#as their DM in our current campaign i am also. very surprised. they keep me on my toes with their decisions man | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

xellandria · 4 years ago

Photo

Zmija Yilan was a temporary character I played towards the end of our Tomb of Annihilation campaign after my boy Alexus got petrified by a beholder somewhere deep in the bowels of the tomb itself. We were able to “salvage” both him and Amara (who had also gotten petrified in the same fight) by shoving them into the Bag of Holding, but short of having the two of us sit on the bench while the remaining two party members waddled back to town, we had to roll some new characters.

I spent most of the week between the petrification and the new characters appearing being mad at myself for not remembering I had Inspiration I could have used to reroll either of my failed dex saves and not being able to do much beyond that, but with less than 72 hours left until she had to debut, I finally pulled an idea out of my butt, ran it by the DM because it involved Shenanigans™, got the OK and started designing her. Thus was born Zmija Yilan, whose appearance was based partly on an old photo that was semi-viral on Tumblr several years prior and partly on Xelloss from Slayers because when I’m in a pinch, that’s always who I fall back on, and have been doing so for like, 20+ years at this point lmao. Personality-wise, there was a post floating around Tumblr that week about proverbs in various languages that, when translated literally or without context, made very little sense so she got a lot of that (and associated misunderstandings based on language mix-ups) mixed in with—again—Xelloss from Slayers, because I am a hack. I would probably never play her again because she was so firmly entrenched in that campaign and also there’s some parts of how I designed/played her that I look back on and am like “ehhh I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the optics of this,” but I enjoyed playing her a lot more than I expected, and I look back on the end of our Tomb campaign very fondly because of it.

I haven’t been able to talk about her in public both for a lack of reason to do so and because I didn’t want to “spoil” my group in case they found my various social media posts, but as it’s nearly a year since she was introduced and nine months since the campaign ended, I’m gonna absolutely wall of text the shit outta this bitch, rofl (that said there’s baby’s first nekkid pin-up under here so assuming Tumblr lets me actually post it, fair warning for that under the cut)

Zmija Yilan - level 8-10 Human* Warlock (Great Old Ones/Pact of the Tome) (usually this is where my D&D character posts put stats but I don’t actually have access to her character sheet anymore, so let’s just pretend she had something ridiculous like maxed Charisma because I remember my spell DC being ridiculously high)

Zmija Yilan is a traveler from the far-off land of Zemlya, and a disciple of Matrymriy, one of the "family" of five gods in the pantheon of that region. Matrymriy came to Zmija in a dream one night and told her to travel across the seas because She had a task for her, and that she would learn more once she reached her destination. She's been traveling around Faerun for seven or so years—reaching one place, being given hints to go to a specific location, and upon reaching it, being told to travel on without seeming to do much more than just Be There. Upon reaching Chult sometime within the last few months, her patron's hints indicated that she should travel to a place called Shilku Bay; she hired a guide (named Salida) and a bodyguard (a Fort Belurian mook) with what little locally-acceptable currency she had; they got separated after being attacked by a band of undead, and after failing to reunite with them, she was wandering around lost, trusting that Matrymriy will guide her where She desires her to go.

Part of her wandering had her end up in the Tomb of the Nine Gods itself, where she encountered our adventuring party (down two player characters) desperately trying to find their way out of the tomb in the hopes of returning to Port Nyanzaru to depetrify their friends. Our barbarian’s player immediately distrusted her because I’d drawn her tabletop token with her back to the camera, which was an awkward feeling almost immediately returned in-game because both the barbarian and paladin aren’t hardcore RPers but they had to carry all the RP weight as they were introduced to this new character and explain that they were there to destroy a lich (both because it was the source of all the bad undead in the area, and because they’d been promised a reward—a motivation Zmija understood, as “a hungry bear will not dance.”) Beyond the usual RP awkwardness there was an additional layer of awkwardness between the characters IC as at the time, Thokk was barely wearing more than a breastplate and loincloth, while Zmija was covered neck-to-ankle despite the heat and humidity of the region. She claimed that in the culture of Zemlya, having strangers see your skin was a mark of great shame and that modesty was of paramount importance, so seeing so much of him was very off-putting and threw her off-balance for much of their initial interactions.

Getting off on the “wrong” foot with the party and pushing as hard as I could into Zmija’s quirks (the weird proverbs, sprinkling in her Zemlyan vocabulary and making a point of her being from Very Far Away with Very Different Customs) meant I went a little too hard on them at the beginning, which is partly what I’d do differently and partly why the whole thing ended up working, so it’s a weird retrospective balance. If my partymates had ever shoved (almost) any of the names or places Zmija mentioned into google, they probably would have twigged to the scheme pretty dang fast.

In reality, Zmija is not a human traveler from Zemlya, because surprise! she's actually Zsaksatyi, a Chultian Yuan-Ti Pureblood under the command of Fenthaza. She worked as a bit of a double agent/interrogator within the Fane prior to her current assignment (hence her spell list's focus on information gathering, silent communication, and manipulation); she's been fleshing out her alternate persona for years and would occasionally pretend to be a captive and be thrown in one of those cells the party was in to get relevant information from the other prisoners, or assist others that were interrogating prisoners by more direct means (via Detect Thoughts). In-universe, the language she pretends to speak is mostly made up, and something she's been working on for years at this point—it's not a fully-fleshed conlang and she only has a couple hundred words and phrases but it's enough to be consistent and believable when she sprinkles it into regular speech. Since there's no real risk of running into anyone else from Zemlya (because it doesn't actually exist), it mostly didn't matter, and since there's actual meaning behind the words she does have, in theory it would have held up to a spell like Comprehend Languages as well. Out of universe, the language she speaks is an amalgamation of my own conlang stuff (which, like the in-universe version, is very limited and not complete) and various words and phrases pulled mostly from real-world Slavic languages (russian, croatian, hungarian, etc) with a little bit of Turkish thrown in when my English-only ear felt that it fit or when I had already used a word and needed another word for the same thing. Zsaksatyi (pronounced dzahk sot-YEE) is the only name/word in the whole mess that doesn’t actually mean something somewhere, and was a combination of syllables from an online Yuan-Ti name generator that I kinda liked together. If she had ever been outed, I would probably have come up with something a little less cumbersome for me and my (almost certainly wholly monolingual) D&D group to say... but she didn’t, so Zsaksatyi it stays!

She very much looks up to Fenthaza and almost idolizes and worships her—if she ever had to choose between Fenthaza or Dendar, things might have gotten a little bit rough for her (possibly no matter which way she ultimately jumped, though I imagine Dendar's vengeance would be more immediate, if Dendar's a hands-on sort of patron). Thankfully (for her), there was very little risk of that given that the party had left Fenthaza on reasonably neutral terms (having already helped her oust Ras Nsi from his position of power in the Fane and the party having essentially marked that dungeon as “cleared”). Fenthaza had sent her to scout the Tomb of the Nine Gods and locate (or steal) an artifact known as the Black Opal Crown, which will allow the Night Mother to emerge into the world. The group actually came across the crown pretty soon after Zmija (and our other new character, a firbolg druid named Mei Ren who replaced our cleric, Amara) joined them, but the party couldn’t figure out how to get it out of the room it was in and Zsaksatyi was content that it would be safe from both our group and other adventurers there while she found her way back to the Fane (though she Sent the location to Fenthaza in case she wasn’t able to make it back). That was actually like, halfway through the session right after she’d been introduced so having her sneak off that fast would have been absolutely wild, so I kept playing her as Zmija and while there were myriad opportunities for her to be discovered—including a hallway where any non-magical non-living thing got evaporated, up to and including clothing—she never was. The fact that the only spells she ever used spell slots on were Hex, Counterspell, and Identify never really got commented upon, because prior to her joining the party we didn’t have a source for any sort of utility magic and we’d been feeling the lack for a while. She was a lot of fun to play just as Zmija once I got the hang of her, but the hidden agenda that only our DM & I knew about was an extra layer of fun, too. It would have been neat to see how the party reacted to a reveal, but unless Jim wants to take us back to Chult to actually deal with the Night Mother’s return (because without having to keep up appearances and alignments, I’m pretty sure I could have gotten that crown out of there even before the weird teleport-defying magic of the Tomb got turned off), her story is over for us—taking her outside of the setting she was designed for would be weird... plus we already have two warlocks (well, one and a half) in a party of four PCs; adding a third would be a little bit bizarre, I think.

