#spell writeup

[cmdonovann]

man. ive had this art in my drafts since like three dnd games ago (so, like, two months? lmao) and have been putting off finishing it because NOTHING i could draw could possibly express how fucked up this fight made me feel. immense shouts out to my DM for a) understanding my taste in symbolism and themes, and b) letting raz literally kill himself with no consequences

#well maybe a little consequences (the rest of the party was freaked out) #(we all gained some trauma from this boss battle it was dope) #anyway. #dungeons and dragons #dnd #raz #raz'elen serianni #i should really do like. a writeup of our campaign so far. #to put in the ao3 series collecting all the fic ive written for this campaign #because MY GOD this fight. this fight was so fucking cool. #(for just a little context: we fought a mimic-type monster that turned into mirror versions of all our characters) #(and we had to kill our doubles basically) #(it was... really weirdly cathartic. like genuinely.) #(i'll be thinking about that dnd fight for the rest of my damn life ngl) #(this was right after raz SHOT HIS MIRROR SELF IN THE FACE WITH A GUN) #(and the mirror shards reformed into the next spell mirror!raz cast) #(it was so fucking cool auggghhg) #(also raz killed his mirror self by using inflict wounds to re-open the scar on his throat. so that was sick as fuck.)

[absentlyabbie]

i have gotten to the point in my buying-shit evolution to where i am disgusted, affronted, even outraged when some big name "we're so amazing and quality which is why we charge out the ass" brand wants to sell me fucking "PU leather"

it's PLASTIC. BITCH YOU THINK I'M PAYING $60+ FOR PLASTIC SHOES OR A PLASTIC JACKET OR A PLASTIC PURSE?

levis and loungefly and soooooo many others can fuck right off with that.

and DO NOT get me started on clothes and bedding being sold by prestige brands for hundreds of dollars MADE OF FUCKING POLYESTER. the gall. the temerity. the EMBARRASSMENT. the unvarnished greed of it all.

i spit on your advertisements and all your marketing writeups.

ps never fucking trust a product that the brand doesn't wanna say what it's made of. that comforter or shirt says it's "skin friendly, breathable, wrinkle free" but doesn't spell out fabric content?

bitch, it's polyester. it is made of lies and poorly recycled garbage, which is where it will soon return when it falls apart in 3-7 months.

ho, don't do it. you are worth cotton, linen, and all the other natural fibers. you deserve real leather.

[windienine]

(inviting u in like a vampire) pspspspsps victor. talk abt loïc and ysme more. tell me howd youd build them in chuubos.

hihihi!!!

luckily there's already a really clear nobilis analogue for what's going on with loïc, and that's the cleave of the botanists, a group of mortals (largely ones already chained to the service of particular divinities) who are able to draw on divine power by harnessing the innate magic imbued within flower species using conversation.

this means that loïc is comically easy to port to a nobilis framework

if we're building on that, porting him to chuubo's means he's got several levels in the Sentimental attribute.

some deets:

he's generally using flower magic as a magical skill, but some of the big casts are miraculous-level applications (i.e. chained spells) that he's invoking The Shepherd's Gift to harness in such a way where it moves the plot and shifts reality.

ysmé and lia are both his capital-t Treasures. other Treasures include flowers that tie in closely to them and the themes of the current chapter.

ysmé is his main source of divine willpower for Miraculous Ease, he gets to access his pool of extra will by taking actions in her name.

the cloud sage gives him access to sentimental's a waking dream ability, which allows you to contact someone or something dear to you across any distance.

^ thing he does

ysmé's conditional immortality might be framed as an application of The Shepherd's Blessing as well.

the Thing He Does At The End Of The Prelude is, of course, a Wish.

I'm excited for him to get weird and violent with it.

ysmé's a little trickier because we don't have the full shape of what she can do now in her weird half-state between dead and alive, mortal and goddess, etc. so i don't honestly know what arc she's on for certain (especially bc artisanry is also probably a magical skill for her)

but i am taking a plunge and saying my bestest bet is on Creature of Delirium, that pretty little arc that lets you reshape yourself, others, and fate itself.

the thing she extracts from people to gain power is faith. appropriately, she doesn't have faith in anyone but herself. loïc, as her witness, submitted/transferred all of his faith to her by binding agreement, so he's basically her magical peon now (though since he has Sentimental and her down as a Treasure it appropriately kind of goes both ways.)

this is kind of nothing but the power to command and captivate a whole group of people at once is literally called

Command would be appropriate for that Thing She Can Do to loïc

this.

^ god i hope she can do this

using Wield would let her be able to direct Loïc's miracles in new ways and turn him into an appropriate champion for her will, i.e. siccing him on people she doesn't like

the appearance-changing powers included in the latest writeups fit her abilities to a T and give them some narrative oomph

it's posssssible she's on a dual arc and might also have something like Star Quality or Troubled but i don't know enough to be absolutely sure.

thank you for opening the floodgates, seren

#chuubo's #nobilis #soulsov #ttrpg

[toskarin]

some design rambles on Jetkaiser's combat system below the break. not particularly well-articulated, and expect a lot of unexplained jargon here if you haven't been following my rambles for a while now lol

-

Holy Arts and Techniques in Armored Blade Jetkaiser take the place of spells or skills in other ttrpgs. notably, their usage is not only encouraged by intense situations, but enabled strongly by desperation

while Techniques often have their own pool of uses before they start costing resources, Holy Arts always dip into a resource, and that resource is (excepting in very rare circumstances where a character might have developed some highly specialised abilities) Blood, which can be viewed as "the closest thing to a health value the game has, tracked only through its absence"

when a player takes damage, it's not really tracked. if something gets under your armour, you're wounded, and when a player has two stacks of wounds, they're killed. this holds true for enemies as well, and because of that, combat is inherently more about forcing a gap in your enemy's armour to hit the soft inside than it is about chipping at a health pool

the first time a character enters combat from a rested state, their blood pool fills. each time a character is wounded, their blood pool refills entirely, returning them to full fighting (if not enduring) strength. if the situation requires, a character can wound themselves to force an earlier refill of blood

there's a few design questions inherent to this, mostly around a very familiar issue in D&D-derived games (combat experimentation is discouraged by heavy consequences), so I ended up with a question to drop into my own hands:

how could Jetkaiser, on a very basic level as a game, encourage scenarios where a player character feels comfortable playing aggressively?

