#TrueSilver

[truesilver786]

Shop Special Gifts For Anniversary that Speak from the Heart!

[insomn-art]

For what feels like the first time, I have enough art from throughout the year to do one of those "one finished piece from each month" deals. Fun stuff!

Details below the cut.

January was some concept art for @astralfrontier ongoing Phase 3 Menagerie continuation stories. This is a very fun character named <deep breath> The Most Illustrious Supernova of the Universe, the Legendary Navigator of the Space-ways, the Right Honorable Quinnar Gentry who is a joy anytime they show up. Very much a foil for Concord, but also a (sometimes) ally.

February is more Phase Three art, this time of the Hand, a stage magician-themed villain who is a part of the Seven Wonders, a world threatening group. I really wanted to give her a look where, if I was to include them in any Sentinels of the Multiverse cards, she wouldn't be confused with any of the four-to-six other stage magician themed characters in the custom community's many decks. Not sure what the appeal is of the stage magician-themed super. I'm sure it's Zatanna's fault.

March is a bit of fun with @solkaras's Valerie and that skimpy meme dress that was floating around at the beginning of the year.

April is the first of several entries' here from my friend Bobbert's HMCS Moondancer environment deck, this one featuring cameo's from my other friend Mist's tokusatsu-inspired characters Alius and Ampere (whom I've also done art for). There's going to be several of these, so I'm going to spread my thoughts out, but for this one I will say that I always love doing cameos and I'm happy Bobbert let me go a bit wild with them in this deck's artwork.

May is when I started gearing up for ArtFight, including drawing new references. I feel like I've always struggled with drawing Niko in a way that I like (I'm not the best artist when it comes to animals) but this year I feel like I definitely made some strides forward in that department.

June is more Moondancer art, this time featuring Clara Cloverfield, whom I did the character design for (and might do some additional art for in the future, we'll see). This was one of the cameos that Bobbert insisted on, so I had some fun exploring the character and figuring out the best way to depict her undercover at the casino.

July a cameo from a pair of the Menagerie kids: Jason Quill and Alycia Chin, with Jason cheating at craps. I struggled a bit to figure out which of the Menagerie crew to cameo (it would have been fun to dress any of them up in fancy clothes) but the obvious conclusion was Jason and Alycia. Their leaning into spy tropes and their history with shady organizations made them a perfect fit for the Moondancer's themes.

August moves us on to the Moondancer's lounge singer, Frankie Bongiovi. They were a fun character to design with Bobbert giving me a bunch of inspirations for the character to draw off of. I also got to try out some new techniques (particularly with Tucker in the background there) that I think worked out well.

September gives us the final piece of Moondancer art, as the deck was released the following month in October. While I had a lot of struggles working on the art for Moondancer (it was the first project I've done at this scale for someone else) by the end I feel like I finally got to a good place working on other peoples' projects and I'm thankful to Bobbert for giving me the opportunity. It really helped me grow as an artist.

October saw me dive back into my comfort zone with this group shot of the Menagerie kids. I've got some big projects in mind for these kids coming up, which I hope to have started before the mid-year.

November was a bit of a cheat. I was running a Sentinel Comics RPG game during this time and spent a lot of time working on that game, so November we have artwork of Fractal from that game. This ended up being a token for her character when she showed up in the final fight the adventure (as a hostage, not a villain). As winter starts to rear its head, my drive to create tends to dwindle.

Finally December brings us a sketch of Ashley and @solkaras' Valerie again, playing off some silly BS we were talking about on Discord during the Christmas-to-New Years period. Given that this was done on 12/29 and I really didn't have anything else to show for December, I really squeaked this one in at the last minute. XD

Anyway, happy New Years. Let's all hope it's not utter dog shit.

[ewylana]

Two month ago I decided to redesign the different ore deposit of world of warcraft, using my geological background, as a warmup

Here the result !

1/5 : base - copper - nickel - silver - iron - gold

2/5 : mithril - truesilver - dark iron - small thorium - rich thorium -fel iron

3/5 : adamantine - rich adamantine - nethercite - cobalt - khorium - ancient gem

4/5 : rich cobalt - saronite -rich saronite - obsidium - rich obsidium - pure saronite

5/5 : titanium - elementium - rich elementium - gosth iron - pyrite - rich pyrite

[eri-pl]

A portrait from the days of bliss

There is a portrait of Feanáro with his three sons, painted very shortly after the Silmarils had been finished. Maedhros was an adult already, Maglor was what in human terms would be a teenager, and Celegorm was a toddler. (Nerdanel and Finwë were away, visiting friends for a couple weeks)

There is, of course, the version of it that up to this day hangs in Tirion, after being taken from the abandoned Formenos. The official, well-composed, well-behaved painting.

