#wicked little town rpg

[creatreasurebox]

Nouveau design réalisé pour Wicked Little Town https://wickedlittletown.forumactif.com/

[freyaa-hope]

Cobie Smulders x Jesse Lee Soffer crackship

Credit Crackship : ©Freyaa The originals gifs aren't mine

[gaslighttragedy]

Sophia Bush and Sebastian Stan Original gifs not by me Crackship credit: Mayhem

Made for two characters on Wicked Little Town (RPG forum)

[thessalian]

Thess vs ALL THE DEMOS

It’s not a Steam Next Fest, but last night I was sitting there going, “I hurt too much to sleep and I should do some hyperfocus Zen until the pain meds kick in a bit more or I’m too tired to care” and decided to prune my current Demo folder. And then today I went perusing for more demos (thanks to recent time spent on DREDGE, it really wants to throw eldritch horror at me, to the point where it’s pointing me at things where not even the demo is out yet, never mind the game). So now there are a lot more demos.

Sometimes I worry about seeming pretentious because I barely play anything that isn’t indie or, like, nearly a decade old? But honestly, I think I’ll just be glad I can sit here and celebrate indie games. Besides, the Stray Gods: RPG Musical demo dropped and this is David Gaider writing and a whole lot of very talented voice actors and I have got to see this. And the others look interesting.

So, yeah. More demos.

Lake: This one’s an older game, but it’s been on my wishlist for quite awhile. I just hadn’t seen the demo before. I was checking the store page to see how long it’s going to be on sale, since I was considering adding it to my purchases when Cook, Serve, Forever and Pan’Orama come out in a couple of days, and boom, demo. So I gave it a try to see if I actually wanted to buy the thing. And ... I think I do? I mean, there’s some vehicular stuff that occasionally feels a little counterintuitive to me, and I’ve clearly been living in this country too long because I keep driving on the wrong side of the road, and some of the people in that town need a slap across the mouth (don’t even get me started about Meredith’s regular boss), but there are stories there and I want to see where they go. And I haven’t crashed the postal van yet, so that’s something. Basically it’s driving around, delivering mail, occasionally talking to people, and getting bits and pieces of the stories that float around little quasi-rural towns in Oregon. The scenery’s nice too.

Blue Wednesday: This one’s kind of a maybe. The bit of it I played was interesting, but I’d really need to practice the piano minigame if I really want to actually do the thing. Then again, I guess that’s what playing the game is for. ...Also admittedly this one hits a bit close to home, as it features a young aspiring jazz musician who’s more or less having to put his dreams of being a professional musician on hold because capitalism, basically. I think everybody who’s likely to play this one is going to get a twinge out of that one, and that’s just the first in-game day. So I’ll be keeping an eye on that one when it comes out - the gameplay’s pretty clever and the premise is relatable, for sure.

Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical: I got fairly interested in this one as soon as I heard about it. This game has got pedigree. David Gaider’s one of the directors and writers, one of the other directors was writing for Pillars of Eternity, and as for the cast ... well, in the demo alone I got Laura Bailey, Ashley Johnson, and Khary Payton, plus a couple “I know that one sounds familiar” that haven’t hit IMDB yet and Janina Gavankar, who I mostly know from having been into True Blood and a fairly minor role in Horizon Zero Dawn’s The Frozen Wilds expansion ... but also from some of the Forspoken trailers. Anyway, it also has Troy Baker, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Allegra Clark, Erika Ishii, Rahul Kohli, Anjali Bhimani, Felicia Day (which ... ehh for me but y’know)... Fans of Critical Role will know a lot of these voices. But still, pedigree doesn’t count for much if the story and mechanics aren’t there. Now, the demo’s really short, and doesn’t touch on the plot that much? But the mechanics are interesting. Basically ... okay, think of it as The Wicked and the Divine meets Scooby Doo meets that one Buffy musical episode, Once More With Feeling, where you’re given options and the decisions you make not only affect how you proceed, but also shape the lyrics of your big musical numbers. It’s honestly clever as shit, and that’s another one I don’t think I’d mind pre-ordering. Don’t know if that’ll be an option, but it’s coming out in August, so at least it’s not a massively long wait.

Lighthouse of Madness: Steam has been throwing eldritch horror at me because of the amount of time I’ve spent on DREDGE lately, so here we are. This one’s ... interesting but problematic. I mean, it’s first person, so that’s an issue for me, and honestly the controls are a little janky. It looks wonderfully atmospheric and creepy, but it’s a low priority on my wish list because honestly, I’m not sure how well I’d be able to play it. Still, lots more eldritch horror where that came from.

Not right now, though - if for no other reason than that this post is going to get insanely long if I don’t knock it off. So more later - this is going to be a “Poking At Demos” kind of weekend. Yaaaaaay!

[coochie-sniffer3000]

ok at first this was gonna be a bunch of hashtags but it got so big i was like. who actually wants to read all that paragraph. SO i pushed everything up into a reblog….. (also “flint likes more more jump” is not something i expected to hear today but that just means i learned something new and that’s good enough for me)

if we’re going down the poo theatre kid route HEEELL NO they do not like hamilton !!!!

- has alll the icks about it (doesn’t mean they dont know every word of every song) (does not deny that say no to this devours)

- what poos really all about heathers. be more chill. ride the cyclone. wicked. the black suits. dear evan hansen. beetlejuice YOU GET IT

- managed to get paula to read dear evan hansen (the book) with a lot of coaxing (said it would harm her and she was like 👍 let me see if its in my school library). shes slowly being assimilated

ness and paula are school friends and online friends with jeff and poo

- not even from the same towns but there’s a school sandwiched between onett and twoson so ness and paula managed to meet there. she introduced jeff to ness and he introduced poo to paula (both online friends from winters and dallam respectively) and they sort of started a little clique c:

- when it comes to privacy they know like EVERYTHING about jeff and nnnothing about poo

- jeff’s like oh what’s my last name? andonuts. like the professor. yeah he’s my biological father. and what’s my address? well i live in snow wood boarding school for gifted children right now in a dorm if that counts. why

- they love tony to death but he doesn’t have discord (☹️💔!!!!!!!!!)

- he’s like that one guy your friend only brings up to say good things about and so you kind of think they’re god or something. also closest they get to having convos with him is when jeff conks out and tony decides to talk to them instead of apologizing and hanging up

- he and ness are each others one poetry discussion outlet and they try to talk about what they write

- gang knows next to nothing abt poo. they think poo is a funny online name and their audio/video quality is shit because they has a cheap ass phone. little do they know they’re royalty living so high up its above the clouds and their technology is VERY very confiscated

lloyd is an even bigger nerd than before

- yes 100% about the visual novels and i also think he’d pick up and put down 10000 rpg projects

- makes his own sprites. his colors need refining (shows on his teeny 14x30 rpg sprites) but his vn sprites look really good. shading wizard and ana is ENDLESSLY jealous of that

Random modern Earthbound/Mother headcanons that I've been thinking about for a while.

- Picky is an ipad kid and loves skibidi toilet. He's even shown it to Tracy on multiple occasions until she banned him from talking about it

- Lucas' entire family plays Pjsk. (Lucas likes Leo/need, Claus likes Vivid Bad Squad, and Flint likes More More Jump.)

- Ness, Paula, and Jeff play Genshin Impact together. (Ness mains Kokomi, Paula mains Barbara, and Jeff mains Neuvillette)

- Ninten used to be a dsmp fan but now when anyone brings it up he gets incredibly embarrassed.

- Ness and Porky used to watch South Park together.

- Fuel unironically uses brainrot humor.

- Ness has a secret blog where he posts poetry he's written.

- Ana comments bible verses on random posts and comments "God loves you ❤" on every post she sees. (THIS ONES A JOKE BUT ITS FUNNY TO THINK ABOUT)

- Claus believes everything he sees online and Lucas constantly has to tell him things like "No Claus, the power lines are not there to transfer energy to a secret underground base full of lizard people."

- Adding on to the last one, Claus will pay obviously scammy 'psychics' to tell him his future.

- Lloyd likes making visual novel games and will have Ana and Ninten draw sprites for them.

- Porky is in robotics club.

- Jeff is into stock trading and gets a notification every 30 minutes about how the stock market is going.

- Duster watches hopecore videos and cries.

- Kumatora has a TikTok account where she explores abandoned buildings and its actually super popular.

- The only thing Lucas posts on any of his social media is pictures of Boney or any other animal he comes across.

- Ninten never actually does his work in class (he plays nitrotype) yet he has straight B's.

- Ness has CRAAAAZZYYY beef with his gym teacher.

- Jeff and Ness are HUGE Pokemon fans and have played almost every game together.

- Kumatora is a crazy internet sleuth, if they have an online presence then she knows who they are.

- Flint lost his driver's licence and has been too lazy to retake the test to get it re-instated (he just walks everywhere, and Lucas and Claus take the bus to school anyway)

- Poo is a huge fan of musicals and has made Ness, Paula, and Jeff watch Hamilton at least three times

- Paula is super into old convention culture (things like yaoi paddles n shit). Shes a mini-internet historian.

- Ness will make some of his poetry into music (mostly dad-rock or emo music)

- Lloyd is CRAZY GOOD at rhythm games and likes to play fnf

- Ana is addicted to Gacha games, no matter the genre, if you can gamble to get some cute characters then shes there.

