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shleezaemour · 5 years ago

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The Shadow hunter Major Arcana

I noticed that the shadow hunter tarot did not come with a booklet. Shame, guess I’ll write one. Here is my interpretation of the major arcana of the Shadow hunter Tarot deck. I will be doing the other cards too, but that will take time. I have this section finished so here you go, enjoy!

**The fool!**

Henry Branwell ( The scientist)

Even in the picture Henry is surrounded by his cogs and gears. Always the butt of the joke, but perfectly fine with it. Henry understands that people laugh at him but he knows what he’s doing is for the greater good no matter how many times he fails. The man behind the woman, the levity in the relationship. Brings light and humor to the starkness of Charlottes personality. While he rules in logic, he can see beyond it to create what’s only ever been dreams.

**2nd Fool card!**

Tavvy and Drusilla (The dreamer & the innocent)

Drusilla dreams of glory as she is in the middle of things. She’s too young to go on adventures, and to old to really be a child. While the older kids ignore her for the most part, they don’t understand that keeping her in the dark isn’t going to keep her innocent forever. As Julian said she is the heart of the family, none of them could function without her. While she lives in fantasy with her horror movies and playing the part of secret con man, she just wants to be noticed. Tavvy being the youngest and the baby, is the perfect sign of innocence. Still wanting to be held, still needing someone to keep the nightmares away. Not quite wanting to grow up, because that would mean the nightmares were real. In the picture you see Dru carrying Tavvy, Tavvy has wings on the back of his shirt showing his innocent angelic presence. The scene is at night, showing that Dru is there for him anytime he needs.

Upright : Beginning of a journey, innocence, acting without thinking things through. Potential.

Reverse: Uncertainty, failure to seize the moment.

**The Magcian**

Magnus Bane (The warlock)

Being an immortal gives one a sense of wisdom. Magnus being around for centuries gives him a Scholarly air about him. His kindness and willingness to still trust shows that he understands that history does indeed repeat itself and trust is met with trust. Because he has been there before and bought that T-shirt, he tends to believe everything repeats itself. While it’s good to have the wisdom of seeing patterns, he forgets that occasionally things go a different direction than expected. This makes it hard for him to share his past, due to other people’s reactions to it. Which in turn makes life harder than it had to be. Magnus understands why looking back is important, and also the importance of looking to the future. Finding his true love in a man whom history in a way repeats itself. While he never loved Will Herondale he loved his coloring, now over a hundred years later he finds Alec who has all of Wills beauty being his descendant on his sisters side. Swearing to never involved himself with shadowhunters again, only to fall in love with the boy whose parents he hated and almost had him killed in their youth. Karma works in mysterious ways. In the picture you see on the side table, the book of the white, chairman meow, and Woosley Scott’s snuff box. A clear representation of past present and future.

Upright: Creativity, exploring ones abilities, crafters hands, emerging talent

Reverse: Putting ones gift to ill use, unable to learn, No imagination

**The High Priestess **

Cristina Rosales ( The Believer )

Cristina was raised to be the woman behind a great man, only to become the queen set on a pedestal by many suitors. Even after the pain and hurt caused by all the men in her life she still opens herself to love. This girl is so much woman she needs two men to satisfy her, both seelie and unseelie with a dash of shadowhunter. Strong and deadly with her feminine wiles. Though she may forgive, she never forgets. As was shown with Perfect Diego and Jaime, both forgiven, both betrayals never forgotten. Cristina will give you a second chance, but if you break it you don’t get another one. This Princess of Roses will not be taken for a fool, things will be on her terms or nothing. In the picture you see her infamous butterfly knife pointing right at the black heart. Dressed as she was on her way to fairy with her two loves. In white going against shadowhunter tradition, as is her love life.

Upright: Great Knowledge, wise beyond years, virtuous, a scholar

Reversed: Ignorance, false vision, holding back feelings

**The empress**

Emma Carstairs (The Warrior)

A woman that shows the bloodlust isn’t just a mans realm. Anything you can do she can do better, and in heels. While her search for revenge blinds her to the world around her, she knows how to be the stable rock of a relationship whether its romantic or platonic. The only one worthy of her weapon, never taking no for an answer. Blood and scars are part of her, it’s how she shows her strength and commitment. While her recklessness can get her into trouble, she will not stop until she is the best. As the leader she knows that a good ruler is because of her subjects, and that her partner is there to make her stronger. The love she has for Julian being the only thing that could break her. In strength she even tried to push him away, for his own well being. In the picture you see Emma on a throne of her own as golden as her hair. While many blade sit behind her, only one is worthy enough to be in her hand, Cortana. Her un-lady like stance in the chair shows the air of “Wanna fight about it?”

Upright: Strong female figure, fertility, Maternal

Reversed: Infidelity, home strife, infertility

**The Emperor **

Julian Blackthorn (The artist)

As the silent leader of the family , Julian knows how to make the hard calls without ever showing it was him making them. While his secrets and tricks keep him and his family safe, his constant control of everything around him can come undone in a instant and he knows it. Always the man with the plan. Julian’s ruthless heart can blind him into making poor choices, but his gentle mercy is a soothing balm that no one can turn down while in pain. Forced fatherhood hasn’t dampened him, it’s only made him stronger. Emma by his side showed his unwavering loyalty and how choosing a female Parabatai never made him a weaker man. Even his romantic love for Emma showed strength , the only thing that could make him lose all his self control. Never allowing anyone, even the law stand in his way of what he wanted. For a bad law is no law for the Blackthorn family. Julian in the picture is on a throne showing his position, with paint smeared and thrown carelessly. Showing that even those in power don’t always run the tidy ship. The belt buckle of the ram shows his stubbornness at his center.

Upright: Strong male figure, leadership, ambition, accomplishing something

Reversed: Weakness, indecision, incompetent

**The Hierophant**

Brother Zachariah (The Silent Brother)

A magical man of the cloth. Brother Zachariah traded death for life and knows sacrifice in an intimate way. Never truly changing completely on either side, his love for his parabatai and former fiancée never waver. Both his love and his form are arrested through time. Though the feelings are dulled by magic, they never truly fade. All the while learning the trades and traditions of the Silent brothers, giving him abilities and an outlook that others can’t see or comprehend. The wise one in the room. As a former addict himself he can never give up that which brings him joy, whether it’s Tessa, Will, or his violin. In the picture you see him sitting with his fingers entwines together, the mortal sword leaning against him and a skull to his right side. The skull representing his long dead parabatai Will Herondale, and the sword that makes Shadowhunter’s Tell the truth and delivering justice. Yet it’s leaning.. not directly in his palms. While Brother Zachariah believes the truth is always better, that doesn’t exactly apply to himself.

Upright: Divine, mercy, conformity, Controlling spiritual needs

Reversed: Unorthodox, poor advice, Impotence

**The lovers **

Magnus & Alec /Jace & Clary (Love)

So many types of love between these four. A twisted web of love in its purest form. Two Parabati with their partners. While Alec isn’t Magnus’s first love, he is his first shadow hunter love. The first person where marriage was an option, the only one to convince him to have children and build a real life with an actual family. Alec like most shadow hunters found his love and is sticking to it. Head over heels for the bad boy his parents never wanted for him, yet he is absolutely perfect for him. Young and old fit together neatly in a relationship neither of them have ever experienced. Bring each others firsts in so many new and exciting ways. Angels and Demons coming together in a love deeper than the realms of hell themselves. Alec’s light and dark co-mingling with Magnus’s in a Yin and Yang that finds perfect balance. Clary and Jace were touched by angels, drawing them together regardless of circumstance. Their blood singing the siren song of forbidden love, even that couldn’t keep them apart. Obstacles at every step of the way, first the possible brother/sister issue, then the magical ensorcellment, then the heavenly fire roaring in Jace’s veins. No matter how large the problem, they get through it together. Always finding a way when no path is presented, they make their own. It wouldn’t be the first time a deep love mingled between a Herondale and a Fairchild. In the picture you see both of the couples embracing. Clary and Jace facing each other, holding the other up. While Magnus holds Alec from the back, having his back always, eyes closed in a comforting bliss.

Upright: Love, Passion, union, romance, harmony

Reversed: Conflict, separation, divided.

**The Chariot**

Mark Blackthorn (The Changeling )

Mark was never just one thing, he always had a foot in both worlds. One with the Shadowhunters, and one in Fairy. Longing for the stars and winds of the skies of fairy, homesick for the family that loved him all his life. A born protector to all he loves. Self discovery showed him how his love was not just a single trunk, but all the branches that came along with it, and with that the knowledge that he could have it all. Not wanting to choose, but to have everything he wanted was a struggle worth the burden. Allowing his differences be the reason that he shines. Eyes dual colored for both the worlds he belonged, two worlds, two loves, both within reach. Both worlds bringing him Bliss as well as torment. Shadowhunting meant he would never truly be excepted because of his fairy blood, his bisexuality also driving their acceptance further away. The runes call to his blood, the fight within him singing to rid the world of demons as his mandate. Marks family never wavering in their love for him no matter the circumstances. Fairy being equally as cruel for stealing his childhood, torturing him physically and mentally for his being a half blood. Finding love and wonder in his lover Kieran. The freedom of the hunt, the ability to feel what he wanted to feel without prejudice. Mark Blackthorn has the ability to change his direction to what suits him best, driving his life forward in the way of true happiness. In the picture you see him with two dogs of the hunt, by his side and fierce as he is with his bow and arrow. Fairy clothes and runes both adorning his body showing his dual life.

Upright: A Journey to new places, boldly venturing into the unknown

Reversed: Ruined plans, bad strategy

**Justice**

Jace Herondale (The Angel)

The golden Ichor that inflamed his veins as a child changed our hero. From his golden eyes to his unwavering abilities that go far beyond normal Shadowhunter standard. The law is hard, but it’s the law. While Jace finds loopholes and ways to have the law work in his favor, he never truly breaks it. A true believer in his mandate to rid the world of demons and their ilk. Even being disgusted by the very idea that he might have been tainted with demon blood was almost to much for him to bare. Wielding a blade to protect innocent and good, his wit and charm are the only equal to his deadly prowess. Jace knows their is more than one way to fight, more than one way to win a battle. The perfect soldier, born and bred to fight for the angel. Special talents only equal to his girlfriend, who also shares his angel blood. Pure love drives his motivations, for both Clary and his Parabatai Alec. Finding family in both of them, being a good brother and partner above all else. Even being raised in evil, his natural good nature shines through... even if it is tipped with sarcasm. In the picture you see him as an angel, as Clary drew him in her sketchbook. A lion to his side showing he is the king of the jungle, the alpha male with a golden mane to rule his pride and bring order around him.

Upright: Balance, Strong sense of self, Fairness

Reversed: Poor character, abuse, taking sides, biased.

**The Hermit**

Tiberius Blackthorn (The genius)

Even being born into the world with a twin, Ty has always had a sense of loneliness. Of feeling separate. Everything is to intense, too colorful, too loud, too much! Autism isn’t something known in the Shadow world, and because of that it’s looked at as set apart. Just because Ty is different, doesn’t mean he is condemned. Seeing the world through special eyes, seeing what others don’t. Drawn to routine, study, and Sherlock Holmes he finds a way to exist in this world of chaos with the help of his trusty headphones blaring Classical music. While he loves his twin more than the world itself, he still only found solace in Kit Rook. Someone who never saw him as anything but awe inspiring. An instant connection in a world of constant rejection. While Ty likes to be alone, he most wants to be alone with someone else in the room. No real interaction, just having them there so they can be alone together. In the picture you see the books stacked, the only one you can read is the codex, meaning the rules and tradition plays a large part in this reading. But it’s not the first book, while it’s in the mix many other tomes and knowledge comes before that. The moth in the corner shows transformation and signs of change. While not as exquisite as a butterfly, it has its own beauty that is unique all on its own.

Upright: Solitude, Exile, Out cast, seeming alone time, Secrecy, Hidden knowledge

Reverse: Social, At one with the community, seeking friends or love

**The Wheel Of Fortune**

Luke and Jocelyn (The Destined)

Lovers finally coming full circle. They have a tendency to get in their own way, assume things that are not true. Selflessness kept them apart for to long, finally coming full circle they find what’s always been there, love and eachother. Both seduced by the same man, both seeing him for what he was around the same time. Their minds were always on the same brain wave, and even long believed prejudice couldn’t keep them from the other. Luke would follow her anywhere, and Jocelyn could find him even if he didn’t want to be found. The circle brought them together, just for them to go full circle back to eachother. Forever destined, the angel and the wolf. In the picture you see Jocelyn above Luke, on the pedestal in which he placed her. The circle behind them both representing their start and end. The runes on their arms were the connection tunes between downworlder and shadowhunter. The runes on the circle are angelic power, strength, and voyance.

Upright: Fortune, chance, Fate, destiny

Reversed:Unfortunate events, unexpected results

**Strength**

Charlotte Branwell (The leader)

The first female consul, the pillar of strength in the London institute and enclave. Even being referred to as “the gray mare is the better horse in that race.” While her husband placed himself below her, he is not threatened by her. Henry loves that his wife is in charge and running everything around him, taking the pressure off of him so that he can follow his dreams. Charlotte would never cast out anyone who had no place to go, regardless of her opinion of them. While her build is small and birdlike, most people forget that about her because she demands the room. A personality and sense of authority that makes her appear six feet tall. In the picture she stand between two pillars. She is her own pillar of her community, standing between the other two that hold up her people. The law and protecting the world from evil. While she upholds both, she also stands between them understanding that there are gray areas in this world of black and white.

Upright: Strength, Endurance, power from within yourself.

Reverse: Weakness, defeat, surrender

**The hanged man**

Will Herondale (The cursed man)

Will thought himself to be cursed by the demon his father kept in his study. The demon killed his sister with a sting and then lied and tricked him, making him believe he couldn’t let anyone love him or they would die. This caused him to push everyone away, except Jem. Jem was the exception because he was already fated to die, so Will believed the curse wouldn’t touch him. This belief made him secretive, a liar, and secluded him from all around him. That was until Tessa came into his life and gave him purpose to try to rid himself of the curse that was never actually on him. Five years of self hatred did it’s damage, with Jem and Tessa being the only chance for redemption. Magnus, a Warlock, his only means to find out the truth, changing a young mind about the down world forever. In the picture you see Will upside down twisted in shadow, invisible bonds that keep him in place, but don’t actually exist or have actual power to keep him bound, only his own belief that they do is what keeps him trapped.

Upright: Opportunities missed, keeping ones self in indecision, letting time pass by

Reversed: Wasting time, lack of progress, feeling stalled

**Death**

Johnathan Morgenstern ( Death)

A boy who didn’t even have a chance before his own birth. Damned to be a soulless being before even feeling love and light. His own father created him this way, and he resented him from keeping any chance of redemption open for him. Evil was natural, and while Love was not lost on him it was tainted. An unnatural love for his own sister, a longing to keep what is his in his own mind. Feeling possession over people, forcing them to love and accept him. Deep down inside is the real boy, the good shadowhunter that never got to thrive. In a constant cycle of change and transformation. Conceived innocent, transformed with demon powders in gestation, shaped and molded in childhood, finally to die and see the spark of what could have been. Johnathan is all about changing one thing into another, moving forward, becoming better. In the picture you see him holding the infernal cup, the very thing that is change. The instrument that makes the endarkend. You see his sword on his hip with 4 stars lining the hilt, four being a magical number (example 4 seasons, four stages of life etc.) also he’s wearing his bracelet that reminds him of whom he is, keeps him grounded. Skeletal creatures surround him because eventual death surrounds him (or the death of plans). Red blood spatters the card, red being a scared color for supernatural, spiritual, or in shadowhunter culture to bring an enchantment down.

Upright: Change, metamorphosis, loss, end of ways.

Reversed: Bad situations, turbulent change.

**Temperance**

Jem Carstairs (The musician)

The addict, Wills own cracked mirror, Tessa’s second love. While Jem has his own problems, he tends to be the one people lean on. While he is this driving force in the back of his mind, he wants others to come first. Not really an optimist, but a realist. Instead of growing bitter over his parents deaths and his forced addiction, he chooses to see the bright side of it. Because of those things he found Will, he found Tessa. Two driving forces in his life that supersede the Yin Fen. Bringing balance to all their lives regardless of timeline. His love for Tessa and Will are equal in strength. Having the patience and dedication to love Will, even when Will pushes everyone away. Giving Tessa his energy and deep caring, his music and combining of both Bass and Treble as shown in the picture. Also in the picture is poppies, a death flower, which Jem is always on the brink of. While his violin is pictured close to his heart (Tessa) the bow that makes the sound ring out is by his side (Will). Neither of any real use without the other, and both useless without Jem.

Upright: Patience, Balance, Channeling ones energy, combining elements to make something new

Reversed: conflict, bad combinations, excess

**The Devil**

Valentine (The Zelot)

Valentine was not always the evil man he became, he was once the good son. Much like the devil he fell from grace after his father was killed by werewolves. Thus starting the natural obsession inside him to seek revenge for his father and beginning his hatred of Downworld. With the charisma of a cult leader he did just that by establishing “The circle” bringing the best and brightest by his side to get his obsessions fed. Get in his way, and he will make sure you fall with him. He is not without love or even loyalty, but like his son he sees those he created as possessions. Things that belonged to him. Jace was his perfect soldier, even mourning him after he knew he couldn’t keep him around and stabbed him. Clary, his daughter who can create runes because of his experimentation. Valentine did everything he could think of to bring her closer to him, even fooling her and Jace into thinking they were brother and sister. Jocelyn was his wife in his mind regardless of where she was or how long they had been apart, her hatred for him was temporary in his mind, she would come around eventually or so he thought. In the picture you see him holding the mortal cup, his key to his obsession. The chains surround him, even one choking him. One gold, one black, one silver. Mortals, Downworld, and shadowhunters. The Downworld being the one choking him, for Magnus stated that he and other warlocks were chained to this life by a chain of gold. His hatred for them was his downfall.

Upright: Oppression, material bondage, obsessive desires, evil fantasies.

Reversed: Unwavering pursuit, greed, mind control

**The Tower**

Isabelle & Alec Lightwood (The soldiers)

Here we have the two eldest of the lightwoods, strong as they face danger, both extremely and deeply damaged as siblings. Alec, afraid of his own sexual identity. Always feeling like the one left behind, never destined to shine. His father making his home life a cage, suffocating him with the mold of what a true nephilim should be. Izzy, a born warrior that’s terrified of commitment. Love is to make yourself weak in her eyes. Men are below her and would only step on her toes. Her mother damaged her by sharing adult problems with a child. Telling her of her fathers infidelity, making her lose faith in love and commitment. Both born into greatness only to fall because of personal issues. Yet if hey fall, they fall together. Always having the others back. In the picture you see Alec behind his sister, where every man in her life is placed. Alec sees it as having her back Incase of danger. Alec at the ready with a crossbow, Izzy while having her whip I hand does not have it out to strike as Alec does. Izzy is winking at the viewer, letting us know her place. The church in the background is being struck by lightning right at the cross, showing how both their faith was shaken.

Upright: Abrupt change, Accident or Loss, Ruin, traumatic event, upheaval.

Reverse: redundancy in life, unable to break patterns in life, sad events.

**The Star**

Tessa Gray (The masked)

Tessa was not aware of the circumstances of her birth, believing she was a mundane for the beginning of her life. Only to find out that she was the daughter of a Prince of Hell, a greater Eidolon Demon, and an unmarked shadow hunter. With the help of a spirit of an angel locked in her mothers necklace she was able to be born into this world as a new race entirely, not quite warlock, not quite shadowhunter. Her ability to shapeshift unlike any seen before her, the ability to connect with the persons soul through objects. All the while being able to flip through their memories unknowing to them. Always trying to break from control. Mortmain, her brother, the dark sisters, the clave, all trying to control her in some way. Escaping into novels to keep her inner demons at bay. Doing everything she can to seize control of her own life, even if it meant giving it up. She would be no ones puppet, she is her own and belongs to herself. Taking her new found gifts and trying her best to turn the darkness inside her around and use it for good. In the picture you see Tessa I’m a veil, masking her true face to navigate the world while still holding onto it and herself. Black and white stars around her, good and evil, truth and lies, and she remains in the middle with the veil staying gray. The clockwork angel the only thing unmasked about her.

Upright: Hope, a sign of good things, fulfillment in life’s pleasures.

Reversed: Doubting ones ability, stale creativity.

