#Working on Caster's ability

[swiftcast-selene]

Day 28: Adventure

it's never easy to set off on your own, especially when you don't have the best sense of direction...

[danielnelsen]

hmm. since i never end up using metamagic, im thinking it's strictly better to do 8 levels of storm sorcerer and 4 levels of tempest cleric?

[theplotmage]

Principles and Laws of Magic for Fantasy Writers

Fundamental Laws

1. Law of Conservation of Magic- Magic cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.

3. Law of Equivalent Exchange- To gain something, an equal value must be given.

5. Law of Magical Exhaustion- Using magic drains the user’s energy or life force.

Interaction and Interference

4. Law of Magical Interference- Magic can interfere with other magical effects.

6. Law of Magical Contamination- Magic can have unintended side effects.

8. Law of Magical Inertia- Magical effects continue until stopped by an equal or greater force.

Resonance and Conditions

7. Law of Magical Resonance- Magic resonates with certain materials, places, or times.

9. Law of Magical Secrecy- Magic must be kept secret from the non-magical world.

11. Law of Magical Hierarchy- Different types of magic have different levels of power and difficulty.

Balance and Consequences

10. Law of Magical Balance- Every positive magical effect has a negative consequence.

12. Law of Magical Limitation- Magic has limits and cannot solve every problem.

14. Law of Magical Rebound- Misused magic can backfire on the user.

Special Conditions

13. Law of Magical Conduits- Certain objects or beings can channel magic more effectively.

15. Law of Magical Cycles- Magic may be stronger or weaker depending on cycles (e.g., lunar phases).

17. Law of Magical Awareness- Some beings are more attuned to magic and can sense its presence.

Ethical and Moral Laws

16. Law of Magical Ethics- Magic should be used responsibly and ethically.

18. Law of Magical Consent- Magic should not be used on others without their consent.

20. Law of Magical Oaths- Magical promises or oaths are binding and have severe consequences if broken.

Advanced and Rare Laws

19. Law of Magical Evolution- Magic can evolve and change over time.

20. Law of Magical Singularities- Unique, one-of-a-kind magical phenomena exist and are unpredictable.

Unique and Imaginative Magical Laws

- Law of Temporal Magic- Magic can manipulate time, but with severe consequences. Altering the past can create paradoxes, and using time magic ages the caster rapidly.

- Law of Emotional Resonance- Magic is amplified or diminished by the caster’s emotions. Strong emotions like love or anger can make spells more powerful but harder to control.

- Law of Elemental Harmony- Magic is tied to natural elements (fire, water, earth, air). Using one element excessively can disrupt the balance and cause natural disasters.

- Law of Dream Magic- Magic can be accessed through dreams. Dreamwalkers can enter others’ dreams, but they risk getting trapped in the dream world.

- Law of Ancestral Magic- Magic is inherited through bloodlines. The strength and type of magic depend on the caster’s ancestry, and ancient family feuds can influence magical abilities.

- Law of Symbiotic Magic- Magic requires a symbiotic relationship with magical creatures. The caster and creature share power, but harming one affects the other.

- Law of Forgotten Magic- Ancient spells and rituals are lost to time. Discovering and using forgotten magic can yield great power but also unknown dangers.

- Law of Magical Echoes- Spells leave behind echoes that can be sensed or traced. Powerful spells create stronger echoes that linger longer.

- Law of Arcane Geometry- Magic follows geometric patterns. Spells must be cast within specific shapes or alignments to work correctly.

- Law of Celestial Magic- Magic is influenced by celestial bodies. Spells are stronger during certain astronomical events like eclipses or planetary alignments.

- Law of Sentient Magic- Magic has a will of its own. It can choose to aid or hinder the caster based on its own mysterious motives.

- Law of Shadow Magic- Magic can manipulate shadows and darkness. Shadowcasters can travel through shadows but are vulnerable to light.

- Law of Sympathetic Magic- Magic works through connections. A spell cast on a representation of a person (like a doll or portrait) affects the actual person.

- Law of Magical Artifacts- Certain objects hold immense magical power. These artifacts can only be used by those deemed worthy or who possess specific traits.

- Law of Arcane Paradoxes- Some spells create paradoxes that defy logic. These paradoxes can have unpredictable and often dangerous outcomes.

- Law of Elemental Fusion- Combining different elemental magics creates new, hybrid spells with unique properties and effects.

- Law of Ethereal Magic- Magic can interact with the spirit world. Ethereal mages can communicate with spirits, but prolonged contact can blur the line between life and death.

- Law of Arcane Symbiosis- Magic can bond with technology, creating magical machines or enchanted devices with extraordinary capabilities.

- Law of Dimensional Magic- Magic can open portals to other dimensions. Dimensional travelers can explore alternate realities but risk getting lost or encountering hostile beings.

- Law of Arcane Sacrifice- Powerful spells require a sacrifice, such as a cherished memory, a personal item, or even a part of the caster’s soul.

[emsartwork]

Hey yall im not dead!

COSMIX!!! I've officially redesigned all the transformations in the Winx Club TV series hell yeah

Lore and Design notes below

So Cosmix is a rather defunct transformation in the modern era. It used to be used heavily in the age of space exploration but since teleportation and hyper speed ships became common place, the Magix dimension prefers to use those. Essentially, in order to set up a teleportation center, the caster/s need to have been to both the origin point and the target point. Witches and Mages were the primary people responsible for setting up the teleportation system, but in order to achieve the spells requirements, they would require help from a Cosmix fairy. The primary function of Cosmix is the ability to fly through space with out detrimental effects. Cosmix fairies can take 1, maybe 2, people with them while they fly in a shooting star esc trail function. Cosmix is not great for fighting unless the foe is darkness/light based. Defense is strong against cold, pressure, and friction, but not most other kinds of damage.

Cosmix is also theorized to be the Magix Dimension's version of the elementix. So like Sirenix is the transformation that grants access to the Infinite ocean, Cosmix is the one that would grant access to the Magix Dimension if fairies were in the other realms. Because humans already belong to the Magix Dimension, and the transformation isn't required to earn Nymphix, it isn't considered a true Elementix. Some fairies (mostly Solarians) do experience biological changes when using the transformation, seen here in Stella, but it's not super common. The hair takes on the magic color and drifts into nebulous star dust and galaxy clusters. Solarians are located closest to Lumenia, a tightly clustered star formation, and frequent attract Lumens due to Solaria's binary star system. They have formed fast friendships with the Lumens and many Solarians carry a Lumen's Blessing (it's similar to the elemental companions' bonds in the elementix) in their bloodline which contributes to the biological changes when using Cosmix.

I'm still hammering out how seaosn 8 works plot wise but I'll add it to my show changes masterlist eventually.

Design! The initial concept was "man i wanna draw some chunky ass boots" and i kinda ran with the cyber punk look from there. I was also adamant that Cosmix is a pants transformation, both out of practicality and spite because they made everyone so hyper feminine in season 8. I referenced the actual cosmix designs and their "space travel" oufits for the general shapes for these, but obviously there aren't a ton of similarities since I went in such a different direction haha. Also my first time drawing Aisha with twists! I almost gave her a fro cus it would mimic an astronaut's helmet (and lowkey a nod to Garnet from steven universe) but i like how the twists came out haha

Cosmix includes! Hair up and out of the way, a mesh base layer with light veins and stars, a body suit or shorts and top, a padded armor torso piece with some tubing ports, so many buckles and straps, a clear plastic portion(usually part of the torso peice, sleeves, or around the waist/hips), wrist/arm guards, and chunky chunky boots. The wings are also larger than most transformations (rivaling Butterflix/Faunix) and trail more of the fairy's magic color than usual. Simple geometric designs are standard.

[chocodile]

Amaranthine Magic System PART III: Spellcraft for… Everyone Else (Including Unicorns)

This is Part III of a three-part worldbuilding set.

Part I - Part II - Part III (you are here)

So, we’ve now established how magic works and how it can be manipulated by a wizard. But wizards aren’t the only ones capable of using magic... as mentioned in Part I, even a tree can do it. How does THAT work? Surely it must be pretty rare, right?

Well, actually, a number of plants and animals have evolved to harness magic. Something about them—either a physical organ, body part, or some sort of instinctual behavior—is able to warp magic in a way that happens to be beneficial. Some examples:

A predatory cat that can use magic to bend light around itself and appear “invisible” thanks to the molecular structure of its fur

A mole that can vibrate its claws in such a way that they increase the charge of magic in the earth around it, causing solid stone to temporarily liquefy

A flower whose roots absorb magic from the earth and use it to resist freezing, allowing it to bloom all winter long

A bird who sings at a strange, disorienting, warbling song, the vibrations of which interfere with the magical frequencies used by its most common predator

A carnivorous plant that paralyzes its victims not with venom, but with numbing bolts of magic produced by a specially evolved structure whenever it detects nearby movement

You may notice that, with the exception of the carnivorous plant, all the other examples are simply using magical energy already in their environment rather than producing it themselves. Which brings me to the next detail… magic can be “cast” from two types of sources:

“Enchantments”/Ambient casting/passive casting: Happens by gently shaping the background radiation of magic already in the environment, like most of the examples above. It is typically done by passing the magical energy through some sort of physical structure in order to alter its frequency. Most enchanted jewelry functions on this principle. Studying animals that perform passive casting can be useful for wizards to learn new casting and enchanting techniques themselves, and many methods of spellcraft are based on patterns of magic wave manipulation first observed in nature. 99% of animals and plants that use magic fall into this category. Also, this sort of magic waxes or wanes in power depending on the ambient background magic radiation levels of the area… your magic locket may fail you at the worst possible moment if you take it someplace with very low magical background radiation levels.

