#arabelle cos

[tantaliart]

redesigns be upon you (part 1)

I’m rerunning curse of strahd, so I thought I’d give all my (rather well known at this point :p) designs a refresh :D

[dark-twist-fairytales]

Another one: "Daylight" by David Kushner, in relation to him and Arabelle.

Clayton Azran angst potential: "Little Lion Man" by Mumford & Sons

[qusok]

@the-pale-chancellor this one is for you specifically

[anxresi]

A Short Zoe Rant Cos I Is Bored

The ONLY way Zoe would’ve been remotely acceptable in the show is if she’d been introduced MUCH earlier.

Like, the very first season.

Show her as a ‘counterpoint’ to Bully Chloe as one who is actually bullied, and how being raised in a completely different country & continent can influence one’s behavior & outlook.

Maybe she can have a few cameo scenes until she’s a full-time regular, show her chatting on the phone to her dad, sending letters to her sister etc.

Then, when she eventually DOES turn up later, give her more personality than ‘feel sorry for me, oh and btw I’m a lesbian’. Not everyone has to fall hard for her the minute she appears, and if you ARE going to make her a superhero, don’t give her the miraculous in her second ever episode!

And Mr Astruc wonders where these accusations of favoritism come from, when all this coincides with Chloe’s sudden descent from being a semi-complex character to a raving lunatic sociopath? Anyway…

Have Zoe perform some actual function in the show: like, give her a pivotal role in her sister’s redemption. Let her have some negative traits, apart from I-don’t know-how-special-I-truly-am (a common trait of badly written Mary Sues). Don’t let the finality of her character arc be a single pink streak in her hair(!) (talk about lack of ambition).

A few other ideas: Give her a girlfriend crush who ISN’T Marinette, because not everything has to revolve around Baker Girl. Quit putting words in the mouths of other characters how ‘perfect’ she is to manipulate and influence the young audience, it’s distracting and annoying.

Basically, the only thing I’d keep about her in her current incarnation are her shoes, which are pretty groovy TBH. Everything else can be ditched, including her name (Too close to ‘Chloe’ idk… I think something like ‘Arabelle’ would suit her) and design, (again, too similar to Baker Girl)

But, as anyone with half a brain cell would’ve figured out by now, she was only created as a flawless counterpoint to you-know-who so Mr Astruc and his lovable team of hacks wouldn’t have to do any real development on Chloe… they gave us a ready-made, blandly nicey-nice ‘cute’ replacement to just simper away in the background without doing anything of value and contributing the grand total of nothing to the dynamic of S4 onwards.

And seeing as how S4 is generally seen by a lot of people as the beginning of a steep decline in quality of the show, I guess she’s in good company.

Welcome to the dumpster fire, Zoe. We have cake! 🔥 🧁

[ladadee195]

I'm trying with all my heart to finish COS. and everyone including Avantris themselves always say its their favorite campaign and their favorite characters and how the ending was their favorite and I know why all those things are true. Sure. Its really really good but I've never seen ANYONE talk about how silly stupid it is how the entire party just goes along with Arabelle's shenanigans specially after certain events. this is why Nikkie knows she can get away with Twig's shenanigans cause they'll do anything for her cute little characters lol

[luna-the-cretar]

I am really glad i decided not to listen to the finale at work, because that last hour and a half had me sobbing like a baby. Like, there were tears. A campaign has never made me react so viscerally before, omg.

(CoS finale spoilers below)

Mikey, how fucking dare you. How DARE you make Sarnax, make me fall absolutely in love with him, and kill him off in such a beautiful manner. I knew it was coming, and I still found myself sobbing.

AND ARABELLE KNEW. SHE KNEW AND HE KNEW SHE KNEW. HE FUCKING TOLD HER NOT TO TELL ANYONE. I AM NOT OKAY.

Escher fucking adopting Ravenovia. I love them.

Listen, I cannot tell you how many times I said “don’t do that to me” and “stop it” while sobbing during Sarnax’s final monologue, but trust me when I saw it was a lot. I was doing so good at first, too, and then Sarnax started giving the toys. And then I heard everyone else’s voices waver. And then he said goodbye to Shepherd, AND MIKEY AND ANDY FUCKING HELD HANDS AND THEY WERE CRYING AND I WAS CRYING AND IM NOT OKAY.

