#Amanthos Panideios

[emathevampire]

Formal, texture, and change for Amanthos 👀

Thank youuuuu for asking about my beloved librarian... Current ask game here, if anyone else wants to hit my inbox!

formal: What's your OC's formal look? Do they like dressing up? Do they have different looks for different occasions? He absolutely does NOT like dressing up, but occasionally he has to. Since he's baaaarely an inch shorter than Arekos, he usually borrows formalwear. Always black, though the golden accessories Arekos prefers sometimes look a bit odd with his more wintery complexion. Their shared clothes don't fit him as well as they used to, since he lost a lot of weight after becoming undead, but he's handy enough with safety pins and temporary tailoring in a pinch. I actually have pictures for this, so...

texture: Does your OC favor any specific kinds of cloth or textures? Is there anything they can't wear or don't like? What sort of fabrics do they prefer? Amanthos hates velvet and corduroy, and also hates wearing the hoods of his cloaks up as they irritate his ears and mess up his hair. He likes smooth or soft textures, and is especially attached to his monk's robes, which are perfectly worn in and comfortable after hundreds of years of use. He wears silk undergarments and shirts, soft thin leather trousers, gloves, and boots, and then layers of woolen monk's robes on top along with a heavy wool scarf. In especially cold weather, a fur-lined wool cloak and coat are added to the mix. It's rare to see him less than fully dressed, as he has to hide the scars from his crucimigration that mark him as one of the undead.

change: Has your OC ever drastically changed their appearance? Significant haircuts, big tattoos, complete wardrobe swap, etc? Why? How do they feel about the change? Oh yes. When Amanthos went through the Ritual of Crucimigration, he was crucified and raised as form of undead known as a Necropolitan. This left him with scars from the cursed nails used in the ritual, for starters, his eyes gained an eerie appearance like cloudy glacial ice, and later on his poor eating habits caught up with him... he lost a good 15lbs in the intervening 300 years or so (which is a lot for anyone, much less someone 110lbs soaking wet), and being undead, he's completely unable to gain that weight back again. He does his best to keep up normal eating and drinking habits now, but the damage has already been done... Amanthos is simultaneously vain and quite self conscious, he works very hard to maintain his appearance but it's a constant struggle. It's safe to say he didn't handle the change particularly well... though you'd be hard pressed to get him to admit it. He did it for science, after all. His heart is torn, on the subject of regrets... for the price he paid to see his beloved stars up close was far more than just his life, his choices may yet cost him his soul along with everything else he holds dear before he finally truly returns home.

[emathevampire]

🖤🖤🖤i love it, it’s beautiful, you can borrow my son any time🖤🖤🖤

Another doodle, this time of @emathevampire​ ‘s lovely Skyrim character Amanthos Panideios. Thank you very much for letting me use him for the practice! 💙

[emathevampire]

Amanthos loves two different people in very, very different ways.

Arekos is a hopeless romantic and Psamion is a chaotic bastard. It shows. Half of their triad reads like a romance that puts all other romances to shame and the other half reads like a shitpost that comes around once a year and makes your day every time.

(he was, in fact, Things.)

[emathevampire]

I fired up the ol’ skyrim machine since he experienced a brief wardrobe change for a party scene the other day, and fortunately Amanthos decided to be an exceptionally cooperative muse for once...

[emathevampire]

Amanthos, prior to becoming an adventurer: I fail to understand the appeal of intentionally poisoning oneself for fun. Humans are absolutely bizarre. Sure, I suppose alcohol tastes interesting, but you can achieve interesting taste sensations without doing yourself severe bodily harm and risking debilitating addiction, disease, and a shortened lifespan, not to mention the short term effects of acting a fool, passing out, and suffering the next day? Why???

Amanthos, after becoming an adventurer: I get it. I get it now. Pass me the fucking paint thinner. I would like to become unconscious please.

[emathevampire]

4, 8, and 13 for amanthos

4. How easy is it to earn their trust? VERY difficult. You know that post about how many hours it takes to become friends with someone? I did the math. You want to be his friend, you’d best submit that application, put in your time, and he’ll get back to you in 5 to 10 business years. And you’ll be LUCKY if they’re human years, not his years. Actually earning his trust? That’s even harder. Try 1 to 5 centuries. Very few people have the time to go the long way ‘round, and most get frustrated with him long before he actually starts warming up to them. Arekos and his everlasting patience for Amanthos’ excruciatingly slow pace are what makes him the one he trusts the most.