Her more Yuan-ti features include scales down her spine and across her shoulderblades, on the backs of her hands, and on her hips and thighs—mostly in reds, oranges, and browns, but as she increases in power and connection with the Night Mother, more of them are darkening to Her blue-black; it started right at that spot between the shoulderblades where you always picture being stabbed in the back, and has expanded from there; I imagine by level 20 all of her scales would be that blue-black and may have encroached further on the more human-y leather bits, probably encroaching on her face at the last, which would make being a spy a lot more difficult (even moreso than wearing as much clothing as she already does) but I guess at level 20, do you really need to be sneaking around pretending to be human?

In direct sunlight or other very bright light, her pupils constrict to slits, which is the real reason for her heavy eye makeup—between the distraction of it and the (somewhat exaggerated) squinting that such light induces, it often goes unnoticed, as it did with her character portrait (although to be fair to my party, Alexus also has slit eyes because that’s one of the traits of elves and half elves in D&D, and also I’m not sure if they ever saw her portrait any larger than 150x150 or whatever Roll20 shows them at). Both her top and bottom canine teeth are sharper, longer, and narrower than is typical for humans, and she is careful not to grin too widely and will cover her mouth when she laughs or yawns, whether she is in disguise or not. That part I’ve never drawn though, so I can’t really point to that as something the party overlooked, heh. In hindsight, I wish I'd given her more/heavier snake features but even the official art for Yuan-Ti player characters are very light on them and getting around the differences between human and yuan-ti racials without tipping off the party was hard enough as it was—I took the 120 feet of magic-ignoring darkvision invocation to disguise the fact that she innately had darkvision, I never used my racial spells and abilities unless I was willing to “use” a spell slot on them and had another plausible way to have obtained them, the one time I got hit with a poison ability (which she was immune to) I spent a lot of time “figuring out the math” on how much HP I had to drop, etc. I also wish I’d given her darker skin, as she is supposed to be Chultian but she is significantly lighter than all the NPCs we came across. Then again, I’m as white as a sheet soaked in bleach so there’s something weird about me RPing folks of colour regardless (especially given her fake backstory, agh agh agh) so yeah. Really enjoyed her, don’t regret her, will not ever play her again rofl

In our very last session of Tomb of Annhiliation, the party—fresh off the victory over the big bad lich whose name I can never spell and his weird world-eating fetus—headed back to Port Nyanzaru via the Aarakocra village of Kir Sabal, which the previous variant of the party (of whom only Thokk remained alive and mobile enough to talk to them) had helped out significantly earlier in the campaign, unlocking a flying ritual that we were like “man we’re not coming back here if we’re gonna use it we gotta do it now” to get us the rest of the way to the port. En route, Zmija tried to leave the group and rolled a secret 15 Stealth roll... contested by 17 and 18 perception rolls from Mei Ren and Thokk, but as she wasn’t carrying much of the party’s stuff and it was the end of the campaign, they kinda just let her give some line about seeing them again in the future maybe, the Mother’s will is unknowable, etc etc. I think if Duf and Kattii didn’t know that I wanted Alexus back as badly as I did and that we were like twenty minutes (real time) away from actually getting him back, they might have considered that more suspicious than they did.

Pronunciations (and translations): (mostly C&Ped from her bio, which is the only part of her character sheet I can still access on Roll20)

Zmija Yilan: zMEE-ah yee-LAHN. Because I'm subtle as hell, that's Croatian/Russian/Ukranian (first name) and Turkish (last name) for "snake/serpent," according to the internet. What do you mean Remus Lupin is a werewolf?!

Matrymriy: mah-tRRuh mRREE (Rs are rolled). Matrymriy is Zmija's claimed patron—one of five major Zemlyashan dieties—but she'll state that she doesn't know the name that she goes by in the local dialect. That's only partly true, of course—мати мрій is Ukranian for "Mother of Dreams" (at least according to google translate), which is close enough to her patron's actual names and titles (Dendar, the Night Mother) that she can get away with it without actually raising suspicions about the true source of her powers. She'll also do that thing where if someone tries to say the name back to her she'll "correct" them by saying it exactly the same four or five times and then "give up" and accept whatever "butchered" version the speaker comes up with, except she'll do it even if they're actually saying it perfectly correctly. She may do this with her own name as well (sorry, Jim. And Duf. And Dustin. And Kattii. And Kattii's coworker, if he ever joins us and I'm still playing this character by then, lmao.) (2021 addition: and literally everyone who has a name that isn’t typically pronounced by us English-only plebians, I am so sorry I’m not better at your language)

Zsaksatyi: dzahk sot-YEE. Zmija's real name, when she isn't pretending to be a human. That doesn't mean anything as far as I know, it was just a combination of some of the syllables the random Yuan-Ti name generator was coming up with that I liked (which is also where "Itszella" was from), lol. I may end up changing it to be less cumbersome at some point, unless it comes up before then and ends up written in stone, but I'm on a bit of a time crunch for the moment.

Zemlya: zem-lyah. If pressed for more detail on where in Zemlya she's from (e.g. by someone pretending to know details about her country), her home town is Fal'shyva (fall-sheh-VAH), southeast of the capital of Hayali (HI-yah-LEE) and just north of the port city of Farazi (fah-ra-DZI), which is where she originally sailed from seven years ago. фальшива земля is Ukranian for "fake land," Hayali is Turkish for "imaginary," and Farazi is Turkish for "hypothetical," lol.

Proverbs & (approximate) Pronounciations: (if I recall correctly, asterisks indicate ones I had used, so I didn’t repeat myself too frequently)

Wziąć się w garść (zvun shih garsch): lit. take the self into the fist (polish), pull yourself together Галопом по Zemlya (gal-OH-pohm poe zem-lyah): lit. galloping across Zemlya (russian), to be hasty/haphazard. * У кого немає собаки, полює з котом (Ooh koe-hoe meh-MIGH-eh soe-BAH-kay, poe-LOO-yay koh-tome): lit. who does not have dog, hunts with cat (ukranian, original proverb is portugese), make do with what you have. Z choinki się urwałaś? (dzi hoink-E she urr-vahl-wash): lit. did you fall from a Candlenights(aka Christmas) tree? (polish), you are obviously not well-informed; are you dumb? * Mi o vuku (MEE oh voo-koo): lit. to talk of the wolf (croatian), speak of the devil. * Thalai muzhuguthal (tha-LIE MOOz-GOO-thal): lit. pour water over someone's head (tamil), cut off a relationship. * Хоть кол на голове теши (coat-coal nah gohl-ehvee teh-SHEE): lit. you can sharpen an axe on this head (russian), a very stubborn person.

Other Languages Are Hard Today, Let’s Just Proverb It In English:

Cat's Forehead (japanese): a tiny space, usually used humbly to refer to owned land. It fell between chairs (swedish): group work that everyone assumed someone else would do, and didn't get done as a result * It gives me a beautiful leg (french): fat lot of good that'll do me Drown the fish (french): avoid a subject by talking about anything and everything else, confuse the issue In a river with piranhas, the alligator swims backstroke (brazil): protect your weaknesses * Accusation always follows the cat (iraqi): it's easy to blame someone who can't defend themselves The honey only sticks to the mustache of he who licked it (arabic): he who smelt it, dealt it * A hungry bear does not dance (greek): the reward must be worth the cost (or at least exist) * The crayfish sides with the crab (korean): people who have a lot in common stay friends * If you can't live longer, live deeper (italian): get the most of your time * A spoon does not know the taste of soup (welsh): intelligence is not wisdom Examine what is said, not who speaks (arab): don't take things at face value * Turn your face to the sun and the shadows will fall behind you (new zealand): have a positive outlook He who does not travel, does not know the value of men (moorish): wide experience is gr8 Do good and throw it in the sea (arab): don't expect anything back from kindness * Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is halved (swedish): friends make things better If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together (african): strength in numbers, speed on your own.

#xellart #dungeons and dragons #original characters #zmija yilan

6 notes · View notes

utilitycaster · 5 years ago

Note

Your fav character from each class in all the actual plays you’ve watched?

THE BEST QUESTION (if hard). I’m only counting regular PCs here; see the end for some guest/NPC/one-shot mentions. As you can see I love basically all characters but I do have my favorites.

