#its similar to how I feel about the way folks talk about furries (though I guess I am technically a furry

[gophergal]

Since I had someone follow me just now I would like to make a quick note:

I may not be otherkin/therian or even fully understand it, but I do support y'all! My best friend is a velociraptor and I love them very very much, even if I don't understand what it means to feel like you're something other than human

[scribblestatic]

Welp, time to talk about a Mature/Explicit AU I have for Sonic stuff.

So, warning for sexual depictions and conversations. No explicit sex in this post! Just talking about body parts and the fact they do, indeed, do a sex sometimes.

...So anyway, Sonic is intersex in this one.

Like, he's got no peen, and one of his ovaries is a testicle instead. The ovary presumably has no eggs in it, and the testicle can't produce sperm, so he's sterile. And he's perfectly okay with that!

The only thing that bothers him sometimes is how some folks react when they find out about him not having a dick. But his interactions with such people are few and far in-between. His true friends just see him as Sonic regardless, so he doesn't care about any dissenters anyway. Though, Amy does complain to him sometimes about how jealous she is he doesn't have a period, but that's more funny than anything.

Sonic's not necessarily "fast" in that way, but he's not sex-adverse at all. If he likes and trusts someone, he doesn't mind having some fun with them.

He and Shadow even have a "thing" going on. Mostly just to blow off some steam. They'd fight, then with the adrenaline still going, they'd do more than fight. Then they'd get back to their regular lives of acting like they haven't known each other carnally on a semi-regular basis.

Though, an incident changes that.

Dr. Eggman actually manages to freaking destroy a Chaos Emerald. Not the Master Emerald, no, that thing's shattered into pieces several times without too much bad coming from it. A *Chaos* Emerald.

The effect it has on Sonic, Shadow, and Knuckles to a lesser extent, is immediate. They're in pain and writhing with the agony of unbalanced chaos energy coursing through their bodies as, to try to balance the energy, the Master Emerald has to channel it through them.

Rouge and Omega meet Knuckles, Amy, and Tails on Angel Island with their respective hedgehogs as something similar to Armageddon's on its way to rearing its ugly head.

Thankfully, Sonic and Shadow manage to, in the unconscious world, combine their energies and make it so their bodies can accommodate the excess chaos energy flow, helping restabilize the world. Of course, it's just a temporary solution, but it's one that's keeping the world together for now.

Shadow and Sonic change. Shadow becomes more alien-like, gaining red scales and yellow sclera among other traits. And Sonic's Dark Gaia and Wisp energy resurfaces, giving him more wolfish traits, like larger canines, a more furry tail, and markings on his face. Hell, he even gets a bit of chest fluff!! It's a small amount, and it's peach instead of white, but he's got it!

So, they try to get back into their usual habits while finding a way to somehow restore the destroyed Chaos Emerald and have the energies flow as they should without running through Sonic's and Shadow's bodies.

Which, Tails discovers something he hadn't thought he would.

As it turns out, Sonic's better at channeling negative chaos energy, while Shadow's better at channeling positive chaos energy. One would think it's the other way around. Tails thinks about how Sonic could resist the influence of Dark Gaia and has a level of invulnerability to mind control, which probably prompts his overall ability to channel negative energy. Shadow has his own thoughts, thinking about how Maria wanted him to be the hope for the Earth. Perhaps her wish has become the light in him that allows him to channel positive energy better despite his dark origins.

Anyway, Sonic and Shadow start feeling a greater pull toward each other. Of course, they always had this sort of magnetic attraction where they'd orbit each other, even in their disagreements. Now, it felt even stronger.

So, like they usually would, they fight to let off steam, using the full extent of their newfound power. And then they bang.

And then it's done.

Tails notices a few days later that there's some further stabilization between the energies and suspects that the Master Emerald is creating a new Chaos Emerald somewhere. But they need to find it and let it reform before Dr. Eggman finds out about it.

So they start searching. All the while, Sonic starts to feel a bit off.

Like, things smell stronger and his stomach keeps churning. Of course, he's not one to get sick, so he ignores the signs for a good while. But then, he starts having strange dreams. Dreams of darkness and energy, floating and twisting. Swirling around the world, encompassing it. And of a light further away, bright like a beacon. He reaches for it, wanting to touch it.

Then a voice shakes him out of the dream.

When Sonic opens his eyes, he finds out he sleep-walked right over to Rouge's place. She's staring at him with concern, and he doesn't realize that the triangle marking on his forehead had turned into an open eye. It closed upon him waking up. Of course, even if he knew about it, he probably wouldn't know the significance of him having a third eye.

Rouge, knowing Shadow, does.

[falseroar]

Dog Days Part 21: Coffee with a Dash of Honesty

((Abe and Marvin meet for the first time and have a talk over some coffee.

Here are links to the series list and to Part 20: Making Plans.))

Abe showed up to the coffee shop fifteen minutes early the next day. He always liked to be the first one on the scene, get the lay of the land, that sort of thing. Even if said scene was a coffee shop that he had been to more times in the last week or two than he’d care to admit.

Not that it did him much good.

Carla spotted the hunter on his way to the counter and shook her head. “Don’t worry, I’ll bring your drinks over in a second. Marvin’s already paid.”

“What?” Abe followed her gesture and saw a man sitting in the corner booth that Abe normally staked out when he was here raise a hand and give a half-wave in his direction. Carla smiled at him, and Abe tried not to sound too accusing when he walked up to the booth and said, “You’re here early.”

Marvin shrugged and said, “Just happened to work out that way. Go ahead, take a seat.”

Just happened to work out that way, in that Chase and Jameson had made sure to bundle you into the car and drive off so that Marvin and Jackie had plenty of time to get here in advance. While Marvin had checked out the inside and everyone in it before chatting up the barista, Jackie was outside keeping watch across the street, ready to come in at the first sign of trouble.

Abe reluctantly slid into the open side of the booth, which left his back toward the counter and the front door, along with everyone else in the place. Definitely not the seat he would have chosen, if given the chance.

Marvin the Magnificent was a lean looking guy, with long brown hair streaked with green tied back into a messy ponytail, and had a pair of sunglasses obscuring his eyes despite the fact they were inside. He wore a well-tailored suit, but the green and blue of it made him look more like a stage magician than anything, and flashy jewelry hung around his neck, wrists, and one ear that Abe could see.

Flashy jewelry with charms worked in, judging by the sigils on the magician’s bracelets and the carved stone that was easy to miss next to the bright chain it was on. Most of them weren’t signs that Abe recognized, but a few of them looked very similar to the protection wards he kept on slips in his coat.

While Abe studied the magician, Marvin was taking his opportunity to look the hunter up and down. Abe had made the effort to at least look unarmed, with the smaller leather jacket and most of his regular equipment split between his office and the car, but with a push Marvin could sense the wards the hunter had on him. The standard stuff most hunters carried, although there was always the chance that he had other protections Marvin wouldn’t be able to sense until it was too late. And it wasn’t like he couldn’t see the gun holster from this side of the table.

“Here you go,” Carla said, appearing at the table with a cup of coffee for Abe and a fancy-looking latte for the magician. She hesitated and then said, “You two let me know if you need anything, okay?”

Abe nodded and Marvin purred, “Of course. Thank you very much, Carla.”

Carla suppressed a smile, or maybe it was a laugh at Abe’s expression as she walked away.

“Have you been here before?” Abe asked as he pulled his coffee close. Fortunately, it didn’t smell like Carla had added anything to it. Unlike that thing that could barely be called coffee that the magician studied with appreciation before answering.

“No, can’t say that I have. I just had some time to kill, and Carla was very interested to learn that I was waiting for you.” Marvin took his time sipping his drink, his eyes watching the hunter behind his shades before he said, “She had a lot to say about you.”

“She did?” Abe sounded genuinely surprised by that.

Which to be fair, Carla had actually spent most of the time grilling Marvin. It was a nice, polite conversation, which made it all the harder to dodge her questions and stick to the story that this was about a potential business deal. Not that she seemed to believe that, judging by the look the barista was giving their table now from the counter.