8. What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child? “Put the book down and listen to me,” was probably something his parents often had to say. Not that they weren’t supportive of his interests, but his tendency to hyperfocus at the expense of his health (which was incredibly poor to begin with) stressed them the hell out. And Amanthos would often do things like hide in the library to stay after hours, become so engrossed in his studies that he would forget to eat and his mother would find him passed out at his desk with a pile of stale food untouched next to him, stay awake to sneak outside in the dead of winter even when he was sick just for a chance to see the stars... it’s a miracle he survived to adulthood, honestly.

13. What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color? The monastic order he belongs to has a general colour scheme of “dusty grey,” and he keeps to it. Every monk starts with one set of white robes, and the more saturated with dust they become from time spent working in the library (basically dying them over time), the more knowledgeable you are said to be, so he’s quite proud of the shade he wears, regardless of how good it looks. Grey, black, silver, blue accents are what he prefers. I would say he looks quite nice in it, and could do with a bit more variety. He would say I should leave him and his wardrobe well enough alone. So, he has no real opinion on whether or not it “looks the best,” other than refusing to wear anything else (except on very special occasions). Partly because he says it “clashes with my aesthetics,” and he is terribly vain for someone who only owns one set of clothes, partly because his favourite colour is blue and he really doesn’t much care for any of the others. As for whether or not he actually looks best in it... I’ll leave that for you to judge.

[emathevampire]

6, 17, 22, 47, and 100 for Amanthos?

6. What is your character’s opinion on nobility? On authority? Amanthos is lawful neutral, heavy emphasis on lawful. Knowing this, you’d probably expect him to be a spineless bootlicking coward who blindly obeys whatever authority happens to be in front of him... but he specifically holds himself to the laws of his own people, which demand that he serve and protect the living, and that means fighting evil and righting unjust systems where he finds them. He also serves a god of knowledge, who demands that knowledge be free to those who are willing and able to seek it. So for an incredibly lawful librarian, he finds himself hanging out with an awful lot of rebel scum and starting an awful lot of revolutions... and getting kicked out of a surprising number of libraries. He’s tried to turn himself in after accidentally kidnapping someone while breaking and entering into the secret lair of an untouchable noble to get to the bottom of a missing persons conspiracy. Basically, he respects the law, the enforcers of it, and the nobility... unless they’ve done something to make him feel obligated to do something about it. Then he’ll absolutely tear it all down.

17. What is your character’s favorite season? Like most astronomers, Amanthos has a love-hate relationship with winter, because while the night is longer, freezing your face off with your eye pressed to a telescope for 12+ hours trying to take notes with heavy gloves on in a tower on top of a mountain above the clouds at midnight in December is absolutely miserable.

22. What animal best represents your character? Hmmmmmmm. Probably moths, honestly. Nocturnal, soft and dusty, look fragile, eat paper, attracted to light... yeah. moths.

47. How did your character spend their childhood? Where did they grow up/who were their childhood friends? He had a pretty happy childhood, all things considered. He grew up in Ka’ama, the capital city of his homeland, which... best easy description I have is think aesthetically the city of Gondor, only it’s full of ancient elves, older magic, and legalized necromancy. When he says he spent his entire life in the biggest library in the world, he’s not lying, he was actually born there and even died and became undead there, dedicated himself to the order of monks that live there, he’s spent more time lost in those halls than some of the scholars who run the place. Most of his childhood he was either by himself or with his sister, Nikiti, until he went off to school, at which point he and Arekos became absolutely inseparable until it came time for them to decide on their careers. He has always been rather aloof, and didn’t have many friends, mostly seeing them as distractions from his studies... whenever people call him a friend, he usually tells them not to, as it takes him a very, VERY long time (like 15+ years) to consider anyone more than an acquaintance, and the level of familiarity others have for him after only a few days or weeks makes him uncomfortable. It’s a trait many of his people have, being extraordinarily long-lived compared to the rest of the world, though he is even less understanding of humans and their quick attachments than most.

