#astinus

[warthoong]

ok I brought you some photos of The Last Trial (2023, dir. Polina Nakhimovskaya)

(for those who don't know The Last Trial is a russian musical based on Margaret Weis' Trilogy of the Twins )

ahh the shadow of Takhisis in the backgroung...

the composition!!!

Caramon(angwy)

Astinus the dnd master(annoyed), Player aka real life Raistlin(raistlinous)

Astinus, this time not annoyed because Raistlin is nowhere to be seen

ahhh these sweet brother relationship

photos by Alexander Kolbaya, source

[whats-in-a-sentence]

"Inside a cavern room, at the bottom of the volcano, stands an altar to Takhisis. What it may have been carved to represent, I could not tell, for it was so covered with green blood and black slime that it seemed a horrid growth springing from the rock. Around the altar were robed figures – dark clerics of Takhisis and magic-users wearing the Black Robes. (...)"

"DragonLance Chronicles: Dragons of Spring Dawning" - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

[tenth-sentence]

His head remained poised for an instant over the paper, then – with a shrug – he resumed work on his chronicles once more.

"DragonLance Chronicles: Dragons of Spring Dawning" - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

[majeremorozova]

Astinus during Legends

[aeternal-nightmare]

DRAGONLANCE SKETCHES BRRRR

I'm reading the Legends series!!

[daddywarbats]

Love how I'm just like Aww Yeah, time to be Back on my Bullshit with Dragonlance again the second I get new material.

Like, I never left the fandom, not really, but new material is very nice and definitely gonna be a good thing to be rereading while in my Regular Infusion Chair.

Also, the scene with Sturm and Raistlin finding Tas and the gnomes is living rent-free in my head and I am gonna have to draw that lol

[megan-karau]

you've gotta be kidding me if there's not enough fanart of Raist when he becomes a god.

this is based of the book description (except the horns/ears???): - his figure is blacker than the darkness around him - only his eyes can be seen - astinus sees his hands clench so he must have hands - described as 'black robed figure' (kinda forgot abt that)

i tried to make the horns kinda like rabbit ears cuz yeah lol

[silverglass83]

Tika Waylan-Majere Appreciation Post

The most recent chapter of The Sword and The Hourglass was an introspective one regarding Tika as told through Astinus. Basically, it was a way for me to share my personal thoughts on how much of an important character she is to canon.

She's more than a busty, red-headed bombshell. She's a wife, a mother, a business owner, and a friend all the while trying to navigate the dicey waters of an alcoholic husband and the sudden appearance of his estranged twin. She's compassionate and loyal, but she's also fierce and protects those she loves. But most of all, she loves with all her heart. And people like her make a difference in the lives of others.

I'll quote what Astinus wrote in my chapter: ~For indeed, her love is the strongest of armor; her loyalty the sharpest of swords; her belief in a person the strength of armies; the thread of her existence the binding cord that holds the flag aloft.~

Anyway, I thought I'd share those thoughts as well as the moodboard I created for the chapter.

[dndhistory]

422. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman - Dragons of Spring Dawning (1985)

The last book in the Dragonlance Chronicles Trilogy, is far from the last book set in the Dragonlance campaign setting. As we shall see, the number of books set in this world must be nearing the 200 by now (comparable but a bit less than those set in the Forgotten Realms). Your correspondent, dear reader, plans to read them all! 

Ok, but why was this such a success? Well, these chronicles have much to answer to, and the three books make up an easy to read, compelling, often stirring story and it's understandable if you want to pass some more time in this setting by the end of this third book. Spring Dawning isn't the best book in the Chronicles series, but it's a good second best after Autumn Twilight, the first in the series.

In Spring Dawning the whole story comes to a head, and you are introduced to fascinating and intriguing characters, such as the record keeper Astinus of Palanthas, all while some of the characters we have been accompanying since the start have dramatic changes, such as Raistling reappearing in a much changed fashion, or even the most uncommon of epic fantasy events: a main character dying of natural causes, in one of the most touching moments in the series. 90% of the book is a buildup to disaster with the characters only getting a reprieve right at the end, but by then they are all deeply changed for better or worse. Next up in the novels we'll have one of Gygax's Greyhawk stories about Gord the Rogue, a very different kind of book.