But there's also another version. For, you see, it was in fasion in those days, to paint portraits that looked spontanous, as if somehow capturing a moment, intimate and unplanned. They often were composed of many moments, many expressions of personality that occured during the painting.

In the painting, as it was planned by Feanor, he is in the back, towering over his sons (Maedhros isn't much taller than his father, but isn't much shorter either, so a step was used to achieve the composition. The room is dark, but obove the prince there is a window, letting in the bright radiance of Laurelin, so that Feanor is in parts bright like a flame, and in parts covered in deep shadows. This is true for both paintings.

But in the unknown portrait his face is angry, captured mid-sentence as he was probably berating his sons.

Only Maedhros is well-behaved, standing calm in the front-center with his left hand at Maglor's arm (assuredly? threateningly?). The truesilver circlet bearing the gem (all three have such circlets) sits properly on his head, and his hair is well-braided, tied high with a crimson ribbon (who made it?), braids falling like lava a cascade from the top of his hair. The only spontaneity here is his right hand raised to fix the hair, the ribbon caught by a gust of wind, raised up, twirling at his wrist, messy and breaking the composition, the other end of it falling on his forehead, dying the light of the Silmaril red.

Maglor is standing there turned half to the side, rolling his eyes and clearly unhappy to be in the portrait. His hair is a wavy mess, half-braided, falling onto the circlet so that the light piercing through is dark, almost greenish even though his hair is dark brown.

Little Tyelco has a bird in his hand (how did he get a songbird into the portrait without his father noticing is not known), had the circlet in his other hand and very clearly tried to eath both, but at the moment captured by the painter the bird has just pecked him, the circlet is falling down (with droplets of saliva sparkling in the air) and Tyelco has the peculiar expression of a child that is just about to cry.

The other portrait shows them all standing proud and smiling and, to be honest, this is what they did for most of the time (first tyelco got pecked, some time after Maglor got visibly bored, and their father started berating him for complaining)

There is a portrait of Feanáro with his three sons, painted very shortly after the Silmarils had been completed, by a painter who had, to be honest, more foresight than manners. But not many have ever seen it.

[shartzel]

Do you read fanfic? Any favorites of these 2 lovely messes?

YES!!!! i have so many personal favs for shartzel fics (im assuming thats what u meant and i am so sorry if not) BUT i will try to keep it to maybe like 5-10 favs bc my bookmarks folder for them has like 50+ fucking fics in there its a little insane..... - Truesilver by mylordshesacactus: i think everyone in the shadowzel part of the fandom has read this one honestly but it like. rewired my brain entirely when i first read it. shadowzel raising a kid was something ive never thought abt before, but then i read this fic and all i could think about was them having a domestic married life.......... - though i burn, how could i fall? by Jazzfordshire: THIS FIC GAVE ME THE ABSOLUTE WORST (BEST) BRAINROT EVER... the way the author writes their gradual relationship and their characters in general just AUGH. it itched my brain in the best way possible i love it - And I want to share it all with you. by Rosethornwolf: this fic is still in progress, but it makes me tear up so so so bad. i love soft shadowzel i love that shit so much and i love how the author writes them in general.... please give their other fics a read as well, theyre lovely - Fast Times At Baldur's Gate by Calchexxis: if you want like pure shadowzel fluff, this is THE fic for u. this fucking fic had made me giggling and kicking my legs while reading it cause of how tooth-rotting the fluff is!!!!! sometimes all you need in life is baby high school sweethearts shadowzel... - Truce by Looktotheedges: im sure everyone's read this one as well BUT FUCK ME I LOVE THIS FIC. the author does such a superb job at not only writing shadowzel but also their dynamic with the rest of the party members. i adoreee the found family moments so much and hold it so close to my heart... - sharpens like an image / sharpens like a knife by yeahitshowed: this one is a littleeee angsty. ive waited so very long for a "what did orin do to lae'zel?" fic that also mentions shadowzel and then this author wrote it and i instantly was in shambles. like when i was done reading this fic, all i could think abt were the ways lae’zel would see orin in shadowheart from now on. how that fear she held would always linger Somewhere in the back of her mind and it destroyed me :'D (this will make sense when after reading the fic i promise) - pressing a flower by Isolatedwriting: ending this with another also angsty one but like straight up hurt no comfort angst :) to quote the summary: "durge fails a saving throw" and i have never been the same since actually..................

