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darkpetal16 · 4 years ago

Note

Can’t wait until Overlord gets posted!!! I’ve only ever found one fanfic of it I’ve liked and it’s a HP crossover

Character Sheet

Name: Momonga

Title: The Strongest Magic Caster with the Appearance of a Skeleton

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Undead

Job: One of the Almighty 42 Supreme Beings; Ruler of the Great Tomb of Nazarick

Residence: Great Tomb of Nazarick; Room in level 9

Alignment: Extreme Evil; Sense of Justice - 500

Racial Level: Skeletal Mage lvl 15; Elder Lich lvl 10; Overlord lvl 5

Job level: Necromancer lvl 10; Ruler of Death lvl 10; Eclipse lvl 5

Creator: N/A

Personality: Cautious, loyal, avid collector.

Name: Lumière

Title: High Priestess of Light

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Angel

Job: One of the Almighty 42 Supreme Beings; Lady of Light

Residence: Great Tomb of Nazarick; The Hidden Tower

Alignment: Extreme Good; Sense of Justice 500

Racial Level: Angel lvl 15; Archangel lvl 10; Seraph Empyrean lvl 5

Job level: Light Priestess lvl 10; High Priestess lvl 10

Creator: N/A

Personality: Demure, loyal, romantic,

Name: Albedo

Title: Warm and Caring Devil of Pure White

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Succubus

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick Overseer

Residence: Throne Hall; and a room in level 9

Alignment: Extreme Evil; Sense of Justice - 500

Racial Level: Imp lvl 10

Job level: Guardian lvl 10; Blackguard lvl 5; Unholy Knight lvl 10; Shield Lord lvl 10

Creator: Tabula Smaragdina

Personality: Loyal, yandere, extremist

Name: Jack

Title: The Smiling Ripper

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Undead

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick Head Researcher

Residence: The Hidden Tower; and a room in level 9

Alignment: Extreme Evil; Sense of Justice - 500

Racial Level: Skeletal Mage lvl 15; Elder Lich lvl 10;

Job level: Necromancer lvl 10; Researcher lvl 10; Assassin lvl 10; Master Assassin lvl 5

Creator: Lucille

Personality: Loyal, yandere, cruel

Name: Aura Bella Fiora

Title: Renowned Trainer with an Indomitable Will

Level: 100

Race: Human Race; Dark Elf

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick 6th Floor Guardian

Residence: 6th Floor Giant Tree

Alignment: Neutral ~ Evil; Sense of Justice - 100

Racial Level: N/A

Job level: Ranger lvl 5; Beast Tamer lvl 5; Shooter lvl 5; Sniper lvl 5; High Tamer lvl 10

Name: Mare Bello Fiora

Title: Unreliable Envoy of Nature

Level: 100

Race: Human Race; Dark Elf

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick 6th Floor Guardian

Residence: 6th Floor Giant Tree

Alignment: Neutral ~ Evil; Sense of Justice - 100

Racial Level: N/A

Job level: Druid lvl 10; High Druid lvl 10; Nature’s Herald lvl 10; Disciple of Disaster lvl 5; Forest Mage lvl 10

Name: Cocytus

Title: Ruler of Glaciers

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Vermin Lord

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick 6th Floor Guardian

Residence: 6th Floor Snowball Earth

Alignment: Neutral; Sense of Justice 50

Racial Level: Insect Fighter lvl 10; Vermin Lord lvl 10

Job level: Sword Saint lvl 10; Asura lvl 5; Knight of Niflheim lvl 5

Name: Demiurge

Title: Creator of the Blazing Inferno

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Arch-Devil

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick 7th Floor Guardian

Residence: 7th Floor Blazing Shrine

Alignment: Extreme Evil; Sense of Justice - 500

Racial Level: Imp lvl 10; Archdevil lvl 5

Job level: Chaos lvl 10; Prince of Darkness lvl 10; Shapeshifter lvl 10

Name: Shalltear Bloodfallen

Title: The Bloody Valkyrie

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; True Vampire

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick 1st ~ 3rd Floor Guardian

Residence: 2nd Floor Burial Chambers

Alignment: Great ~ Extreme Evil; Sense of Justice - 450

Racial Level: Vampire lvl 10; True Vampire lvl 10

Job level: Valkyrie / Lance lvl 5; Cursed Knight lvl 5; Cleric lvl 10

Name: Pandora’s Actor

Title: Ever Changing Man Without A Face

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Doppelgänger

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick Treasury Zone Guardian

Residence: Treasury Zone Manager Office

Alignment: Neutral; Sense of Justice - 50

Racial Level: Doppelgänger lvl 15; Greater Doppelgänger lvl 10

Job level: Expert lvl 10; Craftsman lvl 10; Lord of the Castle lvl 15

Name: Cheshire

Title: Cackling with Madness

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Fairy

Job: Hidden Tower Guardian

Residence: Hidden Tower

Alignment: Neutral; Sense of Justice - 100

Racial Level: Fairy lvl 15; Trickster lvl 10

Job level: Illusionist lvl 15; Shapeshifter lvl 10; Stalker lvl 10

Name: Victim

Title: Sacrificial Fetus

Level: 35

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Angel

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick 8th Floor Guardian

Residence: 8th Floor Tree of Life (Sephiroth)

Alignment: Neutral; Sense of Justice 1

Racial Level: Angel lvl 10; Archangel lvl 10

Job level: Patriot lvl 1; Saint lvl 4; Martyr lvl 1

A Sneak Peek

In the year 2138 AD there was a term: DMMO-RPG. That word was an acronym for “Dive Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game”. It was a revolutionary new way to play games that used virtual reality and nano-technology. Among the myriad DMMO-RPGs that thronged the market, one of them stood head and shoulders above the others: YGGDRASIL.

That game had been painstakingly developed and released twelve years ago, in 2126.

Compared to other DMMO-RPGs of the time, YGGDRASIL’s selling point was player freedom; it had over two thousand basic and advanced job classes.

Every class had a maximum of fifteen levels, and so in order to reach the overall level cap of one hundred, one would need to take at least seven different classes. However, players could take as many classes as they wanted as long as they met each class’s prerequisites. A player could even take a hundred classes at level one each. As such, in that system, it was exceedingly difficult to make identical characters unless one was deliberately trying to do so.

One could use various creator tools (sold separately) to fully customize one’s armor, weaponry, flavor text, appearance, and other cosmetic settings. A vast playing field awaited its players. There were nine worlds in total: Asgard, Alfheim, Vanaheim, Nidavellir, Midgard, Jotunheim, Niflheim, Helheim, and Muspelheim.

In essence, YGGDRASIL boasted a massive world, numerous classes, and freely customizable appearances.

It was inevitable that it would skyrocket in popularity and infinite the muses of millions of creative players.

Of course… that was all in the past now.

A gigantic table carved of gleaming black stone sat in the center of a luxurious room, surrounded by forty two chairs. Of all of those chairs, only three were occupied.

One of the seated attendees was clothed in a magnificent black academic robe edged in violet and gold. The collar was excessively gaudy, but it still melded well with the overall design. The person’s head was exposed, revealing a bare skill. Points of dark red lights glowed in its large eye sockets. Behind that skull pulsed a halo of black radiance.

Further down the table was a being that was not human either, merely a mass of black, sticky substance. Its tar-like surface roiled and writhed continuously, never staying in shape for more than second.

At the very end was a person who at a glance could pass as human, if not for the pointed ears and wings at their back. That person wore magnificent priestess robes of silver and blue. Its halo at the back of its head illuminated its long curly white-blonde hair.

The first attendant at the table was an Overlord, the highest-ranked of an undead magic-caster. The second was an Elder Black Ooze, which boasted the most powerful corrosive ability of the slime families. The last was a Seraph Empyrean, the highest-ranked of an angel-raced healer.

One might encounter those monsters in the most difficult of dungeons in YGGDRASIL. Overlords could use powerful curses or spells of the highest tiers of magic; Elder Black Oozes were dreaded for their ability to degrade weapons and armor; and Seraph Empyreans were universally despised when found near bosses.

However, they were not game monsters, but players.

In YGGDRASIL, players could choose their character races from three broad groups: humanoid, demihuman, and heteromorphic.

Humanoids were the basic player type and comprised humans, dwarves, wood elves, and the like. Demihumans tended to be ugly, but possessed superior attributes to humanoids. Examples of demihumans were goblins, beastmen, ogres, and so on. Finally, heteromorphic races had monstrous abilities, but despite their stats being generally higher than those of other races, they also possessed various drawbacks. There were around seven hundred playable races in total, including the advanced versions of those races. Naturally, the Overlord, Seraph Empyrean, and Elder Black Ooze were among the high-tier heteromorphic races that were playable.

The Overlord—who was speaking at the moment—did not move his mouth. That was because even the most advanced DMMO-RPGs of the time still could not overcome the technological hurdle of properly modelling the changes on a character’s face in response to emotions and speech.

He spoke in a jovial tone, “It’s really been a while, Herohero. Although this is the last day of YGGDRASIL, we didn’t expect you to show up.”

The slime wobbled. “Indeed it has, Momonga.” The slime nodded in the direction of the Overlord, then at the angel who nodded back in return. “Lumière.”

“How has work been for you?” asked the angel.

The slime sighed, letting loose a small tirade of complaints. Momonga and Lumière listened patiently as their friend vented.

After about ten minutes, the torrent of words that flowed from Herohero dwindled to a trickle.

“...I’m sorry for making you listen to my whining. I can’t complain much IRL.”

“It’s really no worries,” assured Momonga. “We’re happy you were able to come by at all.”

“Ah. It was so nice to see you both after so long. I was afraid to find no one here.” Herohero’s tentacles waved at both of them. “But it is getting late… How long will you two be on?”

“Until we’re automatically logged out once the servers shut down,” answered Lumière.

“Since it’s still a ways off, we might get more visitors like you,” added Momonga.

“Ah. I hope so. I see you both have taken good care of this place.”

Momonga and Lumière did not respond, neither of them wanting to show the surge of mixed emotions Herohero’s words caused.

There were a few more parting words, but eventually, Herohero left and it was only the two remaining members once again. Momonga sighed again and Lumière spared him a glance. Their expressions could not be relayed through their avatars so she sent him a frowny face instead.

The quiet disappointment was understandable. Their guild, Ainz Ooal Gown, had slowly died out over the years as more and more members left the game. In the past two years only Momonga and Lumière regularly logged on. They had sent emails out to the other members of the guild asking for them to join them on the final day, but unfortunately only Herohero responded.

“I’m going back to the tower,” said Lumière. “Meet up later?”

“Yeah. I’ll talk to you in a bit.”

Lumière left after that point, teleporting to the Hidden Tower at the 10th floor of the Great Tomb of Nazarick.

The Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick had once been a six floor dungeon, but it had been dramatically altered after Ainz Ooal Gown took control of it. Currently, it was a ten floor dungeon, and each floor had its own unique theme. The First to Third Floors were modelled after a tomb. The Fourth Floor was an underground lake. The Fifth Floor was a frozen glacier. The Sixth Floor was a rainforest. The Seventh Floor was a sea of magma. The Eighth Floor was a wasteland. And the Ninth and Tenth Floors were the realm of the gods—in other words, the home base of Ainz Ooal Gown, which had ranked among the top ten of YGGDRASIL’s thousands of guilds. In the Tenth Floor there were a few hidden areas, although only one was regularly used—The Hidden Tower.

The entrance was hidden in the Throne Room. It was a tower built by Lumière, Blue Planet, and Amanomahitotsu as a hidden level. Not that it mattered since the only raid that came close to it was stopped in the Throne Room.

The tower had five levels, the first three dedicated as testing areas for Nazarick’s lead Researcher, Jack. The fourth floor was a luxurious library with a big fireplace, and lots of comfy spots to lounge in. At the top of the floor was Lumière’s room.

Upon entering the tower Lumière stopped before the Tower Guardian, Cheshire.

In a game like YGGDRASIL, guilds enjoyed several benefits if they possessed a guild base of castle tier or higher. The NPCs that the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick could field were undead monsters. These automatically spawning NPCs—or “pop monsters”—had a maximum level of thirty. Even if they were destroyed, after a while they would respawn on their own, at no cost to the guild. However, players could not customize the AI and appearances of these “pop” NPCs. They were hardly useful in deterring intruders, who were universally players.

There was also another type of NPC; the ones designed from the ground up to their makers’ satisfaction. If a guild possessed a castle-grade guild base, the owning guild would be allowed nine hundred levels to be distributed between any number of NPCs they wanted.

Because the highest level in YGGDRASIL was one hundred, by those stipulations, a guild could make seven level one hundred NPCs and four level fifty NPCs, or any combination thereof.

When designing an original NPC, one could customize weaponry and other equipment in addition to clothing and appearances. As a result, one could create NPCs that were far stronger than the automatic spawns and place them in key locations. Of course, not every NPC had to be designed for battle. A certain guild which called themselves the “Kitty Kingdom” fielded no NPCs other than cats or cat-related creatures.

It was a nice guild to visit.

Cheshire was one of those specially crafted NPCs. It was a shapeshifting fairy created by Lumière. Its default form was that of a dark cat with stripes and an eerie smile that showed several rows of sharp teeth. It was heavily inspired by the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, albeit with a more malicious mindset. It was designed to use “illusions” to trick players when entering such as changing what they see on screen to something else, or swapping what keys did what and so on.

Cheshire always floated down to whoever entered the tower. Its default setting would be to greet whoever came. It had a special message tailored for all the Supreme Beings.

“Welcome back, Mistress!” greeted Cheshire. As Lumière was its creator, she designed it to greet her as mistress, or my dearest lady. She gave the same order to her other creation, Jack.

Jack was stationed at the first floor of the tower. He was near some desks in the lab designed to look like a mad scientist laboratory. Lumière made up his character, leaning into an assassin-lich trope. She almost went with the skeletal appearance, but Bukubukuchagama talked her out of it. Bukubukuchagama bemoaned how there were already plenty of other “scary” monsters in the guild. She tried to bribe Lumière to make Jack a genderswap like her Dark Elves, but Lumière resisted. She compromised as a bishie. Or at least as much of a bishie as an undead could get.

Not that anyone could see it since Jack wore a mask.

That way he could appear as a “scary” monster to befit the evil lab, but in actuality, he was a pretty boy underneath which satisfied Bukubukuchagama. A happy Bukubukuchagama meant free visual novels for Lumière which in turn made for a happy Lumière.

Win-win all around.

Lumière brushed past both of her creations, stepping in to the laboratory and looking around.

Well, it is the last day, she thought as she glanced over at her creations.

“Come with me,” she ordered both of them.

Neither responded, both simply stepping closer to her. Er, well, Jack stepped forward while Cheshire hovered closer. She guided them up the tower to her favorite spot in Nazarick; the cozy little library.

With a wave of her hand she turned the fire place on and took a seat on the lush, red couch in front of it. She let out a slow sigh as she stared at the flickering flames.

[23:55:48]

She hadn’t even realized so much time had passed, she had zoned out watching the flames dance. That had been happening with greater frequency the past couple of weeks. Lumière’s body in reality wasn’t in good condition. It was a struggle to even get out of bed, her lungs slowly filling with fluid each day. She’d need another draining surgery in a month.

Her fatigue caused her mind to drift away, not quite falling asleep but close to.

What will I do when they shut the game down?

It was a question that had occurred to her several times, but she never found an answer. It wasn’t that YGGDRASIL was the only game she ever played--Civilizaiton CXI and Warhammer were nice ways to pass time, but YGGDRASIL was special to her. Ainz Ooal Gown was a place she finally had proper friends.

[23:59:58, 59—]

Lumière closed her eyes. What a shame.

[0:00:00...1,2,3]

Lumière knew something was immediately wrong when the first breath she took was not one hampered. She reflexively breathed deeper and found that it did not incite a fit of coughing. Her eyes shot open and she abruptly stood up from her seat.

Even the movement came with ease.

What in the?

[0:00:38]

Lumière twisted her body one way to another, breathing in the scents of--

Scents?! YGGDRASIL couldn’t mimic smells.

But lo and behold Lumière could distinctly smell the fire. It had a odd woodsy scent to it, as if it were scented logs burning inside. Lumière had never gone camping before, nor had she experienced fire first hand in her life. She marveled over the odd smell it emitted, sniffing delicately at it.

I quite like this smell, she thought.

“My dearest lady?”

Lumière twitched in surprise, looking over at Jack. The NPC had approached Lumière, a hand placed over his chest where his heart would have been had he not been undead. Jack, like all of Nazarick’s NPCS, had two default outfits: battle and casual. The battle would originally have only been triggered during a raid, so he currently wore his casual.

Lumière had been pretty huge into Sherlock and anime at the time of his design, so he was heavily inspired by an anime version of Jack the Ripper.

He had a black ulster coat with the collar flipped up. Underneath was a white button up shirt, and black and red suit vest. He had the classic dark white gloves, and black slacks to complete the look.

Oh, and of course the famous top hat. Could never, ever, forget the top hat for someone inspired by Jack the Ripper.

Lumière opened her mouth to say something but rapidly closed it. She placed a hand over her chest, breathing.

I can breathe easy. I have a sense of smell and touch. Is it--did I die?

Isekais were rather popular. Given her sickly body it wouldn’t have been too much of a stretch to say she passed away and had no memory of it.

The end result was still the same: she was in her avatar’s body. A body strengthened by a hundred levels and not plagued by illness or frailty. A smile curled her lips and she said, “Jack, how are you today?”

A question that an NPC could never answer unless specifically programmed for. Lumière had never given such line to Jack which meant that if he answered--

“Lovely now that I can gaze upon you,” he answered, stepping closer.

A surge of embarrassed adrenaline shot through Lumière at his intensely warm tone. Ah, wait--

She had almost forgotten how she programmed Jack’s personality. Leaning into the guild’s theme of “monsters” and “evil” she pushed on with his serial killer design. Cruel, sadistic, obsessive, and dangerously smart. She went all out, using a character design sheet Tabula put together. Lumière wasn’t as inventive or imaginative in the edgy department so she asked Ulbert to help. Ulbert had already made a pretty evil demon, Demiurge, and was delighted to try his hand at an evil undead serial killer.

At the end of the design she, as giggling joke with Peroroncino she added that he was a yandere for her.

Ahahahaha… I’m sure it’ll be okay.

「Message from Momonga」 Lumière?

Uwa! Momonga’s here?

「Message to Momonga」 Momonga! You came here too?

「Message from Momonga」 Came here… you’re really in the game, too?

「Message to Momonga」 It looks like it. I can breathe without trouble.

「Message from Momonga」 Ah. I’m happy for you. I’m going to conduct some tests to make sure I can cast more spells. Do you want to meet up in the arena?

「Message from Momonga」 Yeah, I’ll meet you there.

“Cheshire,” Lumière said, raising her hands up. “Come here.”

The fairy disguised as a monster cat floated over with a wide smiles. “Yes, Mistress?”