- Porky has his own webcomic series that's inspired by Homestuck.

- Jeff likes to make music in his free time from a long list of different styles, his favorite being vaporwave. He's also a huge Vocaloid fan and will make music using a variety of voicebanks (though his favorites are MEIKO and [V3] Flower)

PLEASE GIVE ME UR HEADCANONS.

[wlt-rpg]

OUVERTURE WICKED LITTLE TOWN

Ce soir, c’est le grand soir ! Nous ouvrons officiellement wicked little town, un forum city simple et sans prétentions qui se déroule dans la petite mais mouvementée ville de Klamath Falls (Oregon, USA). Lieu de détente où vous verrez s'affronter les différentes classes sociales, venez interpréter des personnages issus de tous horizons. Pour citer une célèbre marque : venez comme vous êtes ! Mais attention, Scandale n’est jamais bien loin pour dévoiler les secrets que vous cachez.

Nous vous attendons avec impatience ! Merci d'avoir suivi le projet. Au plaisir de vous y retrouver ♥

LE FORUM

[bonkusdonkus]

I think one of my favorite D&D ideas is when a creature that would normally be considered evil, is a good person. I feel like I should clarify that I’m not saying that every monster should be a good guy, because frankly having a moral quandary every time you splat some baddies for gold is… A bit much, in my opinion. D&D is an RPG at heart, and RPGs need disposable bad guys to function, and to make those actual moral quandaries have some real punch, contrast is important.

But! Having said that, Having some monsters break the mold can be lots of fun for world building, open up some cool storytelling moments, and be a fun change of pace! So here are some ideas for some ‘evil’ creatures being good guys, or at least nuetral! Feel free to steal any ya like!

An isolated town out in the woods has a symbiotic relationship with a pack of werewolves, who protect the town from monsters and raiders in exchange for food and shelter.

An Ancient Black Dragon, having spent so much of their time around ruins and such, has become fascinated with mortal civilization, and taken up archeology.

A Rakshasa has decided that they are sick and tired of watching naive and desperate mortals throw away their souls in devil deals, and has set out to do something about it. They act as a sort of double agent, helping trapped mortals who were tricked or coursed into contracts get their souls back, and helping souls who are already unjustly trapped in hell escape from the inside.

A mad cult has taken over a city, locking the gates, preventing any one from entering or leaving, intent on sacrificing the innocent citizens to their dark god! Little do they know, that a pack of Wererats has been quietly smuggling their intended victims out of the city through the sewers, right under their noses…

A young Red Dragon has taken to ‘hoarding’ refugees from a brutal war raging in the countryside. Unfortunately, they’ve encountered a problem. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of refugees, and their cave simply isn’t big enough for all of them, especially since more keep coming. Wanting to ensure the safety of their ‘hoard,’ the dragon is out looking for a new lair big enough to accommodate them all.

A blind person’s dog is killed in a demon raid, and they’re utterly heartbroken. But, a few days later, they find a litter of puppies, abandoned during the raid. They takes them home, determined to give them a loving home, even if they were strangely hot and smelled a little… Sulphur-y. They grow up to be huge, wicked smart, and unfailingly loyal. The person loves their dogs with all their heart, so much that their neighbors don’t have the heart to tell them that their ‘puppies’ are actually Hell Hounds. (They probably already know though. Because, ya know. They’re not dumb, and Normal dogs don’t generally speak Infernal.)

As total war rages across the land, wounded soldiers are often left behind to die by their armies, the commanders more concerned with winning the war than saving lives. Rumors have been swirling about strange figures scuttling around abandoned battlefields after nightfall, tending the wounded with bandages made of spider silk and burying the dead. Most of the soldiers who return from these encounters don’t remember much, but a few whisper tales of red eyes, kind voices, and spiders the size of horses…

Ever since the new captain of the city watch was appointed, the crime rate has plummeted to near zero. A lot of the city’s criminals have either turned themselves in, or fled the city. As for the rest, well. They’re not around anymore. Probably because of the massive Weretiger that mysteriously appeared at the same time the new captain was appointed, and began hunting down every single would be murderer, slaver, and other assorted scumbags in the city.

A famine has struck the coastline, the fish have been chased away by the presence of aggressive Merrow raiders. Things were starting to look bleak for the fishing towns, until, inexplicably, some of the villagers begin to have strange visions of a great under ground lake, so unimaginably full of fish that they could barely swim, and with fruit trees of every kind growing around the shore. Driven by desperation, they followed the visions, and sure enough, the lake was real! But it was also occupied. By an Aboleth! But rather than try to attack anyone or invade anyone’s mind, it just… Let’s them take the food. Huh.

A doctor was turned by a vampire with a sick sense of humor. They wanted to see the doctor give in to their bloodlust and feast on their patients. But the doctor’s will was too strong, and not only resisted their dark urges, they have mastered them. Now they travel the lands by night, using their powers to save the sick and wounded, and helping other unwilling vampires control their urges.

An ancient white dragon had recently lost her one and only clutch of eggs to greedy adventurers. She was in despair, lonely, and struck by the realization that she likely didn’t have much longer to live. Then, one day while she was out flying, she stumbled across a camp of slavers. The slavers fled the moment they saw her, leaving the camp abandoned. Curious what the humanoids had been up to, the dragon investigated, only to find the camp full of hundreds of large eggs. The old dragon’s eyes had started go a few decades back, so when she saw the eggs, he mistook them for large chicken eggs. Thinking raising chickens might be a fun distraction in her old age, she took them home. Only, when the eggs hatched a few days later, it wasn’t chickens that came out, but Kenku chicks! After having a bit of a mental breakdown, (and swearing to hunt down those slavers, because they had been about to sell what was essentially unborn children into slavery!) She decided to raise the chicks as her own. 50 years later, her lair is the home of a thriving Kenku community, watched over by their kindly and very happy dragon grandma.

A very strange bard wandered into town the other day. Honestly, they’re the best bard anyone in the town has ever seen, they can sing, they can dance, they tell the best jokes, and their laughter is utterly infectious. None of which is the strange part. No, the strange part is that the bard is a Bone Devil decked out like circus performer. They even have a little jesters cap with bells on it to boot.

[evajellion]

2020 vidya ranking: #1 Bug Fables The Everlasting Sapling

You already knew that I was going to tell you that this was the best game I had played last year.

Imo, this should have been indie GOTY back in 2019, but whatever, I guess I should explain why I ranked this one at the top.

Back in 2004, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door was released. I had sadly missed out on getting the original game on the Nintendo 64, but I was nonetheless very excited for the sequel. I got the game, still have my copy even years later… aaaand I got confused in Rogueport Sewers because I was a dumb eight year old, but I swear I picked up the game a second time. Got through all of the chapters, and had fallen in love with the game.

I loved the characters, the battle system, the story, the chapter progression, the cooking system, even the hidden lore and the amount of side quest scattered throughout the game. I even cried. It was the first time I had cried over a video game.

I wanted more, but then, Nintendo didn’t do it again. Sure, Super Paper Mario had a fantastic story, and a lot of people treasure that game the way I do TTYD-- I wouldn’t even mind if the series stayed in that direction. After that though?

Well, Sticker Star happened and stripped away all of the things I loved. Two similar games and one spin-off followed after that. Needless to say, me and several other fans of 64, TTYD, and Super weren’t happy about it. Seemed like I would never get another game like the one that was so dear to me ever again.

Cue me finding Arlo’s video about a cute little game called Bug Fables, just around the summer time. It had come out in 2019 and had been in development for some time by an indie studio. I was skeptic, but at this point I wanted anything-- besides, I actually love insects.

And after the first two chapters, which were a bit bland, I found it. I found the game I had been looking for. I was so afraid that this would be another Mighty No. 9 or Yooka-Laylee, but Bug Fables was anything but. Sure, it took inspiration from Paper Mario with its gameplay structure, but saying that this game is “just Paper Mario” doesn’t do it justice, because game can stand tall on its own.

I loved just about everything here in the same way I loved TTYD. Characters (except for two), the battle system, the story, the chapter progression, the cooking system, the hidden lore and the amount of side quest-- and there was even more than that.

“Gee what did Bug Fables have that Paper Mario didn’t?”

More than one super boss

A card game

Three party members in battle at a time

An entire side quest chapter that you can miss

An in-game randomizer

Higher difficulty settings

FREE DLC

Actual quality of life improvements

And finally, a villain who doesn’t just get a mere slap on the wrist as punishment for their actions. It’s one of the things Super did far better than TTYD because Beldam being let off scott free in the ending always pissed me off as a kid. The final boss is less ham-fisted in general too.

You have three characters at all times-- they’re your only party members and the only ones you need because they’re all perfectly balanced: Kabbu, Vi, and Leif. The third of which you won’t even meet until a bit into the first chapter. You don’t have to worry about wasting turns by switching your members out in this game.

The story starts off simple with the team of three collecting artifacts for Queen Elizant II, who seeks the Everlasting Sapling for an unspecified reason. About half way through the game and into the fourth chapter, the tone of the situation begins to shift, as the wicked wasps from the Wasp Kingdom also seek these artifacts for their lord.

