#malithah

[beingatoaster]

This story started as one of those OC music videos that I think we all choreograph in our own heads when we listen to music--for this one, The Score’s Legend, specifically. Somehow my brain turned it from a music video to a comic, but since I can’t draw anything like what I was envisioning, I spent a lot of time thinking that there was no way I could really get across the visuals.

And then I realized that, y’know, it wouldn’t be exactly the same, but an outside POV might at least let me get all of the most important parts.

---

One of the people who's supposed to save the village is at Margaret's stall, examining her apples. Margaret wasn't introduced to the adventurers, she's not that important a person, but she can't imagine any other reason an elf this fancy would seem so interested in her wares. This wasn't a good apple year.

She can't imagine this woman fighting off the bandits, either. She's got those delicate elfy features, skin so pale it almost seems silvery, and long blue hair falling loose and easy to grab. More than that, though, she's wearing a big poncy red dress, the kind with the skirt belled out by a structure underneath, and she's added a row of huge bows down the back of the bodice. There's a huge bow matching it on the band of her lacy, broad-brimmed red hat. But maybe she uses some kind of magic--elves are good with magic, aren't they? And there's a whole group of them, so hopefully the rest can actually fight.

Margaret smiles at the woman and makes sure not to fuss about the fact that she's blocking everyone else from the stall and not buying anything. She's just picking up little wrinkled apples, frowning at them, and setting them down, over and over. It's kind of a relief that she hasn't tried to make eye contact with Margaret. The wide brim of her hat mostly blocks her face, bent over the apples as she is, so Margaret's free to look over the rest of the market while she pretends to shop.

Everyone's tense, which is no surprise, and Margaret's not the only one who keeps looking down to the end of the market street where it leads into the green at the center of the village. All the children are there, from five to fifteen, just like the bandits demanded. That was what had gotten the squire to finally agree to actually spend money doing something about them, and not just keep appeasing them at everyone else's expense. The squire has two children in that age range, and they're the most well-fed and bright-eyed of the lot.

At least one of the adventurers is with them. The little bent figure has to be an adventurer, because Margaret's never seen her before in her life, and those pointed ears and hunched back and curling whisps of white hair pulled back into an untidy bun are all quite distinctive. Especially at her diminutive height. She's shorter than all but the smallest of the children clustered around her, exclaiming in amazement at the way the insubstantial flowers in her cupped hands change color at her command. More magic.

That seems a bit unbalanced to Margaret, if two of them are magic. Sure, magic's good for fighting dragons and griffons and such, she's heard tales of wizards throwing fireballs, but throw fire here in the village and they'll set it alight. Someone who can meet the bandits on their own terms seems much more useful. At least the tiny woman has a big dog at her side. Margaret would bet on a dog that big any day.

She's heard there's five of them, but no matter how much more Margaret looks around, she can only see the two. Hopefully that's a good sign. It would warn the bandits if they saw weapons out, so maybe it means the other three are the more usual kind of fighter, hiding away for the bandits to arrive.

It isn't a long wait, though it feels longer with the fancy elf-lady standing there wordlessly touching all of Margaret's apples. The bandits come swaggering up the road just before noon, all thirteen of them, their scar-faced leader and her arrogant lieutenant at the fore. They spread out as they arrive, each going to one merchant or another to shake them down, while the leader and the remaining three of them head towards the green and the children.

By Margaret's ill luck, it's the lieutenant, with his groping hands and his sour breath, who takes her stall. Though he doesn't seem interested in either her or her apples, at least, not with the beautiful elf-woman standing there.

"Hey, love," he croons, putting a hand on the elf's shoulder. Margaret sees her go stiff at the moment of contact. "What's a pretty lady like you doing in a shithole town like this?"

The elf turns her head just far enough to look at him sideways, her delicate lip curling. She doesn't answer, just reaches up--for a moment Margaret thinks she's going to try and grab the man's hand, for what good that would do with her slender fingers and delicate wrist. Instead she continues upward, grasping the broad lacy brim of her hat and raising it slightly off her head, almost as if she's tipping it at him.

As the hat tilts upward, it changes, suddenly, in her hand. No longer is it a lacy, bow-dotted monstrosity. The brim is still broad, and it's still red, but the decoration is much more modest, just a flat white ribbon for a hat-band, with a single pheasant's feather sticking out of it. Below it, the rest of her outfit falls away, the bows and the wide skirt vanishing. Under what Margaret knows just enough to realize was an illusion is a much simpler outfit, a loose knee-length violet skirt and some reddish-purple cloth around her chest and shoulders that Margaret isn't sure even qualifies as a shirt. It doesn't look any more useful in a fight than the fancy dress did.

Where the bows were, though, is a huge sheathed sword, straight down her back, the point of it nearly touching the ground, the hilt nearly reaching the brim of the hat. *That* looks useful.

The grabby lieutenant stumbles backwards, gaping, when the illusion drops away. He recovers quickly, though, his eyes narrowing as he reaches for the curved sword at his belt. "Trap! Weapons up, you lot, they've set a trap!"

It's the last words he ever says. The elf-woman, who Margaret sees now is silver-skinned in a much, much darker shade, a grey almost black, draws the huge sword and swings it in one savage motion, wiry muscles bulging in her back and shoulders and arms. She sweeps it right into his neck, but not through it. Margaret hears the sound of metal grating against bone, a sound she's heard during butchering, and knows it must have gone in at the wrong angle and struck a vertebrae instead of sliding between. Even only having half his neck cut through is enough to drop him, though, clawing at his throat as blood sprays.

Her long white hair swinging around her, the woman steps back and examines the new notch in her blade with a grimace. She says words that Margaret doesn't understand, presumably Elvish, but the way she spits them out makes their meaning clear enough.

Then the two closest bandits rush towards her, shouting, waving a club and an axe. She adjusts her stance, bringing her sword up to slant over her shoulder, and grins, fierce and wild. Her eyes are bloodshot, pupils so wide that Margaret can't make out their color, and her muscles knot up visibly under her skin until Margaret can see their veins bulging.

Margaret backs away as the woman meets the bandits' charge. They manage to strike her, both of them, but she hardly seems to feel it. She, in turn, wields that enormous blade against them with a strength and fury that seem disproportionate to her slight form.