Still, the fact she seemed that protective of a customer said a lot on its own. Just not anything that helped Marvin, which is why he drummed his fingers on the table as though thinking, the gesture setting off the spell he had attached to the underside of the tabletop just as Abe walked in.

“You said you’re a hunter. How long have you been doing that?” Marvin asked.

Abe hesitated before saying, “A long time. Too long, really, but there’s something I need to finish before I hang up my hat.”

He caught himself before he said more, but his conversation with Carla from the other night was still fresh on his mind. What would he do, once he finally caught Wilford? The idea was tempting to consider, but after the disco tip fell through, he couldn’t find the heart to really consider it.

For a moment, he felt his age, the long years of hunting combined with the hopelessness of never finishing the one thing he set out to do after the party. After he lost his last partner. Then Marvin spoke again, snapping him out of those thoughts for a moment at least.

“You’re hunting something right now. That what you need help with?”

“Someone,” Abe corrected before he could stop himself. “But it’d be easy to mistake him for a monster.”

Marvin leaned forward, resting a chin on his fist. Interesting, but he tried not to sound too much like he cared as he said, “Sounds personal. You been at this for a while?”

“Yeah, it’s personal.” A series of emotions went over Abe’s face before he settled back into his usual expression of barely restrained anger. “But I don’t want to go into it if this isn’t going to go anywhere. You said you’re selective about clients—what would it take for me to prove you can trust me?”

“A lot,” Marvin said, putting too much emphasis on the words. “It’s…not impossible, but I have less than no reason to trust you with my magic, hunter.”

“You think highly of yourself,” Abe said, freezing in the action of taking a sip of coffee when he realized he just said that out loud. Where did that come from? Wasn’t the plan to schmooze up this magician long enough to see if he could help?

“Always act confident. Half of magic is getting them to believe it will work, the other half—” Marvin stopped himself, and Abe could see his face flush as he coughed and continued. “Something my old master used to say. But I know what magic can do, if it’s used incorrectly or frivolously by people who don’t understand what they’re working with. I’ve seen what can happen to those who overestimate their abilities, who dig where they’re not meant to be. And I like to know what my magic is going to be used for, which is why I do not appreciate the fact that someone handed off one of my potions to you without my knowledge. Care to explain?”

“I—” Abe stopped himself before he could let it slip that he bought it from Edgar, but when he started to speak again it almost slipped out. “I bought—what is going on?!”

“Truth spell,” Marvin answered without hesitation. “Just over this booth. If it makes you feel any better, it’s affecting me as well.”

“You could have told me,” Abe said, his face reddening, but the magician shrugged.

“I thought you might let something slip before you put your guard up. I know you called me yesterday just to set up this little meeting, and I don’t know what I can believe of anything you have to say to me.” Marvin sat back in his chair, his eyes meeting the hunter’s even through his shades. “Give me a reason to trust you, hunter. Give me a reason to believe anything I do to help you won’t just be turned around to hurt my friends or put more innocent people in the way of the Institute.”

“The Institute? I don’t care about them, I don’t work for or with them,” Abe said, feeling his anger rising with every word. “If I was one of them, do you think I’d be sitting here talking to someone who clearly isn’t human?”

Marvin’s eyebrows went up, and he sounded impressed when he said, “You noticed?”

“I—” It wasn’t even something Abe had consciously noticed, but now that he had said it out loud, he knew it was right. “There’s something off about you, yeah. Let me guess, your glasses have some kind of charm or something on them?”

Marvin smirked. “Rude, but correct. Or half right, anyways.”

The magician checked to make sure no one was looking before he pulled the sunglasses down. For a moment, his eyes seemed catlike with slitted pupils, his whole face pointed and with strange, angular features that were marred by…Abe frowned, a vague sense of a scar or something like it disappearing from his mind as soon as Marvin put the shades back on.

“I blame the glasses. My mask has a much better concealing spell on it, along with a few other tricks,” Marvin said. “But you wear a cat mask around town and people start making assumptions.”

“That you’re a furry?”

“…I was going to say in a cult.”

Not a denial then, but Abe was still trying to process the features he had seen. It took him a moment, because he wasn’t used to dealing with those people, but eventually the word came to mind.

“Fae.”

“Half,” Marvin answered. “Other half’s human, which believe me, is a combination that is guaranteed to tick everyone off no matter what realm you’re in. Ah, where do you think you’re going?”

He said this as Abe had already half-risen from his seat, his face pale. He had almost entered into a deal with one of the Fair Folk. Half or not, everyone knew that no one in their right mind would do something so stupid and dangerous.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.”

Marvin smirked. “So much for not caring about who’s human or not, huh? That saves me some time, if whatever you’re after isn’t that important.”

Abe hesitated and sank back into his seat. “What kind of deals are you making with people?”

“The kind that usually involve the exchange of goods for money,” Marvin answered. “What? Groceries aren’t cheap, you know.”

“And what happens to someone who breaks your deal?” Abe asked.

“You mean like the client who handed off your potion?” Marvin asked. He tapped at the table, pretending to muse aloud as he said, “Well, I have been told our yard could use a new scarecrow…”

He shrugged and added, “Or I could just hire a cat to stare at him for a couple of weeks until he breaks and confesses what he did. That could be funny, too.”

“Hire a cat?”

“You’d be surprised what they’re willing to do for the right price,” Marvin answered. “Or if it’s funny enough. They don’t generally care about the reason for doing something, which brings us back to my point.”

“And what’s that supposed to be?”

“Why are you here, hunter? What are you after?”

“I told you, I’m looking for someone. I thought maybe you could help me, but maybe I was wrong,” Abe answered.

“Maybe you were. I don’t make it my business to help hunters, no matter who or what they claim to be hunting. I’ve found your kind can be the sort to jump to conclusions,” Marvin said, tapping on his sunglasses. “Why should I believe you’re any different?”

“There’s no jumping to conclusions here, this guy is as far from being ‘innocent’ as you can get! As for a reason to trust someone, why the hell should I trust you? Who uses a truth spell on someone without telling them or—”

“Everything okay over here?” Carla said with a tone that suggested everything had better be okay, and quick. Behind her, Marvin could see the few other patrons in the place looking their way, and with a flush of embarrassment he realized he probably should have taken the time for a spell that would have given them some privacy, or at least kept their voices from carrying.

“No,” Abe and Marvin said in unison, both internally cursing the spell on the table.

Marvin cleared his throat and said, “Sorry, we’re having a few issues trying to work something out. Abe wants my assistance trying to find someone, and I—”

He stopped himself with an effort, and Abe raised an eyebrow, but Carla’s expression changed.

“You can find people? Like using something they’ve owned?”

“…Yes?” Marvin answered, looking from her to Abe, who seemed just as clueless until he gave a soft, “Oh,” as Carla walked to the counter and returned with a long staff made of what looked like dark, twisted driftwood.

“This belongs to someone who comes around here sometimes,” Carla explained. “The other day, a man and his dog brought it in, and said it looked like he had been…That something bad happened.”

“The Host?” Marvin asked as it suddenly clicked. This was the place Chase had mentioned? How could he forget to mention that?

“How did you know that?” Abe asked suspiciously.

“I…” Marvin sighed. “I know the guy who found it. He asked me to look into it, but—but other things came up yesterday and I kind of forgot all about it.”

Sadly, true. You returning to normal had driven all thought of this missing Host from Marvin and the others’ mind, beyond Abe’s possible connection to it.

Abe paused. This would give him a chance to see what the guy could do, and it seemed to mean a lot to Carla. A thought he didn’t mean to actually say out loud, but thanks to the influence of the truth spell the words spilled out before he could stop himself.

“Would you?” Carla asked. “I’m sorry, I know this is a lot to spring on someone out of nowhere, but I’m worried about him. I don’t know if he has anyone else around to look out for him.”

