#big fan of halfling with tails

[pineapplesaresweet]

they are talking !!

[hellaverseapocalypse]

And The Whirlwind Is In The Tree

Striker's Story - A Helluva AU

Pairing: Striker and OC Amelda(adoptive father/daughter relationship)

Warnings: angst, whump, hurt-comfort, injury, blood, harsh language, death, gore, killing in self-defense, graphic depictions of violence.

Summary: What if the Angels didn't stop at the Pride Ring? What if they didn't stop on Extermination Day? What if they never stopped? This is Striker's story of how he survived those 7 years of the angel invasion. An Apocalypse type story co-written by two fans! R&R.

Notes: Welcome! This is the start of myself(@storm89) and Candy's story, And the Whirlwind is in the Tree. (It's a lyric from a Johnny Cash Song). It all started from a fan art we saw, and the idea just snowballed from there. We decided to start with everyone's favorite cowboy, Striker. I hope you all enjoy our hard work! Also, big shout out to @eyecandyeoz for being an awesome editor and the bombastic art she made! We don't own Helluva boss, but we do own Amelda.

 Read on ao3 - 1k words

If you asked Striker where he was at Angel Invasion, he would tell you the truth.

He was robbing a corpse.

Whenever there is extermination, he usually waits it out and robs whatever corpses he can find. Sometimes he luckily finds a dead overlord, they carry the best loot.

This extermination felt different.

There was tension in the air, something that made his tail rattle nervously.

For one thing, the sirens rang way earlier than usual and then the angels started swarming;more than usual.

He then saw one kill an imp and then another kill a Goetia.

The rules have changed.

Striker quickly goes to an alley to find cover, trying to outrun the screams he hears.

They seem to be louder than usual.

Windows shatter around him, exploding from the angelic force. He was about to try to run into a building when red feather caught his eye,

He looked and froze.

A red feathered Goetia lay dead on the ground, next to him was a Wrathian female imp. He wondered briefly if they were lovers when he heard a small cry. He looks at a nearby dumpster and finds a surprise..

There was a small owlet sobbing as she hugged herself. Her red feather shows her parentage to the dead Goetia, but the biggest surprise is the nubby imp horns on her head.

A hybrid...like him.

“This ain't my problem.” he thought as he backed away; his boot breaking a piece of glass. The halfling eyes shot up at the noises and her eyes locked on his.

The two stared at each other, both not moving.

A nearby scream breaks the tense moment and Striker will later blame what happened next to be the result of unnatural imp instinct.

He reached over and grabbed the halfling, breaking into a run. She suddenly screeched, wriggling out of his hold and running back to the fallen Goetia.

“Oh you little shit!” Striker growled as he grabbed the halfling again, noticing she took something from her fathers body.

He didn't know where he was running, all he knew is that he had to find somewhere safe. An angel attempted to cast a charm on him, but he dispatched it quickly with a swift bullet to its head. The owlet gave another screech, making him turn and face the tip of an angelic spear.

Raging pain exploded in his left eye, making Striker roar in pain as he staggered. He felt that same angel throw him towards a wall, making his head spin.

Before he went unconscious, he heard more gunshot and a tiny hand pulling his own.

666

Striker groaned as he woke up. A pulsing pain in his eye made him sit up quickly, making his head swim.

“Take it easy, you gonna make yourself sick.”

Striker looked to the source of the voice and saw it was that imp woman that worked for Blitz. What was her name again?

“It's Millie, by the way.” she said, raising her eyebrow at him. Too many questions popped into his head, his sense trying to catch up with his thoughts.

“Something was different,” he mumbled. “Th-the extermination.”

“Yeah.” She said, “ This wasn’t an extermination. It looked to be more like an invasion. We been hearing that the angels are not just attacking folks in Pride, we heard that somehow they are also going to the other rings.”

Striker sat back, letting the news sink in.

Oh this was a bitch of a fucked up situation. He then glared at her.

“The hell you save me for?” He asked, “We're not exactly friends.”

“We are being invaded for fucks sake.” She said with an exasperated sigh. “We gonna need all the help we can get.”

Striker huffed, he guess that makes sense. A thought suddenly jolted him from his seat.

“Wait there was a kid with me!”

Millie placates him with a raised hand.

“She's fine, don't worry.” She said, “ Really scared, but she ain’t hurt anywhere.”

She then looked at him intensely.

“Why’d you save her?” She asked, “Thought you hated anyone that was royals.”

“I don't know.” He shrugged, “I just felt like I had to.”

Millie nodded, a knowing smile on her face to showcase her paternal understanding. Striker growled at that, his hand running over his own features. He froze when he felt the coarse bandages shielding his face.

“Shit, what's with my face?”

Striker shot out of the bed and rushed to a nearby vanity, removing his bandages with haste as he looked in the mirror.

He had a large gash over his left eye and coarse stitches sealing the open wound shut. His eye was now milky and lifeless. Decrepit.

Fuck his life.

He was blind in his left eye.

All to save some royal bastard.

“Hey.” Millie said, getting his attention. “You gotta get yourself together. Pride isn't safe anymore.”

“So where are you going?”

“Lust. It way safer than Pride.”

“What makes you think I will go with you?” Striker scoffed.

“Cause there's nowhere else to go?” She said with a shrug, about to leave, but then looked back at him, “By the way, the little owl’s name. Its Amelda.”

She leaves the room, leaving Striker alone with his thoughts.

666

When Striker finally went outside, he saw a lot of people, mostly Imps, packing whatever they had and going through the ruins.

Sweet Satan, Pride was in shambles.

Buildings were toppled and bodies littered the streets. He could see angels flying in the distance, circling over Pentagram City like vultures.

“Hey!”

He turns and sees Blitz waving at him.

“Your horse is here.” He said, pointing to the side, turning back to the IMP company van. “Get ready, we are leaving in five.”

Striker would argue back but his new blind eye throbbed. He went to his horse (Fuck, he loved this horse so damn much) and petted his fiery mane.

“Boy, just what the hell did we get ourselves into?”

He heard a chirp behind him and saw Amelda peeking at him from behind a wrecked car. His tail rattled and whipped in annoyance as he sneered at the halfling.

“Piss off,kid!”

The child didn't move, still staring at him with her purple gaze. Millie appeared next to her and gently took Amelda’s hand.

“Come over here, honey.” she said as she led her away, Amelda still watching him.

Striker shook his head and mounted Bombproof, clicking his tongue as he grabbed the reins.

Something has definitely changed, he thought as he looked at Pride's ruins.

Things are definitely going to be different from now on.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taglist: @captxin-rex @gospelofme @fangirl-goes-nova @romanoffs-gf @sstarwarsss @r2d2staser @nahoney22 @ashotofspotchka @art-of-the-twistedstitcher @only-a-simp-deals-in-absolutes @justalittletomato @twiggoblin @xsherryberryx @kriffclone @deewithani @tinker-tech @megafrost4 @minx067 @freesia-writes @boontaeveboba @ahoeformando @arctrooper69 @taz-107 @lizzowinkyface @chad-something @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius @merkitty49 @nonsenseandm3mes @id-rather-be-a-druid @m-o-o-n-s-g-o-o-n-s @the-chains-are-the-easy-part @succulent-momma @virtualexpertanchor @padawancat97 @amorfista @storm89 @hurtbywhisperedmuses @misogirl828 @seriowan @plushymiku-blog @the-dathomirian-jedi @ladykatakuri @mysticalgalaxysalad @talesfrommedinastation @dukeoftheblackstar @littlecrowtime

[geekthefreakout]

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was great, y'all: A Review

Spoiler Free: This movie was utterly sincere, and that was refreshing as anything. No meta-humor, no self-referential nonsense that would make it feel like it was embarrassed to be what it was. The characters were great and stand-out. The party as a whole struck the perfect balance that made it feel as chaotic as an actual DnD campaign would be. The humor hits pretty much all of the time, with several laugh-out-loud moments and many more little chuckles and smiles.

The story is simple, but feels true to a campaign as well. You have the main quest and the side quests. The rules around magic are fairly well defined. Their are a couple of elements regarding character arcs and story that could have been tweaked or added in that might have made it feel more complete or satisfying, but nothing huge. I found it to be emotionally satisfying, at the very least.

You can tell that there was a lot of love put into this movie. The cast are all having the time of their lives, and it's important (to me) to note that the VFX team never skimp on any character/species detail. The halflings are appropriately proportioned to the world and people around them. The tiefling (though a little tame looking for a tiefling) maintains having a tail in every scene, without them making a big deal about the fact that she has one.

This is a great movie for DnD fans. If you are not familiar with Dungeons and Dragons or TTRPGs in general, however, I still don't feel you will be missing much. It's an adventure fantasy, and a very accessible one at that, with found family and the power of self-respect and love driving its core.

8.5/10 for me.

Spoilers under the cut- and it's LONG, so be ready for that.

SPOILER TIME BABYYYYYY. This will be a breakdown of the movie's plot with my own insights- sometimes I will use DnD terminology as in my head I was imagining each roll of the dice. Scroll down to the end if you just want to see what I would have changed about the movie.