Hidden in the alley behind her stall, Margaret dares to glance beyond the woman to the rest of the fight. The children who were on the green seem to have scattered, which is a tremendous relief, and the tiny old woman who'd been so delighting them with illusionary flowers is now surrounded by insubstantial... animals? Yes, there's two ghostly deer, a few badgers, and a profusion of rabbits. But they seem to be fighting for her, keeping the lesser bandits occupied.

Their scar-faced leader is up against the enormous dog. As Margaret watches, she swings her flail hard enough to cave in the poor beast's ribs, sending it flying to the side to the land limp on the ground. Margaret winces, feeling deeply sorry for the animal, who only was trying to defend its mistress.

But even as the dog hits the ground, it's changing, skin going scaly and spine lengthening and head doming up into a massive lizard's skull. The lizardfolk, wearing no more than a leather harness and scraps of a skirt, rises to their feet and lifts up a leafy branch in one hand. Vines sprout around the leader, coiling around her legs and waist and binding her in pace.

Closer to the market, more bandits are engaged with another figure, tall and burly and covered head-to-toe with hair. Margaret has no idea what he is, though the sharp tusks make her think orcish--orcs are grey-toned, though, not brown, and not nearly so shaggy. Whatever he is, he's clearly a warrior, and there's some comfort in seeing heavy armor and a sturdy shield on at least one of these wild folk. He's knocking bandits over like bowling-pins with his heavy morningstar, and the elf-woman has moved so that any try to get up again get the chop.

The adventurers work much faster than Margaret had expected. In the space of what feels like only seconds, surely a minute or two at most, all the bandits but the leader have fallen under their assault. Some die without seeming to be touched at all, though at one point Margaret sees a black streak flashing by one trying to get at the hairy man's back, and then that figure stumbles and goes down screaming. The four of them move to surround the leader where the vines still hold her tight. As they do, a small figure in a black cloak scuttles up to join them, making the full five.

"Question for you lot," the hairy one calls out, turning towards the market. Margaret isn't the only one hiding in an alley, but she inches out along with one of the other merchants at his call. "You want this one alive for trial or anything?"

Margaret looks over at Willard, the cheesemaker, and shrugs at him. He shrugs back. When she looks around at the rest of the market, no one else seems willing enough to emerge from their hiding places to get a say.

Probably the squire has an opinion. He'd love the idea of a trial, something fancy and formal that he could preside officiously over, to puff up his sense of his own importance even further than he already has. But the squire let these people swagger into town over and over again, because they never touched the squire, just all the regular folk trying to barter for what they needed in the marketplace. And even with his children here, the squire hasn't hung around for the fight. Margaret doesn't care much what the squire wants at this point.

"Kill her," she says, expecting her voice to come out high and shaky and surprised that it's, while not steady, at least clear. "She was going to take our children as her servants, and who knows what else she'd have done to them. We don't want her alive."

The hairy man nods and looks over at the dark little elf-woman. The others step back as she raises up her sword. Then she swings it, once, stepping forward and pivoting as she does so to put every bit of her weight into it. This time, it goes right through the spine.

As the bandit leader's head goes bouncing off onto the green, a ragged cheer rises in the marketplace. Children emerge from the shed at the edge of the green where the little old woman must have hidden them, and the lizardfolk quickly spawns more greenery with a wave of their hand to hide the worst of the carnage. Margaret takes a deep breath and realizes that she's shaking in relief.

"You folks get paid ahead of time?" Willard asks, once glad parents have rushed out of their houses to herd their fascinated children away. "Because I'll tell you now, the squire's gonna be stingy about it."

"Naw," the hairy man says, then grins, putting all his very sharp teeth on display. "That's what we've got Nan for."

Margaret looks at the others, expecting the lizardfolk or the little cloaked scuttling one to do something. Instead, it's the grandmotherly one, the little tiny hunchbacked old woman with her sparkling eyes and her deep smile-lines and her brightly-colored shawl. She raises a hand and points at the bandit leader, then swings it around to designate each of the dead bandits in turn. For each one, she pauses to tap her cane against the ground.

As she finishes the motion, she murmurs something in a high, cracking voice. Slowly the bodies of the dead begin to pull themselves upright, limbs dangling. The bandit leader's headless corpse stumps over to her head, picks it up, and tucks it under her arm.

"He'll pay us, if he wants them in the ground," the old woman says, giving Margaret and Willard a toothless grin almost as frightening as the hairy man's toothy one. There's a laugh in her creaky voice, like she thinks this is all one great grand joke.

"Th- that should work," Margaret stammers, backing respectfully away to duck back behind her stall. Amazingly, none of her crates of apples or jugs of cider have been knocked over in the fight.

The strange little band of adventurers start away from the market, across the green and towards the squire's manor, all the dead marching in front of them. As they head off, though, the smallest one breaks away from the rest, turning and scuttling straight towards Margaret's stall with his black cloak flapping behind him.

When he reaches her, he pushes back his hood, just enough for her to see a scaled black snout and huge gold eyes under scaly brows, a face almost more dragon-like than lizardy. There's a hint of orange at his throat, just above where the cloak is clasped. Kobold, she thinks, even though he doesn't look much like the skulking rusty-brown specimens that pop up now and then around here.

He points up towards the crates full of apples, even the lowest of them out of his reach. "How much?"

"Oh," Margaret exclaims, surprised that it was a question and not a demand. She takes a couple of the best apples from the top of her display and leans forward, offering them up. "You don't need to pay for these."

"No," he says, his cloak flapping as his tail flicks back and forth beneath it. "I pay. How much?"

"Um." Margaret would be mortified to actually charge the little creature. "The squire hired you, right? He'll pay for it."

The kobold studies her suspiciously for a long moment, then nods and reaches out, snatching one of the apples from her hand. It vanishes beneath his cloak, and then he turns about and dashes off to catch up with his friends without even a word of thanks. When he reaches them, he pulls the apple back out, holding it up for the taller members of the group to examine. The lizardfolk bends low to admire it.