This game doesn’t skimp out on being accurate to bug details either, there are little nods to how things work in real life, which is something I always appreciate. There isn’t really a dull moment in the story or a second where you feel stuck, because with the amount of Medals you get, there are plenty of strategies you can play around with.

Bug Fables is also… surprisingly dark, which perhaps isn’t unfitting of a game inspired by Paper Mario, given the direction TTYD and Super would get into. I can’t really spoil anything in regards to that, because much like with Three Houses, I would rather someone experience that themselves.

In terms of the flaws in this game, I can only think of two. One is regarding a terrible Flappy Bird game that’s required for 100%. It just shouldn’t be there, or at least be easier on the eyes.

The other is that this game suffers from having too many characters, when only four of them get actual character arcs: The main trio and the queen. You have some characters that get more fleshed out in side quests such as fellow team members or NPCs, but I feel like other “major players” suffer in the process.

Neolith is a big one. Cute nerdy moth who just exists as exposition for the artifacts and is a part of Kabbu’s backstory, but he never really does anything besides that, which is disappointing because he’s very cute. I would have loved more lore to him and Kabbu’s past, maybe a future DLC quest can solve that!

Your “rival team” also suffers a bit in this department. The team leader, Mothiva, is a snooty diva who never properly gets her comeuppance or realization that she needs to stop making everything about herself. I guess that’s the point, to give that vibe similar to old Pokémon rivals. But we’re supposed to believe she’s an official couple with her partner; Zasp, who just seems to simp for her in a one-sided way. Perhaps this could also be fixed with another DLC quest.

The worst of the bunch is Kina, Maki’s overly protective and possessive sister to the point of it being creepy. Unlike Mothiva, who is your rival, Kina is supposed to be a supporting cast member, yet she has even less likable traits. She stalks her brother and constantly wants to be with him, gets upset at the idea of him needing space, threatens a small caterpillar character-- you could remove her from the story and it changes nothing. There’s not even a backstory reason for her to be the way she is.

Mind you-- these are very minor nitpicks that don’t really bog down the game. Some may say the main villain of the game suffers from this as well since he shows up halfway into the game, I personally think he was handled perfectly, because you can piece together his motivations and backstory through lore.

Speaking of lore, I hope with so much in this game, that we end up getting a sequel. There are so many questions left unanswered, so much more I wanna know about! 

Other than that thought? The trio of Kabbu, Vi, and Leif and their story is just about perfect. I can’t thank Arlo enough for introducing me to it, and I think this game will catch on more in the future since Chuggaconroy said he was playing it on Twitter, and Fatguy just completed his LP of the game.

I think… we’re entering an age where we should start expecting this level of quality from indie developers more often. This game didn’t feel like an indie game, it felt like a grade a RPG. Which is funny, because that’s what Paper Mario used to be.

God speed, Paper Bug devs. Keep up the good work in the future, thank you for bringing back a feeling I thought I’d never experience with a video game again. I know it sounds cheesy and stupid, but that’s.. just how much Paper Mario effected me back then. Even now, it inspires the books I wanna write, and it’s safe to say Bug Fables did the same.

By the way, can I talk about how delicious some of the food items look in this game? This is insect cuisine, and even I would eat these.

For recap on what the other games I had played this year were, just so you know how Bug Fables topped ‘em:

2. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

4. Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town

5. Super Mario All-Stars

6. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and The Blade of Light

7. Final Fantasy VII

8. F-Zero

9. Star Fox

10. Puyo Puyo Champions

[unlockthelore]

Hey there, I’m Lore !

A twenty-two year old writer with a vast interest in fiction and the themes that can be conveyed by an interesting character-driven narrative. I’ve been writing for about seventeen years and I’ve got no interest in stopping anytime soon. Most of my works deal heavily with fantasy ranging from urban fantasy, dystopian, to high fantasy. 

Although the process can be challenging, I enjoy seeing what I’ve made come to life and keep meticulous notes of everything that I do. It can be a little consuming but I’m grateful to anyone who wants to tag along while I’m working.

[ A FEW LOREBITS ABOUT LORE ]

The want to be a writer has been around since I was a small child and I quite honestly don’t see myself doing anything else. 

I’ve been writing since I was about five years old and my first story, from what I can remember, was about an ogre who befriended a cat that loved to wear hats. Inspirations being Cat in the Hat, and my older brother’s growing interest in RPGs.

My greatest love is adventure stories in interconnected universes with a sprawling cast of characters, each unique and colorful in their own way. I like the idea of creating a universe where the reader can fall in love with them but also understand their struggles.

As an above note, I’m very invested in JRPGs, animated movies, and fantasy novels. If you know of any and want to recommend them to me then it would be much appreciated. 

Notebooks are both my lifeblood and what take up 90% of the space in everything I have. Even my desk usually has a notebook on top of it so I can scribble down ideas. 

I prefer character-driven narratives because it’s normally the characters that make the situation, so most of my time is spent figuring out backstories and weaving them together. 

I stim and at times, it takes me hours to come to a point where I’m sitting again. If I miss a message or I don’t reply right away, that’s usually why.

I tend to listen to instrrumentals when I’m writing and rarely listen to music with lyrics.

My comfort movies are anything made by Studio Ghibli, I’m incredibly partial to Whispers of the Heart, Princess Mononoke, Pom Poko, and Porco Rosso. I bought the novel that inspired Howl’s Moving Castle, the one by Diana Wynne Jones and it’s my comfort book.

Speaking of series I love, I’ve read a lot of them and I know I mentioned it before, but if you have book recs please don’t hesitate.

[ INSPIRATIONS ]

I’m heavily inspired by a lot of things. Reading has always been something I’ve done since I was young and going out in the world is how I find the words for settings, and interesting people who bring my characters to life. JRPGs such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, Legend of Zelda, and the like are what interest me he heavily. I’ve also been into anime for as long as I can remember, studying and trying to remain respectful of the cultures I’m privy to seeing. 

Then there’s movies. I love superhero movies but I also like others which challenge the mind and put the characters in harrowing situations. TV shows as well. Some of the writers / creators that’ve heavily attributed to my works are Maya Angelou, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Hayao Miyazaki, Leigh Bardugo, L.A. Banks, Rumiko Takahashi, Togashi Yoshihiro, Naoko Takeuchi, and several others.

[ WRITING PROJECTS ]

HUNTSMAN AND THE WOLF - Red is a huntsman, protector of the innocent and destroyer of the wicked, sworn to a life bound to a sordid end. Yet when he comes face to face with a creature that he has no interest in felling, the certainty that he'd had all of his life crumbles. Tangled in a web of lies and deceit that may bring about the end of all Creation, Red seeks the truth alongside the one who may be the death of him.

LEGEND OF THE FOUR ELEMENTAL HEROES - Falling through the sky isn't the best way to wake up, but Air has little time to worry about that. In a world they don't know where suspicion and lies lurk around every corner, they have to keep their wits about them. And stay light on their feet if they want to survive.

OATHBOUND - Monty swore to honor and cherish his wife until the end of their days. They were the best of friends, lovers, and fought side by side. Yet, time passed and death took her, while he was left with only the memories and the hope that soon he'd follow. When he thought he breathed his last, he didn't expect to open his eyes to a whole new world.With only the burning question, when you swear until death do us part, is death really the end?

PAN - Wendy wants nothing more than freedom. The right to choose, the right to live, the right to be free — she wants it more than anything and will go to any lengths she has to for it to be hers. If that means making deals with the Fair Folk, evading the clutches of Captain Hook and her band of soldiers, and joining forces with the Lost Ones, then so be it. The past no longer matters to Wendy. She’ll do anything to make sure that her future and her destiny are firmly set within her grasp. Even if she’ll have to put an end to the beloved Bandit Pan.

SPELLBOUND ( drawn by @acersecomic​ ) - The witches Cygnus and Gris do not get along. They run competing magic shops, the only two in town. Their magic infused bickering leads to trouble.

THE LAST STORY - Lyra had everything she wanted in life: her family, her girlfriend, and a peace that would keep her for the rest of her life. She was more than content to spend out the rest of her days in the village of her birth with each new day being another chapter in her story. Yet, fate seemed to have other plans. Her village razed to the ground, her family scattered to the winds, and her life thrown into chaos. With her only hope to regain all she lost lying with guiding her girlfriend on her quest for knighthood and a stranger’s visions, Lyra delves deep into deception, myths, and uncovers secrets long buried. She can only wonder how this will end and what she will become to regain her happy ending.

WAYFINDER - A traveling apothecary searching for something that is yet unknown meets a wandering magician seeking to run away from everything. What began as a simple act of goodwill turns into an event that may very well change the course of their lives. Dystopian, high fantasy, with a bit of solarpunk.

[indiavolowetrust]

The Obey Me Boys as RPG Bosses: Frostheart

CHAPTERS: Prologue + Beelzebub and Belphegor (YOU ARE HERE), Asmodeus, Satan, Leviathan, Mammon, Lucifer, ???, ???, Endings

You are one of many hunters in a land cursed with everlasting winter. You yourself have become rime-touched after an attack by your fellow corrupted hunter, an incident that left you traumatized and lame. Even your hunter’s guild has resigned you to a life of mere cleaning and upkeep duties, and you have spent the last seven years in the depths of your guild’s archives.

