#spell casters are cool I guess but I don’t have any use for a lot of the spells

[neon-danger]

Can't forget being scared of werewolves, unless they're not, then they stop to cheer and clap every time they see one. From one extreme to another. Don't get me wrong I still love them but I just call them dumb puppies for how impotent their intimidation is lmao. Seriously vampires are like, weird. I also learned that they can't die of thirst in this game?? They sure can in 3, I had it happen a lot. But when I had Alex and Jack as vampires, it changed very little aside from them doing bad in the sun, terrible for Alex's occupation at home. I watched them seemingly attempt to stave off thirst by drinking alcohol, which does absolutely nothing for them, before eventually picking a target to drink from. It didn't matter if no one was around, they wouldn't starve or anything. I figured it was dumb luck but NOPE, they're more likely to die in the fucking sun than by not drinking blood. Can't die of dehydration as mermaid either unlike in 3, which is perhaps for the best as I swear they both lose hydration fucking constantly and don't like to shower or bath unless it's to splash around, and roaming around Oasis Springs for fucking rocks is making Jack perpetually smell like a fish market. I so often forget Aliens are even a thing as they're so, nothing, they don't even utilize their few unique abilities much, unless it's memory wipes. Oh boy, fun. Most fun I get from all occults is making their designs in CAS lmao. I kind of regret curing Alex and Jack of lycanthropy as I liked how I designed their werewolf forms. Oh well, there's always another time. They'll still just kind of be weird hyper puppies tho. I don't know my point here. I like occults a lot, but I rely a lot on mods to make them more interested and just their design philosophies. I probably actually like Spellcasters the most despite not looking different, just because magic is fun and they're not a liability or anything and hybridize well with other occults without really any issue due to not having alt forms. Tho the ones who teleport tend to piss me off just as I can't keep track of where they are.

Pretty sure the only reason vampires can die at all is if their magic source or life source or whatever runs out

The big purple bar at the top of their needs list

I often cheat the need higher when I notice them out in the sun

[grailfinders]

Grailfinders #327: Izumo no Okuni

merry nobumas, everyone! sadly, this event doesn’t have any new nobus, but at least it gives us cool builds like Izumo no Okuni! first we make the puppet with some Creation Bard levels, then we fuck demons up with the puppet with some Watcher Paladin levels.

check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

next up: our good personal friend Ranmaru

EDIT: huh, okay, Izumo does use her own sword. okay then, ignore most of the negatives then. sorry about that, this is one of the perils of trying to get stuff out the second the story drops

Ancestry & Background

Okuni is a Human, but she also has a puppet- to make that, we’ll start by giving her a Mark of Making, giving her +2 Intelligence and +1 Charisma. this gives her an Artisan’s Intuition for an additional d4 added to all arcana checks and anything involving artisan’s tools, which covers both halves of your expertise! we also grab a free proficiency with woodworking tools so you can get started on building your puppet.

while you’re working, you already start off as a Spellsmith, giving you the Mending cantrip for free redos and you can cast Magic Weapon once a day, but it’s both spell-slot- and concentration-free. speaking of spells, your Spells of the Mark add some options to your spell lists- the full list of spells you can use is in the character sheet, but if you see us take a spell that isn’t on the bard list, that’s why.

you’re a shrine maiden, that’s an Acolyte, so you have proficiency in Insight and Religion as well.

Ability Scores

Charisma is your highest score, as you could probably guess from being a bard. you dance, you hit people with puppets, both of those are charisma. somehow. after that, Dexterity. it’s kind of weird dexterity doesn’t affect dancing, now that I think about it, but you’re a caster so you don’t wear plate mail. that being said we do need to make Strength higher than I’d like, but you’ll have to carry your puppet around most of the time, so it’s kind of a workout, I guess. Constitution is above average because it would suck to die before you even get a chance to use the puppet at all, so you’ll have to live for five levels without it. that means your Wisdom is lower than I’d like and we have to dump Intelligence pretty harshly. it’s far from ideal, but we only need those for skills and saves. thankfully, being a bard and a paladin both help a lot towards making up for these shortfalls, eventually.

Class Levels

1. Bard 1: starting off as a bard gives you proficiency in Dexterity, and Charisma saves, as well as three skills off the bard skill list, a.k.a. the entire skill list. we’ll use Performance to puppet our boy around, with Nature and Arcana to build him in the first place. you’ve got five levels, best of luck.

while you’re whittling, we can also bring up your Bardic Inspiration- you’ve got a couple d6s you can throw at a friend as a bonus action, and then they can use ‘em to improve an attack roll, save, or skill check in the next minute. you get those back on long rests.

also on the same time frame are your spell slots, which you use to cast Spells. Okuni’s a caster, so you can be a bit more liberal with her spell list than you are with most characters- most of the spells on the character sheet are my personal recommendations, or just ones I thought would be useful. if they’re vital for the build, I’ll bring them up here as they’re added. there aren’t any of those this level, but I do recommend picking up something like Identify- Okuni’s bio states multiple times how hip and with it she is, so she knows what’s going on a lot of the time.

2. Bard 2: second level bards are Jacks of all Trades, adding half their proficiency to any skill check they make that doesn’t add it, including your initiative check! you also learn a Song of Rest, adding a d6 to the healing your party does over short rests. standard issue, we’ve all seen it by now.

also, your bardic inspiration becomes Magical Inspiration, so now someone holding onto it can add their d6 to the damage or healing of a spell!

3. Bard 3: but I know that’s not enough uses for your inspiration, right? thankfully creation bards have another addition to it, the Mote of Potential. now when your allies use their inspiration on one of the three original effects, they get a bonus to boot! on a check, they can roll their inspiration twice and pick the higher number. on an attack roll, the die also deals whatever it rolled as damage to nearby enemies, and on a save they gain their roll in temporary hp! this practically turns your inspiration into a spell in its own right!

making your puppet also got… slightly easier, as you can now put on a Performance of Creation, creating any medium or smaller non-magical item as an action, with the only other limitation being your imagination, and your wallet. you can only create items with this feature that are worth 20 times your bard level or less- even a normal-sized puppet is worth 100g, so this hasn’t saved us too much time. it also only lasts a few hours, so you’ll still have to find a more permanent solution anyways. still, while it’s not a cure-all for our lack of puppetry, it does have a million and one uses besides! this recharges on long rests, or you can use a second level spell slot to use it again- just know that you can only have one summoned item at a time.

speaking of second level spells, Borrowed Knowledge is a great pick for Okuni, giving her proficiency in a skill of your choice for an hour, concentration free. again, she’s always in the know of the latest fads, so now you can make sure that’s true!

you also get expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency bonus in Arcana and Performance checks. she’s good at dancing, that much is obvious- otherwise she wouldn’t be in this game.

4. Bard 4: fourth level bards get their first Ability Score Improvement, so improve that Charisma score for stronger spells and more inspiration. dancing better is a nice bonus.

if you’re really jonesing for a puppet by now, you can use something like Phantasmal Force to at least plant the idea of a puppet in someone’s head and have it hurt them that way. honestly sounds terrifying to me, even scarier than a real puppet beating me up.

5. Bard 5: fifth level bards have d8s for their inspiration now, as well as become a Font of Inspiration, recharging all spent inspiration uses on short rests as well as long ones! you also get third level spells now like Dispel Magic. demons like using magic, so you’d best spoil their fun.

6. Bard 6: sixth level bards get the Countercharm ability, and for once it’s good for the build. a lot of demons charm or frighten people, so now you can spend your action to give all your allies nearby advantage on saves against those effects. it only works for a round each time, so you’d have to spend each turn keeping the effect up- still, if you’re fighting something like Shuten-Douji, it’s a good idea to have on hand.

if you’d like to use your countercharm while also keeping the fight going, then good news! your puppet drought is over, and your cuppet runneth over thanks to an Animating Performance. as an action you can animate a large or smaller object and turn it into a Dancing Object for the next hour. you then have to use your bonus action each turn to control the puppet, but you can also give out inspiration at the same time.

you can bring out the puppet once a day, or by spending a third-level or higher spell slot.

7. Bard 7: seventh level bards get fourth level spells like Fabricate, letting you spend ten minutes to turn any kind of raw materials into processed goods- for example, a log into part of a puppet, perhaps. you can create a large or smaller object if you have enough material, though using metal shrinks down the possible puppetude to medium size. also, you need proficiency with the sorts of tools you’d have to use to make an item normally in order to make it with this spell, hence our focus on grabbing woodworking proficiency earlier and smithing later.

so yeah, during your next downtime, puppetry is just a spell away!

8. Bard 8: eighth level bards get another ASI, and we’re grabbing the Skilled feat for more proficiencies. you get the proficiency with Smith’s Tools I mentioned a second ago, as well as proficiency with Acrobatics in case your DM thinks that dexterity and dancing thing is as weird as I do, and History. you are history, after all.

9. Bard 9: at ninth level your song of rest grows to a d8, but more importantly you get fifth level spells. if you’re in a pinch, you can use Animate Objects instead of your usual puppetry to give your friend some backup- you can animate up to ten small objects, with bigger sizes doubling how many “objects” they count as for each size larger they are. that being said, they also use your bonus action to control, so trying to use both at once isn’t always the greatest idea. still, they make a good distraction if you need time to drag your bigger puppet out of the fight.

10. Bard 10: tenth level bards have a bigger inspiration die again, and you get another round of Expertise, this time doubling down on Religion and Nature. also, you get Magical Secrets- two spells from any spell list in the game. Legend Lore is a must for any bard, giving you the lowdown on whatever famous person or thing you’re faced with so you can dance appropriately. on the other hand Circle of Power is a must-have for combat, creating an aura around you that lasts up to ten minutes with concentration- during that time, friendly creatures (including you) have advantage on all saves against magical effects- furthermore, succeeding on that save prevents all damage instead of half if it’s that kind of save. demons like fireballs, puppets don’t. simple stuff.

11. Bard 11: with our last level of bard you get sixth level spell slots for stuff like True Seeing to see through demonic illusions and the like. though if I’m being honest we haven’t gotten too specialized yet- let’s fix that.

12. Paladin 1: moving over to paladin gives you a Divine Sense- spend an action up to five times a day to sense celestials, fiends, and undead within 60’ of you. you know the type and location, but not their identity. being able to sense demons feels pretty important for.. y’know, a demon hunter.

you can also Lay on Hands to heal an ally, you have a pool that scales with your level and it refills every long rest. worth noting, this does not work on constructs, so you’ll have to patch up your puppet the old-fashioned way.

13. Paladin 2: second level paladins get a Fighting Style, and with your Defense you get a +1 bonus to all types of armor. I know you don’t wear a lot, but I’d still call your first ascension fit light armor at minimum. also, since you’re attacking via puppet they aren’t “your” attacks, so none of them count for fighting styles.

they also don’t count for Divine Smites, which is problematic, but we’ll find a workaround soon enough. if you do end up using them though, you spend a spell slot when you hit something with a melee attack, dealing radiant damage that scales based on the slot’s level. also it deals extra damage against fiends, which is a nice bonus for a demon hunter.

speaking of spell slots you get another set of spells from being a paladin, but you’ll have to check the multiclassing rules for what slots you have when. for now you can perform Ceremonies and Detect Evil and Good, but you can swap around paladin spells every long rest, so don’t sweat over getting the perfect setup right away.

14. Paladin 3: at third level you devote yourself to defeating demons and other extraplanar monsters as a Watcher, giving you two kinds of Channel Divinity that you can use once per short rest. your Watcher’s Will gives most of your party advantage on intelligence, wisdom, and charisma saves for a minute, or you can Abjure the Extraplanar to send aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, and fiends nearby running for up to a minute if they fail a wisdom save.

you also gain access to a pool of permanently prepared performances, like Alarm and Detect Magic. finally, your Divine Health makes you immune to disease.

15. Paladin 4: a fourth level paladin gets their own Ability Score Improvement, so power up your Charisma for stronger spells, channeled divinity, and a stronger puppet as well.

16. Paladin 5: fifth level paladins get an Extra Attack, but that only applies to you, not your puppet. on the plus side, you also get second level spells! now you can cast Magic Weapon more than once a day for your puppet. you can also See Invisibility to detect hidden demons, and use Moonbeam to expose them or other shapechangers.

17. Paladin 6: as a sixth level paladin you emit an Aura of Protection, adding your hefty charisma modifier to every save you make, as well as the saves of nearby friends. up until now you had a +0 in wisdom saves, so that’ll really come in handy!

18. Paladin 7: seventh level watchers also get the Aura of the Sentinel, adding your proficiency bonus to your and nearby allies’ initiative rolls. this technically isn’t adding the proficiency directly, so you get a 1.5x bonus!

19. Paladin 8: eighth level paladins get one last ASI, so let’s bump up your Dexterity so you’ll get hit less often, dance better, and be better with a dagger in case of emergencies.

20. Paladin 9: we finish our build by gaining access to third level paladin spells, including your subclass specialties, Counterspell and Nondetection. more importantly, you gain access to the spell Crusader’s Mantle, finally giving your puppet the chance to deal radiant damage. and so can everyone else within thirty feet of you, for that matter!

Pros & Cons

Pros:

while you don’t get counterspell until very late in the game, you’re great at using it- and dispel magic to boot. both spells use ability checks to counter magical effects, and wouldn’t you know it, bards are great at those! with a maxed out charisma modifier plus half proficiency, you have roughly a 50/50 shot of countering even a ninth level spell while only spending a third level one.

your decent dexterity plus your watcher aura makes you great at hitting first in a fight, and when you add in your puppet’s ability to speed you up and slow down enemies, and you’ll be running circles around them in no time.

while focusing your build so hard on your puppet does create some challenges, it also opens up some great adventuring opportunities. this one’s more a plus for your DM so they don’t have to start power-creeping all the magic loot- instead of getting a +1 sword, maybe you’ll get better metal for your puppet’s armor and raise its AC, or wood that conducts magic better and lets it stay animate for longer, or maybe new puppetry techniques that let your extra attack or divine smites carry over to it. basically, having a physical object you’ll be building up the whole adventure will give you and your dm new avenues to find fun in D&D.

Cons:

that last bit, of course, requires your DM to be flexible, so if you’re playing in adventurer’s league games or just have a new DM that wants to stick to the book, it’s going to cause a problem. by the time you reach level 20 the base stats for your dancing items are woefully outmatched by just about everything you could be facing, so maybe run this idea by your DM before committing to it.

we did what we could to fix up your soft stats, but the hard truth is you still only have 10 intelligence and wisdom. you get an aura of protection, sure, but not until level 17. in the meantime, you risk falling for illusions and mental games from your more otherworldly foes.

your puppet only lasts one hour, so keeping it up and running for longer periods of time will eat through your magic like nothing else. if you burn through every spell slot you have, you can keep him walking for 12 hours a day, which is nice, but that leaves you with almost no magic for anything else. basically, if you’re traveling a lot, invest in a cart. your 13 strength ass is not dragging him around the whole continent.

