#it's a staple Fantasy Creature

[markrosewater]

just kinda thought about it, is there any reason why cat is a creature type that sees more use compared to dog?

like new capenna have cat people and dominaria does as well but dog people are a rare sight it feels

You made the Ainok cry.

I think cat people are just more a fantasy staple than dog people.

[fruitsofbeingafraid]

rating forgetmenauts couples on ren faire cosplay ability

bigfoot and mothman- 4/10

now they may be ICONIC, but god this would be a pain. either you do it low effort and just look like a regular wedding or do it high effort and then melt bc summer is ren faire season and it will be hot. the slay value is off the charts though. maybe if they're on their honeymoon?

thomas the rhymer & his faerie queen- 9/10

Average Fairytale Man and beautiful ethereal faeire queen is such a dynamic and you wouldn't be too hard-pressed to do either of them! you could even spice it up and do hawker thomas! wouldn't stand out too much at all. 

helena and gerard-8/10

great and wonderful and beautiful. 1872 is SUCH a time period to be replicating the fashions of. absolutely gorgeous. vampires are inherently pretty too. however they have exactly Zero defining features other than vampire so have fun with that.

the rusalka and the shepherd girl- 10/10

this would go SO hard. shepherd girl-esque outfits and humanoid fantasy creatures are both ren fest staples and i am just reiterating how UNNECESSARILY HARD THIS WOULD GO. no complaints. perfect.

persephone and hades- 7/10

i mean. iconic. beautiful for sure. however as we have discussed, summer is ren fest season, and not being together during summer is kinda their whole thing. also they're maybe the least forgetmenauts-y couple on this list bc its a retelling.

the summer king and his husband- 9/10

breathtaking. the summer king music video is so gorgeously beautiful. -1 point because in said music video the summer king does not have legs. if you're a wheelchair user disregard that last segment its an 11/10 for you. 

gay werewolfs- 2/10

if you want to either wear fursuits or do the most low effort unrecognizable cosplay ever these are the fellows for you! they have even less defining features than helena and gerard, i don't even know how you would successfully cosplay them. 

charlatan in red & foxbride- 3/10

i would LOVE to see people's interpretations of the foxbride. however a ren fest is probably not the place for that. i also feel like perhaps drawings would be better than a human for portraying that. the phrase "charlatan in red" evokes a lot of ren fest vibes though so idk! 

zombie promgoers- 5/10

now this may not fully fit the theme of ren fest but i personally would love to do this. get that sunday best into rags and tatters and dirty yourself up. the outfits would be great and it definitely wouldn't be the weirdest things there.

tam lin & lover- 4/10

i may be unsure how you would successfully do this but that won't stop me from thinking its a good idea. another song that has a set time it takes place in that is not summer, not sure how i feel about that. if you went solo as tam lin's captor though????? 10/10gorgeous perfect etc.

james & lover from cottonwood- 1/10

have fun cosplaying High School Boy.

skeletons from interlace of bones- 0/10

theyre skeletons.?

[flightyquinn]

Years back, I had a player express to me that they found dire animals boring. For some reason, that's stuck with me. On the one hand, I get it. In a world full of fantastical creatures like dragons and chimeras, "a wolf but bigger" doesn't seem very exciting. On the other, they're a fantasy staple too, and they have decent stat blocks.

So, here's a thought...

What if they weren't just an animal, but bigger and meaner?

According to Webster's dictionary, "dire" means "exciting horror", "warning of disaster", or "desperately urgent"...so what if we took "dire animal" and really meant it?

I'm imagining a version of dire animals that only vaguely resemble the creatures that they're compared to. Things truly terrible to look upon, with an alien appearance and twisted features, or in other words, creatures that are truly monstrous.

Suppose, for example, that your "dire wolf" looked like this, and communicated with its packmates through high pitched whining and chittering. Or perhaps something even more bizarre, with too many limbs, a face too long and narrow, that's too much mouth, with clustered eyes and warped proportions. I think you could even go really nuts, and turn dire animals into aberrations, though there is something to having them be animals, just very strange and dangerous ones.

[tawked]

Bone, Jeff Smith.

It's amazing how easy it is to avoid the "always evil species" trope and the problems that come with it by just exploring the evil species' culture for a second.

The rat creatures are violent weirdos who do not at all operate on a human scale of morality, but Smith doesn't make them automatically evil by birth, he provides a window into how their culture raises its children as well as the forces that define that culture such that the reader can see, hm! If these issues were addressed and if they were removed from that context, the rat men would likely not be evil! Likewise, through the brief little arc where Phoney Bone rallies all the humans of the valley up into a racist mob and attempts to lynch the Red Dragon, as well as the various Bones' fish out of water reactions to cultural staples of the valley like belief in the Dreaming, we see that no one is racially impervious to evil and that worldview is rooted in something other than simply being a "Man of the East" or an Uruk Hai or whatever.

It's like a much smarter version of Game of Thrones' cultural relativist approach to worldbuilding, and I say that purely because Smith often places empathy and concern for others in one's community at the forefront of how he writes his characters (even the early antagonists, the Two Stupid Rat Things, are easy to empathize with in their abuse under their leader, Kingdok). Other fantasy works that similarly reject biological or a priori by race morality in the fantasy genre kind of trend toward cynicism and cruelty as the norm, especially when portraying medieval European adjacent cultures, due to the weird belief that empathy was invented in 1894 by Lord Hudson Feelsforothers and before that everybody was just a witch-burning hater 24/7.

[ffmtg]

Cecil, Dark Knight//Cecil, Redeemed Paladin

(Scryfall Link)

Cecil is the protagonist of Final Fantasy IV. He is a transforming double-faced card, meaning that instead of having the usual Magic back, there are cards on both sides. In most cases, the card will be treated as its front side, Cecil, Dark Knight.

Cecil, Dark Knight is a 1 mana 2/3 with deathtouch, meaning any amount of damage he deals to another creature is enough to kill him. This makes him an absurdly efficient creature, but he comes with a downside: Whenever he deals damage, you take that much damage. This reflects his Darkness ability from Final Fantasy IV, which allows him to deal a lot of damage at the cost of his own health.

After you have lost enough health, Cecil transforms into the Redeemed Paladin. This represents a moment in the game in which Cecil decides he no longer wants to use the power of darkness, climbs Mount Ordeals, and becomes a Paladin. I'm a bit disappointed this change isn't reflected in creature types since it was the first time the class system was used to tell a story but I guess Knight fits for both Dark Knight and Paladin, and the change is still reflected by the card's color changing from black to white.

As a Paladin, he has Lifelink, meaning he heals you for the amount of damage you deal, representing his new healing powers. Additionally, he has the Protect ability, representing the spell of the same name in FFIV. Protect is a series staple, and typically creates a barrier that reduces physical damage by half, but in FFIV it just increases defense by a few points. Interestingly, Cecil doesn't actually learn Protect in the classic version of the game, only in the 3D remake for the DS and the Steam and Mobile ports based on it.

I think it's a bit strange that Cecil's Paladin card actually has more power than his Dark Knight side because he actually becomes weaker offensively, instead gaining defensive and support tools, but I guess the higher offensive power is still represented through the Deathtouch of the Dark Knight's side.

[djgamek1ng]

Magic The Gathering x Final Fantasy - Spoiler Season Part 10 (12/05/2025 - Main set cards of the Commander Decks)

A total of 8 cards from the main set were spotted in the commander decks! So we're going through them and luckily for me, at least as far as I currently know, none of them have alt arts. I will go back for alt arts of cards that got them revealed, but that will be way later, potentially even after the set has come out. With that said, let's go with Zack Fair!

Mono White makes sense for Zack. If anything were to be added, it would probably be Red, but mono White is perfectly sensible.

As for the card itself. A 1 mana 0/1 is slightly below rate... but he enters with a +1/+1 counter, so he's actually a 1 mana 1/2, which is slightly above rate. Then his one ability is for 1 mana and sacrificing Zack, you give a target creature you control indestructible until end of turn, you put Zack's counters on that creature and attach 1 Equipment that was attached to Zack to that creature. He's a Selfless Savior variant, though with more benefits of also transferring counters and an equipment with the ever so slight drawback of his sacrifice costing 1 mana. Still more than worth it, but it is a draw back. Also, obvious callback to Cloud inheriting Zack's legacy is not missed.

