#I feel like it's bound to happen given the current cultural climate and i live in constant fear of it

[thesmokinpossum]

[lligkv]

what the world will look like when it’s over

Can’t Get You Out of My Head is the first Adam Curtis documentary I’ve seen. I gather it’s not the most successful demonstration of his method; it sounds like Hypernormalization or The Century of the Self are tighter in their construction, less effortful (count how many times Curtis says something like “But then it started to run out of control” in this one), and perhaps less frustrating in their narration. In the early episodes of this documentary in particular, it feels like Curtis is constantly presenting what’s being covered as the turn, the decisive shift in his narrative—the emergence of the American counterculture, the revolution of the “unit of One” led by Mao Zedong’s wife Jiang Qing to help her break the stalemate with the other revolutionaries in China into which Zedong had fallen in the 1960s, George Boole’s development of Boolean logic to describe human thought. And the whole thing feels longer and baggier than it needs to be. The early episodes devote much time to interesting individual narratives, like that of the Trinidadian British activist or sorts named Michael Freitas (or Michael X) or a trans woman named Julie in 1960s Britain; they also sprawl in a way that makes the overall argument a bit hard to divine. It’s not until the fourth episode that the shape of Curtis’s narrative becomes clear—that our age is the product of a struggle between a new, broadly liberal-democratic and capitalist image of individualism, a dying era of collectivist struggle, and older, more vicious systems of power, derived from the control of capital and expressed through the middle classes’ suspicion and viciousness toward the subaltern and toward each other, even as they remain subject to the power of oligarchs and billionaires.

Curtis also seems to play fast and loose with the facts sometimes. When he presents Médecins Sans Frontières’s founder Bernard Kouchner as an avatar of a theory of the “one world” of liberal democracy—the idea that we’re basically one world of individuals, enjoying certain human rights regardless of political orientations or ideologies, and that Western nations are duty-bound by virtue of their prosperity to intervene when other nations violate people’s rights—it seems a distortion of what Kouchner actually says in the footage Curtis includes: “We don’t care on leftist or rightist countries [sic]; there is no leftist and rightist suffering, and there is no possibility to split the world in[to] ‘good’ people or ‘bad’ people, ‘good’ dead and ‘bad’ dead.” Which isn’t to say Kouchner didn’t believe in liberal-democratic ideas—he may well have—but what he’s shown as saying has to do with the consideration of suffering as suffering regardless of a person’s identity or allegiance, which is a different matter.

This is just one of several moments when I stopped to wonder how secure I actually was in Curtis’s hands. But ultimately, I find the emotional history he lays out resonant. The age we’re living through now, in the 2020s, is indeed the product of certain fantasies of individualism and of a post-end-of-history, neoliberal “one world”—with no ideologies but capitalism and putative democracy—meeting age-old systems of power, acquisition, and control, and age-old features of the human mind and heart: resentment, prejudice, betrayal, jealousy, the need to be prosperous, the need to be free.

And Curtis’s work appeals to me for the same reason the writer Pankaj Mishra’s work does. He historicizes our underhistoricized time. What’s more, he does so in a way that’s especially rare to see in any mainstream media venue. Usually, when you want to understand the connections between, say, colonial-era empires and post-war welfare states, or if you want to understand what happened to turn Western societies as they were post-war to Western societies as they are post-financialization, you have to seek the information out on your own. It’s valuable to have someone in a place like the BBC willing to put the pieces of these narratives together. And willing to remind us of the events that are so incredibly easy to forget even in one’s own lifetime. Abu Ghraib, for instance, which pops up in part 6 of the documentary. That shit happened while I was alive. How often do I remember it? How many American sins get drowned out in the new ones that emerge every day of every month of every year? Or in the stasis that sets in when what was once novel, like the War on Terror or the invasion into our privacy represented by the Patriot Act, fades into regular life?

I was jotting down copious notes while watching the doc, as is my wont. The questions and thoughts that came up, in no particular order:

How do the elites of a given era impose their preferred ideologies? How are the structures of power we grow up with constructed, and how do those go on to shape our behavior?

Control, as it’s practiced by societies in the 21st century, often comes down to the recognition of patterns in human behavior—and their manipulation.

The loss of power, like that which was suffered after the collapse of Britain’s empire or in the slow hollowing-out of America’s manufacturing industry in the 20th century, leads to anger and melancholy that people can’t be expected to abandon. Does doing what you’re supposed to do bring you the happiness you were promised—or anything even resembling that happiness? When we’re living in a historical moment in which the answer is no, as is often the case today, we’ll need to watch out. It’s a sign people are being manipulated and abused.

Over time, the tech industry has come to understand that you can manage people en masse by collecting their data and manipulating the messages they receive in social media activity feeds and advertising—and you can make them feel like sovereign individuals at the same time through the very same means. In light of all this, will there ever be a revolution that actually changes the structure of power we’re currently stuck in? Is there a chance to alter this extreme individualism. on the part of people who are surrounded by political systems so enervated, by the supra-governmental system that is global finance capital—which politicians can’t control, and must appease and palliate—that they can’t respond to phenomena like climate change or meaningfully punish atrocities like wars prosecuted on false pretenses? Or are we stuck where we are, in a world that’s corrupt and exhausted? In nations whose governments depend on technologies of surveillance and myths of consumerist abundance or nationalist glory to maintain power, in the absence of any real vision for the future?

It all leads to some interesting takeaways. For one, the way culture reacts to politics and vice versa. As I was watching Can’t Get You Out of My Head, I was reminded of a conversation folks on the Discord server for the Relentless Picnic podcast had had recently about the strange things Richard Dawkins posts on his Twitter account. And it led me to think: when religious “caring conservatism” was in the White House, Richard Dawkins and his New Atheism, this brash repudiation of religion and its pieties, grew as a counterweight. When Obama and his technocratic regime were in power, with social media bringing on a wave of progressivism in popular culture and algorithms presenting us a fantasy of endless choice—much of which was a thin veneer over the same old shit: banks getting bailed out, forever wars going on, productivity rising while wages stagnated—we also got Jordan Peterson-types who claimed to speak to a human need for narrative, even in this point of stability we had seemed to reach, this recovery of sanity after the chaos that was the Iraq War and the financial crisis; who claimed we needed ideas and myths to animate and drive our lives, because they sensed there was something hollow and mendacious driving all this consumer choice, for all it seemed a symbol of our freedom and progress.

Of course, both Peterson and Dawkins are provocateurs, not intellectuals; I don’t mean to dignify the movements they led much, since in both the appearance of intellectual rigor or moral clarity often covered the indulgence of the worst instincts: immaturity, obstinacy, provocation for provocation’s sake, contempt for women and trans people. The New Atheists had a point, and could be absolute assholes about it; they ultimately could be as fundamentalist and dogmatic as any religious people. As for Jordan Peterson, his actual work, in the way of so many grand theorists, uses the appearance of profundity to cover something ultimately pretty banal. And he’s most known for grandstanding in the public sphere—refusing to use people’s pronouns, the usual conservative shit. But these movements do seem to reflect a countercultural response no less than 1960s counterculture reflects a reaction to the staid culture of 1950s America and the sins it covered up.