after all, directional armour aside, players only have a single health point of buffer before they're, theoretically, at risk of receiving a character death. if skills eat away at a pool of non-regenerating resource, why would a player ever risk using it?

the end result of this was the current system of wound-layering

when a character receives a wound for the first time in an encounter, this throws them into a state of sunder. several skills are set to fire off when a player is sundered, their blood pool refills, and nothing is really lost. I view this on the design side as the moment when your alarms would probably start screaming at you

in short, it's a serious place to be, but this will never kill a player

when a sundered player is hit again, they're presented a new option: crash their holy frame (the flying armour they wear) and receive a permanent penalty trait when combat concludes, or enter the second layer of wounds (torment)

when in torment, a player (or certain elite enemy) is willingly running the risk of much more debilitating harm. further injury at this point forces the character to crash, and post-combat, they roll 1d6 for each time this has happened to them before. if that number surpasses their blood pool's cap, the character dies

of course, even in the case of a success, a tormented character picks up worse penalties than if they'd crashed their frame earlier

I can't imagine the rules writeup of this will show up in the first playtests, just because I'm still wrestling the layout into a readable form, but so it goes

the wound system, at least, makes a really clean transfer to unmounted combat (carried out in roleplay) because it'd be a bit weird for characters who are more or less ace pilots to feel safe when fighting outside of their planes. if somebody pulls a gun, it should probably be at least a little bit more tense than ideal combat situations

[crinosmonsters]

Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder

The Original creator of the Thrulls, Endrek Sahr was a member of the Order of the Ebon Hand, a depraved cult which operated upon on the continent of Sarpadia on the plane of Dominaria thousands of years ago. Sahr created the Thrulls initially as slaves and sacrifice fodder, but felt like his creations could be more, pushing him to create larger and more powerful Thrulls. These Ambitions led him to create the Derelor which, while physically powerful, consumed too many resources to be viable. As a result, Sahr was sentenced to death. But while history considers Sahr dead, there was a period in Dominaria's history where time and space became mutable, and Sahr may yet have escaped his unfortunate fate and lives on.

Endrek Sahr's Enchiridion

Endrek Sahr has access to numerous unique magic spells, some he created himself (Breeding Pit and Thrull retainer) and others which were created by the Order of the Ebon Hand. These spells can be found in Sahr's spellbook on his person, or an ambitious and unscrupulous wizard can learn the spells themselves under the evil wizard.

Thrull Retainer

1st level Necromancy

casting time: 1 action

range: An unoccupied space within 5 feet.

Components: V, S, M (at least half of a humanoid corpse or more)

duration: Concentration: up to an hour

This spell summons a single Servitor Thrull (descriped in Guildmaster's guide to Ravnica) Which loyally serves the caster to the best of its limited abilities. The Thrull will not move more than five feet away from its caster, and can be called upon to use its self sacrifice ability as a reaction.

Classes: Cleric, Warlock, Wizard

Hymn to Tourach

2nd level Enchantment

Casting time: 1 action

Range: 60 feet

components: V

Duration: Instantaneous

Named for the evil cleric which founded the order of the ebon hand, the Hymn of Tourach requires the caster to unleash a dark infernal prayer to torment their enemies. One target within 60 feet must make a wisdom saving throw or be stunned until the end of your next turn. In addition, if the target was a spellcaster, they lose a spell slot of the highest level they are capable of casting.

Classes: Bard, Cleric, Warlock, Wizard

Breeding Pit

Third Level Necromancy (Ritual)

Casting time: 10 minutes

Range: 120 feet

Components: V, S, M (a large hole, approximately 1,000 pounds worth of corpses, and alchemic potions equaling about 500 GP)

Duration: See below

Endrek Sahr's masterpiece, this spell allows for the mass production of Thrulls on a massive scale. The Spell creates a breeding pit, a 10 foot wide, 80 foot deep pit filled with bubbling ichor comprised of numerous alchemic reagents and liquefied flesh.

Once per day, at sundown, a Servitor Thrull emerges from the Breeding pit, loyal to the caster who created the pit. So long as it is maintained, the Breeding pit will continue to produce new Thrulls in this manner indefinitely.

Maintenance of the Breeding Pit requires two things: First, the pit must be replenished with a periodic supply of new chemicals and corpses once a month, to the equivalent of one medium sized corpse and 50 gold pieces. More importantly, the Pit requires a constant source of magic to function. Each day, a spellcaster (not necessarily the one who created the pit) within 60 feet must sacrifice a level two or higher spell slot in order to keep the pit alive. Without this magic, the pit will dry up and die in a matter of hours.

There is no limit to the number of breeding pits that a single caster can create at one time, so long as the upkeep requiements are met.

If you enjoy my work, please consider joining My Patreon, Where I post compilations of the monsters that you see here (Along with Patreon exclusive new monsters) Or donate to my Ko-fi where you can request a monster writeup for the low low price of one dollar.

#dnd 5e #Monster #Spells #Thrulls #Magic the Gathering

[bettyshoweduptotheparty]

Speaking of Look What You Made Me Do: A MV Analysis (NOT mine)

Write up of original analysis by fists_on_up on TikTok

I need a writeup of this amazing analysis of the LWYMMD song and music video on my blog, but please note it's not mine.