Barbarian: there is a high potential, now that Ashley is back for good, that Yasha will win this next year but for now Gorgug and his sweet awkwardness and confused attempts to find his dad wins. (some other good barbarians: Grog, Beryl from Relics and Rarities who was a. kind of a stoner and b. an absolute delight and c. a cool depiction of path of the ancestral guardian, and Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt, sweet crepe loving failure)

Bard: I love Fig, but I have to go Scanlan. You know that art piece of the Vecna battle that’s overlaid with the All Work No Play “what would the worst character be” line? Yeah. From “I’m snoring after having sex” to “I was saving it for Vax”. You just can’t beat that. (some other good bards: Annabella from Relics and Rarities, Misty from Dimension 20)

Cleric: this is probably the hardest category (shout out to a lot of clerics. Jester, Kingston, and Kristen are tied for second place) but I think I have to go with Caduceus. I love how much he sees of everyone else and how little we know of him. I love how not-so-secretly judgemental he is. I love his bone flute. I love that he’s quietly trying to save his dying home, and perhaps find family that might be dead. Someone hug him for me. (I would like to recognize Pike and Merle of course, as well as Efink Murderdeath here, and while I’m only 7 episodes in I think Zolf is already my favorite of RQG. )

Druid: Keyleth. I feel like TAZ is at a disadvantage because they’re so early on in Graduation, but also I love the Firbolg but I am not sure a druid will ever surpass Keyleth, with all her messy awkwardness and genuine desire to do good at any cost. (shout out to Ricky Huckster for being a really unique take on the druid, Lillith from Escape from the Bloodkeep for being a great wine mom, and to Kugrash who is currently ripping my heart out)

Fighter: I’m surprising myself here but the recent developments with Fabian Seacaster have put him in the forefront, I think because his story is still ongoing and because I’m a sucker for an arrogant jock suddenly confronting mortality and failure. I do still love Percival De Rolo a lot though. (shout out to Magnus Burnsides who is good at everything, and Veros the O.G. Himbo from Relics and Rarities)

Monk: Beau. This is another case of like, I love Sofia Bicicleta too, but Marisha Ray has some kind of genius for playing female characters that really tap into like, things that many women I think feel but don’t know how to express (at least, I, a woman, feel these things and don’t know how to express them). Beau is such a complicated abrasive character who feels things deeply, and who has genuinely tried and succeeded in changing. She’s so dynamic and wonderful and I love her to bits.

Paladin: Vax. I wrote a whole piece about my experience of listening to CR campaign 1 episode 57 that I never published or posted. I think there’s something deeply profound and beautiful about sticking to an oath that you didn’t ever think you’d choose, and to a promise you fell into. (also, spoilers but Fjord’s going to be my choice for Warlock so I cover that there even though one of my favorite things about him is his switch to Paladin). (shout out, of course, to Ricky Matsui)

Ranger: Vex. Due to some valid and some invalid complaints about the ranger class few people play it, which is a shame because the revised ranger options are pretty great (Horizon Walker is amazing, I say as an admitted fan of weird planar shit) and because like, Aragorn was my favorite LOTR character. But yeah, everything I’ve said about Keyleth and Beau applies to Vex, the D&D character I think I relate most to despite my irl stats not matching hers at all (I do not have 17 Charisma). The imposter syndrome, the need to appear that everything is under control, the sibling loyalty, the stubbornness, the quiet leadership - it’s all so perfect and so unique and I love her very much. (Sokhbarr was a fun take though)

Rogue: put Vax as Paladin so I could nominate Riz as my favorite rogue (and again, I love Nott and enjoy what I’ve seen of Argo, and to be fair, Sasha seems very good as well) but I think the inquisitive subclass is so cool and Riz has such a wonderful arc. Also, goblin with gun is great but goblin high schooler with gun is straight up genius.

Sorcerer: a very rare class, tbh, with Pete getting it by default. He is indeed a fascinating character though, and tying his sorcery into the mythology of the world is a pretty brilliant DM move. (I also am very into Hamid thus far, not in the least because I love halflings)

Warlock: Fjord. I liked Fjord from the start, and even when he was being an ass during the pirate arc found him relatable. I think it might be my background as a bard player that makes me love this disaster who survived for years on just a high constitution and being really good at talking and playing roles; I also love someone who isn’t the greatest leader but falls into it, and someone with control issues working through it (see also: Vex, Percy) And finally, I don’t know if Travis was telling the truth about him being lawful good but he genuinely does want to make things better for people and he takes responsibility very seriously. (obviously, I also really liked Leland, and while I think of both Fig and Sofia as primarily of their main classes of bard and monk, they are cool as warlocks. I get why Emily Axford keeps gunning for Hexblade).

Wizard: Caleb. Given all the other sources of magic it’s always fascinating to see why someone becomes a wizard specifically, and I also like how complex Caleb is - not just the trauma, though that’s part, but the humor and the versatility. (Adaine was a close runner-up though, and Taako was my favorite of THB but is a little too goofy to be a favorite).

Artificer: I mean, obviously Tary.

NPCs and guests, with less commentary:

Barbarian: gonna go with Lionel the True Polymorphed Duck here.

Bard: Hazel Copperpot, she of the 1930s radio accent

Cleric: again very difficult, but then again, not so difficult. Lieve’tel was great.

Druid: Nila, the sweet and calming presence in our hour of need.

Fighter: oh god I don’t know if I can choose between Keg, bisexual dwarven disaster, and Brian David Gilbert’s Hargis, awkward goliath theater kid.

Monk: Ferriwen Breeze, who I do hope shows up again because she was my favorite Darrington Brigade character and I really love Genasi; also Expositor Dairon, natch.

Paladin: few people play paladins as guests which is weird. I do like Kerrek, and I do like Arkhan, but like, Kima, clearly.

Ranger: Sandralynn Faeth, hands down. A wonderful NPC.

Rogue: I do love Cathilda, and I do love Twiggy, but I laughed about the Owlbear for the entire Darrington Brigade one shot.

Sorcerer: I mean...it has to be Gilmore, right? Calianna is great but no one can beat Gilmore.

Warlock: Zahra, who also, incidentally, is the only non-Hexblade Warlock who’s shown up. I mean hexblade is objectively amazing but Zahra is too.

Wizard: there have been many wizard NPCs across games and it was a very difficult choice but who else is graceful, unendingly kind and patient, and reliable in all situations? Allura Vyesoren is the wizard you wish your wizard could be. Yussa and Essek and Lup and Arthur Aguefort and Barry and Lyra and Ranier and far more wizard NPCs and guests are all wonderful in their own ways but like, did you think you could come for Matt Mercer’s self insert? you could not.

#d&d #critical role #relics and rarities #dimension 20 #TAZ #Anonymous

65 notes · View notes

anigraham · 6 years ago

Photo

This is going to get long so, lol...

1. What’s your favorite system? 3.5. Or a stripped down pathfinder so there isn’t 9,001 classes to choose from. (And yes, I prefer it over the homebrew version I talk about sometimes, lol.) 2. What’s something you hope to do/accomplish in a D&D campaign? I have so many D&D bucket list items! First one that comes to mind is I hope to romance an NPC someday. May be setting myself up for heartbreak as surely the DM will have something horrible happen to said NPC, but ya know.