Which leads me to the question: what was the culture’s response to Trump’s administration? Maybe QAnon and Russiagate, as conspiracies—that is, actual narratives people inhabit to explain the world’s evils, and not just a vague need for them that they satisfied with Jordan Peterson’s light form of Stoicism or his theories of Light and Dark or whatever the fuck. And in that way, perhaps, once a countercultural movement—namely nationalism and Trumpian populism—actually seemed to have overthrown a regime, of Obama-era liberal technocratic management, culture and politics came to mirror each other, rather than standing in opposition to each other. Both became equally conspiratorial and unhinged; in fact, they merged. All the ruling myths and conspiracies mutate in kind these days: Trump’s garbage about draining the swamp, a cover for Trump and his family enriching themselves and Stephen Miller’s like getting to fashion the state they wanted, becomes QAnon’s garbage about rings of child trafficking and pedophilia and Trump, of all people, being their savior—all while actual trafficking and abuse perpetuated by Jeffrey Epstein and his ilk goes unpunished, Epstein’s death swallowed up by the state without a sound—becomes the liberal pundit class’s screaming about Russia: connections between Trump and Putin that were always conjectural to me, because no one who pled them seemed to feel much need to substantiate them.

Here again I feel like what were once centrifugal forces in our culture—between mainstream and the independent media, for example; between people in power and their critics, either in the media or at society’s margins—have collapsed into a single morass. We’re all in hell and there’s no way out.

In all this, what does Biden’s administration represent? Little more than an interregnum, to my mind. How disappointing to see not even a gesture toward forgiving student debt or raising the minimum wage in these first 100 days of his presidency. There’s been some progress in climate legislation, and progress in putting Stephen Miller’s deportation machine to a halt (though they’re also reopening several emergency shelters to accommodate more minors already being held past the mandated limits for keeping them in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services’s Office of Refugee Resettlement). But there’s also been such triangulation on policy by the administration and its supporters and such complacency on the part of the media covering the administration, refusing to call them out on or even cover this. And how can the average voter respond but with resignation?

Ever since I read Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus near the start of lockdown, absorbing the picture of the world pre-World War II that’s presented in that book, I’ve thought we’re in the same sort of moment that Mann’s protagonist Zeitblom was in. There’s a crisis that’s passing over this whole planet like a wave or a seismic event, and no human intervention can interrupt it. We can only wait for it to pass—holding on to whatever’s to hand, waiting to see what the world will look like when it’s over.

[alistonjdrake]

Adapting Historical Fashion for the Fantasy Eye

I’m back. Why? Because we’ve seen a resurgence of people talking about corsets and whether they were the death traps some would like you to believe (they weren’t and we’re not here to discuss that but I beg you to do some research), people not knowing that there is a vibrant and active historical fashion community who either engage in history bounding (dressing up in period accurate clothing) or add elements of it to their daily lives, and just as always people not knowing the difference between stays and corsets. 

But, June, you say. You’re a fantasy writer. What does historically accurate clothing have to do with anything? Historical accuracy is for losers. And to that I say, you are correct. But if you’re using something that has a heavy historical context (like clothing, technology, etc) you might as well know a thing or two about the subject before looking a fool. If only because readers like me notice the small things and cry OR because the aesthetics are cool but knowing where they come from and how they can be changed to fit your world is even cooler. 

Fashion defines a society. Fashion defines a culture. What garments are important? What garments are the same among the upper and lower class? Do their roles as garments change depending on class? (ex: stays were often wore “out” for working class women while upper class women would see them strictly as undergarments) How do fashion trends define the eras? It’s not hard to notice that throughout history nearly every decade as a definite silhouette. It’s not hard to tell the difference from a regency era gown from an early Victorian gown to a late Victorian one. They all look vastly different. 

I’m not asking anyone to know the ins and out of historical clothing but it doesn’t hurt to read up on it or look at some existing examples. To know the anatomy and construction of what would make a complete outfit (or to read about what people might wear for a given situation if no artwork or garment exists). It all feeds into how your characters hold themselves, how they might be able to move. It’s not so much that people were just “Shaped Differently” back then. Their clothes were constructed with a certain poise or look in mind. And y’know. I just want to stop seeing modern underwear in fantasy underneath historical clothing while we all pretend the undergarments don’t contribute greatly to the finished overall look. 

But again, you’re right. We’re not writing historical fiction here. We don’t need to have every mention of clothing in our fantasy novels be completely in line with the point in time we might be basing our setting off of. This is about adaptation. 

Adapting Historical Fashion for Non-Historical Purposes. 

I’ve said it a bunch by now I’m sure. My books take place in a world based off the late 18th century. Why? I dig it. As such, when I first started putting together the aesthetics of the world that period was also my go to. I know I already did a whole thing on culture and society but really this is more or less just about how fashion can amplify those two things. I mentioned setting and what fabrics might be commonly used or found. And what might make sense to use (lighter, breathy fabrics for hot climates vs thicker fabrics and furs for cold ones) vs ones considered high class and enviable or with trends that might be coming from other countries that have stronger influence. 

When I take real life fashion and shove it into my world (give or take a few changes) I usually ask myself a few things first. 

1. Who controls the fashion trends?

The younger generation, the monarchs, a group of travelers who just look super stellar? Who is the rest of the community following when it comes to the newest look and what elements of it are they trying to steal/adapt? What element is the thing that really catches on? 

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a huge fan of waistcoats and breeches and stockings, tailed coats with flaps (although anyone who reads my book will also know I axed powdered wigs. Because I could.) But to just copy wouldn’t say much about the opulent and flamboyant Escana. To increase the idea of the vanity and the peacock attitude of the younger, partying courtiers I have young men who usually dye their stockings to match their waistcoats (because colored socks > white or black socks) and forgo the coat to show off sleeve details as well as lose some of that “seriousness”. It says a lot about them while still remaining in a circle that gives readers a clue as to where my inspiration came from. 

2. Who disagrees with the fashion trends?

And how does their disagreement influence the perception of certain garments or the people who wear them? Just read one thing about how evil corsets are and how crinolines are literally cages for women and how many of us go around thinking Victorian ladies fainted every time they opened a window and understand these perceptions can be long-lasting and completely change an outsider’s opinion on how people lived. Granted for world-building or story purposes hopefully these will be happening currently instead of being a huge misunderstanding of history.

Over and over again I say things like cultures not being monoliths but neither are generations and there’s nothing that makes a world feel more lived in and full than people who don’t all wear a uniform based vaguely on what the author thinks a medieval gown looked like. It’s just also sometimes nice to get tidbits like a character wearing a scandalous or pricey color just to look good even if they can’t afford it. Is it usually super vital to the plot and story? No. If used sparingly can it be fun background information to how the society your character lives in works or views things? Sure. 

