#what artifacts and stats do i put on him?

[the-travelling-witch]

since i'm very earnestly saving for ayaka…

how do build this man?

[jellitchi]

vat7k designs in my head...

i thought their canon designs were a eensy weensy bit Unpolished so i made these mostly for myself. erm if u rly want it i think varian is 19 here, hugo 19, nuru 18, yong 12.

i also made rhem all playlists and had to draw them a cover so thats what the last img is I linked each of em under my notes for all of em... Under the cut is Like a Huge Infodump of notes i have for each chara,,,,,,

i kept varians design basically the same, i dislike the design w the orange neck thing so i just Nuked it😭... Here's Varians playlist

Hugos design i just wanted to put him in something more Loose. hes a thief, a professional escape artist. i dont think wearing clunky metal is ideal for him. i also gave him a prosthetic arm (blond w no arm design trope!) but u cant see it in the ref so i added another drawing of him in his under layering👍 i vaguely referenced russian(?) clothes for him as well... Yeah not too much changed w him i just tried to make him slippery-er. Here's Hugo's playlist

yong came relatively easy to me, if it wasn't obvious i did rip gaming from g*nshin's hoodie. i thought the lion hood was Adorable and freaking perfect for what i had in mind for hos character. since the og notes said the fire kingdom is loosely Chinese inspired i basically just kept that. i mashed tgt a buncha diff dynasties though sorry for how inconsistent i was... i think he looks Okay. anyways i changed yongs role a bit, ill explain why im adjusting some of their roles later but i kept yong as the Jinx Type character. hes the eldest in his family and has a buncha younger siblings, hes a lion dancer and does performances w his family/siblings. he rly like special effects n keeps tryna incorporate his fireworks into their performances (it flops and he has to sew up the dmg) ill explain more of yongs role in another post maybe shrugs... Here's Yong's Playlist

miss nuru was a bit of a struggle for me i might share my full design process with her coz i did a Bunch of mockups for her😭😭😭... i didnt have a specific country of reference for her but i chose to make her vaguely south asian inspired. i also really wanted to keep the sheer fabric w the star / constellation map. i love that idea its so cute so shes still technically the navigator. but she also wields a sword too, fencing or whatever. (her and varian r Huge Cass fangirls which is probably why she started tryna use a sword (snuck out to watch cass compete) Okay ill talk abt this later) in my head, okay ill Probably make a whole nother post talking abt how im interpreting/writing each chara, but in my head i think nuru is the youngest and her kingdom's archivist. shes mostly in charge of like Her kingdoms history / artifacts / etc. ok im getting too side tracked ill save the lore dump for later but thats Nurus role in the party. Here's Nuru's Playlist

uhm below i made their character stats mostly to help me with planning / role developing. the yellow is their base stats the color behind is their end stats i guess. i was gonna explain my reasoning for their stats but ermm this post is kinda Really long so sorry😭... varian max int for obvious reasons, also max charisma just coz i feel like u kinda learn a thing or two being around a couple manipulators and spending time in jail idk shrugs... (also lets not forget the "ud b surprised what ppl would do for a cookie!") Hugo slippery guy, if a brick is thrown at him as hes running hes gonna try n run faster to shatter it, his mindset is Run Run Run! i think hes relatively agile too but yeah mostly a Speedster. i think he n varian got no Physical strength varian maybe just like A little coz Farm boy but I rly doubt quirin is making him do a Lotta heavy lifting. yong has incredible stamina and agility because hed a performer. nuru is the strongest coz this team would literally Flop without a proper Offense😭... i think varian n hugo r able to outwit plenty of their opponents but i think nuru is pretty good in a fight, same w yong. Yeah Okay Sorry for a Long Long Post thanks hope u guys enjoy

[tea-cat-arts]

People are doom posting about Deyha and as a veteran Genshin player (AR 60, been playing since version 1.2, so I guess I qualify as that) I’d like to take this opportunity to remind this fandom of a couple things.

Y’all remember when Kokomi was released? People were throwing a fit over the crit rate thing and she was considered the worst character in the game. One update later, the Ocean Hued Clam artifact set was released and suddenly she became one of the best characters in the game. Shinobu was also considered one of the worst in the game when she was released. Her scaling was awkward and she was hard to place in any team comps. Then Dendro was released and what do you know- turns out her skills time out perfectly with dendro and elemental mastery gets a buff. Heck, dendro buffed electro in general and made pretty much all of them a lot more viable. The meta changes all the time, don’t worry about it.

Speaking of the meta, it’s made up. Any character is viable if you put the work in. Sure, it’s going to be a lot harder to build a dps Gorou and he’ll still probably do less damage than Itto, but if you’re having fun and still clearing the spiral abyss, who really gives a shit? A lot of it also has to do with dumb luck and how much money you’re spending. Like, my C0 Ganyu does a lot more damage than my C0 Ayaka even though Ayaka has higher base stats just because I got better artifacts for Ganyu. There’s also plenty of characters who’s damage is locked behind constellations and weapons, and that’s just straight up not going to be an option for a lot of players. Sure, you’re C6 Wanderer may do a ton of damage, but I don’t have him at C6. I do however have Heizou at C6 and he’s doing a lot more damage than my Scara. (Shout out to the mad lads soloing with Amber)

Lastly, mind you’re own damn business about what characters other people are playing. It’s not your game, you don’t get to dictate how other people play it (and you especially aren’t allowed to harass people over who they play)

[unaplays]

✨ Kaeya Cryo DPS Build (Reverse Melt) ✨

☃️ Kaeya was one of my earliest carry in the game, as well as one of my favorite character. I think my connection with cryo element grew because of him later on in the game as I picked Chongyun as my next dps. I switched him out because the game content started getting harder and I didn't know how to build him properly.

☃️ After learning about reverse melt, I decided to change Kaeya's original permafreeze build because it deals more damage than just permafreeze (also because I already have Ayaka to play permafreeze). So here's my Kaeya reverse melt build.

☃️ Disclaimer: This build is not perfect and by no means should be treated as a rigid rule. I just share what I have tested in game and what I know works for me. So always do your own research and take my guide with that note in mind!

Artifact Sets

☃️ Like I said in the previous paragraph, my Kaeya is built to play in a reverse melt team, meaning he can't use 4 pc Blizzard Strayer like most cryo dps would. But you can, of course, put that set on him if you play him in a permafreeze team. I just like him better in reverse melt.

☃️ Aside from playing in a reaction team, Kaeya can also be built as physical dps. Kaeya is a cryo unit, which allows him to trigger superconduct if paired with electro unit in the team. Here are some of artifact sets I think will work on him:

4 pc Blizzard Strayer

2 pc Blizzard Strayer, 2 pc atk% (Gladiator, Shimenawa, etc)

2 pc atk%, 2 pc physical damage bonus (Bloodstained, Pale Flame)

☃️ His damage scales off atk%, so use atk% sands on him and depending on what build you have for him, put either cryo or physical damage bonus goblet.

Artifact stats: atk% sands, cryo/physical damage bonus goblet, crit circlet

Ratio to follow: 1:3 crit ratio with >60% crit rate at least, 75 EM, 120% ER, and >1.500 atk

Team Composition

Reverse melt team

Permafreeze team

Superconduct team (Kaeya physical)

☃️ Playing reverse melt team is really satisfying because melt damage has high multiplier. I would recommend having C6 Bennett for even more fluid gameplay so whenever Kaeya does normal attack, it will be infused with pyro, lowering the needs for Xiangling to constantly burst every rotation as Kaeya can apply pyro himself within Bennett's burst.

☃️ I don't play Kaeya physical because I don't have Mika, which act as physical damage buffer. If you have Mika, you can swap him out with Fischl. Just make sure that you have an electro unit in the team to trigger superconduct reaction which decreases enemy's physical resistance.

Talents Priority

☃️ Since his normal attack doesn't get infused with cryo (unless you play him within Chongyun's frost field), you don't really need to level it up if you play him in reaction team. But if you build him as physical dps then it's recommended to level up all three of his talents. I would personally go burst > skill > normal attack.

Weapon Choices

Left to right: Haran Geppaku Futsu, Mistsplitter Reforged, Primordial Jade Cutter

Left to right: The Black Sword (battle pass exclusive), Aquila Favonia (good for physical Kaeya), Prototype Rancour (craftable)

☃️ Kaeya can use any crit or atk% weapon in general. If you have Aquila Favonia, you can also use that to play physical Kaeya. The cheapest and easier weapon you can get for him is the craftable sword from Mondstadt.

So that’s pretty much my Kaeya build. Feel free to ask me questions if you have any through my ask box or just leave comment on this post and I’ll respond right away!

Don’t forget to check out my other builds here!

[daytaker]

5. Othello

(Existing Sucks So) Let's All Be Shadows.

A Satan-centric Nightbringer Timeline Fic (Read on AO3)* *This combines Chapters 7 (Othello) & 8 (Cats & Curses) from AO3.

