#that's probably the campaign that i stuck with the longest

[eternalchant]

genuinely i wish it wasn't soooo easy to get burnt out on watching dnd campaigns but it's soooo much. especially when you get in the late game, higher level, higher stakes (i am looking directly at cr as i say this)

[steampunk-raven]

SO excited for dnd tonight

[utilitycaster]

1. Why do you like or dislike this character? - Percy and/or Keyleth?

I like both of them, so:

I like Percy for the surface reasons of intelligence and witty comebacks and the general Taliesin Jaffe Arrogant Guy Is Confidently Wrong About Many Things reasons, but more specifically I like how incredibly aware he is of social structures and doesn't dismiss them as stupid or fake or meaningless just because he is aware how much artifice is involved. I love how much he validates Vex in this, as someone who's been on the other side of that social divide most of her life and who knows she "shouldn't" care but does, deeply. It would be so easy for him to say "look, titles are stupid and fake, I should know, I have one," but instead he says "no, I see what this means to you, because yes it's all an accident of birth and yes it is kind of stupid and fake, but it's also the reason why you lived rough for your teens and early 20s, and you are not silly for wanting this security." I also think he's a great exploration of guilt and of someone who has a lot of complicated feelings from the gods but does value their counsel; we don't get a lot of characters with that sort of nuance. His scene with the Raven Queen remains a standout for me and for all he can be melodramatic and obnoxious at times, he is also like 25, traumatized, and should be at the club. I think the question he answers (why would someone invent the gun) is an interesting one, and I think the way that his story ends up with the obvious inevitable happening and yet he still finds happiness is unexpected and wonderful to see.

I like Keyleth for a lot of reasons people will probably be annoyed about, which is...she is annoying. Annoying women: may we know them, may we be them, and may we raise them. Anyway, I think her terror of doing the wrong thing at the cost of doing anything sets up a fantastic arc for someone who is expected to become a leader. I admire how she knows she's not the most eloquent and is scared of her responsibilities but does not back down from speaking up when she disagrees with the party. I like how she's perhaps the only example of lifespan angst that is actually portrayed as making a lot of sense, especially since she is also extremely young (probably shouldn't be at the club given the bar crawling results. She should be at ZooLights and have like, one cider.) I think in general her fears are incredibly real and make sense for the character and shape her, and that's not something you see portrayed with this amount of depth very often. I stuck with the VM-era portrayal of Percy but I will say I especially love how Keyleth is portrayed in Campaign 3, because Percy hasn't changed a ton in adulthood, merely mellowed out a little, but Keyleth very much has as she's grown in confidence, as she was only at the beginning of that during the Campaign. I think her relationship with Vax is incredibly good for both of them; her sense of belonging to a place and his ability to support. I do like that she gets angry, especially after so much time being insecure, but I feel much has been made of her anger and I don't have a ton to add there, and also while I like that she is angry and expresses it, there are other characters I gravitate to for that specifically. Also I have incredible respect for her having to take on a much bigger magical burden than expected; I have said this before but my longest-running character was in a campaign where the player playing sorcerer switched to ranger, and the cleric left, leaving me as the only full caster and primary healer (though thankfully we got a baller paladin shortly after). The fact that Keyleth had to, and could, be whatever the party needed mechanically was a godsend. I know VM died a lot but they would have died like 20 times more without her and Scanlan and especially without her.

[insert-clever-username-1133]

*burns down building cutely* guys im literally just a girl!!!

welcome to my blog

hi guys!!! im loralai but you can call me lora. this post is a running collection of all my chaos

you guys like lists? good bc that's all ive got for you

~

stuff i do

art

i draw in ibis paint on my phone with a disc stylus and use capcut to edit animatics (which yes, i can still do, despite being in the us). most of my stuff is tagged with either #art or #doodles, rarely both. doodles is my old tag for sketches and... well, doodles. i put everything under the art tag now

writing

i have one published fic right now with another multi chapter on the way and some one shots im going to get to eventually! i don't have an update schedule. im little1133 on ao3

music

if you have perfect pitch talk to me please i need someone who understands the feeling when you get a song stuck in your head and you can't remember what key it's in but all the keys you picture it in sound wrong so now it's in your head but it sounds WRONG

fandoms

epic the musical

this is my main fandom right now! epic has had a huge effect on my life, gotten me back into drawing and writing :) im always down to yap about the babies or read your fic or whatever

i love odypen so so much. also i heard someone use the ship name penelody and that's the prettiest ship name ive ever heard i think. platonic eurypoli is also one of my favs. im a eurylochus defender for life

if you follow me you are big time signing up for epic spam

kotlc

this is my longest-term fandom i think. i love this little fandom so much!! Katie (@ myfairkatiecat , very cool user) got me into it last summer (i know, not very long term for my longest term fandom. im young okay). im a keefe defender (sorry stria) and i love fintan pyren a normal amount. fav ships are sokeefe, dexiana, and fintante! i am a sucker for platonic sophitz. they go well together what can i say

iywalirayhtdwa > wiityispb

percy jackson / riordanverse

i love love love this series so much. leo is my baby. percabeth should be called smartwater for ever and ever. i don't participate in this fandom because i learned my lesson from kotlc about joining the fandom before you're done reading and ive already gotten spoiled enough just from random youtube comments. am i really going to abstain from this fandom until ive read all however many series there are? probably not

greek mythology in general

dnd

yeah... right above this is percy jackson and epic the musical. you knew this was coming. im rapidly turning into the greek mythology kid. it's bad.

hadestown

i listened to the soundtrack with animatics a bit ago and im planning on watching a recording of the actual show. this musical has already. made me. FEEL THINGS. A LOT. doubt comes in absolutely broke me which im sure isn't a surprise to anyone who's seen hadestown. just like in epic Hermes is a whole vibe and a half. living it up on top, chant, and why we build the wall have alternated being played on loop in my brain. this musical is literally so.

im currently playing in a dnd campaign (#ivanna) as an elven wizard named Ivanna and in the late planning stages of dming a campaign (#crossfire campaign) for me and my friends. im unwell about both of these things

mouthwashing

i... don't have much to say about this fandom. im not very active in it. love the fanart. love daisuke and anya ofc. we be taking responsibility with this one

elnea kingdom

i don't really post about this game on here because the fandom is mainly on Reddit. this is here purely for propaganda. look up this game and play it. you know you want toooo ohh you wanna play it soooo baaaad

posts i want you to see

too lazy to do this list rn. im gonna link the seaglass vacker eyes post, the Ody is the short one in odypen, and some of my top posts later

tags ig

#art - self explanatory.