[sapphoismymuse]

We drove out orcs from the great gate and guard room—we slew many in the bright sun in the dale. Flói was killed by an arrow. He slew the great… Flói under grass near Mirror mere… We have taken the twentyfirst hall of North end to dwell in. There is… shaft… Balin has set up his seat in the Chamber of Mazarbul… gold… Durin’s axe… Balin is now lord of Moria.

… we found truesilver… wellforged… mirthril… Óin to seek for the upper armouries of Third Deep… westwards… to Hollin gate.

yestre day being the tenth of novembre Balin lord of Moria fell in Dimril Dale. He went alone to look in Mirror mere. An orc shot him from behind a stone. We slew the orc, but many more… up from east up the Silverlode… we have barred the gates… can hold them long if… horrible… suffer…

We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the Bridge and the second hall. Frár and Lóni and Náli fell there… went 5 days ago… pool is up to the wall at Westgate. The Watcher in the Water took Óin. We cannot get out. The end comes… drums, drums in the deep… they are coming.

The Book of Mazarbul, The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

[vexwerewolf]

would a Hand Cannon in an integrated mount benefit from roland chamber and thhe stortebekers hopkins doctrine? also, do you need to activate truesilver to use hopkins doctrine

A Hand Cannon in an integrated mount can benefit from Roland Chamber, but you need to do a non-optimal thing for that to happen: fire the Integrated Mount as a Skirmish or part of a Barrage. This is non-optimal because it's the only weapon in the Integrated Mount, and you can fire it as a free action alongside any other weapon mount, and Hand Cannons are usually placed in pairs in a Flex or Aux/Aux. The same applies to Hopkins Doctrine.

You do not need to activate Truesilver to use Hopkins Doctrine.

[dragonkid11]

In this episode of Lancer Custom Werks, Stortebeker, a frame that seeks to shoot and slash through it all with truesilver piercing their armor, what can you do with this mech?

[several-dozen-angry-crabs]

Playing a Störtebeker with 4 hand cannons + bolt thrower and boi HOWDY does that Roland Chamber + Hopkins Doctrine combo go nutty. Also once you donk a foe with that RC bolt thrower attack for 4d6 (!) damage you can shlap down truesilver to make the damage not reduduceable. Like, at all. The Raleigh goes hard don't get me wrong but the störte just. It even has the silver bullets. It feels so good to play. 10/10 please don't ask about my edefense or heat cap

[lunawolf44]

Oh dang, if you like Shadowheart x Lae’zel content I highly recommend the fic Truesilver, it is beautiful! https://archiveofourown.org/works/49957303

[truesilver786]

[subjectnamemissing]

Frostleaf module wishes

Base Effect: Gain +(1/2?) sp on hitting (undamaged?/unblocked?) enemy.

Explanation: It’s a DPS focused class with an innate 80% reduction on ranged attacks. Adding damage feels like just removing the penalty and besides, most of the class already removes the damage reduction on skill activation. However, lots of the class has ~40 sp for skills with 0 initial sp, making set up a major issue for the class. Yes this would likely increase the amount of stages Thorns can trivialize, and speed up helidrop Truesilver Slash. I’m willing to accept this. Stats: +ASPD, +Atk

Level 2 effects options:

Obvious Theming: Apply cold on attack for x seconds.

Attack interval means she can’t freeze without support unless using S2, which should come up faster with the base effect. During S2 she becomes Stall Queen able to keep 1 enemy permafrozen, bound, and slowed or 2 enemies semi-perma stalled assuming they don’t just have a bind/freeze immunity. She still can’t do damage and doesn’t benefit from the Resistance debuff - but she could join the vaunted ranks of golden chalice IS and SSS with other characters like Ethan, Gnosis, and Leizi. Also it would be nice to have another cold-applying unit whose debuff is not relient on skills. Fails to justify the DPS tag.

Option 2: Enemies in range have their weight reduced by 1 (probably non-stacking - unless…) Takes advantage of her unique range characteristic to go all in on supporting another lane with a dangerous enemy that doesn’t want to be blocked. Primarily useful with S1, it would enable the perpetual Mantizone even more. — Send guys flying into the stratosphere with Weedy. Experience what it is like to finally have Weedy pushing strength or Angelina weight reduction since they still haven’t spooked you in 2 years. Justify the weird pivot by pointing to Break the Ice sliding mechanics. Allow more people to experience the joy of bullying Jesselton. Still fails to justify the DPS tag.

Level 3: 160 - 180% attack on cold or frozen enemies? Increased cold duration? Boring: Attack interval no longer reduced?

[mylordshesacactus]

Tag Game - Writing Patterns

List the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern.

