#i know its the only adventure with a good loot table and all but like

[candycanesocks]

welcome home tfd

[xxbonesxx1993]

"JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" S1: E1 "Dio The Invader"

*The following contains major spoilers for season one episode 1 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.*

The first episode of the Netflix anime series, "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure", is one of the most irritating episodes of any show I have ever seen. The purpose of the entire episode is to introduce the audience to the antagonist of the series' first story arc, Dio, and to establish his rivalry with the protagonist, JoJo. The episode does an amazing and skillful job of ensuring that Dio is one of the most hated and detestable villains imaginable.

The episode very quickly reveals that its two most important characters are extremely different from one another.

Jonathan Joestar is the son of an extremely wealthy family. Despite his pampered and decadent lifestyle, JoJo appears to be a person of high moral fiber. Championing ideas such as the duty to defend those who can't fight for themselves and fighting for what's right despite the odds of success, JoJo quickly shows his noble and heroic traits.

Dio is the exact opposite of JoJo. Dio has lived a harsh life and was born into an impoverished family. Dio very quickly displays the tendencies of a bitter narcissist. Dio's most notable qualities throughout the episode are his hyperinflated ego, lack of empathy and general disdain for others, and hypercompetitiveness.

JoJo and Dio's paths cross due to an unfortunate turn of events and a grave mistake made by his father. After their carriage overturns, it wounds baby JoJo's father and kills both his mother and the driver. Dio's thieving scoundrel of a father comes upon the wreckage and starts to loot whatever he can get his hands on. JoJo's father, barely conscious, sees Dio's father and assumes he's there to rescue him and JoJo. The head of the Joestar family promises to repay Dio's father for saving them. Flash forward many years, and Dio's father is sick and dying in squalor. Before he dies, he tells Dio about the debt the Joestar family believes they owe them and tells him to take them for all they're worth.

Mere moments after arriving, Dio assaults JoJo's dog and then feigns innocence by saying he thought the dog was attacking him. This is obviously a lie, but JoJo's ever-oblivious father accepts it, and JoJo reluctantly accepts it as well, and then Dio assaults JoJo too. At this point, Dio has just barely arrived and made it into the house.

Dio assaulting JoJo's dog is likely enough to make most viewers hate him, but things only escalate from there. In the span of a single episode, Dio shoves his thumb into JoJo's eye during a boxing match, spreads rumors about JoJo, causing most of the people they know to avoid him, forced himself on JoJo's girlfriend, stealing her first kiss before slapping her, ruined JoJo's relationship with said girlfriend, pulled a knife on JoJo after losing a fair fight, and possibly the worst of all and some very strong evidence of Dio's depravity, he puts JoJo's dog in an incinerator where he is burned alive. Every one of these acts was a calculated attempt to intentionally ruin JoJo's life, as revealed through Dio's internal monologues.

There is one crime, however, that JoJo attributes to Dio that I attribute to his father, George Joestar. JoJo monologues about how Dio is contributing to the destruction of his life by turning everyone against him, including his father. The thing is that the only thing Dio did to turn JoJo's father against him was adhere to his already absurdly high standards. He favored the child who scored high on tests and displayed better table manners over the one who lacked these attributes, despite the former being evil incarnate and the latter being a kind and good-natured boy. JoJo's father proves to be extremely shallow, and it didn't appear to require much to turn him away from JoJo given his backwards values. The man also appears to walk through life in a state of complete obliviousness. In all the time that the first episode takes place, JoJo's father never once overhears one of the rumors Dio started about his son? Never once does he walk in and see the times Dio instigated something? He only catches things at a moment that seemingly incriminates JoJo? Many of these moments taken alone are understandable, but the mounting pattern of ignorance and lack of awareness by JoJo's father places some of the blame at his feet as well. He welcomed Dio the invader into his home, let him torture and destroy his son, and never once investigated JoJo's side of things. George Joestar is guilty of failing to protect his son for years. It is extremely hard to believe that that much happened for that long and he never caught on, and even so, it's still unacceptable. Wake up, George Joestar!

In a single 23-minute episode, Dio is cemented as grade 'A' scum. The character has no redeemable qualities, and his very existence is infuriating. The level of hatred Dio generates is a great credit to the episode, however. Whatever it is that a viewer detests in a human being, Dio most likely touches on it. The emotions generated in the first episode do a great job of pulling viewers into the next. The episode will cause viewers to contemplate a few burning questions: Will JoJo have his revenge? Will Dio get what he deserves? Those questions will pull many viewers straight into the next episode, and by that merit alone, the first episode of the series does exactly what a first episode should.

There are few fictional characters that I hate as much as Dio, and fewer still that have made me hate them as fast as Dio did. His character truly did much of the legwork in convincing me to watch the second episode of the series.

One more thing to note is that the episode is incredibly fast-paced. It feels as if an absurdly large chain of events happens in a very short period of time (23 minutes, including credits). Whether this is good or bad is a matter of taste, and it's up to each individual who watches the show to decide how they feel about it. At first, I felt it was a little off-putting, and it continues further into the season. It's part of the reason I stopped watching the show early on, but I am attempting to watch it again from the beginning, and so far, there's a lot that the show gets right; it's definitely worth mentioning, and I'm going to give it another shot.

"JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" is currently available on Netflix.

[votederpycausemufins]

I said I had another chapter ready. so It's time to post that.

tagging @helleborusangel because they like my writing and @hermitcraftheadcanons since they and their community made the au.

now... with that out of the way, let's recap evo... wait shoot i mean hermitcraft.

“Pixlriffs! Turn on the tv!” Came a voice that followed a door being slammed open.

Pixlriffs turned around in confusion to see Zloy having barged in, panting with his goggles askew. “Zloy? What’s going on?”

“Just turn on the recap channel! Hurry!”

Even more confused, Pixl slowly turned to his tv and turned it on, switching to the channel that showed their recap show. “I thought you didn’t like watching our own shows. It’s not even a regular recap, it’s just going to be a clip show from the livestream. Why are you so-” But he cut himself off. Showing on screen was a countdown to the season eight day one recap. “What? But it hasn’t started. We haven’t recorded anything.”

“I know! I was with a friend and they turned it on and said they didn’t think it had started yet. When I saw the countdown, I ran all the way over here.”

“Do you think they just had a scheduling mistake? We might need to call the broadcasters and have them fix things up.” Pixl suggested, and Zloy shrugged.

“Let’s just make sure that’s the case and see which episode they’re actually showing. For all we know they mixed things up and this is just the season seven, day one.”

“I hope that’s the case.”

The two recapers watched the timer go down. Elsewhere, people were also turned into the episode. Some were pleasantly surprised by the supposed new episode. Others were confused thinking the schedule was wrong. Those who knew the hermits were confused, not having heard the new season was starting yet.

Then finally, the timer reached zero, and a familiar jingle started. And then a voice that was definitely not Pixlriffs spoke the phrase “This week, on Hermitcraft.”

“Wait, what am I doing in the nether? I just joined the world.”

Zloy and Pixl looked at each other at something they had never heard Keralis say. This was a new episode, but one they hadn’t made.

“A new adventure starts in season eight, new places and mobs to explore and see. And also Grumbot and Jrumbot are Hermits now. Welcome to the Hermitcraft recap! The show where no one is where they should be. My name is Toon Noah.”

“I’m Mysterious Goofball, and our writer is Pin Valentine. Today, we’re looking at everyone’s first day on the new season of Hermitcraft.”

The first person, Noah, spoke up again. “In this season, the hermits managed to update all the way to the second half of the caves and cliffs update even though that isn’t possible.” He explained what was going on in this season. “Everyone is scattered across the map and even in other dimensions. Monsters are tough, regen is off, and using chat is out of the question, so surviving is going to be tough.”

“At the very least, they can still respawn, so certain people have chances to escape. Escape what that is? Well, let’s look at what the Hermits have been up to.” Goofball said, sounding so nonchalant about what they were about to talk about.

“Starting with Xisuma, who’s started out in the deep dark. The admin’s helmet has been disabled other than necessary functions. His visor also gives him a little bit of light, so he’s not completely blind. Plus the fact that sculks are bioluminescent. But the warden is too, which has been able to find him a number of times.”

“Also in the caves in Jevin,-” Goofball spoke up again. “-who’s found himself in some lush caves. He’s got glowberries for light and food and the axolotls are pretty friendly. Plus, with enough searching, he was able to find a bit of wood for simple tools.”

“Speaking of wood. Some of the hermits have found themselves in the jungle.” Noah quickly commented before some audio from one of the hermits played along with its clip.

“Helloooo? Anyone around? Impulse? Tango? Hey is that Grian? Nope, just a parrot. Ugh, and here I am without any seeds.”

Goofball spoke up again when the audio finished. “Both Zedaph and Tango are in the same jungle, but the size of the biome as well as the amount of foliage means they haven’t found each other yet. Tango at the very least has started mining, and Zedaph managed to find a jungle temple and has already started on using the redstone from there for a melon farm.”

“How do you even make a farm out of that?”

“It’s Zedaph, what do you expect?”

“Well, as for the last of team ZIT, Impulse had found himself in the middle of a sea temple.” Noah spoke, as the video showed Impulse dealing with being underwater in such a place. “Between drowning and guardians, he hasn’t gotten that far away from his spawn.”

“In other aquatic news-” Goofball said, another clip from the hermits playing.

“If I never see coral again, it’ll be too- wait, is that False? False!”

“-Stress and False are also nearby to each other, both spawning in coral reefs. False was the first to escape, needing to just swim out of her spawn.”

“On the other hand, Stress was completely encased in coral and had to slowly chip herself out of the colorful prison. But by the evening, Stress was able to get to the surface and join False and an island, chopping down trees. They even started a wheat farm. But here’s hoping they don’t have to deal with drowned.”

“While she isn’t a drowned,” Goofball continued from Noah’s comment. “Zombie Cleo started out in a village. Normally, that would be pretty good, but being a zombie…”

“Leave me alone! I’m not going ta kill any villagers! I’m a zombie but I’m not that kind of zombie!”

“She’s been having an issue with the resident iron golem. With a bit of luck, she managed to hole herself up in a house which the golem isn’t going to destroy, but the villagers aren’t the happiest about it.”

Then Noah took over speaking. “From villagers to illagers, Mumbo Jumbo found himself alone in a woodland mansion, making himself the furthest hermit in the overworld.”

“Come on. Almost. Almost!” The video showed Mumbo running before he was killed by a vindicator. “Oh come on!”

After that, Noah continued. “He’s tried and failed many times to try and get out of the mansion, but eventually just started breaking the walls for tools.”

“The illagers aren’t really happy about it, but not like he’ll be going far, so I don’t think he’ll easily lose those tools.”

“Well at least he’s got supplies.” The video transitioned to a mountain top with three figures standing at the peak. “Grian, as well as new hermits Grum and Jrum are currently stuck on the top of a mountain, surrounded by powder snow. It’s pretty lucky that the three of them stuck together.”

“I’m not so sure of that.” Goofball spoke up, sounding a bit frustrated or annoyed. “While Grian tried to fly down for supplies to little success, other than fall damage, he hasn’t managed to die, using some sort of magic.”

“But it looks like the fall damage came in handy for Doc, who’s further down the mountain. He’s having a bit of trouble surrounded by goats, plenty of them being the screaming variety.”

Goofball spoke again, no longer sounding as annoyed. “Yeah, but while hanging out with them, he heard a different kind of scream and did something pretty smart.”

“Wait, what was- is someone close by? It sounded like someone just- wait! The death messages!” He pulled out his communicator and read the messages. “Grian died to fall damage! Grian’s up there!”

“I guess he is the scientist of the group.” Noah spoke, the grin he had on his face audible in his voice. “It makes sense he would be the one to figure things out. But even then, he still can’t easily get down the mountain himself with all the goats messing him up. My guess is he’s really regretting being the goat father last season.”

“Doc isn’t the only one getting familiar with the new wildlife though. Hypno has found himself in a large flower forest that has plenty of mooblooms. He hasn’t been able to kill any of them yet, and there’s only flowers and no grass for him to get seeds from, so while the place seems like it should be easy to survive in, it’s really the opposite.”

“The best idea he’s had so far is following some bees to find their nest and hopefully a tree attached to it. If only he knew he was actually really close to spawn, being the closest to it.”

Goofball took control of the conversation again “Well, that’s not entirely true as three hermits managed to appear at spawn, those three being Joe Hills, VintageBeef, and Etho.” And the three hermits were shown in what looked much more normal than everything else that had been shown so far. “The three of them pretty quickly figured out something was wrong and started to make spawn a safe place, also gathering supplies so they can eventually find the other hermits.”

“Except Etho got a bit ahead of himself.” Noah cut in. “He had a bad run in with some mobs and ended up dying, finding out his respawn is a bit different than others. But at the very least, he managed to find Ren.”

“Ren spawned on a cliff of a ravine. There’s no water at the bottom, and all the blocks in reach are stone, so it’s not the easiest to escape from. Still, with little else to do, Ren started slowly chipping away at the stone to escape the ravine, only to fall when Etho surprised him by suddenly respawning there.”

“Okay, I got through two more pieces of stone. At this rate, I can probably get to dirt before the sun is setting so- Etho- ooooooh!”

“At the very least Ren is respawning just fine,” Noah explained “So the two of them were able to help Ren escape the ravine, so he’s the third person to escape his spawn area.”

“Well, that’s not entirely true.” Goofball started to correct. “Before Etho helped Ren and even before Stress escaped her coral prison, Cub actually escaped the mesa mineshaft he spawned in. It was a little tricky with the cave spiders spawning, but he lucked out with the loot of a chest and was able to get a crafting table and pickaxe out of it.” Cub had found some iron, torches, a few seeds, some bread, and then used the wood of the mineshaft to get him on his feet in terms of survival. “With a few respawns, he took out the spiders and their spawner. He’s able to move around freely, but not wanting to respawn again, his hearts are a bit low, so he’s staying near the mineshaft for shelter.”

“Then, sort of nearby the mesa of course, is the desert, where the last two overworld hermits are.” Noah said, and there was the slightest ruffle of papers, like he was checking a script. “Both XB and Iskall are stuck in the same large desert, trying to find some source of food, water and wood. So far, the best they’ve found are the sticks from dead bushes. Out of the two, XB is doing a bit better since he’s found a cave for some sort of shelter, but Iskall’s much worse off,the sand messing with his one eye.”

“Between the heat, the sand, and my eye, I can’t even tell what’s real anymore. That cactus could be a tree or a town or- nope! It’s actually a creeper!”

And then Noah continued with a transition. “Getting even hotter now, let’s look at the nether. There’s only two hermits there right now, with different struggles to deal with.”

“Keralis is the first and lucked out a bit, landing himself in a warped forest right near a basalt delta, meaning he’s got up to stone tools. Plus, since nether gold ore can be mined with wood tools or better, he’s also got some gold boots to help with any piglins.”

“On the other hand, Welsknight is in a much worse situation. He spawned in a crimson forest and is having plenty of trouble with the hoglins.” And that was emphasized by a clip of Wels being killed by one of the mobs. “He hasn’t gotten too much wood before dying, but at the very least, he secured his spawn just enough he has some room to breathe. And hey, if he makes it out of there, he’s got a fortress nearby. But now to end this off, let’s head to the end.”

“TinfoilChef, or TFC is on the main end island, spawning on an obsidian platform just a few blocks from the edge of the island.” Goofball spoke. “It’s close enough for him to jump, but he still takes fall damage and has to deal with the ender dragon after that.”

“Not to mention the endermen too, which Scar is also having trouble with. He’s stuck on a smallish end island out in the further reaches of the end. There’s an end city nearby, but he doesn’t really have the means to get there. At the very least he’s got food from the chorus plants, but that won’t help too terribly much.”

“And lastly, there’s BdoubleO, who we’ve- who’s been lucky to not die so far being in a special situation.” Though they hadn’t been saying much, both Pixlriffs and Zloy noticed the slight slip up Goofball gave. “He’s currently looping in the end void, teleporting up to the top when he finally gets too low. There’s nothing in sight for him to know that though, so he thinks he’s just falling deeper and deeper. But hopefully he’ll figure it out eventually.”

“Well, that’s everyone, so that pretty much does it for this episode of Ev- Hermitcraft Recap. I was Toon Noah-”

“And I was Mysterious Goofball and our writer was Pin Valentine. If you’d like to see original content made by us, you can find us if you already know where to look.”

“Don’t forget to give this show a good rating and tune in next week for the next episode of Hermitcraft Recap. Thank you all so much for watching and good-Bye~!”

Finally, the screen turned black, signalling the end of the episode. The whole time, Pixl and Zloy had just sat there in shock, watching the episode and not saying anything. The thought of their show being taken over by some new people was scary enough, but the situations the Hermits were now in was so much worse.

Zloy was the first to move, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He had felt it going off during the episode, but had been too stunned to do anything. Apparently, he had missed multiple calls and texts about what had happened with the episode, who had been put in charge, what was with the hermits, and more related to the whole situation.

“We need to see someone about this.” Pixlriffs said, in a similar situation with looking at his phone. “Make sure people know we have no connection to this and hopefully also see if the studio knows who recorded this. I would also like to say that this is all fake, but…”

“Yeah, that footage looked way too real. I think the Hermits are actually in a lot of trouble right now.”

“Then let’s do something about it.”

[thehubby]

Mike I need help. Every single time my players hit town they shop. Even if we had just gotten a bunch of stuff in the last session, and they swore up and down they didn't need *anything else*, they still go immediately to shop for more things and I'm getting frustrated and bored. We just had four weeks worth of sessions like this and I'm at the end of my patience. I had to shut the session down tonight before we even started because I said "we did a lot of shopping yesterday, so why don't we speed that up and leave town since there's nothing else you need." They immediately vetoed the idea and said no, actually, there was stuff they wanted to shop for!! Even though we just spent SIX HOURS shopping and talking to npcs yesterday!! My brain hit a wall and I had to tell them "I'm done, I can't do this anymore."

Help me MikeyWan Kenobi. You're my only hope.

Long post ahead.

I am here for you, Anon. I feel your pain. Actually, that's unfair of me -- I understand your pain but have not experienced it myself because my table of players is very well balanced, and although one or two of them have an affinity for shopping, it's partly my fault for making so many homebrew items and letting them occasionally nab a few from shops. Still, the other players at the table keep them in line and keep the game moving reasonably. It sounds like your entire table (or at least the majority) is driving you crazy in this regard, which is a more difficult challenge.

Here are my suggestions. I can't guarantee that they will work against diehard shopaholics, but this general flow often works for obsessive player behavior in general (murder-hoboing, insistence on lots of combat, refusal to fight, power-playing, and so on). You may tackle any or all of these in whatever order you think will benefit your group. You know your players better than I.

Figure out and understand why your players are doing this. There could be lots of reasons. Some players, particularly long-time veterans (who were often brought up in "Monty Haul" adventures) or raised on modern MMOs and computer RPGs, become driven by the acquisition of items -- to them, if their character isn't adorned like a Christmas tree, they aren't a success. There are also players who have "big spender" syndrome, an actual behavioral condition that exhibits in tabletop and digital RPGS: the player believes that their rise to power and success as a character can only be evidenced when they demonstrate their wealth. Not to put on my Psych 101 hat, but this is sometimes a projection of the player's own worldviews and experiences with wealth (or lack thereof; after all, some people play games like this as an escape from the reality of their own hardships). In addition to staying at upscale inns (if they haven't acquired their own property) and eating fine foods (if they haven't sought out a private chef on retainer), their characters also interact with a lot of shopkeepers, who are generally pleased to see people laden with coin and interested in their wares. I mean, who doesn't like being able to throw around money for the latest glimmering bauble while the sales associate waits ever patiently? But for some, it goes much further, and can be every bit the same pleasure as getting the killing blow on that blue dragon. And finally, some players are really just there for the talking. That's their whole bag. They would be happy putting all their skill points into Diplomacy, Intimidate, Sense Motive and using every stat as a dump except Charisma. It's weird, given the combat-oriented nature of the game, but those people really do exist.

Understanding the motivation behind your player behaviors will give you the best chance of curtailing that behavior in a way that satisfies both you and them.

You said your players vetoed leaving town and immediately said that there were things they wanted to shop for. My question, were I in your shoes and with your level of frustration, would be to ask what such things were, and if the characters had a legitimate need for the items. If the characters know what they are looking for, you as GM can immediately determine if they're available in town, and if they're exotic, perhaps there might be some searching or wheeling and dealing to even find where they are sold. If the players are looking for typical fare like more healing potions or a replacement for those +1 arrows they used up, this is easily handled without a 20 minute chat-fest, especially if it's your third such today. If the players don't know what they want, and just want to see what's available, don't hesitate to ask them why they believe they are ill-equipped for their continuing adventures despite you or NPCs telling them as such.

Such behavior can also be forcibly slowed or even stopped through the world-controlling power you wield as the GM, although if not handled delicately, this can significantly raise tensions at the table. The PCs, having arrived in town after a week subduing trolls in the Sootblack Hills, find that the stores are all but empty of magic items. Even the most basic potions and scrolls are a crapshoot to find; they might scour the entire city in search of any place that even has a magic weapon available? Why? Plenty of reasons. War has broken out, and supplies for every city in a couple hundred miles have been bought up or seized by the warring factions. Perhaps the ruling monarch (or council or whatever) has decreed for unknown reasons that the manufacture and sale of magical items is forbidden, punishable by imprisonment. An ancient order may have been awoken and has begun the theft or destruction of arcane equipment -- except for their own, of course. These turns of events might cause the PCs' own equipment to become even more valuable (or a threat to their safety) -- but any newfound wealth will do them little good with nothing magical to buy. All of these and similar actions are only stop-gaps; eventually, the PCs would be expected to help resolve the war, overthrow the sovereign, defeat the ancient order, or whatever is in their way. And then you're back to where you are now.

Always keep in mind the Wealth By Level restrictions for characters. This represents how much wealth a character possesses at any one time for their level (some GMs take a more stringent view that it represents the total wealth a PC will have accrued by that point in their career, so if the players fritter it away on women and chimichangas, tough noogies.) Characters can only buy things if they have the wealth to do so. Selling items they don't want comes with a steep penalty. Even in great condition, shops rarely pay more than half price for an item due to taxes, restocking fees, how long it might take to sell, and so on. What this ultimately comes down to is that you control just how much these characters can buy and sell. They can only buy items if they have the coin, and they can only get the coin that you give them, or a lesser value for selling items they don't want. Become more stringent with money. At some point, the money runs out, and selling hard-earned loot for half its value stops being so fun. Do you really want to lose effectively 2,000 gold crowns for selling that +2 axe, or do you want to maybe put it to some use and come out more powerful than you would have buying some weaker item with the proceeds? If players decline to ever sell their equipment yet still expect to find new equipment, you can accommodate them by destroying their equipment. Enemies can sunder weapons and armor; a number of spells, magical effects or environmental hazards can deal damage to and potentially break anything exposed to them. This isn't being vengeful; it's being a good GM. [I remember watching Critical Role and over many episodes, perhaps the most traumatic and thrilling experience the players had (apart from character deaths) was when their beloved flying carpet was eaten by acid or lava or something. But it was a natural consequence of their actions, and they took it in stride, as they should.]

