#almost everyone who’s been in my dms recently has been bugging me to do one or the other

[wedgiedwoofer]

Day three edging :3 got breakfast n now I’m cozying up in my bed for another edging session before I get my work started

[dragonheart-swtor]

Sith Inquisitor Storyline: Drunk History Version

Y’all, and by y’all I mean one person (@sith-shenanigans thank you very much), asked for it, and I live to repeat this over and over for others’ amusement, so here it is. Have my summary of the pinball machine that is the Sith Inquisitor storyline, from memory, originally drafted a while back in DMs with a friend who’s never played SWTOR. Spoilers for the Sith Inquisitor storyline, obviously.

Without further ado: Let us begin.

- So your story begins as a recently sort-of-freed slave walking off a ship and onto Hell: The Planet. (The nonhuman Inquisitor immediately experiences 2483947 microaggressions.)

- You have to compete with a bunch of other people! Only one of you is not going to die and the overseer has already picked his favorite, seemingly purely because he happens to have red skin. They will both (the overseer and Teacher’s Pet) proceed to be as annoying as possible for the rest of the Korriban story.

- multiple people try to kill you, but you’re the protagonist, so fuck them

- “Teacher’s Pet, you go to the library and translate these texts. Protagonist, you go to this ancient tomb and figure out how to retrieve an artifact from a lock that no one has been able to open in ten thousand years.” “Libraries are boring anyway. Yawn.”

- You finally get to smackdown with Teacher’s Pet, which is satisfying as hell. Unfortunately the overseer gets pissy about it. Fortunately, the Sith you’ve been competing to be the apprentice of decided she liked you early on and has also been playing favorites, so you don’t die immediately.

- your master is great! much more into positive reinforcement than most Sith.

- at some point you semi-accidentally steal someone else's cult on Nar Shaddaa and now they worship you as a nigh-on god. whoops. you just kind of... leave and let them run their own business. you pay them visits later in the storyline.

- you also become part bug so you can go skinny dipping in radioactive waste. it’s fine, we promise.

- your master is trying to steal your body because turns out she's actually really old and kind of dying so she plans on kicking you out of your body, transplanting her own soul in your place, killing her old body, and assuming your identity after "you" "killed" "your master"! that's not great, better not let her do that.

-  you successfully didn't let her do that! wait, now she's sharing a body with one of your companions, an ancient monster who you kind of forced into submission and who serves you rather unwillingly now. there is apparently nothing that can be done about this so sometimes your eight-foot-tall monster not-friend talks in a high, unnervingly smooth feminine voice and tries to convince you she's on your side now that she's forced by this new body to not harm you. this is also not great but what are you gonna do. he is also Not Pleased about this by the way, and really who can blame him.

- some darth on the dark council named Thanaton decides to get pissy with you for reasons I don't remember and now he's trying to kill you. what the fuck.

-  he actually almost does kill you but your old master's other apprentices, who are now your apprentices, save you from the brink of death.

- (the apprentices, by the way, are very sweet and I love them. they’re murdered by thanaton almost immediately.)

-  your solution to "I need more power, fast", for some godforsaken reason, is "I'm going to learn to walk the line between life and death and EAT GHOSTS" and I wish I were exaggerating this

- you go out and eat a bunch of ghosts of old Sith on various planets

- subpoint to this: on one of these planets, you accomplish this by coercing the ghost's descendant, a Jedi padawan named Ashara, to get the ghost to appear so you can eat him. You end up murdering her masters in the process because one way or another they find out about your plan. She is understandably horrified by this turn of events and, feeling she has no chance of returning to the Jedi, reluctantly joins your crew and either (Light Side Quizzy) learns to balance light and dark sides of the Force and becomes ultimately stronger for it, or (Dark Side Quizzy) lives in abject terror of you for the rest of the storyline. I love her dearly as well. fortunately she is not murdered by thanaton.

- congrats! you ate enough ghosts to have enough power to beat thanaton up!

- unfortunately, you have Ate Too Many Ghosts Disease now and need immediate medical attention.

- your mind kind of just Shatters and you may or may not have hallucinations for a while iirc. either way you need help or you're just gonna disintegrate slowly until the ghosts overwhelm you and take over. you go to Voss and participate in some wild Force ritual they've got to take care of that. it's a fun time

- your body is also having a bad time and that also needs fixing; I don't remember where you go for this (Belsavis, I think?) but you end up checking out a machine made by a long-dead alien civilization and the machine turns out to a) be sentient and b) be responsible for CREATING A GOOD PORTION OF THE GALAXY'S NEAR-HUMAN SPECIES, IF NOT ALL OF THEM, AND DISSEMINATING THEM TO THE GALAXY AS PART OF THE RAKATA'S EXPERIMENTS ON CREATING FORCE-SENSITIVE LIFEFORMS IN HOPES OF KEEPING THEIR OWN SPECIES FROM DYING OUT BECAUSE THEY WERE SUPER RACIST AND EVENTUALLY THAT RACISM KICKED THEM IN THE ASS IN THE FORM OF A MASS REVOLUTION THAT WIPED THEM OUT COMPLETELY BUT THE MACHINE IS STILL HERE

- all right I’m calm sorry I derailed for a moment

- I have a lot of thoughts about things

-  anyway the machine bUILDS YOU A NEW FUCKING BODY and you're good to go now

-  (by the way, depending what species you're playing, it's entirely possible you learn at this point that your entire species only exists because of this machine!)

- (anyway.)

- okay, mind fixed, body fixed, ghosts consumed, we're good to go! time to murder a dark councilor!

- "we do that"

- except you don't because you're on corellia and this dipshit challenges you to a kaggath without really ever explaining in detail what a kaggath is or what the rules (if any) are, we just know it seems to be the ancient and very formal Sith way of saying "meet me in the denny's parking lot at 3am if you want an ass-kicking", and then hE RUNS OFF TO DROMUND KAAS WHICH DEPENDING ON WHAT GALAXY MAP YOU BELIEVE IS UP TO FIVE DAYS' TRAVEL AWAY

- YOU'RE CANONICALLY JUST CHASING THIS LITTLE BITCH THROUGH SPACE FOR FIVE DAYS AFTER HE CHALLENGED YOU

-  he then goes to the Dark Council to try to convince them to help him kill you and you literally have to just go to the Dark Council chambers too and kick in the door and go "HEARD YOU WERE TALKIN SHIT" in front of everyone

- (which to be fair is basically Sith philosophy in a nutshell)

-  Ravage and Marr spend this entire council meeting just exchanging tired glances and going "no, fuck you, why can't you kill them, they're your problem. fight for our entertainment now. fuck you"

- (Darth Baras did this exact same shit earlier the same day, by the way, with the Sith Warrior. and by “earlier the same day” I mean “like fifteen minutes prior to this.”)