1.Smoke and the sharp tang of blood drifted over Teldrassil. (Reunification, Warcraft)

2. It was a nameless backwater moon in a nameless backwater system, and Ahsoka had never wanted to be anywhere less in her life. (Riposte, Star Wars)

3. Padawan learner Barriss Offee scuffed her heel idly against the duracrete. (When These Moments Have Passed, Star Wars/Fox and the Hound fusion)

4. “Going somewhere, Lady Crowley?” (Shadows and Goldclover, Warcraft, E)

5. It’s a good place for an ambush. (some desperate small creature, Warcraft)

6. Sunrise on Rannoch was—Tali’s chest constricted painfully. (Housewarming, Mass Effect)

7. “Again,” the instructor ordered, voice crisp. (Quicksilver, BG3)

8. The world grows quiet. And their time grows short. (Truesilver, BG3)

9. A boy dreams of a wolf’s whelp. (an unkindness of ravens, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla)

10. FOREWORD (By Miranda Lawson) | In 2196, a young asari named Ashethe Matolis was granted asylum by the Alliance. (257 Years Of Unanswered Correspondence With An Ardat-Yakshi Monastery, Mass Effect)

-

I think the most prominent pattern here is that I definitely have a strong preference for opening "with two feet down", as my high school mentor and creative-writing teacher put it. Not necessarily in medias res, though I do love doing that--but immediately grounded, placing the reader IN the scene from the first sentence.

As such a lot of these involve sensory details, an immediate touchstone for the character's physical location or surroundings, or both. The worst thing you can do for immersion is have your reader spend several hundred words either unable to picture the characters in context, or THINKING they're picturing the context correctly and then out of the blue dropping that they're actually somewhere completely different.

(Unless you're deliberately misleading the reader in order to deliver a punchline, obviously, but I think that should go without saying.)

I also tend to make my opening lines direct and to the point, and rarely open a fic with a full paragraph. In order to give the reader that sense of standing on solid ground--essentially of "landing with two feet down," falling into the fic and looking around to see where they are--you gotta give that opening line a little room to breathe.

The only exceptions on this list are 4, 9, and 10, and honestly, only 9 really counts!

-> The structure of 257 Years is an epistolary fic, so it actually IS serving as that immediate sensory grounding--It's establishing from the very beginning the sense that you are, in-universe, picking up a book and opening it to the front page.

-> Shadows & Goldclover is my fun little Tess/Lorna porn, and the setup is in fact that Tess is startling her in the garden. So the initial brief disorientation (I do immediately give some setting details in the next paragraph) is exactly the sensory experience I want my readers to have, it puts them in the same headspace as Lorna

-> Unkindness Of Ravens is, genuinely, one of the best stories I've ever written and I hope people are willing to give it a chance even if they're not really asscreed people--it stands on its own just fine as an exploration of fictional Norse queerness. And in that case, the deliberate sense of....an unmoored, vague, disoriented lack of any solid physical setting, is exactly what I was going for! It's a prophetic vision; it should feel otherworldly. I deliberately avoid giving the reader ANY solid ground until after the scenebreak..at which point they are IMMEDIATELY given sensory details and a place name, because the whole thematic point of the fic is Valka being brought in from the cold and finding acceptance, security, and a place to belong.

[ask-the-crimson-king]

Tales from D&D: It Hurt Itself In Its Confusion!

It has been a long time since I've posted something like this.

Welcome to my Dragonlance campaign, using the 5e Dragonlance module cause it's being used as a bit of an interrim between larger campaigns and I thought it would be short.

I have o p i n i o n s about it. But this isn't the time nor place, because I will demonstrate how to kill an enemy by just stacking a bunch of conflicting effects on it.

I am the DM, and the known players required are Ianus Truesilver, the Watchers Paladin, and Ardonlir Fullbreaker, the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian.

This is what happened, put under a cut for spoilers: Specifically for Chapter 5 of the 5e Dragonlance module.

So. In Sunward Fortress, there is a room on floor 2 where there's a bunch of half-slaad abberations that are also kapak draconians, called dracophages.

Combat starts, and me, being CURSED with trash initative, have the dracophages go last. This is fine, I said, cause they can potentially infect the party with slaad tadpoles and that is Bad(tm).

The paladin is first. This is a Knight of the Sword paladin.

He casts compelled duel. For those who don't know, compelled duel means the dracophage is now aggro'd onto the paladin; disadvantage to hit everyone except him, so it's incentivized to hit him. Very nice spell, good for a pally, right.

So then. The paladin swings and hits the dracophage.