100. What, currently, is your character the most curious about? Currently, he’s very curious to see whether or not the party can actually succeed at redeeming Maalik, the devil bound to Shiro, their sorcerer. In the multiverse of our campaign setting, my universe is the only one where ANYTHING has the potential for change, anything can atone, anything can choose to stop being evil and be redeemed... even demons, devils, and chromatic dragons. Asmodeus himself could be a good guy, if he ever felt like quitting as a villain. Now, this is a good enough thing to be curious about testing on its own, but Amanthos has a personal stake in the matter. When I played him as a PC, at the end of a long campaign he ended up having to take the throne as an Archdevil on the Council of Nine. Because he couldn’t leave the task to someone else, but also knows it’s only a matter of time before the power corrupts him and their plan to destroy evil forever by playing the long game from within fails because of him... he sent an avatar of himself to search for someone who could take his place. Someone good enough to resist corruption. Someone like Shiro, who’s spent his whole life with a devil bound to him and still manages to be stubbornly Chaotic Good. And if the party can redeem this devil... maybe there’s hope for the devil that the true Amanthos will have become by the time all is right again with this world. Because time is running out for him, and he can only keep his soul for so long, delay doing what needs to be done for so long, before he slips and falls right down that slippery slope of good intentions.

I the DM am VERY curious to see how this all resolves in the end. It’s all very elaborate, and 100% behind the scenes still, the party has no idea what he truly is, though I have begun dropping hints that he’s not quite what he seems there’s not going to be any way for them to start putting things together for at least another year probably. It’s an extremely long con... but I’m excited to see it pay off in the end.

[emathevampire]

i was tagged by @alduinsbanes​ to post 5 songs that remind me of my oc! Thank you! I’ll tag @druidcraftfern​​ and @arathergrimreaper​​

I don’t have playlists for everyone, but I DO have a pretty extensive one for Amanthos. So here are a few of my favourites from that... if anyone wants the whole playlist, it’s on spotify, message me and I’ll send you a link.

1. Crucified, Ghost 2. Paint The Sky With Stars, Enya 3. The Most Cursed Of Hands, The Dear Hunter 4. Anything For You, Ludo 5. The Balancer’s Eye, Lord Huron

[emathevampire]

1, 4, 9, 17, and 22 for the romance ask!

1. What drew your character to their LI and vice versa?      Amanthos and Arekos were childhood friends, when Arekos was sent away to the arcane academy Amanthos was his first friend there. Arekos saw him sitting alone in a corner reading and not eating, sat next to him and shared some of the lunch he made, and the rest is history.      For Psamion to the other two, purely physical attraction. Arekos was, at the time he met Psamion, performing as a stripper to pay for his necromancy education. Amanthos was working the front desk at the library when Psamion offered to teach him a secret fey sex ritual that could make his body stronger (a very appealing thing to Amanthos, who before becoming undead struggled with all manner of ailments related to his poor constitution).

4. Their favorite physical feature on each other?      Amanthos loves Psamion’s smile and the way his grey eyes always seem to have a glimmer of mischief to them, and Arekos’ figure in general, though he has a particular fascination with his hands (likely because, when Amanthos was alive, Arekos could not touch him without risking harming him with negative energy and thus never removed his gloves out of concern for his safety).      Arekos’ favourite physical thing about Psamion would probably be his strength, as Psamion’s muscles are functional as well as decorative, which is not something one sees much of when one’s time is spent surrounded by wizards and other scholarly types. About Amanthos, his face, just in general, particularly now that he can touch it without fear.      If you think Psamion can decide on just one feature to call his favourite, you’re wrong. He’s been a pansexual disaster for 2,775 years and isn’t about to start picking just one of anything now. Truthfully, I don’t think he even knows, and would just say “I dunno, everything?”

9. How open are they with their feelings?      Amanthos and Arekos spent the better part of a millenium mutually pining for each other until Psamion elected to do something about it, so you tell me.      Psamion wears his heart on his sleeve, the other two are more reserved. Arekos is simply anxious and a hopeless romantic who can’t express himself, Amanthos is more of a Spock type where you think he’s a cold and heartless bastard unless you know what you’re looking for.