Chapter Starring: MC, Satan, Mammon Chapter Word Count: ~5.3k Chapter Warnings: Canon-typical violence, Wrath

“If you saw a drowning cat, and you reached out to help it, and it scratched you because it was scared and hurt and flailing around... Would you just let it drown?”

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I woke up late the next day. After tossing and turning in bed, trying to get the memories of what Satan had told me out of my mind, I’d finally fallen into a fitful sleep about four in the morning. 

I probably would have woken up even later, actually, if it hadn’t been for my D.D.D. ringing on the nightstand by the bed. Half-asleep, I fumbled for the device, and after a few messy attempts, I managed to answer.

“What’s the matter?” I muttered as a greeting, still half-asleep.

“What ain’t the matter!” Mammon’s voice boomed through the speaker. “Listen up, we need ya down here stat! Satan’s throwin’ a fit and Lucifer ain’t here to stop it!”

“What makes you think I can do anything about it?” I groaned as I rolled onto my back. Honestly, the last thing I needed right now was more of Satan’s issues to deal with.

“You ain’t one of us! He doesn’t wanna talk to his broth–” I could hear crashing in the background, and Mammon seemed to pull the speaker away from his mouth and shout, “COOL IT, WOULD YA? I’M TRYIN’ TO GET HELP!”

I rubbed my forehead, already exhausted, but I dutifully climbed out of bed and started getting out of my pajamas.

“Listen, just hurry over, alright?” Mammon had shifted gears and was talking to me again.

“Aye-aye, cap’n,” I sighed, and I hung up.

I stood in my underwear, resting my forearms on the dresser for a few seconds as I breathed. In, and out… In, and out… I could do this. 

Half an hour later, I stood in the front hall of the House of Lamentation. Belphie came running up to me and practically collapsed in my arms. “What took you so long?” he whined into my stomach.

Deeper in the house, I could hear the rumbling and clattering of the house being slowly destroyed, one piece of furniture at a time.

“Where’s Lucifer?” I asked Belphie.

“He’s out sucking up to the future Demon King,” he told me, rolling his eyes. “Mammon’s trying to manage Satan on his own, but he’s doing about as terribly as you’d expect from him.”

“You’re all too hard on Mammon,” I sighed, setting my bag down against the wall and rolling up my sleeves. “It isn’t like any of the rest of you can handle him either.”

“Mammon’s the second-born,” argued Belphie petulantly, his voice tinged with an edge of whininess. “He’s supposed to be stronger than Satan. So is Levi, for that matter…”

I picked my bag up again, and Belphie followed me as I made my way deeper into the house. “What’s happening, exactly?” I asked.

“He’s been on a rampage since early this morning,” sighed the youngest.

“Why?”

“Nobody knows.” He shrugged. “Maybe he stepped on something when he got out of bed. Probably there’s no real reason.” 

I nodded grimly. There was always a reason, though. Maybe not a great reason, maybe not an obvious immediate reason, but there was a reason. Yesterday taught me how little I knew about what’s really going on in his head. 

“So what are you going to do?” Belphie asked. “Are you going to pull something like you did when you first got here? What was it you said… ‘Stay’?”

I grimaced inwardly. “Not if I can avoid it,” I replied. Lucifer would put me through the wringer if I did that again. “I brought something that might help snap him out of it.”

“Is it some sort of cursed artifact?” Belphie tilted his head. “Satan loves things like that.”

“No,”I said, “but that’s good thinking. I’ll stow that away for next time.”

We had arrived outside the door to the observatory, where the volume of the crashing and clattering inside made talking nearly impossible. I gestured to Belphie that I was going in, and he watched me with some trepidation as I opened the door and stepped into the room.

Inside the observatory, Satan and Mammon stood on opposite ends of the sofa, which looked as if it had been chewed up by a pack of hyenas. Mammon was clearly on the defensive, and he was gripping his left wrist with his right hand.

“You’re here!” Mammon exclaimed with relief as the door closed behind me. Satan’s eyes flashed in my direction, and he snarled in frustration.

“Why are you here?” He hurled a lamp across the room. I was amazed that there were still lamps in the house to be destroyed.

“I’m here because Mammon called me.”

Satan looked around the room with bloodshot eyes and snatched up the remains of a painting he’d already trashed. He looked like he was struggling to decide what to do with it. “I don’t want to see you right now.”

His voice was quiet, and tight, and quivering. It was tinged with rage but subdued as if smothered under a blanket of exhaustion. It was frightening.

“Mammon, is your wrist alright?” I asked him, not taking my eyes off of Satan.

Mammon seemed surprised at the question. Through my peripheral vision, I saw him look down at the wrist he was grasping, then back up at me.

“Uh, yeah. It ain’t nothing.”

“Go ask Beel to wrap it up.”

“Eh?” Mammon started, walking towards me. “No way! I ain’t gonna just leave you in here with–”

“Mammon.”

I turned and hit him full on with an entreating stare directly in his eyes. This might be a different time period, but I knew what I was capable of, with or without magic or pacts. Mammon quickly averted his eyes, but he stubbornly stayed where he was.

“...Please.”

He grumbled audibly, but I knew he’d relented. “...I’m stayin’ right by the door.”

I smiled at him gratefully, and as he headed to the door, I looked back at Satan. He was crushing the outside of the broken picture frame between his fingers.

The door latched shut, and an eerie silence descended on the room.

I set my bag down on the ground and folded my arms. Then I unfolded them again. It was probably best not to take a defensive posture.

“...Well?” Satan growled.

Today didn’t feel like yesterday.

Yesterday, I was powerless. Satan was under control and in control, calling the shots, standing in home territory. Today, he was off-balance. He evidently wasn’t expecting me, and he certainly hadn’t planned out any grim revelations to drop on me. As scary as it was to see him angry, it felt less threatening than whatever had happened the day before. I took comfort in that.

“Why are you angry?” I asked.

He snorted disdainfully as if I had just asked him an idiotic question. “I’m the Avatar of Wrath, or did you forget?”

I wasn’t about to let my question get obfuscated so easily. So I repeated myself.

“Why are you angry, Satan?”

“Don’t play stupid!” He finally threw the damaged painting into the ground, snapping the paneling. “Why did you tell Lucifer?” He stormed in my direction, dark energy circling the air around him like a hurricane. He almost walked through me; he surrounded me without quite touching me, somehow, his feet inches from mine when he stopped short, his face close enough to mine that I felt each heavy exhale on my skin. But he was on all sides; he was everywhere. It was his tail, I finally realized. His tail curled around me; never touching me, but putting me in a snare that might snap shut if I made any wrong moves. 

“I didn’t tell Lucifer anything,” I responded coolly. I could feel hot irritation bubbling up inside me, but I swallowed it. The last thing the situation needed was for both of us to lose our tempers. “What, did he say something?”

“Just that I should watch who I talk to about family matters.” His eyes were blazing, and his quivering tail nicked me in the arm. I flinched. “You said you weren’t just loyal to him! You said you were my attendant too!”

“I didn’t tell Lucifer anything,” I repeated more vehemently. I couldn’t tell if this rage of his was rooted in jealousy or a sense of betrayal. “He probably just heard we had tea together from one of your brothers. Is that really what made you so angry? What else did he say?”

“It isn’t any of your damn business what he said!” His tail flicked, and he paced around me in tight semi-circles. “Why do you think I talked to you yesterday?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out, and I haven’t yet,” I said, lowering my voice. “Satan, you scared me yesterday.”

“So you went to Lucifer.”

“So I went home!” I jabbed a finger in his chest. That stopped his relentless pacing, at least. “I went home, Satan, and I was miserable! I actually worry about you, you know!”

Satan’s tail recoiled before the rest of him could. He didn’t look convinced–in fact, he looked more suspicious than ever. But he was no longer quite so close, or quite so ready to lunge at any opening I might offer. His green eyes searched my face silently for a few seconds, then he spoke again.

“Why?”

Ah. There was the tricky part. Why indeed? I couldn’t exactly say, ‘Because I’m from the future and in that time I’ve developed a very close bond with you and your brothers, and I love and care for you, so seeing you in such obvious pain breaks my heart.’ And I didn’t think ‘because I’m your attendant’ would cut it this time either.

“If you saw a drowning cat,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully, “and you reached out to help it, and it scratched you because it was scared and hurt and flailing around. Would you just let it drown?”

I thought I was going to reach him with that. I thought that analogy would somehow click. What I didn’t expect was that Satan would look me straight in the face and respond by asking: “What’s a cat?”

I blinked at him. He stared back at me without blinking once. I considered rephrasing the scenario with a child as the drowning victim, but I was much less confident that Satan would feel like he would, in fact, want to save a child even if it was screaming and scratching at him. 

I rubbed my face in my hands. “...Never mind, then. I just… I worry about you because you need someone to worry about you.”

