#bc he went way too far into the changeling world (the sun) and as a result of that he went too far into Banality (the ocean)

[eric-the-bmo]

god every once in a while i get really sad about dr chapman

[gravesung]

quick and dirty bios for the unseen's inner circle (the sanctum)!

bc i just remembered sage and fletch are the only unseen creatures i actually have bios for.

*note — by default, these descriptions apply to the unseen as they are in shelter island. some details are subject to change based on verse. *note 2 — each member of the sanctum has a self-chosen tarot card that's left behind as a "calling card" at a particular job they claim responsibility for. in place of a stolen bounty, on top of a body, etc.

acheron ??? (he/him) — the poisoner

the emperor

dilf

calm, collected, honest but in a kind way. pretty emotionally intelligent.

as a rule, never pries into other people's business. lane = stayed in.

has a son who's in college rn! on good terms with his ex-wife.

ex-safecracker/bank robber

he makes poisons! has a little lab and everything

occasionally fletch will pull him out of retirement and make him go crack a safe. he complains about his knees

norah suman (she/her) — the engineer

the sun

lesbiab

has had a secret crush on seph for a couple years. designed her arms from the ground up, and the first point of contact when something goes wrong or seph needs a redesign/upgrade

dry humor, very blunt and often sarcastic

eyebrow piercing

habit of chopping off her hair when she's sad

makes the gadgets. makes explosives, modifies weapons, invents new shit, always thinking about new ways to do stuff. engineering as an art and a science at the same time.

also an up-and-coming tattoo artist!

orion aisa (he/they) — the forger

the moon

seph's twin brother

not a great fighter, hates using guns

eyepatch over his right eye. fletch took it when he and seph tried to escape as teenagers, along with ripping seph's arms off, which is a very normal and cool and chill reaction to have

trans lad. top surgery, took testosterone for a few years but then stopped. pretty satisfied with where he's at right now

excellent painter

suffers from hand tremors, though they fade when he paints

hector dionísio (he/him) — the muscle

the wheel of fortune

unpredictable and violent. unhinged.

will be having a drink with you and then at a hair-trigger provocation, he'll just turn around and start kicking the shit out of someone

scarily good fighter, way too fast for his muscular build

no one knows why fletch trusts him to be in the inner circle and not rat on them

unexpectedly very reliable as a teammate. he does his job very well

fixated on seph in a "constantly riling her so that she'll fight him whenever he wants" way

fixated on edith in a "why can't i land a hit on you. come here" way

pit fighter. so far undefeated

cody shimura (he/him) — the accountant

justice

the most guy ever

he's so tired.

retired hedge fund manager, went into crime because he did some digging, realized the finance industry was already in fletch's pocket anyway, and his ability to stealthily uncover those secrets impressed fletch enough to hire him on.

tries to be a plant dad but he keeps killing them

surprisingly well-trained with a gun

occasionally pulls out the most scathing one-liners in the quietest and calmest voice imaginable

sage / VECTOR (she/her) — the driver

the world

technomancer (arcane hacker)

pokemon superfan

harvard dropout

a pretty normal person, generally, probably the least traumatized out of the crew

can summon cars / motorcycles made of, essentially, compressed/hardened demon souls sourced straight from hell

also has normal, non-summonable cars / motorcycles that she likes to augment and fix up with norah's help

has a giant fluffy dog named Baby

fucking Maniac behind the wheel. the dog's name is a reference to baby driver for a reason.

if she knew about @tewwor's vector alias, she would make them matching shirts

edith winter (she/they) — the thief

the hermit

sneaky. quiet. wow shocker

fey changeling who's lived on earth their whole life, but is in contact with the human child they replaced

raised by wolves a gang, sort of collectively alongside her parents. it takes a village yaknow. they all had a hand in training her to be the insanely skilled thief she is — edith was probably the most valuable piece on their board, even at a young age

said gang was absorbed by the unseen and scattered across the world for resisting said absorption. one of edith's parents was killed in the conflict, the other was sent across the world but she doesn't know where

no one knows if they're bitter about it or not. they don't talk about it

acheron taught her how to crack safes

caro vitale / deadfall (he/him) — the fence

the hanged man

owner of the black stag, a bar and antique shop just at the northern edge of the city where metropolis meets highway meets forest.