3. Colors and fabrics and spares, oh my

Okay. That’s not a question. But it’s an umbrella for me to put my thoughts under. Because I live in the 21st century I don’t often think about things like dyes or luxury fabrics but this would be front of mind for most of my characters. Not everyone can afford to wear certain colors, or certain colors come with a context that means they shouldn’t be worn for certain situations or for certain people and the same could be said for fabric. We live with these fashion rules now (although I’m not so strict in my memory of them because my current life doesn’t depend on it, but I do write about princes and courts so it’s more important for a courtier to not wear a happy color to a funeral than for me. Or things like no white after labor day).

Hand-me-downs. I grew up wearing them. They were common in history and should be more common in fantasy. If a family was not wealthy they could only afford so much fabric or to follow fashion trends for their eldest. It wouldn’t be unheard of for a family to still be wearing clothes considered “outdated” and it’s not like we all just throw our clothes out when they get old. While a trend might have moved onto a new silhouette or something, someone with less means might still be wearing decades-old clothing that have held up well (these clothes were built to last. Fast fashion could never) or could have chosen not to jump on the trend at all. In my book, the opulent courtiers and royals of Graza Palace dress completely different than some traditionalists who wear garments more native to Escan before it was an empire that are completely different from the suits and 18th century gowns I’ve borrowed. They’re timeless and probably see a lot more turnover from one family member to the next than a gown that could be out of style in a year. 

4. And lastly, making sure I’m not turning it into a costume

This becomes important when taking garments that have a cultural context in the real world and using something similar to it or basing another garment off of it. I would start with this for the purposes of using culture clues to ease someone into what actual culture the fantasy one is taking inspiration from to give them a taste of what certain things might look like without going into full detail but it’s key to then know what makes these garments...these garments so you’re not bastardizing them. Why do people wear them? (especially if a form is still worn in modern times) What are they usually made out of? What are the occasions they are worn for? A respectful nod to something will just add to your world building, a costume rendition with 0 understanding of how certain garments will work will just make it seem like all your characters are in cosplay. 

So in conclusion: No, I’m not advocating you be historically accurate for your already not historically accurate but it pays to look into why your basing clothing off a certain period and what goes into making that piece of clothing...that piece of clothing. Why it looks that way, how someone wearing it would look/hold themselves, and what it means in the context of your setting as well as things you might change and take extra liberties with for the purpose of storytelling. Clothing can add character and it could be just as useful a tool in world building (in my biased opinion) as language given that fashion can have such a huge impact on people but it can also fall flat. 

[idealuk]

Ryan’s current stance is either painfully troubling at best, subversively insolent at worst, or some where in between and we should just breathe through figuring out where on that scale that stance actually is and try to push/implore him to advance that stance (it’s completely understandable if his current stance - however you gauge it - is already past the point of no return) before all of us give up on the idea of Buddie entirely.

I’m going to come at this the only way that I can: from my own perspective on my own personal experiences.

I can comprehend his current stance on a purely conceptional level. Is that stance irrefutably wrong and needing of change? Fucking hell yes.

I grew up as a white non-binary queer person with Cerebral Palsy (so my upbringing was, and my life continues to be, influenced by a number of women like Carla) and I was, and still am, loved by a black older brother (he and one of my sisters got married when I was 11, they lived with us practically the whole time that they were together, he treated me more like a younger sibling than my actual siblings ever did throughout all of those years, has been the only of my former brother-in-laws to keep in touch with me, and only me, after divorcing one of my sisters, and still calls me his little sister - I’m still picking my battles where pronouns are concerned - when ‘checking up on me’) and my platonic best friend (because there was obviously a best friend who wasn’t platonic by that qualifier) throughout my childhood and in to my twenties was an Iranian cis straight tomboy with an acute form of Dwarfism and we attended schools that provided us with friends from literally hundreds of countries. The stance that Ryan is holding is the exact opposite of the one that me and mine were taught. It’s because we care that certain things would never come out of our mouths. It would actually hurt more if it was some one who I cared about who said some thing insensitive (I’m wheel-chair-bound and would get ‘envious’ laments about not having to walk/run or was told how lucky/lazy am I for being able to rely on provided help because my disability a lot). I choose to not promote stereotypes about people in the queer community because I have heard too many of them coming out of the mouths of my cis straight loved ones. My said childhood best friend and I could/can say things about disabled people (the parameters of which varying between us given the specific topic) that completely able-bodied people would receive hell from us for saying, she would make it a point to justly differentiate ‘completely able-bodied‘ from plain able-bodied, because she saw herself how she truly is, thoroughly able-bodied, just in need of a height boost some times. She can say things about people from the middle east (Persians specifically) that I know that I can’t/wouldn’t say. To my knowledge, she never once said any thing about practicing Muslims, because she was non-practicing. Her other closest friends happened to be Filipino (it was rare that she wasn’t at either mine, theirs, or just home/at her grandmother’s house/out with any of us) and always used simple facts about Filipinos (not slurs or stereotypes) when she wanted to describe their culture to me or other friends. The majority of my aides (Carlas), my brother, and the rest of all of my black friends can say things about black people that I know that I can’t/wouldn’t say. Any of my POC friends can say things about their own race that I know that I can’t/wouldn’t say. Don’t think for one second that I’ve been blessed with mostly kumbaya experiences. I just feel like right now isn’t the time, nor is it my place in this ever more rightfully raging climate, for me to languish over the bigotry I’ve witnessed or been faced with myself. I highlighted these positive realities about my life to show how not hard it is to just show some respect to the people you say that you care about in regards to things they can’t control about themselves (ie. their race, their sexuality, or the amount of their independent abilities). I knew not to ever use racial slurs even though my loved ones of those races did. I knew not to ever use the M word that used to be common place for people with Dwarfism even though my best friend did (with venom and only to repeat other people’s heinousness). She knew to never say dyke (or any other queer slur) even though I do.

I do see where those in the different minority groups who say that even other people in those groups shouldn’t be using those terms are coming from (they homogenizes us in to monoliths and take away from our individuality), but bigots are going to homogenize us, not see us as individuals, and use those things against us any way, so my stance is that we respectively try to take back their power for ourselves if we choose to do so. I am not a Latinx man, so I’ll never see this from Ryan’s perspective, but I’ve now word-vomited why I think, from my own perspective, that his current stance is wrong.

I understand his urge to want to defend Chrysti as her partner. Do I agree that he should have defended her? Hell fucking no. Was hearing, and then seeing it in a typed-out Tweet, him calling her ‘his woman’ tremendously cringe-worthy? Definitely. Was his defense, not only a non-apology (that he said he was done making as he’s making it ...🤷🏽), but also an indictment of his own behaviour? I’d say so. Should any one be using Mateo against them? How were some people’s minds so fucked up to even think to do that?!