“…I can try,” Marvin said, taking the staff and laying it on the table. It was so long that it hung off of one end, and he had to push what remained of his drink out of the way so that he could focus his whole attention on it. “It’s harder when I haven’t met the person, but having something that’s close to them helps, especially something like this that he probably carried around every day.”

He spoke out of reflex as he placed his hands on the driftwood, his eyes drifting to almost shut as he attempted to fix the owner in his mind.

“Wards and spells can protect someone from detection, but I have a lot of experience with…”

Marvin trailed off. There was an image of the owner of this staff in his mind, the essence of him, but when he reached out there was no sense of him anywhere. Not even the sense that he was dead, just…nothing.

Like when he used to look for you.

He had just enough time for that thought to cross his mind before the Host’s presence was suddenly there. Like someone had noticed he was looking and decided to let him through, but only after making it clear they were letting him know where the Host was.

Marvin opened his eyes and realized that both Carla and Abe were staring at him with something close to concern. He tried to speak, swallowed, and managed to say, “Your friend’s, uh, the downtown Institute complex.”

“That’s where they keep their holding cells,” Abe said. “They have some more outside the city, supposedly for monsters too big or dangerous to keep in the walls, but the one downtown is basically a prison for permit violations and stuff like that.”

“So he’s maybe just in trouble for not having a permit?” Carla asked, and Abe and Marvin both shared a look at the hopeful optimism in her voice.  

“There’s a chance of that, yeah,” Marvin said. A slim chance was still a chance.

“I know some people I can ask about recent intakes,” Abe said. Just because he asked didn’t mean he would actually get a real answer.

Carla smiled and offered to refill their drinks, which Marvin and Abe both reluctantly agreed to. The moment she was out of earshot, Abe muttered, “Your truth spell sucks.”

“Definitely could use some work,” Marvin agreed. “What do you know about this Host guy?”

Abe shrugged. “I only met him once, outside of this place. He warned me that I was being followed, and somehow managed to make me forget about it until I ‘needed to remember it’, which was apparently one morning when my stalker was a little too close. I tried to find him again because I thought he knew more about whoever was following me, only for the guy to go missing before I could get to him.”

“So you didn’t have anything to do with him getting captured?”

Abe frowned, thinking the magician didn’t have to sound that surprised. “Look, just because I’m a hunter doesn’t mean I go around hounding out people for the Institute to play with. Like you, I try to pick my clients, you know?”

Of course, Google popped up in Abe’s mind and he blurted out, “Not that I’ve been doing a great job of that lately.”

There it was. Marvin’s suspicions about Abe’s involvement with the Host were off, but he thought he knew where to go with this one.

“Found out you couldn’t trust someone, huh?” Marvin asked. “I know the feeling.”

“Yeah, one of your guys is reselling your product,” Abe said. “Meanwhile, I worked with someone who was obviously sketchy just because he seemed to know something about the guy I was looking for. Instead, he feeds me information too late to do anything with it, in exchange for—for trying to dig up something on someone who as far as I can tell wasn’t even doing anything wrong.”

“Wait, someone hired you to watch the doctor?” Marvin asked, the words slipping out before he could stop himself.

Abe stared at him, and they had a moment to both sit on what just happened when Carla returned with a new cup for Marvin and a pitcher of coffee that she used to refill Abe’s drink. They both awkwardly thanked her, not helped when she commented that they seemed to be getting along a little better now.

Wanting to keep that charade up a little longer after she left, Abe settled for lowering his voice as he leaned forward and asked, “How the hell do you know about that?”

Marvin hesitated, choosing his words carefully before he answered, “Dr. Schneeplestein is a friend of mine. He’s also not an idiot, and knows when someone’s been watching him if not why.”

Abe considered him for a long moment. The truth spell meant he was being honest, and if Abe could undo a little of whatever harm might come of working for Google and his client, then…

“Someone hired a magitek unit to get me to look into him and the people around him. They framed it like he was doing something illegal, but I think they just wanted proof that he was connected to a kid calling himself Chase Brody.”

“Chase?” Marvin’s surprise gave away that he knew who Abe was talking about, as well as his silence as he tried to work that one out. He knew about the Bronsons, of course, but hiring Abe for that seemed…off, even if Marvin couldn’t place his finger on exactly why. “Wait, so when you used my potion—”

“It was to follow the doctor home, see where he was living. I didn’t get all the way there, I was distracted by the whole being followed by someone thing, but I needed it because the doctor had…some serious…protections…” Abe trailed off before his hand went to his face and he sighed so hard he thought he might never stop. “It was your magic keeping him untraceable, wasn’t it?”

Marvin grabbed Abe’s hand and pulled it away from his face as he asked, “You didn’t lead them to the house, did you? You stopped before you got there?”

“Y-yes, I did,” Abe said, and the magician released him and slowly sank back into his seat. “What’s going on, who are you so afraid of?”

“…I’m not sure. I just know that twice now, in as many weeks, someone has tried to break through my defenses,” Marvin answered. “Using you and my own magic to get around them could have been…very bad for my friends.”

“What?” Abe felt a pit open in his stomach as he realized. The Host’s warning, it was the only thing that stopped him from following the doctor all the way home. From showing whoever was following him how to get there. They weren’t interested in him, they were interested in… “Wait, why is someone so interested in this doctor? Or in Chase, even if he is a Bronson? There has to be easier ways of getting to them than using me.”

Marvin didn’t answer. He didn’t trust himself, not with this spell in place. But if you had changed back after seeing Abe, there was every reason to believe you would have left the house if he had showed up there, or recognized you on one of Jameson and Chase’s attempts at a walk. Enough of a lure to get you out and that much easier of a target.

Abe waited, but got the sense that the magician wasn’t willing to talk about what he suspected. Fair enough, but he needed to do something to gain the magician’s trust and help.

“I’ve been trying to figure out who would have access to that kind of magitek,” Abe said. “That thing can almost pass for human, and apparently the lab that made Google came out with four of them before they were bought out by the Institute. One stayed with the lab and I ran into one over at the hospital.”

“And one went to whoever hired you,” Marvin finished. “Don’t suppose he ever told you who he was working for?”

Abe reluctantly had to admit that no, he hadn’t, and felt a spike of annoyance at the magician’s knowing reaction. He just didn’t know if he was angrier at Marvin or himself.

Marvin scoffed. “You ask me why I’m so particular about my clients, and here you are selling yourself to someone you don’t even know to harass an innocent doctor and his friends. How much was he paying you again?”

“It wasn’t about the money,” Abe said, and when Marvin had the nerve to look doubtful the hunter leaned forward, pushing his coffee cup out of the way so that there was as little distance as possible between him and the magician when he spoke. “He offered me information on how to find the man who killed my partner, someone that I—someone that I should have been there for, but wasn’t. Be careful what you say next, magician.”

“…What was your partner’s name?” Marvin asked.

“…Y/N.”

Marvin was glad for the shades covering his eyes, because he didn’t think his mask would have helped as much in trying not to react as he said, “Y/N. You…do you want to talk about—”

“No.” Abe paused, struggling for a moment against the truth spell before he said, “It…I don’t…Have you ever lost someone? Someone you—cared about?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Then you know…what it’s like, to have them there one second, and gone the next. If you knew someone had taken them away from you, and you could have done something to stop it, what would you do? What would you do, to find their killer?”

“…Did this Google give you anything? Anything to find them?”

Abe shook his head. “No, I mean—nothing I can do anything with. First he sent me to—to the place where it happened, and someone had been there, but I don’t…”

To Marvin’s surprise, the hunter pulled a notebook out of his pocket and flipped it open before turning it so that he could see the badly copied magic signs there.

“Do you know what this is?” Abe asked. “Why someone would write this on the floor, surrounded by a circle of candles?”

“Uh, well that—You really shouldn’t copy down magic writing you don’t understand,” Marvin said, struggling for an answer that would satisfy the hunter without giving away too much under the truth spell. “But, uh, that sigil would be used in things like summoning or—or that one is used for breaking spells or bindings, which you wouldn’t normally see together unless someone was combining multiple components together in a new arrangement.”