Active casting/”Casting spells”: Magic where the power source comes from within the creature itself and can be actively turned off or on, such as the carnivorous plant example above. Animals and plants that are capable of active casting are typically quite dangerous indeed, though their bodies tend to make for incredibly valuable spell ingredients and materials for crafting magical devices. Luckily, this ability is extremely rare in nature… the ability to truly “cast a spell” is found almost exclusively in wizards.

As a half-celestial, Ambroys sits at sort of a weird position. He technically is an active caster, as he has his own magical field and he can summon his abilities up at will (or, more often in his youth, accidentally) using his mind/will as the primary trigger. However, half-celestials and half-infernals have the shape of their magical “filter” predefined by their heritage and physical anatomy—it is not consciously shaped the way a wizard’s is. They may be able to choose which of these predefined forms their magic takes, and may even discover new variations on their powers throughout their life, but they can never consciously teach themselves brand new spells from scratch, and will never be able to switch fluidly through several different types of similar magic without interruption the way a wizard could.

To Hyden, this makes Ambroys closer to a beast than a person, magically speaking (no offense, of course). He can’t talk spellcraft with him because he’s not doing anything on purpose… he’s just brainlessly clicking his silly little claws together to dig through rock like the mole mentioned earlier. He will never truly understand all the complex mental hoops Hyden jumps through every time he conjures up a flame to light his opium pipe, even if Ambroys can do the same exact thing by just thinking “ok, fire time now”. It’s just not the same, you know?

Aaand that wraps up the Amaranthine magic guide! This should hopefully provide a clearer view of how everything works in this setting. :)

[nickmarini]

Hi there!

First of all, I just wanted to say thanks for being an amazing D&D players and a very kind and open person t the many fans like myself who saw you for the first time in Downfall and were amazed. I wish I got to play with people like you when I play and DM.

I was wondering about something. Ayden is a multi classing masterpiece and I wanted to know if you have any tricks for building a solid multi class that is both interesting and has a fair amount of powerful abilities. Every time I have tried my characters end up not good at anything or really good at a single thing thats not relevant.

Okay! That’s all! Thanks for being really cool and I hope you have a great day!

Well firstly thank you. I’m def gonna deep dive Ayden, but for multi-classing in general I will sort of talk my philosophy. When multi classing it is important to start with what you are hoping to achieve. I personally like multiclasses because I think it tells the story of a character. Mechanically though there’s a few things to think about. Is the character strictly martial a mix or a primary spell caster? If you’re a primary spell caster then if you’re heavily multiclassing you are likely trading away access to 9th level spells at minimum or simply grabbing something like spell points or a warlock pact. With Ayden being alongside the Archheart and Matron I felt like we had pretty decent 9th level spell access so I wasn’t too worried on that front and instead could focus on being as good of a support character as I could manage. A full caster multiclass will still get 9th level spells slots so your spells that scale based on level are still going to be powerful.

Martial or mixed spell casters multiclass builds are not as limited by the spell access issues full casters encounter but do encounter the same feat/ability score issues.

In terms of overall philosophy, first level dips can give a character an unusual saving throw proficiency or skills that might compliment a build. I look for abilities that compliment each other so for Ayden having guiding bolt (proficiency times a day from druid) and commanding rally (proficiency times a day from knight of the crows feat) let him shoot a bolt and then have someone follow up with a free attack with advantage 6 times a day. Look for combos that might take 2 separate 1 class builds working together to achieve, that you might be able to do pull off as a single character. Also coming from 3.5 I am a firm believer in feats. Feats allow you to customize your character in unique ways that can really shine when multiclassing.

And finally have fun! I am a huge nerd and enjoy pouring over books trying to find interesting combos or figure out how to make an idea I have work better, but to be honest few campaigns go from 1-20 so if you wanna play around with multi classes just do it!

[itsqwertyluvs]

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *  OCCULT BABY CHALLENGE RULES * :☆ﾟ.･

hi bffs !! so this is my version of the occult baby challenge rules that i'll be using for my sims 4 series :) (watch here)

full credit to simssav for a lot of the rules!

CHALLENGE OBJECTIVE:

have a baby with each occult type in the sims 4!

MODS I USE:

» FAIRIES VS WITCHES MOD - here

» EXPANDED MERMAIDS MOD - here

» GHOSTS CAN HAVE BABIES MOD - here

ALL OCCULT TYPES:

» ALIEN (GET TO WORK)

» BONEHILDA (PARANORMAL)

» FAIRY (FAIRY VS WITCHES MOD)

» FATHER WINTER (SEASONS)

» FLOWER BUNNY (SEASONS)

» GHOST (BASE GAME)

» GRIM REAPER (BASE GAME)

» ISLAND ELEMENTAL (ISLAND LIVING)

» MERMAID (ISLAND LIVING)

» PATCHY (SEASONS)

» PLANT SIM (BASE GAME)

» SERVO BOT (DISCOVER UNIVERSITY)

» SPELL CASTER (REALM OF MAGIC)

» TRAGIC CLOWN (BASE GAME)

» VAMPIRE (VAMPIRES)

» WEREWOLF (WEREWOLVES)

» WISHING WELL (ROMANTIC GARDEN)

HOW TO AGE UP EACH CHILD:

» NEWBORNS - pop up that it's their birthday

» INFANTS - get 8 milestones (only fine motor/gross motor/social)

» TODDLERS - reach level 3 in all skills OR level 5 in 3 skills

» CHILDREN - reach level 5 in any 3 skills

» TEENAGERS - complete their task (as seen below)

TEENAGE TASKS:

» ALIEN - level 10 rocket science skill

» BONEHILDA - level 10 archaeology skill

» FAIRY - level 5 alchemy skill

» FATHER WINTER - level 10 handiness skill

» FLOWER BUNNY - level 10 knitting skill

» GHOST - level 10 pipe organ skill

» GRIM REAPER - level 10 medium skill

» ISLAND ELEMENTAL - level 10 fishing skill

» MERMAID - level 5 singing skill + level 10 mermaid mythology skill

» PATCHY - level 10 flower arranging skill

» PLANT SIM - level 10 gardening skill

» SERVO BOT - level 10 robots skill

» SPELL CASTER - learn 10 spells

» TRAGIC CLOWN - level 10 comedy skill

» VAMPIRE - level 15 vampire lore skill + have 5 vampire abilities

» WEREWOLF - level 10 fitness skill + have 3 werewolf abilities

» WISHING WELL - level 5 entrepreneur skill

EXTRAS:

» if you don't want the challenge to be as difficult, you can change the teenage tasks to be easier. for example reach level 5 instead of level 10 skill!

» once a teenager has completed all their tasks, they have to be aged up and be moved out immediately!

» if you want to do the challenge like me, you also must kill one of each of the occult types! (it doesn't have to be the baby parents)

[comicaurora]

do you have any tips on writing soft magic systems? I only ever see them talked about when people are comparing it to hard magic systems or criticising it, which is a shame because I love systems where magic is just in the background being unimportant, with implied rules that will never be explained

god I wrote up like eight paragraphs of explanation and I was really working out some cool stuff there and then the app glitched and destroyed it all and I'm so upset

Unfortunately this reduces to a previous problem, which is "figure out how Tolkien did it and then do that."

Middle Earth is laden with magic. Hobbits being good at hiding is magic. There's a random throne in the ruins at the end of Fellowship that lets whoever sits in it see literally the entire world, and that's hella magic. Aragorn radiates One True King magic and occasionally heals people with a touch. Galadriel's mirror lets people see any point in time, past or future. Gandalf knows several spells, but most of the time he's doing less granular stuff by making lights or small fires or going all Servant Of The Secret Fire Wielder Of The Flame Of Anor etc etc. Elves are inherently so magical that the words of their language are never forgotten by anyone who hears them, the laws of physics don't apply to them, their havens are magically pleasant and beautiful, and the planet itself is magical for them - flat for the elves, round for everybody else.

The benefit of a soft magic system is that it produces a feeling in the characters and audience that the world is vast, wonderful and unknowable. It's at its best when it can answer why, but not how.

Why did the old empire of men have a throne that let you see the entire world? That makes sense! It's hugely tactically advantageous! HOW did they get the damn thing? No idea, doesn't matter, they clearly made it work somehow because the throne's right there. Why does Galadriel's mirror give you limited, randomized omniscience? Because while it's a useful tool if you can use it, seeing the future is a dicey and weird game, and the future can change if someone knows it's coming. HOW does riverwater in a birdbath do that? No idea.

Soft magic systems start running into difficulties when the writer needs to decide how it can or can't solve a given situation, which is a very common issue in storytelling, a format almost entirely centered on problems and solutions. For hard magic systems with clear parameters on what is and isn't possible, this is comparatively quite easy. The wizard can't magic this problem away because-

They're out of spell slots :(

They don't know a specific spell that can do that specific thing

There's another caster nearby stopping them

The object that lets them do magic isn't working

They need to speak words/do gestures/use materials to cast, and they can't for whatever reason

There's something "antimagic" around stopping them

Etc etc. The possibilities are easy to run through, because the "how" is clearly defined, and can be negated into a "how NOT." If magic uses spell slots, stop the characters using it by taking those slots away. If magic needs a material focus, break or destroy it. This prevents magic from feeling like an unsatisfying "a wizard did it" fix for all difficulties because the wizards can only do specific things under specific circumstances.