So this is pretty damn great. If you are able to buff Zack up a lot, you can use him as both a threat and a protection piece to the creature you actually want to give all those counters and that equipment to. This is a very solid card to include in counters and/or equipment decks. Even in 60 card formats, he's only slightly more expensive than Selfless Savior, so you will probably see him as a protection piece. For commander, you are not running him as the commander of your deck. Unless your deck is voltron, but Zack isn't the thing you are putting everything on, Zack is literally just worse off as a commander than in the 99 of a commander deck. Don't do it.

Now for the art. Credit to Yoshio Sugiura. Link to their Twitter. The effects make this pretty busy if you ask me, but Zack is looking pretty cool, pointing to all the Shinra soldiers that are about to kill him. Pretty cool, just a bit too busy if you ask me.

Now we move on to the thing Zack could've needed in that instance, a Phoenix Down. Oh my god, I'm going to hell for that.

1 mana for an Artifact that costs 2 more mana (and a tap, but who cares) to exile it and choose 1. You can get a target creature with mana value 4 out of your graveyard to the battlefield, though it is tapped or you can exile target Skeleton, Spirit or Zombie. Love the flavor of it exiling some undead, though this isn't all the undead creature types in MTG, and the fact that it can hit creatures with mana value 4 or less is a pretty wide amount of creatures it will hit. This can see some play in both 60 card formats and commander decks, but won't be a staple by any means.

Also, funnily enough, it does work for Zack in MTG, since he's only a 1 mana value creature... I'm still going to hell for that, but it is funny that it does work.

Now for the art. Credit to John Severin Brassell. Link to his website. That's a very solid chest with a Phoenix Down in it. I do love how it glows, so you just know that this is some powerful stuff. Aside from that, not much to say, just a very solid art piece!

Now we get to a card I had already discussed in the starter deck leak: White Auracite.

CTRL+C, CTRL+V my thoughts from the leak: This is in my opinion potentially the best common in the starter kit. 4 mana for a temporary removal spell that is also a ramp piece is really good in my honest opinion. Not "this will break the game" good, but definitely "any mono-white deck can use this" good. Artifacts are already not the easiest thing to remove, so jailing a scary thing from your opponent's board is very nice. Keep in mind that it doesn't have to be a creature either, you can jail another player's artifact, enchantment or planeswalker with this. Genuinely, this might be the most exciting card in the main set to me.

I will say that I wouldn't say it is the most exciting card in the main set, but at least in the starter kit? Potentially. I still like Beatrix more, but I will also say that my opinions of her have shifted a bit since that leak. Either way, I still stand by what I said about this card. I think it is really good compression of two things, one being something White already specialized in with (temporary) removal and the other being a thing White can sometimes struggle with in terms of ramping. It's not nearly as bad as a few years ago, but still, it does help.

Now for the art. Credit to Magali Villeneuve. Link to her BlueSky. This is probably the first Magali art for the FF set where I'm like "eh." It's the face. It looks very weirdly realistic, which gives me some serious uncanny valley vibes, since I know the character, Minfilia, from her appearance in FF14 and she just doesn't look like that. Still not a bad artwork, just the face looks off to me. I do love how the auracite itself is just glowing though, that's pretty great.

Now we move on to some equipment, starting with Sage's Nouliths.

2 mana for a 1/1 that has this equipment equipped. Little behind rate, but let's see the rest of the equipment. Equipped creature get +1/+0, has "Whenever this creature attacks, untap target attacking creature," and is a Cleric in addition to its other types. And the equip cost is 3.

So really, you get a 2/1 for casting this. This isn't bad, but it certainly also isn't good. Psuedo vigilance is always just worse than actual vigilance, since this does allow a window of opportunity to target the thing you are untapping with a destroy effect that is cheaper on an tapped creature. The stat buff is minor and Cleric doesn't matter unless you're playing Cleric tribal or doing stuff with the party mechanic, but either way, a very resounding eh. You might use it for some cheap equipment, if you have a creature that just cares about equipment on the field at all, but otherwise... meh.

Now for the art. Credit to Justyna Dura. Link to her ArtStation. Now this is fantastic. As much as I complained about all the orange in the Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER art, here the effects are done much more elegantly. Also like the Viera girl, she's pretty :> Also, just love how good the nouliths and the Sage artifact gear looks. I love this art in general!

Now we move on to another job select equipment and, funnily enough, of another healer in FFXIV: Astrologian's Planisphere!

2 mana for a 1/1 Hero is a bit below rate. The equipped creature is a Wizard in addition to its other types and has "Whenever you cast a noncreature spell and whenever you draw your third card each turn, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature." Equip cost is 2.

So this will work greatly with noncreature spells deck to make a creature bigger and bigger. Even better if you are consistently drawing 3 cards in everyone's turn, so if you have a Rhystic Study or so in play, this might pop off a bit. Very neat effect, though the only thing is that usually those types of decks don't tend to swing out often, so you'd just be growing blockers compared to attackers. Still, you can figure something out for such a deck. Both 60 card and commander decks of such a style can make this work due to the cheap cost.

Now for the art. Credit to Josephine Chang/Jo Cordisco. Link to their BlueSky. Lalafell! :D Honestly, aside from the lalafell, this feels like it could've been ripped straight out of FFXIV and that's a good thing. The lalafell makes sure you know it isn't, but it still doesn't feel out of place. This is a fantastic piece of art, I love it!

Now we move on to a BLM's most important circle, their Leylines! ...But for some reason it got called Circle of Power instead, I dunno

4 mana for a sorcery that let's you draw 2 cards, lose 2 life, create a 0/1 black Wizard creature token with "Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this token deals 1 damage to each opponent," and Wizards you control get +1/+0 and lifelink until end of turn.

A card positive sorcery that creates a token and gives Wizards a buff. Keep in mind that the damage that any of your Wizards do will give you life back due to the lifelink. It doesn't have to be combat damage. This is a neat buff for Wizards tribal that also gives you some cards and another token, all at the cost of a little bit of life that you can get back that turn.

Now for the art. Credit to Josephine Chang/Jo Cordisco. Link to their BlueSky. Lalafell! :D ...Wait a second, I just went through this! Anyway, this is also fantastic! I love how tiny the lalafell in their leylines are, it's so cute. I wonder if this is a place I should be recognizing, because, I'm going to be real: I do not recognize it. Aside from that, the leylines themselves also look great. I love this art!

Now we move on to yet another card that was in the starter kit leak: Barret Wallace!.

Barret, my man! Shame you're only an uncommon, but that's alright. 4 mana 4/4 with Reach is already solid and his extra effect definitely means you want to go wide with equipped creatures when Barret is on the field. He does work better in 1v1 formats, but could still work as your commander, but again, you want to go wide with creatures for him to work the best. If you want to run him in commander, I'd say put him in the 99 of a deck, not as your commander. He can work, but for 4 mana, he doesn't do anything on his own on the turn he comes down.

In 60 card formats, he's too slow and equipment focused. Don't bother.

Red as a color also makes sense for him, he's hot-headed and a bit impulsive. I'd potentially push him either towards Red/White or Red/Green, but I can accept mono Red.

Now for the art. Credit to Patrik Hell. Link to their ArtStation. That sure is a very nice Barret. I think there is an argument to be made that the effects are a bit much, but I'm more willing to forgive it here unlike with Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER and Tifa, Martial Artist, because the source is at least clear of it being Barret's gun arm. Also helps that because it is from his gun arm, the effects are more pushed to the side instead of being front and center. Good art!

Now for the last main set card in the commander decks, Laughing Mad!

3 mana and an extra discarded card for 2 cards and you can flahback it from your graveyard for 4 mana. Faithless Looting type effect, though with 1 less card being put into your graveyard in total. Up to you whether this or actual Faithless Looting is better, they are both comparable and you might run both in your commander deck. In 60 card decks, this might just be too slow. 3 mana is not an insignificant amount of mana, so you'd be more hard pressed to use this.

Now for the art. Credit to RARE ENGINE. Link to their Twitter. This is genuinely so insanely cool. The fiery background, the burning Kefka, Terra in her magitek armor. This is such an insanely dope art, I hope it gets sold as a print. Not a big FF6 guy, but this is just such cool artwork. Amazing!