[9mothsinspace]

Okay! Rant (and spoilers) ahead! It's been some time since I read Dragons of Fate now and I need to put down my thoughts about it. My obsessive bookmarking of scenes must be put to some use! Really, hoarding scenes it my one true dragon trait.

Now. Critique comes first. For one:

Inconsistency problems. I ranted about some of them in other posts as well, but here a few in short: 1. Raistlin is too well-informed about Immolatus. He may have figured out that he's a dragon at some point after Brothers in Arms, but even then, he couldn't have detailed knowledge about his hunting habits from the short encounters he had with him. 2. The Green dragon in the orb is named Viper, not Cyan 3. In the very first scene a gnome appears he finishes a sentence. The a-gnome-never-finishes-a-sentence rule has been broken before but still.

Then. The repetetive and tedious explainations of time travelling. Okay, so the book starts with a chapter that basically retells the last chapter of the previous book to explain where things left off. So far so good, it's a bit unnecessary that the time travelling is spelled out to the reader in such detail and that Sturm is used as the 'ignorant character' device that needs everything explained to him. But then we switch scenes and the same discussion takes place with Dalamar and Justarius. And then again with Tanis (again the ignorant character device) and Astinus! Yes, every character has to be up to date, but the process doesn't have to be described every time. It just feels like the reader isn't trusted to keep up and I would actually welcome some ambiguity here. But maybe that's just personal preference.

Destina. I was actually on bord with the entire Destina plotline in the first book, but in the second one it feels like she has simply been erased, now that the heroes of the lance have entered the stage. And the plot with her love interest... uff. I read somewhere that Dragonlance has a problem with writing love stories and I agree. There is no real distinction between initial attraction and supposed deeper feelings? At least not in this case. There was no time for these two to fall in love and it feels like a plot device.

Raistlin. Now. This REALLY is personal preference but he felt... out of character a bit? How do explain it better than 'he isn't evil enough'? Yes he is still sarcastic and snarky, but it also just set on fixing the river of time without ever even contemplating an outcome that doesn't end with him dead? Of course his memories of his failed atttempt of godhood could have taught him better, but are you really telling me that RAISTLIN MAJERE doesn't have any ambition or shred of selfishness left in him? Especially after he says he doesn't really regret his actions? And I loved the scene in the beginning where he tells Tasslehoff that he is sorry that Mary was never real but it also just felt off.

Now, I ranted a lot about things I didn't like. So here the things i absolutely did (especially in the third half of the book that made up for a lot of the previous bugs I think):

Gnomes!! They were hilarious! Like, in every scene and every dialogue they were what I expected gnomes to be. Chaotic bureaucracy, exploding shit, little self-preservation, that's just awesome.

Magius. I had my issues with his and Raistlin's dynamic at first because it felt like they were set up for being friends just because it serves the plot and Raistlin was more dragged along than making decisions on his own... but the death scene really had me with a lump in my throat. And Magius handing over the staff and declaring that it will be Raistlin's now and in the future - that was actually a mindblowing moment!

The Immolatus and Takhisis dynamic. Now, this was an intriguing and ambiguous relationship. We know that she favours him, gifts him a powerful artifact and makes him a commander of her army, even recruits him again in Brothers in Arms, but he just hates her guts. Why? We got just enough bits to be interested but not enough to make it flat. Nice!

Raistlin and Sturm. Sue me, i ship them and I loved every bit of interaction.

Kitiara and siblings in the dragon army. This... I mean-!!! Again, this is subjective, but I was just always absolutely in love with Kitiara and Raistlin as a team and understood but was saddened when they tried to kill each other half the time. To see them now on the same side in this alternative present and with Caramon at that... this is everything I wanted for them. I know, I know, that's just me, but i'm all in for team evil Majere / uth Matar siblings.

So much from me :) Plz tell me you thoughts if you agree or disagree with any of this.

[iliss4]

bits from Fake It wip

"…and that's how Raistlin, Dalamar, Laurana, Sturm and me got married" "I still can't understand how I got tied into this mess" "It was in that moment when astinus asked who exactly is the bride and Raistlin waved his hand and generously declared "just write in all of them, we'll figure the details later" "To be honest, I forgot Sturm was there" "The only time I decided to make you guys company I got married to Raistlin! I am not taking your name!" "Neither of you are getting my name, you bastards!"