“That’s a stupid reason.”

“You really want me to tell you that you’re right, and I don’t actually care, huh?” Satan didn’t say anything in response to that. He just looked at me as if challenging me to confirm that he’d nailed it. I couldn’t really tell if he was desperate for me to validate all the horrible thoughts he had about himself or if he was begging me to insist he had it all wrong.

Instead of following up my rhetorical question, I reached into my bag and pulled out a folded board and a box of black and white game tokens. I sat cross-legged on the floor, in an area with relatively little debris, opened the board, and patted the spot across from me.

Satan stared down at me for a few seconds before slowly walking over and sitting down across from me, hugging one knee.

“Do you know how to play Othello?” I asked.

He shook his head no.

The corner of my mouth quirked into a smile. Satan was the one who taught me the game. Now it was time for me to return the favor. Or was this paying it forward?

“It’s pretty simple. We start with four tokens in the middle like this…” I set up the board. “Then we take turns putting tokens on the board. One of us is white and the other is black. You try to surround your opponent’s tokens on two opposite sides, and you switch them to your color. If you can’t put any tokens in a flanking position, you skip your turn. And when the board is full, whoever has more tokens facing up is the winner.”

“It sounds boring,” mumbled Satan.

“Then it should be easy to beat me.”

“At least give me a few turns to figure out how it works. Then I’ll start beating you.”

For the next ten minutes, we sat more or less silently in the observatory, surrounded by wreckage as if the place had been hit by a bomb, carefully studying the board and placing our tokens.

I won the first game. It was the first time I’d ever beaten Satan at a game of Othello. It was also the last.

“I was still getting used to the game mechanics,” growled Satan as he cleared the board. He was annoyed, but not angry, and when he bested me in the next round, he looked hesitantly pleased.

“…You didn’t lose on purpose, did you?”

“Absolutely not. I play to win. You’re going down in the next round.”

That satisfied him. But he won the next round too. And the one after. I guess it was only to be expected. He was wickedly clever.

“Satan?” I asked as we cleared the board and set up for another game.

“Mm?”

“You never said why you had that talk with me yesterday.”

He fidgeted uncomfortably, turning one of the tokens over in his fingers a few times. Black, white, black white. “...I had to tell somebody .”

“Did you…?”

His tail snapped irritably against the floor beside him, knocking the board askew. I rearranged the tokens as he searched for words.

“Yes, I did.” He looked at the board like he was trying to set it on fire with his mind. “Now I know not to tell anybody else.”

“Why did you tell me? Yesterday, you said you wanted to tell me specifically. To see my reaction.”

“And I saw your reaction,” he snapped. His tail slammed the ground even harder. I paused, then started to rearrange the board again. “Now I know not to tell anybody else! I just said that!”

“Was there some sort of way you wanted me to react?”

“I don’t know. Stop asking me stupid questions. It’s making me angry.”

I obliged. Nothing good would come from pressing the issue when he was adamant he didn’t want to discuss it, and it was probably a useful skill for him to identify when he was starting to feel angry if he ever wanted to learn to control that emotion.

Satan had just wiped the floor with me for the fifth time when I looked up at the devastated room around us, then checked the time on my D.D.D. Lucifer was definitely going to expect me to help clean this up.

“...Hey, Satan. Let’s go to the library.”

“What…?”

“Your room is too empty.” I thought about how barren the space felt yesterday. “You should fill it with things you like.”

Satan stared blankly at me, then squinted slightly. “Are you mad that you keep losing?”

I laughed at that, and Satan blushed, scowling. “No. I was just thinking that I don’t want to be here when Lucifer gets back.” I nodded to our surroundings.

That was enough to convince him.

I put away Othello and led Satan to the observatory door. When I opened it, I felt a thump and heard a pained yelp on the other side. Mammon quickly darted out from behind the door, rubbing his nose.

“You coulda warned me you were gonna swing that thing open!” he whined. His gaze darted from me to Satan, then back to me again. “...What the hell did you do?”

“We played Othello,” I said, and my gaze shifted to his wrist, which appeared to be swelling. “I thought I told you to have Beel wrap that wrist for you.”

“And I thought I told you I was gonna wait right out here,” Mammon retorted. “What the hell is Othello, anyway?”

Satan impatiently sidestepped Mammon and continued down the hall. “Come on,” he called to me. Mammon looked at him over his shoulder, then looked back at me, his expression heartbreakingly puppy-like. “Now you’re goin’ somewhere with him?”

Leave it to Mammon to make me feel guilty. I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I’ll check on your wrist then, but it had better be wrapped. Got it?”

Mammon let out an exaggerated sigh, but he nodded.

I patted his shoulder. “Good boy.”

“Don’t call me–”

“Are you coming or not?!” Satan’s voice called from up the hallway.

I gave Mammon an apologetic smile. “Later.”

“You better give me the full 'wounded soldier' treatment when ya get back, understand?” I nodded as I slung my bag over my shoulder and hurried down the hall. Mammon called after me, “I got injured in the line of duty, y’know!”

------

I wasn’t sure how we would be received when we entered the library with a wheelbarrow, but apparently, with Satan’s status as one of the Seven Rulers of the Underworld more or less accepted, he could get away with it. At any rate, the library staff seemed more at ease with the wheelbarrow than they had been last time Satan was here, carrying dozens of books piled one on top of the other in a single precarious stack. 

I stood back and watched while Satan piloted the thing in and out of aisles, tossing books into the bed of the wheelbarrow one, two, five at a time. He was collecting quite eclectic material, too. Novels, spellbooks, medical tomes, astrological works, zoological and botanical indices, and, of course, dozens and dozens of books on curses.

Taking one at random, I perused the cover. “Book of Forbidden Spelles and Hexes,” I read out loud, glancing up at Satan with a raised eyebrow before opening it at random. “A curse to put upon thine enemy which shall in due time render him blinde and tooth-less, a wondrous revenge against sorcerers wielding ye Eville Eye.” Satan smirked to himself as he continued looking through the shelves, and I flipped to another page which was bookmarked. “Septinfermium. A curse of sevenfold agonies to befall thy adversary, amonge these being a scourge of boiles, loss of hair, perturbation of tongue, loss of vigour in the loines, a sickness of sweating, incontinence of bowels, and sanguinity of urine.” I closed the book and looked up at Satan, who appeared to be suppressing laughter. “If I read that right, you’re looking into a curse that’s going to make Lucifer pee blood, crap himself, and turn impotent?”

“That about sums it up, yes. Along with boils, balding, sweating, and stuttering.”

I tried to picture Lucifer under a curse like that, but I found that I simply couldn’t. “You’re actually going to do that?” 

Satan turned to look at me, frowning. “You think I wouldn’t?”

“It’s not that, it’s more…” I hesitated. “...You don’t really think you’d get away with it, do you?”

“I don’t worry about whether or not I’ll get away with something.” He shrugged and looked back to the books on the shelf. “If I did, I’d never do anything. That said, that particular hex is extremely complicated and requires a good deal of preparation, so I don’t plan on attempting it just yet.”

Not just yet, hmm? “Why do you hate him so much? Lucifer, I mean.” I’d heard this question answered a few times, but never from this Satan.

He turned around to face me, yet another book in his hands. He stared down at it thoughtfully, opening it and flipping through the pages without really seeing anything.

“He pretends to be so incredibly responsible and put-together… He lords it over the rest of us. But the fact that I exist at all is proof of how flimsy his pretensions really are.” Satan slammed the book shut. “He’s a hypocrite, and he’s irresponsible enough to create an entire sentient being without any thought as to what kind of existence that being is going to have to endure.” His knuckles were turning white as he gripped the book and stared at its cover. “I never consented to my own creation. But he acts as if he’s done me an enormous favor by shoving me out into the world. Never mind it’s a world where we’re all social pariahs and just about the only emotion I can experience is a mind-numbing rage. And on top of all that, I'm made out of him. It's disgusting.”

Again, Satan was talking about his very existence as if it was a burden; something he would never have accepted if given the choice. It was stirring up all the unpleasantness of yesterday.

“You sound like you hate being alive.” I leaned forward a bit, taking a good look at him.

“I can’t say I love it.”

“Doesn’t anything make you happy?”

Satan smacked his palm lightly with the book in his hand, continuing to stare at it without seeing. “...Not really.”

I hadn’t actually anticipated that answer, so it hit me like a gut-punch. He sounded so earnest and resigned–not even sad, just resigned–that I instinctively raised a hand to reach out in his direction. But what was I supposed to do? Take his hand? Ruffle his hair? Gestures that felt like second nature in one sense seemed out of line here and now. My hand returned to my side, but I still couldn’t accept Satan’s response.

“...I’ll help you figure out how to feel happy,” I said after a lengthy silence. I clenched my fists and met his gaze when he glanced over his shoulder at me in surprise. “That’s a promise.”