I don’t want them to kill off Eddie Diaz. I don’t want that for Christopher, and I don’t want that for Buck, so the best that we can hope for is them recasting Eddie if Ryan doesn’t severely change his stance on these issues (hell, I’d be okay with a recast even if his stance greatly evolves, because many viewers of the show reasonably agree that his unapologetic “apology” was bad enough as it is).

Recasting would, in theory, lead to them having to scrap the chemistry that Oliver and Ryan have built these last few years, but there’s now the notion that Oliver will no longer work to match that chemistry, much less expand upon it to move Buddie forward if Ryan doesn’t reassess and they don’t recast his role (given Oliver’s exemplary views on this issue), so that chemistry might already be scrapped any way.

Was it best/right that it was Oliver, and not other cast members, like Angela, Aisha, Tracie, Rockmond, Cocoa, or even Ken, to call Ryan out on this shit? 💯 (Peter just doesn’t do social media, and JLH, Bryan, and Debra have all made it known that they strive to be allies to account for the rest of the adults in the regular/reoccurring cast) Oliver has stepped up in a way that should inspire fellow allies to demand more out of ourselves and those around us.

As for Ryan, like I said, I‘m white, so my opinion on whether or not he should lose his job does not matter, but I didn’t feel right about staying silent on the subject either.

ETA: I hadn’t seen this yet, but I’m still angry, because, for right now, it’s just words. Show viewers actions that show you’ve learned.

[ruffoverthinksthings]

Does the Descendants universe have collages?

I assume you meant “Colleges”as in “institute of higher learning, characterized by a focus oncritical thinking, independent research, and specialized educationalcurricula.”

Yes, the Descendants universedoes have colleges, and plenty of them.

With the lack of magic, andthe extreme focus given to science and technology as a solution tocompletely replace it,* it is in their new civilization’s bestinterests to have systems meant to educate their population, breednew generations of researchers, innovators, and professionals whowill keep technology marching along at a steady pace if not by leapsand bounds, helping support the ever changing and growing needs oftheir society.

The only exception to thiswould be Camelot, which by order of King Arthur, is permanently stuckin the Middle Ages. (This is canon, and is mentioned off-hand by Benin The Return to the Isle of the Lost.)**

In an interesting case of theTemporal Clash that happens in Auradon, places like Ancient Greecedid retain colleges that were the sole domain of the wealthy andwell-off, “bastions of wisdom and enlightenment” as Plato or hisDisney counterpart would put it; but there are also institutions likethe ones you see today that are much more accessible, the next stepforward for majority of the population after they finish high school(or whatever mandatory education is in Auradon).

They serve the purpose ofboth educating their students and making them much more effectiveworkers, citizens, and happier people in general (ignorance is itsown kind of hell), and being hubs for research, culture, andinitiatives that are either too unprofitable for private companies towant to invest in, or are a less corporate, much more liberal andflexible entity that is a part of the industry/field.

Some examples off the top offmy head:

The Iduna Institute of Foodand Agricultural Science (AKA “Cocoa College”)

Located inArendelle, this is Auradon’s premierecollege/research center when it comes to all matters involvingagriculture and food, be it for reform and programs aimed atimproving farmers’ lives while keeping them from becoming obsoleteby the fast-improving technology they often pioneer and help saidfarmers deploy, ways to sustainably and reliably feed their evergrowing populations without taxing their environment too much, andfinding new and innovative ways to satisfy our hunger without havingto resort to the infamous “nutri-block”*** any more than wereally need to.

All of this is frequentlyovershadowed by the fact that initially, they were literally builtand funded to produce “The Best Chocolate Anyone’s Ever Tasted,Ever” to quote Princess Anna of Arendelle, and are actuallystill doing this to this day, though they have made their goal themuch more realistic “The Best Chocolate Anyone’s Ever Tasted, ForThis Year.”

The annual “Chocolate Ball”is a widely attended event by anyone who’s anyone, wealthychocolate lovers everywhere, along with a scant few enthusiasts whoare lucky enough to find the silver stickers inside the wrappers ofproducts being sponsored by “Cocoa College” that year.

It’s widely criticized as avastly overblown and self-indulgent abuse of power by the reigningqueen and her sister (and later on, the second in line to thethrone), kept going only because:

The exorbitant entrance feesand money raised are donated to charity and government programs,along with being heavily taxed in general;

There are few completelylegal things the competitors aren’t willing todo, that oftentimes far exceed the monetary estimate of whatthey would earn from a lifetime’s worth of selling a product with asingle, or the much coveted double Seal of Royal Approval;and,

The products with silverstickers are frequently produced by a series of small, independentfarmers, or corporations that are known to be much more enthusiasticabout their legally mandated “social responsibility” programs.

(And completely offleft-field here, I did NOT expect to write this much about “CocoaCollege” all in one sitting.)

The Auradon Extreme Weatherand Climate Research Center (AKA “The Hot House”)

It seemed only appropriatethat Auradon’s primary research center for living in the harshest,most hostile, and deadly environments would be in a series ofman-made underground tunnels some kilometers from Agrabah.

Here in the “Hot House,”its students and its resident researchers work hard to figure outnewer, better, cheaper ways for Auradon’s residents to “Seek,Sleep, and Sprout”--that is to say, safely explore new environments, comfortably live inthem full-time by choice, then start to work in and manipulate theirenvironment to better suit their needs and that of the rest ofAuradon, to the point where average people will start to wantto live in there—in any environment, or corner of the worldthey so please.

They’ve got biomes that areeven hotter than Agrabah in the peak of summer, standing out of theshade, with a giant circle of sunbathing mirrors pointed directly atyourself, and focused with laser-like precision on you.

They’ve got biomes where ifyou or your equipment don’t freeze solid within the first minute ofstepping in after the airlock shuts behind you, it’s considered asuccessful design that merits further iteration and study in thehopes that you or your equipment will freeze solid within twominutes.

They’ve got biomes whereit’s not a question of “if” you are going to get struck bylightning, it’s “how soon after the airlock shuts behind you”and “how many times in the same spot.” (The current record are“five minutes and forty-three seconds” and “seven.”)

The designs, the safety gear,and the clothes you can see here are oftentimes described as “alien,”“like something at the bad parts of a drinking binge,” and“didn’t realize something like that could even be a thing.”

And that’s after theyrefine, improve upon the designs, and make them functional andfashionable, along with understandable to the populace at large.

In a nutshell, the Hot Houseis best described by their motto: “To explore whole new worlds, andmake them our home.”

The Halls of Remembrance

Unlike the Museum of CulturalHistory which is content to just educate and show-off the relics andpractices of a bygone era, the Halls of Remembrance in Greek seek to keep themalive, or even bring them back from the dead.