- you fight Thanaton. to no one's surprise, because you're the protagonist and because he's being a little bitch about it, you kick his ass and slaughter him in front of everyone

- half the Council stands up and you just kind of go "oh shit I'm gonna die"

- but no

- you're being promoted

- congration you done it you're a dark councilor now

- someone complains because wait, they're not even a darth, you can't be a dark councilor if you're not even a darth

- first person responds with "well fuck you then, we'll make them a darth. hey you. your name is Darth Nox (dark side)/Imperius (light side)/Occulus (neutral) now. take a seat"

- "but - what?"

- "take a fuckin seat, babe"

- "o- okay" 

- "you run the entire Ancient Knowledge sector now, by the way, despite the fact that you may or may not be illiterate due to having been raised a slave, because that was what Thanaton ran and we only have the one job opening since the Warrior just killed Baras"

- (the Warrior, freshly coined the Emperor's Wrath officially, waves from their corner where they're cleaning Baras's blood off their boots)

- "I - okay, I guess"

and that’s the Sith Inquisitor storyline. That’s a wrap, folks, roll credits. if this gets enough notes and/or if literally anyone says they’d like to see it I may also post the Imperial Agent and/or do other class stories, I enjoy these way too much

[obsidian-aurora]

As I’m about to dive into the events of 227 in my fanfic, I thought now is a good moment to take some time to reflect on the past year.

Words:  1,086,764

Chapters:  131/?

Comments:  2206

Kudos:  4065

Bookmarks:  350

Hits:  161449

If you can believe it, I started writing this fic almost a year ago now.  I’ve written the equivalent of a novel a month this whole year! Nuts. I watched The Untamed for the first time over a year ago.  My soul was captured by the light that I saw in Xiao Zhan’s and Yibo’s eyes when they looked at each other. And I haven’t stopped believing in the power of love since then.

Sounds corny?  Yeah, kind of is.

It’s hard to imagine that when I started writing this fic, the Special Edition hadn’t come out yet.  There was only the official BTS on the Tencent channel to watch - as well as a pile of interviews and fanmeetings.  There were no secret Discord groups, I didn’t even have a Twitter account.  I had this old blog of mine on Tumblr and an old AO3 account that I dusted off to start writing some fanfiction again.

Did you know I’m a self-published author?  Oh yeah, for years I wrote nothing but my own novels.  You can check them out here at lillybirdsong.com

I thought to myself, I’ll just write a short fanfic over the course of December.  I’ll publish it in January and rid my system of this bug I’ve got and then move on.  Now, a year later and I still can’t stop writing about these boys.  What is it?  It’s all about love.  It’s about the belief that against all odds, whether it’s living in a society that doesn’t support LGBT individuals, whether it’s struggling with management companies that don’t support you in your own careers, against all odds Love Wins™.

Or does it?

I’m about to embark on writing the 227 part of the fanfiction and I thought it was really important for me to remind everyone that what I’m writing here is not a bible, it’s not a biography, it’s a piece of fiction that’s my own personal interpretation of what might have happened.  I’m saying this because it’s soul-crushing to imagine what might have taken place behind closed doors, the conversations that would have happened, the thoughts that would have spun out of control.

I mean, I just remember my own journey.  Some of which is documented right here on Tumblr.  I wrote one of my first artist blogs when I hit 50 chapters on Yizhan in early Feb.  I wrote a post when Xiao Zhan fans first started calling out AO3 for hosting inflammatory material. I wrote a post when I considered whether this fic should be abandoned. I wrote a post when Coronavirus brought me back home on a plane way earlier than expected.  I wrote a post in April when I completed 80 chapters, and at the end of May when I completed 100 chapters.

I’ve gone a bit dark on Tumblr since I moved to Twitter where there’s a lot more BJYX interaction going on, but Twitter is not a good place for a long post so I’m once again spilling my thoughts here on Tumblr.

Writing about 227

As I start to write about this, I’m going to pick and choose which rumours I will write into the story and which I’ll discard.  Because let’s get real - there are a lot of rumours out there, and no one except those people intimately involved will know the truth of the matter.  I do choose to believe some of the malicious rumours.  And so I will include some of them.

Don’t start a war in my comments section. I beg you.  I’ll just have to end up moderating my comments which I never wanted to do.

Disagreements within the fandom

I’ve noticed more and more “extreme” behaviour within the BJYX fandom.  I feel like ever since the “secret” BTS (which are mostly the same as what we saw in the official BTS just longer cuts) have whipped turtles up into a frenzy! And when someone has a different opinion or when someone likes to spout theories about what their small interactions might mean in the context of the bigger picture, that can cause harm.

So I’m saying right now - everyone’s entitled to their own points of view. No one knows the truth but the ones involved.

Don’t bring your disagreements to my fic.

Respect in public spaces

I have also stated this on Twitter but I want to put my 2 cents here as well.  I’ve also been uncomfortable lately with the amount of public discourse about body parts, about sex positions, really really intimate things. If you want to write fanfics or draw fanart to explore these interpretations, I say go for it! That’s appropriate because it’s within the realm of fantasy. But when it comes down to really speculating about what’s going on in the private lives of these two men we love so much, I personally would rather those conversations be relegated to private spaces - Discord, WhatsApp.  Not Twitter and Tumblr. So you’ll notice that I’ve unfollowed and even blocked some accounts recently that cross a line I’m not comfortable with.

When I do that, it’s not about you, it’s not a personal attack. That’s just me not being comfortable with the content that’s being created in the space it’s being distributed. If you want to chat with me about it, I’m very open to having that discussion in DM. I’ve been called a hypocrite for my views given that my story is an explicit one, but in my mind there’s a clear distinction between me publishing a story on AO3 and people discussing their real private lives in public spaces like Twitter.  That’s just my point of view and I mean no offence to those that feel the opposite.

As usual, I always have my finger on the trigger to take Yizhan down the moment it causes harm to the boys in question.

Other interesting things I’ve done lately:

I’ve been publishing some Fanart.  (See the pic at the end of this post as an example). Follow me on Twitter @ObsidianAurora to get the latest as I usually post things first there. I’ll try to remember to post things here as well.

I started a YouTube Channel. It’s called Queer Stories and it’s my space to talk about all things queer - video games, TV shows, and yeah sometimes even how harmful it can be to assume you know someone’s gender identity, whether they’re feminine or masculine, and that this has nothing to do with a person’s sexuality. This video I made in the context of BJYX/LSFY/ZSWW and Yizhan.

I opened a Patreon account since some people wanted to know how to support me. I have been jobless since our visual effects studio closed down in May and I’m starting up a new job again next week (finally!) but if you want to contribute for the work I’m doing this would be the way.

Be Kind.

I’ve rambled on for quite a bit now so let me end it here. Let me just say please be kind. Be kind to each other. Be kind to those who disagree with you. When you’re tempted to lash out, consider the other person’s point of view first.

