#i wish he died a slow and agonizing death in the dungeon

[slipperywhenwet0o0]

I was watching hotd edits and reading atla fanfics and my brain just exploded

They are variants of each other, their suffering mirrors each other’s

Their awful marriages they were forced into

A royal or high standing family that has some connection to fire, a power or tool they lack

Their one eyed sons who were so kind as children and later grew to be harsh( zuko and todoroki both were able to learn to be kind again and to not lash out or shut down every time they’re upset, Aemond sadly did not learn that)

The absurd amount of blame they get for the way some of their children turned out ( yes they hold some blame, but I’m always hearing about what they did wrong and not hearing nearly enough about what the fathers did wrong, to me those men are primarily to blame; viserys targaryen, ozai and enji todoroki i wish all of you suffered more(ESPECIALLY ENDEAVOR HE DID NOT DESERVES TO JUST LIVE PEACEFULLY HE SHOULD HAVE DIED) Especially because they too were victims and were often doing the best they knew how to do for themselves and their kids even if it wasn’t enough or backfired massively (alicent)

Oh my tragic girllssss

[alterstadt]

          the quiet clinking of silver on porcelain — the spoon is resting, now, gently on the gold-leafed side of a decorative saucer. the shadows of a tea set, highlighted by streaks of moonlight through the smudges of dirty windowpanes, grow long and soft, and the table is cast in the stark pattern of velvet blackness and silvered mahogany, all cast in the rich indigo of night. the night is different here from the nights below — more open, more free — and he can see the difference in the slow-relaxing strain of every muscle in the man diagonal.            it is late, now — the summer sun died while there were candles lit in the belly of the castle below, when the screams still rang and the blood was still warm and there was still work to be done. he can count the hour in the darkness pooling beneath the man’s eyes, verdant and hollow, currently preoccupied by the half-empty state of his tea. he abstains, sets down his goblet; tea would be warming, perhaps, now that the august heat has leeched itself out of the stones below, but the night is made for stronger stuff. weaker, perhaps, than the faint acrid miasma that makes him loath to offer a shared bottle. the hour is so that by his patterns, fifteen minutes prior, the englishman should have taken his nightly dosage — as not an hour prior, they’d ascended, and the man made a point to partake immediately after scrubbing the filth of work away, even with how little that laudanum now helped for the insomnia ( though he himself feared any stronger tincture may leave the man comatose ) — which meant there was very, very little time for this to work.            it is only in this window and in his far more manic state that daniel’s mind is wholly unguarded. the baron dares not pry too much when he stands between the man and the blade — not when he has faced sharp, biting retaliation for the slightest of comments amidst sacrifice. he is careful not to push too hard — not in extraction, not in his guidance — and he has kept daniel at the breaking point for weeks. after the fires of hell one must always offer sanctuary, and in the silence of a night just bright enough to stave off the sharpened claws of fear, intends to fully. psychic, extended, he brushes up against an errant thought closer than the agonized white noise of the masses below.          “ i don’t mean to keep you from sleep too long, ” he begins, an answer to a question that hadn’t the chance to leave the englishman’s lips. a minute, private joy blooms unwarranted at the start it gives him, the joy it has given him each time he does this.  “ but i believe taking such time now will help unwind from the stress of the day. ”           the response it warrants is something that he does not deign as a statement, not in what he can hear through the hushed, half-spoken tones that echo from the rim of the teacup. he allows it, focuses more on the web of thoughts laid before him as they sit in amicable silence. the englishman is disjointed: he catches snippets of self-calming; short memories; quiet wants; slivers of hope of the nightmares warded; the faded thought of the day’s work; the growing comfort that he can nearly feel curl in the pit of his stomach and almost see work its way down further with each of the man’s deepening breaths. it’s quaint. the realization of it tastes like tragedy.  it brings him back to himself. the thing which calls itself the baron retreats, eyes trained hawk-sharp and backlit gold against the contours of darkness in his face. upon the stem of his goblet, his fingers play a melody unheard by human ears, silenced as he lifts it. he does not break eye contact when the wine touches his lips. the taste of it lingers on his tongue when he speaks.                “ i’ve intended to kill you from the start. ”