At the rear, the elf-woman turns back to look at Margaret, giving her a nod. Margaret nods back, which seems to satisfy her, because she promptly turns her back. Margaret watches her go, walking calm and confident among the rest of her motley little crew. They saved the village from the bandits, so she can't not be grateful. But at the same time, she's glad to see the back of their strange group. None of them seem like regular sort of folk. People like that, they couldn't be anything else but adventurers.

[beingatoaster]

...if i haven't managed to fling asks your way yet (or if you just need more): 🌹☄️💐 for Ryxtlin, 🍄💦🌸 for Housin, 🍂🌼🌺 for Fsssh, 🌾🌲🍁 for Malithah, and 🌿🥀💫 for Nib?

Once again, I apologize for the delay in answering (and to answer the other implied question, you did send another set for this meme, but I’m saving it for the next time I need a writing warm-up :P).

Ryxtlin

🌹 Where in the world does your OC feel most at home? Is there any reason why? If it’s not the place they were born, where were they born? Is there a certain somebody that makes them feel at home where ever they may be? What does home mean to them?

Ryxtlin defines "home" as a place where you're comfortable being yourself. She's still fond of her tribe, and of the home they made for themselves, but she's not sure how much like home it would feel if she went back now. She will eventually, of course, when she's a dragon, but she'll have to build her own home in those mountains then, and she's secretly not sure how much it will feel that way either until she's worn it in for a couple centuries. And as fond as she is of Corric, that crew isn't her home either. Honestly, the closest she's come is hanging out with Scrape, not that she'd ever admit that.

☄️ Does this OC deserve better treatment from you? Do you make them suffer just a little bit too much? Be nice to them!

She gets to turn into a dragon, that's PLENTY nice. Ryxtlin is another of those characters who I feel like is made who she is by her challenges, so I as a writer wouldn't take them away. I don't actually think I've ever done something gratuitously mean to her? Not so far, anyway.

💐 How does your OC handle being unwell or forced to rest in bed? Who cares for them and in what ways? Does your OC enjoy being doted on or are they a terrible patient? Reversed: is your OC good at taking care of others who are ill or in need?

Ryxtlin gets very cranky when she's sick, and all she wants to do is curl up in a little ball and be left alone until she recovers. She wouldn't mind being brought helpful things like soups and teas and blankets, as long as it's someone she trusts with her weaknesses, but even a hint of fussing or pity and she'll get all bitey about it. She's not good at all at caring for others, because she assumes they want the same privacy, so anyone she's in a position to have to tend to will wake up to find things left for them while they were sleeping, but no other interaction.

---

Housin

🍄 What are your OCs favourite snacks? Their favourite comfort food which always cheers them up when they’re down? Favourite meal to make? Do they enjoy baking and cooking and are they any good in the kitchen?

I think I've mentioned before that Housin really likes grapes and raisins, not that she'd put it that way. She would be completely baffled at the idea of comfort food, honestly, and I'm not sure there's anything she'd even react to that way--most "comfort foods" are carb-heavy, so that's for when you're going to have a busy day tomorrow, but she wouldn't want to eat anything that heavy unless it was for a reason. She's a very indifferent cook, with her only standard being "edible," but she knows a range of different soups sandwiches that aren't hard to put together fairly fast. Cooking is something you do for fuel, not for pleasure, so she's not going to waste time on too much fancy stuff.

💦 If you as the writer could erase one traumatic event from this OC’s life what would it be and why?

This once again hits the complication that, as a writer, a lot of her trauma is characterization-building! I guess, as a creator who does love her... well, I wouldn't want to change her original kidnapping because then she'd never have been in a position to meet Fifth Red Petal and Bloom, but I've always assumed that the original ocean crossing was pretty Awful, and it wouldn't necessarily have to be, a little kid's not going far on a big sailing ship. Or her "testing" as a gladiator-trainee, which was the first time she killed someone. Or... okay, I might have been a little extra mean to her now and then.

🌸 What are some of their favourite things and why? List as many as you can think of!

Since it's on my mind, grapes, raisins, raisin oatmeal cookies, wine.... Fifth Red Petal, in general, and getting to see her uncovered smile, which is rare. Swinging an arm out or a knee up at just the right angle to get someone who thought they were sneaking up on her. Landing a perfect hit with her quarterstaff and feeling the thunk as it connects. Cutting her own hair and getting it perfectly even. Being able to say no to missions she doesn't want to take. Having a reason to say no to missions. Being warm when it's cold, especially when that warmth is a person who will fold themselves around her to warm her up. Having her input solicited, and being listened to when it's given. Being listened to even when it wasn't solicited. Having people she can trust at her back. Being trusted by those people, too.

---

Fsssh

🍂 Does your OC enjoy hugs? What do they do as a show of affection for: their friends, their family, their significant other(s) or for strangers? Over all what are they like with recieving affection from others?

Fsssh understands what hugs mean to most species, and appreciates getting them! They're a little physically awkward for him, feathers getting ruffled and so on, and they're not natural enough a gesture for him to offer them himself except in moments of extreme emotional awkwardness, but he is glad of the feeling behind them when given.

His main forms of affection are gifts and acts of service! He gives useful things to people in general, even if they aren't close, so long as there's any kind of association--it's best to keep teammates and co-workers well-supplied. But friends will find more and more trinkets and other impractical gifts, ranging from shiny stones and bits of metal (corvid instincts XD) to little art pieces and such, as Fsssh becomes fonder and fonder of them. He'll also do small favors for anyone he's even mildly fondly inclined towards, but he will dedicate more and more time and effort to friends as he gets closer to, as well.

He's never quite sure how to express appreciation for gifts, and he's pretty sure that his responses are underwhelming, but it's just that he's not very effusive about showing he's happy. His thanks will be sincere, though. And if something really, really delights him, he might hop around a little bit.

🌼 Who are this characters friends and found family? How did they meet, how long have they been friends for, could they ever be something more than just friends? What do they look for in a friend or a romantic partner?