And that's already it and now we're going into Hell with the FF commander decks... 2 post each... 8 posts total. Oh boy, let's hope I get through this with not too much pain. Either way, thanks for reading and have a nice day! o/

[the-roseville-enquirer]

What the Hell Is Horror?

Tokyo Ghoul is coming.

That’s been the news of the week for March 2025 - Ken Kaneki of the popular manga/anime series will be the next Killer to roam the Fog. And, for some reason, this has kicked off another community-wide discussion about horror, what falls under the umbrella, and what belongs in the world of Dead By Daylight.

The answer to this question is both complex and exceedingly simple. To get to that answer, we have to define genre.

Merriam-Webster refers to genre as:

a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content

In plain terms, it is a group of artistic works loosely defined by similar traits. Genre comes into play in many situations, be it book stores and streamers categorizing their collection, award shows, or simple recommendations between friends. When I say the definition is loose, I mean that not all works in a genre have to have the exact same approach – there are infinite networks of subgenres and subsubgenres and cross-genre blends surging through the creative oceans of the human consciousness every day.

So then what, specifically, is horror?

If you frequent Dead By Daylight community spaces, there’s a few sentiments you’ve likely encountered, probably more than once:

“This game doesn’t scare me, it’s not horror anymore!”

“The Trickster and The Skull Merchant are too sexy to be horror characters!”

“Kaneki is some anime boy, he doesn’t fit!”

You’ve also probably seen the mirrored sentiments of those who believe the game’s definition of “horror” is too restrictive, and should be expanded to include their faves such as… Star Wars, Final Fantasy, Lord of the Rings, and every superhero franchise you can think of.

Both categories of people are wrong. Why? because horror is not about what personally scares you. "Horror", like every other genre, is an indicator of what the story is about.

There is a peculiar misconception with horror that people do not apply to other genres: that if individual works do not provoke a specific reaction in specific audience members (in this case, fear), then the work is no longer a part of that genre. When you zoom out to take in the rest of our artistic landscape, that mindset begins to make less and less sense: 50 First Dates is still a romance despite being creepy as hell, Marriage Story (2019) is a drama despite the fact that I don’t care about these people, and Epic Movie (2007) is still a comedy despite being as funny as stepping on a railroad spike. They retain their status in their respective genres because their genre reflects what they are about: 50 First Dates is about a developing romance, Marriage Story is about a romance coming to an end, and Epic Movie is attempting to make jokes. It does not matter whether I personally liked or had the intended emotional reaction to any of them – they’re going on those respective shelves at the video store.

In the year 2025, you’d probably be hard-pressed to find a grown adult kept up all night by a first-time viewing of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street. The film is still, objectively, about a dream demon torturing a gaggle of teens with their own worst fears. Freddy’s famous extendo-arms might not be scary to you, but they were scary for Nancy Thompson, and she’s who the story is about. Likewise, Tokyo Ghoul is about, well, ghouls. Cannibalistic creatures torn between their humanity and their darkest urges have been a staple of the horror genre before “genre” was even a term. It doesn’t matter whether you think a white-haired anime boy is scary – horror is Kaneki’s life, and the way he is forced to live it.

So, horror isn’t necessarily about what scares you – it’s about the way that fear, the unknown, and the macabre motivate the story being told. Sometimes those stories are also funny, romantic, rich with character drama, surreal, fantastical – but they have a core of something frightening, both conceptually and to the characters.

But! Volcanoes, war, Darth Vader, and being stuck under a giant rock are also scary. Why aren’t Star Wars, Volcano (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998) and 127 Hours (2010) considered horror? This is where it gets harder. There are frameworks where these stories, or aspects of these stories, could very well work as horror, but taking these films as they are, their most predominant stylistic and storytelling elements simply overpower any traces of horror that may be present. When you think of the original Star Wars trilogy, you’re not thinking of scare actors in haunted houses, you’re thinking of Luke Skywalker flying cool ships and swinging around a lightsaber and rockin’ and rollin’ with Yoda. Vader’s presence is just one aspect of an epic space fairytale.

When people say that Dead By Daylight has had non-horror chapters, I question their understanding of what they’re looking at. The aforementioned Trickster and Skull Merchant are both serial killers, and sexy killers are nothing new. Real-life actor Nicolas Cage was a fourth wall-breaking wildcard of a Survivor add, but he has an extensive horror filmography, from Vampire’s Kiss (1988) to Longlegs (2024) and everything in-between. His memetic screaming about bees in The Wicker Man (2006) was the jumping-off point for plenty of 00s kids foraying into horror for the first time!

Lastly, we get to Dungeons & Dragons, a bit of a left-field chapter for the game, but given that D&D is a game in of itself (and filled to the brim with the macabre), it’s naturally genrefluid and gives enough space for developers and dungeon masters to work with alternate presentations.

Lara Croft of Tomb Raider fame is the only real exception to the rule. Being that she came in a Survivor-only chapter, her presence was slightly less disruptive than it could have been, but what was the purpose? Given her place in a chapter streak that included D&D and Castlevania, I can only guess that she was meant to round out the year’s retro gaming theme – but she does stand out as an oddity, and one that makes me skeptical.

Dead By Daylight has been continually billed as the Hall of Fame of Horror, not just a generic Hall of Fame – and for good reason. Aside from its hefty roster of licensed legends, each individual chapter takes libraries of inspiration from its genre forebears, ranging from the obvious to the obscure. This interaction is a kind of preservation, a celebration, and a continuation of the conversation started by the writers and filmmakers who paved the way for the horror community of today. Despite the bugs and the missteps, Dead By Daylight’s strong identification with and love of the genre are what make it tick. When you begin to stray from that, you stray from the reasons it was what it was to begin with. The conversation is drowned out by cash.

Some believe that the game will run out of horror licenses to pull from eventually, and this just isn’t true. There is always more horror. It just might be something you’ve never read, or played, or watched before, but not recognizing a license doesn’t mean it has no value. Star Wars might bring in the dough, sure, but a cynical capitalistic approach has never done a live service game any artistic favours. The world does not need more reminders that Disney and DC properties are powerful money-makers – art exists beyond the top five blockbuster franchises forced onto our plates every day.

Horror is both specific and expansive, and there are so many works out there worth the attention that the mainstream media landscape doesn’t provide. Live a little, learn a little, dive into the deepest depths of Tubi and experience something you’ve never experienced before. Dead By Daylight owes its existence to that – and its future will rely on it.

[prismartist]

modern who discourse honestly becomes sillier once you start watching classic who because the issues people complain about in the current series... have always existed? like aside from the usual "doctor who has always been 'woke' and queer".

"none of that episode made sense" i promise you they have just been saying anything since 1963. "they can't do that, they've never done that before" again, one of the pillars of doctor who is just making shit up. the doctor didn't [insert thing here] before? well he can now. don't question it.

"they never dealt with emotions, it's all sappy now" there have been quite a few emotional throughlines in the series! there's adric's death, which deeply affected the doctor and other companions for several serials. and like, all of ace's character.

"it's fantasy now, not sci-fi" i mean aside from sutekh there are several gods that show up that sort of extend past "spooky powerful creature". i remember one about a white bird and a goddess of time ?? she was literally a big head that could banish people. i feel like that's at least A Bit of Fantasy.

"the UNIT episodes suck" ok i will admit i wasn't too fond of UNIT either but there have been UNIT episodes since the second doctor so. Secret Cool Sci-Fi Avengers is also a staple of doctor who.

like i'm not saying you can't dislike the new series for these reasons, it's just a lil silly to me when people complain about things that have more or less always existed, especially when they say it's been "ruined" or "disney-fied." i don't think it is. it's just been exponentially doctor-fied.

[tegu-the-tegu]

Flavoured Artificer Concepts

Artificer is by FAR my favourite class in Dungeons and Dragons, primarily for how customisable they can be with regards to their flavour; because of the ability to cast through any tools you are proficient in, it gives a LOT of range to how your magic works. As such, I will put some ideas I have had to build unique Artificers.

An Artillerist that uses woodworking to carve totems; they are flavoured as a tribal shaman that summons the spirits of magical creatures to aid in battle. Their flamethrower turret conjures a dragon spirit to burn their foes, their protector turret calls the spirit of a unicorn to protect the virtuous, and their ballista invokes a manticore spirit to pepper distant foes with spikes. Their other spells can also be flavoured this way, such as Thunderwave being flavoured as an Aerosaur spirit emerging from a totem and flapping its wings to blow enemies away!

