#THE SHADOW MASTER AND MIND MASTER | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

justavulcan · 1 year ago

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Backgrounds With Class: Dimir Operative

I'll be honest: Ravnica has always fascinated me. I was a high schooler when the first set came out, and I was immediately consumed creating characters for the setting. Now that we've actually received my long-awaited crossover, I thought it would be nice to write a love letter to the setting in the form of another Backgrounds with Class series. After all: some guilds have natural class choices tied in, from a conceptual standpoint. Boros and Fighter, Izzet and Wizard, Selesnya and Druid. But guilds aren’t class-restricted, and so I wonder what it would look like if you paired every class with every guild background, even the ones that seem at odds, like Izzet and Barbarian, or Gruul and Artificer. So I thought about it, and this is what I came up with. Some character concepts for each class, and each Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica background for each class.

Dimir Operative

The Dimir Operative Artificer tried to play it straight as a member of the Izzet League, he really did. He joined the league to leave his days as a guildless criminal behind him, but the costs of an apprenticeship to one of the League’s metallurgists are not insignificant, so he took his own armor- lightning throwers and sound dampeners and all- and sought work. That he fell in with a House Dimir crew stealing from rival magisters’ labs wasn’t what he thought would happen, but he’s rolled with it so far.

The Dimir Operative Barbarian wishes he was somewhere else than slumming it with the Gruul. Passing himself off as a trog interested in joining their clan had been easy as falling asleep, and the ruse itself takes a bare minimum of effort, but he’s quickly growing tired of the ‘freedom’ of the Clans. Sleeping on the hard earth, scrounging for food, and getting involved in a fistfight every other day wasn’t what he had wanted to do for the House, and despite his best efforts it’s starting to show. His rage isn’t furious and burning like many of his ‘tribe,’ but chill and detached, a thing of winter and cold.

The Dimir Operative Bard came to the House’s notice after exploiting her librarian’s covert liasons for her own career’s advancement. Contacted telepathically and charged with retrieving a major barrister’s court notes, she proved her skill at deception quickly and the House taught her the rest. She’s remained in that place, lying low as a member of the Azorius beaurocracy and feeding confidential records to her masters moonlighting as a pulp horror writer- under a pseudonym, of course. That the stories double as hidden messages is nobody’s business but the House’s.

The Dimir Operative Cleric has been a ‘member’ of the Cult of Rakdos for decades. Gifted with a Silhana’s long lifespan and the matching practice as a party animal, it’s only recently that he’s been called upon to do much more than pass on information about various figures comings and goings. In truth, the change of pace is exciting- if only because it promises access to both deeper secrets and the opportunity to put more of his true guild’s mind-magic to use.

The Dimir Operative Druid has never met another member of House Dimir. Embedded in a Selesnyan vernadi as a healer and prospective evangel, they’ve always received their orders and assignments by dead drop or telepathic message. They’ve done all manner of things in service to the House, and some of them have weighed heavily on their conscience. The lack of contact from their mysterious handler or handlers has exacerbated the guilt, and they’ve started to wonder if they’re just mad.

The Dimir Operative Fighter owes the Dimir much for getting him out from under the threat of the debtor’s pillory. Originally indentured to a powerful oligarch for his family’s debts, the Dimir saw an opportunity and recruited him, using their mental magic to erase the woman’s mind and leave her easy prey for a binding contract of debt-absolution. He’s switched masters a few times, always leaving their service just before their finances or some other secret of their keeping passes cleanly from their heads into the House’s hands. Among the Syndicate he’s starting to be considered bad luck, and his masters are contemplating shuffling him into the Legion- with a new identity, of course.

The Dimir Operative Monk appears on the surface to be just another one of the many knife-wielding toughs aspiring for rank in the Golgari Swarm. Plain and forgettable save for a distinctive scar on the left hand, he’s a talented knife fighter and sneak, and does work for both guilds as a scout, messenger, and spy when asked. His contact has only ever come to him in the garb of a Golgari shaman, but he trusts the woman implicitly even if he doesn’t know what she really looks like.

The Dimir Operative Paladin has a fine grip on the way that people think, and has a manner about them that makes them inclined to talk. Useful as these talents are as a counselor and spiritual consultant for the Selesnya, they’re even more useful for an agent of the Dimir, who serves as a finger on the pulse of their entire vernadi. The oath of redemption they pursue is in service to this goal as well, as they seek to weaponize advanced persuasive speaking alongside their actual training in arms and armor.

