#then somebody is like 'I like this detail'

[anim-ttrpgs]

I want to provide an example of a dungeon crawl for the people who have only been exposed to dungeon crawling through shitty D&D5e modules or bad games of telephone about what classic dungeon crawling looks like.

I’m gonna try not to go into too much detail just because if I do, I’ll be here all day and night because this campaign is so good and all of the characters have so much depth but I still have to give context. (welp, i made it pretty fucking long anyway, but I think it paints a clearer picture that way.)

This is an mildly homebrewed* AD&D2e “troupe campaign” with rotating DMs starring a fictional band of mercenaries called the White Company(not to be confused with the actual White Company or the other fictional White Company) in an alternate history 1390s-1430s England with elves and wizards and shit. I’m really getting to put my Masters in medieval history and culture to good use for once. There’s a rotating cast of characters, as parties are formed from the larger pool of characters in the White Company to undertake mercenary jobs.

*one of the biggest homebrew rules we use is that there is no magical resurrection. Instead of dying instantly with the expectation that they can be magically revived later, characters who fall to 0 HP must receive medical attention from somebody who has the Healing skill immediately, and make a Constitution-based roll to see if they can pull through. If they don’t die, they still permanently lose 1 point of Constitution and must spend weeks or months recovering before they can fight again.

This is happening in a real 1979 D&D adventure module, adapted slightly to fit our setting, but it’s still genuine classic dungeon crawling. The DM is sticking closely to it and just presenting the sandbox for the PCs to do stuff in.

TL;DR: (also spoilers. Skip the TL;DR if you want to read this as a narrative without knowing what happens)

A classic dungeon crawl is not just a dull slog through a bunch of rooms full of monsters and back-to-back boring slap-fight combat. One may encounter:

>yes, monsters, definitely. Some will be out in the open, some will ambush the party, and some will be easy to ambush by the party, but rarely is fighting and killing them the only option. Combat happens either when the party screws up, or when they initiate it on their own terms.

>other adventurers looting the same dungeon

>hidden treasure

>monsters that are basically a trap and puzzle themselves and can’t be fought by just making attack rolls at them

>monsters that can be talked to and negotiated with

>environmental storytelling that can also be hints about hidden traps, monsters, etc.

>boobytraps

>secret doors

>plenty of moments for the characters' personalities to shine

(END OF SPOILERS)

The White Company is currently under the employ of a certain castillan who is having to fight against a pretender to his claims to his lands. The lord that this castellan owes fielty has noticed that a certain village has stopped paying their taxes, and asked the castellan to deal with it. The castellan told the White Company, currently on his payroll, and the White Company sent a small group of mercenaries to either investigate or rough the peasants up until they pay. (Medieval mercenaries nor classic D&D adventurers were exactly heroes. Members of the White Company have engaged in some real moving acts of heroism in this campaign but that’s a different story.)

The White Company party consisted of 8 PCs, because AD&D expects bigass parties. We‘ve had parties of up to 13 PCs before in this campaign, because this is before D&D got embarrassed about its wargaming ancestry. This might sound scary but honestly AD&D2e does not make it hard for a player to play multiple characters at once. It’s expected.

Anyway, they passed a ransacked wagon on the road while traveling to the village. When they got to the village, everything was just fine, no great plumes of smoke or burninated peasants. So they asked the village headman what the deal was, and he was like “What do you mean? We sent the taxes last week.”

Well, that was the ransacked wagon. Here I’m going to start really fast-forwarding.

The White Company mercs did some investigating and found out who sacked the wagon, kicked their asses and ran them off, and discovered just the slightest hint that there was more to this story..

More investigation, a discovery that there’s a greater conspiracy afoot, a fight with two spies that left Elora the Elf bedridden under the care of the local barber-surgeon after getting stabbed in the gut(one party member down.)

Fast-forwarding more. They discover that the old abandoned fort that’s full of monsters is actually where a contingent of the bad guys have made their forward operating base. This abandoned castle is supposedly full of monsters ever since the calamity that made everything full of monsters but that’s another story too. God I’m bad at brief stories. Anyway the bad guys have some tricks for avoiding the monsters on their way in and out apparently.

So, it’s time for the White Company to assault that abandoned castle. That’s a dungeon, and now it’s dungeon crawling time. Using a huge amount of money they found during the investigation, they subcontract some more mercenaries, a party from the Badger Company, and also convince the village headman to levy some peasant militiamen.

Now the party is 24-strong, almost half of that being archers.

