#the premise is space husbands as space bards

[boldlyqueertastic]

“a tune, Mr. Spock”

digital art and poetry by USS Queertastic

a gift to @plutoishotshit for @startrekwintergiftexchange

Spock’s dress is inspired by Shelley Duvall, 1971

I picked up art again for the first time in over a decade this year because Spirk brainworms, I hope you enjoy!

[betabites]

Five by five world-building

Just some noodling about the Thornlands, for which I have a setting brief and some 5E stats here.

The Thornlands are an attempt to craft a setting by strictly limiting my palette, on the thinking that restrictions can spark creativity. So let’s see what turns up.

Five Folk: There are five dominant peoples in the Thornlands. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t other folk and cultures, but these are the five that are both common and closely linked into the setting. This is just a quick summary; the long form is in the setting brief.

1) Centaurs. Most common, dominant culture. Standard belligerent, fractious nobility, now with integrated horse. Not quite the half-horse, half-frat boy of Greek myth. Knightly modes of behavior, with star-gazing and associated divinations augmenting the Liberal Arts.

2) Fauxes. Talking foxes with magical and tricksy proclivities.

3) Huldrafolk. Backless emissaries of the Deep Woods, with a taste for the meat and souls of mortals.

4) Humans. The serfs of the centaurs. Notable for their weakness of bending at the knee and making pacts with all manner of beings.

5) Urds. Fallen angels, forced into pathetic bodies that still dream of the sky. Master artisans, but regarded with wariness by the masses.

Five Gods: It is disgustingly easy to build up a giant pantheon that most of your players will pay zero attention to. Again, these are not all the gods, but these are all the ones with major cultural impact, and the ones to whom every city will have a temple to, or at least a local cult. I accept that I am cheating by having two sets of two gods count as one.

1) Femta. Hearthmother, Forgemaster, Goddess of crafts, homes, protection, & families. Invoked for homely blessings, domestic doings, craftings, and protection from the unknown. As many rites as there are hearths.

2) Gilgadar. Fatebreaker, Seeker of the Unknown, God of thieves, outcasts, & foreigners. Invoked for luck, desperate hopes, disruption of the normal order. Femta’s ex-husband.

3) Push & Pull. Sea and Land, the Old Gods of agriculture, fishing, sailing, the wilds. Invoked for bountiful harvests, healthy animals, warding off the wilds. Uneasy relationship with the masses - plied with offerings to keep the monsters away.

4) Serra, the Queen of Graces & Glares. Goddess of the sky, celestial phenomena, healing, civilization. Invoked for healing, war, peace, civic purposes. Her church, like the kingdom, has been sundered.

5) Shift & Slide. Marshals of the Liminal. The Young Gods of mortality, beauty, youth, death, dreams. Invoked for pushing beyond the mundane and other esoterica. The most cultic of faiths, with many hidden rites and mysteries.

Five Banes: Sources of problems for the players to confront and resolve.

1) The Broken Chalice. This artifact of Serra is either the cause or the result of the fall of the kingdom. Theological arguments abound. But the results are unmistakable - both the mundane corruption of the old kingdom institutions and the mystical corruption of the sacred places of the old kingdom. The mystical corruption results in all manner of twisted creatures - half-living, chimerical, bifurcated... Mending the chalice will dispel these corruptions. Or perhaps removing the corrupted results will unbreak the chalice. Theological arguments, etc.

2) The Deep Forests. Even under the power of the Great King, the Deep Forests were never fully explored, and never have they been tamed. Ancient secrets and powers lurk within, and few take being roused well.

3) The Forgotten Songs. Creation was never completed. The fall of the Urds has left the angelic ranks thin, and in some places, the raw stuff of creation is still waiting to be molded.

4) The Unsleeping Elders. The blasphemies of humanity linger still. Their oaths were sworn beyond the grave, to the end of the world, and three days after. And their masters still lurk in the beyond, ever waiting...

5) The Whelmed Kingdom. When the great fall, the impact is felt for some time. Strife walks the lands, kin slay kin, friendships fracture.

Five Paths: This one really depends on what game you’re playing.

5E: Barbarians, Bards, Fighters, Paladins, Warlocks.

4E: Knights: Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, Warlords.

Villains: Barbarians, Rogues.

Warlocks: Sorcerers, Swordmages, Warlocks.

The Wild: Shamans, Wardens.

The Wise: Artificers, Bards, Invokers.

Five Problems:

1) Literally all of my friends are going to play Fauxes. It will not be a post-Arthuria game, it will be several fauxes in a suit of plate armor. Which isn’t bad, it’s just not what I really wanted out of the setting.

2) Actually doing a 4E folk list would be... difficult. Centaurs. How do you do Centaurs in 4E? I know, they scaled Minotaurs down, and we have Goliaths, so there’s precedent, but it’s a puzzle I’d have to tackle.

3) Speaking of, keeping everything accessible for centaurs is non-trival. Tight spaces, ladders, too steep stairs... it’s pretty easy to just block out a centaur. Mind, they know that, but there are a lot of knock-on effects to world-building - how different do castles look, for instance?

4) That restricted class list is painful. Having ritual magic readily available will mitigate it, but still. Complicating the 4E one, again, is that I’d probably have to muck with power sources.

5) Urds do me a concern. Because I’ve iterated on them a few times, going from the AD&D ‘kobolds with wings’ to ‘dog-lizard-chickens with dreams of flying and possibly gliders’ to the ex-angelic crafters and Seekers of the Song here. But in this particular setting, they are 100% taking the role of Jews in Medieval Europe. ‘Your people in this setting are fallen angels stuffed into ugly lizard bodies’ is, as they say, bad. Like, unsalvagably bad. Probably going to have to loot the setting for parts and try again, honestly. I’ve got Pendragon if I want to play Arthuria. Maybe I need to just lean into the faux angle and start with a premise of ‘you’re all playing fauxes’ and go from there.