#jovar

[dyzzythedemon]

"Sometimes... things don't have to end."

A goodbye picture for Jovar, a campaign that meant a lot to me, perhaps too much at times. I will never truly forget these characters and their struggles, but I'm glad to be able to close the book on their stories.

[moronofsteel]

antar & jo

[sadmushroomgoblin]

Beach Episode

Adira buries their toes in the sand, subtly taking their cues from Jett who looks thoroughly at home. She’s all decked out with the towel and parasol, a cocktail in one hand and corn chips in the other. Adira has never been on a beach before. Hugh is making the patrols with sunscreen and he swipes a sip from Paul’s drink on the way back. Paul laughs and presses a quick kiss to Hugh’s cheek. 

Beside Adira, Tilly grumbles about the sang getting in her hair but she’s also grinning and is halfway through a glass of Kellerun citrus mash - courtesy of Rayner. 

Sand doesn’t feel the same as programmable matter and they find themself transfixed by the texture, the shells, the little creatures that scamper around. It’s all a little overwhelming. They’d spent their life on a generation ship and then a UE patrol ship. This was completely new. 

They have to admit, they’re avoiding looking at the ocean. They can hear the gentle crash of waves and about ten minutes ago Detmer and Owosekun ran off into it, apparently Owosekun loved to swim. Adira could technically swim but aside from the caves of Makhala, they hadn’t ever really needed to. They were far more comfortable in zero gravity than in water. 

They shout in surprise, nearly knocking over Reno’s parasol as a bird streaks down from the sky and snatches a chip Jett had dropped.

Jett cackles and Adira glares at her for a moment.

“What the hell was that?” They brush the sand off themself and Reno shakes her head with amusement.

“That, kid, is a seagull,” she says and Adira stares with wide eyes at the circling birds above. Jovar had loved birds and the memories from Tal were always of majestic scenes and science. A seagull was not something Jovar had prepared Adira for. 

They make a mental note that this is definitely something Gray will want to hear about. 

They exhale and breathe in the air. It tastes of salt and seems sticky against their skin but there is something undeniably refreshing about it. Seagulls and vast expanses of water aside, they could get used to this.

———————

For the amazing @adiraofthetals! Thank you for the request

[pakunodasgun]

I present to you my Jojo ocs! Micah and Ophelia!

Micah is Ophelia’s body guard and best friend, Ophelia is a spoiled rich girl who likes fashion and collecting art, she is very much based on Neon from HxH

They are ocs on my own Jojo part called Ruby Spirit!

Ophelia is the love interest of my Jojo (Joana Jovares)

Micah’s Stand is his gun, I’m still thinking about what to call it and how it works. Ophelia has a fortune telling stand called The Future, it holds a crystal ball! Her father uses it to gain money

[ariveth]

2. Are they sexually active? 6. Tell us about their best and worst sex experience? 12. Would you consider your muse to be kinky?

2. Are they sexually active?

YES LMAO — although, now that she’s older, she’s been a little more careful/selective than she used to be with the concern of fertility; especially since she’s never heeded advice to avoid sleeping with human males.

6. Tell us about their best and worst sex experience?

Her best probably would’ve been with Jovar, given how gentle and sweet he always was with her, he would’ve been primarily focused on her pleasure. Her first time was probably the worst, with Vythin. Not because it was particularly bad but because she’d been in unrequited love with him at the time and she hadn’t yet learned to disconnect her feelings from the act.

12. Would you consider your muse to be kinky?

Given her age and her personality, absolutely lmao

[cagemasterfantasy]

Dnd Cosmology: Mount Celestia

Alignment: Lawful Good

Planar Portal Color: Gold

The Seven Heavens of Mount Celestia rise like a mountain from a shining Silver Sea to utterly incomprehensible heights with 7 plateaus marking its 7 heavenly layers. The plane is the model of justice and order of celestial grace and endless mercy where angels and champions of good guard against incursions of evil. It is one of the few places on the planes where travelers can let down their guard. Its inhabitants strive constantly to be as righteous as possible. Countless creatures aim to reach the highest and most sublime peak of the mountain but only the purest souls can. That peak fills even the most jaded of travelers with awe.

The pervasive goodness of Mount Celestia bestows blessings on creatures on the planes.

