#fey magic

[qwrite]

Trying to work on the next chapter of my Drust AU, ‘ In Pursuit’. The mix between wonder, plot, and spooky fey based horror is fun but sometimes difficult to maintain.

No updates yet, but I hadn’t posted this one to tumblr yet, so now it’s in the ether.

And I know, I know the slow burn is killing me too- and I’m in control ( supposedly).

[wannabe-british-fangirl]

~ books read in 2023 ~

#21: The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones

The farmer had four ordinary children, which was why the magic of the fifth came as a surprise.

Rating: 5/5

[author-a-holmes]

Happy StS! What is your favourite bit of Changeling worldbuilding?

Heya lovely! Sorry for the delay, as always I'm terrible at answering asks in a timely manner.

And this is a great question! My favourite part of Changeling's Worldbuilding is actually something that, I don't think, is ever going to make it into the book and it's how the Fey Realm of Arbaon was created.

Bridget Elestov had the power to travel between locations by turning a tree into a portal. She could connect between trees of the same type so Oak-to-Oak for example.

When the kavians first emerged and began attacking the Fey, they decimated fey numbers and Bridget Elestov gathered the remaining Fey and asked them to join their power to hers via telepathy to inhance her abilites. It had never been tried before, but the fey were desperate and on the brink of extinction.

Bridget theorised that she could use her enhanced power to create a portal to a realm of her own imagination, as long as the realm contained a tree of the type she was travelling through.

It succeeded, but when they arrived it was a formless, shapeless, realm. White and grey fog that went on endlessly. But as the Fey arrived, the sheer strain that the journey had put Bridget through caused her to bleed from the nose and eyes and as it fell into the formless smoke beneath their feet, the realm took the knowledge of the mortal realm from Bridget Elestov's very blood and created a mimicry of the natural world around them.

The Elestov Line was given the title of Queen of the Fey, and is intricately connected to control of the realm. Arbaon doesn't have natural seasons, but the weather changes at the whim of the Fey Queen in power. Plants grow perfectly healthy, gemstones form without flaws, and the realm expands to support the number of fey living within it.

But once you reach the edges of the realm, the land drops off into an endless shroud of nothing, like staring at a sea of clouds without end.

Disclaimer: Answered August 10th. Scheduled for September 4th

[arrogantshrew]

✨finding loopholes in fey magic to promote your terrorist agenda✨

i know we all hate jkr but JUST LISTEN because i’ve just had what must be the most galaxy brain thought of my scholarly career.

everyone was too afraid to say voldemort’s name, right? and it’s well established that that’s fuckin’ stupid, but what if it’s not just stupid? what if it’s actively detrimental? by fey rules giving someone your name gives them power over you. everyone in the wizarding world refuse to claim his name, and therefore forfeit that power.

but it goes deeper. voldemort is not his real name. his real name is tom riddle. so consider this: he not only created a freaky ass name to spark fear, but also to protect himself from the ancient magic associated with giving someone your name. he refuses to give anyone else the ability to name him, and therefore ensures that he enters every fight beholden to no one. 

words are magic. and, by magic rules, it’s true that the more people claim that word the more power they give it. but everyone got it wrong. saying his name wouldn’t have given voldemort power, it would have given them power. 

P.S. it’s worth noting that everyone who had the courage to say voldemort made a major difference in the war effort. additionally, everyone who knew his true name (and sincerely identified him with it) didn’t just make a difference, they fucked shit up.

P.P.S. this gives extra meaning to his dramatic name reveal in chamber of secrets. he’s basically saying, “i’m so confident that i’m gonna win, i’ll even give you my name.”

P.P.P.S. it also gives extra meaning to voldemort’s disdain for his father’s muggle last name. voldemort’s name holds his history, it identifies every aspect of who he is. His father’s name encapsulated that reality, the reality of his “impure blood,” and that’s why he tried to kill it. he wanted to kill that part of himself and absolve himself of his blood status. otherwise he could never be a god in his own eyes--only a bastard and a mudblood. 

[7lizardsinacoat]

SAY HI, PACK OF PIXIES!

Every time I rewatch A Court of Fey and Flowers (or let's be real, any campaign Aabria Iyengar is in or runs), I had more and more wanted to paint her. So I did. Truly one of my favorite and most inspirational DMs, and a fashion icon to boot.

[haleyusesherwords]

Aabria is such a visionary with how she uses the dome because she does revolutionary things that seem so obvious in retrospect.

Of course you can branch out into new RPG systems

Of course you can project on the walls

Of course you can use those projections as an integral part of storytelling

Of course you can make puzzle battle maps

Continuously in awe because each time she does this, it’s impossible to imagine how it hasn’t been done before. I bow down before Aabria the absolute production design queen

[tk-sketches]

I heard the most common way to acquire a captured fairy is to buy one off another fae

[supergraphicultramoderngirl]

aabria iyengar. you agree

[respectissexy]

I really do love Dimension 20 in part because "me and the bad bitch I pulled by being Autistic" is one of my favorite ship dynamics and it is. The dominant ship dynamic on Dimension 20.

