with the plot twist (technically this pivotal moment is called a plot twist because it twists the feel and/or pace of the story). Chapter 2 is the perfect spot to end the first act of a seven-chaptered story. So I’m really preparing myself for the inevitable twist.

But then we ended up with Signora’s death.

Okay. So. They could have used that to show us, as the traveler, how Archons and Celestial beings are unfeeling and not to be trusted. We were told this repeatedly by Dainsleiff and by the Abyss Twin. But it is only textbook writing 101 to show NOT tell.

And Signora’s death could have been this portrayal. Although, to be honest, it would have been more impactful if the one who died is a friend of the Traveler.

Them seeing someone die at the hands of an Archon could have their idea of gods shift. Because there is no turning back once you see the proof right in front of your eyes.

But instead, the puppet did it. So what was the point of Signora’s death if not just a power demonstration? We already knew that the Raiden Shogun is powerful. So why did Signora have to die?

Sure, one can argue that the puppet was enacting the Ei’s will so maybe there was a point. But! In Ei’s story quest, we were told that the puppet would have no hesitation when it comes to killing whereas Ei can show mercy.

Which begs, again, the question: how much of the Raiden Shogun’s actions is a reflection of Ei’s will, and how much of it is a logic response of an artificial intelligence from Ei’s memories?

Honestly? I don’t like that they killed off Signora. It doesn’t feel right. I would’ve taken Beidou’s death over Signora’s no matter how much I love Beidou. There was just no build-up to it and it feels weak. I… didn’t feel anything besides confusion. The anger only came later because of the wasted potential.

But overall, I do think they could’ve made it work if it were actually Ei doing the killing.

--

So I just did Kokomi’s Story Quest and man. The soldiers wanting to continue the war is what they really should have made the motivations of the actual war rather than have it as a post-war response and then have Kokomi fix their mess.

Seriously. While it was really interesting to see the usual trauma response of soldiers who had only known war their whole life, they wasted this idea, man.

Before doing the Archon Quest I had thought that the Watatsumi had a hand on the Vision Hunt Decree. Because if I were a tactician, I would have made something to anger the people of my enemies and have them have their internal issues. And while the Shogunate is weak, that’s when I will strike and claim Inazuma for my people and my god.

Then Orobashi will rise once more.

Yep.

Obviously, I really wanted Kokomi to be a more active character in the Archon Quest.

Anyways. If you reached the end, thank you for reading this ~1.5k words of musings. Tell me what you think. Or don’t. You do you.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms Far Side #4: Hisui

That’s the trouble with twins; there’s always another one. That’s right, Magical-Biche is back for another Tsukihime build already, this time they made the more serious maid sister Hisui, She’s even less combat-oriented than her sister, but I’m sure you’ll figure out how to best use her skills. 

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here! Take it away, Magical-Biche!

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Even though her sister was quite the easy build, Hisui was pretty hard to figure out. She doesn’t really have any combat abilities except for her weird hypnosis thing. Thankfully, DnD is a game about luck, most of the time, and we can actually build a character which heavily relies on being plain lucky. This build is obviously not as good as Kohaku, I think, but it should prove to be plenty of fun with how much we manipulate the dice. Let’s dive into the build!

Race and Background

Just like our sister, we are a variant human. We might have some psychic abilities, but we’re still mostly human. Being a variant let us have a +1 to dexterity and a +1 to wisdom. We are naturally someone that is used to manual labor, and we have a knack for understanding other people’s feelings. Being a variant human also gives us access to the most powerful feat of them all, lucky. This is going to be great help to mitigate our poor stats and our low combat capabilities. We can also get a free proficiency, and as we are quick to get an overview of our task, we take the proficiency in perception. 

For our background, we are pretty straightforward. We are a simple guild artisan, a master of our craft, that is, cleaning and being an awesome maid. There is sadly no servant background, so that one will have to do. Being a guild artisan makes us quite insightful and persuasive, which fits our personality quite well, even though our bad charisma stat means we won’t be getting a lot of mileage from persuasion. We are also proficient with Tinker’s tools, so we can repair anything broken in the house we serve in. We also get the Guild Membership feature, which isn’t really lore-friendly, but it’ll have to do. We’re definitely members of the Misaki town’s shopping district association or something, after all. 

Ability Scores

Next come our ability scores. And oh boy, we’re quite MAD (Many abilities dependant, if you didn’t know). As a skilled maid, we’re quite agile, and we’re getting our highest score into dexterity. We are also pretty intelligent, having been raised in a noble household with high-class education. We are also pretty crafty, so we should also have decent wisdom. Next, we will need a bit of constitution in order to live through our hard days as a maid. Finally, we sadly have to dump our charisma, even though we’re like the cutest character from the series, as we appear to be quite stern and cold. We also have to dump our strength; we are already agile, we don’t need that gorilla strength. 

Class Levels

Monk 1: Our first monk level gives us our martial arts, giving us the ability to fight efficiently with our trusted broom (a quarterstaff, of course) and to slap as a bonus action. We also get our unarmored defense, which starts quite low, due to our bad stats. With point buy, we start with a measly 15 AC. Starting as a monk also gives us 2 proficiencies, and we’re taking acrobatics, to further increase our cleaning abilities, and stealth, so we can sometimes surprise people with our powerful hypnosis powers. We’re also proficient with strength saving throws and dexterity saving throws, two really useful options. We also get our monk weapons, that is, all simple weapons and shortswords. 

