#game is pool of radiance

[drow-apologist]

you have 0 pp

[vintagerpg]

Once upon a time, SSI made a series of Dungeons & Dragons videogames collectively referred to as “Gold Box” games because their boxes were, well, gold. They were a mix of 3D exploration and top-down tactical combat with good graphics for the era (and they generally hold up pretty good today). The first, Pool of Radiance (1988), set in Forgotten Realms, was a big hit. Lots of people explored the pixelated ruins of Sokol Keep and the curiously named city of Phlan, and get warm, nostalgic memories at the mention of the name.

This is FRC1: Ruins of Adventure (1988), a squarebound D&D adventure boasting the same cover painting by Clyde Caldwell as the Pool of Radiance computer game. It sort of bills itself as a companion to the videogame, a way to translate its action to the tabletop, but apparently SSI actually fashioned the videogame out of the tabletop adventure framework (which does adhere in curious regular ways to the computing constraints of the videogame, with maps on 16x16 grids—they feel fine in the game but weirdly claustrophobic in the book). There’s a bit more in the book, too: a Zhent outpost, several lairs of monstrous humanoids I don’t remember from the game and a thri-keen settlement that definitely wasn’t there. There’s lots of background material and lore, too, of course, it being a Forgotten Realms product. And because it is such a loyal reconstruction (or progenitor), it functions as a pretty thorough tip book for the videogame too.

Is it good though? I dunno! It’s weird, for sure. It is kind of nice to see a D&D product that isn’t obviously panicking about how videogames are going to destroy the tabletop industry, at least? And it is a nice way to revisit the game without having to figure out how to make it run on a modern machine. Ruins of Adventure is a terrible name, though.

[dndhistory]

Let's Play Pool of Radiance (1988) - Part 22

This episode we finally start Pool of Radiance's Endgame! We take Stojanow Gate to get access to Valjevo Castle where the perfidious Cadorna ran to and where the Boss Tyranthraxus rules! We move into the castle, and navigate through the maze... only to get a bit lost!

The musical score in this episode was gently provided by Gorgon's Alter, taken with their permission from the album "Celestial Witchcraft".

Support independent artists and get it at Bandcamp: 

Opening Music "Life" by MORSCHT, taken with their permission from the album "a sacrifice of myself unto myself".

 Support independent artists and get it at Bandcamp:

https://morscht.bandcamp.com

Pool of Radiance was the first Gold Box game and the first game set in the Forgotten Realms. It used the rules of first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Find out more about the history of Dungeons and Dragons at The History of DnD Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky, Tumblr and Website! 

https://www.instagram.com/thehistoryofdnd

https://twitter.com/thehistoryofdnd

https://bsky.app/profile/dndhistory.bsky.social

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dndhistory

https://dndhistory.org/

Title Card created by Raquel studio: https://www.instagram.com/raquelg_studio/

[derkastellan]

Quick tour of the Gold Box games (Part 1)

So, given how much time I spent on the Gold Box games lately, I wanted to share some notes on the games, maybe also some relevant bits.

Pool of Radiance

Overall style: Mega Dungeon and Sandbox.

Overland Map: Traverse on grid, random and hidden locations

Quirk: Extensive level scaling which ups the challenge, especially in the beginning.

How does it fit in the line: This is probably the hardest title until the very end of the series. You find your bearings with the engine, its quirks, how the spells work, you have to sort out effective combat tactics. And then you're set. It's a great intro to both the Gold Box line and AD&D, but it surely does not tutorialize you. At. All.

Variety: You get the feeling of visiting many varied locations, some quests/sites have a different feel, some missions bypass the focus on combat. They crammed a lot into this one. Due to the limitations of the early engine you still feel like you battled a lot of the same enemies, over and over, and in waves. Still, many challenging set piece encounters that break the mold.

Notable NPC: Cadorna the Traitor.

What I think: See this article.

What can we learn from it: Healthy mix of environments. All missions lead to the end goal, but not all derive from the same big bad. Good, explorable individual locations. How to vary the same enemies into evolving encounters that keep challenging you. And it really did a good one on backtracking - more of that would have done the series good.

What it could have done better: Give a tutorial or intro to the game, or guide you at the start. Maybe. Sometimes figuring stuff out the hard way is also very rewarding.

Curse of the Azure Bonds

Overall style: Separate locations, spanning multiple maps each (episodic).

Overland Map: Point crawl. Mid-game, additional optional locations become available to explore.

Quirk: Cameo by Elminster... if you happen to know him.

How does it fit in the line: Curse of the Azure Bonds feels like a sequel. It is not as tight as POR, nor as focused. It evolves the engine somewhat. You get a bit of a feel for the politics / conflicts south of the Moon Sea.

Variety: Yes, there are many varied locations, but to me most of them don't have much flair. Dracandros' tower and the thieves' guild / sewers at the beginning seem most memorable in terms of dungeon design. Definitely a lot more variety in enemies. It has a damn beholder - probably one of the most complex monsters in the whole line.

Notable NPC: Dragonbait, the saurial paladin whose emotions you can smell. (Nacacia, my ass!) He's on the cover, too.

What I think: COTAB feels a bit weak compared to POR. It starts a trend in Gold Box games' dungeon design - you can enter a lot of rooms in a non-linear way, but most of them feature just unrewarding combat you may skip. And you want to skip lots of it, really. Most of the game I don't remember, having played it one week ago. In POR, set piece encounter rooms often featured some reward - a clue, a story, a piece of gear, needed money and XP. You often had to do many of them, anyway, might as well tie them up in a good way. Not in COTAB - they just feel so skippable! And while you may spend your sweet time exploring optional stuff and could do the middle part in any order, the game rubs a recommended order in your face, so it narrowly escapes feeling linear after all. (The illusion wears thin but holds, I guess.)

What can we learn from it: COTAB tries its best to keep the point crawl lively by tying stories to each leg of the journey, and tries to avoid being too repetitive by making routes previously traversed safe.

What it could have done better: While it works for COTAB, the idea of "the GM can do things to me" bonds is... highly questionable. The party suffers "consequences" for things they never intended to do and had no chance to avoid - and for example gets banished from a whole country. In the context of a CRPG that's no big deal. But in your campaign, this could suck big time.

Gateway to the Savage Frontier

Overall style: Separate locations, spanning typically a single map each (episodic).

Overland Map: Huge map. And yet almost completely unused except for conveying amount of travel needed - there's only one location you visit which isn't a city and it is in the most obvious place imaginable.

Quirk: We're the heroes, and we're gonna walk into every house in town. Oh look! We surprised some spies!

How does it fit in the line: As a game Gateway seems considerably less complex, it feels almost like a tutorial to the other games. You spend considerably less time on each location, making each feel even less memorable than COTAB locations. Given the restrictions of character import/export you should play Gateway right after COTAB. Could of course be considered its own line.

Variety: Quite a bit, it reuses a lot of stuff all over. You don't spend enough time anywhere to let it bore you, anyway.

Notable NPC: Krevish, the harmless-looking fighter. He actually has quite some useful stuff to say over the course of the game.

What I think: This is the tutorial for gold box games you never got. The game is easier, features difficulty controls. It is actually fun in its own way but also rather simple - it's essentially a MacGuffin hunt with some clues, and if you fail to decipher the clues, you can traverse the map and ask a friend. A super quirky sage friend.

What can we learn from it: Gateway, by virtue of having a big map, helps us envision the sheer size of the frontier. Different regions of the map have matching encounter tables - something you quickly learn if you travel through the Troll Moors...

What it could have done better: Gateway should have utilized that map better, placing locations in the wilderness you need to look for. Instead it opted to place practically all its crawling in cities - and adding some "cities" / "dungeons" off the world map on islands. In comparison, POR's overland map was smaller and more condensed, and yet there was plenty of original content to discover, including randomly placed monster lairs. What seems bizarre are all these city maps that double as explorable dungeons, so you get attacked by barbarians or stirges on your way to the inn.