[haaam-guuuurl]

[workingwhileidream]

Okay Burrow's End had me thinking some thoughts... So here are my favorite Dimension 20 moments that rotate like a rotisserie chicken in my brain (in no particular order other than the order I thought if them).

- Riz goes into the butthole of the Corn Ooze Monster (Fantasy High). The first absolutely insane shenanigans move anyone makes on D20, setting the tone the show will have forever.

- Raphaniel kills Queen Pamelia (Ravening War). I think I saw Brennan's soul leave his body briefly when he got that How Do You Want To Do This from Matt. Time was an absolute flat circle that day.

- Hank convinces Brennan to let him role savvy instead of sneak (Mentopolis). Hank is one of the most famous content creators, having him on the show was phenomenal to begin with. Then right out of the gate, he pulls this move in his first episode. And it just works. Hilarious, instantly iconic.

- Jet Dies (A Crown of Candy). When Lapin dies, it is shocking but I wasn't attached to him as a character. Lapin was a bit antagonistic and his death happens early in the season. On the other hand, Jet is instantly likeable. Emily and Siobhan are amazing as siblings, their performances this campaign are some of my favorites. I have siblings and I am very close to them, so this hit me like a ton of bricks.

- The entire epilogue of Burrow's End. "Are you pitching and Air Bud ending?" is one of the instant hall of fame quotes from this show. I started crying I was laughing so hard.

- Ylfa's bottleneck and the TPK (Neverafter). There are so many close calls for total party kills in Dimension 20 history, but this is where it finally happens and it's only 3 episodes in. I was on edge, expecting another TPK at any turn, for the rest of the campaign.

- 3 nat one initiative rolls for the battle that literally opens the season (A Starstruck Odyssey). The beginning of a new season is always full of excitement. This season was extra special, having everyone back in the dome after the pandemic and the season being based off Brennan's Mom's comics. The zoom energy is still in the air and I still think about this season opener a lot.

- Mother Timothy Goose breaks Snow White's concentration with a cantrip (Neverafter). Only Ally Beardsley could and we all damn well know it. Still didn't stop me from being so far in disbelief that all I could do is laugh.

- Hob's "You will never know another lonely day" speech to Rue (A Court of Fey and Flowers). I will still cry about this if I think about it for too long. Rue and Hob's romance is the heart of this season to me. I won't be over it ever.

- Gertrude convinces Nyruth to give the Questing Queens very powerful boons after the Queens tried to rob them only a few hours earlier (Dungeons and Drag Queens). The fact that this season exists drives a level of serotonin into my brain that is unimaginable. This is the definition of a big swing and when Bob rolls well, Brennan has no other choice than to honor it. This is one of the moments I have made a meme of. I cannot wait for season 2.

- Wuuvy shows up to the duel and she did not come to play (A Court of Fey and Flowers). Aabria has talked about how Wuuvy is one of her favorite NPCs and I feel the same. Wuuvy and Rue's relationship has such a great arc and this moment is so pivotal.

- Fabian's no good very bad day (Fantasy High Sophomore Year). An iconic moment in D20 history that was truly wild to watch live. For everything to go so fantastically bad for Fabian and Lou was unprecedented. There is a reason why people still talk about this moment to this day.

- Amathar survives being pushed off the castle (A Crown of Candy). Brennan tried to kill Lou so many times in this campaign. I really thought Brennan had gotten him with this one, my stomach sunk. But Lou pulls it out and Amathar lives once again.

- Pib plays "Smoke on the Water" (Neverafter). "I stepped out to play 'Smoke on the Water' " is also a hall of fame quote to me. This list could be all Pib moments if I'm being honest, he's my favorite Zac character. And the fact that Zac doesn't roll well makes this moment funnier to me.

- Buddy Bear gets planted with the All Blossom (Dungeons and Drag Queens). Jujubee and Brennan owe me a therapy session for this one. I sobbed. My cat is my baby and I will be ruined the day she leaves me, so I get it. I really do.

- "Eat your dice, Brennan" (Fantasy High Sophomore Year). A great bit made physically possible by Siobhan. I hope Siobhan gives him gummy dice or something like that so that Brennan can continue to eat his dice for Junior Year.

- Orange Top Hat Fairy (Neverafter). It's a horror season and the cast is doing bits about how hot a mini is the entire finale and the Adventuring Party that followed. I felt the stress and off the walls energy through the screen. The Smooth Criminal pin was the first piece of Dimension 20 merch I bought.