Wizard 1: Yes, another class already! We become a wizard as early as possible so we have access to our spellbook to write spells in earlier. Wizards get the powerful ritual casting, useful to cast spells like alarm or detect magic. We also get arcane recovery, which for now only allows us to recover a single spell slot of first level. Our first spellcaster level gives us three cantrips. We are getting firebolt, a great way to (over)cook meat, and quite high damage while we’re at it. We also take mending, to repair anything our clumsy sister broke while trying to clean stuff. Last, we take shape water, which is overall really useful, but we’ll be getting the most mileage out of it by cleaning. We can also inscribe 6 spells in our brand new spellbook (that we have to buy, sadly): alarm, to protect our encampment and our home, catapult, so we can throw trash at people, color spray, Tasha’s hideous laughter, and sleep, our first hypnosis-like spells that all happen to be of the enchantment school. Last, we get our very own unseen servant, the actual incarnation of our sister, albeit more useful for home-related stuff. 

Monk 2: Back to martial arts, our second monk level gives us our Ki, allowing us to sneak in a few more hits with flurry of blows, to get pretty defensive with patient defense and to get quite mobile for the rest of our turn with step of the wind. We have 2 ki points so far (one for each monk level, and we get them back by taking a short rest. We also get unarmored movement, increasing our movement by 10 feet, for now. Last, we may get the optional feature dedicated weapon, which is absolutely useless for us, since we don’t have any other weapon proficiencies. 

Monk 3: Our third monk level gives us deflect missiles, a great way to mitigate incoming projectile damage and help with our survivability. But more importantly, we are now a drunken master, giving us plenty of luck-based abilities. For now, we only get a proficiency in performance, which can be used to pretend we’re just a harmless maid, and one with the brewer’s supplies… which is bad. We, Hisui, can’t cook anything, and brewing obviously counts as cooking. If possible, we should ask our DM if they are OK with replacing that proficiency with another one, like the carpenter’s tools. Finally, our subclass improves our flurry of blows with drunken technique, allowing us to move faster and to disengage when we use it, perfect for our concept of just evading hits instead of tanking. What’s more, we may get the optional feature Ki-fueled attack, which isn’t tremendously useful for us, since we can pretty much only trigger it with patient defense and step of the wind.

Monk 4: Unlike most classes, monk’s fourth level became quite crowded with TCoE. We, of course, get our first ability score increase, and we’re taking the most travelled road by taking +2 in dexterity. Next, we get slow fall, which is quite nice, but depends on how much our DM likes pitfalls. We also gain yet another optional feature, quickened healing, which greatly helps with our health, but depends one whether our DM allows it. Finally, let’s not forget that our only damaging cantrip gets its second damage die, making it a really great option to fight right now.

Monk 5: Our fifth monk level gives us our ever-important extra attack, which dramatically increases our damage output. Also, our martial art dice is increasing in size, meaning our unarmed strikes now deals 1d6 damage, a small but always welcome upgrade. Stunning strike, while not adding damage, can be used against low-constitution enemies to stun them. It adds another saving throw in our arsenal, as most enchantment spells won’t force constitution saving throws, even if our wisdom is quite low. Finally, we get our last optional feature: focused aim, which helps hitting things, and that’s about it. Great feature, but as with other optional features, it all depends on our DM.

Wizard 2: Now that we have our extra attack, we can finish our wizard training. Second level wizards grant us our school of magic, and we’re obviously an enchantment wizard, which will increase the efficiency of our enchantment spells and give us hypnotic abilities. First, as it is the case with all wizard schools, we are an enchantment savant, which is nice to learn new spells. We also get our main tool, hypnotic gaze. We can charm a creature in our melee range, but we need to use our action to maintain it. However, it gives time to our party members to reorganize and can prove quite useful in many situations. Furthermore, we finally look a bit like our final form, which can evade attacks like now one and hypnotize everyone. We also get two new spells, and we should be taking identify, to help sorting magical objects that may end up in our home or camp, and charm person, for obvious reasons.

Wizard 3: Third level wizards get the optional feature cantrip formula, letting us replace cantrips, which is… useful, but not too much, and optional. More important are the new level 2 spells we get! We’re taking Tasha’s mind whip, an offensive hypnosis of some sort, and Hold person, to further our crowd controlling abilities.

Wizard 4: Obviously, fourth level gives us another ability score increase, and we’re becoming a telekinetic, which gives us the mage hand cantrip and the ability to use it to shove people from afar with a bonus action, and we can forgo every component of the spell, as well as making the hand invisible. This is mostly used to push our opponent away from us, as we’re not exactly a great combatant. The feat also increases our intelligence by one point, which rounds it to 16. We also get a new cantrip, so we’re now able to cast gust, a great way to dust any surface and to shove people. Our two new spells are darkvision, which is kinda necessary as a human, and which allows us to patrol at night with ease, and mirror image, which adds to our already impressive hit-avoiding arsenal.

Wizard 5: Our fifth level in the wizard class gets us our third level spells! We obviously won’t go with fireball, as it cleans just a bit too well, but with counterspell, a great way to fight back when a dangerous artifact laying unattended at home releases it’s magic (it also happen to greatly increase our defensive abilities), and dispel magic, for similar reasons.

Wizard 6: Our final wizard level gives us our instinctive charm ability, crystalizing our cuteness into a weapon. We can now divert attacks to other people, provided that they fail on their wisdom saving throw and are not immune to charm. With that, lucky, our improved flurry of blows, deflect missiles and counterspell, we have quite an impressive toolbox to stay alive. Also, our only damaging cantrip gets its second damage upgrade. For spells, we’re taking stinking cloud: we’ve cleaned stuff for so long we can now materialize dirt and bad smells into a powerful spell. We also take  remove curse, for similar reasons to the spells of our previous level.

Monk 6: Back to our final class, we get our Ki-empowered strikes, meaning our unarmed strikes are now magical. A bit late, and we already have magical damage from elsewhere, so it’s not too big of an upgrade. However, we also get a new feature which is actually two: tipsy sway. It allows us to leap to our feet, ending our prone status by using only 5 feet of movement, and to redirect attacks, which works similarly to our instinctive charm, but has different limitations and costs a Ki point.