I’m fast-forwarding some more. They had a little.. incident where they ran into a group of adventurers trying to loot the place, mistook them for the bad guys, and shot two of them with crossbow bolts. Luckily, and due to the medical skills of some of the party, those two survived, but one of them will be on crutches for a while. After that embarrassing misunderstanding, they find the way down into the lower floors of the castle, but before they go, they want to make sure there’s no chance of anything coming behind them, so they investigate every room on the upper floor. Ordinarily, going around provoking everything in a dungeon and having back-to-back combat encounters would be inadvisable, but they’re 24 men strong. They find a room full of giant rats and shoot them to death with crossbow bolts. They find a giant lizard thing asleep on a rock and shoot it to death with crossbow bolts. They find a giant snake in its nest and shoot it to death with crossbow bolts. Then a giant tick drops from the ceiling and bites into Abigail, the youngest White Company member present, right through her mail armor. They stab it to death but its sucker thing is buried deep in there and they can’t just pull it out because it’s got barbs. She was at very low HP after the initial bite and just ripping the thing out could easily nick the artery and kill her. Luckily, Herr Rike(Fighter-Thief) and all around unpleasant woman, is also a barber-surgeon, and several of the spellcasters can provide a limited amount of magical healing. She had to strip down while the men averted their eyes and stood watch. While Abigail, teary-eyed, bit down on the shaft of a crossbow bolt, Rike was able to carefully cut the thing out of her, with magical healing coming right after to ensure that this doesn’t, well, completely disable the use of her arm. After a few moments of recovery (accelerated by the magic), Abigail got dressed again, and soon had the gruff men of the Badger Company clapping her on the back and congratulating her for making it through that. “We’ve all been there!” “Yer a real mercenary now!” “That’ll put some hair on yer chest, figuratively!”

(I’m making sure to include all this stuff in detail to dispel the myth that “dungeon crawling means no roleplaying.” That part kinda was “back-to-back combat” but only because the party went out of their way to find every monster, all of which could’ve been avoided otherwise.)

Each of these encounters lasted like 1 combat round and less than 15 minutes of real time even with that many characters, because AD&D2e combat doesn’t fucking suck.

There was some treasure to find too, pretty valuable stuff, but for the sake of this not being even more overly long the only thing I’m going to mention is a large jug of lamp oil.

Descending the stairs, a man and woman of the Badger Company were suddenly dropped down on by two acidic green slimes. The party quickly discovered that these could not be conventionally attacked, especially not while they’re clinging to the distressed Badger Company members. Slicing and stabbing the slimes with swords does nothing obviously, and risks further injuring their allies.

Thinking quickly, Abigail has the idea to try scraping and shoveling the slime off with her shield, which kind of works, and everyone with a shield follows suit. The slimed Badger Company mercs survive, managing to avoid total disfigurement too, but are in no condition to continue. Their armor and helmets and weapons have been ruined by the acid and they’ve lost a lot of skin. Everyone whose shield was used to shovel off the slime also lost their shields as the acid ruined them.

The man and woman that got slimed had to go up stairs and wait for the return of the larger group, it was a really good thing that the party checked every corner of the upper floor and killed anything that could be a danger to two unarmed and critically wounded people. Herr Rike was the one who told them to go upstairs as she poured water over their wounds, washing away acid and chunks of melted skin, and, sarcastically in her horrible voice, said that everyone would vouch for the woman’s virginity.* Herr Rike’s voice “sounds like a saw.”

*In the Middle Ages, an unmarried woman’s virginity was pretty important to her societal respect, and if she was left alone with a lone man for too long, someone may call her virginity into question. Of course the joke here is that everyone knows that no matter what, they aren’t going to get it on while bits of their skin are still sliding off. None of the Badger Company thought it was very funny.

With the slimes pooled on the ground, they were hardly a threat, they’re super slow and you could just sorta step around them, but they still needed to be dealt with to not become a problem later. Herr Rike went back upstairs and got that jug of lamp oil and poured it on and around the slimes and lit them on fire. That killed them.

So now the party is down two fighters and nearly all of their shields.

It’s dark down here obviously, and several people are carrying torches. Going is a bit slower in the poor lighting. Herr Rike makes a Detect Noise* check. She hears something like faint grinding of stone to the east. This huge band of armed and armored men coming into the castle has definitely made a ton of noise, so Rike’s impression of this sound is that the bad guys have heard them coming, and hid behind some kind of secret door in the stone walls. She tells everyone to keep a look out for any weird cracks in the walls.

*AD&D2e doesn’t have Perception like D&D5e. If it’s in front of them they can see it, if it’s making noise they can hear it, if it stinks they can smell it, etc. However, characters of the Thief class can make a skill check to listen closely for the chance to hear extremely faint sounds that wouldn’t normally be audible.

They check a few yards to the west first, finding two sturdy doors with fine, brand new inset locks on them. Rike tries, but fails to get through these in any way, so they move on to the south and find a long hallway full of cell doors. In the cells are months-old rotten corpses with visible wounds in most of them. It doesn’t look like the starved to death. The stench is almost overwhelming so they turn back and go north to the last door.

To the north they go through a room filled with, like, garbage. Dirt, broken bits of wooden furniture, rotten animal hides, and even what might be feces. Everyone is checking the ceilings carefully now too after the tick and the slimes, and this ceiling looks like it’s on its way to caving in, but not any immediate danger. They go to a door on the far end of the garbage room and open it. All the while, Herr Rike is checking for traps both passively* and actively. There don’t seem to be any traps, but the stench of the next room still hits them like a wall and makes Abigail and some of the others gag. It smells like “unwashed flesh,” in modern terms, it smells like a Magic: The Gathering tournament in there. Rike is unphased, and hisses out into the darkness “Come out, I can smell you.”

