#I’m an esoteric creature

[valiisi]

J L

May i ask the purpose of this val

It means “next post , like post” - the joke was go like every post on my blog lol

#Val talks #I’m an esoteric creature

[ddarker-dreams]

Do Puppets Dream of Electric Sheep?

Yan Scaramouche x F Reader.

Warnings: Yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, mild not SFW implications. Word count: 2.1k.

“What am I to you?” 

He stills. Your voice is as gentle as a mother crooning a lullaby to her newborn. Sweet, mild. Not intending to startle the sensitive creature who is unaccustomed to this world. It regurgitates memories of his progenitor. He can never clearly recall her countenance or the exact pitch of her voice, there are only formless blurs and warbled words that sounded far away. 

It is a small mercy that he never made out the specifics of her face. For it allows him to envision her in whatever manner suits him best. She can be the scheming Niwa Hisahide who sought to manipulate him, the sickly child who left him behind, or the mendacious kitsune whose promises for aid went unkept. His mother is the locus of his rage that branches out and bears rotten fruit.

You cease your previous task of combing his hair from behind. Artificial heat burns his cheeks when your chest presses against his back, your arms coiling around his slender shoulders like tendrils. The hold is tight enough to almost hurt. 

“Say, are you listening?” Your lips brush against his ear. He shivers. “Well, puppet?” 

Furniture clatters in a cacophony of noise. 

He stares at you, incredulous, his lips parting only to close again. He cycles through emotions and is unable to settle on one. 

How do…? You shouldn’t know that!

You pay him no mind. You fix the victims of his outburst, setting the stool upright and straightening the vanity’s various implements. Then you sit where he sat, smoothing the wrinkles in your skirt as you do so. You face him instead of the mirror, which has cracked into three disjointed fragments. 

The scene before him arouses confusion, then suspicion. His eyes eventually find their way to the mirror behind you. He barks a laugh at what he sees. The sound reverberates in the tiny room. Electro concentrates in his hands, crackling and ready to stain his surroundings crimson. He gives a malicious grin. 

It reflects in the cracked mirror, whereas your form does not. 

“A cheap parlor trick,” he muses. “I should’ve figured.” 

You aren’t her, he thinks. And how grateful he is to realize it. 

“I’m not?” You challenge, raising an eyebrow. What is this being capable of hearing his thoughts? The curve of your smile epitomizes everything you’ve never been: cruel and provocative. This ignis fatuus who dares to assume your form makes no attempt to flee from the attack writhing in his palms. “Well, I suppose there’s some truth to that. What you’re looking at now is what I am to become, not my present, corporeal self.” 

He studies “you” carefully. The pigmentation of your eyes, your intonation, and your body language; it lines up uncannily well, but your word choice is peculiar. There’s a callousness begotten to those burdened by esoteric knowledge, an experience he’s intimately familiar with. This can’t be a poorly executed emulation devised by that medical charlatan excommunicated by his peers, or an experience that aligns with the continuity of Teyvat’s laws. 

Is his conscious being tampered with by the gods? 

“I’m afraid not. We both know that panopticon has no interest in you. No, discarded prototype, think back to your creation. When was it determined you’d be of no use to Beelzebul?” 

He grits his teeth. That intrusive introspection is coming into play again. It’s as if his innermost sentiments have been printed out in large lettering for you to scrutinize. 

“So you’ve finally realized, although you’re hesitant to think it. I can’t blame you, nothing good ever comes from your dreams. Since you don’t require sleep, you were able to avoid this for some time… in trying to play human with me in reality, you’ll be judged by me in the one state where you are utterly powerless.” 

The energy gathering in his hand dissipates without him willing it. He tries in vain to summon it again, but the element no longer heeds his command. Clicking his tongue, he sits on the edge of the bed, then crosses his arms over his chest. He chastises himself for not noticing sooner. This room may appear to be an exact replica of the one you share, but the slightest details in its geometry betray the realm of possibility. Certain angles bend in inconceivable ways, the ceiling itself is drooping down like a viscous gel, the descent so slow, it’s near imperceptible. 

Dreams, pesky as they may be, are always destined to end. He need only wait for this torment to run its course. 

“If that’s the stance you’ve decided to take, why not answer my question?” 

He feigns ignorance for a beat, despite knowing full well the inquiry you’re referring to. You allow him his temporary repose. 

“What you are to me is a nuisance. A meaningless manifestation that I’ll forget about as soon as I wake,” he replies. How strange it is, taking this baleful tone toward an image of you. You are the sole individual he doesn’t regard with pure loathing, and as such, he treats you with a tenderness he thought himself previously incapable of. He can’t recall a time when contempt felt unnatural, like the first time he mimicked human breathing. 

This veneer of nonchalance is forced and he knows it. The mirage taking on your comely likeness is seeping under his synthetic skin, spreading malaise and decay. 

“Oh? That’s an awfully bold statement, but, nevertheless, let’s entertain it a while longer.” 

You clap twice and the surroundings shift. 

His limbs are dragged upward by an unrelenting force — red strings as formidable as piano wire. He struggles out of instinct. This futile act only serves to tighten the binds. Upon realizing this, he goes limp, noting that your presence is no longer visible. 

He has an unobstructed view of the cracked mirror, its jagged edges displaying three different images. 

To the left, he sees himself wearing the outfit he first awoke with, the golden feather dangling from his neck. The middlemost portion is accurate in its portrayal, unlike the others. It shows the glint of the mitsudomoe symbol upon his chest which he considers his birthright. The right fragment is nearly indiscernible, aside from hues of teal that swirl as if spurred on by the wind. 

The mirror shatters.

Light footsteps circle around him. He wrenches his head in the direction of the ambient sounds, identifying no clear source. 

“Even if you forget about me now, according to your designs, we’ll meet again. This “me” that’s been tainted and corrupted by your selfish intent. In trying to preserve me, you’ll be my ruin. You already know that though, don’t you? That your desperate clinging will drag us both down to unfathomable depths. It’s true, that by never letting me die, you’ll have an eternity with me…” 

You materialize in front of him, standing with your hands behind your back. The casual stance is at odds with the venom you spew forth. Just as before, everything about your physical appearance is correct, save for a single, damning detail. Your eyes glow a luminescent violet — that of Inazuma’s reclusive deity, whose gnosis he intends to commandeer, even if he must tear it from her himself. 

“But is that the eternity you truly wish for?” 

It isn’t. Of course it isn’t. 

What else was he to do? 

Watch helplessly as your biological clock ticks on while the hands on his remain frozen in place? Witness your final until you breathe your last breath, then allow your husk to be buried in the cold, unfeeling ground? His is a life of apprehension. That by some cruel twist of fate, you’ll fall victim to the many pitfalls mortals are vulnerable to. Illness, injury, violence, the list goes on and on. His overactive imagination serves as a personal purgatory that churns out images of your downfall every moment he is not by your side. 

Upon returning to your quaint little cottage on the outskirts of civilization, trepidation eats at him like maggots upon a corpse. If he can’t find you tending to your garden, baking in your kitchen, or lounging on the swing hanging from the old oak tree in your front yard, madness slithers at his heels, ready to pierce him with its fangs. 

You may never forgive him, but he couldn’t forgive himself if he let the one thing he cherishes in this joke of a world leave him behind. 

“I won't look at you the way I once did. The me who speaks your true name, spends days wondering when you’ll return from your traveling ‘job’, gladly welcomes you into her bed, granting you access to her most sacred body and soul; you will never see her again. She will exist in your memory alone.”  

Your pointer finger hovers over his trembling lower lip, then descends, over his Adam’s apple and in between his collarbones. 

“Having savored these pleasures once freely given, you’ll have no choice but to take them by force. You’ll defile me and insist it’s worship. Bitterness might whet your palate, but you’ll never have your fill. Can you call that love, poor puppet? Or will you rightfully refer to it as ownership?” 

All verbal exchanges cease. 

In this nightmare blurring the lines of what if, where he is but a spectator rather than an active participant, he laughs. It echoes in his hollow chest cavity where no fleshly heart beats. Your physiognomy goes blank in the face of such blatant malignity. He hangs here, a tossed-aside marionette, consumed by a paroxysm of emotion he once swore to wipe clean from his chest. 

“If this is an attempt to appeal to my conscience, it won’t work,” his grin nearly splits his face in two. “Harass me every night, for all I care. I’ll accept it. I’ll accept anything. Every form of you… every possible iteration, no matter how unsightly, beautiful, indifferent, or anything in between, I want it. There isn’t a version of you that can deter me. The real you offered herself to me for a lifetime — who am I to turn down such an alluring offer?” 

You pull away from him. 

The absence of your touch is worse than any physical torture you could inflict. He’ll take your loving caresses, your hand ripping into his chest, so long as he can familiarize himself with your genuine warmth. Such is the resolve of a puppet who has endured the biting blizzard of loneliness. Destroy him and he’d rebuild. Ignore him and he’ll pry the words from your mouth. Attempt to leave him and he’ll ensnare you in a trap that neither of you can escape from. 

This advocate for your future is washed away in a sea of ink, black as night, untouchable and ever-present as a shadow. The cascading wave swallows you whole. 

You depart with a final threnody.

“Until we meet again, then.” 

…

…

…

Something brushes over his cheek. 

“... Kuni? Kunikuzushi? Ah, what do I do, you aren’t waking up…! Insults? Do I try insults? Uh, you’re of less than average height—”

“Quiet down, woman, you’re loud,” Scaramouche complains with a groan.

You’re hovering above him. It’s a heavenly sight — if he were a believer in such things — the upturning of your eyebrows, the flow of your hair tousled by interrupted sleep, and the temptation of your soft, parted lips. Warmth emanates from your body. He delights in it. Swears a silent oath to himself that he’ll never be without it. 

“The insult worked,” you whisper, content with your quick thinking. Then, remembering the situation, you’re back to fussing over him. “Are you okay? You must’ve been having an awful nightmare.” 

His lips form a thin line. “... Something like that.” 

“What was it about?” 

“You,” he forces an unperturbed tone. Although he’s still hazy from sleep, he’s used to bending the truth. Or in this case, covering the parts he doesn’t want you to see. “I have to deal with you in the realm of conscious and unconscious now. Terrifying, right?” 

The sarcasm successfully draws your attention elsewhere. 

“Absolutely. So terrifying, in fact, I better sleep elsewhere so as not to frighten my— oof!” 

“Oh no you don’t,” he pulls you against his chest, preemptively ending your getaway, “You’re not going anywhere.” 

You willingly collapse into his hold, laughing softly. Though you’re no longer trying to wriggle away, his grip is ironclad, his arms trembling. He interweaves himself into you with a tangle of limbs. Once he’s content, he presses his face against the thrumming pulse in your neck. This stream that maintains your life is temporary — a subpar placeholder until you’re imbued with immortality. Still, he cherishes it, this special rhythm that has sustained you long enough for your paths to interconnect. 

He gives your pulse a chaste, reverent kiss. 

Your paths are bound to never diverge, even if damnation is where they'll lead.

#scaramouche x reader #yandere scaramouhe x reader #yandere x reader #yandere #genshin x reader #yandere genshin impact x reader #yandere kunikuzushi x reader #my stuff

[punksocks]

House Synastry Observations:

-I feel like you just have planet energy, like show up through your personality but you come into house energy as you go through stages in life:

-1st house synastry: As you’re coming onto your own; establishing your identity; learning the most about yourself

-2nd house synastry: As you’re getting into finances; at your first job; finding the first ways to earn and spend money; sometimes hookups; getting into creature comforts and finding out what helps you relax (I personally met a lot of Sagittarius placements when I was first finding other artists to create with)

-3rd house synastry: As you go through early education; in early neighborhoods as well; this can also be the rising sign of one of your siblings (my sibling right after me has this as his rising sign)

-4th house synastry: Your childhood years; childhood friends; Can easily be one of your parents’ placements (my mom’s sun and my dad’s moon but my Uranus)

-5th house synastry: As you learn to have fun; when you explore socializing and creating for the heck of it; friends that you go on your first daytime adventures with; casual hookups; the years when you’re just learning about the world; maybe when/if you have kids

-6th house synastry: As you tighten up your daily routine; as you get healthy/fight chronic illnesses; as you figure out the work place and how to get along with colleagues

-7th house synastry: as you date seriously; while you’re looking for love; while you’re looking for any sort of partnership to balance out your life (friends, business partners, etc)

-8th house synastry: while you’re exploring the taboo; while you’re exploring your s*xuality; hookups (again)! (I’ve hooked up with more Geminis than clinically recommended lol)

-9th house synastry: while pursuing higher education (in college/grad school); while getting into church/synagogue/religion at an institution; while traveling and meeting people from other cultural backgrounds

-10th house synastry: while coming into your own in your career; while investing in your public image (influencers, public speaking,relating to the public in general); while managing your own business (now that I’m coming into my career I’m meeting a lot of people with placements in my 10th house)

-11th house synastry: While building up/investing in your community; while volunteering; while online in community groups/forums; while on social media in general

-12th house synastry: While being introspective and investigating yourself; while creating; while exploring spirituality and the esoteric (tarot, astrology, etc)

#astro observations #astro notes #astroblr #astro community #houses #synastry

[rogueddie]

Creature Feature Steddie Fics

Important: READ THE TAGS! Also, leave a comment and kudos! These fics are amazing and I love them and I hope y'all do too 🖤

Who Embraces the Monsters

novemberthorne

"I'll never fucking forget you," Steve tells Eddie genuinely, letting himself feel all those vulnerable things he usually just swallows down.

