#antilife

[drscribblesmusic]

Alfred's Heartbreaking Decision to END Batman's suffering

[falling6in6the6black]

[roxasdice]

Believe Nothing

[metaphysicalpistolsoraclemine]

Indigoangel222 & The Cube Core of Saturns Template & Influence.

[realsparrowboy]

Friendly reminder to stop being pro choice! By giving people the choice to keep their baby you’re actively keeping food out of the mouthes of me and many other hungry flesh eaters that need to build their stockpiles for the first harvest this century!

[ratatatastic]

wind in his mane, going from a canter to a trot, what a majestic horse that is

florida panthers @ new york rangers game 2 | 5.24.24

[catgirl-space-jesus]

anyway i want to think about something other than ableist slurs. god i love abortion

[mastercontrol123]

[the-griffons-saddlebag]

🛡 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺! Aegis Grimoire
Armor (shield), very rare (requires attunement by a wizard) ___ This leather shield looks like a leather-bound book with brass fixtures. You’re considered proficient with this shield while you’re attuned to it. The shield has 5 charges and regains 1d4 + 1 expended charges daily at dawn. 𝙎𝙥𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙨. While holding this shield, you can use a bonus action to expend 1 or more of its charges to cast one of the following spells from it: “antilife shell” (4 charges), “mage armor” (1 charge), or “protection from energy” (2 charges). When you cast this version of “mage armor” on yourself, it also reduces the damage you take from spells by half. 𝙎𝙥𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝘼𝙗𝙨𝙤𝙧𝙗. While holding this shield, you can use a reaction when you make a saving throw against a spell cast by a hostile creature to expend any number of charges from the shield. For each expended charge, you gain a +2 bonus to the saving throw. You can decide to use this reaction after making the saving throw, but before the GM says whether the roll succeeds or fails. If the number of expended charges was greater than or equal to the level of the spell, you automatically succeed on the saving throw, and the shield’s cover flings itself open to reveal the large pages behind it. When this happens, the spell is inscribed in the shield’s pages using a magical cipher that can’t be understood or transcribed, and the cover slams back shut. The spell remains inscribed until you finish a long rest, until you inscribe a different spell with this property, or until you cast the spell from the shield using its normal casting time (no charges required); the cover flings itself back open when the spell is cast from the shield, and the paper becomes blank once more. Otherwise, the book remains closed and can’t be opened. The spell is cast from the shield at the same level in which it was originally cast, and it uses your spell save DC, spell attack bonus, and spellcasting ability modifier. ___ ✨ Patrons get huge perks! Access this and hundreds of other item cards, art files, and compendium entries when you support The Griffon's Saddlebag on Patreon for less than $10 a month!

[raeynbowboi]

How to Play the Ultimate Dark Mage in DnD 5e

With Halloween right around the corner, I thought I'd delve into an idea I don't see talked about very much: building the ultimate black mage in DnD. For this build, we're not trying to be the best necromancer, or the best damage dealer. What we want is to find the build that grants us the widest arsenal of as many dark magical powers as possible. In order to give the Sorcerer a fair chance, we're going to homebrew to grant the Sorcerer 25 spells known instead of 15, otherwise there's no chance the Sorcerer is going to win.

DARK MAGIC SPELL LIST

NECROMANCY False Life (Artificer, Sorcerer, Warlock*, Wizard, Death Cleric, Grave Cleric) Animate Dead (Cleric, Warlock*, Wizard, Oathbreaker Paladin) Speak with Dead (Bard, Cleric, Wizard, Undead Warlock, Undying Warlock) Spirit Shroud (Cleric, Paladin, Warlock, Wizard) Summon Undead (Warlock, Wizard) Summon Warrior Spirit (sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Death Ward (Cleric, Paladin, Undead Warlock, Undying Warlock, Alchemist Artificer) Spirit of Death (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Antilife Shield (Druid, Death Cleric, Grave Cleric, Undead Warlock) Danse Macabre (Warlock, Wizard) Create Undead (Cleric, Warlock, Wizard) Soul Cage (Warlock, Wizard) Clone (Wizard)

