#not really. i dont have that much spellcasting ability

[diseasefork]

its my personal belief that don CANNOT handle someone being taller than him (let alone doom) which is what inspired this piece

plus other doodles

[basil-does-arttt]

Do you think a spellcaster character could work in DMC games? I'm not talking about a summoner like V, but your typical elemental or energy blasting mage.

Hmm, im not sure. Maybe someone else could find a way to make it work, but personally i dont see it working for a main protagonist's gameplay.

The whole point of DMC's gameplay is to build cool combos using your carious weapon types after all, which naturally lends itself to more melee/hand-to-hand based combat. Its easier to keep up your combos that way and by proxy your style ranking. Generally, your guns (and vergil's summon swords) are used as filler in-between weapon attacks to keep the flow of combat when you dont have a chance to use melee. They're a supporting mechanic, basically, not intended to be used as your main attack even though you can if you want, only at the cost of damage output and style rank.

With spell-casters, they tend to lean more on the ranged-attacks side of things, In my experience at least. This ties into the issue mentioned above. Theres not really much opportunity to get in close and build a cool combo like that, and thats not even considering the possibility of spell cooldowns, charges, or like an energy gauge needed to cast said spells in the first place. (Which, if a spellcaster were to be introduced into DMC i dont think there'd be spell cooldowns or spell slots or whatever. Maybe an energy gauge for big finisher moves kinda like JCE with Vergil, but nothing to limit how much/often you can attack and what you can attack with, thats defeats the whole purpose of DMC as a game.)

I guess if the spells were being used to create magical weapons it could work... but that also kind of defeats the purpose of a spell-caster anyways so-

Story wise, however, i can see how it could work into the lore surrounding demons and the underworld quite well. Maybe theyre a sorcerer born from demonic heritage and an inate ability to harness demonic magic. Maybe they're a wizard, someone who's studied the realm of demons their entire life or even an apprentice attempting to harness the power of the underworld for better or for worse. Maybe they're just some Average Dude who finds themself suddenly able to use and work with demonic magic, having never been able to prior. Who knows.

Thats my take on it. Like i said, maybe someone else can find a way to make a spell-caster work with DMC's gameplay style, but i myself cant really. Apologies if thats not what you were hoping to get out of this ask oof :'D

[rui-drawsbox]

Okay obligatory DnD person as per the Dungon Meshi post(dnd/fantasy au + our life is amazing and I love it) but also I just wanted to say that there is a subclass of elves in dnd called aquatic elves that are kind of a happy mix between a mermaid and a, well, normal elf. I stick more towards spooky rather than nautical campaigns myself, so I’m not too familiar, but if I remember correctly they’re amphibious but with two legs rather than full mermaid.

Also obviously please ignore if you have different ideas but based off of what people have written about battle roles I could absolutely see some subclasses for the four!

Derek I could absolutely see as a Paladin(subclass possibly being oath of devotion or glory) basically the more defensive tank guys bound by an oath they make to themselves or someone important to them, which gives them a little spellcasting as well as actual auras that buff their allies later on.

Baxter I could see being a Bard (College of Swords), or what I kind of think of as a sort of battledancer. It would be a little less of a full spellcaster, but you can do special flourishes when fighting with a rapier which I always imagine as pseudo-dancing, plus he’d still get all the flashy bard spells. And to top it off, Bards actually use their charm(charisma stat) to cast spells which just screams Baxter to me.

Cove is a little harder but if you were going with him having a fish/animal companion while still being a melee fighter a Ranger(Beastmaster or Swarmkeeper) would be a good fit IMO, obviously with the Cove Creater he’s harder to pin than Baxter or Derek, but Ranger is pretty flexible. You basically get to choose a companion that’s from the land, air, or sea; and they can help you out in battle and follow you around, or as Swarmkeeper he could have his swarm be a school of fish.

Ruri is obviously a bit harder because you know your OC best, but if you really wanted to lean into more into the familiar/animal buddy route. Druid(circle of the shepherd) is always a fun choice! It’s kind of like the more spellcaster version of rangers’ Swarmkeeper where you can summon a lot of critters while still having some super strong elemental spells.

But anyway! I hope this wasn’t too long, I saw some (kinda) DnD our life content and I couldn’t resist! But thank you again for the adorable art of the main boys(and your lovely OC!) in a fantasy setting!

Second ask from dnd anon:

Oh! DnD anon part two!

But basically the theoretical party composition would look like:

Derek = Tank/Damage

Cove = Weapon Damage/Companion(s)

Baxter = Spells/Weapon Damage

and Ruri = Healing/Spells.

Also one last note about Druid is while druids have a lot of elemental spells (create water, spike growth, etc.), they also have the ability to do something called wildshape, where they can shapeshift into an animal for either out of battle(wildshape into a mouse to get under the crack in a door, then returning to normal and unlocking it) or battle (at later levels imagine fighting a spellcasting bear or even dragon) but also has more silly implications like wild shaping into a songbird to sing with Baxter, or a cat or sloth to ride on Cove’s shoulder.

got these asks a few days ago but i let them marinate in my brain hope you dont mind anon KJDSAUH

anyways AQUATIC ELF THATS PERFECT i tried to stick to what i knew about dumenshi rules in that post but for my first fantasy AU ideas i was going to do Cove a half mermaid (Cliff human x mermaid Kyra or elf Kyra [shes just so pretty its insane] x mermaid Cliff) that lived in a house right on the beach lmao, im happy that actually makes sense somewhere in dnd

i tried to look at the aquatic elves wiki from the forgotten realms fandom and omg so much text in the main page

also paladin Derek canon‼‼ imagine he does his oath to his brothers right after something dangerous happens to them when they were kids (im not saying his parents should die but im not saying they shouldnt--)

and bam!! tragic backstory 10x worse than his canon that is already bad enough :DD (try to make him feel less responsable now i wanna see that)

baxter turn rn. DO YOU THINK HE WOULD PLAY VIOLIN? I WANNA SEE THAT (<-this person didnt thought about drawing him with an instrument until it was time to write her thoughts) anyway it would def be a fancy instrument, daddy and mommy wanted to keep appearances i bet

one his spells makes his sword and moves shine and when hes under the sun his enemies become fucking blind

everything about him screams I HAVE MONEY but everytime people try to rob him he just rolls a nat20 in persuasion and they end up giving him money

and omg just imagine Cove's school of fish are all his pet fishes from the game JGASDFJK

im also. not discussing roles when the most i know about dnd is bg3 and i just finished 2 playthroughs. if you say ruri is a druid she's a druid, she makes super artsy flower fields and decorates every tree she sees with organical paint or smth jkfhds

Ruri's forest has a tree that connects with the ocean and they both just hangout sometimes (as if theyre not together 60% of the time already)

DRUID RURI THAT LIKES TO BRAID COVE'S HAIR WITH LITTLE POPPIES‼‼‼

MERMAID COVE THAT LETS RURI (otter form!!) RIDE HIS BACK WHILE HE SWIMS‼‼‼‼

mermaid cove humming a song and ruri falling to the river in trance/j

anyways anon i agree with everything tbh, there's so many ways to do a fantasy AU and i adore the dnd version (id kill for a dnd group or smth in my city)

i also have another fantasy au more vanilla but not-really. basically isekai baxter LMAO mostly an excuse to make ruri and baxter being domestic but before baxter developed any real domestic skill JHASFD

[thebramblewood]

hi Shannon! I'm on my second read through of hzid and can I just gush a moment? I'm gonna gush

God, your storytelling abilities are masterful. I am utterly enamored by the way you have balanced so many aspects of this story. I know it's probably not many people's favorite part, but I do very much adore the slice of life aspects of the early story, I remember literally crying the second time I read Ulrike and Helena's breakup AAAAA. Complicated yuri.....anyway , I also love how many emotions I can feel about these characters. Caleb, Lilith, and Helena are all so utterly complex and there's moments, especially with miss Serial killer vampiress over here cough cough, where I adore them and I utterly hate them, which in my opinion is always a mark of good storytelling. That isn't to say that I think the side characters have any less importance. I'm obsessed with Ulrike, Julia, Grace, and so many others. Though, if I had to chose just a few of my favorite parts so far in my read through, id have to save the early parts with Caleb and Lilith and their ever going back and forth as well as Calebs trip to the magic realm. Im going to be honest, i dont usually care for cagyn but god they both fuck me up in this story so badly that ive come to enjoy the ship much more now. JUST! UGH! I LOVE THIS STORY IT'S MY CURRENT HYPERFIXATION. Hope this wasn't too weird and long, have a great day :)

Thank you for this! I really appreciate how deeply some of you engage with the story. Second reading?!? I can't believe it! 😱 I suppose it just goes to show that all my past creative writing experience was actually useful because sometimes I surprise even myself with how well certain elements fit when I didn't even think of them until partway through. I second guess the pacing all the time, so it's nice to know it doesn't bother others! Anyway, thank you for pointing out those specific moments. I was so hyped on that first Vatore Manor scene. It felt like such a meaningful vibe shift. And I loved using the Magic Realm so much! I want to bring the spellcasters back. I just have to find the best way to do it!