3. How important is a strong story line to you? It’s what I live for! I mean, it isn’t going to ruin my fun if the campaign doesn’t have a strong/deep story attached to it, but man do I eat it up if it does~ 4. What setting do you prefer playing in? Mid-level fantasy. I want some magic, I want unique creatures, and I want some gods, damnit! It doesn’t have to get too crazy or anything, but I want some magic in the world. 5. Have you or any fellow players have a character die? What happened? Yeh. My first character death was a stereotypical elven archer. It was a TPK to a scorpion. 2e is brutal, man. A character deaths you don’t know about... I played in a campaign where two players had their characters as siblings. Well. One fated day, the younger brother died. And he died after being given so many second chances, but after so many the DM (and even some of us players) were like...death happens. It was in a world where resurrection isn’t an option really. (He died to a mammoth that was infected and controlled by a parasitic “plant” thing that drains your CON.) While it was disappointing to the brother player, the sister player became super depressed. We ended the session early, but the next few sessions he just had a lot of trouble focusing and getting into it. It affected him pretty badly. We then took an extended break hoping the player would feel better after he took some time, but he didn’t. We ended the campaign because of it. 6. What is your favorite D&D monster or creature? THE FRICKEN TARRASQUE. 7. What’s your favorite race and class? Half-elf and Paladin! As rambled more in detail here. 8. Who is a favorite NPC you have encountered? Does the Triad count? Because that was pretty dang awesome and I love Ilmater forever. 9. Where do you get your inspiration to make a character? My brain. My process tends to be. . .I think of something I want to have in a character and then I build around that. Lore really helps me. Ok started with the idea that I wanted to play a serious character who doesn’t show much emotion, then he became a drow, and the rest followed. My skittish tiefling idea came to me because I decided, I should play a tiefling and reading the lore...I found it interesting the ways it describes tieflings handle prejudice and I felt like I never see or hear about the tieflings who kind of feel shame or hurt. Then the rest got built around that. 10. What’s one of your favorite character moments? I am still a fan of my overly optimistic and happy wood elf, hearing a terrible voice in his mind reminding him of some traumatic event, and then upon seeing a nothic and knowing that was the cause of it. . .saying “Please die now!” and shooting it at the surprise of the entire party. 11. What’s the best thing that has ever happened during a session? Being able to actually cry on cue for a scene with Morghain and being able to turn it off when the scene was over. I loved hearing everyone react! 12. What’s the worst thing that has ever happened during a session? Probably the character death I mentioned above. Just watching our friend and fellow player become so dejected and unable to keep playing. And it was doubly hard because that campaign had been going on for so long and so many of us were really enjoying our characters, really invested, and then we had to stop since someone just couldn’t keep going with the story. 13. What kind of characters do you typically create? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The closest I have to a “type” would be melee fighters. Definitely what I am usually comfortable with. But I actually try hard to play different things, even if I am only changing a handful of things. I like to try different races, classes, and different quirks/personalities. When playing with a new group I tend to go friendly/helpful fighter type so I can learn what I can and can’t get away with in the future, lol. Not everyone will be comfortable with me playing a former slave or a lying bitch. 14. What is your character’s backstory? Since I think you know most of my current character’s backstories. . .I will go with an oldie. A little gnome named Lorelai Brassgear!

She grew up in a very small town with a very large family. Her family were the owners of the local grain mill. Lorelai had bigger aspirations as she seemed to have a natural talent for using magic. . .something very rare among gnomes in her world. She became determine to someday go the mages college in the big city and learn to explain the workings of magic through the use of science and math. (Gnomes in her world are inventors and focus on science. They actually have a penalty when using magic.) One day after exploring a nearby cave-in with some of her friends from the town, they discovered that her entire village had been destroyed in an orc raid. All their families had been killed. Lorelai and her friends barely managed to get away and so began the start of her campaign. 15. Do you have any goals for your character? When it comes to Natali I just gotta accept I cannot have goals. Everything is a surprise with her and nothing goes as planned. My goal is not to die while fully expecting her to die.

16. What is a song you associate to your character? Even though I haven’t played her very much, I have already associated one song with Cass. The English version of “aLIEz” done by Amanda Lee. I imagine Cass as a very conflicted and struggling woman, which I feel like this song captures. I am especially fond of the following lyrics...

I say “Liar!” I say “Rise in hell!” I am just about to burst as they say, “War!” I’ll wage war. I hate war. There’s no end to this...can’t you see that? 17. Does your character have any quirks? If so, what are they? My skittish tiefling sometimes slips into speaking in Infernal when he is talking to himself outloud. If anyone points this out to him, he will be a bit surprised and doesn’t believe it. His arcane focus is a medallion that he likes to fidget with from time to time. He also has a habit of arguing with his familiar (usually an owl) as if she was a person. 18. Do you have a certain accent for your character? No. I can’t do accents period, really. I might try adding a little something to the way I talk for certain characters, but I think I struggle with consistency. Loran I tried to speak higher and “friendlier.” With Ok I try to sound more monotone as I don’t imagine he would be very expressive in. . .anything. . .let alone his voice.

I can do three voices. An absurd “old man” voice, a weird. . .voice (that I use for like faeries), and my own voice. Haha. But if I can’t even mimic accents from around the world, I sure as hell can’t come up with voices for characters. 19. What character (or type of character) do you hope to play in the future? My skittish tiefling, Mr. Pemberley~! He doesn’t like being a teifling, feels bad about it, gets super nervous around new people and always assumes that other people expect the worst of him. He kept his nose in books and is a wizard as a result. . .and is most comfortable (and confident!) when playing with fire. Probably because he is a tiefling. . .but don’t suggest that to him. 20. What’s been your favorite campaign? Campaign would be the one we didn’t finished mentioned above, sadly. But I am also really enjoying Tomb of Annihilation.

#ask me #survey #questions #dungeons and dragons #I honestly don't mind being asked to do 1-20 in one go #usually I see these things and want to do them all anyway so...lol #And hey some questions can be answered multiple times for different characters!#long post

1 note · View note

djatoon · 4 years ago

Text

I’m All Out of Love With Social Media

I’m all out of love with social media.

Nearly eleven years on Twitter, and even longer on Facebook, the whole experience now mostly saps my energy and erodes my empathy.

Firstly, Facebook is an utter mess. The timeline falls apart before your very eyes and you can’t track anything anyone says unless you go to their profile. The old(er) friends I have barely post anything these days, few engage in any discussion, and the only reason I still use it is to keep track on what’s happening amongst my local cycling crew and to occasionally enjoy the anniversary posts that pop-up. To make my use of the platform tolerable, I’ll be deleting the app from my iPad and iPhone, and will use the desktop version sparingly. I’m also going to withdraw from groups that are no longer of interest and now just create ‘noise’.

Twitter is the focus of this blog, though.

I’ve had enough.

I joined Twitter late in 2009, and slowly built-up my list of people to follow, and my own follower list also grew organically. Very soon, a decent number of people reached-out and we were having online conversations, and perhaps we learned a little about what sort of people we were, in addition to our shared interests. There was Stuart in Shropshire, Ken in the south-west, Chris in London, and Philip in the States. Old friends Peter, Robin, and Mark peppered my timeline with news and articles of mutual interest.

Twitter enabled (and still does enable) super-quick commentary on major events like football and politics, and just as quickly responses could be shared; some insightful, others controversial, funny and sarcastic too. I was part of a small network and, to me, it felt like a small community interested in learning more and contributing more to a whole series of debates. It was refreshing to ‘meet’ intelligent people online and regularly learning something new, and often an alternative viewpoint.

Then I began following the major (and also the not so established) news sources. A whole world of perspectives opened up. No longer was I just reading my go-to paper of the time The Guardian, but I was able to read alternative perspectives that I believe has made me a bit smarter (or at least made me understand issues better, and more dispassionately). Amongst my friends, I might also be considered a bit more ‘up to date’ (not surprising when you consider how many hours I spend (waste) on the platform).

Scott Adams talks often about ‘dopamine hits’, and I was getting them from constructing a smart tweet, getting into interesting debates, and basking in the approval suggested by ‘likes’ and ‘retweets’ of my own tweets. But almost all of that has now gone.

I follow too many sources, so much so that my timeline is over-full of opinions, mostly from people who clearly have little knowledge of the subject on which they’re opining, and don’t give a damn about their shortcomings. They’re usually hostile to any pushback, not only from me, but from anybody. The ‘debate’ component of twitter has all but disappeared. Everyone is seemingly in transmit mode.

Moreover, it has brought out some of the worst aspects of peoples’ personalities. I have witnessed the disappointing spectacle of a good friend becoming toxic on the platform. For that person, nuance has seemingly evaporated, and his timeline is full of bile towards his most-hated political ‘opponents’ and random strangers who do not share his political viewpoint. I know this person is intelligent, thoughtful, and mostly kind, but on Twitter he is a tiresome malcontent. He presumably doesn’t know I muted him ages ago.

But Twitter hasn’t always brought the best out of me either. Although I strenuously avoid outright hostility, I do use sarcasm more often than I should, and it’s unpleasant when I do so. It brings me no satisfaction. Nor that dopamine hit.

During these years of the Brexit vote, the election of Trump in the USA, and then of Boris Johnson in the UK, Twitter has descended into a shouting match of partisan certainties. You have to dig harder to find intelligent contributions that acknowledge complexity and the long path towards sustainable fixes to the problem de jour.

Twitter has been overtaken by activists, far too many of them employed in the ‘mainstream’ media. Of course, one positive is that Twitter has lifted the lid on what were once thought to be even-handed journalists. Using the influence that comes with their news platforms, they have become amongst the least-reliable and worst voices in any debate. I’m looking at you Beth Rigby, Robert Peston, Nick Robinson, Adam Bouton, and everyone at The Guardian. The newspapers are in financial trouble, people no longer rely on Sky News, the BBC, ITV, CNN, and others. They have become campaigners, and the problem with campaigners is that they are so sure of their righteous superioirty, they feel they don’t need to evaluate and present competing points of view. I blocked most of them some time ago.