#bookmark - things I'm saving to refer back to later.

#liveblog - ive been doing this less lately but it's always a tradition for me to do at least a few liveblogs whenever im consuming a new media. i love this tag because it contains my magnum opus: my huge reblog chains with every little thought i had while reading kotlc. all of them have like 40 self reblogs to just add to them. there's a chain for each book, and i did it for the first like 5 or 6 books. i highly recommend looking at those they're very funny.

userboxes + other

i don't have a dni. if i don't like you ill block you

im not donating to your gofundme

my interests are subject to change on a whim with zero warning

[strixcattus]

Thinking about my STP D&D AU (need to come up with a name for it so I can stop with the abbreviation salad) and I'm in a "this is an in-universe D&D campaign" mood

—The Voices are generally all friends with most of the others outside the game, and most of them have played a campaign with the Narrator as DM before. Hero is the Narrator's friend who's never played before, and Broken is Hunted's roommate (Hunted is trying to get him some form of social interaction for his mental well-being and he agreed to try out D&D) —Skeptic, Paranoid, and Cheated have been playing the longest out of the group (Skeptic's and Cheated's characters are probably concepts they've been waiting to play for a while) —Cold and Broken both got stuck on character backstory and the Narrator offered to let them roll on a d100 table to give them a place of origin. He immediately regretted that decision. —Most of the Princesses are NPCs. The Razor, Witch, and Thorn are the only ones who are actually PCs, though their players tend to show up more sporadically than the Voices. —The reason the Narrator is so annoyed by the Voices refusing to slay the Princesses is 70% because his plot didn't account for it and 30% because he backed himself into a corner with their voices and he's too proud to admit it's really hard to pitch his voice up that much —Smitten deciding his character was going to fall in love with the Damsel is so far the campaign low for him, because not only does he now have to flirt with one of the players, but he has to do it while putting on an anime girl voice —The group does appreciate his anime girl voice though

[goblincrafts]

the first project i created after years of not crocheting was a dicebag for myself - I'm going to start my first dnd campaign sooon (<3)

so what should it be? something easy, let's have a look arou.... oh. or I could make a d12? sure

step 1: find a sturdy looking pentagon pattern and crochet 12 pentagons

we are getting there

step 2 I needed numbers on them, so I was trying to find crochet numbers. they were all too big, so I decide to just create chains in white and sew them on.

this was the longest part of the whole project by the way. crocheting the pentagons? the shortest.

(on the paper next to the pentagons i was trying to figure out, how many chains will i need for each of the numbers)

I decided to use the "wrong side" for the numbers because it was slightly easier to sew them on. maybe next time i should prepare and plan things?

part 3

assembly!

and then the poor thing got stuck in limbo for weeks. i hate the finishing touches, especially hiding the excess yarn (which is like 10 minutes, but just... no) but now i finished it, so the blog is doing it's purpose i guess :)

I still have to figure out how i want to close it - i don't really like the zipper idea, so i might add picot border on both sides of the opening and use strings, but i am not sure yet. if anyone has ideas how else could i solve it, feel free to add :)

i used scrap yarn, and a 2.5 hook for the pentagons and assembly, and probably a 2 for the letters.

not the prettiest project ever, but it's mine, and i will carry it with me to glorious adventures :)

[nomouthedscream]

Its weird, seeing something thats been probably one of the longest lasting forms of social interaction in my life slowly crumble.

Ive been in this friend group for 6 years. Which is kind of depressing that some of the longest lasting friendships I have are there, but there you go. Its been that kind of life. And the group was formed as a dnd group. And the guy that was our dm has taken an indefinite hiatus. And I dmed him just to check in and he told me a lot of stuff, including the fact that as of now, he has no intention of coming back, but he'd at least like to remain friends with me.

Its a very surreal thing to be told youre one of, if not the best friend in a friend group. Partially because I have such low self wsteem I'd never believe it. And theres some part of me that wants to believe it could have turned out better, that the group could have all stuck together, but theres a bigger part of me that realises that if I was already the best, theres nothing I could have done to improve the chances of him staying.

Am I sad that I'll never see the end of the campaigns I'd been playing for years? Yeah. But I'd be lying if I hadn't said with the language he said while first taking that hiatus that I hadn't already expected it. He had already given up on his own campaigns. But what I'm hurt more by is that if I hadnt been proactive and reached out, exactly what I feared would happen would, which is that my friend would abandon me, and never explain why he never came back.

Cause hes only told me of his intentions, because I dmed him. He hasnt told literally anyone else. And now Im in this interesting spot where I could break it to the rest of the group but potentially violate this mans wishes, or I stay silent but live with the fact everyone else is living with a hope that is for certain false.

It just sort of sucks.

[blacklyte]

Yah!! I’ll start of with monk :]] I’m going into this guessing you have a somewhat good grip on how ascension works other than what happened w arti, and spoilers below the cut for anyone who needs the warning

So monk! Mono has two official endings if you count downpour. The first is the ascension ending, where upon going into the void sea, Monk sees what they’ve been searching for this whole time: their sibling, survivor. I am unsure if this is actually survivor or not. My personal headcanons is that the void sea simply shows you what you want to see, not what’s actually there, as you’ll hear me talk abt with arti and her pup dilemma.

So monk has that ascension ending like all other skugs can, albeit they have a unique one as I just explained, but also they have an ending where they don’t ascend, and instead go west to outer expanse if it is unlocked. Here monk can get another ending, one where they are reunited with their sibling, who has two kids, which makes me think the survivor ending is only canon if you bring two slugpups to outer expanse with you.

