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travelerclondike · 4 months

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I came across a vid that made me really want to just talk about my dragon dweeb Gil.

I've never really gotten to play DnD but I love the world's and the story and a friend of mine I used to role play with decided since there was just two of us we'd create our own fantasy DnD-esque world where we grabbed s few of our pre-existing characters from other forgotten projects to give them new life in a new adventure. The main crew had our pirate queen, a Halfling named Lang Porter; one of her devoted shipmates a Swamp Triton nicknamed Firlan, a Tiefling fortune teller with plenty of shady ties named Prill, a very young Wood Elf nicknamed Vii, a human Tempest Cleric named Bree, and lastly there's Gil, a great mess of a "wizard".

And by mess I mean the gang originally met him while on their first mission. Lang wanted her crew to stay a while and set up shop so she could hock off some of her stolen goods and rest easy a while in the great port city of Sprinos. The problem is, Sprinos is basically owned by a powerful Mafia family and she finds out quick that if you want to do business in this town, you'll need to make some friends first. Fair enough, alliances are good if it means she can come back at a later point and have some protection, but the people are uneasy about outsiders since there's been a series of missing people lately and no one is sure what's happening to them. After some information gathering and making friends with Prill (who's uncle is the leader of the clan), they hear rumors about strange activity at the lake and many a curious warrior hasn't come back from investigating. They find a cave hidden along the base of the mountain where they find Gil, a fierce Gold Dragon who turns out to be a human once he realizes they're not here to hurt him. There's been a lot of people coming to his home lately, claiming he's the monster of the lake, but he's really just some old recluse who would rather stay alone. He goes to town sometimes for supplies so Prill recognized him, but had no idea where he stayed since he clearly didn't live in Sprinos. In that case, she feels she can trust him. Warily but enough to believe him that he'd like to get his name cleared. After their success, he ends up deciding that he's missed out on a lot of changes in the world, and he's curious to see what else is out there. An adventure would do him some good, and admittedly he's been pretty lonely so seeing he can actually do some good in the world makes him wonder what else he's capable of. Why would he think otherwise?

Because he's actually a dragon.

See, in this world, about 300 years before events, there was a great uprising where all of the dragons were thought to be wiped out. It started with the Dragonborn (in this world once being second class denizens to a draconian empire) overthrowing their cruel masters but it spread far and wide. Gil, it turns out, was a very young Gold Dragon in the crumbling days of the empire and since he never really had the chance to learn, the one thing his father bestowed on him was how to Change Shape in the hopes he might be able to flee in the chaos. This is fun because it opens up the possibility of other Dragons being out there in disguise, but few can hold the illusion as long as his kind. He's been in hiding for the last century or so out of sheer terror to his childhood trauma, but dragons are so long lived, he's not really sure how much time has passed and has long feared that the slayings were still going on. It also doesn't help how going into town has allowed him to overhear the tales of these wretched creatures and see the rare and expensive dragon hides in the shops to know he's not safe there. But in a way it's given him some internal complexities because he knows what he is, but almost wishes he wasn't. Gil is around 400 years old, making him by far the oldest of the group, but that's true of his human form too as he appears to them as someone in his mid 40s. Most of the group will make fun of his archaic way of talking (he does start to learn more Common as he visits more) chalking it up to fact he's been living under a rock surrounded by his books and other old world things he's collected. It's a bit of a running gag that he's SO timid and SO unassuming, the others aren't even covering for him when he does something weird, they genuinely think he's just an oddball of a human. Doesn't understand social cues? He's been living under a rock. Knows a lot about history? Yeah he's a nerd, this is not news. Magic goes awry? Well he's a wizard in TRAINING since for all his reading he only tried putting things in practice on that first mission. Surprisingly durable for a human wizard? He's a total coward that will fake injury since he knows if he gets knocked out, his cover spell might dissipate. Prill is so annoyed early on to realize he's not hurt, he just laid down to hope the fighting would stop. Even once he starts showing other magic traits, there's discussion that yeah he's been living in the woods since he was a kid, but did it ever occur to him he might have some dragon blood in his lineage?