Remember that what started this was love. Not hate. Don’t give in to the temptation to participate in fanwars. Remember the love.

Thanks for listening to my Ted Talk.

~Obsidian Aurora~

[artificialmillie]

How do I start?

It’s been troubling me a lot that AQ has been receiving an influx of requests recently around the idea of chronic illnesses, or specifically, diabetes. Honestly, as a fandom with a very diverse demographic, I thought we would know better. Things such as chronic illnesses and disabilities (or disabilities caused by chronic illnesses) seem to be something that many are unaware of, and while the ignorance frustrates me, I would rather educate everyone as opposed to just straight up rant (although that's gonna happen too).

First of all: why did I choose to talk about this?

As someone who has grown up with a father with type 1 diabetes, seeing these kinds of sickfics disgust me. I want to go into some detail and get down to the nitty gritty of the condition so that people unaware can have an understanding of it, and I want to talk about my experiences and why they make me feel this way.

Type 1 diabetes typically develops during childhood, and causes a gland called your pancreas to stop producing the hormone insulin. Insulin allows your body to absorb sugar into your cells and also your liver (it converts to glycogen which allows it to be stored for the future and released when blood sugar levels get too low). Without insulin, the body cannot absorb this sugar and so it stays in the blood, causing severe damage to blood vessels. Diabetes also causes high blood pressure, also contributing to the damage. This damage can then further affect nerves, kidneys, the heart, and the eyes. Lots of people confuse it with type 2, however this typically develops in adulthood and happens because one’s diet is poor and their body stops responding to insulin; it can only be controlled by maintaining a healthy diet and exercising regularly. Type 1 diabetes is treated with insulin injections and maintaining a regular blood sugar level to prevent this damage; there is currently no known cause of type 1. Other treatment for type 1 diabetes (and also type 2 but I’m not 100% sure) is dialysis which is a process that filters the blood to rid it from sugars and urea, which could otherwise not be removed due to kidney damage. I could expand on this, but this is not the main focus.

Because of the circulatory system damage caused by his diabetes, my dad had a stroke when he was in his early 40s. And, because of his nerve damage, he has little to no feeling in his hands and legs - he can no longer write, and the nerve damage in his leg caused him to lose one. This was the result of not only that, but also the fact that diabetes made him more susceptible to serious infections, and when he accidently stepped on a nail while we were redecorating when I was five, it turned gangrenous. The nerve damage caused numbness in the body parts mentioned earlier, and nothing was done about it until the infection turned gangrenous and almost reached his liver. The only thing that could be done was an amputation, and so now my dad has one useless, numb leg, and about half of his thigh with a prosthetic attached.

He was then confined to a wheelchair while he was recovering, however, he’s still in it now. The effects of the stroke a few years prior prevented him from ever walking without a frame, and even that was a struggle. So, now he’s wheelchair-bound.

However I do want to add a disclaimer. My dad has always been very irresponsible with his diabetes, and some of the damage, especially with his circulatory system, could’ve been reduced if he had ever bothered to use his glucose monitor to check his blood sugar levels. He still doesn’t use it now. So, I’m not saying that everyone’s diabetes will cause all of this, but it definitely has the potential to, and it’s not a friendly condition as you can tell thus far.

So, now that I feel like there’s been some education, I want to tackle the romanticisation of the condition. This will solely be based on diabetes, since other chronic illnesses are a whole other story.

You may be asking: how is writing a fic about diabetes any different from writing a fic about an illness like a sickness bug or [insert other minor, temporary, non-detrimental-in-the-long-run illness]? Short answer: a chronic illness is more often than not debilitating, and something like a sickness bug? You’re very likely to recover with little to no long term effects.

Therefore, go forth and write a fanfiction where Person A has a bug and Person B cares for them - at least they’ll recover. To me, there is no problem romanticising that, because no character is potentially dying or having their health and life at stake. I hope this makes sense.

Watching my mum be a registered carer for my dad for ~eighteen months was painful. I remember little, but what I do remember is the tiredness and the isolation from her friends because she had to be there full time, and it was terrifying whenever he went hypoglycaemic. I could talk about the instances where I've witnessed this, but that’s a whole new can of worms and PTSD that I don't want to open, probably ever.

Also, to all carers out there: thank you. Your work does not go unappreciated.

To summarise: I do not find these fanfictions “cute”. I do not want to read a fic that romanticises the fuck out of something like this, and I’m 99% sure that most people requesting these fics do not have diabetes. I do not want to see a condition diluted into, “Sharon protects her uwu bean Alaska when her blood sugar gets too low”, because, I can guarantee you, that after a couple weeks, Sharon will be exhausted and not have had a decent break, especially if she’s a full time carer. But I digress.

Disclaimer 2: the above paragraphs are not me implying that diabetic people are a burden. I simply want to the raise the issues that come with diabetes and why they shouldn't be watered down to a “cute”, little sickfic. There are a million little temporary illnesses that do no harm for that.

Disclaimer 3: if you’re a diabetic person requesting and/or writing these fics, that’s entirely your choice, and I have full faith that you wouldn’t do what's mentioned in the above paragraph. Also, as a non-diabetic person, it would feel wrong to tell you what you can and can't do regarding it.

I know that this rant probably won't stop people from requesting and writing these fics, but I'm hoping to shine a little light on the issue. Since my ask about it to AQ was not responded to, this is all of my built up feelings in a big explosion of anger and repression during the sixteen years of my life. If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading.

PS: if you have any questions or anything regarding this, don’t hesitate to DM me and we can talk about it :)

[zippdementia]

Part 28 Alignment May Vary: The Rocks Speak

Welcome to post 28 of our long running adventure! We started back on the Moonsea coast with three prison ship survivors who washed up into adventure. Since then, there have been many twists and turns and only one of the original party is still alive, Karina the Tiefling Spy. Her path has taken her with two others towards the legendary Tomb of Haggemoth, where she hopes to find riches and (more importantly) answers to questions that have plagued her since she was betrayed in the war. Meanwhile, her companions have their own quests: Tyrion the Halfling Bard needs to record a tale to impress his college directors and secure his place in the famed halls of song, and Abenthy seeks the ultimate justice in the name of his father, a Fallen Angel. This post marks the beginning of the last dungeon of the campaign and will walk with the players through each room, detailing what they discover and what adjustments I have made to the dungeon. I hope players of D&D find it entertaining and dungeon masters find it helpful in running their own dungeons!

Haggemoth is a conversion from 3.5 and I’ve talked about some of my methods for conversions to 5th edition in the past. Monster conversion, in particular, is more of an art than a science, with the end goal not being perfection so much as it is to capture the correct feel for a scene or battle. One hard and fast rule to keep in mind, though, is the rule of DC. You can pretty nicely get an appropriate DC from 3.5 to 5 by taking the original DC, subtracting ten, cutting the number in half (rounded up) and then adding ten. For example, if the DC for avoiding a trap from 3.5 is Dex Save DC 19, then the conversion is

19 - 10 = 9

9/2 = 4.5 (round up to 5)

5 + 10 = 15

New Dex Save DC = 15

I use this method for every DC conversion so I want to throw it out there immediately so that it is assumed throughout the remainder of the adventure.