***

The clergy was very pissed that crysania are "lives with a man out of wedlock! Gasp!" So Raistlin said fuck it, let's get married Dalamar threw a fit because "what do you mean you're marrying WITHOUT ME, I WAS THERE FIRST" Laurana walked in "what's going on?" "We're getting married to Raistlin" "hell yeah, I'm in" And on the way to astinus the merry company encountered Sturm who tailed by as a guest on the wedding

***

For the sake of this scene being possible Sturm did got severly injured by Kitiara and went into a coma for a week But Flint filed in the forms to declare him dead, because he was presumed being dead So the rest of the time after he recovered he tried to prove to government that he is indeed alive

***

Raistlin met Sturm in Palanthas after neraka, while still was getting settled in the tower R: WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? FLINT SAID YOU DIED! S: FLINT CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF, I'M STILL TRYING TO PROVE THAT I'M ALIVE!

[first-and-last-neocount]

Whumptober Teaser Post

So much for not going for completion. X'D

Here's the general game plan - I've come up with a prompt choice/general plot for each day, and I'm going to start writing them immediately. Whether or not I actually try for completion during the month of October is going to depend on how much I can get written during September - if I have 21 or more done by October 1st, I'll try to finish them all, but I'm not going to let myself try to write more than 10 fics during the actual month of posting to prevent myself from stressing right into burnout again. I'll do periodic updates during September on how many I have written so far to give a general picture of whether completion is likely or not.

I'm not doing purely Coldfire this time! As much as I love it, I think that trying to work on that many fills for only one fandom at a time might have been part of my problem last year, so I'm going to shake it up this year. (Fully half of them are still Coldfire but I can only vary so much from my essential nature, lol.) Below is a photo of my pretty multicolored notes, and under the cut is a transcription/elaboration of the info; the day, the fandom, and the ship/extremely vague premise of each planned fill! (Keeping which prompt I picked from each day a secret for now :P)

Actually readable version:

Day 1 - Coldfire Trilogy - It Walks Among Us, It Walks Within installment.

Day 2 - DragonLance - Astinus/Raistlin canon divergence fic set during the Legends trilogy.

Day 3 - Coldfire Trilogy - You'll Tell to Me What'll Happen to Me chapter.

Day 4 - DragonLance - Astinus/Raistlin fic chapter.

Day 5 - Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince trilogy - Andry/Pol canon divergence fic set during The Star Scroll.

Day 6 - Coldfire Trilogy - You'll Tell to Me What'll Happen to Me chapter.

Day 7 - Resident Evil - Weskennedy RE4 canon divergence fic.

Day 8 - Coldfire Trilogy - You'll Tell to Me What'll Happen to Me chapter.

Day 9 - Bloodborne - Laurence/Ludwig, sequel to Erit Praemium Sanguine Sanctum.

Day 10 - Shannara - Garet Jax/Jair fic set during the Dark Wraith of Shannara graphic novel.

Day 11 - Resident Evil - Weskennedy RE4 fic chapter.

Day 12 - Grimm - Sean/Nick canon divergence set during the episode Three Coins in a Fuschbau.

Day 13 - Coldfire Trilogy - You'll Tell to Me What'll Happen to Me chapter.

Day 14 - Grimm - Sean/Nick canon divergence chapter.

Day 15 - Coldfire Trilogy - You'll Tell to Me What'll Happen to Me chapter.

Day 16 - Coldfire Trilogy - You'll Tell to Me What'll Happen to Me chapter.

Day 17 - Resident Evil - Weskennedy RE4 fic chapter.

Day 18 - Resident Evil - Weskennedy RE4 fic chapter.

Day 19 - DragonLance - Astinus/Raistlin fic chapter.

Day 20 - Coldfire Trilogy - It Walks Among Us, It Walks Within installment.

Day 21 - Coldfire Trilogy - It Walks Among Us, It Walks Within installment.

Day 22 - Star Wars - Rexakin canon divergence set during the Clone Wars.

Day 23 - Coldfire Trilogy - It Walks Among Us, It Walks Within installment.

Day 24 - Star Wars - Rexakin canon divergence chapter.