Satan looked me up and down for a few quiet seconds before he cracked a bemused smile. “...You’re a really strange demon.”

“Mhm, like you’re one to talk.” I smiled impishly at him, trying to hide how dry my mouth felt. It was strange, but somehow, he looked a little bit different from this angle. Not soft, but softer. It made me want to touch his face.

I didn’t, of course.

Over the next half hour, while Satan kept adding more and more books to the wheelbarrow, I considered my self-assigned task: find something to make Satan happy. Of course, there was an obvious course of action that wasn’t lost on me. I had to introduce this man to cats.

“Are we heading home, then?” I asked Satan as I pushed the wheelbarrow out the library doors. As much as I cared for the guy, I could never accuse him of being too conscientious, and he seemed to consider it a given that his attendant would be the one to roll a few hundred pounds of books along for him.

“What, so Lucifer can lecture me on things I already know?”

I set down the handles to the wheelbarrow and looked at him with what I hoped was a withering gaze. “If you think I’m going to push this thing all around the Devildom, I have some news for you.”

“I’ll buy you ice cream.”

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

Satan looked around as we walked, clicking his tongue as he thought. “I’ll buy you dinner?”

I’ll admit, that idea appealed to me just a little bit more. But now that this had started, I didn’t want to fold without seeing what my options might be. “Dinner from where?” He sighed tiredly, and I slowed down. “It looks like we’re coming to a hill. I’m going to need some real motivation to tackle this.”

“Alright, stop whining,” Satan snapped. He elbowed me aside and took the handles of the wheelbarrow himself before barreling up the incline.

“Oh– hey!” I pursued him, crestfallen. “Wait, does this mean you take it all back?”

“Maybe,” grunted Satan as he pushed the thing forward. “Are you disappointed?”

“A little,” I admitted. I could see him smirk out of the corner of my eye. “Are you laughing at me?”

“Yes,” he replied without any concern. “You shouldn’t test me like that when you have such a sorry poker face.”

I sighed, and he laughed. It was a nice sound. I hadn’t heard it much lately. Not a genuine laugh, at least. So in spite of myself, I smiled.

“Whatever,” he said with a soft sigh as we reached the top of the slope. “I’ll still buy you ice cream, at any rate. Maybe if we can find a table we can play that black-and-white game again.”

“Othello,” I reminded him. “Sure, if you want.”

He seemed to have a place in mind already, so I was content to follow after him until we reached the ice cream vendor.

“I would like to order a double scoop of stewed hell ham with salamander gizzards.” Satan’s voice when ordering was almost painfully formal. He glanced over at me. “What do you want?”

Now, I have to be honest. I’ve never gotten used to Devildom ice cream. I’ve learned to look past the ingredients in most meals, but there’s something so inherently unappealing to a human about “hell newt ice cream” or “demon squid ink sorbet” that I can’t really get past it. Fortunately, most places sell a flavor called blood anise, which is probably the Devildom’s equivalent to human world vanilla, and although it isn’t fantastic, it mostly just tastes like frozen licorice.

“I’ll just have a scoop of blood anise,” I told Satan.

“Any hell beetles to top it off?” cut in the vendor.

“No thanks, just blood anise.”

“No extra charge for stewed toad sauce.”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“We’re having a special discount on black and yellow bile chunks—”

“Are you deaf? Just blood anise!” Satan thundered. For a second I thought he was going to grab the vendor by his collar and shake him, but he seemed to regain control of himself before it came to that. The vendor looked like he’d been shaken though, and he ducked into the stall to prepare the order.

Satan stood with his arms crossed, lips tight, scowling down at the wheelbarrow. He almost looked…embarrassed. When the ice cream was ready, he paid without speaking and carried both cups to an outdoor bistro table, leaving me to roll the books along after him.

“…Was I scary?” he asked me as I set up the Othello board.

“Hm?” I looked up at him questioningly.

Satan dragged a hand down his face, exhaled as if this required all his stores of patience, and spoke lowly. “…That demon who sold us the ice cream. He looked terrified.”

“Oh…” I glanced back at the ice cream stand and Satan snapped his fingers in my ear, startling me back into facing him.

“Stop, don’t look at him!” he hissed.

“You want to know if you were too scary?”

Satan hesitated, tapping the table with one of the game tokens. “…Did I embarrass you?”

I hadn’t expected him to approach the issue from that angle. I shook my head and swallowed a smile. “No. You look like you embarrassed yourself, though.”

Satan’s cheeks, already a little pink, darkened in color as he grabbed his spoon and shoveled a mouthful of frozen stewed hell ham with toad spleens or whatever it was into his mouth. Whoever came up with meat-flavored ice cream deserved whatever horrible thing they inevitably had coming, I decided as my stomach churned. 

“It isn’t that big of a deal,” I continued after a sullen silence on Satan’s end. “You didn’t actually hurt him.”

“Right?” Satan glared down at his ice cream with the same amount of loathing that I felt for it. “And he shouldn’t have been pushy about toppings in the first place. It’s his fault.”

With that out of the way, he placed his token on the board, and the subject was dropped.

We were around halfway through the game when I noticed Satan looking distracted. He kept glancing at something behind me, and when I turned around to look, I saw a tawny cat peeking out from between two buildings. I couldn’t believe my luck.

“Are you looking at that animal?” I asked, looking back at Satan.

“Yes,” he answered. “It looks comfortable in a very uncomfortable place.”

“That’s a cat,” I told him. There was something deeply sad about the fact that Satan was aware of things like hexes, and bowel incontinence, and impotence, but not cats–though it did make some sense. Satan had a natural curiosity for all things esoteric, and he was the owner of a body with anatomy that, presumably, made bowel incontinence and impotence things he might have had some personal experience with, or at least a conceptual understanding about. I didn’t know. I wasn’t in a position to judge. But since cats weren’t animals used in Devildom cuisine, there wasn’t really any reason for Satan to have heard of them before, especially considering he had never even left the Demon King’s castle until a few weeks earlier.

“A cat… The thing you talked about drowning?”

Of course Satan had remembered that bit of what I’d said back in the observatory.

“No–no, not really, I wasn’t actually talking about any real cats,” I insisted. Satan looked at me with what I could only describe as general disapproval. “...I’ve never hurt any cats!”

“You scared it,” Satan informed me with a frown. I turned around to look, and, indeed, the cat was no longer there. It had probably darted back between the buildings.

“How do you know I scared it? Maybe it just got bored!” I didn't like how this interaction was painting me as some sort of cat abuser.

“You shouldn’t be so loud,” Satan said coldly.

“That’s rich, coming from you,” I huffed.

Satan continued to stare at the spot where the cat had been. “I like how its ears looked. They were very triangular.”

My irritation softened a little bit. “You should keep an eye out,” I told him. “Cats aren’t uncommon in the Devildom, though they can be a little wary of people.”

Satan nodded. His interest in the board game in front of us had clearly petered out. “...Are you going to complain about rolling the books back down the hill as much as you complained about rolling them up?”

“Back down the hill?” I asked warily. That just sounded like a disaster waiting to happen.

Satan nodded. “I need to return to the library to find reading material on cats.”

“Can’t we bring these to the House of Lamentation first, then go get cat books?”

“As if Lucifer would let me leave once I show up.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “Well, then, why don’t I take these books to the house, and you can go to the library on your own for…cat research materials.”

Satan was still staring at the now vacant spot where the cat had been. He was frowning. “You need to check on Mammon?”

Actually, it wasn’t until he said it that I remembered I’d promised to check back in on the second oldest. A surge of guilt pooled in my belly. “I just don’t think rolling a wheelbarrow full of books down a hill sounds like a scenario with a happy ending,” I said.

Satan sighed. Apparently he saw the justice in my words, because he looked a little less resentful and a little more resigned when he nodded. “Fine. If Lucifer asks where I am, tell him you don’t know, but I said something about visiting an alchemist’s shop.”

“You had that loaded and ready, huh?”

“Of course. Don’t clean that up yet.” Satan stopped me as I stood and reached out to clear the Othello board. “Let’s finish the game.”

I sank back into my seat and cracked my knuckles. “Are you ready to lose?” I asked.

I lost.

[darling-to-death]

I play DoL as a dress up sim (lol) so I always like seeing how people dress up their PCs so... What clothes does Penelope have? If it's okay to ask! 👉👈

Oh my gosh! <3 Of course it's okay to ask! Thank you for taking an interest in my PC! Also playing it as a dress up sim is VALID. Lowkey I do that as well.

I have two options I use for the school uniform. I either use the school shirt and the long school skirt or the school overalls. Once I can afford them, I always buy kitten heels and a headband to look cute. I've gone back and forth on what color I use for the uniform, but lately it's been purple!

For swimwear, I start off buying the school swimsuit in whatever color the uniform is, because I think the matching is cute. Then when I have enough money I buy the cuter swimsuit, normally in pink, and not for swim class, but when I go swimming for artifacts at the beach or the lake, I wear the wetsuit.