can sell anything to anyone

no one knows a single thing about this man except for the fact that he's fluent in italian. he WILL lie if you ask him anything else. caro vitale is also not his real name

he got that thang on him (a club)

tattoos everywhere

ishal king (they/them) — the doctor

death

fae nephilim (an angel fucked an archfey and produced a very strange kid), exiled from the autumn court for death crimes before going into the human medical field as a surgeon.

nearly got arrested for experimenting with nephilim blood (their own, but whatever guys), faked their death, joined the unseen. now works happily and privately for fletch in their silly little lab.

mushroom garden

medicinal plant expert alongside their knowledge of modern medicine

ominous positivity

anah tannar (she/her) — the spy

the lovers, reversed

you know her! you love her! she's probably broken your heart!

local celebrity influencer

resident honeypot for any woman-attracted target

prefers to be flashy and stand out, but also insanely good at blending in and being invisible when need be

serial dater. never lets anyone too close, but loves to have a web of one-way connections to people who think they're her best friend or favorite ex, and/or owe her a favor (she has a book of debts)

a genuinely compassionate person underneath it all, she just leaned hard into her manipulative side after being used one too many times

persephone aisa (they/she) — the assassin

judgement

first lieutenant/right hand to amari fletch, and thus second-in-command to the unseen itself

sharpshooter, beat-upper, gunfighter, knife-swinger. if john wick can do it, so can they

cold, aggressive, hostile. deadly as fuck. if you follow this blog you probably came from hers so i won't go into too much detail SJDKHJKSD

amari fletch (they/he) — the leader

the tower (also the name they're publicly known by)

i swear they're not secretly thousands of years old i swearrrrr (yes they are) (they cheated death in a game of dice and bear the mark of cain for it)

think gus fring, netflix wilson fisk, silco — that type of person

spidery motherfucker, aka has connections eeeeverywhere. so many judges, cops, government officials in their pocket.

for the most part, fletch is satisfied with the world the way that it is. the unseen profits nicely, they have as much power as they need, and no one fucks with them (if they even know it exists)

if someone does fuck with him and his, however, he will not hesitate to make a violent and chaotic example of them for the rest of the world to see.

calm and levelheaded 99% of the time. 1% of the time, off-the-wall destructive

will take risks if they can see a benefit and the consequence of failure won't fuck up their plans.

extremely powerful in a fight (is not human) with enough raw strength to fully charge straight through a building wall by wall if they wanted to. but they don't. lmao

seph is their protegé (????) (i genuinely don't have a term for their relationship it's so fucked up and hard to describe), & they are very very possessive about it

[bluejaybabbles-archive]

please. please may i hear more about throcky and/or midwest monsters wip 🥺🥺🥺🥺

ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE (sometimes. My ADHD is wild and rules over what I remember to address ajfnznfjk)

So let's start with Throcky of When the Waves Kiss the Trees!

- Kalem "Throcky" Throckmorton started as a joke based on those posts that went around a while ago about the math problems that included "my cousin Throckmorton." My friend asked me to have a side character named Throckmorton in exchange for...something. I honestly can't remember it's been a couple years I think ajfnnzfn BUT!! I agreed, and thus Throcky was born.

- At the beginning of WTWKTT, Rute doesn't know he's a changeling. He's still stuck in the human form his fae mother put him in. However! The city he's currently living in has started to industrialize, and as factories pop up, he begins to get sick. A sudden rise in the iron around you will do that, I suppose!

- The doctors are like "get some fresh air!" and his mom, instead of taking him to the park or smth idk, is like "you're gonna go live with your reclusive cousin and his goats for a while" and Rute, deliriously ill, is just like "yeah ok makes sense"

- Everyone give a round of applause to Throcky for nursing Rute back to health!

- More info about Throcky! He basically has a backyard farm where he keeps mostly chickens and goats. Sometimes something else wanders into the yard and he's like "well I guess you live here now"

- He has a fat grey tabby named Celery! She's a menace and we love her.

- Along with his animals, he's got a baller garden. It extends to inside his house bc holy shit, that's a lot of plants, sir--

- He makes a KILLER rosemary bread (among other things. Honestly Throcky is husband material the more I think about it.)