[eziojensenthe3rd]

Midnight Gaming: Dreads & Delusions

So last night I played Dread Delusion last night, checked socials later to find... Ubisofts Xdefiant will be shutting down June 2025 with 277 employees being laid off.

Hoo boy so if you've never heard of it, Xdefiant is meant to be Ubisofts take on a free2play Call of duty, much like Combat Arms, Blacklight Retribution, Crossfire X, Ironsight and so on and so forth. The most i've heard about was a lot of Cod streamers/"gamers" were raving about how this game will be better then the game they usually play because it removes skill based matchmaking or something.

By the looks of things though, it doesnt seem to have done much since its beginning its sunsetting process before being shutdown within June 2025. And of course because the game industry has a habit for it, 277 employees are losing their jobs. Great, wonderful, really making the industry seem apporachable and worth building a career in arent we?

I'll link a pcgamer article covering it, lets just move onto to our game.

We are approaching the moment in which indie games that echo the elder scrolls series are starting to pop up and I for one am all for it. For as much as Bethesda has earned negativity from their decisions lately, the elder scrolls is atleast an enjoyable series of open world rpgs that folks have created fond memories with, from traversing dungeons, fighting dragons, doing quests for daedra to get their artifacts, joining every faction to do their quests and end up being in charge of them all. Yep good memories. Anyways were seeing some elder scrolls-likes popping up and one we'll be looking at is Dread Delusion, a game that uses Morrowind as its inspiration, allegedly I think I dont lf the devs were inspired by it, though there is definatly large mushrooms.

DD's world is a bleak one in which an event known as the World Rend which messed the world up real bad, leading to Humanity and their gods to flee to floating islands in the sky to survive. Eventually humanity got fed up with the gods, started a war were they proceeded to kill most of them along with their followers and 40 years later are colonising various floating landmasses as the dogmatic Apostatic Union, who banned all worship and brought with them mechanical technology and trade.

You're a prisoner (as is tradition for elder scrolls games and such is for this scrolls-like) who is tasked by the Union Inquisition to apprehend a disgraced mercenary captain who plans to create an afterlife for humanity. My time in the Oneiric Isles got as far as Harrowshire for this playthrough, I havent gotten to the endless realm or the clockwork kingdom yet but I've enjoyed what I played so far. The game outright encourages you to explore and do quests as your main method of leveling your abilities depends on embracing delusions, which can be found in various places, temples, caves and ruins, with quests being another way to gain delusion.

Combat itself is a bit basic with a block that if timed correctly can parry an enemy leaving them stunned momentarily, along with a light attack or a heavy attack. So far I only had a sword as my weapon and i'm not sure if theres any other melee weapons to find. Theres definitely some ranged weapons with the throwing knives you can equip and I've picked up plenty of arrows but found no bows yet. Spells however is something i've managed to find in some places which is good since i've built my guy into a spellcaster, often hitting any enemies with a cipher bolt and then finish off with a stab when they get close. Hell once I got the spell that boosts your movement speed, I basically treated the Oneric Isles as my own personal Green Hill Zone.

So something I wanted to touch on was the games lore on the Union and Gods in this world. A lot of the people in the skylands used to work out a deal with a local god with the help of Wikkians, a sort of lawyer that covers Divine Affairs. The people get some help in boosting their harvests and population, the god gets some faith from the people. However a lot of these deals tend to be quite faustian with a terrible price needing to be paid in order to gain the gods help. One village you visit early on had a deal with a god where they had bountiful harvests of mushrooms for their tea. The catch? They had to sacrifice their young every now and then. Given how the wars ended 40 years ago, you can definatly find folks who lived in the pre-war time and consider the deals with gods to be absolutely cruel. Its easy to understand for folks in this world, why they'd want to do away with the gods, figuring they'd be better off without them.

However without the gods to help, the harvests end up going badly. Harrowshire, the next area you go to after the early game, is stated to be going through a famine with the unions only solution to import food from far away. This only ends up helping those that can afford the prices for these imported foods while others who cant are left to starve, the Union more interested in torturing and hanging suspected cultists then in looking for a more reliable solution to the famine crisis. In a way, the Union didnt really stop the cruelty from the days of god worship so much as replaced it entirely, without any of the benefits that the devout got in return. For folks who felt the worship of gods was cruel and oppresive, the god wars was a form of liberation that saw humanity break free and establish their independence. For the folks who felt the god worship offered more good than bad, a sort of necessary evil needed for prosperity, the wars are a dark time of oppression as gods are slaughtered, hundreds if not thousands of humans are killed as the Union proceeds to subjugate people under their rule. You can find folks and books in this game from both sides of the coin, both giving a point of view of such a large event that occurred in this ruined world. And thats fascinating as hell to me. Very good worldbuilding indeed.

So yeah, I liked Dread Delusion. From what i've played so far its a fascinating world to explore with its lore quite captivating. I'd recommend giving it a go. Now before I finish this off, I wanted to take a moment to share an observation I have so please bare with me.

So your most typical fantasy stories tend to feature the general tropes. Magic, dragons, elves, dwarfs, goblins and orcs, that kind of stuff. There are plenty of shows, films, games that have their own version of those general tropes and they can be sourced to J R R Tolkien who, while not the inventor of these tropes, is atleast the one who popularised these tropes into the main culture mindset. So many of these fantasy series feature these tropes so miluch that its become almost mundane. Easily recognisable and understandable by nearly everyone. Now that mundanity is not a dig at their overall quality, its perfectly fine for these fantasy stories to rely on these tropes and build on top of them.

Now on the other side is the kind of Fantasy that dont rely on these tropes, instead creating worlds that are outright alien. These worlds may or may not have some swords and sorcery, maybe some dungeons and some sort of "dragon" but theres a lot about these worlds that are outright unfamiliar and strange compared to the tolkienesque worlds. And i'm gonna call these Acid Fantasy, shamelessly stealing from the name of the bundle that Dread Delusion is a part of along with Lunacid (which I should definatly play for Midnight Gaming).

So we have Tolkienesque and then we have Acid Fantasy. A lot of it depends on how much it relies on the common fantasy tropes vs creating it own original ideas and worlds. Whether they play it safe and stick to whats familiar or change things up and get weird with it.

Tolkiens works are obviously Tolkienesque while Dread Delusion is Acid Fantasy along with Lunacid.

The Elder Scrolls series could definatly be Tolkienesque with some different stuff such as the khajiits and argonians. Though the deeper you look into the lore, the more Acid Fantasy it becomes with Morrowind itself being a whole region thats Acid Fantasy as hell. I'd put this as between the two but slightly towards Tolkienesque.

Warcraft could definatly fit in the same sort of space since while it has a lot of fantasy tropes, theres definatly some differences that set them apart from them. The orcs being from a different world, corrupted from drinking blood from space demons is just the surface of that universes lore. So it sits between but leaning towards Acid Fantasy.

Game of thrones doesnt have any orcs or elves, though it is very grounded with maybe some magic and definatly some dragons, so thats definatly in the Tolkienesque corner.

You'd probably say the same with Discworld but that series tends to usually feature those tropes solely to parody them or poke fun, usually to put its own twist on them, with a lot of its world mostly being its own unique brand of fantasy. Though not quite to the point of Acid Fantasy, it can sit squarely between the two.

Hylics, Acid Fantasy no contest, it is 100% weird as hell from what I saw.

This was just a small observation about fantasy worlds and you maybe wondering what was the point of this? To establish boxes to push different works in to judge and critique them on? To encourage a form of discussion about how fantasy worlds mingle with common tropes and ask why they tend to stick to whats familiar? Is it just an excuse to recreate that calvin and hobbes meme of his dad talking about earthbound and undertale??