Layers of Mount Celestia:

Lunia: In the Silver Heaven of Lunia the holy water of the Silver Sea laps at the base of the celestial mountain on a starry sky.

Mercuria: The Golden Heaven of Mount Celestia's tame slopes and lush valleys are bathed in golden light that evokes the hope of a new dawn.

Venya: In the Pearly Heaven of Venya terraced fields and tended woodlands dot the snowy slopes.

Solania: In the Crystal Heaven of Solania holy shrines glitter under a silvery sky amid luminescent fog.

Mertion: On the sweeping plains of the Platinum Heaven of Mertion holy soldiers muster in grand citadels for battles across the planes.

Jovar: The Glittering Heaven of Jovar strewn with beautiful rubies and garnets is home to the seven tiered Heavenly City.

Chronias: The Illuminated Heaven of Chronias is an ineffable mystery.

Mount Celestia Adventure Ideas: The plane of ultimate law and good is sometimes imagined to be the most boring place in the multiverse but in truth Mount Celestia's nature makes it the target of unrelenting attacks by evil forces. The devils of the Nine Hells in particular long to corrupt the goodness of the Seven Heavens. The Yugoloths of the Lower Planes covet the wealth of the plane particularly the mines of Solania and the scattered gems of Jovar. And the demons of the Abyss like nothing better than to smear their filth on the gleaming purity of Mount Celestia.

But while Fiends of all sorts launch doomed assaults on the shores of Lunia evil's true foothold on the plane is in the hearts of those well-meaning visitors who bring their secret shame and hidden sins to the holy mountain. An adventure in Mount Celestia is an opportunity for characters to prove for characters to prove themselves worthy of the many blessings it offers or to become worthy by forswearing the selfishness greed and hatred that lurks in their hearts.

On the edge of a clear lake in Mertion stands the city of Empyrea renowned for the healing power of its fountains and springs. Pilgrims from across the planes seek out the healers hospitals and restorative magic found here.

@doodl3

[talenlee]

4e: When You Crit

I have never found feats or abilities that amplify the effect of critical hits to be exciting in 4th edition. There are plenty of them — almost every book features an effect that looks really cool and special, but it only fires off when you critically hit an opponent. You can have powerful effects on crits, mind you! Famously, D&D offers in its history, the Vorpal Sword, a weapon that decapitates on a crit – fight over, we are done. And the vorpal weapon is part of a powerful lineage of reasons to want to crit.

A while ago, a friend described for me the idea of a ‘raisins sentence’ where the excitement in the sentence increases every step, until suddenly dropping off a cliff, demonstrated with the phrase:

Would you like some chocolate covered raisins

The idea is that every part of this sentence is great but the raisins makes the whole thing disappointing. A lot of the crit-based feats, powers, and item rules are like that. Sure, crits are great! They can be very powerful, and making crits even better is even better still. But when a feat describes a strategy or a style of play that’s exciting that kicks in or triggers when you crit, all the air goes out of my enthusiasm.

Why, though?

Ehhh, a couple of reasons.

Now, I’m not about to bust out comparison tables, but to simplify if you can crit on 1 of the 20 numbers, then in a fight where you roll 20 dice, you’re probably going to get a crit. If you make one attack every turn, then you’re going to need 20 turns to expect to crit. I’m not used to 4e D&D fights taking that long and I play a lot of this system. That right there makes ‘when you crit’ effects seem pretty unlikely, especially because even in long fights where the odds are in your favour that it happens, you might not get your crit until towards the last third of the fight – and statistically, that’s likely about a third of the time.

This means that effects triggering on a crit don’t give a reliable output — you can’t rely on them showing up when you want them. You could get your crit effect that makes you hit super hard on an enemy that’s going to die instantly when you hit them. You could get your encounter-long buff or long-lasting bleed effect on an enemy that isn’t going to notice or care or need the effect.

This can mean ‘crit support’ lives in this weird space where no matter how powerful it is, it just doesn’t interest me much. Too unreliable!

I think though, that this is one of those signs of the lessons learned from 3rd edition D&D. In that edition, there were a few ways to get ‘improved crit’ — a critical threat range that could be expanded by the number the weapon started with. For a weapon that crit on a 20, that meant improving the crit got you a 19-20 crit range. For a weapon that started at 19-20, you got 17-20. For a weapon that started at 18-20 – and they were around, the Jovar and the Scimitar being two widely used examples – then your crit range expanded to six numbers on the dice, 15-20.