Next I’ll take about spearmaster. It’s kind of simple to explain. Spearmaster has an ascension ending but it is not special, and has no lore significance. The ending you want is gotten by one of two paths: you either go to pebbles and have your chest pearl ripped out, which you bring to moon and have her rewrite it’s contents, or go to moon, get the mark of communication, go to pebbles, have him read out the pearl after it’s ripped out, watch him throw a tantrum, go back to moon, have her rewrite it, and then both paths end up wanting you to bring this overridden pearl to the sky islands communication array (Iterators talk with each other using these) The purpose of this is to get that pearl with moons message to that array, so her local group (Nsh, 5P, srs, gw, ui) can get her message, which basically has her saying how it’s her last message before she collapses, but she’s happy there were others trying to help and look out for her. That’s basically the end of Spearmaster. Also it’s important to note seven red suns made spearmaster and it’s purpose was to be a messenger.

Lastly, and this one will probably be the longest, is Artificer. I think I told you about echoes but I’ll give a short recap: echoes are what happens when something has a connection to the mortal plane that it cannot let go of, meaning when they ascend via void fluid, they can’t completely ascend, and are stuck in between planes, as a half molten. Omnipotent. Blob. Of sorts.

Basically, Artificier was unable to let go of her spite and rage towards scavengers, that primal urge tethering her to the mortal plane. She was stuck at karma 1, a major part of her mechanic in gameplay, only able to pass karma gates if she brought a scav corpse that had higher karma.

She can raise her karma, but only through echoes, which will raise your karma by 1. When she has enough karma to pass the guardians, arti can go to the depths/void sea. But, here’s the thing, the giant worms that usually bring you to the ascension spot do not help you. They sense that tether. When you finally get to the end, arti sees presumably the souls of her pups.

I’m going to put in my own thoughts real quick. In this game we know that everything comes back when they die. It would not make sense lore wise for the pups to have been in the void sea immediately after death if they were literal babies and had no knowledge of how to get to the sea. Unless babies canonically do not get reborn upon death arti’s campaign is kind of confusing. This is why I feel things going into the void sea see things they love or desire, like survivor for monk, and in this case pups for arti. But regardless:

Going down into the void sea, Arti seems to be giving off particles, which I’m guessing is a stage of turning into an echo. She sees at the end the pups she lost and killed hundreds over, but at this point she’s visibly disintegrating into gold strands. She is overjoyed at seeing her pups. She hugs them. But she cannot have her happy ending, as she is echo’d right after, having been unable to fully ascend.

I hope this helped !! I’m up for clarifying stuff if needed

blacklyte can you please explain the rainworld endings to me like im a five year old i watched a video on them and everything went right over my head

I precede to skitter over on all fours like a silly little beast

Are there any beast endings specifically you want me to explain so I have a basis of what you’re asking? Other then saint since I haven’t seen that beast yet

[ageless-aislynn]

Halo: Combat Evolved update #4! (Game spoilers, naturally. 😉)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Extra

Look, I took a screencap! Not with Steam’s screencapping thing, this was the Windows’ Snippy Snip thing. But still, it’s me! 🥳

I got frickin’ STUCK on the Covenant ship on The Truth and the Reconciliation campaign because I was making 2 mistakes: I thought I had to bring my remaining marines with me to find Captain Keyes in the brig (I kept 2 of my guys alive, yay, so Cortana never offered to send in reinforcements; sorry to the ones I lost, though 😥). But my marines wanted to just hang out on this bridge and wouldn’t go up a level with me, so I thought I had to stay there, too. 😣 And every time I’d quit and come back, the game put me in the doorway, facing the level to go in until I finally tried turning around and going the other way alone. Whew, that was the key!

I made it to the Silent Cartographer campaign! I had NO IDEA what to do with the Hunters so I finally fell back on my tried and true: I snuck up behind them and melee’d them on the back of the head. That actually worked, lol! I got my butt blown off a few times, though, trying to figure out what to do with those guys, yikes!

ZOMG, when Chief melees with the white pistol thing, he gives it this jaunty twirl that I LOVE. 😍

Oh and I ended up driving a Warthog up to the Covenant’s front door and I even figured out to line up the ‘hog so that Gunny could shoot through the door! But darn it, I had to come back out to find another way in to open the locked door and... I left the Warthog there with my Gunny and passenger. Didn’t even think to bring them, oops. Well, along the way, I found another Warthog overturned, set it back up and drove around until I picked up a second Gunny and passenger. And I drove them back to where the first two were and parked them next to each other and went back on foot. Where I found a THIRD Warthog, picked up ANOTHER SET of Gunny and passenger and YES, YOU GUESSED IT, I added them to my collection on the Covenant’s porch, lol! *facepalm*

I fought a crap-ton of Covvies, including more Hunters, without taking any marines with me to help, because I apparently wanted to park them somewhere safe so they could have a picnic or something??? I dunno, lol!

I have also learned that it’s fun to jump WAAAY up in the air and land on a Covvie enemy while melee’ing them. Yee-HAW! Also, I wish Chief could run. I noped out of a few fights by just strolling away while they were shooting at me, lol! I was all, “RUN, CHIEF! AT LEAST JOG, BUDDY! POWER WALK. SOMETHING MORE THAN THIS CASUAL STROLL THING, PLZ!!!”

Next, I’ve jumped back in a Warthog along with Gunny and Passenger #1s and we’re looking for the dropship Cortana promised that would have some bigger guns to take on more *gulp* Hunters. I’ve zoomed completely around the island on the beach or so it feels but I’m apparently missing the ship. 🤷‍♀️ We’ve zoomed through some firefights, though, with Gunny yelling, “Get me an angle!” and I’m like, “No, my dude, I’m getting us OUT OF HERE.” Which means I’m probably supposed to stop and fight, lol!

We’ll tackle that tomorrow! Oh man, I played for 3 1/2 hours yesterday and so planned on playing less today because I wanted to get some writing done. I played almost 4 1/2. 😶 I’m almost to 8 hours total, lol! If they give out awards for “Takes The Longest To Do Everything” I’m a shoe-in!