Soft magic systems can contrive answers to this too, but it can be a bit tricky to justify, and if it's Too Convenient it can feel like the magic system really just does what the writer needs it to do. When asked "why can't magic solve this problem?" soft magic systems can answer in several ways:

Too tired, sorry :( magic is Taxing and stuff so the caster can tip over whenever's convenient

They're in a Bad Vibes zone that's hindering their ability to cast because soft magic can be impeded by soft problems like "somebody was very mean here once"

That specific magic is tied to a specific location, like a magical elf forest, and doesn't work outside of it because it's intrinsic to the place and can't be replicated

There's another magical being around and their kung-fu is more powerful

These explanations work, but that's conditional on the story not making the audience think the magic SHOULD work in this situation, and this is entirely based on what's been established in the story thus far. If the wizard has been able to fly up until now, parking the gang at the bottom of the cliff and saying "sorry, fly machine broke" feels contrived. But if we've only ever seen other, intrinsically magical beings fly, the audience is unlikely to expect that the party's humble wizard will suddenly bust out a set of feathery wings as a gift from baby jesus himself. On the writing side, it's really a matter of feeling it out and making sure nothing feels too jarring - if the character who's previously displayed a certain specific space of abilities suddenly does something completely unrelated (like going from clairvoyance to slinging fireballs, or from a healing touch to earthbending) that feels inconsistent AND it teaches the audience that this soft magic system is softer than they realized, and can then make it much harder for the writer to then convince them that this caster CAN'T spontaneously manifest a power or gimmick that'll save them. But if the magical characters or objects operate within a specific space - one character that specializes in fire, one object that specializes in remote viewing, one artifact that lets its holder control the winds - then the audience will expect and accept things that fit in those broad, soft categories without speculating too much on the underlying "how" of their mechanics.

But the temptation to explain "how" is very strong for writers, and soft magic systems especially have trouble with this, because soft magic systems start calcifying into fragmentary hard systems when they're forced to explain "how". It locks in a hard-defined axiom that can be logically extrapolated. Because a soft system is not DESIGNED for that kind of internal logic, doing that will usually cause axiomatic collisions as they contradict one another. If a hard system is a crisp, geometric crystalline structure where any tangent line drawn through it will intersect cleanly with other lines in very predictable ways, adding "how"s to a soft magic system is like drawing tangent lines through a bowl of pudding - you're gonna get a lot of intersections in awkward places.

To pull an example out of absolutely nowhere, if a soft system without clear rules establishes something like "this spell can be used to summon an object towards the caster, but it DOES NOT WORK on living things", there are a number of questions that can become relevant:

Who made that spell to have those limitations?

Why can't WE make spells that DON'T have that limitation?

How is the spell defining "living things"? Would it work on a plant or a skeleton or a piercing in someone's body?

Why did you let this character use it on a living thing anyway, joanne?

In a lot of soft systems that try to lock in hard spell parameters, "who made these spells" and "why can't WE make spells" become the first and most obvious axiomatic clash. If magic can be created to do what the caster wants, why and how does that work, and why can't WE do it? This forces the writer to come up with an explanation to solve the clash without letting the protagonists make up whatever spells they want, therefore solving all plot problems forever - sometimes something like "the inventors of spells were intrinsically magical beings, like elves or dragons or whatever, and thus we ordinary scrub mortals can't make new ones." That's a functional explanation, but it reduces to a previous problem again - that this hard-ish magic system was created by someone with access to an unstructured soft system.

In a soft magic system, the only answer to the question "how does this magical thing work" is "because magic." If any other explanation is needed, things rapidly collapse into hard lines and axioms and covering for edge cases. How can elves run on powder snow, shoot targets in the dark and see for hundreds of miles? They're magical. Does that mean they can fly like a balrog or sling fire like gandalf or control weather like saruman maybe can? No, of course not, that's not their kind of magic and we have no reason to expect it from them. They're just magic. Magic means a lot of different things, and in a soft system the audience has to operate based on vibes rather than rules.

This can be difficult to balance. For instance, Star Wars has a soft system in The Force, and if you squint, every single movie and show uses it differently. It's not super disruptive to the audience's immersion because it's never framed like a Hard System with Hard Rules and it almost never pulls something out of COMPLETELY nowhere, but if you look at what it does from movie to movie and then show to show, it expands from "influence the wills of the weak-minded", "seeing the future a little bit" and "force choking" to "general telekinesis" and "limited telepathy" to "FUCKING LIGHTNING FROM THE HANDS MAN" which is a hell of a twist the first time you see it, to some even more buckwild stuff in the two different animated Clone Wars (like Mace Windu fighting an entire droid army Samurai Jack style and using the force to pull every bolt out of one of them at once, or the planet with the living incarnations of the Light and Dark Side) and the explanation never goes further than "The Force is magic, it's in everything, people who are good at The Force can use it to do a buncha stuff." It's not consistent, it doesn't have rules, but the audience accepts that Force users can just kind of do stuff that fits the Vibes of the stuff it's already been shown it can do. And as SOON as they tried to say "The Force is strong in people who have LOTS OF MIDICHLORIANS" everybody hated it, because it gave us a "how" answer to a question nobody wanted to ask and it made this pervasive, wonderous, soft magic system that Surrounds And Binds Us Luminous Beings Are We into "we are space wizards because we contain an above-average number of bugs."

As a chronic worldbuilder myself, I absolutely understand the impulse to explain and overexplain and lock in the Hows and the Whys, but as far as I can figure it, soft magic systems live and die on the writer's ability to restrain themselves from saying "how." The answer is "magic." The rest is just writing the story in such a way that "magic" doesn't become plot-breaking.

[dungeon-strugglers]

✨New item!✨ Stone Mask Wondrous item, very rare (requires attunement)

This stone mask clings to your face without a strap or other method of attachment. While wearing the mask, you have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide in rocky terrain. Additionally, you can speak, read, and write Terran.

The mask has 4 charges and regains 1d4 expended charges daily at dawn. As an action while wearing the mask, you can expend 1 charge to cast the stoneskin spell from it without requiring material components. Additionally, when cast on yourself, the spell doesn’t require concentration.

Curse. If you drop to 0 hit points while wearing the mask, you must make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw. On a successful save, the mask falls from your face and your attunement to the mask ends. On a failed save, you drop to 1 hit point instead and the mask permanently affixes itself to your face. The mask gains the following properties in this state:

You can expend 1 charge to cast the spider climb spell from the mask without requiring material components, targeting only yourself.

Siphon Essence. As an action, you can force a creature you are touching to make a DC 16 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the creature takes 2d10 + your proficiency bonus necrotic damage. The creature's hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the necrotic damage taken, and you gain temporary hit points equal to that amount. The reduction lasts until the creature finishes a long rest. You can’t finish a long rest unless you have temporary hit points from this ability remaining. If you go 72 hours without siphoning a creature’s essence, you become petrified until freed by the greater restoration spell. The caster of this spell is instantly targeted by Siphon Essence and the spell has no effect if the caster succeeds on the saving throw.

Sunlight Hypersensitivity. You take 2d10 radiant damage when you start your turn in sunlight. While in sunlight, you have disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and you can’t regain hit points.

If the remove curse spell is cast on the mask, the caster must make a DC 16 check using their spellcasting ability modifier. On a success, the mask cracks and is destroyed. On a failure, the spell has no effect.

The masked figure stepped out from behind a massive boulder, murmuring something in a strange language. After a brief silence, the boulder shattered and swirled around the figure, adorning his skin with a suit of stony armor. The figure loomed before the party as he strode forward, like a mountain in the moonlight. - 🖌🎨 Like our work? Consider supporting us on Patreon and gain access to the hi-resolution art for over 200 magic items, printable item cards and card packs, beautiful creature art and stat blocks, and setting pdfs with narrative hooks and unique lore!🧙‍♂️ Thank you so much for your support! 💖

📜 Credit. Art and design by us: the Dungeon Strugglers. Please credit us if you repost elsewhere.

[vintagerpg]

Friends, our time with Mayfair’s Role Aids line of D&D supplements is rapidly coming to an end. It’s been a wild ride! There is some terrible crap and some works of sheer genius (many of the latter are criminally overlooked), and honestly a surprising trend of beating TSR to the punch. It was a good line, all in all, and I will miss it.

This is Arch Magic (1993), one of the very last Role Aids box sets. It is an ambitious product. That’s fucking Dave McKean doing the cover art, a clear acknowledgment of how the ’90s had changed the aesthetics of RPGs. The interiors are all Roger Raup.

There are lots of things inside, which divide into two piles. The first is source material that seeks to push D&D magic far past the standard power levels into the astounding. This box wants ultra high level spells (reaching to 15th level) to inspire awe and I think it mostly works, at least on a conceptual level. The sample spells are suitably muscular. Enslave the Sky, for instance, gives the caster control of the weather, the ability to fly and active surveillance of any creature out under the open sky. There are new wizardly abodes, rules for grimoires and incredibly powerful new artifacts (like the Singularity Engine, which can make anything).

Then there is an adventure that takes players on a whirlwind tour of some of the wildest places I’ve seen laid out for a D&D game this side of Planescape. And on the other side, too. The Macrodome, the City of Bone and the Gibbering Cave maps are all instant favorite RPG maps. Holy crap this stuff is good — a suitably grand swan song.

[bloodyshadow1]

I hate the people who say the final battle in Ragenarok was too easy. It wasn't easy, it was a hard battle, but the Bad Kids/Intrepid Heroes did everything right.

There were 8 combatants on the field at the start. 6 of the rat grinders, who had low health but the high level abilities of their classes, and 1 high level full PC, and 1 high level paladin/barbarian multiclass with resistance to everything, legendary actions and resistances, who could deal force damage.