NECROTIC DAMAGE Chill Touch (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Toll the Dead (Cleric, Warlock, Wizard) Inflict Wounds (Cleric, Oathbreaker Paladin) Wither and Bloom (Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard) Vampiric Touch (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Death Cleric, Grave Cleric) Blight (Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Death Cleric, Grave Cleric, Oathbreaker Paladin, Alchemist Artificer) Destructive Wave (Paladin, Tempest Cleric) Enervation (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Negative Energy Flood (Warlock, Wizard) Circle of Death (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Finger of Death (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Symbol (Bard, Cleric, Druid, Wizard) Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting (Sorcerer, Wizard) Power Word: Kill (Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard)

SHADOW MAGIC Darkness (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Land (Swamp) Druid, Oathbreaker Paladin) Shadow Blade (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Summon Shadowspawn (Warlock, Wizard) Shadow of Moil (Warlock) Maddening Darkness (Warlock, Wizard)

PESTILENCE Acid Splash (Artificer, Sorcerer, Wizard) Poison Spray (Artificer, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Ray of Sickness (Sorcerer, Wizard, Death Cleric, Alchemist Artificer) Tasha's Caustic Brew (Artificer, Sorcerer, Wizard) Blindness/Deafness (Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Wizard, Spores Druid, Fiend Warlock, Undead Warlock, Undying Warlock) Melf's Acid Arrow (Wizard, Land (Swamp) Druid, Alchemist Artificer) Ray of Enfeeblement (Warlock, Wizard, Death Cleric, Grave Cleric) Stinking Cloud (Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard, Land (Swamp, Underdark) Druid, Fiend Warlock) Sickening Radiance (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Vitriolic Sphere (Sorcerer, Wizard) Cloudkill (Sorcerer, Wizard, Alchemist Artificer, Death Cleric, Land (Underdark) Druid, Spores Druid, Conquest Paladin, Undead Warlock) Contagion (Cleric, Druid, Oathbreaker Paladin, Undying Warlock) Disintegrate (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Harm (Cleric, Druid)

FIENDISH MAGIC Hellish Rebuke (Warlock, Oathbreaker Paladin) Spirit Guardians (Cleric, Crown Paladin) Summon Lesser Demons (Warlock, Wizard) Summon Greater Demon (Warlock, Wizard) Infernal Calling (Warlock, Wizard) Planar Binding (Bard, Cleric, Druid, Wizard) Summon Fiend (Warlock, Wizard) Planar Ally (Cleric) Tasha's Otherworldly Guise (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard)

ELDRITCH MAGIC Eldritch Blast (Warlock) Arms of Hadar (Warlock) Hunger of Hadar (Warlock) Edvard's Black Tentacles (Wizard, Great Old One Warlock)

CURSES & EVIL Infestation (Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Bane (Bard, Cleric, Warlock*, Vengeance Paladin) Hex (Warlock) Tasha's Hideous Laughter (Bard, Wizard, Great Old One Warlock) Bestow Curse (Bard, Cleric, Wizard, Conquest Paladin, Oathbreaker Paladin) Dispel Evil & Good (Cleric, Paladin) Hallow (Cleric, Fiend Warlock) Insect Plague (Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer) Eyebite (Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Flesh to Stone (Warlock, Wizard) Power Word: Pain (Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard)

MIND GAMES & NIGHTMARES Mind Sliver (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Cause Fear (Warlock, Wizard) Dissonant Whispers (Bard, Great Old One Warlock) Silvery Barbs (Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard) Crown of Madness (Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Oathbreaker Paladin) Tasha's Mind Whip (Sorcerer, Wizard) Antagonize (Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Enemies Abound (Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Fear (Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Conquest Paladin) Phantasmal Killer (Wizard, Hexblade Warlock, Genie Warlock) Dream (Bard, Warlock, Wizard, Land (Grassland) Druid) Dominate Person (Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard, Order Cleric, Trickery Cleric, Conquest Paladin, Oathbreaker Paladin, Archfey Warlock, Great Old One Warlock) Modify Memory (Bard, Wizard, Trickery Cleric) Synaptic Static (Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Mental Prison (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Dominate Monster (Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) Feeblemind (Bard, Druid, Warlock, Wizard) Weird (Warlock, Wizard)