Monk 7: Our next monk level grants us the ever-powerful evasion, letting us avoid most damaging AOEs without trouble. We also get a better grasp at how to charm people. Our stillness of mind lets us end a charm or a frightening status on ourselves as an action.

Monk 8: The monk’s eighth level gives us our third ability score increase. We will increase our intelligence by two points, giving us a nice bonus to hit and saving throws for our spells.

Monk 9: At ninth level, monks get an improvement to their unarmored movement, allowing them to quite simply walk along walls and on top of water.

Monk 10: Tenth level monks get purity of body, making them immune to poisons and diseases. Poison immunity is quite useful to avoid traps and dangerous beasts, but that’s about it.

Monk 11: That monk level gives us the final drunken master feature we can get, drunkard’s luck. We can quite simply remove a disadvantage on a lot of rolls by spending two Ki points, which helps with both our damage and our survivability. Furthermore, we get two damage upgrades, because our damaging cantrip gets its final upgrade, and we can now use our quarterstaff with only one hand without losing damage.

Monk 12: Twelfth level in any class means ability score increase, and we luckily don’t rely on feats too much, so we are adding another two points to our dexterity score, meaning we now have a perfect dexterity score. A bit late, but it’s not the only ability we use to deal damage, so we can’t really help it.

Monk 13: Next monk level gives us the tongue of sun and moon… which are cool for roleplay purposes, but it doesn’t really fit our build and it doesn’t really help us doing anything. It might help to charm creatures which don’t speak common, so there’s always some use.

Monk 14: This is the reason we left the wizard class while only level 6. With diamond soul, we are now proficient with every saving throw, including constitution, great to keep our concentration. We can also re-roll when we fail a saving throw by spending a ki point. Combined with everything else, we’re now extremely hard to hit, and we’re not likely to lose our focus anytime soon. We also end up with a decent pool of 14 Ki points, and we add 25 feet to our movement while we don’t wear armor. 

Pros: We are, first and foremost, pretty hard to hit, despite our low AC. We can deflect attacks, charm people and bind them. We also force varied saving throws, which is great to overcome some threats. Also, since we take a wizard level early, we can start collecting spells very early, despite being mostly a monk. That gives us access to most of the useful wizard spells, including both high damage ones like fireball and utility ones like all the detection spells. 

Cons: However, we are dependent on way too many abilities and end up dumping two of them, if we use the point buy system. We’re also a melee spellcaster, and only really become good at it once we hit level 20. Being an enchantment wizard also means we have a lot of concentration spells and usually have to choose between mirror image and something else. We also have to hold back our intelligence until quite high level, making our (thankfully varied) saving throws easy to beat, and our attacks easy to avoid. Finally, our wisdom is pretty terrible for a monk and our very few features which use it will usually not be worth it. 

[thesilkenlair]

(Casey Here!)

