#only healer in the party. the mom friend.

[not-your-lifeline]

My 15 base strength dragonborn life domain CLERIC feat. Astarion

[terresdebrume]

Concept: The DBDA Characters in a modern AU meet as a D&D group. Niko is the experienced DM with a lot of ideas, and Edwin is her long time friend and player.

Edwin plays a Moon Circle druid because it's the only class he hasn't really tried out before, and he wants to give tanking a go. He also accidentally ends up in charge of onboarding Charles, the nice beginner who's mostly here to support his bestie. Edwin color codes the various sections of Charles' character sheet & helps him remember which type of dice is witch.

Crystal plays a bard and comes up with zingers for her vicious mockery that makes the whole table collapse in laughter. For the BBEG, she even comes ready with dozens of haikus insulting him, his fashion choices, his mom, and the quality of his magic.

Charles starts out as a barbarian but realizes he's not comfortable with the rage mechanic and sunsets his first character pretty quickly. Everyone expects him to leave because he's seemed uncomfortable most of the time, but when he comes back as a paladin he surprises the whole table by getting really into the roleplay, coming up with a new voice and a specific accent and everything.

Monty plays a Circle of Stars Druid because it's also his first campaign and he likes the astrology theme. He ends up as the party's main healer a bit by accident, but he gets really competent at it and the party relies on him a lot, so his character's betrayal and departure from the group (when he has to leave to study abroad for a while) shocks everyone and they're all quite incensed about it.

When Monty comes back a year later, he brings along his boyfriend Thomas, whose Tabaxi character is a Grave Cleric and first introduced as the guy who brings an almost dead [Monty's character] to the Party's doorstep for protection. The return kicks off the final arc of the campaign and introduces the first in game romance, which ends up making everybody cry.

On the second campaign, Charles decides he can't let himself be outdone by the annoying american (no offense, Crystal) and announces that he's going to romance someone too. This can go one of two ways:

Crystal also finds Thomas annoying and plays along, and she and Charles end up roleplaying a romance for the ages that weirdly ends their on/off relationship when they realize their characters are more in love than they are, and/or

Crystal Does Not Want to be involved in the rooster fight and makes her character a lesbian on purpose, leaving Charles to romance the only character available: Edwin's.

Shenanigans ensure either way.

[amethysts-tavern]

I’ll kiss it better.

As promised: A short one in response to my in-game Tav telling Karlach “I’ll kiss it later” when she healed her in battle.

——————

Karlach, being the big bad barbarian that she is, always runs directly into the fray, greataxe swinging. You’ve learned this about her over the months you’ve been adventuring together. You wish she’d exhibit a little more caution, however. Raging only reduces damage taken, it doesn’t make you immune. Having to heal her up in the middle of each battle had become a given.

Normally she takes being hit in stride, shrugging it off and continuing on. It’s sometimes hard to remember that she is a being that can feel pain. She is strong and unwavering in battle, but she bruises and bleeds like everyone else. And sometimes she needs a little more care than just slapping a healing word on her so you can still sling an arrow at an enemy.

One evening after a particularly bloody fight, everyone is way worse for wear. Even staying in the back, away from the action, Gale had suffered some major injuries. Karlach was barely standing by the time you landed back at camp. After a quick clean up to check yourself for wounds, you pop by each party member’s tent to check in on them. Astarion and Gale look pummeled, but are going about their usual activities of dinner prep and catching up on their reading, but Karlach isn’t dancing outside of her tent.

As you approach her tent, you hear her sobbing to her teddy bear Clive about how difficult this particular battle was and how much she hurt.

“Karlach, can I come in?” you ask gently.

“Um, yeah, just give me a moment,” she says hastily, dropping Clive and running an arm over her eyes to wipe away any wetness.

“I just wanted to tell you how great you are: both in battle and as a friend. And I wanted to tell you how much I care about you. It pains me to see you hurting so badly.”

“Thank you, soldier,” Karlach sniffles. “It’s hard to always be the strong one sometimes. I’m squishy on the inside, too.”

“I don’t think we tell you often enough how appreciative we are for you. We’re all safer with you around,” you say, crossing the room to her. You brought a healer’s kit with you for any remaining cuts and bruises. “Can I bandage you up?”

“I’d like that,” Karlach says. “You’re kind of like the mom of our group, huh? Always coming around to make sure we’re OK, patching us up...”

“Everyone should have someone to kiss their boo-boos,” you chuckle, wrapping up a large gash on her forearm before gently pressing your lips to it. “Better?”

“Better. Thanks, soldier. For everything,” she sighs and smiles.

[us3rnam3-r3dact3d]

Fooliverse headcanons!!

All of these are likely to be disproven is Erik ever does more Fooliverse (please god please I need it) but idc. Lmk if y’all want my hc’s for any of your Fooliverse faves. ❤️❤️

Angel and Guy were adopted by Damien’s mom, Sophia when Angel was around thirteen. Being raised by Sophia tempered some of Angel’s attitude and goofiness. Damien, in turn, is a more timid and less outspoken. Having Sophia’s attention and pressure spread between the three of them let Damien develop with a less of a short fuse. Guy is also toned down, but he’s the rebel of them three. He insisted that the only thing he would study would be creative writing. Sophia demanded that, if she was going to pay for him to earn a degree in that, he would be the best of the best. He’s finishing his last year in college now, but has two novels published already. Angel went into politics and works with Sophia. Their focus is on human borns and informed unempowered people. Damien is in his final year at DAMN. He was a TA for a few elemental classes and is being considered for a position as a professor. Sophia made a powerhouse of a family who are each making waves in their field. Their personal happiness… well, that was never her concern.

Sophia actually introduced Angel to Asher hoping to arrange a relationship between them. Asher has a lot of respect and clout, and Angel, being an unempowered person in an empowered world, does not. Deeply embarrassed by Sophia’s meddling, Angel made it clear that they weren’t looking for a relationship with Ash. The two of them did become fast friends because of this incident. Angel did a few municipal favors for Ash and the Talbot pack, and he in turn kept their name on his lips when talking to higher ups. Eventually, Angel was invited to a solstice party and met Davey. They fell in love instantly. Sophia doesn’t approve, but Angel made it clear she could fuck off in regards to Davey. She got to control everything else on their life, after all.

Damien’s siblings know he’s queer, but he hasn’t worked up the nerve to tell Sophia. He’s been dating Huxley for a year, but every time he tries to talk to her about him, he clams up. Angel is running the “Sophia can kick rocks” club, which Huxley is the vice president of, but the anxiety that Sophia gives Damien is so intense he just shuts down. Huxley is trying to be patient.

Guy, on the other hand, proudly announced his first boyfriend in fifth grade and refused to hear anything about it. Sophia tried a lot to “course correct” with Guy, but he’s nothing if not stubborn. He’s always been the problem child, but Angel’s intense protectiveness of him stopped all of Sophia’s more extreme ideas.

Huxley is intensely competitive. His moms encouraged him to do everything with passion and purpose and he took that to its furthest extent. He takes his classes seriously, he takes his practices and games seriously, he even takes his friendships and relationships seriously. He knows what he wants and he works to earn it. This means he’s also pretty hard on himself when things don’t go his way. This isn’t because of anything his moms taught him, it’s just this intense, internal drive to be the best, and if he’s not, he is under the impression that it’s his fault. Damien’s working on unraveling that particular line of thinking.

Davey is a healer. Gabe was still in that car accident, and he was seriously injured, just not killed. His right leg was absolutely fucked and he lost a good portion of his stomach due to being impaled by a portion of the driving column. He faced a lot of issues with chronic pain while healing, and he uses a cane. Davey was intensely focused on his recovery, which is why he didn’t take the pack’s offer of being alpha when Gabe stepped down. Ash was the obvious next choice. Davey spent a lot of time with the healers, nurses, and doctors who worked with his dad, and they taught him a good deal of healing magic. Although he’s a shifter and doesn’t have access to a lot of what freelancers are capable of, he is incredibly talented at what he can do. He isn’t powerful enough to be a full time healer, but he is a certified paramedic and works part time with an empowered unit.

Pretty certain it was hinted at in vamp!Milo’s BA (“no loose ends” or something like that), but Marie is dead. She died when Milo was senior in high school. His dad was already gone and her loss devastated him. He was turned 18 a few weeks before and refused Gabe’s offer to stay with he and Davey. He sold her house, got rid of everything that reminded him of her, and gave every picture of her to Gabe before breaking from the pack. Those he couldn’t bear to destroy.

Smartass was actually Aaron’s boss. They came in after their predecessor, Ivan, was fired for inappropriate conduct against a new hire. Ivan had been spiraling and ineffective for months and had run their department to the ground. Aaron had been promised the position, but the higher ups decided their department needed a new start. He was pissed. Incredibly so. He hates them for months and months. And they seriously valued his experience and work. Through months and months of intense arguments and near bloody fights, the two of them beat their department back into shape. After they’d reached a state of stability, Smartass reached out to their old company and negotiated a much higher, much better position for Aaron. He was built for more than being a desk jockey. He took the job and took them out to dinner that night as a thank you. The rest is history.