He really does start to warm up to the "other" Dragonborn they meet along the way, even if they're surprised how little he knows of their customers and feel sad to learn he's grown up without a clan to have ties to. Little Violex knows how that goes. She's the member he's gotten most attached to, not just because she's so young, but because he found out she came to the group under similar circumstances. When a mysterious force was unleashed and threatened to wipe out her entire home, her parents set up a teleportation spell to send her far from the forest in hopes someone would take her in. Someone had to survive to tell what happened. It's cute though because Gil will sometimes drop his spell during a long rest, but says he's setting up the illusion to help scare away bandits. Elves don't sleep as much as other races so Vii was the first one to see him in his true form but as a druid, she wondered in her wide eyes innocence if him turning into a dragon was similar to her turning into a squirrel when she's scared. He says yes, even if he's not one for lying. After all, it is similar, just she doesn't realize he also makes himself smaller because he's scared, it just happens to be almost all the time.

#Original characters #Tales of Emerros #Gil Pauptree #Gold Dragon

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bourbon-ontherocks · 2 years

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v glad to hear the burn will be slooow (&hopefully painful, and organic 🤞) so we can appreciate all the canon vidding (à défaut de fanvids 🥲 💘). speaking of, how do you make your gifs? do you record your screen, download the eps, something else? I’m very ignorant but curious on that front! and music-wise, That’s Me is so morgane 🤯🤯 Take a Chance on Me works great too, whoa (&I’d never heard She’s My Kind of Girl, it's v disturbing to hear the guys haha) a thought: Ring Ring for your POV fic

(Julia's adventures with the HPI anon)

Gosh, I'm all here for a sloooooooow burn!!! 😱🔥 Also it may sound weird but I think I'd just lose interest in the ship if they actually got together, like really as a couple? My jam is the longing, the pining, the miscommunication, all these moments leading to the final resolution but I have no interest whatsoever in what happens after that lol! So yeah, deffo hoping they'll keep chasing after one another for a while!

Okay, phew, giffing. Well, I had never giffed anything before I got into HPI (I guess Good Girls got me into writing and HPI into giffing, learn something new every ship and whatnot) so I'm just getting started on that journey and won't pretend my MO should be taken as gospel. I do download the eps, which is something I did before anyway (I've been an internet pirate and downloaded stuff since 2011, LOL 😅).

And then there's a whole process involving Photoshop which I learned from many tutorials and also the incredible help of my dear mutuals. I'll take that opportunity to make a public shoutout to @sdktrs12 and @lemoncupcake for answering my questions and being absolute rockstars who clearly saved me an immense amount of time. 💕💕💕 Ngl, giffing is a very time-consuming hobby but I'm having tons of fun. I thought I wouldn't bother you with all the technical details, but feel free to ask if you're interested! Also I can link you some of my non-spoilery gifsets if you'd like!

Yay, glad you liked all the ABBA stuff!! She's just my kind of girl is one of my fave songs but I agree it's quite a ufo in their discography, haha! (not sure you can use ufo the same way you talk about ovnis in French but eh). And oh, ring ring deffo has the vibe too! 😍

#anon #ask #giffing #music #julia's adventures with the hpi anon #hpi analysis

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critroleing · 5 years

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If Campaign 2 went Live in the Middle (like Campaign 1)

Since you guys liked it so much the first time, let’s run through the real world AU where campaign 2 was the one we started in the middle of, but more in depth this time.

There would be a backstory/introduction vid that played in the beginning of episodes and in the break. This is more or less what it would say:

Caleb: All of his backstory will be explained in one chunk, including stuff like the residuum crystals in his arms, his past name, and the concept of scourgers, stuff that was plot twists that came along the way for us. No attention will be paid to how this backstory came out to the characters. Nor who among the characters actually know any of this. We will assume by default that everyone knows.

Nott: this is the story of Veth, mostly. The story of how she got bullied as a child, had a marriage and a baby, got kidnapped and transformed into a goblin but regained her family and now they’re waiting for her in Nicodranas. The story of how she regained them is kind of like the story of how Pike died. Technically it was in game, but it’s so far away it’s essentially backstory.

