#Vanguard Initiative

[mrn0093]

▼INFO

I illustrated the Date for the Spike Chunsoft [AI: Somnium File Nirvana Initiative] x [Village Vanguard] collaboration!

I'm really honored to be asked to illustrate again, following the first one…Thank you !

△Village Vanguard

https://vvstore.jp/feature/list/?redirect=true

△online shopping from overseas

https://shop.buyee.jp/vvstore/shopping/search/category/0?searchHis=1&query=AINI

[incorrectcfvg]

[master-gatherer]

Anyway

[boredguitarfish]

Brother Damocle, black shield chaplain of the Deathwatch at Watch Fortress Erioch.

Formerly a vanguard veteran of the Astral Claw chapter, under the name of Koritan, he was inducted into the rank of deathwatch chaplains after a near standard century of service and apprenticeship in the Long Vigil at Eye of Damocles. Astral Claw called for his return prior to the start of Badab war, yet the message was lost through the layers of bureaucracy of the Inquision, and only reached the watch station after the initiation of the war. Koritan was immediately seized by the inquisition and was placed under intense interrogation and scrutinization due to his apparent connection with his former chapter, which was proven unnecessary as he ended up in the deathwatch predominately due to his disdain towards Huron. After his name was cleared, the chaplain rescinded all his previous connections, including his name given to him by his former chapter.

He requested the removal of his details and a transfer to other watch fortresses, which was granted. Now with the status of a black shield and adopting the name of his former watch fortress, Damocle rejoined his brothers in the deathwatch with unprecedented ferocity.

N.B. The character is extensively scarred with his jaw replaced with metal work, akin to the chaplain’s death mask’s mandible. He is a veteran to start with, and harbors a furious eager and self destructive passion in battle for the shame of his former chapter.

[transformerskinkfest]

Transformers Kinkfest Prompt List 2024

The prompt list is HERE! Thank you all for your suggestions!

Each day has one Transformers kink and one alternative, more general kink (in italics at the end) - use one, use both, combine them any way you like! (Each kink also has a little blurb, but this is just to give you a bit more context on the more unusual ones. Don't feel bound by the explanation - if you want to take a prompt in a totally different direction, go for it!!)

Please remember to tag #transformerskinkfest or #tf kinkfest when you post your work. You can also post to the AO3 collection here!

PROMPTS:

17 October: Alt mode interfacing. What it says on the tin - sex in alternate mode! (Alt prompt: Collar)

18 October: Faction play. Could be two (or more) characters of different factions, or characters pretending to be different factions than they are. Not limited to Autobots and Decepticons - if you want someone pretending to be in the Primal Vanguard or the DJD, go for it! (Alt prompt: Roleplay)

19 October: Xeno. Human (or humanformer)/Transformer pairings, or Transformers with any other sentient alien species. (Alt prompt: Threesome or moresome)

20 October: Fuel siphoning. Siphoning or pumping fuel out of or into your parter(s), and all the sensations/emotions that could go with it. (Alt prompt: Feeding)

21 October: Compatibility modes OR cultural differences. Playing with cultural differences - between citystates, colonies, factions, or Cybertronians and other species - in the berth. This is the compatibility mode concept, from the person who suggested it: "The concept is that bots for whatever reason (forged, constructed, modded, upgraded?) have "compatibility modes" that allow them to more easily interface with beings on other planets. i e Eurythman mode is more sonic focused, or Lithonian mode includes piezoelectric features standard Cybertronian mode doesn't have, or Quintesson mode has more tentacles, etc. And the bot(s) with this kink want to run compatibility mode even when interfacing with another Cybertronian for whatever reason. Like, "let's do it like they do in Menonia, or Odessyx, or Nexus Zero."... How is that mode different, how did they learn of it, what's fun about it for them now with current partner(s)?" (Alt prompt: Public)

22 October: Sentient vehicles. Driving, flying, or just being completely enveloped within your partner (or having them completely inside you) in alt mode. (Alt prompt: Overstimulation)

23 October: Tentacles. Lots of beings - and a fair number of bots - have them... maybe more than we think! (Alt prompt: Bondage)

24 October: Remote transfer. Getting thoughts/information/sensations beamed into your brain by your partner - even at a distance. (Alt prompt: Sensory deprivation)

25 October: Plug 'n' play. Sex via physically plugging into your partner. (Alt prompt: Pet play)

26 October: Obsolete or unusual equipment/abilities. Some bots may have systems that don't initially seem compatible with (or are just a surprise to) their partners - maybe because they're older models, maybe they were created for a specific purpose or person, etc. Doesn't have to be limited to interface equipment - could include other body parts (hi there, Tailgate's suction cup mouth!) or even unusual/Outlier powers. (Alt prompt: Double penetration)

27 October: Sentient weapons. Alt mode sex meets weapons play! From the person who suggested this prompt: "Either A. a bot wants a sentient weapon (gun-former, targetmaster, Mini-Cons that combine into a sword, etc) to be involved in their interfacing with another bot, while in their weapon form; or B. The character(s) who is/are the sentient weapon initiate the request to be involved with a bot or bots interfacing while remaining in their weapon form." (Alt prompt: Biting)