[displacedarchon]

I'm a bit rambly and salty today and need to get this off my chest, so there's no obligation to read this post and such. Unless you're morbidly curious, I'm not yer mom, I won't stop you. :B But there was this question of the day on twitter recently that asked something like.... "What made you finally take the plunge and stick with 14?" But worded in like a... super positive, happy way. And it's a good question! And people had all these fun stories about trying to just appease a friend and then OOPS accidentally fully committed 10/10. But it got me thinking about my tumultuous relationship with 14, and I didn't want to bring the vibe down on twitter (that's a dangerous place to spill your guts half the time anyways) so. Yeehaw. To not get too spiraly, I'd been a FF fan in general for quite some time, but due to repeated trauma associated with it, by the first time 14 rolled in, I already had one foot out the door with engaging in FF stuff. I ended up not being able to run the game anyways, so that was that. But the time of ARR rolled out, I was 100% not in the mood for anything FF related. I'd either sold/donated/boxed up all of my FF merch and had no interest. (I tried to free trial it anyways, secretly, but it just didn't click.) When Stormblood was announced, I'd gotten a crumb of excitement because Red Mage was being put in the game. I fucking love Red Mage. So I went... "WELL. Maybe this time, cause fuck yeah Red Mage!?"

I was surrounded by 14 players, friends at the time (who had all been insisting I play 14), at a gaming store/hangout. Immediately, I was mocked and chewed out for liking Red Mage. They thought I was stupid for taking interest in the game now, because of the addition of that class, and that Red Mage was one of, if not THE dumbest and worst classes in the FF franchise. Like I was *mocked*. To my *FACE*. Needless to say, I didn't touch the game until 2018. Made another SE account (because the 1.0 and that ARR free trial account had both been nuked by SE when they were purging in active accounts or something?) And it was...? Sure was a thing. I wasn't thrilled about it, but I wanted people to stop pestering me to ditch other games and play 14 instead. I can't remember if SHB was out yet or not, not that that mattered, but I toddled around with the MSQ, until I hit that first dungeon. This was before Duty Support, so my options were to queue up and that was it. I wasn't impressed that dungeons were forced (this was around the time I was starting to get burnt out on doing dungeons in other games). And you know what's funny? queue times were atrocious, cause I was DPS. Did my friends, who gave me shit for not playing jump at the chance to party with me? No. Instead I got a mocking lecture for... "Well that's what you get for picking DPS." And they proceeded to twist my arm into rolling a healer or a take. And after awhile it became increasingly obvious they wanted me to roll healer because they wanted to turn me into their pocket healer. FUCK. THAT. So I gave up. (And subsequently either forgot the log in info for that account, or SE nuked it as well? I have no idea. I just remember it being 2018 because the game I have currently... has... the appearance data saved?? I don't understand it.) Fast forward to the end of 2021, and trauma and burnout have weakened me enough apparently to give it another go and people not shutting up about EW made me curious just enough. Made a new account (because I can't log into the one from 2018???), slowly slogged through it... and the only reason I was able to get past that original hump, was because of Duty Support being added in 6.1. Didn't need to sit in a queue, didn't have to listen to friends shit on me for being DPS. In fact, my friends didn't give two shits I was playing again and repeatedly forgot that I was. And then I hit another wall; Queue up for Good King Moogle Mog and not only was the wait, once again, atrocious, every time it'd pop most of the rest of the party would go "Oh HELL NO." Leave, and I'd be back in the queue. I tried to get help, I was met with "You're lying, 14 players don't do stuff like that." So, I stopped playing again for a bit. Eventually logged back in, saw where I was stuck, and suddenly one of my friends was now SUPER EXCITED I was playing, and not only did she blast me through King Moogle Mog and a bunch of MSQ after that, flew me to all the ARR aetherytes. Wanting to see more of Thancred, Y'shtola and Minfilia is what kept me going forward, and then when Aymeric showed up I was sold completely. Having the game put me in Novice Network helped with the loneliness a bit. But like. MAN. End of 2022 was when I finally resigned to "YEAH lol I guess I'm a regular player now." Though less so currently, since my processor is an Intel i5 and the minimum requirement is an i7, so I can't log in without COOKING my pc. Whomp whomp. --- Tumblr has word capped me or something hang on.

[vodkacheesefries]

I officially have three saves going and I realized my Tavs accidentally fit the "McDonald's coffee" meme a little too perfectly

Info dump under the cut! Spoilers ahoy, read at ur own risk

Io the Cleric (she/they)

Very practical sort, camp mom even though their girlfriend Shadowheart is the dedicated healer. Carries snacks for everyone.

She gets very upset at first when people default to her choices and sorta view her as the leader and then get mad when she makes a choice they don't like. Doesn't do great with the pressure.

Secretly also only recently learned how to swim but gotta be brave for the girlfriend

Also romancing Halsin because I couldn't in Gritty's playthrough (because they romanced Wyll) but I'm also a sucker for the tall/small trope

But goddamn do both Shadowheart and Halsin make me/Io blush sometimes

Technically broke her oath for her paladin mutliclass because she wouldn't kill the vampire spawn and released them but we had 1000 gold handy so everything's fine, totally didn't send them into their own mini faith crisis

Very much has a Ninth Doctor "Just this once, everybody lives!" moment when she somehow managed to successfully keep all of the Harper's alive at Moonrise. However they do feel deeply guilty for not being able to talk Ketheric down.

Has two moms who love her very much and will be thrilled when she brings home a boyfriend AND a girlfriend

"Gritty" the Druid (they/them)

What's their real name? Who knows! Gritty doesn't care, and likely, doesn't remember.

Being a druid they are frequently actually gritty but if they were able to they'd stay in a hot bath for hours

Favorite wild shape is the spider. Actually quite fond of spiders overall. They think they're misunderstood, sorta like tieflings.

Hooked up with Lae'zel at the tiefling party, but broke it off because Gritty has a chill kinda stoner vibe and Lae'zel's intensity was just a biiit too much for them, though they grow to be best friends. Gritty is super depressed when she leaves to go back to take care of Vlaakith, even tho they are completely supportive.

But boy did they fall head over heels unexpectedly for Wyll

Secretly really relieved he didn't want to take over as duke. They weren't keen on staying in the city.

Like your typical newlywed couple, their honeymoon is going to the Hells to kill a demon 💕

Knox the Rogue (they/he)

I literally just started the Dark Urge origin so I know as much as they do about their past so there's not a whole lot for me to work with outside of how I'm building their personality

Trying their damnedest to resist the urge and squash it down

Sorta sardonic, but it's mostly just to cover up how fuckin scared they are

They're jealous of folks like Karlach who can let their guard down enough to feel jovial, even despite the stress they're all under

Right now feels safest with Astarion, and that will hopefully continue because I neeeeed to do his romance route

Feels really bad about Alfira. They want to want to help people, not to want to hurt them.

[theenpcbracket]

The TTRPG NPC Tournament Round 2: Greggor Handson vs. Halcyon

Images are in the order of the poll! Image ID included, click to see the full image please!

(Only an image of Halcyon was submitted for this poll)

More about each NPC below the cut!

Character 1

Name: Greggor Handson Party: The Bomb Squad Relationship to party: "Healer"

What makes them the best NPC: Every party needs a healer. If you don’t have one, you better get one one. And if you are on a budget, Greggor Handson can be yours! Greggor was exiled from polite society and lives in an abandoned castle, but his rates are low low low and his survival rates are high high high! Better yet, he wont ask you any questions! Are your burn marks related to the explosion at the Duke’s palace? Does your description match a group wanted by the law? Greggor doesn’t care! Greggor just wants the opportunity to work on your body and maaaybe make an improvement here or there. Don’t worry! All new eyes have dark vision and the risk of infection is minimal.

Greggor prides himself not only in the quality of his work, but also his service. His appearance IS off putting, there is absolutely NO getting around it. But be assured all alterations to his body were made by Greggor himself. That he is somehow still alive is a testament to his abilities. Could a “sane” but only moderately talented healer make such radical modifications and survive? No! As Greggor himself would say, when given the choice between sanity and ability, “thanity is grothely overethtimated, theheheh”. His contagious enthusiasm for his work and frank bedside manner is what sets him apart. As Greggor would say, “I gif mythelf four thumbth up! Any more ith medically unnethethary – and I thould know! I’m a doctor.”

Quote: "You were more than my paithenth, you were my friendth," Greggor's last words.

To learn more about Greggor Handson, check out the extra propaganda in his tag here!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Character 2

Name: Halcyon Party: Ambiscade Gang Relationship to party: Weird friend and homie who was supposed to be a minor antagonist

What makes them the best NPC: Halcyon looks and acts like she belongs in a 2006-America shopping mall. She is an incredible thief and has tall energy despite being a short king. She has a valley girl-ish accent but also sounds like she smokes three packs a day. Halcyon has the most insane weed strains in the world and also a weird-former-highschool-girlfriends thing with a friend of the party. She joined her current thieves' guild to spite her mom who runs another thieves' guild. She wants cars to exist so she can be a drunk driver. She's my everything.