Finally, as with all things, you are the law. I always, always recommend talking with your players, either individually or as a table if needed, to tackle either your own frustrations or those of one or more players. But if push comes to shove, it's your game. You (presumably) respect the players by coming up with adventures, scenarios, NPCs, locations and all sorts of other stuff for them to tackle in a manner you expect to be fun. If they refuse to respect your preparation time and the time you spend at the table, by insisting to engage in continuous, pointless NPC discussions despite you expressing your dissatisfaction, then tell them you can't do it anymore. It isn't fun for you, and if the only way that they can have fun is in a way that is directly contradictory to you having fun, the game isn't going to work, period. If they sincerely change, fantastic; try to accommodate their need for shopping when you can and get on with the grand story at other times. If they refuse to change, leave them and get another table. That last part isn't always easy to do, and depending on your area, it might take a while to get another game going, but often a table where you're not having fun (and working hard to do it) is worse than no table at all. I wish you luck.

[anistarrose]

Chapter Summary: Barry gets a job offer. Kravitz sees a new side of the moon. Taako has a long-overdue chat with his umbrella.

Characters: Kravitz, Taako, Barry Bluejeans, Angus McDonald, Magnus Burnsides, Merle Highchurch, Noelle | No-3113, The Raven Queen, The Director | Lucretia, misc. BoB cameos, Julia Burnsides, Garyl

Relationships: Taakitz, Angus McDonald & Taako, Barry Bluejeans & Kravitz, Kravitz & Angus McDonald

Lately, I’ve been thinking of this fic as a story told in two acts. They’re not necessarily going to be equal in length, but this chapter is definitely the end of Act One.

***

“That’s basically the whole story, Your Majesty,” Kravitz concluded, after several minutes of talking at speeds that no being who needed to breathe could hope to match. Barry and Noelle stood on either side of him, mustering the most innocent expressions he’d ever seen on the faces of a lich or a robot, respectively. “Not that I’d blame you for having follow-up questions, because… well, holy shit.”

Holy shit, indeed, the Raven Queen agreed. A projected image of her visage was floating above a circle of five perfect raven feathers, having been carefully arranged on the cave floor by Kravitz. Istus said we were approaching unprecedented times, but…

She sighed. Well, I must admit that with the apparent exception of Istus, we gods hardly think about what lies outside our planar system. It’s… inconvenient, uncomfortable, how we hold so much power in this world yet understand so little about what’s beyond it. This threat, this Hunger, is news even to me — but didn’t you already know that, Barry, from all the Celestial Planes you’ve seen invaded before?

Barry nodded. “Yeah. I never saw stuff like that directly, of course, but Merle’s a cleric, so… he had his ways of knowing it was never a pretty picture.”

The Raven Queen let out a sigh, like wind escaping from beneath a whole flock’s wings. Then I have more important things to do than reconcile your undeath with the laws of this world, and you have more important things to do than defend yourself to me. Barry, Noelle, you are free to go at least until the apocalypse is averted — but if we get through that, and only then, I’d like you to start thinking about accepting jobs in the Astral Plane. Whatever state the world is in after the Hunger arrives, Kravitz and I will probably need your help.

Barry went dead silent, while Noelle’s whole display lit up with excitement.

“Are we talking afterlife office jobs,” she asked, “or something more along the lines of what Kravitz does?”

“We’ve got plenty of open positions, honestly,” Kravitz explained. “You could probably pick either.”

“Huh,” Barry finally muttered, so soft that Kravitz could’ve missed it. “I — I appreciate the offer, but — I gotta know one thing before I even consider it. Will I have to — to bring in any of my family? Anyone from the Starblaster?”

I’d like to speak with them all eventually, and I may ask you to facilitate that, the Raven Queen replied, but they won’t be punished.

Barry nodded. “Okay. That’s… that’s something I’m willing to consider, then.”

I hope you find out what happened to Lup. Her location is concealed from even me, but I know she’s never entered my domain, so I believe you’ll find her out there somewhere.

Barry’s eyes flickered, shedding drops of light that ran down his face for a few seconds before they coalesced back together. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

It’s the least I could do. From here, my priority shall be to warn the rest of the pantheon, but we’ll be in touch. The Raven Queen’s visage disappeared with a clap of thunder and a gust of wind that lifted the feathers into the air, carrying them back to Kravitz’s waiting hands as her voice boomed throughout the cave one last time. Good luck, my children.

“That went well, right?” Noelle asked when the echoes faded. “That felt pretty good for a conversation with the death goddess.”

“She’s a lot more reasonable than most gods, I think you’ll find,” Kravitz concurred. “But what’s the plan now? Because other than heading up to the moon, and bringing the boys back down for you to tell them what little you can, I haven’t got a lot of ideas.”

“I dunno either. I don’t like keeping them in the dark either, but it’s very little we can tell them aside from —” Barry paused. “Wait. You can go on the moonbase?”

“Yes? At least, no one’s tried to stop me. I guess I can see why you wouldn’t be allowed up there, but —”

“It’s more than a ban and a wanted poster keeping me off! It’s an anti-undeath ward —” Electricity crackled inside Barry’s silhouette, and he let out a laugh that could’ve woken the not-yet-reanimated dead. “But you, Kravitz, apparently possess enough celestial energy to balance out the undead elements of your soul — which is perfect! It changes everything!”

“Uh,” Kravitz began, reflexively taking a step back, “I think I’m missing some context here —”

“That ward’s the only thing stopping Barry from sneaking onto the moonbase and stealing the ichor he needs to inoculate his family!” Noelle explained, totally unperturbed by Barry’s mad scientist laugh. “I couldn’t steal it for him because the same ward keeps me from leaving my fuse for very long, and this robot body’s not exactly stealthy — but you can decorporealize for as long as you want on the moon, right?”

“I’m not sure I’ve actually tried,” Kravitz replied, rubbing his chin as the puzzle pieces fell into place, “but I’ve never had issues getting through anti-undead wards before, corporeally or otherwise!”

Barry rubbed his hands together, smoke and sparks pouring out from between them — but for the first time, Kravitz was sure he saw a glint of a smile flash on Barry’s face.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Barry asked. “Let’s head back to my place and plan a heist!”

***

“So what do we do now, Fantasy Columbo?” Taako asked, staring at the Umbra Staff in his hands. “I didn’t hear any jingles start playing for solving some sick higher power’s umbrella lich puzzle — how does this help us? What does it change?”

This should have been a revelation, Taako knew. This should have changed everything. But his mind was lagging behind his racing heart, struggling to fit together puzzle pieces that he knew should connect. Struggling to understand why he cared so fiercely about an evil ghost of an evil wizard being trapped in the arcane focus he’d looted her corpse for.

“I… I guess we should try to communicate with her?” Angus suggested. “She’s a Red Robe, so she must have something to do with —” He gestured wildly from his notepad, to Taako’s head, to the incinerated coffee table. “With all of this. Right?”

He removed his glasses, wiping off drops of sweat, and Taako realized that Angus, the smartest person he knew, had ran into an uncomfortable mental wall of his own — and after just a split second of looking at Angus’s pained expression, Taako made a decision.

“Hey, kid. I need your arguably expert opinion real quick — Magnus and Merle aren’t smart enough to be memory-wiping masterminds, right?”

“Oh, absolutely not, sir. We both know they’re no good at keeping their lies straight.”

“Could you check in on them for me? And try to bring ‘em back here — but, uh, only if you can do it without Lucretia or Davenport spotting you, and I need you to really focus on looking out for them. I don’t know who else I can trust with this —”

With a huge, determined smile on his face, Angus saluted. “I won’t let you down, sir!” He looked far less pained as he slunk out of the room, and Taako breathed a sigh of relief.

“Okay. Kid’s gonna be alright with his mind off of this, and now we can have some peace and quiet, Lup.” His mouth lingered on the name Lup but his mind didn’t, giving no thought to the affection he instinctively voiced. “So… let’s chat?”

***

Lucretia’s office looked just as Barry had described, and not all that different from the Reclaimer’s dorms in terms of architecture. The sole occupant was not the Director herself, but a mustached gnome man who sat at the oversized desk, focusing intently on a game of solitaire. He didn’t even look up as Kravitz’ soul drifted past, steering clear of the desk and floating right through a heavy, closed door.

Kravitz kept inside the left wall of the corridor — Barry may not have reported any traps in this stretch, but the puzzle that Barry had reported was nowhere to be seen, and Kravitz knew a suspiciously empty-looking hallway when he saw one. He phased through a second door at the end of the chamber, ignoring the computer that looked even more foreign to him than his Stone of Farspeech, and recorporealized inside a second office.

This close to the source of the ward, a spinning disk imbued with radiant energy, Kravitz could finally feel its influence — a faint burn and refreshing cold that coexisted, an antipathy towards his undead body and a resonance with the Raven Queen’s blessing. Tempted as he was to knock down the disk and short-circuit the ward, it wasn’t poised do much besides mildly distract him, and he was making this visit with a much different goal — one that he’d expose, if he ended up dramatically trashing someone else’s holy symbol.

At the far end of the office sat a murky tank, and above that tank, an alarm was ringing. A few feet to the alarm’s left, a needle punched holes in a steadily scrolling paper, recording what Kravitz inferred to be times and intensities — and there was a lot of information to infer from, because the paper output had not just reached the floor, but piled up to almost waist height.

A massive volume of alarms had clearly been accumulating, and someone — presumably Lucretia — was far too busy to check on every message. Ever since he’d died, Kravitz had been notoriously bad at keeping track of dates, but a quick comparison with the dates at the bottom of the pile and the dates of the current output revealed that the alarms had started trickling in last night, before a massive influx took shape only about an hour ago.

This was all very interesting to the part of Kravitz that loved a good mystery, but his pragmatic side won out, knowing this alarm could attract unwelcome attention at any moment. He switched his attention to the contents of the tank — which appeared just like Barry had said it would, but was still plenty fascinating. A jellyfish floated in murky ichor, illuminated from within by a dark purple nebula pattern, and recoiling away from Kravitz as he rested a hand atop the tank.

“Now, now. It’s alright,” Kravitz murmured, in the same tone he might use to calm a distressed soul. “No need to be scared…”

The baby Voidfish hummed two chords, far lower and louder than Kravitz had expected from such a tiny creature — but music, at least, was something Kravitz knew he could work with. He summoned his scythe in the form of a lute, plucking out a peaceful melody he’d been fond of for hundreds of years… and only a few bars in, the Voidfish began to echo him, humming along with increasing volume.

“I’m just here to do my friends a favor,” Kravitz promised. “It won’t take long at all.”

The Voidfish seemed to relax, so Kravitz let go of his lute, allowing it to float at his side with a faint blue aura suspending it in air. He pulled a canteen from beneath his cloak, slowly submerging it in the tank until it was full to the brim with ichor — probably a slight excess, but he’d rather have too much than not enough.

“See? All done,” he whispered, reattaching the canteen’s cap. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

The Voidfish hummed the refrain of his song once more as he reformed his scythe, and as if to say farewell, waved a tentacle in his direction as he stepped through the portal off the moonbase.

Just a moment later, the very second Kravitz’s feet hit solid subterranean ground, Barry was at his side with a barrage of questions. “How did it go? Have you got the ichor? Did anyone see you?”

“Good, yes, and no in that order,” Kravitz replied, handing Barry the canteen. “The only thing I’m worried about is… well, you’ve seen how Lucretia has an alarm system in her office, right? It’s going a little haywire right now — and has been since last night.”

Barry’s relief morphed into frustration mid-relieved sigh. “I was hoping we could avoid that, since the boys haven’t had a run-in with me in a couple days — but I guess someone’s still trying to remember something, and it won’t be long ‘til Lucretia picks up on it. We gotta get a move on.”

“I did talk to Taako about the stars disappearing last night, come to think of it,” Kravitz recalled. “I hope he’s not still hung up on that, but it sounds like he might be.”

“Shoot, that coulda done it. No fault of your own, obviously.” Barry sighed again, picking up a couple of scrolls from his desk and placing them on a much more neatly organized bookshelf. “Sorry for the mess, by the way. You and Noelle have been my only visitors so far this whole decade.”

Kravitz had seen Barry’s home before he left for his heist on the moon, and it had already been pretty respectable as secret lairs went. Aside from the stalactites and the dubiously legal cloning pod, it had looked more like a disheveled academic’s study than a necromancer’s dungeon — but in Kravitz’s absence, Barry had apparently gotten up to some spring cleaning. He’d draped a sheet over the pod, which was still glowing bright green and far from innocuous, and somehow gotten his hands on a decent-quality couch, either from a pocket dimension or a conjuration spell or gods knew what else.

“Before you got involved, my plan never involved the boys coming in here while they could remember me,” Barry admitted. “They’d still be far from seeing me at my worst, but — well, I dunno if I can make this place look welcoming, exactly, but I’d rather not make them worry about me ‘cause of it.”

“If it helps, this is easily the nicest cave I’ve ever seen a lich holed up in,” Kravitz said, which got a quiet laugh out of Barry.

“Yeah, I bet it is.” He opened the canteen, pouring a modest sample of the ichor into a glass vial. “Hard to believe this is happening so suddenly, but… I think now’s the time. Lucretia could catch on at any minute, and I — I’ll be ready by the time you get back, I think.”

“Good luck remodeling,” Kravitz told him with a nod, and tore open a portal back to the moon.

***

“So… let’s chat?” Taako suggested. He didn’t know what kind of reply he was expecting, but he had to admit it stung when the Umbra Staff didn’t move an inch.

“Okay, what you do isn’t exactly chatting. That one’s on me. Can you just give me a sign, a little poltergeisting or something, if you’re listening?”

Still nothing, which continued to hurt more than it should have.

“Are you mad at me? I thought you smacked me in the face today to get my attention! ‘Cause you wanted to talk, but…” He glanced away from the umbrella in his lap. “I guess you really hate Kravitz, don’t you? And I was helping him hunt you, even before we started dating…”

He sighed. “And you’re only here because I stole from your grave! What was I even thinking? Of course you hate me, and maybe I half-deserve it —”

The Umbra Staff twitched in his hands, subtly yet so abruptly that he jumped to his feet with a yelp and dropped it onto the floor. It spun over ninety degrees as it fell, landing to point at the shelf of seldom-used spell components that Taako and Merle shared.

“You… want me to cast something?” Taako knelt on the rug, gently wrapping a hand around the handle but not raising the umbrella from the floor. He didn’t feel even the slightest movement. “Hey, if you’re not mad at me, then… do something. Do anything.”

He thought the handle might’ve trembled slightly, but wasn’t sure — it could’ve just been wishful thinking. “Okay, flip side. Do something if you are mad at me.”

This time, he was certain there was no response. “Okay, I’ve narrowed it down to either ‘you’re not mad’ or ‘you don’t want to talk to me,’ but I don’t get why you’re being so subtle about this. I mean, I’m not asking you to cast Sunbeam on my boyfriend again, but I know you could be giving me more obvious signs than —”

He happened to glace back at the component shelf, noticing the chest of spare wands he’d stockpiled — arcane foci, just like the ones the Umbra Staff consumed — then just like that, it clicked, and there was finally one quirk of his rogue umbrella that Taako had an inkling of an explanation for.

“Unless… you can’t give me a bigger sign because I haven’t beaten a magic user in a while!” he gasped. “You’re not trying to ignore me — you’re running out of power!”

He unlatched the little chest, grabbing two cheap wooden wands and snapping them both — and sure enough, the Umbra Staff inverted with more vigor than Taako had seen from it all day, swallowing them whole.

“Better?” Taako asked, and a tiny pink flame sparked to life at the tip of the umbrella. Lup must’ve summoned it with a variant of Prestidigitation, because it smelled less like smoke and more like comforting home cooking.

“Now I know why you chose me instead of Merle at the cave! You’re an adoring fan of Sizzle it Up!” Taako teased, and the Umbra Staff bonked him on the head. “Okay, fine, maybe not. Gods know that’s not the only thing I’ve got going for me over Merle.”

He glanced around the room, rubbing his chin. “I was going to say you could turn that flame on and off real fast, send me a message in Fantasy Morse Code, but then I remembered I don’t actually know Fantasy Morse that well. Maybe you could, like, burn something into the wall —”

The flame atop the Umbra Staff intensified, excited.

“But I guess we’d run out of space real fast — never mind explaining it to Lucretia, yikes! We’d be toast… just like the walls.”

The flame died down, replaced with a disembodied, glowing red Mage Hand. With an upturned palm, it made a motion that Taako guessed was meant to convey a shrug and a then what?

“Oh, you didn’t tell me you could do Mage Hand from in there too! I can work with that!”

He made a beeline for the dorm kitchen, ripping open a fresh bag of flour and dumping it directly onto the counter. “I really don’t wanna leave written evidence, so you write stuff in this, and I’ll erase it when you’re done. Sound good?”

Lup squeezed his shoulder, then traced four words in the flour.

I’ve never hated you

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Taako muttered, pretending he couldn’t feel his whole chest seizing up. With a bare hand, he wiped the flour flat, and only sent a little flying onto the floor accidentally. “I… I wanna let you out. Because this is a really inconvenient way to talk, but — but also ‘cause I know you didn’t mean to get trapped in there, and living inside your arcane focus sounds like it’s the pits. Is there a way I can free you?”

yes but not right now

“Why not?”

no liches on the moon

“Oh, have they got wards to block you off or something? I guess we wouldn’t be able to talk at all if I freed you, and that… that wouldn’t be great.”

I’d miss you :(

“Yeah, I can imagine,” Taako replied, and he said it before he meant it. The figure of speech slipped out right away, ingrained after years of overwhelmingly insincere conversations, but his emotions caught up to him more slowly — starting with the loneliness and the longing, before they ate away at him and left an emptiness behind, a dread of never being whole again and a temptation to tear the whole world apart, because what would he have left to lose?

It ended with a throbbing skull, with static clouding the peripheries of his vision, with a mind that couldn’t fathom why missing someone would hit so close to a home that should have never existed. The last year notwithstanding, he couldn’t remember a time where he’d be caught dead missing someone’s company… but now all he could think, all he could feel, was I’m not losing you again.

“There’s gotta be a workaround — right, Lup?” he managed. “Like, is there a way I could take the wards down?”

maybe, but

Lucretia would notice

“I’m gonna go out on a limb, and assume… she wouldn’t be too thrilled to know you’re here.”

Lup took longer to reply than usual, erasing the first few letters of her response to start over several times.

it’s so complicated

don’t think I can explain

“Right. Of course. ‘Cause of the Voidfish.” Taako rubbed his cheek, expecting to wipe away stray splotches of flour — but instead, he felt his fingers grow damp with tears that he knew weren’t just from the pain of his headache.

“I — I don’t know what to do, Lup. I want to help you, but Kravitz is probably in danger because of me so I have to make sure he’s okay, and I know he won’t like me helping you — then there’s Angus and Magnus and Merle, too, I have no clue if any of them are in as much trouble as us. And I just… I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to this. That the worst of all the bombshells still hasn’t dropped, and I’m about to lose all you while I still don’t know who I am, or who I can trust besides —”

The fingers of Lup’s Mage Hand interlocked with his, and it was a strange sensation — fuzzy and only about half-tangible, as simple magic constructs were expected to be, but warm like a living hand despite the lack of flesh and blood. Taako couldn’t say how long he was silent, just focusing on just that warmth and the inexplicable nostalgia that accompanied it, before he finally asked: “What do you think I should do?”

Lup withdrew her hand slowly, but didn’t hesitate nor erase as she traced four new words:

find Barry

trust Barry

“…I’m glad I’ve got you, Lup, ‘cause I never woulda come up with that on my own,” Taako muttered, chuckling in spite of himself. He didn’t doubt for a second that Lup’s advice was worth following, but he had to admit it was ridiculous how every time a problem came up in his life, someone insisted it could be solved by tracking down a denim-clad lich. “Do you know any of his favorite hangouts, or —”

As Lup’s Mage Hand zipped back into the Umbra Staff, Taako didn’t quite notice the scythe rending space behind him, but he whirled around at the sound of feet hitting the ground and an incredulous voice speaking up.

“Uh, Taako?”

Kravitz carried himself with considerably less poise than usual, wearing a tattered suit that had presumably once seen better days, but he appeared otherwise unscathed, and Taako’s heart jumped for joy.

“I — I — I’m sorry?” Kravitz’s words sounded less like an apology, and more like a sincere question of whether or not he should be sorry for intruding. “I should’ve just portalled to the hallway and knocked. I didn’t mean to walk in on — on whatever this is —”

Before he could stammer another adorably confused word, Taako rushed in for a hug — never mind how crazy he knew he looked, covered in flour and inexplicably teary-eyed over an umbrella.

“Holy shit, I can’t believe — I was so worried about you. I thought for sure you were in trouble and it was all my fault — it was all because —”

Kravitz slipped a cool, but unusually not cold hand under Taako’s hat, mussing up his hair to match the rest of his appearance. “I won’t lie, Taako — there were moments today where I was worried for me. But it turned out to all be a misunderstanding, which is always a pleasant surprise in my line of work — and even better, if you can believe it, one of my new friends knows what’s up with those deaths you can’t remember!”

Kravitz was beaming, but Taako’s blood ran cold like he was the dead man walking. Just when he’d been so sure, so relieved, that he hadn’t dragged Kravitz into the Voidfish conspiracy after all, it turned out that Kravitz had sleuthed his way right to its very center.

No wonder he gets along so well with Angus, Taako thought wryly. Two constantly endangered nerds of a feather.

“This friend can explain it much better than I can, so we’ll visit him by portal — but Magnus and Merle need to hear the truth, too,” Kravitz went on, still seeing no reason not to be enthusiastic. “Are they available?”

“Oh, those clowns? They’re off playing kickball with Angus or something — should be back soon.” Taako knew how Kravitz thought, and knew that Kravitz believed he was doing the right thing by digging up these secrets. He was fulfilling an oath to his goddess and helping Taako get some closure, which should have been great news as far as Kravitz knew — but now he was on the moon, speaking openly about truths a Voidfish had suppressed…

And Taako was conspiring with a lich, soon to be two liches, behind Kravitz’s back. He wasn’t expecting to like the truth behind his eight deaths, if he could even wrap his mind around it — and he had a feeling that when it came time to be judged by the Raven Queen, Kravitz would like the truth and its consequences even less, regardless of whether Taako could think clearly enough to defend himself.

So he withdrew from the hug, wiping the flour — and the incriminating mention of Barry — off the counter with a swoop of his hand. “Oh, drat! Did not mean to do that, ‘cause now I’ll have to mop the whole floor —”

“Okay, Taako. What’s wrong?” Kravitz asked firmly — and Taako didn’t know why he’d thought he’d be able to stall for time, given how Kravitz knew him pretty well, too. “You’re not in trouble with the Queen — I mean, we’ll probably have to invent and then fill out an entirely new form of paperwork about you and your pals, but I told her everything and she’s not mad, I can say that much. Same goes for Magnus, Merle, and — uh, forgive me, just Magnus and Merle. It’s been a long day.”