28 October: Tactile interfacing. Basically, sex outside of the sticky or plug 'n' play models: sex that consists of touching your partner's frame, toying with their wires, playing with their EM field - your imagination is the limit. (Alt prompt: Orgasm denial)

29 October: Body control/system takeover. Controlling or hacking your partner's body, either via plugging in or remotely. (Alt prompt: Domination)

30 October: Wing kink/kibble kink. Wings, doors, wheels, antennae - it's all good! (Alt prompt: Size difference)

31 October: Free choice!

[essektheylyss]

One thing that I feel is really interesting and often forgotten about Essek is that fundamentally, his characterization has been from the start based upon his desperation for external perspectives and connection, which, along with much of his narrative and mechanical positioning, means that he actually has an extraordinary and almost (but not actually, as I'll show) counterintuitive capacity for both growth and trust.

(Buckle in. This is a long one.)

In particular, I would argue, knowing now that many places where the plot touches Ludinus have long been marked for connecting back into the current plot, that he was quite possibly built as a prime candidate for radicalization by the Ruby Vanguard. He felt isolated from his culture, he was desperate for other connection, and he was certainly of the type to believe he was too smart to be drawn into such a thing, given his initial belief that he could control the situation and the fallout. If things had gone any other way, he easily could've been on the other side by now.

As such, he has been hallmarked by being fairly open to suggestion, perhaps for this reason, but the thing about that kind of trait is that it is both how people are radicalized and deradicalized. This is certainly true of Essek, who experienced genuine kindness and quite frankly strangeness from the Nein and was able to move from the isolation the Assembly had engendered to meaningful and genuine connection, largely propelled by his own internal reflection. By the time Nein are aware of his crimes, he's already begun to express regret to an extent and, furthermore, doubt in the Assembly, including explicitly drawing a line against Ludinus, even in a position where he was on his own and probably quite vulnerable.

Similarly, when the Nein reach the Vurmas Outpost some weeks later, he has moved from regret for the position he's ended up carrying a heavy remorse. This makes sense! He's fairly introspective, seems used to spending a lot of time in his own head, and was left with plenty to mull over. It's not some kind of retcon for him to have progressed well past where the Nein left him; it just means he's an active participant in the world who has done his own work in the meantime.

This is another interesting aspect to him. I've talked about this a bit before but I cannot find the post so I'll recap here: antagonists in D&D have significantly more agency than allied NPCs. Antagonists are active forces, against which the party is meant to struggle; allies are meant to support the PCs, which means they tend to be more passive in both their actions and their character growth. Essek was both built as an antagonist, in a position that gives him significant agency, and also was then given significant opportunity to grow specifically to act as a narrative mirror for Caleb's arc. Even when he becomes a more traditional D&D ally, he still retains much of that, though he occupies a supporting role.

I believe that this is especially true because of the nature of Caleb's arc, which I've already written on; the tl;dr of this post is that Caleb is both convinced that he is permanently ruined and also desperate to prove that change is possible. Essek is that proof, because he is simply the character in a position to do so. But this also means that his propensity for introspection and openness is accentuated! He has to do the legwork on his own, for the most part, because that's where he is in the meantime.

But he still ends the campaign necessarily constricted; he is under significant scrutiny, he's at risk from the Assembly, and he goes on the run fairly soon after the story ends. He spends most of the final arc anxious and paranoid, which is valid given the crushing reality of his situation. It would be very easy to extrapolate that seven years into this reality, he would be insular, closed off, and suspicious of strangers, even in spite of the lessons he's learned from the Nein and their long term exposure.

So seeing his openness and lightness now is surprising, but at the same time, given this combination of factors in his position in the narrative over time and his defining traits, it's not by any means unreasonable.

But one thing that I found so delightful is how much trust he exhibits, which is obviously a wild thing to say about Essek in particular, given much of what he learns is both earning and offering trust, which was something he says explicitly in 2x124 that he's never really experienced: "I've never really been trusted and so I did not trust." It makes up much of the progression of his relationship with Caleb, and the trust that he is offered by the Nein in walking off the ship is the impetus he needs to grow.

But I think it's easy to talk about trust when it comes to people who have proven themselves to you or to whom you've ingratiated yourself, and that's really the most we can say about Essek by the time he leaves the Blooming Grove. There is this sense in a lot of discussion of trust (not solely in this fandom) that it is only related to either naivete or love, but there's far more to it. Trust at its best is deliberate—cultivating an openness to the world at large is a great way to combat cynicism and beget connection instead. It allows a person to maintain curiosity and be open to experience, but it can be incredibly difficult to hold onto.

It is clear that the Essek we meet now is a very pointedly and intentionally trusting individual. He trusts Caleb and by extension Caleb's trust in Keyleth, as he shows up and picks up a group of strangers from a foreign military encampment and walks in without issue. He trusts the Hells to follow his lead moving through Zadash and to exhibit enough discretion so as to avoid bringing suspicion upon all of them. He trusts that Astrid will respond well to his entrance, but he also trusts himself and the Hells enough to execute a back-up plan in the case that she doesn't. In the end, he even trusts them enough to give them his name and identity.