- Viola's epic takedown of Phoebe (Burrow's End). Watching Rashawn absolutely crush it her first time in the dome was amazing. I loved Viola from the jump, her arc was so satisfying and fun to watch. Also the idea of a tiny stoat kicking a gun just the right way to get it to fire is hilarious. No notes other than please have Rashawn come back on every season she possibly can.

- Evan Kelmp warns the Rosemont student not to duel him (Misfits and Magic). Brennan's deadpan warning matched with the reactions of the other players and Aabria really make this scene. An underrated Brennan moment for sure.

- Stacey Fakename turns out to be real (Mentopolis). This was such a good reoccurring bit, so to have Stacey be real at the end of the story was too funny. In a season of bits, tropes, and puns - this one has the most payoff to me and is definitely my favorite.

[nanaluvbug]

yeah i like Dimension 20 a normal amount, why do you ask? patreon * twitch * shop  

[intrepidbeans]

[birdsongisland]

Id : a rendered digital painting of binx and andhera on a stone building and vegetation landscape. Binx is standing on the steps of large stone stairs and leaning over the stone railing with a soft smile to tie a piece of yellow fabric on andhera's arm. She has big brown moth wings with a golden key design and moth antennas over their chin length hair. She is wearing a yellow and cream dress, with puffy sleeves and a slit in the cream body of the dress showing the yellow underskirt. Many purple and red lost objects are sewn onto the dress such as earrings, keys, socks, flowers, scissors etc. Andhera has his back to the viewer, on horseback and looking up at binx with the same soft expression. They're wearing an iridescent dark purple armour with crystal-like designs, goldwn earrings, and holding a crystalline black halberd. Shining yellow moths are flying around them, purple roses are blooming, and a slight border frames the image with cristals, thread, keys and moths./end id

im normal and spent a normal amount of time, effort and thought on this

[chungledown-bimothy]

The way Aabria narrates never fails to floor me in ways I simply cannot put into words. I can see and feel it all so clearly in ways I've never experienced with any other media.

[whereserpentswalk]

Reblog to meet your creature, tag your friends to spread their influence, and look under the cut to see what meeting your creature is like!

The dragon: You see him first, like a shadow moving faster than your eye was meant to see, something golden and radiant flying above you. Though it takes hours you slowly track him down, across streets and highways, and into the darkest of the woods. Then you finally see his radiant body, golden scales covering his entire form, with heads like massive snakes, with eyes like sapphires. Massive wings like a falcon's spread as you see him resting alone and he takes notice of you. You know that he could destroy you so very easily if he wanted to, but he doesn't, he just looks at you. And you reach your hands out to touch his head, and he lets you as he bows down. You can feel something change within you, there is fire in your veins, and it doesn't seem to burn at all.

The dark queen: You see them, sitting in the same cafe as you, admiring the city street as they drink from a cop of an unknown liquid. Their human form is tall, yet almost starved looking, beautiful in the way that the night sky if beautiful. They come up to you, and ask why you're hear, ask about the state of humanity, ask if you like the world the way it was, ask what you would change if you only had the power to. They seem so alien, yet they smile. After a few moments they hand you a small cup of their blood for you to drink, and for some reason you know how serious such a thing is, yet how intimate and almost wholesome it now seems. You take a sip, and feel your humanity fade away, feel that there's no going back. You can see for a moment their true form, their mouth filled with fangs and opened wide, and their eyes black and crying blood, yet it doesn't scare you at all.

The Faerie: You wander, past where you should have wandered, past where humans, where mortals, are meant to be. You see the trees around you have creepily human faces upon their trunks. And then you hear xir voice echoing in the night, laughing, knowing that it's too late for you, that you are at xir mercy. Then you see xem, changing form, first a man in regency era dress shining in the moonlight, then a cloaked ghost with endless rows of teeth, then a beast with the combined parts of countless animals. But xe notices something about you, something different, something that lacks the arrogance many other humans have. Xe shows you xir true form, a massive creature similar to a mantis or a dragonfly, with a shining forest green exoskeleton and wings like stain glass. Xe knows that there's no permitting you to be human after coming close to xem, but you are quite interesting, and there are some very interesting things xe can turn you into.

Bodyless entity: You've seen them, on the sidewalk, on the train, standing outside of your apartment. They're almost normal, almost, but they all share the same quirks, all share the same manner of speaking, young or old, of any sex, of any race, they all have the trains of one mind, one person. And they're beginning to notice you back. Eventually they confront you, explaining themselves. You think that they might try to consume you too, but they explain that beings like them have to keep their number of bodies relatively small for their own safety, if they consumed too many humans the rest of humanity would destroy them. And they talk to you and tell you of the place in the shadows their mind came from, the worlds beyond physical space, both of darkness and of enlightenment. And they look at you, as if you remind them of someone long ago. They give you a card if you wish to contact them again and remind you that they can touch your mind in ways beyond mere possession.