Eddie just looks.

The black ink under his skin has spread into his face, and it's pulsing, shifting under the surface, moving like a living thing. It's seeped into his eyes, black bleeding into the white of them and starting to take over.

Then Eddie smiles, and it's a monster's smile.

"Go," he just says.

And despite every cell in his body rioting against it, Steve leaves.

Words : 10,373 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Mature

AO3 : x

Cassiopeia, Orion, Bootes

AidaRonan

When Steve finds the flyer for Bayou Bobby's midnight swamp tours, he's excited to finally get the opportunity to do something interesting on his work trip to New Orleans. Until he finds out he's human bait for something that lives in the swamp. Something with claws and scales and eyes that glow red in the moonlight.

Words : 10,780 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Explicit

AO3 : x

and the ships are left to rust

severaldragons

There is something strange in Lovers Lake, and Eddie Munson is a sucker of the highest order.

Words : 4,499 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Teen And Up Audiences

AO3 : x

Don't Talk to Strangers (Cause They're Only There to Do You Harm)

montemoon

Eddie Munson decides to summon a demon, he gets Steve. What's the worst that could happen?

Words : 12,110 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Mature

AO3 : x

paradise by the dashboard light.

oaseas

Things were weird in Hawkins. The fields were rotting, there was something in the woods, and Steve Harrington's Beemer had a new problem every week.

Words : 154,035 Chapters : 8/8 Rating : Teen And Up Audiences

AO3 : x

Hic sunt dracones

Just_my_latest_hyperfixation

The day that Prince Steven Harrington turns twenty is the first sunny spring day after a seemingly endless spell of heavy rain that left the castle grounds drowning in mud and its inhabitants freezing and miserable in the inescapable dampness of everything.

But that is not why he will remember it so vividly for the rest of his life.

It is also the day that his father, King Richard, chooses to ride off into war with great fanfare, to strengthen the glory of Hawkins and expand its wealth and territory.

But this also isn’t why the day will be forever ingrained in his memory.

No, the actual reason Steve knows that he will not forget his twentieth birthday until the moment his heart stops beating and his eyes close forever is an entirely different one.

It is the day he finds the dragon.

Words : 99,706 Chapters : 15/15 Rating : Explicit

AO3 : x

I’m on the Hunt (I’m After You)

OhlioOh

Odd is Eddie Munson’s thing, acquiring knowledge of the esoteric and strange a core tenet of his personality. Yet Hawkins National Park had been one big, beautiful blind spot. Plenty of people visit, plenty of people vanish, and yet not a soul is talking about it.

Something is stalking these woods, and Eddie is going to be the one to find it.

If only Park Ranger Steve Harrington wasn’t such a giant, unfairly attractive pain in his ass.

Words : 16,362 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Explicit

AO3 : x

Runnin' With the Devil

Monsterunderthefedora

Eddie "The Freak" Munson continues to live up to his name when he tries to summon a demon as a joke. Not only does it work but now he's stuck with the guy until he can finally decides what he's willing to trade his soul for.

Steve just wants to finish the job as quickly as possible but despite himself, finds he's falling in love with the mortal who summoned him. He knows this won't end well for either of them.

Words : 17,412 Chapters : 15/15 Rating : Teen And Up Audiences

AO3 : x

I'm Going Through Changes

Hawkkind

When Steve Harrington tossed all the kids up out of the tunnels to safety, knowing he'd be left behind for the pack to feast on, he had expected to die. One moment he was in extricating pain, begging for release, the next? He was waking up, dazed, confused, and impossibly alive.

Post rebirth, he's dealing with strange cravings. Not exactly his fault, but no good deed goes unpunished.

Now in this time of uncertainty, how is he supposed to explain to the local drug dealer that he is not in fact, tweaking out and or a murderer.

Words : 2,961 Chapters : 1/1 Rating : Teen and Up Audiences

AO3 : x

#stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #fic rec #ficrec

[gale-gaze]

Hi! I was checking some BG3 stuffs and I saw this link of yours: https://www.tumblr.com/gale-gaze/728783407928246272/you-must-have-been-lonely?source=share Where or what you did to get him to say this? I have romanced him 3 full times and this is the first time I seen this and is very sad ;-;

Hello, hi and howdy! 👋

[ This Set ] has a few pieces of dialogue taken from the overall Tiefling Party scene - below the cut is the full transcript of my dialogue tree, with the lines I used bolded to show you placement in the overall scene! 💜✨

[ Gale Tiefling Party Dialogue ]

✨ Gale:

Beautiful night, don’t you think? Nothing like a brush with destruction to make one appreciate the majesty of the celestial canvas. It’s a view I would once have shared with my companion, though definitely unaccompanied by such revelry. She preferred it when we were alone; curled up before a crackling hearth with some ancient, esoteric tome between us, ink glinting in the firelight.

✨ Tav:

Are you… are you talking about your cat?

✨ Gale:

By Ahghairon’s lost nose - no! Tara is not any cat - she’s a tressym, and given your confusion, I’m guessing you’ve never met one. They’re brilliant creatures, fine company for any self-respecting wizard. She’d be most impressed by our efforts saving these tieflings - proud, even. And I’ve given her little to be proud of recently. After I was afflicted with my condition, I locked myself in my tower for an entire year. I was inconsolable - wallowing in my self-inflicted tragedy. Given up on myself - but Tara never did. It was her encouragement, her research that lead me to my treatment. Once we knew magically infused items were the key, she went out to find them for me. She saved my life. After so long being cared for by someone else, it feels good to have repaid the favor. Not directly to Tara, but to these poor tieflings - I’m sure she would approve.

✨ Tav:

You must have been lonely, with only Tara for company…

✨ Gale:

Sometimes, but I imposed it on myself after all. I set up enough wards to keep an army at bay, never mind the few colleagues who sought to inquire about my welfare. Tara did her best to keep my spirits up of course, but there’s only so much one tressym can make up for one’s entire social circle. She was often gone, seeking items to treat my condition. You’re the first person I’ve spent any significant time with in a year or more. Spending time in your company, I realize that I may have left behind the greater part of my wit and sensitivity in my tower.

#baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 spoilers #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #bg3 gale

[beesmygod]

old hunters DLC also highlights some themes of colonial violence and exploitation too, imo. what’s been done to the fishing village and kos ties the beast thing up with this idea that like, the impulse to Conquer and Dominate another leads directly to the Curse. It’s not enough to understand the old ones and the blood and all that, they needed to control it, to take it for themselves, and exploit it however they can. And now there’s wolfmans everywhere.

And this is in the core gameplay loop itself, we extract all the vials and blood echos and blood gems that we can in order to become strong enough to conquer more and more powerful prey. When we’re hit, we hit back harder and take back the life that was taken for us. Sure it’s ostensibly to Break the Curse and seek Paleblood and all that, but we know why we’re really doing it. Because it’s sick as hell, and feels awesome to best these monsters. The old hunters knew that too, and it turns them into giant horse creatures unable to do anything besides violence. That thirst for violence and power makes hunters turn into beasts, now only functioning as a cog in a perpetual violence machine. They lose their humanity not through repeated death like in Dark Souls, but through taking life. It turns the characters into monsters, and the players into wiki editors and lore theorists (aka monsters) bc we also can’t let go of the feeling Bloodborne gives us.

Tl;dr: Bloodborne is like if Spec Ops had any subtlety or desire to leave itself up to interpretation (probably helped by the fact that very little of what I’m talking about is likely intentional and I’m just insane)

OKAY im back from my appointment and finished my little treat. anon ("anon" @chicknparm who should get credit for these good thoughts) i could not agree more. i mentioned this in a previous post but finding a strand of commentary about the evils of colonialism made me worried i was becoming dangerously online, but it's a relief to see someone else mention this idea. i think you are absolutely right that one of the overt messages in bloodborne is that spilling blood for your own benefit leads to ruin. its actually kind of shocking how, in spite of the combat being the draw to these games, the message of most fromsoft games is a message of anti-violence. like, how many times do we end up fighting something that, in hindsight, needed to be put out of its misery. oh. shit. thinking about it, our player character is explicitly an outsider. the role of hunter of hunter is filled by outsiders...

also lol you are so right about the wiki based insanity but i think that's the consequences of insight poisoning. literally every once in a while while trying to edit this stupid bloodborne doc i think to myself "oooeergg too many eyes" and take a break for a few days

anyway, turning this back around to the colonialism theme, hear us out ok: watching/reading the sekiro lore videos/posts by shetani of shetani's lair helped introduce a lot of esoteric buddhist and shinto concepts that were totally novel and unknown to be as a baka gaijin. now these ideas are impossible not to see in all of from's other works.

i did a few days of research on "shinshi" (mostly a lot of stuff that turned out to not be relevant, but interesting) after becoming aware of them and found they shared a lot of qualities with the augurs (or "phantasms", invertebrates that act as intermediaries to the great ones) of bloodborne. realizing this, i thought about the great ones not in the context of a christian god, as the MODERN yharnam does, but as kami. kami are numerous, everywhere, hidden, and are thought of as actively controlling or influencing the terrestrial world. the re-translation reveals that the "great pthumeru chalice" had some nuance lost in translation: "祀る - Means to enshrine or worship, but has connotations of doing it to appease spirits so they may reach nirvana or Buddhahood and avoid becoming evil"; this is simply translated to "deify" which is technically correct but the original feels like it's much more pointed about finally revealing to the player that the "gods" as we've been lead to believe them to be are not what they seem.

the healing church, a product of georgian to victorian era western beliefs, razed pthumeru, loran, isz, and the fishing village (and probably yahar'gul too) in the quest to become like their newly discovered gods. the framework by which they related to pthumerian culture was completely wrong and misunderstood the nature of "gods" as all knowing or all powerful and, thus, something aspirational. the reality was more that they are just another type of creature in the world with different limitations than a human. and they're still mortal.

[theprissythumbelina]

Mortal Sparks

Maius 5th, 4593 AP: Diary of Alyss Enberdale

People are bad at describing things. My aunt fought in the first war, and she told me it was like being an ant on a running track. Sometimes you wander around doing ant things, and sometimes a trampling horde of foreign creatures run atop and leave you untrampled by chance as your fellows are smashed.

I fought in the second war, and it wasn't much like anything. It was like nothing. It was war and war is only like itself. It's surviving, and then at some point, you realize to survive you’ve ended someone’s life and you don’t even feel bad about it. And you feel bad for not feeling bad. And then everyone tells you you’re acting strange, but they’re the ones that took normal people and exploded things in their face and made them kill people whose faces they never see and they tell you you’re acting strange. 

They called it combat fatigue like I drank too much disgusting coffee and didn’t sleep right at 9:30 that night and acted grumpy the next day. I don’t have a better word. I like my aunt's word better. Shell shock. Not professional enough for the military, but it's better for me. 

My CO recommended me for leave after the incident. That’s what they call it in the military, an incident. You can’t describe it. I told my aunt that and she told me you can, if you give it time. They gave me a few months. A few months to see if I was dangerous or useful and when I was neither they threw me away. I can describe how I feel. I feel like gum. Old gum. The war was a mouth that chewed and chewed and chewed until all my flavor leeched away, then it spat me on the sidewalk. I’m on the sidewalk to this day. I’m a spot on the sidewalk.