As much D&D as I play, you'd imagine I would eventually get around to illustrating some of their most iconic monsters! Which is to say, the ones that I personally find the most iconic. Which is to say, the ones I memorized when I was reading my dad's monster manual at age nine. Purple worm - Sandworms never go out of style. I've seen a lot of rad designs for this bugger over the editions, but I favor the slightly less reptilian older takes for this particular critter. It's kinda basic, but sometimes that's what you want. It's like a shark or a crocodile: Just flat out unchanged across the ages. Hook horror - I've heard it rumored that Gygax used a small Gigan figure to represent this monster. I can't verify that, but it definitely sounds right. Hook horrors are one of the very first things you meet when you play around in the caves, and they kind of remind me of the Father Deep monsters of the Hork Bajir homeworld that way. Mind flayer - Mind flayers! Basically, take all of your Dracula conventions and dip them in a fresh coat of Lovecraft. There's that old "decadent aristocratic upper caste system who literally eats the poor, but still somehow comes across as less evil than the actual real life 1%" setup that will never stop being relevant. Though personally, I see mind flayers as the first alternative for folks who want to play that monster-who-feels-the-urge-to-eat-their-friends-but-refuses-to-do-it shtick but don't want to deal with vampire baggage. You know, the furry option! ... Slimy? Rubbery? Do we have a word for anthro-cephalopods? I'm only a casual furry. Gelatinous cube - I'm not apologizing for giving this one a slot. Froghemoth - So, back when I participated in my very first long-term campaign, I played a druid. You've met Talia before. Naturally, I was chomping at the bit for the day I finally got to turn her into a froghemoth, and celebrated the day my wish was finally granted and she was allowed to chug human-supremacist-cultists like popcorn. Yeah, okay, the froghemoth is one of the classic vore-monsters. But it's a charming design in its own right. Kind of a freaky Hanna Barbara critter, like you'd see Space Ghost fighting. No matter how many artists draw it, they can never shake that inherent goofiness that third edition tried so hard to purge. I would probably cram them somewhere onto Fronterra if I was sure they were public domain. As is, I'm 99% certain that this is what Visser Three turned into when he ate Elfangor. Tarrasque - D&D's original kaiju! Kind of just takes the name and nothing else when it comes to its mythological origins, but I don't mind. The Tarrasque is that endgame "let's test the players" final boss monster... Or at least it's supposed to be. My DM reskinned it for our final Pathfinder session, and one of the PCs still nearly killed it in a single turn. Also, he let Talia turn into one, so maybe Pathfinder is just bullshit? Regardless, the Tarrasque has one of those simple, iconic designs. I've heard rumors it was based on the concept art for Fallout's deathclaws, and like the Gigan-figure, I can't verify this in any way. With its reptilian features, twin horns, spiny carapace and grabby fingies, it has an undeniable lizardlike quality that I can't help but find charming. Kinda feels like a more refined version of Zilla? Though for an insatiable eating machine, I notice a lot of artists give it very little belly to work with. Come on, this guy eats entire cities! Give him somewhere to put it! Rust monster - An icon of icons, the rust monster! Drawing its origin from a bizarre Chinese "dinosaur" toy, later designs have made it more insectoid in appearance, but never feeling QUITE like anything Earthly. It's the four limbs. Between the four limbs and the tail, it's hard to tell if it's an arthropod mimicking a vertebrate or the other way around. I'm pretty sure this is part of what inspired my ossaderm creatures for Fronterra. Also, Ryla can turn into one in our campaign. I have no shortage of havoc to wreak when the opportunity comes. Behir - Dragons in D&D are kind of... extra. Godlike beings, paragons of whatever personality trait they represent. Whenever there's something uber powerful in D&D, it gets compared to dragons. It makes them kind of unapproachable. Behirs provide all the essentials of a dragon - Serpentine body, scaly skin, horns, sapience, breath weapon, taste for human flesh - wrapped up in a smaller, weirder, IMO cooler package. You know, your Lambton Worms. A lot easier to port in and out of adventures, a lot less of an event when they show up, but still a formidable force in their own right. I like the behir. The behir knows how to taunt me just the right amount. Bulette - Another Chinese "dinosaur" figure monster, the bulette is actually another one I associate with Talia. Whenever we faced a problem that didn't have a glaringly and immediately obvious solution, she would turn into a bulette, whether it was for beating up robots, digging through obstacles, trampling smurfs, navigating labyrinths, distracting slashers with cute dog tricks... it was kind of her signature form. But shenanigans aside, the bulette is just an excellent monster. While the "land shark" shtick may be common, there's a lot more going on with the bulette's design. It's rumored to be a mad wizard's creation, as he combined a snapping turtle with an armadillo and mixed in a helping of demon blood to taste. Personally, I always considered that to be a neat little rumor to flesh out the world, but never assumed it to be true. The bulette just feels too naturalistic for that. Like some kind of protomammal or crocodylomorph, or weird triassic monstrosity. Magic and demons and dragons and so on DO affect the ecosystem. I always figured the bulette was just something that evolved to compete in this new biosphere. Owlbear - This one, on the other hand, I fully believe the "mad wizard was bored" explanation. Another chinasaur critter, the owlbear is frequently made fun of. What makes it scarier than a regular bear? It can't fly, so why have owl parts at all? Why trade fangs for a beak in what is at best a latural move? Well, first of all, fuck you, owls are creepy motherfuckers, and that alone is enough to justify it. But secondly, that's part of its charm. Besides some improved vision, the owl DOESN'T make it more dangerous. What makes the owlbear dangerous is that it's an insane, Frankensteinian monstrosity roaming uncontrolled through the wilderness! It doesn't need weaponry, its sheer temperament is enough to make it a worthy opponent. Sure, the practical threat might not be hugely above that of a bear, but storytelling isn't about numbers. Any asshole can go outside and get eaten by a bear. The owlbear is part of this world. The owlbear is a reminder of what magic can do. Someone somewhere actually made this thing, for whatever reason, and now the world is irrevocably changed because of it. Owlbears go beyond practicality. They bring the lore! Also, bears don't have very good eyesight, so the big owl eyes probably make them better hunters. Flumph - Is that a Japanese-style martian? Do we just have aliens in D&D? Dear lord, I love them! Okay, the flumph has got a sizable hatedom. And that hatedom can eat my ass, because the flumph is precious and perfect just the way it is! Flumphs are designed as a sort of sidekick-type creature. They're not very good fighters, but they bring knowledge and lore to the table. Whether they're aliens from some far off star, seeking your aid to prevent catastrophe, or psionic natives of the Underdark eager to bask in your positivity and hopefully stick it to the tyrants they're forced to share real estate with. My group generally treats them as straight up aliens, benevolent but strange. Course, we're all pretty strange, so we get along just fine. Otyugh - Okay so, the aberration creature type implies that this is something from another world that doesn't belong. And yet otyughs, which are aberrations, are an essential part of this world's ecosystem? Okay, I can buy the idea that an alien organism adapted to our world and is now a key part of it. Fronterra's got a TON of that. It just feels like after a point, the otyugh would be considered a beast? Otyughs are great. Every ecosystem needs a decomposer, and every fantasy story needs at least one dive into the sewers. Otyughs provide both, and are intelligent enough to keep the plot moving if it hits a snag. There's always going to be garbage, refuse, carrion, decay, things that need to be broken down and processed. Carrion crawler - The carrion crawler is pretty similar to the otyugh in that it's technically not considered a beast, and therefor must have its origins elsewhere, but feels so integrated into the ecosystem that it just feels like it belongs. They usually can't talk, so they're not just reskinned otyughs, but I still consider them pretty essential. Otyughs find a singular spot where waste is dumped and shovel it down at their leisure, while carrion crawlers skulk through the tunnels, actively seeking their food. The crawler got one of the most radical redesigns on the transition from second to third edition, but I can't really choose a single favorite. The oldschool tentacle-faced cutworm looks like it could be a real animal, while the googly-eyed Halloween decoration feels like it could be from another world, merely having set up shop here. Could there name apply to two wholly different creatures? If so, then I'm not sure which one mine would be considered. I kinda mashed them together into something that doesn't quite feel like either. But I like it for what it is. Maybe I'll sneak it onto Fronterra. Aboleth - Tentacled, telepathic sea creatures who turn humans into slimy minions, who remember everything their race has ever seen, and who are always plotting something behind the scenes. Yeah, the aboleths really crank up the Lovecraft elements. Actually, between the mind flayers, the flumphs and the aboleths, even the most oldschool D&D covered quite a few essential Lovecraftian bases. The flayers are your corrupt yet still recognizable humanoids who can be considered truly evil, the flumphs are benevolent-yet-bizarre guardians who know more than you, and the aboleths are the truly unknowable, sinister intellects. The fact that they can barely function on land honestly only adds to that, IMO. They're inherently difficult for a party to reach, and they offer some nice underwater adventure seeds. Not enough adventures go underwater. There's this perception that the ocean is bad for storytelling because so many writers lack the creativity to make it work. I wanna run an underwater adventure now. Beholder - Icon of icons! THE D&D monster! The beholder! Paranoid, jumpy, always five steps ahead and twenty steps perpendicular! Beholds are fun in just about every way. Between their wacky, diverse designs, their elaborate lairs, their eccentric personalities, their bizarre powers, you're never gonna run out of fun with beholders. Remorhaz - It's always been a thing that bothered me with environment-based monsters. Why does the ice monster who lives in the cold use ice as a weapon? Aren't most of the things it encounters going to be resistant to the cold? Sure, a cone of cold will still kill a polar bear, but a lot of the monsters in the tundra are outright immune to cold. A while dragon's not going to get much use out of its breath weapon fighting frost worms and frost giants. That's one reason the remorhaz sticks out to be. We have an icy tundra beast whose insides are a scorching furnace, which it can intensify and weaponize as it sees fit. Which also conveniently explains why its design - a sort of cobra-esque centipede - invokes warm-weather creatures, despite its icy environment. It's a nice subversion of the usual tropes, plus it's just a memorable, cool looking critter to begin with. On a smaller note, the remorhaz feels like a good loophole for Ryla's "no cold weather morphs" rule. Turning into something elementally affiliated with ice is no good, but a non-magical monster that survives the cold by superheating its insides? That seems perfectly viable to me!