Leaving aside a bunch of NPC goblins that I know exist but haven't really detailed for myself (except that a lot of them are dead, due to his hobgoblin masters treating them as disposable), probably his two best friends are Ferosi, from our discussions about them, and Iroh, in the Wormwood D&D server. I don't recall that we actually discussed how he and Ferosi met! XD But they of course bonded over being artificers, and despite the significant roadbump of Differing Views on Hobgoblins (or at least certain hobgoblin military powers), I consider them to be good friends who have known each other a while. I know that Fsssh, at least, writes Ferosi many regular letters. (She's also an "invisible" part of his backstory in Wormwood, in that while she hasn't come up directly, I play him as if he's had her in his life and still writes to her often.) Iroh he met by going on a number of missions together for the adventuring company, and found that Iroh was a fellow scholar and science enthusiast--focused in a different area of study, but with broad enough interests to be an avid observer of, and sometimes participant in, Fsssh's work. (Fsssh thinks of him as very like a lab goblin, since he has happily volunteered to be a test subject for dangerous experiments, in the name of science.)

There's a few other people in Wormwood that he thinks positively of--RowKoo, Calypso, and Diarmuid are at the top of the list--but he hasn't interacted with them much outside of missions yet, so things are developing more slowly. When seeking out friends, he wants people who share similar interests, and can hold an interesting conversation about either their passions, his, or preferably both. Personal connections and concern are nice, but they come later.

In regards to what he looks for in romantic partners.... I haven't quite figured out if Fsssh is outright aro-ace, or if he's just only interested in fellow birds, given that he hasn't met any kenku or aarakocra in his adventures so far. But it's one or the other! He's vaguely wistful about it sometimes, because the people around it talk romance and intimacy up as such big important things, but most of the time, he is content with friends. Having people actually care about him can sometimes be so overwhelmingly heartwarming that he's not even really sure what more there COULD be to ask for.

🌺 What does your OC do to calm down when they’re scared or after a nightmare? Do they have any special comfort items or need to be reassured by a specific person? How do they handle this if they’re alone?

When possible, which it rarely is because he has to be 100% alone to take the mask off, Fsssh preens himself to calm down after troubling experiences and thoughts. When that's not possible, which is most of the time, he fiddles with things instead--pens, commonly, or tools from his various sets of tools, or anything else that he can do some little, unobtrusive repetitive motions with. He might even engage in a spot of soothing alchemy, if he has the time and space, running through a very simple recipe repeatedly in order to soothe himself by the way it always goes exactly right and always turns out just as expected. Repetition and movement are his touchstones.

---

🌾 Describe your OC through the eyes of someone absolutely head-over-heels in love with them

Mal is a little slip of the thing, and she's not the sort where you forget that when she's raging--she's not even a full five feet, and if you're taller, that doesn't go away. But that just means that she takes people by surprise, coming in under them and hitting them hard from underneath, and she smirks so wide when she knocks them over that you love seeing them underestimate her like that. She's not one for all that much clothing, which is all the better for seeing all the strength she's packed onto that wiry little frame, the way her shoulders knot up and her biceps bulge and every muscle flexes all the way down through her core to her curled toes when she pushes hard upward against something or someone bigger and taller than her. In a fight or out of it, she's got the kind of grace that you want to modify with 'brutal,' moving so smooth, hips swinging when she walks, but still moving heavy and with intent. It's like a big cat, prowling through her territory. Her hair swings around her like a long white curtain, and she might not smile often, but her scowl looks like the kind you'd put on a hero's statue, with the way her lips curve and her brow furrows and her eyes flash. And when she does smile, it's fierce and wild and satisfied, and you know that whatever wrung it out of her earned that glimpse of it.

🌲 How deeply does your OC feel? Are they typically empathetic or do they have a hard time connecting with others in this way? What are they like when offering support and comfort to someone they care for?

Malithah only knows RAGE. No, that's not true, but she's very angry very often, and it has the unfortunate side effect of squashing a lot of other things she may be feeling at the same time. She connects best with other people who are embittered or easily angered, whether by injustice or loss or any other reason, and she's not good at all at empathizing with people who respond to pain with sorrow instead. Her comfort is usually in the form of offering to kill someone for you, but if given a clear request that doesn't require too much for her emotionally, like just sitting with you, she's capable of that. Left alone or with vaguer parameters, she flounders, and generally goes to off to find someone else (specifically, Nan) to deal with the problem.

🍁 Where does your OC go when they need to have some time to themself? Would they ever have their own “comfort corner” filled with all the things they like? Do they have a favourite spot outside that feels like its theirs and theirs alone?

Back when she lived with her house, Mal actually did have a "comfort corner" like that! Well, it was hers and her twins, but the main thing that comforted them when they needed to resort to it was each other, so that worked out well. Even when she needed to be alone, she liked having Erennis around--they joked that since they were twins, they weren't really with another person, just their other half. But with him gone, she does a LOT of stalking off to find solitude. Out on the road, that's usually just far enough from the camp that she can't hear what's going on there. Finding another, permanent place to hole up will have to wait until she's not living the traveling lifestyle anymore.

---

Nib

🌿 What way does your OC show that they care without using words? What way do others show your OC that they’re cared about without using speech?

This is kind of a weakness for Nib in a couple different ways! First off, how do you *vague hand gestures* make friends? Secondly, how do you tell whether they're friends once you've made them? Third, IS there a way to indicate someone you like them without babbling at them about how great they are? One of Nib's traits IS that she has trouble filtering her emotions and is prone to emotional outbursts, and most of those outbursts are verbal. XD

But presuming that she made friends, and was around them long enough to learn how to moderate her fondness into something other than chattering away at them, she'd probably end up giving them gifts, as a secondary way of showing she cares. Did she acquire these gifts legally? Does it matter? I think she'd be very big on forcing colorful, garish clothing on people, in particular, because I don't think she has the emotional intelligence just yet to understand that people might not be overjoyed by the same things that would delight her.

Speaking of emotional intelligence, she wouldn't be able to read most non-verbal indicators that she is Liked, but she would probably be able to interpret Nice Hats and Nice Scarves and other Nice Garments (i.e., anything colorful that is not pants).

🥀 How would your OC decorate a notebook or journal? What kind of things are written in there? Could you give an example of a nice entry?

Nib would decorate the CRAP out of a personal journal, probably with a whole bunch of bright-colored fabric patchworked together over the covers, then sparkly stuff (glitter, little chips of colored glass, tiny mirrors... does Eberron have rhinestones?) on top, and at random inside as well. If she could get colored ink, she'd definitely use colored ink. It would have fairly random entries, because she would forget she was journaling, or get bored with it, for long stretches of time, but whenever she got sufficiently excited about something she'd write it down, possibly long after the fact if she'd forgotten about the journal a while, in a very disjointed and staccato style.