17. Their ways of expressing their love.      Psamion is very physically affectionate, mostly, but he’s also a wealthy adventurer and likes to spread that wealth around. Arekos is a mom-friend, he shows he cares by taking care of them, making them food, healing their wounds, he’s less enthusiastic about PDA than Psamion but he can be very charismatic and romantic when he wants to be. Amanthos prefers to keep things private, but like Psamion he likes to give gifts, which could be anything from cute cat socks or books to a dozen dragon corpses donated to Arekos’ research.

22. From the outside looking in, what is their dynamic like?      Just plain weird, probably. We have a perpetually-sunburned sailor, a fashion-savvy necromancer, and an undead librarian monk, all of whom by all rights seem to have nothing in common outside all being the same race of elf. One of them seems so aloof as to be cold towards the other two, yet at the same time is willing to let a whole universe fall to ruin if it meant he could come home to them. One of them seems so hopelessly in love with the other than he’s willing to defy the gods and all their laws just to kiss him one last time. And the third, who philanders all across the world and only sees them maybe once every few years, who never expected to catch feelings but here he is, just wants them to be happy together when he’s not around. You don’t keep a relationship going for 300 years unless it’s built of some pretty sturdy stuff, though, and the more time you spend watching them together the more it becomes clear that despite their differences, the foundation there is rock solid, and if they’ve survived everything that’s tried to break them up thus far you’d be pretty foolish to think you could succeed where all the powers that be of the multiverse could not.

[emathevampire]

Gelwyn: I know you’re... you and all... but did you really HAVE to tie up the assassins we captured... like... that?

Amanthos: Like what?

Gelwyn: You know what.

Amanthos: These are the most secure bindings I know how to tie? When one is attempting to hold a member of a notably dexterous race hostage, one should ensure that escape is impossible.

Gelwyn: WHY do you know how to tie them like this.

Amanthos: I took a class in Advanced Rope Use one year because Lore of the Occult was full...

Gelwyn: They TEACH this? At SCHOOL?

Shiro: Well I mean isn’t college usually where people learn this sort of thing?

Amanthos: What sort of thing??

Gelwyn: Ugh... never mind... anyway now that we know they’re not hostile, I’ll just cut em loose—

Amanthos: WAIT! That’s really expensive rope! Let me untie them!

Gelwyn: Oh, of course it is. Of course you have fancy rope for this. Why do I expect anything else.

Amanthos: Well you never know when you might need it... not like I go around tying people up for sport... honestly...

Gelwyn: Are you sure about that? Because I’m not convinced!

[emathevampire]

Number 5 for your cute undead librarian dorkus (i am really trying to memorize their names but I keep mixing them up).

asdfghj “cute undead librarian dorkus” its accurate his friend Livia has been facepalming for two weeks saying “oh my god Amanthos you’re a dork”... love that he’s giving off the exact vibe he’s meant to here. Anyway, what has it got in its pocketses, precious???

If you asked Amanthos what was in his pockets, he would say “A handful of knives that like to lie to girls when I am not looking.” But, you asked me, not him, so I'll just empty ‘em out for you.Because he is a 1,539yr old collector of stories crap, he keeps a bit of everything in his pockets. Everything. His monk robes have loads of extra pockets sewn into them for this reason, and he carries a handy haversack everywhere he goes because he ran out of pockets. There’s lint in there older than dirt I bet...Here is a list of items from his character sheet:

Masterwork Thieves’ Tools, Artificer's Monocle, material components and arcane focuses, crafting supplies and cartographer’s tools, a small harp.

20 page wizard’s spellbook, Legal Undead Paperwork, Book of the Dead, "Abominations and You: A Guide to Responsible Necromancy," "Combat Styles for the Discerning Fighter, or How to Fight Smart: A Guide to Intelligence-Based Fighting" (aka his ever-growing thesis paper), a letter from Kíhyué, Gelwyn’s Magic Item Library Card, sheet music, journals, sketchbooks, notes, books, maps, pens, ink, paper, etc.