Definatly the third, maybe the second...

Anyways, thats gonna do it for Midnight Gaming today, feel free to leave feedback and game suggestions. I'll talk to you all another day.

[adacatlovelace]

Some Morrowind thoughts now that I've gotten around to playing it

I love the dichotomy of Early Game being somewhat difficult vs becoming a god of this world shaping it to your whims. It really gives you an appreciation for when you manage to break the game becuase it doesn't just feel like making an already manageable game even easier but instead meeting that challenge the game presents you in a way that makes you feel clever. Like the game straight up feels FUCKING AWFUL until you get your stats up so you actually FEEL the difference from going from slow running and jump basically being useless to VVardenfell's fastest boy who can leap over buildings in a single bound

Speaking of breaking the game, there are an incredible amounts of ways to do so and there are PLENTY of options. Wanna raise your intellect to 60x the stat cap? You can by stacking potions. Wanna make even stronger potions? Well INT affects potion strength and there are potions that raise int. Put two and two together. Low on health/stamina/magicka? Press T as long as you aren't in a town or near enemies and save the potions for combat.

I am incredibly sad what happened to the Alteration school in later entries. Alteration let you influence the world around you including your own body. Open locks, shield yourself, lighten your carryweight, make someone elses carryweight heavier, Water Breathing, becoming jesus and walking on water, levitate, use telekinesis to increase your interaction distance (which is really helpful if you wanna grab something from a position where you are hidden and increase your jump height to ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS AMOUNTS, which combined with a high acrobatics to substantially lessen fall damage makes for the most fun way to traverse and even makes navigating Vivec City much more fun. In Skyrim however, its the most boring class of magic in the game. Yeah paralyze is really funny to cast on people, but A. Telekinesis is basically just the gravity gun from half life and rendered almost completely useless by the ability to just move things around B. Transmute is... neat I guess and can be really useful for leveling smithing but its really tedious if you have a lot of ore to transmute C. Equilibrium is great for leveling restoration but not much else since theres not a lot of situations where it would be good to trade some health for emergency mana (Its a shame its not in Oblivion as it would be a GODSEND for those born under the Atronach sign who don't regen magicka naturally) D. I can kind of see what they were going for with Oak/Stone/Iron/Ebony/Dragonflesh to give a defensive option to those who perfer wearing robes over armor but "Activate ability to temporarily receive less damage" never really feels particularly fun or interesting

Speaking of magic, it really does feel like a core part of the game and I dont think NEARLY the amount of fun I did playing Morrowind if I avoided it

Enchanting is amazing system in Morrowind. Activated Effects, Constant Effects, effects on hit allows for SO much creativity without interfering with spellcasting. After all, why ever cast levitation if you can make a ring with a constant effect of levitation you can pop on and off whenever? The answer is that it is FUCKING EXPENSIVE to have an enchanter make you one or EXTREMELY risky to make it yourself. This sounds like a bad thing but really either A. It provides a valuable money sink so you're never just hoarding a shitton of gold with nothing substantial to spend it on or B. You figure out how to substantially shift the odds in your favor. I really cannot stress how much a GOOD money sink that has substantial rewards in return really adds to keeping the player engaged. Theres doing quests and exploration for their own sake and theres doing quests and exploration while keeping in the back of your mind that there is an 80,000 gold enchantment you are slowly working for so you ALWAYS want to come out of dungeons with as much loot as possible

Spellcrafting fills a similar role, except its for your magic stats rather than your gold. You can make superpowerful spells but you need a superpowerful amount of magicka to actually cast them. This works IN TANDEM with the enchanting system as it can be a great way to boost your stats high enough to cast "Angry Ron's Penile Explosion" (Thank you for letting me name my spells)

Alchemy is kind of tedious (Which thankfully got better in Oblivion and Skyrim, UI-wise) but offers a great way to both make money and temporarily boost your stats, as well as keeping you alive. I also like the little bit of flavor of restore fatigue ingredients usually just being various foods

I've heard mixed things about the fatigue system in general but as much as I hated it early game I sort of grew to enjoy it. I've never really enjoyed "survival" type mods where you have to eat drink and sleep but I feel like the fatigue system is a really good balance between that and just normal regenerating stamina. Rather than outright say "you need to perform bodily functions regularly or suffer for it" It gives you an organic push to take a short rest between large encounters or keep a couple restore fatigue potions on you or maybe take things slowly and walk through the dungeon instead of sprinting everywhere or maybe dont jump unless you need to, all with just a little green bar that says "This is how effective you'll be at everything you do"

The "Fast travel" system is also a GREAT way of getting around thats a good middle ground between "Travel to any location on the map" and the tedium that is walking across the map and back several times over to beat a single quest. By having multiple types of travel, each with their own places they can go, it adds that small amount of required planning in quickly traveling from Point A to Point B to keep it engaging. Stilt striders can take you to landlocked towns while boats can take you to just about any town reachable by water. The mages guild will teleport you to other locations of the mages guild. Bigger cities will have more travel options while smaller towns will have few, if any. Even then you have the two intervention spells which will take you to either the nearest Imperial Cult or Temple which you can CHAIN together. Wanna reach ebonheart extremely quickly? Travel by silt strider, boat or mage guild to vivec, cast Alsimi intervention to teleport to the south end of vivec then divine intervention and BOOM. You're in ebonheart. On TOP of all these options you also have Mark and Recall. Mark will set a place and recall will take you there, which is great for both a quick option to get to your player home OR back to the area you need to return to multiple times over the course of a questline (Looking at you Morag Tong)

10. One of the first NPCs you meet is Caius Casodes. He is a high ranking member of a secret organization of spies for Uriel Septim VII called the Blades and he acts as your sort of handler for most of the main questline. He is a shirtless man in a dingy apartment, he LOVES moon sugar and skooma and basically tells you to fuck off and do the whole "open world" thing for a while multiple times to "give him time to think" which Im pretty sure just means getting blasted. 10/10 character I love him

11. Ahnassi is just a gem. Shes friendly, gives good advice and leads (As well as a discount for the best acrobatics trainer in the game) She has a former partner who's got a skooma addiction who you help and its all very sweet. As you go out of your way to perform various acts of kindness her gratitude PALPABLE and will literally offer you the clothes off her back. Just such a kind, lovable character that makes you GENUINELY wanna help her and give her gifts.

12. I dont really like Crassius Curio (part of it is just the stank of 2003-era homophobia as a character) or anyone who uses their position of power to leverage political favors in exchange for sexual/romatic favors but it is REALLY funny that he actually is the one that wrote The Lusty Argonian Maid and the guy in it is named "Crantius Colto"

Overall Thoughts: Great Game, highly recommend if you dont mind a lot of reading and a steep learning curve that suddenly plummets downward as you obtain godlike power

[discountskeppy]

some funnies to get my brain going about how different spellcaster items work in my little wizard college world... under the cut is my insane ramblings that prolly wont be very true even once its not one a.m. ask for clarification tho if u want on smthn . gnaws

orbs are like, well if youre reading this you read the text, they can conjure images and pretty much like. just makes stuff happen in the mind. theres different applications for it, its like major to major obviously like my art guy darnius uses it for inspiration and stuff, while there can be like a prophecy class that uses it to . do prophecy. and maybe it can work like a computer basically if youre good enough at prophecy, you can just ask the orb all things and its just right.

wands are, yknow, wands. in this universe wizards (saying wizards for simplicity, i guess its just a general magic college so maybe there are mages and warlocks but like. its wizard college) can use their hands for spells too i imagine its a big debate within wizard circles "wands are such beginner magic shit, anyone whos born a wizard just uses their hands" "there are many benefits to a wand actually? research shows they are about 40% more precise so". as it suggests warlocks dont really use wands, like obviously laziso finds a way but they just all find staffs (dunno why i said sceptre? lol wrong word past b-no) much better and cooler to use

speaking of! magic is usually inherited thru birth, everyone is capable of learning magic but its just something they sort of have to like, unlock in themselves. and sometimes you can have a spellcaster parent and also have to unlock your magic, like laziso did! him learning hes like a warlock is a huge thing dude its like. his arc. anyway yeah thats how magic works

and tomes. tomes are the textbooks yeah ive decided. they have the ability now to like mass produce these ancient tomes to study its kinda fucked up. however spellbooks are a different thing ive decided. spellbooks are like, imagine someones like fuckin glittery gel pen notebook. thats a spellbook pretty much like its honestly wonderful. some normal ass college rule composition notebook is someones spellbook here its nuts. wum forever go. whatever there mascot is im tired

[vyrim]

Im semi excited for the full Balders Gate 3 release in a month. I have no issue with the divinity style even if some aspects of it, such as the little amount of interesting stuff that comes from leveling up, arent the most exciting. My major concern is the performance side of things. First couple of hours I was fine, able to explore the beginning of the area with a constant 60 fps. Then it just kept dipping and dipping as I played, until I basically got to the end of the ea content barely able to keep a stable 30. With that teaser video they did of the actual Balders Gate city supposedly being massive and detailed, im worried that my computer wont be able to run it at all, let alone at a non eye straining frame rate. We'll see though I guess.