Quote: "AYOO"

To learn more about Halcyon, check out the extra propaganda in her tag here!

[loquaciousquark]

4-Sided Dive Highlights - Critical Role C3 up to E40 (Dec. 7, 2022)

It's Christmas! We'll pretend this isn't three weeks late as we join Liam, Laura, Matt, and Taliesin. Liam wins host with a 6 and Matt nearly topples the Jenga tower cheering. The host's script instructs him to intro in song ("Motherfucker!") and to The Twelve Days of Christmas we get "On tonight's 4-Sided Dive/We will have for you/A silly gift exchange game, Mercer's Nein Mighty's reunited, Taliesin played as Kingsley, Orym totally died, and Laura Bailey sundered a tree. Let's fucking do a show!"

What the Happy Holidays Fuck is Up With That? Everyone is sad Eshteross is dead. Matt never killed Allura or Shaun or Essek, so this took the players by surprise. Matt says it was possible in any campaign (Gilmore & Allura did almost die), but it still sucked for him to do. There's been a lot of death for this party in the two-three months they've been together.

Laura says it felt like Otohan was toying with them; the only reason they're not all dead is that she wanted them to live. Matt says it was meant to be a deadly encounter but she was defeatable. Now they have something to work for.

Everyone wants to know where Imogen's mom is. The moon? Yios? Is the city on the moon old or did Otohan set up a popup town?

The were clan was very cool and they were all very attractive. They joke about derailing the campaign to set up a dating sim in the Gorgynei and leaving the moon stuff to Vox Machina.

Matt was so stressed going into the VM stuff, which Liam brings up to discuss as he wasn't on the last episode. "All I could think of leading up to us recording that next session was going, 'Oh shit! I have to do multiple characters of your characters in front of you to each other! Great.'" Everyone agrees that Matt did an awesome job representing their characters. There are a lot of side conversations the players didn't get to see; Matt thinks everyone was communicating with each other on the back end (especially with Percy) while the ritual was going on.

After a dig from Taliesin, Matt reveals that the old Talks faux-pas where some incredibly expensive scotch was mixed with Coke was not actually his doing; it was mixed for him. Sure, Matt. Sure.

Taliesin and Matt discussed Whitestone's advancement and development over the years, since it's a bunch of very expensive resources in a very tiny space. Taliesin tells us that the acid pit has become a low yield battery electrifying street lights at night in the city. "What Lex Luthor could have been with better friends."

Laura protests that she knows nothing about the Ruidus flares and is met with general skepticism. Matt tells us the flares have happened for years with no pattern; this isn't a new thing. However, the recurrences are getting more frequent.

What's causing the flares, the gods trying to break free? Otohan? Laura doesn't think Otohan is on the moon. Laura posits that the city is all the gods' original worshipers; when the gods were bound there, all their worshipers & belief were transported there and bound with them, since that's what gives the gods power. Laura realizes belatedly (and very dramatically) that if this were true, the BH's efforts to figure out what's going on are actually weakening the barriers to belief and helping them be released. Liam has been wondering this for a while, apparently--what if Otohan is the hero and BH are accidentally releasing these evil gods? Horror upon horrors! Matt's poker face reveals nothing, argh.

The Mighty Nein reunited! Everyone loves Kingsley's vibe. Laura regrets not at least calling Caduceus for help. Laura improvs calling him in the moment, and oh my gosh I've missed Cad's voice so much. "Caduceus, Uk'otoa's free and we need your help! Can you come, please? Because you're a healer, and I'm still a healer, but you're better." "Hey. Oh wow! Yeah. Look, I'm kinda stuck here, working on a spell and my house that needs to be fixed. I wish I could help." Taliesin tells us he's in the middle of resetting the Blooming Grove by casting Temple of the Gods, which must be cast in the same place every day for a year. This is partly why Tal played Kingsley; he couldn't justify Caduceus leaving for this, and Kingsley had imprinted hard on the pirate life and would be more fun anyway.

They all loved the incredible fight and AMAZING mini. The tactics were super fun and they loved the opportunitis to experiment. Matt thanks Tyler Walpole who designed the mini and Ian of Iron Tusk who did the painting.

Matt talks about how they left many long term threads open at the end of C2 "like Law & Order for twenty years." He was glad for the opportunity to come back and close this one.

Uk'otoa is not a god, he's the creation of the god the Cloaked Serpent. He's just very powerful, and when the gods were sealed beyond the Divine Gate, he took his old god's dominion in the Lucidian Ocean by the Menagerie Coast for his own. He converted some of the Ki'Nau people there to his worship which gave him power. It wouldn't have been world-ending if they'd failed to seal him, but it would have changed a large chunk of the navigable waters in that area.

The Tower of Inquiry! It visibly wobbles multiple times, but Laura manages to get the block pulled. What would your characters' custom cocktails be? Imogen: a dark and stormy with the beer head being lavender-infused. Orym: an Aviation (which Marisha drinks a lot and Liam dislikes), which apparently tastes like potpourri, yuck. Ashton: a drink Taliesin can't remember the name of which involves pouring lots of clear liquors together with fruit infusions, which must be drunk quickly to avoid it seeping through the paper cup. Matt for Weva: Corpse Reviver (gin, Lillet blanc, orange liqueur and fresh lemon juice).

Gasp, an abuse of power: Liam forces Laura to go pull from the Tower again immediately, which she does successfully despite great sturm und drang. #10: what would your characters' phone cases be? Orym: a blue gem case. Ashton: duct tape over a cracked screen. Imogen: full horse girl with a custom case from a photo of Flora. Eshteross: a Blackberry with a silver stylus, ha!

The Deep Dive! Orym is just trying to do right by his group, lots of push ups and egg whites. He's feeling very overwhelmed all the time, but he tries to focus on the job at hand. There's no way forward without the group, and he's wondering if the current crazy conversations are what Keyleth and Percy used to experience. His death was a moment of certainty in his abject failure to everyone he loved, but he's dutiful and wants to serve, so he keeps his panic quietly to himself. :(

Imogen is also overwhelmed at the minute with the roller coaster of emotion. Her mom's alive but refuses to see her; they don't know what's happening with the moon. Liam marvels at the dichotomy of seeing this path of power before her that she seems clearly fated to master, and yet fearing becoming a villain if she leans into it too much.

Orym is flat-out the reason that Ashton joined the group because of his connection with "Ashari," similar to the "Hishari" keyword connecting Ashton to his past. The moment everyone went down in the Otohan fight was the moment Ashton realized he was genuinely invested and was going to have to put in an effort to build these relationships. Liam loves Ashton's reaching out to people and feels Orym and Ashton have started becoming quietly supportive.

Matt imagined the Claret Orders scattering throughout the world to help those who were cursed. The Gorgynei were a splinter group focused specifically on lycanthropes, and Matt created them in response to Chetney. Matt LOVES taking elements from the characters' narratives (some backstories, some future goals) and getting to tease and reveal it in game. Travis especially "lights up like a lighthouse" when he realizes they're getting into character material. Matt also says definitively that there are no wereherbivores. Alas.

Orym doesn't really blame himself for having his mind read to reveal Eshteross's location; he's a swordsman with no magical defenses. Matt knows a ton about Eshteross's backstory and hopes to get to discuss it soon.

Imogen doesn't think she created her own dreams, even though she can control aspects of them now.

Character block break!

Ashton's habitually being left behind causes low expectations of other people. "People come. People go. People die. People don't. It's kind of just how it goes. It's a very low-impact reality." All his intimate relationships thus far have been built on that, with knowing everyone loved and cared for each other while still maintaining a safe distance.

Yios, the City of Flowing Light! It's illustrious and in the middle of the lake and is rivaled only by Ank'harel in its places of learning. It's a mostly orc/half-orc society.

Orym felt awful about being chosen over Laudna; it echoed everything in his past where the important people were gone and he was still there.

Imogen/Laura "sobbed every single day" Laudna was dead.

Ashton's feelings about his own death are very different to Laudna's resurrection. He deserved what happened to him; she didn't.

Matt considered bringing in Essek to fight alongside the M9 but didn't want to overshadow the main characters; plus, he's still in hiding from nearly being executed. It would have had to be seriously dangerous for him to come out. Matt was glad for the brief cameo at the end.

The Tower of Inquiry, Reprise! Laura pulls a third block even faster than the last two, but the tower wobbles dangerously. What would your characters hoard as dragons? Ashton: things that are not useful: string, packaging from iPhones. Caleb: a pile of flame-retardant books. Orym: a pile of pies; Vax: a horde of days in the sun, ouch. Percy: a mine of money and magical rocks and oh, right. Jester: sweets. Imogen: a field of flowers.

The Tower of Inquiry, Matt Edition: he baaaarely manages to pull one successfully, but does. Laura: "Let me propose something to you. If we stop pulling from the tower now, then whoever does 4-Sided Dive next is going to have to suffer the consequences of our actions." Liam: "You're asking me to band together with you and turn on them. I'll take it into consideration."