**The moon**

Maia Roberts & Jordan Kyle ( The lycanthropes)

A tempestuous relationship, not born to last. As the moon sets every night these two had their time only for it to be cut short. While death intimately took Kyle, Maia was close to ending things before that even happened except death beat her to it. While she loved Kyle, she knew like the phases of the moon they are ruled under that things had to change. Maia needed her own space to become a pack leader, and Jordan would have kept her as a Beta when she was a born Alpha. Jordan didn’t want to see it, all he could see was a wrong he did and the need to fix it. Him being the reason she was changed in the first place. Joining the Prater Lupus to become worthy of her love and regiment himself into someone better. Jordan wanted to help, wanted to mend, not seeing that you shouldn’t try to fix what’s not broken in the first place. Trying to convince himself that his relationship was working, that all his atonement was worth the struggle. You see them in the picture facing eachother on a bed. Maia looking at the viewer, while Jordan is fixed on Maia herself. The wolves above them showing their changing shapes, yet Maia’s is higher than Jordan’s and has the look of a leader. Jordan’s is panting and below her awaiting to follow.

Upright: brainwashing, dark influences, trickery, illusion, subconscious control

Reverse: avoiding reality, lies and despair, strange forces, delusional

**The sun**

Simon Lewis (The daylighter)

Simon, being the only person alive knowing what it’s like to live in the three different societies. First a mundane, then a daylighting vampire, then a shadowhunter. Simon has this way of fitting into each as if he were born to it, not without hard work. Clary’s best friend and Parabatai, Simon always finds a way to save the day. Whether it’s coffee and comics, or giving up your immortality in a demon realm to save everyone you love, Simon always makes things better. The only man to tame the reckless heart of Izzy Lightwood. The one who brought the Dregs and Elites at the academy together. The one to win Clary’s eternal love (platonically). Wherever Simon is, he belongs. The only one who doesn’t know that... is him. In the picture he is where he was always meant to be even though he was a vampire once, the sunlight.

Upright: successful social relationships, friendship, engagement, happy times and pure joy.

Reversed: separation, loneliness, unstable relationship

**Judgement**

Livia Blackthorn (The protector)

The other more femme half of the Blackthorn twins. Everything her twin lacks she’s has in spades, as is the reverse. Growing up knowing her brother was a slightly different kind of shadowhunter, Livvy always stood by his side and acted as his personal bodyguard. Willing to even slay her eldest brother to protect him. Livvy wants the best for everyone, she wants everyone to be happy. From wanting to set her brother Julian up, to giving up a possible romance due to her brother having more of a bond to said possible romance partner. She just wants everyone to get what they deserve, even if it’s death. Even her death. She didn’t want to be brought back, but she saw how much her brother needed her. So instead of punishing him away she stayed. She would make sure his dreams were fulfilled so that he could possibly live without her one day, something she should have done in life. In truth she knows that may never happen, while it’s a win for Ty... it’s a punishment for her. In the picture you see Livia in the dress she was buried in. Her trusty saber behind her back just Incase justice is to be served once more, or ty needs back up. Three blades are in the picture for what I interpret as past, present, and future.

Upright: accountability for ones actions, new beginnings, awakening

Reversed: guilty feelings, fearful of death, worry, delay, fear.

**The World**

Clary Fray (the creator)

Growing up thinking she was mundane, clary has grown and fought her way to shadow hunter hero. Clary went from drawing pictures, to creating runes not of the gray book to make her race stronger. Stubborn and small, strong and reckless. She wants to prove that she is more than she seems and always seems to find her way coming full circle. The center of the mortal instruments saga and of the world of her boyfriend Jace. Both with extra angel blood singing in their veins, drawn together by heaven itself. This pocket sized vixen is going to make her mark, or rune on the world. In the picture you see her with a falcon on one side and a lioness on the other. The falcon representing Jace, always by her side and equally as deadly. Sitting on the lioness as it represents herself. The woman in the pack that is more vicious than the man, the one who brings home the prey and takes it down.

Upright: completion of a cycle or journey, triumph, good outcome over adversity, hard fought victory.

Reverse: frustration, incomplete endeavors, failed projects.

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bedlamgames · 4 years ago

Text

No Haven 0.912

Main highlight for this one is definitely dilemmas where slavers will have a variety of requests for you to manage.

Also includes some new assignments, new commissions, assignment generation improvements, crafting additions, and more.

Download links can be found on the No Haven page. Update notes can be found under the break.

If you don’t have RAGS and you need a copy to run it there’s one on the help page here or the one pinned on the patreon you can find a link to in the attached read me which is more up to date. If RAGS has never worked on your system despite the help page suggestions then it might be worth trying with one of the alternate players. There’s also improvements on there to the RAGS player that can also help with performance.

v0.912:

-New commissions: ---Recapture. Also used for Sea Elf Female slaves.

-Miscellaneous additions: ---Added some race/corruption specific fondles as an alternative to the minimal text. If set to minimum only these won't be shown. Specifically ones for Lago'Mae/Lago'Mae Ears Corruption, Ori'Nek, Lamia, Quintari/Centaurs/Quintari Tail Corruption, Kitsune, Neko/Neko Ears Corruption, Long Sinuous Tail Corruption, Prehensile Tail Corruption, and Marlsune. Includes variations based on obedience, whether the slaver is dominant or slutty, and some have more than one variation. ---Replaced the Arrogance Subjugated commission with an updated version generously provided by the artist. ---Added some extra description to the Sinuous Tail corruption to make clearer that it's the traditionally demonic spaded tail look. ---Added a new heart-tipped tail corruption as I was in the area anyway, and noticed that it was an obvious omission that needed feeling. Comes in two different variations. ---Added some extra highlighted messages to slave mantras when they become fully embedded, improved, reduced, or are lost entirely for better visibility. ---Upgraded the prioritization of back tentacles if multiple tentacle options are available. ---Changed how forced encounters for repeated attempts work on the initial roller. Before it was possible for them to completely lose interest after getting max gold. Now they will be more likely to keep initiating, and be more likely than before if there's a chance to earn more gold. ---Added a new Glossary to explain what effects Forced Encounters available under Glossary, Help, and Options.

-Bug fixes: ---Fix for an issue where the summonee and sibling second-in-command races, along with the siblings in the Birds of the Feather scenario could be overwritten incorrectly. Also changed the mention to needing Corrupter. ---Fix for an issue in dilemmas involving a respect check with more than one slaver involved where the instigating slaver's name would be replaced by one of the others. ---Fix for Valendil Starlover's lore page applying to all sea elf males when you're playing him. ---Fix for Untamed Lusts not counting down for you. ---Fix for Demi-Angel/Fallen/Succubus with elven heritage not going the elven pussy description or elven flexibility racial. ---Fix for Savage Orc and Human Northerner racials where racials were incorrectly displayed. ---Fix for opportunities requesting male amazons or wanting amazons not to be human. ---Fix for the stats increasing for assignment types on fails and disasters. ---Fix for the Catastrophics on Price of Freedom for the slaves also affecting the two slavers. ---Fix for the various findable uniques not being counted as having unaltered assets. ---Fix for the missing extra values for slaves found from Meddling Fools and Spectacle of the Sacred. ---Fix for the new mechanic to trigger puppet leader when mental manipulation isn't involved. ---Fix for Cutprice Roses > Armour > Maid generating a bunch of broken and unusable battlemaid outfits. ---Fix for Stats only showing your slaves sometimes. The trait slots were also using the wrong variable and so were displaying one person's trait slots for everyone. ---Fix for which regions assignments have been completed not increasing which had broken the region based aspects. ---Fix for an issue where it was possible that not enough assignments would be generated. ---Fix for the unknown CT Error that could occur during Finish Day. It's possible there's others but I've definitely squished the one I could reliably reproduce. ---Fix for a far too high a bonus to Forced Encounters from Sissy/Bimbo. ---Some text fixes.

v0.911:

---A Rare City of Aversol assignment in the City of Aversol with two pieces of patron provided commissioned art. Comes with the opportunity to learn one of ten potential traits, specially upgraded versions of all those traits, and a new penalty effect in Enflamed Lusts. While currently used on this assignment I'm sure it will also be a fun option to inflict in other places in future. ---Hidden Special assignment follow up to that one needing multiple critical successes with specific traits to find a very powerful reward with two new unique slave(r)s with four new aspects and a special encampment upgrade.

-Crafting changes: ---Added two more qualities. Formerly it was Poorly Made, Average, Designer/Masterwork, Spectacular, Epic, and now it's Poorly Made, Average, Impressive, Designer, Spectacular, Epic, Ultimate. ---Changed up the odds due to this of the likelihood of these being generated. ---Respect checks for seduction are now affected by each quality rather than just for designer and above. Armour works too if it's got a 20+ slutty rating. ---Reduced the assignment bonus from Average with Impressive now contributing what Average used to. ---Increased the assignment bonus for Epic attire.

-Miscellaneous additions: ---It is now possible to gain the puppet leader status from forced encounters without the forcer needing a way to be able to change you mentally though it will need them to be taking the max amount of gold for it to be able to happen. The method used should be familiar to those that have played the Rough Landing games and I hope you enjoy the little callback. ---Lamia futanari will now always be double cocked. Added some extra description for lamia/lizardman cocks. ---Replaced the last part of Golem descriptions with a new set of nine options as the old ones like spectacles, face prints, and forehead gems really weren't appropriate. Also updated the wisp last part replacement so there's now four different ones rather than just the one. ---The Male Nethemir Cult Vessel has picked up Back Tentacles as a starting corruption. The aspect Aura of Dark prophecy now also replaces Scavenging for Corruption as a favoured assignment type and Follower for Leader along with Faith: Frozen Queen for Magic: Corruptions as favoured traits ---Legion, Golems, and Wrights can no longer be Were. Centaurs and Harpies now can be. ---Updated the you golem physical attributes generator to match the updated one used for other golems. Other golems with Monster will now have a set height rather than being variable.

Bug fixes: ---Fix for Private Passage not listing the needed gold. ---Fix for Truly Divine increasing potential slavers instead of slaves. ---Fix for Sissies having the wrong chastity options. ---Fix for a slaver's reputation being changed correctly by an enslave attempt prior to the bit where it should be changing. ---Fix for Oozes, Wrights, Wisps, Driders, and Golems being able to be enslaved by the talk to option. Some will be enslavable in future but you'll need to discover a way to do it. ---Fix for 150g dilemmas only costing 50g. ---Fix for a big issue with dilemmas where it would forget what it was doing halfway through on several options. ---Fix for the Ensnared Rose fulfilled opportunities being broken.

v0.91:

-Dilemmas: ---Now slavers won't just want to talk to you in the morning about random bits of in-setting lore and will instead have a variety of requests. ---Should happen more often than lore unlocks and should adjust how often they happen based on how many slavers you have in the encampment. ---Wisps don't really have normal desires, and will just do what they like. Legion are also not really into asking permission for anything. Zharr, thugs, bimbos, obedient slavers, and other completely loyal ones are all far too content with their lot to ask for stuff. Mercenaries are just here to get paid and will also not bother you. ---There are twenty three different dilemmas to start off with at various levels of rarities in how often they'll happen. Several of which have variation in outcomes, options, and reasoning. ---Slavers on negative reputations and on certain levels of morale will be far more likely to either ask to leave if disliked or insisting you do something about being lusted after. ---Lots more usage for the respect checking system with some using the initial check only, while others skip straight to needing to force the issue like making use of. ---Can gain new traits, rarer assignments, new slavers, cheap(ish) biomancy, and region buffs among others. ---Due to this I reworked how Trait Transmission worked where a slaver can learn a trait of another slaver. Currently this only affects one of the new dilemmas and one of the Coastal Caves outcomes, but there will be other uses including one in the near future. Previously it was in strict order of checking for and applying Depraved > Slutty > Unscrupulous > Friendly > Sneaky > Seductive > Aggressive > Brutal in turn. Now it's more randomized (though still with a greater chance of picking up Depraved) and now can also potentially learn Connected, Cooperative, Creative, Dancer, Folklorist, Follower, Herbalist, Heroic, Honourable, Perceptive, Persuasive, Singer, Tactful, Tracker, Trainer, Trapper, any of the Faiths including Spiritual, and most of the Crafter traits. ---Can get your second-in-command to deal with it if they're around. Due to this Persuasive (Per), Seductive (Sed), Hypnotic (Hyp), Dominator (Dtr), Malevolence (Mal) are now listed as positive traits and Bimbo (Bim), Sex Addict (Sex) are mixed. Also added a note that them having a decent reputation helps, as it does. ---If you do this second-in-commands on lower morale have a chance to dislike the role more making them easier to remove if you want to do that. They also have a chance to lose some reputation if they handle it really badly.

-New assignments: ---A Forest Goblins vs. Wood Elves themed Uncommon Slaving assignment in the Ever Forest for a new solid source of supplies. Critical success has two versions, one for getting a slave, and one for if you have no slave capacity/are not taking slaves. ---An Adventurers themed assignment Rare Marauding assignment in the Dreadsea Coast. The Critical Success has patron provided commissioned art. Findable from the second month and will apply a penalty to Dreadsea Coast assignments along with a lesser penalty to Great Plains assignments while it is active giving the choice of sending five slavers to deal with it at a high risk or waiting for the assignment to expire. Critical success has three versions, one first time getting a specific semi-unique slave, one for after that with more variation in who you get, and one for if you have no slave capacity/are not taking slaves.

-New commissions: ---Halt Draenei Caravan with two versions for intro and the success. Also used for Draenei female slavers and female slaves. Also used for now for Draenei Farm, but I'm getting something new for that. ---Forest goblin female slaves. Will also be used for an upcoming assignment in the Deep Mountains. ---Bred to be Broken. Also used for Quintari female slavers and Centaur slaves. ---Gone for a Soldier. Also used for Orc female slavers. ---Lago'Mae in Maid Outfits for both Submissive and non-Submissive options. Will be used for Basic/Advanced Maid Training in a future update.

-New patron provided commissions: ---Human Fancy. Part of a larger commission to be used for an upcoming assignment. Also used as an alternative to tentacle sex as appropriate with the existing beast on goblin one. ---Shadow Outcast. The larger commission just mentioned. Also has an alt for Shadow Outcast futanari. ---Planning out assignments/Winning the Golem Scenario. Has many variations being used, including zoomed versions, for having a Golem Second-in-Command, female Akir slaves, Noble slaves, and blowjob sex scenes. Like the encampment scene you won't see it every time you do planning out assignments though there will be a greater chance if you are playing a Golem.

-Crafting additions: ---New race styles in Asanei, Ori'Nek, Unrefined, and Neko (which has a few extra cute variations). ---Will now correctly account for if the smith/seamstress is Slutty or Reserved. ---More than doubled the number of different messages. Small chance they will now show up on not specifically Slutty/Girly items. ---Several new decoration additions including asymmetric and tassels. ---To better reflect the style of the setting the oversized shoulder pads have been replaced with sensibly sized shoulder pads.

-Assignment generation: ---Extended the recent system where there'd be a reduction in rare assignments in the first month and a slight increase after the first six months. Now it is possible to increase the chance of getting a rare assignment based on it being a solid lead, a quality lead, or best lead for an increasingly large bonus. ---Most assignments will work as they did before with the following exceptions. ---The assignment you can get in the Tavern is a solid lead. ---The assignments from brought scouting upgrades will be either normal, solid, or quality based on the level purchased. ---The assignments from Inquisitor will be quality leads. ---The bonus assignments from the Scouting aspects on Critical Success will be best leads, and on a Success will be quality leads. ---A Critical Success on Scouting assignments along with Grove Creepers will be solid leads. ---The assignments from Decadence like No Other on a Critical Success will be best leads for the City of Aversol ones, and quality for the others. On a Success all assignments generated will be solid so this should hopefully make this assignment a lot more worthwhile than it was before. ---An edge case not likely ever to come up, but it amused me so why not, so on a Failure of Sudden Betrayal if you did try to get rid of a slaver with the A Friend in Every Tavern aspect the assignments generated will be best leads.

-Miscellaneous additions: ---Stats now shows how many free trait slots you, a slaver, or a slave can have. This is how many extra traits can be learned from most sources including corruptions (usually, as there are exceptions that ignore this limit such as training). The number of slots can be increased by levelling up. ---Used zoomed in versions of the Nymph commission for generic sex for elves or those that have been dominated performing oral on lady or futanari slavers. ---Reworded the Decadence like No Other intro a bit along with adding a note in the Special text. ---A few bits of text additions and formatting improvements to respect checking. ---Changed the colour of wood elf speech from maroon like other elves to match the one used also by Centaurs, Horned Ones, and Fae. ---Adjusted Critical Success/Success odd additions a bit if the chance of a Failure/Disaster falls well below negative at time of applying. They'll still improve the chances and add to Crushing it, but by a slightly lower amount in the same way that the odds additions/subtractions are based on the numbers present so the more the assignment requires the less a Success trait is worth. This shouldn't be noticeable unless you're really, really overloading an assignment, and even then it shouldn't be too harsh in terms of effect. ---Added a bunch of new succubus first name variations. ---With the cheerleader precedent Known Shark of the Cards will no longer be earned by having Magic: Illusion and such slavers now have more text on the Critical Success to reflect that.

Bug fixes: ---Big backend overhaul for how assignments generate specific other assignments along with how the expiry is applied that should fix some obscure issues. ---Fix for a critical bug where cancelling while assigning a slave to a slaver would break the game. ---Multiple fixes for forced encounters including who was doing it wasn't being tracked correctly so the amount being taken wasn't being increased so you could never get to the puppet leader event and that a bunch of text was being skipped over during the possessed variants. Also changed the forced encounter checks while I was there so rather than skipping days 1-10 to each month to having a penalty to the roll on days 1-10 of the first month. ---Fix for the assignment buff from the Critical Success from Complete Profane Ritual only lasting 3 days due to a cap on the variable used instead of 8 as was originally intended. ---Fix for an issue where some of the newest assignments may not have been clearing on a quick restart. ---Fix for golem butts being too small on average. ---Fix for heritage not being cleared on rerolling your start so could pick up incorrect racials if you swapped out of a demi-angel or succubus. ---Fix for some of the newer Diplomacy assignments not working with the Diplomacy rank up assignment generation correctly. ---Fix for Lady of Light being treated when started as a slaver recruiting assignment rather than a slave capturing one. ---Fix for unintended wing growth if you corrupted a winged character before examining them. ---Fix for an issue where a slave would be rated as the wrong value during sexytime. ---Fix for switch showing up twice after trait removal which happens most obviously for you at game start. ---Fix for some repeated text on forced encounters. ---Fix for trying to increase the height of a minimum height character being treated as a reduction attempt. ---Fix for Marauding Spectacle of the Sacred Clumsy/Magic: Corruption being swapped in the description but not in the actual checks. ---Fix for not being able to change a sissy's chastity options if they were already wearing a cage when they made the transition. ---Fix for not being able to get the Succubus Summonee second-in-command given the change to corrupter. ---Fix for the broken night goblin's traits from Coiled Tentacles which were well broken by a recent change in how specific slave rewards are generated. ---Fix for repicking during training showing the slave being trained. ---Some text fixes.

#NO HAVEN

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monstersdownthepath · 5 years ago

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Spiritual Spotlight: Phlegyas, the Consort of Atheists

True Neutral Psychopomp Usher of Atheists, Legacies, and Reincarnation

Domains: Artifice, Earth, Knowledge, Repose Subdomains*: Industry, Petrification, Memory, Psychopomp

Concordance of Rivals, pg. 16

Obedience: Spend an hour creating something from the dead, such as by making jewelry or clothing from hair, flesh, bones, or teeth. Alternately, mummify or embalm a corpse. Benefit: Gain a +2 insight bonus on saving throws against Divine magic.

(*IMPORTANT NOTE: The Subdomains are my best guess; Subdomains are not listed in Concordance of Rivals.)

Macabre! I hope you’ve got a good explanation for your party about why you’re being a ghoulish scavenger, but personally I’ve yet to be in a party where there were no scavenger types. It seems that every group of people has at least one person who takes handfuls of teeth or other trophies from their kills, but that may just be a bigger signifier about what kinds of people that I hang out with than a true analysis of this Obedience.

It’s an easy Obedience to do if you can quell your party’s fears about your chosen medium for your arts and crafts, because as an adventurer, you’re not likely to have a shortage of usable parts. Hell, just ONE complete body has enough materials to carry you through several days or even weeks of this Obedience because you can just perform some scrimshaw on the larger bones before using the smaller ones as pieces for a larger work. For people who want a bit more oomph in their crafting, I’m not 100% certain on Pharasma and the Usher’s tolerance of using the dead as crafting material for your own Construct minions, but ‘creating something from the dead’ lends itself to some pretty broad interpretations. You can, technically, use them to make Wondrous Items like weaving their leather into a Bag of Holding, even. Crafting magic items takes way more than 1 hour to do, obviously, so you can really only combine this Obedience with your crafting during downtime... Unless they’re potions, in which case they take a mere 2 hours if they cost less than 250gp.