*Like I said before about perception, the main way to check for traps is just the player asking the DM “does my character see any weird stones on the floor ahead? Can he see a tripwire behind the door? When he opens the door, can he nudge it open with his sword while standing to the side in case anything shoots out?” and so on, but Thieves can also make skill checks to passively notice them on top of that.

After a few seconds, there’s a loud, low growl from the far corner. “I can smell you too..”

An enormous, grotesque figure steps into the edge of the torchlight. He’s easily nine feet tall and looks like if you took an already large man and stretched him out in all the wrong ways. He’s wearing a loincloth and a huge cape of animal hide, and carrying a full sized halberd that he’s big enough to use as a one-handed weapon. He scrapes it along the ground menacingly, making a horrible sound, but not the same sound that Rike heard earlier with her Detect Noise ability.

Rike doesn’t back away, but holds her crossbow casually in the crook of her arm. They’re about 10 feet from each other. She says in her hoarse, raspy whisper. “So, you can talk. Do you have a name?”

The hulking monster growls his answer. “Lubash. Do you?” He sounds almost as bad as Rike.

“Yes.”

“Hmph. Rude not to answer..” he grunts in annoyance.

“What are you doing down here, Lubash?”

“I guard this place for the people here. Eat people who come in.” He grins, showing jagged and pointy teeth. “Great gig.”

“Congratulations. Do you know who you work for, Lubash?”

“Do you?”

“No, we’re here to find that out.”

“Good luck...” He grins again.

“Thank you, Lubash. Are you going to get in our way?”

Lubash Points his halberd towards the doorway where Rike stands, looking behind her at the dozens of armored men carrying swords, polearms, and crossbows. “No. I go out there, I die. You come in here, you die.”

“We can agree to those terms. Where do that door behind you lead?”

“That’s my pantry.”

Rike nods. She’s not 100% sure that she believes him, but there’s no dice roll for that in AD&D2e, so it’s up to logic and the DM’s description of Lubash’s body language. She decides that even if he is lying, that she would rather not press him and get in the way of that halberd until she has exhausted all her other options. “One more thing, Lubash. Do you know your bosses are holding out on you?”

“How?”

“There’s a dozen corpses in the cells down the hall. They aren’t letting you eat those?”

“No, those aren’t mine, here before I got here. Nasty, rotten.”

Rike attempted to weaken Lubash’s trust with his bosses, but seemingly to no avail. She said goodbye to Lubash and closed the door, then she sprinkled more of the lamp oil all around the floor and flammable objects of the garbage room, and left the other door to the garbage room just slightly open, propping the jug up on top of it, so that if Lubash tries to follow them, he’ll get a nasty splash and then go up on flames at a brush with one of their torches. Plus, the shattering of the jar would alert them.

Now despite the smell, the path of least resistance was south, past the wall of cells with dead bodies in them.

Rike moved forward, noticing nothing out of the ordinary except a greater amount of dust in the mostly empty room further down compared to the rest of the place so far, as if no one had been down there in a long time. It wasn’t exactly *obvious* in hindsight, but she should have known better still. As she stepped into the room down the hall, there was a faint flash of light as she seemingly crossed some kind of invisible line, a magical trap! Someone with more knowledge of magic might have been able to see more of the signs if they were in front, but it was already too late. There was a shuffling sound from the cells as all twelve of the corpses rose to their feet. Most mercenaries immediately realized what was happening, and everyone quickly readied their weapons, falling into formation shoulder-to-shoulder with the archers and spellcasters in back, and three men in reserve watching the doorway with the jug in case Lubash decided to try and make a move for them while they were preoccupied. The line was close to the cell doors, with gaps where every other man stood a few feet back, creating mini chokepoints and kill zones at each door where each one corpse would trickle through and have to fight alone against three mercenaries rather than meeting them all at once. Ceridwen, a druid spellcaster, cast a spell, Fairy Fire, which highlighted the first row of walking corpses in the dark, giving the party a bonus to attack rolls against them.

The dozen walking corpses stood and shambled forward slowly enough that the mercenaries got 2 rounds to act before they were upon them. They shot a volley of crossbow bolts and arrows. The projectiles sunk deep into rotten eye sockets, chests, and shoulders, but at best it just made some of them stumble. Another volley. Even more hit this time, with a couple of criticals for what should’ve been massive damage, but the undead just kept walking forward until they reached the line of spears and swords. In mechanical terms it seemed that they took reduced or possibly even zero damage from piercing attacks like crossbow bolts.

Both players and characters started to get pretty nervous as we started rolling for all these melee attacks and it started to seem like despite stabbing big holes in them with spears and slicing off hands and arms with swords, the undead just didn’t stop. It was the last melee attack of the mercenaries’ round that finally “killed” one. One of the mercenaries using a quarterstaff managed to crush one’s head against the stone wall and it finally stopped moving. Seeing this, those that had them, which was quite few, switched weapons to clubs, thinking that the only way might be to bash them with bludgeoning damage. After another round, another corpse was “killed” with a sword, but it’s still possible that they only take half-damage from slashing weapons. Chrysanthemum, another White Company fighter, brought her weighted grain flail down on another corpse, shattering its skull with such force that flecks of bone sprinkled everyone around. She let out a girlish squeal of disgust.