And activates his Knight of the Sword feat.

This triggers a Wisdom save against being frightened.

It fails. So now, it has disadvantage to hit EVERYTHING, and cannot move closer to the paladin, but is also compelled to duel the paladin. So it has disadvantage on everything and double disadvantage on everyone BUT the paladin.

BUT THEN IT GETS Worse.

The barbarian is next. It is an ancestral guardian barbarian. When you hit something while raging, the creature you hit has disadvantage to hit everyone but you.

Which means that, effectively, there is double disadvantage on both the Paladin AND the Barbarian, and triple disadvantage on everyone else.

The monk and bard also go, and are able to beat the ever loving shit out of him.

It gets to his turn. Genuinely am stunned at what the hell just happened and what's stacked onto this poor dracophage. I say, "okay. I'm going to have it roll a DC 15 Wisdom save, and if it fails, it'll take some psychic damage", with some being 2d6.

It fails.

This thing was left on 9HP and perfectly died to its own confusion.

My players literally gave it an aneurism and it died.

10/10 gameplay. What the hell.

[nixalegos]

If they could steal an ability from every other class, what would they take for their own?

"So many options, where to start?" Death Knight: Anti-Magic Shell. "The fact this technique exists is proof the universe is an unfair and openly hostile place." Demon Hunter: Metamorphosis. "They might have done it first but WE did it better. The fact its now a suppressed secret is a crime." Druid: Ursol's Vortex. "It's twin Ursoc is dead and gone. And so their winds are dead and stale. Perhaps I can exploit that." Evoker: Tip the Scales. "Oh, so when the lizard freaks meddle with time compression it's alright, but when I do it, it's a dangerous risk that warrants eradication. Hypocrites." Hunter: Counter Shot. "The Upper Hand uses truesilver tipped obsidian bolts, being assured the gut shot is going to shut an enemy caster up is worth its weight in rare metals." Mage: Portals. "I have my means, but damn if I wouldn't have an easier time doing business using leyline travel." Monk: Stagger. "In boxing, they'd say I have an iron chin. The average monk makes it look like it's made of paper mache. I should rectify that." Paladin: Divine Steed. "I have my own conjurable warhorse, the technique is applicable." Priest: Mass Dispel. "...Fel can rip other magics apart on a long enough timetable. Really, it would just speed up the clock doing it their way." Rogue: Grabbling Hook. "Looks useful. Unsure how it works, the casing is simply too small to hold that much chain..." Shaman: Chain Lighting. "The fel touched Arakkoa of now lost Draenor managed to harness and unleash fel lighting. I would have many uses for such a technique." Warrior: Charge "Wisdom is knowing sometimes closing the distance is the difference between having to listen to some cultist monologue and breaking their nose with a headbutt."

[vexwerewolf]

What’s your favourite mech to play with? My favourite at the moment is the Death’s head alt frame Oleander from enhanced combat!

I had a lot of fun playing Tortuga with Sloped Plating, Heatfall Coolant System, ASURA, Redundant Systems Upgrade, a Decksweeper and an AutoStab ANDROMEDA-Pattern Heavy Laser. Absolute beast in combat, literally never died, rarely even took structure.

In the next campaign, I played a Sunzi. The Sunzi is an absolutely hilarious mech if you know how to use it correctly. Merging it with the Metafold Carver system from Minotaur allowed me to summon my allies directly adjacent to me whenever I wanted to. Using my Blink Anchor to attack-and-fade. Doing portal parkour. Delivering my entire team to the front lines with Blinkspace Tunneller.

More recently, I've played in a couple of IGF campaigns. In one, I'm currently running an Anti-Material Rifle Sherman, whose entire job is to overcharge, fire and stabilize every turn, and then occasionally dump a ZF-4 shot when it's fully charged. It's not a particularly broad build, but it does pump out a huge amount of damage at extreme range.

In the other, I started off with a Combined Arms Stortebeker build which used an Auto-Stabilized Kinetic Hammer with UNCLE and four hand cannons. It would just run around the battlefield doing absurd amounts of damage and then instantly reload all of its guns the first time I hit with free UNCLE hammer attack, because I'd just use Truesilver to turn a hit into a crit.

Eventually I felt like I'd solved Stortebeker, and I've moved on to a Monarch/Pegasus hybrid that uses Hunter Lock with an OPCal Gandiva Missile. It pumps out utterly absurd amounts of damage, and with the application of Locked On, that damage not only ignores armor and resistance but also knocks a target Prone due to Stormbringer.

After only two combats in the Monarch, I feel like this might also be a solved problem, so it will probably lead to me respeccing again.