That counts, right? All else fails, though, a Sack Of Rats can be used here. Just pull one out, clonk it dead, and preserve that tiny corpse.

And while my mind is on it, this Obedience couples phenomenally with the Harvest Parts, Grisly Ornament, and Monstrous Crafter feats.

Also, the benefit is great. A blanket +2 on saves versus Divine spells from any source and any alignment? Sign me up! Unfortunately, it doesn’t really protect you from spell-like abilities, and the bonus by itself is rather small, but it’s always nice to have just an always-on bit of extra protection you don’t need to think about. Like Mage Armor!

Boons are gained slowly, gained at levels 12, 16, and 20. Servants of the Monitors, though, can enter the Proctor Prestige Class as early as level 8. If entered as early as possible, you can earn your Boons at levels 10, 14, and 16. You MUST take the Monitor Obedience feat, NOT Deific Obedience. Monitors grant only a single set of Boons.

Boon 1: Creator's Whispers. Gain Crafter's Fortune 3/day, Object Reading 2/day, or Detect Anxieties 1/day.

Crafter’s Fortune and Object Reading aren’t too useful in the day-to-day, lets get that out of the way. Fortune grants a target a +5 bonus to the next Craft check they make, which is GREAT for people in your party who actually create things (like you, potentially), but you don’t need it 3/day unless everyone is making stuff. You can also use it in tandem with the Fabricate spell, of course, but in general you likely won’t need it more than once a day.

Object Reading has its niche uses in a Whodunnit mystery or tracking down the owner of a particular item, allowing you to quickly gather information of whose hands the target has passed, but the +10 Appraise check is actually only worth +1 fact, giving you a minimum of +2 facts... which is all you probably need anyway. It’s up to you whether or not that means this ability is useful, but know that the +10 means that a mere 2 or 3 points in Appraise makes it impossible to fail your reading.

Which leaves Detect Anxieties, which works as Detect Thoughts, but instead of the infinitely more useful analysis of the victim’s surface thoughts, you instead learn of whatever anxieties and fears are plaguing its mind. While still potentially useful, this translates in-game to only providing a paltry +2 to Intimidation checks, which I think should be significantly higher. Perhaps you could also get bonuses to other skill checks if you choose to sooth their anxieties rather than exploiting them?

That being said, it’s a useful spell for scanning hallways and rooms for concealed enemies, and its ability to pass through the same materials Detect Thoughts can means you can peer into some rooms without opening the doors and get a general feel of the room’s mood. All three of these spells, however, remain pretty niche, making it difficult to pick which one to take each day.

Boon 2: Evader of Consequence. You can cast Reincarnate or Mindwipe 1/day as a spell-like ability. You must select which when you perform the obedience for that day.

Mindwipe slaps a target with 2 temporary negative levels if they fail their save, with the side-effect of instantly wiping out the target’s two highest-level spells or spell slots, as well as erasing the knowledge of two of their highest-level spells known. It’s an alright spell in the hands of players, shaving -10 HP off the enemy and hitting them with a -2 penalty to every roll they make, and eating two of the caster’s most powerful tools in one go can cripple whatever trump card they had in their pocket.

Unfortunately, it’s negated entirely by a save, and a Will save at that. It’s going to be difficult to actually have it land on a caster for its full effect, but at the very least you can still aim it at the enemy frontline to debuff them for a few days.

That being said, Reincarnation is an interesting choice. Normally costing 1,000gp to cast, you pay nothing for this power. It requires only a small portion of a dead body to use and creates a new one in the prime of their youth, allowing the caster to bypass the usual “no old age” restriction of life-granting magic, allowing it to bring back people living way past their time. Also, since Reincarnate works on bodies less than a week old, you can just keep preparing Mindwipe until someone dies!

The true power of this Boon, however, is that it’s essentially a free Raise Dead that needs only a pinch of corpse dust to work, provided you’re feeling lucky on the slot machine of potential races to come back as. Some... complications may arise if they reincarnate as a race that doesn’t mesh well with their build, but the fact you get the spell for free means that you can just keep trying day after day if you need to. On a morbid note, this means you’ll never really be at a loss for parts for your Obedience! ... Or food, I suppose.

Boon 3: Though Only Breath. After completing your Obedience, choose one Craft, Perform, or Profession skill. Until you next perform your Obedience, you gain a +10 insight bonus on checks to create something permanent with your chosen skill, such as carving a statue, writing a play, or drafting meaningful legislature. A check result of 40 or higher indicates that the object you create is of such astonishing quality that it will remain in the public consciousness for generations to come. This bonus does not apply to checks made to earn money.

I hope you’re the party craftsman, because come level 16, everything you do has a chance of becoming something famous and beautiful. Note that, while this ability cannot be used to craft scrolls or potions, using it to craft magical items is perfectly valid. ALSO NOTE, though, that this affects your Craft check, not your Spellcraft check, so allocate your skill points accordingly. Spellcraft allows you to construct any magical item, but specific Craft checks are needed for things like working leather, carving stone, etc.

On the plus side, golems and other magical Constructs often require specific Craft checks to build rather than just relying on Spellcraft, allowing you to craft mechanical minions with greater accuracy than ever before. If your items cost less than 1000gp to create you can get them finished in one day, allowing you to swap your bonuses to another one if need be.

Two things about this Boon are cute: The first is that you can also use it to bolster Perform or Profession, and the second is the final portion, in which an especially impressive construction will endure “in the public consciousness for generations to come,” implying that whatever you make will either be so astonishingly breathtaking or so unbelievably horrifying that people won’t be able to stop thinking about it for centuries. Amusing as that is when making something that costs less than 1000gp, it’s still apparently noteworthy enough to have whispers of it passed from parent to child.

This makes spreading propaganda pathetically easy, by the way. Since Profession checks can be just about anything, you can go buck wild with Profession (Lawmaker) or Profession (Mayor) or Profession (Novelist)! ... Or, as my DM pointed out, a futuristic setting could have you use your Profession (Blogger) or Profession (Instagram Influencer) clout to shape the public zeitgeist. Even if they don’t like you or your ideas, they’ll be talking about you, possibly until long after you’re gone.

Even if you can’t change the world, but you can sure as hell leave your mark in it.

You can read more about her here.

#Spiritual Spotlight #Neutrality Notes #Pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

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vcg73 · 5 years ago

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Witch!Kurt #40 - Follow the Love

Your eyes do not deceive you! After something like three months and one complete rewrite once I finally decided that the dark crap I was writing was not where I wanted to go, here is a new chapter.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Almost immediately, Kurt sensed that this venture into the Void would be different from his first.

The last time he had been here, he had not been fully conscious of shifting out of the physical realm until he detected the first spark of Adam’s lifeline and threw himself towards it. He had felt an odd sensation then, like floating weightless in a dream, except that he had known he was still awake.

This was more like walking into a strange room, only to have the door slam shut behind him and then the floor fall away beneath his feet. But like before, the connection with his coven kept him from getting lost in the darkness, giving him reassurance that he was indeed tethered to the real world and that there was a safety net ready to catch if he should lose his way.

Trying to remember how it felt when he was levitating, he forced himself to take a deep breath, picturing his lungs filling and emptying, and almost immediately the initial sensation of panic ebbed away. He was fine, he was in control, and he could do this.

He began to sense his physical body again, able to register the slight sting of the knot-work pendant digging into his palm where he was clenching his fingers tight against it, to sense his fellow witches surrounding and supporting him. He reached out his senses and found that he could identify Sam and the trio of Familiars that guarded them both. After a moment, he recognized that Elliott had reached out to rub a hand across his shoulders. He could not precisely feel the touch, he wasn’t even sure it was physically there given that his friend had been in cat form when he left, but he knew that at least emotionally it was real, and he took comfort from that.

He could also feel Adam, away at the very edge of his consciousness, willing him the strength to go forward and not let the emptiness of the Void overtake him. Kurt concentrated on the web, giving each of the magical strings a little ‘pluck’ to signal that he was okay. Almost at once, he felt an answering vibration of relief and encouragement.

Reassured that he had backup if anything went wrong, Kurt began to move forward through the darkness, and after a while he began to notice that it was not so much a lack of light that surrounded him as simply a deep gray nothingness, distracted by occasional flickers. A tiny flash of light here, a bit of color there, a blur of motion distracting him out of the corner of his mind’s eye.

He wondered what those were. Surely there couldn’t be a lot of people trapped in pockets of space/time, right? So then what was he sensing?

A vague vibration of humor flashed through his mind, one that he identified as Sebastian. And then he understood. As he acclimated to this place, he was detecting the passage of other lives passing through the In-Between. Teleporters, Familiars, maybe even regular cats since he had been told they also had the power to use this space at will.

It helped him clarify his mission. He would not be searching what amounted to an otherworldly subway system. He had to look for someone who might be trapped on an empty platform, waiting for a train that would never come.

Well, that was a terribly depressing thought.

Still, he knew that time moved differently here, so if Finn was indeed stuck in this place and waiting for him, he might not be as aware of the passage of time as Adam had been.

Kurt had spoken at length with both his coven and his friend Troy about how assorted powers and castings worked. Kurt’s own power and his ease with magic had grown exponentially in the months since his first venture into the Void, and he knew now that doing Major Workings often resulted in time-slips as a result of so much raw power being pulled to a single location. So while Blaine was anything but a master spell-crafter, he would have been dumping a hell of a lot of energy – taken from god knew how many unwitting donors – into the Void when he shot his magical blast at Finn. And if Finn had countered with some sort of instinctive defense, his developing Telekinesis could easily have sling-shot him somewhere he could escape, someplace he might feel safe.

Of course, being flung completely out of his body would have fucked that plan up pretty royally, but the idea was sound.

Tubbington had been confident that physical distance held no importance in this place, but cats tended to see the world differently from humans. To L.T., one simply entered the In-Between space at one point and came out wherever they wished to be. But for human Teleporters it was different. Adam’s father could jump thousands of miles in a blink, even if he was carrying several other people and going to a place he’d never been before. Santana was limited to familiar locations. Elliott, though a Familiar, was only strong enough to transport a single extra person, and he required a point of reference.

Kurt was not a proper Teleporter at all. He had enough that he could sense and navigate non-physical realms, but for him it was like driving along a dark highway with no maps or road-signs to guide him.

“Finn?” he called, as he had been doing periodically since he started. He did not really expect a response, but he was unwilling to take the chance of not at least trying the obvious. “Finn, can you hear me? It’s Kurt. I’ve come to bring you home. Finn?”

Nothing.

He had to think about this differently. Part of him had been expecting Finn’s soul to react to his touch the way Adam’s had, but Adam had already been an experienced witch when he was projected to this place. He had had a physical body and at least some awareness of Kurt in the real world.

Finn would not have that advantage. He had not even known what was happening when his power began randomly manifesting, assuming the coven’s theory was accurate, and even if he had figured out his plight somehow, he certainly wouldn’t be aware that Kurt had the power to magically come to his rescue.

When Kurt was learning to separate his Talents, Adam had told him to identify each piece individually, to recognize them one by one before trying to blend them together. So what if he could do that here? If he could reach out and separate the threads of magic interwoven into the pendant he was holding, then maybe he could simply separate Finn’s thread and use it as a sort of divining rod to find the rest of him.

It took a long time, but finally Kurt gasped. Had he detected a faint pulse?

Touching the gossamer thread of Finn’s lifeline as gently as a raindrop rolling along spider-silk, he willed it to unwind further and take him where he needed to go.

~*~*~*~*~

Ohio.

Kurt was not surprised at all to recognize that he had suddenly jumped to somewhere in his home state. He couldn’t see the surrounding views, but he knew it as surely as he knew his own name. Just as he knew that he was somehow picking up speed.

He found himself zipping through long empty spaces, some of them dark, some light, and the interruptions by those flashes of color and light were growing more frequent. He had at some point decided to concentrate on emotion rather than physically searching for his brother, and immediately felt a shift inside himself.

So much power was coursing through him that it felt like being struck by a lightning bolt of pure sensation. He understood now what the combination of his recent Joining and the High Magic of Valentine’s Day had to offer. He was picking up pieces of other people’s feelings as he traveled, so many shots of love hitting him from every direction; platonic, sexual, friendship, family; not all of it happy or clearly expressed, but every bit of it full of pure undiluted emotion.

It was dizzying and a little addictive.

He reached out again to his coven, needing their steadying influence, and felt the Familiar trio guiding him back to his path, giving him a helping hand through the confusion.

Think, Kurt.

Using the overwhelming emotion as an amplifier, he concentrated on the essence of his lost brother, letting his own love take the lead. Emotional instinct was his best and truest gift as both a witch and a human being and he needed to let it guide him.

There! There it was again. That faint answer to his call. It was not so much words as just a feeling of “?”, “!”, and finally “…”

Kurt grabbed on to that small reply and threw himself towards it. He gasped when he abruptly saw one of the sparks coming right at his face, raising his arms in instinctive defense, only to find himself then bumping into a very solid wooden door and landing on his ass on a very real wooden floor covered in rich Oriental carpeting.

He was, to all sensory evidence, back in his physical body and occupying a corridor that he knew very well though he had not seen it for several years. Not sure what else to do, he got to his feet and knocked on the red-stained cherry wood door. The door obligingly swung inward and he found himself entering the common room where he used to like studying when he was a student at Dalton Academy. The small one with the fireplace and comfortable sofas where he and Blaine had sung their first duet one long ago Christmas.

And he was not alone, though his companion this time was not his teenaged dream.

“Finn!” he said, stepping forward and reaching out a hand, only to stop when the long body lounging on the sofa did not react with the same joy and surprise.

Finn Hudson, dressed in slacks, a plain button up shirt, a sweater-vest, and loafers, all oddly devoid of any color but a dull muted gray, looked up at him with a familiar confused expression, as if he could not quite recall where he had seen this visitor before. “Hey,” he said.

Not knowing what else to do, Kurt sat down on the sofa next to him. “Hi, Finn,” he said softly. “It’s really good to see you again.”

“You too,” he said, smiling a little. “I don’t usually see you guys so clearly.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “You know. Memories of the old days. You don’t usually come right in and talk to me. Maybe I’m finally losing it.”

This time, Kurt obeyed his impulse and reached out to grasp his hand. “I’m not a memory. I’m really here and I’ve come to take you home.”

Finn jumped, looking absolutely astounded by the contact. “You touched me! Who are you?”

Kurt felt his heart drop to somewhere in his shoes. In all the scenarios of finding Finn, he had never once considered that he would be so damaged by this experience that he would not remember his own brother. “Finn, it’s me. It’s Kurt.”

His brow scrunched. “Kurt? Nah, Kurt is just a kid. You look older than me.”

Puzzled by this response, Kurt sat forward, both giving and taking a closer look. Now that he mentioned it, Finn did look younger than the not-quite-20 year old who had been studying to be a teacher. He appeared to be around fifteen. The way he had looked when Kurt first developed his stupid crush on this boy back in their freshman year of high school. “I’m almost twenty-two now,” he said. “Same as you would be.”

Finn considered this, playing with the buttons on his vest, which Kurt now recognized in spite of the lack of signature blue and red, as one of the alternates to the Dalton uniform blazer. But Finn had never gone to Dalton Academy. He had never even set foot inside the place, unless he had come here to confront Blaine on the day he . . . oh!

“I thought . . . your body was found at your dorm at U of O,” he said, “not here.”

His brow scrunched. “Body? Dude, what are you talking about? I’ve been here ever since I transferred.”

Kurt decided to play along. He remembered that Adam had told him that he carried echoes of Blaine’s malice with him into the Void when he was torn away from his physical body. Maybe Finn had somehow carried memories belonging to his attacker, and confused them with the stories he knew of Kurt’s own time here. Also, Finn did not appear to realize that he had died. Rather than a formless phantom or wandering soul, his essence had simply transported to a place that gave him the appearance of a somewhat normal life.

“Finn, what exactly do you do here? At Dalton Academy. You said ‘we’ don’t usually come in and talk. Who is that?”

“I . . .” he paused, seeming unsure of the answer now. “I go here . . . don’t I? This room, and the choir room, and I see my mom, and Shue, and Rachel, and Puck, and Kurt sometimes. But they don’t come in, they just remind me of things we used to do together, and then they go away and I go back to hanging out in here. That’s okay, right?”

Surprised by the anxious question, Kurt patted his arm. “Yeah, that’s fine. But it isn’t exactly real either. Because you never attended Dalton. I did, remember? When we were seventeen, I got chased out of McKinley by a death threat and I came here for a few months. Until you helped me figure out a way to confront the bad parts and regain my old life and all of our old friends. Because by then you and I had become brothers.”

“Because Mom married Burt,” he said in a revelatory tone. “You threw them a wedding, and you and I danced together, and we were cool.”

He grinned. God, how he had missed that simplistic way of viewing things. “Yeah, we were. You made up your mind to look after me and to be a real brother to me, and you did.”

Sadness filled Finn’s brown eyes. “No I didn’t. I only cared about me, and once you were gone I stopped acting like a brother and just did stuff that mattered to me. Even when you came home again, I ignored how the other kids treated you.”

“Only for a while,” Kurt said, then he sighed. No, he could not do that again. His instinctive habit of letting everyone off the hook and pretending that their actions had not hurt him was what had led to Blaine being able to get under his defenses so easily in the first place. He had to be honest with Finn now, for both their sakes. “It did hurt me, when you buried your head in the sand over and over, pretending like nothing mattered except what was happening in your life. You didn’t really consider me again until you came to New York. You remember the day we found out Blaine had cheated on me?”

Was it his imagination, or was Finn growing more distinct? The colors of his uniform looked brighter than before, taking on hints of faded navy and burgundy instead of the nondescript gray. He also appeared slightly older, Kurt thought.

“I remember,” he said, his voice barely audible. “I think that was when I accepted that he wasn’t as great as we’d all been telling ourselves. He broke your heart, and he didn’t even care. But you guys kept making up again, and I told myself it was like me and Rachel, except that wasn’t so great either by the end of things.”

“He was using me. He never really cared at all, and I didn’t want to face that,” Kurt said bluntly, feeling tears prickle at his eyes. “Any more than you wanted to believe that you and Rachel weren’t good for each other.”

He nodded. “Rachel loved me, and I loved her, but we never would have worked out in the long run. We had passion, but we never had much understanding. And you didn’t even get that much. You guys were all about him, right from the start. I didn’t understand how bad he treated you until you met someone new that you were honestly happy with. You sort of bloomed then, like a big flower of some kind. It’s sounds weird but you got beautiful then, like you were really you for the first time and really happy with your life. Only instead of being happy for you, everybody at home kept trying to drag you backward, and turn you back into the sad little weed you always were with Blaine. I never knew why they couldn’t see what I saw.”

“They were under a spell,” Kurt told him. “A real one, with magic.”

Finn scoffed, but then his brow furrowed again. “You aren’t kidding, are you?”

Kurt smiled at him. “No, Finn, I’m not. Magic is real. I have it, from my mom.” He hesitated, then said, “And you have it from yours. Blaine has it too, although it’s a warped unpredictable kind of magic that he mostly uses for his own advancement. A lot of our old friends turned out to be witches, and mostly good ones, who’ve helped me to find my true self. And I found Adam again. He’s the guy who made me, as you put it, bloom. Blaine hurt him, trapped him here for a long time, and made me forget him.”

They stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment, then Finn said, “That’s super weird. Are you sure? You don’t look like you have powers, and I don’t have any, I don’t think. How did you find out about all this stuff?”

“It’s a long story. I . . . do you mind if try something? It might save us a lot of time.”

Kurt was not sure this would work, given that the bodies they both occupied at this moment were little more than an illusion, but at Finn’s eager nod, he placed his fingers at his brother’s temples and willed him to See an edited version of Kurt’s experiences over the past several months. It was similar to things he had done with Adam, Brittany, and Elliott, and he was counting on the love that had grown up between himself and Finn to make it work for them.

Finn’s eyes were like saucers. “Whoa. That’s amazing. It’s awesome!”

“That’s a pretty good description,” Kurt agreed with a grin, relieved to have Finn take this so well.

“But . . . what you showed me. Blaine did that to Adam? And to you? And I found out but I still didn’t help? Or did I help? You said Blaine trapped him here. Does that mean he trapped me here? Am I not really where I think I am?”

A little surprised that he had picked up the subtext so quickly, not a skill he recalled being one of Finn’s better ones, Kurt nodded. “I’m afraid so. After you found out that Blaine was hurting me, trying to force me to marry him, you tried to stop him. Your powers were coming in, though none of us knew it at the time, and you must have come here to have it out with Blaine. I guess whatever you said to him must have freaked him out and he followed you back to your dorm, and you guys fought.”