Another group that have been found-out are politicians. The superficiality of their pronouncements, their lack of understanding of the fundamentals on which they offer their opinions (e.g. business, international trade), and their tweets that have so obviously gone through the Whips office before posting. And some of them are truly unhinged and stupid. There are barely any worth following, and so they’ve been added to the long list of people I’ve dumped in recent years. Still, the fools keep popping-up in my timeline as others share their asinine and vomit-inducing, virtue-signalling, drivel.

Despite all this, I still get an occasional dopamine hit – but almost exclusively from blocking idiots and advertisers. I’ve always hated ‘promoted tweets’ and, over the years, have amassed a blocked list of around 6,000 accounts who have spent money with Twitter. It’s not great, though. It really just shows I spend far too much time on the platform.

Twitter as a surrogate journal

It wasn’t long after I joined Twitter than I began to realise that it could potentially perform the function of a diary, or journal. Instead of regularly pausing to reflect and record my unfolding life, I could simply go back to any time in my Twitter timeline and see what had been going on, and what I’d been commenting on. Not a bad way to retain some interesting memories. But after a while, it became obvious that going back to old periods of activity to relive some experiences was all but impossible, and that Twitter is a ‘here and now’ platform, and deliberately designed that way. So, the idea of Twitter as journal appeared to bite the dust.

So, here I am in 2020, with 30,000 tweets, all of which are now worthless. Getting rid of them has become a priority, to cleanse my Twitter experience. And I’ve found a solution: I’ve downloaded my twitter data, and I can sort by time, search by topic, and retain my twitter content to be viewed later and offline. So, I’ve managed to do it. I have that journal. Those simpler times of ten years ago are now clearly visible. Now to refresh Twitter.

I’m going to delete my Twitter account completely and start again. I’ll use my record of who I’m following to select a much fewer number to follow again when I open a new account. My current habit (and it IS a habit) of going to Twitter for news morning, noon, and night is going to end. Instead I’m subscribing to a couple of reliable and non (or at least less) partisan sources, and I’m going for the ‘long-read’ experience again. I expect my book consumption will rise accordingly.

Well that’s it. I’m going to pop-up on Twitter again, but this time for the low-calorie experience. If anyone reads this and wants to reconnect via my new (yet to be set-up) account, then DM me. Otherwise, we might trip over each other online in due course. The people who know the real me, they know where else they can find me.

#twitter

0 notes

gulgbtqplus · 7 years ago

Text

Meet the Committee

We have 15 committee members who work together to run the society;

1. President: Chris, He/Him, [email protected]

Hey! I’m Chris and I’m your president this year! I’m a second year student studying English Lit & Sociology, and I’m really excited to do some wonderful things with the society this year, it’s definitely one of my favourite things about university. I’ll be your first port of call if you have any general enquiries, ideas or requests for the society, but feel free to email me if you want some advice or to chat or meet up before an event too! We try to make our society as accessible and welcoming as possible, but I know that attending an event for the first time can be scary, so it is always good to know a friendly face.

Outside of the society you can mainly find me watching terrible romcoms, looking after my plants and tweeting bad jokes. I’m pretty noticeable out and about on campus as i’m always wearing dungarees and eternally glittery so don’t be afraid to say hi! (I’m nice I promise)

2. VP Secretary: Kit, They/Them, [email protected]

Howdy, I’m Nadia and I’m the Secretary VP! I’m a second year Scottish Literature student but I’ve changed my degree so many times that I may be studying something completely different by the time you’re reading this (basically I’m mainly at university for GULGBTQ+). In my free time I’m usually crafting, watching movies, and maintaining meticulous power points on the pets of US presidents. If you have any queries about anything to do with the society or you just want a chat feel free to email or drop me a message on facebook.

3. VP Treasurer: Finn, They/Them, [email protected]

Hey I’m Finn, I use they/them pronouns and I’m vp treasurer! The society is the only reason I ever leave the house, but I do supposedly study English Lit & History of Art. I’m very excited to be back on committee this year and hope I can do my best to keep the society from being as broke as I am xx

4. Events: Rachel, She/Her, [email protected]

Hi everyone! I'm Rachel and I'm overly excited to be your Events Officer for this year. I study Theatre and Sociology and will be in my 4th year and writing my dissertation this coming year so please be kind to me. I have been a member of the Committee since my first year and I am overall just a huge gay. When I'm not being a queer activist you can find me at gigs, in charity shops, on the polo dance floor or drinking £3 wine. Let's be friends, feel free to add me on Facebook "Rachel Aitken" or drop me an email, I'm more than happy to meet up before an event if you're feeling nervous or want a gay clubbing partner in crime, I'm just back from studying abroad for a year in Australia so want to meet all the new faces I can! Also if you have any event suggestions pls hit me up xxx

5. Campaigns: Carlie, She/Her, [email protected]

Hello! I’m Carlie and I’m a second year student studying history and sociology. I can usually be found on the tenth floor of the library despairing about Tocqueville, but other than that I cross-stitch and try to keep all my house plants alive. Feel free to email me, or DM me on Twitter (@carliejas) about any campaigns you think we should support or just to give me gardening tips.

6. Welfare: Maddy, She/Her, [email protected]

Maddy, pronouns she/her I’m a second year med student and I’m 24 I like playing rugby and meeting people’s pets, and I am very excited to be welfare officer this year I’m very open to questions and suggestions so feel free to drop me an email or come find me crying in the library

7. Publicity: Sera, She/Her, [email protected]

Hi, my name is Sera, I’m 20, I’m very trans, and I’m the publicity officer. I am in 2nd year of a computer science degree and I am extremely online. My main interests are in tech and managing systems, as well as automation, and I do most of the behind-the-scenes work for the society that involves an internet connection

I run in a lot of hobby as well as LGBT circles and you’ll rarely find me off of social media, I have a twitter @seraxis and a discord Sera ♪#0573 where you can bother me as much as you’d like. I take ideas for social media campaigns and how to spread further awareness about LGBT issues around campus and through the society.

But most importantly: I never stop posting.

8. Women’s: Jemma, She/Her, [email protected]

Hey I'm Jemma, I'm a fourth year Virology student and I am really excited to be your women's officer for this year. I love going to gigs, baking, creating memes that only about 4 people find funny and tweeting them, and most of all: the Boyd Orr. You be able find me at most main events as well as during Lesbian Coffee and Knit the Rainbow, the GULGBTQ+ crafting group that I’ll be running this year. This society has been very important to my time at university and I want others to have as good an experience as I did so if you want to chat or want to meet up before an event contact me via email. Hope we all have a gay old time this year!

9. Men’s: Quinn, He/Him, [email protected]

Hi, I’m Quinn and I’m your mens officer. I am going into my third year studying economic & social history and have been going to society events since I started uni although this is my first time on committee. I am here for all men, male-aligned and questioning members of the society. I spend most of my time trying to work, watching films and Netflix and I love spending time with new people – and dogs, dogs are great. If you have any queries, questions, ideas or concerns please feel free to contact me via email. I look forward to this being the best year yet!

10. Non-Binary: Niamh, They/Them, [email protected]

hi, I'm Niamh and I'm the nonbinary officer! I'm 19 and in second year studying psychology & neuroscience. I've been in the society for a year now and hope to help make next year even better. As nonbinary officer I want to make sure everyone feels welcomed, so feel free to drop me a message if you want to meet up before an event or just have a chat! Outside of being gay my hobbies include art, clown makeup, new wave, and kendo. I look forward to spending time with you all next year, let's make it a good'n!

11. Trans & Intersex: Noah, He/Him, [email protected]

What's up, I'm Noah, I'm your trans and intersex officer! I'm currently studying maths (rip me) and I’m in second year. My job as trans and intersex officer is to represent all things gender related! My hobbies include playing the drums & guitar, and doing my signature dance moves in polo. I am open and friendly so if you want a chat or need anything feel free to contact me. I look forward to working on committee and meeting lots of new cool people!!

12. Bi/Pan: Michael, They/Them, [email protected]

Hi, I'm Michael your bi/pan officer for the year. I'm 21 and a biochemistry student in third year. I know - queer people in science! I'm shocked too! I look forward to meeting everyone at

bi/pan coffee (the coolest coffees, as voted by me).

My hobbies include a love of musical theatre, sci-fi, drinking and making a fool of myself for my friends. If you'd like to talk to me about literally anything you can use email, Facebook or twitter or pretty much any other social media cause that's where is spend most of my life anyway.