The way we are introduced to our two primary main characters, Edgin and Holga, is very fun. We meet them in a prison as they acquire a burly new cellmate, who they each deal with in ways that make it very clear who and what they are- Edgin being a smooth-talking, rakish Bard with a devil-may-care attitude, and Holga is a blunt yet loyal Barbarian with a love of potatoes who was exiled from her clan for falling in love with an outsider. We quickly segue into their escape from prison at their pardon-hearing, where we get to learn their back story: Edgin was once an honorable man and a Harper (an order who fights against evil while asking for nothing in return) who lost his wife to a Red Wizard attack and decided to cast aside his oath and honor both to become a thief.

He has a daughter who survived that attack, and Holga has helped him to raise her. Refreshingly, there is absolutely zero sexual or romantic tension between Edgin and Holga, who he refers to explicitly as being like a sister to him. They wound up in jail when on a quest to rob a vault which contained a Tablet of Reawakening, which Edgin planned to use to return his wife to life. They were betrayed by the witch Sofina (played with maximum menace by Daisy Head), who captured them in a time stop. Edgin entrusted the tablet and care of his daughter to his friend and party-member, Forge the rogue and con.

They escape on the wings of an unfortunate judge named Jonathan, who is an Aarakorca, despite the fact that Edgin totally passed the charisma check and the panel of judges were actually swayed to approve the pardon. This is when I knew I would love this movie.

Holga and Edgin set out to reunite with Kira (Chloe Coleman, who does great but is noticeably much lighter skinned than the actresses who played her as a baby and toddler), Edgin's daughter. Their daughter, really. They find her with Forge (played with delightful charm and sliminess by Hugh Grant), who has risen to become Lord of Neverwinter. She is angry with Edgin for abandoning her, because it turns out the Forge has been feeding her quite a different story for what the primary objective of that fateful quest was: she thinks they went after a Tablet of Riches. Edwig tries to explain himself, but Kira (who is happy enough to see Holga, at least) won't listen, saying that the bigger problem is that Edwig keeps speaking like it wasn't his fault. Forge, still in league with Sofina, has betrayed them, and secretly sends them to be executed, at which point Holga does that which Barbarians do so well and they escape, now with a new mission: to take down Forge and Sofina and rescue Kira from their clutches.

They set out to build their party, first picking up their friend Simon the Sorcerer (played adorably by Justice Smith), a half-elf whose self-doubt and bumbling ways often inhibit his ability to do more than cantrips reliably. He was also betrayed by Forge, but managed to escape and has been in hiding. He helps lead them to their next party member, a Tiefling Druid named Doric (awesome job, Sophia Lillis), who is also a wildshape. She distrusts humans, who have always let her down, but is loyal to the wood elves who took her in and whose lands have been under attack by Forge. Simon explains that he had once attempted to court her, but she said that his lack of self-esteem just made her sad. Thankfully, this romantic subplot, should it count as that, takes up very little space in the narrative, which is part of why it works so well.

Using Doric's wildshape abilities, they are able to learn that Forge has revived a kind of gladiatorial game intended to bring the city (and the city's riches) together, and that the vault which presumably holds the Tablet of Reawakening is protected by magic that is far too powerful for Simon to counter without the Helm of Disjunction. We also get more glimpses of Sofina's power here- she is able to sense Doric and nearly captures and kills her on a fast-paced chase through the city where Doric changes from fly to mouse to cat to bird to deer in order to escape. Finally, the viewers get to see (though the party doesn't) that Sofina isn't just a witch- she is a Red Wizard and Thayan too, and she plans to turn Neverwinter's people into members of the Red Wizard's undead army.

Simon doesn't think think that taking down Sofina is possible, as he wasn't able to match her magic before and doesn't feel that he's improved. He insists that magic cannot be used to solve every problem, his own magic least of all. Attuning to the Helm alone might take them years, even if they do manage to find it. Edwig insists that Simon is underestimating himself, and advises him not to tell the party of his doubts to keep up morale.

After an amusing diversion to Holga's ex-husband, Marlamin the Halfling (played by Bradley Cooper) and then to a sacred burial ground of her people to discover the fate of the Helm (DnD magic rules are used to great effect here), the party learns that they must seek out a Thayan named Xenk Yendar (played by a hilariously sincere and smoking hot Rege-Jean Page), a renowned Paladin that everyone except a disgruntled Edgin has heard of. Xenk runs a vibe check on Edgin, and apparently detects a Good alignment. He agrees to help them get the Helm, on the condition that Edgin swears to redistribute the wealth in Forge's vault to the people of Neverwinter and that he holds on to the Harper book- a book which Edgin had thrown onto his wife's funeral pyre after he forsook his vows as one. "You may have forsaken your oath, but your oath has not forsaken you." Xenk says to a stubborn Edgin.

We also learn that Xenk escaped the Red Wizard's take over of the Thayan's by the skin of his teeth as a child and lost his parents to it. This flashback helps the viewer (and the party, though they don't quite figure it out until later) what Sofina is planning for Neverwinter- releasing the red blight of death (honestly I cannot remember the real name, but it's an evil red cloud that turns people into red wizard zombies). We see here that the Blight has an area of effect, and that managing to get just outside of it is what saved Xenk from his parents' fate.

While retrieving the Helm, the party runs in with Sofina's cronies. Xenk takes them out in a fantastic display of badassery, but it cannot last long- it takes more power than what Xenk has to kill that which is already dead, and they begin to rise. However, they quickly cease being the primary threat, as their chaos has awoken a dragon. Hilariously, this is not the dragon seen in so much of the promotional material, but rather a very pudgy one, who still manages to wreak quite a bit of destruction with its large body and fire breath. Here we get to see some uses of the Hither-Thither staff, which Holga had believed was a walking stick she'd taken for her ex-husband. It allows Simon to open portals, as long as the destination is within 500 meters and a place that he can see. Edgin's brains are put to good use as well, as the party escapes the dragon with the helm.

At this point, Xenk leaves the party despite many requests for him to stay because he is much more capable than they are, telling them that it is not his quest, but theirs. There is a very funny moment as they watch him walk away, where Edgin notes that he walks in an unnaturally straight line and wonders if he will alter it to go around a rock in his path. He doesn't- he walks straight over the rock. That's paladin symbolism for you. Simon attempts to attune to the Helm while the party takes a break on the beach, but finds he is consistently repelled by a vision of his ancestor, who was a great Wizard and tells Simon that he is not worthy of wielding the helm's power. Edgin urges him to keep trying, but after several attempts where the Helm literally blasts itself off of him, Simon turns on Edgin and rants that he told him from the outset that he couldn't do it and that it wouldn't work, but Edgin refused to listen, and that Edgin is doing what he always does- making plans that don't work and then blaming other people for it. While Holga takes this in stride, Doric and Simon are both very angry. I was afraid for a moment that this would be one of those times where they split the party for Drama, a trope that I *hate*... but I needn't have worried.

Edgin then makes a compelling speech about how they are all failing in some way, and that they have to keep failing, because the moment that they fail and give up is when they really fail. He gives several examples about the rest of the party, and when Simon presses him about his own failures, he calls himself the King of Failures. He's failed as a father, as a husband, as a leader. He reveals that the Red Wizards that killed his wife were only able to find her because of a treasure he took while he was a Harper, not knowing that the treasures had tracking spells on them. It was his fault that his wife was killed in the first place. But Edgin can't give up, he says, because if he does then it will have all been for nothing. He then sits down to think of a new plan. Charisma check passes, because the party rallies behind him.

The party plans to use the Hither-Thither staff to get into the vault, figuring that if they leave a portal open on a piece of treasure, it will go into the vault and they will be able to get in that way. Edgin also suggests that they take the Helm as well and that Simon try again, saying that he actually does believe Simon can do it, because when it's do or die he always comes through. "You're at your strongest when you think you're at your weakest" he tells Simon.

They get into the citadel with a great scene wherein Edgin seems to distract the guards with a song on his lute- an excellent use of your bard and a chance for Chris Pine to show off his vocal charming chops. It turns out to be an illusion cast by Simon, however, who looses hold of it as he gets his foot stuck in a pothole. The way the illusion starts to skip like a broken record and then distort in disturbingly cartoonish ways is done very well by the actors and the VFX team, and certainly got a laugh in the theater.

After running through Plan C (which is the same as Plan A, but plan A has a stink on it) and Plan D (the same as plan B, but plan B has a stink on it), the party almost succeeds, but Sofina and Forge outwit them. Anyone who has ever played DnD or any TTRPG for that matter will be very familiar with how these plans come together, fall apart, and then come together again. The portal doesn't let Doric into the vault, but under the arena, where the treasures are being loaded onto a boat. She is knocked out and captured.

Simon manages to get to the vault and, faced with death should he fail, he puts on the helm and stands up to the vision of his ancestor, saying that he IS worthy of the power and he's sick of being told he is not. The vision turns into one of Simon himself and congratulates him- he has attuned successfully. He uses the Helm to cancel out the magic on the vault and to repel the guards attacking him, only to find that the vault is empty. He and Holga are captured.