Author mentions that the two verses are about two different things. Verse 1: Kanye and the Snakegate situation ('tilted stage/ the role you made me play of the fool/ no I don't like you')

There is a chandelier on the floor in the bathtub scene. The author interprets this as a reference to Phantom of the Opera, where a falling chandelier is a warning of revenge

During the first chorus, Taylor sits on the throne in front of snakes. Look what you made me do -> become the queen of snakes

Verse 2: 'Kingdom keys, locked me out and through a feast' -> This is not about snakegate. It's about a different vendetta. She's mad about being locked away from something/someone. In the video she is in a golden cage during this scene. She's wearing Karma orange and eating lobster, but there is also a rat on the table, so it's only fake luxury. The cage is surrounded by 7 men dressed in black guarding her.

The interpretation is that these are her public 'boyfriends' protecting her straight girl image, and, as such, she is not in fact in control of her career, hence the golden cage. The Karma orange suit symbolizes the album/collective music she was never allowed to release because it would have destroyed her image. The author also concludes that because this situation and snakegate are both dealt with in this song, that one was potentially orchestrated to cause the other, much like the masters heist was conveniently timed to foil her coming out plans in 2019.

The next scene is the heist scene, where Taylor is shown with 4 women wearing cat masks. This is in direct contrast to the men around the cage, as the women are helping her in the mission, as opposed to keeping her trapped. The door in the vault is also orange, another reference to music that was locked away because she couldn't release it. She is shown with 4 women in both this scene, and the 'dykes on bikes' scene immediately afterwards. The author interprets this as representing the 4 women who actually inspired her music (rather than the men who get credited with it publicly).

The next scene is a real underappreciated gem, it happens really quickly, so you can easily miss it, but Taylor is picturing herself as the leader of this group of women, called the CAT 🐱 MAGNET 🧲 SQUAD. I'm afraid I'll get censored if I spell it out, but you get the idea. (damn, Taylor!!😉)

With how many lesbian references there are in these second verse scenes, I would have to agree that it seems likely that the second verse is about being kept closeted, and she's being incredibly blunt here out of spite.

Next, we move on to a scene that cuts between two things happening during the chorus: 1. Taylor performing with 8 men in I❤TS Hiddleswift shirts, and 2. Taylor cutting the wings of a plane off with a chainsaw. So, what the previous two situations described in the verses made her do, is add an 8th guy to the line up of 'boyfriends' and ground the plane that was meant to be TS6 (as written on the plane). In contrast to the men around the cage that were holding her captive though, Taylor is performing with these guys, they are working for her. So, instead of just being at the mercy of her captivity, she is taking whatever small amount of charge that she can have over this situation. I would also add, as the author has pointed out the fallen chandelier in a previous scene as a warning of revenge, the scene with the 8 men also has three massive chandeliers handing from the ceiling.

The author concludes that the video confirms the Karma album theory (though we didn't have the name at the time) that was scrapped in favour of reputation. And I have to say, it's pretty convincing. But I'd make one amendment, I think because the TS6 plane gets sprayed over to be reputation, it's not an entirely different plane, some of the songs are in fact on reputation, in some form or another. Maybe with some lyric changes, the plane is inoperable after all. And in order to release an album with such heartfelt love songs, it would make sense that she needed to present a 'long term boyfriend' to the public that those songs could be attributed to.

She also says that it very much seems like the story of vengeance that's told here isn't over yet, and Taylor did once say that it would be years, if not decades before this whole music video would make sense to all of her fans. And Karma orange has certainly made a few appearances lately, so could reputation (Taylor's version) finally make way for its big sister Karma? And will it fly this time?

#look what you made me do #taylor swift analysis #tiktok #not my original stuff #reputation #karma

[sandplague]

this person got a train ticket in their merch package, which lead them to the reddit user profile of “FyodorVitin”, which as of now (April 16) has only the letter from Daniil posted. If anyone has a non-google translate version of the letter please let me know or I can see if any of my friends feel like getting paid to translate it in full. I’ll keep abreast of that post for any new updates there...

No one has commented on the post containing the letter even though it seems like commenting is open, is that like gauche in ARGs or whatever this kickstarter merch thing is? The FyodorVitin account was made February 3rd, 2023 and the letter was posted March 21, 2023. I’m not yet sure of the significance of the username, I would think vitin would be pronounced витин but when I’m looking into this spelling by itself first and then adding Фёдор later I’m not sure if anything is relevant yet. sorry I’m sure someone else has already made some writeup on this but I haven’t checked the tags in years and I just do this blog for fun now with blinders on like a horse I guess lol.

#daniil dankovsky #pathologic 2 #ARG #kickstarter rewards

[the-ampersand]

Since I am still chewing on the DIE Stapling post, I am going to do another about effort mechanics in ttrpgs because I am trying to write that Blasphemous inspired Trophy Gold hack (placeholder name: Penance). And one of the coolest mechanics for Trophy is its Risk Roll, which is basically an effort mechanic.

"But, Ampersand, what is an effort mechanic?" I hear you ask, dear mutual I am making up in my head. An effort mechanic allows you to reroll an action you have already attempted but failed or to get a bonus to a roll at the expense of some resource. Usually, that resource being the character's health. But it can also be something else like clues in an investigative game or even a narrative consequence (but that's usually called a Devil's Bargain).

The important part is that it gives a benefit but requires a sacrifice. And that's when the whole fanfare of psychoeconomics start. Because you need the sacrifice to be big enough to give the player pause and not use it every roll. And also you need the benefit to be significant enough to make it worth the risk and the expense. If properly adjusted, an effort mechanic can become a slow but sure spiral into the characters downfall.

Let's look at some examples!

Numenera is the first system I learn that had such a mechanic (but certainly was not the first ever). It is pretty straightforward in its implementation, too. You spend a fixed amount of the appropriate life pool and you get to reduce the difficulty of a task. Easy enough. But Numenera, being a tradgame as it is, the power creep upends any weight of the sacrifice. Once you level up enough, your pools become deep enough as to make effort something to just add to whichever skill roll you thought it needed a bit more oomph. This is not something wrong per se, but it can easily make your characters overly competent!