She reached out and the monstrous feline leaned into her palm. She felt his fur, his warmth, and beneath it all a heartbeat.

Jack responded with an answer on his own, Cheshire is warm and has a heartbeat, I can move freely… I’m here. This is real. They’re real.

Lumière smiled shyly, taking Cheshire into her arms. He was fluffy and warm. “We’re going to the arena to meet with Momonga.”

“As you wish, my lady,” demurred Jack while Cheshire flicked his tail.

#overlord

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platonic-prompts · 4 years ago

Note

can u do an info post on orcs, fae, and elves if u know anything about them?

Sure thing anon.

First things first, orcs are normally depicted as brutish, aggressive humanoids a view popularized by the Lord of the Rings books. But this isn’t the only depiction of them given that the term was taken from Beowulf. In Beowulf the term that eventually became orcs meant evil spirits and blah blah blah, possibly walking undead monsters but the exact meaning isn’t really known (because translations can be whack) aside from the fact they were mentioned alongside ogres, elves, and giants as races condemned by God. One form of the word orco means Ogre and was used to describe a large, hairy, manlike beast that had tusks who lived in a dark forest or a garden and might capture and eat humans. You can go a lot of ways with orcs, especially considering Orcus was apparently a name for Pluto, so if you want to make them an undead race or something, go for it.

Fae...is a bit of a broad term depending on the context. Sometimes it only means a specific type of creature, one humanoid in appearance, that has magic, and loves to play tricks. But it’s more commonly used as a catch-all term for non-human creatures like goblins or ogres. There are a lot of different types, and sometimes spirits are caught in the net. Additionally the name of fairies may not actually reflect that they are fairies. The Aos Sí are considered to be fae even though they have been regarded as gods and goddesses, spirits of ancestors, etc. Nonetheless, there are usually ways said to protect people from malice or trickery from the fae. Cold iron (which is iron forged at lower temperatures after being mined from deep underground) charms from rowan trees, avoiding places known to be theres so you don’t offend them. There’s also a certain type of tree you shouldn’t cut down to avoid angering them, I’m pretty sure its a thorn tree. The front and back door of houses should be in line with each other so the fae can pass through if they have a route that goes through the house. Depending on what type of fae you’re dealing with you can have the Seelie and Unseelie courts, the seelie court usually does less harmful pranks than the Unseelie but both are dangerous if made mad. People who ran mills were sometimes thought to be uncanny and in league with the fae, since the fae were thought to mill their corn at night. Faerie gold is usually just disguised twigs and leaves, but it a faerie pays you in leaves and sticks and you make it home it was often actual gold. Faeries could be considered between humans and angels or between angels or demons. Some versions have them being unable to lie, and thus they deal in half-truths and tricky wording. Giving them your name could give them power over you, but the same also works in reverse.

The word elf probably originally meant white being in its origins and has much of the same characteristics as that of the fae, especially since it dropped in popularity in favor of dwarf and fairy. Elves were associated with many things such as the gods of Norse mythology, with causing illness, with magic, and with beauty and seduction. Elves eventually shifted to small impish beings, thanks to Shakespeare. Tolkien introduced the concept of elves being immortal. But basically elves could be considered as watered down fae depending on how you want to handle them. They could be closer to the old beliefs of them being powerful and magical, or closer to the more modern view of handsome man with a bow and pointed ears who lives for a long time.

I’m kinda tired rn, so I hope this is good. if you excuse me, my animals probably want fed

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ceescedasticity · 4 years ago

Text

SFear Supplementals

I decided I'm not going to post any SFear supplementals on AO3 until the next chapter of Collateral has gone up, and anyway the fandom is... preoccupied... at the moment, but I did finish some stuff. Obviously will make zero sense without the main fic.

Supplemental #1: Reunion in the Land of Mist and Glowworms

When the sensation of being watched snapped back into place, Martin startled so badly he dropped a steel imp out the window directly on top of a hydrogen imp, and they both vanished into colored polygons.

"I'll just go get that grist for you," Peter said, and swooped out the window.

Martin let him go. The feeling wasn't as strong as it was in the Changed world, probably no worse than an average day in the Archives, but it was much more than anything he'd felt since the tunnels whited out around him, and he couldn't help but hope.

The two remaining steel imps were still busily destroying furniture, but it wasn't like he had any emotional connection to the strange little mock-lighthouse the Game had left him in. (Some of the furnishings were oddly reminiscent of childhood. That wasn't a plus.) The only thing he couldn't afford to lose was the laptop. He grabbed that and made for the stairs to the roof.

It wasn't a very tall mock-lighthouse, but it was the best vantage point around. There wasn't a lot to see, apart from a glimpse of the nearest "consort" village, and mist, and as always the eerie light of the glowworms in the sky. (What were they even hanging from?)

And… a spot of sickly green glow, on the other side of a hill, the opposite direction from the village.

It might have been wiser to be concerned, but…

Slamming the 'lighthouse' door open on the way out annihilated another imp, which he couldn't even feel bad about at this point. He circled the side of the building away from Peter and made for the hill at a run.

(There had been another ice ogre roaming around, but it seemed fairly slow. This should be fine.)

He saw the glowing green… Eyesprite before the human figure accompanying it, but Jon called, "Martin!" at almost the same time, and then Martin was skidding down the hill and then they were hugging. The laptop made it more difficult, but who cared.

The Eyesprite stared at them from three meters away.

"Sorry I couldn't get here sooner," Jon said, into his shoulder. "I was, ah, I lost consciousness for a little while after entry. Well, for several hours."

Martin pulled back, alarmed. "Are you okay?" Jon didn't look hurt — possibly a little manic, but not bad. A little more… Beholding-y than he'd looked in the tunnels, but much less than the post-apocalyptic standard. "Was it because of the fears being weaker?" He'd been a little worried about that—

"No," Jon said. "Well, yes. Partially. I mean — that's about whether it's because of Beholding being weaker. Whether I'm okay is yes. It's an adjustment, and Knowing is, uh, complicated, but— I'm okay." He smiled. "More okay than I've been in a while, I think. It's sort of a long story — the short version is that Skaia filled in the, the holes the Eye's weakening left, and that's had some complications but— It's good."

"That—" Martin stopped himself. Yes, the Eye was the devil they knew and Skaia the devil they didn't, but if Jon thought this was better and was glad about it Martin didn't have to push him now. "I'm glad."

Jon had been… slightly hopeful, when they'd discussed the Ritual of Skaia, back in the tunnels — but mostly desperate. His pitch for this alternative had focused on removing the Entities into a different pocket dimension and trapping them there, rather than unleashing them into the multiverse. He'd admitted it was more of a gamble than Annabelle's plan, and involved all of them jumping into the pocket dimension, too, and that was meant to be survivable in a successful ritual but there were no guarantees — and he'd all but begged them to do it anyway.

(It hadn't been too hard a sell, once it became evident that there really was a Ritual of Skaia and Jon wasn't suffering an overdue psychotic break but really had picked up something out of the Hilltop Road rift. Nobody had actually liked Annabelle's plan. This… had potential.)

(Martin had asked Jon if he thought he could survive this. Jon said he didn't know, but he could live with it.)

He was really hopeful, now. Like he actually thought things might turn out okay.

"I'm glad," Martin repeated, and hugged him again. Jon sighed, and leaned into the embrace.

Then he said, "We're about to be attacked by some sort of ogre. If you don't have any moral objections, I'll just destroy it."

"Oh, for—" The first ice ogre that showed up had trapped him on the roof for over two hours before Peter got annoyed and (probably) threw it into the Lonely. "Yes, get rid of it. Wait, you can still smite things?"

"If I Ask underlings what they are — ask imps or ogres, at least — they immediately dissolve into grist."

"Convenient." Martin didn't want to hunt underlings but he was really not a fan of underlings.

"Quite."

The smiting was much less dramatic than avatar-smiting had been — like Jon said, just a question and immediate disappearance. Unsurprisingly Jon looked more… Beholding-y while doing it, though far from the worst Martin had seen him.

The Eyesprite stared at them from three meters away.

"The, um… some of the, uh, eye cloud looked like they had funny pupils?" Martin ventured as Jon collected the grist. "Like a, um…"

"A stylized sun," Jon said. "Yes, that's the Light Aspect symbol. I hadn't noticed that before, but it's not surprising. There's a bit of a… territorial struggle going on in there."

A territorial struggle in his head? That didn't really fit with Martin's definition of okay, but fine. "Is that your Aspect? Mine's Blood, which according to the sprite has something to do with connections between people, but still."

"And Light has to do with information and knowing things," Jon said dryly. "And supposedly luck, although I don't think I got much of that part."

"Ah. Ouch."

"It does sound better than Blood, though. Glad you were able to get something useful out of your sprite."

"I noticed yours doesn't seem very, uh, talkative…"

"Well, not at the moment— Oh, Christ."

The Eyesprite was staring at them from one meter away.

"Back off," Jon ordered, and it drifted back a few feet. "Sorry. Is it making you feel too… beheld?"

"Not too bad. Though I suppose I have a fairly high tolerance by now." Hmm. "Mine got, uh, quite a bit less… Lonely-feeling after it, er…"

"Turned into Peter Lukas," Jon supplied. "Sorry, I took a look at how everyone was doing after I woke up. I could have tried to skip you, but…"

"I don't mind," Martin assured him.

"There wasn't too much detail."

"Really, it's fine. You said you looked at everyone, was everyone—"

"Peter," Elias — Jonah — interrupted, "is right on the other side of that hill, fighting the sprite instinct to come and talk to all of us."

Martin flinched violently; Jon looked sick, but immediately snapped "Not that one!" and the sprite went back to just being an Eye.

"Has it been doing that the whole time?" Martin asked, horrified.

"Not the — the whole time, it's, it's been trying out other people." Though he was still clearly shaken, Jon glared at the sprite, which… possibly looked chastened. "It hasn't been him for quite a while, actually, I thought it had gotten the point."

"Not something you can Know?"

"Well, I could try, but I couldn't verbalize it without doing a whole statement about it. Knowing is… complicated."

Huh. Well, they probably wanted to avoid that. "Maybe it wants to play mind games with Peter?"

"Not that Peter's very good at them," Jonah said smugly — not as Elias, this time, but definitely Jonah. It wasn't as much of a kick in the chest for Martin — different face, different voice despite the same way of speaking — but Jon looked just as sick.

"Don't. Be. Jonah," Jon snapped, and glared until the sprite went back to an Eye.

"Yeah, that's looking likely. Just a minute." Martin jogged back up the hill, and, yeah, Peter was hovering (figuratively and literally) just on the other side. "Peter, just… go away."

If Peter wanted to talk to Jonah again, too, it evidently wasn't enough to outweigh the desire not to be near anyone. Martin didn't have to say another word before Peter disappeared into the mist at high speed.

When Martin got back to Jon, the Eyesprite was still just an Eye. "Okay! That seems to be taken care of for now."

"For now," Jon said. "It's… I haven't tried to Know this, but this one insisted on following me when I left my planet. It's possible they can't go too far from us. In which case it will be near… your sprite again, and I need to get it to turn into something or it will upset everyone who isn't used to putting up with Beholding anyway…"

"It can find someone other than Jonah," Martin said firmly. "Come on, let's go back to the… 'house'." He offered a hand, and Jon took it, and they started up the hill. "I was going to ask, you said you checked on everyone? Melanie and Georgie and Basira, they're…?"

"When I checked they were all alive and unhurt and… no more out of their depth than we are, I think. Also, uh, I don't know if I managed to explain how I was filling out the roster to get players for all the Entities?"

"You… tried." No one had asked when Jon originally said they didn't need to scrape up nine more people somehow, and by the time someone had asked he'd been half in a trance and only intermittently responsive. "You said something about statements and contracts?"

"Yes. What that means is— No, wait, this is going to be a long story, so first—" Jon stopped, and turned, and caught Martin's face in his hands, and smiled. "I love you, Martin. I'm so glad we got this chance."

"I love you, Jon," Martin said, and kissed him. "You got us this chance."

#not my medium not my genre #other fic #crossover classpects

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deathsmallcaps · 4 years ago

Text

@boopboopboopbadoop

April’s Story

Shrek premiered 20 years ago this month! So I decided to honor it with my own illustrated version of the movie for my Win A Commission Contest! If you’d like to see the illustrations in context with the text, please

Once upon a time, there was a lovely Princess

But she had an enchantment upon her of an awful sort, that could only be broken by True Love's First Kiss

She was Locked away in a tower, guarded by a terrible fire-breathing Dragon

Many brave Knights had attempted to free from this dreadful prison, but none prevailed

She waited in the Dragon's keep, in the tallest room of the tallest tower. Where she waited for her True Love and True Love's First Kiss...

A large green hand ripped a page from the Book and revealed another part involving the whole kingdom celebrating on the Princess and her True Love's wedding day, laughing heartily as he slammed it shut.

"Like that's ever gonna happen!" A Scottish voice said dismissively. "What a load of-" A flush of a Toilet drowned out the last part of the sentence.

We look and see an outhouse. It was made of white birch wood, lashed together with a rope for a handle and a black crescent moon facing the right. There was some hanging moss on the tilted roof growing and a pathway of stones, weeds crowding in between. It was set right in front of a thick wood, facing towards a house. The strange thing about all of this is that the outhouse had plumbing with a flushing toilet.

The door slammed open, revealing no Prince Charming nor a Frog, but an Unlikely Hero: an Ogre. Yawning and stretching out before fixing his wedgie, he shook off a ripped page that was sticking to his shoe and stared at his house.

He lived in a giant, white, hollowed out mangrove tree, the trunk thinning out into a perfect chimney. Moss, ivy and weeds grew all around or on top of it, and there was a crude door and some small windows set into the side.

The Ogre breathed in and left the outhouse with the door slamming behind him as he began his day.

Using a bucket and scraping up some mud, he carried it over to a branch. The ogre undressed and pulled on a rope, causing the mud to pour onto him. He made an “Oof!” sound when it first hit him, but continued scrubbing himself with the mud like it was soap. He drank the last dregs of the mud and then spat it out, ending the shower.

Then the Ogre brushed his teeth. He grabbed a red caterpillar, and squeezing it like a tube of toothpaste, pushed its innards onto a bone. He scrubbed well, getting the insides of his teeth, then the outsides. It turned his already unhealthy teeth greener, and the putrid goo shown in his hideous smile caused his mirror to shatter and fall onto the floor.

Next, he plunged himself into a lake and made a huge splash, turning himself right and getting ready; the Ogre let out a loud, horrendous and terrible gaseous fart that bubbled behind him. Feeling relieved and making an “innocent” pose with his finger to his lip, he turned to see that there was not one, not two but three red salmon floating up to the surface; murdered by the deadliness of the stench that continued to plague the rest of the underwater native wildlife. He grabbed the one next to him and proceeded to leave.

Later army crawling into a hollowed husk of a fallen tree, pointing diagonally skywards, the Ogre pushed out a ton of mud as he climbed his way forward like a commando in the trenches of a battlefield. The final mud slopped out as his stained face popped out.

He smiled as he found a green slug right outside the tree trunk. The Ogre grabbed it and the slug squirmed in alarm as it was picked up by a giant green hand, leaving the small maggots once underneath the slug exposed to the air.

Closer to sunset, near a lake with verdant hills in the distance, the Ogre began painting a new sign. Having picked out a broken off- plank of moldy wood form his outhouse, he didn’t bother with a base coat of white. He spent several hours painting. Once he finished, the Ogre placed his palette down, took a good look at his newest masterpiece, and out of sheer joy of satisfaction he kissed the ogre in the picture on the lips. It left red paint all across his lips as he posted it next to an older sign that said, "STAY OUT". It was a rather hideous portrayal of his face with red eyes and red writing that stated, “BEWARE OGRE".

After The Ogre had ate his fishy and sluggy dinner and had lit a fire with the strength of his belch, he sat back on the crocodile flesh recliner. Just as he was settling in, the Ogre's tiny trumpet ears picked up a disturbance in the Swamp.

It was the sounds of people trespassing. With a groan he lurched to his feet and glanced out his window, spotting a group of Ogre Hunters in the far distance, mostly visible due to their torches. Within moments, the Ogre snuck outside his home and was tiptoeing behind them.

The Ogre Hunters, dressed mostly in green and sporting crappy haircuts, pushed aside the tall grass and foliage as they watched the Swamp House, lit from within by The Ogre’s Belch-Fire.

"Think it's in there?" The one with a bowl cut asked

"Alright... let's get it!" The one in the a tall hat declared, holding a torch and about to make a charge forward before he was stopped short by the one with the mustache next to him.

"Hold on, you know what that thing could do to you?" the mustached one said with fear.

"Yeah, it'll grind your bones for it's bread!" The one with the bowl cut told him.

They all froze when a loud chuckle echoed behind them.

Turning around, they saw the Ogre towering over them. He spoke in an almost friendly manner, but what he said was the opposite of friendly. “Ha, yes, well actually; that would be a giant!" He exclaimed, causing the men to back off. The Ogre stepped forward each time they stepped back. "Now Ogres, oh.. they're much worse! They'll make a suit from your freshly peeled skin!"

"No!" A man was horrified

"They'll shave your livers!"

“No!”

"And squeeze the jelly from your eyes!" The Ogre Hunters were cornered as the Ogre added, thoughtfully, "Actually it's quite good on toast."

The bearded Ogre Hunter swung torch at The Ogre’s face. "Back! Back, beast! Back! I warn ya!"

The Ogre simply raised an eyebrow before calmly licking his fingers and putting out his torch with a pinch and a smile.

"Right..." the Ogre Hunter dropped the extinguished torch.

The Ogre let loose an horrible and fearsome ear bursting roar directly into the faces of the cowering Ogre Hunters. Spit flew in their faces as their hair and hats were thrown back. They screamed in response as their torches extinguished as the roar continued. After a long moment, he stopped and wiped his mouth, but the Hunters continued to scream; when they finally stopped they looked like their wits had long been scared out of them.

The Ogre leaned in and whispered to them as the crickets and other hidden wildlife in the night went on in the silence. "This is the part where you run away..."

With a yelp they immediately dropped all their pitchforks and weapons and bolted out of the swamp as the Ogre chortled to himself. The bowl cut Ogre Hunter tripped but kept running in desperation.

The Ogre laughed whole heartily and yelled after the retreating party. "And stay out!"

A piece of paper they must’ve left behind caught his attention. He picked it up, and saw that it had the face of a solemn elf with a green leaf hat and white beard. There were bags of gold drawn around it, but no explicit price was given, just the word, “Reward” written in red. Above it he read, "Wanted: Fairy Tale Creatures...".

He realized they had wanted to capture him for the reward money. He looked towards the fleeing villagers in disgust and shook his head, throwing the paper to the ground as he went back inside to spend the rest of the night in peace.

The next day, as part of his new plan to get people to leave him alone, The Ogre set up some new new signs, even farther from his home. Just as he was setting up his last one (it had a green skull with the words ‘Keep Out!’ in the pupils), something ran into his butt.

