#and comes back to find the evil wizard has burned the entire village to the ground

[astranauticus]

having a favourite band you love with your whole soul is so insane actually i could be sitting here in an absolutely horrible mood then put a collage song on spotify and be like. oh im normal now 👍 <- extremely normal and well adjusted thing to say. tbh

[terra-phantasia]

Muses

Traditional Fantasy

Name: Hedgie, The Hedge Witch, Guardian of the Forest

Former name: Blodwyn

Age: ?

Race: Fey-Eladrin

Class: Druid

An ancient Druid that has taken up the mantle of Guardian of an even more ancient forest after defeating the great evil lurking there centuries ago. She reigns as the protector of said forest, living in harmony with all its creatures and ensuring that the local villages are taught to maintain the balance.

She can be quite mischievous and isn’t the most experienced in dealing with social interactions beyond those seeking her out for knowledge or aid, leading to her not entirely understanding human social cues. Despite this, she is incredibly social.

As is fey tradition, Hedgie often dons a glamour of an old crone draped in dirt and moss for first meetings and strangers to determine how much kindness they bear in their hearts. She also, much like her fey brethren, doesn’t hesitate to grant boons or curses based upon the treatment she receives. Unlike her brethren however, her curses are often mild and release once the lesson has been properly learned. Because of this, a dear wizard friend of hers will often send apprentices to test their mettle and keep their ego in check.

Name: Markus

Age: 30

Race: Half Orc

Class: College of Swords Bard

A jovial half orc with a love of performance and making a dang good soup, Markus’s past is one of mystery. After losing his memories during his coming of age rite, Markus returned to his village to find it wiped clean from the world in a catastrophic natural disaster. A lone survivor, an old man taking his last breaths, told Markus his name and what little he could about Markus before passing. Markus now travels the world as a man, hoping to discover the truth of what happened to his family or perhaps find happiness in a new tribe.

Markus is a kind person, quick to laugh and offer his help to any in aid. He is quite the skilled soup maker and carries a magical pouch of seasonings that constantly replenish.

He also managed to attend a Bard’s College, where his skills and prowess with a halberd was discovered as well as his love of performing with it. He will occasionally put on sword dancing shows with his halberd, using the magics he learned to create magnificent light shows with its spinning. He carries his halberg on his back.

Steam/diesel Punk + Fantasy

Name: Evangeline Flamegrinder

Age: 25

Race: Human

Class: Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer

A spunky human with dragon’s fire in her veins, when Evangeline isn’t helping her dad in their machine shop with their many gadgets and gizmos, she’s manning the noodle restaurant up front.

Her powers come directly from her father, manifesting when she was a child after horrific explosion in the machine shop mangled her right leg and covered the left side of her face and torso in terrible burns. Her leg was eventually amputated and she was left scarred but now incredibly resistant to fire. She now uses a prosthetic leg made by her father, and looks for adventure where she can find it in hopes of collecting enough money to not burden him with its upkeep.

She’s a bit of a pyromaniac and can be often found tinkering on various gadgets and explosives of her own creation. She also has a terrible tendency to hide bombs infused with her dragon’s fire in her tops, using the illusion of being well endowed to get away with sneaking her bombs.

[tinypurplewizardfan]

I know that, for all intents and purposes, Veigar's domain (the village of Boleham) is probably in that big circle of Valoran that isn't claimed by either Demacia, Noxus, or the Freljord. However, him being on either Demacian or Noxian territory gives two equally pleasing and humorous headcanons.

Demacia:

Very, very occasionally, a wandering merchant from the border towns will bring news to the authorities in the capital of a rogue mage lord presiding over the lonely village of Boleham. Figuring nothing more than a rumor, they sends out a scout to check things out.

A few months later, the administration realizes that the scout. . . never actually came back. So they send a small patrol. It doesn't come back either.

Search parties are sent out. One of them finds the original scout's horse living in the wild a good fifty miles away from Boleham. The search parties get distracted by the poor road conditions, figure the lost guys got caught by wolves or some shit, and send out a civil team to fix the teeny road and everyone forgets about the rumor of the rogue mage, because who has time for that when you're caught up in bureaucracy???

Meanwhile, the residents of Boleham know better than to question where the local evil wizard got four Demacian uniforms that he uses as dishrags.

But rumors don't die that easily, and with extra juicy tidbit of "mage lord who managed to fool Demacian bureaucracy into leaving his town alone", you bet that the word spread around like fire among the right people.

Like the many mages currently hiding for their lives in Demacia.

And as a result, a shit ton of mages-in-hiding end up moving to Boleham.

Veigar. . . doesn't really care? He saw some of them do their (unpracticed and frankly pathetic) magic once or twice and decided they weren't worth his attention.

The native townsfolk did care at first, but living with an "evil" wizard overlord for a while really dampens your zeal for witch hunting ordinary people. Plus, turns out water, light, and plant magic are really great for growing crops, and fire magic is good for keeping warm in the winter.

It's all fun and games until one of the hiding mages approaches his tower and asks if he can teach them about magic.

Noxus:

Okay, so Veigar doesn't get very far after he's freed from the Immortal Bastion and decides to settle down on the border instead of leaving the country.

He drop-kicks the old evil mage lord and takes over his tower. Normal stuff.

But the thing is. . . Noxian power structure is all based around, well, power. Fighting power. Physical power. If you can beat up your boss, you're now the boss.

And as big and diverse as Noxus is (given its roots as ten separate tribes plus all the territory it conquered), it's ruled over by smaller constituent lords on the smaller scale of things who all report back to the Grand General and shit.

And Veigar just drop-kicked one of those lords.

He gets a letter left on the door of his tower with a personal congratulations from Swain, along with a list outlining all of his new obligations.

And he promptly burns it.

The townsfolk are actually quite happy with the arrangement. No more calls for the draft? That alone is enough for them to accept the new management, even if most of Veigar's other "policies" leave a little to be desired.

Better to be ignored than ruthlessly taxed and terrorized though. . . and he has cracked down on the local bandits, so it's win-win?

Meanwhile, in the Immortal Bastion, though, Swain is simultaneously relieved yet actually a little worried. The old mage lord was an asshole jockeying for political power like the rest of them, whereas Veigar hasn't even responded to any invitations to proceedings. He can't decide if this is an improvement or not. One less political enemy. . . or a new threat to the empire entirely.

Ultimately, however, because Veigar hasn't done anything yet (and the fact that he has much bigger shit to worry about right now), it doesn't occupy much of Swain's time. He keeps a raven in the village of Boleham to keep an eye on things but rarely checks it. He still continues to send Veigar invitations to political events and the like just out of humor though.

Veigar gets an invitation to "An Evening in the Heart of the Immortal Bastion" and just about has a panic attack launches a one-yordle siege on the entirety of Noxus before he calms down.

[writing-the-end]

LoL Chapter 46- Fractures

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU, designs, ideas belongs to @theguardiansofredland)

The hermits discover it’s not just Dolios feeling the repercussions of their work. 

___________________________________________

Litow wasn’t very far for the likes of Cub, even though it was all the way on the other side of Lairyon. In between Kilton and Addows, on the lower peninsula of the crescent shaped kingdom, it was one of the furthest places from Eremita and the Ashioll sea. 

But with Cub’s portal magic, and only three other people to teleport, it was no more than a skip, hop, and a jump. Even better, he’s been to Addows before, so he knew exactly where to go with his magic. Doc was the brave first soul to step through the portal and out into the open world, and kept watch while Scar, BDubs, and Cub passed over as well. 

Lucky for them, there was very little presence of arcane guard in Addows, and they’ve only passed one patrol along the road since they began their journey. Doc was ready to fight tooth and nail, remind the guard that they aren’t going to be cowardly criminals. But BDubs yanked him into the bush he had created seconds before Doc could get his words out. 

It’s been a few weeks since they all became wanted criminals, Lairyon’s most wanted. Admittedly, things have gotten harder. None of them can show their faces at Snapdragon port, which is crawling with guards and Gedeons. All of their suppliers have cut them off. Luckily, they have BDubs’s garden and a whole sea of fish. On their missions, they can’t take main roads, can’t saunter into wherever they’re needed. Even the villages they’ve come to help will meet them with a mix of hope, disdain, and downright hostility. They have to prove themselves as well as battle off husk storms and darkness crystals. Dolios has turned the whole nation against them. He’s turned the heroes into villains. 

It wasn’t the entire town of Litow that asked for their help. A single letter, written by a young boy who had heard stories from another group of wizards, of the hermits and their escapades. Scar looks down at the note as they walk, reading over it once more. 

The boy’s parents are missing, and even when he tries to use his own magic- very proudly declared to be arbor magic- the forest that Litow sits at the edge of refuses to bend to his will. Most of the village’s magic has disappeared, and now so are its people. At night, howls of creatures keep anyone from leaving their beds, much less their house. 

If Scar has ever read a classic evil black crystal infestation, it would be this. For sure the work of Dolios is plaguing this town. “Litow isn’t a small village. It’s no town like Coral Shores or Shellor, but it’s not as little as Gildara either.” 

“Dolios is getting stronger.” Doc growls, his shoulders bent forward as he marches down the road. “He’s getting braver, stealing magic from greater sources. He’s leveling up. Next, it’ll be the towns. Then the cities.” 

“Doc does have a point. Everyone loves him, no one would suspect it’s Magistrate Dolios causing this corruption across Lairyon.” Cub waves his hand flippantly, as if batting away flies rather than his unfinished thoughts. 

“I’m surprised he hasn’t started blaming us for that.” BDubs sighs. “Do you think people are starting to notice that this is happening? Do you think news has spread about the darkness?” 

“If it is, then the Council is surely stifling it.” Cub picks up a rock, holding it in the palm of his hand. Beneath the stone, blue embers of magic curl and twist into his magic circle, and a second later the rock is gone. A parlor trick, but still fun for Cub. “But they can’t stop ideas from growing, and it’s clear from this letter that news is getting around. About the dark magic and us.”

The quad rounds a bend, the road meandering with the creek bed, turning and guiding them to the interface of forest and field. At the edge of the two environments, Litow sits. Three hermits stop, and Doc reaches out to grab BDubs and yank him back from proceeding as the others take initial notes of the mission before them. 

Litow seemed to still have it’s color, though one building nearest to the forest edge has become entangled in the grey wisps, slowly being claimed, siphoned of life. The town still held it’s people, bustling as if nothing was wrong, continuing to cut lumber and plant trees in an everlasting cycle of give and take. 

Scar takes a step back, not sure if he wants to test his luck with a bunch of Lumberjacks. If they preferred Dolios’s story, he can just imagine the damning blow their axes could deal, with or without magic. Scar rubs his neck nervously, glancing to Doc. 

Doc keeps moving. He holds his head high as they enter the town, meeting the lingering gazes as they walk past. Daring anyone who even thinks of turning them in to face his wrath. And while most people don’t say a thing, the others can all tell the lumberjacks are thinking it. 

But one brave lumberjack dares to step between Doc and the shadowed forest edge. She places her hands on her hips, tall enough that Even Doc has to look up. “Yer kind ain’t allowed here. Git before I call the guard on you. Could pay for all the lost work we’ve had lately.” 

“We’re here to help that!” BDubs chitters, though he’s quaking in his sandals. “I mean, not the work thing directly, but we can bring your magic back!” 

“I ain’t listening to no lies from a buncha mercenaries. If the magistrate don’t trust ya, I don’t either.” The lumberjack hefts her axe onto her shoulder, the blade as wide as Scar’s chest. Even Doc decides it’s best not to pick a fight, and retreats from the town. 

“Well now what do we do?” Cub questions, watching the timber town return to work, though not without keeping an eye on the four outsiders. 

“Psst! Hey! Over here!” The men turn, and see a boy more than halfway out a window of a log cabin, waving with a toothy grin. As they near, the boy chatters excitedly. “Oh I’m so glad you came my best friend’s sister saw you guys in Danes and when I saw what was happening here I knew I should get a letter to you guys. My aunt Bethy thinks yer a buncha thugs but i know the truth my parents always said I was smart!” 

The boy points over to the forest, the tangle of trees and bushes, most of it sapped of life by dark magic. “My family’s house is all sad and grey now, but it wasn’t like that until recently. Before, we just thought it was the forest preparing for winter early.” 

“So the crystal must be in the forest.” Cub notes, looking at the canopy of trees, green canopies marred by grey tendrils, sprouted up into an ashen cloud. The boy nods, earning a sincere pat on the head from Scar. “Thanks kiddo, you’re our hero today.” 

The group leaves their tiny informant and the town that doesn’t want them behind, and BDubs uses his own plant magic to crest a path through the foliage. They pass by young trees, growing tall with the aid of the arbor mages and their familiars, logs freshly cut with the sap still flowing like blood, and stumps of the felled, waiting to be reclaimed or burned to make way for new life. 

They’ve become used to the sensation of a dark crystal, the pressure exerted on their bodies, their magic. Doc can even use it to guide them in the right direction, when the tension ebbs and when it grows, until they come across a tree. The behemoth of an oak tree twists it’s roots, dirt hollowed out by animals and time, creating a burrow just big enough for a crystal to be nestled inside. It’s a shame, Scar sighs, that something used for evil has been placed where skavader would normally raise their young. How it destroys the environment, leaving nothing but death behind. “Let’s destroy this magical menace.” 

Scar raises his hands, magic circles already cast. When he attempts to cast the spell, however, he finds his arms are immobile. No matter how hard his mind screams at his hands to move, they’re frozen in place. 

A snap of a twig sends Doc and the others skittering for a fight, while Scar whimpers pathetically at his unmoving appendages. Movement catches BDubs’s eyes, and he launches a whipping vine to capture whatever he saw. But the ivy is met by fire, coiling around, igniting leaves aflame. When BDubs refuses to let go, then the opponent on the other end of the whip takes control, and the plant wizard is thrown into the air, an screaming arc over the trees and on the other side of Idelens and her crew. 

The Council guildmaster lets go of the charred vine, wiping her hands free of the stained ash. Behind her, husks appear from the woodwork, their shifting grey bodies and gaunt faces like ragdolls, toyed around by dark magic. A bolt of dark lightning creases through the stormcloud hovering above them. A husk storm. Idelens may be in charge, but she’s not in control. 

The master of Midas’ Medallions straightens the severe bun on her crown, not a single hair out of place. “You and your friends have been such a thorn in the Council’s side. Not mine, but you have made everyone else quite unhappy. Especially Magistrate Dolios. He’s quite displeased that the others have been failing their duties.” 

“You say that like we give a damn.” Doc sneers, watching the husks circle around them. Men and beasts, wyverns and wizards, farmers and feathered serpents. 

“Oh, but you should care about anything I say, because what I say goes. And I say what better way to remind everyone why I’m the best guildmaster, why I determine the S-Class trials, is by removing a few thorns from the rosebush.” She snaps her fingers, and in the short burst of sound in the forest, several things happen at once. 

First, the husks attack. Lunging at the hermits, teeth and spells ablaze. All vying to rip the hermits limb from limb, or force them to join the ranks of husks, sapping their lifeforce and stealing their magic. Just like what happened in Danes. 

Second, Idelens’s magic takes hold. Sprites of magenta swirl and dance from her fingers, seeking out the hermits and embedding themselves like burrs to their skin. Cub’s knees quake, struggling to keep him standing. All his strength sapped like he’s ran a marathon, though his magic remains strong. Scar trips trying to run away from the bright bursts of energy, as if he needed the vertigo the magenta magic bestows upon him. 

Third, Doc casts his own magic, his consciousness leaping out of his body just before the debuffing magic can steal his strength, and into BDubs instead, trapped on the other side of the husk horde. He feels little concern with controlling his friends- he’s sure BDubs will understand. 

Through BDubs’s eyes, Doc can see all three instances, as well as his own body teetering lamely at the center. He’s woefully vulnerable, and every husk knows that his corporeal body is just begging to be attacked. So when a mage turns their magic on him, he turns BDubs on it. Slamming the plant wizard’s hands down on the ground, roots rise from the earth like massive snakes of wood, twisting around Doc’s body and encasing it in a capsule. Doc forces BDubs to his feet, verdant eyes trained on the guildmaster as she watches. Watches Scar and Cub struggle to fight with their strength and coordination gone, and not watching her back. 

Doc forgets how weak regular humans can be. He’s used to his tough green skin, and his mechanical prosthetics. He shoves Idelens off her feet with a body check, bruising pain shooting up BDubs’s body. The pain threatens to push Doc free from his host, but Doc keeps a firm grip on the controls. Idelens stumbles forward, and before she can regain her composure, Doc brings a tree down on top of her. 

It should have killed her. He meant for it to kill her, but she still had tricks up her sleeve. Magic swirls across her skin, showing that she buffed herself before being brought to the dirt by the tree. Pinned beneath the trunk, Idelens whines to anyone who will listen. At this point, Doc thinks she just likes hearing herself talk. 

“Do you know how annoying the other guildmasters have gotten? How many problems you have caused us?” She spits, trying to push the tree off. Doc, still controlling BDubs, glances up, but sees that her magic has left Cub and Scar. She needed to focus on not getting crushed. “Sidero is such a whiny brat, taking all his anger out on me just cause no one cares about his stupid inferiority complex! His guild wasn’t anything special to begin with! The Gadai are losing partnerships and trade deals left and right, which is making Okui all pissy because she can’t have all her nice things anymore! Gluttonous whore. And don’t get me started on Eros!” 

“Like I said before, I really don’t care.” Doc starts to let go of BDubs, to return to his body and finish things off, but Idelens is far from finished. 

“You should, because it’s all your fault! You’re ruining the Council! Dolios blames us for not working hard enough to stop you, which is why I’m going to have to clean up all your fucking mess. Because apparently I’m the only one who can babysit these idiots and actually get things done!” With a burst of strength, Idelens kicks through the tree, sending BDubs flying once more and knocking Doc back into his own body. 

It takes the puppeteer a second to remember how to control his own body. A portal appears beneath his feet, freeing him from his own confinement. “Welcome back, brother.” Cub hums, splicing a husk in two with a simple open and close of another rift. “We’ve got the ashen abominations, you deal with her.” 

Doc turns, facing down the guildmaster. He remembers her face so vividly, so perfect and coy. When he ran the S-Class trials, she was worse than almost any challenge she threw his way. He’d like to give her a taste of her own medicine. 

He casts his circle, alarming Idelens. She buffs herself, preparing for him to attempt to take control of her body. But he was bluffing. And she fell for it. While she’s busy casting her spell, he uses his own brute force, punching her in the jaw and into a muddy puddle. The golden tassel of her dress drags through the mud, the dirt making it nigh impossible to tell that she’s a Council mage. To Doc, there is no difference. Bones still break the same. 

He pulls free his knife, marching forward. He doesn’t stop, even as Idelens frantically casts her magenta magic once more. Even when it slows him down, to the pace of a tortoise, he doesn’t stray from his intended target. 

Idelens scrabbles back, her perfection fracturing. Her perfect dress, stained with mud and ash, locks of brown hair wisping free from her bun. Even her voice no longer carries pride. Only pure, seething rage. “I will kill you, puppeteer. I will kill you for lowering me to the likes of those scum.” 

She’s gone before Doc’s knife even has a taste for her blood. He stumbles forward, freed from his slow pace. Scar, BDubs, and Cub return to work destroying the crystal, considering this battle a victory- they fended off Idelens and the husk storm she brought, and they destroyed the dark crystal killing the land. 

But to Doc, her words echo in his head. And he knows this wasn’t a victory. 

This was just a stalemate.

[noir0neko]

preview: spellbound- kth

Curses can be blessings in disguise. 

genre: wizard!taehyung + enemies to lovers!au | preview | 1.5k words

A/N: As requested, here is the preview for the Howl’s Moving Castle AU with Taehyung as Howl. The fic will also include other members playing different characters, like Hobi as Markl, Yoongi as Calcifer, Jin as the young prince and more! You don’t need to have read/seen Howl’s Moving Castle to understand the fic, so I hope everyone can enjoy some wizard Tae. Send your thoughts!

