#mustard color walls

[weneedtogirlthehellup]

Miami Bedroom Master

Mid-sized transitional master bedroom concept with dark wood floors and yellow walls

[vintagehomecollection]

In an Irish House, 1988

[htfmetsy]

[kosslowski]

Enclosed in Salt Lake City Image of a mid-sized cottage dining room with yellow walls and a dark wood floor and a brown floor.

[ahqkas]

“WHEN YOU’RE LOST IN THE DARKNESS, LOOK FOR THE LIGHT — dick grayson.

PAIRING dick grayson 𝒙 fem!reader SYNOPSIS he was completely frustrating. him with his cheeky grins and perfect teeth. maybe that’s why it didn’t anger you when he took an interest in you WORD COUNT 5.6k WARNINGS / TAGS artist!reader, cursing, mention of reader’s hair, unedited NOTES yes the title is inspired by tlou & yes i compared dick to a blue jay. i decided to mix 2 different reqs ( req 1 & req 2 ) because they worked well together for me soo i hope it’s okay! © ahqkas — all rights reserved. even when credited, these works are prohibited to be reposted, translated or modified

IN ART, WHAT WE WANT IS THE CERTAINTY THAT ONE SPARK OF ORIGINAL GENIUS SHALL NOT BE EXTINGUISHED.

Said Mary Cassatt, and her words had echoed in your mind for as long as you could remember. There was something comforting in the idea that creativity—pure, untouched, and entirely your own—could endure even such cruel punishment as darkness. Darkness was a language you understood well, especially living in Gotham, where shadows devoured the city inch by inch until there was nothing but colorless void. The darkness wrapped itself around you, slowly seeping in to claim your soul as well, like the chill of a cold winter night creeping into your bones.

But even in a city this unfair, you believed there was still some beacon of light. Hidden, of course, but not extinct.

And so, you painted. You drew. You created. Every stroke of your brush and pencil felt infinite. Art was the closest thing you felt to immortality, and you clung to that belief like a child did to innocence.

Your small apartment was more than just a simple place where you lived. Every inch of the space bore a trace of you and of your determination to carve something special into the world. The walls, once peeling and beige, were now alive with color. A breath of life you granted the old home. It wasn’t much, your apartment, but it was yours.

The darkness couldn’t quite reach you there, and the light found you within your search for it.

It was late past midnight when you met him. The hour of the night was silent despite the fact you were living on one of the most dangerous streets of Gotham. Silent, but far from safe. The full moon hung high in the sky, its pale light struggling to pierce through the dark clouds that blanketed the whole night. Every so often, the moonlight would break free and shimmered a silver beam that barely softened the shadows.

You sat curled up on your old, beaten couch in your living room, aching legs tucked beneath you. The thrifted mustard-yellow couch sat beneath a gallery wall you’d arranged with so much focus you were unmistakably proud of the piece. The light from the fairy lights strung above the paintings softened the sharp edges of your apartment.

The pencil between your fingers moved along the paper with practiced movements of an artist as you clutched the sketchbook close to you with your free hand. You brought the drawing of a blue jay to life. Its small, delicate body was perched on the middle of the page, its head tilted slightly to the side as if caught mid-movement. The blue jay’s wings began to take a lively form beneath your hands.

You loved sketching birds—the way they had an open opinion of freedom in their feathers, how they could fly away from the weight of everything below on earth.

The quiet was broken by a dull thump.

Your pencil stilled, the sharp tip pressing into the delicate beak of the blue jay as you tilted your head towards the sound. It came again, heavier this time, right outside on the fire escape under your living room window. Living in Gotham meant you knew better than to ignore suspicious and strange sounds, especially at this hour.

Setting the sketchbook down on the coffee table, you slid off the couch with a pounding heart and bare feet padding softly against the wooden floor. The window was already cracked open, letting in a cold breeze of night air. It prickled at your skin and sent a wave of goosebumps down your spine.

You moved with an intention to investigate, your hand gripping the window frame when you leaned forward slightly to catch a glimpse of the intruder. Before you could fully stick your head through the opening, something shifted — a flash of movement so sudden that you instinctively took a step back to avoid bumping your head. Then, just as quickly, a figure shot up from the darkness surrounding your fire escape and you watched as his top half leaned against the window frame with effortless grace.

Anyone could recognize the symbol gracing his chest.

Nightwing was on your fire escape, practically with one of his halves in your apartment.

You blinked at him, startled at the unexpected visit from Gotham's (wait, wasn’t he supposed to be in Blüdhaven?) acrobatic vigilante. He stared back without shame. His face was partially illuminated by the soft glow of your fairy lights and his forehead, plus the top of his eyes, were hidden beneath the dark strands of his hair. Damp with sweat and light spray of rain. The black domino mask was doing little to hide the attractiveness of his handsome face, although it did not tell you his identity. Or the color of his eyes. The white lenses didn’t show any signs of life, it would be almost unsettling if it wasn’t for the other features of his face.

His jaw was sharp, the bone ready to cut through glass, and his lips held a shadowy grin in them. His chest heaved as if he’d just ran a marathon, or in his case, as if he’d just been in a chase. And his suit—a sleek, midnight black with that striking blue emblem—was marred by faint fabric tears and streaks of grime.

When he spoke up after a minute of analyzing you, his voice was breathless but warm, like he hadn’t just scared the life out of you by his entrance. “Hey. Sorry about the dramatics. Mind if I, uh, come in?” He glanced over his shoulder briefly, as though checking to see if someone had followed him.

You swallowed the lump that formed in the back of your throat, fingers still gripping onto the windowsill. You were pretty sure the surprise and disbelief etched into your face could be completely seen. “What? You’re joking, right?” those small words stumbled past your lips in a sharper tone than you intended. “You can’t just—“ gesturing vaguely to the fire escape he was standing on, you trailed off for him to finish the sentence himself.

But instead of an answer, Nightwing simply offered a grin, all perfect teeth. It was the kind that felt like it was meant to disarm you and melt you into a puddle at his feet. A swooning, pretty puddle.

“Technically, I can. But I’d prefer not to freeze out here while we debate it.”

Your reply to his cheeky comment died in your throat the moment you heard it—an angry bellow from somewhere below, followed by the unmistakable sound of boots thumping against the wet pavement. The voices were low and animalistic, only growing louder by seconds. Whoever they were, it didn’t take a genius to figure out who they were looking for.

Shooting him a pointed look with one of your eyebrows raised, you realized it was useless as he was already halfway through the window, ducking inside easily. He didn’t so much as flinch when his heavy boots hit the floor with a faint thud. You could only watch the trail of dirt and grime he was leaving behind himself. The sounds from outside faded into muffled whispers when he closed the window, and effectively scanned the room with a quick glance.

“You really have a way of making an entrance,” you mumbled under your breath as you gave him space and moved back towards the sofa. The sarcasm wasn’t meant to reach his ears but with the way one corner of his lips tugged up, you knew he heard every single word. Did this guy have super hearing?

The faintest glint of amusement danced on his features, despite the lack of emotion in his hidden eyes. You could tell by the way his eyebrows furrowed and his lips quirked up. “It’s part of the job description,” he replied to your remark casually, as if crashing into strangers’ apartments was just another Tuesday for him.

With a sigh, you shook your head and leaned back against the arm of the couch, watching him move around the living room. He didn’t sit, didn’t relax, didn’t even pause long enough to breathe out the weight of his situation. Instead, his gaze grazed over everything in clear sight — your paintings on the wall, the cluttered coffee table and its content, the pencils scattered across your notepad.

He was strange.

“What are you doing?”

“Just checking,” his response came quickly, he was probably distracted by the hand brushing against the edge of the window frame as he double-checked the latch.

You watched him carefully and tried to not let his presence throw you off. There was something unbelievable about seeing him there, in the heart of your apartment of all places, where every inch of the space was yours. Technically, he was in your territory now.

“Don’t worry,” Nightwing added with humor etching his voice when you didn’t say anything. “I’ll be gone before you know it.”

“Take your time,” the dripping sarcasm got out the exact same reaction from him just like before, and you watched as he smirked at you, the corner of his mouth tugging upward in a way that told you he was far too used to getting under people’s skin. Cheeky bastard.

This inspection of his lasted for a few more minutes before his pacing slowed down and his masked eyes landed on your beaten couch. The faint amusement in his features shifted, softening into something more thoughtful as he approached you. You stiffened when he got close enough. The light scent of cologne hit your nose from the proximity.

Gloved hand reached for your notepad, and you watched him again when he started tracing the soft pencil lines of your sketches. You seemed to watch him a lot tonight, but you didn’t dare to interrupt him. He was still a stranger and you lived alone. The vigilante could take you down without breaking a sweat, no comment.

The blue jays stared back at him from the page with their wings outstretched mid-flight, the faint smudge of pencil giving them a sense of movement, like they could lift off the paper and fly toward their freedom at any moment.

“You drew these?” the question slipped before he could think of it and the raw quietness of his tone surprised you.

You hesitated before you gave him the answer. “Yeah, I did. What, are you secretly an art critic, too?”

His lips twitched, but his eyes stayed on the sketches. “Blue jays,” the murmur was more to himself than to you. “They’re nice.”

“Nice?” you echoed back at him, a small smile ghosting your lips upon hearing his praise. “That’s your verdict? Nice?”

This time, his wide grin returned as he glanced at you from your artwork. You decided on the spot that you liked this look on him. He could be all sharp edges and rough words, but the genuine smiles and clever remarks were a part of him, too. “Hey, I don’t know the first thing about art. But they’re good. Really good. Why blue jays though?”

You shrugged your shoulders, crossing your arms around yourself tightly. His clear interest in your work made you feel strangely exposed. “They’re . . . free. They can leave whenever they want, fly away from everything. I guess I like the idea of that.”

Nightwing was quiet for a moment, his masked gaze flicking back to the page like he was seeing something more between the colors and lines you’d drawn. He really was strange. “Makes sense,” he said finally. “They’re tough, too. Survivors.”

For a man who’d just come crashing through your window, being chased by a bunch of angry goons, he suddenly seemed relaxed. The birds meant more to him than he was letting on.

“Guess that explains why you like them.”

“What, you think I’m a blue jay now?”

A smirk made its way to your lips, and you felt a slight hint of satisfaction brewing inside you. You finally got him. “You said it yourself. Tough. Survivors. Seems fitting.”

It was a strange image, seeing someone who carried so much weight on his shoulders standing here, in your little apartment, admiring a simple sketch of a bird. Most people assumed he was a machine under the suit, someone who did their job because it had to be done. But you saw the life in his smile and heard the feelings in his voice. Red flooded his system like any other human being possessed. A beating heart and marred skin. He was human, even under all that armor.

“Well,” you cleared your throat, effectively breaking the silence that followed your cheeky remark. “I’m glad my art could distract you from the mad mob outside.”

That earned you a genuine laugh, low and rich. You noted he had a nice laugh. Everything about him was nice, though. Maybe it was because it was the first time seeing him from up close or maybe it was simply that he got your attention.

⋆.˚ 𓅆 . . .

The next few days were rather busy. You had more work on your shoulders and your family kept pressing about your upcoming visit (spoiler alert; you didn’t really plan on visiting them). Your family members lived far from Gotham, which you were particularly glad for. One boring and busy day went after the other, and so did you with your life. You weren’t going to admit it, but you missed the sudden excitement the cocky vigilante brought with him. It was something new, something that wasn’t boring.

The wind carried a chill that nipped at the exposed skin of your face, numbing your cheeks in the process. The streets of Gotham were alive despite the coldness the new day brought with itself—the city never really stopped, even when it probably should have. Your tea sat untouched beside your half-eaten croissant, warm steam curling lazily above the porcelain cup, while your hand moved steadily across the pages of your sketchbook.

You were drawing another blue jay. This one was perched on a thin branch, its head cocked slightly with ruffled feathers as if caught in the same breeze that howled right now. The pencil lines of your drawing were sharper this time, more confident, though you weren’t sure why.

Maybe it was because you couldn’t stop thinking about them—the blue jays.

It wasn’t like this hadn’t happened before, your thoughts fixating on a subject, but this time it felt different. Ever since that night, when Nightwing had stood in the heart of your living room and held your sketch like it was something worth admiring, you’d been thinking about them more and more often. Birds had always represented freedom to you. A fleeting kind of beauty, one that wouldn’t last long. But now they carried something else. Something more.

You found yourself replaying his words in your mind while you shaded the curve of the blue jay’s wing, your pencil working instinctively as the low conversations and local sounds of the café faded into a hushed whisper. The bird began to take shape, its tiny body beaming with life.

The next thing you knew, the chair you were sitting on rocked slightly and your bag was violently jerked from the edge of the table.

It took you a second to process what had happened. One second, your purse was there, sitting by your side, and the next, it was gone. Snatched by a blur of unidentified movement. Your heart skipped an uncomfortable beat as you whipped your head towards the stranger, catching sight of the thief bolting through the crowded street.

Panic started to settle in. Your bag. Gone. It was gone. Everything was in there—your money, your keys, your ID. The grip of your fingers on the pencil in your grasp tightened while adrenaline surged through your veins. Without having any second thoughts, you shot to your feet. The chair scraped loudly against the floor and you bolted after him.

“Hey! Stop!”

The thief was already halfway down the block when you finally pushed past the crowd with alarming speed. Your boots moved without any more thinking. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he was quick on his feet, his figure darting between pedestrians who shouted in surprise and yelped in confusion when he pushed into them to clear his path. Your lungs burned as you tried to push against your limits and keep up with him. The strap of your bag was swinging wildly in his grip.

“Stop!” you shouted again, although you doubted he would listen. He wouldn’t. People around turned to look at the chaos, but no one made a move to help. It was Gotham, after all — everyone looked after their own self.

The thief rounded a corner, successfully disappearing into an alley, and you felt a pinch of dread forming in your stomach. You didn’t know this part of the city well, and the narrow alleyway clothed in shadows sent a wave of goosebumps down your spine. Hesitation brewed in you for a moment before you made up your mind. Fuck it. You didn’t care that chasing him was reckless. You didn’t care that you had no plan for what you’d do if you actually managed to catch up to him. All you knew was that he had your bag—your life—and you weren’t about to let him get away with it.

Whoosh!

You barely registered the sound at first. Your focus was entirely on your thief, the dark shade of his jacket disappearing deeper and deeper, just beyond your reach. The puffs of air left your lips in a sharp shape and the cold air didn’t help much. But you didn’t stop running. You couldn’t stop.

Then, out of nowhere, a dark blur descended from above, landing right in your path.

“Whoa, hold it!”

The familiar drawl of his voice ringed in your ears before you saw him. You skidded to a halt, nearly losing your balance as his figure stepped into the sight. His arms were outstretched to block your way, and you felt a sudden burst of frustration upon his appearance. After all, you still had a bad guy to catch.

“Move,” moving to the side, you tried to sidestep him and start your chase again. Key word—tried. He shifted smoothly, following your movements like a mirror.

“Not happening,” he interrupted you firmly. “You can’t go running after some guy who might be armed. You don’t know what you’re walking into.”

“I don’t care. He has my purse—my money, my keys, everything! I have to—“

“You have to stay here,” Nightwing cut you off again, and you pushed the urge to strangle him away. His presence was infuriating, even though you could see every muscle in his jawline tightening and tensing. He was holding back, that much was evident.

“I don’t need your help.”

His hands shot out the moment you tried to brush past him again, gloves catching your biceps in a firm hold. It wasn’t painful, nor would leave any marks in the form of bruising, but he held you in a grounding manner. Almost as if he wanted to calm you down.

“Yes, you do,” the glint of seriousness in his gaze made you halt in your argument. He meant every single word. “Look, I get it. You’re pissed, you’re scared, and you feel like you have to do something. But this guy could have a knife, or worse, and you’re completely unarmed. He’s probably long gone by now, too. I’ll track him down and get your stuff. That’s a promise, Blue.”

You swallowed hard as the fire that fueled your intentions died a little bit. He was right, even though you didn’t want to admit it.

“Fine, but you better catch him.”

A small, reassuring nod and a gentle squeeze was all you received from the masked vigilante before he released you and took off after the thief. A moment later, you realized he gave you a nickname.

Blue.

⋆.˚ 𓅆 . . .

The thick steam from your earlier shower still lingered in the bathroom, curling faintly in the air and clinging along the tiles and the edges of the mirror as you massaged moisturizer into your skin like you did every night. It was a routine by now. One you were excited to participate in. Your favorite playlist hummed softly from the phone propped up on the counter near the sink, the melody blending with the occasional rustle of the city outside your window.

Gotham was quiet tonight. No sirens. No shouts. Just silence.

You signed and leaned against the counter as you let the coolness of the white cream soothe your skin. The events of this day were rather . . . unpleasant. Your purse was gone, and the thought of all the things you’d lost still made your chest ache. Your keys, your ID, even your favorite pen you always kept in the front pocket—all gone, snatched in a moment. But at least you were safe. Nightwing had made sure you didn’t dive head first into what could have been a disaster.

You couldn’t stop thinking about him, either. The way he’d swooped in like some kind of a movie hero. For a man who lived his life surrounded by constant danger, he’d had this unmistakably calmness about him, like no problem was big enough to not handle.

Reaching for a soft towel, you patted your face dry with it when you finished the last step of your nighttime routine. A moment of realization hit you like a ton of bricks.

Your sketchbook.

Your heart sank deeply in your chest, and you froze, gripping the towel tightly. You’d left it at the café. It must’ve been sitting there on the table, untouched, while you chased after that thief like a reckless idiot. You would be lucky if you found it where you’d left it lying as there was a possibility of a tired barista throwing it away.

That notepad wasn’t just another notebook to you. It held weeks, months, of drawings—ideas, experiments, half-finished sketches that no one but you had seen. And the blue jays he praised . . .

The day’s exhaustion weighed heavily on your tense shoulders as you finally made your way to your bedroom. You switched off the light in the hallway, plunging your apartment into darkness save for the faint glow of moonlight spilling through the cracks in the blinds.

A dark shadow caught your eyes the second you stepped into the room and your heart nearly leaped out of your chest. There, casually perched on your windowsill was Nightwing, dressed in shadows.

His grin was the first thing you recognized on him, the wide stretch of his lips almost haunting in the darkness. His teeth appeared almost sharp, like canines of a predator. But he wasn’t here to hunt tonight. One gloved hand held your bag, dangling it from his fingers as if presenting you a beloved prize.

“Miss me, Blue?”

“Are you insane?” hissing, your palm resting against your beating heart. “You can’t just show up like that!”

A delighted laugh rumbled deep in his chest as he stepped inside like he didn’t invade your personal space and almost gave you a heart attack. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

He tossed your stolen (now found) bag on your bed with a flick of his wrist. It took you a moment to process what you were seeing but when you did, your panic gave away to stunned disbelief. “You got it back?”

“Of course. I promised you.”

The smug look on his face softened after those words left his throat. You crossed the room in quick steps, rushing to get your hand on your belongings. Once it was in your hold, you rummaged through the inside. Everything was still there—your keys, your wallet, even the blue pen you favored so much. Relief flooded your system and you finally felt your shoulders relaxing. It was all returned.

You glanced at him from the bag, suddenly feeling somehow embarrassed. “I—I don’t even know what to say.”

“How about ‘thank you, Nightwing, for saving the day’? That would do,” the arch of his eyebrows told you he was enjoying this, if only a little. Smug bastard.

Rolling your eyes, you felt your lips tugging into a smile anyway. “Thank you for getting me my bag back. Happy?”

“It’s exactly what I wanted but yeah, very.”

A minute of silence stretched between you, one that wasn’t entirely comfortable but during that time, you studied him. He was leaning against the edge of your bed, just shy away from your side.

“You’ve been drawing them a lot, huh?”

“What?”

“The blue jays,” Nightwing gestured towards your desk with his free hand, the other behind his back. He looked strange, amusing even, but you didn’t dare to point it out. You followed his movements, eyes sliding toward your desk full of stray papers. He was right, the wooden space was filled with your recent works, and among them were multiple pieces of those blue birds. “You were working on them that night. At the café, too.”

Your lips parted slightly to voice your confusion, but the words didn’t come. He had noticed? And kept track of it? You didn’t know if you should feel creeped out or honored.

You didn’t get to react much before he perked up. “Oh, almost forgot,” pulling the occupied hand from behind his back, you noticed he held a small book in it.

Not just any book, though. Your sketchbook.

“You went back for it?” the disbelief dripped from the tone of your voice as you reached for the notepad. Your fingertips brushed against his gloves when you did so, and a spark of light crossed through you at the faint touch.

“Figured you’d want it back,” he tried to act nonchalant, shrugging his shoulders without a care in the world, but even if you knew him for such a short period of time, you could tell he was just acting. The subtle tone of his voice betrayed him, along with the rosy dust painting his cheeks. Your thumb traced the broken spine of the notepad. The thought of him chasing down your thief, retrieving your stolen stuff, and then returning for your more personal thing left you speechless. He didn’t have to, but he did—again.

He was so close to you now that the faint scent of rain and city clung to him, mixing with his natural fragrance. You could inhale it all while you saw everything, too—the sharp line of the bone in his jaw, the slight furrow of his brows like he was constantly deep in his mind, and even the way the moonlight caught on the pink dusting the top of his ears.

His pose shifted lightly, in a way that made the space between the two of you feel almost nonexistent. Your instinct told you to move, but your feet didn’t move.

“You’re . . . really something, you know that?”

Your heart beat against the bones protecting your ribs so loud you swore he could hear it. The white lenses of his black mask flickered all over your face, almost like he wanted to memorize every delicate detail, like he wanted to count every lash on your eye individually.

“You barely know me.”

“Maybe,” he admitted, “but I think I’m starting to.”

No response made its way past your lips. It died at the base of your throat, and no one could rip it out of you.

His hand reached out in your peripheral vision, slowly, like he was giving you an option to stop him whenever you felt like. There was no force between you, just purity of the actions. When you didn’t stop him, he moved bolder and louder, long fingers tracing the curve of your cheek before brushing against the damp strands of your hair. He pushed it back behind your ear, his touch lingering even there.

You could feel his breath mingling with yours, becoming one.

And then, just as you felt the unmistakable pull towards him, Nightwing pulled away. He took a step back like he remembered who he was.

“Take care of that,” he nodded towards your hold that clutched your sketchbook.

You opened your to say something, anything because what the fuck was he doing when he jumped out of the bedroom window, leaving behind the what ifs if he stayed with you.

⋆.˚ 𓅆 . . .

The rooftop had become your favorite spot to disappear from your responsibilities. The view was magnificent with how the city stretched out in every direction and you could see everything. The chaos was muted up here, replaced by singing of the birds and occasional flutter of wings. This place was comforting.

You sat cross-legged on the concrete with your sketchbook propped in your lap, pencil in hand and mind open to new ideas. But the paper brewed alive with yet another drawing of a blue jay. Something about them had rooted itself in your head.

Pausing in your work to glance up at the sky, you were greeted by the most remarkable sight. Caught by the horizon where the sun dipped lower, brushing its streaks across the rooftop in a golden orange. The light breeze tugged at your hair, and you reached up to tuck it behind your ear. You managed to smudge a piece of graphite along your cheek upon the gesture. Your sketch was coming along slowly today; your mind kept wandering off and you couldn’t shake the feeling that you were being watched.

Which you were correct about.

“Nice view,” a familiar voice drawled.

You flinched upon the sound, nearly dropping the tools on your knees as you whipped your head toward the source. There he was, perched on the edge of the rooftop, the sunset behind him painting him like some sort of an angel. Nightwing.

“Seriously? Do you ever not sneak up on people?”

The cheeky smirk made its usual appearance on his lips when he hopped down from his spot, taking slow steps towards you. It was impossible to stay annoyed at him, with that face and easy charisma. “Where’s the fun in that?”

With a roll of your eyes, you couldn’t help but smile a little. “What are you even doing here?”

“Patrolling,” he replied casually to your question, just like he did the night he came to return your bag. Trying to act all nonchalant, but deep down he cares. You know that. He’s acting again. You could tell by the experience and by the tone of his voice. It suggested otherwise from his answer. His masked eyes shifted to your knees, noting the open book. “Another blue jay?”

“I’m trying to capture the way they look when flying. It’s harder than it seems.”

You watched him while he watched your drawings. The vigilante crouched down beside you, his knee bumping against yours softly, almost as in unsaid greeting. He was saying hello while you responded hi back. “You’re getting better.”

Silence draped over the two of you after that sentence left his throat, this one much more comfortable than the one you experienced the week before in your apartment. His elbows were resting on his knees, which bumped into yours from time to time in a silent gesture. Your eyes found the white lenses behind the domino mask.

“You’re not gonna disappear this time, are you?”

“No.”

Your sketchbook lay forgotten in your lap as you gazed into the void of his eyes. You couldn’t read the emotion in them but you somehow could tell every single feeling brewing inside him. It was written across his face, open like a book.

“You’re staring,” you whispered.

“So are you,” his reply was quick, like he knew exactly what to say the moment you spoke up.

A faintest tug at your lips brought the corners up in a smile, but it faltered the moment he leaned in, taking up your personal space inch by inch. He was moving slowly, giving you the opportunity to pull away, to reject him and his touch if you wanted to. But you didn’t.

His palm hovered near the curve of your cheekbone close enough to feel the warmth seeping through the glove. He cocked his head slightly to the side, as if silently asking you a question he was too caught up in to say aloud.

“You’ve got graphite on your cheek.”

“Do I?”

He brushed his thumb across the smudge, wiping it away. He didn’t pull away once your skin was clean.

You noticed the way his eyes briefly dropped to your lips before flicking back to meet yours, searching for an answer he so desperately wanted to hear.

If you didn’t want this, he’d pull back. You knew he would.

But you didn’t want him to.

Leaning in, you closed the little distance between you, and that was all the answer he needed. His lips met yours firmly, pressing against yours like a puzzle, like they belonged there. Your hands gripped at him, fingers moving to the base of his neck to grab a handful of his black hair and pulling slightly to deliver a message.

Although the darkness around you enveloped you, clothing the day in dark, you felt a spark of light every time his lips pressed against yours more urgently, licking and biting his way inside to get a taste of you. You felt it when his gloved hands tangled in your hair, tugging you impossibly close to make you his.

His forehead came to rest against yours when you eventually had to pull away for a fresh breath of air, both his and your breaths uneven.

“Tell me I’m not gonna regret this.”

“You won’t.” That was a promise.

Because when you’re lost in the darkness, you should look for the light.

[astridwrites]

Unspoken Endings

Bang Chan x gn! reader

Caution: Language, Arguing, Fighting

The break up with BangChan was harder than you thought. Traces of him lingered everywhere even though he cleared his things out entirely.

The smell of his shampoo and body wash combo soaked into the bathroom walls. The stain from the wine he spilt on rug during Valentine’s Day was still shaped into a cat silhouette.

The memory of him scrubbing the rug for an hour straight cracked a smile on your face but it faded as you remembered the argument. his powerful voice fueled with anger and resentment drowned out any soft memories that you shared with him.

You walked into the kitchen and started to prepare your tea, you reached for the tea kettle but clenched your fist remembering Bang Chan shattering it to pieces along with two of the matching tea cups and the two cups that the both of you painted during a date night at the local tea house.

After deciding to just go out for tea you pulled on your sweater that’s been keeping you warm since Bang Chan’s absence. You grabbed your bag and headed out. The autumn air was crisp and cold. You pulled the beanie securely on your head and headed towards the bus station.

You found your seat and stared carelessly out of the window, passing by the spot where the argument started that lead all the way home. You shut your eyes and looked ahead seeing your stop was next, time seemed to speed up when you wanted to forget.

At the tea house you ordered a pot of your favorite tea and waited for the waitress to drop off the fixings and the cup. You looked around at the environment around you, people sitting alone in booths reading books, or scrolling on their phones, or some typing quietly on their laptops.

You wondered if they were alone because they liked it, and if so how do they do it? You also wondered if any of them were going through a break up, or writing their life story of a relationship that was once heaven and slowly turned to hell.

The waitress placed the cup in front of you making you refocus and come back to reality. “Any pastries you want to add?” She smiled “uh, a muffin, blueberry” you replied “I’ll put that order in” she smiled and nodded.

You poured your tea and slowly stirred in your add ins. You took a slow sip and nearly choked seeing Bang Chan walking in with his band mates Lee Know, Jisung and Felix.

Your coughing fit from the scorching tea gave away your position as the quartet looked over. Bang Chan’s eyes widen as he recognized the mustard colored beanie. It was the same one he saw every winter and fall time. The one that he snuggly tugged over your hair before leaving outside in the cold weather.

Felix looked over at his hyung and shook his head subtly. The man in front of the four finished his order and Felix gently tugged on Bang Chan’s sleeve. You weren’t looking but you could feel his eyes searing into your skull. You wanted to disappear, sink into the leather seats of the booth or melt into the tiled floor, anything was better than this.

Han finished his order and the four stepped aside. Lee Know whispered something into Felix’s ear and Felix leaned in to tell Chan. “They are probably telling him how better off he is without me” your thoughts wondered. The four of them looked over at you, as if they could hear your thoughts. A number was called and Lee Know and Jisung walked to the counter to grab the box and bags. Felix looked over quickly to make sure all beverages were accounted for and Chan saw this as an opportunity.

Felix reached out his words stopping in his throat as Bang Chan started in your direction. You saw him approaching and your heart was beating so fast you could feel it trying to burst out of your skin. With each step you could feel your comfort bubble shrinking and shrinking ready to suffocate you.