“So you couldn’t guess what it would be used for?” Abe asked.

“Not based on just what you have here,” Marvin answered, feeling the sweat break out on the back of his neck. Desperate to change the subject, he asked, “Anything else? At the—at the place where it happened, or…or somewhere else?”

Abe sighed. “That’s where I need your help. Google gave me an address, but Wilford had already left. I found a bullet he left behind and, it’s a long story, but I know that it’s one he’s had on him for a long time, ever since…”

Abe reached into his pocket and placed a single used silver bullet on the table, but Marvin’s ears were already buzzing and he thought the coffee shop might be spinning in the background.

“Wilford? As in Wilford Warfstache? That’s who you’re looking for?”

“…Yes?” Abe stared at Marvin. “Please don’t tell me you’re friends with him, too.”

“Wilford is the one who killed Y/N—but that…what?!”

“Back when I knew him, he was calling himself the Colonel, but he’s gone through a lot of names since then,” Abe said slowly, still trying to understand the magician’s reaction. “What the hell do you know about him?”

“That we need to go, now,” Marvin said, standing and then pulling the hunter up onto his feet. “Did you bring your car here?”

“Yes, but what—”

“Good, we can get there faster then.” Marvin pulled his phone and his wallet out at the same time, pressing a contact that was already up and ready on the phone’s screen while he threw some cash onto the table to pay for the drinks. “Jackie, meet me outside, now.”

Abe shrugged at Carla’s questioning stare as he followed the magician outside, only to stop short when a man dressed in jeans and a red hoodie appeared out of seemingly nowhere in between him and Marvin.

“Stand down, Jackie,” Marvin said. “Abe, which of these cars is yours?”

Jackie looked from Marvin to Abe and back again as he asked, “Wait, what’s going on?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out!” Abe said. “And who are you?!”

“Introduce yourselves in the car!” Marvin snapped. “Wilford is the Colonel, and he might be at the TV studio right now! Do either of you really need to know more than that?”

Abe wavered for a moment, but then his keys were out and the three of them were bundling into his car. He could ask questions and drive at the same time, after all.

((End of Part 21. Thanks for reading!

And here’s a link to Part 22: Very Important Person.

Tagging: @silver-owl413 @skyewardlight @withjust-a-bite @blackaquokat @catgirlwarrior @neverisadork @luna1350 @oh-so-creepy @weirdfoxalley @95fangirl @lilalovesinternet-l @thepoolofthedead @a-bit-dapper @randomartdudette @geekymushroom @cactipresident @hotcocoachia @purple-anxiety-blog @shyinspiredartist @avispate @missksketch @autumnrambles @authorracheljoy @liafoxyfox ))

[thesilkenlair]

(Casey Here!)

As much D&D as I play, you'd imagine I would eventually get around to illustrating some of their most iconic monsters! Which is to say, the ones that I personally find the most iconic. Which is to say, the ones I memorized when I was reading my dad's monster manual at age nine. Purple worm - Sandworms never go out of style. I've seen a lot of rad designs for this bugger over the editions, but I favor the slightly less reptilian older takes for this particular critter. It's kinda basic, but sometimes that's what you want. It's like a shark or a crocodile: Just flat out unchanged across the ages. Hook horror - I've heard it rumored that Gygax used a small Gigan figure to represent this monster. I can't verify that, but it definitely sounds right. Hook horrors are one of the very first things you meet when you play around in the caves, and they kind of remind me of the Father Deep monsters of the Hork Bajir homeworld that way. Mind flayer - Mind flayers! Basically, take all of your Dracula conventions and dip them in a fresh coat of Lovecraft. There's that old "decadent aristocratic upper caste system who literally eats the poor, but still somehow comes across as less evil than the actual real life 1%" setup that will never stop being relevant. Though personally, I see mind flayers as the first alternative for folks who want to play that monster-who-feels-the-urge-to-eat-their-friends-but-refuses-to-do-it shtick but don't want to deal with vampire baggage. You know, the furry option! ... Slimy? Rubbery? Do we have a word for anthro-cephalopods? I'm only a casual furry. Gelatinous cube - I'm not apologizing for giving this one a slot. Froghemoth - So, back when I participated in my very first long-term campaign, I played a druid. You've met Talia before. Naturally, I was chomping at the bit for the day I finally got to turn her into a froghemoth, and celebrated the day my wish was finally granted and she was allowed to chug human-supremacist-cultists like popcorn. Yeah, okay, the froghemoth is one of the classic vore-monsters. But it's a charming design in its own right. Kind of a freaky Hanna Barbara critter, like you'd see Space Ghost fighting. No matter how many artists draw it, they can never shake that inherent goofiness that third edition tried so hard to purge. I would probably cram them somewhere onto Fronterra if I was sure they were public domain. As is, I'm 99% certain that this is what Visser Three turned into when he ate Elfangor. Tarrasque - D&D's original kaiju! Kind of just takes the name and nothing else when it comes to its mythological origins, but I don't mind. The Tarrasque is that endgame "let's test the players" final boss monster... Or at least it's supposed to be. My DM reskinned it for our final Pathfinder session, and one of the PCs still nearly killed it in a single turn. Also, he let Talia turn into one, so maybe Pathfinder is just bullshit? Regardless, the Tarrasque has one of those simple, iconic designs. I've heard rumors it was based on the concept art for Fallout's deathclaws, and like the Gigan-figure, I can't verify this in any way. With its reptilian features, twin horns, spiny carapace and grabby fingies, it has an undeniable lizardlike quality that I can't help but find charming. Kinda feels like a more refined version of Zilla? Though for an insatiable eating machine, I notice a lot of artists give it very little belly to work with. Come on, this guy eats entire cities! Give him somewhere to put it! Rust monster - An icon of icons, the rust monster! Drawing its origin from a bizarre Chinese "dinosaur" toy, later designs have made it more insectoid in appearance, but never feeling QUITE like anything Earthly. It's the four limbs. Between the four limbs and the tail, it's hard to tell if it's an arthropod mimicking a vertebrate or the other way around. I'm pretty sure this is part of what inspired my ossaderm creatures for Fronterra. Also, Ryla can turn into one in our campaign. I have no shortage of havoc to wreak when the opportunity comes. Behir - Dragons in D&D are kind of... extra. Godlike beings, paragons of whatever personality trait they represent. Whenever there's something uber powerful in D&D, it gets compared to dragons. It makes them kind of unapproachable. Behirs provide all the essentials of a dragon - Serpentine body, scaly skin, horns, sapience, breath weapon, taste for human flesh - wrapped up in a smaller, weirder, IMO cooler package. You know, your Lambton Worms. A lot easier to port in and out of adventures, a lot less of an event when they show up, but still a formidable force in their own right. I like the behir. The behir knows how to taunt me just the right amount. Bulette - Another Chinese "dinosaur" figure monster, the bulette is actually another one I associate with Talia. Whenever we faced a problem that didn't have a glaringly and immediately obvious solution, she would turn into a bulette, whether it was for beating up robots, digging through obstacles, trampling smurfs, navigating labyrinths, distracting slashers with cute dog tricks... it was kind of her signature form. But shenanigans aside, the bulette is just an excellent monster. While the "land shark" shtick may be common, there's a lot more going on with the bulette's design. It's rumored to be a mad wizard's creation, as he combined a snapping turtle with an armadillo and mixed in a helping of demon blood to taste. Personally, I always considered that to be a neat little rumor to flesh out the world, but never assumed it to be true. The bulette just feels too naturalistic for that. Like some kind of protomammal or crocodylomorph, or weird triassic monstrosity. Magic and demons and dragons and so on DO affect the ecosystem. I always figured the bulette was just something that evolved to compete in this new biosphere. Owlbear - This one, on the other hand, I fully believe the "mad wizard was bored" explanation. Another chinasaur critter, the owlbear is frequently made fun of. What makes it scarier than a regular bear? It can't fly, so why have owl parts at all? Why trade fangs for a beak in what is at best a latural move? Well, first of all, fuck you, owls are creepy motherfuckers, and that alone is enough to justify it. But secondly, that's part of its charm. Besides some improved vision, the owl DOESN'T make it more dangerous. What makes the owlbear dangerous is that it's an insane, Frankensteinian monstrosity roaming uncontrolled through the wilderness! It doesn't need weaponry, its sheer temperament is enough to make it a worthy opponent. Sure, the practical threat might not be hugely above that of a bear, but storytelling isn't about numbers. Any asshole can go outside and get eaten by a bear. The owlbear is part of this world. The owlbear is a reminder of what magic can do. Someone somewhere actually made this thing, for whatever reason, and now the world is irrevocably changed because of it. Owlbears go beyond practicality. They bring the lore! Also, bears don't have very good eyesight, so the big owl eyes probably make them better hunters. Flumph - Is that a Japanese-style martian? Do we just have aliens in D&D? Dear lord, I love them! Okay, the flumph has got a sizable hatedom. And that hatedom can eat my ass, because the flumph is precious and perfect just the way it is! Flumphs are designed as a sort of sidekick-type creature. They're not very good fighters, but they bring knowledge and lore to the table. Whether they're aliens from some far off star, seeking your aid to prevent catastrophe, or psionic natives of the Underdark eager to bask in your positivity and hopefully stick it to the tyrants they're forced to share real estate with. My group generally treats them as straight up aliens, benevolent but strange. Course, we're all pretty strange, so we get along just fine. Otyugh - Okay so, the aberration creature type implies that this is something from another world that doesn't belong. And yet otyughs, which are aberrations, are an essential part of this world's ecosystem? Okay, I can buy the idea that an alien organism adapted to our world and is now a key part of it. Fronterra's got a TON of that. It just feels like after a point, the otyugh would be considered a beast? Otyughs are great. Every ecosystem needs a decomposer, and every fantasy story needs at least one dive into the sewers. Otyughs provide both, and are intelligent enough to keep the plot moving if it hits a snag. There's always going to be garbage, refuse, carrion, decay, things that need to be broken down and processed. Carrion crawler - The carrion crawler is pretty similar to the otyugh in that it's technically not considered a beast, and therefor must have its origins elsewhere, but feels so integrated into the ecosystem that it just feels like it belongs. They usually can't talk, so they're not just reskinned otyughs, but I still consider them pretty essential. Otyughs find a singular spot where waste is dumped and shovel it down at their leisure, while carrion crawlers skulk through the tunnels, actively seeking their food. The crawler got one of the most radical redesigns on the transition from second to third edition, but I can't really choose a single favorite. The oldschool tentacle-faced cutworm looks like it could be a real animal, while the googly-eyed Halloween decoration feels like it could be from another world, merely having set up shop here. Could there name apply to two wholly different creatures? If so, then I'm not sure which one mine would be considered. I kinda mashed them together into something that doesn't quite feel like either. But I like it for what it is. Maybe I'll sneak it onto Fronterra. Aboleth - Tentacled, telepathic sea creatures who turn humans into slimy minions, who remember everything their race has ever seen, and who are always plotting something behind the scenes. Yeah, the aboleths really crank up the Lovecraft elements. Actually, between the mind flayers, the flumphs and the aboleths, even the most oldschool D&D covered quite a few essential Lovecraftian bases. The flayers are your corrupt yet still recognizable humanoids who can be considered truly evil, the flumphs are benevolent-yet-bizarre guardians who know more than you, and the aboleths are the truly unknowable, sinister intellects. The fact that they can barely function on land honestly only adds to that, IMO. They're inherently difficult for a party to reach, and they offer some nice underwater adventure seeds. Not enough adventures go underwater. There's this perception that the ocean is bad for storytelling because so many writers lack the creativity to make it work. I wanna run an underwater adventure now. Beholder - Icon of icons! THE D&D monster! The beholder! Paranoid, jumpy, always five steps ahead and twenty steps perpendicular! Beholds are fun in just about every way. Between their wacky, diverse designs, their elaborate lairs, their eccentric personalities, their bizarre powers, you're never gonna run out of fun with beholders. Remorhaz - It's always been a thing that bothered me with environment-based monsters. Why does the ice monster who lives in the cold use ice as a weapon? Aren't most of the things it encounters going to be resistant to the cold? Sure, a cone of cold will still kill a polar bear, but a lot of the monsters in the tundra are outright immune to cold. A while dragon's not going to get much use out of its breath weapon fighting frost worms and frost giants. That's one reason the remorhaz sticks out to be. We have an icy tundra beast whose insides are a scorching furnace, which it can intensify and weaponize as it sees fit. Which also conveniently explains why its design - a sort of cobra-esque centipede - invokes warm-weather creatures, despite its icy environment. It's a nice subversion of the usual tropes, plus it's just a memorable, cool looking critter to begin with. On a smaller note, the remorhaz feels like a good loophole for Ryla's "no cold weather morphs" rule. Turning into something elementally affiliated with ice is no good, but a non-magical monster that survives the cold by superheating its insides? That seems perfectly viable to me!