Minor complaints underneath

TLDR: Wish this game looked shittier but played better. I couldnt give two shits how realistic the models or environment if it was just really well tuned. Probably gonna be one of those "Devs bit off more than they could chew" situations that Ill end up getting angry at around the second half, finish, and never play again.

-Ive always hated the spellcasting system of most tabletops. Cast a spell and its gone, if it missed or failed then sucks to be you. Its not a fun idea, and I wish most of the spells were simply made weaker or placed on a cooldown rather than limited. That was what was cool about divinity, if you figured out some really cool combos then you wouldnt have to resort to resting every couple fights just to use them again. Sucks, especially since most stuff is subject to roll rng, so your big lv 3 spellslot ability means nothing cause dipshit beat the dc by chance. Even worse when alot of spells are channeled, so if your character gets hit even once and then proceeds to fail the concentration check the spell fizzles out. Lame shit.

-THE CAMERA. The camera is atrocious, and I dont know what they did differently compared to Divinity 2, but it is a nightmare to control. If you pan too far from your character theres this, like, invisible leash that sudden kills any further movement. It also hates and form of horizontal movement, which means if your character is really high up it wont go down, and if youre trying to look up a cliff it'll just rub the wall.

-The cast is underwhelming. You have a githyanki which is neat, but otherwise its literally two human guys, a half elf, and a vampire elf. Theres not a single dwarf, halfing, gnome, or even a tiefling in the party, which is super lame. They could have easily had a dwarf with the weird magical item hunger problem, or a tiefling vampire wouldve been funny as hell.

-While the variety of extra actions are cool (I cant count how many people Ive killed by shoving them off cliffs or into lava) but theyre really clunky. The environment has so much detail that shoving or shooting in a direction is at massive risk of being just caught on some stray rock or pillar.

-The AI for npcs is still as dumb as it used to be, had a slave get mad at me for shoving its captor into lava. Guys that have never pathed will suddenly turn around out of the blue, even had one person just t-pose and vanish.

-Most of the magical equipment I got wasnt very interesting. Even the adamantite stuff I got after the big fight in the forge was just a debuff on hit. I want silly shit, I want game breaking shit, I want more stuff like those weird tentacle grenades that pull people in.

-Very buggy, and with how big theyre saying the game is gonna be I dont think its any better on release, probably worse actually. I wouldnt have such issues with it if reloading the game didnt take thirty years to complete. Poor Shadowheart made a jump only to glitch out and plummet several stories mid way.

[mono-red-menace]

i also really like how healing spells are approached between the two classes, specifically how the wizard has no access to it. it's another thing which, mechanically, i enjoyed.

i think, in my setting, a wizard doesn't necessarily have an incapability to approach healing, but rather that healing is such a difficult thing for them to approach, as their approach to magic and how they source it is extremely contrary to the nature of healing magic, but i dont think it's impossible for them, but honestly potentially dangerous to practice.

but i think, in my setting, that wizards can heal, but it requires such a like, specific dedication to the craft of healing that it becomes difficult for them to find the ability to practice anything else to the same level, and maybe there is a little elitism in many of the college settings of it, that it's a simple craft that any spellcaster can do (which is true, in a way), that the reason it's difficult for them is because their approach to magic inherently draws more power from the source, and it is a waste of magical power to dedicate so much to perform a task that can easily be done by even the least practiced druids or priests, or replaced with potions, which is considered a far more refined and flexible art in college circles.

so i think wizards who can heal would be rare, especially from college backgrounds, but like, practitioners of hedge wizardry- as in the self-taught wizards, or the wizards who were taught folk-wizardry, the ones that can often particularly blur the lines of the 4 magical arts- are wizards that can heal as well, because it is a magical art that would be most often required of a hedge wizard, seeing as the others in the town would often ask of you to cure their ailments if you were one to cast magic, and some ailments might be beyond the simple potions you could craft with your local ingredients.

i was thinking of the capabilities of the different types of magic in my setting, and i wanted druids and wizards to both do more "physical" magic.

and i wanted a big comparison point, mechanically, between the two spellcasting types to be how they approach their physical spells, as in my setting, wizardry and druidry are both "physical" magics, as in magics which draw upon or influence the physical world, as compared to priestcraft or witchcraft, which are magics that draw upon or influence the metaphysical.

so like, when i was considering how a druid would cast fire spells, or lightning spells, or ice spells, or anything like that, it came into my mind that druids are manipulating nature, basically using their magic to call upon the aid of nature to produce effects. so a druid wouldn't convert their magic into a ball of fire to blast their enemies, it would be more in line for them to create a small spark and call upon the land to take the spark to convert it to a wall of flame. or a druid doesn't create lightning from their fingers to launch at their enemies, they call forth a storm to do it for them.

and wizards are the reverse- a wizard doesn't ask anything of nature, they enforce their will. their magic is channeled directly into their desired effect. when a wizard creates a flame, they draw the fire from the well they draw their magic from, then conjure that into the world. if a wizard creates a wall of fire, they don't ask the land to carry the flame, they create the fire themself. when a wizard wants to use lightning, they don't call for a storm, they convert their energy to lightning and direct it themselves.

anyways, then i realised that a similar thing is done in dnd, when i was looking at the spell lists in pathfinder. i saw spells like fireball and lightning bolt and cone of cold on the druid spell list and was instantly hit with a "this isn't right- this isn't how a druid casts spells." and at first i was like "well duh, that's because that's not how they cast them in Aletan," but when i went back to dnd and was looking at the spell lists, i realised that that's not how they cast them in faerun either.

and i kinda really appreciate that little bit from dnd now. there's plenty of things i dislike from dnd, but the distinction in elemental spells between druids and wizards is a really neat.

[adolin-is-best-boy]

okay ima put down a list of characters and the vague ideas i have for their powers in my au and y’all are gonna help me come up with their powers, okay?! help me please! (/nf)

also if you don’t know what the tell im talking about with classifications (ex. Bloodline, Boon, Magic Item, Melodic) don’t worry about it! it’s really just what the magic actually DOES that i can’t figure out.

but if you want to learn more, check this post on my magic system, and if you have any other questions you can ask me or check the “scattered fantasy aa au” tag :)

———

Franziska - I want her to have Bloodline magic, preferably something in the “”evil”” vein of magic, like a vampire or demon (NOT a Succubus). keep in mind that Manfred will also have a similar powerset. 

Susato - probably Spellcasting. of course she can cast all spells, but what kind of thing would she specialize in? the group already has a healer and people that can constitute a more front-liner role, but i can’t see her being exclusivley a ranged caster, since shes good at hand-to-hand combat.

Kazuma - Bloodline but also Magic Item. Karuma is gonna be a magic item ofc, but he doesnt actually have it for most of the story. I want him to have swordy magic but i cant think of what exactly he can do, and also what he can’t do without Karuma.

Clay - probably a Boon of sorts, and maybe a Magic Item too. i wanna have it be related to gravity/planets/space/science, and if he uses his intelligence he can be super powerful. 

Trucy - Gramarye Bloodline (duh) and maybe also some Melodic magic from her mother. She’s gonna be the “average” gramarye, so i gotta have it be good but also match her specifically. Bloodline magic naturally is slightly different between each person in it, but most of the things gotta be the same. Definetly want something to with the ‘focus’ ability they have and make it creepy and shit, but also other fun stuff.