Chan stopped two booths away, you were too afraid to look up. It was almost like the soles of his shoes melted into the floor. Or perhaps it was the man on the laptop testing some new gravity defying technology he just created that would make him a billionaire. Nope it was Lee Know’s arm crossing over Bang Chan’s chest.

He mumbled something that you couldn’t hear but this had Bang Chan turning around and heading towards the door. He looked over one last time before exiting. Suddenly it was like someone hit the unmute button as the tea house filled up again with the noise of glasses clinking, fingertips typing and a low hum in your ear that popped like a bubble.

Your sudden thirst for tea was long gone, you got up and paid for your drink and the muffin you never received. The bus chugged by you, making you sigh in disappointment, now you would need to rely on your legs to get you home in this cold weather. After zipping up your jacket and securing your beanie you embarked onto the journey back home.

Your thoughts switched between how damn cold it was, and what did Bang Chan want to talk about, what did his members whisper to him? was it good or bad? A cold chill down your spine snapped you back to reality. You looked around trying to find a familiar land mark and spotted one, the spot where the argument flared up between you and Bang Chan that night.

You approached the perimeter and put your hand against the lamppost that held the button to the crosswalk to get home. you could hear Bang Chan’s voice booming in haunting echos in your ears.

“It’s just a stupid birthday!? What are you eight years old!?”

The buzzing sound telling you it was okay to walk pulled you back into reality. You hurried across and looked back an image of Bang Chan waving his hands and arms in the air as he yelled at you in the streets flashed like a ghost.

You walked past the staircase of the apartment buildings where he pulled your wrist to stop you from walking. You could see the past image of the two of you arguing at the bottom.

“Do Not EVER touch me!” you snapped and shoved him as hard as you could.

“Then don’t walk away from me!” Bang Chan yelled back. “What do you want me to do huh?! Give up on my dreams for you? I been doing this shit for years and I thought you’d understand!”

“Go back to your studio! I hate you!”

“Fine! I hate you too!”

The ugly brown door of your apartment complex looked like golden doors as you spotted them in the distance. Suddenly it felt like the icy pavement froze your feet in place as you saw Bang Chan sitting on the staircase at the bottom.

Where he stood blowing warm air in his hands was the spot it all ended. You wondered if he could hear the arguments too as he stood in that spot, or if he could see the ghosts of that fight playing like holograms in front of him.

“Everyone else remembered my special day, and you? You couldn’t even put aside an hour for me to celebrate?”

“Listen to yourself, can you hear how stupid and selfish you sound right now!!? You’re really going to try to guilt trip me for not showing up to a stupid birthday dinner with your friends that I don’t even fucking like!?”

“I would have done it for you!”

“That’s because you don’t have a career! You have nothing else to do during the day except bitch and complain and wait for me to come over! It’s pathetic!”

If Bang Chan could hear it or see it, he would know the argument went up to the apartment, where instead of going to bed angry and waking up to “forgive me” kisses. Bang Chan yelled and broke every single gift he ever got you.

“It’s not like I don’t buy you gifts any other day! Look at all this shit! This necklace!? I bought it for you for Valentine’s day!” *he breaks the chain*

“Or-or this fucking camera! For Christmas!?” *he smashes the camera into the floor*

“Chan STOP IT!” you shout and try to grab him, but he’s too powerful, and in full rage mode.

“All these fucking gifts! and presents!” *he walks off to the kitchen where he smashes the porcelain tea pot and matching cup*

“GET OUT! I hate you! I HATE YOU SO MUCH!”

“You hate me? GOOD!” *he storms out the door*

Instead of heading to the apartment, your feet unfreeze and you turn around. Your legs carrying you away, anywhere but home. You never got a confirmation if it was truly over between the both of you, or if it was just an argument like the many others you had before, but a more explosive one.

All you knew was you would rather take your chances risking a cold than talking to Bang Chan, and finding out.

[tilly-tiger]

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[qm-vox]

Man Who Talk To God Have Difficult Life - Playing Clerics In D&D

(St. Nokta Kinslayer, whom you'll meet further down in the article. Art by the esteemed @druid-for-hire who quite frankly cannot be thanked enough!)

Guess who's back motherfuckers. When they ask how I died, tell them, still angry. After the paladin article I asked around about classes to cover "next" and got a lot of requests; rogue, warlock, sorcerer, so of course I have elected to be a good friend by losing my will to live for months on end and then doing none of those. Let's talk Clerics, shall we? I'll not lie to you, this is going to be an angrier article than the paladin one, in no small part because it's inevitably going to go into contentious ideas like alignment, fantasy religion, and others that the player base has been knife fighting about since mammoths still walked the Earth. There are going to be moments when I look y'all in the eyes and say with my metaphorical human mouth that the problem is you Doing It Wrong, and I can only ask that you hear me out. Not to assign you homework about my fuckin' cleric article or anything, but the one I previously did about The Many may be helpful here as well. There's going to be a bit of a focus on D&D 5e here, and I'll be frank about that: most people are playing 5e these days, and as I'll be arguing further down, Pathfinder's take on Clerics and more broadly on faith are a worthless poison that actively worsens the world.

This article's title is drawn from Small Gods by the esteemed Sir Professor Terry Pratchett. As always, credit goes to Afroakuma for teaching me a great deal of the examples I'm going to give, though citing specific sources are going to be difficult as many of the books in question have been out of print for decades and I am neither an academic nor a machine.

Now for the obligatory Content Warnings. We're looking at discussion of fantasy religion & comparisons to real-world religion, violence, discussions of atrocities such as torture, desecration of the dead, and destruction of culture, as well as traumatic deaths/backstories for the sample clerics at the end. As mentioned above, there is also going to be some alignment discourse. You have been warned; do as thou wilt.

Without further ado, let us begin with...

O Mighty Smiter - Clerics Through D&D's History

We begin the obligatory text wall.

Clerics have been here since the beginning. They were around back when "Elf" was a class, and while their history is complex it has, eternally, been colored by the bit where Cleric has an inherent identity problem. In many ways it is, as a class, too broad, so wide-open that getting something coherent out of it is an exercise in frustration or even futility. It'll be easier to talk about what Clerics aren't than what they are, and oh boy, will I. A brief note here: while Druid is going to come up in the context of 1e and 2e, and again a bit later when I start talking about priests (yeah, that's a separate conversation, we're gonna get there), this article is not otherwise dedicated to Druid. I'm gonna need a significant amount of whiskey for both me and my priestess before we god damn go there.

AD&D 1e and 2e: Deus Vult - Do the world a favor if you ever pass near Gary Gygax's grave: piss on it. Ol' Gary G rooted Cleric in his classic blend of obsession with medieval ideas and piss-poor research, invoking many myths about priests of the Crusades and applying them as a one-size-fits-all vision of war-clergy of Every God. He would personally run into problems with this in his own writing before he got out of the game, and rather quickly at that, as he tried to write faiths whose imagery and ideals did not fit the Crusader Priest ideal, but since he was, and I cannot stress this enough, a hack with all the morals and emotional intelligence of mustard gas, he never quite solved those problems for himself. I'll hop off my screed now, I just want this said up front, especially since it's the fundamental evil that chases Cleric to this day.

The O.G. Cleric was described as a melee combatant that took a close second-place to Fighter in that arena, with proficiency in heavy armor and a variety of useful weapons, though they were forbidden from using "edged weapons that spill blood" (there's those Crusader myths). Random fun fact, the very first incarnation of Cleric only had spells up to 7th level, but the level tables for their class went up to level 29 or so, and man, ain't that just wild. As your Cleric gained levels they also became more highly placed in the church of their god, eventually hitting High Priest and just kinda sitting there as they leveled up. Interesting note here: Clerics couldn't be Neutral (that is, not Lawful, Chaotic, Good, or Evil) back in the day, and instead anyone wanting to run a Neutral Cleric had to take a subclass you might have heard of by the name of Druid, which in turn eventually had to face other Druids in SINGLE COMBAT in order to level up past a certain point. Why? I don't know. Summon Gygax's ghost and ask him between rounds of spiritual torture. This original version of Cleric had Turn Undead, a feature that's been attached to almost all Clerics by some name or another in all of their incarnations, and boy, Turn Undead used to be fucking wild. Roll a dice, consult a table based on your result and your level, and end up Turning or Destroying a number of very specific kinds of undead. AD&D 2e would put "undead gods" on this list starting at 13th level or so, and let me tell you: this came up in published material more often than you might think. Last but not least, like most characters back in 1e and 2e, Clerics eventually got to run a building full of people. At first the Cleric attracted about 20-200 "fanatics" who would work for free and help them build a shrine (no word on how TF you feed and water these fanatics) but eventually was given the right to build a proper castle-temple and produce 1 silver per month per resident via "trade, taxes, tariffs". Ladies and gentlemen, D&D.

Aside from the aforementioned alterations to Turn Undead, AD&D 2e introduced a concept known as Spheres to Cleric casting. Now, stop me if you've heard this before: each god gave access to 1 or more Spheres, which were specific lists of spells that their Clerics had access to (fun fact, Paladin casting was "as Cleric of 9 levels lower", but only with access to specific Spheres). So if you worshiped, say, Lathander, you had access to Healing, Sun, Divination, and IIRC a couple of others, and that's it, that's the whole ticket. Now, you may remember Kits from the Paladin article, and Clerics did have some of that action, but more than that they had "specialty priests", a sort of even-more-hardcore version of this whole proto-Domain deal; a Specialty Priest had different class features in comparison to normal Cleric, and access to different or more Spheres, both of which were determined by their god. Each Specialty Priest was, in its way, its own separate subclass of Cleric and if you published a god back in the day you had to get one of these installed. Were they all good? No. Fuck no. God no. Are you kidding me? But they were often very distinctive.

This doesn't get talked about a lot, at least not until we hit Pathfinder, but Clerics have had codes of conduct like Paladins for as long as they've existed, sort of atomized across their various gods. The rules around these have always been vague, and rarely culturally enforced in the player communities, but they did and do exist. A cleric of Kelemvor raising a zombie has done a bit of a blasphemy; raising a ghoul or vampire probably entails divine retribution, a reduction in character level, or even the loss of their powers. Oh, and other gods are probably trying to court you since clearly you're looking for new management and a trained cleric is a resourced that's hard to pass up.

No version of Cleric has ever particularly had a strong identity, but this original version may have been the closest to having one...because it's bad. To the credit of 1e and 2e, the eventual installation of Nonweapon Proficiencies, later to become the Skills system, did let them be competent as actual like, priests? Cleric got access to the stuff needed to actually minister as a spiritual leader with some extra socked away to practice sacred arts related to their god (ex. bookbinding for a cleric of Denier) and maybe even some god damn hobbies too. But outside of the ever-more-niche & esoteric arena of specialty priests, themselves presented as particular fanatics, agents, or chosen ones, every cleric was a Crusader, and every god's clergy were war-priests. And that's weird, right? And so now we must move on to the demon that never dies.

D&D 3.5: The Word Of My God Is 'Begone' - Quick question, have you ever wanted to roleplay someone perceptive but otherwise deeply stupid and utterly incompetent to move unsupervised through human society, who is, nonetheless, OMNIPOTENT? Welcome to the 3.5 Cleric, one of THE casters of all time in the absolute Caster Supremacy Edition. I hope you came ready to hear casual mentions of mechanics that would make a Victorian occultist cry. If you go looking at the class page for Cleric you might notice there's both jack and shit there, and for my readers who got into D&D at 5e the following might be a bit of a shock: Cleric was one of the strongest classes in 3.5.

In terms of the actual mechanics related to Cleric in 3.5, Turn or Rebuke Undead and spontaneous casting were some of the big ones. Well, "big" ones; Turn Undead qua Turn Undead was actually kind of shit and would often just not actually like...turn...the undead, but the charges of Turn Undead a Cleric kept around could be used for many other options that permitted alternate spending, notably here to include Divine Metamagic. These alternate spends were better than using Turn Undead for its actual intended purpose more or less always, and Divine Metamagic (DMM) in particular was an unholy monstrosity that underlied a lot of Cleric's power later in 3.5's run, letting them customize their prepared spells on the fly without having to use up higher-level spell slots. Now, I really cannot stress this enough: Cleric was one of the most powerful classes in core alone, without adding any supplements. DMM and similar options made Cleric even stronger but they were very much gilding the lily, to be frank. "Hey Vox why are you saying this," you would not believe the number of ignorant pricks who made a literal moral crusade out of going to "core only" in 3.5 claiming it made for a better balanced game. The good version of 3.5 has never existed, destroy anyone who claims otherwise.

Where was I - spontaneous casting, yes. Now, Clerics were still prepared casters, they had X spell slots every day at very specific levels and had to pick specific spells to fill them. That is, if you want to cast create water more than once in a given day, you need to memorize create water more than once that day. However, Clerics could convert a spell of any level to either cure wounds or inflict wounds of the same level, depending on the alignment of the Cleric (Good Clerics Turn Undead and cure wounds, Evil Clerics Rebuke Undead and inflict wounds, and Neutral Clerics not otherwise restricted by their god get to pick one for their entire career). This gave 3.5 Cleric a lot of flexibility, very valuable flexibility in a game environment where casting a heal mid-combat was basically always the wrong move, but out-of-combat healing was still an invaluable resource. RIP to Evil Clerics though, inflict sucked ass.

Lastly, we have domains. Now, if you check through the domain list on the SRD you may notice that they are rather less defining than the 5e Domains, granting a single power apiece and a list of spells you get access to. Most gods in 3.5 granted access to 3+ Domains, and their Clerics got to pick 2; together, these are the "kind" of Cleric you are, the aspects of your god that you kinda embody which then shape your power. Clerics got special extra spell slots solely for Domain spells in addition to their usual progression, and could memorize these Domain spells in normal slots as well. 3.5's list of Domains was deep and wide to the point of self-parody, and the power that gave a player to customize their Cleric's aesthetic and mechanics could be immense. Sure, many Domains were much weaker than others (Magic Domain is bonkers and that asshole is in core) but ultimately every Domain is stapled to Cleric, and since Clerics don't learn spells, only memorize them, there's a floor as to how weak you can possibly be.

So, what are your restrictions on Cleric? Not many. Non-War Domain Clerics had a sort of mid list of weapon options, sure, but if you're not casting you're playing wrong already so who gives a shit. Heavy armor and full access to shields meant a lot of build flexibility as far as that goes, so no problems here. The biggest thing is that a Cleric needed to be, and remain, within one alignment "step" of their god, plus or minus any other specific restrictions. That is, a Cleric of Liira, who is Chaotic Good, must be Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, or Chaotic Neutral; becoming Lawful Good, True Neutral, Chaotic Evil, etc would result in losing all Cleric powers and being unable to take Cleric levels until they fixed their shit or found a new god. Strictly speaking, these Clerics could/would still Fall a la paladins if they sufficiently blasphemed against or angered their god, but in practice this sort of thing was just...not common.

This is the section where I would talk about other divine classes in 3.X but honestly they were all so god damn weird and specific that no comparison really could be made. Shugenja, for instance, just isn't cognate to Cleric. The closest thing is the Healer class, no points for guessing what their deal is, but the thing with Healer is they have more in common with paladin, so like. Cleric or bust baby, welcome to fucktown.

Which brings us back to what Cleric was like narratively, the answer to which is: confused. The thing is...Clerics have always, likely will always, want high Wisdom, which makes them perceptive, good at detecting lies, weirdly talented at handling animals, competent to navigate the wilderness, and also I just described a Disney Princess. The trouble is, nearly everything else is strictly secondary. Every caster wants and needs Constitution in 3.X so they can make those Concentration checks and also, you know, not die, so okay, you're perceptive and you can hold your liquor, but after that nothing else matters. On the one hand, this makes for a great deal of versatility in terms of your ability scores, but on the other hand Cleric had 2+Int skill points per level on the most dog shit skill list in the game so being a very smart Cleric rarely bought you anything. Higher Charisma could be cool, but hey, see that skill list? It's still shit, and if you aren't also buying Intelligence you quite literally can't afford to keep up the social skill tax. A true war-priest wants Dexterity so they can act before their enemies and command the battlefield but that's more or less all you buy out of Dexterity on Cleric so congratulations, you're an almighty quickdraw and also illiterate. "What about Strength," what about it.

I really cannot overstate the paralyzing nature of that skill list, because priests - which 3.5 wanted Clerics to be, which it thinks they are - need more of them than most people think. A proper spiritual leader needs to buy up Insight, Knowledge (Religion), Knowledge (Local), Knowledge (Nobility), and Persuasion at a minimum, and they sure do also want Intimidate and Perception. You get two of those. Two. Just two. If you buy up Intelligence after you eat your vegetables like a good player, you maybe get to buy four of those. And that's it, that's all you fucking get. Clerics are not competent to be priests, which is going to be true of them going forward from this edition on. Now, I'm painting with a relatively broad brush here, and there's definitely religions on Earth these days which did, or still do, separate out roles that might reasonably be called a priest & Cleric vs. those roles that are community leaders and interpreters of doctrine and law, but there's a shocking amount of "here's my vision of what priests are and do" that Cleric wants to be, and isn't, because of this whole fucking deal.

But while 3.5 was extremely blind to the bit where Clerics just were not what it thinks priests are any more, it was very much not blind to the terror and power of their spellcasting. A high-level cleric, in the narrative of any given setting, is a terrifying force - an army unto themselves, a one-woman political bloc whose existence is an implicit threat of violence on a civilizational scale. I didn't spill all that ink about the power and mechanics of Cleric up there for nothing; 3.5 was very interested in how those mechanics could manifest within the narrative, how they are inextricably bound to said narrative. Hell, in Expedition to Undermountain alone the backstory of the dungeon includes one non-relevant sect of Clerics who was, in-universe, trying to game the spell slot system, alongside another unrelated sect that the PCs trip over by accident and fight inside their half-constructed fortress of partially undead bone which they control via Rebuke Undead.

Lemme say that again just for emphasis: there's an adventure where an accidental encounter is a long siege through a half-animated evil fortress that can be controlled through pure divinity, which was invented because its builders, in-universe, were trying to optimize their power and create an advantage they could control but their enemies couldn't. And this is just my favorite example, it's hardly the only one. Even the fucking novels got in on this sort of thing. We all joke about how wizards have no rights, because they don't, but watch a Cleric hit level 7 or so and you'll realize quickly that they are becoming something to which mortal laws are more like polite suggestions. Nor is this necessarily solely the sign of greater favor and thus potentially restriction from their god; indeed, a Cleric has to bring things to the table themself, narratively speaking! Divine spellcasting is a real skillset that you get better at with practice and experience, and part of the reason higher level Clerics get so much attention from other gods - aside from the obvious "this person can solo an army and still go home in a mood to have sex with their wife" angle - is that a skilled Cleric is a rare resource worth stealing.

Overall, 3.5's vision of Cleric is perhaps the one that suffers most from Cleric's identity-draining lack of specificity. Its Clerics were powerful, but they were also largely all the same; they could change their spells every day, but that only really meant that your list of spells doesn't really matter beyond personal preference. Domains offered some customization, but they didn't go far enough, and indeed if they were to go far enough the all-consuming might of Cleric would only be even more flagrant. So let's return to the most honest edition of D&D, shall we?

D&D 4e: Healer Calls The Shots - There are a lot of reasons that D&D 4e was born dead, and a big one is that classes with healing abilities were labeled 'leaders'. This seems absurd these days, especially if you're into esports at all; the support player being the team leader has become accepted strategy in a variety of games, in no small part because one simply cannot win without them, and yet at the time the D&D fanbase - still in an awkward transitional period of nerd masculinity that I don't have the time or the PhD to write about - rebelled against this concept with fountaining violence. The "girlfriend classes", leaders? Absurd. Preposterous. Clearly Sir Dipshit the Fighter with no mental stats or applicable skills is the leader.

I'm not fucking bitter, you are.

So what was Cleric's deal, exactly? Cleric qua Cleric was a Leader, as mentioned before, that could primarily be built either as a scrappy melee type or a more hard-support implement caster. "What's an implement caster?" glad you asked; back in 4e you had to hold a casting implement to cast your spells, something like a rod, staff, wand, holy symbol, your mother's haunted skull, whatever, and these had specific mechanical effects that altered your abilities. Some classes, like Cleric, could also or instead use a weapon as their implement, but in practical terms the strict wealth-by-level guidelines meant you got one or the other and would build your stats accordingly. Keep this in your back pocket for later, it's going to come up again. Also for your back pocket for later: these implements were, well, implemented as part of 4e's item progression, and the expectation was that you would spend your available resources (in this case, gold/phantom gold, collectively Wealth By Level) on better implements that would make your abilities work more work-y. Limited wealth meant that while in theory you could have both a magic weapon and a magical implement, in practical terms you get one or the other 'cause there's other shit you gotta buy.

What Clerics did with these implements was sell healing and healing accessories. While 4e introduced the concept of Radiant damage (used there as especially good against fiends, undead, and other forces of evil) and Clerics did indeed have access to some of that as well as buff abilities, their main thing was being the ranged healer par excellence, able to heal or cause healing far in excess of their peers in the role such as Warlord. Here, then, we return to the throughline of the divine healer which stretches all the way back to fucking BECMI, and which modern audiences may recognize more readily as the JRPG archetype of the White Mage - itself rooted in BECMI again! This hobby is an ouroboros, I say, with love.

Joining Cleric here are a selection of other classes with divine powers who take on a similar conceptual space. I talked a bit about Invoker during the Paladin article so I'm not gonna go over them again (this shit is long enough as it is), so we're gonna talk about Warpriest and Runepriest.

Introduced in the Essentials line, Warpriest was - like most Essentials classes - a simplified take on Cleric meant to be more accessible to new players. It shifted just about everything towards Wisdom in terms of writing one's character. Warpriests were these tanky all-around characters who gave up some of Cleric's team support for better attacks, and notably did not select powers on level-up, but rather got a progression based on their Domain. Readers familiar with D&D 5e might see some similarities here.

Runepriest, on the other hand, was a weird freak of a Defender whose thing was projecting offensive or defensive Auras that they could amplify with their support abilities and swap out every time they attacked. Their primary stat was Strength, drawing on a similar idea to the later revised 5e Barbarian or, perhaps more familiar to y'all, Beast incantations in Elden Ring. Very much not simplified, Runepriest offered some initial build diversity but didn't get a lot of support as the gameline continued, ironically ending up as very limited despite seeming intentions of breadth.

Narratively, these classes were somewhere in the range of 'village preacher with a hidden badass streak' to 'war missionary' to 'literal thug for the literal god of literal fascism'. 4e here stands out for being the first edition to acknowledge that a Cleric is not really a priest as such, and is much more like...a chosen one, a conception that very much fit well into 4e's idea that adventurers are inherently freaks who do things no sane person would ever consider. If you're thinking, "gee that sounds odd, why wouldn't there be like Clerics just existing inside cities", I point you at works like Dungeon Meshi who advance this same idea. Fundamentally, the skills one uses to break into ancient tombs full of undead are not skills you develop while working as a spiritual leader or a bureaucrat or even as a military officer. Adventuring is not a career you get into because your life is going well.

Of course, as mentioned, D&D 4e was born dead, so now we need to talk about the demon that ate its corpse and was, for a time, the unquestioned king of the TTRPG space by dint of its treachery and malice.

Pathfinder: Deus Vult Part II: World Holy War - Keep Pathfinder in your back pocket next to casting implements, they're gonna star in the religion section later as I express a fundamental anger that borders on inhuman rage. You have no earthly idea just how much I'm cutting out of this section alone considering that like many, I was there for Pathfinder during the beta and thus got in on the ground floor of a great deal of incompetence, malice, cruelty, outright betrayal, unexamined double-think, and egotistical bullshit.

That said, let's actually talk about Cleric.

In terms of Cleric qua Cleric, you may be noticing that the table there looks a lot like 3.5's Cleric, and indeed in many ways they're pretty similar. The biggest immediate difference is the addition of Channel Energy, which lets a Cleric become a healing bomb (or harm undead bomb, or vice versa) a certain number of times per day linked to their Charisma modifier. This is in addition to spontaneous casting, so it's a strict addition; further, it being a 30-foot burst means a channeled heal might actually be worth your Standard Action at some point in your career. It won't be, but it might. Additionally, Pathfinder Clerics are proficient in the Favored Weapon of their god by default (more on this later), which - by contrast - was often much harder to access in 3.5.

Like D&D 3.5, Pathfinder has a dizzying array of Domains to go with a default setting packed full of gods (more on this in the religion section later), ranging from things as broad as 'all magic ever' to things as embarrassingly specific as 'ambushes as laid by kobolds specifically'. Seriously, look at this list, it's absurd. And while by sheer numbers and specificity it's roughly equivalent with 3.5, I'm not about to claim 3.5 has the high road here, Clerics in Pathfinder get more abilities from their Domains and thus your choice of Domain and/or Subdomain is far more important to your Cleric than it ever was in PF's parent game.

Indeed, option paralysis is going to be the name of the game here. Clerics in Pathfinder, in addition to Domain and Subdomain and their choice of god, also get to pick out variants on the Channeling ability that I talked about and, like all Pathfinder classes, have access to a dizzying array of Archetypes. These Archetypes in turn range in scope and concept from variations on how one has trained as a Cleric (such as Crusader, keep that name in mind for later) to like, race essentialism as class features such as Fiendish Vessel. Sit on that statement for a bit. Really internalize it.

Now, while the rules for Pathfinder give provisions for older versions of Clerics such as Clerics of ideals, Planar Clerics, etc, in practice Pathfinder is very much married to its one-and-only setting, Golarion, and to its particular vision of Clerics as the dedicated priests of a single god. This is a difficult vision to accomplish, as they still aren't competent to be priests, but it's also one that adds another layer of information a player has to juggle, as Golarion makes a much bigger and yet somehow much smaller deal about Clerics falling and losing their powers; each of its gods has a published code of conduct, Obediences you can perform for mechanical benefits, and sometimes even exclusive spells. I said I was gonna cut my beefs with Paizo out of this section but I really cannot resist just one: this is from the creators who made their first bones by arguing that mechanical bloat was the cardinal sin of 3.5 and advertised a return to the purity of Core. It would be funny if it weren't so fucking infuriating. If you can't hack it as a Cleric of your god, you lose your powers until you either start hacking it, or find a new god that agrees better with your current behavior, and those gods are very much in the market to hire.

In addition to Clerics as the hypothetical main priests (both as PCs and NPCs), Pathfinder introduces Inquisitors, Oracles, and Warpriests and we're gonna have to talk about all of them so I hope you weren't doing anything else with your day. Let's start with Inquisitors. Meant to be to Cleric what Ranger is to druid, Inquisitor is a wildly revealing take on how Paizo thinks about religion and ethics. To wit:

"Grim and determined, the inquisitor roots out enemies of the faith, using trickery and guile when righteousness and purity is not enough. Although inquisitors are dedicated to a deity, they are above many of the normal rules and conventions of the church. They answer to their deity and their own sense of justice alone, and are willing to take extreme measures to meet their goals. Role: Inquisitors tend to move from place to place, chasing down enemies and researching emerging threats. As a result, they often travel with others, if for no other reason than to mask their presence. Inquisitors work with members of their faith whenever possible, but even such allies are not above suspicion."

James Jacobs would like to tell you, with a straight face, that this is a normal and expected way to engage with religion, to think about religion, and that Inquisitors as presented here can be of any alignment and serve any god, all of whom will keep them around on purpose. In a related story, James Jacobs is a sniveling wretch. In another related story, the aesthetics and proficiencies of Inquisitor are very much like, the Hugh Jackman Van Helsing. I do not say this as an insult to either Inquisitor or to Mister Van Helsing, his aesthetics slap, but do keep that in mind for what I'm gonna say later.

Mechanically, Inquisitor drops a lot of control and damage, gleefully sacrificing most of the support a Cleric offers in favor of singling out particular targets and persecuting them to death. They also get a surprising amount of out-of-combat utility, adding their Wisdom modifier to Knowledge checks to identify "monsters" ("hey what's a monster" good FUCKING question), gaining bonuses to tracking like a Ranger, and adding a FAT bonus to Sense Motive (this becomes Insight in 5e) & Intimidate checks. Their combat style is a mix of hard control spells and self-buffs to damage so they can sandpaper their enemies to death; very functional, but also very much a particular vision of a holy warrior. And lest we leave this unsaid, Inquisitor spells were very much concerned with rooting out "heresy", heterodoxy, and punishing "sinners" within their own faiths, which is a wild-ass statement when you remember, again, that they can follow any god. You wanna tell me the god of revolutions runs secret police whose job it is to murder heretics? You wanna tell me that, James Jacobs? That's what you're telling me? Fucksake. Adding to this is that while Inquisitors can take Domains, they more commonly take bespoke Inquisitions that, well, make them better at being the secret police. You know how the god of the harvest runs the Grain Gestapo and they're the good guys somehow? Like that.

This, however, is where I drop the other shoe. Look at Inquisitor's skill list. Look at their skills per level. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? They're competent to serve as spiritual leaders, indeed, infinitely more competent to do so than either Cleric or Warpriest are or ever will be. The rest of their abilities make that idea just a little bit absurd, but if you don't mind every local village priest being an apprentice serial killer on their off hours Inquisitor is the only divine class that can do the job. The only one. There are no others. The next-closest candidates are fucking Bard and Rogue.