On the Bad Kids side, they were level 14 who had just gone through a battle that exhausted a lot of resources, Fig and Fabian used a couple of spells and bardics and their limited amount of spells, Gorgug used a couple of his rages, Adaine used all of her portents and a bunch of spells, and between ice feast, healing, and removing levels of exhaustion, Kristen and K2 were love on spells. Riz was the only one who was looking pretty decent because he can use sneak attack all day, and even he used one of his 2 3rd level spells.

They were smart though, they Ice Feast was a broken ability for the final battle that Brennan didn't think through when he home brewed it for Ally. Not only did it block Porter's stun which would have been devastating, it made them immune to fire damage on a map with a lot of lava. He didn't think it through and the Intrepid Heroes used it to full effect. Still, it was good for them, but Ice Feast is still just a reskin of Heroes feast with better options but more detrimental effects.

As for the battle itself, the Bad Kids played it smart, it was only due to good initiative rolls that they managed to stomp the rat grinders so hard in the first round. If Oisin got a chance to go, if Mary Ann was outside the range of slow, things would have been different since they had low stats, but level 20 abilities and spells could have wreaked the Bad Kids. It wasn't an easy fight, but it was a fight with an intentional purpose, the Bad Kids are good at being adventurers while the Rat Grinders took the easy way out and showed the different between being powerful and being strong. They took out the primary caster first as you should do in big pc vs pc battles like this, they made sure to target groupings of enemies with AOEs and crowd control, they made sure to support each other and disrupt their enemies support. It wasn't easy, but they are good at dnd so they made it look easy.

I've seen people say, 'Brennan should have x' and no he shouldn't have. He created a hard combat encounter, but his players did everything right this season, a DM shouldn't punish or railroad their players just because their players are good at the game. No, the players stop the big bad from being released so they don't have to fight them, the DM shouldn't just make the Ancient God break through the bindings just because they planned for that encounter. The players won before it started and they should be rewarded for that.

'the rat grinders should have had a back up plan.' The Rat Grinders did have a backup plan. The initial plan to get Kipperlily fairly elected failed, and the back up plan, when that didn't work, the backup plan was to get Kristen expelled so she couldn't run. When that didn't work they sent the Bad Kids, their allies, and anyone who would vote for Kristen into the sky, flew them miles away, and sicced a horde of dragons and a goddess on them to kill them or at the very least get them out of their hair for 1 night so their plan could work. The Bad Kids beat their plans every time so no, there was no reason to have a 4th backup plan in the final battle. Brennan is a good DM, he didn't make the Rat Grinders and Porter's plan work because it was stopped before it started with the fake goddess name. He didn't punish his players for being good at the game and their strategy is great.

Things could have gone so differently with a slight change or a big change. If Fig didnt' decide to try and be a paladin on a whim, things would have been completely different, they wouldn't have had a connection with Ankarna. If Adaine didn't take Legend Lore they wouldn't have found out about Porter, maybe they would have still gotten the background on Ankarna, but not about his family revealing the Big Bad early on. If they chose to do something else with the power they got from the pride armor, they wouldnt' have the gem to free Bakur or save Lydia meaning no back up in the final fight. What if Gorgug rolled lower on one of his artificer tracks, they might not have passed the last stand. What if Fabian choose to keep pursing Ivy instead of Mazey, would have have been killed by the Rat Grinders or would Mazey have been compelled to their side if he didn't try and romance her. If Riz ran for president instead of Kristen would he have been less stressed or more inclined to focus on that instead of mystery his true love. What if Kristen didn't eat the eye of the Vulture king at the right time and catch Kipperlily about to murder Gavin forcing her to change her target to Buddy.

And it worked against them too. What If Fig didn't inspire Cassandra and knock her out leading her to become the Nightmare King again? What if Adaine didn't counterspell Grix's disintegrate on Ruben, he might have been a pile of dust that would have been hard to impossible to bring back to life disrupting the Rat Grinder's plan. What if Kristen decided to not get upset at Cassandra forcing the Goddess to recreate Kalina. What if Adaine didn't say Ankarna's name outloud the first time she saw it? What if Fig didn't make the deal to have a second chance sealing the Night Yorb? What if Riz and Gorgug did relationship tracks with their families making it harder to do their other tracks. What if Fabian cleaned his house even once and got rid of the pingpong balls that Oisin enchanted to screw them over. What if Riz had time to focus on mystery from the start instead of running Kristen's campaign for her and taking more stress.

There were so many times that things could have gone so much better or so much worse, but that's what the game is. There is no script that says the good guys have to keep losing until they win. It's decisions and dice, luck and wits that make the game. It was a very hard season, the battles were very hard, just because they made the right decisions to make things easier on themselves doesn't change that. It doesn't make the season bad. You're welcome to not like it, but nothing about it was easy and people shouldn't pretend like it was because they don't like it

[laurasimonsdaughter]

Do you have any recommendations and ideas about writing around healing magic and disability?  How magical healthcare would affect disability, and more importantly allowing disability to still exist in a realm where supernatural healing exist? 

This is one of my biggest grips with healing magic across most fantasy media, that’s it’s often used in a lackluster, simplistic, and often accidentally ableist fashion. Completely invalidating disability by having it cure every ailment imaginable with just the wave of a wand. 

It's a complex concept to translate into fantasy! And a rather sensitive topic at that. As someone who suffers from chronic pain, the idea that it could be fixed with magic is sometimes a really nice fantasy. But a story with a character that lives with chronic pain the way I have to live with it, will probably resonate more strongly with me.

As to my personal opinion on writing about magical healing (and how it effects illness and disability), I think you have to weigh several factors as a writer:

What kind of world is this? In some fantasy settings death and illness are simply not relevant, so pain and disability might not feature either. But any world more resembling our own most likely would have to reckon with it. And if that world has healing magic:

Is it medical magic, based on research and knowledge? If so, it is highly unlikely that every single ailment and condition is perfectly understood and can be counteracted with magic.

Is it intentional magic, based on "restoring to health"? If so, who defines "health"? The caster of the magic, the recipient of the healing? I was born with overly flexible ligaments. They cause me pain, but I'm sure my body considers the way that they are the way that they should be. Even if I was given infinite magical energy to heal myself, my body probably wouldn't know how, while it would know how to use that energy to fix up a wound it was already working on.

Can the healing magic be used/accessed by anyone at any time? Even if there is a fantastic free magical health care system in place, unless every individual can do flawless healing magic, even on themselves, the answer is probably "no". And if so, that probably has consequences for how well something can be healed.

Personally, if you're writing in a world with loads of magical solutions, the best question to ask - after you have figured out what kind of healing magic you want - is: "what would my character want?"

Someone who has always worn glasses (like me), might feel very strange getting rid of them.

Someone who was born deaf, could have no desire whatsoever to becoming hearing.

Someone who was born with three fingers on one hand, could have no desire to change that.

And if we're getting grim: someone who lost an arm while defeating the chimera who killed their friend, might have strong emotional convictions as to why they wouldn't want that arm magically restored to them, even if it was possible.

There are plenty of reasons, either from a worldbuilding or a characterisation standpoint, for a fantasy world to include disability. And if it is not just a magical, but also a supernatural world, the concept of "disability" will likely be very different. When humans live among other species, who have entirely different bodies and abilities, it makes very little sense that the overall society's opinion on what is "normal" and "expected" from a body, wouldn't change.

But none of that means that you cannot give disabled characters cool magical solutions!

Wheelchairs could glide, hover, or fly instead of rolling.

Glasses could be enchanted to also give the wearer a different eye colour, just for fun.

Wrist braces could shift around the wearer's arm/hand depending on where they need the most support (and would never ever chafe or pinch).

Language barrier's between people who do not speak/hear the same (sign) language, could be solved with magic monocles, enchanted ear pieces, or a service creature that is able to translate perching on the person's shoulder.

Prosthetic limbs could be engraved with runes or inlaid with magical materials that make them extra effective for channeling magic or performing certain spells.

To me, those kinds of things would make a world far more fun and fantastical than a hand-waving "magic "fixes" everything."

[dailyadventureprompts]

Homebrew Mechanic: Fixing D&D’s Gameplay Loop with Item Degradation

Normally I have snappy titles for these, but in this case I wanted to be super upfront with what I was getting you all into. 

Some people are not going to like the idea of introducing item degradation into the game, and they’re ABSOLUTELY right to be hesitant. Just about every attempt I’ve seen (includig both RAW versions from previous editions, examples from videogames, and those I’ve put together myself in the past) have been horribly clunky exercises in beancounting that only ever existed to needlessly slow down gameplay for the sake of joyless realism. 

I’ve come at it from another angle however, but to explain we’re going to need to get into some game design talk. 

The basic gameplay loop of D&D is supposed to be: 

Seeking adventure leads you to face challenges

Overcoming challenges leads you to rewards

Rewards Help you get stronger 

Getting stronger allows you to seek tougher adventures

After a while this system starts to break down specifically with regards to gold as a method of reward. Even if you’re the smart sort of DM who flouts the rules and gives their party access to a magic item shop, there’s an increasingly limited number of things to spend gold on, leading to parties acquiring sizable hordes of riches early on in their adventuring career, completely eliminating the desire to accept quests that pay out in gold in one form or another. This is a pretty significant flaw because adventures that centre around acquisition of riches ( treasure hunts, bounty missions, busywork for rich patrons that will inevitably betray you) are foundational to storytelling within the game, especially early on in a campaign before the party has gotten emotionally invested.  Most advice you can find online attempting  to solve this problem tends to dissolve down to “let them pour money into a home base”,  but that can only really happen once per campaign as a party is unlikely to want more than one secret clubhouse. 