The Ogre turned around to face what appeared to be a terrified mini-donkey.

Someone yelled, "He's getting away! Get him!" and the sounds of guards in armor scared the little donkey into hiding behind The Ogre. "This way! Turn!"

The local Captain of the Guard and his men ran up, stopping when they all saw the tall Ogre who stood before them. "You there... Ogre" The Captain grabbed a scroll his waist

"Aye?" Was The Ogre’s reply, hands on his hips and now seemingly irritated that his day was once again involving contact with humans.

"By the order of Lord Farquaad... I am authorized to place you both under arrest and transport you to a designated resettlement... facility...?" The Captain's voice was shaking and nervous due to the face that the Ogre was walking towards him slowly, now standing right in front of him as a deafening silence fell.

"Oh really?" He asked, leaning down so he was face to face with the Captain. "You and what army?" He asked as his teeth glittered with a smile, glancing behind him.

The Captain turned around to see what was once left of his men as their halberds fell down and a shield spun around onto the ground like a coin. He turned back to the Ogre; the mini-donkey smiled as the Captain took his men's example and made a run for it.

Now that confrontation is over with, the Ogre shook his head and walked away; but the mini-donkey had nowhere else to go and decided to follow his accidental savior. He trotted behind him.

"Can I say something to you?" He asked with the Ogre walking on. "Listen, you were really, really, really somethin' back here. Incredible!"

Now fully irritated, The Ogre turned around. "Are you talkin' to..." The Ogre saw no one else, just the ground lit by the sunlight within the forest of the tall trees. The voice was clearly gone. "Me?" He blinked and shrugged, turning before giving out a startled yell as the Donkey now stood before him.

"Yes I was talkin' to you. Can I tell you that you was great back here? Those guards! They thought they were all of that. Then you showed up and bam!" The little donkey caught up to The Ogre before getting up onto his hoofs in front of The Ogre and made a martial arts move with his right hoof, stopping him again. "They were trippin' over themselves like babes in the wood. I loved seeing that, made me feel happy seeing that"

"Oh, that's great. Really." The Ogre sarcastically replied

"Man, it's good to be free!" The burrito declared as the Ogre turned to him.

"Now, why don't you go celebrate your freedom with own friends? Hmm?" He suggested, leaning down to the little donkey, before walking off again.

"But... I don't have any friends, and I'm NOT going out there by myself!" Exclaimed the creature. A flash of inspiration came to him. "Hey wait a minute, I got a great idea! I'll stick with you" Donkey returned happily to the Ogre, deaf to his annoyance. "You're a mean green fighting machine! With you, we'll scare the spit out of anybody who crosses us!"

The Ogre halted and regarded Donkey for a moment. Then seemingly out of the blue, he fully turned and gave off an all might roar right into the animal’s face; hoping this would scare him.

The mini-donkey just stared, now with an impressed look drawn on his face. "Oh, wow! That was really scary!"

The Ogre just frowned and stomped away.

"Now if that doesn’t work, your breath will certainly get the job done, 'cause you definitely need some Tic Tacs or something 'cause your breath STINKS!"

The Ogre continued walking, but then looked back when he didn’t hear the none-stop chatterbox for about five seconds, to his relief and hope that he lost the annoyance.

To his irritation and surprise, the donkey appeared looking down at him from above; atop of a fallen tree over The Ogre’s path.

"You almost burned the hair outta my nose, just like the time..."

The Ogre covered the donkey's mouth, muffling his little obnoxious tale. The donkey still did not shut up as he kept it held there; continuing to talk either way; The Ogre removed his hand. "Then I ate some berries, man I had some strong gasses leaking out of my butt that day!"

"WHY are you following me?!" The Ogre asked, losing patience; nothing could shut this donkey up and he just needed to get away right now.

"I'll tell you why!" The animal leaped off the tree as he followed the Ogre, before breaking out into obnoxious song. "Cause I'm all alone, there's no here beside meeeee." He stopped in front of the Ogre as he wiggled his butt, the Ogre's right eye was half closed and his left eye was twitching in madness as the mini-donkey continued. "My problems have all gone, there's no one to deride me... but you gotta have faith-"

"Stop singing!" The Ogre yelled, he grabbed the burrito by the ears and tail as he moved him out of his way. "It's no wonder you don't have any friends!"

"Wow, only a true friend would be that truly honest!" The small donkey claimed.

The Ogre only groaned "Listen, little donkey. Take a look at me: What am I?" He held out his arms and stood tall before him.

The burrito looked from the Ogre's shoes to his head, whose face looked irritated while he thought to himself. "Really tall?" was his first guess. The mini-donkey wasn’t sure what The Ogre was asking.

"No! I'm an Ogre, you know. ‘Grab your torch and Pitchforks!’ Doesn't that bother you?" He imitated an Ogre Hunter before asking.

Donkey shook his head

"Nope." came the response

"Really?" The Ogre was a bit surprised.

"Really, really" The creature happily assured.

"Oh," The Ogre was not too sure on what to say next.

"Man, I like you, what's your name?"

The Ogre looked a little surprised. For all his time living alone in the Swamp, no one had ever asked him of his name. He had always been The Ogre, not a true individual to the people around him.

"Uhh... Shrek." He replied after a moment, before continuing his walk home.

"Shrek?" Th little donkey echoed, seeing if he got it right before following the now and forever named Ogre himself. "Well, you know what I like about you Shrek? You got that kind of I-don't-care-what-nobody-thinks-of-me-thing I like that. I respect that Shrek. You all right."

He continued to follow Shrek up the hill as they came overhead across a small grassy meadow hill above that overlooked Shrek's Swamp. Donkey (for that was his name) stared looked at the scene before him.

"Whoa! Look at that. Who'd want to live in a place a like that?" He asked with a hint of disgust, mostly discomfort, in his voice.

"That... would be my home" Shrek claimed, his hands on his hips before heading down the other side of the hill.

Donkey could only blink in response, he had really put his hoof in it now. "Oh! And it is lovely! Just beautiful. You know you are quite a decorator. It's amazing what you've done with such a modest budget!"

Shrek only shook his head as he continued downwards.

"I like that boulder, that is a nice boulder." Donkey followed him down. He continued after Shrek once again and stopped in front of the three signs: "BEWARE OGRE", "STAY OUT" and "DANGER". Donkey took a look at each of them all and asked,"I guess you don't uh.. entertain that much do you?"

"I like my privacy." Shrek claimed as he kept walking to his front door, Donkey trotting after him.

"You know, I do too. That's another thing we have in common. Like I hate it when you got somebody in your face. You've trying to give them a hint and they won't leave. Then there's that big awkward silence you know?"

Shrek turned to face him, silently willing Donkey to understand that the creature had just described their exact situation.

"Can I stay with you?" Clearly Donkey did not receive the hint.

"Uh, what?"

"Can I stay with you, please?" He added in the magic word.

"Of course!" Shrek declared lightheartedly as he smiled.

"Really?" Donkey asked.

"No." Shrek bluntly denied.

"PLEASE! I don't wanna go back there! You know what it's like to be living like a freak!" Donkey reconsidered for a moment as he looked at the large green humanoid before him as he pushed Shrek onto his front door with his hooves. "Well, maybe you do. But that's why we gotta stick together! You gotta let me stay, please, please!" Donkey was getting hysterical.

"OKAY! Okay..." Donkey dropped to the floor as Shrek opened his door inwards as he gave his one little stipulation. "But one night only." He was about to enter before Donkey bolted in.

"Ah! Thank you!"

"What are you...?" Donkey leapt onto Shrek's crocodile skin recliner. "No, no!"

"This is gonna be fun! We can stay up late, swappin' manly stories and in the mornin," He trotted around on the chair before sitting down as he finished with: "I'm makin' waffles!"

"Oh!" Shrek groaned as he held his hands out, as though he was planning to strangle the noisy intruder.

Donkey looked around and asked him. "Where do, uh... I sleep?"

"Outside!" Shrek screamed irritably.

Donkey's ears drooped upon hearing that response. "Oh, well, I guess that's cool. I mean, I don't know you and you don't know me, so I guess outside is best, you know. Here I go." He sniffled as got off his recliner and walked out sadly,"Goodnight..." He told him as Shrek slammed the door on him.

The mini-donkey kept talking, of course. "You know, I do like the outdoors. I'm a Donkey. I was born outside. I'll just be sitting by myself outside, I guess, you know. By myself, outside!"

Shrek looked out before shaking his head and sighing to himself, walking away from the door to enjoy himself for the rest of the day as Donkey began singing the same annoyingsong again; although more sorrowfully.

"I'm all alone, there's no one here besides me..."

That night, as the cauldron hanging by chains over the firepit bubbled solemnly; Shrek was enjoying himself with a nice dinner while Donkey was locked outside of his home. He dropped a eye on a stick into his martini glass and slurped it down as he looked at his dinner before him. There was a slug with orange eyes, what appeared to be green grapes, a jar of eyes, spice, worm stuffed pumpkin and a nice large piece of cooked skinless meat on his plate.

These were the times he enjoyed the most out of his solitary life, he was home, nice and warm and he wasn't bothered by anyone at all. Though he had to pause and glance at his front door. Shrek had ... mixed feelings about his new acquaintance. He talked WAY too much, but he was also the first person in a very long time to actually treat Shrek like a person.

He shook his head and sighed, scooting in further to his table as he felt that there was just something missing from the layout of the table. The man he figured out what ir was. He brought his hand to his ear and started to pull hard and painfully as the earwax built up came out like a spear and placed it atop a candle platform; lighting the wick made of ear hair afterwards with a match. Now he can enjoy his meal alone.

The same could not be said for Donkey, who peeked sadly into the window before making his way back to the front door. He laid down as he smiled bittersweetly and went to sleep at his new friend's doorstep.

Shrek continued to eat and enjoy his meal until the sound of his door creaking interrupted his silence.

He put his fork and knife on the table as he got up. "I thought I told you to stay outside." He was hoping to shove Donkey back outside, if that was what had come in.

"I am outside." Donkey’s voice came from the window.

In confusion, Shrek turned and saw a shadow move across the wall. Who was now moving around near his table? He returned and observed it. Everything was normal underneath the table, but then he heard voices from above.

"Well, gents, it's a farcry from the farm, but what choice do we have?" A blind mouse asked, tripping over Shrek's fork.

"It's not home, but it'll do just fine!" The second of the blind mice knocked over the jar full of eyeballs, spilling out the contents.

"What a lovely bed" The third of the blind mice was bouncing on the Slug, Shrek immediately caught him.

"Got ya!" However it escaped his grasp.

"I found some cheese" the third mouse said, biting Shrek's left ear.

"OW!" He cried in pain, grabbing at the mouse again who was now on his other shoulder.

"Blah! Awful stuff!" The tiny rodent jumped down onto the spoon and inadvertently launched a piece of gravy towards Shrek's left eye, which he wiped away immediately.

"Is that you Gordon?" One of them asked.

"How did you know?" A different one asked back.

"Enough!" Shrek grabbed all three of them by the tail, flipping the wooden spoon off the left side of the table as he turned his back and demanded angrily.

"What are you doing in my house?" The dinner on his table was then violently shoved off and Shrek's back was hit with an gold and glass fashioned coffin, labeled, ‘Here lies Snow White, under the curse by the Poison Apple infected by the Sleeping Death curse’.

"Hey!" He turned and saw the Seven Dwarves, one of the waved at Shrek.

"Oh, no, no, no. Dead broad OFF the table!" He shoved her coffin back to the Dwarves

"Where are we supposed to put her? The Bed's taken!" They shoved the coffin back to him.

"Huh?" Shrek stopped short. He hurried to his bed and opened the curtain separating the rooms and gasped. There laid comfortably and in grandmother's clothing, was a wolf of all creatures.

"What?" The Wolf asked irritably.

Shrek was now on the verge of rage, he dragged the Wolf out of bed and held him in the air through his house as the Seven Dwarves made themselves comfortable.

"I live in a swamp, I put up signs! I'm a terrifying Ogre!" He shoved his door open outwards. "What do I have to do to get a little privacy?!" He screamed as he threw the Wolf out of his house.

Then he saw a sight that would haunt him forever. "Oh no... oh no!" Shrek bellowed.

His Swamp. His lovely, silent, peaceful Swamp was no longer the way he intended it to be. It was now swarming with many, many Fairytale Creatures; many, many beings now living in his precious Swamp. Even the old woman brought her entire shoe to his Swamp, with many children running around. Tents were set up, fairies roamed around in the air, Pinocchio and a short yellow elf with a cone shaped hat were arguing and many people were conversing with each other.

“No!" A witch flew past him. "NO!" He screamed out, three more witches came zooming past him and Shrek had to jump for cover as they came flying down with elves helping them land.

"Wha?" Shrek turned his head to the side with the old woman hanging her clothes with a child and two other children pushing each other.

"Hey, don't push!" A girl in the blue shrieked.

The Pied Piper in red was calling over rats with his flute while many other Fairytale Creatures were waiting in line towards Shrek's Outhouse.

In the meantime, Papa and Baby Bear were sitting by the fire, the latter upset and being comforted by his father; no Mama Bear in sight, as many other Fairytale Creatures warmed themselves up by the fire before them. Elves, Lepricons, Dwarves, Fairies, Witches, Pigs, Wolves, a Unicorn and any Fairytale Creature you can think of were all there in Shrek's Swamp; shattering his peace.

"What are you doing in my Swamp?!" Shrek roared out as he got up, his voice echoed all over the sound of his Swamp; everyone and everything came an abrupt half as it was followed by screams and gasps. The Dwarves who held bowls to be fed with soup from the cauldron by the witch dropped them, the three fairies of Sleeping Beauty flew in the tent to hide and two Dwarves ducked out of sight and appeared holding each other out of fear behind a branch.

Shrek wasn't going to have all this; he eyed everyone and began to walk to some Elves and Dwarves. "Alright, get out of here. All of you, move it! Come on! Let's go! Hapaya! Hapaya! Hey! Quickly, come on!" He shooed them all backwards but some of the Dwarves and fairies ran into his home as Shrek turned back. "No, no! No, no. Not there, not there!" He ran after them as they slammed the door on him and a little green fairy, the door now unable to open despite his best efforts.

He stopped and turned to face the large group before them, especially on Donkey.

"Hey don't look at me, I didn't invite them!" Donkey replied.

"Oh, gosh, no one invited us" Pinocchio confirmed.

"What?!" Shrek came over, demanding to know what happened.

"We were forced to come here" He told the Ogre.

"By who?" He was flabbergasted until one of the Three Pigs told him.

“Lord Farquaad. He huffed and he puffed and he... signed an eviction notice." His brothers nodded in agreement.

"Alright. Who knows where this Farquaad guy is?" Shrek asked.

Everyone looked around at each other with no answer, until Donkey answered. "Oh, I do. I know where he is!"

"Does anybody ELSE know where to find him? Anyone at all?" Shrek was desperate to not to go with Donkey of all people.

"Me! Me!" Donkey tried to get his attention, jumping comically into the air. Baby Bear held his paw up, but was stopped by his father.

"Anyone?" Big Bad Wolf and a Green Wizard pointed to each other while Donkey continued

"Oh! Oh, pick me! Oh, I know! I know! Me, me!"

"Okay... fine." He reigned himself to being annoyed; Shrek knew that he would either go with Donkey or risk asking a human. "Attention, all Fairytale... things. Do not get comfortable, your welcome is officially worn out. In fact, I'm going to see this guy Farquaad right now and get you all off my land and back where you came from!" He pointed to the left before the entire crowd went wild.

Shrek shook his head and groaned before walking, four birds draping him in a flower cloak. "Doh!" He swatted them away as he sharply pointed directly at Donkey. "You. You're comin' with me" He told him darkly as he shoved the cape off him and started walking, the birds returning and dropping a flower crown on his head.

"Alright, that's what I like to hear man: Shrek and Donkey, two stalwart friends, off on a whirlwind big-city adventure. I love it!" Donkey rushed after the ogre.

Shrek tried to grab torch from a Dwarf while walking. He refused to let go, so Shrek simply shook him and then dropped the dwarf into the water where the dwarf resurfaced moments later.

"On the road again, sing it with me, Shrek. I can't to get on the road again!"

“What did I say about singing?" Shrek sharply turned to Donkey and grabbed his flower crown before throwing it off of him. They crossed a log that bridged the area between Shrek’s little island and the rest of the swamp.

"Can I whistle?" Donkey asked.

"No."

"Can I hum it?"

"Alright, hum it."

Donkey continued to hum ‘On the Road Again’ while Shrek

focused on the road ahead.

The two heroes marched off into the woodlands while being waved off by all creatures.

Art Explanation

So, it’s obvious I copied the title from the movie! It sure did make my life easier!

And I used a lot of references for my pictures. I hoped to make them true to the movie as possible.

The second picture is possibly my favorite, although I didn’t enjoy drawing all the scenery. It isn’t my specialty.

The third picture was fun! I remember being very jealous of Shrek’s belch power when I was little, lol.

To be honest, the fourth picture was my least favorite. It felt too busy.

The fifth picture is my other favorite, because it has Donkey!

The last picture was hard, for sure. I wanted to ge their reflections right, and not make the background look too crappy. It’s hard to adapt things from such a dark scene. But I think it turned out alright, although the scaling is a little funny :).

So, I was hoping to not have to write out these scenes myself, because it’s ten whole minutes of a movie and let me tell you, it’s hard to do from scratch. Luckily, I found a version, which I’ve left a link for below. I just polished it a bit.

Anyways, I hope you’ve enjoyed!

SOURCE

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/450448/1/Shrek-Adaptation

#shrek #shrek 20th anniversary #shrek twentieth anniversary #win a commission #wac

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lovelahela · 5 years ago

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❛ i know it's today ❜ ─ lily spencer.

⇢ requested by @windswiftcupid !

⇢ pairing: lily spencer x mc (jade)

⇢ genre: fluff, highschool!au

⇢ song: i know it’s today ; shrek, the musical

⇢ description: in which lily spencer, just another tech crew kid, likes the out-of-her-league female lead.

⇢ word count: 1399

⇢ notes: i’m sorry for the long wait esp if it didn’t end up being worth it skjfasf if u want a part two i’d love to write it!

Theatre was the bright bubble in Lily Spencer’s stressful world, a place the inner life of the human soul comes to dance, sing and exclaim of all that really matters. High school was not an easy stage in life, at least for people like Lily, who are kicked to the side as outcasts who don’t fit in with the social norm. Maybe it was her weird love for video games, or her impeccable skill of spilling word vomit and ultimately embarrassing herself; either way, Lily made peace with being an outcast, no matter what the reason for her exclusion was.

There were people like Lily; cast aside, viewed as peculiar and “uncool.” And then there were people like Jade; popular, loved, adored by all. Jade was out of her league, of course; when you’re a hyperactive nerd crushing on a lead actor that is - defying all laws of physics and the universe - also the captain of a varsity team and the president of several clubs with outstanding grades, you realize your chances are quite slim.