His hair is almost brown, shimmering and shining in the high afternoon sunlight like burnt gold brushing against his forehead. Stunning against the dark fans of his lashes are impossibly bright blue eyes, clear and shining, lapis lazuli gems roaming over the guards behind you with a hint of disdain. His skin is pale, nearly alabaster white, and yet his cheeks have slight color to them, as if he has been standing in the sun for far too long.

“Sorry I kept you waiting, darling,” the stranger says, putting his hands around your waist to pull you against his side. You are dwarfed by his height, the heat of his skin branding you.

You open your mouth, then close it, unsure of what to say, of what you can say.

“We were just keeping her company,” one of the soldiers purrs.

“I doubt that.” The stranger responds with a deep and melodic voice.

The dark haired soldier parts his lips to respond, but before he can, the stranger snaps his fingers. As if in response, the soldiers straighten up and with a wave of the stranger’s hands, they are waddling off in the opposite direction, grunting and teetering on their feet.

A wizard. You think, blood rushing through your ears.

But they are supposed to stay in the Wastes, miles beyond the boundary of your town. The Wastes are for all of the wizards and witches of the land, where they can practice magic and aid the king without interrupting or endangering the everyday villagers. Each town only has one magic shop in it, where a witch or wizard makes potions and ailments for the sick or unwell. But you have never seen this man. And although you have never considered yourself to be the most observant, especially when you want to go unnoticed in the main square, you’re fairly confident you would have noticed this man before if he does reside here. If not because of his striking features, but because all of the men and women would have crowded to fawn over him.

“I hope they didn’t give you too much trouble,” he turns to you.

His clothes are perfectly clean and smooth, a white undershirt untied at his chest to reveal lightly freckled skin. And to show off the teardrop necklace at his throat, glistening in the light, the color bright blue like his eyes. His overcoat is gray and pink checkers, lined with fine yellow silk, but his hands are out of the sleeves and by his sides, shirt cuffed and billowing at the wrists. His pants are a dark blue, almost black with shined shoes that scream wealth and ability. You can see the lines of muscle and the lean cut of his body from his clothes, trying to ignore the curiosity that he piques. But the smile that comes to his face sends a feeling through you that you can’t describe. Like butterflies and sparkly things that only your sister ever cared to think of. Your sister. You need to get to her, she will be worried if you show up late.

“It was no trouble,” you sputter. “Thank you.”

The man takes your hand in his, placing it on his elbow as he starts to walk.

“I don’t need an escort,” you begin, “despite what just happened.”

“Maybe I do,” the stranger gives you a mischievous smile. “Don’t be alarmed, but I am being followed.”

You inhale softly, spine snapping erect and eyes going wide. Followed? Possibly by another wizard or witch? So many of them in the town would only bring bad tidings. Though this man didn’t seem particularly evil, there are tales of bewitchment and entrancement in the Wastes. Where poor young women wander too far into the fields and are never to be seen again, their hearts taken or their hair burned or their skin peeled to fuel the warlocks’ desires for power.

The strangers turns you sharply down an even tighter alley and you don’t dare look behind you as you swear you hear a loud slapping sound on the wall, like bodies crashing into one another. Your breathing quickens, heart racing. You bet the stranger can hear it, pounding wildly in your chest like a drum, like a symphony, like the sound of power in his ears-

You gasp loudly as a group of black, amorphous creatures turn from the corner above, their bodies meshing and joining together. Their noses are large and bulbous, faces with no eyes flowing into dark bodies, with long, dragging limbs like jelly. Looking around, there is only stone on either side of you, the squishing sound of the creatures drowning out any sensible thought. The stranger next to you tenses but keeps walking and closes his eyes, as if accepting the inevitable defeat.

Thoughts race around in your mind, jumping and clouding one another. You shouldn’t have taken this short cut today. You shouldn’t have tried to avoid the bustle of the main square. You shouldn’t have left as late as you did. You shouldn’t have agreed to meet with your sister today, you didn’t want her dragged into any of this. Your burdens and mistakes were yours alone. You always made sure of that.

Mimicking the man next to you, with your arms still joined, you close your eyes as well, feeling the heat of all of the bodies begin to trap you in that alley like a blazing fire nipping at your feet.

Your stomach falls out from beneath you, a scream tearing from your lips as wind rips at your hair and your dress. You open your eyes, tears streaming down your cheeks as you feel the wizard move around to take both of your hands in his.

You are flying.

The alley beneath you is completely swallowed by the black of those creatures, their horrid sounds ringing in your ears. The crowd underneath your feet doesn’t so much as look up from the war processions, the streamers and color of fanfare blurring as you’re lifted higher.

“One foot in front of the other,” the wizard whispers, his lips so close to your ear you can’t help but shiver.

You do as you're told, struggling to find the rhythm without anything solid for your feet to grip. He continues to hold your hands, palms warm and pulse beating steadily against the inside of your wrists. Adrenaline pumps through you, this quickly becoming the most interesting day of your entire life. With a wizard. Followed by horrifying monsters. Flying. Flying.

“You’re a natural,” the stranger commends.

You give him a small smile with a turn of your head, trying to focus on the beat of your steps as you both sail through the air. You can see the bakery approaching, instructing him in that direction despite him seeming to know so already. The music below is lost so high in the sky, just the steady hum of the wind and the calm of his breathing refills your ears.

In one swift moment, the stranger turns you around so you face him, eyes burning with blue light akin to a hot fire. He lowers his eyes, the both of you seeming to lower as well as he gently sets you on the balcony of the bakery. You can smell the bread from the ovens, hear the numbers called for guests, and the ringing of bells to signify the door. The green alabaster railing of the balcony is cracking and peeling, so raw and unfinished compared to the stranger in front of you.

“How did you-” You begin to ask how he knew to take you here, but he starts first.

“I made sure those things don’t know where we went, but wait a while before you go back out on the streets.”

You can do nothing, but nod, feeling foolish. Like a little girl in front of a grown man.

“Adieu.” He bows low, sweeping his arms out, before he drops from his hovered position into the streets.

You gasp again, rushing to the balcony to look into the crowd below. You can’t spot him, the people a blur of different hair and clothing. Your stomach struggles to right itself, completely turned upside down from defying gravity for so long. A wizard. You had met a wizard. You had gone flying with a wizard.

You can’t help the small smile that rises from your throat. If your whole life is to be filled by making hats and avoiding others, you suppose you can allow a little triumphant happiness at such a grand adventure. You can allow yourself to let your heart move a little faster when you remind yourself of his face. You will never see him again. Allowing a bit of feeling will not hurt.

And he was absolutely enchanting.

~Admin Eggplant

[introvertguide]

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001); AFI #50

The current movie for review from the AFI top 100 is the most recent of the films, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). This was the introduction of director Peter Jackson to much of the mainstream American audience despite him having a 20 year history of film making in New Zealand. The film is beautiful in so many aspects, from the special effects to the cinematography to the sets creating the world of Middle Earth. The film received 12 nominations at the Academy Awards and received 4 of them, a feat unheard of for an epic fantasy film. This is also the only “incomplete” film on the AFI list because there are no other “too be continued” stories. There are some films that are first and second parts (specifically The Godfather 1 and 2), but this is the only one that intentionally stopped with intent for the story to pick in the next film. With that being said, the sheer number of characters and the intended incomplete nature of the film makes it almost impossible to summarize without just going scene by scene. There are 100 movies on this list and I am not going to set any precedence that I will be doing that, so here is a very brief synopsis of what happens in this film without diving into too much of the lore concerning the rest of the trilogy or The Hobbit:

SPOILER WARNING!! I DON’T KNOW WHY IT IS NECESSARY ON THIS ONE, BUT I DO IT EVERY TIME AND I WANT TO BE CONSISTANT!! IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THIS BY NOW OR ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH THE STORY, THEN YOU ARE LIKELY VERY YOUNG, LIVE UNDER A ROCK, OR PURPOSEFULLY AVOIDING IT!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED SO I DON’T WANT TO GET ANY NOTES ON THIS ONE!!!

So here is the general outline, there was an evil guy named Sauron that gave out rings of power to the Elves, Dwarves, and Humans in a realm called Middle Earth. This land is a fantasy realm that has a mix of Dark Age castles mixed with monsters and human like races. It looks strangely like New Zealand through a lot of the country side. Coincidence I am sure. Anyway, Sauron tricked the different races because he kept for himself one ring to rule them all and bind the ones wearing the rings to him. This did not go over well so the humans, elves, and dwarves rose up and fought Sauron and his armies and were able to get the master ring during battle. There was a chance for them to destroy the ring but human corruption prevented this and the ring was eventually lost. It eventually ended up in the hands of a man that kept it close and allowed it to suck away his life until it was stolen by a small human-like creature named Bilbo Baggins. The ring was taken on many adventures (see The Hobbit films for this story) and it gave this little hobbit prolonged life, but it also became an addictive burden. Bilbo decided to go off and leave the ring for his nephew and this is where the story begins. I know, it’s a lot.

A wizard named Gandalf (Ian McKellen) comes to the hobbit village as Bilbo is leaving and makes sure the ring is left in the hands of the nephew Frodo (Elijah Wood). The wizard confirms the ring is the one that rules them all and reveals that Sauron is regaining power and wants the ring. For the safety of the shire, Frodo must take the ring to Rivendell, home of the Elves, to figure out what must be done. Gandalf has to take care of some business so some other hobbits - Sam (Sean Astin), Merry (Dominic Monaghan), and Pippin (Billy Boyd)  - get wrangled into the journey and the group of four go off to a local human town to meet Gandalf and continue forward. This short trip proves treacherous as the 9 humans that were given rings of power had been corrupted and turned into Nazgul that are attempting to track down the little group of hobbits. Gandalf does not show up, but the group run into a ranger named Strider at the human tavern and he helps fight off the ring wraiths. With the help of his elf girlfriend, Arwen, the group are able to make it to Rivendell where they are presumably safe for the time being.

A meeting is held at Rivendell and representatives of the different races all show up to decide what must be done. The ring must be destroyed so a fellowship to transfer the ring to Mount Doom is formed. It is made up of the four hobbits, Gandalf the wizard, an elf named Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Strider the Ranger who is actually a human king named Aragorn (Viggo Mortenson), a dwarf named Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), and another human named Boromir (Sean Bean). I have seen enough movies with Sean Bean as a side character to know that he is for sure going to die. It is only a matter of when.

So the group heads off toward Mount Doom and initially start by taking a path through snowy mountains but have to turn back and instead decide to go under the mountains. The dwarf is excited because he can visit his cousin who is king under the mountain. Alas, all they find is skeletons and an evil race created by Sauron called orcs. This race also seems to have other evil creatures enslaved including a cave troll. The Fellowship is chased through the bowels of the mountain until the orcs suddenly back off and the group finds something even worse, an ancient evil called a Balrog. Gandalf takes on the creature at a stone bridge and screams the now memed words “You shall not pass!” The Balrog falls into a pit but drags Gandalf down as well, reducing the number in the group by one wizard.

The group mourns the loss very briefly (and dramatically) before traveling to an elven forest where Frodo is told by a queen that he will have to take on the quest alone and that one of the fellowship will betray him. They continue on and it turns out that a wizard named Saruman that was corrupted by Sauron (confusingly close in name, I know), has created super buff orcs called Uruk-hai (pronounced “Orick Eye” all blended together) to hunt down the party. Boromir tries to take the ring from Frodo but immediately makes up for it by sacrificing himself to protect the hobbits from the super orcs. Sean Bean was kind of a bad guy and was killed. What a surprise. That actor really needs to find different roles or he is going to spend his entire career being type cast. 

Anyway, Frodo and Sam break away from the group to go off on their own, the other two hobbits are captured and taken by the orcs, and then Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli decide to track everybody down. To be continued.

This probably seems like quite a short synopsis for a 3 hour movie...but legitimately the movie is a visual spectacle in which not a lot happens. Most of the movie is traveling, fighting, introducing the lore of the world, and introducing characters. Not a whole lot of plot progression in this particular movie, but it sets the stage for the second film to be nothing but battle and progression (an hour long battle of Helm’s Deep which is amazing), while the last one is nothing but battles and resolution of every story line. It is an incredible trilogy and this is only the beginning and it had audiences drooling for more.

In fact, Peter Jackson films set the standard for special effects for the early 21st century. His team took home the Oscar for best visual effects in 2001 for Fellowship of the Ring, in 2002 for The Two Towers, in 2003 for The Return of the King, and in 2005 for King Kong. No film series with consecutive releases has done this except Lord of the Rings (not even with Star Wars, Marvel, and DC universe films coming out constantly).  The series really is something special. Attempts had been made to tell the trilogy as an animated movie, but no drawings could do the world justice. It took advanced computer graphics, motion capture technology, an expansive New Zealand countryside, a quirky director that had envisioned this world his whole life, and a dedicated cast and crew that was fully committed to the project. It is an amazing piece of filming.

If I have any complaints, it is that there is some really corny drama. The amount of times that Elijah Wood overacts in pain or despair is more digits than I have. Especially when the group is mourning the loss of Gandalf...it is kind of embarrassing. It is that “inconsolable parent who lost a child” acting with scream crying and shouts of “Noooooo!” It is all the hobbits, too, which doesn’t help that they are the size of children and are having a despair tantrum. Luckily they keep going and that is a one minute scene, but still it is embarrassing. Also, Frodo is stabbed and presumed dead twice. I can see why there were no nominations for best actor because it was not the best acting.

It is all made up for by the incredible battles. For me, it is the chase under the mountain with the orcs and the cave troll and the balrog. That is about 30 minutes of constant fight or flight that left me short of breath. I realized I kept forgetting to breath I was so mesmerized by the constant intensity. There is also a good amount of comedy since the hobbits are generally peaceful farmers and they don’t know how to (or want to) have adventures and keep messing things up. Pippin and Merry keep touching things that they shouldn’t and it brings all kinds of trouble. I think it is one of them that knocks some armor into a well that catches the attention of the orcs under the mountain.

Two specific scenes that I found memorable in that they are burned into my brain forever were the Nazgul fight and the appearance of the cave troll. The Nazgul are absolutely terrifying in that they have no face and have only one intent: kill whatever they are hunting. A good comparison would be to Dementors in the Harry Potter universe. The Nazgul are like Dementors with swords and armor. What is worse, Frodo can use the one ring to make him invisible, but it puts a target on him for the Nazgul and they come straight for him. They idea that you can’t hide from this evil and attempting to will make you stand out more is kind of horrific. I found the Nazgul truly disturbing. The cave troll is just awesome and huge. At no point was I worried for the team on this occasion because the wizard, elf, dwarf, and humans seemed undefeatable. It was more of curiosity about how they were going to handle this challenge. The detail of filming all the actors and sets so they were affected by the troll made the huge beast and the threat it posed in an enclosed space seamless. 

There was some question why this movie was on the AFI list and the other movies in the trilogy were not, especially with the third film winning 10 Oscars including best picture. It is because this was the watershed film that made the others possible. I got to see the film in the theatre and it was an experience like no other. I cannot think of a movie that had created such a complete fantasy world like LOTR and it made for a truly cinematic experience. I generally do not like movie theatres because people around me whom I have no control over can affect my experience and I am not normally willing to pay for that. However, the theatre I was in had tiered level seating that was graded enough so that nobody blocked my view and ample leg room that also prevented kicking from behind. It was a thing of beauty and I went and saw the other two films in the theatre as well. It was amazing.

So does this film deserve to be on the AFI 100? My goodness, I would think less of the AFI if it wasn’t. It changed audience expectations of what a movie could be and set the tone for the new millennium as far a big budget cinema. Would I recommend it? Please, I own it. If you come by my place and you haven’t seen it, then I will be happy to put aside 3 hours and watch it again with you. It is the easiest epic film to get through, in my opinion, and I don’t think you will be sorry to give up the time. Just a fantastic movie.

[bekahdoesnerdshit]

Pip Backstory!

Hey guys! It’s Pip Backstory! This post actually started as an archive of the backstory I wrote into my Roll20 sheet when the DM said she was taking the game down, because I didn’t want to lose all the writing I had done. I didn’t plan to do anything with it, but I thought it would be nice to have it later to look back on! But now that this blog is more than me just tagging pictures of frogs and making myself laugh, I thought it might be fun to clean this up a bit and put it out there! 

(Subtitle: I took a lot of liberties with Grung Lore)

(Subtitle 2: Brevity? Idk her)

NPCs You Should Care About:

Eed and Row, Pip’s parents. He’s not exactly ashamed of them, he just knows he’s better than them

A’toog’uh, Pip’s not-mom

Nay’luk’ta, Pip’s wizard magic teacher

Tl;dr: Weird Jungle Powers gave Pip magic, and that initial “surge” is the reason for his surges today. Trained along with a bunch of baby wizard grung, and surged Bad the very first time he cast a first level spell. Left home in the wake of that before he could be chased out, and hasn’t looked back

—

Grung aren’t really familiar with the concept of sorcerers.

Or warlocks. Or clerics.

That isn’t to say that they’re unfamiliar with magic itself! They have an entire caste level dedicated to magic users, and have an established system to ensure the knowledge from one generation is passed on to the next. But when so much of the survival of your race hinges on having magic users who can help take down threats that would otherwise wipe out your tribe, relying on the irregular benevolence of some mysterious force to empower your casters is, in a word, ill-advised. As a result, most Grung magic comes from studying and mentors and years of practice: the kind of magic that breeds accomplished wizards, not sorcerers.

So when Te’pip’ren hatched, when the translucent green-gray of his tadpole skin begin to show streaks of bright red and a clear affinity for magic made itself known, no one thought twice about beginning to prepare him to train alongside his peers once he was old enough. And while the fact that neither of Pip’s parents were red, magic wielding Grung did turn some heads, the phenomenon wasn’t entirely unprecedented. Magic was a tricky thing, there was no real way of knowing who it would reveal itself to. However, it was unthinkable that two low caste green Grung be responsible for caring for a tadpole that so greatly outranked them. Fortunately there was an elderly red Grung in the village -well past her prime, but excellent with children- and Pip’s parents agreed it was for the best propriety was maintained. Within days of the issue arising it was resolved, and Pip was bundled off to stay with ‘Grandma A’toog’uh’ until he was old enough to begin learning magic properly.

Once a young red Grung reaches maturity, they and their hatch mates from several tribes are sent deep into the jungle, to learn from a more accomplished Grung caster the spells and techniques they need in order to serve their tribe. After several months of studying the basics of magic and learning cantrips, the apprentice Grung then briefly return to their tribes in order to participate in a ceremony to demonstrate what they’ve learned and, by casting their very first level one spell, show that they are looking to the future and will be returning to their mentor to finish their education.

For a while, Pip’s studies went very well. He took to magic like a Grung to water, keeping pace with and even surpassing his peers as they studied simple spells under their mentor Nay’luk’ta’s direction. Despite being, at best, inconsistent with his studying and note-taking, Pip loved learning magic. He was completely fascinated by the way a few words or gestures could be used to affect the world around him to such a substantial degree and, if his peers envied him for the ease with which he absorbed each of their lessons, he didn’t notice.

When it finally came time for the students to return home, to take part in the ceremony that would mark them as fully fledged students of magic, Pip was beside himself with excitement. He had spent weeks vacillating between nearly every possible spell he could show off with before finally deciding on Silent Image and setting to practice.

Finally, after months and months of study and practice, Pip and his classmates were sent back to their tribes to complete the ceremony. He and his three hatchmates made their way home and found themselves greeted by a bustle of excitement from the tribe they’d left behind. They were excited to see how much their little tadpoles had grown while away and hear absolutely everything about their training and newfound arcane skill. A makeshift stage had been erected in the center of the village, and one by one the little red Grung made their way up to present their spells.

Pip was the last to go, with magic absolutely bursting at his fingertips. He bounded up onto the stage and barely waited to be given permission to begin before starting to cast.