Apollo - Bloodline(x2), Magic Item, Melodic. okay yeah he’s clearly my favorite character, but i dont wanna make him super powerful. i’m thinking his bracelet enhances and builds on some of his natural abilities, but completely dampens most of his others. Like, his whole thing is gonna be creepy focus ability with bleeding eyes and shit, but i dont know what it can actually DO. He has an extremely high Melodic potential bc of his parents and his crush, but he doesnt realize it (and even when he does he doesnt care that much). 

Athena - maybe Boon or Bloodline? Maybe a Magic Item too? and maybe something to do with electronics/electricity? Oh but she *is* somewhat attuned to Melodic magic bc of her hearing. Other than that i have no idea. 

Ron DeLite - no idea on classification on this one. little ideas on actual powers. the group he’s in is already has alot of extremely flashy/loud magic, but i cant decide if i want his powers to be more flashy or more quiet. Maybe he can do both? Maybe he can fuck with sound? illusions?? idk.

———

okey that’s all i got for now, but be sure that there will be more to come! if you have any ideas, even if they’re small or you think they’re stupid, i wanna hear them!! literally anything can give me ideas and it makes me very happy :)

[stayatsam]

hey so my friends n i are going to start a new campaign soon and i really wanted to play a warlock after hearing you talk about them. do you,,maybe have any tips for playing them?

this is going to be... very long bc im SOOO into warlocks so it’s under a cut LOL they’re a really complicated class but you can do literally anything with them imo!! so fun

i’ve actually been meaning to make a like “Guide to the warlock” thing for a while and this could be like the outline of it LOL i hope this helps! 

Story and Roleplay

Warlocks are INCREDIBLY customizable. Your patron can be just about any powerful being in the universe. If you want to throw fireballs and have a character with severe edgy internal strife at the same time the Fiend patron is great.

Or if you want to be like a wizard and be a scholar but are interested in like, eldritch abominations than the Great Old One is for you, or maybe the Seeker. i love thinking about the relationships between my characters and their patrons. my first warlocks patron was the arch devil Belial, who acted as an invisible surrogate father to him as a child, manipulating him to corruption to hurt others. but they had an interesting father son dynamic! Chat with ur DM about your relationship 

My second warlock was the with a Hexblade. hexblade is the way to go if you’re interested in dueling like a fighter. your patron is a sentient weapon!!! my warlock Gatz felt his family’s heirloom axe speak to him and give him the power to kill his abuser, and it became an aspect of the ideal of vengeance!

i feel like warlocks have one of the best potentials at some serious role playing. you’re providing essentially a possible powerful NPC that your DM can use to move the story forward if you’re stuck. also, even if they have a reputation as being the tormented edgy ones. they can provide a lot of insight into magical motivations. clerics get their magic from faith and wizards study and sorcerers just have it. But warlocks consciously interact with a living creature that personally (unless u take Great old one or how you flavor other patrons) that saw something in your character that made them gift you amazing powers. and also, warlock powers aren’t necessarily taken away easily even if you break your pact, they’re yours to keep.

Mechanics and Build

in terms of raw mechanics, warlocks are pretty difficult to play your first time. but honestly, eldritch blast + agonizing blast are so amazing that you’ll really never have to worry about your damage output

starting with warlock you have to basically throw out everything that other spell casters do. you’re basically a half caster but with all the power of a full caster. EB will probably be your go to attack if you are out of options (unless youre hexblade)

Spells

take eldritch blast!

warlocks, for the most part, will only have 2 spell slots. it sounds daunting but definitely talk with your DM about taking short rests. it’s something they might neglect but Warlocks are short-rest characters, just like fighters. every short rest you get both your spell slots back. 

also, your spell slots are ALWAYS cast at the highest possible level. you only have two spell slots but if youre a level 9 warlock, your fireball will always be cast at level 5. not to mention you recharge on a short rest, so say you take three short rests a day you’re getting 6 of your highest level spell slots. use your spells wisely! Pick out whatever you want! it’s very difficult to go wrong with warlock spells. for example, my first warlock had the fiend patron so i took fire spells, but i also took some sneaky spells like dimension door

also, warlocks get an expanded spell list. if you want to do a bit of healing, you can go with the celestial patron!

Pact Boon

Your pact boon is really a fun part of the class. 

Pact of the Tome is if you’re big into ritual casting and want some extra spells. you’re kind of like a ritual wizard. if you take book of ancient secrets, you can add ritual spells to your book that you find on an adventure! and a bunch of cantrips from any class. i played two tomelocks and they were fun, my first one was like a scholar of all things infernal

Pact of the Blade can help you get some melee damage in there if you really want. It’s honestly really weak and almost no one chooses it because eldritch blast will almost always be better than your pact weapon. If you want to play the Hexblade patron line, then absolutely take this! Hexblade warlocks with pact of the blade are incredibly powerful, especially with some invocations. my hexblade warlock was a force of nature in a fight, with both some slick spellcasting and some really hard melee attacks.

Pact of the Chain

This is the only pact boon i haven’t played, but I have a build for it as my next character for something. Pact of the chain gives you a beefed up familiar. the Imp is the most powerful but they’re all pretty good and you can reflavor the imp if you’re not playing a fiendlock. 

With certain invocations, your familiar is the perfect scout. imps can turn invisible, and as a familiar you can teleport your friend back to you as two actions. i feel like this invocation is incredibly versatile and is something you can talk with your DM about, because your DM may be the one roleplaying your familiar , bc these ones are intelligent

Invocations

This is my favorite part of the warlock class!!!! invocations are really part of the charm of warlocks because you get amazing abilities, and if you dont like them you can simply replace them the next time you level up. Agonizing blast is almost always a certain to get. 

But there’s a lot of good combinations. like with my hexblade warlock i took the darkness spell and the invocation that lets you see in magical darkness.

honestly picking whatever you want that makes you feel like your warlock is cool and strong is great! they’re all very interesting. like one invocation lets you cast detect magic as much as you want. and another one lets you summon a cloud of flies. and one that makes it so you never have to sleep 

sooo many fun things. 

SORRY THIS IS SO LONG im super passionate about this class! i hope you have as much fun with a warlock as i have!

[ninesixninetwo]

ok so first context

theres no names for most things because i dont waste my PRECIOUS time NAMING things but theres this planet near the center of the universe (i dont think i ever explained to you the universe lore so i dont know if youll get any meaning from that)

and its similar to our society except a bit more advanced and its more globally synchronized

also most of it runs on synthetic magic which i will get into later

so people here are normal people 99% of the time but occasionally someone will be born with innate magic + spellcasting abilities. this is constant across the entire universe but much more common on this planet bc its so close to the center. theyre called warlocks on this planet. they come with innate magic power inside of them + the ability to maninpulate that power. all of them have some sort of physical manifestation of this power that if removed would remove their ability to use the magic (however they still have the power source inside of them they just cant use it now)

the power source itself is basically useless unless they manage to get ahold of a wand built for natural magic or a natural magic user comes and uses them as an additional power source to boost their own spells

also magic isnt crazy strong it could never be a oneshot tactic in combat it serves more practical use in normal life

but theres also synthetic magic which is much more widespread. it functions the exact same as regular magic except its power source comes from regular energy (fossil fuels :drooling emoji: or wind turbines or you know) and it requires some sort of apparatus to manipulate (like a wand but here a wand is defined by anything able to manipulate magic so a wand could also be idk a glove that when powered heats up your hand or a mirror that when powered connects to another mirror so its like zoom)

the only thing is synthetic and natural magic interfere with each other a lot. you cant use them together or else theyll both expertly fail

so this leads to natural magic just pretty much being unused a lot of the time bc synthetic magic is everywhere and more convenient and you using natural magic just kind of ruins everything for everyone

it also means high risk or authoritative positions dont allow natural magic users bc like if youre a surgeon and you accidentally use your magic all the computers and equipment nearby would fail + your magic would fail so theres no benefit

also syntehtic magic just kind of replaces most electricity in our world

now we get into our guy abel

so hes a warlock and has a pair of deer antlers on his head and he really wants to be an astronaut so he studies really hard and trains really hard to become an astronaut and he gets into the equivalent of nasa but they say he cant be an astronaut bc hes a warlock + his horns overcomplicate designing a helmet anyway

hes sacrificed so much to try and achieve his dream of becoming an astronaut and to hear this when hes so close is devastating for him

so he goes home and saws off his horns thereby making him elligible

and then wow hes an astronaut yahoo he spends a few years up in a space station and whatever

and then he gets called or a solo mission to a distant moon to set up a moon base