"Train today - big bear! - v. crowded, changed clothes a bunch, definitely no one saw me - made a badge! TRAIN DEPUTY. - sky pirates, big harpoons!

- could've been someone ELSE'S fire?"

💫What is your favourite fact about this character and why?

That she loves sabotage via explosions and arson, and yet doesn't actually have any spells that would directly enable that, and my mental image is that she just gets really, really excited about spreading, like, blasting powder or lamp oil around and then lighting the fuse and watching from a distance.

[beingatoaster]

I’ve been feeling very blocked lately on the writing front, so I hit a random prompt generator to loosen it up and got “knife, divert, scrutinize.” The scrutiny is, I guess, implied.

"But is it a good knife?" Mal asks, for the third time, jabbing it at the merchant's face so fiercely that he leans back and away from the point of the blade. He swallows, his throat bobbing. "I don't want a cheap blade that will break on someone's armor the first time I want to use it."

"It's good dwarven metal, ma'am," the merchant says, like he had the last two times. "Northern steel, Blackriver make. You treat it right, you won't find better."

"I don't care about the metal," Mal says. Her teeth are gritted, and she's nearly shaking with impatience, trying to get her point through to the nervous little man. "Is it a good knife?"

"Ma'am," the merchant says, and it seems like he isn't fearful enough not to be annoyed. Or maybe being frightened loosens his manners, Mal doesn't know or care. "A knife is made of metal. If the metal's good-"

"You say it's dwarven steel, but it's not dwarven make, because a dwarf wouldn't say that," Mal snarls, her patience snapping. She drops the knife, digs both her hands into the edge of his table, starts to lift. "A dwarf knows the craftmanship matters just as much as the material. Which means that it isn't a good knife, it's trash, your whole shop is trash, and I will get rid of it!"

The merchant scrambles backwards as Mal flips the table upward, sending the knives and swords and axe-blades and spear-points he'd had spread across it to the ground in a clanging crash. She can feel her blood pounding, hear her pulse in her ears, and the flex of muscle feels good, makes her feel strong and vital and exhilarated. She looks around for something else to tip, or fling, or smash. The merchant, maybe. She steps towards him, and he steps back, shaking. Shouting, but the foreign words stop meaning anything when her pulse pounds like this.

She hears a shout from her left, but she doesn't care, doesn't look. Her vision has narrowed down to the shaking, stammering, sweating merchant trying to back away from her, retreating rapidly towards a wall about to block him in, and she can't think about anything but how his soft, skinny throat is going to feel under her hand. Then she hears a squeal, from the same place as the shout, and turns to look.

There's a man there, a little group of men, an array of weapons and ill-fitting armor and the tacked-on badges that signify they're what passes for local law. One of them has a spear out, and he's prodding the kobold in front of him, a little dark creature brindled with black and violet and a little bit of gold, curled up with his head ducked low and his legs drawn up to protect his soft orange underbelly. He's curled on his side, like he'd tripped and fallen, and now the woman with the spear flips it, brings the butt down-

Mal grabs it right after it strikes, yanks it up, rips it out of the woman's grasp. The guards' attention turns to her, all of them, and she grins and makes a beckoning motion, stepping sideways, giving the kobold time to skitter out of the way. He vanishes into the shadows with a sweep of a dark cloak flaring out before it's pulled in tight, not even the shine of sunset-orange or freckled gold showing under it. Mal doesn't watch him go, just drops the spear and reaches over her shoulder for the hilt of the greatsword and throws herself into the fight. The guards drop one by one in quick sweeps, bludgeoned and battered and bleeding and dead, and the hammering of her pulse lasts long enough for her to knock a few more stalls over, for the fun of it and the way people scatter, before her breathing slows and she starts for the edge of town. She saunters, just to see if anyone's brave enough to follow. No one is.

Their campsite is deep in the badlands outside the town's borders, because Mal and Bugrotz can intimidate most innkeepers into selling them a room, but Sh'reel won't sleep indoors except under duress, and Xitt has specific requirements about windows. No one else is there yet--Nan will be shopping, and Sh'reel always feels they have to guard her, and Bugrotz had gotten wind of some gang of toughs running a fight club before he left Mal in the market and probably won't be home until tomorrow. Mal pulls off her weapon harness and drops it unceremoniously in the middle of the clearing, then sits down under a sheltering rock to bask in its shadow.

A dark cloak unfurls, and a brindled kobold sits down next to her.

"I was trying to buy you a new knife," Mal says, not sure if she's complaining or apologizing. Her voice is harsh either way, but it's always like that, in this language. "But I wanted to make sure it was better than that shitty one we broke on the last job, and the merchant couldn't tell me."

"Not good knives," Xitt says. His tail is twitching the way it does when he's embarrassed, and he huddles low on the ground, the ends of his cloak pooling around him. He's sulking. "But fancy. Liked the one with the big curves, like waves."

"We could ask Nan to buy it," Mal says after a moment. Apologizing, then. Bringing Nan in is always a peace offering. "She won't have upset anyone, and they don't know she's with us."

"Don't need to. I stole it."

Xitt reaches under his clothes and pulls it out. It was a big knife in Mal's hand, when she'd looked at it, but it's bigger in his. It looks like a stupidly fancy shortsword. Mal wouldn't trust it in a fight, but he's right, it looks stylish.

"Good," Mal says. "That merchant owes you. I would've strangled him otherwise."

"Wasn't trying to save the merchant." Xitt's tail flicks faster. Definitely sulky. "Was trying to divert the guards."

"Then you were being stupid. I can handle myself. You shouldn't put yourself at risk for me."

Mal feels anger flare again and forces herself to swallow it down, dragging her volume down on the last few words and biting her tongue on what might follow. That's not how Xitt normally works, putting himself in danger for other people, and it makes her even angrier that he'd do it special for her. That's not his job. She and Bugrotz, they're the ones who take on danger, because they can take it. Xitt needs to stay hidden and safe in the shadows, where he can kill whatever they're taunting. That's his place, and she needs him to know it.