Secret of the Silver Blades

Overall style: Mega Dungeon all the way.

Overland Map: None. Instead you have a central teleport hub you can use to avoid traversing the huge ass dungeon over and over. Only Gold Box title without an overland map, and it shows.

Quirk: Enormous plot convenience with a wishing well oracle that can generate riddle answers for money and has teleporters wherever you need them to break the game into manageable chunks.

How does it fit in the line: Even at the time, I read a review of the game that was rather dismissive and biased me against it. It is, in a sense, the most linear of the games. On the other hand, it broke the mold in making all these maps that were not simple 16 x 16 grids but huge-ass sprawling and branching dungeons to explore and map out by hand.

Variety: The game sends you through a sequence of locations - ruins, mine, dungeon, glacier/frost giant village, boss castle. Each area is themed. It sticks to its themes well, and yet that makes it feel less varied, somehow.

Notable NPC: Vala, the original plate mail bikini girl. To complement her picture (eyes up here, buddy!) you get a combat icon that shows a lot of mid riff. No wonder she takes way more damage than my (overleveled) party!

What I think: This game shows the importance of imagination in early computer RPGs. It might have fared better and distracted better from its linearity if these locations featured in a modern remake in third person or 3D style. But by lacking any overland map and you returning to this village for resupplying the game feels smaller than it is. It actually took me the most time to beat due to its sheer size. And it still feels like you're nowhere, getting nowhere. They tried to break the mold on this one, but psychologically they failed. You need to manage your players' perceptions, too.

What can we learn from it: Most people probably would get bored of the same Mega Dungeon sooner or later, no matter how much variety you contrive for it. (Leaving "Diablo" aside, an entirely different gameplay experience.) It's not that they failed to try for variety, they really tried, it's just the psychology of the whole thing. Which tells us that in RPGs, the setting matters a lot. If you feel cramped into this tiny nowhere psychologically, the actual total size of the combat maps doesn't matter much. The story feels terribly local and limited through the way it is told. The game itself is massive.

What it could have done better: Lots, actually! - Combining size with lots of random encounters is rather tiresome! I kept lowering the difficulty to finish combats faster and since the manual said it lowered the likelihood of encounters. - The game treats giants as regular encounters, making you wade through hill, fire, frost, and cloud giants like they are a nuisance. By the end, even three Ancient Red Dragons at once become a mere blip on the difficulty curve. This shows us rather neatly why even AD&D 2e did a rebalancing there. If ancient dragons feel like somewhat challenging enemies, then it reduces the sense of adventure. - The game massively relies on a particular sort of enemies in mid- and end-game: Monsters with flesh-to-stone gazes. If you don't have mirrors, this is basically a save-or-die encounter and winning initiative is extremely important. If you have mirrors and equip them in time, it trivializes a lot of encounters instead. It's rather satisfying to turn a medusa to stone, though. (The Gold Box games do not consider the penalties, I think, for fighting while averting your gaze.) Most sought item in the game: Reflective magic silver shield - total: 1. Save-or-die needed to go away and won't be missed. 5e does this much better. - Iron golems suck big time.

[figurasretro]

pool of radiance ruins of myth drannor

[wisteriadaydreams]

Hey hey! Yandere Tanjiro definitely has the unintentional habit of sneaking up on you. At times he just approaches you from behind while you’re working and too busy to notice him coming, then looks over your shoulder to check at what you’re doing and he accidentally gives you a jumpscare? He’s so apologetic about it too, you can’t stay mad at him, it’s not his fault you’re so adorable when scared, so much so that he wants to gobble you up

TO BE ENAMORED

pairing: Kamado Tanjirō x gn!reader

genre: fluff, ig?

words: 1.4k (of Tanjirō simping for you)

tw: soft yandere

a/n: soft yandere Tanjirō is where it's at

Tanjirō has been taught many things during his training. How to breath properly, to bring his body beyond its breaking point, to always be alert and clear-headed in any situation. To learn how to reduce his presence in the face of danger and to keep his footing light so that they cannot easily detect his movements.

He has always regarded these tidbits and knowledge gained from his mentors and previous experiences as only ever most useful in his Demon Slayer career.

How his heart fluttered when he realized he can use them when it comes to you.

He first saw you when he was first taken to the Butterfly Estate on the back of a Kakushi, and though he was in excruciating pain, nothing could stop him from being dumbstruck by your appearance. You seemed to be veiled by a halo of light, which even paled in comparison to your radiance. You fussed over him with worry, the genuine concern you showed to a complete stranger like him made a pool of sunfire burn low in his stomach.

You were quick to direct them to an empty bed, getting to work and coordinating with the others easily like you've done this all your life. When you touched his skin, liquid lightning rushed through his veins, causing goosebumps to rise on his body. You treated his wounds and bandaged him up with a caring hand that made his heart stutter, but nothing could compare to when you crouched down closer to inspect something, giving him a full whiff of your scent. It filled his mind intoxicatingly, and for a moment he was sure he just had an out of body experience, his brain all mushy and fuzzy. If his bones weren't broken, he would've prop himself up to get another inhale.

The next day, he was reassured that it wasn't all a pain-induced hallucination when he saw you greet him with a gorgeous smile while giving him his medicine.

Tanjirō was completely smitten, even if he didn't know it yet.

Over the next few days, he greedily sought out any piece of information about you, even for things as trivial as whether you are right or left-handed, or even how you like to take your tea in the morning. The best time of the day for him is when you would come to bring him medicine and check on his bandages, the giddy smile not leaving his face even when it hurts when you touch his wounds.

(He will deny it if asked, but Zenitsu can attest to the fact that the burgundy-haired boy is noticeably less chipper if someone else came in.)

Rehabilitation training was grueling, but made exponentially better by your mere presence. His skin erupts into goosebumps every time he's able to catch up to you in the game of tag, butterflies swirling around his stomach when he grabs a hold of your wrist. He also managed to stop your attacks during the reflex test, but refrained from splashing the medicine water in your face out of guilt.

(Needless to say, he wasn't that happy when the next time, he was partnered with Kanao when the others saw his progress.)

His eyes are on you whenever you're with the others, a strange feeling coiling around his heart — intense like wildfire, a darkness that encroaches into his mind and make his gaze burn like an inferno.

(He aches to be by your side.)

No matter, he already has your scent committed into his memory, fused so deeply into a part of his soul that not even amnesia can erase it from him. He uses it to look for you in this maze of an estate, easily being able to locate you whether you're in the kitchen, the garden, or even the storage room.

There's truly not a corner that you can hide from him.

Tanjirō wouldn't hesitate to lend you a hand in whatever you're doing, swiftly waving away your protests with a smile as he plucks whatever you're holding into his hands. There have been times when he has been able to convince you to accompany you to town, his heart soaring at the idea of being able to spend more time with you.

He keeps these moments with you close to his heart, unwilling to share them with his friends. And though he adores the way you spend time with Nezuko, he has become greedy for instances when it's just the two of you alone. It's already hard enough to steal a moment alone when you're so busy, so it infuriates bothers him whenever someone interrupt. But what he truly savors are the moments before you've become aware of his presence, when he can simply look at you and soak in every little detail about you.

He drinks in the sight of you like it's the water that he needs to survive, every movement captures his attention like a leash that refuses to let go. Even if he were to stand in front of the most beautiful sight in the world, his eyes would only be on you.

Never has he been more grateful for his training, for he can take every opportunity to stand so close to you that your natural scent invades his senses, pulling him into a dream so bewitching that he is left with one singular thought.

You.

Your hands could be covered with rice flour, your cheeks could be smeared with dirt from the garden, your hair could be plastered to your sweaty face, flushed red from the heat. You could be freshly waking up, strands of hair sticking out all over the place, your eyes groggy and hazy, and he would still think of you as the most stunning person who ever existed.