Looking back now, it was obvious what went wrong. The way the magic crackled and caught in his veins instead of flowing out smoothly, the way his chest went almost painfully tight as the spell manifested before him, there were the telltale warning signs of a surge. But in that moment, as Pip cast his very first level one spell, all he knew was that something about his magic was deeply, deeply wrong. For a moment, no one in the crowd seemed to notice. They were deeply impressed by the tree Pip had caused to ’sprout’ behind him on the stage, and had even begun to applaud the show of skill. The spell ended, the illusion faded, but there was still magic burning in the palms of Pip’s hands that he couldn’t make go away. There was a moment of silence and then— chaos. It was like every bit of magic inside of him was exploding out at once in a way he could do nothing to stop or control, burning through him with a searing pain that had never accompanied his casting before. It might have gone on for hours, for all Pip knew. But when the spells finally stopped, when the world around him was quiet once more, Pip slowly raised his head to find himself sitting -alone- in the smoking, deserted remains of his village.

He ran.

After that, it was a long, long time before Pip could bring himself to cast so much as a cantrip, and even longer before he would even consider anything stronger. He was terrified of his magic, and for good reason. If he didn’t understand what had happened, how could he understand what had caused it? And if he couldn’t understand what had caused it, how could he keep it from happening again? At best he’d destroyed his home and caused his tribe to flee. At worst… At worst, they hadn’t fled. And Pip didn’t know what he would do if that was the case.

It wasn’t until he met Kur’rok a long while later that he let himself risk using magic at all. No longer being alone, having someone who trusted him to watch his back, it made it a little easier to stomach the risk. Because if it came down either some monster definitely hurting him and his new friends, or Pip possibly hurting them? It wasn’t an easy decision to make, but it was a decision with a clear right choice. And as they traveled, as Pip began to practice once more and reclaim his magic, he began to get a better handle on it. Eventually he learned that more powerful spells had a higher chance of causing a surge, learned how to tell if a surge was going to happen so he could try and minimize damage. And since being taken to Barovia, as much as evil and darkness engulf the land, being there and fighting alongside a steadily growing group of friends has only strengthened his conviction that, while sometimes scary, his magic is not inherently bad. Regardless of tonight’s outcome, that is a lesson that I am proud that he got the chance to learn.

[notimetoblog]

Thank you all so much for joining the World Book Day celebration! It was a pleasure getting to hear about your favorite books! I am a fervent believer that reading is so powerful. It expands your minds, takes you to places you had never even imagined, and can teach you so much about the world and ourselves.

I have compiled the list (in alphabetical order by title) of all the books that were recommended during this celebration. Each book links to the original recommendation, states the genre of the book, and has a brief synopsis of the book :D

If you would like to recommend more PLEASE FEEL FREE TO DO SO!! We could always use more books in our lives!! Thank you all again and I hope you’re able to read some books on the list that you haven't read before!

BOOK RECS

A Court of Thorns and Roses Series by Sarah J. Maas

Recommended by @wintersxsoul here

Genre: Young Adult / Romance / Fantasy

Synopsis: Feyre's survival rests upon her ability to hunt and kill – the forest where she lives is a cold, bleak place in the long winter months. So when she spots a deer in the forest being pursued by a wolf, she cannot resist fighting it for the flesh. But to do so, she must kill the predator and killing something so precious comes at a price.

Around  the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

Recommended by @just-add-butter here

Genre: Fiction / Adventure / Classics

Synopsis: One ill-fated evening at the Reform Club, Phileas Fogg rashly bets his companions £20,000 that he can travel around the entire globe in just eighty days - and he is determined not to lose. Breaking the well-establised routine of his daily life, the reserved Englishman immediately sets off for Dover, accompanied by his hot-blooded French manservant Passepartout. Travelling by train, steamship, sailing boat, sledge and even elephant, they must overcome storms, kidnappings, natural disasters, Sioux attacks and the dogged Inspector Fix of Scotland Yard - who believes that Fogg has robbed the Bank of England - to win the extraordinary wager. 

Burn for Burn Series by Jenny Han

Recommended by @marvelsangel here

Genre: Fantasy / Paranormal / Young Adult

Synopsis (of first book):  Postcard-perfect Jar Island is home to charming tourist shops, pristine beaches, amazing oceanfront homes—and three girls secretly plotting revenge.KAT is sick and tired of being bullied by her former best friend.LILLIA has always looked out for her little sister, so when she discovers that one of her guy friends has been secretly hooking up with her, she’s going to put a stop to it.MARY is perpetually haunted by a traumatic event from years past, and the boy who’s responsible has yet to get what’s coming to him.None of the girls can act on their revenge fantasies alone without being suspected. But together…anything is possible. With an alliance in place, there will be no more “I wish I’d said…” or “If I could go back and do things differently...” These girls will show Jar Island that revenge is a dish best enjoyed together.

Code Name Verity By Elizabeth Wein

Recommended by @notimetoblog here

Genre: Historical Fiction / Young Adult

Synopsis: Oct. 11th, 1943 - A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun. When "Verity" is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn't stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she's living a spy's worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution. As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage and failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy? 

Coming of Age in Mississippi: The Classic Autobiography of a Young Black Girl in the Rural South by Anne Moody

Recommended by anonymous here

Genre: Memoir / History / Nonfiction

Synopsis: Born to a poor couple who were tenant farmers on a plantation in Mississippi, Anne Moody lived through some of the most dangerous days of the pre-civil rights era in the South. The week before she began high school came the news of Emmet Till's lynching. Before then, she had "known the fear of hunger, hell, and the Devil. But now there was...the fear of being killed just because I was black." In that moment was born the passion for freedom and justice that would change her life.

Crazy Rich Asians Series by Kevin Kwan

Recommended by @marvelsangel here

Genre: Fiction / Romance

Synopsis (of first book): the outrageously funny debut novel about three super-rich, pedigreed Chinese families and the gossip, backbiting, and scheming that occurs when the heir to one of the most massive fortunes in Asia brings home his ABC (American-born Chinese) girlfriend to the wedding of the season.When Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home, long drives to explore the island, and quality time with the man she might one day marry. What she doesn't know is that Nick's family home happens to look like a palace, that she'll ride in more private planes than cars, and that with one of Asia's most eligible bachelors on her arm, Rachel might as well have a target on her back.

Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith

Recommended by @just-add-butter here

Genre: Romance / Fantasy 

Synopsis: It begins in a cold and shabby tower room, where young Countess Meliara swears to her dying father that she and her brother will defend their people from the growing greed of the king. That promise leads them into a war for which they are ill prepared, a war that threatens the homes and lives of the very people they are trying to protect. But war is simple compared to what follows, when the bloody fighting is done and a fragile peace is at hand. Although she wants to turn her back on politics and the crown, Meliara is summoned to the royal palace. There, she soon discovers, friends and enemies look alike, and intrigue fills the dance halls and the drawing rooms. If she is to survive, Meliara must learn a whole new way of fighting--with wit and words and secret alliances. In war, at least, she knew whom she could trust. Now she can trust no one. 

Deadline by Chris Crutcher

Recommended by @rosegoldlilacs here

Genre: Fiction / Young Adult

Synopsis: Ben Wolf has big things planned for his senior year. Had big things planned. Now what he has is some very bad news and only one year left to make his mark on the world.How can a pint-sized, smart-ass seventeen-year-old do anything significant in the nowheresville of Trout, Idaho?

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Recommended by @wintersxsoul here

Genre: Classics / Fiction / Fantasy

Synopsis: Dracula is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to move from Transylvania to England so he may find new blood and spread undead curse, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Recommended by @softhairbarnes here

Genre: Fiction / Mystery / Thriller

Synopsis: On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents��the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

Harry Potter Saga by J.K Rowling

Recommended by @agentpegcxrter here / First book recommended by anonymous here

Genre: Fantasy / Young Adult

Synopsis (of first book): Harry Potter's life is miserable. His parents are dead and he's stuck with his heartless relatives, who force him to live in a tiny closet under the stairs. But his fortune changes when he receives a letter that tells him the truth about himself: he's a wizard. A mysterious visitor rescues him from his relatives and takes him to his new home, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. After a lifetime of bottling up his magical powers, Harry finally feels like a normal kid. But even within the Wizarding community, he is special. He is the boy who lived: the only person to have ever survived a killing curse inflicted by the evil Lord Voldemort, who launched a brutal takeover of the Wizarding world, only to vanish after failing to kill Harry.Though Harry's first year at Hogwarts is the best of his life, not everything is perfect. There is a dangerous secret object hidden within the castle walls, and Harry believes it's his responsibility to prevent it from falling into evil hands. But doing so will bring him into contact with forces more terrifying than he ever could have imagined.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Recommended by @notimetoblog here

Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis: Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. Generation after generation, Yaa Gyasi's magisterial first novel sets the fate of the individual against the obliterating movements of time

How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City by Joan DeJean

Recommended by anonymous here

Genre: History / Nonfiction

Synopsis: At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Paris was known for isolated monuments but had not yet put its brand on urban space. Like other European cities, it was still emerging from its medieval past. But in a mere century Paris would be transformed into the modern and mythic city we know today.Though most people associate the signature characteristics of Paris with the public works of the nineteenth century, Joan DeJean demonstrates that the Parisian model for urban space was in fact invented two centuries earlier, when the first complete design for the French capital was drawn up and implemented.

Love Style Life by Garance Doré

Recommended by anonymous here

Genre: Nonfiction / Memoir / Fashion

Synopsis: Garance Doré, the voice and vision behind her eponymous blog, has captivated millions of readers worldwide with her fresh and appealing approach to style through storytelling. This gorgeously illustrated book takes readers on a unique narrative journey that blends Garance’s inimitable photography and illustrations with the candid, hard-won wisdom drawn from her life and her travels. Infused with her Left Bank sensibility, the eclecticism of her adopted city of New York, and the wild, passionate spirit of her native Corsica, Love Style Life is a backstage pass behind fashion’s frontlines, peppered with French-girl-next-door wit and advice on everything from mixing J.Crew with Chanel, to falling in love, to pursuing a life and career that is the perfect reflection of you.

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

Recommended by anonymous here

Genre: Fiction / Japanese Literature / Cultural

Synopsis:  This leading postwar Japanese writer's second novel, tells the poignant and fascinating story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas. In consequence, he feels himself "disqualified from being human" (a literal translation of the Japanese title).

Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Recommended by @chocochipcookieyum here

Genre: Historical Fiction / Classics

Synopsis: A story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Recommended by @gamorazenn here / by @agentpegcxrter here / by @arosewithdaisies here

Genre: Fiction / Romance / Classics

Synopsis: The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.

Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

Recommended by anonymous here

Genre: Fiction / Romance

Synopsis: Tsukiko is drinking alone in her local sake bar when by chance she meets one of her old high school teachers and, unable to remember his name, she falls back into her old habit of calling him 'Sensei'. After this first encounter, Tsukiko and Sensei continue to meet. Together, they share edamame beans, bottles of cold beer, and a trip to the mountains to eat wild mushrooms. As their friendship deepens, Tsukiko comes to realise that the solace she has found with Sensei might be something more.

Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeline L’Engle

Recommended by @thesaltyduchess here 

Genre: Fantasy / Young Adult / Science Fiction

Synopsis: When fifteen-year-old Charles Wallace Murry shouts out an ancient rune meant to ward off the dark in desperation, a radiant creature appears. It is Gaudior, unicorn and time traveler. Charles Wallace and Gaudior must travel into the past on the winds of time to try to find a Might-Have-Been - a moment in the past when the entire course of events leading to the present can be changed, and the future of Earth - this small, swiftly tilting planet - saved.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Recommended by @arosewithdaisies here

Genre: Fiction / Mystery / Crime / Classics / Short Stories

Synopsis: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring his fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. It was first published on 14 October 1892; the individual stories had been serialized in The Strand Magazine between July 1891 and June 1892. The stories are not in chronological order, and the only characters common to all twelve are Holmes and Dr. Watson. The stories are related in first-person narrative from Watson's point of view.

The Bean Trees by Barbara King

Recommended by @nerdgirljen in a comment here

Genre: Fiction / Contemporary

Synopsis: Clear-eyed and spirited, Taylor Greer grew up poor in rural Kentucky with the goals of avoiding pregnancy and getting away. But when she heads west with high hopes and a barely functional car, she meets the human condition head-on. By the time Taylor arrives in Tucson, Arizona, she has acquired a completely unexpected child, a three-year-old American Indian girl named Turtle, and must somehow come to terms with both motherhood and the necessity for putting down roots. Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in apparently empty places.

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis

Recommended by @agentpegcxrter here

Genre: Fantasy / Young Adult / Classics

Synopsis: Journeys to the end of the world, fantastic creatures, and epic battles between good and evil—what more could any reader ask for in one book? The book that has it all is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, written in 1949 by Clive Staples Lewis. But Lewis did not stop there. Six more books followed, and together they became known as The Chronicles of Narnia.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Recommended by @notimetoblog here / by @arosewithdaisies here

Genre: Fiction / Classics

Synopsis: This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story is of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his new love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted "gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s. The Great Gatsby is one of the great classics of twentieth-century literature.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tart

Recommended by @lunardanvers here

Genre: Fiction / Contemporary

Synopsis: It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Gospel of Loki by Joanne M. Harris

Recommended by @wintersxsoul here

Genre: Fiction / Mythology / Fantasy

Synopsis: The novel is a brilliant first-person narrative of the rise and fall of the Norse gods - retold from the point of view of the world's ultimate trickster, Loki. It tells the story of Loki's recruitment from the underworld of Chaos, his many exploits on behalf of his one-eyed master, Odin, through to his eventual betrayal of the gods and the fall of Asgard itself.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Recommended by @marvelsangel here

Genre: Fiction / Young Adult

Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr

The Immortal Rules Series by Julie Kagawa

Recommended by anonymous here 

Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy / Paranormal

Synopsis: Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a walled-in city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten. Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them—the vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself dies and becomes one of the monsters.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Recommended by @redandpurpleskies here

Genre: Science Fiction / Classic

Synopsis: The Martian Chronicles tells the story of humanity’s repeated attempts to colonize the red planet. The first men were few. Most succumbed to a disease they called the Great Loneliness when they saw their home planet dwindle to the size of a fist. They felt they had never been born. Those few that survived found no welcome on Mars. The shape-changing Martians thought they were native lunatics and duly locked them up.But more rockets arrived from Earth, and more, piercing the hallucinations projected by the Martians. People brought their old prejudices with them – and their desires and fantasies, tainted dreams. These were soon inhabited by the strange native beings, with their caged flowers and birds of flame.

The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai

Recommended by anonymous here

Genre: Fiction / Japanese Literature / Classics

Synopsis: The story is told through the eyes of Kazuko, the unmarried daughter of a widowed aristocrat. Her search for self meaning in a society devoid of use for her forms the crux of the novel. It is a sad story, and structurally is a novel very much within the confines of the Japanese take on the novel in a way reminiscent of authors such as Nobel Prize winner Yasunori Kawabata – the social interactions are peripheral and understated, nuances must be drawn, and for readers more used to Western novelistic forms this comes across as being rather wishy-washy. Kazuko’s mother falls ill, and due to their financial circumstances they are forced to take a cottage in the countryside. Her brother, who became addicted to opium during the war is missing. When he returns, Kazuko attempts to form a liaison with the novelist Uehara. This romantic displacement only furthers to deepen her alienation from society.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Recommended by @consttantina here

Genre: Historical Fiction / Fantasy / LGBT / Romance

Synopsis: Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. By all rights their paths should never cross, but Achilles takes the shamed prince as his friend, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles' mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But then word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus journeys with Achilles to Troy, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear.

The Song of the Lioness Series by Tamora Pierce

Recommended by @just-add-butter here

Genre: Fantasy / Young Adult

Synopsis: The Song of the Lioness quartet is the adventurous story of one girl's journey to overcome the obstacles facing her, become a valiant knight, and save Tortall from conquest. Alanna douses her female identity to begin her training in Alanna: The First Adventure, and when she gains squire status in In the Hand of the Goddess, her growing abilities make her a few friends -- and many enemies. Books 3 and 4 complete Alanna's adventure and secure her legend, with the new knight errant taking on desert tribesmen in The Woman Who Rides like a Man and seeking out the powerful Dominion Jewel in Lioness Rampant.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Recommended by anonymous here

Genre: Historical Fiction / Classics

Synopsis: The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.

[helenarlett-rex]

The Story of The Lady Liandra, or, When your D&D party is too stupid to live...

Years ago I started my great campaign. I felt it was a stroke of brilliance. It was a campaign in which I was the DM but no one knew I was the DM. I wrote every session and handed it off to a proxy DM to run while I posed as a player filling in the part of the party’s rogue. But what the other players never realized was that my character was actually a succubus. The Lady Liandra. I spent my time fighting along side the party as we dealt with a false wizard running a underground drug ring and later an evil Rakshasa. And never once did I do anything evil. I truly was their friend and ally. But I was always watching them. Always paying close attention to their actions. I was waiting. Waiting for them to commit the three sins of thought, word,and deed. Which for this game, meant saying something, thinking something, and doing something against their alignments. And eventually enough of them had committed the three sins that that poor little succubus just couldn’t sit back and watch anymore. They were gift wrapping their souls and handing them to her. What was she supposed to do? She was a lawful character. Lawful evil, but still lawful. And according to the laws a succubus had every right to their souls once they committed the three sins. And that was when I relieved myself and took over as the true DM, while my proxy DM stepped down and joined the party as his favorite NPC.

This led to a grand adventure where the party traveled to hell and broke into a law office to retrieve the contracts for their souls. But there was a slight problem with this. I had a way for them to get their souls back the proper way, but they didn’t take it. Instead, my party of mostly lawful good heroes, who lost their souls by doing things that were far from lawful good, broke into a law office, slaughtered an army of filing clerks, and stole the contracts for their souls which Liandra had acquired through entirely legitimate means.

The poor succubus didn’t know what to do. These were her friends. She had fought and bled alongside them. They had saved towns and villages together. She had even developed a drug addiction in the line of duty helping them take down a horrible drug lord who was addicting the masses to a new substance refined from demon spit. She had done that for them. She didn’t make them commit the three sins. They had all done that on their own. If they were going to throw their souls away then they should at least be collected by someone who cared about them and would take care of them in their eternal damnation. She had to sacrifice her ability to continue adventuring with them just to make sure that when they did die, their eternal torment would be the least horrible she could make it. And this was how they repaid her? Killing her staff, burning her law firm to the ground, and stealing from her? But they were supposed to be the good guys... Why would they do this to their friend?

So with a heavy heart, Liandra cut all ties with her former companions and let them go on their way. She didn’t even press charges and try to retrieve her stolen property. If they were just going to reject her help then she wouldn’t interfere. And if they lost their souls to someone who didn’t have their best interest in mind, there was nothing she could do about it. She had been rejected.

In her grief, Liandra returned home to be with her brother, the half breed, Maldekore The Demon Child. But upon returning home she found that her brother had started a war with the kingdom of Ulria. A war that was close to bringing about the kingdom’s destruction. Still the legal minded sort, Liandra brokered a peace treaty between the warring kingdoms in which she would marry the prince of Ulria and unite their two families instead of watching them destroy each other. But then along came her former companions once again...

They were at once against the wedding and set out to find a magic ring that would protect the prince from her influence. That was a little disappointing. Liandra had rather hoped to have her new husband wrapped around her little finger, but whatever... Even if they managed to retrieve the ring from the wraith of Sinner’s Island and give it to the prince, she would still be in line to become the next queen, even if her power wasn’t absolute. And she would still have saved both kingdoms from the ravages of war. That was something.

But then a third party decided to interfere. A band of dwarves who were unhappy with Ulria’s decision kidnapped Liandra and attempted to convince both sides that the other had been behind it. The war was going to be back on and Liandra was powerless to stop it.

But her former companions! They would surely uncover the truth. They knew a war like this would destroy both sides. Surely they would rescue her! Sure, they’d had their differences in the past, but this was bigger than any of that. They had to know that rescuing her was the only way, right?

Well... no... Instead her former companions... the “heroes”, took the advice of a certain drug lord she had once helped them remove from power, and traveled to the Realm of Madness to recruit a Jabberwock in a last ditch effort to storm her brother’s castle. And Liandra? She was left in a dwarven prison to rot. Alone and forgotten.