Edgin finds Kira and explains to her that Forge has been lying, that he wants her to come away with him. He makes a pretty perfect apology, acknowledging that the Tablet of Reawakening was about getting back his wife rather than Kira's mom, as Kira had never known her. Unfortunately, this apology is wasted, as he is actually talking to a disguised Sofina, who captures him. Forge assures him that Kira is safe and will continue to be, as Forge really does care for her as if she were his own, but that Edgin has to die. Edgin asks that rather than being executed, the party be allowed to participate in the games that will be beginning shortly, to give them a chance. Forge is reluctant, saying that it would be kinder to just kill them now, but Sofina insists on granting that request, presumably so that she can take them into her undead army when she unleashes the blight.

The party enters the maze in the arena where the games are taking place, with Simon and Doric inhibited by magic-suppressing cuffs. They face monsters and other traps, but with each of them playing to their strengths and with Doric managing to lose her cuff, they make it to the center. Edgin finally makes a successful Detect Trap and recognizes that they won't be safe there, and Doric is able to get them out with some clever shape shifting and modest risk taking.

Combining their information, the party realizes both what Sofina is planning and what Forge is planning. Forge doesn't intend to stay in Neverwinter- he plans to let Sofina do her evil thing while he makes off with Kira and the treasure, which is why it was stored at the docks under the arena rather than in the vault. Interestingly enough, Sofina is completely aware of this, but has no interest in stopping him. In fact, she is so annoyed by him that she just wants him to get on his boat and leave. This is a rare example of two villains who have completely different motivations and goals, but whose plans align just enough to have them work together. There is no betrayal between them-- they each act exactly as the other expects them to, and they aren't bothered by it. The only problem is that it leads to there being two climaxes, and one is more rushed than the other.

The party is able to stop Forge at his boat, where he immediately threatens Kira's life if the party doesn't give him his treasure. This speeds Kira along to realizing that he has been the bad guy and to forgiving her father. They overpower Forge and seem to be making a getaway when they notice the signs of Sofina beginning the Blight. Edgin remembers his promise to Xenk, and has Simon use the Hither-Thither spell to send all the treasure on the boat to come spilling out of a hot air balloon, thus redistributing it to the people and sending the citizens of Neverwinter out of the arena to catch the falling treasure, and therefore outside of the Blight's area of effect. Forge regains access to the boat just in time to see all of his loot falling away from it, leaving him in despair.

That's the first climax, and at this point everyone's character arcs are mostly resolved. Simon is more confident, Kira is happy to be with Holga and Edgin again, and Edgin kept his promise. They have thwarted Sofina's plans. But, Sofina's still alive and kicking and we haven't had that boss battle yet, so time for Climax #2!

As Sofina rages, Edgin tells Kira to use a pendant that Holga had stolen for her when she was younger to stay invisible, hidden, and safe during the fight. Sofina rains fire down on the party, but Simon has Taken a Level in Badass and is able to match her for a short time. Doric transforms into an Owlbear to act as the Hulk of the group, and Holga proves herself proficient with several weapons. Edgin, who isn't much of a fighter, does get a few hits in with his lute (love that for him, though). It's a fast-paced fight, with every member of the party contributing, and which thankfully DOESN'T adhere to DnD rules (combat system not good for narrative storytelling). However, Sofina goes down pretty easily. For just a moment, it looks like all is lost as Sofina uses her time-stop, which Simon says he is still unable to counter... except it's all fine. Kira (little rogue in training that she is), manages to slap a magic-suppressing cuff onto Sofina while she's invisible, because as it turns out Simon WAS able to counter the time-stop. Owlbear!Doric then Hulksmashes Sofina to death (I murmured "puny god" to myself in the theater) and the day is saved... except that Holga has been mortally wounded.

If you're like my brother and I, you probably called back when they first confirmed that the Tablet of Reawakening still existed that one of the party was going to die and that they would use the Tablet (one use only) on that party member rather than on Edgin's wife. You might have even called it being Holga, which I did around the time that she mentions having dreamed of being buried in a sacred burial ground with her tribesmen, despite having been exiled. It's very predictable- but that's not always a bad thing.

Edgin and Holga sing a drinking song as she dies, with Kira sobbing and holding her, saying that she needs her. Holga tells them not to mourn, because she's happy to die a hero- that's her character arc, minimal though it has been. Edgin pulls out the tablet and reminds his daughter that they can only use it once- and of course she nods, because to her Holga is the mother she's known. The tablet returns her to life, and everyone is happy and it's very heartwarming.

From there, it's a quick wrap-up. The former Lord of Neverwinter, who was kept in a coma by Sofina, wakes up and grants legal protection to Doric's people and their lands. The party all receive medals. Doric acknowledges that humans are not all bad, and also agrees to let Simon have another shot at courting her now that he's got more confidence. Forge, holding on to the one piece of treasure he hadn't lost, is captured by Xenk, and we end on him trying to convince the same judges at the same prison Edgin and Holga were at in the beginning that all turned out for the best, and he's done a lot of reflection and so should really be pardoned.

He does NOT pass the charisma check. And that's it, really, aside from a funny mid-credits tag.

So, I think I went over most of the things that I loved already. Here is WHAT I WOULD CHANGE:

I think Forge turning on Kira happened very quickly and didn't fully make sense, outside of being a vehicle for getting her to trust her dad again very quickly. I would have preferred for Kira to be more of a character with more agency. To this end, I would have had her use her invisibility pendant (which she has the whole time and says that she often uses to sneak around the castle) earlier. She could have realized that Sofina was a Red Wizard, or overheard some pieces of the puzzle that may not have clarified everything for her, but at least sewn the seeds of doubt. That, or had her flat out not believe that Holga and Edgin would leave her a second time, even if she is still angry at Edgin.

I might also try and consolidate the climaxes a bit more- while I think Forge was a fun villain, thwarting him and Sofina so separately makes the fight with Sofina seem a little extraneous, though the movie's fast pacing helps with this.

Doric is mostly a static character- she's a lot of fun and I enjoy her, but she doesn't really have much of an arc. She has a goal when she joins the party, and at the end of the movie that goal is achieved.

Holga's arc gets less attention than it should- she doesn't really change throughout the movie either. I would have liked to see either someone for her tribe or her ex-husband there at the end when everyone was getting their awards, so that she could have made good on showing them what she was worth. (That said, I thought it was great that there weren't any bad feelings between her and Marlamin, who has moved on from her but genuinely wishes her happiness).

Finally, my brother noted (though I myself didn't really have this problem) that Simon's Badass Level Up at the 11th hour felt disengenous, because it's one thing to say that he has trouble with big magic because of his poor self-esteem, and quite another for him to suddenly be able to match Sofina's might. His spells are not as impressive as hers, but he does hold his own, with the party also serving as distractions to her.

And... that's the review. Hope you liked it.

[bloededhoine]

world building cause twn doesn't part 8: nonhumans

this is easily the geekiest part of the series. and it's a Very geeky series. because sapkowski's worldbuilding is waaay more extensive than i have the time, ability, or desire to convey, i'm sticking with races both sentient and important

colour code cause i fucking love colour codes - already happened/introduced, probably s2, important background info, stuff that might be in the prequel, extras

series masterpost

dopplers

dopplers, also known as vexlings, shifters, mimics, doubles, imitators, or pavrats, are a nonhuman race that can take on the appearance of nearly anyone they encounter

before mass migrations of humans, dopplers primarily inhabited the forests and plateaus around the city of novigrad, where they would transform into wolves and pack animals to hunt

their abilities are pretty impressive, dopplers can not only mimic appearance but also voice, personality, skills, behaviours, and knowledge. dopplers can even turn parts of their bodies into pieces of clothing or other objects

however, there are some limitations

dopplers can't transform into someone/thing with dramatically more mass than they have, are burned by silver, and can't drop anything they created (if they did it would kind of turn into a fleshy goop)

we've already met a doppler in twn, this sexy sexy man

BUT

it is important to note that this doppler is a huge deviation from sapkowski's lore. dopplers are pretty much always exceptionally kind and gentle. a lot of times they use their abilities to appear threatening (big teeth, sharp claws etc) because they really don't want to hurt anyone.

when dopplers aren't mimicking another form, they aren't exactly pretty. they're bald, short, have beady yellow eyes, and kinda look like they're made from soft clay

here's the hexer doppler

the most notable doppler is dudu biberveldt, who i mentioned as the halfling dainty biberveldt's fake cousin. dudu's actual name is tellico lunngrevink letorte, but dainty decided to help dudu live in novigrad by adopting him as his fake cousin.

dragons

dragons are fucking awesome. you know it, i know it, and zerrikanians know it. witcher dragons are especially awesome

they are the only being, other than cats, that can naturally harness and absorb the force of chaos

there are multiple subtypes, but most dragons fall into one of four: black dragons, green dragons, red dragons, and white dragons.

black dragons are the largest, and primarily live in swamps and wetlands where they bathe in mud. they have extremely hard scales and don't breathe fire, but an acid that causes burns similar to those from mustard gas.

green dragons (right there) are the most prominent yet smallest species of dragon, mainly living in forested areas and breathe highly flammable chlorine gas.

red dragons mainly live in hills and mountain caves and can breathe fire hot enough to melt metal

white dragons are one of the rarest species and live in the far north, and can breathe frost

however, if you watched the witcher netflix as i assume you did, you may remember golden dragons. these dragons are so rare and exceptional that they are not usually included with other species. they breathe steam and fire and can shapeshift into any living being

all dragons communicate through telepathy, although golden dragons can speak when they are in the form of a species that can speak

humans are pretty divided on the topic of dragons, with zerrikanians worshiping them and nordlings hating them.

because they are incredibly intelligent and emotional, witchers (generally) refuse to hunt them

borkh three jackdaws, also known as villentrenmerth, is the only golden dragon we know. there he is right there.