Oh well, don’t care, I’m having a blast! 😍🥳🤗

PS - My controller is due in tomorrow, so I’m excited to see if I do better or worse with that over the keyboard/mouse combination. I did see a warning that I may not be able to change from one to the other in the middle of a campaign so we’ll see. I may wait until we’re done here so I don’t have to chance fighting all of those Hunters again. 😕😉

Part 5

[maryellencarter]

so there's this word i can't remember.

i really reliably can't remember it, actually. i've been reminded what it is like half a dozen times over the years and it just never sticks. it's the only english word i've ever encountered that's that slippery for me. like yeah, i've never quite been arsed to memorize the full volcano-silicosis word because i think it's stupid that it was made up just to be the longest word when there's a shorter word people actually use for the same thing, but that's different. i remember enough of that word to google it if i need it, and that one also doesn't apply to my personal life.

so this word, which i find myself needing again. it's about conditions like being autistic or queer or disabled or like, an x-men mutant or whatever. it starts with an "e" probably, unless it doesn't, and what it means is, that you feel like the condition is a fundamental part of your identity and you wouldn't be yourself if it was taken away from you. there's an opposite word, which i *think* is just "non-[whatever this word is]", that means you feel like the condition is very much not part of your identity and you would like it to Stop if possible. (usually about conditions where that isn't possible.) currently my brain seems to be stuck on suggesting "endogenous/exogenous", which i know isn't correct.

point is, i fucking hate being autistic. or whatever the hell i am. it might just be a nasty case of undersocialization and c-ptsd caused by being raised in a very isolated situation by one person who was absolutely, inarguably autistic and one who was either autistic or really severely adhd in ways that affect social skills to the point it's extremely difficult to distinguish from autism. but either way, you can't "cure" what i've got, because you'd have to invent a way to supply thirty-odd years of undeveloped social skills as part of the cure. and i really fucking wish you could.

i've been with the same d&d group for five years and change. i love them. but i just ran into this issue again that i keep running into over the years. which is, that i tend to feel really left out and isolated once we get into the endgame, because i don't build the kind of massive emotionally investing backstory full of connections to the main plot that the other players do. our dm reminds me a whole lot of aaron allston, and you know i say that with all the respect in the world, but i can't play a main character in that style because it would literally kill me.

for this current campaign (our third, but i missed 90% of the second one due to schedule conflicts, which does *not* help with the feeling excluded thing at all because there are a bunch of references i still just completely don't understand), i basically haven't provided any backstory at all. i couldn't come up with anything i felt emotionally stable enough to handle. our dm provided some backstory conflict that i didn't enjoy but felt i couldn't push back on once it happened, and about a month ago i asked about the follow-up we seemed to be heading towards. it turned out that the dm hadn't actually planned anything more with it, and i thought we'd arranged for a little bit of closure once we got back to that part of the map.

last session, we arrived in the general area where i thought we were going to do this backstory thing. there seemed to be some references while we focused on the central plot situation (which involves the dm's wife's character, but i truly don't believe there's any unbalanced favoritism going on, this character and one other have been building heavily endgame-focused backstory ever since character creation), then we went out of town on a little sidequest. the sidequest paused at a cliffhanger, as we always do.

yesterday, we finished the sidequest. we wrapped it up and sat down to rest. in retrospect, this is the last chance i would have had to direct the plot toward where i'd planned and hoped to head next. but i didn't realize that, and by the time i did realize it, we were head over heels right back into the main plot. now we're on the fucking celestial plane, and i'm looking at even more sessions of standing around trying not to talk over the people who actually have any connections to the story outside of combat, and it's really hitting the part of me that spent my entire fucking teen years trying super hard to join in conversations and having the other people immediately change the topic to something i'd never heard of and couldn't contribute to.

(including when i was in the middle seat of a canoe between them.)

i really don't think my d&d party are trying to be jerks that way. i just... i really, really feel like i'm too damn autistic to realize when i'm supposed to say things, and i'm trying so hard to not talk over the others and to let them have their big moments, and it feels like there's no space for me to participate and try to have any big moments myself, and...

...like. i literally don't know if there's some fundamental part of what makes d&d enjoyable that i'm completely missing. am i supposed to be talking to the dm more behind the scenes? am i supposed to be focusing on building a special unique character of world-ending significance? or am i just supposed to be... keeping up, somehow, understanding the flow of the conversation and when to jump in, in a way that i'm fundamentally incapable of doing?

you're not supposed to be too autistic for d&d. that's not supposed to be a thing that happens. but that's kind of what i keep feeling like recently. and i hate it.

[rewovenfate]

@mylupical​ asked: 3, 9 ane 25!

memes for roleplay muns | accepting!

3. Who are your longest rp friends?

the ones i’m still friends with include:

someone i met in the TMNT fandom and was close partners for years; he helped me get through 2014′s hellscape and i’m always thankful for him, even if we don’t talk as much with how busy we are

@qucintly​, a person i met in the BATIM fandom and stuck by me amidst the bullshit i was getting in 2018-2020.

@doomedfate​, a person i met when i was back in the FNAF fandom and starting a long-term TTRPG session.

and yeah! those are the longest ones. you can probably tell that i apparently only make close friends like this once every few years, but i’m hoping to do better nowadays.

9. Have you ever written fanfictions?

i mostly write drabbles nowadays, but back in 2008, i did write fanfics. where did my spoons from that time go? no idea.

some of these fanfics i want to revisit and try to make them proper TTRPG campaigns, simply because it’d be really fun to work with.

23. Your favorite fandom to write in?

this question is both hard and easy to answer! it really depends on my headspace and what fandom(s) i’m obsessed with. my longest stint was in the TMNT fandom across different muses (late 2013-late 2016), then BATIM as a multimuse (2017-2020).

so, currently, it’s the genshin fandom. i’m not sure if it’ll stay that way, obviously, but so far i seem to be doing all right!