AND THEN SARNAX GAVE SHEP FHE LANTERN AND THE LIGHT WENT OUT WHEN SARNAX DIED AND AND AND *incoherent sobbing*

Also Clayton drinking the tea and seeing blood instead of tea leaves. Yknow, when I toyed with the idea of Adella being an Azran, I wasn’t fully into the theory 100%, but now? Now I have a bit more of a latch onto the theory, given the same thing happened to Adella right before the masquerade in eom.

This post is everywhere but my thoughts are everywhere. I’m not okay. Brb gonna go cry for another 20 years.

[jadecantcreate]

100% agree that parts of Clayton’s othering are his own fault! And yeah, Sarnax def experienced the least amount of othering due to his upbringing in the cult.

Clayton is just such a damn complex character, you know of his ambitions ( reputation and acclaim being an extremely important thing in the Azran family) and we know of the horrors he’s seen and committed, but we also see how that guilt eats him up alive. How if he could, he would almost certainly change things.

But we also see the care he holds for others, how he adopts Arabelle without a second thought, how he does care for the others (even if he’s not the best at showing it via words)

I feel like, out of everyone, Clayton truly is the most human, representing both the good and the ugly, which is why I adore him.

clayton’s moral failings and his desire to do better (and how its often overpowered by his thirst for knowledge) is SO interesting, id watch a whole other campaign focused solely on his past and/or his future before/after the events of cos in a heartbeat

[moldwood]

CoS ask: 1, 3, 5, 7 (any or all :3)

oh goodie goodie all of them of course. gabbing incoming

How much of your campaign is RAW, how much is other people's homebrew, how much is your own homebrew?

it's actually almost all raw! i changed a few things for sensitivity issues (i can't dm the incest and racism in the module, and my players didn't want to have to play through it either so it worked out) but it was mostly just taken out. the exception are the belviews who can't just be taken out, so i made them be the survivors of the berez flood with their own reason for wanting body mods that my players don't know yet. still not the most normal folk, but the abbot does treat them kinder than in the module lol. the biggest thing i homebrewed was putting escher in vallaki because a player wanted a slowburn romance with a vampire who wasn't strahd, but don't worry he had a bad reason to be there and it hasn't been easy for them. other than that, it's almost all RAW, but not just what the module says, if that makes any sense? i did some extrapolating and connecting things to characters' backstories, but it's nothing that isn't at least implied in the text or that you can't connect some dots for (and. getting rid of the something blue. sergei's still there, ireena just doesn't do that. just because the module doesn't understand her narrative purpose frfr)

i use three homebrew things: the lunchbreak heroes VR's tower, as well as their idea of doing quests for the revenants to set them free (just tweaked to fit our storyline a bit more), and the interactive tome of strahd but i don't remember who made that one (but again changed to my liking)

OH lastly i also made arik talk. not much, and not saying anything of value, but it led to an iconic conversation where they were taking notes so i went "it's arik. with an a." and they nodded and were like "right a-r-i-c :) thank you" so i had to go "it's also spelt. with a k."

3. What did your players do with Doru?

it's a bit of a mystery to them exactly what happened after they left. one player convinced the party to leave him alive, and the vampire in the party gave donovan a little written note on how often he'll probably need to be fed. she had good intentions but it certainly changed how things are in barovia the village right now

5. What's the biggest curveball your players threw at you? Or just something wild/funny they did?

i was surprised by just how much they try to have minimal impact. i don't mean it in a negative way, they just really go through the world trying to keep the status quo exactly where it is with the reasoning that everything will get better when they kill strahd. they do good turns here and there for sidequests (the revenants, the martikovs, arabelle) but when it comes to big actionable things like vargas vs fiona, izek wanting to protect ireena, and the abbot, they try really hard to get everyone to just put everything on pause until strahd is dead

but for an actual curveball, they went back to the abbot to get lydia's dress at one point, and they pulled a rules lawyer move on him. "we didn't say how long we would let you borrow the dress for." the abbot as i play him could only just

and return the dress. he doesn't like them any more. they're bringing the dress back to him though after realizing it's probably a good idea to have someone who can cure all diseases and raise the dead on a whim on your side.