_____________________________________________________________

Chapter One

Here, at the end of summer, roses and wildflowers bloomed one last time before autumn’s cold. Nicolette crouched among them on the side of the road, rooting for the husks of cicadas that had already mated and died. She had figured out long ago that clients didn’t appreciate knowing the true origins of their patience tea, though that didn’t stop housewives and schoolteachers from buying it in cans that they pretended to their husbands were coffee. 

Her apron pockets full, she stood and began to make her way back through town, past the over-decorated municipal hall, through Main Street with faded advertisements for meats, butter, and milk. At 7:40 on a Sunday, the whole town was empty, the entire populace segregated away in one of the two churches. 

Most respectable citizens sat in the Imperial Cesarian Church, a stately building of thick walls and plaster statues. They called the congregation of the newer Alastrian Church ‘rabble’ and ‘uncultured’, while the Alastrians called the Cesarians ‘esoteric’ and ‘unwelcoming’. The Cesarians were quite sure the Alastrians didn’t even know what esoteric meant, but it was a moot point trying to teach those who did not want to learn. 

Nicolette was fairly sure she did know what esoteric meant, and that the Alastrians were using it correctly, but as neither group took any notice of her beyond buying her charms and teas, she kept her thoughts to herself, and simply nodded when members of either church attempted to impart their wisdom in her earshot. No one cared what she had to say anyway. 

The last two story building marked the edge of town proper, with the pavement petering to a stop a few feet further. Still, the chipper, clean one story homes continued. Nicolette, as was her habit, paused here, her toes right at the end of black pavement. Daisy’s home sat clean and peach-colored three houses down. Her father should have returned from his business trip last night, smelling like bus and cigarette smoke. Maybe he hugged her with his briefcase in his hand. Maybe he went right to bed. Maybe Daisy had stayed up for him later than usual, worrying with a cup of tea in her hand. It wouldn’t have been Nicolette’s tea, Daisy always said it made her sleepy. It would have been raspberry, maybe, or chamomile. 

But Nicolette wasn’t welcome there anymore, father or no father, and so she turned to the right and made her way through the alley between the last store building and the first house. This road wasn’t even gravel, but dirt. A small crevasse made by spring rainwater meandered its way from one side of the road to the other, forcing Nicolette to hop across it twice before it escaped into the house’s fenced yard. She walked past the houses on the other side as well, slightly more dilapidated than the first, and through an empty lot of gravel to the backside of her own house. Houses on this row, those that were inhabited, tended toward small and grey-brown. Most didn’t have a large padlock around the low front gate. Nicolette didn’t bother unlocking it, but stepped up over a cinderblock and slid down the other side, holding her skirt taught. The yard grass had turned brown months ago. The only living thing in the yard besides Nicolette herself was half of a heritage rosebush. It had been her mother’s, and Nicolette did her best to keep it alive. 

Her door was locked as well, this one a shiny, new lock. Nicolette lifted the key from around her neck and twisted it into the hole. Her mother had never had to lock the door. People knew better than to come over uninvited. But this lock was to keep the inside from coming out. 

Inside, Nicolette faced the wall, listening to the thump, drag, thump. 

“Hi, Mama.” She said softly. She turned, and faced her mother’s clouded eyes. 

End snippet

______________________________________________________________

This is the first snippet I've posted in a long while, and I would especially appreciate feedback! The chapter heading section is a part of one of the MC's diary, written in first person, and the actual chapter is third person from the other MC's perspective. This is meant to introduce both at the same time, and as the book continues, the reader will get insight into Alyss' past while the plot continues in the main chapter with Nicolette in the present. Thoughts, likes, dislikes and others appreciated!

Tagging for eyes, I don't do this often so please excuse the intrusion! @thetruearchmagos @sam-glade (thank you for your advice by the way) @thewriteflame @autumnalwalker (I'm counting this as a WIP extract) @pheita @chauceryfairytales @dyrewrites @thewriteflame @teacupsandstarlight @theathenverse @sergeantnarwhalwrites @winterandwords @hessdalen-globe @writeblrsupport @jacqueswriteblrlibrary

#writing #writeblr #nicolette #my writing #wip mortal sparks #writing snippets #original fiction #original fantasy #feedback requested #writeblr community #prisswrites #original excerpt

[takeyourcyanide]

A Sense of Calm Before the Inevitable Storm

(Soul Eater Fanfiction)

A feeling akin to boredom, of which few could truly comprehend.

He felt as though his very existence was esoteric, a rebellion of some sort. This boredom, this certain dissatisfaction with the banality that surrounded him constantly buzzed within his mind. It led him to chase incessantly after even the tiniest bursts of dopamine, adrenaline, and curiosity. This pursuit of curiosity and his own, often drastic desires is something of which he was never a stranger to. Even as a small, young child, despite the fact that small, young children are meant to be innocent and sweet creatures. This ultimately left him entirely alone, something of which he never once minded.

Staring into his washroom mirror, he contemplated deeply his humanity, just as it seemed many had already. What he sees within the mirror is, though familiar, distant. Unreal. He is aware that this body is meant to be “his”, of course, but is still left to ponder the validity of that supposed “fact”. His eyes appeared so unbelievably misplaced from the body he peered at, seemingly belonging to the likings of a bloated corpse, as opposed to a live human with blood still coursing through its veins.

Despite his being lost in thought, he acknowledged the fact that it would be best to move on from his dimly lit washroom. He moved to his computer screen, of which had been long ago placed upon his desk inside of the office area of his laboratory, of which, too, is particularly dark. Within his PC were hundreds upon hundreds of files worth of scientific research and general

inquires. In his current state of mind, he practically felt utterly nothing towards his dedication to the sciences. For he recognizes that where there is man, he does not belong, even within the scientific community, in the end. Laws and regulations will always be oppressing.

He has his head resting upon his keyboard, a seemingly endless string of numbers and letters being accidentally typed into the bar in which one is meant to enter their password. His body feels heavy and fatigued, even simply twitching is a cumbersome task to carry out. After all, it takes all of his energy to exhibit the amount of self control that he must every single day, and has every single day for his entire life.

He hears little whispers every so often, the product of a tired and drowsy mind, surely. Hopefully. The creaking of the doors to his living quarters/laboratory stir him from his floaty, dazed, dream-like state of mind. The woman has returned now. She had blonde hair that fell, quite prettily, just a few centimeters past her shoulders. Her light brown eyes squinted as she struggled and strained to see in the dark, distantly viewing the burning and piercing light of his monitor. The woman adorned a black, long sleeved shirt, of which had something akin to a v-neck style collar, with the actually collar standing slightly tall. The shirt was corset like in the waist. She wore a long skirt of a matching black, only with golden stripes on the sides. This all being paired with a pair of gray heels. A considerably odd pairing.

“Franken?”

Her voice, whilst gentle, felt a bit grating on his ears in his current state of mind. Despite this, he almost didn’t mind it, as her voice sometimes assisted him in distracting himself from his thoughts and crippling desire to smoke a fine cigarette.

She entered the room.

“Stein? What are you doing lying there? Are you all right?” She inquired, eyes giving away her clear concern. Stein can hardly bother to lift his head, though he tries his best to at the very least position his eyes in such a way that he can see more than her shoes, and the bottom half of her skirt. “I’m fine, Marie.” He replies, voice dripping in misery, tiredness, and emptiness. Upon hearing this clear lie escape his mouth, she lifted her fingers to run them delicately through his bangs, in order to uncover his green, dull eyes. His body subsequently tensed for a brief moment under her tender touch. Marie simply decided upon continuing the act of thinning her lithe fingers through his hair.

The act itself felt intimate. A common affectionate gesture used in this context to utter feelings that could not be conveyed. She knew that she could not fully understand his suffering, but was content to remain patient. He wanted to express whatever small amount of gratitude he hoped was there, as a man who could not feel regular human emotions as regular humans do. He at the very least found her desire to at least attempt to understand him endearing.

‘He seems to enjoy this,’ she notes, happily. Though the struggles he bears and the boredom he faces remains evident on his visage, his body felt, if only just the slightest bit, less tense.

And for a few tranquil minutes, they remain silent.

That is, until…

“Marie?”

“Yes?”

“I want- no… I need to dismember you. I’m not sure how much I longer I can continue like this.”

The voice- the way in which he speaks and sounds is utterly indescribable. You can hardly tell he is even alive.

His face - his appearance… so incredibly disheveled. He almost looks as though he’s experienced shell shock of some kind - or even perhaps endured great trauma, all within the span of one day.

She only continues to graciously run her fingers through his hair, and gently caress and scratch his scalp.

He hums in response. The hum reverberates lightly against his throat.

A sense of calm before the inevitable storm that awaited them.

#soul eater #dr stein #marie mjolnir #Franken stein #depersonalization #derealization #hallucinations #boredom #cigarette

[clericofsune]

How to Play as Raven in Pathfinder 2e

I’ve only recently started looking into Pathfinder 2e almost entirely on a random whim, and was surprised to learn just how malleable and adaptive the building process could be. So, for those who play Pathfinder 2e, I figured I’d return to beat a dead horse and talk about how to play my all-time favorite superhero in this game. Keep in mind, I’m a lot newer to Pathfinder than I am to Dungeons and Dragons, so I might make a mistake or two along the way.

ANCESTRY HUMAN ANCESTRY, TIEFLING HERITAGE DEMON LINEAGE

In Pathfinder, race comes in two stages. Ancestry is your main “race”, while Heritage defines the kind of that sort of creature that you are. Tieflings in Pathfinder are only a Versatile Heritage, allowing someone to be a Dwarf Tiefling, an Elf Tiefling, or a Skeleton Tiefling. Raven’s mother, Arella, is a Human, so we’ll say Raven has Human Ancestry and Tiefling Heritage. Characters get Ancestry Feats as they level up, so Raven gets to choose from Human and Tiefling options. Furthermore, Tieflings have a number of Lineage feats that are entirely optional, but must be taken at level 1. Raven does not have to take these feats if she does not want to. Raven can have a lineage descended from Devils, Demons, Daemons, Rakshasa, Velstrac, or Qlippoth. Of these, Trigon maps the closest to a Demon, so we’ll say that if Raven wants to take Lineage feats, she should take the Pitborn and Demon Magic feats that mark her as having Demon Lineage if she so chooses.

BACKGROUND

For her background, a few stood out. When I build characters, I try not to only think of what’s the best choice, but to lay out my entire thought process to let people make their own conclusions and tweak my builds to suit their own preferences. In Pathfinder 2nd Edition, Backgrounds give +1 to 2 stats, one of which must be between one of two options. For instance, the Scholar background makes you take either INT or WIS, plus a second of your choosing, so you could choose INT and DEX or WIS and CHA. Most also usually give you training in 2 skills, and one extra feat is attached to the background that you choose.

CHOSEN ONE (Rare): Raven is the Chosen One of Trigon’s prophecy. Any feature with the (Uncommon) or (Rare) marker is not “core rules”, and therefore should be discussed with your DM as to its applicability. STATS: STR or CHA SKILLS: one related to your prophecy, Lore: Fortune-Telling FEAT: Prophecy’s Pawn (unique)

CULTIST: Arella was literally in Trigon’s cult. That’s how she came to be Raven’s mother. So, by proxy, one could make the same conclusions about Raven. STATS: INT or CHA SKILLS: Occultism, Lore: Cult of Trigon FEAT: Schooled in Secrets

MAGICAL EXPERIMENT (Rare): We only want the Enhanced Senses feature. Tieflings already get Low-Light vision, so Enhanced Senses gives Raven Dark Vision and Thoughtsense, letting her see in the dark and sense things with her mind. STATS: CON SKILLS: Occultism, Lore: Academia FEAT: Enhanced Senses (unique)

OCCULT LIBRARIAN: They collect creepy tomes about esoteric mysteries ancient magics, and forbidden lore. Sounds like Raven. STATS: INT or WIS SKILLS: Occultism, Lore: Academia FEAT: Schooled in Secrets

SCHOLAR: You studied magical lore, becoming trained in either Arcana, Occultism, or Religion. STATS: INT or WIS SKILLS: (Arcana, Occultism, Nature, or Religion), Lore: Academia FEAT: Assurance

STUDENT OF MAGIC: This is just another variation of Scholar and Occult Librarian, just with a different free feat. STATS: INT or WIS SKILLS: (Arcana, Occultism, Nature, or Religion), Lore: Academia FEAT: Recognize Spell

CLASS OPTIONS

I’ve built Raven in Dungeons and Dragons before, but Pathfinder uses different classes and has different subclasses as well. It’s also worth pointing out that a lot of the time, “subclasses” are rather bare-bones. Most of the build comes from the many varieties of feats you get access to. Feats are linked to classes, ancestry, and skills, meaning that these elements are more important when building Raven, whereas DnD 5e puts more of the emphasis on the subclass. Meanwhile, Pathfinder 2e seems to treat subclasses more like additional flavor rather than the crux of the build. Some subclasses, like Sorcerers and Clerics come with a few set spells or features, while others are largely indistinguishable. The only real difference between an Abjuration wizard and an Enchantment wizard is that they add one 1st level spell of their school to their spell list, and get a subclass unique spell that’s not cast with spell slots, but rather, with focus points. Furthermore, different gods can give different spells, meaning that what deity Raven worships as a Cleric is just as important as which domain she chooses. Even as a Knowledge Domain Cleric, there’s a difference between worshiping Pharasma, Raumya, and Mephistopheles. The Cleric Spells came from the god you chose, while the Domain Spells came from the Domain you chose.