Is it hard to keep character backstories from each other? Liam prefers delighting/disappointing people at the table, so it's not hard for him. Taliesin likes keeping it secret as well, but did talk with Travis about blood hunters. He often tells secrets to Dani because she likes knowing secrets, ha! Laura has a tough time not discussing it with people.

Liam is gone to the bathroom and orders Laura to pull another block while he's gone. However, mutiny from the inside reveals no block pulled and a charade played by all remaining actors instead. Except--a second twist! Liam doesn't actually go to the bathroom, he goes to play a wolf puppet with glasses whose mouth hardly ever moves (I get the impression Liam is having to work very hard to stay up with the teleprompter). Wolfie tells us the story of Winter's Crest with more racing hot rods and Errevon the Rimelord vs. Santa than I think I remember from C1.

Post-Break Shenanigans! A gift-exchange game based on die rolls, apparently a combination of White Elephant and Dirty Santa, along with questions scattered about throughout.

Weva was created as an interesting mirror to a society that can speak with the dead and bring the dead back to life. She reminds Matt of the theater goth girls he knew in high school that used to ask him if he knew about rotten.com.

Orym has gotten glimpses of Percy & Vex in the past, and it was cool for him to be in the company of greatness.

Ashton is growing more comfortable with physical contact from the BHs the more he gets to know the BHs. Strangers cause worse pain.

Matt was very excited to get to play the Uk'otoa oneshot. The Earthquake spell at the temple really shook up his plans, ha ha ha.

For Laura, killing Delilah twice was beautiful. She was terrified to fight her at that level.

Laura keeps rolling the "steal a present" number and holds the entire stack in her arms like a child. It's hilarious.

Jester loves living at sea; all she wanted when she left home was to have an adventure, and this is a chance for her to get to destroy and create. She thinks she and the Traveler have become really good friends but she understands him better now; it's like knowing your parents after you've grown up, where you understand better where they've come from.

For Laura, seeing Vex in all her glory was fabulous. She thinks Matt well understood Vex's motivations and her greed/generosity.

Liam felt so low with Orym's death. "It was not the way I would have ever wanted his story to end." Seeing Will was beautiful.

Caleb went to the Soltryce Academy because it's better to keep your enemies close, and also Beau made him.

Final gift tally:

Taliesin: looseleaf tea, a ball of Band-Aids (ew!), a laser pen, and deer knuckle bones (fitting)

Matt: an Oculus Quest 2 (!) and staffer Jerry's stapler

Laura: a small digital camera that insta-prints photos, A BAG OF SAM'S BABY TEETH GOD WHY

Liam: a ream of printer paper, the original shellacked Tower of Inquiry (ha!), candles from Cantrip Candles, and duct tape & gaffer tape

(It should also be noted that I was tracking these in real time as they switched and stole from each other, and at one point Laura gave Liam the shellacked tower in exchange for another gift--only at that point the tower was actually TALIESIN'S and not hers to give, so clearly the whole thing is moot and ought to be redone)

Liam makes Laura draw one last time from the Tower due to her earlier truthlessness, hahaha. No topple, though this sucker is now precarious. Theme songs for characters? Imogen: Barracuda by Heart. Orym: Queen. Ashton: War Baby.

We close on a gripping monologue about the tragic ephemeral joy experienced by seasonal decorations from a set Santa statue in a pilgrim hat. Who's writing these??

And that's it! Merry Christmas, and is it Thursday yet?

[hawkepockets]

BG3 CHARACTER PAGE

Jove they/any 🌩️ blue dragonborn 🌩️ paladin 🌩️ guild artisan

🌩️ multiclass: bard

Jove’s Oath of Ancients is a sacred commitment to affirm life, foster joy, be excellent to each other, and PARTY ON, DUDES!! A literally sworn optimist, they can come across as risk-happy, blasé, even callous in their dismissal of danger and negativity, but it’s also easy to get swept up in their huge dragonborn muscles and +9 rizz modifier and believe them when they say it’ll all be okay.

They used to be a gifted artisan, but don’t talk about their career or how it ended. Now they’re a paladin errant, wielding their giant glaive and ferocious positivity against the agents of despair. After losing an eye, breaking their wrist and their oath, Jove’s optimism has grown back harder and more gnarled than before, and they tend to defer to their companions for major decisions, not trusting their own judgment anymore.

Romancing Shadowheart Lae’zel. Best friends with Gale. Healer tank.

My first solo playthrough PC, abandoned at Moonrise Towers (for now).

TAG: #oc: jove

Estis she/her 🌞 gold dwarf 🌞 dream guardian

Ritika Estis was the master metallurgist who taught Jove to work with molten materials, despite their misgivings about being a blue dragonborn without fire breath or resistance. She passed away some years ago in Baldur’s Gate, but Jove’s dream guardian takes her form—whether as a cheap ploy to gain Jove’s trust, or as a genuine echo of their old mentor, they can’t be sure.

Auntie she/her ◾️ githyanki ▪️wild magic barbarian◾️ The Dark Urge

▪️ multiclass: storm sorcerer

This gith knows nothing about her life before the nautiloid, but since Lae’zel addressed her (and mocked her) like an elder relative she answers to “Auntie.” Lonely, curious, reactive. Center of a Venn diagram between “cigarette mom” and “Frankenstein’s monster.” Looks and fights like a gith, but lacks any cultural context or instincts that would make her feel like one.

Romancing Gale & Minthara.

Second playthrough, the only one I’ve completed.

TAGS: #oc: auntie, #ellie’s fucked up playthrough

Deadeye & Singer she/her 🏹 human 🏹 rogue/ranger she/her 🪕 halfling 🪕 bard

Auntie’s 2 hirelings. Deadeye was a young hunter, blinded in an accident and then given her sight back by a True Soul… just so she could watch her entire village burn, then have—her killers thought—her eyes put out and closed forever. Singer was a halfling traveling apothecary, killed for refusing to tend to Absolutists and sing for them after the massacre.

Though both women’s presences are cold and diminished and they can only speak with Withers’s vocabulary, traces of their personality remain. Deadeye was playful once, and still has the light step, deft hand, and trace of a wicked smile to prove it. Astarion swears he’s heard her coo and giggle faintly while playing with Scratch at night, long after the party’s living members are asleep. Singer was stern, matronly, and humorless with others, her face only relaxing when she was absorbed in her herbcraft or music making. Auntie gifted her Lihala’s lute, though it hurts to see a bard outlined against the campfire again, quietly picking out the notes of “The Power,” just feet away from the shadow of Alfira’s bloodstain.

Auntie doesn’t know she is a Bhaalspawn, but she feels instinctively that it’s her duty to care for murdered bodies and souls. She knows the names these revanants bore in life (Maddala and Brenna), but doesn’t use them, out of respect for these women’s vengeful echoes being different from the women themselves, and she’s as protective of them as she is of her “real” companions.

Terpsichore 🐏 she/her 🐏 satyr 🐏 rogue

She sings! She dances! She rams you with her horns!

Like Shadowheart, Terpsichore is on a holy mission for her patron goddess, armed only with her wits, blades, and the memories that her enclave—her Selûnite enclave—considered necessary for her to complete the task she’s been set: a pilgrimage to Moonrise Towers to assassinate an agent of Shar.

One second, she was crossing the Tower’s threshold (or windowsill, in the adept rogue’s case)—the next that she knew, she was being sealed in a pod aboard the nautiloid for processing. Failed. Abandoned. Godless. For now. If she doesn’t salvage this.

Terpsichore was told she’d know her target on sight, but she can’t be sure it isn’t Shadowheart—after all, while wrestling for the chance to kill each other they saw flashes of their own memories in each other’s minds, and Terpsichore feels… a lot… when she lays eyes on this particular enemy. ;-)

Romance: 3 guesses

TAG: #oc: terpsichore

[ramblerogueblogs]

Also 10, 16, 31 and 52 for Sandra!!

YOU GOT IT!!! MISS SANDRA COMIN THROUGH!

10. If your character had time to pick up any artisan’s tools, game set, instrument, etc., what would it be?

Fun fact, Sandra already plays the saxophone literally because her Entertainer background gave her an instrument and I went "Yeah, that's funny, I assign you former band kid". BUT! If it were something new, I think she'd get a real kick out of the Jeweler's tools. She loves fashion, especially the glitzy kind, so I can see her making some really cool custom jewelry!

16. If your character wasn’t whatever class they are, what would they be instead?

Probably Bard! Sandra is currently a Cleric of Lastai, but she has a pretty high Charisma, and like I mentioned before, she already has an Entertainer background as well. I can see her being apart of the College of Glamour or College of Eloquence. She's very sociable, and well-spoken so I think those skills would translate. Most of her Lastai duties are preaching love, acceptance, hedonism, and just well... Being Very Loving we'll say hahaha, so Sandra aligns with a lot of the flirty bard stereotypes too.

31. What stereotypical group role does your character play in the party? (The Mom, the Mess, the Comic Relief, etc. Optionally: What role would your character play in the “Five Man Band” structure?)