[adozentothedawn]

Tag Game

This took a while because I was really fucking stressed the last few days and then frankly I forgot about.^^° But! I am done with my driver’s license and finally have the time to get to my tags. So thank you for tagging me, @risualto and @adraveins!^^ I won’t tag anyone specifically because I’m pretty sure it reached all around fandom by now, but feel free to pick it up if you want.^^

favorite color: Purple! Love me some purple. Other colours are cool too but I really love purple.

favorite foods: That’s too hard I think. In general there is food I like, and food I don’t like. I don’t really have favourites.

song stuck in my head: Bones in the Ocean by The Longest Johns. Somehow it always comes back to me.

last thing i googled: “putting a fork in the microwave” because I had a heart attack due to my own stupidity. Good news, since nothing burnt down while it was in there, it’s probably fine. Bad news: I now have a headache because of the short adrenalin crash.

dream trip: I’m not really one for travelling really. I would like to see Japan at some point, but just in general I like my trips to sheep country. Lots of sheep and ocean but few tourists.

time: 17:25. Or 5:25 pm.

tea or coffee: Tea. I do drink coffee sometimes if I really need the coffein, but in general I am very much a tea person.

last show i watched: Uh that’s kinda hard, it’s been a while since I watched an actual show. Unless you count Critical Role, in which case that. I’v ejust reach episode 106 of campaign 2. Otherwise it would be Tatort, a very long running german crime show. It’s one of those shows you know aren’t actually good, but also they suck you in for a while and you cannot leave until they do something so damn stupid it breaks the hypnosis.

currently reading: So much. And so little. Die Känguru Chroniken for example, Making Money, and Kyoshi.

currently watching: Critical Role. I am so close to Traveller Con, I am very excited and curious how they could possibly top the build up to it. 👀

sweet, savoury, spicy: All of it. Just depends on the day.

last song i listened to: Cheri Cheri Lady by Dúlamán, which in the process of looking for the link to put here I learnt was written by fucking Dieter Bohlen. I don’t know what to do with this information but it sure is doing something to me.

last movie i watched: Again, hard question. I am too much on Youtube these days. I think it was Cars 3, we watched that for family night while on vacation.

cravings: Being able to split myself in 5 so I can do all the things I want to. And actually want to in this case, not have to. And nectarines. Probably should have bought some while I was grocery shopping.

hobbies: Gaming, writing, watching things, reading, and actually having a friend! Love that.

feeling: Both relieved and still jittery because I finally have my driver’s license after more than 1 and a half years. And also because I put a fork in the microwave.

[pixelgrotto]

Saltmarsh stories

One more Dungeons & Dragons campaign comes to completion! For over a year and a half, I’ve been running Ghosts of Saltmarsh for my girlfriend and her best friend, and the pair of them finally finished last Saturday after 23 sessions and nearly 100 hours of playtime. We started playing in person December 2019 and had to move online in March due to COVID, and eventually my gf’s best friend moved out of town and then out of the country. But in spite of global transitions and pandemics, we still surmounted the odds and finished without missing a single month.

Since Ghosts of Saltmarsh was my gf’s introduction to D&D (minus a few games she played as a child), it took up quite a bit of space in my crusty Dungeon Master mental cave of planning. Luckily, I found it to be a very enjoyable campaign to run, mostly because as an anthology of classic adventures, it lacks the overly convoluted storyline that plagues a lot of other D&D fifth edition campaigns I’ve either played through or DMed, like Tomb of Annihilation, Out of the Abyss and Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. 

Ghosts of Saltmarsh contains eight adventures united by their seaside themes. Three of them are updated versions of the classic U1-U3 Saltmarsh modules, which were among the first British D&D products produced from 1981 to ‘83. These three tales revolve around the players befriending local villagers and helping a lizardfolk tribe fight off invading sauhaugin, and they’re good, mostly as an example of early D&D material that required players to treat so-called “monstrous races” with diplomacy rather than violence. The other adventures are from old issues of Dungeon magazine, and run the gamut from a decent lighthouse dungeon crawl (Isle of the Abbey, from Dungeon #34) to a nifty survival horror-style ship romp (Salvage Operation, from Dungeon #123). Additionally, Ghosts of Saltmarsh contains rules for ship battles, which are good enough considering that D&D isn’t a naval combat simulator, and the book also devotes its first chapter to describing a great new version of the town of Saltmarsh to serve as a central hub. 

I think Ghosts of Saltmarsh’s anthology format is my preferred style of D&D hardcover book at this point. Just give me a main town that I can detail and populate with my own NPCs, a bunch of adventures taking place around the vicinity that I can hack as necessary for my players, and I’m good. This format is also reflective of D&D’s early roots, where campaigns weren’t 250-page books with save-the-world plots, but short modules focused on building clout in a certain region and establishing a base. I think it’s also a very newbie-friendly format, since beginning players can really become invested in one central location and the people residing in it.

Since I was only running this game for two people, I had plenty of time to help the girls grow attached to Saltmarsh and its denizens. These consisted of several faces from my other games, including the very first D&D character I played as - a ranger who settled down in Saltmarsh as the head of the city guard and served as mentor for the next generation of adventurers. Other NPCs evolved depending on what I thought might make my gf and her friend laugh. For instance, Oceanus the sea elf, a Saltmarsh mascot since the '80s, started out as a surfer bro but eventually morphed into a douchebag/dingbat a la Schmidt from New Girl, which I started watching with my gf sometime over the course of 2020. And Captain Xendros, the tiefling owner of the local magic item store, was only supposed to be a minor shopkeeper until her sassy banter stole everyone’s heart, winning her a place as a major character by the end of the game.

I also gave the girls their very own house to decorate and return to in between missions, which was another fun ode to the older D&D roots that Ghosts of Saltmarsh embraces, but also a chance to insert Animal Crossing-style interior decoration into our campaign. My girlfriend clocked a staggering 300+ hours into Animal Crossing: New Horizons at the start of the pandemic, and seeing her and her friend derive great pleasure from using Roll20′s wonky drawing tools to sketch out every room of the house (and create a shrine in the bathroom with random bits of gold on the floor, no less) was stellar. 

Aside from a house, the gals also received two animal companions - a pseudodragon and a shadow mastiff. The pseudodragon appears as a familiar that can be found after Ghosts of Saltmarsh’s first adventure, The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, but the shadow mastiff was an inclusion of my own because my girlfriend really wanted a dog for the longest time, and I figured I would give her one in-game before we got one in real life. (Yup, we now have one in real life.) Generally, I’m a huge fan of injecting a little Pokémon into my games with animal buddies, but in this case the pets also served as valuable fighting companions that helped balance Ghosts of Saltmarsh’s combat encounters, which are meant for four people.

