#But it's so cool

[honourablejester]

Okay, that’s just cool.

Youtube is throwing random D&D related videos at me, and it recommended this year old video from Esper the Bard talking about cool 3/3.5e undead monsters that didn’t make the transition to 5e (in a lot of cases because they do damage to stats, I’m guessing). And one of them, the Boneyard, from the sourcebook Libris Mortis, is so cool.

Lorewise, it does have some similarities to 5e’s Gallows Speaker, in that it’s an undead that results from the combined dead of mass graves and charnel sites, but instead of a spectral combination, the Boneyard is a physical one. It’s, as it sounds like, a writhing mass of bones animated by the combined spirits of those who died.

And. I might be biased. Because that’s very similar to a Japanese Gashadokuro, and a gashadokuro was the star creature of an absolutely amazing Mushishi/Mononoke crossover fic I read called Dust & Bones by 7PhoenixAshes which made absolutely stunning creepy use of it. But. It’s such a cinematic monster, and one that comes with the story damn near pre-written for you.

The Boneyard is a creature born of massacres and charnel pits, mass graves and the dead left to rot unburied. It’s the dead of famines, the dead of plagues, the dead of genocides, the dead of battlefields left to moulder untended. A lot of undead have their backstory built into the fact of their existence, they’re great that way. And, as a D&D monster, it has an absolutely terrifying ability where if it manages to grapple you, and you’re still grappled next turn, it can start liquifying and absorbing your bones. Make them part of itself. It’s a writhing formless (but often serpentine) mass of bones animated by the massed souls of a great injustice, and it will pin your down and make you part of it.

That’s so easy to set up as an absolutely terrifying and creepy boss battle. (This thing was CR 14). Like. You can set that scene so easily. Twenty years ago there was a massacre in this village, or a famine, or a plague, and their greatest secret and shame was that the dead were never properly buried, whether deliberately, in the case of the massacre, or because there were too few left to be able to bury them, in the case of the famine or plague, and the bodies were instead thrown down a ravine or buried jumbled together in a pit, anything to get them out and away from the survivors. Now, twenty years on, animals and eventually people have started vanishing out by the ravine. People in the village hear bones rattling in the night. And they would get help, they need to get help, but getting help means admitting what happened back then. Admitting what was never laid to rest. So the villagers, at least the older ones, are being cagey with the party. Trying to skirt around it.

And then they get out there, to this strange, mist-shrouded dip in the ground. There’s bones lying scattered on the surface, even twenty years down the line. So many were thrown here that animals couldn’t scavenge them all. The ground is littered with bones.

And then, up ahead, they hear something alive. Someone alive. They hear a faint, reedy voice crying in agony. And it is. It is alive. It’s a person, a poor bastard of a traveller or merchant who no one warned not to come this way, and they’re gravely injured, but they’re frantically waving the party away. Not closer. They’re waving the party away.

And then there’s a rattling, the sound of bones rolling together in the mist around them. The wounded traveller’s eyes widen in raw terror. They attempt to shout out a warning, but a mass of bones shaped almost like a hand suddenly slams down over them from the mist behind them. A vast hulking shape looms out of the fog. Leans down over its pinned prey. And eats its bones.

Roll initiative.

Because. See. You want them to be wary of the bones. You want them to know something’s out here. You want to have that moment of surprise, the sudden horror looming out of the mist. But I think you also want them to know that the bone-eating thing is on the table. You want them to know that risk going in, you want them to know that they absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, let themselves get grabbed. You want that up front, so the fear of it is right there, so it shapes their tactics, and also so they can see it without having to deploy it on your players first. This thing is an absolutely lethal boss monster, and you want them to know that so they can plan accordingly, and also so they can be appropriately terrified of it, without having it feel unfair that the first time they know it can happen is when one of them dies to it.

(In 3/3.5, this did stat damage to all three of your physical stats, so it took a couple of turns to kill you, but it would kill you, and would be absolutely horrific the entire time. You’d have to jig this so it wasn’t doing stat damage for a 5e conversion, but the visuals should convey most of the horror, even if it winds causing less immediate and comprehensively lethal damage).