A Battlesmith that uses leatherworking to create a horrific stitched Frankenstein's monster for their steel defender. Every time they kill things, they skin the corpses to repair their hideous flesh monster. Or, if you prefer, you could stick with the shamanistic theme from the Artillerist entry, and use leatherworking to maintain the pelt of the first wolf you killed; its spirit inhabits that pelt, and defends you to this day!

An Alchemist that uses chef's tools to create supernaturally delicious food that cures illnesses and grants supernatural abilities. I have actually played this, he used brewers supplies to create caustic acidic drinks, had peppers so hot that it made your breath ignite to cast fire spells, and he would spray sticky toffee over the area for web. He would make food puns, and was named Guido Fiero.

An Armorer that uses jeweller's tools to create bling that imbues them with magical powers. A circlet that grants a force field, a ring that shoots lightning, a pair of bracelets that create thunderous shockwaves when brought together. Then, when you hit level 9, you can have distinct infusion tied to each one! A circlet or diadem or whatever for head armour, necklace for chest armour, anklets for boots, and bracelets or rings for the weapon! Perfect for a wealthy nobleman artificer who wants to broadcast their glamorous lifestyle.

There are loads of other things you can do with each tool proficiency, and it's a shame that the class is so easily pigeonholed into "The Tech Class". Not to say I don't like the gnomish tinker that creates fantastical and crazy gizmos to mimic magical effects. Hell, my character in the campaign I'm not DMing is exactly that, an autognome (Flavoured to look like a normal gnome in the face, so they appear normal when wearing their clothes) that woke up one day in a tinker's lab next to his deceased creator, and then left to try and find a purpose in the world. He has an insect motif, so all of his spells and things are flavoured as small clockwork insects he makes.

But the point is, while that's a staple of the Artificer class fantasy, there are loads of other ideas to flavour it! A calligrapher that writes arcane runes in the air, a potter with a terracotta soldier for a steel defender, a weaver that knits arcane circles, a painter whose drawings become magical effects, a glassblower whose glass figurines come to life, I can't think of one for cartographer's tools, but I bet there is a dope idea in there somewhere!

Even as I mentioned before with leatherworking, you can have the exact same class, the exact same subclass, and the exact same tool, and STILL have wildly different flavour! One is Doctor Frankenstein, the other is a mystical shaman with a spirit guide!

Anyway, that's today's rambling. I would also do a thing on subclasses the Artificer could have, given they only have four, but that's a whole other rant. Besides, this is already a thesis.

[majoringinfanfiction]

I love your AU and I'm extremely interested in the worldbuilding of Nimyrlov's kingdom and the fish species, so I have a few questions. It's fine if you don't answer all of them, since I've listed many.

What are some differences between Nimyrlov's kingdom and Earth (aside from the major ones, like it being underwater)?

Do they have their own version of media as in books, TV, theater, games, etcetera?

What does the fish species consume for energy?

Do they have the same types of careers there, or are there some new ones that exist solely within the kingdom?

What's their relationship with other sea creatures? Are they as intelligent as the fish species? If they're not, do they have their own "Circle of Life" system set up like in the Lion King?

What's the name of Nimyrlov's kingdom? (If you haven't thought of one yet, I would be more than happy to brainstorm with you ^^)

What types of clothes do they wear, if any at all? What material do they use to make them?

Is royalty passed down by family in the kingdom, like it is traditionally for us in a monarchy?

What do the (fish) people think of Nimyrlov, Ford, and Penni — both individually and as a family?

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sorry, if I wrote too many. Once again, please don't feel pressured to answer all of them. If you haven't thought of an answer to one of them or don't know what to say, I understand.

Sorry that it took me so long to answer this, I just needed to get myself ready to write down the answers to so many questions. I'm very happy with what you asked, though. Genuinely, my first reaction when I saw this ask was to happy stim. However, that does not stop me from spreading the work on answering this over a few days. Sorry.

• Nimirylov's kingdom is more similar to a traditional fantasy setting rather than our own world. There's no technology or anything like that. It's got different politics to typical fantasy settings, and it's nicer, but it's pretty much a typical fantasy underwater kingdom.

• They definitely do have their own versions of media. I've literally been thinking loads about how their would be theatre. As I said in the last point, there's no technology, so no TV or video games or anything. Books and board games, though? Definitely. Nimirylov and Ford played board games together instead of going out on dates when Penni was really little.

• I'm assuming by consume, you mean eat, like what food they eat. Hopefully, this question is not about power sources because I hate physics. I've vaguely implied previously that they get some form of nutrients and energy just from being in the water and absorbing it in their skin. It's like if we had even more helpful oxygen. As for food, they eat fish and seaweed a lot. I'll need to double check what real-life crops could hypothetically grow under water, but there's definitely also fictional crops that they grow. Seaweed is a staple in their diet, though, sort of as prevalent in their society as bread is to us. I think coral is more comparable to flowers, so there's probably some edible coral, but people's gut reaction to hearing that coral is in a meal is a side eye.

Just going to note here that this is the first place I've taken a stop before continuing answering questions.

• Similarly to the first two points, since it's inspired by a typical fantasy setting, there's no jobs similar to our modern jobs. However, since all children are born via c-section, there's a lot more job opportunities in midwifery and nursing. Similarly, as I've said briefly in other posts, since Nimirylov's kingdom is in a sort of cold war with a mermaid kingdom, there's spy jobs as well.

• The only other species that has the same level of intelligence as them is the mermaids, who I will almost definitely not be going into much detail over because I can't be doing two different fantasy underwater creatures biology and lore. Then, the other sea creatures are equivalent to land animals. Like dolphins are equivalent to horses, sharks are equivalent to big cats, whales to elephants, little fish to livestock, etc.

• I have not come up with a name for the kingdom. As you can probably tell from most of my posts, I'm terrible at naming things. I do know, though, that I want the name to have some sort of meaning in the fish language I started making up for the species (which I've also not named. Gods, I hate naming). I'd love to hear any of your suggestions for names, though.

• Their types of clothes are probably going to be inspired by ancient Greece and Rome because, one, I already have done way too much fucking research on ancient Greece. Two, I've already mentioned that I think up a lot of ideas for this whilst listening to EPIC. Finally, three, Greek mythology is my special interest and already kind of inspired this au a bit in the first place, so, I need to honour that. As for material... fuck, I do sewing and barely know what materials to use in real life, I don't know what sort of material would be available under water. Just, some fantasy one. Boom! Magic. There's your answer.

• Simple answer, yep. It's a typical monarchy. The heir is typically the oldest child.

Okay, I'm interrupting myself once more because that last question is something I can definitely go into a lot more detail on. Once again, I really appreciate you asking all of these questions, and it's been really fun answering them.

Okay, so for your last question here I'm going to separate it into four bullet points.

• The kingdom respects the small family a lot. The fact that Nimirylov and Ford chose to raise Penni completely by themselves and mostly away from royal politics is admirable. After all, it's not the normal way of royals. Some snobbish nobles might turn their noses up at it, though.

• Nimirylov is beloved by his subjects by all classes. He knows how to get along with the upper class, and his royal skills help his reputation with them. His genuine kindness is what gains him the most popularity with the common person in the kingdom. Everyone knows that if he were to see you struggling out on the street, status wouldn't stop him from coming over to lend a hand.

• Ford is not well liked by the upper class. After all, he has no social skills that he can appease them with, he's a different species and he's not from any sort of nobility. Many of the common people like him though. One, because he came from a life more similar to theirs and two, because if the kind prince loves him, he clearly can't be that bad.

• Finally, Penni is a little darling. Balls and dinners are her battleground and she savours any opportunity to parry verbally with a pretentious snob. To everyone else though, she presents the perfect picture of just being such an innocent little darling. She knows how to make the masses like her in a way that would be scary if she had any inkling towards evil.

[s-soulwriter]

As Halloween approaches, it’s the perfect time to celebrate one of the most intriguing supernatural beings in literature and media: vampires. These creatures have captivated our imaginations for centuries, and it's easy to see why. Here’s an personal list of reasons why vampires truly reign supreme among supernatural beings.