now these guys have set up a few bases on other planets and moons already but the majority of the population resides on their original planet

abels like yahoo!! and goes off to da moon where the base has already been mostly constructed (they sent some guys there to build it previously)

but when he arrives the ppl who built it just arent there

so he tells the control center that and theyre like "oh man ok hang tight idk look around or something"

and he does that

but when he tries to report back his findings (nothing) the communication panel just doesnt work - it just plays static

so like what is there for him to do besides wait

and abel waits and waits and after three months and still nothing he starts losing his mind and realises if this continues he'll lose his sanity soon enough so he comes up with a plan

the food oxygen and water systems are all self sustaining but the heating and lighting systems are not (theyre supposed to be but it seems like the ppl in charge of installing the required parts never got around to it) so theyre currently running on backup generators

so he makes a crude wand out of whatever materials he can find and reroutes the generator energy to the wand and uses it to erase his own memories

so he only remembers the first 3 days so he wont go insane from the isolation

he leaves himself a note explaining that he has to erase his memory periodically but doesnt explain why (because if he knew that he had been alone for months he might go insane anyway)

and slowly as he repeats this more rooms of the base become inaccessibile bc their heating shuts off and hes kind of running out of time but theres literally nothing he can dobecause there is no possiblity of there being enough fuel on this itty bitty moon to get him back to his planet which is so far away he cant see it

and thats it he just stays on the moon for 3 years repeating that

hes left to wonder whether the ppl on his planet abandoned him or one reason or another (his guess is the cost of retrieving him was more than it was worth) or something happened to them

he sort of accepts the possibility of him being abandoned there and makes peace with it

its actually a very tranquil time for him despite his oncoming doom

until he finally gets pulled from it to enter the main story of piss lore

he believes he was only trapped on the moon for maybe 6 months until its later revealed he was there for 3 years and hes like BRUH!!!!!!

personally id like to imagine his entier planet jsut exploded one day and then later when ari sees that theyre like ohhhh my gruh what do i tell abel

@alias-mike i want you to do this specifically

[mydoorin]

this is long and made for no one but myself

I like certain aspects of C1, and a lot of Vox Machina is endearing and wonderful, but I find all of the first campaign really hard to watch

From a player and a DM perspective I just cannot watch a 5 1/2 long episode with half the cast yelling over each other and the other half doing world-breaking shit. I know there was a sort of loosey-goosey transition between their Pathfinder homegames and 5e, and Matt and Taliesin are used to editions older than 4th even, but there were a lot of times when I felt basic rules got swept under the rug for Vax and Percy but were unfairly or even sometimes incorrectly applied to Keyleth and Vex. Vax literally broke the game multiple times, and I know a lot of the campaign was like Matt’s gift to Liam, but it’s a campaign with 8 of your friends that you’re now producing as a show so it can’t just be about the one guy anymore. No one likes playing D&D where one character is literally touched by fate and can move 120 feet and doing 5 attacks a round. even if the rest of the team are like, high level barbarians fighters and spellcasters it feels unbalanced and it isn’t fun to watch.

a lot of the combat mechanics in C1 feel sloppy too, in terms that PCs didnt know their own character abilities or had a misunderstanding of how Action-Bonus Action-Reaction 5e combat works. It’s not really anyone’s fault, that happens when you change game systems, but to the point that I actually skip combat scenes, which unfortunately can be like a majority of the episode (and have really important character moments, like death). the Kraken fight comes to mind (there aren’t 40 feet fast eels Keyleth I’m sorry), it felt like Grog had the best grasp on his character’s mechanics and goals, and I was yelling at the screen for the other PCs to look at their character sheets. i dont know why Keyleth wasnt a water elemental to start or why Vax didn’t spend all his time stealth-investigating for the lodestones or why Percy didnt think to try luring the beast or talking to it or why Vex didn’t- actually Vex did everything she could Rangers have massive drawbacks. But!! These are issues I have with VM in most fights, theyve gotten better in their level 20 one shots, but still there I want them to please read their character sheets, bc Keyleth is an archdruid who doesnt use spell components anymore and can cast from Wild Shape and that’s tight as hell. Vex’s character mechanics still suck at level 20 but that is not her fault at all 5e literally just hates Rangers. And can we talk about that? Why do Rangers not get half the shit other classes get? How come Rangers have to wait until level 17 to use hide as a bonus action? Rogues get that at 2nd level. Anyway.

I think another part of it comes from player experience, and what kind of PCs are and are not fun to have at the table. Personally I dont like the fate touched concept, I don’t have fun as a player when one character is designed from the start to be more special and important, esp when that character talks about hating it so much all the time. TBH I don’t know why Vax is such a shit about the Raven Queen deal it seems like you got something no one else has ever gotten (she let you have your sister back bro) and you literally signed up for this. A God is giving you Special Awesome God Powers that make you more of a terrifying game breaking monster and you’re gonna keep calling the Raven Queen a bitch? for what? because you didn’t check for traps? because you didnt have a spellcaster that could use telekinesis? what about that situation wasnt entirely character choices lmao

betwen Vax and Percy (dont get me started on Mr. I Know Better Than Everyone, i really fucking hate PCs like that and i will fight about my distaste for percival von frankenstein monsterenergydrink the third) there are a lot of moments in C1 that aren’t fun to watch bc I know they arent fun for everyone at the table to play. it can be really cool to watch someone else’s backstory unfold, but if that’s all you’re doing it’s super easy to check out (I dont think it’s an RP decision when Grog has no idea what’s happening, I too haven’t been listening to Percy argue about this inconsequential thing to no one in particular) think of all the early C2 Caleb-Beau moments when it was clear half the tabl wasn’t paying attention, and how quickly that was resolved after people voiced their opinions on it (Matt for sure talked to them about dominating RP and making too many smaller moments that leave out the rest of the table, I wish a certain wizard would take it to heart), but that didnt feel like a conversation anyone had during the first campaign.

maybe it’s because i didnt watch C1 live or because I watched C2 first, but I have- not even a preference really a deference to the Mighty Nein. I think they’re more fun, more entertaining to watch, more emotionally involved and driven, better developed and created, better in all aspects, smarter and funnier and sexier than Vox Machina. I dont care about high fantasy stories with legendary heroes that are basically gods that is such a boring way to play D&D, I want the dumbass characters to use and magic to play pranks on local shopkeepers and i want the lesbians to have a slow burn romance.

I dont even wanna touch on C1 romance bc like, gag me with a spoon I don’t like the way Kashaw or Vax interact with Keyleth theyre both so fucking annoying. Idk why men cant be normal and talk to the fantasy girl they have a fantasy crush on, but Fjord managed just fucking fine.

i need to go back to sleep but in essence my opinions are that C1 was a classic 1980s D&D campaign that would have made Gary Gygax proud. And now that D&D is a lot better than it was in the 80s, more accessible and a lot less shitty, we can have cool modern fantasy stories that expect more from PCs, DMs, and the audience. We can do cooler, better things than we used to, and the structure of 5e actually helps facilitate more roleplaying between characters. The 5e PHB has whole sections devoted to roleplaying your character, and now Tasha’s gives everyone a way to get rid of stupid racist features and make your characters cooler. I’m really happy to see the progession of both WOTC and Critical Role into better, cooler, more awesome and less shitty versions of themselves (this isnt a WOTC defense post im not a shill they should pay the Dragonlance writers)

[teamdoesminecraft]

Everything about the pokemon au is perfect... is there lore???

oh you know me of COURSE there’s lore

It’s all kind of tangled together and hard to explain right now, so this post is gonna be a little less narratively-written and a little more expository. but as always, shoutout to @crystalfloe​ for being my partner in crime in developing this!

Some of the Ninetales dex entries say that it “came into being when nine wizards merged into one.” Naturally, we took this and ran with it: you know how illusioners are a sort of “secret mob” in Minecraft that were never actually implemented? Hundreds of years ago, in this lore, nine illusioners (possibly the last of their kind) met together in secret to preserve themselves. After a lengthy process of spellcasting, all of them gave up their physical forms and agency to create a new, pokemon spellcaster: Seto. Seto is his own person, not a conglomerate of nine, and he never really feels that he’s not; sometimes, though, when he argues with himself, it feels like there’s nine voices in his head all with different opinions. Being based on a kitsune and also having access to magic and curses in this AU still, he can shapeshift/illusion himself into a nearly human form-- he can’t/won’t get rid of the tails though, ever.