CLERIC MAGIC DOMAIN (Nethys)

Divine Ability: Wisdom or Intelligence Divine Font: Harm or Heal Divine Skill: Arcana Favored Weapon: Staff Cleric Spells: Magic Missile, Magic Mouth, Levitate, Blink, Prying Eye, Wall of Force, Warp Mind, Maze, Disjunction Domain Spells: Magic’s Vessel, Mystic Beacon

Across the official deities, while I’ve only given it a cursory glance being relatively new to Pathfinder’s lore, I believe that Nethys is the most fitting deity for Raven to worship, a god of Knowledge, Magic, Protection, and Glyph Domains. While the Darkness Domain is fitting for her shadow magic, none of the official deities seemed to really feel like they fit Raven.

PSYCHIC THE DISTANT GRASP (Occult Spell List) EMOTIONAL ACCEPTANCE 

Standard Psi Cantrips: Mage Hand, Telekinetic Projectile Unique Psi Cantrips: Telekinetic Rend, Vector Screen, Dancing Blade Granted Spells: Kinetic Ram, Telekinetic Maneuver, Levitate, Fly, Telekinetic Haul, Poltergeist’s Fury, Telekinetic Bombardment, Falling Sky, Implosion

Psychics are interesting because they effectively get two subclasses. The Conscious Mind is the main subclass, giving them granted spells and unique features, while the Subconscious Mind determines their casting stat and gives one Psyche Action. The Conscious Mind subclass I chose is The Distant Grasp, the subclass which prioritizes Telekinetic abilities. The Subconscious Mind subclass Emotional Acceptance focuses their power through control over their emotions. More than that, they can empathically bolster the emotional state of their party, revitalizing their confidence, healing their wounds, and protecting them from mental harm. Emotional Acceptance causes Raven to cast with Charisma.  For the purposes of this build, I will be using this class for Raven.

SORCERER DEMONIC BLOODLINE (Divine Spell List)

Bloodline Skills: Intimidation, Religion Granted Spells: Acid Splash, Fear, Enlarge, Slow, Divine Wrath, Abyssal Plague, Disintegrate, Divine Decree, Divine Aura, Implosion Bloodline Spells: Glutton’s Jaw, Swamp of Sloth, Abyssal Wrath

By DnD rules, Trigon is closer to acting like a Demon than a Devil. He’s not charming or manipulative in the way that a Devil would be. He is a raw force of nature, like a Demon. The unique Bloodline Spells being tied to three of the Deadly Sins is also appropriate, given that in the comics, Raven is the Sin of Pride, while she has 6 brothers who each represents the other 6 deadly sins.

SHADOW BLOODLINE (Occult Spell List)

Bloodline Skills: Occultism, Stealth Granted Spells: Chill Touch, Grim Tendrils, Darkness, Chilling Darkness, Phantasmal Killer, Shadow Siphon, Collective Transposition, Duplicate Foe, Disappearance, Weird Bloodline Spells: Dim the Light, Steal Shadow, Consuming Darkness

Raven’s powers come from her bloodline, but while that power does come from Trigon’s demonic powers, her actual powers and abilities always skewed more shadow and darkness than fire and brimstone, which makes the Shadow Bloodline rather fitting as it ties Raven’s lineage to the Plane of Shadow.

WITCH NIGHT PATRON (Occult Spell List)

Patron Skill: Occultism Hex Cantrip: Shroud of Night Granted Spell: Sleep

The Witch is basically Pathfinder’s version of Warlocks. Instead of selling your soul, it’s more about forming a mystical connection to the universe and drawing power from a natural source in a way that’s different from a druid. Night Witches hear their patron in the shadows and darkness, and feel the magic of the universe flowing through the darkened night sky. The secrets the shadows tell them teach them how to command the powers of shadow, murk, and darkness. Witches also get a familiar, letting Raven have a Raven for her familiar. Though the Shadowcaster Archetype, Raven could have a Shadow Familiar that takes the form of a Raven.

WIZARD (Arcane Spell List) SCHOOL OF ENCHATMENT IMPROVED FAMILIAR ATTUNEMENT

Like Psychics, Wizards effectively get two subclasses: Their Arcane School and their Arcane Thesis. One determines which school of magic is their focus, and the  other determines what their magical research focuses on. School of Enchantment doesn’t give much, much like with the Subconscious Mind with the Psychic. It’s rather bare bones, providing only really two features, while the Thesis provides the real meat of the build. Given the importance of Raven’s spectral raven, I figured that a stronger bond with her familiar was the most appropriate.

ARCHETYPES

In Pathfinder, one does not multiclass. If you start as a Wizard, you will build a Wizard all the way to level 20. But, you can augment your build by taking an Archetype, allowing you to pick up predetermined features from another class, or completely unique Archetypes. As such, one can make a Rogue with a Trickery Cleric Archetype, Druid with a Ranger Archetype, or an Illusion Wizard with an Assassin Archetype. It’s also worth mentioning that a character can take multiple archetypes at once. You can play a Bard that takes the Cleric archetype to pick up the Trickery Domain, while also picking up the Assassin archetype as well. It’s mostly about balancing the feats you want to take, because archetype feats level with your main class. Furthermore, taking an Archetype feat at 8th level won’t stop you from picking up a 10th level class feat, and vise-versa, you could ignore your 6th level archetype feat and still pick up your 10th level archetype feat if that’s the only one you want. So, Raven could class-wise be a Shadow Sorcerer, while also taking the Psychic Archetype if you so choose. It’s also worth mentioning that some DMs let you take class features AND archetype features on level up, which helps alleviate the Sophie’s Choice at certain levels, though this is very much a house rule, and not a guaranteed rule. Speak with your DM before taking an Archetype because if you want so many class features, you may not have room for Archetype features at all. I ran into this issue myself while doing a demo build of Raven. I liked too many of her Psychic class features, and ended up with no room to fit in any Archetypes, though I did want to include them.

CLASS ARCHETYPES

Cleric

Psychic

Sorcerer

Witch

Wizard

UNIQUE ARCHETYPES

*Familiar: Raven does not get a familiar as a Psychic. If Raven wants a Familiar, she will have to take the Shadowcaster Dedication feat, and then the Familiar Feat, both from the Shadowcaster Archetype.

CATHARTIC MAGE (Uncommon) Raven gains further power from tapping into her emotions. Anger is the most appropriate, as that is the main emotion Raven needs to keep under control. Each strong emotion can give Raven specific spells, she can focus to trigger emotions at will, and empathically extend her emotions to her allies. 

FAMILIAR MASTER Raven’s familiar is more adept than most. She can improve the abilities of her familiar, cast spells through her Familiar’s location, boost team moral with her familiar, her familiar can outgrow needing a corporeal body, and it can receive even more benefits than it got through an earlier feat.

LIVING VESSEL Raven has been made the vessel for Trigon’s powers. Causes Raven’s appearance to change and allows her to manifest demonic claws, drain the lifeforce out of enemies, infect others with her demonic possession, and taking on a more fiendish form.

SHADOWCASTER (Uncommon) This archetype lets Raven learn a number of shadow-related spells, have a familiar no matter her class, and do a variety of shadowy magical things. She expands her spell list to include more shadow magic, gains shadow-related domain spells, can further enhance her shadow form familiar, and becomes better at stealth through mastery over shadow.

SPELLMASTER (Uncommon) Raven becomes a master of her spellcraft. She can transform into a raven herself, ward against enemy spells, absorb magic, and gains a more powerful counterspell.

SKILLS

In Pathfinder 2e, Skills are not simply Proficiency and Expertise. Rather, they come in Four Stages: Trained, Expert, Master, Legendary. As you level up, you gain Skill Increases that let you raise 1 skill of your choice to the next highest rank, though some increases can only be done after reaching a certain level, thus keeping you from having Legendary Stealth by level 9. These Skill increases occur at levels 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19. So, Raven can choose to focus on making a few skills legendary, or she could instead prioritize having more skills at the Expert and Master range by not evolving any to Legendary. It’s entirely up to the player. However, these are the skills I would most highly recommend for Raven:

Arcana: Knowledge of the mystical, enchantments, and arcane magic Deception: Ability to Lie convincingly Diplomacy: Ability to Negotiate easily Intimidation: Ability to Coerce easily Lore: A knowledge skill for one exact topic, can have several at once Medicine: Knowledge of healing, physiology, and medical treatments Occultism: Knowledge of ghosts, cults, legends, and Occult magic Religion: Knowledge of Celestials, Fiends, Deities, and Divine magic Society: Knowledge of customs, manners, and history Stealth: Ability to move undetected easily

FEATS

There are a variety of feats in Pathfinder 2e that really shape how a character plays. Keep in mind that this post is a Guideline, not a rule book. For the purposes of this post, I won’t be including any Archetype feats because when I built Raven, I ended up only taking base Class feats from her Psychic Class, so that’s what I’m going to prioritize. If you want to make your own changes, just swap out the feats you don’t like. To simplify things, I’m just going to lay out her feats as they become available by level. For this list, I’m going to build as though Raven has taken the Magical Experiment background simply because the added Darkvision and Thoughtsense frees up room for more feats I want Raven to take, though Raven can gain Darkvision as a level 1 Tiefling feat, and Thoughtsense from Level 8 onward as a Psychic Class feat. I filled a lot of the late game skill and general feats with Assurance, a 1st level feat that just assures that Raven rolls well on skills she’s trained in. Because each skill has unique feats that unlock depending on how high you’ve trained them, I didn’t want to load up my guideline build post with a bunch of feats that only fit the way I would play as Raven. The only one that’s truly “mandatory” for the build is Occultism, as it’s connected to a few features, and is also the skill associated with her spellcasting. So, many of the Assurance feats are merely placeholders for high level skills depending on the skills you chose to invest further attention toward.

Level 1 Ancestry Feat: Pitborn Skill: Athletics Additional Feat: Assurance (Occultism)

Level 2 Class Feat: Psi Burst Skill Feat: Root Magic

Level 3 General Feat: Toughness

Level 4 Class Feat: Thoughtform Summoning Skill Feat: Recognize Spell

Level 5 Ancestry Feat: Fiendish Resilience

Level 6  Class Feat: Violent Unleash Skill Feat: Schooled in Secrets

Level 7 General Feat: Disturbing Knowledge

Level 8 Class Feat: Dark Persona’s Presence Skill Feat: Bizarre Magic

Level 9 Ancestry Feat: Light from Darkness Once-Per-Day Spells: Paranoia, Shatter

Level 10 Class Feat: Emotional Surge Skill Feat: Assurance (Arcana)

Level 11 General Feat: Ancestral Paragon Ancestry Feat*: Fiendish Lore

Level 12 Class Feat: Psi Catastrophe Skill Feat: Assurance (Lore: Fiendish Plane)

Level 13 Ancestry Feat: Summon Fiendish Kin

Level 14 Class Feat: Conscious Spell Specialization Skill Feat: Assurance (Religion)

Level 15 General Feat: Multilingual

Level 16 Class Feat: Constant Levitation Skill Feat: Assurance (Diplomacy)

Level 17 Ancestry Feat: Final Form

Level 18 Class Feat: Target of Psychic Ire Skill Feat: Assurance (Society)

Level 19 General Feat: Diehard

Level 20 Class Feat: Become Thought Skill Feat: Assurance (Intimidation)

SPELL LIST

Psychics, like Bards and Sorcerers, are what the community calls Spontaneous Spellcasters, which means their spells work the most like spellcasting in DnD 5e. Once Raven knows a spell, she can cast it at will assuming she has the right spell slot for that spell. However, in order for Raven to cast a 1st level spell at a higher level, she must learn the spell again at that level, so if she wants to cast Fireball at 9th level, she has to learn 9th level Fireball. For this spell list, I will be listing every spell on the Occult spell list at it’s initial level that I feel fits her. I will be ignoring the spells she already gets from her Conscious Mind. This is more of a spell list to pick from what you like, and of course, if you want to have a spell upcasted, don’t forget to have Raven relearn the spell at a higher level. Some spells are from supplementary material, and thus are marked with an Asterisk.