On the topic of inclusions, I stuck a bit closer to the content in Ghosts of Saltmarsh than I usually do when running a campaign based on an official D&D hardcover, probably because the book in question was just more usable this time around. The final split was maybe 60% book material and 40% my own stuff. The end of the campaign was nearly all me, since I couldn’t quite formulate a way to include the final two adventures in the book, Tammeraut's Fate and The Styes. So instead, I gutted them for concepts and created an overarching story that tied Saltmarsh’s threats to H.P. Lovecraft’s Esoteric Order of Dagon. There’s a ton of Lovecraft influence in The Styes, after all, and Dagon was included as a demon lord in third and fourth edition D&D, not to mention Pathfinder. I drew inspiration from all of those versions, along with the stats included in Sandy Peterson’s Cthulhu Mythos book for fifth edition. 

Ultimately, it all made for an entertaining story that scaled mightily. At level 2, Thea the tiefling rogue (played by my gf) and Zora the half-elf bard (played by her best friend) were utterly outclassed by smugglers in a haunted house and had to use a door as a shield to escape. At level 12, the pair defeated a demon lord and closed a portal to the Abyss. (To be fair, both accomplishments are pretty epic. The door escape was one of the most creative D&D moments I’ve ever seen, and we’re still talking about it today.)

While I wish we could’ve rolled physical dice together for a little longer, I’m glad Roll20 was available to keep our game going through a period of global strife. In the midst of it all, there was always D&D to fall back on. And hopefully, there will be more to come. I’ve got Candlekeep Mysteries on my shelf, another anthology of D&D short adventures...and it’s just waiting for me to formulate a plot to tie ‘em all together!

[neverwinternighting]

I posted 635 times in 2021

77 posts created (12%)

558 posts reblogged (88%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 7.2 posts.

I added 1,099 tags in 2021

#nwn2 - 306 posts

#nwn - 300 posts

#queue'd - 111 posts

#hotu - 94 posts

#valen - 69 posts

#sand - 54 posts

#motb - 46 posts

#cue the queue - 44 posts

#neverwinter nights 2 - 41 posts

#nevervember - 34 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#and now that he's filling in the kc's role he takes on the tradition of buying a round of celebratory drinks like in the days of the shadow

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

I am so fucking here for these tags @neverwintermuses​

I think part of what makes Sand so appealing is the fact that he DOESNT constantly spill his spaghetti like some of the other romance options. I guess it means that part of what makes Sand such an attractive romance option to me is that you approach him, he’s not about to shove the KC into an uncomfortable position with unwarranted attention.

We were actually talking about it once before-

I love going back to read this because Sand would have been the perfect romantic addition. Like, seriously. But have it not be triggered until the KC says something clearly personal or flirtatious.

27 notes • Posted 2021-11-03 23:56:28 GMT

#4

Whatever you were expecting to see on your dash, it probably wasn’t this.

28 notes • Posted 2021-03-19 03:12:12 GMT

#3

30 days of Never-vember!

It’s November very soon and I was thinking about posting a list of NWN/NWN2-centric general prompts for each day in November! (Get it? Neverwinter + November? Never-vember?) It’s tricky to figure out since not everyone has played both of the games and all the campaigns in them, so something more general you could choose from to create seemed like the best idea.

You can write the prompt. You can draw the prompt. You can do a combination of both. Comics? Hell yeah. Everything is welcome!

If you decide to do these, please feel free to tag me in each one you do so that I can give you reblogs.

This challenge is not in the least bit binding and it is by no means an obligation or a contest - you can do few, you can do all, you can even do only one if you want. It’s entirely up to you!

Prompts listed below (take artistic license in interpretation if you need):

Day 1: A typical day in your hero or knight captain’s life Day 2: Your character meeting your favorite party member for the first time Day 3: Your character meeting your LEAST favorite party member for the first time Day 4: Your character and chosen party members lounging about at camp or in a tavern Day 5: An embarrassing situation during an adventure Day 6: The most impactful event your character went through Day 7: Your character and/or party members in the modern day DMV Day 8: A character or party member’s birthday! Day 9: A party member finding a way to cheer up your character Day 10: The moment your character formed a (romantic OR friendship) crush Day 11: Something little-known about your character revealed Day 12: Your character or a party member is caught red-handed! (By whoever you like, doing anything) Day 13: Your character saying something they regret during an argument Day 14: How your character feels about Lord Nasher Day 15: Your party’s inside joke Day 16: A prank goes wrong! (Set up by and against whoever you want) Day 17: Your character being loopy after keeping watch all night Day 18: A moment in your adventure described entirely without dialogue Day 19: Your character stuck with the most annoying party member Day 20: If you and your character switched places for a day Day 21: Your character adjusting to a new role during their adventures Day 22: If your party had to work at a modern fast food restaurant Day 23: The story behind one of your character’s scars Day 24: Your party during a boss fight Day 25: A magical mishap affects someone or everyone in your party! Day 26: Your character reflecting on the gravity of the situation during their most difficult moment Day 27: How one of your party members views your own character Day 28: Your character’s relationship with their god, or gods in general Day 29: Your character in a frightful situation during the adventure Day 30: After their adventures are done, how are they/how do they live their lives?

29 notes • Posted 2021-10-27 16:49:20 GMT

#2

Silas - half-dragon Red Dragon Disciple in black armor, whirlwind attack

33 notes • Posted 2021-06-27 05:59:45 GMT

#1

Love Neverwinter Nights 1 and/or Neverwinter Nights 2? Never played it but you're curious about them? Have parts of the game(s) or characters that you're just dying to talk about? Frustrated that there's not enough fandom content for these treasures?

The Neverwinter Nighting discord server is open to any who are interested (or even want to be a fly on the wall)!

There is no special process or sign up or anything, just hop right in. It is recommended to clarify what pronouns you go by and whether you are 18 or older in order to access additional content and discussion.

Hope to see you guys there!

-Drackomancer

55 notes • Posted 2021-06-01 00:31:09 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[aquitainequeen]

I posted 19,202 times in 2021

774 posts created (4%)

18428 posts reblogged (96%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 23.8 posts.