He doesn't scan as someone who has spent half a dozen years living like a prey animal, afraid of any shadow he runs across in an alley, withdrawn into himself and an insular family, which would've been an easy route for him to take. He scans as someone who has learned the kind of trust borne of learned confidence and a trained eye for good will and kindness, which are crucial weapons one would need for staving off cynicism in his circumstances—as if he has survived thanks more to connection and kindness than paranoia and isolation. (If we want to be saccharine about it, he scans quite poignantly as a member of the Mighty Nein.)

So it is easy to imagine this trust and openness as a natural progression of his initial search for perspectives external to his own cultural knowledge. Though he makes those first connections with the Assembly to try to vindicate his personal hypotheses, he finds in them exposure to the deepest corruption among Exandrian mortals, which could've—and did, for a time—turned him further down that same dark path.

But it's also this same openness to exposure from the wider world that allows the Nein to influence him for the better, and in spite of the challenges he's certainly faced simply surviving over the past seven years, he seems to have held onto this openness enough to move through the world with self-assurance and a willingness to extend the kinds of trust and good will that he has been shown.

(I would be remiss not to mention that I was reminded about my thoughts on this by this lovely post from sky-scribbles and their use in the tags of 'light' to describe Essek's demeanor this episode, which is really such an apt word for it.)

[ittybittyremy]

“Orym’s family was able to heal but he was not. It’s been years but he refuses to move on”

Golly gee I wonder why… It’s almost as if Orym has been willingly cutting open old scars and putting salt in them for months

TLDR: It’s not that he refuses to move on, it’s that he can’t.

People who never watched EXU don’t know that Orym was healing and was moving on. There was a sadness to him but he was healing. His tattoo was a part of that healing. Every day was one foot in front of the other.

This mission is what is taking out years worth of healing. It was bound to happen.

The initial mission of investigating an attack that was similar to the one that killed your husband and father is opening old wounds. Everything else is just putting salt in it.

And Orym is willingly putting salt in those wounds for the sake of there being a tomorrow (C3E77) for Exandria and everyone living on it.

It would be one thing if the rest of his family was with him on this mission but they’re not. The closest person would be Leeta but that is not even close to how deep Orym is in it (as far as we are aware).

Like no shit Orym is having a hard time healing. I would be too if I was constantly exposed to things related to my husband and father’s death to that level. No matter how long ago it was

Orym could start moving on again once he’s not as exposed to his traumas. He could leave and give up on the mission but he’s not gonna do that. Not while knowing that his husband and father would be on this mission with him if they were alive.

So he really has one option: stop the Ruby Vanguard and Ludinus from releasing Predathos and potentially destroying Exandria and killing (more) people. And maybe then he can start moving on again

[casscainmainly]

Duke Thomas and the Robin Mantle

There's been some minor discussion about whether Duke counts as an 'official' Robin or not. While that discussion is interesting, I actually don't think it's the crux of the Duke and Robin issue. To me, the question is whether or not he should be Robin. And, to me, the answer is definitively yes.

This is purely my opinion, and I haven't read every single Duke comic so it's possible I've misread/missed things. Any Duke fans, absolutely feel free to add or disprove anything here!

The Changing Robin

The first thing to understand is that Robin, as a mantle, has shifted with each person it's been passed to. Tim's Robin doesn't mean the same thing as Jason's Robin, which doesn't mean the same thing as Damian's. A mark of a true Robin is the ability to shift the meaning of Robin by wearing the colours.

Duke absolutely fulfils this criteria. In fact, him and his We Are Robin crew are the biggest shift in the meaning of Robin since its creation.

Cover from We Are Robin #1. The phrase "We're not sidekicks. We're an army!" signals the shift from Robin as individual to Robin as collective; from Robin as tied to the singular Batman to Robin as a wider movement, a socio-political force. The last question, "are you ready?", is vitally important as well. Duke as Robin is meant to be different. He's meant to be non-normative, a groundbreaking turn in what Robin looks and feels like.

At the end of the first issue, a disguised Alfred (who started We Are Robin) thinks the following:

Alfred infuses the phrase "of color" with two meanings: the Robin colours, and People of Colour. By explicitly linking Robin to POC, the comic is suggesting that not only can kids of colour be Robin, but that they should be Robin. Robins of Colour are the "future of this city," and Duke is the vanguard of this future. It's no coincidence that the Robin before (Damian) and the one after (Maps) are both POC. Duke, however, is the Robin that gives the mantle an explicit direction towards diversity: him and WAR use Robin as a social movement, and in doing so transform the colours of Robin into a symbol for the diversity in Gotham and the world.

Robin as Collective

Duke doesn't change Robin alone. The point of We Are Robin is that Robin is a collective, and it's important that Duke doesn't start WAR (as much as people like to say he did). By joining late, the comic demonstrates that Duke is part of a bigger movement.