Years later the dwarves befell a great calamity at the hands of their master, a Corrupted Monger who her former “friends” had never bothered to remove from power, and Liandra was able to escape. But what she found when she did shocked her. Not only had her former companions put an end to the war by bringing a Jabberwock over from the Realm of Madness and using it to kill her brother, but they had apparently promised the beast her brother’s kingdom in exchange for his service, only to double cross him and banish him back to the Realm of Madness the moment the job was done.

And other tails were being told as well... Tales of Icewind Dale being completely overrun with vampires, which her former companions had tricked into migrating there so they wouldn’t have to deal with them in Ulria. Tales of them aiding a cult in summoning the dread planet, Allabar, the Opener of the Way, from the Far Realm. And even tales of them altering the very fabric of time, resulting in the eldritch abomination, Lenore, becoming the goddess of what was now the most popular religion in the land. Were these really the deeds of the people she had once called her friends? How had the party she once fought along side, who had prided themselves on their precieved goodness, changed so much? She was a succubus. A fiend. Lawful evil... And even she had never done anything that bad...

And where were they now? Happily settled down and retired from adventures. Enjoying the spoils of the exclusive shipping rights for the entire Kingdom of Ulria, which they had apparently swindled the King out of in exchange for their services in killing her brother. Liandra was disgusted. She wanted nothing more to do with them. But apparently fate would not allow it...

It seemed that with her brother’s death, she had come into an inheritance. An adamantine mine located on Dis, the second circle of The Nine Hells. It had once supplied adamantine to the material plane through a pass within a mountain cavern that connected Dis to the material plane. She could use the profits from such a thing to get back on her feet after her law firm was destroyed and her brother’s kingdom concurred in the name of Ulria. But with the kingdom now under Ulria’s banner that meant all shipments would have to go through the shipping company now owned by her former companions.

Not wanting to deal with them again, Liandra reached out to a younger group who had apprenticed under her former companions and now worked for the company. Asking them to handle the shipments of adamantine to the material plane. She even warned them that there were recent reports of trouble in the mountain pass they would have to use and they may have to clear out whatever had decided to nest in there during the time the mine was out of service.

This new group of adventurers seemed promising and she had hoped that maybe she could establish a new sort of friendship with them to replace the one she had regrettably lost with the old group. But trust was going to be hard to build, because they had apprenticed under her former companions, and as such has been told of her. Though obviously tales colored through her former companions’ warped perspectives. This was only made worse when the trouble in the mountain pass turned out to be far greater than she had anticipated.

It turned out the mountain pass was now being used as a staging ground for a heretical cabal of demons and devils working together towards the goal of freeing Tiamat from her prison in the hopes of unleashing her upon the Nine Hells. When the new group of adventurers stumbled into their lair they were quickly taken prisoner and transported back to Dis to serve as slaves for the cabal.

Liandra quickly began working on a plan to rescue them and help them put a stop to this cabal. After all, Dis was her home now. She had even had to sign a contract promising not to leave Dis just to convince their shipping company to take her on as a client. She certainly didn’t want a very angry Tiamat laying waste to it. But her plan was all for naught. The party was only there for three days and before Liandra could even put her plan to rescue them into motion they had already escaped, blamed her for their capture, and unleashed a plague of Brown Mold upon Dis which rapidly spread and engulfed the entire second circle of hell.

They knew Liandra was lawful. They knew that the contract she had signed would bind her to Dis without means of escape. And they covered the entire plane in deadly Brown Mold. It was an assassination attempt. She hadn’t even been a part of what happened to them and they blamed her without any proof and wiped out an entire plane of existence just to kill her. This group was even worse than the ones who had trained them...

Thankfully Liandra was able to escape. An emergency evacuation was put into effect for the entire plane of Dis, and because many of the higher ups who made the rules in Dis were likewise bound to the realm, they voted to lift all binding contracts restricting anyone from leaving under emergency evacuation protocol. Even Tiamat was set free in light of the situation. So it was no problem at all for someone as insignificant as Liandra to breach her contract and flee.

After that she spent a great deal of time as a refugee in one of the great undead cities in the Shadowfell with many of the other evacuees from Dis. She didn’t dare step foot back in the material plane again. Both her former companions and their pupils were deranged psychopaths who committed great atrocities while proclaiming how “good” they were, and they all held a serious vendetta against her. They didn’t even know she had been trying to save them and they weren’t about to listen now.

But after a year in the Shadowfell news reached Liandra of new trouble in Ulria. A band of kobolds had somehow managed to assassinate the king, and at the same time a visiting king from an orcish kingdom across the sea who was visiting on a diplomatic mission. Both sides were now blaming the other and war was once again coming to Ulria. And to make matters worse, that last group of adventurers she had dealt with had somehow managed to destroy Ulria’s economy, amassed all the land’s wealth on their own micro-nation, and was now declaring neutrality in the coming conflict. Ulria would not survive this war on their own.

But Liandra was still a noblewoman with some degree of power. Even if her lands had been taken or destroyed, the orcs didn’t know that. And the new King of Ulria had been her feancè once, so many years ago. Perhaps a political marriage would be enough to give the orcs second thought and hold off the war until things could be sorted out. After all... who wanted to go to war with a kingdom that had just united with the forces of hell? Maybe... Just maybe... their bluff would save Ulria.

And so Liandra and the new king were finally married. He still had that magic ring that protected him from the influence of a succubus, but Liandra didn’t care about that anymore. That was in the past. Now her only concern was in saving the kingdom she had once fought to protect all those many years ago. And she had her work cut out for her. Her new husband was not a very good king. He’d never had much of a mind for politics. She’d known that even back when she tired to marry him the first time. But with Liandra taking over the courtly duties and allowing her husband to serve as king in name only, things were finally starting to improve. They were able to hold off the orc invasion. The lives of Ulria’s people were beginning to improve. Things were finally looking up. Liandra was actually happy. She even converted to her husband’s faith as a worshiper of Odin. She was the first fiend to ever turn her back on hell and convert to the service of a good god.

And then it all fell apart.

A member of the party she had once tried to employ broke into the castle in a drunken stupor, and through a feat of unbelievable luck, managed to make his way to her husband’s bed chambers where he slit the King’s throat in his sleep and stole one of the magic rings from the King’s collection.

Liandra was now the widowed Queen of Ulria, but she had lost the husband she had actually come to love. And now she feared that her former companion’s apprentices would be coming for her next.

But there was another problem. Her husband had been a worshiper of Odin. And Odin had a rule. No king who followed him would be denied death on the battlefield without retribution. But her husband had had his throat slit in his sleep. The rule had been broken. And before Liandra could do anything about it, the castle was suddenly full of valkyrie sent to enact Odin’s retribution. They would have blood. They would have the blood of the one who killed the king and everyone associated with him.

Hoping to hold off the needless slaughter of innocent people who had nothing to do with her husband’s murder, Liandra convinced the valkyrie to stay in the castle as her bodyguards. Telling them that if they stayed with her, the guilty party would come to them when they came back to kill her. She knew she wouldn’t be able to save the foolish party at this point, but at the very least maybe she could limit the deaths the valkyrie would deal out to only them, and spare the lives of their families.

And just as Liandra had expected, the party did come back for her. Now that the King was dead, they had come to kill her and place one of her husband’s illegitimate daughters on the throne as a puppet Queen, loyal to them.

For a fleeting moment, Liandra hoped that upon seeing the valkyrie protecting her, the party would second guess their actions. Maybe they would realize they had gone astray and were no longer doing works of good. But the moment quickly passed when upon seeing the valkyrie the party declared that “Odin must have turned evil if he is protecting a demon!”

In their self delusions they still insisted that she was an evil demon and they were the virtuous heroes. But Liandra wasn’t a demon. She was a succubus. A fiend, neither devil nor demon, and not beholden to the rules of either. She could be whatever she wanted, and that included being good. And those were Liandra’s final thoughts as she and her valkyrie bodyguards were viciously slaughtered in her own bedchamber. She never even fought back.

Over the course of my campaign Liandra’s alignment shifted from Lawful Evil to Chaotic Good. My players, who played out two different parties over the course of the campaign, shifted from Lawful Good to Neutral Evil both times. Although they are still in denial about this and will argue right to my face, that I, the DM, am wrong. But I think the sad tale of the Lady Liandra speaks for itself.

And now I have to find a way to TPK a high level party who has just stupidly declared war on Odin and unleashed the wrath of the entire Norse pantheon. Because at this point they are just too stupid to live.

[rarestereocats]

rundown of tonight’s game!

we started our pre-game off great when discussion of whether or not Optimus Prime is a fascist came to light and then upon discussing transformer balls in the movies,  i left a wonderful “AUTO BALLS ROLL OUT” in the chat.  i also learn that Tenin doesn’t float like i’ve thought this entire time so my entire world is shattered.

as the fey vampire babushka thing dies,  she mutters something sweet under breath like the bitch she is and Tenin feels weak in the knees.  literally.  Tenin got his shit fucked up with a curse everyone and i bet he’s sworn off women now.  we head back to camp and sleep like little babes after we make sure nothing else can attack us.

upon waking up,  i’m amazed as i look over and Industria has sprouted white angel wings that glitter gold in sunlight.  like cue the heavenly choir on that shit cuz it’s pretty as fuck!  i ask her about it and then she lets me touch the wings and they are  S O F T.  so we pack up and move towards the sound of running water as we wanna get our fishing game on.

we find a cave and look,  after everything we’ve been through with that fucking spelunking adventure a few sessions back,  we don’t want what that dark hole is offering.  no more glory holes in the middle of nowhere,  please.  We Are Tired.  but after reading some thieves’ cant and realizing the water is unsafe,  we all decided this cave is our new home and began our trek through.

BUT GODDAMN,  the cave is a fucking illusion (obligatory song for this campaign apparently??) and at this point,  my illusionary magic PTSD should be cured by exposure therapy.  behind it is a sign that reads “Haven for lost children.  Harbor”.  we head inside and it’s a village in the trees literally full of children.  we meet their leader,  Luska,  and she talks of how children keep going missing.  since we need to meet the Guardian and Luska is meeting them in 3 days,  we decided to help these kids out.

these kids are ridiculous though cuz get this.  they don’t fucking age.  they went missing elsewhere and somehow ended up here with no recollection of what happened and some of them haven’t aged in centuries.  these children are literally just fucking KFC for fey and are getting picked off by the day,  but they’re pretty casual about it.  as Luska gathers some resources for us to look into this,  we head to the cafe and have a lovely time.  Samuel and Xaren share cookies,  and both me as a player and Kina as an individual,  ship it.

as we search the homes of the missing,  Xaren finds many journals that derail into paranoid rambling.  i find some claw marks by a bed and we relay that information to the other group as they search some other homes.  Elathera,  Industria,  and Rikius begin concocting a plan to lure the creature out as they realize it’s a bogeyman.  these things feed on fear,  so best option?  scare somebody and use them as bait.

now here’s the things,  kids.  we are literally in a village chock full of kids.  you know what scares easily?  children.  but what do they decide on?  lets cast fear on good ol’ Kina and leave her as bogeyman bait cuz hey,  at least i can hold my own right??   pile that PTSD on,  folks.  for her,  this entire campaign is turning into PTSD&D: Mental Trauma in a Basket.  the worst part?  they decided not to tell me this plan.

they go on a shopping trip for the supplies they need to destroy my mental state and Industria offends Rikius by implying he was an evil wizard at some point.  so she continues her beautiful crusade of offending men (#feminism),  they get their gear,  and roll out.  we all meet up at the inn.  we manage to scare the shit out of the child innkeeper and Industria makes him cry,  so now we quickly work to build this child back up and assure him nothing is absolutely gonna go wrong.

we head off for our rooms and everyone else gathers elsewhere to discuss this plan.  Xaren and Samuel are not having this shit and god bless their fucking souls cuz as Industria mentions something of dying as a risk,  Samuel storms off to find me and tell him, what’s going on.  i am pissed.  i am upset.  my own friends were planning this behind my back and didn’t wanna warn me,  so my fur bristles and i just wanna go ham;  but then Industria closes the distance to explain.

as she explains,  in understand.  best option,  less opportunities for causalities and loss of innocent lives.  i’m not happy,  but i reluctantly agree to be the bait.  we say good-night,  i thank Samuel and Xaren for alerting to me,  and Industria comes into my room to talk.  we have a tender heart-to-heart,  a sisterly moment,  and hug it out.  i tell Industria that i know they all have my back,  so it’ll be fine.  we then get our gossip on,  talking but that Juice.  Elathera and Tenin being an item?  Industria says she caught them in bed and my theory’s proven true.  she heads on out,  reluctantly.

she gets back top the room and her and Elathera have a big talk about what happened that morning.  she tells Elathera to put a sock on the door when Tenin comes in to “practice his sword” and Elathera is mortified.  red in the face,  she says she has something to show Industria,  but Industria doesn’t wanna see it thinking she’s about to get an eyeful of the Nasty.  she makes her watch as she swaps places with Tenin,  but instead of realizing what’s happening,  Industria assumes Elathera ran off out of embarrassment. 

Xaren is pacing in his room,  fuming,  still upset about all of this.  Samuel and him have another romance movie moment as they have these tender,  heart-to-heart chats.  as they bond,  Samuel places his hand on Xaren’s,  who blushes and both get awkward as they pull away and say good-night quickly.  bounce back to me and Rikius and i tell him i had a horrifying revelation.  he looks up from his book.  “that explains the harness.”.  he laughs,  but says the Elathera/Tenin thing is a joke.  i tell him i know better than that cuz i’ve been traveling with them all long enough to know the truth.

Rikius asks me if the Braid Bandit will strike again so i nervously said that’d be fucked up considering current circumstance.  he shakes his head and goes back to meditating.  come morning,  everybody is downstairs when i get up with the sicks ass Blackbeard-esque braids i put in my mane.  i head on down and try to accuse the Braid Bandit of striking again,  but i think everyone’s tired of that shit.  as the day goes by,  i take the braids out and brush the mane out.

come sundown,  it’s go time.  we pick an abandoned house and they all send me up alone as they turn invisible and get into position.  i head in as the wind picks up and the darkness settles and let me tell you,  i am already unnerved.  i do not like this.  as i sit down on the bed,  Rikius moves in and casts fear and now i’m panicking.  as the bogeyman closes in,  i go full fluff and cower into the corner,  not sure what to do.

our brawl with the bogeyman is textbook “believe it or not,  this isn’t the worst day we’ve had” as our plan just falls to pieces.  the bait works!  i am perfect bait!  but we sprung the trap too soon,  so the bogeyman kicks everybody’s shit in as Rikius stays inside to keep an eye on me and drop the fear spell.  as i’m in the corner,  eternally sobbing,  i hear one of my friends scream out in agony and then nothing.  it was Industria after seeing a sight that horrified her completely thanks to the bogeyman.  probably images of Ryan Cabrera’s hair.  have you seen that shit?  i’d die too.  she goes down,  face down in the dirt as this fucker continues punishing us.

as i finally come to my senses too quickly and race outside hoping that my friends are alive.  as i leave,  Rikius fires off at the bogeyman with a scorching ray and nearly kills it.  without a second of hesitation,  Xaren punches the shit out of this thing until it’s dead.  Elathera panics at the sight of Industria and feeds her a potion to bring our girl back to us.  as she does that,  Tenin angrily roars and stabs the corpse.

we regroup and get ready to go see Luska to let her know what’s up.  Xaren asks me if I’m alright and when i say no,  he offers a hug that i take.  Samuel joins our hug and then picks us both up and as my friends fill Luska in,  i pass out and Samuel takes me back to the inn to tuck me in.  after,  everybody else goes to get dinner and burns the body.

Industria spends the night practicing and playing her new lyre she took from the corpse.  Xaren and Samuel have another date at the cafe where Xaren is haunted by the spirit of my voice telling him to kiss him.  i’m plagued by nightmares and go to longingly stare out the window and Rikius asks if i need to talk.  i tell him i’m bad at that sort of thing and he says he is too,  so we quietly sit in each other’s company as i watch the forest,  fluffed up,  and purring.  i fall asleep,  loafed into the window.

as i wake up,  still loafed into the window and purring,  Rikius is leaning against the wall and waiting for me.  he’s trying to be subtle,  but hey,  boy.  ;)

we meet everyone downstairs and and we’re all a little tired and disheveled.  my mane is a mess and as soon as Industria mentions we’re meeting the Guardian today,  i panic and began brushing my mane out fiercely.  Rikius and Samuel help me brush my giant mane and I Am Ready.  Rikius fixes his hair and checks his stubble to make sure it’s still acceptable.  he turns to me for second opinions and i give him a thumbs up,  so like,  we’re getting there,  folks.  he’s mine.

we finally meet the Guardian.  a hamadryad named Andruw Mar.  we return their book and they seem delighted to see it again.  we speak and learn that the Svartalfar are trying to take down the Guardian and his people to get back to the Feywild and do Naughty Things,  so we agree to help them out so long as they consider negotiations to ally themselves with our nation.  the Guardian agrees and hands us a fancy card to give to New Thaddeus as a way of showing their good fiath so long as we keep our word.

and that’s where we let off.

[enterinit]