ASSASSINS OF KINGS SPOILERS NEXT TWO BULLET POINTS

the other dragon from twn was a green dragon named myrgtabrakke, borkh's mate. their daughter is named saesenthessis, also known as saskia the dragonslayer (an alias she took to explain her extensive knowledge of dragons) and the virgin of aedirn

because saskia is part golden dragon, she can shapeshift, although is much more limited than her father. she can basically only be a human looking woman with blonde hair or a huge dragon.

cut because this part is getting REALLY long

godlings

ah godlings. i love them so much. they're adorable and precious. they usually look somewhat like a human child, but with blue skin and large amber or green eyes. they don't wear much clothes, their focus is in accessories like jewelry, flowers, or tattoos

that's johnny, a holding in wild hunt.

godlings are incredibly rare, and are easily confused with young goblins. they primarily live in swamps near drowners, but aren't afraid of them.

they're quite mischievous but kind hearted, many have happy go lucky personalities and love just having fun. i adore godlings. i've said it once and i'll say it again.

higher vampires

definitely the most important group on this list, higher vampires are incredibly powerful and intelligent. they can shapeshift within certain limits, generally either looking like a human or a large terrifying bat. they also have some telepathic abilities - they can basically make you fall asleep and forget stuff

scary wooo

higher vampires do not need to drink blood to survive. some don't drink blood at all. when they do, it's like a human drinking alcohol. on full moons, groups of higher vampires go out partying and get white girl wasted

although all higher vampires have the same basic abilities, each individual has one skill they are exceptional in.

most find humans harmless but annoying, like mosquitos. they don't really like interacting with humans, which works out pretty well as higher vampires can blend in very well, even a witcher's medallion can't detect one

higher vampires also have three distinct cultures, the tdet in the far east, the ammurun across the great sea, and the gharasham in the northern realms

they are really really hard (or impossible, depending on canon) to kill. based on the books, you basically need to disintegrate them. based on the games, only higher vampires can kill other higher vampires, but humans can get close

we only meet one in the books, emiel regis rohellec terzieff-godefroy. he goes by regis for short. regis was an "alcoholic" in his youth, and has since abstained from blood or any other substance. he's incredibly old, by the end of twn season 1 he'd be 425 years old. as for regis' "special ability", he's just kind. he's an incredibly gentle and loving person. that's it. i love him.

merpeople

probably one you're already familiar with! merpeople are intelligent humanoids that inhabit the great sea. mermaids are notably gorgeous, having green hair and tails, and their scales are prized alchemy ingredients

sapkowski's mermaids can breathe above water, but the sun burns their skin so they don't stay at the surface for very long.

merpeople are incredibly powerful, they can summon krakens and the sea-dragon like race of vodyanoy respect their authority

they use their own language that's quite similar to hen llinge, but more lyrical sounding.

nymphs

nymphs are a humanoid race primarily based around nature. they have 5 subspecies, dryads (including hamadryads), leimoniad, naiad, nereid, and oread.

dryads, called eerie wives by humans and aen woedbeanna by elves, are the most prevalent, primarily living in the brokilon forest. some have human skin with olive undertones, but others are green. they usually have dark brown or green hair which is usually worn in dreadlocks (breaking my promise of not being overtly and annoyingly political in this series yet again - the dryads, especially in the netflix adaptation, are classic magical n*gress stereotypes. but more on that later.)

this is a lore-accurate one that i LOVE

dryads have incredibly strong connections with nature and magic, although it is really rare for a dryad to be a source. dryads are able to draw energy from trees, but rarely do because they don't want to hurt the trees. support dryads and take the bus.

all dryads are women. all of them. they make babies by basically luring men into the forest and doing the adult hokey pokey. also why dryads aren't really a fan of witchers, who don't make the baby butter (i am so sorry)

however, dryads can also turn a girl of another race into one of their own through the use of magic. the water of brokilon has some mutating quality that makes young girls forget their human past and physically turn into dryads, although it is less effective as the girls are older. the dryads tried to do this to ciri, but given that she's a source, nothing happened. generally, this process is done to girls who wander into brokilon, but some dryads will abduct peasants from outside the forest if they need more dryads.

here's twn dryads... yikes

this is where i think the whole racism thing becomes a bit too obvious. "uncivilized" women who live in the forest and have dreadlocks and abduct young girls from "civilized" areas?? in twn they leaned even further into this, having one of the two black women they cast be a dryad and replacing the usual bows and arrows with spears, a less sophisticated weapon. again, this series is about the lore, not the political implications of it, but it is important to keep in mind

dryads are excellent at archery, shooting anyone who comes within 80 metres of the forest. through their connection with nature, they have highly advanced medicine and use glowing fungi as a source of light.

hamadryads are a specific type of dryad that is incredibly connected with her tree. because of this connection they have exceptionally strong magical and healing capabilities, but will also go insane and die if their tree dies.

like merpeople, dryads use a more melodic dialect of hen llinge

leimoniads are a type of nymph that lived exclusively in meadows, but are practically extinct due to wars with humans

naiads, also called rusalki, are nymphs that live in lakes and rivers, although a few live with the dryads in brokilon. naiads are very similar to dryads, although they tend to have very light skin with very dark hair, webbed hands, and can dry out on land

naiads rarely speak common, live in small groups, and have highly developed telepathic abilities

nereids are nymphs that inhabit the great sea, often living closely with merpeople. they usually have blueish skin with either blue or white hair and have some telepathic abilities, though not to the extent of naiads.

oreads are nymphs of the mountains, which, like leimoniads, are nearly extinct due to human conquests.

succubi/incubi

succubi (female) and incubi (male) are creatures which look like incredibly attractive humans but with horns and goat legs. they seduce humans, first in dreams and then physically, using their prey's energy to sustain themselves, often to the point of the human's exhaustion or death

our man eskel has a soft spot for them...

sylvans

sylvans, another race we already met, are exceptionally rare. like, practically extinct. they live mainly in the woodlands of the northern realms and have goat-like faces with yellow eyes, horns, cloven hooves, and tails

my man torque is quite possibly one of the last sylvans on the continent

they are distantly related to elves, and the two races tend to coexist quite well

generally quite mischievous and merry, highly enjoying pranks and parties. they can use simple spells and are mainly herbivores

sylvans live around 100 years and are highly sought after by dryads for their... ahem... reproductive capabilities

unicorns

yep, we got unicorns! i fucking love unicorns and still kinda think they're real. camels are real and those lumpy fuckers are way weirder than a horse with a spike on its head.

anyways

unicorns are highly advanced beings, they can travel between worlds and use telepathy. they don't really like the "less advanced" races, mostly staying around to observe them. they have distinct societies led by a council of elders and tend to avoid evil

these unicorns are badasses

unicorns strongly despise the use of the force but encourage the power of destiny. in the context of pavetta's betrothal feast, a unicorn would not be happy with pavetta's little source hurricane thing, but would encourage geralt to follow the law of surprise

in of the witcher, unicorns are very important because of their world-hopping capabilities. the aen elle, unfortunately, realized this and began enslaving unicorns to help them plunder other worlds. this turned into a massive conflict between the unicorns and elves.

[therobotmonster]

The Adventures of Albert Sauros: Rumble in the Court of Princess Sparkle-Sprinkle!

Ey, it’s Roderick Friggin’ Rockhammer, ya boy, ya wizard, ya least favorite but it doesn’t matter cuz I’m friends with the guy with the big axe! So sit down and listen while I tells ya about the sweetest fight I ever seen, or else you can tell your friends you got beat up by a gnome with rickets!

Okay, by the best friend of a gnome with rickets, but the point stands.

So long story short, about forever ago my great-grand-whatever saved the life of this dwarf guy and our clans have been best buds since forever even if the Leadstones say otherwise. I’ve been hanging with my ‘cousin’ Borin Leadstone, lettin’ ‘em pay me back for all the hard work grand-whatever did. Also cuz they rescued me from wage slavery from the chizzlers at the Drutch East Primordia Tradin’ company. 

So we’re fomenting some kinda frog-rebellion when my boy Borin and his gang roll up in the Drutch Governor’s personal airship, what they captured on its attempted escape, and they’re all “Get on, ya knobs, we’re going to deliver a chess set to a dragon!”. 

So we goes to this sandcastle in the middle o’ nowhere, and we got the full gang, we got the A team, we got the B team, the C team is there, and the A++ team, which is me. And there’s this giant frikkin’ dragon, and she and this tall lizard who I think is the manager of Borin’s band or something start talking about wakin’ up her ancient granddad to save the world. 

