#dd barristan

[fuzzy-set]

Alhazred my beloved

[werepaladin]

old man yaoi compilation btw. if you even care

[joz-yyh]

To victory! ✨ 🏆 ✨

[thesugarhole]

Man-At-ATMs

[mortalorder]

“My lawyer needs drugs”

-my friend, using Paracelsus to heal Barristan (whom he named “Barrister”) during his first playthrough of Darkest Dungeon 2

[flhoarder]

Red hook designing DD1: Our golden boy needs a body guard who can get repeatedly beaten and kicked so our boy doesn’t have to, let’s drop in a metal bucket to protect him

Red hook after DD1: shit Reymas is a thing now. Reynauld punching above his weight, we can’t have that

Red hook designing DD2: we’ve learnt our lesson let’s hide our boy behind a tanky grandpa this time and never mention the metal bucket ever again

[harmetist]

D D 2ㅤM A N - A T - A R M S – H E R OㅤP A T H S

Pride - more devastating than the horrors of a hundred campaigns.

[aesolerin]

i doodled a Beast Barristan! i definitely consider myself more of a writer than an artist, but i think for some past and future Beasts i'm gonna need something more than just words for my mental image.

i'll doodle the rest of the Beasts, and also attach them to the fic itself!

[trbotunnel]

this game rules except when the rng fucks me over :)

this was supposed to be a poster but i felt like turning it into an oldschool ttrpg module/retro game module because the game lends itself well to that. shoutout to vermis for inspo fr!!!

[liches-covered-in-lich]

@pawacelsus

To die, to sleep— No more—and by a sleep to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to. ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d.

[snep-arts]

silly guys why do you have those

[fuzzy-set]

ddmonth day 15: guard

[werepaladin]

he lives in my brain rent free

[evatethysquid]

Day One- Sparring ⚔️

[mortalorder]

I told my friend that Reynauld is a known kleptomaniac and we’re incorporating lore into his darkest dungeon 2 playthrough

[bi-naesala]

Dismas and lovers

12. Man-at-arms

It is truly incredible how quickly the tides of battle can turn: even the most sure victory can become a grueling defeat, if one’s careless.

Dismas has always considered himself quick on his feet: he advances, ready to strike his enemy with his knife, only to fall back in the ranks to finish them off with a gunshot, forward and back, forward and back, never faltering; it’s a strategy he’s always considered infallible.

In hindsight, he brought this upon himself with his overconfidence…

He swears he’s better than this, but he isn’t exactly in the most ideal situation: he’s been unexpectedly dragged ahead by one of those cultist witches, who summoned a whole tentacle from nothing that he hasn’t been able to dodge. Usually this wouldn’t be a problem: he’d shoot whatever is in front of him, point-blank, and then he’d make a retreat, simple and clean as always, but something goes horribly wrong because he stumbles, and before he can catch his balance, another cultist – one with long metal claws attached to his hands – lounges at him.

They say your life flashes before your eyes the moments before you die, but that isn’t what happens to Dismas: a sense of both terror and relief washes over him as he watches, helplessly, the claws getting closer and closer. “This is it,” he thinks, much more calmly than one would expect; a fitting end, for someone like him. At least they’ll say that he died fighting terrors and monsters, instead of being executed for his crimes…

He closes his eyes, expecting the final blow to come soon, but it doesn’t. He gathers enough courage to open his eyes, but he soon wishes he hadn’t: there’s a reason why he hasn’t been slain yet, that reason being that Barristan has managed to push his way forward and has taken the hit for him, despite him not faring much better than Dismas. His armor, already damaged from the previous fight, can’t stand the brute force the cultist is applying behind his attack, and breaks, as the thing slashes him right on the chest, blood spilling everywhere.

Dismas is still frozen in place when he falls to the ground, unable to hold his own weight. He should do something – help him! Help him! - but he keeps standing like an idiot as the cultist raises his claw once again, only to be hit in the eye by an arrow, which sends him stumbling a few steps back. That’s what snaps Dismas out of his useless state; he turns around just a moment to see his companions, Missandei and Tardif, ready for the counteroffensive.

They have to end this battle, and they have to do it quickly.

Their shared resolve, which has only grown stronger at the direness of their situation, manages to grant them victory, but there’s no time to celebrate: Barristan needs their immediate help.

Missandei and Dismas rush to him, while Tardif keeps watch, looking out for any possible ambush – they won’t be caught by surprise again.

It takes both of them to be able to turn the man around, moving him to lay him down against a wall. He’s still breathing, but barely; they absolutely need to stop the bleeding, or else the chances he’s going to make it out alive are less than none.

“Press it down,” Missandei orders him, motioning to his wounds with her head. Dismas doesn’t make her repeat it twice – he’s not one to be bossed around so easily, but he’ll make an exception this time.

“No need…” Barristan interjects – so he is still awake! – but of course Dismas ignores him.

“You idiot, you absolute fool!” he can’t help but to shout, now that he knows that the other can hear him, all his worry warping into rage. “What in the bloody hells were you thinking?!”

“Better me than you,” Barristan forces himself to reply. “I’m old, you’re young…”

Dismas can’t help but to scoff at those words; first of all, he’s only young comparatively to him – he’s obviously not in his prime anymore – and second of all, that doesn’t mean anything! They’re already spread thin, there’s no need to lower their ranks even further, no matter how heroic of a death this can be; even then, there’s nothing heroic about dying like an idiot, or at least this is what Dismas thinks.

Of course, he has a far more selfish reason why he doesn’t want Barristan to die: over the course of the months they’ve spent fighting side by side, he’s come to care for him, even… No, he’s too old to use the word “love” – should’ve given it more thought when he was younger – but that’s how he feels.

In Barristan, he’s found a kin spirit, someone that understands how it feels to live the better part of one’s life with shame and guilt; he too, just like Dismas, seeks redemption, but this isn’t the way to obtain it!

Dismas curses, desperately tapping on the wound while Missandei gets the gauze ready.

“Don’t you dare leave me, you hear me?!”

Light almighty, he feels so dumb acting like this, but no matter how much he tries to keep his composure, he can’t help it.

From the way she’s looking at him, Missandei must be judging him – and not well – but he couldn’t care less.

If Barristan dies here, he won’t be able to forgive himself. Damned idiot, he shouldn’t have taken the hit for him!

This time, the old man doesn’t respond with words, he just chuckles, whatever that means. Is he losing his mind? He must be, because there’s nothing funny about this situation, nothing at all.

Dismas tries not to let it get to him and keep a calm demeanor – as calm as he can manage anyway – knowing that it won’t do anyone good if he starts losing his mind as well. He follows Missandei’s instructions on how to remove what remains of Barristan’s armor – he wouldn’t even know where to begin with those things – and helps her roll the bandages around his wound, keeping it tight enough to stop the blood, but not too much to cut his breath off.

If they manage to save Barristan from death, he swears he’s going to go to church every day to thank the Light for this miracle – he won’t, he obviously won’t, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

After what feels like hours – and after much more blood is spilled – they have finally finished.

In the process, Barristan has lost consciousness, but they can see him breathing deeply, which means that they must’ve stabilized him well enough. What a relief.

There’s still the question of getting out of there alive, but if they do, Dismas could try to do something about these feelings of his – Barristan deserves to know, no matter if they’re requited or not.

After this scare, he feels bolder; he always thought it was too late for him, that love wasn’t something that was ever going to have a place in his life, but maybe he’s wrong, maybe it’s not too late, but he has to act, or else he’ll lose this chance too.