[seeminglyseph]

Trying to finally get sleepy and kinda watching someone play BG3 while I relax, and like. Sometime I definitely wanna play like… a multiplayer game if only so that I can see like… what my play style compares to. Like not just like… what class I play but like. I always seem to need Astarion unless I play Rogue or Ranger. Or I guess another high dex build… and yeah, rogue’s not what it was in 5e, but I don’t even stealth much and I find it a really fun dps experience. Especially comboing it with my sorcerer who I usually have as my melee mage with more close range spells and Gale doing potshots with ranged stuff further back since he usually has a lower armour class and HP, doing a good job being a glass canon. Then the third spot alternates, though Gale also alternates because he has spell slots and when they’re gone he loses a lot of usefulness. This is a downside he has with Shadowheart and my caster MCs, but I can’t just not have my MC do their job so that doesn’t matter. I should make a warlock, barbarian and a fighter at some point so I can commit their systems to memory at some point, then I might get better at Lae’zel, Wyll and Karlach. I haven’t played a Tav with any of those classes yet and maybe if I do I’ll get better at controlling them in battle and feel less unsure about them. Especially since I’ve already learned a familiarity with Astarion, Gale and Shadowheart. And the more I repeat the pattern the more I’ll get used to their patterns. I gotta break it. How to learn new fighting styles. Or if I’m so comfortable with how they play I could take over one of them and have more room on the team to add one more of the cool guys instead of an OC.

Maybe I will fall asleep soon, my mind is going. But now I think it might be fun to try playing the game as Astarion. *I* could be the bitch annoying everyone. That sounds hilarious. He would be the worst protagonist. Why would anyone put him in charge?

[chodri-todrisisar]

I’m like 5 ish episodes into the second campaign of critical role, and I have some thoughts of someone who has went into the show almost completely blind. (I decided to start with campaign 2 bc I was vaguely aware of the pcs and I was curious about them)

So to start:

Fjord: Very cool voice. Don’t really have a lot of an opinion yet, has the set up for some very cool stuff. Seems to be the most responsible in the group. Kind of dad/uncle energy. Helps balance out the party.

Beau: dumb jock energy. Such a meathead and I love her for it. I can’t explain why or how but she reminds me of a golden retriever. She’s very funny.

Caleb: my favourite. I love this sad, stinky, german wizard. He’s just so endearing. I don’t know what else to say, I just think he’s neat.

Nott: I love her so much. Her and Caleb have such a ride or die energy and I’m obsessed w it. Also I love the cute little friendship happening between her and jester.

Jester: her brain is so interesting. I’m in love w Laura Bailey. I have the most previous knowledge of her and I love her. She is blunt but also very kind, she’d make a good friend.

Molly: a kind soul. Seems like such a friend. I always forget his name for some reason but he is very lovely. I also like his voice, it’s calming.

Yasha: has been in jail. Seems cool I guess but she’s literally been in jain the whole time so I don’t have much to say

I am very intimidated by the sheer volume of cr content, and I genuinely thought I’d never be able to sit through 4 hr episodes, but I’m pacing myself and taking it very slow. I don’t expect to finish for a very long time but I’m excited to see where the story goes. Matt (as to be expected) is an incredible dm, and his voices are top notch.

I have the tendency to zone out during combat, but that’s very typical of me. The best parts have been when the party is just interacting, like going shopping and stuff. My favourite moments of the show so far were when fjord tricked the guards into following him but turning into an old man and saying he’d lead them to the monster or something, then being like “ahh why are you following me” and pretending to be senile. S tier comedy. The other one was when Caleb took nott to the bathhouse to be nice even tho neither of them really used it and nott just stole a bunch of shit. Very good character moments for the both of them, it gives good insight into how they both tick, I think.

I’ve also come to realize I have no fucking clue how dnd spell casters work and I’m not sure if my silly goldfish brain will ever understand, and that’s ok.

Also I think it’s important to note that I’m listening to the podcast rather than watching the episodes. It just works better for me bc I tend to do a lot of cleaning and work and stuff while I take in the content. I know I’m missing out on a lot of in character gestures, and the battle maps and stuff, but so far it hasn’t hindered the experience, so I’ll probably continue to do so, but if there’s any episodes where it’s like super important to watch rather than listen pls let me know.

Ok thanks for listening to my rambling

[violet-t-9]

Check in on my (not very realistic) wish list for episode 139

1. Nobody dies in the potential battle against Lucien/the Somnovem? I will be fine with temporary unconciousness but please nobody actually dies? Will they even fight? What was going on with the cliffhanger? I have so many questions!

Hey nobody died! Nobody even went unconscious. Can't believe we have a part 2 to this epic boss fight. This showdown is awesome! At least we know what will happen next episode.

2. The group uses their new eye powers for something (group telepathy will be hilarious, especially accidental) or just in general goof off with their new eyes.

NVM we are doing the boss fight right now

3. Beau or Caleb discover more new eye functions that we have not seen before (antimagic cone anyone? Does the eye location have any meaning? Lucien’s was also on the chest right?)

NVM we are doing the boss fight right now. If the locations mean anything, so far it's not revealed.

4. We get to see more of the party members’ new powers/abilities since they levelled up and got a long rest! Let’s gooo.

MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH thanks Cad. It's a new power we haven't seen before! Caleb knows gravity fissure now, apparently! Fjord and Veth also considered using new abilities before the break. Jester used contagion on Lucien! It was a nice try.

5. They get some sort of contact with/update from the material plane (i.e. their family, Yussa, or anybody else I guess just not Trent please), it’s been a while I wonder what’s going on over there. Has Jester’s parent trap succeeded fully yet? Has the assembly been investigated yet? Has Yussa figured out what the Nein did with his emergency exit gift? How are Yeza and Luc doing in the crime bar? Is the Dynasty looking into Essek? So many possibilities.

NVM we are doing the boss fight right now

6. The M9 succeed in stopping the city from going to the material plane and find a way to potentially destroy it by the end of the episode.

It appears that them plane shifting the crest away actually does ensure that the city cannot return to the material plane, that's great news! Also, I assume destroying Lucien would be a good first step to destroying the city.

7. Beau and Yasha continue to fight like the power couple they are and to indulge in PDA in the flesh horror city (because why not). Bonus: we find out Yasha’s plans for Beau’s red cape/the cape is used by Beau in the episode.

The discussion between Beau, Yasha and Veth LMAO. Oh NO Yasha is fighting Beau again - that natural 1 though! The miss! Another natural 1! The power of love!!!! Yasha also used the battle cry to protect Beau!

8. Fjord and Jester continue to be domestic and supportive of each other in these trying times because they are great. Bonus: more Sprinkle/Artagan mentions or interactions.

Jester and Fjord starting strong with the dirty/natural 20's! Also "I'd rather you wear it" "Fjord, it's so expensive!" They are so cute. Ayy Sprinkle/Artagan both got fed the Heroes' Feast! The excitement over the ring finally working lol. "Imma cast it at 4th level" lol Jester really tried her best to remove his slow and it worked!

9. Obligatory wish for Essek’s fancy dunamancy or magical items (Bonus: STILL hoping to see more high-damage AOE offensive spells that Essek has never cast because of the party placement, dark star anybody?).

The trapped haste spell MmmMm. GRAVITY FISSURE YAY hot spell flavour is hot. THANK YOU for that dispel magic on Yasha Essek you are the best. Nice magic missile but he is out in the open oh nO he is charmed oh no is he going to dark star the party?? Wheww thank you Caleb for the dispel, at fifth level too! He was so going to dark star Lucien if Cad was not pulled.

10. Obligatory wish for Caleb’s polymorph spell on himself or a party member. Actually, let’s expand to any party member’s polymorph! Give me those sweet polymorph interactions.

NVM we are doing the boss fight right now

11. The party tries to reach Lucien by mentioning Molly and Lucien actually having a physical reaction to their words.

Wow that was a physical reaction alright, definitely to Jester and Caleb's mention of Molly's name. Jester's song also had an effect. Everybody is trying yay! Well, it was worth a try. BEAU'S bonus action Gustuv talk made him lose a legendary action WOW. Fjord's, Caleb's attempt also succeeded. In round 2, Beau removed 1 legendary action, followed by Jester

12. Obligatory wish for Essek’s room in the tower (it will stay until it happens).

NVM we are doing the boss fight right now

13. Obligatory wish for Cad being a MVP in and out of combat because he always is.

CAD what a good pep talk I love you. Path to the grave and also the reaction war caster blight, very nice.

14. I NEED MORE RP PLEASE like last week’s high intensity combat was fun but I miss one-on-one conversations give them to me thank you. Longer conversations are even better.

NVM we are doing the boss fight right now, however there was a lot of Molly RP involved.

15. Everybody being super freaked out/creeped out by the terrible flesh city thanks to Matt’s wonderfully detailed and awesome descriptions.

The damaged state of the city, how it leans towards Lucien's cocoon thing and Lucien's transformation... OH NO the stalks not the tentacle stalks.

16.  At least one of the party members get mind-influenced/charmed by some effect during the combat (well at least Caleb’s got mind blank and Veth got intellect fortress, but I would be surprised if there was no mind shenanigans).

Well, I knew it would happen. Gaudius, the eye of longing/love that did not affect Beau DID charm Yasha with a failed wis save and Yasha attacked Beau, again. However thanks to Essek it didn't last long!

17. Somebody check in a bit on Essek’s mental state because he is clearly not entirely desensitized as seen from last episode. At least he got a full rest so physically he is fine (just squishy, like wizards are).

Hey Essek got to open up a little bit before their final fight, so that was great.

18. Caleb uses more fire or his customized spells or just any cool spells in general I guess because what’s sexier than wizards NOTHING I’m still hyped from last week.

Gravity fissure already?? Sweet max damage, despite the save! Caleb you can literally just copy any spell you see cast can't you, high int wizard I love you. Also the use of that potion and the scroll were pretty smart too.

19. We learn more about Lucien’s motives and what he is actually trying to do, or more about the Somnovem’s different? motives because I was very confused last episode. Lucien wants to “parent” the Somnovem by bombing them with 10 intuit charges, like okay are you sure you are not trying to kill them? Then again, if that doesn’t severely damage the Somnovem I don’t know what will.

Well we now know that Lucien has all the Somnovem power inside himself now and is still very much wanting to bring back the city - at least he can't right now because of the threshold crest they got rid of last session. This clarifies a lot. I guess the "parenting" was to weaken the Somnovem for him to absorb them all into himself?

20. Obligatory wish for everyone to remain relatively happy and alive by the end of the episode except Lucien, and the episode ends on a terrifying cliffhanger as always.

I mean, should have known that Lucien cannot be killed in 1 session. Otherwise though, what an episode! What a session! Absolutely amazing.

Bonus:

ESSEK IS MAKING A JOKE LMAO I can't with this man, he is also giving everybody spells/gifts, cute - I guess wizards all have the save love language.

CALEB IS ABOVE 100 HP thank you Jester for that 17 roll from Heroes' Feast! I knew you'd do it. The feast was so crucial in their combat too, what a queen. Caleb always be covering his friends in his anti-aberration cone, and burning Lucien's legendary reactions. Great moves.

Veth are you... horny for Lucien??? LMAO

OH NO Gaudius on Essek this is the alternative Essek bossfight timeline OH NO but at the same time YES the angst- oh nvm Caleb thanks lol.

Extra - combat notes for my record:

Saves minus # eyes

Elatis - Excitement, pulling the target 120 ft towards Lucien + eye.

Ira - Rage, fireball effect AOE damage.

Fastidan - Disgust (wilting dull green) necrotic damage

Luctus - Grief (Dex save), slow spell effect.

Timorei - fear effect, but negated by Heroes' feast immunity.

Culpasi - guilt (Con save) disadvantage on saving throws +...

Miramus - (wis save)

Vigilan - the eye that moves/emanates the anti-magic cone

Gaudius - (wis save) charm effect

WHAT A FIGHT! I can't wait for part 2 and hopefully that's Lucien's final form. I did not think that the Molly influence will have such a profound effect, but I sure am glad it did! Everyone was so amazing in this combat, I love it all.

[officialleehadan]

Kiss to Save

Hello darlings and happy Tuesday! I hope you're all having a wonderful day wherever you are!

Today's story was brought to you by Brandon! Darling, thank you so much for all your support. I love seeing your comments!

Prompt: Stone Kisses

+++

“Well, it’s certainly not a statue.”

“She.”

“What?”

“She. Not ‘it’. We don’t know her name, but she isn’t an ‘it’.”

A few hours of spellwork had turned into a project that consumed most of a week, but Alivir wasn’t complaining. The woman, his statue, had spent her only words asking him to save her, and he was going to do exactly that, one way or another. Eikh was both amused at Alivir’s sudden dedication to the more scholarly aspects of magework, and somewhat annoyed. So far, Alivir’s Stone Lady had remained utterly immune to nearly everything they had tried.

Today’s spell was an old one, and rooted in the lowest of the Low Magics. The School generally didn’t bother with Low Magic. It wasn’t precise, controllable, or reliable except for very specific uses. One of those uses was discovering, and sometimes picking through, the fine details of High Magic.

And it was High Magic that was on his statue. Whatever, whoever, she had been, someone spent a lot of magic making sure she would be a statue permanently. They also spent a lot of magic on making sure no one else would ever figure out she was anything more than a simple statue. It wasn’t until Eikh dug out a manuscript older than the school itself that they managed to get through the spells preventing the detection of spells.

Alivir was just glad that Eikh knew how to detect that those spells were in place, or he would have had a much harder time convincing the mastermage to keep helping him.

“Alright,” Eikh said with a faint smile that suggested he thought Alivir was being unreasonable. “She certainly is not a statue. With the blockers removed, I can sense…. Something from her. You say you’ve been kissing her twice a day for most of a year?”

“Yes.” Alivir was mostly done being embarrassed about that, although he was already planning his apology for kissing a woman without her permission. It was one thing when he thought she was a statue. Now that he knew otherwise, it was a violation he wasn’t proud of. “I come here whenever… whenever I needed a friend. I don’t even remember why I kissed her the first time, but it just became habit after that.”

Eikh considered the Stone Lady thoughtfully, and spun more magic over his hands with the easy skill of one who had been casting their whole life. The magic caught on the statue’s gown, and for a moment it looked like she was clothed in starlight. Moments later, the spell was gone as if it had never been, and Eikh muttered something that sounded like a curse.