Frostpunk and other games coming to Xbox One this week

Frostpunk and other games coming to Xbox One this week. Indivisible (October 08, 2019) Indivisible is an action RPG platformer featuring stunning hand drawn art and animation combined with unique real-time combat mechanics. Immerse yourself in a fantastical world with dozens of playable characters, a rich storytelling experience, gameplay that’s easy to learn but difficult to master, and the trademark razor-sharp quality that Lab Zero Games is known for! Tropico 6 (October 08, 2019) El Presidente is back! Features: Play on large archipelagos for the first time in the series. Manage multiple islands at the same time and adapt to various new challenges.Send your agents on raids to foreign lands to steal famous landmarks and add them to your collection.Build bridges, construct tunnels and transport your citizens and tourists in taxis, buses and aerial cable cars. Tropico 6 offers completely new transportation and infrastructure possibilities.Customize the looks of your palace at will and choose from various extras.Tropico 6 features a revised research system focusing on the political aspects of being the world’s greatest dictator.Election speeches are back! Address the people and make promises that you can’t possibly keep.Tropico 6 features cooperative and competitive multiplayer for up to 4 players. In times of political turmoil and social unrest, the people are calling for visionary leaders, who will steer the fate of their country with foresight and ingenuity. Prove yourself once again as a feared dictator or peace-loving statesman on the island state of Tropico and shape the fate of your very own banana republic through four distinctive eras. Face new challenges on the international stage and always keep the needs of your people in mind. For the first time in the series, manage extensive archipelagos, build bridges to connect your islands and use new means of transportation and infrastructure. Send your Tropicans on raids to steal the wonders of the world, including the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower. Customize your palace at will and give election speeches from your balcony, to win the favor of your subjects. Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince (October 08, 2019) Experience the most complete Trine ever created! The Trine series returns to the magic of 2.5D with Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince! The three heroes of the best-selling adventure series are back, sent on a quest to retrieve the troubled young Prince Selius. Amadeus the Wizard, Pontius the Knight, and Zoya the Thief are joined together once again on a thrilling quest through fantastical fairytale landscapes teeming with danger. Prince Selius suffers from intensely dark dreams and, due to his magical talents, monstrous nightmares are able to slip into reality and wreak havoc on the waking world. Amadeus, Pontius, and Zoya must find the afflicted prince and resolve the desperate situation before the world is engulfed by the Nightmare Prince's shadows. Trine 4 reaches new heights in the series, bringing the most complete gameplay experience ever to fans and new players alike! Atlas (October 08, 2019) The ultimate survival MMO of immense scale and endless adventure of piracy and sailing, exploration and combat, roleplaying progression, settlement civilization-building, among the largest game worlds on Xbox. Get ready to explore, build, and conquer! Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair (October 08, 2019) Yooka & Laylee are back in a brand-new platform adventure from Playtonic Games! With their arch-nemesis Capital B up to no good, the buddy duo needs to spring into action once again to save the day. To thwart his evil plan of using a “Hivemind” device to enslave an entire kingdom of bees, our heroes need to take the fight to Capital B’s “Impossible” Lair. Things look tough, but with the help of Queen Phoebee and her Royal Beettalion , Yooka and Laylee might just have a chance! 2.5D Platforming! Each level offers beautiful, rich visuals with detail and depth. Yooka, Laylee and a whole host of colourful characters (good and bad) are realised in stunning 2.5D 3D Overworld! The overworld isn’t just a hub to hop from level to level, it provides a whole separate gaming experience! Explore and unlock more 2D levels by completing objectives and puzzles, rescue the Royal Beettalion bees and find collectibles. Alternate Level States! Think you’ve got a level figured out? Try it in its alternate state! Flip switches in the overworld to create new landscapes. Hook up electricity, submerge them in water, freeze or literally flip them upside down for radically altered challenges! Bee-at the Impossible Lair! Players are free to tackle Capital B’s Impossible Lair at any time; however, they may find it too much of a challenge without the help of the Royal Beettalion. Free them by completing levels and they will add to your defences when taking on Capital B’s dastardly traps! Worse Than Death (October 08, 2019) A scary, action-adventure horror game about a high school reunion that goes horribly wrong! Run for your life, hide in the shadows, and use your wits to avoid shadowy creatures and uncover the terrible truths of your wretched home town. Solve devious puzzles to reveal the emotionally-charged story of Holly and her friends that will have you hooked until the very end! Super Box Land Demake (October 09, 2019) Pick from two characters to help solve moving box puzzles in order to advance to the next stage! Push boxes across a variety of different puzzling levels by yourself or with a friend in coop mode! Control two different characters at once even in single player! Choose from 3 difficulty options that make recovering from your mistakes harder! Features: Push boxes in 100 levelsVibrant 8-bit visuals with unique themesActivate a speed run timer in order to test your speedPick from 3 difficulties to challenge your box moving skillsPlay cooperatively with friends or control 2 characters at the same time Virtual Villagers Origins 2 (October 09, 2019) Craft, farm, solve puzzles and build a thriving village, right in your pocket! Return to the famed and mystical island of Isola and be drawn into the latest sequel in the beloved Virtual Villagers series! In the wake of a volcanic terror on the neighboring island of Asura, a family has made their way to Isola, seeking a new home. As their boat lands on the beach, they are greeted by a strange man and begin to explore this mysterious new world. The beautiful and curious island of Isola was once a paradise home to a thriving civilization but has gone to ruin and untamed jungle. The twists and turns will leave you discovering new, interactive, magical moments at every turn! A REAL TIME VIRTUAL VILLAGE - Be the master of your own village: With real-time simulation, the ability to customize your villagers’ names and game-changing, random island events, no two tribes will ever be quite the same! - Breed, heal and care for your beloved village children and families; build a sustainable village up from ruins; unlock improved food sources with farming and fishing; craft unique resources for puzzles and collections; and so much more! TEACH THEM TO SURVIVE - Train villagers to become proficient at various skills to perform tasks around the island and survive their new-found world. - Power-up villagers with magical necklaces, and improve productivity, life expectancy and much more for your entire village with magical totems and potions! BUILD, SOLVE, AND EXPLORE - Explore the charmed island to solve all-new puzzles and uncover mysterious island secrets. - Gather and combine resources from around your new virtual home to craft rare resources and unlock rewards from completed collections. CARE FOR ADORABLE ISLAND PETS - Acquire homes for a Lemur and Herring that will help weed out pests and discover magical items around your new island. REQUESTS FROM DIEHARD FANS - Reincarnate cherished villagers with all their skills. - Crack open daily reward crates that wash up on shore! MageQuit (October 09, 2019) A top-down wizard brawler about spell drafting and beard envy, MageQuit allows up to 10 mages to battle it out online or locally. Beards grow longer with each kill; the wizard with the longest beard after 9 rounds wins! Stellatum (October 09, 2019) Stellatum is a new exciting scroll shooter. Equip your battleship's guns, install faster engines, and increase the power of your reactor. Throw a barrage of rockets on hordes of enemy ships, burning everything in your path! You are playing for an extraterrestrial race that has just become ready to conquer outer space. Whole story begins with the fact that you are going to destroy a comet that threatens your planet. An unforeseen event happened that dragged you into the midst of the battles. But everything may not be what it seems. Every element in the game was made with individual approach, polished to the smallest detail. Excellent graphics drawing, visual effects, music and sound effects - all this is perfectly harmonized in its special style and atmosphere of the game. Guns in game are represented not only by a variety of shooting methods, they are also essential parts of your ship, changing the look of your ship throughout the campaign. In each mission you will discover new weapons, engines and other items for your ship. Main campaign includes 80 missions, divided into different locations, in which you will meet several different opponents races and strong bosses. Super weapons are presented in the form of systems, they are divided into combat and support systems that are powered by the reactor you have installed. Features: Excellent graphicsShip designingA lot of different gunsMany types of opponentsMultiple levels Draw a Stickman: Epic 2 (October 09, 2019) Imagination is the key, as you enter a magical storybook land full of mystery and wonder, unusual creatures and enigmatic puzzles! Create your own original stickman and then watch it come to life in DRAW A STICKMAN: EPIC 2 and the DRAWN BELOW expansion! Challenge yourself to unlock every secret, collect every drawing, and share your creativity with the world! BRING YOUR DRAWINGS TO LIFE! Unleash your creativity as you draw a Stickman from your own unique perspective, and then watch your animated Hero come to life before your eyes! Make every idea a reality by saving drawings in your Sketchbook! A NEW STORY Embark on a perilous journey through time! Draw your Stickman and create a friend! But be warned... disaster falls upon your ally! It’s up to you to become the hero! Maneuver your way through the magical worlds of EPIC 2 and Drawn Below in a quest to save your partner! YOUR DRAWINGS MATTER Create and save drawings in your sketchbook! Use them throughout your adventure! FIGHT EPIC BATTLES Face off against inked-out goblins, tongue-lashing frogs, fire-breathing dragons, and BIG bosses! You must use your own strategies to solve intriguing challenges and puzzles, while battling all new villains! Jump in to this action-packed adventure that allows for endless creativity! As you explore each colorful environment, choose from an assortment of drawing pencils and tools to help you successfully overcome every obstacle along the way. New features and enhancements allow you to choose from a larger color palette, along with a variety of pencil sizes. Unlock hidden Color Buddies, locate puzzle pieces, and enjoy new drawing pencils for Wires, Eggs, and Ice! This is an experience like no other, personalized by you! A Knight’s Quest (October 10, 2019) A gorgeous action adventure on an epic scale. Play as Rusty – a kind-hearted, but clumsy adventurer who accidentally starts a chain of events which will destroy his world. Solve mind-bending puzzles, fight challenging enemies, defeat huge bosses and platform your way through a fantastic open world in this lavish take on classic action adventure games. Rusty begins his adventure with just a trusty sword and basic shield, but he’ll soon unlock ‘Spirit Powers’ – spectacular abilities which have the power to transform not only himself, but also the world around him. Harness the powers of Fire, Ice and Time to devastating effect, using them to conquer enemies in battle or solve environmental puzzles. Features: Massive action adventure set in a breathtaking open worldMeet a huge cast of hilarious charactersPull off epic combos with a simple-to-use combat systemExplore the world in style as you wall-run, grind and leap through each vast areaColossal bosses. And we mean colossal. The Bradwell Conspiracy (October 11, 2019) Following a sudden explosion at the Stonehenge Museum fundraiser, you find yourself trapped in a hidden underground complex. Your only means of escape is by sending photographs of your surroundings to another survivor confined elsewhere. But before long, a disturbing truth begins to dawn. AeternoBlade II (October 11, 2019) A time-manipulation action and puzzle side-scrolling platformer featuring world exploration and RPG elements. With agile movement and the power of time itself at your disposal, overwhelm your foes in frenetic combat and solve ingenious puzzles, in this sequel to the fast-paced action/puzzle platformer. Alluris (October 11, 2019) Prepare to embark in a journey like no other in Alluris. Play as a reluctant hero or villain to save the world… or just save a colony of bears from some lumberjacks. However you play, you’re sure to walk away with a few crazy stories about your adventure. Lost Artifacts: Time Machine (October 11, 2019) A mysterious villain is using a time machine to destroy everything in his path. He wants to return the Priest, the King of Atlantis and the Ancient Emperor so he can use them to create a new world order! Claire and her friends must find out who the villain is and stop him and all his minions. Debris Infinity (October 11, 2019) Debris Infinity is an action packed game that puts your reflexes to the limit, allowing you to manipulate time itself to make impossible maneuvers, using an advance scoring system to rank your performance! Queen’s Quest 4: Sacred Truce (October 11, 2019) The realm of the Five Kingdoms faces a formidable challenge in this hidden object adventure game. A mysterious power is trying to destroy the relationship between humans and elves and start a conflict. What will happen to this legendary world when the covenant of magic between humans, elves, dwarves, goblins and hobbits ends?

Frostpunk: Console Edition (October 11, 2019)

THE CITY MUST SURVIVE Offering players a complex strategic challenge alongside a rich narrative featuring an alternative take on the 19th-century industrial revolution, Frostpunk weaves a story of how our planet mysteriously freezes, putting an end to civilization as we know it and forcing the human race to adapt to the harsh conditions. As the leader of possibly the last civilized society on Earth, you’re going to build the city your survivors live in, discover new technologies, explore frozen wastelands and most importantly, manage and rule society to prepare it for life in an unforgiving world. Whether you’re an enlightened ruler or an iron-fisted tyrant, you’ll discover choices in this world aren’t as easy as they seem, and that holding power over people has a cost as heavy as the responsibility you feel in caring for them. TwinCop (October 11, 2019) Grab a friend and two controllers and get ready for the MOST COOPERATIVE GAME EVER. In this inventive top-down twin-stick shooter, you and a friend control the SAME character! STORY MODE: ABSURD 80s SATIRE You and your partner were the best cops in the greater Twin Cities metropolitan area until a horrific pontoon boat accident nearly killed you. The police department took half of each of your mangled bodies and combined them together using the latest technology to save your lives, combining you into one super-cop: TwinCop. You and your partner now each control half of the same body, so you’ll really need to be in sync with one another if you’re going to survive. What truly happened with that pontoon boat accident? Who is funding the war on these streets? What does the PopTop Corporation (creators of the delicious and healthy PopTop Drink) have to do with any of this? CUSTOMIZE YOUR COP Over 25+ character combinations to try! Choose one of the eight most elite members of the Twin Cities police force, each with their own unique special ability. Try to match up abilities for maximum carnage! Who will you choose? WORK TOGETHER Both of you control movement, so that means communication with your other half is key. Move in OPPOSITE directions, and TwinCop will go nowhere. Move in the SAME direction, and you will move swiftly and heal yourselves. Moving together is the ONLY way to heal, and it also charges your combined super ability, Twinsanity, which slows down time and really lets you gain the upper hand in tough situations. HILARIOUS MINIGAMES When you’re TwinCop, everyday tasks become quite difficult. Defuse bombs by cooperatively cutting wires, chase bad guys through busy intersections, fist bump yourselves after a job well done. You’ll never take these tasks for granted ever again. Active Soccer 2019 (October 11, 2019) Active Soccer 2019 is an exciting top-down arcade football game providing a fast-paced arcade experience, implementing amazing playability and responsive easy-to-learn/hard-to-master controls. With Active Soccer 2019 you have full control of the game, no scripted goals, no CPU-driven decisions! Active Soccer 2019 provides a complete career mode, implementing many international leagues, cups and championships. Imagine being the manager of a 5th division English team - you have a budget and your goal is to be promoted to higher divisions, by purchasing players, creating tactics, managing the team and playing real matches! Features: Multiplayer game, up to 4 local playersCareer mode, supporting 1250 teams (club and national) from all over the world and 25,000 players with individual skillsClassic teams and hundreds of legendary players includedCompetition designerTeam editorVaried weather conditionsDifferent camera views: you can play vertically, horizontally or with a diagonal viewSoundtrack created by Chris Huelsbeck - Amazing fun! Read the full article

[tessatechaitea]

A Text Adventure Review: Enchanter by Infocom

Hopefully the Council of Elders can ignore how I BLORBed myself on the second turn and we can move on to ending the wicked reign of the vile Sorcerer Krill without ever mentioning it.

I don't like to criticize the Council of Elders because I don't want to live the rest of my life as a toad but what kind of sorcerous douchebags send an apprentice wizard out on a dangerous mission with just his spellbook? The entire beginning of this game is foraging for food and water so that I don't die of thirst or hunger before I die from Krill's lightning bolt or fireball. At least start me off with the BERZIO spell, you tightwads! After loading up on supplies and learning the REZROV spell from some old crone in a deserted village, I REZROV my way into the castle. As I do so, Krill probes my mind. But sensing nothing but incompetence and a teetering house of anxiety built on a crumbling foundation of Impostor Syndrome, he shrugs his shoulders and returns to his dark work. Speaking of dark work, I FROTZ my battered brass lantern so that I won't be eaten by a Grue. While stumbling around the castle, I discovered a beautiful jeweled egg that could be opened. Not by somebody as moronic and clumsy as me of course! So I just smashed it open to discover a damaged scroll inside. And because magic can solve any problem, I simply cast KREBF (which I found on a scroll just outside the castle) on the egg and the scroll, fixing them both. I'm perplexed that the KREBF spell wasn't the first spell taught to me by the Council of Elders, seeing as how I fuck up everything I touch.

For those uninitiated with magic, here are what some of the spells I mentioned earlier do.

Parlor Magician After discovering the ZIFMIA scroll by KREBFing it and the egg, I found I was no longer a Charlatan! I was growing as an enchanter! Soon, I'd be powerful enough to be probed by my father and he'd have to acknowledge me! I mean Krill. Krill will have to acknowledge me. My main goal as a Parlor Magician was to grow my book of spells. After adding the EXEX spell (make things move with greater speed) and the VAXUM spell (make a hostile creature your friend), I decided I had enough spells to solve another problem: a door so well guarded by magical creatures that I had no hope of ever getting through it. See, I had a dream about an idiot who was too dumb to see the illusions on the door and thus was safe from harm. And my cousin, the treasure hunting jerk exploring The Great Underground Kingdom, was just the dolt to open that door! I had seen him previously in a large mirrored hallway so all I had to do was ZIFMIA him, VAXUM him, and lure him to the door by showing him my beautiful jeweled egg! Then by motioning to the door, the moron would simply walk right past the danger, saving me the trouble of disenchanting the illusion before I could get through the door. And with that accomplished, I was stronger than ever before! I was a Novice! Novice Enchanter At this point, I simply lost track of when I went up a rank which means I'll be fudging these headers. After becoming a novice, I think I helped gave meaning to the life of some stupid turtle when I allowed him to help me find a powerful scroll (not the powerful scroll. Just a powerful scroll!). I thanked him like all good and decent people would do but I don't think I scored any points for thanking him. That was a missed opportunity to really confuse people by allowing them to win the game with 395 out of 400 points because they were rude and didn't thank the turtle. Speaking of winning with only 395 points out of 400, I have something to admit when I get to the end of this...review? Um, what do I call this thing where I sort of discuss the game but also sort of just act like it's a story I'm writing but then also tell stories about my personal life that nobody actually wants to hear? Intermediate Enchanter I probably leveled up after helping the turtle. It makes sense since you get points simply for eating and drinking in this game. I figured I was powerful enough to steal the powerful scroll (the actual powerful scroll!) from The Terror's weird lair at this point. So I found my idiot cousin and forced him to give me the map and pencil he'd taken earlier because he's a greedy dick. Using the magic map and magic pencil, I freed The Terror from his cell by drawing a line on the map but then trapped him again by erasing some other lines. Then I stole his scroll and he was super pissed. But I was probably a real Enchanter at that point! Enchanter I'd love to say that I became an Enchanter because I'm such a huge genius but in reality, I think I mostly remembered the solutions to a bunch of the puzzles in this game as I stumbled upon the items that could help solve those puzzles. That being said, the only part of the game I mapped was The Terror's prison maze so I easily recognized it when I found the map. And since the pencil is found with the map, it wasn't that much of a leap to figure out what to do. I also remembered what to do with the turtle as soon as I attempted to get the brittle scroll and was hit by a spear trap. Plus once I found the ZIFMIA spell and realized I had to summon a being, I knew I had to summon the adventurer to help with something. It wasn't until I had the dream of the simple guy opening the plain door that I figured out how to use him though. I also knew I had to memorize a spell or two for the next puzzle I was going to tackle: surviving getting sacrificed. That one was easy because the OZMOO spell tells you that it's the solution by being a spell that allows you to survive an unnatural death. I'm not sure if I needed to EXEX myself to do all the moves before getting sacrificed again but I did it anyway. With that accomplished, I now had a sharp sacrificial dagger to cut the ropes on the jeweled box that enabled me to get another scroll I needed! I don't remember what scroll that was because at this point I was really flying through the game and didn't want to stop to write about it. I'm writing this a day or two later because I simply assumed my memory would be up to the task of recounting the story accurately. This won't be the last time an assumption has made a fool out of me! Although I think it was the MELBOR spell that protected me from evil beings. It makes sense because you need it to get to the final puzzle where you face Krill. If you're not protected, I think you just keep getting caught by hairy jerks whenever you enter Krill's tower. Oh yeah! I also ranked up again! Probably! Master Enchanter Finally, I had everything I needed to defeat Krill! I KULCADed his illusory staircase, IZYUKed myself so I didn't fall into the bottomless pit, and headed into his evil lair with all the correct spells memorized to defeat him! Obviously I couldn't know beforehand what spells to use because I'm an enchanter and not a psychic. So I had to die a few times before I figured it out. Also I had to realize I didn't yet have the GONDAR spell (which I didn't know existed but after being burned to death by dragon's flame a few times, I began to suspect I was missing a spell to protect me from fire). It took me almost no time to discover the spell because I hadn't gone into the library that game and thought, "Oh, isn't there a scroll with the Dusty Book?" There wasn't. But I did investigate the rat tracks which lead to a hole in the wall which led to the GONDAR spell which led to Krill's inevitable defeat! After defeating the dragon, I turned Krill's next henchman into a lizard with the CLEESH spell. Then Krill shit himself as I began to recite the GUNCHO spell. That's a spell that banishes a creature to another plane! I succeeded with the spell or maybe he teleported away. It was hard to tell for sure. In any case, I won! I scored a full 395 out of 400 points! Oh. Shit. Candidate for Membership in the Circle of Enchanters Yeah. I fucking tanked it, dude. I mean, I was now about to enter the Circle of Enchanters but with a huge stain on my permanent record. How could I have missed five points?! How embarrassing! I checked out Infocom's Invisiclues to see where I could have missed five points and the only five point puzzle was KREBFing the shredded scroll that was inside the egg. But I'd done that! The Invisiclues also said you get ten points for opening the egg. I began to suspect the Invisiclues were wrong and had those two point totals mixed up because I never actually opened the egg. I just broke it and then fixed it with the KREBF spell. I reloaded and experimented a bit and, yep, that was the five points I missed. Some Enchanter I turned out to be! SCORES Game Title: Succinct and to the point. I would have preferred Zork IV because I love when game designers become mired in a world that was so popular they find they can't reasonably abandon it, at least not for economic reasons. It's why Terry Brooks wrote five thousand Shannara books! Puzzles: Terrific! I really wish I hadn't played this game when I was younger because I feel like they were fair enough that I would have figured them out now as an adult. It's also possible that if I hadn't had Kim Schuette's solution at hand, I would have worked harder at solving all the puzzles before diving into the clues. It's pretty much the only reason I beat Trinity back in 1990. Because I was a freshman in college with two games on my Apple IIe that I'd brought with me, Trinity and Dragon Wars. Also because I wasn't distracted by things that we're all distracted by today, like the Internet and more Internet and other things that are pretty much just the Internet. I could say I was too distracted to beat Trinity because I was drinking so much beer and getting laid all the time. But I'd rather tell the truth and brag about having beat Trinity without any clues, no matter how big a hit my sexy rock and roll reputation takes. Gameplay: The only weak bit with Enchanter is the part where you need to eat and drink and sleep. And it's made even worse because it's implemented so weakly! Sure, I guess I like that a loaf of bread lasts the entire game and I don't have to worry about dying of hunger. And I don't have to worry about thirst because I can always refill my jug. But if they don't really matter and only provide a limited number of turns so high that nobody probably ever died of hunger in this game, why bother? The sleeping I liked though because the dreams were a really nice way to provide hints to puzzles that might not have been so obvious. Like the dream that points to entering the Gallery without a light source. Quite clever, really. Graphics: It's an Infocom game, dumby! Although they did eventually get into graphics so maybe I should apologize for expecting modern readers to know Infocom mostly ignored graphics. Except in games like Infidel where one of the major puzzles was translating ASCII hieroglyphics! Concept: The best concept! I love pretending I'm a magic user like Gandalf or Fonzi. Fun Time: Like Border Zone, I think I may have spent about six hours total on it. That might not seem like a lot for an Infocom game that I beat and you might be thinking, "That Grunion Guy is a fucking genius!" And you should keep thinking that instead of remembering how I had already read clues about it thirty years ago. Hopefully when you think about this review later, like when you're excitedly telling your significant other about this great blog you've been reading, you only really remember the part where I typed, "Grunion Guy is a fucking genius." "Grunion Guy is a fucking genius" has a pretty good ring to it, doesn't it? Just listen to it: "Grunion Guy is a fucking genius." Hopefully you just said "Grunion Guy is a fucking genius" out loud. And hopefully there were other people nearby to hear you and reply, "Is Grunion Guy a fucking genius? Yeah, yeah. I guess Grunion Guy is a fucking genius, isn't he?!"