The courses and the classesoffered are incredibly rich and varied, all unifiedby the fact that they are for traditions, vocations, and arts thatare either now completely obsolete, quickly being outpaced bytechnology, or have simply fallen out of the tastes of the public atlarge to be viable outside of a publicly-funded institution such asthis.

Want to learn about Medievalstage plays? Slave songs from New Orleans? Weaving and making threadusing a spindle? The crafting and the use of weapons throughoutcivilization, especially the originals that the current designs theRoyal Guard SIA (Standard Issue Armaments) werebased on? Medicinal horticulture before modern pharmaceuticalsrendered that largely obsolete?

The Halls have a class and aprofessor for that, and oftentimes with highly specific variantsshould you want to specialize.

About the only issue anyone--visitor, student, or staff--has is that while it’s very easy to find the entrance, onceinside these vast, expansive halls filled with classroom uponclassroom upon classroom, it’s very easy to get turned around and unable to findthe class you originally intended to enroll in at the time you weresupposed to be there, or even just know where in the complex you are.

(The architect, Daedalus,blames being introduced to 3D modeling and the ease with which thatyou can go completely crazy, without having to deal with theintegrity of the materials of your models, finding enough physical room tobuild it in, and having to create an entirely new model of a ladderor other supporting structure once the original gets too high.)

Fortunately, the Royal Guardis very keen about recording and monitoring who enters, and everyonecomes out eventually at some point, oftentimes with a number of new,interesting skills in all manner of vocations, arts, and sciencesthat have long ceased to be useful outside of conversations atparties.

You’re guaranteed tolearn something new at the Halls of Remembrance, you just don’tknow what.

* One that has failedmiserably, with how the Descendants themselves keep showing thatmagic is far more useful, and very dangerous when most of thepopulation do not have it, nor are people used to dealing with it.

** What modern amenities, ifany, were allowed is up in the air, and I imagine this did not worknearly as well as his majesty Arthur intended it to. Feel free toask.

*** A “nutri-block” is agiant brick of mostly human-edible complex carbohydrates, dominantlyfiber. It is loaded with most of the necessary nutrients and mineralsthat one needs to continue functioning from day to day. It’s cheap,easy to produce, and keeps astoundingly well, but even the RoyalGuards at Faraway and the Borderlands only ever eat them as acomplete and absolute last resort as the experience is likened to“literally chewing on tree bark, except much worse--at leastthere, it tastes just of wood, and not also of cardboard, pulp, andglue.”

[pajama-nerd]

Here, stuff

So I was working on my campaign setting, Foragul and decided that half-breeds were totes going to be a thing.

Humans started it. They start everything. Humans have no chill. 

Half-breeds in Foragul

They're everywhere. The most common half-breeds involve a human, since humans believe in survival through the dissemination of genetics – basically they'll fuck anything. Genetic Purity? Ha, I say to you. and again, Ha.

This supplement will deal with half-breeds of the current available races for 5th Edition D&D as well as Orcs, for which I have provided stats. I also tweaked the half-elf and half-orc races because the half-elves are pretty weaksauce comparatively and there’s no mention of sub-type. I messed with half-orcs the least, because they’re pretty baus.

It's just core stats with minor commentary right now. Names and Society stuff will come later, or be drawn from whatever half of their race that they grew up with.

Note that Dragonborn and Tiefling will not be in this supplement.  

Because Dragonborn in Foragul come from the efforts of some ambitious humans who just had to fuck a dragon or two, and Tieflings from a similar situation with demons way back, the only thing that happens when you cross something with a Dragonborn or Tiefling is that you get a slightly different looking Dragonborn or Tiefling, with perhaps a one point increase in a stat appropriate to the other contributing race, if your DM is kind.  

For example, An Orcish Tiefling would get a plus one to strength and might be more muscular or have tusks, but the rest of their abilities would come from their Tiefling parent. A Gnomish Dragonborn would be smaller, more jovial, and get a plus one to Dexterity, but would otherwise be a Dragonborn.

No one knows what happens when you cross a Tiefling with a Dragonborn. Perhaps for good reason.

First, the Orc Playable Race, which I took from the DanD Homebrew wiki and tweaked for my own purposes.  

Orc

Physical Description

    Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks.

History

    Orcs worship Gruumsh, the mightiest of the orc deities and their creator. The Orcs believe that in ancient days, the gods gathered to divide the world among their followers. When Gruumsh claimed the mountains, he learned they had been taken by the dwarves. He laid claim to the forests, but those had been settled by the elves. Each place that Gruumsh wanted had already been claimed. The other gods laughed at Gruumsh, but he responded with a furious bellow. Grasping his mighty spear, he laid waste to the mountains, set the forests aflame, and carved great furrows in the fields. Such was the role of the Orcs, he proclaimed, to take and destroy all that the other races would deny them. To this day, the Orcs wage an endless war on humans, elves, dwarves, and other folk. Orcs hold a particular hatred for elves.

    The elven god Corellon Larethian half-blinded Gruumsh with a well-placed arrow to the orc god's eye. Since then, the Orcs have taken particular joy in slaughtering elves. Turning his injury into a baleful gift, Gruumsh grants divine might to any champion who willingly plucks out one of its eyes in his honor. Orcs gather in tribes that exert their dominance and satisfy their blood-lust by plundering villages, devouring or driving off roaming herds, and slaying any humanoids that stand against them. After savaging a settlement, orcs pick it clean of wealth and items usable in their own lands. They set the remains of villages and camps ablaze, then retreat whence they came, their blood-lust satisfied.  

    Their lust for slaughter demands that orcs dwell always within striking distance of new targets. As such, they seldom settle permanently, instead converting ruins, cavern complexes, and defeated foes' villages into fortified camps and strongholds. Orcs build only for defense, making no innovation or improvement to their lairs beyond mounting the severed body parts of their victims on spiked stockade walls or pikes jutting up from moats arid trenches. When an existing territory is depleted of food, an orc tribe divides into roving bands that scout for choice hunting grounds.  

    When each party returns, it brings back trophies and news of targets ripe for attack, the richest of which is chosen. The tribe then sets out en masse to carve a bloody path to its new territory. On rare occasions, a tribe's leader chooses to hold onto a particularly defensible lair for decades. The Orcs of such a tribe must range far across the countryside to sate their appetites.

Society

    Orc tribes are mostly patriarchal, flaunting such vivid or grotesque titles as Many-Arrows, Screaming Eye, and Elf Ripper. Occasionally, a powerful war chief unites scattered Orc tribes into a single rampaging horde, which runs roughshod over other orc tribes and humanoid settlements from a position of overwhelming strength. Strength and power are the greatest of Orcish virtues,and Orcs embrace all manner of mighty creatures in their tribes. Rejecting notions of racial purity, they proudly welcome Ogres, Trolls, Half-Orcs, and Orogs into their ranks. As well, Orcs respect and fear the size and power of evil giants, and often serve them as guards and soldiers.