The Robin community represents POC solidarity, the necessity and ability of the oppressed to band together. Lee Bermejo ends We Are Robin's final issue with "stress on the word "we"" - Duke's arc, in one sense, is learning to rely and work with others (he initially mistrusts basically everyone). The WAR community is essential to both Duke's character development and his tenure as Robin.

So to have this page, affirming his loyalty and love for them, to be followed immediately by them being written out is... something.

Duke appears next in Batman: Rebirth, where Bruce gives him the yellow suit and tells him he's not looking for a Robin. As soon as he stops being Robin, the community around him quite literally falls apart. Izzy sticks around for a bit but fades into obscurity, Riko and Dax turn evil, Dre ends up in Arkham - all of these fates are antithetical to these characters and genuinely tragic.

Batman: The Secret Files: The Signal is possibly the worst Duke story in existence, but it's important to understanding why Robin!Duke mattered. Riko calls Signal 'Bat-Signal', highlighting his sudden reduction to a Batman acolyte. His friends turning on him shows how, by losing Robin, he also lost the community formed by WAR. In every way, his transition into the Signal was saturated by loss.

Robin Doesn't Need A Batman

Bruce giving Duke the Signal suit is borderline insulting. He already had an identity predicated on the fact that he didn't need Batman.

From Batman (2011) #45, Batman: Rebirth, and Night of the Monster Men. "Robin doesn't need a Batman" is an inversion of Tim's 'Batman needs a Robin' - in many ways, Duke is the opposite of Tim, who's rich, White, and whose Robin is the most focused on helping Batman. If Tim is the ideal Robin-as-partner, Duke is the ideal Robin-as-individual. His idea of Robin is not, and has never been, associated with Batman.

People who say Duke isn't an official Robin since he was never Batman's partner miss the point. He is Robin because he was never Batman's partner. That's what Robin means to him - a mantle free from Bruce and all authority.

"Batman is on the gargoyle. Robin... Robin is on the street." Robin is the person on the ground, who lives and belongs to the people. When Duke becomes Signal, this ground aspect - as well as his separation from Batman - is gone.

In this cover from Batman & The Signal, they gave him a Bat symbol and put him on a gargoyle. They erased every single part of his Robin philosophy.

The Original Robin

Post-We Are Robin, Bruce becomes the Batfam member Duke interacts with the most. Besides the insult of Bruce withholding Robin, this fact also strips away one of my favourite aspects about early Duke - he was tied to the Batfamily through the Robins (especially Damian and Dick), not by Batman.

It's Dick, the original Robin, who chooses him.

Dick recognises that him and Duke have a lot in common. He tells Duke in Robin War that he's "got it," and that he's a natural leader - Dick knows Duke has what it takes to be Robin, and explicitly endorses him.

Not only that, but when Dick sends Duke to jail (along with the other Robins, official and unofficial), he tells Duke that he "take[s] care of [his] family". He basically inducts Duke into the family then and there!

Dick's endorsement of Duke makes it more interesting that Bruce doesn't make him Robin. Despite Duke's disillusionment at the end of Robin War (dispelled soon after in WAR), the events in RW confirm that Duke can and should be Robin. Bruce not making Duke Robin is defying both Duke's potential and Dick's right to choose Robins.

Robin as Family

On the rooftop in Robin War, Dick tells Duke that Robin is about family. This is the fundamental connection between them both: Robin acts as the link to the families they've lost and gained.

For Dick, Robin keeps John and Mary Grayson alive, while also symbolising his connection to Bruce. For Duke, Robin is the intersection of three families: the heroic legacy of his parents, the tight-knit community of We Are Robin, and the newfound friendship of the Batfamily.

In Batman (2011) #45, Duke tries to give his friend Daryl a Robin badge. He says, "you and me, we came up together. We're fam[ily]." Even before Dick, Duke associated Robin with family, and Daryl implies in the next issue that Duke became Robin because of his parents' inclination to help. Signal, of course, also comes from his mom; but unlike Robin, Signal isn't a legacy mantle. As Robin, he constantly inducted people like Daryl, Riko, Damian, etc. into his family. As Signal, his circle shrinks immeasurably, until it's really only the Batfamily and the Outsiders if we're being generous. (Daryl also turns evil - a really unfortunate pattern for Duke side characters).

Lark and Conclusion

I'm going to end with this panel from Batman & The Signal #1, which is emblematic of the way DC has treated Duke and Robin as a whole. Bruce tells Duke that Lark is "too soft" a name. DC was probably debating between Lark and Signal, but it's telling what they went with. How is Lark too soft, exactly? How is it any softer than Robin?

By overtly dismissing the bird-like name, Bruce - and DC editorial, or whoever decided this - is definitively moving Duke away from Robin. And it's a shame. In Duke's transition from Robin to Signal, he has next to no agency. Bruce tells him he's not Robin, Bruce gives him the suit, Bruce tells him not to be Lark, Bruce gives him another suit. It's a stark contrast from his induction into Robin - though Alfred arranged it, he gave Duke a choice. Duke chooses Robin.