[qm-vox]

Warlock Patron - The Mirror

Otherworldly Patron - the Mirror

You have made or created a pact with your reflection, or possibly with some manner of entity or society of which your reflection is merely representative; lore on the Mirror is frustratingly unclear, and the seeming inability of its embodiments (or citizens, or agents, or…) to clarify the matter is a source of ongoing frustration to researcher and warlock alike. Regardless, the power of your pact grants you a constant companion, as well as power over reflections.

Warlocks of the Mirror have a high incidence of being unclear about their pacts. Many don’t remember consciously making one, and often their reflections claim to not remember either. Compared to their driven peers they often come across as lost or adrift in the wider world, willing to use their newfound power to attain their goals but unable to fully set aside the nagging question of what happened, why, and who is benefitting from their status as free agents. More than one suffers from the ongoing belief that they are not the original person and are instead a reflection that traded places with a mortal from the Material Plane who must now serve as the reflection in their stead. Those few that have tried to test this through the use of reflective magics and powerful divinations have left behind accounts that could best be described as…

Interesting.

Mirror Features

Expanded Spell List:

The Mirror lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spells. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

Mirror Expanded Spells

1st - Disguise self, identify

2nd - Alter self, enlarge/reduce

3rd - Clairvoyance, slow

4th - Confusion, phantasmal killer

5th - Mislead, wall of force

Pale Imitation: At 1st level you gain the ability to reflect the techniques and results of magic used near you. When a spell with a level no greater than 1/2 your warlock level (rounded up) and a casting time of 1 action or less is cast by something other than you within 60 feet of you, you can spend your reaction to snare its reflection. You can then cast that spell as an action any time within the next minute, except that you do not expend a spell slot, and its duration is a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1) or the spell’s normal duration, whichever is lower. Instantaneous spells remain instantaneous, and you can maintain concentration on a spell that requires concentration for up to a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1).

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Living Reflection: Starting at 1st level, your reflection is sapient, opinionated, and somewhat free-willed. It has to stay in at least one reflective surface near you (if there are any), and while it does not have to agree with or even like you, it is seemingly bound to help you. You can ask your reflection’s advice to gain advantage on an Intelligence check. Once you gain advantage on an Intelligence check in this way, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest, during which you must be in the presence of a reflective surface at least the size of hand mirror. In addition, you gain advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks in environments where there is a large reflective surface (such as a floor-length mirror) or many smaller ones (such as a city street full of glass windows).

Breaking Mirror: Starting at 6th level you can draw on your pact with the Mirror to avenge harm against yourself. You can spend your reaction when you would suffer any amount of damage. If the source of that damage is a creature, that creature can rescind the damage; it is not dealt to you and no other effects of the damaging ability occur (such as damage to other creatures in its area of effect or poison). Otherwise, the source suffers damage equal to the amount dealt to you. 

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Restrain In Silver: Starting at 10th level, you have a subtle but powerful connection to the realms inside of mirrors at all times. As an action, you can dump unwanted sorceries from a creature or object within 30 feet onto its reflection instead. When you make this action, you gain understanding of all spells affecting that creature or object, as if you had identified their nature with an appropriate skill check. Choose any number of those spells with a duration shorter than permanent; they end, just as if they had reached the end of their duration.

You can take this action when you are paralyzed or otherwise unable to take actions, but if you do, you must target yourself with it. You cannot take this action again until you complete a short rest.

Erupt From Silver: Starting at 14th level you can release reflections of magic from the realm inside of mirrors that are as deadly and real as the originals. As an action, you crack open the subtle access you maintain to the realm inside mirrors for 1 minute. During this time, you automatically become aware of and identify all spells cast within 100 feet of you, though this ability gives you no special knowledge of their casters (including their location). Also during this time you can, ss a bonus action, cast any spell that has already been cast this round, without using a spell slot or expending material components. This spell is cast at your highest available spell level unless you choose to cast it at a lower valid level. You can only cast up to 1 spell this way during the duration of this ability.