On the other hand, there's Dungeon Crawl Classics. DCC is a peculiar OSR game in that it is a really spiced up retroclone, wriggling DnD B/X ruleset to a point where it is almost unrecognizable. I am sure there are plenty effort mechanics peppered in the text, but I want to point out its magic system because I absolutely adore it. To be a wizard in DCC requires active dedication. That is because almost every spell has a writeup of about an A4's length, filled with the various effects a spell may have once the dice is rolled. And the effect can be wildly different from a roll of 5-10 to a roll of as high as 30 or more. There are many ways in which you can tweak your narrative positioning to get bonuses to a spell roll (components, helpers, magic foci, whatever), but when the die is cast and the result is just not good enough you still have a last chance: to sacrifice your own atribute values to get one last push that might be the difference between a proper spell and a fiasco. This is the main cause of withering of elder wizards: they have sacrificed too much in order to achieve the power they sought.

And then, there's Trophy. Both Trophy Dark and Trophy Gold have excellent effort mechanics baked directly into their ADN thanks to the masterful procedure that is the Risk Roll. These are games in which you are tempted first and consumed later by an evil forest. You have a really small ruin pool and once it is filled, you are lost to injury or its dark influence. You are also a destitute adventurer that needs to get any gold or face almost certain death. So you need to get shit done, you need to amass enough successes as to bring bread home and you need to survive the process (or try to, at least). And that's when the Risk Roll comes and lures your with the most satisfying effort mechanic I've ever seen. You can always make a reroll, adding an extra die to your pool to boot. But if those extra dice, dark dice, ever become the highest ones, you automatically mark ruin. You get your success, yes. But you become closer to losing yourself. It exactly hits the spot between actually worth it and inescapably dooming the character.

Obviously not all games need to be about losing oneself to fate or circumstance, but I feel an effort mechanic very much pushes the narrative in that direction. You are sacrificing yourself, in order to achieve your goals.

And I think that's a quite powerful narrative device.

#indie ttrpgs #ttrpg #indie ttrpg #rpg #ttrpg design #osr #numenera #dungeon crawl classics #dcc #trophy #trophy gold #trophy dark

[cosmicveils]

Lore relevant to drow in Faerûn (Baldur's Gate 3 setting)

This is a writeup mostly for anyone playing BG3 that may be curious about drow, if they're unfamiliar with the Forgotten Realms/Faerun setting. I will say as a disclosure that I haven't read all of the drow-centric Forgotten Realms novels, and it's been quite a while since I read the ones I am familiar with. This is really just a basic primer lol. Anyway...

Religion and where they live: Drow usually live in the Underdark, which is incredibly vast. There are many cities spread throughout the caverns, generally with tens of thousands of drow and their slaves.

Typically, these drow revere Lolth, the Spider Queen -- an evil goddess who loves chaos above all else. Their society is incredibly matriarchal; women generally treat men like they're inferior, and only women can become clerics of Lolth. Men are usually focused on more martial pursuits. Typically, the third-born son of a House is ritually sacrificed to Lolth as an infant.

Assassination and ritual sacrifice are extremely common in Lolth-sworn drow society, even amongst family members. It is very common for Houses (families, essentially) to go to war with each other to advance their place in society. Countless houses have been completely exterminated this way.

Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the book "Homeland" by R.A. Salvatore:

Drider punishment: Remember Kar'niss from early in Act 2, the drow whose lower body is that of an enormous spider? He's a drider. Driders are drow who have been punished, typically by a high priestess of Lolth, or sometimes Lolth herself. Most driders seem to be male, but women have been turned into driders as well. The process is said to be excruciating, and it's generally a punishment for failing Lolth in some way, being disloyal, or hating Lolth and the ways of the drow.

Surface drow and Eilistraee: There are a couple of drow towns on the surface world, but they are extremely isolated and rarely seen. These "Seldarine" drow usually follow Eilistraee, another drow goddess that wants something better for her people. She embodies freedom, song, and dance. For a long time, her clergy was also female-only, but in recent times it's become welcoming to male members as well. Sometimes, these men use a ritual spell to change their sex, to better experience closeness to their goddess. While it's usually a temporary experience, some do it frequently or stay female-presenting for long periods of time. (And of course, this can be very relevant to transgender drow who wish to change their sex, or certain aspects of it.)

The Seldarine refers to the general elven pantheon of gods, all good-aligned enemies of Lolth. Long ago, Lolth betrayed Corellon, the leader of the Seldarine, and was cast out for her crimes. Eilistraee, the daughter of Lolth and Corellon, tries to steer the drow towards something better. A strong aspect of her faith is the freedom to choose. While most of her worshipers are drow, she welcomes all, and various types of outcasts can find comfort in her religion. She is considered a minor deity, however, and thus knowledge about her is quite rare outside of the drow. Both Eilistraee and her followers are little known and poorly understood.

How they're perceived by others: Drow are usually very distrusted both in the Underdark and on the surface, due to the reputation of the Lolth-sworn drow. Occasionally, they'll send raiding parties to the surface world to murder elves (especially followers of Eilistraee, if they happen to find one) and capture slaves. Drow aren't generally attacked on sight anymore by the time BG3 takes place, but they're still quite rare and tend to cause anxiety when they're not expected.

Sunlight Sensitivity: Drow born and raised in the Underdark also tend to be extremely sensitive to sunlight, as it's something they're not used to. This isn't present in Baldur's Gate 3, but it's been noted in D&D novels and materials for quite some time.

"Sunlight Sensitivity. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of the attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight."

On the other side of this, however, they also have superior darkvision. This does show up in BG3; their darkvision distance is twice that of other races that have it, like surface elves.

As mentioned in some of the novels with drow characters, sunlight sensitivity can fade with enough time and exposure.