Which brings us to Warpriest, I think. I will not mince words here: Warpriest fucking sucks. Pitched as one of the many so-called "hybrid classes", Warpriest's parent classes are Fighter and Cleric, and it really got the worst end of both. Cleric is cracked enough that even with 6th level casting Warpriest evens out to doing fine, but my fucking god. Warpriests get some minor buffs to their weapons and armor, allowing them to customize those items and granting a phantom buff to the budget they can assign to them, as well as access to Blessings, their particular spin on Domains. These are good ways to extend their spellcasting but are, essentially, equivalent to a secondary pool of spells and buffs; likewise, their Fervor ability is a pool of healing/harming in theory, but in practice you burn Fervor to self-buff as a Swift action (Bonus Action for you 5e folks) or you're doing it wrong. The problem here is that Warpriest is just...worse Cleric. The phantom buffs to their weapons and armor, as well as their pool of bonus Combat feats, do not make up for the bit where they swing less accurately, less often, than an equal level Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, etc. You're casting or you're failing, and if you're already a hard caster, you're a Cleric - and Clerics, y'know, are already war-priests.

Oracle is the weird one out of this list. A spontaneous and Charisma-based divine caster, Oracle stands out for having a more limited list of spells that they get to use more often, and for having flexibility with their use of Metamagic feats the way a Sorcerer does. "What if I don't want to use Metamagic feats," I'm afraid you'll need to go fuck yourself, this is what you're doing. Oracle was an instant smash-hit with the player base of Pathfinder for its strong aesthetics and customization; where most Clerics are essentially the same with minor differences, every Oracle is, in some way, different. In particular, each Oracle has a Curse which makes them like, literally & textually disabled in some way but also grants them power, ranging from "you're just deaf, that's it that's the curse" to "you've been infested by an alien hive-mind from literal space, good luck fucker", and also pursues a Mystery that gives them themed abilities and further customizes their spell list. Unfortunately this is still a Paizo class; in terms of the actual mechanics, most Curses are essentially meaningless, with a rare few either being so bad that they're unpickable or so good that you kinda have to justify why you didn't take them (Deafened is the latter, incidentally) and most just being nothingburgers that matter not at all.

Now, notable here before I talk about Mysteries is that Oracle, like Cleric, is living that 3/4th base attack bonus life and can natively wear up to medium armor. Unlike Cleric they are not natively proficient with their god's Favored Weapon but otherwise they're fronting as a gish (spellblade for you youngbloods, a character that mixes magic and melee). The thing is, while that 3/4 attack bonus is great for spells that make attack rolls - here Oracle is handily beating contenders like Wizard or Sorcerer in terms of accuracy - they are, you know, ninth-level casters. The correct move for your turn is "I cast a spell". There are not exceptions to this. In an extremely related story, most Mysteries are full of not-spell things to do with the actions you would normally use to cast spells, and while some of them - such as the endless parade of ways to boost your Armor Class - replace certain spells, essentially saving you a slot, many of them are just kinda...weak blasts or control abilities that don't meaningfully compete with, again, "I cast a spell". And like, the flip side of your choice of Mystery often not mattering is that you're free to pick something that seems thematic to you, but riddle me this: if you never use the abilities you pick up, does it matter that you have them?

There's some obvious winners in Mysteries, as there always is. Lore and Time are cracked as hell, and you can get away with something like Metal that has mostly passive abilities, but here we need to talk a bit about the theme and flavor of Oracle. Paizo sold the class on the idea of mysterious connections to the divine, a sort of divine mirror to their Witch class whose associations with the otherworldly are potentially unknown to them and move them without their consent. They then immediately abandoned this faster than my father abandoned me; every published Oracle is the Oracle of one god in particular, Mysteries are associated with gods the way Domains are, and this means that in all ways Oracle is a Cleric who can get laid. I am, perhaps, disproportionately angry about this, both on a professional level (lying to your readers is a bit of a dick move) and on a personal one (I wanted the Oracle they sold and did not receive it). And that's...a bit of a let-down, right? Paladins are already god-locked in Pathfinder too, so at this point Oracle, while having strong imagery, is not meaningfully different from its peers in a way that you can really latch onto. I dunno. It's a waste, y'know?

Overall, Paizo's vision of its divine classes is not able to be separated from its vision of religion as a zero-sum holy war in which everyone is desperate for converts, no one trusts anyone else, and rooting out one's own flock for heretics and heterodoxy is considered normal and morally acceptable behavior. Paizo deadass thinks the Spanish Inquisition are the good guys, if not literally, then in spirit, and that is, not to put too fine a point on it, disgusting. Mechanical innovations are present here, but to be frank the signal-to-noise ratio is awful, and it's very much not worth the effort to pillage their work for the few good ideas that have managed to survive.

Which brings us, at long last, to:

D&D 5e: The Power of God And Anime On My Side - I apologize for nothing and I will do this again.

So, right here up front, before I talk about anything else, anything else at all, Fifth Edition Clerics are, for the first time, both not priests and not trying to be priests. To quote Pages 56-57 of the 2014 Player's Handbook: "Not every acolyte or officiant at a temple or shrine is a cleric. Some priests are called to a simple life of temple service, carrying out their gods' will through prayer and sacrifice, not by magic and strength of arms. In some cities, preisthood amounts to a political office, viewed as a stepping stone to higher positions of authority and involving no communion with a god at all. True clerics are rare in most hierarchies.

When a cleric takes up an adventuring life, it is usually because his or her god demands it. Pursuing the goals of the gods often involves braving dangers beyond the walls of civilization, smiting evil or seeking holy relics in ancient tombs. Many clerics are also expected to protect their deities' worshippers, which can mean fighting rampaging orcs, negotiating peace between warring nations, or sealing a portal that would allow a demon prince to enter the world.

Most adventuring clerics maintain some connection to established temples and orders of their faiths. A temple might ask for a cleric's aid, or a high priest might be in a position to demand it."

Merciful fucking Illmater, we made it y'all. Not that the player base, by and large, has noticed; many people continue to play clerics as priests, to think of all clerics as priests and spiritual leaders, and to expect them to be such. And they are not priests. As I've argued already they've never been priests, but 5e does have a firm vision of Clerics - they're shonen protagonists. The chosen many, as it were, and that vision is clearer and more thematic than Cleric has been since mammoths still walked the Earth. Y'all are doing this wrong. Please stop.

Anyway, mechanics! The more things change, the more they stay the same; Cleric still has a dog shit skill list, they're still a mid-armored all-rounder with anti-undead features, they're still pretty good at resisting mind control. The Optimal Cleric(tm) is rocking high Wis and Dex so they can act first and get off their powerful control spells, which in turn implies light armor in an unusual first for D&D, but I'll be real with you: Cleric has one of the best spell lists in the game, as long as your Wisdom is high you can do whatever you want and never be punished for it. Notable here in comparison to previous editions are the flexibility of the Cleric's spell slots in 5e - you can cast any spell you have prepared out of your slots rather than locking 1 spell to 1 slot - and Ritual Casting, a feature most people associate with Wizards but which is very, very much available to Cleric and gives them similar out-of-combat utility. Turn Undead and Destroy Undead return, both more functional than they've been in decades, and are now linked to rests of any kind and also used to charge Domain features. "What about Divine Intervention -" what the fuck about it.

Which brings us to Domains. And the thing about Domains is there's still a lot of them in the context of 5e; the Player's Handbook alone published seven of them, and just about every player-oriented book after that had 1-2 more, sometimes as many as three. Cleric is feasting, and while most of the food is decidedly mid it still doesn't matter because it is, again, stapled to Cleric. Like I could wax poetic, at some considerable length, about why Domains like War, Trickery, or Grave are bad options, but y'know, the thing is, they're still fucking Clerics, they'd be doing fine with no Domain at all. I'm not gonna go into a massive breakdown of the pros and cons of any given Domain, but in general you'll have the most harmonious time with Domains that don't expect you to be spending your actions doing things that aren't casting spells. War, for instance, is gonna be a let-down because it really wants you to be making weapon attacks and you do not have the tools to make that remotely worth it; conversely, Grave also sucks, but it mostly fills in actions that your spells can't or won't, so you'll have a much smoother time playing Grave. For those wondering, the hands-down winners of the Domain list are Knowledge, Life, Light, and Tempest, though an extremely dishonorable shout-out goes to Order as a control & utility pick that is completely unaware of its own existence as a cosmic fucking horror story. See the sample Clerics below for that shit.

Now, remember when I told you to keep implements in your back pocket? 5e also has them, but they're introduced a bit...unevenly. Magical items do exist that do what magic implements used to do, namely, boost your spell DCs and spell attack modifiers - the caster equivalent of a magical weapon - but not many were ever published, and the ones that were are mainly for arcane casters. Fans of Critical Role may be recognizing items like the Spire of Conflux or the Hand Cone of Clarity as taking this role (and indeed quite a bit of Mercer's world and mechanics draws influence from D&D 4e), while players of Baldur's Gate 3 are pointing at the screen and naming some of their favorite caster-focused shields, gloves, and helmets right now. Any of these are a pretty neat way to engage on this idea as long as you keep things under control (you don't wanna exceed a total of like, +3/+3 here), but you as the DM, or you and your DM if you're a player, can and will be making this shit up yourself for your Cleric.

So, what's 5e's vision of Clerics, narratively? Well...see, the thing is, the text I quoted above is mainly it. D&D 5e is remarkably lore-light on the player-facing end, instead investing a lot of its lore writing in wild reworks of various cultures such as drow or gnolls, which I will not comment on because I do need to end this article at some point and I'm still in the fucking context section. There's a soft sympathy towards the position that 5e's Clerics, as they level, are holier Clerics, rather than more skilled Clerics (again, see above), but even that is a very tepidly held position, one which in novel writing and related media is far from consistent or primary. That said, I couldn't walk out of this section with a straight face if I didn't talk about the WILD fucking Domain assignments 5e makes for its gods, which in some cases is an artifact of many more specific Domains no longer existing, but in other cases appears to be the product of some of the most ignorant Protestant bullshit you can possibly imagine when thinking of the gods in question. Again, see the existence and flavor of the Order Domain as an example here, but like, in what fucking universe is Helm associated with the Light Domain? Since when was Wee Jas a Grave Domain kinda goddess? Not to hype this up twice in two paragraphs, but you will notice when we get there that I have chosen to ignore this whole affair for many of the upcoming sample Clerics and when I do there'll be some discussion about it. I do these things to myself and I really wish I didn't but this is who I am as a person now.

Going to the Land Of Context is like going to the Underworld, it takes you three days no matter how fast you travel. But at long last we have arrived, and we can conduct the actual fucking article. May Oghma pity me, for I myself will not.

Gotta Go, The People In The Important Pajamas Are Mad - Clerics At Your Table

Before I say anything else, that headline is not my original line but I cannot for the LIFE of me remember what early aughts webcomic it's from. I am likely misquoting it but if anyone on this hellsite recognizes it and can point me back to it for a proper credit I will be quite grateful & also get the citation in.

The following section is meant to help you in fleshing out a Cleric concept to play or even to use as an NPC. While some of this advice is edition-agnostic and indeed when we get to the religion section we're gonna return to some Takes Through The Editions and I will be very sad and also angry, a great deal of it will be slanted towards 5e because, let's face it, that's what people are playing. Make of this what you will. Also covered here will be same-paging (again), Clerics & alignment, and common pitfalls of playing Clerics (and suggestions of how to avoid them). So, without further ado:

Same Paging - In Which I Blow The Meta Joke About This Being In Any Class Article I Do Early Like A Damn Fool

Same-paging is the practice of talking to your group in a way that helps set mutual expectations, and it’s something every RPG group should strive to do regardless of the system they’re playing in. You’ve probably done this to an extent before, as part of being pitched a game (”We’re going to do a dungeon crawl through the deadly halls of Undermountain”), during character creation, and the like. If this opener to the section sounds familiar, it's because I copy-pasted it from my last class article and there's nothing you can do to stop me. In the specific case of Cleric, the elephant in the room you need to explicitly talk about and not just assume shit about is the sort of relationship you're looking to develop between your character and their god(s) and, y'know, any themes or ideas about spirituality that you explicitly would like to see included or, conversely, very much need to not see included. We're gonna get into it more in the religion section later but man it truly does fucking blow chunks if you're looking to have, say, a serious exploration of your character's faith and its relationship to society, but the rest of your group is on some Reddit Atheist shit, right? Hell, it's not even pleasant if you unexpectedly end up doing the inverse. In addition to this, if you're looking to explore ethical or doctrinal dilemmas (i.e. if you're really into the idea of playing a Cleric of Eldath as a dedicated pacifist, or dig into the conflicts that might arise between the Orders of Denier who preserve knowledge vs. some kinda magical infohazard), this is the time to say it and chew it over with your group. And again, as long as everyone's having fun and not hurting someone else any way you play it is fine - a kick-in-the-door style campaign is a perfectly fun campaign to have. The point is to set expectations up front, not to like, ensure that the group is playing in the one ordained way to play. Which is bold words considering how many times in this article up to this point I've deadass accused people of playing wrong, but I do mean it. I contain multitudes.

One Day, A Tortoise Will Learn To Fly - Making Your Cleric

The Pratchett quotes will continue until morale improves.

Once you and your group have communicated your expectations to each other, it’s finally time to start sketching out your concept! There are many ways to do this, though the two primary schools are mechanics-first and narrative-first. That is to say, opening up with something like "Using the Knowledge Domain to pick up proficiencies on the fly sounds fun to me," works out great, as does opening up with something like, "My Cleric learned her ex-wife was literally a goddess about three weeks ago and is having a wild one about it." However, this article is about to be long enough already without me trying to write a mechanical guide to 5e Cleric, let alone any other Cleric, so we're gonna focus on the narrative approach. If you need a mechanical guide, I promise you that the player base of whatever edition you're into has made several and that the author of each one has some kind of passionate beef with the authors of all of the others. Consider the following questions for your Cleric:

Why Did You Become A Cleric? To be a Cleric is to be of the chosen many; inherently, you're gonna be a bit weird. That weirdness may be because of the conflict between your perceived social station vs. who you are as a person (to wit, people might expect a Cleric of Oghma in the Forgotten Realms to be a stuffy scholar and be surprised when he shows up to strongman competitions or turns out to be one of the Sword Coast's most prolific authors of erotica), but in all honesty odds are much higher that you're a freak. Incredible divine power doesn't erase the bit where adventuring is not a career one takes up because one's life is going well. That said, just because you're a chosen one doesn't mean you didn't also get to choose. Did your Cleric pursue Clerichood for some reason, and if so, why seek that power? If they didn't seek it out on purpose, how do they feel about this change in their relationship to divinity and the burgeoning power within them? This is where you can get both characterization and plot hooks; a Cleric forged when she swore herself to the Red Knight in a desperate attempt to defend her farm from bandits is a very different beast from one who sought power and station from Bahamut so they could enact reforms in their society. Look for connections to the game world and reasons to care about it.

How Did You Learn? There's some obvious things to answer here - your Cleric learned how to wear up to Medium armor, the proper use of shields, and basic combat techniques - but the more interesting question to dig into is your spells. D&D has actually had many different schools of thought here, some of them co-existing or competing with each other. D&D 5e, as mentioned above, breaks on the idea that a higher-level Cleric is a holier Cleric, and that their casting is an almost intuitive process of seeking intercession or requesting miracles in advance in case they need them. Many people play their Clerics this way, but here I will once again climb atop my mountain of old-ass lore and offer an alternative: divine spellcasting as a skill you actually have to learn and practice. In this school of thought, a higher level Cleric is a more practiced and powerful Cleric, and is intrinsically attractive to "rival" deities not simply because they are a great champion of their own but because they are a potent resource. For those in the audience wondering how this makes any fucking sense, I will point out, gently, that this idea is actually still prevalent in Japanese media and its White Mage archetypes, as well as in popular videogames like Elden Ring. These Clerics learn spells from somewhere, and the "somewhere" has a broad variety of answers; they unlock the secrets of their rites through cryptotheology, they experience divine revelation, their god teaches them personally, they're mentored by more experienced Clerics. Indeed, Ms. Jester Lavorre of Critical Role fame engages on her divine casting in this mode, often expressing that the Traveler has been telling her about new spells or teaching them to her personally, and while this is set up as something suspicious about the Traveler in her story it's actually a quite storied idea of Being A Cleric with deep roots in many D&D settings. Regardless of your choice here, though, consider this next question:

How Do You Relate To Your Power? This is another arena with a lot of unquestioned ideas that do not necessarily like, relate to how Clerics have been historically or even what they could be if we took only 5e as gospel. In most cases, people take a very Protestant slant to their Cleric; their spells and powers are divine gifts which can and should be revoked at the whim of their god, who is in turn a being of higher morality who intrinsically knows better. And like, I'ma get into this in the religion section here in a bit, but this is a wild idea when you actually look at the gods in question, let alone when you remember that to be a Cleric is to build a relationship with one's deity. Pious service as thought of by Christians is a way to relate to your deity, sure, and there's even some hanging around that are into it (Torm, f'rinstance), but like, Waukeen would find such a relationship distasteful, would say to such a cleric, "Girl, you're selling yourself short." So put some real thought into this, and you may come to surprising answers for your Cleric. Do they see their divine power as bringing forth the holiness intrinsic to the world? As an outflowing of their own passions and obsessions? Could your Cleric read as a grim cynic to others because they view their spells as not fundamentally different from arcane magic, and caution sternly that power is power regardless of source? Are they gifts from the world of wonder and horror, which anyone could use if they knew the right way of seeing? Your Cleric's abilities are not like a second layer on top of their personality, they're part and parcel of who they are as a person; give it consideration.

What Are Your Values? Hear me out; this seems like an obvious question, something every character should ask, but here I'm going to introduce an argument that I'll elaborate on later - gods in D&D are, essentially, worldviews. And while the worldview embodied by your Cleric's god(s) is obviously the one most important to them - they did become a wholeass Cleric about it - D&D has some specific-ass gods. A Cleric of like, Azuth (god of spells, patron of wizards) is not getting a party line about a whole lot of basic ethics and kinda has to figure that shit out for himself. So ask yourself not just who your Cleric believes in, but what, and how this might relate to their faith or grow from who they are as a person. A Cleric who is the fourth child of a noble house (kicked out to a life of adventure because they ain't inheriting shit) may well have opinions about noblesse oblige, politics, and power that have absolutely nothing to do with their chosen god; likewise, D&D has a rich tradition of Clerics of fairly evil gods such as Auril, Loviatar, or Umberlee who are out here selling the wonders those dark powers have on offer because they genuinely believe in helping people or, you know, have Standards, the thing professionals are supposed to have. A frontier Cleric may well have opinions, for better or worse (traditionally worse, D&D has a long history of being friendly to empire) about the colonial project they're a part of, or a Cleric up from the Underdark might be spending her free time in academic knife fights defending the beauty and splendor of her home's ecology. Your Cleric is a real person in a real reality, not an extension of her god; that's the kind of thing that gives a person some fucking opinions, no?

What's Your Relationship To Your God(s) Like? And in a related story, this point! Unless something really odd is going on, your Cleric is not a divine being free from mortal needs or the burdens of history; it therefore follows that she is not about to be a perfect incarnation of her god(s) ideals. That's, y'know, the neat bonus you get for having an afterlife. Let's leave alone for a moment that there is a pretty strong possibility that your Cleric is so uneducated and/or fucking stupid that they don't know the textual dogma of their own faith (though please, do not forget this, it's one of the funniest things about Cleric); the ideals of that faith, and of their god in particular, are something they are probably growing into. This really should not be a controversial take, not after Critical Role blew the fuck up with the likes of Caduceus Clay and his spiritual journey in the name of the Wildmother, but you might be surprised. It is, genuinely, okay if your Cleric is kinda bad at following their god(s) in some ways! Maybe even many ways! A dwarf Cleric who's out adventuring instead of at home using their magic to help their clan is already failing at least one major ideal of the dwarven pantheon, for instance. Clerics and even priests of Sune Firehair (goddess of art and beauty, a chaotic and capricious foe of evil whose mantle is the splendor of the living world) have a partly-deserved reputation as shallow hedonists who reify existing beauty standards; the entire faith of Lathander has a serial inquisition problem that they haven't stopped having an ongoing civil war about since the fucking Dawn Cataclysm. So how does your Cleric see the divine ideals to which they are meant to aspire? Is their deity their teacher and guide? A stern master to be obeyed? A distant and dazzling figure almost disconnected from matters of dogma in the Cleric's mind? Their literal actual lover? There can be many answers here, and while I don't want to downplay the delicious angst of a well-done "I'm a bad worshipper of my god and I'm guilty about it" arc...well, the signal-to-noise ratio there is real bad, let's say. More on this in a later section.

Hobbies? Pick some. I really should not have to be saying this and honestly it's a dependent consideration with the whole 'what are your values' thing but if I see one more Cleric whose entire life and job is religious service with no interests outside of it I'm going to drop the moon on Europe and whatever happens will happen. Fucksake, this isn't even a 'many D&D players are culturally Christian' thing, this is just lazy writing and historical illiteracy. Did you think all those monasteries and temples in like, Redwall and such making beer or growing crops was just the authors having a fuckin' laugh? Come on.

Playing With The Big Boys Now - Cleric Aesthetics

You may be remembering this section as where the Paladin article talked a bit about refluffing. This is...sort of like that. As one of D&D's full casters, Cleric is deep in its particular idiosyncrasies, and using the Cleric kit to make a non-Cleric thing, while possible, is still going to have a...a particular shape, let's call it. If, for instance, your setting doesn't have any separation of arcane and divine magic & "clerics" are just a different school of magical study, you're probably fine. If you're trying to do a fully technological setting where "spells" are high-tech gadgets, you're gonna run into a bigger set of problems much faster. All of that said, though, there's still quite a bit to talk about in terms of bringing out unique flavor for your Cleric, some of which are habits that the 5e player base has already rushed ahead to hold up as good practice and others which are rarely thought explicitly about. I do hope you came ready to learn about obscure TTRPG audience drama that has never wholly died out. Let's start with the easy one first, shall we?

Spell Aesthetics - I'll not lie to you, I should probably be angrier about this topic but the convoluted history of the player base's relationship to "what do your spells look like?" is too fascinating for me to really build up the fury it deserves. There has been, indeed, in some senses still is a shockingly vitriolic argument within D&D circles about whether or not all spells of the same name look the same, and while I am vastly simplifying the two perspectives generally break down into "they need to look the same so that they are identifiable for balance reasons" vs. "having your own personal brand is sick as hell". The latter has traditionally won by default in terms of the overall body of D&D's work, especially in the spaces defined by the novel-writing, though the influence of CRPGs like Neverwinter Nights who break on the side of spells looking the same for everyone (for obvious reasons) shouldn't be downplayed. D&D 3.5 had a Feat for this that makes your spells a little harder for people to recognize via the Spellcraft skill but mostly just gives you absolute reign to customize the look of your casting; Pathfinder, by contrast, doesn't want you customizing jack shit (and indeed late in its run also edited Silent Spell and Still Spell so that your casting of spells is still detectable to the naked eye, cowards that they are). That said, and to the surprise of absolutely fucking nobody, I break very strongly on the side of "having your own personal brand is sick as hell", as do many of the major works of modern 5e, here to very much include Critical Role but also many other actual plays such as Dice Shame or Planet Arcana.

So, what goes into deciding what your spells are like? First things first, the mechanics; an aesthetic that doesn't do what the spell does, or have the components the spell uses, is right out. It's one thing if your group handwaves certain ideas for ease of play or because they don't interest y'all (see here the common practice of replacing expensive material components with just subtracting the gold from your sheet when you cast), but like, your guiding bolt fires Something that requires an attack roll, it deals Radiant damage, and it causes some kind of light that clings to an opponent. Verbal components, mechanically, must be spoken in a clear voice. Somatic components...exist. To be perfectly honest no one has had a clear idea of what Somatic components are ever aside from a vague idea that they require your hands (this is mechanically explicit in 4e & 5e) and even then there's exceptions, dishonorable shout-out to the scene in War of the Spider Queen where a wizard casts with his fucking feet. Notable here is that casters in 3.5 through 5e can replace non-expensive material components with a focus/implement/character feat, such as a staff, orb, wand, crystal, or in the case of Clerics, their holy symbol; these implements are touched, invoked, involved in the somatic components, or otherwise pretty obvious. The next bit of this is gonna be all about selecting your own aesthetics but I do want to reiterate first something I have said before and will continue saying over and over and over and over and over and over and over again: in any conflict between the narrative and the mechanics, the mechanics win by default. This is because they are the tools with which you actually engage with the game world. When your Cleric of Umberlee casts flame strike, there is some manner of dealing Fire damage involved. Maybe it's boiling sea water, maybe you hit a motherfucker with an underwater volcano, maybe you just go "the classic burning column of fire is fine", but you can't bitch slap people with that spell and then say it's actually the cold ocean depths. Alright? Alright.

So when you're looking at "what do my spells look like" there's three places I like to interrogate. The first and most obvious is, what's the deal with my god? This can be a pretty broad thing to look at; gods are worldviews, and those can be interpreted very differently. Not to return to a super famous example here or anything, but when your friend and mine Caduceus Clay (Critical Role) has spiritual guardians that look like swarms of beetles and manifests his damage spells as aspects of decay, another Cleric of the Wildmother may well lean into vines and trees, or their guiding bolt might appear as hurling a whole-ass rhino at your face that then explodes into light. Here, then, we roll into the second question: what domain is your Cleric? This is the aspect of your god or your faith that you're the closest to, which is dearest to your heart, and will therefore manifest in the act of spellcasting - which in turn is derived from your relationship with the divine. A War Domain Cleric of say, Eilistraee, may well emphasize the martial prowess of that goddess in their spells, manifesting spiritual armor, blades of moonlight, mighty shields, numinous warriors, while a Twilight Domain Cleric of the same goddess is gonna be all in on the moon and stars, the sky at night, crescents, and the like.

Lastly there's the physical action of spellcasting to consider, and here I would like to hasten to point something out. While it is common practice to simply use one's holy symbol as a divine focus, it is not required. Many faiths on Earth have holy symbols or something cognate to them, but there are also many that do not, and for those looking to explore a faith in a D&D god which doesn't practice that sorta thing Clerics are, like all casters, perfectly empowered to use a Component Pouch and cast spells in a more formal, ritualistic fashion than the typical image of calling out to one's god and seemingly producing a miracle without actually casting a spell (but more on this in a bit). Is your Cleric a student of divine magic, going through carefully-practiced forms? Are they intuiting their way through spellcasting, a razor's width away from being something like a Sorcerer? An almost saintly figure, whose spells appear for all the world as miracles (and if they are how do you square that with the dumb plans the average adventuring party engages with)? Do they speak their spells in a booming voice, announcing the presence of the divine? Are the rites they chant almost business-like, a concession to the needs of the casting but perhaps not seen as properly holy or reverent? What language are you casting in? Give it some thought.

Turn Undead & Other Features - Surprise bitches, there's old-ass lore about this too. While all Clerics can Turn Undead no matter how little sense it makes (look my in my lich eyes: what the fuck does Azuth care about undead?) and this is for Doylist reasons of legacy design, how they've gone about doing so and why have multiple interpretations. Way back in AD&D 2e this was something you were encouraged to think about and design for your cleric (see: The Complete Cleric's Handbook & The Complete Paladin's Handbook), both in terms of the physical action and what the power looks like. The classic wave-of-radiating-force look, displayed in Baldur's Gate 3 and used extensively in Critical Role, is indeed an old one with a lot of pedigree, associated with Clerics of sun deities such as Pelor or Lathander, but also with militant deities like the Red Knight, Bahamut, or even Wee Jas (it might seem weird that the goddess of necromancy is out here sponsoring Turn Undead but for the Ruby Lady specifically it's less 'begone, unnatural horrors' and more 'behold, my eviction notice'). Going with this has traditionally been some kind of plainly-spoken invocation or prayer; 'disperse and dispel', 'back to dust', 'return to sleep', that sorta thing.

However, this is far from the only possible look or interpretation. Indeed, popular these days is simply lifting one's holy symbol and calling upon one's god, which I have some objections to - it's not appropriate for every god, and it's also just kinda unoriginal - but is perfectly serviceable. Turn Undead as a sort of spell, with obscure incantations or formal rites for gods like Azuth (here making one's Turn Undead similar to dispel magic rather than any intrinsic divine abhorrence) could fit your Cleric, as could Turn Undead as a power move where you assert your god's greater authority over the undying (excellent for many non-nature Evil-aligned gods, and hilarious for gods like Loviatar). Likewise, Turning or destroying the undead can and should be flavored by your god and Domain; a Cleric of Chauntea that Turns Undead may well terrify them with the reminder of the grave, the bounty of the earth that will grow from their stolen bones, while a Cleric of Mystra simply unbinds the magic that holds them together (and, again, the eternally hilarious Clerics of Loviatar manifest the power of their goddess to beat the shit out of the undead). One move might even be to say your Cleric of a god who doesn't give a shit about the undead is actually drawing on another god from their pantheon who does; the aforementioned Cleric of Azuth is actually invoking his vassal, Velsharoon, who has authority over necromancy.

When it comes to one's Domain powers, you kinda live and die by your brand here. Every Tempest Cleric in 5e is gonna have the exact same fucking power list, so if you're not making your Tempest Cleric of Umberlee different from a Tempest Cleric of Gruumsh what the fuck are you even doing. While the way your god interprets these themes is obviously important - your character chose to follow them for a reason, after all - perhaps more important is the way your Cleric relates to them. A Chaotic Neutral Cleric of Umberlee who has a love of the terrible beauty of the sea conjures storms of sublime awe, like something out of a Gothic novel, while a more traditional Chaotic Evil one may well lean on storms as instruments of vengeance and punishment, sharing in her goddess's petty malice. When your War Domain Cleric takes that attack as a bonus action, is he seizing a moment, or drawing on berserk rage? What kind of Light or Life do you have? The opportunities are here y'all, seize 'em.