I think Sandra is the Emotional Support character, if that's a trope? She's very quick to be there for her party and listen to her friends' problems because she wants to help. Plus her whole deal is embracing emotions and what not, so she's always down to give advice. Additionally, less of a trope and more of meme, Sandra is definitely the "I'm a healer, BUT..." meme because she's main healer in our party, and she also get's VERY easily gets pissed off at the villains in our campaign. She loves foregoing her Life Domain for a Hellish Rebuke hahaha

52. If your character was granted a single use of Wish, what would they use it for?

WHOA... So much power.... I don't think this is in the exact wording of the spell, but it does say you can barter with the DM, SO! At the beginning of our campaign, 4 heroes were murdered by the evil sorcerer causing mayhem in the town. Sandra and our party of misfits accidentally took their place in helping the town because the Real heroes were defeated. So she would use the Wish spell to bring them back. It's only been a week or two in in-game time so I might be able to swing it??? We've been talking with their ghosts a bit, and they're really nice and cool!! (And like half way through the campaign, we found out they were YOUNG adventurers, like in their early 20s, and my heart broke for them omg). So yeah, Sandra would save them if she could!!

[wisteria-lodge]

unBurnt lion primary (badger model) + badger secondary

Hello! It’s nice to meet you (and I hope I’m in the right place for this)! I’ve followed you for quite a long time and I really enjoy your thoughts. I was wondering if you could help me out with my primary? I’m fairly certain I’ve figured out my secondary (badger), but I’m struggling with my primary–it could be either badger or lion (both answers I’ve gotten), or maybe even a twist from left field (bird?).

All right, let’s sort you out :D

The only primary I think I certainly don’t have is Snake, though I think I wanted to be a Snake. Growing up, I was obsessed with the idea of having a best friend. When I finally got a best friend, we grew incredibly codependent, so much so that it was devastating when she broke up with me 

Hmmm. All things being equal, this sounds like a Badger primary. They’re probably the most in danger of going co-dependent. But young Snake is also possible - young Snakes tend to put a LOT of importance on best friends and first romantic partners, and I do think it’s interesting that the way you phrased it, you and your friend “broke up.” But, a Burned Lion latching onto an external source is also possible. 

(I couldn’t choose between her and the potential blowback of my community, who I thought wouldn’t support me, leaving me friendless where I was living. I made no choice. She left).

Oooh, that sounds pretty darn Badger. At very least, an intense Badger model. 

The only person I really trust fully anymore is my mom, but I recognize that she’s not always right, and I’ll argue against her when she’s not. 

Probably not a burned Idealist (at least not right now.)  

I think sometimes love, to me, is permission to be a lot more honest with people. 

First, that is an absolutely beautiful way to think about love. A very relatable way to think about love. But that focus on honesty and authenticity... does tend to be a Lion thing. 

I think I’m a badger primary because of patterns. When I moved as an adolescent, I felt completely unmoored, and I immediately tried to find a community to attach myself onto. But I don’t necessarily think I took my morality from the group of people I was with; rather, I tried to do things I thought would be best for the group, after understanding how it worked. 

That is the description of a Badger secondary, which we know you are.

There was an element of the group that desperately lacked, so I created a one-woman-stop where I essentially did four tasks at once so that we would have this strong structure that would benefit everyone. 

Yeah, you’re a LOUD Badger secondary. Badger secondaries are all about that sort of “The DnD party needs a healer, I guess I’m playing a cleric,” kind of mentality. 

My friends called me out for not delegating well, 

A common Badger secondary problem. We do tend to think “but what if we worked harder” :/

so I tried to fix it by creating a team (which felt strange. I love to work, but I would hate to devalue anyone by not accepting their help when offered). When the team’s work wasn’t very strong, I asked them to make it stronger. I had very strong feelings about the “right” and “wrong” way to do things, and about the kind of quality of work we needed to put out (which: was I taking this too seriously and potentially being hard on people who were helping me? Probably. It would have been different if we had been just messing around, but people were counting on us to do good work, and we had to make it count. Plus, I like doing work I’m proud of.) 

ugh, the CURSE of the group project. This is one of the reasons that I *do* think Badger secondaries often struggle as team *leaders.* I mean you can train yourself out of this mindset of course. But still. Annoying. (and the temptation to just do everyone else’s work is still there.) 

Now, in a new location in a new community, after hearing what hurts the group and the common problems are (and getting extremely frustrated) I decided to try and organize us so we can fix it. I hate complaining about something that could be fixed without trying to fix it 

I think whatever community/communities you’ve been part of have been extremely Badger. I want to say that this is a very Badger way of thinking about things - it’s pointless to talk about the problem unless you also have the solution.

and I’m tired of watching my friends get hurt. I try to join communities that agree with and support my morals, 

See, I’m really leaning more Lion primary for you. You’re using a lot of Badger language, but it seems a little more external and conscious, while when you talk about Lion... that’s just the way things are. Morals first, communities second, that’s a Lion way of thinking about it. With Badgers, the community becomes the morality. They have this way of picking up and carrying the communities they’re a part of with them. 

but I also very deeply believe that we can make things better in communities that are worth it. 

I would hope that any primary could/should be able to believe this. 

I feel like that sounds fairly lion, but sometimes I can’t tell where my ideals end and my communities begin, because so much of what I believe is based around the way people deserve to be treated. 

You almost certainly have Badger-flavored morals, and ALSO you’ve got that Badger secondary which is extremely concerned with things being done *fairly* and *right.*

I know that I tend to have an idea of certain codes people should follow and beliefs people should have. A lot of it I get from my parents; they taught me a lot about everyone’s value as people, about being kind to others, and about hard work. A lot of it I learned from the leftist internet in my teenage years. I learned during that period the downsides of “outsourcing” my moral code. 

Hmm. “Outsourcing” your moral code is an interesting way to put it, and honestly sounds much more like Burned Lion than anything else. I don’t think any other primary would put it quite that way. I wonder if I was right with my first guess, and you *were* burned when you were younger. 

While the opinions I was expressing were ones the people around me shared, and I still believe in a lot of what was said, I don’t think the way in which I went about those movements was always empathetic. 

While this could be a few different things depending on the circumstances, I relate HARD to that Lion Badger combination of “I don’t regret what was said; I regret the specific way I said it.” 

I do believe that there is no hierarchy of humans and that we’re all in this together, but I also know that I’m inherently pretty judgemental (as much as I try to appear like I’m not). When someone does something I think is really rude, or expresses a belief I have problems with (nothing big, but maybe something small), I don’t share with them as much, and we become less close. They still deserve fundamental human respect, but I trust them less.

Yeah. You’re an idealist. You’re a Lion. No wonder this was so relatable, we house match. 

I know this got fairly long winded and I’m sorry; I tried to edit it down. I hope you’re having a lovely day! Thank you so much!

You are very welcome, and I thought this was quite short and to the point. 

[rumiknight]

My dnd character died last night. My second character to die since I started playing years ago (the first died in session two, so that doesn’t count much). She was the optimistic mom friend (& only healer) that healed by giving hugs. Here's what I imagined she looked like with her final words "It's not your fault.”

The specific nature of her death will haunt one of the PCs (& an NPC). She was one of the last to escape a powerful hag that was tearing through the party. I made her last words the same as the ones a cursed doppelganger/doll said before said PC had to kill in order to proceed with a puzzle. It was a whole ordeal, and it all happened on the same day. 

[wartorns]

--— 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐆𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐆𝐎𝐘𝐋𝐄  : introduction. 

BASICS

character name 　:　gregory  goyle age + birthday + zodiac 　:　 twenty - four ,  nov 6 , scorpio gender + pronouns 　:　 cismale + he / him sexual orientation 　:　 pansexual traits: loyal,  ignorant,  temperamental,  observant specialization 　:　 magical  law  ( hit wizard )  year 　:　 fourth ( re-taking )  house 　:　 slytherin extracurricular activities 　:　 quidditch (slytherin beater) , exploding  snaps  extreme , competitive  dueling,  broom  racing pets / familiars 　:　 owl — named karl, after the beater for falmouth falcons blood status 　:　 pureblood wand 　:　 11’ , chestnut, dragon heartstring, stiff patronus (if applicable) 　:　 unable to cast boggart 　:　 his father

ABOUT

 tw parental death :  there were complications during birth - and gregory goyle ended up being born into a world without his mom. his father wasn’t a warm or thoughtful wizard before and he certainly wasn’t after. 

it doesn’t excuse how goyle turned into an angry kid, always looking for someone to pass it onto like he had been taught, but it does give a background. his father is very pro-pureblood movement, always wanted gregory to impress the sacred 28 whenever they were invited around. there was a certain level of performance done when the two of them would interact in public, but it was still noticeable 

in school, his bad grades are primarily because he finds himself getting into trouble too much, doesn’t apply himself on his homework. it continues on like that until he’s genuinely behind his peers, saying or doing dumb things that has him as the butt of the joke. depending on his mood, he’ll let it slide. 

he finds friends that he actually enjoys, that treat him better than his family does, and pledges his loyalty to them pretty early on. he’ll do anything to protect them. 

the one thing he actually finds himself doing well at is dueling - he’s a bit slow to respond at first, and can’t really think ahead - but his spells have power, have force, and he finds himself as a worthy opponent. 

plot twist time ! the summer before his first attempt at fourth year, gregory is bitten by a werewolf. the details are blurry to him - he was out, close to pubs that the students would often frequent. he thinks there might’ve been a fight - but there often is. and then he’s on the ground and can’t remember what happened. 

a healer is called, he’s taken to saint mungos, and the headmaster and his father are called. it doesn’t go well with his father - his blood is sullied, he’s a monster. the headmaster assures him that they will have resources for him when he gets to school and that they will keep it a secret. 

fourth year is a rough year ! he hates himself ! is terrified of the full moon ! keeps this secret to himself ! he’s failed a class or two before, barely passed many, but it’s the first time he completely fails the year. 

last summer he barely goes home - he crashes with friends, crashes in hotels - anything to avoid his father and their (small) manor. 

fourth year part two ! this year ! he’s back, still hating himself and others rip, but he’s a little better ! he’s a bit given up which makes him a bit more reckless but ! who knows ! 