7. What's your named character death count so far? (Players, friendly NPCs, villains.)

surprisingly low! 5 iirc. one pc, one npc related to that pc (rue and mikael respectively), father lucien, lady wachter, and kiril. related to the previous answer i guess, my players really try to navigate as quietly as they can through the world, and those were just these situations that were unable to be dealt with without death. they didn't even kill the hags! (strahd was the one to kill lucien, to clarify. my players liked him)

[lexicals]

So I'm gonna write this down partially for my own reference and partially bc I'm curious to know what other dms following me think of the concept - curse of strahd module spoilers below the cut here

So long story short the CoS campaign I was running had to be put on hiatus because of inter-group issues, and at this point my plan is that once I've finished running our current pathfinder module, I want to reboot it minus the players that will not be returning for various reasons, and plus the new players that want to join from the pathfinder group.

Now obviously the rub here is that 2 of the 5 or so players have already played this module up to lv5, but the other 3 are coming in with varying levels of knowledge (one person has DMed it, but long enough ago that he doesn't remember most of it, plus a lot of the later sections I've got for this module are homebrew, and the other two know nothing about it other that what I and the other players have mentioned to them). I don't really like the idea of subbing in 2 or 3 new characters to the campaign halfway through, as this will be a completely new dynamic that they'll have to adjust to on the fly, as well as the new players having no context or attachment to anything that's happening, but nor would it be fair to the OG players to just slap them back to level 1 and have them try their best not to metagame.

So, I am thinking. What if I just groundhog day the whole party. They get reset back to the entrance of barovia, but retain all their levels and gear that they've picked up, and the NPCs that were travelling with them (Ireena and Arabelle, in this case). My in-universe justification for this is that one or both of the party members who will definitely not be returning fell prey to the temptations of the dark powers, and tried to kill either Ireena or each other, in order to earn themselves their own demiplane domain (they've just come out of a homebrew mini-domain, so this would be thematically appropriate I think). The third player who is currently a "maybe-depends-on-scheduling-but-probably-not" happens to be a paladin of lathander, so he (in his aspect as the morning lord) and the elven god of dusk whose name I cannot remember right now work together through her to perform an act of divine intervention that results in the reset, and can remove her from play if needed due to the impact of channelling that much divine power. This would be linked to postgame homebrew plans I had linked to a couple of players' backstories (unfortunately mostly the ones that are not returning, but what can you do) wherein shar aka mother night is amassing a cult in her name whose endgame goal is to summon a beast capable of destroying the moon and thus assassinating selune, who lathander & co are allied with. They know that if the cycle begins again with ireena's death/the party falling apart and strahd remains undefeated the party will not be able to leave barovia in order to combat what's happening on the material plane, and they can't afford the loss of time that would occur (I'm thinking it has to be this particular group for prophecy reasons or something idk about that yet lmao). The party get their reset with the warning that they cannot fail again.

This also means that I can justify a hike in difficulty by removing the influence of the morning lord and the sun itself from barovia, leaving shar and strahd more powerful as it becomes a very literal land of eternal night. Aside from that, my plan is to run everything mostly the same as before, with the hope that the old players will be able to have fun being allowed to selectively metagame with their knowledge of events, which they can share with the rest of the group, who also get to experience events they would otherwise have missed. It should mean we get through the content we've already covered fairly efficiently but with room for things to play out a little differently this time, whether that's fixing mistakes from last time or making new ones lol.

I think it's hopefully a fair solution but I would be really interested to hear what other people think about it; my main worry is that it won't have the intended effect and the old players will be bored while the new players feel swept along. Genuinely would love to know what other GMs or even just other players think of the concept!

[whattheeverlovingfuck]

Curse of Strahdanya ep 8

arabell is the best I love when little children are sweary and violent

Oh god are they going to fight the abbot? In my 3 campaigns playing COS I never fought the abbot. I never even knew he was a celestial

[prose-priest-potentate]

There's a lot of fun symbolism and a lot of fun looping plotlines in our cos game that I just totally fell in love with man.

MOST recent on my mind is Marileina and Arabelle as morbid little best friends - like yeah, on the surface it's two girls of similar ages who meet and have similar powers and attitudes and get along like a house on fire. Love that.