CONSCIOUS MIND SPELLS (The Distant Grasp) Standard Psi Cantrips: Mage Hand, Telekinetic Projectile Unique Psi Cantrips: Telekinetic Rend, Vector Screen, Dancing Blade Granted Spells: Kinetic Ram, Telekinetic Maneuver, Levitate, Fly, Telekinetic Haul, Poltergeist’s Fury, Telekinetic Bombardment, Falling Sky, Implosion

CANTRIPS Detect Magic, Message, Phase Bolt, Prestidigitation, Read Aura, Sigil, Shield, Warp Step

1ST LEVEL Charm, Fear, Floating Disk, Grim Tendrils, Ill Omen, Lock, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Mending, Mindlink, Object Reading, Penumbral Shroud, Pet Cache, Phantom Pain, Protection, Sanctuary, Sleep, Soothe, Spirit Link, Thoughtful Gift

2ND LEVEL Blur, Calm Emotions, Comprehend Language, Darkness, Darkvision, Dispel Magic, Empathic Link, Impart Empathy*, Knock, Mind Games, Paranoia, Remove Fear, Remove Paralysis, Reduce Energy, Restoration, Restore Senses, Spectral Hand, Swallow Light*, Umbral Extraction, Vicious Jealousy*

3RD LEVEL Agonizing Despair, Circle of Protection, Dream Message, Enthrall, Familiar’s Face, Locate, Mind Reading, Shadow Projectile, Shadow Spy, Wall of Darkness*

4TH LEVEL Dimension Door, Discern Lies, Gaseous Form, Globe of Invulnerability, Necrotic Radiation*, Rebounding Barrier, Resilient Sphere, Spell Immunity, Suggestion, Telepathy, 

5TH LEVEL Banishment, Black Tentacles, Crushing Despair, Death Ward, Forceful Hand, Glimmer of Charm*, Invoke Spirits, Mind Probe, Repelling Pulse, Sending, Shadow Blast, Shadow Siphon, Shadow Walk, Synaptic Pulse, Telepathic Bond, 

6TH LEVEL Collective Transposition, Phantasmal Calamity, Scintilating Safeguard, Teleport, Wall of Force

7TH LEVEL Energy Aegis, Force Cage, Plane Shift, Possession, Shadow Raid, Tempest of Shades, Visions of Danger, Warp Mind

8TH LEVEL Devour Life*, Discern Location, Dream Council, Hypnopompic Terrors, 

9TH LEVEL Telepathic Demand, Unspeakable Shadow, Weird

10TH LEVEL Gate, Shadow Army, Time Stop

Given how new I am to Pathfinder 2e, I may have made some mistakes, overlooked something important, or missed something crucial to her build, but for what’s here, I think we managed to fit in a lot of who Raven is. As a tiefling, she’s able to summon demons and take on a demonic form. As a Psychic, she’s got great access to telekinetic powers, permanent levitation at level 16, and focusing her mind is a key component to her play style. The occult spell list makes it possible for her to use a wide variety of shadow magic, and even emotion magic to let Raven make good use of her empathy powers as well as her emotional manipulation powers that she uses more in the comics. Overall, I’m very pleased with how Raven came out here. Let me know if you guys liked this. Maybe I’ll do more Pathfinder builds in the future.

#raven roth #teen titans raven #raven #dc comics #teen titans #pathfinder #pathfinder 2e #pf2e #pf2 #pathfinder 2nd edition #psychic #psionic #magic #occultism #rachel roth #trigon #demon #demonic #fiend

[outeremissary]

42, Balthazar?

Thanks for the ask! After I started working on this I briefly thought I’d somehow answered it before- I guess I was remembering something vaguely similar from last year?

[prompt list]

42. If invited to a TED Talk, what topic would they present on? What would the title of their presentation be?

There are a number of things that Balthazar is knowledgeable enough to give a competent lecture on, but I think that the most obvious choice would be to discuss the evolution of theories about the nature of outsiders. He’s extremely well versed in the metaphysics of planar entities, especially when it comes to celestial servants of the gods. It’s not bleeding edge knowledge as he is not himself a summoner or a dedicated academic in direct contact with a scholarly community, but it’s impressively deep for a layperson and he’s spent a lot of time tracking down and studying more esoteric sources on the topic. What divine creatures are, how they come to be, how their essence interacts with the different planes they cross to, and the many, many debates both philosophical and scientific over these theories… he could easily fill a lecture with what he knows. More than one lecture, even.

And despite his animosity towards those outsiders and gods, it’s a subject he has great passion for- passion which is clear when he talks. The subject is very personal, after all. It’s something he began pursuing in order to understand himself better after his bloodline began to manifest in childhood. Balthazar has complicated feelings about his status as both aasimar and sorcerer (things which are, in many ways, one and the same for him) and the project helped to parse those. The knowledge also gives him a sense of control over a body and a being he feels that others are constantly trying to define for him. He has always hoped that with enough knowledge, he'll find a way to bend his supernatural nature into a shape that he wants rather than what it stubbornly insists on being.

I typed all of that before double checking the question and realizing that it wanted me to title this theoretical thing like a TED lecture, at which point I could no longer keep pretending that I’d ever watched a TED lecture and had to go look at the YouTube to figure out how they get titled. The answer seems to be that they have very simple titles??? I guess because of that it would be something like “The History of How We Think About Outsiders," or something. I’m not good at titles without like a week to ruminate on them. Sorry Balthazar…

#that older ask is almost exactly a year old. wow. anniversary remaster. anniversary sequel. #ask game #ask me emithing #balthazar lucienne #kitkatabasis #I've always liked the part of balthazar that is a little bit scholarly- he's good at stitching together knowledge when he wants to be

[razieltwelve]

Yun-Farron Solutions (Final Rose AU)

Fang took a moment to savour the scent of the cigar before she took one last puff and then tossed it onto the creature bound by the ring of salt and a handful of esoteric seals painted onto the ground in blood.

“You bitch!” the creature screamed, writhing as the flames spread over its twisted, malformed body. “I’ll kill you! I’ll your family! I’ll kill your fucking dog!”

Fang smirked. Being a werewolf had its benefits. Being able to smoke a cigar without worrying about cancer was one. Being able to use her own blood for seal work without worrying about dying of blood loss was another. But the best thing was being able to laugh at creatures like this for being stupid enough to pick a fight with a werewolf on a full fucking moon.

“You won’t be doing shit.” Fang tossed some more kerosene onto the screaming creature. “Those seals? I’m not sending you back to the Pit. You’re on a one-way trip to Oblivion.”

The creature renewed its struggles, but it wasn’t going anywhere. She’d tracked this damn thing for close to a month. She’d learned exactly what it was, so she could pick seals that would exploit its vulnerability to the max... and then she’d waited for a full moon, so those same seals could be empowered by her werewolf blood.

It was the difference between chugging around in a car with a cute, little V4 engine and roaring around the neighbourhood in a beast with a V8 under the hood. The seals might not be the most efficient things she’d ever thrown together, but they packed a fucking punch like a bazooka.

The creature stopped screaming after another ten minutes. Just to be sure, Fang waited another five minutes before sweeping the ashes into a pile and dousing them in acid. A spritz of holy water on the remains was the finishing touch.

Satisfied that the creature was not only dead but was actually going to stay dead, Fang pulled out another cigar.

“That is an awful habit to have.”

Fang didn’t bother to turn. “Finished up already, sunshine?”

Lightning’s scowl was a physical force. “Yes, actually. The cultists responsible for summoning that thing were surprisingly forthcoming with information.”

“Was that before or after you ate a few of them?”

“I am a vampire, Fang. I do not eat people. I drink their blood.” Lightning sighed. “Was the holy water really necessary?”

“You can never be too careful. Besides, it’s not like it can actually harm you.”

Lightning wasn’t some paltry fledgling in the same way that Fang wasn’t some newly turned pup. Holy water might annoy her, but that’s all it would do.

“Even so. It’s presence is... aggravating.”

Fang turned. As usual, Lightning was dressed like something out of a gothic novel. Ancestors... vampires really did take fashion seriously, especially the older ones. Gods forbid they dress like regular people. Hell, even the younger ones had their own styles, the most popular of which was a kind of steam-punk re-imagining of what they thought the classical era had looked like.

Lightning dressed sort of like that... but then again, she’d actually lived through those times.

“I can tell what you’re thinking,” Lightning drawled. “And I am not about to take fashion advice from someone who dresses like a hobo.” A century or two ago, the words might have been laced with genuine contempt. Now, however, there was only fond exasperation behind them.

“Yeah, well, there’s not much point in my wearing expensive clothes everywhere when transforming rips them to shreds.” Fang took a puff of her cigar. She should order another batch soon. She was starting to run low. “What did you find out?”

“They learned how to summon that thing from an acolyte of a very old friend of ours.” Lightning’s eyes narrowed and flashed scarlet for a split-second.

“Fuck.” Fang snarled. “Salem? Was it asking for too much for the bitch to actually stay dead?”

“Fang, we both knew she was unlikely to stay dead forever. That’s what happens when you bind your soul to a slumbering eldritch monstrosity who is most famous for eating a whole bunch of other eldritch monstrosities. At the very least, however, she can’t be at anything close to full strength if she’s sending her acolytes out to teach a gang of barely literate conjurors who have only just barely glimpsed the surface of the Twilight World.”

Fang sighed. Shit. She really should have brought some booze. As if reading her mind, Lightning tossed her a bottle of bourbon. “Where’d you get this?”

“Fang, if I’m going to murder a whole gang of cultists after tearing through their minds, a bit of theft is hardly going to matter. Besides, it’s not like they were in any condition to appreciate it.” Lightning waited for Fang to take a swig straight from the bottle before doing the same. “We’re going to have to get the band back together, so to speak.”

“Yeah. If Salem is back, we’ll need all of them.” Fang could already feel a headache forming despite her werewolf physiology. “You realise that nobody has even seen Raven for, what, three hundred years or something?”

“Three hundred and twenty-five to be precise.” Lightning’s brows furrowed. “But Summer might know where she is. Even if she hasn’t said anything so far, she’ll tell us once she knows Salem is back.”

“Yeah. That’s true.” Fang glanced up at the moon. “You can handle that, right?”

“Summer and I are still on speaking terms,” Lightning said with careful blandness. “Although she may be reluctant to leave her current... life.”

Fang chuckled and shook her head. “I almost admire her audacity, thinking she and Taiyang can just settle down and live regular lives. None of us can. Once you’ve walked in the Twilight, there’s no going back, not for people who’ve gone as deep as we have.”

"True. But I can’t blame her for trying.” Lightning turned. “We should go. We have calls to make and plans to devise.”

Fang laughed and followed her. “At least Vanille will be happy. Who knows what kind of shit she’s got prepped in case of emergency?”

#final rose #fanfiction #lightning farron #oerba yun fang #fangrai

[inventors-fair]

Wanting Commentary: Finding what we're Looking For

Oh, I don’t know, I like these flavor angles. I love approaching things from different sides, from getting into the depths of human perspective. I wonder, for the cards where I feel the mark was missed, whether or not my approaches are actually aligned with other people’s, or if there just happens to be preconceived opinions on what makes a good connection that sporadically hits the mark in fun ways.

Regardless, there were a few angles I understood, and a few that felt either samey or off. That’s what happens when you have a single prompt and multiple responders, sure—hence the article I wrote about choosing unusual approaches. If you haven’t read that, I recommend it, but in general, I recommend that people really dig into their favorite weird cards. What’s off the beaten path? What makes good connections, well, connected?

I don’t want to be too harsh; there’s a lot to like about a lot of these cards. People did want to make their sense of flavor strong, and I like the ways in which people added or omitted flavor text as necessary. I like the way people approached flexibility this week. I liked feeling blindsided by my own perceptions, new takes on old twists as well as old warmth in new times.