This is when we find out three pieces of vital information. The first, is that cuz my boys broke reality with their mushroom scam, the planet’s spinnin’ the wrong way, and the spell what was supposed to pump the dragons up with ley line energy is instead gonna suck ‘em dry. The second is that Princess Sparkle-Sprinkles ain’t gonna be able to save things on her own, cuz she’s like, twelve (in dragon years). The third is that traditional dwarven children’s drink strawberry quix, is 80 frikkin’ proof. The latter two points were learned, shall we say, after the fact.

So when the frikkin’ energy field holdin’ the golden goldbrickin’ grandpa in sleepytime falls down, there’s guardians, cuz of course there’s guardians, and the dragon kid’s hung over and trying’ to un-ward a magic door, so its time for the Rumble!

And in the every corner, we have a horde of burning coal pseudo-elementals.

In the center of the ring, surrounded on all sides, we have!   (rumble beneath the fold)

The A Team:

The Axe to the Max! The Dwarven Rage! Borin “the Kills-in-art” Leadstooooone!

The Prince of Stab, the Duke of Grab! You won’t see him cuz he’ll see you first... O. G. FASSIL! 

Mr Chomp-and-Circumstance! The endless drone from parts unknown! Professor Talk-A-Saurus Hex himself, Albert O. Sauros!

And ya got me, Roderick Rockhammer! Whattya mean I’m on the B-Team?! What the- Get your hands of me! I’m tellin’ this story-

The B Team:

Lee, Jade Dragonborn Monk. Very proud of his new punches.

Sister Sagittarius. Aarakocra fighter and Ib cultist, survivor of dragons.

Blazin Kush. Dwarf bard, recently both dead and a halfling. Reincarnation is a hell of a spell.

The Pie, fiendish mimic that had a bad mushroom trip and now thinks they’re a carnivorous pie.

The C Team Rest:

Snakey the Mummy. Formerly a snake, reincarnated as a humanoid mummy (reincarnation, hell of  a spell). Just got their first level of rogue.

Dat “Jack” Ass, formerly a partially elemental donkey, reincarnated as a simic hybrid of lizardfolk and elf that’s best described as a sleestak. What’s a sleestak? That’s your heart attack towel rack throwba One of these:

(He’s a druid now, also level one.)

Now fight fans, you may be saying “C’mon Roddy, those coal guys is chumps, your man Borin chops ‘em up like cole slaw!” Sure, that’s true, but the thing is, normally, the team doesn’t have two first-level baby boids to protect.  

There always seemed to be one more coal elemental than there were defenders. WHAM! A coal mass slams into Dat Ass, knocking him straight to unconsciousness and teetering toward death. Albert summoned the spirit of a tyrannosaurus rex to enlarge Lee to dinosaurian proportions as elementals hammered them from every side.

As for our intrepid heroes, luck had abandoned them. Blazen called down healing light only for Dat to be knocked out moments later. Sagittarius took to the skies to snipe, as Lee and Borin went hand to hand with our foes. The coal elementals scored hit after hit, and after a brief success with the ghost gun, Albert was knocked on his tail when the ghost gun experienced a backfire. 

Even I, the great and powerful Roderick Rockwell, was brutally beaten and bedraggled by those smoldering slag piles! Well I had enough of that, so I drw up my mysical-type knowledge, and cast catapult to hurl a chunk of shattered coal into one of the jerks! “In ya face with your buddy’s face!” I shouted, and the tide of the battle, boy it turned! 

Borin shredded his down to nubs! Lee hammed ‘em down with his magic punch-em-ups stuff, and the ghost bust ripped them to shreds. Fazzil was all “stab-stab” and then all “Zap zap!” and arrows just pelted them from the sky!

Lee even ground one “brought down to size” elemental out under his giant talons!  We kicked ‘em where it hurt, and kicked again! And when we were triumphant, what happened?

I had to give an ancient gold dragon an illusionary puppet show.

That’s how it happened, and don’t let nobody say otherwise.

[jacqueline314]

Bonds

Part 3

*knock*  *knock*  *knock* from the door. Bree, without her crown, wearing a grey dress, put’s her book down and heads to the door. She opens to see the bishop standing outside.

Bree says to the bishop “Welcome back!”

The bishop enters and closes he door while Bree heads back to her desk while continuing “I hope I’ll learn new things before my coronation” then she takes her seat.

The bishop goes “I’m just as excited as you, my Bree” She heads behind Bree’s chair and placed both hands on her shoulders, and continues “You’ll definitely love our lesson today.” then brings her face closer, while sitting down, “Me and you both.” in a seductive voice.

At that point, Bree sees the bishop’s hands growing and turning into a merlot color. She tries to get out of her grip, but her strength is incapable of letting Bree go. As she struggled, she sees the bishop completely transformed into a red-winged monster.

Without any hesitation, the bishop grabs Bree’s head and slams her on to the desk.

As she feels the force of the impact, Bree spreads her arms, placed both hands on the desk, and pushes up in order to make an escape.

Fortunately, it was all a dream. The queen is siting in the royal library. Few books stacked around where she slept. From where she’s siting, looking out the window, it had already turn dark, seeing that there is little orange left in the sky.

She rubs her face with both hands while leaning back against the chair. Her arms slides off her face, then her torso, and falls to her sides. Leans forward and gathers the books that she read, stands up and puts them away, except for one.

As she heads to the door, out of the library, sounds of wood and metal clatter as a wagon cart gate falls open.

The sun had already pass it’s highest peak of the day, and a Firbolg, who was driving the cart, turns to his back and says “We’re here. Good luck to your search of a friend”

Two armored humans were riding on the back of the cart. The firbolg sees the blond one already getting off.

The other, brunette, looks at the driver and replies “Thank you very much. We really appreciate this” hops out, and closes the gate.

Then the firbolg whips the lead and heads on further down the path.

The two arrives at a city that is a hundred meters a way. They make their way to it.

It’s open. compared to another city they’ve been to before, this one also doesn’t have any walls. This land must have less monsters than where they were.

Then suddenly, a screech ringed their ears. They turn around and sees a Gargantuan-Bore Worm, heading to the city.

The two hear a horn blow, and five red colored-armored individuals running to the worm.

While running at it, one sent out a fire blast. Two got closer and slashed it with their swords. One touched it, and the spot started to turn grey and decomposed.

The worm stands up and missed it’s attack with it’s tail. One of the five proceeded to get on top of the tail, and strikes a lightning bolt to it’s head. The fire caster sends another fire ball, that is half of the worm’s size.

The fire burns and chars the worm. Making it fall down.

The two humans, plus other civilians, watched the team take down the creature, and cheers for their victory.

The blond human doesn’t cheer, but cross her arms and say “Not bad.” She breaks out a smirk with her face.

As for the brunette, she goes all fan girl vibes for the team. She shouts out “YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING!!!!”

The red team sees the two and waves at them.

The blonde noticed her friend’s excitement, looking at her and the team, she shakes her head to snap back into reality and grabs her and says “Anne, we’re suppose to find someone. Remember?”

Anne shakes her head and replies “Sorry, Sasha. Let’s go.” Sasha lets go and they make their way into the city.

When they arrived into the middle of the outer district, they see buildings and structures that are built with and without columns. The roads aren’t really packed, but there are a handful walking around them.

Anne goes “5th city; Vria”

Sasha looks at Anne and replies “We’ll find her”

Anne looks back at Sasha and nods.

The two split up and stats searching around the city.

Sasha heads south of the district for her search, while Anne heads the east.

Sasha arrives at an almost empty alley of the city. Stone bricks on the ground that is slowly being over grown with unordinary vegetation. There isn’t too much, just patches here and there.

There are shops with signs hanging out. It looks to be a not so popular shopping district.

Sasha heads to the first window shop, she passes. Looking in, there are shelves of books and knick knacks. There is also a telescope on a stand, on the side of one of the shelves and pointing at the top corner of it.

Sasha stands back, thinking that her friend would love to visit this shop. As she chuckles, she mumbles “She’s such a nerd”

Then, she hears a faint shatter of glass. Sasha glances at the direction of the  sound. She doesn’t see anyone else around her. They must’ve left already.

She makes her way over to the sound. What she finds is broken window glass, outside of a shop.

Sasha heads over to the broken window and sees that it has been wrecked. It doesn’t look like the shop owner is around to find their shop robbed.

Trying to find out who did this, Sasha doesn’t have a clue on how to.

A moment passes, and a voice cried out.

She turns around to find out where the voice may have come from. Another moment passes, and she doesn’t hear the voice anymore.

Sasha looks around carefully, finds an empty narrow alley, and heads through it.

After three minutes of going through a narrow maze, as quietly as she can, she eventually finds a basement window that has faints of fire light, glowing through the window.

Sasha sneakily crawls and looks through the window, and sees three small-humanoid, dog looking creatures with horns, tails, lizard feet, and no ears. All around a bond fire.

Trying to look if they have stuff with them, a loud slam of a wooden window startled Sasha and goes “Agh!”

The three “dog” creatures looks up at the window and finds Sasha watching in. She stands up and runs away from them. As that happened, the three grabs their cloak, jumps up to the window, and starts chasing her down.

As they chase after her, Sasha looks back and sees three of the walls.

She quickly attacks them when they jump at her. One got hit in the gut, the other got headbutted, and the last one got an elbow at the face. Three fell unconscious.