But also Mari as Strahd's heir and Arabelle with direct ties to Madam Eva sort of just inheriting a better version of that relationship where technically the Zarovich royal line, the legitimate line, is integrated into the Vistani people again by this friendship between the girls instead of dangling by the aging remnants of Eva's care for her bro. And then Viktor! GOD I hated him at first and he IS awful but he's grown on me. And deciding that he's not Vargas' legitimate son???? That Lydia cheated with a Vistani man? WILD. Vargas Vallakovich who is OBSESSED with legacy and image, with a fucked up heir who causes problems politically who isn't even HIS and an orphan he picked up specifically to groom as a knee-breaker who he treats like a dog but doesn't adopt -because Izek doesn't deserve to be part of the family can you imagine?? But Izek's the one whose loyal and Viktor ruins an important marriage alliance. I just love seeing Vargas lose.

and IZEK AND VIKTOR and their budding romancing KILL me. STAKE to my HEART the symbolism isn't lost.

Viktor who runs to Krezk and meets Vasilka and just thinks she's the most interesting girl in the entire world who adores the fact that she's this brutish amalgamation of dead bodies given life, and Vasilka who has rarely met someone who didn't recoil in disgust at her, a young lady who meets a young man and they try to run away together and make a little life?! Adorable! Precious! They're going to grow together and make each other better! Viktor will learn to love and see the value in the world, and Vasilka will get to follow her dreams of adventure and curiosity!

Izek who meets a beast of a man who gives him the time of day and specifically is friendly to him when so few people (none) are, so he runs away from his obligations to Vallakai on a paper thin excuse and starts chasing down a future he didn't even know was an option.

Both of them as cruel, obsessive, vicious sons of Vallakai who meet people who want to see them grow and be loved.

Izek, who leaves behind a place that has crafted him from something bad into something worse, who then has a chance at a happily ever after laid out in front of him on gilded tableware; he gets his little sister back, inherits a step-brother along with her, ends up with two or three unlikely and very annoying friends that adore him, and ultimately will 1.) get his soul and 2.) see even his sitting foster-ish-brother Viktor doing better and having a second chance too.

There's just an ENTIRE generation of young people set to inherit the ashes of the world and build it back up and it's beautiful and I love it and I always wanted them to turn into this extensive dysfunctional family where they don't always see each other but Viktor and Vasilka send Christmas cards, Mari and Arabelle get their own little spin-off of high school slice of life, and Izek and Ismark get to settle down in positions as noblemen and finally have some say in their own damn lives.

[dark-twist-fairytales]

(Lich Clayton was just a crack idea i had but now over the past few days chatting with you the idea has become much more concrete)

They all throw jabs at him, but then hug him as tightly as they can because they did miss him.

Yes- Clayton watching over them making sure they don't do stupid shit

Hes just watching one day, turns away for one second, turns back and his decendant is being way too curious and he just yells "no! dont do that dont do that!"

I like to think the afterlife kinda resembles their world. Clayton and Clara finding the clearing in the woods where they met for the first time and just laying down in the soft grass, holding and touching the other in ways they've both yearned for.

They also definitely find Arabelle and Emmy again, since Clayton has missed his daughters. Arabelle hits him hard in the shoulder before flinging herself onto him, Emmy doing the same, they missed their dad.

Him just going around to people he knew, meeting Vasha and the Martikovs again and being able to say their decendants are alive and thriving.

(This isn't the only au i have of Clayton, but I need to wait for yall to finish COS before I can say anything about it)

Clayton: "I will come back to life SPECIFICALLY to curse you out, stop it!"

Expedition 2.0: "I feel a disturbance in the force."

Him greeting everyone that he knew before and just letting them know he's around again is such a sweet thought. And Arabelle and Emmy throwing themselves at their father is a nice thought as well.

Oh! Plus, at that point, he'd probably see Ezmerelda and Van Richten again. Don't know why that popped to mind, probably from the thought of Ezmerelda cackling at Clayton being hit by both his daughters in an offended 'how dare you'.