BEST CLASS FOR DARK MAGIC

BARD Necromancy: 1 Necrotic Damage: 1 Shadow Magic: 0 Pestilence: 2 Fiendish Magic: 1 Eldritch Magic: 0 Curses & Evil: 5 Mind Games & Nightmares: 10 Total: 20 + Magical Secrets (4-6)

CLERIC Necromancy: 5, 7 (Death & Grave) Necrotic Damage: 3, 5 (Death & Grave), 4 (Tempest) Shadow Magic: 0 Pestilence: 3, 6 (Death), 4 (Grave) Fiendish Magic: 3 Eldritch Magic: 0 Curses & Evil: 5 Mind Games & Nightmares: 0, 2 (Trickery), 1 (Order) Total: 19 Death: 26 Grave: 24 Trickery: 21

DRUID Necromancy: 1, 2 (Spores) Necrotic Damage: 3 Shadow Magic: 0 Pestilence: 3, 5 (Spores), 5 Land (Swamp), 5 Land (Underdark) Fiendish Magic: 0 Eldritch Magic: 0 Curses & Evil: 1 Mind Games & Nightmares: 1, 2 Land (Grassland) Total: 9 Spores: 12 Land (Swamp): 11 Land (Underdark: 11

SORCERER Necromancy: 3 Necrotic Damage: 9 Shadow Magic: 2 Pestilence: 10 Fiendish Magic: 1 Eldritch Magic: 0 Curses & Evil: 4 Mind Games & Nightmares: 11 Total: 40

DIVINE SOUL SORCERER Necromancy: 8 Necrotic Damage: 12 Shadow Magic: 2 Pestilence: 12 Fiendish Magic: 4 Eldritch Magic: 0 Curses & Evil: 8 Mind Games & Nightmares: 11 Total: 57

WARLOCK Necromancy: 9, 12 (Undead) Necrotic Damage: 9 Shadow Magic: 5/5 Pestilence: 4, 6 (Fiend), 6 (Undead) Fiendish Magic: 6 Eldritch Magic: 3, 4/4 (Great Old One) Curses & Evil: 6, 7 (Fiend), 7 (Great Old One) Mind Games & Nightmares: 12, 14 (Great Old One) Total: 54 Fiend: 57 Great Old One: 58 Undead: 59

WIZARD Necromancy: 11 Necrotic Damage: 12 Shadow Magic: 4 Pestilence: 11 Fiendish Magic: 6 Eldritch Magic: 0 Curses & Evil: 6 Mind Games & Nightmares: 17 Total: 67

Not only does Wizard come out on top with an impressive 67 dark magic spells, it is the only class that can learn all 67 spells. The Warlock learns 15 spells and 4 Mystic Arcanum, plus a few more through Eldritch Invocations, Clerics prepare level + WIS so they'll never prepare more than 25, and we had to cheat to give the Divine Soul Sorcerer 25 spells, or else it only gets a measly 15 spells plus one spell based on the alignment of your divine bloodline. We're also cheating a little with the mind games and nightmares category as while mental manipulation is scary and evil, it isn't necessarily the stereotypical evil one invokes with a dark mage. Although Wizard is the clear winner, it's worth pointing out certain interesting data. The Undead Warlock is the master of Necromancy, with the Wizard close behind at 11, separated only by access to Death Ward. Warlock is also the master of Shadow Magic and Eldritch Magic, but that's kind of the Warlock's whole shtick. The Divine Soul Sorcerer is the master of Pestilence magic, making it a great fit for a Plague Doctor type character, as well as Curses & Evil magic, narrowly beating out the Fiend Warlock. The Wizard is the clear master of Mind Games & Nightmares, and the Wizard and Divine Soul Sorcerer are tied at using Necrotic Damage spells. Wizard and Warlock are evenly matched at wielding Fiendish Magic. While the Bard is pretty much restricted to curses and mind games, it is possible to build a bard that uses exclusively dark magic. They just won't be the greatest dark mage of all time. In terms of who wins the most categories, the Divine Soul Sorcerer wins Pestilence, Curses & Evil, and ties for Necrotic Damage. Without considering subclasses, however, Wizard wins Necromancy, Mind Games & Nightmares, and ties for both Fiendish Magic and Necrotic Damage.