- He has a milk delivery service! Once a week he'll deliver goat milk to folks in town and also! To the castle! He'd do it more often but he's just one guy. (Rute eventually helps out with deliveries and that's how he meets Oliver 👀 Goat Milk Said Gay Rights!)

- Throcky got this little house away from everyone to be ALONE okay people are TOO MUCH all he needs are his GOATS and his CHICKENS and CELERY

- Honestly tho he cares way too much. He loves his family and he loves the people he delivers to, he just also loves having a place alone to retreat to at the end of the day. Classic introvert. Anyway stan Throcky

Okay! Now on to Midwest Monster Hunting WIP!

- So first of all I'm currently hyperfixating on The Witcher so jot that down

- Second of all, this takes place in Ohio, and Ohio (as described by my partner) is a strange lovechild of the Midwest and the South so. Jot that down as well

- It's still in the planning stages, but! What I'm thinking is, at some point humans kinda decided "so we don't feel like giving our children to the fae anymore, this seems Fucked Up. We're hardy folk we can totally take whatever punishment you decide to dole out" (now that I'm thinking about it like. How very American of y'all)

- The fae, of course, Don't Like Not Getting What They Want, and so oops! They "accidentally" unleashed otherworldly monsters into our world! HOWEVER if u give us ur babies we'll train them to fight and kill these monsters to protect you 👀

- Humans are like. Shit. I guess you got us. Have our babies. Never mind that you're gonna keep releasing more monsters so that we keep giving you our children. This is Fine.

- The monster hunters will eventually get a Cool Title but I'm not that far yet

- There are a few main faerie courts in this story! We've got the seasonal courts (spring, summer, autumn, winter) and the celestial courts (sun, moon, stars). If you give your kid to one of the seasonal courts, you'll probably definitely see them again once they've been trained up! If your kid ends up in a celestial court.....well, they'll be damn good monster hunters and the pride of your town if they survive!

- OH ALSO your kid isn't gonna come back looking the same. In general, their hair is gonna look more like....like if they were fae that grew up in that court. They're gonna have cat eyes to better see in the dark. There's gonna be an otherworldliness to them. Also they'll probably be sporting a new name. Apologies.

- The story follows Avery (name pending, I'm not entirely attached to it), a monster hunter from the Court of the Moon; Antonia Figueroa, one of the more prominent local witches; and Javi Justiniano, this weird person who just has weird magical things happen around them more often for some fuckin reason idk I totally dk but that's Spoilers

- They will all kiss. Eventually. Listen I like slow burn in theory but it's so hard to write I'm so impatient I just want them to KISS--

- Avery doesn't exactly....kill the monsters. Unless he HAS to (ie it's fatally wounded when he gets there). What he does in most cases is sedate them, and then put them in a pocket dimension he creates for that kind of monster to thrive in. Is this a power he learned in the Court of the Moon? Possibly. That's a cool idea

- If someone wants like, Proof that he killed it, he'll just glamour a rock or smth to look like a tooth or an eye or w/e

- Of course, once you've created like. A TON of pocket dimensions. Something's gonna notice, and that Something probably won't be too keen on you playing with the fabric of reality so much. Also you're gonna get tired I feel like

- Antonia (aka Toni) is the local witch, and thus helps monster hunters by creating sedatives for the monsters, or making antidotes for various monster venoms, or breaking curses. Among other things!

- She knows how Avery works and like, she's worried about him, but she helps him anyway. She doesn't stop telling him that he's gonna get himself killed this way, tho!

- Javi seems to attract magical phenomena, but also, monsters seem to be drawn to them and become calmer around them. They don't know why, but like, if a monster flies in through their bedroom window and curls up to go to sleep in their bed, they're just gonna let it, y'know? Maybe give it a pat. Feed it some Oreos or smth. Can weird flying monsters safely eat Oreos?

- There will be adventures! There will be demons in the corn! There will be cool monsters! There will be Gay! There will be polyamory! What's not to love?

This ended up being wAY LONGER THAN I ANTICIPATED but it was a lot of fun so!! THANK YOU MAX FOR THE ASK AND FOR MY LIFE ILYSM!!!