In these hundreds of years ago, Seto did some travelling, and his illager background eventually brought him to a wooden mansion. He lived there for a while, learning new magic under an evoker, and developing a gradual distaste for most other “humans” because of everything negative the illagers had to say about it. One lone adventurer, though, as they always do, stumbled upon the mansion, and found their way inside. Many illagers were asleep at this point in the night, but Seto wasn’t; he was the one who “greeted” the intruder firsthand. Said intruder wasn’t the nicest person either; they lashed out and tried to grab Seto’s tail to hold him down in a fight.

More Ninetales dex entries will tell you that “grabbing one of its tails will result in a 1,000-year curse on you and your descendants.”

Said adventurer lived and died uneventfully after that, but their descendants bore the burden. Sneaking around at night, looking to steal from illagers, and digging their way through the frostbitten winter woods, the family line was cursed with Weavile aspects; the original adventurer was doomed to slowly become one, even losing their mind in the body. Their bloodline wasn’t quite as unfortunate, but became a version of werewolf; were-weaviles, technically. Looking at too much moonlight at any one time causes them to transform and be mentally “replaced” by a far more animalistic version of themselves.

That’s why SSundee wears his glasses; they block out any excess moonlight. Of course, on the full moon, he has no choice but to close every curtain, because at that point there’s just too much to avoid. SSundee lives a rather quiet life, running a pastry shop in a no-name village, keeping his transformations to a minimum. He somehow inherited the original map that led to the mansion in the first place; he keeps ahold of it just as a reminder to not go there, ever.

SSundee’s got a friend, though, who’s willing to do anything for easy money.

Husky took the map, and ignoring SSun’s protests as just standard-SSun-paranoia, went to find the mansion to dig up any potential treasure there. Once inside, he was pursued by illagers, and fell between the walls; in the darkness, he reached for what he thought was a rope. It wasn’t, of course, and Seto had a whole new curse to lay. Husky had never been a fan of rain, surfing, or even baths as much as showers; Seto thought it would be the funniest thing to ruin the experience for him even more. (do I really gotta specify what pokemon Husky is) Husky’s started down the path of slow transformation, with an extra wrench in the formula; if any part of him gets touched by water, that part takes on more kip-like traits until he dries it. He found out while using SSun’s shower, and blamed it on him like it was some sort of shitty prank; when SSun wasn’t open about what he thought happened, Husky threw the door open.

It was a full moon that night (because of course) and Husky was terrified for a short while (because of course), running as far as he could. SSun, before he lost it, was even more terrified, because as far as he knew Weavile were nothing but predators; he doesn’t know much about Weavile, though, and what he neglected to learn was that Weavile are pack bonders, and that he had already built up a strong friendship with Husky. In summary, Husky spent that night trying to avoid being force-fed dead sandshrew by this terrifying demonic weavile that was also still somehow the mom friend.

BACK TO SETO, he has 1 (one) friend who isn’t an illager: a fellow troublemaking fox. Lox is a lonesome zorua who somehow wormed his way into the mansion (because doesn’t everyone eventually) and learned how to control his illusions by watching Seto in secret. Lox uses these illusions, generally, to fuck with people; it doesn’t help that Seto finds it absolutely hilarious. Eventually, Lox learned to create his own individual human form to cast, and learned sign language; he set out on his own just to explore, planning to find more people to mess with. Lox eventually discovered a small cottage in the woods, and was ready to just completely ruin this person’s day by unveiling that Deep Pokemon Magic--

--but True was, unfortunately, already a pokemon fanatic.

Even disregarding Tepig and Zubat, True tends to a bazillion wild pokemon, all the time, constantly. He’s invested in learning everything he can (scientifically) about how they work, especially their ties back to humans. (True is, in this AU, the one person who would be 1000% on board with being part pokemon, and also the one person who never will be.) When Lox tried to mess with him by impersonating people, True immediately recognized him as a Zorua, and tugged him inside for interrogation. True was relentless in his efforts to understand, poring over books, tests, and learning sign language to communicate with Lox better. Lox eventually mentioned that he didn’t want to be pinned down to one location, and didn’t plan on living forever in True’s little house; True realized this, of course, and waved him off, saying Lox was free to go wherever he wanted. Once away, Lox realized that though he liked the outside, he had enjoyed his time with True almost just as much; now Lox looks for any excuse he has to come back, and pops in from time to time for no reason.

One big excuse to come back, of course, is discovering another human-pokemon anomaly; when Lox saw a man with golden horns quietly using telekinesis to steal a lunch in a market square, he intercepted him and led him all the way back to the cottage. Sky was, understandably, confused and a little distressed; eventually after True sat him down they were able to have an actual conversation.

Sky’s history is (surprise surprise) Mary-Sueish. He’s a shiny hoopa (the only hoopa, so technically nobody knows he’s shiny?), and in this world, all legendaries have the ability to form-shift between pokemon and human. He was created by two other legends-- Notch (Arceus) and Herobrine (Giratina) to assist in preserving/expanding/helping the world. They both act as sort of guides for him in this AU, with neither really being evil or omnipotent. After creating Sky, they realized that while he was powerful, he had no experience in the world; they set him in a mostly-human form and instructed him to travel the world, meeting new people, and understand how humans and pokemon interacted and got along. They also, via a certain amount of magic, prevented him from saying what he or his history was; they didn’t want anyone finding out about the legendary child and trying to kidnap/control him. One notable ability of Sky’s is wish-granting; Hoopa being based on a djinn, we had to give him the magical bullshit. He can only grant one a day, though, in total, and he has plenty of restrictions on them-- no time travel, changing things that already happened, etc, etc. 

While Sky couldn’t tell True any of his actual history, True has been helping him learn more about his abilities and is 100% willing to travel with him anywhere to learn more about him.

SPEAKING OF NOTCH ARCEUS did you know he had a bastard son?? And that son was Xephos? YEAH THATS RIGHT TC/YOGS CROSSOVER AND I DONT GIVE A SHIT

Respawning doesn’t exist in this AU, so the yoglabs complex serves a real purpose via the cloning machines. Xephos doesn’t actually know he has any Arceus genes in him; they’re locked away and not apparent at all. That’s not why we’re looking at yoglabs right now, though: we’re here for Bajan.

Backtracking once again, Bajan grew up in a relatively decent-sized village, watching Wizard of Oz (Poke-Oz?) and absolutely loving the Infernape character. When he was about eight, his village was raided by pillagers; he had to run, as fast and as far as he could. Eventually he stumbled into the mountains, and up to Xephos and Honeydew, who were conducting a relatively boring test compared to normal, and YES i’m saying that Bajan’s gay dads are from the yogscast, nothing matters anymore

Bajan was adopted into the compound and was a very curious and energetic child. So curious and energetic, in fact, that he stole a transformation talisman and used it without calibrating it first; he passed out and was given two weeks to live, with his human DNA in constant conflict with the over-abundance of non-specified Pokemon DNA. Not wanting to support child murder, Xephos developed a particular method that he severely hoped would prevent Bajan from dying; he had Bajan pulled out of his safety-fluid-tank for a few hours so he and Dew could talk to him. They explained the procedure and asked if he had any requests-- Bajan still loved Infernape, so that was the first thing out of his mouth.

In the experiment, of course, they had to use Chimchar DNA to more closely match Bajan’s youth, but the procedure worked; he was given a very specifically calculated transformation talisman to wear to prevent him from becoming unstable again. (He was a little miffed that he had been given the “baby” form, but hey, what could you do.) Bajan lived for the next few years as a poke-human hybrid in the labs, generally being a good, if destructive, kid, practicing his firey abilities. On his birthday, he committed a small act of mischief; he lied to Dew and was able to go outside the labs for the first time since he got there.

Bajan fucken loved the outdoors, because who wouldn’t, and went running around way past his curfew before he got lost. While lost, he stumbled upon an absol-- Jerome had been on the run for as long as he could remember, because of the human superstition of absols causing natural disasters. After enough poking and prodding, Jerome eventually agreed to lead Bajan back to the vault door; on the way back, he locked up and refused to move. Bajan followed his gaze and realized that Jerome had sensed an avalanche before it could even begin-- there was no way they were going to outrun it. Bajan positioned himself between the oncoming snow and his new friend, and put every effort he could think of into spitting out the most powerful flamethrower he ever would--

--and he evolved. Bajan had never realized he could evolve before, and spent the next five minutes in complete and utter glee before yanking Jerome back to the labs to show off his new form and his new friend. The yogs weren’t as excited as he was to bring an absol into a place prone to nuclear disaster; he was grounded for lying, staying out past curfew, and the aforementioned absol-napping; Xephos took a mild amount of pity on Jerome, though, and agreed to test whether or not he was actually the cause of natural disasters. Eventually, when nothing really proved that he was, Jerome was allowed to talk to Bajan again-- at which point Jerome asked Bajan to translate his request to the yogs. 