Timeless Appeal: Vampires have remained popular for centuries, from classic tales like Bram Stoker's Dracula to contemporary series like Twilight and The Vampire Diaries. Their ability to adapt to changing societal norms and interests makes them a staple in storytelling, proving that they know how to stay relevant!

Mysterious Nature: There is an inherent intrigue surrounding vampires. With origins steeped in folklore and myth, each culture presents a unique interpretation, adding depth and richness to their narratives.

Immortality: The concept of immortality is a powerful fantasy. Vampires live through the ages, witnessing historical events and cultural shifts firsthand.

Seductive Charm: The allure of the vampire is often characterized by their seductive charm. This duality of being both enchanting and dangerous creates a compelling dynamic, drawing readers and characters alike into their orbit. Who can resist a character who’s both alluring and potentially lethal?

Complex Morality: Many vampires struggle with their darker instincts, offering a rich exploration of morality. Their internal conflicts regarding feeding on humans or the ethics of their actions provide depth to their character.

Supernatural Powers: Vampires possess an array of supernatural abilities that enhance their narratives. From enhanced strength and speed to mind control and shapeshifting, these powers create dynamic storylines filled with conflict and excitement. Plus, it must be nice to skip leg day!

Fashion Icons: Vampires are often portrayed as impeccably dressed, exuding elegance and sophistication. Their distinctive fashion sense, whether it’s Victorian capes or modern couture, adds a visual allure that enhances their mystique. Honestly, they make a turtleneck look threatening—who else can do that?

Cultural Significance: Vampires often reflect societal fears and desires, serving as metaphors for various themes such as death, sexuality, and the unknown. Their presence in literature allows for deep allegorical storytelling that resonates with readers on multiple levels. And they remind us that sometimes, our biggest fears come with fangs.

Versatility in Genre: Vampires can seamlessly transition across genres, thriving in horror, romance, fantasy, and even comedy. This versatility ensures that they can reach a broad audience and remain relevant in contemporary storytelling.

The Ultimate Anti-Hero: Many modern vampire stories present them as anti-heroes, allowing for complex character arcs that challenge traditional notions of heroism. This complexity invites empathy, as readers witness their struggles and growth. Plus, who doesn’t love a bad boy (or girl) with a heart of gold?

Connections with Humanity: Despite their monstrous nature, vampires often exhibit human emotions and relationships. Their struggles with loneliness, love, and loss resonate with audiences, allowing for a more profound connection to their characters.

Exploration of Power Dynamics: Vampire narratives frequently delve into themes of power and control, whether through the relationships they form or the dominance they exert over others. This exploration can prompt discussions about authority, consent, and the nature of power itself.

Enduring Legacy: The enduring legacy of vampires in popular culture speaks to their universal appeal. They have inspired countless adaptations, spin-offs, and retellings, proving that their stories can continually evolve while maintaining their core essence.

The Twilight of Their Power: As much as we love the dark side of them, let’s not forget the fun side of vampires: their struggle with the modern world. With the advent of garlic bread and sunscreen, these once-mighty creatures have had to navigate a world that can ruin their day in seconds.

As Halloween approaches, let us celebrate these fascinating beings and the myriad stories they inspire, reminding us of the complexities of life, death, and everything in between—all while being fabulously stylish.

DO YOU HAVR A FAVOURITE TYPE OF VAMPIRE ?

[rollercoasterwords]

I haven't seen many horror films and would like some recommendations. What are some must-watch horror movies for someone new to the genre?

oooh this is such a fun question but so hard 2 answer bc horror is like. such a versatile genre & where u should start depends a lot on like what type of movies u enjoy/what ur looking for….

like if u want sci-fi/alien horror then the obvious place 2 start is w alien (1979) and aliens (1986) (there are other sequels as well but the first 2 are the best) & then also the thing (1982) and its prequel film that came out in 2011 (also titled the thing). AND of course the fly (1986) is a must-see...and if u want something more recent nope (2022) or no one will save you (2023)...both a little more artsy and slow-moving than the 80s recs on this list but very very good <3

if ur interested in slashers then again start w the classics scream (1996) is SO fun it deserves its spot in the horror hall of fame...i know what you did last summer (1997) is also a fun & slightly older slasher; cabin in the woods (2011) is great if u want some meta-slasher-horror; ready or not (2019) isn't necessarily a conventional slasher but i'd still include it in this category & it's one of my faves

if found footage is ur jam PLEASE start w creep (2014) probably my fave found footage horror film ever...but also i'm not a huge found footage fan generally speaking lol. that being said the blair witch project (1999) is of course the classic here but it's not my personal fave; other good options if u want something genuinely freaky/scary are the bay (2012) hell house llc (2015) and gonjiam: haunted asylum (2018)

if u want like possessions & demons etc then. start with jennifer's body (2009) if u want horror-comedy it is SO fun & a staple of the genre atp but if u want something scarier then it follows (2014) is a popular one. there have also been a lot of good possesion movies coming out recently i thought smile (2022) talk to me (2022) and when evil lurks (2023) (<- literally JUST watched this one today lol) were all quite spooky

& sort of possession-adjacent but if ur more into hauntings, ghosts, etc then start w the babadook (2014) or his house (2020) both SO good. also the shining (1980) is a classic & la llorona (2019) is a personal fave of mine (NOT. the u.s. 'curse of la llorona' movie. the guatemalan one.)

if u want witches then start w the craft (1996) another sort of fun one <3 or if u want a classic then hungry wives (1972). the love witch (2016) if u want a visually beautiful & less scary one; the witch (2015) if u want a scarier one.

if u want eerie fantasy-horror then the company of wolves (1984) or tale of tales (2015). if u want a creature feature then blood red sky (2021) for vampires, ginger snaps (2000) for werewolves, and a quiet place (2018) for like post-apocalyptic creature invasion horror.

& SPEAKING of post-apocalyptic. if u want zombies i could make a whole separate post but. START w train to busan (2016) & seoul station (2016) the dynamic duo <3 & then if u want some classics from the genre of course night of the living dead (1968), dawn of the dead (2004...i haven't seen the original one u could watch that one too tho...), and 28 days later (2002). raw (2016) if u want an artsier one, the girl with all the gifts (2016) if u want a fun spin on zombie apocalypse, cargo (2017) if u want 2 cry. & if u want something funny then PLEASE watch zombie for sale (2019) or anna and the apocalypse (2017) or one cut of the dead (2017)

if u want kind of a slower-build psychological thriller then the invitation (2015) is one of my faves, but mother! (2017) is also good if u want an artsy pick & gerald's game (2017) and lyle (2014) are good as well

and then just a grab-bag of horror movies that didn't fit perfectly into any of these categories: barbarian (2022) if u want something really scary, piggy (2022) if u want slow-building horror, midsommar (2019) if u want sunshiney culty a24 aesthetic, us (2019) if u want something that'll freak u out & is slasher-adjacent, get out (2017) if u want slow-build thriller vibes, and teeth (2007) if u want teen-girl horror classic.

bear in mind that many of these films overlap between the categories i've divided them into 4 this answer, as is the nature of horror...if u were asking me 2 just like. force myself 2 choose a top 10 horror movies 2 introduce someone 2 horror w no preference 4 genre or vibe...i think my list would probably be (in no particular order):

alien (1979)

2. the fly (1986)

3. jennifer's body (2009)

4. ginger snaps (2000)

5. train to busan (2016) (<- pains me 2 say bc seoul station is my fave zombie movie of all time but if i had 2 choose just one zombie movie 2 introduce someone 2 the genre it would be this one...beginner zombie movie...)

6. scream (1996)

7. his house (2020)

8. barbarian (2022)

9. creep (2014)

10. us (2019)

[bowman-42]

So I just started watching Dungeon Meshi and umm... what is it like about? Is it about the characters, the food, the anatomy of common fantasy staple creatures? The comedy or the world? There was something about rescuing a sister, but that feels kinda secondary. Also, will the whole subject of casual death and resurrection ever be explained beyond "magic probably"? Is death even a consequence to the everyday man, or is the whole "coming back to life" thing exclusive to adventurers?

Bottom line: I have questions. Will there be answers?

[blackfinchart]

Character/Reference I handed to my dungeon master back when I played TTRPGs often. I fully stole the name from some Slavic folk fusion band

I wanted to play a Bugbear but was determined not to get any salacious remarks or attention, and I’m not a huge fan of your average anthropomorphic animal man-thing, so I tried to come up with a slightly original concept as to what a Bugbear could look like.