Radiant and Necrotic Damage - These are relatively young as far as D&D goes, and while they have bones in with earlier kinds of damage they're actually a bit thematically confused. Just to give you an idea here, Radiant damage is dealt by guiding bolt, the Light Domain power, ACTUAL FUCKING LASER RIFLES, and also flame strike. It has replaced instances of "this damage derives from pure divine power and cannot be resisted", Positive Energy damage, and also just fire damage for some fuckass reason. So when your Cleric is dealing Radiant damage, something all Clerics do, what is it? Nearly any of the above is a potential option, though I'll admit that I'm a sucker for the Positive Energy damage where you give living beings super-cancer that devours them in moments and/or unbind and dispel undead. Complicating this is that in the 5e paradigm, Radiant and Necrotic damage are both associated heavily with divine classes, and have nearly equal claim to holy power.

Which brings us to Necrotic damage, which is dealt by inflict wounds, as well as spells like blight, and also associated with Evil Clerics via spiritual guardians and similar spells. This one is derived from Negative Energy damage historically - that is, pure entropic power, not just death but "stop", "cease", "still", "silence" - but this is not always the case, and it very definitely has been used in 5e to represent things like blood drain, soul drain, pure unholy power, and also flaying someone alive. Similar considerations to Radiant damage apply, but they apply especially when you're out here casting Necrotic blasts when you, say, worship a nature or life god. What exactly are you doing? Why is it you're doing it that way? How is this, too, a miracle?

I May Have Started Worshiping Umberlee Because The Priestesses Are Hot - Clerics & Alignment

So here's the thing. As I mentioned above in the 69 page long context section, Clerics have had Falling mechanics for awhile, even if they have been consistently downplayed or ignored in comparison to Paladin. There's also been a very long time in which Clerics were required to be close to their god(s) in alignment, and there's something to be said there; how can one build up a deep and intimate relationship with a divinity that you have nothing in common with? But there are many groups that don't want to fuck with alignment (I'm gonna do that alignment article one of these days and on that day I will die), settings where alignment and worship are less connected (see: Eberron), and of course in 5e these ideas are no longer formally connected in that fashion, with alignment requirements being removed. Hell, books like Xanathar's Guide to Everything and Tasha's Cauldron of Everything introduce some wild-ass ideas on the random fucking tables like "your Cleric has an ongoing relationship with an imp she doesn't fuckin' like". That seems pretty functional, so, why am I talking about it? Glad you asked: I'm an ancient-ass lich and a bit of an alignment apologist, and also this is my article and I'll infodump about alignment bullshit if I want to.

Now to make a proper run at this I'd really need to actually do that alignment article, so I'm gonna ask you instead to journey with me to an imaginary land where everyone is engaging on alignment in good faith and understands two foundational principles that the modern zeitgeist has kinda left behind; the first being that alignments are broad categories that describe beliefs which have things in common, and the second being that any given one of the nine alignments has room for many, many variations on those beliefs. Not to put like too fine a point on it but just as one f'rinstance there are no less than three different Outer Planes you can point to and say "this is Lawful Good" and each and every one of those three separate dimensions of Lawful Goodness contains its own internal array of differing beliefs and expressions of what it means to be Lawful Good. And in that sense, your Cleric's god is going to be a worldview that is included in their alignment, but is not necessarily, often, or even ever a generative force for that alignment. Evenhanded Tyr is not a fount of Lawful Goodness from which mortal beings drink to become more holy; he has a worldview, beliefs, and dogmas which one can describe as being Lawful Good, and he/his church seeks to teach them. Likewise Umberlee, the famous Bitch Queen, is not Chaotic Evil in the sense of 'overthrow all governments' but in the sense that the sea recognizes no master, is sovereign in itself, and will not be denied; that she is friendlier to Chaotic worshipers comes down to a sort of mutual comfort and expectation. A Chaotic person might not like that her goddess is a divinely infamous bitch, but she like, gets it, y'know?

So when it comes to your Cleric and alignment, there's an easy ask: what is it about their faith that attracted them to it, and in what ways are they aligned with that faith & in what ways are they lacking, opposed, or still have things to learn? The gods of D&D are stranger and wilder things than people give them credit for, to be sure, but the thing is that being a perfect embodiment of your god(s)'s worldview is one of those neat bonuses you get for being a dead person, not something people generally pull off while yet living. And, not to leave this bit on the table, not all or even most of those conflicts are necessarily what one might call a dealbreaker. It can be something as simple and doesn't-need-to-be-solved as like, a follower of Azuth spending time running for political office (a Lawful/Lawful disconnect; Azuth doesn't really give much of a shit about mortal law), something profoundly wrong but understandable (a follower of Oghma who passionately hates certain kinds of literature or poetry; Oghma is the god of all language and written art), or even really major which can form the core of an arc where either the character or god has to give (Shadowheart in Baldur's Gate 3 goes through this, but for the one person on Earth who hasn't played yet a different example might be a worshiper of Bahamut who ended up joining the colonial invasion of Chult, directly angering his god because he has failed to understand some fundamental fucking lessons here).

All of this is a lot of words to re-argue a previous point; your Cleric is not a sovereign being, capable of acting without reference to the real reality or by pure ideal alone. They have baggage, they have community, they have or had a family, they have beliefs shaped by being a real thing in a real reality. Look at the ways these aligned beliefs both touch and conflict with their church, their god, or both, and you will find a bounty of characterization and plot hooks. Keep in mind as well that the gods of D&D are fallible beings; they are students of their own ideals as much as they are teachers of such, and there are, indeed, perfectly usable hooks to be found there as well. Your Cleric is not a saint or a savior, usually; they are a student and teacher of divinity who seeks to understand it, and going on that journey together with one's god is something that has been lost in the current paradigm of the D&D audience being friendly to fucking Reddit atheism.

Call It A Girlfriend Class One More Time Motherfucker - Common Cleric Pitfalls

I'm not bitter, you're bitter.

D&D is a snake devouring itself, and like many such ongoing communities and fandoms it therefore has a lot of cultural baggage which is, how do you say, completely disconnected from objective fucking reality. This section covers some common pitfalls people walk into when making and playing Clerics. If some of these end up sounding like personal callouts...dunno what to tell you. Examine your shit.

Healbot.exe - Yeah we're starting off with the big one. Look me in my eyes. Look me directly in my fucking lich eyes. Clerics are not healers. No one in D&D is a primary healer. There have been exactly two effective primary healers in all of D&D history; the first is the Vitalist, a Psionic class published by Dreamscarred Press as part of a third-party supplement for Pathfinder 1e, and the second is Life Domain Cleric in 5e. That's it. End of list in all of history. "But what about -" no. I promise you, whatever you're thinking of is not a primary healer in the fashion you think it is. This is an ancient misconception, rooting all the way back to when only divine-type classes could heal (Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger), but even back in that day healing was valued more highly than its actual effectiveness; the archetype of a videogame healer, someone like Mercy in Overwatch who can turn the tide by keeping vital people alive long enough to make big plays, that has never been part of D&D - at least not before players have access to the spell heal, which radically flips the math by itself. Much like the question of alignment, I do not have the page space or the fucking game theory degree to give this topic the attention it truly deserves, but the very short version is that PC hit points are very low, damage is quite high, and healing doesn't solve either of those problems. When you burn your action, Bahamut fucking forbid your one spell per round, on a heal what you have done is a few things: failed to advance the combat towards a conclusion, failed to meaningfully mitigate damage, burned a spell slot that could have done one of those first two, and quite possibly put yourself out of tactical position. There are cases where a heal is the right call - the spell heal as mentioned already, or in 5e getting someone to stop making Death Saves - but in general if your options are healing or doing literally anything else, pick literally anything else. Am I coming at this very strongly? Yes, but the thing is that the perception of Clerics as being "healbots", expected to memorize primarily healing spells and cast the same, has been an equally ancient and infamous perceived drawback to playing Clerics; indeed, there was a time when tables would offer incentives to someone for playing the Cleric because "someone has to be the healer" and nobody wanted to be. Does that sound like a fun experience to you? Is that the future you want to keep having? No? Good, STOP FUCKING HEALING.

Now, I said I don't have the game theory degree to unpack this, and I don't, but that was aggro as hell so I do owe a bit of an explanation. Healing being bad in D&D comes down to a few incentives, some of which I just mentioned above, but there's another big one - the only hit point that matters is your last one. Your PC, and indeed NPCs/monsters, are just as effective at 1 hit point as they are at 100 as they are at one thousand as they are at one million. Meanwhile, especially in 5e towards which this article has a significant bias, average NPC/monster damage is more than double that of an on-level heal until, again, heal; therefore, a cure wounds or healing word for someone who isn't unconscious has, at best, bought them half a turn of being alive, and given that the real swing is much larger than actual average damage the odds that you get that half a turn - pathetic in and of itself - are not in your favor. Your party does not need to be healthy, only alive; this, then, is why you only start healing once they stop being alive. Area-of-effect heals like mass cure wounds change this math a bit especially in response to area-of-effect damage which is typically lower than single-target damage, but here I will finally hold to my repeated statements that I lack the education to unpack this; if a mathematician wants to compare a devil's fireball to mass cure wounds in the notes here, please, be my guest, genuinely.

Zealotry - Welcome to the Cleric version of "stop making your paladin a cop", which readers may remember from the Paladin article. Here I need to cut a fine line; the average D&D player likely has a pretty strong idea of a particular kind of person when I say "zealot", and that kind of person is the scum of the Earth. And, indeed, while masterful roleplaying and acting might make running a fanatical missionary interesting for your play group, this is a common failure mode and I do not fucking encourage it unless you're really sure that you are, in fact, the god-king of Big Dick Mountain. However, this mode of like, the Baptist preacher is a very narrow and specific kind of zealotry and passionate belief, and I am here to make the argument that a good Cleric is, indeed, a zealot on some level, at least in part because odds are good that you, person reading this article, are yourself a zealot on some topic or other! The esteemed Kendrick Lamar, for instance, is a zealot of hip-hop. I am a zealot of old D&D lore. Ed Greenwood, praise fucking be, is a zealot of anthropological worldbuilding. To be a Cleric, one of the chosen many, is to have a deep and passionate connection to the ideals of your god; it is to care about those ideals, and to learn them further, to be a student and teacher of them, to be a disciple and practitioner of them, and that indeed is a kind of zealotry that has nothing to do with trying to convert people or oppress them (usually). Kill the part of you/your Cleric that cringes; if you're running a Cleric of like, Sune Firehair, right, pour in your passionate opinions about art and beauty and love. Go on rants about proper trade and taxes when you're running a Cleric of Waukeen. Get fuckin' homoerotic about the ocean with your Cleric of Umberlee. When your Cleric is moved to share their wisdom with others, look for ways in which these lessons are relevant to their lives, and commit to the fuckin' bit. These are the things which are, definitionally, most important to your Cleric, closest to their heart. By all means, act like it, yeah?

Slapfights And Other Bad Ideas - Way back in 1e, D&D described Cleric as a secondary weapon-user, competent to fight in melee but lesser than Warrior-group classes. This is a lie. This has always been a lie. 5e furthers this lie with the Divine Strike class feature, but the thing is that while you are not technically doing nothing by making a weapon attack you really are not doing much and should be looking into doing literally anything else; if you're not casting, you're doing it wrong. There are going to be levels in which Divine Strike edges out a Cantrip, but ultimately you are not a weapon user and should not be acting like one. Going further here, the sanctioned action for Cleric is to bump your Wisdom as fast and hard as you can, because it controls all the Cleric things you do. Here I again return to my statement that in any fight between mechanics and narrative, the mechanics win by default because they are how you engage with the game world. Once you eat your vegetables, then you can go off doing wild shit like taking strange Feats. If you need to see this in action, look no further than the oft-cited Ms. Jester Lavorre of Critical Role fame (Campaign 2, The Mighty Nein).

St. Dipshit the Illiterate - Man I hope you're ready for a third version of this joke when the inevitable Druid article happens. Like with the Paladin article, this isn't so much a pitfall as it is a for-your-consideration; Intelligence has long been a real easy dump for Clerics, and that's gonna shape how they move through the world. While D&D 5.5 (the 2024 releases) went some distance here by giving Clerics the ability to add Wisdom to their information-style checks, for every other Cleric you have someone who is very attuned and attentive to the living world (high Perception, Insight, and Survival), but very bad at formal learning, academic study, and the like. Does your Cleric compensate for this by seeking aid when they need that kind of intellectual rigor? Taking more time (that is, making more rolls) so they can correct for their own shortcomings? Do they embrace the intuitive knowledge they can gain via their Wisdom-based skills rather than attempting to record or examine? Of course, I should not leave this on the table either; as of 5e, Charisma is also an extremely easy an attractive dump stat, and since CLERICS ARE NOT PRIESTS exploring a low-Charisma Cleric who can only really show her troth through works rather than words could be quite interesting, should you be inclined.

The People In The Important Pajamas - "Cleric" NPCs

Again, if anyone can track that webcomic down my life is yours.

You may remember this section from the paladin article and be wondering what the scare quotes are about. Following through with my argument that Clerics aren't priests, some of the potential NPC roles I'm about to outline aren't Clerics, strictly speaking, but would have been Clerics back in 2e (when they could be priests) or 3.PF (when everyone was in fucking denial). Our first entry is going to cover a concept that you could pillage for worldbuilding purposes, and then the rest are potential Cleric roles. Ready set GO!

Adepts (Revenge Of The Old Lore) - Introduced by this name back in D&D 3.0 and rarely used by Dungeon Masters or, if we're being honest, the game writers, Adepts were an NPC-only class back when PCs and NPCs were built using similar rules. Sorta like a Cleric, and sorta like a Druid, and sorta like a Wizard, but absolutely dog shit at all three of them, an Adept is the spellcaster who is worse than other spellcasters at everything; that is, they're meant to suck shit, but can be competent to, say, buy a remove curse from, to manufacture magical potions, to help enchant divine-type magical items, and the like. Notably, being an Adept means you're not part of the chosen many - this was the class associated with people who put in the work to learn divine magic the hard way, or who for one reason or another could not commune with their god in a manner that might be more associated with a Cleric. As little use as it saw, this is a concept that could use some bringing forward - many, many D&D settings, here to include Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, and Eberron, blithely assume that these services are on offer, and indeed that in a big enough city you might even be able to buy raise dead or stronger magic. You know who sells that but isn't qualified to be the kind of freak an adventurer is? Adepts!

Retiree - Of course, sometimes Clerics do survive being adventurers, often "intact" for a given value of that (having regeneration in-house saves you a fortune on prosthetic limbs). This kind of Cleric-as-NPC are going to be famous figures, perhaps thrust into positions of spiritual or communal responsibility they might not be equal to; after all, Clerics aren't priests. Make an NPC a lot like a Cleric, turn them middle-aged or old, call it a day. Someone like this may have taught a PC Cleric, especially if they caught said PC early on and intervened to try and ensure this youngblood doesn't die screaming between learning the difference between "my god is with me" and "I'm invulnerable."

Rival - As a PC Cleric gets more powerful and starts, you know, slaying fucking dragons and shit, the strength of their legend may well give their word weight on dogma, doctrine, and ethics. Someone more happy with the status quo of their faith, or someone with a differing vision, these can be great Cleric NPCs, rife with potential for social conflict and always able to be tapped for an epic caster-on-caster showdown. Your goal here is to make someone who could be a player character, they just aren't; bring in passionate ideals, think through their reasons for supporting the vision of faith they do, and, oh yeah, don't forget the weird pile of magic items endemic to all adventurers.

Cackling Villain - Did you know Clerics have been either the best or second-best necromancers in D&D for nearly every edition? They're third-place in 5e, behind Necromancer Wizards and Oathbreaker Paladins, a first-time event for them, but quite literally every Cleric of 5th level or higher can wake up in the morning, decide to raise an army of the dead, and then do that. They can just do that! Even outside of strict necromancy Clerics have that combination of zeal, competence, perceptiveness, and, let us not forget, terrifying magic that can make them excellent setpiece villains or even non-villainous antagonists. Your party thinks a wizard is behind this bullshit? They're gonna wish it was a wizard.

Religion In D&D Part 1 - Context Part II: Revenge Of The Context

Do I need to break this up into two headlines? Strictly, no. However, this thing is already a fucking doorstopper, I might as well give a place where people can pause.

So remember, eighty years ago, way back at the top of the article, when I said this was going to be an angrier article than the last one? Despite writing that warning myself I have, during the course of this, been shocked at how salty and aggressive I've gotten about things thus far, and this is coming from someone who knows he has anger issues in the first place. I genuinely did not realize the depths of passionate opinions I have on offer about Cleric. However, that warning was for these next two sections, as I'm very, acutely aware of my beef here, my deep well of bitterness, and my years of confused rage that have become a kind of formless hate for the way the discussion on fantasy religion across the genre, but especially in D&D, has been discussed. Y'all got a lifelong atheist out here about to tell you that you're being harsh and reductive about religion as like, a concept, and to make matters worse the behavior of the D&D audience in general has been such that I am now in a position where I need to do apologetics for known genocide enthusiast Gary fucking Gygax. Do you have the slightest idea how little that pleases me?

So let's start this off right. A lot of folks operate on incomplete, incorrect, or just plain nonexistent ideas of what faith has, historically, looked like in various D&D settings, so I'ma play the hits here and then we're gonna get into the next section where I make some suggestions. Alright? Alright.

Greyhawk: Weirdly Coherent - Commonly and incorrectly hailed as the first D&D setting (rest in peace Blackmoor & Dave Arneson), Greyhawk (known in-universe as Oerth) was written primarily by Gary Gygax, though shaped heavily by his home games and the players thereof. Now, I'm not gonna veer into a hit piece on Gygax (and even if I wanted to better ones already exist), but notable in the context of his writing on fantasy religion is that Gary Gygax was a fanboy for the Crusades, but also a massive (and half-educated, poorly researched) fanboy for ancient Celtic legend. Some of the oddities for this strange mix have already been mentioned, such as how the original Cleric is based on Crusader priests and the modern Cleric is still feeling that influence, but this - alongside growing up very culturally Christian in, you know, the United States of America - was also very much influential on how Gygax would come to write his fantasy faiths and also run up on his own limits with the same.

Faith in Greyhawk is polytheism as brought to you by someone who almost sort of understands the idea of polytheism. Genuinely, Gygax made a good run at this and kinda tripped over his own shoelaces at the end...well, his own shoelaces and his unrelenting race essentialism, thanks for the racial pantheons buddy. Greyhawk is home to many faiths, which worship and/or fear and/or oppose multiple gods (for example, Erythnul is associated with the so-called New Faith of the Flaeness but is more of a demonic figure of evil than a god you are, socially, expected to 'worship'). For your average person, the buck stops here. While an individual god may have greater prominence in a given region for political, social, or mythological reasons (for example, the relative prominence of Boccob the Uncaring in the Free City of Greyhawk in no small part due to the influence of the legendary Cleric known as Riggby) and therefore have a grand temple or dedicated cults in their name, this isn't the norm everywhere. When the Church of St. Cuthbert of the Cudgel installs a building in your frontier village they're here on a mission, it's weird, and you should be worried. On a normal day, your average lay member performs acts of worship as part of their day-to-day life, calling upon the god(s) who are relevant to their endeavors to give thanks, to ask for blessings, to honor them, or to plead mercy. Clerics, in turn, while socially conflated with the more specific cults are often pantheistic Clerics, drawing upon many gods as representatives of the overall faith. Dogmas are typically a little light on details when it comes to the afterlife, in part because the idea of an unearthly reward for one's faith is often seen as a little distasteful, and in part because going to the afterlife of a particular god is actually pretty rare on Greyhawk. Your average person is drawn to the Outer Plane that most aligns with their worldview, and goes on their spiritual journey in the hereafter without reference to a particular god.

Which is where we get to the weird shoelace tripping, because you only get an afterlife related to your faith if you've developed an intimate and intense relationship with one god in particular. When this relationship has become a defining, perhaps the defining part of your life (whether or not you're a divine caster), then you go to that god's afterlife when you die. The typical case here is someone with a deep passion for work that falls under the purview of a god, such as a master thief ending up with Olidammara, or a mountain man passing into the dominion of Elhonna. Clerics, though rarer, are prime candidates for this sort of afterlife, but also like...the fuck were you on, Gygax? Admittedly not all faiths in the real world particularly concern themselves with the hereafter or claim to have answers about what it might be like or what it entails, and in that sense Gygax's Planar afterlives as soft mysteries and a sort of default state aren't entirely out there - it's the strange dash of monotheism at the end that gets me. And, not to leave this unsaid, Gygax is not a particularly good fantasy anthropologist, so sometimes he just. Wrote shit. That he perhaps should not have written if he wanted to retain the chunk of his dignity that he lost by publishing it. I'd say to do a shot every time he writes something weird about women as gods or women in faith but you'd get through one book and be dead already.

Forgotten Realms: The Original Sin - Ed Greenwood you are this hobby's cool grandpa and also mine and I'm so sorry that I need to put you on fucking blast here. I can only hope that you've heard all this already; it's been being bitched about for twenty years, after all.

Statistically the first D&D setting that you personally have encountered, the Forgotten Realms (the continent of Faerun on the planet Toril, in-universe) was originally written by Ed Greenwood and has been contributed to by a list of other authors entirely too long for me to cite without dying of starvation at this keyboard. Most commonly known for its gonzo locations, intricate worldbuilding, and being absolutely riddled with famous high-level NPCs engaged in high-level bullshit with one another and the world at large (a status encouraged by the staggering array of novels and videogames set in it), the Forgotten Realms is also infamous in the audience for requiring that people worship a god that is their closest and most favored god and to be true to that god or face punishment in the afterlife. Those who are False to their faith face an eternity of civil service in the City of the Dead, while the Faithless end up mortared into the Wall of the Faithless to suffer until eventually becoming one with the Fugue Plane. It's very easy to point the finger at Ed Greenwood's Catholic faith when it comes to these worldbuilding elements, and while I'm certain that has something to do with the state of affairs I need you to take a walk with me.

The Forgotten Realms is a land of miracles and wonders. It is lousy with gods; indeed, if you ever go look up a full list (do NOT fucking use the FR Wiki) you may well spit your drink at the screen. Faerun is home to gods native to the world, interlopers from other Primes, gods from human cultures that ended up here when their faithful were kidnapped across the Planes (here to include gods from Ireland, Egypt, and Finland, raise your hand if this sentence is how you learned that there are gods native to Finland), alien horrors from beyond the stars, Planar luminaries, ascended mortals, and more. These gods gather into pantheons, though to be frank that relationship is often quite uh, feudal, or familial. Trying to claim the gods of someone else's pantheon don't exist or are lesser than your own god on Faerun is a real fast ticket to getting your ass beat by said gods while your own gently asks what you've learned from this experience. Among other things, though, this means that "converting" within your own faith basically isn't conversion; if you grew up in a family of Chauntea worshipers and you get real into Mielikki this event, socially, is fucking nothing, it's a non-event. It might be a different story if you turned around and started worshiping Mystra, but even then that question is very much mediated by one's culture and geography; converting even far outside one's current or native faith is a non-event in, say, Waterdeep, but it might be a little more surprising in Neverwinter.

Here's the thing: the Forgotten Realms does not experience a separation of "religious life" from "normal life". This is gonna be a hard idea for my American readers in particular to grasp, but while Jane Average Realmswoman has a single patron deity and she is trying to emulate that god's example as much as possible, it is perfectly normal for her to pray to other gods, ask for their favor, and interact with their worshipers, and this is in no small part because they are inescapably bound with Jane's everyday life. The local cults of Azuth and/or Mystra bankroll the parchment makers who print the novels Jane reads (because parchment is required for scrolls, and both churches are also in heavy on magical industries), the fishermen who catch the food she buys offer fearful worship to Umberlee who is both their provider and their destroyer, the faithful of Sylvanus, Chauntea, or Eldath maintain the city parks and fight tooth and nail to keep them wild. When she feels lost in her life and needs guidance, the temples of Selune are open at all hours of the day and night and are the closest thing the Realm has seen to A. therapists and B. benevolent therapists. The weird BDSM club she goes to every now and again opens every party with a hymn to Loviatar. The Temple of Illmater doesn't run a fucking bake sale once a month vaguely for poor people in general, they go forth amongst the downtrodden and help them every god damn day, offering food and potable water, healing, healing again, healing a third time it's a bit of a theme, a listening ear, and campaigning for their interests in the political arena. Jane herself is a worshiper of, oh, let's say Deneir, she runs a bookstore and dedicates herself to the Goddess of Libraries; she goes to the temple of Deneir for copies of their holy texts to give away to those who ask, to verify rare tomes or donate them for the public good, and for those rites which are held in the temple, but when she went and got married a few years back she and her wife were joined in the temple of Sune Firehair, goddess of love. These gods and the organizations they run have been part of Jane's community since that community was founded, and each advances something in the living world that they see as holy and worth having; they are entwined, active, earnest. You've gotta be chill about people worshiping another god or being part of another faith entirely or your social life is going to just fucking explode.

This, then, is the full and glorious flower of Ed Greenwood's zealous dedication to anthropological worldbuilding, and unfortunately it has been sorta softly hidden and scraped under by years of corporate writing. Back in AD&D 2e, the books Faiths & Avatars and Powers & Pantheons went in deep on this subject, digging on all levels into how these religions practice and their role in everyday life, but from 3.0 onward this theme has seen less importance alongside a plethora of other writers who did not understand the vision, not that I'm looking at any RA SALVATORE YOU FUCKING HACK in particular. The end result is that the average player for 20+ years has been introduced to the part of faith in the Forgotten Realms that is deeply weird monolatry, and has reacted to that vision, but been denied the full view of a strange but very functional polytheism whose bones are still in the setting. That vision of strange monolatry is also one that other settings have been copying for a dog's age, here to include our next subject, Pathfinder. Strap in, I am going to say a lot of things and none of them are kind.

Golarion: World Holy War - Originally written by James Jacobs and contributed to by a plethora of freelancers and internal staff members at Paizo, Golarion is a shallow theme park of a setting characterized by incuriosity, disinterest in the human condition, incompetent homages to other, better settings, and thoughtless, distinctly American sympathy for empire. Like with many things James Jacobs claims to love but refuses to understand, Golarion's model of divinity is very much based on what people think the Forgotten Realms model is, and even in the context of that already-corrupt shadow, Golarion's is much worse. Much of the worldbuilding around divinity and cosmology is utilitarian; for instance, Mr. Jacobs is on record stating that gods on Golarion empower Clerics and other champions because direct miraculous intervention would set off a chain of mutually assured destruction that would leave no mortal life behind. Other bits are clearly more personal; as a key for-instance here, gods on Golarion are generative forces for alignment. That is, a god defines what it is to be, say, Lawful Good or Chaotic Neutral, and to defy a god is to have your alignment changed (see: Wrath of the Righteous). It is for this reason that the churches of Golarion concern themselves to an extreme extent with orthodoxy ("right thought", contrast orthopraxy, "right action"). Sharp-eyed readers may be recalling that I talked about paladins in Golarion being expected to root out heresy; this situation is also why every god on Golarion supposedly maintains Inquisitors, as seen prior in this article. Further, these literal thought police deploy spells like castigate which punish and humiliate victims, primarily those of one's own faith, into confessing their "sins", which, while we're right here, how did the literal god damn Catholic remember that not every faith has sins or engages with the idea of sin and James Jacobs fucking couldn't pull that shit off?

Churches on Golarion do not have broad faiths that include multiple gods. Any given god may have divine friends, allies, or slaves, but ultimately the churches they run all have missionary work & attempted conversion in common. There was a good chunk of time in which Sarenrae, goddess of redemption, was running a fucking slave empire into swordpoint conversions, and only as of Pathfinder 2e has that been being fixed at all, in no small part because, again, James Jacobs does not understand the things he claims to love and dug his heels in when readers told him to his fucking face that this was a bad look. Likewise, these churches are separated from "normal" life quite a bit, being a place where one walks to in order to get one's worship on before returning to the rest of one's life, a particularly Protestant model of worship reproduced so thoughtlessly that I'm shocked Mr. Jacobs didn't achieve a state of no-mind and escape Samsara. Sometimes they sponsor religious organizations such as knightly orders or wizard colleges but these are exceptions, not the rule, and even then "oh hey the Hellknights are coming to town" isn't exactly a day to day kind of fuckin' event, is it? Mechanics like Obediences attempt to walk this back, but the thing about requiring you to spend resources to get mechanical benefits from worshiping your god is that you've turned around and made this a strange thing. Praying and honoring, say, Shelyn every day is no longer something you just do, it's something weird freaks do and they get divine power from doing it. There is no escaping the blade of the ludonarrative; mechanics win all conflicts because they influence the actual game world.