For jobs around town I'll have a special little outfit designed to help boost my stats. I wear the nun uniform when I work at the temple, because it helps boost my purity. I wear a waitress uniform when I work at the cafe, because it helps my tips, and I splurge for the Victorian maid outfit when I do housekeeping. Any maid outfit will boost your housekeeping stat, but the Victorian one is the prettiest so it's the one I like to wear. (It's also the most expensive one. ;_;)

These are my two night uniforms. I'm either dancing or doing "other stuff" at the club/brothel. It takes a while for my exhibition to be high enough to let me wear just the cat bra/panties, but once I can wear them I think it's a very cute outfit. Then on Saturday nights I'm always with Avery, because I love him and I NEED money. I like wearing the fancy gothic gown, and I never play as a cross-dresser, but I think the top hat really brings the outfit together. (I have no style.) So even though it's a male-coded clothing item, I always add it in to be cute.

On weekends I try to use that time to do the more tedious gameplay stuff. My athletics stat is always horribly low, because I hate having to go to the park to run. Whenever I do try to get it up, I put on the cheerleading uniform, because I think the sports clothes give a slight boost to athletics. I also make sure it matches whatever school colors I'm working with at the moment. I don't make it to the farm often, because it's just so far awaaayyyyy, but when I do I wanna be the cutest little farmhand ever! So I wear the cowboy hat and the cow chaps and the plaid and the work gloves and yadda yadda. I wish I could wear the cowboy boots but for gameplay purposes I always wear the work boots, because they're rugged. Rugged footwear helps me not slip and hurt myself when I go exploring the moors.

Finally I have my everyday and my sleepwear outfits! I normally just stick with the white sundress you get at the beginning of the game, but once I learn how to make flower crowns with Robin I ALWAYS wear a flower crown. It doesn't affect the actual gameplay, but when I'm selling at the stall wearing a flower crown of my flowers I think it helps sell the quality of my product. Also, it's the cutest accessory in the game. Then for sleep I always buy the cow onsie, because yes you guessed it, I think it's the cutest. All of my clothing sets are motivated by how cute I think something is. Haha. But it also gives a boost to how effective your sleep is which I constantly need especially on the night of the Blood Moon, because I'm going to be real with you. I know the Ivory Wraith is a rather popular NPC, but I think he's too much trouble. I just have Penelope stay awake the entire night and then skip school the next day to catch up on her sleep. No possession for me. :3c

I also used to make her wear glasses with every outfit, because I myself have glasses and she's mostly a self-insert, but she's also a teeny bit of a physical wishfullment self insert, so in my ideal world I don't have shit eyesight and neither does Penelope.

Anyway, I hope you like the little doodles, and thank you again so very much for letting me talk about my OCs! Much love and best wishes! UwU.

[a-yarn-of-purple-prose]

As anyone with a Diluc they use will tell you, the Crimson Witch set is cursed and it's impossible to get a Crit hat, let alone a *good* Crit hat.

So, while I generally consider myself a Diluc main, babygirl has always been my worse DPS even though I:

Triple-crowned him and got him to lvl 90 (I'm putting this here, but you gotta understand this is bare minimum for DPS characters, and I actually 9/9/9 even some supports)

I pulled him a 5* Crit weapon because I couldn't get any Standard Banner claymore (and still don't have Wolf's Gravestone)

Did my best with what I got from Crimson Witch in the Strongbox-- because the Domain refused to give me artifacts in the right set, let alone with the right major stats

At this point he had 65/140 crit, which isn't fantastic but isn't bad as well, but his ER was 109%.

This wasn't really relevant because you don't run Diluc without a reaction and a couple of supports, so any 50 points of EM will give you a nice amount of Vape damage, and the presence of Bennett makes up for bad ER Pyro characters

And then the Echo required me to run Diluc alone.

So I guess I should be grateful because I might have grumbled and complained, but looking for better ER I ended up with better crit ratio (74% now!), as well as 139% ER

Still, ass move HYV. Do you want everyone to know how much it sucks to solo most characters? Is this a move to make people want to pull the newer characters, with the cool artifact sets that give you crit?

[palidan-sheep]

Okay, I gotta gush about my Wriothesley.

On the Akasha system, I’m in the 5% range at 1058 outta 26230 for solo which is what I use him for. It’s constantly changing so take this with a grain of salt.

He is c6, his signature weapon is r2, lvl 90 and lvl 10 friendship and as of this moment, he is double crowned with an expectation to triple him sometime in the next few weeks, it’s his burst that isn’t crowned. With no supports he manages to hit 70k-80k plus one of his cons so double it on his charged attacks.

His artifacts are still a wip but his crit value is 55 over 220, account for the Marechaussee and cryo res, I’m pretty happy with his current stats so that’s all that matters to me.

Someone joined my world with Kazuha and Shenhe and I was easily hitting triple digits :3

I am saving up for Kazhua and Shenhe but didn’t know what to do for my 4th slot. I have Charlotte, she’s fun but doesn’t bring much to the table, built her to heal since her healing scales off her attack. Dunno why? Wrio self heals amazingly. She was more or less there for the cryo res.

Then I read somewhere that Mika is a great option and I have him, granted, c3 and lvl 40 and absolutely not built. Reading him over and I never realized that he increased act speed, it was like 14% at the time and I didn’t see a difference outta combat.

But in combat?

I was speechless lmao.

So whenever I want to test something with him, I’ll use the Denouement of Sin. Ik it buffs the lost and gain of health but Wrio can solo that domain is under a minute so I consider it to be a good starter point.

I use to be able to clear that place in about a minute, the Wrio got his main talents crowned and it’s 45-50 seconds and then toss Mika in there and it’s 35-40 seconds 0_o

It may be insignificant to y’all but to me, Wrio is my main so this is huge to me. He soloed the all devouring narwhal before it even started it second stage, he solos the abyss, he solos damn near any boss for me, enemies get turned into jelly when this man touches them.

I put Zhonglis shield on him and Wriothesley is unstoppable. fuck you ruin guards. He doesn’t need supports but I need to see this man hit numbers I ain’t even seen before.

It sucks that he got sandwiched between Neuvillette and Furina and had those allegations of being a bad dps unit/stander banner chara and having to deal with those Lynne mains who disliked him for essentially protecting the Fortress.

I hope ppl who wanted him can try and get him again when the banners aren’t so stacked. Ik I took a heavy hit with everyone who came out (I have Neuv, Furina, and Navia…)

[monstersdownthepath]

Duke of Avernus: Furcas, Knight of the Laurels

CR 27

Lawful Evil Huge Outsider

Hell Unleashed, pg. 38~39

Since ol’ Asmodeus was such a stinker and I hate leaving End of the World months on sour notes, how about one last one just before the curtain is called for good? Before we close the book on Hell for the time being, we’ll take a look at one of the most mysterious and confusing beings in all of Pathfinder! Not because of his motives, or his character, or his statblock and abilities. No no, Furcas represents a mystery so baffling I can’t for the life of me solve it: His stat block does not exist anywhere on the internet. It’s not on Archives of Nethys--which has his cool weapon, and a bunch of stuff from Hell Unleashed, but not him--it’s not on d20PFSRD, and my scouring of Google, Reddit, and Paizo’s own forums come up blank! It’s a mystery! Anyone who primarily uses AoN and PFSRD may not even know this guy exists! But that’s exactly why I’m putting my foot down today and doing what I must to bring the Knight of the Laurels into the spotlight.

A strange soldier in every respect, Furcas holds a divine portfolio of Duty, Flames, and Herbalism, and aids in both the defense of Avernus and the transport of souls to and from Hell’s first layer. Equal parts guardian and gardener, Furcas was around before the current Lord of the First, Barbatos (who he surpasses in CR by exactly 1, amusingly enough), took up his position, his previous boss being the now-dead Typhon, who was slain for engaging in forbidden dalliances with Lamashtu, the Demon Queen. Big oopsie there, pal, but good thing Furcas is here to pick up your slack! While he doesn’t have his current boss’ omniscience, he has something that Barbatos sorely lacks: the ability to engage multiple powerful enemies in combat.

As one of Avernus’ guardians and wardens, he must me prepared to face a surprise combat at any time, prepared to defend the borders against any and all incursions... and boy is he prepared. Once he’s engaged an enemy, there’s little hope for them to escape.

Furcas is equal parts unstoppable force and immovable object, to the most ridiculously literal extreme possible. He’s affected by a constant Freedom of Movement and, besides that, has a unique (and ironic) ability: Immovable. So long as he’s conscious, nothing can move Furcas unless he wants to be moved. He cannot be teleported, tripped, knocked prone, or so much as budged an inch in any direction by anything less than another demigod or an Artifact. On the opposite side of this coin, his monstrous strength makes his every movement an Irresistible Force, DOUBLING the distance he moves any creature via any method he has in his repertoire, such as Awesome Blow, bull rushing, or by using his at-will Telekinesis.