[linkmy-boy]

Title: Taking back control

Summary: The actor wants to be in control of his story. To do that some blood must be spilled

Characters: Actor!Mark and Author.

Parings: None

Warnings: gore involving eye plunking 

Insp: @lostcybertronian​

Word count: 1626

Footprints marked the lush lands as little crunchy sounds were made. The darkness vanishes away as a new day starts. A forest border this patch of land. The footprints were made by a man with a red suit and his raven hair pushed back to make for a more civil look. Way to civil to enter in such a suspicious and shrewd forest. Though, this man didn't care about this matter considering he was on a trip. A trip to see a “friend”. He gave a questionable smile as he walked into the gnarled forest. He wanted something. Something called control.

After a prolonged amount of time, he finally arrived at his destination. A rusted cabin with fracture windows. The wood submerged with vines and moss. Carefully he knocked on the door making sure to not harmed the weathered door. The door slowly opened to reviled a disheveled man. His hair a mess of a similar color to the other man. He had a shirt with black and white vertical stripes. He looks very identical to the other man and could pass for his twin brother. That is if he ever saw this man in his life. 

“Who the fuck are you” 

the unkempt man said with a grumble within his voice.

“Sorry. Bad habit of not inducing myself. 

The name is Mark.”

 “Isaac…” 

Isaacs's sentence remains in the air until Mark talked again. 

“Well, Isaac I have some business to discuss.” 

“Business! I don't even know you! What business could you possibly have with me.” 

Mark spoke to him with his happy-go-lucky voice gave nervously smile as he replied. 

“A business you stole from me.” 

    Mark forces his way into Isaac cabin pushing him to the side. 

“Hey! Wait what the hell are you doing.” 

Isaac said. He was exasperated by the fact this man he didn't know would barge in his home.

“I just plan to have a “little” talk. You seem well known in this forest.”

Isaac stared at the man. He saw Mark plant himself standing in front of Isaac his back turned. Isaac slowly picks up his trusted baseball bat from the door. He looked at the man in pure detest. Mark was not paying attention as he looked around. Isaac preparing his bat putting it behind his head in a baseball player stance. He wanted to hit this man so hard it would knock him out for years. He swung at his head. But instead of the nice bang of his bat hitting the head of the base-ball bat was caught within the hands of his target. Isaac swallowed as Mark stated,

“Oh how fun is this”

Mark turned back to Isaac with a little smug smile on his face. Taking the baseball bat out of his hands leaving Isaac dumbfounded. Mark begone to speak again “You know I hoped to just to talk. Perhaps having a compromise but of course like always people have to try to attack me”

Isaac gaped at the man. He was the one to walk around like he owns the place. He was getting mad at Isaac? Isaack growled, “You are the one who broke into my house.” 

“Dear boy you technically let me in you could have not opened the door for me”

“No, I did not. I never said “Hey how about you come inside” so how about you don’t fucking come in people's houses without an invite to come inside!”