Now, while I sincerely hope my complete contempt for James Jacobs has come across here, I do have an obligation to be evenhanded. Pathfinder 2e has walked some of this back, but the root problems remain. The second edition of Golarion has, for example, removed Alignment entirely, which certainly solves one problem, but it also replaced castigate with crisis of faith, a Cleric spell designed to kill other Clerics by making them doubt their gods. Likewise, Pathfinder 2e has been mum on certain cosmological revelations from late in Pathfinder 1e, one of which being the idea that only one god will survive the end of the universe and they get to be the supreme god of the next one, which is given as the motivation for them being so far up on the nuts of getting converts. This idea is, to me, completely repulsive, but it's also just such a revealing take on what Paizo thinks gods are and what they think of faith. And unfortunately, the broad zeitgeist of the current D&D audience is very sympathetic to that idea, which brings us to:

Religion In D&D Part 2 - I Cannot Believe I Of All Fucking People Have To Tell You To Stop Being Such A Cynic

Man the little icon on the scroll bar is gettin' real fuckin' small at this point. This will be the last major set of arguments for the article; following this section will be one sample Cleric for every Domain published in 5.0 (5.5, released in 2024, is a bit young for me to bother just yet), so just stay with me here y'all. It's been a long, angry, bitter journey, and yet there is this final hill to die on.

So, what's this broad zeitgeist I was just talking about? To be frank, it's a combination of thoughtless American Protestantism and some r/atheism bullshit. As the audience for D&D has gotten more left-leaning and queer, in no small part due to the wild successes of shows like Critical Role and Dimension 20 (and WotC's weak, half-done, and yet unambiguously open support for including queer players, players of color, and others traditionally gated out of D&D), there has been a...conflation, shall we call it, of the fictional religions in various D&D settings with, not to put too fine a point on it, real-world Evangelicals and others who perpetuate harm in the name of faith. And, y'know, I get it. I'm a whole-ass bi dude from the edge of the Bible Belt, I used to get fuckin' jumped every other day or so, I lived in Kansas for six mother fucking years, I get it. But uh, remember when I said I'm a bit of a zealot for the old lore? Remember my consistent theme in articles of not liking it when things with great potential are left on the table because there is an Approved Way to view them? Yeah. So. Let's talk. We're gonna lay out some arguments and some suggestions.

Everything Old Is New Again - "But Vox," the strawman who teleported into this sentence is saying, "you yourself have said that the stuff you're into is old! Surely there needs to be an accounting for the changes in play culture, let alone real-world culture?" And like yeah, sure, but here's the thing: edgy-ass immature atheism (I say, as an edgy atheist) is also old as hell in D&D. Like, old-old. Late-game AD&D 1e old. Older-than-me old. Now, D&D's first serious and nuanced internal conversation about the nature of divinity and its role in mortal lives was part of Planescape, whose bones remain in all modern settings to this day (even Exandria, primarily written by Matthew "I Am In Every Videogame, Yes, Even That One" Mercer), but like a lot of settings it was very...inconsistently brought forward during 3.X, leading to the loss of a lot of its strangeness, its philosophy, and even its earnest willingness to simply be cringe but free. Though this was by no means confined to Planescape, as many writers of D&D novels were extremely willing to question the utility, motives, or even divinity of the gods - here to include Paul Kidd (author of the novelizations for White Plume Mountain, Descent Into The Depths Of The Earth, and Queen of the Demonweb Pits), who I usually claim as my gold standard for D&D novelizations but whose attitude here is, quite frankly, embarrassing in its confident thoughtlessness and cynicism. The ideas that gods are super-predators, that they are a class of abusers, that they are false idols, that they cannot claim divinity because they are limited/can be killed, these ideas are, statistically, likely to be older than you are. Better writers than you have been fumbling this since before you learned how to read.

Jesus Christ Is An Outlier And Should Not Be Counted - So here's the thing. The idea that a god needs to be a transcendent being, with attributes that render them sovereign from the living world, removed from time and supreme in all senses? That's just Christianity. If you go talk to like, a rabbi, an imam, if you can have a frank conversation with a Hellenic pagan or a Zoroastrian or a follower of Voudoun, they'll offer quite different perspectives, often a number of different ones from within their own faiths. There are more conceptions of what it is to be divine, to be a god and to worship gods, than there are cultures that have believed in gods, and to be frank the best advice I have for you here is to go outside and touch grass. Then, take some of the grass with you and have some fascinating & frank conversations with anyone who is not Christian. Even Gary Gygax, fanboy of the literal fucking Crusades, tried to handle his shit here and got more than nowhere in terms of success. When you insist that the gods of D&D need to be like the god of Christianity, you are both limiting yourself creatively and engaging on a great deal of art in bad faith, bringing with you your own baggage which you are failing to question. These conversations are gonna be difficult! You're going to feel ignorant; you may try the patience of the people you're seeking to learn from. But to learn is an unalloyed good, and here I am speaking of far more than the hypothetical benefit it's going to bring to your Cleric in your happy elfgame time.

The Lord Is God Of Both Good And Evil - Surprise bitches it's a second alignment section. First tings first, I want to repeat again that gods in D&D are not generative forces of virtue; rather, they are worldviews. This changes if you're playing Pathfinder, but if you are playing Pathfinder, stop immediately. And this argument can seem like I'm splitting hairs, but it changes the game quite a bit; a lot of players and readers wonder why, say, Liira isn't out here trying to solve all of the world's problems, but that is not Liira's fucking job, y'know? Her job is to be the goddess of joy, the pure light and laughter of seeing the world of wonder, to be god of delights and surprises, and it's not exactly fair to ask her to be something else. If your character is a Liiran and you have some concerns about, I dunno, the homelessness problem in Waterdeep, that's on you to work towards.

Broadly, though, there is a problem in the fanbase that was laid out excellently in The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, written by the esteemed Ursula K. Le Guin; people find it very easy to assume that if something is described as good, as benevolent, as truly kind and compassionate and full of wonder, there has to be some kind of catch. There is a hidden evil, there is a dark cost, there is an ulterior motive. And like, look, the gods of D&D are fallible beings, they make mistakes, but the thing is that when D&D tells you a god is Good, it like...means it. Does the writing always bear this up? No. The writing is often friendly to things that are in fact bad. But even figures like Bahamut or Tyr, infamous for their associations with fantasy cops, they're trying to be the gods of like, Sam Vimes, not the gods of police brutality. Likewise gods are not the primary drivers of the battle between good and evil - they are prosecuting their worldviews, and those worldviews relate to a Prime Material Plane that is of both wonder and horror, that is full of the creations of many gods and even many mortals. It is the law of the living world that wasps lay their eggs in living things, but so too is it the law that the land is bountiful, that a shocking number of alien beings would love you to pet them, that the sunrise after a storm is uncommonly beautiful and glorious.

As far as evil gods go, let me link my article there again so I can expand on it. Broadly, evil gods in D&D can be thought of as part of two camps; Greenwoodian evil, and Dickensonian evil (shout-out to my close friend and priestess - don't question it - the Celt for this framework). Greenwoodian evils are parts of nature, unrelentingly bound to the living world, who are gods over things that are terrible but necessary. Talona (goddess of plagues), Umberlee (goddess of the sea), Auril (goddess of winter), Loviatar (goddess of suffering), these are Greenwoodian evils, and if you're noticing that most of these are women, well, Ed Greenwood seems constitutionally incapable of writing a woman who is not, at worst, both glorious and terrible, and this is a compliment. Now, Greenwood has gods that don't fit this conception - look no further than Bane, god of tyranny - but the great joke at the expense of these gods is that they are not, contrary to their own belief, sovereign from the living world, they are not above it, removed from it. They are, instead, bent, defeated, broken, and beaten down until they service the natural order, and each time they attempt to shatter the cage the world of wonder has woven around them they lose some part of themselves in the process.

Now, Dickensonian evil is named for the works of Seth Dickenson, which concerns itself with the Sword Logic, the logic of empire. The argument it makes is that reliance on others makes you vulnerable, and only through becoming a sovereign being can you be safe and complete; the ideal being, in the conception of Dickensonian evil, interacts with others not at all, or, if it must, interacts with them only to consume them for resources. Bane is a Dickensonian evil, as are Bhaal, Myrkul, Gruumsh, Hextor, and the like, and the thing about the Sword Logic is that it is persuasive, powerful, and wrong. However, while it is ultimately self-defeating, the harm done to real people in the meantime is an incalculable tragedy, and thus it needs to be opposed at all times. As edgy bastards say constantly: you can't let God do all the work. This style of evil appeals to people who are, themselves, cruel, ruthless, and inclined towards consumption, but it also appeals to people who are hurt, who have been betrayed, whom the world has let down, and in that sense there is quite a lot to explore here. The ordinary person does not give in to the logic of empire without cause.

For gods of both good and of evil, the question at the root of it all is this: why do people willingly worship them? What worldview is on offer, and why are you sympathetic to that worldview? What would it mean to change, adopt, or oppose that worldview? If you take nothing else from this section, take that and ponder it.

Death Is For The Dead - Going with the above, holy fucking hell y'all the cosmology is not as important as you think it is. There is a vast emphasis placed by the player base upon the afterlife, one which sometimes bleed into the writing (in Starfinder, published by Paizo, "choosing your own afterlife" is seen as the ultimate expression of religious freedom) but you know what most people know about the afterlife? Nothing useful! Jane Average Realmswoman knows that she will in some way be with her goddess when she's dead and that it'll probably be pretty cool and that's about it, and as far as these things go Jane is correct. People tend to react with shock and horror when they learn for the first time that the usual spiritual journey someone goes on in the afterlife will end with them becoming one with the Plane and/or god they're associated with, and to an extent I have some sympathy for this. Lifelong atheist, remember, the idea of "losing myself" to become part of something greater sounds terrifying...but is that what's fucking happening? If one is to experience an afterlife, that is, a form of life, one must be able to change. There is no escape from eventually changing so much that you would be unrecognizable as the living person you once were, and for those who want to try we have undeath on offer (except we don't, undead also experience those sorts of changes and as a result there is truly no escape from being a real thing in the real reality). And in this cynicism for the afterlife people miss the forest for the trees. When you end up, say, in the divine realm of Oghma and are filing books in his infinite library, Oghma isn't using your soul for slave labor here. You're a newly dead person who needs time to acclimate to not having the needs of the living, and moreover you're a newly dead person whose greatest, most ardent passion was language, poetry, prose, nonfiction, the glory of writing in all its flower, and now you have unlimited access to such, an endless opportunity to truly understand and grow closer to this thing that was so important to you. I'm not saying not to involve cosmological themes or to not take adventures to divine realms, don't mistake me, but...maybe try to open your mind to the idea that this thing which is supposed to be good and natural is, in fact, good and natural.

Gods & You - This is more or less re-stating some arguments from above, but put some thought into the churches and faiths your character has a relationship with. Are they part of a broader faith? Is such a faith big where they live, and what does that mean for them? What sorts of interactions and opinions, right or wrong, do they have with the local religions and why? It doesn't have to be anything huge, but the faithful are, again, inescapable. People's lives in these settings are religious, and that faith infuses their day-to-day; so too does it infuse your character's. And while I'm right here, having beef with those faiths and/or the gods behind them? Legit. Not just legit, but on the table to be consummated; there is a long and strong tradition in D&D of killing gods with your own two hands, and while gods can be hard to keep dead (look at Bane), killing them always means something. Maybe you can take their place and try your hand at being a better god than they were. Maybe you're just trying to stop their evil schemes. Maybe they slept with your mom and you take some exception to this. Whatever it is, these sorts of conflicts both have bones in with real-world religion and a storied history in D&D itself, and they shouldn't be considered outside the scope of your ambition if you really wanna go for it.

Y'all, it's been a journey. If you've made it this far thank you for reading, and as always I remain open to feedback and criticism. Please don't let the incredible length of this piece or my unrelenting, undying fucking rage intimidate you; I wouldn't be making articles like this if I wasn't trying to have a legitimate dialogue with my audience, y'know? Now, I have one last bit for you. In an effort to be helpful, to fucking flex with my writing, and as a little treat, the following section will present some example Clerics. All but one (Matthias Winters) are from the Forgotten Realms. If you make the egregious mistake of looking up the Forgotten Realms wiki, it will tell you that Matthias's god is an aspect of Velsharoon; this is incorrect, and the first person to try to tell me otherwise will be turned into a bowl of spaghetti and served up at a high school dance. This is the one thing I will be entertaining no arguments about. That said, please feel free to take these characters as inspiration, mine them for ideas, or even just to play them yourself if you're inclined to indulge my staggering arrogance in such a fashion.

One last note; you will notice that I have often disregarded the Domains associated with various gods in the books. This is in no small part because WotC did those assignments with incredible, mind-blowing fucking incompetence, and also because a great deal of their former Domains or Spheres no longer have adequate representation. I have chosen to ignore them on purpose and with malice aforethought.

Now, without further ado, may I present:

The Chosen Many - Sample Clerics

Our sample Clerics will be formatted as follows:

[NAME]

Species Domain Cleric [Background]

General pitch of their concept & plot hooks

Personality Traits: [HERE] / Ideals: [HERE] / Bonds: [HERE] / Flaws: [HERE]

Matthias Winters

Human Death Cleric [Guild Artisan]

Mattie was only an apprentice when the monsters came to his village, ravening things set loose by an unwise summoner. People he knew died, until the Shrouded Lady came and destroyed the beasts with a dark and divine grace he had never before encountered. This Lady did not ask for money, and she did not ask for favors, but of the proud and simple people of the village she did ask two things: to let others know that they had a friend in the lich-god Mellifleur, Friend of Heroes, and for Matthias's services as her apprentice. Both were granted, with many tearful goodbyes and promises to write, which have been, it must be said, kept. It's a strange life, working as a Cleric to the Lord of the Last Shroud. Matthias isn't terribly educated, no, but he's no fool: he knows his god is evil, far more vile and underhanded than Matthias himself would ever want to be. And yet, "Friend of Heroes" seems to be no empty title. Matthias is sent on odd errands all across the land, all of them ominous and to some nebulous good. Go here, says the Shrouded Lady, and warn the town that a drow raid is coming; go there, and deliver these potions to the Moonstone Four, who will have need of them. Matthias has guarded caravans, healed the sick, slain the wicked, and placed far more magical items into chests within crumbling ruins than he ever thought plausible. During less pressing times, his work as a smith still sees use, crafting items of unusual make and odd, threatening beauty for more powerful spellcasters to enchant. One day, the Shrouded Lady has promised, his training will be advanced enough to create his own.

Mellifleur is evil. Matthias knows this. But does it matter so much, if Matthias is still helping? Does the promise of lichdom for himself really matter, if he can do more right by the world with all that time? He thinks about this, between hammer strokes, and he has no answer yet.

Personality Traits: "I tend to work when I need to think." & "I ask people what they think of death." & "I eat big and hearty; quality is a distant consideration." / Ideals: "If you've helped others, the method shouldn't matter [Neutral]." & "Professionals have standards [Lawful]." / Bonds: "I might uh, be in love with the Shrouded Lady." & "I seek a lost artifact of Mellifleur that can divine the plots of other evil gods." / Flaws: "When I don't know what to do, I take the first order I'm given that sounds right." & "There is no kill like overkill."

Elrissa Morrowmoon

Drow War Cleric [Soldier]

Born on the surface as the first generation of her family to be so born, Elrissa was raised in a community devoted to Eilistraee, actively involved in shepherding escapees from Lolth's dominions. She grew up idolizing the warrior-priests of her goddess, their grace and confidence, their surety, but never felt that for herself; big for a drow, hell, big even in comparison to a human, she despaired at ever achieving her dreams of becoming one of Eilistraee's paladins, even as she trained every day with gritted teeth and tearful eyes. When her community was found and raided in an attempt to capture the escapees as sacrifices to Lolth, Elrissa lost her father, and the very next night she stormed into the sacred grove and screamed her demand for vengeance up to her goddess.

She was answered.

In a sick way, Elrissa feels sometimes it might have been better if she wasn't. Now she's a holy warrior, now she knows she has the favor of her goddess and none can deny it, but she's still the plodding, clonking, clanging thing she was before, hunting the faithful of Lolth in her plate armor like an army of pots and pans. She lacks subtlety; she lacks grace. But while Elrissa is still in some ways the little girl who was never good enough in her own eyes, watch her change when the innocent are threatened, or when the priests of the Spider Queen are within striking distance. She does not leave survivors. She will not heed surrenders. She is coming, in a tide of moonlight and hateful sorrow, until no brick stands atop another.

Personality Traits: "I am very earnest and forthright." & "I get easily distracted by nature." & "I maintain my own equipment; no one else gets to." / Ideals: "People get better when they're offered love and support [Good]." & "For drow to have a future, Lolth must die [Neutral]." / Bonds: "I will find the ones who killed my father and repay them in kind." & "Sacred groves, even those of other gods, are worthy of my protection." / Flaws: "My hatred of Lolth can blind me to practical realities." & "Alcohol isn't a problem, it's a solution."

Gemma Rivergard

Half-Elf Forge Cleric [Noble]

Gemma acquired her vocation the way she gets most things: she bought it. As the fourth child of the noble Rivergards, who make their money in trade, her life was always a bit of a loose end. On a dare, she walked into a temple of Waukeen, laid out a spread of gems and gold and art pieces from the family vault, and announced her intention to purchase the exalted station of Cleric. She was as surprised as everyone else when the Goddess of Coins agreed.

Gemma is still a bit of a loose end. Waukeen blessed her with the power to make the goods her family merely trades, and much more besides, but lacking a specific holy mission she's taken to traveling, and it's broadened her horizons. One walk down a poorly maintained road might lead to a quest to cull the monsters threatening it, or politics with a greedy lord who has forgotten the value of commerce. She's set predatory contracts to rights, fought to the death against slaver rings, and purchased a truly concerning amount of amateur art from various goblins. And yet while she's happy with her growth as a person, Gemma still feels like she's lacking a purpose. Surely she can't purchase that.

…Surely not?

Personality Traits: "Is this some kind of peasant joke I'm too rich to understand?" & "You not understanding if I'm joking kinda is the joke." & "That really updated my journal." / Ideals: "To broaden one's horizons is to improve oneself [Good]." & "Every man has his price. That's not always a bad thing [Neutral]." / Bonds: "I haven't left my family! I'm still looking out for them." & "I still keep up with the goblin artists I've bought paintings from. I'm kinda their patron." / Flaws: "You bet I can't? Hold my beer." & "I forget sometimes that my experiences aren't universal."

Neela Wagonborn

Halfling Trickery Cleric [Haunted One]

So, here's the thing. This isn't Neela. Neela is not here at the moment, and you can't leave a message. Neela, you see, was captured by a Thayan looking to build a better Mirror of Opposition, and the wizard's experiment spit out Aleen, the Lawful Evil reflection of the original Neela, who had spent her life to date as a Cleric of Liira, Goddess of Joy. The mirror's enchantment, normally used to compel the summoned copy to kill the original, did not do this to Aleen, who was swiftly captured herself, brutally experimented upon, and then turned loose with the promise that her "creator" would be watching.

She's been hiding for all her life is worth, posing as Neela and playing a nerve-shredding game of balancing distance from Neela's loved ones with staying close enough to not arouse suspicion. Who knows if she'd survive getting killed in this Faerun, which is so unlike the one she knows? Praise be to the gods both above and below, though, Aleen here has an excuse: she's been receiving revelations from Liira, which are guiding her on a quest whose objective is unclear to her, but which has enabled her to become more powerful as a Cleric. If she's tricked the Lady of Illusions…well, that speaks well of her odds, right?

Liira has not been tricked. This journey of self-discovery into the world of beauty and wonder is about to be the funniest prank the Lady of Mists has pulled in fucking centuries.

Personality Traits: "The road calls! Immediately!" & "I remember those who wrong me." & "I have a weakness for musicians." / Ideals: "A deal is a deal [Lawful]." & "Everyone else is looking out for themselves first. Why should I be better? [Evil]." / Bonds: "That Thayan needs to die. Screaming." & "No one can find out who I am. No one." / Flaws: "I'm a good liar, but not as good as I think I am." & "My cruel streak can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

Fila Firetouched

High Elf Tempest Cleric [Entertainer]

Descended from a long line of Waterdhavian elves, Fila broke with family tradition by converting to the worship of Sune Firehair, goddess of beauty and patron of the arts. During their more youthful years they lived down to the stereotypes of the many lay members, producing a frankly embarrassing catalogue of love poetry, ex-lovers, and amateur paintings, but after the loss of their sibling to a sea storm their art took a rather more gloomy and Gothic direction. Storms and landscapes featured heavily, and with their newfound focus Fila was praised as an artist to watch, with a keen eye for the sublime. Their parents and community did their best to support Fila, but they were determined to process their grief in their own way, seeking to capture the "true heart of the storm", which they feared, hated, and also loved.

It was atop a hill in the Dessarin Valley, during a savage spring storm, that Fila was struck by lightning while trying to paint. They died in an instant of eternal agony, but it was not to be their end. Rather than claim Fila's soul, Sune Firehair offered them the chance to return, to continue their art and seek out others whose beauty was hidden by the cruelties of the world. Fila accepted, and returned to a body branded by the storm and crackling with divine power.

The plate armor is still taking some getting used to, as are the odd glances and awkward greetings from the church, but the storm, oh, the storm…

It feels like an old friend now, beautiful and terrible. It's all too happy to help with Fila's work.

Personality Traits: "Hold a moment, I need to sketch this for later." & "There is a party person in me that comes out sometimes." & "The amateur poetry will continue until morale improves." / Ideals: "The world is good, the world is beautiful, the world is worth fighting for [Good]." & "If you don't challenge norms and expectations, people will never examine them [Chaotic]." / Bonds: "I don't always get on with my family, but I'd still do anything for them." & "I haven't forgotten any of my ex-lovers; they can ask a lot more of me than I care to admit." / Flaws: "My resurrection was a miracle, but sometimes when people say my scars are a curse it still feels like they're right." & "I may be a little too excited about my newfound powers of violence."

Nattie Kells

Human Order Cleric [Hermit]

Nattie's family likes to say she was born morose; a depressed and somber child, she never quite got on with the people of her river town, and made few friends, not even during her wild years of late adolescence when she carved her way through every interested lass available only to seemingly lose her passion. Oh, yes, people tried to help, but the things they found meaning in just didn't quite resonate with Nattie, and she dabbled with this church and that career and suchlike before, inevitably, dropping them in favor of her only seemingly eternal passion: reading. Eventually she scraped some money together to go traveling, looking for anything that could speak to her, and she found a long-abandoned shrine to Jergal, the Last Scribe, assistant to Kelemvor and Lord of the End of Everything. It wasn't meaning, not exactly, but the idea that all would be ash one day, that meaning was not required, it had a comfort to it.

She was 23 when Jergal came to her in her dreams and requested her services, which would necessitate a return to lands where other people dwelled. Nattie awoke to find a pile of equipment near her, along with a holy symbol, and she set off, learning the ways of divine magic in her dreams as she made the long and pointless trek back to "civilization". Now, as the Quill of the Last Scribe, Nattie enacts what she thinks of as fate. A charm spell here, a nudge there, and things happen; a man meets his future husband by taking a road he would have walked past, a goblin scout is devoured by an owlbear he would have avoided, a horse spooks and kills its rider. Nattie has hurt people. She has saved people. She tells herself it doesn't matter, but beneath the layers of lassitude and nameless sorrow there is an uncertainty. What is she becoming?

This, too, is Jergal's design. Nattie is determined to live in misery, but the Last Scribe can wait for her to realize better. He can always wait.

Personality Traits: "Ugh. People." & "Primary sources motherfuckers! Write some! Keep them safe!" & "Nobody talk about the kind of person I am around furry animals. I mean it." / Ideals: "It means something, that you were here, and that you were alive [Good]." & "People return to dust eventually. It doesn't matter if they return to dust faster [Evil]." / Bonds: "My lonely home in the shrine is sacred to me." & "The bookstore I used to go to as a child was nearly going out of business, but as long as I keep spending adventuring money there it will never die." / Flaws: "I don't really have any bad feelings about people dying. People die all the time. They're very good at it." & "I wish I felt more blessed by the attention of my god, but he's such an aggravating little bitch. Why's he gotta be so annoying?"

Dagill Tapper

Shield Dwarf Knowledge Cleric [Background]

The son of miners, Dagill quickly proved to have a keen interest in learning, if little talent for academia. For much of his youth he found employment running books for the clan's mines, until - on the advice of the local priests of Moradin - he was sent to Neverwinter to be educated in magic, as the gift was in him and his home had little resources to explore it. Wizardry did not work out for Dagill, despite his passion for the Art, but that passion saw him into the worship of Azuth, God of Spells, and eventually he was chosen as a Cleric.

Dagill's interests lie in the recording and advancement of magical knowledge, and his new faith keeps him busy. Between expeditions to recover lost knowledge and study traditions of spellcraft, he assists in scribing scrolls and seeks out potential mages in under-served populations. Though his clan doesn't approve of his conversion, he's still a dwarf's dwarf, with a deep love for the gods of his people, who returns home often and pays his dues in gold, labor, and knowledge for the good of his people. They'll come around eventually. They must.

Undiscussed with most is Dagill's dearest ambition: to find one of the lost scrolls penned by the very gods, and cast it with his own hands. What else could bring him closer to his new god?

Personality Traits: "Have you heard the good word about how great wizards are today?" & "Despite it all, I'm still a dwarf's dwarf in a lot of ways." & "I make a big deal out of Azuth. All the time! People should appreciate him more!" / Ideals: "The advancement of the Art is meant to help people [Good]." & "We have obligations to truth, and to history [Lawful]." / Bonds: "I still send money to my clan, and I should visit again soon. I might have an arranged marriage coming up." & "The wizard who tried to teach me is a good woman; I need to repay her kindness." / Flaws: "I have a bit of an inferiority complex about wizards." & "I am easily distracted by puzzles and riddles."

St. Nokta Kinslayer

Goblin Life Cleric [Outlander]

Honesty can change a life, you know. Nokta's warband came up against a pack of tall-folk adventurers, as goblin warbands sometimes do. She was a soldier, then, seemingly destined to be smeared beneath a mercenary boot, but when she was captured the adventurers said: talk, and we will let you live. She talked, of course she talked, Maglubiyet teaches survival at all costs, but her fellows found out, and intended to kill her along with the adventurers during an ambush.

The tall-folk fought like demons to save Nokta, because they had said she would live, and they meant it. Despite their best efforts she died, to an arrow in the throat, only to wake with the battle still raging, brought back to life by diamond and spell and the tall-folk shaman in his metal armor. Three times did Nokta die, and three times was she brought back, only to watch the tall-folk shaman take a blade to the heart. Gripped by something she couldn't name, Nokta raced over, and took his diamonds, and tried to speak his spell, fervently calling out for his strange tall-folk god to spare him.

Nokta was answered in the name of Illmater, the Lord on the Rack, god of mercy and of self-sacrifice, and has served him since. For dying and returning, her new church calls her Saint, but her people call her Kinslayer, and the Traitor Shaman, and more besides. There will be no peace, and though Nokta knows her suffering reduces that of the world, this cannot continue. If the Fire-Eyed God wants her head, there can only be one recourse: break his priests until the cost of war sickens Maglubiyet , and he accepts peace. Saint Nokta is unafraid, and she is unmerciful.

Personality Traits: "What, tall-folk - uh, I mean, yes, my child?" & "I don't hate vegetables, I love meat." & "The Tall God says His blessings are for all. For some reason." / Ideals: "Peace for peace, wrath for wrath [Neutral]." & "I don't understand the compassion I was shown, but I do treasure it [Good]." / Bonds: "The adventurers who fought for me have my service for the asking." & "I'll drop everything to fight the servants of the Fire-Eyed God." / Flaws: "I don't know what this 'love' is, and 'trust' is also still pretty difficult for me." & "My fears drive me to violence far more often than the Tall God likes."

Jelka Threebones

Orc Grave Cleric [Acolyte]

Jelka came to live amongst the Sky Pony tribe of the Uthgardt as a young adult, one of several political hostages exchanged between her own tribe and the Sky Pony as part of a peace agreement; with both in the shadow of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows, wise leaders on both sides sought to cool traditional conflicts between them in favor of looking to the greater threat to their mutual north, and Jelka was selected for her cool head, proud bearing, and great foresight for such a young orc. The story might have ended there, if the Cult of the Dragon hadn't moved into the area looking to pillage the spirit mounds and burial grounds of both tribes' warriors to secure a supply of corpses for their necromancies. Outraged at this desecration and disrespect, Jelka called upon Gruumsh and Tempus in the name of both her peoples for the power to revenge herself upon the defilers, and her prayers were answered.

Today, Jelka continues her campaign of revenge in the name of Gruumsh, hunting down those who raise the dead, defile graves, and bend the minds of warriors. Her list of enemies is long and only growing longer, and she is keenly aware that she is not yet mighty enough to face down the likes of dracoliches or, say, the entire sovereign nation of Thay. But she will be. She must be. Wrongs have been done, and she wades into battle chanting the litany of them in an endless roll of accusation and reprisal, screaming hateful hymns alongside her chosen allies. Her new mission has made for strange bedfellows, but for all her outward fury Jelka remains the curious and level-headed young orc she was when she was selected all those years ago. Perhaps there are other enemies she might make peace with, to gain the satisfaction of her almighty vengeance.

Personality Traits: "Raise a cup with me! We should celebrate!" & "I'm very curious about new cultures, sometimes to the point of being annoying." & "I love a good story." / Ideals: "The world will hit you hard. If you don't take revenge, all you'll get is hit again [Evil]." & "If you don't have the guts, you don't deserve the glory [Chaotic]." / Bonds: "My word of alliance, once given, is absolute." & "I have siblings in my first tribe who should be adults soon. If they need my help, they have it." / Flaws: "I never forget a sleight." & "I pick fights I can't win sometimes."