If your DM fell asleep at the wheel and let you use the 17-20 crit range from the Punch Knives in Sword and Fist (don’t use this, it’s dumb), then your critical hit range with just the Improved Criticals feat would streak up to 13-20, or almost half of all the possible numbers you can hit on. That was weapon choice + one feat, and there were ways to push it higher! A particularly aggressive build that didn’t compromise anything could run around critting on 9-20, and then it was just a matter of time before that character got effects like Vorpal on their weapons, and made every combat a sequence of hit rolls before they decapitated people. The damage became irrelevant, you just wanted to make sure you hit and then could follow up the hit with some ludicrous extra effects every time. And this is 3e, when most melee fighting characters were making 4-5 attacks a turn.

In 4e, this kind of build just isn’t very doable, at least, not like that. As good as a crit can be, you can’t really get these huge expanded crit ranges. There are weapons that crit on more numbers, but if that’s their magical property, they can’t be vorpal weapons. There are feats that make you crit more often, but they are often linked to specific feats and classes, and small windows of time like ‘until end of turn.’

Your only strategy, then, to get more crits under 4e, largely, is to roll more dice.

This can be pretty tricky, too, because the best ways to roll more dice is to make more attacks. Area attackers, like control archetypes (hello druid, I love you druid) get to roll a lot of dice, and that can be good, but they also don’t tend to get effects that do a lot on a crit on their weapons. Not nothing, but nothing as exciting as you see in melee weapons.

The generally-agreed upon, simplest way to do it, then, is to blend together the ranger with some avengerness, or an avenger with some rangerness, or a secret third thing (a bard poaching from both). If you take a pair of jagged weapons and twin strike your oath of emnity, you’re rolling 4 dice every attack and hoping to critically hit by rolling a 19 or a 20. Using our simplified math from up above, that means that you go from one likely crit every twenty turns to one likely crit every two and a half turns.

What’s more, if those weapons are light blades (like, say, daggers) you can attack with them on your off-turn with opportunity attacks in Paragon tier, which means you could be getting 8 dice rolls a turn, which makes a 1/10 chance seem more likely. That’s pretty exciting.

But but but I hear you say, but what about the Righteous Rage of Tempus? Righteous Rage of Tempus is amazing. The feat Righteous Rage of Tempus is available to any divine character (so, Paladins and Avengers) and it makes your next attack deal damage as if it were a crit.

And that’s it.

See, once upon a time, Righteous Rage of Tempus – and if you look it up in the book, it does still say it, – it says the attack is an automatic critical hit. This is obviously really strong, especially since you can control when it happens. You could load a character up with all sorts of ‘when you critical hit’ support, and then they open combat with a front-loaded attack to trigger all of them. And therefore, the fun police came along and changed it so the Righteous Rage of Tempus only gives you the damage of a crit up front.

Which is still cool, and it encourages you to build so that your crits have bigger and more dice rather than trying to crit a lot for secondary effects. That’s an interesting and cool different direction, and it also requires the build to be a bit less… lopsided without a crit.

Essentially then you have two build options that look at crits that I like. One, the crit-fishing avengangerard, and the called-shot crit-hammering Paladin/Avenger build that gets Righteously Mad at something.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[inkblotdemon]

we know Adira and Gray obviously, and the white-haired one in the middle is the fifth Tal host Senna, but it’s driving me nuts that they don’t tell us which of the remaining four is Kasha, Jovar, Madela and Cara! They didn’t even show the full cast list (I’ve looked everywhere) so we don’t know who the actors are :(

[protectspock]

Who are the previous Tal hosts? How old is Tal?

After exiting the memory pool, Adira names them as follows: 

Kasha Tal, Jovar Tal, Madela Tal, Cara Tal, Senna Tal, and Gray Tal, in that order. 

We know that this is Gray, blue-haired trans king of our hearts:

And we know that this is Senna Tal, the mysterious Admiral who led Discovery to Earth in the first place. His memories are probably going to play an important role this season. 

That leaves these folks: 

Tal A.

Tal B.

Tal C.