He cares not if whatever you're doing is the most mundane work in the world, Tanjirō just loves watching you. He just loves how your eyebrows would scrunch together in concentration, or how occasionally you would hum something under your breath — your voice clear like the mountain stream, like a blessing straight from the gods.

You have him all wrapped around your finger.

And don't get him started on how you would react when you finally realized he's there.

"Tanjirō-kun!" You nearly jumped out of your body when you notice the red-headed boy behind you. "How long have you been standing there."

"Not long," he says innocently. Though he always feels a little guilty about scaring you, your reaction is so adorable that he can't help it sometimes. You're like a cute, jittery bunny with your eyes all wide open in shock. "I'm sorry, did I scare you?"

"No, no, it's okay. I guess I just wasn't paying attention." You wave it off, somehow never being able to blame him when he's that sincere. Surely he's not actively sneaking up on you. And although it seems he has an ability to find you wherever you are, it's probably all a coincidence, right?

"What are you working on?"

Your shoulders slack. You really can't be mad at him when he's bouncing on his feet, truly interested in whatever you're doing, giving you the kind of attention that you're unaccustomed to from the other Demon Slayers. They're all grateful for the care that you provided them (more or less), but few have taken their time to get to know you as someone more than a caretaker. It feels refreshing (and almost exhilarating) to be seen, to have someone take notice of you,

As for Tanjirō...well, let's just say no one can take his attention away in that moment except for you. It is a true skill, really, to be able to simultaneously pay attention to everything that you said and indulge in his thoughts. Surely you wouldn't mind if he stands just a little closer, right?

He wonders if he will be able to find the courage to hold your hand one day. To have you all to himself with nobody interrupting. To let him hug you tight and bury his nose in the crook of your neck. Perhaps even to kiss you...

A delightful shiver crawls down his spine, lighting up his insides like fireworks and bringing a drunken blush to his cheeks.

'Oh,' Tanjirō thinks while looking at you tenderly, 'That day will come, I'll make sure of it.'

After all, Tanjirō is nothing but obsessed determined.

©️ wisteriadaydreams

➺ All of the following works belong to me. Please don’t repost, copy, or steal my content off of Tumblr. Plagiarism will not be tolerated.

[self-loving-vampire]

Scenario: Instead of describing it in detail, just look up Curse of the Azure Bonds. How do you and your sisters proceed in this situation?

The gold box games are on my list for later but let me look up the plot before I overthink any of the details of that...

Oh, this sounds kind of hot actually. We wake up in an unfamiliar place with some memory loss, missing equipment, and unfamiliar tattoos on our bodies that can be used to remotely mind control us for evil purposes? Sounds like a pretty interesting setup even outside of problematic kink stuff.

Either way, if none of us is familiar with the markings my first recommendation would be checking in with loremasters or sages to learn as much about them as we can. I imagine @thirteen-jades in particular will be able to think of several good questions that might help us a lot so long as there's answers to be had nearby.

Depending on the level of spellcasting available to us, she would also be able to make good use of divination magic as the party's cleric. Her role would be the most important one as a result.

Even if we're not able to dispel the bonds outright (which I imagine is the case) we might be able to come up with some kind of system to counter them. Again, it depends on the level of spellcasting available to us. Something like a contingency spell or geas or something might be worth trying.

It sounds like new characters start at level 5, while the max level from Pool of Radiance was 9. This means that (in the system I use) we'd be able to use spells from levels 3 to 5. That's kind of a big range in what it allows (no long-range teleportation at the lower end, for instance) and our options are going to heavily depend on where we are placed within it.

I expect the other me is going to feel guilty about being mind controlled into doing something bad even if the whole mind control thing makes it not her fault. She would probably convince herself she could have resisted it if she had tried harder. We'd comfort her if that happened.

I imagine Jade and I would feel kind of stressed and more than a little bit violated by the whole situation. The memory loss alone probably would be pretty traumatic for all of us, especially if the bonds take the form of womb tattoos or something.

[taamlok]

oc meme

Tagged by: @korcariiwitch! thank you!!

name: Eurydice Teurimil (yr·i·duh·see too·rih·mil)

nickname(s): Eury (by Wyll and Karlach), beefy (by Shovel)

pronouns: she/her

star sign: idk how to answer this because Faerun doesn't have star signs and i know nothing about astrology lmao

height: 164cm

orientation: bisexual

race: high elf (moon elf, but with wood elf ancestry, hence the hair)

romancing: Astarion

fave fruit: Pomegranate

fave season: Autumn

fave flower: henbane or poppies for utility purposes, lilac and lavender for prettiness and scent

fave scent: black tea, fresh tobacco leaves, cinnamon, and cut wood

coffee, tea, or hot chocolate: tea 100000%

average sleep hours: 4 hour elf trance from around midnight until 4am during the game, and during the early morning post-game (usually immediately preceded by Astarion biting her so whenever he does that +4 hours)

dogs or cats: cats

dream trip: she'd love to go back to the Dalelands one day when it's safe for her to do so!

amount of blankets: a lot (she and Astarion are both blanket hogs)

random fact(s):

Her surname means "bound to the moon" or "promised to the moon"; she made it up on the spot and didn't put thought into it, something we don't have in common because I put a lot of thought into it. The moon is highly associated with the colour silver in elven society (Teu-tel-quessir is the elven word for moon elves, also commonly referred to as silver elves). The pool of radiance that gave her her magic was a circular silver pool resembling the moon, and she is inescapably bound to it. The suffix -imil means both bound and promised to, which doubles as a nod to her eventual relationship with Astarion, the moon referring to both Astarion himself and the literal moon, under which she will spend a lot of time as they live their lives together.

Tagging: @euryalex @alexios @dameayliins @dameaylin @yrlietlanaevyss @haarleps @autismgremlin @masckarlach @yharnams @vspin @voloslobotomyservice @neonbutchery @grandmother-goblin

No pressure and sorry if you've already done this/been tagged already!! Also don't feel like you have to use your bg3 oc, I'd love to hear about any oc you want to talk about!

[literaryfandomangel]

The Promise - Chapter Twenty-Seven

That evening, I was surprised when they didn't take me to their usual cave, and we didn't spend much time on the Boardwalk as we usually did. Instead, the guys made a quick stop at the Boardwalk before we left to visit a mysterious and secluded place.

They whisked me away to a clandestine hideaway on the back of a motorcycle. I couldn't help but squint tightly a few times due to Marko's daredevil-like riding. It felt as if we were either in a high-speed race or playing a daring game of chicken. Finally, we arrived at our destination, and I cautiously opened my eyes.

Before me lay a small lagoon-like cave nestled against the shore. A pristine beach stretched alongside, while the cave glistened under the enchanting moonlight. As I stood at the water's edge, I twirled around, taking in every enchanting detail. The cave glimmered and mesmerized under the moon's radiance, casting a captivating display of light all around.

“Are those crystals?” I asked, moving towards the cave wall. 

“Yes,” Dwayne confirmed. “Quartz.”

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, running my hands along the rough walls of genuine quartz. 

“We knew you’d love it,” Paul winked before ripping his clothes off. I let out a small shriek, covering my eyes as Paul wiggled his pants off his hips. “You can look, babe.”

“Are you decent?” I asked, my cheeks flushing in my embarrassment. I wanted to look, but I didn’t at the same time.

“I have boxers on!” As the other three friends laughed, Paul's expression turned slightly affronted, but there was a hint of amusement in his eyes. I found myself unable to look away as he stood by the pool, his physique resembling that of a sculpture carved from marble. A smirk played on his lips as he maintained eye contact with me, and a blush crept over my cheeks as I realized I had been caught admiring my boyfriend before he dove into the pool.