She did like girls, though, so Lily never truly surrendered her dream of snatching a gorgeous, rare specimen like her.

“Spencer! Were you paying attention?” Mr. Castellanos, the school’s economics teacher, snapped impatiently at the daydreaming girl sitting at the back of her class. She had paced her cheek on her fist and was gazing dreamily at the wall behind him, igniting a spark of exasperation for what seemed like the thousandth time since he had begun teaching her.

She jumped in her seat at the abrupt yell, earning snickers from her classmates. Jax Matsuo, a fellow outcast (although he was definitely loved by the female population more than his peers, considering he was quite handsome and gave off “bad boy” vibes) nudged her playfully from behind and whispered, “Oooooh, busted.”

“Uh - I - Of course I was!” Lily lied straight through her teeth while looking the teacher straight in his angered eyes. Her heart could run whole marathons at the rate it had been beating, and her hands began to sweat. At that point, all pairs of eyes present in the room had been on her, including her raging crush.

“Oh? Then tell me what the financial gain made in transactions is.”

She gulped nervously. Shit, crap, damn it all to every hell, she swore profusely in her mind. Mr. Castellanos raised his eyebrows at her expectantly. Out of the corner of her slightly widened eyes, she spotted - to her shock - Jade waving to grab her attention. Once they locked eyes, her heart skipped a beat and a fuzzy feeling warmed her stomach. Shut up, stomach, now isn’t the time, hissed Lily mentally. Jade gestured to her lips, and mouthed clearly: PROFIT.

Lily immediately made eye contact with the economics teacher once again and blurted out the answer that her classmate gave her so quickly and panickedly that it made him slightly suspicious. He narrowed his eyes at her, but nonetheless congratulated her for answering correctly.

“Good to know you’re not completely useless in my class, Spencer. Don’t let me catch you like this again.”

Lily let out a long breath in relief and a grin resembling that of a maniac stretched across her lips. With reddened cheeks and pinkish ears, she mouthed a thank you to Jade, who returned it with the warmest smile she had ever been given.

You had better believe that particular moment was the only thing Lily thought of until the end of the school day. On her way to lunch, through Eng. Lit., during her mathematics class - the single topic on her mind was Jade. She couldn’t believe how childish she had been acting and felt as though she was back in elementary school with the biggest schoolgirl crush.

Eventually, rehearsal rolled around. All the theatre kids gathered in the theatre, discussing their plans for upcoming rehearsals before the big day. The play they were preparing for was, to Lily’s delight, Shrek: The Musical. She remembered laughing like a madwoman with the Costume and Makeup crew, who adored the idea of making the most pompous boy in their school look like a large, green ogre. It was beautiful, really.

Lily positioned herself next to the tech crew’s equipment as Jade, who played the eldest version of Fiona (she had been glad they didn’t rob her of the part for not being light-skinned), readied herself to begin singing one of Lily’s favourite parts of the musical - I Know It’s Today.

She watched as the child and teenage Fiona sang their parts beautifully and adjusted the lighting accordingly. The youngest had quite the magnificent voice, Lily knew she would go far in life. She could barely prepare herself when she realized Jade’s verse was approaching, knowing she would be just as affected by it as she always was.

“Here come the waterworks,” whispered the person in charge of the music, Nicole, jokingly. Lily poked her in the ribs with a childish huff.

Jade finally appeared, wearing a long ginger wig and a green dress that fit her like a glove. Her powerful, melodious voice rang throughout the theatre loudly and clearly, striking a chord within every occupant of the room - even their jaded and strict director, Kamilah Sayeed. Lily’s eyes glazed over with a glossy coat of tears threatening to spill over her cheeks. Her voice was beauty, music, grace. It was the promise of tomorrow, and Lily never wanted it to end.

“Lil, are you crying?” chuckled Nicole quietly, careful not to disrupt the rehearsal.

“No, I just have a tree in my eye.” Her voice quivered when she answered, and when she saw Nicole eyeing her with a single quirked eyebrow and a smirk, she huffed out again. “Both eyes.”

The blonde next to her shook her head with a knowing smile, but Lily completely ignored her and centred her focus on the singing beauty on the marvellously decorated stage.

Once rehearsal was over, Lily waited at the bus stop nearest her school to finally go home and unwind from such a long and tiring day. She stared at the blue sky above, adorned with pure clouds and the occasional soaring bird. She sensed someone take a seat next to her, but took no notice of them.

“Wow, no thank you, Jade, for the heroic save during Econ?”

A shriek unwillingly barreled out of her lips as she jumped yet again in her seat, startled by the sudden appearance of Jade. She sat next to her, the uncoolest person in the world, of all people? Eyes wide and cheeks flushed, Lily avoided Jade’s gaze and stammered the worst apology in the universe, earning a hearty laugh from the latter.

“Relax, Lils, I was just joking!” Her pearly whites almost blinded her when she showcased her megawatt smile. Lily squeaked pathetically at the sound of that nickname, unaware that Jade even knew her name. “You do a great job with the tech crew, by the way. You’re a pretty cool gal.”

“I… Pretty… Gal? Cool?” The gay panic is too much for me to handle, cried the mortified teenager in her anxious mind.

She chuckled nervously. I’m in danger.

“I’m sorry we never got the chance to hang out before, I usually try to get to know everyone in the club. How about I make it up to you?” Her gaze was soft and friendly, making her feel weak in the knees despite being seated. Her stomach did somersaults.

“You - I - Yeah. Cool. Cool. SURE!” She cringed at the way her voice cracked when she all but screamed the last word.

Jade smiled warmly. “You don’t have to be nervous around me, you know!”

“Easier said than done,” muttered Lily, but it was loud enough for her companion to catch it.

“Come on, there’s an ice cream parlour just down the road! Ditch the bus, I’ll give you a ride home when we’re done.” Jade grabbed her hand firmly and yanked her onto her feet, excitedly dashing down the asphalt with a very confused but very ecstatic Lily Spencer attempting to catch up without tripping over her own two feet. A grin crept and the air grew thick with a tenderness that couldn’t help but make her breathe faster, happier.

Maybe Jade wasn’t as unreachable as the glittering stars in a night sky like she thought she was.

#lily spencer #lily x mc #adrian raines #kamilah sayeed #bloodbound #bb choices #playchoices #choices stories you play #pb choices #choices fanfic #choices fanfiction #request

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evilelitest2 · 5 years ago

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Warhammer Paper

I wrote this for a history class on Warhammer Fantasy, some people have asked me for it so here you go

Neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire: Warhammer Fantasy’s Imagination of the Empire

A note on terminology. Warhammer is the larger brand that all of the following games fall under, with a specific aesthetic, culture, and identity in the larger fantasy space. The property is divided into two types of games, and two “settings”. Warhammer Battle, a wargame, which players take armies of miniatures. Warhammer Roleplay, is a table-top roleplaying game ala Dungeons and Dragons set in the Warhammer world. These games are split between two settings, an imagined world where the action of the games are supposed to take place, so the battles between the Ogre and Daemon armies are given a context within the world of the fantasy. The settings include the original Warhammer Fantasy, and it's far more popular science fiction equivalent Warhammer 40000 (usually known as 40k). This work will look primarily at Warhammer Fantasy and not 40K, specifically its depiction of the Holy ROman Empire in its fantastical equivalent, the Empire of Man. Warhammer Fantasy draws heavily upon early modern history for inspiration, down to its own world map.

The world of Warhammer Fantasy, in contrast to works like as Lord of the Rings, draws primarily upon historical influences to populate its world. The Kingdom of Bretonnia is obviously inspired by France, the Empire of Cathay and Nippon aren’t even hiding that they are based on China and Japan. And the core part of the setting where most of the action is set, is the Empire of Man, inspired by the Holy Roman Empire, with its Emperor elected by a series of Elector-Counts ruling over a deepy decentralized state. While Warhammer Fantasy is a somewhat comedic game, it is worth studying how it depicts the Holy Roman Empire, because that is how much of its Anglophile audience is going to first learn about its real life equivalent.

The subject of this paper is Warhammer Fantasy (WF), the series that started the Warhammer franchise. This setting encompasses both the games of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFR) and Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB), and I will be using the books from those games interchangeably because, while they are different games, the setting and the lore is the same,. Warhammer Fantasy is set in “The Old World”, a fantasy world under constant threat by supernatural forces. While the world is populated by a variety of fantasy creatures like Ogres, Dwarves and Elves under threats of “Daemons”, the main focus of the world are the human kingdoms, roughly modelled after real life historical societies. While the entire world is loosely sketched out, most of the action of the game is set in “The Empire of Man”, located in the middle of a fantastic version of early modern Europe.

The franchise of Warhammer is wargaming, where player enact battles with an army of miniatures on a board. These miniatures must be purchased from Games Workshop and prices can run as high as over $100 dollars for a monster miniature, meaning the game is limited to an affluent fanbase. Players don’t simply buy the minaturse, they also paint them, the miniatures when purchased as black and white pewter figurines which the player paints with brushes and paints also provided by Games Workshop. The games website has recommended colors for each type of figure but players may customize their mainatures as they choose, giving players a personal connection to their own collection. While players may purchase as many miniature as they wish, officially each set of minaturse is organized into different “armies”. Each army has a theme and unique design, and units from a particular army is only supposed to work within its own army. So for example, the High Elf Army are the only units who employ High Elf Mages. The Knights of Bretonnia cannot be used in the armies of the Empire. These armies each have a unique play style and most players can only afford to play with a few armies, generally leading to players committing to a single army they identify with. In addition to buying miniatures and paints, players must also buy the rules for play. In addition to the general rule book must be bought by all the players, each specific army also has a special rule book known as a codex. The codex does not only contain the specific rules for each army but also the story line, character descriptions and society of each faction. For example the empire codex contains not only the specific rules for each unit but also the personalities of the individual important figures, the history and culture of the empire and the character of the empire as as a whole, complete with pictures.

In game design terminology, the is the divide between what is called mechanics and story (or fluff). Mechanics covers the actual game play such as how much damage each each unit deals and what special attacks they have, while the story covers the specific character of each unit. Warhammer Fantasy was started in 1983 and has gone through 8 editions until the game eventually ended in 2010. The first two editions were actually nothing but armies with no story with them at all beyond a few sentence, it wasn’t until third edition came about in 1987 that the actual setting was created and the Empire of Man existed as anything more than “The human faction”. And from every edition since third, new codex have come with update the story, introduce new factions, or change the state of the world.

The variant game Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay ues entirely different mechanics but the same story. The experience of a tabletop game, modelled off Dungeons and Dragons, a form of interactive storytelling, consisting of several players sitting around a table. One player is called the Game Master (GM) who creates the story and maintains the rules. Each of the other players creates a single character who they control. Each character has a set of powers and the characters can take actions which are determined by dice rolls. So if one players wants theri character to attack a goblin, they roll dice to see if he is successful. The characters work together to try to overcome the challenges the GM throws at them. Rather than vast battles, the mechanics of roleplay tends to have a greater emphasis on character interaction, the day to day living of the characters, and small scale combat. So mechanics exist not only for combat but also for socializing, stealth, and crafting objects, and these rules are laid out in large hard copies called Gamebooks. For the game to be played one person in the groups must have the Core Rulebook, but supplementary rulebooks exist covering other aspects of the world and the game. Each rule book contains both mechanics and story, however the story in these games is far more in depth and detailed than the Wargaming counterpart. For example, the primary source for this paper is Heirs of Sigmar, a supplement book designed to flesh out the culture and history of Empire. It contains some specific rules, but the vast majority of the book is simply story, which does not contradict the story of the Wargame. Thus both games share the same story even as their mechanics are entirely different. The fact that two games with entirely different mechanics can have the same story shows that the mechanics don’t contribute to the story, which is known in ludology as “Ludonarrative dissonance”.

Ludonarrative means ‘play narrative’ and refers to when a game’s narrative is expressed via its play. To use an example from video games, in acclaimed horror game Silent Hill 2, the ending of the game changes depending on how the player acts in game. Should the player use reckless tactics, rarely heal, and avoid stealth options, then the protagonist, James Sunderland, will commit suicide at the end of the game. If the player is cautions and explores the area, they will leave the town to make a new life. Ludonarrative dissonance is when the narrative of the play is in direct contrast to the narrative of the story itself. In both games, the mechanics of Warhammer fantasy are largely disconnected from its themes and story. All this to say, this essay will not be looking at the actual gameplay or mechanics, which have very little to do with its understanding of the empire. The focus of this essay will be solely on the story content provided in the game books, thus little engagement will be made with ludology of the game, which could be the subject for a future paper. As this franchise has been around since 1987, I will be drawing primarily upon the WFR book Heirs of Sigmar a guide to the Empire, and the 6th, 7th, and 8th Empire codexes, which go into the most detail about story rather than rules.

The Empire is 2532 years old when the book is set, and its history is told through a series of epochs. Humanity lives as primitive tribesmen until they discover the gift of iron, which leads to a time of barbarism and war. This ends only when a great warrior, Sigmar, unifies them though faith in his wolf god,and force of arms. Sigmar ruled wisely and justly, setting up most of the institutions of the later empire, and upon his retirement, the 12 great Counts instituted the Elector system. For a thousand years the empire goes through a prosperous golden age, expanding across the continent and becoming the greatest military force in human history, referred too as “The Birth of Nations”. This time of wonder ends with the age of decadence, as the upper classes gave up their concerns for the state to enjoy affairs, fine foods, and frivolous spending (much of it on art and fashion). Emperor Ludgiw II Honenbach “The Fat” makes his halfling cook an Elector, and the cult of Sigmar into the official state religion of the empire before “died in bad a short while later-smothered to death by his own neck fat”. This period of luxury eventually ends with a great plague, and civil war, Boris Hohenbach “the Incompetent”, is so corrupt he effectively cedes all control to the feudal lords rather than the Empire. It is the decentralization of the empire that marks its decline, known as the “Time of Judgement”. It wasn’t until the election of the martial Emperor Mandred I, whose reign brought stability if not prosperity to the realm, and his even more marshal successor Magnus who unified the Empire through “sheer force of will and belief” that this time of instability came to an end..

The games presentation of history is standard for the fantasy genre, and is both simplistic and rather conservative. Every event in the Empire’s history has a single cause, whole centuries can be summed up with rough generalization, and history is moved by individual men. And it is always men, during the first 1750 years of history only 3 women are mentioned, a nameless priestess to the goddess of diplomacy, a frivolous vain noblewoman, and a failed usurper, each with half a sentence of description. The lack of female representation is a consistent pattern across the Warhammer franchise. The good rulers are universally military commanders whose reigns last decades, as prosperous as they are vague. The Empire has an astronomical time frame but largely does not change except in the way of technology, it is always Germanic, decentralized, highly militant, and worshiping the same gods. The Empire is largely timeless, only changing when an in-game event requires it.

The effect is a state that is largely timeless, an eternal stereotype that simply exists with only slight variations, a deterministic view of society that fits many fantasy settings. Fantasy tends to imagine the past as one of stasis, the states that exist have done so for a long time and will continue to do so unless something truly cataclysmic occurs. Within that existence, they will stay largely the same across there history, if changes occur it will be due to a specific ruler or a major event. Fantasy imagines time as a stalled machine, awaiting a radical push to make it move slightly ahead before stalling out. If fantasy serves as one introduction to historical societies, it can give the impression that the Empire was a static entity, existing for centuries largely unchanged. This can very easily move into essentialism, one can simply dismiss the empire as a thousand years of stagnation and its people effectively the same. We see this essentialist approach later when the book describes the specific provinces, all of which have been largely the same for 2500 years, as having a specific character that defines them, even at some point implying it is due to bloodline.

At their worst, Nordlanders are churlish, uncouth, and thoughtless speakers. Even the merchants of Nordland have this blunt approach, though they seem to be fine with double dealing. Indeed, they have found that shouting the final price of something loudly and repeatedly has a profound effect upon merchants used to the subtleties of barter and negotiation. Many provinces point out that this is because of their mongrel Was Jutone, Teutogen, and Norscan bloodlines. This mixed heritage has been a source of Nordlander shame. Modern Imperials look on Norscans with a mixture of admiration and fear, seeing them both as powerful warriors and wild, uncivilised barbarians, not to be trusted around one’s daughters or sheep. A popular Imperial saying runs “Character is in the blood,” meaning that ancestry determines character. Thus Nordlanders, though of the Empire, are often regarded as “not quite one of us,” rougher and more uncouth even than the wild and hairy Middenlanders.

It effectively buys into primordialist narratives of human society, that when human beings first emerged they have characteristics that stay with them across all of time, like French Nationalist narratives claiming the Gauls and modern French share similar values and disposition. This is a common trope in fantasy, but by tying it to a real life historical entity, it gives the impression that this has some relation to German history.

As to what the Empire’s essential qualities are, Warhammer seems to been written with Voltaire’s misunderstood condemnation in mind. The Empire is deeply incompetent, disorganized, corrupt, and maddingly complicated. As Warhammer Fantasy was originally a comedy game, the section on the political structure of the empire was originally presented as a joke at the expense of the Empire.

But while the rhetoric around the empire is mocking contempt for its decentralization and overlapping spheres of influence, the Empire of Man in fact is not that complicated. While it is a decentralized feudal state with an elected monarch, and overlapping legal systems, it is actually less complicated than the real Holy Roman Empire. The Vatican is located within the Empire, the royal family has no international element to it, there is no equivalent to the Spanish Habsburgs or the American Colonies, no crownlands or Greater Hungary, and of course the empire has one language. In fact, the Holy Empire seems far more like a unified Nation-State than its real life counterpart.. One of the most notable changes made is that it doesn’t have an equivalent to the Hapsburgs, the Emperor is simply elected from among the Electors rather than from an Imperial family, and so one of the greatest elements of internationality has been removed. The fact that the empire is so much more cohesive and yet is mocked by its creators for its instability indicates just how much the ide of the nation-state has become normalized that a state not being utterly centralized is seen as strange.

Where this simplification and disinterest in the empire gets interesting is its approach to nationality or rather lack of one, as the Holy Empire is entirely German. The word German never appears in the books of course (though the term Teutonic certainly does) but the culture of the Empire is clearly German, the Emperor is named Karl Franz, its greatest warrior is named Lugwig Schwarzhelm, and the Reiksmarshal is named Kurt Helborg. The capital city is Altdorf (Vienna), and one of its famed military units are known as the Landsknecht. However the empire has no stand in for Hungary, Bohemia, Slovenian, Slovakia, or Poland, the culture is almost entirely German. The only exception is the semi-independent province of Sylvania, which is loosely based on Romania, though its depiction owes more to Bram Stoker than historical reality, ruled as it is by the vampire counts, and clearly based on Transylvania but with a Romanian cultural influence.