Piercing weapons were definitely a no-go after one of the corpses just kept walking down the shaft of a spear after being impaled, and grabbed the spearman’s neck, pulling at it until it ripped a small hole in the front, dropping the man into a pool of blood. Another woman was hit so had in the head by one of the corpses unnaturally strong blows that she would’ve surely died if not wearing a helmet. She could still stand, but had to swap out, an archer from the back drawing his sword and stepping in to take her place. One of the other militiamen grabbed the bleeding man and hoisted him backwards out from under the feet of the melee, where Ceridwen quickly got down on her knees to bandage the wound, even though it seemed futile. For his trouble, as his attention was momentarily averted, the militiaman who pulled him back was lunged upon and grabbed into a bear hug by another corpse. He could hardly yell as three ribs cracked in quick succession.

Rike beat that one’s skull in with her baton until it loosened its grip, but she and Abigail still had to pry its arms off before the critically wounded man could be dragged off the front line. With was another round of chopping and beating the remaining corpses down before the coast seemed clear.

The whole combat sequence lasted maybe 6 rounds, and took about 45 minutes of real time, even with over 30 combatants total to make rolls for. It was a nail biter, and would’ve been much worse if the mercenaries hadn’t made such good use of positioning and formation.

Rike quickly went to see to the wounded with Ceridwen. Putting her ear to the crushed man’s chest, she could tell that he hadn’t punctured a lung, but it would still be best to move him as little as possible. She then set to helping Ceridwen carefully clean and bandage the other man’s neck wound. She tended to him last because, having seen the wound happen, she knew that if he hadn’t bled out of suffocated before she got to him, that would be the only indication that he could be saved.

It might as well have been a miracle. The wound exposed part of his trachea, but just missed the jugular and carotid. As long as it was kept clean and bandaged, he had a chance to live. The men cheered and praised God as loudly as they dared to in this place.

As Rike stood up from him, she commanded four of the men to make a stretcher out of an old tent and carefully carry the crushed man upstairs. She jerked her head to the side to indicate the bleeding man, the motion just for an instant shifting her mail gorget and helmet’s visor enough to expose the rough, pale scar tissue across her own throat, speaking in her raspy whisper of a voice. “He can walk.”

The party regrouped after taking the wounded men upstairs. (Again, really really good thing they made the call to hunt down and kill everything on the upper floor.) This hallway was the furthest east they had been, but it seemed to be a dead end. Rike and Ceridwen set to work looking for that secret door. It took about half an hour of searching (in game time, like 1 minute of describing their actions in real time) before Ceridwen found something. She pulled it, and a wall nearby slowly slid down, exposing a narrow passageway.

The funny thing was, the sound of that secret door opening was absolutely not the sound that Rike hear with her Detect Noise ability earlier either, and the dust and cobwebs beyond indicated that this secret passage had not been used in months. So, like, even though they thought they heard a secret door, they were wrong, and it’s only through dumb luck that they stumbled upon this. Like a broken clock.

That’s where we left off in the last session.

Sorry that was long as fuck but I hope this paints a clearer picture of what a classic “dungeon crawl” is actually like to those of you who have never experienced one.

Oh and if you’re wondering the DM told us later that those walking corpses take normal damage from Slashing and Bludgeoning attacks but always 1 damage from Piercing attacks.

"D&D can do anything" and "I don't like dungeon crawls, I enjoy real role-playing" are two statements that often go hand-in-hand and the ironic thing is that the latter statement betrays a very shallow understanding of role-playing while being really snobby. What's even more hilarious is that it's like baby's first RPG elitism, like yeah most people go through a "I like real role-playing" phase but to go through it while putting on airs about the dungeon game while at the same time dismissing dungeon games is real funny.

Anyway, wherever people pick up the idea that dungeon-crawling, the playstyle most supported by D&D, is somehow pedestrian, it very quickly leads to bargaining, like surely if dungeon-crawling is actually bad and for babies then D&D must be capable of so much more, right? Well, truth is, not really, D&D kind of sucks for things besides that.

Where a lot of people go wrong at this point is contending that therefore D&D must be flawed as a role-playing game: like, if it actually kind of sucks for most playstyles besides dungeon-crawling and we've already decided that dungeon-crawling isn't real role-playing, then surely D&D must be bad as a role-playing game?

The issue of course is that most people don't ever interrogate their starting assumption of dungeon-crawls being bad. And truth be told most people who claim to hate dungeon-crawls have never actually played a dungeon-crawl. At most they've played a dungeon-crawl themed linear succession of combat encounters. (I remember this: once when I posted about dungeon-crawls being good, actually, someone responded with a "well I can see the appeal but personally I couldn't enjoy a game that's just back-to-back combat" which is a whole misunderstanding of dungeon-crawls as a genre.)