His position cannot be controlled, but he can freely control everyone else’s movement, especially since he has battlefield shapers like Thorny Entanglement and Wall of Stone at will, neither of which impede him. If the fight isn’t going in his favor, he can also flip the table with a spell we rarely see: Reverse Gravity, 3/day. Immune to the floor becoming the ceiling thanks to his constant Air Walk, the whole party will need some way to either undo his spell (three times) or navigate their flipped perspective before he can close in, because melee with Furcas hurts now and later.

Unless he just coup de grace’d the whole party at the start, because for WHATEVER reason, Paizo saw fit to give this horseman Overwhelming Presence 3/day, too, as if a single casting of it isn’t enough to negate an entire battle. Granted, it’s useful as a power move when he deigns to grace the city of Dis with his presence, forcing the proles and dregs to bow to him whether they want to or not on his way in and out. Terrifying when it gets pulled on the party and one or two people fail their saves, though, because it’s basically a Maze spell at that point; no way out unless someone dispels the effect or they finally succeed... and become staggered for several rounds. Even success causes a stagger, preventing Full-Attacks against him for at least one round.

His Armor of Thorns makes attacking him in melee unwise, lashing out against any creature who strikes him with a non-reach weapon and dealing 1d8+7 damage each time. In addition, however, the thorns carry a poison with a DC 40 save to resist it. The poison deals no damage to ability damage, but carries something arguably just as punishing: Failing the save once fatigues the victim, but failing twice causes them to be exhausted instead, and the poison pings every round for ten rounds and is only successfully shrugged off if the victim succeeds three saves in a row. This same poison can be thrown via a stinging barb as a ranged attack once every 1d4 rounds, the Barb dealing 1d4+15 damage in addition to the poison... UNLESS he feels like spicing it up with a different poison, as this master of poisonous herbs can use any injury poison from the RPG Core Rulebook for his Barb. Unfortunately, he has little reason to do this, as none of those poisons have as high a save DC as his own, nor are any of them as punishing as leeching 6 Str and Dex immediately from his victims.

I do like that his Armor of Thorns has a secondary benefit, restoring 4d6 HP to Furcas if he’s poisoned or if someone gets the idea to try and control his lashing vines, which honestly isn’t a bad one. He can even poison himself to gain these benefits, as he’s immune to the negative effects of every poison in his repertoire, though it’s more reliable just to use his Regeneration 15, typically only suppressed by Epic/Mythic and Good, or by a deific damage source. It’s amusing to note that his statblock says he can heal himself with his Barb, but this has two problems: 4d6 often doesn’t undo the 1d4+15 damage he’d take from the thorn... and his thorn can’t even bypass his DR 20/Good, Epic, and Silver. The more I look at his statblock, the more I begin to quietly realize just how many errors are in it. Maybe that’s why it was never printed online...

Anyway, you want to stay out of his melee for more than just his armor. Furcas’ Full-Attack is as scary as any Archdevil’s, not only because of his natural attacks, but because of his signature weapon: Typhon’s own trident, the Avernus Claw. This +4 Axiomatic Flaming Burst Unholy Trident can be used to attack up to four times a round, each blow dealing 2d6+19 damage (+2d6 versus Chaotic enemies, and a further +2d6 versus Good ones) and 1d6 Hellfire damage. Yes, this big old burning fork is infused with Hellfire, turning half its damage into irresistible unholy burns that double their effectiveness against victims with the Good subtype. It’s also a reach weapon sized for a Huge wielder, extending Furcas’ threat radius from 10ft to a significantly scarier 25ft, though his follow-up natural attacks still only hit targets within 10ft.

His two big wooden hooves deal 1d8+15 damage each and spread a noxiously powerful version of the Devil’s Chills disease, one with an onset of immediate for an instant 1d3 Strength damage. Worse, the DC to resist the disease’s effects is bolstered to 40 and it requires three consecutive saves to beat. Remember when I said a fight with Furcas sucks now and later? This is what I meant. But we’re still in the now, and we’re still talking about his melee attacks: the last is a single punch with a fist the size of a human torso, which deals 1d8+15 as well, but rather than carrying a disease, it Swats its victims backwards. Furcas can use his Awesome Blow feat as a free action with his slam rather than giving up his Full-Attack to do so, and if successful, the victim is blown 20ft backwards (thanks to Irresistible Force). Depending on how close they were to begin with, it might just knock them back far enough to where they’re still within the reach of his trident, but not within reach of their own melee attacks.

Speaking of that trident, by the way, it has another function: Once per day as a standard action, Furcas can slam it into the ground and trap everyone within 30ft of him. Each creature within this distance (including himself) is automatically affected by a special version of Dimensional Anchor, one that causes any affected creature to have their attempts to teleport or travel to another plane redirected. No matter how they do it, even by using a portal or Gate or even the Hellmouth portal in Furcas’ own realm, all attempts to leave the plane fail... and teleport the victim directly adjacent to the Duke himself, open for his Full-Attack. The way this ability worded implies that even brief teleportation or planar travel effects like Blink cause this, and it also has the more amusing side-effect of meaning that attempts to trap him in a Maze or Plane Shift him away cause him to reappear next to himself (provided you have some way to bypass his Immovable).

Side note: While a great many CR 25+ entities have Time Stop as a spell-like, not many of them have a reason to use it as anything but a method to escape due to a lack of useful spells or abilities. Not Furcas. Not only can Furcas shape the battlefield with his spells or set up Reverse Gravity and Overwhelming Presence, he has an adorably silly little trick he can use 3/day: Quickened Fire Seeds, a spell only seen on Druid and Shaman lists. The spell lets him throw a handful of acorns as ranged touch attacks that imitate miniature Fireballs (20d4+20 damage to whatever they directly hit, but each 1d4+1 is divided as the caster chooses between four acorns)... or it lets him charge up to eight holly berries with explosive power, turning them into time bombs he can scatter around during Time Stop. Each of the eight berries deals 1d8+27 damage to everything within a 5ft explosive burst when they go off, for a grand total of 8d8+216 Fire damage. And since he can use this spell three times a day and it’s Quickened, even with the lowest number of stopped rounds--just two--he can use all three castings and drop 24 berries into a target’s space from 10ft away thanks to his reach, then take a 5ft step back. The instant time restarts, he can speak the word of command to blow all of them up at once.

The total potential damage? 24d8+648. But hey, even just 20 Fire Resist cuts that down to just ~230, thanks to each berry pinging individually. You can even cut it further by succeeding 24 Reflex saves! I’m amused by Furcas being a Duke of Flames, yet only has two Fire-based spell on his list (Fire Seeds and a 1/day Meteor Swarm). I suppose, given that its potential damage is in the 400+ club, that it’s good enough. Even if they escape the pile before he can say the command word, it’s almost trivial to force them back in with his superior Bull Rushing technique, as well as simply Swatting them back into the proper space.

While normally I’d end this on a high note of such big damage, it’d be rude of me not to mention Furcas’ little devil deal of his own: his Crown of Laurels, from which he draws his name. This special little wreath of incredibly toxic plants can be granted as a move action to any creature adjacent to him, 1/day. The poisons within the plant cause the recipient to gain the powers of Greater Heroism and Unholy Aura for a full 24 hours, which is a fantastic deal! Except that once the spells expire, the victim is instantly and unavoidably infected with a tenacious version of Devil Chills that’s impossible to magically cure unless the caster attempting it is Lawful Evil, and it requires SIX consecutive saves to resist rather than three. I’d love to see anyone try and succeed six consecutive DC 40 Fortitude saves in a row.

While granting his laurel to his own allies and generals is his typical go-to (though as most devils aren’t immune to disease, they’ll need to get fixed up after), he can also lend it out to mortal patsies and then coerce them to seek out his agents in the Material in order to get them to cure it, grant its blessing to himself for the Greater Heroism effect (as he’s immune to ability score damage anyway), or even give it to his enemies to drive them to desperation in seeking a fix... perhaps, again, even into the hands of his own clerics and minions.

While Furcas’ statblock isn’t available online, just wait! This will link to something soon.

[hanenoaozora]

Me vs Energy Cost

When I started playing Genshin Impact, I had no concept of energy cost or energy recharge. My very early team was anemo traveler, Kaeya, Benny, and Beidou. Traveler, Kaeya, and Benny need 60 energy for a burst, while Beidou needs 80. I didn’t think too much about how long I had to charge Beidou’s burst, even though me and my sad skills were very dependent on her shield*.

Then, once I’m comfortable with Qiqi’s healing mechanics, I played her a lot (still do😉). Sometimes she swapped Benny out, sometimes she went together with Benny. She and Benny carried me against two abyssal beings in the Chasm (yeah, I’m that sad).