The Dimir Operative Ranger roams the Undercity tracking the movements of both prey and hunter alike, disguised as the former. Home in the twisted depths of the undercity’s collapsed buildings, buried streets, and raw cavern complexes, this minotaur has joined hunting party after hunting party. There, he builds his skills and keeps his eyes open for anything the House might find of interest, be it places, things, or secrets his fellow hunters try to hide from their comrades.

The Dimir Operative Rogue learned her crafts from a variety of sources: quiet movement as a small child among the Gruul, backstabbing from a Tin Street tough, and mind-reading and espionage from a Dimir recruiter who ‘heard’ a natural talent. She’s come a long way from her urban-hating roots, now skulking with the best and proudly proclaiming the mind a greater weapon than the blade. This point of view makes her a natural fit among the Orzhov, where she’s been installed as a messenger and euthanist-in-training, set to pass off any useful intelligence to her contact telepathically.

The Dimir Operative Sorcerer was mutated as an infant in the womb from an illegal experiment’s dumped contaminants, she lost her power of speech but gained so much more. Recognized by a Dimir mind-mage as a natural talent with potential, she was inducted into the House’s service and sent to observe the Simic Combine, who find her telepathic talents to be of considerable interest. Part lab assistant and part experimental subject, she’s had ample opportunity to flex her metaphysical muscles in controlled conditions, but she longs for the test only the real world can give her.

The Dimir Operative Warlock has been a spy for the House for most of her life, and through a deal she struck with a mysterious entity on a starless night she’s acquired the tools for psychic trickery. Indeed, she’s acquired them repeatedly- her natural aptitude, shapeshifting familiar, and magical pact mean she’s in high demand on highly confidential missions, and much of her work for the House has been scrubbed from her memory. The gaps didn’t bother her much when she was young, but now that she’s getting older, having nothing to look back on with pride has started to chafe.

The Dimir Operative Wizard knows that power over the mind is a tool to be used for the betterment of those who wield it- whether in her cover as a lawmage of the Azorius Senate or as a mind-mage of House Dimir. Contacted nearly thirty years ago as a youth by a Dimir operator, she’s put her education in enchantment magic to the kind of single-minded focus that few but a vedalken can. While her assignments have been innocuous so far- guiding this arrest, putting a suspect to sleep at an opportune time, and the like- she knows that won’t be the case forever, and awaits greater tests eagerly.

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artirific234-blog · 1 year ago

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Ideas for Kingdom Hearts x Disney Chills stories

(warning: very BEEG and tall wall of text and spoilers)

... I kinda once got some weird ideas about some stories of the Disney Chills storybooks with something that could be considered as well strange too, and that is: Kingdom Hearts.

Now, you may be wondering: What’s sort of thingus have you drank to think of a weird idea like that?! or, what the heck is Disney Chills or Kingdom Hearts?!

And to that i tell you: i did not drank anything except water and milk, and cola... and orange juice, i just thought of the idea because it’s cool and i kinda wanna see it, but before speaking of how, i will tell what exactly both series are about:

Disney Chills is a series of 6 books (7 in the making) made by Vera Strange that mixes the scary spooky storytelling from the Goosebumps series and the classic villainy of Disney’s Animated Villains. The stories are about a random kid (often a middle schooler) being down in the dumps for something that they lack or because they’re ostracized due to having any quirk. Then comes the Disney Villains to help them at the expense of turning their lifes for the worse in the long run, and then the villains wins at the end while the kiddos suffer the consequences for what they did, too bad~!

Kingdom Hearts is a series of videogames made by Tetsuja Nomura, who at first just started as one boy named Sora and his friends Riku and Kairi getting separated from their homeworld Destiny Islands and then Sora masters the keyblade to seek and find his friends from the claws of the Heartless and the Disney Villains who controls them (but there’s a bigger evil than they don’t know about) then became more confusing adding Nobodies, Time Travel, Replicas, and even bigger bad, a keyblade wars and various VARIOUS games that made from going from game 1-2-3 to UX-ML-DR-BBS-0.2-1-CoM-358/2D-2-RC-DDD-3-4. Aka there’s a lot of story spread over multiple games.