Duke being disallowed the Robin mantle is, to me, on par with DC stripping Cass of the Bat symbol during the New 52. The racism behind both these decisions cannot be overstated - both Cass and Duke redefined their mantles, and their mantles defined them. At least Cass' mistake has been corrected, and lots of writers and fans acknowledge how horrible that period was. For Duke, he was never given a real chance. And it's unlikely he ever will be.

This is not a knock against the Signal identity or any writers. However, it genuinely saddens me to think that all of this story potential - Duke's redefinition of Robin, his relationship to Dick, his connection to We Are Robin, and above all his ability to choose who he wants to be - has been neglected and cast aside. Even if they never acknowledge his role as Robin, I hope future stories centre him once again, because it's what he deserves.

[utilitycaster]

I sort of got off topic in the ask I just answered, and this is also a repetition of stuff I and others have said pretty frequently before but: an unbelievably consistent theme across Critical Role especially, but also D20 while we're at it, is that sitting forever in resentment of your personal traumas, valid though they may be, can very easily become a source of villainy. It leads to a mentality in which you are always the wronged and oppressed (structurally or individually) party, even when you surpass those who wronged you in power, even if you start perpetuating the same harm. We see it constantly. It's the entire premise behind how Orthax functions and both Percy and Ripley fall to it; it's Delilah's eventual motivation after her initial defeat; it's the underpinning of Wildemount's many cults and something Lucien repeatedly cites in-game (and he is more sympathetic than most when finally given more internality in the book); it's essentially what Trent relies on to indoctrinate students. It's how the Vanguard recruits and it is, above all, what drives Ludinus and his generals and (reluctant, resentful) allies. It's why Kipperlily is one of D20's greatest villains, and why Calroy betrays in ACOC. Even more so than a thirst for power on its own without necessarily the accompaniment of this resentment (Goldenhoard, Avantika, Briarwoods pre-initial defeat, Chroma Conclave) this is portrayed as the enemy.

The thing about that resentment is that it relies on the villain forever portraying themselves as powerless, as just a little guy who you can't hit because they're just a little baby boy. As, as I said last night, an NPC rather than someone with immense agency. It's a lie; don't fall for it. It's true that with great power comes great responsibility, but with any small amount of power does come small responsibility. This resentment essentially is an abdication of that responsibility to take what you have and try to improve things, and instead focusing on how everything is someone else's fault. And something I love about actual play, since power through agency is indeed at its core, is that this abdication of responsibility is consistently portrayed as something terrible.

[burr-ell]

I'll preface this by saying that I don't by any means begrudge anyone their own personal headcanons or interpretations, but I kinda have to get it off my chest that I'm personally not very comfortable with significant deviations from canon character design on CR, and I really tend to side-eye people who have declared their fanart to be "better".

And sure, some of that is because i'm a cranky old bastard. But some of that is that I also have an animation degree and have studied character design. Creators generally give artists a fair amount of input as to how they want their designs to connote the characters' personalities—not just in terms of clothing or hairstyle, but in the overall shape of the silhouettes and body structures. And in the case of CR in particular, that's coming from a place of much closer familiarity with the characters because the creator is actually going to be embodying them for a fairly long period of time, so when the fan response is heavy deviation from that, I think it can feed into some unhealthy fanon perceptions and projections.

Like, for example, it's not so much that I think fanartists are "disrespecting the creators" or whatever when they keep giving Imogen a sweet little round face and big hips/breasts and cute circular glasses, but I've also studied shape language in art. You're communicating something when you design her this way; if a character's silhouette has a lot of circles, visually that connotes being friendly, sweet, and cute. The person who first suggested drawing her with glasses explicitly said they thought it would look cute—and no shade to them! They can like whatever they want!

But canonically, Imogen is a woman in her 20s who's been dealing with unanswered questions, abandonment, loneliness, and sheer exhaustion from trying to hold back and control powers that she never asked for—and who simultaneously uses those powers even when it isn't necessary if she thinks it'll help her achieve a goal or prove a point. She isn't unfriendly, and she wants to do the right thing, but she's also someone who's consciously chosen to keep to herself for most of her life, and yet simultaneously she's quite adept at persuading and deceiving people. I think we're meant to pick up that sense of world-weariness and cynicism from her angular facial features and thin frame. That's...kind of just how character design works.

I think the trend of disregarding the official art and giving her softer features has had an impact on the perception of Imogen as a character. I see a lot of views of her that really remove a lot of her agency, treating her like she's only ever been a victim of circumstance who's never put a foot wrong. Some fans got pushback for pointing out that it really wasn't cool for Imogen to openly contemplate whether or not the Ruby Vanguard might be right in front of three people who were killed by Otohan, insisting that imogen was just dealing with a lot right then. And yes, she was, but that doesn't mean that the way she was dealing with it doesn't say something about her as a character. I don't know if I'd call it coddling, necessarily (even though perhaps there are some very coddling takes I just haven't seen), but there seems to be some resistance, in some circles, to the idea that Imogen isn't a put-upon martyr. And in those same circles, round friendly-looking glasses-wearing Imogen abounds, to the point of editing the official art itself to "fix it".