“Whoever cursed her did a professional job,” he said after two more failed attempts that ended just like the first one. “Every time I try to work a spell into the magic already on her, it gets eaten up and pulled into the curse.”

It wasn’t the news that Alivir was hoping for. Like Eikh, he had tried his own magic, limited though it was, and even risked turning to his crystal to try and scry back through history for his Stone Lady’s origins. He had hoped that if he could figure out how she was cursed, undoing it would be easier.

Unfortunately, she seemed as immune to his scrying as she was to nearly everything else they had tried.

“I hesitate to encourage this,” Eikh said after a while and two more spells, neither of which had any effect on the statue before them. “And I particularly hate relying upon Low Magic yet again, but High Magic has a particular weakness to Low, and that may be our key to this spell, as it was to the ones preventing her detection.”

“What do I need to do?”

“Kiss her again.”

“What?” Alivir looked up at the mastermage from where he knelt at his Stone Lady’s feet, her hands clasped in his. “I can’t do that! Not without her permission!”

“She asked you to save her, didn’t she?” Eikh said impatiently, never one to come at a topic delicately. “Given how long she’s been here, I would imagine that request is permission to do whatever you have to. Wouldn’t you agree?”

That made a certain amount of sense, Alivir admitted to himself, still reluctant. “Why should I kiss her? I’ve been kissing her all year, and she only spoke the once.”

“I think, and this is a guess, mind you,” Eikh grumbled, offended at the insult of having to guess at anything magic-related. “That you may have been transferring magic to her. Not much, but if you passed a spark through her spell every time you kissed her, it might have built up enough for her to muster speech. Low Magic is often tied to the emotions of the caster, and you felt when you kissed her.”

“You think that would be enough to slip through the cracks of the curse?”

“I think I’m nearly out of ideas. Like I said, it’s a professional job. As good as anything I could do. Better, probably, since I can’t undo it without doing something that might kill her.”

The admission of failure pressed on Eikh’s temper, and Alivir decided that it would be better if he stayed away from that particularly sore spot for a while.

“Alright,” he said slowly, and looked up at his Stone Lady. “How do I pass more than a spark?? The thought of trying for another year now that I know she’s trapped…”

“That’s the easy part. Easier for you particularly, since your Sight is so strong,” Eikh explained, voice in the easy cadence of a teacher. “You already feel things strongly, and you have an affinity to Low Magic because it’s closely tied to the Sight. That’s why the Sight is so difficult to learn, for those with the skill, and so difficult to control for those born with it. So kiss her, boy, and think of everything you’ve ever shared. Think of the secrets you’ve told her, and how she made you feel just a little bit less alone in the world.”

“True Love’s Kiss? You think it will work?”

“I think it’s her best chance.”

Alivir hesitated and looked up at his lady, the stone lady who had listened to him, and heard him weep for the evils his magic threw in his face. Who had heard him complain bitterly about his fellow students, and wish desperately for someone, anyone, in the world to care for him and not his Sight.

“Forgive me this one last trespass,” he whispered to her, and raised himself on his knees so he could cradle her cool cheek in his palm, his other hand light against the marble waves of her hair where it tumbled over her shoulder in lose curls. “I swear, I will find a way to save you.”

With that, he pressed his lips to hers as he had a thousand times before, and hoped.

+++

Stone Kisses:

He always kissed her, the statue who sat beside his favorite pond. He never thought that she might kiss him back.

Save Me

Spell to See  (Free on Patreon!)

Kiss to Save

Dust-Streaked  (Free on Patreon!)

+++

MASTERLIST

+++

[roseofbaron]

Remember when I was playing Final Fantasy II? Well.... I haven’t finished it yet because I got stuck then I got busy. However, I took notes during my play-through (of what I’ve played so far) and they’ve been living in my drafts for ages. If you wanted to read my thoughts and reactions to the events of FFII (again, what I’ve played so far), they’re under the cut. :3 (Spoilers for if you haven’t played FFII yet)

hmmmmmm I like Hilda a lot

Minwu is pretty cool too. Very mysterious. I can see why he’s as esteemed a spell caster as he is. 

What’s his name.... Gideon? Yeah, he reminds me a lot of Edward right off the bat. He’s a prince too sooooo.... father?

Also, weird thing about Final Fantasy world in general... So in FFI you have to buy magic and when you buy it, it comes in these orbs that reminds me of the materia in FFVII that lets you cast magic when equipped. However, here in II, you still have to buy it, but you buy it in tomes, meaning they’re learned spells. That makes sense for the games between II and VII as spells are learned naturally with leveling up. This isn’t a theory or anything just a fascinating observation on the nuances of magic.

So, as far as I can tell, there are only two airships in this world. The first was built by Cid, a former captain of the Knights of Fynn (I think they had another name but I can’t remember rn) and the second is the Dreadnought, which the Empire modeled after Cid’s only bigger and used for destruction. When on a quest to stop the completion of the Dreadnought, the party is too late and they encounter the Dark Knight who used to be the general of Empire’s army before the incompetent Boughen replaced him (he betrayed Fynn for that position).

Anyway, the Dark Knight is very mysterious (his pfp is veiled in shadow) and he doesn’t fight the party, instead takes his leave on the Dreadnought and says “we’ll meet again.”

The Dreadnought attacks the towns that previously had not been taken over by the Empire, including Altair where the royalty of Fynn reside as well as the rebel force. (The more I talk about this the more I realize how heavily influenced by Star Wars this story line seems). Anyway, Gordon (not Gideon lol), the cowardly prince from Kashuan, is no longer there. One of the townsfolk tells the party that everyone who was outside had been killed so I’m not sure if he is dead or not. Hilda talks about him as if he simply left town. But I’m not sure.

Also Scott, Gordon’s brother, was injured and in a secret room in Fynn to recover. Well, he dies shortly after the party meets him but not before relaying some valuable information. I will say he tells Firion to tell Hilda he loves her then retracts that saying “a dead man’s confession will only hurt her.” And when Hilda later asks if he said anything Firion tells her “No, nothing.” And moves on. That one got me, it was very tragic.

What happened to GORDON!?!?!?! (Idk why I care so much since all we know of him is as an NPC, but he just seemed like he would join the party at one point and I wanted a redemption arc of him regaining his courage and believing in himself. He gave me Edward vibes and I love Edward ;-; )

Josef doesn’t feel like he belongs in my party. Either he’ll betray me, leave shortly after this tiny quest, or I’ll regret not giving him any equipment. He does remind me a bit of Yang because his punch does just as much damage as Firion’s sword, so I don’t feel too bad not giving him weapons. Only time will tell I suppose.

I’m surprised how long it’s taking to find Leon...

So I was right and wrong about Josef. He didn’t last long in the party but that’s because he sacrificed himself and got crushed by a giant boulder. Reminded me of when Yang stopped the cannons in the Tower of Zot. Parallels on parallels.

Also Borghen is a joke and Firion straight up murdered that guy in like one hit. Guess the Dark Knight is back at the reigns. I’m very interested in him, can’t you tell?

GORDON IS ALIVE!!

The princess gets captured along with Cid’s airship. I thought it was sweet how she planned to meet the party at Kashuan because she felt bad for sending them on all these errands. Reckless, but sweet.

Maria recognizes the Dark Knight’s voice..... Is Leon the Dark Knight? Why don’t that others recognize it?? Ahhhhhhhh

So Deist is the land of the dragoons. According to talk, the dragoons were all wiped out in the invasion of the Empire, however the King of Fynn believes otherwise. The way the people in Altair talk of the dragoons, they are a fearless bunch who posses the power to train Wyverns. It seems, based on Gordon’s information, that the Wyverns are few and far between, but not yet believed to be extinct. 

Also the king speaks to Minwu of an ultimate magic that can only be unsealed when the world is near destroyed. This Ultimate Tome.... perhaps could it be Meteor? Or something greater?

I immediately love Leila, whether she’s about to steal all my gil or not. Pirates are neat...

OH MAN LEILA JOINED THE PARTY!!!!

Hilda acting strange is really disturbing me for some reason... OH SHE’S A MONSTER WHAAAAAT?!?!

Also... Firion.... Really? You were going to sleep with the princess? Now’s not the time my guy. Good thing Leila’s nosey.

I always forget about Paul and then he shows up and I’m like “wow he’s so COOOL!”

Mysidia is actually a land in II, a kingdom of mages much like it is in IV. The connections are clear, Minwu is even the name of the elder in IV’s Mysidia (though his name is never mentioned in game).

Gordon and Hilda sitting on the thrones together in Fynn had me strangely emotional. 

Mysidia feels exactly the same as it does in IV. I’m very excited to explore the tower

Also the statue of a goddess under the town has me thinking. I don’t know about what, but I’m thinking

Inside Leviathan.... gross (he never fails to make sailing difficult)

I found Ricard!! That’s right... inside Leviathan. There seems to be a village down here which... ok. But he just says “new arrivals, eh?”

Also, he didn’t know the dragoons were wiped out... How tragic.

So, Minwu died using all his power to break the seal on the Ultima Tome. He was cool, wished I had more time to travel with him.

Altair, Paloom, Gatrea, and Poft were leveled by the cyclone. Unless they get rebuilt later, they are cities/towns that no longer exist (which would make sense for IV geography).

Seeing the Wyvern come to Fynn made me incredibly happy. “Wyvern and Dragoon are together once more!”

Random thoughts about the game: There’s some confusion about the numbering of the first four games in the series, but as they are numbered now is the correct order of games. II and III, initially, were never brought over to the US from Japan so, as not to confuse American players, in it’s SNES release IV was renamed Final Fantasy II. However, the II as we know it now did come before IV, which makes a lot of sense. There are a lot of the same beats in the story, though they do hit a little weird. You don’t get much development for the three characters that are with you the whole time except for some snippets here and there, the characters that travel with you don’t spend much time with you and once they leave, with the exception of Leila and Gordon, they don’t return to the party again. The death of Joseph felt sudden, especially since his character felt like an NPC from the start before suddenly joining the party. It’s tragic after the fact once you speak to the townsfolk, but in the moment it has little impact. Minwu’s death also doesn’t hit as I feel it should because the party only got a short amount of time with him at the very beginning. All this to say, the beats are there that we see in Final Fantasy IV, but as a story II can be a bit clunky. It feels like a first draft of IV and honestly, it’s kind of great. There’s a lot of improvement in the pacing of events between II and IV and that’s something to celebrate. I would like to play III as well since I haven’t and see how it compares to the others.

Interesting thing about the story line: the dragoons and the wyverns are supposedly all wiped out. However, one Wyvern remains because of a quest the party did (and Ricard is later found in Leviathan), but in some dungeons, when you open a box you get a monster, and so far I have fought two dragons. Different from wyverns, yes, but still... So there’s at least one wyvern and at least on Dragoon (maybe two because Kain is the name of the kid found in Deist.... and we all know of a certain Dragoon named Kain). I wonder if the Dragoons would train dragons if the wyverns all went extinct??

I don’t believe the Emperor is actually dead.

Yep, Dark Knight is Leon. Knew it. Also, ok, so maybe the Emperor is dead but now Leon will finish what he started? Is Leon truly the enemy??? I thought this was like a Kain being brainwashed situation.

And now Cid is dead. He said “I’ll LEND you my airship, I’ll be wanting her back...” and then he died. My goodness that cyclone wiped everything out and I’m emotional...

I knew the emperor wasn’t dead. Still don’t know what Leon’s deal is.

And Ricard sacrificed himself so the party could escape the emperor and his newly formed fortress. But is he dead....? Probably tbh 

Also Maria’s reaction to all the deaths that have happened so far is exactly how Rosa deals with all the sacrifices made in IV. 

I.... don’t know how I feel about Leon suddenly joining the party. One second he’s all “The weak need the strong to rule them” then the next he’s all somber like “more will die with the emperor in power.” Like yeah.... folks were gonna die with you in power too, what has changed Leon????

I don’t trust Leon.... but at least I still have my airship.

And alright.... The party’s in Hell now. I will say I forgot to stock up on supplies before going through the Jade Passage and now I’m in Pandaemonium and yeah... It really is hell. 

And now I’m stuck on the Emperor’s boss fight in Pandaemonium. Turns out the Blood Sword would have helped a ton but I didn’t get it when I had the chance to so.... Fun.

[aros001]

Read through light novel vol. 6. Random thoughts.

She hurried along behind the others, but she couldn’t quite get the image of the red-haired spell caster out of her mind.

Maybe I’m just imagining things, but...he looked really familiar.

Let me guess...

[Chapter 3]

Nailed it!

“How many?” Guild Girl asked, her pen scratching on the paper. “Oh, and break them down by quest, please.”

“Thirty-four for the first quest.”

He suddenly fell silent. Guild Girl stopped writing and looked up, and Goblin Slayer added quietly, “and ten or less missing.”

“Missing?”

“We went in, rescued the hostage, and flooded the nest. I confirmed thirty- four bodies. There can’t be more than ten left.”

You can tell this series has done a good job making the goblins feel like a threat that I'm really concerned about any goblins escaping the nest Goblin Slayer flooded. With how quickly they learn and how much he tries to keep them from learning his methods, now I'm going to be worried about some goblins down the line breaking open a dam and flooding a village because of how well it worked against them.

This is a weird thing to focus on but why do goblins get so excited over elf women compared to the women of other species? It just gets brought up a lot through the series when seeing things from the goblins' POV. Is it because of their beauty, their age, some kind of ancient grudge between elves and goblins, or is it just that they smell particularly good? Because back in vol. 1 Goblin Slayer made a point about goblin noses being quite sensitive to the smells of women, children, and elves. Obviously they're cruel and lustful to any women they want to capture but they keep singling out specifically High Elf Archer when she's with human women. Closest I've seen to an answer is in this volume, with the goblins knowing that elf meat apparently keeps for longer.

“All right,” he said. Then the helmet turned toward the boy. “Let’s go.”

Ugh. Not expecting much from this meal.

The boy nodded grudgingly then heaved himself to his feet and followed after Goblin Slayer.

If the food sucks, I’m knocking over that table.

This kid's starting to piss me off.

“Heh! I know you’re back-row, but there’s no way someone as weepy and blubbering as you could ever get promoted!”

That sent High Elf Archer’s ears straight back, and she began looking for their antagonist. The owner of the voice rose unsteadily from one of the benches.

It was the red-haired boy—dressed in a robe, holding a staff, wearing glasses. That wizard.

Priestess spent only a second with her mouth open in shock, then the corners of her eyes tightened angrily.

“I—I’m not weepy!”