Once you use this ability, you cannot do so again until you complete a long rest.

Cracks In The World - The Mirror In Your Campaign

“It is not unheard of, in this line of scholarship, for a researcher to act so. Certainly I was surprised when the learned Mister Narrows burned his notes and announced his retirement from the world of academia, and certainly I was let down to now be bereft of such pleasurable and well-paying employment. But...no. The detail that haunts me a-nights is when I fix, in my mind’s eye, the image of him hurling his tomes of planar lore onto the pyre.

Mister Narrows is not right-handed.”

- Journal of Ashlynn Monroe, research assistant (deceased)

Archaic texts that refer to it, infrequent as they are, call it the Plane of Mirrors, or perhaps the Demi-Plane of Mirrors. The warlocks that enter into strange and ill-understood bargains with it (or its denizens, or their own reflections, to name just a few potential candidates holding the other side of a leash they can’t see) often simply call it the Mirror. Adventuring scholars, having learned caution in their speech and writing, circle around the question with ‘the realm inside mirrors’, a description with neither name nor insult.

When you can pin down one of its inhabitants and force them to talk, they call it Silver.

Answers about the realm inside mirrors are elusive. Accounts of travel to it are rare enough - it is not every day one meets a spellcaster who can travel the Astral Plane, and rarer still that you can convince one to go wandering into an unknown plane - and contain such wildly varied information that they are either contradictory or indicate that the realm inside mirrors is vast indeed. If it is a demiplane then logically it should be located inside of the Ethereal Plane, but that can’t be quite right: mirror-magic has been observed to work in the Outer Planes, where the Ethereal does not touch or hold sway. Does it connect to mirrors and reflective surfaces? There’s an argument that says yes and points to the sway of mirrors in spells like scrying and the prevalence of magical reflective surfaces. More cynical scholars point out that the average humanoid eyeball is reflective and express doubt that the endless hordes of the living carry planar portals wedged into their skulls.

What is known is that the realm inside mirrors is inhabited. These inhabitants sometimes have traffic with the Prime Material Plane - with increasing frequency, in the form of being bound up in pacts with warlocks. What, precisely, they get out of these relationships is not always clear. Certainly a few steal the lives of Material denizens, replacing them and generally attempting to destroy all evidence that they are not the original. These are the citizens of Silver who get caught. Others simply slip away, becoming the seeming twin of an ‘original’ who now no longer appears in reflective surfaces. 

Magic travels into and out of Silver very easily. Spells cast in places that have access to the realm inside mirrors seemingly ‘echo’ there, where mirror-warlocks - and its natives - can take advantage of them. They conform to the local rules of magic - using the Weave or Shadow Weave on Toril, being subject to antimagic fields or altered by planar traits, and the like - even when re-cast or reflected, but their users do display odd traits. They might speak verbal components in someone else’s voice, perform somatic components ‘backwards’ or in different orders; their spellcasting might display hallmarks of teachers they never had, or cultures to which they do not belong. Raw mirror-magic often manifests as cracks, rents in reality through which a terrible light shines. Little is written about this light; journal entries that mention it tend to be followed by suicide notes, though for all of that its appearances are rarely associated with great acts of devastation or catastrophe. Often it is little more, or less, than that someone pushed a student of Silver too far.

If you are a player looking to create a warlock whose patron is the Mirror, consider the following questions:

What Do You Remember? Many warlocks of the Mirror have no idea how they forged their pact, and quite a few are fuzzy even on the details. What do you know? Why were you seeking magical power? Do you still want to accomplish that goal now that you have it?

Do You Get On With Your Reflection? Like it or not - and quite a few warlocks don’t like it at all - you now have a permanent companion in the form of your own reflection. What is that relationship like? Why? Would you trade places with your reflection if you could? How would you react to them asking for that same favor?

Do You Have Any Theories? Are you invested in the mystery of Silver? Do you wonder at why mirrors are such expensive and sought-after status symbols, and try to draw connections to the battered tools adventurers learn to obsessively use? Do you wonder at why it seems the books you surely learned your pact from are now gone, or have you decided you’d rather not know? How much do you talk about what you think your patron is?

If you are a dungeon master looking to incorporate the Mirror into your campaign’s story, you have some decisions to make. Here’s some things to consider:

What Is The Mirror? Older editions of Dungeons & Dragons have a Plane of Mirrors, which may have even been the retreat of the original exemplars of neutrality whose names have passed into obscurity. Is Silver that plane, changed with the times? Is it perhaps a demiplane on the edge of the Plane of Shadow, where the light of the Positive Energy Plane streaks through like water on the side of a pitcher, picking up some of Shadow’s nature on the way? Could it be something that is not real, yet yearns to be? Or is Silver the wrong way of thinking about it entirely, and the mirrors connect to something stranger; a house with no walls that contains leaking Glory, perhaps, or a prison-world left over from the last cycle of creation that houses souls that no longer remember how to have bodies?

Warped Reflections. No mirror reflects the world as it truly, perfectly is. When using themes of mirrors and reflections in your campaigns, think about how they can be wrong. Items like the mirror of opposition provide one example, reflecting an equal and opposite version of a person, but there are other ways to make something wrong. The town drunk goes clean overnight; he was a demon in his cups, quick with his fists, and now it’s like he’d never touched a bottle. A book written backwards is held up to a mirror, but the text in the reflection is in another language entirely. The warlock’s hand mirror shows her with subtly different features - later, she realizes they’re similar to the woman her father almost married, but never did. Find ways to emphasize, then distort, the reflections in your game.