JUDGE PICKS are cards that I want to point out for one specific reason or another, cards that either did something exemplary or touched me in a unique way. Let’s follow on.

~

@0woah — Nihilistic Stupor

We’re starting in a pretty specific place, then. So, hi, welcome, thank you for a first submission. We’ll clear a couple hurdles first, then get into the nitty-gritty. Stock photos! Stock photos are fine, provided that you have proper attribution; most sites have the original photographer credited, so if you have that, check it. Watermarks are enough to at least say that it’s not your original, but we do need the photographer in question.

Mechanically, aside from needing “Enchant player” as part of the Aura text, this card’s main critique is that there’s no exit condition, as it were. There will come a point where no player has access to lands and can’t play lands. If you’re the green-black deck, that’s not a problem for you with recursion, but this is for a draftable set. What’re other players going to do? It’s a distinctly unfun card that plays against a lot of contemporary sensibilities. This kind of effect would be considered unfun even in the 90’s.

Flavorfully, I have to admit, I don’t fully understand what you’re going for here. “Nihilistic” is a philosophical take that requires cognitive impetus, and “Stupor” is a state of unconsciousness; the two are inherently incompatible concepts without the right tie. I’m afraid I don’t understand what the flavor text is trying to emulate in terms of desire, either. Who is doing the wanting? What is the object of desire? How is nihilism relate to desire? Perhaps this made sense on the drawing board, but the idea doesn’t feel conveyed properly here. Consider a clearer distinction of character and motivation as someone else would perceive it.

~

@bread-into-toast — Waterborne Wenders (JUDGE PICK)

Well, isn’t that adorable. The desire of the formless to become formed, and the impossibility of settling into oneness! Relatable. This art would be hellish to block out but very cool to see. “Fitting in everywhere, belonging nowhere.” It’s a little esoteric without the humanity, but seeing how changelings on Lorwyn occupy this almost alien niche in the hard-and-fast species distinctions found on the plane, we have to be distant from these creatures ourselves. We can’t understand the mechanism of their desire even as we observe it, and I think that that’s really neat.

The mechanics are a little odd for its cost. This feels like a big lad who’s gonna change into something, and for that cost, a pseudo-Cryptoplasm feels kind of steep. That said, I like the concept. I believe it should read: “At the beginning of your end step, you may exile ~, then return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control. You may have it enter the battlefield as a copy of another creature you control, except it has changeling and this ability.” If you make that one paragraph, you don’t need the other trigger because it’s part of the end step trigger, I believe. A fun card and a fun cost. I like the white there for the blinkiness. This is a card that I feel can be cute on its own, a draft enhancer rather than a staple.

~

@deg99 — Scatter the Ashes

The mourning returns. This card is just about what can be expected, although I’m surprised that this name hasn’t been taken before, wow. I don’t think that this needs a world necessarily, and I wouldn’t really call it Innistradian. It doesn’t feel...morbid, weird as that may seem. That said it doesn’t really strike the emotional chords in the same way. Part of that comes from the major disconnect between the flavor and mechanics. The mechanics are great! This is an awesome limited counterspell. Counterspells are by nature reflexive, though, reaction in response to action.

The finality of your intended flavor is in response, as far as I can perceive, to the previous actions of the caster. The woman is deciding to release the ashes and move on, a self-contained series of events. What’s she countering? What’s being taken away but a concept she herself created? The sense of moving on is a rational want, and a strong emotional choice. It doesn’t make sense on a counterspell like this. Good ideas, fair execution on both, but the mesh isn’t happening. I recommend reworking the flavor text to be... Well, not more “exciting,” but more than what it is right now. Substantial and specific.

~

@dimestoretajic — Tyrant’s Scepter (JUDGE PICK)

I agonized over this card a little bit, as much as agony compelled me this week, because if a whole bunch of other cards didn’t exist, this card would be absolutely fantastic and really silly. Perhaps there are some safeguards to ensure that Commander players wouldn’t abuse it, but someone’s gonna Do The Thing and I guess Hellkite Tyrant on a literal stick—turned into a literal stick?—is a bit different. The sacrifice is nice, and the five mana barrier is super cool. Flavorfully, you’re all-in on the despot’s desire, so that all checks out, no notes.

Look me in the eyes, captain. You and I both know that there’s a cEDH Breya player who would use this card to make people want to start a revolution. There’s no way around that. Limited-wise, I mean, this card’s awesome. I want to get away from my grousing and focus on the fact that this card’s still really good. It does exactly what it says it wants to do. Hm, is the Liquimetal Destruction deck too... Hm. I wonder if that permanence will affect playability elsewhere, actually. Probably not, but one never knows. I’m a Karn Prison guy, hence. There are enough answers in the world, and that’s all fine. Gah! Maybe I’m just chewing on my fingernails for no good reason here. I want to like this card more than I worry about it. Perhaps costs can be adjusted and/or I’ll get over myself.

~

@halfsilveredmirror — Endless Regret

A consistent draw spell is nice. Literally replacing itself is pretty cool, and I don’t think playability would be affected by it. The ability for infinite discard with a single card in your library might fuel some weird engines, even more so than a Four Horseman kind of deck. Do I remember what the deck does? Nope. Anyway, this card. I really don’t feel that playability would be affected but I also don’t know. In limited, probably not. It would make decks significantly more powerful, especially if you get the sealed deck and really go nuts, but that’s unrelated.

The sticking point for me is the fact that the mechanics and flavor really don’t have anything to do with one another, and the flavor itself is so esoteric that I don’t know what the speaker (if indeed there is a speaker) is regretting or implying. The art depicting a reunion or a reflection of loss is interesting. Ultimately, still, it’s just not landing for me. There’s a line where subtlety becomes too abstract to convey intention.

~

@helloijustreadyourpost — Sole Concern (JUDGE PICK)

...oh it’s ONE SIDED. Jeez. Okay, wow, for some reason I thought this affected all players on my first readthrough. Some minor things still stand but okay, that changes a lot of things. Wow. This does indeed level the playing field a ton and that’s awesome. Reminds me of a movie but I don’t remember which one. I might be losing my mind. Anyway, boardwipes! This card’s a necessity and I think it’s pretty much great. I won’t call it the most complex and I don’t think it needs to me. It’s got the exact right flavor, with the art direction putting a newer twist on it that makes it feel...cinematic, really. What’s a right decision, after all?

I do find it a little silly that there’s “sacrifice” in the flavor text as well; on-the-nose, as it were. That witch down there does indeed have some history, and that’s a great callback. I think the directness between the flavor text and the mechanics is, as a whole, a bit wink-nudge-y for the really gruesome image being depicted here. Still, I like the implied story behind it, and I like how you made the opponent the one to enact their desire, the one that becomes their damnation. Fantastic angle. We didn’t see a whole lot of that this week, I feel.

~

@hypexion — Desire

This Desire is in the unfortunate position of being naturally compared to the other Desires this week, and like I said, I do like them all, and this card is no exception. It feels a lot like a Horizons kind of card, and you know what, that’s okay. What makes this one unique is the fact that it’s a universal desire with a black bend, not a strictly red one. Multicolor Incarnations are... Well, honestly, if there was an incarnation for these colors, I get how it would be “Desire”—focused wanting, doing anything to get it, slightly selfish, not really insidious but getting there, etc.

Perhaps the main question I have is about the Evoke part. One ETB here doesn’t necessarily advance the game in the expected manner. For the MH2 evokers, their reactive evocation is designed to work during different parts of the turn, cheaply or late-game. Judgment Incarnations have the graveyard clause. The question is: what would be the gameplay advantage of evoking this card? It doesn’t feel any more powerful and/or necessary to do it earlier or later, because you could absolutely whiff. The attack trigger is excellent there, so I do like that. And again, this card is fine for what it wants to be, and I can clearly picture what you were going for. Small note: “Treasure” should be capitalized.

~

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Eager Defender

I want to see the sketch for this art direction, because I don’t really know how you wanted to block this shot out. There’s a plain, and a cave, and these characters walking around...where? Sorry to judge this part of it, but I actually don’t fully grasp this depiction. It feels as busy as the mood. The mood’s understandable, and of all thing I’m getting an Adventure Time kind of vibe from this card. If that’s intended, well, congrats, and if not, yeah, that’s a testament to the business. This card really didn’t need flavor text with these three abilities, and the flavor text isn’t adding enough to justify itself here.

Mechanics are pretty awesome, though. I think that provoke isn’t going to be seeing its time in the sun, but that’s more me being sad than a critique of this card. I like provoke! It works really well here, with this creature swinging in and getting bigger. Oh, small notes: the Sengir effect says you need to say that the +1/+1 counter goes on Eager Defender and not the creature that died (lol Skullbriar), the “4” should be “four,” and Warrior should be capitalized. No, yeah, with a fair amount of equipment, this card could be pretty monstrous in limited, and that’s a fine uncommon for the archetype. The name, direction, and flavor are all still...sketchy to me? What’s eager about revenge? Eagerness implies positive creation, not regret. The mashup of moods ultimately glorps up what’s otherwise a decently solid RW beater.

~

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — A Chance to Say Goodbye

Solid stuff. I like how you don’t get priority to prevent population. It makes for some pretty weird effects overall. I would personally say “sacrifice that token” to prevent some weird arguments, but whatever, I deal with the pedant that lives in my head, and YOU are free to ignore him. Anyway, I would give anything to say goodbye to my Worldspine Wurm once more, so thank you for the opportunity. I think this card’s doing exactly what it wants to and those sorts of effects can be cool depending on the environment. Seance tried to do something similar but didn’t quite get there. Maybe this is enough? I’m actually not sure about not having priority there. ETBs would get weird. Ah, what am I saying, token doubling is... Hm. Also weird here. But, hey, corner cases don’t happen as much in limited. I don’t see this card taking off in any decks, though, and it’s a wee bit not-broken-enough to be impactful.

The flavor text is one of those ones where I’m so on the fence. I want to really dig in and talk about the nuances but I don’t want to be a jerk about it on accident. What I like is the specificity. This card is about everything it wants to be about, and it’s depicting this single thing, and boom, this cool reanimation effect is framed around an intense motion. I do feel that there are cuts to be made, or at least places to tighten it up. Maybe a comma after “Then” and you could even end on “wind” there. “Gentle” can be cut, IMO. If you want, lean into the notion of negative space. What’s there left on the wind, or what does the wind feel like now, if not the space where the embrace is no longer. Y’know? You have a lot of options. This moment was a good choice overall. Honorary JP for that alone.

~

@misterstingyjack — Homesickness

Flavor-wise, “It is unclear whether the sun is rising or setting” goes hard for me. That would be a really cool point of contention for people, and I think that the flavor text would really come to a head when there’s a long game happening with lots of returning and triggering and no haste and having to hold open cards and yadda yadda yadda. It’s a pretty general sense but it’s done really well. The depiction of a journeying event checks out and your mood is what really sells it, an impending, almost horror-like sense of uncertainty if we’ll ever get there.

Mechanically, was this supposed to be like Sunken Hope? Aside from the sacrifice clause and one blue pip, it’s exactly the same. And...that’s literally all I can say about it, isn’t it? I hope that this was unintentional and you accidentally struck gold before the realization that you’re not in a mine and you’re in fact in a history museum, sir, I’ll have to ask you to leave and put down that pickaxe. If it WAS intentional, I’m just gonna stand here with my hands on my hips and give you a look. I have no idea at this point in time! But, well, what else can I say about it. Do your research, folks.

~

@nine-effing-hells — Mul Daya Homeseeker

I think that the subtitle and flavor aren’t doing any favors to a card that’s otherwise really fascinating to me. This might be, considering our most recent visit to Zendikar in the story, the saddest trampling creature I’ve ever seen. Emotionally, I mean. I’m gonna stop before I browse through ten pages of trampling creatures on Scryfall, though. So! Yeah, no, perhaps “Homeseeker” is a fine enough title, but I wish there was more for the flavor text to really sell me.

If you’re drafting this card, though, I wonder what on earth you’re doing. You can run one of each other basic and actually ramp in a super roundabout way, splashing the weirdness, or this is a set with a number of odd nonbasics like how Zendikar had, and that’s pretty awesome. In a constructed event you can do some amazing things and I love how variable you can make it. Maybe it’s not good enough for Legacy Lands. It doesn’t have to be! This card can do some pretty slick stuff and I like the way you balanced a strong effect with a deckbuilding constraint asked of it. The feeling of soured perseverance is strongly present.