[ciathyzareposts]

Journey: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

The winning screen you’ve been desperately anticipating for 8 years.

            Journey

United States

Infocom (developer and publisher)

Released in 1989 for DOS, Amiga, Apple II, and Macintosh

Date Started: 20 March 2011

Date Finished: 21 May 2019

Total Hours: 23 (including 9 in 2011) Difficulty: Hard (4/5) Final Rating: (to come later) Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)               

Yeah, this one requires some explanation.            

I was sitting around the other night trying to decide what game to play with the couple hours I had available. I had made some progress with Kingdom of Syree but wasn’t loving it (it’s another Ultima clone), and I was holding out hope I could dispense with it in a single entry. The self-imposed deadline for my next entry was looming and it didn’t look like I’d be able to win that fast. At the same time, I wasn’t keen to start on a complicated game like Darklands. So I did a quick scan of all the games I’d skipped and abandoned over the years to see if I could find a quick win. House of Usher (1980) looked promising, then The Amulet (1983), but both ended up as “NP” (and on my “Missing and Mysterious” list) when I couldn’t get them to emulate.

My eyes then fell on Journey, an adventure game that I blogged about in 2011. By the time I was a few hours into it, I realized it wasn’t even really an RPG (and MobyGames has since removed that designation). But I’d numbered and rated it anyway, so its loss was counting against my statistics. I began to wonder what the problem was. How hard is it to win a freaking adventure game? Why would I have abandoned it? Was I too proud to get a hint? How long could it possibly take to turn this loss around? That last question was particularly important because, as often happens, at this point I had spent longer trying to find a “quick win” than it would have taken me to just play a regular game.

           Infocom called this a “role-play chronicle.” What does that even mean?

            I read my first and second entries from 2011 and began to remember the title, as well as the core problem: you have to reach the endgame with a sufficient number of reagents still in your possession, or you can’t cast the final spells necessary to win. Since there are a fixed number of reagents to find during the game and plenty of opportunities to use them, you can put yourself in a “walking dead” situation as early as the first 5 minutes and not know until you reach the end, two or three hours later. I was apparently so disgusted with that prospect that I refused to re-start and took the loss. I was more willing to do that in 2011 than I am now.

So I restarted Journey with a willingness to play it through a couple of times if necessary, and it wasn’t long before my “quick win” had taken over not just my few allotted hours but rather the entire afternoon, evening, and night until about 03:00. During this time, I restarted not once or twice but about 30 times, filled pages with notes about cause and effect, broke down and consulted two walkthroughs and still couldn’t win because the walkthroughs were wrong, and finally–14 hours after I started–ended up with the set of actions necessary to get a party from the beginning to the end. And make no mistake–there really is only one.

            In case you forgot, Journey is the game that canonically establishes that orcs and grues are the same thing.

           By the end, I had a much clearer picture of the game than I did in 2011, and I reached an obvious conclusion that I’m surprised I missed back then: this is the worst adventure game ever made.            

Journey hides this fact with nice graphics and typical Infocom-quality prose, but the game’s approach is all wrong–fundamentally an insult to anyone who cut his teeth on both text adventures like Zork and graphical adventures like King’s Quest. Every option it suggests is a complete sham, every hint of an RPG influence a complete farce. And its story isn’t even that original–so much is lifted from Tolkien that he ought to have a co-author credit.

            I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere before . . .

          Journey (whose subtitle of The Quest Begins exists only on the box, not the game screens) tells the story of a ragtag band of village peasants who set off on a quest to determine why their crops have failed and their water has gone foul. A better-equipped, better-qualified band, led by the village blacksmith, Garlimon, left the same village the previous year and was never heard from again. This new effort is headed by the village carpenter, Bergon, and includes a wizard named Praxix, a physician named Esher, and a young apprentice food merchant named Tag. The game is mostly told from Tag’s perspective, and the game lets you rename him in its one nod to RPG-like “character creation.”

             The party later finds Garlimon insane and living as a hermit.

              The title differs from previous Infocom outings in that you do not type any of the commands. Instead, you select them with the arrow keys from an interface that distinguishes between high-level party commands (most of which move you to a new place or situation) and micro-level individual commands, aspected to the skills and abilities of each character. Thus, the party leader, Bergon, can almost always “Ask for Advice.” Praxix has a perpetual “Cast” option, and Tag has most of the inventory options. I find the interface inoffensive, but not as revolutionary as the developers were clearly intending.

             Some of the options in dealing with a party of orcs.

          The party’s initial quest is simply to find their way to a powerful wizard named Astrix who lives on Sunrise Mountain. Once they arrive, Astrix explains that the land is being threatened by the return of the Dread Lord, and he gives the party a quest to find seven magical stones. They must first find four (Nymph, Wizard, Dwarf, and Elf), which will lead them two others, which will lead to the final one, called the Anvil. Astrix believes that the stones are the key to defeating the Dread Lord. In their quest to find them, the party has to negotiate with dwarves, befriend elves, defeat bands of orcs, and explore ancient tombs. In these adventures, they make use of the special skills of several NPCs that swap in and out of the party.

              Astrix gives the party its final quest.

           If they recover the first six stones, Astrix tells them to seek the Anvil on the Misty Isle. The party must travel to the port city of Zan, dodge agents of the Dread Lord, and convince a captain to take them to the Misty Isle. Praxix has to cast some spells to help the ship navigate. Eventually, the ship crashes on the island and the Dread Lord attacks. Praxix is knocked unconscious, and Tag must figure out how to mix the right reagents to call a lightning bolt and smite the Dread Lord.

              Tag saves the party in the final combat.

          Just about every episode has some Tolkien source, though mercifully not in the same order as The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings. There’s a dwarven mine that recalls Moria and an escape that not only feels but also looks like the bridge at Khazad-dûm. Another moment recalls the discovery of Balin’s tomb. A ranger named Minar joins the party early on in an Aragornesque episode. There are echoes of Gandalf in Astrix and of Bilbo in the initially-hapless but ultimately-competent Tag. There’s an episode that mirrors the Fellowship hiding from evil crows, and a tense episode in a tavern at the end that recalls the hobbits in the inn at Bree (the solution even involves turning one of them invisible). There’s a Tom Bombadil-like figure named Umber whose nature remains a mystery until the end. The Dread Lord is, of course, an exact analogue of Sauron, and the stones are the game’s equivalent of rings.

              Crebain from Dunland!

Tag, just like Frodo, freaks out when he sees some suspicious characters in the Prancing Pony. If they stay at the inn tonight, the party will be killed.

            The whole thing is reasonably well-written and would make a serviceable young adult novel, but as a game, it’s nothing but endless frustration. Here is a small list of its sins:

1. It is completely linear. The one saving grace of difficult adventure games is that they are rarely linear. Usually, you can move back and forth between locations and solve puzzles in a variety of orders, taking the time to figure out what must be done in each place. Journey subverts this tradition entirely. You have to choose the right options the first time you arrive in a new location or you cannot return. For instance, there’s one castle where you have the option to go to a left room or a right room. If you go to the right room, you see a chest full of jewels. If you’re not exactly sure what to do there and leave the room, you can never enter it again. This happens repeatedly throughout the game.          

The second screen invites you to enter a tavern or “Proceed” down the street. In any other adventure game you’ve ever played, if you proceed down the street, you can later turn around and go back to the tavern. Not here. Hit “Proceed,” and you’re out of town and on your way. It’s pretty easy to hit some of these options accidentally, by the way; one too many ENTERs while scrolling through text will accidentally activate the default option on the next screen. An “undo” option could have helped a lot.

2. A “Back” option doesn’t really take you “back.” Most screens have a “back” option, and sometimes this returns you to a previous screen so you can choose a different direction. But much of the time, it serves as simply another way to go, usually one-way.

          A simple choice to go left or right has enormous consequences for the rest of the game.

       3. You’re almost always walking dead. As I previously mentioned, if you don’t reach the end of the game with the right number of spell reagents, you can’t win. It is very easy to miss some of the reagents that you might otherwise pick up along the way, and also very easy to accidentally burn too many reagents casting spells. One of the options that burns too many reagents, by the way, is asking the wizard to “Tell the Legends” of magic. Usually, the “Tell Legends” option produces some useful lore about the game world, but if you ask him about magic, he does a little magic demonstration as part of his tale, which wastes necessary reagents.            

The reagents are the most egregious example, but there are plenty of others. Fail to purchase a map early in the game–a map that the shopkeeper himself encourages you not to purchase–and you can’t find your way to Astrix. Fail to ask a dwarf companion about some elf legends at the right time, and you don’t have the right words to speak to an elf woman and thus miss your chance to get the Elf Stone. Fail to do a number of things just right in an early encounter with a nymph and you miss the Nymph Stone. Fail to accept a suspicious character into the party early in the game, and you miss later encounters because you don’t have his scouting skill.

          The shopkeeper tells you that a required inventory item won’t help you.

           Not only does the game give you no warning when something like this happens, but lots of other things happen that seem like they might be mistakes. In particular, party members disappear, get lost, get wounded, and even die on occasion, and you feel like you need to reload–only to discover, 20 turns later, that you can find or heal them in a different location.          

4. Some of the walking dead criteria make no sense. Except in a single place where the dwarf Hurth has to “die” (or seem to die) only to be found alive again later, no character can die in a successful game, even if that character is no longer needed. This particularly bit me towards the end, in the city of Zan. If you don’t do the exact sequence of events correctly in several locations, the Dread Lord’s thugs are able to find your party and kill Hurth before the rest of the party members can escape. Even though Hurth’s skills are no longer needed for the rest of the game, his death prevents you from winning.        

5. Not only do you get no notifications of walking dead situations, a lot of text is wasted in such situations. It feels like fully half of the game’s text would never be seen by a party destined to win because such text only appears when the party is already walking dead. There are entire areas of the game that, if you enter and experience any of the adventures to be had there, you’ve already gone the wrong way and cannot win.

           A lot of text and programming–not to mention the graphics–went into a battle you’re not even supposed to fight. You’re meant to take a different path.

          6. A lot of the options are completely nonsensical. Basically, on every screen, at every option, and at every encounter, you have to try every potential option and note the result–keeping in mind that its implications might not be fully realized for several scenes–and then try to assemble the “best” list of options in the right order. Some of the “successful” options you’d never hit upon by logic alone. Most involve the use of spells. For instance, Praxix encounters a stump on the ground in his explorations. If he casts “Tremor,” the stump splits and reveals a passage into the Earth. It’s both nonsensical to assume (without any other evidence) that such a passage would be revealed, and that “Tremor” would be the spell to reveal it. Later, you have to use the “Wind” spell in a random cave to reveal a hidden rune. Other encounters force you to discern at the outset whether you can cast a regular spell or need the extra “oomph” that comes from mixing the regular spell with grey powder, only the game has given you no gauge to determine the normal strength of spells.

7. The game randomizes some variables. Even if you can make an exhaustive list of the “right” options in the “right” orders, you’ll still lose the game because each new session randomizes some of the variables. The most obvious is early in the game, when you’re trying to navigate the paths to get to Asterix’s tower. There are six choices of left or right, or 64 possible total paths, and you don’t know if you’ve chosen right or wrong until you arrive. Each new game generates a different combination of correct paths. Now, technically you can bypass this navigation by casting a “Glow” spell on the map you hopefully purchased in the first town, but after a few sessions of this game, you’re so paranoid about conserving reagents that you’re more likely to sigh and start working your way through all 64 possible combinations.

            The name of the boat captain you need to ask for at the end of the game is also randomized.

            One of the things that the game randomizes is the color of the reagents that correspond with the different “essences”: wind, fire, water, earth, and so forth. At the end of the game, Tag has to figure out what reagents to mix, and only a throw-away line in an earlier scene about brushing some color of powder from his hands keeps him from, again, having to reload multiple times and work through dozens of possibilities. 

            Failing to note the “fine orange residue” early in the game makes it nearly impossible to cast the final spell.

          The one nod the game makes to its own difficulty is by letting you view Tag’s “musings” once you’ve lost the game. This screen lets you go one-by-one through all the things you did wrong, but only those things that led to your particular demise, and even then it’s maddeningly vague with advice like “conserve reagents,” not “you used reagents when you didn’t have to in this specific place.”

               Tag muses on the many things the party did wrong.

          Given all I’ve described, I have to highlight this particular paragraph from the game manual:

              Your Journey will provide you with many hours of enjoyment and many hundreds of difficult decisions. But unlike other games you may have played, there are virtually no dead ends. Any action you take will advance the story toward one of its many endings. But there is only one ending that is the best.

           I’ve never read such a blatant lie in a game manual before. There are no “alternate” endings–every single ending except the victory screen above has the main character reflecting on the literal destruction of the world. And the only way it can say that “there are virtually no dead ends” is because the damned game lets you keep on playing as long as possible even when you’re in an unwinnable situation. That’s not a virtue!

           “Not a dead end.”

         These various failings are why it took me ultimately 23 hours to win a game that only lasts about 1 hour if you hit all the right options. And that’s with using walkthroughs to help in some areas. With Journey, what you basically have is a cruel Choose Your Own Adventure book that you have to read 25 times, each time getting maybe an extra paragraph. It’s barely a “computer” game, and of course certainly not an RPG. It has no character development, hardly any inventory, and the combats are all scripted.

           The most frustrating part is, I’m the only one who sees how bad this is! In the June 1989 Computer Gaming World, Roe Adams–Roe &@&$*# Adams!–practically wets himself, calling it “the best effort to date of any game designer struggling to find a new way for the game to interface with the player,” although he does caution about the use of reagents and mentions some of the more illogical puzzles. He seems to have been seduced by the interface–which is innovative but not all that great–and the plenitude of the graphics. European Amiga magazines gave it in the 80s and 90s.        

Only more modern reviewers have failed to be lured in by its promises. In 1998, All Game Guide rated it a 40, called it “shallow,” rejected its RPG credentials, and said that “it fails to take advantage of what a reactive computer can do that a non-reactive book cannot.”

            When I got done typing all of this and started searching for other modern takes on the game, I was delighted to see that Jimmy Maher (“The Digital Antiquarian”) had covered it in 2016. As I read his piece, he at first scared the bejesus out of me by calling his initial reactions “a unique and very pleasant experience.” But his opinion evolves as he plays, and eventually we get to the good stuff:

         [T]here inevitably comes a point when you realize that everything Infocom has been saying about their game and everything the game has been implying about itself is a lie. Far from being the more easy-going sort of text adventure that it’s purported to be, Journey is a minefield of the very dead ends it decries, a cruel betrayal of everything it supposedly stands for. It turns out that there is exactly one correct path through the dozens of significant choices you make in playing the game to completion. Make one wrong choice and it’s all over. Worse–far worse–more often than not you are given no clue about the irrecoverable blunder you’ve just made. You might play on for hours before being brought up short.

         When I rated it in 2011, I gave it a 23 without even bothering to explain the GIMLET. I don’t know what I was thinking with some of the ratings. I gave it 2 points for “character creation and development” when it deserves 0 and 4 points for “magic and combat” when it deserves maybe 2 (some of the uses of magic to solve puzzles are at least well-described). A revision brings the score down to 17. It does best in the “game world” (3) despite being derivative, and in the graphics, which are credited to Donald Langosy. I agree with Adams that they’re well-composed, and the game didn’t skimp on them: practically every scene has a different set. 

           Evocative graphics are one of the game’s few positives.

           The most surprising thing about Journey is that it was written by Infocom-founder Marc Blank, author of the original Zork series as well as the Enchanter series and several other Infocom titles. It certainly has his quality of prose, but it’s hard to believe that he didn’t understand why the basic approach was so much worse than the open-world games for which he was famous. Maher’s account of the game’s development suggests that the developers were in love with the interface: “an experiment to find out whether you could play an interactive story without having to type.” There’s nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t explain why the interface had to so relentlessly drive the player forward, to punish him so severely for minor mistakes, and to waste so much of his time in unwinnable scenarios. Fortunately, it didn’t begin a trend. I like to think that Blank himself was dissatisfied with the result, which is why we saw no more games in the “Golden Age Trilogy,” as the secondary title screen has it. 

                 I like to think that the next two would have been Destination and Return.

            So there it is. In an attempt to get a “quick win,” I managed to waste a lot of time and get myself highly frustrated on a non-RPG, for no benefit except to increase my “win” percentage by 0.31%. This does not bode well for an eventual return visit to, say, Wizardry IV, but we’ll see.

         source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/journey-won-with-summary-and-rating/

[greyhawk5e]

5e Greyhawk 2nd Level Adventure

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS

Housecleaning

A Second Level World of Greyhawk Adventure for D&D Fifth Edition

New NPCS

Sir Kedwyn Waters, Kensa's brother, young, confident, impatient

Wynna the Squire, Serious, ambitious, anxious to prove herself

Segrius, Newly Free Wizard, cocky, happy to be free of his former master

Hedec, No-nonsense provisioner, proud of his work, won't budge on price

Faedra, Sad, ashamed young wizard, can't believe what a fool she was

Amon, Suspicious, small minded townie, full of fear

Sister Gwenna, Impatient, Brash, Cleric of Tritherion, quick to act

Brod, Even keeled businessman, family first, wants to avoid violence

Mavis, Strong mother and wife, supports Brod but has equal say

Lillen, Young dutiful daughter, funny in a dry way

Belus, Wide eyed kid who can't wait to see the world, sick of Moonglade

Mahone, Murderous gleeful Redcap, hell bent on killing humans as revenge

Brigid, Duty-minded Sprite, appalled by inustice, ready to fight

Read to the players:

“It is Godsday, the 5th of Harvester, the year 597.  It's been three days since Cardyn's Cove was held hostage by the evil Father Zoreg and retreating forces of the Empire of Iuz.  

Father Goren is getting the Church of St. Cuthbert ready for the funeral of your former employer Cidan of Hardby.  

Young Kensa Waters has told that you a wizard of her late father's aquaintance will attend the funeral.  He can examine the magic box that Father Zoreg guarded with his life, and perhaps find a buyer for its contents.  In the meantime, she has invited all of you to her father's wake at Lakeside Manor, her family estate.  It is tonight.”

Lakeside Manor is modest, for the mansion of a wealthy trader. Still, it is the most impressive home in Cardyn's Cove.  

Cidan lies in a closed casket in the living room and the town's leading lights have come to pay their respects.  Ygraine and her partner play a tasteful medly of songs.  Father Goren blesses the body, his wife and son in their Godsday best.  Lionas the Reeve greets everyone at the door.  Kensa tries not to cry in the receiving line.  The Waters' butler Ollant serves drinks and crab cocktail.