Kellard Frosthalt

Rock Gnome Nature Cleric [Folk Hero]

Kell should have been a druid. He knows it, his clan knows it, druids know it, there's even odds that mushrooms in Menzobarrenzen know it, but he's always had a deep phobia of shape-shifting, so for a long while he was content to study nature…academically. Sure, his papers were trite, but the man published and that's not nothing. When he was hired to catalog finds for an expedition into Netherese ruins, the team found an ancient shrine to the goddess now known as Chauntea, and beset by undead guardians. Unwilling to let the sacred place be defiled, Kell took up arms for the first time, and found himself blessed with power.

Now Kell spends his time in lost places, seeking revelation and tending to the needs of rural communities. His new position is intimidating. More than many other followers of the Lady of Waving Grain, he understands that his goddess is an ancient and persistent foe of evil. Only…can something better truly be grown from her foes? Is Kell ready?

Personality Traits: "I love nature! Let me tell you about this parasitic wasp!" & "I know it doesn't fit my station, but I just, I need to be dressed sharp, okay?" & "I tell jokes with a completely straight face." / Ideals: "There are no pointless things; all things of the world have a treasured place in it [Good]." & "Generosity is the highest virtue [Good]." / Bonds: "Fuck Netheril, fuck the Netherese, burn their ruins and salt the ashes." & "After that first fight in the ruins, a peasant family took me in. I owe them my life." / Flaws: "I have a deep and abiding phobia of having my body changed against my will." & "I never, ever, ever, shut the fuck up."

Dolly Bookchild

Half-Drow Peace Cleric [Investigator]

Most half elves lose their human parent first, but as the child of two adventurers Dolly wasn't exactly surprised when her drow mother bit the big one doing battle with a demon accidentally released from an ancient binding. Seeking to understand her loss, Dolly started spending time in the sacred libraries of Deneir, and eventually converted after falling in love with learning. Academia isn't exactly her strong suit, but Dolly has a lot of practical knowledge that isn't often written down in an accessible fashion. Her new church was proud to fund the publishing of Dolly's Practical Survival Guide.

Still, a new love of learning isn't closure, and Dolly yearned to be an adventurer like her parents. After her second book went off to the printers, she stayed up in vigil to ask Deneir for a cleric's power, vowing to use it to find and advance knowledge, and to protect the ignorant. Her wish was granted, and now she bears the peace of the library wherever she goes. Every day is a lovely day for learning.

Hopefully one of these lovely days Dolly will figure out that the demon isn't done with just her mother.

Personality Traits: "It's a beautiful day to learn something new, isn't it?" & "Ah, the great outdoors!" & "I skip when I'm happy. No really. No, really." / Ideals: "Knowledge belongs to everyone [Lawful]." & "Extend grace to the ignorant; they truly do not know better [Good]." / Bonds: "Dad's getting on in years. I need to make sure he isn't worrying about me when he passes." & "I still return to my temple pretty often; it feels more like home than home does." / Flaws: "Sometimes I forget that my fun adventures can have deadly consequences." & "I'm from the big city where my heritage isn't a big deal, so it's surprising every fucking time that it's a big deal elsewhere."

Jonas Cobbler

Aasimar Light Cleric [Urchin]

So here's the thing. Jonas had a bit of an odd childhood. Raised by a then-single mother who is a devout follower of Lathander, Jonas was maybe six, seven years old when he mentioned in his prayers that he's a boy and asked for some help being a boy because he knew Mommy worked very hard and didn't have a lot of money. His first direct experience with divinity was his god's gentle voice in his mind saying: yes, my child, your new dawn is upon you. He had some explaining to do the next morning, and his mother was happy for him and seemingly cross with Lathander, for some reason?

It wasn't until Jonas was about seventeen that he got answers to that particular mystery; he came home to find his mother, her partner, and a golden-haired stranger waiting up for him. His mother introduced the stranger as Jonas's father...

...Lathander.

Maybe running away from home in a bit of a panic was the wrong move, but uh. Jonas has at least one parent looking out for him now, right? It'll be fine. It'll be fine. It's all gonna be fine.

Personality Traits: "I am extremely food-motivated." & "Let me teach you my secret handshake!" & "Uh, I've got, a spell for this, uh - fuck - uh, in the name of the new dawn uh -" / Ideals: "You don't need a reason to help people [Good]." & "The best time to be a better person was yesterday. The second-best time is now [Good]." / Bonds: "My old friends mostly went off to real careers, but we still stay in touch." & "There's a hidden place in the old neighborhood that I take care of." / Flaws: "I cannot walk into church any more without thinking, holy shit this guy slept with my mom." & "I am embarassingly weak to a pretty face."

Freddie Wright

Human Twilight Cleric [Criminal]

Hailing from a family of Selunite wererats in Yartar, Freddie used to have a fairly exciting life spying on Zhentarim operations, right up until she blundered into a cell of Sharrans in the sewers. They pushed her into a portal to see what would happen, but not before somehow stripping her of her lycantheropy to ensure she would suffer and die. Freddie arrived in Undermountain with nothing but her faith, and in her time of need the Moonmaiden answered. Against all odds, Freddie survived, scrounging up equipment, learning the traps, and eventually staggering out of the Well into the Yawning Portal Inn. She still has nightmares, but Freddie is grateful every day that she's alive to have them.

Now the former wererat stalks the Sharrans up and down the Sword Coast, seeking the return of what was taken. She hates her heavy armor and despises being caged in one body, but despite her snappish ways she takes her duty as a guide very seriously. That's part of the problem, actually. The dead of the Underhalls haunt Freddie and beg her intercession so that they might move on, and with every ghost laid to rest her prey gets further away. But what's a girl to do, ignore them? No. Freddie has faith. This righteous path must, will, make her whole again.

Personality Traits: "Time is money, hurry it up." & "Sometimes I overcomplicate things because I'm biased against direct solutions." & "Hey that reminds me of something that happened in my family -" / Ideals: "If you give people what they need to grow, they become their best selves [Good]." & "No one else can walk your path for you [Chaotic]." / Bonds: "Yartar is still my favorite city, and I stop by to do good by it when I can." & "The dead of the Underhalls that follow me have none other to speak for them." / Flaws: "Do you have any idea how much this stupid monkey body pisses me off?" & "I've got a vengeful streak that is not uh, approved Selunite behavior."

[kallie-den]

Cerulean

A recent escapee attends a support group for victims of evil mind control… run by the strange, sinister and inimitable Dr. Amaranth Cerulean

Special thanks to @dollzcomix for this commission, and for allowing me to write about Dr. Cerulean! They are a character of Demoiselle Porcelaine's creation, and I highly encourage you to check out her socials for all of her wonderful artwork of Dr. Cerulean - who truly is inimitable, and whose creator brings across their unique charm better than I ever could

If you like my writing, please consider supporting me on Patreon!  For less than the price of a cup of coffee each month, you can get immediate, early access to everything I write - 4 pieces of hypno-smut a  month, including the latest chapters of all the multi-chapter stories I write. Your support helps me keep writing and is greatly appreciated <3

---

The support group was nice… kind of. In theory. It had sounded nice, anyway, when Mariah had found out about it online. A pop-up ad, of all things, accompanied by a garish animation and a picture of the strange-looking psychiatrist who ran it, and written all in lower-case: ‘villain hypnosis victim support group’. Obviously, Mariah’s first instinct had been to dismiss it as some kind of weird internet con, but then she’d had second thoughts. Was there really a support group for people who’d been through what she had? Could other people actually understand the way she was feeling? If so, wasn’t that worth taking a chance on?

That was how she’d ended up in an untidy, rented office space on the side of the highway after dark.

It both was and wasn’t the kind of atmosphere Mariah had expected. A bunch of chairs set out in a circle. People sitting on them, sharing their stories. Strung up on one wall was a big banner that read ‘Mind Control and What Comes After: A Support Group to Find Yourself Again After Being Brainwashed’ in brightly colored but slightly faded letters. Mariah appreciated the stab at an upbeat atmosphere, but the attendeess simply weren’t up to the task.

They all just seemed so completely and utterly harrowed. Mariah sympathized, of course. She knew the ashamed, traumatized, hollowed-out look on each of their faces all too well. She saw in the mirror every morning. But she’d been hoping to see something a little more encouraging, too. Healing. Solidarity. Catharsis. On TV and in movies, support groups always involved people pouring out their hearts, breaking down, embracing one another. Making breakthroughs and overcoming their issues.

Mariah hadn’t expected the real thing to be quite so dramatic, but she’d been looking for more than a sequence of interminable recountings of horrors and violations. Each one seemed to conjure the awfulness of the past back into the present and leave the recounter shriveled and trembling. It was like the support group was making the attendees lesser, not greater. Mariah wasn’t sure she could see any signs of healing at all, or even of people finding solidarity in their brokenness. It was all just miserable.

The only person who seemed like they were having a good time was the psychiatrist running the thing.

Dr. Amaranth Cerulean, they/she.

They looked just as weird in person as they had on their advert. Dr. Cerulean was deathly pale, with big, tired, dark-circled eyes and unusual, light blue markings beneath them, as well as on her lips. It was a strange and striking look, especially along with their prominent nose and the short but poofy, voluminous hair piled up in rounded masses on their head. The shrink wore a gray cardigan over a ribbed, mustard yellow turtleneck sweater which was tucked into the belted waist of their brown slacks. It was an outfit from a different decade. Mariah just wasn’t quite sure which one.

In a way, it wasn’t surprising that a support group like this would be run by an eccentric. Mariah wasn’t one to judge. Dr. Cerulean’s demeanor, though, was a little unnerving. Throughout most of the session, Dr. Cerulean sat on her chair at the head of the group, in a completely slack, slouched pose that registered nothing but complete disinterest. They barely spoke, and only to indicate who should speak next. Certainly not to provide any advice or support. They had a pen and a pad of paper, from the way their hand moved while they were writing on it, Mariah felt certain they were mostly just idly doodling.

Every now and then, however, something would catch their attention. Occasionally—and only when somebody was sharing a particularly lurid, uncomfortable and traumatic part of their experience of being mind controlled—Dr. Cerulean would throw their entire body forward and sit perched so perilously close to their edge of their chair, Mariah feared they were about to topple from it. They would scratch at their notepad in a frenzy, and those big, tired eyes certainly became laser-focused and eager. Whenever that happened, a truly ghastly smile descended on their face. Not warm, not supportive, just pleased. Smug. Grateful, even, like they were thankful someone had stepped up to deliver them from boredom.

And from the slight twitch in their cheek, Mariah couldn’t help but suspect Dr. Cerulean was struggling to keep themself from laughing.

Dr. Cerulean’s presence made the entire support group feel uncomfortably voyeuristic, somehow. When it came to be Mariah’s turn, she kept it to a bare minimum. She introduced herself and made a few oblique references to what had happened to her, but completely glossed over the details. She figured that was pretty normal for a first-timer—and besides, it was difficult to speak with Dr. Cerulean looking at her like she was a fresh-cooked meal placed on their table.

Mariah decided right then and there—there wasn’t going to be a second time. She just didn’t feel comfortable here. It wasn’t the kind of support group she was looking for.

She stuck it out to the end, though—mostly because leaving halfway through seemed much too awkward. Once they wrapped up, before Mariah could slip out quietly, she found that Dr. Cerulean was suddenly between her and the door, and staring at her with an expectant look on their ghoulish face.

“H-Hi,” Mariah said, mostly because she felt like she had to. “Um… thanks for the session.”

“Oh, don’t mention it,” Dr. Cerulean sounded every bit as tired and seedy as they looked. “Thank you for coming. Really. We love a newcomer.”

“Yeah…” Mariah had no idea what to say to that. “Well, I was actually just-“

“Good news!” Dr. Cerulean interrupted suddenly, in a lazy, drawling voice. “You’re actually our one-hundredth member. That means you win a free one-on-one session with yours truly.”

Finger guns.

---

Hell no.

That had been Mariah’s initial response. The easiest ‘nope’ of her life. She’d politely declined, and privately resolved to never set foot in Dr. Cerulean’s support group again.

Then she’d gone home, gone to bed, and had the nightmares again.

It was nothing new. They came for Mariah most nights. But it meant another eight-hour torture session inside her own head, tossing and turning, fighting off both gut-wrenching guilt and poisonous allure. In the cold light of dawn, Mariah had felt worse than ever—and taking up Dr. Cerulean on her offer hadn’t seemed like such a bad idea after all. It had been easy to tell herself that it hadn’t really been that bad after all. Sure, Dr. Cerulean was a bit eccentric, but what had Mariah expected from somebody running a support group for mind control victims? It wasn’t like they’d done anything wrong, exactly.

More importantly, Mariah needed the help. Desperately. She couldn’t keep going on like this. That was why she’d gone to the support group in the first place. She needed to talk to somebody. Didn’t she owe it to herself to push herself? To take every chance? Mariah kept thinking about the kind of stuff she’d read online. Recovery wasn’t always easy. It wasn’t always comfortable. You had to push yourself.

Mariah had decided that she wanted to push herself.

Besides, it was just talking. In the end, that was what clinched it for her. All they were going to do was sit in a room and talk. If it was good, great. If it was bad, it would be a waste of time—but at least Mariah could tell herself she had given it a fair shot.

Basically: what was the worst that could happen?

That was how, the very next afternoon, Mariah found herself in Dr. Cerulean’s office, trying to distract herself from her anxiety by carefully inspecting the weird pineapple lamp on Dr. Cerulean’s desk. Dressed exactly as they had been the day before, the psychiatrist regarded Mariah with a bland smile on their blue lips as they invited her to sit down opposite them.

“So, um,” Mariah said, shifting uncomfortably. “How do we get started?”

“First things first,” Dr. Cerulean told her, “I have a few release forms for you to sign. Standard stuff, really. No need to read them too carefully.”

They handed Mariah a small stack of papers. Cautiously, Mariah started scanning the first. It seemed, as promised, entirely standard. Non-disclosure, liability, that kind of thing. After signing it, she moved on to the second, then the third, and quickly stopped bothering to read much of the legal jargon. On the very last form, though, something caught her eye.

“Wait a minute,” Mariah said. “This is a release authorizing you to… write online fiction about me?”

Quickly, Dr. Cerulean reached over the deck and snatched away the piece of paper. “Oops,” she replied languidly. “Bit of a mix-up. My mistake. Don’t worry about it. You can sign that one later.”

Later? Mariah frowned. Was that some kind of joke? It had to be. Dr. Cerulean certainly looked like they were finding humor in something—but it was in seriously poor taste.

“There we go.” Dr. Cerulean stretched one of their long arms across to retrieve the other release forms. They sat back in their chair and regarded Mariah carefully. “To begin with, why don’t you just tell me what brought you to the support group?”

Again, Mariah considered refusing. Again, she reminded herself: she needed to give this a shot.

“I… I just feel like I can’t move forward,” Mariah began slowly. She fixed her eyes on the floor, hoping that would be less awkward. “You know? I see all these people going about their daily lives. Pursuing careers. Pursuing other people. Pursuing happiness. And it just seems completely impossible to me. Like I can’t even fathom it—even though I used to be just like them. I can ever remember her—that old version of me. The one who wasn’t… who wasn’t broken. I want to be her again so bad. I just… can’t remember how.”

She looked up. Mariah’s voice was already a little choked up from the emotions she was describing. She was hoping, perhaps, for a kind word or a kind smile.

Instead, Dr. Cerulean wasn’t even looking at her. They had a pencil in their hand, and they were trying to spin it cleanly on the joint between their thumb and their hand. After a particularly vigorous spin, it slipped away from them and clattered against the top of the desk.

“Dr. Cerulean?” Mariah ventured plaintively.

Dr. Cerulean let out a breath that was very close to a sigh, and then their brow twitched in a way that made Mariah think, just for a moment, that they were going to roll their eyes. Then, though, a smile—only a little forced—came to Dr. Cerulean’s blue lips.

“Why don’t we start at the beginning?” Dr. Cerulean suggested. “What actually happened to you?”

“Oh. Right.” That made sense to Mariah, even if she wished Dr. Cerulean sounded a little more patient about it. She gathered her courage. Talking about what had befallen her didn’t come easy. “A couple of years ago, I-I was in a relationship. With a guy. Robert. We were engaged, I actually. I thought we were going to spend our entire lives together.”

“Uh-huh.” The look of boredom still hadn’t disappeared from Dr. Cerulean’s face.

“I had recently started a new job,” Mariah recounted, voice trembling. “As a PA—a personal assistant. I spoke to my boss about taking some time off for the wedding. Mrs. Lawrence. She, um, didn’t like that idea. She’d always been kind of… controlling, I guess. A… a bully.” She struggled to say it, even though it was true. “She told me she required my services. Didn’t want me to focus on the needs of anyone besides her.”

“Oh?” Those big, sunken eyes on Dr. Cerulean’s face were starting to perk up a little. “What then?”

“I threatened to quit.” Mariah squeezed her eyes tight shut. “So she mind-controlled me.”

Mariah heard a small, wet sound from a short distance away. When she opened her eyes, Dr. Cerulean’s lips were damp, and they had taken up their notepad.

“Tell me more about that,” the psychiatrist prompted.

“She started taking over every aspect of my life,” Mariah whispered. “The way I looked, talked, dressed, and how-“

“No, no,” Dr. Cerulean interrupted eagerly, waving a hand. “How did she mind control you?”

“Um.” Mariah was taken aback by the question. “What do you mean?”

“Well, is she a psychic?” Dr. Cerulean raised a hand and started counting methods on her fingers. “Psychoactive spores? Big ray gun? Good ‘ol hypnotist? Some kind of succubus?”

“She, um,” Mariah replied slowly. “She had one of those… toys on her desk. You know, with the row of balls hanging on strings?”

“A Newton’s cradle!” For the first time, Dr. Cerulean sounded faintly delighted. “Hold on.”

Dr. Cerulean reached under their desk and started rummaging around in a box that seemed to contain a truly preposterous quantity and variety of strange objects. Mariah watched, confused then horrified, as Dr. Cerulean plucked out one of them and set it upon their desk.

It was a Newton’s cradle.

“Um…” Mariah was transfixed by the object. “That’s… c-can you…”

Dr. Cerulean took one of the metal balls between their thumb and forefinger, lifted it, and let it swing.

The metallic tap as it hit against the next reverberated through Mariah’s entire being.

“D-Dr. Cerulean,” Mariah stammered. She was hot and cold. She could feel herself sweating. She could feel herself sinking. “C-c-could you p-put that away, p-please?”

“What, this?” Dr. Cerulean seemed faintly surprised as they leaned back easily in their chair. “But it’s just a little toy.”

“But…” Mariah was about to say something else, but the tapping of the Newton’s cradle broke about her words before they could form. She was left blubbering the word over stupidly. “B-but…”

“Mariah,” Dr. Cerulean tutted. “It’s important for you to understand that this is just a commonplace object. It’s acquired a certain psychological character in your mind as a trigger, but that’s something that you’re imbuing onto the world. Aren’t you afraid that you’re just reinforcing the scars of your own trauma? We need to push past our fears. If you continue to treat this toy with significance, it will become more and more significant to you.”

Dr. Cerulean sounded every bit the consummate professional as they rattled off the argument in their quick but monotonous voice. The words crested over Mariah like a wave. She had no rebuttal. Dr. Cerulean was the psychiatrist, after all.

And Mariah really, really couldn’t think straight with the Newton’s cradle tap, tap, tapping away on the desk.

“OK,” she said quietly, eventually.

“Very good.” Beyond the Newton’s cradle, Mariah could see a smile forming on Dr. Cerulean’s face. “Desensitization through exposure therapy is a key element of recovery. Go on.”

“Go… on?” Exposure therapy? Mariah still couldn’t look away from the Newton’s cradle. She couldn’t stop shaking. But if it was part of her recovery…

“Tell me what your boss did to you.”

“Mrs. Lawrence,” Mariah said slowly, “made me break up with my boyfriend.”

As they took notes, Dr. Cerulean made a little noise that might have been the beginnings of a laugh. “Of course.”

“B-but it’s more than that.” Mariah wasn’t sure that she wanted to talk about it, really. But she had no choice. It just came out of her—because she was looking at the Newton’s cradle, and Dr. Cerulean was telling her to speak. “She… s-she made…” Her voice broke. “She made me g-gay.”

Abruptly, Dr. Cerulean sat forward. For the first time, Mariah felt the full weight of the psychiatrist’s attention.

“Oh wow,” Dr. Cerulean remarked, with an ominous delight they slowly brought back under wraps. “That’s… really something. How did that go?”

“It’s awful,” Mariah moaned. “It’s not… I’m s-straight. I’ve always been straight. But when I looked at her—when I look at other women—I can’t help but feel it. And it feels so… so dirty.”

“Of course,” Dr. Cerulean agreed, scribbling at their notepad. “Something as fundamental as your sexuality has been made completely alienating to you.” They sat forward, leering. “It must be maddening. Feeling like your desire and your memory are at war. Not knowing which one you can trust. Not knowing which one is really you.”

Mariah nodded slowly. It was exactly like that. She was so glad Dr. Cerulean understood—but at the same time, hearing it said out loud with such bluntness felt awful.

“Tell me more,” the psychiatrist beckoned. “Tell me everything.”

Mariah’s vision was starting to narrow. She made one great effort to tear her attention away from the Newton’s cradle—and couldn’t. She could feel herself losing focus. Losing wakefulness. It was just the way it had been back then. Her shaking worsened, but it wasn’t enough to jostle her from trance’s reaching fingertips.

“I… I…” Dr. Cerulean’s words conjured the very deepest, most awful truths from Mariah’s drowning mind. “I tried… to go back to him, after they arrested her. I knew she’d get out on bail, but it gave me enough time to c-come back to my senses. I went back to him, but… b-but I just couldn’t stand it. I c-couldn’t look at him the same. And when he touched me, I…”

There was a loud noise as Dr. Cerulean slapped their thigh. Mariah jumped, but even that wasn’t enough to break her focus.

“Wait, you tried to go straight back to your old life?” they wheezed. “Wow, yeah, no, don’t do that! You didn’t give yourself any breathing room. No time to process what had happened to you. You tried to force yourself back into an old groove, and then when you couldn’t, I bet you felt more broken than ever! Rookie mistake, seriously.”

Dr. Cerulean’s barely disguised amusement bothered Mariah, but not as much as it should have. She simply couldn’t think straight. Each loud tap as one of the balls of the Newton’s cradle impacted against its neighbor was overwhelming. As much as she wanted to get up and leave, Mariah’s legs wouldn’t obey her. The most she could do was point at the Newton’s cradle with a weak, trembling hand.

“Please,” she blubbered. “P-p-please make it stop. P-please. I can’t… I c-can’t…”

“Oops.” Beyond the cradle, Mariah could see that Dr. Cerulean’s tired, sunken eyes had become bright and leering. “Now you’re on the verge of a full-blown relapse, aren’t you? It looks like you really are that fragile. Well, it makes sense. Recounting your traumatic experiences while being exposed to an explicit reminder of your victimhood will do that to you. Not very recovered after all, huh?”

Mariah shook her head numbly as tears welled up in her eyes. She could see it so clearly now. She wasn’t recovered at all. She hadn’t moved forward even one inch since getting free. She was small. She was weak.

“Tell me,” Dr. Cerulean asked, “what are you so afraid of? You’re shaking like a leaf."

“I-I don’t want to hurt people again,” Mariah blurted out.

Dr. Cerulean set down their notepad and planted their hands on the desk, palms vertical, the tips of their fingertips pressed together. Mariah could feel those long fingers reaching into her. Peeling her open. Prying her secrets apart.

“Who did you hurt, Mariah?” Dr. Cerulean asked.

Mariah had never told anybody about that—but she couldn’t lie. Not here. Not now. Not with the Newton’s cradle. Mrs. Lawrence had always drilled that into her. Tell the truth.

“I h-helped her take other girls,” Mariah whispered. “Anybody who caught her eye. I m-made appointments with them. P-put things in their drinks. Sometimes she even m-made me hold them, so they’d keep looking at the…” She choked back a sob. “Mrs. Lawrence made me t-talk to them. Condition them. D-d-discipline them.”

“Fascinating,” Dr. Cerulean said softly. “You must feel so guilty.”

“Yes!” The word erupted out of Mariah. It was all she could think about, every hour of every day.

“Of course,” Dr. Cerulean agreed softly. “You feel as though you were forced, outside of your own control, to commit acts that horrify you and compromise your sense of self. I think it’s crucial that we begin to reframe this.”

Mariah nodded slowly. She could do nothing else.

“Did you know that-“ Dr. Cerulean interrupted herself with a kind of gleeful chuckle. “Did you know that you cannot be hypnotized into doing anything that you don’t want to do?”

“Um.” Mariah blinked and swayed unsteadily. “W-what?”

No. That wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.

“Oh yes,” Dr. Cerulean insisted. “Hypnosis is just a little mind trick, really. It’s a way of lowering your inhibitions and suppressing your conscious mind, but do you really believe that it would make you a complete and total slave to whoever’s doing it to you? Lowering inhibitions simply implies the removal of a barrier to your true desires.”

“No.” Mariah shook her head violently. “N-no. No way. That’s… you’re…”

“Think about it,” Dr. Cerulean pressed, thin blue lips now stretched into a leering grin. “How did you feel when your boss used you sexually?”

Mariah flinched. “I-it felt good, but that’s only because she made-“

“Accepting our sexualities is often a battle,” Dr. Cerulean said agreeably. She made another note in her notepad. “How did you feel when you hurt those other women?”

“Please don’t make me say it,” Mariah begged, trembling. Dr. Cerulean just looked at her. “G-good. But that’s-“

“Of course.” The psychiatrist nodded. “Violence. Exercising power. It may be unpleasant, but it appeals to the baser parts of our natures. That’s a huge part of any form of so-called mind control. It provides a nice, convenient excuse for us to exercise desires we might normally feel the need to repress. And how about whenever you were ‘forced’ to obey your boss?”

Obey. That word lit a fuse in Mariah’s head.

“Obey,” she muttered. “Obey. O-obey. Obey. Obey. Obey.”

Normally, she was better than this. She could keep it under wraps. Not today. Not with the Newton’s cradle.

“A mantra!” Dr. Cerulean sounded pleased. “And so easy to trigger, too. This is good. Great, in fact. We’re making a lot of progress. I think we’re really starting to get to the root of your issues.”

“Obey.” Mariah kept repeating it under her breath. Each word gave rise to the next, unceasing, until her lungs were empty of air and she was shaking from the effort—but still, she kept going. “Obeyobeyobeyobeyobey.”

“Yes, yes, keep going,” Dr. Cerulean waved an idle hand in her direction. “Exposure therapy is a crucial tool. Remember what we were discussing earlier? You have to take back power from these things. You can’t keep making them special in your head. Repetition is a great way to do that.”

There was something soothing about hearing that. Mariah started easing into the mantra, letting her mind settle. She just needed to trust Dr. Cerulean. Her obedient liturgy was starting to make her feel calm again. Just like it always had with Mrs. Lawrence.

“Now, what was I saying?” Dr. Cerulean mused. “Oh, that’s right. Hypnosis. You really must consider what I’m saying. Perhaps the reason you’ve found all of this so difficult is that your boss was tapping into some of your deeply held repressed desires. Forcing you to confront them. Forcing you to accept the way they make you feel.”

“Obey,” Mariah panted. “Obey. Obey. Obey.”

“Obviously that’s just one way to conceptualize your experience,” Dr. Cerulean continued. “It might not sound right to you, but that’s where reframing comes in. At the end of the day, Mariah, you need to make a choice about what kind of narrative you want to fit onto your life. Ultimately, that’s all our egos amount to. They’re stories we tell about ourselves to find a semblance of security and comfort in our day-to-day lives. Which story flatters you the most? Which story brings you the most comfort? We need to help you answer that question so that you can find a degree of fulfillment.”

“Obey… obey… obey…” Mariah was slowing now, as the mantra drove all the way down to a deeper layer of hypnotism, leaving her in a place so dark and still even speaking was too much effort for her.

“Enough of that now,” Dr. Cerulean instructed dismissively. “You want control, don’t you Mariah? Think about it: which narrative makes you feel in control? Which one will help you reclaim your life?”

Mariah’s eyelids fluttered as she bent her mind to the question. When they were open, she could see Dr. Cerulean, lurking beyond the Newton’s cradle. When they were closed, she could see Mrs. Lawrence. Her boss. Her brainwasher. It was terrifying—but what if it didn’t have to be? Mariah could remember a time she hadn’t been scared. A time when she’d eagerly obeyed her boss with the eagerness of a docile lamb.

More than ever, she longed for it.

But… that was wrong, wasn’t it?

“I…” Mariah grasped. “No, I… I’m straight?”

Dr. Cerulean shook their head slowly. “You’re a little behind, Mariah. Remember. Narratives. Reframing. Are you really straight? Or is that simply what you’ve always believed? Many queer people suffer from a degree of internalized bigotry, and respond by desperately clinging to a veneer of heteronormativity. I promise you, Mariah. This room is a safe space. You can explore your feelings and desires here.”

Mariah’s mouth opened and closed uselessly. What Dr. Cerulean was telling her didn’t sound right—but then again, Mariah had no idea what would. And the pale psychiatrist sounded so expert. So sure.

“Let’s approach this on a more basic level,” Dr. Cerulean offered. “You need to relearn confidence in your basic drives. It’s important that you proceed without doubting yourself too much. I want you to accept yourself. To embrace your feelings. That’s the only way you can begin to heal. With that in mind, let me ask you: how do you feel about men?”