TLDR:  What I propose is the implantation of a lightweight system that forces the party to periodically drop small amounts of wealth into maintaining their weapons/armour/foci. The players will be motivated to seek out gold in order to keep using their best stuff,  giving value to treasure drops that previously lacked it.  Not only does this system act as an insulation against powercreep at higher levels, it also encourages a party to engage with the world as they seek out workshops and crafters capable of repairing their gear. 

The System: 

Weapons, armour, shields, and caster foci (staves, holy symbols etc) can accumulate “ticks” of damage, represented by a dot or X drawn next to their item entry on the character sheet. Because you get better at handling your gear as you level up, an item that exceeds a total number of ticks equal to its bearer’s proficiency bonus breaks, and is considered unusable until it is repaired. 

Weapons and Foci gain a tick of damage when you roll a natural 1 on an attack made with them, or if they are specifically targeted by an enemy’s attack.

Armour and shields gain a tick of damage when you roll a nat 1 on a saving throw or when an enemy beats your ac by 5 or more. A character equipped with both can decide which of the two items receives the tick

Creatures with the “siege” (or any “does double damage to objects” ability) deal an extra tick when attacking gear. 

A character with a crafting proficiency  and access to tools can repair a number of ticks of damage equal to their proficiency on a four hour work period. This rate is doubled if they have access to a properly equipped workshop.  A character with access to the mending cantrip can repair ticks on any kind of item, but is limited to their proficiency bonus per work period.  

Having an item repaired by an NPC crafter removes all ticks, but costs vary depending on the rarity of the item:    5g for a mundane item, 10g for a common item, 50g for uncommon, 250 for a rare, 1250 for a very rare, 6250 for a legendary.  The DM decides the limit on what each crafter can repair, as it’s likely small towns have access to artisans of only common or uncommon skill, requiring the party to venture to new lands or even across planes if they wish to repair end game gear.

As you can see, degradation in this system is easy to keep track of and quite gradual, leading players into a position where they can ignore obvious damage to their kit for the sake of saving their now precious gold.  It likewise encourages them to seek out NPC crafters (and potential questhooks) for skills they do not possess, and encourages the use of secondary weapons either as backups or to save the more potent items in the arsenal for a real challenge. 

Consumables

Everyone knows the old joke about players hoarding consumables from the first adventure past the final bossfight, it transcends genre and platform, and speaks to a nature of loss aversion within our shared humanity.  However, giving players items they’re never going to use amounts to wasted time, resources, and potential when looking at things from a game design perspective, so lets work on fixing that. 

My inspiration came from witcher 3, which encourages players to make frequent use of consumables by refreshing them whenever the character had downtime. The darksouls series has a similar feature with the signature estus flask, which provides a limited number of heals before it must be refreshed at one of the game’s checkpoints.  When the designers removed the risk of permanent loss and the anxiety it creatures, players were able to think tactically about the use of their consumables confident in the knowledge that any mistakes were just a resupply away from being fixed.  

My proposal is that while the party is in town they can refill the majority of their consumable items for a small per item fee. Just like with gear degradation, this encourages them to seek out crafters and do quests for the hope of discounts, while at the same time encouraging them to explore new realms in the hope of discovering higher level artisans. 

The price for refills is set at: 5g for common, 25g for an uncommon, 125g for a rare, 625g for a very rare, 3125g for  legendary.  I encourage my own players to keep a  “shopping list” in their inventory with prices tabulated so they can hand out a lump sum of gold and have their kit entirely refreshed. 

Characters with a relevant skill and access to their tools can refill a number of items equal to their proficiency bonus during a four hour work period. With access to a proper workshop, this rate doubles.   ( At last, proficiency with brewers supplies, carpenters tools etc become useful) 

I encourage you as a DM to check out this potion flasks system, which I’ve found adds a delicious factor of uncertainty back into the mix.  Attached is also my super lightweight rules for tracking gear and supplies, which I absolutely refuse to shut up about.

Artist

[entelodante]

The Atlantic's immune system yay!! BIG info dump below!

Basically when the blood ocean was created it was of course a conversion of all water within the Atlantic to living human blood. The blood of the caster to be exact. This came with the full mix of blood, not just the blood cells themselves. Plasma, immune cells, and even a small percentage of stem cells. For a short time after its revision, a vial of blood from the Atlantic would be indistinguishable from blood drawn from an average person. However while most of it DID decay and rot away it was eventually replaced! For the sanguine sea has a will to live all on its own and it will do what it has to to keep itself alive. Let's just say that magic radiation gave it a boost to adapt before it all would have just turned to sludge!

Also think of this as like a part one as it is not ALL of the bits and bobs.

The Main Gist

The immune system of the Atlantic has undergone slight changes from what goes on within the human body. While in the early days of the ocean, the cells within gorged and swarmed the masses of dead sea life, nowadays all that old death has long since sunk to the anoxic depths. Only the few top meters of blood hold onto the oxygen that can be grabbed directly from the air. This topmost layer is the bastion that these fellas defend and replenish, large colonies working in sync to make sure fresh blood is always around. Thus they are responsible for the bounty of the blood sea, as much as they try to eliminate it. Anything that has different DNA than the blood sea gets a not so warm welcome from it.

1. Shards

These are the scouts of the system, using two fins they meander through the blood at pretty reasonable speeds. The only senses the colonies have reacquired are those of scent and touch, the former for searching out anything strange in the blood column and the latter for when they bump into it. These guys are ill prepared to fight aside from a few acidic tendrils, but once detecting a foreign body they’ll turn tail and rush back to their main colonial swarm. If the poor animal they found out is lucky, it will have time to turn and flee before the cavalry arrives.

2. Marrow Worms

These are not the cavalry, in fact if you were to even poke these guys they are more likely to disintegrate into a plume of sadness. But do not think them worthless for their pitiful offense, for these are SUPPORTIVE WORMS! Being that the colony's individuals are derived from former immune cells, they never regained the ability to self replicate. If they were injured or simply degraded due to age, they could never repair or regenerate the cells they lost within their bodies. Luckily the marrow worm is here to save the day!

Let's say a shard is wounded, its fin torn from its body, whilst it is in no danger of bleeding out, it is in danger of becoming useless to the sea. The solution is that when the immune bodies of the sea take damage, they release a powerful chemical signal to call for aid. This draws in the marrow worms who will swarm the individual and spread their bodies over them like a hot slice of butter. The marrow worms function as mobile stem cells, sacrificing their own bodies to grow into the parts needed for the other members of the colony. Most will have every part of their body replaced throughout their lifetime. And there is a philosophical idea in there somewhere but it's time to get onto the stabby members of this band!

3. Tacks

These guys tend to stay by the main hubs of the colony, defending them from any threats that manage to get by. However they are quite eager to zip off through the blood once called upon by a scouting Shard. Their main weapon is a stabbing keratinized spike through which they inject a powerful mix of digestive enzymes. These same enzymes are used within the trailing tendrils they use to ensnare smaller intruders. With sheer force of numbers they attempt to use this acid to kill any animals they find, though luckily they are lacking in stamina so can be outrun if spotted early enough.

4. Hubs

These function as the housing for the most precious members of the colony, the marrowcores. They provide coverage for these most delicate structures as well as pumping fresh oxygen filled blood from the surface over the tendrils of marrow. Slowly swimming through the ocean they are eternally accompanied by huge swarms of supplementary organisms that feed and defend them at all costs. And with good reason! The hubs allow for the birth of new marrow worms and they are shepherded around as needed through the sea.

5. The Marrowcores

These are the true center of the ocean. Long spindled frames of bone from which long strands of marrow grow and waft. These feathered segments can break off and become new marrow worms, but the main job of these cores is to mass produce blood on a nigh unimaginable scale. So proficient are they, that that topmost layer of the ocean can be completely replaced every two months. Pretty important piece, but these individuals are the strangest of the whole lot, continuously losing and replacing parts yet holding onto some vague memory amongst themselves. Weird.

And that’s the first go of it! I hope ya like these fun lil guys!

[puckpocketed]

Trying to absorb everything there is to know about ice hockey within the shortest amount of time possible really does strange things to a person. You come up against questions such as what do defensemen even do aside from skate backwards and do tummy time to protect their goalie? (Broadcasts aren’t the most informative) What the hell makes defensemen effective? What do the casters mean when they say “gap”? What are defensive details?

I love watching games back, I love trying to understand the game. I love hockey <3 But sometimes it’s nice to have help, and sometimes my favourite writers/podcasters collaborate!!

Here is part 1/3 of a podcast mini-series about defending, putting it here so I can have a copy of it in case it ever gets taken down + wanted to share with everyone some of my findings! (All episodes are available if anyone just wants to listen to them!) Transcript + edits done by me, all mistakes are mine.

Published 6th November 2024, Hockey IQ Podcast: Modern Defensemen (with Will Scouch) Ep #1 - by Hockey's Arsenal, hosted by Greg Revak (apple / spotify / youtube / bonus substack link)

part 2

[START Transcript]

Greg Revak: On the Hockey IQ Podcast today, we open up a new segment: we’re bringing back our favourite Will Scouch. If you’re on the Hockey IQ Newsletter you know his work by now.

Will, good morning. Earlier than most of us probably normally get up, but it’s a good day.

Will Scouch: Yeah, Greg, thanks for having me, it’s a lot of fun. Me and Greg go way back. We’re boys from years ago and I’m excited to hop on the show. I’m a keen listener, keen reader. 