Anyway, the bridge across the chasm is destroyed, Tyrion is unconscious, and Karina and Abenthy are badly hurt from their battles with the Bugbears. Verrick is gone, the three soldiers are dispirited, and everyone is hungry. After eating and then collapsing, exhausted, into a long rest, the party awakens the next morning to find themselves staring at a massive door in the cliff face:

Built into the side of the mountain is an immense portico that features a pair of gigantic stone doors, each one twenty feet high and ten feet across. There is a single massive, steel-reinforced stone bar across the door, but a great deal of stone and wood debris has been piled up against the door as well.

It doesn’t take long to clear the debris, I assume this was placed there by the designer in case the players try to run past the Bugbears without stealth or fighting them: then the Bugbears can charge them, or lob arrows at them from across the bridge while the players try to clear the debris. A nasty end for anyone who thought to rush past the fight!

As it is, the players clear the door and enter the first hall. It is moldly inside, and damp and cold, with a smell like age and decay. Every so often earth tremors rock the place and bits of rock and dust fall from the ceiling:

Beyond the main doors is a large vestibule with a vaulted ceiling. The walls look like they once bore runic carvings, but these have all been defaced. Plants from the hillside have infiltrated the tomb here, and bits of root and moss hang from cracks everywhere. This chamber is filled with refuse of all kinds: plant matter, the carcasses of small animals and insects, and the desiccated corpses of several species of humanoid. As light spills into the chamber, the floor comes alive with movement.

Attacking the players are some giant centipedes. This is the first adjustment I have to make. Insect creatures are treated very differently in fifth edition than they were in third. In third, poison was a really big deal, a threat to even high level parties. It’s still not great in Fifth edition, but saving throws are all around easier and because fifth edition has done away with the touch attack (which ignores armor) creatures like this have a much harder time landing hits. So even though I can (and do) describe gross bugs falling over Karinna from the ceiling, I can’t really simulate them being “on her” as I could in Pathfinder, and as the module intends.

I compensate by bringing back touch AC for this fight, letting the centipedes crawl inside armor and up leather jerkins to get their attacks. It’s not a perfect solution, but it keeps the proper difficulty for the fight, letting the centipedes land some hits while still bring pretty tame. In the future, I’ll probably take insect fights and use swarm statistics for them, as this seems to be the way that Fifth Edition “buffs” its insects at higher levels. That said, the only rule I miss from Pathfinder is the touch AC—it just makes so much sense in certain circumstances and creates a nice difficulty balance for parties that have a mixture of speedy rogues and tankish paladins. I don’t think it necessarily needs to come back as a hard rule applied to every combat, but it would be cool to see some monsters in future DnD 5 supplements gain abilities which ignore armor and rely on pure dodging by targeting AC + Dex directly.

Mine! Mine! Mine!

Tomb of Haggemoth is my favorite kind of dungeon, in that nearly every room in it (and most of the monsters) has a reason to be there. I love dungeons that are more natural settings, rather than just endless turns and twists of caverns. My earliest experiences with Dungeons and Dragons was when my father bought Undermountain for me when I was four. I didn’t play the game, but I read through each description of every room. They were like short stories, and one of the joys for me as a player to this day is when I come to a room in a dungeon and can ultimately puzzle out the history of what this used to be and how it came to be what it is now.

There is a really interesting logic to Haggemoth that results in the first half of the dungeon being harder than the second half, but as my players aren’t there yet, I’ll talk more about that later. For now, they come to the next hallway, after cleaning bug gunk off their boots:

This hallway is similar to the vestibule. All kinds of miscellaneous debris is scattered over the floor. The doors to the south and east have been battered and smashed beyond hope of repair, but the door to the north seems to be somewhat solid. The corridor narrows to the west, proceeding deeper into the mountainside.

There are a few dead ends here. West is the actual path forward. To the north is storage, but a vicious mold has overtaken it, turning everything to poisonous rot. To the south, a Xorn has recently burrowed into the area. Originally from the Elemental plane of Earth, he covets the gold and gems in the mountainside and has stayed, slowly gathering some precious rubies and diamonds. If he ever spots Karinna, he’ll lust immediately after her “Eye of Callax,” as it is an extremely large, extremely rare, and extremely beautiful gemstone. He also knows, intrinsicially, some of the secrets of this place, and can be compelled or bargained into sharing them if treated with proper respect and offered rewards. He knows one of the biggest secrets that my players still don’t know...

My group takes the North route and almost immediately is overcome by the mold, taking massive damage as the spores tear at their lungs. Fire kills the stuff, and one of them uses a torch to light up enough of the mold to render it harmless, but the damage is done. They decide to pull back and take a rest before adventuring further. And during the night, the Xorn attacks, snatching one of the soldiers (Biggs) and pulling him back inside the tomb. The players awaken and give chase and a quick combat ensures.

Xorns are cool. Old school DnD monsters, they represent a nice bit of world building in that they come from the elemental plane of earth, thus suggesting the larger universe that the fantasy game situates itself in. They can be a tough kill in DnD 5 because of their burrow ability, in which they disappear into the earth around them, becoming completely immune to all attacks. In one round, therefore, they can disappear into the earth, appear right below someone, and get an attack off. If they wait a round and successfully make a hide check, they can get the attack off at advantage for surprise. And depending on how you want to play it from there, you can add all sorts of bonuses to their attack and/or defense because they are burrowed (DnD 5 is intentionally loose on how these things work, letting DMs adjust the rules to their own style and game). I like to add some defensive AC bonuses, but I also like to be fair about retreating: if they reburrow while they are right underneath someone, it counts as a movement and gives the players opportunity attacks. Picture all the tentacles disappearing into the ground while the players hack at them...

The players don’t seek to barter with the Xorn, but go at it headlong, getting off some very good strikes very quickly. Before long, they have defeated it, even with it burrowing and opening up right under Abenthy (that crazy high AC is helping him immensely here).

Sadly, Biggs has perished in the attack, leaving them with only two of their NPCs to carry on through the dungeon. Which brings me to another topic.

Character Cards

Our campaign has never been without allies and helpers. some may remember the half-orc barbarian woman that the group hired in Ottoman’s Dock, who lost her life to Rose of Ottoman’s Dock, or the bodyguard of the Butcher of Skagos, who perished in the Icy Wastes during a fight with Worg Riders. These early NPCs were stated out fully, like Player Characters and taken over by one of my players. I didn’t like this system, because it made a lot of extra work for us. I had to create the characters, which made it difficult to throw in improvised NPCs and companions at any given moment, and put an extra burden of roleplaying and stat tracking on my players that I felt left either the NPC or their own PC with a little less investment. At the same time, just having NPCs be “background extras” that fit into description but had no actual effect on gameplay, didn’t feel right either.