FRHGJAS- Okay, I am literally minutes away from finishing season 1 of Uprooted, tomorrow I'm celebrating Christmas (yes, it'll be the 21st, but it's done like that on purpose. Most of our Christmas is clothes shopping when our dad's away anyway), but I have a strong feeling we're getting something that'll keep our hands busy. We'll start back on CoS, I have the fucking time jotted down. I want to finish this so damn badly, both to hear more about these AUs and thoughts, but also lore.

[utcpias]

          ⊹˚. ♡ ship ideas

hiii ! so i’ve got quite a few characters and i’d like to get some more shippy stuff going with them. under the read more is a basic outline of what i want / what character it relates to and if you’re interested at all pls just like and we can discuss what one you are interested in ! i’ll start crossing them off as they get filled and add when i come up with other ideas but these are the main ones currently. please be aware i will only offer m/f and f/f on the below characters. last updated on 25/04/23.

angie rhodes / choreographer: the father of her child coming back into her life... please. she’s a single mother but we could write how they came to having a child. maybe exes and angie found out she was pregnant after they broke up. this can definitely be fleshed out.

arabelle jang / actress: give me co-workers that are rumoured to be together and are trying so hard to not make the rumours true but their currently recording a rom-com and it’s long nights, lots of events and press together and resisting each other is just proving difficult. then when something happens it’s even harder to try and hide there’s something between them.

archie baek / premiership footballer: archie is definitely a player. every other week the media are speculating on who is his flavour of the week. maybe your muse is someone he is trying to go on a date with or something and they know about his reputation. thinking a lot of back and forth of archie trying to win the chase etc. but would ultimately end in him falling for your muse and throwing his player life out the window.

autumn prescott / con artist: would love someone who knew her before she was kicked out of her home and got into the business she is in now. maybe they are a customer of elijah’s and autumn finds it easy to research them because they were close in high school. this one probably needs to be more fleshed out but just thinking it’s her constantly trying to run away from them because she’s worried it could incriminate her but also not being able to stay away.

cartier im / socialite & heir: give him the only girl he’s ever loved. the one that got away. the only person that he ever cared about or would ever care about. thinking a chuck bass x blair waldorf situation where they’ve never been in the right place at the right time. a high school fling/relationship that he’s never been able to get over.

celeste jeong / solo artist: someone from her old company that she had a fling with when they were trainees and no one knew. now she’s on go agency she no longer has a dating ban and maybe they re-connect and things spark again!!! she’s got such bad memories of her old company but they’re the only thing that kept her there.

devon kochi / ice skater: ice skater x coach relationship please i am BEGGING. maybe they tried to stay away from each other for the sake of training but the long days and late nights took it’s toll on both of them and they’re now trying to hide their relationship from other skaters and the media.

enzo jeong / premiership footballer: please give enzo the stay at home wag. could have met when enzo was signing for his first premiership team. thinking someone whose own career was kicking off at the same time as him. maybe everyone said she only got with him at the time because he was coming into a lot of money from his contract but they proved everyone wrong and are still growing strong. probably a lot of rumours speculating in the media about if they have broken up or not when she’s just at a work event and he had to travel for a game etc. 

evan ortiz / producer: thinking it’s an artist he’s currently working with they sparked something up on the last project and now they’re back in each other company it’s started again and they’re trying to hide it from the media. stolen glances and touches at public events where only their closet friends know they’re an item

peony kang / songwriter: one of her elder siblings industry friends would be kinda fun… maybe she helps write for them as a favour to her sibling and they realise just how much chemistry they have but they’re both trying not to act on it or trying to keep it hidden from not only the public but from her family too.

rowen xiao / socialite: someone from little money that her parents don’t approve of. they want their only daughter to marry rich, if not richer, and create heirs for the family business. she wants to find love, not riches. would be a constant battle of being from different worlds but rowen does everything she can to be with them.

scout bailey / olympic swimmer: give me childhood/high school sweethearts that were forced to split because of his training. he just wasn’t around wasn’t present because all his energy went into the training but now he’s older and has a career he’s got time and they re-connect again. 

sutton lee / member of band: i want the person she wrote all the clover songs about whether it’s sad or happy. i want the turmoil relationship that gave clover their first wins, their first awards. i want her trying to stay away but not being able to and only getting hurt again cause the two can’t figure it out or it’s never the right timing. her playing the happy songs to them but writing the heart wrenching songs behind closed doors.

zahra west / divorce lawyer: just want a cliché plot of someone showing her love does exist and that not everything in love is bad after she’s seen so many failed relationships. someone to be the sunshine to her rainstorm.