This Germanization shouldn’t be surprising considering that Games Workshop is a British company whose audience is overwhelmingly American and Canadian. None of the major designers are historians or have any expertise in the region nor do any of them mention any central European heritage. The Anglo-American world and the fantasy genre is not particularly well informed about Eastern/Central Europe, to the point that The Witcher, a Polish inspired fantasy game was released, it was praised for bringing attention to an unappreciated region. Germany is far more familiar, as is Romania thanks to Dracula, but as there are no major fantasy works featuring any of the other components of the Holy Roman Empire. Thus the Empire becomes a Germanic one, simply decentralized, with no Slavic, Magyar or Ottoman cultural influences to be found within its defined borders. This general ignorance of the region also explains the rather reductive embrace of Western dismissals of the Holy Roman Empire. In fact compared to most fantasy narratives, Warhammer is almost orientalist in its approach to German culture, the book presents German culture as exotic and strange, an the art work empathises the Gothic architecture and black armor much like similar fantasy exoticizes fantastical depictions of Japan.

Ironically, this ignorance of the region means that the Empire avoids many of most common troubled narratives of the empire, by reimagining the Empire as fully German, it reject a Nationalist critique of the Empire. For all its faults, the Empire isn’t oppressing ethnic groups yearning to be free, nor do any of its weaknesses come from diversity or lack of linguistic unity. Though the Empire slogan is “Let Us Take Strength From our Diversity” In a similar vein, Warhammer also unintentionally rejects the Clash of Civilization narrative, by the lack of an Ottoman presence. While there is a fantasy Islamic empire (The Araby Caliphate) it is both Arabic and largely irrelevant to the events of the main story. While the Empire does claim legitimacy by being the protectors of the true faith and the defenders of civilization, it’s rival are inhuman Daemons rather an exoticized oriental potentate. In fact while the empire considers itself the supreme cultural power, they do not seem particularly hostile towards any of their humans neighbours, nor do they have an enmity towards the Islamic inspired nations.

In fact the Empire’s relationship to religion is complicated. Like most fantasy works, the state religion has the aesthetic, organization, and place in society as the Catholic Church, with grand cathedrals and hierarchy of priests, complete with its own Pope, the Grand Theogonist. However the actual faith is polytheistic, with a pantheon of deities each of whom governs an aspect of reality. Its chief god used to be the wolf god Ulric, whose chosen Sigmar founded the empire, but the Cult of Sigmar has since become the state sect of the Empire. These gods exist in opposition to the Chaos Gods, whose Daemonic armies serve as the primary antagonists of the setting. Each god has its own organized church, but all of them are ultimately lead by the Cult of Sigmar, whose main job seems to be the maintenance of the inquisition. In Warhammer, the Inquisition, employs Witch Hunters and Templars in order to hunt down renegade spell casters and worshipers of Chaos, who purged via fire. In the world of Warhammer, the world is under attack by the forces of Chaos, divine cosmic forces of destruction and corruption. While they openly invade the empire from the north with their great Daemon armies, within the empire the lords of Chaos attempt to spread their influence through Chaos Cults. Individuals join for magical power and pledge their souls to Daemon overlords, eventually twisting their minds and body into combinations, and are instructed to try to overthrow the empire. The main obstacle to these cults are the inquisition, who can hunt down these secretive groups and destroy them through fire. The game evokes the imagery of the inquisition and witch hunts, but in this fantastical setting, the actions of the church are largely justified as chaos cults are legitimately threaten the world. In the universe of Warhammer, torture, mass execution and the constant repression of the citizenry is shown to be a justified necessary evil to prevent the empire from falling to chaos. Since Chaos often spreads through the reading of forbidden tombs and hedonistic ‘pleasure cults”, sexual puritanism and limiting freedom of information are shown to be entirely justified. Effectively Warhammer has created a world where the Inquisition isn’t not just necessarily but just in its actions, while doing most of the same activities as its real life counterpart.

This approach towards religion is common in fantasy, likely do to wanting to mix the excitement of Greek mythology with the familiar structures of Catholicism, or simply because the norms of Christianity are so normal to the writers that they struggle to imagine religion differently. For example, in Dungeons and Dragons, the pantheon of gods who exist within the world are clearly polytheistic in nature, however each god has a very Catholic inspired temple with an organized church hierarchy, using the imagery of christianity in a non Christian context. With the Inquisition hunting down and destroying hidden heretics within the empire, the game’s trappings are mimicking that of the Protestant reformation, but the role of Protestants is being played by Chaos Cultists, and the Inquisition is actually hunting witches. This means that the Empire losses much of its ideological nuances, one is left with the impression that faith in the empire is mostly a practical tool to battle Chaos, and the church is universally made up of corrupt hypocrites or zealous fanatics.

The game makes a point of mocking the Holy Roman Empire for its needless complexity, but the society is reduced on every level, which makes it easier to simply dismiss. This approach extends to almost all other aspects of the Empire, almost everything within it is defined in extremely broad strokes without much attention to detail. The Empire has a strict class system, with an aristocracy characterized as decadent, selfish, and vain ruling over a mass of peasants who are shown as ignorant, superstitious and xenophobic. The history is vast but sparse on details, and tends to fall into patterns, as periods of decline are ended when a warrior emperor drives back an external invader. This approach to world building is rather typical of most fantasy, as it generally hopes to work within broad archetypes rather than specific narratives.

All this is only worth considering because the larger Warhammer franchise has come under much discussion regarding nationalist themes in its work, though mostly focusing on its far more popular 40k franchise. The series enduring popularity with White Natioanlist and Trump supporters has been well documented, Trump’s official reddit page /thedonald regularly refers to “God Emperor Trump” a reference to 40k universe. The 40k universe has been accused its embrace of militarism, authoritarianism and xenophobic narratives, expressed through its protagonists being the dictatorial human supremacist “Imperium of Man”. Very little has been written about the original Warhammer Fantasy due to its relatively unpopularity compared to its spinoff, but it is worth considering from a nationalist narrative. The Empire of Man’s embrace of German culture and folklore is telling, in particular a blond warrior unifying the forest tribes to create an Empire via war. All of the good emperors are marshall, and the bad are defined as decedent and corrupt, with women confined to marginal roles. The Inquisition is shown as a necessary evil and the empire has a primordialism attitude towards the tribes that make up its ranks. A nationalist reading isn’t necessarily intentional, but it is possible, though not the traditional narratives associated with Central Europe. Rather it is more likely some of the long standing conservative sentiments that have long been associated with the fantasy genre.

First released in 1983, Warhammer is among the oldest and most popular fantasy properties in the gaming space, and it is one of the few fantasy franchises which plays a major part in changing the pop mersculture landscape rather than being fully insulated within the fantasy sub-culture. Warhammer 40K is the most popular wargame in history and the label has more than 50 video game spinoffs, Warcraft famously was originally planned to be Warhammer game before they lost the license and made their own universe. In fact most fantasy wargames owe their legacy in some way to Warhammer, which can be found in hobby shops across Europe and North America, though Games Workshop does not own the shops directly. It is almost impossible to be within fantasy gamer culture without at least passible familiarity with the Warhammer franchise, and so to many people, Warhammer Fantasy is their first real introduction to the Holy Roman Empire, albeit in a bastardized fantasy form.

In his influential 1936 essay, Beowulf: The Monsters and and the Critics, J.R.R. Tolkien lays out his understanding of the fantasy genre. At the time, Beowulf was valued primarily as a historical work and not a literary, a trend Tolkien argued against, making the argument that fantasy should be appreciated as stories within their own context rather than simply reflections of our reality. This approach is empathised in Lord of the Rings, where the emotional stakes within the confines of the fantasy universe. The reader hopes Frodo will succeed not because he represents something external to the story, but because we value the character and want what is best for him. Tolkien, in his prelude to Fellowship of the Ring, famously said he despised allegory and didn’t wish his work to be read with real life parallels. Most fantasy follows in Tolkien’s footsteps, Fantasy has long expected stories to be understood within their own context but that standard becomes confusing when real life elements are consciousnessly moved into the fantastical space. So when Warhammer Fantasy features a society obviously inspired by the Holy Roman Empire, the audience is expected to engage with the empire within the framework of its world, our investment in its success depending on our investment with its characters and setting. However we can’t ignore the fact that it is obviously inspired by a real life society, and that the game is unintentionally setting the groundwork for its players engagement with the historiography surrounding the empire. And so, while it is clear that the designers didn’t have any intention to make a statement about the historiography, instead using the Empire to give their game a unique aesthetic and stand apart from other fantasy properties, Warhammer does unintentionally make a statement about history. The stereotypes of the empire as incompetent and needlessly complicated, the view of history as largely static, that history is to be understood as mostly driven by great men, and that the decline of empires is inexorably tied to its embrace of luxury. The game enforces the notion of the Nation-State as normal and the Empire as abnormal for departing from said model. The game presents many institutions of the empire without contextualizing them, and doesn’t acknowledge the actual complexities of the real empire. Ultimately while this is the only prominent fantasy work which asks the players to imagine things from the Empire’s perspective, it very much enforces many of the same stereotypes that Habsburg historians have been trying to escape from, while also endorsing many false views of history itself. The games understanding of history is just close enough to reality that the uninformed player might take it as fact, without realizing just how essentialist Warhammer fantasy actually is. Much more attention needs to be paid to how history is understood via fantasy, because many people get their knowledge and interest in history from fantasy, and many concepts long since debunked in history, continue to live on in fantasy uninterrupted.

Sources

Ragan, Anthony, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Heirs of Sigmar: A Guide to the Empire, Fantasy Flight Games, Green Ronin Publishing, 2005

Pramas, Chris, Warhammer Fantasy Core Rulebook, A Grim World of Perilous Adventure, Fantasy Flight Games, Green Ronin Publishing, 2005

Schwalb, Robert J, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Tome of Salvation: Priests of the Old World, Fantasy Flight Gaming, Green Ronin Publishing, 2007

Straufer, Marijan von, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Realms of Sorcery, black Industries, Fantasy Flight Games, Black Industries Publishing, 2005

Schwalb, Robert J, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Tome of Corruption: Secrets from the Realm of Chaos, Fantasy Flight Games, Black Industries Publishing 2006

Chart, David, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Knights of the Grail: A guide to Bretonnia, Fantasy Flight Games, Black Industries, Green Ronin Publishing, 2006

Cruddace, Robin, Warhammer Armies: The Empire (8th Edition), Games Workshop Publishing, 2010

McNeill, Graham, Warhammer Armies: The Empire (7th Edition), Games Workshop Publishing, 2007

Cavatore, Alessio, Warhammer Armies: The Empire (6th Edition), Games worship Publishing, 2000

Tolkien, J.R.R, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1936

Tolkien, J.R.R., Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Del Rey, Reissue edition, 1986

#Warhammer fantasy

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enkelimagnus · 5 years ago

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A Winx Club Shadowhunters AU - Clizzy, Malec & others

Her name is Clary Fairchild, and she’s an entirely normal 19-year-old human girl.

Except she isn’t. That comes at a complete surprise just as she’s about to die a horrible death at the hands of a yellow ogre. That’s just what she gets for trying to save Isabelle, a fairy Princess from the planet Solaria.

Her life is changed forever as she embarks on a journey that will give her more than she could ever hope for.

Chapter 1: An Unexpected Event - On AO3

Amber Fairchild let her fingers trace over the black smudgy lines of her daughter’s charcoal drawing of a landscape of Gardenia. In particular, it was a drone-view of the area where the Fairchilds’ house was located.

Behind it, on the cork board, was pinned another charcoal drawing, these times of fairies. Amber could only see two but she knew there were 3. They were quite beautiful. Clary was getting better at facial expressions.

On the drawing desk were a couple of more sheets of paper. Two versions of the same castle, a fairytale-worthy structure, complete with thin flags flowing over the towers, from different views. And a portrait of a woman. The woman strangely looked like Clary. Like a family resemblance.

Amber wondered if Clary was drawing what she thought her birthparents looked like. Amber and William Fairchild had never hidden the fact that Clary was adopted from her. It had never seemed to be an issue for Clary, but maybe she was starting to want to know more.

That was knowledge that the Fairchilds didn’t have. William had found Clary in a house fire, eighteen years ago.

Clary had turned nineteen less than a week ago.

It was a bit of a shock, for Amber. Her baby was all grown up now. She was going to start her second year at the prestigious Gardenia Academy of Art in a couple of weeks, and she was growing into a fierce and wonderful young lady.

Amber stepped over the clothing and the books that were scattered over the floor. Clary was maybe an adult now, but she was still a messy teenager.

"Wake up, sleepy head!" Amber called, slightly louder than she usually would. "The sun’s been up for ages!"

The dog that they owned, a fawn-and-white one-year-old whippet named Kiko that was surprisingly human some days, was napping in his basket next to the bed.

Clary shifted in her bed, only her red hair visible in between her pillow and the duvet.

"Five more minutes, Mom," she grumbled and buried her face impossibly further into the pillow. Amber smiled widely and moved a little closer.

"You’re late, Clary!" She said softly, in a sing-song voice, right next to her daughter’s face.

There was a second-long beat, during which Clary put two and two together and suddenly she bolted out of bed. "FUCK!" She cursed loudly as she ran around the room. "How the fuck did I miss my alarm?"

Amber winced at the curses. Yes, they had allowed uncensored swearing to Clary on her 18th birthday, but that didn’t mean it was easy to get used to.

"It’s the first day of the school year, none of my things are ready, what the fuck was I thinki-" Clary stopped, one leg down her jeans and looked up.

"Hang on a sec," she said softly, before turning towards her mother. "YOU. That’s SO not funny," she grumbled.

Amber chuckled. School was not starting again before a couple of weeks. "You fell for it, didn’t you?" She crossed her arms.

Clary finished putting on her black croptop and ripped jeans, before falling bad onto the bed dramatically. "I don’t care. I’m going back to bed."

Amber sighed. "It’s 9am. Late enough."

Clary huffed and slid under her duvet again. Kiko jumped onto the bed and snuggled against her.

Amber looked at her softly. "You should try going to bed earlier, you know. You were up really late last night." William and her had gone to bed relatively late, and they had seen the light under the door of her bedroom.

"I was reading..." Clary sighed.

Amber grabbed the book she was pointing at from the floor. The cover had a fairy on it, just like Clary’s drawings. She sighed. This was a little more mature and scientific, if there was such thing as the scientific study of fairies.

""Fairies: Myth or Reality?"" She read out, and huffed. "Urgh, don’t you ever get tired of these silly things?" She asked softly.

Clary shook her head. "I don’t. I like them."

Amber nodded. "Alright then. Who am I to call them silly if you care about them so much?"

Clary sat up on her bed. With her messy hair and her tired look, she still looked like a child to Amber. Her smile was still as contagious.

"Thanks, Mom," she said softly.

Amber waved it off. "Oh, It’s nothing, darling. Now, come get coffee."

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

Since she’d woken up early, Clary guessed she got to be doing some stuff. She’d decided to take Kiko on a trip to the park. The park allowed for dogs to be unleashed, as long as people were careful.

It was Clary and Kiko’s favorite place to go. Usually, Clary would run around and play for a while, before sitting down by her favorite tree and drawing while Kiko either went to run around or laid by her feet.

Clary rode her bike, with Kiko secured in a basket, to the park, where she settled at her usual spot. She put her back against the tree and grabbed Kiko’s toy.

After a few rounds of throwing and running and playing, she decided to sit down. Kiko still seemed to have a bunch of energy so she let him go play."Go on Kiko, but stick around, alright?" She called.

She sat down on the grass and grabbed her sketchpad. She barely had time to get drawing that Kiko came back, howling, absolutely terrified.

"What’s the matter Kiko?" Clary asked, gently patting the terrified animal. She stood up, looking towards the part of the park Kiko had come running from.

It was a deeper, wilder part, where people went a little more rarely. She swallowed and stepped forward, grabbing the pepper spray from her bag and walking into the bushes.

Kiko followed, whining at her feet, almost trying to tell her not to come. Clary stopped next to a clearing, as strange noises were coming from it.

From behind the tree, Clary saw something that she couldn’t really explain.

It was a woman. More exactly, it was the most beautiful woman Clary had ever seen. Her tan skin radiated with a glow that definitely couldn’t come from only body glitter. Clary swallowed. She wore shorts and a one-shoulder crop top, made of a glittery golden orange material, that hugged her curves perfectly. She had matching heeled boots. Her dark hair was parted into two low pigtails, held with golden orange bands.

Clary’s eyes opened wider. From the woman’s shoulder blades sprouted translucent blue wings. They were delicate and beautiful, glittering gently with every motion of her body.

She was fighting, kicking at strange monsters. She had a cyan-blue scepter with a sun-shaped circle at the top, in her left hand, and Clary focused on that rather than the rest of the seriously wrong things happening in front of her.

"Rising Sun!" The woman shouted, and a blast of blinding golden light erupted from her right hand, sending one of the monsters tumbling down, screaming in pain, before it quickly disappeared in a pile of ash.

"Wow!" Clary heard herself say. She could feel the power that came from the woman. It was like nothing she’d ever felt before. "Goodness, did you see that Kiko?" The dog was hiding, trembling, behind a log.

"Solar Wind!" This time, the wave of light was more diffuse, but it still was successful in burning away a number of the small monsters. It was... it was like the woman was doing spells. That and the wings... Clary felt a headache forming between her temples.

“I am warning you," the woman spoke out. Her voice was calmer than Clary’s would have been in the same situation. "Leave this realm now or you will feel the magical wrath of the Sun and Moon fairy!"

The yellow monster erupted in a loud laugh, that turned into an animalistic snarl, and then it charged. It started running, full speed, towards the relatively small - if unnaturally powerful - woman.

She put up a fight, but was violently shoved backwards. Clary saw her fly over a short distance and land painfully on the grassy ground.

"Oh my god!" Clary exclaimed.

The woman wasn’t getting up. She was laying very close to where Clary was still hidden, and she wasn’t getting up. She was trying, but the painful landing had cut off her breath and she was struggling to regain it.

"Your time is up fairy!" The monster shouted. It turned to the smaller monsters, red, ant-like creatures. "Take the scepter! Give me that scepter!"

The small creatures pounced. Clary almost screamed as they attacked the woman on the ground, holding her down and prying open her fingers to get the scepter out of her hand.

They ended up managing to get it from her when they used their paws to block out her eyes and mouth, keeping her from breathing and seeing. She instinctively let go of the scepter, and the monsters took advantage of that.

The yellow monster smirked as the scepter was given to him. "Not so strong now, are you?" He growled, and moved, aiming towards the fallen woman with the scepter.

Clary moved without thinking. She ran out from the trees and stood in front of the woman, standing tall and looking at the monster with a hiss. "Let her go!"

The monster raised its eyebrows. Yes, it had eyebrows. What the fuck?

"Get her!" It roared.

She saw the monsters coming at her. She felt the flame inside of her. It built from her heart to her fingertips, burning, pulsing, wanting to get out. And it did. She felt the flame leave her skin and radiate around her, and the monsters died as they touched it.

She blinked, her fingers tingling. One of the remaining monsters grabbed Kiko’s tail, making him yelp loudly. "Hands off Kiko!" Clary grabbed a branch and beat it off of him.