What Are The Stakes? Silver does not have to be a grand mystery, though it could be. It can be as small as one escaped denizen who won’t go back, and it could be as large as an imminent shift in the nature of this Prime Material Plane. Once you set your stakes, stick to them. One advantage to starting with smaller stakes is that if your players develop an interest in the realm inside mirrors, you can always tell a new story about it; consider starting small if you want to introduce this concept to your campaign.

I hope you enjoyed this small addition to your game! Comments and critique are welcome.

[raeynbowboi]

The Character Forge: How to Play as Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl in DnD 5e

This is a rather unusual build option, as these aren’t technically characters in the Yugioh series. However, I consider it a fun and unique challenge to try and build them. Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl are the ace cards in the deck of Yami Yugi. Though in season 5 the anime decided they were the spirits of the Pharaoh’s high priests trapped as duel monsters that still serve their king in death. So that’s a fun thing to think about the next time you play one of these cards.

A Heroic Spirit

What race you choose is probably going to depend on which version you want to play. If you want to play who they were before they died, Mahad and Mana were ordinary humans with no superhuman abilities beyond the study of magic. So normal Humans works for who they once were. If you want to play as the duel spirits they became, you could choose Kalashtar because the Dark Magician is the bond of the high priest Mahad with the Illusion Magician spirit. Kalashtar is a race whose body is split between a host and a dream world spirit. Dream world, Duel Monster Spirit World. Close enough. They are also tasked with guarding and serving the Pharoah loyally, which has lowkey guardian angel traits, so Aasimar is a possibility. It’s a bit silly, but they are synthetic beings. Just holograms really. They could be Warforged since they aren’t actually real or alive. Just computer code and projected images of light as duel monsters. They could also be Variant Humans because they’re Shonen anime characters, and the spirits of former humans.

Honestly, they have no alignment and little personality. Make them however you want and go from there. I have never actually seen season 5, so I don’t know the personalities of Mahad and Mana.

For background, Mahad is a high priest and Mana is his pupil. Mahad and Mana are both Acolytes. Dark Magician is the ultimate wizard in terms of attack and defense, so Sage is appropriate, while the obscure (but I think it’s legit?) Student of Magic is great for Dark Magician Girl. 

Powers and Abilities

The Dark Magician’s primary spell is the Dark Magic Attack, and the Dark Magician Girl casts Dark Burning Attack.

As Mahad, he had the ability to summon duel spirits to fight on his behalf, conjuring them through large stone tablets. Mahad also possessed the Millennium Ring, which points you in the direction of whatever you’re trying to find, and lets you place and remove souls from bodies.

Support Cards:

Dark Burning Attack: Destroy all enemy facedown monsters Dark Burning Magic: Destroy all enemy cards. Dark Magical Circle: Add other Dark Magician support cards to your hand. Dark Magic Attack: Destroys all enemy Spells and Traps Dark Magic Expanded: one monster gains +1000 ATK and ignores enemy spells Dark Magic Inheritance: Banish 2 spells to draw 1 DM support card from deck. Dark Magic Twin Burst: DM gains ATK of all DMG on the field and in Graveyard. Dark Magic Veil: Pay 1000 LP to summon a dark spellcaster Dark Renewal: Sacrifice enemy monster and your caster. summon dark caster. Illusion Magic: Sacrifice your spellcaster. Add Dark Magician to your hand. Magic Formula: DM’s Spellbook. Increase DM or DMG ATK by 700 points. Magical Hats: Dark Magician becomes hidden beneath 1 of 4 magic hats. Magical Objection: Counter enemy spell, trap, or effect and destroy that card. Magician’s Circle: when foe summons, you and foe can summon a caster Magician’s Defense: Take half damage while you control a spellcaster. Magician’s Navigation: Summon DM from hand and dark caster from Deck/GY Mystical Box: Dark Magician trades places with another monster. Thousand Knives: Destroys 1 enemy monster

Other Common Cards

Change of Heart: Take control of enemy monster for 1 turn. Dark Hole: Destroy every card on the field. Dian Keto, the Cure Master: Gain 1000 Life Points. Magic Cylinder: Bounce enemy attack at enemy’s Life Points. Magic Jammer: Counter 1 enemy spell card. Mirror Force: Bounce enemy attack, destroy all ATK position enemy monsters. Monster Reborn: Summon 1 monster from either Graveyard. Mystical Space Typhoon: Destroy 1 Spell or Trap card. Negate Attack: Portal sucks up enemy attack, opponent battle phase ends. Raigeki: Destroy all of your opponent’s monsters Reverse Trap: Buffs and Debuffs switch. Buffs weaken, Debuffs strengthen. Spellbinding Circle: Enemy monster -700 ATK. Cannot attack/change positions. Swords of Revealing Light: 3 gleaming swords, enemy can’t attack for 3 turns. Trap Hole: Create pit trap. Destroy monster with 1500 ATK or more.

Class is in Session

Cleric     Arcana: As Mahad and Mana were priests, this is a way to incorporate that religious background with their current powers.

Sorcerer     Divine Soul: Similar to Arcana, Divine Soul blurs the line between magic and religion, and allows Dark Magician to pull power from the holy spirit of Mahad residing within him. Since both Dark Magician and Dark Magican Girl float, the wings this subclass gives at level 14 could be flavored as simply allowing these duel spirits to fly/float without the wings being visible.     Shadow: They are the DARK magicians. Their signature spells are DARK Magic Attack and DARK Burning Attack. Pretty self-evident.

Warlock     Celestial: Again like Divine Soul and Arcana, this option connects Warlock with religion, but the subclass has some Radiant flavor which is a little unusual for the DARK Magicians.