Orc Names Male Orc Names: Deneh, Feng, Gell, Henk, Holg, Imsh, Kelh, Krusk, Mhurren, Ront. Shump. Thokk

Female Orc Names: Baggi, Emen, Engong. Kansif. Myev. Neega. Ovak, Ownka, Shaulha, Sulha. Vola, Volen, Yevelda

Orc Traits

A race of brutal warriors who know little of mercy or kindness. --Ability Score Increase. Your Strength increases by 2 and your constitution increases by 1. --Age. Orcs are short-lived, maturing at around 14 and usually die at around age 75 unless killed --Alignment. Given their culture and religion, Orcs are almost always Chaotic Evil. --Size. Orcs are muscular and have a height of around 6'5. Your size is medium --Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. --Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. --Menacing. You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill. --Relentless Endurance. When you are reduced to 0 hit points but are not killed out right, you can drop to 1 HP instead. Can only be used once per long rest. --Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Orcish

Subraces. Mountain Orc

    Dwelling in remote, desolate corners of the world, the nomadic gray orcs make out as much of a meager existence as they can, traveling along traditional migratory routes between campsites and favored caves as the seasons change. A typical gray orc tribe consists of 30 to 50 members, led by the strongest orc in the tribe, known as a chieftain. While responsible for deciding when to go to battle the position tends to be a temporary one at best as they are constantly being killed (either in battle or through treachery) and replaced.       The true power behind a tribe of gray orcs, though, is the tribe's high priest, who is typically a cleric who has held the position for many years. The clerics of other tribes are often viewed as heretics, despite the fact that both tribes likely worship the same deities. Gray orcs worship all the various orc deities equally. They acknowledge Gruumsh as the leader of the orc gods, but a typical gray orc doesn't feel bound to worship him above any other deity, and usually selects a deity that most closely aligns with that orc's particular interests and temperament. Most of the orcs of a particular tribe worship the same deity.

--Ability Score Increase. +1 Wis -- Cold Adapted. You have resistance to cold damage. -- Natural Hunter. You gain proficiency with hand axe's and spears. -- Mountain Tracker. You gain advantage to Wisdom (Survival) checks to track creatures in mountainous terrain. -- Mountain Born. You’re acclimated to high altitude, including elevations above 20,000 feet. You’re also naturally adapted to cold climates, as described in chapter 5 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

Common Orc  

    Traditional Common Orc culture is extremely warlike and when not at war the race is usually planning for it. Most Orcs approach life with the belief that to survive, one must subjugate potential enemies and control as much resources as possible, which puts them naturally at odds with other races as well as themselves. This belief is spurred in part by Gruumsh and his pantheon, which teaches that all races are inferior to the Orcs. Eyes of Gruumsh are orcs specially tied to the one-eyed god and offer sacrifices, read omens, and advise tribes through Gruumsh's will. For millennia Common Orc's have plagued civilizations as raiders and pillaging hordes with orc tribes united under the banner of Gruumsh.

-- Ability Score Increase. +1 Con -- Aggressive. Once per short rest, as a bonus action you can move up to your speed towards a hostile creature more then 5ft away that you can see. -- Battle Ready. Proficiency with Great axe's and Lances. -- Savage Attacks. When you roll a critical hit with a melee weapon, you can roll one of the weapon dice again and add it to the total.

Orog  

    Orogs, also called elite orcs or greater orcs, are the much larger kin of normal orcs. They usually reach well over 6 feet tall but closely resemble normal orcs in all ways except build: orogs are much stronger and stockier. It is believed that orogs are the result of the union of a male orc and female ogre. In contrast to lesser orcs, orogs are highly disciplined and straightforward. Orogs within an orc community quickly rise to leadership positions within their clan, although in orc armies the orogs will segregate themselves into all-orog military units. Orog military units are highly organized, tactically superior, and far more dangerous than those of normal orcs. Such orog units form the vanguard of the army to which they belong. Orogs do not separate themselves into their own clans, despite their tendency to self-segregate while in an orc army.

-- Ability Score Increase. +1 Con -- Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift. -- Display of Strength. You can use your strength modifier instead of your charisma modifier for intimidation checks. You also have advantage against fear effects. -- Superior Darkvison. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. -- Battle Born. Proficiency with Great axe's and Great mauls.

Keen Orc  

    Many moons ago, a chieftain of a wandering band of Orcs, weary of the rage in his heart and the bloodshed of his life, went alone into the wilderness to seek another path. There, unwitnessed by anyone, he was met by an avatar of Ioun, who touched his mind and offered he and all who followed him a chance to free themselves from the rage within them. He went back to his band, and – taking only those of similar mind or deep loyalty – abandoned the path of Gruumsh. The One-Eyed God still extends his influence over them, hoping one day to sway them back to a path of glory through domination, but few have returned from this path.  

    Because of this shift of their lifestyle, Keen Orcs, while remaining Chaotic, tend towards Neutral, or in some cases, good.

-- Ability Score Increase: +1 Intelligence -- Superior Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 120 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray -- Meticulous Planner: You and your party have advantage on attack rolls for one round if you have taken at least a minute pre-battle to assess the battleground.   -- Ioun's Blessing: You have proficiency with 2 Intelligence based skills of your choice, as well as Perception.

And Now, on to the half-breeds.

Human

-Elf: +2 to Charisma and +1 to two other Ability Score of your choice     Age: Mature at 20, live to be about 500 years old     Alignment: Largely chaotic     Size: Elves and Humans are roughly the same height. Elves are more slender and have better posture, which gives them the illusion of being taller. Your size is Medium     Speed: As a Medium sized person, your speed is 30 ft.     Darkvision: You can see in dim light as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light, up to 60 ft.     Fey Ancestry: You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed and magic can't put you to sleep.     Sub-racial quality: Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 24. If your Elf parent was Drow, you automatically have Sunlight Sensitivity in addition to your other quality.     Human Proficiency: You gain proficiency in 2 skills of your choice.     Languages: You speak, read, and write Elven and Common

-Dwarf: +1 to Constitution and one other Ability Score of your choice     Age: Mature at 25, live to about 225 years     Alignment: typically lawful, often good     Size: Dwarves are short, but not as short as Gnomes. Standing between 4'8" and 5'4", you are considered a medium sized person     Speed: As a medium person, your speed is 30 ft     Dwarven Resilience: You have advantage on saving throws against poisons, and you have resistance against poison damage.     Sub-racial Quality: Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 20.     Human Proficiency: You gain proficiency in 2 skills of your choice.     (Optional: Instead of taking 2 skill proficiencies, you may take the Darkvision or Dwarven Combat Training feature from your Dwarven parentage and proficiency in 1 skill of your choice)     Languages: You speak, read, and write Common and Dwarvish

-Orc: see Player's Handbook, plus Human Proficiency and a sub-racial quality: Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Orc Playable Race addition at the beginning of this supplement.  