No sleeping necessary: You may have noticed Astarion, your character, or others sleeping in an interesting pose, like they're meditating. Drow (and other elves) in D&D don't need sleep; instead, they generally use a meditative trance. (They can sleep if they want to, but most choose not to).

"Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep."

And interestingly: while in trance, elves still have their passive Perception, just at a disadvantage. Other races don't, since they're considered unconscious while asleep. (Of course, if an elf or drow is actually sleeping and not trancing for whatever reason, they'd lose that slight edge.)

Retconned stuff: They used to actually have infravision (heat vision)! This was back in the late 80s/early 90s. From my understanding, though, this was eventually swapped out for darkvision. With the infravision, they also had Drow Sign Language, which relied on seeing the heat in their hands when they used it. You can see this in the beginning of "Homeland" by R.A. Salvatore.

An additional note from bramblepatch regarding that:

if I think of anything else, I'll add it on later lol

#drow #baldur's gate 3 #bg3

[zarvasace]

Legend, but Pathfinder!

Pathfinder Chain Masterpost

Details as always under the cut, don't wanna spam y'all. I did actually do a comprehensive writeup of a level-20 Legend somewhere on tumblr, but I actually ended up changing a few things for this one.

Ancestry: Elf. I feel like it fits. Pathfinder elves have long ears and almost solid-colored eyes, so that's why his are like that.

Heritage: Beastkin. Twilight is also beastkin, but he's more open about the animalistic traits he has. Legend keeps his own under as tight a wrap as he can. He turns into a bunny. Don't ask about the hybrid form.

Background: Free Spirit, exactly what it sounds like. He gets a foraging feat and the survival skill.

Class: has anyone ever been more Thaumaturge than Legend? Pathfinder thaumas aren't magical, but they act that way sometimes. The official lore is that they change the world through sheer force of will. Essentially, they have studied so much and have just so much stuff that they can activate monster weaknesses, both real and made-up ones. It increases their damage and sometimes that of their allies. Thaumas can be built in a lot of different ways. They have three implements, the main stuff they use.

Legend's first implement is a wand, which is like if a fire rod was fused with an ice rod and a lightning rod. His second implement, less trained in, is a magic sword. His third is an amulet, which is for protecting his allies. He also has a slight ability to use magic items like scrolls, though no official spells himself.

Archetype: fighter, perhaps, just so he can be a bit better at the tanky side of things.

#my art #linked universe #lu legend #pathfinder chain #pathfinder #pf2e

[littlesparklight]

Timeline of the Epic Cycle I

Chopping this up in two (and skipping the Iliad parts, I only made that writeup for myself so I could keep track of the number of days/which books they happened in anyway lol), for those of you who might be interested!

My own ordering of matters, of course; some notes at the bottom under a cut.

-5 The judgement in (very) early spring; Paris goes to Sparta early in the sailing season, spring Paris and Helen sail around the eastern Mediterranean for a bit, while Agamemnon and Menelaos starts gathering the suitors. -4 Late spring Achilles gets found out after having been put in hiding on Skyros for a year by his mother. They gather at Aulis mid-summer the year after for the ill-fated omen spelling out how long the war will last, they sail for Troy, but mistake Teuthrania in Mysia for Troy and attack it, Telephos defends it, is injured by Achilles but otherwise routes the Achaeans, who finally realize this isn't Troy. They leave, and fleet scattered by storm. Achilles takes his ships to Skyros after the storm since Peleus had asked them to suppress the rebellion there, the Skyrians are Dolopians and thus technically under Peleus/Phoenix's authority. After an initial battle, Lykomedes bends and gives his daughter Deidamia in marriage to Achilles as a symbol of his/his father's authority. Neoptolemos is born only shortly after the marriage. As the commanders limp their way home and regroup, it's decided to use this time to more properly prepare. [Odysseus decides he's very much NOT going a second time, probably insert the prophecy mentioned in the Odyssey here, but not earlier, as additional reason, and starts planning for how to make sure it doesn't happen.]

0 Rounding up the leaders again, early-mid spring; Odysseus' madness. [Telephos comes to Mycenae for his healing and promises to lead them to Troy], Agamemnon's insult to Artemis as they've gathered at Aulis, this lasts for ~three weeks before Iphigenia is sent for; sacrifice of Iphigenia (Artemis takes her to Tauris). Late spring, they sail for Troy. Reaching Tenedos, attacking it, Achilles kills Tennes. They have a sacrifice to Apollo at his main sanctuary on the island, with a feast, Achilles is invited/comes late, and they start without him. Philoctetes is bit by the snake during that sacrifice. Cycnus gathers a force and goes to Troy to warn the city when he sees Tenedos burning. The Achaeans leave for the Trojan shore, the landing is messy (Protesilaos on the Achaean side and Cycnus on the Trojan are killed); the Trojans retreat into the city and the Achaeans gather to send an envoy to Troy, which fails.