One factor about them in the rules is they can reach extra far because their arms are weirdly long so I decided to lean in to the “long” part. To avoid making him look like a furry and add creepy factor I decided stapling a fully human face onto the end of his weird furry snake neck would be neat- two sets of ears for extra not a creature that evolution put together (since this is fantasy after all.)

Bugbear are made, not born, depending on which culture you ask its either a marvelous divine blessing or a hideous curse. I think in this guy’s case he has a family who loves and misses him but he’s incapable of being a father and spouse because his god (which he believes is a Skunkbear totemic entity if I remember correctly) turned him into a Bugbear

Aaaanyway, I think he was a Gloom Stalker but we RP’d that out as more of a woodland hunter/skirmished/ambush predator. He was very popular with the party, the DM and I really hyped up how wicked and Grizzly he seemed, but it turned out when you get to know him he’s a sweetheart (carnivorous and brutal but avoids unnecessary conflict and is very polite)

[djgamek1ng]

Magic The Gathering x Final Fantasy - Spoiler Season Part 3 (10/05/2025 - Black cards)

Yes, this is a part solely dedicated to Black cards and that's precisely because 1 silver haired swordsman with a way too long katana needed to be a flip card and have 4 versions, so that's already 8 images of Tumblr's max of 30 per post. Anyway, let's immediately hop in, starting with Malboro:

An absolute staple of the franchise and the nightmare of a lot of people when you see the words "Bad Breath" appear on screen. Black seems about right for it, maybe Black/Green, but it's alright. Let's talk about its stats first. A 6 mana 4/4 is pretty badly behind rate, but it isn't really breaking or falling short of any thresholds, so it is somewhat okay. Let's talk about the abilities.

Bad Breath. Yes, this is the first time I'm acknowledging the flavor words, but that's how iconic that ability is. When this creature enters, every opponent discards a cards, loses 2 life and exiles the top 3 cards of their library. This is just a giant "screw you" to all your opponents. This compensates for the bad statline compared to mana cost, since discarding a card can be a bad thing, losing 2 life is always a bad thing and straight up losing the top 3 cards of your library for the rest of the game sucks. Now, if you are able to blink this thing, you will make people hate you as you slowly chip away at their libraries.

Swampcycling for 2, where you discard this card and then search your library for a Swamp card, reveal it, put it into your hand. Solid if you either draw it too early to cast in a reasonable time or when you draw it too late to make a difference.

So, despite my early tone when talking about its stats: DAMN. That's a cool ass common card. When flickering this thing, you definitely get a lot of mileage out of that entering effect and it is not a bad combatant either. For a common, this is surprisingly pretty great. The only bad thing about it is the fact that it is 6 mana and below rate for stats, but that's workable. Good way to show Bad Breath too. In the games it is about giving you every status effect, but for a card game, messing with your life total, cards in hand and cards in deck gets pretty close. Maybe it should've tapped a land and added a stun counter on it, but for a common that would've been much.

Now for the art. Credit to Dan Watson. Link to his ArtStation website thing. Simple is definitely not the word I want to use, since the Malboro is highly detailed. However, it is one of the only things to see. Also, holy hell does it look disgusting... I LOVE IT. This art makes it seem like if you encounter this thing, you are screwed and that's the proper horror that Malboros inflict. Fantastic job.

Now for another equipment: Black Mage's Rod. First equipment we'll talk about that we haven't seen already in the starter kit leak.

So in essence this is a 2 mana 2/1 that you create that leave the equipment behind. That equipment gives equipped creature +1/+0, "whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this creature deal 1 damage to each opponent" and makes it a Wizard in addition to its other types. So... its a Firebrand Archer on an equipment. Not bad, but also not great. You'd have to get some way to pump this damage up for this to really be worth it in any deck. A commander like Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin can use it, since that cares for dealing exactly 1 damage to people somehow. Aside from that, kind of a hard equipment to make much use of. It can be used to make something a Wizard for the sake of the party mechanic, though.

Now for the art. Credit to Nino Is. Link to their ArtStation. That sure is a nondescript Black Mage in a nondescript cave or tunnel using magic. I kid, but it is funny just how nondescript these characters have to be. It is good art, a bit more of a realistic interpretation of FF1 and not in a bad way either. I really like it, it is nice. I wish there was a bit more going on with the background, but it's a cool art.

Let's talk about some villains. First up, Ardyn, the Usurper

Ardyn. Mono Black makes sense for him. A manipulated, twisted man. I wouldn't even add a color to him to be honest, because by the time we meet him, he's already so far gone that just hatred remains.

Let's talk about his mechanics. 8 mana for a 4/4 is awful. Genuinely really bad. His abilities are:

Demons you control have menace, lifelink and haste. This is the first mono black card that cares about Demons, which is really weird. Anyway, those are all really good buffs to give, so he's at least a good buff stick for a Demon tribal deck

At the beginning of combat on your turn, you may exile a creature card from any graveyard. If you exile a card this way, make a token copy of that card, except it is a 5/5 black Demon. So this is what makes his first ability so important: you can start exiling and copying creatures out of other people's graveyards that then come in, have menace, lifelink and haste and are 5/5s that they have to deal with. This is great, this will end games and friendships

So, that's the entire card. I have to still say that 8 mana for a 4/4 is laughably bad, but the abilities on this card make up for it, mainly because it means that this card isn't a dead drop on the turn it comes in. If that second ability was even slightly more restrictive, I would've definitely been super down on this card, but because it is like that and can make even the smallest creatures in graveyards a pretty big threat to deal with, I will give props to Ardyn. The main thing against him still is that for commander, you have to protect him. Even getting him shot off the board once is awful, 10 mana is so much to just recast him once.

He doesn't exist in 60 card formats. 8 mana is like genuinely like turn 6 area, at which point this card isn't enough of a momentum changer to matter. I hate to say it, but this is just not a card you will see in serious 60 card formats.

As for the art. Credit to Russell Lu. I did not find any accounts they might have. I did find someone called Russell Dongjun Lu, but he has a separate credit on Kain, Traitorous Dragoon, so I cannot confirm whether this is the same person, especially since Russell Dongjun Lu doesn't post as much. Ardyn looking as disheveled and messy as always, in the ruins of... some place. I should remember, but I do not, my bad. Honestly, while a bit simple, it does do the job very well. Only thing: where hat? :( Great art, this is fantastic. I also really like the chains, shame they aren't really visible on the normal version of the card.

As for the first alternative art. Yes, you read that correctly, we're now talking first alternative arts and no, this isn't a case like the Cids where they are different characters.

Credits to Rorubei. Link to their Twitter. That sure is a good art of Ardyn and nothing else. Sorry, bringing up the blank backgrounds again. No, but really, I really like this art of Ardyn. Not my favorite, that is the next one we'll talk about. I do love how he looks like he is just greeting you. This is very very good, I like it.

As for the second alternative art:

Credit to Roberto Ferrari. No links, since he's an official artist and character designer at Square Enix. That also makes this very easy to talk about this art: yes, this is obviously the best one and looks phenomenal. The only wish I had is that the background was a little less nondescript, but this is fantastic. This looks like an official FF artwork for FF15, because it was done by a official character designer for FF15.

Moving on to FF4, Kain got a card: Kain, Traitorous Dragoon.

So Kain got done when he was mind controlled and betrayed the party. In that case, Black makes sense. He isn't in control, but the things he does while mind controlled are definitely Black aligned on the color pie.

As for his mechanics. 3 mana for a 2/4 is on rate. 1 toughness higher and 1 power lower than completely on rate, but that evens out to be entirely on rate. On your turn, Kain also flies to emulate the Jump mechanic Dragoons in Final Fantasy have, meaning he is pretty evasive to do damage with.

Then his main big ability: When Kain deals combat damage to a player, the player that was dealt damage by Kain gains control of Kain. If they gain control of Kain, you draw X cards, make X tapped Treasure tokens and lose X life equal to the damage you deal with Kain. This makes Kain a political piece in games and that... makes him very situational. He can absolutely give you some great ramp and card advantage, but he can also do that for your enemies, since the "you" refers to his current controller, not his original owner.