[saladcannibal]

For the CoS ask game: 9, 14, and 19!

9. Did you genderflip any characters, or make anyone more queer?

Surprisingly I did not genderflip anyone. I'm kind of shocked haha

The closest I could say is that I don't consider angels to have genders, and that therefore while the Abbot's disguise is male and I use he/him to refer to him, I don't think he has a true gender identity. Or if he does it's highly mutable. He's simply an entity.

But generally everyone is more queer. There's a lot of gay shit going on in Barovia. I don't know how to play straight people.

14. How did you play Ireena? Did she stay with your party much of the time, or did they stow her someplace while they went off adventuring? (Or did she get kidnapped early on?)

I let my party influence how I play Ireena. I want her to mesh well with the group and to be someone they care about. A lot of the depth in the module hinges on her being both sympathetic and important to the players.

I also try to make her relatively useful but not overbearing. Two main areas of weakness the party will have especially in the beginning is money and influence. Being the (former) burgomaster's daughter and being, to a degree, nobility (kind of sort of), she's able to help the party on these fronts. And it can be a good way for me to show that, while she has seen a lot while living in Barovia, she's also lived a relatively sheltered life compared to others in the valley.

We have Doru in our current party, and I think the differences in their experiences, thoughts, and emotions really let this show through. After going to fight Strahd alongside "the wizard" and watching the entire entourage fall, after becoming a vampire and having Strahd use him to torment his father, and now having been forced to participate in the Feast of St Andral... He's a bit lost to despair and hopelessness.

Ireena is trending in a similar direction, but she's a ray of light and generally optimistic and positive. While she's afraid there's no hope, she won't give up.

19. Who is your party's fated ally? Did they successfully meet? How do they feel about your party?

I think.....Theirs was Ez? I honestly don't remember. It was so long ago... But they did meet Ez in any case!

Kasimir. They met but never made it to the Amber Temple so he wasn't willing to help them.

Arrigal. Arabelle was the one who ended up giving this party their tarokka reading (they skipped the Tser Pool...) so Arrigal learned pretty much right away what the cards predicted and was like "what, no way..." But the party didn't do much with that sooo...

Escher. :) I replaced some of the (in my opinion) boring options (like Sir Klutz) with other characters that weren't options, and this party got Escher. They haven't met him yet but I'm SO excited.

[xmoriartea]

2, 7 perhaps?

Ask game for CoS DMs

2. How long has your game been going? Is it finished or unfinished?

So we started nearly a year ago haha but I am a baby DM, this is my first time attempting to run a campaign and 2024 was a rough year for me, so we've only done like 5 games in that time haha So we are very unfinished. The party just got their card reading from Arabelle

7. What's your named character death count so far? (Players, friendly NPCs, villains.)

So far zero! But oh do I have plans for if players fall haha It got a little spicy for one of our warlocks in the last combat, but we have a cleric and a support warlock so he got back up with minimal southern grumbling lol

[larkaloke]

Arabel de Marchefort, half-elven fighter, and one of the lieutenants of the Ebony Arrows in our long-running D&D campaign. (Originally I played her in Baldur's Gate, as a secondary character to one of my Bhaalspawn, Taneth.)

I was sitting on the sketches for this series of portraits for a while, so I decided to use them for a quick style experiment in CSP. It's a little different from what I usually do, but definitely quick.

Thanatos Hawke, human fighter, and lieutenant of the War Dogs in our long-running D&D campaign. (Originally he was my character in Dragon Age II, but that campaign has ended up with characters from just about everywhere showing up in something of an alternate-reality type deal.)

Anzegarnox, more commonly known as Ansgar, a copper dragon paladin and co-leader of the Adamant Knights in our long-running D&D campaign. Ansgar is original to the campaign.

Segrinarix, often known as Segri, a battle dragon legendary dreadnought and co-leader of the Gods of War in our long-running D&D campaign. Segri is original to the campaign.

It was nice to get back to just drawing my characters, so hopefully I'll be doing more of that in the future!