Sasha carries them to their hideout. When she enters, she finds a tied up She sees a woman halfling hostage, in her fifties, in merchant attire, with small stuffed sacks next to her. 

She unties the hostage and uses the rope to tie up the “dogs”

After that, she stands up and turs to the hostage then asks “Are you okay?”

The halfling answers “I am. Thank you for saving me. These kobolds robed my store. I had a spear to defend myself, buy they were too quick or me. They tied me up and took everything in these bags” points at the stuffed sacks behind her “I don’t know why they kidnapped me, but this isn’t their first time doing it!”

Sasha looks at her, confused. Does that mean she got robbed by them multiple times?

Sasha politely asks “What do you mean?” then crossed her arms.

She replies “OH! You see, I’ve been tying knots for thirty two years. I can tell that your knot tying is on amateur level.”

Sasha interrupts her by asking “Do you give knot tying lessons?”

“Only to my employee. My shop sells many things. Potted plants, potions, a lot of stuff. We display them on shelves or by hanging them. That’s why I know everything about knots. I hang everything that’s either valuable or just hangable to sell.”

Sasha is amazed about the halfling’s potential. Who knew hanging items would be a smart way to display.

The halfling turns to the bags behind her and says “Well, I told enough. Help me bring my stuff back.” They both carry the bags and head to the window.

As they pass the kobolds, the halfling goes “Leave these three thieves here. That’ll teach them to never come to my district again.”

They make it through the window and return to the shop.

“Just leave them inside.” said the halfling.

They put the sacks down and she looks up at Sasha and says “Thank you again for helping. I must reward you with something” and she searches through one of the sacks.

Sasha says “Oh, no. There’s really no need for that” and she replies “Oh, but I insists” then starts looking though another sack.

After a minute, the halfling merchant pulls out a potion from the sack and hands it to Sasha.

“Here you go. This will come in handy” she says.

Sasha looks closer to the cloudy green concoction inside the bottle and ask “What is it?”

She replies “It’s a potion of water breathing. Just take one sip, and you’ll be living with the fishes for one hour.”

“But, it’s in a big bottle.” said Sasha

“You can use it multiple times or for a group.”

“Aren’t these expensive?”

The merchant replies “Do you know how many people go fishing?”

They all have a long pause

Until she says “Eh, the ingredients are easy to collect.” turns around and heads to the door at the back.

Sasha puts away the potion and gives her goodbye to the merchant.

She leaves and continues her search for her friend.

She asks around but no one heard of her friend.

It takes both Anne and Sasha Four hours, asking and looking around the city. The sky turns orange and they meet back at the district where they split off.

“Did you find anything?” asked Sasha. Anne replies by shaking her head.

They both sat down on a large stone.

After a minute of catching their breath, Sasha’s stomach growled. Anne chuckled, then her stomach growled too. They both laughed.

Anne remembers the time when they all went to a burger joint. She would always have hot sauce on her sandwich and burn her mouth. While Sasha and their other friend would laugh at her misfortune.

Anne asks Sasha “Remember the time where we all get burgers and I’d always burn my mouth?”

She didn’t reply.

The wind blew hard and a piece of paper gets stuck on the stone.

Anne grabs the paper and reads it.

It’s a food flier of The Traveling Barnacle.

She shows the flier to Sasha and asks “Do you wanna grab dinner?” Anne wraps her arm over her as she says “My treat.”

Sasha looks at the flier and still no reply.

“I’ll eat their spiciest dish for you.”

Sasha breaks a smile and says “Alright.”

They both get off the stone and starts heading their way to The Traveling Barnacle.

Among the path, Anne recognizes this street. She went through here during her search. When they asked one of the people around the street, to find the docks, the person tells them to go through the market district.

The sun has set and street lanterns are lit. The district had been cleared and only a few people are still shopping.

As they see a wide space between two Anne puts her hand on Sasha’s shoulder from behind her and goes “Oh, I didn’t know there was an opening.”

Sasha looks at her confused. Anne glances at her and noticed her expression.

“I may have NOT notice it when I went through here.” And she smiles while scratching the back of head with her free hand.

Sasha laughs then keeps on walking while saying “Well, you owe me two meals tonight.” Then Anne walks along with her.

They arrived at the docks. They see ship that’s lit up and few people are going up the ramp.

When they get closer, they see the sign that says “The Traveling Barnacle.”

Sasha’s stomach starts growling and she puts both hands on it.

They hear foot steps. They look up and see a male half-orc walking down the ramp.

As he does, he says “You must be hungry.” Stops around the middle of the ramp and places his hands on his sides. “Welcome to The Travelling Barnacle!”

Anne waves her hand and says “Hi!” Sasha waves too, but slowly.

“Well, come on board! You can sit any where though.” Says the half-orc as he walks back up the ramp.

Sasha and Anne follow along.

When they got on board, they see the entire deck full of people, in their seats.

The half-orc turs to them and goes “Oh, take the second layer. Down those stairs.” He then points at stairs while handing them the menu.

After finding the stairs, Sasha turns her head to the half-orc and says “Thanks” and heads to the stairs with Anne behind her.

When they’re at the bottom of the stairs, Sasha sees a few people in their tables and the rest are empty. And as she glances around, she sees two people drinking.

One had a large wooden mug and the other with a regular sized whiskey glass.

As the person finished their whiskey, the other kept drinking.

It looks like they’re trying not to spill any drops.

Eventually they lowered their mug.

But when they do, Sasha recognizes that person’s face. It is their friend, Marcy Wu.

As for Anne, when she reached the bottom of the stairs, she immediately sees Marcy’s face before she drank the mug. She wanted to tell Sasha, in front of her, but her eyes and thoughts are fixed to wards Marcy.

They both drop their menus

Viewing from their left side, Sasha starts walking forward, but Anne quickly pulls her back. And the two turn their heads to their left and says “We all know what happens next.”

A hand rolls down a screen, that contains a scene.

What shows is a peaceful night, under a tree, on top of a hill. Sasha keeping watch while Anne sleeps.

Sasha sits next to Anne’s sleeping face and glances over her.

She gently touches Anne’s cheek and plays with her hair, while feeling flustered doing it.

As it was showing, Off-screen Sasha says “No, no, no! You’re not suppose to see that!”

Off-screen Anne then replies “Wait, is that-”

Off-screen Sasha yells “GET RID OF IT!!!!!”

Then the same hand rolls the screen up.

This time, we’re at the post fighting scene.

Sasha and Cordih are standing across from each other with their weapons in front. And Anne holding Ezuvae’s (Marcy) face.

Ezuvae sees a tanned-skin, brunette human girl who looks like sees in her age.

Turning her head, she also finds another human girl, but with lighter skin and blonde hair in a pony tail. Across her she also sees Cordih who he and the blonde are in rough shape and look tired, taking in slow breaths.

Ezuvae Get’s off of the brunette’s and from her face and tries to get up from her seat. But due to how much ale she first drank, when she carried herself with her leg, it felt like jelly.

As she stood up, she reaches her hand out, calls out Cordih’s name before falling onto her face.

Cordih notices her, and as she fell, he took one step to Ezuvae. But as he did, the blonde took one step toward him. He realizes her method when the floor creaked.

Having no other options to do, Cordih says to the two humans “I don’t know you kids. But what ever it is, tell me what you want. Just don’t harm anyone in this ship.”

Sasha quickly replies with “Ha! That’s rich coming from you. You gave her something, and she fell. Does THAT not seem harmful to you?”

Anne places her and over Ezuvae as a sign of protecting her.

He looks at the blonde in confusion. “When you drink a lot of alcohol, yes.”

Both Anne and Sasha became shocked. They look at each other and back to the Yuan-ti.

Ever since they came to this world, they immediately start their search for Marcy. They came across four cities.

They looked all over but all they end up with are groups of cult members.

They did take them down, but the head cultist has yet been taken care off.

If they did encounter it, they’ll take care of it. Once and for all.

But their search for their friend is their main quest.

They successfully found her. She’s just lying on the wooden floor, next to Anne.

Anne and Sasha thought their fifth attempt would end up the same. Where a group of cult members are lurking around making people drink something and they drink something and become one of them.

Technically they don’t change forms, but they definitely got brain wash.

He said Marcy drank alcohol.

Anne quickly takes a look at the mug she used, and sees a frothing, yellow drink.

She takes a quick sip of it and tastes a sweet-fruity flavor while also tasting a little of light bitterness.

“It’s beer” said Anne when she looks at Sasha.

The two felt they’ve been hit in the gut, for mistakenly assuming the Yuan-ti being apart of the cult.

Cordih then says to them “Well, that’s the gist of an ale. I told the captain that she’s too young to drink, but she managed to finish half-way.”

As he talked, he looks the two and catches a better description on what they look like.

They seem to be a few years, at best, older than Ezuvae.

And the way that they’re acted, he can tell that she seemed precious to them.

He continues “If you’re her friends, she’s technically a growing girl. You should be proud of her.” and cracks out a smirk on his face.

A silent moment passes.

Cordih throws his scimitar on the floor, standing up, and goes “Well, if you mean no harm, then put away your weapon.”

As the blonde puts away her sword with both hands, clicking sounds in the process, the brunette says to him “We’re so sorry for wreaking this place, we’ll clean up.” She then puts her arm around the blonde and says “Right, Sasha?” Giving her a grin smile at her.