-Gnome: +1 to Intelligence and one other Ability Score of your choice     Age: Mature at 30, live to about 300 years     Alignment: tend towards chaotic, usually of a good alignment     Size: Gnomes are small, Humans are tall, and Half-Gnomes are something in between. Between 3½ to 4½ feet tall, you are a small person     Speed: As a small person, your speed is 25 ft.     Gnome Cunning: You have advantage on Wisdom and Intelligence saving throws against magic.     Sub-racial Quality: Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 37     Human Proficiency: You gain proficiency in 2 skills of your choice     (Optional:  Instead of taking 2 skill proficiencies, you may take the Darkvision feature from your Gnome parentage and proficiency in 1 skill of your choice)     Languages: You speak, read, and write Common and Gnomish

-Halfling: +1 to Dexterity and one other Ability Score of your choice     Age: Mature at 20, live to be about 150 years old     Alignment: Typically lawful, mostly good     Size: Halflings are shorter than Gnomes, and no amount of Human tall is going to change it much. Standing between 3 and 4 feet tall, you are a small person     Speed: As a small person, your speed is 2f ft     Lucky: When you roll a 1 on a d20 for an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you may reroll it. You must use the new roll.     Sub-racial Quality: Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 28.     Human Proficiency: You gain proficiency in 2 skills of your choice     (Optional: Instead of taking 2 skill proficiencies, you may take the Brave feature from your Halfling parentage and proficiency in 1 skill of your choice)     Languages: You speak, read, and write Common and Halfling

Elf

-Dwarf: +1 to Constitution and Dexterity     Age: Mature at 75, live to be between 500 and 600 years old     Alignment: The Elf in you tends towards chaos, but the stanchhearted Dwarf-blood in you veins loves justice. Generally, Dwarf-Elves are Chaotic Good, unless their Elf parent was Drow, and then generally they are Chaotic Evil. Generally.     Size: You are stout and sturdy, but tall. You are a medium sized creature     Speed: As a Medium sized person, your speed is 30 ft.     Darkvision: Both of your parents contribute to this ability. You can see in dim light as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light, up to 80 ft.     Dwarven Resilience: You have advantage on saving throws against poisons, and you have resistance against poison damage.     Fey Ancestry: You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed and magic can't put you to sleep.     Sub-racial Quality: Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 24 for your elf parent OR Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 20 for your dwarf parent. If your Elf parent was Drow, you automatically have Sunlight Sensitivity in addition to your other quality.     Languages: you speak, read, and write Common, Dwarvish, and Elvish.

-Orc: +1 to Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity     Age: Mature at 16, live to about 125 years     Alignment: The value you place on freedom and the rage that races in your blood make it unlikely for you to be anything other than a Chaotic alignment, but it's not impossible.     Size: You are a medium sized person     Speed: As a Medium sized person, your speed is 30 ft.     Darkvision: Both of your parents contribute to this ability. You can see in dim light as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light, up to 80 ft.     Fey Ancestry: You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed and magic can't put you to sleep.     Relentless Endurance. When you are reduced to 0 hit points but are not killed out right, you can drop to 1 hp instead. Can only be used once per long rest.     Sub-racial Quality: Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 24 for your elf parent OR Take one sub-racial quality from those listed at the beginning of this supplement for your Orc parent. If your Elf parent was Drow, you automatically have Sunlight Sensitivity in addition to your other quality     Languages: You speak, read, and write Common, Elvish, and Orcish

-Gnome: +1 to Intelligence and Dexterity     Age: Mature at 80, live to about 600 years     Alignment: Typically good with shades of chaos     Size: Elves are tall, but Gnomes are small. You are a small person     Speed: As a small person, your speed is 25 ft.     Gnome Cunning: You have advantage on Wisdom and Intelligence saving throws against magic.     Fey Ancestry: You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed and magic can't put you to sleep.     Sub-racial Quality: Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 24 for your elf parent OR Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 37 for your Gnome parent. If your Elf parent was Drow, you automatically have Sunlight Sensitivity in addition to your other quality.     Languages: You speak, read, and write Common, Elvish, and Gnomish

-Halfling: +2 to Dexterity     Age: Mature at 50, live to about 400 years     Alignment: Good, although you might as well flip a coin to see if your lawful or chaotic     Size: Halflings are shorter than Gnomes, and no amount of tall is going to help. You are small.     Speed: As a small person, your speed is 25 ft     Fey Ancestry: You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed and magic can't put you to sleep.     Lucky: When you roll a 1 on a d20 for an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you may reroll it. You must use the new roll.     Sub-racial Quality: Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 24 for your elf parent OR Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 28 for your Halfling parent. If your Elf parent was Drow, you automatically have Sunlight Sensitivity in addition to your other quality.     Languages: You speak, read, and write Common, Elvish and Halfling

Dwarf

-Orc: +2 to Strength and Constitution     Age: Mature at 20, live to about 150 years     Alignment: What few exist have generally been lawful     Size: Orcs and Dwarves are both sturdy, and Orcs give their offspring that extra bit of tall. Standing between 4'9" and 5'6", you are a medium sized person     Speed: As a Medium sized person, your speed is 30 ft.     Dwarven Resilience: You have advantage on saving throws against poisons, and you have resistance against poison damage.     Relentless Endurance. When you are reduced to 0 hit points but are not killed out right, you can drop to 1 hp instead. Can only be used once per long rest.     Sub-racial Quality: Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 20 for your Dwarf parent OR Take one sub-racial quality from those listed at the beginning of this supplement for your Orc parent.     Languages: You speak, read, and write Common, Dwarvish, and Orcish

-Gnome: +1 to Intelligence and Constitution     Age: Mature at 50, live to about 400 years     Alignment: Mostly lawful good     Size: Small     Speed: As a small person, your speed is 25 ft     Dwarven Resilience: You have advantage on saving throws against poisons, and you have resistance against poison damage.     Gnome Cunning: You have advantage on Wisdom and Intelligence saving throws against magic.     Sub-racial Quality: Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 20 for your Dwarf parent OR Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 37 for your Gnome parent.     Languages: You speak, read, and write Common, Dwarvish, and Gnomish

-Halfling: +1 to Dexterity and Constitution     Age: Mature at 30, live to about 200 years     Alignment: Mostly lawful good     Size: Small     Speed: As a small person, your speed is 25 ft     Dwarven Resilience: You have advantage on saving throws against poisons, and you have resistance against poison damage.     Lucky: When you roll a 1 on a d20 for an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you may reroll it. You must use the new roll.     Sub-racial Quality: Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 20 for your Dwarf parent OR Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 28 for your Halfling parent.     Languages: You speak, read, and write Common, Dwarvish, and Halfling