“Okay, that’s the second piece of good bird news you’ve dropped on me in like twenty-four hours, and I appreciate that,” Taako sighed. “But — okay, listen. We’ve got to be quiet about this, for both of our safety, but I think — I know I’m dealing with more than just memory loss here. I’ll try jumping through your portal and talking to your friend, but I really don’t think I’ll be able to understand —”

“Oh!” Kravitz gasped. “I think I know what you’re talking about — I ran into it with Angus earlier, and we should definitely have a way around it.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “My, uh, my new friend didn’t know if you could understand that there was a second Voidfish — but you heard that, right? It wasn’t garbled?”

Taako nodded frantically. “Yeah, and we’ve gotta get off the moon. If Lucretia finds out we know, I — I’ve got no idea how far she’ll go to keep this under wraps, and that’s the worst part. She’s already suspicious of me, and I —”

He felt a tug from his umbrella, and he cast Message as quickly and subtly as he could, hoping the Umbra Staff’s propensity to absorb magic like a sinkhole would somehow pull his unspoken words to Lup.

I’m not going to tell him about you. Not until I get more information.

Her reply must’ve hardly escaped from the umbrella, being little more than a distorted whisper — Be careful. Love you — but Taako’s legs almost gave out beneath him when he heard her voice, and Kravitz winced.

“We’ve really got to get you out of here, don’t we?” he murmured, taking Taako’s hand — and Kravitz’s skin was definitely warmer than usual, because of course this frankly adorable development would happen when Taako had a million other things on his mind. “You said the other boys will be back soon?”

“I hope.” Taako led the way into the living room, giving a wide berth to the remains of the coffee table. “I sent Angus to go find —”

On cue, the rattle of a doorknob and the sound of Angus’s voice rang out from the hallway. “Sir? We’re back! Could you unlock the door?”

The next sound was the telltale thump of a small child being affectionately shoved aside, followed by Magnus exclaiming: “Hey, I’ve got thieves’ tools now! Gimme a shot at picking it!”

Kravitz pursed his lips. “Don’t Magnus and Merle have their own keys?” he muttered under his breath.

“Of course they do,” Taako sighed, and the door swung open with a snap of his fingers and a Knock spell.

“Magnus, look!” Merle cheered. “You did it!”

While Magnus and Merle high-fived, Angus’s eyes lit up at the sight of Kravitz half-alive and well.

“You’re okay! I’m sorry I didn’t end up finding Noelle, but Taako said he was worried about you, so I started worrying too — did you have a nasty fight with a necromancer or something?”

“…Yes and no,” Kravitz responded after a moment of hesitation, “but I can explain that whole incident later. Right now, I need you all to come with me to —”

“A cool skeleton rave!” Taako butted in. “And… there’s also supposed to be skeleton dogs there! So you guys will definitely wanna get in on it!”

“Yes, exactly!” Kravitz corroborated without missing a beat. “It’s one of those, you know, very rare skeleton raves that receives the Raven Queen’s approval. Once in a century opportunity, so you won’t want to miss it!”

Magnus rubbed his chin. “I dunno about this. How do you pet a skeleton dog?”

“Only one way to find out!” Taako told him, then breathed a sigh of relief when it got an approving nod from Magnus.

“Fair enough! I’m sold!”

Angus narrowed his eyes, so Taako grinned and winked, hoping it came across as equal parts conspiratorial and don’t you dare blow this for me. It must’ve worked, because after a few seconds of surely intense mental calculations, Angus plastered on a convincing innocent smile and gave Taako a thumbs-up.

“Thanks for inviting me on this fun diversion, sir! I’m sure you could’ve come up with a more convincing lie if it was a trap or a prank, so I’m all in!”

Smiling awkwardly, Kravitz turned to the the lie’s final mark. “Merle, my bud, how about you?”

“Are we buds now?” Merle grinned. “You know what, sure! Anything for my bud!”

“Then away we go!” Kravitz tore open a rift and immediately stepped through, beckoning for the others to follow with the single arm that remained on their side of the portal. Magnus leapt through almost immediately, Merle hot on his heels, while Angus approached the rift more skeptically.

“Well, sir,” he announced softly once Magnus and Merle disappeared, “you and Kravitz owe me an explanation… but I trust the both of you.” He took Taako’s hand, and the two of them stepped through the portal together, emerging in a cold, dimly lit cave.

And Taako thought he’d been “moving fast” through a lot of things, lately — through worldview-shattering realizations, into a romantic relationship, into unofficially and semi-accidentally adopting a boy detective — but nothing could’ve prepared him for how fast everything moved in the next minute.

Kravitz faced Noelle and a now-familiar disembodied robe, very obviously struggling to suppress a mood-inappropriate laugh. “Can you believe I was planning to lie to Magnus about skeleton dogs, but then Taako interrupted and independently came up with the same fib?”

“That’s love, baby!” Taako exclaimed, in the moment before the absurdity of the situation dawned on him. “Wait. Why’s Barold here?”

As the rift fizzled and disappeared, Magnus drew Railsplitter, only to whirl around on himself with no idea who to aim at or threaten. “Hey, did we just get kidnapped? ‘Cause I’ve gotta say, this is the last combination of people in the world I expected to team up and kidnap us.”

“It’s not a kidnapping,” Kravitz began, “it’s just —”

“Did you kidnap a child, Kravitz?” Barry interrupted, gesturing at Angus. “When was that ever a part of the plan?! We didn’t need to involve —”

“With all due respect, Mister Bluejeans,” Angus butted in, “Kravitz didn’t technically kidnap me! I knew perfectly well that he was bullshitting, but I decided to come along with him anyway, out of my own free will!” He turned to face Kravitz, adjusting his glasses. “That said, he did deceive and therefore truly kidnap Magnus, Merle, and maybe even Taako by the sound of things — so if he could go ahead and explain his presumably very good reason for doing so, that would be just dandy!”

Barry sighed. “Real smartass kid you’ve dragged into the fate of the universe, huh, boys?”

“He was already involved enough in things that he deserves to know. We’re bringing him up to speed too,” Kravitz declared, and Barry shrugged.

“Alright, sure — but why the hell was there a child on the moon in the first place?!”

“He’s the world’s greatest detective,” Noelle spoke up, and Angus beamed. “I told you about him, remember? He’s the one who figured out that you were amnesiac when you were alive —”

“Oh, I do remember that, though I don’t remember you mentioning his age — so I guess it’s my bad, then, for assuming a secret lunar society would give a flying fuck about child labor laws!”

Kravitz ignored them both. “Merle, Magnus — I’m so sorry for the deception, and Taako, I’m sorry for not saying that Barry was my new contact. I didn’t want anyone eavesdropping on us on the moonbase, and I swear, I will explain myself as soon as I physically can —”

“Hey, hey, it’s cool!” Taako’s words were intended not just for Kravitz, but for Lup within the Umbra Staff, which had started trembling at the sound of Barry’s voice. “I would love an explanation, but I needed Barold’s help anyway, sooo… doesn’t this work out pretty great?”

“Needing Barry’s help is a new one, sir,” Angus commented, but no one in the room looked more incredulous than Kravitz and Barry themselves, who both froze in place.

“Um, that’s — that’s news to me too?” Barry stammered. “But if — if you don’t need any convincing, then…”

He floated a little taller, robe a little less ragged, voice a little more hopeful. “Let’s get you inoculated, bud.”

A glass vial appeared in Taako’s hand, and he sipped the dark liquid inside without a second thought, even though he gagged while passing the vial on to an apprehensive Magnus. No memories rushed back to him like he’d braced himself for, but he thought he felt the nature of his headache change — less like the roar of static, and more like the pressure on a dam about to burst.

“You should really sit down for this,” Barry told him, resting a cold hand on Taako’s shoulder. “Take it as slow as possible. You obviously figured out a lot, more than I thought you would, but you still won’t be ready for —”

“Relax, it hasn’t even hit me yet!” Taako interrupted. “So in the meantime, I can catch you up on this whole funny story about… my… umbrella…”

The metaphorical floodgates shattered, and the deluge of memories swept him off his feet.

Growing up bouncing between relative to relative, growing skilled as chefs and wizards on the road. The IPRE entrance exams, the best day ever, the Hanging Arcaneum, “back soon” —

His head burned as the static was expunged from his mind, displaced by visions of days and months and cycles that just kept hitting him. He was dimly aware of someone, two someones, clutching his arms and lowering him to his knees on the cool cave floor —

“Stay with us, Taako!” Kravitz pleaded, holding Taako’s left hand. “Listen to Barry —”

“I’ll walk you through everything,” Barry — the animal kingdom, learning to swim, “what if she’s just gone?” — promised from his right, clinging to the same arm with which Taako held the Umbra Staff. “Just don’t think ahead. I’ve been through this before, and I can get you through it now, as long as —”

“B-but — but Lup!” Taako cried. “How could I forget —”

“I know, bud,” Barry whispered. “I forgot too. I understand —”

“You fucking don’t understand!” Tears fell from his eyes, but his mouth twisted into a cautious, still half-disbelieving smile. “Barry, she’s right here!”

“What?!” The cave was plunged into red and black, blinding lights and impenetrable shadows, as the lich at its center seemed to fall apart and come together all at once. “WHERE?!”

Taako closed his eyes, and with a strength he didn’t know he had, snapped the Umbra Staff over his knee.

[cosmiclove-heavenstruck]

Gravity | JJ Maybank (Outer Banks, Season 1)

Pairing: JJ x fem!reader

Wordcount: 2100 words

Warnings: swearing, mentioning of underaged drinking/smoking

a/n: English is not my native language, so there might be spelling/grammar mistakes. Also, this is just a simple oneshot, so don't expect a great plot or anything. Have fun!

“because in my world, i'm constantly havin' a breakthrough or a breakdown, or a blackout, would you make out with me underneath the shelter of the balcony?”

─ clementine by halsey

[ Clementine, better known as Clem by the Pouges, lived on the southside of Outer Banks with her mum, near John B's home. Her mum worked pretty hard and was often out of town, so Clem was usually to herself. Since she began to work for Kiara’s dad two years ago, she sort of grew on the chaotic group and got involved in a lot more shit than expected. Besides serving tables at the restaurant, hanging out in the hammocks or on John B’s boat and handling the one or other mystery on the island, Clementines mind was occupied by a certain blonde guy. ]

The sun was nearly unberable, making me fan myself with my book. Summer had arrived, in full glory and a lot of hot air. I relaxed in my hammock behind our small bungalow and swung from side to side to keep myself from falling asleep, one foot on the dry grass.

Summer break just started two days ago and it was already boiling outside.

My hammock was placed between two thick trees, right beside the water and the wooden dock. Small waves sloshed against it from time to time and seabirds squealed above my head. I felt at peace and my body nearly forgot it already had more than ten hours of sleep last night as my phone vibrated. A new message from JJ lit up on its screen.

get urself ready

5 min.

A smile spread across my face. Within seconds I was back in my room, putting on my bathing suit, a pair of shorts and an open shirt with hawaiian flowers. I packed some drinks into my small cooling bag, slipped into my flip flops and wrote my mum a message in case she would be home before me.

With a towel over my shoulder and the cooling bag in my hand I walked outside again and onto the dock. John B was already steering his white boat towards the wooden planks as I reached the front.

“Aloha boys,” I greeted them with a big smile, and JJ held out his hand so I could easily jump on board.

“Hi Clem.”

“Aloha, darling. Watcha got there?” JJ asked, peeking over his sunglasses.

Once in a while, when I hadn't seen JJ for a day or two, I thought I wasn't completely head over heals for the sunkissed boy anymore and my heart had settled. But then he had the nerve to smile at me again and my whole body began to tingle.

“One for you.” I handed John B a cooled beer bottle which he thanked me for with a fast kiss onto my tempel. He was at least two feet taller than me. “And one for you.”

I threw another one in JJ's direction before getting myself one, placing my stuff under the bench seat and sitting down beside him.

“That just saved my day,” JJ answered and gave the cold glass a kiss, then he kissed me on my cheek. I hid my smile by taking a sip of beer.

“Don't lie, you already had two,” John B said grinning while he navigated the ship to where Pope lived. The boy was standing outside, helping his dad by cleaning some empty, second-hand boxes as usually.

“Hey, Pope, get your ass in here!”

“I told you yesterday, I can't!”

His dad came outside, a broom in his hands as if he wanted to chase us away. It wasn't a secret his dad disliked us.

“Oh, come on, it's summer vacation,” I interfered and waved him. Pope was already putting down the water hose and giving his dad an excusing look.

“I'll do it tomorrow. I promise!”

“Hell nah, you're stayin'!”

“I’ll be back for dinner!” Pope laid the pipe down and snatched a towel from the railing.

“Get in the boat, get in the boat,” John B whispered, whereupon Pope jumped onto the deck of the ship.

“Pope! Get back here right now!”

“We're getting him back safe, promise!” JJ yelled as John B turned the speed back up and we rushed through the waves up to Kie's house.

“Man, your dad is so unrelaxed. He should try one of my joints.”

“Don't you dare. He'll get us all killed.”

I laughed at the boys conversation. Such idiots. But I loved them nonetheless. They were my family.

Kie lived on the rich northside of Outer Banks, even though she hated it with nearly every fiber of her heart. The darkhaired girl was casually walking up to us, in her hand a bag fully of snacks ─ at least I hoped so.

“Morning y'all.”

“Welcome on board, pretty. Are those snacks?”

JJ got up to give Kie a hand, just like he did with me. Her hair was in a messy pointail, held together by a green cloth.

“Oh, you know. Some watermelon slices, stuff like that,” She joked, smiling.

Kiara was pretty. And not just that, she was smart and knew how to handle things. That didn't stay unnoticed by the guys. They were practically all into her, even if they weren't admitting it. Which wouldn't have been a problem if I was that confident in myself too. Or a bit more adventurous, inventive, whatever.

I wasn't jealous of her. In fact, she was one of my best friends, the only female one I may add. She made sure I got a job at her father’s restaurant, for which I couldn't be more thankful.

“Hey Kie.”

“Hey,” She greeted me, hugging me tightly before sitting down next to me. We provided everyone with drinks so we could touch glasses.

��Salud, guys. To the best summer of all times,” JJ announced, holding up his bottle.

“To the best summer of all times,” We echoed him and clinked our bottles together.

John B turned up the speed and the volume of the stereo as the waves splashed against the boat. I closed my eyes, smelling the salty water, my coconut sunscreen and the beer. I had missed summer.

We stayed out all day long on the water, sunbathing and diving in the ocean. Kie connected her phone with the stereo and put on some of our favourite songs. As the sun was slowly going to set, we all laid in the front of the white varnished boat, sandy and drained from all the sun. Within five minutes, we infested Kie's brought snacks and finished the beers.

JJ was passing around a joint he made himself. His skin glowed orange in the evening sun, even though there were some light bruises on his rips. His head was resting on my tanned legs.

After everyone had taken one or two drags, my body didn't feel as tired anymore. Kie started some more upbeat songs and while Pope navigated the boat back to John B's place, we danced. It probably looked horrible, but it was fun.

First, I was just dancing with Kie. Spinning her around and stuff, but she knew about my feelings for JJ. She was the only one I had told, ever. She was also the only one who believed JJ was interested in me too, as much as I tried to talk her out of it.

So, of course she used my blurry state to get me to dance with JJ. To make it less awkward, I stole his sunglasses and put them on, stupidly smiling at him.

“We dancin' now?”

“Absolutly.”

Grinning, he grabbed my hands and pulled me closer to him. Kie winked at me.

JJ put one of his hands on my hips, swaying me around in the front of the boat.

The sun was melting into the water and gave everything an orange touch. My body was glowing because of the heat, my heartbeat was going way too fast. JJ's blond hairstrands fell into his eyes and I couldn't stop laughing. Then he let me make a twist so my back was pressed against his belly and our hands were intertwined. Once he had unknotted us, he dipped me before pulling me up again. We were so close, our noses nearly touched.

“You look good with my glasses.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I might keep it.”

I grinned and bit my bottom lip. His eyes looked so pretty. Blue like the ocean.

“Hey guys, not on my boat, okay?” John B reminded us that we still had company around us.

I rolled my eyes and ─ as much as I didn't want to ─ let go of JJ. My hand slipped out of his and it felt like I was suddenly bound to gravity again.

Pope and Kie attached the rope of the boat with the hook on the dock, and I grabbed my stuff and followed the others to John B's house. I placed the now empty cooling box and my towel on the porch. My body felt like the alcohol and weed had left out of nowhere. The sun was barely seeable by now and the wind was colder than expected.

Inside, I put my clothes back over my swimwear and tamed my frizzy hair in a loose bun.

“That. Was. So. Much. Flirting.” Kie bumped her ellbow into rips with a knowing smile on her lips.

“Shut up. That was nothing.”

“Are you kidding me? Have you seen the way he looks at you?”

I crossed my arms, eyeing her in disbelief. My head just couldn't comprehend the idea of someone liking me like that. Especially not JJ.

“He likes you. A lot. Trust me.”

“Come on, Kie. Just because he flirts with me once doesn't mean he has feelings for me. You know how many girls want him.”

She scoffed. “Okay, fine. I'm gonna ask him.”

“Wha─ No. No, Kie!” I whisper-screamed at her and tried to grab her arm, but she escaped my grasp and jogged into the kitchen where the boys probably looted John's fridge. Fuck.

“Uh, guys, my mum texted me. I'm gonna go now, see ya tomorrow!” I yelled and quickly escaping onto the porch. The warmth seemed to have disappeared, thick rain drops where pouring down onto the shelter of the porch.

There was no way I would just let Kie embarrass me because ─ surprise ─ JJ wasn't actually flirting with me. Absolutely not.

I was already on the last step and out in the rain, as someone called me.

“Clem? Wait.” JJ. Goddamnit. I shut my eyes for a second before facing him.

“Yup?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

He scratched the back of his neck. “You─ uh... You still have my sunglasses.”

My heart dropped. Had I honestly expected something else?

“Yes, right. Sorry.”

I shook my head, scoffing as I took them off and went up the stairs again. I left my stuff down on the paveway. Internally, I was shaking like hell. My heart was a wreck. Utterly nervous. Maybe Kie hadn’t said anything, maybe he hadn’t heard her, I thought.

I stood infront of him again, not as close as before though. Without thinking and instead of just handing the stupid glasses over like a normal person, I put them on his face. He didn't need them, the sun had already vanished beneath the ocean. I did it anyway.

JJ pushed them up in his hair.

And then we were just looking at each other and I hade to pull myself together so I wouldn't faint. I gulped and tugged at my own shirt, that ridiculous hawaiian shirt.

“So,” JJ spoke under his breath. The rain was still pouring down onto the plastic shelter. My heart beat felt louder, and I wondered if he could hear it. I was so scared.

“Goodnight, J.”

With that, I turned around and wanted to leave, like I always did when I was too afraid to face the truth.

“I like you too.”

Everything in me froze just to melt in the next second. My heart stumbled. So Kie did tell him.

Slowly, I turned back around.

JJ just stood there, hands in his pockets and sunglasses in his hair, chewing unsurely on his bottom lip. He seemed vulnerable. No smug grin, no stupid joke on the tip of his tongue.

“I mean I really, really like you, Clementine. More than that.”

For once, I didn't want to be afraid. If he could be brave, I could too. Within a second, I was back in front of him, though way closer. Even closer than on the boat.

And this time, I kissed him.

My hands grabbed his hair, pulling his face down to mine, and once he had understood, I felt his arms wrap around my waist. There was no gravity pulling me down when we were this close.

“I really like you, too,” I mumbled between two kisses. I could feel his lips forming a smile as he pressed them onto mine again.

“"I thought you'd never admit it,” He said, grinning.

“Don't get used to it,” I answered, grinning just as wide as he did.

And then he kissed me again under the shelter of the balcony, surrounded by the heavy sound of the rain, while I buried my hands in his hair and he pulled me off the ground.

[self-loving-vampire]

Pathfinder: Kingmaker (2018)

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a game that I liked a lot when I played it, but also a game that has a lot of obvious problems that drag aspects of it down. Fortunately, one of its big strengths is that it is extremely customizable, meaning that annoying or broken parts can be toned down for the most part.

Summary

This game has been called a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate, which I can see only on a sort of superficial level. What I can say it is that an ambitious and (in some ways) expanded adaptation of the Pathfinder tabletop adventure path of the same name, which I have run a little bit of.

For those who don’t know, an adventure path is essentially a whole campaign, starting at first level and spanning several interlinked chapters with their own minor antagonists and themes, sometimes but not always all the way to 20th level.

This particular AP is one that I’d consider extremely hard to make into a computer game without losing a lot of what makes it appealing in the process. It starts with a simple hook: A wild part of the world is under the rule of a bandit lord, if you defeat him then you will be allowed to found a barony on his land and develop it as you wish.

While the concept is straightforward, this is a great idea with tons of potential in the infinite freedom of tabletop play. While it is impossible for any existing computer to realize this potential as well as a skilled human DM could, the game does have a lot of strengths (and weaknesses) that make it interesting to analyze.

If I had to compare it to an older game, I’d actually use Troika Games’ 2003 cult classic Temple of Elemental Evil rather than Baldur’s Gate, for reasons that will become apparent to any who are familiar with it.

Freedom

I would say that this area is mostly fine. Once you finish the prologue (which doubles as a tutorial) you are largely free to explore the Stolen Lands... except that areas open up gradually depending on your main story progression.

While I understand that this helps keep things focused and manageable, there are times where these limitations end up feeling a bit contrived. Still, this is not a huge deal since each area is reasonably big and full of optional content.

One nice thing about exploration is that there are many areas with encounters that are far deadlier than anything you may be used to at that point, but which usually guard extremely valuable loot. This means that if you can figure out a way to overcome the encounter before you’re “supposed to” level-wise you will get a very satisfying reward out of it.

Defeating these encounters is not even strictly needed at times either. For example, there is a hidden crag linnorm (a CR 14 monster) in a cave within an area full of far weaker monsters (around CR 6 or so if I recall). While defeating the linnorm would not be easy for characters at this level, I managed to use the party’s rogue to sneak past it and loot its hoard without combat.

In terms of things like dialogue choices and the like, the game is also mixed. While you very often have multiple options, some of these options can be Stupid Evil (attacking people for no reason) or even flatly blocked by your alignment in ways that feel arbitrary.

For example, you need a Neutral alignment component to make peace between the mites and the kobolds in chapter 1.

There is one particular quest (courtesy of a kickstarter backer) that is a horrible railroad as well.

But overall I’d say you have more options here than in many other similar games, I mostly just wish the alignment stuff made sense and did not lock you out of options.

The game has multiple endings and Fallout-style ending slides describing what became of the people and places you influenced based on your decisions. However, achieving the secret ending or the secret romance is so extremely obscure that I’m actually surprised I managed to do it on my first playthrough.