My solution was to create Character Cards. I talked about this back around the time the party was going through the Desert of Thud but since then I have refined the process. Character Cards now give a multitude of in-combat and out-of-combat options for players to use. The current cards look like this:

Xaviee, Human Fighter

Once per combat: do 1d6 slashing damage to any opponent.

Once per combat: roll 1d6. If the result is a 5 or 6, then +2 to all ally attacks and damage this round.

Reaction: Block an attack completely. Roll 1d6. If the result is 1-4, Xaviee is permanently dead.

BLAZE OF GLORY: Sacrifice Xaviee to add +4 to all ally attacks and Damage this round.

Samuel, Human Guard

Once per combat: do 1d6 slashing damage to any opponent

Once per combat: do 2d6 slashing damage to any opponent. Roll 1d6, if result is 1 or 2, Samuel dies, permanently.

Once per combat: do 3d6 slashing damage to any opponent. Roll 1d6, if result is 1-4, Samuel dies, permanently.

Reaction: Block an attack completely. Roll 1d6, if result is 1-4, Samuel is permanently dead.

You can see how Xaviee is a little more powerful, because his abilities carry less risk of dying when he uses them, representing his higher level. This is a quick and surprisingly clean way for me to represent a usable NPC/retainer with very few stats. We don’t worry about placement of the NPC on our maps, or try to simulate enemies targeting them in combat. If they die because of their roll, it’s assumed they were hit enough times by the enemy to perish. If there are certain situations where it just doesn’t make sense that they can be used, like the heroes are fighting underwater and Xaviee has been left on shore, then we take them out of use for the combat. Simple is best.

It also builds more of a connection I feel between them and the players, as these are decently powerful “items” that they do not want to lose. I am reminded of Final Fantasy Tactics, where most of your party never have a single word to say during the story, but yet you care about them simply because you use them in combat. Because they are a part of your gameplay they actually end up being more a part of your story than the actual story, as for the most part 70% of an RPG is combat and gameplay and only 30% is cutscenes and exposition. Possibly that number is even lower in Dungeons and Dragons, depending on your play style.

The character cards will continue to morph and change as we continue to play and I seek the correct balance between gameplay and function.

Halls of Bone

Progressing forward, after a brief mourning for the lost Biggs, the players come to a gigantic hall filled with bones:

This large, columned hall is replete with various carvings and relief sculptures depicting traditional Dwarven motifs: the forge, the anvil, the pick and axe, the tankard, and so forth. What was once a reflecting pool down the center of the hall now contains a thick layer of slime. At one end of the room is a 10’ tall statue of a clean-shaven dwarf, wearing a studded belt and a rune-encrusted crown with three black gems set in it. To either side, a balcony looks down on the central chamber. Phosphorescent mold on the walls and ceiling provides a dim, greenish light. What strikes you most, however, is that the floor is littered with bones – uncountable skeletons of man and beast lay scattered around the room, some still clutching to the tattered and rusted remains of armor and weapons.

“This is a trap,” Abenthy says, and the others quickly agree.

They aren’t wrong, though it is an unusual trap.

In the original 3.5 module, crossing a line within 30 feet of the statue activates the bones, which become 3d6+1 miscellaneous skeleton creatures and 1 large skeletal creature. This happens every time the line is crossed, up to a maximum of 50 skeletons and 5 large skeletons, all armed differently. These are stated out so that the little skeletons are weak hitters but very hard to kill (with damage reduction and very high AC) and the large skeletons are brutally heavy hitters and also pretty tough to kill. The design of the trap is that the players will be surrounded and overwhelmed by a bunch of regular undead who soften them up for the killing blow done by the big skeleton. When this horde emerges, some players will fall back to ranged position, while others will move up to tank and deal damage. Problem for them is, every time they cross that invisible line, whether retreating or advancing, the trap reactivates. Soon players will be terrifyingly outnumbered. Quick thinking players will realize that the statue is creating the effect and target that, but even then, the summoned skeletons don’t disappear, and players can be left in a whole heap of trouble.

Overal, the intended effect of the trapis to terrify players and set them up to be wary moving forward. They do have the option of running away deeper into the tomb, but the very next hallway is filled with spinning blades. If the players can roll high enough dexterity, they can pass the blades and effectively put a unpassable barrier between themselves and the skeletons, but it will be a tense moment, as failing the roll does grave damage and knocks them backwards, right into the waiting hands of the undead.

Translating this encounter into a 5th edition battle appropriate to six or seventh level characters is a challenge. Skeleton hordes don’t pose quite the same threat in 5th edition. In 3.5, a horde of this size could roll enough dice to grapple or trip even high level characters, setting them up for deadly coup-de-graces by the large skeletons, or weakening their AC enough to allow even the weaker skeletons to get hits off. Trip doesn’t exist in 5th edition, though, and while grapple can set up for a deadly “grapple, force player to prone” combo, it doesn’t give all the bonuses or options that exist in 3.5. I could emulate this by giving the skeletons bonuses to their grapple checks and some special abilties once they have the players grappled, simulating the “Night of the Living Dead” aspects of this encounter, but it feels like it will cause this room to devolve into a series of mindless rolls, the players rolling much less dice than me, but with bigger bonsues. That game quickly can become old, especially if they are facing fifty skeletons.

Instead, I try to figure out what frightens me. I think of the Silent Hill games and those twitchy nurses. Then I think about a room with dozens of them and I have my answer.

I design three skeletons for this encounter. The basics are below:

Twitch Skeletons

These skeletons are small in statue and their arms end in sharp points rather than hands. They gyrate as they move across the floor towards you, their jaws clicking open and closed in a silent protest of the horrors their afterlife has become.

The Twitch skeletons make up about 16 of the skeletons in the room. They have a very high dexterity and a 40 ft movement speed. They also have multi-attack, letting them get off two attempts to deal damage. The damage is not high, nor is their life, but their attack bonus is +8 and their AC in the high teens. The point is that they can close quickly and surround a foe, and after that, they can easily wear them down. As an added bonus, if enough of them are killed, the rest of them do something... interesting...

Normal Hitter

Out of the bone piles emerge skeletal warriors, wearing tattered remains of armor and wielding rusted weaponary and ancient bows. As you watch, one reaches into the bone pile at its feet and pulls free a straight arm bone, which it then nocks to its bow and fires at you from across the balconied room.

Basically regular skeletons, but I improved their attack a little to let them get off the occasional hit. These guys are truly here to hamper and physically get in the way. I also give them a little bit of an interactive option with my third skeleton...