Anyway so the great thing is that once you re-examine your assumptions about what counts as "real role-playing" and conclude that a dungeon-crawl is as much real role-playing as whatever the fuck Critical Role is doing then you find whole new vectors of being a snooty blowhard and it rules. You can make fun of D&D players in so many new ways,

[parfaitblogs]

hi! im not the anon who asked for the headcanon but it was SO good. you should do one for lila where he and reader are not dating but she stills likes him!!!! and goes under complete transformation after the pool kiss with stuff like, she stops taking coffee or lunch with him and starts doing so with emily. like passive rejection from reader? but it’s just her protecting her heart, omg.

lowkey my favourite thing to do… (ignore someone i’m not dating because they didn’t give me the attention my brain conjured up because limerence is my best friend forever 🎀). this got even longer Goodness Gracious somebody take my keyboard away from me.

s1 spencer… much different to s8… and you are not dating him… but because this is parfaitblogs’ fanfiction blog he has a big fat crush on you back. as god intended.

as someone who grew up without romantic relationships, i feel like he would take the attention lila’s giving him in a sort of quick attachment way. but it still feels wrong because he’s pretty sure he likes you, but nothing has ever happened between you two so he believes it’s a silly crush he needs to get over!! never mind the teasing and the lingering touches and the nights you spend cooped up at work with him to finish case details. they were just friendly!! and this is what he needed to get over you.

except you’re distancing yourself from him because why does him kissing lila hurt so much and why do you hate the jokes morgan keeps making about spencer’s actress girlfriend? and he notices it immediately, because even if he’s supposed to be paying attention to this new girl he’s started something with, he can’t stop thinking about you and the walls you’ve put up.

maybe you’re on a case! and he can’t sleep because he’s thinking about his best friend turned stranger (you), and you’re thinking about him in that stupid pool kissing lila, so you both decide to go to the diner across the street of the hotel. just because the universe loves to twiddle their thumbs and meddle in your business.

and it’s a very awkward acknowledgement that you’re going to be spending that night in the diner together, because why wouldn’t you? but then he’s asking if he did something in the smallest voice possible, and you’re shrugging your shoulders and not really saying anything. so, like the genius he is, he goes through recent groundbreaking events that has happened for the two of you, and he lands on the kiss with lila. maybe it’s a twitch in your hand, or a readjustment of how you’re sitting, but he knows it’s that, and things start to fall into place.

he’s asking why you’re upset because of that, and it’s a lot of verbal poking and prodding at you before you finally express that it made you jealous, and you don’t feel like you have any right to be jealous, so you just ignored him instead. he tells you if he caught you kissing some other guy he’d probably feel the same, then realises he probably shouldn’t have told you that, and stammers to try and explain himself.

but he’s really cute, and you smile at him for the first time since that kiss with lila, and he’s pretty sure everything’s okay between you two again.

and also he gets to take you on a date as an apology for kissing a girl he doesn’t really like.

[saintsenara]

if Fred had lived and George died do you see him getting crueler? not like crazy but he is considerably meaner than Geoege and i wonder if he wasn’t there to balance Fred out would he be more like how we see James and Sirius in SWM

i don't know if i'd necessarily say that i think he'd get crueler, but what i do think is that he'd externalise his grief in a way which george doesn't.

it's really interesting that - even though we don't actually see george's grieving process on the page - a standard version of it has developed among the fandom, guided by the few details jkr has provided about his later life [that he can't produce a patronus, that his relationship with angelina is "unhealthy... but as happy as it could be". in every post-war fic i've ever read - and in my own writing - george's grief ends up being something implosive.

he's usually written as drinking heavily, for example, and his drinking is written as something which makes him catatonic. he's usually written as someone who doesn't get out of bed and doesn't have any interest in anything, whose emotional state is numb and exhausted. and he's usually written as absolutely broken by sorrow, but still able to accept the bigger picture of the cause fred died for - rather than furious and looking for someone to blame.

fred - in contrast - is somebody i imagine would have grief which was explosive.

i can see him as someone who would also drink, but who was made restless and impulsive by drinking - that he'd go out of his way to start fights, that he'd do dangerous, high-adrenaline things while drunk [whatever the wizarding equivalent of speeding is, for example] - and as someone who becomes very manic in grief - not sleeping, constantly bouncing from one new thing to the next, not allowing himself to rest because this would mean having to sit with the knowledge that his other half was gone - and as someone whose emotional state is fractious and raw.

and i also see him attempting to soothe himself by finding someone to blame for george dying.

and i think there's something very interesting - not least for its impact on the broader weasley family dynamics - in the idea that this would be harry.

[luneytodd]

I’m about to start fist fighting mfs in the mouthwashing fandom because everyone likes to give me shit when I say “Curly should’ve thrown Jimmy in the cryopod when he learned about what he was doing to Anya” BUT NOBODY HAS GIVEN ME A VALID REASON AS TO WHY HE COULDN’T HAVE

“tHeY nEeD a cO-piLoT” THEY HAD AN AUTOPILOT!!! One that seemingly worked pretty well too until SOMEBODY got his hands on it. Also you mean to tell me they had a gun on the ship in case of “unrest among crew members” but absolutely NO backup plan in case something happened to the co pilot?? I find that outrageously hard to believe.