Then the White Witch spirits your little brother away into her castle, taking with her the only family you have ever known. Armed with your trusty hunting knife and bow -- and aided by your senior hunter, Simeon -- you set off into the rime-cursed lands to find Luke and end the White Witch’s reign once and for all.

**Very loosely based on The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen.

Word Count: 2,160 words

TW: Blood, Violence, Gore

PROLOGUE

It is said that the rime draws beasts out of the hearts of men. The hoarfrost came, cursed as the land was by the White Witch, and then came the famine. The beasts came, corrupted and twisted beyond measure by the curse, and then came the slaughter. And so came the Frost Blades: a group of hunters trained to slay the rime-touched beasts, cull the spread of the curse, and bring glory to King Diavolo’s wondrous kingdom. It is said that a hunter of the Frost Blades is destined to die a hero’s death, whether it be by jaws of a wolf-beast or some other monstrosity.

You know better, of course. The pure never stay pure for long. Those whose hearts are touched by the rime eventually lose themselves, body and soul, and the symptoms only worsen the further one traverses into the cursed hinterlands. Dizziness, fatigue, and nausea. The piercing of one’s flesh by ice crystals that seem to have grown from within, the loss of one’s extremities to the frost, and the forced expulsion of bodily fluids. Hallucinations and madness. At the heart of glacial rift -- where the White Witch and her subjects are said to reside -- it is said that there exists a barrier no human can pass. Not without losing themselves completely to the rime, that is. The few that had passed the barrier and returned had … they had …

The memory is there before you know it, raw and frostbitten. The bow you’ve been cleaning nearly clatters to the floor, but you manage to hold onto it with trembling fingers.

You can only remember skewered limbs and bestial screams. One hand pressed to your ruined eye, the other shakily holding a blade that you knew would not save you. One of your legs was beyond repair. The creature that had once been Agathe had stalked closer with its segmented, crystalline body, that hunter’s caution still present, and you were too petrified to do anything but gaze upon the bringer of your own death. Too young, too inexperienced, and too unskilled to face off against a rime-touched beast of her caliber. And in her eyes -- Gods, in her eyes, you could have sworn that you saw something not quite bestial staring back at you. Someone.

The journey to the heart of the glacial rift is said to be unbound by any law of space or time, as expected of a realm created by the White Witch. Despite its eldritch properties, you’ve decided to take at least enough supplies for a dozen or so leagues. Elk jerky, dried fruits and nuts, and sizable canteens of water. Rolls of twine, bandages, and tins of Old Gytha’s medicine. Your whitewood bow and arrows sit at the ready of your back. Your fur-lined cloak and boots weigh heavily upon you when you limp past the Frost Blades’ garrison, although perhaps that is to be expected. You were born in this town, and you had fully expected to die in it. If Luke hadn’t been spirited away by the White Witch, you’re not sure if you would even have the heart to step out of its walls. You certainly lack the strength.

A hand plates itself on your shoulder when you stand before gates of the town, firm and unyielding. Simeon.

What did you expect? you berate yourself, a sigh escaping your mouth. He’s probably known all along. You’re as transparent as glass.

Luke’s gone, you tell him. You shift against your walking cane as you do so, not quite prepared to meet his gaze. Not yet, anyway. Even now, you’re too much of a coward. Regardless, he can’t stop you. Your mind and heart is already set on the quest.

“I know.”

You don’t care if they kick you out of the Frost Blades for defying orders. Luke is -- you made a promise to him. He’s the only family you have.

“I know.”

Then why --

His glove-laden hand turns you gently to face him, cutting you short. Your eyes widen at the sight of hunting gear, his own whitewood bow strapped to his back, and he gives you a smile that is only the slightest bit wolfish. A part of you relaxes at that. Despite his straight-laced behavior in the garrison, it would appear that Simeon is still Simeon, the boy that used to defend you and Luke against the older kids in town. Simeon, the baker’s son who stole loaves of bread to feed you and Luke on unbearable nights. Simeon, the greatest and most elite hunter of his party once he enlisted into the Frost Blades.

Simeon, the one who hadn’t quite been there in time. Even Old Gytha had trouble stitching what remained of you back together.

���The Frost Blades have us make an oath to protect our subordinates,” he says in the way of an explanation, leaving the rest unsaid. He walks past you to push aside a patch of brambles, revealing a weathered wooden door. An unused exit. A corner of his mouth quirks upwards when he catches you staring, and he arches a brow at you. “You didn’t really think I’d let you go by yourself, did you?”

[BEELZEBUB AND BELPHEGOR, GUARDIANS OF THE BOREAL FOREST]

It is difficult to believe anyone has ever lived here before. The uneven terrain is stricken with permafrost, rendering the ground slippery and unforgiving, and the boughs of the trees stretch far into the sky. Like nearly everything else in the boreal forest, they are barren, crystalline, and completely incapable of being burned. Yet the ruins here are massive. You and Simeon sit in the belly of a keep -- or what remains of it, anyway -- as the bones of some unfortunate animal crackle and wither away before you in a blue blaze. They lend little warmth, but you dare not speak a word on the matter. Simeon had supported you when your limp worsened, your cane relaying itself to your side, and when your lame legs could no longer support your weight, he carried you. He had not complained or minded, and so you would not either.

Or perhaps he had and he was too kind to tell you otherwise.

Useless, you think to yourself. Useless, useless, useless. No wonder the Frost Blades had difficulty deciding to spare you. A rime-touched whelp has no place in --

“Are you cold?”

You blink to see Simeon staring intently at you, which he evidently has been for a while. Your legs hurt from walking, and you tell him as much. Working with the Frost Blades’ records is a much different experience than traveling. It’s been a long time.

Seven years, you almost say. It’s been seven years.

“I suppose it has,” he hums, and he resumes stoking the fire with a crystalline branch. It only flickers weakly in response.

Despite being certain that you and Simeon have been traveling for only several hours -- meaning that it should only be midday -- night had already long fallen by the time you reached the ruins. Another oddity of exploring the lands near the White Witch’s realm, it would seem. You and Simeon had passed what should have been leagues in a matter of minutes, whereas what had seemed like a minuscule hill had taken an hour to pass. Streams babbled in some places and nearly stood still in others. Despite the high walls of the ruins here, you can feel the wind blowing through at too fast a pace. Simeon struggles to keep the blaze alive.

And so when you stumble upon a massive, free-standing stone gate in the middle of a frozen clearing, you can’t say you’re completely surprised.

Instead, it is the pair of statues before it that draws your attention. While both of them wield a massive battle axe, the creatures depicted in the sculptures seem to be of two different species. The slightly smaller one reminds you of the oxen tended to by the township: cloven legs, curved horns, and thick fur. Its eyes are half-lidded, as if it were on the brink of falling asleep. The other one stands some two or three heads taller than the oxen-like one, bearing features that you would not expect of a creature acclimated to the ice. Its face is dotted with multitudinous eyes, its massive maw is inset with sharp, wicked teeth, and four insectoid wings sprout from its back.

Stranger yet, the statues have been carved with an impeccable eye for detail -- enough that you had nearly mistaken them for another rime-touched beast. The glacial wind whips back and forth across clearing, making them appear to move. To breathe.

Almost as if they were.

“Halt!” booms a voice across the clearing, forcing you to stumble backwards. Simeon all but drags you behind a tree.

“Who goes there?” demands another voice, lower and more gruff than the first.

One hand clamped over your mouth, the other pressed to the hilt of his blade. His eyes meet yours only after a moment, and you see within them the question that plagues your own thoughts. The bearers of these voices, whomever they may be, should not be here.

“This land belongs to Her Ladyship! Speak, or begone with ye!”

There is the sound of cracking, much like porcelain falling apart. Or perhaps it is more reminiscent of ice shattering, like a mirror bursting into shards after being struck. Simeon’s gaze only narrows as he takes another glance over the side of the tree, still holding you close to him. He begins to slowly draw his blade out from its sheath. The boreal winds begin to howl even greater than before, masking the noise.

Simeon unceremoniously flings you in the direction of the clearing. Your shoulder crashes into the permafrost just as the blade of an axe crashes into the tree, cleaving it in two. Simeon is barely able to draw his sword before the axe meets it -- and then he, too, is sent flying. He pierces the ground with his sword before he can completely clear the open space, stopping just short in front of you. Two figures -- one bearing curved horns, the other bearing insectoid wings -- clamber out of the edge of the forest, the larger of the two hefting the oversized axe over his back.

It is only then that you see the symbols carved into the statues, each circling their wrists and ankles like manacles.

Golems.

“What have we here, brother?” says the ox-like golem, gazing upon you with interest. “It would appear Her Ladyship’s doll has arrived sooner than we thought. Shall we deliver this human to her?”

“We shall.”

The ox-like golem strides forward. “How convenient that you’ve brought the human to us -- and in such good condition, might I add? Her Ladyship will be in good spirits to see her dear prince and her doll reunited.” He offers his hand to you, much to your surprise. “Come with me, human. There’s no need to be accompanied by this charlatan any longer.”

Charlatan? You can only stare at the ox-like golem’s hand in bewilderment, shaking your head. Whatever reason the White Witch may have to declare you as her doll -- whatever that means -- you will not abandon Simeon. You have no reason to comply with their wishes.