The Minotaur Colossal

Lying broken against the dwarven statue is a large creature, tendons and strands of muscle still connecting its various bones into a humanoid shape with a massive bull’s head. The horns of the skull are stained a dull red with dried blood and across its lap lies a massive axe. As the humming in the room subsides, you see to your horror the creature stirring. When it stands, it is nearly eleven feet tall. It moves its head about and one of its empty sockets fixates on you. With a grunt, the creature begins to move forward, slowly at first, but quickly gaining speed to a charge.

This is my version of the “big hitter” in the room. I only use one of him, and as such I’ve buffed him up a little bit. He is, at core, a Skeletal Guardian as described in the monster manual, but with boosted stats and I added in a bull rush ability that can gore a player and knock him prone. His big weakness is his size, making it hard for him to manuever around the room and easy to hit, and while he hits hard he is not as accurate as his twitchy buddies. He does have the ability to heal however by grabbing a normal hitter and reworking their bones into his own, healing himself for whatever hitpoints they have left (but of course destroying them in the process).

A Clean Sweep

Unaware of exactly what the trap is, the players proceed cautiously. First, they clamber up onto the balcony, thinking that will at least give them the higher ground if it comes to a sudden fight. Then they start using Abenthy and Tyrion’s shields as makeshift brooms to sweep the bones in front of them and off the balcony as they move, trying to avoid having any behind them. This proceeds well for a good long while. There are rooms up here, too, each one leading to a small chamber carved with murals that represent the journey towards power in Haggemoth’s life. There is a depiction of him learning all the schools of magic, there is a room showing his accumulation of massive wealth (it also holds a mimic that gives them some brief trouble), there is a room showing him forging great weapons of power (including, oddly enough, a set of scales that he seems keenly interested in), and there is one showing the banishment of Haggemoth from his people and his sailing on a golden ship towards the remote island of Rori Rama.

Eventually, the players come close enough to trigger the trap. They end up triggering it twice before Karinna finally has the idea of putting an arrow into its gemstones, smashing them until she hits the correct one. This stops the trap, but not the 36 or so skeletons that have arrisen to fight them, including the massive minotaur skeleton, who easily clambers on top of the balcony to give battle.

“Hold your ground!” shouted Abenthy, placing his shield in front of him and staring down the massive bone creature that stalked the upper balcony towards him. Behind the minotaur, the masses of twitching skeletons gathered like the sea held back by a dam.

“Fuck that,” Tyrion shouted in his shrill, nasally voice. He began to play his lute and light exploded suddenly behind the minotaur, so bright that Abenthy squinted and turned away. When he looked back, the skeletons were stumbling into each other, swiping at nothing, and had stopped making any forward progress.

“They are blinded!” Abenthy called out. “Now is our chance.”

“They are distracted,” Tyrion corrected, and then followed as Abenthy moved forward, the two of them raining down blows on the minotaurian skeleton until it leapt off the balcony to escape the onsault. Even as it leapt, though, skeletons gathered below it, climbing up onto it, shifting and becoming part of it. Here, a rib that Abenthy had shattered regrew, and there the arm that Tyrion had knocked sprawling as the creature leapt was reforming out of the bones of another skeletong. Meanwhile, more skeletons were clambering up the steps to the upper levels, and they shook their twitching fellows free of their spell and turned them towards the companions. Xaviee and Samuel were the first to see them coming and the two soldiers shouted warnings before falling back towards Karinna, who was quickly disappearing inside a cloud of darkness.

Karina has used this trick before, to strong effect, in the battle against the Bugbears. The skeletons are a little more “programmed” though; when they can no longer see or hear their targets, they quickly revert to “stand by” behavior, all except the minotaur who is in a rage and goes wandering around inside the cloud of darkness, searching for the players. He finds Abenthy and takes a swing at him with a huge axe. Samuel jumps in front of the blow (using character card here) and miraculously survives, but is tossed backwards by the force of the swing, disappearing deeper in the darkness. With no hope of finding him, the players beat a haphazard retreat, making their way up the stairs towards the tomb entrance. The minotaur follows for a brief moment but after finding himself surrounded and taking some solid hits, he flees back to the bone room to recover.

Now there is a moment to breath. The players have been badly hurt. No one has fallen unconcious, but their spells are depleted (from healing, mostly) and their two companions do not seem to have made the escape with them.

“We cannot leave them in there,” Abenthy states. 

Tyrion doesn’t share his dedication to companions. “They’ll be fine,” he says in his heavy accent. “Just let’s get some sleep and I’m sure they’ll find their way back to us.”

But Abenthy is implacable and begins making his way back towards the room. The others hurry to follow, Karina’s cloak of darkness wearing off and trailing wisps of ink-black fog behind her as they descend the stairs towards the bone room.

It breathed. There in the center of the room, crouched with the other skeletons crawling over it like ants on a hill, it breathed. The creature had grown two extra arms, fashioned from the bones of its fellows. And it looked up as they entered.

“Shit,” Karina said, nocking an arrow to her bow. But Abenthy was already striding forward, his arms flung wide, roaring a challenge that was answered in kind by a shriek from the minotaur. It rose, stamped its bony hooves, and then it charged.

Karina was not sure how it happened, but suddenly Samuel was back at Abenthy’s side, and Xaviee was charging out from behind a pillar as well. The blow that would have skewered Abenthy, armor and all, instead shattered Samuel’s spine. The horn that impaled him was wide as a man’s arm and long as a spear. Samuel was lifted into the air as the beast raised its head and shook from side to side until the body of the poor soldier was flung away. Then Xaviee was there, striking at the creature’s back, and Abenthy was moving now, too. His blade shimmering with dark flame, he struck at the creature’s four arms as they reached for him to pull him apart. Behind her a mournful song was being song. Tyrion had pulled free his lute and was singing, each word soudning like sobs, like childhood, like wine spilled in rain, like sadness. She was crying, whether from the song or from everything that had happened to her in her entire life, but she was also fighting, loosing arrow after arrow at the great skeletal beast. And finally, with a mournful sound like the wind escaping a dark cave, the skeletal minotaur collapsed and was still.

Abenthy ran to Samuel, preparing a spell to heal him, but the damage was too far gone. The man was broken beyond basic healing and was taking his last breaths.

“There is another creature,” he said, blood bubbling between his lips. “One formed of the many. It escaped, into a crack in the wall. It is waiting, watching...”

Nothing more did he say. His final warning hung over them and they all felt cold.

Next post takes our players deeper into the tomb, as they encounter deadly traps and deal with the Things Left Undone in the Halls of Bone.

[ntrending]

Last week in tech: Where's that robot with our burrito?

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/last-week-in-tech-wheres-that-robot-with-our-burrito/

Last week in tech: Where's that robot with our burrito?