“WhY WoUlD tHeY giVE tHe oNLy sUrviVAL pOd To a RaPiSt?” I’m going to spit in your face. I’ve heard this argument so many times it has actually killed my brain cells. So in case this wasn’t 100% clear for whatever reason my suggestion is that they would do this course of action *before* he crashed the ship when there were still (correct me if I’m wrong with this number cause I don’t remember the exact details) THREE working pods, not one. Ideally, Curly would’ve done this as soon as Anya told him about the abuse but the second best time in my opinion would’ve been when Jimmy went on the whole “kill everyone, leave us as martyrs” rant. I don’t give a single fuck what any of you dense motherfuckers say to me ever if MY FRIEND approached me and threatened not only my life but the lives of every single one of my coworkers I’d charge tackle his ass into the pod myself, or at least bribe Swansea to do it.

“tHeY wOuLdn’T gEt pAiD fOr tHe JoB bEcAuSE OF ThE uNNeCeSSArY pOd UsAgE” First of all, fuck you. Genuinely. Second of all, THEY’RE ALL FIRED!!! NO MATTER WHAT!!! INDUSTRY WENT BYE BYE!!! For all intents and purposes, that paycheck would’ve been the filler between this venture and the next. Would losing that be absolutely devastating for some of the people involved? It’s very possible. I don’t know their individual financial statuses and I’m not gonna stand here and argue “they all would’ve been completely fine without the money”. But you know what’s even more devastating than losing your financial safety net? LOSING YOUR GODDAMN LIVES!!! Also in general if you’re prioritizing your own financial interests over the health and wellbeing of the people around you, you are scum arguing for scummy shit and I reiterate my earlier “Fuck you” with an additional “go to hell” just for emphasis. I don’t think a lot of people are making this argument because I’m literally sourcing it from a few randos on tik tok but goddamn if your views align with these particular tik tok randos please for the love of god just block me cause I despise you and everything you stand for.

And like the thing I really want to get across with this entire rant is that I don’t think Curly specifically was an awful person for not taking the absolute most drastic measures every single time Jimmy said some fucked up bullshit. But I’m so so SO over the trend of people acting like he was perfect and there was absolutely nothing he could’ve said or done because Jimmy is this master manipulator who was pulling the strings the entire time cause I also think that’s also total bullshit. I think there were a lot of opportunities to recognize the red flags and I am so fucking tired of this fandom acting like he couldn’t have done something- LITERALLY ANYTHING to help.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

If you like this house and you're handy enough to finish it yourself, I guess it's a good buy. It's a 1980 that's almost redone, but they've decided to sell it. Located in Bethany, OK, the 5bd, 4ba, 5,000 sq ft home is for sale at $720k.

For example, this is all done.

Somebody likes to climb ropes.

Notice the ramp. I like that feature.

This rope is getting on my nerves. I like the real tree there.

Look at the waterfall.

Is this the dining room? I think it's finished. Has the fireplace in, coffered ceiling, and I love the mismatched lights. There's a lot of storage along that long wall, too.

Must be a dining/family room combo, in an open concept layout.

Not a fan of the kitchen they put in. Why is there a carpet with a drain in the middle where the table goes?

Closeup of the cabinet detailing. Yeah, but this would go better in a smaller, fairy tale kitchen, not this big open thing.

Very large pantry.

Looks like the huge primary bedroom is mostly finished.

Rustic ensuite isn't quite finished.

Kitchenette outside the ensuite.

Another finished bedroom and ensuite.

This beautiful turret room needs a lot of work yet. Are they putting a kitchen or bath in here?

Very large garage.

Beautiful .48 acre lot. So, is it worth it or not?

https://www.zillow.com/homes/6601-NW-42nd-St-Bethany,-OK-73008_rb/22011693_zpid/

[macaronirats]

OK OK WAIT THEORY

Somebody might have said this already in which case sorryyy pls tell me

also I got all the pictures from Google because I wrote this in like 5 minutes so if I stole ur pictures sorryyy

But ok so does anybody remember the theory about the secretary’s death being a reenactment of 9/11? I think that theory was close to the truth but not quite. I believe the series of secretary costumes is actually detailing the downfall of the dictator’s reign due to nuclear warfare.

People have pointed out how swarm tour is most likely a prequel to the current dictator setting (see future-crab’s post here). I believe this to be true and the secretary costumes are showing how it happened, paired with the drum messages etc.

I know that the secretary appeared one night before this one but I want to start with the everything under control message.

For a while I thought this one said “everything IS under control” instead of simply “everything under control,” which wouldn’t be an important distinction UNLESS you look at it through the guise of a dictatorship. This message is not a confirmation of wellbeing or safety, but rather signifying the continual reign of his grand immoral dictator.

Then comes the airplane. This is where all the 9/11 speculation starts, but I think the airplane mentioned is actually one carrying a nuclear weapon. The message after that, terror, is fairly self-explanatory.

Before, I read a theory or two about how Gerard was dressed as himself witnessing 9/11 during this show (considering that they were not dressed as the secretary for the first and only time during this saga). While this is a good theory, I think that it’s also possible that he is dressed to represent the dog here, hence the drum message. This might be far fetched but maybe accurate?? I also see how the dog could be a symbol for the general public. The obedience of the people, the citizens that obey their owner’s will. “Bark bark bark” could be the citizens rising up now that the government is weakened or dead. Gerard could be dressed not as a dog, but as a regular person, maybe one that has been living under the dictator’s rule.