I wouldn't recommend you run him as your commander. He's cool, but he will also stack up your commander damage on yourself and if you kill a person with him, you actually don't get the card draw and Treasures, because they will die as a state based action before the trigger can resolve. In the 99 of a political deck is where he works best in my opinion, since you can trade him out to someone while causing symmetrical life loss to happen and giving someone cards and Treasure in exchange of not hitting you or anything. This makes Kain a lot better.

In 60 card formats, he's alright. The main issue is that you'll need to finish the game fast or accept you are just swinging with Kain once to get the card draw and the Treasure and after that blow him up, since he will also be collecting card draw and Treasure for your opponent. So strike hard, strike fast or just be ready to immediately murder him.

Now for the art. Credit to Russell Dongjun Lu. Link to their ArtStation. It's looking very nice. Kain when he betrays the party, ready to kill Cecil. Overall, very nice. The background isn't too busy, but still detailed enough. Kain himself is looking very good and properly ready to backstab the party. I really really like it, good job.

Next up, a giant spoiler for FF14. No, seriously, what the hell. Zodiark, Umbral God:

I'm gonna try and walk around all the spoilers as much as possible and not acknowledge certain things, but yeah, Black makes perfect sense for Zodiark, if for nothing else that he's the god of Darkness. Even then, he was hugely destructive.

Let's move on to the mechanics. 5 Black mana for a 5/5 is on rate. I do want to emphasize that it is specifically 5 Black mana, meaning that you will have to play a deck that is primarly or mono Black to make this work or you need to have excellent color fixing.

As for his abilities:

Indestructible, so it can't die to destroy effects and damage. It can still die to being reduced to 0 or below toughness by effects that just reduce that number and he can be exiled, but it is gonna be tough to remove him generally.

When Zodiark enters, every player sacrifices half of their non-God creatures they control rounded down. They choose which creatures to sacrifice. So a partial board wipe for anyone not playing God tribal is interesting. Can potentially backfire if you aren't playing God tribal either, but can also be a huge way to swing a game.

Whenever a player sacrifices another creature, you put a +1/+1 counter on Zodiark. So this goes well with the second ability, since all those creatures count for this. So, in a board state of 20 creatures on board, you drop Zodiark and you're going to get 10 +1/+1 counters on him, making him a 15/15. This makes him very scary in Limited game formats, since it is already hard to remove him.

So this card is pretty solid. Honestly, it's only problem is that it requires 5 Black mana pips to cast. If that wasn't the case, this card would've been very very good. For God tribal decks, this would be an asymmetrical partial board wipe. However, in those types of decks, you are definitely running him in the 99 and not as your commander, since there just aren't enough God cards to begin with, let alone in mono black. That makes it then harder to cast him. Honestly, I'd put him in an Aristocrats deck, where you sacrifice your creatures to gain benefits, since the third effect just cares about any sacrificing. As your commander, he's not too bad, somewhat tough to remove and he will grow quite quickly, especially against token decks.

For 60 card formats... eh. If you are playing mono Black, being a half board wipe that gets bigger with each sacrifice is decent, but that's kind of it. You won't be using him in a deck that has 2 or more colors due to his casting cost being 5 Black mana pips, so unless you have insane colorfixing, you will often times not be casting this thing until turn 10 at the earliest, which is horrifically slow.

As for the art. Credit to Akagi. Link to their Twitter. Another fantastic art by Akagi, who did Hildibrand Manderville in the FF14 commander deck. This is great. I can't talk too much about it, since it will spoil things, but yeah, this looks great. Even having the magic circle breaking up his body and the green lasers. Good color choices as well.

As for the alternative art:

Credit to Hisashi Momose. Link to their Twitter. Again looks fantastic. This time Zodiark is bringing down meteors. Can't really talk about too much, because spoilers, but damn. That's a dope art. I love the colors used in this one and the style is fantastic. Very much a big fan.

Now onto another summon, Summon: Primal Odin!

Black feels apt for Odin in FFXIV, it is just kind of a corrupting force that makes anyone who touches the sword into a new Odin. So mono Black makes sense.

Now for the card itself. 6 mana for a 5/3 is definitely behind rate, this statline would've been fine on a 4 or 5 mana creature. Then his abilities.

Lore counter 1: Destroy target creature an opponent controls. That can be a good way to get in some damage on turn 2 of this summon, especially if it is the last or only creature an opponent controls.

Lore counter 2: This creature gains "Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player loses the game." So uh... get some evasion and this can genuinely be a wincon. If you only have 2 opponents left, evade past one of your opponents with Odin on his second lore counter and immediately make them lose the game, then do everything else on the other opponent to kill them. If you can somehow get multiple Odins on the second lore counter at the same time, even better if you are able to put evasion on them.

Lore counter 3: Draw 2 cards, each player loses 2 life. This is just solid if you didn't win off the 2nd ability, drawing 2 cards is always a good thing.

So this isn't bad, but it requires some setup to be a legitimate wincon. However, even just knocking out a singular opponent can be huge. The other thing holding it back is the higher mana cost, 6 mana is pretty steep and you can have more efficient ways to win games. However, it will be pretty cool if you pull it off. For commander, give it a spin in a more aggressive Black deck where you can give it evasion of some kind.

In 60 card formats, and say it with me: it's too slow. It is also too telegraphed. For commander you can get away with it since it becomes a political piece as to which opponent to kill and what you get in return for killing them. In 60 card formats, which are 1v1, this thing will get blown up 10/10 times before you can swing with it. Even then, 3 toughness isn't hard to blow through with damage or to reduce. I think it is an interesting experiment, but I don't think much success will be found with Odin.

Now for the art. Credit to Nino Is. Link to their ArtStation. So this looks cool, it is unfortunate in the same situation all Summons will be: because it is a Saga card, the art is really small and pushed to the right of the card. However, with that said, man does Odin look threatening in that art and like he has come from the more swamp like areas of the Black Shroud to murder some people. Very dope art, good amount of details as well.

As for the alternative art:

Credit to Tomohito. Link to their Twitter. This definitely takes a bit of the menacing vibes away, but instead shows a better look at Odin and Sleipnir. This is also very very good, I think it looks great. I could've believed if this was promotional artwork used for an event or something from the FF14 team. Very cool!

Now, second to last card to talk about in this part, The Darkness Crystal:

DAHKNESS! Anyway, this will be part of a cycle of crystals, one for each MTG color. All of them will have "<x color> spells you cast will cost 1 less to cast." So moving on from that, which is already a good ability btw. Its other abilities:

If a noncreature token an opponent controls would die, instead exile and you gain 2 life. This alone makes it so you have a huge target on your back in a multiplayer game or that this is one of the biggest things to immediately be removed. It will gain you a good amount of life if left unchecked, but that's not the scariest part.

For 6 mana and tap, you can put any target creature card that was exiled with The Darkness Crystal into the battlefield tapped under your control and with 2 additional +1/+1 counters on them. So your board state gets bigger, while your opponent's becomes smaller. Interesting to note that whatever you resurrect does go to the graveyard of your opponent's, so they actually have good incentive to not kill The Darkness Crystal before you put their big thing back on the battlefield. Also wild that this will allow you to pay 6 mana for otherwise huge creatures, only with the disadvantage of summoning sickness and them being tapped, but both of those are solvable.

For 4 mana, this is quite the good artifact to put on the table. Cost reduction, exiling creatures and being able to resurrect exiled creatures is kind of crazy. Main thing is that this will definitely be a target for removal, so if you have ways to protect it, definitely consider running them. It also can be a good distraction piece for something even more devious!

Now for the art. Credit to Pablo Mendoza. Link to his ArtStation. It sure be a dark crystal. Nah, but for real, this is nice. A bit monotone with all the purple, but it does fit for The Darkness Crystal. Also like the grabby hands on the right, they do add a sense of foreboding and mystery to the place. Overall, pretty good.

As for the alternative art, which this thing got for some reason but not Kain:

Credit to Kei Satsuki. Link to their Twitter. Second verse, same as the first, only with other crystals instead of grabby hands. Also, the environment is a lot less detailed. Just kind of a floor and smokey effects and not much else. Still looks nice though!

And now... the silver haired prick. Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER and Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel and his f**king 3 variations, holy sh*t.

Black is completely fine for Sephiroth. I'd argue he should almost always be Blue/Black, but mono Black is fine. This isn't the worst color pie misalignment we will see for this man, believe me.