If 2018 was the song “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, we’d be in the slow emotional part that winds down the track after the operatic section and the guitar solo. It’s almost over. But, even as the year winds down, this chaotic year has stayed very much on-brand, at least in the tech world. We saw more data breaches, tech CEO testimonies, and robots ready to hit the streets. So, fire up your Queen playlist on Spotify and read on to catch up on everything you missed last week while you panic-shopped for the office Secret Santa you totally forgot about until three hours before the exchange.

Google’s CEO went to Washington

Until this week, Sundar Pichai’s name was notably absent from the list of tech CEOs asked to testify in front of Congressional committees this year. But on December 11th, Google’s CEO sat for roughly 3.5 hours and answered some of the most ill-informed and sometimes downright pointless questions you could imagine. We did learn a few tidbits, like Google has been internally workshopping a search product that could work on the censored internet in China, but has no plans right now to go back to the country it left in 2010.

Your private Facebook photos were less private than you’d probably like for a little while

From Sept. 13 until Sept. 25 of this year, a Facebook bug allowed developers using the Facebook Photo API unauthorized access to user photos. The bug reportedly affected the images of roughly 5.6 million users who will be getting a notification (if they haven’t already) about the issue.

YouTube’s own video is the most disliked clip of all time

Right now is the time for media companies and platforms to recap the year’s biggest trends. YouTube put together a look back at 2018 and users of the site quickly clicked the “thumbs down” button more than 13 million times at the time of this post. That’s compared to 2.3 million likes. Honestly, I don’t see how it could possibly have gone any other way.

You may lose some YouTube followers soon, but they weren’t real in the first place

Every so often, big social media networks need to scrub out some of the fake and spam accounts that clutter up the services. Last week, YouTube went on a year-end bot-bashing spree to wipe out bad accounts, so if you saw your subscriber account fall, that may be the culprit. It could also be that everyone got bored of your repetitive ASMR videos where you rub various flavors of Pringles together to see if you can get a different tone from Sour Cream & Onion than you do out of Screaming’ Dill Pickle.

Postmates built a burrito-delivering robot that’s functionally adorable

The face on the front of the Postmates autonomous delivery robot sure is cute, but it’s also functional. Those expressive digital “eyes” were created to communicate with people as the rover tries to navigate terrain like crowded sidewalks with up to 50 pounds of takeout food inside. Unfortunately, this version, doesn’t have the capability to frown if your delicious bowl of pho spills during transit.

A facial recognition kiosk kept a lookout for Taylor Swift stalkers at one of her concerts

An unassuming kiosk showing video footage at a Taylor Swift concert earlier this year was reportedly a facial recognition system on the lookout for stalkers who may have come to the venue with bad intentions. When a concert-goer looked into the camera hidden in the kiosk, a scan of their face made its way to a control center where a system could check it against a database of known stalkers.

Puma made a computer shoe in 1986 and it’s coming back

Name a piece of clothing and there’s a good chance you can buy a “smart” version of it today, but that wasn’t the case when Puma released its RS-Computer running shoes in 1986. The company is only re-releasing 86 pairs of the decidedly retro shoes, which can keep track of your step count. Of course, you could always just use a smart watch, or a fit bit or just count every single step you take at all times.

Instagram now lets you send voice DMs

As Facebook continues to emphasize the direct messaging functions in Instagram, the company recently added the ability to send recorded voice messages through the DM feature. Sending a photo with a voice message attached seems like a gateway drug to getting users into video chat, which Instagram added earlier this year. I would try the new voice message feature to tell you how well it works, but I’m pretty sure anyone to whom I sent one would stop being my friend and ghost me forever.

Smartphone screens have holes in them instead of a notch to make room for the camera

The front of every phone needs to have as much screen on it as possible, even if that means making weird, distracting gaps to fit essential pieces like a front-facing camera. The new Samsung A8s doesn’t have a notch, but rather a circular hole through which the camera peeks out. The Samsung isn’t the only device taking this track: Huawei also has a phone with a little dot on the screen.

Written By Stan Horaczek

[onestowatch]

Q&A: Aaron Camper is Making Music to Fit People, Not Genres

Aaron Camper honed his talents behind the scenes with some of music’s brightest icons —Stevie Wonder, David Guetta, and Diddy to name a few— but lately he’s been branching out on his own and seeing impressive results in the process. His 2016 debut album Blow signaled the arrival of a versatile, experienced artist, and now his follow-up EP Hi-Def shows more of the same from an artist who refuses to be boxed into a singular sound.

Camper fits the whole palette into 26 minutes of music, blending sounds with a vintage yet timeless treatment. Sampling the iconic disco track “The Glow of Love” by Change on “The Heat,” Camper creates a modern, summer-y groove that takes on a life of its own, rather than acting as a tired rehash of the original. “That Body” is equally upbeat but with a much funkier, antique undertone, that relies on pounding percussion to keep the song rolling.

When Camper decides to slow the tempo, his soulful, passionate voice is more than capable of holding the listener’s attention. “Inhale,” the very first song on the tracklist, demonstrates this truth as he serenades an old flame over resonating guitar progressions. “High $ Habit” contains much colder, trap-influenced production, further extending the breadth of sounds that Camper dips into on Hi-Def.

The man behind the music is as genuine as his catalogue implies, and he is a thoughtful creative who keeps an open mind inside and out of the studio. Valuing the individual human experience with music, Camper attempts to keep specific people in mind when he’s making music, ensuring that the final product will appeal to a wide range of listeners.

Ones to Watch recently spoke with Aaron Camper about his philosophy towards music and his exciting position in the industry as a rising musician with a plethora of high-level experience to tap into. Read on below for the full interview!

OTW: You’re newest album, Hi-Def, released in January. Looking back, how do you feel about the project?

Aaron Camper: I feel good. I like the way we rolled it out, it was kind of unexpected. To see the response that it’s gotten, it grew quickly, and I’m just glad we got that; it shows that people really want fresher material, which is good to see. I’m grateful for sure.

OTW: Going into it, what were you trying to accomplish with Hi-Def?

Aaron: We had singles out all last year, just testing and seeing what lands where, how people reacted to different vibes we put out. Then towards the end of the year — we wanted to drop something earlier, but we were just waiting because when we put out “Fire” it did one thing, but when we went to put out “High $ Habit,” we just got totally different responses. So towards the end of the year, the team just put our heads together and just said “let’s get it out, we’ll drop it all at once.” So like I said it was unexpected, because with most projects you have those countdowns and everything, but I didn’t really want to do that. It was unique in that way, to just drop it out of nowhere, but keeps everything fresh, so it’s exciting.

OTW: The cover looks almost like a lone planet in outer space — does that tie into the theme you were trying to get across, or was it just some art that you liked?