13. International Students: Bianca, She/Her, [email protected]

Hi! I’m Bianca, and I’m the new international students’ officer! I’m a small, almost 19-year-old Italian who studies English Language and Linguistics & Theatre Studies. When I’m not crying about English phonetics, I’m probably binge-watching some (gay) show on Netflix, or getting more emotionally invested than I should in some (gay) book, while listening to the soundtrack of some (gay – but do I even need to say it?) musical. I’m a Gryffindor, I like horse riding, theatre and ice skating, and my one life aspiration is to one day ride a dragon. Or turn into a dragon and destroy my enemies. Either one works. I promise, I’m actually a nice and approachable person and I understand that moving to a new country can be overwhelming, so I’m ready to help you with whatever you need if you feel like you need advice on how to adapt to the terrible Scottish weather or you just want to chat about how un-comprehensible the Glaswegian accent is (trust me, we’ve all been there). Just send me an email! I’m also Italian, so I will probably gesture excitedly at you while we all get coffee together for the International Coffee that I’ll be running. I’m looking forward to meeting you all, and I hope you have a great (and gay) time in Glasgow!

14. Postgraduate & Mature Students: Prachi, She/Her, [email protected]

Hello everyone! I’m Prachi and I am the Postgraduate and Mature students officer this year. I represent the slightly older members of the society. I will mainly be running the postgrad and mature student coffees this year, which is a great way to meet new people in the LGBTQ+ community! I am currently doing a Masters in Cancer Sciences. Other than spending time on school and the society, I also enjoy videogames, movies (huge Disney junkie!), music and just generally chilling with people. If you’d like to contact me, you can find me on Facebook or just shoot me an email anytime. Looking forward to meeting everyone!

15. First Year Ordinary Member: Emily, She/Her, [email protected]

Hi! I'm your friendly local First Year Ordinary Member. My name is Emily and I'm a first year (surprise, surprise) Psychology student trying to work out my way around this strange Uni system. I enjoy drawing and painting, musical theatre, playing tabletop or video games, being a 'Mum friend', and making socially awkward jokes to hide when I'm nervous. I'll be spending this year joining all the societies that I've been told I HAVE to join in first year, trying to get on with the nine strangers I now live with, attempting to cook, clean and shop for myself, and also somehow keeping up with the work from three subjects which grade me in a way I've never seen before...

No pressure, right?

I hope you will join me in solidarity at First Year Coffee every other Tuesday and we can help each other navigate this strange new world of Glasgow University.

16. Asexual and Aromantic Officer: Summer, They/Them, [email protected]

Hi, I’m Summer and I’m your aro/ace officer for the year! I’m a 21 year old computer science student so you’ll frequently find me programming and going on about Linux. When I’m not doing that I’ll probably be knitting, playing video games, running/planning tabletop rpgs, or watching martial arts movies (or talking incessantly about any of the above)! As aro/ace officer I’m here for everyone who identifies as any variety of asexual and/or aromantic (a/grey/demi/etc), as well as anyone questioning anything at all related. Drop me a message if you want to chat, and I look forwards to a great year with you all!

#gulgbtq+#2018/19 #meet the committee #committee

11 notes · View notes

anigraham · 5 years ago

Text

HIII IM STILL HERE.

Because goodness me I can’t understand Pillowfort at all. And I hate that I can’t update Instagram from my computer so I am slow af there.

I’m doing all right! Was meh, but I’m finally going to have a job in 2020 so yay! AS FOR D&D OCS. . .

My drow boy, Ok. I miss him so much. I don’t know how long it has been since I’ve played him, but I miss him so much. I wish I had the patience to draw decent comics. I keep thinking maybe I should write little ficlets about him as I just want to get some emotional stuff about him out oh my head. There is art I want to do. There is always art I want to do. I would love to do something relating to his god.

I recently(ish) finished playing the D&D campaign Curse of Strahd. That involved my lovely death cleric, Zelda. Man that was a crazy fun ride with her. I love playing the weird odd-ball that is putting on a front to hide the fact that she haters herself and hates being alive. I am notoriously bad at rolling for HP and so the vast majority of my characters have really low HP and are fabulous at dying. Zelda was no exception. So the DM at one point had a scene where she meets with her god, Jergal. He stresses the importance of killing Strahd, not so subtly hints that he was the reason she was stuck in Barovia, and then gifted her with the toughness feat? He stabbed her with his ink pen and names, dates, and deaths appeared on her body like tattoos. It was pretty cool. After the campaign she ended up adopting some children and running an orphanage in Barovia. I thought it was a lovely ending for her.

I’m currently playing in a Pathfinder campaign and having a ton of fun with a vigilante character. He has two main identities. “Ken” and “Boten.” I have way too much fun with them. Ken/Boten has gotten very attached to another PC in the group. . .our bard/evangelist named John. They sometimes end up having these weird arguments? You could say they fight like best friends would. (Which I think is entertaining, but admittedly takes over the session sometimes. Oops.) WELL. . .they had a real fight recently.

I haven’t really had a chance to play it out, but Ken/Boten takes loyalty very seriously. And if someone abuses that or somehow severely break his trust, it’s a big deal to him.(More so with “Boten.”) To try and not drag out the story. . .Ken was planning on going out somewhere with his sister, asked the party not to follow him or to show up where he was headed. Of course only one person listened and two of them were noticed by Ken/Boten. He wasn’t surprised by the party healer being there, but John was also there and that really hurt and upset him. (Side note, John totally had reasons to go. Unlike the other two, he didn’t just ignore Ken’s request and go for fun.) So they’ve fought, argued about it.

Yay party drama!

ARE FOLKS STILL HERE??? I know Tumblr's functionality is shoddy at best, but woof I miss interacting with folks and doing character asks. :''''D

Fun game, if you are still here, TELL ME HOW YOU'RE DOING / ABOUT YOUR SKYRIM OR D&D OCS / IDK JUST SAY HI HERE

After the year (and some responsibilities) are done with, I hope to come back and do more character asks and art and such. I just want to see how many folks will actually interact with me if I do. TT^TT

#shut up ani #ramble #ocs #dungeons and dragons #dnd

38 notes · View notes

nat20persuassion · 5 years ago

Text

Dox the Changeling

After months of playing, the adventures of Dox the Changeling Figher is coming to a close. One of my campaigns I’m currently involved in I am the DM for, but because I’m a co-DM, we came to an agreement. We can play as a PC, but the other DM makes all the DM rulings for them. So if Dox gets a magic item, my co-DM decides what she gets. This character, despite being the basic ol’ fighter, has been one of my favorite characters.

Dox is a female Changeling raised in an Underdark temple by a Shadar-Kai after her parents were persecuted and killed on the charges of simply being Changelings. In that temple, she was raised with a strong sense of justice yet knowing when the law is unjust. Despite not being religious, she does worship the Raven Queen as that is who her godmother worshipped and sees the Shadowfell goddess as her patron. There has always been one problem with her body, though. One that keeps her from staying in her Changeling form even if she’s with people she trusts; she’s mute. She was born with disfunctional vocal chords that only work after she transforms, thus replacing her vocal chords.

Once she grew older and learned how to use her main weapon, a silver wood longbow, she disguised herself as a Human male named Julius Michael and joined the worlds largest military. Going through boot camp and showing her unmatched prowess with her arcane arrows, she was put in a squad of strange people, but none more strange than the head of the squadron; Genus, a Warforge built by the military for combat with a wild magic crystal built into him for magic usage (one of our other PCs).

They traveled together for years, rising the ranks and the two of them became heroes after a large war fought between three neighboring countries. However, they weren’t without sin or fault. Due to the chaos of the wild magic core built into him, Genus has two personalities that switch when under mental stress or at dawn; one a genuine hero who wants nothing more than to save others, the other a blood hungry psychopath who killed all in his way. They traveled together, and she covered any of his tracks and hid any of his misdeeds from their commanders. That was, at least, until one vital battle where the two were presumed killed in action. Really, they went over enemy lines and stayed there. Reason? Unknown. She just followed him as he was her commanding officer and her only real friend. She acted as his diplomat thanks to her smooth talking and easy lying. That all changed when a mishap occurred, a domino that lead her to where she is now. While performing in the capital of a nearby country, Genus’ wild magic went off, killing countless people. Genus and “Julius” were thrown in the royal dungeon.

That is where they showed up in the campaign.