Well. She wasn’t that bad at self-defense.

A giant yellow hand wrapped around her wrists, pinning both of them in one crushing grip. She groaned loudly in pain and tried to get away.

She felt it again. With the pain crushing her wrists, came also the flame. It burnt again, from her heart onwards. She closed her eyes and felt it escape her body again.

The monster screamed in agony. Clary pried her eyes open, only to be blinded by a too-bright ray of light. She closed them again, but small light spots still danced behind her eyelids.

"Hey, that was... powerful," the woman said.

Clary opened her eyes again, and her vision was back to normal. She could already feel she would have a headache, and she felt absolutely exhausted, but she could see alright.

The woman, with her dark hair, her wings and her orange glittery clothing, was staring at her with awe. She had dark eyes that held a bright spark, her lips were painted red, and it looked like she’d sacrificed at least a dozen children to some dark deities for her beauty.

She walked closer to Clary and held out her hand, helping her to her feet. "Are you okay?" She asked softly. Her voice was even nicer when she wasn’t yelling.

Even if she was standing in shadows now, she was still glowing. The Sun and Moon Fairy . If that was true, the glowing would make sense.

"Yeah..." Clary managed to reply, mouth hanging open, trying to wrap her head around the situation. A stunning woman with wings, who referred to herself as a fairy, was holding her hand like it was something precious, after Clary had protected her from a monster.

Said monster got up from the ground then. The woman - the fairy - turned around. She planted her feet into the ground. "You want the scepter? Come and get it!" She taunted. A burst of golden light caught the monster square in the chest, sending him flying back.

Clary was about to shout at her to watch out for the remaining of the ant-like monsters but the woman was already moving. She snarled with effort, the entire scepter and her hands lighting up with the same gold light that seemed to envelop all her spells.

She jumped, a powerful, unnatural leap aided with her wings’ flying ability, twirled the scepter over her head at lightning speed and suddenly cut through the air.

All around her, following the path of the scepter, light erupted and monsters turned to ash.

She twirled the scepter one more time in her hands, this time more for a flourish, before winking at Clary. Clary swallowed.

"We will meet again, fairy!" The yellow beast warned, before disappearing in a beam of purple light.

A heaviness that Clary had not realized was in the air lifted with the creatures departure.

"Thank goodness," the woman exclaimed. She seemed genuinely relieved, even if she had demonstrated quite the abilities. "They’re gone at last!"

Clary was about to reply, ask questions, do something, but the woman faltered. She crumbled to the ground, and let go of the scepter.

Clary rushed to her side. "Hey are you alright?" She called out.

There was no reply. A bright light enveloped the woman’s unmoving body, and in the blink of an eye, her wings, her costume, and her pigtails were gone. Gone too was the glow that had seemed to radiate from her.

Her boots had changed to less practical heeled sandals, her crop top had changed shapes, with added cyan blue accessories and strings that wrapped around her waist. The shorts she’d been wearing became a skirt, long and flowing, with the same blue strings holding it to her waist.

The bands holding her hair parted were gone, it flowed free against the ground, and on her head rested something Clary recognized as a tiara, a cyan blue headband-like tiara that also had a sun-shaped circle at the back of her head, in the same shape as the top of the scepter.

Panicked, Clary looked around and realized the scepter was gone.

Fuck. She needed to call her parents.

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

Clary stared at the shredded pant leg of her jeans, toying with the straw in her lemonade glass. She hadn’t realized that the creatures had ruined it before she’d been home, with the woman laying on her bed, asleep.

She could hear her mom and dad’s hushed whispers. They were standing in the kitchen, and the kitchen was only a few feet away. They weren’t exactly stealthy.

"Clary," her father started, turning to her and speaking a bit louder. "I’m not sure I understand. Could you run that by me again?"

She sighed deeply, looking up at him and leaning back in her chair. "It’s not complicated. Kiko and I were in the park. He got spooked so I went to see what was going on. She was there, fighting creatures. They called her a fairy. She called herself a fairy."

William sighed. Clary loved her dad, but she knew he was a skeptic when it came to these things. Neither Amber nor William really believed in the supernatural, magical things that Clary believed in.

Clary was very different from her parents. Physically of course, since she was adopted. They were both brunettes, and there weren’t a redhead in their family. Her face was different, her stature was different.

But in their beliefs too. Clary had always like the idea that there was more to the world that the things she could see. She believed in magic, and in the things that went bump in the night.

"Hmm, I see," William mumbled.

"You believe me then?" Clary asked, even if she honestly had little hope that he did.

"No, I don’t! I think we should call the police and take this girl to a hospital."

It was a sensible offer but Clary opened her mouth to refuse. She didn’t have time to.

At that moment, a voice resounded in the room. "No, no please. Don’t tell anyone."

The woman - the fairy - was standing in the doorway to the bedrooms corridor. She looked a bit pale, but perfectly alright. She was still incredibly beautiful.

Amber immediately stood up straighter and walked to her. "How do you feel dear?" She asked softly. She guided her to sit down on the couch. The four of them all moved to the living room.

The fairy sat gracefully, at the age of the couch, back straight and ankles crossed elegantly.

"I’m all right," she said softly to Amber. She then turned to Clary. "Thank you for helping me out."

Clary shook her head. "Why else could I have done? Leave you passed out in the middle of the park?"

The fairy smiled gracefully. "Still. You were very kind to bring me to your home." She looked regal sitting there, in her fancy clothing and the tiara that she still wore. She was silent and elegant.

"I’m Clary," Clary said softly. "Clary Fairchild. And these are my parents. Amber and William Fairchild."

The woman nodded. "It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Isabelle. My friends call me Izzy." There was more to that, but Clary waved it away. They were strangers, after all.

"Can we drive you somewhere, Izzy?" William asked.

Clary almost glared at him. She could feel in his tone that he wanted Izzy out of their home as fast as possible. Now that she looked alright and awake, there was no reason for her to stay longer, right?

Izzy had a small chuckle. "That would be difficult. I come from a place that’s a bit far from here."

"Fairyland?" William huffed.

Izzy raised a perfectly styled eyebrow in his direction. "There’s no such thing. Maybe the Legendarium World would qualify, but that’s only where the Ancestral Fairies came from, not where they reside. I am from Solaria. Not Fairyland." Her voice was cold.

William opened his mouth and closed it right after. Clary’s head felt like it was spinning. She’d read nothing about the Ancestral Fairies or the Legendarium World. She’d never even heard of those before, in all her research about fairies.

"But you’re a fairy, right?"

Izzy turned to her and nodded, smile coming back to her lips. "I am. The Fairy of the Sun, the Moon and the Stars. One day, I will be the Guardian Fairy of my Kingdom, Solaria."

So Guardian Fairies were a thing. Alright, that was something that Clary understood.

"How did you end up on Earth?" Clary asked curiously.

"I was trying to get to Alfea castle in the realm of Magix... It’s one of the magical dimensions, and Alfea is the College for Fairies. It’s the best school out there for fairies."

Clary could almost physically feel the skepticism and annoyance coming from behind her but sighed.

"Those creatures attacked me and I was forced to land here, on your planet," Izzy continued, before she turned to Amber and William. "Your daughter saved my life. I had never seen instinctive magic quite like that."

Clary shook her head. "I... I don’t know what happened. It all went so fast and the flame..."

"It was similar to the fire magic I’ve seen before," Izzy pointed out. "And you don’t actually need to know how. Instinctive magic exists in all of us magical beings, may we be Fairies or not."

William sighed and looked at both Clary and Izzy. "I don’t... I don’t understand what’s going on."

Amber shook her head. "I don’t understand either. But this..."

"It could be some sort of scheme. Acting."

Izzy stood up gracefully. She slid the blue ring she was wearing off of her finger, and it suddenly changed shapes. She was now holding the scepter that the monsters had been trying so hard to get.

Clary exhaled. Now she didn’t have to break it to her than she had lost her precious scepter.

Izzy planted the scepter firmly in front of her and put her two hands on it, one above the other. She closed her eyes for a moment.

Amber gasped as a bright ball of light came out of the sun-shaped circle at the top of the scepter. It danced around the living room, moving between the four of them with elegance, following motions of Izzy’s fingers.

"Can you believe me now?" She asked softly.

Amber looked over at her. "I think I do."

William stayed silent.

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

Clary sat down heavily on her bed. It felt like so much had happened since she’d left it, this every morning.

Now, there was a fairy in her bedroom. She wasn’t as tall as Clary would have imagined a fairy would be. Actually, Clary and her were about the same height. The fairy was maybe a bit smaller even, was she to take off her heels.

Said fairy, Izzy, was currently looking around Clary’s room. She was especially focused on the drawing table and the drawings that Clary had pinned on the corkboard. She reached up and gently touched the one with the fairies.

“Did you draw these?" She asked, tone curious, as she turned around and looked at Clary. Her eyes were shining.

"Yes. I’m an art student.”

“That’s amazing! And so are those drawings!” Izzy exclaimed. There was a hint of black from the charcoal on her fingertips as she pulled her hand back. “I’m a student too. Guardian fairy curriculum, at Alfea College for Fairies.”

Clary raised an eyebrow. “So there are classes on how to be a fairy?”

“Not exactly?” Izzy hummed. “You take classes to learn how to harness all of your power and make sure you’re using your magic correctly. That’s the gist of most fairy programs in the magical dimensions, but Alfea has a special Guardian Fairy program. You learn how to care for your realms, your planets… And you get pushed to reach the ultimate fairy form that Guardian Fairies have to have. The Enchantix.”

Clary chuckled. “You’re speaking Chinese.”

“I’m not. I’m speaking Earth English,” Izzy raised an eyebrow.

“I meant, I don’t really understand what you’re saying. This is so new to me. Real fairies seem very much entirely different from what we learn about fairies on Earth.”

Izzy hummed, walking over to the book about fairies that Clary had been reading the night before. She picked it up and flipped it open, looking through some random pages.

"Is your world like that?" Clary asked softly. “Do they have some things right?”

The woman seemed to hesitate a little. “They have a few things right. But it’s not as pretty as in this book. Not as perfect. There are issues, like in every other world, every other society. And not every fairy is sweet and perfect. Fairies may use white magic, maybe, but not all fairies are good.”

Clary nodded a little, sighing. “I guess… Yeah. It’s just weird. To think that, this morning, I mostly thought it was a fairytale, a story.”

Izzy smiled softly, looking at her. “And now, there’s a real life fairy in front of you?”

Clary sighed. “And I might be one.”

“Your power sure felt like fairy magic to me. I mean, I’m not a professional, far from it. I did just spend a year at a school full of them though. And grew up around a couple. The King and Queen of Solaria made sure I had only fairy tutors.”

Clary huffed, standing up and going to tidy some things. “The King and Queen had something to say in your education? Damn.”

“The King and Queen of Solaria are my parents.”

Clary turned around and stared at the other woman. So that explained the regal manners, the perfectly polished behavior and the way she spoke. It wasn’t just what fairies were like, it was what a fairy princess was like.

“You’re a princess, too?”

Izzy chuckled. She stood up straighter, taking the ring off of her finger again and looking at Clary. She took a complicated bow, using the scepter for balance, her dark hair flowing over her shoulders. She looked up at her and smiled.

“Princess Isabelle of Solaria, Princess of the Sun and the Moon, and Fairy of the Sun and the Moon. One day, surely, Guardian Fairy of the Kingdom of Solaria,” she introduced herself.

Clary couldn’t help but stare at her. It was… so much. There was a fairy princess in her bedroom, and she was absolutely beautiful. And sweet.

“And you, my dear,” Izzy said walking towards her and gently cupping her cheek. “might just be the Fairy of Fire.”

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

The grass under Clary’s feet felt unnaturally soft. She guessed it was all unnatural, since they were in what Izzy called a bottomless postcard. Clary looked up. There was a rectangle in the sky, an opening, through which she could see the ceiling of her bedroom.

They stood in what looked, felt and seemed like a normal clearing in the some cartoonishly perfect woods. The trees looked like they had been drawn from the dreams of a ten-year-old, and the birds were singing. The rays of sun on Clary’s skin were so bright and defined that they seemed solid.

In front of her, Izzy had her eyes closed, her head tilted back slightly as she let the sunbeam fall on her features. Her skin was golden then, smooth and perfect. Everything seemed smooth and perfect.

Clary wondered whether it was the fact that it was a postcard that made it like this, almost unreal. Maybe it was just how it was in this magic world.

Izzy re-opened her eyes and for a moment, they shimmered gold, the sunray catching directly in them and transforming the darkness of her iris into light.

“So this is Alfea Castle,” Izzy exclaimed. Clary stopped staring at her and looked over where Izzy was pointing. They were close to it.

It was niched in the forest and felt like a safe haven from the world. Nothing imperfect could happen here, she was sure of it. While the roof was blue and almost blended in with the sky, the walls of the castle were a soft pink with purple accents. It reminded her a bit of cotton candy. But elegant cotton candy.

The buildings had a roundness to them that reminded Clary of the ones she would draw as a child. The whole area felt like taking a step back into her childhood, revising the perfect world that she had imagined fairies lived in. She hadn’t been so wrong, after all.

There were tall windows and balconies over the upper levels of the building. “Do people live there?”

Izzy nodded. “It’s a boarding school. Up to six people can share an apartment, itself divided in rooms. Royalty, like me, usually get solo rooms. You’d be getting a room with a roommate probably. “

Clary didn’t know if she would mind. As long as the other girl wasn’t weird with her because Clary was gay, she would love to share a room with someone and live out some sort of collegial dream that her proximity with her school in Gardenia didn’t allow her. Even if she loved the fact that she didn’t have to pay to live at her parents’. Thinking of Gardenia…

“What about my school in Gardenia? I would waste so much money dropping out of there and coming here… It’s free right?”

Izzy shrugged. “For someone like you? Absolutely. We royals pay entrance fees and donate money so others, with less money, can have it for free. It’s also considered a good deed, and charity is a very important value, especially in the fairy world.”

Clary opened her mouth and tried to think of something to say, but all of what was playing in her head was the stupidities and cruel words that politicians said on tv. About not wanting to pay so others can have access to the same things as them, especially things like healthcare or education.

Maybe some of those people existed in this world, but they seemed to be enough of a minority that prestigious schools like Alfea didn’t work with their model.

“I’m sure you’d like it here," Izzy grinned.

“I don’t know… I have to talk about it with my parents. It’s a big change.”

The idea of letting go of her spot at the Gardenia Academy of Arts, the idea of leaving Gardenia behind, leaving the future she had envisioned behind and diving head first into this new world and this new life terrified her.

She could feel a pull in her heart, a feeling that, if she did not take the chance, she would throw away the chance to follow her fated path. But was it strong enough to counteract the rational concerns about money and future?

“Listen, you have a night to think about it. Talk with your parents, think a bunch. When I’m leaving tomorrow, I can take you with me. But after that… I have no idea when you’d meet another fairy able to get you here…” Izzy said softly. “Though I would probably come back for you.”

Clary opened wide eyes at that. “Really?” She whispered and some kind of weird hope and warmth filled her chest.

Izzy nodded, looking at her softly. “Really. There is something about you… I feel like our paths have crossed for a reason. I was destined to crash on Earth, be saved by you, and bring magic into your life. I can’t explain it.”

Clary didn’t know if she could believe her. Izzy was wonderful and beautiful and almost unreal. What if Clary was just hallucinating this? What if this was just a dream?

Her thoughts were interrupted by Izzy taking her hand in hers. Clary looked down at their two hands joined, her skin looking absolutely white next to Izzy’s darker tone.

“Let’s get out of there, alright?” Izzy asked.

Clary nodded.

“All you gotta do is jump up!” Izzy explained and looked up at the opening in the sky. She looked over at Clary for a moment. Clary nodded at her again. They counted to three and jumped.

Clary could feel herself pulled upwards, and it was a bit uncomfortable, but very quick. It passed easily. She shook her head as she resurfaced in her bedroom, struggling a little to adapt.

She didn’t have much time to do the adjustments however, because a few seconds after they had come back from the postcard, there was a loud crash, coming from downstairs. It was followed by a great snarl.

Izzy’s eyes opened wide at that and she turned to Clary. They rushed downstairs immediately.

It was chaos. The small red ant-like monsters were back, and Clary could see the massive back of the yellow creature. There was another one with them this time, it was blue and it was snarling the loudest. They were making quick work of destroying the living room

"Those girls must be around here somewhere," the yellow one growled.

Before he could ask Amber and William where they were, Clary and Izzy came up behind them. There was a fire in Izzy’s eyes that Clary hadn’t really seen before. She’d already been tired when they’d met in the midst of battle.

"We’re right behind you!" Izzy called out. The yellow monster growled in confusion and Izzy smirked. “Let’s end this, shall we?"

Before Clary could say anything, Izzy was standing in front of her, feet planted wide. “Solaria!” She shouted, and a beam of bright light surrounded her in a blinding pocket of light. Clary lost sight of her, but only for a second. Almost immediately, rays erupted from the light cocoon, and the cocoon exploded.

Gone were the royal garments and the tiara, and back were the fairy wings. She wore the same outfit Clary had seen on her in the park, orange cropped top with only one shoulder, short shorts of the same sparkling orange material, and knee high boots. Her hair had magically been divided into two pigtails held by orange tube ties, and Clary felt the power radiating from her. Her first impression hadn’t been mistaken. In her fairy form, Izzy was glowing.

Clary gasped as Izzy immediately flew forward, kicking the blue monster in the chest. She had the time to notice nipple rings on this one. What was THAT about? Clary decided not to focus on the possibly kinkiness of the enormous blue monster that was destroying her home.

"What’s the use of you?” The yellow beast snarled at the blue one. “You got beat by a cutesy fairy!"

Izzy landed on her feet and raised an eyebrow. “Of course he did. But... I’m no ordinary fairy,” she chuckled. “I’m the Princess of Solaria!”

She turned to Clary. “Clary, we’re outnumbered. We’re gonna have to split them up."

Without thinking, Clary nodded. “Alright, I have an idea. I’ll take care of the red ones."

She was running entirely on automatism. She shot a quick glance at Amber and William, nodding at them reassuringly, before she started running out of the house. She ran through the corridor and the kitchen, slammed the door open and ran outside. She shut the door back once she was there, keeping the red creatures outside.

Once there, she froze. “Fuck.” She had no idea what to do.

By her side, Kiko was barking and shaking, in a mix of wanting to protect her and being absolutely terrified. She definitely could relate to that feeling. She wanted to protect her home and her parents, but now she was outside, alone, with four little red monsters that could maybe possibly kill her. She wasn’t exactly comfortable.

She got into position to try and summon the magical flame that she’d felt in the park. She took a deep breath. “Come on, Clary,” she whispered. “You can-”

She didn’t have time to finish her sentence. Out of thin air, the yellow monster had appeared and had crashed down on the red monsters, killing them instantly. The yellow creature itself looked pretty damaged.

Well. Izzy sure knew how to command respect.

Right as she was thinking that, there was a loud crashing noise and Izzy came flying through the glass window. She landed on the ground and groaned loudly.