“You heard the hunter.” Simeon brings his sword before him again, creating a barrier between you and the golems. “We’re not going anywhere. If you want to separate us, you’ll have to go through me.”

“More’s the pity. And here we thought Her Ladyship gave us an easy task for once.” The ox-like golem yawns, gesturing to the other, and it is but a moment before the two cross blades. A dueling stance. “Name’s Belphegor. Beelzebub and I will take the pleasure of beheading you today.”

“Last chance,” warns the winged golem. “Surrender now, and we shall forgive you for your transgressions.”

Tip: Staggering one of the golems will force the other to its aid. As Beelzebub is faster and stronger than his counterpart, it is advised to incapacitate Belphegor first.

[NEXT: ASMODEUS, HER LADYSHIP’S ROSE-KEEPER]

[creatreasurebox]

Nouveau design sur le thème de la Saint Valentin et sur l'anniversaire des 3 ans du forum pour Wicked Little Town ❤️ Version claire et version sombre.

[freyaa-hope]

Cobie Smulders & Jesse Lee Soffer crackship

Credit Crackship : ©Freyaa The originals gifs aren't mine.

Please, don't forget to like or reblog if you use !

[gaslighttragedy]

Sophia Bush and Sebastian Stan Original gifs not by me Crackship credit: Mayhem  

Made for two characters on Wicked Little Town (RPG forum)

[warsofasoiaf]

Sure, the internal politics was a bit flat, but I thought you punched it up enough to make it work. But realistically, Collins would be much more politically powerful after repelling two invasions? The Protestant Ulsterites are given fair consideration. Just seems like the game mechanics got in the way, but you wove it into the story well. Also, Rose of Sharon Cassidy reminder!

Rose of Sharon Cassidy is a great companion. At first glance, she’s a callback to one of the more popular Fallout companions, John Cassidy. Both have big hearts (neither can be recruited if the player has low Karma) and a heart condition. Both are small business owners. Both have a knack for shotguns (Cass gets the Shotgun Surgeon perk and I usually end up giving her Dinner Bell) and acquit themselves well in firefights. Both are experienced. Both can have quite colorful and inventive pieces of profanity. However, Rose of Sharon Cassidy is a great character in her own right, she is not merely another character’s shadow.

Cassidy is one of two Western-themed companion characters in the game, the other being Raul. While the second act of Fallout: New Vegas is about Vegas and the power struggle within it, the first act of the game borrows a lot of Western themes and motifs, from the little town shootout ala Rio Bravo to finding a sheriff for Primm to the man rising from certain death to pursue their killer like a non-supernatural High Plains Drifter. Cassidy is a caravanner and muleskinner (or brahminskinner because it’s Fallout), a classic Western archetype, and she fits the description: rugged, colorful, and individualistic. She’s tough and violent to contend with a tough, violent Wasteland, with a love of whiskey to match any Clint Eastwood character.

Speaking of Clint Eastwood, Rose of Sharon Cassidy is firmly in the revisionist Western camp of Western characters. Classic Westerns often didn’t have many roles for women outside of love interests to damsel, doting wives, or wicked saloon girls, which in the era of the Hays Code was a codeword for prostitute, but in the 1960′s roles began to expand for women in Westerns as the Western genre itself began to revise itself. Revisionist Westerns, for those not in the know, often took the classic Western genre to task, the depth and scope of which would be too lengthy an aside for this essay. Suffice it to say, when Cassidy joins up, she makes it plain that she isn’t looking to be just a tag-along, she’s being joined because of her skills. Cass is not a worthless hanger-on, a character devoid of depth to simply enrich the Courier’s tale. She’s a Revisionist Western character, and she has her own story.

Rose of Sharon Cassidy is a moral person even though she has Neutral Karma herself. She does not like a Courier that commits hostile acts and will call the Courier out if their Karma begins to drop. You get two strikes with Cass, and dropping to Evil Karma means you’re out, she will up and leave. If you do not start something, she will head back West, giving up on a future for herself in the Mojave. Or contrarily, if the Courier is a shitbox as well as evil, she’ll shoot. There are things that she won’t tolerate and it’s based on Karma, not faction reputation like the other companion characters. Again, Cass has her own story, she will not content herself being a tag-along. This isn’t perfect, of course, open-world games being what they are, you can take your time accomplishing her quest, but mechanics and story are always, in some ways, at odds. A pressing deadline means lost content, which can be perfectly fine for some games, but other times, not so much.

Cassidy, however, is at her lowest point when she meets the Courier, drinking away the days at the Mojave Outpost bar after her caravan company had been roasted to ashes in an apparent raider attack. Unable to leave due to Ranger Jackson forbidding caravan travel due to giant ant attacks, Cassidy is content to spin her wheels and drown her sorrows, and will not move for any reason, not even the most silver-tongued Courier. Instead, she recommends you to one of her competitors, Alice McLafferty of the Crimson Caravan, the largest caravan company in New California, and an ironic recommendation given what will come later in Cass’s own quest.

Continuing with McLafferty’s quest line, however, gives you Cass’s companion quest Heartache By the Number, which is also a song on the New Vegas soundtrack - a mournful Guy Mitchell country song about a man who constantly has his heart broken by a lover who leaves him, comes back, leaves him again, and says that they’re coming back but never do. The song’s protagonist, despite the pain, cannot bear to end it and leave, because even though it hurts, the day he stops counting his heartaches is the day the world ends. Despite the pain, the singer can’t give his lover up, and we see that Cass, despite her caravan having been lost, can’t bear to give it up and sell it to Alice. Anyone who has ever owned a business can tell you, there’s a piece of themselves in their work, and it can be hard to give it up even if the offer is tempting (this isn’t universal sentiment, of course, plenty of business owners do wish to sell at a good price). Cassidy Caravans isn’t just a caravan company, it’s a piece of Cass. She even asks flat-out “if someone asked to give you 1,000 caps for your name, would you?” Even if all she had was nothing, nothing was still worth something because it was still hers. 

The quest to buy the caravan is one of the little things in the game that truly show Obsidian’s love for the craft and their use of dialogue for fun. You can pay extra out of your own pockets to recruit Cass, standard fare for an RPG because you don’t want to miss out on content just because you don’t have the right skill and money is usually an acceptable fix in gaming, but the other options are excellent. The two speech checks, the first to point out that she doesn’t want to be trapped here forever, and the second that points out that if she was responsible for Cassidy Caravans, the destruction of it is on her too. Both get you the same results, but require different speech levels in order to get out. Neither one provides any mechanical difference to Cass, but the accusatory stance naturally would engender hostility, and so it should be a harder speech check. The game uses the mechanics to reinforce the action in a way that the game’s limitation on programming cannot easily match. This isn’t as elegant, perhaps, as the speech check with Ulysses at the end of Lonesome Road litters the conversation tree with false answers that will catch someone who wasn’t paying attention and just clicking through the tree, but it gets the point across with much less conversational depth (and accordingly, less programming and voice acting work). The best option, however, is the drinking contest, where you pay 12 bottles of whiskey to attempt to drink Cass under the table. The actual choices all end in the same successful quest resolutions, but the paths that they take vary considerably and hilariously, from Cass smoking you and you falling off your stool (in dialogue options only, the engine wouldn’t render that), you becoming equally drunk and saying stupid drunk things like “I love you and your little hat,” to you simply obliterating Cass with your gigantic 10 Endurance, asking if you felt *what* exactly as you polish off six bottles of whiskey like they were water. There’s absolutely no point in creating that many dialogue choices other than the pure love of doing it, of putting it in there, of enjoying the craft of the RPG. It’s these little things that make me love Obsidian as a developer, and it’s something more game developers should do, to place more love into their programming and presentation.

After joining up with you, Cass still isn’t ready to simply forget her caravan, and asks if you can stop by site where it was hit. She wonders whether there’s any indication of what hit her caravan, but even if you’ve been there and seen the devastation, she asks to go anyway, to pay her respects if nothing else. Part of this is simple signposting, you need to get to the caravan so you can hit the next checkpoint of the quest to continue, but it still speaks to Cass’s character that she says that she wants to go there and does not simply take the Courier’s word and be done with it. The scene is every bit as bad as she thought, her caravan was hit by someone carrying energy weapons and looking not to rob the caravan but to destroy it completely and utterly, which is baffling. Hitting a caravan is typically supposed to be about stealing the goods and getting rich, not simply bloodsport. It’s confusing, but it’s also Fiend territory, who use energy weapons. A Fiend warband, whacked out of their brains with Psycho might look to satisfy their bloodlust, or Jet might make them so twitchy that they keep shooting until everything is ash. The hit is too professional though, Brotherhood of Steel-level military tactics, which wouldn’t match up with tweaking Fiends, but the Brotherhood doesn’t attack caravans without high-level technology.