Soo, now that you (kinda?) know what those series are about what sort of weird ideas i kinda got into making, since these are too big (even for me) but still, i’m just gonna say what sort of ideas i thought and what sort of villains from the series would fit the best for them, and soo... Let’s dive into the Darkness.

Ansem, Seeker of Darkness:

The very first antagonist from the Kingdom Hearts series. Ansem was created after getting Terra-Xehanort’s heart out when he unlocked it with his keyblade, he then went to the past to help Young Xehanort to go towards his dark road and stayed in there, eventually manipulating Riku into joining the darkness and then eventually taking over his body to become “whole”. He also has a heartless bodyguard that is actually Terra’s Heart. He was eventually defeated by Sora, but still manage to return thanks to Riku’s darkness and eventually Xehanort’s Time Traveling shenanigans.

In a way, a story featuring Ansem would be kinda interesting persay; since the ideas about these sort of stories are about choices or wanting to get something "physical", i imagine that the kingdom hearts-related stories would be more about ourselves as people and how we threat each's others, as well understanding our emotions too. Ansem's Story would be about the Darkness in our hearts due to our own physical and emotional struggles, as well on how we affects others without not noticing at all.

In this story, we would get a protagonist that feels preety weak and sad because of how much he gets bullied, so one night, he find at some place, he finds Ansem and then he helps him to get strong, by calling to the darkness inside it’s heart and then our protagonist gets courage to be strong, so next mornign, he puts a bully on it’s place, and everything goes, but also, he felt something, like he somehow felt that there were less and less people around the school, and that there were reports of some “shadowy” beings roaming around the streets (these being being pureblood heartless like shadows, neoshadows, possesors, dark balls and dark servants), and then, he finds out that the more he looks at his reflection, he sees himself less and less of a human, and more like a dark silhoutte of what he is. (based on Antisora). So, he decides confront Ansem before things spiral out of control (but sadly, thing spiralled out of control, so now he has to run through a darkness-ized city full of heartless to follow and stop Ansem once and for all.

(bonus points if the protagonist in a way is like Riku but different, and that a sora and kairi-look a likes would be important for the story too.)

(Alternatively, Ansem’s story could also be about Dabbling in the dark arts, like how Dr. Facilier did, albeit, with a few differences since Facilier's Story was about being at the shadow of someone else though. in this idea, it would be that an occultist based character got the help of a “Master of Darkness” that managed to summon the heartless (just some shadows) to prove that the occult itself is real and then get more members for it’s club or what not, only to realise that it might had condeem the entire city to the darkness....)

I kinda thought that the final battle would be on a toy shop, and that the heartless would ended up posessing some toys that would be weirdly-reminesent from the emblem heartless from the game (mostly first and second and maybe third game too) and the near-final obstacle would be Ansem summoning a version of the Phantom Heartless as a “puppet” before being faced at the rooftops. in the end, Ansem would tell that he still has potential in his heart for a greatness and stuff, our protagonist doesn’t believe it but then, a heartless attack one (or two) of his friends, he then succumbs to the darkness and ask Ansem to help them, and Ansem replies, by “returning” our protagonist’s friends’ hearts back, but taking his own.

The idea i thought that at the end (of theses two ideas), our protagonist would then be turned into the Dark Guardian by Ansem (using it’s heartless magic), thanks to the inmerse hatred and darkness it had during the story condeming it to be Ansem’s personal servant and fighter, collecting more darkness for his master to use.

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Xemnas

Xemnas is the main antagonist of Kingdom Hearts II, being the leader of organization XIII and the leader of the nobodies, he was born after terra-xehanort unlocked his heart, leaving him to be his nobody. He then created the organization for his nefarious needs.

Xemnas's Story would be more about the opposite of what most of the stories you made are: Popularity, while in most of the disney chills stories are about any characters trying to be popular and outshine anyone else (Part of your Nightmare and Fiends on the Other Side comes to mind), in this story the protagonist would already start as a popular person, but it would get tired of it and wanted to live a simple life (probably thanks to peer preasure and other stuff like toxic fanbases and stuff too, in a way, it would be like a “kid-friendly” version of Oshi no Ko, and how popularity (As well the internet) can be like a double-edge sword., that's went it's meets Xemnas, and stuff goes on.