“Izzy!" Clary exclaimed, running to help her get up. She didn’t look in that good of a state. Her previously so smooth and perfect skin was littered with small cuts from the glass, and she could see a couple of pieces sticking out of some slightly deeper wounds. She was bleeding. There were cuts in her wings too, shredding the delicate membranes.

"Don’t worry,” Izzy smiled a little, but you could see it was painful. “I’ve called the Specialists."

The what now? "Who?"

Izzy didn’t reply. Whoever the Specialists were, Clary sure hoped that they were coming soon. The blue monster - that she’d heard referred to as a troll - was now coming out of the main door. Coming through might be more appropriate, as the beast just forced its way through the wood.

It walked, slowly, and all Clary could do was watch. Izzy seemed weaker even than at the park, and she almost couldn’t sit up. There was no hope. They were going to die in there, because there was no way that people from another dimension would show up THAT fast.

Clary closed her eyes and held Izzy’s hand as the creature loomed over them. “I love you, mom and dad.” She whispered, even if she knew they couldn’t hear her. They’d fled through the back of the house.

She smelled the troll’s nauseating breath on her. She felt a tear roll down her cheek. She was only 19. She couldn’t even summon the little bits of power she had. She waited for death.

Death didn’t come. There was a loud crack, the crack of a whip, and the troll snarled.

Clary opened her eyes. A thick black cable was wrapped around the troll’s neck, pulling it backwards. She took in a ragged breath, eyes following the cable to where four men were standing.

The one holding the whip had blond hair that flopped over his face. He wore a… bodysuit? With a cape? And very tight, at that. Clary put the outfit in the “WTF - will revisit later and demand an explanation” folder of her brain that was growing fuller by the second, at this point.

"Guys, I’m ready,” one of the other men said. This one had short dark hair and glasses. So there were magical creatures with vision issues. Okay. Good to know, she guessed.

The one in between whip-guy and glasses-guy had dark hair, a bit of a frown and was very tall. Taller by a few inches than the three other men for sure. "Alright, let’s take him to jail where he belongs." He called out. He seemed to be the leader of the group.

Whip guy huffed. "What’s the rush? Don’t you want to have a little bit of fun first?"

Clary almost yelled at him that Izzy was on the floor bleeding and that if they could remove the death threat from their vicinity, that would be great.

The fourth man, who was the only one not to be wearing the tight bodysuit and cape combo, sighed. He was holding a long black staff, leaning against it and waiting. His clothing was just as… unusual as the others’. He wore a purple turtle neck dress-like garment with elbow-length sleeves, decorated with yellow stripes, split open on both sides below the waist, and held at the waist tightly with a red sash. His pants were of the same purple color.

"I wouldn’t be so cocky if I were you. After all, this is only your first mission,” he pointed out.

Just as he was saying that, the troll tugged on the whip, sending the one who was holding it flying towards him. Whip-guy let go of the whip then, and landed right next to Clary and Izzy.

The purple-wearing man sighed. "I rest my case."

Clary watched helplessly still as the troll turned to the remaining three and started attacking. The edge of the staff purple-guy was wielding turned into a blade as he switched hands. Now holding the staff-blade in his left hand, he used his right hand to perform a complicated motion. A dark, smokey ball of energy seemed to erupt from his palm and crashed into the ground.

The ground opened up then, and the troll stumbled, letting up his attacks on the others. Its ankle caught in the crack and it howled. The glasses-wearing man jumped into action, closing manacles onto its fists.

“Well done, but it’s not over yet!” The dark-haired leader spoke out.

The red monsters that had been kept had bay by the Specialists were now turning towards Clary, Izzy, and the man next to them. The blond man huffed and got up. He looked dirty and tired and turned to them and sent them a wink.

"I’ll protect you, ladies."

Clary would have spoken up, but she was terrified, and didn’t understand a thing of what was going on, so she stayed silent. He took a strange object, and activated it. A fuschia saber blade appeared, and with that, he started fighting.

Clary didn’t know where to look, but she was pulled back to the situation when she felt fingers intertwining with hers.

“Clary,” Izzy whispered. “We have to use magic on the yellow monster.”

“But… you’re injured and I can’t…”

Izzy shook her head. “Help me up.”

Clary slid a hand around Izzy’s waist and helped her to her feet. The fairy turned to her, looking at her with a firm, stern look. “Magic is often linked to emotion. We need to help the Specialists, or the monsters will kill us, and also your parents.”

Clary opened wide eyes.

"Strong feelings such as fear have summoned up the wonderful powers that are in you once before,” Izzy said, in a hushed whisper. “They were always there, you just didn’t know it. It’s just a question of concentration. With your energy you can do anything.”

“But I can’t, I’ve tried and I can’t…”

“Believe it,” Izzy whispered. “Believe you can produce just one burst… You must.”

Clary closed her eyes. She wanted to believe that she could. She didn’t know about being a fairy yet, but she hadn’t imagined what had happened at the park. If she could do it once, she could do it again.

She felt it. The flame. The built-up was slower and smaller than it had been at the park, it had been a sudden burst of energy. Here, she had to work for it. So she did. She took the spark and pulled. She called it to her.

And just when the yellow monster punched the whip-guy out of the way, the flame appeared in between her hands. Izzy grinned next to her. “Now throw it!”

Clary didn’t know what she meant by that so she just did the motion. She kept the ball of energy, pulled her hands up and threw it, as if she was throwing one of those basketballs in high school P.E..

Izzy had thrown hers at the same time, and they both caught the monster square in the back. It howled in pain and crashed on the ground.

“I told you, you could do it!” Izzy grinned. “I’m so proud of you!”

Clary looked down at her hands. She could still feel it, like a phantom caress on her finger tips, a light tingle. "Wow. Then I’m really a fairy,” she whispered out loud.

"Of course you are, I’m never wrong,” Izzy chuckled. It was a bit of a strange sight, her smile and her cheerfulness, with light drops of blood rolling down her cheek from the cuts.

The Specialists gathered around the weakened yellow creature as it painfully stood up. It seemed to realize that it was cornered as it swore loudly and looked around itself. They didn’t have time to grab it. It clapped its hands a couple of time and bright purple light engulfed it. Once it had dissipated, the creature was gone.

Clary exhaled. Izzy’s knees buckled and she fell to the ground.

“Izzy!” One of the men called out and came running to her. It was the dark-haired, tall and serious one. He easily slid his arms around her and pulled her up to his chest, carrying her bridal-style.

“Alec, I’m fine,” Izzy mumbled.

“You’re not. You’re bleeding and your wings are shredded. We have a medic pod in the ship, you’ll need it.”

Clary watched the scene, a bit perplexed. The purple-wearing man came up to her and smiled. “Are you alright there?”

Clary crossed her arms. She felt exhausted. “I’m… fine. Just tired. Where is he taking her?”

“To our ship. You can come with us, if you want.” The man was Asian, had dark brown eyes, golden skin and dark hair.

Clary nodded. “Sure.”

He smiled. “Alright. By the way, I’m Magnus. We didn’t have time for introductions earlier.”

Clary smiled back a little. “Clary. Clary Fray. I… Is Izzy going to be okay? She was really banged up.”

Magnus nodded. “Don’t worry about her. Even if the medic pod can’t fix her entirely, we can bring her back to the Red Fountain to take care of her. Besides, Alexander will do everything possible to make sure she’s alright.”

Clary guessed Alexander was the dark-haired man that had ran to her immediately. “Are they…”

Magnus laughed. “Oh Gods no. Alexander is Isabelle’s brother. Crown Prince Alexander of Solaria, to be exact. And, Alexander well…” He had a little smirk. “He’s taken.” Magnus sent a look at the man. It was both soft and somewhat possessive and Clary let out a small “oooh”.

Magnus nodded. “Exactly. Now, let’s get you fixed up too, you look exhausted. And I’ll introduce you to Jace and Simon.”

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

The ship was… not what Clary had expected. After the whimsical aspects of Alfea castle, she guessed she had imagined it less modern. It was shaped like a kite, with the cockpit on the top face of the structure, above the rest.

As she stepped into the ship, Clary noticed the stairs leading up to the cockpit. The area below it had a long metallic table, upon which they laid Izzy. Alec grabbed what seemed like a first-aid kit and took out a syringe filled with a blue liquid.

“Painkillers,” Magnus explained, as Alec injected the liquid into Izzy’s arm. “Since we don’t know how bad it is, we’re dosing her now. Best case scenario, we can fix her up here and she’ll just sleep it off at your place. Worst case scenario, we have to transport her to the Red Fountain, Solaria, or the fairy hospital in Magix, and she’ll need it.”

Clary hated to see Izzy like that. It felt like it was all her fault, even if she knew it wasn’t.

Laser-like green and blue lights came out of the fixtures above the table and engulfed Izzy in what Clary hoped was healing magic. The dark-haired man - Alec - stayed by the side of the table, waiting, and watching.

Unlike the last time, Izzy was still in her fairy form.

The blonde-haired man walked up to them and looked at Clary. “Hey, what is she doing on the ship?” He asked Magnus.

“She saved your ass and wanted to watch over Isabelle,” Magnus replied. He smiled at Clary. “So that’s Jace. He’s Alec’s squire.”

Jace huffed. “More like… adoptive brother? I’m a ward of Solaria, and I grew up with Alec and Izzy,” he told Clary. Clary wondered if he was bragging or not. It wasn’t as if she actually cared.

“That’s nice,” Clary said, keeping her tone as devoid of actual interest as she could. “And I’m guessing Simon is the one with the glasses?”

Magnus nodded. “Yes. He’s our tech guy, and maybe the nicest person you’ll ever meet.”

Izzy had been so incredibly nice that Clary wouldn’t really imagine anyone being nicer than her. She was still laying under the lights but the superficial cuts were healing. Some of the tears in her wings were growing back together as well, but not the biggest ones.

“Magnus, could you suit up?” Alec asked over his shoulder and Magnus left Clary’s side with a light pat on her shoulder. She watched him put on some clothes and grab some tweezers. With those, he started taking out the pieces of glass that were still in some of the wounds.

Clary didn’t know how she could stomach this. She normally hated the sight of blood and anything vaguely surgery-related. Maybe it was the exhaustion, maybe she didn’t want to leave the side of the one person she somewhat knew and trusted. Whatever it was, she seemed bolted into place.

It felt like hours until Magnus was done taking out glass and stitching wings back together enough for the light beams to act. Alec and him talked quietly about what to do, and Alec eventually turned to Clary.

“We’re going to leave her with you for tonight. I’ll alert our family in Solaria and see what they want us to do, but for now, she seems fine. She’ll probably need someone to check on her wings, but the infirmary of Alfea can do it.”

Clary nodded. “Alright. Does she require anything specific?”

Alec shook his head. “She just needs rest. She’ll probably turn back into her human form too. We managed to keep her in her fairy form as long as we could to take care of her wings, but it won’t hold for much longer.”

Clary didn’t know if she was qualified in any way to take care of a wounded fairy. She’d shot some magic out of her hands a couple of times, but that sure didn’t seem like it would be enough.

The Specialists were starting to look tired too, and their uniform was a bit dirty. Clary noticed some light differences, mostly in the weapons they had holstered to their bodies, but also in the brooch that held their cloak in place, over their heart. They all had a different color. Jace’s was fuschia, just like the blade he’d used earlier. Alec’s was light blue, and Simon’s was yellow. She wondered if there was a significance.

Izzy stirred on the table and opened her eyes. She huffed. “Really? Full medic pod?” She grumbled weakly. Clary guessed it was the painkillers that made her a bit loopy. Izzy tried to sit up but failed. She radiated less glow than she had when she’d been fully powered.

They talked and checked her out for a small amount of time, and then got her back to the Fairchild house. Amber and William were sitting on their couch. They seemed quite uncomfortable, looking at their broken up apartment.

As Alec and Clary moved to settle Izzy in the spare bedroom, Magnus, Simon and Jace offered to help rebuild and tidy.

Alec laid Izzy on her stomach, as she was still in her fairy form. It seemed to flicker a little, not being able to completely stay permanent anymore. She was truly exhausted. Izzy grumbled some stuff about not being useless and being able to take care of herself under her breath as they tucked her in.

She was asleep within seconds, and the wings disappeared with the rest of her fairy form. They took off her shoes, her tiara and jewelry, setting those on the bedside table before letting her sleep it off.

Soon after, the Specialists gone, Clary crashed in bed and fell asleep before she could take her clothes off.

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

Clary yawned as she woke up, hours later. The sun was beaming inside her bedroom, and for a moment, she forgot what had happened. It was when she moved that she remembered, because she was aching. She was aching pretty much all over.

And it hadn’t been from a particularly intense gym session either. It had been from using magic. She sat up straight on her bed immediately at the thought of that and regretted it just as fast.

She still pulled herself out of bed. She slid out of the clothes she’d been wearing the night before and had slept in. She walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Everything was still messy.

Amber and William were sitting in the kitchen, around a fresh pot of coffee, discussing something in hushed voices. Her mom’s dark hair and her dad’s blond hair were almost touching from how close they were and how secretive their conversation was.

Clary cleared her throat. They looked up at her. Amber smiled softly at her daughter.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” she said.

Clary walked to the coffee pot, grabbed a mug and poured herself some. “You never call me sweetheart.”

When she turned around, there was a heaviness in Amber’s eyes and in her smile. William sighed and gently put his hand on his wife’s. Clary swallowed. It all seemed so… strange.

“We were talking about… all of what happened last night.”

Clary nodded. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought her home with me, it only caused trouble.”

Amber shook her head. “No, Clary, we don’t blame you at all. We don’t blame her either. She tried her best to protect us, and from what the… men from last night said, she was pretty injured doing so.”

“We’re just thinking about what it means for you. And for this family,” William explained. He looked tired, much more tired than Clary was used to seeing him. He looked like he had just been on a triple shift at the casern. Maybe they had spent all night talking about that.

“We want the best for you,” Amber explained. “And… from what we saw, there is something within you that has been awakened. Something you can’t control.”

Clary sat down on a stool in front of them. She gathered her hands around the burning hot mug. It didn’t feel that bad. It even felt comforting.

“The school Izzy talked about,” William sighed. “No matter how improbable it sounds, how… wrong my head is telling me it is… Maybe it could be a good place for you to learn how to control… all of that.”

Clary didn’t really know what to say. She wanted to go to Alfea, she could feel that it was a right choice. But diving in the strange world of magic and fairies scared her. It terrified her.

“You wouldn’t have to pay for anything… Only the royals pay. The rest can go for free,” Clary said softly. “I…”

“Be honest with us, darling,” Amber asked. “You’re an adult, and this is your life, your future. Does Alfea sound like a good option for you? Do you feel like you belong there?”

Clary’s heart was screaming that yes, she belonged there. But there was still a little voice in the back of her mind. A voice that told her that she wasn’t good enough. That managing to create a couple of fire balls wasn’t the same as using spells and having a fairy form like Izzy had.

“Yes,” she still said. “I… I want to go. I want to try. If I don’t succeed, well, I’ll come back.”

William nodded and rubbed his face with his hand for a moment. “Okay, okay…”

“So you’re leaving…”

“Today,” Clary said. “This morning, even. The term starts tomorrow, I believe.”

She saw her parents hesitate then. It was a sudden change. Clary was afraid of it too. She’d never left home for more than a week of vacation with a girl she’d considered her friend in her last year of highschool.

Amber stood up. “Then,” she said, her voice a bit shakier than Clary wanted it to be. “We need to get to packing.”

Clary stood up as well. She walked around the table and hugged her dad for a moment. He hugged her back quickly, but gently pushed her away afterwards. “Go pack,” he said softly.

Clary nodded and kissed his cheek. Amber and her walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs. As they walked past the bathroom, they heard the water running. Izzy was in a good state then, if she was able to shower without issues. That made Clary feel better.

Kiko ran between their legs, yapping as they took out the suitcase and started packing.

“Can I take him?”

Amber nodded. “Yes, we’ve talked about it. We’ve thought it would be good for you to have him, provided that the school lets you have him.”

“I’ll ask Izzy, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

They packed everything that Clary could think of and closed the suitcase. Amber was a little teary-eyed. Clary didn’t know what to do really, so she just hugged her tightly for a moment.

“I’ll come back anyway. There sure are vacations. And I’ll make sure to get a phone that can call you the second I can,” she promised.

They walked back down the stairs where Isabelle was chatting with William. William looked like he was only understanding part of the things she was saying. Amber cleared her throat.

"Clary’s ready,” she said.

Izzy turned around and grinned. She looked much better this morning than she had when she’d fallen asleep. She wasn’t pale anymore, she looked healthy. She wasn’t wearing her royal clothing anymore, nor was she in her fairy form.

She wore a burnt orange jumpsuit, nice and fluid with a v cleavage and thin straps. She had a broad, large, Egyptian-looking necklace around her neck, ornate with orange, gold and blue stones, that Clary recognized from the first outfit she’d seen her in. It was probably something to do with her royal status. Crown jewels maybe.

Clary smiled back at her.

“You look better,” Clary said softly.

“I just needed some sleep and I’m all new,” Izzy chuckled, waving it off. Clary had no way to know if she was still in pain or not. Whatever she was feeling, Izzy was hiding it well.

William sighed. “What will I tell people when they ask where you are?”

Clary hummed. “A boarding school out of state. An Art Academy… prestigious and secretive. That would probably shut them up.”

Her father nodded and came to hug her again. She let go of the suitcase again and hugged him tightly.

“You be careful, alright?” He asked.

“I promise.”

Clary and her parents bid her goodbyes. Clary tried not to focus on it much. She would be back. It wasn’t forever. She hated goodbyes anyway, and she was kinda tearful and hated the idea of being this emotional in front of her new friend, who seemed to be quite the master of her own emotional responses.

Once she was done hugging her parents and Kiko had settled in her arms, Izzy looked at her and nodded. “Let’s go. We don’t want to miss on the welcoming ceremony.”

She took the ring off of her finger and it extended into the scepter again. Clary was somewhat started to get used to that particular trick. Isabelle took a deep breath and brandished the scepter.

“Solaria! To Magix!” She shouted, and a bright light engulfed Clary, Kiko and her. She had time to somewhat wave goodbye to her parents for one last time before she felt herself pulled downwards. Clary closed her eyes firmly.

It was a stronger pull than the one she’d felt in the postcard and it made her almost nauseous. It was like being distended, stretched in length in a way. Kiko whined a little.

With her eyes closed, she wasn’t able to tell when they were done with the transport. All she felt was the sudden lack of pulling, and the ground she landed on.

She opened her eyes again. Izzy was standing over her, holding out her hand with a smile. “The first time is always a bit difficult,” she chuckled and Clary rolled her eyes, taking her hand.

The grass was deep and soft, and Clary wondered how Izzy managed to stay upright when walking on it with her uncomfortable-looking high heels. Maybe it was magic. Clary was very glad to be wearing combat boots.