Truth be told I'd be willing to bet that the rounder cuter Imogen actually came about because of the initial impression of her, given how much fanon at the start of c3 revolved around poor baby Imogen with her scary nightmares needing the wiser, worldlier Laudna to comfort her and kiss it better, but those visuals also proliferated rather quickly and well beyond past the point where that fanon was feasible anymore, and I think both aspects of that fanon ended up informing each other. It's not lost on me that the rounder and cuter-looking Imogen performs the literal function of sanding down her harder edges.

And like I said, I'm not here to be needlessly negative toward what other people want to do. If you want to draw the characters differently to their official art, I don't think either the cast or the artist are especially offended by it. But I personally dislike it, in part because I think some of these trends are a way for fans to claim a certain amount of ownership over the characters, whether they intend it or not. And the ultimate outcome of that is that when creators inevitably assert their ownership over a deeply personal story in a way that fans don't like, the backlash is much stronger than it reasonably should be, which is something I think the CR fandom has seen often enough not to continue doing as often as it does.

[mrn0093]

I am very honoured to be in charge of the collaboration illustrations for [AI : THE SOMNIUM FILES nirvanA Initiative] x [Village Vanguard]. →https://vvstore.jp/feature/detail/19979/

[cryptid-jack]

Sometimes you wind up invested in an au for your already au Mass Effect fic and have to draw something for it X'D

So here's Kaidan and my he/him asari oc, Aera in a timeline where Cerberus fails to bring back Shepard. As a result, it's Kaidan that has to strike out on his own, get the team back together with Aera's help, and try to convince the galaxy that Sovereign was just the vanguard for the Reapers.

Meanwhile, initially unbeknownst to him, Cerberus' clone Shepard is tackling the Collectors and eventually comes looking to recruit Kaidan and the reassembled og squad...

[yuesya]

Chief Scientist Polus squints at the numbers on his holographic screen. Reaches out with a mechanical hand to readjust the values slightly, then continues down the rest of the page.

The lab is quiet, save for the subdued whirring of background machinery. If he were to close his eyes and relax for a moment, he could almost pretend that this was just another late night overseeing ongoing experiments in the labs. He’d be able to head home in the morning, give his wife a kiss, then promptly collapse into his bed and knock out for a solid eight hours. Then, he’d wake up in the afternoon –his lovely wife would laugh and call him a sleepyhead, then ask if he wanted to grab groceries with her. He’d say yes, and they’d walk to a grocery store together beneath the lazy afternoon sunlight.

It’s a nice dream.

His wife is dead, had been one of the civilian casualties in the initial incursion of the Swarm that descended upon Glamoth from distant stars. There had been no time to grieve. The military’s weapons and fortifications had been enough to turn back the insectoid aliens the first time, but it had only been a short reprieve –barely even a full week, before the vanguard of the Swarm arrived, following what must’ve been their scouting party.

The Swarm was truly a plague among the stars, killing and devouring everything in its wake like locusts. Multiplying, spreading decimation across the stars. For they were beloved by the Aeon of Propagation, the Dread Tayzzyronth, whose only goal was to reproduce and replicate endlessly.

The sheer number of casualties that Glamoth suffered, the horrifying hell that the Republic had been reduced to–!

Glamoth’s military power was not enough. It wasn’t enough. The Council had screamed themselves hoarse, while people continued to die, but it wasn’t until news of neighboring nations being completely overrun by the Swarm came that they finally came to the difficult decision–

We must adapt to our enemies.

Alter the essence of humanity.

It’s the only way for a chance of survival.

… No matter how heinous and reproachable the means, it does not change the truth of the matter: We must fight. Surrender is not an option! To accept defeat is to accept the extinction of our race.

And thus, Glamoth gathered its remaining scientists and set before them a task: Create soldiers. Create vast numbers of expendable soldiers to wage war against the Swarm, ones who could pilot a far more destructive version of the military’s mechanical battle suits. Numbers versus numbers.

Polus was one of the scientists who answered the Council’s call. How could he possibly turn away, when the fate of Glamoth was at stake?

…

Polus sighs, standing up from his seat. He stretches out his stiff body, and turns to head deeper into the labs –nearly tripping over Thrasos’ comatose body, from where the other man had collapsed over a half-finished spreadsheet and was currently snoring quietly. Polus grabs the lab coat slung over the back of the man’s chair and drapes it over him like a blanket, before continuing on his way.

The clack-clack of footsteps against the tiled ground seems almost unnaturally loud, with none of the other scientists accompanying him. But it doesn’t take long before Polus arrives at his destination, and he cranes his neck back to take in their creation.

Their answer, to the task that the Council had entrusted to them.