After some new, questionable characters were thrown in the same prison, they realized it was the perfect time for a jailbreak. With a Luxodon breaking through a cell and beginning to fight the guards, they saw their chance. Genus began using a combination of wild magic and acid splash to melt through the bars while Julius waited for his chance. Upon getting through, he recruits the help of Marcus, a Moth-Folk (a homebrew race I made for my friend) Ranger to join them on their escape. Upon seeing Julius, Marcus instantly fell in love with him. However, the feeling was not completely reciprocated, as Dox didn’t understand sexual feelings, due to being raised in a religious area then being only with a Warforged for her whole life (this is how I explained her being asexual). They then recruited a Luxodon Barbarian who simply went by “Big”, the same one who started the prison break. Upon killing the guards and getting their gear, they left to the throne room, meeting a Tiefling Warlock/Bard who was disguised as a Moon Elf due to the genocide of Tieflings the world had (This was simply because I adopted this campaign from a friend cause she stopped showing up and she was like super against demons and devils so I added this but then proceeded to not give a shit). This Tiefling was their only way out of the castle, so they traded a secret for their freedom, showing the “Moon Elf” her true form. Upon making a shaky agreement, they fled the castle.

After leaving the castle, they went into the forest, tracking down a Druid named Lucy and a Kobold Rogue/Monk named Fae (two characters our players previously played) because the Tiefling had items to get from them. After traveling into the woods, they found them and received the items, getting a magic staff and a set of elven chain for herself and letting the Warlock have what she wanted. This, though, is where they met a very shady individual. A Half-Drow Half-Elf named Francis had killed Fae for a gemstone on her body. (Francis was a Thaumaturg, a homebrew class the person playing him, who is also my co-DM, has made who uses gems to store essence and use that to do many many things, however, they are very fraile and very rare). This Francis, little did they know, had very sinister plans for the world. He planned on opening portals to every plane at once, causing a massive war. Of course, he did not tell them and they did not pry. He was being watched very closely by the rest of the group and so they went on, moving steadily back towards Dox and Genus’ home kingdom.

Upon entering a small farming town on the other side of the border of the two countries, they rested for free for the night due to Dox and Genus’ status as heroes. This is where they met another shady individual who would’ve been killed on the spot had it not been for Genus falling for her and her love of fire; Arakos Nephira, a Tiefling Phoenix Soul Sorcerer who didn’t want anything but to watch the world burn (this character was also played by me, as she was a running joke between my friend playing Marcus, my co-DM and I and a returning character from a previous campaign that us three were in). After upgrading her longbow and getting information from the blacksmith, the party left towards a mining town north of the capital.

They went immediately into the gem mines after entering the mining town, as Francis had been insistent for them to go there. Much to their surprise, though, the mines instead of being full of miners and gems, housed a temple to a goddess and cult they had been hunting were in. Not just any temple, though. The main temple housing the head of the cult. Upon entering the building, the combined efforts of Francis, Marcus, Dox, and especially Arakos destroyed the cultist.

After killing the cult leader, Dox decided they deserved a break, so they went up to the beach. (This was a casual session where not much happened but I wanted to do it to establish relationships). There, they drank and relaxed but, most importantly for herself, Dox began showing signs of liking Marcus back. Francis and the Warlock had left well before for “unknown reasons” with Genus later following out of suspicion. Right before they could leave the beach, however, they were attacked by a water elemental. This foe proved to be quite great, with Big going down against it, mainly because of Arakos but that’s beside the point. However, Dox and her mastery of the bow was able to finish the beast and they left.

(This next session I was gone for so Dox and Arakos were out doing things so I’m going to explain what they were doing) After returning to the town and meeting up with Genus, Francis and the Warlock, they all went to the library to gather information. However, before entering, Dox and Arakos got into a fight, ending with Dox being burnt and Arakos having an arrow scar in her shoulder. They were completely unaware of what had been going on inside, with the murder of the Warlock after his evil intentions had been revealed.

This is where the story ends for her for now. There are a few more sessions before we have to call it a temporary end, but those haven’t happened yet. Once we come back from hiatus, depending on the outcome of this campaign, she may be dead when we reveal the setting for the next one. She will either die in the final conflict, or live long enough to see the new party of heroes on their adventure and give them advice.

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #my ocs #changeling #story #dnd character #dnd 5e #dnd oc

0 notes

roll-for-stupidity · 7 years ago

Text

Naruto D20 Episode 1.25: AKA Dow Finally Does A Good

So at the end of session 1.2, I let the characters go off and “train,” which basically consists of the players selecting a jutsu that their characters have literally never even heard of, and rolling a die to see if they can “learn” the jutsu with no instruction or prior knowledge of the jutsu’s existence.

^^literally my reaction after realizing how dumb it is that that’s the process for learning techniques.

Like, I let it slide in session 1.1 because the players selected techniques that the characters could feasibly have heard of, and could practice on their own, but then my players selected some highly specialized techniques for session 1.2′s training time and it just felt…wrong? I guess? And it’s wrong for a few reasons:

One, there is no way that you can learn how to do something if you don’t know that something exists and you have no one showing you how the something is done. Like, that goes for everything. Allowing players’ meta-knowledge to affect gameplay is like DM cardinal sin number 4. Player knowledge and character knowledge should always be kept separate. No exceptions.

Two, you lose out on so much roleplaying ability. Like, the source anime and manga’s training sequences were arguably better than some of the fight scenes at times. Naruto spends like over half his time training, and the immense payoff that you get from watching him finally succeed only comes from watching the episodes of him struggling and working to get a new skill or technique to work. And the payoff was usually awesome.

So I decided to fix breaking DM cardinal sin number 4, by breaking cardinal sin number 3: I retconned the last third of session 1.2

^^Basically how I started this session.

Let me preface what happened next by saying that yesterday, I literally lost my job and became homeless so I did not have anything planned. I was fully expecting this to crash and burn. But it honestly turned out to be the best session we’ve had yet, and I would even go so far as to say I enjoyed DMing this session more than playing some of the sessions I’ve played. I know the two experiences cannot necessarily be compared 100%, but today’s mini-session was honestly so fun and very refreshing, and the two players I had with me today (the third is currently MIA and I just hope that he is doing ok) agreed.

Basically, my stipulation for learning techniques became that you had to roll high enough on a knowledge check for ninja lore to see if your character knows of the technique. In addition, you had to have someone who knew the technique teaching it to you, or you had to have had enough experience watching the technique being performed to try and learn it on your own, but the second way would come with a penalty to the learn check. Finally, instead of just rolling and you either got it or you didn’t, you had to put in the work to learn how to do the thing. In other words, you actually had to train your character. Roleplay over rollplay.

I’m gonna need to copyright that phrase.

And I mean, at the end of the day, the roll to learn the technique is ultimately what dictates whether or not the technique gets learned. But, regardless of the roll’s outcome, the character would literally be expending eight hours of their time trying to learn this new skill, and while I could just jump ahead eight hours, the chance for character development and interactions during that period would be completely lost.

Zaki, played by B (who has given me permission to tag him @baumguy), decided that he would spend his time training by going to his grandmother’s dojo to work on his swordfighting. His grandmother, Kisagana, who is the daughter of the Akatsuki member Kisame, has long since left her mentoring days behind her, but she does have Mutsumi, a young Chuunin who is working to take over for her when she does decide to step down as sensei of the dojo. @baumguy rolled well enough on a knowledge check that his character had heard of the technique he wanted his character to learn enough to ask about it by name, and Mutsumi had the necessary knowledge to train him to perform that technique, which meant that all the prerequisites I had set for learning a technique were met, and the roleplay began.

@baumguy kicked it off with a successful learn check, so from there it was just a matter of some good old fashioned sparring. Now, I hadn’t prepared any of what was going to happen, really. I just gave her one or two basic character traits. She began by demonstrating the technique, and then had him attempt to recreate what she showed him. He would practice for a bit, Taijutsu rolls indicating how well each attempt went, and when Zaki needed some pointers (rolled poorly on an attempt to perform an aspect of the technique enough times in a row), she stepped in and offered them.

It wasn’t by any means a necessary interaction. Poor rolls didn’t have permanent consequences, because he had already rolled well enough to perform the technique, but it gave a process that would normally just consist of a simple learning check much more life, and allowed Zaki and Mutsumi to grow as characters, playing off of each other and allowing different aspects of each of their characterizations to shine through.