THE BUILD

There are a few good choices for race when building the ultimate dark mage. The Fallen Aasimar's Necrotic Shroud feature adds proficiency bonus Necrotic damage to every attack while the necrotic shroud is active. They also get darkvision and resistance to both necrotic and radiant damage. The Dhampir not only gets dark vision, it lets you stop breathing and make vampiric bite attacks to regain hit points. Reborn are even harder to kill, with advantage against poison, and disease, resistance to poison damage, and advantage on death saves, on top of not needing to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe. But they don't get dark vision. And of course, the Custom Lineage can give your dark mage 60 ft of darkvision, and any feat, letting them take feats like Magic Initiate, Resilient (CON), Shadow-Touched, Eldritch Adept, and more. Ultimately, I feel that the Fallen Aasimar and Reborn are the strongest candidates as they are innately dark and creepy, whereas the Custom Lineage can be made dark and creepy. We'll treat this build as a Fallen Aasimar mostly because Reborns don't get darkvision and that is a pretty huge hindrance. Otherwise, we'd go with Reborn.

Haunted One is the darkest background possible and is also the default background of The Dark Urge in Baldur's Gate 3. We're going to ignore the background's options in order to take Intimidation to bully our way through the campaign and religion to study burials and undead. Since we know we're going Wizard, we'll also pick up arcana to study magic and medicine to study the body, blood, bones, organs, and everything else. However, if you want a sneakier dark mage, you could also go with Deception and Persuasion from our background to maintain a personable façade.

WIZARD SCHOOL OF NECROMANCY

Of course, necromancy is our subclass of choice. The power to raise a stronger horde of undead and it not being tied to specifically Animate Dead does make the Necromancy Wizard pretty useful. And the Command Undead feature really makes the mastery of dark magic vibe feel earned. There is a case to be made for Evocation. The Overchannel feature that sacrifices HP for damage is very dark mage. However, one feature stacked against an entire subclass of dark magic is no real contest. So, we'll go with the School of Necromancy.

The School of Necromancy also has a feature called Grim Harvest, which heals the Necromancer any time they kill an enemy with a spell, and more-so if it was a Necromancy spell. The spells Wither and Bloom, Vampiric Touch, and Enervation each damage the target with Necrotic damage, then heal the caster by half the damage dealt. These two healing factors can stack, making these very useful spells, and Wither and Bloom and Vampiric Touch can be chosen as Signature Spell and Spell Mastery, giving your necromancer an unlimited use of a way to regain hit points, even if it's rather low. It's more effective as a means to patch oneself up between fights, killing a few squirrels or birds to regain hit points for no cost. A 1 level dip into Life Domain can not only give the Wizard Heavy Armor proficiency and access to the Inflict Wounds spell, it can also further boost the self-healing gained from these three vampiric necromancy spells. Although False Life is on the Wizard spell list, the Eldritch Invocation Fiendish Vigor can give your Wizard a way to spam False Life between every encounter, making them just a little less squishy.