D.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Tal A. is Kasha because his uniform is exactly what is worn in Picard:

Picard takes place in the 2390s. If Kasha Tal was an officer in this era, it would make the Tal Symbiont around 800 years old, which doesn’t seem quite right to me. We aren’t sure what the Trill lifespan is, but Curzon was definitely elderly when he was a bit over 100 years old. Symbionts usually join with hosts around age 20, so if every host lived to 100 (which they probably didn’t) then that would only make Tal somewhere around 400 years old. The most shocking thing about this is that Starfleet actually kept the same uniform design for 400 years. Unprecedented! Maybe my math or understanding of Trill biology is wrong here, and I hope it is because I love the idea of Kasha Tal getting to bump elbows with characters from Picard and Lower Decks! 

Tal C. is also clearly a Starfleet officer, but from an era we haven’t seen, and the others have no uniform to give them away, so it’s impossible to identify Tal B, C, and D. If I were to make an educated guess, it seems like Tal might alternate careers in starfleet and careers elsewhere, in which case Tal C is probably Madela. D and B are less certain, but the face that they’re standing next to each other in the circle (although the are clearly not standing in order, since Senna is in the middle) makes me suspect that B is Jovar and D is Cara. 

[luckthebard]

Our party got in a major scrape today. I was unluckily surrounded by imps and knocked unconscious.

First death save: Natural 1.

Second death save: 5

RIP Eurydice Jovar. You had a really cool backstory and your college of tragedy bard abilities were dope.

[dyzzythedemon]

BEHOLD! Skye's alt. outfit! It was for a campaign that's done now so I can post all of these!

[doitforstamets]

Jovar Tal loved birds, so.

[kaitrices]

JOVAR FORTNITE OUVINDO MUSICA É TERAPUA FAZ BEM

[sketcherbrows]

s-swEDE??? 👁👁

yä asså jovars det e man väl såatte ja tjabba

[noblecrumpet-dorkvision]

Angel Week: Angelology

image source: Ezekiel’s Chariot Vision, Matthäus Merian

I ultimately went with the Christian pantheon of angels for the archons I created and melded them with ideas from the D&D hebdomad to create my own hierarchy and mythology. But for those that want to know about angels and archons, here are some of the mythological inspirations behind this week's content! 

Christian Angelic Choirs

In Christianity, the angels below God are divided into several “choirs” and are then put into three spheres, with the first sphere being at the top. Some angels are a lot more alien than you might think!

First Sphere:

Seraphim: These beings are literally burning with passion for the Lord. Like, they are on fire. The seraphim are the highest angels just below God. Each has six wings, two covering the face, two covering the feet, and two to fly. The inside of their wings were covered in eyes. They continuously shout praises of God.

Cherubim: Probably the weirdest one. They have the feet of a calf, four wings that are covered in eyes, and four faces. Each of its faces are of a different animal likely symbolic of different virtues. A lion's face for strength, a man's face for wisdom, a bull's face for diligence, and an eagle's face for freedom. The cherubim are said to record all that happens in the universe.

Thrones/Ophanim: Okay nevermind this is the weirdest one. Two blue-colored wheels perpendicular to each other and one inside of the other. Their rims are covered in eyeballs. They spin and move from the force of faith directly from the cherubim and serve as God's throne.

Second Sphere:

Dominions: The dominions are divinely beautiful, winged, and wield orbs of light on scepters or swords. They deliver justice to unjust, show mercy to mortals, and relegate lower angels. They carry out acts of god like the obliteration of Sodom and Gomorrah. They answer prayers of powerful world leaders whose decisions affect many.

Virtues: The virtues send good vibes to people's minds like peace and hope. They encourage and empower those who would become saints after death. God empowers them to perform miracles for mortals. Their job is to instill faith in mortals.

Powers: The powers protect mortals from temptation and control the movement of the heavens. They are depicted as warrior angels that cast fiends to prisons. They regulate the powers of and between mankind and are sometimes known for shepherding souls to heaven.

Third Sphere:

Principalities/Authorities: These beings guide and protect nations and groups. They are depicted wearing a crown and scepter. They inspire arts and sciences. They encourage mortals to practice prayers and rituals that will bring them closer to God.

Archangels: God's messengers and protectors of nations and the events surrounding them, including politics, commerce, and warfare. Kinda strange that archangels are so low in the power structure since their modern depiction in fantasy is that of "leader" angels.