[They exchange pleasantries]

GR: Beautiful. Well, today we’re gonna talk about three concepts. We’re gonna break it into three spots though, so everyone’s gotta come back next week and the week after that.

We’re gonna talk about defensemen, because everyone knows they’re important but how do we actually play the position well?

WS: Yeah, I mean, it’s a position that’s still, to me, being explored; both by, I’d say youth and junior coaches and pro coaches alike. There’s a lot of different ways that you can do it.

I mean, I watch a lot of hockey from around the world, all kinds of different levels. I’ve watched guys develop from 15 to 24 at this point, and just seeing how their games evolve and everything, and how effective various versions of this position is. And I think it’s a very interesting area that’s still being explored in a lot of really interesting ways, for sure.

GR: Yeah, I think back to David Savard; he comes out of the [QMJHL] as this high-flying offensive defenseman, and if we just forgot about the rest of his career and you just saw him today as this great shutdown, defense-first player, you’d be absolutely shocked.

I mean, you think about Rasmus Dahlin — kid didn’t even play full time defenseman until his actual draft year, he was still playing forward a ton. There’s so much to be explored here.

I feel like [to get a lot of] — for you NHL fans — to get a lot of value in the later rounds out of your defensemen, take those offensive players first, and we can find a lot of hidden gems later.

WS: Well, yeah. I mean, actually, I’ve said this a few times but your listeners probably don’t know, but I did a presentation during the pandemic at the Ottawa Hockey Analytics Conference about this topic exactly; how, when you look at the numbers and the defensive value of players in the NHL, I found that there were just as many in the top 50 defensive value of players in the NHL, there were just as many undrafted players as there were second round picks, second and third round picks combined.

So the draft isn’t really a great historical gauge on defensive ability. Offense is a different story from defensive players, which we could probably get into a little bit.

But I find, personally, that evaluating defensemen and projecting defense to the NHL is still really spotty and questionable. And I don’t know, in my line of work, watching a lot of defensemen, a lot of the ones who I think are some of the better defenders kind of go a little unheralded, because a lot of the time you don’t need to be particularly noticeable to be a good defenseman, but scouts are always looking for the noticeable guys.

So it’s a very interesting world and it’s a very interesting thing to pick through, but there’s definitely a lot of case studies you could dig into, and a lot of players you could look at as cases of, “Oh yeah, nobody was really paying a whole lot of attention to them!” or maybe people were thinking about them the wrong way. But if you think about things a little bit outside the box, you might be able to see something really interesting there.

GR: Yeah, so let's dive into why that may be. Classic example would be Lane Hutson, so maybe we'll pick on him a little bit, but I definitely want to talk about Rasmus Ristolainen, because he is an interesting case study that we wrote about on the newsletter.

So where I want to start with this is just modern day defending. How are defensemen defending today versus old times? A lot of times it was the big hit, separate the head from body. The puck’s somewhere, but let's separate the head from the body, and we’ll worry about the puck later — that is going bye-bye.

Every coach I talk to now, they prefer having the puck rather than having a head on a stake. So for me, it comes back to this old saying of, “position before possession.” We're gaining body positioning, we're not so much separating head from body, but puck from player.

All right, so we've got position before possession. It's super valuable in gaining the space that you need to have first whack in a puck or put the puck where you want it, or just push it to a teammate. Just having the idea of owning space and there's no better league at this and no league that values it more than the NHL. If you don't do this well in the NHL, sooner or later, you're going to find yourself out of a job making a heck of a lot less money in a league that probably no one really cares that much about. You want to be in the show, the big lights: you have to value this more than anything.

And this is actually the one thing that I noticed about Hunter McDonald. He's in the Flyers�� system now — he was an overager, but I was like, “This guy is unbelievable!” He’s a huge frame, you can’t miss him out there. He would just get the positioning before possession, and I was like, “Okay, that’s interesting, let me watch him further.”

And I feel like he’s going to be one of those bottom of the lineup guys who, unlikely, made it out of being an overager in the [United States Hockey League], going to college for a few years, but has those little details of a defenseman that you see in modern day play, which is positioning overall, which is an NHL trait to the nth degree.

WS: No, I know. I think I would definitely agree. Those are the players that are always really, really fascinating to me because you look at a guy like Hunter McDonald and the production just isn't amazing. But it doesn't — to me, when you look at defensemen, it almost doesn't really matter. That's kind of a very secondary-slash-bonus style of thing that comes with a player.

I see a lot of defenders every year and it seems like a thing where a lot of them, maybe at the lower levels, there is a little bit more of that “separate the head from the body”-type of player. And I think there are NHL scouts who still gravitate towards those guys but, at the end of the day when it all comes out in the wash, it's a lot of the time the guys that are kind of, I hate to say ”boring”, but just very effective, and just they're always in a good position.

The guy I always reference as a young defenseman who, I think, is just a really, really high-end defensive guy is Kaiden Guhle in Montreal. We're going to talk a little bit about Lane Hutson in a second, but Kaiden Guhle is a guy who, when he was in the junior level, just played such a great, balanced style of defense.

He was a good skater, but he had really good length. He was a guy who didn't just lay the body every single time, but he certainly could if he needed to. It was about his lateral mobility, it was about tracking rushes, keeping inside the dot lines, and preventing chances from inside and leading with his stick, but then finishing with the body if he had the opportunity or the need to do so. And he seemed to have a really good read of just how to do his job really, really well.

And so that's been a lesson for me for sure. He was a really interesting case study a few years ago, and he's become a pretty solid NHL defenseman. I mean, on a team this year that’s kind of struggling defensively I think he’s been one of the brighter spots on that defense group there, [he’s] doing a pretty good job at least suppressing chances against.

GR: I don’t watch as much as you do, prospects, but Guhle I did catch. For me, the play style wasn’t very good. He had elements of it, you could see the flashes, but he was just really brash. His decision making and his reads were quite poor. But the tools were there, and it was like, “Can he adjust?” Which I think he’s done a phenomenal job [of], and I think Montreal is probably the perfect place for him to develop a lot of that.

So I think you're spot on like, “Okay, how does he actually apply?“ Having assets is one thing, having the tools is one thing, but how do we properly apply those assets, those tools that you have in a good way? So I think another piece, for me, is if you do have the speed, is just making sure that you're controlling speed and then you're also keeping small gaps.

And just knowing with my high school team that no one knows what a gap is, let's define that real quick, which is: the difference in space between the forwards and the defensemen. So the space in between, “How much space are you [allowing]?” in hockey term slang. It's underneath you versus on the other side, which is above you or behind you. So, “How much space, what's that gap between D and O?”

(Editor’s note: He says O instead of F here, I assume because the person attacking isn’t always a forward. As in, “How much space between the defenseman and offenceman?”)

So you got the speed, shrink that gap as much as possible. Don't give them the space to operate or work in, or, I even call it the space to think, which [it often becomes] for forwards, especially unsophisticated ones.

WS: Yeah, I mean, that's really the bread and butter of a lot of the position. It's so much of this, like you said, gap control. I actually just did a bit of video work for a really high end player, [an] NHL draft pick playing in Sweden this year, who is producing really well.

But in terms of the defending side of the game, he's not the most incredible skater you've ever seen, he's not the biggest guy in the world. And a big thing that I noticed, that even at the professional level that was kind of a bit of a work in progress, was that gap management. Especially because the footwork wasn't amazing, [he was] keeping his feet a little too stationary, gliding backwards and sort of allowing that gap.

And when you watch the NHL that's the point of the whole exercise, watching the NHL and how they play. Forwards are fast and they're smart, largely. The guys who can score are the guys who know how to get through soft defensive pressure, the guys who know how to find lanes and cross up defensemen, and if you don't have the footwork or the mobility or the reach or all of it — all of the above — to track all that and manage it, then it's going to be a lot tougher to do your job.

But the interesting thing, though, is that there's a lot of different ways that you can get defensive jobs done. That's always been very interesting to me; seeing how different players approach the position in different ways and seeing the efficacy of that come out in the wash, and how their offense balances with their defensive ability. It's a very interesting world to dig into, for sure.

GR: Yeah, I think you've got a rabbit hole there. You just kind of opened up around defensive skating. What do clean feet look like? What does defensive posture look like, that actually allows you to have that kind of mobility?

So we'll leave that for another day. If anyone wants to go check it out on the Hockey IQ Newsletter, they can do so. Just look up defenseman skating development. We've got two good pieces there talking about building and maintaining defensive posture and keeping clean feet, which — actually massive base for anyone.

It allows you to have the proper gap that allows you to kill plays early, and ultimately, it's a lot about just controlling speed. You don't want McDavid building up to full speed. You don't want MacKinnon building up to full speed. You don't want anyone coming up to you at full speed. It's very hard to maintain that kind of speed going backwards [that we] even generate in the first place. 

How do you kill it early? How do you get a hand on someone? Or, my favorite example is just proper pivoting. A guy dumps a puck on you, how are you going back? What does that pivot look like?

I'll let you open that up because at the NHL it's almost too good, where you can't see what a bad example looks like, but you can see it's everywhere.

WS: Yeah, I mean, it's a make or break skill in the NHL. It's where a lot of defensemen die. I mean, it's a cliche at this point to talk about pucks in deep, to talk about [getting] pucks deep in the offensive zone, get below the goal line, dump and chase. People make fun of dump-and-chase kind of stuff. But if your team is built to do it, you can do it.

You can take advantage of defensemen in the NHL who just don't have the speed or the agility or the skating ability that some of your forwards might have. It is a lot easier to skate forwards than it is to skate backwards. That's just, you know, anecdotal, but also pretty factual — you're naturally going forwards.