           he drops it as casual conversation, as if the words mean nothing and don’t act as paralytic in the englishman’s blood, as if he doesn’t hear the screeching stop his thoughts grind towards the moment the words fall, soft and clipped, from his wine-stained lips. the silence is deafening. there is something in the curve of his smile, softer than the stain, that speaks of serenity.              “ it’s nothing too personal, daniel. ” the voice that speaks it is low and hushed, whispered velveteen, void of any assurance in the wake of the man’s shock. as if little of it matters, as if little of it is of consequence, as if his words should be punctuated with anything else but the gentleness of his fingers on porcelain, the soft gurgling of poured tea, the refraction of moonlight through liquid that casts the shadow in almost ruby red. only then does it dawn the suspicion, as he passes the cup — perhaps the context of the conversation cast doubt on his attempts to put it lightly.             “ it isn’t poisoned, ” he clarifies, allowing the barest hint of a smirk play upon the shadows of his visage. with almost, almost a chuckle: “after half of the pot drunk, i daresay you’d be dead by now if it were.”  it is met with no welcome, nor is the slightest lingering brush when his fingertips graze the pallor of daniel’s hand, cold and clammy. perhaps it is his own radiating heat that makes daniel flinch back from him as if his touch is burning. in a moment of weakness, the baron allows himself to believe such a delusion even if the clarity gained from contact proves otherwise. he smells the fear coming off the man like blood, breathes in deep on the rim of his goblet to clear is palette. there is something sharp in the way daniel looks at him, verdant as broken bottles and stinging acids and the laudanum that he knows by now is beginning to take its first weary effects.               “ alexander— ” the englishman starts, warning, but the rest of the sentence dies on his lips.           soon, the addling of his mind will make it impossible to predict, impossible to properly track and decipher and scry upon and he will meet daniel, perhaps as the unhinged, the terror, perhaps, if the confession is received poorly, on near-human terms. he must work quickly now.             “ allow me to finish, ” he chides, and receives a flash of memory from the fragmented mind of the mortal before him: his own voice, tone identical; the sharpness of the flame-bladed dagger; ink-dark blood on his shaking hands; the whimpers of the bound man. it comes in vivid, vivid clarity, more vibrant than any of the scraps his prying is usually given, and for a brief moment, a fleeting instant, the baron considers how much his ward has learned from his prying, from his orb. his projection skills are impeccable. it is a terrible waste.             “ i would have sacrificed any man who came here with an orb. it has an affinity for humanity, i believe, or at the very least rejects nonterrestrial interference with it. if given the choice, it will always repel me and cling to you. you must understand this is why it must be done.” alexander takes a minute sip, sucks his lips to his teeth — the pause is minuscule and allows for no interjection. the silvered base of his goblet makes a muffled clunk as it meets the table.              “ were there other options, i would have considered otherwise. we are running out of time, daniel. the shadow draws closer and i cannot unbind it from you. either i must sacrifice you, or the bound beast will consume you. you will realize i brought you here under false pretense, daniel. unless the shade of viscera feels mercy, the moment you stepped foot into that algerian tomb, you were already dead. ” the baron turns, then. the moon overlooks the pines, the forest thick and dark and foreboding. “ it is far better your death means something. i hope you will find some comfort in this. ”             “ why are you telling me this? ” it is the first the englishman has spoken freely in what seems like eternities, but the voice that echoes does not sound like him; it is neither the timid, frightened fawn which whimpers and questions and clings to his side, nor the beast in man-shape that stalks the dungeons below, relishes in the art of suffering — it is between them, and alexander cannot help but smile.             “ i have heard your justifications, daniel. i know you are a christian man. you may see this as a confessional booth if you wish, but i assure you it neither puts weight on my soul nor takes it off. what must happen will happen, my friend, you understand this. it is merely fairness that you will know what sacrifice you are making. ”            the daniel he turns back to is not the one he turned from — the exhausted, rattled mess now steeling with the first blushes of murderous fury, hands ghost-white as he clutches the cup as if to break it. his thoughts are indecipherable, now, lost to the realms of unpredictability and opiate haze. as he stretches across the table, there is chitin in the baron’s touch, fingers elongated and in multiplicity in the pale moonlight, the smallest six of their unglamoured digits brushing few errant locks out of the englishman’s eyes, the other half of them hovering just-so above the pallor of his flesh — the first absolute truth he has told since the man stepped foot onto the stones of brennenburg.              “ i cannot thank you enough for it. ” his touch retreats.              “ how... ” the englishman’s breath catches, accusatory in his throat, and the lingering smell of fear has been replaced with ire, with dust, with the faintest hint of roses. “ how would you plan on killing me if i know? ”             “ oh, daniel. daniel, daniel, daniel, daniel. ” the lilt in the baron’s voice is teasing, each iteration of his name a half-savored roll across the tongue. the smile that distorts his features almost melancholic. “ finish your tea, daniel. worry not about it. i hardly expect you to remember. ”