Xitt hunches further, pulling his hood down over his face. "Didn't mean to. Meant to stab and hide. Make them look around like idiots."

"Don't lie."

"Not lying!" He pauses, then mutters into his hood. "I tripped."

The fury that's been building in Mal's chest, making her heart hammer, burning up her throat like acid, dissolves just as suddenly as it surged. It washes away in a burst of laughter, light and sparkling. Xitt huddles under his cloak like it can hide his mortification, and she laughs harder and harder, wheezing until her ribs ache, until she's so out of breath she can only hiss like a boiling kettle into her bent knees.

"Rude," Xitt mumbles from under his cloak, and Mal reaches out blindly and thumps him on the back, hard enough that he has to catch himself to keep from falling over. He hits her back, thumps her with his elbow, but she barely feels it. "Rude. I still got a knife."

Mal leans back and gasps for breath. She pats him again, more gently this time, and grabs his arm and squeezes it when he tries to elbow her off. She feels light in a way she rarely does, her mouth moving on its own in an unfamiliar smile. The killing had felt good, but this feels even better.

"Yes," she says, and pulls Xitt closer, ignoring his wriggling and protests, until he's tucked securely under his shoulder. "You got a knife."

[beingatoaster]

Malithah knows what most people expect of drow, and she can see where they’re coming from with their assumptions. Her people are cruel and strange, preferring the darkness to the light, engaging in manipulation and assassination and stealth to carry out their dark deeds. Most of them don’t walk around half-naked in broad daylight, carrying greatswords as tall as they are strapped across their backs and getting up in people’s faces at the slightest provocation.

Most of them aren’t Mal.

Which isn’t to say that she’s some kind of traitor to her people, which is the next thing most people assume about her. No, she’s no fan of house politics, nor the stranglehold of the dark goddess has on her people that causes it, but that doesn’t mean that she’s turned to moon-worshipping like some of the soft-hearted weaklings who flee the Underdark. Mal knows that the strong are meant to prosper and the weak to fail; it’s just that she’s learned that, despite the beliefs of many drow, love and feeling aren’t a kind of weakness. No, they’re a passion, and passion, when properly kindled, can be the greatest strength of all. Look at how her passion has turned to rage, and her rage to strength in battle--a strength that she will someday take back down to the Underdark, when she’s stoked it high enough, and turn upon those who took those she loved from her in the first place.

To be explicit, her enemies are House Caerscieth, which her own House Xistenerra once served, and her elder sister Ilavara, who betrayed their mother’s treacherous plot to the matron of Caerscieth in exchange for adoption into the greater house. As for those whom she lost, that was... most of her House, all in all. But the ones that she is most furious about, the ones she will avenge, are her twin brother Erennis (strong, beautiful, tremendously clever, meant to be wed to a Caerscieth daughter as part of her mother’s maneuvers, cut down to buy her time to flee) and her younger sister Naiali (wrenched from her arms and slaughtered in front of her, which filled her with such fury that, for the first time, her rage empowered a feat of strength sufficient for her to get away). Those are the names she keeps close to her heart whenever she begins to falter.

Berserker fighters aren’t unknown among the drow, but they tend to be male, and they tend not to live long against the maneuvers of more cunning opponents. Mal learned her style of battle from Ludella, the half-orc who rescued her from a mob days after she first emerged from the Underdark. Ludella warned Mal that fury alone would not win the day, no matter how hot it burned--that as strange as it sounded to the embittered young drow, the fire inside her could only truly burn strong if it was stoked not just by loss but by companionship. It’s because of her warning that Mal is holding off on her return home, waiting to gain not just more strength and experience, but also partners and allies to help her carry out her vengeance.

Race: Elf (Drow)

Ability Score Increase: Dexterity +2, Charisma +1

Age: Elves become adults around 100 and can live up to 750. Mal is about 280 years old.

Alignment: Lawful Evil (drifting towards Neutral)

Size: Medium (4′11″ and 110 lbs)

Speed: 30 feet

Darkvision: 120 feet

Sunlight Sensitivity: Disadvantage on attack rolls and Perception checks that rely on sight when you, the target of the attack, or whatever you’re trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.

Keen Senses: Proficiency in Perception.

Fey Ancestry: Advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep.

Trance: Instead of sleeping, meditate deeply for 4 hours a day.

Languages: Common, Elvish

Drow Magic: You know the Dancing Lights cantrip. When you reach third level, you can cast Faerie Fire once per long rest. When you reach fifth level, you can case Darkness once per long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Drow Weapon Training: Proficiency with rapiers, shortswords, and hand crossbows.

Class: Barbarian (eventual Path of the Beserker)

Personal Totem: A necklace made from the teeth of a bear that you and your mentor slew together.

Tattoos: A scorpion, poised to sting, is emblazoned on the back of your left hand.

Superstitions: The song of a surface elf is a trap meant to lull the unwary, and you should stop up your ears rather than listen.

Armor proficiencies: Light armor, medium armor, shields

Weapon proficiencies: Simple weapons, martial weapons

Saving throw proficiencies: Strength, Constitution

Skill proficiencies: Athletics, Survival

Rage: advantage on Strength checks and saving throws, melee weapon attack bonus, resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, etc.

Unarmored Defense: When not wearing armor, AC is 10+Dex mod+Con mod.

Background: Far Traveler

Reason for Travel: Fugitive

Skill proficiencies: Insight, Intimidation (swapped for Perception)

Tool proficiencies: Dragonchess

Languages: Undercommon

Feature: All Eyes on You (gain attention wherever you go, which can be parlayed into access to places and information provided by the curious)

Personality Traits:

I have a strong code of honor or sense of propriety that others don't comprehend.

I express affection or contempt in ways that are unfamiliar to others.

The best way to get me to do something is to tell me that I can’t do it. (from Criminal)

I love a good insult, even one directed at me. (from Entertainer)

My favor, once lost, is lost forever. (from Noble)

If you do me an injury, I will crush you, ruin your name, and salt your fields. (from Noble)

I can stare down a hell hound without flinching. (from Soldier)

Ideals:

Cunning: Though I may not know their ways, neither do they know mine, which can be to my advantage.