Since there are too many inconsistencies, Cass wants to see what happened to Griffin Wares, another caravan company. The wreckage is the same, disintegrated caravan and cargo both, which means it cannot simply be a one-off, at least by video game logic anyway. Conservation of detail means that two times is enough to be strange, and three times is a confirmed pattern via the Rule of Three. Now suspicious instead of curious, Cass and the Courier investigate Durable Dunn’s Caravan. Living up to their name, however, this time there’s evidence that this was not the result of random juiced-up Fiends but a concerted assassination and murder by the Crimson Caravan and the Van Graff crime family, looking to murder their way to maximum profits by eliminating the competition and establishing a monopoly. We have the reveal and now we reach another classic hallmark of the Western genre, what is the hero supposed to choose? Kill them both in revenge for their crimes, or trust in the NCR’s justice system and bring evidence to Ranger Jackson to indict both of them. We also get a good view of a classic Western conflict, the big monied interests versus the little guy. These happened plenty of times in the west, such as in the Johnson County War where the homesteaders fought the wealthy Wyoming cattlemen’s association. 

Cassidy, hot-headed, is looking for a good brawl, and you can have two big fights at the Crimson Caravan HQ and the Silver Rush, the latter of which being a big energy weapon fight where, if successful, you can walk away with enough microfusion cells that you might qualify as a ghoul. That’s the classic Western anti-hero move, where the justice system is a tool of the powerful and both the crime syndicate and the corporation are the powerful. This form of justice is sorted on the frontier, beyond where the corrupt courts can reach. It’s immensely satisfying to Cass, and when she gives into her wrath her character receives a permanent upgrade of 15% gun damage. Combined with her Shotgun Surgeon perk, which ignores DT, Cass can become quite lethal with a 12-gauge. Yet the damage is not limited just to the Van Graff’s and the Crimson Caravan. The NCR is proven to be unable to protect caravans leading out to the Mojave on the Long 15 and so supply shipments drop off, and NCR settlements suffer. The Divide was already destroyed by the Courier before the game even started (and the Long 15 might be nuked depending on your choices in Lonesome Road) so that really stings.

The alternative though, is putting your fate in the hands of the corrupt NCR, ruled by its brahmin barons and other monied interests. Cass trusts Jackson with the evidence, but it would take a long time to prosecute the two conspirators. It means delaying the visceral satisfaction of revenge and the power that such an act can entail, and risking the chance that it fails. But if you show faith in the NCR, then that faith is rewarded. NCR uses the conspiracy to shape up their trade laws, and the Crimson Caravan and Van Graffs hurt in their bottom line. For her own part, Cass calms herself and becomes much tougher as a result, gaining max HP. Of course, this is clumsy though, since the Gun Runners can end up vaporizing both of them with no push back and your get the best of both worlds (and previously, a bug allowed you to peacefully complete the quest then go kill them and get both perks). It’s a bit clumsy perhaps, but life isn’t fair. Personally, I would have designed the quest so you had to collect a certain amount of evidence, not enough and the Van Graffs and Alice McLafferty get off scot-free. Whether that would be in the quest or just an ending slide, I could go either way, but I think that would have been a better way to build that kind of quest.

Of course, you could do nothing with Cass. You can bring her to Jean-Baptiste Cutting and have him gun her down to complete Birds of a Feather, coldly escorting Cass to her own slaughter. Of course, this is an evil act and it makes perfect sense for Cass, the one who would be disgusted by an evil Courier, to be the one eliminated in an Evil Karma path. That’s a credit to Obsidian, few developers are brave enough these days to create mutually exclusive content because of the cost of production, or mutually exclusive content being binary beads on a string where you have to choose between a saving a bus full of nuns or devouring a live kitten with minor callbacks and a morality meter to note your choice. But that’s a function of the increased cost of production these days, gone are the days when a level could be produced with a couple of writers, artists, and scripters (such as it was in Fallout 2). 

You knew it was coming. If this surprised you, you have only yourself to blame.

Cass is a supporter of the NCR, and it’s here that she shines, perhaps even unintentionally, as a revisionist Western character. She likes her country, but she’s aware of its flaws. The NCR lacks direction and cohesion, their compass is “always spinning, all the time.” The NCR is family, and you love family, but you can help but hurt as well that your family is constantly screwing up. The constant need to spread, to acquire more land and resources. It’s great press for the top, like Kimball who can give his pretty speeches at the Hoover Dam, but the common NCR grunt has to fight hostile gangs and wildlife without an established support structure to back them up. And Cass sees that if the NCR wins, it won’t change because it won’t learn. She wants the NCR to fix itself and is completely at a loss for how to do it. She far prefers NCR over the other factions, but she isn’t blind to its flaws. Like Raul she understands why some would join the Legion (provided they weren’t women, of course), because the security of their supply lines means that the threat of random violence is reduced, and that’s important in a post-apocalypse. Why pay these crushing NCR taxes if they won’t protect you? Why is NCR expanding to Hoover Dam when it can’t even stop cazadors from nesting near the power lines? They’re too thinly spread, and they won’t consolidate and reform because that doesn’t win you elections. 

The same is true of the Western genre in the revisionist Westerns. They state that the frontier was a black-and-white affair, where good guys wore the white Stetson and the desperados wore the black one. Cass’s feelings on the NCR are similar to what plenty of Western writers thought about Westerns, and what citizens of their own countries think about the nations they live in. The words that Cass speaks about the NCR could be said by any member of any nation, loving their country but wanting to fix the flaws. 

This isn’t to say that New Vegas is completely morally grey. There’s some clear moral lines that can be drawn, Caesar’s Legion is clearly an evil and cruel nation despite Caesar’s claims of Hegelian dialectical inevitability. But what about the NCR? Do its intentions for good or ill doom it or save it? Do you continue to support that family member that constantly screws up or do you stop giving them the rope to hang themselves. The answers to that question aren’t easy, but the faction system working toward the goal of what the Mojave is one of the biggest draws of the game, and so it’s clearly showing that these are types of questions worth discovering an answer to, whether it’s in the real world or the fantasy world.

Cass, as a character, gets you to start thinking about the flaws of these factions, because the grand climax of Hoover Dam has you picking which factions you want, whether one of the large ones with their own visions, or the ala carte options of the Yes Man playthrough where you pick which ones to embrace or reject. So Cass, in a nutshell, is that way a distillation of the grand Fallout: New Vegas experience; something you’d never expect from a whiskey-soaked nobody drowning her sorrows in a dingy bar in the corner of the map.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[antiquery]

the other day I was talking to a friend and I said something like “the dream quest of unknown kadath, much like other epic fantasy of its type, honestly reads like someone’s rpg campaign that just went completely off the rails.” this is true.* because I have absolutely nothing better to do in quarantine, i have gone through the entire novel and empirically determined what rpg class randolph carter would be (sheet included). you’re welcome.

*inb4 “but el there’s only one protagonist”: I’ve played one-on-one d&d before and it can ABSOLUTELY work and be completely delightful, so hush.

GROUND RULES

I’m using 5th edition d&d, because it’s the system I’m most familiar with. stay tuned for the sequel, where I do this all over again but with pathfinder.

I’m also using UA stuff + some of the new things from explorer’s guide to wildemount, because dunamancy is very thematically lovecraftian.

carter is very clearly a seasoned adventurer in this story. textually, he’s only the fourth human to ever venture to unknown Kadath; additionally, “being old in the land of dream he counted on many useful memories and devices to aid him.” with such qualifications in mind, let’s go ahead and make him level 20. this is, after all, the sort of nonsense high-level PCs get up to— challenging gods and the like.

RACE: human, obviously. let’s go variant human, both to reflect his oddball nature & to pick up a 1st level feat. 

BACKGROUND: this one’s a bit trickier. according to Lovecraft he’s a resident of Beacon Hill in the waking world, the most upper-class neighborhood of Boston, so let’s say he’s got the noble background.

ALIGNMENT: an interesting question! carter isn’t exactly your standard fantasy hero, and he’s not really out for anyone but himself. he demonstrates a clear willingness to allow other people to come to harm in pursuit of his goals, though he himself never actually harms anyone for any reason other than self defense. but he’s interpersonally kind, and clearly doesn’t actually want anyone to get hurt. let’s say true neutral.

ABILITY SCORES

strength: not his best ability score, though he does seem to be fairly athletic when it’s absolutely needed. let’s make this a 10.

dexterity: carter is fast on his feet, nimble, and clearly good at feats of escape, which he pulls off several times in the text. let’s make this his highest score, at a 20.

constitution: he’s not especially tough. another 10.

intelligence: carter speaks several languages and knows a great deal about the history and culture of the Dreamlands. when he can’t talk his way out of trouble, he tends to reason his way out. let’s make this pretty high, though not as high as his charisma— a 16.

wisdom: this one’s a bit tricky. while he’s relatively perceptive and skilled at things that depend on wisdom, he doesn’t seem to have a ton in the way of common sense, and (as demonstrated by his encounter with the merchant in dylath-leen) his insight is absolutely abysmal. let’s make this a 12.

charisma: carter’s pretty sociable with just about every creature he encounters on his travels; people seem to like him, and he has friends all over. additionally, he’s an excellent liar, and quite persuasive, when simple likeability doesn’t get him where he needs to go. let’s make this an 18.

SKILLS

survival: carter clearly knows his way around the natural world.

“Carter detoured at the proper place, and heard behind him the frightened fluttering of some of the more timid zoogs. He had known they would follow him, so he was not disturbed; for one grows accustomed to the anomalies of these prying creatures. It was twilight when he came to the edge of the wood, and the strengthening glow told him it was the twilight of morning.”

deception: when carter can’t get his way through persuasion, he’s more than happy to lie, and quite skilled at it too.