“I dunno ’bout that. I hear all you clerics like a good cry.” He gave a dismissive sniff and didn’t even open his eyes all the way as he looked at Priestess. Maybe he thought all this diligent ridicule made him look cool.

He didn’t seem to realize that it just made him seem like a slimy villain.

“Whenever you’re in trouble, it’s O gods, please, save me! Boo-hoo-hoo!, right?”

...I want to break his nose. Specifically I want Priestess and/or Goblin Slayer to break his nose.

The only spell he could use was Fireball, and he could only use it once per day.

THE MORON ONLY HAD ONE SPELL HE COULD USE AND ONLY ONCE A DAY?! Priestess already had to keep him from using it once against a basic encounter with goblins! What the hell was he planning on doing after that for the rest of the nest?! Just beating them with his staff?! He doesn't seem like the type to see any merit in fighting like a barbarian and certainly not the type to dirty his magic conduit. His sister was apparently top of her class so I'm assuming she actually had at least two or more spells she could use (I don't remember what specially was said she could do back in vol. 1) and Priestess had two Miracles she could use three times a day.

Ron Weasley, year one at Hogwarts, is a better wizard than this kid! Think about that! He actually used his one spell exactly when he needed it and beat a troll!

It was funny all the ways Goblin Slayer found around High Elf Archer's rules, but it's also kind of funny that now he just seems to be ignoring them. He flooded a nest (finally got to use a scroll for the reason he bought it) and set a troll on fire. Though I like what even she pointed out, that he holds back on such methods when the goblins have a hostage. Also I suppose her main problem was using fire, water, and poison to attack from a distance or flush out the goblins and then pick them off methodically, making it feel like less of an adventure. Then again, it's goblins. She already doesn't consider that an adventure. The goal is less exploration and more pest control.

Aw, Sword Maiden and Noble Fencer are friends. That's sweet.

Just like with how Goblin Slayer's equipment and methods relate to goblins, I love just reading about Dwarf Shaman talk about magic and the basic principles of it, as well as Lizard Priest talking about his culture. It's just little details I like getting wrapped up in. It's very simple yet believable logic how Wizard Boy's eyes were opened to him actually having four spells instead of just one; breaking down something complicated into its smaller parts.

Again, so glad Spearman isn't a Motoyasu. I'm actively glad Goblin Slayer has someone like him and Heavy Warrior in his life. Also, this is funny only just because it's in comparison to the last few light novel series I've read prior to this, but:

Overlord: Protagonist is a skeleton. Can't drink.

Konosuba: Protagonist can drink but it's his useless companion whom usually gets drunk

Rising of the Shield Hero: Protagonist physically can't get drunk. Immunity to toxins too high.

Goblin Slayer: Protagonist drank, got drunk, puked in an alley, went out drinking with friends on another day, had a hangover the next morning, still went out to kill goblins. I really hope he got his helmet open before he threw up because it's already got to smell not pleasant and you know he wouldn't be removing his helmet on the walk home.

I like that you can kind of tell Goblin Slayer is reapplying Burgler's teachings to Priestess (minus the parts where he'd throw stuff at her). At the big moments he doesn't tell her she can or can't do something, rather he asks if she can or listens to the plan she's come up with. As Burgler taught him, once you decide to do something and act on it, you've already won. His words about power not mattering if you can't even do that much feel like they can apply even more to Priestess, as she has next to no offensive abilities and thus gaining power that'd be useful in killing goblins is even less of an option for her than it was for Goblin Slayer.

Despite all my prior words, I didn't hate Wizard Boy. It's just that undeserved arrogance is one of the quickest ways to get me to be against a character, especially when they're loud about how much better they think they are and their ego actively causes problems for others (Ben 10 in his later series is the most immediate example for me). There are plenty of arrogant and egotistical characters in fiction that I really love, like Lex Luthor or Mandy from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, but usually they can back up their arrogance and they're more "speak softly and carry a big stick". They don't need to boast about how good they are, they just let their actions speak for them. Wizard Boy, I get it, he's going through a character arc and he does grow somewhat during this book. It's just that his sense of superiority despite being in WAY over his head and his disrespect even after he learns his lesson makes it a little hard to be on his side. Hopefully his new adventuring partner can help straighten him out a bit more, and of course I love all the ways his presence caused Goblin Slayer to reflect and evaluate himself, given what they have in common.

This is probably me just looking too deep into things again, but I'm curious what was bigger source of guilt for Goblin Slayer in this book: that he couldn't save Wizard Boy's sister, thus reminding him of his own and making him feel like nothing's changed since he started killing goblins, or that he was the one who killed her? Obviously I think the former is more likely, given the themes and parallels in this book, but it's shown often that despite how he talks, looks, and carries himself, Goblin Slayer isn't some cold-hearted, unfeeling monster. He does care about people and even though it was a mercy kill Wizard begged for I can see him having some heavy feelings weighing on him after killing someone innocent, especially with Wizard Boy's presence forcing him to confront that reality again.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoblinSlayer/comments/fxut3s/read_through_light_novel_vol_6_random_thoughts/

[clarste]

listen-and-reflect replied to your post:

Um, just wondering, why aren't you around much...

… I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on Arknights. I’ve paid no attention to it whatsoever, but if it impresses you, I’m curious.

To boil it down to its component elements, I’d describe Arknights as “urban fantasy catgirl tower defense gacha.” If any of those words viscerally disgust you, there’s probably not much I can do to convince you otherwise, but personally that was enough to intrigue me. And what I found when I tried it surprised me in a good way. Honestly I’ve been struggling for like a month for how to talk about this, but for the purposes of this post I’ll boil it down to three major elements: Aesthetics, Worldbuilding, and Gameplay.

First of all the Aesthetics. Might as well start with a picture or three:

For the record, yes, 90% of the characters in this game are women, and there’s no explanation for that, that’s just how it is. I am 100% fine with that because I am a Touhou fan. Anyway, what I want to draw attention to is the way these women are portrayed. IE: they are posed/costumed to be seen as “cool” and while they certainly aren’t unattractive, it isn’t in a horny way that emphasizes their breasts or butts or anything. It’s not a perfect “practical clothing only,” I mean high heels aren’t great for fighting and there are other characters who show more skin, but the philosophy carries through in all the official art: these are cool, capable women who are never once reduced to sex objects for the male gaze. I respect that.

Also you don’t get to marry any of them which is a huge plus in my book.

It’s hard to say any more on that without moving on to the Worldbuilding. Basically, the world of Arknights is both blessed and cursed with a magical rock called Originium which is the source of all their problems. First of all it’s a miraculous power source, the resource that fuels the engine of modern society. Not only that but it can be used as a medium to cast actual magic spells (which is of course a well-studied phenomenon that’s treated as a science). On the other hand, its very presence warps the environment, causing large-scale city-destroying natural disasters on a regular basis. And more importantly for the conceit of the narrative, it can get in your blood, eventually causing an incurable disease called Oripathy which involves your body slowing turning into crystal from the inside out. Basically magic rock cancer. Later stages of it involve visible “crystal lesions” growing on the skin, but even internal growths can have serious medical problems. This is sometimes shown in character designs too:

This is important to the worldbuilding because “The Infected” are a major source of discrimination and political unrest. Oripathy is only mildly contagious (you’re more likely to get it from mishandling the rocks directly), but the stigma of it is such that anyone with Oripathy is immediately quarantined, exiled, or worse. Both the player characters and their enemies are generally Infected, with the “good guys” (scare quotes intended) being a medical institute that takes in patients to treat the symptoms and vaguely hoping for a cure someday, while the “bad guys” are revolutionaries violently overthrowing the society that treats them as subhuman. There are analogies you could make to HIV, leprosy, or heck even current events with COVID-19.

Anyway, I say all this so I can turn to the in-game character profiles and how they’re structured. Specifically, they’re all medical reports written by the doctors of your institute (who are themselves playable characters who are Medics in-game):

(Incidentally everyone uses codenames in this game). Anyway, my point is that these are not neutral, objective “word-of-god” profiles, these are the facts as they appear to some particular person in-universe. In Touhou terms, these are written by Akyuu: some clinical facts mixed in with rumors and speculation. And I absolutely love that.

More than that though, we get this amazing invention:

Why yes, that is an in-game chart of all the characters’ relationships, grouped by people who belong to the same organization, that fills in as you play. And yes, raising trust with characters by using them does fill in the names of people close to them who you haven’t met yet, as well as new connections to unknown people. Who is friends with Croissant?! I must know!

Er... Anyway, I think having this chart in-game is quite frankly a genius move on the part of the developers, since it gets you immediately invested in seeing how the characters are connected. But wait, there’s more! When you pull a dupe from the gacha, you get a little token that can be used to upgrade a character slightly, pretty normal. But even these little tokens have tiny bits of story on them!

These are the items that are important to these characters, and they can change the way you see them. Every little thing in this game has story attached to it! It’s incredible! And they actually tell stories with these things. There’s one in particular that fascinates me (and others), but unfortunately I have exactly 0 of the characters involved so I’ll have to pull quotes from the wiki.

There are three characters from a faction called Rhine Lab: Ifirit, Saria, and Silence. The details are pretty vague, but basically Ifrit is an Infected child with incredible Originium channeling powers who’s been experimented on, and Saria and Silence are two doctors who were involved in those experiments but had a falling out after an experiment gone wrong. But how does the game tell you this? Well, lots of ways. Saria’s profile is the most explicit:

The relationship between Lady Saria and Rhine Lab is very complicated. Though all Rhine Lab Operators who work with Rhodes Island show some amount of respect for Lady Saria, Rhine Lab's Medic Operator, Silence, shows nothing but hatred for her. At the same time, Lady Saria appears unsurprised by Silence's feelings toward her. Whenever Lady Saria attempts to talk with Caster Operator Ifrit, Silence gets in the way. According to available information, the animosity between Saria and Silence stems from an experiment at Rhine Lab led by Silence. The experiment was an unfortunate failure. Lady Saria acted alone in suppressing the experimental materials that had gone out of control. Similarly, because of this experiment's mishaps, Lady Saria left Rhine Lab. It is not known why she chose to cooperate with Rhodes Island after leaving Rhine Lab.

But then you have Ifrit and Silence’s tokens:

A long novel telling a legendary story. It is badly burned and you can only barely make out the words.

A patterned feather decoration. This ineloquent researcher from Liberi shows her sincerity by gifting her own feathers.

But oh gee, guess who are wearing feather tokens in the designs?  (it’s Ifrit and Saria)

Also here’s Silence just so you aren’t left wondering what she looks like:

Anyway, the point is that the writers know how to throw tiny bits of characterization and hints of an untold story into literally everything in this game, and that is exactly what I live for.

Oh yeah, there’s also Gameplay.

Game’s pretty fun:

I enjoy it as a game too.

[wearesorcerer]

[5e] 9th-Level Spells

You may be wondering why I’m starting my review of 5e spells with the highest level spells available. That’s simple: you only get one.

The 5e Sorcerer table isn’t quite like the 3.x one, but it is like the 3.5 Warlock and Psion: at any given level, you can known X spells and have Y spell level as your maximum. The table is elegant, but you have to know to level your character from first level rather than reading the table straight across if you’re making a higher level character. (I’ve made this mistake many a time. It’s why I dislike this sort of table: it looks nice but isn’t actually helpful.)

If you’re trying to have as many spells of the highest available spell level as possible, you would have from 0th to 9th 6/3/2/2/2/2/1/1/1/1. I find it easier to work backwards in this case, as you can say “I want to reserve X spells known for higher-level spells” and then figure out how many low-level ones you can have instead of getting to a higher level and running into a corner.

The question with 9th-level spells is not “what’s good?” because they’re all good. Rather, it’s “what’s worth taking as my single most powerful class feature?” That should narrow things down a lot.

Primary List

gate · mass polymorph · meteor swarm · power word kill · psychic scream · time stop · wish

I’ve written about wish and time stop ZA WARUDO! (time crunchy noises), but not in the context of 5e. Wish has changed substantially; time stop hasn’t. You have a few options, but the majority of them are boom-boom.

Gate: you can hold open an interplanar portal for as long as you concentrate (up to a minute) at the cost of a 5,000 gp diamond; if you know the name of a specific creature, you can use the spell to summon that creature. For some odd reason, gate is both the most Warlock spell in the game besides planar binding, yet is only a Warlock spell through a UA variant. For a Sorcerer, this could be useful, but you’re making your best spell cost you money every time you cast it. Strategically speaking, this spell is situational enough (read: a Wizard spell) that if you wanted it in the first place you should take it with the Ritual Caster feat, but for some reason this most obviously ritualistic spell isn’t a ritual. There are better uses for your spell known, but this is by no means a bad spell. Save for a scroll or something.

Mass Polymorph: you polymorph (Wis negates) up to ten creatures you can see within 120 ft. for as long as you concentrate (up to one hour), just like with polymorph. It incorporates animal shapes into it. If you want animal shapes, you should find a way of getting it instead: you don’t need a 9th-level spell slot for it (so can cast it more often -- 8th + 9th level spell slots), it lasts for 24 hours, and you can affect more creatures (30 ft. area = radius = 96 squares - the one you’re in = 95 Medium creatures [more if they’re smaller and squeezing together]). I don’t care for the concentration aspect of the 5e polymorph spells. I mean, I get the rationale, I just find it odd for this particular spell -- and I’d rather not give my opponent a tactical reason to target me. Pass.

Meteor Swarm: four fireballs fall from the sky and each deal 20d6 fire + 20d6 bludgeoning (Dex half; average 140 damage), setting everything they touch ablaze. Beautiful. I love meteor-style spells, so this is high on my list even though it’s a boom-boom spell and I’m not particularly boom-boom oriented. The best part of this is that it has a range of one mile, so you can destroy enemy armies without risking getting killed! Yay! Yes.

Power Word Kill: one creature within 60 ft. of 100 HP or less drops dead (no save). 100 HP is more than the average of many high-level characters, so unless the DM gave a boss max HP you can use this to kill even major opponents reliably. An optimizer will tell you that a spell without a save is something you should always take -- and would be correct insofar as it makes you more difficult to stop. I, however, dislike that mechanic: there’s almost no reason a spell shouldn’t have a save. This one should have the choice of Wis (resisting the mental influence) and Con (staying alive despite the heart attack/stroke/whatever). A very good spell, but I’d call it OP.

Psychic Scream: 10 creatures of Int 3+ within 90 ft. take 14d6 psychic damage and are stunned (Int half [damage]/negates [stunning]); their heads explode if they die. The beauty of this one is that it goes off of Int rather than Wis (meaning Wizards are the only targets you really need to worry about) and it automatically avoids friendly fire. Yes.