“Come on!” Marko's voice echoed through the air as he confidently shed his clothes and prepared to make a splash with a cannonball into the pool. Meanwhile, I hesitated, feeling self-conscious about my body. Despite my initial hesitation, I eventually mustered the courage to take off my pants and band tee. I chose to keep on my tank top and underwear, feeling more comfortable with this arrangement, before finally plunging into the invitingly warm water.

Dwayne joined our group of four as we immersed ourselves in the refreshing pool. The atmosphere was lively, with Paul and Marko engaged in a playful splash fight. I relaxed, relishing the soothing sensation of the warm water against my skin. Throughout the commotion, Dwayne remained by my side, skillfully shielding me from the exuberant waves generated by the two energetic individuals.

“Do you like this?” Dwayne asked, his deep voice breaking the silence. 

“This is beautiful,” I whispered, gazing towards the sky. Only a small hole was in the top of the cave, allowing moonlight to stream through. 

“I thought you’d like it,” David murmured, causing me to start as I turned around. David was standing on a rock by the edge of the pool, looking at the two of us. 

“I do,” As I stood in the water, a mischievous grin spread across my face. I extended my wet hand toward David, hoping he would join us. However, he shook his head, indicating that he preferred to stay dry. Despite my playful pout, David remained resolute. His gentle smile revealed his affectionate nature as he leaned forward, running his gloved hand tenderly down my cheek.

“He won’t be swayed,” Paul whispered, causing my heart to skip a beat. I jumped, going to whirl around in the warm water, but Paul wrapped his arms around my torso. “Just me, babes.”

“You scared me!” I admonished Paul, who grinned into the curve of my neck. I missed the look that David shot Paul when his eyes turned yellow briefly. Paul just pressed a kiss to my neck before diving into the depths of the pool. I chuckled, letting Marko pull me along with him. 

The four of us swam in the pool for a while. Marko and Paul liked to take turns scaring me. They loved diving down under the water while I was distracted and then grabbed my feet. It never failed to elicit a response from me, which amused the two troublemakers.

“Alright,” Dwayne finally stated, noticing that I was yawning a bit more than usual. All of the physical activity, even though it was gentle, wore me out. Due to the caloric deficit, any activity made me tired very quickly. “Let’s get out. Princess needs some time to rest.”

“I’ll be alright,” I denied Dwayne’s actions, even though Marko was holding most of my weight.

“Let’s go, sweetheart,” Marko murmured into my ear. With his help, we made it to the shore of the little lagoon. David had spread a blanket down onto the ground, where we all lounged while we rested.

I was lying on the ground with my head resting on David’s shoulder. His warm breath was comforting as he pointed out the constellations in the night sky. Wrapped in David’s protective embrace, I felt a sense of peace. The presence of the other three guys around us only added to the feeling of security. It was a beautiful and intimate moment, and my heart swelled with warmth. In that tranquil setting, it felt as if we had known each other for years, and the connection between us felt destined.

As I gazed at the star-studded sky, a sense of profound connection filled the air. It was as if an invisible red string of fate had inexplicably wound itself around each of our wrists, binding us together in an intricate tapestry of fate. With a faint smile, I found my attention shifting from the celestial wonders above to the three other males sharing the blanket with me, each one encapsulated in the same ethereal moment of unity and companionship.

“I love all of you so much,” I blurted out, eyes wide as I realized what I had just revealed. I felt my breath hitch, freezing in my lungs as I froze.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

[spyridonya]

I have no idea if this will be a two part post or a series of things, but I wanted to write a little about Forgotten Realms for new BG3 fans. I decided the best start was here:

Baldur's Gate Primer: Fantasy Kitchen Sink and CRPGs

The Forgotten Realms began as an official campaign setting for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons ("1e") in 1987 and published by TSR Inc, the gaming company that originally published D&D.

Since its introduction, the Forgotten Realms' world of Toril has been wildly popular, jumping over the then more established Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and several other settings whose influences were based High Middle Ages Northern and Central Europe (and the unfortunate implications of Central Asian Nomads with monsters such as orcs and goblins). Ed Greenwood is the loving (if slightly horny) creator of the Realms, though many authors have written stories within the setting for several good reasons.

The Realms is an excellent Fantasy Kitchen Sink.

While Toril has several European influences, it has little to do with High Middle Ages in world building and more to do with 19th century based on nation states with the aesthetics of the Late Renaissance in terms of art, culture, and technology.

Toril also took inspiration from other cultures with their nations and continents:

The first of Toril's continents written about was Kara-Tur, which was introduced before the 'official campaign book' and heavily focused based on East Asian.  

Another continent based on Central Indigenous nations (Mayan and Aztec) called Maztica, who are giving the Faerun colonists hell due to their magic and their immune systems, and consider themselves the 'True World'.

There’s the nation of Zakhara that’s based between Faerun and Kara-Tur, making it a touch on the nose since it's based on Arabian Nights.

The nation Chult is based after the Congo Basin rainforest, though it really seems like whoever made this development slept through Heart of Darkness. (It went away for a little while, but it's back now.)

Meanwhile Calimshan and Mulhorand are based after Morocco and Egypt. 

Bear in mind, despite good intentions that Ed Greenwood and TSR had, a lot of the old lore comes off as Orientalist, and WotC hasn't done much to update it save slapping a disclaimer on PDF files and not much else with these settings save a bare description.

However, if some dork-ass tells you that Wyll and BIPOC are going against the lore accuracy, tell them to fuck off. The Forgotten Realm was introduced with a BIPOC setting despite it’s flaws. 

Due to the diversity of the 'Realms', the setting has attracted writers, artists, and campaign designers who developed some of D&D's most iconic characters and thus influenced a lot of how D&D's multiverse structure. Players loved the lore of the Realms and the feeling their characters could be from anywhere and do anything. This is in contrast to Greyhawk never really growing past it's War Game boundaries as a world and Dragonlance's creators being highly protective of it's inflexible plot with the lack of multiple settings. 

So it made sense when TSR approached the game developer SISI with their Gold Box Engine with the Forgotten Realms in mind. SISI's first D&D based game is called Pool of Radiance, and the game took place in Faerun’s Moonsea region in the ruins of Phlan, where adventurers fought off undead and fiends to help give a new city a fighting chance in rebuilding. While SISI would dabble in Dragonlance and Dark Sun (a post apocalyptic setting that is so fucking grim dark, Githyanki ran away from Dark Sun's world of Athas screaming), most of their games were based in Forgotten Realms.  

For those curious about the Gold Box Game series: when BG1 was my 13 year-old-heart's special interest, I played them. It's really, really weird because so much of the story is in the manual and clunky as fuck. But I was itching to play anything DnD at the time.

In 1997, TSR was purchased in 1997 by Wizards of the Coast (WotC), though it allowed the continued development of yet another CRPG set in the Realms by a then unknown company called Bioware. In 1998, Bioware released Baldur's Gate and using the Infinity Engine Bioware, Black Isle, and WotC would continue to make several games including BG2, BG:TOB, and Neverwinter Nights before parting ways in 2006 with Bioware. Bioware would then focus on its own wildly successful CRPG IPs. 

By then, WotC was owned by Habsro (since 1999) and after two decades of excellent turn based CRPGs, they stopped focus on the genre when Neverwinter Nights 2 didn’t do as well as its predecessor and focused on different genres such as Hack’n’Slash, Action Adventure, and Boardgames - though they were all set in the Forgotten Realms.

However one of these games would reach the popularity of the Gold Box, Infinity, or Aurora engine based games (BG, Icewind Dale, and Planescape Torment) . The only turned based CRPGs that were released from 2007 to 2020  were remakes of the Infinity Engine games by Beamdog Studios who attempted to get the rights to make BG3.

WotC declined Beamdog, deciding to approach Larian studios instead for Baldur’s Gate 3 in 2016, likely wanting to approach a style closer to Neverwinter Nights rather than isometric. Due to D&D new popularity, both companies expected that BG3 would do well, but neither company had any idea how big Baldur’s Gate 3 would be. 