[starswallowingsea]

Skyjacks and One Piece could exist in the same world

I made a post a few weeks ago about how Campaign Skyjacks and One Piece could exist in the same universe and I finally typed out my ideas. I’ll probably update this as I get more of them but this is also just a work in progress! 

---

Okay so for people who don’t know, there’s islands in the sky in the One Piece universe that have been visited by the Straw Hats canonically 

And also in Skyjacks, people used to sail the seas and then shit happened and now everybody is an airiner or however it’s spelled bc the wiki pages for campaign aint shit 

SO ANYWAY in this theory, the events of One Piece would happen long before the events of Skyjacks because mostly everyone in One Piece is still on the physical earth in-universe 

And once Luffy reaches Laugh Tale (because, let’s be real, he’s gonna do it there’s no way he’d get this far and NOT do it) word spreads about where he went on his journey and the parallels between his and Roger’s last journey 

And people who have met Luffy and co or who have heard about them because they live in a place they visited want to go visit some of these other islands that Luffy went to and the most popular is Skypiea bc why wouldn’t you want to go see a sky island 

And the Skypieans aren’t happy about this at first because hOLY SHIT THAT’S A LOT OF PEOPLE and they like keeping to themselves lest another Enel type incident happens or people disrespect the Upper Yard or any other part of their culture which is completely reasonable 

But people sneak in anyways because we all know everybody would be curious about it and the poneglyph that’s up there that Roger Oden wrote on so in the end, Skypiea opens up but there’s a lot of restrictions on what tourists can do there and only some of it is actually enforced 

And as time passes, people begin to think that stuff from the Golden Age of Piracy was just a bunch of stories and that it was all exaggerated and turned into fairy tales or myths or smth like that. Pop culture stories 

So a lot of time has passed and there’s been conflict between the blue sea and the white sea/the earth and the sky and a bunch of people end up moving to the sky to escape most of the conflict because people from the blue sea don’t like to fight up in the sky where the atmosphere is thin 

And then because people will be people, there’s a bunch of new people in the skies who want to become pirates and become like Luffy and some even wear fake straw hats (that also begs the question of if Luffy will choose someone to succeed him and pass on his straw hat like Roger and Shanks did or not but that’s neither here nor there right now) 

The stories told about the Straw Hats are fairly accurate but nobody believes them because now almost everyone who would have known him would be dead so there’s no way to verify them, but it’s a fantastic story so of course it lives on 

And then our Skyjacks characters show up! Jonnit would probably be the most in to the stories because of how fantastical they are and it’s what he grew up hearing from his family and playing with his sister 

Also the signature wings that Sky People had in One Piece become not as common but you’ll still see people with them around. It’s a recessive trait but because everybody in Skypiea had it, you wouldn’t have been able to tell 

So obviously when all these people who don’t have wings show up the gene pool gets a huge new set of input 

Same with their hair growing into antennae, but that’s also more of a stylistic choice for some than others 

Somewhere on the ship there’s a copy of the Straw Hat tales that someone published, but it was under an anonymous name so nobody knows who wrote it (Robin did) 

Also wrt the Church of the Slain God, Urogue was one of the earlier monks for it, although that’s before the God worshipped became “dead” and came after people 

Gable probably wandered around Skypiea at some point since they are so old, and actually might have been in Sky Island when the Straw Hats and/or Roger was there and met both of them, although they don’t dare say anything like that now 

They also kept track of Luffy’s journey when they realized it was taking a similar/the same course as Roger’s, although, again, they don’t tell anyone that they know this because they were alive at the time 

Travis’ race of changelings probably originally came from Earth and some of them would have migrated to the skies at some point 

And since giants, fishmen, mermaids, and the long arm/leg/neck tribes all exist canonically in the world of One Piece, changelings aren’t that much of a stretch 

Travis is also Really Old, and probably ran into the Straw Hats as well, in bars where he would challenge them to games of Illimat under different names each time

Also tried to steal Nami’s watch once and she destroyed him and he learned his lesson for about 20 minutes 

He also doesn’t talk about how he personally knew the Straw Hats because it would put him in a lot of danger 

Dref? He doesn’t believe in the stories and passes them off as bullshit kid’s tales and doesn’t expand on that 