1 eternal wand of inflict light wounds, 1 eternal wand of command undead, 3 steel daggers, 2 steel sai, 5 stone sai, two +1 magic sai, 1 magic sai of returning, 1 spiked chain, 1 rope dart, 1 katana (this is just the hidden ones in his pockets and handy haversack. he also has an enchanted siangham, locked gauntlet, and another sai made of soul-trapping metal but those technically aren’t in his pockets).

20ft chain, masterwork manacles, black silk rope, clothes and “camping supplies” Arekos stashed in his bag and forgot to take back, a portable bath set.

a set of tarot cards, marbles, samples of unidentified substances, spare jars and vials, soap (safe for humans, and not safe for humans, labelled), perfume, black salt, a small chunk of glass made from black sand, onyx gemstones, misc rocks and crushed bits of leaves and wood, coins.

And this is just what’s currently in there. He’s had dead bodies in his pockets. And he’s been hidden in pockets... specifically in bags of holding, and most recently in a bag of holding disguised as a codpiece.

[emathevampire]

Amanthos, constantly: I miss being alive so much sometimes. I just want to feel something again without it being a concentrated effort.

Amanthos, after getting his soul shoved into a living body by a magic trap: Oh No that’s too much feeling put me back right now immediately

[emathevampire]

🖊

Amanthos is comically bad at hiding the fact that he’s undead… and yet the current party he’s travelling with has yet to call him out on his BS. Like, okay, he’s good enough at passing for living, but only in passing. If you spend more than a couple days with him, you’re more than likely to notice that even for one of his race, he looks a bit off colour. But NO ONE will call him out on ANYTHING, except for the fact that his eating habits (particularly his habit of eating things that are not food and may in fact be literal poison) are setting a bad example for the child they’re trying to cure of an eating disorder. So… here’s how that discussion went (it’s p long so i cut it for space). Victor, Amanthos, and Eridañe are my characters. Gelwyn, Livia, and Shiro belong to my players.

Context: The party has just killed a True Demon and is discussing how best to go about training Eridañe, the hate-spawned demon child they rescued from the Abyss, to fight, since her combat capabilities are pretty unimpressive once you take away the artifact that grants her a variety of terrifically evil spells. Victor and Amanthos are not exactly friends, but they’ll agree that working together will probably be the best option. Victor most begrudgingly, as he is extremely protective of Eridañe and does not like the “small annoying nerd man who smells like a dead hooker.”Shiro: “How many dead hookers have you smelled?”Victor: “Ha ha. Very funny.”Amanthos: “Well? How many?”Eridañe: “What’s a hooker?”Amanthos: “‘Hooker’ is a crass term for a person who—“Livia shoots all of them a dirty look and covers Amanthos’ mouth.Livia: "It’s nothing you need to worry about right now. How about we start your training once we get out of the sewers? Those monsters won’t stand a chance.“Victor: “I won’t tell you when you’re older. Anyway… what else do you know that smells like death and too much perfume? Besides little knife-eared nerds who talk too much for their own good?”Livia, suddenly nervous: “um.. I think that’s just the smell of… his perfume. It’s just… a fancy elven thing. Right Amanthos?”Amanthos, lying his ass off: “I have an intolerance for positive energy, like approximately a third of my race do. Some of the other effects of the affliction unfortunately include that wet corpse smell in humid weather… which I try to mask for the benefit of those around me.”Victor, not buying a single word of it: “Riiiiiiiiight.”Livia: “It’s not his fault he um… has a medical condition?”Victor: “Oh he has a medical condition alright.”Victor: “It’s called being fucking dead.”Amanthos: “HEY! I do NOT fuck the dead!”Gelwyn: “I don’t think that’s what he meant…”Amanthos: “Necrophilia is HIGHLY ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL I would never!”Victor, snickering: “Oh boy, sensitive subject? I see listening comprehension in this party is piss poor.”Amanthos: “…”Eridañe: “We would never piss on the poor!”