WANTED CONNECTIONS 

friends :  people he is ride or die for (most likely the slytherin pals), unlikely friends, friends that are only friends in certain situations but pretend they’re not, former friends, ex friends, etc ! drinking/party buddies ! someone who knows that he’s a werewolf ( this will start as pretty limited)

enemies  :  greg is an idiot ! and can get angry ! give him people that he’s always disliked for whatever reason or no reason at all ! maybe throw in an enemies with benefits ! or enemies to lovers ! who knows ! 

exes  :  not gonna lie bestie greg was probs not a great bf ! if they actually dated ! you want a toxic ex? a situationship? etc ? you let me know 

other  :  tutors to help him not flunk this year again, someone who is Suspicious of greg, anything ur lil beautiful mind can think of ! 

[springvaletales]

((We've finally gotten to session 67-though-technically-it-might-be-session-70!!!))

The plans offered by the captains are:

Xif & Cuirass: No detection stealth run Ulfdwaa: Stealth in, start blasting Pepperbox: Start blasting.

“I put out a vote for stripper pirates out of loot boxes.”

Captain Pepperbox has been described as a “six armed Warforged with Pixar Mom Hips”.

She also keeps flirting with Captain Cuirass, the Awakened Animated Armor. He is either incredibly flustered or incredibly uncomfortable.

Bagelby’s Player: “If they put Bagel in the loot, he MAY not be able to control himself.”

The compromise offered up includes a combination of the three ideas, with some of the party disguising themselves as pirates and some hiding in the crates to be smuggled into the fortress.

Disguised as Pirates:

Sir Carl Asahi Haaruma

Disguised as Lootboxes:

Bagelby Chess Thiori Ena

Staying behind to keep the ships ready:

Bashur (too big & recognizable for either disguise) Naoka (I can’t give them a healer to date I’ve barely even managed to hurt them) Michael (for his own safety) Vashael (to make sure Michael actually stays back)

Chess is three feet tall, and thus, would be a perfect fit into a number of the pirates’ stolen boxes of lute.

Chess does not want to be put into a box, and thus have his duke, his brother, Sir Carl, out of his line of sight.

Me: “Sir Carl and Chess are still having the box argument.”

Only three of the party rolled high enough on the perception check to notice that they don’t feel tired or hungry, even though they’re pretty sure it’s been HOURS since they all met up on this hidden island.

When told (above the board) that Vashael wasn’t going with the party bc I couldn’t arm them with a whole DRAGON and not because his combat rolls are, historically, terrible, Ena began to taunt him In Character for his historically terrible combat rolls.

He argued back that his terrible performance was because he’d been trying to prevent property damage, and they began fighting.

Asahi paused the plan discussion to point out the ‘weird magic feeling’ she had out of concern for a threat, and Captain Xif started to explain the intricacies of the time loop ‘dome’ only to be interrupted by Captain Pepperbox describing the boundary space between ‘normal’ time and ‘looping’ time as “fucky”.

This small island is the only one that sits squarely in the middle of the boundary space, and thus, time neither loops nor moves forward.

Me: “Ena and Vashael are still having the property damage argument.”

Michael is trying to separate his fiance and his sister by getting in between them. He is shorter than both and it is Not Working.

“We’ve got two Fey creatures here - I think we’ll be okay.”

Thiori stated his desire to “solid snake” this shit, and chose a box to hide in that was, objectively, far too small. 

He stabbed two eye holes into the wood to be able to see and basically just put this box on his head. I had him roll for intimidation instead of stealth, and the pirates are all too afraid to tell this 8ft tall, 4 armed half-crab man that he isn’t completely invisible.

Ena found herself a jeweled coffin and climbed inside. The coffin was not quite empty, and she found a skull rattling around at the bottom. His name is now ‘Yorrik’ and he is her friend.

Sir Carl had to sit on the box Chess was hidden in to keep it shut until it was offloaded from the ship.

Chess banged on the lid and argued his case for NOT being inside the box all the way back to the dock on the main island.

The party managed to successfully wear their pirate disguises and get smuggled into the abandoned mine that serves as a delivery dock for the Pirate King’s fortress - the only slip up was when the Yuan Ti guard tried to hit on Haaruma, who is a happily married lesbian and would absoLUTELY torch the mission

Captain Pepperbox misunderstood what the “signal” to attack was, and killed the Yuan Ti guard with a bullet to the back of the skull when all Asahi did was sneeze.

Captain Pepperbox, confused: “Oh, was that not the signal? Bolts…”

Captain Pepperbox, looking down at the dead guard: “Ah, no great loss. He was an asshole, anyway.”

Bagelby and Ena chose to stay safely hidden away until the ACTUAL signal was given. Chess clawed his way out of the chest as soon as he heard the gunshot.

Xif and Cuirass stayed below with their pirate crews to help turn away any forces that came to investigate the sudden gunshot, and Pepperbox and her crew rode up the cargo lift with the party.

Well, the party and crew rode up. Pepperbox decided she didn’t want to be left behind, unfolded her Pixar Mom Thighs into a series of stabby cables, spider climbed her way up the wall and jumped onto the lift herself.

Due to a series of poor rolls on the pirate side, the two minor bosses and their minions waiting for the party when the cargo lift reached the next floor saw Pepperbox and immediately assumed that the gunshot had been ‘another’ misfire. Apparently that’s a common problem with her.

The bosses - a black and green Dragonborn couple - also assumed that Thiori (who had dealt himself 4 points of damage to activate his lightning on the way up) had been startled by the sudden misfire, and berated Pepperbox for ‘not warning the newbies’.

Also the Yuan Ti guard was somehow the black Dragonborn’s great nephew, and at MOST he’s annoyed that he now has to explain to his aunt that the guy is dead.

The room the party is now in is a sorting room, where the pirates empty out their crate contents and sort through everything to find the most valuable items for ransom, resale, scalping, etc.

I can’t let the party stealth their way through this whole fortress when I feel bad for not giving them combat for months, so Pepperbox gave Asahi a five second warning and directions to the stairs before opening fire with all six gun arms.

She was aiming mostly for the walls/ceiling/floor/table contents to cause chaos, but two unfortunate pirates still got shot.

Bagelby tried to burst dramatically out of his box, but didn’t quite make it, and only managed to throw off the lid and slam his legs through the bottom of the box.

Ena opened her coffin to ‘peek out’ with ‘Yorrik’, but refused to climb out so Asahi and Haaruma had to pick up the coffin and carry it as the party made a break for a set of stairs to the next floor up on the other side of the room.

At the entrance of the stairway, however, Lex stopped and turned around; she told the party to go on without her, and that she’d catch up later, and then she drew her Rod of Guffaw, shifted it into a warhammer form, and ran back to support Captain Pepperbox to the tune of her divine weapon’s goatly scream.

Her narrative successes will, unfortunately, have to happen offscreen for the sake of keeping the IRL action moving forward at a good pace, but only because I feel like we’re all about done with the Pirate Island arc and we’re SO close to the finish line we just need to get there.

It’ll all be written out though - THAT I can promise!

Bagelby is still wearing his box like a pair of wooden pants, Thiori’s box with eye holes is still over his head, and Ena may or may not be getting dragged around by Haaruma and Asahi in her jeweled coffin hideout.

Bagelby, holding up his box pants: “I smell something weird over here!”

He did not find the source of the weird magic smell. But he did find a headless corpse that had seemingly fallen through three floors!

Actually, Thiori found the corpse. Bagelby rolled too low on perception and almost walked right over it.

Bagelby’s Player: “What would I roll if I was trying to steal the death from the corpse?”

Me: “I would say ‘arcana’, since you are trying to steal another concept.”

Bagelby successfully stole the death from the corpse. It was silver, cold, kind of wiggly, and made his hand shake uncontrollably.

He stuffed it into one of Asahi’s many, many available glass vessels, and detailed a plan to reverse-pickpocket the jar into the Pirate King’s ‘soul pocket’ to kill him without having to actually fight.

I don’t know what a ‘soul pocket’ is and at this point I’m too afraid to ask.

Ena immediately complained that he should have just waited and stolen the ‘life’ from the Pirate King instead if he was going to steal a concept.