Secretly? He wishes he had a Devil Fruit like Brook’s to bring Orimar back to life and not have to hope the magic he’s been using keeps up 

Also Devil Fruits, iirc, aren’t super common in the sky so they’ve also become stuff of legends to the new sky citizens. It’s rare for someone to have a devil fruit power in the sky now 

And without water to take away their powers, those who do have Devil Fruits might not realize that water is the common weakness they all share since they don’t encounter it that often 

Other small things from the Straw Hats made it into the pirate crew like snipers having sun related symbols to “honor Sogeking” and have Usopp’s god-like accuracy on everything 

Okay I think that’s all I have for tonight but that’s a lot of words dang. Feel free to add your own things to this too!

[multimask]

Session 4 Rundown

So, last session we hit level 3 and our paladin swore her Oath of the Crown. To Queen Tatiana, queen of the Summer Court, ruler of the Seelie Fey. We'll get back to that. Oh, and we had a sort of heart-to-heart conversation with the party. It was a super fun and intense session, and I'm still somewhat reeling from what happened, but damn if it wasn't fun and we didn't get some cool threads from that. Apologies for the suuuper long post, but lots of things happened and this got very very wordy.

TLDR; fought some gnolls at the cave and found the druid girl, confirmed a 3rd party existence, Queen Tatiana and Iriph showed up to for the Oath, my rogue ended up then also swearing allegiance? aligning themself? to the Summer Court, and we found another entrance to the gnoll cave system.

We last left our party outside of the gnoll cave entrance, having just fought some gnoll door guards and being unable to stop one to raise some sort of alarm. Gnoll!Candle backs off into the woods to retrieve their stuff and change back to their tabaxi form before moving forward with whatever the plan is. While Candle is retrieving their stuff, the party backs up to the tree line to watch the cave and see what comes out.

What comes out is the gnoll shaman we fought being dragged by a barbarian-esque gnoll and followed by a gnoll that looks almost cleric-y ish? They look around and see no one. The shaman is killed and its body tossed to the side of the cave opening. The other two gnolls go back in to the cave. The party waits a few minutes for them to be gone and then go up to the cave entrance and look over the shaman’s corpse, then start to creep inside the cave.

The first little bit of the cave isn’t too interesting, just a tunnel that curves and opens into a small room with some rotting kills and a torch on the far wall. Not too much of interest, but is somewhat dark. Ren is not a fan of the light level and sends a mental link message (bc Kalashtar) to Candle, once again startling the poor cat… The group continues to stealth forward with Candle in the lead and Elias just behind, and the dice continue to remark at just how urban a creature Candle is with her rolling poorly enough to be spotted by a gnoll with a hyena just past the room. Initiative!

Just behind that gnoll is the “cleric” gnoll and the druid woman Candle had spotted earlier. There’s some brief back and forth, cut short when the woman declares that “[we] have been a nuisance, and so my master wants you dead” and attacks. We take down the barbarian gnoll and severely damage the other two, who turn and flee deeper into the cave and collapsed the tunnel behind them.

The party is hurting, and we flee into the forest, stopping in a clearing to catch our breath and lick our wounds. While we’re patching ourselves up the best we can without hit dice (yayyy multiple combat encounters in one in-game day at lvl 2…), we receive a visit from the Knight and the Queen of the Summer Court. The world goes silent and the two step out from behind a tree. (We as players knew that *something* was going to happen with our paladin bc of hitting level 3 and the whole oath thing, but we weren't exactly sure as to what it would be. Bc of chatting with other players, the DM, and some friends, I knew it was going to be fey, but I was not expecting the Summer Queen herself. This also happened earlier in the session than the DM was expecting bc of how we players took things, but it all worked out so it didn't really matter)

The Knight, Iriph, looks over the party, his gaze pausing and narrowing on Candle, but he said nothing. Candle slowly works their way to the back of the party and is Decidedly Not Happy with the two figures in front of the party. The Summer Queen has Poppy swear her Oath of the Crown to the Summer Court while the rest of the party is more than a little shaken by the appearance of The Summer Queen and her Champion Knight. That’s a thing that happened. Our paladin swears her oath to the Summer Court, and the Queen transforms the paladin’s warhammer. It is now a +1 magical weapon that has a single white rose etched into the head.