Day 25 - Star Wars - Rexakin canon divergence chapter.

Day 26 - Star Wars - Rexakin canon divergence chapter.

Day 27 - Coldfire Trilogy - You'll Tell to Me What'll Happen to Me chapter.

Day 28 - Coldfire Trilogy - You'll Tell to Me What'll Happen to Me chapter.

Day 29 - Coldfire Trilogy - It Walks Among Us, It Walks Within installment.

Day 30 - Coldfire Trilogy - You'll Tell to Me What'll Happen to Me chapter.

Day 31 - Coldfire Trilogy - 'Cause I Loved You For Too Long final chapter.

...

As you guys can probably tell, I've been kind of holding back on You'll Tell to Me What'll Happen to Me since I started suspecting I might want to do Whumptober, because that fic is nothing but whump (in TV Tropes language I think it would qualify as a Trauma Conga Line). I'm also dipping my toes into some fandoms I really enjoy but haven't written for yet, so we'll see how that goes, lol.

I'm going to bite the bullet this year and post these things properly; everything will be getting uploaded to AO3 and then linked to Tumblr instead of posting directly here, because these will be going up out of order with each other like always and it's so much less confusing for everyone if they're at least properly structured in a series on AO3. Plus, this go round, I should have the time to do final edits/AO3 uploads more easily without the horrific crunch of still trying to write them all at the last minute!

I'll admit I'm really curious to see if any of my follower have ever read Melanie Rawn's books, I read them around the same time I read Black Sun Rising, and although they didn't shape my personality quite as fundamentally as Coldfire did they're still very dear to me. Shannara as well, given that I started reading that series when I was nine, and a lot of my own writing voice (and certainly my love of imagery) was inspired by Terry Brooks.

Now, into the grand adventure of actually writing all of these! XD

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Astinus of Palanthas sat in his study.

"DragonLance Chronicles: Dragons of Spring Dawning" - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

[tenth-sentence]

I can hear tears choke her voice.

"DragonLance Chronicles: Dragons of Spring Dawning" - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

[majeremorozova]

I always had a thought that Astinus keeps a list of people he’s banned from the Great Library, even though he can’t strictly enforce it. It’s like Mr. Gold’s shop in OUAT. Everyone just comes in and ignores the “Closed” sign.

Those on the list in no particular order:

1. Raistlin

2. Caramon

3. Tasslehoff

4. Crysania

5. Dalamar

6. Palin

7. Usha

8. Destina

[rottenbrainstuff]

BG3 playthrough - the orthon, tying up loose ends

Man, I think I’m getting close to finishing up act 2 here?

Mild spoilers beneath the cut.

I’m taking a slight detour from the flow of the plot to go straight in and kill the orthon, because my tav is starting to get depressed feeling like for one and a half acts Astarion has just been totally stringing him along, and he’s fallen for it like a total idiot. Time enough now I think for “I think we need to talk…” This act 2 romance variation is triggered after you kill the orthon and talk to Raphael. I thought after that you needed to camp at Moonrise, but it seems you don’t, rest anywhere a couple times and it should be good to go. I personally prefer this variation over the easier-to-trigger scene you get after talking to Araj Oblodra, however I do think there are important, interesting things in both so the best course of action is to save and reload and try again!

Now I’m done my second romance and I get: kisses! Yay! Somehow, I really like Astarion saying that he doesn’t know exactly what we are, but isn’t it nice, not to know? I dunno, I really like that. It is nice to not know, it is nice to just… BE, and not worry about labels and analyzing things and defining things, just enjoy experiences and feelings. Maybe I’ve just had a string of specific partners, I don’t know, but I find other people generally do feel a need to have things defined and discussed and analyzed and I find it a bit exhausting. YES Star, it IS nice, I TOTALLY agree and understand what you mean.

In the mausoleum there’s a little bit of sloppy dialogue that I wish they would edit. When you approach Isobel’s tomb, it triggers incidental dialogue to the effect of “ah yes, this must have been Isobel’s tomb before her father Ketheric brought her back to life.” Like. What? Excuse me? When did we piece this all together? Up to this point, all we have are little clues that should be arousing suspicion, not something so conclusive! Apparently in older versions Isobel’s tomb had her name on it, but it no longer does, bafflingly. That needs to be put back in, and approaching the tomb should give a reaction along the lines of “Isobel? That couldn’t be OUR Isobel, could it???” rather than “ah I see yes obviously this is the tomb of Isobel, daughter of Ketheric Thorm, whom he brought back from the dead, obviously.”