Suspicious: I must be careful, for I have no way of telling friend from foe here.

Might: In life as in war, the stronger force wins. (from Soldier)

Bonds:

The gods of my people are a comfort to me so far from home.

A powerful person killed someone I love. Someday soon, I’ll have my revenge. (from Charlatan)

Those who fight beside me are those worth dying for. (from Soldier)

I owe a debt I can never repay to the person who took pity on me. (from Urchin)

Flaws:

I am secretly (or not so secretly) convinced of the superiority of my own culture over that of this foreign land.

I pretend not to understand the local language in order to avoid interactions I would rather not have.

I consider the adherents of other gods to be deluded innocents at best, or ignorant fools at worst.

I am suspicious of strangers and expect the worst from them. (from Acolyte)

I too often hear veiled insults and threats in every word addressed to me, and I’m quick to anger. (from Noble)

Violence is my answer to almost any challenge. (from Outlander)

[beingatoaster]

I know I have too many DnD concepts I need to write up already, but also: drow noble, berserker barbarian, lost beloved family to what I understand to be Traditional Drow Politics and is just so fucking angry about it that she ran away to learn how to hit things Really Damn Good

[beingatoaster]

Well, if you have monday off, we might as well properly inundate you with this nonsense... for Kr'AUKtktktktkwer: 6, 11, 16, 28, and 39; for Malithah: 1, 4, 8, 13, and 18; for Werydd: 2, 10, 26, 40, and 42; for Xitt: 14, 19, 23, 27, and 35?

Thank you for the questions! :D I have put the answers under a cut.

Kr'AUKtktktktkwer

6. Do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?

Immovable, as long as they don’t conflict with the natural laws of death that she is now bound to. Krue is very lawful, abiding not just by her own customs, but by those of the people she travels among; just as her people’s customs and laws arise from necessity and ancient error, so must the customs and laws of others, who surely shaped their own to suit their own natures and their own ways of living. If her beliefs conflict with the laws of other lands, it is on her to remove herself from that place, not on them to adapt to her strange ways. Only the laws of proper death (both her people’s and her patron’s, which march very close to lockstep in the first place) supersede that.

11. How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?

She seeks clarification, but as politely as possible. (“I do not see how that is, but could you uncover my eyes for me?” is a ritual phrase she was taught during training that she uses quite a lot while out and about in the world.) If someone becomes annoyed or angered by her questions or her lack of understanding, she will abandon trying to converse with them, and go find someone else to explain it to her. She never settles for failing to understand, but if she eventually percieves that her confusion comes from a conflict of worldviews, she considers that explanation enough–very well, your thinking is different from mine.

16. What makes their stomach turn?

She’s a vulture, so… not much! Though black vultures do puke on attackers, so actually, probably being crowded or hemmed in by too many people, or cornered by someone intimidating, provokes an uncontrolled vomiting reaction. In the more metaphorical and moral sense, the desecration of the dead; however their culture dictates they be laid to rest should be respected, whatever it is, and you should not do something that their kin would consider mishandling of the body. How dare you.

28. Would they prefer a lie over an unpleasant truth?

Receiving or delivering? She’d rather a truth, so that she can go deal with whatever the unpleasantness is, however she’s able. But delivering–well. Especially since she became bound to her patron, she has found that sometimes it’s best to tell people that yes, their father did the right thing in the end, and no, the lich did not match the description of their daughter….

It depends on how she thinks the recipient is going to handle it. And she’s aware that there are probably times that people have done the same to her, lied to her about issues she couldn’t have done anything about so that she’d feel better, and she doesn’t hold it against them, even if it’s not what she would have preferred.

39. How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people?

That depends on the flaw! She tends to be more forgiving of flaws of rigidity, like being hidebound or refusing to bend the rules or doing compulsive things like double-checking the lock three times, because those are close to the flaws she shares. Flaws that are more of carelessness or impulsiveness she gives less leeway to; if she ignores them, it’s in a very stiff and deliberate way, because she definitely notices, and it definitely bothers her, but the offender is not worth chiding.

—

Malithah

1. What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

Very little! Mal’s mother tried to teach her patience, as a good drow should have, but she was never very good at it–she could only distract herself from waiting on the long-term goals by busying herself with short-term projects, and that’s what she still does now. She can sit around for five minutes, ten minutes tops, and then she will start cleaning her sword, or mending torn clothes, or if she has room stand up and start going through her stretches, or other simple equipment maintenance and self-maintenance activities, just for something to do.

4. How easy is it to earn their trust?

She was raised not to trust anyone at all, and while she had a natural tendency to want to trust those she cares for, her sister’s betrayal hammered home a lesson that her mother had never before managed to stuff into her head. Given a long enough time and enough close calls in battle and friendly exchanges during downtime, she may eventually come to trust her allies again… but it would take a very long time, and some natural common ground between them. She loved and trusted her sister, after all. Loving again will actually be much easier than the trusting part.

8. What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child?

To stop talking to the slaves, and to discipline them more harshly. Her natural affinity for people meant that her mother thought she would be a good slave-trainer, for the best of them don’t act entirely out of cruelty, and give their charges just enough kindness to show that there are rewards for obedience. This was her house’s business, the training of slaves for greater houses, so Mal’s mother always hoped that she’d be able to run the hands-on part of the business while her elder sister ran the financial end… if only Mal could develop a little stronger hand.

Which she did, eventually! It just took her a while to develop the emotional calluses necessary. It was just her first fifty or sixty years it was really a problem.

13. What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color?

Mal knows she looks good in deep purples, and she’s right about it. Given the standard drow color scheme, it’s really hard to get a given color wrong, unless you manage to clash with your eyes, and her pale silver would go with anything… but she likes purple, and she knows how to accent it with different shades of it or splashes of other colors, so she’s in good shape.

18. What embarrasses them?

Any kind of overt advances from a male (this isn’t even a cultural thing, she was equally embarrassed by drow men who knew their proper place and flirted in appropriate ways, but the cultural thing doesn’t help), or, even worse, a male who thinks that she’s making advances on him. Misreading social cues, especially when she thinks she’s mastered the cultural context of this situation and still missteps. Being caught out in a lie, especially if the lie is something like “sorry, no speak Common good.”