I think an interesting trend that you're seeing a little bit more of [is] what they would call ‘scooting’. You're the coach; I don't know if that's exactly what the terminology would be, but [it’s getting] your defensemen in the neutral zone, kind of pinching a little bit more and having them skate forwards, tracking play towards the boards.

So it's not necessarily that they're doing their backwards crossovers, it's not necessarily that they're entirely skating backwards, but you see guys who are really talented skaters or do have a lot of quickness driving play to the boards in a more aggressive way than having the play in front of them. It's about them sort of tracking that play laterally, which is an interesting thing I think you're seeing more of now.

I think there are definitely coaches and systems that love to play their defensemen more that way, and the weak side defense can sort of fill between the dot lines for them and sort of leave the weaker side of the ice a little bit more open. That's kind of what I mean. There's a lot of different ways to achieve these kinds of goals, and I think you're seeing a lot of different things popping up to adapt to this. 

In situations where you have a dump and chase or something like that, or just getting pucks in deep or whatever you say, when you have a defenseman who has trouble with their footwork and turning around… Trust me, I'm a defenseman, when I play hockey, I strap on the skates — I play defense myself and that's where I fall apart, when I do fall apart. Which is often. But definitely, when play turns around and I’ve got to change directions or change my area of flow, it can be tricky. And in the NHL, I can only imagine how tricky it can be there. 

GR: Yeah. I mean, a good pivot you're looking at three steps total, like boom-boom-bam and you're there. You watch an amateur game and it could be like five, six, seven, eight chops before [they] finally get going and [it’s] looking like a proper forward stride again. [Or just] getting into a good defensive posture and positioning. It's total scramble mode.

A big one for me, too, is just the direction that you pivot. Do you wait for that offensive player to commit to their lane? It's just a great defensive habit in general, letting the offenceman make the first move. If you're making the first move, you're the one showing your cards. It's kind of like showing your cards first in Poker.

Let them make the decision and then you can pivot into them. Now you can get that position before possession, or at least get a chip on them, slow them down. You can either make it easier for yourself or your partner. So one, there's the clean footwork on the pivot, and two is making sure that we're controlling the speed and we're pivoting properly in the direction that we want to pivot.

There's a ton of times where I see, especially the lower levels, players coming up, they're in a bad spot, they're skating forward, defenseman skating backwards and they just chip it off the boards. And the defenseman is like a dog just following the puck and it ends up in the middle of the ice where the forward actually went. Again, the NHL is the best at this so it's really hard to see bad examples of pivoting into and controlling the space of the opponent.

WS: Yeah. I do a lot of work outside the NHL, and the biggest thing I notice is not necessarily the number of chops it takes, but the amount of time. You can see guys taking two seconds, maybe more, to get themselves turned around, tracking pucks below the goal line.

To me hockey is a game of milliseconds a lot of the time, right? I was working with someone years ago who really shared the idea with me that, in the NHL, generally goals are not scored if you have the puck on your stick for more than either half a second or a second.

I can't remember off the top of my head, but it's so fast in terms of; when you score goals in the NHL, it's when you touch the puck for a very short amount of time in the offensive zone and get a puck on net. And so, if you have guys who take too long — and “too long” might not be very long… If the difference is relatively short at the time you're making those pivots or those changes, but the [opponent has] got a lot more speed than you and you're [taking more] time to then start generating that speed to match the opponent, you're in trouble.

And in my opinion, I think that you want your defensemen to be more assertive. I always fall back on the strategy of; make them make a decision, make them commit. That might imply that you do the committing first, but that's where the importance of footwork and tactics come into question. 

You have to have strong support, whether it's from backchecking forwards or your partner. You want to be able to adapt to quick players who might fake one way, go another, and be able to use your stick or use your feet or both to be a factor regardless of what happens. 

It's very interesting to watch defensemen play. I find it really, really interesting to see the different approaches of different players and especially how they evolve and get into the NHL.

But yeah, I mean, [it’s so pivotal], the skating ability; defensemen who can skate, it unlocks so many doors for their career. If you're an elite level skating defenseman, it just unlocks so many doors that interest me. If you're not, and if that's not a strength of your game, then it can be a big struggle, especially against faster opponents. Even if you're big and physical and pretty good throwing the body or whatever, there's a lot more of the game in the NHL these days. Very, very interesting stuff. 

GR: I think that's actually the perfect segue into someone who, early in his career, threw the body too much and sold out too much on plays that he probably shouldn't: Rasmus Ristolainen.

Great case study, great case study from when [John Tortorella] started working with him to where he is now. Will, I'll send in the link here from the Hockey IQ newsletter so we can track a little bit better with each other. 

I found him to be a fascinating player. High draft pick, 8th overall in 2013. Really pretty, smooth skating, big body — has all of the tools that you would traditionally say, “Yep, that checks [out].” And then you looked at his stat profile and it was just abysmal. His micro stats were terrible. I think the only thing he was good at was D-Zone Retrievals, which, being able to take contact, it was kind of an easy thing for him.

WS: Yeah. I remember watching Ristolainen when he was in junior hockey, because that was the earliest years of me being kind of curious about that side of the game, and I did not really recall that being a premier area of his game.

I remember him being big, but pretty mobile, and has some skill to play around with. He did have a bit of a physical edge to him, but it feels like it was that tail end of an era in the NHL where those big, mean, physical guys were kind of in vogue, and people were kind of curious and needing guys like that. And I guess that's what Buffalo drafted him to be.

I remember being very surprised that he was in the NHL the year he was drafted. It just did not look like it was really working out there. And Buffalo just seems to have been not a great fit for him, they kind of turned him into something that he wasn't, but I do think that he's turned into some sort of serviceable defenseman.

But he, to me, is a great example of one that I always look back on and go, “Man, what if?” Like, what if things went a little bit differently for him? Because there was good stuff there, it's just I feel like the development was focused in the wrong areas.

To me, 65% of the work [is] scouting, and developing — the easy part is drafting good players, the hard part is developing them and bringing them along into being good NHL players.

So to me, if you can find the most amount of things that get in the way of that process being easy, then you're doing a really good job. And with Ristolainen, I feel like in his case they inserted more things to make that journey more difficult and sort of turned him into something that he wasn't, which is always a scary thing for me to think about doing to a player.

But it's not over for him, obviously. He figured it out. Obviously, Tortorella found something for him to do, and he has shown a little bit better. But yeah, he's always been a what-if guy for me.

GR: I always liked how Tortorella, after the 2022-2023 season, was doing his media stuff and he was like “Yeah, he's our most improved player.” You're a guy who's getting paid big bucks — I think he was making five million plus that year, still is, probably — and even him, he was like, “I was just bad the first half. And then around Christmas break, I started getting going. The second half was much better.”

Basically, the first half, they were just trying to rebuild his defensive game, and this is true for anything. Zach Benson's another good example of this. If you can't play defense in the NHL, you're going to be out quick. Benson can play defense despite being — I think they list them at five foot 10, but there's no way.

WS: Yeah, no, no. I know. He's a little guy, but he's another great example of a player where I, in my work, I do not care how big you are. I just care about how you play. Even in the NHL. And I feel like Benson's a really, really good example of that; a guy who, just forechecking alone is a really… The easiest way to defend is if he can cause turnovers in the opposing team's offensive zone, a guy like Zach Benson does that extremely well.

And if he needs to track guys through the neutral zone and backcheck, he'll do it, and he does it really well, and he does it at a speed that I found to be projectable to the NHL. And again, that's another one where I was a little surprised to see him in the NHL so fast, but he didn't really look out of place there.

He's had a bit of a slow start this season, but just a really, really talented player, and one where you kind of do look at and go, “Yeah, these smaller guys can definitely defend.” They just — the expectations are a little bit higher, and maybe for good reason, but he checks all the boxes for sure.

GR: Yeah. So for Rasmus (Ristolainen), there's two big things that, when I dug into this, that Torts was working at. At this point, I was so intrigued [that] I was tracking every single time Torts spoke and Rasmus spoke to the media. So I was like, “I wonder what they're actually doing?” Which, Torts can be tight-lipped, but he gives it away if you follow long enough.

The big one was just inside, like too much, he was finding himself, Rasmus was finding himself on the outside. So whether that be outside the dots, outside on bad ice, for whatever reason, or just finding yourself outside, like losing defensive side positioning to the offensive player.

If you finish contact, but now you're on the wall and your player's got to step to the net, that's trouble. There's a great, great clip the other night featuring, I think it was (Aliaksei) Protas [who] ended up scoring the goal and K’Andre Miller of the New York Islanders. So Caps — Rangers, not Islanders — Rangers… Where [Miller] went in soft, didn't really take positioning, got beat back to net, and Protas just put out a stick and just tapped it in, Igor Shesterkin never had a chance.

A similar idea of; okay, good, maybe you got some contact, you tried to make the stop, but you still need to maintain defensive side positioning. You still need to finish on the inside. So if you're doing contact, you can't overreach.

You just can't do that. You have to stay in good positioning.

And the second piece was just, finishing with contact to get stops, like stopping movement. Offensive play is a lot about movement, and defensive play is about stopping movement, AKA getting stops. So he would maybe make a play, or get a poke check, but the puck was still moving and could be easily on the other team's stick. 

So how do you make sure you're always staying in good positioning? Staying on the inside, as Torts put it. Or the other piece, which is getting stops, or finishing with contact — but smartly, not chasing the contact for contact’s sake? Being tactful in your play.