Later on I had Ayato, Thoma, and the last addition to my Yashiro team: Ayaka. At this point, I already know what it means to recharge energy, so for the those whose burst skills I rely on the most, I’ve learned to prioritize ER stats/substats in their weapons and artifacts. Problem is, for DPS class characters like Ayato and Ayaka, you generally want to prioritize their ATK stats and crit ratio, and these stats leave little room for more ER. Fortunately for Ayato specifically, his burst stays on field for a very looooongggg time that it feels fine even if he can’t burst every rotation (fyi rotation is something I should care more, but don’t 🤣), so I don’t have that much trouble with his energy requirement. At some point I put an ER Heart of Depth sands on him though, and at ~170% ER it was so much fun.

Anyway, as I have mentioned before: I’ve had a lot of high-energy cost characters since the beginning. Another character that I bring with me often recently is Xingqiu, and he also… require 80 energy 🤣 Aaaaaand… now that I really, really want to run Yashiro comm team, I’ve started building Sayu and when I checked her skills… yep, you guessed it. With how OP dendro traveler is, I now have him wield dendro and turns out his burst also requires 80 energy.

So, like… I don’t know what I’m trying to say here… 🤣 I guess… since I’m so used to bringing characters with high energy requirement, 80 has become some sort of standard for me and anything below that feels “cheap”, as opposed to the other way around for a lot of other people… 💁‍♀️

*later I found out that most people build Beidou to be a damage dealer and not a shielder, and thus pairing her with The Bell was super not optimal… which is the sole reason why I kinda stop playing her. Because I can’t parry if my life depends on it… and yeah, finding out that I had been playing Beidou wrong kinda killed the joy of playing her for me >_> Just one example that the internet can be so very annoying when it comes to Genshin…

[inventors-fair]

Death-Defying: Sac Ability Runners-Up ~

Congratulations to our runners-up: @hiygamer, @nine-effing-hells, and @squeezyboi!

@hiygamer — Svogthir, Eternal Parun

Out of all the cards submitted this week, this one feels the most printable—as in, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see this in one of the Ravnican expansions, and not just because of the art choice, heh. This card’s not necessarily ‘safe’ per se, but it’s pretty much exactly what I’d expect from a decent-but-not-format-warping mythic. The return is great, and I like the fact that you have to sacrifice a nontoken creature to return Svogthir to the battlefield. It fuels the ETB as well as the future attacks. Yeah, no, this one’s definitely a draft mythic.

Is that bad? Not at all. Is someone thinking of making a commander deck with it? Sure! This card feels absolutely made to be open and loved without the intent to be impactful outside of that because it’s doing everything expected of it. It’s a nuanced feeling that you’ve captured that doesn’t make me want to pull up the best possible list for it—because that list already exists. This card fits in without demanding change warped around it. Perhaps that’s less eye-catchingly mind-bogglingly brain-meltingly out-of-this-world, but dammit, it’s GOOD.

@nine-effing-hells — Rigged to Explode

Once in a blue moon, cards make me laugh. That makes contests where I ask for something humorous to be a little harder to design for because I’m a fickle creature, but regardless. This card made me laugh! I like the Boompile feeling, and especially the goblinesque (goblinsesque?) component. It makes you force thought into your play, which is probably the hardest part about it, but secretly choosing numbers? Amazingly fun. Write it down, slip it under, and wait for something to happen.

I wonder: did you choose the feeling you wanted to capture first, or did you have a mechanical idea in mind? I can’t imagine that cards like Boompile weren’t inspiration for this sort of thing for a number of reasons. A secret number of reasons! Anyway, choosing new numbers with some sort of loop feels so fun to me, but that’s not what this card wants, and that’s okay. Playing around with a whole bunch of silly feelings at the table means that I’d love to see this in limited, but I know that it’s more Commander-oriented—or actually, Conspiracy-oriented. Can you imagine? I guess my only hard criticism is that, in Commander, it would be partially known that you’d choose a number with mana value equal to someone’s commander, which puts a target on you. Is that still funny? To me, yes.

@squeezyboi — Heltimus, Diabolical Patron 

So...wow. Okay! I’d like to point out that I didn’t notice that this guy was seven feet tall until after I chose the winners/runners, so don’t judge me. The looks in hims eyes is reflective of many things, not the least of which is the gilding of his species and the kind of Hell-kin deck you want to run with him. Obviously this card is a) begging for the limited archetype to throw down some amazing cheap ramping things with the species deck, or b) begging to be a commander. Both are good and both work!

I wonder why it’s the creature dying that causes the damage to trigger off of themselves, and not Heltimus pinging himself? If there’s a statement to be made there about art, I wouldn’t know. Do you think it could’ve also pinged off of artifacts as well for a slightly wider net? You might’ve had to tone down the stats a bit in that case, but we’re in tinker-ville and none of that matters much. The point is, tone = wonderful, card = powerful, westernly feeling = oddly reminiscent of people I know IRL? I’ve frequented a couple American west art exhibitions, and honestly, having that mood lovingly parodied/remodeled here is super resonant in a way that feels specific to me. I think I’m experiencing human connection here. Quick, ping me before I get sentimental!

There’s lots of commentary to do, so you know what? I’m gonna do that. Here we go... @abelzumi​

[yume-fanfare]

venti!! i like him a lot as well he is very gender… i have a venti but i dont use him much how do you utilize his playstyle and build him properly

ooooo!!! here is a quick how-to-venti guide!

his play style is p simple, just use his ult and it will generate this vortex that vacuums (small-ish) enemies on the field and deals anemo dmg. if the vortex comes into contact with another element, it'll swirl it and become infused in said element (it'll deal anemo damage And damage of that other element). a cool thing to know about it is that it "snapshots": if you use it while bennett's atk buff is up it will deal buffed damage even if the buff runs out before the vortex vanishes :)

HOWEVER an important important thing to know is that his ult is a bit elevated from the ground and not all characters can reach it, so here's a spreadsheet that compiles who can and who can't :D

the elemental skill deals aoe anemo damage and launches the enemies into the sky a bit (it stuns them and will, for example, stop abyss mages from putting up their shield again). if you hold the skill it will have a bigger aoe And create a wind current to let you fly up :) it's very useful in exploration to help you reach higher places too!

you don't really have to use his normal attacks so don't worry about that 👍

and as for build, venti uses 4pc viridiscent veneerer and the first thing to know is that you'll need around 160-170 of energy recharge. you can have some more if you want to but this is like the most important requirement because you'll use his ult the most.

and now i often joke that all of us venti mains are insane and crit build him and the function in game that lets you see what artifacts do most people use has happened to prove me right aldjskdjsk but the crit build vs elemental mastery build is a bit of an ongoing thing so i can try to summarize points to take into account:

the basics are: a em build will give you a more support-oriented venti, while a crit build will have him deal more personal damage

so, crit builds Can reach a higher damage ceiling

however you will need a lot of good crit rolls to reach a decent ratio between crit dmg and crit ratio (because venti has an energy recharge ascension)

meanwhile em builds can reach a very good damage ceiling even if your substats aren't that good: the em you get from main stats should be enough more or less

still, the viridiscent veneerer domain rng kinda sucks so em pieces might still be hard to find

(fun fact: if you need an offset em artifact, the husk of opulent dreams domain is your best bet, because the rng there makes it harder to get def pieces but easier to find em ones. similarly, some of your best crit pieces may come from the maiden beloved set)

another thing to take into account is the team: if he's in a team without many reactions a crit build is a better investment

so, for a crit build you'd use ATK/Anemo DMG/CRIT for main stats and for an elemental mastery build you'll need EM/EM/EM if possible. you can also perfectly use an energy recharge sands to meet er requirements

as for weapons, his best f2p one is the stringless, and it's very very good for both crit and em builds, it may even beat the 5*s in some aspects. and if we're talking about 5* bows, elegy for the end is perfect for a support venti while the skyward harp is better for crit venti. other good 4* options are the sacrificial bow and the favonius bow, to help meet er requirements

and that's all i think? i also greatly recommend checking out the very cool venti guide at keqingmains.com as it has much more info about other stuff like talents, constellations and cool team compositions :)

[hinatiny]

Omg more gaming mains 😭 If it's ok to ask, what artifacts do you have on him :( He's one of my mains too but he's not doing as much damage as I want

of course! please keep in mind that i hate artifact farming more than anything lol so i don't have bestest of stats for gaming

not sure if you're asking for this but i'll put it out here just in case! up until recently i used this spreadsheet to build my characters. lately i've been using this site though so i personally recommend that one but both are rly helpful and easy to navigate :')

[jiamiuxin]

reflecting on my genshin characters

electro / hydro / pyro / dendro im p chill on .. for electro i have yae who's almost done w her first build (will refine her stats later, they could be much better) and i have a pretty ok raiden (world lvl 8 open world is too easy for her and up to floor 11-3 abyss isn't too bad). i also just pulled fischl (not built yet, will soon) and keqing (also not built) if i need it.