0-9 raids and attacks on the surrounding countryside and coast all up and down Asia Minor/Thrace, all the way down to Caria and the islands nearest to the coast. A couple attempts at storming Troy fail, while the Trojans mostly stay in the city without engaging, or only close to the walls. 1-2 Famine as the initial resources dry up and the Trojans are still doing fine. Odysseus, trying to gather grain from Thrace, fails [because most Thracians are at least passive allies of Troy], Palamedes suggests/brings up the daughters of Anius to Agamemnon, who agrees, so Palamedes, Menelaos and Odysseus goes to Delos. Perhaps Odysseus' persuasiveness fails, and it's Palamedes and Menelaos who manage to convince Anius, to add further "insult"? 2 Epipole found out by Palamedes, stoned to death by the Achaeans. 3 Palamedes' murder, the Oinotropoi taken charge of by Agamemnon. 4 Troilus is murdered by Achilles. 5 The Oinotropoi "escape" by being turned into birds. [This leads to more heavier and wide-ranging sacking as the Achaeans now have to rely on outside sources of foodstuff aside from meat, which, as long/soon as they have a breeding stock and feed/grazing for them, can be maintained in camp.] 5 As a result of the above, Achilles drives off the cattle of Aeneas by approaching Ida from the south coast. He kills Priam's son Mestor during this. Chases Aeneas to Lyrnessos; Lyrnessos and Pedasos are sacked, Briseis' family and husband killed, she's given to Achilles. Aeneas gets away, however. 6 (early) Achilles wishes to see Helen, as this thing is dragging (though he knows about the reading of the snake and sparrows omen, of course) and wishes to know if she's truly worth it. He then restrains the restless mass of the army into staying. [7 Dardanos is attacked and sacked, driving the survivors and the Dardanian branch of the royal family to Troy?] 7 Lykaon taken while he's out at night to get supplies for a new chariot and sold on Lemnos as a slave (he's given back to Priam years later, coming home only twelve days before his death (during the days the Achaeans/Achilles is waiting for the gods to return)). 8 (mid-early) Thebe Hypoplakia is sacked (completely unprepared, as Andromache's brothers are out tending their herds and a sacrifice to Artemis is being held, the one Chryseis is attending (suggested by Anderson in The Fall of Troy in Early Greek Poetry and Art), Chryseis is given to Agammemnon. Andromache's mother taken but ransomed to Troy and then sent onwards to her father, where she dies of sickness sometime before the main action in the Iliad. 8-9 (late eight, early ninth); the majority of Trojan allies arrive, most of those coming from outside the Troad.

Almost all the details for these nine years are just elaborated details from the fragments of the Cypria, or scholia attached to it.

-I've chosen to add five years; at the very least I think you need two (in that case probably making the first, mistaken attack an impulsive and quickly put-together affair very shortly after Paris and Helen have come to Troy), so there can be proper preparations. The Bibliotheke, undoubtedly following a general and earlier tradition, goes with Helen's "it's been twenty years" and inserts ten. It then puts the first muster and the attack on Teuthrania two years after Helen's abduction; the Achaeans do not gather again until eight years later after being scattered by the storm.

-to adjust for the extra years, Odysseus' feigned madness thus comes before second muster, instead of the first. Both because it makes better sense (knowledge of the ten-year duration of the war, that at least some gods are against them given that storm/hitting the wrong city, the prophecy he gets given in Ithaka), and because Telemachus must of course be born closer to the second muster than the first, given the years passed/his age at the end.

-The Achilles-Skyros episodes are based on the Iliad's mention of him sacking/attacking it, plus a tradition that gave a reason as to why this would've happened. The aborted attack by Lykomedes surrendering and officially marrying Deidamia to Achilles in the aftermath is my own arrangement. In the Bibliotheke, Achilles is 15 at the first muster.

-In the Kypria, the Achaeans sack Tenedos and land on Troy's shores before they send an embassy. The Bibliotheke, if the phrasing of the section preserves the meaning of the fuller account better, have the Achaeans send the embassy from Tenedos itself. Only very late versions have the embassy being sent before even the first muster.

-The famine subplot is as old as the lost epics, at least; one of the ways Palamedes is murdered is while he's out on a fishing expedition with Odysseus and Diomedes (fishing being something you "only" did in starvation conditions lol), for example. The daughters of Anius magically provide food for the army at least for part of the length of the ten years, and it's specifically not Odysseus who manages to get them to the Achaeans' camp at Troy. Usually Palamedes' murder is imagined relatively early, in some variants even earlier than this, but to work with the famine subplot and the girls, I've put it here.

-the way the war has been waged in the nine years up to the Iliad has mostly been taken from mentions in the Iliad (though there they seem to imagine the Trojans still fighting on the ground, just next to the walls), with some elaborations as seemed logical.

-I inserted an attack/sacking of the city of Dardanos, since it seemed logical to move Aeneas' family from there (as his great-grandfather was king of the place) to Troy at some point during the war. Dardanos has been imagined as both being on the coast (later versions, based on a real city of Dardanos) and in the foothills of Mount Ida (earlier versions).

-In the Bibliotheke, the allies turn up in the last year of the war. This seems to be ALL of them; I decided to cut it down to those who are coming from further away than the Troad itself. It seems logical to me that those in the actual country would gather around Troy throughout the nine years, if one does go with a late appearance of the other allies.

#trojan war #greek myth thoughts #the iliad

[astrid-beck]

It's so funny that the official widogast's transmogrification spell writeup includes an explicit caveat that it can also be used to change gender. Like it would be very strange to me if that wasn't the case but I guess it's nice we established Widogast's Gender Affirming Care

#i know this is the main fanon use for this spell and i would've just assumed that it works that way but it's funny that it is Stated #but yeah the gender essentialism assumptions of ''you can transmute your entire physical body but not your dick'' would be very strange #so it's not SURPRISING. but #lena watches cr

[emerald9d]

An Undertale/Deltarune Theory Complaint:

Alright I wanna bitch about UT/DR fan interpretations again. Basically, I feel like the idea that Kris is being puppeteered by the player (and that they're aware of this to any degree), which I was already not a huge fan of, is now getting retroactively applied to the protagonist of Undertale.

That sucks guys. That sucks so fucking hard. And not only does it suck, but it actually helps illustrate just why it would suck in DR too:

It retroactively fucks up the tone of the entire game!

(This is much more just a rant I've been sitting on recently, as compared to some big detailed writeup. Also, y'know, spoiler warning for both games. Screen shots from LongplayArchive on YouTube)

Like

where's the part in the where Sans is like "but the mere act of playing this game is bad so fuck you for that?" Where is any thematic implication of that being an important element anywhere, outside of genocide route, and maybe overtly deadly choices in general? Where's the finger-waggle? Where is it??

Certainly if it was anywhere it'd be in the place where this line gets spoken and you are then morally judged for your actions. Right?

This isn't the sort of thing you have to read deeply between the lines on. Yes, a lot of the game is reliant upon the player's faulty initial assumption that the name they chose in the start is the character you're playing as.