“Well, why didn't you stop me.”

Mark glance at the bat as he put it down the room falling in silence once again. Issa for one of the first times in his life didn’t know what to say. Mark spoke, “Now I don’t normally believe in second chances but I feel like you are special”

Isaac didn’t know what to do. He paused giving some thought with his next actions. Should he let this stranger come to his home and have a conversation with him. He studied this man looking him up and down. Nothing about him seemed reliable. Something that crept Isaac the most was he knew who he was. He knew where he lived. Sure he played with people outside of the forest in hopes he will get his story more popular. Because who doesn't love a horror story that could be real. 

However, nobody knew that he wrote them. Nobody truly knew who was behind the pin name, the author. Isaac ponders even more. If this man knew where he lived did he also know his power. The power that anything he wrote became real. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he could write something real quick and kill this man. Or at the very least maybe not kill per se but badly injure him. He hadn't realized how long he was wondering when mark stated “So, what would it be Isaac. Would you like to talk” 

Isaac made his choice. He would simply ask to do something real quick and write out short writing. Six simple words. Mark laid dead on the floor. Isaac said with a forced smile “Sure just let me do something real quick.” 

“Sounds fine with me. Just along you don’t plan to write anything. Author.”

Isaac paused. He knew. Isaac breathless said, “Oh well I think this thing can just wait. We can discuss things if you want.”

Isaac didn't know why he was so afraid of this man. He was never so fearful in his life. What was so different about this situation. However, Issa knew there was a bigger question he should ask. Why wasn't he stopping him? Why was he being so passive? He wasn't doing anything to stop him. He could have easily grabbed his knife on the spot. He could have lied and written out the words anyways. Hell he could of just stop this all together by slamming the door on him when he saw him trying to get inside. But, he did nothing. He was just being passive. It was like he didn't exist. He sat down. Mark began explaining himself “I heard that you can write stories correctly. And said stories might oh I don’t know become true.”

“Yes. I guess that's true”

“That is why your title is the author. It's your role. Your role is to write stories.”

“I wouldn't call it a role it's more of a pin name for myself.”

“Of course it's a role! You write stories henceforth, you are an author. Just like how my role is the hero.”

“Oh really because I don’t see you as any hero.”

Mark's expression became irritable. With his teeth gritting against each other. His brows furrowed. His forehead crumpled up. A frown formed. Now to Isaac Mark already seem uneasy with his smile plastered on his face. But somehow when he showed an emotion that wasn't stupidly happy it straight up nerve-racking. Maybe its because you didn't expect he could do that. Or maybe it's just simply how it looks. Whatever it was it paralyzed Isaac to his spot. Mark snapped, “What do you mean I seem like a hero.”

Isaac gulped as he stuttered a bit “Well I mean you look like some sort of Disney villain. I mean look at that suit it just screams “I'm going to burn down the orphanage because I wanted my own one billion houses there. I mean-”

Isaac was obstructed and like a bolt of electricity, he was rammed against the wall. His back attained a blow of shock as he shut his eyes in agony. Hastily he opened them to see the face of furry. Mark snarled as he glared intensity at Isaac his breath becoming more shallow with each gulp of air. Between those gasps, he declaimed. “Listen I tried being nice. I tried making a compromise. But you didn't want that. All I wanted was to take back control.”

Isaac was startled. All he could simply ask “What do you mean to take back control.”

Mark was on the breach of barking as he tried to keep up his normal voice “As you said yourself anything you write comes true. With such power, I can’t possibly let someone like threat my story!”

Isaac cracked, “What the ungodly fuck, what do you mean by “My story” I barely know who you are why would I want to mess with anything you are doing.”

“That is enough! I had enough of you. I will gain back control.” Mark muttered.

Mark persuaded to seized a knife off of the counter. Isaac looked at him indifferently as Mark spoke in a delicate voice “Now dear boy it's my turn to be in control.” In a quick motion, Mark put the knife towards Isaac eyeballs as he slowly put it in his sockets. In a swift motion, he pops out Isaac eyeball out of its socket Isaac bawling in pain. Blood ran down as he ripped out the eyeball like a bandage. Blood came rushing down as he did the same to the other eye. He smirked at he let Isaac fall to floor he spoke, “Looks like our business here is done! I hope you enjoyed as much I did.”

He cleaned up the blood with a handkerchief leaving Isaac on his knees with lines of blood down his face. Isaac surprising isn't dead. Perhaps it was his already supernatural powers keeping him alive. Slowly he got up putting on a yellow cloth over his eyes. In the later years Author notice he could now narrate the future but with one cost; the ability to have control over the story. Now the author was the person he fears the most to be; somebody with no authority over the story and no hopes of taking back control.

Finally done with my first fanfiction! The idea was based off of the user @lostcybertronian idea of actor mark being the one to carve out Author eyes. Check out their work its amazing. I hope I got the characterization right on both actor and author. Any helpful criticism will be appreciated. Anyways I hope to write more in the future. Until next time folks bu-bye!

[samiledom]

Failings and Flaws (Part 1) — Why D&D 5th Edition is bad

We’re starting off with a bang aren’t we? Seeing how criticizing the things people like makes them feel defensive, I find it might be best to open up with a disclaimer:

Regardless of the flaws your system has and how bad it actually is, that does not mean you cannot enjoy it!

It is a common, but mistaken notion that anything someone likes is absolute good and that it cannot be bad. In a future post I’ll tackle a system I actually love. Just to make things fair!

Enough procrastinating though, let’s see why I cannot stand D&D 5th edition and why I do not think it to be the renaissance of tabletop. I will be handling this chapter-by-chapter for the most part. There will be varying lengths as some chapters simply have more to talk about than others. I will keep foul language and vitriol to a minimum, but...

Let’s just say I’m passionate about a hobby I love.

 Chapter 1  Introduction

I was going to skip this because no one really reads these, but already we have a giant red flag. Skipping the bulk of racist references from Dark Sun, explanations of situations that the rules don’t account for, and other things, we place our focus right on the ‘Wonders of Magic’ section. Already we can see magic being placed on a rather high pedestal, while also being strangely outlined as “rare”.

Considering there are entire church organizations of clerics, schools of magic, and nearly every village having a hedge mage of some sort, I’d hardly call it rare. Uncommon, sure, but rare? Not in Greyhawk. The default setting is still Greyhawk, right? We’ll have to find that one out later.

I realize it sounds like a nitpick over language—and it is, to a degree—but the place where language matters the most is in the introduction! This is where you tell people what your system is about and describing a franchise that has long been about high magic and heroic fantasy as having a scarcity of magic (that is what “rare” means) shows a deep misunderstanding about it. This is actually integral to understanding D&D 5e’s failings and why, even if it is an okay game (and that’s being generous), it is a terrible iteration of D&D.

But let’s move on and ignore how this section contradicts itself. For sanity’s sake.

Chapter 1 (for real this time)

It is actually very rare for a section dedicated to making a character to have some severe flaw with it. Sometimes it’s a good example of how not to make a character, but that is not as common as one might think. Ultimately it comes down to a few things I’ve noticed as being treated as the default.

Such as rolling ability scores. It is honestly something I take a lot of umbrage with. You can harp on about how there is no ‘winning or losing’ in D&D, but let’s face it: people like to feel like they’re accomplishing things. When you introduce a stat rolling system as the primary means of finding out your attribute scores, you are potentially denying people that. It is possible for a highly mediocre character to accomplish things, but more often than not they end up either dying in an unsatisfying way or they end up having to get coddled. Which seems to defeat the purpose of rolling stats in the first place.

At the very least they still have point buy, but why is this not the default? Perhaps Mearls was wary due to the rather misplaced thought among the community that it’s for “min-maxers”, a common bogeyman among tabletop groups. A bogeyman I actually find absurd on its own, but that is a discussion for another time.