Livia: “Would you two stop it! We have enough to worry about without you two fighting!”Victor: “If we were fighting, your little boyfriend would already be dead, kid.”Victor: “But as you can see, he’s still in one piece.”Gelwyn: "No, Eridañe, he didn’t mean that he was pissing ON the poor. In this context, piss is an adjective that is modifying the word ‘poor’. You are correct, though, that we would never piss on the poor. That would be terrible behavior.“Livia, blushing, clearly embarrassed: "I like this conversation more, can we just teach Eridañegrammar for a while?”Victor raises an eyebrow as the smirk on his face grows more pronounced.Eridañe: “I’m… confused.”Gelwyn: “It’s alright, kid, almost no one else in this room gets it either. Remind me when we get out of the sewer to make you another gold star. For the effort.”Eridañe: “Yay! I love gold stars!” She pulls a chewed up wad of gold stars out of her mouth. “More please!”Livia: "Have those been in your mouth this whole time?“Eridañe: “…if i say no, do i get another one?”Livia: “You might get another if you tell the truth.”Victor: “Hey! We talked about this! Only food goes in your mouth!”Gelwyn: “… Ok… Going to have Dimas make the stars from now on. Out of something that’s supposed to go in a mouth.”Livia: “Wait, what are those made of?”Victor sighs exasperatedly: “I don’t know, but it’s better than the broken glass I caught her chewing on yesterday. Or the rusty nails from the day before that. Or just the straight up fucking dirt. Or poison she fished out of a rat trap. I swear I don’t know how she finds these things”Eridañe grins mischievously.Livia looks horrified.Victor: “It’s not funny. Stop that. Don’t you care that you could get seriously hurt?”Livia: “He’s right, if you keep putting stuff like that in your mouth you’re going to get sick or hurt yourself.”Eridañe: “But Amanthos eats whatever he wants all the time! Why can’t I eat paper flowers too???”Amanthos, who has been quietly relieved that the prior conversation had been forgotten up til now, is now caught looking mortified as he tries to subtly exit the conversation. Caught and dragged by the scarf, by Victor, whose eyes are glowing menacingly. Liva steps in-between and tries to separate them, but Victor has already gotten hold of him.Amanthos: “…in my defence, I never knew she was watching?”Victor, growling as he pulls Amanthos’ face up close to his: “Why am I not surprised that the phrase ‘you are what you eat’ is true once again, in the case of the man who apparently eats literal garbage and poison for sport?”Livia, pulling Amanthos away from him: “Eridañe, just because you see someone else eat something they shouldn’t doesn’t mean you can. Why not eat something that tastes better than glass or dirt?”Eridañe: “Food is evil, or it tastes bad and hurts you… why don’t you eat things that aren’t evil?”Eridañe: “If it tastes bad and hurts you, it’s not evil!”Livia: “Food definitely isn’t evil, where did you hear that?”Eridañe: “…i just know it.”Livia: “Would you believe me if I said I could find you food that is 100% evil free?”Eridañe: “Yes. But only if it looks gross, smells bad, tastes bad, and feels bad. The opposite things are evil and make you a bad person if you eat them.”Livia looks very confused and looks up at the party.Victor: “Wait a minute is this why you won’t eat vegetables? Because you think they’ll taste good?”Amanthos: “Fascinating…” Victor glares at him.Gelwyn: “Ok, new plan. When we get out of here and get all the pressing matters taken care of, we’re gonna have us a celebratory dinner. Think we’ve earned it. And we can use this as an opportunity to demonstrate some proper eating habits. I’ll ask that you trust me on this, kid, but you’ll find eating properly is a surprisingly important part of Stabbing Evil Things.”Eridañe: “But I am eating properly! You’re the ones that are wrong…”Gelwyn: “Let’s think about it this way. Who’s better at stabbing things, me or you?”Eridañe, smugly: “Me. You slash things.”Amanthos: “She does have you there.”Victor: “NOT helping.”Gelwyn shoves his greatsword straight though the dead Vermin Lord’s body.Gelwyn: “Ok. Who’s better at stabbing. Me or you?”Eridañe