“And my powers showed up?” he guessed, face brightening at that idea. Kurt suspected he was imagining himself as some kind of magical ninja death fighter, like something out of those video games he had loved to play with Sam, Puck, and the other “bros” back in high school. Then his smile fell. “Wait, if Blaine is still okay and I’m trapped at Dalton, he must’ve out-magicked me.”

Kurt nodded. “I think it was more like you started moving things with your will, he panicked and sledge-hammered you with magic, and you got knocked out of your body the same way Adam was, only whatever you did to defend yourself resulted in your memories getting tangled up. So you’re here, in a place familiar to me and Blaine, and he’s still walking around in his own body, doing who knows what kind of awful things to people.”

By now, Finn’s coloring had returned to full brightness and he looked like the version of himself that Kurt had last seen in Ohio a few weeks before his death. His clothing had also transformed, after briefly being a proper Dalton uniform, into a pair of jeans and a blue checked shirt. Likely the clothing he had worn on his last day.

“And I’m dead,” he said in a tone that was too resigned to be something he had never realized before, however subconsciously. “My body didn’t survive the magic blast, did it?”

“No,” Kurt told him. “I’m afraid it didn’t. You’ve been here a long time now, and I’m sorry I didn’t know that, or have a way to reach you before today.”

He looked startled at that. “Dude, it wasn’t your fault! If I can’t be mad at myself for not standing up for you sooner with Blaine, then you can’t be mad at yourself for not jumping off a cliff to come look for me. I don’t even know how you did it this time.”

“Oh, well, my friends that I showed you? My coven? They helped me get back into the Void, and we used the power of an especially powerful day, plus the ritual of my . . . did I tell you this was my wedding day? Adam and I got Joined this morning, and we’re getting legally married in a few hours.”

Finn beamed at him. “Seriously? That’s awesome, man. C’mere!”

His long arms abruptly reached out and embraced Kurt, drawing him close and squeezing tight. And just like that, Kurt’s determination to get through this meeting without tears fell apart. He hugged his brother tight, unable to stop himself as he began sobbing into that blessedly familiar shoulder. “Oh, Finn, I missed you so much.”

They held each other for a long time, neither one willing to let go, but finally Finn loosened his grip and said, “I missed you too, Kurt. Seriously, I’ve missed everybody but you’re one of the people I’ve missed most of all. Thanks for coming back for me.”

“Once I learned you might really be here, lost in here the way Adam was, I,” he choked up too much to talk, sitting up and wiping his eyes on his sleeve. He jumped then, realizing suddenly that while they still occupied the little couch together, the common room at Dalton had vanished from around them. They were back in the empty gray nothingness of the Void.

Finn just looked around, unimpressed. “It does that sometimes. When I’m in the rooms at Dalton, I forget I’m here, and sometimes I forget other stuff too. Then I remember and I’m here again. It seems like I should go to McKinley, or my old room, or someplace else I spent a lot of time, but I never do. Sometimes when I’m thinking straight, I wonder if I’m in Purgatory, like they used to talk about in church. Like maybe I did something bad, but not bad enough for like devils and torture and stuff. I’d think that was happening now except that you’re way too real, and your story is way too weird to be something I imagined.”

“You’re taking this a lot better than I expected,” Kurt said, blowing his nose in a handy handkerchief that had appeared on the sofa next to him.

“I guess you get used to it,” he said. “If it was always like this, knowing I was stuck here with nothing to look at, and nobody to hang out with, I’d be as bad as you showed me with Adam. But it isn’t, so I’m not. I’m okay, but if you have a way to get us out of here, that’d be even better.”

“I do,” Kurt said firmly. “Now that we’re on the same page, it should be just a matter of both of us willing you back home with me. That’s what I did with Adam. Although, it feels like that was way faster. We didn’t have any time to talk about it. It just sort of happened. But I’ll reach out to the coven, and pull us back to the real world, and they’ll seal off the spell so nothing else can leak through behind us.”

Finn nodded, pretending that he fully understood. “Sounds good. Only if I don’t have a body anymore, what are you going to do with me?”

“Sam is willing to share his body,” Kurt explained. “Blaine damaged him pretty badly over the years of their friendship, by storing stolen power inside him. We need a steadying influence to help him heal from the magic poisoning he’s suffered, and we also need a physical body for you, so if you’re okay with it, the two of you will share.”

Finn considered it. “I guess so. Sam was always a good friend, and if this will help us both then I’m willing to try it. Who’ll be in charge, though? Will my mind just take over his body, or will we be like split-personality guy, or what? What if one of us wants to do something, like get a job or go on a date, and the other one doesn’t? Who gets to decide?”

“Uh . . . I guess that’s something we’ll just have to find out, or you and Sam can figure as you go,” Kurt said, a little dismayed that he had never considered that angle. “I’m not even sure this is a permanent solution. For now, it’s just the best we’ve got.”

Finn gave a philosophical shrug. “Better than nothing.” Suddenly, he perked up. “Ooh, maybe I’ll be able to transport in and out at will, like in a comic book! And then one day, somebody will build a super robot and I can transfer into that and have kick-ass powers! Speaking of powers, I wonder if I’ll have any in Sam’s body. I kind of like the idea of being able to move stuff at will.”

Kurt couldn’t help it. He hugged Finn again, laughing this time. “I have no idea, but I think I’m looking forward to finding out. Shall we?”

Finn hopped up, pulling Kurt with him, and the sofa vanished into the gray. “Let’s go.”

Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, Kurt kept both hands firmly locked on Finn’s forearms as he opened his link to the coven wider. Understanding, they began actively pulling him back home and Kurt sensed the cold emptiness fading away.

Just before the end, he opened his eyes, sealing away one last memory of Finn’s face. No matter what happened next, he would never look into these beloved brown eyes again. Finn seemed to understand, for he flashed his brother a crooked smile and gave him a nod.

~*~*~*~*~*~

With an abrupt jerk, Kurt’s spirit rejoined his body. He reached out, momentarily dismayed to find his brother gone, until he remembered that of course there would be nothing to hang on to outside of the Void. And then he felt Sam respond to the gesture and grip his arms in much the same way Finn had done a moment before. They stared at one another as Monica and Santana stepped forward, L.T., Elliott and Sebastian taking a few steps back and giving the second warding circle room to change places with them and surround the two . . . possibly three . . . young men in the center.

“Quick, give me your pendant,” Monica ordered, placing both hands around Kurt’s right one and closing her fingers around the chain dangling half-forgotten in his grip. She whispered an incantation over the metal and the enchanted pendant rose into the air, pointing like an arrow at a spot slightly above and to the left of Sam. “Got him. San, you’re up.”

Santana lifted both hands and wove them in an intricate pattern over the spot the pendant had indicated. “Just hang tight, Frankenteen, and try not to move from wherever you are. This won’t hurt a bit.” The force-field that extended from her wide-spread fingertips encircled a large area and coalesced around something roughly six and a half feet tall. “Good boy. Think like you’re really standing there. Dani, make us a snowman.”

Dani’s hands covered Santana’s, then helped her shape a rough outline of a person inside the force-field. It wavered and then slowly solidified until it really did look like a human being, if that person was formed entirely of ice. “Nice to finally meet you, Finn Hudson.”

A little cry tore from Carole’s throat at the sight and it was only the tight grip that she had on June and Adam’s hands that kept her from launching at the newcomer. However transformed, her son had returned. But the Crawfords kept a firm grip. They understood her reaction all too well, but it was imperative that the final warding circle not be broken while so much magic was being performed inside of it. Not until Finn and Sam were truly connected.

Burt left his place at the breakfast bar and came to stand behind his wife, massaging her shoulders in a comforting way as he joined her anxious observation. “Don’t worry, honey. Everything will be okay if we just let them finish what they started.”

Tears shone in her eyes as she nodded. “I know,” she said thickly. “I just . . .”

“It’s okay, Carole,” Kurt said, not taking his eyes from the substitute form of his brother. “I think we’re almost there.”

“Make us some room, Brit,” Dani said.

Brittany, her face unusually serious as she worked, squinted her eyes at Sam and softly sang out a musical incantation, then she uncorked a vial of potion that Adam had made up for her and tossed it at Sam. “I Conjure the soul of one Samuel Jason Evans,” she called out, beads of sweat breaking out across her face as she struggled to do gently what Blaine Anderson had done to two of her friends by force, removing Sam’s spirit from his physical body. “Catch him, Kurt.”

The words were so casually spoken that Kurt almost did not react in time, but he jumped forward and caught Sam beneath the armpits and pulled him into an embrace just as he began to fall. He held on tight and tried to ignore the uncomfortable sensation that he was cradling a corpse, barely able to repress the urge to shiver at how still and cold the body felt in his arms.

“Okay, Johnny,” she said, still remarkably unperturbed in spite of the perspiration now running in rivulets down her face and neck. “We’re ready.”

Those with Sight could see the damaged soul she so carefully held, but even those without it could see what a struggle this was. Many of the observers in the room felt their respect for the member of Kurt’s coven they most habitually underestimated going up by degrees. What Brittany was doing clearly took both great power and very fine control.

Johnny reached out one hand toward Sam’s floating spirit, and the other toward ice-Finn. Then he closed his eyes and began to chant. Slowly, Finn’s frozen features transformed into Sam’s, and then the indistinct form of Sam’s damaged self began to solidify until it took on the shape of Finn.

Dani and Santana worked together to form a second ice-human within a force-field and Brittany fell back with a grateful gasp as she was able to let someone else take control.

“Back to you, Mon,” Johnny said.

Monica nodded and lifted the enchanted pendant, holding it aloft over a silver ring that Sam had been wearing when he arrived at the loft that morning. Kurt had not thought to ask about it, too distracted by other matters, but it occurred to him now that he had never seen his friend wear any kind of jewelry before. Studying it now as the ring began to glow in Monica’s outstretched hand, he realized that the Metallurgist must have created the item specifically for today’s event.

Speaking a series of spidery, barely audible syllables, Monica lowered the pendant until it passed through the center of the ring, then slowly wound the chain around and around it. “Kurt, please complete the Working,” she directed as the two spirits each reached out toward the interwoven jewelry without anyone’s advice.

He nodded and took a deep breath, hoping he had learned enough to pass this final test of the knowledge and power unique to a coven leader.

“You got this, kid. And we got you,” Tubbington said. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

Kurt nodded to him, unable to keep from startling a little when he noticed that the golden-brown, blue, and green eyes of the three Familiars were all glowing like they had neon lights inside of them. He could almost reach out and touch the power radiating from the trio.

“Kurt,” Adam called. He looked up, meeting the eyes of his true soul-mate. A feeling of deep joy, love, and utmost confidence passed to him from his beloved and Kurt’s thundering heartbeat steadied. “You can do this.”

“Right,” he said, offering back a nod and a tentative smile. “Dani, Johnny, help me out here.”

They gently transferred the still body from Kurt’s arms into their own, holding it safe between them and freeing Kurt to reach out both hands and cup them around the enchanted jewelry. Monica pulled her own hand away and left Kurt’s covering the ephemeral hands of his brother and friend. Santana lightly pulled away her force-fields, trusting that the two disembodied souls were now safely connected to Kurt as he began to speak.

“Mind and Heart. Body and Spirit. Thought and Flesh. Let these two lost souls be joined by the power of this coven, and the will of this Gathering.” Kurt took a step back, keeping the jewelry telekinetically afloat and connecting the two spirits, then he spread his arms wide as if embracing his friend and his brother and began to close the circle around them, whispering magical syllables as he wove three of his powers together, compressing, swapping, heating, until the ice was fully melted and the two individual beings were joined into a single form around the joint ring and necklace. The new spirit grew indistinct, slowly became a human looking form again, which at first looked mostly like Finn, and then more like Sam, and then became something like both for a moment before melting into a form of light.

To Sight, he, or perhaps they, looked like a being made of pure Potential, bright and gleaming, the broken pieces of two damaged people healed through their own form of Joining. A brotherly bond of deepest love that spread out to include Kurt, his coven, and each and every person in the watching circle.

Kurt placed a hand on the new being’s chest, and the other on Sam’s waiting body, relying on instinct as he concentrated all his remaining strength on Whisking (a name recently given to his transference power by Elliott) the spirit into the body. It obeyed the silent command as easily as if the body was putting on a new garment.

The coven joined hands and as one they spoke. “So Shall it Be.”

The entire loft shivered as if it had been struck by a distant earthquake, and all of the people in it winced and gasped as their ears were vibrated by a surge of power that seemed to suck all of the sound out with it, leaving nothing but a yawning echo for several seconds.

The cats’ eyes glowed even brighter, every hair on their bodies standing on end as they yowled a chorus of magic, slowly closing down the powerful ward they had created, allowing the gathered power to dissipate back into the cosmos, then double-checking that no trace of the Void had been left open behind the travelers. The howl rose for a moment, then became something more human, taking on a distinctly musical quality that slowly softened into a gentle purr.

Around the loft, the pressure ebbed, normal sound returned, and this time it was Kurt who dropped to the floor like a lifeless puppet, completely unconscious.

“Show’s over, folks!” Tubbington called out with entirely too much cheer for someone who had just presided over a Major Working. “You may resume your normally scheduled panic.”

Babbling conversations broke out everywhere as people surged forward. It was a crush of confusion as some ran to Kurt, some to Sam/Finn, some to other coven members who all sat on the floor in exhausted heaps of depleted strength.

Carole and Mercedes were the first to reach Sam/Finn and they looked him over with a mixture of hope, fear, and worry. The blond man blinked at them, confused as he tried to process his new reality. Finally, he looked at Carole. “Mom? What happened? When did you get so tall?”

The distraught mother looked into his now blue eyes, searching, and then she laughed, crying at the same time and enfolded the young man in the tightest of hugs. “Finn. Oh my god. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I was so afraid to hope this could possibly work.”

He hugged her back, a long rocking embrace that seemed to seek as well as give comfort, though it was obvious that he had lost a few steps somewhere between the Void and this new integrated existence. “It’s okay, Mom. I’m right here.”

“Sam?” Mercedes asked tentatively, clearly not sure whether it was okay to interrupt the tender moment, but terribly worried about the man she had once been in love with. “Are you still in there too?”

He looked at Mercedes, not releasing Finn’s mother, but smiling sweetly as he rested his cheek against Carole’s head. “I’m still here, babe,” he said, in a tone that was somehow both familiar and strange. “Feeling better too. I’m just taking a back seat to the big guy right now.”

He blinked and then ‘Finn’ lit up as he recognized her. “Hey, Mercedes! Long time no see!”

Mercedes’ mouth dropped open, a bit taken aback as she also found that she could easily recognize her old friend in spite of the change in body. “Finn. My God, boy, if I didn’t already think Kurt Hummel was some kind of miracle worker before, I sure do now. C’mere.”

As Carole reluctantly released him, Mercedes lunged forward for her own happy bear-hug, laughing and crying with overwhelming emotion.

But the mention of his brother’s name had reoriented some of Finn’s confused thoughts. “Dude! Kurt! Is he okay? He saved me from that weird place. He saved both of us.”

“He’s okay,” Burt said, reaching out from his spot on the floor where he was holding one of Kurt’s hands, while Adam cradled Kurt in his lap and cooed over him, while Kurt’s lethargically blinking eyes offered proof that he was awake but too tired to do anything but lie back and let himself be fussed over. The two smiled at one another as Finn reached out for his brother’s free hand and gave it a squeeze of gratitude. Burt clasped his own work-hardened hands over their joint ones and swallowed hard, not even trying to hide the tears in his eyes. “All of my boys are okay. And that includes you, Sam, and you, Adam.”

“What about us?” asked Sebastian, newly formed into his human self and lounging wearily but smugly in Elliott’s arms. “Don’t we get any long-lost-son brownie points here? After all, Kurt couldn’t have done it without us.”

Burt huffed, but Kurt let go a tired laugh. “He’s right, you know. I needed every one of you today, and you all came through with flying colors. Thank you, all of you.”

Nods, smiles, a bow here and there, and Burt chuckled. “Aw, what the hell? When we first got married, Kurt’s mom and I used to joke that we wanted to have a dozen kids. This wasn’t quite what I pictured, but I expect I have enough room in my life for all of you. Just bring your own snacks, and call first if you’re gonna drop by the house.”

Everyone laughed, agreeing that this would be fine by them. “Same goes for me,” Henry agreed jovially. “Though I never pictured myself raising a pack with Burt Hummel.”

They laughed again, teasing the two older men who, over the last couple of months, had progressed from near enemies to sworn friends.

“Speaking of food,” Kurt said, raising his voice above the din, “I could really use some brunch right now if I’m going to have any chance of making it to my own wedding today. Never mind the reception.”

A new babble of excited conversations rose up as all of Kurt and Adam’s friends and family were reminded that there were joyous events still to come.

“I’m on the job, Junior,” Tubbington said happily. “My poor little kittens probably couldn’t conjure a cup of coffee right now, so the two Dads and I will go pick up lunch for everybody.”

“Or I could just Conjure you something,” Bethany offered. “I wasn’t involved in the main spell-casting so I’m still fresh as a daisy.”

Tubbington flung an arm around her shoulders. “Sorry Adam, I just found a new favorite Crawford. So, Beth, how do you feel about Kung Pao Chicken?”

As everyone else began conferring on a lunchtime wish-list, Carole, Burt, Henry, Adam, and Finn/Sam hung back. Picking Kurt up off the floor they moved back to the private bedroom alcove, setting the exhausted coven leader down to sit. Adam, having also been on the outskirts was feeling fine and he happily engaged in fussing over Kurt, kissing him and telling him again and again how brave and wonderful he was, while Finn/Sam was ironically bouncing with renewed energy.

“That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” Henry said at last, looking at his new son in law with undisguised admiration. “And I’ve seen some spell-casting in my time. The way your coven worked together, each providing his or her piece of the puzzle, was some of the finest teamwork I’ve ever encountered. You should be very proud of what you’ve built here, son.”

“I am,” Kurt said, looking around at his family and out at his friends, back to happily squabbling over little things now that the excitement was over. Johnny was ignoring everyone as he concentrated on moving all of the furniture back out of his bespelled bag and into its usual position around the room so that Tubbington could enlarge what looked like a collection of doll-house furniture back to its proper size. Others were complimenting each other on their part in the spell-casting and replaying their favorite parts for one another. “I really am.”

“That really took a lot out of you, though, didn’t it?” Adam said, stroking Kurt’s brow as he rested his head on Adam’s shoulder.

He nodded. “Yes, but I’ll be okay, and it was 100% worth it.” Kurt reached out and squeezed Sam/Finn’s hand. “I got my brother back. And my friend is going to be okay too. This new situation will take some getting used to, but I’m so glad you both trusted us enough to try it.”

“Dude, before I forget to say it, thanks for what you did for me,” he replied. “I don’t think I even knew how bad off I was until right now. I feel a thousand percent better, and even though it’s weird to have someone else rattling around in my brain with me, it feels good too. And Kurt? That brother sentiment goes double for me. You and me are family now, okay?”

Kurt smiled. “Okay. Thanks, Sam. I missed you too. And Finn?” He waited a second as the other man’s face made the minute change he was already beginning to associate with his brother. “You need to take it easy for a while. I don’t know what the future holds for you guys, but I want you both to have as good a second chance as you possibly can.”

“You got it. We’re just gonna go home with Mom and Burt, and see how things go for a while.”

“I already sleep in your old bedroom, so that’ll be easy,” Sam said. “And we already like the same movies, and music, and games, and stuff. That’s cool, right?”

“Totally,” Finn said enthusiastically. “And dude, this totally means we can now play both drums and guitar!”

“I never thought of that!”

The rest of the group was watching with fascination as the blond carried on a happy conversation with himself. It was a little confusing, but also an incredibly joyful experience.

“You’re gonna have to watch that in public,” Burt said, shaking his head. “Everyone’s gonna think you’ve got a screw loose.”

“Burt,” Carole scolded gently. She could not stop staring at the young man in front of her, marveling at how much of her son she could see in this boy she had known and loved for years as Sam.

Kurt also watched in quiet contentment. He had realized just a moment ago that if he turned on his Sight, he could somehow see them both, overlapping but distinct. He was not sure if this was a side effect that would fade, or if he would always be able to see them, but it was an amazingly comforting thing and he knew that he would cherish this gift for as long as it lasted. His step-mother did not possess Sight, but Carole’s natural Empathy was clearly allowing her to feel the reality of her son’s presence in Sam and for now that appeared to be good enough.

Elliott poked his head in, beaming like a ray of sunshine. “Food’s ready, everyone! We’ve got about fifteen different dishes to choose from. Adam, your sister really knows her stuff.”