And then the Queen turns her attention to Candle. The Queen bears down on Candle and she is all but cowering against a tree in the Queen’s imposing presence. If Candle has been useful to Poppy, then Candle should be on the court. Candle has no idea who these people are or what the Courts even are. At this ignorance towards the Courts, the Queen gives a brief rundown of the two courts and what's going on with the Seelie and Unseelie.

(The actual timeline of these events is a little jumbled bc I as a player could not take as detailed notes as I usually am able bc *holy shit* that scene, so apologies for any contradictions. Since being a changeling is out in the open, along with persona/true names, I'm going to continue to use their persona name except where they are directly called their true name. I'm not sure how I'm going to call them for future rundowns, might stick to whichever persona/form is up. For now, they'll remain Candle) 

Edit: I went back over my notes and cleaned up the timeline

The Summer Queen is intrigued to see a changeling here, and one so unallied with any Court, and offers to take this stray into the fold. The rest of the party (except Elias) are chiming in with their thoughts on this. Poppy is pushing for Candle to accept, while Ren and River are pushing for Candle to do what they themself want to do. Candle declines the offer, and the Queen is not happy and restates her offer. This is Candle's "one chance" to accept the offer. Poppy pushes for Candle to reconsider. Candle is more than a little confused as to why the Queen cares about her and is not happy to be put on the spot by an authority figure who is royalty Just a little intimidating...

Cue this intense and intimidating dialogue btwn the two:

The Queen asks for Candle's name. They respond "I am called 'Candle in the Rain'."

"A fine name for a tabaxi, isn't it. What is your name, changeling" She spat. (By this point, I as a player had a death grip on my fan and was curled up in my chair experiencing this and also messaging a friend who had wanted to sit in on this session for this event but couldn't join us)

Candle hesitated and replied, “I am called… Nix.” At this name, Iriph perks up and quietly informs the Queen that this is the youngest sibling. At this Candle, aka Nix, perks up and is surprised to learn that they might have family alive. (And I as a player go flying for my private chat w/ aforementioned friend and session notes bc welp, I’m caving also goddammit DM I know I should have expected something like this when I gave you the siblings last week). In order to sweeten the deal (and also make Candle owe her something), the Queen fully heals Candle.

While Candle is hesitating and trying to turn down the offer again without being insulting, the Queen gets fed up with the side comments distracting Candle from actually giving an answer and silences the area. Everyone can hear Candle and the Queen, but Candle can only hear themself and the Queen. The two go back and forth some more, and Candle caves. If they get to meet their family/siblings, then they shall agree to the Queen's offer. (Yeah that's totally not going to bite them in the ass down the road)

The Queen is very pleased at this, and transforms Candle’s rusty old rapier into a +1 magical weapon with a rose for the basket-hilt. It blooms and then closes up into a rosebud, with the implication that if Candle stays loyal it might bloom again. Satisfied with what transpired, the Queen and her Knight leave. After they’re gone, Candle wheels on Poppy and demands to know what they just got themself into. Poppy insists that this is the best thing to happen, and is super glad that they’re on the same side now. Everyone is a little suspicious of how much Poppy is singing the praises of the Summer Queen; as players it’s bc you never trust the fae oh dear gods no, and as characters, well, everyone has their own reasons.

The characters decompress after that encounter and find another entrance to the gnoll cave courtesy of blood trails from corpses being dragged off. After we find the temple, we set up camp and decompress and Poppy explains the way that the fey courts work. And the session fades to episode credits as night falls. As we settle in to camp, and since it’s only mid afternoon, the party asks if there are any other secrets anyone wants to get out in the open and if there are any other forms that the group should be aware of from Candle/Nix. They hesitate at that and then show the persona of the sun elf Soliana. We don’t learn much about Ren, and we learn that River is an empath and has a box that is a family heirloom and magically sealed. Elias had a person named Maria in his life who was the brains behind the guns that he has. The empath feels grief off him when he brings her up.

And the session fades to episode credits as night falls.

That was quite the session and now I’m going to go make my backup character for my Tomb of Annihilation campaign bc we’re about to go die tonight.