Character Creation/Customization

This is easily one of the game’s most significant positives, while also being one of the things that may be extremely intimidating about it for people who haven’t played the tabletop.

With the DLC, there are 9 races to choose from and like 16 classes (not counting prestige classes). Adding to this, each of those classes has 3 optional archetypes that function as subclasses that add, remove, or modify class features.

Many of the races also have different heritages that switch around things like racial bonuses/penalties, resistances, and spell-like abilities.

However, I do have some complaints about it as well. Sometimes the explanations of what an archetype adds don’t seem as complete as they should be, and from what I remember a lot of your character creation decisions did not have enough of an impact outside of combat.

While the game does feature skill checks both in dialogue and in other parts of gameplay, they use the highest modifier within your party so your own stats are not vital to passing them, and (unlike its sequel) the game rarely features things like special dialogue options based on things like your race, class, or chosen deity as far as I can tell.

Also, while many tabletop options were understandably cut since the game was already over-ambitious as it is, this includes all kinds of item crafting (without mods that is). Things like potion-brewing are a pretty central aspect of the alchemist class, while wizards really benefit from scribing scrolls to handle many different situations.

Worse, this inability to craft and enchant your own gear can end up hurting the itemization in the game. There are tons of different types of weapons you can choose to specialize in, but for many of them you will struggle to find good weapons of that type to use within the game.

Also missing is the ability to meaningfully apply several types of spells out of combat, which really hurts some character ideas that would have been very interesting in the tabletop version (such as diviners or enchanters).

The whole system can also be a bit confusing to those unfamiliar with the tabletop. The game is not as clear and good at teaching as it should be.

Story/Setting

The game is set in Golarion’s Stolen Lands, an anarchic area with heavy fey presence. Compared to many of the more colorful locations in the setting, this is one of the more “standard” and generic regions, but there are still some noteworthy things that help define it, such as the ancient cyclops ruins beneath the land or the links to the alien First World of the fey.

Like the adventure path it is based on, the Kingmaker computer game has a story separated into several linked but defined chapters that each present a new threat. Kind of like anime arcs that introduce increasingly dangerous villains at the center of each.

The story is generally fine and the secret ending is as satisfying as it is obscure. However, I would say that story is not what makes this game good in my opinion. This is no Planescape: Torment.

The game features many companions. I did not really care much about roughly half of them to be honest, but I do like the approach used to present them. They are all very visibly flawed, which can make for bad first impressions, but as you spend time with them and do their quests you discover new depths to them that make them far more interesting, and you see them change over time as well.

One notable example is Jubilost, a rude know-it-all gnome with an unpleasant and caustic personality that covers some measure of real kindness underneath (as well as the fact that he does indeed know a lot, he just needs to be less of a dick about it).

And of course, the central idea of the story is something that you don’t actually see that much of in RPGs, or even in a lot of modern tabletop campaigns: The player gaining a kingdom to rule. I think that while there is no way to properly provide the same range of options for how to handle this as the tabletop version can, the game still manages to accomplish something interesting (even if not wholly good) in how it integrates the gameplay into this.

In many ways, ruling the kingdom can actually be kind of stressful outside of easier difficulties due to the interminable problems and literal curses plaguing it. You will have to contend with everything from monster raids to plagues and invasions throughout the game.

While the mechanics of managing the kingdom are not really all that well-balanced and are more of a pain than anything to a lot of people, the throne room events where you get to make decisions on policy and such are often fun and not something you see in many other games.

One thing that can be off-putting about the game’s approach to narrative decisions is that there are a few times where the outcome of a quest can feel a little arbitrary due to depending on seemingly minor dialogue options. This is especially bad about the above-mentioned secret ending and the secret romance option. They go far beyond “secret” and into “you will be lucky to achieve this without a walkthrough”.

Finally, a few of the alignment tags applied during conversation options make no sense. This is particularly bad during chapter 2, but the issue comes up outside of it as well.

Immersion

This is one area where the game is not that strong, for multiple reasons. For instance, the fact that there is no crime system at all. You can loot your entire town (where even magical items are sometimes inexplicably placed in random homes).

The day/night cycle also seems to be for aesthetic purposes only as there are no schedules to go with it (which at least makes sense from a gameplay standpoint I guess).

The one thing the game actually brings to the table here above most others is also one of its most controversial features: The passage of time.

There is a real urgency to your quests, as there’s actual consequences to neglecting threats and situations that are meant to be urgent. 

In most games this kind of urgency is completely fake and the story advances at whatever pace the player decides. Not so here. If you ignore, say, the troll hordes early in the game then their attacks will eventually overwhelm and ruin your kingdom.

Everything from travel to resting and even hunting in place of using rations takes time. Rest too much and you could be sacrificing your long-term ability to manage the endless threats around your kingdom in exchange for an edge in the encounters immediately ahead of you.

This not only makes the mechanics somewhat more interesting by forcing you to manage time instead of playing it safe by resting liberally and doing a 15-minute adventure day, it also ties in with the narrative of just how deeply cursed, troubled, and flat-out burdensome caring for your kingdom can be.

It also just feels more real that events move on their own regardless of whether or not you are present to deal with them. This feature is not entirely positive, though. It can obviously be painful if you are struggling or lost.

Gameplay

This is one of the game’s strong points, at least if you enjoy the mechanics of the tabletop. Just as Temple of Elemental Evil was a simplified and buggy but reasonably faithful adaptation of D&D 3.5 rules, Kingmaker is a simplified and buggy but (somewhat less) faithful adaptation of Pathfinder 1E rules.

Obviously there are many, many things missing from the tabletop. Classes, races, feats, I think also grappling in general, firearms, and etc.

I think a lot of these cuts are fair. This is a huge game already and it would have been downright miraculous to include every single option possible in the tabletop. The consolidation and removal of skills that were unlikely to have much use in the adventure also makes sense for balance purposes.

The combat as a whole is deep and complex enough to remain interesting for a long time, at least in turn-based mode (which I recommend). The amount of options available to magic users in particular is extreme even if many spells are missing, and many martial classes also have some features of their own beyond just basic attacks.

Also helping things is the very wide variety of enemies, some of which require a specialized approach to take down easily. You can’t just use the same tactics for every encounter in the game.

For example, trolls regenerate unless attacked with fire or acid. Undead have a whole host of immunities but are vulnerable to positive energy. Golems are immune to spells and extremely tough.

My main complaint about this aspect of the game is really just that combat is a bit excessive. There are far too many random encounters and even outside of that there is much more combat in general than in the tabletop version. Too many of these encounters end up feeling like padding.

This game probably could have been under 100 hours easily if a lot of the superfluous fights had been cut and overall XP gain had been increased. Even with enjoyable combat, 100+ hours of this is way too much.

Besides combat, there are “storybook sections”, where you are presented with situations and must make decisions about how to resolve them, often making use of skill checks to determine results. These are nice, not much else to say about them.

Which brings us to  the last major aspect of gameplay: The kingdom management. This aspect is controversial, and you can turn it off entirely if it sounds like it may not be for you.

There are three major aspects to kingdom management: Decisions, projects/events, and city-building.

Decisions are the most interesting by far. You will be presented by an issue or a request to decide on your policy in one area. You will be given a handful of choices with varying consequences, which may be referenced in later decisions.

Projects and events are more flawed while still having a good idea at their core. These are basically issues that you will need to assign one of your advisors to fix. For example, sending your general to deal with a hostile.

Where it falls apart is the fact that a dice roll is involved in determining success or failure (though there is a type of currency you can spend to improve your chances, which can reach 100%). There are also so many things going on that some of your advisors can be busy for months on a project while various events that require their attention pile up.

The worst part is that there are certain projects that require you to spend a fortnight at your capital doing nothing.

But even worse than this is the city building, which is a missed opportunity. Most buildings provide little beyond a relatively small amount of kingdom stats. This is still beneficial, but not very inspired or interesting.

So there are a lot of problems with kingdom building, one of the core features of the adventure path. While I didn’t hate it myself, I understand why some people might want to focus on the adventuring and combat.

This is also the point where I should mention that the game was incredibly broken at release even by eurojank standards. It is definitely a lot better in this area than it used to be, but is still not the most reliable of games.

Aesthetics

This is one area where the game does very well. Some of the environments look great, the monster designs are generally good, the music is great (though repetitive by the end due to the game’s length), and the combination of sound effects and brutal animations can make combat extra satisfying.

Areas can even change depending on the weather or the time of the year.

The only negative that comes to mind is that most of what you see in the game is relatively generic fantasy environments that don’t really stand out. I was never much of a fan of lush, bright forests and the like.

At least there is still a bit of variety, with dark swamps and mountainous areas, as well as the rare trip into the bizarre First World that fey creatures inhabit.

Accessibility

This is one of the three big complaints about the game (the other two being the bugs and the difficulty). If you are not already familiar with the PF rules then you may struggle to play this game effectively, at least for some time. From what I recall, many things are not that well explained.

In fact, you may have already heard horror stories about how one of the very first side quests you find sends you to a spider cave where you have to fight swarms, which is a type of enemy that is immune to normal weapon attacks outside of the easier difficulties.

This lack of clarity can also extend to your story decisions, as previously explained.

Conclusion

Like many other big and ambitious RPGs, Kingmaker has a lot of jank and technical problems, and its complexity and difficulty mean that it is not really the kind of game that will have widespread appeal. 

However, this does not mean it has no appeal at all. It is a huge game with entertaining combat, a story that puts you and your decisions at its center, and the rather rare opportunity to become a ruler in an RPG. It tries to do a lot  and I for one prefer games with big ambitions and passions like this over games that play it safe, even if they are more competent and polished.

I’d say that this game is mostly recommended for tabletop RPG nerds, people with “old school CRPG” sensibilities, and people with a high tolerance for jank. Others can definitely still enjoy it, but may want to use the easier difficulty modes.

[queensparklekitten]

You wake up in a world. You don’t remember anything, but you know who you are. You are the player. You know this world. You know to punch a tree. It’s the most logical and important thing to do. That tree. It’ll give you apples. You don’t question why you know this. You just know it. 

Place three rocks in a row at the top and two sticks down the middle column on the crafting table. There. That’s how you make a pickaxe. Now you can mine iron. You need the iron to proceed. You don’t question why you know this. You just know it. 

Darkness is dangerous. Monsters appear in the darkness. You’ve never seen one, but you know what they look like. You need to take wool from sheep, 3 should be enough, put it in a row on top of a row of wood. And then dye it red. They used to only be red, now they can be any colour, but to dye it red is a sacred ritual, a mark of a veteran. You don’t question why you know this. You just know it. 

As you create and adventure, you know everything of what you run across. You’ve never seen a temple like this before, but you know there’s treasure inside, and you also know that the blue square is a trap, that you shouldn’t break it. 

Place the furnace and the crafting table next to each other to officially turn this place from your house to your home. Wear the carved pumpkin on your head to protect yourself from the endermen. Don’t sleep in the nether, the bed will explode. Water will stop falling from hurting you. They all come naturally to you. You don’t think twice, no matter how strange it seems. But it’s not strange, is it? It’s how the world works, it’s how it was always meant to work. 

The nether has had its forests and its volcanoes and its porcine inhabitants long before you came along. But you remember when it didn’t. There was no plant life, no blackstone, none of the ancient debris you use TNT to uncover underground at level 15 and fuse with gold to create the strongest material you’ve ever seen. It’s your first time in the nether, and it was like this upon your arrival, the decayed bastions making it clear it’s been like this a long time. It should make no sense that you have memories of it being a barren wasteland, yet it does, and you give it no thought. 

There is a dragon. The Ender Dragon. It lives in the End, where the endermen come from. You need to kill it, to free the end. You’ve never seen any evidence of its existence, anywhere in this world. But you know it’s there, and that killing it is your ultimate goal. It’s controlling the endermen. Killing it won’t change anything about how the endermen behave, but they’ll be free. The endermen are your enemies, but they are not evil. You have to kill endermen to free the rest of them. 

You combine the pearls with powder from blaze rods, and make something new. Eyes Of Ender, that’s what they’re called. Follow them. They will lead you to the portal room. 

Your final arrow hits the dragon, and rays of light begin to emanate from it as it disappears in a spectacle of purple and white light. You hear the sound of the dragon’s death, and the sound of a cascade of experience points falling around you, and as you collect the egg, you realize you’ve won this world. 

The bedrock sparkles with starlike pinpricks of light in the void, and you desperately want to jump in, but you know not to do it yet. You need something. An elytra. You climb up to the new small portal and throw in the pearl. It takes lots of searching and a long trail left, but at long last, you find the elytra, guarded by a shulker. You take it, loot the chests, and leave. No need to stay here any longer. You follow the trail back and jump into the bedrock portal. 

You can’t see a thing, but you can hear two things. One of them is music, just like the music you hear so often, that always brings a tear to your eyes. The other is two voices. You can hear them perfectly despite the music. It feels almost more like you can see them than hear them. 

“I see the player that you mean.” 

The player… yes, that’s you. You’re the player. 

“It thinks we are part of the game.” 

Game. That word never came to your mind, but it makes sense to you. Game. Maybe that’s why you’re called the player. 

“And less terrifying than staring at the reality behind the screen.” 

Screen. Screen… Yes, you can see a screen. And a keyboard, a hand on the keys that control where you walk, a thumb on the space bar that makes you jump, another hand on the mouse that makes you look around, interact, place and break things. 

You are a player because you are in a game. That is your entire world, simply a game for someone who lives beyond your world. 

“But what true structure did this player create, in the reality behind the screen?” 

That’s right. The reality behind the screen. Being a game does not make you and your world any less real. These beings that speak, they are the true creators of your world. A world they created just for you. Your world, and the countless others you’ve inhabited, some years ago when the nether was barren and all beds were red and now long gone, some visited just a few days ago, all real, all the lives you’ve lived, sometimes as a godlike being that uses its powers to make buildings, sometimes as an adventurer much like your current incarnation. 

You remember all those worlds, and you remember watching videos of worlds inhabited by other players like you, and you remember reading books about hypothetical worlds, and you remember listening to songs about adventures set in worlds like all of yours. 

“Player of games.” 

“Good.” 

“Take a breath, now. Take another. Feel air in your lungs. Yes, move your fingers. Have a body again, under gravity, in air. Respawn in the long dream. There you are. Your body touching the universe again at every point, as though you were separate things. As though we were separate things.” 

And you do. And when you feel the air in your world, you truly see yourself. You look so different than you do in the game, but you’ve always looked like this, in fact, you have since before you woke up in this world. No, not this world. You’re not in that world right now. You’re in the world of the being that plays the game as you, because you are the being that plays the game as you. You are not controlled by an entity living beyond your world- you are that entity. When you hide in a wall and stand still for stretches of time and know it’s in order to do something, what you’re doing is moving away from the keyboard for a few minutes. Your entire world is a game for yourself, but so much more than that. 

You see the screen, with the words on it, and the device that displays it, your window into your other world. You continue to read the words, seeing them from inside your home, on a planet so much smaller than that of your other world, but in a universe so much larger. 

The shapes you see around yourself are alien, they don’t belong in your world, they look nothing like anything you’ve ever seen. But you barely even notice- after all, you’ve been surrounded by such shapes your whole life. Circles and ovals and curves are not native to your world, but they are as commonplace in the world as squares if not more so. 

“And the universe said you are not alone

And the universe said you are not separate from every other thing

And the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code

And the universe said I love you because you are love.” 

“And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love.

You are the player. 

Wake up.” 

As you look around yourself, standing up to fetch food while the list of names scrolls on the screen, passing by the calendar and thinking of everything soon to come- the season of freedom and warm weather, the arrival of the items you purchased online recently, and even more things to explore in the dream, lush caves full of plants and soaring mountains with new animals and terrifying monsters with no eyes but great ears, and as you taste the food and listen to the music, you know you’ve done exactly that. 

When your new dream begins, you know how to fly the elytra. Make fireworks, which can be made using paper and gunpowder. 

You don’t question why you know this. There’s no need. You know why. 

[sirpoley]

On the Full Plate Threshold and the Nature of Money

"Can I buy a magic sword?"

This is a question that seems straightforward, but is actually fraught with follow-on implications that are not obvious. It is also one that's asked at some point in any D&D campaign. You might be thinking, as GM, that you're making a choice about the setting of your campaign (is this a high-magic or low-magic world, a desert island, a major trade city, etc). While you are making this decision, you're also deciding (perhaps without knowing) what money is in this game. You're deciding whether your adventuring party will build castles or not, whether they'll hire armies or not, whether they'll go adventuring or not, whether they'll be greedy or not, and whether they'll care about rewards at all after the fighter gets her hands on a set of Full Plate.

In my experience, money in RPGs is used for one of six things: character power, narrative power, oxygen, skill, XP, or nothing.

Money as Character Power

This paradigm is the one most familiar to 3.x veterans such as myself, and is the direct result of allowing magic items to be purchased freely for money. This allows players to invest money in their character's powers and strengths in the same way they do with skills and feats. There is a slightly different set of constraints on how money is spent than skill points (which is to say, the party must find a city), and may be further restrictions still (such as 3.x's limitations on the most expensive items that can be bought in each size of settlement), but at the end of the day, players can pretty much buy whatever they have money for.

In essence, if a player can convert currency into better stats, damage, armour, etc., then in your system, money is character power and should be treated as such. The GM should keep a close eye on how they hand out treasure and quest rewards, as too little or too much money can easily result in difficulty balancing encounters. Third edition D&D came with a table stipulating how much money each character should have at each level (the (in)famous "Wealth by Level" table) and balanced monster CR based off of this assumption. In my younger years, I GM'd several campaigns in which I restricted purchase of magic items because of campaign setting reasons (it was a low magic setting, or the party was far from civilization, or whatever), and then was shocked as the party struggled against ethereal monsters or monsters with damage reduction, yet with CR far below their level. Additionally, such restrictions won't affect all characters equally—a 3.5-era sorcerer, for instance, can operate just fine despite absolute poverty, while a fighter will really feel the lack of a level-appropriate magic sword. Monks, despite not using weapons or armour, are ironically among the classes most dependent on magic items because of their dependency on multiple ability scores.

Determining whether your system assumes money as character power may not be immediately obvious, but as a GM, it is crucial that you find out. D&D's modern-era spinoff, D20 Modern, does not use money as character power, as you can't simply buy better and better guns as you level up—once you've realized that the FN 5-7 pistol and the HK G11 rifle are mathematically the best guns and you've bought them (which you can easily do as a first-level character), you're set for the rest of the campaign. However, D20 Modern variant campaign settings, such as D20 Future and Urban Arcana, do allow you to directly convert money into character power, as the reintroduction of D&D-esque magic items of Urban Arcana and the "build your own gear" gadget-system of D20 Future allow unlimited wealth to be converted to unlimited power.

What to Watch as a GM: Ensure a steady trickle of monetary rewards that increase as the players level, realize that players will be increasingly antsy to reach town the more treasure they have, keep an eye on any game-provided wealth-by-level suggestions, and be wary about player-driven "get rich quick" schemes and item crafting systems. Be very cautious about allowing a PC to borrow money from an in-world bank or other lender, as they could quickly invest that money in magic items and destabilize the game balance.

Advantages: Combing through books to find perfect magic/sci-fi items is very appealing to some players, and it allows the GM to dangle money in front of his or her players to hook them on adventures.

Disadvantages: Can lead to very hurt feelings (and huge game imbalances) if a character is robbed/disarmed in–game, as it is functionally equivalent to erasing a feat from their character sheet. Further, the game can break down very quickly if there is a wealth disparity among the party, as there are more than simple roleplaying repercussions to playing a "rich" or "poor" character. Some players find this system "video gamey," and others feel that it overwhelmingly encourages players to steal everything not nailed down.

Best For: Combat-heavy games in which a "build" is important, high magic/soft sci-fi settings.

Money as Narrative Power

When money sees its most use bribing officials, hiring mercenary armies, building castles, or funding large-scale operations of any kind, money in your system directly converts to "narrative power." Players can use cash to influence the game world and the direction of the story, but not necessarily to deal more damage in combat (or heal more, or buff more, or whatever). This is where D&D 5e tends to get to after low levels (see "Crossing the Streams" for more on this). Many gritty, film noir-esque stories rely on key characters being dangerously in debt and are called to adventure by motivation to pay off said debt. Depending on the details of the campaign world, however, Players might stop caring about money entirely if it doesn’t directly relate to the plot or some kind of scheme.

What to Watch as a GM: If you come from a legacy of "Money as Character Power" games, you might have to remind yourself to loosen your grip if one or more characters seems to be accumulating "too much" money. Just because money doesn't have direct applications in combat and adventuring doesn't mean it isn't an important game resource—be sure to provide opportunities for players to use their money to solve problems, or else they'll quickly ignore it entirely.

Advantages: Allows a host of narrative options restricted by "Money as Character Power" games, such as managing businesses, organizations, or fiefdoms. Allows a wealth disparity between party members with only moderate issues. Additionally, allows stories involving borrowing and lending money without breaking balance in half, and overall can feel quite freeing.

Disadvantages: Can still cause problems if one PC is notably wealthier or poorer than the rest, depending on the players themselves, as they might end up driving the story. Unless finances are baked into the plot, using money as a reward is unlikely to garner much interest on behalf of the players.

Best For: Gritty realism, power politics, games that will eventually result in characters becoming lords/ladies/CEOs/etc.

Money as a Skill

In some ways, this is the exact opposite of "Money as Character Power"—when money is treated in your system as a skill, players have to sacrifice combat power in exchange for wealth. For instance, in the Fate-based Dresden Files RPG, if a player selects Resources to be one of their better skills, they are consciously giving up choosing, say, Weapons or Fists as a good skill. In such a system, a character's wealth is abstracted, and largely unaffected by major purchases or sales. Similarly, monetary quest rewards are pretty much off the table unless similarly abstracted.

This system strongly encourages huge disparities in wealth between party members, allowing rich and poor characters to solve problems equally well, just in different ways.

Note that "Money as a Skill" doesn't just mean that purchases are handled by skill checks, but rather that the wealth of a character is as core, internal, and untouchable as their other core stats, like Strength, Agility, etc. D20 Modern uses a system similar to skill checks to handle finances, but a character's Wealth score fluctuates hugely when they buy or sell things, so doesn't entirely fit in this paradigm.

Sometimes these systems do away with money altogether, such as the mecha rpg LANCER, which exists in a post-scarcity world entirely without money. Equipment is earned by getting progressively better "licenses," which authorize PCs to replicate increasingly powerful weapons and mecha shells.

What to Watch as a GM: You'll have to find ways to motivate players without monetary rewards, and be sure to find opportunities to reward players who invested in their "money" skill, either through narrative or scenario design, just as you would ensure to place a few traps in every dungeon for a rogue to disarm.

Advantages: Allows (and, indeed, almost requires) large wealth discrepancies between characters, and greatly reduces bookkeeping.