The Newton’s cradle was coming to rest, but that provided little comfort. As its motion slowed, Mariah felt her thoughts slowing along with it. She was swimming in trance. The word ‘obey’ was still echoing in her head. She couldn’t get beyond her first, strongest response.

“I c-can’t stand them,” she whimpered.

“Good,” Dr. Cerulean said poisonously. “I’m glad you can accept that about yourself. Now, how do you feel about women?”

“I… I…” That question triggered a sudden sunburst of emotion in Mariah’s head. Ideas, impulses, and beliefs all poured into her, each one pulled by a thread that was a memory or a sensation. They awakened something in her, something that burst past her lips in a wet, needy ejaculation. “I-I belong on my knees for women!”

“Another mantra?” Dr. Cerulean leered. “Interesting. It seems like we’re making a lot of progress here. As I told you, I want you to have confidence in your feelings and desires. So please, don’t stop yourself. Do whatever it is that feels most right to you. Whatever makes you feel comfortable in the moment.”

A great weight was pressing down on Mariah’s shoulders. Simply sitting in her chair felt so nauseatingly wrong, she couldn’t bear it. The only thing that seemed comfortable was slipping out of it, down onto her knees beneath Dr. Cerulean’s desk. The cold, uncomfortable floor welcomed her with the familiarity of a well-worn mattress.

“Fascinating,” Dr. Cerulean mused. “At the risk of moving a little too fast, perhaps we should try a little word association. That can be a very useful way to uncover the real roots of psychological issues. So, Mariah: you belong on your knees for women?”

Mariah choked back another sob as the words flowed out of her. “I b-belong on my knees for women. A good secretary’s place is under the desk. I l-love to be at women’s feet. I belong on my knees for… for women. A good secretary’s p-place is under the desk. I… I… hng… I love to be at women’s feet!”

Her stomach was a noxious cauldron. An iron pall of palpitating nausea sat inside her. The sense of anxious danger that had haunted her for months now was frothing like never before. But above it sat a thick, dense, smothering fog that whispered to her: this was all good. It was right. It was her place.

Mariah was trying to listen to the danger-sense. She was failing. It was too painful. She just wanted to stop thinking.

“It stands out to me that your set of associations ends with a reference to women’s bodies.” Mariah heard Dr. Cerulean’s voice from above, as the strange psychiatrist sat back calmly in their chair. That was another thing she was used to. “That may be the key to your desires, Mariah. Listen to them. Show me what comes next.”

As they spoke, Dr. Cerulean slowly slipped out of her shoes, using each one to pry the other off. Underneath, they were wearing a strange pair of pineapple socks; yellow and patterned on the lower part, and leaf-green around their ankles. Their socks, though, weren’t what had caught Mariah’s attention. She was distracted by the simple fact that she was in her place, under a desk, and an authoritative woman was looming over her with their feet dangling in her face.

Mariah followed her desires. She did what came naturally to her. With tears still in her eyes, lips still mouthing the words Mrs. Lawrence had imprinted on her mind, she reached out and began massaging Dr. Cerulean’s feet.

Dr. Cerulean let out a glib chuckle, then sighed contentedly. “Look at you now. You’re under the desk, repeating your mantras, looking for another woman’s feet to worship. A complete and total relapse! How unfortunate.”

“I… I… I-I…” Another sob threatened to rip loose from Mariah’s throat. She wanted to speak, to argue, to apologize, to beg, but she already knew that if she tried, the only thing that would come out was her boss’s mantra.

A relapse. It was the rock-bottom Mariah had been afraid of for so long. All the urges she had been fighting to hold in check were oozing out. She was on her knees again. She was languishing in the pit of her own awful, dirty, lustful feelings about women. It felt awful. It felt like home.

“I know, I know,” Dr. Cerulean agreed. “It’s tough. But what do I keep telling you about, Mariah? Reframing! It’s an essential tool. Consider: what if this isn’t relapsing? What if this is simply who you are?”

Whatever part of Mariah might have wanted to push back against that had been broken into silence. As Mariah trembled and sobbed and eagerly, expertly pushed her thumbs against the soles of Dr. Cerulean’s feet, it seemed impossible to deny. Wasn’t this who she was? Wasn’t what she was doing right now the proof?

“It’s up to you, of course,” Dr. Cerulean added. “This is all about your wellbeing, Mariah. You’re perfectly free to define the goals of your own therapy. The perspectives I’m offering you are nothing more than food for thought. So, what do you think?”

As she knelt there, Mariah thought about what it would mean if she insisted upon her need for recovery and healing. It would mean more months of therapy and counseling, of twitchiness and jitteriness, of viewing herself, first and foremost, as a victim. It would mean looking over her shoulder for Mrs. Lawrence everywhere she went, and constantly guilt and shame whenever she found herself glancing at another woman. It would mean perhaps years of slowly building herself back up so she could learn to trust again, so she could reclaim her sexuality on her own terms—hell, so she could even work in an office again.

It was too much.

Just like that, Mariah gave up.

“Y-you’re right, Dr. Cerulean.” Mariah’s voice was still trembling desperately, but as she spoke, a haunted grin came to her face. “T-thinking about how I really feel… I guess it’s o-obvious. I’m j-just a lesbian.”

“Interesting,” Dr. Cerulean remarked. They sounded like they were beginning to crack up laughing. “And all those things you did for your boss?”

Mariah let out a twitchy laugh too. “I j-just did those things for Mistress because I wanted to.”

“Very interesting. Even hurting those other women?”

The noise that erupted from Mariah’s throat was a sob and a laugh in equal measure. “Y… y-yes. That’s right. I w-w-wanted to.”

“My goodness,” Dr. Cerulean sounded like she was fighting to suppress a moan as Mariah gave in. “That’s quite the breakthrough.”

Mariah wanted to. She wanted to serve her boss because she was a submissive lesbian. She wanted to hurt other women for her mistress because it turned her on. It was that simple. She was that simple.

“Why don’t you sit back up here?” Dr. Cerulean suggested. “One question: what do you think about the way your boss hypnotized you?”

As Mariah came up from under the desk, she glanced at the Newton’s cradle sitting on the psychiatrist’s desk. It had long since come to rest, but the sight of it still made her stomach churn.

“M-Mistress knows what’s best for me,�� Mariah bleated, forcing her nausea down. Forcing herself to fall back on what her boss had taught her. “Mistress thinks for me b-better than I can.”

Dr. Cerulean sat forward as they let out a great, wheezing chuckle. “Let me get this straight,” they said. “Do you imagine that your boss knew that you were a lesbian all along, and was simply pushing you to accept it?”

A tear trickled down Mariah’s cheek. “Y-y-yeah.” She made herself believe it.

“Wow,” Dr. Cerulean remarked, and shrugged. “Well, yeah, that certainly sounds plausible to me. No issues there. We discussed your internalized homophobia earlier. I suppose being forced to confront that must have caused a kind of backlash. Very unfortunate.”

“R-right.” Mariah sat bolt upright in the chair as she felt compulsion snap tight around her like a collar on her neck. “Oh my god. I n-need to go back to Mistress. I need to find her again.”

“Oh yes?” Dr. Cerulean leaned forward intently. “And why’s that?”

Mariah’s happy, grateful smile was so wide. She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t seem to stop crying. “I need to apologize. I need to b-b-beg for her forgiveness.”

Tears were welling up in Dr. Cerulean’s eyes too—but only because they were fighting so hard to keep a tight rein on their mirth. “That sounds great!” the psychiatrist agreed. “Rebuilding the bridges we burn during moments of crisis can be so important. And far be it from me to keep you any longer—although I’d love to schedule a follow-up in a few weeks’ time. Just so I can, ah, see how you’re getting on.”

Mariah nodded eagerly. She was so thankful to Dr. Cerulean for helping her get her head on straight. Really, it was the least she could do.

As Dr. Cerulean stood up to see Mariah out, they carelessly set down on their desk the small notepad they had been taking notes on. With it face up, Mariah could see a few of the choice comments Dr. Cerulean had made:

‘BOOOORING I’m so sad blah blah blah’ ‘messing with her orientation? nice lol’ ‘dig for mantras?’ ‘oh she’s COOKED cooked.’ ‘amazed someone else hasn’t scooped her up already’ ‘regular follow-ups? the massage is pretty good’

Mariah decided to ignore them. She decided they had to be about somebody else. Fortunately, Dr. Cerulean distracted her from it by sliding another piece of paper across the desk.

“Now, about that release?” the psychiatrist asked politely. “I think this could be really great material for a fic. I can see getting a lot of Ao3 kudos for this one.”

With a tight, harrowed, unsteady, haunted grin on her tear-stained face, Mariah obediently signed her name and then hurried back to return to her life as a brainwashed, submissive, lesbian secretary. As she left, Dr. Cerulean leaned back in their chair and slipped their hand down the front of their pants.

“All in a day’s work,” Dr. Cerulean murmured to themself. “Now, let me see if I can finish before my five o’clock.”

—

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[ivorydragoness44]

Jason Todd / Red Hood x Reader: Factors

Word Count: tbd (I typed this on my phone)

Notes/Warnings: Based off of the Batman: Wayne Family Adventures episode with the rainbow suit. Breaking and entering via Batman (implied Batwoman), reader arming themselves, angst with resolution.

Summary: The Reader can't get to sleep. They hear someone entering the apartment so they hide. They text Jason but he isn't texting right away. When Jason does arrive in full Red Hood gear, who is more surprised, him or Batman?

A/N: Happy New Year! New year, new fanfiction.

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Lying in bed, you rolled over for the third time. Somehow, for some reason, sleep was eluding you that night. Usually sleep would eventually find it's way to you in a timely manner. But, no. Could it have been that you craved the comfort of one very specific person in addition to the pillow you were cuddling? Maybe. It was certainly a possibility.

A small tap and scratch on the window across the room stalled your thoughts. You thought nothing of it. It was likely a bird, nothing else was going to be so many stories up on an apartment.

Your entire body stilled when you heard the window begin to open slowly.

Rolling out of bed, you snatched the dagger Jason had gifted you from beneath the other pillow. Quickly finding your footing, you too took your cellphone before slipping into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door quietly.

The way your heart was pounding, you were not sure if you would be able to hear anything else. You wasted no time in texting Jason. However, after a minute with no reply, you sent another text.

There was a faint muffled voice coming from the main room. You could only hope that they would leave immediately, or Jason would materialize beside you. Both seemed rather unlikely.

Fifteen minutes passed and you swore that your heart could take no more of the situation. With your phone still in your hands, you began to send Jason a flurry of text messages. Each ranged from his name in all capital letters to your initial situation. Finally, he replied. On my way.

Not long afterward, from the quiet apartment, came a second voice. You hoped that neither would find the fine display of weapons on the wall But with the amount of time that had passed, you doubted it.

There's another one, you sent to Jason. Please hurry, but be careful.

You were sure that five minutes had not passed before you heard the front door to the apartment fly open and slam shut. A startled voice was confronted with an angry one before there was a moment of complete silence.

"Are you kidding me?!" Jason's muffled voice broke through to you.

After the initial outburst, the conversation was much too low for you to hear. But no sound of things breaking or a fight of any kind was a good sign.

You sent three question marks to his phone and received a thumbs up emoji in return.

Unlocking and opening the bathroom door quietly still, you stepped out just as you got a message from him requesting for your to wait for him. Oops.

There in the open floor space of the apartment, lightly illuminated by the city lights outside was Batman and the Red Hood. Batman, however, was wearing a rainbow colored version of his usual suit. And after you turned on the lamp by the bed, the colors were much more prominent. Although, so was the suit on the ground covered and smelling like a strange meal with extra mustard.

Everyone starred silently before you spoke up. "What the hell?" You asked, gesturing at them with the dagger in your grasp.

Batman looked you over, reminding you of your pajama state of dress. But then he smiled softly, as if the sight was a warm welcome. Turning his head back to Red Hood, you could only imagine the glare he gave the caped crusader.

"Not a word about this," he growled, pointing firmly at him.

Batman turned back to you, giving a nod. "My apologies." Then, without another word, he left back out the window.

Striding over, Red Hood shut and locked the window. He proceeded to close the curtains before turning to face you.

Approaching slowly, he took off his helmet. "I am so sorry."

Tossing your phone and dagger down onto the bed, you looked up at him, your hands resting unhappily on your hips. "You took forever to reply. What if it wasn't Batman?"

"I know," Jason's head hung low. "I messed up. We were so excited in picking out a suit for him to wear." His eyes peered up through his eyelashes with a deep look of sincerity. "But I swear, it'll never happen again. I promise. Even if you texted me 'goodnight' and that you were going to sleep, like tonight, I'll still check my phone to make sure if it's you or not. I just-" His breathing became heavy.

You stepped over to him as he searched for more words, gently cradling his head in your hands. "But at least we're both okay, right?" You reasoned.

"Yeah, but what if it-"

"Nothing did. We're living life. Some sort of lesson was bound to find us again. I'm willing to move on and look past this. How about you?"

With a small sigh, he smiled. "All right. My heart is still pounding-well, not as much as before," he trailed off.

"So was mine."

Bringing you into a hug, he buried his face into your neck. "I didn't want to lose you too."

Quiet lingered after his words. Slipping your hands under his jacket, you smoothed your hands in comfort over his back.

"When does your patrol end tonight?"

"Around three, but I'll try to get back sooner.

"Text me beforehand, okay?"

"I will."

"But, um...what do we do with that?"

The both of you leaned back enough out of your embrace to view the discarded Batsuit.

"Uh..."

"Stuff it in a bag and give it back?" You suggested, half joking.

"Ha, yeah. I'll dump it off at the Batcave."

Your eyes widened and you stared at him until he rose a questioning eyebrow at you.

"There's a Batcave?"

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

Thank you for reading!!

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

To the Other Side

Spontaneous fic I decided to write because I want to witness Fellow and Rollo interact (outside of fan art) 💕 I took a lot of inspiration from The Other Side and The Greatest Show from the same musical, and this fan comic and this fan art.

There’s just something so fun about Fellow’s happy, playful vibes mingling with Rollo being deadly serious and hateful 😂

***SPOILER WARNING: Glorious Masquerade and Stage in Playful Land!!!***

Imagine this…

The nearby town was the only reprieve Rollo had from Night Raven College. Magic was school-sanctioned (in theory), but the rule did little to curb the spells fired off in spontaneous spats between classes, pranks, resolving minor inconveniences, and—this made his lip curl the most—for fun. He turned the other cheek in the presence of instructors, chided classmates when catching them in the act, and vented his anger in private.

Soon, he told himself. Soon, this loathsome school exchange program would be over, and Night Raven College put behind him. But one man can only take so much sin before his patience threatened to give, irritation spilling over his carefully constructed walls.

Out here, a bus ride away from campus, he was free from those vile villains, however fleeting it was. The air cleaner, his mind clearer, as he breathed in the salt-kissed, balmy air. Waves lapping against the pier, the town’s comfortable hum as time rolled by, a soothing song.

He looked out at the waters, blue tipped with the white of sunshine dappling a painting. It was alive, yet at peace with the world. Knew its place.

Rollo's eyes drift shut, and he allowed the sea to envelop him. Quiet, calming, completely—

“Oya? Oya oya oyaaaaa?"

An exaggerated drawl invaded his ears. It was an unfamiliar man’s voice, slick with overly honeyed friendliness.

“You there, sir!” he called out. “Might I have a moment of your time?”

Ignore him, Rollo coached himself. He is not referring to you. There are many people in the town he could be accosting.

The crack of a clap on his shoulder suggested otherwise.

Rollo’s tranquility splintered and shattered, like glass dropped. His eyes snapped open again, alert and irritated.

A man had emerged on his left, and a small boy on his right. They stood too close for comfort, and seemed to be leering at him. From up, from down, encasing him in a web of excited stares.

The man had ginger hair in a widow's peak, the rest swept aside to make way for sharp eyes. His suit was fine at a glance, olive vest and neat cravat, violet coat with golden details and tassels cinched over it—but upon closer inspection, there was a hole in the pinkie finger of his long white gloves, and a miscellaneous diamond patchwork of patterns running down his trousers.

Something about him screamed “showman". Perhaps it was the jaunty half cape that hung off his left shoulder or the knee-high spats over shoes that clicked loudly, calling attention to him, with each step. Maybe it was the sparkle-studded top hat upon his head, nestled between two twitching ears, or the cheery flicker of his bushy tail, or the cane in hand, topped with a golden fox. (... Rollo suspected it was his boldness, the sheer audacity to insert himself where he wasn’t needed.)

The boy with the showman was a cat beastman, shorter and disposition shyer. His hair was a red-brown rat's nest even clamped under a smaller, brightly colored top hat, his fur just as unkempt. The only thing that seemed to fit on his slight frame is a lilac shirt and a small bow tie. His mustard yellow jacket looked as though it has had its body sheared in half, then the fabric stuck back onto the oversized sleeves, the pants attached to his overalls saggy and patched up with the wrong patterns. Even his boots were wrong—untied—and socks mismatched.

He blinked at Rollo through eyes that sloped downward, his expression lax. His mouth was steady beneath a spray of dark freckles. The boy held onto a comedically large hammer, hands still trapped in his enormous sleeves as he gripped its handle.

Suspicious, Rollo concluded. They are highly suspicious individuals.

“… May I help you?” he asked, not out of kindness but as a courtesy.

“Ohoh!!” The man grinned broadly. “That composed stride! That stern, solitary gaze! Those extravagant robes! So sensible, so conventional. There’s no doubt in my mind! You, my good man, must hail from THE Noble Bell College!”

Rollo’s mouth was quickly forming a frown. A fan of flattery he was not. "What of it?”

The stranger chuckled, the coy hand on Rollo's shoulder not budging. The warmth of it made his skin crawl in spite of the layers of fabric separating them. "You've come a long way from the Shaftlands then! Tell me, how do you find Sage's Island? Is it everything you’ve dreamed it to be—or, dare I say, more?”

“I was beginning to enjoy it, right up until you and your companion happened upon me,” Rollo grumbled, jerking his shoulder away from the stranger’s touch. “I do not have many opportunities to steal away into town.”

“You have my humblest of apologies!” The man bowed deeply. It took a few seconds of lag, but the boy clumsily followed suit. “Gidel and I, we’re the curious sort, you see! We come across many wary souls on our own travels, and we want to get to know them. Isn’t that right, Giddie?”

Gidel nodded eagerly.

The fox beastman stuck out a hand, taking Rollo’s before he was given the chance to reciprocate or decline. He shook firmly, with enough strength to rattle around Rollo’s bones. “Fellow Honest’s the name! And you, my esteemed gentleman?”

“Rollo Flamme.” His reply was curt, intended to cut the conversation short with its bluntness. He tried to sidestep the man, but failed as Fellow slid to block him.

“Rollo—may I call you that? Great, greeat!!” he gushed, again not pausing for a “no” to potentially slip in. “From just a glance, I can tell you’re an upstanding, diligent student. You’ve been hitting the books so hard, you’ve barely gotten in a wink of sleep!”

Rollo’s mouth pinched. It was not an uncommon comment for him to hear, but he wasn’t the least bit delighted to have it spun as a compliment either.

“You poor, poor boy! You must be a nervous wreck!” Fellow sighed, sympathetically stroking the back of one of Rollo’s hands with his own. The student shuddered and pulled away with a slight glare. Rather than taking note of the displeasure, Fellow brightened, snapping his fingers. “That’s it! You are a nervous wreck!! We must diagnose this case at once.”

To Rollo’s bewilderment, Fellow produced a pair of spectacles from his breast pocket and slipped them onto his face. Gidel whipped out a notebook and a pencil from his overalls, poised to take notes.

“Let’s have a look at you!”

Fellow circled the dazed Rollo, poking and prodding at the boy’s lean frame with the butt of his cane. It bit into his ribs, his cheek, his thighs, as Fellow rattled off nonsensical phrases, Gidel reverently scrawling them down. Rollo swatted at the fox as if dispelling a pesky bug—but Fellow was too fast, too slippery, to land a clean hit on.

He at last stepped back, snatching up the notes from Gidel. (Rollo caught a brief glimpse of the writing—it was nothing close to what could pass as language.)

Fellow raked a hand through his hair as he seriously took in the report of scribbles. With each passing second, his features increasingly crinkled with concern. "Oh me, oh my, oh dear!! Alas, it's just as I suspected!"

"... What?"

The glasses and the notepad were promptly discarded. Props made meaningless now that their purpose was fulfilled.

Fellow snaked an arm around Rollo. Firmer this time, not something to be shaken off. "You, my boy, are allergic! To this drudgery! This cage, these walls!" He wildly gestured with his cane to their surroundings. "This life you're trapped in! You're stressed, depressed, mad, sad, miserable, all of the above!"

Each adjective thrown out drew Rollo's brows closer and closer together until there was no hiding his grimace. “I do not appreciate the unwarranted judgments being made of my character.”

"You see! My hunch was right!" Fellow flicked at a corner of Rollo's frown. It deepened. "There's only one cure for what you have: a vacation! And luckily for you, I have exactly what you need right here…!”

Reaching into his sleeve, Fellow retrieved a single ticket, sandwiched between two lithe fingers. The sepia image of an amusement park wreathed in flags was frames in crimson, blue, and gold. Admit One, trumpeted the ticket, to Playful Land.

“It just so happens that I, Fellow-sama, am the manager to the fabled amusement park of wonder, hopes, and dreams... Playful Land! Have you heard of it? It's a magical place with a plethora of rides, games, song and dance! Why, there's even a big stage where any member of the audience can be a rising star! The food, all free and ample!! You can gorge yourself on fun!! Doesn't that sound like a swell dream?"

Rollo deadpanned. "If by 'dream', you mean dreadful. To encourage casting aside one's inhibitions to indulge in all manner of vices... Your establishment is no paradise. It is a den of depravity, hell masquerading as heaven.”

"Eh?"

The strong hostility seemed to throw Fellow for a loop, gave him pause. He fumbled for a moment before finding his words again.

"My, my! Your allergies are worse than I thought...! Every kid needs to kick back one in a while, and you most of all! Since we're such good friends now, I would be more than happy to gift this prized ticket, good only for tomorrow, to you free of charge!" He winked, giving a theatrical twirl of his cane. Stars and sparkles exuded out from it. A small charm, a harmless trick. "No need to thank me!"

Rollo's eyes flashed, instant recognition setting him on edge. Similar items infested the City of Flowers every Topsy Turvy Day—enchanted handkerchiefs, tambourines infused with meager magic.

Disgust roiled through him.

"We have no such friendship," Rollo snippily corrected him. Is this man delusional? "Furthermore, tomorrow is a school day. It wouldn't do to miss it in favor of gallivanting."

“Now, now, I insist!!” Fellow pressed. “Please accept this ticket and take a load off, enjoy yourself. Live a little, laugh a little! The last thing I would want is for you to miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity!! Skipping a single day of school wouldn't be too harmful for a star-studded scholar like yourself."

His gaze flicked to Gidel. The two shared a keen glint, a subtle signal, then broke out into a show, a flurry of tap dancing along the pier.

"Trade in your typical for somethin' magical!” Fellow cried with the tip of his top hat. “Where it’s covered in all the colored lights!! Where the runaways are runnin’ the night!”

Gidel fished out a party popper from under his own headwear. When he tugged on its string, crackles filled the air, the popper letting loose a shower of glittering particles. Fellow belted out a hearty laugh, swinging his cane to catch confetti.

"Come on to the theater!!” he urged—mostly likely reciting some park motto, Rollo ventured. “In Playful Land... Life is Fun!!"

Fellow struck a pose with his arms thrust out, punctuating the performance. Gidel was less dexterous, and settled for an awkward approximation of the same pose.

Expectant for applause.

“… Charming display,” Rollo remarked dryly. He picked out a limp streamer from his hair. With a huff, he blew the remaining confetti off of him. “However, only a blithering fool would accept such a dubious offer. Is that what you take me for, Mr. Honest? A blithering fool?”

Fellow recoiled, his ears flattening, and his bravado faltering. Gidel glanced at the older man, soulful eyes full of worry.

"You must have fantasized about a day off before! Don't you want to get away and forget about your work and worries? Don’t you crave freedom?”

"No."

"What of the desire to chase thrills? To see and to experience what few others have before, or to relive a childhood you've perhaps never had? Don't you want to cut loose? Go crazy? Party all day?"

"Never."

"How about stardom? Play a different role? Have you a longing to stand upon a grand stage, hundreds of thousands of adoring fans applauding your passionate performances?"

"Not once."

His patience wore thin like a braided rope down to its final connecting threads. Rollo tapped a finger against his folded arms. "Are you finished? I tire of my precious time being wasted. If you will kindly excuse me."

He turned back toward the town. Rollo was a few steps along a shop-lined street when, suddenly, the odd duo reappeared. They skidded to a panting stop before Rollo, walling off his path. Well, more Fellow than Gidel.

A look of annoyance ripped across the fox’s face. “HOLD ON!! What kind of person plays hard to get and then walks away from a conversation like that?! Would it kill you to stop and just listen to me, you bra…”

Fellow petered off midsentence and backpedaled, smoothing out his spite into a smile. "...aaave soul! I've yet to meet someone as assertive and as self-assured as you are.” He reached out and brushed off an invisible fleck of dust from Rollo’s robes. Simpering. “You're a man that knows exactly what he wants!”

Rollo bristled. He hadn't missed the sudden shift in his chummy behavior. All the more reason to suspect them. They’re very clearly up to something.

"Yes, yes, I can see it now!" Fellow continued, stroking his chin in contemplation. "What you seek is not amusement! You’re longing—no, aching—for something far greater, more ambitious!"

He leaned into Rollo's ear, cupping a hand to it. Gidel came from the other side, staring up curiously. Fellow’s voice dropping to a sultry whisper. "Power, perhaps? The magical kind, even.”

Rollo visibly stiffened.

“Oh, have I got your attention?” The curve of Fellow’s mouth cocked, going crooked. A triumphant smirk. “You’re interested, I know it! Buried in those bones of yours, there's an ache, a thirst, for knowledge that you can't ignore!"

The fox wiggled a finger, his words rapt with wonder. “Playful Land is the product of maaany wise and talented mages! If you pay us a visit, you might be able to learn a thing or two from observing how we run the show. It's a valuable learning opportunity for a student of an arcane academy! How about it, kid? This surely is a deal you wouldn't want to pass up!!"

There was no indication of any feeling in Rollo's face. His eyes had glazed over, as though haunted, a veil shrouding his vision. He stared at Fellow as though he were a distant phantom.

Spin, spin. Fellow's cane did a little dance of its own. "Think of it: the fire, the freedom, the flood of magic. Blinding and outshining anything that you could know!"

Fire.

Rollo blinked. The veil lifted, and the man was rudely roused from an awake slumber. Neutrality replaced with a kindling emotion, sparse embers that did not yet know they would converge into flames. "... What did you say?"

"Everything you could ever want. Everything you could ever need," Fellow tapped the waiting ticket, "is here right in front of you. This is where dreams are made, where the impossible comes true: Playful Land. This is where you want to be—"

The fire flared, bile rising from his throat. Beneath his skin, blood came to a rapid boil. Hot, screeching, an intense fever pitch. The heat like a knife slashing through strings.

Hands lashed out, fervently seizing Fellow's arms. Rollo clutched onto him, a desperate parishioner to a priest preaching at the pulpit. But there was no such blind devotion in his expression, only something wild, untamable, twisted.

“What did you say?!” Rollo hissed, low and dangerous. Threatening.

Gidel jumped and skittered behind Fellow, hiding himself from view. The fox's hand found its way to Gidel's back to support the trembling boy.

"You've been mouthing off for quite some time, and I've been far more patient than you deserve." Rollo cut to the mustard yellow sleeve clinging to Fellow's leg. "You have a child with you. Refrain from spouting such ridiculous vulgarities in front of them.”

“Wh-What…!!”

“Is this the game you play?” Rollo’s grip tightened. Voice hoarse, a pained shudder threading through it. “Tempting children with the promise of whimsy and fun, encouraging them to be intoxicated by magic...!"

While you stand by, doing nothing.

An untimely demise by magic, a fate he knew all too well.

Consumed alive in a hellish inferno. Only a curtain of smoke and ash remaining. Slipping through his grasp when he was standing right there.

Brother...

Hot tears stung his eyes—but they dissipated near instantaneously, staved off by his burning fury. Anger and upset rapidly overtaking him.

Not again. He would not stand for it to happen, would not surrender. This, he swore, with a resolute breath, and cried out with all of his seething soul.

"Hmph! I thought you witless before, but it seems you are not a clown," Rollo spat. "You are the entire circus."

Fellow gave a light, cumbrous chuckle—but his eyes narrowed. Gone was his cheer, his merrymaking. What remained was serious, astute. "... Hey now, that's a scary face you're making. Is this really how you want to spend your days? Let's lighten up a little."

A bitter scoff sounded.

“Continue this farce, and I will not stop at raking you across the coals," Rollo warned darkly. Fire licked his fingertips, close to bursting free. "I will show you just how scary I can be. The righteous flames of judgment are cleansing. They will purge all sin, reducing the wicked to mere specks of ash."

He released Fellow with a slight shove. The older man fell back a few steps, finding his balance again when Gidel pushed him upright with a silent grunt.

“If you understand, then I will be on my way. Good day to you.”