I'm likely going to do a post on the important historical events in the Realms mentioned in BG3 - and some that are not.

[vintagerpg]

The multimedia extravaganza mostly dried up after Azure Bonds. The next SSI game got a tie-in novel, but no adventure book. TSR pretty much ignored SSI after that. In 1994, TSR opted to not renew SSI’s license. Black Isle made some notable D&D videogames, and then, for some reason, came Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (2001), from Stormfront Studios (who had previously worked on the AOL Neverwinter Nights and the SSI Savage Frontier games). It wasn’t as bad as Temple of Elemental Evil (2003, and totally unplayable), but it was close.

Tie-in novels had been back for a little while, based on the strength of the Baldur’s Gate games’ popularity, so no surprise about this videogame also getting a novel. However, it also, briefly marked the return of the weird tabletop companion book, perhaps because the videogame was the first full digital implementation of the 3E rules (probably to its detriment, as it had been developed as a 2E game and been converted mid-development).

Anyway, Pool of Radiance: Attack on Myth Drannor (2001), exists, one of the not very common soft cover 3E books. Novelty: it ties into the videogame, rather than re-enacting it. The plot centers on the machinations of the Cult of the Dragon and their attempt to use a pool of radiance to empower one of their dracolichs. It seems mostly OK, but veers into some truly weird shit, like the naked man and the deepspawn living in weird symbiosis? I dunno, there are some mysteries I refuse to investigate, even for you, dear readers. A box of text at the end explains that the characters in the videogame destroy the body of the dracolich, but the heroes of the tabletop have the chance to destroy its phylactery and make victory permanent. Seems like a lot of work, honestly. Let the dracolich be free to eat garbage and do crimes, I say.

The art is nice, at least. Ted Beargeon and Vince Locke inside, a nice Brom on the cover.

[dndhistory]

Let's Play Pool of Radiance (1988) - Part 19

This week I manage to fail at pressing record for a whole mission to Zenthil Keep! However, I do manage to press record in time for a rematch at the Kobold Caves and we finally get that done! Expect a long series of battles, as we survive by the skin of our teeth! 

The musical score in this episode was gently provided by Old Moth Dreams, taken with their permission from the album "Winter Ghost Tales".

Support independent artists and get it at Bandcamp: 

Opening Music "Life" by MORSCHT, taken with their permission from the album "a sacrifice of myself unto myself".

 Support independent artists and get it at Bandcamp:

https://morscht.bandcamp.com

Pool of Radiance was the first Gold Box game and the first game set in the Forgotten Realms. It used the rules of first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Find out more about the history of Dungeons and Dragons at The History of DnD Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky, Tumblr and Website! 

https://www.instagram.com/thehistoryofdnd https://twitter.com/thehistoryofdnd 

https://bsky.app/profile/dndhistory.bsky.social

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dndhistory

https://dndhistory.org/

Title Card created by Raquel studio: https://www.instagram.com/raquelg_studio/

[derkastellan]

A detour to the Pool of Radiance (Thinking about sandbox design in 5e - Part 2)

Let's enter the wayback machine and travel back to... 1988? Yes, that's when "Pool of Radiance" came out, an "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" computer RPG that's still rather playable today (I replayed it last week) and was innovative to boot.

Computer games had taken a massive leap forward in terms of complexity when floppy disk drives became wide spread, allowing new content to be loaded into a game after it had been started. This took games from simple recreations of arcade classics (pew pew!) or little action adventures to complex roleplaying games very quickly. The Wizardry series, the Ultima games (Ultima V released in 1988 as well), the Bard's Tale games... and yet there was still plenty of room left to innovate, and Pool of Radiance occupied a lot of it in one feel swoop.

(The picture references "Nox Archaist", a game intentionally programmed to run on the decades-old Apple II, but released around 2020.)

POR did several things that games had not done before it. It implemented mass combat on an actual grid like you would see when playing tabletop (with dozens of enemies acting in their turns), and it implemented a rather big subset of the AD&D roleplaying game, down to some of its most obnoxious quirks. Gary Gygax may have been the first person to formalize an RPG rule system for publishing (though we should credit Dave Arneson with pioneering the idea of an RPG and being the first Dungeon Master before that), but his rule/game designs... had room for improvement. (Hey, being first ain't easy!) AD&D wasn't a balanced game, and oddly enough, the developers of POR took that and ran with it.

The series of games started by POR, which later on became known as "Gold Box games" due to their packaging, kept many of the bizarre "features" of 1st edition D&D. There were level caps for demi-humans in most classes, you could multi-class demi-humans (level up in multiple classes in parallel) and dual-class humans ("change jobs" and acquire a second class to level up in). There was "To Hit Armor Class 0" (THAC0) rolls and descending armor class, and many other things that have ensured that AD&D is the least emulated old school system, largely confined to the mostly forgotten OSRIC and the setting-focused "Hyperborea" game with that looong name. (And the "Advanced Edition" companions for games that focused on being more like "Basic D&D", of course.)

Oh, and the bizarrely huge list of medieval and early modern melee weaponry.

And somebody packed all of that into a game fit to run on the Commodore 64 (where it became one of the first three games I bought, beside "Ultima V" and "Pirates!") or the Apple II, gaming systems that were still wide-spread but nearing the end of their technological relevancy at that point.

But this is neither an article about early computers and their games, nor is it an article about Gygaxian "realism" in gaming, or AD&D itself. It's about the actual content of POR and what we can learn from it.

Background

The back story of the game is that Phlan was a city north of the Moon Sea, a major trading hub with the barbarian lands of the North. It never got to rival the big cities of the South, but Phlan was a thriving merchant community. Given its exposed position it fell twice to monster onslaught. And now the second time to rebuild has come.

The tabletop companion module says the city was overrun by armies of monsters 50 years ago with a unique level of organization. The game hints that this was due to a corrupted Pool of Radiance being used by the general commanding the onslaught.

After the ruin of Phlan the plot thins a bit, as somehow the general is still looking for ways to actually spread his power further. (The adventure module hints at a back and forth of forces that hardly explains why someone could stop such a unique force without any other major conquests.)

Within recent time an expeditionary force led by some of the older powers and families once reigning over Phlan cleared out a small part of the ruins and erected a stockade. They are hoping they can commission adventurers to clear out the rest of the city, while providing the essential services needed as well.

Story and Structure

The basic hub of your adventures is this stockade of New Phlan where you can buy gear, rest, sell your loot, level up, hire NPC help, and ... have bar fights? This is where the central questgiver resides, the Council of Phlan, or rather, its busy clerk.

The game then mixes mega dungeon, gating, and sandbox to let you set Phlan free. The mega dungeon aspect is the bulk of the city south of the river, with another smaller subsection north of the river.

The city blocks of the south are:

An area of slums.

A former residential area around the city's major well.

The library of a sage.

An open-air marketplace.

An area used for warehousing.

The gate to the city's castle and the castle itself.

(This alone translates to 11 maps crammed within the same 16x16 grid dimensions. Each step represents multiple 5' spaces and in fact the game generates battle maps from the actual game map you're traversing!)

The northern block housed two areas of mansions and the city's major temple, a veritable cathedral. Further removed from the city (and separate) is its graveyard.

The city itself also had a fortress protecting it from the sea, Sokol Keep on Thorn Island. It's now overrun by undead.

All the blocks of the south are connected (also with the block containing the stockade). You can in principle roam around here and look for adventure as far as your power permits. While the game attempts to structure your adventures, it doesn't prevent you from mucking about in this part - except through the increasing nastiness of "the residents."

Gating occurs at several points. If you set over to Sokol Keep and bring it back under council control, some sea lanes open. Then you can reach the northern blocks and the surrounding wilds (which you can explore on horseback on an overland map). There are entry points to the western part of the city from the wilderness map as well, allowing you to circumvent the ruins in between.