Suspended within the X-819 formula, there is a facsimile of a girl. Countless wires are attached to her body, a sign of her inhumanity –as if the hard, blackened limbs with a chitin-like gloss and antennae sprouting from her head weren’t a clear announcement of it already. White hair flows out behind her, a cosmetic effect of the C-71 injection from the earlier development cycles.

Polus looks up at their creation silently.

… Their weapon. One that was created using materials scavenged from the battlefields, using the corpses of the insectoid aliens of the Swarm. As reprehensible and stomach-turning as it was, it was also necessary if they wanted to be able harness the ability to manufacture soldiers en masse. To propagate their weapons, in order to defend Glamoth and fight the Swarm that was the avatar of Tayzzyronth’s Propagation.

Soon. Soon, the first soldiers would be ready, and the Iron Cavalry would prepare for combat. And this one here would be the key to it all –not a soldier, not a fighter, but far more important; she would be the nexus commanding all the soldiers to be manufactured in this war that Glamoth could not afford to lose.

After all… they had nowhere to retreat to anymore. The majority of the Republic's territories had already been decimated by the Swarm.

“Titania,” Polus whispers, a quiet prayer that’s a mixture of fear and desperation and tremulous hope. He raises a gloved hand, touching it to the cold glass of the living weapon, then presses his forehead against it. 

Polus closes his eyes. “… The first of the Iron Cavalry. Our final hope. Please… be the Queen that we need, and end this nightmare for us.”

[dailyadventureprompts]

Deity: Heironeous, The Vindicator

Let our hands never falter, sparing evil the sword Let our hearts never waiver, letting weakness take root Let our march never end, lest the task be left undone

Champions, zealots, fools. All these words describe the followers of Heironeous; patron god of those blinded by duty and self righteousness. From the guards who rough up vagrants for the sake of social order, to the patriotic songs sung by soldiers on the way to invade a land they've never seen, to the teacher who’s convinced they can instruct through pain, because sparing the rod really does spoil the child.

It is a terrifying thing after all to be in the wrong, to have no easy answers, to be filled with doubt, and so the Archpaladin and his clergy intercede to provide the fearful populace with direction, with easy answers, and with scapegoats when necessary.

Adventure Hooks:

The party are asked by some troubled parents to look in on the local chapterhouse of the Invincible Vanguard, who took over for the town's royal garrison some years ago. A number of youths, bored of life in their sleepy little town decided to sign up with the Vanguard a few months past and have not been seen since. The Heironeian are cagey to say the least, but through their investigation the party might stumble across the same awful secret the kids did during their initiation, as well as their ultimate fate.

A beast rampages through the countryside, sowing fear, destruction, and rumour wherever it goes. Defeating it is no easy task, but one of the local lords is willing to pay a high price should the party bring him its head as proof. Imagine their surprise when a few days later a group of Heironeian paladins are paraded through the street carrying THEIR trophy aloft, claiming all the credit and with that same lord backing their claims. It seems the party has been part of a cruel PR stunt, however will they make this right?

A series of inexplicable mishaps and borderline disasters that plague a frontier village have come to a head with one of the Vindicator's itinerant preachers convinces the locals that devilry is the source of their woes, pointing the blacksmith's tiefling apprentice. It's up to the party to prevent the kid from getting strung up, and make the villagers see reason before there's an out and out witchhunt on their hands.

Setup: From the outside, with the perspective of history, it’s easy enough to see that there’s something wrong with faith of Heironeous, how their temples and icons venerate violence, whether it be martial glory or the suffering of martyrs that needed to be avenged. How their liturgy teaches the faithful that sympathy to outsiders, questions to authority, even the smallest of doubts are weaknesses to be overcome.

But the Heironeans are the ones fighting off the monsters encroaching on your village when the baron won’t pay for garrisons or adventurers, and it’s their priests who come to hand out food to the hungry and say there’s work the town over building their new fortress, and it’s their inquisitors who stand in the market square telling the crowd that all the awful things that happened these past few years is the fault of sinful, faithless rulers, and if only they could be led by righteous men (and it is always men) and expel the social parasites then truly this realm could be one beloved by the gods. 

That’s the grift, the Heironeans seize on a crisis or a fear and offer to put your life on a better track, nevermind that it’s a permanent war footing where you and your family and neighbours are conscripted to roles based on how you’d be most useful, and disagreement amounts to insubordination.

Heironeans say they’re justified of course because evil is always out there, the one true evil, Hextor, the grotesque, six armed lord of bloodshed and suffering who wishes to make slaves or corpses of all the world and the heavens besides. He is jealous of Heironeous you see, his twin brother, who is propheciesed to be the only one who can defeat him. Hextor never rests, always spawning more evil in the world, and anyone could be his follower without even knowing it... all they’d need to do is work to subvert the will of the archpaladin and they’d be abetting the scourge.  You don’t want to be an agent of evil do you? Then tithe to the church, enlist in the vanguard, obey your betters, marry early and within your kind and have more children to carry on the fight when you are too week, raise them up right, kneel when you are told, submit. Do all these things and the Vindicator will know you are good, and worth fighting for, and will forgive your mortal failings. 