Orc

-Gnome: +1 to Strength and Intelligence     Age: Mature at 25, live to about 200     Alignment: Usually Neutral or Chaotic or both     Size: Small     Speed: As a small person, your speed is 25 ft     Relentless Endurance. When you are reduced to 0 hit points but are not killed out right, you can drop to 1 hp instead. Can only be used once per long rest.     Gnome Cunning: You have advantage on Wisdom and Intelligence saving throws against magic.     Sub-racial Quality: Take one sub-racial quality from those listed at the beginning of this supplement for your Orc parent OR Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 37 for your Gnome parent.     Languages: You speak, read, and write Common, Orcish, and Gnomish

-Halfling: +1 to Strength and Dexterity     Age: Mature at 20, live to about 100     Alignment: since your parents are most likely on opposite ends of the alignment spectrum, your alignment is closer to the parent who raised you     Size: Small     Speed: As a small person, your speed is 25 ft     Relentless Endurance. When you are reduced to 0 hit points but are not killed out right, you can drop to 1 hp instead. Can only be used once per long rest.     Lucky: When you roll a 1 on a d20 for an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you may reroll it. You must use the new roll.     Sub-racial Quality: Take one sub-racial quality from those listed at the beginning of this supplement for your Orc parent OR Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 28 for your Halfling parent     Languages: You speak, read, and write Common, Orcish, and Halfling

Gnome

-Halfling: +1 to Intelligence and Dexterity     Age: Mature at 30, live to about 350 years     Alignment: Mostly lawful or neutral good     Size: Small     Speed: As a small person, your speed is 25 ft.     Gnome Cunning: You have advantage on Wisdom and Intelligence saving throws against magic.     Lucky: When you roll a 1 on a d20 for an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you may reroll it. You must use the new roll.     Sub-racial Quality:Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 28 for your Halfling parent OR Take one sub-racial quality from those listed in the Player's handbook, page 37 for your Gnome parent.     Languages: You speak, read, and write Common, Gnomish, and Halfling

And there you have it. 

Keep in mind, these templates deal with half and half PC race mixes. If your grandparents were an Elf and an Orc, and then your mom married an Elf, you’re probably going to have the elf subrace quality and not the orc one. 

You’re free to use these for your own campaigns, and tweak to your delight. 

I might release a map soon, as well as some major cities and landmarks. Soon. Maybe. Probably.

...

maybe I should make a separate Blog for Foragul stuff...

[leftt-unsaid]

For Mum

Dear Mum, 

The net curtains which line every window of every room in our semi-detached, have let in enough daylight in the early hours of this Tuesday morning for me to sit staring at a piece of paper. I’m starring at it as it lays awaiting purpose. This feeling is daunting but nowhere near as daunting as what I want to fill it with. 

I remember a time when life wasn't so hectic and because of it, much more memorable. When the little things were dinner table topics and lasted the entire meal. When the only conflict faced in the morning was what shoes I was going to wear or if you were going to put butterflies in my hair again, the ones that little boys laughed at me for once thinking they were real. Now it's more along the lines of whether I'm going to make it to places on time or if I’ll be able to wear my hijab without fear or confrontation. Not from strangers, but from my very own, very Hindu family. See mum, it's not just a phase like the other things that have gone and passed. It's something that came naturally, like breathing, but it's only now that I’ve been able to breathe.

Imagine that.

Not breathing.

Not living.

Or living completely for someone else. See Mum, I love you, more than I can and will love anyone else. You are my ray of hope and all other clichés that follow. I pray to become half the woman you are. The one I’ve known to be understanding and compassionate even whilst the world remains lacking.

My decision isn’t exactly one which is favoured given the current climate of worldly affairs. This warped view of an entire nation of people is not only unfair but fails to make sense. How can a religion that only insights peace become so hated? How can the actions of a fraction of a percentage of so-called “Muslims” speak on behalf of the masses? I know you share this view, that Muslims are inherently bad. But Mum, you know me, you know I’d never hurt anyone. I know you’ll worry for me too. The worry for whether I’ll make it home each day and remain untarnished from the brutality and hatred that comes from merely being apart of religion. But if I can be brave enough to accept the ignorant reality and live through it, surely you would support me. You did when I no longer wanted dance lessons or started wearing makeup, why is this so different?

Popular opinion dictates that you have failed as a parent, with three children who have strayed from the paths you have so mindfully paved. If failure is raising children who despite being brought up amongst violence, poverty, and discrimination, have still managed to find solace in themselves, then yes you have failed. But the thing is, your role as my mother was to raise me as a decent individual not a carbon copy of yourself. The life I’ve lived up till now has been a work of your screenplay, following every line and act has exhausted me mentally and physically. And all for what? To keep up with the frustrating expectations of our culture. But that’s where I have to draw the line. This is my religion, something I refuse to associate with my often pitiful culture. What would the community say, you ask? They would laugh and mock us I’m sure, but that would just be another limitation that comes in my way. Another excuse that just isn’t worth more wasted time.

I must confess, some of this is true but the decision was entirely mine. Not for the sake of acceptance amongst my peers or for a boy I once thought I loved but for the sake of something much greater, my creator and soul after this life. That’s the beauty of it, this decision was made with the purest of intentions, never to hurt you but to end my pain. Knowing that there is a force out there that’s greater than anything I’ve experienced soothes me, something out there is listening to my prayers and is watching over me. Not only have I opened this gate for myself, but now also for my children who won’t have to hide a beautiful secret. They will not have to tiptoe around in the early hours of the morning for Fajr prayer, rip the cloth from their heads upon arrival into their own home or spend a month in starved silence, alone.

The moment I submitted myself to God was immeasurable, I felt protected and loved all at once like a promise had been made and bound. It was just the beginning of a sacred relationship and that was truly amazing. I looked around me at the faces of sisters around me, some of which I had never met before, rejoicing in my transition.

I know you'll forgive me and accept me one day. I'd rather that sooner than later because I don't want to delay becoming whole. The only way I can make that happen is for you to understand that. Islam isn't something I found, rather Islam is the one thing that single-handedly saved me from the pettiness of this world. Islam built me up and still somehow kept me down. It humbled me, reminding me of who and what was important. There's a sense of innocence that was restored when I embraced faith - like I was born again with an extended family waiting for me. I know you hate it when I avoid the point and ramble but I just wanted you to know that I've made the best decision of my life (and for someone as indecisive as me, that's a bold statement).

I may not become the person that you set out for me to become, but maybe that's a good thing because I didn't know or like who I was becoming and that scared me. I know what you're thinking, and how exactly you're going to react and it keeps me awake at night.  It makes me sick knowing that I’m voluntarily hurting you. I wish I didn't have to put you through it, that I could leave without causing a scene because Mum, you deserve nothing but happiness, you've been through your fair share of shit and I shouldn't contribute to it.

Don't hate me, Mum, I wouldn't just be losing my best friend and first love, I'd be losing the best parts of myself, my drive, my compassion, my will to carry on. So please Mum, hear me out because there are no ifs or buts, I will have to do this even if that means without you, and that's a thought I can't bare to fathom. 

Yours, Nisha