Disadvantages: Tends to be highly abstract, which can lead to a mismatch of expectations (such as if players start looting bodies to sell, with absolutely no mechanical impact, or being unsure if "+5 wealth" is middle-class or Bezos-class).

Best For: Narrative games without much focus on accumulating wealth and treasure, but in which money still matters.

Money as XP

This is the oldest of all old-school approaches, and in many ways the logical extreme of "Money as Character Power." When money is used as XP, acquiring gold directly leads to characters increasing in level. Sometimes this requires spending the money (i.e., donations to charity, training, or spell research resulting in XP gains), while other times, it only means acquiring the money (in which case, you have to answer the question of what players are to do with all this accumulated wealth after its primary purpose—giving them XP—has been achieved). This approach has largely been left by the wayside, and many modern players will discount it out of hand, but I'd encourage you to stop and think about it: we already accept that fighting more powerful monsters and overcoming more difficult challenges lead to greater XP and greater material rewards, so why not cut out the middleman and just say the material rewards are XP? One caveat is that, even moreso than with "Money as Character Power," this can result in PCs doing anything to get their hands on cold, hard cash—but, conversely, by removing (or downplaying) combat XP, it can also result in encouraging peaceful or stealthy approaches to solutions. This would lead into a whole conversation about when and how to give out XP, and what behaviours this decision encourages around the tabletop, but such a discussion is outside the scope of this essay.

This system works well for GMs that want their players to be treasure-hungry, like in Money as Character Power, but don't like the inevitable proliferation of magic items that results.

As with "Money as Character Power," under such a paradigm, GM's must keep a close eye on PC's pocketbooks. Taking away their treasure, either through in-game theft, a rust monster, or similar, will lead to frustration and hard feelings. Similarly, anything that lets players turn a profit without adventuring, such as item crafting or simply by getting a day job, could destabilize the game unexpectedly—many systems specify that only treasure found while adventuring counts towards XP, though determining what counts as "while adventuring" can be something of a headache (albeit not an insurmountable one). Additionally, this system strongly discourages wealth imbalances between PCs, as they directly result in some PCs being higher level than others.

Given how out-of-style this is in tabletop games, it's perhaps surprising that several modern video game RPGs  fall into this category in the late game. In Skyrim, for example, after I'd bought the best weapons and armour that could be found in shops, future resources went into buying all the world's iron and leather to grind up my Smithing skill again and again, giving myself easy levels.

What to Watch for as GM: Same as with "Money as Character Power."

Advantages: Eliminates post-battle XP calculation entirely, encourages players to avoid direct confrontation, and gives players a very strong monetary motivation (which can also be a disadvantage) without resulting in a high-magic world.

Disadvantages: Can strike some players as unintuitive, and strongly encourages desperate treasure-hunting (which can also be an advantage).

Best For: Games involving treasure-hunting and exploration.

Money as Oxygen

With Money as Oxygen, money becomes something that players need a steady stream of just to survive. Maybe they're deeply in debt, have to make rent payments, have to maintain their equipment, or just have to feed themselves. The reason for their regular thirst for wealth might be narrative (rent, debt, etc.) or mechanical (equipment maintenance, etc.) in nature. In Traveller, a huge source of motivation for the party is just trying to keep ahead of mortgage payments for your starship. Money becomes the same as food, water, and air—a vital necessity that you simply always need more of.

With Money as Oxygen, players constantly have to eye their dwindling bank accounts and do cost-benefit calculations before accepting a mission, or else disaster could strike. This is a very, very different genre from "Money as Character Power" or even "Money as Narrative Power," as it rarely results in the party spending their money on anything other than survival. Unless they really hit a gold mine, they won't use money to upgrade weapons or armour, or to buy land and power, because doing so runs the risk of starvation/bankruptcy/etc.

This probably isn't the paradigm to use for most D&D-esque campaigns, as it can (and should) result in players actively avoiding heroic archetypes—if survival depends on a paycheck; the crusade against evil is someone else's problem.

What to Watch for as GM: This paradigm is bookkeeping-heavy, so make sure the players understand that from the get-go. Also, anyone expecting "Money as Character Power" might find themselves frustrated by their ever-dwindling resources. Make sure you have a very good handle on the math of the players' survival (that is, exactly how many gold pieces/dollars/credits they need to survive a week) or you might accidentally underpay them and lead them to ruin. Not that this shouldn't happen; it just shouldn't happen by accident. If you accidentally give them too much money, feel free to timeskip ahead several months until they're broke again, or dangle another moneysink in front of them, like a one-of-a-kind, now-or-never opportunity to buy a shiny magic item or spaceship upgrade (dipping judiciously into Money as Character Power).

Advantages: Makes the players feel poor, desperate, and downtrodden.

Disadvantages: Both the players and the GM have to keep a very, very close eye on finances in order to maintain tension. If paired with a mechanical system that doesn't result in substantial character progression from XP (such as skills, feats, etc.), then players can feel stuck and lacking motivation.

Best Used For: anything that can be accurately described with the words "seedy underbelly."

Money for Nothing

We've all played games in which money is straight-up useless. In many Zelda games, for example, like the classic Ocarina of Time, monsters drop rupees all through the game. In addition, there are secrets, hidden chests, and puzzles that pay out rupee rewards as if the game thinks they would make you happy. After the first hour of the game, it becomes blindingly obvious that there's no point to this money, as the things you would buy (arrows, sticks, bombs) are just as freely dropped from monsters and bushes. Many other video games hit this point after the early game as well (like Diablo II, where monsters continue to drop thousands and thousands of gold throughout the game, but there's nothing worthwhile to spend it on).

I personally can't see any advantages to this system, as I don't think it's chosen by design.

Crossing the Streams

Of course, few games fall strictly into one of the above categories, and most aim to do two or even three, which can lead to some common pitfalls. For example, the 3e splatbook the Stronghold Builder's Guide allowed players to spend tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of GP on elaborate castles and mansions. These was very cool, and the rulebook is one of my favourites from the edition… but I've never seen it used in actual play, because any player who did so would find themselves handicapped for the remainder of the campaign, as they hadn't invested their gold in magic items, as the system requires you to. (Again: the math of monster design in 3.x assumes and requires that player characters gain magic items at a set rate).  

Some of the paradigms play nicer with each other than others. For example, many variants of "Money as XP" practically require a secondary output for money. Unless the XP is only gained by spending the money, all of that accumulated loot has to go somewhere—typically either into magic items (Money as Character Power) or into strongholds (Money as Narrative Power). Games that have large-scale battle rules (which, I've been told, ACKS does, though I haven't played it firsthand) blur the lines between Narrative and Player power, because the castles and hirelings a player buys actually do something, mechanically, though they typically don't help you in an actual dungeon. "Money as Oxygen," similarly, may require temporarily dipping into another paradigm to bleed off surplus money from the party to keep them permanently poor (something Traveller does gracefully by allowing incredibly-expensive spaceship upgrades).

The Full Plate Threshold

The Full Plate Threshold: once the players have bought the most expensive item available to them, the nature of money permanently changes.

One very common dynamic is for games to have Money as Character Power in early levels, and transition to another paradigm (or fall into Money for Nothing) at later levels. This is particularly common in video game RPGs, where after the early game, nothing anyone sells in stores is of any value whatsoever (or if they do, the price is trivial), yet despite this, monsters continue to drop thousands upon thousands of gold. If these games have a multiplayer aspect, players usually settle on a rare item as the de facto "currency" for trades.

This is also the dynamic that results when the sale of magic items in D&D-esque games is restricted, as in early levels, players save up to buy half-plate to replace their breastplates, warhorses to replace their feet, composite bows to replace their shortbows, and so-on. Once the most expensive upgrade has been bought (in D&D, the last character to make this transition is typically the fighter, as the best mundane armour available is a steep 1,500 GP in 3.x and 5e—a friend of mine dubbed this the "Full Plate Threshold" after my 5e paladin bought full plate, and we all suddenly stopped caring about gold), money is no longer convertible to Character Power. At this point, which can happen between level 3 and 7 depending on character class, system, and GM generosity, the nature of money in the campaign will change. This could result in the widening of scope in the campaign, as players invest in land, armies, and castles, or it could result in money piling up like in Diablo or Final Fantasy, totally meaninglessly. Similarly, many campaigns that start with "Money as Oxygen" can escalate into "Money as Narrative Power" as players finally hit the jackpot, and no longer need to worry about maintenance/mortgages/etc.

As a GM, handling this transition can be tricky. If it sneaks up on you without realizing (many 5e D&D GMs might not know (because they weren't told), for instance, that the nature of money changes dramatically the second someone buys full plate), they might suddenly find their players disinterested and bored around the table even though seemingly nothing else has changed. Their adventures are just as gripping, their monsters just as scary, their dungeons just as unique... but the players seem to be just going through the motions If your system or campaign doesn't have an endless supply of increasingly-expensive bits and baubles for players to buy, you're going to have to manage this transition, whether you want it or not.

Wrapping Up

There is no objective "right" or "wrong" way to handle money in an RPG, but some methods definitely work better for certain genres than others, as changing the "rules" of money in your campaign will massively change the feel and pace of the game. On the same note, be careful of follow-on effects from changing the rules: simply saying "magic items can't be bought," without making any other changes, will lead 3.x campaigns into a series of very predictable roadblocks (weakening martial characters, unevenly and unpredictably increasing encounter difficulty, and potentially eliminating motivation to go on some adventures) that you have to have solutions to. Similarly, adding a "magic item store" to a system not initially designed for it, such as D20 Modern, can lead to massive imbalance and weird behaviour. For instance, due to bizarre math, even relatively powerful magic daggers fall below the threshold at which rich characters lose wealth points in that system, making them literally free, while buying an unenchanted, off-the-shelf AK-47 (which is just above that same threshold) permanently drops the wealth bonus of any character. This leads to the system incentivizing any problem that can be solved with thousands of +3 Daggers being solved with thousands of +3 Daggers in a way that neither GMs nor (I assume) game designers intended.

These incentives matter. If a game penalizes one option and incentivizes another, that second option is just going to be taken more often. Maybe a lot more often. If you can align your campaign's incentives with desired behaviour for your players, you'll save a lot of headache, frustration, and counter-intuitive behaviour for everyone involved.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Federal Operator 99 review

“Sophistication” isn’t a word one hears applied to serials very often.  Federal Operator 99 aims for sophistication and surprisingly hits the mark more often than not. 

It’s not a uniformly smooth attempt and the rough spots are noticeable, but for the least expensive of Republic’s three serials in 1945 (and lordy, were Manhunt Of Mystery Island and The Purple Monster Strikes inexpensive!) Federal Operator 99 is solid entertainment. 

Let’s start with the script, often the least sophisticated element of a serial. This time instead of Wild West adventures or sci-fi thrills Republic writers Albert DeMond, Basil Dickey, Jesse Duffy, and Joseph Poland under the guidance of studio story editor Ronald Davidson focused instead on a very human scale criminal enterprise, led by a colorful / complex / conflicted crime lord, Jim Belmont (George J. Lewis) with a penchant for fine art and piano concertos. 

Belmont is no typical Republic supervillain but a very human — albeit murderously eccentric — criminal. All of his plots are plausible and doable. Conquer the world? Hell, no.  Steal jewels then double cross when paid a ransom?  Oh, yeah. 

That alone is a refreshing change of pace for a serial of this era. 

His opposite number is our eponymous Federal Operator 99, Jerry Blake (Marten Lamont).  Serial leads (other than costumed heroes) tend to be played as just regular folks; the audience appeal is that we like to think we would be just as heroic under similar circumstances.

99, in contrast, is presented as debonair and dashing, super competent and equally as cunning as his quarry, and speaking with a faint English accent.  It’s not much of an exaggeration to say he’s a prototype of another JB with a number:  007. 

And speaking of JBs, notice how both hero and villain share the same initials as well as equal expertise in their respective fields, and a taste for the finer things in life. “Avoid giving your characters similar names” is one of the fundamental rules of genre fiction, and for Davidson’s tribe of scribes to give both the same initials indicates they were quite consciously trying to link the two on some level. 

One of the best things about this serial is 99 is not a reactive hero, waiting for Belmont to strike so he can pursue him, but is actively trying to trick Belmont and lure him out into the open where Blake’s team can arrest him. 

Despite this, Lamont comes across as a rather lacklustre leading man, while Lewis’ screen charisma is so strong we’re disconcerted to find ourselves actually rooting for him at numerous points in the story! Republic missed a bet by not swapping their two leads; it would have made for a far more dynamic story line.  

The script doesn’t help much, either.  While it’s always hard to tell who wrote what parts of any serial, one of the writers here clearly had a much better grasp on what they were trying to achieve and it reflects in good dialog and strong scenes. 

Other writers give us the equivalent of juvenilia with their unimaginative flat declarative sentences, the single biggest drawback of this serial. 

While she ended up a Republic Western heroine under both this name and Adriana Booth, Lorna Gray as Rita Parker is two lethal steps up from the typical supporting villainess.  She’s not decorative arm candy but a willing and ready partner to Belmont’s crimes.  

Of her counterpart among the good guys, let’s be generous and say Helen Talbot as Joyce Kingston is fetchingly cute and enunciates all her lines quite clearly. It’s not uncommon for serial stars, especially the ladies, to be tied up at some point in the proceedings but Ms Talbot is restrained so often and in such a wide variety that it’s clear somebody in the production had an affinity for this sort of thing.  She also spends an inordinate amount of time being driven about in the trunk of various automobiles. 

You do the best with what you’ve got and I’ll leave it to the reader to decide if this applies to Ms Talbot or the production. 

The automobiles bring up an interesting point re Federal Operator 99’s meager budget. The serial uses a lot of stock footage and to disguise the fact some of it is well over a decade old, the script draws attention to certain cars being earlier models and not the more contemporary ones seen elsewhere. 

Likewise, nobody changes clothes unless it’s to match stock footage; this is especially noticeable for Gray and Talbot. 

Federal Operator 99 has a very lean look to it, past the opening chapters (typically used to sell the serial to theaters) there’s never more than four characters on camera at any time. Those familiar with Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley will spot many landmarks and familiar streets. The production does enjoy a bigger feel than other Republic serials of the era, and I think this is because they managed to use a number of sets left standing after feature films finished production.  

Where the serial really shines is in the direction. As typical of the era, more than one director handled that chore.  Usually studios had one director for dialog scenes and another for action, or one for interiors and another for exteriors, but Federal Operator 99 has three (!):  Wallace Grissell, a film editor who became a director presumably because he knew how to intercut stock footage well; the legendary Spencer Gordon Bennet, who directed more serials than anyone; and Yakima “Just stay in the chariot and we’ll see you win the race, Chuck” Canutt, who handled the action scenes and boy, howdy! did somebody make the right call there!  Federal Operator 99 is crammed with chair splintering / table flipping action from crotch to sternum, Canutt’s philosophy being no self respecting hero should ever walk through a door when he can dive headfirst through a window, gun blazing. 

If I didn’t know better, I’d think chapter four was originally shot in 3D based on the amazing number of objects and human bodies Canutt sends hurtling straight at the camera. 

The cliffhangers are good, better than most comparable serials, and there’s nary a cheater in the bunch. The Lydecker brothers round things off with a superlative display of exploding miniatures. 

Serials are noted for their casual use of violence, but Federal Operator 99 is significantly more gruesome than most. 99 meets Kingston — elaborately bound and gagged in a closet, no less — right after shooting and killing one of Belmont’s men; the two then have a cheery conversation about what to do next despite the fact there’s a corpse laying literally at their feet!  Various underlings and innocent bystanders get shot in the back or stomach, Belmont is freed in an expertly staged train rescue where a cohort as an afterthought casually shoots and kills the escorting agent, a woman screams off camera as Parker tortures her with a cigarette lighter, a criminal dies twitching under a hail of bullets, one bloodied mortally wounded minion takes a minute to heroically crawl to a detonator because how else are we going to get a satisfying Lydecker ka-boom?, and Belmont himself makes his on camera hard goodbye by plunging four stories to solid concrete.  

The gruesomeness brings up two plot points that raise questions for me:  First Belmont has a phone conversation with an unseen spy in Washington then discusses with his cohorts the spy by name and how vital he is to their organization…and we never reference said spy again; next Belmont mentions four members of his former partner‘s gang by their names, gives a brief run down on each, mentions how they might know where the hidden loot from a bullion robbery is…and in the next cut Blake is reading a newspaper story about how the four were brutally tortured and mutilated before being executed gangland style. 

Say wha — ?  I’m guessing Federal Operator 99 was originally conceived as a 15 chapter serial only to be truncated to 12 in preproduction (Manhunt Of Mystery Island and The Purple Monster Strikes were Republic’s last two 15 chapter serials, everything after that was either 12 or 13 chapters). Rather than waste more time and money rewriting the script, they just whacked out three chapters worth of material but didn’t change the dialog. 

The gruesomeness of Federal Operator 99, and its more realistic scale and script make me wonder if it didn’t start life as a development for a Dick Tracy or Rex Barton serial; the format certainly fits both. 

Not the best serial Republic ever made, but better than most. 

 © Buzz Dixon 

[pixiegrl]

request for your next tangled muke adventure, the scene where they escape from the cave?

Meghna! This was so fun to write! Please enjoy my humble gift to you! And also @calumsclifford for endlessly hearing my yell about what im writing if its tangled

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26169226

Luke keeps whining about food. Michael wishes he would go back to tugging on his sleeve and asking him about everything if it means he’ll stop begging Michael for food. Michael’s not entirely sure of where they are right now and since he wasn’t planning on a trip, he doesn’t exactly have any food with him. Luke is not bothered by this at all, keeps choosing to ask Michael again and again as if the answer will somehow be different.

“Michael, there has to be somewhere to eat near here. Or something we can eat. Michael,” Luke whines, dragging out the end of Michael’s name in a way he can only describe as incredibly annoying. He turns to glare at Luke, who looks back at him with wide innocent eyes. He’s adorable and Michael still refuses to find him cute at all. He’s decided thinking of Luke as a friend was a mistake, now Luke has just decided to annoy him forever. 

Michael is relieved when the edge of a tavern comes into sight. He thinks he probably has just enough coins with him to feed Luke and get a drink for himself, so he can continue to put up with Luke’s bubbling enthusiasm. Even if the place looks a little rough for Luke to be in. Michael’s decently sure he can protect Luke from some bandits, as long as they’re not also after Michael. Although maybe Luke can just smile at them and they’ll reconsider harming him. He does have a nice smile, all bright eyes and dimples.

Luke starts bouncing on his toes when he sees it, too. Petunia peeks out of the corner of Luke’s hair, shooting him a worried look. How the fuck does a lizard manage to have so many facial expressions?

“Michael, can we eat there? Please?” Luke begs, turning to look at Michael with wide, blue eyes and a hopeful expression on his face. It melts Michael’s heart a little. He can’t stay mad at Luke for long, not when it’s so painfully obvious that the boy has never gotten to experience the world the way everyone else has. He’s so full of joy and wonder Michael can’t find it in himself to be annoyed that much.

“Only the best for you, Sunshine,” Michael says. Luke grins even wider, dimples creasing his cheeks, and laces their fingers together. He starts to swing their arms a little, humming under his breath. It’s painfully endearing. Michael’s all but abandoned his commitment to not finding him cute.

They push the door of the tavern open and Michael sucks a breath in when everyone turns to look at them. They must be quite the pair, Luke, with his incredibly long blonde hair and silky purple shirt, a lizard perched on his shoulder, and Michael, holding his hand and frying pan attached to his belt from when Luke complained about his arm being tired.

Luke is oblivious to their stares, instead tugging Michael further into the tarven, trying to find an empty spot and rambling about what food they could possibly have.

“Michael Clifford! As I live and breath,” A voice calls, full of mirth and laughter. Michael whips around in a panic, fear leaving him a little when he sees that it’s Calum, his old friend from the orphanage turned bandit, grinning and waving at him. He looks the same as the last time Michael saw him, apart from his once black curls are now a bright platinum blonde. His partner, Ashton, sits next to him, his own curls a raven black, and motioning for Michael to come sit with them.

“Who are they?” Luke whispers, curling a little into Michael, wary of new people. 

Michael tries to send him a reassuring smile, “Old friends. I promise they won’t hurt you.”

“Promise?”

Michael holds up his hand, linking their pinkies together and shaking. “Pinky promise.”

Luke looks a little confused by the gesture, but he must understand the sincerity of it and nods at him. Michael tugs them over to the table, ushering Luke into the booth first and following him. He helps Luke tug his hair in after them, earning them stares from the rest of the patrons.

Ashton lets out a whistle, looking at all of Luke’s hair. “That must be a hassle. You ever think about cutting it?”

Luke holds his hair tight to him. “I couldn’t do that. Mother wouldn’t let me.”

Ashton opens his mouth like he’s going to push the topic further, when Calum interjects, sticking his hand out towards Luke.

“Calum Hood, local bandit extraordinaire. This is my partner in crime, the slightly less good looking Ashton Irwin.” 

Ashton lets out a horrified squawk, smacking Calum. Calum laughs, eyes crinkling at the corner. 

“You married me, you idiot.”

“Only for evading the law purposes. The second they let us, I’m divorcing you and taking half the loot,” Calum says, grinning as he presses a kiss to Ashton’s cheek to let him know he’s only teasing. Michael’s forgotten how easy their relationship has always been, full of teasing and fondness. Michael’s known Calum longer and he would venture to call him his best friend (if two bandits can even have friends), but somehow when the three of them are together he’s always managed to feel on the outskirts of things. 

Luke’s watching them both, wide eyed and a little scared. Michael squeezes his thigh under the table. “This is Luke. Found him hiding in the woods. We’re going to see the lanterns for his birthday.

Calum raises his eyebrows, taking a sip of his drink. “Never known you to do anything out of kindness, Mikey.”

“That’s not true! I stole that necklace for you once ‘cause you said you liked it.”

“Fine, then nothing that didn’t require you to steal something.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not just you. They tell these half stories all the time and refuse to explain them. You get used to not getting their inside jokes,” Ashton stage whispers to Luke, grinning when Calum gently elbows him. Michael is filled with overwhelming fondness for his friends and their easy acceptance of Luke. Although Michael figures, who are a couple of bandits to question him finding a man in the woods?

“He only agreed to take me because I took his loot and Petunia keeps licking him,” Luke chimes in, producing Petunia from inside the folds of his hair. Calum and Ashton laugh delightedly at the sight of her. 

Michael pouts. “I’m getting new friends.”

“Michael, we’re your only friends,” Calum says rolling his eyes. He nudges Luke with his foot, startling him. “Do you want me to get you something to eat?”

Luke nods enthusiastically. Michael mouths a quick thank you to Calum. He smiles. “Ashton, take Luke with you and get something. I wanna check up with my old friend here.”

Ashton scoots his way out, ushering Luke over to the bar. When they’re out of ear shot, Calum rounds on Michael.

“The crown, Michael? You really thought stealing the lost prince’s crown would be a good idea?”

“I didn’t think I’d have this much trouble with it.”