I added 4,515 tags in 2021

#shadow and bone - 1062 posts

#ben barnes - 460 posts

#beauty - 446 posts

#cat - 400 posts

#on writing - 387 posts

#fashion - 376 posts

#art - 357 posts

#such beauty - 352 posts

#alina starkov - 346 posts

#inspiration - 329 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#in the english peasants’ revolt of 1381 apparently the mob marched while chanting ‘when adam delved and eve span/who was then the gentleman

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

The Truth, Terry Pratchett

517 notes • Posted 2021-08-29 20:51:54 GMT

#4

How did you approach the look and feel of the film? It has this gorgeous, almost painterly quality, and it looks almost like a piece of medieval art. Were there any particular things you looked at for visual inspiration?

Tons of things. We were never going to make a strictly medieval history film. There is no historical accuracy to the film whatsoever. It is completely a fantasy. But in terms of visual references, we looked at everything from Andrei Rublev, which is, I think, one of the greatest movies ever made, and which you could never make now. It would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but that was a great visual touchstone for us. We looked at Willow, the Ron Howard film, which is one of my favorite fantasy films of all time. We looked at a lot of '80s fantasy, to be honest, like Ladyhawke and Dragonslayer and Willow. Those were big ones for us because they were fantasy. They weren't tied to a specific time and place in human history, and yet they still felt like a grounded reality.

We looked at Hammer horror films, and then there was this Russian adaptation of War and Peace that had just been restored around the time we started prep. Criterion put it out. It's seven hours, and again, it's a movie that would cost a billion dollars if they made it today, but because it was funded by the Russian government in the '60s, they were able to pull it off. We probably shouldn't have used that as a reference point because it just meant we were biting off far more than we could chew. [Laughs] And then Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, we looked at that one a lot. A lot of Shakespearean references, especially that one.

David Lowery on his quest to make the marvelous medieval epic The Green Knight

597 notes • Posted 2021-07-08 20:09:55 GMT

#3

Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.... The friction tends to arise when the two are not the same....There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards. That's soul destroying. The other way around is merely very, very irritating.

A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold

1059 notes • Posted 2021-01-27 22:12:39 GMT

#2

Leigh Bardugo: Yeah, Shadow and Bone is basically going to be really high quality fanfiction of the books.

Me: Oh, she's surely exaggerating.

Kaz Brekker: *has a faceoff with the Darkling/Kirigan, evades and escapes him via use of a flashbang*

Me: she was not exaggerating

1947 notes • Posted 2021-04-23 16:33:42 GMT

#1

Some favourite staging moments in productions of Shakespeare plays:

Clarence actually getting drowned in a barrel of wine on stage in Richard III; it was a small barrel, they stuck his head into it as he struggled, pulled him out for an instant as he gasped for air and screamed, his head was wet and sopping, his face all red

Macbeth clutching his empty hands to hold an imaginary child, casting a clawed shadow on the wall

Ophelia ripping out hanks of her hair to give to people during her ‘flowers’ scene (obviously fake hair in real life)

Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing hiding from Claudio, Leonato and Don Pedro, taking a swig from a can of beer that happened to be full of cigarette butts and spit-taking it all over Don Pedro and Leonato

who then awkwardly pretend to check if it’s raining

Angelo in Measure for Measure taking off a bloody cilice belt from around his thigh while saying ‘Blood, thou art blood’ 

Also a really good bit where Angelo shows up in a two way mirror later on when the Duke’s speaking to himself and cursing him; the Duke turns to point at the mirror and there’s Angelo, in the chain of office, pointing back, accusing the Duke as much as the Duke does to him

The moment in Julius Caesar where Brutus asks his servant Strato - who’s been sitting with his back to the audience and wearing a hat with a wide brim - to help him commit suicide; Strato stands while taking off his hat to reveal that he’s played by Caesar’s actor

(a collective gasp went around the theatre; really lent a whole new meaning to ‘Caesar, now be still. I killed not thee with half so good a will’)

After a frantic chase scene in The Comedy of Errors which ends with all the cast collapsed across the stage in exhaustion and the scenery itself falling to bits...a pair of underpants falls from the ceiling, and Dromio of Ephesus (who’d tried in vain to retrieve them at the start of the play) crawls over several other characters, seizes them and screams in triumph 

2152 notes • Posted 2021-02-23 22:19:19 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[mckinlily]

shalluraweek day 1: stars/sky

Summary: stars/sky Shiro had a celebrity crush. 

read on ao3: here

“Sure you’re not freaking out, Shiro?” said Keith, his voice bland and amused.

Shiro realized he was repeatedly doing and undoing the Velcro on the back of his (one) fingerless glove and quickly put his hands behind his back. Behind him, someone—probably Pidge—snorted.

Shiro breathed and looking around, forcing himself to take in his surroundings. Small office, lots of sound equipment, his and Keith’s guitars against the wall, air conditioner that made that annoying hum. Keith was nearest him, slouched in his leather jacket in a way that made Shiro wonder if he and Keith made it as a punk duo on Keith’s emo vibe alone. Sprawled across the couch was Lance, their PR and social media manager, sipping on a smoothie and clearly snickering at Shiro. Pidge was fighting Lance’s legs encroaching on her space on the couch. She worked on post-production with Hunk, a musical genius who played an impossible number of instruments and had a knack of fleshing out every song idea Keith and Shiro had into a massive hit, and helped Lance out where PR became technical. She was also definitely smirking at Shiro. Really, Hunk was the only one of them not actively laughing at him, and that was because his expression was worryingly close to pity.

Why did Shiro like these people again?

Oh yeah, because his band and the team behind it had become something like a second family.

And sometimes “family” meant “incredibly annoying.”

Shiro resisted the urge to fiddle with one of his piercings. “I’m fine,” he said stiffly.

“Yeah. Suuuuurre, you are,” drawled Lance.

Hunk shot Lance a look, clearly chiding him for not being sympathetic. He looked back to Shiro. “You really don’t need to be nervous.”

“Sure he does,” said Pidge, grinning over her glasses at him. Besides Keith, she has known Shiro the longest, and Shiro could see the blackmail in her eyes as she looked at him. She took on a sing-song voice, “It’s Allura.”