“Then Carter did a wicked thing, offering his guileless host so many draughts of the moon-wine which the zoogs had given him that the old man became irresponsibly talkative.”

“For a week the strange seamen lingered in the taverns and traded in the bazaars of Celephaïs, and before they sailed Carter had taken passage on their dark ship, telling them that he was an old onyx-miner and wishful to work in their quarries.”

religion: carter displays an impressive knowledge of the workings of both the gods of the dreamlands and the outer gods (though the latter might actually be better classified as an arcana skill, now that i think about it).

“Now the use of all this in finding the gods became at once apparent to Carter. It is known that in disguise the younger among the Great Ones often espouse the daughters of men, so that around the borders of the cold waste wherein stands Kadath the peasants must all bear their blood. This being so, the way to find that waste must be to see the stone face on Ngranek and mark the features; then, having noted them with care, to search for such features among living men. Where they are plainest and thickest, there must the gods dwell nearest; and whatever stony waste lies back of the villages in that place must be that wherein stands Kadath.” 

“He knew, however, that no beings as nearly human as these would dare approach the ultimate nighted throne of the daemon Azathoth in the formless central void.”

“[...] for he knew from old tales that the Great Ones’ castle atop unknown Kadath is of onyx.”

“And they sang many songs and told many tales, shewing such strange knowledge of the olden days and the habits of gods that Carter could see they held many latent memories of their sires the Great Ones.”

“Carter surmised from old tales that he was indeed come to that most dreadful and legendary of all places, the remote and prehistoric monastery wherein dwells uncompanioned the high-priest not to be described, which wears a yellow silken mask over its face and prays to the Other Gods and their crawling chaos Nyarlathotep.”

investigation: in the taverns of dylath-leen and elsewhere, carter shows a remarkable facility for collecting useful information. 

“Meanwhile he did not fail to seek through the haunts of far travellers for any tales they might have concerning Kadath in the cold waste or a marvellous city of marble walls and silver fountains seen below terraces in the sunset.”

history: same principle as arcana, really; a huge chunk of the information we get about the dreamlands comes with the mention that carter himself knows all this.

"[Carter] recognised the templed terraces of Zar, abode of forgotten dreams; the spires of infamous Thalarion, that daemon-city of a thousand wonders where the eidolon Lathi reigns; the charnal gardens of Xura, land of pleasures unattained, and the twin headlands of crystal, meeting above in a resplendent arch, which guard the harbour of Sona-Nyl, blessed land of fancy.” 

“The dead temples on the mountains were so placed that they could have glorified no wholesome or suitable gods, and in the symmetries of the broken columns there seemed to lurk some dark and inner meaning which did not invite solution. And what the structure and proportions of the olden worshippers could have been, Carter steadily refused to conjecture.”

“At last far below him he saw faint lines of grey and ominous pinnacles which he knew must be the fabled Peaks of Thok.”

“And Carter knew right well what they must be, for legend tells of only one such twain. They were the changeless guardians of the Great Abyss, and these dark ruins were in truth primordial Sarkomand.“

perception: despite his consistent failure to notice when people are lying to or tricking him, carter’s fairly observant of everything else.

“He noticed that these cottages [on the moon] had no windows, and thought that their shape suggested the huts of [the Inuit].*”

nature: concordant with his apparent skill in surviving in the world, carter is quite good at recognizing different natural phenomena.

“As the coast drew nearer, and the hideous stench of that city grew stronger, he saw upon the jagged hills many forests, some of whose trees he recognised as akin to that solitary moon-tree in the enchanted wood of earth, from whose sap the small brown zoogs ferment their peculiar wine.”

“They were not any birds or bats known elsewhere on earth or in dreamland, for they were larger than elephants and had heads like a horse’s. Carter knew that they must be the shantak-birds of ill rumour, and wondered no more what evil guardians and nameless sentinels made men avoid the boreal rock desert.”

persuasion: people tend to like carter quite a lot, and he excels at getting his way without resorting to violence.

“The captain, after landing, made Carter a guest in his own small house on the shore of Yath where the rear of the town slopes down to it; and his wife and servants brought strange toothsome foods for the traveller’s delight.”

“After much persuasion the ghoul consented to guide his guest inside the great wall of the gugs’ kingdom.”

“And all through that second day he made progress in knowing the men of the ship, getting them little by little to talk of their cold twilight land, of their exquisite onyx city, and of their fear of the high and impassable peaks beyond which Leng was said to be.”

“The ghoul that was Pickman glibbered gravely with its fellows, and in the end Carter was offered far more than he had at most expected.“

athletics: despite his apparently mediocre strength score, carter’s rather good at feats of athleticism (running long distances, climbing, etc)

“But there was a way, and he saw it in due season. Only a very expert dreamer could have used those imperceptible foot-holds, yet to Carter they were sufficient.”

“For hours he climbed with aching arms and blistered hands, seeing again the grey death-fire and Thok’s uncomfortable pinnacles. At last he discerned above him the projecting edge of the great crag of the ghouls, whose vertical side he could not glimpse; and hours later he saw a curious face peering over it as a gargoyle peers over a parapet of Notre Dame.”

“Once he thought he heard the hoofbeats of the frightened beast, and doubled his speed from this encouragement. He was covering miles, and little by little the way was broadening in front till he knew he must soon emerge on the cold and dreaded desert to the north.”

acrobatics: the multiple times over the course of the story carter falls from great distances, he manages to land on his feet. additionally, he’s apparently an accomplished climber, so make of that what you will.

stealth: as one might expect from a character who’s so used to going at problems slantwise, carter is very good at sneakery. 

“There was one chance that Carter might be able to steal through that twilight realm of circular stone towers at an hour when the giants would be all gorged and snoring indoors, and reach the central tower with the sign of Koth upon it, which has the stairs leading up to that stone trap-door in the enchanted wood.”

“Carter allowed his curiosity to conquer his fear, and crept forward again instead of retreating. Once in crossing an open street he wriggled worm-like on his stomach, and in another place he had to rise to his feet to avoid making a noise among heaps of fallen marble. But always he succeeded in avoiding discovery, so that in a short time he had found a spot behind a titan pillar whence he could watch the whole green-litten scene of action. “

FEATS

lucky: what it says on the tin; carter’s luck is extraordinary. multiple times during the novel, he’s saved from certain doom by a stroke of happy chance.

observant: a huge part of the text’s travelogue sense comes from carter noticing specific and responding to specific elements of his surroundings.

mobile: again, carter’s very quick and hard to pin down. sort of an extension of the idea behind giving him athletics proficiency, & one of his class features.

LANGUAGES

goblin: “Carter, however, had no fear; for he was an old dreamer and had learnt [the Zoogs’] fluttering language and made many a treaty with them.” small carnivorous pack-hunting creatures with a primitive society and language of their own sound pretty goblin-like to me.

celestial: when he reads them, carter is "disappointed by [...] the meagre help to be found in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan.” since these texts all concern the gods of the Dreamlands, we can safely assume they’re written in celestial.

undercommon: “A man he had known in Boston—a painter of strange pictures with a secret studio in an ancient and unhallowed alley near a graveyard—had actually made friends with the ghouls and had taught him to understand the simpler part of their disgusting meeping and glibbering.” honestly, what is the vale of pnath if not the underdark? it’s got cities and everything!

MISC. PROFICIENCIES

vehicles (water): “The sea party, commanded by Carter, boarded the anchored galley and rowed out to meet the undermanned galley of the newcomers.” not sure where he learned to sail— the miskatonic crew team, maybe, or summers on the cape?

thieves’ tools: never shows up in canon, but come on, obviously he’s got some trap-disarming/lock-picking ability! 

CLASS

BARD 11 / COLLEGE OF LORE

we know from the paratext of his narrative that carter is an artist— he’s a novelist, and a talented one at that. even here, though, his relevance and abilities are in large part due to his creative capabilities as a dreamer. it’s not exactly traditional barding, but I’d argue that what is a bard if not someone whose creativity reshapes the world? whether that takes place through the medium of music or just through the raw power of imagination is more a question of internal distinction than anything.

the college of lore is all about the seeking after of knowledge and beauty, forbidden or not. these bards are absolutely focused on the pursuit of truth at any and all costs, sometimes to their own demise. if there’s a better college for a doomed dreamer on a quixotic quest after something fleeting and beautiful, I don’t know it. here are some of the places in the text carter acts particularly college of lore-y:

“Carter felt that the lore of so far a traveller must not be overlooked.”

“At last, having gained all the information he was likely to gain in the taverns and public places of Baharna...”