I’m not sure exactly how the plot afterwards would it be but i imagine it having to be similar to Fiends on the Other Side and our protagonist at first embraces the fact he’s no longer picked up but then more and more people start to forget him and he doesn’t know what to do. I also thought of an idea that it would get a bittersweet ending that after the protagonist get’s forgotten by almost everyone, Xemnas comes and then gives him a “second” life with him, afterall, he also found other kids that were forgotten too so he brought then to be part of a “family” (in a way, it would be related to Organization XIII) and that our protagonist was number xii.

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Master Xehanort

Master Xehanort is the antagonist of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, 3 and Dream Drop Distance, as well the overarching antagonist of the series as a whole. he wants to redo the keyblade war to get the X-Blade and unlock Kingdom Hearts, he summoned Vanitas as a copy of Ventus, he manipulated Terra to give into the darkness and took over his body turning it into Terra-Xehanort, and he sent Aqua to the realm of darkness as terra-nort. He also sent himself from the past to get to follow it’s dark road and help his future self to gather the new 13 darknesses to fight agaisnt the guardians of light.

Master Xehanort's Story would be a bit more... "tricky" (since he’s a chessmaster sort of villain sitting in the shadows while everyone else is doing their thing and help him without knowing about it), but since his motives rely on more manipulation from the shadows, he would kinda use the protagonist to help it be the best, only to end up as "the best" as Xehanort himself (Kinda mirroring what happened to Terra in BBS.) yeah, i know it’s simple but it’s kinda what i got.

(in a way, i thought that by the end of... whatver happened, Xehanort would do the same thing that Ansem did a few characters above, but instead of using it as a heartless, he would use it as a way to get a physical body since he’s technically not a live/he’s a “ghost” of somekind, and after getting to posses it, we get a time skip of Xehanort now using the protagonist’s body as it’s own, ready to relieve a second life to path it’s path to sucess and darkness.)

(in a way, when our protagonist meets Xehanort, he would see it as a cloaked figure that needed help and then, after telling about what happened, he helps the protagonist to become better at the expense of being a pawn for something the protagonist doesn’t know about until the end. his cloaked appearance would look like Ansem’s Cloaked form when he met riku and sora on destiny island, while his possesion of the portagonist at the end would make him look like the protagonst but with white hair and yellow eyes, barley looking like Young Xehanort.)

(I have a feeling that the cloaked figure would fit better with ansem on the occult-based story but changes can happen down the line, i think?)

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The Heartless/Anti Black Coat/Dopperganger.

... Basically, an original idea, now you may be wondering: but why? well... why not? Plus, the Heartless as a whole could be an intereting as they being born from the darkness inside of out heart. In a way, what’s interesting is that they could also be the first villain our protagonist doesn’t know about, but everyone else kinda manages to see it as it’s follow the protagonist’s shadow whetver it’s goes, and then use their inscurities to power themselves more and more to become like the protagonist.

In a way it would first start out as a normal shadow at the ground (both psylosofically and literally, like the kh enemy), then it would evolve into the Neoshadow, and Finally it's become like afusion of the Anti-Black Coat and Shadow Roxas, who, went reveal it's hood out, it's turn like the dark version of our main protagonist, but all black, and after the protagonist falls to his darkness, it’s posses the protagonist to become 1, as well the main personality, erasing the original’s as a whole as he slips into the darkness, to no longer cause any problems at all...

(in a way, if there’s a final battle, i imagine the Shadow Dopperganger cummonig some sort of silhoutte barely reminesnce of the Darkside, or getting it’s hair spiked up and wavy like the darkside too.)

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Ho boy, this ended up being far more longer than i anticipated, but yeah, what do you think of my ideas? are they good or way to far out to be considered anything at all? i may post another idea soon-ish though, but still, i have a feeling i wouldn’t work to deep since i have other projects doing on my own, but i would like to see your own ideas on these ideas i had and see what you can do about them, even if it is the covers for books or which sort of protagonsit deisgn, age, gender and maybe even nacionality could be good too, until then, if you have read up to this end, i’m happy you got time to listen to me. it’s makes me happy.

#kingdom hearts #master xehanort #ansem seeker of darkness #ansem sod #dark figure #xemnas #heartless #shadow #anti black coat nightmare #disney chills #extreme crazy ideas i have in my mind #shadow roxas

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