Wizard    Conjuration: When Mahad lived, he used his Millennium Ring and magic powers to conjure the spirits of Duel Monster tablets to play shadow games.     Lore Mastery: He’s “the ultimate wizard in terms of attack and defense”. It stands to reason that his understanding of magic would run so deep that he could alter and bend it to his will. Especially to turn any spell he casts into Necrotic damage for his dark magic attacks.     Theurgy: Mahad was the high priest. So, he could have been a wizard who had studied the religious magic of his day to obtain his powers and to cast both Cleric and Wizard spells with one stat.     War Magic: The ultimate wizard in terms of attack and defense is probably going to be extremely powerful in a fight, so having a build that’s made to fight is right up his alley.

How to Play as Yugi Mutou

Before making this post, I’d tried to make Yugi as a potential build. However, an obstacle I encountered was that I had Yugi as a Conjuration Wizard, and there simply weren’t enough Wizard spells that summoned creatures to fight on your behalf. However, if you combine that summoning focus of Yugi with the magical capabilities of Dark Magician or Dark Magician Girl, and treat them as his Deck Master, they can work together to fill out Yugi’s spell list with DM and DMG spells and fight side by side as effectively one character.

Stats and Proficiencies

In order to be the ultimate wizard in terms of attack and defense, Dark Magician needs the absolute maximum Intelligence and Constitution stats. He needs to be able to deal serious magical damage and shrug off enemy spells. During Yugi and Joey’s duel against Para and Dox, the Dark Magician did a front flip in what seems like medium armor. That shows quite a bit of Dexterity. Beyond that, fill out the other three stats or dump them as you see fit. However, I will admit, the Dark Magician Girl does seem more charming than her mentor, and could be a Sorcerer who casts with Charisma instead of Intelligence.

Arcana Insight Perception Religion

Name: Mahad, the Dark Magician Race: Variant Human Background: Sage Alignment: Neutral Class: War Magic Wizard (20) Base Stats: Strength: 8 (-1) Dexterity: 17 (+3) Constitution: 20 (+5) Intelligence: 20 (+5) Wisdom: 8 (-1) Charisma: 8 (-1) Saving Throws: Strength: -1 Dexterity: +3 Constitution: +5 Intelligence: +11 Wisdom: +5 Charisma: -1 Combat Stats:  HP: 182  AC: 13  Speed: 30  Initiative: +8  Proficiency Bonus: +6  Passive Perception: 15  Dark Vision: 0 feet Proficiencies:    Arcana (Sage)    History (Sage)    Insight (Wizard)    Religion (Wizard) Skills: Acrobatics: +3                  Medicine: -1 Animal Handling: -1          Nature: +5 Arcana: +11                      Perception: +5 Athletics: -1                       Performance: -1 Deception: -1                    Persuasion: -1 History: +11                      Religion: +11 Insight: +5                        Sleight of Hand: +3 Intimidation: -1                 Stealth: +3 Investigation: +5              Survival: -1 Equipment:    Arcane Focus: Staff

Spell Slots 1st (4) 2nd (3) 3rd (3) 4th (3) 5th (3) 6th (2) 7th (2) 8th (1) 9th (1)

Dark Magician’s Spellbook

Cantrips                    3rd Level                                 6th Level    Create Bonfire           Call Lightning                           Arcane Gate    Eldritch Blast             Counterspell                            Globe of Invulnerability    Firebolt                      Dispel Magic                          7th Level    Mage Hand               Fireball                                      Conjure Hezrou    Mind Sliver                Magic Circle                              Mord’s Sword    Minor Illusion             Summon Lesser Demons      8th Level 1st level                     4th Level                                     Antimagic Field    Detect Magic              Arcane Eye                               Dominate Monster    Hex                             Banishment                           9th Level    Mage Armor               Conjure Minor Elementals        Prismatic Wall    Magic Missile             Conjure Shadow Demon    Shield                         Leo’s Secret Chest    Witch Bolt                   Locate Creature 2nd Level                      Phantasmal Killer    Arcane Lock                Summon Greater Demon    Crown of Madness   5th Level    Flock of Familiars        B’s Hand (Arcane Hand)    Knock                          Conjure Elemental    Locate Object              Dominate Person    Magic Weapon            Infernal Calling    Mirror Image                Legend Lore    Misty Step                   Planar Binding    Shadow Blade             Synaptic Static                                        Teleportation Circle                                        Wall of Force

Features:

Arcane Deflection: When attacked, as a reaction, add +2 AC or +4 saving throw, but cast only cantrips next turn. Arcane Recovery: Once per day, after a short rest, restore 10 or fewer level 5 or lower used spell slots. Deflecting Shroud: 3 creatures take 10 force damage after Arcane Deflection. Durable Magic: +2 to AC and saving throws when concentrating on a spell. Magic Initiate: Learn Eldritch Blast, Mind Sliver, and Hex. Cast with INT. Power Surge: You have max 5, each surge adds 10 force damage to a spell. Researcher: You always know where to find information or who to get it from. Signature Spells: Cast Fireball and Dispel Magic without using a spell slot. Spell Mastery: Cast Magic Weapon and Mage Armor without using a spell slot. Tactical Wit: Add your INT mod to your Initiative.

keep in mind, the spell list is not conclusive, it’s a personal choice. I chose to have Dark Magician learn all the spells of the Arcane Cleric, and just tried to pick the standard magic spells, especially about anything with Arcane in its name. Because both Yugi and Mahad summon monsters to fight for them, I decided it was appropriate to give Dark Magician a lot of conjuration spells, but that doesn’t mean you have to use the Deck Master Yugi/Dark Magician build I suggested where Yugi does the summoning and Dark Magician handles everything else. It’s not a perfect build, but then, I never expected it to be. Still, I hope you guys found this to be a fun, quirky DnD concept. Let me know if you’d build this character differently than I did. And as always, thanks for joining me in The Character Forge, where heroes are made.