With the path cleared, Rollo stormed right by them. Robes billowing in a passing sea breeze and austere face to the town, he almost looked the part of a hero emerging triumphant from battle.

Back to his everyday life, the same side as always.

Fellow gaped after the boy’s retreating figure. At the prey slipping away from every carefully placed trap he and Gidel had laid out for him.

"Well, I never...!!" he groused. A fresh, foul mood ripe like a rain cloud over his head, Fellow discarded his smile for a sneer. "HIIIIIIE~ What was up with that arrogant brat?!”

Gidel shrugged, his comedically large sleeves flopping as he threw his hands up.

"Damn it!!" The curse was out before Fellow could cut it off. "Next time I see that guy, I'll teach him a lesson for looking down on us!"

He angrily kicked at a soda can on the ground—abandoned by a wayward townsperson. With a CRUNCH, the can launched into a nearby lamp post, ricocheting off its base and bouncing back. The can connected with Fellow's kneecap. He yelped and seized his injury, trying to contain the pain.

Eyes blown open in alarm, Gidel rushed to him. The boy was waved off, Fellow's whimpers eventually dying down.

"My sulking worried you? … You're seriously too good for this cruddy world, Gidel," Fellow muttered, shaking his head. He ruffled the cat beastman’s mane of hair, the roughness of it grazing the unguarded pinkie poking out from his one damaged glove. "Never change, got that?“

Gidel bobbed up and down in agreement.

“Good.” Fellow drew himself up and adjusted his jacket. “Tch. Kids these days sure are spoiled rotten. You promise them the world and they still blow you off."

His thoughts settled on the boy from before. The remarks they had traded, the resistance the target had put up.

I thought a bit of magic would help loosen the kid up—but Life is Fun didn’t work on him, Fellow mused. I cast it so many times too. Between my magic and charisma, they usually cave so easily.

Yet Rollo had regarded him like a man possessed, had regarded him with such hatred. The mad, tormented look in his face. An iron barrier against the fluttery, champagne laced lull of his spell.

"... Must be somethin' wrong with him," Fellow concluded. All kinds of fucked up in the head and in the heart. "Yup, that's gotta be it! This Fellow-sama's way too cool to be outdone by any old student.”

Again, Gidel nodded enthusiastically.

“It’s alright, there’s bound to be flops! We’ll have to pick out our next mark much more cautiously.” Fellow shaded his eyes and squinted. “Let’s see…"

Gidel trailed after his gaze. Combing through a crowd for easy pickings was child’s play for Fellow, but the young boy struggled to hone in on the monotony of minute details. Little nervous tics and hesitations, chinks in armor to exploit. They were present, but Gidel’s eyes were like a broken camera. Zooming in, then out, blurring, never able to fully focus.

His attention strayed, slowly meandering back back to the piers. The sea was a simple thing compared to the town—natural, unrestrained. So easy to understand.

“Maybe that one… no, no, that would never work,” Fellow mumbles to himself. “They’re in too large of a group to comfortably break through. The girl over there? Tsk, the parents are hovering, can’t risk that…”

His eyes ran along the bustling town and along the docks. Like fingers along book spines or piano keys, a quick, light caress. Effortless.

Then he came to a full stop.

Did a double take.

And stared.

Hard.

There, lazily parked by the piers, was a small gang of boys, each dressed in the same smart black blazer and trousers, vests and armbands an assortment of colors. Tucked into their breast pockets were fountain pens topped off with magestones. Their style, those emblems, famous.

Fellow smacked Gidel’s back, snapping the boy to attention.

“Look alive, Giddie! You see that?” He pointed with his cane. “Those uniforms are…!”

His face lit up with understanding. Mouth ajar, eyes wide, brows raised.

“We’re in luck today!” Fellow snickered. He tugged on Gidel’s sleeve, yanking the youth to him. “Hurry, let’s get in front of them! We’ll cut them off, pretend as though we’ve bumped into them by accident. Then, we pounce…!!”

Gidel lifted his hammer—a cheer.

The duo scampered down the street, hearts drumming in their chests and adrenaline pumping. In that moment, they brimmed with all the hope and the excitement that Rollo had failed to exhibit. They were children racing to a dream destination, fools wishing upon stars.

Elsewhere in the town, someone sneezed.

Rollo pressed his handkerchief to his nose, retreating further into his robes. “… The weather suddenly took a turn for the worse. What an ominous omen.”

[whxtedreams]

Chapter 10: What Reminds You of Them

Blood Runs Thicker than Water - Joel & F!Reader (Platonic DBF!)

Summary: The weight of the new world is heavy on everyones shoulders. Maybe a card game will help?

Word Count: 2.3k

Tags: Mentions of loss, mentions of readers mom, mentions of sarah, reader has short hair, depression (myles), everyone just dealing with shit, joel trying to explain to reader that her dad is just a lil sad.

Series Masterlist - Main Masterlist - Read on AO3

Chapter 10: What Reminds You of Them

The horizon is bathed in a soft, hazy red glow, casting a warm hue across the landscape. Down below in the valley, a thick, dense fog weaves its way amid the mountains, slowly creeping up the sides like wisps of cotton. Scattered across the valley floor are various transmission towers, their metal skeletons once humming with activity. Now, nature begins its slow takeover as they lay dormant on the forgotten grounds, vines twisting up the towers and trees gradually swallowing them into their embrace.

The sun makes its slow descent behind the towering mountains, its last rays casting long shadows over the valley below. The moon takes its rightful place high up in the heavens, overseeing the narrow hiking trails snaking through the terrain. You sit at the edge of the rocky cliff, your legs tucked up against your chest as you take in the breathtaking view. Your thoughts drift back to the previous day, remembering how you had explored the valley. You had braved the climb up a fallen transmission tower to cross rapid waters, much to your father's worry.

Your eyes follow as Joel and Tommy appear in your line of vision at the bottom of the steep trail, their rifles held at the ready. They had ventured out around noon, armed with the intentions of hunting, and their efforts are now evident as they make their way up the trail, the weight of a freshly hunted deer in their grasp.

Your face lights up at the sight of the brothers, and you quickly rise to your feet, a grin spread wide across your face. You break into a jog, making your way back to the historic pub where your small group has sought shelter for the night.

You emerge from the tree line and navigate your way through the parking lot, skirting around dilapidated cars and piles of rusted scrap. In the distance, the pub comes into view, standing majestically tall as the last rays of the setting sun cast a warm glow over its brick exterior. The building takes on a castle-like quality, silhouetted against the orange and red hues.

You struggle against the considerable weight of the oversized front door, your feet shifting slightly on the ground as you summon all your strength to push it open. Muscles straining, you slowly creak the door open, the heavy wood groaning with resistance.

Footsteps echo loudly on the tiled floors as you race through the old building. As you reach the top of the stairs that would have been used by guests during the pub’s prime, you come to a halt in front of one of the rooms your father has started to set up camp in.

He stands with his back towards you, his gaze fixed out the window. Candles on the bedside tables cast a flickering, buttery light onto the mustard-colored walls, the wax of the candles starting to drip down the candlesticks. The rooms are basic but cozy, equipped with the bare minimum - a double bed, a chair, and a floor lamp along with the bedside tables.

You approach him silently and stop next to him, curious to see whatever it is that he's observing so intently. However, upon peering out the window, all you see is the peaceful sight of birds flying to their nests in the trees as the day comes to an end. You glance up at your father, taking in his expressionless face as his gaze remains fixed on the outdoor view.

You observe him closely, noticing the way his eyes glisten and his jaw clenches, a familiar expression that mirrors your own when your emotions begin to overflow. Concern tugs at your heartstrings as you speak softly, the question falling from your lips, "Why are you sad?"

He jolts slightly as he looks down at you, having been lost in thought before your sudden presence pulled him back to reality. With a heavy sigh, he glances back out the window as the light from Joel and Tommy's torches become visible. His gaze becomes distant as he speaks. "Your mom and I used to visit a lot of places just like this one," he says softly. "She was quite the history buff." He pauses, his words tinged with a hint of nostalgia, before he walks away from the window towards the door.

Your dad's casual comment about your mother catches your attention, and your eyes widen with keen interest. It is rare for him to bring her up in conversation, usually brushing off any mention of her name. So the fact that he's mentioned her unprompted piques your curiosity - and you are determined to grasp onto any details he shares.

You turn away from the window, a question about your mother on the tip of your tongue. But before you can voice it, your father has already made his way halfway down the stairs, leaving you alone in the room.

By the time you reach the downstairs area, Tommy is already hauling the slain deer into the small kitchen behind the bar. Joel, meanwhile, drops his bag onto the counter top with a thud and proceeds to start unloading its contents. He carefully places the assortment of items they'd managed to scavenge on top of the bar.

You clamber onto the stool next to your father as his conversation with Joel ends with hushed voices as your eyes scan the items spread out on the counter. A few sealed packages of food and some basic necessities cover the surface. You cast a quick glance at the finds, trying to hide your disappointment. You understand that survival means only grabbing what's necessary and nothing more, but you can't help but feel just a bit let down.

Your dad's fingers close around a packet of cigarettes, a sigh of relief escaping his lips. "I can't believe you actually found some," he mutters, extracting one from the pack. He rises from the stool and announces, "I'll be outside." Without further words, he turns and begins to make his way out of the room.

You pivot on your stool, intending to follow your father, but Joel gently suggests it might be best to give your dad some time alone right now.

You reluctantly turn away from your dad's departing figure and return your attention to Joel. With a heavy sigh, you rest your arms on the bar.

Joel pats at his coat pockets, a frown of concentration etched on his face. He rummages through them, eventually pulling out a small yellow and white striped cloth from his back pocket. With an enigmatic smile, he stretches his arm across the bar and hands it to you. You take the item, your fingers curling around the fabric as you regard it with cautious intrigue.

You unfurl the fabric and examine it quizzically, your curiosity piqued. Expecting to find something concealed within, you're momentarily surprised to find it's just cloth. "What's this?" you ask.

A soft chuckle escapes from Joel as he shakes his head, moving to stand beside you. Taking the cloth from your hands, he begins folding it with practiced ease. "It's a bandanna," he clarifies, positioning himself behind you. He then places the cloth on your forehead, skillfully tying the ends beneath your short ponytail.

"Keeps the hair out of your face." His touch is gentle as he removes the hair tie from your hair, allowing the short strands to fall loosely around your neck. Joel moves to stand beside you, and you notice the subtle rise of a soft smile at the corner of his mouth as he carefully adjusts the fabric, ensuring it's secure.

You shake your head to test it out and smile as the hair stays out of your eyes.

Tommy reappears in the room, holding two half-full bottles of alcohol in his hands, his face lit up with an excited grin. "Looks like we're eating and drinking well tonight," he declares with a booming chuckle. He sets the bottles down on the opposite side of the bar and proceeds to scour the cabinets for unbroken glasses.

With a glass in hand, Tommy turns and starts pouring alcohol for both himself and Joel. He pushes the glass across the counter towards Joel and takes a long sip of his own drink. Then, he glances your way, nodding approvingly. "Yellow suits you," he praises, his words accompanied by a small smile.

You murmur a quick thanks in response as Joel and Tommy start discussing their plans for the freshly caught deer. Their conversation fills the background as you fiddle with the ends of the bandanna.

You peer over your shoulder towards the parking lot through the large window. The world outside is steeped in almost complete darkness, the stars above offering minimal light. Your father is seated on the husk of a car, a small lantern by his side and a lit cigarette between his lips, casting a flickering glow against the side of his face that you can see.

Joel's hand gently rests on your shoulder. His gaze meets yours, accompanied by a sympathetic smile. "Come on," he murmurs, a playful tone in his voice. "Why don't we play a game of cards while Tommy cooks us dinner? Let me beat you again."

A disapproving frown creeps onto your face, and you let out an exaggerated huff before jumping off the stool. "You only win because you cheat," you retort, moving towards a table by the fireplace with a pout.

Joel responds with a scoff, an amused grin tugging at his lips. He takes his seat at the table, retrieving the deck of cards and diligently shuffling them in his hands. "Is that so?" he retorts, his tone both challenging and playful.

You can't help but gloat as you take the cards he's dealt. "Tommy told me so," you declare as you begin organizing the cards in your hand, the hint of a smirk on your face.

Joel responds with a resigned sigh, his focus on sorting out his own cards. "Just because he says somethin’, doesn't mean you gotta believe him, sweetheart," he warns, his tone a mix of gentle teasing and mild irritation. He shakes his head slightly, seemingly displeased with the cards he's been dealt.

You can't help but chuckle as you place down a card on the table. "He told me you would say that," you repeat, your smile widening as you revel in the thought of having anticipated his response.

Despite your smug attitude, Joel remains unfazed. He exhales a deep sigh and places his card on top of yours, matching your play.

Joel ends up winning four times in a row.

Your dad remains mostly withdrawn over the following week, his expression distant and detached. Both Tommy and Joel seem to intervene whenever you attempt to engage in conversation with him, subtly redirecting your attention elsewhere.

You've seen your dad behave this way before, but never for this extended period of time. Day after day, you wake up, silently hoping that it will be the day that he snaps out of it and returns to his usual self — just like he has in the past.

And yet, he doesn’t.

On the sixth day while you sit by the river, lost in your thoughts as you watch the soothing flow of the water, you turn to Joel. "Have I done something to upset my dad?" you ask, your voice barely above a whisper, the concern palpable in your words.

Joel's expression softens as he hears your question. He immediately pulls you into his side, pulling you closer to him. "Of course not, princess," he replies gently, his voice filled with a mix of reassurance and tenderness.

After a moment's pause, Joel continues, his tone soft and understanding. "He's just a little sad, that's all," he explains, his gaze fixed on the flowing water before you.

You scowl slightly at Joel's explanation, genuinely confused. "Sad?" you repeat, your voice tinged with confusion. "Why would he be sad?" The situation doesn't make sense to you, and you look up at Joel, seeking clarification.

Joel lets out a deep sigh, his eyes meeting yours. He tugs gently at the bandanna tied around your forehead, his touch gentle and tender. "He just misses your mom," he explains, his voice tinged with melancholy. "He misses how things used to be, how the world used to be."

You murmur a soft "Oh" in response, leaning into Joel's side as your gaze drifts to Tommy, who is washing his hair on the other side of the river with your dad. The silence that follows is filled with your unspoken questions and thoughts, hanging heavy in the air.

You turn your gaze back to Joel, a slight frown of confusion creasing your forehead. "Why is he missing her now?" you ask. "She died when I was born."

Joel takes a deep breath, seemingly contemplating how to explain it to you. "Sometimes," he begins slowly, "there are things that happen that remind us of something we've lost. It brings back memories."

You fall silent, mulling over his words as you begin to comprehend what Joel is trying to say. It's then that you recall your own fears and how the sight of fire still makes you think of losing Joel. The memory of being caught in the fire still haunts your dreams even years later.

You realize that your dad, like you, must also suffer from the same pain. The memory of losing someone you love can be triggered by the smallest things and bring forth powerful emotions, even years afterward.

“What reminds you of Sarah?” You ask, barely above a whisper.

There's a sudden tightness in Joel's grip on your arm, and you can feel the shuddering exhale of his breath. The mention of Sarah's name brings a flash of pain to his face, as memories of his lost daughter flood his mind. For a brief moment, his grief is palpable.

He's silent, his gaze transfixed on the river, his knuckles turning white as his grip on you involuntarily tightens. After a few moments, he finally speaks, his voice thick with emotion.

"Everything.”

Click here for Chapter 11

Notes

this is kind of a intermission, just a filler tbh. not extreamly happy about this chapter but i wanted to write them travelling before they reach somewhere suitable to stay.

If you want to be tagged, please comment on the masterlist for this series and I will add you. If you want to be taken off, please DM so i don't miss your request.

Every comment, like and reblog means the world to me. please let me know your thoughts about this, i want to ramble about this story so much.

tags: @sunandmuun , @rain-soaked-sun, @frootloops1213 , @samarav , @geralallfandoms , @joelmillersblog , @severussimp , @kitdjarin1 , @yesjazzywazzylove-blog , @justanotherteen12@lils-1979 @elisha-chloe

[vintagehomecollection]

A bright, stimulating color, yellow is associated with creativity, energy, and new beginnings. Bright or pale yellow schemes can fill a room with sunshine.

Interior Design On Your Own, 1986

[buttercream-princess]

Modern Will Turner fluffy & spicy head canon x blackfem! Reader

Warnings: Light smut, pregnancy kink, swearing, fluff, edging, mentions of your family members, tattoo's, spanking

(Not edited or proof-read)

Note: I write most of my characters in modern settings, so this won’t be any different. I may write about him in POTC in the future but that’s something I need to chop up. Also first time writing a headcannon, this was fun making, I'm looking forward to doing some more for Will/Legolas/Orlando.

— Will is very attentive and never misses a single thing. Anything you have interest in, he’ll use his own bare hands to recreate it for you. You like candles? Here’s 1kg worth of candles in all your favorite scents. You like plushies and stuffed animals? Build a bear has nothing on Will’s craftsmanship, he made a lifesize teddy for you to cuddle when he’s not around. He’ll even order parts for his creations from overseas, no matter the price tag, to give you the perfect gift.

—- Adding onto how crafty he is, you never have to worry about breaking anything because Will is always happy to fix it for you and he always does so, effortlessly. He’s tactile and amazing with his hands.

—- He knocked down a wall in his house between his office and guest bedroom, renovated the room, painted the walls your favorite colors and furnished it with all your favourite things including a wall hung TV, neon lights, a pink desktop and plants. Just so you can have your own space when you’re at his house. He wants you to feel like his home is yours too.

—- He loves going to IKEA with you, it’s like a playground for him to find things to build for you and your room. When you get Hotdogs in the food court with him later and get mustard on your face, he’ll grab you by the chin and lick the sauce off. Anytime you get food on your face, he does this. Why wipe it off when he can just clean it off you?

—- Will’s intelligence is unlike anyone you’ve met before, but when he’s not using his head, he’s a bit of a himbo, giving off strong Kenergy. He might know how to solve enigmatic riddles quickly and build houses from scratch but he’s clueless when it comes to most general things. He’ll always regard you as the smarter one in the relationship. In his mind you’re everything and he’s just Will. He adores you that much.

—- He has a tattoo of your name and a blue butterfly next to it on his hip bone. This man is whipped. Gone and lost in your love. He’s considering getting your initials tattooed behind his ear.

—-  Will’s independent by nature but gosh, he is one needy motherfucker, but in the most adorable way. He’s coming with you to run errands to the beauty store, late night Target trips or waiting in the corner of the salon while you get your nails done. And he’s always paying, he never lets your credit card touch the reader.

—- Will can listen to you talk for hours about your life and yourself. He finds everything about you whimsical, enchanting and seductive. Even if you’re babbling about delusions and made up scenarios, he’ll react with big emotions like it’s happening right in the moment just because he loves you that much.

—- Will collects records that you love listening to. He says, “The record is always better than streaming it.”

—- Will use to only listen to symphonies and classical music before you came into his life. Now, he listens to everything you listen to. He’s fallen in love with Neo-soul and R&B and refuses to listen to anything else.

—- His favorite song is “Stay Ready (What A Life) by Jhene Aiko and forever dedicates that tune to you. Whenever the song plays, he always sings to you, “They say the truth ain't pretty. But comin’ out that pretty mouth the truth is fitting. Cuz you ain't never talkin loud and you know plenty. Yea you know what I'm talkin bout, cuz you just get me, Yea you so pretty”, And he means every word of it. That song was written just for you, he believes.

—- Even though you and Will are just dating and don’t have kids, he always refers to you as “His wife” or “Mother of my children”

—- Will’s favorite part of being intimate with you is undressing you. There’s something about seeing you come undone only and all for him, that makes him want to be closer to you, underneath your skin even.

—- Will love’s quickies and to give you a quick orgasm in the middle of the day. But there’s nothing he loves more than giving you a sensual, candle lit, slow jam’s experience. After a long day at work, expect Will to be ready for you with a bottle of aromatherapy bottle oil, ready to iron out all your tight muscles and kinks. And of course, this massage always leads to him giving you and internal rub down too. 

—- Will edges you any chance he gets. Sometimes you just wanna snatch your vibrator off him and hit him with it because he won’t let you cum. But he always lets you finally get off if you ask him kindly. He likes manner’s in the bedroom.

—- He has a pregnancy kink. He always moans about putting a baby in you while having sex. So you can imagine he always wants to do it raw. He always begs for you to wrap your legs and arms around him while he cums.

— He gives you warnings in the bedroom if you’re rushing the pleasure too quickly. Will believes pleasure should be savored and reveled in. Greedily chasing your release and out of warnings? That’s a hard pop to your behind, leaving your cheeks red and sore. But he quickly runs his hand over your skin, soothing you. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. See what happens when you don’t listen? Hmmm?” he murmurs in your ear before sliding two fingers back in you.

—- Only with you, Will reveals how intimidating he is in the bedroom. But in front of others, he’s the most kind respectful gentleman anyone has ever met. All your friends and everyone in your family loves him. He quickly picks up on social dynamics and easily blends himself into the environment as if he was always a part of it. You can find Will at family barbecues, bonding with your uncles over different cuts of meat and taking over the grill, which your father never allows but Will’s charmingly convincing.

—- Will always plays house and dress up with your younger family members. He takes it seriously too. You best believe he’s rocking a blue lid and red lippie with confidence after playing makeovers. 

—- Will comes with you to all your social events, he just loves being around you and hyping you up in all settings. You can find him at clubs, bars and music festivals, right behind you, jamming out and spreading the good vibes. He’s even buying you and your girls rounds of bottomless cocktails at brunch.

—- Will’s a fencing prodigy, of course. He also practices MMA. His strength, determination and will is unmatched. You love sitting in the audience of his matches when he’s given trophies, standing the breathless, T-shirtless and sweaty, dressed in his little fitted shorts showing all his business, knowing that’s all yours.

—- After matches in the ring or on the mats, Will just wants to cozy himself up under your shirt, cuddling you and weakly lying against your skin. 

[andieperrie18]

happiness in exile

series: that vacation you're looking for

pairing: Leon Kennedy x Reader

warnings: None

a/n: I'm just gonna write... thats all

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Stockholm wasn't the first place that would pop into Chris's head when looking for an ex-government agent who recently quit due to personal reasons, one that he was very well aware of. He would have assumed that Y/n would rather be out somewhere in a rural area, in a cottage and a garden. Rehabilitating her heart and mind from the stressful job of fighting off bioweapons all while dealing with her breaking her engagement with Leon. As much as the male wanted to leave the woman alone, she was the only one capable of attaining information on his current target right now. 

"Claire, are you sure you're giving me the correct address?" 

Chris stared back and forth between the piece of paper in his hand and the residence before him, or a bakery instead. The walls are colored a dirty mustard yellow with a wide window with various pastries and a singular door beside it. Above it was an intricate sign, 'Gütiokipänjä Bakery' it read.

"Yes, it's a bakery and if you're standing in front of one, then you've found it," she replied through the other line. The buff male stared at the establishment. There was a pathway beside the bakery that led to a yard. He dared not to enter the said establishment but did take a look through the glass window display.

No Y/n, just a female cashier with a rather unusually large red bow holding her hair in a neat ponytail, she was taking a few customers' orders and a baker with rather red hair and big round glasses putting freshly baked pastries through designated baskets and racks on display. Having had enough of just eye scavenging for the woman he walked towards the door. The male slowly treads to the bakery's door to inquire until he is called.

"Chris?" he spun to see who called him, it was a woman. It took him two squints to finally acknowledge who it was.

"Y/n," she just smiled radiantly at him.

-----------------------++------------------------

Chris was jealous, well a tad bit envious. Envious of Y/n current state in comparison to his. Despite wearing a typical tourist outfit to blend in the crowd, his tired frown had forever etched itself on his face through years of trying to fight against monsters and people who created them for their benefits that had cost him countless lives of his men and women.

And then there's Y/n, who has been a close acquaintance of his after working together in various missions where the BSAA and the US Government needed to work together. And like him, this battle had taken its toll on her too, that was before she left for a rather long vacation.

He wasn't clueless of the sudden end of her and Leon's relationship, aware of the unusual relationship the male has with a female mercenary. 

"Soo… its been a while,"

Y/n took her seat across from him at a small dinner table in a relatively spacious room he didn't know the bakery had, it was an apartment space connected to the bakery. It was a bit dim but the slightly large window and the fresh morning sun lit her room without effort.

"It has. I guess you're doing quite well," he replied as he took a small sip of the hot beverage in front of him. 

Y/n exhaled as she rested back against the chair a soft smile grew on her lips, and he stared. The usual bags under her eyes were gone, her skin no longer sickly pale, a bit more meaty frame through her simple button-down dress, and her hair is neatly kept and put together, showing her rather radiant features.

“So… You bake?” he asked, as he smiled at how bright she looked.

Y/n chatted to him a bit more about small and simple things. Like how she learned to bake and so, sometimes pulling his sister's name through the conversation. A carefree conversation, devoid of any kind of topics involving zombies and terrorism. Rather refreshing in Chris's ears, whatever Y/n placed in his coffee to have him get laid back at that moment was working. The fresh sea breeze of the Swedish country sweetly crawled over his nape that left him to surrender his back fully on the sturdy wooden chair, the sent of the freshly baked pastries entering through the window. He could've swore that he might have dozed off for a few minutes and Y/n knows it.

"What brings you here anyway?" 

Chris heaved a breath as the question he was waiting for came, his lips shut close as he leaned forward, as his usual military demeanor returned.

"We need your help," he muttered with a little struggle, his gaze meeting hers, waiting for her expression to contort.

"We're looking for a weapon dealer who's currently involved with another virus. We don't know its effect, but we think it's related to bioweapons too," he trailed, torn by the slow fading of her warm expression. It was as if he was pulling her back to the reality of where her real occupation lies. 

"I'm sorry if I had to barge in through your vacation like this, and I know this isn't a typical one, a lot of things happened to you and I would leave you alone if I could but, I really need your help,"

Chris wasn't necessarily begging, and Y/n wasn't exactly a simple government agent. She was on the job two years before Leon was recruited. And she has a higher status than her ex-fiance, even now. That's why she was able to basically blackmail the higher-ups to give her a break. She's one of the best.

Y/n leaned back and crossed her arms, lips puckered to the left with squinting eyes. Chris felt blue, he didn't really want to force her back to duty but considering her resignation from DSO, he would be lying if it didn't cross his mind to recruit her. Surprisingly, his sister invited Y/n as field advisor for Terrasave a few months ago. So there goes his recruitment.

"I know it's sudd-" he starts, "When do you leave?" she pops on.

Taken aback by her quick reply but he never got to answer back as she left the chair and went to a closet beside her bed. She pulled out a duffel bag and placed it on the bed. 

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there'll be happiness after you

[linguisticdiscovery]

Ways English borrowed words from Latin

Latin has been influencing English since before English existed!

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of ways that English got vocabulary from Latin:

early Latin influence on the Germanic tribes: The Germanic tribes borrowed words from the Romans while still in continental Europe, before coming to England.

camp, wall, pit, street, mile, cheap, mint, wine, cheese, pillow, cup, linen, line, pepper, butter, onion, chalk, copper, dragon, peacock, pipe, bishop

Roman occupation of England: The Celts borrowed words from the Romans when the Romans invaded England, and the Anglo-Saxons later borrowed those Latin words from the Celts.

port, tower, -chester / -caster / -cester (place name suffix), mount

Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons: Roman missionaries to England converted the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity and brought Latin with them.

altar, angel, anthem, candle, disciple, litany, martyr, mass, noon, nun, offer, organ, palm, relic, rule, shrine, temple, tunic, cap, sock, purple, chest, mat, sack, school, master, fever, circle, talent

Norman Conquest: The Norman French invaded England in 1066 under William the Conqueror, making Norman French the language of the state. Many words were borrowed from French, which had evolved out of Latin.

noble, servant, messenger, feast, story, government, state, empire, royal, authority, tyrant, court, council, parliament, assembly, record, tax, subject, public, liberty, office, warden, peer, sir, madam, mistress, slave, religion, confession, prayer, lesson, novice, creator, saint, miracle, faith, temptation, charity, pity, obedience, justice, equity, judgment, plea, bill, panel, evidence, proof, sentence, award, fine, prison, punishment, plead, blame, arrest, judge, banish, property, arson, heir, defense, army, navy, peace, enemy, battle, combat, banner, havoc, fashion, robe, button, boots, luxury, blue, brown, jewel, crystal, taste, toast, cream, sugar, salad, lettuce, herb, mustard, cinnamon, nutmeg, roast, boil, stew, fry, curtain, couch, screen, lamp, blanket, dance, music, labor, fool, sculpture, beauty, color, image, tone, poet, romance, title, story, pen, chapter, medicine, pain, stomach, plague, poison

The Renaissance: The intense focus on writings from classical antiquity during the Renaissance led to the borrowing of numerous words directly from Latin.

atmosphere, disability, halo, agile, appropriate, expensive, external, habitual, impersonal, adapt, alienate, benefit, consolidate, disregard, erupt, exist, extinguish, harass, meditate

The Scientific Revolution: The need for new technical and scientific terms led to many neoclassical compounds formed from Classical Greek and Latin elements, or new uses of Latin prefixes.

automobile, transcontinental, transformer, prehistoric, preview, prequel, subtitle, deflate, component, data, experiment, formula, nucleus, ratio, structure

Not to mention most borrowings from other Romance languages, such as Spanish or Italian, which also evolved from Latin.

Further Reading: A history of the English language (Baugh & Cable)