But. What a cinematic monster. Its backstory is already pre-baked for you, and you have an absolutely terrifying threat of an ability to alert the party to for them to plan around. And, if they’re a bit too low level for this, or just very melee oriented, the plan should absolutely be run. Just nope the fuck out, right now. And maybe go back and have a conversation with the village about what the fuck happened twenty years ago, and maybe you could have warned us, and maybe seek a less combat-oriented way to ease this horrifying creature past the shackles of undeath.

There were ten monsters in that video, and some of the others are cool, but this one just grabbed me. Some of that may be bias, that Mushishi/Mononoke fic made me very very fond of the gashadokuro and similar creatures as a concept, but as a high level undead who’s terrifying but also not some stripe of spellcaster, I do feel like it’s really, really cool.

Not something you could easily use in 5e, given that stat damage isn’t really a thing, and for good reason, Shadows and Intellect Devourers aside, but … something that emphasises ‘do NOT let this thing grab you, you will die’. Something that forces them to work out how to stay the fuck away from it and still bring it down, or makes them fully back out and try to work another way to lay these massed tormented souls to rest.

Also, what a fantastic plot line to have threaded through. What did happen twenty years ago? Was it an isolated incident, confined to a village in a mountain pass that got snowed in and did horrifying things to survive a murderous winter? Or was it a symptom of some much bigger part of your worldbuilding, an event that sowed mass graves across vast swathes of the land, and left thousands of guilty survivors to skirt carefully around the lingering horrors ever since?

Definitely one of the coolest parts of undead as monsters is that their sheer existence has plot and backstory built in. Especially a lot of D&D undead, because they’re so specific. Very specific things had to happen to produce a gallows speaker, or a boneless, or a deathlock, or a coldlight walker. And it does, it does remind me of Mononoke. What is this creature’s Form, Truth, and Regret? And how does the party interact with that?

(I mean. With a fireball. Repeated fireballs. Preferably from like 150ft feet in the air. Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure. But. In the event you don’t have that option. Turn Undead is also riskier than usual, because it has pretty high mental scores, it’s an intelligent undead, it has a decent chance of making saves. I nearly would pull it on a lower level party, so they can’t fight it outright and have to work with its backstory. Lay it to rest like a normal ghost, by resolving the crime that led to its existence in the first place)

Anyway. That was a long diversion. But. Very cool monster? Thank you, Esper the Bard, for letting me know D&D did a gashadokuro back in the day, and did it in very cool (and rather cruel) fashion.

#long post #d&d #d&d 3.5 #d&d 5e #japanese mythology #mononoke #mushishi #fanfic rec #monster rec #undead #gashadokuro #i am not a dm #likely i shouldn't be #what an absolutely evil thing to drop on a party #but it's so cool

[torifuckingspring]

touched my piercing too much is my ear gonna fall off

#i've only had it for two months #idk if it's healed yet #because i keep touching it #but it's so cool #i have #a piece of metal in my ear #who wouldn't play with that shit

[omgcheez]

It's kinda cool when someone's social media account is called "trans(character that they look like)"

#I haven't seen it a ton #but it's so cool

[wanderingcas]

finally consistently strength training means poking at your newly defined biceps in awe because you hadn't noticed them in the last few months until now while a stranger looks at you with a very confused frown on their face

#it's just a lil muscle #but it's SO cool #i went to pick something up and went OH HOLD ON A SECOND #sam rambles

[youjustwaitsunshine]

so exhausted from the day, it's day one from a three day japanese karibari workshop (karibari is a method of drying newly backed? paper (so paper that got a layer of japanese tissue on the back to strengthen it) on a frame that's built similarly to japanese paper doors) and it's been a lot of wheat-paste-cooking (like from wheat starch) and building the frame and cutting and pasting the first two layers of japanese paper onto the frame and UGH