~

@piccadilly-blue — Issac Astralion, Haunted Physicist/The Singularity

Well, that’s a mouthful! Lots of things going on here, okay, phew. You clearly had a strong direction for this card, and I actually love the commander-esque approach to experience counters eventually transforming something. We’re designing (per the usuals) for standard/limited by default, but there’s nothing to say you can’t get experience counters there, too. I think that it’s almost like the City’s Blessing, or it could be! How experience transforms you. Very slick.

The Singularity, as I’ve mentioned about another card on here, is a non-exit-claused card whose sole purpose is kind of miserable. There are cards that sink the board, but they eventually go away, like Pestilence. It’s unfortunately just not fun to be sitting on the board with nothing to do until you happen to get your removal which may eventually get countered. Seeing as this is your character, as mentioned, I won’t claim to know the story, so that part of it I won’t press on about; their goals are pretty abundantly clear. The flavor text on both sides is...a lot. The LotR reference on the back certainly raises an eyebrow, as does the long first name. Honestly, though, there’s the what-I-like and the what-needs-work, and the little polish/presentation tweaks aren’t anything new to custom cards, so don’t sweat it.

~

@reaperfromtheabyss — Heatgrasper (JUDGE PICK)

You know, I was a bit down on this card at first until I realized that she died of hypothermia. Then it was all upside! You absolutely need to shorten this flavor text. “trapped in her final moments” needs to come out, and I would replace “some warmth” with “a fire.” Do whatever you need to, though. Anyway! Yay, here we are, some kind of not-exactly-great ending here. But it’s okay, because I can envision what you were going for and I like the way it happened. For a while, I thought she drowned, and then I put my head on straight.

Stunning creatures is super cool. Depending on if this is a world with spirit bonuses, the ability to beef up or protect her would be awesome. She doesn’t need that necessarily, but she does indeed need some friends around her to stall the game. And that’s cool! What a cheap use of stun counters, really mean. I can see this card having an application solely in limited and nowhere else and I can see it being a massive pain in the butt to deal with as your opponent stalls you out. Good stuff.

~

Tune in tomorrow! You might learn a thing or two.

@abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #wanting flavor contest #commentary #inventor's fair

[paperanddice]

The akhana is a truly strange creature, a cloud of grey mist filled with sparkling points of like almost like stars, formed roughly into the shape of an eye. A tail-like appendage of mist extends from the edge, and four blue-grey arms, each ending in a hand with three digits, are arranged around the outside of the cloud. Despite its appearance, its body is quite solid (and a little slimy).

The akhana is a strange extra planar being that judges and maintains a balance between birth and death. Each one travels constantly, watching for anything that it views as damaging this balance, and seeking to try and correct this damage. How it judges an imbalance is not clear to non-aeons, and the akhana is rarely interested or able to explain its process, instead just taking direct action. Sometimes this involves returning a creature to life, while others it will involve destroying a particular creature. On very rare occasions, a mortal spellcaster of some kind has summoned an akana and presented a case for why they believed a particular creature or event was damaging this balance. On even rarer occasions, they were able to convince the akhana to take the course of action they requested.

The akhana's method of communication is viciously difficult for mortals to comprehend. Rather than speak any language, or even telepathically convey words directly to other creatures, they simply project a single telepathic intent, usually a visual and audio representation of what the akhana expects. It may send an image of a crumbling city to indicate it expects a town's destruction, though there's no clarification of whether this is a warning of an event that may occur, or what the akhana intends to do itself. Attempting to question the akhana to clarify its meaning is usually ignored, or worse viewed as opposing the creature and a cause for attack.

There are other beings similar to the akhana out there, other such creatures that oversee universal dichotomies. Where exactly they come from, by what measure they hold the universe, and how they judge the balances they oversee are all questions that mortals have not yet uncovered answers to, but scholars aware of these esoteric and obscure creatures are attempting to discover them.

Originally from the Pathfinder Bestiary2. This post came out a week ago on my Patreon. If you want to get access to all my monster conversions early, as well as access to my premade adventures and other material I’m working on, consider backing me there!

5th Edition

Akhana Medium celestial (aeon), true neutral Armor Class 17 (natural armor) Hit Points 195 (17d8 + 119) Speed 30 ft., fly 40 ft. Str 19 (+4) Dex 21 (+5) Con 24 (+7) Int 14 (+2) Wis 19 (+4) Cha 16 (+3) Saving Throws Con +11, Wis +8, Cha +7 Skills Arcana +6, Deception +7, Insight +8, Medicine +8, Perception +8, Religion +6 Damage Immunities cold, poison Damage Resistances fire, lightning Condition Immunities poisoned Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 18 Languages envisaging 120 ft. Challenge 12 (8400 XP) Envisaging. The akana communicates through a form of telepathy, nearly incomprehensible to non-aeons. It sends psychic projections of a single concept with a combination of visual and aural stimulation, and expects the target to interpret the meaning it intended. This otherwise functions like telepathy. Extension Of All. The akhana has advantage on Arcana, Medicine, and Religion checks. It can also communicate telepathically with any aeon on the same plane as it, and can send empathetic messages to aeons on other planes of existence. Regeneration. The akhana regains 5 hit points at the start of its turn if it has at least 1 hit point. Soul Siphoning. If the akhana is grappling a creature at the start of its turn, it can use a bonus action to touch that creature with its tail and attempt to siphon its life. The target must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw, taking 10 (3d6) necrotic damage on a failure. The target's hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the necrotic damage taken. The reduction lasts until the target finishes a long rest. If the target's hit point maximum is reduced to 0 by this effect, the target dies and if the akhana isn't holding a soul it can capture and hold the target's soul. The target can't be raised from the dead, and its body is preserved by a gentle repose spell as long as the akhana holds its soul. The akhana holds the soul until it uses an action to release it, the akhana is forced to release it by a wish spell or similar effect, or the akhana is killed. If the soul is released while the akhana is within 300 feet of the creature's body, the soul immediately returns to the body, returning it to life. The creature's hit point maximum is returned to normal, and the creature regains 1 hit point. The akhana can only hold one soul at a time. If a creature's saving throw is successful against this effect, the creature is immune to the akhana's Soul Siphoning for the next 24 hours. Actions Multiattack. The akhana makes three Claw attacks, or four Claw attacks if it is flying. It can choose to make two fewer attacks in order to cast one at will spell from its Spellcasting. Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d4+5) slashing damage plus 7 (2d6) radiant or necrotic damage (akhana's choice). Instead of dealing damage, the akhana can grapple the target (escape DC 16). Spellcasting. The akhana casts one of the following spells, requiring no material components, and using Wisdom as the spellcasting ability (spell save DC 16, +8 to hit with spell attacks): At will: cure wounds (as a 3rd level spell), gentle repose, inflict wounds, lesser restoration, sanctuary 3/day: greater restoration 1/day each: finger of death, raise dead

13th Age

The akhana is capable of casting the resurrection spell, though doing so destroys the akhana. As such, they rarely do it upon request. This can be sometimes to the player's benefit, and often not. The effect on the target is always determined by the number of times it has been returned to life.

Akhana  6th level caster [celestial]  Initiative: +10 Multi-Arm Clawing +11 vs. AC (2 attacks) - 9 damage. Duel Hit: If both attacks hit during the same turn, the akhana can make a soul siphoning attack during its next turn as a quick action. [Special Trigger] Soul Siphoning +11 vs. PD - 20 negative energy damage, and the target must start making last gasp saves. If the akhana is stunned or moved away from the creature and can’t return to it on its next turn, the creature doesn’t have to make a last gasp save that turn. On the fourth failed save, the akhana pulls the target’s soul free from its body, and the target dies. Its body is magically preserved and it can’t be returned to life as long as the akhana holds its soul, which it can do indefinitely. The soul is released if the akhana chooses to do so as an action, or if the akhana is killed. If the akhana is engaged with the creature’s body when the soul is released, the soul immediately returns to the body and restores the creature to life with 1 hit point. The akhana can’t use soul siphoning if it is holding onto a soul. Miss: The akhana can’t target that creature with soul siphoning for the rest of the battle. C: Manipulate Life and Death +11 vs. PD (one nearby creature) - 15 holy or negative energy damage (akhana’s choice), and one other nearby creature of the akhana’s choice takes 5 damage of the opposite type. Natural Even Hit: Instead of dealing damage to a second creature, the akhana or one nearby creature heals 3d6 hit points. Flight. Resist Cold 14+. AC 21 PD 17 MD 20 HP 92

#D&D #dnd #dungeons and dragons #5th edition #13th age #homebrew #my homebrew #monster #celestial #dnd cr 12 #13th age level 6 #long post

[crossedsabers10s]

Listen, listen, I need someone to tell me that starting another project would be a Bad Idea™️

Okay, on that note. I had an Idea! It’s taken over my brain!

What if dimension shenanigans with some old research of Kol’s that their poking around in/trying to use to defeat the next Big Bad and the Mystic Falls Gang of Supernatural Misfits—exact lineup yet to be determined, but definitely includes Stefan, Elena, Bonnie, Enzo, Jeremy, and Damon with Klaus and Elijah also there—ends up in a very sideways world where vampires aren’t a thing?? But like. Not a normal human!AU.

So. So. Like. They end up in Mikaelson Manor in Mystic Falls. Uh, Mystic Falls but three steps to the left and upside down, dimensionally speaking. And while they’re arguing about what the heck just happened, Klaus walks in. Except. Klaus is also standing right there arguing with his brother.

And that Klaus isn’t a hybrid. ‘Cause vampires don’t exist. But! He is a thousand year old alpha werewolf. Because all of his other siblings are ancient, super powerful witches/warlocks who are functionally immortal because their mother made them so. And he is too—despite the lack of personal magic—because they sort of shared their own immortal life force with him. Kind of like Freya’s sleeping beauty curse thing plus daggering but not really. They all take turns—by the decade—asleep and basically in a death like state and letting him ‘borrow’ their life force. Like. One decade Elijah is asleep and then it’s Kol and Rebekah and Finn and so on in a loop. And, they’ve got a handle on the werewolf curse, so he’s like. Basically hybrid like—can control his transformation and is super strong even without the full moon. Moon rings or a ritual they invented or whatever.

Anyways. Klaus takes in all these semi-familiar strangers and immediately blames Kol. It’s his workshop/ritual room they’d walked out of after all and Kol has no rational, sane limits when it comes to poking at interesting magic. At all. Ever. Him somehow breaking the dimensional barrier between worlds is par for course. So they get some basic information/threats/posturing out of the way. Then he tells them that Kol can probably reverse engineer whatever it was they messed with and send them back. But Kol is also in Norway or smth and will be out of contact while he is tracking down some rare magical being/creature. So itll take a few days to send them back. And! Until then, all these weird, semi-undead people can’t just… walk around the town or whatever while wearing the faces—some the wrong age—of some of the locals.

There’s also a cameo of an older-looking Rebekah, who resembles Esther slightly more than then teenage-appearing one. She’s complaining about Finn and Sage or smth.

Oh! And Finn is a necromancer, complete with like. A half rotted face from magical build up/side effects, Hel-style. Sage is—ok but. Like. I’m torn. I think Sage being Finn’s dead wife brought back at the cost of [the face thing, him being unable to use any other kind of magic or else she disappears, some other cost] would be cool but my heart says dragon. Some kind of dragon. She would make a fantastic dragon who had taken human-shape or was cursed into it and had taken a liking to the grumpy necromancer.

Kol is a Jack of all trades kind of magic user but specializes in arcane/esoteric rituals. Elijah is a more standard kind of witch, but is especially good at binding magics. Like. Deals.

So local!Klaus pawns them off to his friend/frenemy/drinking buddy, Stefan Salvatore. Who happens to have a mostly empty boarding house, isn’t it nice how things work out.

So they end up at the Boarding House. At some ungodly time in the morning, Stefan Salvatore—who is in his mid twenties, which is very odd for everyone who is used to eternally seventeen Stefan to see—opening the door. And he’s a witch too!! (Witch? Warlock? Idk he can use magic.)

And so the vampires need to be invited in lmao, after at least one of them does not account for this not being their boarding house and breaks their nose walking into the invisible threshold barrier.

And while everyone is getting settled—older Stefan getting a rundown on vampires—someone else walks in!!