It's a cool twist for sure. And this particular moment really hammers home that, yes, Frisk is their own person. But it comes across less as some kind of "gotcha" admonishment and more just, like, the clear logical conclusion of the twist that's already been pretty much spelled out at this point anyway. That the name you chose was for somebody else entirely.

Hell, after this revelation happens, you're then given more time to walk around as Frisk and talk to people. If at this point you're supposed to be thinking that controlling Frisk is an inherently unsavory thing at all times, wouldn't that be an inherently bad segment? Wouldn't the only correct choice be to rush out the door towards the credits as fast as possible?

Under that understanding, the only moral choice outside of not playing at all is a non-violent speed run.

Maybe I'm not understanding popular fan theories correctly and am vastly overestimating how many people actually think this whole "player puppeteering" thing retroactively applies to Frisk too. But the mere thought of it really gets my panties in a twist I won't lie.

Also,

At this point, you know full well that Frisk is their own person. Yet, here you are, dealing with one last choice prompt. How can there be anything morally questionable about this? Hell, even acting with the knowledge that Frisk is their own person and doing your best to pick what you think they'd want... it gets you nowhere. Which answer is correct? The first? The Second? Neither? Both?

I don't think you're supposed to dwell on that. If anything it just further hammers home how Frisk has shit going on you're probably not even aware of. I think that normally, the player and the player character are kinda indistinguishable, especially in-universe. It's not until you start doing logically absurd violent shit that the game bends over backwards to make the player feel like a fucked up asshole, as opposed to Frisk. To the point where the spiritual embodiment of numbers going up for their own sake pops out and calls you a psycho just like them.

LIke, this aspect of the writing isn't subtle? I really don't see room for any other interpretation. If you have to imagine the player as some distinct aspect of the game world even during a peaceful playthrough, then I'd stick with my interpretation from my Kris writeup (linked at the beginning of this) where you're, like, some part of their subconscious that helps them decide shit. Or a headmate that they probably aren't aware of, if the player has to be something resembling a distinct person.

Oh, also: if both options in that final choice prompt are equally valid, then that really bolsters my idea that the choices given to you are coming from the character, rather than something foisted upon them out of nowhere. Like, again, you're just helping decide. If they wanna just talk, then they just talk. Like when they give their name to Asriel. Kris is handled exactly the same way. Deltarune is just written with you knowing that Kris is their own person from the very start, where Undertale isn't. That's it.

Which means...

... Frisk is absolutely the kind of person to consider all of these options at once, lol. They were effectively a less edgy test run for Kris, I think.

#undertale #deltarune #theory #frisk #kris #kris dreeumurr #ut #dr #utdr #analysis #emerald9d #emerald9d thoughts #is this anything? #I might be arguing with nobody

[paperanddice]

This section of the Tome of Beasts is going to be interesting, because demon lords are not scaled the same between all these games. In 5e, demon lords sit largely between CR 23 and 26, and while powerful can't grant clerical spellcasting and thus are usually instead patrons for warlocks. In Pathfinder (mostly 1e, but 2e will probably replicate this) they are all level 26 or higher, and for Pathfinder 2e none have been statted yet at all, with the closest being the nascent demon lord Treerazor, a level 25 monstrosity and the highest level thing in Pathfinder 2e so far, while full demon lords are literally gods and grant clerical spells. For 13th Age, demon lords aren't exactly a thing, with the Icons being the top of the pyramid and the Diabolist in particular the most powerful being related to demons.

So, yeah, the long and short is that converting the Tome of Beasts demon lords to other systems isn't as simple as converting other stuff. The scale of them varies so much across the different systems, the way they're intended to be used is quite different, and just converting across will heavily change how they interact with the different settings. Just statting Alquam as a level 21 demon for Pathfinder 2e demotes him to nascent demon lord at best, which is clearly not the intention of the original writeup. But 13th Age doesn't have anything that'd be qualified as a demon lord at all, so any conversion of them would be just making an end game, near Icon level foe.

So I'm delaying the issue for a moment with the spawn of Akyishigal, a minor demon that was created by the lord of cockroaches, Akyishigal! A humanoid, human sized cockroach creature, with a pair of duel tails each ending with a deadly, poison dripping stinger, they have an innate control over vermin and enforce their creator's will upon the world wherever it sends them.

Inspired by the Tome of Beasts 1. 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!

Spawn of Akyishigal Creature 5 Rare, Medium, Demon, Fiend, Unholy Perception +10; darkvision Languages Abyssal, telepathy 100 feet Skills Athletics +11, Intimidation +8 (+14 vs. arthropods), Stealth +13 Str +2, Dex +1, Con +4, Int +0, Wis +0, Cha +1 Command Vermin The spawn of Akyishigal can use Intimidation to Command an Animal on arthropods (insects, spiders, scorpions, crabs, and similar invertebrate animals) with an Intelligence of -3 or lower. AC 22; Fort +15, Ref +10, Will +12; +1 status to all saves vs. magic HP 85; Immunities disease, poison; Weaknesses cold iron 5, holy 5 Speed 25 feet, climb 15 feet Melee mandibles +11 (magical, unholy), Damage 2d8+6 piercing Melee stinger +11 (agile, magical, unholy), Damage 2d4+6 piercing plus Akyishigal Venom Divine Spontaneous Spells DC 19 ; 5th translocate; 4th translocate (at will); 3rd vomit swarm; Divine Rituals DC 19; demonic pact Akyishigal Venom (poison); Saving Throw DC 22 Fortitude; Maximum Duration 6 rounds; Stage 1 1d10 poison damage and enfeebled 1 (1 round); Stage 2 2d10 poison damage and enfeebled 1 (1 round)