In fact, in the beginning you have only two points of access, the slums and the island keep.

A rough start

There are quite a few posts even from recent years of people complaining that this game kicks their butt. The beginning of POR is indeed challenging to overwhelming as it is neither as linear as it seems nor does the AD&D-based engine work as many computer gamers have come to expect.

You see, your best bet to survive in this game is to get your characters up to level 2, but since this is AD&D 1st edition your major source of XP are not monsters, it's gold and treasure. In other words, it's the loot that matters, not your kill count.

It would be better if the game made this more obvious as your first missions are to clear the slums and retake the keep. Clearing the slums does indeed involve a lot of combat, and you are required to beat a certain amount of random encounters and all set-piece encounters in order to progress. (The game doesn't tell you this, it just awards you the mission of, well, "clearing the slums" with no clue what it entails. I've seen guidebooks for this game disagree completely on what this means in game terms.)

There's just a few problems. First of all, as mentioned, the random encounters don't give much XP. Second of all - they scale! The stronger your party is, the more enemies you will face. In fact, at first you meet a handful of orcs, kobolds, or goblins. Then there are more per patrol, and joined by slightly tougher "leaders" with bows. Then goblin patrols might even be led by a bug bear! In other words, you don't really outgrow this mission, and yet you have to beat it.

The best way to level up in the beginning is venturing deeper into the slums and find the hidden treasures. The loot will level you up faster than any combat would. Besides, given that there are a few magic items hidden about, your combat power increases faster. (In turn you can safely rest in any rooms where you have beaten an encounter. Too bad nobody tells you so.)

Being at level 2 increases your staying power a lot. Besides, you need all the loot to pay for leveling up? Tough break, heroes. But you can't beat the slums just yet. You probably need to be level 3 to do that... because hidden in the most dangerous part of the slums (harder encounters) is a TPK in the making, a close quarter combat with trolls and ogres.

Say what?

So, your real best strategy is to level up through finding treasure, then venture to Sokol Keep where most of its quest can be beaten by paying attention to clues - and one sizable combat you won't survive at level 1 because you fight 50 enemies. This becomes doable around level 2 or 3, go figure. That second spell slot, mages!

In fact, you're better off eliminating a group of bandits in Kuto's Well first. Also, around this time Mendor's Library opens up for you - the area around it is safe to rest (making it a good forward base for exploring further into the city), but you can't get into the building proper without obtaining the Knock spell at level 3.

And then you return to clear out the slums for real, thanks to the OP Stinking Cloud spell, also unlocked at level 3.

In other words, you're backtracking. When you're stuck, you can explore new avenues opening up around you.

(A bizarre artifact of this system is that you can clear the required number of random encounters faster if you don't level up your characters - which you only can in town anyway - and handle all the random encounters by staying close to the city gate in "search mode." But that's really gaming the game. And a tad boring to do 15 times in a row.)

Linear and not

Another way to keep track is how the council awards missions and rewards (hey, more XP through treasure). But not all of them are created equal. You can optimize the order to match with your party's capabilities.

Example: Valhingen Graveyard. This is a threat not only to New Phlan, even the big baddie gets scared of the undead pouring out of the cemetery and tries to send his toughest cleric there. (Too bad you learn this by taking a letter from the priest's dead body... oops.)

Basically someone is making undead. And the threat grows. Now, in the tabletop module it grows exponentially, which makes no sense. (They're not breeding, duh, nor is one undead making the next two.) In fact, each section has a specter beavering away, making new undead. In the computer game this is tied to the strength of your party. (Which grows as time passes.)

The mission ends up being raiding the site, battling your way through the undead legions, eliminating the specters making new undead, and finally finding the vampire behind it all and end it. If you don't eliminate the vampire, he will raise the specters again. If you don't eliminate the specters, they will make more undead. Both with some delay, but that just gives you breathing room and the ability to do the mission in chunks if you want. (You better not delay too much "between visits." If you do, you're doing it over.)

Even though the game does try to motivate you to do this mission ASAP, you're better off holding off until you're level 6 - at least your cleric(s). Because then their ability to "turn undead" makes a huge step forward. This actually makes the mission substantially easier.

In fact, at this point your cleric will outright destroy lower level undead. Good luck figuring this out with the little the manual - see above - gives you. The real table is in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide (T means "turned" without a d20 check, D means "destroyed" - you just roll for how many are affected):

But I digress.

The quest is offered to you twice. At first you're kind of pointed the way. Then you are even formally commissioned (and given magic items to help) to do it. And yet, it's still wiser to wait. In fact, on my latest run-through I delayed clearing the Temple of Bane because not doing so meant a NPC cleric stayed in my party, I leveled both clerics up, and then did the mission with two level 6 clerics as my holy "firepower."

No matter what, the mission is hard. It's oddly one of the few real chances to grind, though. Skeletons and such don't give much XP, but you're given treasure rewards by the council for each undead killed in the graveyard, effectively boosting the XP you receive.

But the decision when you feel ready to do this is up to you. In different playthroughs by different people it will have happened at different times.

Quest marker vs sandbox

There's a general structure to the game, tracked by the missions the council gives. Only after you make enough progress on this quest marker will you open up the finale. But it's up to you to delay some missions. Fighting large groups of enemies becomes substantially easier after you gain the Fireball spell at level 5, for example!

It's reaching these milestones that makes you feel your party's growth in power vs the difficulty curve. When your fighter starts cleaving multiple goblins or kobolds at once. When you cast Stinking Cloud or Fireball for the first time. When your cleric just turns low level undead to dust instead of making them flee.

And so this also influences how you do missions. You can wait for being awarded missions, but you can also explore the maps - the wilderness, the mega dungeon. You can even get rewards for clearing other city blocks if you eliminate enough random encounters.

The wilderness itself has a bonus feature. Not only do different parts have different encounter tables. There's an off chance you stumble across a monster lair (yes, it's random!) and fight your way to some interesting loot.

Dungeons and Wilderness and Scaling, oh my!

So, having said all that, lets put it all together.

First, let's talk XP. Tying XP to treasure means that the most interesting leveling in POR happens at points defined by the game designer, when making your way to hoards of money and gear. Some of them are gated behind key combats, but some are just hidden. The equivalent to this in 5e could be milestone awards, but you're probably best of giving away additional XP if you want to boost your party that way - usually to the amount of an encounter. (It's in the DMG.)

It's interesting, though, that POR in effect, but without outright stating it, did something similar to milestone leveling whereas most other games favored the grinding approach of bringing down enemies for XP. (The "Might & Magic" games stands out for being similar to POR in this, having specific treasures boost your XP dramatically.) The game keeps you motivated to find hidden treasure and accomplish missions this way and while you wade through a lot of monsters in doing so, you never have to grind. I breezed through the game in two days (knowing it quite well by now) without ever having to go "XP hunting", a testament to the balance possible.

You could reduce XP awards for combat if you want to, but then you'd better be on your toes of allowing to evade combat and dealing with it creatively. It's no fun to slog through it on tabletop and get diminished rewards for "doing it anyway."

Next is the mix of big dungeon and other gates areas, including the equivalent of a hex crawl. The balance here is notable - before you can tire of the mega dungeon, you can branch out into differently themed missions elsewhere (free a kid from being sold into slavery, battle it out with a tribe of kobolds, invade the lair of the wizard that poisons the river, etc).

Then there is the notion of sandbox dynamics. When you clear up the Stojanow River you also can traverse the river safely on the overland map. In the adventure module (but not the video game) at some point there's a counter attack on the stockade in an attempt to end the "hero threat" once and for all. Certain events in the game only take place when the respective missions have been awarded - changing parts of the locations. Contrast this with the "you always arrive at the right time" approach taken by many 5e campaign modules (described in the first article).