I feel like Risto really just learned how to play defense smartly. He was actually thinking and being intentional about what he was doing, rather than like, “I see a puck and a player, I'm going to go end that!” And then, boom, in the big scheme of things, it’s a net negative. Even though at the moment, it may have, especially to him — otherwise he wouldn't make the play — seemed like a positive, really it was a negative for the team.

WS: Well, that's the interesting thing too, going back to talking about junior players and the context in the draft and how defensive players might go a little bit underreported or undervalued in a sense.

I see this all the time, especially with North American defensemen, especially with Canadian ones, but there are definitely players who everybody talks about how good they are defensively, everybody talks about how solid they are. They're big, they're physical, they're mean, blah, blah, blah. But then when you watch things in detail, it's this sort of Ristolainen-style thing. You're talking about K’Andre Miller where it's like, they're along the boards, they're doing the thing along the boards, but they're losing.

They're allowing guys to get low on them, get through them, and even in the junior level, right? What good is it if you're trying to pin a guy against the boards and they give you a little shove, crouch down a little bit, chip the puck three feet out from you, you don't adapt to that, they get three feet of space on you, throw it out in front of the net, and boom, you got yourself a scoring chance, right? I see that all the time.

It's the focus on the body and not focus on the turnover, turning that possession back over, that really seems to be a tough lesson for a lot of defensemen to get over. I find that a lot of defensemen from the age of 18 to 23, in the grand scheme of things, their style of play doesn't drastically shift all that often.

And so, when I see things like that happening, I'm going, okay, I gotta either hope that this guy puts in the time in the gym and becomes, just, a strength nut, and pins that guy to the boards so they can't do anything, or they figure out a way to get into those situations, take a step back, chip at the puck. Really battle for the puck rather than focus on the guy.

Because I've seen it so many times with guys who are bigger and more physical, they apply it in a way where I feel like coaches will go, “Wow, look at you go, you're playing hard, you're playing the thing!” But then they escape, this opponent might escape, and create a little bit of space for themselves. And again, this is a game of inches, it's a game of a couple of feet, and every inch matters.

So in some cases, yeah, you get those situations where guys like Ristolainen, yeah, you're doing the thing, people clip the hits, people clip the physical play, but then five seconds later, someone's got some space on you and they generate a scoring chance. And so what do you really value, right? Personally, fewer scoring chances would be ideal.

GR: I love it. Last piece to wrap this up, because I think it'll go well into our next piece, which is point play. Shorting the zone.

I was able to find some phenomenal clips and do some photos of this for the newsletter. But the concept of; if you're watching a game in the NHL, if you can see all five of the people trying to break the puck out, low in the zone… A lot of it, you think about the NHL today, is like a swarm. We're going to do close support. I'm going to try to crowd the puck out.

A good way to respond to that is to short the zone, which basically means your defensemen, instead of hanging out at the blue line, are going to go into the offensive zone. And they're going to start with small gaps, they're going to be [at the] top of the circles, if not a little bit lower.

Tortorella is another big fan of this, so you can see it with the Flyers a lot, too. I would say [Sheldon] Keefe is another example of a coach who does this a ton. So you saw a lot in Toronto, now you'll see a lot more in New Jersey, which is  the perfect d-core to make all of this work. So I think Devils are going to be good for — that's going to be a great fit.

But just the idea of crowding in the space, setting small gaps, so when you do start defending, you can either cut a play off early — it's an easy pinch there if you don't have to go very far — you can cut it off. Or, 2; create a turnover in a much better spot than what is in your own zone. Why not make it in the o-zone? So from a positioning standpoint, phenomenal place to start, good way to kill plays early.

Before they can get going, before the team can build speed, and just being able to put yourself in a good spot to take advantage both from a defensive standpoint, but offensive standpoint.

WS: Yeah, I love when I see this being deployed. I think, again, I'm a geek, like I'm a math guy, and even just thinking about the numbers here, it makes such a difference if you think about it.

The offensive zone from blue line to goal line is 64 feet. So you're looking at the difference between a guy standing at the blue line being maybe 75 feet from the net or at the top of the face-off circle where you might be 20 feet closer, maybe 20, 25 feet closer. So you're cutting down the time at which you give the defense to adapt, the goaltender to adapt. You're cutting that time down by a third-ish, a quarter to a third. I'm ballparking here, but that automatically is just based on where you are on the ice.

If you can compress the offensive zone on your opponent, you're laughing. The second thing I wanted to mention here is this is, again, why skating ability and quickness and speed are so important to me. Because it is objectively a better position to be in when you're in that position — closer to the top of the face-off circles for your defensemen.

But if you do have a situation where the opponent has possession of the puck you have to get set up, you have to cover that gap, you have to cover for yourself, or you have to have some sort of system in place where a winger can cover for you if you're caught in the offensive zone. Ideally, you have your defensemen who can wheel up, get some speed going, get positioned well to counter that attack, and have a system that can swarm whoever has that puck in the offensive zone.

I think it's a really interesting trend for sure. It's a simple little thing, it's a concept that you see definitely a lot more now than you used to, but I'm all about it. It just makes sense mathematically, and it plays into exactly the styles of player that I always look for: guys who do pinch a little bit more aggressively, but have the mobility and the skating ability to cover for themselves.

I would rather have a player who tries something creative, or tries some sort of play that could lead to a high scoring chance, but may relinquish some space on the ice, but has the ability to cover for themselves.

And I can at least as a coach, rely on them — not that I'm a coach — but rely on them to cover for themselves. To go, okay, I can rely on them to try these things, because I know that if it doesn't maybe go their way, which happens in hockey all the time, I'm not going to be upset at this player, but I know that I want them to backcheck, cover for it, because I know they're capable of it.

I think that that's sort of the trade off that you have to live with, but I'm totally cool with it.

GR: All right, so we're going to call this end of the day on some modern day defending, and we'll pick up on point play in episode two.

[END Transcript.]

part 2 <- convenient link at the bottom <3

[artisanscribbles]

Some Oathbound Thoughts

There's a larger post regarding the Order that's still percolating in my head but while I was drafting that post, something occurred to me:

We have very little in text proof that the Shadowborn are as big as a problem as the Order makes them out to be- But do you know where they seem to gather and most attacks happen: The 4 Legendborn Chapters.

This made me start made me start to think about what we know about magic in universe, and also what we know about the Shadowborn.

The Order makes the Shadowborn out to be this huge problem, but Valechez, Patricia and every Rootcrafter we meet treat them as a problem and certainly something to be cautious about, but a known factor.

And none of the Rootcrafters spend their lives at battle-ready mode waiting for the next attack. It's just the Order that does that. But everyone else acts like the Order is the much bigger problem and danger of the two.

But Scions and Squires have been being called ever since the Order's inception to handle all these demon attacks? And we see there is truth to this: The Shadowborn are Undeniably Attacking the Legendborn.

Which begs the question: Why the Order and not the other magic users?

And then it hit me.

The Order of the Roundtable has been around for at minimum, per William, at least 60 Generations. Like with Vera, the spell is somehow bound to the bloodlines. But Vera's bargain is tied to The Shadow King - He cast the Mark and as far we can tell he's been maintaining the Magic required for it to Work. With me so far?

So this begs with question: With Merlin (as far as the text informs us) 100% Dead

WHAT'S POWERING THE SPELL OF ETERNITY?

IT CAN'T BE ARTHUR. EVEN IF MERLIN ANCHORED THE SPELL TO HIM ORIGINALLY LIKE THE CHARM BRACELET (AND WE DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW THIS BTW, EVERYONE IN THE ORDER THINKS ITS THE CASE AND EVERYTHING THE ORDER THINKS IS IMMEDIATELY SUS) CANONICALLY ARTHUR PENDRAGON DOESN'T HAVE ACCESS TO THE MAGIC TO KEEP IT GOING BECAUSE HE CANNOT WORK AETHER (proven by that scene in BloodMarked)

Arthur Pendragon can use the abilities gifted to him by Excalibur and Merlin's original spell, but he can't power it himself. But SOMETHING must be- because as per Sel, aetheric workings can only last so long as the caster can maintain them and live, as as per Valchez and Patricia, all that Power has to be coming from SOMEWHERE EX.1 Bree's whole existence.

Which brings me back to the Shadowborn and the Shadow King's whole deal:

I think Merlin's spell wasn't supposed to last past the OG Table's death. Not originally anyway. Arthur and the Knights were supposed to win decisively and then the portals would be closed forever. And Bree's Bloodwalks seem to support this.

But then, The Table Captures the Shadow King's Crown, and we now Know that is an extremely Powerful Object- but we don't know what happened to it.

Just before Bloodmark's final kicks off, we get the last Arthuriana themed lore drop of the novel- And that is that the last place we saw the Crown was in the OG Table's possession- but not broken and destroyed. IN fact the text seems to support they couldn't destroy it- SO WHERE IS IT? NO ONE IN ORDER HAS EVER HINTED AT SOMETHING LIKE THIS EXISTING- IT'S VALCHEZ THAT FIRST TELLS US ABOUT THE SHADOW COURT TO BEGIN WITH.

And then we remember Morgaine Had A Plan to use the Crown somehow. Now, of course, we don't get to hear exactly what that was because Bree had some shit to work out, but I think its important that we know about that it because it provides a reason for the concentrated Shadowborn attacks on the Legendborn and also a reason for the King to still be kicking around. The Shadowborn harry the Order so hard because the original War never stopped, it just changed.

The King seems to a bit like Sauron - separated from his Crown, he's a shadow of himself (excuse my bad pun), still powerful, but limited in scope. There's no reason for a long game otherwise. But if he were trying to get his Crown back? Because the Order STILL HAD IT?

Well, that would re-contextualize a few things, wouldn't it?