By this time, she had already up away the sword and replies “Yeah...”

With that, they exchanged names, the bartender collecting unbroken dishes and silver wear, Cordih taking his scimitar and Ezuvae up stairs, and leaving Anne & Sasha cleaning up.

They take twenty minutes on cleaning up. Anne sweeping the floor, Sasha throwing the broken tables and chairs overboard into the ocean, then return to Anne to help her.

During that time, the Tortle captain arrives back to their ship and sees a blonde human throwing the broken furniture overboard.

Looking over to their right, they see Cordih sitting next to Ezuvae, who is just laying on her back on two of the tables.

The captain goes over to him and asks “What is happening here?”

Cordih turns around and sees the captain then goes “Ah, captain! You have returned.”

He was so lost in his thought that he didn’t notice their return. He had been wandering if he had directly go to the captain to handle the situation or not.

He stands up and tells them “We had a couple of people who wreaked the second layer. But the problem was taken care off, by me.”

By that, the captain replies with a “Hmm.” a slow nod, and a straight face, while turning their head to glance at the blonde one.

With a heavy *Thump* sound, the two turn to Ezuvae who has now fallen face-flat on the floor. They picked her up and put her on a chair instead.

When Anne and Sasha are done cleaning, they both head up the stairs and sees Cordih and the captain, based on how they’re dressed, standing next to each other and Ezuvae on a chair. Still unconscious.

They both walk towards them and Sasha goes “We’re done cleaning up the mess, can we take her with us and leave?”

Before the captain would say anything, they were interrupted when a distant voice shouts out “Ah! Excuse me!”

The two humans turn around, and the rest sees an armored female Tiefling approaching towards them from the ramp.

She goes “What happened to her?” pointing at Ezuvae.

Cordih replies “She just had her first ale. She’s a growing girl.” Looks over to the captain. “Isn’t she captain?”

They broke out a laugh then goes “Ha! I knew it, the moment I met her!”

The Tiefling then says “Yes, well. I am Masha Kilt, royal cleric and this growing girl right here--” Places her hands on Ezuvae. “--Is the honored guess of the palace. The queen is looking for her, and it will be a shame that she won’t be using the room we just provider her with.”

She lifts her up and carries her on her shoulder “Thank you for looking after her.” She then tosses a small bag of platinum pieces, turns around and starts walking.

Just before she sets foot on the ramp. Sasha and Anne went up to her and says “Wait!”

Sasha in a deprived expression: “We’ve been looking for her, everywhere. And you’re just going to take her with you?”

Masha: Oh!, I didn’t know you’re close with her.”

Anne also in a deprived expression: “We are! And we miss her!”

Masha: “Well... Why don’t you come with me then.”

She resumes her walk down the ramp. Anne and Sasha follows behind her.

“I’m sure the queen won’t mind preparing extra rooms for you two.”

They then make their way to the palace.

Upon arriving at the door step of the palace, Anne and Sasha sees how gargantuan it is.

Looking around as they enter into the main hall / thrown room, Sasha remembers her palace that Grime gave her. It is large, but she doubts this place is even remotely close to her own.

“Mine is definitely bigger and better!” said Sasha.

Anne is too focused on how amazing the palace interior is that she didn’t hear what Sasha said.

As for Masha, she heard her but chose to not give feedback.

Queen Bree, who is sitting on her thrown with guards back at the corners, sees Masha’s arrival then stands up and walk over to the edge of the platform.

Masha, who is still holding Ezuvae in her arms, stops about a couple meters in front of the queen.

She the goes “My queen, I have found Ezuvae having dinner with these two mercenaries.”

She steps back and the two step forward as she says “May I present, Sasha Waybright and Anne Boonchuy.”

Bree looks over to Anne and Sasha.

She give out a smile then goes “Well, how lovely.” Then her eyes changes in to an intimidating stare at them “But, why have they followed you here?”

Sasha and Anne didn’t flinch when Bree gives them the cold eyes. Instead they kept calm, and looked at her in concern. Why is she looking at us like that?

Masha answers with a big smile “They said that their journey is to find their friend, and what success when they came to Vria!”

“Are you sure they aren’t imposters?” Asked Bree.

Sasha goes “Hey!” as she steps forward, then Anne grabs her on the shoulder as she says “Please don’t, Sash.”

Bree: “If you are her friends, she would’ve mentioned you when we talked.”

Sasha: “She didn’t get to that part, yet!”

And from her yelling, the guards points their weapons at her.

Bree: “You should leave or my guards will escort you out.”

Sasha gets off from Anne’s hand and starts approaching her, but Anne grabbed her around her waist. And she’s slowing her down with her weight.

As all of that happens, Sasha goes “I’ll make sure to take you with me then!”

Anne says “NO!” as guards are starting to rush over to them.

And for a slit second..., *Snore* *Snore*

The sound was coming from Ezuvae. Her mouth, wide open for spiders to crawl in with drool coming out.

“My queen, I can assure you that these two will cause no harm at anyone at all. I believe that they really miss her, by a lot” said Masha.

Bree looks back at the two humans. With the recent event, it’s difficult to trust them, but telling from their eyes, they’re not willing to het Ezuvae go.

She asks “What would you suggest then?”

“We should confirm by asking Ezuvae. If she doesn’t know these two, they’ll leave.” replied Masha.

Anne and Sasha looked at Masha in disbelief. One of the goes “What?!”

After a moment of thinking, the queen nods in agreement.

Masha then heads over to one of the stairs.

As Bree is about to call out to a guard to bring the mercenaries to their rooms, Masha calls out to Anne and Sasha and says “Follow me, please.”

Anne lets go of Sasha and the two followed Masha along.

In shock, the queen then shook her head and followed behind them. Two guards start following her, but she raised her hand back and the guards stop from behind. Bree wishes not to be accompanied by the guards.

With Masha (carrying Ezuvae) in front, Sasha & Anne following 3ft behind, and the queen following 20ft behind, they make their way to Ezuvae’s room door. But Anne and Sasha don’t know that.

There are no guards standing/patrolling outside of the room. They’re either already taking the night off or simply somewhere else.

Masha Turns around to Anne and Sasha when they reached to the door front and Bree catching up. Masha doesn’t say anything.

The two humans turn their heads to the door, one of them looking back at Masha and as they both go “Umm...” then one of them go “Is this...”, Bree arrives behind Anne and Sasha.

As she arrives, Masha goes “This is where you’ll be staying” then pushes the door open with her shoulder.

They enter the room with Bree standing outside the door way, physically frozen. Her mind processing on what is happening.

Masha asked the two in a swift breath “Do you like?” and Bree’s mind is too occupied to hear anything.

As Masha asked her question, Anne immediately replies with “I really like this room!” but Sasha doesn’t reply anything. She still believes that her own palace and room is way better than where she is right now.

Masha places Ezuvae on the bed, walks over to Bree and shakes her body. As she comes back to reality, Masha stands next to her, turns around, and says “Then you’ll be sharing the room with Ezuvae!”

The three looked at Masha and shouts “WHAT?!” at her.

Bree stands in front of Masha and goes “You can’t do that! I forbid it!”

Sasha senses a hint of jealousy from the queen’s voice, but she isn’t sure if she wanted Marcy all for herself.

Masha respond with “Unfortunately my queen, it is in the guess rules that when they find any interest to the first room they choose, then that is the room they will settle in.” She points to Anne “Anne is already fond of this room, so she shall stay here unless she wants to be in another room.”

Anne puts her hand on the back of head and hesitantly says “W-well, umm... Uh” looks over to Sasha. In her mind, she realizes that Asha hasn’t made her decision yet. Hopefully she doesn’t want to sleep here. Anne is concern to be afraid of the queen or not. “Oh! Sa--”

“I want it!” Sasha shouted. Interrupting what Anne was going to say.

Anne feels chills all around her bones.

Masha goes “Great!, we will let you be.” turns around and starts to walk away from the room.

But Queen Bree goes “No! If they’re sleeping here, I’ll stay the night as well!”

Sasha: “Seriously?”

Bree: “I am the queen.”

Sasha: “Why are you following the rules then?”

Bree: “I am not above the law!”

As they quarrel, Masha sneakily closes the door and leaves.

They take a minute to rest after their argument. There was no winner.

Sasha walks over to the bed, opposite of where Ezuvae is laying. She drops her great sword and starts taking off her armor.

Bree rushes over to Ezuvae, places her hands on her and stares at Sasha.

Sasha, who is half way of getting comfortable says “Chill, I’m not doing a lot.” then continues changing to only her tank top and boxers.

As Bree watches her change, she does the same by taking off her gown and loosening the lace behind her. Leaving her wearing a loose corset and tight, comfortable underwear.

Anne watches them changing, nervously. She wraps her arms around herself tightly. Sasha sees her and says “C’mon, Anne”

As she looks at her, Anne’s eyes are locked towards Sasha as she removes her armor and skirt and heads over next so Sasha.

Just as Bree loosens her corset, Sasha swiftly rolls Ezuvae close to her. Her back lays on one of the middle spots of the bed.

Bree stomps her foot and says “HEY! You’re CLEARLY doing a lot there!”