Mushroom network: You've been tracking it for days. It's bigger, and then bigger, and then bigger than you ever expected. It covers the ground below you, sleeping yet awake, unknowing yet knowing. It emerges in its living temples, popping up above the ground. Eventually come to its place, a place where the trees are made grey by its consumption, where the animals lay as stoney dead corpses, and red tendrils and white mushrooms cover the earth. You can feel it reaching up to you, weather you want it to or not, and experimenting on you, seeing exactly how your genome tastes. And you can feel its tendrils penetrating your skin, and the uncanny euphoria that comes with it, as you become part of a much larger network.

Alien: You walk into their temple, when the night is dark, and the white pillars around you seem almost otherworldly in the artificial light, the space quiet and empty unlike the city around it. And you see them, silvery, almost angelic, their form entirely inhuman yet unquestionably physical. You bow to them, and they look at you, mournful perhaps. You know what they are, know what they truly are. And you think they know that you know. They talk to you, softly, gently, as if to hide the threat that they pose to you. They tell you how they ended up here, their banishment, how they fell from the stars, from the planet and plane that they originally came from. They wanted to do good in this world, but the wished to rule just as much. They don't seem like they're truly a monster, and they seem to respect that you've been able to get this close to them. And they give you a choice, you can discard your humanity, become like them, let them strip away your flesh and become machine. Or you can die. They have no qualms about removing a threat to their power. You know what choice you'll make.

Angel: First you hear them, in a lonely subway satiation, where only you and them stand. They sing, an old song, in a long-forgotten tongue, a mourning song, quiet and weeping. When you get a good look at them, they look forlorn, their body doll like, delicate and jointed, with the slightest hints at cracks in their skin, their golden eyes the only part of that pretty face that's able to move, their massive wings the only part of their body that looks alive at all. Most people would be scared but you come closer, you put out a hand to them, and pet their hair, and tell them it's ok. They reach out to hug you and you let them, their body is cold, but you help make them warm. As you hold them their song grows kinder yet kinder, and you can feel some power from within them begin to enter your body.

Eldrich horror: You can feel it sometimes. In your dreams. Never in flesh do you see it, but you see it. Someone weeping below the sea, someone yearning. They're waiting for you. They want to be free. Want to be free as every creature wants to be free. They're in pain. But you talk to them. It's all you can do. They take on many different forms, sometimes humanoid, sometimes alien, sometimes metaphorical. They've seen your life too, your pain, your sorrows. They know that you can't free them, but perhaps they can do something to help you, perhaps turn you into something that can have the freedom deprived from you.

Demon: You see her sometimes, walking through the most crowded parts of the city you live in. She wears all black, all over her body, a hood over her head, a gas mask over her face, leather and cloth and rubber covering her. You never see her skin, if she has skin for you to see. She looks like she could kill you. She looks like she doesn't want to. And one day, you wave to her, and shyly she disappears. The next day she appears to you again, but this time standing still. You're surprised to see despite her ghostly nature she's shorter than you. She tells you in a mechanical voice that she's supposed to hurt people, supposed to find people to kill for her masters. She was built as a weapon, built as a victimizer for humanity. She doesn't want to hurt, but she doesn't have a choice. You try to calm her down, to talk to her for a while about other things. When she's ready to leave you mention she can stay with you if she ever needs to. The next night you find her in your bed.

Guardian: It writhes above you, a massive creature, similar to a scorpion combined with a centipede. Its face is strangely human though. It tells you that you can stay in the complex as long as you want, but if you try to steal anything it will have to punish you. You stay, you don't try to steal anything, you just read books. Books upon books in its endless halls, an infinite maze of knowledge. Eventually it comes to you, it tells you you've been there longer than any human has been in a long time. It asks if you're ok. You tell it that you don't really want to go back to the place that you came from right now. It asks you if you'd like to join it, even just for a little while, even if you can still go back to earth if you need to. You nod your head as the creature quietly looks at you, neither of you fully being able to read the others' emotion.

Spirit of lust: You see them standing there, wild eyed and half human, not caring if they're too obviously magical for your world. They're both human and animal, both male and female, both angel and devil. They just are. Everyone else admires them, their beautiful muscular form, perfectly sculpted, with griffon's wings and stag's antlers, and cat's eyes and a dragon's tail. But you step forward, talk to them, let them touch you, let their changing from wrap around you as they raise you high above the dance for. They kiss your head, and slowly that kiss becomes a scar, and that scar a melody. When you touch them back you realize you're not of this world anymore, you're something transcendent, something like what they are.

The emptiness: You've been walking through this place for so long. It's just a white void. You know that you can leave but you don't. White, nothingness, it's all you see for so long. Why do you want to be here? What are you trying to find here? You don't care anymore. You lie down, and the whiteness consumes you, and you become part of it, and you feel what it is to be with the void...