“She does, and she has a slightly overdeveloped mothering instinct to go along with it, so I’m sure she provided enough for an army,” he agreed with a grin. “What do you say, family? Shall we go tuck in?”

“In a second,” Kurt said.

Finn/Sam, animatedly discussing with himself whether to change their name to “Fam” or “Sinn”, were already out the door, heading towards the food like a metal filing to a magnet. The parents moved a bit more slowly, but they kindly took the hint that the young couple needed a moment alone.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you, or worried you, when I decided to move you out of the main circle for your own safety. Forgive me?”

Adam kissed him without hesitation. “Of course I do. I understood, and though I can’t deny being worried for you, I also had confidence that you could do what you set out to do.”

He nodded. “I could feel that, and it gave me more confidence just knowing I had yours. That place was so . . . strange. It was different this time than when I went for you, but just as unsettling. I know I’ve said it before, but you’re incredible for keeping your sanity intact for so long. Finn got stuck in a strange little imaginary Dalton Academy that kept resetting his memory, so he never had much time to get freaked out by where he was, but you didn’t even get that. You just had to power through by your own brave, stubborn will. By the way, how long was I in there?”

“Not as long as it probably felt,” Adam replied, characteristically pushing aside the admiration in Kurt’s tone. “I would say . . . perhaps a half hour?”

“Really?” Kurt was astonished. It had indeed seemed like he was wandering for many hours in the Void before he had even located Finn, and then at least an hour talking with him before venturing back. “Wow, time really does move strangely there.”

Adam nodded. “It does, yes. And darling? Now that it’s over, you have my utmost gratitude for shielding me from the experience. I can see that you weathered it well, but I’m not sure I could have done so. Well, unless I also got a posh boarding school to wait in. Maybe one with a nice board and some excellent orange spice tea.”

Kurt laughed. “I guess that’s your way of saying we should get out there before all the food’s gone?”

“Wise as well as beautiful,” Adam said, pecking the tip of Kurt’s nose with his lips. “Are you up to it, or would you like me to bring you in a tray?”

“Oh, no, I’m feeling a lot better, though I wouldn’t say no to a nap and some cuddling afterward. If we have enough time before we’re due at the courthouse.”

Checking his watch, Adam smiled. “More than enough. Shall we?”

“We shall.”

Hand in hand, the couple walked out of their room and back into the throng of happily chattering loved ones. This was, once again, the happiest day of their lives.

THE END

#Witch!Kurt #Hummel Coven #Furt in the Void

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sage-nebula · 5 years ago

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I haven’t played any of the Spyro games in years (the one I most recently played was Ripto’s Rage, and that was back in . . . 2012, I think?). This is especially true for the original, which I barely remember from my childhood. As a result, playing through them (and again, especially the first and I imagine the third), and particularly 100% clearing everything is like rediscovering them, which has led me to have some Thoughts™ as I go through, and now some appreciation for some of the subtle storytelling that Insomniac pulled off with the first game.

You see, when I first started the game, I found myself wondering why some of the older dragons that Spyro freed didn’t go take care of Gnasty Gnorc themselves. Most of them were cheering Spyro on and encouraging him to keep doing his best, which is great, but they (by their own admission, half the time) are much older, bigger, more powerful, and more experienced than he is, so it would make more sense for them to at least try to take down Gnasty before Spyro has to go that far.

Well, now that I’m in Gnasty’s Gnexus, I have my answer. Some of the older dragons that Spyro freed DID try to go after Gnasty, and when they did, they got themselves re-crystallized (which Spyro even lampshades after you free the first re-captured dragon, saying, “Didn’t I already free you?”). Just like at the start of the game, while the older dragons are more powerful and experienced than Spyro is, they’re too big to avoid Gnasty’s spell, which leads to them being frozen again almost immediately. Spyro, meanwhile, is just small enough to not get hit, so he can move through Gnasty’s Gnexus (as with all the other worlds) freely.

(Another nice tidbit about Spyro’s size: While this isn’t true on the second level in Gnasty’s Gnexus, for the first one, Gnorc Cove, none of the enemies can see Spyro as he approaches because all of the barrels and crates around are too big for them to notice him. Therefore, most of the time they won’t attack first, even when they’d have a clear advantage with TNT barrels and the like. It’s another nod to how Spyro’s size is what saves him, and was maybe designed like that as a reminder from Insomniac to the player about why it is that the bigger dragons get recaptured again, while Spyro himself is able to roam free, particularly since you have to go through the levels in Gnasty’s Gnexus in order, versus being able to choose which one to do at your leisure as you could in all the other worlds.)

Aside from that, there are other little things I’ve picked up on and noticed as well, such as the fact that Spyro is a baby boy, baby. Part of him coming across this way is due to some of his snarkiness being toned down (the dialogue is the same, but since they re-recorded all the audio the delivery is different, with it sounding more genuine and less sarcastic than in the original, which is a bit of a bummer but fine enough as it is), but part of it is also just due to his facial expressions and the fact that he’s so small and still learning!! In Magic Crafters, for instance, one of the dragons you free tells Spyro that the speedways are explicitly designed to teach Spyro how to fly, and he’s like, “Learn to fly, got it.” Like, that’s why he can’t fly, and can only glide! It’s because he hasn’t quite mastered his wings yet! He doesn’t have the endurance yet!! He’s baby!!! Also, in the very beginning of the game, while the one dragon (I can’t remember his name) is giving the interview that sets Gnasty Gnorc off in the first place, you see Spyro in the background playing by chasing sheep around. Like he’s not paying attention to the interview, he’s just playing! Just having a good time!! Romping around, scaring some sheep!! BABYYY.

Another cool thing that the Reignited trilogy especially brings out is the fact that each world really does house a specific subset of dragons. Artisans is, well, artisans; they’re artists, musicians, crafters. Peacekeepers are soldiers, Magic Crafters are magicians, Beast Makers are beast tamers (and I suppose they might make beasts but I don’t think we really see that since they spend their time captured) who live in a swamp, and Dream Weavers are dream magicians who live in the clouds. All of the dragons are distinct in manner of speech, style, and what it is they do. And not only is the Artisans world the starting world, but we also see that Spyro was romping around chasing sheep there in the very beginning. Considering you have to prove to the balloonist that you’re ready to go to each new world by completing certain challenges, it’s safe to say that young dragons probably don’t move between the worlds as they please . . . which means that Spyro is an Artisan dragon. He’s an artist!! A little baby artist!!! Gonna make some sculptures of scorched sheep!! BABY!!!

It’s funny, because as a kid what I loved most about Spyro (aside from the obvious that he’s a dragon---although, come to think of it, it’s highly likely Spyro was what made me interested in dragons in the first place, hm) was that he was so cool, and I do still love his cool, snarky side. I think his pose on the Ripto’s Rage cover is the coolest and best looking one. But now, as an adult, I look at him and just see this little snarky baby artist dragon and I just want to cuddle him to pieces. Like he’s still going to burn down everything around him, but while he’s still off to destroy people, now he’s my little baby off to destroy people, and I couldn’t be prouder.

Anyway. Back to the game.

#spyro the dragon #spyro reignited trilogy #also I love how him being small is not something Spyro is self-conscious about #he's still growing and he knows it!#he looks forward to the day he is big and mighty and powerful #but he doesn't resent his small size and instead owns it!#because he knows he can torch whoever tries to mock him for being short #(and actually he mocks RIPTO for being short djskfjdsfs and Ripto DOES let it get to him)#(which clearly highlights the difference between Spyro and Ripto which is great!)#and like not only does Spyro not resent that he's small but in the first game it's a STRENGTH #it's literally what saves him and keeps him saved #he may not have as much power or experience as the grown dragons #but he's small and nimble and *that's what's needed*#which is great for the kids these games were made for #but also as a short adult I appreciate it lol #(although that Tree Tops course is not for kids omfg . . . what kid figures that out)#(INSOMNIAC WHAT WERE YOU THINKING)#oh also can I just say the dragon in the interview in the beginning was being a dick like #the first two things he said about Gnasty were facts #but calling him ugly??? that was uncalled for #that one particular dragon deserved to be crystallized after that #the others not so much but that one? this is why you don't call people ugly on live TV when they're not even there to defend themselves #instant karma you got what you deserved #just because Gnasty Gnorc is a Gnasty Boi doesn't mean you need to be rude to him for no reason smh

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frogtownhobbies · 5 years ago

Photo

Let’s start with the top 10 and get to the honorable mentions and longshots after….

Top 10:

10. Tectonic Giant

(Frequency = Low, Impact = Low) Possible Homes: Temur Elementals

A hard-to-deal-with threat that an opponent must deal with has possible applications in Pioneer but 4 mana is lot for most of the decks that might want this. Temur Elementals is one possible home but I would definitely expect that if I do see this card it will be paired with green accelerants.

9. Woe Strider

(Frequency = Low, Impact = Medium) Possible Homes: Aristocrats (of some color combination)

Aristocrats is a deck that is perpetually on the fringe of playable in both Modern and Pioneer. There are already more than enough playable cards for the archetype in BR, BRW, BGW or even some more obscure color combinations so the thing that will make the deck better is finding cards that can double up on roles to increase the card quality. Woe Strider fills the two most important roles in an Aristocrats deck; extra bodies in the form of goats and a sac outlet as well as also providing some reach and card selection. I feel sure enough about Woe Strider making Aristocrats playable that I moved it from the “If…then…” section to my top 10. Depending on the best color combination for the deck, Slaughter-Priest of Mogis and Alirios, Enraptured may also see some play.

8. Ashiok, Nightmare Muse

(Frequency = Low, Impact = Medium) Possible Homes: UBx Control

Makes the list on the power of having a plus ability that makes blockers to protect it while threatening an ultimate in only two turns. If you play Ashiok while ahead you will probably win the game. It’s closest competition is probably The Scarab God, and in parity and while ahead this card is close to that power level. Its worse when you’re behind but has less deck-building restrictions so overall I like this card and I can’t wait to win some games with my opponents’ stuff.

7. Staggering Insight

(Frequency = Low, Impact = Medium) Possible Homes: UW aggressive flying decks like Spirits

I feel like people are sleeping on this card but as Curious Obsessions number 5-8 that also grant lifelink I think it’s pretty good. Mono-red doesn’t want to see this on a spirit if you also have Selfless Spirit in play and I know that control decks don’t want to get hit by it. The card on this list that’s probably most likely to miss (along with Tectonic Giant) but I think it will see some play.

6. Storm’s Wrath

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = Medium) Possible Decks = Jeskai Fires, RB Control

Great rates on red’s Wrath of God that also hits Planeswalkers means you will be seeing this card. It does come with some heavy deckbuilding constraints but the value is there for those who can fit it in to their strategy.

5. Phoenix of Ash

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = Medium) Possible Decks = Phoenix, Mono-red agro, Dredge

A recursive hasty threat is just what many mono-red decks want as the top-end of their threats and it also plays nicely with a lot of the cards in UR Phoenix, although it fights with Treasure Cruise. Making sure you can interact with graveyards is starting to seem like a priority in Pioneer just like it is in older formats.

4. Kunoros, Hound of Athreos

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = Medium) Possible homes: BW midrange, Abzan Midrange, 5c Niv to Light

This set’s best “pile of abilities creature”, Kunoros packs a lot of punch into a 3/3 for 3. Having a bunch of abilities on a creature doesn’t always lead to a successful Magic card (see: Savage Knuckleblade), but Having abilities that are particularly good against two disparate kinds of decks makes Kunoros intriguing. If 3 toughness in Pioneer is truly akin to 4 toughness in Modern (outside the range of the most common removal) then I think Kunoros will be giving aggro decks and graveyard decks fits for the foreseeable future.

3. Polukranos, Unchained

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = Medium) Possible Homes: Hardened Scales, Escape Strategies (Sultai?), BG Midrange Strategies

Polukranos provides a lot of undead beef for its mana cost, both at cmc=4 and cmc=6. I expect to see the big Zombie Hydra augmenting an already good Hadened Scales plan of attack as well as enabling a few other midrange strategies to finish off their game plans. Bonus points if you can utilize the counter aspect or give Polukranos trample and/or Haste but even by itself this is a fine creature.

2. Heliod, Sun-Crowned

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = High) Possible Homes = Mono-White Devotion, Soul Sisters, Collected Company Decks, Hardened Scales Decks, Any deck that already plays Walking Ballista

The boogie man cometh. Heliod is a card so scary that lots of people are already talking about a Walking Ballista ban in Pioneer’s future. While the combo is obviously scary and something you have on your radar any time you’re playing Pioneer I don’t think it’s quite to that level. Outside of winning the game on the spot, Heliod slots in nicely next to Benalish Marshall in a White Devotion/Beatdown strategy, perhaps utilizing other Theros cards; Favored of Iroas and Taranika, Akroan Veteran (which are both soldiers as well). The other white devotion deck possibility is probably more of a “pillow fort” kind of deck utilizing white’s many enchantments that make it hard for your opponent to win. That deck has the added benefit of wanting to play Walking Ballista alongside Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx already and also likes the lifegain Heliod can provide.

1. Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath

(Frequency = High, Impact = High) Possible Homes = UG Ramp Strategies (including Devotion), 5c Niv to Light, Escape Strategies, Maybe Soulflayer

My pick for the card that will have the biggest impact in Pioneer, Uro packs a lot of value into one card. UG ramp strategies with and without devotion will love this card and it slots perfectly into Niv to Light as a ramp spell which also gains you some life early and gives you more reach late. Uro will probably also spawn some new strategies all by itself like UGx control or some sort of escape deck that includes some self-mill. Expect to see a lot of this card going forward and expect to die to it eventually if you can’t deal with it permanently.

Honourable Mentions

Playable Removal Spells:

Eat to Extinction and Drag to the Underworld will both compete with the format’s best removal and will see some play but I don’t think they are appreciably better than Fatal Push, Abrupt Decay, Vraska’s Contempt, Murderous Rider or even Murderous Cut. Keep in mind that Drag to the Underworld’s upside is a one mana break on Murder, have you ever thought about playing Murder in Pioneer?

Cards to Help you Out Against Mono-Red:

Erebos’s Intervention, Shadowspear and Setessan Petitioner provide more ammunition for decks that have trouble with mon-red or other aggressive decks. The Petitioner is definitely a sideboard card whose cmc probably makes it an upgrade over Nylea’s Disciple. The other two may be maindeck cards in the right deck (perhaps UR Ensoul for Shadowspear) but probably also head to the sideboard.

“If _________________ is a good deck then this card will probably see play in it.”

Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea is a good body for blue Devotion strategies along with Thassa, whose blink effect is proving to be better in testing then I expected. Green devotion decks may want Omen of the Hunt and some will probably try Nyxbloom Ancient but that card definitely screams “win more!” to me.

Longshot Squad

Could any of these have a chance? Probably not, but crazier things have happened.

Gaalia of the Endless Dance

Firedrinker Satyr, Satyr Hedonist, Boon Satyr and the new Careless Celebrant….You’re right, those are not the cards a good Pioneer deck are built around but it’s too bad, this card is efficient and a cool effect to have in an aggressive tribal deck. Maybe when we go to Theros next time we’ll be able to complete this deck. Gaalia might just be good enough to get there on its own in a Gruul agro deck but usually if you’re attacking with three or more creatures in that kind of deck you’re already winning anyway.

Dalakos, Crafter of Wonders & Nyx Lotus

There isn’t a precedent for a three cmc mana-producing creature to be good in the format but I can’t help but wonder if this card can do something with Paradox Engine. Nyx Lotus could go in that deck as well. Maybe mostly blue with a red splash and including Emry, Dalakos, Saheeli, Mox Amber (Which Dalakos helps out), Nyx Lotus, Paradox Engine….

Storm Herald & Mantle of the Wolf

Could Storm Herald spawn an aggressive combo deck? Prodigious Growth and Spectra Ward are probably the two best creature auras to use with Storm Herald and you probably need something like Battle Mastery and/or one of the lifelink enchantments. We have a lot of red rummaging effects like Cathartic Reunion, Tormenting Voice and the new Thrill of Possibility as well as perhaps Thirst for Meaning out of blue to set things up. It’d be nice to be able to bring back Control Magic effects and enchant your opponent’s creatures but, c’est la vie, there may be something here.

Nadir Kraken

Look man, I don’t know why I like this card, but there’s just something about it. Maybe because Squirrel Opposition is my all-time favorite deck and this card makes me nostalgic for constant token generation. I’m at least 95% sure this won’t be a playable card in Pioneer but I’m also 95% sure I will own too many foils of it for the chance that it becomes playable.

Underworld Breach, Aphemia, Calix & Kroxa

What do we do with these cards? I don’t know, but someone is going to try. Underworld Breach obviously has the most potential but may need the larger card pool eternal formats to really shine. If you squint really hard Aphemia has Bitterblossom potential. Calix is a really interesting build around for enchantment-heavy strategies. Kroxa might want someone to introduce them to Davriel to really make opponents miserable.

- Stephen K Timmons

#articles #staff #mtg pioneer #pioneer #mtg

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ograndebatata · 6 years ago

Note

Heya!! :) For your Mateo’s Wizarding Ways - can I please request Mateo to teach Elena levaluq on his Tamborita. So not her Scepter but a whole new realm with a different magical instrument Tehe Chrissybell648 :)

Well… I admit I didn’t expect to start a response to a request with this… but if there’s anything I can say, it’s that I’m sorry.

I know that doesn’t begin to cover it after the long wait you’ve endured, but… well, sadly, that’s all I can really offer, other than a response to your request itself. I really apologize I allowed my life to get in the way to the degree it took me this far to answer, and hope you find this enjoyable enough to at least somewhat cushion the blow of the long wait.

Here it is.

Edit 14/04/2019: Had to make a small correction because of a factual error I hadn’t realized before.Sorry about that.

///

Mateo’s Wizard Ways

Elena

Changing Tools

A bit over three weeks after Los Tres completed their unfinished mission and became Los Cuatro…

This was weird.

It was the only word to describe this scenario, Elena thought as she stood in the improvised workshop Mateo had set up at Nueva Vista, holding Mateo’s lucky tamborita in her right hand, about to make her first try at casting a spell with it.

Yes, it had been her idea, but it still seemed weird that she was actually getting ready to learn tamborita magic. As much as she had nothing against magic, had always found Mateo’s spell-casting interesting , and had been interested in the subject to a degree, she had a busy schedule, and had always felt the Scepter of Light would be enough for her purposes.

But as fate would have it, she had been wrong about that, which was why she had asked Mateo to teach her magic.

And it seemed she was off to a bad start, because for whatever reason, something about the tamborita felt… off, for lack of a better word.

She couldn’t pinpoint what. She had seen Mateo wielding it lots of times. She had even handled it herself before, like when she gave it to him under the gazebo in the ballroom’s balcony balcony, on the night she had made Mateo her Royal Wizard and he had proved his worth to those who still doubted him. Yet now that she was sterling herself to cast a spell with it, it felt unnatural even before she had tried to unleash magic.

“What’s the matter?”

Elena’s heart gave the slightest of jumps at the sound, the tamborita shaking in her hand. For the faintest of moments, the odd feeling strengthened. Then a foot tapped the floor to her right, and next thing she knew Mateo was leaning toward her, his hazel-green eyes shadowed with concern, and his left hand to her back as his right one fell alongside his body, holding the tamborita they had found in Nueva Vista’s castle.

“Elena?” he added, somehow saying so much even though he had only spoken her name.

Feeling the faintest edge of weight above her eyebrows, she turned to face Mateo with a smile on her face.

“Don’t worry. Nothing’s wrong.”

Mateo’s calm gaze didn’t change, but the subtle way his eyebrows curled and the way his hand pressed an edge deeper into her back told her he knew she said that just to make him feel better.

The weight in her eyebrows also surging on the corners of her mouth, Elena explained, “I’m not sure what’s going on. But there’s something about this tamborita that feels…” she pursed her lips as she tried to find the right word. “…weird.”

Alarm jolting through her as she realized how it might sound like, she grinned sheepishly and added, “I mean, I know it’s a great tamborita, and I know it rescued us more times than I wish I had to remember.” A hint of dejection returned to her face. “But for some reason it doesn’t seem to like me.”

Mateo put on an over the top stern expression on his face and planted his right hand - still clenched around his tamborita’s handle - on his hip, even as he removed his left one from her back and pointed its index finger at the tamborita Elena held in a mock-threatening manner.

“Bad tamborita! Bad!” he fake-scolded as he waved his finger back and forth at it. “Be nice to Elena, she’s wonderful!”

A smile burst across her lips. Even with Mateo being an obvious goof to cheer her up, she could tell he meant it when he called her wonderful. He always meant it when he complimented her. And that made her happier than she could ever say.