proceeds to do the same, and then pulls her rapier out the other side with mage hand. Eridañe: “ME.”Amanthos: “Okay, hold up, can we not desecrate a corpse please?!”Gelwyn frowns, and redirects his next attack into the stone wall, burying the adamantine blade in to the hilt. Gelwyn: “Me, or you?”Victor: “Kids, please, you’re both very good at stabbing, but can we remember basic sword safety before things—“Eridañe uses true strike to shove the rapier all the way into the wall through a crack in the brick.Victor: “—get out of hand???”Amanthos: “Oh no, why would we ever stop anything before it got out of hand. Fights, insults, whatever this devolved into… no, let us absolutely keep going until someone gets hurt or says something they regret.”Gelwyn: “Quiet Large Children, we are in the middle of a lesson. You can bicker by yourselves. So how far into the stone did you get, Eridañe?”Eridañe proudly shows that she got it all the way to the hilt, she just used the dexterity method as opposed to brute forcing it.Gelwyn: “Yes. And your blade is shorter than mine.”Victor: “She’s also much smaller than you are.”Gelwyn: “And if she wants to sass me with semantics, I’m going to call her on technicalities.”Victor: “Large children? I’m not the one engaging in pissing contests.”Amanthos nods. Victor yells at him to stop agreeing with him.Gelwyn: “That is literally what you and Amanthos were just doing. I’m attempting to demonstrate the virtues of proper eating habits. Stop interrupting.”Victor begins to open his mouth to contradict him, but stops and just glowers quietly in his general direction instead.Eridañe: “It’s not fair though! Your sword is bigger than mine! You’re cheating!”Gelwyn: “Here, you can use my sword then.”Eridañe: “No, you use mine so it’s fair.”Gelwyn: “If I used your sword, it’s probably going to break. You can use my sword without worry, though. Much stronger metal.”Eridañe: “No I can’t. It’s the wrong shape.”Gelwyn: “Because you aren’t good enough at stabbing yet.”Victor: “She’s not proficient with anything else yet… she is actually being honest. She’s not a proper fighter, she never trained with anything else.”Gelwyn: “Yes. So I’m the better stabber. Which she needs to admit.”Victor: “Arguably, yes, however not in a way she can meaningfully correct without a long delay in her training. And also not in a way that eating healthy will necessarily fix. Eating properly will help her use her own sword better, not let her use whatever sword she wants.”Eridañe: “If you’re better with my sword than me, then I’ll believe you. But nobody is better at stabbing than me! Nobody!”Amanthos: “I would take this challenge but something gives me this funny feeling I am already in enough trouble…”Victor: “Yes you are. Now sit down and shut up.”Gelwyn: “Ok, I’m going to abandon my demonstration, ‘cause nobody seems to be getting the point… Which was that part of the reason I’m so good at stabbing is because I make sure to eat properly. As good as you are, Eridañe, if you made sure to eat properly, you’d find it even easier. Is that something EVERYONE HERE CAN AGREE ON?!”Amanthos, Livia, and Victor all look down sheepishly and nod in agreement, along with quiet murmurs of “Yes, eat actual food, please…”Amanthos: “I… did not know that the habits I found tedious and exhausting to maintain were having an adverse effect on the most vulnerable members of our team. I failed to realise that keeping up with this particular one was a necessity for more reasons than the obvious ones. You have my sincerest apologies, and I promise to do better about it in the future.”Gelwyn: “Thank you… Now I need to sharpen my blade when we get out. Eridañe, you should let me check your sword, too. Metal weapons don’t hold up long against stone, even Adamantine and Mithril. Weapon maintenance is pretty much the "Eat properly” of swords.“Victor: “Oh, so now you think about that! Why do you think I was trying to get you two to cut that shit out in the first place?!”Amanthos, grinning: “Well, it is no wonder they failed to comply. Cutting would have been contrary to the objective of the contest they were engaged in.”Victor: “…I hate you.”Amanthos: “I know.”