The rest of the secretary shows I think continue this storyline, as the secretary becomes deader and undeader. I also think that there’s something to be said about the secretary herself as a symbol for dictatorship and the fascist regime in general- her death could represent the death of the government, its rebirth, maybe the way that history repeats itself over and over again. Ignoring her symbolism would be a BIG oversight. The secretary owning the dog as a representation of the government controlling the people?

Sorry if this is all either really obvious or really wrong either way thanks for listening to me rant tell me what yall think :D

[askthesunjackers]

Is there any chance we could get some city maps? Maybe showing off corporate owned land, restricted areas, gang territory ect?

I don't think so, because I think it would be a lot of work for not much benefit. I have done city maps before - as a GM, for use by my players, and the information included on them has been tailored for what I think they should know, what they shouldn't know, and what they should only have a vague sense of. The main things being like, basic geography like placenames and landmarks, evocative information like the income level and average temperature, and quest-specific information like infection rates of a disease they were investigating.

It's also worth mentioning that all these maps were of a small and isolated city, and even then they didn't go street by street - Canterlot is a huge sprawl that would be almost impossible (and certainly not worth my time) to detail its entire geography. Like, think of how utterly meaningless a map of a city like LA or Chicago is to somebody who doesn't live there. Multiply that by a thousand, and you've got the problem with trying to define the geography of Canterlot.

If you're not playing Nighthaze, where you need to solve logistical problems in this world, and instead you're just reading Sunjackers or maybe doing something else in this world - you don't need a map. If you're feeling unmoored by the lack of tidy geographic relationships, that's on purpose. You're supposed to feel a little adrift in this chaotic world that's too big, too full of noise to fully comprehend.

And if you are a GM looking for a city map to hand your players, I highly encourage you to make one yourself and take the creative liberties needed to make a little corner of Canterlot or whatever your own. Don't worry about contradicting canon, all I care about is the vibes.

[starshower1215]

Beware of my own rant, because this post reached back into my mind and pulled out my adoration for Blitzstone and my own viewpoint as an avid supporter of Blitzstone's ambiguous nature.

Reading Blitzstone content like this always gets me trembling with some deep feeling of internal satisfaction. You have it completely correct, Aestophobia (or Summer, I mean). I recall an analysis post I had made about them, I believe making a connection between the fandom's desire for Riordan's confirmation of Blitzstone as romantic and a need for external validation of something (in a sense, that isn't articulated as well as I'd like it to be). I had detailed all about how there was no need for a kissing scene or a confession scene, or even any explicit scene which marks the two as "canon." For multiple reasons. For one, what if the nature of their relationship isn't romantic? Or what if it is romantic, but they don't prefer kissing or such? That exists as a romantic relationship, it's just on the asexual spectrum. A lack of kissing doesn't invalidate the romance. Or another, why do we even need such scenes to confirm someone's love for someone else, when it is so clearly shown, as Summer said?

I never cease to get frustrated when I remember how somebody responded to that post, in the most point-missing manner, saying that "kisses are fun to read." It makes me want to tear myself apart every time I think of it, because that wasn't the damn point. From my perspective, just that sentence had cheapened my analysis, and my entire viewpoint, to such a shallow response. If you like romantic Blitzstone, that's fantastic. I do, too, I think it's a really fun thing to explore. But there's so much to be learned from the fact that they aren't confirmed to be romantic in nature. There's so much room for so much else, and in reality, "romantic" is merely a label, and while labels clear things up for sure, they also limit. I really believe we all should be more open-minded towards how the author has truly portrayed them, and really, a lot of characters in general by a lot of authors, instead of viewing them through our biased lenses. That's completely fine to do so, but it has to be kept within fanon territory. Blitzen and Hearth canonically love each other any way, it's incredibly apparent. The only thing we're really searching for here is the label, which isn't necessary.

And then on top of that, I just want to add that a romantic relationship is built off of the foundation of a friendship. This is why romance is something "more than friends." But that also means that a lot of the love in romance is really just pure love you find in a friendship, too. Hearth and Blitz have a lot of chemistry, but they could, literally, be friends. Not "just friends," as they obviously have a deeper connection, but truly, romance isn't the only incredibly intimate connection out there.

ngl one of Rick Riordan's weirdest choices was not having Blitz and Hearth be married. like Richard they're married, they have more chemistry and are more natural and at ease with each other than almost any other Riordanverse characters, they're not made for each other's environments but they both have ways to get around it when they need to and they're both more comfortable mentally in Midgard's middle ground anyway, they're outcasts in their societies, they see the strengths and beauties in each other that nobody else does

literally in every way they're the couple ever

[occudo]

I just saw the eye above the exit door in your latest comic and just wanted to say that it was a really cool detail and I love seeing things like that, it makes me think about other places eyes could be hidden. Thank you for drawing :)

I'm glad you liked it! I like to think Elias tries to put 'subtle' eye decor everywhere he can.