Just the look in Pidge's eyes was enough to make Shiro blush.

“Ugh, why are you like this?” Keith threw his hands in the air. “You sing your heart out to thousands of people an audience, take the lead in interviews, talk openly about being bi and having PTSD on YouTube, but having a conversation with one singer—”

“She’s not just another singer!” objected Shiro, scandalized. “She’s Allura. Do you have any idea the kinds of records she’s broken? Her latest album—”

“Yeah, yeah. We all know about your massive crush on Allura,” laughed Lance.

Shiro huffed. “That's not it.”

They didn't get it. It wasn’t just that Allura was totally hot (breathtakingly beautiful more like) or an incredible musician (which she definitely was) or had a voice that when she sang would make even sirens weep in jealousy (though she definitely did). She also was the kind of social activist Shiro dreamed of learning how to be. A political refugee who climbed her way to the top from nothing, she used her massive following to push for social change and speak out against inequality in all its forms. The way she handled personal attacks—on her race, her gender, her sexuality (pan, as seem on the flag in her Twitter profile)—with grace, dignity, and yet absolutely no apology left Shiro in awe. He respected the hell out of her, ever since the first time he saw a video of her neatly dissecting the intersection of racism and sexism in the music industry, and privately considered her one of his personal heroes.

And she was coming to the studio because someone thought it was a good idea for them to collab, and Shiro didn’t know how to deal.

“Okay, okay.” Lance rolled off the couch, picking up a can of whatever sugary death drink they were supposed to be promoting and opening it to hand to Shiro. “Time to chill out. Take a sip of our ‘paying for Pidge’s new sound system’ drink and remember you’rean internationally known star, too. It’s going to be fine. I planned it.”

“Oh, and that’s never come back to bite us before,” said Keith.

“Excuse you, I made Grumpy Cat Keith a meme! It’s was a stroke of marketing genius!”

Shiro opted to ignore Lance and Keith’s bickering, choosing instead to take a sip of the dubious promotional sports drink—

“I mean, worst come to worst, we could always use the footage to make another meme campaign if Shiro completely falls on his face.”

—only to immediately spit it out again. “Pidge!”

“Sorry,” smirked Pidge, unrepentant. Then her eyes fell on his shirt that he’d spilled his drink all over. “Oh. Uh. Actually sorry.”

Shiro looked down at his chest with mounting dismay. Of all the days to wear a white shirt (this was why he wore black: it wasn’t depressing, it was practical). The promotional drink was an unnatural red and splattered over most his front. It wasn’t something that could be hidden and Shiro could already tell the color wasn’t coming out.

“We could try rising it?” said Pidge, and she honestly sounded contrite.

“Dump the drink over all the shirt?” Keith offered.

“Hold on,” said Hunk. He started rummaging behind the couch. “I think Shiro’s vest from the Toronto show is in here. I know that shows off your prosthetic a lot without anything to go under it but—”

“That’s fine. You’re right: it’s probably the best option. Lance, when is Allura supposed to show up?”

Lance glanced at his phone. “Uh, now, actually?”

“All right. Not much time.” Shiro forced the panic to stay out of his voice. “Hunk—”

“Found it!”

“Good.” Shiro grabbed the back of his shirt, getting ready to pull it over his head. It had stuck to his chest where the drink spilled and was starting to feel sticky.

“Um, guys?”

Shiro yanked his shirt off, turning as he said, “Yeah, Pidge?”

But it wasn’t Pidge who answered.

“Oh my.”

Oh no.

Oh no nononononononono.

Allura—superstar, perfect, idolized Allura—was standing their doorway, blocking the way for the rest of her entourage. Shiro pressed his crumbled shirt to his chest in a vain attempt to preserve his modesty. Which was helped not at all by the way Allura (unfairly hot in skin-tight silver jeans and an adorable crop-top) was staring.

Staring. At him. Shiro. Who could feel that last of that godsforsaken drink drip to his bellybutton.

They both started talking at once.

“Sorry—”

“So sorry—”

“—I was just—”

“—Of course! Abs—I mean! Absolutely—”

“—you too—wait, that’s not—”

Pidge’s cackling laughter put a stop to their train wreck, but only gave more time for Shiro’s blush to attempt to melt his face off. Fortunately (or not so fortunately?), Allura didn’t seem to be faring much better.

“Should we give you two some privacy?” asked Lance, all waggling eyebrows.

“No, you should not,” said Allura, drawing herself up and doing a nice job of returning to professionalism considering Shiro was still half-naked and drowning in mortification. She brushes her hands on her pants. “Let’s return to business.”

Her assistant snorted behind her. “Like you can talk business when you just ogled his chest for five minutes.”

“Romelle!”

Well, at least Shiro wasn’t the only one mortified now.

“We’re here to discuss a collab, which is what we’ll do,” said Allura. But she met Shiro’s eyes looking sheepish and a tiny bit shy. "Unless..."

“Could I buy you a drink after this?”

That was not what Shiro intended to say.

But, holy crow, if Shiro had thought that pink crop-top looked hot on Allura before, it had nothing on the tiny, confident smirk growing on her face. “Hm. Are you referring to the one on your chest?”

Shiro's mouth continued to run without his permission.

“I was thinking we could work up to that.”

Keith pretended to gag behind him, but Shiro didn't care because Allura, freaking I-don’t-need-a-last-name-I’m-like-Beyonce Allura, was flirting with him and Shiro was pretty sure if he tried right now, he could fly.

“Ugh, gross. Gross! Hunk, don’t look!” said Pidge, scrambling to put her hands over Hunk’s eyes. Meanwhile, Lance was smiling like a shark.

“Perhaps we finish this up first?” said Allura. The way she was smiling at him made Shiro feel like there were tiny supernova going off in his chest.

“That—that works.” Frankly, Shiro was astonished his words still worked at this point.

Allura clapped her hands together with an authoritative “All right!” and yep, Shiro was in love. “Enough of this. Let’s get down to business.” She strode further into the room and consequently closer to Shiro. “On one condition,” she said, tapping Shiro’s chest.

“Yeah?”

“You keep that shirt off.”

Well.

Shiro felt his own smirk blooming on his face. He could work with that.