There is a deeper lore, behind even what the faithful or even most of their leaders know:  that Heironeous and Hextor are the same being. Sometimes it is the monster wearing the golden hero like a mask, sometimes it is the bright and radiant warrior casting a most wicked shadow, sometimes it is simply that the god of war and slaughter has two faces, fair and foul, both righteous, both tyrannical, both hungering for blood.

The cult of Hextor is a secret order within the faith, membership offered only to those chosen by their god or those that see the worship of the archpaladin for what it really is: Violence for the sake of power, power for the sake of violence. They are secretive, deflecting rumours of their existence onto puppets and figureheads that they manipulate, going so far as to create false-cults to the Scourge to draw the faithful’s attention and ire. Any fault in the church can be blamed on Hextorian infiltration, any opponent that challenges them is but an agent of the Scourge.

  Titles:  The invincible, the vindicator, the archpaladin / the scourge, the herald of hells

Signs:  Oddly serene visions of violence and pain, wounds or blood on the image or relics of martyrs or weapons of champions, prophetic nightmares about the victory of Hextor.

Symbols:  A white hand or clapsed around a silver lightning bolt/ a black gauntlet clutched around six red arrows

Inspiration: Cruelty cloaked in the guise of righteousness is not an original concept but after writing  about how d&d has weird habit of using a frankly childlike view of morality in order to justify its violence  the same way that IRL hategroups do, I wanted to play around with the concept. 

Likewise, I felt my campaigns needed a solid “badguy with the aesthetic of goodguy” villain and I was tired of using overzealous followers of the dawnfather or bahamut to fill out the roster.  Specifically, rather than bad people in service to an ostensibly good god (who are objectively real in the setting and thus would try to oust the bad apples), I wanted to create an evil god that used the trappings of goodness to dupe average people into doing bad, the same way that has happened over and over again historically in our own world.

 I ended up choosing Heironeous for this villain makeover because like a lot of other default d&d deities I find the base form of him painfully one note, he’s the paladin god of paladins and he has hero IN HIS NAME. That said, he has a twin brother Hextor, god of war and tyrants that serves as his dark mirror and there’s thematic meat in that... Merging the two into one god gives us this delicious setup where the theology of Heironeous creates the problem and sells the solution, benefiting no matter who wins in the supposed cosmic power struggle.

Art

[mareastrorum]

I think some info about scams will help people grasp what Ludinus is doing.

You’ve no doubt received really shitty e-mail scams. Here’s your Excel invoice for something you didn’t order from Amazon, please ignore that the e-mail is misspelled, call this number if you have questions. Final notice to cancel this subscription you don’t have, ignore the other 20 people cc’d, click this personalized link to cancel. Your credit score sucks, [misspelled your name], but we’re got this amazing rate offer for you, limited time, finish the application process at our website. They’re so obvious. Why haven’t they improved at this?

They don’t want to get “better” at scamming because that’s part of their process. They don’t want calm, detail-oriented, or thoughtful people to contact them. They don’t want people who know enough about this to have a healthy amount of doubt. They want the people who are tired, stressed, emotional, and scared. Vulnerable. If a target missed those initial signs, they’ll be easier to manipulate.

Recruiting for the Ruby Vanguard works the same way. This is not the modern world. Most people are not educated. In addition, most are not magical. When a group of powerful, magical people comes along and offers a solution to all your worries, offers you a place to belong and develop powers that finally seem to make sense, doesn’t it just feel like a dream? Something is finally going right, and it’s going to get better, it’ll just be hard, because of course that’s how it works. It’ll be okay because now you’re not alone and you know who the real enemy is…

Bell’s Hells aren’t Ludinus’s usual targets because they’ve wisened up to his bullshit already. But he needs potential vessels, and both Imogen and Fearne might fit the bill. That’s rare enough that, even when his usual offers aren’t working, he’s going to keep trying.

[wardensantoineandevka]

Ludinus has the opportunity to get one last monologue in. I do have another bingo card this week, currently consisting of 34 items. You can grab a card over at this BingoBaker link.

Currently, there are no notes other than the names of items are for those items being used and "Liliana in combat" does not necessarily require her to take combat actions but to be present while combat is taking place, probably with her own initiative order.

I may add more squares in the next ten-ish minutes. But, as always, the call list is locked once the opening title sequence starts.

Ludinus escapes

Ludinus teleports away

Ludinus killed

Ludinus still alive

Ludinus releases Predathos

Predathos otherwise escapes

Forcecage duration ends

Forcecage dispelled

Forcecage dropped

Liliana sent away

Liliana in combat

new initiative with Ludinus

multiple initiatives

deeper into Ruidus

Vanguard reinforcements

vision

Mask of the Matron

Ring of Remembrance

Sphere of Dunamantic Restoration

Derrig or Will mentioned

Zathuda mentioned

Relvin mentioned

Sending

Lightning Bolt

Grim Psychometry

Arcana check

Deception check

History check

Insight check on Liliana

Insight check on Ludinus

Investigation check

Perception check

Persuasion check

check to resist Predathos