SPELL LIST

C Chill Touch, Infestation, Mind Sliver, Poison Spray, Toll the Dead 1 Cause Fear, False Life, Ray of Sickness, Shield, Silvery Barbs, Tasha's Caustic Brew, Tasha's Hideous Laughter, 2 Blindness/Deafness, Crown of Madness, Darkness, Melf's Acid Arrow, Shadow Blade, Tasha's Mind Whip, Web, Wither & Bloom 3 Animate Dead, Antagonize, Bestow Curse, Enemies Abound, Fear, Speak with Dead, Spirit Shroud, Summon Lesser Demons, Summon Shadowspawn, Summon Undead, Summon Warrior Spirit, Vampiric Touch 4 Blight, Edvard's Black Tentacles, Phantasmal Killer, Sickening Radiance, Spirit of Death, Summon Greater Demon, Vitriolic Sphere 5 Cloudkill, Danse Macabre, Dominate Person, Dream, Enervation, Infernal Calling, Modify Memory, Negative Energy Flood, Planar Binding, Synaptic Static 6 Circle of Death, Create Undead, Disintegrate, Eyebite, Flesh to Stone, Mental Prison, Soul Cage, Summon Fiend, Tasha's Otherworldly Guise 7 Finger of Death, Power Word: Pain, Symbol, Tether Essence* 8 Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting, Clone, Dominate Monster, Feeblemind, Maddening Darkness 9 Imprisonment, Power Word: Kill, Weird

INFERNAL SOUL SORCERER

The Divine Soul Sorcerer did pretty well for itself, so I figured I'd give a 25 spell list known for the DSS as a little Halloween Treat.

C Acid Splash, Chill Touch, Infestation, Mind Sliver, Poison Spray, Toll the Dead 1 Bane, Inflict Wounds, False Life 2 Shadow Blade, Tasha's Mind Whip, Wither and Bloom 3 Animate Dead, Antagonize, Bestow Curse, Spirit Guardians, Vampiric Touch 4 Blight, Spirit of Death, Vitriolic Sphere 5 Cloudkill, Contagion, Enervation 6 Circle of Death, Create Undead, Disintegrate, Harm 7 Finger of Death, Symbol 8 Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting 9 Power Word: Kill

[purplerakath]

Current theories for who killed Maddie in School Spirits.

1. Xander - We never really investigated him, the teacher became suspect 1 because he was creepy and had a bunch of money he shouldn't have. So looping back to him still feels fair.

2. One of the non-Claire cheerleaders - Claire is too early to be the one who did it, BUT, if we show more of her idiot friends being not an idiot maybe they did it for or to Claire.

3. Mr. Martin - No human murderer explains why Maddie isn't a normal ghost. Why her memory is missing, or why Simon can see her. But if a ghost did it, well, that means the rules change.

Add to that his rules don't really seem to matter, and how the antilife society seems to be wrong about the other ghosts, he's a good suspect.

(Wrong in that the Theater Ghost is aware of her afterlife, she's just dedicated to her own death in an unhealthy way. And Dawn isn't trapped in 1972, she's fully embraced 2023. To such degree it weirds out the ghost clique.)

(...Band Ghosts are still weird though, no getting around that.)

[talenlee]

The Colonisation Of Hell

There’s this thing they call the Blood War. Sometimes they call it the battle of Doctrines. Maybe you’ve heard it called the Eternal Struggle, or the Lesser Evils, or in some rare cases the Tanar’ri policing action. It’s setting-relevant, it’s one of those seemingly iconic details of the planar cosmology that forms around all sorts of worlds.

art by Martina Lavrini on Artstation

Here I’d like to suggest that there’s another way you can handle this if you’re willing to challenge the idea of an inherently evil shape to the universe, and the idea that the world polarises around the fundamental ideas of law and chaos.

Conventionally as presented, the idea is that the universe has this like, primeval place for evil, this outside place full of demons and devils, and when given a chance to understand one another, evil takes the form of chaotic evil or lawful evil. These then look at one another and immediately hate each other. It makes sense. There’s a war between the Demons and the Devils, and those are fundamentally different things because one is lawful and one is chaotic. One is wild and thoughtless and free and just wants to destroy, one is the more refined, dignified kind of evil that wants to own cities and control populations and manipulate people.