Calum lets out a disgruntled noise. “That’s because you don’t think, Michael. What the fuck did you expect would happen?”

“Look, it’s just a job. We’ve taken plenty of them before.”

“Yeah, but those were just stealing from people. People who were much less notable than stealing the fucking crown jewels.”

“It’s one last job, Calum, and then I can stop,” Michael says. He’s had ideas over the years of what he would do. Travel, go somewhere far away and find a legitimate job, open his own orphanage. The possibilities are endless if he can just get this crown back and be on his way.

Calum sighs heavily, massaging his temple. He looks like he wants to say something, but is interrupted by Ashton and Luke coming back.

“Shove over,” Ashton says, raising his hands to show the drinks he’s carrying. Calum obeys, giving Ashton the space he needs to put things down. Luke’s tagging closely behind him, holding what looks like fish and chips close to his chest, a little wide eyed. Michael grabs the baskets, helping Luke, who shoots him a grateful look.

“You know you’re probably like, five minutes away from getting caught, right?” Calum says around a chip. Michael blushes at Luke’s quizzical look and Ashton’s glare. For a bandit, Ashton can be a little shit at the idea of stealing things sometimes.

“Let me enjoy this nice, hot food before you rip into me about stealing, but then still help us get away.”

Calum giggles slightly, expression fond. He’s holding Ashton’s hand on the table. It fills Michael with the overwhelming desire to have that, too. It’s always been lonely for him and while he’s happy for Calum and Ashton, he wishes he had someone like that too. 

Luke is eating some of the fish, scrunching his nose up at the taste.

“Good?”

“Different,” Luke mumbles around a mouth of food crumbs going everywhere, blushing when he realizes what he’s doing. Michael laughs, leaning over and wiping his face with a napkin. Luke never had to be presentable around other people before. It’s a miracle he’s managing to look cute while doing it.

Luke quietly feeds Petunia a small bite. Michael catches Calum watching them, a soft smile on his face. Michael sticks his tongue out at Calum when Luke isn't looking. Calum returns the gesture. Ashton snorts, covering it up in his drink when Luke looks up at the three of them. He flushes a little, clearly thinking they’re teasing him. 

Ashton waves it away, “It’s nice you have a little friend. Nice to have someone there for you when you get lonely.”

Luke smiles sadly. “Something like that.”

Calum looks like he wants to press the issue further, when the tavern door bangs open, someone shouting about the palace guards. Michael jumps up, making to push Luke out of the booth. 

“That’s our cue, Luke. Lovely to see you both again, let’s do this again sometime,” Michael calls behind him as he shoves Luke towards where he knows there’s a “secret” tunnel. He can hear Calum let out an exasperated sigh, but considering he’s known him since they were kids, he figures Cal will let this one slide.

***

“So, Calum and Ashton?”

“Hm?”

“You’ve known them a while, yeah?” Luke asks. They’ve been walking down the underground tunnel for a bit, venturing deeper and deeper with only torches to help them see. Luke’s been quiet since the tavern and Michael isn’t sure whether he should be worried or not. Considering Luke’s decision to ask personal questions, the answer was that he should be.

“I’ve known Calum since I was a kid. Ashton is more of a new addition. You let your friend do one job on their own and they come back with a husband.”

Luke giggles. “You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.”

“I just wish they’d invited me to the wedding. I have plenty of embarrassing stories about Calum and I’m not afraid to use them.”

“Does he?”

“What?”

“Have embarrassing stories to share with your future…” Luke pauses, shooting a glance at Michael. Michael wonders what Luke’s mother taught him about attraction and then disregards that notion. A woman who locks her son in a tower and refuses to let him out certainly won’t teach him what it means when you think boys are pretty.

“Husband. I like men. And unfortunately he does, but you’ll have to hear them from him,” Michael says. He realizes how that must sound, the implication that he wants to keep Luke around long enough to see Calum and Ashton again, to have Calum share childhood stories of Michael. That Michael isn’t ready to have this adventure come to an end, even if Luke can be a thorn in his side.

Luke looks like he wants to say something, but changes his mind at the last minute and says,  “So Michael, where are you from?”

“Nope. We do not know each other like that, you already know my name and that’s enough backstory for the rest of this trip.”

Luke pouts. “I just met your childhood friend and his husband. You just told me you like men. But you won’t tell me where you’re from.”

Michael sighs heavily. “I will tell you something about myself if you answer my questions first.”

“Sure.”

“I know I’m not supposed to talk about the hair, the mother, or the, uh, lizard?” Michael waves in Petunia’s direction. Luke nods. 

“Here’s my question. If you want to see the lanterns so badly you were willing to go on a trip with a complete stranger who broke into your home, why haven’t you gone before with your mother?”

“Mother wouldn’t let me.”

That makes Michael pause. It was implied in his initial request for the adventure, but it’s odd to hear it out loud. For all the oddness of Michael’s childhood growing up in an orphanage, he’s never been denied things. He was always allowed to go and adventure on his own terms, as long as he was responsible about it and came back in time for dinner. The idea that Luke’s mother would lock him up and refuse to let him leave seems a bit dramatic and harsh. Not for the first time, the notion of keeping Luke with him, of not allowing the boy to go back to his tower, of showing him the whole world, crosses Michael’s mind. Luke deserves it, deserves the chance to get to see what’s out there and Michael doesn’t know how he’s meant to return Luke to his prison when this is all over.

“Why wouldn’t she let you leave?”

“She claims that it’s safer for me up there where no one can find me.”

Michael opens his mouth to comment on that, when he hears a rumbling coming towards them. He turns around at the sound of shouting and sees the palace guards running towards them. Maybe Calum had a point about this being a bad idea. Michael turns to look at Luke, who’s got a look of fear and confusion on his face.

“Michael?”

“Okay, so you know how I have that crown? I may have stolen that crown and now would be a good time to run,” Michael shouts, grabbing hold of Luke’s hand and pulling him into a run. Luke, thankfully, realizes what Michael wants and follows him at Michael at an equally breakneck speed.

Michael pulls them along until they come out of the tunnel, skidding to a stop when they both realize they’re at the edge of a cliff. There is absolutely nowhere for them to go, considering they’re surrounded on all sides by open air and the guards behind them, not to mention that one horse that seems to have it out for Michael specifically. Michael hears a shout from down below and notices the Stabbington brothers have come out of their own tunnel looking up and pointing to Michael, both of them shouting. 

“So I’ve figured out the guard part, but who are those guys and why are they mad?” Luke says, clutching his hair in his arms. 

“Let’s just assume no one here likes me and work our way up from there.”

Luke frowns. “How much trouble are you in?”

“Luke, you met me because I crashed through your window with a stolen crown. You do the math.”

Michael’s at a loss for what to do or where they can go. Luke takes one look at him and rolls his eyes, shoving the frying pan at Michael. He takes his hair and swings it up, hooking it over a higher up damaged beam nearby. He tugs it once, nodding when he realizes it’s secure and hooks an arm around Michael’s waist. 

“So I’m sure this is a bad idea, but I think we have to go down?” Luke says, pointing.

“What?”

“There’s a tunnel down there and I think that might be the only way out.”

Michael looks down and he hates to admit it but Luke might be right. Luke throws his hair over a nearby beam and grabs onto Michael’s waist, giving them a running start, giving them enough momentum to take off and swing themselves down to the bottom of the ravine. They land solidly on their feet and Luke turns to beam at Michael. Michael gives him a relieved smile back and tugs on Luke’s hair pulling it down from the beam. They gather it and go sprinting off in the direction of the tunnel. 

Michael is sure they’re going to make it, until he hears the rumble and rushing sound of water fill the air. They just narrowly make it into the tunnel entrance before Michael realizes it’s not a tunnel and that there’s no exit. It’s too late for them to do anything now though, as rocks cover the entrance, leaving Luke and Michael in the dark. 

“So, this looks bad.”

“Yes, Michael, I would say that it does.”

Michael huffs, shoving Luke’s hair at him and diving into the rising water. He looks around for an exit but finds none. He pops up gasping for air, noticing that Luke’s feeling around the top of the rocks for an exit up that way. It would appear that they’re both out of luck. Michael dives down again to feel around, as Luke bangs frantically on the rocks with his pan trying to get them to break. Michael scrambles up, trying to pry some of the rocks loose. The sharp edge of one slices his hand and Michael swears loudly at the blood that starts to pool and drip from his hand. Luke looks torn between concern for Michael’s hand and fear about being close to death.

“I can’t see anything in here. I don’t think there’s a way out. Fuck, Luke I’m really sorry about all this. You just wanted a nice birthday gift and look at the mess we’re in now.”

The water is rising steadily, closing in on them. Luke is chewing at the corner of his lip, grasping Michael’s injured hand in his. Even dripping in ice cold water, Luke manages to make Michael feel warm and safe. The thought startles Michael. He hasn’t known Luke long enough to be this comfortable with him, but he is. 

“I think I have an idea.”

“Luke?”

“You told me that you like boys. I have a secret too. I have magic hair that glows when I sing.”

Michael blinks up at Luke. Michael takes it all back, all that time locked up in a tower and Luke has gone crazy. Maybe it was a bad idea for Michael to agree to this plan.

“Come again?”

Luke looks Michael in the eye, grinning at the realization. “I have magic hair that glows when I sing!”

Michael barely processes what’s happening before Luke starts singing some kind of strange song. The water finally covers them and Michael tries to hold his breath as best he can. Suddenly, Luke’s hair starts to glow from the roots to the tips. Michael almost screams in shock before he remembers that they are underwater and that would be a very bad idea.

Luke’s hair tugs towards the bottom of the tunnel, pulling their attention to a small pile of rocks. Michael pushes his way down, starting to pull the rocks away from the wall. Luke joins him and they tug away a small exit hole, the force of the water pushing them out of the tunnel and onto the shore of a riverbank.

Michael and Luke both take a gasping breath as they collapse side by side. Luke turns to Michael, grinning brightly, dimples on his cheeks, Petunia popping up onto his head. 

“We did it, Michael! We got out!” 

Michael makes eye contact with Petunia. “His hair glows.” 

Petunia looks very smug, Luke continues to cheer, grasping at Michael’s hand.

“Hair is not supposed to glow. That’s not something that happens. Do all strange men in towers have glowing hair? Is this something I was supposed to know?” Michael asks Petunia, octaves in his voice raising with confusion and concern. Petunia nods. “Why does his hair glow?!”

“Michael!” Luke calls, hands on his hips where he’s standing on the bank. He’s dripping wet, standing in the fading light on the setting sun. He shouldn’t be so pretty, but Michael thinks that might be the shock and gratitude. Even if Luke is exactly the sort of boy Michael used to dream about when he was young. 

“Luke?” Michael asks, voice strained.

“It doesn’t just glow. I can heal with it.”

“That’s strangely cryptic after you just showed me it glows. How much magic does your magically glowing hair hold, Luke from a strange tower?”

Luke huffs, coming to kneel in front of Michael. He wraps his hair around Michael’s injured palm and softly starts singing the same song. Luke’s hair begins to glow again and Michael feels a sharp tingling in his palm. Luke finishes, un-wrapping his hair, and Michael is startled to see that the cut and blood are gone.

“Don’t freak out.”

“Luke, we are well past freaking out,” Michael says, voice hitting an octave he didn’t know he could. Luke huffs again.

“If I’d known you were gonna be a baby about it, I wouldn’t have shown you.”

“Oh, so you would have died before you showed me the magically glowing healing hair?”

“Don’t be mean. I just saved our lives,” Luke says, pouting. 

“How long has it been doing that?”

Luke shrugs, “My whole life, I guess. Once, when I was a baby, people tried to cut it and take it for the magicalits magical powers. But when it’s cut it loses its color and power.”

Luke pulls back his hair, showing Michael a shorter strand of hair, dull compared to the rest of it. Michael leans forward, touching the lock softly. Luke smiles sadly at him. “It’s why I’m up in the tower. Mother says you have to protect a gift like mine. She doesn’t want me to leave because she’s worried that I’ll get hurt.”

Michael softens. It makes sense now, why Luke was up there, but it’s still cruel. No one would have to know about his hair. Why can’t he have the freedom to explore the world for himself? 

“And you still want to go back?”

“What other choice do I have? I’m safe up in the tower and I don’t think I could just leave Mother.”

“Luke, you deserve a chance to see the world and make your own choices,” Michael says, grabbing Luke’s hand and squeezing it. “I promise, that when this trip is all finished, I’ll take you on an adventure. We can travel the whole world if you want. I’ll show you everything there is to offer. Take Calum and Ashton with us. I think they liked you.”

Luke smiles a little brighter. Michael notices now that he seems to glow when he’s happy. It softens Michael. 

“You promise Michael? You aren’t just saying that because of my hair?”

“Of course I mean it, Sunshine. You’ve been a wonderful traveling companion. And I’m sure there’s plenty of floating lanterns all around for us to see.”

Luke’s smile widens. He throws his arms around Michael’s neck in a hug, “Oh thank you Michael! That’s the best birthday present ever!”

Michael blushes slightly, hiding his face in Luke’s shoulder. At least the only person around to see is Luke and Petunia. They won’t rat him out and ruin his reputation.

“Alright Luke that’s enough. It’s getting dark and we should start a fire for the night,” Michael says, pulling himself up to stand. Luke pushes himself up, coming to stand next to Luke. 

“You like me.”

“Regrettably I do. I’d like you more if you helped me get some wood.” 

Luke grins at Michael, “Only if you show me how to build a fire.”

Michael huffs, pretending to be put out, nudging Luke’s shoulder and smiling to show that he’s only teasing, “For you with the special hair, I’d do anything.”

Luke grins back, lacing their fingers together and tugging Michael in the direction of the woods to look for firewood.

Maybe traveling with Luke isn’t so bad. Maybe getting to take Luke on a trip around the world won’t be so bad. Maybe being in love isn’t the stuff of dreams, maybe it gets to be Michael’s reality.

[cosmostasia]

Cosmostasia’s Story

So as I mentioned in my first post, Cosmostasia is the character that I played in a long-form Dungeons & Dragons campaign with some of my best friends in high school. Obviously we were all getting ready to graduate, go off to college, etc., so we decided that once we completed our last campaign objective, we would find a way to tie up the story. It was a kind of bitter-sweet realization, but we made a lot of amazing memories along the way!

I joined the game during my junior year in high school, probably a few weeks after the game itself was started. My then-friend (now girlfriend) was in the game and had invited me. This was my first game ever, and honestly, I’ve never had so much fun with D&D! Our DM was an expert in just about everything, ran the game smoothly, answered just about every question... He’s a great DM, but I’m sad to say that since graduation he’s had almost no time to run another game.

But that’s all reminiscence about better days, not the story!

My character - at the time, named Anastasia - was a shapeshifter wizard. Most of her studies involved mapping the cosmos, reading star charts, and understanding the movements of the celestial bodies. I’ve always loved space, so it felt right making a wizard who was also an astronomer!

As the campaign went on, my girlfriend’s character (a tiefling bard name Tarx) basically became Anastasia’s love interest. Yes, there was romantic and intimate involvement, but we never really went into that kind of detail at the table - it was more heavily implied, “fade to black” than anything. Of course, that never stopped my mind from racing and thinking about how our characters did things... Normally, Anastasia had a relatively small bust, but Tarx was pretty open with his preference. Anastasia, of course, is a shapeshifter.

You get the idea there.

Moving on though, we went on to deal with a lot of problems throughout the world, from roving bandits and raiding orc factions, to entire armies of undead being raised and controlled by an ultra-powerful lich named Victus. Victus would become a recurring villain for us since whenever we killed him, his soul just returned to his phylactery and he would reincarnate at an unknown location in the world.

Our final campaign arc involved the Queen of Sarpathion, Queen Anisterian von Draxxis. A few of our questlines had involved going and saving some of the princes and princesses of the von Draxxis royalty - apparently they had been kidnapped at different points and no one was able to find them. Or at least, no one was brave (or stupid) enough to challenge the people that did it. From bandit chiefs to full-blown warlords and archmagi, one of whom turned out to be an ancient black dragon (imagine fighting THAT at level 10!!). Well, we managed to round the three of them up and bring them home to safety.

W R O N G .

Turns out what we had actually done was deliver Queen Anisterian the three children she had borne specifically for a blood sacrifice. For context, the von Draxxis line were all tieflings - part of the only reason Tarx cared at all about them was because they were like him, and he’d been treated poorly in other kingdoms.

Apparently Queen Anisterian was waiting until just the right moment when a solar eclipse would coincide with a planetary alignment (which my character knew about btw! We had been talking about this for months in advance!). During that brief moment, the time would be right for her to sacrifice her offspring and drink their blood, turning her into a matron vampire.

What she hadn’t been counting on was that our party in had become good friends with Dimerius, Alistarge, and Valliana von Draxxis. Lots of fun adventures and hard-fought victories were won by their sides. As such, if she was going to hurt them, she’d be answering to us. She also didn’t know that this ritual (which was apparently copied from the Book of Vile Darkness) would also cause untold instability in the Weave around the ritual site. Basically, you use magic within a mile of this place, and reality has a pretty solid chance of just unraveling itself. Fun, right? We got to learn this because one of our characters was a less-than-good-and-not-in-a-neutral-way vengeance paladin, and he’d managed to catch a glimpse of the Book of Vile Darkness the last time we’d dealt with Victus. It was that moment when we realized something was up (you know, a section that explicitly states “the blood of three of the mother’s offspring” seems a little obvious). That’s when we started making our way to Castle Draxxis with some help. 

This was around the time we were going to be concluding our campaign; we were all level 16 and were very capable of taking on such a threat. We’d worked with a lot of people and by that point, we were able to convince enough allies to band together and lead an invasion on Castle Draxxis. Of course, every time we had been there since the first time, the castle always felt slightly more... Off. And Queen Anisterian herself was sickly and unwell. She’d even made the comment at one point that her reign would soon be at its end, and then the kingdom must answer to her eldest son.

As we led the invasion, her armies fought as we suspected they would, up until the gargoyles adorning the buttresses and spires of the castle began to crackle and move. They came alive and made it impossible for us to march on Castle Draxxis.

The NPC that we’d appointed the sort of de facto general (Petram, a retired general for the army of one of the human kingdoms) told us to try and find a way in ourselves, and they would keep the bulk of the Queen’s forces distracted.

We make our way over the outer wall, fight off the gargoyles that noticed us get in, and made our way to a secret passage that Valliana had shown us. The Queen apparently hadn’t posted any guards at the passage, and we were able to make our way to the throne room with only a few brief encounters with royal guards.

By the time we had gotten there, the sun had been eclipsed by the moon and we could already hear the screaming. We opened the door as she was taking the last gulps of Valliana’s blood - the brothers already lay dead at the foot of the throne.

She underwent a violent transformation, and immediately forced half of the party to kneel before her (she charmed them and gave the command to kneel). Our cleric, Volmund the dwarf, was kept busy running around the room un-charming everyone, and Tarx did his best to help with his countercharm, but... her save DC was really high and we were not rolling well.

In the end, we had all been charmed and forced to kneel before her. She had been casting spells left and right, I had been casting spells, and because of the instability, we were beginning to notice reality shift and obscure. Of course, as we’re all powerless and unable to do anything, she began channeling a spell that was pretty much either going to kill everyone in the room except her, or tear through the fabric of reality. On the bright side, we all got to roll another save before her next turn, and then we’d be able to do something!

Except that we all failed. You know how people are usually like “Ugh I don’t want another elf in my party”? Make sure at least one of you plays a damn elf.

It got to my turn (right before hers) and I made my roll. Of course, I also failed. I then asked my DM if being charmed and forced to kneel also meant that I was unable to speak. He gave me a look, thought about it, and gave a smirk. “Sure, you guys are able to speak while you’re charmed - she didn’t say “Kneel and be silent,” so I’ll allow it.”

When we last defeated Victus, the one item that we were able to loot from him was this beautifully crafted ring. Everyone in the party already had a ring of some kind, so Tarx gave it to me as a sort of promise ring. However, our DM said that as I put it on, I felt this overwhelming magical energy flow through me (being that I was the only real magic-user in the party, Anastasia was sensitive to these things). I spent some time identifying the ring and learned that it was an innert Ring of Wishes! Of course, no charges on it so it was really just a fancy ring at that point. Everyone else had already forgotten about it, but I was texting the DM under the table and asking questions about the implications of having the ring near such a huge source of power/disruption. He said that it might (on a very, very lucky percentile roll) restore one of the charges to the ring.

I whispered into the ring, and said “If you can hear me... I wish for a way to survive long enough to fix everything Queen Anisterian has done.”

The DM raised his eyebrows, and rolled a percentile.

He laughed.

Hysterically.

Once he composed himself again, he said “Your wish... Has been granted.”

Everyone else at the table was just so confused and excited and panicked all of the sudden, and then, since Queen Anisterian had completed her round of channeling uninterrupted, was able to basically cast a spell that would drain all of our life forces until fell over as dried, dusty husks.

Before casting, the DM rolled a percentile (as he had been doing any time magic was used during the fight).

He laughed again.

“You all feel this horrible sensation as your blood, your life force, your very souls, are drained from your body. The pain is absolutely agonizing, and lasts for what feels like eternity in that instant. And then, as Queen Anisterian is laughing maniacally and relishing her new power, her hand suddenly flashes with a blinding light.”

He then turns to me specifically.

DM: “When you wake up, you don’t know where you are. As far as you can see all around you are nothing but distant stars and nebulae.”

Me: “Wait... What happened to everyone?”

DM: “The entire world blinked out of existence. You, however, have been granted immortality - and immunity - by your wish. You’re out in open space, but the lack of oxygen, the temperature... It doesn’t bother you, you actually feel fine.”

Basically, our DM had intended that a roll of 10 or lower on a percentile would cause reality to collapse on itself, but only enough to affect our world to different extents. Rolling a 10, for example, meant Castle Draxxis would blink out of existence.

He rolled a 1.

When he rolled for my ring, he rolled a 100.

We all kind of sat there basking in the sheer improbability of rolling a 100 and then a 1 right after (I think it’s a 1/10,000 chance? I’m an artist who likes space, not a mathematician). Then as the realization of what had happened settled into us, I had so many questions that I barely knew where to start. “Am I near where the planet was? Was I shot away from the blinkpoint, or was I teleported somewhere?”

He told us that I had basically been knocked out cold by the sudden magical reverberation (again, magic-sensitive) and fell adrift into space. Anastasia was able to identify where some of the planets were - the moon was not caught in the blast, but there was a massive chuck taken out of the side where the blinkpoint hit it and it was just floating adrift around the sun. From that, we were able to determine how long it had been (”Can I please roll an Intelligence check to figure out how long it’s been since the planets were aligned?” “Hm... Actually no, you just know how long it’s been based on their positions.”). Figured out that I’d been out cold for a week.