[ghostlenin]

The Ballad of Andy Richter

Speaking of things that wouldn’t fit on twitter, here’s what happened the last time we played dnd. I bring this up because while I like to do cool things in-game, I’m usually not the star of the show. But I was here, so here we go.

Background: we’re going through the Tales from the Yawning Portal book (watch out, I’m going to be spoiling the first two dungeons), hitting up all these classic dungeons now that they’ve been ported to fifth. I rolled up a stone sorcerer named Andy Richter, who at some point in the past washed up naked on the beach with no prior memory, clutching a magic notebook. The idea was he’s the latest in a long line of Andys Richter, clones made and set upon the world by some cosmic being who uses these clones to learn about the world.

Prologue: Goltheas Tree

It takes the group (me, a rogue, a fighter, a cleric, and a wizard) a couple sessions to get to the bottom of the Sunless Citadel where we’re set upon by a bunch of twig blights and the corrupted remains of a previous adventuring party and a crazy druid. Fight’s going pretty well, Andy’s charged ahead and then in a Blaze of Glory (I played the song on youtube as I did this), I rounded the corner, twinned my Burning Hands to finish off the bad wizard and bad druid, then quickspelled Scorching Ray (I think) to plink the bad paladin/fighter guy. I then go down, but we win.

Cue looting the room and investigating around. There’s this gross necromagical tree in the back, we burn it down (the wizard and I loved burning everything down, Fire Bolt ftw). Underneath the tree there’s a skeleton impaled by a wooden stake with all kinds of runes carved in it, so of course I snatch it up. The wizard is able to read it and wants to get it back to Waterdeep right quick, and after we resolve the adventuring hook for the dungeon, that’s what we do.

Turns out, these high wizards are impressed by what’s on the old stick, but also angry with us (me) for taking it without burning the skeleton, because that stake was the only thing binding an elder vampire god elf guy (Goltheas) and now we can assume he’s loose. Whoops, lol.

Anyway, we figure we’ll deal with that later and go head off to the Forge of Fury and spend a couple sessions working through the Moon Door into the Glitterhame. I was absent for the second of those sessions where our cleric straight up died from kiting like 17 orcs. He since rolled up a halfling gunslinger that rides a dog.

Part 1: The Cut Scene

Before we continued exploring the Glitterhame, our DM, the fantastic CK, said we were going to have a little cut-scene encounter with some throw-away characters the wizard’s player rolled up.

They’re a bit higher level than us, and all have great flavor, and we rp the hell out of them. Relevant bits: I was a half-orc troll barbarian raised by an elf (played by the wizard’s player) who was in love with our goody-two-shoes dwarf fighter leader who had a magical primordial unicorn horn.