for hydro i have ayato with p good crit dmg (211%) and bare min crit rate (40%) but i'll def improve it later on after i get some other units with the primary build. im also in the process of building xingqiu; i j got him to lvl 80 and im currently working on his primary artifacts which are almost done as well. after that it'll be his talents (2/7/6 rn) but i can do that simultaneously with other stuff. and then with neuvillette coming up that'll give me a third good hydro unit

pyro is my most covered element. i have my og beloved diluc... I WILL NEVER GIVE UP ON HIM IDC WHAT ANYONE SAYS.. im pulling xianyun for him (but i also like her in general). he's a little bare bones rn until i finish building some other chars. i also have gaming who highkey eats (c4, ok crit ratio ((~50:150)) and when i pair with bennett, kaeya, and xingqiu he goes pretty hard for having a mediocre crit ratio. PLUS my bennett / kaeya / xq arent even built yet LMAO anyway as i j mentioned i have bennett, i slapped the free noblesse set on him but he could get better substats. this is low priority tho tbh, i think the set effects are more important. xiangling as well, im building her along with xingqiu since they both use emblem. her talents are mid rn (1/6/6). also j got her lvl 80 so she's a work in progress as well. finally i also have chevreuse; i lowkey am unsure of how to build her but i will probably put her on songs of days past. low priority rn as well since i mainly j use her skill and then switch out but shes fun in my overloaded team.

finally for dendro i have nahida and kirara. nahida was such a good decision to pull. amazing dendro app, saur cute, and her dmg in reactions is insane (even at c0). kirara is so cute as well and shes the main shielder i use. her skill also makes it easy to explore. nahida is on some bare minimum artifacts rn but since i j mainly use her burst / skill and not an onfield dps i'll get around to it later. same w kirara. when alhaitham reruns i'll then have a third dendro unit!!

with anemo i do have sucrose and jean but i dont use them too much. ik they're usable but i j have sm other characters id rather build rn. I DO HAVE HEIZOU i think some ppl think he's mid but i like the way he punches instead of casting. i think i'd def build him + resist being a meta slave lmao and then ik i'll def being pulling xianyun. im also not interested in either kazuha or wanderer.. hoyo tall anemo male when

cryo... i do like shenhe but she's such a niche supporter and i think wrio could be fun to play. but given w how primos are hard to get and how i dont wanna whale too much (i lowk whaled / dolphined for yae im crying) i might not pull him unless i come to like him more. it's not that i dislike ayaka but im j not interested in her design (similar to how i feel abt sparkle from hsr). im not interested in ganyu either.. i am begging hoyo for another 5 star cryo dps sldjfhald bc i think mono cryo would be a fun team. i do have layla and kaeya, and then paired with shenhe or rosaria (who i also have) and a 5 star cryo dps seems fun to play.

as for geo i do want zhongli and navia. hopefully zhongli reruns soon (most likely on regional banner/chronicle wish??) i didnt pull for navia on her first run (well i tried but she wasnt coming early thats for sure) and i knew raiden was coming up and i wanted her c2 so i j started saving for c2 raiden. i think chiori would pair well w my ninggaung and zhongli when i do get him but idk .. i also think itto's burst is fun to play but also not high priority for me. i want to incorporate more geo into my gameplay but i want a character who can rly wow me. or like i want to have more geo chars than just zhongli and navia

[unaplays]

✨ Neuvillette Hydro DPS Build ✨

💦 Took me the rest of the week since the day I got him to complete him. Well, not completely complete since I haven't given him a crown. But at least his talents are all at level 9 so he's pretty much ready to go meet his enemies.

💦 I've been trying to learn how to use him properly on the open world and domains, and so far I really like him. He's so fun to use, doesn't necessarrily need a whole setup to work and is already a complete unit by himself.

💦 Disclaimer: This build is not perfect and by no means should be treated as a rigid rule. I just share what I have tested in game and what I know works for me. So always do your own research and take my guide with that note in mind!

Artifact Set

💦 Being a Fontainian unit means that Neuvi has a kit that perfectly tiggers the new artifact set, Marechaussee Hunter (MH). Think of MH like Blizzard Strayer. It helps you by giving crit rate when the 4 pc passive is active so you can focus on other stats instead. BUT, MH isn't the only set that works on him. You can of course put 4 pc Heart of Depth, or 4 pc Wanderer's Troupe if you want. Especially since the later are pretty much old artifacts and I'm sure you already have some good WT pieces at this point.

4 pc Marechaussee Hunter

4 pc Heart of Depth

4 pc Wanderer's Troupe

2 pc Marechaussee Hunter, 2 pc hydro damage (HoD/Nymph's Dream)

2 pc Marechaussee Hunter, 2 pc hp% (Tenacity/Vourukasha)

2 pc hp% (Tenacity/Vourukasha), 2 pc hydro damage (HoD/Nymph's Dream)

💦 Do note that the crit rate requirement will decrease if you use MH which is why it's the ideal set for him cuz he can easily trigger the passive. But other than that you can use the sets above, whichever has the better sub-stats.

Artifacts stats: hp% sands, hydro damage bonus goblet, crit damage circlet

Ratio to follow: 30-40% crit rate if using MH otherwise 60-70% for non MH, >130-140% ER, >30.000 hp

Team Composition

Hyper carry Neuvillette

💦 Being a hydro unit makes Neuvillette very flexible as he can get into many teams whether as the hydro enabler only or the main damage dealer of the team. He can even excel in dendro team as the hydro enabler. But one that I personally like is his hyper carry team and taser team.

Weapon Choice

💦 In my opinion his weapon choices that actually caters to his kit are not that many. I only prefer these 4:

Tome of The Eternal Flow

Lost Prayer of The Sacred Winds

Jadefall Splendor

Prototype Amber (higher refinement is recommended)

💦 Are you surprised that he can use Prototype Amber? Yes, the weapon that is well associated with healer does actually work on him. Think of it like an atk% weapon for atk%-scaling dps. Since Neuvi's damage scales of hp, Prototype Amber comes in handy for him. Especially since it also helps with his ER and not to mention heals the entire party everytime he bursts. What a complete unit!

Talent Priority

💦 Neuvi is an on field hydro dps that relies on his basic attack, especially his charged attack. His skill and burst summons water droplets on the field that will be consumed each time he does charged attacks. So his basic attack comes first, followed with burst just because it has higher multiplier compared to his skill.

So that’s pretty much my Neuvillette build. Feel free to ask me questions if you have any through my ask box or just leave comment on this post and I’ll respond right away!

Don’t forget to check out my other builds here!

[mystech-master]

Hero Artifact: Dipper Pines

Link to the Hero Artifact description here

Since the Journals are a big part of Gravity Falls, a Grimoire in the style of Dipper's own version of the journal would be fitting. Obviously, Mabel would get her hands on it and put stickers. It is like a physical version of a Mind Palace mixed with some spells based on the various weird things Dipper has encountered in Gravity Falls. It only shows stuff Dipper knows, allowing him to view all the evidence and come to conclusions himself and can project them as magical holograms.

Some spells include:

Might of the Manitaur: Enhances Dipper's physical stats

Codex Clone: Similar magic to the magic copier from Double Dipper, he can summon Tyrone back as an assist.

Unlock All: Based on the President's Key given to him by Quentin Trembly, can unlock any door/barrier......in America. So long as the door/barrier is physically located in America it can unlock it.

Time Traversal: From his time-traveling journeys in the Time Traveler's Pig

Pixel Projection: brings false images to life, from Fight Fighters

Macro-Micro: Size alteration, from the Size Crystals in Little Dipper. Can be used on the book itself for easier carrying.

Mind Swap: From the Electron Carpet

Astral Projection + Mind/Dream entering: From entering Stan's mind in Dreamscaperers and Bill removing his spirit from his body in Sock Opera.

Raise the Dead

Magnet Beam: From the Magnet Gun he used with Ford in the spaceship in Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future

Possibly lots more.

The numbered trees show up if he uses the Codex Clone Spell on the book itself to give copies to trusted allies. The book never runs out of pages and automatically opens to the page you request. On its pages what is written in one book shows up in the other copies.

To keep it a secret, to anyone other than Dipper or trusted friends and allies the book can look like a personal journal of his, with completely normal notes about a boy's trip in the summer. You don't want normal people to stumble upon the craziness of Gravity Falls. But the Decoder glass attached to the book can also act as a way to see the hidden writing for the deeper secrets Dipper may want to keep to himself, kind of like the blacklight. He has all the information, and he has to decide if he can trust anyone.

The words in the corner are what I named it. I'll let you guys try and decipher it.

Edit: Okay I just learned that in one of the tie-in books Mabel does give Dipper his own Pine Tree journal so this was a bit more appropriate. Maybe this artifact could be that very book converted into this new magical form. Not too sure if the stickers on it from Mabel would be backtracking character development because those books do show her acknowledging her selfishness which is a big divider in the fanbase.