Anastasia panicked at first, frantically trying to get the ring to work again - but you know, it only regained the one charge. It’s innert. She cried for her friends and for everyone on her world. She cried for hours, knowing that she could have made a better wish. Knowing that her self preservation came at the cost of literally everything.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a glimmer. At first she thought it was a star, but realized it wasn’t one she recognized. She cast Fly on herself (can’t exactly swim through space) and made her way over, and as she approached, she found what looked to be some sort of crack in reality.

It didn’t take long for everyone to realize that this was the blinkpoint, and even looking at it made her feel like she was being electrocuted with magical energy. She decided that, being immortal, maybe touching it might do something? Who knows at this point, right? Even if it killed her or unmade her altogether, at least she wouldn’t be immortal and stuck with the guilt for the rest of eternity.

She reached out, and her hand connected with the fissure... And it pulled her in. She couldn’t see anything around her, being locked in an inescapable abyss. But that painful sensation that came from the blinkpoint had... faded. It was a dull hum in her mind now. She had the idea to cast Detect Magic, and the DM described the scene.

“You cast Detect Magic, and as you do, your eyes adjust to the scene around you, where you see all around you this intricate, perfectly woven latticework of microscopic threads. They cross in every conceivable direction, glowing in an impossibly numerous array of colors. This... is the Weave.”

By passing through the blinkpoint, I had basically transcended, and was able to perceive magic itself. And then, a voice came to me that caused every thread to resonate and vibrate.

???: “I see that you have found your way to that which lies between. A space betwixt realities.”

Anastasia: “Yes... I... Who are you? Can you help me?”

???: “I do not have a name. I am simply the Weaver of Magic.”

After a brief discussion about the implications of weaving space, time, and magic to bind everything together, the Weaver had a proposition.

Weaver: “You see, Anastasia... I also require assistance. Reality needs stability within the Weave, but I am unable to exist anywhere except within the Weave. I cannot leave this place. I could grant you the power to reverse the mistakes of the past, the power to right the wrongs of this Anisterian. But I would request that you act as the eternal guardian and curator of magic throughout the Planes.”

Anastasia: “Oh, I... I don’t know if I would know how to do that. You wield tremendous power, and even the gods find magic to be a fickle thing! Where would I even begin?”

Weaver: “Your gods find magic to be fickle because they have not embraced the Weave. You, however, may be granted this power freely.”

Anastasia: “You mean... You mean I could become a goddess?”

Weaver: “I do not fully understand these “gods,” but in your terms, yes. You would become Goddess of Reality.”

Anastasia: “That’s... more responsibility than I’ve ever known possible... But I can save my friends this way?”

Weaver: “I will allow you to undo the damage to the Weave. This will revert your reality to the moment before the threads were torn, and allow you to change the outcome of everything that had happened.”

Anastasia had to think long and hard about it. She would spend the remainder of her existence - the remainder of time - as a goddess, protecting and weaving magic throughout all of the Planes. That, of course, was nothing compared to the guilt of being the only survivor of her entire world.

She accepted the agreement, and the transformation began. Threads from the Weave wrapped themselves around her, covering her entire body until she was wrapped in pure magic. When she could see again, she was back out in space, adrift near the fissure. She looked at her hands instinctively, and noticed that her skin was glassy-smooth. Looking at her hands, her robes, her hair, she saw the same glass-like smoothness, but was able to look into herself and see the deepest parts of the cosmos within herself.

She had been transformed into the Goddess of Reality.

She looked to the fracture and began to focus. In the past, she was able to occasionally channel raw magic into different objects in order to activate them. She used the same process, but rather than the magic needing to be coaxed out of her, it erupted from her hands and shot into the fissure.

The fracture slowly crumbled into itself, and soon showed the entire world exploding in reverse. The moon lined back up with where it was, the planets unwound their orbits to realign, the planet reformed itself around her.

Within moments, she was floating just above the floor of the throne room right where she was, her hands raised at Queen Anisterian’s channeling hand. She held a hand out to Anisterian, and clenched her fist. Every thread of magic that had been woven into her unraveled and spun itself into Anastasia’s palm, and she was able to guide the threads back to the slain children of the queen. They would slowly reawaken and rise, and Queen Anisterian’s power was rendered innert.

Our party was able to stand up, and we apprehended the Queen and were able to throw her into the dungeons with no trouble. She was no longer capable of using magic in any form, so leaving her down there would pose no threats.

Alright, roll credits - that was the end of our campaign!

From then on, Anastasia changed her name to Cosmostasia, and wandered the Planes curating all of the torn threads of the Weave, ensuring that magic wasn’t being abused in a way that damaged it, etc.

Yes, Cosmostasia continued to visit her homeworld and help those in need, but given that she was a goddess and had some very pressing responsibilities, she couldn’t be there as consistently as our other heroes. Plus, when she was home, she was trying to take time off and be with her beloved Tarx!

If you made it this far, thank you for reading the entire thing!! I’ve always wanted to illustrate it and make a comic or something, but... that’s a project for another time lol. But now you have some context behind Cosmostasia!! :)

[takesomet]

The Princess (m/f nsfw)

‘Mwahahahahahaha’ he cackled ‘ Finally Princess, I have you right where you belong and no meddling Hero will stop me this time.’

The Princess thrashed in her chains. This was the fifth time the Villain had kidnapped her this year. She would really have to discipline her Royal Guard after she was rescued. No matter, the Hero would rescue her, he always did.

‘You evil Villain! You know the Hero will be here soon to rescue me. Give up already!’ She thrashed about again in her chains. Her arms bound above her head and her feet in a set of stocks. The Villain had removed her royal dress to leave her in just her silk bra and panties.

‘Not today Princess!’ he replied ‘This time you are mine forever!’

Meanwhile

The Hero had been told that the Princess had been kidnapped (again), and had leapt into action. Mounting his horse he was speeding off in the direction of the Villains lair, Doom Castle.

Back at the castle

‘Now Princess, I understand you are upset by my methods, but you can be free if you just confess one tiny thing.’ he said

‘And what’s that?’

‘Oh, just your eternal and undying love for me.’ he grinned.

‘You foul fiend never!’ came her defiant response.

The Villain paused and said with a wry smile,

‘I was hoping you would say that.’

He moved closer to her bound body, she attempted to move away but to no avail. He motioned towards her bare feet. They were pampered and perfect, soft and plump.

‘Tell me Princess, are you…’ he paused for effect ‘...ticklish?’

No, not the tickle torture, anything but that! Her mind raced, why did he tickle her everytime he captured her. She couldn’t stand it. Still she had to be brave, the Hero would be here soon.

Meanwhile

The Hero could see Castle Doom, a fiendish palace of evil surrounded by think vines. Inside the castle were deadly traps and monsters to slay. This wouldn’t be easy but it would be no match for someone as noble as him. He swung his sword at the first vine.

Back at the Castle

With slow menace he moved his fingers towards her feet. She looked on in horror as his nails moved closer and closer. His finger grazed the softness of her sole. It took all she had not to burst in fits of giggles. She had to hold on. He lazily dragged his finger up and down her right foot, zig zagging around her sole. She held her composure, she had to resist.

‘Cootchie cootchie coo Princess’ he whispered.

That did it. She burst into a fit of laughter, unable to hold back anymore. The Villain smiled as he ran his fingers all over her soles. Her feet danced in ticklish agony as they tried to escape his cruel fingers.

‘Tickle tickle, it looks like we have a very ticklish little Princess’

She tried to escape but the chains were too strong and his tickles too teasing. Sapping away her strength. She had no choice but to laugh.

The Villain increased his assault on her beautiful soft soles, a lifetime of pampering and royal service has ensured that her feet were pristine and sensitive. He began to wiggle his evil nails between her toes. He heard her cackle. Her resistance already beginning to fade. He scratched at her soles and watched her feet dance for his pleasure. She was all his. All he wanted in his hands. He focussed on his task. Letting her laughter wash over his senses.

‘Mercy hahahehehehehe hahahhehe oh goodness mercy hahahhehe’ The Princess pleaded, her cries lighting a fire in her torturer’s soul. He moved in and took her toes in his mouth. Warm and wet the Princess was caught off guard. She howled in laughter and tried to move her toes out of his cruel mouth. She failed.

Meanwhile

The final vine had been slain. The doors to the castle lay ahead of him. Finding his breath he moved forward. The vines had grown since his last visit. They had proven a tough challenge. The door was unlocked. As he opened it he heard the ‘Twang’ of a bow, he ducked as the arrow whistled past his head. Drawing his sword he prepared for combat.

Back at the Castle

The Villain had moved himself behind the bound damsel. Standing directly behind her he brought his hands up to her exposed and vulnerable armpits. He heard her hold her breath as she awaited the onslaught. Sensing this he waited. He wiggled his fingers centimetres over her flesh. She began to shake, he leaned in closer and whispered in her ear

‘I’m going to tickle you Princess, right there in your armpits. I hear it’s a bad spot. Are you ready for the tickles?’ He coo’d.

He kept up the suspense. Moving ever closer to tickling her. She began to thrash her head from side to side. It was too much.

‘JUST GET ON WITH IT ALREADY!’ she screamed.

‘With pleasure.’ came the reply.

He buried his fingers into her tender pits and began to scratch and tease the soft flesh. He reaction was instantaneous. Deep belly laughs as the sensations overpowered her resistance. He wriggled his fingers and felt her body try and escape. Bringing her close again he whispered in her ear.

‘Tickle tickle little Princess, it sounds like it’s unbearable. What a shame. Are you just too ticklish there? You know you can make all this stop, all this torture, all you have to do is confess your love for me.’ He was grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

Through the cackles and the laughter a spark of defiance arose.

‘NEVER!’ she screamed .

‘Very well princess, you leave me no choice.’ He raked her armpits faster and she throw her head back in ticklish despair.

Meanwhile

With a heroic flourish he despatched the last of the attacking goblins. His final blow separating the goblins head from his neck. During its final moments it seemed to try to tell him something. Probably plead for mercy.

‘Back to the Pit foul demon!’ he roared as the newly vacated head rolled onto the floor. That was a good one, he thought, pity no one had been around to hear it. He made a mental note to say it again when he recounted his adventures to Dungeon Crawlers Monthly (A free dungeon walkthrough inside every issue!)

He moved on, as mist began to rise, he realised he was heading into the Maze of Horror.

In the Villain's Lair

‘You foul demon!’ she said, whilst gasping for breath. ’Does your evil know no bounds?’

‘No actually.’ Came his response as he moved his hands down to his ribs. ‘Ready for the next round?’

‘ No no no no no ahahahahrheheheeeheheheheh!’ she cried in desperation as his hands began to explore her ribs. Poking and scratching, making sure to count every single one. She was so exhausted she could barely move at this point. Only laugh and cackle as the torture was applied to her body.

He began to laugh himself as he realised that she was completely at his mercy, unable to resist his teases. He moved his hands round to poke and wiggle his fingers over her navel. She squealed again as a new area was tortured. He was having so much fun.

‘Tickle tickle Princess, cootchie cootchie coo! Someone has a ticklish belly! All you have to do if confess.’ She was too weak to even respond.

He let her catch her breath. Pulling out his dagger he quickly cut away at her bra and her breasts fell free. He moved round to admire her.

‘HOW DARE YOU! I AM A PRINCESS YOU HORRIBLE VILLAIN!’ She yelled at him, trying to conceal the fact she was blushing deeply.

He bowed low.

‘ I am truly sorry Princess. What a tragic accident to have befallen you. You are quite the state. Let’s see if we can clean you up a bit.’

Moving over to a table in the corner of the room he opened a drawer. From it he produced two soft goose feathers. The Princesses eyes widened. She began to plead, beg, swear, anything but that.

He couldn’t hear her, even if he wanted to. He was transfixed on his prey. Moving closer he brought the feathers up to her tender breasts. He stroked and caressed them with the feathers softness. She screamed. He was in heaven.

He let the feathers dance around her tender skin as she thrashed in vain to escape their kiss. He moved to her nipples and took great delight in watching them stiffen as the feathers teased them. Sawing them gently back and forth the Princess ceased to be coherent as babbled and laughed in tortured agony.

Meanwhile

The Hero rolled out of the way of another incoming boulder. The rocks smashing around him as he made it to the exit of the Maze. There had been some new traps installed since his last adventure here. Rescuing the Princess and stealing… acquiring the Villains gold crown. It had been a profitable adventure.

‘Jehovah begins with an I…’ he muttered under his breath as he dusted away the rubble from his robes and armour.

His last test lay before him. The Never Ending Staircase straight to Villains Lair. An incredible, if not confusing, feat of engineering.

He took the first step. The loot better be worth it.

In the Villain's Lair

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she let out a deep moan. The torture on her nipples was proving too much. She ached and laughed as the Villain showed his skill. He asked her to confess, against herself she refused.

She truly was a gift.

Unsheathing his dagger once more he knelt in front her and cut away her panties and pulled them away. He inspected them.

‘Soaked’ he remarked. The Princess blushed a deep red.

He turned a lever. The cushioned seat she was sat on shifted leaving a hole right in the middle, still supporting the back of her butt and thighs but exposing her sex. Her pussy dripped and pouted in full view of the Villain. He waved the goose feather in front of her.

‘Last chance.’ He threatened.

She hesitated. It had all been too much. But she was a Princess, she couldn’t let him win. She shook her head.

He wasted no time. He moved the feather towards the lips of the pussy and started to caress them. He heard her moan and giggle in need. He dragged the feather up and down as her juices begin to drip. Parting her lips with one hand he moved the feather to tease her clit. It was aching and throbbing for attention he was happy to provide. Her moans depend.

‘Tickle tickle little Princess.’ He said.

Faster now the feather fluttered against her most sensitive spot. Up and down, teasing and tickling her to maddess. She felt it build within her. He could sense it too. Faster still he moved the feather as he watch her pussy pulsate. She began to snatch her breathe when…

... he stopped

‘Oh please please please don’t stop. PLEASE DON’T STOP.’ she begged.

‘You know what to do’ came his reply. As he began to tickle her feet.

‘AHAHAHAHAHAHAHHEHEHEHEHAHAAHHEEHEHEHEHEHEHH PLEASSEEEE HAHAHHEHEHEHEH I LOVE YOU HAHAHAHHEHEHE I LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.’

He stopped tickling her and moved close. Looking at her deep brown eyes he spoke again.

‘Do you mean it? He asked.

Through the tears and her flushed cheeks she looked at him. A big beaming smile came over her face.

‘Of course I do you silly goose.’ she said and kissed him passionately. He kissed her long and deep.

7 strokes later she screamed his name.

…

The Hero burst through the door.

‘Back to the Pit foul Demon’ he yelled as he dived into a combat roll. He really liked that line. His sword drawn he looked around…

… an empty room.

Completely cleaned out except for a note on the table. Picking it up it read:

I’m sorry Hero

But your Princess is in another castle.

It had been handwritten. He screamed in frustration as threw the note away and made for the door. He stopped. Picking up the note he studied the handwriting.

Funny, he thought, the Villain has very neat handwriting for one so evil. It was dainty, feminine.

Like it had been written by a Princess…

Epilogue

It had been the second kidnapping that he realised that it had been a little too easy to catch the Princess. Always going to the forbidden forest by herself. The fourth time she walked up to the front door and handed herself over.

They made a plan. He would leave a life of villainy and she would renounce her throne. The Hero arrived and rescued her cutting the plan short.

The fifth time they ran away together. A little cottage by the sea called The Castle.

And you bet they lived happily ever after.

[updatingthedragon]

Solo Dungeon Adventures/Unique Traps

Solo Dungeons and Dragons gets a shout out in the first edition of The Strategic Review, in a unique manner. Gary Gygax himself wrote this article, with a bit of help from others, in which he outlines a system whereby you, yes you, can play Dungeons and Dragons without… a referee. Yeesh, that just sounds weird. I much prefer Dungeon Master. It’s a much more evocative term than referee. Plus, everyone argues with a referee, but who would dare argue with THE DUNGEON MASTER?!

Well, a lot of people, but I digress. Gygax gives us tables by which we can endlessly generate our own dungeon, if we don’t have any friends to do it for us. It is a… bit clunky, like most things in early Dungeons and Dragons. There are a lot of sub-tables to refer too, monster behavior to keep track of, loot, magic pools of water…

Honestly, there are much better ways to play Dungeons and Dragons these days, with  Roll20 and other sites making it possible for even lonely nerds to find a group, and purpose-written solo adventures that avoid the complexity of Gygax’s system. Even if we want a random dungeon, we can simply Google “random dungeon generator” and get computer programs that will do all of this for us. It’s a lot easier, but it does lack some of that charm.

I can almost picture myself, if I had been a teen in those days, huddled under a blanket, flash light in hand, rolling dice and painstakingly tracing out the Caverns of Zurkrasheim (made it up as I wrote this, and I love it already), wondering with bated breath what I will encounter next. It’s raining outside, with that warm, pleasant smell of long-dry dirt finally getting a drink. A train horn sounds in the distance…

Sorry, got a bit carried away there. Anyway, there is quite a bit of stuff we can steal for 5e. While the game seems to have moved away from dungeon crawls, there are several traps worth a look at. I like the idea of hidden doors that are difficult to find (humans, unaided, had a 1 in 6 chance according to the chart), with some great reward behind them. But secret doors are easy. No, the trap I love the best is the gas trap. You step on a pressure plate, and gas fills the hallway! A great dramatic beat. Not only that, but the gas sub-table illustrates different kinds of gas your players could encounter. One literally made your Fighters stronger, while another would just straight up kill you if you failed a saving throw. With that in mind, here are my handy, uh, “gas traps?” That just sounds wrong…

Gas Trap: DC 16 to detect the pressure plate. If the players step on the trap, there is a hiss as a mysterious gas fills the corridor around them.

Types of Gas: 1. Smoke Screen. The gas is ashen gray and thick. The area covered by the gas is heavily obscured, blocking vision entirely. 2. Poison Gas. The gas is a sickly yellow and carried a vague scent of sulfur. Whenever a creature enters or starts their turn within the cloud, a DC 14 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, take 3d6 poison damage. On a success, take half as much damage. 3. Blinding Gas. This light green gas has a strange texture, as if it is made of shards of finely woven glass. Roll a DC 14 Constitution saving throw whenever a creature enters the cloud or starts their turn within it. On a failure, the creature  is blinded for 1d8 turns. On a success, the creature is able to resist the gas, but will have to roll again next turn if they are still within the cloud. 4. Fear Gas. The gas is darkly colored, with strange flashes reminiscent of lightning rippling throughout. Roll a DC 14 Constitution(or Wisdom, depending on DM choice) saving throw whenever a creature enters the cloud or starts their turn within it. On a failure, the creature is frightened for 1d8 turns and cannot press further into the gas. On a success, the creature is able to resist the gas, but will have to roll again next turn if they are still within the cloud. 5. Sleeping Gas. This blue gas carries with it a sense of calm and the smell of cinnamon. Roll a DC 14 Constitution saving throw whenever a creature enters the cloud or starts their turn within it. On a failure, the creature falls asleep for 1d6 turns. On a success, the creature is able to resist the gas, but will have to roll again next turn if they are still within the cloud. This is also not “magical sleep”, so elves and half-elves beware! 6. Vapor of Valor. The gas is the shade of a summer rose and smells vaguely of rain. Your characters are suddenly reinvigorated, receiving almost all of the effects of a long rest; prepared spells, however, are unable to be changed.  

Why would you want a “Vapor of Valor” in your otherwise dank and dangerous dungeon? I can actually think of two scenarios. The first, “meta-scenario,” is that your players are slogging through a dungeon full of monsters slowly picking away at their health, and they’re unclear if they’re lost or going the right way. Triggering something like this might serve as a signal that, yes, you’re doing it right and reignite their adventuring spirit.

The other, “game-scenario,” is that back when the Caverns of Zurkrasheim (or whatever dungeon) was a Dwarven stronghold (or whatever ancient group ruled there), this corridor led to the arena. Gladiators would walk down this hallway in between fights, and the Vapor would replenish their health and make them ready for another brutal fight. And, thusly, your players walk through the Vapor of Valor, feel good about themselves, and then there’s a click, the floor they are on suddenly raises, and they find themselves in a long abandoned arena facing down a Purple Worm. Much like the stereotypical “ammo and health packs at the boss door,” this ensures your players won’t get absolutely bodied, adds a feeling of expectation, and also gives your world a reason to have the Vapor.

Another thing I think we should pull from Gary’s auto-dungeon tables are magic pools. We must, of course, differentiate these from magic lakes which act as portals to another dimension. Magic pools, on the other hand, have a variety of options on the table. Some pools add to your stats, others subtract. Some pools talk and grant wishes! But since Wish is, ah, dangerous, we should stay away from that…

Magic Pools: A still pool, surrounded by stones. DC 14 Arcana check will identify this pool as magical. Rolling an 18 or above on that check will also identify what kind of pool it is.

1. Pool of Polymorph: This pool seems to be surrounded with a strange array of feathers and tufts of fur. Any creature that enters the pool must make a DC 16 Wisdom save or be polymorphed into a random creature (1d8. 1, rat; 2, eagle; 3, giant crab; 4, wolf; 5, brown bear; 6, giant bat; 7, giant spider; 8, giant hyena). The effect lasts for one hour, when it wears off and restores the creature to their original form. 2. Pool of Teleportation. A strange blue-green gem gives off a faint glow  from the base of this 12-foot deep pool. Any creature that submerges in the pool will appear in a different Pool of Teleportation when they surface. This effect can be disabled by making a DC 14 Arcana check to deactivate the gem at the bottom of the pool. It can be reactivated with an additional DC 14 Arcana check. 3. Pool of Midas Touch. A few gold statues of goblins (or other creatures, depending on what’s in your dungeon) stand by the pool, which appears to be full of gold. Any creature that touches the pool must immediately make a DC 14 Wisdom save. On a failure, that creature begins to turn to gold and is Restrained. The Restrained creature must repeat the saving throw at the end of its next turn, becoming Petrified as a golden statue. The Petrification lasts until the creature is freed by the Greater Restoration spell or other magic. 4. Pool of Souls. The water in this pool is nearly black, with strange runes carved into the stones surrounding it. Any creature that touches this pool will be able to communicate with the souls of ancient sacrificial victims who were slain here. They will answer questions truthfully and to the best of their ability. It is at the DM’s discretion how much they know. Optionally, roll a DC 10 Wisdom save after the first question, increasing the DC by two with each subsequent inquiry. On a failed save, the creature is affected by short-term madness for 1d8 hours. Communing with tortured souls may have consequences, after all. 5. Pool of Strength. The water in this pool is light green and seems almost gelatinous. Any creature that submerges in this pool will receive the effects of a Potion of Hill Giant Strength (Strength Score of 21 for an hour). 6. Djinn’s Pool. This pool radiates a sky blue light. Touching the water summons a extremely self-centered Marid,  who congratulates the party on entering his presence and asks for fitting tribute. It is up to the DM’s discretion on what the Marid will consider fitting tribute. If they comply, the Marid will give them a magical item of the DM’s choice. If they fail to present fitting tribute, the Marid will become bored, summon a water elemental to chase them off, and “close the door” by shutting off the connection between the Pool and the Elemental Plane of Water. If players bring up Wish, the Marid will calmly explain he was once “indisposed” and forced to grant Wishes, so he’d rather not. If players bring up Wish again, the Marid will become enraged and fight the party himself.