To top it off, the mix of scaled content vs not-scaled content is interesting. Some things get easier if you tackle them later, some stay challenging, with some content bordering on "Nintendo hard". (Kinda-sorta.) Please note that the game scales its random encounters, something you could emulate by prepping several versions of them, considering the "tiers of play" or a somewhat finer granularity. We'll talk about making things more dynamic in the next article, though.

Buy it on Good Old Games and get a whole slew of Gold Box games along with it. Or buy a scan of the original companion module. Or both.

And if you buy the game, really read the quick reference card for how to navigate menus with your hot keys. No arrow keys for you, no. 7 and 1 are your friends.

[alfgifu]

Fic analysis 8. Incandescent 

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47237317

Archive warnings: Major Character Death

Word count: 4,413

Chapters: 1

First posted: 17th May 2023

Summary: 

Slowly, against the glutinous weight, Cliopher swallowed. This was not a dream. This was magic. This was - what he had been expecting, all along.

“Cliopher sayo Mdang, Secretary to the Offices of the Lords of State, Secretary to Artorin Damara, so-called Hands of the Emperor. You have broken the great taboo. You are summoned to account. Come with us.”

How and why this came about

The idea popped into my head during a discord chat.

I remember reading something by an author - Neil Gaiman I think - about the first time they read a story which ended badly for the narrator. About the realisation that this was a thing an author could do. And I remember myself reading a book when I was a teenager in which the good guys lose, and finding that similarly mind bending.

So, I thought, what if…?

And once the thought was there it was compelling. Cliopher is incredibly focused and holds his own life lightly against his goals. He expected to be executed for many things, including (at the start of HOTE) for inviting the emperor on holiday. If it happened quickly and secretly and he judged the politics intractable, he would just go with it.

I dropped a couple of paras into the discord channel and then went to take the kids to their swimming lessons and frantically tapped out the rest in the pool cafe.

When I posted it that evening someone replied, in tones of (mock, I hope) reproach, that I had recently said I was cuddly. I had neglected to mention (possibly didn’t even know at the time) that I was also a peddler of deep pits of despair.

What worked and what didn’t

Writing fast and in the flow and directly from the feels worked really well for pace and grip. It was less good for my control of my impulse to scatter dashes like pixie dust in every paragraph. I’ve been going back and forth on formatting for some of these things but in general I feel like there’s something in here about the text standing for itself and trying to use all punctuation more sparingly.

It worked really well to get into Cliopher’s head and follow his thoughts. Some of the worldbuilding that I threw in here on the fly came in handy in several other stories (the idea that the Ouranatha had their own enforcers who had shadow masks, for example, and the general concept of magic feeling like compressed air to someone who is magic-null).

I did start sketching out a sequel to this which is still there on my list of possible things to come back to, covering his Radiancy’s reaction from the pov of Cliopher’s deputy Kiri.

What I learned from writing it

I find it incredibly easy and satisfying to write very dark things. It’s entirely absorbing, it drives me forward, I really really like working out frustration and aggression and so on by inflicting horrors on fictional characters.

I was touched and surprised when it immediately sparked a ‘fix-it’ story where the emperor intervenes just in time to keep Cliopher alive. There’s a special joy in writing something that brings out a story from someone else, even if (perhaps especially if) they’re writing it directly to reverse what you’ve done. It reminds me of doodle games where each person tries to alternately threaten or rescue their little stick figure in what they add to the drawing.

Nevertheless, I hadn’t appreciated at first that others might find this more distressing than satisfying. I learned that readers could be affected strongly by this kind of punchy story and that the reactions would (entirely understandably) vary. Everyone was incredibly lovely about it but it definitely brought home the value of tags and warnings.

At the same time other authors in the fandom had been independently exploring similar themes and other ‘crimes’ fics were posted soon after. This coincided and may have inspired a rising tide of enthusiasm and creativity in general. The summer of 2023 saw an absolute flood of fic land on the Nine Worlds AO3 page.

[footprintsinthesxnd]

Ghost of you

Pairings: Natasha Trace x female reader. Synopsis: Natasha loved you, that’s why she let you go. Warnings: mentions of break ups, heart break, alcohol, depression Thank you @callsign-phoenix for proofreading Thank you @rv-ca for your lovely request ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Natasha watched you cross the bar with all the grace and elegance you had always had. The baby blue summer dress flowed effortlessly around your thighs as your hips swayed, your hair flicked carelessly over your shoulder as you laughed at another one of ‘his’ jokes. The setting sun cast an orange glow over your skin, creating a radiance around you like an invisible halo. Natasha knew she shouldn't have come, she’d told herself she’d wanted a drink, but her neat whiskey was long since forgotten in front of her, barely touched and she certainly wouldn’t finish it. She never knew why she had felt so drawn to you, even in the beginning it had never made sense, an invisible string seemed to pull her and despite her best efforts to fight it off her feelings only grew stronger, and the grip you had on her strengthened to the point of no return.

You looked happy, back arching and head thrown back as you laughed at another one of ‘his’ jokes, calling him ‘baby’ and wrapping your hand around his bicep. Natasha couldn’t help but grimace at the stunning engagement ring that adorned your long fingers. So that was it. It was finally over. Natasha knew she’d ruined any chance she’d ever had with you, but in the back of her mind there was always a small glimmer of hope that maybe, one day you’d come back to her.

The bar filled up quickly with the evening rush, crowds of aviators filling in to grab a quick drink or a game of pool to end their day. Natasha watched as her friends stumbled through the door, all joking and smiling jovially. Bradley was the last to come in but he noticed her first, waving casually in her direction. Natasha raised her hand in response before looking back down at their drink, the golden brown liquid swirled in small waves around the bottom of the glass, cascading up and down the sides but never reaching the rim. In that moment Natasha could understand how people drowned their sorrows. She’d never been someone who necessarily enjoyed getting drunk, but the thought of being so paralytic that she just couldn’t remember seemed pretty inviting.

It had been over a year since your break up and while you had moved on, even if it was a little too quickly for Natasha’s liking, she was glad things had worked out for you.

Natasha had never meant to break your heart, it was far from intentional when she’d walked away. She’d left to protect you because she loved you so she let you go. But how could you explain that to someone you love? ‘It’s not you it’s me’ never goes down well.

A hand being placed against her shoulder caused Natasha to shoot bolt upright, followed by a familiar chuckle.

“Easy there Phoenix, you’re a little jumpy, aren’t you?” Bradley took a seat on the bar beside you, a beer in one hand while his fingers danced across the top of the bar like he was playing the keys of a piano.

“What do you want, Bradshaw?” Natasha’s voice was laced with venom and a little harsher than she had meant to sound, but Braldey looked unfazed. His eyes narrowed, causing the crow feet to crease slightly, and his mouth opened as if he went to say something else before stopping himself half way and gulping for air like a fish.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha hurried, throning to face her friend properly and taking his hands into hers, rubbing her thumb across his knuckles. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I know,” Braldey replied nonchalantly, turning his head away to access the rest of the bar.

“So what are you doing here, because I thought you’d planned a quiet night in?” Braldey knew of course he wasn’t an idiot, he was probably the reason why half the team turned up at the bar on a week night and Natasha made a mental note to thank the others later.

“I just wanted a drink,” Natasha placed the glass to her lips, flicking her neck backwards and downing the whiskey like a shot. If she’d have thrown her head back any faster she’d have had whiplash and combined with the burning sensation building in her throat, the tears began to build in the corner of her eyes.