Beau: The lore we’ve gotten from her is much more sporadic, but they’ll take the pieces of what we have gotten and treat it like the Lore Drops we’ve gotten from people like Caleb and Nott. Her childhood in Kamordah will be explained, along with how she got kidnapped by monks, has a baby brother and mentor named Dairon will all be given as if everyone knows these facts and not like they were carefully dished out to one person here and one person there. (Because of this the fandom’s view of her will be slightly off from who she actually is, and that will lead to a good chunk of fans disliking her, at least until they get the hang of her character.)

Jester will probably be the least affected by this change. We knew her backstory early and met her mother later, which is how this turns out. Her backstory does reach all the way up to include the gnoll follower she met in Asarius and preparations for Travelercon. The Traveler will inevitably turn up somewhere and talk to Jester. He will seem super shady. In other words, nothing much will have changed.

Fjord: Huge changes here. During the time we wouldn’t have seen Fjord has learned who Uk’otoa is, followed him, almost set him free, stopped working for him, lost his powers and started working for another power. That is a lot of developments to be relegated to backstory, and this is on top of the backstory he already had. There will be a brief mention of Fjord having had a different accent in the past, the fandom will not pick up on how big of a deal that is.

Caduceus: His backstory might include the story of the Clays, the Dusts and the Stones, in which case he will feel a lot like Keyleth did. He will sound like he has a Plan, in a way that he did not seem to, watching it episode by episode. We don’t actually know all that much about Caduceus’ personal life, so his backstory presentation might have to go for the big picture stuff.

Yasha: She’ll get her own presentation. We know this because Ashley wasn’t there for the first few episodes of c1 but Pike’s presentation was there anyway. Explanations of her backstory will include Zuala, blacking out and coming to again, the Stormlord, mentions of Obann but not her current situation. That will be explained in the very beginning by Matt, with interruptions form the rest of the gang. The fandom will not understand how serious it is until Yasha comes back.

Molly will not get a presentation. He, in fact, will not be acknowledged until someone makes a reference to him and suddenly the cast will remember that, oh, the audience doesn’t know who he is. The audience understands that this was Taliesin’s previous character, but the extent of his influence on the party will be lost as we have no real feel for Molly’s character or what he could have inspired in others.

Male pronouns will be used when explaining Molly, people will immediately forget that and it becomes pretty common to see and hear Molly depicted as a woman and then people correcting them. The Ruby of the Sea will take some explaining, but she’s definitely one of the people we have to meet as soon as possible. “She’s the best lay ever, you guys,” Laura informs us. We do not get the joke.

Someone remembers Pumat Sol exists. They try to explain him. It’s really hard. Matt does an accent and the fandom enjoys it.

The fact that the Mighty Nein are already established in Xhorhas feels alienating to a lot of viewers. Apparently they’re heroes of the Dynasty? And have a house? With a tree on it? And Beau’s mentor Dairon is there?

So the reason they are heroes is because they gave the Bright Queen some sort of artefact. The fandom is unsure of what it was or where it came from, but it may be that the Empire has another one. The larger lore of how the Dens and Beacons work is largely lost, and with it a lot of understanding about the larger world and the war.

At some point far in the future it comes out that they’ve already met Trent Ikithon, Caleb’s main bad guy. Nothing much seemed to happen. Lots of meta about how that meeting was going to happen has to be thrown out.

Jester has pets. Sprinkle doesn’t get mentioned a lot, but at least he’s on adventures with them. There is also Nugget, who lives Marion and we eventually get to meet. We don’t know where they came from, presumably Jester had them the whole time, like childhood pets.

They also adopted a baby bird for a while. They say it could mimic speech? The people who know what kenku are have their suspicions, everyone else thinks it’s another pet.

Beau has some trauma related to some academic by the name of Professor Thaddeus. Much meta has been written about who he is and what happened between him and Beau.

They know a gentleman who’s blue and sweaty. He is also maybe Jester’s dad. Jury’s out on that one.

The Empire feels so far away, and so Other. People praise Matt for making the humans the bad guys and the Drow the good guys.

The fact that they were pirates once comes up in conversation. A joke is made about it. Nothing is explained.