#but it's SO COOL #also im super lucky because i already did a lot of backing things with japanese paper in my internship last year and #the second layer we did was basically just that so i could make a good impression #arms are gonna be so sore from the wheat paste stirring and pressing and all and tomorrow we'll have to make even more

[rottinnymph]

seeing my mutuals reblog their other interests is so cool bc i can find new things to like and i can see them be so excited about their interest and it's cool

#nym rambles #this is about two of my mutuals who reblog tsp stuff bc i only know tsp from slmccl's video #but it's so cool

[a-local-idiots-shitpost]

just played Speed Dating for Ghost and I'm so pumped for the next room because it's great and I love it and if you have Steam you should get it because it's even cheaper now because of the summer sale

#I only made the room of palms #and one meeting in the room of lyres #but it's so cool #especially the Dates/Meetings with Vera and Stephanie (Steph) #and Kyo was also interesting to meet up with

[batri-jopa]

world_of_engineering_75 on Instagram

#Instagram #tiger #tiger art #animator #automaton #(not exactly but with similar level of awesomeness) #puppetry #puppet #cool #awesome #I love this #it feels so real #and ppl reaction. knowing it's not the real one. they still lose their shit!😆 #cool video #animatronic #cgi can choke

[emilnikos]

I need non autistic people to realise meltdowns are a real debilitating thing that has a serious effect on your mental and physical health NOWWWWW!!! The way its been trivialized and lessened pisses me the fuck off. It's not a tantrum and it doesn't come from "being too weak-willed" it's painful and it's embarrassing AND MOST OF ALL IT'S INVOLUNTARY!! Don't claim to be an ally to autistic or disabled people and then make fun of people who have meltdowns. Literally get the hell out of my sight

#i can't believe i have to day it but autism /is/ a disablity. its disabling. meltdowns are part of that. #'oh this is a lukewarm take' you dumbshit fucks have been throwing the word neurodivergent and meltdown around so #casually they have both been said at me with the same disdain as a swear word. you guys will accept making fun of autistic people #if someone jn your circle who is 'cool' does it first. at your big ages. shut the hell up

[hundredsofsmallbirds]

attention joann's shoppers. there is a freak in the yarn aisle buildinf a nest

#weird horse.exe #okay to reblog #theres so many nice cool optionssss cant i just burrow. please let me burrow #big notes

[trudlejack]

(+part 2)

#a tale told in three frames�� #to everyone who said that other flavours are better should know that i had monster energy like once in my life #and i only did so cause it was the cool thing to do in the alt sphere #but thats all history #im neurodivergent tho so i ended feeling super sleepy afterwards #original art #fanart #digital art #digital illustration #laios dungeon meshi #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dunmeshi laios #dunmeshi #senshi dungeon meshi #senshi dunmeshi #senshi delicious in dungeon #marcille donato #marcille dungeon meshi #marcille dunmeshi #delicious in dungeon marcille #chilchuck #why does chilchuck only have 1 tag??? 😭😭😭😭 #procreate #fan comic #+part2?? isnt that the name of the starving artist game??/j

[bookwyrminspiration]

if you all could see all the fanart i imagine in my head and never draw it’d blow your tits clean off

#shitpost #i have SO MANY ideas #you’d LOVE them guys #they look SO COOL in my head #yes they’re indistinct because I can’t really visualize things #but the concept is there

[seriousturd]

#tumblr polls #random polls #poll time #i love looking at usernames and wondering what it MEANS #so many of you guys have such cool sounding usernames #i just picked random words i like LMAO #serious because people always see me as super serious irl (i'm just a very anxious perfectionist lol) #and turd because i have the sense of humor of a toddler and think poop jokes are funny

[fandomsandfeminism]

Yall wanna hear a kinda funny, kinda sad story about my grandmother and hetero-normativity?

Ok, so... when my grandmother was in her 50s (I was an infant), she met a woman at the Unitarian Church. And, as can happen when you meet your soul mate, this event made it impossible for her to deny parts of herself that she had fiercely hidden her whole life.