Anyways, I adore everything about the orthon encounter. I love Raphael practicing his lines outside the mausoleum without a hint of shame about it. I love how he’s like “oh yeah there’s this horribly dangerous thing in there and you’re all about saving people, maybe you should go kill it, to save people!!! (which will also conveniently express ship it straight to where I need it to be, thank you so much for that)” I love all the different options you have to approach the encounter. I love the shockingly gruesome fake-loophole-in-the-contract option.

I love Astarion getting into a panic behind me whining about how we need to stop talking and just hurry up and kill it. Darling, babe, I love you but for the love of god, shut your face hole for two seconds and let me just THINK here. This guy could TPK us and I need to be very very smart here. We’ve been traveling for I don’t even know how long now, I’ve saved us from SO many Not Good situations just by saying smart things, PLEASE my babe look into my eyes I am begging you please just trust me. This reminded me of the situation in the gith creche too, with Lae’zel yelling at me in one ear to listen to Vlaakith, and the dream guardian yelling at me in the other ear to stop, and I’m in the middle of a life-and-death encounter trying to think think think what to do. Great tension.

Arabella having a good old chat with Withers is just the funniest thing I have ever seen. I love Withers. He’s hilarious. I imagine him meeting up at the end of the day at the Divine Avatars Cafe having an americano with Astinus the scribe while the two of them sigh and thoroughly complain about all the stupid things the adventurers are currently doing.

It’s always been funny that my tav is this huge buff drow, but his strength is 8. I joked he is like a body builder - all muscle mass and no endurance. I think I’ve decided the actual in-game reason though is officially going to be chronic injuries left from whatever horrible accident / thing Orin did to him (that I still don’t have the details about) while he was the durge, some kind of lingering soft tissue / tendon damage that limits his motion and causes chronic pain. As we explore more in Moonrise and Reithwin and he gains back more memories, the pain is getting worse and that’s why he’s been getting more cranky and making increasingly yucky choices in act two.

I don’t see people talking much about Z’rell which is a shame because dang she’s something isn’t she? It’s a bit disappointing that she has a bit of an unremarkable voice, it would have been smoking hot if she had a low sultry voice, but then again maybe it’s for the best because that probably would have made me lose my goddamned mind entirely.

Anyways, I’m clearing up all the little lose ends getting ready to do the rest of the Gauntlet of Shar. I love the staff betting pool in the House of Healing. … are the items in the crate the items that they pulled out of people’s asses…? House of Healing was suitably horrible. I finished all the shadow curse stuff with Thaniel and whatnot… I was ever so slightly confused about that whole plot point, as was my oldest daughter when she did it. I’m not sure if the issue was that both of us skimmed Halsin’s dialogue way too much back at the beginning when he explained his history with the shadow curse, or if it really is just kind of vaguely written. Sorry Halsin. He really does seem like a super nice guy, and I know they worked hard to include him as a companion when he was originally never supposed to be, but I just can’t seem to get into him the same way as the others. At this point I have 100 game hours in my save game (and over 400 hours of actual play time due to all my exploring and reloading) so he really is arriving quite late to the party here.

I found an amusing little glitch - when chatting with Jaheira, through certain dialogue paths, I got the option to warn her that Marcus is a True Soul spy and wants to kidnap Isobel. …which like. Happened ages ago, you were there, Jaheira was there, we were all there my dude? Seems like this is some dialogue from an evil run bleeding through somehow: if you did not save the tieflings, it will not be Mol at the entrance to Last Light, vouching for you - it will be Marcus. Interesting!

I think I’ve finished everything I can do at this point - the only thing remaining now is Balthazar and the rest of the Gauntlet of Shar. This whole shadow-cursed area is really spooky, really sad. I particularly liked all the undead bar patrons in the Waning Moon. I find myself wishing a bit that there were more undead citizens in the area, sad little echoes of the domesticity that got destroyed by Ketheric’s bullshit.