“It was from these children of the exiled hill-people that Carter had heard the best tales about Ngranek when searching through Baharna’s ancient taverns.“

“And as that music grew, the shantak raised its ears and plunged ahead, and Carter likewise bent to catch each lovely strain. It was a song, but not the song of any voice. Night and the spheres sang it, and it was old when space and Nyarlathotep and the Other Gods were born. [...] Faster flew the shantak, and lower bent the rider, drunk with the marvels of strange gulfs, and whirling in the crystal coils of outer magic. Then came too late the warning of the evil one, the sardonic caution of the daemon legate who had bidden the seeker beware the madness of that song.“

ROGUE 9 / SCOUT

we mentioned above carter’s clear facility with the natural world, but more than that, his way of confronting (or not) the various sticky situations in which he finds himself is decidedly roguish. he sneaks about rather than plunge into a fight he knows he can’t win; he enlists other people to fight for him; he’s profoundly strategic about what conflicts does and doesn’t engage with, martial or otherwise. rogues are all about fighting smart, not hard; scouts in particular are all about self-sufficiency and solitary capability. I was actually torn between scout or inquisitive for his roguish archetype, considering as inquisitives are very much focused on detection, perception, and investigation— but ultimately inquisitives are far, far better at reading people than carter is, to the extent that one of their core class features relies on it. so, scout it is!

SPELLS 

and here we get into somewhat trickier territory, because our dear protagonist is not himself especially magical. I’m taking a little bit of liberty here for the sake of plausibility as a player character. we know from the text that carter is able to manipulate the world around him, if only subconsciously, because he’s a gifted dreamer. I tried to reflect that idea in his spell list, giving him a mix of enchantment and transmutation spells, with a few psychic damage and divination tricks thrown in. an important note: I can’t imagine carter casting spells like a regular bard, playing music or reciting poetry or giving a speech; instead, I imagine it would look a lot more like how your average sorcerer does things, re-writing reality through sheer force of will.

cantrips: minor illusion, mind sliver, mage hand, prestidigitation

1st level (4 slots): charm person, sleep, identify, longstrider, speak with animals

2nd level (3 slots): enlarge/reduce, enhance ability, suggestion, wristpocket

3rd level (3 slots): blink, clairvoyance, psionic blast, tongues

4th level (3 slots): charm monster, polymorph

5th level (2 slots): commune, legend lore

6th level (1 slot): eyebite

and there we have it! randolph carter the true neutral human 11th level bard/9th level rogue. I took the liberty of writing up his finished sheet (art credit @sator-the-wanderess​), which you can find viewable below as well. if anyone wants to actually play this version of carter (or a leveled down version) or use him in their game, please do, and please let me know!

LINK TO PDF CHARACTER SHEET

[femalechibiblogger]

My 15 Favorite Isekai Manga

1. That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime

Satoru Mikami is an ordinary 37 year old corporate worker living in Tokyo. He is almost content with his monotonous life, despite the fact that he doesn't have a girlfriend. During a casual encounter with his colleague, an assailant pops out of nowhere and stabs him. While succumbing to his injuries, a mysterious voice echoes in his mind and recites a series of commands which he could not make sense of.

After regaining consciousness, Satoru discovers that he has been reincarnated as a Slime in an unfamiliar world. At the same time, he also acquires new-found skills, particularly the ability called "Predator," which allows him to devour anything and mimic its appearance and skills. He stumbles upon Veldora, a Catastrophe-level 'Storm Dragon', who was sealed for 300 years for reducing a town to ashes. Feeling sorry for him, Satoru befriends the dragon, promising to help him in destroying the seal. In return, Veldora bestows upon him the name Rimuru Tempest, to grant him divine protection.

Now free from his stale past life, Rimuru embarks on a quest to prove his worth. As he starts to get used to his current physique, word of his weird accomplishments start to spread like wildfire across the world, changing his fate completely.

2. The Scholar’s Reincarnation 

A martial artist, claiming himself to be a “murderer” is defeated by a suicide attack in battle and is reborn as a first born child to a local lord. Having a fresh start, a warm family and a little sister to protect – he decides to become a better person in his new life.

3. Tensei Kizoku no Isekai Boukenroku ~Jichou wo Shiranai Kamigami no Shito~

Shiina Kazuya, our protagonist who got killed by a stranger when he tried to protect his childhood friend and little sister, reincarnated into Cain Von Silford as the third son in the world of sword and magic. Cain grew up being surrounded by Gods who doesn’t know self-esteem, the upper noble and the girls who are swayed around him. Being given so many protection from the gods, He overcame any obstacle (aka Flags) while hiding his unbelievable status. The noble path fantasy story of a young boy who sometimes wicked and clumsy.

4. They Say I Was Born A King’s Daughter

After spending most of her youth fielding the attention of countless wealthy suitors, Suhee Kim finally finds true love with a steady boyfriend named Jinsu Han. But then tragedy strikes, and Suhee is murdered in cold blood. To Suhee’s surprise, she is immediately reincarnated as a baby girl named Sanghee Kim, who just so happens to be a princess! Plus, she is fully conscious of her past life. 

There’s just one problem: In this society, women are seen as totally inferior, even princesses. Appalled by the treatment of women, Sanghee is determined to change the kingdom’s patriarchal ways. Will Sanghee be able to succeed, or will she be stuck living her second life being treated as a lowly woman?

5. Parallel World Pharmacy

A young pharmacologist and researcher in Japan died from overworking, and was reincarnated in a Medieval Parallel Europe. He was reincarnated as a 10-year-old apprentice to a famous Royal Court pharmacist, had attained an inhuman skills of ability to see through disease, material creation, and material destruction. In a society in which dubious medical practice are rampant, price gouging thru the monopoly of the pharmacist guild, and good medicine aren't available to the commoners. He was recognized by the Emperor at that time and opened a Pharmacy at the corner of the town. He will wipe out the fraud that has swept the world, and deliver to the commoners a truly effective medicine that was developed using present day pharmacology. Thus the boy pharmacist will cheat by using his previous knowledge to create innovative medicines while helping the people of the parallel world, a story about living his new life to the fullest this time.

6. I Am A Child Of This House

“Pink Eyes” has always lived a relatively normal (?) life, with two exceptions: first, she has gained memories of her previous life as Seo Young, and second, she is someone’s illegitimate daughter in I Am a Child of This House Manga.

One day however, when she turns 11 years old, her prostitute mother takes her to the empire’s sole duke and claims her as his child. Although he seems to not believe her, he nevertheless buys “Pink Eyes” for 20,000 gold. With that, her new life as “Estelle” starts.

But what truly awaits her? And is she really a child of this house?

7. Daughter of the Emperor

Ariadna Lereg Ilestri Pre Agrigent. And so my life begins with this ridiculously long name, born to royalty and the center of attention — all because of one dangerous man; the veritably insane tyrant king, ruthless conqueror of ten empires, nightmare of all continents… and my father?! Will I be able to survive this maniac?

8. The Cute Little Granny Hinata-chan

Worldly knowledge and artistic refinement! Hinata-chan is on a completely different level to your average toddler. But she has a secret... that she's the reincarnation of an 88 year old grandma, with her memories intact! Enjoying green tea on the veranda, a taste for pickles, and an old-fashioned dialect! Why has she been reincarnated? A comedy full of old-wives wisdom.

9. Isekai de Mofumofu Nadenade Suru Tame ni Ganbattemasu

After various things happened, I got an ability from God and reincarnated to another world! While being watched over by my high-spec family, the super ordinary me fully enjoyed other world life. Using the ability I received from God, I had a daily life of just fluffing and petting fantasy animals. There are some shady movements too, but while being led by the nose by God, I’ll do my best at various things with my cheat-like comrades!

10. In Another World, I’m Called: The Black Healer

One day, 22-year-old Kanzaki Misuzu is suddenly transported to a strange world. Based on the pop-up screens she can access, it seems she's entered some kind of RPG as a magic user! Luckily, she can use the gaming skills she acquired as an otaku to make her way in this new world. But before she knows it, people start calling her "the Black Healer"!!

11. The Youngest Princess

The archmage who ruled over a magic kingdom. One day, she was reborn as the youngest daughter of the empire! “I’ll just play along and pretend to be a baby. ...But don’t you think you guys like me a little too much?” They won’t leave her alone. The youngest princess is tired today as well.

12. Freeter ga Jimini Isekai Teni suru 

Meet Tanaka. He’s a 26-year-old freeter - a guy who makes his living on various part-time jobs. He works in warehouses, directs traffic, and generally does whatever work he can find in order to get paid. However, recently Tanaka has had a problem. He occasionally is transported into another world, usually in front of people who need help. Knowing nothing, can Tanaka add another part-time job to his repertoire?

13. The Small Sage Will Try Her Best In The Different World From Lv.1!

Kujo Yuuri, who had been playing Elysia Online, finally changed her occupation to the sage of her desire. Then, she was asked whether to go to the true Elyasia or not and selected [Yes], and somehow went to another world. Furthermore, she became a small child.

The small sage Yuuri and her companions’ love and adventure fantasy.

14. Beauty and the Beasts

As soon as she fell into the world of beast men, a leopard forcibly took her back to his home. Indeed, Bai Jingjing is at a complete and utter loss. The males in this world are all handsome beyond compare, while the women are all so horrid that even the gods shudder at their sight. As a first-rate girl from the modern world (she's even a quarter Russian), Bai Jingjing finds herself sitting at the center of a harem filled with beautiful men -- at the very peak of existence.

15. The Beast and His Pet High School Girl

On the way home from school, Kashiwagi Aki is kidnapped and finds herself in a world populated entirely by beastmen. She ends up in a pet store where the overzealous and impulsive wolfman Zinovy becomes infatuated with her and buys her on sight. Thus begins their strange and chaotic, albeit incredibly cute life.