In character, Amanthos is relieved that he’s gone this long without having to explain anything to the paladin, and that they’ve all been gullible enough to go along with the excuses he makes. He’s secretly honestly thinking he’s getting away with it. Out of game, however, me the DM is just like “HELLO? MAKE HIM TALK, DAMMIT!”

They’ve had every opportunity to interrupt one of his 8-hour bubble baths and find this nonsense happening. They’ll have more than enough opportunity to ask why, when told to restrain enemies until they can be questioned, he tied them up with black silk rope and chains in a way that implies he only has ranks in Use Rope for kinky shenanigans. They have every reason to question his motives and his character. But they won’t. I’ve been reduced to having other NPCs ask the obvious questions because the gang is so incredibly resistant to my attempts to quietly stir up drama. I am literally dying over here begging my players to make him spill the tea, while Amanthos sits at the table sipping it smugly and feeling altogether far too pleased with himself.

[emathevampire]

Princess Aello: I cannot let you enter my queen’s hall so armed. Please disarm yourselves, leave your weapons at the door.

Amanthos: Oh, sure. *takes off his sword belt*

Aello: All your weapons.

Amanthos: Ah yes I forgot some... sorry *takes an enchanted sai out of each boot*

Aello: ALL of them.

Amanthos: ...do I really have to? I am a monk, I am never truly disarmed, is this really necessary?

Aello: YES.

Amanthos, sighing: Fine... if you insist... *pulls a spiked chain, a half dozen daggers, five stone sai, a rope dart, two wands, a 20 page book of prepared spells, and a katana out of various hidden pockets and his bag*

Amanthos: Sufficient?

Aello, sternly: The black sai and the locked gauntlet too. Come on. Hand ‘em over.

Amanthos: Okay, okay, THERE. That’s EVERYTHING. Happy??

Aello: Not really, but you may enter.

[emathevampire]

1, 4, 7, 15, and 23 for Arekos, Amanthos, Psamion!

thanks for asking!!!! i love writing about them so this got a bit long. Also, since I have art of them now, have some art of the queer elves in question.

Who is the most affectionate? Physically, Psamion. He’s always got his arm around someone (you know those high school boys who can’t seem to keep their hands off each other? that’s him), and unlike the other two he’s not shy at all about PDA, much to their chagrin. Arekos is more quietly affectionate, the mom friend of the party, preferring subtler gestures to show he cares. Amanthos has never been particularly affectionate, at least not in any way that other people understand, and to anyone but his partners he probably looks quite cold and unfriendly. But he’s the one who, upon attaining godlike power, chose to send his avatar home just to see his boyfriends again... they’re all about equal, just very very different.

Favorite non-sexual activity? Reading together! Psamion isn’t much for books, so he usually takes this time to sprawl out and go to sleep. He often suffers from nightmares, but less so when in the company of people he feels properly comfortable around. It’s a whole to do, if all three of them get together. It starts with Arekos baking pastries and making tea, and ends with everyone asleep on Amanthos’ lap while he, being undead and unable to sleep, continues to work his way through the bookshelf.

What’s the first thing that changes when they realize they have feelings for the other? For Psamion, Guilt. He’s a ship captain and an adventurer who’s not around much, and very aromantic, so it’s more of a realisation that “oh shit, these people really have feelings for me.” He’s usually only here for a casual thing, and once it gets serious he tends to bail... this is one of the rare occasions where he was persuaded to stay in the relationship. Which actually leads to how Arekos and Amanthos were finally made to admit their feelings for one another.     They’d been best friends since childhood, until they started taking different classes at university. Arekos’ druid parents disowned him when he decided to pursue necromancy, so he got a job to pay for school. Started as a cook, ended up realising that stripping paid the bills much faster, and that’s how he met Psamion. Independently of this, Psamion met Amanthos at the library and had knowledge of a fey ritual that Amanthos wanted... and when Psamion later realised that he was the middle of a triangle here, he convinced Arekos to actually do something about it.     Because, for the longest time, and I mean like almost a thousand years of time, they were just idiots in love mutually pining for each other but too scared to do anything about it until Psamion decides he’s going to fix everything. How? By making them realize they have feelings for each other, and not him. It did not fix anything he wanted it to in any of the ways he expected, however, because the first thing they did was say “And where do you think YOU’RE going?” as he tried to sneak out the bathroom window. The only thing that really changed was that they kept room for a third after making more time for each other... and what changed for the third was that he decided not to run away.

Who wakes up first? Amanthos does not sleep, so technically, he’s always awake first. But despite not being a morning person, Arekos usually wakes up early to make breakfast for everyone.

Who comes up with cheesy pick up lines? Psamion. Most of them are dirty. Few of them get a rise out of Amanthos beyond a raised eyebrow, but all of them make Arekos blush.

[emathevampire]

I have no fancy captions or snippets of story tonight, but, take these now anyway, lest they languish in my drafts forever otherwise.