It’s a teenage version of Enzo, back from like an early morning jog or smth. Because he’s a morning person for some reason.

Who takes one look at what’s going on and goes wtf. And he is very different from canon!Enzo. Younger—around 19–and with an attitude. I am firmly of the belief that teenage Enzo had anger issues. And it comes out that bby Enzo lives there and knows about magic and whatnot. Or at least has a very nonchalant reaction to the idea of dimension hopping semi/undead beings that are alternate versions of himself and people he knows.

And older!Stefan says something along the lines of ‘well, he followed my brother home and I haven’t managed to get rid of him yet’.

Which, of course is cue for other!Damon to stumble downstairs, yawning hard enough to crack something and wearing pajama bottoms. When he spots the crowd of people in his house staring at him—cause he’s A. shirtless and they can see scars on his skin, more than a few curled around his sides from his back and B. Is seventeen—he says ‘oh we have guests?’ Then spots older him, who is outwardly unbothered but deeply uncomfortable with everyone else seeing what he thinks of himself being weak/vulnerable because this is a version of Damon before he perfected being an asshole, though some of it is definitely ingrained.

Younger!Damon, who is like. Sleep deprived in the extreme goes back upstairs to change before coming back down and heading straight for the coffee. Which he doesn’t even manage to drink because his head basically hits the table before it’s cool enough to take a sip. Someone asks if he’s hungover—because he’s Damon and therefore that’s their first thought—but he says no? I was doing homework. And Caroline, who does have any sympathy for any Damon’s whatsoever says it’d be easier if he didn’t wait until the last minute to do it. And older Stefan—mildly, but in a way that makes it clear he doesn’t appreciate someone coming into his house and verbally jabbing at his younger brother—asks how much homework he did. And Damon says ‘all of it? duh. for the rest of the semester.’ (While this is going down, Enzo has stolen Damon’s coffee, dumped enough sugar in it to make a colony of ants die happy, and is drinking it while staring at his older self with the air of a person who is vaguely annoyed.)

Okay so. Background. AU!Stefan and Damon came from a long line of magic users. Like their father was super traditional and an absolute bastard about it too. Anyways, Stefan was the perfect older son who used strong traditional magic—and who also later had an Expression phase and gave up on using magic at all in effort to not give in to it again; to mirror his Ripper issues—and Damon was like okay at traditional magic but wasn’t the best at it. In this sense, traditional magic means like the ancestor stuff. The weight of a legacy. Yeah, no. Damon’s better at drawing from other sources, more elemental which is wilder and less structured with a reputation in the witch community for being destructive.

Annnnyways. Their father packs Damon off to a magic boarding school—no, not Hogwarts—except! It’s basically. Like. Off-brand Augustine. Instead of studying vampires, they’re studying magic. Taking magical children and training them all the while running tests. They were trying to make basically magic using witch hunters, to have a super strong police force under the schools thumb. It’s a horrible place where students regularly die or disappear during ‘training.’

And that’s how he meets Enzo! They were roommates. And Damon is considered unlucky, because all of Enzo’s roommates tend to die. Horribly. He’s also considered unlucky because Enzo—instead of being a run of the mill witch—is a siphon. He’s one of the schools favorite lab rats pupils, because he’s a rare find and he’s basically isolated and shunned by all the other students who are having a tough time surviving without the witch community’s worst nightmare stealing their magic from them.

Anyways after a boatload of trauma, Enzo and Damon end up semi codependent best friends with a magical bond. Literally. A magical bond. Something got tangled up from Enzo borrowing Damon’s magic too many times and now they basically share. Enzo doesn’t need to be touching him to access it, though that does help, and they both have an uncanny ability to know where the other is and don’t necessarily need to be looking at each other to know what the other is thinking.

Okay, so Stefan’s father told him that hed sent Damon off to school to help him learn blah blah family name blah whatever. This is around when Stefan discovers expression. And goes downhill from there. It takes him a long time—too long, he’ll think later, staring at the spellbooks he doesn’t use anymore but can’t bring himself to throw away just in case—to notice that something is definitely wrong with the letters he’s getting from his brother. He stops eventually, but by then has accidentally killed his father in a fit of rage when he finds out where his brother is and what’s being done to him.

Timeskip a bit and Stefan gets roped into Mikaelson Drama and after that gets them to help in investigate the School. What they find pisses them all off, because they’re old and strong and are considered magical royalty almost, when people aren’t terrified of them. And this is very much something they want to put an end too.

So the Calvary comes riding in, ready to rain destruction down and they find the School already on fire. Damon and Enzo having basically started a riot/jailbreak/revolution.

And that’s how Enzo came to live with the Salvatores. And why he’s an angry traumatized teenager with an aversion to touch and no compunctions about using violence. He was a street kid and then basically raised in/locked up in a dog eat dog world where if you weren’t on the top of the pile, you were one of the bodies being climbed over.

Enzo is also. Very. Scarily good at fire spells. Damon favors ice but is actually really good at inducing bad luck.

Stefan, when he used magic, was good at telekinesis and mind stuff. Like Silas.

(Not immediately relevant but—AU!Elena is a really old, really powerful psychic a la Amara and Silas, who is a spirit strong enough to sometimes walk the mortal plane. Bonnie is the same. Caroline is a—dryad? Nymph? Ancient and used to be worshipped as a goddess.)

Okay I’m done.

For now.

#tvd #fanfic #fic ideas #my stuff

[sublimelancolia]

༺ - ༉‧₊˚ ✃ ⋅˚₊‧𓊆ྀི❤︎𓊇ྀི‧₊˚ ⋅ ✃ ༉‧₊˚. - ༻

First of all, this is a *side* blog, so if I follow you back it will show as “melindramatique” :)

𐙚₊˚⊹♡ about my blog: ‧₊˚ ⋅♡࣪ ִֶָ☾.

This is my safe space, I’ll (re)post here everything I love and my art (#myart)

You’ll see here the world from my lens: a whole spectrum from cute and cozy to creepy and gothic

(in pink are my immutable ✨special✨ interests)

My interests are:

• art, history & culture

• circus! Clowns & jesters!

• medieval, renaissance, baroque, 19th century, 1920-1930’s & 1960’s

• old cinema

• psychology (mainly historical)

• sapphic/lesbian

• philosophy

• literature

• women, feminism & womanhood

• witchcraft, folklore & magic (mainly in historical/cultural lens)

• esoterism & whimsical stuff

• dolls, plushies

• monstrosities & creatures

• religion & religiosity*

• fashion

• nature

• gothic (romantic & horror)

• death

• antiquities, vintage stuff

• oddities & curiosities

• old science & medicine

• astrology & (historical) astronomy

These are some main themes! It may contain its variants too :)

* even tho I’m not catholic (I’m polytheist) I love catholic imagery and iconography, so you may encounter those here. About religiosity: like Christina Rossetti’s poetry, Greek Gods’ hymns or Nature as Sacred.

!! Also the contents can have:

• artistic nudity, soft eroticism

• gore (but nothing intense)

attention: I’m not comfortable with minors (DNI!) following me, mainly because my content is mature.

♥︎ I hope you're having a great day ♥︎

#art #dollcore #illustration #spooky cute #lovecore #creepy cute #dollete aesthetic #cartoon #coquette #doll #vintage #goth #Gothic #nature #dark fantasy #dark cottagecore #victorian

[thecreaturecodex]

Deepspawn

Image by Rafa Garres, © Wizards of the Coast.

[Commissioned by @tar-baphon​, who wanted the deepspawn from Forgotten Realms amped up to a CR 17 monster (previous 3rd edition versions were a CR 10). That’s fine with me; they’re logical “dungeon boss” monsters, and I’m happy to slot them in at a higher CR. In keeping with this advancement, I gave them a few more spell-like abilities to support their minions, and Craft Wondrous Item so they can stock their dungeons with magic traps. ]

Deepspawn CR 17 CE Aberration This horrific thing appears as a spherical mass of meat roughly ten feet in diameter. It has six large tentacles, three of which end in snapping maws, and the other three seem to serve as limbs. More than a dozen smaller tentacles grow from it, extending and retracting into its mass, each tipped with a scrutinizing eye.

A deepspawn is a foul, bizarre creature of the subterranean realm. They can reproduce a variety of monsters based on the creatures they have eaten. These are vomited up from one of its toothy maws, and are fully grown from birth. A single deepspawn can populate an entire region with horrors of all kinds, which are fanatically loyal to the deepspawn and serve it unto death. The deepspawn itself lairs in the middle of a dungeon protected with these minions and traps that the creature constructs. Some deepspawn spread rumors of the riches these dungeons hold, the better to lure more adventurers, kill and eat them, and add their skills and abilities to its army.

Deepspawn fight with a combination of their natural weapons and weapons collected from their treasure horde. They may distribute some of these as tools to their tool using spawn, but keep the best for themselves. A deepspawn can charge weapons and shields with magical energy if they don’t have any with particularly interesting magical properties on hand. A deepspawn uses the terrain to its advantage in combat, attacking from odd angles, inside pools or partially buried in a pile of coins.  They usually are accompanied by several of their minions, whom they empower with their magical abilities. A deepspawn always saves its healing magic for itself, however.

Because deepspawn are seemingly sexless, and hate other members of their own species, their origins and reproduction are obscure. Their aberrant appearance and monstrous fecundity suggest a link to the qlippoth of the Abyss, and their combination of a spherical body, eyestalks and tentacles specifically is reminiscent of the esoteric beholders. Deepspawn themselves do not talk about their origins. They are happy to talk about other things while tormenting their enemies—every deepspawn is deeply arrogant and vain, and they have a tendency to monologue.

Deepspawn           CR 17 XP 102,400 CE Huge aberration Init +4; Senses all-around vision, darkvision 60 ft., Perception +23 Defense AC 32, touch 12, flat-footed 28 (-2 size, +4 Dex, +14 natural, +6 shield) hp 275 (19d8+190); fast healing 5 Fort +18, Ref +12, Will +16 Immune poison; SR 28 Offense Speed 20 ft., climb 20 ft., swim 20 ft. Melee +4 longsword +23/+18/+13 (2d6+13/19-20), +4 handaxe +23/+18/+13 (1d8+13/x3), 3 bites +19 (2d6+4) or 3 bites +21 (2d6+9), 2 tentacles +19 (1d8+4 plus grab) Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft. Special Attacks constrict (1d8+13), spawn Spell-like Abilities CL 17th, concentration +20 At will—detect magic, detect thoughts (DC 15), water breathing 3/day—greater magic weapon, hold monster (DC 18), magic vestment, true seeing 1/day—heal, mass bear’s endurance, mass bull’s strength, mass cat’s grace Statistics Str 29, Dex 19, Con 30, Int 23, Wis 20, Cha 16 Base Atk +14; CMB +25 (+29 grapple); CMD 39 Feats Combat Reflexes, Craft Wondrous Item, Double Slice, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Multiattack, Power Attack, Skill Focus (Stealth), Stand Still, Two-Weapon Fighting Skills Climb +32, Craft (traps) +21, Disable Device +18, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +24, Knowledge (arcana, local, nature) +21, Perception +23, Sense Motive +23, Spellcraft +23, Stealth +20, Survival +23, Swim +32 Languages Aklo, Aquan, Common, Draconic, Undercommon, telepathy 300 ft (spawn only) SQ martial training, trapfinding, undersized weapons Ecology Environment underground Organization solitary or brood (1 plus 3-6 spawn) Treasure double standard (Large masterwork longsword, Large masterwork handaxe, Large heavy steel shield, other treasure) Special Abilities Martial Training (Ex) A deepspawn is proficient in all simple weapons, martial weapons and shields. Spawn (Su) As a full round action, a deepspawn can give birth to a spawn. This creature is an aberration, animal, dragon, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, ooze, plant or vermin of Large or smaller size that it has previously eaten. This creature is the same alignment as the deepspawn, is friendly towards it, and can only be convinced to attack it via magical compulsion. Creatures retain all of their skills, class and racial abilities, but only have dim memories of their lives before becoming spawn. A deepspawn can create spawn in a day of a CR equal to 3+ its Constitution modifier (CR 13 for the average deepspawn). Trapfinding (Ex) A deepspawn can detect and disable magical traps as if it were a rouge. Undersized Weapons (Ex) A deepspawn can use weapons sized for Medium or Large creatures without penalty.  

#deepspawn #commissions #pathfinder 1e #tentacles #D&D #forgotten realms