Jerome had lived his life being unable to enter human society, even as a pet, because of the superstition around absol; seeing Bajan, a healthy and happy human-pokemon hybrid, had give him an idea. As Bajan translated, Jerome himself wanted to be a hybrid, so he could talk and interact with people. Xephos, though skeptical, was never one to turn down a scientific opportunity, and eventually was able to complete the procedure. Armed with a new half-human friend, a newly evolved form, and an advanced understanding of maturity, Bajan approached both Xephos and Dew one night with a request: he wanted to go outside the labs, with Jerome, and explore the world on his own to participate in battles. Eventually, they conceded; Bajan was abso-fucking-lutely ecstatic, and so was Jerome, to be travelling with someone for the first time ever. They currently roam the world as a duo, picking fights and having fun.

The entire team will eventually meet up, either through Sky’s wish-granting, Bajan and Jerome’s roaming, or Lox’s people-hunting; maybe a combination of all three. From then on they can travel the world together, working hand-in-hand to discover new things about each other and help one another as some of the only of their kind in this world.

Xephos, however, still sits in the labs, working on understanding pokemon in a much less communication-based way than True. Every time he re-clones himself, some piece gets lost, sending his mind into a darker spiral... it’s only a matter of time before he discovers his locked Arceus genes, and uses them in a way he definitely never should have.

[dungeonmalcontent]

Building NPCs

As a DM, making NPCs is essential. You can't drop your players in an empty shoe box with just monsters. How would they have gotten there? Where would they have come from? You can't escape these questions in a story based game. Even if your players are a party of frontiersmen expanding the edges of civilization—going where no man, elf, or orc has ever gone before—they were probably hired by someone to do that, or maybe they were chased into the wilderness... this means that there are NPC forces behind them (in one way or another). My point being that there's no real reason to play if there are no other people (friends, allies, and people to protect/exploit). NPCs create game play value. As the DM, it's our job to create characters that give the players reasons to keep playing. Whether that be friends, allies, arch-enemies, lovers, or just a really nice barkeep that nothing bad is ever allowed to happen to, that's all on us.

So how do you make good NPCs? Well, not the same way you make a player character.

This is sort of a lesson I learned more recently, but I've found that a good NPC is more like a monster than a player. They have simple mechanics that don't distract too much from game play, and they have their own motives that aren't based solely on the needs of the players.

I'm not saying that every merchant, tanner, or map maker your players encounter has to have a life goal and aspirations unique to them. That's some Mercer level dedication that really just functions as the cherry on top of a DM's performance.

This is probably a good time to make clear what I mean by an "NPC."

While it essentially means is any character that isn't a player, you don’t need to make a big deal about all of these characters. Most of them, at least how I have seen them played, are simply merchants. What I want to focus on are those NPCs which are more integral to the story telling experience, the ones you put actual effort and serious planning into (though, that could be all of them for some people). More specifically, a designed NPC is one that the players don't control but can essentially do everything they can.

The first villain I ever designed was meant to be nothing more than a very strong character with strong allies. I wanted my players to meet him early, thinking he was an ally, and experience how strong he as when he was working with them so that they would be adequately afraid of him when they learned he was evil. The problem was that he was so mechanically complicated that I felt like I was taking time away from my players so that I could play my own character. I didn't want to be in charge of the enemies in a fight and one of the characters fighting them, particularly when I had to look through the monster details and the character details. It was a lot of time where my players were doing nothing.

So how do you build an NPC? Mechanically speaking, like a monster. But how? That's the hard part.

There's a science to making enemies, and believe me I'm no scientist (or mathematician). Generally you want the levels to be the same, but challenge rating (CR) isn't exactly the same as a player level. If a monster has a CR of 5 that means it should be suitable for 3–4 level 5 player characters to fight. Depending on your group size, a creature with a CR at the players level would generally be a "boss" monster. You can go higher for greater difficulty, but you probably shouldn't go too much higher unless you don't plan on making that encounter a fight that can be won (which is what happened when I dropped a vampire spell caster on my level 6 party of four, they figured out pretty easily that they needed to grovel and escape).

CR has several implications. It relates to three key factors of monster design: hit points (HP), armor class (AC), and attack ability. HP and AC are pretty straight forward (just look at all the stats of similar monsters in the same CR bracket, Fight Club 5 is great for this). The hard part is attack ability, which isn't so much a stat as it is a limit to what the monster can do.

Monsters typically have one or two special abilities (like spellcasting, magical features, or a reaction attack), but they also have simple attacks they can make as "default" actions. These are generally an attack or multi-attack with a weapon or a weaponized feature. The more chances to attack a creature has, the less overall damage they tend to be able to do (big difference from, say, a PC fighter).

Not to stray too far away from the topic, NPCs should operate in a very similar way. As far as combat goes, they should really only be able to do one or two things (unless they're supposed to be a boss sort of encounter), and the rest of your notes for them are better spent as role playing information.

Great examples of well designed NPCs can be found in the modules made by WotC, particularly Storm King's Thunder.

These days, when I design a character to help my players I follow these basic steps:

If I want a paladin archetype, for instance, I give them a quick stat build based on the array. Then I give them a weapon that fits their personality, not necessarily their class. If they're going to be strong enough, they get a second attack each round. The rest of the features can mostly be ignored, maybe give them a cantrip. That's it. And, if I can, I give them a reason not to fight.

The goal of the game is to challenge the players after all.

Reblog with your favorite NPC encounter?

Also, maybe I’ll make a post on how to turn a character sheet in Fight Club into a compendium bestiary entry. Because that’s a good in-between.

[solus-manet]

if you're still doing the d&d ask thingy: 2, 5, 17, 19, 29 and 33 :)

thanks so much for asking!! i love answering these haha :)

2. Your favorite character that someone else has played

my partner is currently playing a goblin bard named le’mon, he is lemon-themed and a one hit wonder and an absolute diva and i love him lmao he is so much fun, he plays a yellow lute shaped like a lemon and all his songs are citrusy parodies of emo music, like one of them is a parody of bring me to life by evanescence called bring me a lime and it is actually the greatest thing ever lol he is so entertaining i love him

5. Favorite NPC

my favorite NPC was probably a cleric named Saint John who helped mentor our party, simply because she was really nice and likable haha, sorry thats not a particularly deep answer but yeah lol

17. What are some house rules that your group has?

well, we allow homebrew classes and races, so theres that, but in terms of actual rules theres not too much? we do play with exaggerated nat 1s and nat 20s, so rolling a 1 is absolutely catastrophic and a 20 is incredibly amazing, oh also we have a house rule for spellcasting where if you are able to cast two spells in one turn, yknow bonus action + action, then instead of one needing to be a cantrip, you just have to have their combined level be equal to your highest level spell slot so yeah

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions?

i am not *superstitious* about my dice per se, however, i will swap out dice that are rolling badly, and i will change up my way of rolling them to try and recalibrate my luck lol, like i will switch to my left hand, or will shake extra hard, or just kinda drop them, stuff like that, just to mix it up if my rolls are going poorly

29. Do you prefer RP heavy sessions or combat sessions?

RP HEAVY SESSIONS ALL THE WAY i am such a slut for rp oh my god i live for character interactions, maybe its just the theatre kid in me, but i fucking love acting, its my favorite part of rpgs, not that combat cant be enjoyable too, its just, i love actually role-playing so fucking much, i love inhabiting my character and just talking with all the other characters, it really helps flesh them out and make them feel three-dimensional, yknow? i think the dialogue and acting and interpersonal relationships are the most interesting parts so yeah lol thats my onion

33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory?

i always write a backstory but i dont have a specific method?? i just, think about what kind of character i want to play, what kind of personality and abilities, and then i think about what would make an interesting background for my character concept, sorry i dont have a more specific method or more interesting answer, i just kinda, think really hard and eventually i come up with a character lol

thanks again for the ask!