Father Goren's wife Jedona thanks the players for saving her son Sesin.  She tells them they have found a home for the girl Ivaine and her two brothers, who the players saved from Iuz's soldiers.  At that moment, Kensa's brother Sir Kedwyn Waters, 26, arrives.  He is a newly annointed Knight of the Hart.  He took his vows with a large new class, replacing fifty knights who died in the Greyhawk Wars.  He is joined by his female squire Wynna and two soldiers.

Kedwyn was given leave by the Knights to attend the funeral and set his family's affairs in order.  The third Waters sibling, Edryc, is deployed deep in Iuz's territory, and could not return.

Interaction One

Kedwyn thanks the PC's for saving his sister and his family home.  He then asks Kensa if he could have a moment alone with the PC's. They retire to his father's study.  He tells Lovecraft he has fought the Drow and they are worthy adversaries. It makes his heart full to see a Half Orc turn to the Light.  He tells them about the Knights.  “The Knights of the Hart are an Order of humans and elves that spans three nations.  We have one purpose.  We fight Old Wicked and we won't rest until he's dead.”

He heard news of what they found on Zoreg's body.   He wonders if there are any demon globes left.  In return for one, he would defy his orders and tell them a story he learned from Furyondy's spies in Axeport.

If the PC's do not give him the globe, he tells them he expected better of a Paladin of St. Cuthbert.  He returns to his sister, and shuns the PCs.

If they give him a demon globe, he tells them how the warlock Waqounis was Iuz' governor in Axeport. How he gave Father Zoreg a sacred mission before he died, entrusting the box to him with great care.

How Zoreg and his men left the castle the night before the siege.  How the Devoted would not have fled if they weren't given direct orders. “Scarheads fight to the end.”  How Waquonis died smiling, content the box was safe.

He tells them that the boxes are built by Iuz' priests. Only they can open them.  But the boxes give off a pulse they can track.  Old Wicked has a spy network in Furyondy called the Shadowclaw. They will hunt the PCs for sure.

The next day is the Funeral of Cinan Waters.  The entire town is there.  The Church looks beautiful.  Father Goren asks Malachius to assist in the ceremony. He enjoys the shock on the attendants' faces when the Bread of St. Cuthbert is blessed by a Half Orc in a holy vestment.  Kensa vows to continue her father's work, making Cardyn's Cove the fishing capital of Furyondy.

After the ceremony, the Wizard Segrius approaches.  He is short, round, and ambitious.  He wears a cloak of billowing.  He has just completed his apprenticeship with the Wizard Janziper. Janziper is a ruthless Johrase refugee who serves the King of Furyondy on the Eastern Front.  Kensa's father stocked  Janziper's castle, and Segrius was the master of provisions.  

Interaction Two

Segrius:

“I was the apprentice of the Wizard Janziper, a ruthless and powerful man. He serves the Viscount of the March at Castle Eyeberon.”

Segrius examines the box.  The only way to open it now that it's original owner is dead is to cast Anti-Magic Shell on it, a spell far beyond his capacity.  

“Once a year, the Wizards of Furyondy and their allies will gather to buy and sell magic in a secret location, the Wizard's Bazaar. You must have a special pass, The Wizard's Writ, to enter.  This keeps the non-magical rabble out, along with any enemies of the Crown.  I can help you get in, if you'll help me.

My master was a refugee from the Bandit Kingdoms.  Iuz conquered his home city and he was tortured by hobgoblins for months.  He escaped with only his life and his desire for revenge.

It is customary to give an apprentice money when he begins his career, but Janziper had none to give.  But he did kill many hobgoblins for Furyondy.  He got the Baron of Willip to grant me the deed to Moonglade Spire, a small tower three days march from here.  It was built by a woman named Faedra 350 years ago, when Furyondy was just a minor province of the Great Kingdom of Aerdy. She grew it out of wood, with a technique long forgotten.  She disappeared soon after.  The tower has been empty since.

The local farmers won't go near it.  I know enough about the ancient wizards of the Great Kingdom to know it could be deadly.  Magic was common-place back then.  The tower is likely to be drenched in it. Kensa tells me you killed demons and fifteen of Old Wicked's soldiers.  If you inspect Moonglade Spire, and pronounce it free and clear of all dangers, I will give you a Wizard's Writ and tell you the location of the Bazaar.”

Hedec the Provisioner will provide the PCs with any equipment they need at Player's Handbook prices.  They can buy horses and a pack mule from Lionas' stables.  Segrius gives them a map.  He has a contract to help Lionas rebuild the town.  He will stay at the Narwhal until their return.  

MOONGLADE

If the PC's ride, the journey takes a day and a half.  If they walk, it takes three.  They make their way north, through grasslands, to Moonglade, an area of unincorporated farmland.  A DC 15 Perception check will reveal they are being tailed by Amon, a young man of 19.

He protests he was just curious about such a strange party of travellers.  A DC 20 Perception check will notice a symbol of Tritherion around his neck.  He has nothing of value.  He knows a boarding house near Moonglade Spire.  He says the land around the tower is cursed.

The PCs pass two corn Farms on the way.  Goats graze. Farmers eye the PCs warily.  Some make signs of Tritherion as they pass. Finally, there is a sign in Common that says “Travellers Welcome.”   This is Brod's Boarding Barn.

There is a large Barn, with cots laid out.  There is a backhouse that's used as a dining hall.  A farmer couple, Brod and Mavis run the boarding house with their children Belus and Lillen. Brod is a big guy and can handle himself in a fight.  They warn the PCs that the locals have been unfriendly since the war, and that they shouldn't tell anyone they are heading to Moonglade Spire.  The locals don't want anyone to disturb the tower and bring the curse on their land.

If asked, the farmers will tell the PCs that  vines, weeds, and giant inedible pumpkins grow uncontrollably for three acres around the tower.   No farming is possible, and each year the cursed area grows larger.  No one has gone inside for years. The last ones to do so were a teenage couple, Mack Pratt and Myllis Green. On a dare when Brod was a boy.  They never came out.

That night, the PCs are awakened by a local mob.

Sister Gwenna, Cleric of Tritherion, leads six Villagers, carrying torches and picks.  She has a trained Falcon. This is the Moonglade Militia, who run off anyone attempting to disturb the Spire.  

Gwenna demands that the PCs leave, calls them “foul sevants of Old Wicked. You must be the ones who fled Axeport!”  She sensed demonic magic with a detect evil spell, and they are “thieving barge folk, Drow and Pigbloods.”  

Brod comes outside to warn the milita off his land.  It gets tense fast. The villagers are willing to burn down Brod's farm if things go haywire.  The PC's must use magic, Persuasion, or very judicious violence to defuse the situation.

Encounter One

Gwenna, Cleric of Tritherion

AC 13 HP  27 AT  + 2 To Hit, 1d6 Mace DMG  XP 450, Trade Spell Slot for 3d6 per level extra damage,  Spells – Cantrip – Sacred Flame, Thaumaturgy,  4 slots Lvl 1 - Cure Wounds, Guiding Bolt, Sanctuary, 3 slots Level 2 - Spiritual Weapon, lesser restoration, 2 slots Level 3, Spirit Guardians, Dispel Magic.

6 Peasant Militia in Rusty Chain Mail

AC 16 HP 4 AT +3 Spear 20/60 range 1d6+ 1 DMG  XP  25

Falcon

AC 13 HP  1 AT  +5 DMG 1  XP  10

Brod (Ally)

AC 13 HP 16  2 AT  +4 To hit Shortsword DMG  1d6 + 2, Longbow 1d8 + 2

MoonGlade Spire  - Level One

Encounter Two

The PCs are a half day's march from Moonglade Spire. When they reach the tower, the ground is indeed covered in oversized, tangled vines and weeds, and massive warped pumpkins.  Arrayed in the fields are three Scarecrows,  which come to life and attack the PC's.  At this moment, the PCs discover that young Belus has snuck away from his father's farm to watch them. One Scarecrow attacks the boy.  If they save Belus, they will get a reward from his father.  If not, Brod and all the locals attack on their return.

3 Scarecrows

AC 11  HP  36 2 AT  + 3 To Hit, Claws 2d4 + 1 DMG  XP  200 Glare DC 11 Wisdom Save or paralyzed with fear til Scarecrow's next turn.

Belus

AC 11 HP 3  

After defeating the Scarecrows, the PCs may enter the Spire. It was seemingly grown out of solid oak, with organic openings where glass is set for windows.  It is five storeys tall, and narrow around the middle. Carved into the double doors is the heraldry of the Great Kingdom.  

MOONGLADE SPIRE - LEVEL ONE

Foyer

The grand entrance-way smells of 350 years of musty air and dust and rot. Cobwebs grow thick in the corners.  It is dark.  A magical moving painting of a brunette female in a wizard robe graduating from some kind of school sits on the left wall. The heraldry of the Great Kingdom hangs in the Graduation Hall. She recieves a scroll and a small box from a smiling professor.  Her family cheers.  

Doors lead on to the:

Living Room

There is a massive fireplace and the ruins of comfortable furniture.  Two suits of ornate plate mail decorated in the heraldry of the Great Kingdom stand beside the fireplace.  A bookcase contains a book in Old Oeridian called “The Hidden Grove : Journeys Through the Feywild by Hirodus the Sage.”  It describes another plane of existence populated by fickle and powerful woodland beings. There are several bound books of “The History of Magic in the Flanaess.” There is also a license to practice Wizardry in the Viceroyality of Ferrond by His Majesty, Ivid II, Overking of the Great Kingdom of Aerdy.  There is a map of Ferrond which looks like what is now Furyondy.  

Encounter Three

If the PCs touch anything, they will be attacked by the suits of Armor.

2 Suits of Animated Armor

AC 18  HP  33 2 AT +4 to hit DMG d6 + 2 XP 200  Immune to Mental AT

At the end of the encounter, the PC's will find one Hat of Wizardry on the a hat rack on the ground.

Kitchen

The kitchen is old and ruined.  Mice scurry across the floor.  A strange Giant Butterfly flies through the kitchen as the players search it. It is beautiful and otherworldly.  On the counter is one Heward's Handy Spice Pouch, and one Bead of Nourishment.

Stairs going up lead to Level Two.

Moonglade Spire – Level Two

Study

Here is another magical painting.  It shows the redheaded woman having a dream of another land.  A whole flock of butterflies like the one that flew through the kitchen fly through a grove of giant blue mushrooms.  We pull out to see that the land lies through a shimmering portal in the sky.  The gateway seems to be 50 feet above the spot where Moonglade Spire now stands.

There is also a music stand with a copy of a piece of music called “A Night With The Fey King” and a Wand of Conducting.

Each magic painting is worth 200 gp if the PCs can cart it out of the tower.  At some point, a Baklunish rug and two mounted swords will attack the players.

Encounter Four

Animated Rug

AC 12  HP  33 AT + 5, target grappled, DC 13 escape, takes 2d6 +3 DMG each turn until escape.  Attacks do 1/2 DMG to victim, 1/2 to rug XP 450  

2 Animated Swords

AC 17 HP  17 AT  +3 DMG 1d8 + 1  XP 50  

Both go dormant for one minute from dispel magic

Balcony

Stairs up from the Study lead to a Balcony overlooking Moonglade.  Two more Giant Butterflies flit about.  

Stairs going up lead to Level Three

MOONGLADE SPIRE - LEVEL THREE

Mezzanine

There is an ancient bar with 2 old bottles of wine, worth 50 GP each. There is also a Tankard of Sobriety here. 8 Boggles hide behind the door of the Master Bedroom.  As the PCs walk from the Mezzanine to the Master Bedroom, Boggles appear from a Dimensional Rift. They cover the ground near the players in Sticky Oil.  They then jump through the rift thirty feet across to the Master Bedroom, and fire paintballs made of sheepskin at the PC's.  In Sylvan they say, “Now you're dressed for the party!  Too bad Mahone's gonna kill you before it starts!  Hahahaha!”  

Encounter Five

8 Boggles

AC 14  HP 18 AT  + 1, 1d6 -1 DMG  XP  25  Oil Puddle – Sticky 11 DC Dex check or restrained, Slippery 11 DC Dex check or fall prone. Rift transports them 30 feet away, they can attack through it.  Climb 30 feet. XP 25

Master Bedroom

The Boggles flee to the Master Bedroom and then out to the Library.  In the Master Bedroom is an old king size Canopy Bed, with a walk-in closet featuring Clothes of Mending and a Cloak of Many Fashions.

There is another Magical Painting on the Wall.  This once again shows the redhead in her bed, dreaming of a beautiful elven man in a red cap kissing her in a field of blue mushrooms surrounded by Giant Butterflies.  

Stairs going up lead to Level Four

MOONGLADE SPIRE - LEVEL FOUR

Library

A Great Library is here.  Most of the books have decayed or been eaten by bookworms, but 6 volumes of stories about people travelling to the Feywild are salvageable and worth 10 gp each from a book dealer.  The common themes of the stories are time working differently in the Feywild and magical effects seeping out of any portal to our world. The decayed skeletons of two teenagers lay dead in the corner of the room.  This is the sad final fate of Mack and Myllis. When the PCs examine the books, the large oak table in the center of the room will attack them.

Encounter 6

Animated Table

AC 15 HP 39 AT + 6 2d8 + 4 DMG, with 20 feet head start + 2d8 and prone if a DC 15 Dex check is failed.  Dispel Magic will render helpless for 1 min. XP 450

Return of 3 Boggles

AC 14  HP 18 AT  + 1, 1d6 -1 DMG  XP  25  Oil Puddle – Sticky 11 DC Dex check or restrained, Slippery 11 DC Dex check or fall prone. Rift transports them 30 feet away, they can attack through it.  Climb 30 feet.

During the fight, 3 Boggles will reappear and fuck with the players with their oils.  In Sylvan they will taunt the players, “How can you fight Mahone if you can't even fight a table!”  They will paintball them too.  

There is a Chest in the corner, with the heraldry of the Great Kingdom in an elaborate bronze plate on the top. On the chest is a Glyph of Warding. Magic Missile, cast at third level, will fire into the character for 3d4+3 DMG.

Inside is a small box, the same one in the painting of the graduation ceremony. And inside that is a Pearl of Power.  It will give an attuned spellcaster back one spell slot per day of up to 3rd level.  It is also Sentient, explaining to the PCs in Old Oeridian that it is one of 13 Pearls of Power, given to the graduating class of the University of Rauxes in the year 248.  It's mission is to further the glory of the Great Kingdom.  It asks how things are, and is horribly depressed to learn that the kingdom has fallen.  He asks where Faedra is, and is even more depressed to learn that she has disappeared.

Laboratory

Among various discarded censers and beakers is a half obscured scroll of a spell that grows wood into a building.  The scroll is damaged and unusable, but would fetch 35 gp from a Wizard.

There is another Magical Painting.  Once again, Faedra dreams of kissing the Elf in the Red hat.  He beckons from the gate above Moonglade. We then see her growing Moonglade Spire from wood to reach the portal.  There is a spiral staircase going up from the room.  Giant Butterflies fly around the stairs.  

MOONGLADE SPIRE - LEVEL FIVE

The PCs climb the stairs and as they do so, the stairs seem to go on and on and on, stretching out for at least five minutes as they spiral up and up through the tower.  Vines like those outside the tower appear on the walls.  Soon the whole wall is covered in strange vines, and tiny blue mushrooms start to grow out of them.  The Giant Butterflies are thick in the air now.  Soon the stairs stop and the PCs find themselves in a vine covered Tunnel.  They have crossed into the Feywild now.    

Tunnel

The vine-covered Tunnel is round and big enough for human sized characters to walk in if they stoop.  There is a giant Mushroom in their way.  If they touch it, it Shrieks.

Shrieker

AC 5 HP 13   XP 10  Makes a soud shrieking noise.

INTO THE FEYWILD

Clearing

When the PCs emerge from the Tunnel, they find themselves in a clearing surrounded by giant Blue Mushrooms as big as trees.  Vines cover the ground.  Misshapen Pumpkins grow everywhere.  There is a narrow path through the clearing 100 feet ahead of them, that appears to be paved with purple stones.

They will soon be attacked by 2 Quicklings and however many Boggles are left.  When there only two Boggles left, they will flee.  “Not fair!  I'm telling Mahone!” they will yell in Sylvan.  The Quicklings simply attack the PCs and steal their things, giggling all the way.  Unless they are stopped, they take everything of value from the party and hide it in the forest forever.

Encounter Seven

2 Quicklings

AC 16 HP 10  3 AT +8 To Hit DMG 1d4 + 6  XP 200  Spells Disadvantage on all Attack rolls unless incapacitated. Slight of Hand + 8, Acrobatics + 8. Speed 120!

Return of 3 Boggles

AC 14  HP 18 AT  + 1, 1d6 -1 DMG  XP  25  Oil Puddle – Sticky 11 DC Dex check or restrained, Slippery 11 DC Dex check or fall prone. Rift transports them 30 feet away, they can attack through it.  Climb 30 feet.

Gazebo One

The purple stones lead to a tiny Gazebo, where a Sprite lives.  The Sprite's name is Brigid.  She greets the players in Sylvan and asks if they are friends of Faedra.  To the denizens of the Feywild, she only showed up one year ago.

Her story is sad, and just one more example of the evil of Mahone. Mahone is a Redcap, who was born when an elf was murdered by a human settler of Moonglade.  And now he lures humans to their deaths through the portal, and spreads the curse to kill their lands.

Faedra was just the latest victim of his dream magic and now she is asleep, her blood drained to keep Mahone alive.  The Curse comes from a magic pumpkin Mahone grew.  It must be destroyed to cure the land of Moonglade and close the gate.   Brigid vows to lead the PCs to Mahone's layer and to where he is keeping Faedra.  

Brigid

AC 15  HP 4 AT Shortbow + 6 To hit, DMG 1, DC 10 Save or fall Asleep.   Invisible at will.

Gazebo Two

If the PCs follow Brigid through the woods, they will reach another, large Gazebo, with a fireplace, where three Satyrs pull on a jug of wine and smoke pungent herb.  Faedra's body lies in the Gazebo, unconscious, with her blood being drained by series of tubes into a carved wooden jug.

One Satyr has pipes and will use them to put the PCs to Sleep.  If that doesn't work, he will try to frighten them.  The other two will attack.  If any die, the third runs off to warn Mahone.  

3 Satyrs

AC 14   HP 31  AT + 5 to hit, 1d6 + 3 Shortsword/Shortbow DMG  XP 100   Spells – Pipes – Charm/Fear/Lullably DC 13 Wisdom Check.

Faedra comes to, but she is in a weakened and vulnerable state.  She can't believe what she's done, and cries.  She was so sure the Feywild would be wonderful and Mahone played on her just-out-of college naivete.  She needs to rest and Brigid vows to get her to safety. Faedra is a level 6 Wizard and appears to be 25 years old.  She is a short, pretty redhead.  If necessary, Brigid can hide the PCs long enough to take a Long Rest.

Mahone's Gazebo

Mahone is a horrible Redcap who sits in a hammock, eating Wild Boar from plates that are brought to him by the last 2 Boggles if the players have not killed them all by now.  He has a large gazebo with a firepit, a bar, and a chest of his belongings.   The vines that have saturated Moonglade emanate from a nasty misshapen pumpkin that sits in his gazebo.  If the PCs destroy it, the portal to the Feywild will close and they will be sucked back to Oerth.

Mahone tells the players that he needs blood to soak his magical hat every three days, so if they have taken his blood supply, theirs will have to do.  With that, he and the Boggles attack!

Encounter Eight

Mahone, Redcap of the Feywild

AC 13  HP 45 AT 3 To hit + 6 Sickle 2d4 + 4 DMG OR 1attack in which he runs up to a PC and attacks with his iron boots, DC 14 Dex check or take 3d10 + 4.  XP 700  

Last 2 Boggles

AC 14  HP 18 AT  + 1, 1d6 -1 DMG  XP  25  Oil Puddle – Sticky 11 DC Dex check or restrained, Slippery 11 DC Dex check or fall prone. Rift transports them 30 feet away, they can attack through it.  Climb 30 feet.

The Redcap has a treasure horde which includes a bagpipe of elven design worth 35 GP, 6 10 GP gems, 85 sp, and a Dark Shard Amulet, which allows warlocks to cast a cantrip they don't know once per day on a DC 10 Int check.