She then added that he could have used that ‘life’ on her new friend, ‘Yorrik’, the skull that was left in the jeweled coffin she chose to be smuggled into the fortress inside.

If she keeps this up, I’ll make ‘Yorrik’ important to the plot and that’s a Threat.

At Bagelby and Asahi’s insistence, Thiori threw Bagelby up through the holes in the floor…aaaand he threw too hard and fastball special-ed Bagelby straight up through the intact floor three levels above.

Bagelby sacrificed his box pants to only take 10 points of damage instead of 30. This boy only has 40 hp.

He then realized that Thiori couldn’t throw himself up three floors, so he needed some rope that everyone could use to climb….but after all but emptying out his slime pocket, he found that he had a geode from Skaadi’s dream realm, six kazoos, a toothbrush, a crochet hook, an unused meet-and-greet pass for Salancian hero, Sebastian Widnerwisp…and no rope.

Asahi took the rope out of her own bag and had Thiori throw it up to Bagelby, but now the problem is he can’t remember how to tie a knot.

Luckily, Maritza can! Or…she knows how to get it done?

Bagelby’s pet baby Mimic, Maritza, crawled out of the slime pocket to grab the rope and drag the end back inside. The bag wiggled around for a few seconds, and then Maritza reappeared, having seemingly anchored the rope to something very solid within the slime pocket.

Ena’s Player: “Wait WAIT! Is the library rat still in there?!”

The party: “THE PIRATE RAT!”

Me: “OH yeah, it’s still in there.”

Bagelby’s Player: “It’s been two and a half YEARS-”

The party chose not to question the slime pocket, and climbed the rope to join Bagelby on the fortresses’ seemingly abandoned third floor.

Once the party was back together again on the third floor, Maritza hopped back into the slime pocket, and something else in the slime pocket started pulling in the rope.

Sir Carl to Chess: “If he offers you anything out of that pocket, do NOT take it.”

Chess, horrified, as the slime pocket slurps rope like spaghetti: “Yes, my duke.”

We left off there so everyone could sleep and be ready for work tomorrow, and we’ll be back next week to (hopefully) finish off Pirate Island!

[restless-soulz]

original story ideas I’ll probably never write pt 6??

Three sisters and their mother live on a farm at the base of the mountains. the oldest tells most of the story, about their mother and the other sisters. the mother teaches the oldest how to collect, measure and cut the thread to sell or make into stuff. the mother gets weaker but still has a baby girl, who the oldest teaches to collect and measure, but cutting is her job, and another baby girl who they teach to collect. weaving is for all three, and their mother dies shortly after having the last baby. they are named the kindlies, for their friendly personalities, and they run through the greek myths. tbc.. they become the trios of ancient greece, the gorgons the fates the seasons. Astera - Stheno then Aglaia, Basiane - Euryale then Thalia,  Periboea - medusa then Euphrosyne, 

NEW STORY:

story about an entire family being isekaid, and separated when they're in the new world. the medieval setting feels old, possibly it to start with typical tropes but move past them, like the medieval thing is only in the wilderness but there are actually cities with machines and fast moving carriages, and instead of party or guild, it's a volunteer organizations with pat from the government or whoever is paying for the services and it's called teaming up or working.

i also don't like using cheats unless they make sense why for myself, for the rest of my family sure. there also won't be status screens i think, just skills and proficiency meters, and maybe a health and mana bar. mom and dad will be 40, i will be 17, k is 15, s is 14, d is 12, p is 11, z is 10. release everyone's perspective except mom and dads as separate books. mad will be one book with flipping perspectives.  

    ◦    dad will be a necromancer/healer, mom will be a witch who specializes in potions/cooking/spells and music magic, but can also throw a mean punch, they both fight well, dad with a sword and mom with a staff. They also get typical anime bodies and get to go through some body dysphoria and age dysphoria. 

    ◦    I'm the one that probably goes through the most trauma, and i also go through some dysphoria because possibly not human at first (small fish, but makes a deal with a sea witch ariel style to get a chance to get a walking body, cursed me anyway after i got the special treasure, but the spell hadn't fused my legs together so i took a small knife and cut the skin that few until only my legs stxayed with a few scales and stuff) but i actually get a skill that lets my body become what it actually is and use it, but the witches curse is still on me, making it hard to walk like i would probably be okay i think i'm gonna add in wings. but i'm a little too trusting but also have a lot of paranoia, have weird friends and average about almost everything. my thing would be that "i'm not strong or fast or really smart but i am creative and i can listen and be kind" very autistic coded, possible love interests? and a cheat, but also a bleeding heart. so reluctant op hero but beloved by the people, doesn't know if we should stay or go but wants to live normally and feels comfortable here.                               

 my curse would be because i'm naturally self isolating, my memories would fade with the loss of social and physical contact, within hours or days, and starts with faces and short term to not recognizing a fundamental part of my personality like losing anxiety and becoming more confident but also losing a part of myself. called Curse of the River Lethe

    ◦    K would be a typical hero protagonist that seems very op. she'd be super fast and pretty strong, i think she'd be good with both a sword and spear, probably take a position as a knight to the prince, to impress him? she'd go up the ranks by proving herself on missions and earning new skills a lot. i think the prince would be in love with me actually, but she doesn't know who i am yet (duh anime body change). and she's eventually promoted to captain of the guard but still wants to rise to hero because she. relieves she's one and keeps telling people that. make her pride bite her in the butt when something attacks and she can't make herself move. she also brings in the most of the tech from another world trope. wants to prove herself but also wants to go back home. her curse would be how her physical abilities dependent on how other people thought of her as a person, negative traits would sap her and positive traits would replenish, so she would have to be less argumentative and prideful and actually be nice to us also not annoying TikTok stuff. Called Downfall of Icarus

    ◦    S would be the awkward, cautious hero that sticks out no matter what. she does seemingly simple solutions to overly complicated problems that impress everybody, always hides her face out of embarrassment but it intimidates everybody. just wants to go home. the curse would be the more she tries to lie, the worse her appearance gets, even if she's wearing the latest fashion or proud of her outfit. can never tell a lie consciously. called  sometijng cool here

    ◦    D would be shōnen protagonist with never ending power ups because of "training". will be op and have cheat ability, just make him as a typical protagonist as i can and see how many that reels in before making him more realistic. wants to stay. curse is 

    ◦    P would be a magical girl in the city, a poor orphan found on the side of a road with a wand in her hand. she's foreign and attracts all sorts of people because she's cute, air headed and energetic, easily distracted but very complimentary. "guardian of (fun? sweets? princess?) everyone has a crush on her. wants to find mom and dad and stay here with all her new friends.

    ◦    Z would be more of a slice of life than typical fighting protagonist. like school babysitters or studio ghibli. some adventures but not life threatening. 

each will have the same name published under and i will try my absolute best to try and make everything seem separated, and if people start piecing it together i'll drop the reveal crossover for each one and they'll start merging into one series until it ends in one book.

nature names like mom-hazel, S-olive, kami-willow, Z-clover, P-rose, ME-juniper, D-ceder, dad-alder last name moore.

NEW STORY:

a demon boy falls out of a closet and falls onto a girl with insomnias bed. no matter how hard he tries, he can't seem to scare her, none of the blood and gore tricks work, until he sneaks up on her, but that's not for a while. she reassured him he's still doing pretty good, but then she tells him that she watches all these crime stuff and she's a writer, so these types of things barely faze her. so it's slow burn idiots to lovers, they watch scary movies together and he's appalled she sometimes gets scared but usually not, just jump scares. anyway, he goes to school with her and she comes to the monster realm, and they fall in love.

NEW STORY:

there's this four story mall that goes underground and it's on a college campus off of a multibillionaire property's. I'm the daughter of the multibillionair, the house is huge and has different themes across the house and there are multiple ways to get inside. I get a dog but i can't have it inside except for my section of the house and outside.

it's an apocalypse and there's a factory underneath the mall making these creature dark things that my parents run or backed up the owners. they made like shadow dragons and other shadow animals. there's a giant amusement park on the property that has a basement for the factory and the servants kids have used it before there was a worldwide black out of electricity when the shadow monsters attacked. there's this roller coaster things that goes to the basement but the kids blocked the way so they only go not even half way down but still have fun. there's giant line for the cafeteria food but.

when i find a way inside there's nothing there at all. my dog is a tracker and sense the shadow monsters and gives us plenty of warning when something's there. there's an attack or something and the servants kids need shelter and there's this cove right next to the water by the horses who seem excited to greet me that goes directly into my house without even a door like cave floor to tile.

they're multi billionaires they can handle a little dirt. they cannot. all the adults are hiding in the mansion while i'm trying to figure how to get everything back to normal. i think i'm adopted. it's called mind benders. the tech that the billionaires own is like vr tech but bill ciphery dream demon way. like it make youre dreams into code and put you back into the dream to better experience the innermost thoughts and desires of your heart. 

 the shadow monsters are either peoples nightmares no that's different in exchange for the power to bring dreams to life using the tech as a base the shadow monsters are made and destroy the world along the way because people don't stop using it. in the empty cafeteria room, there's one thing in it. the drawing box where they pulled my adopted name out. i walk forward to open it and every single piece of paper is my name. how should i be able to stop the monsters?

the library idea where book keepers have reality magic with their books and words. i have natural ability for it and sometimes don't need a conduit of a book to bring something to life. my dog is actually a product of my powers. that's why they adopted me because things were already out of control and they wanted to see if my ability was genetic or somehow corral the monsters and stop. they have a live feed room about the the monsters are destroying places around the world.