Time Stop ZA WARUDO!: you get 1d4 + 1 rounds to act, but the spell ends if anything you do (including effects you create) affect other creatures or objects someone else is wearing or carrying or you move more than 1,000 ft. from where you cast the spell. The main purpose of this spell is to buff yourself a lot, run the fuck away, or stack delayed blast fireballs to deal a buttload of damage. That’s all very nice, but it’s a continuation of the 3.0 nerf to the spell: in 2nd ed, you could pull a DIO and attack people or an Over the Hedge and steal things. Now for my main quibble. 3.5′s Player’s Handbook II had the celerity line of spells, which you could cast as an immediate action (choice of reaction or bonus action). Each one dazed (incapacitated) you afterward, but gave you an extra move (lesser), action (no prefix), or round (greater) to do with as you pleased. I’m willing to guess that there are similar spells in 5e. In 3.5, there were ways of becoming immune to dazing; maybe there’s a 5e-compatible build for that. Either way, as a 9th-level spell, I should get to throw knives at people to my heart’s content before dropping heavy objects (like steam road rollers) on them. Good, but I’m going to go to my grave complaining about the restrictions.

Wish: you can do practically anything, but you have a one in three chance of losing your ability to cast your highest-level spell. IT’S A TRAP!

For very personal reasons, I’m torn between meteor swarm and time stop, but psychic scream is also up there. I think power word kill is unfair, but I cannot say that it’s a bad spell. I don’t like mass polymorph, but I think that’s more me not liking how 5e deals with durations. Wish is too big of a risk for a Sorcerer: you have the chance of losing the most powerful class feature you get and have nothing else that can compensate for that loss (unlike a Wizard); it’s better as a scroll. Gate really should be a ritual, but it isn’t, and it’s expensive, so it really depends on how badly you need to move lots and lots of creatures or summon forth an Elder God.

Divine Soul (Cleric) List

astral projection · gate · mass heal · true resurrection

I’ve already covered gate, thankfully.

Astral Projection: exactly what it says on the tin for you and eight willing creatures. I have never understood why this spell is so high-level. Mechanically, it’s riskier and more expensive than casting plane shift, which is two levels lower. Thematically, it’s a mass version of an effect which in folklore is almost always caster-only, which makes no sense, and it’s at max-level when this is fairly standard practice for shaman and shaman-like figures. (Heck, that’s what a bunch of the associated drug culture is about!) Maybe someone can explain to me why you would want to use this spell. Pass.

Mass Heal: heal 700 HP divided as you choose among any number of creatures (except constructs and undead) you can see within 60 ft.; also cures them of all diseases, blindness, and deafness. On the one hand, this seems like a great spell with a raid or during a cataclysm. On the other, you can accomplish everything this does with lower-level spells. Pretty good, but maybe hold out for...

True Resurrection: a creature you touch (or whose name you speak) is restored to life and perfect health (no wounds, no missing limbs, cured of all diseases and poisons, freed from any curses), even if there are no remains, provided the creature has been dead for no longer than 200 years and is free/willing to return. PICK THIS ONE!

Variant List (UA)

Foresight: for eight hours, a creature you touch can’t be surprised, gets advantage on most d20 checks, and causes all creatures attacking it to roll with disadvantage. This is better than the 3.5 version, which was already very good. Yes, this. Very.

Really Cool Spells It’d Be Great to Take If You Could

Or me lamenting about the limitations of the Sorcerer list

imprisonment · invulnerability · power word heal · prismatic wall · ravenous void · shapechange · storm of vengeance · time ravage · true polymorph · weird

Imprisonment: you know any of those fairy tale/folklore/mythology spells that trap someone for, like, ever? This is it. (Combines the spell of the same name, maze, and binding from 3.5.) You’ve got options if you want to seal someone away -- and it lasts until you say otherwise. Sure, it’d be nice if it were a ritual, but it ain’t; you just gotta take a minute to cast it (and throw in 500 gp. of material per HD of the target).

Invulnerability: you are immune to damage for up to 10 minutes (at the cost of “a piece of adamantine” [in D&D, that’s closer to depleted uranium than it is to diamond] of 500+ gp.). Maybe you don’t like the cost for a spell of that level, but hey, invulnerability.

Power Word Heal: target (non-construct, non-undead) regains all HP; has the charmed, frightened, paralyzed, and stunned conditions removed; and can stand up as a reaction if prone. This is a Bard spell, but it’s on the Cleric and Druid variant lists, so probably is an option for Divine Souls. I can see it being handy, but you’d think mass heal would be a better choice.

Prismatic Wall: you conjure up a rainbow wall/sphere (as prismatic spray) that’s a bitch to get rid of. You want an abjuration? This is it.

Ravenous Void: a miniature black hole that needs some errata (how many spaces do creatures and objects getting sucked in move each round?). It’s ludicrously awesome, though.

Shapechange: other than true polymorph, this is what you want out of polymorphing magic.

Storm of Vengeance: let’s say you want all of the boom-boom of meteor swarm but are more meteorologically focused. Here’s your answer. You end up dealing an average of 49 damage (of three elemental types and bludgeoning) to each creature below a storm cloud (360 ft. radius) you conjure within sight. There’s an arbitrary distance beneath the cloud included, as it doesn’t say how far up the cloud has to be.

Time Ravage: you decrepify someone with timey-wimey magic -- but it’s somehow necromancy!

True Polymorph: you can transform almost anything into almost anything else. The limits on this spell are basically to keep you from thinking you’re a literal god and overall I’d think this would work better in a skill-based magic system, but nonetheless it’s quite clearly the best polymorphing spell in the game.

Weird: this is mass phantasmal killer. It’s directly comparable to psychic scream -- Illusion rather than Enchantment, fear rather than stunning, and more potential targets in a smaller burst instead of headsplosions.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #192

Today on Fate and Phantasms we're building the enchanting Caster of Okeanos, which despite her name doesn't actually show up in Okeanos, but rather the fourth pseudosingularity, Salem. She's also one of the last servants in the game (so far) to have her true name hidden, so pretty soon I can stop pointing out how her character build below the cut has true name spoilers. Specifically, this build also includes spoilers for the Salem pseudosingularity, so read at your own peril.

If you'd rather just check out her character sheet, you can find that over here.

Next up: The equal to the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, so just, equal to heaven, I guess.

Circe is a Transmutation Wizard, because she is a witch, and Transmutation is where they stuck polymorph.

Race and Background

Like her protege, Circe is an Elf, but if we want kindasorta falcon wings, that might be tricky. Just kidding, for some reason WotC thought winged elves were a priority, so we got Avariel Elves from an unearthed arcana. This means you only get +2 to a single stat, but we can make that Intelligence thanks to Tasha's for a brain blast. Your subrace gives you 30' of flying speed as long as you don't wear medium or heavy armor (not an issue), as well as the standard elf kit: Darkvision, Fey Ancestry to protect against charms, Trances instead of sleep, and proficiency in Perception thanks to your Keen Senses.

Circe lives on her island alone (if you don't count pigs) so that makes her a Hermit, privy to the secrets of the universe as well as Medicine and replacing the other proficiency (which we'll get back as a class proficiency) with Deception. Tricking men into turning into pigs is kind of a hobby for you.

Ability Scores

Your strongest score should go into Intelligence, that's how you cast spells, and also you're clearly more intelligent than the men who show up on your island. Speaking of, Charisma is next- you're a witch in the middle of a witch hunt that somehow never got caught, and there's also that whole Pig Island thing. Your Dexterity is also pretty good, it's hard enough to cast spells while walking, let alone flying. Also those heels, oh my fucking god how have you not broken an ankle yet. Your Constitution is above average mostly because I'd feel bad putting it any lower. That means your Wisdom is pretty low. You publicly introduce yourself as a witch in the middle of the Salem Witch Trials, and you're pretty flighty in general. Finally, dump Strength. You're a wizard, and you're clearly not that buff.

Class Levels

Circe is a wizard, meaning she starts off with proficiency in Intelligence and Wisdom saves, as well as Arcana and Religion. When you worship the goddess of magic, there isn't much of a difference, tbh. Speaking of magic, you can cast and prepare Spells using your Intelligence. Your spell slots normally only recharge on long rests, but once per long rest you can get a couple slots back on a short rest thanks to your Arcane Recovery, giving you back slots of a total level equal to half your wizard level rounded up. So when you hit level three, you can get back one 2nd level slot, or two 1st level slots. The thing about wizard is, they get a lot of spells. Six now, and two each level, plus whatever they can scavenge from other wizards. Since Circe's whole power set is "good at magic", there really isn't a set of spells that fit- any spell you could cast would be applicable. So rather than try to boil it down myself, we're just giving a rough guide here. There's a whole ass list on the character sheet, and we'll bring up the super important ones here, but really there's three qualifications: if a spell fits into one of these categories, Circe would probably have it. 1. Is it useful? The most open-ended, but just fill in spaces left by the other 2 with spells you want. I'm not a goddamn baby sitter, pick spells you like. 2. Can it turn one thing into another? Men to pigs, You into Medea, whatever kykeon is made out of into kykeon, this one's pretty easy to spot. 3. Can it help someone sail a ship? A bit specific, but helping the sailors she doesn't turn into pigs is also Circe's thing. Skill empowerment, weather control, that kind of thing. With all that out of the way, the big spells you'll probably want at first level are Mage Armor for not dying, Magic Missile for caster balls, and Sleep to knock out the sailors while you go around turning them to pigs. True Polymorph takes an hour per sailor and you need to recharge with a long rest, so this’ll take a while.

At second level, you become a Transmutation Savant, giving you all sorts of bonuses, like how copying transmutation spells into your book is cheaper and faster now. You can also make Minor Alchemy, turning 1 cubic foot of wood, stone, iron, copper, or silver, into another material on that list over the course of 10 minutes. You're not strong enough to shatter wooden chains either, but hopefully someone on your team is. This transformation lasts up to an hour or until you lose concentration, then it turns back to its regular form.

Third level wizards get Cantrip Formulas, letting you swap out one cantrip you know with a cantrip you don't know at the end of a long rest. You also get second level spells, like Alter Self to turn into Medea (among other benefits), and Gust of Wind to help out with sailing.

Use your first Ability Score Improvement to get a Keen Mind- always knowing which way you're facing and the angle the sun should be at are both really useful on the open sea. It also rounds up your Intelligence for stronger spells, and you can make your DM's life hell by remembering things up to a month after they happened.

Fifth level wizards get third level spells. Feign Death will help fake Mata Hari’s hanging later on, and Bestow Curse is super useful, since it can give a creature disadvantage on one kind of save. Like, say, wisdom saves. I wonder if there's a spell you like that requires a wisdom save coming up?

Sixth level transmutation wizards can create a Transmuter's Stone, a tiny object that gives its holder one of several benefits. When you make the stone, and if you're holding it while casting a transmutation spell, you can choose its beneft from the following: Darkvision, increased speed, proficiency in constitution saves, or resistance to one of acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder. You can only make one at a time after 8 hours of work, so don't try to stack them.

Seventh level wizards get fourth level spells, and you could get polymorph now if you really want, but you can also get that spell later for free, so if you're patient, you can get another spell now. If you do go for polymorph, it forces a wisdom save on a creature, and if they fail the save or they're willing, you can turn one creature into a beast with a CR equal to or less than the target's CR or level. All of the creature's stats are replaced by the new creature's, outside of alignment and personality. If it drops to 0 HP in this form, and hour passes, or you drop concentration, they turn back to normal. You can also cast other fourth level spells, like Control Water for sailing, Fabricate to turn... barley, just looked it up, into kykeon. Or any raw materials into a finished product that is Large or smaller.

At eighth level, you get another ASI that'll let you max out your Intelligence for super strong spells. That, plus your curses, will make your polymorph super hard to resist. When you get it.

Ninth level wizards get fifth level spells, like Control Winds and Skill Empowerment, as well as Scrying.

A tenth level transmuter is a Shapechanger, giving you the polymorph spell for free. You can also cast it on yourself once per short rest for free, but only if you turn into something CR 1 or lower. Sadly Medea isn't a beast or CR 1, but it doesn't hurt to practice. Also, yeah! You can now turn pretty much anyone into a Pig (CR 0, so there’s no excuse) or if you want to weaponize it, a Giant Boar (CR 2). Just promise to turn them back if they do your bidding. Still only lasts an hour, but they don’t have to know that.

Eleventh level wizards get sixth level spells. There really isn’t anything specifically Circe-like I want at this level, so just grab whatever your heart wants. There will be time for specifics later.

At twelfth level you get another ASI, and since your intelligence is maxed out we can diversify. Grab the War Caster feat for advantage on concentration saves (very good for pigmaking), the ability to cast spells with your hands full (not applicable), and best of all, you can cast spells as opportunity attacks if that spell as an action casting time and targets a creature. Oh hey, guess what spell fits that description?

Thirteenth level casters get seventh level spells! Again, not necessarily anything you need from here, but Plane Shift is always cool. Maybe you can stumble onto the pig dimension or something.

Your last goody from the transmutation specialty is to become a Master Transmuter, burning your transmuter stone in one go for a burst of magical power. Afterwards, you can’t make a new one until you take a long rest. You can use this for a Major Transformation, permanently changing a medium or smaller nonmagical object into another of similar size & mass (you also can’t cheese value out of this) over the course of 10 minutes. Alternatively, you make a Panacea, removing all curses, diseases, and poisons from a single creature, while also healing it back to full health. That’s some good eating. Going even further, you can Restore Life to cast Raise Dead without a spell slot. Death is a pretty hard line in the Nasuverse, but if anyone could do it it’d probably be Circe. Finally, you can Restore Youth to reduce a creature’s age by 3d10 years without extending their lifespan. You’ve clearly used that on yourself a couple times, but I can’t blame you.

Fifteenth level wizards get eighth level spells, and for once there is something I want to get. You might not use Scylla in-game, but hey, giant sea monsters are cool, so use either Summon Greater Demon, Dominate Monster, or Illusory Dragon to get one, depending on your preferred method.

You get yet another ASI, so bump up your Constitution for better concentration and more health- remember, health gets added retroactively, so that’s 16 extra this level, not one.

At seventeenth level you finally get ninth level spells, giving you access to Mass Polymorph for a proper pig banquet. This one is limited to only half the targets’ levels, but a pig is still CR 0, so it shouldn’t be a big issue. However, if you’re feeling really cruel, you can use True Polymorph for a more... permanent solution. If you keep concentration up for a full hour, the change lasts until it is dispelled. You can also turn objects into creatures, or creatures into objects, but none of those are particularly in character.

Eighteenth level wizards get Spell Mastery, giving you a 1st & 2nd level spell that you can cast for absolutely free, no restrictions. You can always change it later, but I highly suggest Magic Missile so you always have some damage on standby, and Alter Self for the versatility of it.