��I don’t think scolding it is going to work, Mateo,” she quipped, a teasing glint in her eyes.

Mateo straightened himself.

“Worth a try, I guess,” he quipped back, the teasing tone in his voice belied by his happy smile.

Elena’s own smile widened even further. Mateo was always so attentive to her. So kind, so considerate, so… so wonderful in general.

Get a grip! An inner voice shouted at her. How do you think you look making eyes at him like that?

Startled by the voice, Elena felt her face flushing, suddenly aware of how ridiculous she must look staring at Mateo like a lovestruck teenager - which she supposed she was, but that was beside the point.

Focus! The same voice insisted.

Doing her best to obey, Elena took a deep breath to will her blush to vanish.

“Seriously. Why does it feel so weird?”

A few moments of silence passed by as Mateo pondered the question.

“I don’t know. I haven’t had enough students to be sure. If I had to guess, it should be just a matter of habit,” He stepped forward, and again put his hand to her back. “But if you feel bad enough that you want to quit, just say so.”

Elena raised her free hand in reassurance. “No, I don’t feel bad. Just… odd.”

Mateo’s posture did not relax.

“Still…” he paused, tensing up as if he had to gather himself to speak. “…it may be a sign of something dangerous. Maybe we should look into this further before you do anything else.”

Despite the gloomy words, Elena felt her smile returning. Mateo really was wonderful. He had been thrilled to teach her magic when she had first asked him. He loved sharing that part of himself with others after years of having to hide it, and she could tell he was anxious to share it even more with her. And yet now that it seemed it might hurt her, his first instinct was to look out for her own well being.

She was more touched than she could say - but as it seemed to be her habit, she had to go against his advice.

Moving her tamborita to her left hand, Elena turned to him and rested her right hand on the crook where Mateo’s shoulder met his neck.

“It’s a risk I’m ready to take.”

It was a risk she had to take. She knew that now.

Yes, she had hoped that Shuriki being gone for good meant that actual threats to her kingdom would follow the same path, but it had been an all-too fleeting illusion. Not only had Victor and Carla Delgado escaped, but far too many things had ensued. First the malandros that had taken over Coronado had gotten far too close to potentially killing her and her friends just because the Scepter of Light had glitched at exactly the wrong time. Then the Macoco that had tried to find El Escudo had almost put an end to her life largely because her scepter had again malfunctioned right when it shouldn’t. And that was without getting into the fact that Orizaba might not be gone for good and would perhaps still be able to find a way to cross back over into Avalor and bring eternal night.

Yes, Mateo had been doing his best to find a way to fix the Scepter of Light, and Elena was beyond thankful for all the effort he put into it. But as much as it pained her, she simply couldn’t wait longer for Mateo to find the solution he sought. She had to learn to channel her magic some other way.

A heartbeat after that thought, Elena looked down in shame, removing her hand from Mateo’s shoulder. It sounded so unfair to think of him like that after everything he had been doing lately. He had been there for her for the fallout of Shuriki’s latest series of attempts on her life. He had consoled her as she cried her heart out over Cristobal’s betrayal. He had been reading every book he could find in his attempts at finding a way to fix the scepter. He had asked Zuzo and Cacahuate to search the Spirit World for any information on that matter. He had gone to Tepet Mul on Dia de los Muertos in an attempt to contact Amalay’s spirit for information about the scepter directly from his crafter. And on top of that, he had agreed to teach her magic when he was already teaching it to Isabel and was also teaching Olivia and Alonso by mail - at least as well as something like magic could be taught in such a way.

And all this when he was meant to be on vacation.

Even if they were less on vacation and more in the final stages of sorting out the mess that had ensued from finding out Cristobal was a traitor, he was still squandering all the time he could spend relaxing trying to help others, Elena herself chief amongst them.

Her heart growing heavier, Elena took a deep sigh. It felt so wrong to think Mateo wasn’t doing enough when he was already doing so much…

A spot of warmth returned to her back. Elena looked up, and met Mateo’s gaze, the concern in it so intense it almost hurt.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

She chuckled mirthlessly.

“I should be the one asking that.”

Mateo raised an eyebrow in puzzlement.

“Isn’t this too much for you? You’re already so busy. And you have already done so much for me…”

Her voice trailed off and her head turned to the floor again. Seeing Mateo so earnest about his concern for her made her feel even worse that, despite her best efforts to not do so, she kept abusing it.

The warmth on her back shifted slightly, and Mateo’s hand appeared before her eyes. At first it seemed to be going toward her chin, but then it froze for a moment before it headed toward her shoulder instead.

Despite herself, her eyes followed along his maroon-clad arm to stare into his hazel-green eyes again. The gaze in them was just as gentle as before.

“Elena, I told you I would be here for you no matter what,” he said, his voice even softer than usual and yet with more power than any bellowed decree some rulers she had met would make. “That hasn’t changed one bit just because we now actually know for absolute real that Shuriki is dead.”

Her heart seemed to grow until it was about to burst at those words. They were true, and Elena had known they were true for so long she had forgotten exactly when she had learned it, but something about hearing him say that, in that tone…

“If you really want to learn this, I’ll help you to the best of my ability,” he went on. “If you don’t, we’ll stop right here and now.”

Elena rested both her hands on the one Mateo had on her shoulder.

“I do.”

And she did. Even if her primary motivation was protecting her kingdom, she was indeed curious about how tamborita magic worked, about how different it would be from her scepter, and about what kind of other things she’d be able to do with it. Though she planned to keep Mateo as her Royal Wizard after she was crowned queen, there would probably be more than a few things about ruling that magic might help along, and knowing them herself might make ruling smoother in some ways - even if it might make them more complicated in others. This seemed like as good a chance to start learning as she would get.

As if he had sensed the change in her mood - which Elena guessed he had, given how well he knew her by this point - Mateo stepped back and gestured with his tamborita.

“Then whenever you’re ready…”

A smidge of doubt crept back on her. She didn’t know if she was ready. Now that she wasn’t focused on talking to Mateo, the weird feeling of holding the tamborita had returned.

But she supposed she would only know what happened if she actually tried to use it.

Standing as tall as possible, Elena took a deep breath, and aimed her tamborita. Then she clenched the handle tighter, narrowed her eyes at the bowl as if that made all the difference in the world, and brought her hand down on the drum’s surface.

///

“Llevaluq!”

Mateo’s heart jumped at the sound of the smack, as if Elena was about to flinch or shout in pain.

But she didn’t. While she frowned the moment after she hit the tamborita, the drum glowed upon being slapped like it was meant to when someone tried to cast a spell. It glowed white rather than golden, but Mateo guessed that was just the color of Elena’s magic. And while the actual bowl remained just as static as before, that was normal. Even with all Elena had learned about magic - both during her time in the Amulet and after being released from it - and with how well she had done in the theory lessons he had been giving her over the last three weeks, this was still the first time she tried using a tamborita. It would be a borderline miracle if she managed to perform the spell properly.

Looks like she doesn’t agree. Mateo thought as he saw Elena looking from the tamborita to her hand, still with the same frown that had appeared after she had smacked the drum.

Perhaps it was related to what she had been feeling.

“What happened?” he asked.

She turned a hesitant sideways look at him.

“I’m not sure. Can I try again?”

Mateo pursed his lips as he pondered the answer. If Elena’s unusual feeling wasn’t just not being used to wielding a tamborita, it likely wouldn’t go away just like that. But as far as he could tell from Elena’s face and posture (and he had made sure to pay attention) she hadn’t been in pain. It should be safe enough, and it would let him see if it was actually more than lack of habit.

“Sure,” he said.

Elena aimed her tamborita at the bowl once again.

“Llevaluq!” she shouted louder and more vehemently as she tapped the drum.

The tamborita glowed again. This time, the bowl started to rattle against the table’s surface. But rather than frowning, Elena actually had her teeth clenched as if she was both trying to push a heavy burden and trying not to exert too much strength.

‘Come on!’ he actually saw her mouthing through her snarl as her eyebrows pushed into one another.

The tamborita glowed brighter, and for an instant the bowl actually floated about a handspan upwards, but then the drim stopped glowing and Elena let out a deep sigh as she lowered her arms while the bowl clattered back onto the table.

Elena huffed in irritation, waving the tamborita up and down, like she did with her scepter when it glitched.

That one’s new. Mateo couldn’t help but think.

He frowned at himself at the thought. Now was not the time for fake-witty remarks. He needed to help Elena. And from what he had seen, he finally had an idea on what she meant when she said the tamborita felt weird and that it didn’t like her.

But he couldn’t be sure without confirming.

He started to raise his hand, but before he could do or say anything else, Elena aimed the tamborita again and smacked it as hard as if she was trying to break a stone.

“LLEVALUQ!” she bellowed, the look of strain in her face as intense as if she was trying to push a stubborn donkey with its hooves glued to the ground.

Mateo’s breath froze in the middle of his throat as a sudden black cloud seemed to come over them- and then, the white glow of Elena’s magic erupted around the bowl and the table underneath it, both of which shot up like arrows.

“XIMAGU!” Mateo shouted as he raised his tamborita and slapped its surface on cue with the table and the bowl smashing into the ceiling with a thunderous clap.

A golden-orange shield pushed past himself and Elena and slammed into the bits of debris flying toward them. Wood and ceramic flew through the room and bounced off the walls and rebounded from the closed door and clattered onto the floor.

Mateo counted to three as he surveyed the room, half-expecting to hear anyone stampeding inside to check on them. He hoped no one did, for Elena’s sake. She already had enough problems without added concerns about what someone would think of this. As much as Mateo knew it was a natural flub typical of early magic lessons, others might not agree.

But for whatever reason, no one burst in.

Perhaps no one was close enough to have heard. Or maybe they had decided that this kind of thing was ordinary in a wizard’s workshop. And while Mateo couldn’t decide if that was good or bad, at least they wouldn’t have to deal with questions now.

Masking a relieved sigh, Mateo lowered his tamborita, both the shield and the glow from the drum fading. Beside him, Elena lowered her hands, her breathing labored and her muscles shaking. Mateo reached a hand toward her, but this time halted it a hairsbreadth from her skin. If she was in pain, he might accidentally hurt her.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

Elena let out another labored breath.

“I think so.” Her lips curled into a sarcastic smirk. “But your lucky tamborita really doesn’t seem to like me.”

At Mateo’s quirked eyebrow, she added, “It’s like I try to channel my magic, but the tamborita only takes less than half of it and pushes the rest back into me.”

Mateo’s eyes narrowed pensively. His theory had been right, but all joking aside, this one really was new. The bulk of the problems he’d had when teaching magic so far were that his student wanted to cast a given spell but their magic was not yet strong enough to perform it properly. The only instance remotely like this had been when Olivia tried to cast ‘chiufetti’ on the night they first met and had both said the wrong word and hit the tamborita too hard.

But if the tamborita just didn’t channel Elena’s magic, there had to be something else at play.

“Well?” Elena asked, her eyes locked on his like she was trying to read a book written in very small font.

After a quick run through his knowledge on magic, Mateo started laying out his theories.

“Perhaps that tamborita is made of wood from the wrong kind of tree. Or it might actually be made of the wrong material. Or maybe you’re using the wrong type of wand.”

Elena frowned like she had spotted a weird-looking animal.

“Those things make a difference?”

He nodded. “They do. Not an insurmountable difference, mind you. In most cases, any wizard gifted and dedicated enough can learn to use just about every tool. But there seems to be a certain connection between a wizard’s land of origin and the kind of tool they use better.” He raised his hands and started listing by his fingers. “For instance, wizards from Enchancia are best with standard magic wands, typically made of wood. Wizards from Freezenburg and Norberg tend to be better at using warhammers, which are typically made of metal. And here in Avalor and surrounding kingdoms, wizards do better when using tamboritas, which are typically made of wood and leather.”

Elena nodded.

“And where does that leave me?”

Mateo snuck a glance at his tamborita as he thought.

“Well, we know you can use the Scepter of Light because you have Maruvian magic from your time in the Amulet. That’s the reason it was never magical when your father or Shuriki used it. And while the little bit of magic you had when you got out of the Amulet has grown since then, it hasn’t changed its nature.”

Elena’s shoulders slumped at his words.

“So I’ll never be able to properly use anything other than the scepter?”

On reflex, Mateo rested his hand on one of her shoulders. His heart leapt as he remembered his earlier concern about Elena being hurt, but she didn’t frown or hiss at his touch.

Mateo again allowed himself an inward sigh of relief before he kept speaking.

“I didn’t say that. We already saw you can channel magic through a type of wand that’s not ideal for you. And you could actually cast the right spell with such little training, which is quite impressive. But it’s clear you’d do better with something other than a wooden tamborita.”

“Like what?”

Mateo removed his hand from Elena’s shoulder and drummed his fingers along the tamborita’s handle as he searched for every bit of information he had read on Maruvian magic.

Then, he said, “I think I read something about Maruvian wizards typically using crystal tamboritas. If we find out how to make you one and you learn to use it, I’m thinking that would be the best choice.”

“How long would that take?” Elena immediately asked.

Mateo frowned. “Quite a while, if I had to guess. But it’s our best option.”

He had to hold back a chuckle at Elena’s pout, the one she always made at the idea of having to wait for something. Maybe it was mean of him to think so, but she looked so adorable when she made that face.

Then all the urge to chuckle vanished as her pout turned into a frown and she raised the tamborita to her face, looking at it as if it was made of silk paper and she had been told she’d have to fight a jaguar with it.

Mateo clenched his fist. The idea of her being in any kind of pain hurt as much as a physical hit. What would he give to actually be able to find a way to ensure in a foolproof manner that Elena would never be hurt again, to ensure she’d remain safe until the end of a very happy and long life…

Like heated water, the thought grew more and more intense in his mind. And then, as if the fire had been put out, it vanished. Such a thing didn’t exist. Even genies and Maruvian wizards of old were or had been unable to circumvent any form of harm. And he might be a better wizard now than when Elena appointed him, but that was still something he would never be able to give her.

Resting his hand on her back, Mateo spoke in the gentlest tone he could.

“Remember, your scepter is still working for the most part. And many people who care for you are still here to help you stay safe. Naomi, your sister, and your grandparents, all the guards…”

Elena raised her eyes from his lucky tamborita, now with a small grin on her face.

“And you,” she added.

He nodded. “And me.”

Always. He added inwardly.

Something about that must have passed onto his gaze, because her smile grew like a sunbeam getting wider as it peeked through a gap in clouds.

Then, a hint of the determination he’d come to know and love peeked through it and she raised the tamborita again.

“Can I try using this one just once more?”

Mateo chuckled. “I don’t think that will change anything…”

Her eyebrows set in a rigid line. “I’d still like to try.”

He moved his hand from her back to her shoulder.

“Are you sure you feel well enough for that?”

Her mouth set into a line. “I am.”

Mateo nodded. He knew Elena was the type who would on occasion put on masks to feel others less worried about her, but he had learned to tell the difference between those moments and the ones where she meant what she said. This one was the latter.

“Alright.”

He looked at the pieces of debris that used to be a table, and then pointed at a broken piece of one of the table’s legs.

“Try to lift that chunk of wood until it’s about at the height of your head.”

She nodded in acknowledgment, and then aimed her tamborita and raised her other hand to slap it.

“Wait!” Mateo called before she could swing her hand down. “I need to do something that might help me get a better idea on how things are. May I?”

At Elena’s nod, Mateo stood behind her and took his right hand to her tamborita’s handle and his other to her left upper arm. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elena sneaking him a surprised glance, but there was no alarm in her eyes and she made no attempt to move away.

“This way I’ll learn better what you mean about your magic. It might help when we’re studying better options.”

Elena nodded again, a smile on her face.

That was the last thing Mateo saw before closing his eyes, reaching out with his ‘magical sense’ to have a better idea on how Elena’s magic would work once she tapped her tamborita.

But she didn’t do it.

In fact, she didn’t move at all, other than what felt like slightly faster breathing and her seeming to nestle into his touch just an edge.

She really smelled good, Mateo couldn’t help but think. And felt so warm… And her skin and hair were so soft…

Why are you thinking that now? A voice that sounded a bit like a sterner version of his own told him. You’re meant to be teaching her, not snuggling with her!

Somehow managing not to flinch at the sudden inner remark, Mateo told Elena.

“You can try any time now…”

He felt her nodding.

“Alright.”

For whatever reason, it seemed to him like she had nestled an edge further into him after those words. But before he could be sure, he felt her raising her free arm, then her magic built up underneath her skin, and her arm swung down as magic rushed through her.

“Llevaluq!”

Magic rushed under his palms as she performed the spell. And indeed, the way it felt when it rushed under her forearm was different from how it felt as it moved through the tamborita, indeed as if some of her magic had stopped at the wooden surface and refused to get further. He couldn’t see how far she was raising the piece of wood, but if he had to guess it wasn’t as tall as she had expected it to.

Her muscles tensed up under his left palm, and then more magic rushed along the tamborita’s handle under his right one before stabilizing again. A tired sigh left her lips, but magic kept flowing along the tamborita, although Mateo knew it was not at the same rate as she was pushing it.

Mateo opened his eyes - and opened them further as they widened in awe, as the piece of wood floated at just about the height he had asked Elena to levitate it to.

“Well done! You did it!”

Elena’s face glowed at his words for an instant. Then, it tensed up in strain as the piece of wood faltered in the air. Elena kept the tamborita aimed at it, but the slab of table leg floated back to the ground like a stone sinking into water.

“But you were right,” she replied. “It didn’t change anything.”

Mateo removed his hands from the tamborita and her forearm, but rested another between her shoulder blades.

“At least we figured out the essential. You can channel your magic through something other than the scepter, and you can use one specific spell when you want to. It’s a great start. Better than mine when I started trying out.”

Elena turned to him and shifted so she could hold the hand he had been putting to her shoulder blades.

“Thankfully I’m lucky enough to have the great teacher you deserved.”

Mateo could only smile as he gripped her hand in return, feeling a familiar warmth going back and forth between the two of them, conveyed both by the contact between their hands and the one between their gazes.

Then, Elena withdrew her hand from his’ and asked.

“So, what’s next?”

“I think we’ve done enough for one day.” The familiar pout returned at his words, but Mateo did not change his mind about what he would say. “Inner magic is like everything else. If you strain it too hard, it can be hurt, and sometimes suffer permanent damage. And you’ve strained it far more than you should for such a brief lesson.”

Elena sighed at his words, lowering her tamborita as she turned her eyes to the floor. He could imagine the struggle she was having. On one side, taking enough care of herself to be able to protect her kingdom from a magical threat if the need arose. On the other, the knowledge that if the need arose soon enough, it would be too likely for anyone’s taste that the scepter would fail and there would be trouble.

Hoping to get her to think about something else, “It’s a lovely day outside. How about we go to the beach?”

Elena cracked a grin at his suggestion and bumped his chest with her elbow. “Alright, who are you and what have you done with Mateo? I’m the one who drags him out of the workshop, not the other way around.”

She playfully bumped his shoulder with her tamborita as if to make her words sink in. Mateo deliberately shrugged.

“Isn’t it nice to make a change once in a while? To be bold and daring on occasion?”

She chuckled.

“Nice to see you’re learning.” Her amused grin shifted into a pleased one. “And I do like your idea. Meet me at the balcony when you’re ready?”

“Sure.”

At his reply, she handed over his lucky tamborita and left his workshop. Mateo went to put away the tamborita he had used for the lesson and followed her. But as he closed the door, he froze at the sight before his eyes.

The broken bits of table and bowl still lay scattered about the room, at the exact spots where they had landed after rebounding from the shield he had put up. If anyone came around while they were gone, it wouldn’t be a pretty picture.

You can take care of that later. The same ‘different version’ of his voice from a while ago told him, though it seemed to be using a softer tone than before.

Needing no more, Mateo closed the door to his workshop and went to his bedroom.

The voice was right. He could take care of that later. First, he had to do his best to help Elena cope with everything he wished she didn’t have to deal with. All he wished was that he’d be able to do it.

Unfortunately, he was old enough to know best.

Despite his best efforts, he might fail, just like he might fail at fixing the Scepter of Light.

But just like he vowed to do his best not to fail at fixing the scepter, he vowed to do his best not to fail at helping Elena deal with this.

No matter what.

#elena of avalor #fanfiction #mateo's wizard ways #mateo de alva #crown princess elena castillo flores #eleteo #elena x mateo

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kog0ruhn · 5 years ago

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A Layman’s Guide to Shriek (a.k.a. The Most Obnoxious Woman on Sornieth)

If you can’t tell, in the great big world of my clan lore, Shriek is kind of a big deal. It’s hard to believe considering that her entire appearance is absolutely ridiculous and (in my head) she sounds like a female Bobcat Goldthwait, but she’s a powerful girl with a powerful grip on The Abandoned. You know, despite the fact that she has no trade skills to speak of and (until recently) wasn’t very good at the whole “fighting” thing.