[zuzu-draws]

[The Cursed, Unwanted Child: Ostracised by the Village]

[anne-is-confused]

are you certain, james? are you certain?

some crops for detail :-)

[kittykatninja321]

When people say “Jason wouldn’t smoke because he died of smoke inhalation” I respectfully have to disagree, because if there’s one thing Jason is going to do he’s going to take aspects of his trauma and use them for himself and push on them like a bruise (he takes the name red hood, he uses explosives and guns, the crowbars were lame but they weren’t out of character), so I don’t think that would stop him from smoking. The way I see it I think Jason would be one of those people who occasionally smokes a cigarette when things are Particularly Bad, even though they swear they stopped smoking, like a maladaptive coping mechanism basically

[sleepsucks]

[rick-ety]

Looove old men in dresses. Giggle

[ponchizs]

I’m in love with how they are giving so many subtle hints about Alhaitham and Kaveh’s relationship and how important it is to Alhaitham, despite the way they always seem to be bickering.

Throughout the 3.2 archon quest Alhaitham tells us that the reason why he is so interested in helping Sumeru is because he doesn’t want his daily life to change. After that Kaveh starts being mentioned very frequently by him or we hear other people in the akademiya complain about how they daily argue.

Then, of course, we meet them both arguing with each other in the House of Daena, which was quite the argument. We also know many of their casual interactions and how they go to the café/bar frequently together. Furthermore, Alhaitham pays all of Kaveh’s bills (something no one would do for someone they don't care for).

And now, during Alhaitham’s quest, their tones were so soft (At least in JP and CN) and also domestic. Kaveh seems to worry a lot about Alhaitham and exchanges glances with him, which made me melt inside. I also love how Alhaitham is constantly smiling while bickering with kaveh. Remember, we dont see him smiling like this that often. Which means he really enjoys it. I really liked how after the second time Kaveh asked him if he is okay, he replied with a tease about the painting Kaveh had mentioned before. Also smiling.

But most importantly, something I see no one talking about: the moment when Alhaitham was explaining why he resigned from being the Grand Sage to being the scribe again and he tells us that “It’s important to keep your priorities straight”, the camera points at Kaveh.

I know this game will probably never have any canon ship because they need to make everyone happy, but we do get hints like this from time to time and I think this was one of them.

After all, why would they bother to add all of those scenes with Kaveh when the quests had already concluded, if not for showing us how is what is Alhaitham’s daily life he wants to protect that much? We saw how happy he is, how eager he was to get home and go have dinner with Kaveh. We also see how Kaveh had been waiting for him as well.

I’d like to know more about their relationship, even if it ends up not being romantic (though how do you explain that face Kaveh made when paimon asked if they are friends).

[aroaceleovaldez]

non-exhaustive list of canon powers Nico di Angelo either has shown or is heavily implied to have:

Shadow-travel

Manipulation of shadows/darkness (also possibly use of shadows as a pocket-dimension a la Magicians using the Duat in The Kane Chronicles)

Becoming intangible/shadows

Complete control over skeletons/bones (dead or alive, including summoning, reanimation, and/or changing shape of them) and being able to sense their presence

Summoning, reanimating, commanding, and dispelling the dead/undead (Skeletons, zombies, ghosts, etc & varieties) and being able to sense their presence

Ability to understand/communicate with the dead/undead and potentially other beings of the Underworld

Inherent complete comprehension of Latin

Ability to perceive the usually unperceivable/possibly look upon a deity’s true form without repercussion (at least moreso than the average demigod, though possibly is restricted to chthonic beings) (ex: Tartarus, potentially also interacting with his parents, etc)

Interacting tangibly with ghosts (implied to be a Ghost King thing rather than a Hades/Pluto thing)

Partial or complete immunity to different effects of the Underworld/things within (can consume food/drink of or in the Underworld without repercussions, effects from the Lethe wear off over time instead of being permanent like usual for mortals, etc)

Astral projection/”Walking in dreams”

Dream manipulation and projection (Sending dreams to others, etc.) (presumably includes sharing/projecting dreams with others) alongside inflicting sleep upon others even from a distance.

Illusions

Manipulation of emotions/aura that inflicts specific emotions on others (ex.: radiating fear/death onto enemies)

Projection of emotions and memories onto others (can be so forceful it causes physical damage like a shockwave)

Geokinesis (all forms but also specifically generating black marble) (presumably also specialized control over precious gemstones & non-paper currency)

Temperature manipulation (seemingly only lowering temperature)/creating frost)

Control/manipulation of souls, including living beings (ex: ripping out Bryce Lawrence’s soul)

Perceiving/reading/judging of souls (most likely also a Ghost King thing over Hades/Pluto thing, but possibly both)

Converting living into dead/undead, aka instakill (ex: disintegrating monsters to bone with one touch)

Lowering or manipulation of own vitals (breathing, heart rate, etc)

Death Trance/pseudo-hibernation (possibly also general control over states of consciousness at least for self, in combo with control over vitals & dreams)

Sensing death (impending or when it occurs, sometimes receiving dreams/visions of it occurring)

Able to sense other children of Hades/Pluto (potentially also other chthonic beings in general/able to identify based on sense alone) and also just living beings in general, such as mortals (possibly via souls).

Improved navigation underground/in the Underworld and ability to traverse restricted or normally unnavigable parts of the Underworld

Enhanced strength/abilities when in the Underworld

Inherently unnaturally quiet (possibly able to silence sound on a designated target)

Hiding/shielding self from being perceived (seemingly related to shadows/silence)