Surprise, surprise, our job is to go into the Sunless Citadel and bring back the bodies our normal group was supposed to recover but never did (whoops, lol).

We pick up the scene at the entrance to the end cavern where the big boss fight and tree were. My character is hearing a voice in my head (the evil demon trapped on the first floor of the dungeon who wants someone to make a Wish so he can get out) and there’s a bunch of creepy bodies suspended from the ceiling.

Cue a really hard fight with 4 or 5 vampires. We’re not doing so hot until the paladin starts smiting things so their regeneration won’t kick in from the radiant damage. We get a strategy: pally lights em up with radiance, then I barbarian the hell outta them. We kill 2 of them I think before we hear a wave of giant rats scurrying towards us from the back with Goltheas the vampire lord surfing them. The fight’s getting pretty hairy now and we don’t have many smites left.

My dwarf crush gets hit hard and I tell the group I have a plan and shout a Wish into the cavern (my half-orc wasn’t that smart, but he does pay attention):

I wish that all of the intelligent beings in this cavern were teleported to the plane of radiance!

ohnowhatdidyoudo.wav

See, cuz I knew radiant damage was bad for the vampires, but our good guy pally made it, so it couldn’t be all that bad, right?

At first the DM was like, well, you all die. Way faster to TPK than I thought! But then as we were roleplaying our slow agonizing deaths taking 1d8 radiant damage per turn until we die, we decided wait now–let’s just try to finish these jerks off, so we did.

While raging, my character was taking half damage and knew he’d outlast all his friends so I just charged Goltheas, did a bunch of damage. My dwarf crush figured why not and blew her primordial unicorn horn, summoning a unicorn buddy to help us out in the fight. The smiting paladin hopped on its back and started charging all the vamps. We killed off all the mobs while our characters started dying from the every-round damage. First my orc’s dad died, then the warlock. Goltheas had an action where he could jsut escape if it looked like it was going poorly, but had to do it on his turn, so we all charged him. The paladin, riding the unicorn, charged and burned his last two smites–with max radiant damage since we were on the plane–and did like 77! damage in one hit between the unicorn goring the vampire and his warhammer smites. Goltheas died died died. It was glorious.

After the fight, the DM told us he had a plan for Goltheas, that after he escaped, he was going to hunt down every Andy Richter clone in the multiverse, slowly coming for mine, but those plans got derailed. I decided then that a big part of Andy’s story was to continually mess everything up, but go on oblivious while everyone else cleaned up after him.

Part 2: The Deck

After a food break, we went to our regularly scheduled dungeon crawling in the Glitterhame. We killed a bearowl and a couple trogs, then found a magic door with a word puzzle on it. We solved it–but not before a couple people slipped in the river and almost fell down a giant hole–and inside on an alter was a Deck of Many Things.

Now, if you’re unfamiliar, the Deck of Many Things is a stupidly powerful artifact that’s been in dnd for ages. It’s made up of a bunch of cards and when a character draws them, crazy powerful things happen. So a few of us did.

The rogue drew and got 50,000gp worth of jewelry. For those counting, that is a staggering amount of wealth–if you have about 125gp in your pocket in a town you can buy pretty much anything you need except for powerful magic items. It’s so much money what she got.

I decided Andy would draw, since his prime directive is to experience as much of everything as he can. So I drew and got… the Fool, which is one of the two worst cards in there. I immediately lost a level–and we were just on the cusp of going from 3 to 4 by a few dozen xp–and had to draw again. Perfect, I thought, this is going to shake out more or less evenly. And then I drew the Void, which is the actual worst card in the deck. Andy’s body goes immediately limp as his soul is transported into some unknown object at some unknown location anywhere in the world (or multiverse for that matter).

Whoops, lol.

Thanks to Placebo Comics for the image.