But who is Shriek and why is she so important?

Welcome to V-Sauce, where we’ll be discussing this catastrophe in-depth.

Shriek was born above the Windswept Plateau, in a den on the Cloudsong. Her parents were lenient “hippie” parents, the draconic equivalent of New Age hipsters who think that disciplining their kid in any fashion will ruin them psychologically. This doesn’t couple well with Shriek since, from an early age, she’s been a curious and impulsive noodle who is easily distracted, endlessly energetic, and more than a little destructive. Much of her childhood was spent breaking everything she touched and making other kids uncomfortable, while her parents just nodded along in the background and told their neighbors, “She’s such a precocious girl, isn’t she?”

Her best friend growing up was an older coatl named Ramses. He was a transplant from an Earth clan who lived with his adoptive family, and wound up befriending Shriek because she decided they were friends and forced it to become true. He was bigger, she was more forceful, and they wound up getting into all sorts of trouble together. Every last shred of it was Shriek’s fault but Ramses, being passive as he was, had a habit of taking the fall for a lot of it.

Eventually, Shriek’s behavior got them both kicked out of their clan when Shriek--being the absolute genius she is--lost control of herself during a race with Ramses and managed to take herself out by crashing into the Windsinger effigy. The damage was minor and fixable (though Shriek still thinks the head looks crooked), but enough was enough. Everyone came together and decided, “This shit’s gotta stop.”

Ramses was heartbroken, but Shriek decided she could do better. And “better” was “The Outlanders.”

Who are The Outlanders?

The Outlanders are one of the clans in The Abandoned alliance, though nobody really wanted them there at first. They’re the culmination of Shriek’s surprisingly silver tongue and tendency to prey on want to help the desperate. Her intentions were always good--fellow outcasts with nowhere to go made her heart ache, and she wanted to provide them with a place of safety--but her methods were borderline harassment. While the bulk of the old guard of Outlanders will say they’re fine with where they are now, they’ll be the first to admit that Shriek pestered them for days to join up with her because she’s a neurotic mess who couldn’t stand the thought of leaving folks behind.

Even if they wanted to be left behind.

Pictured: Vincent, who wanted to be left behind.

The problem with The Outlanders is that Shriek didn’t really ever take the longevity of the clan into consideration. She didn’t give a good goddamn if there were capable hunters, crafters, and tradesmen around her. She recruited based on sentiment, sympathy, and whoever she found interesting. Ramses, who was stuck with her because what else would he do, acted as her right hand and the straightman of the whole ordeal, trying to figure out how to organize things to be sustainable while Shriek grabbed loners off the street and announced they were tagging along.

It wasn’t fun and there was a metric shit-ton of turnover in the membership of the clan. Dragons were in and out like kids at a McDonald’s Playplace.

Things became a little more stable when Shriek’s entourage of oddities wound up in Dragonhome, and Ramses forced her to settle down and make some alliances before they ran out of food and supplies. It required practically pinning her down at the Altar of Naught and frantically pantomiming apologies on her behalf, but she was eventually allowed to stay because her followers displayed a variety of niche skills that piqued The Fifteen’s interest.

Pictured: The “niche interest” people were interested in, because nothing catches a politician’s interest like a goddamn assassin.

So, You Joined an Alliance? Now What?

Well, if you’re Shriek, you’re not much for politics and The Abandoned requires a lot of politicking. This new alliance meant she was now part of The Fifteen and had to attend meetings and make negotiations and generally be what Ramses had been the entire time The Outlanders existed. She had no experience and found the whole thing annoying. She found her fellow clan leaders dry and dreadful, and thought most of their ideas were shit.

In particular, she wasn’t a fan of Snap who was a lot more judgmental, strict, and generally rough to deal with. She didn’t like the fact that so many dragons in the council were afraid to stand up to her so, despite being a tiny speck compared to the impressively buff Plague Guardian screaming over everyone’s head, she started to “negotiate” by loudly disagreeing with everything Snap said. The louder Snap got, the louder Shriek got, and arguments began to eat up council minutes. Everyone found it frustrating except for Shriek who thought she was standing up for the little guy instead of stalling progress and completely missing the point that Snap--harsh as she was--was actually a very good leader who was very good at setting her emotions aside to get shit done right.

This earned her a bit of a reputation as an annoyance and a troublemaker, and made it difficult for The Outlanders to really get anything out of joining The Abandoned. Ramses would occasionally attempt to go behind Shriek’s back and make deals, but Shriek usually managed to botch things anyway. Nobody liked her, everyone hated her, her own clan began to talk about mutiny as time wound on. Folks wanted to appoint Ramses leader or leave altogether.

Then, uh... Flauros happened right when things started to get real nasty.

The Fuck’s a Flauros?

That Looks Bad.

That is bad.

Flauros is a dragon who isn’t a dragon. She’s Shade-based, had no real mind of her own, and just randomly started destroying The Abandoned in a controlled attack that I’ve discussed a lot on my Flight Rising blog. The long and short of it is that a couple of asshole Mirrors who knew their magic managed to steal a summoned creature (Flauros) from her master, then used her to commit mass murder while making it appear as though she was doing it on her own. Lots of dragons died, entire clans were destroyed, The Fifteen became significantly less than Fifteen, and Shriek proved her mettle by using her context clues to solve the mystery, unmask the baddie, and then steal Flauros and use her to absolutely obliterate the Scooby-Doo villain at the end.

This should have marked Shriek as a hero and, in a lot of ways, it did. People realized fairly quick that without Shriek’s abstract way of thinking, stubbornness, curiosity, and attention to detail, that The Abandoned probably would have been wiped off the face of the earth. The problem is that, when all was said and done, Shriek--now wielding the enchanted amulet that Flauros was bound to--refused to turn it over to the bigger, better authorities so that they could get rid of Flauros once and for all.

There’s a number of reasons for her refusal. One was that, after years of being ridiculed and treated badly by The Fifteen (which was, honestly, her fault), she loved having something that made her the de facto strongest of the lot. Flauros and the acquisition of Flauros were proof that she was a competent dragon and gave her a nice shrield against her detractors. Secondly, she was maybe a little motivated by the fact that it pissed Snap off since Snap blatantly abused her authority and influence during the fight against Flauros (which, admittedly, worked out in The Abandoned’s favor and was done because she thought it was the best course of action).

Third was the biggest reason: It was very hard for Shriek to not think of Flauros as a dragon no matter how many times she was told that Flauros was definitely not a dragon. It looked and talked like a dragon, and nothing that happened was actually Flauros’ fault. The idea of her being “killed” for something she wasn’t responsible for made Shriek’s stomach turn, and she felt it was her personal responsibility to save her since she’s the one who “rescued” her in the first place.

And How Did That Turn Out?

What Does That Mean?

Flauros began to become a lot like Shriek. And Shriek began to become a lot like Flauros.

Because of the psychological impact that Shade energy has on dragons and Flauros now being bound to Shriek, she began to change. She was still excitable and energetic, but a lot of folks noted that Shriek was also more serious, dutiful, and even hostile. Actions she used to make out of spite were abandoned (for instance, she started working with Snap pretty easily), but any slight against her was met with rage. There was something dark boiling in that little green noodle, and everyone, even Shriek, knew Flauros was responsible for it.

The flip side was that Flauros started becoming sentient, and with that sentience she became mischievous, curious, and developed a strong sense of justice. Traits that a lot of people associated with Shriek.

It evens out in a lot of ways.

The fortunate part of Shriek’s change in demeanor is that it made her more capable when shit hit the fan in the wake of Flauros’ rampage, when a nasty little Spiral named Elder decided to stir up some civil unrest and then lead a charge against The Abandoned while their pants were down. Even though The Outlanders (and Shriek specifically) were exiled from the alliance, she kept her wits about her in a situation where she’d normally lose her mind. Then, grabbing Flauros by the horns, she cornered Elder in a cave and brought it down on top of him.

Not Flauros, as everyone thinks. Shriek. Shriek collapsed a cavern on top of another Spiral to keep him from murdering everyone to death.

So, Does This Mean She’s a Hero Again?

Yes, mostly. Folks are still wary of her moodswings and Flauros, but you can’t really not treat the girl who saved your ass twice with respect.

And so Shriek still sits with The Fifteen, her clan was allowed back into the alliance, Flauros is mostly left alone, and she spends her days doing Shriek things as per usual. She’s starting to act more like herself again, albeit with a bit of a dark turn, and Ramses is just glad he can spend more time with his daughter than managing the PR nightmare that is his boss.

But know that when danger rears its ugly head again, Shriek is probably going to be the first one on the front lines because, much like the honey badger of yore, Shriek don’t give a shit.

#dragon: shriek #very long hair #clan lore

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makerof150papermasks · 6 years ago

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The Three Governments of Spyro the Dragon

Today, I have something really interesting that I feel would be worth talking about. Now I remember recently reading a post titled “’Kirby Super Star’ is a Marxist critique of the Soviet Union,” which delves into the titular 1996 SNES video game so deeply and somehow matches it up with certain pieces of USSR history (Reddit). After viewing this, I began to think, “I know a few other games that I could analyze like this guy did with Kirby.” Yes, I was motivated so much by this blog that I had a hunch to work on my own research chat.

Now the games I am about to talk about are the first three games in the Spyro the Dragon series first released for the PlayStation from 1998 to 2000, titled Spyro the Dragon, Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage, and Spyro: Year of The Dragon (Additionally, all three titles recently received a remake collectively titled “Spyro Reignited Trilogy,” which makes this document relevant as of 2019). With a little research, I was able to pair those games with a government that best defined them in a nutshell. Of course, not all real-life elements of these governments may actually match up with how any of the fictional societies depicted operate, but I’ve tried my hardest to make sure the details match up strongly enough that they can be talked about.

*If you haven’t played the games yet and don’t want to be spoiled, then don’t bother reading!

Spyro the Dragon: Confederation (Left)

I want to start this discussion by saying something unique about this first third of the review: unlike the latter two titles, Spyro the Dragon seems to promote the idea of its featured form of government rather than point out the significant flaws and ensure the audience doesn’t sympathize with the concept at hand. First off, I want to give you folks a good look at how the populace of the Dragon Worlds goes about their lives and organizes themselves socially speaking. For those of you don’t already know enough about the game’s context, there are five socially-unique sectors that each owe something important to the well-being of the larger society. The Artisans represent the working class, the Peace Keepers are equivalent to a military system, the Magic Crafters are most likely representative of the business owners and upper class (As noted by the sheer presence of overly-elegant architecture in their specific area), the Beast Makers represent those who work in health, medical, biological, and other science-related fields, while the Dream Weavers can be considered a spiritually-grounded group of dragons who are experts in the field of meditation. Then there’s the extra sixth sector known as Gnasty’s World (Residence of main antagonist Gnasty Gnorc, who holds no true political power under any circumstance; therefore, I will leave him out of the equation), which I’ll just shoehorn into the sanitation sector, even though it would still easily be associated with the working class (Artisans).

With the exception of Gnasty’s World, these groups all serve an equally vital role in establishing the economic stability and societal foundation of the Dragon Worlds, in the form of a confederation. Now if you folks are wondering what that’s supposed to mean, here’s the definition; “an organization which consists of a number of parties or groups united in an alliance or league.” For a historical example, the United States operated in this manner under the Articles of Confederation of 1777, which was ratified in 1781 and formed a society whose power lay mostly in the hands of the member states. Up until 1789, these states could establish laws without having to worry about a federal government trampling over those laws since the existing equivalent had far less political power than the one present (Reference.com).

Revisiting my view from the previous paragraph, it can be noted that each of the first five sectors can be viewed as separate, autonomous states that, in spite of their different approaches to solving daily situations, hold a common view of some sort that unites them into a larger entity. While it’s not known in canon if the sectors that dragons live in have ever come into conflict with each other at any point, I will bring up some backstory later on that may be worth identifying.

Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage: Empire (Middle)

Now looking at the titular villain and his path to wretchedness, picture him as this small, colonial society. From what we’re aware of based on the context provided in-game, Ripto and his cronies have no idea that Avalar (The main setting of this sophomore title) even exists at first. Now keep in mind that since Ripto despises dragons, he’s picky about where he wants to expand his influence. But anyway, once he finds himself in this dragon-free dimension, it becomes the perfect opportunity for Ripto to slowly nibble away at the land until there is no more for him to take over, aka, colonize. Of course, once Spyro shows up, the horned, red midget becomes rather peeved, prompting him and his goons to actually begin setting up the framework for his proposed kingdom.

Throughout the events of the game, Ripto not only uses his magic to spread his negative influence across the dimension (AKA: Cause various beasts and baddies to run amok and result in calamity), but we are also shown the blue banners of Avalar being rolled back in favor of emblems donning the antagonist’s mug, THRICE. According to my searches, an empire is defined as, “an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, formerly especially an emperor or empress.” In this case, Ripto can easily be seen as emperor because at his highest position, he holds control over not just his two reptilian brutes (Who serve as a metaphor for his “kingdom” at its most basic), but also numerous realms scattered throughout Avalar, each serving as their own formerly independent municipalities until he enters the picture.

Now here’s another point: even with Spyro around, Ripto still feels the need to settle in Avalar because there are no dragons around other than Spyro himself currently present to scare him away, which thereby gives him access to a shipload of land and resources. When it came to real-life empires, they were strategic regarding which areas to conquer. For example, the Roman Empire wouldn’t go east into modern-day Germany because the cost of conquest in that area was far above the monetary worth earned from the extractable resources available in that region (The Daily Reckoning).

Moving on, the western half eventually collapsed primarily due to internal conflicts over power that left them exposed to outsiders (The eastern half, dubbed “The Byzantine Empire,” managed to survive until 1453, when it fell to Turkish invaders as a result of their victory in the Byzantine-Ottoman wars). In-game, the biggest reason Ripto is defeated is because he overlooks the possibility of Spyro collecting Avalar’s sacred talismans and orbs, which collectively allow the young dragon to pass through the barriers that separate both parties.

Spyro: Year of The Dragon: Totalitarian State (Right)

Jumping ship to the final third of the original Spyro trilogy, we now examine the Forgotten Realms and its central government in the form of the despotic, blue crocodilian-esque Sorceress. Now the previous two games sugarcoated their subject matter immensely (Though the second game still views the concept of an empire as a detrimental idea), but this time the game doesn’t make things look as rosy. First and foremost, The Sorceress displays a position of superiority around anyone in her vicinity, and in an overly aggressive manner most of the time. Already, we’re seeing her being established as a straw tyrant; alas, there is still so much more to discuss regarding the Forgotten Realms operating as a political body that blatantly abides by the guidelines of totalitarianism. Now where do we begin on this topic?

My first point of conversation in this segment is that unlike Gnasty Gnorc or Ripto in the previous two games (Now although the latter does become “ruler” near the end of his respective game, he doesn’t spend nearly enough time to be officially considered a grand-high patriarch by any of the residents of Avalar), The Sorceress is a formally-recognized monarch, is referred to as such by the inhabitants of the Forgotten Realms, and to make matters much worse, has been ruling this same exact dimension, in the same throne for AT LEAST 1000 YEARS. Not only that, but at one point, the dragons currently living dwelling in the Dragon Realms once lived in the Forgotten Realms. But when they left, they took their magic with them and as the centuries passed, magic began to drain and caused their fancy-schmancy portals to stop working. We’re convinced to think that the reason The Sorceress has become so wary of Spyro’s presence is because he will disrupt her plans to gather the eggs they had stolen from the dragons; she is supposedly gathering them in order allow this upcoming generation of winged reptiles to bring magic back to the dimension she rules over.

I will bring up that part about the dragons and the eggs again, but there is an important detail that points further to establishing The Sorceress as an antagonist known for taking full advantage of her position over everyone around her and therefore preventing anyone from reasoning with her other than Spyro and a slew of animal friends she had recently imprisoned. A little more than a quarter way into the game, Spyro finds himself in a realm known as Enchanted Towers; it is here that he discovers that a slew of lavender-skinned counterculture humanoids had been tasked with erecting a statue built in their highness’ likeness.

There’s just so much to talk about regarding what the statue situation represents, but first let me define what this government is. Totalitarianism is described as being, “a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.” The aforementioned statue in Enchanted Towers is probably one of the biggest pieces of evidence pointing to the Forgotten Realms operating under that kind of system. To start, the Sorceress displays unrivaled power in the world she inhabits and no one dare beg to differ with her on that matter. This is clearly evidenced by the fact that the citizens of Enchanted Towers mention that they certainly did not enjoy creating this tremendous work of art (Though they agree that it looks prettier than the actual character herself, further driving the sense of rebellion in), but they completely understand that going against what The Sorceress is telling them to do is like flirting with death.

You, the reader, have to realize that this is a form of government where there isn’t a legislative or judicial system to limit executive power. Heck, that’s not even getting into the fact that the denizens of the Forgotten Realms have neither a right to free speech nor the freedom to vote in elections, as far I’m aware. It’s certainly no fun living in a society where one person holds all the social and political power and you’re not that one person, nothing delightful about that (And there’s nothing anyone can do to change the fact unless someone successfully uses force to overthrow the one in power so they wouldn’t be able to enforce their laws any longer).

Before getting to the climax of this essay, it’s that time I bring up a real example. Although I’d be talking about a dictatorship along the lines of Nazi Germany, I’ve decided to take a more interesting example from further back in history. The Qin Dynasty, an empire to which China borrows its name from, relied on an authoritarian set of regulations that would become hugely influential to every Chinese-based dynasty that followed. Although it only lasted from 221 to 207 BC, there’s still some valuable information to extract from this chapter of human history. It also makes sense for me to select this example because the game’s title, Year of The Dragon, references a specific birth year on the Chinese Zodiac (Speaking of which, the year the game itself originally released just happened to land on a dragon year, which only happens once every twelve years).

Now allow me to continue with the example. Under the commissioning of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the very first leader of a unified China, came a standardized system of writing and a strictly-guided formula for measuring the width, weight, and length of highways. Huang also oversaw construction of what would become the first section of The Great Wall of China and eventually went on to abolish the feudal system that flourished during the Zhou Dynasty decades earlier (In which landowners owed allegiance to the emperor as a result of kinship rather than fulfilling legal obligations). In addition, he commissioned the burning of almost all of the books currently available in that region at the time, only sparing those that provided information on topics like medicine and issued gigantic tax levies in an effort to pay for his military and construction expenses. This matrix of catastrophes led to a rebellion following Qin Shi Huang’s death in 210 BC, which went on to ultimately knock the Qin Dynasty out of power and make room for the Han Dynasty roughly 3-4 years later (Britannica).

Now what I’ll be explaining next is going to be extremely horrifying in hindsight, so grab your popcorn and hold your breath. While exploring Evening Lake, the third home world of the game, Spyro’s close friend Hunter winds up in a subterranean trap set up by The Sorceress that was meant for Spyro himself to prevent him from collecting any more of the dragon eggs that she desperately wanted to remain untouched. He is then approached by her servant, a magician-in-training named Bianca (To whom he has a developed a liking for over the course of the synopsis), who comes to tell the caged cheetah that the reason the dragons left so many years ago was because it had to do with their wonderful wings. As they began to realize that the obese blue saurian autocrat wanted to clip them off to give her immortality, they had no choice but to find solace in another reality. Linking this information to Spyro 1, we can now go back to viewing the example of confederation as the United States during the era of the Articles of Confederation, trying to recuperate from their religious tension with the monarchy of England and emigrating from there before ultimately deciding to settle in North America and establish a self-governed nation over the course of several decades. In the Spyro continuity, the dragons succeeded in building an autonomous series of societies in the then-vacant Dragon Realms following their disastrous affair with The Sorceress, where they then proceeded to push aside Gnasty Gnorc to the wastelands at some point later in time so they would have enough room to properly establish their footing in this uncharted land.

But sadly, that is not the end of the suspense; when Bianca returns to her master’s throne room, she discovers a dreadful truth she hadn’t been aware of until now. Ever since her henchmen brought the yet-to-hatch eggs back from the Dragon Worlds, The Sorceress hoarded them not because she wanted them to return their magic to the Forgotten Realms once they did hatch, but because she wanted to KILL THEM FOR THEIR WINGS LIKE SHE ATTEMPTED TO DO WITH THE ADULT DRAGONS BEFORE THEY LEFT. What she’s basically telling us is that she plans on committing an act of GENOCIDE ON AN ENTIRE GENERATION OF NEWBORNS in a similar manner to how Hitler promoted the large-scale massacre on an enormous number of Jews during the Holocaust.