Your penultimate level grants you your ultimate ASI, so bump up your Charisma for an easier time tricking sailors. It doesn’t do much for the build, but at this point it doesn’t need to.

Your final level of the build gives you two Signature Spells, 3rd level spells that you can cast once per short rest without spending a spell slot. Sadly polymorph is a fourth level spell so it isn’t in the running, but Bestow Curse and Tidal Wave are good runners up. I never said you had to be nice to sailors, just help them out occasionally.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Polymorph is one of the easiest ways to utterly shut down an enemy if it hits, at the very least buying you an hour to run away and regroup. It’s also very funny.

The Transmuter’s Stone is a very powerful support tool, protecting you and giving you healing options wizards don’t normally get. You also come loaded with tools like Skill Empowerment, which is just flexible enough to be useful even when you’re not on a ship.

You get concentration free flight, which is incredibly useful for a spellcaster. Being able to completely avoid an enemy’s front line and turn their back line into pigs is very useful.

Cons

The reason your flight being concentration free is such a big deal is because a lot of your spells use concentration. Honestly, your saves aren’t that bad (esp. with war caster) but it still limits your options, especially when your signature move requires concentration.

While your stone is powerful, it has a huge recharge time to contend with, requiring a long rest followed by an extra 8 hours of work, and the entire time between now and then you might as well not have a subclass. It’s a pretty harsh penalty for actually using your class feature.

It takes a while for this build to go from level one to casting polymorph, so if you want a build you can jump right into and feel like the character, this build definitely isn’t what you’re looking for.

[danetobelieve]

Don’t Drop Dead || Athena and Winston

When: 22/06/2020 Who: @athenaquinn & @danetobelieve. Where: The carnival . Summary: Athena and Winston try the drop ride with varied success. Warnings: None

Winston shifted their glasses and shuffled their feet. The ice cream they’d bought from one of the stands as they waited for Athena to arrive was good. Really good. It was days like this when Winston really enjoyed the summers of Maine. The weather was amazing, the sun shining, the sky a deep sapphire and there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. There was a cool breeze rolling in from the ocean and sure there was the weird creepy carnival music but Winston could forget that. They were determined to have a normal, cool, absolutely okay time. No weird supernatural shenanigans. Spotting Athena, they waved and made their way over. “Hey, you get here okay?”

When she’d first heard about the carnival, Athena had been intrigued. If nothing else, it gave her something else to occupy her mind after everything that had happened recently. Winston was a good person to spend time with, and she found herself feeling oddly relieved that they wanted to spend time with her. Something new, but not something she was used to feeling, but she did consider them a friend and there was a small pang somewhere in her whenever they said they didn’t want to spend time together. But you didn’t invite people you hated to the carnival - or at least good people like Winston didn’t. It was a nice day - just warm enough and perfect weather to finally break out her shorts and one of her Kappa Iota Lambda rush shirts. Casual, but she knew that she still looked good. Summertime did make hiding the knives a bit more difficult, but she still had one pressed against her hip bones, covered by her shirt. No matter how possibly normal this carnival might be, it was always important to be safe. She arrived and began to make her way over, pausing as they began walking too. “I did. Nice to do normal small town things.” Athena grinned at them. “So, what would you like to do first?” She shook her head for a moment, her gaze flicking over to their neck. “Actually, no, nevermind, what on earth happened to you?”

Honestly, Winston was amazed that the wound on their neck had healed as much as it had. They shared it now. With Luce and Nell. They each had a third of the same scar that Bea did. Where she had lost her head … quite literally. Fortunately however, they had been able to reattach it and now things were looking better for all of them. But Winston kind of sucked at lying. So they did their best not to. “Oh, this?” they knew that although it was mostly healed and just a few days away from becoming a fully healed scar, “I had a run in with some undead …” it wasn’t technically a lie, “and I got cut and it’s still healing. Don’t worry, it’s fine. I was with a bunch of other spell casters and a hunter came and helped us too so we were fine in the end.” Again, none of that was a lie. But they had been very careful to not explain that something was undead because of them. They knew the taboo around necromancy. They weren’t going to risk anything happening to the Vural’s because of this. They didn’t deserve that. “You want to go on one of the rides or something?” Winston tried to ignore Athena’s legs. But they were toned, the brief glance had told them that. It was infuriating that she was so hot. It was also infuriating that she was apparently so oblivious … to everything. “I heard that they’ve got some pretty good stuff this time round but I never really came here before so i don’t have a comparison point.” 

At their mention of a run in with some undead Athena felt her body tense up. That vampire back months ago? Something else? But they mentioned that there was at least another hunter there and she breathed a sigh of relief. “At least someone else was there to help you. I hope everything got taken care of.” Even though part of her felt a small pang that they hadn’t thought to call her. Maybe it had been a slayer who’d come by, who’d sensed what was wrong and had helped out because of that. She’d focus on that rather than the fact that maybe they didn’t want to call on her. They’d agreed to go to the carnival with her and that was something. Maybe they were starting to understand her perspective more - or maybe, based on the fact that she caught them looking at her out of the corner of her eye - it was just that she was pretty. She’d take either. Perhaps the shorts had been a good choice outside of sheer practicality.  “Sure, we can go on a ride!” She grinned. “Which one did you have in mind? I can’t recall if I’ve been to this carnival before, but it’ll be fun to go on some anyhow, I think.” She placed her hands on her hips and looked over to them. “What sounds best to you?”

“Oh, yeah, we solved the problem and having help is definitely great.” Bea was no longer dead, but August had instead taken her place. Winston didn’t regret their decision, they just weren’t sure that their conscience felt the same. It didn’t matter, they were going to have to learn to live with it because there was no going back now. Glancing around they spotted a drop ride and raised an eyebrow at it, the lurching pit in their stomach was already there. It had been there since they’d brought Bea back. It felt like they were boiling under their skin at moments and then at others it was just a pit. So what was a drop ride compared to that right? Eager to find something that they could do together, “We could try that?” Winston asked tentatively, “I don’t know what the ride is called but I guess it looks cool?” Winston wasn’t really the type to go to carnivals and fun fairs, theme parks were even kind of a step to far. But here they were anyway, trying their best to enjoy a more normal summer. 

“I’m glad. Not that I’d ever doubt your skill in problem solving.” Athena gave a small nod. “You do know how to think fast and on your feet.” She watched them carefully as they took a look around the carnival. Truthfully, she did not care what the two of them did. While she loved the feeling of how busy the carnival was, she knew that she still had to keep an eye out. “Yeah, sure - if you’d like.” She bit her lip for a moment. “I don’t know what it’s called either, but it looks like quite something.” She could hear the sound of screams as the ride cycled back up again to start. It’s just a ride, not somewhere to save people. Probably. “Let’s do it.” She grabbed their hand for a moment and pulled them over to where the ride was, before dropping it and walking up to the operator. “We’d like to go next, please.” She flashed them a small smile. Always best to make a good first impression, if possible. The operator gave the two of them a once over with a small grin and motioned to stand in line, just behind a couple other people. 

“You’ve lived in White Crest long enough to realise that sometimes you don’t have any choice other then thinking on your feet.” Winston almost protested when Athena grabbed their hand, before gratefully realising that they’d not grabbed the hand with the eye in it. That might’ve hurt. They weren’t really sure, no one had grabbed it yet. “Cool, yeah, sure, cool.” Winston smiled as best they could, honestly they were still recovering from the ritual. It was hot as shit. They weren’t sure that a drop ride was really the best idea but suddenly they were being ushered into the line. Winston watched the ride wind up, lifting the members of the public strapped into their seats high into the air before bringing them down before stopping just mere feet away from the ground. There were screams of delight, terror and horror. Winston’s stomach turned and they swallowed their fear the best they could. It was a ride. These were definitely safe. The silence got the better of them and Winston couldn’t help but break it. “Having a good summer?” Winston asked as they were harnessed into their seats. 

“I mean, yes. I do in fact think on my feet a lot. I like to think it’s a good skill, though the ways that I have to do so aren’t always easily discussed with the wider world.” Athena raised an eyebrow. It was nice to be able to admit that, even though Winston didn’t know the full extent of what she did. Not that she cared, nor did she think whatever she did was wrong, but there was a small part of her that wanted to keep them out of at least part of it. Even though they hadn’t seemed to have any issue with her being a hunter she knew that it was not something she was supposed to talk about in most company. It was much nicer, anyhow, to just enjoy their company. Maybe she should have talked them out of this ride, she wondered, as she noticed their face as the two of them got towards the front of the line. One of the people working on the ride glanced at Winston with a broad smile on their face and Athena flashed them a glare. Not that she was even close to being nice all the time, but there was something about the smile that unnerved her just slightly. Before she could take time to process it, they were ushered onto the ride and Winston was asking her questions. “Huh? Yeah! I am!” She grinned. “Soccer camp starts in a bit over a week, and I’m super excited to help coach that. How about you? You graduated, right? What’s it like out in the big wide world?” They’d still have a minute or two while everyone else was buckling in. “Sorry I didn’t get you anything. I’ll have to do that soon.”

Everything always circled back to the fact that they weren’t normal and they weren’t in a normal place and it wasn’t a normal time. Winston didn’t mind. It wasn’t their fault. But even now they knew that there was this constant reminder that something was different. “If you couldn’t think on your feet then I would have legitimate concerns about your survival in this place.” As they were strapped into their seat, Winston listened carefully to what Athena had planned. “Oh, nice cool, soccer camp sounds like a good way to keep busy plus you get to enjoy all of this great weather.” There was the familiar click of a buckle sliding into place and then suddenly the attendants were stepping back. “Oh, yeah, I graduate-” Winston’s words were quite literally left behind them as they were shot up into the air. From the ground it hadn’t looked quite so violent. But in that second Winston was dragged through the air, the g-force causing any loose skin to ripple from the momentum of the ride. Winston’s mouth was open and screaming some obscenity but they were convinced that any sound they’d made had been left behind. As they were dragged through the air they were just as quickly falling and as the ground came flying towards them Winston was gripped with terrror and then as quickly as it all started it stopped. Gasping in breaths of air, Winston sat in silence for a moment before turning and looking at Athena. “I don’t remember what we were talking about…”

“I’ve been thinking on my feet and been darn good at it since I was tiny.” Athena raised an eyebrow. She wasn’t afraid to admit that. Orion would have said that she thought on her feet more than with her brain sometimes, but it got the both of them out of trouble so who was he to complain about her process? “Yeah, and it’s a good way to stay active, too.” Winston was about to comment when all of a sudden the ride started and it was not the sort of rush that she liked. Not one that she got from doing her duty, nor one she felt after a good game or run. Then, suddenly they were back on the ground she unclenched her hands from the fists that had formed, nails digging into the palms of her hands. “What?” She looked over to them. “I - I don’t either. I also worry I might be sick.” She looked over at them. “I’d like to be done with this ride though. Maybe go get a slush or something? It’s hot out.” She tugged at the collar of her shirt. One of the operators was walking over towards them, glancing over at Athena - they brushed against her shoulder and when she met their gaze, about to ask them if they could please be let off of the ride all she could see was her brother, dead on the floor, body cold. “No!” She screamed, pushing against the man. “I mean,” she caught her breath, looking around. Orion was nowhere to be seen. Her hands felt clammy and she looked over to Winston, before back to the man, “I see there - there’s others waiting to go. Can you let us off?” She wasn't afraid. She didn’t get afraid. That wasn’t her job. 

“Some of us are clearly just born lucky,” Winston couldn’t help the sarcasm, of course they were joking. They hoped Athena didn’t take offense to it, they just hadn’t been a natural at any of this. They weren’t sure that they were even good at it now. They felt like they were often just doing enough to keep their head above the surface and that was it. “Exactly, staying active is very important.” Yet Winston really made little to no effort to stay fit, they hadn’t returned to the gym after happening to meet Athena there. Though that might’ve been more because of how busy they had been rather then anything more. “Yeah let’s definitely not do that again,” a drink sounded like a good idea, except Athena suddenly looked pale. Winston knew she wanted to get them off and this wasn’t that difficult tech. Reaching out with their mind they focussed on the locking mechanism and sending the relevant electrical charges to the right place. Except, of course they overdid it. They hadn’t anticipated the amount of power that was going to come surging out of them and the locks exploded open with quite a lot of force. The restraints snapping open and Winston couldn’t help but blush as people yelped in surprise. “That was weird…”

“I mean, I do have an advantage in the genetics department as far as that goes.” She raised an eyebrow. Athena didn’t speak for a moment after they’d stopped and the man had come over. Rio was okay, he was alive, everything was fine. Then why did she feel a sense of unease? Why did the man look like he was about to reach out again? All of a sudden there was a sound almost like an explosion and the locks opened with far greater force than normal. She caught Winston’s blush and nodded. “Really weird.” She felt herself practically fall out of the ride, though at least her natural abilities were always there for her, and so she caught herself, readjusting her position. She stood up and began walking away from the ride, hoping Winston would follow her. “I’m sorry. I just - well, never mind. We should go do something else.” She turned around and flashed a glare at the man. At least she’d thrown him off, at least she’d had the sense to do that. “I need something to eat. We should find that slush.” The coolness of the iron against her hip felt all too appealing, but this was a public space and she couldn’t do anything right now.

As Athena stumbled out of the ride, Winston was quick to follow suit. They’d decided the longer that they spent at this carnival the more certain they were that they didn’t want to come back if it was going to be like this every time. “I am glad that was over, I don’t think that will be a ride that I ever go on again.” They were worried about Athena. It was clear that whatever had happened to her on the ride had rattled her and Winston hadn’t ever seen her like that before. “Are you okay … did something happen other then the rides nearly exploding?” Winston felt guilty about that but from the way that Athena had reacted they had tried to get her out of the situation that made her uncomfortable as soon as they could. “Defo, let’s get some food.” Winston wanted a corndog, where better place to get one at a carnival?

“I don’t think I’ll go on one of those ever again, either.” Athena half-whispered. Then Winston was asking how she was and she shook her head. “I just saw something back there. Something that there’s no way was real. I don’t - I’m not seeing things, though.” She bit her lip. “Like, I don’t know, a vision - something that I’ve only seen in the worst parts of my imagination, of what-ifs.” She forced a smile onto her lips and bumped her hip against one of theirs. Trying to at least attempt to make light of it. “Good. Maybe I just haven’t eaten enough.” She knew of some creatures - not as much detail as she should have - that could cause horrifying visions, but the idea of them running a ride made her feel ill. “I’ll buy. I should probably get myself something that isn’t just sugar. Maybe I’ll go all out and get fries or something.” She grinned. “What about you?”