“You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you? I know you better than that, Nat.” He did, of course he did, and despite Natasha’s best efforts she couldn’t stop the tears that brimmed in your eyes and slipped down her cheeks, leaving streaks over her soft flesh. She had known Bradley even longer than she had known you, and he probably knew her better than her own parents. The only problem was you knew Natasha well too, you knew her likes and dislikes, her unusual habits, the way she liked her eggs turned over and how she hated making the bed. Natasha had opened herself up to you more than she had ever realised and she couldn’t handle it. So she walked away. It had hurt like hell, but she’d walked and she’d regretted it every day since. She couldn’t even remember the amount of times she’d driven by your house on autopilot, always wanting to stop and knock on your door to bed for forgiveness. But she was stubborn, too stubborn for her own good some would say, so she never did stop. Instead she chose a life of solitude so there was no one to mourn her when she burnt in, no one to accept the flag at her funeral and cry over her coffin. She’d hated herself for hurting you, but she would have hated herself more if she’d hurt you in that way. Death was too final, at least this way she had said goodbye.

You were swaying beside the jukebox with your fiancé when you spotted Nat. Her eyes were sunken, hair greasy and she had a tight lipped smile as she spoke to Bradley. Your heart dropped. You hadn’t seen her since her outburst, since she’d broken your heart in the middle of the bar and told you she didn’t love you. It had hurt for a long time and even now the dull ache still remained in your chest as a constant reminder. You watched as she stood, walking towards the door with Bradley following close behind, his hand resting on her back to steady her. You wanted to follow them, to reach out to her but you didn’t, you just watched as the woman you loved vanished into thin air.

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[equalseleventhirds]

Hey, do you have any recs for long form, more serious ttrpg systems for fantasy settings? I feel like I hear a lot about short/definitively-lengthed systems, but I've been yearning for a DnD-esque system without all the baggage of equip loads and complicated Challenge Ratings and other rules-y baggage I don't super care about.

do i! do i ever!

serious & long-form systems do on the whole tend to be crunchier than shorter systems (not always, but generally); nevertheless, i've picked out a........ handful......... ok there's Several, i did try to control and limit myself but u kno.......... games......... anyway, here are some that are considerably less crunchy than d&d but still lend themselves to long fantasy campaigns.

uh. under the cut for. oh god it's so long. it's so long. tried my best to explain them, u see. (which is also why it took me so long to reply lol, sry abt that)

godeater (& godeater 2.0): play in a broken, post-apocalyptic fantasy world, where dead and dying gods warp the land, and you raid their bodies for divine magic to help support humanity. 2d10-based, get weird & funky with it! i admit a small preference for version 1.0, which gave u some loose examples but left much of the worldbuilding and even character building up to u to create; 2.0 has some extra books that go with it that i haven't much looked into yet, but seem to give more solid lore to work with, if u would like that.

when the guilds pay in copper, crime pays in gold: alchemical guilds pay shit wages to use people for magical experiments. go do crimes on 'em with your own magic. d6 base, assign dice to stats to make ur own dice pool; fairly light rules and in fact very little in the way of instruction or hard lore on the gm's side, so better played with an experienced gm who's good at making their own stuff, but certainly campaign material for the right gm!

third empire - violence + beauty: the world sucks, and has sucked for a while, through two oppressive empires and into a third one. you play adventurers who are trying to carve out a little goodness, a little justice, a little vengeance, in the world. y'know. lasers & feelings based, but expanded beyond the original (which also comes with it if u get it!) into more lore, more character choices, very collaborative worldbuilding, downtime mechanics, etc etc.

ruby radiance 6e: streamlined dungeoneering built to let ppl play the way actual play podcasts sound, essentially. d20 pool system, based on trophy mechanics but v much adjusted. lots of choices to make during character creation & leveling, but much much less to keep track of during the playing part. u get it.

wizard pals: all of you are wizards, going on adventures and trying to accomplish your goals in a fantasy world. d12-based, fairly lighthearted (can lean silly but u could use it for more serious if not super grimdark adventures), much worldbuilding left up to the gm, but very simple rules, so.

grimblade rpg: (speaking of grim lol,) action & adventure in a grim fantasy world; things like character creation and rewards (and magic) fully imply a fantasy world, but worldbuilding is left up to the gm, altho there are many tables to roll on to give some help. uses d4, 6, 8, and 10; all rolls are contested rolls, with dice picked based on how serious the gm feels this roll is.

shattered aether: post-apocalyptic science fantasy, you roam around a fucked up magic world and protect ppl from various dangers. 2d6 based, based on the lumen system so fairly combat-forward in a very high-action very cool asskicking way. for some reason the font chosen for this book is murder on my eyes, but if u can get past that (or just zoom in lots and read a bit at a time) it's straightforward, simple, and fun!

familiars of terra: this one may be a little too crunchy, but i love it a lot and rly the most crunch is in character creation and tracking experience, actual gameplay is (imo) pretty easy. post-post-apocalyptic fantasy world, some science fantasy elements depending on where you choose to focus, bcos there are absolute PAGES of lore on this extremely cool and enormous world; you and your party go around with your soul-bonded animal friends to spread hope and healing and also do cool shit. y'know. card-based, again it is probably more crunchy than ur looking for but less abt tracking what you can do during things and more abt tracking experience in order to level up stats, so.

1400 quest: ok that last one was crunchy, this one's very uncrunchy. pick a handful of things and get going! clearly inspired by d&d, but very very streamlined, so things that were pages of mechanics are like, one or two sentences. gm's side of it is like, a handful of rollable tables and then do whatever, so prolly for the more experienced gm. d6 based, but you may have occasion to use other dice. also if you like this one there's others by the same author focusing on other things (1400 mage, sneak, etc), or you can check out others in the 24XX type of games, which started out sci fi but has since been expanded to a bunch of other stuff. u kno.

beast dream: pokemon-inspired game where you make friends with magical beasts and go on magical adventures! d6-based, forged in the dark, so there is a little crunch wrt deciding on position etc and stuff like stress, but the author rly wanted to focus in on letting u adventure and have fun without getting bogged down in numbers and i think that shows, stuff like load and reputation aren't so much a thing.

cognatons: play as sentient, magic-filled automatons doing whatever fantasy adventures your robot heart desires. d4-based, caltrop core, so you get a fairly simple & defined set of actions; less to keep track of, easy to follow.

dethrone the divine: you're gonna overthrow the gods, and also take their places. you're already either divine, semi-divine, or magically powerful in other ways, and you adventure with the goal of gathering power and followers so you can take the place of the shitty gods in power. d6-based, pretty straightforward system, makes characters v cool and powerful, which is always fun.

perilous: do you love dungeon crawls bcos i love dungeon crawls... streamlined and easy to understand fantasy dungeoneer adventures in this one! d20-based, leans towards tags instead of complicated numerical skill stuff to keep track of. go to dungeons, fight monsters, get treasure. simple n good. (adds in some metaplot, like who sent you, how will this affect the people living here, whatever, but rly strong with the very old core of d&d-style 'go do a dungeon' kinda thing, if that's what u like.)

high magic lowlives: ok my latest obsession bcos i'm currently planning a big ol campaign for friends in this one. there are classic adventurers in this world, out there cleaning out monster nests or whatever, but they're usually in the employ of the immortal aristocracy. you? you make your money by stealing from and humiliating the immortal aristocracy, because you're a lowlife. it's a dangerous gig, but isn't it better than going into student debt at wizard school? melds high fantasy aesthetics with like, magical twitch streaming aesthetics. fun as hell. uses all the dice and also sometimes tarot cards (mostly just for character creation, u kno). easy to understand rules, i'm having a great time.

ellipses rpg: setting-agnostic system (make ur own setting!) with simple, streamlined rules and an emphasis on improvisation. d20 based, rly just some very basic foundation and then a lot of encouragement to make things up and do what's fun. so like, loosey goosey & not super structured if you want structure, but could be fun!

unbound: setting-agnostic system but with much more formal structure, got structure around how to collaboratively worldbuild your setting and everything. obvs this means some crunch, but it's still not super crunchy, nice and straightforward rly. lotta character options but not so complex and math-heavy, u kno. card-based system. designed actually for a series of short campaigns in a linked world, tho, so if ur not up for exploring new characters a lot, may not be for you.