13th Age

Spawn of Akyishigal  3rd level troop [demon]  Initiative: +5 Stinger +8 vs. AC - 7 damage. Natural 14+: The target also takes 5 ongoing poison damage. Natural 18+: The target is also weakened while taking the ongoing poison damage. C: Vomit Swarm +8 vs. PD (1d4 nearby enemies) - 4 ongoing damage. Natural Even Hit: The target is also hampered while taking the ongoing damage. Limited Use: 1/battle, when the escalation die is 2+. Wall Crawler. AC 18 PD 17 MD 13 HP 48

#pathfinder 2e #13th age #homebrew #my homebrew #monster #demon #fiend #pathfinder level 5 #13th age level 3 #long post #tome of beasts

[oneefin]

parts: 1, 2, 3, ...

mit mystery hunt 2024 writeup 1: asphodel

it's my mitmh24 writeup! part 1.

most people post their hunt writeups all in one take, like they've already done this before and seen the whole hunt or whatever. given that we're still postsolving and etc, i'm gonna be different by splitting mine into posts about individual puzzles.

and no better way to start than with asphodel, a puzzle from the second round of this year's mystery hunt. have a look yourself before reading on - spoilers follow!

i'll start by saying that although there were technical issues, the puzzle content was great right from the get-go. we had an enormous puzzle width early on, and a lot of the stuff i saw struck me as very cool and modern

anyway, onto the puzzle: so everyone has that one puzzle whose theme falls into their exact niche and no one else's, right? for me, that was this puzzle.

the banner at the top of the puzzle is a simplified drawing of the everdoor from the Thunder Lotus video game Spiritfarer. the game is about nurturing a small group of wandering spirits in their final hours until you have to say goodbye. it's got that kind of indie game soul behind it that i really love - plus, the movement is really fun.

knowing the theme, we dove straight in

how it worked was: there's a huge grid with flowers. these are spirit flowers, representing each character from the video game. there's some blanks at the bottom that fit the names of each flower, with one letter marked for extraction:

seeing HOME NAMES immediately gave me an idea of what the huge grid is all about. one of the things you do in Spiritfarer is build a huge boat with buildings on it that serve as home spaces for the spirits. they're all different sizes and you end up tetris-ing them all together:

it turned out that, for each of the spirit flowers, the home building of the associated character from the game fits perfectly in this grid. additionally, we saw that for each of them, there was exactly one instance of their corresponding flower within their house (highlighted in yellow):

(i would show this construction in the actual game, but i don't own the game myself - and i think it's impossible anyway because your boat has to have a ton of auxiliary buildings on it at this point)

extraction isn't too far from here: you can map the names of the houses (lodge, bungalow, sanctuary, etc) onto the flowers in the grid, and then the highlighted yellow flowers spell the answer. horray!

i really enjoyed seeing and working through this puzzle. i'm biased from being the resident Spiritfarer expert in our group, but if there was going to be a hunt puzzle about Spiritfarer, having it be about jigsawing boat buildings into a grid was probably the coolest thing to have done with it. and i'm very thankful it was early in the hunt so that it was easier to sink my teeth into it (even if i had to do so while still at work)

the ride was a little bumpy, because i forgot that the houses aren't rectangular despite being listed with rectangular dimensions on wikis, and the order in which to read the extracted letters wasn't intuitive, but we got there!

the rest of this round was fun, too. the meta was nice and simple - we locked it in very quickly after we had enough answers to make it work.

#puzzle #puzzle hunt #mit mystery hunt #asphodel

[chocodile]

As it turns out, I was actually just working on a writeup about the bunny parents! Here’s what I have. (If you want to see Ambroys’ parents, you’ll need to ask @kwillow​, since he’s her character!) But yes, ONTO THE RABBITS:

VISCOUNTESS AURELIA MARIA HYDEN was a cunning and ambitious aristocrat with a significant paranoid and obsessive streak that worsened as she got older. Born with only the weakest of magical abilities herself, her plan was to grow the then-declining Hyden family's power and wealth (and, importantly, her own) by producing strong, magically talented heirs that she could use to network with other noble families.

Unfortunately, though Aurelia herself was healthier than most recent members of the notoriously sickly Hyden lineage, her plan was doomed to fail as she suffered miscarriage after stillbirth, with the few children that did survive birth inevitably turning out so frail that they died in early childhood. The combined mental and physical toll of seeing her life’s plans crumble before her eyes while enduring so many difficult pregnancies caused her mental and physical health to sharply decline--something she refused help with, as she had come to believe the healers were poisoning her. By the time that Arcturus IV was born, she had no confidence that her then-infant son would survive to adulthood. She passed away from a pregnancy-related complication when he was around 6 or 7 years old.

VISCOUNT ARCTURUS ALEKSANDER HYDEN III was a strange, quiet, introverted sort of man with middling magical abilities. He spoke with a lisp and walked with a limp due to congenital issues that had not been corrected in his childhood. Often described by others as “touched in the head”, Arcturus III disliked attention and the shunned the spotlight, leaving social networking (as well as the family finances) to Aurelia, as he was far more interested in his studies than in people. His lack of social skills and limited magical potential meant that his job options were limited to that of a researcher--something he seemed quite content with, and devoted himself to fully once Aurelia passed away and Arcturus IV had been shipped off to Whitefell Magical Academy.

He and his son had a bitter fight and serious falling out during Arcturus IV's teenage years. Arcturus IV blamed him for Aurelia's death, and during the heated spell battle that followed, Arcturus III humiliated his less-experienced son by disarming and defeating him. Arcturus IV spit on his father and stormed out. After graduation, he stopped going by "Arcturus" at all, now using only his surname, Hyden. He also cut off his father entirely... though, of course, he had no qualms about showing up to collect his inheritance (and estate, and title of viscount) when Arcturus III eventually passed away under mysterious circumstances.

(Note that Aurelia and Arcturus are shown here how they looked late in life--they were about the same age, Arcturus III just lived several decades longer.)

#ask #ask blog #furry #furry art #anthro #anthro art #my ocs #hyden #verse: amaranthine #pregnancy // #miscarriage //