Aaron: That was done by my dawg Gavin! To me, since it’s called Hi-Def, I think the cover played into a vintage VHS magnavox set, it visually just takes on that aesthetic where it’s like packaging in itself. But the way you think its space; as far as it pertains to my last album Blow, Hi-Def is kind of a 8 song EP that just fits in its own space, not to be compared with anything, you know what I mean. It’s just another unique piece of work, and another extension of myself, another view of me. So to me it kind of ran like one of those VHS’ my mom would have by the VCR, it just kind of looks like that. But yeah, having its own space is how I see it anyway, so I think it all came across in the artwork, it was dope.

OTW: I saw that you believe writing for just one genre is kind of limiting, especially in today’s music scene. How do you try to avoid that — are you consciously balancing your music across the spectrum between genres, or is it natural for you?

Aaron: I think it’s natural for me, whereas for a lot of other artists, it’s kind of a debate. I’m a musician first, and I love all kinds of music, honestly. I play the guitar and the drums, so when I pick up my guitar, some days I feel like Jodeci, some days I feel like Bruce Springsteen. [Laughs] Yesterday we had a jam at my crib with the homies and homegirls, just kicking it and tuning guitars and stuff, that’s just how it goes. I don’t think anyone wants to be limited to just one thing, I don’t think Kanye wanted to be labeled as just a rapper, like that would have bugged the hell out of him. I find myself at home when I’m writing towards what’s sincere to me as opposed to writing towards a genre, that’s kind of limiting. Being a songwriter, even writing for other artists sometimes, that would limit me before, because you’re trying to write with the artist in mind, and you stray away from what you really hear for yourself, and you push what your heart is saying towards the back to get the job done. So just honing in and writing for myself, getting these projects out to speak for myself and get my narrative across, I think it’s important in being a songwriter to be true to what you want to say.

OTW: So it definitely sounds like the story is more important to you than the genre, but is there any sound that you feel brings it out of you easier, or do you have a favorite style to work in?

Aaron: I think the sounds now, whether it be trap, emo, alternative, R&B, there’s so many lanes and subcategories. And I’m laughing because, we talk about this all the time, like what is your music like, how do you describe it. It’s become so tainted with labels and genres, that you don’t let the music fight its own fight. At the end of the day, a good song is a good song, a great song is a great song, and people will label it however they want. But as far as categories and genres, I try to make sure my music can fit all of these different spaces and cater to all these different listeners, so I just go into the studio and keep myself open, so that way I know I’m reaching out to everybody.

OTW: How do you keep that openness in the studio?

Aaron: It’s been a little journey, it’s been a trip to get that science together. Me and my partner producer, we’ve been writing for the past three summers, you know, like hard-body, everyday, dedicated, for three years straight. So we’re just finding chemistries, because we both have been musicians and traveled the world, and had conversations with people and keep them in mind. I was at Revolt the other week, and I was explaining to them that when I’m writing, I kind of keep people and situations throughout the day in mind. I got a homegirl who I know likes to get dressed to music when she’s going out; I got a homeboy when he gets off work at 5:00, he likes to hear certain vibes in the car. So I kind of keep these instances in mind, like “if someone is about to go out tonight, what do they want to feel, what do they want to hear?” Most girls want something sexy when they’re getting dressed in Vegas or Miami, I just keep that in mind. I look at music like a service, I’m just out here trying to serve everybody food.

OTW: You’ve worked with some big name artists behind the scenes in the beginning stages of your career. Was that hindering your solo career at the time, or did it help you get to where you are now?

Aaron: Nothing can hinder you until you quit, but for me, it definitely helped. Like I said, getting into those other spaces and seeing what those other arenas are all about, and knowing what’s what in the musical landscape. If you’re a journalist and you just work for your city and stay local, I don’t think that will expand your writing as much as it would at a bigger publication sending you abroad for a year and a half, which is kind of like a tour. Like you go to Spain and write on some other music cultures, or you go to London and you have to write about grime. That’s clearly going to be totally different than writing about something here. Well, it may be the same, but you just never know.

I also look at it like, I’m a big basketball fan, and you have some people who come from Europe to America like Manu Ginobili -- he has a European clip to his game that just makes him that much more unguardable. He came to the league with a Eurostep, it gives you that extra clip, where if somebody thinks you’re hindered, you can do something else, where they can’t block you in. I kind of look at it like that.

OTW: You definitely have a lot of strong connections within the industry, but then a lot of fans are still discovering your solo music. Where do you see yourself at this point in your career?

Aaron: I’m excited, I’m at an exciting space. Like you said, working in those different lanes, it can get anyone discouraged when you’re trying to be something, but I was never trying to be anything besides good at what I do. Now that I took the time away from a lot of it, really, and have just been writing in the lab creating, I know I’m still new to people, and I understand that, which is why we’re taking it slow, we’re kind of sourcing it out, like “this person likes this, or these people like that, or this shorty just jumped in the DM and she likes this.” It kind of gives you a map, so me and management just wanted to take out time and see what the audience is, what their profile looks like, what do they do. As you build your tribe and people are connecting with your music, I like to do the math on them as well, so that as we grow, I’m giving out the best food, and giving everyone what they need to hear.

OTW: So in terms of your goals, as you’ve grown in your career, have your goals also shifted, or have they stayed the same?

Aaron: My goals are pretty much the same, I mean, I want a Grammy, I want to keep knocking conversations and tables over with the unexpected. I’ve always been about that, I’ve always been in situations that have led to some good conversations in music. I just want to stay there and grow with that, trendsetting and leading the conversation as far as not being lumped into one thing. Especially in R&B, it’s very easy to be typecast as just R&B, so I think it’s a unique time for me and the music, I’m just excited to see as we navigate and curate this whole thing, I’m anxious to see how far it goes.

OTW: Last question: Who are some of your Ones to Watch artists?

Aaron: Ah, damn. Actually, I just started some personal playlists of mine on Spotify, which I would encourage you to follow. I added some things the other day, like Ravyn Lenae, she’s very dope. My girl BOSCO, I think she had one of the dopest songs last year with “Cruel,” I like that one a lot. Sonder is dope; Brent Faiyaz is from the crib, he’s from Maryland. Kali Uchis, I was in LA and heard her song with Tyler, The Creator and was like “what the fuck is this?” I was at a taco stand, that shit is hard. [Laughs] It’s a groove. There’s a ton of people I’m just getting hip to, and their vibe is such an energy, I’m all about that. I like when I turn the song on first, and it’s got that energy to it, and it has some sounds that just get me in from the door, I fuck with it. CyHi the Prince’s album is fire, of course K.R.I.T.’s album was fire, Black Panther is fire. Hi-Def is fire! 

I’m loving all the new music that’s coming, especially from an urban perspective, because it doesn’t get the chance to grow and mature. I’m loving the effort that everyone’s putting out to be the staple of that sound, I champion that.

OTW: Awesome! Any last words?

Aaron: Go grab Hi-Def, everybody should be adding it to their playlists. We have a whole lot of fire coming this year, I have another album that’s dropping, so be on your toes for that. Way more visuals, and then we get back on the road, we’re ramping it up even more.