Angels: The lowest in the hierarchy and most concerned with specific living beings and their affairs. They provide aid and send word of miracles to mortals.

Zoroastrian Spirits

There are some angelic spirits in Zoroastrianism. They come in three different classes:

Amesha Spenta: Literally "beneficent immortals." These are just below the Ahura Mazda, the Supreme Being, in power level. There are six types:

Vohu Mano (Good Mind): They preside over cattle

Asha Vahishta (Highest Asha): They preside over fire

Khshathra Vairya (Desirable Dominion): They preside over metals

Spenta Armaiti (Holy Devotion): They preside over the earth

Haurvatat (Perfection): They preside over water

Ameretat (Immortality): They preside over the earth

Fravashi: Holy Guardian Angels. Each person is accompanied by one and guides them throughout their lives. Each serves an ideal which the soul should strive to emulate, so that the person they guard can become a fravashi themselves after death.

Yazata: "Adorable ones." These personify abstract ideas and virtues or objects in nature. They try to protect men from evil and there are wayyyy too many of them to list here.

Gnostic Archons

Ever wonder where the term Archon came from? Well the term itself is from a Greek political leader, but as a divine being it stems from Gnosticism and they are NOT lawful-good. This is also the place where the idea of a Celestial Hebdomad of D&D lore comes from (especially considering one of the D&D paragons is named after the Pistis Sophia, a Gnostic text).

The hebdomad of Gnosticism is a group of seven creatures called archons that created the world. They are servants of the Demiurge, a creator god (but not the actual God). They were seen as malevolent forces only slightly less evil than demons. The idea of the hebdomad itself originates from observation of seven celestial bodies: the sun, moon, and five other planets.

Yaldabaoth: His name means Child of Chaos and he is depicted as a lion-faced bronze serpent of fire. He represents the planet Saturn. After he was created by Sophia (wisdom), he basically said "I am God and there is no other God beside me" and proceeded to steal creative power to create six other archons:

Iao (a serpent with seven heads, represents Jupiter)

Sabaoth (dragon's face, represents Mars)

Astaphanos (hyena's face, represents Venus)

Adonaios (monkey's face, represents the sun)

Elaios (donkey's face, represents Mercury)

Horaios (represents the moon)

Then those archons went and made a ton of other angels, one for each day of the year. It's very complicated and I really gotta pick up a book about it because it sounds very interesting (and web searches show a lot of conflicting content!)

The Celestial Hebdomad (D&D)

I can't explicitly mention Celestia or the proper names of the hebdomad's members in my homebrew content for copyright reasons, but I can explain it in a Tumblr post (with no homebrew content whatsoever) for those that wanted to know!

The seven mounting heavens of Celestia is the plane of ultimate law and good in the Great Wheel Cosmology. It has seven layers and is populated by the archons. The highest seven Tome Archons rule among the seven layers as Celestial Paragons:

Barachiel the Messenger: Ruler of Lunia the Silver Heaven, the first layer. He coordinates Celestia’s defenses and serves as a herald. He is a patron of those bringing news.

Domiel the Mercy-Bringer: Ruler of Mercuria the Golden Heaven, the second layer. He protects the holy mausoleums in his realm.

Erathaol the Seer: Ruler of Venya the Pearly Heaven, the third layer. He is a patron of divine divination magic.

Pistis Sophia the Ascetic: Ruler of Solania the Crystal Heaven, the fourth layer. She is a patron of monk and embodies charity and truth.

Raziel the Crusader: Ruler of Mertion the Platinum Heaven, the fifth layer. He is a patron to paladins and opposes tyranny.

Sealtiel the Defender: Ruler of Jovar the Glittering Heaven, the sixth layer. He is the patron of Warden Archons and defends Chronias from incursions by impure creatures. Aspiring celestials see him for guidance to help reach the seventh heaven.

Zaphkiel the Watcher: Ruler of Chronias the Illuminated Heaven, the seventh layer. His light consumes all but the most pure.

Anyway, these are the sorts of things I’ve been looking at as I worked on Angel Week. I’ll have my new archons up later tonight so stay tuned! I’m mostly just formatting the images ;)

Side note: I’m not a scholar of this stuff but it does interest me. If you know more about these mythological beings outside of what’s here, lemme know!

[nattvingen]

Hej, hur mår du?

Jovars, kan inte klaga!