NEW STORY:

Ms.Lanchems school for Young Ladies of Humility. Basically a school for learning how to be a maid/lady in waiting. they all learn the same thing but the Ladies focus more on one person to help and maids focus on multiple people at once. It teaches them how to teach their charges, do their jobs to look like they aren't messing up, pulling strings behind the scenes, learning codes.

Evelyn, Evie, is the firstborn of her father helping to raise her younger brother Stephen, Fen. Mixed race siblings, she looks like her mother brown hair, blue eyes, looks white, while Fen looks like their dad dark in every way. Their mom feared for their safety when they began to rebel against what she teaching in schools and started to threaten her. She was executed publically by radical rebels, and the king came down hard on them for killing her when he came back from military expansions. She hid the kids well.

There was a statue put up for her sacrifice because as soon as her death hit, all of her teachings had come to fruition and the economy boomed, literacy flourished and people realized their mistake. They didn't find Evie or Fen until a group of soldiers came across two children living on the outskirts of a school village, Evie in her final year of Ms.Lanchems and Fen in his 1st year of Magic Scholar training. They survived by hunting and trading furs, food, favors, and other goods. In the meantime, their father the king remarried and but had no heirs so the nobles were having the king foster their children in hopes of catching his eye to name them the heir, and he did name a family, Rostonair Siblings to be the best contenders for the crown with their many accomplishments. 

They bring Evie and Fen back to the palace, and it creates a divide. The female  ruler is in charge of in kingdom affairs and the male ruler is in charge of out kingdom affairs. Who would be named heir? The blood relatives or the children who've worked for years to be worthy of getting the position. The queen sets up a challenge, to divide the kingdom into half, have one pair of siblings each rule a half together to see how they do it. But give them a few years because they're so young. At the time of finding them, they were like, 15 and 11 The controversy starts at when Evie and Ares Rostonair are 21 and Fen and Hestia are 18. 

The story starts when their mother gives them to the Lanchem Orphanage. "Take care of each other and always raise your head and smile even when it's hard." It's hard at first, the other children berate them for being abandoned by their own mother. It's gets better when Evie can leave to go to school and Fen learns to go to the library by himself. Evie has a bad first day, ending with getting lost in the woods in the rain chasing Fen.

She finds a small cat (that turns into a dragon) that's hurt and finds a boy in the woods. He's the heir of Mountain King. He offers to lead her out of the woods if she tells him stuff about her. She tells him she can't because she's looking for her brother too. The cat backs her up and they go looking for Fen together. They have a bit of fun racing in the rain until Evie turns so sharply when Fen yells for her. Valley leads them out of the forest and tells Evie to come again he had fun playing with her, and it would be easy to find her again because she was always leaking magic all over the place.

Over the next few visits, she gets lessons on how to contain her excess magic and draw it from her surrounding instead, making her oceans of magic absurdly deep and controlled. Valleys people have a spiritual connection to the The Guardians, animal gods that protect the wild by giving the leaders special abilities to be Divine Beasts and change form. Valley chooses to be a leopard most of the time but can change size to be small. Lanchems teaches her about poisons, waltzes, ettiquite, strategies. She's done at 15 which is when Valley warns her that people have been following her. The people are guards who take her after her graduating class ceremony to the heart of the kingdom, about a week. They present her and Fen to the king who they recognize and he sees them and is like. Those. Those my kids. The queen is nice enough. Lots of tears.

But before they can be recognized, he gives them a lower palace to live in, which some think is shameful. He tries to give them maids and butlers but Evie refuses because she's been running the orphanage while in Lanchems and wants to get a head start on what she thinks will be a career as a lady in waiting. He gives her a a friend tho, Mara who was her friend at Lanchems. and Fen has a boy, Ryder, who he just met.  At her 16th birthday, they are presented to the kingdom as the royal prince and princess but not heirs.

They meet the other foster kids and the Rodonairs. Hestia initially has a crush on Fen. They subtly backhand them with noble language which Evie knows because Lanchems and Fen knows because Evie knows. And then Valley crashes the party as a leopard. He says the Mountain King sent him to be fostered at the castle. The family agrees and Evie jumps to hug him, he returns it.

Valley suggests playing a game, Evie and Fen immediately start pulling off their extra layers while the others watch in horror. "Haven't you ever played? You can't win with all those layers and he can start the game at any moment." Ready Go! They take off like rockets into the woods of the guardians and disappear while the other nobles struggle to keep up. Valley catches everyone until it's just Evie left and he pounces on her "Caught you~" Forward to moments of growing up and people realizing they’re really ducking cool 

Anyway, they're 21 and the queen suggests the separate ruling kingdoms without interference from them. Evie is in a courting relationship with a boy who berates her but she's convincing herself she likes him.

The challenge is just what Valley needs to separate them and get her to see how strong she is for herself. At first, it's a bit of a disaster for both sides. Fen and Ares are different people and so are Hestia and Evie. Evie and Fen discuss and decide that it's better if they switch roles every once in a while because they are very similar thinking and can fill in each other's weaknesses. Ares and Hestia tho, they argue a bit and decide and even more separated in and outer. Valley only really supports Even kingdom (Evie and Fen) There's a voting and Valley puts his vote first on Evie and Fen, and most everyone follows suit

[stirdrawsandreblaws]

Ten Characters, Ten Fandoms

i got tagged by @apathetic-theme-song

Shion - King of Fighters

Sabrina/Natsume - Pokemon

Duo Maxwell - Gundam Wing

Makoto/Lita Kino - Sailor Moon

Cho Hakkai - Saiyuki

Yuuko Ichihara - xxxHolic

Count D - Pet Shop of Horrors

Vincent Valentine - Final Fantasy VII

Kimimaro - Naruto

Alphys - Undertale

i can never think of anyone to tag but if you wanna do this because you saw me do it, feel free to @ me and make me look at your list :3

also this isn't required but bc i love them i put images and brief descriptions of all of these characters under the cut

Shion, my beloved; the androgynous sub-boss of King of Fighters XI, he uses multiple weapons including a rope-dart, chinese spear, meteor hammer, and can punch air so hard it turns into a projectile. he often quotes Sun Tzu's Art of War, knows tons about cooking, and loves eating delicacies. currently wandering some kind of weird extradimensional space after his boss tried to kill him (he got revenge tho >:3 he can have little a murder, as a treat.)

Sabrina/Natsume (left) in the Pokemon anime had psychic powers so strong she splintered her personality into a grown-up half and a child half, both of which were able to exercise their own wills independently (the latter via a doll). she was scary, but eventually became more lighthearted and rejoined her split halves thanks to a goofy Haunter.

Duo Maxwell (center) is many things: orphan, gifted mechanic, and self-proclaimed God of Death--which is why he's the pilot of the Deathscythe, a grim-reaper-esque mecha. he witnessed a lot of death early in life, to the point that even his first and last names connect him to people close to him who died

Makoto/Lita Kino (right) is Sailor Jupiter; she's strong, tall, tomboyish, and self-sufficient after the loss of her parents. Her lightning attacks are powerful, but her sense of justice is even more so. She has a cute side, too, and gets flustered when someone calls her feminine. >:3

Cho Hakkai (left), problematic fave #1. the mom friend, and a stepford smiler who took a correspondence course in lockpicking, he's atoning for incest and mass-murder by....doing more mass-murder, but the gods told him it was cool this time. to be fair, he's mostly a healer now, as well as the party's designated driver (his dragon, named Jeep, turns into a Jeep).

Yuuko Ichihara (right) is a space-time witch who grants wishes. i want to say more but instead i'll just plead with you to read the xxxHolic manga (and read/watch Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- for the full experience, since they have some story linkage).

Count D gets two images for a little gallery because look at this freak. gorgeous. the way they move in the OVA is fantastic. genderless sugar-addicted ecoterrorist; what's not to love??

Vincent Valentine (left) is a gunslinger who can transform into a fanged monster and chooses to sleep off his depression in a coffin, but he's not a vampire. that's just how it is sometimes. he even joins the hero party without doing anything to fix his bed hair.

Kimimaro (center) has a bloodline ability that lets him utilize his bones as weapons. As a child, he was kept in a cage and only released for combat, despite his gentle nature. Orochimaru (the series' first main antagonist) found him after his clan was wiped out, and took him in; being valued by Orochimaru gave him purpose, and he fights like a zealot as a result... (;A;)

Alphys (right) is a cringefail otaku lesbian lizard who, nevertheless, is a brilliant scientist. she created Mettaton's mechanical body, after all. we don't need to talk about her other works. :) really. :) :) :)