One of them is, to a society that is lawful, the better class of evil. Or even just to a society that’s not considering itself proactively and aggressively anti-lawful, probably better. It’s the Invisible Bullets situation: Devils you can negotiate with, but Demons? Demons are untamed, they’re, wild, they’re madness. Demons are the hulking ones, the animalistic ones, the ones that just do whatever and don’t have a plan or a purpose. They’re not trying to impose some order here. The lore, the books, the established knowledge is very clear about how things work and it’s so common a form of expertise that there are veterans and recruits into this war from the Prime Material Plane.

Thing is, if you talk to a serious scholar on the subject, someone who researches the things by their own substance, Devils and Demons are the same thing. They’re not the same thing same thing, people like to talk about them as if they’re the same thing but they’re not inherent categories. Oh, the books say that they’re different categories and one of them is infinitely variable, all the chaotic entities in a great big bucket without hierarchy or relationships. Then the books say that the other side has nine layers of hell, and in those spaces a bunch of lords who all defer to one another and in the process the detail all treats it like everything you’re reading is inherent and obvious and categorically true to the plane they’re on.

It’s just not true.

It’s functionally true – Hell exists, and it’s connected to The Abyss. The Abyss is a spiralling space of hostile planar space that coils in and on itself and gives rise to these fundamentally hostile, antilife outsiders. There is a categorical structure to their space that makes ‘evil’ entites coalesce, and there are some signs that some kinds of people who die are somehow part of this ecosystem. The actual process of how souls transfer to the Hells is a matter for more debate, but setting aside that ‘people told me it was true’ is no way to conduct scientific research, that’s not important here. What’s important is that the Nine Hells are a nine-layered plane that somehow works like infinite spaces that are also of decreasing scale from one another, until the bottom layer and a throne. And that’s the place that tells people that actually, the Hells are structured in a fundamentally different way to the Abyss.

The Abyss is over there, endlessly chaotic and dangerous; the Hells are here, contained and limited and with a hierarchy. Between them there are the Grey Wastes where they do war. None of those places where the Devils are or their war with the Abyss are ‘really’ Hell, ‘really’ part of the Abyss. Right?

And that’s because the Devils have said as much.

In all the books and all the ways they enforce it with military force and torment and torture and words and the propaganda they export, the Devils say that this is how Hell works.

Devils are the Colonisers of Hell.

The entire nine-layer system, the organisation of Devils, the idea of the infinite engine of Devils is an entirely colonial empire, carved out of the Abyss. It is an order imposed and asserted and because of the fundamentally cruel and abusive nature of the people involved, there’s not a lot of interrogation about how they do it. Sure, the devils torture and connive and hurt one another to make sure they are all working together in the ‘proper’ way, so there’s very little way to involve them in conversations about whether or not things could or should be different.

Demons, the ‘chaotic’ outsiders, are those who just refuse the demands of the Devil hierarchy. The planar space of the Hells is its own place, but it’s just like all the other parts of the Abyss; a little chunk of planar space, that links mostly to other equally dangerous places.

Fortunately, because the Devils have an eternal war outside and can maintain something like a civilisation in the space of their own planar space, there’s always an urge, always a need to maintain the hellish demands of the War Machine that justifies the fascist culture they have.

But think about it: How do you know what plane you’re in when you arrive there? What’s the frame of reference? A place is defined by its signifiers, but any system of calibration that tells you Hell is outside the Abyss is always referring to a sort of universe-scale abstraction. Plus when the liars have printing presses and don’t die of natural causes, you have a lot of ways to build a consensus that so strongly resembles facts as to make no difference.

Devils have colonised hell and justified it in the name of constantly waging war on the Abyss from which they were wrought. It gives them a story, it puts them in charge, and nothing needs to change for any given setting based on whether or not this is true, except what you, the storyteller, care about it.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[burritowitch]

anita with the antilife equation

[aerikvon]

[nanananerd]

Someday, you'll realize that was you thought was love was only you looking in the other eyes and seeing your truth. It doesn't mean you can't love them, just that you need to open up to them the same way you opened up to yourself. Just be patient, learn to love yourself before loving someone else. Be thankful