They were back around the area where the postcard had taken them, but this time, they were walking out of it. Izzy was leading the way towards the lavender and pink castle, her steps firm.

Clary sighed for a second. She looked behind her, where she’d landed, where she somehow hoped she would see the line between her old life and her new life. But there wasn’t any line or any doorway to Gardenia. The door had closed already. She’d already chosen.

“Come on!” Izzy called. “We don’t want to be late.”

Clary swallowed and turned towards the castle again. Kiko ran up towards Izzy, sniffing everything he could sniff. Izzy turned around and looked at Clary, holding out her hand again for her to take.

Clary took it.

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

In the next chapter, at Alfea, Clary will discover new life and amazing new friends. But, in the Magic Dimension, she will also meet the witches from the school of Cloud Tower, the first problem she will have to deal with. Peace in Magix will be threatened.

#clizzy #malec #winxaufic #shwinxau #fic #shadowhunters #winxclub

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theonyxpath · 7 years ago

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Aaaah, what does Jon Snow know, anyway?

(The answer is “nothing”.)

But we know that we’ve themed our Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition Kickstarter to change from season to season, week to week. This week, we’re finishing up Winter, and next up is Spring and all the growth that promises.

But right now, Winter rules and with it a post-Thanksgiving sense of lingering thankfulness.

Maybe it was attending PAX Unplugged in my hometown of Philly a couple of weeks ago just two blocks from the hobby store where I bought the original D&D Monster Manual, then a wonderful family Thanksgiving, and then getting back together with an old friend and gaming buddy from our college years after ten years yesterday, but I’m in the mood to tell you about how I got into this tabletop gaming thing of ours while expressing some thanks.

(Feel free to skip to THE BLURBS! and the Updates, if anything pre-White Wolf causes your eyes to glaze over. This is pre-history, dude.)

Half Damned art by Michele Giorgi

Here’s the preamble: I started serious tabletop gaming in my sophomore year of HS (Central HS in Philly, class 239) by walking into the Strategy & Tactics Society where about a dozen guys were playing board games like Squad Leader and Wooden Ships and Iron Men.

You want to see where checking off heatsinks in BattleTech came from? That’s your game; you checked off hull, rigging, etc. Also probably influenced Star Fleet Battles.

Anyway, I was amazed because I had never met anyone who wanted to play Avalon Hill and other tactical boardgames. Besides myself. So I stayed and played, and within a couple of weeks I heard that Robert was coming back, and he was ready to DM.

I had no idea who this guy was, or what a DM was, but this was apparently big news to the group who were into this new style of gaming called Dungeons and Dragons. A bunch of the other gamers in the club were not happy with it; it wasn’t real gaming, they said. Apparently, we had all been waiting for Robert to get his hands on a book of new rules called Blackmoor. Sure, whatever you say.

Well, I did sit in on the session when Robert returned, and while my Halfling Thief was hardly an original fantasy character concept, I was enthralled by this combination of improv theatre and wargaming where I could discover the world that started on sheets of graph paper that Robert scribbled on in response to our questions – a tree here, a pool of mud there – but was so much bigger and richer in my mind.

And Robert was amazing. The way he worked with each player to include their ideas, but kept his conception of this world of his constant, was like watching a narrative grow. Like sitting next to Moorcock, Tolkien, or Leiber, and suggesting ideas. I didn’t know anything like this existed! So my first Thanks go to Robert, my first DM, who inspired me to start my own campaign world not six months later.

A bunch of us took turns DMing as Robert faded away towards graduation, and not just D&D, but Boot Hill and Traveller as well. How we laughed as our intricately planned space military characters died in character creation! Good times.

Enemy Action art by Andrew Trabbold

But I DM’d D&D specifically, and began a consistent world that I fined-tuned over the Summer vacation, so that when we resumed playing in our club after school, and I had enough players that we could divide them into the good, neutral, and evil, teams, they all started in The City With No Name that sat astride the east/west and north/south trade routes nexus – and their adventures affected the city and the world.

Two years the gaming club guys played in that same world, many of them running through multiple characters. I graduated, went to art school twenty minutes from high school, so I returned to DM for the club some afternoons. Many of the folks who learned tabletop RPGs from playing these sessions became friends and we got together outside of the club, especially as they graduated and went to college too.

Meanwhile, I started DMing, same world, for a group of students at art school and their friends once a week. A bunch tried it, thought it was fun (or not) but didn’t keep up with it. But a core group loved it, and became the nucleus for a weekly gaming session that went on for twelve years. (I did not run all of those games, and we did miss some weeks, but it was mostly my D&D world).

And here is the next Thanks: I’m thankful that our group was mixed genders and races and that there was never an issue with prejudice within our group. There were affairs and jealousy and grudges and other human interactions, but for whatever reason I was lucky to have a group that saw this weird hobby as something that everyone could partake in and play in whatever way they felt good playing.

We had Mickey with her crafted storylines for her characters like Kwik the duck monk (Mistress of Kwak-Fu), and the brutish DW the half-ogre and his evil intelligent two-handed sword who did his thinking for him. Danilo with his “what’s next?” questions, and chaotic characters like Elmer who reincarnated into a troll. Jodie, who read every D&D book and magazine she got her hands on and knew all the gaming tricks for Yain Yarwa (Y-Squared) elven thief/assassin, and Isis, illusionist were-tiger. Chaka with his intricate strategies and plans that could take months to come to fruition, and Ed, who wrote up our sessions as chapters in a novel featuring his character Farcist, half-orc renegade.

In fact, our group only stopped playing because I moved to Georgia in 1992 to take over all Art Direction at White Wolf. We had been to hell and back together in our personal lives, and except for one guy who deserted us during those times, the group stuck together. When I moved, they were the ones who drove the rented vans with all my worldly goods down to GA.

Which brings me to now and several decades later. Because as of last year, most of the old crew have started to get together once a quarter. Sometimes for game night, sometimes for a movie, once for a wedding; always so we can talk with each other as only old friends can. Our kids are heading out into high school and college or into their own lives, and there is time again to get together with those people whose characters were once an adventuring party, but whose real lives have bonded even more tightly. My third Thanks goes to them.

So fourth Thanks: for forty years (this month) of this RPG hobby that set me on a career path and allowed me to make friends all the way through those times. My good gaming friends from high school and college and my WW friends and all the people I’ve befriended since then. Folks I’m simply glad to see at conventions, folks on-line, and those who have stood with me facing the hordes of hell.

Kind of getting inspired here; I may even start running my D&D world again…

Many Worlds. One Path.

BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Almost halfway through our KS campaign!

Our story so far: We funded in about a day, and have already blown through nine Stretch Goals and went past 200% funding before last weekend! The goals include the two novellas: Autumn and Winter, an art budget increase, two new sections for the Kith and Kin book that we’re calling the Book of Kiths, the first sections for the CtL2 Companion: Entitlements and Freeholds, and we added another 2 PDFs to our CtL 1st Edition PDF reward. And we’re just on the verge of adding another Kith section to that book!

We’ve also revealed excerpts with notes from the developers, and half the book text has been shown to backers so far.

Come along as the seasons change and we reveal the next chapters of the core book text to backers!

Next, our Trinity Continuum Kickstarter will start in early January!

ON SALE NOW:

As we try and find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking! Right now, they’re working on implementing multi-dice and die previews in the store, after adding in a lot of requested upgrades and tweaks, which is going along nicely but is a ton of work. Here are the links for the Apple and Android versions:

http://ift.tt/2zjnD0c

http://ift.tt/2hhT5Fk

Three different screenshots, above.

(The Solar Anima special Dice)

ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

We’re delighted to announce the opening of our ebook stores on Amazon and Barnes & Noble! You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble). Our initial selection includes these fiction anthologies:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Endless Ages Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Ascension: Truth Beyond Paradox (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Curse of the Blue Nile (Kindle, Nook)

Beast: The Primordial: The Primordial Feast Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

And here are six more fiction books:

Vampire: The Masquerade: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Poison Tree (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Songs of the Sun and Moon: Tales of the Changing Breeds (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: The Strix Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Forsaken: The Idigam Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Awakening: The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Andand six more more:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Beast Within Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: W20 Cookbook (Kindle, Nook)

Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Tales of the Dark Eras (Kindle, Nook)

Promethean: The Created: The Firestorm Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Demon: The Descent: Demon: Interface (Kindle, Nook)

And even more books are now on Amazon and the Nook store!:

Scarred Lands: Death in the Walled Warren (Kindle, Nook)

V20 Dark Ages: Cainite Conspiracies (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Strangeness in the Proportion (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: Silent Knife (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Dawn of Heresies (Kindle, Nook)

OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there!

http://ift.tt/2w0aaEW

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://ift.tt/1ZlTT6z

You can now order wave 2 of our Deluxe and Prestige print overrun books, including Deluxe Mage 20th Anniversary, and Deluxe V20 Dark Ages! And Screens…so many Screens!

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://ift.tt/1pOsnTb

DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

This Wednesday, we unveil Vampire: The Requiem 2e‘s Half-Damned as an Advance PDF on DTRPG.com!

I love her, she’s family, but I don’t love what she is.

– Antonio Ramírez, dhampir

This book includes:

• An exploration of what it means to be one of the Half-Damned, dhampir, revenants or ghouls.

• Mechanics for creating Half-Damned characters.

• Information for creating and running chronicles using the various Half-Damned character types, both with vampires and alone.

• Information on Half-Damned antagonists for vampire chronicles.

Legacy of Lies, the V20 Dark Ages Jumpstart, goes undead in PDF and physical book PoD versions on DTRPG:

http://ift.tt/2k981ql

TWO PRINCES. BITTER RIVALS. AND A COTERIE CAUGHT BETWEEN THEM.

Marcus Verus, the vampiric Prince of Chester, secretly prepares to go into torpor. Should his plans be made public, the Prince knows the wolves — both real and imagined — would launch an attack, threatening all within his domain.

That’s where you come in.

Legacy of Lies includes:

Basic rules for players and Storytellers

Introduction to the Vampire: The Masquerade Dark Ages setting

Introductory adventure

Characters for players and Storytellers

Appearing on DriveThruRPG is the Advance PDF for Arms of the Chosen for Exalted 3rd Edition! http://ift.tt/2A0ga4f

Take up the panoply of legendary heroes and lost ages, and awaken the world-shaking might of their Evocations. Before the dawn of time, the Exalted wielded god-metal blades to cast down the makers of the universe. In an ancient epoch of forgotten glories, Creation’s greatest artificers forged unimaginable wonders and miracle-machines.

Now, in the Age of Sorrows, kingdoms go to war over potent artifacts, scavenger princes risk everything to uncover relics of the past, and the Exalted forge great arms and armor on the anvil of legend. These treasures are yours to master.

Discover the mystical power of the five magical materials and the secrets of creating your own Evocations. Wield weapons of fabled might and don the armor of mythic heroes, making their puissance your own. Claim Creation’s wonders: the miraculous tools of the Chosen, living automatons, flying machines, hearthstones, and more. And unleash the mighty warstriders, titanic god-engines of conquest and devastation, to once more shake Creation with their footfalls.

NOW on DriveThruCards, the Pugmire Card Set One (Trick, Condition, and Initiative Cards) are helpful visual aids for your Pugmire gaming fun! http://ift.tt/2zC3kuY

Enhance your Pugmire game with this set of player aid cards! These helpful visual aids make your Pugmire gaming easier! Lay them out next to your sheet for ease of reference during play, and to keep track of what you can do, what affects your character, and when they get to act.

Set one contains one card each of every trick in the game, as well as every condition. It also has a set of initiative cards to track player and non-player character actions during combat. Sets two and three (covering artisan and shepherd spells) coming soon!

What dark secrets do the eldest vampires hold? Find out in Thousand Years of Night for Vampire: The Requiem! PDF and physical book PoD versions available on DriveThruRPG.com. http://ift.tt/2sV8lZR

You may think that with a multitude of people coming, going, dying and running away, we’d be tired, done, or ready to give up. Instead, I find myself restless, looking for the next thing. There’s always a next thing, and I for one am not yet ready to die.

– Elder Kincaid, Daeva Crone

This book includes:

• Detailed instructions on creating elder vampires, including how to base chronicles around them

• A look into the lives of elders, how they spend their nights, who they work with, and why including their roles in both their clans and covenants

• New Devotions, Merits, and Rituals for elder vampires

• The kinds of creatures that pose a threat to elder vampires, including Inamorata, Lamia, Sons of Phobos, a new elder conspiracy, and more!

Is a life of running and hiding a life worth living? We say yes. There’s always something between the running and the hiding, and those moments of grace make it all worthwhile.

The Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology is a perfect companion piece to Changeling: The Lost, 2nd Edition. These stories spin tales of the Lost, of those abducted and enslaved by fairies. Those who escaped, but whose captors will stop at nothing to find them. These fairies summon forth the Huntsmen, primordial hunters who understand nothing but pursuit and capture. The Huntsmen are unstoppable monsters, and the Lost can only look to each other for respite, rare comfort, and rarer trust.

The Hedge has parted and you can get the Advance PDF of The Huntsmen Chronicle Fiction Anthology for Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition at DTRPG.com! http://ift.tt/2z4uZnU

A Land Where Legends Walk

Drawing enthusiastically on Greek mythology, the revised and re-imagined Scarred Lands nonetheless retains its place as a modern fantasy RPG setting. This is a world shaped by gods and monsters, and only the greatest of heroes can expect to be counted among them. The most populous continent of Scarn, Ghelspad, plays host to vast unexplored regions, hides unsolved riddles from ancient cultures, and taunts adventures with the promise of undiscovered riches hidden among the ruins of older civilizations.

Yet the myths of the Scarred Lands are relatively recent events. The effects of the Titanswar still ripple through the world, and the heroines and villains of many of these stories are part of living memory, if not still living.

The Award-Winning Fantasy Setting Returns

Scarred Lands has been a favorite fantasy setting since the release of the Creature Collection for the d20 System in 2000. In subsequent years, over 40 titles were published for Scarred Lands, making it one of the most fully supported fantasy RPG settings ever and the premiere product line of Sword & Sorcery Studios.

Available in both 5th Edition and Pathfinder compatible versions! PDF and PoD formats available NOW!

http://ift.tt/2fEO9YJ

http://ift.tt/2fELqyx

Heroes, Villains, and Others in Between!

This tome is a revision of the original book by the same title, originally published for use with 3rd edition rules for the world’s most popular roleplaying game. In this revised edition of The Wise & the Wicked, all the same characters have returned (and we’ve added some new ones, too!), for use with the Scarred Lands Player’s Guide.

Champions of Gods and Titans

The Wise & the Wicked introduces a rogue’s gallery of the Scarred Lands’ movers and shakers, characters who carry out the will of the gods or the fallen titans. These non-player characters can be friends, enemies, or simply convenient resources for the player characters in your game.

Inside, find villains such as King Virduk of Calastia, the Black Dragon, along with his wife, the beautiful (and black-hearted) Queen Geleeda; the Grand Vizier to King Virduk, the wicked warrior-mage Anteas; and the sinister general of Virduk’s northern armies, Archduke Traviak the Steel-Fisted. At the other end of the spectrum, meet the gracious Lady Ariniel, the Swan Knight, champion of Madriel; Kimer the Shatterer, bearer of the Earth Sword of Scarn and tenacious foe of the titanspawn of the north; and King Thain the Just, the Aleking, ruler of Burok Torn. And many others beside!

Here you’ll find a fascinating compendium of characters from the Scarred Lands, but easily transported into campaigns set elsewhere. In addition, find multiple appendices full of new magic items and artifacts, class archetypes and prestige classes, new feats, new creatures and races, and more.

Available in Pathfinder and 5th Edition versions! PDF and PoD formats available NOW!

http://ift.tt/2zdVHXS

http://ift.tt/2zeEpd8

CONVENTIONS!

This weekend, Matthew Dawkins, Dave Brookshaw, and Eddy Webb are going to be at Dragonmeet in London. https://www.dragonmeet.co.uk/ Expect plenty of playful class warfare as these three mix it up, represent Onyx Path, and generally redefine the term “hooligans”.

Planning ahead for 2018, we’re heading back to Midwinter Game Convention in Milwaukee, January 11-14, where we’re going to be bringing a big crew of many of your favorite Onyx Path designers and we’ll be running demos and making some special announcements at the show! http://midwintergamingconvention.com

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (projects in bold have changed status since last week): No changes this week.

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Gods and Monsters (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Redlines

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Rulebook (TCFBtS!)

Second Draft

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Night Horrors: The Tormented (Promethean: The Created 2nd Edition)

Monarchies of Mau (Monarchies of Mau)

Development

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

SL Ring of Spiragos (Pathfinder – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Ring of Spiragos (5e – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Scion: Origin (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

GtS Geist 2e core (Geist: the Sin-Eaters Second Edition)

WW Manuscript Approval:

Editing:

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers (Pugmire)

Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Kithbook Boggans (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Post-Editing Development:

Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

Indexing:

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Cavaliers of Mars – New art getting assigned.

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Scion Origins

Ring of Spiragos

Changeling: the Lost 2

Trinity Continuum – Assigned art notes for pieces for KS.

Pugmire – Vinsen’s Tomb

Ex3 Dragon Blooded

Pugmire – Pan’s Explorer’s Guide (or whatever) – Sending notes for this over to Laubenstein, Syme, Loboyko, and Alida this week as soon as I finish going through them.

Marketing Stuff

In Layout

Beast PG

Pugmire/Scarred Lands Community Content – working on the logo.

Book of Freeholds – To Mark

DtD Enemy Action – With Josh

Pugmire Fetch Quest – Working on sample designs for more playtesting.

Proofing

Wraith 20 – Final layout proof to WW.

W20 Changing Ways – First proof.

At Press

Beckett Screen – Shipped to shipper.

Scarred Land PGs & Wise and the Wicked PF & 5e – To fulfillment shipper. PDF and PoD physical book versions on sale at DTRPG.

Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition) – Deluxe Edition cover and Screen in the works. Waiting for Deluxe cover and the Screen proofs.

Prince’s Gambit – Print and Play version updated. Getting specs from printer.

M20 Cookbook – Files uploaded and processing.

CtL Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology – Layout waiting for errata.

V20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary– Inputting errata.

C20 Ready Made Characters – Ending Backer PDF errata gathering.

Ex 3 Arms of the Chosen – Advance PDF on sale on DTRPG, gathering errata.

Pugmire Artisan Cards – PoD proofs ordered.

Pugmire Shepherd Cards – PoD proofs ordered.

Pentex Indoctrination Manual – Being sent to backers this week.

VtR Half Damned – Advance PDF on sale this Wednesday on DTRPG.

TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: To reference last week’s TRTC, the new version of MST3K has been picked up for a second season! (While you may think this is just a casual aside that speaks of another’s cultish nerd interest…consider how interested a person might be in a revival of a project with a hard-core group of vocal fans, if that person revives game lines with hard-core vocal fans on a regular basis. They did a great job at it, there is always much to learn from that.)

#Onyx Path Publishing

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