Sasha responds with a smirk “I’m only taking one side. The other side is free.”

Bree doesn’t like this her, but her eyes tells her that she’s being serious on sharing Ezuvae.

Bree lays on her side, next to Ezuvae and hogs her close. She wrapped her arms and legs around her snoring body. Leaving the blonde holding just her hand.

Sasha does the same on the opposite side.

Anne takes the spot behind Sasha. Since they’re holding very closely, Anne hesitantly scoots closer to Sasha and Spoons her.

Sasha feels Anne’s body behind her, but she doesn’t say anything and allows her to spoon her.

After ten minutes, they all fall a sleep.

It’s dark.

There is no light.

No sound.

No gust/breeze of the wind. It’s all pitch black.

They can see their hand when they raised it in front of their face.

After a moment of looking around, there is shiny object that catches their eye. How is it possible for there to be any light?

The object floats towards the person and they see a small chest-shape box, made of gold with three gems and a frog printed the top.

They reach out to grab it.

Their first attempt causes the object to slowly float away from them.

After a couple of tries, they eventually grab it with both hands.

They opened the lid, but it was empty. They close it in disappointment.

After some closer inspection, they look at the gems. They’re consist of blue, pink and green colored gems. And sees a tiny gap between the gem itself and printed gold.

As their finger touches the green gem, a bright sparking light flashes in front of them.

Surrounding it are sparking flashes of blue, pink, and green.

These light maybe aggressive, but they’re seemingly harmless.

Turning around, they see a blonde soldier dual wielding swords, and a large humanoid toad that is at a height of a dwarf wielding a massive war hammer.

They’re fighting against a Giant Lizardfolk, but with no scale around him. He has a messy beard and is heavily armored with a massive flaming sword.

As they’re fighting, they see an exhausted Brunette human, and three humanoid frogs, heading towards the person and the bright light behind them.

That person, recognizes these four. Either friends of family, they have a close relationship to them.

They shout out and say “This way! Hurry!”

Not knowing on how to help them, they noticed that they’re entering the bright light. Does this mean they’re going to “The Other Side”?

Inspecting the box again, they’re trying to figure out how to properly use it.

When all four of them has their head and shoulders sticking out of the light, the brunette goes “Hurry!”

They respond “I just need to-”

But was interrupted when they feel a burning blade piercing from behind and through their chest.

They’re not scared at all. Feeling physical pain is terrifying, but this person just takes and allows it to sink in.

Their head starts feeling dizzy until they fall down, collapse, and drop the box.

The lasting they see & hear is the voice of the brunette calling out “Marcy!!” and the bright light disappearing with the four people, before their eye lids shut.

Their mind is still conscious, they urge their body to move until eventually, Ezuvae opens her eyes and wakes up.

Her body lies on her bed. She knows this because she recognizes the details of the room she was given by Queen Bree.

As she starts moving she feels her body and limbs bound by something for a second, but is easily freed from.

When she sat up and looks to her left, she sees Bree laying next to where Ezuvae was laying down.

She screams “AAHHH!” seeing that Bree slept next to her, wearing in her undergarments.

And over to her right, she sees a blonde and brunette sleeping close to each other.

She screams “AAHHH!” again, seeing that there are two more girls sleeping in her bed.

Did it actually happen? Did she slept with two females? Three if you count the brunette.

As Ezuvae screamed, Sasha and Bree opened their eyes and get up from their backs.

Bree: *Yawn* “Good morning, love”

Bree then smiles at Ezuvae.

Ezuvae stutters her words, not knowing what to say to her.

Sasha notices what she’s doing and decides to take it up to eleven.

She also smiles at Ezuvae and says “Hey Hip-Kisser~”

Bree and Ezuvae looked at her with bright red faces. As red as a tomato, in fact.

Sasha crawls closer to Ezuvae, wraps her arm around Ezuvae’s shoulders, brushes Ezuvae’s face with her off hand as she says “You were wonderful, last night. I wanna kiss you so bad, again.”

Bree snaps back into reality and begins to be furious.

Out of her frustration, she screams. Sasha and Ezuvae starts hearing sparks under her scream.

As they turn their attention from their eyes to Bree, they can feel the air vibrating around them.

They watch Bree as a burst of lightning comes out of her. The blast was so loud that the guards and the citizens outside the palace can hear it.

Bree’s parents are having breakfast on a balcony, that is further away from wing where Ezuvae’s room is, hear the blast and the husband said “Not Again...”

In the room, Bree looks back at the two and sees Sasha and Ezuvae, both have their hairs standing straight and fuzzy.

She’s still holding on to Ezuvae.

Bree realizes what happened and covers her mouth with both hands.

Then Anne wakes up, not affected by the blast, and goes *Yawn* sees Sasha and Ezuvae’s static hair “Do we have an alarm clock?”

After fixing their hairs, every one starts to talk each other.

Ezuvae: “Bree, you do magic?”

Bree: “Yes. I studied and trained for my parents. I went to the library yesterday and I wanted to give you a book that I’m quite fond of.”

Ezuvae: “Well thank you! I can’t wait to read it.”

They both smile at each other.

Sasha coughs, grabbing both of their attention to her.

Ezuvae *blushing*: “Oh! I don’t remember much last night, but uh... I hope I didn’t mess our first time.”

Sasha: “We didn’t do our first time,” she whispers under her breath “but I do want to kiss you really badly.”

Ezuvae: “Hmm?”

Sasha *blushing*: “Hmm?”

After a while, Ezuvae learns the two human’s names and Anne tells & explains, followed by Sasha, of why they’re here.

They them that Ezuvae’s real name is Marcy Wu, They managed to break Marcy out of an incubator and she got sucked in to a portal, that was generated by a magic music box.

The reason why they wanted to save Marcy was because a giant newt king who is evil, stabbed and incubated her. And also they tell her that they are all childhood friends.

They managed to go through the portal and end up in a fantasy world.

They’ve visited four cities before coming to Vria.

Among those four cities, an under ground cult tries to snatch them. But they manage to get away and takedown one of the cultists.

They encountered a dragon once, but it flung them into a different spot.

They then arrived here. We all know then.

This is a lot to take in for Ezuvae and Bree.

In Ezuvae’s perspective, she’s wondering if its connected to the dream she had.

for Bree, looking into their faces, she can’t tell if they’re lying but their eyes are genuine enough to be telling the truth.

Anne grabs hold to Ezuvae’s hand with both of her hands, and says “Please come back with us, Marcy.”

Just as Ezuvae hears Anne’s voice in a particular tone, she starts remembering fragments of memories.

These memories moments are when she gets pulled out of a waste container, playing with a blue, black, & red board while hearing snakes in the background, and falling off a crumbling table.

Those memories, makes Ezuvae remember hearing Anne’s name.

Anne watches Ezuvae, just sitting still and staring at a blank.

She feels her hand holding tighter and hears her mouth saying “Anne?”

Anne immediately hugs Ezuvae very tightly, with tears of joy.

Sasha and Bree watches them for a moment until Anne pulls them both in to the binding hug.

Extra Scene:

As Anne and Sasha starts walking to the docks, Sasha says “You’re such a wine, Anne.”

Anne replies “What?” not catching what she said.

Sasha quickly says “Nothing!”

Bonus Scene:

Bree wanted to keep Ezuvae all to herself.

She knows that Ezuvae is leaving.

But remembering what she caused from her jealousy, she is afraid of becoming too emotionally attached to someone.

She knows what happens when she lets out.

“Not again. Please.”

[sparxwrites]

this is more in a General Fantasy Setting but how much do you think elf/dwarf/halfling/gnome/etc genitals differ from humans? would they be the sane except size or- oh my god what about tieflings. those could get real weird /real/ fast

anon, i am all about fantasy genitals, so. i think they would all be super different. mostly because i Love making up random different genital combinations.

humans are standard and boring as per usual, that’s chill. everyone else, tho? has very exciting shit going on. below the cut, bc i got overexcited. B)

elves have this thing going on, because i love the concept of it and it’s so cool (and also vex having lil tentacles in her vagina is super cool, as is the idea of percy being like what the everloving fuck the first time he bones her).

dwarves have knots. just putting that out there, they absolutely do. lady dwarves are p much the same as humans, though - but they have slightly larger vaginas than expected to accommodate the knots, and are therefore often massive size queens.

halflings don’t actually have different genitalia depending on sex. they both have like. lil nubby tentacle things they sort of grind together and exchange genetic information, and then both go away and lay eggs. if they don’t have sex, they often end up with phantom pregnancies where they develop dud eggs anyways and have to lay them. 

gnomes have barbed penises, like a cat. gnome ladies have barbed vaginas. having sex with a gnome is very exciting.

orcs and goliaths and stuff have knots. like. very serious knots. lady orcs and goliaths have a sort of. vaginal equivalent that means they grip any cock put in them very tightly. non-orc and goliath men who try to have sex with those ladies are in for a big surprise.

tiefling women have pseudopenises, like hyenas. tiefling men have knots. tiefling men get pegged very much on the regular by their ladies’ pseudopenises. for your consideration: zahra with a pseudopenis double-penetrating someone with her pseudopenis in one hole and her tail in another. fans self quietly.