The only other thing that really stands out is that small change to “finesse” melee weapons and ranged weapons. That being Dexterity to both attack rolls and damage rolls. I have mixed opinions on this. Making things simpler is fine, but Dexterity is often considered a “god stat” due to how much it’s worth.

Well, there’s also the advancement table barely being helpful, but this is the flaw of making a system “modular”. Let’s keep going.

Chapter 2 : Races

Now we’re going to talk about races. I will refrain from being a “grognard” so to speak, but I will be looking at the mechanics of them closely.

I’m also going to ignore the constant use of “diversity” throughout this book. Diversity is good and desperately needed in the hobby, but the way it’s constantly signaled at feels like it’s trying to draw attention away from something. We already got a nice dose of some archaic 90s racism with the previous blurb about Dark Sun.

This isn’t a social issues blog, so I’ll keep that to a minimum.

Already it seems we are trying to appease both the “old” D&D crowds of pre-4e and the 4e crowds. At least people will be ecstatic to know that Gnomes are back to being a race in the core rulebook, but the raceplosion of 3.5 and 4e has still been dialed back. They often do that to sell more books, but it took a while for 5th edition to start truly releasing content compared to its predecessors. In fact, D&D 5e used to be so devoid of content and took so long to come out and presented such little information that on many boards it was considered to be vaporware.

I’ll confess to being one of those people and I still think that what we have gotten is a sign of a definite decline. However, tabletop as a hobby in general has been shrinking. It does that sometimes and the absolute wealth of specialized board games has been cutting into traditional RPGs quite heavily.

Anyways, I’m losing track of the topic here. Let’s see how 5th edition handles races.

First we have Dwarves. Or Dwarfs, if you prefer. No huge issues with their description, it’s typical and generic, but that’s the default. All I have to say is this:

What? Female Dwarves don’t have beards?

Joking aside, it’s very typical- hold up.

Darkvision got nerfed, huh? In older versions, Darkvision let you see within a threshold of darkness as if it were normal lighting. Now it only lets you see it as dim light. Interesting.

Racial combat bonuses against Giants and Goblins are gone. I would argue that this is a good thing as it separates culture from race and allows for things like dwarves who live in overworld urban centers who would probably not have this kind of combat training...

But then they still give them obviously cultural bonuses. Oof. I would argue that race and culture should be separate, but we can ignore the problems that arise from them being treated as similar and instead move onto Elves.

Who are still perfect. Good grief.

Nothing else- wait a moment. Darkvision? Now things are starting to make sense. It seems that Low-Light Vision from older versions and Darkvision have been pushed back together into something resembling Infravision from the AD&D days. Except a little less evocative. A weird change, but I guess we wanted to make things easier on new players and “sees farther in dim light” and “sees in darkness” are too complicated of distinctions.

Another curiosity is that racial penalties appear to be missing. This is definitely something of a hold over from 4e and I am fine with it. It’s a definite positive for people who might find an entire group of people being dumber to be offensive.

Now we are onto Halflings and what the hell is that?!

Ugh. Ugly design and art aside, let’s see. They try to avoid making the obvious faux pas that Halflings often have by making them nomadic thieves who travel on colorful wagons. You don’t get points if you guess what that’s a caricature of. In fact, they emphasize the default Halflings being Hobbits with the serial numbers filed off. This is what they originally were, so it’s a return to form of sorts.

They are even better at saving throws now. A reroll on a natural 1? With no daily limit? That’s fucking amazing. The Stout Halfling is also a rather clear winner here. Being survivable is valuable in D&D.

It’s time for Humans. Yawn. Not because Humans are dull, but it is very hard for a fantasy setting to make them exciting it seems. Either they are just the generic everyman or there is an almost uncomfortable and, dare I say, cringe level of “humanity fuck yeah!” to them. There is also a curious level of Forgotten Realms discussion in the blurb-

Wait. Is the default setting fucking Faerun? Did Mearls seriously, in the same breath, use Faerun as a base and then imply that D&D is low magic? Holy shit.

Moving on from my brief stint of acidic bile, we see that Humans are still the everyman. Big yawn. However, something draws my attention. Particularly that ‘variant rule’ box. Two piddling attribute score bonuses (but they can still be valuable increases, especially with a hard cap on stats) are nothing special, but proficiency in a skill (akin to 3.5′s free skill point) and a feat of their choice?

Given 5e’s feat design (we’ll be tackling that one later) that is a significant boon. In fact, it’s safe to say that humans are most likely one of the strongest races again. Some things never change.

Dragonborn are next. They essentially became the gateway furry race in 4e and it seems that we are keeping them here. Now, I don’t have a huge problem with Dragonborn, big dragon people are cool, but I can see how some people might have an issue with it, especially given their old and new lore. Whatever. We get a little blurb that people might be afraid of Dragonborn because your average peasant is kind of racist. Sure. Though I feel like if you are normalizing oddities like this enough for them to viable character options, only the most rural of folks would act like this.

Then again, probably not.

Their stats are typical and what you’d expect. There’s also a blurb about Draconians from Dragonlance now being evil Dragonborn. Okay? They say that they lack breath weapons and have unique spells instead, but they don’t say what these are so it’s an actual waste of fucking space to mention. There aren’t any subraces or actual variants, which is a bit egregious due to how different dragons are.

Now we are at Gnomes. I don’t like them. I find it funny how they have been downgraded from a core race to an unusual one. I also find it bizarre and I am curious about the reasoning behind it. People may find a sense of dread in the “Seeing the World” section outright saying that Gnomes tend to be obnoxious pieces of shit and I would agree with them.

Fuck Gnomes.

Mechanically speaking they are odd in that the base race barely applies anything at all whereas the subraces add in the vast bulk of it. All Gnomes are more intelligent than others, but for the most part it seems that they are keeping the differences between them significant. Which is fine.

Half-Elves are kind of whatever. No subraces, despite Elves being different from one another. Okay.

One of the most problematic races of them all, Half-Orcs, are still in. They’ve been a core thing for a while, but it can make some people uncomfortable. Whether it’s due to the typical circumstances of their birth or the near-alcoholic levels of urges to commit violence, they are worth a lot of complaints. You can tell good stories involving these, but it’s a hot topic that may not be worth tackling.

As usual they are oriented entirely towards hitting things good and being hard to kill. Halflings are more survivable though.

Now here’s something interesting: Tieflings, but no Aasimar. Surely with the subrace system an overall Half-Outsider with subraces involving the main planes would be better? I guess not. Oh well. Surely Mearls has used this subrace system to allow for Tieflings that have descended from different devilish lineages? No?

What a fucking waste of potential. Again. I really have nothing more to say about this.

They’re what you expect.

That’s about it for this post. The next one will pretty much be solely dedicated to classes. There’s a lot to go through there and this post is already painfully long. Long enough that I may break it up into two parts in the future. We’ll see. Until next time!

[kadobeclothing]

500 Atlassians Worked Remotely for a Week — Here’s What We Learned

Like most companies, Atlassian has a mixture of people who are working from home full-time (like me) and those who grab an ad-hoc day when the plumber is coming or they can’t stop sneezing. But our collective WFH muscles got a major workout recently when 500 of us went remote during the week-long gap between moving out of one office space and into another.

I talked to colleagues in several departments at Atlassian and dug into my own bag of tricks to bring you this collection of tips for working from home. And because working from home came with a few surprises, I’ll also share some little-known facts and a classic blooper – don’t miss these if you’re thinking of transitioning to full-time remote work.

Working From Home Tips 1. Dedicate a work space and make it your own. Yes, this tip is at the top of every other list of working from home tips you’ve ever read. There’s a reason for that. When you work from an office, your commute helps your brain shift into “work mode”. At home, you can create that same mental shift by dedicating a spot for working. “I have a separate desk at home that is pretty much only used for work,” says Miles, a marketing manager. “This helps me focus because I think of that area as a mini office.” If you’re short on space and have to use your couch or kitchen table, no worries. Just be consistent.