By the end of it, Zaki had pretty well mastered the technique, but just to keep him from getting too inflated of an ego, Mutsumi let him know that he still had lots of room for growth and improvement:

Meanwhile, Tamotsu and Rin (played by J from the RWBY campaign in which I play Iris) shared a moment at Ichiraku Ramen, learning a bit about each other’s histories and Tamotsu was able to get a better idea of where Rin was looking to improve. The thing about Rin is, she has a bloodline that canonically in her backstory is difficult to control, but she knew no Chakra Control techniques at all. This simple fact not only made Tamotsu, a descendant from a clan also famous for an incredibly difficult to control bloodline (so difficult that only Tamotsu himself had mastered it, and even that required the chakra of Yamato, the last surviving host of Hashirama’s cells, to be introduced into Tamotsu when his bloodline activated years before), the ideal teacher for Rin to study under, but it also meant that he had to start with the bare basics of Chakra Control for Rin:

Tree Climbing Technique!

This training came quite naturally to Rin, so her training consisted of a simple explanation followed by a demonstration, after which she was free to practice as she pleased. Tamotsu had something to take care of, and left her to her training, promising to return in the evening to see her progress, which he did and found her sitting at the top of the tree, having mastered the technique, adding it to her repertoire.

For Rin, the roleplaying was more about establishing rapport between herself and the person she will likely spend a lot of time training under directly, not to mention go on missions for. So yes, there was a different learning style involved, but that also comes with the nature of the technique itself. Some techniques can be learned without extensive hands-on training, while others are learned best with someone to oversee the entire learning process.

I’m not going to pretend that I’ve in any way perfected the style of this campaign. I know I still have lots to work on, and I know that we’ve really only just begun. But I feel for the first time like I have a shot at creating a story and an experience for my players that is not only enjoyable and fun, but also deep, rich, and at times surprising. I know I surprised myself with how well this session went.

And while I know I still have to find out what our favorite squid boy Maindo (played by M, also from the RWBY campaign) got up to while Zaki and Rin were training, I’m much more confident moving forward in my storytelling ability and just general comfort level with not having every little detail fleshed out before a session. And even with these minor interactions that seem meaningless in the grand scheme of things, I feel like I’m still able to move the overarching plot forward. I’ve got some big things planned for my tiny ninja friends. I just can’t wait for them to see what’s in store.

So, I know I forgot my takeaways from 1.2, but as far as 1.25 goes, I’d just say I learned to relax. DMing does not have to involve nearly as much planning or stress as I was initially putting into it. While major characters do need to be developed fully for combat situations and such, minor interactions don’t necessarily require a lot of prior planning, and it’s quite possible that planning more might have made the interactions feel less genuine or fulfilling.

I’m still learning this whole thing. And probably will be the entire campaign. But hey, I know for a fact that both my players and I had fun this session, and in my book, that’s 99% of what matters.

Now thanks to the whole real life thing (you know, the unemployment and homelessness bit), I am very exhausted after driving so long with so little sleep, so my bed now calls. But I always feel the need to gather my thoughts on sessions before I go to bed, just so I can make sure I remember all the things I want to document. That now complete, I await the sweet gift of the Sandman until tomorrow morning (or afternoon, who knows, I’m exhausted)

(Can you tell I’m excited for Christmas?)

#d20 modern #naruto d20 #d&d #tabletop gaming #the saviors and the guardians #dm

0 notes

thistlewhistler · 7 years ago

Text

Shadowrun Characters

So: a bit of background. I love Shadowrun. But my story, like any, deserves a beginning.

I had heard of RPGs and D&D events and campaign things before, but only had my first experience with one when I started college. My freshman year I was going into a new experience where all of us were door-to-door neighbors in a dorm. Making friends was not my specialty, so I didn’t go out of my way to leave the sanctity of my room, except during classes and to forage for food.

Some people that lived in the hall with me shared that they were going to start a campaign in the futuristic cyberpunk, neo-noir, mystical RPG called Shadowrun. Not to let a topic with that many buzz-words I am interested pass me by, I cautiously shared that I would be interested in at least learning more about the world and its rules. After all, I still didn’t know many people, none of them very well, and I didn’t know if I wanted to gamble a large chunk of time in my weekly schedule towards being around people I might not like, or playing something I wouldn’t become invested in.

What a fool I was.

I was given a couple PDFs to look at, one of them notably a copy the DM’s purchase of the 20th Anniversary Shadowrun Corebook. The others were two or three splat books on magic, weaponry, and cyber stuff. I cracked open the Corebook and took a peek, skimming the pages first to get the concepts and intending to go back to a few sections later for a second glance.

I didn’t sleep that night.

Now keep in mind, I love sleep. Sleep is delicious. I know now (and found out repeatedly while at college) that many people skip sleep in favor for other activities, but I am very dedicated to getting 8 hours each day, no matter the occasion or events that demand attention. So staying up, cutting into my sleep schedule, prying myself from the recesses of unconscious slumber and recharge is an impressive feat for me.

The next day I single out the DM at breakfast. He was sitting with a few people from the hall who, unbeknownst to me, would later become my first party.

I sat down, placing my tray firmly on the table with both hands, and when they looked up, said “I’m in.”

(Okay I definitely didn’t do it like that, but how cool would it have been? I should have done that. Again, not great with the whole friends aspect or really the self-confidence factor.)

I told him I would be interested in joining. He asked what I had read so far, and was pleasantly impressed that I had read the corebook in detail, but not entirely surprised. I learned that he had played a good number of games but it would be his first time running a campaign, that in this RPG he would be called the “GM” instead of “DM” (GameMaster DungeonMaster), that I should meet with him and others later that weekend for general rules, and that I should think of a general character concept, but don’t worry about fleshing out details initially.

Meanwhile he learned I was a voracious reader, was fascinated with the Awakened World in Shadowrun, had already come up with a couple character ideas, spoke rapidly and a little too loud about subjects I was interested in, got along very well with the people at the table, had never played an RPG before, hadn’t left the dorms much at all, and had limited knowledge of popular culture in both current events and the 90′s.

Our first meeting was at someone’s apartment up the hill from the dorm. We talked about how it would be pretty casual, that we would be expected to bring ourselves and our character sheets and that would be basically it, that sessions would last about five hours or longer, and agreed on ground rules. Well, ground rule.

“Don’t be a ‘d’.”

“What does that mean? A lot of things start with d. Does that mean I shouldn’t be a dwarf?”

But everyone knew what the rule meant. It meant don’t be a dick. It was a flexible, fluid rule that didn’t bar certain behavior yet could be brought up if behavior got out of hand. It meant meta-gaming wasn’t overly discouraged but that you shouldn’t rules-lawyer. The rule also went both ways, and we were encouraged to see it like that. Not only for the players, but to remind the GM if he was being too hard or if something he said wasn’t right to bring to the table. “Don’t be a ‘d’“ meant don’t take the fun out of the game. We were going to have a good time in this campaign, and everyone wanted everyone else to feel comfortable with it.

Anyone that’s read this far, thanks. I am immensely grateful for how this first campaign was ran, and the friends I made from it. I love everything about Shadowrun, and it was undoubtedly because of the atmosphere and comfort I received acting through character reactions, laughing together, sharing snacks and plot hooks around a long table and whiteboard.

Fast forward.

Today I use Tumblr to scroll through the internet, dipping my hand into fresh or familiar waters with genuine interest in what I might see in the river’s flow. I follow my share of users and their content. For Shadowrun content, I reminisce over memories and characters alike that my friends and I have made. Today I saw a map of Seattle that @shadowrungames posted. I was brought back to the first time I saw that map, saw the names and where characters would call their homes, their familiar turf or stomping ground. Where adventures would take place and once, where war would be declared and fought one street at a time. I remembered the campaigns I was fortunate enough to play. And despite my nostalgia, or more likely because of it, I remembered too how much I wanted more after every end came about, in one way or another. I wanted to share what I had made, to dive deep and immerse myself in the 6th world, to see others experience what I had.

With that out of the way, I’m hoping to do something I’ve been wanting to for a while. I’ve made a large number of characters over the years (all in a horrible word document format instead of proper character sheets like normal people) and want to upload them so anyone that shares an interest in Shadowrun, be it a passing fancy or devoted dedication or longing memory, might find what they’re looking for in their pages.

Iiiiif you like them enough to use them in something, great! If you’d let me know I would be tickled to hear about it. If you want fodder for mooks or overpowered huge bosses, or even an example of what NOT to do for your players, I’d be happy just knowing they’re out ‘running.

Remember Chummers: Watch your back. Shoot straight. Conserve ammo. And never, ever, cut a deal with a dragon.

#Shadowrun #Shadowrun stories #Shadowrun 4E #My characters #Shadowrun stuff

0 notes