Sephiroth is a 3 mana 3/3, which is perfectly fine and on rate. Then his abilities:

When Sephiroth enters or attacks, you may sacrifice another creature. If you do, draw a card. This is fine, kind of leans into an Aristocrats playstyle. We will get to that... soon, but yeah, this is cool and even somewhat thematic for how Sephiroth is willing to sacrifice anything to get to his goal of complete annihilation.

Whenever another creature dies, target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life. If this is the fourth time this ability has resolved this turn, transform Sephiroth. Again, this leans into more of an Aristocrats playstyle, where you sacrifice your creatures a bunch to get benefits. In this case, you get to make someone lose 1 life and you gain 1 life. Also, your transformation.

Which brings us to the backside, Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel. 5/5 Flying is pretty solid. Then his abilities are:

When this creature transforms into Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel, you get an emblem with "Whenever a creature dies, target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life." Emblems are passive effects that cannot be interacted with at all. This emblem gives you Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER's second ability at all times, really leaning into the Aristocrats playstyle.

Whenever Sephiroth attacks, you may sacrifice any number of other creatures. If you do, draw that many cards. Again, really going into the Aristocrats playstyle. This is also really really good if you have a whole bunch of tokens, since that can be massive card advantage.

So how to rate this card? Well, obviously, it's good and when you transform it, you are always passively getting those damage pings and lifegain. Fun fact, you can get that Emblem multiple times and therefore enhance your pinging potential. This also makes it so there is serious consideration to be done to at least kill Sephiroth yourself once, then recast him and do it all over again. This is probably the card I have the least ways to say that there are flaws. It is genuinely insane. I also hate Emblems because of how busted they are with not being interactable at all. This card is really good and can work great as either your commander or in the 99 of an Aristocrats deck. Both will work very well.

In a 60 card format... eh. Certainly not the worst card we've seen so far, probably even the one with the most potential, but it does require a good amount of time or setup, because especially in 1v1s, your opponent will be more than happy to just take 3 damage than let you transform. While untransformed Sephiroth is still good, he isn't as good, so eh. You might be able to have some success with him, but it is a good amount of setup to do so.

Now for the art. Credit to Wisnu Tan. Link to their Instagram. The first of three amazing artworks. Yeah yeah, let's cut to the chase and just say that all of the artwork for this prick is great. Regular Sephiroth here looks fantastic and the background is great, even having the little bit of fire below him is such a good touch. Safer Sephiroth looks majestic and the background, while relatively simple, fits him perfectly. These are great.

As for the first of the alternative art:

Credit to Maji. Link to their Twitter. Yup, still looking great. Good call to have the person who did Cloud's alt art do Sephiroth's first alt art as well. Basically what I said for the art before still counts here, though I should say that the posing for Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER is a bit more bland in this one, but it isn't bad.

As for the second of the alternative art:

Credit to Tetsuya Nomura. No link, because y'all know who Tetsuya Nomura is and I refuse to explain things further. Anyway, no, it wasn't a mistake to put it like this, because this is actually a big continuous art. It is young Sephiroth from Ever Crisis at the bottom, then regular Sephiroth there, then we get to Bizarro Sephiroth until finally we once again get to Safer-Sephiroth. The only critique I have of this art is that this continuous story isn't really readable with the card border and rules getting in the way. The art itself is so obviously godlike that I don't have to really say much else, it is fucking Normura's art! Actual gigantic favoritism, but man, fair enough. This is awesome.

And that's it. Yes, technically I forgot one mono Black card, but I'll get to her and her girlfriend during the multicolored section, since there is genuinely 0 reason to run the lesbians separated from each other. But yeah, that's all the Black cards. Next up should be both Green and Red, then off to like 2 parts of multi colored cards. With that said, thank you for reading and have a nice day o/

[nitrosodiumrapidproto]

Making Enemies

I did most of this on Friday, but I'm posting it now because I couldn't send the image of my notebook to myself at college. These are eight enemy designs I have come up with.

The Hell Bat is a fairly simple creature - two wings, a tail, and a big cyclopean eye in the centre of the skull. Gameplay-wise it would be a 'horde' enemy, low health but high speed, and rushing you in packs. I was inspired by the Cacodemon from Doom, but I wanted to make it clearer that it was flying, so I added the bat inspirations.

The Scorpion is the same school of thought as the Hell Bat, but in insect form. It would fill the same gameplay position as the Bat, but just be a ground variant. It is somewhat redundant, however. I was a little inspired by the Brains from Hero Factory Brain Attack, a staple game of my childhood.

The "Orcoid", or what I would eventually just call an Orc internally, is meant to be the stock enemy type which would be encountered the most frequently. Orcs are a classically evil race in fantasy, so I figured it would make sense - but I also wanted to explore why they are evil. I also gave them a helmet resembling the Roman style, with the mohawk-like crest on top; and a javelin for a weapon to continue the theme. In fantasy settings you often get races being "coded", meaning they are based on real-world cultures, and something I don't see much of is Roman-coded orcs. Consider that the ancient Romans were expansionist, militaristic, and fairly brutal when you get down to it; all traditionally orcish qualities.

The Bone Giant is what I had planned to either be a very large enemy or the boss of the game. The reanimated skeleton of a giant, clad in the rusted remains of centuries-old armour, and holding a blade the size of a tree trunk. Lore-wise I had the idea that the Giants were employed by heaven to construct the Crucible, somewhat like the giants building Valhalla in Norse and Germanic myth. The forces of evil are then bringing their corpses back to life, to serve them. The actual design of a skeleton in rags is akin to the enemies in Sinister, which I didn't actually mean to invoke, but apparently did so anyway.

The "Glutton Orc" was another idea for a heavy yet slow enemy, but this one was decidedly less threatening. A morbidly obese creature dressed in nothing but a loincloth, brandishing a comically oversized femur bone. I was averse to this design for a few reasons, but one was that I already had an Orc enemy in the game, and I was going for variety above all else. The general shape was inspired by the boss Prince Chan from Serious Sam 2, but more orcish.

The Lizardman was going to be what I had called in my notes a "shock trooper" enemy; fast, tanky and damaging all in one. They'd show up infrequently as a sort of mini-boss, forcing the player to prioritise or die. Lore-wise I wanted them to be the captains of the evil army, commanding small squadrons of orcs. To explain their high defence and also hint to their higher rank, I gave them visibly better armour and a shield. Their look was inspired by the Lizardmen from Fear and Hunger, who can notably block attacks with their shields, and will skin you alive upon a game over.

The Rock Elemental was another tank enemy, but I also wanted this one to be a bit of a surprise for the player. Their idle sprite would be a big pile of rocks, the same as would appear inert in other parts of the map. But as soon as you got close, it would rise up as a golem and begin chasing you. My inspiration for this was a very old game called Bionicle: Quest for the Toa. As a kid, I remember going into the Onu-Koro section (caverns) and facing boulder monsters that formed out of rubble mounds.

Finally I designed Dark Dwarves. These would be identical to the dwarf sprite, but dark. The original Norse dwarves, mostly called dvergr (which interestingly also means dark elves) were black like coal, and were associated with maggots and other rotting things. In the Norse creation myth, the gods used various body parts of the titan Ymir to create Earth, and the dwarves were made from the maggots festering in his corpse. My thought is that they'd be either a rival dwarven faction, or the corrupted remains of the original craftsmen.

Because I didn't want to make loads of sprites, and also have redundant enemies in the game, I asked people what designs they thought were best, and what they thought were worst. I wanted them to form opinions very quickly, as that is how players would respond - they would swiftly end the encounter, by killing or being killed, and then they would judge on what they thought of it. Immediately people disliked the Scorpion as it was uninteresting, but very much liked the Lizardman. The other enemies were given middling opinions. Notably, the Bone Giant was derided as a generic enemy, but I think when sized up to a giant stature, it will be more unique. It's just harder to judge from a 2d image. In the end I chose five enemies: the Hell Bat as a rusher (high speed, low health, low damage), the Orc as stock (medium speed, health, damage), the Lizardman as a shock troop (high speed, medium health, high damage), the Rock Elemental as a tank (low speed, high health, high damage), and the Bone Giant as a boss (low speed, super high health, super high damage).

I did not manage to make the Lizardman or Elemental sprites on Friday, and as I do not have PhotoShop at home, I cannot make any more until Wednesday.