Trick out your home office space on the cheap, with the help of flea markets and a bit of DIY ingenuity. Don’t just stop once you’ve acquired a desk, though. Give your space some personality with wall art, framed photos, a desk lamp to die for, or an essential oil diffuser if that’s your jam. 2. Pace yourself. Y’know how running to the office kitchen to refill your coffee “real quick-like” typically results in a 10-minute hallway convo about your big new project? I didn’t understand the value of interludes like that until I went remote. At first, I would blast through my tasks for the week in about three days because there were so few interruptions. Sounds great, except I’d be completely out of gas by Thursday. And Fridays were, umm, less than productive. Your work week is a marathon – not a sprint. I quickly learned to sprinkle a few 5-10 minute pace breaks throughout the day, away from my desk if possible. For my teammate Claire, her furry friend makes all the difference. “I take my dog for a walk before I start work, at lunch, early afternoon, and after I’m done for the day. It’s a great mental break.” Not to mention healthy. Do ten push-ups or hold yourself in plank pose. Pick up your guitar. Make your grocery list. Your stamina (and your team) will thank you. 3. Be brutally self-aware. While some people (me included) absolutely love working from home, others love the idea of working from home… only to find the reality doesn’t suit them. And that’s ok. “It’s tough to get started, and it’s tough to set things aside when I’m done for the day,” says Jim, a developer on the Bitbucket team. “I also feel isolated from the rest of the team.” That’s a common sentiment, so don’t be afraid to own it. If transferring back into an office isn’t an option, self-awareness will help you find your WFH groove. Develop some strategies for staying connected to your team and understand what will help you focus vs. what will distract you. Have an open, on-going dialog with your team and check in with yourself regularly. Conversely, if you love working from home, take the time to reflect on why and make the most of those aspects. 4. Stock your kitchen with food you can be proud of. For those of us who’ve been spoiled by posh perks like company-provided meals, providing your own coffee and breakfast and lunch and snacks is quite an adjustment. A few days into his week of remote work, customer support analyst Orpheus (who is every bit as cool as his name suggests) lamented his lack of grab n’ go gnoshables: “Folks who work from home need a snack food budget.” Regardless of who pays, the logistics are on you. If your lunch game involves anything more complicated than warming up last night’s leftovers, you’ll need to build prep and clean-up time into your workday routine. For maximum efficiency, pick up a full week’s worth of supplies each Monday morning (unless a daily walk to the store is your pace break of choice). Choose brain-boosting superfoods like almonds, broccoli, berries, beans, eggs, and salmon. Remember, working from home tends to be more sedentary than office-based work, so skip the Oreos. 5. Dress as if you were going to the office (almost). Full-blown business attire probably isn’t necessary, but do make yourself presentable. You’re going to end up on a lot of video calls, for one thing (more on that later). More importantly, getting dressed is another important part of the mental shift into work mode. But don’t stop there. Establish a morning routine that is as close as possible to your routine when you’re going into an office. Here’s mine: 6:00 – Wake up, brush teeth, exercise. 7:00 – Get kids up, brew coffee, shower, get dressed (including hair and make-up), unload the dishwasher, help my daughter do her hair, curse at the stray Legos I inevitably step on. 8:00 – Take my son to preschool. 8:30 – Start work. Rituals allow us to make transitions with minimal mental and emotional turbulence. Yours might be totally mundane like mine, or you might mix it up by working for an hour before you shower and dress. The important thing is to find a routine that works for you and step through it consistently. “The routine of physically getting ready for work is one of the most important things I did to make my week of working from home productive”, says Cameron, who leads an engineering group of more 250 people. 6. Get over your hang-ups around video conferencing. Many of us have scars from struggling with video calls in years past – the struggle was real. That may explain why people new to working from home, and their teammates in the office, are often skittish about vid chat. The good news is that now you can jump into a video call in a matter of seconds using Skype, Google Hangouts, Zoom, BlueJeans, or similar services. “Being comfortable with quick video chats saves a lot of time compared to trading emails or instant messages,” says dev tools marketer Alyss. That face-to-face interaction also does wonders in terms of building relationships with co-workers. However, be prepared to coach your co-workers a little as they learn to embrace the impromptu video call. Their instinct will be to go find an empty conference room, which just wastes time. If you walked over to their desk in person, you’d have the conversation right there and been done in under a minute. Nobody would think twice about distracting people at neighboring desks because ambient noise is just part of being in an office. Video calls should be treated the same way. Once my teammates got accustomed to that idea, it made working as a distributed team a lot easier. And while we all want to present an aura of perfect professionalism, I encourage you not to stress about it overly much. There will be a time when the doorbell rings or your cat walks across your laptop, right in front of your camera. My kids sometimes pop into view on evening calls with people across the Pacific and I allow it because they seem to enjoy the extra glimpse into my world. (Your mileage may vary, of course, but we can all thank “the BBC guy” for breaking some serious ground on our behalf.) And now, a few surprising things about working from home full-time … Although I felt I’d done my homework before going remote, there was still a lot to learn. If you’re considering going fully remote, take these tidbits into account. There’s a good chance your boss would rather keep you on as a remote worker than replace you. Recruiting, interviewing, and on-boarding new employees is a lot of overhead. Many managers feel having an established teammate go remote is far less disruptive on the whole – especially if you’re crushing it lately. Supporting remote employees is not trivial from an HR and tax perspective. In the U.S., a company must have a tax entity set up in every state in which they have a full-time employee. For this reason, many companies restrict full-time remote work to states where they already have offices. Benefits administration gets complicated because many insurance carriers operate regionally instead of nationally. And it’s just good business sense to adjust remote employees’ salaries to be in line with where they’re living. Figuring all this out takes time away from work HR could be doing that might benefit more people. So if you meet resistance from your employer about going remote, don’t assume they’re trying to be evil. They’re just trying to be practical. There are hidden costs to remote work. You’ll need the fastest, strongest internet connection money can buy. You’ll be paying for (and taking the time to procure) all your coffee, snacks, and meals. Your utility bill will go up because you’re no longer tuning the heat and/or air conditioning down during the day and you’re keeping more lights on. For most people, however, these new costs will be offset by the fact that you’re not gassing up the car or paying bus fare as often. Sharing a workspace with a roommate or partner feels less isolated, but has its own challenges. My husband works remotely too, and when we moved, we made sure to buy a home with an office we can share. It was a great way to start the transition to remote work. Soon, however, he was working almost exclusively from his recliner. We could never agree on what temperature the room should be, and we both tend to be vocal participants in meetings. So now we work in separate rooms and send chat messages to each other even though we’re 50 feet apart. Which is kind of pathetic, but there it is. Extroverts actually do quite well as remote workers. The key to staying in the loop and feeling connected when you’re the one remote member of your team is initiating communication. ABC, baby – always be communicating. We extroverts tend to do this instinctively anyway. Interpersonal interaction is our default setting. So we get a “two birds, one stone” synergy bonus. Getting everyone to take the meeting via video is kind of awesome. When only one person joins remotely, it’s easy to (unintentionally) leave them out of the discussion and harder for them to contribute. But when everyone dials in, even if it’s from their desk at the office, we’re all in the same boat and on our best behavior. We raise our hands to speak. We wait until the other person is done talking before chiming in. We’re less likely to let one person dominate the conversation.

All-remote meetings + Halloween = good times. Besides: you know who enjoys being the one giant head on the TV during meetings? Nobody. This working from home thing isn’t for everybody. Although I’d love to tell you the WFH week was universally loved, it wasn’t. Max from marketing said it was “only the best week ever”, while Mary, a product owner, missed the higher level of social interaction and felt like the week was something she “just had to get through”. For others, it was a big empathy-builder. “Be mindful of our remote colleagues and how easy it is for them to feel (or be) left out,” says Adam from technical account management. Your experience working from home will involve plenty of twists, turns, fails, and wins. Be patient as you and your team adjust, expect the unexpected, and just roll with it. At least you can rest easy knowing you won’t be the first remote worker whose toddler makes an unplanned cameo on international television. This article was originally published on Atlassian.com and republished with permission.

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