Frowning gently at Athena’s description of what had happened to her, Winston sighed and nodded. “That is weird,” they didn’t know what the hell could’ve caused that sort of thing for Athena and they were pretty sure that she wasn’t the type to get hysterical or freak out and make things up, no they believed her, “let’s make sure that we keep some distance between them, it just sounds like they got to you a bit maybe?” Winston wasn’t really sure honestly what the hell they’d done to Athena but they didn’t want to repeat the performance for her. “It’s pretty hot too, we can chill out for a bit and try and calm down….” Winston honestly couldn’t have felt more useless if they had tried. “Uh, maybe a corndog or something…” they shrugged, “we could see what they’ve got?” 

“Really weird. I - I’ll ask when I go home.” She shrugged off the would-be mention of her parents. Clearly they were hunters, if she was, but she also didn’t want to go down that route. Not right now, right now she’d focus on Winston. They were there. They were a solid, real person for Athena to focus on. “I guess, it’s whatever.” She shrugged. “It is hot, and I think I’m just about done with rides. We can just eat and walk around or whatever?” She looked over at them and smiled. “Hey, it’s okay! Maybe I didn’t sleep well enough, or something? I’d love to go and see what they’ve got.” She took a few steps forward and turned back to look at them. “I appreciate what you did back there, both for the sheer wow factor and for helping me out. Goodness knows I didn’t want them getting us out of that ride.”

Raising an eyebrow, Winston blushed a little bit. They had been hoping that their little incident on the ride hadn’t been noticed but of course it had been. Athena was as observant as ever, which made sense. “Yeah, well, you looked like you needed an out and I wanted to do my best to give us one without drawing too much attention.” Which they hadn’t exactly succeeded in, maybe that wasn’t that important though. No one had realised it was them aside from Athena and she knew about their magic. Had for a while. “That’s a good idea,” Winston agreed as they headed towards the stalls of food, it was your standard affair. Nothing really out of place. Nothing that you wouldn’t expect to be there. “You have something that you want specifically?” 

“Well, I’ve saved you, you’ve saved me, I think I like how this is all balancing itself out, don’t you?” Athena winked at them. “Besides, you know this town, they’ll just say it was some hardware malfunction or something else and everyone will forget about it.” She offered them a soft smile. “If anything, maybe they’ll pause that ride for a while and that can only benefit everyone.” She pulled a scrunchie off of her wrist and tied her hair up into a ponytail before focusing back on Winston. “I think I could do with some fries first, at least - which you’re welcome to share, if you want. Maybe we’ll find a booth with both those and the corndog you’re looking for?” 

“I don’t know if that is necessarily comparable to fighting off a bunch of vampires, but I’ll take it anyway.” Winston returned her wink with a smile. Despite everything they still enjoyed Athena’s company and she was Rio’s sister. They wanted to make Rios family work for him, but somehow they couldn’t help but think about the fact that Rio’s parents had definitely been the worst parents there were. Was Athena really entirely to blame for the way she’d turned out? “I was hoping that it would just be clocked to a malfunction or something because people wouldn’t know for sure what had happened, I think I’m safe. Besides, if anyone normal asks they’re not going to believe in magic. “Uh, we can definitely look,” it didn’t take long for Winston to locate a food truck that had both. “Do you want a slushie too?” 

“Well, I think it’s plenty impressive. Besides, I don’t always fight vampires,” her tone was hushed, now. Even if other people didn’t believe in the supernatural, Athena didn’t want them overhearing, “that’s not my specialty.” She gave a half-hearted shrug. “I bet they will. I mean, magic?” Her voice was still quiet, only audible to Winston. “As if! You know these sorts of cheap rides, they’re always breaking down.” She followed their gaze to the food truck. “Oh, wonderful. I’m paying, and sure, I’ll get a slush. When in Rome, right?”

[smokeybrand]

Master Class

The BlueStacks thing worked and i have access to my FGO account again! Man, it’s been a year apparently. I thought it was less than that. It’s weird returning to this game after so long. Everything is so different. I had to re-acclimate to my account. I rolled into the end of that Battle of New York event so i missed that. Might partake in the rerun. I got a ton of the 15 missions to finish but I'm definitely putting those off for about a week because of leveling. I missed out on Abby and that f*cking sucks I wanted SO badly to try and roll my adorable Old One. Maybe next time. As a way of just re-familiarize myself, i wanted to run through the available Classes we have now. There’s quite a few and i need to catch up!

Saber

Saber is my favorite Class. I mean, off course it is. The majority of my favorite Servants are in this class. Artoria Alter, Gozen, Nero, Lakshmibai, Gawain, and obviously, Modred. Modred is love. As a Class, Sabers make for great vanguards, man. They often deal a sh*t ton of damage and take a good amount before they crap out. That said, they get eaten up by Archers, man. It feels like that Affinity advantage hits a little harder on my swords-wielders. Favorite Saber: Mordred

Archer

Archers and i have a love hate relationship. They’re dope, don’t get me wrong, but they never seem like they’re properly strong. They feel like Archers to me, if you can understand that weirdness. Like, they’ll take you out but it’ll definitely cost a lot more effort than a strong Saber. Still, the characters are dope and the animation to their Noble Phantasms are almost always epically cinematic like Atalante’s Phoebus Catastrophe or EMIYA’s Unlimited Blade Works. Favorite Archer: Gilgamesh

Lancer

Lancers are my second favorite Class, mostly because of Cu. Cu gets bad rap most of the time. Dude is hilarious. Also Diarmuid. They did dude dirty in Zero. I enjoy Lacers mostly because of how well balanced they feel. They dish a good amount of damage while maintaining a decent amount of defense. They’re not as hardbody as Sabers and, indeed, get absolutely rag-dolled by them, but they stand their own against the other Classes fairly well. Favorite Lancer: Karna

Rider

Riders are a quandary to me. So many of them are throw away characters, weak as sh*t, but then you get absolute powerhouses out of nowhere. Francis Drake, Iskander, Quetzalcoatl, Ivan the Terrible, and Ozymandias will ruin your whole ass day if they’re spec’d right but the rest of the entire available Servant int this class are negligible. Even so, they hold a special place in my heart because my darling Medusa is a Rider. Also, Swimsuit Mordred is Rider so this Class got that going for it, too. I do adore all things Mo. Favorite Rider: Medusa

Caster

I hate Casters. They feel so goddamn weak, all of the time. If you’re not firing off a Noble Phantasm, they’re whack and, even when you do that, there is a real good chance it’s a support spell or some sh*t. I don’t need to debuff anything, f*cking do some damage, clown! This entire class is like utility because there is no way they are relevant in a real battle. Favorite Caster: Swimsuit Nero

Assassin

Ah, the Assassins. These motherf*ckers area whole ass frustration. Don’t misunderstand, i like them, they’re physical powerhouses, but can a cat get an Anti-Army Noble Phantasm at least once? All of these thing are focused on single unite attacks and threat can make for some dangerous play, man. Ludicrously OP play, but you have the same chance of dying as your opponent running these sneaky bastards. Favorite Assassin: Semiramis

Berserker

Berserkers area waste, man. All of that power, all of that ludicrous violent potential, and they’re always at an Affinity disadvantage due to the Madness curse. It f*cking blows because these beasts are real f*cking weapons of mass destruction, you know? I never use Berserkers for that exact point, unless going up against a swath of other Berserkers. That’s the only viable time you can use them efficiently and that sh*t almost never happens in game. Favorite Berserker: Ibaraki Douji

Ruler

Rulers are as useless as Caster but, somehow, disappointingly, moreso. They at least got a dope aesthetic, though. They also take half damage from literally every other Class. That’s cool, i guess. Favorite Ruler: Amakusa Shiro

Avenger

I love Avengers, man. Love em! These things are always dope. Great power. Great defense. Dope aesthetic. These things get it rough from Moon Cancers but everyone else is at their mercy, especially if you leveled them correctly. I have a few Avengers, personally, and one is literally the second card i maxed out fully. I’ll let you guess who it it is. Hint - She’s a Medusaface. Space Ishtar, Alter Jeanne, and Demon Nobu are also worthy of mention. Favorite Avenger: Gorgon

Moon Cancer

Moon Cancers are just an excuse to shove in more Sakurafaces in the form of BBs and i am here for it. The more Sakura i can get, the happier i am. I love Sakura. I don’t care for Moon Cancers as a whole Class, though. Also, i don’t have any anyway. F*ck em! Favorite Moon Cancer: Summer BB

Alter Ego

Alter Egos are so confusing to me. Like, why are they a thing? Why are they just not Alters or whatever? There is a legitimate reason, i know they are separate version that gained sentience and not just a different facet of the same character or whatever the explanation was, but even so, sh*t i contrived nonsense and i kind of love it. Nasu is absolutely known for it’s convolution and Alter Ego are no different. They’re the most TYPE-Moon sh*t ever, after Saberfaces. Favorite Alter Ego: Sesshoin Kiara

Foreigner

Foreigners are a blessing, aren’t they? Motherf*ckers are wonky as f*ck and just Some of the dopest Servant in all of Fate lore originate in this Class. F*cking Voyager, Yang Gufei, XX, Katsushika Hokusai, and two versions of my darling Abby Williams. And i don’t have any of them. F*ck my life, bro. Just, f*ck it all up, man. Favorite Foreigner: Abby Williams

That is all the available classes in Fate/Grand Order right now and, i think, all of them in the Fate franchise as whole. I’m sure there are some weirdly loose ones like Gunner or Faker. Once upon a time, the only wonky class was Avenger but now we got all these new ones, and just call them Extra Classes. It’s ridiculous. It’s all very much Nasu and i am having the best time revisiting my favorite franchise from the Nasuverse! Speaking of Extra, for the record, my favorite Servant in the Beast Class is Tiamat. You can’t Summon her, so it felt like a cheat to put her on the actual list but i do enjoy me some ancient Sumerian Dragon-Mother.

[hook-on-fandoms]

100 episodes and ASI

So we are about to have our first Thursday in roughly 16 weeks and they just leveled up to level 12 so in honor of that I figured I’d try and give some list of what I think they might take with this. So here we go. I’m going to go left to right from top table to bottom based off the MN order before the lockdown.

Travis/Fjord: While he won’t be reaching a ASI he had 2 levels of paladin and with level 12 that means oath so let’s see what oath. We can probably take conquest off the list. That is too much his last patron. Wait one moment I’m getting an update. Travis took a level in warlock so no oath. Instead he can use his reaction to cause any hit made against him, including the dreaded nat 20, by the person with the hex blade curse to have a 50 percent chance of missing. Moving on.

Marisha/Beau: Observant. Full stop. Look I know there are logically other options but I can’t even think of anything. It fits with her on her subclass, class, personality, flavor, and on her character working. 

Liam/Caleb: His int is already max but he might up either his dex or con by two to improve his survivalbility. I can’t think of any other asi he would take but he might take a feat. My first thought is linguist. The asi in the feat is useless but more languages are always good and having two people that are good with them is also good. Plus the cipher bit works for him especially when he pairs up with Beau. Other options are prodigey and skilled because yea. Resiliant con also helps with his con saves and of course the elemental adept fire for our pyro would fit.

Sam/Nott: First thought for Nott is ASI to con and cha. This is to get her hp back up to what it was before and to even out cha. Reason I think cha is that she got the tattoo that buffs it so I think Sam is interested in that stat though that could be a flavor for her wanting to show it improving due to her socializing more and being brought out of her shell and being more confident. For feats the one I can think of is sharpshooter if she doesn’t already.

Laura/Jester:The clerics are harder for me. For ASI maybe con and maybe maybe str though unlikely to me. For a feat I’m thinking war caster, resilient con or infernal constitution. First two for concentration and the last just cause it’s a cool race feat. Clerics don’t have a lot of range spell attacks for spell sniper is limited and she isn’t very elemental so elemental adapt is not likely. I guess magic initiate is an option but still. War caster is my best pick.

Taliesin/Cadeuceus: maybe up his con. Now he isn’t a tiefling now and already has war caster and the same problems as Jester on the others so resiliant con is one choice but I honestly couldn’t say.s

Ashley/Yasha: Up her dex and str by one or her con by two. Straight up. First one makes it easier to hit stuff and ups her ac if changes to bracers and con ups her hp and her ac if does the same. Pretty sure she mentioned regretting not going asi so not looking at feats.

What does everyone else think they will do? 

[elizabethemerald]

:o that sound so cool I guess I could ask some general questions like How does one go about learning magic on the last age? (Or any other age if you want to talk about it :)) What's the cost of magic? Do they have to sacrafoce anything?

During the age of the New gods there are several magical academies through out the land where a person could learn magic. These academies are remnants from the Age of Heroes. They can be a little stuck in their ways and slow to adapt to changes in politics. 

There is also a strong Oral tradition with magic users. Young casters are trained by elders in their village to help protect the village. Many will also go on quests at some point in their life, possibly to find some ancient secret from the Age of the Gifts or before, possibly to  fight some dark power. 

However the most common method for magic learning is bartering. A traveler will come to a town, teach some folks new spells, or new understanding of magic in order to pay for their stay in the Inn or like traveling sales men, they will sell their knowledge or trade for other’s knowledge of magic. Then eventually move on to the next town. These means that lot of understanding different aspects of magic is regionally very separated, but within neighboring towns very similar. 

That’s for learn magic. For divine magic their are orders to the various New gods that will instruct their clerics on the gifts provided by their deity. 

There are also those who have hereditary magic. Their learning is largely instinctual, their magic as close to them as their own skin and as inseparable. They might grow up bending their environment to their will from before they can walk. 

While many casters chafe if they are unable to follow their calling, divine clerics and hereditary casters suffer the most if they are denied their abilities. The gods of the Clerics will burn their way through any obstruction to keep in contact with their chosen heralds. Hereditary casters who are unable to explore their abilities may be driven to madness as their instinctual drive goes unanswered. 

All magic has a cost

After the destruction of the gifts each person has a well of power within them. Not all of them are trained in the ability to access that power, but everyone has it. Different people may be born with different amounts of innate power, and if completely tapped that power may return at vastly different rates. 

For the average caster who learned magic at an academy, that well may be all they have to draw on. Through hard work and study they can expand their personal store and improve their control of what they have. When it is tapped they can’t perform any additional magic until they rest, though they would suffer no harm from the exhaustion. 

Some caster use gems or minerals to hold their power, increasing their ability to cast spells. 

Now comes the fun part. Distributed cost. A single person, even with a gem full of power can only channel so much before they are exhausted. However a party of casters could create spells that are more powerful than the sum of their parts. Each of them supplying some of that cost. 