With not a pinch of sympathy for anyone but herself by this point, the malevolent indigo monarch has become nothing short of a filthy caricature for the horrors of tyranny and dictatorship. By the way, she didn’t have to kill the newborns at all for that to happen, she just felt the need to do so JUST BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T WANT TO SEE THEM SQUIRMING AROUND IN HER QUARTERS. Prompting a drastic change of heart, Bianca decides to cease working for her master, opting to rescue Hunter from the trap her former supervisor had set up in Evening Lake. Fed up with the treason her lackey recently committed, The Sorceress decides to create an absurdly powerful, bat-winged monster intended to annihilate practically everyone in her opposition (Simply put, that means almost the entire population of the world she governs, plus Spyro and some of the friends he bought along).

Even though Spyro manages to eradicate The Sorceress for good, (Much to the satisfaction of the Forgotten Realms inhabitants) the atrocious myriad of actions she takes during that one game position her as an antagonist who is regarded as a dark villain for a normally light-hearted sugar bowl series like Spyro, thereby leaving an indelible mark on the narrative of that franchise’s continuity. Serving as a harsh critique for the concept of autocracy and its consequences on the people, Spyro: Year of The Dragon uses a surprisingly pathos-inducing series of events that favors a call to action for executive reform, appealing to the wants and needs of the governed rather than the desires and aspirations of the government itself.

Sources:

Kirby Super Star: https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/39dbqi/kirby_super_star_is_a_marxist_critique_of_the/

Confederacy: https://www.reference.com/government-politics/examples-confederate-government-230a5f967d7f24fa

Empire: https://dailyreckoning.com/how-empires-really-work/

Totalitarian State: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Qin-dynasty

https://www.reference.com/history/feudalism-ancient-china-8ddd0bf737a29fc5

#spyro reignited trilogy #spyro the dragon #playstation games #i need to post more often #my very first critique #enjoy ur day

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sassylavellen · 6 years ago

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Inquisitor as a Companion

I was tagged by the ever wonderful @shannaraisles! This one looks like a lot of fun! (Post filling this out, THIS WAS HARD AS HECK. But I loved it.)

As it happens, Moira is one of three headcanon companions to my canon Inquisitor Evelyn Lavellan, and everyone loves Moira so I’ll fill this out for her..

Inquisitor’s Name: Moira Lavellan

Race / Class / Specialisation: Dalish Elf/Rogue/Tempest

Gender Identity: Female

Varric’s Nickname for them: Bubbles

Short bio: The youngest daughter of Clan Lavellan’s former Keeper Revan’nain, Moira grew up with a wide-eyed innocence that she retained with her into her adulthood. Always optimistic, her uplifting personality is a boon to all who know her. She loves her family, even though she doesn’t always agree with her father’s iron grip on the ancient traditions. Moira was an extremely smart child, and by the time she was in her late teens, she was not only lead huntress for the clan, but one of their most skilled craftsmasters. Her ability to recall intricate details for weapons, armor, and other supplies was an invaluable asset to the clan. She is very knowledgable about metals and minerals. Moira will join the Inquisition after learning that her long lost sister/brother had become Inquisitor. This would have been after the Inquisition had taken up residence in Skyhold after Corypheus’s attack on Haven. She would only be an obtainable companion if the Inquisitor is Dalish.

What would their companion card look like? A leaping shot of her with an arrow set to her bow

Recruitment mission: “Family Ties”, unlocked by unlocking the Emerald Graves. Upon reaching The Emerald Graves, Scout Harding gives the Inquisitor a report about an unknown Dalish encampment nearby, and that one of their hunters was attempting to make contact with her team before being attacked by Venetori raiders who are hunting the clan. Unlocks the war table operation “Find The Dalish Camp”. Josephine does not participate in the mission, Leliana recommends sending some of her elven agents to seek out the camp, not wishing to give the wrong impression. Cullen says his soldiers can handle the raiders and help find the clan. Cullen’s option is quicker, but will result in the clan being less receptive to the Inquisition. Certain agent opportunities will become unavailable. Leliana’s option will increase favor with the clan and open up opportunities for the Inquisitor to acquire more agents.

Upon completing the war table operation, the camp is now accessible on the map. The clan turns out to be Clan Lavellan, and a group of Dalish hunters escort you to the Keeper who, no matter who you choose to complete the war table operation, is not interested in gaining the Inquisition’s help. Moira comes in and will tell the Inquisitor that he/she should try to impress the clan and gives a series of quests to do in an attempt to gain their favor.

The Inquisitor will need to help collect Dalish artifacts in the Exalted Planes guarded by a Varteral. The Keeper remains unimpressed and Moira is frustrated by this. After this section of the quest is completed, Moira will visit the first camp settled in the Emerald Graves and inform the Inquisitor that she wants to join.

Dialogue -

Moira: (Brother/Sister), I am sorry for what happened with The Keeper. I really thought that... well, I was wrong. I wasted your time and I’m sorry.

Inquisitor: It’s alright, Moira. You were just trying to help, and I appreciate it.

Moira: I’m the only one trying to help, and I am ashamed that our clan does not realize the threat we face. You say it’s elvhen magic, I thought that would be enough to sway them. But they still have their heads stuck so far up their...!

Inquisitor: Moira, calm down!

Moira: I’m sorry. What I’m trying to say is... I want to join you. I don’t know if you want me as a fighter or as a crafter, but I can’t just stand by while the world falls apart around me.

Inquisitor: Are you sure about this, Moira? You’re willing to turn your back on your clan to fight with me?

Moira: I am sure.

Moira: (Alternate: If the Inquisitor told Josephine that he/she was not on good terms with her clan) That’s what you did, brother/sister. I could do no less.

The Inquisitor will have three options: 1) Moira joins as a companion, 2) Moira joins as an agent, or 3) Moira does not join. If she becomes an agent, she will give access to a series of otherwise unobtainable war table operations.

Inquisitor: (Moira joins as companion) Welcome aboard, baby sis.

Moira: Please don’t call me that, is it too late to change my mind?

Inquisitor: (laughs) I’m afraid it is.

Moira: Thanks, brother/sister. I’m ready to do my part.

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Inquisitor: (Moira joins as an agent) Alright. You can join. I could really put your skills to use as a scout.

Moira: (chuckles) I see how it is, you don’t want your little sister following you around everywhere, don’t you?

Inquisitor: I didn’t say that!

Moira: I’m just teasing you. Thanks, brother/sister. I’m ready to do my part.

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Inquisitor: (Moira does not join) I’m sorry, Moira... but your place is here with our people. Help them, see if you can convince them of the threat.

Moira: Oh... of... of course. I’ll... I’ll do my best, brother/sister.

Inquisitor: Take care, Moira. May Mythal’s blessing be upon you.

Moira: You too, brother/sister. And may Ghilan’nain guide your way.

Where they would be in Skyhold / Haven: Moira is not available early enough in the game to be in Haven.

In Skyhold, she can be found in the undercroft, by the balcony.

Personal quests: Quest 1: An Iron Grasp: Shortly after she is recruited, Moira will ask the Inquisitor for a favor. She has been working with Dagna and wants to try and craft a new type of armor for the Inquisitor. The schematic requires several fade-touched materials which the Inquisitor must obtain in The Hinterlands (Fade-Touched Iron), The Emerald Graves (Fade-touched August Ram Leather), and The Fallow Mire (Fade-Touched Avaar Cotton). The Inquisitor will also have the option to give her non-fade-touched materials and lie that they are what she needs.

If the Inquisitor lies, Moira and Dagna’s experiment does not work and Moira is disappointed in their results. The Inquisitor can admit they lied, and will lose approval.

If the Inquisitor collects all the correct materials, their experiment explodes in the undercarriage and breaks Harret’s crafting bench, but it works, and The Inquisitor gains a permanent 20% percentage boost to crafting masterworks for armor or weapons. Moira approves.

Quest 2: A final plee: Moira receives news that their clan is going to Wycome, and another report about the unrest regarding elves in that territory. She will beg the Inquisitor to go with her to help try to prevent a mass slaughter. This will unlock the (repurposed) war table operation Defend Clan Lavellan, where the Inquisitor must make contact before they venture forth. Upon arriving in Wycome, Harding informs the Inquisitor that an attack has already begun. The Inquisitor and Moira must save as many elves from the onslaught as possible. If they manage to save all or most of the elves, The Inquisitor will have three options: 1) Make a plee to the nobles to end the conflict, 2) fend off the raiders to buy time for the elves to escape, or 3) surrender and attempt to negotiate.

If the Inquisitor makes the plee, the nobles will hear out the Inquisitor and depending on dialogue choices will either agree to end the violence or continue the slaughter. Moira will approve if they end the violence, but will have no approval change if they continue the slaughter at this point (she says in a follow-up dialogue, “I can’t be mad at you, you at least tried to stop them. I thought it would work, too.”)

If the Inquisitor stands and fights, Moira greatly approves.

If the Inquisitor surrenders, Moira greatly disapproves. A small amount of approval can be gained back depending on dialogue choices.

How to get their approval:

Moira approves of kind-hearted actions, so helping refugees is an easy way to gain influence.

She also approves when the Inquisitor uses knowledge perks in dialogues.

She will also slightly approve if the Inquisitor fills a geological survey requisition while she is in the party.

How to get their disapproval: Dialogue options about her past before you gain high enough approval; siding with nobles or bowing to their demands at the war table. Aggressive dialogue when she is in the party gains disapproval.

Are they romanceable? No.

Can you have sex with them? Ew no! She’s your sister!

Are they open to polyamoury? No.

If they can be romanced and are not, will they begin a relationship / relationships with other character(s)? If so, who? She will begin a relationship with another scout if she becomes an agent instead of a companion.

Who are they friendly with? Varric, Sera, Dorian, and Cole. She loves Varric’s stories and most of their party banter is her asking Varric to tell her more stories while they are walking. She likes playing along with Sera’s jokes. One particular banter has them comparing their bows and ends with Moira saying “Mine’s bigger” and Sera laughs so hard she snorts.

Who do they dislike? She only really doesn’t like Vivienne, because Vivienne treats her like she’s lesser than she is.

Special note: She doesn’t know what to think of Solas. On one hand, she is fascinated by his knowledge, but she’s also weary of his love for spirits and demons.

Companion card changes: (use a text descrip. if you have no images) Post companion quest (good result): Head lifted with a wreath of flowers surrounding her

Post companion quest (bad result): slumped beside a bed, dark clouds above her head.

Side Missions: There can also be a cutscene mission where she and the Inquisitor go to Val Royeux to go shopping and to get away from it all. Approval can be gained depending on dialogue choices.

Opinions on mages / templars / how the world is going to shit? Since she becomes a companion after The Inquisitor has already chosen, she does not have much of an opinion. She will have special dialogue depending on which side was chosen which shows she is more supportive of the mages, but either way will say she trusts her sibling’s decision.

Something guaranteed to make them leave the party: After her companion quest, if the Inquisitor surrendered, there will be a cutscene back at Skyhold where Moira will confront him/her about their decision. The Inquisitor can either convince her to stay (must have high approval) or to send her back to her clan.

Special Events:

Imprisoned at Redcliffe: How are they holding up in Redcliffe, being slowly infected with red lyrium over the course of a year? Moira is not available during this part of the story.

At the Winter Palace: Do they enjoy the party, any special events with them at the Palace? Moira is excited to be at the Winter Palace and to see the Orlesian culture in action. She will clumsily attempt to play along with the game and can possibly cause the Inquisitor to lose court approval if he/she does not head it off at the beginning of the quest after the first dialogue with Leliana about Morrigan.

In the Fade: Their reaction upon entering the Fade? Nightmare demon’s taunt, and their response? Fear on their grave? Reaction upon entering - *panic* "Wait... Did you say the fade... This can’t... We can’t be dead!” Taunt and response - “What of you, little Dalish girl? There is no weapon, no design that can save you now. (if her companion quest has been complete) After all you’ve done to save your clan, now you cannot even save yourself.” - "This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real!!” Greatest fear - Being the lone survivor

Trespasser: What were they up to two years after Corypheus’ defeat? Any special events with them over the events of Trespasser? If the Inquisitor’s approval with her is high, she will remain with the Inquisition for the two year period. She doesn’t want to attend the council, but will do it for her sibling.

If she was made an agent, she has gotten engaged to her scout lover and is pregnant. She will only have dialogue at the beginning before the council and one before the final mission begins.

If she was never recruited, or if The Inquisitor had a low approval with her as a companion, she will not attend the council.

Other Major Events: Any other major events that happen with them over the course of the main game? None that I can think of.

#Moira Lavellan

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lyricaspromise · 6 years ago

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We Become Crafters ‘R’ Us

After we slept, we woke to speak with Marsque and Ox again. Ai was having issues understanding that the Changeling was Ox, which was absolutely hysterical to me. Marsque thanked us for our help, before he said he needed to return to his people. He needed to be certain the others who had come with him escaped safely, and he also needed to inform his superiors that we had helped them.

Of course, as a Drider Ai would be very likely to be attacked by anyone who saw her above ground, so Ox offered her an item he felt would be of great use. When activated, it made her spider body a horse body instead, allowing her to pass as a centaur. They aren’t common, but they aren’t liable to be attacked at any point in time. As we made our way to the surface, Ai and Charra found, something in an abandoned building. Once we reached the surface, however, it was about midday once again. We told Ox we would meet him back at the guild, and made sure he had the list of everything we’d found during our travels and what we’d encountered so he could figure out our requisition tokens and what not. Heading to the baths, we all got clean and enjoyed some wine once again before heading back to the guild.

Once there, we found there was a new group in the guild. Apparently, this was one of the best parties the guild had. Consisting of a human, an dwarf, and a silver dragonborn they were, interesting. One of the others in the guild, the Cleric came over before he was amazed that Lenna was alive. Apparently, we are the third party she has been in, as her first passed on. Heading to Ox, we were given a number of different forms. I used my personal forms to get books to learn how to use a Jeweler’s Kit and Tinkerer’s Tools, as well as the tool sets and starting materials for them. I also took a set of Armguards of Nimbleness and a Quicksilver weapon. I’m going to enjoy using that: I can switch it from one weapon to another in just a bonus action. And, I can adjust the weight to be able to utilize even normally heavy weapons as Versatile when I need to. Not sure what the others got.

We did end up deciding that our party forms would be used to get blueprints for myself and Charra. I was able to get a blueprint to make message earrings for the party, while Charra is now able to make “of Holding” items for us. Ikki also turned in her enchanted leatherworker’s tools so I’d have a set of magical Jeweler’s Kit items to work with. We got Balasar some magical Smith’s Tools and an alchemy jug with our other forms.

Our first day above ground we all took some time to rest, since the Night Shift hasn’t been here in a while. Our second day we began to learn our new skills, or do some crafting. I knew Balasar and Charra wanted to smith, so I joined them in the forge. I rested on the barrel in the corner to read, offering them each Inspiration as they needed it. I chose to read The Gemstone’s Edge, the book about jewelry, first, and on the tenth day I was able to craft a beautiful new piece for my hair out of gold. Having gotten the hang of it, I was able to knock Nuts, Bolts, and Everything in Between out in only three days, and made my first trap on that same day. Charra had apparently been finalizing Ikki’s Spear, before starting on new hammers for Balasar and herself. I took the next three days off from crafting to work with Elodie, Lenna, and Ikki in learning Elvish. I’ve made a start, but its going to take some more time in order to understand it. Elodie also offered me a book: Dr. Chuck Tingle’s Complete Guide to Romance.

We’d spent three days on that before I began making something for Charra. I managed to create a Ring of Shield for her, which will allow her to cast Shield on herself at need. Almost as soon as I finished making that, Charra came to me with a gift. She, well. She’d made me a new flute. She admitted that she hadn’t been able to create the internal mechanisms that allow it to be functional, but the outside was done. I, believe I can handle that myself at some point. Looking at it, this is one of the most beautiful instruments I have ever been given. Made entirely of copper, this was most certainly a beautiful piece of Charra’s creation. Looking it over, I found some murals inscribed on it. One side has some musical notes for a melody. I’ll have to take some time, see if it would be best played on this flute when finished or on my lyre. On the other side, there were a few other depictions. The cut of an amethyst, a diamond, a woman’s visage, and a shield that may have been made of mithral. It’s fucking gorgeous, and I know I’ll treasure it forever. Miten hän teki tämän? Kuinka hän tietää, että soitin huilu? Miksi hän tekee niin vaikeaksi suojautua? I might have given her a kiss on the cheek in thanks.

I spent the next six days relaxing in the smithy as Balasar started working on a shield for both them self and for Lenna. They were quite impressive, and I enjoyed watching them work. I, enjoy watching them and Charra craft really. After those were finished, I went to watch them spar together, but Alphonse found me there. Ah shit I forgot. I went with him and we headed to the roof. I learned a bit of sign language, but it will definitely take me time to really understand it. Apparently, Alphonse, Emily, Roderick, and Adamar are to return to the dungeon again sometime soon. And, well. He is finding he holds feelings for both Roderick and Adamar, and wanted advice for how to talk to them and be brave. I felt horrible for pretending to know what I was talking about when I’m having the same issue myself. Still, I did my best to help him, and tried to act as a good friend and give him solid advice.

A few days after I got the flute from Charra, I found a book of Dwarven poems on my bed. Miten pidät sydämeni turvassa, kun hän tekee tällaisia asioita? It told a story, a beautiful story. By the gods.

The one that really caught my eye in the book, the one I think is the reason the book was left out for me? A love story. It tells about a dwarven woman who had decided to prove herself to be worthy of her beloved. She wished to find her fortune in gems and metals to do so, and as such traveled into the mountains to do so. During her travels, she encountered challenges that stood in her way, including many beasts she was forced to fight and even Drow looking for new slaves in the mountains. Yet for all her challenges, she found that the treasures she found didn’t compare to her beloved. Amethysts couldn’t compare to her lover’s eyes, diamonds were dull compared to her smile. Copper was dull compared to her hair, and even precious mithral failed to compare. Even still, she collected these items she wished to use to make her fortune, before hearing a voice raised in song. Hearing her beloved, she realized she was already rich in love and strove to return home, even though she brought the treasures of the mountains with her.

Somehow, that last bit did not surprise me. Dwarves, you know. (Miksi hän innostaa sellaisia tunteita minussa? Kuinka minun pitäisi suojella itseäni, kun hän antaa minulle tällaisia lahjoja?)

Ah! I forgot one of the other things that happened during our stay at the guild. We chose to play a game of Never Have I Ever in our rooms. Well, everyone but Taras that asshole. On that note, we’d been sent up to the room the Night Shift had been using since a new influx of new members meant the barracks were needed again. That was fine. We’re still together anyways. I’m not going to mention everything, but some of the more interesting things to learn were:

Outside of Charra and myself, Ai and Balasar have also hit their allies in battle

Balasar was in a war

Charra, Taras, Ikki, and Ai have never had their first kiss (and Elodie hasn’t had a second kiss either)

Charra is incapable of casting magic of any kind.

Most of us have hurt ourselves trying to impress someone else

Almost all of us have skipped out on when we promised to be someone

By the gods everyone in this party but myself and the old one are innocent babies.

Charra has at least 12 siblings. What.

Elodie bites if you wake her up

Lenna, Balasar, Charra and myself have all been in love

Most of us have fucked up, big time

The day after working with Alphonse, Fen’Glath asked Ikki and I to help him with something. Apparently, the company in charge of supplying the guild with Yew has been padding the shipments with pine and other items useless for his purposes. But, they often given him shit for being a former thief, and he wants some back up. We agree to help him, since he’s a good man.

Apparently, the town is unhappy with the Guild’s offer of amnesty for work, and the previous crafter actually left the guild when he joined. When we reached the shop, the owner’s son was inside. When Fen’Glath asked him about the shipments, he claimed that we were getting our full shipments. And for doing this, we would only be getting this months shipment and then things would break. Fen’Glath was stunned, so I stepped in. Ikki had been able to tell he was lying, so I took that and ran. I pointed out that even if Fen’Glath might now be respected? Captain Marks is. Ox is. And they may get involved if the threat of removing their business goes through. And of course, upset adventurers drink and might complain. If enough of the guild does that? Well, we may end up driving them out of business. But if they gave us what they had been cheating us on, and make sure our future shipments are fine, no one will ever hear about this. The guy promises to make sure we get our shipments in the future, and we left. Ikki? She actually talked to me. It. Was. Amazing.

The next day, I finally got to watch Charra and Balasar sparring with their new weapons. It was incredible, and they are both amazing fighters. Charra managed to cause massive amounts of damage in one turn, knocking Balasar completely out. On aina hämmästyttävää nähdä kuinka vahva hän on. We all returned to our room after that point, deciding to head down in the morning.

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