All the drama- their affair being found out, the divorce with my grandfather, the court battle over who got the house, happened while I was a baby. Even in my earliest memories, it's just Mama Jo and Oma, and my grandfather lived elsewhere (first his own apartment, then a nursing home, then with us.)

But here's the thing- no one ever explained any of this to me. No one ever sat down and was like "hey, Rosie, so do you know what a lesbian is?" It was the 90s. It was Texas. I think my mom was still kinda processing all this, and just assumed that like... I was gonna figure it out. Don't mention it, let it just be normal. Like I think my mom thought that if she explained the situation, she would be making it weird? I dunno.

But like. In the 90s, in all the movies I had seen and books I had read, do you know how many same sex couples I had seen? Like. 0. Do you know how many "platonic best friend/roommates" I had seen? A lot. I had no context, is what I'm saying.

I literally thought this was a Golden Girls, roommates, besties situation until I was like...I dunno, 11? 12?

It was actually their parrot, an African Grey named Spike, imitating my grandmothers voice saying "Johanna, honey, it's getting late", that triggered the MIND BLOWN moment as I realized that *there's only one master bedroom and it only has 1 waterbed* when all the pieces finally clicked.

Anyway. I think it's a real important thing for kids to know queer people exist, for a lot of reasons, but also because kids can be clueless and it's embarrassing to have your grandmother be outted by a parrot because everyone just thought you'd figure it out on your own.

Anyway, here is my grandma and her wife, my Oma, after they moved to Albuquerque to be artsy gay cowboys and live their best life. They helped run a "Lesbian Dude Ranch" out there (basically just with funding and financial support. As Oma has explained "traditionally, most lesbians don't have a lot of money" so they wrote the checks and let the younger ladies actually run the ranch.)

#this is the grandmother who passed away unexpectedly earlier this month #she was so cool yall #and so weird #they got married twice by the way once when Massachusetts legalized it and once when New Mexico did #they hiked the grand canyon together #they had a european river cruise planned for this fall #she was 89 and she wanted to see the whole world with her wife #and they were working on it #literally i thought they were roommates #and there was only one bed

[tizzymcwizzy]

this is a poster i made for my call to action assignment in humanities! it's a bunch of basic and easy stretches for people who sit and work at a desk all day (me)

the idea is that you'd put the poster up above ur desk and do the stretches every 30 minutes or so,, the whole routine won't take more than about 6 minutes to complete and when done regularly it can prevent wrist, shoulder, neck and back pain! :)

all these stretches can be done while sitting (although i HIGHLY recommend you stand up and move around while taking a break from working)

you can get a free digital copy of this poster here on my gumroad!

and you can order a print/poster here from my inprnt!

#i mostly made this for me but i hope it can help other people too! #also thinking about maybe putting this on smth like gumroad so people can download a high quality pdf to print themselves #lmk if anyone would be interested in that 👀 #my art #artists on tumblr #stretches #edit: this post popped off okay‚ also a lot of people expressed interest so i made a gumroad! maybe ill put other stuff there thatd be cool

[cracklewink]

My Mane 6 Redesigns all together! I was going to post them separately but ended up finishing them all before I got around to it lol

#mlp #my little pony friendship is magic #my little pony #mlp fim #mlp redesign #earth pony twilight truthers where are you #bat pony fluttershy truthers where are you #dark color palette rarity truthers where are you #ALL OF YOU RISE WITH ME #im ESPECIALLY an earth pony twilight truther ever since I saw the old G5 concepts #I love the idea that Twilight's bonds with others are her true magic rather than beams or spells and I feel earth pony twi fits that well #since “the five elements brought together creates the sixth element magic“ aka friendship since FIM she embodies ”magic“ in a #more metaphorical sense #the star in her eyes is also a reference to the first ep when twilight says “the spark” ignited inside of her heart #plus the earth pony to alicorn pipeline is so cool and i like the idea of an earth pony being the bearer of the element of magic as a #fun contrast/its unexpected