Eventually it comes out that it had things do do with Fjord’s patron, there was a sexy cult leader pirate with a French accent who Fjord slept with, and they got banished from the pirate island within a day.

They still technically have French accent pirate’s ship. It’s called the Ball Eater. They go there once and we meet the Tortle bagpiper tattoo artist who runs it. His name is Orly. The fandom loses its’ shit.

The ship is named that because of Fjord apparently. He ate some orbs once, so they say.

Fjord also ate a sword once? Was he in a circus? Yasha and that Molly person were in a circus, was Fjord there too?

Jester carries around a an erotica book. Where it comes from no one knows, but it doesn’t seem out of character for her so we roll with it.

They have had an encounter with a dragon, an ancient white one, but they haven’t killed any.

Except maybe they have?

Beau has slept with two (2) whole guest characters.

Jester casts Sending to talk to a guy. Matt answers in a very sexy voice. We think the guy is an NPC. He’s not.

A sweet lady once sent actual letters with actual, physical gifts to them.

After that there are more than a few bets on what other NPC’s are actually guest characters being jaegered for the moment.

Why are they even called the Mighty Nein? The cast explains that it had to do with a session in the early levels when they were rolling a lot of nines, and it sounds funny when Caleb says it. It was probably funny if you were there, but for the fandom it just sounds kinda dumb.

Nott might get some more shipping attention, given that she’s actually a halfling. She also might not, because she’s both married and ugly.

Fjord and Jester still share a deep bond, but the more overt parts of Jester’s crush that were prominent in the earlier episodes seem to have mellowed out by the time we meet them. Fjord and Jester also haven’t, percentage wise, spent more time together as a pair than a group, so that dynamic isn’t really seen. Fjorester exists, but has a very different vibe to it.

Widomauk does not exist.

Beauyasha might exist, if only because they are the only two confirmed wlw in the group. It’s more of an idea until they meet and chemistry can be measured of course.

Beaujester exists, but very much in the ‘look at their emotional chemistry, wouldn’t it be nice’. In a way, not much has changed, you just have less of a basis to ship on.

Fjorclay might be big for a while, given how important Caduceus has been for Fjord’s journey lately.

Videos resurface of the cast playing at home before this campaign became public. Fjord has a Texan accent. Nott calls herself a little goblin girl. That is a really weird Caduceus voice. Life feels strange.

Sam asks Liam on their podcast what would be the worst character to play in D&D, just the worst. Liam suggests goblin. Seems like he was thinking worst as in most morally dubious.

Nott rolls a natural 1 and shoots herself in the foot with her own crossbow. That’s not good, the fandom thinks, what if she got killed doing damage to herself? Besides, that would look really dumb.

We will never know about Spurt.

Jester, Fjord and Yasha got kidnapped by slavers once, we find out alarmingly late. They seem fine though, so that turns into another trivia fact.

Actually no, that’s probably mentioned in passing when they’re explaining how Molly died. It doesn’t really hit home with most if the fandom though.

Unclear where Caleb can teleport to. Generally assumed that he knows at least one teleport circle in the Empire.

In this world Vox Machina probably doesn’t exist at all. At least not online. Maybe they played all of that campaign at home, so we get occasional references to ‘their first game’ or ‘their home game’ but have no context for that either.

In which case you could make a whole category for references to the first campaign we wouldn’t understand.

Like why Taliesin is explaining how the guns work.

Or the ruins of Draconia down south.

Or why the team were so hyped to go to Whitestone.

Or maybe this was their first campaign after all, and none of these things have any additional context.

Nott will be looked at mostly as a halfling mother. Instead of discussions about if she’s even old enough to be an adult she’s considered older than the rest, and a large contingent of the fandom is mad at her for adventuring when she has a child waiting for her at home.

Caleb has at least two homebrew spells. They are eventually referred to as Dunamancy. The fandom realises the level of worldbuilding Matt’s on in that he’s made an entire new school of magic.

Feel free to add more. I’m sure there’s stuff I haven’t considered out there.

#critical role #critical role spoilers #cr spoilers #cr meta #critical role meta #what if cr2 started in the middle #like cr1 did

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