—

Werydd

2. How easy is it for your character to laugh?

It’s actually fairly easy, as long as you cater to her sense of humor, which is a little askew from the surface world’s. She loves puns, especially grave-related and death-related ones, and you can get her doubled over laughing with a few knock-knock jokes about rocks. Grim and gallows humor will also win a chuckle, but anything that depends on shock value (especially jokes about necrophilia) will not go over well with her.

10. What lie do they most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt them?

She lies a lot to the adventurers she’s travelling with about the motives of her own adventuring career, which only starts to trouble her once she gets to know them well. She also lied about how willing she was to go above the surface, when she first set off, and that one haunts her every time she looks up at a cloudless sky and feels the horrible sense of vertigo that it causes.

26. What is their preferred mode of transportation?

NOT BOATS. She prefers her own two sturdy feet, in general, and the rougher any other kind of transport is, the less she likes it–boats she can’t handle at all, rattling carts also make her queasy, horses make her queasy and nervous to boot, and your teleportation circle had better be super damn smooth if you don’t want her puking on your nice rune-inscribed floor.

40. How sensitive are they to their own flaws?

Very much so! Werydd is very good at noticing her own mistakes and flaws and weaknesses, and even better at beating herself up about them. She has a generally optimistic attitude, which means that she can bring herself back from a bout of low self-esteem by promising herself she’ll do better, but she has very high standards for herself and when she screws up she generally spends a couple days in a spiral of self-loathing before she comes back up out of it. It’s not enough to just do her best, she has to do it right, or she might as well have failed entirely.

42. How badly do they want to reach their end goal?

Not badly enough to murder innocents or break the precepts of her religion, but badly enough to do just about anything but. There’s a lot riding economically and politically on finding the missing jawbone, which she’s always internally hyper-aware of, but it’s also central to her beliefs about herself as a future priest that she be able to put the foreman’s spirit back to its rightful rest. If she can’t succeed in this, she has basically failed at her only possible path in life, so that’s… super stressful to think about and let’s just not consider the possibility of failure right now thank you.

—

Xitt

14. What animal do they fear most?

DOGS. Xitt has run afoul of guard dogs before, and they’re worse than any humanoid bodyguard; they have keen senses to sniff him out, sharp teeth to bite him with, and are small enough to fit into spaces that he would normally squeeze into to evade larger pursuers. They’re also considerably more loyal to their masters, and more likely to try to take him out even after the deed has been done. He has a few nasty scars from dog encounters.

19. What is their favorite number?

Three. Three always comes up in the stories–it’s always the third royal child who succeeds at things, and there’s always three encounters, and all that–and up until his sisters were killed, there were three of them, so it has had charm for him from his youngest childhood. It’s a little more bittersweet, now, but he still likes the poetry of doing things in threes.

23. How does envy manifest itself in them (they take what they want, they become resentful, etc)?

He definitely becomes resentful! Xitt isn’t actually that much of a thief–he earns his money, and he takes pride in that, even if he would be in just as much trouble with the law as a burglar or pickpocket would be if caught. But if he sees someone with things that he would like to have, especially if they got them through privilege and didn’t earn them through effort of their own, he takes a disliking to that person. He’ll spend a lot of time telling himself all about how unjust it is that they have those things, and how terrible a person they are.

27. What causes them to feel dread?

The sight of a corvid–the Master’s flock used to use crows and ravens as messengers, and Xitt is always afraid that the sight of one means that one of the Dusk Ravens is around. (He knows logically that it could just as easily be other kenku flocks, but he also steers well clear of them, just in case they’re allied to the Master’s flock.) Any job that seems too good to be true on the surface, lots of money for easy work, because that probably means there’s a catch the big folk aren’t telling him about. Being out and exposed in open areas, with no nooks and crannies nearby to escape into–he’ll never do a job out in the open, or in a public place where he can’t very, very easily duck away into the architecture.

35. How do they treat the things their friends come to them excited about? Are they supportive?

Xitt is excited that you are excited! He will be very admiring of anything his friends show him, though if it’s not something of personal interest to him, he doesn’t try very hard to understand it; he’ll be supportive, and delight in your success, but he’s very much the friend who reflects back your excited energy and nods and makes ‘hmm’ noises while you talk about it, then at the end asks an innocently ignorant question. You know, the friend who shows up to every one of your games, then cheers just as loudly when you fumble the ball as when you score a goal, because he has no idea what you’re doing but you’re his friend so you must be winning.

[beingatoaster]

Fuck/Marry/Kill for your ocs

Okay I was just going to limit this to "currently in-play DnD characters" or something, but Bea inspired me. So, with the caveat that I'm not sure I'd actually be able to go through with a lot of the fucking (a little too ace) but would be conceptually willing, the entirety of my 5e character chart (as shorthand for 'OCs' since those are mostly the ones I deal with here anyway):

Fuck: Ayrlinn, Belisse, Bloom, Bugrotz, Calvajhex, Caolinn, Darting Minnows, Dismay, Evangeline, Franzka, Gerri, Gruthark, Hidden Reed Rope, Housin, Jaala, Jedda, Kenan, Kitah, Kolya, Laughter, Malithah, Murgta, Myerzo, Nib, Patches, Phyrea, Rightmost Grouse, Saffron Kite, Sassafras, Sylphiamedea, Thenaril, Tiaathque, Urtha, Usakrut, Vasuvinti, Vivi, Yelkha, Yildgrunn

Marry: the Armsmaster, Cirion, Corric, Dagna, Decius, Dworic, Eirelis, Falkra, Felicity, Fifth Red Petal, Fsssh, Gabriev, Greignar, Gyrda, Heggluk, Hendrich, Hiophis, Isgrac, Ishalthyn, Krue, Merrit, Nan, Olaaru, Orilde, Ruarrk, Shalur, Sh'reel, Sipho, Theodera, Tulkar, Vroskaul, Werydd, Weyroun

Kill: Aryn, Brochilde, Calgara, Eskett, Hallifax, Hester, Hicwynn, Itherai, Lue, Naal, Nels, Rhuski, Rudnik, Ryxtlin, Scrivener Unit 264, Siraht, Sudryal, Twigwhistle, Thorley, Vizziu, Xitt