And that continues to scale. A cult with 100 people providing costs to a single charismatic leader could burn down a town at a glance. A religion with a 1000 people all paying costs could level mountains if that power was channeled through a skilled cleric. 

This concept of Distributed cost is what gave rise to the new gods. When a person had enough followers paying the cost, they could step beyond the mortal realm, becoming effectively immortal. But they can’t just hold that power for themselves. If they don’t provide aid to their followers the faith that sustains them will falter and fail. 

Sacrifices

All magic has a cost. And so far I’ve just mentioned people drawing, storing or sharing from within their personal well of power. But there are ways to draw more. Or not draw on your own power at all. And here we come to the sacrifices. 

Dark magic- which eats away at the casters body, eventually causing organ failure, death or madness but allows the caster to cast even when their well is tapped. This cost can also be imposed on others by a skilled caster, forcing those around them to bear that same pain as their body is unmade. 

Divine Oaths - Is basically a process of back loading the cost. A caster could make an oath to some powerful being for a more powerful spell than they would normally be able to survive. But in order to do that they must bear the cost at a later date, usually through some act of service to the divine being, furthering its goals. These oaths can also be imposed on others, though it is significantly more challenging. 

Blood magic - similar to Dark magic. As opposed to a necrotic force that drains the body of life and slowly kills it, blood magic consumes the magical nature of humans created by the destruction of the gifts. Can be used for extremely powerful acts of magic, such as tearing rifts into the Void, but is incredibly unstable. 

This was so much fun to talk about!! I hope you enjoyed reading and if anyone has any questions about my systems of magic, feel free to send me an ask!!

[tigerkirby215]

I can’t make builds so let’s talk about the latest UA

I can’t make builds right now so let’s talk about Feats. I’m honestly a big fan of feats but I do think that ASIs are a little too strong by comparison in 5e. I feel like in order to compete with ASIs in 5e a Feat needs to do one of two things:

Offer new unique abilities that provide a large boost to your character’s capabilities so that taking them is worth sacrificing an ASI. (Feats like Crossbow Expert, Great Weapon Master, Warcaster, etc.)

(Half Feats) Provide a nice bonus to reward you for slower progression, or for having an uneven ability score to increase. (NOT ATHLETE, but feats like Linguist, Resilient, and the racial feats from Xanathar’s)

For the most part feats do accomplish these two concepts well but there are some feats that are laughably weak (Keen Mind, Weapon Master) while others are way too good. (Lucky.) I think that Feats should remain as options for players who want to build a specific build. They shouldn’t be the “best” choice but rather they should be inherently optional for those who want the power boost they provide.

With that in mind we got an Unearthed Arcana for Feats, and since I want to do more on this Tumblr than just make League of Legends builds I figured I’d throw my thoughts out into the wind.

Artificer Initiate

The main strength of this feat by far is that the spells are added to your spell list. This means that Artificer Initiate is a very easy way for just about any spellcaster to get access to Bless and Cure Wounds / Healing Word. These spells are fairly independent of their spellcasting modifier so getting both of them as a Wizard, Sorcerer, or even Warlock can be good in a pinch.

Other than that the ability to cast spells with tools is nice but ultimately pointless. It’s good if you’re playing an Artificer / Wizard multiclass but Artificers can already cast spells through their infusions. Ultimately this feature of the feat would work better if there were more Intelligence casters in 5e.

It’s a very fun feat for roleplay and has good utility, but I don’t think anyone’s going to be begging to get this feat.

4 / 5

Chef

How the mighty Gourmand and the “mighty” Song of Rest have fallen. Okay let me start with the obvious: the “treats” you can make are complete fucking trash. They’re laughably underwhelming and serve more as a ribbon ability than anything.

As for the Song of Rest-esque effect Song of Rest was already a grossly underwhelming ability for Bards. It’s really sad that it was so underwhelming they flat out gave it to everyone (at the cost of a feat) but I don’t think that harms the Bard class too much.

Just overall the feat really doesn’t live up to the fantasy of being a cook. Two underwhelming abilities for the price of an ASI? No thanks.

2 / 5

Crusher

“Hi I’m playing a Champion Fighter with a Warhammer!” The utility of this feat starts and ends with the critical hit modifier which I’m gonna be honest is insanely overpowered.

“But what about moving people? My Monk can now push people off cliffs!” Have you ever played a Minotaur? To be fair you probably haven’t. Pushing people around will hardly ever be useful. There’s perhaps niche utility in pushing someone away so you can run without provoking opportunity attacks but the Mobile feat does this so much better while also giving you additional movement.

Perhaps the only niche use of this feat is that it can increase your DEX, making it a good Half Feat for Monks that isn’t fucking Athlete.

1 / 5

Eldritch Adept

I really like this feat. It’s kinda become a running gag on this account that I really like sticking Warlock levels into things, and while it isn’t just for the invocations that’s definitely a big part of it. There’s a lot of really cool invocations that you can grab to make your character mildly magical without messing them up by multiclassing. To name all the invocations you can get as a non-Warlock:

Armor of Shadows is, has, and always will be the invocation you take more for character flavor than for practicality. Reddit has been theorycrafting how to break this feat with an Abjuration Wizard but I think that’s a bit too niche.

Beast Speech is really cute conceptually but will rarely be useful. I can guarantee that every single Druid and Ranger is going to hoover up Eldritch Adept just to talk to their animal companion though! (This would’ve been a nice feat to put in my Kindred build if it had existed at the time.)

Beguiling Influence... take Skilled instead. Maybe some niche use for the Half-Elf Rogue who wants proficiency in literally every skill in the game.

Devil’s Sight! This is the main Invocation people are going to be looking for! Magical Darkness is incredibly hard to use effectively and this invocation is pretty much the only way to make it not completely useless?

Eldritch Sight: at-will Detect Magic is never a bad thing but it always suffered from opportunity cost. This makes it available for Bards.

Eyes of the Rune Keeper: just get the Comprehend Languages spell tbh. It’s a ritual after all.

Fiendish Vigor is alright. Decent on an Eldritch Knight as a backup Second Wind.

Gaze of Two Minds is far, FAR too situational to be useful.

Mask of Many Faces is a god-tier invocation for Arcane Tricksters. It ticks me off that you can’t take this feat as a non-caster for a regular Rogue to gain access to this.

Misty Visions depends on what your DM lets you get away with using Minor Illusion for.

Thief of Five Fates: just get Bane from another source.

It kinda bumbs me out that this feat is restricted to just magic users, and I feel like that part of the spell could be removed. Also kinda bumbs me out that you can’t blow two feats to get Agonizing Eldritch Blast (Magic Initiate [Warlock] + Eldritch Adept) but I sort of understand why that’s a thing. But invocations are the perfect example of something worth losing an ASI for.

5 / 5

Fey Touched

Here’s the first feat that I think is a little too good. Let’s get the elephant out of the room first: Fey Teleportation. The differences between the two feats are as follows:

Misty Step from Fey Teleportation comes back on a short rest.

Fey Teleportation is locked by race.

Fey Touched gives you two spells.

Fey Touched lets you add the spells to your spell list.

Oh and let’s talk about some of the spells that are in the Enchantment / Divination school: Bless, Command, Detect Magic, Dissonant Whispers, Heroism, Hex, Hunter's Mark, Identify, and Sleep. (Just to name the notable choices.)

This feat should’ve been a full feat (no ASI.) Adding both Misty Step and Hex to your spell list as a Cleric or Paladin is more than enough to make this feat OP. If Artificer Initiate is a full feat than this should be too.

5 / 5 - OP award for being OP

Fighting Initiate

This should be a half feat. Actually: this should be merged with Weapon Master. I personally already Homebrew the Weapon Master Feat to do this along with the effects of Weapon Master (+3 weapons, +STR or DEX.)

If this was done as an eratta to Weapon Master (instead of its own feat) the feat could be taken by Wizards who want a way to defend themselves, Rogues who want more options Scimitars cough while also honing their own skills, or Barbarians who just finally want a fighting style. I’m glad something like this is finally being considered but please just buff Weapon Master instead.

4 / 5

Gunner

Crossbow expert for guns. A lot of people interpret this as a silent endorsement of guns in D&D or a hint at a potential official gunslinger (sub)class but really I just think Jeremy Crawford got sick of people asking him “does Crossbow Expert work with guns?” on Twitter.

gun / 5

Metamagic Adept

IE the feat that’s making Reddit throw a hissy fit. Does this suddenly make the Sorcerer class useless? Well excluding the fact that Sorcerers get way more sorcery points, metamagic options, and the ability to turn their spell slots into Sorcery points (and vice-versa)? Put bluntly your options are:

Make (Charisma Mod) creatures succeed their saving throw for your spell. (Rarely going to be used unless you’re already a Charisma caster.)

Double the range of your spell. (Maybe useful for a Cleric to extend the range of Cure Wounds idk.)

Reroll (Charisma Mod) damage die. (Kinda useful for spells that roll few dice.)

Double the duration of your spell. (Perhaps some niche use with certain spells.)

Can’t use Heightened Spell

Can cast one spell / cantrip as a Bonus Action. (One use of a bonus action spell isn’t really worth a whole feat.)

Cast 2 spells without verbal or somatic components. (Can’t be counterspelled!)

Make a spell of first or second level hit two targets. (Actually has some niche use for certain spells. Particularly nice to get extra value out of healing spells.)

(UA)

Change the damage type of a spell. (Maybe useful for Tempest Clerics? But barely.)

Ignore cover. (Very rarely useful.)

Reroll a spell attack once. (Kinda meh; might be useful if you have a very big attack roll spell but you probably won’t.)

I think the main thing Reddit is upset about is two uses of Subtle Spell for a Wizard but... if your player took anti-counter spell insurance instead of an ASI let them have it? Chances are you’re way too counter spell-obsessed if the Wizard casting a good spell once and awhile ruins your game.

As for the feat itself? The two that rely on your Charisma mod are hard to use for that exact reason. Beyond that there are some interesting ones beyond “anti-counter spell insurance” but I feel like two Sorcery points to use on metamagics isn’t enough. Probably a testament to how underwhelming the Sorcerer class is as a whole.

3 / 5

Piercer

It’s Savage Attacker and Brutal Critical combined in one half feat. I guess if you’re using Piercing weapons but I can’t shake the feeling that Savage Attacker would be the better option.

One interesting thing to note is that essentially all ranged weapons do piercing damage, and this feat doesn’t have a melee limitation like Savage Attacker. This could be a good feat for a bow fighter to do more reliable damage.

The irony though is that even though this is essentially just Savage Attacker I’m forced to say it’s overpowered since it provides more utility than Savage Attacker (assuming you don’t use weapons that don’t do piercing damage) as a half feat. This isn’t really a testament to this feat being overpowered, but rather that Savage Attacker should honestly probably be a half feat as well.

2 / 5

Poisoner

This is how poisons should work! It’s perfect for someone who wants it, and it looks well-balanced overall. The gold cost, action economy, and CON save requirements makes this feat fair for the DM.

It’s interesting that this feat allows you to ignore resistance to poison but not immunity. Poison was one of the elements Elemental Adept couldn’t affect which was part of the reason that Green Draconic Sorcerer was so bad (among the zillion and one other problems with Poison damage.) Overall this feat is really awesome but it’s held back by poison damage as a whole in 5e. Basically if this was for any other damage type than poison it would be great (which makes me wonder what this feat would be like with flaming poison.)

4 / 5

Practiced Expert

This is basically a slightly worse version of the Prodigy feat but it’s a half-feat and it’s for all races instead of just for humans and half-races... honestly  Prodigy is such a shit feat that I see no issue with this. I already let non-humans take Prodigy in my campaigns. My only real complaint is that this feat proves that Prodigy (as well as the Skilled feat) should probably be half feats.

4 / 5

Shadow Touched

Darkness is very hard to use without abilities to see through it (Devil’s Sight.) But other than that what can you get? Disguise Self? Just take Eldritch Adept instead for unlimited Disguise Self. There are very few low-level Illusion / Necromancy spells when compared to Divination / Enchantment. There are some midway decent ones (Inflict Wounds) but is it really worth it to lose an ASI for Darkness and Inflict Wounds? Put bluntly: no. Maybe some niche use for Darkness spam Warlocks to get an extra “spell slot” but it’s still underwhelming.

2 / 5

Shield Training

It’s nice to be able to grab a shield as a caster who likely has their off-hand open anyways. It’s also nice for a fighter to be able to “chance stances” and drop their AC in exchange for harder hits. The only part that bugs me about this feat is that the fantasy of an arcane caster using a shield as a focus is weird to me. I feel like there should at least be some sort of gold cost to convert a shield into a “not-quite Ruby of the War Mage” that can be used as an Arcane Focus.

3 / 5

Slasher

This feel like the best of the damage feats since it actually lets you do some unique stuff. Being able to slow enemies (without fucking Sentinel) lets melee fighters keep their allies safe, and giving allies disadvantage to hit you allows you to be a lot sturdier.

The sad truth is that this is probably the most underwhelming of the damage feats though. It’s very hard to use this feat as anything other than a Swashbuckler Rogue, and in order to get Slashing damage as a Rogue (Scimitar) you’d need to blow another feat or do some multiclassing. Slows in melee range are largely useless, and the crit is unreliable. I really want this feat to be better.

4 / 5

Tandem Tactician

Here’s the one feat I honestly have a big problem with. I don’t think being able to Help as a Bonus Action makes this feat OP. (It’s nice for anyone to be able to gain access to a useful Bonus Action without multiclassing.) But the problem lies in the fact that this feat lets you affect two people with the Help action. This makes the ability to give two melee allies (such as your Rogue) Advantage even more broken. People can already testify to how strong Mastermind Rogue is for its action economy increase.

And the best part? This feat still fails at giving Bonus Action Economy to “everyone” since backline characters can’t use the 10 foot range Help. I’d much rather this feat be given 30 feet, and Mastermind Rogue given an eratta to have its ability reach 60 feet or something idk.

1 / 5 - OP and dumb award for being OP and dumb

Tracker

“LOL RANGER IS OFFICIALLY USELESS NOW XDDDD” Jokes aside Hunter’s Mark and tracking abilities is good value for a half feat. Magic Initiate (Warlock) or Fey Touched are still probably better than this feat, but if you need the Survival skill then this is helpful.

4 / 5

FINAL RATINGS

Favorite Feat: Eldritch Adept

Least Favorite Feat: Crusher

Most OP Feat: Tandem Tactician

Weakest Feat: Shadow Touched / Chef

Overall this Unearthed Arcana excites me because I’ve always liked Feats and thought that they were cool. In my opinion it’s much more interesting to create a character with unique abilities over one that’s just traditionally strong. A lot of these feats need revision but I hope that practically all of these get published so we can make some truly unique characters with them.