I think that’s enough to draw out from this assortment of auto-dungeon tables. Six different gases for your gas trap, six different kinds of magic pools for players to encounter. Pretty neat, if I do say so myself.

[stahlop]

Not all Treasure is Silver and Gold (sometimes it’s chocolate)

Summary: Killian takes his children on a trick or treat treasure hunt to learn about the town’s history and reflects on his own in the process.

Here is my CS Role Reversal collaboration. Thank you @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713​ for the artwork! It is amazing and inspired the fluffiest story I think you’ll ever read.

A big shout out to @profdanglaisstuff​ for being my beta.

This is probably the fluffiest, sweetest thing I've ever written in my life. Enjoy!

Rated G

A03 link

They turned on to Main Street, the witch and two pirates, carrying with them some of the loot they had already discovered. The witch, though small, was the de facto leader of the group, instructing the small band of characters where to go with the map in her hand.

“The last clue said that we would find the fruit of the Evil Queen where the werewolves lie. That’s at Granny’s and we’re looking for apples,” the witch said matter of factly, as if that were the most straightforward answer. The smaller of the two pirates looked a little wary.

“You don’t agree with the lass?” the larger of the pirates asked. “Do you have a different idea?” He prodded the other pirate. The small pirate looked pensive, as if he had a question he wanted to ask but wasn’t sure how to with his limited vocabulary. The witch put her hands on her hips in a perfect imitation of her mother, not liking that they had to wait when she clearly knew she was correct.

“Daddy?” The small pirate finally asked in a small voice, his green eyes opened unnaturally wide. “The apples won’t put us to sleep will they?” Killian Jones gulped. Oops.

“Of course not, DL. It’s just a game!” Hope Jones, 7-years-old and knower of everything there was to know (obviously), huffed at her little brother. Killian tried not to laugh for DL’s sake. Dylan Liam Jones was only three and couldn’t always distinguish between fiction and reality, or in this case, the past and the present.

Killian got down on one knee to talk with his son, not a small feat as he was in his full pirate regalia, something he only brought out for Halloween nowadays. And they were in the middle of Main Street with swarms of other trick or treaters around them. “You know I would never do anything to hurt you, right DL? The clues are both to help you understand our history and to get candies, sweets, and treasure!” He said reassuringly. The boy nodded, his pirate hat a little too big for his head and falling forward on each nod. Snow had tried to make the costume as close to Killian’s pirate ensemble as she could, but the hat they’d had to buy from a costume shop in town (even after all these years, Emma didn’t quite trust Jefferson to help her out, even though he’d apologized profusely to her once the curse had been lifted and he was reunited with his daughter). Even though Killian didn’t wear a pirate hat, DL had seen Peter Pan quite a few times and wanted a hat similar to that of Captain Hook. Killian had been horrified.

“Can we go now?” Hope said in an annoyed tone. She was impatient when it came to DL and also had the attitude of a teenager, or so Emma had told Killian.

“Are we ready, lad?” Killian asked DL. The little boy nodded. Killian took his hand.

“Finally!” Hope exclaimed starting to run ahead.

“Hope Alice Jones,” Killian said firmly. Hope stopped in her tracks. She knew she wasn’t supposed to run ahead. She turned around and headed back to her father and brother. “Good lass. Now, we have a whole row of houses to procure candy from before we get to Granny’s. Are we ready?” Killian asked.

“We’re ready!” the Jones children shouted.

“Onward then!”

Granny’s boasted all sorts of candied apples. Regular candied, caramel, some with nuts and some with sprinkles, whatever the kind the children were in heaven. Granny was nice enough to cut them into slices to make them easier for the children to eat.

“Might I bother you for a bit of pumpkin pie?” Killian asked Granny as she brought the sugary treats to their booth. Granny nodded and gave him a smile. She still had a soft spot for the pirate and denied him nothing. Even when there were children swarming all around.

The apples came with their next clue. Killian had to hand it to the Storybrooke Town Council, they knew how to get the town involved. The Storybrooke Historical Scavenger/Treasure Hunt had become a town staple over the past five years. It was a fun, yet educational, way to introduce the children to the town’s fairytale past while getting treats and sweets at the same time.

Killian took the card they had been given and read the next clue. “Fill me up with candy and I might explode when you say boo! But don’t feed any chocolate to the cats and dogs that might be around you.” Killian paused and looked at the kids. They looked at him expectantly, caramel and sprinkles clinging to their faces. “Any ideas?” He asked them.

DL scrunched his face up and thought over the clue. “Fill me up with candy and...what was the next part daddy?” he asked. Hope huffed again, annoyed that her little brother couldn’t remember something so simple.

“I might explode when you say boo. It’s a ghost pinata!” She exclaimed. “Like the unicorn one I had at my last birthday party. Remember, we hit it with a stick until candy came out?” Her tone of voice had changed midway through to excited. “But where is the pinata, daddy?” Hope asked.

Killian reread the last part of the clue again. “But don’t feed any chocolate to the cats and dogs that might be around you. Know of any place that might have cats and dogs, little loves?” Hope and DL put their heads together and discussed where they thought it might be.

“The Storybrooke Animal Shelter!” they proclaimed.

After cleaning up their sticky hands and faces, they trick or treated their way over to the animal shelter. Sure enough there were several ghost pinatas waiting for children to come and take a whack at them. The shelter was now owned by Ruby and her girlfriend, Dorothy, who were also running the pinata stations and telling their stories. Ruby talking about how she discovered she was a werewolf and Dorothy telling about her adventures in Oz, both dressed up in Red Riding Hood and Dorothy costumes, respectively. The two also had cats and dogs up for adoption.

Hope and DL delighted in hitting the ghost pinata along with several other children until it finally broke. They gathered up many different types of candy into their pumpkin baskets.

“Can we get a cat? Please, please, please?” both kids whined. Killian and Emma had discussed it this year. Hope had been asking for a cat for the past few years, and of course, since big sis wanted a cat, DL did too.

“I think your mum and I have decided we can get one this year. Why don’t you two pick one out and we’ll pick it up in a few days after it’s had all its shots and everything,” he said, smiling. Killian had never seen bigger grins on his kids’ faces.

The children came out a little while later having picked out the most ‘perfect cat’ in the entire world. Ruby told him to come by the next day to fill out the paperwork and once the cat was fixed, she would be all theirs.

“There is one final clue,” Dorothy said, handing Killian a card. They all thanked Ruby and Dorothy and walked over to a nearby bench to look at the clue.

“When the Savior came and broke the curse, time started to move and things got worse.

But the curse was broken with True Love’s Kiss, come read about these tales if there were any you missed.” Killian paused for effect looking at his two children to see if they understood the clue. He could see Hope recognized where they needed to go in an instant, but DL wasn’t quite sure.

“Good Witch Hope, do you know where we need to go?” Killian asked, so the pressure would be off DL.

Hope gave a sly smile that matched her father’s. She might be the spitting image of her mother, but she had his eyes and his smile. “It’s the library!” she announced.

DL’s eyes lit up wide. “We go to see Auntie Belle?” he asked hopefully. For only being three, DL already had his first crush on Belle the librarian.

“Yes, DL, we go see Auntie Belle. Lead us onward fair witch!” Killian cried.

The trio passed by a few shops that had workers passing candy out front that Hope and DL got to add to their loot. The kids were getting excited the closer they got to the library, DL going on and on about Auntie Belle and Hope running through what the final prize or candy would be once they reached their intended destination.

“I just hope it’s actual candy and not a book. Not that I don’t love reading, Father, but books just aren’t appropriate for Halloween,” Hope said knowingly. She had also inherited his language skills and had recently taken to calling him Father because it sounded more ‘grown up’.

“I’m sure Aunt Belle will have sweets for all of you,” Killian said rolling his eyes and smiling at his precocious daughter.

Belle had completely outdone herself when it came to the library and clocktower. For a place that had once held torturous memories for Killian (fighting an undead Maleficent in the caves, Rumplestiltskin literally holding his heart and almost killing him, leaving Emma in the elevator in the Underbrooke version), it was now a magical place. Happy Halloween banners were posted at the front entrance and on several walls inside, plastic skeletons were hanging everywhere, fall leaf garlands decorated every shelved surface available, and scarecrows that jumped out at you guarded each doorway. In the center of the library was a large craft table that had hundreds of mini pumpkins on it. Next to them were small cups of paint for the children to paint them. Another table in the room next door had a pumpkin carving station for the adults. Belle was in the reading nook where she usually did storytime for the town’s children, wearing a gold dress, reminiscent of this world’s version of Belle (although she told Killian once that she had a dress very similar to that back in the Enchanted Forest, so maybe Disney wasn’t completely off on all their stories), and telling her own tale of Beauty and the Beast.

Belle and Rumplestiltskin’s son, Gideon, and Snow and David’s son, Neal, were running the children’s mini pumpkin area. Killian thought that was pretty much the blind leading the blind (as they were 10 and 13 respectively), but the other kids seemed to be having a good time. A sign at the circulation desk let them know that to get their final treat for the night they needed to paint a pumpkin and have it examined by the official Pumpkin Inspectors, which also seemed to be Gideon and Neal.

“Ready to paint some pumpkins?” Killian said to both his children. Hope didn’t even answer, just ran off to the station delighted at getting to paint. DL nodded his head and took Killian’s hook (something he liked to do when he wanted to feel calm) and led him over to the station. As much as Killian would like to do the pumpkin carving (he’d won that contest the past two years in a row), he knew DL would get overwhelmed easily with too many paint options. Emma often worried that he was overly sensitive about things, but Killian was sure he’d eventually grow out of it. The town did tend to go overboard with everything and it was a lot to handle for most adults, let alone a 3-year-old.

Hope had already grabbed an apron so she wouldn’t stain her costume and started painting her pumpkin an array of colors. Killian had DL pick out three colors (one for each year he was) that he would use and got him into an apron as well.

When they all finished (Hope having painted a unicorn with the stem as a horn, and DL having made a bunch of purple, green, and black splotches all over his pumpkin), Gideon and Neal, the Pumpkin Inspectors, came over and declared them wonderful pumpkins. All pumpkins would be displayed throughout the library for the rest of fall. They headed over to Belle to hear her story and get their final prize.

Killian had to admit, listening to Belle’s retelling of her love story with Rumplestiltskin made it sound like an epic adventure and not the abusive tale that it had been throughout much of their time in Storybrooke. Even 10 years later, Rumplestiltskin and Killian avoided each other whenever possible, even if Rumplestiltskin was considered a more upstanding member of the town now.

“And now,” Belle drawled with a big smile on her face,” your final treat of the night!” The children started to clap and cheer. She then put her finger to her lips and the children immediately went quiet. Everyone knew to listen to Librarian Belle. “There are actually two treats tonight.” The children waited with bated breath. “You will get to pick out your own Halloween or fall themed book,” she paused before the big reveal, Killian already noticing the look of disappointment on Hope’s face, “And you will also get a scoop of loot from our treasure chest!” Belle moved the pillow off the large box she’d been sitting on to reveal a very large pirate’s chest. She opened it to show it filled with (chocolate) gold coins and candy jewelry. A large cheer went up from the children as they got up and filed into a line to get their treasure, Belle giving them each a large scoop as they walked past. Killian noticed that the scoop pretty much filled up the rest of their trick or treat bags. Then they got to choose a book from the table set up near the back exit.

The small witch and two pirates made their way back to their beautiful seaside home. The denizens of their town were dwindling in number at the (somewhat) late hour of 8:15 (late for most of the trick or treaters anyway). The witch was content to read her book under the street lamps while sucking on a Ring Pop liberated from her loot. The smaller pirate was passed out on the larger pirate’s shoulder, as he’d barely made it out of the library with his eyes open. On the front porch, a beautiful blonde was handing out candy to the last few stragglers. She wore a black dress decorated with pumpkins and a black cat mask.  As the last trick or treaters left the porch, she gingerly collapsed into her rocking chair.

“Mommy, Mommy!” Hope yelled excitedly as she ran up the porch steps. She was not too grown up to continue calling Emma Mommy. “Look at everything we got!” She ran up to Emma and showed her all the spoils from the night. Emma smiled and removed the mask from her face.

“It looks like the town will be having a candy shortage in the coming weeks,” she said, laughing a bit. Then she put on a serious tone. “Are you prepared to pay the candy tax?” She held her hand out for payment. Hope looked up at Killian and he nodded that, yes, she needed to give her mother some of her candy. Hope reluctantly gave her two chocolate coins and skipped into the house.

“I see this one barely made it home?” Emma said, softly patting DL’s arm that was hanging down near her.

“Aye, Swan, passed out right as we were leaving the library.” He shifted DL slightly. “Let me get him into his night clothes and then I’ll come out with you.” Emma nodded in agreement.

It took Killian a little longer than he anticipated to get DL out of his costume. He eventually just kept him in his muslin shirt and forwent trying to wrestle pajama pants onto him, letting him sleep in his underwear. He folded the parts of his costume he was able to get off and placed them on his dresser. He then gave him a kiss before turning on the nightlight DL needed to sleep, and closed the door.

Killian checked in on Hope who had already changed out of her witch costume and put on a nightgown. She was still reading the book she’d received from Belle.

“Did you brush your teeth, little love?” he asked. She gave her patented Emma eye roll.

“Yes, Father,” she said not even looking up from her book. Emma said they were going to hate the teenage years if she was already this dramatic. Killian walked over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t stay up too late, there is still school tomorrow,” he told her. She grunted an acknowledgment as he left.

He walked outside and joined Emma on the other rocking chair that was out on the porch. Yes, they were a two-rocking-chair-on-the-porch-type people now. Emma had already eaten her candy tax and was now working on one of the fun size bags of Peanut M&M’s that she had been passing out to trick or treaters.

“And how many of those did you eat tonight, Swan?” he asked, snagging a bag for himself from the bowl next to Emma’s rocking chair.

She blushed a little at his question. “There’s peanuts in it. That counts as protein, right?” she asked.

“Ah, is that the excuse you’re using then. Peanuts for the peanut, aye?” He reached over and rubbed her swollen belly. “We missed you tonight,” he said, reaching over to grab her hand and kiss her knuckles.

“Yeah, well, being on modified bed rest for this little one takes priority, I guess.” She took back her hand and put both of them on her belly. “At least it’s only two more months until this little peanut graces us with their presence.”

Killian reached his hand back out for hers, admiring the wedding band that graced his ring finger and the engagement ring and wedding band that adorned hers. It was amazing to think that it had been nine years since that whole ordeal, and here they were, about to welcome their fourth child (and the fact that Henry was married and expecting a babe of his own was a lot scarier to Killian than adding another to their brood). Killian just thanked his lucky stars that life had consented to let this old pirate settle down and be blessed with the greatest treasure one could ever find.

“Let’s go to bed, love,” he said, standing and pulling her up with him. Emma smiled and gave him a peck on the lips.

“Let’s go to bed.”

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[your-worst-knightmare]

Hoist the Colours

“Yo ho, all together Hoist the colours high. Heave, ho, thieves and beggars Never shall we die.”

The docks were noisy. They always were, during this time of year at least. The clamour of the people coupled with the pounding rain made for a strange melody. Calming, almost, if you were accustomed to it. Fishermen hauled barrels of fish off their boat, proud of their catch for the day. School upon school of fish swam through these waters this season, and with their bounty came people. And so, the docks were noisy. 

Noisy docks meant good business for barkeeps and innkeepers. It also meant good business for thieves and pickpockets, who took advantage of the lackadaisical wealthy who happened to wander too far into the Narrows. But if you had enough sense in your head, you knew better than to wander. Roy liked to think he had sense. His most perilous adventures were the immeasurable stack of dishes in the kitchen. Except for the influx of barfights newcomers brought with them, there was only one thing he had to worry about: Pirates. 

Oh, they were thieves of a higher breed and more ambitious in nature. They also possessed a strange sense of nobility, one that no particular barkeep could classify. Roy could, to an extent at least. But that was only because he had considered himself one in his youth. He had hung up the title long since, now spending his days mopping up spills or refilling some ruffian’s drink. Mundane tasks, but it was honest work at least. Unlike one of his oldest friends, he preferred an honest life to one of trickery and adventure. 

Jay Todd. The Damned Prince. The surname ‘Todd’ never stuck after he joined his first crew and insisted he was nobody. It almost made Roy laugh. Jay and Jay Todd were two different people completely. They did have one obnoxious trait in common though: they were both always ready to go for a round, them against the world. He was a captain now, in charge of a ghost ship, as they called it. A pseudo captain, if you will, because the captain was the only one on the ship. It wasn’t hard to imagine Jay out there, lonely as Lady Lune, with only memories for company.

Despite his conviction of loneliness, Jay always made his adventures seem wonderous. Tales of glory and swashbuckling, tales which seemed too tall to be true. Roy knew there was more to Jay’s life than emprise and endeavour, but he sometimes wondered: was a pirate’s life really all it was cut out to be?

––––––––––––––––

Damn. A pirate’s life was really not all it was cut out to be. Jason had just finished a job for an anonymous employer, and though the pay was good, he could use a break. Perhaps he’d pay Roy a visit. He wouldn’t be noticed much anyway, not with the amount of sailors that passed through that port this time of year. 

Jason set his course north, hoisted the sails and climbed the shroud to watch the endless waves. He made himself comfortable for the journey, an old sea shanty playing on his lips. It was funny, how much he sang to himself now. Roy would tease him endlessly if he found out, Jason could all but hear it right now. “‘Ey, look ‘ere boys, the old bird’s finally singin’ for us!” 

Despite the time that had passed, he still knew exactly where to find Roy. Only the side of town with a raging infamy for brawls of the most dramatic kind would house Roy. It was always wise to enter town with some sort of concealed weapon, but especially when one entered the place Roy called home. It was as if he used his circumstances of living to satisfy his thirst for adventure.

The bar was busy, and so Jason wasn’t noticed when he stepped inside. All the attention the bar could hold was directed on one individual: a woman challenging sailor after sailor to fistfights. She had a captain’s hat on over her russet hair, merely to show her rank. It was braided back on one side of her head, a clever combination of style and practicality. She looked familiar, and Jason kept trying and failing to place her. He would have thought about it all day if Roy hadn’t found him first.

“ Hey, ‘ya  finally come ‘ta visit and ‘ya don’t even stop for a hello.” 

“I came here to find you, ‘ya big crybaby. I’m here now, so stop whining,” Jason said, giving Roy a hearty clap on the back. Roy brought out some food and they sat down, as far as they could from the commotion.

“So, Jaybird, how’s life been treatin’ ‘ya?”

“Not bad. Finished a job in the Southern Isles. Came ‘ere for a little break before my next job.”

Roy slammed his mug on the table wiping his mouth. “Where’s all the charisma gone? The adventure? The next thrilling tale in the saga?”

“Aw, Roy, not every job is exciting. Some o’ them are jes’ messy an’ tiring.”

“‘Ol captain ready to hang up the hat then, eh? Ready to settle down with some nice lady?” Roy raised his eyebrows, mocking. 

“I won’t hang up the hat ‘till I go down to Davy Jones’ locker or Angel comes ‘ta take me. Can’t, rather. My mistress will have to live with it then, won’t she?” 

Roy let out a good-natured snort. “Unless you plan on wooing the Red Amazon herself,” Roy said, gesturing to the red-haired pirate in the middle of the bar, “ you’re goin’ ‘ta spend your days alone, mate.”

“Is that what her name is?”

“Aye. Loud as a pistol and twice as destructive, she is. Had to drag at least five folks out jes’ today.” Jason kept staring, his intent clear in his eyes. “Oh no, you’re not going to. She’s knocked every ol’ seadog here into sharkbait. ‘Ya don’t stand a chance.”

Jason got up, heedless of Roy’s words. The latest challenger stumbled out of the Red Amazon’s reach, yielding before he was hurt too badly. She smoothed her hair, annoyingly, before pausing to look Jason up and down. “Pray, sir, who might you be? Another challenger?” Her accent suggested a respectable upbringing, which caught Jason off guard.

“If ‘ya wish me to be, miss. I ask for a conversation if I do win.”

She thought for a moment, watching him twist a gold ring on his finger. “When you lose, I’d like your ring.” 

He looked down at it. It was an intricate thing, and probably held quite some value. Alas, he could find another ring, not another conversation. “Fine. Draw your cutlass.”

She raised her eyebrows. “A duel? If that’s what you want, then.” She held a hand out, reaching towards thin air. “To me, Mistress.” When called, a huge, polished sword came flying to the Amazon’s hand. A magical item, then. 

Jason drew his own cutlass, quite modest in comparison. The Amazon smirked, a mischievous light burning in her eyes. Green eyes, he realized. Her first strike was so fast that Jason struggled to meet it. The clang of metal against metal echoed in the now quiet bar while the audience held their breath. 

The blows were so rapid that the fight quickly became a show of instinct and muscle memory. Jason was proud to say that he held his own quite well, albeit a nick he had sustained to the arm. She held no wounds, as of yet, but if Jason couldn’t prove his skills, he’d prove his spirit. 

The Amazon deflected Jason’s latest strike onto the ground.” Really, I’d like to know who you are.”

Jason thrust another strike towards her breathlessly. “ The Prince, miss,” he said, stepping back, tipping his head. “ The Damned Prince.”

“Well,” she began, taking the opportunity to disarm Jason of his weapon. It clattered to the ground loudly and he grimaced as she pressed her blade against his throat. “I’ve ne’er seen a prince so ragged as you.”

Discreetly, he unsheathed his concealed knife, pressing it to her side. “Looks aren’t everything, mate,” he smiled. “A draw, then?”

The Amazon bared her teeth, sneering. She sheathed her sword, but not before giving Jason another small taste of its blade. “ A dirty rapscallion, y’ are.” 

He handed her the ring as Roy found seats for them and drove their audience away. “ A good duel, wasn’t it?”

“Tell me what your business is before I find you a dance with Jack Ketch.”

“I heard news that you was lookin’ for a bow. My ol’ employer wanted it too. What’s the fuss wi’ it?”

“It’s a calamitous weapon. Lord knows what would happen if it were taken by th’ wrong buccaneer.” She pushed her chair back, ready to leave. “I’m not looking for any hands. You may go.”

“I know where ‘ta start lookin’.”

She stopped, now interested. “ Pray, then, where?”

He told her what he knew, from the gossip he had heard in the Southern Isles. The journey would be long, but work was what he had come looking for. “All I ask is that I accompany you.”

“Fine. No prey, no pay, Prince. We leave at dawn.”

A share of any loot was fine by him. He’d leave his ship for Roy to take care of until he came back. He just needed to make sure his old employer, whoever he was, didn’t get his hands onto the bow. Jason took off his hat and extended his hand. “Jay Peter Todd.”

The Amazon returned the gesture. “Artemis Grace. Don’t be late.”

 Should I do a part two??