Total XP for the Adventure is 4320, or 1080 per PC in party of four.

When the players destroy the pumpkin, they blink back into the empty third floor of Moonglade Spire.  Upon exiting the Tower, they find that the countryside has gone back to normal.  When they leave the tower they find a crowd of Furyondy's peasants, including Brod and his family and any of the Moonglade Militia that are still alive cheering as they exit the tower.  They have lifted the curse and now the villagers can farm on the land that was once blighted.  Faedra is in a daze, and will accompany the PC's to the Boarding Barn.  She wishes to never see Moonglade Spire again, and will load a wagon with her remaining posessions and set out for the Great Kingdom to see what may be done about her former home.  She is not high enough level to cast anti-magic shell. She is grateful to the PCs for saving her life, and only asks for items with sentimental value to be returned (if the Quicklings didn't get them.)

Upon return to Cardyn's Cove, Segrius will listen in amazement to the tale of the PCs.  He will offer to purchase the Hat of Wizardry if the PCs don't give it back to Faedra.  He will also purchase any other items they don't want.  He will then give them a Wizard's Writ, and tell them that the Bazaar for the first time will be open to wizards from allied nations like Veluna, Greyhawk, Dyvers, Verbobonc, Celene, and Highfolk.  He gives them the location, a Fairgrounds created by magic.

New Magic Items

Moving Painting (minor, common)

This magical painting records an animated scene that plays on a ten second to two minute loop like an Instagram video.  The scene plays in perpetuity unless the painting is somehow destroyed.

[the-phyrexian-is-a-part-timer]

Fanwalker Bio: Xelos Vekka (re-cont.)

Part three in something that was just supposed to be one post. Oh boy.

As Xelos and the others on the ship fall, he notices the island in it’s entirety. The entire back and sides are blocked by a mountain range, leaving the only beaches on the side they were coming to. The rest of the island his a heavy jungle. The shape is not unlike a stretched crescent. The crew, and the ship following, land far into the jungle. While most are dead, injured, or incapacitated, Xelos, Ampelio, and 5 others survive mostly unscathed. Almost immediately they are surrounded. One all sides and up in the trees, elves with weapons are posted and ready. Immediately, the only commanding officer starts a fire with a flash of magic and Xelos using his own makes it surround the party on all but one escape to give them cover. After brief skirmish and a interparty discussion, all besides the officer give up. They are taken to the elves wooden citadel, a huge tree woven with magic to create a nigh impenetrable building. All of them are thrown in the prison. While trying to figure out a way to escape, one of the other survivors who was not captured comes and convinces the elves to let them free, but with some stipulations. The first is that they may never enter the forest thicket again, only to take the main trails on the island. The second is to investigate whatever made that shockwave that destroyed the invasion fleet. They are to report back within a week or all the survivors will be no more. As all agree, they are let free and are escorted out of the forest and towards the beach, from there they try to make plans and see what the others can do.

There were only 4 others besides Xelos and Ampelio who were capable and willing to start looking for the cause of their misfortune(besides their country). Bojack was a half-horse half-man who can “hear the trees” and see the flow of magic. Vee was a dark-elf practised in canetimancy, the magic to subtly influence others with sound. Ulfgar was a dwarven soldier before the civil war who sided with the opposition. Percival was a beginning apprentice to a magical entity who still has ties to the magic his master wields.

With help from Bojack and Percival, the group heads towards their best guess at what it may be, some large magical energy off towards the west side of the island. As they get to a cave entrance, they are attacked by a griffin. The battle is fierce, as the griffin is both large and resistant to the magic thrown against it. After Ulfgar is able to land a substantial blow, the officer from before shows up. His armor is missing in places and he is bleeding but alive. The griffin, seemingly furious at Ulfgar but unable to retaliate, kills the officer and leaves.

No one mourns him.

They enter the cave where deep within they find a magical gem. They take it and hurry back to the citadel to report their findings. Apparently that gem, when they found it, stopped masking another strong source of magic that is on the island. As they are given more time to gather the next source, it too was guarded by a magic creature and was again a gem, this time a different color. This process continues until they have 6 gems, all the colors of the primary and secondary colors. The last one they uncover also leads the reveal of another source of power on the island, one far more powerful than the rest. As they go to it, it leads them on a hike into the mountains to a hidden grove with a mansion in it. They use the gems to open the gate to allow them to enter the mansion and its surroundings. While exploring the outside, they come across a fountain with 7 notches it it. Percival and Xelos study it and determine that 6 of the notches are for the gems and the last one is for some sphere like object. They leave it alone, as Bojack says that it is not the source of the magic. They enter the mansion and Bojack continues to lead them through. They enter a room and almost immediately the door behind slams shut. In front of them is an female elf dressed in hooded robes and carrying a large staff with a white orb on the end. The elf demands to know why they are there and who sent them, questioning them on their actions during their stay on the island. Seemingly frustrated because they didn’t tell her what she wanted, she goes to kill them. Using magic reversed engineered from their previous captors to subdue spellcasters, the party stabs into her little pieces of sigiled metal to hopefully bring her down. It does, but not to the extent they were hoping for. The aftermath of the battle is brutal. Everyone in the group is beaten and scarred, Percival succumbing to his wounds. The room they were in is fried, water logged, and frozen. The sorceress, her name never known to them, a mess of blood and flesh with bits of metal sticking into her entire front in part thanks to Xelos. They take their time returning to the citadel. Explaining the situation and the events that transpired, the elves say their servitude is over. When asked about the gems, though, the group says they are nothing more than a way to mask and redirect the magical energy the magician in the mansion had. The group returns to the mansion and places the gems and the orb in the right place in the fountain. Nothing sees to happen inside the mansion grounds. Outside, though, the entire scenery changes. 

They are in a different sort of woods than before, in a different climate even. They check their surroundings and see a road heading off from in front of the mansion towards a town far away. The group checks the mansion again to see if anything else had changed, but nothing has. As they explore the mansion more, the find a chest withing a bird cage in the lower levels.  Wanting to know what’s inside, they open it up only to unleash a smoking bat like demon out which starts heading towards the town. The chase after it and try to fend it away from the town. Water, it seems clears the smoke away from it’s body, allowing things to hit it for a short time until it “regrows”. Not knowing any aquamancy, they check the town to see if anyone does. In the bar, they meet an aquamancer by the name of Solty who claims to be a decendant of a water god. Seemingly a bit unstable, but still their only chance, they recruit him to hunt down the beast. After about of month of tracking, helped greatly by Bojack, they ambush it and lead the demon to a river. There, they destroy it.

For about a year, the party continues to help out the town and try to find out how the fountain works. One day, after a string of kidnappings causes Ampelio to go missing, the party directly intervenes with strong suggestion from Xelos. Bojack lead them to a cave system with a pool of water at the end. Sensing the presence of something big and evil, Bojack warns the rest of the party. Solty and Xelos combine their energies to purify the water before they continue. After a few moments, a large centipede like being crashes out of the water. It runs past the group, obviously trying to escape out of the water as it scalds the creature. Xelos uses his sword and plunges it through the monster, keeping it pinned with its body still partially submerged. The group quickly makes work of the abomination and start exploring the pool. They soon find a underwater tunnel leading to a cavern where the creature had made its nest. Among the things in their is a pile of body parts and gear. Among the roughage, Xelos finds his son’s gear and a few of his scales. At age 40, Xelos mourns the loss of his son.

The trek back to the village and then home is all a blur. The staking of Ampelios’ grave is crystal clear. The next two month, though, are an indecipherable haze of alcohol. When Xelos finally becomes sober, he realizes he’s on a boat. The rest of the group is with him, with a new companion. Apparently, the mansion was burned down and the group recruited a gnome mechanist and wizard to help them figure out the gems. He has been tagging along, apparently. The group is just escorting him home now. When they get there, the gnome turns heel and seals them all in a chamber. He tries to sacrifice them in a ritual to gain power, sending his robotic minions to subdue them. The destroy the minions, and capture the gnome only for the room to quake and heave. The room splits in two and lava starts pooling at the bottom of it. Desperate, they free the gnome and work to dig themselves out of the cavern. In the calamity, Ulfgar loses a leg and a few toes and Vee an eye. Taking as many people as they can, they board their boat and sail away from the erupting island.

With the gnome now a servant. Xelos begins to force him to make replacement limbs for the injured. He also starts forcing the gnome to give him tutelage into the darker arts of magic. As the voyage progresses, Xelos starts treating the injuries of other with less sympathy and more experimentation. He works towards finding some semblance of immortality so he loses no one again. The gnome, seeing his progress, gives his most into the work, delighted to have another doing work like his. They group, after going through a storm and fighting off a sea monster, find an island in the center of said storm. Going onto it, they find a cave system with signs of civilization. In it, they end up finding another mansion hidden withing a large chamber. It’s identical to the first, except it seems to be more of an empty shell. They try the fountain out at this one and are transported to a city. Within a few hours, the “Queen” of the city comes to their mansion and puts it under seige. After taking care of her guards, she is all that remains. It seems, though, she is a sorcerer just like the elf from before. Projectiles are of no use against her, magic barely effects her. To stall time, the gnome uses a spell that phases her out of existence for a while. The group then makes a plan. Using the same anti-magic sigils from the first time around with a few added features, they make a binding circle to lower her resistances. When she phases back, the circle seals her and they use a spell to polymorph her into a chicken, which they kill. A large amount of energy is released when they do, and her mortal form returns to normal. They see an orb on her body that resembles the white orb but it’s black. Grabbing it, Bojack starts energizing. To try and save him, everybody else in the party grabs onto the orb to divert the current of energy. What ends up happening, though, is a huge explosion of energy and they all die.

Well, technically.

When the light fades they are beings of pure energy. None of them knows how much time passes, for they have lost the concept of it. Their bodies are as amorphous as thought and they drift in emptiness. Some time later they all feel a tug, they are being pulled back to mortal form. It takes years, something they are now becoming knowledgeable on again, before they return.

When they do, they are naked and the party is split, with some in an area wet and some in a desert. When they meet up, they realize two things. The first is the form they had in the ethereal state is the form they came back in. Xelos himself resembled a taller version of his younger self, with an extra thumb on each hand opposite from the first. Vee became and the gnome became more human-ish women. Ulfgar became a giant. Solty remained the same. The second thing they realized is that they can’t feel magic. They met in an underground human settlement and thus go to the library to research what is with this place after they get dressed and reaquainted. Apparently 3000 years ago, the gods left. With them, most magic did too. The only magic that did work was the runes of the world, symbols that when you will power through them they work magic. It’s only used in basic thing nowdays, as most magic creature also died out and humanity had relied more on their scientific advancements. The humans come in contact(or raise) a race of buglike creatures. The bugs, while being more physically and martially  strong, protected the humans, the humans fed and took care of infrastructure for the bugs. This worked well until the humans found a way to fend for themselves and stopped providing for the bugs. Outraged, the bugs and humans raged war on each other until the humans were banished underground and the world above withered into dust. While researching into the runes and finding a place in this strange new world, the group hears a siren. Seeing soldiers run towards the outskirts of the city, they follow. This leads them to come face to face with the bugs. Large humanoid insects that look like a cross between a grasshopper and an ant. With martial prowess leagues ahead of the soldiers their, the group makes quick work of the intruders with nothing but staffs before more soldiers need to arrive. The group is taken before the high chairwoman of the human settlement. The party is amazed at what they see. Hanging around the neck of the chairwoman is the white orb. Eager to try and find out more about what happened to this world and how to “fix” it, they agree to join the human military to help destroy the last bug warcity.

Preparations are made. Two weeks of them getting accustomed to the new weaponry, technology, and trying to learn runes and about “life energy” is side by side with the entire human city seemingly packing up. At the end of two weeks, the human city rises out of the ground and starts walking towards the bug warcity. When they get close to it, they launch an attack. After boarding the bug city, they fight their way through the lower decks and into the engine rooms of it, melting them down one by one. After ransacking the bug city and killing all the ones aboard, Xelos take some of the bug eggs and smuggles them onto the human warcity. When they return, weird things start to happen.

During the night, they are ambushed by a faceless figure who dissolves when he dies. They keep getting followed and stalked by more of them, though when they look back to them faces appear. They find that everyone on their platoon who helped them with the bug attack has been murdered. Finding a rune in a book that helps with showing hidden things, they put on glasses treated with the rune and see the faceless are everywhere. Trying to act nonchalant about it, they go to the chief guardsman of the city try and get someone to help. Unfortunately, he’s in on it and they have to escape the police station and hide in the lower levels of the city. They play a little guerrilla warfare against the faceless to no avail. Finally, in one all out attempt to do some good out of all of it, they plan to escape the city with the chairwoman. Xelos sets up the bug eggs he got in one of the artificial habitats on the city and they go for the plan. It immediately backfires, as she is in on it too. They narrowly escape the city and head in a sandsailer towards a structure in the distance. It leads to an abandoned city that has fresh vegetation, if not rude. They find a house with a tunnel in it and start trekking through the tunnel. Eventually they hear a roar. Barreling towards them is a huge wurm. Knowing they are going to die, with no way to stop the wurm, Xelos throws some canisters of flammable gas and poisonous gas towards the gaping maw of the wurm and shoots it. In the fireball that kills the wurm, his spark ignites and he planeswalks away.

Wow, really going to make this four parts. Ok then, tomorrow definitely the final part. Goodnight

[mythicnoir]

The Scourge of Verdune, and a treatise on Devils

Runaway, Session 8.

After burning the curse-ridden greatwood and meeting the Crimson Bat herself, Thunderclan made use of Freesia's plant teleportation ability and found themselves at the centaur's Judgement Hall, where they delivered the sad news about one of the centaurs lost in the battle. The centaur Fenn allowed Thunderclan some rest and said that, despite everything, there were no hard feelings between the parties.

There was debate about what could be done about Orlane or Verdune, and which place seemed to be in greater danger. The consensus among the party seemed to be that Verdune was in confirmed danger of the Crimson Bat, while Orlane remained safe for all they knew.

The party hit the waters of Lake Verdune with their folding boat heading for the mercenary city. As they began the days-long trip to Verdune, wind and shadow flew over the boat. The Crimson Bat, in her monstrous form, flew over the party and toward the city. The party was not fast enough to get to Verdune first.

Salty Martine used her new spells to communicate with the fleeing ships on their route toward the city. As Thunderclan docked, they sized up what they knew. They knew the place had a large mercenary presence, being effectively ruled by the immortal warlord Vander Coil. Of note was the danger, however. Legions of devils and Crimson Cultists laying waste to the village. The bat, it seemed, had her eyes set on Vander and the rest of the Republicans of Ludum. The party settled on heading directly toward the manor Vander Coil called home.

The streets were largely bare and abandoned, but in the midst of their journey, the adventurers spotted a group of cultists and a horrid giant white insect-like creature monitoring some mercenaries in shackles. Failing to sneak or act deliberately, the party was caught and responded violently. Using the layout of the streets and buildings, the party was able to avoid dealing with the greater forces of the cultists, and killed some of the cultists. The cultists did not have the morale to fight against overwhelming odds, and so attempted to escape, but at the final moments, the druids of the Black Thicket tribe made good on their allegiance to Thunderclan and arrived to assist in freeing the captures (shapeshifted into bears, naturally).

(Some behind the scenes information: Though members of Thunderclan were allies of the Black Thicket Tribe, and assisted them before, Thunderclan did not come to the tribe's aid when they needed it most, which has impacted Elder Ragweed's mood and perspective.)

Friends, however, are still friends, and the Tribe are happy to inform the party of the situation. Four trolls of a strange nature are guarding Vander Coil's manor. None are certain of what lays within.

A carefully planned assault on the four trolls goes off well, with summoned creatures and the element of surprise playing to Thunderclan's favor.

Altogether the players and characters plan much better than they previously did, and thus the fight is more easily won despite the greater threat these enemies posed.

After much deliberation, the party carefully opens the doors to the manor. From the doorway they can simply see the Crimson Bat -- Carmesi -- in her humanoid form, calmly speaking with Vander Coil.

In lieu of recounting all the debates, temptations, attempted lies, doubts, and anxieties of the following conversation, I'll simply explain what a devil truly is.

There is no cosmic Evil or Good. The forces on earth do not battle in an epic struggle between Light and Darkness. Ludum, Yalda, and this game are full of love and beauty and morality, but it's not a moral LESSON that we're engaging in. People are acting on their motives, and when evil occurs, it occurs for plain and simple human(oid) reasons.

Devils are related to angels. And Carmesi is an erinyes, a messenger devil, one sent to communicate and understand, to tempt and seduce. Devils are simple and will give you what you need. Information is trivial. Gold is trivial. Beauty and power are trivial.

But devils will not harm the innocent or do your dirty work. They may guide you on the path, point you in the right direction, or pass you the blade, but all the while they may not truly want it. Devils don't kill people, at least they're not supposed to (yet another sign that Carmesi is not standard). They tempt you. They are here to discover the darker things that lurk within you and prod you for weaknesses, to see if you will resist.

Because people give in to temptation so easily, and turn to evil constantly, devils are cynical, and since the Waking World was abandoned by its creator (the Orphaner), devils are often without purpose and behave aimlessly, or going rogue.

Devils are inquisitive and curious. "Temptation" is a strange day job, because it's open-ended and there's nobody to monitor how you do it. Rogue devils take advantage of this, becoming rebellious and seeking new goals of their own -- world domination, a relationship with another creature, lazy days. A rogue devil can defend any behavior with another web of deceit or calling their behavior an elaborate temptation scheme for the world at large.

Carmesi is cynical, and tells truths and lies. There's no need to recount what she told that was true and what was a lie. Here is the critical information, though.

Vander Coil 'sold out' her revolutionary allies for the secret that could enable her to die.

Equuarion never turned her offers down.

When it came to it, Freesia refused to let anyone in Thunderclan, even Equuarion, sell their soul.

The encounter turned to violence in enough time, and the party are relieved to find that Vander Coil is not entirely won over by Carmesi.

Carmesi is tricky. She had a variety of tools and trinkets that she put to use within seconds. A curse placed on Equuarion that turned one of his lungs to stone. A potion swallowed in a rush. The panic begins to set in for Thunderclan as they realize they're in for something horrible.

The fight rages on. Carmesi's fingers turn to sleek black claws and she hurriedly tears her own ribcage apart, her body horridly morphing into a gigantic bat-like monstrosity. The claws come out, the wings beat heavily. The party are swinging, chasing her around the hall. Throughout the whole battle, a single black bead floats through Carmesi's chest, and hovers around her head.

Carmesi vomits a cloud of smoke that chokes and kills some of the Black Thicket Tribe. The battle is turning bloody, and Carmesi is preparing to deliver her final trick -- the black bead, the Sphere of Annihilation.

Salty Martine, now trained as a wizard, recognizes that Carmesi is controlling the sphere mentally, and attempts to contest her. The two wage a psychic tug-of-war that Carmesi wins, activating the Sphere.

(Like this but black.)

Black harpoons of antimatter shoot through the hall, piercing many and embedding themselves in the manor's structure. The sphere spins, tearing the manor to shreds.

Carmesi floats above the wreckage, shifting back to her humanoid form. Bloodied, lacerated, and exhausted, she looks to the sky. A newcomer rides the wind toward the battle. A deep violet dragon, strangely bipedal, with pristine scales and white fangs, settles atop a half-destroyed wall.

"Ah, you ignorant slaves. Finally taken notice, have you? Of the beauty of my beloved nation... but I will not give it up so easily."

King Ezra, the violet dragon, reaches out with his mighty jaws and delivers the killing blow on Carmesi, who falls to the ground, shocked.

"I have no use for you now," drawls the returned king of Ludum.

Something catches Ezra's attention. He looks to the sky. "Ludwig? Where have you gone? Are you hiding from me? You were born a child of dragons, what could you possibly have to fear?"

The king takes off, leaving Thunderclan in a burning city, horribly wounded, unsure of their allies loyalty or the path ahead.

Next time, the adventurers must find their missing revolutionary friends, and seek the next step.